We’re *moving*

I have started a new blog. The reason? Check it out:

Site

I hope you’ll still visit!

*sigh*

I really do have every intention of trying to breathe new life into my blog. Life has been so crazy since Kaedmon was born.

We also have a computer that has 7 (yes, 7!) mb of space left on it. I can’t upload/download anything. We are currently saving up for a new computer now and I will be able to share photos then.

Letter to a friend

Recently, a friend from high school emailed me to ask how I “do it” with 4 children under the age of 5. I was extremely humbled that she even thought of me to seek wisdom in the matter and then I laughed at the thought of sharing anything as I feel like the most imperfect, wretched mother out there! Never-the-less, I hope through doing this not to give any glory to me but to the great God who daily equips me to be the only Mommy to Noah, Sammy, Simon, and Kaed.

Dear (Friend),

You are too sweet! If you knew half of it- I have nothing together. I feel like the biggest absolute mess. But I love it and wouldn’t trade it for the world.

That is special- what you have with (daughter). Noah was 3 months old when I got pregnant with Sammy so Noah only had 11 months as an only child. If that doesn’t answer your question, yes, we want to have more kids. It is an issue of our conscience that God would have us to do nothing to prevent however many children He might bless us with. It is a personal decision and we by no means feel like it is right or best for everyone. We would never say that someone lacked faith or was sinning by using birth control. That being said, I enjoy being pregnant. I enjoy giving birth. And I enjoy having a newborn. Whenever I am not pregnant, I want to be pregnant. And when I am pregnant, I am beside myself blissful although my husband might not agree with that statement because I do get achy and tend to complain.

In order to “do it”, I constantly rely upon God’s grace to get me through each day. We have “order” as much a family this large can have order. I have learned to have a schedule, but it has to be flexible, or else I will become let down and discouraged easily. Life around here is crazy and it is NEVER quiet.

I would never say that it takes a certain woman to have this many kids. By all means, I wasn’t that woman. But- motherhood have been sanctifying for me. It has taught me to be selfless and to surrender a lot of control issues that I have. I have learned how frail and flawed I am. I have learned what a nasty person I am. More than anything, I have learned that I am NOT perfect. I am, in fact, the furthest thing from it.

I have learned to toss out every “big” issue that comes with mothering. I have learned that a Mom is not made by whether she breastfeeds or home schools or had a homebirth or feeds her baby organically. Just about every time that I thought my way was the best way to do a particular task when it came to mothering, God completely robbed me of it to teach me that a good mother is determined by how she trains the hearts of her children to love and obey God versus how that child was taught or fed or birthed or so forth.

I think it’s just important to be open to what God may have for you. Be obedient. Don’t fear what the world says about quality time for each child or money or how many children the average family should have. All those things have a way of falling into place. You are a great Mom. I can tell. Just focus on those things that are eternal. (Your daughter) will benefit more from that than anything else you can give her.

Thanks for emailing. I hope I was able to help at all. And I would be happy to answer any other questions you had!

Cereal!

In photos, cause I’m in a rush to get back to packing!

Anyone looking for new music

May I suggest Lift Up the Name from Harvest Bible Chapel. Their pastor, James MacDonald is one of the leaders of The Gospel Coalition, if I’m not mistaken. We sing some of their songs at our new church and they are gospel-centered and beautiful! You can go to Harvest Songs here. Click on Lift Up the Name. From there you can sample each song. My favorites: The New Song We Sing, O The Love Of My Redeemer, He is My Fortress, and Revelation Song. They are all great, however. You can also check out Meredith Andrews, who sings some of the songs on the CD.

Jonah

I’ve been praying for Jonah for 3 months now. Here is an entry from his Mommy’s blog. So precious.

Some randoms

I know I owe a much bigger update than this, but life in the King home has been crazy, to say the least.

1. We are busy moving. We will be official residents of Versailles as of Saturday. Finally. Hooray!
2. We LOVE our church. It is SO different than any other church we have ever attended. And yes, that’s a good thing. We are so excited to see how God will use us as we serve alongside fellow friends and believers at The Point.
3. David has a wonderful job. God has SO answered our prayers in providing a fabulous job with fabulous hours. Where? In the sewers. I’m serious. And he loves it. Makes him feel like a man, he says =)
4. I bought a Sham-Wow. So random, I know. But I’m super excited. I can’t wait to use it. My midwife made a prediction that within a few years, cloth diapers will be made exclusively out of Sham-Wow materials.
5. I saw my doctor today. I have been feeling very out of sorts since I had Kaedmon. He did a load of blood work, but suspects hypothyroidism. I’ll write more when I get the results.
6. This move is very tough on the boys. The other day Simon said “I want…home.” Poor guy. We all want to be home.
7. Speaking of home, God continues to amaze me with what He is teaching me about my real home in heaven. So many times in the recent months I have found myself thinking: “When we get into our house, I’ll do this…” or “When we finally have our own place, I’ll be happy.” God has really been teaching me that no house in this life will ever give me the kind of peace or satisfaction that I find myself desiring. Truth is, I have no home here of any type of value. That home is to come. This whole process has made me ache for my eternal home.
8. Kaedmon is growing so fast. He is almost 5 months old. He started cereal tonight. It went…okay. Pics to come.
9. Also regarding Kaedmon, I am finally at peace with the fact that he may one day sleep through the night, even if it’s not any time soon.
10. I was very disappointed by the season finale of 24.
11. Speaking of season finales, The Biggest Loser freaked me out. Helen looked WEIRD. And not very healthy. And does it not frustrate anyone else that they go leaps and bounds to get these contestants to a healthy weight and eating right but seem to have no problem with the hours in a tanning salon that they must have spent to get that tan for the finale. I’m just sayin. Maybe it takes someone who has a Mom with melanoma to notice that?
12. I am officially the coupon-ing queen. Last Saturday, I shopped at Target, Meijer, and Walgreens. My total before coupons came to $180. What did I spend out of pocket? $70! At one point, I had a group of ladies at Meijer surrounding me to learn my tricks. HA!
13. We have spent the last few weeks at the home of Jason and Marri Hampton. Can I just say that in my entire life I have never, and I mean NEVER, seen such an example of selfless, Christlike love between a husband and a wife than I did between Jason and Marri. They are a beautiful family and I learned so much from their example while we were in their home. They have a 3 month old son, Calvin, and it is so obvious how much they love that baby. They fight over who gets to hold him. I am so blessed to have been able to stay with them the last few weekends.
14. Our new home has new appliances. Can I get a WOOT WOOT?!
15. It also has wood paneling on the walls. Can I get an “oh NO!” He he. It’s just in one room. I can live with that.

So this was an absolute mind dump. I hope you made it through. I will try to do a better job at updating as we get moved.

my sons: both pharisees in their own little ways

A few days ago, we had a very rare day: Noah and Samuel were angels! Both of them. On the same day. I in no way mean to seem as though I have no faith in my boys to obey but, let’s be honest, this rarely happens. It was like a day of bliss where I finally saw a glimmer of hope that all these years of correction have somehow “stuck”.

Yes- they were rewarded. I had a B1G1 free coupon for blizzards so I took them for a treat. They shared a blizzard (M &M, if you’re curious) and they even got their own cups (that’s a big deal around here!).

They were very curious to know: “Why the treat?” I replied, as I normally do, that “Obedience brings blessings and disobedience brings consequences.”

Here’s where it gets funny.

You could almost see Noah’s joy fill up inside of him to the point that it overflowed into a prayer of praise. I’m not kidding- at all. He exclaimed: “Oh thank you, Lord, that I obeyed! Thank you for this wonderful ice cream. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!”

Sammy followed suit, in his Sammy way. A little background: one of their favorite shows right now is The Storykeepers, which tells about many of the stories found in the gospels. One of them tells the story of the pharisees and how they prayed so that others would see them. Not even missing a beat, Sammy exclaims:

“Thank you, Lord, that I am not like other men. I fast and give a tenth of all I earn. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!” And then he said: “That’s my prayer, Noah. You like it?”

I nearly died laughing and then proceeded to explain to Sammy what a pharisee was and why we should strive to not pray in that same manner. It- was- exhausting.

My Simon

I love him =) Just wanted to share!

My $30 Groceries!

I have never been a coupon clipper. I found it way too confusing, way too time consuming, and, honestly, not worth the effort. Recently, however, I have become increasingly convicted that doing my part to cut down our grocery bill would be wise. And as soon as I started, I quickly realized: I had been doing it all wrong!

I am new to this whole couponing thing. I don’t claim to be an expert at it. I am, however, starting to get the hang of it! I went to Kroger and Wal-mart today and I wanted to share my Kroger bill with you: 30 bucks for all of this! Now, I must say I have seen many ladies who have done much better than this, but as I am still building my coupon stash and learning all the tips, I am ecstatic!

If you can’t see, that’s:

8 Yoplait yogurts
2 boxes Raisin Bran
2 lbs. strawberries
1 bag Valencia oranges (whatever Valencia means)
1 bag mini carrots
2 pouches Betty Crocker mashed potatoes
3 boxes Pasta Roni
2 pouches rice
1 box Pillsbury family-sized brownies
1 box Hungry Jack complete buttermilk pancake mix
4 pack White Cloud toilet paper
1 pack napkins
1 box saltines
2 packs sugar cookie dough
1 bag Nestle butterscotch morsels
1 Tropicana orange juice
1 Green Giant Immunity Blend boxed veggie
Pretzels
2 loaves whole wheat bread
1 2-pack Lever 2000 soap
1 box South Beach fiber bars

For 30 dollars!!!

Here are some things I have learned since I started couponing:

• It’s important to be realistic. I have a house of men that love to eat! Since we have been blessed with a large family, it would be unrealistic (and would even stress  me out a bit) to set the bar for savings so high that I could realistically never attain it. It costs quite a bit to feed our family and I should be content with every step (no matter how small) we take to bring down our weekly grocery bill!
• Ideally I would bake all our bread, eat organic, milk our own dairy cows, and have some chickens in the back yard, but let’s be honest- it ain’t gonna happen! I don’t have the time to bake all our bread, we can’t afford organic (unless it’s dramatically reduced and I have a coupon), udders frighten me a bit, and chickens STINK! Plus- where would we keep them (LOL)? As the kids grow older, some of these things might be possible as the responsibility could be shared and we would hopefully have the land to do these things. At this stage in life, however, I am most interested in spending time with my family and not in the kitchen.
• Convenience is awesome! Until I started using coupons, we couldn’t afford the luxuries of boxed potatoes, rice, brownies, etc. (yes, I called them luxuries– they were) but now, with the right coupon, I can get these items dirt cheap! Like today, the brownies and potatoes were .30 cents a piece!
• If we don’t need it, we don’t buy it. Like today, Soft Soap was cheap. 10 for 10 dollars, I think. But the Kroger brand is always 99 cents and we don’t need soap right now. In the past, I would buy anything that was on sale just because it was a good buy.
• If we don’t need it, we do buy it. The difference is figuring out whether the item you are contemplating purchasing is a good buy that you could probably get again when you do need it or a great buy. An example of a great buy today was toilet paper. No- we didn’t need toilet paper. We had plenty but I had a coupon for 75 cents off.  The t.p. was a dollar. So I am got a 4 pack of t.p. for 25 cents! My coupon would have expired before we needed it again so I considered that a great buy.
• This takes work! I spend a few hours a week trying to find the best deals. This consists of viewing circulars, searching websites, clipping coupons, mentally planning meals, and looking through newspapers. It is hard with the kids running around me and screaming their little heads off, but it is worth it when you are at the checkout!
• Shop ALDI!!! I used to refuse to shop at Aldi as I assumed the off-brands were less than tasty, but I was W-R-O-N-G. They are much cheaper and some of their foods taste better! My favorite Aldi items: cottage cheese, mozzarella cheese sticks, vanilla wafers, cream cheese, sour cream, bagged salad, yogurt, the list goes on!
• Supposedly you can get great deals each week at CVS and WalGreens but I haven’t quite figured that program out yet!

That being said, I am sure I have a lot to learn. I welcome your suggestions! But I just wanted to share my new “semi-obsession”!

P.S. A few favorite websites:

Money Saving Mom (I’ve listed this one before)
STLMommy (She has tons of lists of freebies! And restaurant deals! And birthday freebies!)
Coupons.com (You can usually print the same coupon 2 or 3 times, which I am learning is the key to having great grocery trips!)
The Bargain Shopper Lady