Emma Kate

Emma Kate,

I have had the privilege to stay home with you for the past 3 years. A month ago I decided to go back to work more on a full time basis and you are now in school 3 days one week and 4 days the next. However, today I get to stay home with you again and take a breath to just be your mommy. We started the day snuggling and talking about how you are not a baby anymore but my big girl. You loved listening to me list all the things you can do now that you could not as a baby. We said things like "now you can walk and you used to be able to only scoot, now you can drink out of a big girl cup and you used to only be able to drink out of a bottle, now you eat everything and you used to only to have milk" and the list went on and on! I am so proud of you and the little big girl you have become.

You have quite the imagination and talk non stop. When I say you talk non stop.....that is EXACTLY what I mean :) A few nights ago as you were praying you said " God I know in the past that I have told you I just want to be a mommy but I changed my mind. I still want to be a mommy when I am 20 but then I want to be a doctor when I am 60. I want to do both ok????" When you were talking to Ms. Sandy yesterday you decided that you and Kae Kae could open a practice together but you would need to wear gloves before you helped the patients. Last night you decided our living room floor was the ocean and you proceeded to jump from the chair to into the ocean while holding your nose. You just came into the room with your bathing suit on and told me you were going to the ocean again and needed me to blow up your floats.

You did not think a lot about your school but it has grown on you and now you love it. You have a lot of friends there and really like Ms. Marie. On Friday you get your face painted so you have asked me if you go for a little while today to do that. Your most favorite thing to do right now is go to the pool. You have come a long way this summer in your love for the pool. You now can jump off the side all by yourself and LOVE IT when mommy and daddy throw you in from the side. Your second most favorite thing is going to get ice cream after dinner. You had only been awake for a few minuets when you started negotiating with daddy about getting ice cream when he came home from work today.

Your mommy and daddy love you very much Miss Emma Kate McKenzie and count it our highest calling to get to be your parents.

Some Random Thoughts

I am currently at the beach with my entire family enjoying a week in the sun! We are staying in a beautiful house living a life of leisure. Due to the unhurried pace of the last few days I have had time just to sit back and reflect on the last few months. Here are my thoughts:

1. I am thankful.

• I am thankful I have friends who love me well and will take me in on a moments notice.
• I am thankful I have friends who will pray for me and will hold me accountable to the right standard not just the easy one.
• I am thankful that I serve a God who loves me and knows me and meets me right where I am.
• I am thankful I serve a God who sometimes gives me clear answers and direction.
• I am thankful that I serve a God who more often just whispers for me to fix my eyes on Him and trust that He is good.
• I am thankful for the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of someone who I love dearly. I have seen them become a completely new person and love as Christ loves the church.
• I am thankful that God has proven Himself faithful to me time and time again.
• I am thankful for the sweet friendships that God allowed me to have in MS and know that some of them will last a lifetime and not just for a season.
• I am thankful for the men that God has placed in my husbands life.
• I am thankful for restoration.
• I am thankful for a God who indeed makes all things new.

2. I am excited.

• I am excited about moving into our new home when we get back.
• I am excited about starting over again in our new state.
• I am excited about getting plugged into our new church.
• I am excited about having my family under the same roof again.
• I am excited to enter into a new decade (my 30's) in a few more days.
• I am excited about my husband's new job.

3. I am anxious.

• I am anxious about the possibility of working full time. I have been offered 3 full time jobs in the last month. This last one is exactly what I want to do long term but would mean that Emma Kate would have to in daycare 5 days a week instead of 3. I am torn about what to do. My heart's desire is to be a stay at home mom and nurture Emma as long as can. I know that I am the only mommy that she will ever have but my company has plenty of people to do the this job. However, I am still torn. Is it an opportunity that I am supposed to take? I was not looking for it...it found me. Or is this just another time that God is asking me to trust Him.
• I am anxious about history repeating itself. In the end if it does then I know I will be ok. God has been faithful to me time and time again. I have no reason to doubt He will not be faithful to me again. He is my strong tower. My Prince of Peace. The Unchanging One.

Getting the hang of couponing!

Over the last 6 months I have really been trying to figure out the whole cutting coupons thing! In the past I had dabbled in them and used them if I remembered, but now I am cutting with a purpose! In the past I cut them because I thought it was fun to save a few dollars here and there but now I have a whole new perspective. I spend the time going to couponing sites and cutting/organizing coupons mainly because I want to be a good steward of the money God gives me. It has been so much fun over the last few months seeing my saving increase. This year I even downloaded an Excel spreadsheet so I can track what I save on each of my visits. For the month of January I saved $285.91 using coupons which was 38.5% savings for the month. My goal is to save a minimum of 50% off my bill for the month.

It takes a little bit to get the hang of the whole couponing thing. You have to figure out what stores accept what coupons, who doubles, where can you stack, etc but in the end it is well worth it. For me anyway it has been worth the $285.91 that was saved last month! For example take my Target trip today. Today I saved $31.33 at Target and received 4 things FREE!

How did I do this???? I am glad you asked! The first thing I did was look at my favorite sites. My personal favorite are:
www.hip2save.com
www.couponingtodisney.com
www.faithfulprovisions.com

These ladies work so hard and do a great job to help me save money. They each have Target post about what is on sale this week and the best coupons to use. I read thru each of them and then figured out which coupons I had. I made my list, gathered all my coupons, and headed to Target. Now, all together I probably spent around 30-45 minuets doing the above. That is a good chuck of time but you could also look at it like I paid myself $31.33 for less then an hours work! I had coupons for everything I bought except the pink marshmallows that were thrown in for my 3 year old (not pictured)!



My total before coupons was 47.55
After all my coupons $14.22

My free items were:

• Double Stuff Oreos (I became a fan on facebook when they were having a special promotion so they sent me 3 FREE coupons)
• Olay Body Wash (In Sunday's Paper there was a coupon for buy Venus razor get Olay body wash for free)
• Venus razor- This normally cost 9.99 but Target had them on sale for $6.99. I had a Target coupon for $4.00 off and then a manufacturing coupon for $2.00 which dropped the price down to .99. However, I had an overage of .99 on something else I bought so that made the razor FREE!
• Herbal Essence hair gel(Sunday's paper had a buy a Herbal Essence shampoo, conditioner, or styler and get a styler product for free. This coupon did not have "excludes trail sizes on it so I purchased a .97 cent travel size conditioner and got the styler which normally cost $2.99 for FREE!

Items I had to pay something for:

• Johnsons Bubble Bath and Body Wash is normally $4.39 I paid $1.39! I had a $2.00 Target coupon and a $1.00 manufacturing coupon
• Pedisure Nutripal drink is normally $4.99 I paid $1.99! I had a $3.00 off manufacturing coupon.
• Boost Kid Nutrition 6 pack chocolate milk is normally $9.79 I paid $4.79! I had a $3.00 Target coupon and a $2.00 manufacturing coupon. I almost did not get it because that is still a lot to pay out of pocket but since it has immunity boosters in it and my child LOVES some chocolate milk I decided it really was just .79 a drink so that was not to bad.
• Post It Notes are normally $2.59. I paid $.59! I had a $1.00 off Target coupon and a $1.00 of manufacturing coupon.
• The Aqua-Fresh Toothpaste came from WalGreens not Target. It is normally $2.19. I paid .24 cents! WalGreens has in store coupon making it .99 cents and then I had a manufactoring coupon for an additonal .75 cents off!

The simple breakdown is I paid around $9.00 for everything in the picture! In my opinion it was well worth my time! I am excited about continuing to learn how to navigate this coupon world and everyday becoming a better steward of God has entrusted my family with.

Bear Hunt

From the mouth of a 3 year old

Here are just a few of the conversations I have had with Emma Kate over the last 24 hours.

Emma: Mommy go do your Bible Study and I will go do mine.
Me: Emma you can not read so you need mommy to help you do your Bible Study.
Emma: Mommy I know how to talk to God. I do not need your help. I am just going to tell Him something I already know about him like you know how he made everything. Then I am going to sing. I do not need your help. Now you go talk to God and leave me alone!


Emma: Mommy I dropped my princess shoes and want to be a princess so can you get them for me?
Me: I will get your shoes for you baby but guess what? Did you know you are princess because you have a kind heart not just because you have princess shoes.
Emma: I know that mommy but the princess shoes help too!

Emma has to take 100 things with her when we go somewhere. Her stash normally includes 3 purses and a wallet and then several loose things in her hands. Today when were leaving to go to Starbucks she had her cell phone, a calculator, and a bracelet. I told her that she could only take 2 things so she needed to decide what would stay here. She then proceeded to put her bracelet on her wrist and said "Now I only have 2 things in my hand mommy but I get to take all 3 with me."

Walking thru the Word...Catching Up

I have decided it is WAY TO HARD to try to get all my Bible Study in for the day AND write about all of it on the blog! So moving forward I am just going to hit the highlights of what I learned/thought was interesting. I have read Gen. 27-35, Psalms 11-15, Matt. 5:13-6:24, and Acts 7-8

The Gen. section is all about Jacob, who happens to be one of my favorite characters in the OT. I love him because he wrestled with God and taught me it was ok to do the same! I love the fact that I can ask God anything I want and He is big enough to handle it. It has given me great freedom in my walk with Him once I understood it is ok to ask Him "why". He can handle me telling Him that I don't understand and quiet frankly do not like His plan! God does not have an ego problem and is not turned off by our questions to Him or about Him.

Psalms 11:7 "For the Lord is righteous, He loves justice; upright men will see His face."
I loved how this verse went along with the whole theme of wrestling with God. Regardless of what are questions are to God, we ALWAYS have to go back to His righteousness. When I am in the middle of a wrestling match I think of and say aloud to God Dan. 9:14 "The Lord did not hesitate to bring the disaster upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in everything He does." Even when I don't understand or even agree I can rest in the fact that indeed my God is righteous in EVERYTHING He does.

Matt. 5:13-6:24: In these verses God calls me to be salt and light. The thing about salt and light is they will ALWAYS change their surroundings. He then really steps on my toes and calls me to love my enemies. Can I just tell you that is a TOUGH TOUGH thing to do! He even goes as far to say that "even pagans love those who love them". I have by no means got the whole "love your enemies" thing down. But I do know the more I pray for my enemies the more I start to see them thru the lenses of Christ love and not my hurt.

Acts 7 & 8: Acts 7 gives us a great overview of the Old Testament. Acts 8 is just crazy to me. v. 39 "When they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away and the eunuch did not see him again but went on his way rejoicing." WHAT??? Phillip just disappeared...and then later it says in v. 40 "Phillip however appeared at Azotus and traveled about , preaching the gospel in the towns until he reached Caesarea." So then scripture just causally tells us that Phillip reappeared at so and so and went on with his life! That is some crazy stuff.

Beauty Shop

One of Emma's new loves is to play "beauty shop". Emma becomes "the lady" and you have to call to make an appointment because she is so busy. After you view the pictures you will understand why people stand in line a long time to get their hair done by her! Our good friends Ms. Sandy and Kae Kae came for a visit earlier this week and both got their hair done by "the lady" You know someone has to love your child very much to allow the torture they both went through!

Thanks for coming to visit Ms. Sandy and Kae Kae. We love you and are so thankful for your friendship!