I found the article below this morning on another blog & thought that I would share in honor of Earth Day today. Since the birth of our son we have tried to start living a little greener. We do what we can but we dont go overboard. Just by doing a little you really can help our Earth a lot. One day Brad & I would love to have a house built and make it green with tankless water heaters, solar pannels and everything else you can do. I challenge each of you reading this posting to do just one of these items below. We all want our children to have a better place to live when they grow up and at the rate we are going now there will be nothing left for our grandchildren.

Ten Ways To Save The World Without Losing Your Mind
By retrohousewife on April 22, 2009
In honor of Earth week here are quick and easy tips that anyone can do!

1. Change a light bulb! Start switching your light bulbs to CFLs. You will save money on your electric bill and have to change bulbs less often.

2. Start recycling. If you haven't already find out about recycling in your town.

3. Check out your local farmer's market. Buying local will help the environment and your local economy.

4. Don't trash, donate! Anything that can be used by someone else shouldn't go in the trash. Take it to your local Goodwill or check out freecycle.org .

5. Get power strips. Plug everything you can into power strips and turn them off when you don't need those items. You will save a lot of money by cutting out all the vampire power.

6. Turn off the light. Open the curtains on sunny days and use the natural light. And of course always turn off the lights when you leave the r0om.

7. If you need to buy a new appliance or electronics look for Energy Star products.

8. Use a reusable water bottle in place of single use water bottles. You will save a lot of waste and a lot of money!

9. Buy in bulk! Look for products with less packaging for the amount of product. You almost always save money and think of all the waste you will save.

10. Use a reusable bag. Plastic bags are taking over our landfills and even the ocean. You can find reusable bags as cheap as $1. Reusable bags are stronger and carry more than plastic bags. You are sure to love them!

Tornado Hits Murfreesboro 4/10/09

Yesterday afternoon a tornado hit the town we live in. Thankfully Brad was off for the day so he was home to help keep our family safe & calm. We were watching the news and they were not even really concerned about the storm that caused all this damage. We started looking out our windows only to see the following from our kitchen doors. We watched the tornado form from our kitchen table in the Blackman community. We got Austin up from his nap and went to our closet to seek shelter. We were so close to this storm. But thankfully we were not affected other than spending the day without power. There are so many family's in our town that are not as lucky this morning. Please keep them & there families in your thoughts & prayers as they try to rebuild there lives in the coming days.

This photo was taken from my back door in my kitchen
Shows the formation moving

This is where the clouds are forming the tornado behind our home

This photo is from a neighborhood about a mile from our home. As you can see these homes suffered major damage

This is the building where we signed the papers when we closed on our house. The room we were in last year is now gone

Total devastation

All of my family is safe and sound. Thank God. We were all in different areas of town and all have major destruction just a few streets from our home. We are all so luck. I can honestly say that I feel different about life today. You really are never guaranteed a tomorrow. So live each day to the fullest & make sure to tell your loved ones how much they mean to you.

Hunting for eggs with Bernie

Bernie really wanted to help Austin on his egg hunt today. They were so cute together. Austin loves his puppies so much.

Bernie found one.

Bernie was guarding the egg.

Austin's 1st Easter Egg Hunt

The weather was amazing here this afternoon so I decided to take Austin outside to play. He will be having an Easter Egg Hunt at school tomorrow so we had to get a little practice in before the big event. Honestly, I didn't want to miss his 1st egg hunt so we had to have our own. He was not too sure about it at first. He was more interested in taking the eggs out of the basket rather than putting them in.

Not sure what he was doing here. But have to love that hair in the wind.

Yeah! Time to hunt for some eggs.

I have them all in a pile now what?

Should I eat them? Oh, no! Its stuck on my face.

Reading in Chloe's room

Austin decided to catch up on his reading while playing in Chloe's dog cage.

I got you hat Daddy!

The other night Austin got Brad's hat and was walking around trying to wear it. However as you can see it's a little too big for him. He decided to ask Daddy why the hat wouldn't fit him.

Daddy told Austin to try and put it on Daddy's head and see if it would fit.

Perfect.

Snack Time

Just had to take some pictures of my cute little man while he was having snack. Look at that sweet little smile. Also, check out the cute bib~yes I made it. I finally opened up my sewing machine that I got 3 years ago for Christmas.

Organizing the pantry

I decided to join The Masked Mommy  in her cabinet powwow.  I decided to first tackle my kitchen pantry.  I have to admit that I am a little OCD when it comes to organizing.  I try to keep everything in perfect order.  However, in the last few months I have become a little slack at organizing & keeping up with things.    I have found it very hard to work from home, keep up with a toddler, take care of two dogs, my husband & myself.  So needless to say recently I have not been doing as good as I would like around the house.  I feel so much better about things when everything is in order.  So I have decided to start trying to get everything back in order around our house and this is where I started the "pantry".  I am going to try & start spring cleaning one room a week until I have touched everything in our house.  I want it to all be clean & organized again.  Hopefully I will make some progress around here.  No our house is not a "pigstie" but it has become lived in.  I have to change that.  So from now until the time Austin gets out of school in May I want to get it all in order.  Let me know if you want to join me in my spring cleaning adventure.  Who knows maybe we can be an inspiration for each other.   Until I am done, please excuse my random postings about my progress.  I am using my blog as a way to hold myself accountable.

Papa's Birthday

We had a family cookout for Papa's birthday while they were here.  Papa wanted a picture of him & Austin with the birthday cake.  Austin didn't seem to happy about it at first.  That is until Papa let him stick his fingers in the cake and have a little taste.  

Playing outside with Grandma-ma & Papa

Grandma-ma & Papa came to visit for Papa's birthday weekend (well actually from Wen-Monday).  We had lots of fun while they were here.  We spent many afternoons playing outside when the weather was nice.  Austin has discovered that playing in the mulch can be very fun.  As much as I hate for him to get dirty I have been trying very hard to let him be a little boy & explore the world.