Meal Planning…It’s not for sissies!

I’ve done some meal planning in my few years as a SAHM. I even tried to do it while I was working. What I learned was this: 1) Meal planning definitely saves money on grocery bills! 2) While the benefits are great, menu planning is not for sissies!

Now, you’re probably wondering why I say that. Sure it SOUNDS easy but let me tell you, it’s not quite as easy as it seems. Sitting down and writing out meals that not only are cost effective but that you also know your entire family will eat takes time. Then you take that list and make another list of all the ingredients you need for said meals. Then you have to check local supermarket adds for deals and shop for said ingredients. Then you have to stick to said menu! After trying multiple times and getting lazy about it I decided to go a different route. Why not use the resources out there and let someone else help me with my meal planning?! That’s when I found The Dinner Daily!

I mean, look at their logo…it says it right there…meal planning SIMPLIFIED! I knew this was an awesome place to start! Not only that but I am teaming up with The Dinner Daily to bring you recipes and meal planning tips! How cool is that?!

I’m going to work toward menu planning posts to go live on Mondays. That way you have the week to make your lists and get your items together for the rest of the week. This week, however, The Dinner Daily has sent over not just a recipe but a great summer cookout meal plan just in time for Father’s Day! Check it out!

The Dinner Daily is the easy to use and budget friendly dinner planning service designed by moms for moms!  Each week, subscribers are provided an easy to use one page menu chart, an organized shopping list, and links to on line coupons for items on the shopping list. Meals are kid friendly, kid tested and reviewed by a Registered Dietitian.  Subscribers can choose a menu plan based on store specials are select grocery stores or choose the Any Store option which works anywhere in the country! The Dinner Daily
is your answer to the "What's for Dinner?" Dilemma!
www.thedinnerdaily.com"

Toxic Thoughts

This week at church Pastor Tom shared a message that once again spoke very directly to my heart. I’ve gotten such a sense that God is working on things in me and He keeps reminding me in various ways. This week’s message was titled “Toxic Thoughts”. I want to share my notes with you…not only so that they might speak to your heart as well but also so I reinforce the words to my own heart and mind.

Toxic: Anything containing poisonous material that is capable of causing sickness or death.

~We must identify and reject toxic thoughts! Thoughts that are inconsistent with God’s truth. Thoughts like: “I’m not good enough.” “I’ll never accomplish my goals.” “They will never like me.” “I hate how I look.” “I will never succeed.” They are all lies!

~ Proverbs 4:23 (NLT) “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” If we think we can’t, we won’t. If we think we can, we will.

~2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (NIV) “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. ⁵ We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

~When we are young we are full of hope and endless optimism. As we grow people begin to introduce toxic thoughts to our mind and make us feel like we aren’t good enough. Situations or bad relationships leave us scarred and hurting. Soon we are carrying so much baggage that we struggle to just stand let alone move. This is when we need to give it all to God. Freedom comes when we drop the baggage, leave it with Christ and let it go!

~I have the power of Christ living in me! The power that raised Him from the dead!

~Guarding our thoughts is a choice we have to make. Yes, we make bad decisions and sometimes we live for years with the consequences of those bad decisions. That doesn’t mean that we aren’t forgiven for those things. We cannot let ourselves get defeated!

~Are you a hummingbird who seeks out sweet things or a vulture who seeks out death and decay? If we continue to dwell on things that bring us down we will always be lead to depressions, death, decay. We must seek out sweet things! When you are wounded in spirit, worship! Surround your body and mind in the sweet spirit of God!

~Philippians 4:7-9 (NLT) ⁷ Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.⁸ And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. ⁹ Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.

~Reject the negative thoughts…they are lies!

~You have EVERYTHING you need to do EVERYTHING that God has designed you to do! (I love this and I want to remind myself of this daily. I in myself cannot accomplish what He has for me but through Him I can!)

~Believe it….BE it!

~I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me!

So, if you feel the negative, toxic thoughts creeping into your mind remember that YOU have the power over them. You can guard your mind and your thoughts and get rid of the ‘stinking thinking’!

7 Days *GASP*

I’ve been so busy and mentally distracted by other things I soooorta didn’t realize how close the Foam 5K was. Well, guess what…it’s SEVEN days away….7!!!!!  Excuse my while I pick myself up off the floor.
I had such grand intentions of being disciplined and training myself properly for this event. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. So, here I am, seven days before the event wondering how on earth do I crunch train for a 5K obstacle run full of foam and mud pits?
Here are my thoughts…
Think of this giant, 40 foot inflatable slide they so sweetly call the death drop….


As just another day at the park with the boys going down the giant slide at Mammoth Park.
Think of these 5 & 8 foot walls….

As the baby gates that used to haunt the doorways of my home. Surely after years of skillfully passing over them rarely ever stubbing my toe (yeah right!) I can handle the slightly larger versions. Right? Right?!
Think of mud pits and spider crawls…

As just another day at the creek with the boys.
Then of course all the foam…well, after all that’s just a wonderful way to wash off all the dirt and grime right? Bonus…most of the foam is contained in awesome inflatable bounce house type things we all used to love as kids! Who wouldn’t want to play in a foam filled moonwalk or slide down a 50 foot foam filled slip n slide?!

I guess when I think about it that way I’m not quite so scared. Yes, I may be sore after the run but I know that I will have such a blast and make some great memories!
If this looks fun to you then you definitely want to check and see if the 5K Foam Fest is coming to a town near you! There are even still spots available for the Pittsburgh event next weekend! You can register now by clicking here! Who knows, maybe I’ll see you there! Although I suppose we all may not be very recognizable covered in mud with foam beards!

2013 Spring Arthritis Walk…sneak peak!

I plan on blogging about our day but for now here are a few pics! Don’t worry…I’ll photo bomb again later this week!

(These photos are courtesy of my sis-in-law, Mary, and my friend, Bex! Thanks for capturing memories for us!)

It’s almost here!

The Spring Arthritis Walk is just FOUR days away! F-O-U-R people! We are SO excited!

I want to take a minute to thank all of my family, friends and new church family for taking time out of their schedules to come walk with us. You have no idea how much it means to us knowing you are going to be there with us supporting our Monkey. Love you all! If you’re local and want to come out it’s not too late to join us! You can preregister and join our team here.

Look at these awesome shirts my hubs had made for us!

I also want to thank all of you who have donated! No matter the size of the donation each and every one is so appreciated! This money will hopefully go toward furthering research and maybe, just maybe, some day there may be a cure for this awful disease. If you’ve been wanting to donate but haven’t had a chance yet it’s not too late! Just simply click here to be taken to the donation page.

I will definitely be posting pictures after the weekend is over! Can’t wait to share with you!

A little help from a friend named Sally…

Yesterday Monkey and I got to experience something really cool…we got to do an interview with Sally Wiggin from our local Channel 4 news. Now, to those who aren’t local to the Pittsburgh area that may not sound like such a big deal but for a Pittsburgher it definitely is! Sally has been a prominent newswoman in Pittsburgh for I believe 30 years! I grew up watching her report the news so it was pretty cool to sit and talk to her and know that she wanted to do a story on Monkey. Here we are with Sally and one of our amazing doctors, Dr. Poff.

If you are here visiting my blog as a result of seeing the piece on the news thank you SO much for stopping by! Raising awareness for JA is such a passion for me and I’m so thankful that more people were able to see how vast this disease has become in the United States. It’s a truly awful disease with no cure. Yes, Monkey may go in to remission with the aid of medication but he will always, always have this awful disease. If you’d like to read more about our story you can check out my tab up top labeled Juvenile Arthritis and you can also see my first story post here. If you’d like to help support us as we walk on June 1 you can donate here or simply click on the button on the right column of my blog with the cute little monkey picture. :)

Thank you to every one who helped make this interview happen! We are so thankful and grateful to have been able to be part of it!
If you’d like to see the interview you can see it on the WTAE page here. And as you can see it was a fun and exhausting day for Monkey.

PS…Sally if you’re reading this Monkey is in love with the photo you sent him. We have it set as our desktop image on the home computer and he keeps talking about how the baby tiger got a shot just like him. Thank you. xoxo

So this happened yesterday… #WW

Trying on equipment…gulp…

We found three baby praying mantis in the yard last night! SO cool!