Anger

It's in my throat. It's in the way I am squeezing my hands. It's in the way I am biting my teeth together. It forces the tears to develop on the surface of my eyes. It makes me breath fast and hard. It makes my mind swim. It blurs my vision. It makes me call out to my God. It leaves me discouraged, heartbroken and defeated at times. The anger Noah arises in me is not easily tamed. It is not often, but it is not mild. It is pushed down inside of me so that only a fraction comes out so that I may maintain my "cool". So that I can somehow come out on "top". So that I can appear the "adult" in each situation. But I admit it. I am angry. I'm angry that when he knows better, he simply doesn't care. I'm angry that he thinks crying can get him out of a situation (when in all actuality, it gets him in even more trouble). I'm angry that it's the littlest things that escalate into monstrous episodes. I'm angry that he makes me feel this way. And I'm even more angry that it takes awhile to go away.


Continued.......

And then I tell him to go to his room and draw a picture of his bad behavior and a picture of what his attitude should look like. After a short time I heard him playing and figured he had dissed me once again this morning. But to my surprise, this is what I found.....


Needless to say, my anger has dissolved.

Menu Plan Monday 2-23

Good morning folks. I hope there are many of you out there that aren't experiencing temps in the teens as I am. However, at least it is sunny outside which makes the cold more tolerable. This is going to be a GREAT week as I (and Wesley) look forward to an impromptu trip to TX to see my parents. It will be very short but hopefully very joy-filled. Praise God for airplanes, free fares for kids under 2, and a generous husband that is letting me go.
Here's the menu plan for the week. As I mentioned last week, I came up with about a month's worth of meals that I know my family likes and then will throw in one a week or so that are new. This will keep my family happy and my ego protected. :)

-Smoked sausage, green bean, potato bake
-Saucy chicken pasta, spinach salad, bread
-Tostadas, beans, fruit
-Hotdogs, oven fries, veggie
-Fam is on their own while I grub at my parents. :)
-Leftovers
-eat out

P.S. Go to orgjunkie.com to see a bunch of other yummy recipes that people are making this week.

Replacements

Hi guys--April here. I'm chillin' on my new leather couch with reclining chairs. We got a super sweet deal on it at Sam's and it pretty much paves the way for a post I've been meaning to write for weeks. Apparently this year has already been classified as the year for replacements in the Spicer house. Had I known that everything known to man was going to break or die the past couple months I probably would have jumped the gun and bought some of these things earlier. However, my frugal nature usually says to wait until we absolutely need it---to a fault. For example, when there are all those crazy sales on Christmas wrapping and decorations the days after Christmas, I cannot bring myself to buy them (even at their shocking rock bottom prices) because the sheer thought of buying something that I can't put to use for another year kills me. Anyhoo, here is a short list of things we have had to replace lately:

-Coffee pot --the one we registered for 9 years ago and got for our wedding. Went kapootz.
-Tires on the van
-Brakes on the van
-DVD player #1--the one we bought as newlyweds 9 years ago. Went kapootz.
-DVD player #2--we've had it atleast 4 years for the kids to play their dvds on. Went kapootz.
I know, seriously right? What are the chances that both DVD players would break in the SAME week???
-Couch

Oh the couch. So I could talk awhile on this one but any of our friends that have known us at least a couple years know Brian has been dying to dump this thing for a very long time. And I'm not lying, there was never anything really wrong with it. It was the first and only couch we have ever bought. It is khaki in color and has a nice frame to it. Brian thought it was uncomfortable and seemed to mention that anytime we had guests over. I would always roll my eyes and just take a deep breath because I never knew what to say. It wasn't like we were going to replace it. It was in great shape and matched all of our neutral shades. Well, 2 kids, nephews and nieces, and puke after puke later, I finally told him (while cleaning off puke at that moment) that we could use some of our tax refund on a new couch. It was like the heavens opened for him. And truthfully, I was so excited too. So here we are, with our awesome new couch and I'm lovin' it. It was well worth the 9 year wait. Well worth it. Now, the fact that my laptop, digital camera, and pots and pans are on their last leg could easily depress me, but for now, I guess I'll just wait till they breathe their last breath and deal with it then. Apparently most things break within the 5-9 year marks. Who knew? :)

As far as what else is going on around here, just ho humming through the winter. We've had our fair share of lonliness, coldness, pukey illness, and snowiness. So the days where the sun shines and it gets oddly in the 50s are days to relish. But today--after 2 weeks of no snow---it started again. And it was cold---20's all day. Could have been worse, and the snow melted quickly, but still, the false hope of spring stung as I dragged the heavy jackets back out and felt my whole body tense everytime I opened the front door. Brian has been traveling a decent amount which is a lot less fun in the winter than in the summer. There's just less to do and less energy in the winter. I very much look forward to next month.
The kids: Noah is growing as a brother everyday. He and Wes are buds and do everything together. He loves to snuggle and read with Wesley and even tries to dress him sometimes. His analytical mind only grows and the things he wants to converse about range from angels and God to how fast a fire truck would get here if he cut his fingers off. Nice. He is immensely excited for baseball to start in April and I am too. I can't wait to see this little stud finally in a league!
Wesley is hilarious first and foremost. Truly this kid makes me laugh almost all day long. He is irresistably cute and has the best sense of humor. He does his own thing most of the time and just dances around the house singing and being crazy. He also loves to mimic things he hears and his vocab blows me away. One of my favorite traits about him (ha ha) is actually that he gets over ouchies and spankings really quick. This may sound silly, but Brian and I didn't realize that a kid could actually stop crying after a few seconds. Who knew? What a relief! He fell off of a bed, a couch , and a large stuffed bear today and despite the rough day, he was over it in minutes each time. Hallelujah!
I'm loving my Friday morning bible study at church and I'm adding friends to my world. It's nice to finally feel a little more at home in church. We joined a class full of marrieds similar in age and circumstance and that feels all together natural. I know Brian hopes to find some guys he can click with.
Okay, I feel completely boring at the moment because I really have nothing more to say. A miracle I know! Savor this moment, and check back later. :)

Let's Be Honest............

So I believe one of my more recent posts had to do with something about not being on the computer as much and finding my more important reality in my home and family. Well, you are hearing it here first, I have failed the last couple of weeks in that arena. I can't believe how easy it was to turn my back on my goal and become completely engrossed in Facebook lately. Mind you, I am not new to Facebook. I've been a member for a year or two. But it had remained pretty dormant among my "things to do" and I didn't really find it tempting. In fact, I kind of made fun of people that update their status multiple times a day and made it their main form of communication with the outside world. Now, enter the scene a sudden and violent reunion of almost my entire high school class. Many of my friends from high school remained in hiding and I had given up on finding them. And truth be told, I had forgotten about a lot of them. I have a really odd forgetfulness about my life in Albuquerque, NM. I can't remember names, streets, areas, people, almost to an upsetting degree. I lived there for 4 years and so this shouldn't be the case. But let me say it was the more rebellious 4 years of my life and paved the road for my ultimate destination at the feet of Jesus begging him to change my life. So maybe this "forgetfulness" is a gift---who knows. Anyhoo---back to my story, I had some extremely close friends that I have remained separated from and have wondered over the years how they were doing and where their lives took them.....

It seems as though many of these friends all came onto FB at once and it was like a giant collision of long lost friends that were instantly reintroduced. It has been a blast seeing everyone and being pleasantly surprised where everyone is in their life. So needless to say, I have been on FB constantly, checking on everyone, responding to messages, waiting for responses, looking at pictures, reading those talked about "25 random things" lists, and on and on and on. So I come clean to my blogging community about my internet moderation detour. The laptop is back upstairs in the furthest room from me and I hope to keep it shut down for greater lengths of time. I'm not making any big promises though. Baby steps, as my friend Kristen always says. :)

I feel like there are so many things to update everyone on, but the time escapes me right now. I do want to post my menu plan because I haven't done it in over a month and I'm trying to get back on track in the kitchen. Something new I'm going to try is come up with about 20 tried and true recipes that I know my family loves and leave the other 5-8 a month for experiments. This will provide me a more balanced approach to my menu plan and prevent me from becoming disappointed a full 4 nights in a row when my kids hardly touch what I've cooked. So after this week of meals, I'm going to implement this new plan. I'll still be able to post our weekly menu, but over here on my side, I won't be coming up with my menu week to week if that makes sense.
I will write a more personal update tomorrow for those completely uninterested in this food business and more interested in our fabulous excessive lives. :) Right.

1. Tijuana beef with salad and mexican rice
2. Chipotle chicken, sweet potatoes, green beans
3. Red curry chicken, rice and spinach salad
4. Hamburgers, oven fries, veggie
5. Fishsticks, mac n cheese
6. Leftovers
7. Out to dinner

Wordle

I love this new little toy, Wordle. It puts together a “word cloud” based on the words posed in your blog. The more you use a word, the bigger it appears. Good thing I just wrote that "thankful" post. :)

A Quick Thankfulness List

1. I'm thankful for a washer and dryer to do limitless loads of dirty, disgusting laundry.
2. I'm thankful for a healthy husband that is taking care of everyone with a wonderful, witty attitude.
3. I'm thankful for candles, candles and more candles!
4. I'm thankful for more clean clothes to put on every time we get doused with diarrhea or throw-up.
5. I'm thankful for weekends.
6. I'm thankful for a full night where no one woke up.
7. I'm thankful for a sunny day and an expected 50 degree temp.
8. I'm thankful for Wesley's sweet disposition even while completely miserable.
9. I'm thankful for Pedialite and that Wesley is drinking it even if he eats nothing for 4 days.
10. I'm thankful for Noah having a "good" couple days, attitude-wise, in the midst of all this hell.
11. I'm thankful for No Reservations that we got to relax and watch last night after everyone was finally put to bed.
12. I'm thankful for Lysol spray and anti-bacterial gel.
13. I'm thankful for my mommy and daddy that I can call and whine about all this too.