Julie Pyatt

- I am learning that the key to succeeding in business is perserverance.

- I am so fortunate to have married into such a wonderful family.

- I have the most beautiful, sweet, wonderful baby girl in the whole world.

- I am so honored my husband supports me and believes in me… often more than I do myself.

- Family is such a sweet gift.  Through the good and the bad they’re always there for you.

- I know I say it all the time but it’s true.  God is SO good!!!  I am richly blessed!

This is SO cool!  Kenny told me about it (thank you sweetie).  Now I just wish I had one of the controllers.

Last night was a blast!  We had a small cookout at our house and invited a few friends.  It was so much fun.  It felt so good to just relax, have good company and sit by the fire enjoying yummy food.  The weather was perfect.  I couldn’t have asked for better!  The little kids had a blast kicking a ball around the yard.  We got to catch up with people we haven’t seen in forever.  Everyone seemed to really have a good time.  We didn’t even get to bed till 2AM.  Ha ha!  I haven’t done that in a while.

Thanks to everyone that came.  Hopefully we can do it again sometime.

So I get a lot of spam comments on my site and it’s extremely irritating because I have to sift through all this stupid (and sometimes nasty) spam and delete it.  Lately though a bunch of the spammers have been posting really corny jokes and I’m starting to get a kick out of it.  So I thought I might share a few:

- Why is a turkey more evil than a chicken? Because a turkey is always a gobblin (a goblin).

- Did you hear about the man who was tap dancing? He broke his ankle when he fell into the sink.

- What’s the saddest part of the day? Mourning.

- What has four legs, is big, green, furry, and if it fell out of a tree would kill you? A pool table.

Yeah, I told you they were corny.  But they’re so stupid they’re starting to make me laugh. 

Weekends are wonderful!

I’m babysitting Hayden this afternoon so Stephen and Liz can go on a date for Stephen’s birthday.  We’ve had fun so far.  Done all the normal stuff kids do.  Eat, go to the bathroom, watch a little Elmo (Hayden says MoMo… how cute!), play with blocks, knock the blocks down, go to the bathroom again, take toys away from each other, dance, the whole nine yards.  Well, right now both kiddos are sound asleep and I’m surfing the Net.  Oh yes, victory is so sweet! 

Okay, so this word just makes me laugh.  It’s pronounced puhl-kri-tood-n-uhs.  It means physically beautiful or comely.  He he… can you just see it now?  A guy walks up to a beautiful girl on a street corner and says, “Hey, you’re really pulchritudinous.”  Then she slaps him across the face.  Ha ha… I love the English language!

There are a few simple things in life I really appreciate:

- A mighty and just God who loves me (Psalm 7:6-17)

- A merciful Savior (Romans 6:23)

- My wonderful husband

- My sweet, beautiful daughter

-That exhausted yet satisfied feeling you have after a day full of accomplishments

- The feel and smell of a clean house

- The fact that I have a house and clothes and food and provision

- Wal-Mart

- Hot water…

- And cold water

- A good book

- Music

- Internet access

- Google

- Sunshine

- Good company

- Selfless and true friends

- Loving family

- Long walks in the park

- A comfy bed

Speaking of… I think I will go enjoy that last one right now.  Sweet dreams!

Kate did the cutest thing today.  I put her in front of the TV for a few minutes so I could print some coupons off the computer.  A few minutes later I noticed she was being really quiet.  So I went in the living room and when I did, she was laying face down on her blanket in front of the TV.  She had her arms wrapped around the remote control so I think she made an attempt to get the remote and then fell asleep playing with it.  So hilarious!

I have found the most amazing website for mommies ever!  www.momadvice.com It has so many great tips and helpful articles.  I tried the Aldi’s fall meal plan and have been able to make dinners for a whole month for $110.  The food has been great too, you can ask Kenny.  :-)  The meals end up being huge so it would work for as many as four people but it’s nice cause I just freeze the leftovers for another night.  Less cooking!  Woohoo!  I’ve even been able to save money on lunches cause we’ve had leftovers for lunches too.

Here are a few helpful cost-saving ideas I have gathered from this website:

- Use the lowest amount of laundry detergent and fabric softener when you wash your clothes.  They get just as clean.  The same is true for your dishwasher.  I used to always think more was better.  Turns out, that’s not always true.  This tip has saved us a LOT of money!

- Shop at Aldi’s!  They don’t carry name brands but all the food has been very good quality.  I haven’t done a price comparison with Wal-Mart yet to find out if all the items are cheaper but I know many are.  For example, I got a dozen eggs for $0.49 instead of the $0.99 I pay at Wal-Mart.  I got a regular sized bag of salad mix for $0.99 and it’s normally $1.98 at Wal-Mart.  I paid $0.79 per pound for ground beef and it’s normally $0.98 per pound at Wal-Mart.  That adds up quickly!  Definitely check out Amy’s article before you go for the “how to” guide to shopping at Aldi’s.

- When you do your laundry, do it all at once so you’re running your dryer back-to-back.  You save money because your dryer’s already hot when you throw in the next load so it doesn’t take as long to get hot again.