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!

oh wow!

Merry Christmas friends! And a Happy New Year!

We had a great Christmas this year! Thanks to all of our family and friends who made it wonderful. We started our Christmas on Dec. 17th when we had the Reynolds Family Christmas Party. We decided during Thanksgiving to not exchange gifts this year and to "adopt" a few kids to buy gifts for. It was awesome and I hope we continue to do that. We played a game-boys verses girls. Boys won! I made some chocolate chip cookies and the recipe is from my great grandma! It was so fun to make a family recipe for others to eat. My grandma really enjoyed them and she asked all of my mom's sisters if they remembered them. That was really fun for me!

On Dec. 22nd, Guy and I went on a Christmas date. We try to do that every year-we've seen Phantom of the Opera, The Christmas Carol, Benjamin Button at the De Lux theater, and this year we went to dinner at Brio and saw Disney's Christmas Carol at Newport. It was so much fun and dinner was delicious. We had a coupon and free movie tickets so the night was pretty inexpensive for us. We were also celebrating Guy completing his first semester! Yeah! I don't want to brag, but he made the dean's list! woo-hoo!

The next night, we went to Montgomery Inn Boathouse for our bible study dinner! That was awesome! All the girls dressed "fancy" and we enjoyed spending time together. That is also a tradition that we started a few years ago. We missed Ben and Maria though-but not that much because they were in Hawaii with their family! Whatever!

Then on Thursday, Christmas Eve, we spent all day with Guy's family! We played Monopoly and Guy destroyed all of us. Why can't monopoly money be real money??? We had a great time visiting, snacking, and opening gifts. Braylen's two favorite gifts of the night: a wagon and a wooden train set! He loves trains right now. He says "choo choo" and pulls his arm up and down like he's pulling the whistle. He's adorable. After the Christmas Eve service, a few people came back to our house for a Christmas Eve breakfast party! We served breakfast casserole, pastries, biscuits, juice and coffee. This is also a tradition that we've done since my high school days (yes over 10 years ago!!). We used to go to the Waffle House but we outgrew it and have been meeting in different homes ever since. So fun!

Christmas morning we woke up around 8:30am (thanks to Braylen for sleeping in!) and went right to opening gifts! We surprised Braylen with another little train set that goes around a small plastic track when you press the conductor. He loves it! Each time he opened a gift he would say "oh wow!" It was so cute. He had a great time opening gifts. We skipped one tradition: we usually eat cinnamon rolls for breakfast but since we were so full from all of the delicious food we've been eating, we opted out of breakfast. That afternoon we went to my parents house and ate some more food! Mom fixed a ton of snacks and it was awesome! Once Braylen woke up from his nap, we played Wii (yes, Braylen did too!), ate our turkey dinner, then opened more gifts. We are so blessed! Braylen got an awesome table and chairs for our house and I got a sweet Vera Bradley overnight bag. Can't wait to use it when we visit Jess and Vince in Charlotte!

The next night, we went to my grandparents house for the Hicks Family Christmas. There are now 19 of us so we no longer have sleep overs but we have such a great time getting together. Grandma fixed turkey in a box (my fav) and I made oatmeal cookies for the fam-which is my grandma's recipe. Braylen stayed up until 11pm that night! He is so flexible. He had too much sugar I think. He kept sneaking M&M's all night. oh well. It's the holidays!

Needless to say we had an awesome Christmas! We hope you all experienced the Love of Jesus this year and all year around! Thanks for reading! I'll be posting our family New Years goals soon so that everyone can hold us accountable. Here are a few pictures!

Here is Braylen playing Wii

Mom reading to Braylen at his new table

Wearing his new hat!

Sitting in his wagon!

Mind ya' bizness!

I love being a stay at home mom! What an incredible blessing!! However, it is pretty tough financially! So in order to help supplement our income, I have been trying to come up with a ton of "small business ideas" to make some extra cash on the side. You all know that Braylen takes wonderful naps everyday, so I usually have somewhere between 3-4 hours in the afternoon to be working on something. Currently I have been helping NKY YL a few hours each month. Which has been awesome! I am really excited to help grow the area and expand our donor list!

Etsy.com has really inspired me to come up with my "thing." Everyone has something that they are good at. What am I good at??? Cleaning up messes, diaper changing, peeling bananas, etc. :) I tend to be really excited about something but then it just seems to die down. For instance, last month, I learned a ton of stuff about ebay. I got all of my old-giveaway clothes into a pile so that I could take pictures of them and then I wanted to try and sell them. I uploaded one NFL football zip up jacket and had no bids. Needless to say that pile of clothes is still in the basement. ha!

Here are a few things that interest me:

-helping a family friend work on her caramel apple business (she sells over 450 every holiday season)

-learning graphic design so that I could offer personalized items (birth announcements, invitations, cards, calendars, etc) at a less expensive rate. There a people who create these items for buyers, and then they email the item to the buyer who simply prints it from their home computer.

-creating DVD/CD picture slide shows (Guy and I have created 5 slide shows for weddings and birthdays in the past year)

-creating family recipe books for people. This would work by collecting recipes that have been in the family for years and creating an actual book for them to have.

Which one is your favorite?

I don't know if any of these would work.............but I should try one of them and find out. There are so many great websites where you can advertise your "goods." Esty, ebay, craigslist, facebook.

Happy Thursday everyone!

Wild and crazy kid

I have received some really nice compliments about Braylen lately. Yesterday, a woman from the YMCA child watch told me that Braylen is into everything in the playroom! She said he is so curious about things. I said yea he is pretty crazy! And she said well maybe, but he is such a good boy! My little heart melted. I was so touched! I am so thankful that we are able to go to the y so that he can have more interactions with other young children. He really loves going there. And I am so thankful for my little wild man. He really is such a good boy.

We have our Christmas decorations out and I am so excited about it. Guy and I love having the tree up. For the most part, Braylen doesn't really touch the tree. I put a few Christmas stuffed animals and books in this little container under the tree and he loves to play with those things. We are looking forward to teaching him about Christmas. And of course taking him to see Santa will be great fun. :)

The holidays will be bittersweet this year because my sister and brother in law are moving to Charlotte, NC after Christmas. We will miss them so much! They are like our best friends and things will be different once they are gone. We are so excited for them to start a new journey and to see how the Lord shapes them into who he wants them to be. I am looking forward to visiting them many times.

Organization is the key to success

I had a middle school teacher who made us write "Organization is the key to success" on all of our folders. She was so right. :) I have found that if I do not have a list of things that I'd like to accomplish throughout the week, I completely slack off! Now that Braylen is taking 3-4 hour naps a day (I love that kid) it is really easy to be lazy during that time. There are so many things that I can do while he is napping. I found this blog by a very traditional, religious woman who had an awesome idea of how to organize your time as a stay at home mom. You can find her ideas by clicking here. I am going to start using her method and will let you know how it works!

Last night for dinner, I made Chicken Squares! I love this meal. My mom makes it a lot and I'm so glad that I have the recipe. It's so easy.

Chicken Squares

1 pound cooked chicken, shredded or cubed

3 ounces cream cheese, softened

Salt and pepper

1 can crescent rolls

3 tablespoons butter

Bread crumbs

1) Boil chicken for about 20 minutes until no longer pink. Shred or cube into bite size pieces.

2) Mix cream cheese with chicken and add salt and pepper to taste.

3) Roll out crescent rolls. Combine triangles to make a square (you will have 4 separate squares).

4) Add chicken mixture to square, roll up sides and pinch at the top to cover the chicken.

5) Melt butter, cover chicken square in butter and then roll in bread crumbs.

6) Cook at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Hope everyone has a great thanksgiving day! "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever." Psalm 101