New Year, New approach

Sorry for my lack of blogging the past few days. It’s the first time that I’ve missed a day since I started in October. With this new year, I’m going to take a new approach on my business and my blog. I’m working on re-evaluating everything, but I will let you know on Jan 1st what I plan on doing. I have a feeling that I will enjoy this new approach much better.

 

Thanks for your patience as I re-evaluate. I’ll be back on Jan 1st.

-Amanda

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Longing to be at Home

My daughter was sick yesterday. I got to experience my first real vomit clean up as a Mom. That wasn’t fun. But staying home with my babes made it easy to not care about the barf mess.

I ache to be at home with her everyday. I think that’s my biggest sacrifice to becoming debt free. We’ve paid off so much debt that we could probably squeak by financially if I came home. But losing half our income would bring our debt pay off to a screeching halt.

My husband and I had a long talk the other night. In just 3 months he will be at basic training for the USAF. I will be a full time employee, fill both roles of mom and dad, keep the house clean, prepare to move and run a business – all by myself – for about 5 months. I’m so nervous for that. I’m nervous that one of these areas might lack attention. But family comes first. Always. If Chae starts to feel like she’s getting the short straw, some adjustments will need to be made. I’m also nervous because my work is going though some changes. I hope they maintain the same flexibility they’ve shown me over the past 3 years of employment with them. I hope they understand where I’m coming from if I need to leave to take care of my girl.

In just about 8 short months we will be moving to our duty station. It is coming up on us very quickly. My husband and I decided that I will be home with our babes once we move. I would only come home sooner if being without my husband proves too rough and we can make it financially while he’s gone. But for now, the plan is for me to stay at work full time until we move.

All of this is coming quick and I just need to have some patience.

Patience is a virtue that I was not blessed with.

Staying at work is the best and quickest way to have financial peace for the long run. Its just 8 months. I’ll live, my daughter will live. We might just be a little stressed out is all. 🙂

I’m super Mom. I got this.

Thanks for reading.

– Amanda.

We gave our kid financial knowledge for Christmas.

I loved LOVED Christmas morning! 🙂 Last year, Chae was so small; Christmas was SO simple. Last year we seriously just took things from around the house and called them presents. haha. She’s so cute hidden in that swing. Here’s …

We aren’t doing Santa Claus!

My friend posted this and I love it! It is a great post! However, I have different opinions. I commented the following on her post.

“We are doing Santa Claus. I loved the magic of Santa as a kid. There are ways that we will keep Christ in Christmas with out taking the imagination and magic away from our kids. Brett’s cousin says “Santa only brings 3 presents because that’s how many gifts Jesus got”. I heard about that after we bought Chae’s presents, but we intend to do that next year. You can also teach them the power of giving with out taking Santa away. One year, my sisters and I got really greedy. My mom said “NO MORE” after that, she made it a point to teach us what Christmas is all about. She’d talk with us about choosing a charity. She’d take us out and let us pick stuff out for the people we were helping. We were actively involved EVERY step of the way! Those are the Christmases that I remember most. The problem with greedy kids is not Santa. It’s all about what parents do with the rest of the holiday season. If kids aren’t shown the magic and power of the REAL Christmas season, they will be greedy. Santa is just a reflection of the parents, it can be done right without taking the magic out of Christmas morning that Santa brings to your home. I’m excited to see what you guys come up with as your family grows. Different traditions are what make each family so special. :)”

What is your view on Santa? Do you maybe go a little overboard? Could your Christmas be toned down a little next year? Curious to hear what others think. 🙂

Thanks for visiting.
-Amanda

mommaduggar's Blog

Alright I can hear some of you saying… “Well how are you going to do that?” or ” That’s going to be hard!”

I’ll tell you why. These are my reasons.

1. Christmas isn’t about Santa or getting presents because you’re good. There are TOO MANY kids these days in the mind set “I want this! I want that!” They forget what’s important. In addition the parents also get lost. I’m sorry, but for those who don’t believe in Jesus, He’s the reason we celebrate. Sorry to break it to you…. 😉

2. I don’t want my kids to be so disappointed like I was when I found out Santa wasn’t real! I’m afraid that they will lose trust in me because I lied to them to get them to be good.

How are you going to go about those who do believe in Santa, you ask? I’ll tell you.

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Ready… break!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! I have enjoyed the nice break from anything work related. I just got to relax and enjoy my time with our family today.

Tomorrow the “fun” begins again. I’ve got some stuff to share with you!! 🙂

See you then! Happy Christmas!
-Amanda.

Christmas Eve

I love LOVE Christmas time. Gathered with family to share quality time together. Joyous. 🙂

Today was really busy. My husband and I both had to work. When we got home, we all took a much needed nap! We woke up and went to Brett’s Grandpa’s house for dinner and fun!

Brett’s Grandma passed away in 2006. This is the first Christmas since her passing that Grandpa has had a tree put up in his home. Thanks to Brett’s family for encouraging him to put it up.

After dinner, we took some of Grandma’s favorite ornaments and put them in a large bowl. We all took turns telling our favorite Christmas memories. After we told our story, we each grabbed an ornament and put it on the tree. Boy did we have some good laughs! What a fun group! This was followed by Grandpa reading the scriptures of Christ’s birth. We got our Christmas Jammies on and headed home.

Santa has came, everyone is asleep and I’m not to far behind. 🙂

Grateful for such a wonderful family.

 

Loves.

-AMANDA

Holiday Junk and holiday fitness

Oh man, I can see why people gain weight during the holidays! There is SO much JUNK food all over the place! Jillian Michaels would not be proud of my eating this weekend. (And the scale showed this morning) I gained 2 lbs this week. I have to work extra hard to make up for it! It’s ok to eat sweets in moderation. But we have to remember to work out extra hard to make up for our calorie intake. If you just eat crap, you will gain weight. Exercise while you eat crap, you might have a balance. Want to loose weight? Don’t eat crap. Simple really, but temptation is hard to overcome. My goal is to avoid all the holiday junk this week.

To make up physically, I’m going to do a weeks worth of my fitness challenge all at once. I will still continue as normal tomorrow.

Today’s workout:

135 sit ups

135 Push ups

3 min 30 second plank

45 knee highs

45 mountain climber

45 jumping jacks

10 burpees.

Once I put it all together, that does not look like fun. But I gained weight this week. Bag that.

JUST FREAKIN’ DO IT!! No excuses to gain weight this holiday season. Work it off. Don’t eat crap.

Thanks for reading.

Amanda

Work out starts NOW.

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Christmas Spirit

We made it to church today! Boy am I glad! 🙂 I really loved the Christmas program in sacrament meeting! The spirit of Christmas was so so strong! 🙂 I love moments when you can really feel the TRUE MEANING of Christmas. I want to take my family out and do some thing good for society. I’m grateful for this time of year. Every one is so willing to help and you can feel the love. I wish this spirit lasted all year long. Christmas is in 3 days. Are you ready? When I ask if you are ready, I do not mean materialistically. I mean spiritually. Are you going to truly embrace and remember the meaning behind this SPECIAL day we celebrate once a year?

 

Linus can help you. I love this.

 

Thanks for visiting.

-Amanda

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Little reindeer

  Our friends are in from out of state for Christmas. My husband and the other men went to The Hobbit for a guys night while Wendy and I stayed in with all the kids. We had a lot of …

Family Pictures

We took family pictures over Thanksgiving Weekend. I’m in love with them. I’m so lucky to have married into such a wonderful  family. I love every one of these guys so much. 🙂

Anderson Love. 🙂

I love this little face.

He would have done this on the edge of the bridge but the photographer said “Not on my dime”. He does this stuff on the edge of cliffs. Show off. 😉

I adore this picture of all of the siblings! True smiles.

Good lookin’ group eh? 🙂

Thanks for visiting. See you tomorrow.

-Amanda