A joyful heart

You probably thought this would be a reflective post about finding true joy at Christmas, and I probably should write something like that eventually.

But this is really just about how easy it is to please our puppy and how it does bring joy to our hearts (and his heart too!).

We went Christmas shopping for Noodles the other night and Kody convinced me to get him one of these ridiculously large bones for him - yes, the ones that he'll chew on, leave gross stuff on the floor, will attract all the hair, dirt and dust on the floor, stay around for months and otherwise make our apartment gross in my opinion. Well, I caved, picturing how cute he'd look with it in his mouth.

Of course, we couldn't wait until Christmas to give it to him, so he got to enjoy it that night. Look how excited Kod is to give it to him, while Noodles waits ever so patiently!


Still figuring out how to get his mouth around this crazy big thing:

And he has been loving it ever since!

Two posts without a picture of Noodles!?! We'll have to remedy that for sure.

Here he is enjoying the snow at the dog park last week:

He kept trying to steal Kody's glove, thinking it was a toy:

His favorite spot with his former favorite toy (when it was still in tact) - sorry Kacey and Bethany, after loving it a little too much over the past few days, it kind of disintegrated!

Love, love, love this road - Campton Hills Road - in the wintertime!! Literally like a winter wonderland.

Give me some sugaaaar!

When I think about my favorite desserts, cookies don't normally come to mind. It's typically ice cream, Blizzards, apple pie, ice cream cakes, brownies and the like. But man, oh man, can our friends make some mean cookies!

Last week, my Bible study had a cookie exchange and I came home with two 9x13 pans full of deliciousness!

Look at that feast - buckeyes, peanut butter, double chocolate, pumpkin chocolate chip, lots of peppermint, dough balls, Oreo balls - yum, yum, yum!!

Thank you to all of these amazing women for challenging me, encouraging me and praying for me during the past year!

And we also got to love on Miss Halle Lou Mapel!

For the exchange, I was debating between these, these, these, these, these and these.

I ended up making Chocolate Peppermint Crinkle Cookies:


And Chocolate and Peppermint Bark Cookies:

I was on a little of a peppermint kick and they both turned out so delicious (well, at least Kody and I thought so!).

However, I still really want to make the rest of those cookies, so hopefully they'll happen sometime in the near future! But for now, I'm okay with enjoying cookies for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next week.

And yes, I did have some for breakfast earlier this week. They're just that good!

Thanksgiving!

Seeing as Christmas is two weeks away, I better get this post about Thanksgiving up here!

We drove to Knoxville, TN to visit Kody's brother and sister-in-law, Kacey and Bethany, and meet their new precious daughter, Sakora!

It took Kody a while to warm up to the newborn thing, but he told me the other day he already misses holding her!

We spent lots of time hanging out on the couch talking, watching the boys play Xbox, holding Sakora and laughing.

Had an amazing Thanksgiving feast, however I didn't get any pictures of it! But Bethany, Marla and I cooked up some delicious turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, dressing, cranberries, pumpkin and pecan pie, strawberry pretzel salad and green bean casserole. Just thinking about it makes me crave green bean casserole :)

We even did a little Black Friday shopping - probably a little too much I'm realizing as I just updated our budget, haha. Kody and Kacey were there for the door buster opening at Big Lots (they were very not impressed) and Bethany and I joined them for some Target madness around 6:30 a.m. We also hit the mall - all before 9 a.m.!

Never enough time with family and friends, but it was an awesome couple of days and we can't wait to get back down there again!

Let it snow!

December has come and is bringing with it some winter beauty!

Noodles had fun experiencing his first snow this morning and now has loved looking at it for hours from inside:

I let him outside on our porch a little earlier and two kids came by and started throwing snowballs at him!! Like an overprotective mom, I gasped, ran outside barefoot and scolded those two kids, haha! They looked very "caught" and probably won't be doing that again anytime soon! Poor Noodles! Although it probably hurt me more than him! My little boy was getting picked on by the bigger kids!! Oh wait, I think he was actually bigger than both of them.

We're planning a trip to the dog park or park today to let him have a little more fun romping around in the snow. Hopefully only get hit with snow by his loving parents.

Here's our December meal plan! (Did I post a November one?? Did I follow a November one??)

1 - Chicken Enchilada Chili - was delicious with cheese and tortilla chips!
2 - Quesadillas (with homemade salsa!)
3 - Frozen pizza (got 7 pizzas for $10 the other day!)
4 - Mexican "Flatbread" Pizza from Pioneer Woman
5 - Pizza
6 - Broiled marinated beef chuck (never bought a beef chuck, not sure what it is, found a hopefully good recipe online)
7 - Cookie exchange at Bible Study!
8 - Enchiladas
9 - Cheese soup
10 - Tuna melts
11 - Quiche
12 - Homemade Pizza
13 - Going to a Bulls game with work! Yay for perks!
14 - Kody on his own
15 - Spinach beef roll
16 - Parmesan chicken
17 - Chicken and stuffing
18 - Frozen pizza
19 - Homemade pizza (yes, apparently pizza two days in a row)
20 - Frozen chicken fingers
21 - Bible study
22 - Quinoa meatloaf
23 - Homemade waffles
24-28 - Christmas!!
29 - Pancakes
30-31 - Michelle's wedding!

In other news:
- I haven't finished any "physical" books, but have "read" lots of audio books! Love them! But I am in the middle of a "real" book - Cold Fire by Dean Koontz - and am loving it. Hope to finish it by the end of the week.
- I didn't send cookies/treats to friends, but did make two meals for a friend who just had a baby!
- I got some fun deals this past week - 5 tubs of $0.25 toothpaste (one was free!), 3 things of $0.63 Dial handsoap, cheap frozen pizzas, frozen chicken, shrimp and pancakes (convenience foods I wouldn't normally buy, but so nice to have around if they're cheap)
- Running...isn't happening. But hopefully soon I'll be signing up for another half marathon, so I'll have a goal to work towards. And we're renewing our gym membership, which will hopefully help.

Cookie exchange on Tuesday. I've having so much trouble deciding what cookies to bring! Something new, something I've made before, Kody's favorite (which I don't like), something unique??? So many options.

I'm debating between white chocolate macadamia nut, pink meringue, Pioneer Woman's monster cookies, some sort of peppermint bark/peppermint oreos things, a yummy snickerdoodle one and a few others! Any suggestions!?

Recently...

Still alive and kicking over here. Just apparently not blogging very well. But here's a life recap via pictures!

We welcomed Sakora Lynn Carr into the family on October 17 (happy late 1 month birthday Sakora!!). Kacey, Bethany and baby are all doing well and we can't wait to meet baby Sakora next week during Thanksgiving!

Noodles got to meet Santa last weekend and he wasn't too happy about it. Like a crying, little, 67-lb. baby, he wouldn't sit in Santa's lap without mom and dad. Possibly a good Christmas card picture?? Kody's vet clinic hosted a bake sale and Santa as a fundraiser for a local animal adoption agency. Check out the antlers Noodles is sporting.


Noodles, with his favorite toy, perched in this favorite chair by the window.


After work cudding with Kody.

I get to come home every day to bear hugs, literally, from our beast of a dog. And I love it!


Except when we come home to this...toilet paper...everywhere. We've been going back and forth with leaving Noodles out of his kennel while Kody is at work. He was fine for a while, then got a little too brave (enjoyed our bed one afternoon and the futon a few days later) and went back in the kennel. We've started trying it again recently, but came home to this on Tuesday. Back into the kennel he went.


I used my new bread maker for the first time! (Thanks again Bethany!) I just made white bread, but oh my goodness, it was the easiest thing in the world and made delicious bread! I can't wait to try more recipes. I do need to learn to start these projects a little earlier. I can't tell you how many times I've had to set my alarm for 1 a.m. to get up and turn the crockpot off or take the bread out of the bread maker. More than I can count, that's for sure.

Speaking of crockpot...I got all these apples for $1.99 and made two batches of AMAZING applesauce! Homemade applesauce. If you've never had it, you must try it soon.


Noodles got dressed up for Halloween as a track star. He was super excited about his costume, as you can tell by his facial expressions.


How tall is our puppy? Umm, about as tall as us.

Cuddling with my puppy. This is when we enjoy him the most...when he's sleeping.

Austin, Amber and Payton came to visit us again! Noodles got to play with his best buddy for two days straight and we enjoyed some awesome company!

Is that not an awesome picture?

Very tired out.
There's a short recap. Hopefully back to more frequent blogging sometime in the near future.

So blessed

A while back, I was lamenting to Kody about how busy October is going to be - especially around my birthday.

He looked at me, and in a teasing, mocking voice said:

"Oh yeah, it really sucks that in one week you get to go to Omaha and be with all your friends from high school for a wedding and see your parents on the drive back. Then you come home and get to help welcome a friend's baby into the world. And then all your college friends come the next day and you see them all weekend for another wedding. Yeah, it really does stink to have your birthday in the middle of all of that."

Hmm. He is very very right. Pretty much all of my favorite things, all in one week, all over my birthday. I am so blessed!

So obviously, I'm looking forward to this exciting month!! Two weddings, three babies (Hi baby Koen Rago!), birthdays, lots of family and lots of friends (oldest, old and new all in one week!!!). What more could a girl ask for?!

All this to say, thank you all for being a part of our life! We love and appreciate you all so much!

Deals, deals, deals

Ehhh! I'm so excited!! I've been doing this couponing thing for a while now, but haven't really hit the jackpot, getting lots of groceries for just a bit of money...until this week! Yay!!

First I shopped at Target:


I was able to get:
- 1 dozen free eggs
- Four boxes of Wheat Thins/Triscuits each for $0.99 (Didn't end up being that great. For some reason, I was thinking I got them for $0.50 each)
- Two free Kraft string cheese
- 5 six-packs of Musselman's Applesauce for $0.75 each
- 2 lbs red grapes for $0.98
- 1 lb. beef chuck for $1.50
- 2 boxes Healthy Harvest pasta for $0.22 each
- Dole salad for $0.50

I also got Gala apples, but they weren't that great of a deal. However...I'm now relooking at my receipt and I think some of the things I bought weren't discounted like they should have been, darnit! Remember to always watch the register!

But then there was the awesome-ness that happened at Jewel-Osco tonight! So excited!!
Con-Agra (Go Omaha!) is running a deal where if you buy $25 worth of their product, you get $10 back.


So...I got:
- 5 bottles of Wessel vegetable oil for $2.50 ($0.50 per bottle!)
- 14 boxes of Orville Redenbacher popcorn for $4.64 ($0.25/box!)
- 14 Snack Pack puddings for $2.32 ($0.17/pack!)

...and will hopefully go back for some Healthy Choice soup (my store has been out of it since Saturday), along with flour, peanut butter, spaghetti sauce, cake mixes, paper towels, hot chocolate and more! Let's see, there's Jewel by my work, a Jewel by my house, a Jewel on the way to Bible study. I've got a few more places to try!

Obviously we don't need that much oil or popcorn or pudding right now, but for that cheap! I'm sure we'll eat it and if not, we can donate it to the food pantry. I also meant to get free Idahoan potatoes - well, I did buy them, but in the midst of my excitement, I forgot to scan the coupons I had for them! Shoot! Never can I get through a shopping trip without making at least one mistake.

Oh well, even with the mistakes, I'm still excited. However...I didn't pay with cash like I've been meaning to - maybe because I've already gone over my budget for these two weeks. Whoops! Sometimes it's just worth it for the thrill of the deal!

Love it!!

October Menu

Here's to attempting to follow the plan better than I did last month!

1 - Sushi to celebrate Kody being *almost* done with vet school applications!
2 - Out to dinner with Kody's dad
3 - Homemade pizza
4 - Brats
5 - Bible Study - No cooking for Katie
6 - Mexican Carnitas
7 - Stuffed Green Chili Chicken
8 - Some slow cooker soup (Don't remember the name)
9 - Chili at a friend's birthday party!

10 - Homemade pizza
11 - Beans and rice
12 - Bible Study - No cooking for Katie
13 - Shrimp linguine
14 - Lasagna
15 - Quiche
16 - Katie in Omaha for Amanda's wedding - No cooking!

17 - Homemade pizza
18 - Johnny Marzetti
19 - Bible Study - No cooking for Katie
20 - Out to eat for my birthday?
21 - Katie gone for Dorie's wedding- No cooking!
22 - Katie gone for Dorie's wedding- No cooking!
23 - Katie gone for Dorie's wedding- No cooking!

24 - Homemade pizza
25 - Quinoa salad
26 - Bible Study - No cooking for Katie
27 - Minestrone soup
28 - Spaghetti
29 - Marinated chicken
30 - Chicken enchiladas
31 - Homemade pizza

You might notice that basically all of these items were on last month's menu. Like I said, I didn't follow last month's menu very well.

Recipes!

Even though I didn't exactly follow my menu plan last month, I did try some fun new recipes I thought I'd share!

We were trying to buy more fresh veggies to up our healthy eating, so I bought broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, potatoes, celery, tomatoes and lots of lettuce. Well, as I did kind of expect, we didn't exactly eat all those veggies up quickly. So I made up this Minestrone soup, following this recipe, with all our leftover veggies and it was delicious!! Basically just chicken broth, garlic, noodles, lots of veggies, leftover ground turkey, beans, water and some other random spices I put in. I didn't exactly measure anything, sorry!

Then this...heavenly, heavenly pasta salad. Affectionately named Cara's Favorite Pasta Salad after my cousin and her favorite pasta salad. Chop up one green pepper, yellow pepper, and red pepper and cubed mozzarella cheese, sliced olives, marinated artichoke hearts, Parmesan cheese and grape tomatoes. Cook noodles (farfalle noodles look the best, but I didn't have any of those) and toss. The dressing is 1/4 cup red wine vinegar, 1/4 cup olive oil, garlic, 1 tsp salt, 1-1/2 tsp pepper, 1 tbl basil and 1/2 cup chopped onion. It is to die for.

Taco salad was next on the list! Obviously this is a pretty typical meal, but I'd never made it layered in a pretty trifle bowl like this before! Mother-in-law Marla made this for me while Kody was in Africa and I had been dying to have it again. I layered tortilla chips, ground turkey (which unfortunately needed a little more taco seasoning), lettuce, tomatoes and cheese. I would have added olives and Italian dressing to the lettuce, but we didn't have any. Even without, it was delicious, although not as good as Marla's - and that's the truth.

And then homemade spaghetti sauce with baked zucchini chips! I was inspired by Lauren's post. Well, actually I copied her pretty much exactly. Her zucchini chips looked sooo good! Kody loved mine too, but they weren't as crispy as I was hoping. I used some fresh tomatoes in the spaghetti sauce, which I had never done before, and the some canned. For some reason, I keep altering my mom's sauce recipe. Which I have learned before and now learned again NEVER to do. Follow the recipe and it will taste amazing. Don't follow the recipe and it won't taste as amazing.


Mom's Amazing Italian Spaghetti Sauce
1 cup chopped onion
1 lb. ground beef
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1-lb. 14 oz. can tomatoes, petite cut
1 1-lb. can tomatoes, petite cut
1 t-oz can tomato paste
1/4 cup snipped parsley
1 tbl. brown sugar
1 tsp. salt
1-1/2 tsp oregano, crushed
1/4 tsp. dried thyme, crushed
1 bay leaf

Cook meat with onion and garlic. Add remaining ingredients and two cups of water. Simmer uncovered for 3 hours or until sauce is thick. Stir occasionally.

Do this...and you shall have the most perfect spaghetti sauce ever.

Lastly, Mexican carnitas! I got a pork roast on sale, but wasn't sure what to do with it and this is perfect! Shredded pork with guacamole, lettuce and cheese. Delicious! Just slow cook the pork with salt, pepper, onion, oregano and 1/4 cup water for 8 hours on low or 4 hours on high. We're having this again for dinner on Wednesday! And probably the next week and the next week. We have a lot of leftover shredded pork. Can't wait for some more guacamole!


Yum yum yum. Makes me hungry just looking at it.

October!

hey hey!
So you know those goals I told you about...I didn't do so hot :)

1) Read over half a book and am attempting to finish soon! It'll get done! Probably should be reading right now, instead of blogging.
2) Got library membership! And we've been loving using it! Our addiction to Redbox has now turned into a video rack at the library addiction. Enjoying "The Office" Season 5 right now thanks to the library.
3) Kitchen appliances - Yeah, didn't happen this month. Sad that it went an entire month and I haven't even used one of them! Oops. I did pull the bread maker recipe book out, in hopes that it'd encourage me.
4) Cookies! I did do this one! I made some snickerdoodle cookies (which are apparently Kody's second favorite cookie - second only to white chocolate macadamia nut - neither of which I have ever made until like two weeks ago) and delivered them to some of our new apartment neighbors!
5) What's a monthly meal plan? Yeah, didn't stick to that from day 1. But I did make some fun new recipes (just not in order)! Going to do better this month. Already made up my plan for this month and I'm taking it two weeks at a time - for a little more flexibility.
6) Use cash and stay within budget - Didn't use cash once...and haven't updated the budget, so I'm not sure if I stayed within. I think I was close though! BUT I already pulled out cash October!
7) I did up the couponing a bit, but not much. Time sometimes just doesn't allow it. But I did reorganize my coupons today for a fresh start and I'm hoping it'll work a lot better!
8) One week on-ish, one week off-ish was pretty much the monthly routine. I did go on an amazing, beautiful six-mile run with Noodles that was awesome! That's the longest I've gone since the half marathon.
9) Greeting Kody - I think I did better! Tried to make a point of it.
10) Didn't memorize a verse this month, but my Bible study is memorizing Philippians 4:8-9 this week.

And I'll leave you with this:

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you." - Phil. 4:8-9

"What did you say?"

Kody is home from Africa! Hallelujah! Well, he actually got back about two weeks ago, but we're just now getting around to showing you some pics!

It was a long week for me and Noodles fending for ourselves. But Kody had an amazing time! His team helped more animals than they ever thought they could and Kod met some wonderful people!

Kody with John Suboba, the village pastor's son, who Kody connected with

Their team of five men spent four days traveling to a rural Mali village to de-worm over 5,000 cattle, goats, sheep and pigs. They stayed in a town in Eastern Mali called Koutiala, but traveled 1.5 hours each day to a village where they worked with the animals. Kody said the village was like a festival because everyone from the surrounding villages came with their animals when they heard Americans would be there. The team ran out of medicine during day 3, so they spent the fourth day helping wherever the missionaries needed help. In addition to the vaccines, they got to tour Christ Community Church's Hospital for Women and Children in Koutiala, Dusty and Julie Reynold's Sababu Conscious Clothing in Bamako, the Eiffel Tower during their layover in Paris, Christian and Missionary Alliance's Bethel Seminary to train up Malian pastors and so many more things!

Eiffel Tower

Lots of crazy, funny, wonderful, God-things happened while Kod was over there. Here are a few highlights:

Taking the cattle through the shoot

- Getting kicked by an 800 pound bull
- Walking two miles in water up to their chests after their car got stuck in flood waters on their way back to the guesthouse
- Six days of traveling, four days of serving
- Sharing authentic Malian food with the village chief and mayor
- Being "paid" by the village chief with two chickens
- Showing the "Jesus Film" to the village and witnessing the Muslim tribal elders not allow villagers to come forward to receive Christ.

Working those pigs

One especially funny thing is that Kody's name in Bambara (the language spoken in Mali) means "What did you say?" So when someone would ask him his name, he'd answer "Kody." They'd reply, "What is your name?" "Kody (or What did you say?)." "What is your name?" "Kody." And on and on and on. haha!

On the drive from Bamako to Koutiala - goats, people, bags, chickens ... and about anything else you can think of ... tied to and hanging off the "taxi."

Here's a neat blog post the CCC Missions Pastor, Craig Walter, wrote about the trip.

Eating lunch on the side of the road on the way to Koutiala. They weren't able to stop and eat at a restaurant in Segou because of the kidnapping threat.

Lots of answers to prayer during the trip. Kody and I were praying that he would stay healthy because he wasn't feeling well a few days before the trip and tends to get sick with travel/lack of sleep/stress, etc. Praise God, the time changes didn't even affect him at all! He felt fine the whole time! Also, the U.N. had issued a kidnapping warning for a town the team was going to drive through on their way to Koutiala. Again God answered our prayers and they didn't have any trouble during the drive or any safety concerns while they were over there. The team bonded incredibly and were told they one of the best short term missions teams they've had over there!

Video of the drive to Koutiala

Thank you all for your prayers and support for Kody! We appreciated it more than you can know!

Then... and Now

Then...


And Now...

September Menu!

Here's what I can up with to eat this month. I've got lots of new recipes (the starred ones) I've been wanting to try out, so hopefully they'll be good.

1 - 7 - No meals planned - Out of town
8 - Mexican "Flatbread" Pizza* (Pioneer Woman)
9 - Chicken and Rice (from the freezer)
10 - Spaghetti
11 - Brats

12 - Homemade Pizza
13 - Chicken Ranch Quesadillas* (Cooking During Stolen Moments)
14 - Beef and Bean Burrito* (Pioneer Woman)
15 - Bowtie Lasagna* (Pioneer Woman)
16 - Stuffed Green Chile Chicken* ($5 Dinners)
17 - Quiche (from the freezer)
18 - Black Bean Burgers* (from Bethany Carr)

19 - Homemade Pizza
20 - Taco Salad
21 - Johnny Marzetti With Cheesy Noodles* (Once a Month Mom)
22 - Chicken and Broccoli Rolls* (Cooking During Stolen Moments)
23 - Shrimp Linguini
24 - Spaghetti
25 - Chicken Enchiladas

26 - Homemade Pizza
27 - Chicken and Quinoa Waldorf Salad with Creamy Maple Vinaigrette* ($5 Dinners)
28 - Grilled Chicken
29 - Beans and Rice* (This is a staple in some homes, but I've never made it before! I'm just now learning to slightly enjoy beans, so I thought I'd give this a try. I don't have a recipe, so if you have one to recommend, I'd love it! Actually I just found one here!)
30 - Huevos Rancheros* (Just going to make this one up too, I think)

That's a meal for every day...which I can tell you is never going to happen! Unfortunately, I didn't take into consideration much of what we have in our pantry/freezer/what ingredients are required for the recipes because ... while making this I had a big puppy who thinks he's a little puppy get scared of the thunderstorm and plop down right on my lap. This inhibited my menu planning just a tad. So the menu is subject to much much change.

September

I recently read an article in Woman's Day magazine that talked about how September should begin our calendar year, rather than January. I whole-heartedly agree. The school calendar dictates so much of our lives for so many years!

Kody and I are entering year II where we're not controlled by a school calendar, but we still see it all around us. Friends going back to graduate school, teacher friends preparing their classrooms, school supply advertisements all over the place.

It's a fresh start and new beginning for many. A time to set new goals and reevaluate life. Since I didn't officially make any New Year's resolutions, I decided to make a short list a few things I hope to accomplish in the last few months of 2010.

1) Read one book per month - Might not sound too difficult, but considering I've read about three pages of two books during the summer, I've got some work to do. I really enjoy reading, but I need to make a concerted effort to make time. Up this month - Francis Chan's "Crazy Love" (Sorry Sara, I still haven't finished it!).

2) Get a library membership - This goes along with the book goal. Kody and I loved using the Bourbonnais Public Library when we lived there, but weren't able to sign up for a membership up here because we lived too far out of town. Now that we're in town, we can use it! Time to get reading!

3) Use my new kitchen appliances and blog about it - I recently acquired a food processor and juicer from my Nana and a bread maker from sister-in-law Bethany! I'm so excited about them, but now need to put them to work! I've used the food processor three times and it was amazing, but now I need to try out the others. Homemade cinnamon rolls in the bread maker are on the agenda!

4) Send one letter/cookies/goodies package to a friend/family member each month - I know how fun it is to receive surprise goodies in the mail from friends and I need to reciprocate!

5) Make a monthly meal plan, share it on the blog, and stick to it! - I did this in August and it worked so well! So nice to always know what I'm making for dinner!

6) Use cash for grocery budget and stay within my budget - I've been consistently going over our budget recently ... or since we began a budget ... but I've tried cash for the past two months and it has worked so much better! I even have $14 left for this month and no grocery trips planned or necessary!

7) Bump up the coupon usage - I've been slacking recently, but a friend recently sent me a coupon cheat sheet that gave me a few new resources and motivated me to get back into it. My last grocery trip was so fun! I'm not getting $100 worth of groceries for $10, but I've been able to save at least 50% by combining sales and coupons and staying within my budget!

8) Get back into a running routine - While I was training for the half marathon I got into a really good routine and now I need to jump back in. It worked best to run when Kody was at work or gone for the night. I'm hoping to get running again on Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays and possibly one morning per week. But let's be real - the morning thing probably won't ever happen.

9) Make a point to greet Kody first when getting home - It's so easy to either continue cooking or doing laundry or whatever I'm doing and not purposefully stop and greet my hubby when he comes home (or when I'm coming home). I've heard this is important for successful marriages and I need to do a better job of it. Goal is to try to beat Noodles to the punch, although he has the "great hearing" advantage that he can hear Kody while he's still outside!

10) Memorize a Bible verse per month - I'm terrible at this. Don't really ever do it. So I'm going to give it a try for these months and see if I can get a few verses down. Maybe Kod and I can even make it a competition!

I've already got a few of these under my belt! Last Saturday I signed up for a library card! Yay! Haven't used it yet, but maybe I'll get a book on tape for an upcoming road trip. I've also been reading for about 20 minutes before going to bed for the past few nights, used my food processor and got $0.50 Ziplock freezer bags and plastic lunch containers using coupons at Meijer earlier this week (but I didn't use cash)!

Hellloooo!

HELLOOO!!!!

Hope you're having a wonderful week!!

Slackin'

Sorry I've been slacking on the blog so much lately! I used to think in terms of "this'll be great to put this on the blog" or "gotta take this picture for the blog." Unfortunately, the newness has worn off and here I am slacking.

Here's a few pics of what we've been up to recently!

Taking Noodles down to the river when Olivet friends Austin and Amber came to visit for the weekend.

Our puppy has grown to a handsome, large (and getting much larger) dog.

Quality time with our pups.

Noodles got his first crush on Payton (Austin and Amber's yellow lab) and had a blast playing non-stop all weekend.

We got a piano! Thanks to my Nana and Gramps, we are now the proud owners of a beautiful piano that Kody has LOVED playing.

My parents visited for the 4th of July and we enjoyed a Chicago Cubs baseball game.


And we just got back from visiting Kody's brother and sister-in-law at their new home in Tennessee! It was beautiful down there and so much fun to see Kacey and Bethany, who is 7 months pregnant! I got to attend a birthing class with her. If you need to know anything about the cesarean sections or pain control during the birthing process, come to me. Unfortunately, this is the only picture we took all weekend!