Should we lower our expectations?

As children I think we have high expectations of people (and things for that matter). Being a child we need parents, family members and friends for physical and financial support more than we do as adults. As adults we need others for emotional support. And as I journeyed through my late 20's and thirties I have come to a very sad realization that my expectations were seriously too high of other adults in my life.

Seems easier to lower my expectations of people so I don't get hurt. But is that the real way to go? I know that by doing that I will be hurt less and its defiantly the easy way out. I've lived the last 8 months with lower expectations of others and its been much easier. My anxiety is gone (thank you, Jesus), I'm a happier person, not so quick to anger.... I could go on and on. As I was having a conversation with my husband last night and I told him about my theory of lowering my expectations he said yea, that sounds simple enough. I'm gonna try that too. Then a light bulb practically hit me on my head. WHAT WAS I DOING??? This is ridiculous, God doesn't want us to take the easy way out. Now my mission is the pray about it and figure out exactly what He wants me to do with my theory and easy way out.

The one person who keeps exceeding my expectations is God. He has been a rock through every aspect of my life. I'm am so thankful for the day when I was 13 years old sitting around a table at a family friends house and hearing about God and how AMAZING He really is. I've continued on occasion to sit around a table with those two very important people and learn about the Word of God and it has opened my eyes and heart to show me that the most important thing in this world is God. And that he gave his only son, Jesus, up for us to wash our sins away forever. I remember laying on the floor of my friends bedroom, having a sleepover, praying a simple prayer and asking Jesus into my heart. That day was a changing day for me, however, I didn't realize it until years later.

Until next time, many blessings.
Fran

Show us where you live - Livingrooms

Kelly at Kellys Korner blog is hosting another Show Us Where you Live Friday again. I am a little late. I am lovin' taking a peek into other ppls homes and seeing their decorating styles. After last weeks kitchen addition of SUWYL I did a little sprucing up in my kitchen. We painted a green wall yellow, I put up some pictures and bought three apothocary jars (like Kelly's) filled with pears and pomegranates. The changes make our kitchen look fresh.

This week is livingrooms. Ours is small but cozy. I didn't take photos of our familyroom. I might later this weeek and add them to this post.



This is the livingroom view from our dining room.


This is the view from the top of our stairs. A few years ago we (I mean John) tore down
a half wall and his brother in law installed new railings for us. they are beautiful!!







This is table has my two favorite things on it right now. The digital photo frame
my parents got John and I for Christmas. The bottom left of the big frame is a
digital photo frame and the other three frames are for still pics. And on the second
shelf is my Ipod Touch docking station, it has a radio and CD player too. LOVE IT!!



We live in a bi-level house, so when you enter our home you either walk up 6 steps
or down 6 steps. And this is the shelf right above the door where we put cutsy knick knacks.
And at Chirstmas, Easter and Halloween we decorate it too.

Too participate check out Kelly's blog at http://www.kellyskornerblog.com/

Have a blessed week!!!
Fran

Menu Plan Monday Dec 1 - Dec 7

So I haven't posted my meal plans in a while, but my laptop is in the shop getting a new mother board. And I am posting on my hubby's PC, which is so much different from my laptop. But thankfully I have this to keep me busy....like two 5 year olds don't keep me busy enough. I still menu plan, even if I don't post it here on my blog. Yeah, I know Nikki (my sister) I am a nut case for doing all this menu planning, but it sure does keep me organized. I will have you converted one of these days.


Monday -

Bfast - cereal

Lunch - noodles, muffins and pudding

Dinner - beercan chicken (this is my first time trying this) roasted potatoes and roasted Brussels sprouts



Tuesday -
Bfast - waffles & strawberry jam, oranges

lunch - PB&J sammie, celery with PB and grapes

Dinner - cheeseburgers, garlic fries, corn on the cob



Wednesday
bfast - smoothie and cereal bar

lunch - cheese quesadilla and oranges

dinner - meatloaf, mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes, corn



Thursday
bfast - eggs, bacon and toast

lunch - mini pepperoni pizza's and grapes

Dinner - not sure yet



Friday
bfast - pancakes with blueberries

lunch - chicken tenders, chips and fruit

Dinner - order pizza



Sat
bfast - cereal, fruit, yogurt

lunch - blt sammies, homemade garlic fries

Dinner - Asian pork tenderloin, fried rice and broccoli



Sunday

bfast - egg and breakfast meat casserole

lunch -

Dinner - pasta, chicken parm, salad

If you want to get some great ideas on menu planning, check out orgjunkie.com.

Have a blessed week!!
Fran

Cool!!!

Check out this digital scrapbook that I made. This is the first one I have made, and its so much fun. Very addicting!!!!

here are a couple more digi-scrapbook pages that I created tonight.

OAMC

I am FINALLY going to try doing Once A Month Cooking. With the assistance and guidance of my new friend Lisa H. She has done the OAMC several time so she is somewhat of a master at it. Right now we are in the stage of deciding what recipes to make. I am shocked at how many recipes there are out there for this type of cooking.

I found a great website that has wonderful recipes recipezaar.com check it out. You can complile tons of recipes into your own cookbook. Most recipes have nutritional value and you can change the serving sizes and it adjusts the ingredients. Oh and the best part of all, it compiles your grocery list for you....how great and easy is that.

So here are the OAMC recipes on our list so far for our August 10 cooking fest.

Chicken
-Chicken Rolls ups with ham and cheese
-chicken fried rice
-Heavenly chicken
-Chicken fingers

Beef
-Dump Swiss Steak
-Meat loaf
-Sloppy Joes
-zippy chili


Pork
-Asian pork tenderloin
-Smoked Sausage skillet

Side dishes
-mashed potatoes
-garlic seasoned green beans

breakfast
-egg casserole
-french toast
-pancakes

Wish us luck and I will post some of the recipes later.

Blessings,
Fran

Our Disney World adventure 2008 part 1

One of my favorite places to vacation is Disney World in Orlando, Florida. It is such a magical place. I love it so much that John and I even went their for our honeymoon. A few months ago, my mom, who has never been to WDW, asked me what is so magical about Disney. And I just could not put it into words, I told her she would just have to see herself. And I really hope she can experiance it at least one time in her life, hopefully with all her grandchildren.

With that said, when John and I had our twin boys, I said to him that I wanted to take our boys to WDW in 2008 which is the year that they would turn 5. I always thought that was a great age to start taking kids to WDW. He looked at me kinda funny and said sure, whatever you think. He was probably thinking, this chicka is nuts already planning our boys first Disney trip and they are only 3 months old...lol If you ask my mom, she will tell you that I had their Kindergarten outfits picked out the day they were born too...that is how I like things, planned out and organized.

Well fast forward to May 2007 and I get a call from John's sister, Jaime and she asks us if we would be interested in joining the entire family (all 14 of us)and going to Disney May 2008 and I said of course we would be interested in going, that is what I was planning all along. It sure is funny how things work out. I thought, at the time, the more the merrier. It would be a great time for all 6 kids on John's side of the family to experiance WDW together.

So for that entire year, we were showing the boys pictures and videos on youtube of Disney and talking about it very often. As you can see I am a bit obsessed with WDW. Right around the end of last year, I started checking for airfare and resort rates, looking into messageboards and websites to learn as much as I could learn about taking two 4 year olds to Disney. We finally booked our airfare and WDW resort in January. It was official, we REALLY were going to Disney for the first time as a family of four. WOW, we were so excited, John too. He and I would sit in front of my new laptop (my Christmas gift from Johnny) and look at pics and plan our itinerary for hours. It was so much fun.

As I said before I am somewhat Disney obsessed. So I started my planning and making reservations for character meals, printed letters from Mickey and Donald Duck and mailed them to our boys and finalized our daily itinerary so we would make sure we got to each of the theme parks while we were there for the week.

PART 2 COMING SOON!!!

Peace, Love and Joy

Written on July 08, 2008 posted on July 16th
These past weeks have been a bit challenging. I am trying to live my life the way God wants me to. I want to be a good person, wife, and mommy.

I am Trying to be
peaceful,
loving,
patient,
kind (the Holy Spirit is trying very hard to guide me to be kind in my life)
grateful

Another thing I am trying to implement in our lives is refraining from purchasing items we don't need. Our boys have been conditioned (by us, as parents) to want something everytime we go into a store. And its time this habit has stopped. Spending money on frivolous items needs to stop. I have been staying out of stores to avoid the temptation of buying unneeded items. It has been going pretty well. When the boys ask if they can have something, I just tell them No, we are saving our money in the bank. It has worked pretty good so far.

Yet another thing I am working on is being consistent with the discipline of our boys. It has been a little rocky of a start. They aren't really enjoying it, but are starting to accept it. I really believe that being consistent makes a HUGE difference. I think its going to take some more time, but once they can anticipate what the consequence is, they might just stop and not do the bad behavior or action.

So, needless to say, we are working on our lives, to better ourselves.

Have a blessed day,
Fran

Welcome to my blog

Ohhh....this is so much fun, starting a blog. I never thought I would write one, but here I am. I am not going to be known for using correct grammar and spelling every word correct. I am know for run-on sentences that keep going and going and going ;) ENJOY!!!

So lets get started....

Well...I am married to a wonderful man, John (AKA Bunz) more on that later. We got married March 26, 2000 in VEGAS! We had a beautiful wedding ceremony and reception at the Monte Carlo resort. Most of our friends and family came out to share our special day... could ya blame them, they got a vacation out of it...lol

We lived in Naperville for the first year of our marriage. And we decided, we wanted to move out to the boonies. We love it out here. It is so quiet and peaceful, a perfect place to raise our twin boys.

We had "the boys" Justin and Jason in August 2003. They are our world. Yes, our lives revolve around them...sometimes a good thing, sometimes a bad thing. They were born premature at 30 weeks. My precious little (very little) boys weighed in at just over 3 pounds each and 16 inches long. It was a very emotional time.

I also have 3 great sisters, a niece and two nephews they are so important to me. We have such a blast when we are all together. Johns family is amazing, its a world-win of fun when we are all together. We are blessed to have so many kids in the family. There are 6 kids under the age of 6.

Blessings,
Fran