Prayer Vigil for my friend

Please go visit this site I set up for my best friend Angie:

http://prayingforangie.blogspot.com/

And if you can, leave a comment to sign up for a time to pray...

Thank you!!

Adoption News....

For those of you who have been reading here for a while, you may have read THIS post about our deepest hearts' desire to adopt a baby.

Well, since posting that here and emailing it to about 300 friends/family around the nation, we decided to completely surrender to God's will and actively DO nothing else for a while. We truly believe that God is the author of all life and we wanted to take a break from obsessively charting our fertility signs in hopes of conceiving, and just allow a baby to come of the fruit of our love, if it was in the will of the Father. Once we wrote the letter about our hearts' desire for adoption, it seemed only fitting to surrender that as well and let the Lord be the Lord.

We made our hearts known both to God and every human we knew (in addition to many that we don't know who have been forwarded that email or stumbled across our blog). We felt at peace leaving our hearts in the hands of our Heavenly Father knowing He would have compassion on us. That is not to say we haven't prayed, because we have. Oh have we prayed. But what we haven't done is obsessed, schemed, and put our lives on hold in order to "acheive" this goal. We have prayed, lived, laughed and loved the two babes we do have. (Thank you, Jesus)

Until yesterday.


I was on the phone with a friend, Kathleen. Her boss, Ted, was in the same room as her, on the phone with a friend of his, Susan. Turns out Susan was calling Ted looking for contact information for ME.....about a BABY. (all the names in this story have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.)

Susan is in contact with a highschool student who is SIX MONTHS pregnant and wants to give the baby up for adoption. Apparently the background of the story goes something like this:

Back in January, Lauren tells Susan she is pregnant. Susan is also pregnant (but she is in her 30s and happily married) SO, student Lauren and teacher Susan feel a special bond because their due dates are so close to each other. The same week that Lauren tells Susan of her pregnancy, and her desire to give the baby up for adoption privately, Susan gets our email telling of our hearts' desire to adopt a baby privately.

Several weeks pass by, and Lauren approaches Susan after church this past Sunday to inquire ABOUT US!!!

So now we are finalizing our adoption profile and getting ready to send it off to Susan who will pass it along to Lauren who will hopefully (toes & fingers crossed here) pick us to be her baby's forever family!!

We are very possibly going to be adopting a little baby boy in just 3 months!!!!

Please, please join us in storming the gates to blanket this intention in prayer.

The baby is due ON MY BIRTHDAY (in may)!! And in the meantime, now we are beginning the process of finding an attorney, and hopefully doing some sort of fundraiser to help offset the legal fees.

Please, keep us in your prayers. and we will give you updates when we know more.

Please pray

My best friend Angie is quite ill. She was taken by ambulance to the hospital in St. Cloud, MN this morning. Matt(her husband) had taken her to the ER twice in recent days because of some paralysis on one side of her face. She had been ill with a bad headache and stomach ache early last week. Preliminary tests have shown nothing. She was delirious/panicked this morning. The Soetaert family asks your most fervent prayers. Please ask the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe - for whom Angie has a great devotion!

A Lenten Idea (Jelly Bean Prayer)

I found this article here....and we can't wait to do it this year with the kids!

On Ash Wednesday we set out a glass jar for each child with a small copy of the jellybean prayer taped to it. We determined a behavior to go with each jellybean color (corresponding with the prayer). Each day the kids could earn a jellybean of any color they followed through on. They could not eat the jellybeans until Easter. The kids could not earn white jellybeans, these represented the Grace of Christ, which is a gift not earned ourselves. On Easter morning, the kids woke to find their jars filled up where they were still empty (lacking) with white jellybeans (Christ's grace)

This is how we interpreted each color. You can make your own ideas based on ages and needs of your children.

• Red is for the blood Christ gave (each morning we chose something to sacrifice that day to earn the red jellybean. It had to be something they would have had the opportunity to have or do on that day)
  
• Green is for the palm's cool shade (green jellybeans were earned for good deeds. It was a good dead to provide shade for Jesus with the palm)
  
• Yellow is for God's light so bright (yellow jellybeans were earned for sharing God's light through kindness to others)
  
• Orange is for prayers at twilight (orange jellybeans were earned for attentive behavior during bedtime prayer time and night time bible story)
  
• Black is for sweet rest at night (these were earned for going to bed good. we used blue though, as our kids are not fans of black jellybeans)
  
• White is for the Grace of Christ (these we could not earn as mentioned above)
  
• Purple is for His days of sorrow (we earned these through apologizing to anyone we hurt with our words or deeds that day)
  
• Pink is for each new tomorrow (pink jellybeans were earned when we forgave those who apologized to us for hurtful behavior)

What are your Lenten ideas for your kids?

Menu Plan Monday *updated

*** Updated to add a little background information :
I would plan an entire month's menus (3 meals & 3 snacks each day) and I would do one HUGE shop and then each week we would pick up produce & dairy. (I would make all my own bread) we lived that way for YEARS when my husband was teaching highschool and money was super tight. That was out of, ummm, survival, or desperation to make ends meet.
When he changed careers last June and money was no longer a desperate situation, I got out of the habit. So, we have been spending a little more than we would like to in the area of groceries lately.
And since we have a goal of doing some things to our house in order to move into a new home sometime in the next two years, we want to reign in any out of control expenses so we can put that "extra" money toward the house....

SO, it's a good time to start over. Everyday is a new day. Every week is a new week. And with Lent coming, it feels so good to get disciplined in this area.

I am also thinking about doing the 30 days of Nothing for the 40 days of Lent....have you heard of that? Here's the link: http://30daysofnothing.blogspot.com/2007/01/beginning.html


Anyways.....

Well, in order to accomplish a few things, budget-wise, I really need to pull up my bootstraps in the area of menu-planning which inevitably saves us money on groceries. I have found that when I thoughtfully prepare a full week's menu (all meals & snacks), I do an inventory of what I have and what I need and I wind up spending much less at the grocery store.
SO, my goal is to join Laura in posting my weekly menu plans. Hopefully in about a month we will really notice a difference in our bank account!

Monday: Chicken Ceasar Salad; Foccacia Bread
Tuesday: Taco Soup; Biscuits
Wednesday: Grilled Tilapia with fruit salsa; wild rice; Salad
Thursday: Chicken Parmesan with Egg noodles; Cheesey Garlic Bread
Friday: Baked Cod, Salad, Yummy Grean Beans
Saturday: Pizza night!
Sunday: (Eating at a wedding reception)

And if you are wondering why we don't have a "leftovers" night, it is because my husband takes huge portions of leftovers for his lunches each day. And I sometimes eat them for lunch, too!!

What are you eating this week??

To see more weekly menus, check out Laura's site!

Feel the Love...

Works for me Wednesday

Bag-o-Bananas

I know this is a little lame, but I was just reflecting on what a great buy it was so I had to share it with you. At our local grocers, there are often decent size paper bags FULL of bananas for just 99 cents!! I try to buy one every week. They are usually not even that ripe, they just had to make room for the new bananas that came in. SO, we eat bananas whole for the first 3 days and then I start cutting them up so the kids don't see the brown speckled skin, and then on the 6th & 7th day we make banana muffins or banana bread.
We get all that yumminess throughout the week for just 99c!!!! It works for me!

Check out other WFMW tips over at Shannon's.

Need an ego boost?

I did, so I went on over to my heritage celebrity collage and entered my newest profile pic. (The one in which I finally look like I have lost the 10 pounds that I have in fact lost since the summer).
Well, I have to say...I already really liked the new pic of me (for the first time in a long time) and when I did this celebrity look-alike thing, I was skeptical. But wowzers. I really got my ego stroked! How fun!

http://www.myheritage.com

Thankful Thursday

Well, still plugging away at this 1000 gifts thing and I really love the idea of doing it in a pictorial, so here we go:

48.
This is a heart stint.
This is what is currently in my father's heart to help keep him alive.
This is the most important thing I am thankful for.

49.
These are the very, very yummy Party Potato Skins that I made for the SuperBowl! Thanks to Barb over at A Chelsea Morning for the recipe - they were a HUGE hit!! And, by the way, she is right, the secret is in the frying of the skins!!!

50. Playdoh families (the daddy was at work)

51. Last night, after a rough conversation about some hurts, and after we went to home depot, came home & fixed the dryer, and after we put the kids in bed, simply playing ping-pong with my best-friend, my Beloved. Good times. Healing moments.





52.
My dryer. We thought it was dead. We mourned it. And then, we decided to try to fix it. So, we ordered a part and waited for a week for it to come. Then we began to clean out the vent/ductwork and our son SAT ON the dryer vent tubing and it shattered (that stuff is so fragile, and ours happened to be very old so it literally shattered like brittle old paper!) Then we waited another 2 weeks for my husband to get another day off work (he had last weekend off but was away on a retreat) to go to the hardware store, buy all the pieces of venting he needed and replace our dryer venting, heating element....and VOILA!!! What feels like a brand new dryer!!

53. My laundry room.
(Having done laundry at a friend's house for the past 2-3 weeks, I am SO thankful for the FULL use of my laundry room again. And while it is not my dream laundry room because it is not a mainfloor laundry and it does not have a window, it is full functioning and somewhat cozy - with a few things coming on the horizon to make it even more cozy!!) Can you see the new aluminum dryer venting? Yup, my MAN did that. What a stud.

Alone in a crowd

Last week the kids and I went to a local mall called The Mills. It is a beatiful place to spend a cold evening with carpeted walkways, an indoor full size playground, and ofcourse a Starbucks kiosk!

We ran from the van to the door and then shed the layers of coats we had been wearing and headed for the playground. Normally I bring a stroller or rent one but tonight I just didn't - although it would have been handy if for nothing else but coat storage.

After about an hour of watching the kids run around on the playground, I decided to take them to get some dinner in the foodcourt. You should see this place - so family friendly! Highchairs everywhere, pint-size tables & chairs, picnic style tables, and in the very center of the food court is a huge carousel. (Great for bribery - "you eat all your chicken and we can ride the horses!!")

Well, it struck me that, on a quiet night at the mall, every single person we encountered was a mom with 1-3 kids - alone. All the dads must have been working late that night! And while we were all eating Burger King with our kids at the pint sized tables, it struck me that even though we were only a few feet from one another, we didn't say a word to each other. I couldn't help but wonder if any of them were as starved for adult conversation as I was. I wondered why it was so easy for us here in Bloggityville to strike up a conversation with someone miles away, but when we are faced with someone sitting just a couple pint-sized tables over so obviously in our same life-season, why oh why do we clam up?? Maybe it's just me. Maybe y'all go ahead and talk to all the mothers around you in line in the foodcourt that you don't know, and when you all finally get your bags of "dinner", you um, well, you suggest to your new friends that you all sit together so the kids will enjoy their dinner with other kids around, and y'all can have a lovely conversation over cold fries about anything but Spongebob and that damn carousel.
Ahem. And then again, maybe not.

Can you tell me why is it that when I am home and the laptop is open does my world feel so small, and so intimate. And when I am at the mall, my world feels way too big, and just a little lonely?

I guess, I have to start with myself in encouraging you.

Next time you are out, offer to sit with another mom & her kid for dinner. And then just talk. You know, like we do here. Think of it like a meme - here are some conversation starters that don't sound like a job interview:

1. What is your child's favorite part of The Mills? Have you taken him/her skating yet?

2. What is the funniest thing your child said or did this week?

3. Do you work outside the home? What do you like about your current situation (SAHM or WM)?

4. Do you guys ever travel? What types of places do you like to go? Tell me about them.


All of these can work well no matter what the ages of her children. If it goes well, maybe you could exchange numbers and set up a playdate - at the Mall again! Then you have broadened your horizons, met a new friend, and given your kids some new friends. And you have made one mom just like you, feel a little less alone in the crowd.

Chances are, the other moms I saw were just as lonely as I was and could have used an extrovert like me to really reach out to them. That is my challenge for the next time we go to The Mills.