Crafty Lil Devil

2011-12-01T00:20:00.002-05:00

If anybody still "follows" this blog, I've started a new blog over at

http://studio456.blogspot.com/

Come check it out. It's still really new so there's not much content ... yet.

2010-11-20T22:41:00.003-05:00

Today I made 2 matching games for the kids. One for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas. I printed these images out onto Avery 8293 1.5 inch round labels and stuck them onto milk jug lids I've been saving up for just such a project. I am considering using about half of the Christmas ones to decorate a small tree that the kids can play with. Hopefully this will keep them from playing with the one in the living room! I can't take credit for the images. They all are from Microsoft Office. I hope to get a picture of the kids playing with these but right now the camera is out of batteries...again!

2010-11-20T22:27:00.008-05:00

Boy oh boy. Just reread that last post and sometimes I get a teensy bit cranky. :) I'm better now and have scanned some of the Wordles I made and am going to post them now. Hopefully tomorrow I can post a real, live, honest-to-goodness post. (Once again, if you're on Facebook you've already seen these.)

Thanksgiving Word Art

Audrey's Word Art

Edgar Family Rules

Easton's Word Art

2010-11-09T23:14:00.007-05:00

Just found a fun site called Wordle. It is super easy to use to create cool art. Just type in any text you want and it will randomly generate a "word cloud" for you. I made 5 different ones tonight. One for my kitchen with spices/herb names, one for my living room as a decoration for Thanksgiving (words like turkey, stuffing, family, gobble, thankful), one for each of my kids with their nicknames and date of birth and one for "family rules" (eat your vegetables, use your manners, count your blessings, use nice words). It is SO addicting!
Here's a link to my most boring one (the spices one). Didn't realize you could save them and link to them until I was doing the last one!
Have fun with it and be sure to let me know if you do one of these. Seriously, I played with this for hours after the kids were in bed!

P.S. GRRR!! NOTHING HAS GONE RIGHT TODAY! The first time I try to blog in forever and I can't get the stupid link to work. I am going to bed and hoping I have more patience to fix this soon. I am so mad! Whatever. I'll try to fix it soon.

2010-10-10T23:46:00.011-04:00

Since finishing up with my last class, the Crafty Lil Devil is back in full swing. I've finished so many craft projects in the past week! Two paintings, party favors for E's big 3rd birthday party, two Halloween costumes (a ghost for Easton and a bat for Audrey) and a Halloween wreath. It's been really fun finally getting to do something I want to do for a change! These pics are from my phone. My camera has eally and truly bit the dust. Now my camera phone takes pretty good pictures for a camera phone but it can't really do justice to my two little sweeties or capture the colors in a painting, etc. But they'll have to do until we get a new camera. Maybe at Christmas. I don't even know what kind of camera to buy if we do get a new one. I'd like a big, fancy schmancy DSLR but that is REALLY not in our budget...even at Christmas time! Jason says his Canon at work is really good so we might look at those. There are so many choices! All I know is my little Kodak is history. I used it a lot and loved it (Thanks mom!) but now it's all beat up and the lens is stuck all wonky and can't be fixed.

wonky old camera

Here are some pictures I took with my Blackberry. It is SUCH a pain to get pictures from my phone to my computer and then to Blogger!

If you're on Facebook you have probably seen these already:

Oh happy day!

Painting for my mom (sorry to ruin the surprise Mom! I'm no good at secrets!)

Audrey's bat girl costume

Spooky, spidery Halloween wreath

My precious little ghost boy.

Easton and Audrey like to go around the house saying "GHOST!" in their creepiest voice. It cracks them up and they laugh so hard they almost choke. Too funny!

That's what I've been up to. Craft projects and dishes and laundry and all that good fun stuff. So happy to have more time for me now that I'm finished with school!

P.S. Guess who got an A on that last final paper? Me! And that means I got an A for my overall grade in the class. And that means I have truly and properly earned the words "graduates with distinction". Oh yeah! SO glad to be done with homework for good! Or until I am crazy enough to go back to school to get my Master's degree when the kids are old enough to go to school. But until then, Crafty Lil Devil is back at it again!

2010-10-08T22:37:00.004-04:00

Man, I really needed that break! Things just got a little chaotic there for a while but have calmed down to a dull roar now so maybe I can manage this blog a little better. Too much has happened in the time off to completely catch everyone up to speed but let me just tell you the most important:

I graduated from college! Finally, after all these years... I can proudly say that I am a college graduate. No more checking "some college" on surveys. Sorry to brag but holy cow I am proud! I made an A on my final paper, which earned me a grade of a 96% in the class. That means I graduated with distinction and will be on the dean's list. I am so proud! Two friends are planning a small graduation party for me and I am so happy.

I've only been finished with school and homework for four days but I've already finished four craft projects. I will attempt to upload pics soon. They'll be kinda crummy camera phone pics because my regular camera is all but unusable. I have no idea what we'll do at Easton's birthday. Maybe I can borrow one from a friend. Katy? Amanda? Jessica? I'd really appreciate if I could borrow a camera from someone. Even if it's just for the day. Thanks!

That's all for now. It's late and I've got a lot of crafting to do tomorrow. Hooray! Crafty Lil Devil is BACK! Pictures and how-to's coming up.

2010-09-09T14:47:00.002-04:00

Blog closed until further notice. Too much going on right now! I can be reached by email (sometimes not very speedily), on Facebook or on my cell or home phones. Thanks!

2010-09-05T13:25:00.002-04:00

Oh man am I ever sunburnt! We went to an air show here called "Thunder Over the Blue Ridge." It was so fun! Too bad my camera is on its very last leg or I'd post pictures. It does take pictures but they are so bad! The lens of my good ole point and shoot Kodak is really scratched up and crooked (won't retract back into the camera or straighten out either). It's bad. I definitely cannot do without a camera! My Blackberry takes alright pictures but my babies are far too cute not to have a real camera! I wonder if maybe I can get a fancy digital SLR as graduation present to myself? Ha! Yeah right. Those babies cost a fortune! But I can dream, can't I? Sigh. Maybe someday.

2010-08-20T15:50:00.003-04:00

I last updated this blog 5 weeks ago. FIVE WEEKS! Holy cow, has it ever been a long five weeks. This is gonna be a long rambling post.

We were in Oklahoma for 34 days and it seemed like it passed in a blur. We had such a good time getting to visit with family and friends and not feel like we had to rush to get to see everyone in a short time. Even though we were there for so long we STILL didn't get to see everyone. (Sorry if we missed you!)

The kids were good but it was hard on them to be away from home for so long. Plus my grandma's house, while a wonderful place to visit, is not exactly babyproofed. When the kids got bored or tired they knew just where to go to get into trouble. I lost count of how many times Audrey cleaned off Grandma's table beside her chair and rearranged the candle holders in front of the fireplace. It was a fun but exhausting trip.

Now we've been home for almost 2 weeks and are just settling back into our routine nicely. I was sad to leave Oklahoma but happy to get back to my own bed, my cat and West Virginia's cooler temperatures. Oh and Jason too! I did kind of miss him too. :)

We came home to a burnt up garden. Oklahoma wasn't the only one having some hot temperatures during that time. All the hard work we put into our garden, plants and flowers and now they are almost all dead. I could have cried when I saw my herbs on the deck just dried up and way past saving! Oh well...there's always next year! Hopefully I'll get started earlier next year and we'll actually get some veggies from our garden.

Last weekend we took the kids to Marker-Miller Orchard for their Peach Festival. It was nice weather for it. Warm but not too hot, cloudy with a cool breeze every once in a while. We picked a peck of peaches and both kids really enjoyed picking a peach right off the tree. They both came home covered in peach juice. I don't think I've ever tasted a better peach! We also got some zucchini, some amazing Ginger Gold apples, and some of their famous "apple cider doughnuts". Now let me tell you about these doughnuts. I lived here about 5 or 6 years and kept hearing about how good these doughnuts were. Even the 2 year olds at the daycare I worked for knew about apple doughnuts. Everyone here raves about them like they're the best thing you've ever put in your mouth. And they were mighty good, don't get me wrong. But with a name like Apple Cider Doughnuts, I was expecting them to taste...well, APPLE-y. Nope. For those of you who haven't tried an apple cider doughnut, think cake doughnut rolled in cinnamon and sugar. Now those of you who are locals reading this blog, don't get me wrong...they ARE delicious. But I think they need to change the name a little. When apple cider is the next to last ingredient on the list I don't think that is a very fitting name.

Anyway, enough ranting about weather and wrongly named doughnuts. I can't believe it is August 20th today. Where did the summer go?! Now it's apple season and back to school time. And I cannot even believe it is time for me to start planning Easton's birthday party. He's turning THREE! Holy cow! I am excited about another Fall here and making apple butter but feel like summer sure did pass me by. How about you?

2010-07-13T09:56:00.003-04:00

We survived the plane trip! I can't believe how great the kids were on the plane. Of course it helped that I had a diaper bag packed with every distraction I could possibly think of and that I had a sweet lady sitting next to me who was a grandma and great grandma many times over. I think God put her on that plane just so she could help me. It turns out she lives in Grandfield and her daughter (in-law?) knows my mom. It's definitely a small world!

Anyway, the kids did great and after only a short rain delay we arrived in OKC around 7:30. My mom picked us up at the airport and helped us get our baggage to the car. And boy what a lot of it we had! I tried to bring as little as possible but when you're gone from home for almost 6 weeks with two little ones you kinda have to take everything but the kitchen sink! We had 2 carseats, 3 suitcases, E's backpack, the diaper bag and my purse. Plus Audrey in her stroller and Easton. It was quite a scene. (If you're friends with me on Facebook, I posted pictures there. I'll add them here if I get a chance after I get back home.)

We left the airport and stopped at Zio's on the way home for dinner. OH MY GOODNESS it was amazing! We had some hot, fresh bread and garlic/herb olive oil for dipping. I could make a meal on that stuff! I also had some awesome roasted vegetable lasagna which immediately made me close my eyes and groan with happiness and think of the "When Harry Met Sally" diner scene. Oh yeah. It was that good! :)

We got to my grandma's house around 11pm that night and the kids had slept from OKC to Lawton and gone without a nap all day so they were WIRED when we got there. I think they finally fell asleep around 2:30am.

Saturday and Sunday went by in a sleep-deprived blur. I do seem to remember some really good food and visiting with lots of my family which was exactly what I needed. I will definitely have to quit staying up so late talking and remember that I'll be here for a MONTH so there's plenty of time to visit during the day.

I imagine the rest of the month will fly by in a blur of busy-ness (is that a word?), cooking, cleaning, visiting and running around town. And lots of trips to Wayne's for vanilla Cokes. If you're in Lawton I hope to see you while I'm here!

2010-07-08T15:15:00.003-04:00

I have a mountain of stuff to do before our trip tomorrow. So what do I do? Of course I get on the computer. Ha ha! So this will have to be short so I can get busy but I wanted to update and post about my RAOK things I've done lately.

I've found that people seem to be doing the nice things for me instead of the other way around. :) People see that I have 2 little kids and go out of their way to be nice to me which is SO appreciated! An older gentleman saw that I was pushing Audrey in the stroller and attempting to hold Easton's hand and carry 4 boxes to be mailed and my purse and kindly offered to carry my boxes for me. He opened the door for us, carried the boxes all the way inside and talked to each of my kids for a minute. SO nice! And what a life saver that was!

So since people seem to be doing the nice things for me my list of things I've done isn't all that impressive. Or maybe it just feels weird talking about it. Like "Hey, look at this nice thing I did!" and I'm definitely not doing it for that. Just because it makes me feel good to do nice things.

Other things I've done lately:

gave out sparklers, glow worms, poppers and glow sticks at our neighborhood 4th of July get together.
mailed some goodies to 3 different places. (Can't tell more about that yet...not everyone has received their stuff yet.)
bought my kids "surprise ice cream" for my birthday. (Does this count if it's for my own kids and I got ice cream too? It WAS before dinner and not something I let them have very often.)
emailed case studies to several fellow classmates (which I'm not too sure is all that ethical now that I think of it. They were supposed to buy the cd and didn't. Oops!)
handed out Kohl's coupons and Kohl's cash to people waiting in line to check out at Kohl's. I won't be near a Kohl's to use them and why not help other people save money. I've been THRILLED when people do this for me! (50% off coupon when I left mine at home!)
held the door for people or let them into a long line of traffic at every chance I get.

And that's all for now. I find myself thinking of things I'd like to do for people but am on a limited budget so I just do small stuff that doesn't cost much. But boy if I had more money I'd be sure to share the wealth! :)

Are you joining me? I'd love to hear about it!

2010-06-29T00:28:00.004-04:00

Oh, I almost forgot! Today I started my Random Acts of Kindness celebration for my birthday! I was so crazy busy that I didn't get as many things done as I would have liked but I definitely enjoyed what I did get to do!

Today I:
*Used my change ($6) at Subway to buy a gift card for someone who needed it
*Dropped off a ginormous garbage bag full of stuffed animals to Healthy Families
*Way overtipped the guy who served us dinner tonight

OK, so these things aren't gonna bring about world peace or anything like that but they were unexpected things and they made people feel good. Tomorrow should be less hectic here and I'm hoping to think of some better and more fun things to do.

Are you joining me? I'm doing 32 random (or sorta random) acts of kindness to celebrate my 32nd birthday on July 7th. If you decide to join me, I'd love to hear about it!
P.S. I am totally bummed out that Jason will be out of town for my birthday. This is totally selfish of me I know but now who's gonna bring me my cake?! Ha ha Only kidding. Well, sorta.

P.S.S. OK, I am aware that that last comment about how bummed I am that J won't be here for my birthday at the end of a post about doing good things for others seems a bit shallow and selfish. Don't judge.

2010-06-28T23:47:00.002-04:00

Whew! I am wiped out! I got more done today than I did all weekend long. Jason had to work on his truck Saturday and Sunday so I mostly stayed inside with the kids. It was so darned hot here! I am going to roast when we go to Oklahoma! I'm praying for some cool weather while I'm there so the kids and I can get outside a little but I'm not thinking it's really gonna happen.

For anyone who doesn't know yet, YES we are FINALLY coming to Oklahoma! I'm going to miss Jason an awful lot and I know the kids will too but am very happy to have an extended time with my grandma. I've already got my recipes ready to go. She used to be the one cooking for me so now it's my time to return the favor. I sure hope she hasn't gotten rid of that exercise bike she used to have because I'm definitely gonna need it!

Today the kids and I spent all day running errands. We took the cat to the vet for her yearly shots, dropped her back off at home to relax after her stressful car ride to the vet (she throws up EVERY time! Do they make kitty Valium?!) Then we loaded back up in the car and headed to Winchester for a day of checking things off my to-do list. We took my friend Liesl her birthday present, dropped off a huge bag full of stuffed animals to be given to little ones in a local Healthy Families program, met Jason for lunch, returned something at Walmart, dropped off a birthday present to our friend T and let the kids play for a while while I visited with T's mama Amanda. (Hi, Amanda!) Then we hopped back in the car and drove home. Wouldn't ya know it...Audrey fell asleep the minute we turned into our neighborhood. The kids and I waited in the car with it running and the air turned on to keep us cool til Jason got home. He joined us for some more errands. We returned a part to the parts store and then headed to Hagerstown to exchange some clothes Audrey got as a birthday gift. We got to the outlet mall just in time for dinner, ate some junky Chinese food, returned the clothes and then hit up Kohl's because both J and I needed new shorts. Holy cow I must have tried on every single pair of shorts in that store and only found ONE pair I liked. I bought them (in a much too big to be named size) and we headed home. FINALLY! By this time the kids were WAAAYYY cranky and deliriously tired. We got the kids in bed at ELEVEN o'clock tonight! BAD, bad, bad. I am dreading tomorrow. While Jason put the kids to bed (thank you, honey!), I finished up a short and sweet homework assignment and am finally done for the day. Why do I try to make up for days when I don't get much done by cramming as many things as I can possibly do into one day's worth of running around? Man, my kids are gonna be CRANKY tomorrow! I'm hoping I am very wrong about this.

2010-06-24T10:38:00.003-04:00

Wowee I am glad that is over! I don't know what the kids had but it was some awful stuff! Vomiting and diarrhea for DAYS! First Audrey had it for about five days, then we had a day or so break and then Easton got it. He actually went to the ER late one night because he couldn't keep any liquids down and I was afraid he was getting dehydrated. That virus was awful! After it was over I was so worn out I just honestly did not have anything nice to say for a while. It was bad! But now I'm back and hope to be blogging more over the next few days. I'm planning a trip to OK for a month to help out at my Grandma's house for a while. We probably will be there from the 1st part of July until some time in August. Hope to see you while we're there!

2010-06-06T20:39:00.003-04:00

Poop-a-thon still not over. I am still cranky. Less so than before but yes, still cranky. I miss blogging. I'm burnt out on school work. I still {heart} coffee. Sorry for no real post yet again. There is much laundry to be done. And yes, I hate this kind of non-post as much as you do. Sorry!

2010-05-31T15:11:00.003-04:00

It's been a poop-a-palooza at our house these last few days and it seems there is no end in sight. Audrey has some kind of a bug that I am PRAYING the people who came to her party this weekend do not get! Easton is potty traning. And not very successfully, I might add. Yes, he realizes the difference between wet and dry (which is a huge step in the right direction) but we have to physically put him on the potty every 30 minutes and he screams and cries and carries on until it sounds like we are torturing him. He usually manages to pee but I think this is more luck than anything. It's not been a good few days. I have a long post about our NY trip to see Katy about halfway done, a paper to write, several projects unfinished and zero pictures of Audrey's birthday party. Needless to say, I am very cranky. I think I should stay away until I have something nice to say. That would not be today.

2010-05-14T13:16:00.004-04:00

I just noticed that when I put in this fancy new photo header I accidentally erased my nav bar I worked so hard to create. It will be back just as soon as I find time to create it again. I also need to tweak the birthday banners for the kids so all of their info shows up. {sigh} One of these days I'll get this blog looking the way I want it.

2010-05-14T00:56:00.002-04:00

Audrey,
How in the world is it possible that you are almost a year old? You are pulling up on everything (but mostly only to your knees), talking up a storm, pointing at things you're interested in and can crawl faster than I've ever seen a baby crawl in my life. You are my sweet, quirky, loud little sunshine girl and I'm really enjoying getting to see who you'll turn out to be.
I love you!
Love,
Mama
P.S. What's with the only one nap per day thing? Can't you give your tired mama a break for a little while longer? I know it's loud with your brother and me up playing while you're trying to rest but I sure would appreciate it if you'd take a 2nd nap every once in a while!

2010-05-14T00:51:00.003-04:00

Easton,
Wow, we had a rough evening tonight! Everyone was a little fussy all day today but tonight was especially bad for some reason. Just now I went in to kiss you goodnight and cover you up and looking at your sweet face just broke my heart. I'm sorry for the way I lost my temper and yelled tonight. I apologized to you before you went to bed but I still feel bad. I'll try harder to remember that you're still little and that no naps make you a little wired sometimes but it's not really your fault. I'll also try to work on getting more sleep so I am less cranky with you and hopefully have more patience. I love you, my little sweetie. Thanks for loving me back "4, 5, 6" even on the tough days.
Love,
Mama

2010-05-12T20:30:00.003-04:00

Taking a break from homework and housework to blog for a bit. I've been trying to be more "green" lately. We recycle just about everything we can possibly recycle and I've been making a conscious effort to use less harsh chemicals to clean. Today while I was putting off doing my homework I cleaned my bathroom with a mix of vinegar and water. That's it. A bottle of half vinegar and half water and a bunch of paper towels. OK, so the paper towels are not very "green" of me but at least I'm trying! :)

Ew! Our bathroom was NAS-TY! I'd say when you can't remember the last time it was cleaned it has been way too long! I will NOT go that long between times again. Blech! But you know, the vinegar cleaned better than my usual cleaner. I didn't get to the tub and shower yet but did wipe down the counters, walls and floor with it. Now it's all sparkling clean but smells like sauerkraut. EWW! Oh well. It looks pretty anyway. Hopefully it will air out overnight and will just look pretty and not be stinky. Tomorrow I'll have to finish the rest.

Now I've got a week's worth of homework to do in 2 days. Not from procrastinating, just poor planning on my part. I planned a mini-vacation to New York to see my friend Katy right during the busiest time of my class. Final paper week! So I've got to hustle to get it done early so I don't have to mess with it while we're away from home.

I'm really looking forward to going to NY though. Katy lives in Brooklyn and we haven't seen her in way too long so we're going to drive about 4 hours (or 6 or 8 depending on how well the kids do in the car) to see her. We'll leave Saturday morning and come home on Tuesday. I've got a TON of stuff to do in the meantime so I'd better get busy! I hope to post about our trip when we get back. Check Facebook for pics and status updates from NYC.

2010-05-11T14:33:00.003-04:00

I need to go to the dentist. Like REALLY need to go to the dentist. I've had a tooth that's been bothering me off and on since February. I had my teeth cleaned in March and nothing showed up. No big deal. It really wasn't an all the time thing, just came and went every once in a while and that was something I could live with. I went to the oral surgeon because I thought it was my wisdom teeth. Nope. Thankfully, I just might skate by with not having to have my wisdom teeth out at al. Nice! But that tooth? Yeah...now it's really bothering me. Like all the time. I made a note to call my dentist on Monday (yesterday) and finally remembered at 4:45. I called and they were already closed for the day. Whoops! No big deal. I should have remembered to call earlier in the day. I called today at 8:30 when the office opened and they can see me today! Hooray! I was offered a choice of several times today and had to choose the latest one because I have no one to take care of the kids while I go. Jason will have to take off work early to meet me at the dentist. This is a really busy time for him right now because he'll be gone next week while we're on vacation. I am really wishing it wasn't so danged complicated just to get my sore tooth fixed! Now I am not at all complaining about my dentist. I love her, recommend her to people all the time and several members of her family read this blog. Heck, for all I know she might even read this blog. I don't think so but maybe. (Hi, Dr. Gibson.) I'm just griping because I'm frustrated that I have to be so far away from Oklahoma and all the people I know there who could watch my little ones in a case like this. Why does such a relatively simple thing like getting my tooth fixed have to be such a complicated ordeal?

And today is my anniversary and I have a paper to start writing tonight, 2 homework assignments to start so I can complete them and turn them in before our vacation and corn to vacuum up off of the carpet. Again.

You know, this whole post is just me venting about ridiculous stuff really. At least my house is safe and not flooded like those in Tennessee and hasn't been damaged by a tornado like those in Oklahoma. Really, what am I whining about after all?

Looking forward to vacation this weekend and then my mom coming to visit very soon. Maybe then I'll be less gripe-y. I hope so!

2010-05-10T12:17:00.004-04:00

Lately I've been praying for some friends. Now that sounds really pathetic when I see it in print but it's true. I have met some wonderful friends since we've lived here but we're all just so busy with our kids, our jobs, school work, etc and I haven't really met anyone who lives close to me. Also, I'm sad to say that I don't really know very many of my neighbors all that well. Sure, I know a few of them well enough to speak to them casually at the mailbox and ask after their kids but that's about it. We've lived here for almost six years and I don't really know people on my street all that well. I'd love to know people in my neighborhood who have kids the same age as mine or interests in common with Jason and me. So, armed with my neighbor gifts and my sweet little blonde-haired boy I marched over to meet the neighbors who just moved in behind our house. And what do you know...they're newlyweds who look to be about our age (or a little younger). They invited us into their house to look around, gave me their phone number in case we needed to get ahold of them and I invited them to Audrey's birthday party later this month. Now I don't know if we'll have that much in common or be good friends or anything but it sure was nice to get to meet some new friends. Can't wait to get to hang out with our neighbors at Audrey's party on the 29th.

Next, I'm going to make up some more neighbor gifts and take them to the neighbors I don't know. They only cost me about fifty cents to make because I used materials I had on hand or that were destined for the recycling bin. People are either going to think I'm totally weird fro bringing them flowers or they're really going to like it. There are a few families down the street that have young kids. I sure hope to make some friends and get some playdates for my little ones this way. I jokingly said that I was so desperate for friends when I first started staying at home that I was tempted to go door-to-door knocking til a grownup answered just so I could have an adult to talk to. Looks like that's what I'm going to have to resort to now! haha Talk about getting out of my comfort zone! But staying in that comfort zone sure hasn't made me very many friends in my neighborhood now has it?

2010-05-10T12:08:00.002-04:00

One of my New Year's resolutions this year was to write a children's book. Well it took me a while but I did it! It's just a basic, simple, silly story based on a game I play with my kids. I learned this from my parents and grandparents and now my own kids love it too. You probably even play a version of it with your little ones (or have in the past).
Here's my story:

I'm Gonna Getcha!

When I was little my grandma said to me
(slowly, slowly, slowly)
She said "I'm...gonna...getcha, getcha, getcha right there!"
And she'd tickle, tickle, tickle til I giggle, giggle, giggled.

Now you're my little one and I love to say to you
(slowly, slowly, slowly)
I say "I'm…gonna…getcha, getcha, getcha right there!
And I tickle, tickle, tickle til you giggle, giggle, giggle.

Now you've got a little sister and I love to say to her
(slowly, slowly, slowly)
I say " I'm…gonna…getcha, getcha, getcha right there!
And I tickle, tickle, tickle til she giggle, giggle, giggles.

One day you'll have a little one all your own and you'll love to say to them
(slowly, slowly, slowly)
You'll say " I'm…gonna…getcha, getcha, getcha right there!
And you'll tickle, tickle, tickle til they giggle, giggle, giggle.

I just submitted it to Cheerios Spoonfuls of Stories contest. The winner gets $5,000 and their book will be published and inside Cheerio boxes in 2011. WOW! Wouldn't that be an honor! You can enter at http://promo.simonandschuster.com/spoonfulsofstories/. There's no limit to how many times you can enter so I'm definitely going to get busy writing and enter some more stories. This one was just hastily written in about 10 minutes while I was changing diapers this morning. Can't wait to get busy! You can enter until July 15th, 2010. Get busy writing! :)

2010-05-10T00:29:00.004-04:00

I found this a while back while reading one of my favorite blogs "Call Her Blessed". I loved it so much I copied it and saved it on my computer to read over and over agin. Daiquiri has such a way with words. Happy Mother's Day!

The Mommy Compromise

I will read you Goodnight Moon until I have dreams of a "great green room", and I'll keep reading it because I want you to love reading and using your imagination....and because I love to smell your hair while you sit on my lap during story time.

I will deny you ice cream for dessert when you refuse to eat your vegetables. You will grow to have a healthy and strong body, and you'll learn that there are natural consequences associated with your choices.

You will sometimes choose to be naughty. I will discipline you, and I will insist that you apologize to the offended party. You will learn humility and the peace and healing that is found in being forgiven.

I will sometimes hurt your feelings or treat you unfairly. You will better understand why it's so important to treat people the way you'd like to be treated. And when I apologize, you will learn the peace and healing that can be found in forgiving someone.

You might have to dig through the "to fold" laundry basket to find them, but you have clean underwear to wear.

You can choose to dislike the name we gave you, but I will always love it because it reminds me of a time when you were a little bundle of sweet smells and sounds nestled safely in my arms.

Your best friends might someday hurt you by calling you "out of touch", "closed minded", or a "prude". But I will teach you the truth of Jesus anyway. I pray you'll let Him be your true best friend.

I understand that you really, really, really want that new toy. But you don't need another toy (and we don't always have extra money to spend). You'll learn that you're not entitled to everything you want right now.

You might feel entitled to that toy anyway, and will decide to use your own money to buy it. You'll learn the value of a dollar, how hard it is to save, and that there's a difference between earning something and being entitled to it.

You might not get a bath every other night, but you will have a clean face and hands, brushed hair and teeth, and clean clothes.

Your Mommy might seem distracted sometimes by her 'to do' list, the book she's reading, or the phone call she's on...but you will learn that your Mommy is a person too, and that sometimes you have to wait patiently for her to finish what she's doing.

I will make you pick up your toys, and you will learn the difficult but very real burden of responsibility.

Sometimes, Mommy and Daddy will go do something fun without you. You'll learn that Mommy and Daddy are a team and that we enjoy each other's company. Hopefully, our relationship will be a strong enough example for you that you never settle for someone less than God's best for you because you're lonely. It's better to be alone with God than together with the wrong person.

You will sometimes wonder why we ever had more children than one (you). The world would just be so much easier for you if you were our sole focus and you didn't have to share you toys or room with anyone. But someday Daddy and I will be in Heaven, and you'll be so glad to have someone to share with.

I will make you say "please" and "thank you" and "excuse me" until we're all just plain sick of hearing me say the words "what do you say?", but you will learn manners because it's a way we communicate respect with the people in our lives.

I will sometimes lose my temper. I will sometimes spill the milk. I will sometimes use a voice that is not loving or kind. You will be a bit shaken to see me stumble, but you'll learn that no one is perfect and that life goes on even when we make mistakes.

Sometimes I'll pick up your toys when you really don't want to do it. Sometimes I'll let you have ice cream for dessert even when you don't finish your vegetables. Sometimes I'll buy you that new toy even though you don't need it (and we don't have a whole lot of extra money). And you'll learn that you're worth spoiling from time to time...and you'll learn that sometimes a Mommy just wants her kids to feel special and cherished no matter the cost.

Oh my! Wasn't that just beautiful?! Head on over to
http://www.calledblessed.com/search?q=the+mommy+compromise and leave her a comment if you loved this as much as I do.

2010-05-06T21:45:00.004-04:00

****Warning**** I've got homework due tonight and am frantic to finish but took a minute to write this post. I am not at all going to swear it will be gramatically correct, have the right punctuation, etc. because I'm just gonna type it up quickly and redo it later if necessary. Here we go!

So much to talk about so little time! As always I've got homework due so the pressure is on to get it done by midnight. I ALWAYS wait til last minute no matter how much I swear I'm not going to. Whatever. It works for me. Most of the time. :)

I have got some BIG plans for my birthday. It's not until July but man oh man I'm gonna have a great one! Now the explanation of how I stumbled upon this amazing idea is a long one. Here's the short version. While looking on one of my favorite craft sites (One Pretty Thing), I came across this: http://www.sowonderfulsomarvelous.com/2010/04/34-random-ish-acts-of-kindness-birthday.html. It's an amazing and inspiring list of 34 "randomish" acts of kindess that Michelle did for her birthday. She was inspired by a post by Robyn over at Mix Mingle Glow http://mixmingleglow.com/blog/?p=1358. Go ahead and read some or all of these posts. I'll wait.

SEE?!!! Aren't these amazing! I cried reading them and hearing other people's reactions to the kindness of strangers. I am definitely doing this on my birthday.
I've already started, though not with a stranger exactly. Yesterday I bought flowers for my new neighbors while buying plants for my garden. Today I decorated a flowerpot to put them in and am taking them over tomorrow to introduce myself. I mean they're practically in my backyard so I could at least go over and say hi, right?

Oh yeah....where did I get the idea for this neighbor gift? From One Pretty Thing and JesseKate desings. (http://jessekatedesigns.blogspot.com/2009/05/teacher-gift-idea-with-applique.html) And the cards in the flowers came from Amanda Joy at http://joyeverafter.squarespace.com/blog/2010/2/23/love-your-neighbor.html. Tired of all the links to other sites here? Sorry! Just want to share these great ideas with you! And no, I don't really spend all THAT much time on the computer. The fine folks over at One Pretty Thing do that for me. I just read that and man oh man do I find some amazing stuff!!!

Sorry this last one is blurry! It was getting dark and I had to hustle. I had a sweet little boy who was WAAYY late getting to bed and was trying to help. :)

And I am posting this not to toot my own horn or say "oh, look at this nice thing I did" but because I want to see how many people will do this with me. I want everyone who reads this to just do one nice thing for someone you don't know. Then come tell me about it. Email me, leave a comment here, send me a text or a message on Facebook, whatever. Just please do. Consider it my birthday present this year. :) Let's see how many nice things we can do for someone else this year.

Linking to Just for the JOY at Good, True and Beautiful.

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2010-04-26T21:11:00.002-04:00

Quickly because I have a lot of homework due tonight:

My Degree Progress
Major: Early Childhood Education
Current GPA: 3.44 <----could be a little better but I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it for sure!
Credits Completed: 105.00
Credits Currently Scheduled: 12.00

You only have 15.00 credits to go!
Your estimated completion date is:
October 4, 2010

Hooray! The end is near! I got a phone call today from my academic advisor that says I can now consider myself in "graduate status". Which means I'm very much on the downhill stretch and I can't wait til October!

2010-04-22T23:20:00.005-04:00

Easter 2010

Coloring eggs at Chic-fil-a. We don't have to make a mess at our house! And it's FREE!
Very carefully lining up his stickers just so...future engineer maybe?
Audrey just wants to eat the eggs.
Best part of E's day...hugging the "Chicken-a" cow.
Inwood Easter Egg Hunt 2010. Over 30,000 eggs there for the kids. Wowee!

Waiting patiently for the hunt to start.

E shares his eggs with sis.
Dressed up on Easter Sunday
Say "cheesy"!

She did NOT like the feel of the grass on her bare legs!
But she thought these eggs tasted pretty yummy.

Most recent family picture. Somebody get us some sunglasses!

2010-04-22T13:02:00.004-04:00

Audrey's first tooth. Obviously we celebrated by getting her first toothbrush. By now she's got two teeth on the bottom and I think about to get some on top too. Better posting this late than never, right?

2010-04-19T23:15:00.002-04:00

Aaahhh! Finally! Some time to blog! It's late at night and everyone is in bed. I should be too but then I remembered I left that "I love Swagbucks" post up and didn't post anything since. Sorry! I DO still love Swagbucks. Just got 2 more $5 Amazon gift cards for FREE! But that's enough about that. We've been busy around here. I just finished up another class last week. That means a flurry of paper writing and homework all due the last week of class. Whew! I got another A though so I'm very happy. Only 5 more classes to go. This past weekend was one of the first weekends I haven't had to do homework and MAN was it nice!

We have been getting rid of a lot of things we no longer use and trying to organize things around our house. Really we haven't done much of this in about a year and a half so it was bad. When I was pregnant with Audrey, I just felt so bad all the time and had zero energy. Then after she was born I just felt like it was all I could do to get everybody dressed (most days) and fed and changed and keep them happy all day long. Stuff piled up and piled up until our bedroom looked like a disaster! Why our bedroom? Because we could shut the door when we had company! :)

Now we're finally finding time to go through things and get rid of the stuff we haven't used in a while. It feels really good. I've been posting it all on Freecycle. I love it! It helps me AND it helps someone else too! Basically it's like putting an ad in the paper and saying "Hey, here's some free stuff...come and get it!" I got the sweetest email from a lady to whom I had given a huge box of craft supplies. She's a retired lady on a fixed income and she said the two boxes of stuff I gave her will keep her busy crafting for a long time. That sure felt nice. And I certainly wasn't using it...why not let someone else benefit?

In other news, we're busy planning Audrey's birthday party. I cannot believe she is going to be ONE! Where did this year go? It's been a tough one, that's for sure. Crazy and wonderful and I certainly haven't gotten very much sleep. That's getting better slowly but I suspect it won't get dramatically better until I'm done with school. Hurry up, October!

I'll try to post again soon! :)

2010-04-11T14:05:00.002-04:00

I am loving this new search engine I'm using called Swagbucks. Basically you earn money for using Swagbucks to search the Internet. It's easy and I just redeemed 450 Swagbucks for a $5.00 Amazon gift card. I read a great post on Freebies 4 Mom that convinced me to give it a try.

She said

I honestly was kind of skeptical about Swagbucks until I actually started using it consistently as my search engine. Here's why I'm now a huge fan:
* Get Results: I get similar search results to what I would get using Google
* Rewarding: I earn Swagbucks often enough just by using it as my search engine that it feels rewarding.
* Big Wins: I often win more than a single point, my biggest one-time win was 5 points - very rewarding. There are also free codes given out often. Read their blog to catch them while they're valid.
* Referrals are Easy: Anyone can refer their friends to use Swagbucks and earn their points faster
* $5 Amazon.com Gift Cards: It's been easy for me to select and redeem my reward of choice when I have earned 450 points. You can redeem a maximum of two rewards per day.
* Not Annoying: Some websites simply annoy me because of the way they are designed or the ads they display. Swagbucks is not an annoying site and it's quite user-friendly.

The biggest reason why I'm a fan of Swagbucks? I'm earning gift cards by doing something I'd normally do on the web - using a search engine. It doesn't require any extra email. I've just bookmarked Swagbucks.com so that I can get there easily anytime I want to search for something. They also have toolbars that you can download so that it becomes part of your internet browser. I hope that it becomes a great resource for you to earn some gift cards just by searching the web!

OK, OK, I thought. I'll try it. If I hate it then I don't have to use it anymore. It sure didn't take long and now I'm hooked! I almost ordered Miss Audrey a Pat the Bunny book when it was on sale at Amazon for $5.49. I had earned a $5 gift card from Swagbucks and it would have made this book only $0.49 plus shipping and handling! Sweet deal!

You should definitely click on my link over to the right and try it out for yourself. I am LOVING IT!

2010-04-08T22:20:00.007-04:00

One more quick post. It seems I either have no time to post and a lot to talk about or a lot of time (though not lately!) and nothing to talk about. Sorry for the erratic nature of these last few weeks. Sometimes that's just the way it goes with me, I guess.

I love being able to give gifts to my friends and family. It really makes me so happy to give someone something I've worked hard to make.

Here's the cute craft project/recipe I found at How Does She? Oreo Cookie Sucker

Then of course I had to make something to hold those cute little suckers so I adapted this to make a cute gift for my friend for Easter. Sucker Holder It's basically a 2x4 that has been cut, painted, decoupaged and then had a coat of clear sealer added. SUPER EASY! Add some holes to the top for suckers and you're done. I had all of this stuff on hand and Jason cut the board for me from some scraps in our garage. Nice!

Oops! Forgot to take a picture of all of the steps. Melt "candy wafers" (or white dipping chocolate) in a large bowl. Take the tops off of the Oreos. Place a small bit of chocolate (or in this case white chocolate) inside the Oreo. Add a sucker stick. Place top back on cookie and allow to set. Cover cookie with chocolate, decorate and allow to harden and dry on waxed paper.

Wrap in lollipop bags and tie with ribbon or use twist tie to close. Then of course you need something cute to put them in!

These are some hastily taken, very off centered and not doctored in any way photos. Sorry! That's the kind of gal I am lately. This is the front of the sucker holder.

Back of sucker holder

Now put in your cute little Oreo suckers and enjoy! Good thing I made one for myself too! :)

Linking this to Just for the Joy

and Show Off Your Stuff

P.S. Nana, Easter pics and pictures of Audrey's first tooth coming. Sometime. I promise! Maybe even before next Easter!

2010-04-08T22:07:00.004-04:00

I am finally getting a short time to blog. Let's start with a couple cute pictures of the rainbow rice project we did last week.

For instructions, check out Pink and Green Mama. For the link, scroll down a few posts. It's late and I'm being lazy. Will link up again when I get a chance.

We both loved this project. I think maybe I loved it more than he did but he did like it. :) Something about those rainbow cupcakes got me all rainbow-obsessed. Nothin' wrong with that, right? :)

2010-04-05T19:18:00.003-04:00

7:15-kids awake. Diapers, breakfast. A upset. E gives her pats. So SWEET! Find wasp in E's room. Kill it w/wasp spray. Read the can when finished and see it says not to use indoors under any circumstance. Freak out about fumes and open the windows as much as possible.

8:15-school w/E. LOTW-Rr, color-red, shape-rectangle, song-Row Your Boat, words-rain, rainbow, rabbit and robot. He LOVES it. "Easton so 'cited!"

8:45-E and A play eggs in the LR floor. E asks sis "Do you see orange? Good!" :)

9:10-watch Curious George 2 with E while A takes a nap. Watch a little, play a little cars, play a little tickle fight, watch a little more.

10:35-diaper and daytime clothes for E, shower and clothes for me.

11:20-E asks for "more preschool". Set him up with a snack and pom pom rectangle page. He really likes it and says "Easton put it!"when he puts one on.

11:30-Sis up from nap. Change and get her dressed for the day. Play in floor w/E and A for a bit. Find ants in kitchen. Same place as last year. Spend the rest of the day feeling like I've got bugs crawling on me. UGH!

12:15-lunch for everyone. Change both kids and put A down for 2nd nap. Upload pics to computer while E plays cars. He says he's "just busy mama." A doesn't sleep. She feels hot and is probably teething. I give her Tylenol and a bottle.

1:00-get diaper bag ready and kids out the door on time. Pick up J from work so he can watch the kids during my consultation w/oral surgeon about my wisdom teeth.

2:00-appt goes well. Dr Amos says he DOES NOT recommend taking them out at this time. The pain I've been having is most likely due to a very small cavity that is not yet able to be picked up on xray or from an old filling that is failing. This great news saves J 2 or 3 vacation days, me a lot of pain and our bank account $2315. Nice! We go to Sonic for Happy Hour Cokes to celebrate.

4:00-arrive home. Unload kids and stuff from car. Change diapers and hang out in the living room for a while. A is still fussy and feverish. E asks for a "teever" and keeps putting his hand in his mouth. 2 teething, cranky kids who missed their afternoon nap due to my appt.

5:00-J is working later tonight to make up for missing time earlier in the day. I give the kids fruit and veg for dinner. Both are whiney and cry throughout dinner. Time for Motrin.

5:45-sit down on the couch to feed A her bottle. E gets into my purse and into the lotion. By the time I catch him, he's smeared lotion over his face, the cabinets and a lot of the contents of my purse. Clean him up and get both kids changed and into jammies for the night. Both are already rubbing their eyes and still fussing.

6:00-J comes home. Hooray! We read stories, brush the kid's teeth and put them to bed by 6:45. Whew! Collapse in a heap on the couch and look around at my messy house but am too tired to do anything about it.

Not included in the above list: the 20 or so songs we sang today, the 50 or so messes my kids made (only slightly exaggerated), and the 2 or 3 times I had to put E in timeout for pulling the cat's tail or smacking his sister or the approximately 239 Cheerios I have stepped on today. I vacuumed them up but they'll be back tomorrow, trust me.

7:20-heat up dinner for me and J. Thank goodness I don't have to cook or do homework tonight! Will attempt to upload some pictures and blog tomorrow.

2010-04-05T12:44:00.002-04:00

So much to blog about, so little time!

Audrey's first tooth (and first toothbrush too!)
Doing "school" with Easton
Easter pictures
Easter craft project pics and recipe
Easter dinner recipes (Best brisket recipe EVER!)
And one final thing...I've got to have my wisdom teeth out! Gotta go to my consultation right now but I'll post more later today if I get a chance.
Happy Monday!

2010-03-31T23:04:00.004-04:00

This is gonna be a short post because it's late and I need to get to bed.

Tomorrow I'm going to start making up some "lesson plans" for home preschool with E. He's really interested and loved going to the "preschool store" today. (Teacher supply store in Winchester). I'm planning on using some of my stuff from when I taught at Braddock Street so it should be fun and fairly easy. The hard part will be the planning and getting it all ready before hand so there's no waiting around for E during the day. He's really into counting right now so I bought him some counting bears. They're little plastic colored bears and they come with cups to help with sorting and matching, etc. He really seemed interested in them at the store and they were cheap and cute. I also got him a numbers puzzle so we'll try those out and see how it goes. We're going to start out with only a few things here and there and see how it goes. He's still really young yet but I think he'll do well. He knows all his colors, most of the uppercase letters, can recognize his numbers (mostly) from 1-9 and can count from one to "firteen" (13).

This isn't part of our official "preschool"stuff...that won't come til much later. Lots of planning yet to do. Anyway, tomorrow we're making "rainbow rice" from Pink and Green Mama

photo borrowed from Pink and Green Mama. Can't wait to see how E reacts to this! I hope it dries quickly because I can tell you he is not gonna be able to wait very long to play in it!

P.S. I want to be just like Pink and Green Mama when I grow up. She has such great ideas! And she lives relatively close to me too....Northern Virginia. Pink and green are Apple Blossom colors. OK seriously I am not a stalker but don't you just wanna meet her and hang out with her while she does all these cool projects? I'm gonna stop now before I start sounding real crazy but really I'm just so in awe of some people's creativity!

2010-03-25T16:52:00.006-04:00

LOOK AT THAT!!! ^ I made that! Holy cow. I never thought I'd figure it out but I did! It's still got to be resized a little and tweaked a bit but I DID IT! Thanks to a very easy tutorial found at Clover Lane.

I don't love it yet. Too many pictures, the text is too small and it needs to be resized. It will have to be wonky for a while. The babies are awake and it's time to make dinner. I'll try to get it fixed as soon as possible. It's really gonna bug me til I do. Meanwhile, I figured out how to resize it and made a few changes and now I really like it. I'm so proud! I'm doing the happy dance because I DID IT! I made my own photo header! :)

2010-03-22T16:33:00.008-04:00

My friend Katy and one of the rainbow cupcakes I made just for her. This picture makes me so happy. I love it for two reasons. One, Katy is of one of my favorite people. Katy is creative, fun, very smart and a great friend. She is a photographer in NYC. (Although she is modest and will tell you that she just works at a portrait studio and does not particularly love living there.)

And the other reason I love this picture? Rainbow cupcake!!! It was really fun to see everyone's reaction to the cupcakes. Even the waitresses commented on them. Maybe I'm a little bit vain for loving the attention but it sure was fun. :) That night Katy and I had a totally unplanned cupcake trade. She made the most delicious Snickerdoodle cupcakes! From scratch! From Bakerella's recipe I believe. I literally licked the cupcake wrapper when I finished eating one of them. They were THAT good!

And here is a link to the recipe for rainbow cupcakes

Linking this to Just for the JOY. Because Katy and rainbow cupcakes bring me joy. Especially Katy.

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I really should make cupcakes more often. Because really who doesn't love a cupcake?

2010-03-22T15:48:00.003-04:00

"I love you to the moon and back". Oh, I love the book Guess How Much I Love You! Easton tells me he love me two times (his way of saying a LOT) and I tell him I love him to the moon and back. Kristin at La Dolce Vita makes beautiful jewelery and is giving away a gorgeous necklace with this sweet quote from Guess How Much. I would love to win but if I don't, I hope someone I know wins! Go check it out!

La Dolce Vita

2010-03-21T22:47:00.004-04:00

We had a busy weekend. Lots of playing outside, cooking dinner on the grill and getting stuff done. It was really nice. We did lots of laundry, cleaned a TON, planted the forsythia and lavender I bought last week, played ball with Easton, ate lunch on the front porch and just had a fantastic weekend. He was so cute today! He saw two birds in the sky and said "Hi birds!" Then he looked at me and said "Mama, catch it!" He put his arms out and tried to catch the birds flying overhead. Such a sweetie! I haven't taken any pictures all weekend. I was just too busy runnin after Easton and taking care of Audrey to get out the camera!

It's supposed to rain tomorrow so Easton will be heartbroken that he can't go outside but maybe he'll live. I'm trying to think of something fun to do inside. Maybe we'll make a tent in the living room and read lots of books. That sounds pretty fun to me! Maybe we'll even have a carpet picnic in our tent. We'll see.

Oh man...I had to buy Audrey a big kid car seat this weekend. I can't believe she's outgrown her infant carrier! She weighs 20.9 lbs and is 29 1/2 inches long. She'll be 10 months old a week from today. Of course I've already started planning her birthday party. Any excuse to plan a party and I'm a happy girl! I'm thinking of doing a "Pinkalicious" themed cupcake party. If you haven't read the book called Pinkalicious, it is SO cute! It's about a girl who loves pink and eats too many pink cupcakes. Every little girl needs a copy of this sweet book! (Hint, hint! We don't own that one yet!) There's also a Purplicious and a Goldilicious. Can't wait to read those. And can't wait to have Audrey's party! Has it really been a year already (almost)?! This past year has flown by in a haze of bottles, diapers, formula and many, many pots of coffee. I'm already missing my "little baby" but am perfectly content with my family as it is. No more little ones for this tired mama! (Although someone may have to remind me of that in a few years.)

I can't believe I was wearing shorts and running around outside while all of my family in Oklahoma was dealing with SNOW! On the first day of Spring! So glad all we're getting from that is a little rain tomorrow. I am NOT a fan of the cold/snow/ice. None for me, thanks! Hope everyone had a relaxing weekend!

2010-03-19T16:04:00.009-04:00

I am loving this warm weather! And the kids are too. Here are a few pictures I took of Audrey recently.

Typical Audrey. Smiling with that wide open grin. And yes, she is (almost) always this happy. But boy when she's not, she sure lets you know. This girl can SCREAM! Don't let the pictures fool you. She's got a definite feisty side!

I love this last one.

And one not so great picture of me giving "the look". :)

Happy Spring!

2010-03-18T14:05:00.003-04:00

Whew! What a week! Why is it that some days are easy-peasy and others are just BRUTAL?! I know, that's just the way life is but MAN, yesterday was a doozy! Easton decided to take his diaper off first thing in the morning before I was even out of bed so my day started out with me having to clean up pee and poop from the carpet. The rest of the day just went downhill from there. I won't get into all the details here because really it was just a bunch of little, tedious, annoying stuff that added up to one exhausting day.

But on a much brighter note, Easton and I have been having lots of talks about God lately. It started out last week with me praying out loud in the car. Then it really picked up after I prayed with him one morning during a rainstorm. We thanked God for the rain, thanked Him for the fact that we are all healthy and happy and safe. Now every day since then Easton has told me "Thank You God uh rain, Mama." Yes, sweet boy, thank you God for the rain.

I'm not really one who prays easily out loud. I know this is really ridiculous of me but I always worry that I'm gonna say the wrong thing or sound silly or whatever. In fact, when my friend asks me to say the blessing before we eat together, I always blush and get real embarrassed and she says it for us. What is up with that? There's absolutely nothing to be shy about! Praying is just talking to God and thanking Him for all he has given us. Why is that embarrassing? You know what? I'm done being embarrassed about that. What a silly waste of energy to be embarrassed over something like that! Also I realized that if Jason and I don't teach our children to pray, then how are they going to learn? So have been making it a point to pray out loud with Easton a lot. It's been really good for us both. :)

And this next part has been the highlight of this crazy, crazy week:

Some of you may have seen this on Facebook already but I just had to share it again. According to Easton, "God plays cars a lot. God needs to vacuum too."
Goodness, I love that little boy!

2010-03-11T16:35:00.004-05:00

When my friend Mandy asked about the 2nd verse to You Are My Sunshine, I Googled it (cue Isla Fisher: "Yes, I Googled.") to make sure I was getting it exactly right. Boy, did I learn a lot about a song I thought I knew!

The first verse:
The other night dear, as I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you in my arms
When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken
So I hung my head and I cried.

The familiar part of the song (the chorus):
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away

Verse 2:
I'll always love you and make you happy,
If you will only say the same.
But if you leave me to love another,
You'll regret it all some day

Repeat chorus

Verse 3:
You told me once, dear, you really loved me
and no one else could come between.
But now you've left me and love another
You have shattered all my dreams

Chorus

Lyrics found at WICN.org

Isn't that sad?! And apparently this song also carries quite a bit of controversy. Go to Rosemont Records to read an article called "The Theft of an American Classic".

Easton always asks me to sing "cried". He loves that verse for some reason. I love the sweet and happy sounding chorus but the sad part is his favorite.

2010-03-10T21:51:00.008-05:00

I've been singing to my babies since before they were born. What? You say you've never heard me sing? Yeah. There's a good reason for that. I do alright I guess but I think I'm probably the only one who thinks so. :) But for my babies, I'll sing anytime, anywhere, any song. Lately Easton has been saying "Mama sing." Well, OK little man. So I sing. And usually he just stares at me with those gorgeous big blue eyes and his little dimpled grin. He waits patiently for me to finish and then says "Sing 'gin". And I do. Over and over and over. Over the Rainbow, You are My Sunshine, Twinkle Twinkle, Los Pollitos, Old McDonald and many more.

Yesterday we were running errands. It was a gorgeous day. The sun was shining, the sky was blindingly blue and I just felt like singin'. I sang You Are My Sunshine. First the familiar first verse and then the sad but beautiful second verse, which is Easton's favorite. And for the first time, from the back seat...quietly, beautifully, I heard my little boy singin' right along with me.

It was so wonderful and sweet and unexpected that as soon as I finished the song I started praying right out loud:
"Lord, thank You for this beautiful day! Thank You for Easton and Audrey and Daddy's good job and for Easton's beautiful singing voice. Thank You that we have plenty of food to eat and a nice house to live in. Please help us to be thankful to you even on the gloomy days, but oh, Father, thank You for this beautiful day today!"

I had a smile on my face the rest of the day.

Want to read more "Just for the JOY" posts? Head over to

Good, True and Beautiful. Yeah, I know. 2 posts in a row pointing you to Sharon's blog. You should go. Really. It's good stuff. I promise!

P.S. I know I have posted this pic of E here before but it's my sweet little boy. In the car. Lookin' cute! I just had to post it again with this story. :)

2010-03-08T15:32:00.004-05:00

I found this post at one of my favorite blogs Good, True and Beautiful.
It absolutely, positively, perfectly sums up how I feel about being a stay at home mom. Sure wish I could write as well as Sharon!

2010-03-08T15:07:00.004-05:00

Eww, yuck! I should not leave such a "feeling sorry for myself" post up for so long without adding something new! Sorry! Some days are just like that. When I wrote that post I was exhausted. Nothing like a good night's sleep to make you see things from a new perspective. I'm feeling much better now. I'm in the last week of one of my classes and that means it's final paper time. 8-10 pages due tonight and I'm only halfway done. But I'm fine. Thanks for the emails and phone calls. Just crazy busy right now. After this paper is done, I'll be working on some projects for upcoming birthdays and starting to plan Audrey's birthday party. I can't believe how fast this year has flown by! I'll have more time to blog after this paper is submitted but for now I've got to get to work!

2010-03-04T14:32:00.002-05:00

As usual, I'm taking time to blog when I havent' had a shower, the house is a wreck and I have homework due. I'll try to make it short 'cause I've gotta GET BUSY!

Jason and I have been trying to get a workout in each day. I say trying because just as I decide to quit being lazy and get back to working out and eating right I hurt my shoulder. Not exactly sure how but I do know it hurts like crazy. Probably from trying to hold a wildly thrashing two year old with one hand while trying to change his diaper. Or carrying both kids at the same time. That's FIFTY pounds of wiggling little kiddos! Anyway, I am going to get off of here and attempt at least one Ten Minute Trainer workout. As long as I don't have to do anything that hurts my shoulder I should be ok. And if the kids cooperate. We have been running with the Wii lately. That feels pretty good. First I did 4 miles, then 4.5 and last night I did FIVE MILES! I have never been a runner so five blocks is an accomplishment for me, much less 5 miles in 30 minutes. Well, OK technically it was 4.98 miles but that is close enough for me! Will keep trying to work out when we can. So far I've run every day since Monday. That sounds so much better than saying "I've only run 3 days in a row"! I'm going to try to log how many miles I run. I'm interested to see how many miles I run this year.

The downside to all this working out is I am EXHAUSTED! We've tried various tricks and times to workout other than after the kids are in bed but nothing else seems to work. We go for our run with the Wii and then by the time we cool down and shower and get to bed it is usually around midnight. Lately E's been getting up bright and early so it's getting harder and harder for me to get up in the mornings. I love the way I feel when I work out but am going to get sick and burnt out if I don't figure out a way to get more sleep. I sure wish I could find a babysitter for an hour or so every day so I could get my exercise and shower in and not be interrupted. I've considered finding a gym with childcare but that is not in the budget and I know we would eventually get tired of the hassle of loading everyone up in the car just to go somewhere for an hour.

I'm tired. Tired of being tired. Tired of being overweight and tired of griping about how I can't find time to exercise. When I MAKE time, then I end up exhausted because the only time that works is late at night. I am discouraged but will keep trying. At least I'm eating somewhat healthy. Most of the time.

Time to get off of here and get busy. Wish me luck! I'm gonna need it!

2010-03-04T09:43:00.002-05:00

Yep, it worked. You can't write much of a post in only 160 characters so I don't really see the point. At least I learned something new today, useless or not.

2010-03-04T09:29:00.002-05:00

Blogging by text message? No way! Let's see if this works.

2010-03-01T00:05:00.004-05:00

Hey, look! I got a signature! Hey, look! I got a fancy new navigation bar! Ooh, aah! Wanna see a recipe? Just click Recipes (right under the title of this blog. Cool, huh? Or maybe I'm just impressed with myself that I figured out how to do this. (Translation: stumbled upon a ridiculously easy, step-by-step tutorial and followed the directions.) I'll be making more changes in the next few weeks. Please bear with me if things look a little wonky. :)

2010-02-28T23:25:00.001-05:00

If you have ever said something and then immediately thought "I never thought I'd have to say THAT!", you should go to Meanest Mommy.Com and read her rules. Hilarious! Here are some of my favorites:

Rule #256: Cereal found under the couch (or under the pew cushions at church, or your coat pocket, or the bottom of Mommy’s purse . . . fill in the blank) is not an appropriate snack.

Rule #250: If you make so much noise that you wake the baby, please do not ask me to turn up the tv so you can hear over his screaming.
Rule #242: No matter how good it smells, you may not stick the chocolate chips up your nose. And most certainly do not attempt to eat extracted chocolate chips afterwards.
Rule #237: Your effort to avoid puking on the clean sheets is admirable. Next time, try also not to puke over the side of the bed onto your sister’s upturned, smiling face.
Rule #231: When we spend 20 minutes searching everywhere for your brother’s mittens, it would be helpful for you to reveal that they are on your hands.
Rule #225: Once you have said “Mommy” (or any version of “Mommy”) 50,000 times in one day, please just stop talking.

Rule #213: No, you may not play the harmonica in the baby’s room while she is taking a nap.

Rule #198: No, you may not glue those googly-eyes on your penis and scare your brother and/or dad tonight when you’re changing into your pajamas at bedtime.

Rule #180: Do not go “check on” your baby brother when he’s sleeping. And if you do, don’t slam the door during your escape attempt.

Rule #29: Just because you don’t feel like taking a nap doesn’t mean that your little brother doesn’t need one. Quiet down, kid!

Rule #22: No, I will not give you more bath water. You had plenty until you dumped half of it on the bathroom floor.

Rule #19: Nothing good comes from you crawling around on the kitchen table.

Rule #8: Spitting in Daddy’s face is not funny. Ever.

Rule #4: No screaming loudly for more goldfish crackers when there’s a big pile of goldfish crackers right in front of you.

Rule #1: Toddlers & syrup do not mix.

2010-02-25T20:43:00.002-05:00

I've decided it's a "give homemade gifts" kind of year here at the Crafty House. If we would normally give a store-bought gift, I'm making something instead. As a result, I have piles and piles of craft supplies around my already very crowded house. It's crazy. In order to work on one of these projects, I must first have no kids around, which means only at naptime or after they're in bed for the evening. I must also have no homework due. And lastly and most far-fetched, I need to have a clean dining room table. (Ha!) Sometimes in order to quickly clean off the table temporarily, I've been known to pick up piles of books, papers, etc and put them on the bar. Then I have to scrub the jelly/yogurt/mashed bananas/whatever off of the table so I don't get it on whatever I'm working on. And that takes away more valuable time I just really do not have in the first place.

I'm really beginning to wish I'd just bought stuff on Etsy and saved myself the headache. Who am I kidding? I have NO TIME for this! Note to self: when making lofty goals such as this, consider first "Do I have time or money or energy or room to make this?" Probably not. Want a good article to help you decide if you want to DIY or not? Head over to Ohdeedoh and read this. I wish I would have read this before buying all of this fabric for projects! :)

2010-02-25T15:37:00.003-05:00

OK, OK, I know what you're thinking. Lately I've changed the look of this blog more often than I change my clothes and you're probably getting kinda tired of it. Sorry! What can I say? I'm fickle. I am ready for SPRING and if I can't have spring-like weather, I just had to get a little dose of that here on my blog. Don't worry. If you don't like this one, stick around. I'm sure I'll change it in a day or two.

Want to know how to change the look of your blog?

For some great free layouts and instructions, go to:

Hot Bloggity Blog
or
Shabby Blogs
or
The Cutest Blog on The Block

Have fun!

2010-02-25T14:52:00.005-05:00

I am sitting here surrounded by one heck of a mess. Nothing unusual...just the normal state of affairs at my house on any given day. Dishes in the sink, laundry to be done, homework to be done (DUE TONIGHT!), sewing to be done (and covering every flat surface in my kitchen and dining room), toys to be picked up, etc, etc. Ugh! How does my house get like this?! Both babies are in bed and I really should get off this computer, off of my hiney and get busy. I'm still in my pajamas! I'm drinking cold, left-over-from-this-morning coffee. I'm a mess. But I had to stop a minute and write this post before I forget.

You know, before we had Easton, I knew I would stay home once he was born. Financially it just did not make sense for me to go to work when I would basically just be working to pay for daycare while someone else raised my child. I mean I loved my job and all but it really didn't pay enough to make it worth going back to work after he was born. So we freaked out a little and then got busy making cuts. Expensive (but fun) weekly dinners with friends? Gone. Pricey home phone package we never used anyway? Cancelled. 160 something channels on our satellite package when we really only watched a hand full of channels? Cancelled those extras too. Buying whatever groceries I thought sounded good whenever I felt like grocery shopping? Nope. Time to use what you've got. Now I take stock of what we've got on hand and build meals from there. (Hmm...I could probably do a little better job with that but it really does help!) Paying full price for clothes? Never! Especially now that I have kids, I am always looking for bargains, even if that means shopping consignment stores or buying 2 to 3 sizes bigger and saving til they fit the kids. I've bought size 4 and 5 T jeans for each kid for around $2 at Target. Who can say no to $2 jeans?!

But what surprised me and what has really been our biggest secret money saving tip recently? Our bank's saving program. Every time we use our debit or checking account, our bank transfers $1 into our special savings account. At the end of the day, if you've used the account once, one dollar is transferred. If you use it 10 times, it's ten dollars. We've had that account open for 29 days and already we have saved a whopping $56. I can't believe we use our debit/check cards that much!! But it really adds up. $56 a month ends up being a yearly savings of...get ready...$672! And when you add interest and the yearly bonus the bank pays, we're talking about $724 that didn't hurt us one bit to save. NICE! And if we make an extra monthly transfer of just $25 into this account, by the end of the year we could have $1,047 in that account!

We honestly haven't missed those extra few dollars here and there. If your bank has a program like this, you really should look into it.

Now off to get a shower, make a fresh post of coffee and get busy!

2010-02-22T10:33:00.001-05:00

Oh my. This brought me to tears. How many of you can relate to this?

Grace at the Costco

2010-02-15T16:00:00.002-05:00

I am continuing to work on E's vehicle-themed room. I took a few pictures of signs and some cars and trucks he likes and had them printed out and framed. Today he helped me choose pictures for a book about cars and trucks. Right now we'll just print this out and make into a book but when it's time we can also use these same pictures to practice handwriting and/or spelling. Just thought I'd post here in case anyone else might be interested in this. E's vehicle book

2010-02-15T10:30:00.001-05:00

How to "Follow" your favorite blog

Ok first let me just say, I am probably gonna mess this up because I totally do not know all of the right technical lingo. But my sweet cousin asked a good question about this topic and I thought I would attempt to help. Please excuse me if I call something by the wrong name…I'd LOVE if anyone sees something wrong, please let me know so I can correct this post. Thank you!

Some blogs (a lot of those on Blogger) have the "follow with Google Friend Connect" application. To follow a blog all you have to do is click the button that says "follow". Then you will be asked to sign in. I have a Google account so I click that and then I type in my email address and password. Then a box pops up that says "follow this blog" and allows you to choose from 2 options:
1) follow publicly - which I do so that the blog owner knows I'm following their blog
or
2) follow privately - which I guess anyone can do if they want to but feels a little stalker-ish and creepy to me because I am keeping up with a blog but not telling anyone about it.

Now other blogs (like my Aunt Lynna's over at Okie Sister) don't have the "follow" button because they use a different type of application. She has a button on her blog that says "subscribe" and if you want to subscribe to her blog feed you type in your email address and click subscribe. When you do that, it brings up an email subscription request. Just type in the verification code and click on the button that says "complete subscription request". Then you are done. Now you will receive email updates when their is a new post on her blog.

BUT if you're like me, you probably get about a bazillion emails a day. And while I definitely want to know when my favorite blogs are updated, I would prefer to check my favorite blogs on my own instead of receiving an email about new content.

In that case, if you have a blog then you can customize your blog template and add a section kind of links to your favorite blogs (like in the right column here that say "Friends and Family's Blogs"). This is where it gets a little tricky. Right now I have a little one that is saying "Wants to pick you up please Mama". I'm guessing he needs my attention.  I'll do a post next about how to make simple modifications to your Blogger template.
Hope this helps, Sara. Stay tuned.

2010-02-12T17:13:00.002-05:00

Comments fixed. If you've been having trouble leaving a comment, I think I've fixed that. I love all of your comments, so if anyone ever has a problem, let me know!

Thanks, Mandy! :)

2010-02-11T20:37:00.004-05:00

We got out today. Hooray! Jason worked really hard and shoveled off and on ALL DAY! He's worn out (as evidenced by the fact that it's 8:30 and he's already in bed for the night). We managed to go just down the road a bit to CVS to replenish the baby goods. Oh my goodness! CVS is like a mile (maybe a little more) from our house and I was white-knuckled all the way there. This area looks like a war zone! Drifts higher than cars, people! UN. REAL!!! I spent $40 on formula, diapers, wipes and Valentines for the kids. Looks like I definitely won't be going anywhere anytime soon. The fresh air did us all some good I think. Attitudes are much better around here and Easton was so delighted to be home that as soon as we walked in the door he said "Yay, HOME!" over and over. Looks like we'll be here for the next few days. As much as I'd love to be out, I sure don't want to be driving around in this mess. In the short time we were gone, I saw people driving like idiots, kids playing around in the middle of the street, and just being ridiculous. We saw some kids pulling a sled behind a 4 wheeler down the middle of the street is DANGEROUS! What kind of parents let their kids do that?! I'm not saying I think it's a good idea but at the very least if you want to do that GET OUT OF THE STREET!

A trip to CVS might actually, technically be getting out of the house but not in my book. I want to drive myself somewhere all by myself and spend more than 15 minutes there. Wow, that sure would be nice! Still, I'm grateful we could get out because now we have diapers and formula and wipes and Valentine's and better attitudes all around.

Thanks to everyone for the sweet comments on the previous post. I was (and still am) trying to have a good attitude through this whole ordeal. Thanks!

Note to my hubby: Honey, I am so grateful to you for all of the things you do for me. You keep us safe, provide us with a beautiful home to live in, and most importantly you take over when you know I'm about to lose it. I'm so glad we're on the same team! You are my best friend. I love you more than chocolate, more than wine, more than reading a good book in the bathtub, more than shopping. Well, at least AS MUCH as I love shopping anyway. Words really can't tell you just how much I appreciate you but I do! I love you!

2010-02-11T09:19:00.004-05:00

Day 9 of being snowed in and things are not lookin' so good here. As I posted on my Facebook status last night, we stocked up before the snow came but by now we're running low on diapers, wipes, formula and patience. Had to leave the room earlier today and call mom (Sorry I woke you up, mom!) just to get a minute to myself. The kids are crazy. Easton is bouncing off the walls. He is into everything!!! Just now I was interrupted by the sound of him rummaging in the junk drawer. I got up to see what he was getting into and he took off like a shot toward the back of the house. I finally found him in his bed with a screwdriver in each hand. Hello, why have we not babyproofed that drawer?!

I haven't even taken very many pictures of this snow because frankly it makes me mad just to look at it. Snow drifts are 4-5 feet high and winds are blowing like crazy. J's out there right now shoveling but the wind keeps blowing snow back into his already-shoveled path.

Today I will be working on homework, writing a paper and trying very hard ~~not to kill anybody~~ to be thankful we still have electricity and water. Wish me luck. I'm gonna need it.

This is the day
This is the day
That the Lord has made
That the Lord has made
I will rejoice
I will rejoice
And be glad in it!
And be glad in it!

2010-02-10T14:43:00.003-05:00

Man, oh man, Sharon is giving away some amazing prizes over at Good, True & Beautiful! Check out here for another gorgeous jewelry giveaway

and here for a chance to win some personalized calligraphy. Good luck!

2010-02-08T16:06:00.003-05:00

I am all about the contests these days. Two of my favorite websites are having giveaways right now.

Head on over to Good, True and Beautiful to win a $25 gift card for EcoStoreUSA. Organic plant based products with NO NASTY CHEMICALS!

And check out Tatertots and Jello for a chance to win a $50 gift certificate for some BEAUTIFUL jewelry!

2010-02-08T00:25:00.003-05:00

Seriously? What is this? Like my 4th post in one day? I either have a lot to say or nothing to say. Actually that's not true. I almost always have something to say but no time to blog about it. Update on E's transition to big kid bed. Oh my. Since then he has taken ZERO naps at nap time and fallen asleep in the floor at bedtime more than once. He continues to trash his room during "rest time" and then he has to clean it up after rest time is over. I usually don't get any complaints from him but it sure does take a lot of time for me to sit there and watch him (and help some but not much) clean up all that stuff. He is staying up later now because he gets out of bed to play or cry at the gate in the doorway. He's overly tired and so am I. It has not been pretty. Add in several days of cold and WAAYY too much snow and it has not been pleasant around here. My house is a mess and we are DYING to get outside! Maybe when the roads clear up some I'll take the kiddos over to the Playnasium and let them (Easton) burn off some energy. Too bad that's 20 minutes away on a hilly, curvy road or I'd take them TOMORROW!!!

2010-02-07T22:56:00.002-05:00

SWEET! Just finished the taxes and we are getting a pretty great refund. Enough to pay off the last of our car loan, get my wisdom teeth removed (NOT looking forward to that!) and pay off about 2/3 of one of our biggest bills. Debt free by 2011, we are getting closer!!!

2010-02-07T22:45:00.007-05:00

The many faces of Audrey

We had a little photo shoot one day right after Audrey finished lunch. She sure was in a good mood! What a little ham! I love the one of her loving on her baby doll. Every time you hand it to her she does this. It's almost like she's giving it a kiss. So sweet!

Plus one funny picture of Easton playing in his new big boy bed. In this cardboard bus he's got 19 lovies, 1 telephone, 1 bucket of plastic food, 2 blankets and 2 sippy cups. I think he's ready for anything.

2010-02-07T22:22:00.004-05:00

I have HAD IT with winter! Enough! 28 inches is a ridiculous amount of snow. And we're supposed to get another 5 inches or more (MORE!) on Tuesday. Come on! I am about to go insane here from being cooped up in the house. I haven't left the house in 5 days and am not planning on going anywhere tomorrow and probably not Tuesday either because it will most likely be snowing. The kids are crazy too. I am so ready for Spring! Give me clear roads, sunny days and warmer weather! I want to take the kids outside for a ride in the wagon or stroller. We need to get out and get some exercise! There's only so many times we can build a fort inside before it starts to lose its appeal. (Both to me AND to Easton.)

Blogger updated my photos in a weird order this time so it's just a jumble of pictures in no real order. Some inside looking out and some from outside at the end of the driveway. Our neighbors were nice enough to help Jason unbury our mailbox and Easton was helping too. He really had a fun time until his hands started hurting because he refused to wear his mittens!

It's official. I know what we should do with our tax refund. Hawaii trip!

2010-02-07T22:20:00.001-05:00

WooHooo! I’ve entered to WIN a $100 Visa Gift Card and you can too giveaway ends 2/13!} Good, True and Beautiful

2010-02-04T17:09:00.007-05:00

I am 99.9% sure this boy will never take a nap again. Ever. Oh somebody bring me an ibuprofen STAT because I can pretty much guarantee this is not gonna go well.

***Updated***After repeatedly putting E back in his bed and telling him "This is rest time not play time. When the music is on, we stay IN BED." I gave up and put the baby gate up in his doorway. His rest time is usually 2 hours and he stays in there no matter whether he sleeps or not. He has played with his toys for two hours. Dumped out every single one of his blocks, put all of his nearly 10 loveys in a big pile in the floor with the blocks, stripped his bed of all blankets and pillows, rode his bouncy zebra for a while, threw his loveys one by one over the gate, shut and opened his bedroom door about a bazillion times and cried the entire time. Good thing Jason's going to the store and bringing home groceries. And wine. If there was ever a time he deserved a kiss, this would definitely be it.

Throughout the entire 2 hour time, other than a few reminders and two times going in to put him back in bed, I have ignored him. Is this the right thing to do? He has trashed his room and now I have to clean it up. I don't know what to do but I don't think this is it. Oh man. This is not gonna be fun.

***Upadated again***A pic of E's room. And where he finally fell asleep after crying for over two hours.

What you can't see in this picture is the baby gate right at his feet. I'm such a mean ol' mama!

2010-02-04T10:21:00.003-05:00

Want to win a gorgeous piece of jewelry in time for Valentine's Day? Head on over to Tatertots and Jello for a chance to win. And while you're there, check out some of the fun craft tutorials you'll find there. Oh boy! I am definitely adding some of these to my "someday crafts list"!

Tatertots and Jello

2010-02-04T09:55:00.003-05:00

Took A to the pediatrician because she'd been running a fever so long. By the time we got there she was no longer running a fever. (YAY!) The doc listened to her chest, looked in her mouth and ears and said she has..........a cold. So glad it turned out to be nothing! But now I look like one of thoes hypochondriac moms who take their kids to the dr for even the slightest sniffle. Oh well. Better to be safe than sorry I guess. If she had an ear infection or something and I didn't get it treated I would have felt terrible. Took A to the dr on Tuesday and she seems to be feeling better today.

In other news, we got 4-5 inches of snow last weekend and are suppposed to get a really big storm this weekend. YUCK! First of all, why does it always snow on the weekend?! And secondly, I HATE SNOW!!! I once went about 10 days straight in the house with both little ones 24/7 and I just about lost my mind. Warmer spring weather can't get here soon enough!

2010-02-02T00:29:00.003-05:00

Audrey is sick. I HATE when little ones are sick! She's been running a fever off and on since yesterday evening. Tonight it got up to 102. Not a fun time around here. She was supposed to go in today for flu shot number 2 but we had to reschedule til next week. She has no symptoms other than a fever but if she's not feeling better by tomorrow morning I'm going to call the pediatrician. She's been eating ok. A little less than usual but not dramatically so. She's had quite a few bottles today but will drink for a little while and then turn away like she's not interested. She doesn't have any congestion as far as I can tell. I wonder if her ears hurt? She hasn't been pulling on them but if my ears hurt I sure wouldn't want to be drinking much. OUCH! Poor baby! I think I'll set my alarm tonight and get up and check on her to make sure she's OK.

2010-01-31T23:17:00.005-05:00

Well our first date night since September was cancelled due to snow. I was so incredibly disappointed but not terribly surprised. It stinks because we rarely get a night out without the kids but I kind of knew we'd be staying at home once I saw the weather report. Man, I sure wish we still lived in Oklahoma! I know a bunch of people there! I know a bunch of people here too but not ones I'd leave my kids with. (ha! Just seeing how many locals read this. I'm guessing not many.) I do know two or three people who would watch them but most of the people I know are either too busy or too far away from my house. And like one of my friends said, "How do you find reliable, trustworthy people to watch your kids? It's not like you can just open the phone book and find someone." Hmmm....brings to mind that "BABYSETTER" sign I saw a while back. Maybe I'll give them a call. Um, no!

We might have a sitter for Valentine's Day though. My sweet friend who was going to watch the kids for us last night said her hubby has to work that day so she can watch our kids while we go out. But J and I have always avoided going out specifically on Valentine's Day because everywhere is always so crowded. Plus, I usually just cook whatever special thing we decide to eat and it's always way cheaper. But now that we have a sitter we'll be going out. I have no idea where we'll go or what we'll do but I'm sure we'll find something. Any suggestions?

2010-01-31T23:12:00.002-05:00

Potty training this weekend was SO much work! Five accidents before lunch time today tells me our boy is not quite ready to quit wearing diapers. He's not even really that interested. Sometimes he thinks he is but I think for the most part he is not quite there. And we chickened out on making his bed into a big boy bed. We thought we were going to have a babysitter last night and didn't want her to have to deal with that so we left the crib. Maybe next weekend. In the meantime though we are going to put him in onesies under his clothes so he can't take off his diaper and potty in the floor. I do not want anymore repeats of the time he came running in here with a bare little bottom saying "Poop EVERYWHERE!" Oh man. That was not fun! We'll wait a couple weeks and try again. Or maybe not. Maybe we'll just let him tell us when he's ready. To be continued...

2010-01-29T14:51:00.003-05:00

I've added links to some of my favorite crafty websites and also added more favorites, new and old. Take a minute to check out some of these sites and leave them a comment if you do.

P.S. If you have a blog, let me know. I'd love to add your blog to my favorites list!

2010-01-28T00:03:00.003-05:00

Resolutions? What resolutions? Kidding. I still remember that list of goals I have for this year. Where do we stand on that list? After almost a month, let's see. Warning: this is gonna be a long one!

Reliable, trustworthy and inexpensive babysitter? Check. We're going out this weekend for the first time since...I can't remember when. Months and months ago.

Rough draft of book? Um...multiple drafts have been written and promptly thrown away. That is one of many ongoing projects. I WILL write that book this year!

2 huge totes of toys and books given to the daycare I used to work for. That felt great! 5 giant bags of maternity clothes plus multiple other things given to a friend. That felt pretty good too. Now if only I could do that with the rest of my house!

Bible reading? We've done some but not every night like I had hoped. We really enjoy reading together and are learning a lot. It gives us a lot to talk about and a good feeling. I really want to find a church now that we know we're going to stay here a while. I want to quit talking about it and DO IT!

Paint kitchen and hall? Not started yet but some day. As long as it's this year I'm fine with that. Will probably wait til the weather warms up some so we can have the windows open.

Craft projects? I’m about a third of the way through my “someday crafts” list. Projects since Jan 1 include: framed pics for E's room, 2 hand sewn robot pillows, 1 sun pillow, 2 no-sew fleece blankets, 1 baby quilt, 1 crayon/note pad holder, 2 crinkly baby toys and started but not finished 8 bibs, 1 coffee cozy. That list? I'm workin on it!!! Now if I could just quit adding to the list, I'll be ok.

Exercise? Yeah. That’s the one I’m really disappointed with myself about. We ran into a problem after only a short few days. We started out setting our alarm for 5 a.m. That in itself is truly a huge thing for us. We stay up late (case in point…right now it is 12:23 and I’m still typing this) so getting up early usually doesn’t happen. But we did it. For about a week or maybe more we got up at 5. Trouble is, so did Audrey. That girl must have super sonic hearing because she heard us over the music playing in her room. Granted, our room is just right across the hall but we were being very quiet. Really! So then we quit getting up early because on the days she wakes up that early, her schedule is completely wrecked for the day. And a baby off schedule and overly tired is just no fun at all. For anyone. So then I tried working out while the kids were sleeping. The trouble with that? My kids decided to quit napping. I think they know when I have decided to try to get something done. They say “Oh, really mom? You think so? Nope. We’ve got other plans.” Trying hard to keep going, we decided to work out after the kids were in bed. And that plan? Yeah…that did not work out either. Once the kids are in bed, we have to get the dishes done, do laundry, go through the mail, etc. By the time we’re done, we’re so exhausted we just collapse on the couch and it’s usually 9 or 10 p.m. But we’re not giving up! This weekend, we’re going to take a look at our schedule again and see where we can make changes to make this work. We’re gonna do it! We’ve already made HUGE changes in our eating and I’ve lost 7 lbs without even working out. Nice! Imagine what I could do if I could get an actual workout in!

Pay off debt? We’re working on it! Waiting to get J’s W-2 next week so we can get our taxes done. When we get our refund we’re paying off our car! Woohoo!

Worry less? Yep. So far. Pray more. Definitely. Play more? Oh yeah. I painted with Easton in the kitchen floor this week. He LOVED it!

Get more sleep? Most of the time. Not tonight though. Man, I’m gonna need all the coffee I can get tomorrow.

One thing I didn’t talk about but is always a yearly goal of mine is to blog more. So far, so good on that one. And I want to be better about commenting on the blogs I read. I still need to work on that but am doing better when I have the time. I’m still a habitual lurker though so that’s gonna be a hard habit to break. If you have a blog and I haven’t commented on it in a while, bear with me. I’ll get there, I promise!

2010-01-27T22:31:00.002-05:00

We finally got new cell phones this week. And ditched at&t too. We had OK service with them but really crappy customer service. Plus Sprint had much better monthly prices...if you can call $130 a month (COUGH!) for two phones a good price. Now I've got a shiny new purple Blackberry and I tell you this thing is so different from my last phone that I think I need to take a class on how to use this thing. I already love the fact that I can surf the web on my phone or play music or get on Facebook easily but some things annoy me. I can't figure out how to quit getting alerts each time I get an email. I like that I can check my email if I want but don't want an icon to pop up each time I get an email. I know probably all I have to do is uncheck some box or something but haven't had the time to figure it out yet. I also haven't figured out how to move my contacts over from my old phone because whatever application you need is corrupt in my old phone. So if I havent' called you in a while that probably means I don't have your number plugged in my new phone yet. I'll get there though. Eventually. One other thing I can't figure out on my Blackberry is how to get only status updates only in my facebook feed. On my desktop I changed the settings so I don't see all of the "so and so is playing this game" notifications but can't figure out how to do this on my phone. So far it seems that the Blackberry doesn't have a very long battery life either. This might be because each time I get an email and the little icon pops up I feel like I have to check it immediately just to make that little icon go away. Gotta figure out how to get rid of that so I'm not checking my email so often and I'm sure that will help with the battery life. But YAY! A new phone! I can actually HEAR the person I'm calling! It always takes a while to get familiar with a new phone but once I do I usually end up loving it. Ooh, so shiny! Pretty purple case with not a scratch on it. Yet. Easton dropped it for the first time today and I thought I was going to have a heart attack. New silicon cover + lcd screen protector ordered shortly after that. :)

2010-01-27T16:25:00.004-05:00

I think we are officially going to turn E's bed from a crib into a big boy bed this week. He's been taking off his diaper and peeing in his bed so I'm thinking he doesn't like the feel of his wet diper. And really, can you blame him?! We bought 2 big packs of "big boy underwear" yesterday and as soon as they get out of the laundry we'll put them on him and see how that goes. He doesn't seem too concerned about the potty right now though. Whenever he has to go he just strips down and lets it rip. Nice. We've tried ~~bribing~~ rewarding with m&ms or stickers, making a big deal out of it when he goes on the potty, NOT making a big deal out of it when he goes on the potty. We've even tried letting him run around with no pants on. He LOVED that but it sure didn't help him want to use the potty. Now he just wants to be naked all the time. Whew! I am SO not ready for him to grow up but I am VERY ready for him to be potty trained. Man, just think...only one in diapers?! That's gonna be so cheap! lol
Will try changing his bed to a toddler bed and see if he will get up and go potty instead of peeing in bed. Man, I dread this. I knew it was coming but I am anticipating struggles getting him to stay in bed instead of getting up to play. Any suggestions? Let's hope it goes as well as our Christmas tree situation did.
I just knew he'd terrorize the Christmas tree. I imagined broken ornaments, a toppled tree and much headache. I almost didn't do one this year. It just didn't feel like Christmas without one so we put one up and he barely even touched it. I should have given my sweetie more credit. He did great! Pray that's how it goes with his "big boy bed". Fingers crossed!

P.S Still trying to get that stinkin' video to cooperate. Grr! Maybe by this weekend????

2010-01-23T10:24:00.003-05:00

Easton dances

Trying to upload video...not working right just yet. Check back soon.

2010-01-23T10:21:00.000-05:00

Easton tries to wink

2010-01-22T20:39:00.000-05:00

Easton,
Oh my, you are getting so big! You talk up a storm. All day long and you use BIG words too. Words like pomegranate, elephant (which to you is “ellerphant”), hippopotamus (hippopolamus), and elevator (elelator) and my favorite, helicopter (honeycotter). We got your hair cut. All your sweet little baby angel curls are gone and in their place, you’ve got a big boy hair cut. You say (and I totally agree) that it’s “bery handsome.”

You sometimes seem to be very interested in using the big boy potty. Other times you just want to take your clothes and diaper of and pee in the floor or your bed. If you’d just tell me when you need to go I’ll happily take you, ok? You aren’t interested in rewards of m&ms, stickers, or any other treat. You won’t tell me in time so we can go try to pee on cheerios or fruit loops. Man, I’ll be glad when this part is over! Other than that though I totally want to freeze time and just keep you my little buddy forever. You are so fun! Everything is cool and exciting and I am the best person you know. Well, me and daddy and sis and Elmo are tied. I’ll definitely take that though.

You can now tell me your entire name, Daddy, Mama and sis’s names, the city and state we live in (“yes uh-gin-uh”), where Daddy works and what they make there. You say funny things like “Yeah. Be fun!” and “I see dat”. Before nap time now you ask me to rock you and I always do. Each time I tell myself to soak it all up because this might be the last time you ask me “Rock you, mama. Sing.” I love each and every minute of it, my little man and I love you to the moon and back.
Love,
Mama

2010-01-16T23:58:00.002-05:00

Audrey,
It seems you are doing something new every day. You can now say Mama and Dada but your first word and also your favorite is Bubba. You light up when you see your brother and start waving your chubby little starfish hands and kicking your feet and saying “Bubba” over and over. It is adorable and I hope you always get along with him this well. We just got rid of your baby swing this week. You didn’t really like it much these days and I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that your brother liked to push you as high as he could and say WHEEEE!!! You are such a tall girl for your age! 7 ½ months old and you’re wearing 12 month jammies already. You sit up with only the smallest amount of help and positively cannot stand any time on your tummy. You now are absolutely, positively the loudest baby I know. You love to screech at the top of your lungs just like your brother did at this age but you do it about ten times louder. When you do this, your brother echoes you and you both just go back and forth screeching and laughing and screeching some more. It’s a little hard to handle when you start it even before I’ve had a drop of coffee.
I love you, my little sweet cheeks girl. Slow down a bit, will you? Let me make sure to enjoy every minute of this before you’re all grown up.
Love,
Mama

2010-01-08T09:22:00.004-05:00

This morning Easton pointed to my forehead and said "Booboo. Mama booboo." I looked in the mirror to see what he was talking about and OH MY HOLY HECK!!! Where did THAT come from?! Lines on my forehead so deep you could lose a small child in there.

Good thing I bought this last night.

And this.

But apparently if my two year old noticed it then I should have bought this or .this.

And thanks to my kids I also need to add this, and this. Crap. Welcome to thirty something. While I'm shopping, maybe I'll buy this and this. Or maybe not but it's nice to dream, right? :)

2010-01-06T20:35:00.003-05:00

OK, so I know I'm a little behind with posting this but this is what I'm working on in 2010

My goals for 2010...in no particular order
Find a good (AND CHEAP but trustworthy) babysitter.
Go on a date w/my hubby at least once a month.
Finish rough draft of book by the end of January or middle of February. (That's all I'm gonna say about this one for now. More later though, I promise!)
Reduce clutter and organize. Get rid of stuff we don't use.
Read the Bible from beginning to end.
Paint the kitchen and hall. Touch up paint in all rooms.
Finish my VERY LONG craft project to-do list within 6 months.
Exercise more. (Working on this every day with 10 Minute Trainer + more if I can fit it in. I am so sore!)
Drop 2 jean sizes in time for my friend's wedding party.
Be completely free of all credit card debt by the end of the year.
Pay off car loan.
Worry less.
Read more.
Pray more.
Play more.
Be more grateful.
Get more sleep!!! Yeah, so far this last one is NOT working out. I've been getting up at 5am to work out with Jason before he goes to work. Then we've been staying up late (til 11 or later) getting things done around the house. I have GOT to start sleeping more. I'm an 8 or more hours kinda girl.

2009-12-29T16:09:00.003-05:00

Audrey,
My sweet little angel baby. You are such a pleasant, happy girl! Even yesterday after your 6 month check up (over a month late due to snowy weather), you got 6 shots and were hardly fussy at all. I could tell you weren't feeling well because you woke up at 1am with a fever but even then you fussed for a bit, had a bottle, a new diaper and some Motrin and then went back to sleep til 8:30. You are eating every type of stage 1 baby food they make now and still hate rice cereal. We'll try oatmeal with bananas or some other fruit and see how you like it then. You are learning to sit up. You have abs I am very jealous of because you try to sit up all the time on your own. You still tolerate your brother poking you and pushing you in the swing or bouncy seat pretty well. You love to blow raspberries and play with your brothers cars or your Audrie doll. (She was already named that when she came home with you from the store.)
Thank you for being my little angel, my sunshine, my Tootsie!
Love,
Mama

2009-12-29T15:56:00.004-05:00

Easton,
What a whirlwind the last few months have been! You are growing up so quickly and you continue to amaze me with the things you say. Sometimes they're funny, like when you said your "eyes stuffy" (I think you meant sleepy???) and sometimes they're sweet "share you mama" (share with you) but they're always amazing and smart. You don't miss a thing these days. You love to look for a crescent moon every time you're outside or looking out the window. You love helping me with laundry (longy) and love to eat your sis's baby food. Heck, I'm certainly not going to tell you no on that one! Squash? Sure you can have some! You continue to love most veggies except you HATE green beans. Even succotash gets gobbled up and you usually ask for more. Sure thing, sweet pea! One of your favorite words right now is mayonnaise. I have no idea why but it sends you into fits of giggles every time you say it. Somehow it's not nearly so funny when Mama or Daddy says it though. You had a great time over Christmas when your cousins and Aunt Leslie and Uncle Terry and McKayla came to visit. You still ask for "Lexa" a lot. I wish we lived closer to them so you could play together more often! Maybe someday. One of my favorite things is when you say "Hi, sis!" You say it with such a drawl that it sounds like "Ha seeee-us!" It is too cute! You love Thomas the Train and the Wonder Pets and sometimes still love Elmo. Your bears are still your favorite buddies and sometimes your giant monkey too. Most of the time you refuse to ride in the shopping cart at the store although after this last trip to the grocery store when you ran off laughing down the aisle, you will no longer have a choice in the matter. Sorry dude. We'll try again in a few months, ok? You are still fascinated with cars and trucks and really vehicles of all kinds. Today I took down your jungle decals in your room and put up ones of cars, planes, trucks and trains. You love to count them (1,4,5,6, 7, 10 YAY!) and greet each one by name. "Hello red car. Hello yellow truck. Hello Thomas."
I love you, my sweetie boy, my lovie, my Toodles!
Love,
Mama

I originally was not going to post this first picture but couldn't help myself. Sorry, babe!

2009-12-25T21:14:00.007-05:00

Whew! I am worn out! Oh and by the way...Merry Christmas! It's been a busy 2 weeks since my last post. Audrey is sleeping better now, thank goodness! Easton is doing ok too. The past couple of weeks have been filled with writing several short papers and one 15 pager, finishing up a class (Child Development - I got an A!), shopping for Christmas, working on some craft projects, cleaning and getting ready for our Christmas company.

I wasn't sure if they'd be able to come or not due to the snow we had (TWO FEET!!!) but Jason's sister, Leslie, her husband Terry, their three kids and Jason's cousin came to visit on Monday. We had a really fun time. It was good to see the kids playing together and good visiting with everyone. We did some shopping to help Santa out with a few Christmas presents, went to D.C. to see the sights, played, cleaned, cooked, ate, played, cooked, cleaned some more. I decided that although I LOVE having people come visit us, our house is WAAYY too small for ten people! That and my kids have entirely too many toys. I think in the next month or so we'll be going through all of the toys and getting rid of some of the ones that don't get played with so much. We just simply do not have room for all of this stuff!

Christmas today was really fun. The kids woke up early and we opened presents and had our Christmas breakfast casserole. Then we cleaned up the kitchen just so we could start cooking Christmas dinner. We had apple butter ham, stuffing, green bean casserole, rolls and pumpkin pie. Whew! I'm so tired! Glad that Miss Audrey will be sleeping back in her own bed tonight and not in our room so I can finally get some sleep.

Some pictures of the big snow we got here last weekend:

Easton and Yellow Bear in the snow

Audrey all smiles and bundled up in her warm snow suit.

My hard working hubby taking a break from shoveling snow

I think we used to have a car under there

Is it a table or is it a big snow cone?

Here are a few pictures of our Christmas Eve trip to D.C.:

Riding the Metro

We're seasoned Metro riders by now. Well, OK. Not really. But we should be.

One of the dinosaurs at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History

The Washington Monument

The White House

I can't take credit for this one. J's sweet cousin McKayla took this one. Great job!

Christmas pictures:

This is a lap full of cute right here. Easton and Alexa waiting for Santa.

Easton reads his new Thomas the Train ABC book.

Audrey loves her doll

Alexa, Mason, Addy, Audrey and Easton.

Audrey and Easton Christmas 2009

2009-12-07T23:01:00.002-05:00

Oh, man. Coming back from our trip has really thrown Miss Audrey off her sleeping schedule. Not that we had a very rigid one to begin with but once we got home? Forget it! Tonight is the second night in a row we've listened to her cry herself to sleep. Ugh! I hate it! I know she'll be fine and won't be scarred for life or anything like that but I sure do hate to listen to her cry. Must have been all that rocking and cuddling all of her well-meaning family did when we were in Oklahoma. ;) Not that I wouldn't have wanted them to do that, of course but now she doesn't want to sleep unless we're holding her. Some nights we'll get her to sleep 3 or 4 times in our arms but every single time we put her in her bed she wakes up crying. I love holding and rocking her but lordy, I can't hold her while she sleeps...I'll never get anything done!!! So I polled my mom friends and got just the answers I thought I would. All but one mom said they let them cry it out. We had already decided this is what we'd do but I was glad to hear we're not the only ones who do this. We did it with Easton and it didn't hurt him any so I guess we're OK. :)
In other news, I can't find my camera. I saw it in the car seat when I got out of the car from our Oklahoma trip so I know we got home with it. But I can't find it for anything! Our bags are all unpacked, things are (mostly) put away and still no camera. And wouldn't you know it there've been at least half a dozen times since then that I've wished I had it handy. I have to find it!!! And SOON!

2009-12-07T11:49:00.005-05:00

What keeps me from blogging lately:

I left the room where I was playing in the floor with the kids to go wash my hands. While I was gone I noticed it got awfully quiet so I asked "Easton, what are you doing?" He said "Sit Sis." What??? Yep. Sure enough when I got back in the room he was sitting right on top of Audrey. She wasn't unhappy or anything, just looking up at him like "Hey, what do you think you're doing?!" Little stinker! Then I said to Easton just one of the million funny things I never thought I would say. "We do not SIT on our sister!" This was followed just a few minutes later with "Easton, we do not MOW on our sister either!" He loves that noisy plastic mower but his sis sure didn't!

2009-11-20T10:26:00.004-05:00

Posting my apple butter recipe w/out all the pictures and commentary so it can be printed it out easily.

Amy's Apple Butter

15 apples, peeled, cored, cut into small pieces**
3 cups of sugar
2 Tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 tsp salt

Place all ingredients in Crock Pot and cook on high for 3 hours or until the mixture is reduced by half and the apples are tender.

Blend in blender until smooth(or use an immersion blender if you're lucky enough to have one).

Ladle into canning jars, place lids on and process in water bath canner to seal.

Directions for canning can be found at www.pickyourown.org. They also have directions for making applesauce too if you're interested.
If you do this, email me or leave me a comment here and let me know how it turned out.

**You can use any type of sweet apple for this. I've used Gala, Jonagold and Red Delicious in the past and they all turned out delicious.

2009-11-17T21:21:00.002-05:00

We already have our Christmas lights up. Yes. My neighbors are probably REALLY annoyed by the brightness that emanates from our house but I love my lights. I think we might be the only house on our street with lights up this early and turned on this early too. We only have lights on our front porch though because we have way too much stuff do to before our big trip on FRIDAY (!!!) to do the whole house. But even if what we have up now is all we get up, at least we have Christmas lights up this year. And an animatronic reindeer. We got the reindeer as a gift and while I don't have anything at all against people who put fake reindeer in their yards, we probably wouldn't have purchased this reindeer for ourselves. We're much more a simple, lights only family I guess. But I was shopping with the kids in Target and I took them past the Christmas display. (Only a day after Halloween, hello! Aren't we rushing things a bit?) And Easton saw the reindeer on display. You should have heard my boy! The utter joy in his voice when he said "Oh MY! Mama, looka dis!" was enough to make me want to purchase ten of those suckers right there on the spot. But we already had one so I didn't have to. So we have our Christmas lights up on our porch. Just simple (VERY BRIGHT) white lights and a white reindeer. Oh, how my boy loves that light-up reindeer. I'll have to take his picture after dark beside the reindeer. He asks to go see it every night and cries when we come inside, no matter how cold it is outside or how long we've been out looking at the lights. I think my boy needs Christmas lights in his room. Not the reindeer maybe but definitely some kind of Christmas lights as a nightlight. What do you think?

2009-11-09T16:14:00.007-05:00

FINALLY! The CraftyLilDevil's been at it again. Sometimes staying up til 2 am to finish projects is the only way I can get them done but I've FINALLY got some things crossed off my craft "to-do" list! Here are some pictures of projects I've done and/or cheap games for my kids. They really do have TONS of storebought gifts and things that they love but I enjoy trying to make things for them too. And sometimes the things that have been the biggest hits are the cheapest!

Easton's fleecy Bedlam blanket and 2 pillows. Go Pokes! Stacking game. Just a simple paper towel holder from dollar general and some links we had already. E loves stacking these and will do it over and over. Cost for this project: $1
Audrey's new bib. This pic makes the opening look really crooked but it's not. Cost: $1.25
Dyed noodles and shoestring for stringing. Cost: $1
Beanbags. Cost: $1.69 for beans

Watch for more projects coming soon!

2009-11-03T00:24:00.003-05:00

from 11-1-09

Easton,
Tonight we had chicken, broccoli/carrots/cauliflower mix and rice. You wanted only rice for dinner and also wanted Mama and Daddy to feed every bite to you. Funny boy! For dessert (after you ate some of ALL of your dinner, not just rice!), we had Pumpkin Spice pudding with Cool Whip and Vanilla Wafers. You loved it and call it "pugging".
Other funny words you say:
kruk - truck
fee - tree
cry - try
griving - driving
tit - tent
wallet - Walmart (probably because every time we go to Walmart I have to get out my wallet!)
You have such a huge vocabulary! Today you very plainly asked me "What's that noise, Mama?" You also have a very musical way of talking, which I never get tired of hearing. You are mostly sweet to your sister. Today I saw you very gently lift up a corner of her bib to wipe her mouth with it and it was so sweet it brought tears to my eyes. Then you promptly smacked her over the head when I wasn't paying you enough attention. Hopefully you learn very quickly that you'll definitely get attention for that alright, just not the kind you had hoped for. (TIME OUT!)
I love you, my funny boy. Can't wait to see what funny things you'll say or do tomorrow!
Love,
Mama

2009-11-03T00:20:00.002-05:00

from 11-1-09

Audrey,
You had rice cereal again tonight I mixed it with formula and you liked it much better. You laughed and laughed at your brother today. He can make you laugh better than anyone else. I hope this is always true and that you get along well. No one understands you like a sibling. You've both been through all the same stuff and they're the only one who truly understands what makes you YOU.
You just woke up and fussed for a bit until I came and picked you up. I held you and patted and rocked you back to sleep, smelling your peach-fuzz head and listening to your breathing turn into sweet little baby snores. You had a handful of my shirt and were hanging on for dear life. Slow down, little one! I'm not ready for you to grow up so fast!
I love you!
Love,
Mama

2009-11-03T00:10:00.002-05:00

from 10-31-09

Easton,
Happy Halloween! Tonight was your first time trick-or-treating. You were a fireman. I wil lnever forget your sweet little blonde curls peeking out from under your red plastic hat. You kept going and going, wanting to walk even long after you were literally falling down you were so tired.

You are 2 years and 3 days old. We celebrated your birthday here at home with just Mama, Daddy and Sis. We were planning a party with some of your friends but we all came down with some kind of cold or bug and have to reschedule. I think you still had a really fun day even with no big party. We were all feeling better by the time the party day rollled around but I don't want to take the chance of gettting our friends sick so we'll reschedule and you'll just have twice the birthday fun.

I made you a birthday cake to celebrate on your actual birthday. It was a monkey. Your mama is far from being a professional cake decorator but it turned out pretty cute and you said it was "Lummy" so that's all that matters. After dinner, we had cake and ice cream and then you opened your presents. You got a Fisher Price Spin-n-Crash Racetrack from Nanny and Papa, which you love and call your "race crack". You got a huge Mr. PotatoHead with lots of pieces (what were we thinking?!) from Mama and Daddy along with some books and movies. Your most favorite present of all is a $5 red Chevy truck we found by the register at Rite Aid. You'd sleep with that truck if you could. You also got a new bedding set from Nana and Poppy which you like but will take some getting used to for you to sleep with I think. I tucked you in and covered you up and the next morning I found you on top of the covers with your head at the foot of the bed. When you woke up the first thing you said to me was "New bed comfy!" You are so funny and smart!
Gotta get to bed. My eyelids are getting very heavy.
I love you, Toodles!
Love,
Mama

2009-11-02T23:07:00.003-05:00

from 10-31-09

Audrey,
You are a joy to my heart, my child. OK so I don't really talk that way. My mama gave me a plaque with this saying on it for Christmas one year and it now hangs in your room above your changing table. But it's so true!!! As I write this, you are 5 months and 3 days old. Today was Halloween and we dressed you up in your cousin Addy's Tootsie Roll costume. It was cold and sprinkling rain so you were nice in toasty in the fleece outfit as we walked along the street pushing you in your stroller.

You tried rice cereal for the first time today. You thought it was really gross. I don't blame you. It's really stinky stuff. Maybe we'll try again tomorrow with formula instead of water. Or maybe we'll try oatmeal instead. It was some pretty yucky smelling stuff. Sorry.

You are working very hard on learning to sit up. We let you sit in the family horse collar and you really seem to love it. Remind me to tell you that story another time. It's late and I am sleepy. Your daddy is snoring loudly and I'm thinking I may have to come sleep in your room on the guest bed where it is nice and quiet.
I love you, my little Tootsie!
Love, Mama

2009-11-02T22:49:00.002-05:00

Halloween fun

Easton was a fireman this year and Audrey was a Tootsie Roll. (Thanks to Aunt Leslie for sending us the outfit!!) It was cool and sprinkling rain on Halloween night. It's a good thing Easton's "costume" was a rain jacket that looks like a fireman's uniform! All I had to add was a $4 fireman hat from Walmart and he was set. And Audrey borrowed cousin Addy's outfit from last year's Halloween and we were all set. We didn't have spooky Halloween food this time. Well, we had spaghetti and meatballs and I'm sure I could have said it was something gross like monster guts but I don't think Easton would have eat it if I did that. So we ate dinner, got the kids ready and sat around and waited. I guess everyone in our neighborhood decided to wait til dark but I was hoping they would start early so the kids wouldn't be out so late. We finally saw the first trick-or-treaters and headed out. Easton did not want to ride in the stroller or be carried at all so he walked quite a bit for a little guy. He had fun and we had fun watching him. He (of course) wanted to eat every piece of candy he got that night. He kept saying "More can-ee, more can-ee!" Thankfully he walked so much that he burnt off all that sugar in no time and went to bed as soon as we got home with no complaints. Audrey snoozed for a while until it started sprinkling and woke her up. Then she didn't want to sleep when we got home so we were up for quite a while. Little stinker!
Hope ya'll had a Happy Halloween! I know we sure did!

Oops! Caught him w/his eyes closed! But I still love this picture.

Easton loved his hat!

I think he said Trick or Treat pretty much at all of the houses at first. And Thank You too! Then he got tired and just held out his bucket waiting for candy.

Augie-pie in her Tootsie Roll costume. Good thing it was warm!

Looks to me like Audrey is looking to her brother to figure out just what the heck is going on here. Why are we all dressed up in these outfits and out WAAY past our bedtime?!

2009-10-29T00:10:00.006-04:00

Amy's Apple Butter

15 apples, peeled, cored, cut into small pieces **
3 cups of sugar
2 Tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 tsp salt

**You can use any type of sweet apple for this. I've used Gala, Jonagold and Red Delicious in the past and they all turned out delicious.

How to make apple butter with a toddler:

Wash apples.

Peel and core apples. Wish you had bought an apple/peeler/corer/slicer from Pampered Chef. You were a consultant, for crying out loud!!! You DEFINITELY should have invested in this.

Find sippy cup. Fill with milk. Turn on cartoons and return to apples. Chop apples. LOTS of apples. Chop so many apples you begin to wish you had never gone to the apple butter festival and decided "Hey, that's not so hard. I can do that. I can make LOTS of apple butter." Wish you had never even seen an apple in your life. Continue chopping apples. Finish chopping apples and place in two crock pots.

Find missing puzzle piece. Watch little one work puzzle 3 times. Return to apples. Watch as toddler climbs up on bar stool so he can "help".

And help.

And help.

Still helping.

And helping himself to some apples.

Add orange juice, sugar, salt, cinnamon and cloves.

Clean up kitchen while sweet little apple-filled toddler plays cars under your feet.
Put toddler to bed and then put yourself to bed because it's been a LONG day!

During the night, cook down apples until thick and reduced by half.

In the morning, feed toddler breakfast. While he's busy in his highchair, blend apples and juice in several batches in your blender because you do not have a fancy schmancy immersion blender. Pray that Santa reads your blog and brings you an apple/peeler/corer/slicer and an immersion blender for Christmas so you never have to do this much work to make apple butter again.

Remove toddler from highchair. Wash his hands and then your hands and then help him find something to do. Return to kitchen. Ladle apple butter into hot, sterilized jars. (Thank goodness for the dishwasher w/the heated dry cycle!)

Process in hot water bath for 20 minutes.

During this, play cars, sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, read Goodnight Moon and change diaper. Remove jars from canner and allow to cool. Congratulations! You've just spent approximately $25 and the better part of two days making 7 pints of apple butter. Taste finished product and realize you must have only added 2 of the three cups of sugar. Scream. A lot. Decide if people love you they'll eat the danged apple butter and love it or at least pretty please do not tell you it needs more sugar. :)

2009-10-29T00:00:00.006-04:00

We had dinner and cake and ice cream for Easton's birthday tonight. We were planning a party but we all got some kind of bug so we'll have to postpone it. Everyone here is feeling better but we'll still hold off on the party just to make sure we don't share that with our friends. I'm sure they appreciate that. We sure had fun tonight though! For dinner, I made kid-friendly food: Mummy dogs, Easy Peas-y Mac and Cheese, Scarecrow Taco Dip and a Monkey cake. I'm not the best cake decorator but I think it turned out pretty cute. I could have gotten the lines a little straighter but I think I did pretty well for just using a sandwich bag w/the corner cut off to pipe this icing! Next time though I will definitely invest in some pastry bags and tips so I can do a better job. (Don't know why the pics uploaded in the wrong order but I'm too tired to re-do it.) This first picture cracks me up. He did NOT want to wear the silly birthday hat and really I don't blame him. :)
Happy Birthday, my sunny funny boy!

2009-10-23T22:55:00.004-04:00

What an exhausting day today!!! I got up, worked out while I watched the Today show. The kids slept late so I had time to get my coupons ready and get my stuff together. The kids woke up around ten (TEN! Holy cow!). I got everyone fed, dressed and into the car. No big deal so far, right? We made it to Walmart and did lots of shopping. This was no small feat either. Easton was in the front of the cart, Audrey was in the bottom taking up the entire thing with her carseat. This meant I had to put things in my reusable shopping bags and put them under the cart, hang them on my arms, hang them onto the sides of the cart...it was probably really funny looking.

Then all of a sudden Easton had the mother of all meltdowns right in the checkout line. Oh. My. Goodness!!! Kicking and screaming and standing up in the seat of the cart. The checker was ringing up my stuff already otherwise I would have just left the cart with all the stuff and hightailed it out of there. It was that bad. But she was already ringing up my stuff so I decided to try to pay for my stuff and leave. Easton kept screaming and trying to get out of the cart and I was scared to death he was going to fall out of the cart and split his head open right in front of everybody. I tried talking to him, spanking his little butt, threatening him and then finally ignoring him. NOTHING helped. (Yes, Mom and Dad, I am finally getting my payback for all those fits I threw and yes, they really are a *&^$!)

The cashier called someone over to help me out with my stuff because there was no way I could manage to get all that stuff AND a screaming kid out to my car by myself. Thankfully the lady who came over to help me was nice. She was a mom herself so she knew what I was going through. Once we got out to the car, I put Easton in the car (not even in his car seat yet) so he could chill out and shut the door while I loaded the stuff into the trunk. By the time I was done, he had calmed down completely and suddenly my sweet, sunny funny boy was back like nothing had ever happened. Little stinker!!!

Then I went to change his diaper. Worst possible dirty diaper. Of course! No big deal. I can handle this. I changed the dirty diaper, got him buckled into his seat. By tthen, Audrey was screaming and I knew it was time for a bottle. I went to make her a bottle and...no bottled water in the diaper bag!! What the heck?! OK. No big deal. I unbuckled E from his car seat, locked Audrey into the car. (I was in the closest parking place and could see Audrey from where I was going.) and Easton and I walked up to the vending machine to buy a bottle of water. We got the water, buckled E back into his seat, made the bottle and realized Audrey was crying because she had a dirty diaper. I got her ready, reached for a wipe. NO MORE WIPES!!! AARRGGHH!!! I rummaged around in the console and found some napkins. She wasn't coming clean with just the cheap napkins so I had to wet them with the water I had just bought. WOWEE!!! Can you even imagine the shock on that poor girls' bottom! lol I finished with the diaper change with Audrey screaming her little head off. I calmed her down, gave her the bottle and we all just chilled out while she finished. WHEW!

Then Easton decided we all needed lunch. By then it was 3:30 and we’d been shopping at Walmart for THREE hours! We got Easton “unch” at Sonic and then we went to the grocery store for a couple of items that were on sale there cheaper than Walmart. On the way to Martin’s, Easton requested a song. He said “Brick House, mama. Brick House”. I had to laugh. OK, little man. 70’s funk it is. He loves that song and Lowrider. I didn’t realize how intently he was listening to the words until he said “36”. (The part where the guy says 36, 24, 36.) And Easton kept saying Brick House. Brick House. Oh my goodness, it was just the comedy relief I needed. Here ya go. One of Easton's favorite songs right now:

We had an uneventful trip to Martin’s except for the part where it was pouring down rain when we came out of the store. Luckily, Jason called and was close by so he came to help me get the groceries and the kids into the car in the pouring rain. I rewarded myself (and Jason) for our hard work by buying us some coffee. We came home, got the kids in bed, had grilled cheese, tomato soup and beer for dinner vegged on the couch for the rest of the night. What a day!!!<

2009-10-20T21:34:00.002-04:00

We're rededicating ourselves to getting into shape. I HATE getting up early but we can't seem to work it in any other time so we're gonna try getting up at 5:15 tomorrow so we can get in 30 minutes or so before breakfast and getting our day started. We're also starting a 30 minutes a day of cleaning in the evenings. We set the timer on the microwave and clean for 30 minutes. We do as much as we can within that time and then when the timer goes off we're done. It's amazing how much you can get done in that short amount of time and how much of a difference it makes in making your house look better. An hour a day to a better life. he he That sounds like a great idea for a book. :)

2009-10-18T22:05:00.002-04:00

Boy, it is really feeling more like WINTER than Fall here lately! I'm glad I get to wear my red wool coat but not at all glad that it's cold. That makes no sense but I do love that red coat. :) I'm freezing. We're supposed to get our first freeze tonight. Down to around 31!!! Holy cow, that's cold! My hands are like icicles as I'm trying to type this. I think I need some hot tea and a warm bath to warm up.

In other news, it's apple butter time around here. I've already made (and blogged about????) one batch of apple butter. I'm proud I (mostly) got over my fear of canning. All that hot water and glass and boiling apple butter...yikes!!! But I did it and it turned out great so I'm going to get together with two of my friends and make about a bushel's worth of apples into apple buttter. Should be an all day deal but I'm really looking forward to it.

I got an A in my Nutrition for Education class. I got the maximum amount of points on my final Power Poing presentation and got a 99% in the class! Do I wish I'd gotten that one extra point so I could have had 100? Heck, no! I was just thrilled to get what I did! Only 10 more classes to go til graduation!!! Hmmm...maybe I could get a new car for graduation! Our Malibu will be paid off around then and we DO need a bigger car now that we've got 2 little ones. What do you say, honey? :)

Today Easton decided to take the straw out of a cup of water he was drinking out of and play with it. He ended up scratching his eye with the straw. Now it's really red and irritated and he keeps blinking his eyes and rubbing at it. I'm easily grossed out about eye things because of all the gross eye stuff I've been through so I could barely look at it without feeling like I was gonna throw up. Poor baby! Audrey's got a check up tomorrow and I might call ahead and ask if the doctor can take a look at E's eye just to be safe.

Audrey's getting shots tomorrow. I HATE taking my kids to get shots!!! I made Jason go with me and hold Easton down one time just to see how awful it is. Not very nice of me I know but should I get to have all the fun? He was coming with me to the appointment already anyways so I just thought I'd share. You're welcome, honey. Now he knows why I am all teary-eyed when I come home from the doctor's appointments. Ugh! I hate that!

Today we did about 5 loads of laundry. Who knew it could take so stinkin long to fold a load of kid's clothes?!?!

That's about it for us. Nothing too exciting. Gotta get off of here and make some tea. I'm FREEZING!!!

(Santa, if you read my blog I could sure use some soft, fuzzy socks and a new pair of warm houseshoes, OK? All my fuzzy socks are really getting worn out and I had to trash my slippers because I'd worn a hole right through the bottom of both of them. Thanks! P.S. Sorry I didn't keep my house as clean as I wanted to but I'm sure with all those elves you understand, right?)