Caught crawling. . .

Well, I need to go and buy some more track shoes. . .

JAKE IS CRAWLING!

Yesterday he was having a bout with colic and was crying pretty hard, so we put him down on the floor on his tummy with some toys thinking that would help him feel a little better, and the next thing we knew he was up and rocking and actually started moving forward a little bit. Rob and I almost cried with excitement! :) Then we moved to different places in the room and asked him to crawl to us and he did.

So my friend came over last night and I tried to get Jake to crawl to me then, and would he? NO!

Fortunately I had videoed it the first time, so I had to show her the video of course! : )

Well then, this morning I tried to get him to crawl to different toys and to me and he would move one hand and one leg and the PLOP back on his tummy and fuss.

I figured he would just do it when he felt like it. . .

And he did. What he felt like crawling to is the one thing OFF LIMITS to him - the couch where our computer and tv chords are hidden. He knows they are there and he loves them. He has been told no millions of times already and has even had his hand smacked several times. . .

Well, after his second nursing this morning, I put him down on the floor to play and what does he do??? He crawls about 5 feet to the couch and chords.

I marveled! and wondered? What could I get him to crawl to like that? He didn't get that excited or enthused to crawl to me or Rob or any of his toys, but to the one forbidden object. Kind of made me think about the garden of Eden. We truly are born in sin.

And in some ways that attitude never leaves us. I see it in myself the way I get so excited about temporal trinkets - something as minor as my favorite dessert or a good book, or song, or movie, or a big win, and yet I am not that excited about God and what He has done for me; I do not express as much disspoinment in myself when I sin and choose to serve myself rather than others as I do when my favorite team loses ( sorry to the Clemson fans, but at least they made it to the ACC. ) It's kind of like crawling to the one forbidden object when you have a floor full of toys. . . kind of like taking the one forbidden fruit, when you have all of Eden to enjoy. . .

Are you enjoying God and excited and passionate about what He is excited and passionate about? Are you crawling to Him (enjoying Eden) or crawling to the couch and chords (eating the one forbidden fruit)?

Just some thoughts. . .

German Chocolate Cookies

I promised more recipes.
Here's one of the new favorites and VERY EASY!

German Chocolate Cookies

1 box german chocolate cake mix (I'm sure a regular box of any chocolate cake would work)
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup coconut
1/2 cup chopped pecans, or walnuts
2 eggs
1/2 oil

Mix together and drop by teaspoons about 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake at 375 F for 8-10 minutes. Let cool about 1 minute before removing from cookie sheet.

THAT'S IT! ENJOY warm or cooled with a glass of milk or some coffee! (or grab two for breakfast - I know it's bad, but sometimes you gotta do what works for you.)

"Righteous requirements"

A friend and I are working on memorizing Romans 8 and I have been pretty convicted and encouraged as I seek to hide God's word in my heart and meditate on truth during the day.

Here are some things I have been thinking about based on the first four verses:
Verse 1 - "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."
So, is there a judgment of believers in Christ? The verse says "NO CONDEMNATION" If we are in Christ, God sees Christ when he looks at us. What is there to condemn? Talk about mercy! WOW!

Verse 2 - "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death"
There are two laws, two kinds of lives being compared here: 1) the law of the Spirit and 2) the law of sin and death 1) life in Christ and 2) life without Christ. If we are in Christ, there is freedom from sin and death. So, do we need to fear death? Do we need to fear judgment? Have we not been set free? If I fear, I am calling God a liar, Or I am just still not in Christ and therefore I am not free!

Verse 3 - "God has done what the law (weakened by the flesh) COULD NOT DO"
The law is incapable of saving us. Only God can do it. How?

Verse 4 - "By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh"
So, Christ came as a man and took our sin. God could then condemn sin as Christ took it on Him. (This is why there is no condemnation for those in Christ because Christ already has been condemned for us) But why did Christ have to be condemned?
"That the righteous requirement might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit"
If God requires righteousness, can I ever measure up? God does not intend for me to meet the righteous requirements of His law. They have already been met in Christ's living a perfect life. In fact, for me to attempt to meet any righteous requirements in order to gain God's love, approval, acceptance is a direct insult to God and disbelief in His word. Christ has met the requirement. God wants me to accept His provision, not seek to make my own.

In Christ's righteous life my requirement for righteousness is met.
In Christ's taking on of the sin of the world and death on the cross the condemnation for my sin is fulfilled.
It is no longer my requirement to meet or my condemnation to bear.

Have you forgotten that your requirement has already been met? Why are you serving today? Why are you obeying a command of God? Is it to meet a requirement?

There is no requirement!

I Cor 10:31 says to "do all to the glory of God". It does not say to "do all to meet the requirments of God."
There is great liberty and joy in living for His glory rather than His approval. Don't mock at His grace by seeking to add to it. Magnify His grace by remaining dependent and grateful for what He has already done!

Jakesters Journal

So, I thought I should give everyone a little update.

Jake has cut/is cutting his first two teeth. The past few evenings have been the most obviously painful for him and we have struggled to get him to settle once we put him down for the night. On Monday, I could see a little teeny slit on one side of his gum. Yesterday I could feel a tooth on that side and saw a slit on the other side. Today, I can feel two little teeth. Pretty exciting. You can see them from the top of his gum, but they aren't actually poking out above the gum YET! Since I'm nursing, I'm honestly thankful that they're not poking out yet. Hopefully he won't think I'm a teething toy. :)

One of the biggest recent accomplishments has been a change (for the WAY better) in his daily routine.
It used to be something like this:

He would wake between 5:30 and 6:00 and nurse.
Then he would nurse for the rest of day just about every 3 hours until the evening where we would manage to squeeze in two cluster feeds around 7 and 9 p.m. He nursed a total of 6 times a day.
In addition to that he ate 3 solid meals as well.
He was only going to bed at night around 8p.m. on a good night and his daytime naps would only last about 45 minutes to 1 hour. He took 3 -4 naps during the day, but they were short and did not result in a pleasant awakening. I became concerned that he was not getting enough rest and knew something needed to change.
I read an article at iVillage about babies and sleep and realized that for Jake's age (he's 7 months) he was probably not getting enough sleep. (They recommended 16 hours till 9 months of age, at which they need 13 hours. I knew it wouldn't just suddenly drop off to 13 hours at 9 months, so I decided that for Jake's age I wanted to shoot for him getting at least 14 hours of sleep.)

Firstly, I prayed for God to give me wisdom and to help me know how to help Jake. I thought that if he went to bed earlier he might actually sleep longer in the morning. I cautiously and carefully watched him for a few days to get an idea of when he was typically acting hungry or tired. The first change I made was in his evening cluster feeds and bedtime. I decided to nurse him at 6:30 p.m. and then put him down for the night at 7 p.m. His next nursing would be at 8:30 p.m. in his sleep and then not again till morning. (if we made it that far) We tried it on Thursday night. He slept till 6:35 the next morning. On Friday, I played around with feedings and naps and kept praying for wisdom. So far, it seem to be working. This is what he's been doing since Friday (although Sunday was a little bit different because of the time change and church)

6:30 Wakes and nurses
Plays
7:30 - 8:00 Breakfast (depends on when Rob gets out the door)
Reads with Mommy
8:30 - Nap
10:00 - 10:30 Wakes and nurses
Plays
Goes on a walk (weather permitting) with Mommy
12:00 eats lunch with Mommy
Reads with Mommy
1:00 Nap
2:00 - 2:30 Wakes and nurses
Plays
Bath time
4:30 Nap
5:30 Supper with family
Plays with Daddy
6:30 Nurses
7:00 Put down for the night
8:30 Fed in his sleep

NEW ROUTINE:
ONLY 5 nursings
3 square meals
sleep total = 11 + hours/ night + 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours in naps
= 14 1/2 to 15 1/2 hours
A VERY HAPPY CHILD!!
AND AN OVERJOYED MOMMY!!!!

Pictures will follow in a future post.

Redeeming recipes

Ok, so I need to place a disclaimer on yesterday's post:
I am a stay at home mom, and that definitely affects the planning I can do for meals. Also, because I stay at home we are living off of the income of only one person and therefore my contribution to the family budget is to try and be frugal when it comes to grocery buying.

The biggest and most helpful frugal change is to shop at several different stores. For convenience sake many people tend to only shop at one store and the store may "lead" you in with one or two super deals, and everything else is priced regularly or overpriced. Just shop the specials and GET OUT! :)

Anyways, I wanted to take a few posts to share some recipes with you (especially for you Kristi) that will hopefully save your wallet and your time for way more important things (like spending time with your family and spending money on some new clothes, or a family vacation, or dare I say, college savings.)

Mushroom Crockpot Chicken
4 chicken breasts
1 4 oz. can mushrooms
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup shredded mozarella, parmesan, asiago mix
1/2 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon tarragon
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons butter

Place the chicken breasts in the crockpot. Sprinkle with tarragon, salt and pepper. Pour broth over top and allow to cook on low for 7-8 hours. (i.e. all day while you are doing other things.)

About 10 minutes before time to serve dinner, melt butter in a saucepan. Add flour and stir till smooth. (Keep the heat low or you will have MAJOR ISSUES. I speak from experience. :)) Add the milk slowly to make a thick white sauce. Add cheese and stir till melted. Remove from heat.

Remove the chicken breasts from the crockpot. Add the cheese sauce to the juice and mushrooms remaining in the pot and stir until mixed well. Return the chicken to the crockpot and coat with the cheesy, mushroom sauce.

Yummy!

I usually serve with egg noodles, or angel hair and some steamed broccoli, asparagus, or green beans. A salad is yummy too!

MORE RECIPES TO COME IN THE FUTURE!

Money Saving Menu

In a previous post, I mentioned that we have been working to cut back on our grocery budget and have made several simple changes.
One of the most difficult, simple changes for me, was planning a two week menu. It is difficult for me to plan a menu for a week, so the thought of trying to plan for two weeks was a little overwhelming, but with a little practice I am learning and getting better and better at it.
Here is a two-week overview for you to give you an idea:

Breakfasts:
Oatmeal and toast
Cereal and milk
Bagels
Muffins (on Sunday morning - I mix these up the night before so we can bake them fresh on Sunday morning)
Waffles/Pancakes/Eggs (on Saturday morning)

Lunches:
Rob takes a packed lunch to work which usually consists of a sandwich (PB/J or tuna salad), fruit, and some homemade cookies. Occasionally we have a significant amount of leftovers and he gets to have leftovers for lunch. The vast majority of the time I also have a sandwich and some fruit and try to forego on the cookies.

Suppers:
Mushroom Chicken in the crockpot with pasta, steamed broccoli, and butternut squash (two meals)
Homemade Pizza (two meals)
Homemade Spaghetti sauce with pasta, Salad, and Homemade rolls (two meals)
Breakfast for supper (eggs, pancakes) (one meal)
Chili, Rice, Applesauce, Cheese and Sour cream (two meals)
Mustgo Soup (leftovers with a tomato soup base and ground beef), homemade rolls (two meals)
Sweet and Sour Meatballs, Rice, Peas (two meals)
Tuna Casserole, Salad, fruit (one meal)

The "one meal" meals I usually make on Thursdays or Saturdays. Our Sunday lunch is also our meal for Monday dinner. Then Tuesday I make a meal and we eat leftovers on Wednesday (which works great for Wednesday nights since we have a prayer service at church) Thursdays, I make a meal and we may have leftovers Friday, or we may save the leftovers for Saturday and make a meal on Friday if we have company for dinner. Sometimes we make a "one meal" meal on Thursday, and then make a "two meal" meal Friday that will have leftovers for Saturday dinner. It all depends on the week. :)

I shopped this past Saturday for milk, eggs, cheese, butternut squash (to make for Jake) and diapers as well as a box of cereal we had a coupon for. Our total spent on groceries (not toiletries or cleaning supplies) for two weeks was: $88.36, which means one week's worth of groceries cost us about: $44.18. It takes a lot of planning, but considering that we used to spend close to $100 a week on groceries, it is worth the time and effort and is an amazing improvement. :) We praise the Lord! It is only because of Him that we have been able to plan and save in this way.

The house hunt

Part of the reason I have been so bad about posting lately is that we have been house hunting. I posted awhile ago and mentioned that we had redone our entire budget and the main reason for that was to look into buying a house, but also because we're planning a trip to South Africa at Christmas and Rob is hoping to start back to school. Anyways, all that to say that we have been amazed at how much money we were wasting before. We have stopped eating fast food almost entirely and never do Starbucks anymore. We just make it at home. We do our main grocery shop every 2 weeks and just pick up milk, bread, fruit, etc. on the other weeks as we run out. Those simple changes have cut our grocery bill in half.

Anyways, we looked for several weeks at several homes. Those of you who have done this before know what it's like. The more we looked the more we learned about ourselves and what was really important to us in a home and what we could live with. We started out thinking we wanted homes in a certain area, but all the homes in that area in our price range were in need of so much work. We debated on getting a super fixer upper and I just really hesitated on the whole thing, mainly because of Jake. I felt like if it was just me and Rob camping out in one room and working on the house little by little it would be one thing, but Jake is about ready to crawl and soon he'll be learning to walk and I just didn't want to move into a home that needed so much work done when I would need to have a safe place and my attention on my son. Rob agreed with me so we started looking in other areas.

At the beginning of our search we had wanted a big yard. (We want to plant a garden.) Then as we looked we decided that that wasn't something that needed to determine whether it was the home we made an offer on or not. (We don't even have any yard equipment yet and the bigger the yard and more work it requires, the more money we'll be spending there.) There were several other things we realized as we went along.

Then we went and looked at this foreclosure home about 1 mile from Furman. It looked like somone had only lived in it for like 2 weeks. It was only a year and a half old and the only obvious signs of people having lived there was dents in the carpet where furniture had been, one black mark on one wall, and hooks where picture and curtain rods had hung. But, Rob felt like it was too far out from where we live now. So we didn't think a thing of it again. We looked at 5 or 6 more homes and we just weren't hitting our treasure chest, if you know what I mean.

Then, one Saturday I asked if we could go look at that foreclosure again. I asked our agent to find out everything he could about it. He hadn't really looked into it before because we didn't act interested. He e-mailed us Friday night and told us it was a really good price compared to the homes in the neighborhood. We went and looked at it again as critically as we could. And, we decided to make an offer. Our offer was significantly lower than the price the bank was asking and we also asked them to pay closing costs and to install a stove (since there wasn't one in the house.) Our hopes were that they would accept the offer and ask us to pay their listed price. They did.

We had a home inspection done yesterday and all the recommendations by the inspector are minor details (things like cleaning out the dryer vent and fixing the hinge on the screen door.) We are amazed at how God has directed and provided. If all goes well, we will close, Lord willing, on March 27.

We are excited to move closer to our church and to be in a neighborhood safe for me to go running and walking with Jake in. We are also thrilled to have a home with three bedrooms and hope we can host people there from time to time. We praise God for his provision for us in this way as we seek to be good stewards of what He has given us and to make wise investments.

Here is a picture of the home we will Lord willing be moving to at the end of the month. :)