Looking back and forward

Today is 1/1/11, pretty neat. As I think back on 2010 I am amazed at what God brought our way. We had some major changes happen. The biggest being moving back to Memphis. We did not see that one coming at all! I was reading through my blogs recently from last year and read the one I did just about a year ago and I said in there that we will see what God has in store for us because it seems like we always look back and say, "wow didn't see that coming" after that post about a month later we gave the news to our families that we were moving back. It was a wonderful decision and we are so truly blessed to be back. God yet again, like I'm shocked or something, watched out for us. I was still working in St. Joe and bringing Amber to work. It was pretty stressful doing that. I was stressed working there even without her. I honestly didn't know how long it was going to work and was really worried because I needed to work to make ends meet. Ricky wasn't happy with the ways things were turning out at his place of employment and didn't see a great future there either. So he started applying for jobs and just randomly applied for the Commercial Appeal. And here we are back in Memphis. :) So we moved back in March, sold our house in June, celebrated Amber's first birthday at the beginning of August, and bought our house here at the end of August! Phew! God answered prayers along the way, I didn't have to work anymore, we didn't lose money on selling our house, and we got a great deal on the house we are in now! To God be all the glory!

Looking forward now, I have goals and plans of my own and I'm also excited to look back a year from now and say wow look what God did! Things I would like to accomplish this year is to read the bible through and to stick with it in a year. I started last year and sadly I only made it to March I think. Well, its a new year and today is the first day so when I'm done with this I need to read the first one. Its the chronological Bible and I pray I don't get behind, that is what really hurts ya. I have plans to hopefully read 4 books this year. I know some of you are probably thinking JUST 4?!? I am a slow reader and I don't always read every day. So yes 4 books, that will be good for me. I'm currently reading "Dare to Discipline" by Dr. James Dobson. I have also started reading "Bringing up Girls" also by Dr. James Dobson.  The next book I want to read is "Radical" by David Platt. I have heard a lot of good things about this book so I'm excited to read that one. Lastly, its a fun book that was on sale really cheap so I went ahead and bought it even though we don't own a minivan :) "Date Night in a Minivan".

I also want to redo the bathrooms in our house. No major construction just things we can handle. Both bathrooms have shower doors. I CAN'T STAND shower doors. So they will be torn down. Amber's bathroom is going to be a blue and brown theme b/c the tile in there is blue so we are going to paint the walls a brown color. As for our bathroom the shower doors will be taken down and the walls will be painted and I'm hoping to lay some laminate wood flooring down in ours. The tile that is in there looks dirty and its not. Its like they put some grout on the floor and didn't get it up so now it looks dirty all the time. So I'm thinking some sort of green color on the walls and then we would just lay the floor right over the existing floor so it shouldn't be to hard.

This year we will be celebrating Ricky's 30th birthday, Amber's 2nd birthday and our 7 year anniversary! What fun!

Dare To Discipline

Amber is really coming into her personality! I can't figure out yet if I have a strong willed child on my hands. I think if I truly did I would already know it! She just likes to test the limits at times. I want to read the book Strong Willed Child by Dr. James Dobson. For now though I'm reading a book that my mom read when I was about Amber's age called Dare to Discipline by Dr. James Dobson. In fact it is the exact book my mom read, very retro 70's looking. I have enjoyed it so far and have learned a lot from it already. One of my pet peeves with parents is their inconsistency with disciplining. That is how your child becomes spoiled, or rude, or sneeky, or strong willed. Not saying that kids aren't going to be like that and try to be like that but sometimes if the parent hadn't given up or in so easily then they wouldn't be in the pickle that they are in. I have witnessed first hand of mothers saying no to there kids a couple of times and then not 10 min. later are just too tired to deal with it so the child gets away with whatever they are doing. I just pray that I stay consistent with Amber, that it is a habit for me, comes second nature, that I don't even have to think about it.

Ok ok I'll get off my soap box now. There is something I read in the book the other day that really stood out to me and it said, "Immediate reinforcement is the most useful technique available to parents in teaching responsibility to their children. Parents often complain about the irresponsibility of their youngsters, yet they fail to realize that this lack of industriousness has been learned. All human behavior is learned--the desirable and the undesirable responses." I just thought that was very interesting to really think about. So if it is a praise or a correction to Amber I pray that it is immediate.  Like I said I'm not that far into the book, not even half way, and I have learned a lot, so check it out!

Can't you tell that this book is dated :) The new ones look totally different on the front now. 

Christmas Favorites

I have been enjoying decorating my house for Christmas this year especially, since this is a new house so it is fun to figure out where everything will be going. As I was doing some decorating today I realized that I have a few favorites during this season. 

We have a fake tree, so to burn this is amazing! It smells like a real tree and the scent is very strong! I love it! 

As of now we only have one Christmas card to display (thanks to Stacey, Ryan and Eleanor Hays!!) but I love displaying them. This year I bought some garland but its made out of wire completely and it has holly berries and leaves on it. I got some pretty glittery ribbon and I will just punch a hole in the cards and tie them onto the garland. 

Love, love, love my nativity scene from Willow Tree! I love Willow Tree to begin with and when they came out with this it was on my wish list from the start. I finally got it 2 Christmas's ago. I don't have the stars that are pictured but would love to have them someday. 

Recent favorite, peppermint mocha from Starbucks! Today was a rough day with Amber (teething and runny nose) so I loaded her in the car because she loves car rides and hoping she would get some sleep and made a stop at Starbucks to make my time in the car just a little more enjoyable! :)

Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving this year was at our house. It was nice to have everyone at our house and they didn't have to travel 600 miles to see us! What a blessing to be back! We split up who cooked what so I didn't have to do all of it which made it very nice. We had lots of yummy food, and plenty of left overs. My grandfather (Papa) was even able to come. He just turned 93!!  I have also started a kind of weird tradition and it was our third year to do it. After we all eat lunch we play a game of madlibs. The story always has something to do with Thanksgiving or Christmas. Its fun because we go around the room and each person gets to choose a word. It always gets great laughs. Then after madlibs we bring our the newspaper with all the ads and let our food settle and enjoy looking at the paper. This year we also had a great time playing with the Kinect. Which I want one now! I'm really enjoying that people can come over to our house and hang out now, especially family and its not just on special holidays!!