2009 Year in Review

I can not believe that today is the last day of 2009. When I think of how 2008 was closing I knew that God had some major changes in store for us in the coming year. Again I can not help but feel as if there are more changes that God is preparing us for in 2010.
So, with that, here is a run down of the highlights and lowlights of 2009.

January--E & K both celebrated birthdays. E turned 8 and K turned 6.

February--Tia, B's sister who had lived with us for a few years, got married. Both kids were in the wedding. She met an awesome guy and I know that God has His hand on their marriage.

March--On the 15th, the children publicly accepted Jesus as their Savior through Baptism! The following week, B got a phone call offering him a position with a new job. We had 24 hours to decide if he would take the job--kinda funny when you think about it, since he had initially pursued this job in Oct. 2006.

April--A whirlwind month. B left on April 21st to go to a 6 month long (really 28 weeks) out-of-state, training for the new job. Before this, B had been working from home since E was 3 months old. So, to not be around him at all when we were so used to him being around was hard. The first few weeks were extremely hard. We had a few things that kept us busy, such as the kids sport activities.

May--B was able to come home for the weekend of Memorial Day. This weekend also happened to be K's dance recital and I was beyond thrilled that we would be together as a family for this short amount of time and that B would be able to see K's year of hard work!

June--I had decided back in late April that I would try to work at two Mother's Day Out programs in the summer to keep us busy, so this month is when it started. It was hard. Most of the month is a blur.

July--B and I were able to spend the July 4th weekend together. The kids stayed with some friends and I flew out on the 2nd. We had a great weekend together and went to the beach to see the fireworks show on the 4th. A few weeks after that B was able to come home to spend some time with the kids.

August--The kids and I took a mini vacation with Aunt J to Abilene. We needed the time away and it was so much fun.
K began her 4th year of dance. I started schooling the kids again. E is in 3rd grade, K is in 1st.

September--I left the kids with some friends and went on a trip to New England with J, my mom and my aunt. This trip had been in the works since 2008 and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to go when B accepted the new job. Thankfully one of my friends allowed the kids to stay with them until B was able to pick them up. This trip was a much needed respite from single mom duty.
B's company had the labor day weekend pre-arranged as a trip home, so when I got home from the airport B and the kids were at home waiting. We took B back to the airport on the 8th.
On Sept. 9th we received word that my dad's mom, my Grandma Louise, had passed away. I spent the next 24 hours trying to figure out where to send the kids as it was to expensive to take them up to New York for the funeral. E had a trip to D.C. already scheduled with my sister, so he spent an additional day at her house while my friend L offered to watch K for me. So, on Sept. 11th my sister J, my brother and I headed to New York to meet up with my parents who had already traveled there.
I really didn't know my grandmother that well. I can only remember a handful of times that we saw her.

October--B had one more pre-arranged trip home, and it fell on the 2nd weekend of October. On the 20th, I celebrated my 30th bday. I worked that evening at church ( I do childcare) and my friend who I work with had decorated the room for me and brought me a gift and some balloons. It was such a sweet and heartfelt gesture. B's birthday was on the 26th and it killed me not being able to be with him and celebrate.
I left that weekend though to go to GA for the last time to spend the weekend with B while the kids stayed with my mom. We headed up to Savannah and even had dinner at Paula Deen's The Lady and Son's restaurant.

November--My trip to GA lasted until the beginning of Nov. B graduated from training on Nov. 3rd and we began the trip home. The trip lasted about 17 hours of driving time. We picked the kids up from my parent's on the 4th, and I was relieved to have my family all back together.
B started his new job on the 6th, and we celebrated my 30th and B's homecoming with friends that weekend.
We also were able to celebrate the adoption of my friend S's baby girl. What a humbling experience.

December--This past month has gone by in a flash. We have slowly started to settle into a routine.

While B was gone for those 28 weeks, I honestly felt that I needed to just survive. We would have arguments because he would say that I should be flourishing, but I felt like I was doing all I could to just survive.
I could not have possibly made it through the time that he was gone without my friends and family. There is a gentleman at church who constantly called asking if I needed help with anything and he helped me with the lawn work and other household things that would pop up and need replacing/fixing. My friends were there for me when I needed them most and listened to me when I needed to talk. And my family. The kids and I spent a lot of time with my family, especially my sister J and I cherish those moments.
Finally my God. I could not have survived without His love and grace. The first month or so that B was gone I had trouble sleeping. Any little noise would disturb me. I went to bed thinking of ways to protect my kids and myself and I woke up thinking of ways to protect my kids and myself.
Let me end this with my life verse:
2 Timothy 1:7 For God did not give me the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind.
God would place that verse on my heart and in my mind and I can clearly say I have felt His peace through all I have been through.

Gingerbread Houses

We went to a friends house for our annual Gingerbread House decorating day, and this is E & K's masterpiece for 2009. Unfortunately it collapsed on itself later in the evening. Could it be all of the candy piled on top that had something to do with it???

Another post about recipes

I am so proud of myself! I have been trying to make more new recipes since B has been home. I have made at least one or two each week. Some of the things I have made based on recipes I have recently found include potato soup, lazy cabbage rolls, sweet potato fries, and a ridiculous amount of cookies.
One of E's Awana leaders called Tuesday morning to ask if I could bring 3 dozen cookies for their party on Wednesday evening.
I knew that I wanted to bake some for K's class as well and then send any leftovers to work with B.
I also knew that I wanted to make cookies that I don't normally make.
My friend E sent me her recipe for Williams Sonoma peanut butter cookies, so I made a batch of those. I also made a batch of snickerdoodles, andes mint cookies and m&m cookies.
The least time consuming were the m&m cookies--I literally just made the batch up and put it in the oven. The other 3 batches of cookies had to be chilled in the fridge for as long as 2 hours!
When I was putting the last bit of cookies on the pan to bake, K came into the kitchen and was shocked at the counter full of cookies. She started counting them, and said there had to be at least 102 cookies on the counter. I think there were actually more like 150 cookies on the counter.
I did try one of each cookie, but the rest are out of the house!

One of my favorite sites

I have several websites that I go to on a daily basis. I am addicted to blogs! One site that I check at least twice daily, if not more, is foodgawker.com
It has a ton of different food dishes that are submitted by different bloggers daily. I love to browse through there and see if there is anything there that I would actually make. Clicking on the picture actually takes you to the blog where they usually give the recipe for that item.
So, on Wednesday I was searching through there and decided to try out two recipes there. One was apple spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting(moderndomestic.com) and the other was roasted chickpeas (askgeorgie.com). While I don't care for chickpeas, I thought B would enjoy them. He takes a salad to work for lunch almost every day and I thought that the chickpeas would add a different dimension to the salad instead of the almonds or walnuts that he usually has in his salad.
Both of these recipes turned out well. I will definitely be making the apple spice cupcakes again. I am not sure if B loved the chickpeas but he did like them--though he has yet to have them on a salad. He tells me that he has just been picking them from the container.
I already have a few other recipes pulled up on foodgawker that I would like to make! I can't wait!

T minus 3 days

Wow! I can't believe Thanksgiving is in 3 days! Where has the time gone? I have almost everything needed to make apple pie. I am also bringing pumpkin pie and B is making some sweet potatoes. We will be heading over to my parent's house for the big feast. Can't wait to see everyone!

I surprised B with a spontaneous date night on Friday. The Blind Side was released Friday and I was anxious to watch it, so I dropped the kids off at a friend's house. We loved the movie and once it is released on dvd we will definitely let the kids watch it. After that, we hit up our favorite Mexican restaurant, Los Lupes. We love the food, but rarely go there. The dinner would have been perfect however Los Lupes has started having karaoke on Friday evenings and the guy in charge of it could not sing at all. It wouldn't have been that bad, but there were not many people who wanted to perform so this guy kept singing. Seriously, it was horrible!!!

On Saturday morning we were up early to witness the adoption of our friends, the T's, daughter. Saturday was National Adoption Day and there were many people at the court house adopting. It was such an awesome thing to witness our friends become the forever parents to baby V! We could not be any happier for them!!

Saturday evening we headed to my parent's house for the November birthday celebrations--my twin sisters, J & D; and J's son L. We had a delicious meal of manicotti, salad, bread and tiramisu. YUM!

And they're out!

I got my stitches taken out this morning! Yay! Sweet relief! They had been bothering me whenever I stretched my hand or curled my hand, so they needed to go. I had to take the kids with me, of course, and E was covering his ears. I think he thought I was going to scream! Ha. It did hurt a bit, but I am just so glad to have them gone.
The dr. said to keep the area dry and covered for the next few days as it is still healing. It looks ugly, but hopefully the scar won't be so noticeable.

This morning when I woke up, it was in the 40's but with the windchill it was about 38. Not cute. So, after the kids and I left the dr. office we headed to the grocery store and picked up a whole chicken. I came home, butchered it and it is now simmering away. Chicken and dumplings sounds delish on a day like today! I am so in the mood to bake as well. I have plenty of bread so I may whip up some bread pudding, but yesterday I saw an amazing looking white cake on a blog that I want to try as well. Doesn't this look so good: http://mangiodasola.blogspot.com/2009/11/white-cake-with-vanilla-buttercream.html
Yum!

2 1/2 Hours

That is how long the kids and I sat at Care Now this afternoon.
Just a little back story...
Tuesday evenings I work at church doing childcare. I was helping my friend cut construction paper for the AWANA craft the next evening. While doing that, I managed to cut my left index finger with the tip of the scissors. I saw it happen in slow motion, and it was not pretty!! I am not a fan of blood, but I called security on the walkie talkie and met them in one of the lobbies for the first aid kit. Thankfully, the security guard's wife was there, and she helped bandaged my finger up as good as possible with the limited supplies we had.
Normally E & K come with me on Tuesday evenings, but E decided he wanted to stay home with B so it was just K and me at church. I called B and told him to find an urgent care center since I thought it would be quicker and cheaper than going to the ER.
B met me there and took the kids home since by that time it was 8:45. Thankfully I was only at urgent care for an hour! They decided I needed stitches to close the wound and luckily I only needed 2 stitches. They also put me on an antibiotic to prevent infection.
As I was leaving, they told me to come back on Friday for them to check out the stitches and so they could make sure I was not getting an infection.
So, today after co-op, the kids and I head on over for the follow up visit. Now, I normally wouldn't bring the kids to a place like this, but because I didn't feel like sitting there on a Friday evening, I decided to take them. We got there at 11:36 a.m. and did not go back into a room until 1:15p.m. Then, the dr. didn't even come in the room for another 30 minutes. Seriously.
Thankfully they have movies playing to distract you from watching the clock. The kids and I finally got out of there at 1:51. The kids were beyond starving since they ate breakfast at 7am and hadn't had a snack. Honestly, I didn't even think it would take that long! There were only 3 other people ahead of us when we got there! Craziness!!!
Luckily there is a Taco Cabana in the shopping center we were at, so the kids empty stomachs were soon filled!
Now, I have not had stitches since the last day of school my senior year, when some dope threw a glass bottle down the top of the stairs and it shattered and then some glass ricocheted and cut my leg right above my left knee. And, I have never had stitches on my fingers/hands. I can not stress how thankful I am that this happened when B was home. If he was still away this would have been disastrous. He has been having to wash my hair for me and help me shower amongst other things. I am so ready to have full use back of my finger.
I am including a picture, but you can't see the stitches well. It is ridiculous that 2 tiny stitches have limited my normal living!