Lewis Family Update at last

I just realized today that it has been over 11 months since I have updated our Lewis Family Blog. So much has happened in that time span so here goes...

All of the prayer requests that I listed in our last post have been answered. We were able to get the apartment in Indiana that we really wanted, a friend paid for our entire move out of the kindness of his heart, and our move went successfully. We have lived in Indiana for 11 months today. It is amazing to me the things that have transpired since we have lived here. The day we drove our U-haul into Indiana, my little sister gave birth to my second niece Madelyn. It has been such a joy to have been here her entire life. We were able to attend our first persimmon festival as Indiana residents but that is when things really went crazy.

My mom fell at the festival and broke her hip which was about one month into our time of living in Indiana. We hadn't even unpacked our boxes yet. My mom immediately had a corrective surgery and was put into a nursing facility for rehabilitation for two months. That was a very stressful and difficult time. During her stay at the nursing facility, my sisters and I got her moved to a handicapped accessible apartment in my apartment complex. When she was released in November, we had Thanksgiving at my house and found out that my sister Hilliary was pregnant with her second child. We were so excited...another baby to spoil!

Around Christmas time, my little sister found out VERY unexpectedly that she was pregnant with her third child and we started preparing to have 5 nieces and nephews total. Technically we have 6 but my nephew Isaiah passed away in 2007. We celebrated Anthony's 31st birthday with a big birthday party at our house with some of our closest friends and my family. We celebrated Christmas by having dinner and presents at our house and watching the kids at their house open presents. It was a great Christmas back home for me!

The new year was one of changes for us as we started in February fasting and praying about having a child of our own. We decided to fast from red meat and from secular music and pray about the things that surround children for us including healing over our loss, health changes for me, and just the process of conceiving and how difficult that has been for us. This journey has been enlightening to say the very least. We both feel like we have received heart healing and peace that passes our understanding.

In May we celebrated my nephew Shawn turning 3 and started a new family business with Scentsy. That has been a great thing for us as we are making extra income but we run the business together which means we don't have more time apart. We have been very profitable with Scentsy so we were able to pay off our car which was a huge burden off of us. We are excited about paying off more debts and working toward owning a house in the next few years.

In June, our nephew Johnny was born and he is now 4 weeks old and precious as can be. Yesterday our niece, Everleigh was born and since she has only been here for a day, I don't know much but that she is perfect! My second nephew and my third niece! So exciting. We have been taking each of the older kids (Shawn & Kaylea) once every couple of weeks for dates with us and they are enjoying that personal time and we sure are too!

In a couple of days, Anthony and I will celebrate 4 years married and I will celebrate 32 years of life. We are celebrating so many other things lately too and that is special. Thanks for stopping in and I'll try to update more often.

Anthony, Erica & Nika

Moves I never imagined.

The last time I wrote in our family blog was over 6 months ago. As you know from my previous post, Anthony and I were putting a time line of 6 months on our stay in California and if nothing in our lives changed, we were choosing to move to a more financially appropriate location. Well, here we are and we have news....As of the last week of August, Anthony and I will no longer reside in California. Before you all ask, why in the world would you move away from California? I will give you the run down.

When I, personally, moved here almost 9 years ago, it was with the intention to complete my Bachelor's degree. When I finished my Bachelor's Degree, I prayed that if God wanted me to stay in California, he would get me an incredible job and I would stay and complete my Masters Degree as well. Before I even graduated, I was offered a job as a Nanny in Newport Beach and it was a deluxe job. I had free room and board in a gorgeous house and neighborhood and got paid on top of that and it was only about 7 miles from the school I wanted to go to for my Graduate work. Needless to say, I stayed!

I met Anthony in the summer of 2006 and started Graduate School in the fall of 2006. Thank God I stayed! Grad School was three years and I worked as a nanny for 4 years so in 2009 I graduated with my Masters and Anthony and I got married in 2008. At that point, I just assumed I would live in California the rest of my life since I married a California native and we had gotten a place.

Many of you know that Anthony and I have had a very difficult couple of years with losing our first child and Anthony losing his job at AT&T in February of 2010. We had to move out of our apartment in February of 2011 due to the expenses of the unemployment of the previous year if we wanted any hope of getting back on our feet. We moved into a guesthouse of a friend's and have been living there since. Now onto when things changed.

Anthony has been working for Starbucks for almost a year and really likes the job but as you can imagine, it is not really a great paying job when you start and in California you need a pretty great paying job to survive, much less thrive. I have been working anywhere from 2-5 jobs since Anthony lost his and I am worn out. We really do want a child someday and with me working this hard just to survive, it doesn't look likely. Although I have no problem helping out and working (as that is why I got an education) working 3 jobs is really difficult on my health and well being and certainly doesn't support me getting in good health for conception.

Since these things are all true, Anthony and I have been praying so hard about our decision to move. We visited Indiana in May of this year to see our nephew Shawn turn two. Anthony has been to Indiana various times and has always enjoyed himself and just a few years ago we tossed out the idea of possibly living in Indiana someday. The kids really made that a possibility for us since I do want to watch my nieces and nephew grow up. This visit seemed to be of a different caliber. Anthony and I both came back to California with the mindset that it was completely the right thing to move to Indiana.

When we got back, we made the decision that we would just throw lines out for jobs, apartments, etc... and if things began to work out that we would know that our decision was sound. Anthony called the Bedford, Indiana Starbucks first and it turned out that they had a position opening in September for a full time spot. Anthony would definitely need a full time spot. Within just a few weeks of managers speaking on the phone and Anthony following up, he was offered this position sight unseen and will start on September 5th.

We are still waiting to hear back on the apartment we have applied for and we are still trying to figure out how to afford moving all of our belongings, hence Anthony is painting houses to try to gather that money up but it is official. We will be living in Indiana by the end of August. We would really appreciate your prayers as we move and adjust to a new place, climate, and lifestyle and if you could pray for me to be able to get into the mental health field out there fairly easy that would be fantastic. Our main prayer requests are these:

1. That we would be approved for the apartment we have applied for

2. Provision for our deposit and first months rent as we close up bills here and move there.

3. Provision for the moving truck, gas, food, and lodging for the trip across the United States

4. Adjusting to our new home in Indiana

5. Job for me

6. Overall, that Indiana helps us get back on our feet, pay down debts from the unemployment, and eventually have a baby and buy a home!

Thank you so much everyone and feel free to email me with any questions. For those of you who are my California friends, you will be missed. For those of my Indiana friends, can't wait to pick up where we left off.

Love,

The Lewis'

Moving out and hopefully moving on

Hello everyone, I thought that New Years Eve was a great time to update the Lewis Family Blog. 2011 is certainly going to look different for us and hopefully look a lot better.

Anthony and I are moving out of our apartment this month. We are going to be living somewhere else by Feb. 1st. We have been offered the opportunity to rent a guest house from a friend for a much cheaper price than we are paying and it will include rent/utilities/cable/internet so it's going to be better for our budget. We are going to miss our apartment a lot as it was our first married place and we have lived here for over 3 years.

We are also looking at it as an opportunity to get on our feet and try to figure out the next step. As of right now, Anthony is the only one making any REAL money since I am doing tutoring, a few clients, and a new business venture which I will talk about later in the post. Since this is true, we are saying that in six months, if nothing has changed we are going to be moving out of the state of California and to somewhere more affordable. We realize that this opens up a whole new host of issues like finding a home and jobs somewhere else but almost anywhere is cheaper than here.

It has been a very discouraging and difficult year and we are just hoping for some new things on the horizon.

As for my business venture, I have recently started selling Avon. I grew up around Avon products and really like them so this was an obvious choice for me to do something to bring in a little extra cash. I just started so I don't know how I will do at it yet but we shall see.

If you want to check out products, go to my

Avon Website.

and you can buy directly online and it will ship wherever you are. If you are more local and want me to deliver products, give me a call and we will do that! I am looking to build a customer base and do well so this can supplement me trying to build my career.

Anthony is still at Starbucks and really continues to like it and grow. We are hoping he will grow in the company and climb the ranks or find something more financially profitable if nothing else.

Please keep us in your prayers for the new year and we will be praying for you as well

Love from our family to yours,

Anthony & Erica Lewis

Venti with whip please!

Hi everyone, I hope this post finds you doing well and that all of your Thanksgiving plans are coming together. I figured it was time to update the Lewis Family Blog. Anthony and I are doing well although our circumstances have stayed pretty much the same. Anthony has been working at Starbucks ™ for two months now and really loves working there. He started out Part time at about 20 hours a week and now is up to 30 so that is certainly an improvement. He is really good at it and has learned quickly. It is a vast difference in income than AT&T as you might have guessed but to be honest, the happiness and lack of stress in his face is worth the change to me.

As for me, I am finishing up my first semester as an Adjunct Professor. I have really loved teaching Grad Psych and it really helped cement my knowledge of Cognitive Behavioral therapy. I am really lucky to have had really great students and we will be finishing up the last few weeks of classes after Thanksgiving. I will really miss teaching them! I am looking for more teaching jobs because I really enjoyed doing that. I am still working in Private Practice therapy, however, it is a pretty slow progression to full time right now. I am working on my marketing plan and trying to get my name into places that may help me build clients. I am also doing some tutoring of students on the side to make some extra money. It has really been a life saver to us lately. I really love tutoring/teaching so I always feel very fulfilled doing this.

Since things have been so difficult lately financially I have started looking around for full time jobs and have applied to about 30 in the mental health field. It is very difficult to get a job right now but I will forge ahead to help pay our bills. We have really had a hard time for about a year and half but God has been good and provided through it all. We have amazing friends/family praying for us and helping us through so we are incredibly grateful.

As we come closer to Christmas, that means that we have had our kitty cat Nika for a year on December 26th. We have really enjoyed her and appreciate that we have such a good natured, sweet pet. She is doing well and we have found that she loves house guests so we are looking forward to having my family out next summer possibly.

Anthony and I have a niece and a nephew and are really enjoying seeing them grow up. Shawn turned 1 year old on May 12th and Kaylea turned a year old on October 2nd. They are such a joy and are both doing well. We also have been named God parents for Anthony's friend Wolf's little girl Jasmine. She is also pretty darn precious. We are incredibly lucky to have such beautiful babies in our lives.

Speaking of babies, we are NOT pregnant and are not going to tell people when we are "trying" again and probably won't tell anyone we are pregnant until we get to a safe place where we know a gender. We are doing this for obvious reasons and very much appreciate everyone's understanding and support in that. We are doing well considering though and working on health concerns in the mean time.

Overall, we are incredibly blessed and doing well. We appreciate all of your prayers and concerns over the last several months. Please keep us in prayer as we are making a very huge decision in February of 2011 and we will keep you posted.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Lewis Family to your Family!

Anthony & Erica :)

The roller coaster of jobs.

Everything has been very interesting in our house for the last, oh let's say, 6-7 months. The last few months of AT&T were absolutely grueling and once Anthony got let go it was more about the journey with unemployment. He took a job with ADT and it ended up that the company he worked for was incredibly shady and wasn't paying him for his commissions and we found out that the unemployment would not honor it due to it being an "independent contractor" job as opposed to a W-2 job. Needless to say it was very frustrating to have to go back on the Unemployment docket and for Anthony to not be employed.

Due to this happening, I took it upon myself to begin searching for another way to bring income into the house. I started teaching on August 31st with Vanguard and have really been enjoying that. The journey has already been very interesting and I have grown to appreciate my professors far more than I already did. I love teaching and found that I really excel at things that are administrative or organizational. Either way, I really love the students and love teaching Cog B.

I also started tutoring in my spare time. I almost laughed as I typed "Spare time." I also really enjoy this job as it is minimal work for me and maximum benefits. It pays well for the time it requires and I get to help kids understand things and find their way in school. Currently I have one client that is consistent and I am tutoring him in Math/English. I love the teaching aspect and that it doesn't require a whole lot of my time.

I am still taking clients in private practice but that is slow going. I find that it is really hard to get out there and get noticed so recently I have started to amp up my marketing. I need to get hours and get going on licensure so it would be good to get a full case load. There is also the aspect of really needing the money.

Anthony was recently hired to work part time for Starbucks in Stanton, California and he really likes it thus far. He has been there about 3 weeks and is starting to learn the coffee biz. Ideally we would love for him to move to full time and begin to climb the ladder because we are just not sure what God is doing. It has been very frustrating to go from AT&T with good pay and benefits to Starbucks which is a good company to work for but really low pay and they do have benefits for Part time which is a huge plus.

Please keep us in your prayers for knowing God's will in all of this and standing through it and being patient for what is supposed to happen.

We love you all and are praying for your journeys in life as well.

The Lewis Family

Lewis Family Update July 2010

Hey everyone. I hope this blog finds you doing well and enjoying health, happiness, and love! We are doing well although the last five months have been brutal. Anthony was let go from AT&T in February and until this last week, he has been unemployed. We are so blessed because we had three months of expenses in the bank, it happened near tax time, and we have people who have really helped us out over the months. We really appreciate all of you who have been praying, helping, and offering to help. It has been tremendous to know how loved and supported we are.

Thursday of last week Anthony started his new job with ADT security systems. It is a sales job so we are certainly concerned about the stability of paychecks and the possibility of it not being a fit for Anthony. So far, he seems to really like it and feel confident about his abilities. He just finished the training part and is now on his own daily to do the job. I am very proud of Anthony on how diligent he was in finding a job over the months and how gracefully he got through it. No one feels good unemployed for five months and my husband was a trooper over all. I am also very proud of him for working so hard for us everyday no matter the circumstances.

Things with me are going well. My client caseload is picking up lately and I am beginning to really specialize in Depression/Grief which is something I am pretty passionate about. I start teaching in a Masters Program for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in the Fall (specifically August 30th) and I am super excited to start that out. I have always wanted to teach on the college level as well as do therapy so this is a dream coming to fruition. Also, another dream has taken shape as I have been encouraged to write a book. I have been working on that and I am really anxious to see how that turns out. It seems like such a huge dream but steady work on it will make it a reality I am sure.

I went to Indiana in May for a week to see my nephew turn 1 year old. It was absolutely fantastic to be there for his birthday and get to spend time with both he and my niece Kaylea (who is 9 months old.) Here they are because a really good aunt always brags....

Here is my precious nephew Shawn Christopher (14 months)



And my beautiful niece Kaylea (9 months)


Aren't they absolutely precious. Kaylea will turn a year old in October and we are praying that finances allow me to see her on her birthday as well. It's so hard to be so far away from them. Anthony has not even gotten the chance to meet them in person yet so we are praying he will get that chance soon!

Please keep us in prayer for the next few weeks of adjustment to the new job and that Anthony will be successful and God's will overall will be done!

Thanks for stopping in and checking on us!

Love,

The Lewis Family (written by Erica)

Cheap dates

So, as promised I am updating how Anthony and I are living below our means and still enjoying life. I am maybe the biggest dork in the world when it comes to saving money. I subscribe to every saving money blog there is. I also subscribe to tons of newsletters for various products, restraurants, companies, etc... This has proven very beneficial for us. We have done various things with these things that we could not have done otherwise. Last night was no exception.

As mentioned a number of times, I love overpriced coffee drinks. Starbucks is my beverage of choice but I only get to go there about once/twice a week on giftcards that I have accumulated and I seriously budget for times when I am not using a giftcard. Well...because my nerdiness/thriftiness I had a coupon yesterday for buy one get one free drinks at Peet's Coffee and Tea and we went last night and got coffee for $1.95 for both us and then browsed the book store (one of my favorite pasttimes). We looked through a book that interested us both and read passages to each other. A few hours of wonderful time with my awesome husband and for the bargain price of $1.95 and we got to as Anthony stated "join the living!" Priceless!

We have gotten to do so many other things due to my constant upkeep on newsletters, coupons, blogs etc... like free dinner at Chick-Fil-A for various promotions, free breakfast at Ikea, Free admission to museums on certain promotion days, etc... I am glad that I keep my eyes open. Here are a few of my favorites so that you can enjoy the benefits of them as well.

"Money Saving Mom

"Coupon Geek

Have a lovely day and enjoy a "cheap date" with your honey!

Meet the parents

So this blog might come as a shock to some of you. I wanted to write about a topic that is hot in our house right now and that is "Meeting the parents." Now, Anthony met my mom, dad, and siblings long ago when we were dating for about a year. That is pretty normal considering my family is about 2,500 miles away from us. I met Anthony's mom and brothers in Novebmer of 2006 just 5 months into us dating..however..I have never met Anthony's dad.

To say that Anthony and his dad have issues would be an understatement. They haven't spoken consistently for years and it seems they are both a bit stubborn about it. I have wanted to meet Alford (Anthony's dad) for the whole duration of our dating/married life. Finally that is going to happen. Next Friday we are going to have dinner up in North Hollywood with his dad and stepmom Kaye. I am really looking forward/feeling awkward about meeting his father. In one way I am so excited to finally put the pieces together and meet the entire DNA that is my husband. The other part of me is really feeling awkward since me and this man already share a last name and he has never seen my face.

We have spoken on the phone twice and it was very brief but overall he has been very pleasant and kind to me and has been really pressing to meet me. I am feeling a bit nervous because I know that Anthony has unresolved issues with him and he with Anthony so therefore there might be a little stickiness in the situation. I am just hoping for a really nice dinner with his dad and step mom and hopefully there will be some fences mended in the mean time. I am looking forward to finally having a father in law. Anthony's mom is married and her husband is really nice to me as well so I have sort of had a Father in Law all along but there is no substitute for meeting the man who gave my husband his beautiful smile and sparkly brown eyes. Anthony is an exact replica of his dad (I have seen pictures) and I am really excited to see them together.

This is the next big piece of news for the Lewis family and it seems like it's so long overdue. I'll keep the blog posted on how it goes and maybe I'll post a picture of the twins (Anthony and his dad) too so you can see what I mean! Keep your fingers crossed, pray for us, etc... that it all goes well and isn't too awkward.

--E&A--

Keep us in your prayers

I just wanted to write on the blog and ask that those of you who have a prayer life...say a few prayers for Anthony and I as we approach Jamie's due date. Our first little one would have been due February 15th and it is really a tender subject right now. We are working through it but it is especially hard as we would be meeting our sweet baby and now we are just empty. I thank you all for your support through this struggle and just ask for your prayers in these next few weeks.

Thanks,

E&A

Fixing our car and getting out of storage!

So the last time I wrote getting rid of the storage unit was an idea. It has now become a success. Last weekend Anthony and I rented a U-Haul truck for the day and emptied out the storage unit within a few hours. We brought a number of things to our apartment (which is now a different project altogether) and took some of the bigger items that aren't used normally to his mother's garage. I am so grateful that she let us store that stuff there because to be honest, we are running out of room.




Another cool thing that happened with this shift in money-saving is that Anthony and I fixed my car this last weekend by ourselves. My car has been acting kind of crazy for a few months and we knew it needed routine things like an oil change, new windshield wipers, and a few light bulbs and things but something more serious was going on with the car. I feared that it was the car slowly dying since I have had it 10 years in May (I bought it new) and it has over 170,000 miles. Well it turns out it was nothing serious..it just needed new spark plugs and wires. I learned how to install new spark plugs and wires on E-how.com
and Anthony and I did it with success and now the car is running perfectly.

Let me just take a few minutes to absolutely praise my little Cavalier. I bought it on May 25,2000 and it was brand new. I put all but 8 miles on my car. I drove it off the lot with 8 miles on it and it was mine after that. I have done all of the routine maintenance on time on the car and all I have ever replaced on the car came from normal wear and tear. It has been a gem to me over the years and continues to be even in its twilight years! :)

Anyway, the car is fixed and we feel great about ourselves. We checked into what money we saved by doing this simple repair ourselves and found that we would have paid our normal mechanic about $300 to replace the plugs and wires including parts and labor. We did it for about $30 total. It is crazy to me that it made that much difference.

Another thing that we did this week was check out a new grocery store that I heard about called The Grocery Outlet It is a lower cost grocery store that sells overstock of name brand items for 40%-60% off of regular store prices. We ended up supplying our house for Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner and household items for 1 month for the bargain price of $140.00. I mean really??? That is crazy.

God has really been helping us figure all of this out and I am actually having fun learning how to be more frugal and a better steward of what he has trusted me with. The next goal is to get that cable/internet bill down and start paying significantly on the debt. Wish us luck!

Slimming it down

For once this post is not about losing weight in the Lewis Family. Today Anthony and I had a "family meeting" of sorts and came to the conclusion that we have to really work on our financial health this year. When I went into my last year of Graduate School Anthony decided that he would ask me to stop working and focus on school and he would take care of the bills. That was all well and good except that we didn't make any changes to our spending. We kept spending the same amount and we quickly got into debt. We used Credit cards when we couldn't afford things, were late on our bills, got behind and now we are just in a really bad place.

We both knew it was time to stop doing the things that we had before and start being financially mature. The first steps we took were to stop spending money on things like dining out and starbucks. We have been pretty good about this for the past several months. We still were hesistant to cut out any more of our lives as we were very selfish. Now we have decided that we need to cut down our monthly expenses considerably and start paying on debt more seriously. It has been hard since my caseload is taking a while to build and since we only have one car working, a full time job for me is hard to do.

Today I started this process by immediately cutting down our cell phone plan by $100 per month. This alone will save us $1200 this year. That is amazing. The second thing I did was to cut down our netflix account. I got that bill lowered by $15 per month equaling $180 this year. The third thing we are working on is our cable/internet plan which we currently pay about $100 per month for. I would like to lower that by at least 50%. Another course of action that we want to do is get rid of our storage unit. We got the storage unit when Anthony moved out of LA and we have paid about $160 a month for it for 2 years. It was such wasted money because if Anthony actually loved and needed those things why are they sitting and collecting dust? We are going down next week on Anthony's day off and emptying out what we can with the car and then following up with a truck and brining my bike to our house. That will save us $1920 this year!!!!!

All of that to say we are also planning to lower our utility bills by being wiser with energy, lowering our grocery bill even more (although we are very good about this), and reducing our use of gas by taking walks to Wal-mart & Target instead of driving when we need only a few items...we get exercise that way and save Gas. We live very close to so many places that this would be great. We are right next door to CVS so sometimes we are literally steps away from the things we need.

I am going to use our family blog to show you the savings each and every day that something changes. I am going to use it as a place to show how I manage our grocery budget, free things that are out there, ideas for reducing debt, etc... I figure if we need this makeover, many do. I am excited yet very nervous for my self-discipline and financial maturity to begin. God is doing big things with my 30th year!

Our new family member

Hey everyone, I hope you are coming to 2010 with a renewed strength and focus. Things have changed in the last couple of days in our house for the better. On December 26th Anthony and I adopted a rescue kitty named Niakara. She is absolutely adorable as you can see from her photo above. She goes by Nika and so her full name is now Niakara Bigglesworth Lewis. :) We are having so much fun being pet owners now and every day she adjusts more and gets more affectionate. Sleeping is still pretty hard due to her lack of understanding of "bed time" but we are utterly enjoying her either way. From our family to yours, Happy New Year and we pray God's blessings over every day of 2010 for you and yours!

--Anthony, Erica, & Nika Lewis--

Update on the Lewis' at the close of 2009

This year has proved to a be a tough year in the Lewis house but one in which we praise God for also. We began 2009 by continuing to try to have a baby and I was finishing up my last semester at Vanguard in the Graduate Psychology Program. In february we had our amazing first family photos and found a photographer that we will keep as long as we live in California. He is absolutely amazing. To view his work or look into getting your own photos done by him go to Kassel Photography
and check him out.

In February we also headed to Las Vegas for a weekend to celebrate our one year anniversary and shortly thereafter headed to Indiana to celebrate Hilliary's (my older sister) baby shower. Later in March on Spring break we took a road trip all around the state of California making sure to stop in locations such as The Hearst Castle, The Winchester Mystery House, San Francisco where we toured Alcatraz,Our State Capital, Reno Nevada, and even the Jelly Belly Jelly Bean Factory as well as much more. It was a blast. We spent a whole week on the road and enjoyed it so much.

In April, I was named Outstanding student in my graduate program and was asked to speak at my master's hooding ceremony. That was such an honor for me and absolutely changed the way I think about myself. It was such a blessing to know that not only my colleagues but my professors respect me in my field. How wonderful is that??!!! My wonderful friends were able to come out for my hooding as well as my Mother in Law, Step Father in Law, past boss, and many others who love and support me. It was a great night and really brought a finality to all of the work that God had done with me through Grad School.

In early May, I graduated with my Masters Degree and was given a much needed break after all of those years of school and we went for a little married retreat at my favorite San Deigo get away (Rancho Relaxo). While on that retreat, Anthony and I made our first child together. Little Jamie was conceived on that trip and in early June near our 3 year anniversary of dating, I found out I was pregnant. We had been trying for about 7 months when we found out. It was the most amazing moment of my life to realize I was holding life within my body. Anthony could not have been more excited. Right around the same time I got pregnant, my nephew Shawn was born. This was such a joyous event for us as we lost our first nephew in a car accident in 2007. Shawn is such a joy to both of us and we are lucky to have him!

This is where our whirlwind of a year started to be even more chaotic. I was admitted to the hospital pretty immediately after finding out I was pregnant due to diabetic issues. They monitored the pregnancy very closely as I had ultra sounds every week of my pregnancy. I carried my precious little one for only 11 weeks before I had to let go and Jesus took my little one home. This was probably the roughest thing I have ever endured in my life and for me, that's saying a lot. We lost our little one on July 16th.

On August 9th, Anthony and I celebrated one year married and my 29th Birthday. We weren't much in the mood for celebrating so we kind of went low key this year. Just a few gifts and a romantic dinner was enough for us. I also applied for my Board of Behavioral Sciences Marriage and Family Therapist Intern # this month and started working for my professor in a organizational/clerical position before starting in private practice.

In September, my little sister turned 23 and was getting ready to have my neice so I decided to surprise my family by coming home the day after her birthday and being there for my neice's arrival. I got to Indiana on September 28th and wonderful little Kaylea came into the world on October 2nd via C-Section. I also was able to meet my nephew Shawn on this trip and to be honest, it healed my heart after losing Jamie. They both bring me such joy and fill my heart with gladness so I could feel God's healing hands working through their sweet faces and cuddly little bodies. Isn't God good?!!!

Shortly after coming home, Britt was admitted to the hospital and needed to have her gall bladder out due to some complications connected to the birth. Through the kindness of my boss and the willingness of my husband I headed back to Indiana at the end of October/first of November to help out with Kaylea while Britt started to get better. I am happy to say now that Britt and Kaylea are completely healthy and God healed so much in that situation. While I was home I was able to see friends, hang out with family, and celebrate my older sisters/mom's birthday on November 11th before heading back on the 12th.

When I got home my awesome Intern # was waiting on me and God was so good to give me a client right away so I could start doing what I love and what I went to school for. I now have a second client and possibly a third starting at the beginning of 2010. Anthony and I spent Thanksgiving at home enjoying a delicious turkey together in the romantic quietness of our home. We are doing the same for Christmas and celebrating with Anthony's family after Christmas. On December 17th, Anthony turned 29 and we celebrated by spending the weekend at a very nice hotel in Laguna Woods enjoying some married time. This included tv in bed, romantic walks, Nice dinners, and champagne toasts. Our New year will most likely be spent alone as well. We are establishing our own family traditions each day. We are healing through this year but sometimes that requires that you get closer as a couple and spend time recouping your losses.

Our plans for 2010 include a vacation, seeing the neice and nephew as many times as possible, having britt and Kaylea out in the summer, possibly having Tasha and Mike out in the Spring, and getting our life together financially and working on our careers. Overall, we want to love better, live happier, and delight in our 2 year anniversary, our 30th birthdays and our 3rd married year together. God is soooo amazing and all is well on the Lewis' home front.

Still no news to report on having children. We will update you all when we feel like WE know what we are going to do.

Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and we pray the Lord blessings on your home in 2010!

--Anthony & Erica Lewis--

hard times but trusting HIM

Lately Anthony and I have been going through some very difficult times. We not only lost our first child to a miscarriage but have recently stumbled into some very hard financial times. We are having a hard time right now just getting through each day. Every 24 hours seems like it brings a new set of problems and worries and we are faced with making difficult decisions. We are trying our hardest to depend on Jesus through this and just ask Him to lead our steps.

It is very difficult at times to keep your marriage first when it's so difficult to not get worried and overwhelmed with life's problems. We have been trying to have time each night to just sit together and hold hands or snuggle up so that we are getting our time and remembering what the most important thing is; to stick together. Things are probably going to be hard for awhile but we are pressing on and trying our best to stay focused on God. If you could say a prayer for our little family that would be great. To answer the question that everyone seems to be asking, we are not sure when or if we are going to try to have children again. Right now my body needs to heal and my diabetes is the most important thing to get under control.

I pray that you are all doing well and we would love to know if you are praying for us. Thank you!

Pain and healing

I haven't written on our family blog for some time but I thought tonight might be a good time to update it. Anthony and I have just experienced our first pregnancy and a miscarriage. We are going through so much right now and just really need prayers from family and loved ones. I will be getting back to posting on here regularly soon and hopefully starting some new posts of things that interest Anthony and myself and getting back to our daily topics. I pray all of you are doing well and let us know how you are.

Check out an awesome blog for Mama's

Enjoy!

Thrifty Thursday

Today I am going to share a few of my favorite finds on the internet to save money and enjoy some of my favorite things.

First of all, I love to read and buying books can get expensive. I also love to cook so cookbooks are some of my favorite books to have. Well, those can be extra expensive. I just started an account at a really cool site. I suggest you check it out. It's called Paper Back Swap and it's pretty great. If you have some books laying around that you have already read and don't mind getting rid of you can just input their ISBN numbers onto the site and make them available for other people to order. Once you load 10 books onto the site that you don't mind getting rid of you get 2 credits on the site to get 2 books that someone else has loaded up. I just ordered Rachael Ray's 30 minute meals and 30 minute meals 2 which retail for $22.00 on Amazon.com (total) all for free. I just loaded up 10 books that I was done with and that was it.

You can continue to load books up, purchase book credits (for much cheaper than the book) and you can swap your life away with other readers. When someone orders one of your books, you just mail it to them (usually only $2.00-5.00) and you get more book credits. It's a great way to collect books that you really want or just read and pass on to others. I am keeping my cookbooks but there were plenty little reads I could just read and put back on the site. Also, if you are like me, I pick up a lot of my books at Borders or Barnes & Noble on the Bargain book table and they cost so little it would be worth it to read and them load them up on Paper Back Swap. I will let you know when I receive my first book so I can kind of review the site!

Another thing I recently came across was a site called SwagBucks where you use the site for a search engine and earn points to get great things like music, giftcards, etc... Please check it out and if you join use this link so that I can receive points for referring you....





So far it's been pretty easy to earn points since I normally use Google all the time. This site uses Ask.com and Google to make their search engine and you don't have to download anything. I really like it so far and also, I will update you on it when I receive a reward for using it. I like to make sure and report on how these sites actually operate.

Another place that you can sign up to receive points and get emails is My Points All you do is sign up for an account and receive emails. Each email is worth 5 points and you just click on get points in the email and as you collect points, again...you can cash them in for gift cards. I have been using this service for over 8 years and I have received a lot of gift cards for clothing, restaurants, starbucks, etc... You can also go from the mypoints home site and shop for things you already buy like ink for your printer, groceries, etc... by shopping online and you earn so many points on the dollar. I have used this for books at Borders.com, Clothes that I have ordered online, shoes, etc... and it makes your points add up much faster. Nowdays, I don't have a lot of extra shopping money so all I do is read my emails and click and I still stockpile tons of points. I would suggest that if you don't like a lot of email in your email box, open up a seperate email account for things like this (for example on gmail or hotmail) that way you can go there once every couple of days and deal with these issues. I now use my points to cash in for gift cards for Anthony and I to go out to nice dinners and have date nights. It's nice for neither of us to have to pay. :)

Those are my thrifty tips for today but I promise, I'll keep them coming! Happy Money Saving!!!

Witty Wednesday

I love Family Circus so I put one on today!

Tasty Tuesday

This one is for you Terra....

Creamy Cheddar Soup

This is literally one of my favorite recipes now. I tried this the other night and Anthony and I both were moaning with every bite. It is completely delicious. I hope you'll try it. I served it with crusty french bread and an iceberg wedge blue cheese salad. Delicious.


Ingredients:

1 small onion, diced
2 large pimentos, diced
3 tablespoon butter
3 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cup chicken stock
1 1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup grated mild cheddar cheese
1/2 cup green onions
Salt and black pepper, to taste
dash of cayenne pepper (optional)

Directions:

In a saucepan, saute onion and pimentos in butter for 5 to 7 minutes. Blend in flour. Add stock and cream. Cook until thick. Add cheese and stir until melted. Add 1/4 cup green onions, salt and pepper to taste, and cayenne if desired. Garnish with remaining green onions.



This recipe was originally taken from Paula Deen however, I did make a few changes by adding 1/4 up more cheese and making it heavy cream as opposed to just cream. I hope you try and enjoy this delicious soup!

P.S. Pictures are coming..Anthony took picture of my actual soup so when you see a picture..it's my soup! :)

Movie Monday

Today's movie is an oldie. I thought I would stick to that this week. Anthony and I curled up the other night and watched old Marilyn Monroe movies and this one was so fun. I think everyone should enjoy it. It's a great one.

Movie: The Seven Year Itch
Made in: 1955

We give it 10 out of 5 stars! HA HA

Here is a picture of everyone's favorite scene...