A Little Apology

I just wanted to apologize for not posting anything lately.

August is not a good month for my family and I. August 31st is the birthday of our third son (our angel baby). While it has been 11 years since Darin came into our lives and left us in a blink of an eye. In August (when we should be celebrating) and in October (when we remember his passing) I still have a very hard time coping with life in general.

So, I just wanted to say that I will be back to posting again soon. I will leave you with a picture of my sweet little Dare-Dare (Andrew's nickname for him) and the scripture that has seen me through the darkest days of my life and given me hope when I had none.

The LORD [is] nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. Psalm 34:18

First Mother-Daughter Trip!

My daughter and I went on our FIRST Mother/Daughter trip this past week. We went to an All-Girls Conference called "Hadassah" with my best friend and her two amazing daughters.

Hadassah was the Hebrew name of Queen Esther. Her story is one of the most amazing and inspiring stories in the Bible. A simple girl, chosen by a King, who saved her entire race because of her boldness and courage.

My favorite scripture from this story is found in Ester Chapter 4 Verse 14

"For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, [then] shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for [such] a time as this?"

The SUCH A TIME AS THIS is the part that always chokes me up (but I think I'll save that for another post).

We had a wonderful time. Delaney and I started building the foundation for our future friendship. My daughter is 8 years old and I know that I cannot be her best friend right now (I need to be her mother, she needs a mother more than she needs a friend) but one day I hope and pray that I will be her friend. I am smart enough to know though that our friendship is not just going to happen, that I need to begin building that friendship now. So that is what I started doing! And it was wonderful. I learned that my daughter is a special little girl that is growing up into quite a little lady! I cannot wait to see the woman that she will become and I'm very excited to have a friend like her in my life.

Here are a few pictures from our trip (part of my plan is for us to start a Mother/Daughter scrapbook), I hope you enjoy them.

The first night is a formal banquet (tiara's are optional)! A prettier princess there never has been! The plan for the tiara is that she will wear it every year to Hadassah and then she will wear it on her wedding day.


The first day is Princess Prep classes and yes, you may wear a tutu when learning to become a princess!

Butterfly wings, tutus and games with other princesses! What a great way to start the day! OH and they throw candy at you too!

The second night is a church service and the perfect opportunity to give her a special gift. I gave her a grown up Bible (it's pink with little fake diamonds on the clasp - she is a princess after all).

She loved it, of course!

After church it's time to PARTY! And nothing says PARTY like butterfly wings, tutus and roller skates! This was her first time on skates and she did great! By the end of the night she was barely holding on to the walls and she has now added skates to her Christmas list.

The last day is more Princess Prep Classes and then Coronation for the 15 year old girls.

So I'm going to mark our first Mother/Daughter trip down as a huge success! I'm already planning our next outing and counting down the days till our next Hadassah!

My New Habit for August

THIS IS NOT MY KITCHEN!
OH HOW I WISH IT WAS THOUGH!
I borrowed this picture from
another great blog.

Well, here goes!

I am not the best housekeeper!

Confession is good for the soul right? So let's confess!

I am way better than I used to be (that is actually an understatement) but I'm still not the greatest. My house is never company ready (unless I spend a day getting it that way), I have piles of things everywhere. You can write your name in the dust, your white socks are not going to be white once you walk through my house, and NO NO NO you may not open any doors that are closed!

I have tried lots of things, (Fly Lady, The House that Cleans Itself, Side-Tracked Home Executives, just to name a few) but in the end nothing really worked for me 100%. So now I'm going to try and combine the things from each program that worked and see if I can come up with my own "way"of getting things done.

I decided to start with the area of the home that I feel I need the least improvement in, THE KITCHEN. I hate, hate, hate to cook in a dirty kitchen and since I cook 3 meals a day, seven days a week, my kitchen stays fairly clean. There are of course areas that need to be improved on so that's what I'm focusing on in August (or longer if that's what it takes).

One of the areas that I really want to improve on is cleaning the kitchen one last time before I go to bed. I hate to wake up in the morning to a dirty kitchen, but I also don't want to get off the computer to go and clean it :) So, usually I don't and then I wake up in the morning to a sink of dirty dishes and I'm not happy with myself. So I'm going to FORCE myself to clean up the kitchen one more time before I head off to bed.

Another area that I really need to work on is sweeping and mopping the kitchen. I have 3 children who will be taking broom in hand and learning the fine art of sweeping up the crumbs :) I'll do the mopping but Child Training 101 is about to start and we are going to start with sweeping the kitchen after every meal! I can hear the groaning and the moaning already.

The other thing I want to do is at night before I clean the kitchen for the last time, I want to set up the coffee pot for in the morning and also pack my husband's lunch for the next day. I do these things in the morning now but I just think it would give me more "alone" time with my man if I did these two little things at night (before I clean the kitchen for the last time).

So those are the three areas that I'm starting with. I'm sure that I will be adding more things as I go along but I'm really trying hard not to overwhelm myself.

I have already cleaned my sink the Fly Lady "WAY" this morning and I must admit it looks so nice and sparkly.

So anyone want to join me in picking a room and really trying to get some good habits going in them?