It's an Emotional Day

Today is a rough day for me. I’m not gonna lie.


We honestly just can’t afford to get Taylor into a school by where I work (ie a good school). The school she is set to go to is horrible. It would cost us $150 a month to just get her home from school everyday and that is not a luxury we have at this moment in our lives.

I was willing to overlook a lot and be optimistic.

They are ranked 2 out 10 “stars” as far as schools go. I keep praying that it’s not as bad as people make it seem and that there is hope still, but I have my doubts.

Today is particularly hard on me since until about 2 hours ago I didn’t realize its “enrollment” time. How is a first time Kindergarten parent supposed to know when to enroll their kid? I accidentally found out today! And now I am supposed to start registration on Monday? Yikes!

I’m scrambling and I hate scrambling. I feel off my game and unorganized. I have being unorganized. So that makes my day rough.

I tried to got the schools website Taylor is supposed to attend and this made my rough day an emotional rough roller coaster for me (hint: that means it just got worse).

Their website is not up to date. I mean some of the links don’t even work. Most pages are just completely blank. And on the pages they do have some content there are spelling and grammatical errors!! How are they supposed to teach Taylor things if they don’t seem to be smart enough to do basic things themselves?!

I know that the teachers aren’t the ones that are doing the website yet they are the ones teaching Taylor (or soon to be teaching Taylor). But it’s hard to have confidence that Taylor will be getting a good teacher when she just isn’t going to a good school.

So today I sit here in near tears accepting the fact Taylor may get a crappy education because we are a “low income” family who can’t afford extra gas or to live in a better neighborhood with better schools. I know this time in our life is only a season, but for the first time I feel like a bad parent for this season. I don’t care if Justin in I can’t have shiny things, but I don’t want my kids to feel the weight of our income problems. And for the first time I feel like now it’s affecting them.

AND to top it off. I went to a school like this one when I was young. I was 1 of two white children in my class. I got picked on a lot for that reason alone (we all know kids are mean right?) I had different colored hair so it got pulled. I didn’t speak Spanish so they’d say mean things in Spanish and laugh at me. I don’t remember how I handled it honestly, but I remember that happening. Taylor is very sensitive and emotional. She will do whatever she is told to make somebody happy with her and not angry at her. I’m worried about her. I worried kids will hurt her (emotionally) or make her do things or say things that are just not right and she will do them because she just wants to make people happy.

So today is just a rough day for me. Can you pray for me and my baby (big) girl? Thank you friends.

So Sayith Tay and Jay #16

What does mommy do all day at work?

Taylor: Um work there so you can make money for all the people so we can live in a house.

Jordan: Makes toast. Once upon a time there was a girl stuck with lemurs.  But there were no lemurs.  The end.

What does daddy do all day?

Taylor: Stays home while you're at work.

Jordan: He makes dinner all day.  He watch tv.

Who should have a new baby?

Taylor: You and Daddy.

Jordan: Tracy

What is a question?

Taylor: Um its a question like why is mommy the best.

Jordan: A question means you need to answer so you can get stronger.

Why do you like Uncle Sam?

Taylor: i don't like uncle Sam because he doesn't like eating pineapples.

Jordan: because he wears a blue shirt.

What's inside cake that makes it so yummy?

Taylor: because its whip cream and stuff.

Jordan: it has eggs and you put it in your tummy.  There's a party in my tummy.  Please come to the party in my tummy.

One of Those Mommy Momments

I have written a couple of blogs about things I will miss when the kids are older. I do this to help remind myself that although they can be insanely frustrating the non-frustrating times are some of the most precious moments in my life.


Reminding myself is, however, useless in the moment. Last night was one of those nights.

Taylor is my drama queen – we all know this (she’s totally me which forces me to admit my drama queen side). Jordan is my mischievous one. Elijah is – well we’re still figuring that out.

Last night my girls decided to change things up on me. The night started off pretty well. The Fox’s came over and we had some Teriyaki chicken, rice, and ginger marinated veggies. Well that’s what everyone else ate – I have a weird chicken issue (I should tell you all about it sometime) so I had refried beans and cheese for my protein and then my ginger veggies.

Dinner was accomplished with very little mayhem. Mayhem is a great word and should be used far more often. Justin left for church and then Jordan decided that she was tired of being the obedient (mischievous) one. Every thing you told her was the end of world that resulted in an epic 2 year style tantrum of screaming and kicking on the floor. She was ridiculous! I knew she didn’t get a nap that day and kept reminding myself that as I tried to handle her choice in behavior in that moment. It didn’t go to well. Eventually out of pure frustration I sent her to bed for the night – about 30 minutes earlier then bedtime. She screamed so loud for about 5 minutes she actually made her voice hoarse!

I got her out of bed to talk to her, now that my frustration was cut into about half. I was willing to let her stay up for the 20 minutes she had left before bedtime to watch a movie with Taylor as long as she stopped her whining. It mostly worked… by mostly did not work too well for my already frustrated self.

I was getting something done with the camera and having the kids take turns saying something. Since Jordan’s eyes were all puffy from the crying and she was still trying to catch her breath from the screaming I told her I would wait for her turn until she could calm down.

She seemed to agree with that statement – of course until somebody else got a turn. As soon as I got what I needed/wanted on camera Jordan would scream in the background “I want a turn” – just in time to ruin the video. ::sigh::

I gave up and snapped at her and sent her to bed. I was done – very done – very exhausted – very frustrated.

Not my proudest mommy moment at all, but still a moment that happened ::big sigh::

So today I choose to call her while I’m at work just to tell her how much I love her. And for the record – while Jordan was being my drama queen Taylor was being an Angel! And I thanked her for her wonderful behavior the whole night.

We Want YOU! (Said in my Uncle Sam Voice)

If you’ve read my blog for awhile you know our family has made a few “steps of faith” the last year or so. What I mean by that is we made a family decision that was impossible and God stepped in to fill the gap.


I have a dear friend that has walked miles off “steps of faith”. She has a tremendous amount of courage and faith and its inspiring.

2 ½ yeas ago Brittany decided that it was time for a new chapter of her life. She was going to work for Campus Crusade for Christ and help young adults from all over spread the word of Christ all over the world. To work for Campus Crusade you must raise enough monthly support to live on. This means the money she needs to have a place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear, and everything else must be covered by donation. Not just any donation, but actual monthly supporters.

Brittany has spent all this time – living outside her comfort zone – approaching people and churches to help her to help others. God has been gracious and provided so much so far, but she is still a little off her target goal.

The reason I’m writing today is to ask you to pray – can you help? The great news is that there are even companies (Christian and Non Christian) that will match your gift and in some cases double it! That means if you give $5 – she could be getting $10 or more a moth. If you give $20 – she could be getting $40 or more a month.

I will provide a list of those companies that have these types of programs as well as Brittany’s email address in case you have questions. If you work for one of the below companies please prayerfully consider if helping support Brittany is something you can do.

If you can’t support monthly please also consider a one time donation. You could also send Brittany an email and see if there is something else she may need help with. I know for a fact PRAYER is always very much appreciated.

Thank you for reading friends!!



Brittany Trujillo – Brittany.trujillo@uscm.org
http://www.brittanytrujillo.com/.
www.ccci.org/give acct# 0622002



Company List



1. AmSouth Bank

2. Abell-Hanger Foundation

3. Action For Boston Community

4. Acxiom Corporation

5. Adobe Corporation

6. AES Corporation

7. AES Puerto Rico

8. AFS Advanced

9. Aileen S Andrew Foundation

10. American Fidelity Corporation

11. Aon Corporation

12. Apache Corporation

13. Archer Daniels Midland

14. Arthur J Gallagher Foundation

15. ATK Foundation

16. AtlantaFalcons Matching Gifts

17. Austin Entrepreneur Foundation

18. Automobile Club of Missouri

19. AXA Foundation

20. B & F Partners

21. Bell South

22. BridgewaterCapital Management

23. C M Capital Corporation

24. Capital Group Companies

25. CDW Computer

26. Chubb & Sons

27. Clarkston Consulting Scott Daggerheart, Matching Gifts

28. Clorox Company

29. CNA Foundation

30. Combined Health Agencies

31. Community Solutions Fund/Thomson West

32. Constellation Energy

33. Corbis

34. Dannon Corporation

35. DaytonFoundation

36. Dell Computers

37. Del Monte (Community Health Charities)

38. Doris Duke Management

39. Dresser-Rand

40. DST Systems

41. EdisonInternational

42. EnCana Oil And Gas

43. EOG Resources

44. Fellowship of Jesus Christ

45. First Data

46. Fleetwood Matching Gift Program

47. FreeportMcmora Foundation

48. Gannett Foundation

49. Gartner

50. General Atomics

51. General Electric

52. Gewalt Hamilton Associates Inc.

53. GMAC Residential

54. Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo

55. Halliburton Energy Services Inc.

56. Hartness International

57. Hatfield Quality Meats

58. Home Depot

59. Honeywell Hometown Solutions

60. Hope Christian Community

61. Hospira Inc.

62. Host Engineering

63. IllinoisTool Works

64. IMC Global

65. Ingersoll Rand

66. Intercontinental Hotels

67. J M Smith Foundation

68. John M Olin Foundation

69. Joy Family Foundation

70. Key Foundation

71. Lilly Endowment

72. M J Murdock Charitable Trust

73. Mason Companines

74. Maury L Carter & Assoc. Inc.

75. Maverick Captial Foundation

76. May Company

77. McDonald Agape Foundation

78. McDonald's Corporation

79. Merck Partnership for Giving

80. Mid American Energy

81. Mid-Minnesota Ag, LLC

82. Miller Electric Credit Union

83. Motorola

84. Mustard Seed Foundation

85. Mutual Of America

86. NCCI Holdings, Inc.

87. Nestle

88. New Century Financial Corp.

89. New United Motor Manufacturing

90. Nike

91. Nokia

92. Northstar Foundation

93. Novus International Inc.

94. Nuveen Investments

95. Pepsi

96. Pinkerton & Laws

97. Pioneer Hi-Bred International

98. PJM Interconnection, LLC

99. PPG Industries Foundation

100. Provident Life and Accident Ins.

101. Progressive Insurance

102. Quad Graphics

103. R H Donnelley Corporation

104. Raccoon Valley Bank

105. RealNetworks

106. Reell Precision Manufacturing

107. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

108. Rosewood Foundation

109. Ryan Companies

110. Sallie Mae

111. Scitor Corporation

112. Sears

113. Show Ease Stall Co.

114. Snyder Langston

115. Soderquist Family Foundation

116. Southwest Sports Group

117. Starbucks

118. Sun-Sentinel

119. Susquehanna International Group

120. TCF Foundation

121. The Cason Group Inc

122. The John D And Catherine T MacArthur Foundation

123. The Millipore Foundation

124. The Money Box

125. The River Foundation

126. Thrivent Financial For Lutherans

127. Tom Brown Inc

128. Tomkins Corporation

129. Triad Energy Corporation

130. Tyndale House Publishing

131. UBS Foundation USA

132. Union Pacific Corporation

133. UnumProvident Insurance

134. USAA, San Antonio

135. Verizon

136. W K Kellogg

137. Wal-mart

138. Wellpoint Associate Giving Campaign

139. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage

140. Wiley, Rein & Fielding

141. Williams Community Relations

142. Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company

Easy To Get - Much Harder To Get Rid Of

What I really want to blog about is Elijah and his big boy bed, but I can’t do that without pictures and I can’t give pictures until I actually get them off my camera. So I must be patient and wait until next weekend.
So my runner up topic of choice? (Why does that sentence look so odd to me?)

I don’t know. I could talk about “Nerd Night” at our house on Friday. Or about our awesome double date on Saturday. Or our awesome meal and continuation of Nerdness on Sunday. Or our random adventure in search of entertainment on Monday. But those all seem sort of boring to read about. I mean I try not to be a “here is what we did today” blogger. I typically don’t find our lives that interesting and I’m living in it.

So I think I will instead let you all in on my excitement for today.

We got our tax return! That does not mean we get to go buy a bunch of new shiney things. Although we are getting a new TV since ours is almost dead. If you have 3 kiddos in your house and try to get things done without those said kids destroying something then you know a TV is a good 30 minute distraction while you make dinner or clean another kid’s bottom. So the TV is the only shiney thing we are getting – for sake of our (but mostly Justin’s) sanity.

Getting our tax return to us means JUSTIN’S CAR IS PAID OFF! That means in the passed 5 years we have:
- Paid off my car loan
- Paid off 1 of Justin’s student loans
- Paid off Justin’s car loan
- No outstanding debt on Credit Cards
- That is $18,000 in debt (not including credit card debt)!!

YAY! We still have $9,000 to go, but if things go as I have planned (and they RARELY do since God's plan trumps my plan everytime) then by this time next year we’ll be debt free. That means, of course, we will continue to live on our insanely tight budget which means we don’t get to “do” a lot.  We'll still function on $300/month for food for 5 people.  We'll drive as little as possible to make the $200/month for gas for the cars last. But it will be worth it. Like Dave Ramsey says “you have to live like no one else (ie: don’t eat out a lot, don’t have cable, don’t see movies, don’t do…) so later we can live like no one else (ie: be debt free and DO things stress free and debt free!) To me, and my hubby, it’s well worth it. A few years of living “tight” so we won’t have to live “tight” for potentially the rest of our lives.

This does not mean we’ll be rolling in the money at all. I mean we’re living off of one income and our rent alone is half of that income. However, it does mean that we’ll have all of our “debt” money (roughly $200/month) free to do with what we please (this will probably include Greek food once a week and cable to start).

Paying off Justin’s car is a good reward for a long hard task we’ve been trying to accomplish. So we will tough out this last year (hopefully only one year) and I will look forward to my weekly dose of Gyro (Greek) and Psyche on USA (cable).

So Sayith Tay and Jay #15

What do you want to teach mommy and daddy?

Jordan: I want to teach mommy and daddy and Taylor the dinosaur I made.  Its scary and spooky-booky-booky.

Taylor: Um, that karate.  I mean kung fu. I know a lot of kung fus - I know a kick and anything.

What is your favorite bible story?

Jordan: My favorite bible story is when daddy read his bible story (Justin reads from the bible to the kids a couple times a week)

Taylor: The Egypt one.  It happens in Egypt Jesus puts out all the animals that can fight the people and cover the town.  With frogs and bugs.

Who is Jesus?

Jordan: Jesus is baby Jesus.

Taylor: Jesus is um the God who watch us everyday.

What do you do if a stranger talks to you?

Jordan: When he sees me he wants to bite me. The stranger tries to get me with his hands and I bite him.

Taylor: I run away to mommy because I don't know where you are because the stranger comes to me if he sees me with no mommy. And yell and scream and hit them and you and daddy will call the police officer so they can take the stranger away that has me.  And you have tell the police officer my name so they don't think I'm a stranger too.

To Have and To Hold

I’m not talking about marriage. I felt the need to throw that out right away. I also feel the need to justify some things before I actually tell you why I’m writing since so many people “frown” on “it”.
We have 3 kids and 3 bedrooms. Since Justin and I enjoy have our own space (as all married couples should!) we of course occupy one of those rooms.

It’s only fitting the girls share a room while the boy has his own. It is also important to note we have all 3 kids on the same sleep schedule which means they all go to bed at 8PM. Since our girls do not like this 8PM bed time they make every excuse in the world to not sleep.

The best way – we have found at least – to get them to bed at 8PM is to put one child in our bed and one child in their room. After they fall asleep and when we get ready to go to bed we move the child out of our bed and into theirs. We try to rotate the kid in our bed to even things out. So that is the WHY we do it so turn your frowns upside down…don’t you judge me! :)

Anyway, the reason I am writing – I know you’ve been waiting eagerly.

Some nights Justin will stay up later then me so instead of moving a kid I’ll just climb into my bed next to them. Every time this occurs I wake them up just enough to tell them how much I love them and smother them in kisses as they fall back asleep.

I then usually just hold their little hand in mine. It pulls at my heart strings! There is something preciously magical about holding your child’s hand in yours. I have small hands, but I can still completely enclose their hand in mine.

To me this represents their childhood. I won’t be able to do this forever. A time will come where they don’t want to be in Mommy and Daddy’s bed, so for now I enjoy those nights where I can just hold their hands and pray. I pray that God uses those tiny hands and those tiny fingers for his glory. That these tiny hands and those tiny fingers become grown up hands and grown up fingers and work only to please our Heavenly Father. I also thank God for giving me the opportunity to be their “parent” and have these moments with them – even if they are asleep.