Our Family Ramblings!

I am constantly asking the Lord, "how can I get thankfulness, humility, generosity, and being happy in your circumstances into the hearts of minds of my children?" It seems an impossible task at times. Society doesn't help at all! I don't want them to be generous because that is what they are told to do. I want them to be generous because it's what they want to do and being that way is one more attribute of Christ they want to strive to be like.


I then realized sitting in church yesterday amidst my A/C escapades with my parents A/C and then mine, that these are the moments and ways to teach what I am asking for. I am to model in my own life daily what I am teaching. I try to do it already, but not as intentional as I should. Not only model it, but be passionate about it. Get excited about ways to be generous, humble, and thankful. Be happy that my air was out in order to refocus myself even if for a moment to say, " hey, thanks Lord for my A/C!! ". When my air went out this time, I noticed a complete attitude change in myself and my kids. My frustration and irritability wasn't there.


My A/C is back!! "thanks Lord for a husband that has the ability to trouble shoot!" He fixed it and no $$ spent!! Yes, the air was only out for a day, but oh, the lessons it taught all of us!

So my poor parents have lived for 11 days without their A/C! In Florida that is just unacceptable and unbearable. They were going to have it fixed the next day, however, we had an idea that it might be the compressor and that is REALLY expensive. So, me in a brilliant moment (which I don't have very often) suggested that they use their home warranty that they got when they purchased their house. Sweet, a $55 service call and that should be the only expense. We were thinking "cool"-- well, not really in their house yet-- it was going to cost them upwards of $1000.00 to get it fixed. Well, days went by... still no air. They got several different stories about how the part had to be ordered and was on its way. What a crock. This is FL . people!! Finally, after calling my dad's normal A/C guy, they came up with the idea to ask the Home Warranty co. for a "buy out". (give my dad cash for the repair) They did. Not the full amount, but at this point it is worth it just getting out from under the Home warranty people!! He called his A/C guy back and he was there the next day and repaired it. 11 days later, they finally had air. The air got fixed this past Friday.



The irony... I woke up this morning and MY air is out!!!!!!!!!! AAAAHHHH!!!! Guess , I will be calling my dad's awesome A/C guy!

Most of you know that my 7 year old has been thumb sucker for ALL of her life. She refused to take a pacifier when she was a baby. I decided that her being able to pacify herself was a great skill to have. I took the phrase "pick your battles" to heart. Well, she is -like I said- 7 years old now and still does it. We are convinced that it is merely a habit at this point. She doesn't want to do it anymore and tries very hard. We have tried everything from bitter taste on her thumb to taping it up! Nothing has worked. We have bribed her and that just makes her more frustrated because she WANTS to stop! I see her struggle. I see her put her thumb up to her mouth and pull it away. I also watch her cry when I catch her with it in her mouth. "I just can't stop mom". Breaks my heart. I have also seen her go through some sort of withdrawal from not being able to do it. She will run around saying, "I need to suck my thumb".

She has been begging me for an American Girl doll. I was sure I wasn't going to pay that much $$ for a doll. But I got to thinking! What a great incentive and reward. She is trying very hard to earn her American Girl doll. So we have been trying to help her with her goal of getting her doll and breaking the habit before school starts. She is doing really well, but isn't there yet. She really needs something on her thumb to draw attention to it so she can NOT do it. We tried band aids because they are discreet, but they fall off or she takes them off.

We are trying a new product that I found today online. It is called "thumbuster"!

It is set to arrive in the mail within the week, so I will keep you all posted on what it does, how it works, and IF it works for us! If you think of it , say a little pray for a little girl and her big struggle!! :o)

Thanks to Thrifty Mommy for this great deal!!

Right now you can save 60% on dining gift certificates at Restaurant.com. Just enter the discount code ALLSTAR at the checkout and hit “apply”. Hurry, this offer ends Sunday, July 20th at 11:59 pm.

I got several!! You won't believe how your price goes down when you apply the discount code to the already low prices!! You print the certificates right from your own computer or save them to print later!

NOTE: you may want to call the restaurant before using them. Some are only viewing the "certificates" as "coupons" therefore only permitting you to use one per visit. (No stacking of certificates)

Today I am honoring my two very special friendships! These two gals have been in my life since Nathaniel was 1 yr. old. I don't know what I would do without them! We started out in the same playgroup in the neighborhood that we all lived in! It kept going and dwindled in size, however, some of us just became really close and stuck together. We aren't just playgroup buddies anymore. We are family! We have been through illness, miscarriages, family issues-- you name it. We have been there, TOGETHER!!

PC-- thanks for your humor, your steadfastness, your genuine concern for my issues and life, your PASSION :o), Just thanks for being you and letting me be me! I love you!!

Ann Marie-- thanks for knowing I needed to cry at Starbucks and bringing me chocolate!! Thanks for your medical expertise, your love, thanks for our sister hood in Christ, thanks for keeping our friendship a priority!! I love you!

Looking forward to us three being old , decrepit, and gray and still sitting together sharing our lives together!!

I love new products that make my life simple and fast!! The new product that is my new best friend is the "Shark Steam Mop". I have watched the infomercials and wondered if it really works! I hinted around to several people that I would love to try it! So finally my husband got it for me for mother's day. You would think... what a stupid mother's day gift, but I was thrilled! (flowers die way too fast and chocolate makes me fat!)

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised! You fill up the container, plug it in, put on the reusable cloth and off you go! I also love the fact that you don't have to use chemicals on your floor. I have heard that there is nothing like good ole steam cleaning to disinfect. With an infant that will be crawling around sooner than I know, I hate the thought of the floor cleaners getting on her hands and feet and then going right into her mouth. You have to let the thing steam up a bit before using so that the cloth gets saturated, but then you are golden! I also like that fact that it doesn't put out a cloud of steam all the time to burn you or anyone standing near by. The steam activates when you push the mop in the "mopping" motion!

Does it work, you ask... well as they say "the proof is in the pad"! My white pads are black with grime when I am done. (eewhh, does that say something about my floors?) I actually used this on my bathroom floor to remove 3 mo. worth of sticky hairspray caked on the floor. Yup, with a few passes and patience, it got it all up! (floor cleaners just made a sticky mess of it) I use it on my ceramic tile and my wood laminate floor. You can also order a carpet glider to make it slide over your carpet and freshen it up!

The only things I dislike about it are the long cord that gets in the way and the small water container. I can do one bathroom , but then have to refill.

I am impressed so far! No more disposable pads or cleaners to buy! ( the pads just get thrown into the wash and air dried.) Just good ole steam!!


disclaimer: no $ has been made from this review-- this is a simple review to inform :o)

This is me and my friend Jennifer!! I met Jennifer back in 95-96 while attending business school in State College. We were in the same major and took all the same classes together. We seemed to hit it off! We hung out together all the time. I even remember her walking to my apartment in snow storm so we could wait it out together!! What a gal!!

I started to involve her in my personal life. I was engaged to Jack at the time so we were in the process of planning a wedding. She helped with some of the plans, hung out with me and Jack's family a bit, and was just a great friend. Well... I had something up my sleeve and it was regarding Jack's middle SINGLE brother , Jeff!! Many conversations and fix-ups-- "come up and get the cake from my apartment, Jen!":o), later... Jen and Jeff tied the knot in 98!!.

Can I tell you how awesome it is to have one of my best friends as my sister-in-law?! Being apart of a new family is very challenging for anybody, but to have someone to go through the ups and downs with is so comforting! We don't get to pick our family members or in-laws! I am so grateful!! She is a great addition to the family and she and Jeff have given us 2 more precious nieces! I don't know what I would do without her friendship!

Love you JEN!!

I have just come from an incredibly frustrating trip to Target! Apparently, they are no longer accepting web coupons printed from your computer! I even tried to use my coupons that I printed with the Target logo on the bottom. They have stopped accepting them due to "fradulent coupon activity". I am so MAD! I got up to the register with all my stuff and coupons only to be told of their new policy. I then told them they were going to lose a lot of business because other's will accept their target coupons as competitors! Poor gal at the register looked in disbelief as I then told her I didn't want this or this or this and asked her to put them back! I can use my coupons and get them cheaper elsewhere!!

Is this the case at your Target too? Let me know and I will drive to yours if they are still accepting them there!!

All good things must come to an end! We had a great time and loved catching up with family!! We got to share some things with the kids from our past and delight in our future!! It is very good to be home!!

The plane ride home was more of a challenge. Quite the opposite from the first one. Savannah didn't sleep, she whined and moaned most of the way home. She then decided it would be fun to play with Haylee's coke glass and spilled it all over Haylee! Have you ever tried to change your child's clothes in an airplane bathroom? Not so easy! And speaking of that, have you seen the "changing table" in an airplane bathroom? I don't know if I can even call it that. I think I could if you baby was only 12 inches long... Do you have any children and airplane stories?

Now, back to the homefront while we were gone! Not so much fun for my mom. She stayed at our house with the dog, Maya! We are so gratelful that she did! The morning of the day we were set to come home a hose in the fridge sprung a leak and flooded the kitchen. Water everywhere! She was in panic mode for a bit , but got it handled. She sought out help from the neighbor who came in and figured out where the leak was and stopped it. Needless to say, if she hadn't stayed at the house for the week, we could have potentially came home to a really BAD situation! Thanks mom!!

Did I mention we have great neighbors!?! The same one also cut our grass. Good thing too, because my dad was going to cut it , but turned out that night we went to the ER with chest pains. They admitted him for tests, but it is all good now! We think it is really chronic acid reflux of some sort!

Geez, you leave for a week and everything goes crazy!! All is good now! Back to the daily grindstone!! Jack is back to work, I am back to mountains of housework, and the kids are back to their thing!

Can I take a vacation now?! :o)

I am still in shock that both my kids rode this!

Love the shirt on Savannah! "Born in 2008"

The night before we went the park, Haylee and her cousin Maddie had a sleep over at the house. How fun!! They laid in bed, watched Mary Poppins, and ate popcorn!! Check out the first picture and then the one taken an hour into the movie!! :o)

Jack has two older brothers, JP and Jeff. Jeff lives in State College with his wife Jen and two little girls. (Maddie and Hannah!) JP lives with his wife Tammy and son Gardner in Raleigh, NC! We all gathered for the 4th! It isn't very often that we get together, but when we do-- we try to get everything crammed into our visit! This visit was a family photo! The last family photo was taken when Haylee was 14 mo. old. So now 6 years and 4 grandchildren later, we attempt a family photo. God bless the poor gals who took the photo! With so many differing personalities and 6 children, it was no small feat! I thought on my end it would be piece of cake! My kids are older and pretty much can do what they are told, and Savannah is miss personality and smiles all the time! Boy was I wrong on the Savannah front!! The gals positioned us all in the proper places and then counted down with the last # being very high pitched and loud. Savannah let out the loudest most pathetic ear piercing scream and continued to scream until Jack calmed her down. For every picture after that, she would calm down and then the flash would go off and she would scream again. I think the gals must have taken frame after frame , because wonder of wonders, we got a picture that actually came out good. Everyone looked good, looked at the camera, and was smiling! It must have been the first frame she shot because Savannah's sweet face isn't red or wet yet! ( Thanks Jess for the bow for Savannah! It made her outfit!!)

I can't say that our blood runs blue and white, but we do have a lot of ties to Penn State and State College!! Jack's family has lived there for years and years. Jack went to college at Penn State! I went to business school there. This is also where Jack and I set up our first home together. It was fun driving the kids around and sharing little stories here and there about our life before them! We have had our picture taken on the "nittany lion" before! It was so fun to take the kids back and take theirs on it! Savannah was very enamored by it! I think secretly, Jack was very excited to share his alma mater with his little "lions"!!

We did alot of driving around and site seeing until the rest of the Gooch family arrived in town for the 4th of July and family reunion. The university has change quite a bit. The town , however, remains the same! And the highlight for the kids... seeing the "huge mountains"!! Anything would be huge to a 7 year old that only sees the flat lands of FL! Here is a pic. of Mt. Nittany!

This MT. is one that is famous with all Penn Staters! It has a hiking path on it to a beautiful lookout at the top. You can see all of Penn State and the valley from here. A lot of the ariel pics of Penn State have been take from this location. It has also been the spot of many marriage proposals!! Not mine, however. Jack and I did hike it though! That was 20 lbs, more energy and younger legs ago!! As I look at this mountain and many more along our travels in PA, I am reminded that the awesomeness of God created this beauty. And he made our two states so different to serve different purposes!! Amazing!!

Next... a family affair and fireflies!!

We start off with the 5 of us bumbling through the airport with a stroller, 3- 50lb bags, car seats, 4 carry on bags, and smiles on our faces!! The plane ride was very smooth, no issues, Savannah ate and then slept the whole flight! (tip: fly during their naptime!!:o) Nathaniel did well with his cough. We made it without being thrown off the plane!! We landed in PA to a "balmy" 76 degrees! What a nice break. The air was cool and crisp! Did I pack my warm clothes? :o) It was great to not have the



humidity. We then drove to my hometown of Butler, PA! We checked into the hotel that Jack and I had our wedding reception at! WOW, it has changed! Still brought back memories though! Our anniversary was July 6th. So it was really cool to go back and see where it all began 12 years ago! The kids thought it was pretty cool too!

We then drove over to visit my "aunt" and my "cousins"! (technically my cousin something removed and cousins something something removed!) They have always been very close to us and were there every day since the day I was born. They were very anxious to meet Miss Savannah! She didn't disappoint! She slapped on that signature Savannah smile and everyone ooohhed and ahhhed! Here is Savannah with "Aunt Terry"!

After a long afternoon and evening, we headed back to the hotel for the night! The next morning we woke up nice and early and headed out to State College to visit Jack's family! On our way out we stopped by the church Jack and I got married in. Not much has changed there! Very fun to go back memory lane for just a minute... then back to the reality of a fussy baby and two fighting kids in the back seat! :O)