Ramblings of one proud auntie.

These days I have been filling in at my old job. It has been good for the soul to see my old work buddies. I am reminded that there IS a life outside my four walls of my home office from time to time and it's good to talk to real human beings during the day while Buie is as work instead of making small talk with Conner, Scooter, Hazel and Charlie.

My most FAVORITE human beings (beside my amazing husband of course) are my niece and nephew. I love getting to spend time with them! I see Landon a bit more than Makaylan only because of geographic location but in my heart they both hold a special place.

This year my brother's families will be adding to my addiction of these little people. That's right, people, BOTH of my sister-in-laws are pregnant. Makaylan is having a little sister in July and Landon will be welcoming a baby brother this coming April! Oh I'm so looking forward to Spring! Last Christmas we had TWO kids! Christmas 2012 we will have FOUR kids running around. Cannot wait!

Looking up

Several weeks ago I wrote about my health. My health has been a normal topic of discussion in our household and amongst my family members in the last 5 years or so. I've come along way since being diagnosed in 2007 with Celiac Disease but lately I have been suffering from some not-so-fun consequences of the illness.

This past fall I switched doctors and was retested in many areas. I (following my dr's advice, of course) am concentrating on trying to improve upon these four main areas:

Vitamin D Deficiency: Things are looking up! yay! I've been vitamin D deficient for many years but thank goodness things are turning a corner. Normal vitamin D levels are between 50-70 ng/mL. My doc said he'd like to see my levels around 65 or 70. This past fall my vitamin D levels tested around 20. No bueno. :( This week they retested and I'm at 40! They upped my dosage from 10,000 units to 15,000 units/per day so hopefully I'll be in the 70's in no time. I'm thinking a little beach vacay with plenty of sunshine might just get me to the normal levels. :)

Candida Yeast: I am still doing a yeast free diet.... 99% of the time. I'll admit that I regularly sneak in a cup of coffee (or 2) per week but overall the yeast free diet is helping a lot. The main difference I've noticed is my face has really cleared up. My muscles aches and pains have eased up some and my cravings for sugar has decreased dramatically. I'll be staying on this yeast free diet for a little bit longer. I may just have to find a gluten free king cake for Mardi Gras though and have a cheat day. ;)

Thyroid: I'm still having some thyroid issues but my numbers are getting better....slowly.

Adrenal Gland: I haven't been retested on this yet. I still get really exhausted and feel fatigued most of the time but this probably is because my vitamin D levels are still low.

So why am I giving you a complete medical history? Believe me, it is definitely NOT conclusive, but I do want to record my progress along the road. Hopefully one day all of my lab tests will be 100% normal. I can look back and read about my journey of how far I've come physically and it will all be worth it! :)

Instant Fun: Instagram Style

The internet is buzzing with Instagram love these days. Instagram is an easily addictive iPhone app. There are several photo filters to choose from in Instagram that give your photos a cool effect. Did I mention it's addicting?

This Christmas I received a new iPhone 4S and I am lovin it so far. When I downloaded ALL of my pictures from my old phone on to my computer, I realized just how many instagram pictures I had.

What a shame to keep them stored away on my hard drive. So I searched the world wide web for a few ideas of how to display these family memories.

Here are just a few that I found that are easy to do! What do you do with all of your Instagram pictures?

DIY Instagram magnets

DIY Instagram costers

Gigantic framed Instagram collage

Instagram photo album

DIY Instagram Calendar

So get out those cell phones and get to snapping! :) I would love to hear what you have done with your Instagram pics!

January Pinspiration: Pet Area

By now we have all heard of Pinterest. Pinterest and I are BFF. I have so many DIY projects, craft & organizational ideas saved that I hope to one day get around to. I’m making it a goal to pick one of these projects per month to complete. They don’t have to be huge time consuming projects, just something to make our life a little less chaotic. Here’s one project to help organize all of our pet products. Having these four munchkins around our house means having our fair share of pet supplies.

Their leashes, harnesses, treats, food, and litter was taking up too much space inside. After coming across this little Pinterest Inspiration, my wheels were turning. We already kept their food in the garage, but I when I saw this adorable leash holder, I decided to put much my pinspiration to work.

What have you found on Pinterest lately that has inspired a recent project? Stay tuned for next month's project!

A Look Back...

It's January 6th and I haven't done the cliche "new year's" post or "my resolutions" post. Gasp. What kind of blogger am I? Well, first of all, I have never claimed to be a "blogger" by any standards other than I have a blog. I think that is evident by the amount of grammatical errors that are on here that I neglect to correct out of sheer laziness (or just sheer ignorance). I like to think of it more like an online journal. I DO, however, enjoy closing out a year by taking a look back at the highlights of the last 12 months.

• My "retirement party" at the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. I worked there for five years and they gave me a great send off when I left in February to go full time into photography. Check me out over at Cara Beth Photography.
• a fun couples trip to Vegas! This was a first trip to Vegas and enjoyed the change of scenery from the natural state to the bright lights and big city. :)
• We welcomed our niece Makaylan Joy Walker into the world last April and what a JOY she is.
• B and I took a little road trip to New Orleans for a birthday/anniversary trip. This was B's first time in the French Quarter and he loved it! We can't wait to go back to one of my favorite cities!
• The Buies welcomed another into our crazy little zoo:: Charlie, our crazy little fireball of a kitty.
• We found out that BOTH of my sister in laws are expecting AT THE SAME TIME! yay! Nicole and Craig are due in April (with a boy) and Chris and Amanda are due in July (don't know the sex yet). Yay for more babies! Being an aunt is seriously one of the greatest joys in my life.
• I traveled to Nicaragua for a wonderful mission trip this past December. What a great way to end a great year!

Here's to another wonderful year in 2012!

Christmas at the Zoo!

Christmas at the Buie's is all about our animals, naturally, since we are outnumbered 4 to 2. They rule in our house. Yes, they are all reasonably well trained (as well as you can trains cats), and they know who their masters are, but let's be honest... the own us. They even have their own Christmas tree.
I even waited until Christmas eve to decorate my mantel because Hazel likes to get on the mantel and perch. She likes to be up high and look over the whole room. I think it makes her feel important.
Christmas for the cats is like a wonderland of all things cats love: shiny things, lights, bells, paper, ornaments and a huge tree in the living room to climb. It's like a cat's dream come true.

This was Charlie's first Christmas so he was especially amazed by the vintage silver strand of beads I pulled out of the magical box. In fact, the strand of beads never even made it on the tree.

Mostly they stayed on the dining room table which became the cats play room for most of the month of December.

Scooter and Conner look a little less thrilled about Christmas this year. They're old hats at this. They've been around the block a time or two. "Just give us the treats and let's be done with this." Their stockings were filled with new toys, bones, and treats to last for months...but in reality will last about 2 weeks.
This was our first year without George. We had a brief moment of sadness when we came across his stocking. Not sure what to do with his old stocking, we just left it in the box. We'll deal with it next year.
But we are super excited to have added one more stocking, Charlie, to the holder. We order these stockings from Pottery Barn several years ago and of course they are no longer available. I ordered a similar one for Charlie but it ended up being super tiny compared to the other three. Honestly, I love it because Charlie is so small and is the youngest member. It's perfect! :)
And yes, even the cats get treats in their stockings. Here is Charlie being introduced to catnip for the first time. Wow! He loved it. He got toy shrimp filled with catnip and was in little kitty heaven. :)
Merry Christmas from the Buie's Zoo! We sincerely hope that you and your furry friends had a wonderful Christmas!

Nicaragua:: Day 3

from my journal: December 7, 2011

Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband! I'm sad I'm not with him today but I'm having a wonderful experience, one I wish I could share with him.

Today in Nicaragua, the locals are celebrating Mary's birthday. There will be parades, parties, dances & fireworks later this evening, I am told. Hopefully we will have a chance to go down to the local town square to witness this celebration.

This morning's devotional was from Psalm 27 - The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? Also, Ephesians 6:10-19 - Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

Today we went to a village that inspired me. These people once lived at the dump. The city of Diriamba sold very small plots of land for dirt cheap to encourage people to move out of the dump. And so they did.

This little village is now called Kilombo. Our church has sent teams down to help build houses. There are now 30 one room houses built out of concrete bricks and they have a solid foundation. The goal is to build 150 more homes. It only costs $1800 to build ONE of these homes in Diriamba. $1800. If you had $1800 dollars what would you do with it? Pay off some student loans? Buy yourself that Christmas present that Santa forgot? Go on a long vacation? This amount of money would buy a family of 4 (possibly more) a home for years to come. Oh, how blessed we are.

Our second stop today was to the dump. I can honestly say I. HAVE. NEVER. I didn't take as many pictures here as I wanted because I just stood in awe and stared for quite some time. For as far as I could see there was trash. The smell was almost unbearable. There was smoke rising from different areas of the dump from burn piles. Looking down under my feet, I realized I was standing on people waste but also people livelihood.
There were men, women, children, mothers & babies all living off the trash of the people of Diriamba. They were thrilled to receive the rice and beans and toys (for the children) we gave them.
My prayer for them is that the people living at the dump will one day have their own Kilombo.

Nicaragua:: Day 2

from my journal:

December 6, 2011

This morning's devotion was on the front porch of where we are staying - a concrete building painted pink & green. The grounds are lush with native plants. The flowers here are beautiful.

I did not sleep much at all last night - perhaps it was the new environment or perhaps the excitement of what today would bring. I woke up at 5:30am ready for the day. I'm excited to meet the children. I know it will be hard but I'm so glad I'm here!

---
the evening of December 6th

I am physically exhausted from today's endeavors. But it was a good day. Today we packed 300 "blessing bags" that the women of FBC Minden made. A bag of rice and a bag of beans were placed in each bag. We packed bags of toys for the children and brought them to a local school The rice and beans were distributed to the adults and the children were delighted with their new toys.

Nicaragua:: Day 1- Traveling

Last week I was on a truly life changing mission trip to Nicaragua. I went with an awesome group of women from my home church in Minden, Louisiana. There were eight of us; our team name is Team N.O.E.L. (Nicaraguan Outreach Expressing Love). The goal of our trip is to pass out clothes, toys, and food to those who have literally nothing in the poorest parts of Diriamba, Nicaragua and surrounding communities. We were there for a week and had limited internet connection so I wrote a journal entry instead of blogging each day. These are my written journal entries I wanted to share with you. I have backdated them so they are dated on the actual date they were written in Nicaragua.

December 5, 2011

We arrived in Nicaragua. It is well past 1 am and I am weary from traveling. I will make this brief. The people here are nice. I am looking forward to seeing the country in the light of day and photographing some of its beauty in the coming week.

Rice Cake Anyone?

Oh, and in case you were wondering how I'm feeling about my yeast free diet... these two clips from one of my favorite show (Designing Women) pretty much sums it up.