Our Girls

This was Toria & Eve last Summer. Just a week or two before Eve & I joined Justin in Georgia.

Tori's life right now is competitive cheerleading. She's SO good! Her first competition is in two weeks!

Helping my mom bake cookies & chocolate/sprinkle covered pretzels during the Christmas holiday.

Eve met her third cousin, Emily (18 months), over Christmas. They had fun playing together.

Crawling around. She's getting so huge! She's got 6 teeth already in while numbers 7 & 8 are currently trying to poke through. She's so much fun!

Finally, A New Year!

I'm ready for a new year! SO ready!

Eve & I went with Justin to Georgia for a work trip. We were there 3 months, living out of a hotel. It was a really great experience but we were very glad to come home. We've been back almost a month now ~ Hard to believe.

The holidays passed like a whirlwind! We had Tori for about 10 days & enjoyed every second of her! It's so fun to see her & Eve interact. Eve follows her around already. I can't imagine how it'll be in a few years.

One of my new years resolutions is no Facebook for a year (I have my reasons). So I guess that means I'll be updating my blog more often (hopefully). So if you want to keep up with us, become a "follower" of my site & it'll send you an email whenever I update it.

My second resolution is to bake my friend Greg a different kind of pie every month for a year. There's a story behind this resolution. Basically I was challenged & it sounded fun!

Hope this year is wonderful for all of you!

"Deliciously Organic"

Sooooooo, whilst doing research for my "greatly amazing" new blog about eating healthy on a budget, I was reading a blog my friend Sarah referred me to. I was hoping to gather some info for my blog or find some yummy recipes.

Welllll, come to find out she's done exactly what I wanted to do!! LOVE IT! So, I'm just going to refer everyone to her blog. Perhaps it'll lead to some good FB conversations or blog comments here. Enjoy ~ I know I did!

I'm including 2 links (here & here) that are specific to eating healthy on a budget. But check out her whole blog, it's great!

The Blog Experiment

I'm considering starting another blog that will be somewhat of an experiment. I'm tired of hearing people complain how expensive it is to eat healthy (although I sort of agree, however, I think it's more of an issue of people not liking healthy food as much as junk food). So I want to keep a blog documenting my attempt to eat healthy on an average family's budget. I also want it to include tips on how other can do the same thing, where to shop, nutritional facts, etc.

After looking up the nutrition facts of one of my favorite fast food restaurants (I'd highly recommend that!) I was appalled at what I'd been eating! I knew it wasn't healthy, but I thought it would be the lesser of all the fast food evils. I was dead wrong! It really hit me at how intentionally ignorant I am about some food & nutrition aspects. I consider myself more educated than the average bear about this stuff, but I still choose to turn a blind eye to some things.

I want to help take away the ignorance of nutrition & mystery of eating healthy from people who really want it.

Sooooo, why am I talking about this here you ask? I want to find out what the average family of 4 spends on meals/groceries a week. We're a family of 2.25 & I know if I go off of what we do it won't apply to many out there with older kids. So please comment on this post & tell me what you think. Either your personal grocery/meal budget, if you're comfortable with that, or what you've "heard" the amount to be, etc. Thanks!!

ROAD TRIP!

So Eve and I spent last week visiting my most gracious, wonderful friends Rachel & Nate in Minnesota. I met both of these guys when I was stationed in Japan. Rachel's family, the Red Clouds, became my family away from family. I hadn't seen Rachel in about 4 years, so it was a lovely reunion.

Eve did AMAZING on the plane! The flight wasn't that long, but she happily played & slept the entire way there! Thank God! We enjoyed the cool weather, Eve played in the grass & looked at the squirrels & chipmonks scampering around the Johnson's little yard. I met Rachel's delightful girlfriends. What a hoot!! One of them even watched (well was in the house while Eve was asleep) Eve for me while Rachel & I went to the movies. It was such a relaxing trip. I wasn't sure I wanted to come home but their little 1 bedroom/1 bath apartment was getting crowded. :o) Here are some pics from our first big journey! Many more to come!! (After uploading these I realized I got no pictures of me or Rachel! HA!)