eats together stays together. Or so it’s been said. I am one of those people that truly believes in the benefits of eating as a family….at the table! The benefits of taking the time in our busy schedules to sit down, connect, and eat together are immeasurable. Eating a meal with people gives one a sense of belonging. Your kids will know that you matter to them. It’s a great time to teach manners and social skills! Having regular family meals is hands down, one of the most important things you can do to raise emotionally and physically healthy kids. Kyle and I both share the same views on the importance of eating dinner together as a family. The tv is turned off, the kids often help set the table, and although the meals are usually nothing glorious we sit down and enjoy what we have. Our girls are young yet, and I will not lie – meal time can be very hectic! At any given meal we most definitely will either have a glass of milk spilled, a child needing to get up and go to the bathroom, or someone complain about what they have to eat. I don’t want to paint a picture that it’s some major event – in fact usually it’s quite opposite! Nonetheless I know that we are building good values in our kids, and for that I feel great! I challenge you to eat meals as a family as much as possible. You will not be sorry you did and your kids will really appreciate it when they are grown!
And just for fun, here is a list of the meals we often have – just to show you it’s NOTHING extravagant!
tacos enchiladas
chicken bake burgers
bbq grilled meat
spaghetti chicken broccoli alfredo
even sometimes breakfast food
BLT’s soup
So, now it’s your turn – tell me about your family meals – what do they love, what do they ask for over and over again?!
MandaKay
Guess it hasn’t been a while! Oh well, here is a LO heavy post anyway! Last weekend the site called “Mousescrappers” hosted a Speed Scrap marathon in honor of the marathon that was held at Disney last weekend (in which our friends Beth and Jeff ran the 1/2 marathon and rocked it!). Well, I decided to do the half marathon at Mousescrappers and did 7 speed scraps. A speed scrap is generally done in an hour or so in a chat room, and you are given 7 different instructions all leading you to scrap a page. We host these chats/scraps at The-Lilypad too sometimes and I love them, because it really forces me to get some pages done, and generally they are pages that I end up LOVING, despite the speed I did them in! So, without further ado…here are some new Disney pages I have scrapped!
On Swagbucks website they have a tab on the top that says EARN. In that drop down there is a coupons button. Click that and it will bring you to Coupons.com, which is a site I use to print coupons ALL THE TIME! So now I am just doing it thru their website and I should start earning 10 swagbucks for every coupon turned in to them. It will take a while however (8-12 weeks) to get those swagbucks since they have to kind of wait for each coupon to be processed and tallied back to them. But I am excited! I bet I have used probably 20-30 coupons already thru printing from there, so hopefully I will start seeing those swagbucks start rolling in from that as well! OK – enough about that! 
In reality though I am really trying to lose a few extra pounds and have been working out every day since Dec. 1. It’s going good, I missed 3 days so far total since Dec. 1. I haven’t changed my eating too much, but for the month of Dec. I tried cut back on my pop intake, but that didn’t last long. I am probably down on my consumption a little bit, but not much. 
I am realizing that I am getting older though because to lose weight now takes longer and longer. I feel like I should be seeing visible results by now and I am not. In high school I would have lost 5 lbs at least with all this working out. I am feeling stonger though…I guess that’s good. And a few other little non-resolutions I set every year are, to keep working on saving money and not spending it, to read my Bible more and grow closer to God, to be a better wife and mom, and to enjoy life!
