I got a new camera for Christmas this year.  Photography has always been one of my hobbies and I finally got around to taking some pictures of my daughter and one of her friends to try my luck at headshots and a couple candids. Check these out and tell me what you think.

This was my niece walking with Angel and her friend.  Turned out really cute.

I thought this was neat. I know a lot of people are not a fan of feet, but I thought the shot was really cool.

Angel and her friend could pass for sisters. And I love how the picture turned out.

This one was kind of cool with the special effects.

And my favorite with my beautiful daughter!

Restaurant.com coupon code, get a $25 GC for only $2

Check out Restaurant.com for the Memorial Day weekend special. Now through 5/31 purchase a $25 gift certificate for only $2.  Just enter the promo code FLAG and then hit Apply. Just a great deal. And you can purchase them as gifts and hold them until you are ready to decide what restaurant you want to go to then send them to yourself.  

Here is some of the restaurants participating in our area:

Stool Pigeons Coop & Grill
Villa Antonio
Boneheads Grilled Fish & Piri Piri Chicken
Phil And Tony's Brick Oven Pizza
Fuel Pizza
Mucci's Italian Bistro
Genaro's Rotisserie

and many more.  The gift certificates are well worth what you are paying for them. My family and I tried Genaro's a few weeks ago. The food was to die for and we had no issues using our gift certificate. If you like trying some of the little privately owned places in the area then this would be a great opportunity for you. Check it out!

 

Couponing and Saving Money

I plan to go further in depth in these topics, but I wanted to just get you started by telling you the sites that I am currently using at home myself.

Here is my favorite site with coupon tutorials, printable coupons, and she even breaks it down and lists the best deals by store and tells you the best way to purchase the items. I would definitely check out her tutorials on cvs extra care bucks and walgreens register rewards.

http://www.coupondivas.com/


This site sells gift certificates (i.e. GC) for local restaurants at a discount ( usually $25 GC for $10) and they send out email newsletters with coupon codes for even better deals. The last three I bought I got for $2 each. ( $75 worth of GC for only $6) We used one at Genarro's and had no problems. The current coupon code gets you an additional 80% off their already low gift certificate prices (code: FLAG good through Monday 5/31)

http://www.restaurant.com/


This site we found out about when we went to the Joseph Sangle Financial Workshop at Elevation. This guy actually has two sites. Both are good with lots of tips on how to save money.

http://groceryfreak.com/couponing-101/
http://www.savingfreak.com/

While you are at it, make sure to check out Joseph Sangl's website and tools for budgeting and getting out of debt. His system is very similar to Dave Ramsey's but he offers all his online tools for free.

http://www.josephsangl.com/

And I am still here. Just never get on HERE! But I have been itching to write more so I am compiling a list of blog topics I plan to write on. I plan to start with my recent couponing endeavor. It's become an obsession of mine and I can't believe all the money I've saved recently or the free stuff I've scored. So watch for those blog entries!

I'm still here!

Still here, chugging along. Life keeps moving, ever changing. The kids are growing. Angel turned 15, is in driver's ed, probably going to get her permit here very soon. Alyssa has turned into a young woman before my eyes. She's actually taller than Angel now. Patrick is doing well in school and continues to teach me patience, lol. We are still attending Elevation and loving it. Life is challenging from time to time but God is good and I am enjoying my kids growing while I can!

Critisicm: Our Dis-Ease

I am borrowing some things (including my title for this post) from a website I recently checked out, http://lcsmithphd.com/Criticism.html. 

I have been thinking and praying about how I handle my children and how I speak to them. I worry about how my actions will affect them in the long run.  I have thought long and hard and I keep coming to the same conclusion.  No one feels good when you criticise them incestantly and offer no positive praise in it's place or along with constructive criticism.  According to Lawrence C. Smith Criticism is the vehicle for imposing our beliefs on others thus perpetuating the Dilemma of Mankind.  There is so much truth to this statement.  Everything that we read in the paper, see on the news, reality shows,  and so many other places is all about criticism.  We think we have the right to criticize celebrities, politicians, entertainers.  We criticize our children's teachers, our bosses and even our family and friends.  No one is safe from our righteous judgement.  And it's all so negative and self-serving.  Think about it...why do we criticise?  I believe the reason is to make us feel better about our selves.

So if this is all true, then what are we doing to our children by constantly criticizing them instead of offering positive praise to teach them how to behave?  While I have been praying about this recently I came across a bible verse that spoke to me about how I  treat my children.  "And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord" (Eph. 6:4). This verse is better explained at this website  http://www.bible.ca/ef/expository-ephesians-6-4.htm.

So think twice next time you start to raise your voice at your children or voice your unwanted opinion about a person's choices.   Is that person open to receiving your constructive criticism? Is your reason for giving your opinion actually productive or self-serving? Will your children learn what you wanted them to learn or are they learning to be mean and spiteful?  A friend once told me that if I am getting emotional and raising my voice at my kids then I am losing control....then of course the kids are going to say things they shouldn't.  And the children losing control doesn't excuse me losing control.  So make a habit of staying calm and being clear about the consequences.  Then when everyone's calmer you can discuss what happened and what shouldn't have happened.

def of trust: to have confidence in a person or thing

def of trust: to have confidence in a person or thing, especially in reference to a person and having confidence in their integrity, ability, or character.

That definition is put in my own words after skimming several different definitions and sites. The other day while driving down the road I was having a conversation with my son about earning my trust if he wanted to be able to do things and have more freedom.  Trust is a hard concept for kids.  It's a more abstract concept and they can't see the cause and effect of disobeying our rules and instructions for them. I was attempting to explain why when he disobeyed the rules one time (by not being where I had asked him to be) it would keep me from trusting him enough to allow him to go play at his friends house the next time.

I am not sure if my son understood me or not.  I guess we will see the next time I allow him to go play at a friends house.  As I was discussing it with him though I realized that my son had to have trust in me to allow me to decide what was best for him. I think I've done a pretty good job of proving myself trustworthy to my kids. Afterall I have raised them and taken care of them all their lives.  Then I realized that we are not much different than my son when it comes to our trust in God. We struggle with our trust or our faith in God even though he has been consistent in his promises to us. We can't always see why he chooses the path he has chosen for us or why he won't allow us the thing we think we want most, but we have to trust in him and know that he always has our best interest at heart.  But if we don't follow his instructions we could end up kidnapped by the enemy........do you see the analogy here?

So my thought for the day is to follow God's instructions and pathways in your life even when you can't see what he's doing.  We can have total confidence in our Savior that he is in control of everything even when we can't see it.

Great tutorials for Guitar!

Angel and I found this guy on youtube and he has some great tutorials for praise songs on guitar.  It's really helping Angel with some of the songs she needed to learn as worship leader for YCI.  I thought I would give him a quick plug.

Tutorials by Acousticselection

Busy busy busy

I am playing catch up one again. It's that time of the year. Things just keep getting more and more hectic and after a while I just can't keep up with it all.  So hear I am playing catch up once more.  Here's just some of the things that have been happening in our lives.

We are still waiting to hear of a final competition date for Angel on the Rip The Hallways competition.  They are a little unorganized and they ended up making a bunch of changes after the first taping.  I will update once I hear something.

Angel had her photoshoot so we will be updating her sites with the new pictures soon.  We are still working on her charity idea.  It just takes time to collect all the information and act on things.

Everyone is well at the moment.  The kids have had their flu shots.  No one in my house has had the swine flu at this point.  The kids are doing pretty good with school. Work is picking up with Christmas sales starting.

Life is good!!

My Angel put up another video last week.  I just love this song.  It's such a beautiful melody and I think she did a really good job with it.  What do you think?

Angel Marie Cur sings Almost Lover