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Happy Thursday!

Thirteen Random Thoughts From Me:

1. Ahhh...finally a new look for my Thursday Thirteen. I have wanted to do a new look for so long and finally here it is. I love my new banner! Yay! What do you think?
2. My SIL is being induced on Friday with her 5th child. Awhile back I posted about her indecision over the name, between Seth and Benjamin. Well, she went with Isaac, a name I had actually had for our second boy. But, since that may be a ways down the road I blessed her with using my name since she actually knew I wanted this name, but her mom told her that should be his name and she had a dream the night before that about the baby's name being Isaac. Now, I need another boy's name. We have Luke on the table right now. The problem would be that Luke sounds more like a middle name.
3. Ron's sister is due with her first baby, a boy next week. Baby boy's all over the place. Another friend of mine had her second boy on June 16th less than a year after her first son--that was quick.
4. Ashley at http://labellavista06.blogspot.com/ is having a biopsy to check out a swollen lymph node tomorrow. Please say a prayer for her. She is very nervous. Pray God resolves the issue with ease.
5. Only a little over a month until Justice's 1st birthday and I have no idea what to do. I need suggestions for a tight budget. Also, do we have a party with his little playmates or just family? Or both?
6. The 4th of July is coming up. Guess what we have going on--the Lake again. Don't get me wrong, I love the lake, but since having Justice it makes it a little more challenging. For one thing, the place is no where near childproofed and is a very rustic lakehouse, so Justice will probably have to spend a good deal of time in the playyard. But it will be fun to get him out in the water as always.
7. My doggie Joy got a hair cut today, she looks more like the picture I posted on Sunday. She is again a miss priss. She has red and blue bows for the 4th in her hair. So cute!
8. I bought 4 newish books for Justice today at the Mission Thrift Store for $1.00. I love reading to him so much and he eats it up.
9. I am again in cleaning mode. I have been doing so much better. I am trying to make better use of my time and get my house in order so it doesn't take that long to pick it up.
10. Summer TV stinks and it is making me wish for new seasons of my favorite shows. I can't wait for the new seasons of Gilmore Girls, Deal/No Deal, Life with Brian (new show with Matt from 7th Heaven), and I will have to wait until January (sad) for American Idol. Man!
11. I have decided not to dignify the book or views of Linda Hirshman and her attack on the stay at home moms on my blog by even commenting on it other than to say it is nonsense and a bunch of hooey!
12. I am trying to cut back on my daily sugar intake. My drinks each day are all pretty sugary--juice, coke, and sweet tea. So what I have done is mixed 1 quart sweet tea sweetened with 1/2 cup sugar with 1 quart of a half of a crystal lite rasperry tea pack. It makes a yummy, summery drink.
13. Justice is teething again. I feel so sorry for my little spud. He cried out twice in the middle of the night last night and has been generally ornery the last few days. He is cutting his eye teeth and these are apparently harder ones to cut as they are the pokey ones. No fun. I hate to see him uncomfortable.
    
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Football, Sleep, and Fabric Softeners

WAR EAGLE, HEY! For those of you who aren't aware that is the battle cry for my Beloved Auburn Tigers. I can't wait for football season to start. In a little less than two months my team will take the field. As you can see in this picture we are training up our son right. He loves when we sing the fight song to him.

On other notes...

I am one of those moms, you know the ones who have to tell others their baby is sleeping and be quiet. Before having Justice I was determined that he would get used to noise and be able to sleep through anything. Well, then he came, actually for a long time in the beginning he slept fine through noises...dog barking, TV, loud conversations. At about 4 mos. that all changed and our lightish sleeper would wake up with various disruptions. Mostly Joy barking and loud conversations disrupt his sleep. Also, running the washer, dryer, and dishwasher are no, nos when he is sleeping, unless the dryer is already on it is okay. He does better at night with these things, but we still have to be careful.

I miss nice laundry detergents and fabric softeners. Since being on a tight budget I am pretty content with going without certain luxuries and treats, but I do miss things on occasion. One thing that you might not think about is the nice detergents like Tide with Febreeze or Gain Joyful Expressions and fabric softeners, Downy, ahhh. I miss the smells and softness of the clothes. I now buy the el cheapo brand of Sun, costing just shy of $2 for the concentrated liquid detergent. If you are on a tight budget, what things do you miss?

Gosh I am starting to feel bad about having a post every week for Tackle It Tuesday because it is showing everybody that I have plenty of messes to clean up. I promise my house is clean and sanitary, but we are a little cluttery and I am trying to rectify this each week. This week I worked on my computer desk. This is website, bill paying, and blog central so this desk collects all kinds of paperwork from receipts, orders, catalogs, bills, etc. I have to work on it about every two weeks. It will get cluttered again, but for today it is cleaned. I also dusted it, which it was pretty dusty. There are all kinds of places to dust with a computer. Each equipment piece seems to gather the dust. Next week Ron tells me that my project is our bedroom closet, it is a HUGE project! We will see. So here it is, the before and after of our desk:
Before:









After:









To participate in this fun assignment go to:
http://www.5minutesformom.com/
Thanks Janice for the motivation!

A Girl's Best Friend

This is perhaps the first post with a picture that is not of Justice. I have mentioned before that I have a doggie named Joy, but have yet to display her cuteness on my site or talk about her more than briefly. We took this photo for our pet jewelry in our special/other section on our website http://www.emilyrosejewellery.com. I got to thinking about this post after reading the post on my friend Ashley's site (http://labellavista06.blogspot.com/), about her cats. So, I felt is was just about time to talk about my princess.

Joy is a little white miniature that Ron and I were blessed with by my mother. My mom and I got her the day after Christmas in 2001. A colleague of my mother's asked my mom if she wanted a her since she had gotten Joy for her daugter and required that her daughter take care of her, but her daughter was no longer fulfilling her duties. My mom brought her home and I thought she was crazy since we already had two cats. But, I grew to love this little fluff ball. When my mother got remarried and moved to a farm we decided that Joy would do better with Ron and I since she is more of a city dog. So, we took her in and spoiled the crud out of this dog. Before we got her she was content to lay beside us in her own bed. Now, thanks mainly to my husband, she is pampered to no end. She never lays down except for on a blanket, preferably with a pillow. She is well groomed, usually (well since Justice came she has not been as coutured).

She has a lot of personality. She is a priss. As you can see in this photo, she knows how to pose for the camera. She is really afraid of flies! A couple of months ago a fly buzzed her on our bed at night and now she won't stay on the bed unless Ron is on it. She is also a daddy's girl, following him around and becoming very distressed when he goes outside to cut the grass. She is a very sweet dog and has done great with Justice. She is a sweetheart. She is also very smart. We did not have to tell her not to play with Justice's toys, she just knows which are hers and which are his. For a little while she was jealous of the attention Justice was getting and moaned and jumped at us for affection. But, she has calmed down a lot and is very at ease with life today. She still tries to get in between Justice and us and I don't think that will change anytime soon. Well, that is our dog, she is a fun, fun pet and we en"Joy" her daily!

Oops, We made a Boo Boo!

If you have visited my blog lately you might have noticed that it has been a little out of sorts. I want to apologize for my crazy blog. Ron and I were trying to work out a few issues and work on its look on Wednesday and messed things up big time. I actually deleted my blog because we had the template all messed up. I copied all of my back posts to a Word document and now I am starting over anew. I was so distraught for a few days thinking my blog would never be up again, then I realized I could just delete the damaged blog and use the same name for my new blog. So, here we are. Up and running. Hurray! This is also my 50th post here on this new site. That is somewhat of a milestone and I am proud of it. Although I no one would no it since I am not quite sure what to do with my back posts and I actually didn't save every single one of them. So many I should just start over with my count. Either way though I have done 50 posts-visible or not. But, I digress.

Since the mess I have missed posting. I missed my beloved Thursday Thirteen that I have participated in for about three months. Also, the ever changing world of Justice has not been recorded for all to hear about. Well, as far as he goes, he is learning to throw a ball. It is so cute watching him try to figure out how to release it once he has it. He usually ends up hitting it with his other hand to get it out. He can also say "ball," but not on command. We went to the Lake on Wednesday and probably spent on hour in the water. We were in a shady spot, so Justice didn't have to get too hot. It was hot as blazes on Wednesday! 98 degrees hot! It was great to be in the water though!

On another note, I thought I would post and ask about your opinions and what you do to ensure good nutrition for your little ones. I saw a piece on the 700 club and the Reader's Digest version is that growth hormones are being injected into cows and our meat and milk have these in them as well. They detailed that it may be linked to girls entering puberty earlier and earlier puberty is linked to breast cancer. For more details go to the 700 club's webpage. The studies are young, but this still concerns me. Justice, although he is a boy, it makes me question and think about looking more and more into organic foods. I do some organic foods now, but it is tough on a budget. Organic foods are so expensive. A friend of mine gives her son the organic milk, which costs about the same price of a gallon of milk for a half gallon of organic. I am highly considering this even with the expense because Justice will be soon getting a lot of his milk from cow's milk. I am planning on continuing to nurse Justice in the morning and at night after his year birthday and give him cow's milk or juice the rest of the day. So, how do you keep your kids healthy as far as nutrition goes?

Well, it is great to be back and I hope you all are doing well. I look forward to continuing my conversation with everyone and vow never again to change my template without saving it as is first.