Changes in 2009

On eve of 2010, I reflect on the changes that have happened in 2009 -

Working at the Y, easiest job - E.V.E.R. -1st real job since 2001
Leather couch- never in a million years did I think I'd get this, because Josh hates leather
Tiled entry way (started in Jan 2009) and hopefully the other half will be finished in 2010
New cat, not wanted, but part of the family nonetheless
Nursing School, again...
Lia Sophia, never, never thought I'd go into direct selling, but I love it!
Collin potty training - this is H.U.G.E.
Running in a race - and actually jogging the better part of it!

Overall, 2009 was a hard year, I started it really not liking myself - and ended it in a little better self image than I started it, so even though there's room for improvement, I am going in the right direction!

Poop is cool

We have been potty training Collin!! And he's finally starting to go to the bathroom without constant prodding from us. He's even wearing underwear at night, which has saved us SO much money on diapers and wipes, it's wonderful!

Tonight, he yelled "Mom, I go poppy in the toilet, come wipe my butt"

I went into the bathroom and do my motherly duty, while praising him and telling him what a good boy he is, he turns to me and says, "my butt is cool, it shoot out the poop"

What a NUT BALL!!

Christmas

The morning of Christmas came later than I had expected, it was 7:40 am this year, I assumed it would be 3 or 4am, looks like we wore the children out on Christmas Eve!!

They had a wonderful Christmas, they got Wii games and instruments and action figures, and can't forget the Nerf guns!!

It was a wonderful morning, and then mom and dad napped.... after naps we went to Grandma and PaPa's for games and food. It was a day full of Super Mario World and puppy chow... I must go to the gym now...

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we went to Leah and Bob's house (my in laws) and we had a wonderful dinner and re-enacted the Nativity. Leah sat down with the ceramic nativity and told the story to all the children (my favorite quote of the night was when Gma said "do you know what an inn is?" and Nick answered, "it's like a hotel or maybe a motel"). Then the kids re-enacted the nativity, they get dressed up with towels and ties and pillowcases, this year we had 2 angels (Lindsey and Kiley Jane), 2 Mary's (Maddie and Jordan), 4 wise men (Josh, Collin, Clay and Nick), Cregan was the Shepherd and Scott was Joseph, Baby Jesus was a baby doll. After that we sang songs, Cregan always has to do a solo of course... a future rock star and all :)

Shortly after we headed home and let the kids open their pajamas and took their picture in front of the tree. They headed off to bed, and Clay was so excited he exclaimed that he wasn't going to be able to sleep at all that night, and guess what he was the first one out!!

Christmas Cookies

Yummy

Christmas Miracle

A month ago our computer "crashed", and I've been without all the conveniences of the Internet, it's been driving me insane, and just when I can't go another week without a computer....it's back and ahhhh, sigh of relief, now I have a skip in my walk, a smile on my face, a laptop in my arms..... all while checking my email!!

4 miler

On Thanksgiving Day, Sophie and I ran the Flying Feathers 4 miler in Dublin. I had been "training" for this for a couple of months and had gotten to run periodically to a 3 mile run and just thought to myself, well I'll just walk the rest. The day of the race was very, very cold, but it was so exciting to be with these 1000's of people all gearing up for the race. The race started and Sophie, who's just so fit and in shape, is pumping me up with excitement, she's just contagious with it! Well, I tell her to go on ahead of me within the first 1/2 mile, I'm a very slow jogger and I know I'm slowing down her speed. So I just truck along, la te da and next thing I know I'm a the 1 mile mark!! So I walk for about a half a second until I realize I'm not that tired, so I go on, and there's the 2 mile marker!! Still not too tired, I walk for about 1-2 minutes and then go on jogging again, it went like that until the end, I only walked probably a quarter of a mile!! And jogged the rest, I could NOT believe it! It had to be the adrenaline and the fact that kids around 9-10 were jogging it too.

I was hurting later, my knees were so sore but overall I felt really good and very happy! We ended up going to my Tanya's for dinner that afternoon and then Sophie's later in the evening. It was a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Football

Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous, it was sunny, clear skies, mid 70's, just perfect... Josh decided to go play football at the park!

Halloween

What does 2 storm troopers, 1 Darth Maul, 1 Darth Vader, 1 clown, 2 zombie, 1 black Spiderman, and a Pumpkin equal... a whole lotta c.a.n.d.y.!!!











My teeth are going to be ROTTEN!!!

Pumpkin Guts

Who doesn't like gooey pumpkin guts before dinner??!!

Pumpkin Patch

Cregan had a field trip to the Pumpkin Patch Thursday and we had a wonderful time. We got to listen to a speaker tell us all about the different types of pumpkins, gourds and squash and when asked if there were any questions, Cregan raised his hand and said, "me and my dad pulled out pumpkin guts the other day" (big smile when the girls said ewwwww).

Cregan and my 2 other assigned boys got to pick out 2 corn, 3 gourds and 1 pumpkin... it took FOREVER! It went something like this- "I really like this one", "Look at this one", "this is green and looks like bugs have been eating into it", this one has a long curved horn, cool, what about this one" it went on and on... luckily it was a nice day and we actually weren't the last ones on the bus, but we were pretty close though.

Happy Birthday Cregan!!!

Happy Birthday Cregan

I love my 6 year with all my heart!!

Cregan's First Day

The big K !!
wATCH oUT wORLD hERE cOMES mY bIG bIG BOY!!!!!!

My stressfilled week

Looking ahead, I'm already anticipating the many gray hairs that will suddenly appear from my week of nerve racking things that are ahead of me!

First, Lia Sophia - I decided to become an adviser with Lia Sophia and in theory I love it, the pay is hopefully going to be well, but the jewelry, well I love jewelry so that's a big bonus! BUT I have my 1st!!! party on Tuesday and I'm so nervous!! SO, SO, SO nervous!! I just know I'm going to be stumbling over everything and literally be reading off of my notecards!

Next - Enrichment - this is a little easier, because it's on a topic I know a bit more about, but again, I'll be standing up talking to people, I absolutely hate that, it makes me a little sick just thinking about it, and I know these people are my close, dear friends, but I think it makes it worse in a lot of ways for me! If it were complete strangers at least, if I made mistakes, I'd not have to see them again!

Then finally, while Josh is gone away AGAIN for the National Guard, I have to give a talk at church, which I haven't had to do in over 3 YEARS, I'm sooo nervous about these trio of events, if I don't get an ulcer after this week I'll be surprised!

Collin

My baby turned 3 last Friday! I can hardly believe my little guy has become such a big boy. When I asked him what type of birthday party he wanted he replied, "Neenage, Butand, Ninda, Urtles", which is aka for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Appartently TMNT is not as important in the party making world as I hoped, I couldn't find them at Walmart, Target or Meijer and I just thought, forget this, I'll just make something.

I made these little masks for the kids, it was just my boys and Elise and Garrett and I stuck a toy turtle on top of the tower of cupcakes and called it good. It was stressless and a lot less work than last year!

Collin was so excited, he kept repeating, "it's my birthday, it's my birthday", he got a bike, TMNT toys, Lightening McQueen toys, Nerf gun and Drawing board.

1st day of school

Clay's first day of school!! He claims he "doesn't want to go back to school". Yet he woke me up at 7am and while eating his waffles was running around and around the kitchen going "woohoo"... so you decide.

He was ready to go way before the bus came so we toke pictures with him alone and with the neighbor's children and then ofcourse Collin and the neighbor's granddaugther had to get into the action as well (Cregan was spending the night with Grandma and Papa).

As Clay was getting on the bus, and I was walking back home with just one in tow, I was almost dancing a gig... :0 I know how non-PC of me, but heck ya!! Summer is over and school is ON!!

My Kroger experience

I'm so excited, I'm a self proclaimed coupon addict, so the temptation of triple coupons is to much for my sensibilities and eventhough I needed absolutely nothing from Kroger and went anyway, coupons in tow and shopped until my kids literally dropped!

I reviewed all my favorite blogs, stretchingabuckblog, thriftyandchicmama and dealseekingmom and gotten all the best deals possible for my Kroger experience, I regestered for my E-coupons, which is basically an additional coupon put onto your Kroger card and comes off when you buy an item with an E-coupon. The best part about E-coupons is that you can use a regular coupon with the E-coupon. For example, my Nature Valley granola bars where 2.49, I had a .50 coupon, that tripled to $1.50 and then I had my e-coupon for .50 off the bars, so I paid .49 for my granola bars (a 12 count which makes it like .04 a bar!!!

So anyway, I made my list, pulled out my coupons and went to the store. I got my total and after all the e-coupons had come off, I owed $87.00, after the triple coupons had come off, I actually paid...............what for it..................anticipation building................$33!!!!!

I love a bargain, I love triple coupons and right now I'm loving Kroger!!



Here is the receipt that shows I saved $112.20. I purchased 69 items so the average cost of 1 item was around .50!

Here is a picture of the items I bought, there were more in the back that just kept falling over and finally after arranging and rearranging, I gave up and just took the picture!

Lia Sophia

Has you heard of Lia Sophia?? I hadn't before last month, my neighbor had a party and invited me and I found my new bff again, jewelry!! I used to wear all kinds of jewelry, my jewelry box, husband and credit cards can attest to this, but had, since having the boys, gotten out of the habit of jewelry (and taking care of me...but that's another post). Now that the boys are a tiny bit bigger and I'm not popping a baby out every 2 years, I find I missed my jewelry and looking pretty...

So back to Lia Sophia, went to the party, totally enjoyed myself and the host, tried on tons of jewelry and decided what the heck, I'll have a party too. So I rolled this pair of dice and whatever # I rolled, I got a piece of jewelry $100 or less for that amount, well I rolled a 4. So I paid $4.00 for a $98 necklace! Then also for having a party, I got to pick any item of her "little box", I chose this AWESOME ring, I'll take picture and post.

The day of the party finally arrived and I was SO nervous that no one would show and no one would buy anything, no need to worry though, Sherri, the representative did another outstanding job, and I'm going to get a bunch of FREE things, because I get 40% of the total sales of the party!! So exciting!!

Thxs to all that came and hope you enjoyed yourself, I know I did!!

Crystal's babyshower

My good friend Crystal is having a baby and I decided that even though this is her 2nd baby boy that she still needed a baby shower. I feel every baby requires a baby shower anyway, but I was SO excited to host this one.

Crystal's husband was over in Iraq with Josh last year and Crystal and I quickly became friends. She's just one of those type of people that likes to give, give, give and never asks for anything in return. So I wanted her baby shower to be relaxing, and have all the things she loved.

I had candles everywhere, flowers everywhere and guacomole, I could have been done right there, she was enamored! :)

But I had more fun with it, I put a clothes line made from ribbon across the wall and hung cute oneies in the color scheme of blues and browns,






printed baby Jacob's name and hung that on the other wall.






Sophie was gracious enough to make Crystal's cake and did an OUTSTANDING job, she never worked with fondunt before and found a recipe for marshmallow fondant that was easy and delicious and she did really cute two tone circles on top of the cake.






I served chicken salad sandwiches, pasta salad, fruit salad (that I made into flowers) and the guacomole.







We had really fun games, we played how many cotton balls in the baby bottle (which was an enourmous baby bottle piggy bank), and a fun Old Wise tell game, also we played baby memory, which is one of my favorites. The basics are like a memory game, except you have words like Doctor's bill and Doctor's bill and when you get the match you get a candy that matches the name, for example Doctor's bill is 100 Grand, Baby Girl is Baby Ruth, baby boy is O Henry, Epidural is Lifesaver and so on... We also played who can deliver the baby fastest, which is tiny plastic baby's found at JoAnn's put into ice cubes and then the guest have to try to melt there's the fastest. It got interesting seeing how people did that, for example Sherry had her baby under her armpit and Sophie was trying to melt the baby out of the water only to scold the poor baby's butt...

The babyshower was great fun, but now I'm ready for baby Jacob to make his appearance!!!