Congo

Life is crazy. As of last week we are no longer adopting from Ethiopia. There were many reasons why we had to quit. It wasn't a decision we made lightly, it broke our hearts.

Two days later we get a message from the agency. There is a 3 month old baby girl in the Congo who needs a home. Could we be that home? I cant begin to tell you the shock and amazement i felt at that moment. The baby is healthy, and the adoption could be completed in 6 months! Exactly the time we have left to do an international adoption. God is amazing. We think we're adopting from Ethiopia but God knew all along that wasn't our path. In 5- 6 months my husband will be bringing back our baby girl. Life is crazy. But oh so good.

Eating out challenge

My family LOVES to eat out. When hubby and I were dating we ate at restaurants all 3 meals a day. We gained a million pounds. I shudder to think about how much that cost. We're past that point but we still eat out several times a week. We're trying to kick our habit. Last night we had dinner at Outback ($12 plates. I wasn't impressed) today we start our week long eating out challenge. I wouldn't mind eating out once a week as long as we budgeted for it. And if it was mindful, a planned expense. Right now we eat out randomly. Part of the problem is our busyness. Part of the problem is I get tired of cooking. I enjoy it fine, but i get burnt out when I cook all the time. Too bad for me!!! :) I'll be using the crock pot and bbq to help stay on track.

Tonight's dinner
Sloppy Joes (gluten free bread for hubby)
Asian Broccoli
Quinoa

Zoo Bento

I had to quickly pull these bentos together, there isn't much finesse here!


Bento baby has a half a turkey sandwich, cheese stick, and strawberries.
Hubby had a sandwich, strawberries, cheese, granola, cookies, and almonds. This was right before he started eating gluten free. I imagine this lunch made the poor man quite sick!

I had turkey sandwiches, cheese stick, pineapple and strawberries.

Bentobaby ate everyone's strawberries, most of my pineapple, and all of hubby's granola! She was a hungry girl. She says "I a hungry teddy bear!"

Night stand score!

I'm replacing (slowly) a lot of our cheap, beat up furniture. Its going slowly because I buy second hand, or refinished items. Some I repaint myself. But with others sometimes I'm blessed to find a good piece and a good price. As is the case with my new night stand. it barely fits in its new spot. Its so tight I had to move the blankets and comforter off the bed for the picture.


I've been looking for a new nightstand for over a year. What I had before was very ugly open shelving. I had become so desperate I was eyeing new $60 night stands! Imagine my glee at finding this little cutie for $17. Already painted the white color I wanted! YAY!

Free organic fruit? I'm there!

My area has a very invasive, aggressive, painful weed hat grows everywhere. The upside to that is during the summer this weed produces sweet and juicy blackberries. Its very easy to find ripe blackberries. I picked a pound and a half out of my tiny suburban yard yesterday. We eat them plain, topped with yogurt and topped with whipped cream. Bentobaby loves them. I want to try something new. So today I'll be picking more berries and trying my first batch of freezer jam.

Thrift store mirror re-do!

I love pretty things. And i feel better when my far from perfect house feels nicely decorated. Unfortunately I can't afford to furnish my house by buying all the things I like from Macys. But that is okay. It means my house is full of different, sometimes unique items.


Our bedroom is purple. A pretty dark purple. I want to repaint it. But, hubby doesn't. So i am doing my best to lighten the room with accent pieces. I wanted a frilly white mirror. It took forever but I finally found a frilly black mirror with gold accents, it was horrible. The price was perfect $7. It took some spray primer, and several coats of white plastic paint. But now the mirror looks like this:
I love it! And the best part was I already had the paint. It didn't cost me a cent to re-do my thrifted treasure!

Zoo bento lunches

Bentos for the Zoo. Our family spends $130 a year for a Zoo pass. Its such a blessing to us. We can go as often as we want and leave when we want without feeling like we need to get our money's worth. It does cost us a $4 toll each time we go. I pack a lunch to keep our trips low cost. Plus our pass lets us take 3 guests free each time we go. I love being able to invite people to a very cool and very cheap play date!



Bento baby used the Strawberry shortcake box. (dollar tree) She had toddler sized turkey sandwiches, (with daddy's home grown sprouts!) strawberries, cherry tomatoes, and a clementine.
J's bento box came from Old Navy of all places! It was $5. Its a very cool box. He has two pieces of cake (to split with Bentobaby and myself) strawberries, clementine, and a turkey sandwich.

My bento box came from Dasio. It was $5. I had the same sandwich, cherry tomatoes, strawberries and a clementine.

We did thrill bentobaby by purchasing a $5 bag of popcorn to split. She LOVES popcorn. It does big me a bit to pay so much for such a cheap product. Oh well! It was really good popcorn. :)