Tablet Giveaway

Occasionally I come across some cool contests where it doesn't take much to enter to win. In our local newspaper, next to a coupon, I found this contest where you can enter to win a Tablet. 

All you need to do is click on this link: FrancescoRinaldi.com, then enter your name, phone number and e-mail address. Good luck! Let me know if you are a winner. 

Be blessed my friends!

HIVES AND BRAXTON HICKS

I'm a little disappointed that I haven't blogged in the past couple of days, but I guess I have decent reasons. The end of last week was pretty crazy. My son broke out in hives for 3 days straight and we couldn't figure out what was causing it. We still don't know, but he's been hives free for 2 days now. 

THE HIVES ------------------------------->

Then a couple of nights ago I began having Braxton Hicks contractions. I've never experienced this before; only the real things. With my other two boys I went to the hospital thinking that it was Braxton Hicks, but ended up getting shots to stop my labor because they were the real thing. I'm currently only 20 weeks, so it is way too soon for the real thing! So the other night I prayed, drank a lot of water, and went to sleep. I thank the Lord that the next day I only had a few contractions during the entire day. 

Be blessed my friends!

MEET DUKE

I've never introduced the newest member of our family (even though he's in one other picture below). This is Duke! We rescued him from a local humane society in September. He's currently 6 months old. He is a German Shepherd, lab mix and weighs 29 pounds. He's going to be a BIG boy! You're probably thinking, "Awe, he's so cute. I want a dog". Truth is, most days I can't stand him. He's just added so much stress to my life. I understand that he's just a puppy, but all puppy characteristics are in high gear right now. He chews on everything, pulls constantly when you walk him, sometimes (but thankfully not too often) pees in the house, he runs around so fast that no one can catch him, and so many more aggravating things! I guess I should pray more. Well, honestly, this is the first time it occurred to me to pray for the dog. I really hope all the hard work and training will pay off when he's a little bit older. We want him to be a protector of our family, and he's already proving that he will take care of us. When he thinks any of us are getting hurt, he goes crazy. If you have any good puppy training tips, be sure to leave me a comment. We are taking him to training, but that ends in two weeks and so far we haven't really seen very good results. 

Be blessed my friends!

January 9th, 2013

How do good bloggers do it? My goal is to post just once a day, and I can barely make it! 

Today was great until our oldest son told us that he thought he had flea bites. That didn't seem right because it's winter here and we don't have fleas. When I told him to lift up his shirt, he had hives all over his body. This really freaked me out because on my 13th birthday (my son is 13 now), I was stung by a wasp and it almost killed me. My entire body was covered in hives, my eyes were completely swollen shut and my throat was beginning to close up on me. It was one of the scariest days of my life. So, looking at my 13 year old son with hives all over, it brought tears to my eyes. I prayed over him, had him take a shower and his dad went to the store to get some hydrocortizone cream. Now I just pray that we can all sleep peacefully tonight! 

Be blessed my friends!

January 8, 2013

This is going to be really short because I am at such a loss for words tonight. So, my favorite part of the day is when I had a ton of energy and got some housework done for a change. 

Scratch that! My husband just asked me what I got done. Apparently I'm the only one who noticed. Goodnight world!  

Be blessed my friends!

Day 2 of a 21 Day Fast

Today was day two of a 21 day fast that we are doing with our church. We normally start the year off with a  full Daniel fast, but since I'm currently pregnant, we modified our meals slightly. I am allowing myself to have meat and dairy and my husband is allowing himself to have lean meats like chicken. The whole family is drinking water only. So here is what I made for dinner tonight. It's diced chicken with brown rice and seasoning, eggs, and green onion, served on lettuce. It was SO yummy!

This is how we helped our 4 year old to go from taking baths to taking showers. He only used the goggles once. I guess it just showed him that the shower can be fun and it doesn't hurt. This picture was taken about 2 months ago and he's only taken showers since then.

January 5th, 2013

Well, it's not the greatest picture in the world, but it was one of my favorite parts of the day. This is my Stinky Face showing us his peanut that had 3 nuts in it. For everyone who knows my little guy, you might find it shocking that he actually enjoyed eating the nuts! He can be so picky, so it was nice to know he was getting some protein in. 

We had dinner at Logan's Roadhouse. Our wonderful friends and neighbors joined us. There were 4 adults and 4 kids total. Service was pretty bad. I actually had to go hunt a waiter down and explain to them what sugar was. I just wanted sugar for my sweet potato, and they kept giving me cinnamon sugar. It all worked out in the end though. Since service was bad and it took way too long to get our food, we ended up getting our meal completely free! I'm just glad that the food tasted good. I actually ordered a steak too. I usually don't get steak, but since I have a seafood allergy and they told me that they can't guarantee that anything fried (the onion petals that I wanted for example) wouldn't be dipped in the same oil as the seafood, I decided to have something even better and opted for the steak. Tomorrow is the start of our 21 day fast, so I'm glad we got to enjoy a nice meal out with friends!

Be blessed my friends!

January 4, 2013

I had a lot of great things happen today. We finished all of our homeschool for the week. So far the new year is off to a great start concerning school work. Our friends took me and the boys out for dinner and then I got to come home and be lazy for awhile. Then to end the night, my wonderful husband went out at 11:30 PM to get me chocolate chip cookies and milk. I have to feed my craving right now because the day after tomorrow, we start a fast and I won't have ANY sugar for 21 days! YIKES  Fasting is so hard, but with it comes great rewards. 

Be blessed my friends!

January 3rd

My favorite part of the day was finishing the book of Deuteronomy. I have been stuck on this chapter for way too long! Now bring on Joshua! 

My Favorite Part of the Day

Wow, it's 11:30 at night and I just realized that if I don't write something now, then I would've already broken my goal for 2013 which is to write something on here every day. If I can't think of something or don't have much time, then I'll write about my favorite part of the day.

So, for January 2nd, 2013, my favorite part of the day was actually finishing homeschool with my 7th grader. Not only did we complete everything I wanted to accomplish, but we did it without much frustration. Thank you Jesus!

My New Year's Goal

This year my goal is to post every single day, whether it's a short sentence or a paragraph. To help me do that I decided that I'm going to post my favorite part of each day. This will also help me to stay focused on the positive things in life.

So, for my first day, my favorite part of the day was the way it started at 12:00AM and that was ringing in the new year with great friends! I'm SO thankful that God has placed such wonderful people in our lives.