If You Give a Mom a Muffin

If You Give a Mom a Muffin

If you give a mom a muffin,
She'll want a cup of coffee to go with it.
So she'll pour herself some.
The coffee will get spilled by her three year old.
She'll wipe it up.

Wiping the floor, she will find some dirty socks.
She'll remember she has to do some laundry.
When she puts the laundry in the washer,
She'll trip over some snow boots and bump into the freezer.
Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan supper for tonight.

She will get out a pound of hamburger.
She'll look for her cookbook. (101 Things To Make With a Pound ofHamburger.)
The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.
She will see the phone bill which is due tomorrow.
She will look for the checkbook.

The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two year old.
She'll smell something funny.
She'll change the two year old.
While she is changing the two year old the phone will ring. (Of course!)
Her five year old will answer it and hang up.

She remembers that she wants to phone a friend to come over for coffee onFriday.
Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup.
She will pour herself some.
And chances are,
If she has a cup of coffee,
Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.

Written by Kathy Fictorie

Based on If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff

What a blessed Easter!

This Easter was the first Easter that I truly understood what the timeline was for Jesus' last days were. I really was moved by understanding this timeline.

Good Friday was Tommy's special day with Mommy and Daddy. We did whatever he wanted. Which included donuts for breakfast, bowling and Strasburg! He had a great time!


We attended Good Friday service at church, and while admittedly, I was a bit distracted by an event before service, I still found the service to be moving and amazing. The worship team did an awesome job and the service was perfect.

We then went to Saturday evening Easter Service since we were travelling to Maryland on Sunday morning. The Easter service was interupted for us when I got paged to the nursery for Joshua who wouldn't calm down. I think it was just too much being out late two nights in a row. So I pretty much missed the service, although I was in for the worship team's opening and it was so full of energy and so awesome!!!!

Then Sunday morning, the boys got their baskets of goodies. They boys also blessed us by sleeping in until 8am!!! YAY!

We had some breakfast, and a slow morning, and then got packed up to drive the 75 minutes south to my sister's house. Joshie entertained us on the drive down:

There we ate WELL (Josh had his first Peep ever):

I got to see my beautiful neice and nephews (here's Ellie in picture perfect outfit):

did an Easter egg hunt

and had an awesome time.

Josh even took a nap in his cousin's big boy bed!!

It was awesome three day weekend and we are so blessed!

A work in progress!

We've been updating the house (windows, curtains, some painting, etc.) lately and I've already posted the pictures of the new windows!

This past weekend, Joe and my Dad worked together on hanging new shutters and I have to say, I finally LOVE the exterior of our house - it still needs a lot of paint - all the beige color trim needs repainting, the door and sidelights needs to be painted to match the new shutters, etc. But overall - what a difference! I'm so happy to be done with the drab beige on off white on white exterior with no real color!

Here are some pictures of the new shutters!

And for comparison - before and after next to each other:

Asthma? Small Airway?

Joshie has a chronic cough - for which he has repeatedly been given antibiotics for over the last year or so - which obviously aren't the answer. So we finally got him in to see the doctor that diagnosed Tommy with asthma -

She said that chronic cough is usually one of three things - GERD (we don't think this it but he did have reflux as a baby), small airway (for which there is no treatment other than time - he just has to get bigger and therefore his airway will broaden out), or asthma.

She said she didn't think it was GERD either, and there's no treatment for small airway (which can cause colds to be a problem - duh - seen that!) so the best thing to do is treat it as asthma, and hopefully we'll see improvement.

So Josh started on albuterol (for 7 days to help the inflamation calm down) and Flovent as a maintenance drug (which will take 2-3 weeks for us to see maximum effectiveness).

The first two nights it seemed to be working miraculously fast - unfortunately, that was a flook, because he's still coughing till he gags sometimes. We're hoping that the Flovent will kick in soon and that we've found an answer to his chronic cough.

Here's little Joshie doing his "puff puffs"

New Windows

We were blessed to be able to put in new windows today with a portion of Joe's severance check. And we were doubly blessed because my Dad works for a window company (the best in the business I think - Vytex Windows), anyway, so today was insane. But I think I almost got more work done because I wanted to stay out of their way. They arrived at 9:30am with a crew of three guys. They finished at 3:30pm. They left the house almost how they found it (a few pieces of dirt, but nothing compared to what it could have been!). And look at the difference:

Trying to understand God's message

The last week or so we've been struck AGAIN with illness - first Tommy with strep throat. Then Joshua with a nasty cold and pink eye.

I'm trying to understand what lesson God is trying to teach me - I thought I learned what I was suppose to learn back in February with the stomach bug that hit us. I learned about praising God for all that came out of that - having cuddles with my Joshie Bear, about not letting weight rule my life, about working as a team with my "partner in crime" husband, about letting go and letting God handle it. I thought I did super well and I learned so much from that two weeks of puke.

But now, this week, I'm having a hard time. I talked to my Mom yesterday and told her we were hit again with illness and she said maybe God is trying to teach you something - I told her, yeah, and I learned what I needed to learn in February - she said, maybe what YOU learned, isn't what God wanted you to learn. DUH!

So now I ask, God, what is it that I'm supposed to be learning here?

My favorite song is "Bring the Rain" and it talks about praising God in the storms. I thought I was? But this week has really been challenging me. Big time.

More little blessings in disguise

God works in mysterious and wonderful ways. He truly does. I was meeting with a lady I do a bible study with a few weeks back, and I asked that she pray that I remain close to God - that I depend on Him in good times and in bad. And that I talk with Him daily (which is so much easier to do when you are begging for this that and the other, but sometimes harder to remember to do when things are going well). Anyway, well, He answered her prayer with a stomach virus!

The Durika family got hit with the stomach bug - and hit hard. Joe had it first (see my other blog). Then Josh got it - but when we thought he was better, he got sick again - and again - and again - and again - for 7 days straight. And then things got back to normal - he went to daycare, I went to work. Then uh-oh I got it!

We're finally on the mend and we're all well - thank You God for that! But during that time, I leaned on Him, I thanked Him for the good things and prayed for the bad things. I learned alot about being a mom to Josh because I had him home with me for 7 days (longest time of one on one since my maternity leave with him almost two years ago!). I cared for him, I nurtured him and I mothered him. All the things that I busy myself with usually, had to wait. And even then, I was thankful for that time with my son. God taught Joe and I about disappointment (missing v-day, missing the marriage conference we had tickets for, etc.), team work, and love.

We're all better now, and again, every morning, I thank God for that. It's a little thing to be thankful for I guess, but God appreciates all the thanks that I give (big and little!) And I praise Him for all He's done.

Another thing that God did for me throughout these past two weeks, is that, remember my blog about my struggle with my weight? Well, as a result of all this illness, I lost the weight that I was struggling with. I believe I will maintain it too. But even if I don't, you know what God showed me? That those little five lbs don't make that much difference, and they certainly shouldn't be the reason I'm happy or sad each day. They really shouldn't.

So praise God for tummy bugs and all that a round (or two or three!) of illness can do for a person (both inside and out!).