Top 10 of 2013

I finally got around to posting our family top 10 from 2013...So enjoy!


10. A week after Evangeline was born and Jordan left for training, the furnace went out
9. Caitlyn quit her job only to go back 6 months later (they begged me to come back)
8. Sending my brother on a mission to West Virginia Charleston
7. Becoming Debt free
6.Traveling to San Diego for a wedding and baptism
5. We DONT have to move
4. Bought a new 2011 Subaru Forester  aka a Family car
3. Finding out we are expecting baby #2 Aug 2014
2. Jordan got a new job as a State Trooper
1. Evangeline Mary was born on March 18th

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Time Out

Hello, Ladies and Gent's!

Yep, it's that time of year again…Time Out for Women!  Are you ready for a Time Out?  No, I'm not talking about the kind you give your kids…I'm talking about a REAL TIME OUT!  A break, a rejuvenation, a filling of your spirit self, a time for laughter, a time for contemplation, a time for YOU!

First,  March 21-22, 2014 Time Out for women will be in Idaho Falls. That is right in our own backyard! How lucky are we? This year we have some great presenters and wonderful music provided as well. As always you can visit the website, www.tofw.com, to read bios on the presenters and music as well.

Second, in case you didn't know before, I wanted to tell you about the excellent opportunity to save $10-$20 off our event in Idaho Falls.  If you get a group of 4 or more of your friends, neighbors, family, (we'll also take strangers…no one is denied!) by the preregistration date of Feb 25th, each of you saves $20 off the regular weekend price.  That's a combined $80 savings!  That's better than Groupon or Amazon Daily Deals, right?  Right now, I'm getting a group together, so if you're planning on attending, let me know and I'll hook you up!

Not sure what Time out is all about? Watch this video here  http://youtu.be/NG4nd80OXyI (2014 Tour promotional video coming soon)

And last but not least, this event is truly an amazing "time out" from the ways of the world. It is amazing how one little weekend can do so much good. Please let me know if  there is any questions that you might have! I would love to see your beautiful face at this event. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to email me. I am more then willing to help with any questions, comments or concerns that you have! scowcait@gmail.com

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New Year Resolutions

Well it is that time of year again. Christmas is almost here and right around the corner is the new year. I have been thinking a lot about what I should work on for this next year because heavens knows I have a lot of things to work on. There are so many things that I would like to do to improve myself. Here are just a few
Daily scripture reading
Daily Prayers
One Conference talk per week
keep a better house

and the list goes on. But here is my problem I want to do all these things but I find that I run out of time everyday. Between working full time a baby and a husband my time is not my own. Even when I wake up before everyone it never fails that the little one wakes up early that day.

In exploring blog land the other day I came across this post called How a busy Mom can read her scriptures on theredheadedhostess.com. This post opened my eyes!!!

 I always thought ok when the baby is down for a nap I will read or when the husband is at work I will study a talk but that is not what they need to see. They need to see a mother/wife that is improving herself not just hear about it. I cant not believe that I didn't think of this before. So my goal this year is to become the person that God wants me to be.
Because Im a list maker here is how I will accomplish this task

1. Wake up and write down my goals for the day!
2. Dont be to hard on myself
3. Read with my Husband/daughter
4.Make it a priority- cleaning can wait
5. Ask for help from above and those around me
6. Let my family SEE the mother that I want to become

I also found this lovely a couple moths ago and wanted to start doing this as well. it is called What moms need from themarathonmom.com. It is a list of weekly goals that a mother should have and remember! I decided that that would be a good start to my week to read a goal and incorporate that into my life as well. Want to join me?

What is your goal this year? How are you going to accomplish it? I would love to know!

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Being a mom

Every Monday Im going to try and post my thoughts on being a mom. So here goes

I found this little gem a while ago on pinterest and I have been dying to post about it. It was one of the wonderful moments that expressed exactly what I have wanted to say to all those people that tell me oh she is growing up so fast. She is getting so big. Which is all true yes but seeing as tomorrow she will be 3 months I don't feel as if these 3 months have gone by fast or gone by to slow. Evangeline is exactly where I want her to be. She is my buddy all day and everyday. Being a single mom has given me the opportunity to embrace everyday and enjoy every single moment with her. Now i'm no super mom by any means there are times when I look at my phone for way to long, stay on the computer for way to long or just plug the pacifer in her moth in hopes that she will fall asleep and the moments when I look at my sweet baby and think man if you would just be happy for two seconds and stop crying and needing me to hold you (which she really is a happy baby) but in that moment I remind myself that before I know it this moment will be gone and I will be wishing that she was crying so that I could hold her and make her world right.

It breaks my heart to see children whose parents don't have the time for them. I want to jump right in and show them that I care about the awesome lego ship they made or the fact that they did their own hair.  I love the moments of greatness a child has. They may seem small to most adults but to a child they are the world. 
 She has my heart and she always will. For she is the only one who knows what my heartbeat sounds like from the inside. So thank you to Tonya Ferguson at 4 Little Fergusons for this wonderful letter.

Mom on the Iphone

Dear Mom On the iPhone,

I see you over there on the bench, messing on your iPhone. It feels good to relax a little while your kids have fun in the sunshine, doesn’t it? You are doing a great job with your kids, you work hard, you teach them manners, have them do their chores

.But Momma, let me tell you what you don’t see right now…..

Your little girl is spinning round and round, making her dress twirl. She is such a little beauty queen already, the sun shining behind her long hair. She keeps glancing your way to see if you are watching her.

You aren’t.

Your little boy keeps shouting, “Mom, MOM watch this!” I see you acknowledge him, barely glancing his way.He sees that too. His shoulders slump, but only for a moment, as he finds the next cool thing to do.

Now you are pushing your baby in the swing. She loves it! Cooing and smiling with every push. You don’t see her though, do you? Your head is bent, your eyes on your phone as you absently push her swing.
Talk to her. Tell her about the clouds, Mommy. The Creator who made them. Tickle her tummy when she comes near you and enjoy that baby belly laugh that leaves far too quickly.

Put your eyes back on your prize…Your kids.

Show them that they are the priority. Wherever you are, be ALL there. I am not saying it’s not ok to check in on your phone, but it’s a time-sucker: User Beware! Play time at the park will be over before you know it.
The childhood of your children will be gone before you know it. They won’t always want to come to the park with you, Mommy. They won’t always spin and twirl to make their new dress swish, they won’t always call out, “WATCH ME!” There will come a point when they stop trying, stop calling your name, stop bothering to interrupt your phone time.

Because they know…

You’ve shown them, all these moments, that the phone is more important than they are. They see you looking at it at while waiting to pick up brother from school, during playtime, at the dinner table, at bedtime…..

I know that’s not true, Mommy.

I know your heart says differently.

But your kids can’t hear your words, Mommy. Your actions are screaming way too loudly.

May our eyes rest upon those we love, first and foremost, and may everything else fall away in the wonderful, noisy, sticky-fingered glory of it all.

Also check out this video. Every time I see it I cant help but think... even though she made a huge mess that child is happy. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckRxXAV4LYY

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Being Evangeline's Mom

Well my little bug is 2 months old. It seems like time is going by slowly. 2 months is really not a long time but I'm so glad that it is going by so slow. She is such a wonderful addition to our family. Even though she can get  from happy and content to screaming mad in .2 seconds I wouldn't have it any other way. Even when she is crying just to cry I just laugh because I know it wont be like this for long. There will come a day when she is the one writing a post like this to her daughter.

I'm so excited for the days when she has long hair and is not sporting the bald look so that I can play with her hair and make her look so cute and we can play dress up and have tea parties and mornings filled with make-up experimenting. It will be so exciting when she can talk and to hear her first words. But as much as I want these things I don't want them either.

 I LOVE LOVE LOVE being able to cuddle her to death and kiss her little chubby cheeks. She is the only thing I have these days to cuddle. The dog sucks at cuddling and the husband is gone. But Evangeline is the best cuddler ever. It melts my heart every morning when she wakes up and smiles at me. I cant even explain how gratifying it is to know that I am the one that has been able to make her smile first thing in the day. Sometimes the simplest of things is what makes being her mommy the greatest blessing of all. The moment when she grabs my shirt hanging on for dear life knowing that I am her mommy and that she is mine, when she lays her head softly on my shoulder and nuzzles in, or when she looks up at me with big bright eyes and just stares at me, these are the moments that I will never forget. She is the closest thing to Heaven that I will ever be able to obtain at this time.

She spends all day with me and it is the best thing in the world. Even though I have to be at work all day she is still by my side. Some days she stay's in her pajamas all day! ( bad mom I know) But she is so stinking cute in her Zebra jammies that I just dont want to change her out of them.  It has been a really rough last 5 months at our house but Evangeline has been the bright spot in all of the confusion and mess. She is one strong little girl to come to this crazy world at this time. The world is so full of yuck that I hope and pray she will be able to find her way back to our Heavenly Father. She is one valiant daughter of a King though. I know she was saved for this time because she can handle what will be thrown at her.

I have waited my whole life to have a baby. All I have ever wanted for as long as I can remember is to get married in the temple and be a mommy. I was so excited to marry my sweetheart and finally be able to cross off one of my most treasured goals in life. Shortly after getting married the thought crossed my mind many times that I needed my baby. But one year passed and then another. After many many times trying to only end in failure , It was heartbreaking and I had given up hope. But as luck would have it, we found out we were expecting and I was so so excited. Looking back now I know why we had to wait. If we would have had children any time sooner in our life together Jordan would not have been able to take the job that he has now. Every day there are little things that reassure me that this was the right timing for us. As hard as it has been to be a single parent I wouldn't trade it for anything. Heavenly Father knew that I needed this little girl all to myself for the first little bit. She is my everything and I cant begin to express how grateful I am to have her in my life and to be her mommy. I hope that I can be a great mom to her like my mom is to me.

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New Valentines Decor

Seeing  as I now have all this time to myself before the crazy tax season starts I decided that I wanted to decorate for Valentines Day. In putting away Christmas stuff I came across some lovely red colored tinsel.....

That has not been used in at least 5 years. Instead of throwing this magical stuff away I decided I wanted to make a cute Valentines Day Heart. As I contemplated my creative design I came up with the following:

Thats pretty cute right? I sure thought so. That is why I made two of them yesterday. 

Supplies needed:

Tinsel color of choice about 8Ft or so

Metal Hanger

Metal cutting pliers

Gloves

Scissors

To begin undo the hanger at the top where it is twisted together 

Next shape the wire somewhat into a heart

After this comes the hard part. You need to fashion a loop in the wire in order to connect the two sides together. You also need to cut the excess metal off. Mine looked like this: 

the loop 

After I made the loop I put the free end in the loop and tightened with the pliers it as much as I could so there would be no wiggling.

looped and tightened together

Now you have a somewhat shaped heart (mine was not very pretty) that you can manipulate to look like a heart. Make sure that you do this carefully so that you don't accidentally pull the heart apart. (I did this multiple times)  Here is the heart.

 Now is the easy part. Just wrap the tinsel around the heart being careful not to pull to tight. If you pull to tightly the tinsel will break off. I chose not to glue my tinsel to the wire but you can adhere it to the wire how ever you would like. I wrapped my hear twice because I had that much tinsel but one time around would be sufficient. 

The finished project on the mantel. I'm so excited to decorate the rest of the mantel and house for VaLeNtinEs DaY!

Don't mind the awesome Christmas printable still in the frame .....I need to get the others printed off still.

Printable holiday lettering can be found here.

Happy Crafting! Hope you enjoyed and let me know if you have any other valentines day projects! 

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Dave Ramsey - Becoming DEBT FREE

We have decided that we want to live debt free so that when we get older we can live like no one else. In an attempt to do this we came across Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey. This course is all about getting out of debt and staying out of debt! Can I just tell you that at first I was totally skeptical. I didn't think that any of Dave's systems would really work and that no matter what we would have to be in debt for the rest of our lives and that monthly payments are just a part of life. But after listening to his CD's I have seen a small light at the end of the tunnel. I think that we will be able to pay off all of our debt except the mortgage by the time this baby gets here. Dave has 7 baby steps to help accomplish this. Here they are:

Baby Step 1 - $1,000 to state an Emergency Fund
Baby Step 2 - Pay off all debt using Debt Snowball
Baby Step 3 - 3 to 6 months of expenses in savings
Baby Step 4 - Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRA's
Baby Step 5 - College funding for children
Baby Step 6 - Pay off home early
Baby Step 7 - Build wealth and give

We are currently on step number 2. Now that doesn't seem very far in the whole process but by the time we are done with this step we will be debt free except for the house. We will have gotten ride of 10,000 in debt. That is our truck paid off and my school loan paid off. The hubby and I have also implemented the cash envelope system. More on that here. This system is all about telling your money where it is supposed to go and how you are going to spend it.

We tried this system in the past and it worked very well for us but my only complaint was that there were envelopes full of money laying around the house.And when you used to live next to a kid who is addicted to drugs and sales his parents TV to a friend to get a fix while they are gone for an hour it kinda made me nervous. So we stopped the system but we are back on track now it is a new year and a new start and this time we are going to follow through. We have rearranged things a little bit differently and are using bank accounts to help keep the money safe. 

Check out Dave's sight if you would like to jump on board with us and become debt free. 

http://www.daveramsey.com/home/

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Domestication of the Cowboy

So this week has been great so far. Jordan has been quite the housewife. :) He has made fabulous dinners the last two nights and tonight he is making cookies! Granted it is almost midnight but hey at least he is making cookies. Dinner last night was amazing. He made dutch oven roast and potatoes. We invited the Carter family over for dinner and had a fabulous time with them. It has been awhile since we have seen them and we really enjoyed their company. As far as tonight has been it has been quite interesting. According to some Jordan and I don't know much about life and we are wrong about many many things.

New Goal of life- Not always having to be right! We are human. We are not right many times and you know what we just need to accept that!

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