funny names and popsicles

I have nothing to blog about except...

I'm working a temp job right now at the Board of Elections. It's work and it's money, so I am thankful. It's kind of tedious, but the people I work with are super-nice, so that makes it enjoyable. I'm glad to be out of the house; excited to be productive. And, man, I'm learning to type like a beast.

You should hear some of the names of people I'm registering.
Today's favorite: Princess Azana-Madyah Smith
(Last name has been changed to protect unknown Forsyth County royalty)

I also had to call a lady yesterday to confirm her address. After she confirmed it she said (in a rather Wilkes County-ish sort of twang) "Uh, yeah, I been wantin' to ask ya. This election stuff. Does that mean I can like go and vote for Labamba?" Me: "Um, yes ma'am." (Really, what do you say to that???)


Here are some cute pictures I was looking at today. They are of Asher's very first popsicle. These were taken A LONG time ago (Spring of 2006???), way before Ainsley's cute little self existed and when Peyton and Amy were still living in DC.

go USA! go baby!

Me and Deac watching the Olympics. He wasn't really into it unless, heaven forbid, a horse were to appear. Horses aren't exactly his favorite animal. (By this I mean he starts growling, barking, jumping up, and attacking the television... Although now that I think about it, this applies to almost every animal seen on TV... even that animated dog, Brian, from Family Guy. How does he know???)

Me and baby at 9 weeks. Don't be fooled. Most of this is just leftovers from Gabe.

thoughts

I don't really know where this post is going but feel compelled to write. I just finished watching the Steven Curtis Chapman specials on Good Morning America and Larry King. Amazing is really the only word to describe the strength of that family and the faith that they are openly professing to the world.

Several things struck me as I watched. Will Franklin, the 17-year-old brother who hit little Maria Sue, tried to run away after the accident. He stayed with Maria until his parents got outside, and then he just started running. He said he wanted to be as far away from the accident as possible. His older brother, Caleb, ran after him, tackled him, and just kept telling him that everything was going to be okay and how much he was loved. On the way to the hospital, when pulling out of the driveway, Steven had whoever was driving stop the car. He rolled down the window, and seeing Will Franklin crumpled in a ball in the driveway, he yelled to him, "Will Franklin, your father loves you!" What an image of a father's love. Through his grief over his dying little girl, he remembered his son whose grief and pain were unimaginable. He reassured him that he was loved and cherished and immediately forgiven.

Where was God during their tragedy? He was in the form of Caleb who was wrapping his arms around Will Franklin, preventing him from running away. And He was in Will's father's voice, yelling from that car window. How many times have we felt like running away and hiding from the sorrow that comes with losing a child? How many times have we wanted to escape this load that just seems too much for us to bear? And how many times has God wrapped us tight and kept us close while He yells to us, "Your Father loves you"? Over and over He says this to me. And you know, somehow, it's always enough.

Larry King asked the Chapman family if they had been angry at God. Steven replied that his anger is toward the one that has come to steal, kill, and destroy. Why would they turn their back on God? God wept with them over Maria's death. God is comforting them in their overwhelming grief. God is the one who gives them peace. God is the one who allows them to laugh and smile through the tears.

I remember laughing and making jokes that night in the hospital. Matt told me that Gabe's hair was so long, it was like a mullet. I was holding my little boy, already taken from me. I looked down into his face, smiled and said, "That's not cool baby." I joke around. It's kind of what I do, and a lot of times it's inappropriate (not the joke, but the timing), but it's what I do when I don't really know how to handle a situation, want to keep the peace or want to make someone feel better. In that moment, my God gave me a joke for my little boy. He gave me a smile and a laugh. He gave me a memory.

My God is my strength. He is the reason I can live and breathe and laugh and sing and be okay. Our war is not with God, but with Satan, who has been allowed to have some power for a little while. The joy is this: he has not won. He is a loser. The battle is already won. It's over. Jesus was victorious. Gabriel has already experienced the beautiful reward. I'm still waiting. And as I wait, my God will give me a relationship with Him, peace, hope, strength, joy, good times, and jokes to make the rest of my time here as sweet as it can be.

The point is this: His mercies are new every morning. His grace is sufficient. When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. He is with me. My cup is running over, and His goodness and mercy follow me ALL the days of my life... even when I'm in the deepest, darkest place I could possibly imagine. Praise God for His unfailing love! He will never forsake me. He will never let me go. He will always run after me, tackle me, and repeat to me, "Patrice, Your Father loves you." What a beautiful gift. What a sweet grace.

Psalm 5:
1 Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my sighing.
2 Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray.
3 In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.
4 You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell...
...11 But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you.
12 For surely, O LORD, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield.

nuestra casa

Here are some before and after pictures of our house. We moved in a year ago, and most of the work was done that long ago, but when I have had my house clean enough to warrant taking pictures, I've forgotten to take them. (THAT, my friend, was a run-on sentence) So last time I cleaned, I took some. Believe me, my house does NOT get weekly cleanings, so photo shoots are few and far between. :)

The living room. We took up the carpet and replaced it with hardwoods to match what was already down and to give us a bigger-seeming space.

The kitchen. I chose a risky paint color combo, but it ended up working out okay. Thanks to Peyton and Amy for the massive amount of help on the cabinets. What a pain!

The hall / entryway from different angles.

The master bedroom. RED PAINT IS THE DEVIL. Sarah and I just started referring to this as "the red room" with much disdain in our voices. This is after 5 gallons, and if you were to remove all of the furniture, there are spots that still look streaky, uneven, and pink. Grrr....

The upstairs bedrooms. We kind of crammed everything (computer, desk, extra bookshelves) in the guest room when we made the other bedroom into the nursery. These rooms are slightly bigger than they appear in the pictures, but are hard to get a shot of.

Finally, I must say this: The above would not have been possible without my amazing sister, Sarah, who gave up many a day to help me paint last summer. We were both on the verge of stark-raving mad by the time it was all over, but look how pretty! It was all worth it (to me, probably not to her).

Thanks Sarah. I owe you big time.

(Special mentions: Jamie - who helped in the living room... see if I EVER do texture-painting again; Brittany - who helped in the guest room; and Debbie - who, in my eyes, is a decorating goddess)

yet ANOTHER answered prayer

Maw-Maw had another check-up yesterday, and guess what? She does NOT have congestive heart failure after all. They said she does have some weak heart muscles, but that she can go on and live her life like normal. Somehow this does not surprise me. I already knew you guys were excellent pray-ers, and my God is an AWESOME God! Woo-hoo!

gabe's going to be a big brother

That's right. I'm pregnant! And believe me, we are just as surprised as you are! What a blessing straight from God. We are so excited, and yet scared out of our minds at the same time. We are feeling lots of mixed emotions, but know that God is in this 100%. He knows what we can and cannot handle, and no matter what, He won't give us too much.

I went in last month for a check-up, and found out I was pregnant. I had to hold it in all day until Matt FINALLY got home from work. It was a LONG day. I gave him an "I love Daddy" bib. He said, "No way." I said, "I'm pregnant," and then I burst out crying... so it goes these days. As soon as we found out, the nurse took LOTS of blood (LOTS), and called my wonderful doctor. They started me on a low dose aspirin (to help thin my blood) and plan to keep me on this the whole pregnancy. They say it's A-okay that I'm pregnant again this soon, and that my chances of a miscarriage are not higher than anyone else's. Schwew...

We had our first ultrasound today. According to them, I'm at eight weeks and three days. My due date is March 20th, but it has already been decided that we will take this one at 37 weeks (February 27th... ish). It seems so close already! The beginning part of my pregnancy will be fairly normal, but as I progress, they will watch me closer and closer. (In the words of Dr. Reynolds, "like a hawk.") At about 34 weeks, they will begin twice a week fetal stress tests to make sure the little one's heart rate is still strong.

We know that so many of you have been in prayer for us. You were praying for our newest addition without even knowing it. Please, please, please keep baby (and insane mommy and worried daddy) in your prayers these next seven or so months. Let's storm the gates! This time we have an insider who has already been tugging at the feet of Jesus, asking IN PERSON that his little brother or sister be healthy and that he/she gets to come home with mommy and daddy this time. What an awesome thought to know that little Gabe is petitioning our Father on our behalf. When I picture that, I am one PROUD mommy.

Here is our newest bundle of joy.

This really is normal, I promise. :)

Look at that beautiful heart a-beating... the best sound I've ever heard.

It was very strong too - 173 bpms!

jeannie's lasagna

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef (or turkey)
1 chopped onion
1 jar of spaghetti sauce (original - I usually get the Food Lion brand)
1/2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp Italian seasoning or oregano
6 lasagna noodles
8 oz cottage cheese
8 oz mozz cheese
8 oz cheddar cheese

Cook lasagna noodles. Brown ground beef and onion. Add spaghetti sauce, curry powder and Italian seasoning. Simmer until no longer liquidy (is that a word?). Layer 3 noodles, 1/2 meat sauce, 1/2 cottage cheese (dot around), 1/2 mozz cheese, 1/2 cheddar. Repeat layers. Bake for 30-45 minutes on 350.

I usually serve it with one of those Caesar salads from the bag and make my own garlic bread.
VERY TASTY!
Thanks Jeannie!

mil gracias

Just wanted to say thanks for all the awesome recipes! I look forward to trying them. Check out Mindy's recipe site for some tried and true, tasty recipes. Neat idea. Thanks, Mindy! I'll try to post my lasagna recipe that Leigh requested soon. It is Jeannie Moore's, and it is SUPER tasty...one of Matt's favorites, and he's not even a huge Italian fan. I can't wait to get started on the ones you've shared. Thanks again.

feed me!

If anyone has favorite, fail-safe recipes they would like to share with me, I'm looking for some. It's not that I don't have like 10 cookbooks up in the cabinet, but no one has TRIED those. I like cooking stuff that I KNOW to be good and easy before I start. I'm tired of my usual 5-6 recipe rotation.

Now, let me offer MY qualifications for a good recipe: (beggars can be choosers???)

1. You can either do it in the slow-cooker or it can be prepared (not necessarily ready, but at least prepared) within 30-40 minutes.
2. It tastes good, but is not so bad for you that you feel guilty about it for the next two weeks. (I'm okay with using sour cream and mayo... I can just use the lite version... I'm happy with most anything as long as there is a way to modify it to semi-healthy)
3. The list of ingredients would be things you already have around or would be easy to find in the grocery store (and I mean the REAL grocery store, not any of this "go to the health food store" or "they only carry this at Harris Teeter" kind of stuff. No offense, but I'm not interested in another disastrous grocery store trip where I end up wanting to physically hurt someone).

If you want to leave them in the comments, that would be great or you can email me.

Thanks guys!
(Well, more ladies than guys, I'm sure. Not trying to be sexist, just realistic)

a day with maw-maw and paw-paw

Yesterday we went up to Stone Mountain where my maw-maw and paw-paw have a small cabin. It had been a while since I had gotten to spend quality time with them, so we went up for the day. It was my favorite kind of day. We sat around on the porch talking, watched a hail storm, rode around on the golf cart, saw a lot of scenery, and went to the small restaurant for some of the best ice cream I've ever had. I was thanking God as the day went on because it felt like one of those days that will always be a sweet memory. At one point when we were riding around in the golf cart, we saw about 6 or 7 deer very up close. One was a doe with two babies. It was beautiful. I wish I had taken more pictures, but I was so caught up in the moment, I didn't think about it.

Maw-maw was diagnosed with congestive heart failure this past week. This is after she had major heart surgery (a very close call - we almost lost her) this past November. Of course we are all very scared and not ready for her to be anywhere close to leaving us, but are praying hard that God will heal her. She has an appointment tomorrow morning where they will change her medications, talk to her about a strict diet, and will let her know how bad (or not bad!) it is. Please be in prayer for her, that everything will turn out okay. We are all very close to her, and I think she is one of the greatest people God ever put on this planet. The lady that runs the restaurant in their mountain community looked at me and said, "She's my favorite person on this mountain." I smiled, and she said, "No, I'm serious - my favorite person." I know exactly how she feels.

new york

This past weekend we went up to Matt's sister's house for a long weekend. We celebrated Grant's 7th birthday at Yankees Stadium. We got a tour of the stadium, including the dugout and clubhouse. No pictures were allowed in the clubhouse, but it was very cool. We learned that Jeter has two lockers - one for his stuff and the other for all his fan mail. Although we are not Yankees fans, it was really neat to be in the same places some of the baseball greats have been - Babe Ruth, Joe Dimaggio, Lou Gehrig... pretty sweet. It was especially neat considering the stadium will be torn down after this season.

Andrew also took us sailing while we were there. It was a lot of fun to me, but Matt got sea sick, so I'm not sure he had such a great time. He said afterwards that the huge steak and baked potato lunch he had before we went out probably wasn't a good idea.

We were supposed to fly up on a 12:25 flight last Thursday. It got canceled after we had already checked our luggage and gone to the gate. We called the 1-800 number instead of standing in line (a VERY smart move, GO KIM!) and were put on a 4:50 flight. We left the airport and hung out at the mall and with my friend, Amy Todd. She took us back to the airport around 3:30. Our flight got delayed, and we finally took off around 6:30. It was quite ridiculous. Then, on the way home, we were supposed to have a 6 something flight. That one got delayed, and our plane took off at 10:15. After my mom picked us up, we went to get my car, and unpacked enough to get ready for bed, we got in bed around 1 or 1:30. We both had to go to work the next day (I worked a temp job last week - please still be praying for the right job to come along).

All the flight mess was more than worth it to go up and spend time with Kim, Andrew, the kids and Matt's parents. It was a happy family weekend. Here are some pictures.

The two of us at monument park

Grant with his Yankees birthday cake

Matt and Abby in the Yankees dugout

Matt with the Babe

Matt and Will in the luxury suite where we had pizza and cake

sometimes i'm an idiot

So, here is a "Patrice is an idiot" story. For some reason I got it in my head that Harris Teeter's triple coupon weekend started on Wednesday, July 23rd. This was nobody's fault but mine. LeeAnn's blog definitely had the right dates, but for some reason I just had it in my head wrong. Anyway, I had spent all this time cutting coupons and arranging them into two lists. You could only do 20 coupons at a time, so I had a list for myself and a list for Matt. I categorized them into food and non-food items, listed the brand name and number of each item we needed, and paper clipped the coupons to the lists. (FYI - when I informed Matt that he would be accompanying me to triple coupon shop, he immediately responded, "I have plans." That was before I even told him what night we were going. I then informed him that he most certainly did NOT have plans. Isn't marital compromise beautiful?) I digress. So we went to Harris Teeter after all this planning ahead on my part, and we got ALL this stuff in our carts. We all of a sudden realized how not crowded it was. We were back in the meat department, and I asked an employee, "It is triple coupons today, right?" She told us, no, that is started first thing Thursday morning. What a doofus.... me, not her... she was a perfectly wonderful meat lady. So there we were, carts full of items that took us forever to find, and we weren't even going to get to take advantage of LOTS of money off. I sorted all the stuff I wanted to keep in one cart, and while Matt went to pay, I put all of the other stuff back on the shelves. (I now have very high respect for the stock boy who has to stack all those Yoplait yogurts. That was hard work). Luckily some of the coupons were doubled for us, and we still ended up saving around $60.00... not as much as we could have, but still better than nothing. Really, we probably saved as much money as we would have if we had just gone to Walmart in the first place, but Harris Teeter is prettier, so that's something. Someday I will be a triple-couponing-queen, but for now I'll settle for night-before-not-so-triple-couponing-spaz. Let's just say for no-tax weekend, I'm hiding in my bed.