Generics

I can't believe all these years I have turned my nose up at anything that wasn't name brand. I wouldn't buy food, medicine, cleaning products or paper goods that were generic. But over this last year things at the Donegan house have been tight. So I have done a really good job at cooking more at home, finding fun things for us to do that are cheap or even free, and I have been shopping smarter for the items we need.

I was truly shocked with how much money you save by buying generic. BUT, it isn't worth the savings if the products aren't any good. So each week I try several items that I used to buy name brand and now have switched to generics.

I started out with buying generic mucinex, ibuprofen, allergy meds, and fever reducers for the girls. That has probably been my biggest savings. And they all worked just fine!

Then I moved to cleaning supplies. Again such a savings. They all so far have worked fine and haven't been able to tell any difference.

Paper goods such as paper towels and toilet paper are crazy expensive these days! You can hardly get a normal roll of toilet paper anymore. They are all double and triple thickness and cost that too! But the walmart brand of toilet paper has been great! I can get 24 rolls for 4 bucks!!!!

Now on to food, I will say this was my hardest to switch. I have found a couple of things I really didn't like. But have found a few things that we liked better then the name brand! But as a whole most of the food tastes the same and has saved us quite a bit.

I have never felt like I was a judgemental person. I tried to teach my children to never judge a book by the cover but yet I was assuming that generic products weren't as good because they weren't as pretty as the name brand. So I guess I have learned by this little experiment that not only can I save money on generics, they for the most part are the same as name brands, and that in life judging what something looks like on the outside may make you miss the value and greatness of what is inside.:)

You know what cracks me up?

You know what cracks me up? We have 100's of dollars worth of toys and books for Izzy. She has things that sing, and talk to her in 3 different languages. Books that pop up, slide out, have textures and have buttons to press. She has riding toys, pushing toys and pulling toys. She has a kitchen, a piano, and a zillion stuffed animals. We have puzzles, shape sorters and a farm and a doll house. I am telling you she has a ridiculous amount of stuff between want we already had, birthday, Christmas, and garage sales.

But what cracks me up is that her favorite toys aren't even toys. She loves my pots and pans, Tupperware, my cell phones, remotes and BOXES. Boxes with stuff in it to take out or just an empty box that she will take around the house and collect random things.

The other day she brought me a box of granola bars and wanted to sit in my lap with them. And for 20 min. (I timed it) she sat in my lap and took the bars out of the box, put them back in, handed them to me, took them from me and counted them. She would lay them in her lap and say 1,2, 5! She thinks 3 and 4 are overrated!:)

Now I know people say that kids favorite toys are the boxes that the toys come in. But why is that? It just seems like there wouldn't be so many toys geared towards this age group if there wasn't some kid out there actually playing with these toys! Also, when does this change. Because Emma loves her stuff! She has her DS and her ipod and her silly bandz etc. So when does it go from loving boxes to loving what is in the box?

It cracks me up, because it is always so fun to see what entertains my girls and usually I am totally wrong with what I think it is going to be!

EMMA

Well life with a almost 10 year old is pretty crazy as of late. The emotions and moods are up and down several times a day. She thinks I am the greatest mom and the worst mom all in an hour time span. But I just have to remember it is normal. In the middle of the battle that doesn't seem to help,but later on it is nice to know I am not the only one going through it.

But of all the many things I want Emma to know the most important is that I love her and am always proud of her! Even though we are in the heat of an argument, it kills me to think that there is even a second that she questions that. I remember saying to my mom, you just don't love me anymore! I didn't mean it, but now that I am on the other side of that statement I know that it hurts.

So today I wanted to blog about how proud I am of Emma and her swimming. She has become an AMAZING swimmer. She started out 4 summers ago swimming in a summer league and did very well at the meets. So she wanted to look into swimming year round. So last Sept. she started swimming for MSA. She swims 4 nights a week and there are meets every month. She loves it and does a great job.

I remember her first meet she came in 52nd in her division out of about 60 9-10 year old girls. I realized then that this was a totally different league then summer swim team! But she kept at it and has worked really hard all year! She crept up that ladder and now she is placing at these meets and I am just amazed! To see the love for this sport in her eyes and how proud she is when she does well and how hard she is on herself when she doesn't do so well. But what I love about her is how she keeps going and keeps pushing! She is only 9 years old and her determination is that of someone so much older and wiser. I don't have to or would I make her go to practice. She can't wait to go and is bummed when something else comes up that causes her not to get to practice one night.

I hope she keeps her love of swimming because I think it will take her far. Not only can she get awards and medals and scholarships from swimming, but it teaches her so much too. It gives her a sense of pride, accomplishment, a work ethic and a drive like no other! So when I think of her at these swim meets it reminds me of the bigger picture which is how she daily surprises me, makes me laugh, takes my breath away and drives me crazy all at once and I wouldn't have it any other way!

These pictures are the ribbons she won at her last swim meet 2 weeks ago.

The 1st place is for 50 yd. butterfly stroke

2nd place is for 100 yd. freestyle relay

8th place is for 50 yd. breast stroke

Isabella's Story Part 2

We find out that Izzy will be at our house around 4pm Friday afternoon. It doesn't occur to me until that morning that this is also black Friday! GREAT! So there Emma and I are in the middle of Target with 500 crazy people buying diapers, clothes, bottles etc. By the way, none of that stuff is on sale on black Friday if you were wondering. Check out was miserable. I was afraid we wouldn't make it in time to be home by 4pm and it was only 10am. But we finally made it home and unloaded all our goodies.I loved looking at all the clothes we bought. The little pink and purple outfits covered in flowers and bunnies and such. If you don't know Emma then let me tell you that she is a tomboy and has no interest in pink, purple, flowers or bunnies! So this was my final shot at having a girly girl.

As I am writing this I have to tell you that it never occurs to me while we are waiting for her to come that she isn't already mine. I really don't know much of her story at this point and for all I know there could be plenty of suitable family members to take her and we may have her just for a couple of days. But in my mind this baby is mine. They tell you in all your classes not to cross that line. Love the child, take care of the child but realize that this is NOT your child. Well that is easier said then done.

4pm comes and we get a phone call from the case worker that they are coming up the road and just wanted to make sure I was home. I was so excited and couldn't wait for the door bell to ring. I open the door to find a man standing with 2 diaper bags,a huge file of paper work and a teeny tiny little baby. And of course I burst into tears! She was so tiny and so beautiful. Let me tell you that that is the best way to deliver a baby. Just open the door and they hand her to you! No epidural needed!

I am sure he told me what all the paperwork said and I am sure he told me a bunch of other things but I don't remember a word. I was too busy staring and this precious baby girl. Emma wanted so badly to hold her so after the case worker left we just sat on the couch taking turns holding her. It was such a great bonding time.

When Chris got home a couple hours later from work you could tell he was kinda freaked out by the fact that he went to work with no baby and after work there was a baby! Of course I was already attached but Chris wouldn't let his guard down. It was probably a good 6 weeks before he finally started falling in love. He didn't want to get attached and then they take her from us. In the course of those 6 weeks her helped feed and diaper and all the things that go with having a baby. But the connection didn't happen until a little later. I remember he was holding her on the couch and he started talking to her and she smiled for the first time. It about melted him into a puddle. From then on I think he really hoped and prayed she was here to stay.

In the weeks that followed we met with our foster care team and no one really wanted to get our hopes up but there was always this underlying feeling I had that they really wanted adoption to happen. Her paternal g-parents were already fostering Izzys brother and her maternal g-ma didn't pass the home study. So really there wasn't anyone else to take her. Mom was still in prison and Dad got out but then soon ended up going back in. I just knew God's plan was for her to be ours.

I have to stop and talk about Izzys paternal grandparents. Jim and Anita. They did what the had to do when Izzy's brother was in need of a safe place they took him in and loved him as if he was their son. By the time I met them they were on track to get to adopt Jace. But what they didn't have to do was like us or even be nice to us. So many bio. families and foster families don't see eye to eye but somehow we formed this bond and they ended up being our biggest advocates for adopting Izzy. It makes me cry just thinking about how amazing they have been and how we have become truly a family. We even adopted our kids on the same day so they would always have that in common. Plus we see them all the time so Izzy gets extra grandparents and a great big brother out of the deal! Jim and Anita, you have been like second parents to us and we love you!

It took about a year from when we got Izzy to the day in court when her biological parents gave up their rights to her so we could adopt. It was such an emotional moment for me. The thought of signing over your child so someone you don't even know can have her. It is a pretty amazing gift. I was too chicken that day to go up to her and say thank you and I am not even sure she knew I was there but I have written her a thank you and someday when I am ready I will send it to her.

The next four months after the termination of rights were torture. It was waiting on paperwork, waiting on people in Jeff City to approve things... it was just a ton of waiting! It sure taught me patience or taught me that I have a lack of patience. But at the beginning of April we set the date to adopt on April 15th, 2010. Then all the sudden I feel like it has all gone by so fast. Like it was just yesterday that I got that knock on my door and here it is that what I knew all along was about to happen. That Isabella Nicole Donegan was meant to be our daughter.

It is amazing to me that I don't feel any different about her then I do about Emma. It really doesn't matter that I didn't give birth to her. God always knew she was meant for us, it just happened that she grew in another womb but was born into our hearts!

I am not really sure how to get the pictures actually in the post or to comment about what they are so if anyone can help me with that I would appreciate it. But the first 3 pics are of our first few minutes with Izzy. See Chris' pic where he is pretty freaked out! Then the last one is on ADOPTION DAY!

Isabella's Story

Today I wanted to tell our story of adopting Izzy. I have a hormone imbalance called PCOS. It causes many women not to get pregnant or have a very hard time trying. I was one of the lucky ones and was able to get pregnant with Emma our first try. (Chris takes ALL the credit for that!:) But the 9 months afterward were the most miserable months of my life. I was so sick and on bed rest 6 of the 9 months. It was awful! My Dr. told me that this would probably happen again if I tried to have more children. So Chris and I decided that Emma would be an only child. For years we were fine with that choice and really never thought anymore about it.

As the years went on several close friends came into our lives that had adopted children and something inside me told me to look into it. Well soon I realized that this option would not work for us because of the enormous cost of adoption. So again I put having anymore children out of my mind and went on with the one beautiful girl I did have.

But several summers ago we were at our pool and met 3 couples. One family had 4 biological children, one adopted child, and had had several foster children throughout the last 10 years. Another family was just beginning their foster care. They had 4 biological children and were getting a 3 day old baby boy as their first foster placement. The 3rd couple was very similar to us. They had one child( oddly enough named Emma) and had a foster daughter that they got when she was 8 weeks old. They were in the process of adopting her. She was about a year old by then. Something just really struck me about the families and their desire to help these kids whether it was through adopting them or just keeping them healthy and happy until an adoptive home came available or in some cases their families were able to take them back.

So of course the way I am, I just ask them all a million questions and become very interested in the idea. But oh yeah, I forgot I might want to pray about it and possibly ask my husband his thoughts on the topic.You know, 2 little pieces to the puzzle. So, I backed off. Gave my husband time to digest the idea and time for us as a couple to ask God for his plan.

After feeling very good about our decision we decided to take the next step and go to a introductory class on foster care and adoption at Missouri Baptist Children's Home. There we found out that there would be a 12 week course starting up at the end of August. So we signed up for it and the next 3 months of our lives were crazy!

We went to class every Monday night and met some amazing people! The friends we made in that class we still talk to and all have either adopted their foster kids or are very close to adoption. During this time several meetings were set up at our house, they are called home studies.They ask you a million questions and you fill out a ton of paperwork. I think there were 3 meetings all together.

Then the 2nd week of November came and it was our last class. It was so exciting to know that very soon we could be called for our first placement. When we signed up we said we wanted to foster to adopt and we were very specific about the age. We wanted an infant. The more specific you are about what you want the less calls you will get but if you know what you can handle and make that plan before hand it makes it alot easier on you. So we wait. We know it could be months before we get a call. So we all go back to our regular lives. But of course I obsess. I want to get the room ready etc. But how do you get clothes for a child you don't know the age or the sex of? So I just focused on a bed and a few toys and a couple of odds and ends.

Now it is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and I get a call from MBCH telling me all our paper work is in the system and we could get called anytime. I was so excited! But what happened next I never expected. The lady on the phone says there is a newborn who needs a home and we need a family who is going to be home over Thanksgiving, are you interested? Holy cow! Yes we are interested.She tells me to call the case worker on the case and give her my info. So I immediately call her and she says she isn't for sure that this baby will be on her case load but if she is she will call me back. OMG! I can't believe this.

Wednesday we are over at my moms house cooking for Thanksgiving and my cell phone rings. Everyone in the kitchen stops and looks at me! I run over to answer it and it is the case worker. Yes, this baby will be on her case load and do we want her? YES!!!!!!! Her mother was in prison and she was born Monday at the hospital near the prison on Mexico Mo. The case worker told me they would go up 1st thing Fri. morning and get her and bring her to us. Wow! I can't believe this is going to happen. She told me her weight and height and said I could go online to the hospital website and see her picture. We all ran to the computer and pulled her picture up. She was so beautiful! The fattest little cheeks you have ever seen! Little did I know this baby girl would change our lives....... More tomorrow.

Smores Bites

My friend Lisa gave me this recipe and it is so yummy! I made it for the kiddos for VBS tonight and they loved it! I even had several adults say it was great. I took a picture to show you what it looks like but it isn't very pretty. So you'll just have to use your imagination with this one.

4 cups golden grahams cereal
1 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
1TB. butter
1 cup choc. chips
1/3 cup light corn syrup
1/2 tsp. vanilla

mix cereal and marshmallows and put aside. Melt butter, then add chips and syrup and stir until all is melted. Take off heat and add vanilla. Immediately pour over cereal mixture and stir to cover all of the cereal and marshmallows. Place foil or wax paper on counter and spoon out by the TB. full. Let cool for 30 min. and transfer into the fridge. Once it is chilled store them in a air tight container in the refrigerator. They are so tasty!!

BACON!!!

Oh baby does my family love BACON!!! I don't cook it very often though, I usually use the microwave pre-cooked kind.BUT, I had a package of real bacon in the freezer and I was up for an experiment this morning.

I was watching a cooking show the other day and the chef laid the bacon on a cookie sheet with a rack and cooked it in the oven. I thought this was pure genius! Now you may have heard of this or even tried this before but this was a first for me. So I tried it and it totally worked and Emma said it was the best bacon she had ever tasted. That is saying a lot cause Emma eats bacon about everywhere we go. She adores it! So here is how you do it.

Pre-heat your oven to 400.

Take a cookie sheet and cover with foil. Then lay a baking rack on top of it. I don't have a baking rack, so I used a broiler pan and its rack. Then spray with cooking spray. Lay your slices of bacon on the rack, I fit about 10 on my pan. Pop in the oven for 20 min. Viola, BACON!!

You don't have to turn it, or get popped on the arm with grease! It is wonderful! Give it a try!

Pasta Salad

Here is my first recipe for my blog! This is a pasta salad I made up but you really could put anything you like in this salad. Whatever veggies you like would taste yummy. But here is what i used.



1 16 oz. box bowtie pasta

1cup thawed frozen peas

1/2 orange pepper, diced

1/2 red onoin, diced

1 small head of broccoli, florets only

3 eggs, hard boiled and chopped

4-5 slices deli ham, chopped

1 cup mayo

2 TB. red wine vinegar

salt

pepper

garlic powder



Cook pasta according to box directions. At the last 2 minutes of cooking the pasta add the broccoli. Then drain noodles and broccoli. Add a little oil to the pasta to keep it from sticking. Let it cool completely. Then add orange pepper, onion, peas, ham , eggs. Mix the mayo and vinegar together until smooth. Then pour of pasta mixture. As far as the salt, pepper and garlic, I do that to taste. I add them all while making the salad then i do it again after the salad has completely cooled in the fridge. This is so yummy and you can eat this as your meal or as a side dish. ENJOY! Let me know what you think after you make it!

Addiction

I was kinda freaking out about it this morning. I went to my 2-liter of diet coke only to find it empty! I was trying to remain calm but was already feeling the withdrawl headache coming on. So I start trying to figure out how I am going to get to the store with Izzy being sick and maybe I could just go through a drive through with her! Yes, that is what I will do. Then I realize that I have already put her down for her nap so I can't leave.

Crap! That means I have to wait 2 hours before I can have a diet coke. Okay,Okay just calm down I say. I can have water or tea or even lemonade. I try to make do but it is NOT working. So I decide to keep my mind off of it by doing a little prep for dinner. I start looking for the onion in the fridge. It is all the way in the back behind the milk jug. So I take out the milk jug and pull the onion out and as I am doing that a shiny silver can catches my eye! Could it be.... yes it is! I see those 2 words on the side of the can that make me so HAPPY! DIET COKE! I quickly throw the onion back in the fridge and run to get a glass of ice. I crack open that can and hear the air release from the can. Then I pour it over the ice and listen to fizz. I can't wait for the fizz to die down so I take a swig and that amazing burn enters my throat and all I can do is say "ahhhhhh!" All seems right with the world again and I can focus and get on with my day. But I have to say Hi, my name is Leslie and I am addicted to Diet Coke!

Welcome to my Blog!

I am excited to start my own blog! I love reading other peoples and so I thought there might be someone out there that would be interested in my life! I called my blog A Work in Progress because that is me! A constant work in Progress. I am always trying to figure out who and what I am supposed to be doing with my life. I have lots of interests but get bored very easily so I am never very content for long.

I have a wonderful husband, Chris who is my complete opposite! From how we were raised to our political beliefs to our goals for our lives, we couldn't be more different! Which makes discussions in our house very interesting sometimes! But there is NO ONE who can make me laugh harder or make me smile bigger! He is my best friend, and even though we are so different we really do complete each other.

My girls... I have a beautiful 9 almost 10 almost 25 year old daughter, Emma. She is such an interesting combo of Chris and me. She is soooo stubborn and hard headed but sweet and tender-hearted! She would truly give you the shirt off her back. And she is CRAZY funny! She has my in stitches all the time! She is a competitive swimmer and in love with most sports. But she also loves school and was even on student council this year.

Izzy is my adorable 19 month old baby girl! She came into our lives very differently then Emma. Izzy, a.k.a. Isabella, was officially adopted into our family April 15th, 2010! it was an amazing day for us. I will blog about that whole experience soon! She fits into our family so well. Again, I have another stubborn one, but she is so energetic and excited to learn new things everyday! It makes my smile just to think about all the silly and crazy things she does.

Anyway that is my family in a nutshell. Also, I would like to share recipes with you as part of this blog. My goal is to add 1-2 recipes a week. We shall see if i can keep it up.

I thank you for stopping by and hope you will continue to check back with me!