Out with the Old, In with the New

First of all, HAPPY 2010* everyone. I hope that your Christmas and New Years were good ones. Ours was fantastic! Lots of family, fun, food and rest.

*(That's twenty ten, none of this two thousand ten junk!)

2009 wasn't a half bad year for us. Sure we had our share of ups and downs, but considering we started the new year with a tiny little man and now we have a precious little toddler and we are happy, that's all that matters. I saw my son turn 1, have two seperate ER visits, be (mostly) diagnosed with asthma, be diagnosed with allergies, start walking, and now he's a jabbering fool who can actually use a fork and likes to throw his plate on the floor. Not too shabby. Parker's a true toddler now and growing physically and mentally each day. Our saw my marriage have a bit of a bump, but now it's stronger than ever. I saw my husband get another raise and watched him grow. And I saw myself grow tremendously, get a job I adore, a car I love and new friends to last a lifetime. All in all, 2009 wasn't too bad.

BUT OUT WITH THE OLD....

AND IN WITH THE NEW....

2010....day 2 of this year and already it's been pretty darn good. My step - sister had my nephew Dalton yesterday (1-1-10) at 9:13 am (he was the first baby born in that hospital in the new year. He's currently in the NICU for some lung issues, but is doing well. He was 7lbs, 6ozs and 19 inches long. He's a cute little man! I got to see many of my friends happy when the Bucks made dinner out of the Ducks in the Rose Bowl! And today, I got to enjoy a quiet afternoon with my two men and I get to go on a date tonight to see Avatar in 3D - so that should be fun. Oh and I get Chipotle for dinner. Some of you may not be thrilled, but I am!

I am looking forward to 20-10. I am not sure what all is in store and I am sure God has some plans that I may not enjoy, but nevertheless, I am excited. My baby boy, born at only 29 weeks, will turn two in May. He's car seat will FINALLY be flipped probably in the next few days. I will celebrate my 5 year wedding anniversary on Aug. 6 with a trip to either Chi-town or NYC. I will get to see my youngest brother, Brandon graduate from high school in June. And who knows what else really. I do look forward to it.

Oh did I also mention that the first meal I made in 20-10 was a delicious slow cooker full of ham and bean soup? Without a recipe? Yah, I am that good! We had a ton of left over ham from Christmas and I wanted to use it up and do something different. I happened to have some dry navy beans so I thought...hmmmm....let's try. It was easy peasy lemon squeezy! Want me to share what I did? Well fine, you twisted my arm...yeesh.

Ham N Bean Soup A'la Deni:

1.5 cups dry Navy Beans
Ham (I would say I had probably about 1.5 - 2 cups once I chopped it up)
1/2 an onion, sliced,
1 piece of celery chopped
6 cups of water
1.5 bullion cube (beef)

****The Dry beans need prepped first. I just did mine by soaking over night in a big bowl with 5 cups of water. I leave it on the counter and vent the lid a bit.****

I mixed all the ingredients in the slow cooker, added some spices, rosemary and thyme and pepper and cooked on low for 6 hours.

That's it folks. I mean, obviously their is the prep and all, but that's it. The beans cook great in the sc** and it ends up being yummy. I started out with 4 cups of water, but once the beans expanded I added two more. It made the soup not to thin and not too thick.

**slow cooker

Well that's my first recipe of 20-10. Let's write that one down in the record books! :)

I'll update again soon!

When Life Hands You Lemons...

...make lemonade.

Easier said then done if you ask me!

I have been thinking a lot recently. Thinking be a good thing for me or a bad thing. But recently, it's been a good thing - or at least I would like to believe it has been. I have been thinking a lot about things in my life that have shaped me into who I am today. My life has been far from easy and while I don't remember much from when I was young, I can remember the first moment I realized life is so not fair all the time.

Easter 1998 -
Oh man, I remember this like it was yesterday. i walked into to church that morning to a very somber and sad mood. I was met at the door by one of our elders, who went on to tell me that Pastor Danny has passed away suddenly that morning while preparing to get into costume for our sunrise service. I remember my heart sinking into my chest - Pastor Danny and his wife Marilyn were like another set of parents to me. I had promised Pastor Danny that I would be going to church camp that summer with him and others from church as a jr. counselor. I couldn't understand why this had happened - as far as I knew, he was perfectly healthy and was rather young - but God needed him. I can remember feeling so cheated when he passed away. But looking back I have learned a lot from that experience - I never once took another person for granted. I attempt to live my life to make Danny proud - I want him to be looking down on me saying, "Denise, I am so proud of you!" Of course I want to make family and friends proud too, but for some reason, his approval is so important to me. Also, I got a lot closer to Marilyn after his death. Because I really struggled with it and turned to her a lot to just talk...that closeness would be the reason why I got through so many other hard things in my life.

2000 -
My parents divorced in 2000. I won't go into all the messy details, but lets just say it was an incredibly hard time for my family. My mom made some lousy decisions - which lead to the separation - which lead to my dad becoming very depressed and making the decision to try suicide. When that happened - I went and stayed with Marilyn for a while. I was angry at my mom, scared for my dad and did not want to be at home at all. Marilyn really helped me through that time - she became like a mom to me. I felt like I could only talk to her - my anger towards my mom and the hurt over my dad just was too much to talk to them. Both my parents are remarried now and happy - and I have rebuilt my relationship with my mom - but I can definitely understand what I learned out of this - I will not get divorced. I will not repeat any poor decisions made by either of my parents, I will enjoy my marriage, be open, honest and communicate. I feel like my marriage is as strong as it is because of what I learned from my parents divorce. I also believe it is strong because God is the center of our marriage and church and following Him is a top priority.

Oct. 6 2001 -
Where do I even begin with this one? Just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes and my heart just sank in my chest. This was the day that I lost my best friend and to this day, I still hurt about it. *Tay (name changed for certain reasons) did not have the easiest of lives. She moved to Warsaw to live with a family in my church - her foster parents. I don't remember us really hitting it off, though we may have, but I do remember that we did end up with an amazing friendship. This girl was seriously one of my best friends. I could tell her anything, we had so many inside jokes that even today I chuckle at times thinking about how she would respond. She really helped my though my parent's divorce too, she was there for me to talk to and enjoy time with. But then she started dating someone and I got mad, jealous and in my stupid high school mind decided it would be good to pick a fight - STUPID idea. We stopped talking, avoided each other - for well over 6 months. Some how - and I still don't remember how - we started talking again. The summer of 01 before I went to college, we served at church camp as counselors together for 4th grade week and we were mostly back to our old ways. We didn't talk much, college had me busy and her schedule at school was pretty busy as well. I went home on Oct. 5 for a quick overnight trip and has just gotten back to college when a call came from Marilyn (she worked at the college I attended) telling me to call her immediately. I called her and she came to my dorm and met me in the common room to give me the news. Tay had been in a car accident - and had went to be with our Lord. To say I was devastated would be a complete understatement. She was only 17, just started her senior year - it was SO UNFAIR. We had finally gotten our friendship back and she was gone. I miss her, so much, she'd love Parker. Through all of that though, I learned to enjoy my friendships even more. I have never picked a fight again - I'd like to think of Tay as a guardian angel. She is one of two pictures I have on my visor in my car - the other - my miracle boy.

May 29, 2008 -
Well, we all know what happened here.

I guess I share this with you to tell you that I have learned a lot. My faith in God has grown in the past 11 years - and while there are many things I have left out, I can honestly say that I have learned so much and I do my best to live life to the fullest and fully rely on God. Lessons I have learned through just these 4 incidents I shared and many more I haven't, I have done my best to grow out of them.

I feel strong and loved and like I have so much to offer.

So, when life hands you lemons (whatever they are) do your best to grow out of those lemons. Make lemonade - or lemon shake ups. God knows what he's doing, even if we don't get it. It's not really our place to get it, God asks us to trust and have faith and we should do that.

God's good, even in all the hard stuff.

I'm Back :)

Hello Friends,

Thank you so much for your understanding and patience with me as I took some time away from blogging to just be! To be quite honest with you, I took a break for many reasons - 1) I felt the need to focus on my family - 2) I felt completely uninspired and had zero desire to blog - 3) I needed the time to pray about some things...

But I am feeling refreshed, inspired, and ready to be back to blogging. Maybe not daily, but more often and about more things!

And now for some updates!

- Parker is doing so well! He is just a little ball of fun and fire. He is learning more and more and wanting to walk more, but still chickening out at times. He has really started eating more and more food. He will continue to get a bottle of formula until at least october. To be honest, his growth and size is still behind and small. Yes, he is growing, but he isn't really catching up with the curve of an actual 14 month old. He is still learning to walk - he does great when holding on to things...if he could hold on to stuff all the time, he would walk very very well. The problem is when he lets go - he realizes there's nothing there to grab to and automatically falls. It's cute! He loves cartoons and he is a little blabber boy. He says mama and some times dada and random other noises. He has learned to climb on the couch by himself and does it often (it's the getting down that we have problems with). This month, we are working on eating table food better and using a cup. He still thinks a cup is a toy - but I am hoping he will be able to use one by the time we go on vacation in september. Also, yesterday was Parker's first day in the crawlers - walkers class at church. It's weird that he isn't in the nursery anymore! But so exciting that he gets to be with kids his own age!

- I am still planning on going to Cambodia. In fact, that's a lot of what I prayed about. God is leading me there and I feel his hand on it. I know now it's not just my desire, but it is in fact God really doing this in my heart! I am nervous about raising the money to go though. I am working on a sponsor list currently to send out in the next couple of months to start working on raising the funds, even though I wouldn't go until 2010. If you are interested in sponsoring me, leave a comment and I will get back to you for your info.
I am really preparing myself to, I have borrowed a lot of books from the library and a couple of movies. I watched one recently - "The Killing Fields" - wow. I mean just wow! It really helped me to understand what this country has been through. I am sure once I am there and such, it will really hit me.

- Life in general is good. We just resigned our lease - which is exciting considering we've lived here 3 years and in 3 places! It's nice to be staying and not having to relocate again! I am going to be a working woman soon - which is such an answer to prayers. I can't really go into much detail quite yet, but it's a job that doesn't require many hours and it will help bring in a little extra cash. We are also planning on getting a new car. We've had it with our Bonneville and the constant issues. We are putting way to much money into considering how much it's worth (which is like nothing). So starting today, we are going to be looking at new cars - we have a small list of cars we want to look at and test drive. I'm pretty excited because this new car would be mine and I would like something a bit bigger than our PT Cruiser. So pray that we are able to find something that fits us well and our needs. We don't plan to purchase today, but we want to be looking and starting to really weigh our options.

- Some exciting things are coming up soon. This Wed. is the 1 year anniversary of bringing Parker home from the hospital. Thursday is our 4 year anniversary. Next wed is the 1 year "adjusted age" birthday of Parker. So much to celebrate in August! And in September - we go on vacation to Buffalo, NY to see Drew's parents and such. So excited!

Well, I hope you all are well! I am so glad to be back!

Tidbits: Lousy Weekend, Parker, Baby Food Advice

Hello Friends,

- I am not entirely sure how to start this post today. It's been a hard weekend and I want you to know that I appreciate your praying for me, Drew and Parker. I also would like to ask that you keep doing so, as this is a long process we are going through. I wish I could share with you the details of what is happening and honestly I could, but I am not comfortable sharing them with you all. It's not at all that I don't trust you guys, I do, I write things on my blog that I might not tell even my family (well that's not true because I know some read this!) but still. I just feel in order for Drew and I to strengthen our marriage and work through this hard time, it's best that we keep this between us for the most part. I hope that you all can understand. I guess the broad specifics of what to pray for would be, healing from hurt, healing in both mine and Drew's hearts, that God would help us rebuild some things in out life and that our marriage would come out stronger on the end of this season. One of the worst parts of this is the timing of it all....lets just say Valentine's Day was HORRIBLE. So thankfully tonight our friend Mandi is coming to watch Parker and we are going out to dinner at a nice restaurant. I am excited! *Oh and in regards to my previous post about accusations and the ending of a friendship - this is sorta related but mostly not!* I will do my best to keep prayer requests up (I will make a special thing on the side of my blog so you can always find what to specifically pray for!

- Parker is amazing. I thought I would let you know that. The kid has learned he can shreek - oh yah, fun times in our house. Mommy normally has a small headache by the end of the day thanks to Mr. Parker's screeching fits.

- Ok, question time. I make my own baby food, but here's my problem - peaches, pears and banana's keep growing brown quickly...any thoughts on how to make that not happen? I know lemon juice...but I don't think I want to put that in for parker right now. If I cook them, will that help them keep their color better? I am so annoyed by this!

I should probably go and start getting around for our date for tonight! Thank you all for loving us!