Summer weekend in Virginia

Day book

A simple women's daybook:

Outside my Window … cloudy and breezy

I am thinking … I wish that our adoption agency would make some referral calls this week!

I am thankful for… that my kids like to play together

From the kitchen … whole wheat bread baking

From the learning rooms … Esther and Nathan playing an education game on the computer

I am wearing … t shirt and capris, again

I am reading … Captivating

I am hoping … to see my children in Ethiopia's faces by the end of July

I am hearing … laughter

I am creating …lesson plans for the school year

Around the house … After a big cleaning day yesterday, I am enjoying a clean house

One of my favorite things … coffee in a big chunky mug

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week …. Our adoption fundraiser yard sale is this weekend. Praying it is a good one!

A picture for the week:

My kids and their cool Gramps after he flew them home from a weekend visit at Nana and Gramps house!

Family Fun Night Watermelon style

It has been such a long time since we have had a Family Fun Night. We had a Friday night at home ( minus Abby, she was out with friends) so I decide that it was time. I actually have planned one or two Family Fun Nights each month for the next school year. I think it will be fun and when we get back from Ethiopia, if we are referred two children and one is older, then it is a perfect opportunity to expose him/her to themes in a safe hopefully not overwhelming environment.

So Friday night was Watermelon night! Everyone had to wear green , red or black shirts. I decorated the table with red tablecloth, green napkins, red bowls and we had our watermelon punch in clear fancy smancy glasses.

We started off with a finger painting craft.

For Dinner, I made bbq chicken , green rice and black beans....it kinda looked like a watermelon! This is not original to me, I found it on another blog, but it was reeaaalllly yummy!

Esther thought it was gross to eat green rice, but I am the mom that colors their milk green on St. Patrick's Day, so she still ate it! We also had watermelon punch.

After dinner, we had a bubble blowing contest with watermelon Hubba Bubba.

After dinner we watched the one Veggie Tale movie that I knew had a watermelon in it and looked to find him while we sipped on watermelon and blueberry smoothies.

Next up will either be a back to school theme or a blizzard theme. As hot as it has been, I am in the mood to pretend it is cold and snowy outside!

Dash Game

We took the kids from church to the Winston-Salem Dash game on Wednesday night. We had awesome seats and the kids had a great time in spite of the high 90 degree heat!

With Bolt the mascot
Abby and her "twin" dash girl
Nate, Josh and Reid
Our awesome seats right behind the dugout

M FUGE at Charleston Southern 2010

Garage sale finds

So I went out for 3 hours this morning to garage sales and spent $23 and this is what I came home with!!For $1 each I got a dry erase calendar/cork board that I have looked at hundreds of times at Target, a photo album for baby Isaac's pictures, a cute pair of Keds slip ons for me and three game cube games for Nathan (and Greg!)
Above I found a patriotic table runner and 4 placemats ($2), a bathing suit for me and before you get all grossed out, it still had the tags from Kohls on it ($2), two fall Winnie the Pooh flags($1), a candle (.25), a tee shirt for me ($1), 2 Ralph Lauren shirts for Isaac ($2) and A RL sweater for Abby or Esther ($2)
I also got the cutest snowman shower curtain and hand towels for $4! That is a grand total of $21.25!!! Her is all my treasures together!
The table runner and placemats being put to use.
Cute little Keds!
The bathroom!! And before I get a " hello it's July!!" I love snowmen and it matches my walls and rugs so I went ahead and pulled out some rustic looking snowmen from my winter decorations and decided to go with it! I love it and think it is just tooo cute so what if I am already ready for the first snow!! :>) For $4 I can change it without any trouble!
The one thing I am wishing I would have bought was a cute primitive chandelier for our dining room, the price was only $10 and she said to make her an offer..Man! I wish I would have! Really something like that..I should have bought it and if I got it home and didn't like it, I could have sold it in a yard sale and broke even or made some money.

I have had so many people say they wished they could yard sale but just don't have any luck with it...well, here are some pointers I have learned along the way from my mother in law who is the QUEEN of yard sales!!

1. Go early or not at all! 7AM is best, but at the very least 8AM. If you wait any longer than that it is picked over.

2. Only take the cash you want to spend. That will keep you from buying stuff you really don't want

3. Look for community sales in your paper or on Craig's List and go there first. More sales and less travel time. Also, if you are only going on a Saturday, check to see if they had a Friday sale. If they did, it is probably picked over.

4. Haggle. I am still not very good at it, but I will try if there is a lot of stuff I want, like kids clothes , and they are $1 each, I will pick out 10 and ask if they will take $7. Or if something is $5, I will say will you take $3

5. Don't waste your time at church or school sales. They are mostly the junk people didn't sell at their own garage sale and donated.

6. After I while you can almost know what people have to offer by looking at their house so if you want:

Antiques: Look for older brick ranchers with basements..usually older people or empty nesters whose parents have died and they have too much stuff. Unfortunately these houses usually have more junk too!

Kids clothes, toys, baby stuff, exercise equipment, bikes, golf clubs: Look for big subdivisions with smaller houses and yards. This is usually people in their mid 20's or 30's with school age kids and more stuff than room in their garage.

Nicer household goods, linens, china, wall art, flower arrangements, high end junior clothes: This is the big brick houses with the bigger yards. People whose kids are in high school or college and they finally have enough money to change their house decor.

Now...go out and find some treasures next weekend!!

A fun new lunch

I found a yummy recipe for homemade pizza rolls. They are more like pizza puffs, but so much better than those nasty little microwavable rolls ( yuck!)

3/4 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup whole milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
4 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded (about 1 cup)
4 ounces pepperoni, cut into small cubes (about 1 cup)
1/2 cup pizza sauce
2 Tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil

Preheat oven to 375o. Grease a 24-cup mini muffin pan. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder; whisk in the milk and egg. Stir in the mozzarella and pepperoni; let stand for 10 minutes.

Stir the batter and divide among the mini-muffin cups. Bake until puffed and golden, 20 to 25 minutes.

Microwave the pizza sauce until warmed through, then stir in 1 Tablespoon basil. Sprinkle the puffs with the remaining 1 Tablespoon basil. Serve the puffs with the pizza sauce for dipping.

**I think they would also be good with browned breakfast sausage and dipped in maple syrup!

__________________

Dancing Queen

Esther Hope had her end of the year dance recital this past Saturday evening. She has not a competitive bone in her body and has not been interested in sports so far, but she loves her some dance class! Her teacher, Ms. Robin does an EXCELLENT job with the girls. They learn Scripture and dance to praise music. Every Monday all school year, Esther goes to class at In HIS Company dance and loves it. Her are some pictures from the queen's recital!

Countin my blessings

Thankful things:

A successful school year. I cant believe I will have a 7th, 5th and 3rd grader next year! I am so thankful for the opportunity to home school my kids. Sometimes it is HARD, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. The time I am able to spend with them and invest in them is worth every difficulty.

A summer break. I am not a huge fan of summer, but I have purposed this year to slow down and enjoy the simple things only summer can bring like lightning bugs, corn on the cob, pool days, ice cream, day trips and late nights.

My church family. I am overwhelmed sometimes at God's grace to us in giving us a church family that loves me and Greg and our children so much. I really like hanging out with them and ministering together! A pastor's family /congregation relationship can be a tricky thing. We have been so blessed by such generous, loving, supportive people that make up our congregation. I cannot wait to see what the future holds for Goodwill Baptist!

Our adoption. I am so thankful that God called us to adopt. It is not an easy road! It is expensive and filled with uncertainty and we have a long way still to go! BUT the Lord has opened our eyes and showed us HIS heart for orphans in a way that we didn't even know existed before we began this journey. I am watching now as my children become burdened for orphan care and missions too and I am so thankful.

My family. I love my parents, my sister, my in laws and the older I get the more I appreciate them and want to be with them. I love that our relationship is deepening with age and time.

My friends. Those close by and those far away. With emails and facebook, I am so thankful to be able to stay involved in the daily lives of those I call friend.

My husband. 15 years we have been married this month. Right before we got married, someone told me their favorite thing about marriage was you get to have a sleepover with your best friend every night. I have to agree...thanks for being my best friend and my love. I could not have asked for a better husband and daddy!

Priorities. While I could list many materialistic things I am thankful for, I am so glad that the first things that come to mind are not things, but are gifts from the Father that make my life so much more complete than anything I could buy at the mall.

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises. 2 Tim. 1:3-4a

Carowinds Photos!

We had such a fun day at Carowinds last Friday. My kids dont remember going there because the last time we went Nate was a baby! It was a part of every summer I can remember growing up and I was so glad we were able to take them. It was HOT though! Mama's head doesnt work quite right in the heat, but I did the best I could! We stayed until around 4:30 and then headed back to Winston -Salem for Moes burritos and it was National Doughnut Day, so we pulled into KK for a free doughnut on our way back to Kernersville. All in all, a wonderful way to end our school year.

Summer Reading List

Here is my Summer Reading List for 2010...it is a plethora of Adoption stuff, Christian living, classics, homeschooling and mindless fun!

the Connected Child

Parenting with Love and Logic

Radical

Captivating

Dear John

Waiting for Snow in Havana

Frankenstein

Half Broke Horses

Ella Minnow Pea

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Happiness project

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

Einstein never used flashcards: How our children really learn- and why they need to play more and memorize less

Soo Whats on your Summer reading list???

School is out!!

Today was our very last day of school. My, what a busy month May has been. I have had two people comment on my lack of blog activity so I thought I would give you an update...all 2 of my readers! :)

We have had a fun time getting to the end of school. It has been a little bit of celebrating every week as we have started finishing up subjects one at a time. Today was the last chapter, the last paper and the last math test. Whew!! I am so proud of my soon to be 3rd, 5th and (gulp) 7th graders! We will celebrate tomorrow with a day trip to Carowinds! I have not been there since I was expecting Esther so I am super excited to go AND to have all three kids tall enough to ride the roller coasters!

For the summer we have pool days, basketball and volleyball camp (for Abby), a few days in the mountains, 4H activities,VBS and Greg and I are the sponsors for church camp so our whole crew gets to go to Charleston, SC for that.

We will hopefully get a picture so we can finally see our newest member of the family all the way from Ethiopia, baby Isaac. Depending on when we get "the call" is when we will travel, but it is possible we will have a Ethiopia trip to plan into our summer too!!

Hope everyone has an amazing summer. I'll post some Carowinds pictures on Saturday!

~ Jackie