Feeling Beachie

This week’s statements: 1. Sometimes I am critical__ I am _feeling judged or looked down on.__ 2. When I wear _long skirts__ I feel _more like a woman and a mother___ 3. When in doubt, __ask God and if you do not hear a answer ask again.___________ 4. The easiest way to __get depressed____ is to _allow others to think less of you._________. Pamela

Pinterest Chicken and Carrots

Can I ask you a question? How much time do you spend on Pinterest? I spend a ton of time. I no longer feel guilt about it because I am actually trying some of the things I pin. Today we had chicken and carrots. My children do not like cooked veggies but most of them liked these carrots. To make the carrots you: mix 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 tablespoons honey, salt & pepper to taste. Coat one pound of carrots. Bake at 400 for 25 minutes. Now for this yummy chicken. I mixed paprika, garlic salt, chilli powder and anything else that sounded good in a bowl. Coated all the chicken. Here is where it get's yummy. We NEVER fry food. So for this recipe I put a couple tablespoons of oil in the pan and then fried each piece for 2 minutes a side. Then I baked the chicken for 25 minutes at 350. Crunchy on the outside and beyond juicy on the inside. I always make more chicken than we need and then eat it for lunch for a couple of days. What are your favorite new pinterest recipes? I would love to try some new ideas. Pamela

Dog Protection-Wordless Wednesday

Since I found out I was pregnant my dog has gone nuts. She wants noone around me. It is not just her but my fiends dog would not stay out of my lap the other day. I must be putting off a crazy smell right now. Pamela

Waiting and Praying

Today I had my first OB appointment. It did not go as planned. I was looking forward to hearing the heartbeat for the first time. I am now 12 weeks along. The doctor tried for over 20 minutes to find a heartbeat and could not. He did blood work to check my hormone levels. There was a heartbeat on Friday and the baby even measured big. I am telling myself that the baby is just laying weird. I should get a call from the doctor tonight to say what my hormone levels are. Please pray for us as we wait patiently for results. Pamela

Cream cheese frosting

I love my pumpkin syrup. Regular syrup is full of sugar and is super sticky. I mix a can of pumpkin with enough maple syrup or sugar free pancake syrup to make it smooth. Heat and serve. I also decided to try the pumpkin cream cheese recipe I have seen all over pinterest. 1/2 cup pumpkin 2 tablespoons brown sugar a dash of salt 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 teaspoon pumpkin spice 8 ounce cream cheese at room temperature Mix well and serve. Pamela

Why I enjoy my days.

I love homeschooling. I love having my children with me. I love watching there eyes light up when they learn something new. Even more I love that the kids can be there for one another. Grace has really started working with Jason. I never ask, she almost insist on him learning to read and she is just the person to teach him. It is so cute to watch. I think my favorite part of the day is when the little kids ask the big kids to read them a book or play a game and they stop to do it. I love to see the heart they have. They are teaching me to spend more time with them. Less time on the computer and dare I say less time on the phone. I have really stepped back from some of my social networking. These little hands will not be little for long and these big kids will not always want to be reading to the little kids. So for today I am going to enjoy every minute I have. Pamela

Miscellany Monday

This week was crazy busy at our house. We have had lots of appointments. So school is fit in between. I want to make sure we do not get behind. Michael even jumped in and helped Grace with school at speach therapy. Then on Saturday we decided we should do school. That did not go over well with Hope. Then I offered her a pickle and she was okay. Pickles are a great payment in our house. How do you keep up with school when life goes crazy. For us it is remembering why we homeschool. And remembering that school can be done in the evening or even on the weekends. Pamela

Public Speaking

I was recently asked to give a speach about weight loss and how you can maintain it. It was comical because I worked on it and worked on it. Then went to class (a Bible study), when it was my time to speak it lasted about 3 minutes and was over. It was with ladies who all knew me so half of what I planned was not needed. It was fun to make a poster and see the difference in the pictures. Do you feel comfortable speaking in public? I have only done it a couple of times and honestly it is not something I consider fun. I do not mind if it is in front of children but my words get squished together when adults are involved. Pamela

Speach Therapy

Hope has speech therapy twice a week. She loves going to speech. She loves the teacher. She loves the friends she has made in the waiting room. But her favorite part is the dogs. They have 2 therapy dogs. I always try to arrive early on sunny days because she knows one of the dogs will be outside. Do you have pets? We have a cat, a dog and a guinea pig. I really feel like animals are therapy. If you could see my teen with the cat you would see how he calms down. I would love to have a big farm with lots of animals for the children to take care of and love on. Pamela

5 Question Friday

1. What is a hobby you would love to learn and why? I have two. First, I would like to learn to really decorate cakes. I would make them for kids who did not get cakes or elderly or wives whose spouses are deployed. Second, I wish I had the guts to learn to swim for real. I can imagine swimming laps and relaxing. 2. What do you wish you could have delivered to your house but does not deliver? Chick fil a because sometimes a pregnant woman just needs some waffle fries. Or maybe my local Dollar General becauseics. You know when you run out of scotch tape or toilet paper and you end up running to the store and spending hundreds of dollars. It would be so easy to just call and have it delivered. 3. What's your favorite snow day activity? Inside and out? My favorite inside activity is to bake or make snow cream. As far as outside activities there is not one, if it is cold then I am parked in front of the fire place refusing to move. 4. Would you meet a stranger from an Internet dating site? No way, I do not trust anyone. I think I would spend the entire date trying to figure out what they lied about. 5. If you had to spend 35 hours in a car with 4 other people, who would you choose? Hmm, Oprah no wait I mean Gale for the first one. Then someone who loves praise and worship music as much as I do but cannot hear well so they do not mind my singing. Maybe someone who loves to drive because I cannot stand it. And finally I would choose my husband because life is an adventure and I want him as part of my adventure. Pamela

Feeling Beachie

This week’s statements: 1. I can’t believe__my baby boy is 16 and we have a new baby coming. Maybe I should change the name of this blog to Drivers License and Diapers.__ 2. I never liked the TV Show _Days of our Lives or any other Soap Opera, I tried to love them when I was younger but the fact that you cannot watch for a year and still know what is going on.____ 3. If I were a better mother__________I would most definitely _be making my children a homemade cooked breakfast instead of hoping they sleep another 10 minutes so I can play on the computer_________. 4. I _want to sleep_________ when I __stressed, oh the quietness of a big bed.____________ Pamela

Where do I get my strength

I mentioned before that we are struggling with some things at our house. It is teaching me to rely on God. Reminding me daily that the only control I have is to rely on him. With my personality that is hard to do. Sometimes I feel so lost and alone and then I am reminded that he is there. Let me give you a couple of examples. Please know this is not bragging but showing you how God has been there. Faith had her first real babysitting job this weekend. She did great. On Sunday she showed me she got paid (something that was not expected). After church I asked Faith for her money. The kids do not keep money at our house. We put it in their bank accounts. They can still spend it as they like but not worry about losing it. When I asked Faith for her money she said “oh I put it in the offering”. We questioned her on if she put all of it in the offering (we are not talking a couple of dollars). She said “mom, I did not have change and I do not always have money for offering so I thought I would just give all I had”. Tears that she was willing to do that. I think I need to take a lesson about being willing to give more. This picture of Grace and I is very special. I was at a Bible study and they were doing zumba. Grace decided she wanted me to hold her. Which is great because I do not like to do zumba in public. Anyways, we have been talking about baptism because they are having a baptism ceremony at our church next week. Grace had asked me if she could be baptized and I said we would talk about it. So during zumba I said Grace Do you know what you have to do before being baptized. She said yes get saved. I then asked if she had been saved. She informed me that she had been saved. When I asked when she said on the trampoline. She was alone on the trampoline one day and decided that was the time. I then went through the steps because I wanted to make sure that she understood what she did. She said oh mom I ask God to forgive me of my sins every day when I do wrong. That is what you are supposed to do. She gets it, she really gets it. I was shocked not that she got it but that she took it upon herself and needed no one with her. I don’t know why it shocked me because she is very independent. So today I will remind myself that even when I feel I am failing my children that I am not and they are getting what they need. And what they need is not always a perfectly clean house or to do school 5 grades above average. What they need is to have a heart for God. Pamela

Earrings

Do you remember me telling you that I let my girls get there ears pierced. We told them on Valentine's Day they could change earrings. Today they remembered. Sadly since I have only worn earrings for a couple of months myself we did not have many to choose from. I did remember that in my Bible Study we made earrings. They were perfect for my oldest daughter. They were pretty easy to make. I may have to look into making them with with my girls one day. Because the cost of earrings is CRAZY EXPENSIVE! Pamela

Pregnancy and Weight Loss update

Pregnancy and weight loss, Oh yeah I am pregnant. I honestly keep forgetting that I am pregnant. It is weird normally I am all over it. This pregnancy is different. We have a lot going on in our lives that are good and bad. A lot of scary personal stuff going on. I ask you to pray for our family over the next couple of months as me make some descions and things get worked out. The pregnancy is going well. I am ten weeks (11 tomorrow). I am having no pregnancy symptoms. I really only ever have heart burn so I expected no symptoms. As much as I do not want heart burn the relief it brings is great. This Friday night I have an ultrasound. Yes you heard that right my first ultrasound is at 9:30PM on a Friday night. I think it will feel real after I see this little blessing. I saw my endocrinologist this week and she said my levels look good this month. That is great since they were up last week and we had to up my medicine. No side effects of upping the medicine. I will go back in 8 weeks to re do my blood work. Does anyone else reading this have Hashi’s and if so how did you do while you were pregnant? Weight loss is not happening. Man would I get in trouble if I was. Honestly I normally lose weight while I am pregnant. This time I am not losing. I have gained and lost but not a real loss. I have been 171 since November. I was 171.5 this morning. I have been staying steady at 173. I am trying to get better about adding in fruits to my calories. It is kind of funny that I could stick to 1200 calories a day easily but now that I am up to 1500 I am struggling and rarely stay there. I want to eat more like 2000 and sadly they are not good calories. I am working on it. I do not mind gaining weight but I want it to be good calories and not chocolate muffins and brownies. Please know I am not totally stressing over this. I have no picture to show because you can’t really see a difference in my belly. My jeans are starting to get tighter but I can still wear them.

Wordless Wednesday

Do you lay out your child's clothing the night before. I have started trying to be prepared on Saturday nights. This has made our Sunday mornings run so much smoother. I have a child who has nothing that fits her or touches her all in the wrong spots. If I have her try it on the night before than she cannot complain on Sunday morning. Pamela

Rolls and Butter

I have seen this recipe everywhere. I do not know where it started. I would love to say that mine turned out exactly like the picture. They tasted good but were not light and fluffy like they should have been. Maybe I did not knead them long enough. Maybe I did not let them rise enough. Anyways, I encourage you to try them and let me know how yummy there turned out. 7-8 cups all purpose flour 4 tsp active dry yeast ½ cup milk, warmed and then slightly cooled 3 Tablespoons butter melted and slightly cooled ½ cup sugar 2 eggs 2 teaspoon salt Dissolve yeast in warm water with a teaspoon sugar. Add yeast mixture with sugar and enough flour to make a soft dough. Beat thoroughly. Let stand until foamy (this is where I may have gone wrong). Add melted butter, eggs and salt. Add remaining flour. Put in a greased bowl and let rise. Roll out the dough and cut into shapes, let rise in pan until double in size. Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes So while my rolls did not come out light and fluffy the cinnamon butter was amazing. 2 Sticks salted butter, melted (my husband actually had me add a little more butter, our honey is strong) 1 cup honey 1 cup powdered sugar 2 teaspoons cinnamon Mix together well and chill Pamela

Miscellany Monday

This week I wanted to make cookies for Valentines Day! They turned out amazing. I made my favorite peanut butter cookies and then added chocolate to the top. Oh man, I am ashamed at how many I ate. There was one glitch, I turned the oven on to preheat it. Then I got distracted with math and science. When I was finally ready to put the cookies in the oven this is what I found. Potatoes and Bananas. I can pretty much guess which child was cooking this. Pamela

Multi tasking

I always tell my husband he cannot multi task when it comes to the kids. He has taken it as a challange that he can. One night he was working on his laptop while training the dog. A couple of days later we were at his work visiting when the phone rang. Grace was going to have nothing to do with that. So he had to take a professional call while playing with Grace. Poor man, I am sure his head was spinning by the end of that call. I have a question. Can your husband take care of the children and do other task at the same time. Pamela

Feeling Beachie

This week’s statements: 1. Sometimes I _want to bake all day____ that is why_my clothes are getting tighter and tighter. __ 2. All I _want___ for ___Valentine’s Day______ is ___to have time alone with my hero___. 3. I __live_________ therefore _I must be willing to suffer__. 4. McDonalds’ is __both disgusting__ and __addicting. Pamela

5 Question Friday

1. What holiday do you wish did not exist? Valentines and Mother's day, you see my amazing almost perfect husband does not know how to buy a gift and I am always left crying and feeling worthless. 2. What is your favorite romance/love movie? Titanic, hmm I am so not good with movie titles. 3. Do you make a big production out of celebrating Valentine's Day? I don't but I wish we did. You know re kindle the love. 4. What is something weird you did as a child? (or even now!) pick my nose, just kidding! umm, play school and house and yes I still play both. I wish I would have taught myself to be more organized as a child when playing house. 5. What makes you love your husband, really LOVE him, you know since Valentines is coming up? the way he can fix anything, the way he is willing to help anyone, the way he fights for his country without regret, the way he provides for his family.

Feeling Beachie

This week’s statements: 1. When I am on the phone I have to _clean, it is great because I get most of my work done while on the phone. ___ 2. I have a _huge desire for a Ipad, any suggestions, should I get one.___ 3. I started blogging to _stay in touch with families but it has not really worked that way._______ 4. My worst habit is _talking down about myself and talking ill to myself. I need to think better of myself____

Miscellany Monday

This morning the scale says I am up and I do not like it. I have no idea why. Could it be the oreo popcorn or the pepporoni rolls or the giant chocolate chip cookies. I am heading to the gym this afternoon. YIKES. Pamela

8 Week Check-Up

So I had my first OB appointment this week. It was almost comical. I got there and they did not have my file pulled and the nurse was irritated. Then they did vitals. They said I had lost almost 2 pounds in the last week. Not true but I will take it. They gave me the breastfeeding kit; they had been out of them at my intake. I almost laughed when I realized it was a cooler bag full of formula. So now it is time for the doctor. I was looking forward to hearing the baby’s heart beat but reminding myself that it was still early and sometimes it is hard to find. So the doctor walks in. Short skinny man, with the friendliest smile ever. I am describing him because you are going to wonder why I was not screaming in a minute. He looks over my records and asks a few more questions. Then he asks me why I am there. I said because the OB intake made the appointment. She said that because I was high risk I needed to be seen soon. I also informed him that she requested an ASAP ultrasound to give an accurate due date. He looked at my chart again (okay file on the computer). Got mad and left the room. A few minutes later he came back and informed me that there was no reason for me to be there. That at 7 weeks nothing could be done. That the other doctor over reactive because my file over whelmed her. He kept reminding myself that I was an intelligent women and I knew how to be pregnant and did not need him to tell me what to do. I explained some concerns. The main one being that I have had several days of cramping. He asked if I had gone to the ER for it and I said no. There is nothing they could do for it anyways. He reminded me again of how smart I was and that I knew what to do. He also told me I did not need a dating ultrasound. That I have been pregnant multiple times and smart enough to know when I got pregnant. So after setting in his office for an hour he sent me home. He did not even touch me. He said because I was cramping he would wait for the pelvic exam. He said I could keep the ultrasound appointment and he would see me a couple of days later to go over the results. He did say all of my blood work and pregnancy hormone levels looked normal. I also asked him why my pants already feel tight even though I have not gained weight. He reminded me of my age and how many babies I have already had. With my last pregnancy I was 6 months and still did not quite look pregnant. I am hoping that is not the case. I personally think you should find out you are pregnant on Monday and be huge by Friday. I was very calm and while I did tell him that I have many children at home who need me I was not going to pitch a fit because of the wasted time. He told me he was going to pitch a fit over wasting my time. So here I am 8 weeks pregnant and know nothing new. My ultrasound appointment is on a Friday night at 9:30pm. Is that not the craziest thing you have ever heard in your life? Maybe I will make a date night of it with my hero. So how am I feeling? I am super excited to be pregnant. I cannot wait to see what this blessing is. I cannot wait to feel him/her move. Sadly, we have had so much going on that I have not allowed myself to set and really enjoy it. I do have a question? Where does one buy maternity clothes and are they even worth it? Pamela

Building Fun

My husband is excited that Jason got hot wheels cars with lots of tracks for Christmas. Wait, I think that was suposse to say that Jason is excited. I think they will have hours of fun and tracks will consume my house. Pamela

5 Question Friday

1. What is your favorite book to read with your kids? I love you forever. I love it because they love me to sing it to them but I can still read it to them. 2. After having kids, what body part has changed the most? TMI, my breasts are gone. So gone and then I lost 81 pounds and what was left went away. Now that I am pregnant it is a little better but not much. 3. Would you ever go back to college? What would you study? The thought of college scares me as in I am scared I will fail but I would love to go back to college and become a counselor for teenagers. There are not very many out there. 4. How do you close a phone call? Bye, bye bye or other? Bye is my goal but half the time I tell everyone I love you and sound like a fool. 5. What is the one food that will always be your "cheat food" on a diet? Chocolate chip cookies or chocolate cake is the one thing I cannot live without. I actually tell everyone who ask about my weight loss that I never denied myself chocolate cake. Pamela