Back on track..........and menu plan monday

So I've been a little bit in lala land since we left for Bloomington one week ago. Things were so up in the air with trying to pick out a house that many things were left to the wind. One of which was my "30 days to a more beautiful me". You see, when we go to Bloomington, all expenses are picked up by my husband's company. Therefore, you can only imagine how we live like kings and queens compared to our normal home on the front. Needless to say, I did not pay one bit of attention to my diet and definitely did not stay on an exercise regimen. But I'm happy to report that as of 7am this morning, I am devoted once again to eating healthy and moving........A LOT! I spent an hour at the gym tonight and had a wonderful reuniting with my beloved treadmill and those rock star ab machines. I have just under 2 weeks till my birthday and as my friend Kristen and I were saying, a lot can be achieved in 2 weeks! Wish me luck, ladies!

I have also felt very unproductive around the house since we got back. I just feel like I'm in the oh so gray period where you know you are moving, but you are eating up every last minute till you actually have to start getting your butt busy. This has included my cooking duties. So, I'm committed to firing up the old cookbook collection once again and making sure we have balanced meals every night. So with that, here is Menu Plan Monday (which you'll notice I usually do on Sunday). Definitely check out this link to learn more about menu planning and this fabulous woman's website.











Sunday: Tomato Barley Soup
Monday: Breakfast for dinner --pancakes, turkey bacon, eggs
Tuesday: Bertolli frozen pasta (yes, we STILL haven't eaten this)
Wednesday: Smoked sausage, broccoli, potatoes
Thursday: Chicken fajitas, black beans
Friday: eat out
Saturday: leftovers from the week

We have a house!

Ahhhh........I love those words. Our 2 days in Bloomington were a bit of a whirlwind and my emotions were all over the place. More on that later. But specifically regarding the house, we bid on one and didn't get it. So we bid on another and found out last night that we got it! Woo hoo! The stress this relieves is unbelievable. God spoke so clearly to me on the plane ride home that I was NOT trusting Him. He hit it on the head. There are many details of this transition that had me in knots while I was there. I was miserable on the drive to the airport. But after some much needed time with Him on the plane, I felt so much more at peace. I knew He would (and still will) take care of all the details. This was more than I could have imagined! The neighborhood is gorgeous and the house is like new. We are so blessed. We are already trying to imagine us in the house and prematurely creating memories. I think Brian is really excited.
Here's a peek:

And here is what our street looks like:

I'm Impressed

-I'm impressed that my hubby let me sleep in till 8am after a somewhat tulmultuous night with the wee ones.

-I'm impressed that Noah can turn something like barely tapping his elbow with the drawer into an all out bawling screaming tantrum in which he got sent to his room over twice.

-I'm impressed that I haven't showered since Tuesday night (gasp).

-I'm impressed that I got four items totalling over $22 for absolutely free today. Interested? 32oz Coffeemate creamer, Gilette Titanium razor/trimmer, 6-pack Yoplait kids yogurt, and a Scotch Brite toilet scrubbing starter kit. Yep, I had free coupons for all of them. Nice. On top of that, I got 5 SmartOnes frozen entrees for $3. Yep, ask me how I did that one!

-I'm impressed that Noah has been sick for 5 days now (count 'em) with a high fever. It's been exhausting. Not as exhausting as Wesley last week (yep, he was sick for 5 days too), but definitely draining...especially since Brian was out of town for 4 of them.

-I'm impressed that my sister, Kim is one of the best aunts ever. She is going to watch both of my boys for 2 days while Brian and I house hunt in Bloomington. Yipee skippy. She has watched my boys MANY MANY times so that is what makes this impressive.

-I'm impressed that I have a son who actually tells me that he's rolling his eyes at me (instead of trying to do it in secret). Ask me about that story!

-I'm impressed that our house has sold, and God has removed all worry and stress that deals with keeping ones home up and wondering when on earth someone is finally going to want it.

Good morning Monday and menu plan

Well, it's a beautiful day outside isn't it? I admit I'm EXTREMELY tired though, so my eyes are wanting to close so badly. Especially when out in the bright sun. Here are a few bullet points of interest:

-Everything with the sale of our home is going smoothly. We have been out of option period for a week or so which is fabulous. The relief of getting to leave the house messy when exiting is indescribable.

-We will go to Bloomington next week to look for a home. Please be in prayer about this!

-Wesley is feeling back to his cute normal self. We are so grateful!

-Noah woke up with a little crud today, so I'm hoping that makes its way out of his system soon.

-If you haven't tried Mi Chulas on Southlake Blvd yet (down by Central Market) then you need to! Scrumptious!

-I'll post my menu plan below. I didn't end up doing the asparagus lasagna or the Bertolli pasta. We had plenty of leftovers and with Wesley so sick, I just went for the easiest thing. However, we did hold off any eating out till Saturday as planned. Woo hoo! Instead of the lasagna, I tried a recipe that was really tasty. Not exactly healthy, but tasty. Click on the link below to see it.

Asparagus Rollups
(I did not have mayo or blue cheese, and they still turned out yummy. I also used onion & chive cream cheese instead of having to use fresh chives.)












Sunday: Ate buffet at church youth group fundraiser.
Monday: Turkey Burgers, Corn, Chips
Tuesday: Eat leftover Smoked Sausage and Lentils (made it last week)
Wednesday: Will have dinner at my sister's house.
Thursday: Frozen Bertolli pasta with creamed spinach
Friday: BBQ sausage, potatoes, green beans (I buy the lowfat turkey smoked sausage)
Saturday: Out to eat with parents coming in from out of town.

What a nice week that I won't have to cook 3 nights! Woo hoo.

Stories

Noah is really into telling stories right now and wants me to do it all the time. Occasionally he'll tell his own. So here was our conversation tonight:

Noah: Mom, can you please tell a story?

Me: Sure, there once was this tree. And there was a little boy named Noah that was his very best friend.......... (I basically told the story of The Giving Tree by Shell Silverstein. We had just read the book and it is the oh so sweet story of a tree giving all it has for this one boy down to the very stump that is left.)

Noah: Okay, now it is my turn. There once were two cars. And they CRASHED into eachother! And there was glass all over the ground. And this boy fell out of the car. His name was Noah. And he breaked his head. He breaked it right here and here (showing me). So I went to the doctor and I bringed my head. And the doctor fixed it! It was like (showing me putting his head back on) this.

Sooo.............should I be worried this is the kind of story my son tells?? Much less right after The Giving Tree??? Disturbing.

Spicer update....and menu for the week

Hello all. I've been terrible about posting all the details going on around here lately. First and foremost: OUR HOUSE HAS SOLD! Woo hoo. That's right, we are on the road to finally moving to Indiana. The lucky people who get our house currently reside in New Joisey and so they needed a close date of June 18. Therefore, those of you who live in TX will get to see our lovely faces for another 2.5 months. We are happy about this.

Second, we were supposed to go to Bloomington tomorrow morning to go house hunting but poor little Wesley has been running a high fever and it won't break. A trip to the Urgent Care uncovered nothing so we'll just keep an eye on it. He got tubes put in his ears on Friday so that is why I'm a little more concerned than normal. So we'll reschedule our trip up there for a couple weeks from now.

Thirdly, our precious Noah is POTTY TRAINED! Yes, it's nuts. And it seemed like it kind of happened over night. He was doing really well and then we went to Cali over Easter and it fell apart. So upon returning, we got hard core and my little stud is doing an awesome job. He is so proud of his new found talent and we couldn't be happier. The night time diaper will exist for awhile, but the fact that I think my Pullup buying days are done (atleast for a year or so) is pretty wonderful!

Fourthly, I need all of you bloggers out there to hold me accountable to my '30 days to a more beautiful me' challenge. My 30th birthday is May 5 and I made a personal goal of losing some weight in order to buy a cute outfit and FEEL cute in it for my birthday. Now, I am not obsessed about my looks or my weight...in fact, I should probably be a little more attentive. But I was recently shopping with my cutie patootie sister and realized all the adorable clothes she could wear and how much fun she has shopping. I feel no desire to buy some clothes that will leave me uncomfortable or doubtful about my appearance. But I have a night out planned with some friends for my 30th and I would love to buy a somewhat stylish outfit for the occasion. So while nothing crazy will be attained in 30 days, I can atleast drop a couple inches and feel better in general about my physical fitness.

I'm sure there are many other areas I could blog about right now. But my son and husband are in the othe room dancing to an old NSync CD and it's calling my name. :) I'll post our weekly menu for now and then I'll sign off! There are many awesome sites out there with motivation for planning a weekly menu. You can visit the site below or mommysnacks.blogspot.com is a good one too. If you ever want a recipe, just ask!










Sunday: Crockpot BBQ chicken, rice, broccoli
Monday: Italian Sausage, Corn, Au gratin potatoes
Tuesday: One pot mexican chicken & veggies
Wednesday: Ham & Asparagus lasagna (from April's RR mag)
Thursday: Bertolli frozen pasta, creamed spinach
Friday: Green beans, grilled ham & cheese sandwiches (I always do something simple on Wed nights cuz of church but I'm doing this Friday b/c it'll just be me and the kids)
Saturday: probably go out for dinner.
**By the way, lunch tip: I have really gotten into a new canned soup that is yummy AND good for you. It is Progresso's Light Southwestern Vegetable. It only has 60 calories for half the can (it's big)! It's really yummy with some pasta salad on the side or something.

Need a laugh??

So here are some things Noah has said lately that I keep forgetting to write down. I hope I remember them all:

Driving in the car.
Me: Noah, I love you so much. I mean, I could just kiss you all day. Orrrrr....I could hug you all day!
Noah: Or not.
--------------

Noah and I were driving in the car. He uses this opportunity since he knows I can't go anywhere to ask me a million random questions. It is usually aggrivating but atleast once a day he'll say something that just cracks me up. I usually duck my head and laugh so he won't see me in the rear view mirror.

Noah: Mama, are chips good for us?
Me: Nope, they aren't. They are fried, honey, and anything fried is bad for us.
Noah: Ya.
Me: Things that are fried have a lot of grease and so it hurts our heart.
Noah: Yep, chips are bad for us. (sigh) But I stiiiiiiillllll love em'!
--------------

Noah: Oh man, Mama, I passed my soccer game. It was at 35 minutes!
Me: What? What do you mean it was at 35 minutes? What soccer game?
Noah: My soccer game. I past it. I don't even have my hair wet!
Me: Huh? What are you talking about?
Noah: I need to look handsome and nice. I need to wet my hair for the soccer game. (Comes out of the bathroom with hair sopping wet dripping down his face.)
Me: Why does your hair have to be wet?
Noah: Because that's what THEY DO. That's what KIDS DO!!
--------------

I put Noah down for his "quiet time" and about 45 minutes later I decided to go check on him.
He had six puzzles laid out on his floor, 2 of them were not finished.
Me: Honey, you have done so well being quiet in here. What have you been doing?
Noah: We have been playing puzzles.
Me: Who is we?
Noah: Gavin, Carter, little buddy Jake and cousin Jake. See, look at what a great job little buddy Jake did. And Carter did this one........Gavin did this one....etc. I just have to finish mine.

Noah has really gotten into pretending his friends are there. The best was when we were out in the back yard and he told me he was playing a soccer game with Gavin. He kicked the ball and it rolled to a stop. Then he just sat there. I asked him why he didn't go get it and he told me it was Gavin's turn. He just sat on a step and stared at the stationary ball.

Noah is just growing so big. He is so smart and blows me away everyday. Right now he loves letters and numbers. He wants to practice addition and wants to know how to spell everything. At the dinner table tonight he asked how to spell pool. Then he told me B-O-O-K spells book, mama! It makes him so happy to learn. He melts my heart.

Grocery geek

Some of you know that grocery shopping is one of my favorite things to do---pretty much the opposite of most moms. Well, my friend Kristen has become quite the coupon queen recently and started to post her deals on her blog. While I have always clipped coupons and save tons each week at Kroger, I have kept my deals to myself. However, after finding some super deals online, in the paper, and in the store today, I feel very satisfied with posting my findings. Below is a sample but in total today I saved $77 with coupons and Kroger discounts ($37 in solid coupons). Aside from that, I bought 3 packages of Pampers Cruisers for $5.99 each. Hooray for April! It's ok, I don't mind being called a grocery geek.

In this picture, all the products cost me a total of $5. Now mind you, the shampoo and conditioner cost $3 of that. So I got the rest for $2. It was quite exciting. I have never bought seven out of the nine products shown here so we'll see what kind of bargain I really got. :)

Tuesday Update

Good morning friends. I feel like I haven't blogged about much lately and I would like to fix that. Times are busy and the unfortunate thing about BLOGS is that if you start to slip, it's very difficult to dig out and get back on top. So as much as I would love to say I have one profound topic for today, instead I've decided to just throw out some tidbits.

I love the backspace button. I can write a couple sentences of complete stupidity and then whooooop! I can just take it all away. Nice. Okay, well, let me start with the Psalm I just read to get my creative juices flowing.

Psalm 96
Sing a new song to the Lord! Let the whole earth sing to the Lord! Each day proclaim the good news that he saves. Publish his glorious deeds among the nations. Tell everyone about the amazing things he does. Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise! He is to be feared above all gods. The gods of other nations are mere idols, but the Lord made the heavens! (Hello????) Honor and majesty surround him; strength and beauty fill his sanctuary. O nations of the world, recognize the Lord; recognize that the Lord is glorious and strong. Give to the Lord the glory he deserves! Bring your offering and come into his courts. Worship the Lord in all his holy splendor. Let all the earth tremble before him. Tell all the nations, "The Lord reigns!" The world stands firm and cannot be shaken. He will judge all peoples fairly. (now my favorite part) Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice! Let the sea and everything in it shout his praise! Let the fields and their crops burst out with joy! Let the trees of the forest rustle with praise before the Lord, for he is coming! He is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with justice, and the nations with his truth.

Wow. What a tremendous psalm. I LOVE this picture of creation. I always love the thought of all creation---plant, animal, rock knowing the Lord and worshiping him! Isn't that powerful? So the next time you walk through a forest, or even down the street and you hear the trees rustle, think of them praising the Lord. And as this psalm encourages, PUBLISH his glorious deeds. We need to do that more often don't we? Instead we have weirdo books that Oprah pushes all over us. That's one thing I love about a blog I became attached to over a year ago. Adrienne does indeed publish the Lord's deeds.

A few weeks ago I joined LA Fitness. May not seem like the smartest investment since I am moving, right? Well, I'm sick of using the term, "I'm moving" to delay any sort of productive action I can take. So I felt the Lord nudge me and tell me to go ahead and do it. Needless to say, I am so glad I did. While I don't go nearly as often as I'd like, I already believe it's been worth the money. Monday nights at 8pm they have a yoga class that I've been going to. Mind you, it was only my 2nd class last night, but wow, I love it. Now if you have a picture in your mind of the "yoga type", I am not it. However, I think that is the beauty of it. It really works! And you don't have to be some leotard wearing vegan to get it. It's the ultimate paradox----wearing every muscle in your body out in the midst of achieving ultimate relaxation. I slept like a baby last night from 10:45pm to 6am. Yessssssssssssss. I told Brian that I could easily become addicted. We shall see. :)

We made some crazy plans yesterday and all 4 of us will be spending some time in California around Easter. This is weird to blog about because the original reason for Wesley and me going is to attend my cousin's memorial service. And that fact remains. My cousin, Shelley Schuhmann died a tragic and untimely death on February 28th. I only have 2 first cousins and she is one of them. She was 44 and a wife and mother. My little cousin Missy is only 10 and can really use your prayers. As well as her dad, Eddie. While there are some questions regarding what exactly happened and how it all went downhill so fast, her body was having lung complications and dealing with a deadly fungus. It's all still hard to believe and I ask the Lord right now to comfort everyone in the Gordon/Schuhmann family as they continue to heal from this loss.
Wesley and I were going out alone (I'm still nursing him) and that was going to be fine. My sisters and parents will be there too. But we changed things around and now Brian and Noah will be joining us for part of the trip and we'll get to spend Easter with family as well as visit our dear friends, Paul and Brooke Begin up in Malibu. I feel a deep satisfaction with these plans and feel myself counting the days, almost.

This post has shaped up to be a tad bit longer than I had planned. :) Sorry bout that. I'll give you some more tidbits later. Ciao.

Too much fun

Take a close look at their shirts. Too funny. These guys have given us many smiles this weekend and we are SO thankful to have them in our lives. They simply love eachother so much. The minute Wesley wakes up, he looks for Noah and isn't content till he finds him. Noah takes so much joy in letting Wesley "chase" him and is constantly helping Wes avoid danger at every turn. He is the best big brother I've ever seen. I am so proud to call them my own.