Our New Pastor

Our church has been without a pastor since May of this year.  Finally after 6 months of anxiously waiting and praying, God has sent us a man and his family to lead our church.  The funny thing is he was a youth minister here 16 years ago, and now has come back to serve once again.  Bro. Will Sherman and his family are here and are doing an excellent job.  He loves the church, the community, and has just fit right in.

To welcome him the church had a "Get to Know the Pastor" get together the Saturday night before he came in view of a call.  It was a nice fellowship and a wonderful time of just being together as a church family.

Little man hanging on Mama

Food table!

Sorry about the poor quality of pictures, I have misplaced the card to my SLR and so my small point and shoot was all I had at the time. . . Let's just say there is a reason I don't use it that often.

Mr. Man has been growing steadily and is now 14 months old!  I cannot believe that.  If I think about it too long it makes me sad.  He is getting smarter and more aware of his surroundings every single day.  We are still hanging on to two naps a day at times, but just by the skin of our teeth.  We have also learned how to throw fits, like screaming bloody murder fits, so if anyone knows how to combat those please leave me some love lol.  

I am enjoying being a stay at home mommy all the more now.  It really has been such a sweet time for myself as a woman, wife, mom, and daughter of the King.  I have learned so much and grown even more in my walk with the Lord, something I attribute to the time I do have to pursue the things I love.  

Photo Card

Monogram Damask Christmas

This season, send Christmas cards personalized with family photos.

View the entire collection of cards.

I'm Going to Miss This

So it has been a pretty big gap in between posts lately.  I guess I just haven't been feeling the bloggin' vibe.  That and for the most part it seems as if our days kind of are all the same, so why would that be any fun for anyone to read.  However, I ALWAYS enjoy going back and reading old posts and seeing how God has worked everything out for good.  This made me realize that even if I don't feel like blogging or my life seems monotonous I am one day going to look back and miss this.  I want to remember this special time in our lives when Reid is so little and the only one, when we are trusting God with everything we have, when I am enjoying the youth kids, I am going to look back and say "These were some of the best years and I didn't even know it."

I haven't really been up to a lot besides just chasing around a toddler who is getting faster by the day!  It really is true, how once the babes learn how to walk, they just take off!  It is seriously like someone flips a switch and they decide "Hey this is a better way to get around!"  We have also been reading A LOT of books!  He actually has a clear favorite, I believe it is called "Where's Spot"  (I should know, I read it about 50 times a day!) and it is a classic "lift the flap" book!  He loves it and will thrust it in mine or Mark's face time and time again to read it to him.  He is also having tons of fun with all of his toys from his birthday, especially the ball pit ;).

Here are a few of the things I don't want to forget about Reid at 13 months

• His infectious giggle!  I have never been around a happier baby, one who laughs so easily.  
• All the words he can say!  Mama, Dada, Bite-bite, MMMmm, Ball, Yea, Please (sign language), Night night, car noises.  His vocabulary is slowly but surely getting bigger.
• The way he holds his hands out right above his waste to balance himself as he toddles back and forth from one room to the next
• How he licks (yes licks, don't ask why, I am not sure) every ball he plays with
• He loves to go on a walk with Mom or a run with Dad, we enjoy talking to him on these special outings,
• He is now forward facing and has 6 teeth, the front four and bottom two!  So cute!  I think he is cutting more as I type, he has been slightly cranky.  
• His precious squeal when you chase him.  It is his favorite game at the moment and he will play with ANYONE who is willing.
• He loves climbing up stairs!
• He eats a banana and eggs for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, and then whatever we are all having for dinner.  The boy loves goldfish crackers, mini club crackers, and anything sweet for a snack.
• I think we are now totally on whole milk, no more putting formula in there with it!  
• I love how he makes noises with his finger and his lip when we are changing him, daddy taught him that!  
• We are practicing blanket time and are up to three minutes! Woohoo.

These are just a few of the many things I do not want to ever forget about this precious guy.  He is so sweet, and SO MUCH FUN.  I know he was meant to be ours, and am so thankful for him every day!  I pray for him and for us that he will grow up to be a Godly man who loves and follows the Lord.  

Lastly I leave you with a few pictures my aunt took of my giant family!  She is great!  If you need a photographer in the East Texas area she is the one to get.  She recently opened her own studio as well! Check her out at www.loriiveyphotography.blogspot.com

No Cut Chicken Spaghetti! Yummy!

Hello friends!  Today I thought I would share with you one of my family's favorite meals.  If any of you know my mother, you know she doesn't like to cook.  Consequently I never quite learned how to "love" being in the kitchen.  Since I have started staying at home this is beginning to change.  I digress.  Anyway, one meal my mother can make and makes WELL is chicken spaghetti!  Her recipe is extra cheesy and delicious, and the best part of it all is that you don't have to cut up anything!  Here is what you will need. . . (Caution, this is probably not on the healthiest side of things lol)

2-3 lbs chicken

8 oz velveeta cheese

8 oz cream cheese

1 can cream of mushroom 

1 can cream of celery 

1 can cream of chicken

16 oz of spaghetti noodles

To begin you need a large pot filled with water so that it will cover all the chicken.  Start heating your water to boiling so you can stick your chicken in there to boil it. 

If you don't have one of these you need one!  It is a stone that doesn't let your water  boil over!  I found one at Bed Bath and Beyond!  Best $4 ever!

Once you have your water at a boil stick you chicken in the pot and let it begin to cook.  Stir occassionally.

While your chicken is buys boiling start cutting the velveeta into little squares  so it melts easier.  

A block of velveeta is usually 16 oz, just cut it in half and use the rest at a later date.

After you have done this, take out the chicken, but DON'T DRAIN THE POT!!  You are going to use the water you boiled the chicken in to boil the noodles (for flavor).  Start those on low heat.  

Take your chicken and begin tearing it off into bite size pieces.  Beware it is VERY HOT.  Have either some kitchen gloves or give it a few minutes to cool.  Set chicken aside and continue on.  

Begin heating all your soups, rotel, and cheeses.  Put the soups in first so your cheese doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot.  

Add all 3 soups

Your cream cheese

And velveeta.  You need to watch this and stir a lot so it doesn't burn.

Keep this on a low heat and stir occasionally until everything is melted into a thick creamy mixture.

Once you have done this, take the big pot that you have your noodles in and drain those out and leave the noodles in the collandar.  

Then put your melted cheese and chicken into the big pot (so everything will fit).  

 And then mix it all together.  First the chicken and cheeses, then add the noodles.

This makes a TON of food!  It is great and super easy if you are having to feed a large crowd.  It makes a 9X13 and another slightly smaller container.  It also freezes EXTREMELY WELL.  

So hopefully this hasn't been too confusing for yall.  Here is a picture of the picture of the recipe card if you would prefer to follow that.  

Reid's 1st Birthday Party: Having a Ball!

As you know, my little guy turned one last week!  The day after his actual birthday I wanted to schedule a party to celebrate with family and friends who have helped me and a my little family make it through.  The toy of choice around our home is and has been for a while balls.  Balls of any size, color, texture, you name it, our guy likes it!  So after searching on Pinterest for a while I found a party that I could kind of build off of.  You can find the link to that awesome looking party here.  *I made similar invitations to this gals party, and sent them out through e-mail*

I am glad I did this particular theme because it was SO EASY.  Balls are basically 3 dimensional circles, so we (we mostly being my mother and me, along with the occasional input from my aunt and grandmother) just cut out a bunch of circles and decorated from there.  We made a "Happy Birthday Reid" banner, a "1st Birthday" high chair banner, and a monthly banner (from pictures I had taken each month with Reid up against a certain stuffed animal).  I really think it turned out pretty good.  Sadly I don't think we got just plain pictures of all the decorations but here are a few to give you an idea. . . 

This is the high chair banner

Behind my in-laws you can see the "Happy Birthday Reid" banner.  The mantel

was decorated with his name, pictures, and balloons.

I have NO PICTURE of the monthly banner, but I am hanging it up in his room so I will take a picture of it there once it is up.  

Instead of having the traditional cake and to keep with our round theme, I decided to do cupcakes.  This was such a fun, incredibly easy, hassle free idea, that was also very cheap.  I went to Sam's and bought 2 packages of 30 cupcakes (good sized ones) for $13 a piece.  You cannot beat 60 cupcakes for under $30!  My cousin had just gotten married 2 weekends before and had cupcakes at her wedding.  My grandfather built a cupcake stand to house them all.  We borrowed the stand and my mom taped paper along the outsides of the three layers we used.  It worked out perfectly!

Didn't Mom do a great job decorating?

Big shout out to my MIL for the napkins that fit just perfectly!

I wanted Reid to have his own little cake so we went to Walmart and got one of those mini cakes and they decorated it for us on the spot!  It was great and also cheap!   We had chips and dips, icecream, drinks, I mean it was just wonderful.  I remember saying to my mom later how much it really did get pulled off, that it was actually perfect.  Here are few more pics from a very fun day.

Mr. Big 1 Year Old! 

Some of the guests

Yea for being 1!

My great great grandmother!  She is such a blessing!

This would be a ball pit my cousin got him.  It came with only 20 balls .

So she got him 250 more. . .

Can't wait until she has a kid.  It is payback ;)

Opening gifts with mommy and daddy!

Singing happy birthday!

Can you tell he is just a little loved?  And this is only 1 half of the room!

All in all, a great day!

Thank you to all who came, brought food, presents, and have been there with us through this past year. We are so blessed to have you in our lives!

Lovely

I saw this on Pinterest and just thought I would share. . .

Read about Reid: 1 Year

Right Now I should be doing plenty more things other than sitting down to blog.  However, when the boy is asleep I take the chance I have and run with it.  I cannot believe almost a whole year has gone by since he has been born.  It really feels like just yesterday he was placed in my arms after 9 long months of waiting!  The things we have been through in a whole year have been amazing too, some that I wish I could go back and relive, and others I do not care to go back and do over.  Here are some things about Reid that I want to never forget.

1.  The boy loves balls!  They are his toy of choice and it was the first word he said after "dada".  He can find one any where and wants to play with it instantly.  I love watching him be entertained by something so simple and to see his delight in it.

2.  He is now sleeping through the night quite comfortably.  We have finally reached the full 12 hour a night mark instead of 10 and for that I am SUPER grateful!  It is so nice!

3.  Reid can put away some food.  He likes most anything (berries are not his favorite.  We will work on that).  It amazes me how much he eats, it is way more than I eat that is for sure!  Some of his favorite foods are scrambled eggs, pancakes, bananas, grilled ham and cheese sandwhich, potatoes, green beans, taco meat, bread of any kind, spaghetti,  the list goes on and on!

4.  I love his little laugh.  He loves to be tickled and will giggle and squeal to let you know he is enjoying himself.  We have this silly came we play where I sit him in my lap and say "I" (while pointing to my eyes) "love" (cross my arms over my chest to make the love sign), and then I squeal "YOU!" and tickle him!  He goes crazy!

5.  There could never be a little boy who is loved more.  He has so many people around him that just want to eat him up it is crazy.  We are blessed.

6.  He is now toddling everywhere.  That just started last week!  It is crazy how one day they just decide they can do it, and go for it!

7.  He is also a strong little guy, he has muscles like you wouldn't believe.

8.  He loves to drive anything!  Going riding at noni's with poppy is one of his favorite past times.

9.  Swinging is also a blast.  There is a whole swingset set up just for him at Nana and Pops' house ready to be used whenever we are there.

10.  He is the best baby in the world!  I love how happy and joyful he is.  He brings so much to our lives, I know we will never be the same!  I pray that he loves deeply always, and follows hard after the Lord.  He is wonderful and I have been blessed by him this past year

Fun In Tyler

On labor day weekend Mark and I decided to take the whole weekend and go spend it in Tyler with my in-laws.  However, this wasn't going to be just any weekend, the whole Clifton clan (besides Blake who is a goober and decided not to come) AND their girlfriends/fiances were going to be in town!  To say this was a new experience for everyone is an understatement!  Seriously, for 4 years now I have been the only girl this family has had besides my mother-in-law, so now to have a house that had as many girls in it as boys was great!  I have to admit I was nervous about the dynamic, about how it would change, would the other girls like me, would we all mesh well etc.  What would you know, it did all come together and we all had a great time!  

Reid with his first real soon-to-be Aunt Melissa

If you could read his shirt it says "my uncle is a great catch".  Melissa is engaged to Wade Mark's oldest brother.

We got in some good reading time with Nana!

Reid with Scott and Wade, two of his many uncles!

This is Scott, Mark's second oldest brother and his girlfriend Katy

They are precious!

Wade and Melissa, love them too!

Daddy and Reid after church.

Just hanging around!

It's easy to see a good time was had by all!  I cannot believe how fast my little boy is growing up!  At the end of this week I will have a stinkin' 1 year old!  Where has the time gone?!?  Tell me does putting a book on his head make him stop growing up?

A Saturday Ramble

Wow I know it has been a while.  A lot has been happening and yet nothing has been happening all at the same time.  And to make things even harder our camera's cf card keeps tearing up the card reader, so now I have to get a new CF (old school style memry card) card AND a new card reader!  Grr!!  If anyone has one of these that they no longer use and would like to donate to the cause, I will gladly send you my address!

Our little man is steadily growing and showing us just how big and smart he is.  You can ask him where your nose is and he will point to it on your face, we ask him "Reid, how old are you?" and he will hold up 1 finger most of the time, he says "Dada, Mama, Night Night, Bite, Bubba, Baby" and laughs SO MUCH!  He keeps us on our toes that is for sure.  He is learning the meaning on "No touch" more and more, eating like a champ (we put whole milk in his sippie for the first time today, the kid loved it!), loves going to football games, is standing and can stand up in the middle of the floor unassisted as well as take a few steps.  I think he could walk is he wanted to, but crawling is still too fast right now.  He loves to pull up on my legs behind me and me grab his hands while he follows me around.  He claps for himself after he has done something right, loves to ride anything that has a motor, LOVES balls of any kind, and is all around just a super happy baby.  We are so blessed to have such a fun loving little guy in our lives.  God is good!

We are also getting closer and closer to his first birthday.  You don't know how sad that makes me, my baby is not really a baby anymore.  He is such a big boy, one who is too on the go for much cuddle time with Mama.  I know I had a hard time in the beginning, but I would give almost anything to go back to those early days when he was about 1-3 months old and just sit there and cuddle with him.  Never to be :(.  I am excited to see how much more he is going to learn the older he gets, and realizing what a blessing I have to be able to stay at home with him and teach him.

I have been struggling to recover my homemaking skills since the end of summer activities.  I am needing to get back into a routine (I am desperately missing this) for cleaning, shopping, cooking etc.  I am hoping after this next weekend to get much better.  My cousin is getting married on saturday, so I know there will be many new things cropping up this week that we do not normally have.  I am excited about her wedding, her marriage, and helping her celebrate!  It is going to be the fanciest wedding I have been too that is for sure.

Ok now that I have rambled your ear (or eyes) I promise I will have something more to say next time you hear from me.

Puppy Love (Had to Delete This Post)

So I had to delete this post because of some complications, but it is back again.  It was written sometime during November 2008.  Just didn't want to lose it, but couldn't put it back in the same spot.

So this past week was Thanksgiving and we had a lot of fun and a lot of driving to do!  We ended up going to Tyler on Tuesday night to be there so Mark could go and observe at a physical therapy place.  He really really enjoyed it and has pretty much decided this is what he is wanting to pursue as his career, which is very cool!  Now it is just a matter of getting into the classes!  So on Wednesday his mother and I just enjoyed the day together by going shopping and making Christmas pillows!!  This is a stretch for me considering my homemaking skills are virtually non-existent.  They turned out pretty good, with most of the credit going to Edith!

Thursday morning started off early with us heading out at 7 AM for Bryan for lunch with the Cliftons.  It was a long drive but we finally made it!  I got a chance to meet some family members that were unable to be at the wedding, and I have never met before.  It was nice just getting to know a new family, but I definitely missed my family back at home.  This was the first holiday away, and it was much harder than I had anticipated.  I didn't think it would be that big of a deal, or effect me as much as it did, but it was still all good.  We ate, sat around and talked some, and then headed back to Tyler just to get out of one car to go straight into another one and make the hour and fifteen minute drive back to Harleton to catch leftovers from lunch with my family.  I enjoyed getting to see everyone and was glad they had a good Thanksgiving.

Another recent happening is Mark and I have a puppy!  We got a miniature Shih tzu who is about 9 weeks and around just 1 pound.  He will end up at 3 pounds, but shouldn't become any bigger!  He is just adorable and I am definitely in love, and guess what. . . so is Mark!  I love it!  He loves him just as much as I do, and shows it.  My dad is allergic to just about everything, including most things with fur, so needless to say, dogs aren't his favorite animals!  I tell him he looks so cute to me when he plays with Gizmo, which is what we named him!  Unfortunately, there is a no pets rule here at ETBU, like it goes as far as no fish, so we cannot keep him with us constantly.  My Noni has offered to keep him for us until we are in a place of that will let us have one!  Such as great grandmother I know!  I will try to get a more pics, but here are a few:-)