time flies

May has come and almost gone in a blink!  I cannot believe it is almost June.  As is typical with our family, things have been a bit crazy.  We just got home from a visit with Nina (Jeff's mom) in Port St. Joe.  Jeff and Ben went down on Sunday and spent several days fishing and hanging out with Nina while I worked and ran around like a crazy person up here in Tifton.  Both my boys caught fish and Ben even hooked a blue crab with his tiny Lightning McQueen fishing pole!  :-)

On Thursday I left to join them in PSJ.  On my way I stopped in Tallahassee to shop at Target and Publix.  I scored great deals at both places!  At Target I got Jeff's favorite deoderant for $.73 each,  I got my favorite Glade room sprays for $1 each and I got two boxes of Zantac for $.21 each!  Woot!  But my best couponing experience ever was at Publix.  I got 6 bags of Pedigree Dentastix, two bottles of Wishbone salad dressing, and 4 boxes of Ronzoni pasta for...wait for it...$0.00!  It was awesome!!  You just can't do better than free, so I was very, very excited!

Jeff boiled us some shrimp, corn and potatoes for dinner after I got into town.  It was AWSOME!  On Friday, we spent all day in Panama City with the Colravy family.  We had a great time with them at their house and at the beach and then wrapped up our evening at Olive Garden.  It was so great to catch up with our dear friends!  Oh how we love and miss them!

Saturday was hang out with Nina day!  We went to the Farmer's market and to the Piggly Wiggly where I scored some great couponing deals on Crackerfuls and Chex Mix!  Then we hung out at the house.  Jeff made us burgers, onoin rings, and fried green tomatoes for dinner - can you say YUM?!

On Sunday I got to do all my CVS-ing at the brand new CVS in PSJ.  It opened that day!  It was so cool to shop in a brand new fully stocked store!  I got every single deal I was looking for!  I spent $46 for about $200 worth of stuff which included 4 Coke 12 packs, 5 bottles of spray sunscreen, 4 bottles of body wash, two deoderants, 2 bottles of fingernail polish, 2 cans of shaving gel, a box of Advil, a box of Thermacare heat wraps, a pack of gum, a box of q-tips, a box of Always, and other stuff I can't remeber right now!  It was a pretty great trip even if I did do 5 transactions!  Then we all enjoyed Sunday woship at Highland View Baptist Church with Nina.  It was a nice, relaxing day.

We came home on Monday and after unpacking the car for what seemed like an hour, we finally got settled into the house.  Scout welcomes us home with much tail wagging and heavy breathing!!  Thanks to our frined Sheri for feeding her and watering our tomatoes, squash, bell peppers, and cucumbers whole we were gone!

Now that Ben is out of school and Jeff is between semesters we are taking our schedule day-by-day as far as when we work/write, who has Ben when, etc.  Soon, though Jeff will start teaching again for the summer and we will fall back into some sort of rythym.  Poor Ben is likely to go stir crazy if we don't figure out some cool things to do, however.  Any suggestions?

happy easter!

The Lord is risen!  He is risen indeed!


Hope you all have a fantastic day and take time to give glory to the creator, sustainer, and redeemer of all things

$aving the green

So my crazy couponing friends at church gave a little Couponing 101 workshop to the ladies of New Life (and anyone else from the community that wanted to attend).  It was great and I have to say that each week, they seem less and less crazy...   :-)

I have begun by getting coupons from the Sunday paper for the last two weeks and printing off coupons from the internet.  If you, like me, are thinking about starting to coupon, then the most important thing is to begin collecting your coupons.  I have mine organized in a binder using baseball card holders (thanks Nicole and Missy!) and separated into sections like breakfast, freezer section, dairy case, medication, cleaning supplies, hair & beauty, etc., etc...

I have also begun CVS-ing.  At CVS you can earn extra care bucks(ecbs) back on certain purchases.  last week, for example I used some coupons and shopped at CVS specifially targeting the items I could get ECBs for and then simply buying some items that we need and that they had on sale and I had a coupon for.  I bought $120 worth of stuff (regular price retail value) and spent $36.  My friend Missy actually told me that once I get really good at this, I will spend more like $4 for a $100 worth of stuff.  Can't wait for that day!  :-)

So there is a fantastic website that anyone (but especially those of us in the South) can use to help manage the couponing chaos - www.southernsavers.com   Go there.  It is awesome and totally worth your time to look through.


Anyway, all that to say, that if you get the Sunday paper and don't want your coupons, feel free to mail them to me!  I can totally put them to good use!  :-)

frustration

That word just about sums up my attitude toward Ben right now.  It has been a hellashious week and I don't think he could possibly frustrate and push my buttons more.  I am sure he will give it a go, however.  So, to all you moms and dads who have, not acting on this impulse, of course, but have felt the impulse to punch your kid in the face....I am so with you.

supper time

The lasagna I made for dinner just got done and is now cooling! I can barely contain myself!  It's gonna be so good. :-)

playing catch-up

Wow.  Am I super behind with my blogging or what?!  Well here is what has been keeping me busy for the last two months:

Jeff's Graduation:  That's right, folks.  My PhD earning husband got hooded!  The whole family headed up to Athens for Jeff's graduation in mid-December.  I am so proud of him!!  All the Newberrys came as well as my mom, Ted, Kim, and Jonah, Grandmother, and Uncle John.  It was craziness and super awesome fun!  My super cute nephew Jonah is getting so big and he is such a great baby!  It was fun to see him before he is not a baby anymore. :-)

 

Pre-Christmas: After Jeff's graduation we had an early Newberry family Christmas  It was great to hang with the family and have a great time eating and exchanging gifts!  Also, Joe and Ashley came to my Tifton Choral Society Christmas concert, so that was super special!

Mourning The Loss of A Friend:  Our friend Eric Cash passed away on the 18th, the day we came home from Athens, after an 8 month battle with lung cancer.  His funeral was on December 22.  We are still missing him very much and grieving for Erin, Elizabeth and Eliot.  On a wonderful note, Jeff and I became Eliot's godparents on the 19th when he and Elizabeth were baptized at St. Anne's Episcopal.

Illness: I began what ended up being an 8 day long stomach illness the day we left Athens that continued until Christmas day.  It was awful.  Blech!

Christmas Eve:  On Christmas Eve we went to our church's service and it was great.  I love our church family!

Christmas:  My parents came up from Tally for Christmas and enjoyed present opening and our traditional ribeyes on the grill!  Ben played Santa and watching him open his gifts was lots of fun and the steaks were AMAZING!!  My hubby is the grill master!

Boston:  From December 29-January 5 I went to visit my super awesome brother and his family in Boston.  It was so great to see Chip, Shannon, Aurora, and new baby Escher, especially since it had been so long since the last time I had seen them.  Aurora has gotten so big and Escher is such a cutie.  I am a blessed Aunt. :-)  Boston was super cool - literally.  Thankfully I got there post blizzard so while I got to enjoy several feet of snow, it did not actually snow while I was there.  Chip and Shan took such good care of me, got me shoes I could wear it the snow, took me to Salem and got me a lobster, and took me into Boston too.  It was a great trip!

Illness: I got a cold while I was in Boston and it took forever for it to go away!  Also, I got diagnosed with carpal tunnel (yay! :-(  )  so I am wearing a brace on my right hand and getting treatment for that.

PresWIC:  I finished my second term as PresWIC secretary for Central Georgia on January 8th at our meeting in Macon.  It was such a great experience and after a couple years of burn-out recovery, I hope to serve on the Council again.  Working for the ladies of Central Georgia is truly a blessing.

Teaching: A few weeks ago I began teaching a website creation class for the home school co-op that meets at our church.  I have 15 7th-9th graders and after three classes, I can say that they are doing a great job.  We are using a free online website creation site call Weebly.com.  I made a site for our class (heathernewberry.weebly.com) and after discussing with my kids terminology, good and bad design, elements of design, etc. they are now each making their own sites. In a few weeks they will present their sites to the class.  Most of them are really making the most of it and seem to be having a great time. :-)


Illness:  Ben got the flu on MLK day and within a few days gave it to me and Jeff.  It was awesome. :-(  After a week, we were essentially recovered and have now all gotten back to school and work.

Well, as you can see the last few months have been crazy.  I hope yours were not nearly as busy as mine and that you have been much healthier than us too!  Unless providentially hindered, I plan to update a bit more frequently now that things have calmed a bit, but no promises! :-)

thanksgiving, thanksgiving: yum, yum, yum! turkey, sweet potatoes, pie: give me some!

Thanksgiving was wonderful here at the Newberry house this year.  We got to play host to Greatmother, Uncle John, Grandma and Granddaddy and our time together was very sweet.  Ben was his normal gregarious self and everyone loved him (of course!) and he was super sad to see everyone leave. :-(

 

  

 

  

Jeff and I kicked major amounts of booty with our Thanksgiving feast, if I do say so myself.  Jeff made the turkey, the dressing, and the gravy, while I made the sweet potato casserole (Greatmother's recipe!), the broccoli casserole (Greatmother's recipe again!), and the green bean casserole.  Pillsbury helped us out with some crescent rolls and Ocean Spray provided the cranberry sauce.  For dessert Jeff made 2 pumpkin pies and a pecan pie and Uncle John Galyean (who could not join us for dinner becasue he was sick :-(  ) made us his version of a Derby pie.  Every morsel was supery dupery scrumptious!  Yummy, yummy, yummy, yummy, yum, yum, yum!

Oh!  We also began what is sure to become a Thanksgiving tradition - Jeff made the pies on Wednesday night and they smelled so great, that we decided we needed to enjoy one of the pumpkin pies before bed.  The pie was still warm from the oven and was so awesome. And honestly, the whole escapade felt just the right amount of naughty.  :-)   It was fun and we are totally instituting a pie on Thanksgiving-eve tradition around here!

After dinner on Thanksgiving Day, Ben made a video message for his Nina.  It was so cute that I feel the need to share it with you all!

Also, we got to see some super cute bath time videos of Ben's cousin, Aurora, and Ben was inspired to make her a bath time video as well.  Bask in his cuteness!

 

Well, I hope that you and yours had as wonderful a Thanksgiving as we did!  Now we are off to the store so we can buy Christmas decorations!!!!!

life ever just get you down?

So this past Monday I got a call from Ben's teacher that he had a 103 degree fever and I needed to come get him.  Long story short - he had PNEUMONIA!!  Uggghhhhhh!  So the nice restful week of recovering from the last several weeks of insanity around here that I had planned suddenly went out the window.  Ben and I stayed home all day on Tuesday (BTW: that was hellashious - he was mad he could not go to school, he was mad he could not play outside, etc.).  Essentially, he felt fine so in his logic, that meant he wasn't sick anymore.  So all these mean mommy rules I was imposing on him were just completely unfair!!  Anyway, he is still on oral antibiotics, even though the antibiotic shot he got at the doc on Monday really seems to have done all the heavy lifting with getting him better.  Hopefully he will continue to improve and when we finish these antibiotics, he will stay well long enough to be truly healed before getting another cold.  Darn cold and allergy season!

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So the PresWIC retreat last weekend in Macon was awesome!  Our speaker, Susan Hunt, dealt with the topic of Biblical womanhood from generation to generation.  I learned a lot, but I know I already forgot more than I learned.  I plan to read a few of her books to keep the truths she spoke fresh in my mind.

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My friend Erin is going to be giving birth to her second child, Eliot, anytime in the next two weeks.  I am so excited for her and for the family.  Not only do Eric and Erin get to have baby fun all over again, but Elizabeth will have someone that forever will be connected to her in a way that no future friendship can ever replace.  It makes me smile...and a little sad that despite our efforts, Ben may not ever have that.  Even though at this point he doesn't know what he's missing, I am jealous for him.  I love my brothers so much and no one will ever understand parts of the way that we are except for the three of us.  I so want that for my boy (not to mention the benefit to me personally of having another baby to love!).  So, anyway, you can be praying for us about that if you want...

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And to round out this post and bring a smile back to my face - here is my Ben bear! :-)

Super lots of fun in NOLA this past September.

Ben and his handsome daddy.

Coming in for a BIG hug!

stress

I am totally losing it.  I am super behind at work.  Exhausted.  Have a concert tonight with the alto part of two quartets I am not really ready to sing (thank God my solo was easy to learn).  We have something going on tomorrow night, church on Wednesday night, about three different things to do on Thursday night, the WIC conference that I am working on is next weekend and the list goes on.  To top it all off, I got a crazy bill for over $300 in the mail today for some lab work Ben had done 7 months ago!!

When I am stressed I am a horrible mommy.  My fuse is short and Ben bears the brunt of my frustration simply because he spends the most time with me and he is three, so therefore the most likely to push me past the point of no return on the stress-o-meter!

Can I just throw in the towel?

paging doctor newberry

As of 11 am this morning, I am officially married to a doctor (of philosophy, so don't be calling for any prescriptions unless you need one for an ailing comma splice)!!!  I am so proud of Jeff!!  Many years of seriously hard work have gone into today and Jeff has done it all with style.  So here's to you, honey!  You are the man. :-)

illness

There is nothing that hurts a parent's heart more than a sick child for whom there is not much you can do.  Ben seems to have gotten a stomach bug from somewhere, so we have been contending with the, uh..., consequences of said virus all day.  He has not been actively sick all day, but the first time was all over me, the recliner in his room, his bed, and the floor and it had been an all day long process to try to get the chair back in decent condition. BTW: I would love some mom cleaning tips for future incidents!  Anyway, I will keep him home from church tomorrow with hopes that he will be back to normal quickly!

Besides the obvious yucky consequences of some illnesses my child can experience, it just makes me so sad to hear him cry and not know what's wrong or, like he can now, to actually identity what hurts and communicate that to me, and I not really be able to do anything about it.  With all that said, I am grateful that all I have had to experience as a parent has been colds, ear infections, stomach bugs, and a couple of seizures.  Things could easily be worse and I am thankful to God for Ben's general good health.

discipline

Ben's:  Last week was horrible on the behavior scale for my little man.  If a rule could be broken or a line crossed (or as Jeff would say, "dove over head first") then Ben did it.  It was just one of those weeks where you really wonder why you ever wanted to be a parent.  After lots of discipline, hugs, and encouragement we survived to turn the leaf of a fantastic week.  Ben has been great at school this week and has been pretty good a home too!  Yay!  I thank God for weeks like this.  They are a like a refreshingly cool breeze in an otherwise hellashious time in our lives I like to call toddlerhood. Its also good to be reminded that the creature I am raising is actually a boy - and my boy at that - and that I love him and am proud of him.  I'm sure Ben enjoys the reminder that I am his mom and not screaming banshee.

Jeff's: Jeff is working like a madman and I am so proud of him.  He is basically teaching 7 classes, about to begin teaching a Sunday School class at church on Tim Keller's book The Reason For God (check it out, it's great!), is doing a super job taking care of me and Ben, is finishing his dissertation and preparing for his defense on Oct 21st, and on top of all that he in going to the gym three days a week.  Now that is some discipline.

Mine:  I pretty sure that am lacking in this area.  My kitchen is a mess, I have about 2 months worth of clean laundry piled on the guest bed waiting to be dealt with, I have a to do list that is about 3 miles long and all I do is read.  I am totally obsessed with the Bodie Theone books that Amy lent me and I just can't put them down!  They are super great though and I suppose I will eventually finish reading them!  So, thanks Amy.  At least I have good book reading discipline. :-)

life

We had a great time in NOLA over Labor day weekend.  Jonah is adorable and Ted and Kim are amazing parents.  Ben held Jonah before we left that Monday and it was so cute!  Made me long for a little bundle of our own that he could hold more often...

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I am so busy with one thing or another these days that I can't even think about stuff to blog about.  Sad, huh?  Church has been insanely busy.  PresWIC is also off the hook.  Jeff's work schedule is ridiculous, but he is doing his best to be super hubby and super dad when he can be here.  :-)

When I can get one coherent thought together, I will attempt to come back and let you all in on it!

potty training success & other stuff too!

I feel that even as I type this I should be knocking on wood, but I am going to type it anyway.  I think Ben is very successfully potty trained!  We have gone over a week with no accidents of any kind, and he generally takes himself to the potty and handles the whole procedure (expect wiping) without help!  He is doing so great!  Yay for my BIG boy! :-)  And yay for me and Jeff having a significantly reduced role in Ben's pooping life. :-) lol!  The next big test will come this Friday when we drive 8 hours to New Orleans.  I hope we don't have to stop every hour for him to potty.  On the other side, I really hope he has no accidents!!  We shall see....

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I am super excited about the Central Georgia and Savannah River PresWIC Retreat this November in Macon, GA.  Susan Hunt is going to be our speaker and we could not be more thrilled!

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The reason we are going to NOLA this weekend is to see our new nephew and Ben's cousin for the first time since he was born in July!  We are all super excited to meet him and to see Uncle Ted and Aunt Kim!  Jonah is being baptized on Sunday and it so great that we will be able to be there for that special time and that we will also be a part of promising to help Ted and Kim raise Jonah in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  So sweet!  I cannot wait to get there!! :-)

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Pillars Of The Earth by Ken Follett is an excellent book and Starz just finished airing their 8 episode miniseries adaptation.  It was totally awesome and if you have the chance, you need to a) read the book and b) watch the Starz minseries.  Follett wrote a follow up to the book called World Without End and it is excellent as well.  I hear Starz might be making it into a miniseries too and I cannot wait!!

i love my chiropractor

If you have never been to a chiropractor before, all I have to say to you is: "Go!"  I love it.  I could totally become an adjustment addict.  There is something very satisfying about hearing your spine pop and creak as everything gets put back where it belongs and I always feel like I just took the best nap ever when I get up off the table.  I feel rejuvenated and energized and just plain good.  It is a-w-e-s-o-m-e!  On top of that, they are also teaching me lots of stretches and strengthening exercises to keep my spine in good shape - BONUS!  So, if you live in the Tifton area - go see Dr. Byrnes as Slocum Chiropractic.  You will not regret it.

potty training

So, we have been potty training Ben for nearly 2 weeks now.  We seem to have the pee under control.  Other than the occasional accident, all is well there.  The poop, however, is another story.  We have had two successful experiences wherein said poop was successfully deposited into the potty.  Since then Ben has pooed in his underwear every day.  I am sick of poop.  I don't want to see it, smell, touch it, or have to clean loads of it out of my sons underwear anymore!  With that said, I have no good ideas as to how to get him to poop in the potty.  Other than being lucky enough to catch him in the act of running to another room as he tries to "poop in private" and redirecting him to the potty I have no clue what to do.  Fellow mommies & daddies - any tips?

back troubles

So I think I tweaked my back again yesterday while I was squatting in a bathroom stall at Chick-fil-a trying to help Ben get his undies and shorts back on. :-(   I am back full force with my back stretches and exercises and me and my ice pack will prevail!

dinner

So I made a Pampered Chef salad recipe for dinner - the Cajun Chicken Salad.  It is awesome!  It has cajuny spiced chicken breast atop a bed of greens and squash and grape tomatoes with homemade sweet cajun toasted pecans and some amazing ranch dressing on the side.  What is not to love, right? :-)  Jeff enjoyed it and what I could eat of it was good too.  I was totally bummed and dismayed after I finished making dinner to sit down at the table and realize I had virtually no appetite!  I forced my self to eat some anyway, but dang!  Have you ever done that?  Made a fantastic dinner and then just not want to eat it?!  Exasperating!

Back on the blogging wagon

After rereading my old posts, I have decided that it's nice to have something to come back to that helps me remember, so I am going to try to post stuff again every once in a while.

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Ben, who is now 3, started back to preschool on Monday.  As he has before, he loves it!  Potty training is going pretty well, too!  We are averaging an accident every 2-3 days, so that is not too bad considering we have only been at it for a little over a week!  Poop is gross and I cannot wait until I never have to deal with his poop again! :-)  With that said, it is amazing to me how quickly (and sometimes really slowly - but only other moms will get this) he has grown up!  I sure do love that boy.

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I got to hang out with my pal Erin for a couple of hours tonight.  It was really nice.  I love her and am just grieving for what her family is dealing with right now.

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Well, I better go to bed.  Ben will be hopping on me in the blink of an eye for my morning wake-up call!

hello again!

Well, for those of you who keep up with my husband's blog, you know that on April 9 I gave birth to Benjamin Lang via c-section. It was quite an experience. We went to the hospital at 6 am that Monday morning for the doctors to induce me. They got all the meds going quickly and I was actually already having contractions before they even started so things were looking good. Around 9 am Dr. Murthy broke my water and that's when the contractions became more painful, but nothing I couldn't handle. I eventually got some pain meds through my IV and they completely knocked me out. From that point forward I was in and out of it and don't really remember a whole lot of pain or anything like that. I do remember, however, that it took the anesthesiologist THREE tries to get my epidural in and he took a phone call in the middle of it all...that was not fun and Jeff was seriously peeved. Then, because after you get an epi you can no longer walk, I had to get a catheter....that took a lot of tries also. Yuck.


Anyway, I dialated to 4 centimeters and then my body decided that was all it wanted to do. At 8:30 p.m., after being in labor for 14 hours, Dr. Murthy decided a c-section was my best bet. I agreed because at that point I was just ready to do something different. It was scary. The anesthesiologist came back and re-upped my epi. Jeff had to put scrubs on some scrubs and I think he was even more scared than I was. I heard later that the moms (mine and Jeff's) were in the lobby crying and calling family and just trying to think positive.

They wheeled me down to the operating room and things started quickly. Ben was born at 9:07 p.m. He weighed 7lbs 5oz and was 20 inches long. He was adorable.




Soon after I was sewn up and back in my room. I had the shakes from the epi for hours and that was horrible, but not unbearable. They brought Ben in around 11 p.m. for me to ty to breastfeed him, but I had no idea what to do and neither did he. Ben spent that night in the nursery while Jeff and I tried to sleep in my room.

We went home on Friday. It was scary to go home but I was healing great and walking well and Ben was doing good too!




Well, I am not sure I can catch you up on everything that has happened in the last 4 months, but I can say that Ben has been a wonderful baby. I ended up not being able to breastfeed (Ben kept losing weight on my milk), but he is thriving on fomula, so we are okay with that. At his 4 month doctors visit 2 weeks ago, Ben weighed 16 1/2 lbs and was 25 1/2 inches long. He is not little anymore! He sleeps like a champ (8 1/2 - 10 hours a night!). Jeff and I both truly appreciate that! :-)