The battle for the hearts of our children.

As I was quickly skimming the pages of the Girl Talk website I found this quote:

"Oftentimes parenting can feel like a battle. And the "enemy" is your two-year-old who's just thrown their dinner on the floor (again); or your fifteen-year-old, who's just slammed the door on you (again). But still your job is to show them what our Father in heaven is like. Yes, they need to learn to live under authority. But they also need to learn of a God who welcomes His enemies, loves His enemies and gives His life for His enemies." (Gospel Centered Family by Tim Chester and Ed Moll)

This spoke volumes to me. Unfortunately so much of what I do , think, say is conformed by the worlds perspective on parenting. We have an amazing example to follow in our Heavenly Father and I feel as if I easily ignore it. Maintaining effective control, strength and power in my decisions and a heart overflowing with love to pour over my children CONSTANTLY is what I need to remember. Thankfully we can have a personal experience of this kind of love through our relationship with Jesus Christ. For me, without this love I would be clueless as to how to begin to lovingly direct my children toward righteousness. Thanks be to God for His mercy over me.

Signs of a sleep deprived mama!

I read somewhere recently that motherhood is not for those who love sleep. Isn't that the case! I have never really been a lover of sleep but oh how hard it is to get by sometimes when you have had 3 or 4 hours of very broken sleep for 3 or 4 years!

The results of this predicament, at least in my case, have been quite hysterical at times.

For example, just this early morning, I think around 2am, I woke up surrounded by multiple small sleeping children. I rolled out of bed and picked up who I thought was Gregory. Tucked him into his crib and turned to crawl back into bed, too tired to remove any more of the sleeping bed hogs. As I slipped back into bed I realized I was snuggling back into bed with the actual Gregory. Just as I was getting back up to figure out who I had tucked into Gregory's bed Jaclynn woke up in the crib very irritated and confused. How in the world did I confuse her with a newborn?

Here are a few other examples of what my lack of sleep has done recently and in the past.

- Filling my coffee filter with oatmeal instead of coffee grinds

- Driving away from my house on the phone only to loose the call a couple houses down the street because I was on my home phone and not my cell

- Arriving at moms club one morning I was looking for my cell phone and found that I had instead packed my home phone into my diaper bag.

-Upon finding a pacifier to calm a fussy baby I quickly tried shoving it into Steven's mouth. Don't really know what I was thinking with that one!

-Cut Steven's dinner up into teeny tiny pieces and didn't realize it until I got a very confused look from him as he sat to eat dinner.

-Attempted to diaper a newborn with a size 5 diaper

But the worst so far has to be when I actually forgot my baby's name. Yes, I am very embarrassed to even admit it, but I did. Just a few days after Gregory was born I was talking to somebody at church who wanted to meet our newest little addition.

"What is his name?" she asked.

And for what seemed like an eternity I starred blankly at her with a very deer in the headlights kind of look. In my head I was thinking,"I have no idea! This is horrible!"

Then thankfully I shouted out "Gregory Mark Zuniga!"

I don't think she was expecting the full thing but since I had paused so long and felt so ridiculous that is just what came spewing out. It was obvious that for a moment I was searching my brain for what we had named our sweet new baby and she was very uncomfortable!

I can't be the only one who has done wacky things with little to no sleep right?

Question of the day.

As Jaclynn was enjoying an episode of Blues Clues, Sydney came to me with a question.

"Why does Blues Clues encourage kids to do what ever they want? That's not good." She said.

Hmm? You know the song, "blues clues, blues clues, you can do anything, that you want to do!"

Good point. I thought to myself. Not really the thing I'd like to be drilling into my wildly independent two year old. Wise six year olds can certainly give you perspective sometimes.

It never hurts to ask.

So, I bought a Dyson. I know, totally uncharacteristic of my frugal ways. But I had to. I went from about 200 square feet of carpet to around 3000 and the old vacuum wasn't cutting it. Not even close. Now, of course I didn't pay full price for it. I had some gift cards and worked it into a transaction with other groceries and was able to get it for more than 50% off. I was happy with that. I had made peace with my large purchase. Until last night. I received a phone call from my super coupon shopping partner in crime, Jessica. She ever so gently and lovingly let me know that the prices for the Dyson I had just bought were reduced to $125.00 less than what I had paid. WHAT!?! And I had just made peace. How could they do this to me! Dramatic I know, but those things are EXPENSIVE!

So I calmed down and a clear thought came to mind. Call Target and simply ask, with the kindest voice of course, "if I bring my receipt for my purchase in would they honor the new clearanced price?" "Yes, " The groggy voiced target customer service representative said. (You see I called first thing this morning, it was haunting me!) I clarified and asked again because I didn't think it would be that simple. I thought I would have to put up a fight and I am not one for coupon or clearance price confrontation. Irritated she answered yes again.

That was easy. Saved myself even more by just asking. I'm not sure I would have thought to do that a few years ago, pre coupon craziness.

Lessons learned:

1) Be sure to have a trusted frugal friend willing to look out for great deals with you and,

2)Always be willing to call and ask for price adjustments, honoring another stores price, and if they accept competitor's coupons.

It definitely doesn't hurt to ask!

The cold finally caught up...

Tea time for a sick baby.


We managed to fight for a couple of weeks against the runny nose and hacking cough everyone around us seemed to have. This week, it finally caught up to us. Steven's weekend is CRAZY when it comes to work so I knew I would need to call in reinforcements. Four kids 6 and under crying and whining at the same time didn't sound all too exciting. So, I called Nana and Papa for crowd control. Thankfully they came to my rescue and helped ease us through what would have been a much more difficult evening. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Swagbucks: A Christmas Resource

I got this idea from another blog I frequent. She was talking about earning swagbucks throughout the year and then turning them in for gift cards and gifts to use for Christmas. Brilliant!!! I have earned a few since I signed up and have been able to get some amazon gift cards and other fun stuff. I posted about swag bucks a while back but I am posting again because I think that you too can use this site to save your self some money next Christmas.

First, go here if you would like to read my original post about swagbucks.

Then go here to sign up. Do it now and start saving up those points for christmas gifts. What do you have to lose? Nothing!!! So sign up now! Plus, they will give you 30 points to start just for registering!

Dinner tonight

Sausage potato soup, Olive Garden style, is what's on the menu tonight. I pulled together leftover bbq'd italian sausage, used up all my potatoes, some bouillon, onions, garlic, two cans of cream of mushroom soup, a pound of bacon and a bunch of kale. Add a salad and some buttery garlic bread and I think I've got something to serve up to the masses tonight.

The bread of coarse is a $0.99 loaf from sprouts. I also spent $0.49 on the romaine( I'll combine that with some other romaine leftover in the fridge), $0.99 on the kale, the cream of mushroom I stocked up on a couple of months ago at $0.49 per can at Target and the bacon was clearanced to $1.79. The rest is just what I had on hand, mostly basics. I also bought another pound of sausage for the soup but ended up not needing it so it sits in my freezer for a later meal. I think this will be a crowd pleaser. Steven already had a bowl, and said I had almost exactly recreated the soup from the restaurant. I think that means it's good! :)