It is officially Saturday!  Well, it’s 1am, Saturday morning.  Josh and I had a much deserved, well earned, much needed date night tonight with some great friends.  Our last stop was the “S” word…yep, Starbucks.  The smooth salesman behind the counter talked me into a venti and now I’m wide awake with no where to go and no one to talk to.  Josh fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow an hour and a half ago.  I started to get ready for bed, knowing that sleep was way off in the distance, and I realized I really ought to take advantage of this jittery caffiene buzz and get some house work done.  First I unloaded the dishwasher, put a load of towels in the dryer, cleaned up the living room, and then moved to my big project…the kitchen…dun-dun-dun!!!  Yuck!  I swear I feel like I clean the kitchen everyday, but no matter how careful I am at each meal, and no matter how quickly I load those dishes into the dishwasher, it still manages to get filthy and messy every 12-24 hours or so!? 

SO, I did what I always do to get motivated…I cranked up my itunes, filled the sink with warm water and Pinesol, and got to work!  🙂  About 30 minutes and some dish-pan hands later, my kitchen is almost sparkling and now I’m winding down on the computer, a lot closer to sleep than I was an hour ago.

I have a long list of things that I’d like to get done this weekend, but most of all, I just want to relax and hang out with Josh and the boys.  We had plans for Saturday, but luckily, they got rescheduled due to expected rain, and I’m really looking forward to sticking around the house.

Time to get in bed.  Oh, that reminds me…I need to change all the bed linens tomorrow. 

~audrey

I don’t know about you, but my momma always said, “choose your friends wisely”, and I’ve even found myself saying something to that effect to my own children. But something hit me the other day…how much more important is it, that we choose our friends wisely as adults? Sure, it’s fun to have friends that “like” the same things that I do, but what about the hearts of my friends? Do we value the same things? Do we have similar goals in how we are raising our children? How about how we treat and talk about our husbands or our parents?
To me, a GREAT friend, sister in the Lord, and eternal blessing, is a girlfriend that you can spend five minutes or five hours with, and leave her presence feeling encouraged, uplifted, and motivated. I’m laughing as I type this, because my husband KNOWS which friends encourage me in specific areas. I have one dear friend in particular that always manages to encourage me and inspire me in the “love department”. LOL! 🙂 She strives to fulfill her husband’s every need in that area and I always leave her presence motivated to do the same. My husband thanks her for that. 🙂 I’m so blessed to have several girlfriends who GREATLY, HUGELY, ENORMOUSLY encourage me in the homeschooling department. Typically, these friends also encourage and inspire me to be a better mom, handle things better with my children, and spend more time with the Lord. I have to add that some of my dearest friends are single and can’t relate to me on many of these topics, but their love for the Lord and their desire to wait on God’s perfect mate completely melts my heart, and I pray for them daily. What a rare treasure to find a woman that is truly following after God’s heart and putting aside the desires of her own. Their husbands will be richly blessed.

Then there is another type of friend, or sometimes we simply refer to them as “acquaintances”. This is the girl that you don’t see very often and don’t really have a very close relationship with, but you still have a few things in common, so you make the effort to maintain a friendship, by meeting her for coffee once in a blue moon, or have her and her husband/family over for dinner once or twice a year. This friend, however, thrives on drama, always has bad news to share, and looks at life rather pessimistically.  It doesn’t take long before you feel mentally and emotionally drained, and by the time you leave her presence, you don’t ever plan to hang out again.  I don’t have very many “acquaitances” like this, but there have been a few over the years.  Don’t get me wrong, there are always going to be seasons in our lives when we’re not the most exciting person to be around.  We all go through hard times, we all need a shoulder to cry on from time to time, but I’m talking about people who are generally like that ALL THE TIME. 

All I’m saying is, I’m SO very thankful for the girlfriends God has placed in my life.  I have no doubt in my mind that God hand-picks our friends if we let Him.  Have you ever noticed how God often brings someone new or someone from the past into your life right when you need her…”for such a time as this?”  I love being able to look back on seasons in my life when a new friend or a friend from “way back when” is able to encourage me and help me out of a hard time.  I know God has used many of my friends as angels in my life at certain times.  For me, never having had any biological sisters, my girlfriends are that much more important to me. 

So isn’t it even MORE important to choose our friends wisely as adults?  When God puts specific friends on your heart, give her a call, write her an email, or send her a card.  You never know when God may be trying to use YOU as her angel that week. 

Thank you, Lord, for the blessings that are my sisters in Christ.

~audrey

One day last month I decided to take before and after pictures of laundry day.  There isn’t actually one particular day of the week in which I do laundry.  I do laundry pretty much everyday, but in a typical week, the laundry begins to pile up on my bed or in baskets in my bedroom until I’ve had enough on Thursday or Friday and can devote a full hour or so to folding and putting it away.  Here are my before and afters. 

~audrey

I’ve heard stories of generations past when mothers used cloth diapers and a diaper service picked up the dirty ones and brought clean ones to your door. The thought of using cloth diapers has always repulsed me to say the least. However, with the lifestyle changes we’re trying to make around our house, such as watching less television, using less water, being conscious about not wasting electricity, and of course, saving money in the process, I have begun to get more curious about cloth diapers and the popular come back they seem to be having. My sister-in-law’s sister has been using them since her son was born 22 months ago. She loved them so much, she began making her own and even taking orders for friends and making some for them as well.
I was doing the math, and if the average infant and toddler has a minimum of five diaper changes a day (about once every three hours, not including blow out poopy diapers or changes in the middle of the night), that’s about 155 diapers a month. The average box of diapers (size four or five) has about 80 diapers in them, so that is two boxes a month, costing about $20/box if you buy a major brand such as Huggies or Pampers. Now keep in mind, this does not account for using coupons or buying the generic brand, but I’ve always found that I end up using MORE diapers when I buy the cheap ones because the quality and absorbancy isn’t as good as the “big” brands. Let’s say the average toddler potty trains between the ages of 30 and 36 months. The average baby/toddler uses $1200-$1440 worth of diapers! That does not include the cost of wipes!!
Cloth diapers now come in an adjustable “one size” version that will typically last through the entire diaper phase of a child’s life. From what I understand, most moms recommend you have about two dozen cloth diapers on hand so you’re not having to wash the dirty ones every single day. You can get a good cloth diaper for about $16 and you often get discounts when you buy in bulk (six or more). You could easily get away with one dozen, but you’d have to wash a lot more often. Twelve good quality cloth diapers would cost about $192! Hmmm, $1200…..$192???
I know, I know, there is a lot that goes into cloth diapering. You have to wash them separately and you end up using a bit more water for laundry, but think of the money you are saving!! Not to mention, the diapers that would NOT be in a land fill from your child/children.
Ironically, Owen seems to be interested in potty training, so we may not be using diapers for very much longer, but I’ve gone ahead and made the switch anyways. This will allow me a trial period to see if I could handle it with another baby, or even our foster children, if they’re in diapers. So far, so good. I bought a starter pack of “gdiapers” from “Buy Buy Baby” (a new baby superstore in Augusta) yesterday. It includes two cloth diapers that have a snap-in waterproof liner and 40 flushable, disposable inserts for $26. You don’t have to use the flushable inserts, you can use the ‘old school’ trifold cloth diapers as inserts and simply wash and reuse them. However, the flushable inserts are great to have in the diaper bag or purse for when you go out or go to church. Most people (including child care workers) will not be as thrilled to mess with a cloth diaper when it’s full of poop! Owen has only ‘dirtied’ three inserts in the last 24 hours. He’s done really well on the potty, including pooping twice and peeing several times. He even woke up dry this morning and peed on the potty for me. I’m in shock. I thought for sure I’d be waiting until next summer to potty train and I fully expected him to be a bit of a challenge, like Jesse was. Boy was I wrong!
The two cloth diapers that came in yesterday’s pack were cream and orange. Here are two pictures of Owen in the orange one. You put them on the child like you would a diaper, but backwards. They velcro in the back to prevent the child from wanting to pull it off. Plus, it makes them look a little more like big kid underwear. SO CUTE! I look forward to buying more when the budget permits. I’m also interested in making my own. I’ll let you know how that goes!

~audrey

I’m embarassed to say that Jesse and Owen’s birthday party was Saturday, JUNE 27th! I’ve been such a slacker with my pictures lately! At least they’re all on my computer waiting to be shared when I get the time. 🙂

Anyways, we decided to do Owen and Jesse’s party together this year because their birthdays are only ten days apart and we love having all of the family together, so we figured we’d probably have a better turn out if we had ONE big party. My parents offered to host the party at their house in Greenwood. That was GREAT because it allowed my sister-in-law to come down from Shelby, NC while my brother was out of town. I love spending time with her and it just doesn’t happen enough! We rented an inflatable water slide and Jesse picked a “sports” theme. I made a chocolate cake with chocolate icing, sugar crystal sprinkles and little candy soccer balls. My dad grilled hamburgers and hotdogs and my mom made the ABSOLUTE BEST seafood pasta salad in the WHOLE world (mom, I still need to get that recipe from you!). The weather was perfect, the kids all had a blast, and Jesse and Owen had lots of friends and family there to show them how much they are loved and cherished. One of my favorite parts of the planning process was making the “goody cups”. Jesse’s favorite color is red and I had an exact mental image of what I wanted to do. SO, I gathered up the goodies; swirly straws, a few pieces of candy, tatoos, a soccer ball whistle, a little parachute animal, and a glow stick and I strategically placed them into a red cup with a stencilled “J” on the side in white paint. They turned out exactly how I imagined. It was fun. I just don’t have the opportunity to be all that creative these days. Too busy. All in all, a great party. The only thing missing was the Baileys!! We missed you guys!

The last picture is of the chocolate, chocolate chip pancakes that we made per Jesse’s request on his actual birthday (7/2). MMMmmm!

~audrey

Good grief, what is my problem??  I haven’t been on the computer at ALL lately.  The funny thing is, that is what I wanted.  I wanted to stop spending so much wasteful time on the computer.  Luckily, that’s excactly what I’ve done.  I do, however, need to work blogging back into the equation, because I love blogging and if I go more than a day or two without posting anything, I forget all of the great and funny things that I plan to write about….for example, Owen’s little accident yesterday…

…it was Thursday afternoon and I knew my husband was going to hang out with a friend after work for a while, so I decided to skip our morning trip to the pool and go after dinner instead.  It’s less crowded in the evening and it’s great to wear the boys out right before bed.  We went from about 5:45-7:30pm.  It was great.  Since it wasn’t very crowded and the sun was going down behind the building, I got in the “big pool” with the boys for about thirty minutes.  They always enjoy it when I get in with them.  I don’t really know why, to be honest.  It’s not like we do anything special when I get in with them, but Owen loves it because I spin him around in circles and let him jump off the side into my arms.  He’s such a little fish.  He likes it when I let him go all the way under water when he jumps into my arms before bringing him back up safely.  I’m so thankful my kids love the water. 

After the first break time, the boys went over to the water park area.  This is an area where there are several water features, like buckets that dump water out from 20 feet up in the air, different types of water falls and sprinklers.  It’s a lot of fun and really great for the kids who don’t want to get all the way in the pools.  Owen and Joshua were in the water park area when I asked Jesse to go tell them it was time to get dried off.  Next thing I know, there are several kids crowded around Owen and I can see that he is crying.  The right side of his face looked really red as I walked closer to him.  Joshua said, “I think he fell and scraped his hands.”  Without even looking directly at Owen, I squatted down and looked at his palms….nothing was there.  Then I looked up at his face…. OH MY GOSH!  Apparently, when Jesse said, “it’s time to go”, Owen took off running…or at least, that was his intention.  He tripped over his own feet and took a dive into the pavement.  His right shoulder and elbow were scraped up a little bit, but the worst part was his sweet little face.  He scraped his right cheek and had a goose egg the size of a golf ball on his forehead.  I think the 18 year old lifeguard was freaked out more than any of us.  He kept saying, “Um, ma’am, I really think you should take him to get that checked out.  That looks bad!”  I just kept smiling and saying, “yeah, okay, thanks!”  All the while, I’m thinking, ‘look buddy, I have three boys and if I took them to the ER everytime they had a bump on their head, I’d be broke!”  I know the rules and things to look out for when they hurt their heads.  Half my family is in the medical field.  I made sure everything was alright, but we certainly did NOT spend our evening in the ER.  He’ll look like a bruiser for about a week, but he’ll be fine.

Here is a picture: