A New Addition

Meet Shelby

We got a new puppy!  The excitement level is at an all time high around here. As you can see Rylie has not left her side since we got her.  Shelby's been introduced to many friends...

Eric named her after Josh Selby (KU basketball player) I thought Selby sounded weird so we compromised on Shelby.  Our cat is named Wayne after Wayne Simeon (former KU player) so we thought it only fitting. (We found out later our cat was a girl but it was too late, the name stuck.)

She is a Shiba Inu.  I know.....you've never heard of it.  I did a lot of research on the Internet about what kind of dog we wanted. My criteria was:


has to be an outside dog
not a big dog but not a tiny dog
must not be a barker!
must be great with kids
a dog that I can start a small family breeding business with


and after months of research I kept coming back to the Shibas.  A few days out and I feel like we've made a great choice. I did have a little cry after we got her because based on pictures I thought she was going to be fluffier, but I have moved on to "big girl world" and I can see past my vanity. 

Technically we now have two new additions to the family as I saw a mouse scurry across my kitchen floor this morning. The latter will hopefully go to a better place soon. It's either me or him I guess.

Resolutions

I am not normally one to torture myself with New Year's resolutions but I drew some inspiration from my friend Natalie and made a couple this year. Nat does resolutions every year without fail and actually sticks with them. In the past her resolutions have involved giving up pop (I would classify this one as torture), exercising, recycling, giving up chocolate, etc. The only one she's ever broken is the chocolate one, which I think we can all understand.

I figure I may have a better chance of keeping my resolutions if I tell people about them, so here are my two for the year: (drum roll please)


1. Recycle my cardboard

2. Get on a Budget


I have been recycling for a few years now but have never done my cardboard trash. The main reason is that I have no more room in my garage for recycles!  Other reasons include the inconvenience of our recycling center and pure laziness.

The Budget one will be harder. I think our longest running record for being on a budget lasted about 3 months. Don't get me wrong, we are great at starting them and have done so too many times to count. It's the sticking with it that's the hard part. Something always blows the budget...Christmas, a trip, stupidity - you name it. So, for 2011 I will try to stick on the budget for an entire year (Yikes! Do I have to?).

While this isn't really a measured goal, I also would like to concentrate on being more chill about things. I get way to stressed about certain things so I'm going to work on giving my stress to the Lord.  Pray before freaking - my new motto for 2011.

Would love to hear about your resolutions for the New Year!

"Know Me" ~ Meditation Mondays

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts, see if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 139:23-24

Do you ever feel troubled and can't quite put a finger on why? I feel like this happens to me a lot. I find that often times it's the Holy Spirit trying to get my attention about something I thought, said, or did that wasn't honoring to God. (Sometimes I realize I just forgot to pay a bill or return a phone call, but most times this feeling involves repentance.)

Today I woke up feeling this way and I haven't quite figured out what's troubling my soul yet.  I always get a little scared because I wonder who I've offended and how many apologies I have to make.  So today I find myself praying the above Psalm. Well, it usually doesn't take long after praying and reflecting that the Lord reveals to me a wrong I need to make right.

I sometimes pray this prayer a little reluctantly because I just don't want to face a backlash for my behavior. Part of me also feels like if I don't ask the Lord to point out my sin He somehow won't be able to pinpoint it Himself. While I would much rather just try to ignore the feeling and hope it goes away, it will not go away today, so here goes:

Lord will you please:

Search me

Test me

See me

Lead me

and

KNOW ME

And please, may it just be a late bill today.

No More Choices!

I have found myself annoyed and often balking at the sheer self-centeredness of my children. After each episode of toy stealing or "me first" attitude I try to have a conversation with them that involves me telling them to not be so selfish.  I would even throw Bible verses in there to drive my point home. But, as you can imagine, this was having little or no affect.  So I got desperate and ordered a book...

I'm glad I did. 

Surprise, surprise...my husband and I are, in fact, fueling their selfishness not only by our own actions but by empowering their own selfish actions. 

I'm about half way through the book but my household has already done a 180 degree turn. And here's the main reason why:

**NO MORE CHOICES**

I learned that developmentally children need parents to make decisions for them for a long time. I came across this handy little chart on page 63.



Percentage of the Decisions Made by the Child

Age:                   Birth to 4     5 to 8     9 to 11    12 to 15        16-19

Percentage:           0%              20%         40%        50%            80%

My children have now lost all ability to make decisions in my house and it is WONDERFUL. 

~ No more fighting over who gets the purple bowl. Mom decides.

~ No more "my turn to choose!" which TV show to watch. Mom decides.

~ No more "I don't want yogurt for breakfast!" Mom decides.

~ No more "I want to wear this outfit not that one!" Mom decides.

~ No more "I want this or that." Praise the Lord in Heaven!...Mom decides.

This has cut down on at least 50% of fighting and whining in our house (there's still plenty to go around).  After adopting this "no decisions" method it has become really clear to me now that my kids wanted me to decide for them. They weren't able to make a decision on their own and it caused them to act out and become selfish when I asked for their opinion. 

The only crappy part is that I have a lot to work on about myself to show my kids how to put others first! So, I just thought I would share if you are having selfishness issues in your house too. I totally recommend this book (what I've read so far anyway..). 

Advent Conspiracy Gifts

I posted a while back about our church doing the Advent Conspiracy. While we didn't do a great job of spending less money, Eric and I tried to make our gifts more meaningful this year.  We still bought several gifts but really did give a good college try to make many of our gift receivers feel like we spent more time thinking of them.  Here are a few things we came up with:

Eric made this for the girls:

The stable turned out so cute and the girls love it!

I made this for my sister in law with much appreciated help from Carisa, a very patient and awesome knitter!  (I also knitted some washrags for my sisters and mom like I promised! I'm sure they were thrilled...)



Made the black one for my friend Anna's sister - it's a little scary homemaking something for others, but hey, if I can do it...you definitely can!

 I had my friend, Amy (who can make any idea come to life) make these prayer journals for several members of my family:

My sister in law was selling Bead for Life bracelets which I thought made perfect gifts for the girl's AWANA, preschool and Sunday School teachers!

I think she's still selling them until the end of January if anyone wants a bracelet or necklace for a good cause!

We wrote a Welcome to the 'Boro pamphlet for Eric's brother, who just moved here, humorously highlighting places to go and things to do. (Also got him some chamber bucks to spend so he wouldn't feel totally jipped).

I got my blog made into a book for my Grandma and Grandpa who don't have a computer:

Maybe next year, we'll figure out a way to spend less money and also give meaningful gifts, but I think we got a good start anyway.  I also found it to be even more exciting to give gifts because while we were making some of these things we spent so much time thinking about the people we were gifting to.

I definitely recommend trying the Advent Conspiracy in one form or another. It was fun to get creative for a change!