So often in today's society it's difficult to find things that celebrate the true meaning of Christian Holidays. Easter isn't any different. This week at work, as I was looking forward to Easter, I would ask my patients and co-workers if their family did anything special to celebrate Easter. Many would respond that they have family get togethers and dinners but very few included that they would be celebrating at a church. I was shocked at how many celebrate Easter with no real understanding of the holiday. Maybe shocked is too strong of a word, after all, many celebrate Christmas without celebrating the birth of Christ, so why would Easter be any different? But I guess I assumed Easter was different. Isn't so obviously a religious holiday, a time celebrating the resurrection of our Savior?

Unfortunately it gets buried underneath the commercialized Easter bunny, Easter Eggs, Pretty baskets and Easter Egg hunts. I suppose if you didn't come from a Judeo-Christian background you could justify setting aside a day to go a long with those Easter festivities. But as I consider what this young Poindexter family's holiday traditions will be, I am torn between wanting to avoid any secular aspect of Easter and allowing some fun popular traditions. I struggle with this same concept during Christmas. I find myself severely irritated with Santa Clause during Christmas and even MORE irritated with the Easter bunny during the Easter holiday.

As a Christian is it okay to allow some popular Easter traditions such as the Easter basket and Easter egg hunts into your Easter celebration? I mean, my parents always filled Easter baskets for myself and my siblings, we always had Easter egg hunts and usually dyed Easter eggs for fun on Sunday afternoon. I know doing those things never took away from the true meaning of the holiday in my family, and we never for one second believed that the Easter bunny (or Santa Clause for that matter) were even remotely real. But I am so afraid that I will do a poor job of getting that across to my future children. I want so very badly to raise children that will truly give their hearts to Christ and I know it will be Mark and I's responsibility to lead them in that direction. On the other end of the spectrum, I don't want to be legalistic and make my children bitter towards Christian holidays because they don't get to enjoy many of the same things their friends might be enjoying. How do you give them the true joy of the holiday, allowing it to be fun with family memories, but never taking away from the meaning of the celebration???



Am I crazy for even thinking about this right now? We don't even have a baby on the way and I'm already concerned about this. Is it too early to even worry about it???

Well, worry about I do. Concerned about it, I am. (Some how Yoda is making an appearance all of a sudden...???)  Anyways! Mark and I decided that for now we will plan to allow our kids to have Easter baskets and most likely engage in some Easter egg hunting/dyeing activities, but incorporate the true meaning of the season even more than we allow the secular aspects. And to ensure that our children know the difference between truth and fictional characters.



Here are some cute and fun activities I found that could be a good idea to refer back to when it does come time to celebrate Easter with some young ones one day.

I had the crazy thought today to check back on my New Years Resolutions to see how I was doing...

And you know what??? I'm not doing half bad!

Here's what I've accomplished : ) - working on : | - and what I haven't even started yet : (...

~ Complete the Bible in 90 days reading.... :( .... I thought I had the study I used when I did this a couple of years ago, the one that has the reading schedule, but I haven't found it yet. And I kind of stopped looking. I should get on that soon and be ready to start that by May 1st.

~ Complete 90 days of P90X.... : | / :( ...... I started this one and then got bored really quickly. It just takes SOOO long to complete. But with my races getting closer I'm really feeling the pressure of needing some serious upper and lower body strengthening. Reading that I was supposed to complete this makes me feel guilty for not sticking with it. *groan* We'll see if I can kick this in to gear soon.

~ Lose 20-25 pounds... :| .... As you've seen from my updates, I've lost about 6 pounds... so only 19 more to go???

~ Give our hall bathroom a mini make-over .... :( ..... NOPE.... Its really not on the list at this point. Probably a project for late summer/fall. But I have all year right???

~ Become a better meal planner... :| ... I feel like maybe my "working on it" face should be a little happier..oh well... Because I am definitely getting better at this! As seen by my Homemade Meal Challenge

~ Become a better couponer... :| .... Same as above. I'm getting better!

~ Pay off my car! ..... :) ...... Finally a smiley face!!! I did this back in January actually. It was definitely exciting! Of course as soon as I paid that baby off I got a chip in my windshield. Isn't that always the case? But that's not the point! The Poindexter's have one more debt paid off! 

~ Finish my first olympic distance triathlon ... :) .... I am in full training!!! I have a 6am wake up call for swimming tomorrow morning!

~ Run More! ...  :) .... I AM running more. Not enough yet, but I am running. And my sweet Piper has started going with me on my 1-2 mile runs.

~ Create a baby Poindexter. .... :( ... Not that this really needs a sad face, we haven't necessarily started "trying" yet. But it's coming. Stay tuned.

~ Become an Aunt! .... :( .... I am going to sad face this one. Still praying for my sister and Brother-in-law for their hearts desire to be granted. I am hoping to hear good news soon!

~ Re-paint music room ... :).... DONE!

~ Read more .... :) .... I've finished the Explicit Gospel and I've started Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

~ Plant a Garden this spring ... :) .... Not completed, but I do have my raised bed made and ready to go. Just waiting for Winter to decide to leave and let Spring have a turn!

Wow, what a Sunday. When I went to bed last night I did not even imagine the day would turn out like this.

Mark and I had invited his Sister and Brother-in-law and his parents to have lunch at our house after church today. They were going to bring their dogs and we were going to have a nice cozy afternoon on a rainy, cold day. Mark and I went shopping last night for all of the makings of a yummy taco party and even looked up a recipe on Pinterest  for homemade fried ice cream - you know - to stick with the Mexican food theme. I was so excited, I like having people, especially family, over to the house. I was up a little later than usual last night making sure the house was all picked up and the food was ready to go since I'd be throwing it together right when we got home from church. I even went ahead and pre-made the fried ice cream so it would be nice and solid when we were ready to eat it. But unfortunately Mark's family never got to come over.

Our poor little Piper had been having some stomach issues the last few days... getting sick in the car (which by the way cost me about $40 to have shampooed...*sigh*) and not eating her normal amounts of food or even treats.  We chalked it up to motion sickness, and the eating thing to the fact that she's been teething so it might be bothering her to chew hard food. She seemed fine all day Saturday, even went running with me, and ate her food this morning, so we thought she was doing better - almost back to her normal self. Unfortunately that wasn't the case when we got home from church. With out going in to too much detail, she was having a hard time keeping whatever was in her stomach, IN her stomach. It was coming out all over her crate, all over my carpets and kitchen floor. After some discussion and a call to the vets office we were convinced we needed to bring her in to the emergency vet hospital. My poor puppy got all poked and prodded. After about 2 1/2 hours they ruled out Parvo (thank goodness!) and wanted to keep her 1-2 days for observation. We opted out of that because of the  close to $1,000 bill that came along with it, so they gave her some IV fluids to prevent dehydration, an anti Nausea injection and instructions to visit our regular veterinarian tomorrow if symptoms don't improve. After almost 4 hours we finally left! I mean, I didn't anticipate taking your pet to the emergency vet would take that long!

Mark and I were starving when we left because we never grabbed any lunch, so we decided to hit up some taco bell. Definitely not something we make a habit out of, but we were in no mood to make any food for ourselves and we were already in the mood for Taco's. : )

Piper is sleeping quietly now. She has a huge camel like hump on her shoulder from the fluids they injected in her, but thankfully she hasn't let any fluids exit her body since being home. : ) I think I might cry if I have to clean up another mess in my house. Hopefully she'll be able to keep food down in the morning or its back to the vet we go. I'm super thankful that tomorrow is Mark's work from home day so he'll be able to closely monitor her through out the morning. I know I probably sound crazy, after all, its just an animal. There might be a day when I'll just put a vomiting dog outside and not blink twice while I tend to my babies, but today little miss Piper is my baby, and I feel oh so bad that she is sick.

Any way you can make ice cream more delicious I'm all for it!

I've definitely been slacking this new year with Well Balanced Wednesdays.

My schedule at work changed in February so I know have Tuesday afternoons off. I have still been going over to my sister's every Tuesday afternoon to work out together, but we have definitely allowed our bible study to fall off to the side. I think we both have a major focus on trying to get back in shape before this summer, and I like to spend only an hour or 2 over there so I can get home and get all of my housewife work done so we end up just exercising and not reviewing our bible study together. The bible study we chose when we started this whole idea wasn't exactly ideal for group discussion/study but that just sounds like I'm offering an excuse doesn't it?

I am headed over there soon to get together with her so I'll bring up our lack of bible study while I'm there and see if we can't get this ball rolling again...

I want to try to start posting on Tuesdays about it as well, I couldn't really figure out how I wanted to do it when I was posting about Well Balanced Wednesdays, but maybe this time I'll be a little more focused with what I want to share. I'm going to have to change them name though...seeing as its not on Wednesdays... but I'm going to have to think on that one.  I'll let you know!

Okay, I've got a load of laundry started and chicken thawing out for dinner so time to head over to Erin's!

My older sister Erin celebrated her 27th birthday this past weekend. Her husband surprised her with a trip up to Northern Virginia to shop at Ikea, which she has been dying to go to for the past 2-3 years. It was just a quick weekend trip, but they needed someone to watch their 6 month old Lab-Boxer mix, Shelby. a.k.a. Piper's best friend.

Every Tuesday I go over to Erin's house to work out and do our bible study (Remember those well balanced Wednesdays?? They've moved to Tuesdays...I guess I should give an update on that sometime soon...) I take Piper over there with me and Shelby and Piper play their little hearts out all afternoon. So of course Mark and I agreed to watch Shelby for them.

They are the cutest things when they are together. They wrestle, dig holes together, chew on sticks together, take naps together (literally on the same bed with each other) chase balls together and are so well behaved on their walks together!

Here are a few snapshots from our weekend with the girls...

I made it through the first work week of my homemade meal challenge!

It was tough. And I have to be honest, not all of the meals turned out that great. Like my Philly Cheese Steak sloppy joe recipe? Ick! Seriously, I will not be making that one again.

There were definitely nights, especially tonight, when I wanted to forget about it and just order pizza because I was tired or got home later than I thought... but I stuck to my guns. And my husband graciously finished each and every meal. Even the icky ones. Who knew my homemade challenge to try and eat better/healthier would be such a challenge for our tastebuds. Not because the food was bad but because my cooking skills were sorely lacking. I really anticipated it to go better than it did. : /

Tonight was probably the best meal yet! We had Chicken and Ranch pasta with some more homemade bread. (Thats one thing I made that turned out AWESOME!) But it took much longer to make than I thought. A 30 minute meal turned into a 90 minute meal... I was getting super frustrated but I made myself keep smiling and keep cooking. I was pretty proud of myself for whipping up the ranch sauce without any actual directions, thanks to a recipe from earlier this week that also had be make a sauce. (+1 for Meghan! If I gain nothing else out of this week, at least I learned how to make sauces).

*sigh* this is going to be a much longer process than I originally anticipated.

Growing up my mom used to make delicious homemade bread in her bread maker. I loved waking up to the smell of that bread. My mouth would instantly water at the thought of the warm, fluffy bread, covered in butter and strawberry jam melting in my mouth for breakfast! Delicious!

When I found a recipe on Pinterest for easy homemade bread in a crockpot (because I don't have a bread machine) I could suddenly smell that familiar aroma and I think I might have drooled a little at the thought of eating the finished product.

Apparently my Pinterest pin came from Artisan Bread in 5. The bread dough takes about 5 minutes to make, (you can find the recipe from the same site here) it has to rise for 2 hours and then after that you can either bake it or let it refrigerate. I decided to let mine chill for a couple of hours because the website said it would be easier to handle and, well, I never try to push my luck in the kitchen. :)  It took about 90 minutes to bake in my crockpot. It said it would take about an hour so I was a little disappointed that it took longer because I had planned for it to be finished at the same time dinner would be ready... we had to eat some left over store bought bread with dinner but it worked out because then I could save the yummy bread for dessert!

Here is the dough right after I made it, before it started to rise.

I was talking to someone the other night about eating healthy. As in not eating so many pre-packaged processed foods. Mark and I were at the home group that we go to every other Friday night, and the husband and wife that hosts the home group were telling me about a book they read.

This book called Animal, Vegetable, Mineral was about a family that decided they would only eat food that they grew themselves or bought/traded from local farmers. They wouldn't buy anything from the grocery store.

We were talking about how appealing it is to eat healthier, but how our lifestyles make it almost impossible to do what they did. How the prices of organic produce, meats and dairy are much more expensive (especially where we're at in the city) and how its more time consuming to shop for and prepare meals when eating that way.

They gave me the book to borrow, so I am going to add that to my reading list for this year. But even before I open that book, I want to start trying to eat better. When I say eat better, I don't mean in the sense of eating only fruits, veggies and not eating sugar etc. But Mark and I are a big fan of Hamburger Helpers and frozen pasta dinners. Not because we just love how good they make us feel *cough* sarcasm *cough*. But because they make a decent meal fairly quickly. This is especially helpful when I don't get home until 7:30 or even 8:30 at night depending on my work schedule.

But I'm going to challenge myself to do something different for the next 2 weeks. I am going to go grocery shopping here shortly and I am going to shop for only 2 weeks instead of a month at a time like I can do when buying boxed and frozen dinners. I'm also going to buy healthy snacks for me to take to work and for eating on my lunch break. And I'm going to make home-made meals every night.

It's going to be slightly difficult. Especially on the nights that I don't get home until 8:30, but I've planned to try some new crock pot meals so Mark can eat a fresh meal rather than pop some frozen buffalo wings on our pizazz for his dinner.

Here's what the menu is looking like:

Monday: Chicken Alfredo
Tuesday: No Bake Mac n Cheese with broccoli
Wednesday: Crockpot Chicken - marinated with Sweet Baby Rays
Thursday: Chicken Ranch Pasta
Friday: Philly Cheese Steak Sloppy Joes (Okay, so this one is still going to be home-made, but definitely not on the healthy side! I'm only making this because I showed this recipe to the husband last week and promised I would make it since he LOVES Philly Cheese Steak)
Saturday: Dinner Out
Sunday: Caesar Salad with grilled chicken
**Can you see I'm trying to stick with mostly lean meat???**
Monday: Home-made Pizza
Tuesday: Baked Chicken with sides of green beans and mashed potatoes
Wednesday: Crockpot Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti
Thursday: Tuna Noodle Casserole
Friday: Baked Chicken with sides of corn and scalloped potatoes
Saturday: Dinner out
Sunday: Home-made subs - right now I'm thinking meatball but we'll see :)

Like I said, right now this isn't healthier as in low carbs, low fat, more fruits/veggies kind of healthier. It's healthier as in home-made, no cream of soup crap, no boxed/frozen dinners, no processed cheese mess, more chicken less red meat kind of healthier.

It's going to be a process and I have to take baby steps people. And that first step will be getting into a habit of actually putting ingredients together to make a meal!

We'll see how this goes. :)

Okay, so now that I've shared the first part of my summer travel plans with you, I'm ready to tell you about our big, grand vacation!

Mark and I are going to Europe at the end of July!!! We are going to spend 10 days visiting England, Ireland and hopefully France.



We are so blessed to be have this opportunity. Last year Mark's parents and his sister and brother-in-law  visited England and Ireland. Mark's sister has a best friend that lives in England right now. They grew up going to school together so Mark's family is very close with her. She invited them to visit her and her husband last summer. Mark and I weren't able to go last year because we had already used our vacation days on our honeymoon! But when she extended the invitation to us again this year it was something we couldn't pass up.

We've always wanted to be able to do some traveling before we have kids and this seems to be the perfect opportunity. It is so much easier to go and visit someone that lives in Europe who will be your tour guide AND be able to stay with them instead of trying to figure things out on your own!

We were slightly discouraged when we found out exactly how much it was going to cost to just buy the plane tickets! But how fantastic is it that our income tax return check was pretty much the exact amount we needed to pay for our entire trip???

Now, I'm sure there are more responsible things we could do with our tax return...maybe use it to buy a section of fencing for our backyard that we've been wanting? Or buy a new couch for our living room? Maybe put it towards the fund for a new roof that we'll probably need in a year or two? I was able to pay off my car in January so the only debt we have is our house and Mark's school loans.

We thought about these options, but we truly feel like we've been presented with this once in a lifetime opportunity! In 20 years from now are we going to remember how we saved money to put up a new fence that probably had to be repaired again, or are we going to remember our trip to Europe? We know these chances don't come around very often and we don't want to look back on our lives and regret that we didn't take these chances.

I don't know if you cared to know all of that, but I felt like sharing. :) The point of this all, is we're going to Europe! I am extremely excited about going to Ireland, my mom's heritage is Irish on her dad's side. I'm hoping to find some information before I go and see if its possible to visit anywhere close to where my granddad's family is from. Mark's mom's mother was actually born in Ireland and last year she actually found her family! Literally found people she had never met (cousins/aunts/etc.) just by asking around in a strange land! How amazing is that? I don't anticipate that happening for me, but it would be incredible to just see the land where my ancestors are from, right?




We're also throwing around the idea of the visiting Paris by taking the Chunnel from England to France. How romantic will it be to see the Eiffel tower??