"I'll be bored if I live that long"

Chris and I have been attending a dvd series at church titled "Shepherding a Child's Heart" and learning ways  to teach our children to know God and glorify him forever and to reach our childs heart at a young age. Tedd Tripp the author of this series spends a lot of time looking at the verses Ephesians 6: 1-3

 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ² “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— ³ “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”

So Chris and I have spent a lot of time reviewing these verses with Joshua and when he is not obeying reminding him that by not obeying he is putting himself outside of God's promise. The other day when we were reviewing this with him he told us that he didn't want to live to be as old as Nanny (Chris' great-grandmother who is 95) because he would be bored if he lived that long and be tired of having birthdays. Really??? How do you respond to that....hahaha....kids say some crazy stuff!

the loving machine

You might be wondering by the title of this post if this is appropriate to read....haha. Well actually this is another awesome thing Joshua has said to me. The other day Joshua came up to me and told me "on Valentines Day I am going to be the loving machine." After trying not to laugh out loud I asked him what this means and he told me "the loving machine gives lots of hugs to his friends and lots of hugs and kisses to his family." Of course that makes sense :)

My Big Boy

Joshua is really growing up - can't believe he will be 5 this year. He says some pretty funny stuff and I wish I remembered to write it all down but I am trying to get it on this blog so I can have it for years to come. So a few days ago he had a gymnastics class - this was the first in a new set of classes. He has moved up to a new class this time so they are doing more challenging activities. As I watched his class I could see he was a little timid of some of the things the instructor was having them do. When he came out I asked him how he liked the class and he said "some of that stuff is a little dangerous mom."

What else does Joshua enjoy doing? Anything Chris likes. So this time of year he is all about duck hunting he has his own duck call and loves to go out on boat rides with Chris to look for ducks. Now he has never actually been hunting but he loves it...haha.

Lapbooking

I recently was told about the idea of lapbooking. Having no idea what this was I started searching online (and of course found some great ideas on Pinterest) to see what it was all about. I love the idea! This week when Joshua and I went to the library for story-time we picked out several books on penguins. After reading through the books a couple of times we decided to do a little more research on penguins, print out some pictures, and start a lapbook. Joshua was totally into this idea because we were learning about animals (his favorite thing) and creating this cool book that he could keep and look at. It was a bit of work for mom at his age but we had the best time working on it together. As he gets older he will be able to work more independently on these. He has already spent a lot of time looking at and "reading" it by himself. I see a lot more lapbooks in our future!

Here are the pics:

So proud of his lapbook! He helped color, cut and glue.

He also picked out some of the information he wanted included in the lapbook like the predators of penguins and what penguins ate.

We loved adding pockets, flip cards, etc. to give some cool dimension to the lapbook.

I really wish I could be diligent in posting on my blog. I started this as a way to track what is going on in my life and yet I keep forgetting to write anything down on the blog. I am excited to say after months of saying I was going to lose this baby weight (which included about 6 weeks of basically no exercise because I broke my pinky toe) I lost 2 pounds last week! Now I am getting my husband on board with being more careful what we eat, how much we eat, and getting active. I am trying to menu plan around 2 weeks at a time and make one trip to Sam's club and Wal-mart to buy most of the food I need and then make a return trip the second week to whatever store is having a good sale. So here are the plans for the next 2 weeks:

Monday 14th: my mother's day date night :) so this will be out to eat
Tuesday 15th: Grilled Chicken & Grilled Veggies
Wednesday 16th: Burgers, Sweet Potato & Carrot Fries, Garbanzo and veggie salad
Thursday 17th: Stuffed Peppers & Salad
Friday 18th & Saturday 19th: We are camping these two nights with friends so I am only preparing dinner one night which will probably be hot dogs, green beans, and baked beans (not the healthiest but we are camping)
Sunday 20th: Baked Flounder, Rice, Salad
Monday 21st: Jambalaya & Salad
Tuesday 22nd: Deer Roast, Mashed Cauliflower, Salad

Wednesday 23rd: Honey & Teriyaki Chicken, Rice, Veggies
Thursday 24th: Leftovers
Friday 25th: Grilled Chicken Salad
Saturday 26th: We will be at a wedding this night

my newest project

So I had the pleasure recently of crocheting a baby blanket for Chris' Aunt Amy's baby girl. Little baby Lexi is arriving sometime today (she may already be here) so it looks like I finished the blanket just in time (I just gave it to the new mom and dad on Tuesday). Here are a few pics. The pattern is called a shell pattern and the blanket is a really great pattern to do because border and the rest of the blanket are all one piece. Looking forward to the next one :)

Planning, losing weight, this isn't very fun

As usual I haven't posted in forever and its Monday and I am sitting staring at the Kroger ad waiting for something to jump off the page and say "fix me for dinner." With the holidays over and the holiday pounds still here I am desperately trying to find things to cook that are delicious, healthy, easy and in the budget. This is how this week is going so far....

Monday - Baked Salmon, Asparagus, Salad
Tuesday - Taco Salad
Wednesday - Lemon & Garlic Chicken, Brown Rice, Stir Fry Veggies
Thursday - Venison in the Crockpot, Mashed Potatoes (yes I know this one isn't healthy but its a kid favorite and a mommy favorite too!), steamed broccoli

Friday - this will be a little bit of a skip the healthy eating meal - homemade pizza (cause I have all the ingredients already) and a Salad
Saturday - still thinking on this one.....

How do some of you moms plan for the month? I cannot think of meals to plan for one week.