A blog for an announcement.

Obligatory picture of the girls. They are necessary for any blog post.

For those who don't already know:

On November 26th, Clay found out there was an opening for transfer within his company. He and I have always talked about how if Clay was ever going to move up in his company it would require moving away from here. He is an awesome employee, but he felt he needed to be in a different area to be noticed for promotions. The shop he works out of now is great, but there are not a lot of promotions out of his shop. Especially compared to other areas.

This opening was a chance to get to a shop where promotions happen. Three guys just got promoted out of that shop.

When we agreed he would put his name in on the 26th, neither of us thought we would know anything or do anything for months. In fact, he technically wasn't qualified for the move because he would have to work for the company for at least 2 years to qualify for transfers. We thought we would have months to wonder what would happen. Months. Wrong.

God had different plans.

Four days later, he was offered the job and a bonus to make moving worth it. They wanted him, not any of the other 35 applicants. They were willing to work hard to get Clay.

That, friends, means we're moving..

Clay starts before the new year. The girls and I move as soon as possible to be with him.

I'm so so proud of my husband. It is always nice when the people your man works for acknowledge his work ethic and integrity. He works for a great company who takes care of their employees. I'm grateful he is committing to work there at least another 2 years.

I'm overwhelmed. We have about a bajillion decisions to make in a month. It takes me months to make a decision. Something isn't adding up.

I'm grieving. I love living here. I love being close to my family. I get to see my sister every. single. day. I get to love on her baby every. single. day. Clay's sister lives in town and loves on my babies weekly. At least. His other sister and mom live an hour away. My parents and brother and sister-in-law are an hour away. I see them a few times a month. I love our church. We've been basically raised by this church in the 3 years we've been there. They've prayed HARD for us and loved us hard. I love our friends. I love so much here. God must have big plans for us to take us away from all of this. I'm trusting that. And crying occasionally. Okay, maybe more than occasionally. I'm resting in his word, a LOT.

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Philippians 4:6 

I'm excited. This is an adventure. I've never lived this far from my parents and siblings. Clay has, but not with us. I've only been to OKC three times. I hear it is great. I get to be an actual stay-at-home mom. I've only done that in the summers! God provided such a great church for us here, I'm curious to see what he provides there! So many opportunities are available there.

I could really go on forever about how God has taken care of all the details so far in this move. He's taken care of the tiny things. The things I could find to dwell on and worry about. He has been so good. He IS so GOOD! He is using those tiny things to remind us that He is in control. He has plans for us.

I could go on about how He has been preparing my heart for this to happen. It has been awesome to look back at the past few months and see what he has been doing in my time with Him each day to prepare my heart for this.

I really wanted to blog to announce to everyone what was happening so people know.

I wanted to announce to everyone so I don't have to tell them face-to-face. And cry. Again.

So, friends, prayer warriors, strangers, please be praying for Clay and for me. We need His guidance. We need wisdom. We need God to continue His great provision for us. We need peace. We need your prayers. Lots of them. This is fast and overwhelming. We covet any prayers. 

Pray for our girls as their mama is an emotional wreck. Pray I am able to give them the attention they need and show them the love they need. K, especially, is super sensitive to what others are feeling and feels it, too. I want her to feel the peace we feel about this move, not the nerves. 

Our families also need your prayers! This is hard for all of them. They are grieving, too. They need to continue to see what God is doing is GOOD. To quote my sweet friend Sally, "God is GOOD!" Help their hearts to see this. They need His comfort and His provision. 

Thank you, friends! We love you all! And 4 hours is NOT that far!!

TWINS?!?

So,
I may have taken a small hiatus from the blog.

I had an excuse:

This beautiful ball of deliciousness entered our lives. On the blog, she will be Sweet P. :)















I don't know if you knew it was possible, but I had twins, two years apart. Don't believe me? Here's proof. Lets look at that picture again, shall we?

This is K.

This is P.

K

P

They seriously handed me the same child in the OR. Like, Seriously. Sweet P is on the left. K baby is on the right. Weird, huh?

K

P (obviously she's a better eater)

 Curious who they both look like? Here's a recent picture of K next to a picture of her daddy at the same age. Still curious? Yeah, me neither.

Did I mention P is a better eater? Yeah. That has been a HUGE blessing. 

Breastfeeding is hard. work. I don't know that people know how hard it is. 

In my first experience breastfeeding, K took 8 weeks to get back up to her birthweight after losing weight in the hospital (FYI weight loss is normal and expected in the hospital, most doctors expect baby will be back up to birthweight by 2 weeks). I was blessed with a fabulous pediatrician who never one time suggested I supplement or that I was failing because she wasn't gaining fast enough. She never lost weight. Don't get me wrong. She was thriving. She was just gaining slowly. We worked hard, I never knew it doesn't always have to be that hard. I just knew I loved and wanted to continue to breastfeed. We breastfed successfully for 13 months, and it was the most rewarding thing I've ever done. 

I had prepared myself to struggle again. I have big babies. Big babies tend to lose more in the hospital. P did not get that memo. She was BIG. She weighed 10 pounds 6 ounces. Most big babies have blood sugar issues. Not P. She was a champion eater from the get go. She was well above her birthweight before her 2 week appointment. Breastfeeding still was a struggle emotionally, and mentally, but we definitely didn't have the issues K did. Woah. This girl can eat.

I never knew two people could look so much alike and be so completely different. 

My first child was a serious baby. SERIOUS. She didn't smile about everything. She smiled, but it had to be worth smiling. She looked at everything and took everything in. She was serious about learning. Serious about life. Serious about talking. Serious about everything. I loved it. I still love it. Although she's a fun-loving, giggling, singing, dancing, funny toddler now, her serious has become shyness. She won't talk to just anyone. Even if she knows you she probably needs to warm up to you. Don't feel bad if she doesn't talk to you the first time you meet her. You're not alone.

 P is so quick to smile and flirt; I really don't know what to do with myself around her. She talks louder than K ever did. If she is happy, you know she is happy. If she is sad, you know she is sad. We had a rough first seven weeks, but those dark days have passed and she is a GREAT baby. She's totally okay when our routine gets screwy (heck, I don't know that you can call what we have a routine). She is a fun-loving, and openly happy baby. She just looks the same as her sister. It's still weird. 

I love being a family of four.

I'm blessed by the greatest husband ever. He is the only reason I stay afloat most days. He is a strong man who seeks to do what the Lord desires. I could not ask for more in a husband or a daddy. Seriously. You should know him. He's awesome. 

I love watching my girls become sweet sisters.

My sister is my best friend. I want my daughters to have the same thing: an automatic best friend in life. Someone who is nothing like you, but you love anyway. Someone who you can always call and cry with. Someone you can giggle with late into the night until your dad walks by and says, "Girls". Someone who you fight hard with, but love harder. THAT is what I want for my daughters. 

People always want to know what it is like with two. It is exactly where I want to be. We're keeping both.

I hope to blog again soon!
Thanks for reading!

Two years. Two babies.

Well, I've lived in a peaceful state of denial for the past 39 weeks. All that is about to change.
**Curious if/when baby #2 will make an appearance? Keep reading.**

At Christmas, when we announced I was pregnant to our family I knew the following things had to happen before baby came.

My sister had to have a baby.

Two weeks later...
My brother had to get married.

Two weeks after that....
My daughter would turn two.

One week after that....
My due date would be here.

Here's what has actually happened:

I had the world's fastest pregnancy until my sister got close to her due date. My pregnancy seemed to come to a screeeeeching halt waiting for her to arrive at her due date. Everyone said it would be horrible to have to wait an additional 6 weeks after she delivered for my baby. WRONG. I've actually been grateful to get 6+ weeks to enjoy loving on him before our little one arrives!

My sister delivered a week early. Her little boy is absolutely, deliciously perfect. He is my first nephew, and absolutely wonderful. I'm completely enamored. I'm doing my best to stay on the favorite list with him.

My baby and my favorite nephew are already friends. They spend LOTS of time together :)

Right after he was born I thought I had plenty of time until baby day.

WRONG.

This pregnancy went into overdrive!

It was a BLINK, and my brother got married to my new, beautiful, kind, sister-in-law. I'm working on the favorite list with her, too. Here are their engagement pictures, and her bridal pictures. Feel free to begin stalking their photographer, Chriselda. She's pretty awesome.

That left three LONG weeks until baby day. WRONG. Long is a joke.

I finally got to work finishing up our nursery. My kids will be sharing a room. I'm nervous. I'm glad I finally got to work on it, though!

I took a breath, and my sweet daughter turned two. She is spectacular. She is brilliant. She is beyond well behaved. She is funny and engaging. She learns something new every day. She has the most loving soul EVER, and cares so much for her new baby cousin; I know she is going to be a fabulous sister. She is too good to be true, honestly. I cannot imagine how I will love another person the way I love her. I know I will, but my mind cannot wrap around it.

Apparently, the girl LOVES "happy birthday cake". 

Ice cream sammiches on the other hand...not so much.

The week of her birthday she got to meet multiple different baby animals. This little lover was in HEAVEN!

Here we are, less than a week away.

I have argued with strangers, disagreed with my mother, and worked to convince women in my church that I will carry this baby to, and actually past my due date. "I bet you're ready to have that baby," is by FAR my least favorite phrase. "You must not know me," is my typical response. My babies are comfortable. My babies LIKE to stay inside where its warm and cozy. My babies are not in a hurry, and I am not either. I don't get miserable. I don't swell. I don't beg my doctor to induce me. Actually, we learned with my first that inductions with my comfy babies are a joke! Haha.

Because of my previous c-section, and standard practice with any American doctor, we won't get to wait for this baby to make an appearance on their own terms. I insisted on 40 weeks to attempt labor naturally. I'll get 40+3. I'm content. So, unless something spectacularly crazy happens in the next few days we will be meeting baby number 2 on August 28th. God is so good.

I'm excited to find out if we're having a boy or a girl. I'm excited to learn this baby's little personality. I'm excited to snuggle with, and lose sleep because of, and dress up, and hang out with this baby. I am excited to learn what it will be like to just be a family of four.

I'm still in a tad bit of denial it is really this close.

My instagram will probably get the first pictures. Facebook will probably get some soon after that.

This blog barely gets any time now, I don't have crazy high expectations of updating this bad boy very quickly.

Freezer Meals for Small Families

**Over the next few weeks I will be editing this post. We made freezer meals again this past weekend to have over the Christmas holidays. We learned lots from the time before and we were much more efficient this time (that could have been something about not being pregnant.) There are lots of edits we need to make. I just don't have tons of time! I hope this has helped some folks out there!!**

So, I'm pregnant. If you didn't know, my sister is pregnant too. She's due in about 1 week with her little boy (!!!), and I'm due in about 7 weeks with my sweet baby.

We both have been meaning to build a freezer stash for post baby, but it hasn't happened. So, last week we decided to just have a cooking day and split every meal to go in our separate freezers. We're both huge pregnant (I'm slightly OCD), we had a nearly 2 year old "helper", and we wanted it to go as smoothly as possibly so we did some serious planning. 

The planning actually made for easier blogging, so I'm sharing it with you!

We used the 12 recipes below and ended with:

• 5 meals to serve 4-6, 
• 3 meals to serve 2-3, 
• 4 soups and chilies to serve 4, 
• and 4 dozen muffins for breakfast or snacks EACH. 

Every recipe we split into at least two meals. We're both families who really need 3 servings per meal. The bigger meals will give us each leftovers. By making smaller sizes it will help with weight loss and portion control.

There are, literally, bajillions of recipes out there to choose from.
Our deciding factors were:

• How easy is the meal to prepare and split?
• When we'll be needing the recipe? (fall = soups and stews)
• We wanted extremely quick and easy preparation on the day we eat it. 
• What do our families like to eat?

We found the recipes from some blogs, some of our mama's recipes, and some of our own recipes. We altered some recipes so there'd be some beef (our husbands start growing feathers if we cook too much chicken), and used rotisserie chicken if the recipe called for anything remotely close to cooked shredded chicken. **To save money the second time we boiled chicken breasts and cubed them for all the cooked chicken recipes. It was a significant cost reduction.**
Side note: If you click on the original location it will take you to the original blog or website where we found it so you have it if you would like.

We formatted every recipe for consistency in format and freezability. (Yes that's a word; today.)

At the bottom of the list there is a link to a PDF with every recipe combined and a link to a PDF shopping list.
Also, there are suggestions at the bottom if you don't want to do one massive cooking day.
Here are our 12 recipes:

1. Layered Enchilada Casserole originally from Joyful Momma's Kitchen
2. Quesadilla Casserole originally from Joyful Momma's Kitchen 
3. Easy Freezer Chili
4. Chicken Spaghetti
5. Easy Poppyseed Chicken
6. Chicken Alfredo Lasagna
7. Mama's Chicken Enchiladas
8. Chicken and Chorizo Stew adapted from Rachael Ray
9. Chicken and Wild Rice originally from Joyful Momma's Kitchen 
10. Easy Crock Pot Stew 
11. Mama's Bran Muffins
12. Mama's Excellent Banana Muffins
13. Click HERE for a PDF document that has all the recipes on one page. AND (the best part if you ask me) 
14. Click HERE for a PDF document that has one combined grocery list for all 12 recipes. Its divided by section of the grocery store, and also labeled for the meal it corresponds to on the recipe list. 

FYI:

• We shopped on Monday, readied the chicken that night, and cooked on Tuesday. All the groceries cost less than $200 total (that's less than $100 per person AND we got nearly 2 weeks of meals out of it).
• For the beef recipes we cooked 3 lbs beef and 3 lbs turkey together, drained all fat and used 2 cups of the mixture for every pound required. Please don't tell our husbands we used turkey too.
• We used 3 rotissaries for the 4 cooked chicken meals. We take off the skin and all fat and shred it before we used or refrigerated. Feel free to boil, or roast your own chicken. 
• We use fat free or extremely low fat options of everything possible (sour cream, cream of chicken soups). Feel free to make your own if you're super woman. 
• We started by making the muffin batters so we could cook muffins as we worked, and so they'd be cook when we were finished.
• **SUGGESTION! We made a list that included what meals we made with instructions for cooking to keep on the fridge so we knew what we should get at the grocery that week. That was something we wished for last time. 

Suggestions for variation:
If you have a family bigger than 2-3, feel free to make the meals as one. I've listed alternate pan sizes within each recipe. You can freeze the bigger meals or make them for dinner tonight!

If a recipe sounds good, use it! If you blog about one of my originals, please link back to my blog. Thank you!

If you are a family of 2-3 and don't want to do a big shopping day, feel free to make a recipe and freeze half slowly building your stash.

This blog was HUGE, I am tired from cooking all day and being pregnant. Please forgive grammar errors. I tried to make it as user friendly as possibly. Let me know if links don't work or if you have any questions. Thanks!

Mama's Excellent Banana Muffins

12. Mama’s Excellent Banana Muffins – makes approximately 3-dozen muffins or two large loaves

• 6 over ripe bananas
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs **we use 1/2 cup of egg beaters. They taste the same and have fewer calories per muffin**
• 3 cups flour
• ½ cup melted butter **we use 1/2 cup applesauce. Again, for the significant calorie drop.
• 2 t baking soda
• 2 t salt
• ( ½ cup walnuts optional)

1. Mash bananas with a fork and stir in all other ingredients

2. Pour into 2 large sprayed loaf pans or

3. Pour into lined muffin tins.

4. Bake at 325 degrees. Cook loaves for 1 hour or muffins for 25 – 30 minutes.

5. Allow muffins to completely cool and place in freezer safe zipped bags.
** yields 2 - 2.5 dozen muffins **

Cooking instructions: thaw and warm in toaster oven or microwave as needed for breakfast or snacks.

Mama's Bran Muffins

11. Mama’s Bran Muffins – makes approximately 5-dozen muffins

• 4 eggs or 1 cup egg beaters
• 5 c. flour
• 2 t. salt
• 3 c sugar
• 4 t baking soda
• 1 quart buttermilk
• 1 c oil or 1 c applesauce
• 6 ½ c raisin bran

1. Use a spoon to stir together all ingredients (batter keeps in the fridge for up to 3 weeks in a covered container OR,) Pour into lined muffin tins

2. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 - 25 minutes until golden brown

3. Allow muffins to completely cool and place in freezer safe zipped bags.
**yields about a bajillion muffins. I think we got about 3-4 dozen per batch**

Cooking instructions: thaw and warm in toaster oven or microwave as needed for breakfast or snacks.

Easy Crock Pot Stew

10. Easy Crock Pot Stew – (8 servings)

• 2 pounds stew meat (pre cut from the store)
• 2 c baby carrots
• 2 c red potatoes (quartered)
• 2 medium onions (chopped)
• 2 cans V8 (5.5 oz)
• 2 cans fire roasted tomatoes (15 oz)
• 1 cup water

1. Mix all ingredients in 2 freezer safe labeled zipped baggies.

Cooking Instructions: Thaw and cook in a crock pot 8 hours on low. Add extra water if needed. Serve with corn bread.