Fr. Hilary Muheezangang

I met this man, I now call one of my heroes, back in April of this year. his life story is that of a movie. He was born in Uganda and grew up in the devastating Uganda-Tanzania War. His family and him were taken to a concentration camp where he witnessed his father being killed, his sister was raped (is now infected with HIV/AIDS) and brother that was taken away and never seen again. when the war was over Hilary was only still a young teen. He desided to become a catholic priest. He studied here in America (along side Fr. Tom Kovatch our priest at St. Teresa in Bright, IN) After being ordained he was assigned a church back in Kampala, Uganda. There he dreamed of opening a school and building a better future for the children of Uganda. Darlene from chicago herd of his dreams and jumped on board! With the help of meny others they purchased a concentraion camp site and rebuilt it. Now it is St. Jerome Cove center! In only a few years the little school is now a boarding school that houses orphans and teaches them up to grade 5! also on the grounds is a medical center that treats everyone that needs help. a sisters house were nuns travel to pass on their knowledge of teaching and medicine. a kitchen that feeds the children and staff. in the future there are works going into building a high school, field for crops and live stock, soccer fields, and a guest house!

Not only did father Hilary start this dream he also worked on another dream of his, building his mother a home:

we met his mother and she is truely an angel! she raised her son and three other girls alone and they all are wonderful people!
while we were visiting we painted a tree of life outside one of the classrooms. this is were the children meet everyday to say morning prayers. all the leaves on the tree are the children's hand prints. Father Hilary is putting his hand prints up. the children loved seeing his hands covered in green paint!

We also completed a swing set for the children to play on and Father Hilary was the first to test it out. I love this picture because i can still see that little boy in him dreaming of a safe place for children to grow up and now here it is in front of him. i can't help but feel like this is his victory buzzer shot!

Uganda : what can i give?

I remember watching the Christmas episode of Oprah, where she handed out presents to all the needy children in Africa. It was just to moving to me and I made it my life's goal to be apart of making children that happy. But when I really thought about going to Africa I always pictured I would be in my 40's or older. But when I went to church a week or two after having my baby girl I couldn't stop thinking about what I read in the bulletin, Uganda Mission Trip! I truly felt like God was hitting me in the face saying here's your chance! I contacted the youth minister at church , Kim and told her I needed to go with them. she told me the huge amount of money I would need but she reassured me that we would get me a ticket with them. Soon after that meeting I came up with an idea. Everyone I met kept advising me to start my own photography business. I always felt to scared and had no clue where to start. Then I decided I would offer photo sessions for a donation toward my trip. and within 8 months I collected the money!! and before I knew it was packing my bags!
a week or two before I left I was questioning why me? what do I have to offer? I'm not a doctor, a teacher or any professional person that could really make a difference to help these extreemly needy people. Then I remembered my job and schooling before I had the baby, I was a dental assistant. we collected two suitcases full of tooth brushes and tooth paste and I could teach the children how to properly brush their teeth!
I have never seen children this excited to get a new toothbrush! (it's a screaming battle at home to get The Julia to brush.)
the next day I woke up and saw these two children scrubbing there teeth clean! it warmed my heart to feel like I was able to help in someway.

a huge thank you to all the dentist offices that donated! we had more than enough to pass out at the school we stayed at and even to the villages around!
There will be more post about Africa to come I promise!

weekend in review

How did you do on your homework?!? I felt like I need to be on the look out for my own assignment so this is what I got:
I was serving lunch to miss Belle. soon I will miss her making a mess out of my floors and eating with her chubby little fingers. so i grabbed my camera.


mas and cheese and corn MMMMM............
I thanked god for giving me a great vacuum cleaner :P
I also spent time with this girl:
She is entering into her senior year of high school. we had a blast walking around Harrison getting some awesome pictures. Thanks Shelby for letting me torture you for a couple of shots :)

toes!

When said I take pictures of babies all day I really wasn't lying! But one of my absolute favorite thing to take pictures of is little wrinkly baby feet, but it stops there cause adult feet gross me out! :) here are a few of my favorite feet shots i have taken:




This next one is very dear to my heart because these little toes are walking on the dirt streets of Uganda. (more on that soon)
then finally one of my all time favorite family shots! for Christmas last year my husband had this picture blown up and framed for me. it's hanging in our living room above the couch.


soon these Baby feet will grow big and i will be grossed out by them touching me but until then i will continue to snap away at them. I will be back to post on Monday- you have homework for the weekend think of something that you will miss when your children get old and take a picture of it. Send me your pics!

light up the room

My husband has said that If there is something for me to decorate i will do it, then redo it and redo it again. so it was no surprise to him to come home and see me drawing on the lampshade. :) That's because i find lampshade extremely boring!!!!!!!!!!!!! bla!
first i sketched with pencil my design.
then took one of my favorite art supplies (the Permanent marker) and traced over my design. next i turned on the light and was proud of my little touch to a $5 lamp!
is it perfect? no
will everyone like it? i know my mom will think I'm crazy, so no!
do i like it? yes!

Pink Lemonade Party

on the same topic of saving money I decided for my daughter's first Birthday party I would go with a theme that wouldn't require my buying a bunch of expensive things with character's faces on it. so I went on a search, once again with my friend Google and found a super cute party theme: Pink Lemonade!
We had pink and yellow balloons and streamers. I bought a bunch of plastic lemons and some lemon head candy, sparking pink lemonade for the kiddos and mikes hard pink lemonade for the adults.
I also wanted a lemon pinata, but knew it would be along shot to find one. so we decided to make it! it's super easy:
coat strips of news paper in 50% water and 50% glue then cover a balloon with the strips. hang until dry.
once dry paint and then pop the balloon. slide pieces of candy into the hole and cover with tape then paint to match the rest of the pinata. hang and let the kids go at it!
was it perfect shape lemon? no!
did the Julia have fun making it with me? yes
did the kids break it open and grab the candy as fast as they could? duh!

this is Miss Belle's official birthday picture. don't you just love the pink lemonade stand? i do!

and then I had to share this picture:
Miss Belle is very shy! she doesn't like a lot of attention and she hides when someone talks to her. so when it was time to sing happy birthday, she did just that. she hid her face as best she could and then began to cry!

becoming a coupon queen!

I am officially jumping on the extreme coupon wagon! Why not right? it literally takes maybe an hour of my time and i save money for my family! now there's tons of options for how you could start your own coupon strategy but i base my system off of this lady here:

http://www.cleverlysimple.com/

for a couple of reasons 1: it truly is simple! 2: shes a local gal. i have found different states have different prices. so her site is accurate with the stores i shop at.

in total i spent $13.41! and this is what i got:


obviously you can't feed your family on ice cream and chips :) I am working on stocking up on meat, paper products, and hygiene things. i get milk points from rempkee/biggs so plenty of times i get free milk. hopefully next year i can start a garden in our new back yard! Here is another website i like to use to figure out what i'm going to cook :

http://www.supercook.com/

its great because you type in the items you have n your pantry and it will match it up with a recipe. this is what we are having for dinner tonight:

http://www.food.com/recipe/pepper-steak-152668

I still have a way to go until i can say i'm a coupon expert but i'm excited to already see results. this weekend I am opening up a savings account to put the money i save into it. we promised the girls Disney world next summer!

Belle is 1

It's hard to believe how fast a year goes! on Aug 11, 2010 my baby girl was born. Now she's one! we had a pink lemonade party for her this past weekend. i would show you pictures but my camera died :( and i was to busy living in the moment and enjoying all the family and friends in our new house celebrating with her to charge my camera. luckily her grandma Vickie had her camera and left it for me to post pictures off of. they will come soon.
for each birthday i like to think about what i have learned from my girls in the past year. Miss Belle Elizabeth is a sweet little girl that loves her family and is very cautious about other people she doesn't know. she can be very quite at times but i know her little head is absorbing every detail. she's got the best kisses and her blue eyes just sparkle. while i was pregnant i never questioned going back to work. It was just something i thought i would naturally do. but the second i brought her home i realized how important it was to savor every moment with her and really be present in her and her sister's life. so my husband and i decided we would figure out a way for me to be a stay at home mommy. Belle has changed my life plans but its a decision i know i will never regret. Thank you Belle Belle for the perfect first year. we are so grateful to have you apart of our life.