Feeling Blessed... and other stuff

Do you ever feel blessed for something that you don't want to receive? For instance, I am one of the only women I know that really doesn't crave all things chocolate. Don't get me wrong--I don't DISLIKE chocolate, I just don't crave it. Typically, I start my days with a sugar free Carnation Instant Breakfast creamy milk chocolate packet and a big glass of 1% milk to mix it in. That's about the extent of my chocolate consumption. I don't really like chocolate cake. I don't crave Godiva. I don't buy chocolate for me. We can have bars and bars of chocolate in the candy dish and it will sit there forever if it were up to me. So, it's nice, to me, and I feel blessed that I DO NOT have that chocolate gene. I struggle enough with the french fry gene!

Another reason I feel extremely blessed today is that the dealership came and DELIVERED MY NEW CAR! I drove it into the garage from my drive way. WOO HOO! Then I realized, if I wanted to go anywhere, I'd need to install the car seat base for Benjamin's "baby bucket" (infant child carrier). It's black... it's plush... it's new and it's all mine! Josh was able to break in watching the CIRUS (sp?) backseat tv on the way home from running Drew to baseball practice.

I also feel beyond blessed to have had the help of my mother in law the past week and a half. She's literally been a saving grace for me. She's volunteered and has been shuttling my two crazy kids back and forth to all their activities and classes so that I can a) get some rest and b) keep Ben out of his car seat. Both she and I HATE having him in that thing b/c he can't hold his little head up yet and it just freaks me out.... couple that with the fact that he HATES being in it! It's been nice for me to let him work on his neck muscles a little more.

Tonight we dined on a premade turkey/beef meatloaf that I had prepared from my freezer cooking session. I must say--it was AWESOME! I had Josh help with dinner prep tonight. He made the herb oven-roasted new potatoes and did a fantastic job on those. This is just simply dicing the potatoes and onion, adding a little minced garlic, herbs (I was out of Rosemary, however, dang it!) and olive oil. YUM-O! He also made a pineapple/cherry dump cake for dessert and did a smashing job on that as well. However, back to the meatloaf. I will tell you the secret of this fantastic meatloaf--instead of using plain bread crumbs, you must use Pepperidge Farm's Seasoned Stuffing Mix. YUM! It made all the difference in the world! It was one of the and I mean the best meatloaves I have EVER had! Now, the brown sugar/ketchup topping was, of course, DA BOMB as well... but the meat loaf was supreme!

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I'm still not 100% and so we haven't been staying completely on track in school. I'll do that tomorrow. Josh didn't concentrate worth a darn today and his math scores from today's assignment totally reflect that. He has a hard time doing anything with Drew up in his business all day. Hopefully tomorrow we will get it all done and handled and he'll make up for today's flub up.

Tomorrow is registration day for College for Kids -- he is SO looking forward to this! I'll get him registered for that and so he will be taken care of for the summer. I still need to figure out what all I'm going to do with Drew.

Tomorrow is the beginning of Drew's 3 day school week at preschool. My friend Amanda is also coming over tomorrow to do photos of Drew! :) I CAN NOT WAIT! She's just amazing and I can't wait!!! Josh has guitar and a scrimmage. Drew has a t-ball game at the same time. What a whippin'!

I also think that instead of homeschooling Joshua next school year, I will send him to Fort Worth Christian with Drew. I'm not sold 100% on this -- and some of it is purely selfish because I really do want to have some one on one time with Benjamin like I had with Josh and with Drew -- but I know that he desires and needs that daily interaction with peers. I want it, however, to be in a more controlled environment and I know that this is a GOOD school (he went there for Kindergarten and Developmental First) . I know that he will be in a Christ-centered classroom and that he will attend chapel daily. I know that they don't focus on teaching around a standardized, government-mandated test and thus, the children can soar academically. Those are things that are fundamentally important to me. They're a very good school academically. I know that I will miss a great deal of one on one time with him... especially during these formidable youth years... but I just think -- even if we don't keep him there BEYOND that one year back -- it'll be a good eye opening experience for him to maybe, if nothing else, help him refocus his attentions on his studies. We will see. I hope that his biological father will help pay for the cost of the education there but I certainly won't hold my breath on that one. As I said, we shall see.