The Drive Thru Diet

Hello! We have been like the energizer bunny.....going....and going.....and going! We are finally home from our road trips! We drove down to New Orleans to visit Guy's family last week and then drove with my parents to visit Jess and Vince in Charlotte! Here are a few "highlights":

New Orleans:

1) Guy took off Friday and Monday so we were able to spend 3 whole days in New Orleans!

2) We left Thursday at 5pm and had reserved a hotel in Tuscaloosa, AL-about 8 hours away. We never made it to the hotel! We stopped around Louisville to eat dinner at Taco Bell around 6:30pm. At 7pm, I came down with a stomach virus-I'm just assuming it was food poisoning because I felt sick immediately. The rest of the night was filled with stops at gas stations throughout KY, TN, and AL. We stopped over SEVEN times so that I could vomit. Yes, I'm serious. It was horrible-2nd worse pain I've ever experienced (1st being labor). We never made it to our hotel because we had to stop at a different one in order for me to go to bed. Oh, did I mention that Braylen was awake until 1am? Yup. And did I also mention that Guy got sick in the middle of the night and had food poisoning as well? Yes, it was the road trip straight out of a horror movie. I guess you can say that we were on the Taco Bell "drive thru diet" for about 48 hours. I must say that I did lose a few pounds because of it. :) It took us over 24 hours to get down to New Orleans. It was awful. We're just thankful that Braylen did not get sick!

3) We felt better by Saturday and we were able to enjoy a few parades. We took Braylen to a small family parade and he loved it. Guy and I went to a parade called Bachus down in the French Quarter and it was so fun! Drew Brees was the king and we totally caught some beads that he threw! Well, not really but we did catch some beads! So fun!!

4) We had a great time with Guy's family and enjoyed staying with his grandma, Mommy I. She is so sweet and accommodating. We loved seeing his aunt and cousins as well. Brooke and Wayne are expecting their first baby (girl) this spring! They will make wonderful parents! And I'm excited to go back down next month for her shower! Yea babies!

5) We were able to stay with our awesome friends, Jason and Emily Edwards, on our way home! They live in Nashville so it was a perfect time to visit! They made us dinner and breakfast AND helped Braylen get over his fear of dogs. Well kind of. Love them!

Charlotte (this will be short and sweet):

1) I missed my sis and bro! We were so HAPPY to be down there visiting them.

2) They have a super cute apartment with an extra room for us to stay!

3) Great dinner at Presto Diner downtown Charlotte! And we were able to watch UK beat Vandy! Go CATS!

4) First visit to World Trade Market (which was awesome!) and to the Buy Buy Baby-which is a Bed, Bath, and Beyond baby store. It was so cool. so many great baby items!

This week we will be getting back to our normal routine-YMCA!!!, naps, non-fried foods, cooking, cleaning, visiting friends, Young Life outings and meetings.

Have a great week!

Manly

We went to Crossroads Church last night with some friends of ours. It's a huge church in Cincinnati. You can get more info here from their website. They are doing a sermon series on "Manly" and what the bible says about being a real man. Unfortunately the world's idea of being a man is so far from God's truth. For example, James 4:6 says "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Think about how much we hear from media how important your pride is!! Especially for men. Sick. That's just one example.

The sermon last night gave an example from the account of Samuel and Dahlia from the book of Judges. Dahlia seduced him until he revealed the secret of why and how God has allowed him to become so powerful. Samuel was so prideful and thought he was untouchable. These two factors: pride and seduction, basically led to the death of Samuel. It made me think about how hard it must be for Christian men to stay strong in their faith. There are so many things around them pulling them to invest in things that are not lasting. But it wasn't just Samuel who played a part in this. Dahlia played a huge part! It made me think about my "part" or my role as Guy's wife. Not that I am seducing anyone!!!!!! But how am I affirming my manly man? :)How am I spurring him on to love God and love others? (Matt. 22:37-39). My responsibility as a wife/stay at home mom is not just to keep the house in order but it is to respect, love and encourage my husband.

By the way-I do not do that very well but it's so good to be reminded about it. How are you loving the manly men around you? :)

I Love John Locke

Okay, so I know that John Locke from LOST is not a real person.....but I love him! It might be because he looks like my dad:

but seriously. I just feel awful for him-he was almost killed by his own father, he's in a wheelchair, he lost the love of his life, no one likes him because they think he's crazy, he's always confused, and he was killed by Benjamin Linus. Oh, and now the "monster" has taken residence in his body. Can it get any worse? :) Talk about a hard imaginary life. ugh. And there is always sad music playing during his scenes. Give the guy a break! I will be so upset if this story doesn't end semi-happily for him.

Also, how in the world is the island underwater? What's going to happen? Now that Locke really is dead, who is going to show them that there is hope to be found. Who will spur them on towards something greater?

Well sorry if you haven't seen the LOST premier and I just gave away a few things and sorry if you've never seen the show.

Hospitals and medicine

We have had one absolutely crazy week! Braylen came down with a cold last Saturday and by Thursday we had to take him to the emergency room! Scariest night of my life!

Mon-Wed he had a fever of 102 every single night. He started coughing more by Wed and he was not getting better. He's such a trooper though. I took him to the doctors Thursday morning (which he started crying as soon as he saw the building-he thought he was getting a shot) and they wanted him to get a chest xray to make sure he didn't have phenomena or however you spell it. I didn't hear back from the doctor's office all day and by that evening he was just getting worse. So I called the radiology dept at the hospital to try and get the results-they paged the on call doctor at practice Bray goes to-he called us like 30 minutes later and said he possibly has viral phenomena and we needed to take him to the emergency room right away. WHAT??!!! I was so upset. I'm so thankful to have Guy as my husband. He just held it together and was very patient with me. I was really frustrated with the doctors office for not calling us with the results or offering a prescription. Anyways. We drove to the hospital and by then his temperature rose from 102 to 103.6. Poor thing. He was so sick and weak. It was so horrible to see him like that. They put us in a room where we waited for about 2 hours-Braylen got some medicine and they double checked the xray. Braylen was much better after the medicine and he went from laying with me on the bed to jumping on the bed. yes. jumping. I have proof on my phone. He's so crazy. So he was diagnosed with a respiratory virus and we were allowed to go. I just kept thinking and praising God that we have a hospital to go to. I can't imagine not being able to take him somewhere to get better. ugh. it's just awful to think about sick babies not getting better!

So we all survived our first ER experience. Braylen is feeling much better and has not had a fever since Thursday. He is still coughing but not as much. He is learning and growing so much right now. He's definitely wanting to be more independent-wants to do everything on his own. He has a few new things to say: mobie (for movie), buh bye da-da (he says that to everyone not just Guy), aw man, and he actually says love you. Well I can tell he's saying it. :)

We are definitely blessed. Guy is working so hard in school. He's enjoying his online classes but has found that it's much more work than face to face classes. God is good and we are finding out how important it is to fully rely and trust in Him alone. We are missing Jess and Vince and really hope to visit them by the end of this month!!

Thanks for reading!

blog slacker

These last few weeks have gone by so quickly! it's February next week? Didn't we just celebrate Christmas? I've got my days (and months) all mixed up. I have been doing well sticking to my new schedule but ever since Braylen's birthday party, I have been slacking a bit.

We had Braylen's 2nd birthday party on Jan. 15 and had a blast! He received so many wonderful presents and he enjoyed every single minute of it. We had an Elmo birthday theme and my mom made an awesome cake. We served chili, gumbo, and broccoli cheese soup with cracker, bread, and veggies. What a great memory!

The next morning, Guy and I left for Gatlinburg for a 5 day stay in the Smokies with our good friends from YL. There were 13 of us and we had such a great time. Lots of fellowship, community, shopping, EATING, hiking, reading, game playing (mostly speed scrabble and settlers) and resting. Braylen stayed with my parents and Guy's parents and we missed him so much. We had a nice reunion with him when we came home on Wednesday evening.

Then 2 days later, we left for a YL leader retreat up at Great Wolf Lodge. Braylen was able to come with us and our favorite babysitters were there to help watch him while we attended classes and worship sessions. What a great weekend! We left feeling so encouraged and spurred on to love God and love others. We were reminded just how much the Lord wants to use us as missionaries in Boone County High School.

Then Sunday was my birthday and I got to take a nap so that was fun. :) I have two more years left in my twenties. Cool. Also Guy made jambalaya for dinner and my parents came over to eat with us. It was delicious. I love my little cajun cook. He's so cute.

Now I am back to the grind of things but just not back to my normal routine. I have way too much laundry to do and my kitchen has powdered sugar everywhere because I'm (well my mom really is doing it) making a 2 tiered cake for a baby shower this weekend. Our dear friends Katie and Kevin Williams are adopting the most adorable baby boys from Ethiopia. Couldn't be more excited for them. God is good.

Speaking of good, I have a great granola recipe that I am going to post asap. Everyone needs to try this because it's so delicious.

Happy Friday!

Ready or not

Hello friends. This week has been so crazy! Cleaning, organizing, cooking, preparing, packing, "laundry-ing".............we have a YL party tonight, Braylen's bday party on Friday, and we're leaving for Gatlinburg on Saturday morning. Could we pack anymore in?? Oh yes. Jess and Vince are coming home on Thursday! Yea! Lots of really fun things are happening. We are so grateful to share these memories with the people we love! I just finished creating Braylen's birthday video and will post it on youtube after we have his party. He is going to have so much! We are having an Elmo party and mom is making him an Elmo Birthday Cake! He calls it "mel-mo." So cute. I showed him a few "mel-mo" videos on youtube and now everytime I open the computer he says "mel-mo? mel-mo?" Hilarious.

Before the beginning of 2010, Guy and I sat down and wrote out a list of family/personal goals that we would like to accomplish. One of mine is to treat my position as a stay at home mom as an actual job. I wrote about it a little bit in this post. I have finally created an organized method for staying on top of chores and accomplishing things throughout the week, month, and year. I wanted to share it with you in hopes that you would join me in prioritizing our time in ways that is glorifying to God and helpful for our families.

I by no means have mastered this way of living. I am such a procrastinator and am not self-motivated. I just can't see the big picture! I live in comfort. So it is a struggle for me to stay on top of things. I am so thankful for God's grace (and my husband's).

The "method" is as follows-and was created by someone else! :)

I went and bought an index card box, index cards, and little dividers from Walmart. I titled the dividers like this: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, January, Feb, March, April and so on.

Here is what is behind each tab-and you can change yours to what is a priority for you:

Daily: (written on one index card)
1) Consider dinner preparations-thaw meat, etc
2) Make bed, tidy bedroom
3) Have QT
4) Sweep floor in dining room
5) Laundry-wash 1 load, dry, fold, put away
6) Maintain dishes
7) Check bank account
8) Workout
9) 1 hour work for Young Life (office stuff)-at least 3 times a week

Weekly: (one index card for every day)
Sunday-
Plan for the week
Plan meals and grocery list

Monday-
Gym
Grocery store
Dust living room and clean floors

Tuesday-
Gym
Dust bedroom and vacuum
Change sheets

Wednesday-
Gym
Clean up bathroom and empty trash
Organize bills and paperwork in office
Dust and swiffer office
Trash cans out to curb

Thursday-
Activity day with Braylen-Zoo, museum, library, etc
Sweep and swiffer kitchen, Dining room, hallway

Friday-
Gym
Craft activity with Braylen

Saturday-
Gym (if I can make it)
Dust, vacuum, organize Bray's room

Monthly: (one index card)
1) Organize hall closet
2) Clean out van
3) Clean out refrigerator
4) Organize paper work

Each month has a divider:
January:Clean medicine cabinet, toss expired meds
February:Clean hard to reach places-behind stove, sofa, fridge, etc
March: Organize basement and laundry
April: wash windows and screens
May: Organize pantry and kitchen cabinets
June: Wash comforters and blankets
July: Clean and organize basement and laundry
August: Clean out drawers and closets
September: Clean out linen closet
October: Defrost and clean freezer, fridge, stove
November: Dust inside China Cabinet
December: Turn mattresses over and vacuum furniture, drapes

Two!

Guy and I are amazed at how quickly two years have gone by. Braylen is going to be 2 on 1/15! I mean seriously! Can you believe that? My sweet, little, babe is all grown up! Braylen is the most wonderful blessing anyone can ask for. We are constantly amazed by his sweet personality. He continues to bring joy to everyone around him. (Side note-today when we were shopping for daddy's birthday present...Guy's birthday is tomorrow by the way! Yes, all 3 of our birthday's are in January.......I had to stop and "quietly punish" Braylen for not listening to me. I was trying to get him to look at me and when we finally made eye contact, he leaned in and gave me a kiss! ha. He is so sneaky trying to get me to stop punishing him!)

Here are a few of my favorite Braylen milestones that have happened these past two years!

1. His birth!

12 hours of labor and an epidural that ran out-it was certainly worth it!

Braylen Kenneth Domec

1/15/09 at 7:43pm

9 pounds, 1 ounce

2. Learning to sleep through the night!

(he started sleeping through the night at 10 weeks!)

3. Smiling!

4. Going to his first Young Life camp

(YL has a "no kids allowed" leader policy BUT if you are nursing you can bring your baby! My sister came with us to camp in 08 to help-it was just a few weeks before her wedding!)

5. Rolling over

(this isn't really a picture of him rolling over but how sweet are my boys!!)

6. Eating solid foods

7. Swimming

8. Walking

(it was just last December that he first started walking!)

9. Kisses!

10. Taking Braylen to the beach for the first time!

There are of course so many more great memories! We so look forward to many more wonderful milestones with our little boy! Thanks for your prayers. We certainly cannot do it without the support of our friends, family, and our Savior! What a great God we serve. He is so good to us!