We really scream for CHEAP ice cream!

Want to know what works for me?

Nearly free ice cream!

Wednesday, April 27th is 31¢ scoop night at Baskin Robbins.

I will probably let my kids get 2 or 3 scoops!

And I may even call it dinner!

Find more Works For Me Wednesday here.

Can't Stay Clean!

We were out of town over the weekend and our puppy Madeline had her first stay at the vet kennel. After picking her up this morning I gave her a bath, brushed and blew dry her massive amounts of fluffy fur.

So you can imagine my surprise just a few hours later (5 minutes after my kids asked if they could try out the new water guns they got in their Easter baskets) when I walked outside to see this!


The kids had apparently had a fine time squirting the dog and she'd had a fine time helping them refill at the faucet and then wildly rolling in the dirt of a nearby flower bed!

There was nothing I could do except bathe her again (and perhaps whine and moan a bit about it, which I did, too)!

My own hair did not get blown dry today. I had to settle for an air-dry. Why? Because I didn't have time to blow it dry.

The dog, however, got 2 baths and 2 blow dries!

Good thing I actually missed the little rascal while we were gone! Yep, I dropped her off the night before we left since we needed to get away early the next morning, and it wasn't 5 minutes before I missed that puppy that drives me so crazy!

What did you tackle today or re-tackle?

Find more Gratituesday and Tackle it Tuesday, Wordful Wednesday, Wordless Wednesday, & Not So Wordless Wednesday.

Not Our Referral, But Still Exciting News!

My 5 year old daughter came home from school today wearing a tooth necklace with her first tooth she's lost inside! She has been wiggling and wiggling her loose tooth for weeks, so excited for it to fall out, and today it finally did! And to make it all the more exciting, it happened at school and when kids lose teeth at our elementary the teacher sends them to the nurse who gives them a tooth necklace, kind of a tooth locket, that they snap their lost tooth inside and wear it around their neck the rest of the day!

My 2nd grader has talked about the tooth necklace many times during his 3 years of elementary and this year my kindergartener has talked about it a lot, too, but we've never gotten one to come home to our house before because all my 8 year old's lost teeth have been at home!


And then there were excited conversations about the tooth fairy. My daughter said, "I wish I could see the tooth fairy. I want to see if she's small like a fairy or big like a person. I know she's a girl. The tooth fairy has to be a girl! I want to see what color hair she has and what color skin and what clothes she wears and if she has earrings."

When she put her tooth in her tooth fairy pillow and under her pillow, she insisted on including this note:

Note reads: "Dear Tooth Fairy this is my first tooth."

I think she's lobbying for extra money!!

______________


And for even more exciting news there's this:


Oh yes He is! And that is amazing news to be celebrated every day!

______________

I got some candy and a water gun to fill each of my kids' Easter baskets, and I was going to get them a bigger present, like a Barbie or Lego toy, because that's what we typically do for the Easter baskets. But, I didn't actually get around to buying the slightly bigger gift for the baskets, and then I got to thinking, "Why am I stressing about buying my kids gifts for Easter, it's not like they died on the cross for my sins and rose from the grave on the 3rd day sealing my fate for eternal life with God if only I choose to believe?"

I ran the issue by my husband and we decided for our kids' Easter present we'd give 5 ducks and 3 rabbits to children with true need! We donated the animals through World Vision and I was even able to print cards out for my kids with a sweet picture of a child holding a bunny and a child holding a duck. I'm so excited about this Easter present!

______________

Happy Easter!

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Any Guesses?

The day my older kids filled my 3rd child's crib with tons of random stuff during naptime was admittedly not my finest parenting moment, but a pretty funny memory none the less!



As that toddler in the picture approaches 4 years old, it feels like it has been so long since we've had a crib set up in our house (going on 2 years), but before that it was set up constantly for the previous 6 years straight. The day the crib came down was bittersweet, the end of a busy, blessed era. We still have that crib in the attic, and throughout this adoption wait we've wondered if we'd need to set it up again or if we'll be matched with a child old enough for a big bed. We truly will be thrilled either way, people don't believe it when I say I don't have a preference infant or toddler, but there are pros and cons to either!

We are keeping the faith that we will get our adoption referral soon (we're just learning to re-define the word "soon"), but in the mean time I thought it might be fun to log some guesses. Anyone want to guess how old the little girl in our referral will be? Remember we are requesting a girl anywhere between the ages of 0 to 30 months.

Find more Thankful Thursday here.

What if?

Have you heard this new song from Laura Story? It's awesome! And the lyrics are amazing!

As so many of us wait longing to bring home the children we're adopting, this line resonates with me, "What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy?"

When you look back over your life, haven't you seen great blessings come from the rain, the hard situations, the things you just never would have chosen for yourself?

But God in His infinite wisdom and mercy chose them for you.

"What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know you're near?"

What if?

Whatever hardships, difficulties, anguish you're having, I'd be willing to bet God's going to do something amazing with it all, if you'll let Him. And by amazing I don't necessarily mean something that is going to make your life easier or more comfortable, but something that will bring Him glory and in the process bless you more than anything you could imagine for yourself.


P.S. I have no idea why I'm using the word "you" here in this post, it should be "me"; I'm preaching this message to myself tonight!

It's empty!!

I can't wait to show you this. It is something that has not existed in our house in a long, long time!

My in-box (the one on the top) is empty!



Remember what it used to look like?


So how did I tackle it?

Well, unfortunately there was no secret trick. I had to go through each item one by one and toss it, file it, put it away where it went, act on it (as in RSVP to it, mark it on the calendar, sign and send to school, pay it, mail it, call with a question about it, schedule the appointment the reminder card was to remind me of, etc.) or in the case of a catalog, resist the urge to sit down and thumb through it!

So, it was not fun, but so worth it! And it got easier because as I got closer to the bottom of the stack, most of the papers were so old they related to an event that has long passed so they were easy to throw away. It's great to be free from the nagging feeling of that pile and worrying there was something urgent in there.

I'm hoping the pain of the cleaning out process helps motivate me to tackle this little chore daily when it's just that, a little chore!


Find more Gratituesday and Tackle it Tuesday

Good, Better, Best!

Coloring Easter eggs is a good thing about Eastertime!


Even better? An Easter basket that doubles as a purse!


But the very, very best thing about Easter is a savior who died on the cross for my sins and yours and rose from the dead that first Easter morning! Jesus is alive! And through Him we can have eternal life with God.

1 Peter 1:3-4
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,"