The 8 dog products every dog owner should have.

1. Martha Stewart Food and Water Bowls, they separate making cleaning super easy. Purchased from Pet Smart.
2. Babies & Barks bandanas, they slip right onto their collars. Check out their easy shop here.
3. Snappys Dog Tags for personalized dog tags with name and owners phone number on the back. Check them out on Etsy as well.
4. Bocce's Bakery All Natural Treats. They have the best flavors including mac and cheese, lobster roll, sunday roast, pb&j, and apple pie. Our favorite is the Christmas time lumps of coal special! 
5.  Bark Box, I mean you have to check this out!! We cancelled our gym membership and replaced it with the bark box subscription. Totally worth it in our opinions! Check it out through this link and receive a special discount at checkout.
6. go dog fun toys are one of the only brands that lasts our labs the longest.
7. Boots and Barkley collar slide bow ties are the BEST!! My dogs always have bow ties on and we prefer these! Purchase them at Target
8. Lastly, but most impressively are Kyjen Plush Puppies toys. We have purchased them at TjMaxx on occasion. Ronin received his first as a first birthday present in October and he still has it!!! Its March! It is one of his favorite toys to play with. Anyone with tough chewers, Labs especially, knows how had it is to keep them in toys.

Now, get to shopping!

Meet Fitzgerald Q.

Surprise, some of you may already figured out that we got a new yellow lab! David and I are totally in love with with our yellow lab Ronin (if you want to check out his birthday picture and cake recipe click here ) and I admit I didn't think I had enough room in my heart for another! Much to my surprise, David won out in the battle for a second dog. Again stealing my heart, Labs really are the greatest! Especially yellow ones, much to my own prejudice. (Please not that these are all my own opinions and I am fully trying to avoid the dog breed debate, that "My dog is better than your dog." or "My dog can beat your dog up." although.... hehe)

 

Falling in love is pretty easy when they are this cute.

We love Wendys and we love naps!

Naptime, anytime! Really!

Bows and cuddles are my favorite and Fitzs too!

Kinda sorta starting to like each other.

Two of my favorite bow tied boys.

David said "Take his picture before I yell at him."
I mean it really is just too cute.

Pillow lover like his brother and Momma!

Stay tuned for a post on our favorite dog products!

Muddy footprints.

"When you come up the stairs leave your boots at the door." I say this quite often in the winter months. I'm really not that bothered by walking through the house in shoes any other season, but winter, the dirt, the mud, the tiny little rocks, the salt from the roads just really makes me crazy to see all over the floor. 

Let me set the stage for you. Two days prior I cleaned our entire house...floors...all hardwood...on my hands and knees. In preparation for a surprise you will hear about later. I don't usually work long hours, but one day this week I happened to work 11.5 hours straight, I left at 7:30am and it was almost 8pm when I pulled into our driveway. David was at a friends house, which I already knew. Walking up the basement steps to go into our kitchen, I was expecting to be greeted by our dog, who has been successfully trained to stay out of his kennel while we are not home! Insert proud puppy momma smile here. Instead the first thing that caught my eye was, you guessed it, A MUDDY FOOTPRINT! Err! I round the corner and their wasn't one but two more. I set my bag on the table to find not just three now but a whole trail. I instantly thought do I even want to follow this trail, because around another corner is a brand new hallway rug I just bought (white and beige to be exact). Silently pleading with my husband in my mind please, please, please tell me you stopped at the coat closet and didn't got any further in those muddy boots. He didn't. NINE MORE PRINTS!!! We're at a grand total of twelve if your counting, because Lord knows I was. Grabbing my phone, I text "I could kill you right now." "What, why" was his response. And off went my rant to him, me refusing to clean the prints up and lecturing him on not only that he was going to clean them but how he was going to clean them up. Later that night he came home, asking if I was still mad and me coldly responding of course I'm still mad. He cleaned up all twelve prints and the smell of the cleaning products infuriated me more. The next day came, David and I were fine, even laughed about, but it wasn't fine. 

The Lord was prodding my heart with Ephesians 4:29 it says"Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers." 

In the heat of the moment, I thought about being nice, I thought about cleaning the prints, but that is where I failed. I choose 'corrupt communication' my words did not edify my husband, nor minister grace. I fail my Lord daily, but in these muddy footprints and daily failures this is where He keeps me humble, where He keeps me relying on Him. I failed to listen to His knocking on my heart even in that moment when he said "just clean them up." I'm kicking myself now, and even though both David and myself were over it, I quietly whispered my apology to him for my words and my attitude, then followed suit in begging the Lord to give me more opportunities to to show His grace to others and to speak edifying words to others and especially my husband.

Tomato Bisque Soup

28 oz. can of crushed tomatoes

28 oz. can of diced tomatoes

14 oz. can of chicken broth

1 tablespoon of garlic

1/3 cup of butter

2 tablespoons of sugar

2 cups of heavy whipping cream

Bring tomatoes, broth, and garlic to boil, reduce heat to low and add butter and sugar. Stir until melted. Once butter is melted, slowly add cream while stirring! 

Enjoy!

Egg Nog French Toast!

Egg Nog French Toast Recipe

If your looking for the perfect holiday breakfast recipe you found it! 

5 eggs

1 1/2 cups of egg nog

1 tbsp. of nutmeg

Bread

Makes about 10 slices of French toast! 

I make this several days before Christmas, because tradition in our family is eating the Christmas cookies for breakfast! Enjoy!

Happy First Birthday Ronin(and his puppy birthday cake recipe)!!

1 cup of whole wheat flour, unbleached

1 tsp. of baking soda

3/4 cup of shredded carrots

1/4 cup of peanut butter

1/4 cup of canola oil

1 tsp. of vanilla

Bake at 350 degress for 12-15 minutes

Frosting:

1 mashed banana

4 oz. cream cheese

1 tsp. of vanilla 

All creamed together

Milkbone for topping

These can also be made into pupcakes as well!

What I didn't know when I became a Pastor's Wife

                         

There were a lot of things I didn't know before I became a pastors wife. When I thought about it, I pictured myself cutely dressed and sitting in the front row every Sunday and that was about the extent of it. My mind clearly didn't wander too far. I came up with nine things that I quickly realized while helping my husband minister to a small church

1. I am the multi-media director-the mic starts to cut out in the middle of the morning service, who does the pastor look at? You got it-me! Who is manning the slide changes in the powerpoint during the worship time? Me again.

2. I quickly became a wedding coordinator. When my husband performs wedding rehearsals I usually tag along and I usually get more than I bargain for in doing this. I have found that the bride usually forgets to get someone to coordinate the entrances and timing as her groom, bridal party, and herself enters the church on her special day. While it might not be a big deal to some, when you have someone to do that everything just runs much smoother. So I usually end up rounding up the whole party and getting everything situated behind the scenes. This is fun for me, I enjoy seeing the bride before the groom! Coming through in those little moments, takes a lot of pressure off of the day.

3.Event planner. Considering multiple ages groups and activities that are fun, not boring, and not over done, can be a hard task! Consider all that plus add in a very restrictive budget! Now don't get me wrong, my husband can do this and for the most part he comes up with a lot of great ideas, but lets face it, women are just more creative than men.

4.The interior decorator-because would you want your husband decorating your house?!?

5. The pastors stylist-refer to my 'Why I let my husband wear wrinkled pants to church' post.

6. I am the fill in-my least favorite title. While I want my husband to be able to count on me and rely on me always especially in bind. I thought being the fill in would require less of my time. It turns out when your the fill in you are filling in more than not. This tend to be a last minute thing every sunday and you must be prepared with a lesson and snacks or some spit up and baby drool in the nursery.

7. I work a full time job, so I technically get one day off, and if I'm lucky we have a church event on a Saturday too! (I really mean it when I say lucky)

8. In becoming David's wife I knew that i would hell bare the load of this ministry along with him, but in all honestly I thought it would mostly consist of a lot of the physical stuff mentioned above in the first seven things. What it really is more of, is the emotional side of this life, being that encourager for my husband, and learning to do a lot of listening. Your pastor has deep concern you.

Last and best of all were the blessings I would receive in this position. Our church family has been huge encouragers for us in this journey we are on and we are forever grateful for their support! Everyday we sit amazed with what we have and who we have to be thankful for!

*please do no misunderstand this post in me trying to take ownership over these titles, I have simply fallen into them and me typing them out was a very humbling experience to see not what I do, but what the lord has allowed me to do for Him!