Happy Father's Day!

So now that Nick's in bed, I thought I'd write a post sharing how grateful I am that our son has such a wonderful Father. I hope Noah grows up and inherits many of his qualities (integrity, honesty, humility, intelligent, and many more).

I'm also thankful for my Dad and how he worked so hard to provide for me and be there for me in all the activities I was involved in.

And most important, I'm thankful for my Heavenly Father who is a model to all Fathers for how to love your children. I am so thankful for being His child!

Africa

So if you've ever been to Africa, particularly Eastern Africa (because of all the references to things in East Africa), you probably get chills hearing this song anyway. But this is even cooler! This video is the song Africa without any instruments. All the "music" is made by people. So even if you've not been to Africa, you'll still be impressed with it.


Thanks Nick for sharing this with me!

1 Milliion Sponsored Children

I got an e-mail this morning telling me that Compassion International has just had their one millionth sponsored child!If you would like to read the story, or find out how you can sponsor a child too, Visi their site or see the children who need sponsored on the sidebar of my page.

Dance!

Noah's quite the dancer and I finally caught some of it on camera.

Training a Toddler

So Noah is a pretty good baby. He's generally happy and he usually takes his naps well and he's slept through the night almost every night since he was 3 weeks old (there's a few exceptions but there was justification). He also loves to explore. With this curiosity he also seems to try to test his boundaries often. The past few days (maybe weeks) he's been repeating the same offenses (like opening the trash can or trying to go up the stairs alone). I will tell him no and then move him away and try to distract him with something else to play with. Then he takes off for the trash/stairs/etc. immediately. I try following Babywise (actually I think it's in Toddlerwise) advice and squeeze or swat his hand and say No. Every now and then he quits but it seems more and more he tries it again and he's started laughing when I do this and today he started hitting the trash can and jabbering something that sounds like No as if he was mocking me. So the next step in Toddlerwise discipline is to isolate them to their crib (a time out of sorts). But how long? Anyone out there who's used a similar disciple have any advice? Noah is just over 14 months old now.

Emily's First Giveaway

My friend from college, Emily is having her first give away on her blog. She's Giving away some chemical free hand sanitizer So if you comment and say you read it you get an entry and if you sign up as a follower you get a second entry. I was one of the lucky people who already followed her blog so I got 3 entries. I think I should get a fourth for promoting her giveaway, what do you think? Her blog is about her life and reflections on being a wife, mother and their ministry.

What a ham!

Last night Nick was hosting the guys Bible study in our home so I decided Noah and I would vacate the house while they were here. I planned to go to the store then (not my normal time) but that would not last 2 hours. So first I picked up a friend and we walked the mall for about an hour or so. And then I took her home and went to Kroger. Noah is usually very good and friendly in the grocery store but tonight he was being quite the ham. I think he caught the attention and smile of everyone we passed! There were at least 15 people who made comments about how cute he was or how friendly. He was really putting on a show, and a cute one! For one couple while we were in the freezer section he rubbed his head and made his hair all stand up and grinned at them. I wish I could have got this trip on camera.

Dining Room Upgrade

So our dining room chairs were getting a little wobbly so I started looking for a new set & finally found something. We now have a really big, solid wood table. It would seat 8 people without any leaves in the table & it came with 3 leaves! I'm pretty excited because I love to have people over for meals. It also came with a buffet and hutch. I was a little worried it would be too big for our space, but it gives us a lot of drawer and storage space that is closed up, so I'm happy with it. Here are some pictures of our new Dining Room.

Free Chocolate Friday

Go here and sign up to receive a coupon for free chocolate from Mars Company. Hurry while supplies last!

Frugal Friday: Buying Spices

One of the blogs I read has a Frugal Friday post about buying spices. I thought I would add to that tip and suggest shopping at International grocery stores for spices. They often sell large amounts of the spices in bags, which are low cost, and therefore you can purchase your spices for less. Of course you won't find everything this way but you can get a lot of spices like ginger, clove, cardamon, cumin, etc. for a lot less than you pay in grocery stores. Keep your old spice containers and you can use them to store your bagged spices in. Or you can purchase spice holders to store them in. You can get spice containers for less than $1 at walmart. Or you could purchase my dream spice Carosel which you can fill with your own spices and the containers have clicks for the amount of the spice you want and then you turn it and that much comes out. I found them in the Ashland mall and I think they were a little bit less than the link I found, but maybe not.

Mailbox Monday

So it's not really Monday anymore but I took my picture on Saturday so I'd be able to post all the magazines I got for free in the mail last week. It's been (and still is) a crazy busy week but here's my free stuff for a late Mailbox Monday:

Business Week (2 different issues), Redbook, Woman's Day, Better Homes & Gardens, Kraft Food & Family, Parent's Magazine, and Body & Soul Magainzes & 2 Huggies Pure & Natural diapers.