Take the Challenge

My husband and I are seriously thinking about doing this challenge with the kids, the site has links you can check out. But in a nut shell the challenge is a media fast for a month. It was really great for just that week we did it over Thanksgiving break so why not a month or two?! My husband has heard Dave Grossman speak a few times on this topic. He has actually read a few of his books. Let me know if you decide to take the challenge! And this post ends my challenge of one month posting!!!

Online Shopping

I have never really done the online shopping but for some reason today with the different cyber sales going on I just couldn't resist some of the sale prices with free shipping :) I am also hoping to land myself a new bathing suit for our water park trip in a few weeks. Actually I'm not sure if I wrote about this topic yet. If I have please forgive me for repeating myself. This year Jeff and I decided that we didn't want to spend a ton of money on gifts for the kids and each other. We wanted to use that money to take a family trip to create memories instead of just collecting more stuff. We choose a water park and priced them and found one that would accommodate our biggish family with a full kitchen so that we could bring our food with and not get sick on restaurant food. Anyways, everyone is really excited about this trip. I am most excited about the fact that we are paying for this trip with the cash rewards I have saved from our credit cards! Oh
yeah this is not what I sat down to write...I think I could get used to shopping online. I was able to buy gifts for my nephews and send them right to their house with free shipping. I couldn't have saved with going to the store picking stuff out and then shipping it myself. Totally off the subject but I only have one more day of the national blog posting month! I can't believe I actually did it and most of my posts had some substance to them...at least I think they did ;)

Break is over :(

Well I have to say that this week was probably one of the better weeks we have had together as a family in awhile. The no media helped a lot with the kids entertaining themselves and playing together. The kids spent many hours building different lego structures. Just as many hours constructing different designs of dominoes to knock over, they had some really cool designs! Some of them worked and others didn't but they had so much fun trying different objects to make stunts, like a book that rolled a car into the domino to start them off. We played so many card games and board games. Peanut was even getting in on the action. I hope to upload a really cute video of her and Jeff playing Jenga! She also learned how to play Uno though she still needs some help but refuses to take the advice while playing, can we say STUBBORN! I do have to admit that I did let the kids watch a few movies but we watched them all together snuggled on the couch. Before the first movie I told them that if they misbehaved after the movie was over they would not get to watch the second one. Jeff rewarded the kids great report cards with the movie rentals from an actual rental place, instead of the library, where we usually get our movies for free :) As Monday approaches I am sad and excited. Sad that I have to wake up early but excited to have some free time to myself again. I can get so much stuff done while they are not home!!!

Puzzle

I am very impressed with my kids ability to do such difficult puzzles! I bought a 750 piece this year as last year I ended up doing most of it by myself. This year I would say that their help was much more active in it. I took a picture after each day of working on it.

It only took us 6 days to finish it! I think next year will should get the 1000 piece as they did this faster than I thought and they will be a year older!

Some of the pictures I used a flash and some I didn't.
That is why they look different.

Tradition

Every year since I can remember we have put our Christmas tree up the day after Thanksgiving. This year is no exception! I love having our tree up. The hardest decision this year was where do we put the tree?! In the living room so that people on the street can see it from the window or do we put it in the family room where we spend most of our time? Well I want to be able to enjoy it so we decided on the family room! Here are some pictures of our tree decorating...

First the kids help set the tree up!

Now starts the fun of decorating!

The finished product...

Yesterday we ate so much that I am not hungry at all today. Just a recap on our food so that years down the road my kids can't say I starved them ;)

Breakfast: Homemade Pancakes, with fruit toppings and whip cream, sausage and turkey bacon.
Lunch: Cheese, summer sausage, crackers, carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers, hummus, and fruit salad.
Dinner: Turkey, mashed red potatoes, asparagus, stuffing, homemade applesauce (my kids favorite!). Dessert...pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and cheese cake.

Lastly I want to leave you with a link to my hubby's blog for some really cool lego recreations the kids and Jeff did today!

Thanksgiving

I think it is only fitting if I post about the many things I am thankful for!
I am thankful for...

a God who loves me
my husband
my children
our house
being able to stay home with my precious babies
my extended family in laws included!
my friends
our church family
our health
my children's willingness to help make our Thanksgiving meal (love it)
the fact that we have 2 vehicles
we have enough money to pay for our bills
Jeff support for the family
-spiritually
-emotionally
-financially
that our house got appraised for the amount we needed to refi
that we are going to be able to save that money
family time together
clean smelling kiddos
smiles and laughter
trials because they make us stronger in our faith
being able to help people out
-physically
-financially

all the food we have to eat
all the hands that prepared the food
for the love I feel from my family
2 blue eyed and 2 browned kids
toothless smiles

There is so much more I am thankful for this Thanksgiving but I had to end it somewhere!

Shopping

Remember how I said I only wanted to take the kids shopping once this week well this is one of the reasons why! Yesterday day before Peanut's gymnastics class I loaded the kids up and we went to Trader Joe's to get a few last minute items for the week. The kids were being really good and helpful while we were in the store. BUT about 20 minutes into our shopping trip Red decided to stand on the front of the cart in which Peanut was sitting in. In a matter of two seconds the whole cart went forward on top of Red with Peanut sitting in it. He didn't get hurt by a pure miracle but poor Peanut is bruised in a few places from the fall. It happened so fast and I was standing right next to the cart, helpless to stop it from going. Though the scene was pretty surreal with the food in the back flying through the air as the cart went down. I was thankful that the store was somewhat busy as several people rushed to help pull the cart off of Red and back up and asked if Peanut was alright. I tell you my kids and shopping carts don't mix well. When Red was about 19 to 20 months old we were at Lowes and he was sitting in the front. The two oldest for some reason decided to both step up on the side of the cart (the SAME side) and the cart went down sideways with Red in the front. I need to design a fall proof shopping cart. Though one of the ladies that witnessed the fall yesterday said that her kids have done the same thing on several occasions. That made me feel better, to some degree, but I think that I should really design a more stable cart! I just feel so bad for Peanut as she is the one who has the bruises that hurt to the touch. I picked her up that afternoon and she told me it hurt her just to be picked up :(

Enjoyment

I am rather enjoying this little blogging challenge. I really forgot how much I enjoy putting word to screen. I know that not all my posts are riveting but they are me and our life. I love being able to look back at some of my older posts, I have been blogging since Jan of 2003 almost 8 years. When I first started this blog I was just writing to chronicle our happenings. After all this time I have learned a lot about myself through this journal. I'm boring :) But you know what? I don't care that is who I am, I'm pretty proud (in a humble way) of my boring little life. I have always loved the simply things in life and usually simple is equated with boring, so be it.

This post has been sponsored by the world's most uninteresting person

Ah love school breaks!

Today was so nice not to have to wake up early. The kids and I are moving along on our puzzle and so far the no electronics is working fabulously. As long as I keep them busy helping or playing they don't get in trouble! We are going to make homemade laundry detergent together at some point this week. I am really excited to actually try it out. But we still have a little of the stuff I bought at the store and that is the bottle I am going to use for the homemade stuff so we wait. Speaking of homemade stuff. Red and Peanut helped me make some homemade dishwasher soap on Nov 18th and right after it was made I started a load of dishes. When they were done they sparkled so clean! I wanted to see how long this stuff will last so that is why I put the date of our first use. I don't always run the dishwasher everyday but this week I have a feeling we are going to be running it A LOT more than normal. Though I'm not sure how long the store bought stuff lasted, there is more in those boxes then what I made so we'll see.

Offline

On Friday I told the kids that over break we were not going to watch television, play computer games, play the wii or use their ds'. I even told the kids that while they were awake I would not go on the computer either. We are starting the no electronics rule Saturday evening as that afternoon they are having some friends over while the parents go out for lunch and I took them to the library Saturday morning (Jeff worked until 3:30am and it was easier to keep the noise down not to be here!) and let them get a movie to watch. I figure that way it will be easier on my sister as she watches them if they are docile while in front of the boob tube. She will have 6 kids ages are 11, almost 10 in Jan, almost 10 in Feb, 8 1/2, 5 and 3. I plan to have Peanut sleeping by the time she gets here so she will really only have 5 kidlets to keep an eye on :) Though I am really excited to bond as a family. Since we didn't take a vacation over this summer I feel as if the kids are just disconnected with each other and really mean to each other. I am going to do some family building type activities that they already know about. I think it will be fun!!! I guess I will let you know after the week is up if we survived. But like I said I will use the computer once they go to bed but I am going to only give myself an hour on it so that I can get enough sleep that I won't be cranky. Also this post was scheduled so that I did not break any of the no computer rules ;) YEAH for family bonding!

Babysitting was bad on Saturday and we are working at getting to the bottom of what really happened.

Thanksgiving Program

There are so many different directions this post could go. This was my 5th one and I will have 2 more to attend. The kids put a lot of work into this program and it is quite cute. I just wish the parents weren't so rude. If you want to stand and get a picture of your child go to the back don't stand up right in front of people who are sitting and pleasantly trying to watch the program. I had to kindly tell two different people to sit. Both of them left instead. Ok this is really not the direction I wanted this post to go so changing directions, it just really bugs me. I dropped off all the kids in the classes they needed to go. Peanut was having a Thanksgiving party in her class so she got to go to school, she doesn't normally go on Fridays. I think went to talk to the teachers of my older two kids. I wanted to know if they were planning on taking their classes to see the program or if I should come get Monkey and GG. Both teachers were taking the kids so I just needed to grab Peanut. As I was talking to Monkey's teacher she was telling me about how great of a kid he was. How he is very focused with his work, very smart and friendly to all the kids. I had no plans on talking to her about him but she brought it up. I was so proud of him. He really is a very sweet kid. The kids got their first quarter report cards the other day. Monkey had straight A's. GG had all A's and one B. She was pretty bummed about the B but they both made high honors! We don't talk about grades with all the kids we do it individually. However, they usually tell each other what they got. Monkey didn't rub it in GG's face that he did better than her which is a first for him one two levels. First getting better grades and two not teasing her with it. His grades this quarter were a great confidence boost for him but it didn't go to his head. I am so proud of both of my kids on their grades. Red got a report card too but they don't give our letters it is either O for outstanding S for satisfactory, or I for needs improvement. He had mostly O's and some S+ and a S- for his writing ability he writes really sloppy most of the time. But he is working on it and hopefully next quarter it will be an O :) Well that was all over the place!

Laundry

I'll let you in on a dirty little secret of mine. Promise not to look down on me?! I hate laundry. Of all the house hold chore this is by far my least favorite. Like most chores it is never ending...meaning there is always more when you accomplish the feat in front of you. As our family has grown the amount of dirty laundry has too, drat. For a while I was doing a load everyday. But then it would sit in the dryer until I did the load the next day and then I would have to run the dryer to get the wrinkles out. I didn't like this system. On to the next option every other day and two loads. Well at least one load would get washed, dried, folded and put away...but that second load would sit in the dryer and we would have the same problem. When I was testing out the different laundry options we lived in our first home. It was all one floor and the washer and dryer were in the half bath right off of the master bedroom. The last option I tried was doing laundry once a week on the same day every week. At first it was a bit overwhelming, and I think we only had 5 people in our family at the time. But as the weeks went by I started to love only doing my dreaded chore once a week. The only problem I had was were to put the mounts upon mounts of dirty laundry waiting for the day for it to be washed. Remember our house was small 1200 square feet. The only space big enough for it all was our bedroom and by the 6th day our room started to smell like dirty clothes. I'm happy to say that in our new home. We have a laundry shoot and I don't see the clothes until I go into the basement to sort and to do the laundry once a week. We don't have anything in the basement so there is plenty of room for the dirty clothes to hang out until I can wash them. It is still my least favorite chore but at least I only have to do it once a week and don't have to smell it the rest of the time.

Honor

I have already posted today. But I feel the need to do another post. Today was the processional for the fallen soldier and they were driving right past the kids school. I heard them yesterday talking to the kids at lunch what was going to happen and what was expected from them while he was driven by. Take your hats off, put your hand over your heart, and stand still. I was very happy to hear that they were not only taking the students outside but telling them what was expected of them. This morning I had *TONS* of errands to run before the kids have break. I will not have a chance to do any tomorrow morning as it is the Kindergarten Thanksgiving program in the morning. I went to the chiropractor, and three groceries store before heading to school to be apart of honoring our fallen soldier. As I pulled up to the school I saw some adults standing outside then as I got closer there were more people as I looked closer it was our high school students as I turned the corner and saw the long side of the school and hundreds of students, teachers, administration and parents standing there I started to tear up. What an amazing thing to see that many people holding our flag saluting a soldier who gave all he could give. Just typing that brings tears to my eyes. It was such an honor and privilege to be there as he was driven past. Though I hope and prayer I never have to experience this again. As they drove by I saw the brother of Katie (who is the soldiers wife) in the car and it made me think about how not even two years ago this little boy (in 3rd grade) buried his mother. My heart is so heavy for this family.

Puzzle

We are a puzzle and game family. And I really like that about us. They are things that bring us together to reconnect as a family. Well the other day I bought our Thanksgiving puzzle! I'm so excited. I showed it to GG and she was just as excited as I was!! I love that girl. This is the post from last year's Thanksgiving puzzle. I hope to take pictures each day after we work on it. The kids only have about an hour attention span when doing the puzzles. Which is why it takes us all week to finish it. Though this year I got us a 750 pieces instead of a 1000. I also bought us a stow and go mat to put the puzzle on so that we can move it easily from the table. I will post the pictures of the progression when the puzzle is finished. That will be an easy post! I am also very excited about the kids having one more week of school and then being off for a whole week. I should start planning my Thanksgiving menu. Maybe this year my in laws will come over?! I should invite them...

planning

I sat down today and started planning out our Thanksgiving meal which is in 8 days! I am very pleased with the dishes I have planned to make. It isn't necessarily a traditional Thanksgiving spread but it is good all the same! We are going to have Roast Turkey in Rosemary like we did last year because it was SO yummy. It also made a very tasty leftover turkey soup. As I was sitting listing out everything I needed for Thanksgiving I realized I haven't been doing a real grocery list for our meals during the week. Which leads to a lot of the same meals because I grab what seems to be easy to make. Some of our regulars are Texas chili, veg stir fry, and some sort of chicken meal. As I was sitting there and realizing this I also thought about the fact that the kids were going to be home for a whole 9 days and I better plan those meals or we are going to be making lots more trips to the grocery store than I care to make with 4 children under tow. I am going to shop today as I do that Wednesdays and then I will only have to shop again next Tuesday! Kids always seem to be hungrier when they are at home...

Naptimes

This time of day is the most happy and most dreaded part of my day. I love when the little one is asleep and I can get things done but I hate the process of actually getting her to sleep it is killer for both of us. And for anyone who thinks that maybe she is out growing her naps. I will nip that thought in the bud right now. She hasn't. I know this because on the days she fails to take naps she is about asleep at 5:45pm and her naps are about 1 1/2 to 2 hours in length. When my kids outgrew them they started taking 45 minute to an hour nap. Most days I feel like I need a nap myself after getting her down for one.

Schedules

Jeff and I are leaders of a small group at our church. We love this small group as it is couples around the same age as us with children around the same age as ours...ours always being the older of the kids. Anyway in our group we have two police officers, a fireman, and a nurse. Which makes scheduling a nightmare. The nurse is married to one of the police officers so when he is off she works making it all the more difficult. We really do love this group of people I just wish getting together wasn't such a headache. But this isn't the only thing that is hard to schedule. Sometimes I find trying to get together with just one other couple can be just as hard. Which is a bit odd if you think about it. Nonetheless that is the case. There is a couple that Jeff and I have been trying to get together with for over 6 months. I stopped trying to find a date a couple months back and then decided that we should try again and sure enough we are running into the same situation of schedule conflict. The sad part of it all is we really don't do much so our schedule is pretty wide open unless Jeff has something at work he has to do but that isn't a whole lot. Am I alone on this dilemma?

P.S. I'm half way through the month!!!

Cough Cough

Dear Lady in the row behind me and to the left,
Seriously you have to take not only one phone call but TWO during the movie? Can you not read the signs that say don't add your own soundtrack? Could you not hear them say it too? I paid $14 for my son and I to watch this movie and I really didn't appreciate your talking through it. I'm almost 100% positive that the calls you took were not life or death because you would of left after receiving them and you didn't, you stayed put. And I know you saw me turn around, look at you and shake my head when you took the first call, you looked directly at me.
Sincerely, Me

I took Monkey on a date yesterday in between two of the birthday parties. We had a good 2 1/2 hours to kill. He didn't want to go mini golfing. I didn't want to spend a fortunate taking him to laser tag. So we agreed upon a movie. We saw Megamind. It was actually pretty cute and clean for having a pg rating. I was very relieved that I didn't have to talk with him about any inappropriate scenes. I would recommend taking your 8 year old. I might take my 5 year old to see it but probably NOT my 3 year old as it would be too scary for her. It was so nice to sit next to my little man and hold his hand while we watched the movie. I tried to buy him a treat but he didn't want anything! Such a cheap date and simple date we had. I took Red to see a movie over the summer and he still talks about that date we had together! I need to be more mindful of spending one on one time with this little people. I used to be pretty good at it and for some reason life just seems to be busier so I need to slow it down again.

This is the Day...

pray for me. I need "will power the power to will away temptation". Anyone know what song that quote is from? Anyways, today is the day of the THREE parties. Fortunately, I am only attending two of them. However the two I am going to are going to have pizza and pasta.
Side bar: Dear Gluten, You are so yummy but my body doesn't like you. Love, Me
Moving along...I am planning on bring salad to the first party as it is a kids party and I'm pretty sure there isn't going to be any there! The second party is for my friend's 30th birthday and it is at a restaurant so I think there will be something I can eat that won't kill my tummy later. Just pray that I can say NO to the cake and sweets with great conviction. Thanks in advance :)

Tragedy

I'm sure you have heard in the news of the attack that is going on over in Afghanistan and some of our troops have died. Well we got the news a couple of days ago at school that one of our teacher's son was killed over there. The teacher teaches 7th grade and I have never had any contact with him as far as school goes. I was sad for him but in that disconnected kind of way when you don't really know someone but are sad for what they are going through. Later in the day I found out that he was married and has a 1 year old. I know his wife, she is the same age as my sister in law Liz, and they graduated together from our school. It breaks my heart that this young wife and mother are now forever without their husband. It breaks my heart that this little girl won't see her father again. To make things even sadder the wife lost her step-mom to brain cancer not quit 2 years ago. I guess all this to say please pray for our troops and their families. This soldier paid the ultimate price...his life.

Health

I know awhile back I wrote that I had my blood levels rechecked to see if they were improving. Well I'm not sure if I posted about it. I got two of the results back two weeks ago but had to wait for the last test to come in. I finally got the call with those results. The first two leptin and VEGF were both within normal range. I was so happy! Last time they were really out of whack, it was nice to know all the hard work I was doing was making positive changes in my body. I will say that the results for my c4a were quite discouraging though. They had gone up. I need it to go down. They went from 19,605 to 22,804. So NOT happy about that and freaking out a lot a little about it. But really what can I do? I feel so much better than I did before and have started to get lax on what I eat. I think I need to really restrict my eating again. I can tell that I don't feel as well as I did when I was eating really healthy. It just really stinks to eat like that ALL. THE. TIME. Parties and get togethers are really tough to be at because I have a really bad sweet tooth. And there is ALWAYS sweets. This coming weekend we have 3 birthday parties. What am I going to do?! I need lots of prayers for strength and to avoid temptation in this area. I am so weak. I did talk to my friend Andrea and she is going to ask a friend who knows more about that test for some advice. I eagerly wait to see what she recommends.

Home Improvements

Like I said a few posts back we are refinancing so we are doing a few things to make the house look a little nicer for the appraisal. The last thing we want is for the house not to appraise for the amount we need it too. On Saturday a guy from church came over and put in a bathroom fan in our master bathroom and replaced the one in the big bathroom, or as we lovingly call it "the pink bathroom". Now that those are installed we are ripping out the hallway carpet that runs down the stairs too. There is hardwood underneath. I like the look of the hardwood so much better than the nasty greenish color carpet that was there. Though we are totally going to need to refinish them to get them looking a little nicer. It is so fun to make this house ours! Here are the pictures of the carpet to hardwood!


As far as other home improvements like the bathrooms, the kitchen, new siding and windows they are going to have to wait until we can afford to dump a big amount into this house. The nice thing is that they aren't things that need to be done right away. Though I would really like to get new windows to help with heating and cooling costs and when we do the windows Jeff wants to do the siding at the same time. For now I think I will enjoy the small change to make the house ours...

Thanksgiving Comes First

So it is the beginning of the 3rd week in November. I wish I could say that this is the first time I went into a store and saw CHRISTMAS trees and decorations up. But it isn't they have been in stores for weeks now. I believe that one store had them up before Halloween was even over. When did this become ok? Why is it alright to sell stuff for a holiday before the previous one is over? Do people really buy Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving? I don't understand the logic of putting Christmas decorations out so early. Don't get me wrong I LOVE Christmas. It is one of my favorite holidays. But I really enjoy Thanksgiving too. I don't want to feel rushed through the Thanksgiving season. I think that having Thanksgiving before Christmas helps prepare our hearts to be thankful for what we have. It suppresses the "give mes" and the greediness because you force on what you have and not on what you want or think you need. You are able to look around at the people in your life (family) and see how truly blessed you are, there are no expectations of gifts just your presence and creating memories. I think we should tell the retailer that THANKSGIVING comes before Christmas so stop shoving your merchandise on us at the wrong time. Besides Christmas isn't about all that stuff anyway it is about the birth of a Savior. My Savior. I think stores are too much about the almighty dollar and should remember what Christmas is all about. I say enough is enough!

Around and Around we go

Ugh! I feel like I am getting NOWHERE. The kids and I were rear ended in April of 09. I had back neck pain and sore muscles and Red and GG complained of the same things. We went to the ER to make sure nothing more serious was going on. With everything that was going around that time I pushed it to the back burner and thought I will deal with this later. Well, now is later. I called to make sure all of our medical bills are together and ready to be submitted so that we can close out this claim. I got 3 bills from the ER visit one from the hospital, one from the ER doc and the other from radiology. The kids each had one from the hospital and that was it. I have been trying to make sure that there isn't another bill out in nowhere land for each of the kids for the attending ER doctor. Every person I call tells me to call a different place that tells me to call a different place. It is getting quite annoying. I really want to close out this account and move on from it. I want the claim adjuster to STOP calling me in regards to this accident. I guess more calls are in my future, I will get to the bottom of this. Why is it that the person who gets hit is the one that has the biggest headache in dealing with the aftermath of the accident. The one in the wrong gets off scott free, at least that is the way it feels.

My Dad

Today is my dad's birthday. Growing up I was always embarrassed of my dad actually I still get embarrassed of my dad. He is like a big kid. Even through the embarrassment I still do love him. I am glad God made him my dad. (at least most days) He is a very energetic grandpa and all my kids love him to pieces. He always has these HUGE plans and most of the time they come to pass. Almost all the times he calls me it is either to tell me that he doesn't have presents for the kids from a recent business trip (his way of saying he bought us gifts), he wants to go out to eat or he is planning a vacation for all of us. He is planning our next trip right now so the calls are fun and exciting. He is a big dreamer too. He wants to spend a lot of one on one time with each of the kids and they really love it. He makes them each feel very special and for that I am so proud of him. He has a huge heart and loves deeply. All that to say Happy Birthday Dad. I love you!

Kid Update

Well the last few posts have been all about me so I thought I would update on each of the littles that live here!

Peanut: she has been in the phase that I hope ends soon where she cries every time I take her someplace and leave her...school, Sunday school, gymnastics, Puggles or if I just leave the house without her. The night I went with my dad as soon as she heard me telling Jeff what was for dinner she knew I was leaving and was stuck to me like glue until my dad got there and then the water works started. It is the strangest thing because they only last about 10 seconds after I leave...I've waited outside of the doors and listened. Then she tells me about all the fun she had. All that to say it is really wearing on me and I can't wait for her to out grow this phase! Other than that she is doing really good at school and gymnastics. She is learning her abc's and how to do a cartwheel. She just crawled into my lap while she watches television.

Red: His reading has gotten so good! But now he is doing poorly on his writing assignments. His teacher told me that if he keeps handing in sloppy work she is going to give him double so that he can practice to get better at his writing. He had a field trip on Friday and then a Harvest party afterward. I was one of the room moms. I love being there for things like this so that I can see the interactions he has with his classmates! I had 6 kids in my group and they were pretty good for the most part. It was a great field trip.

Monkey: He is my silent, keep it all to myself, person. I have to really work at getting him to talk to me. He seems to be doing good at school. Next weekend he has a birthday party for a friend at church and I am going to take him. Then afterward spend time with just him for a few hours. I hope that will help us reconnect. Other than that he is my boy who always helps me with stuff without being asked or if he doesn't know what to do he will ask what he can do. I love that about him. He is such a good natured kid. I really look forward to hanging out with just him.

GG: She is taking violin lessons at school. We got a really great deal for them...FREE :) She just has to rent a violin for $20 a month. She has lessons twice a week for 40 minutes it is the sweetest deal EVER! Oh and the lessons are during school so I don't even have to take her anywhere or wait longer for her. Another cool thing is that everyone keeps telling me she is a natural at the violin. She taught herself how to play "Happy Birthday" and then played it for me on my birthday. Other than that I am heart broken for her. She got invited to a birthday party for a friend at church. The party is on a Tuesday starting 10 minutes after she gets out of school. It takes us at least 30 minutes to get there and they don't get out of the school for at least 5 minutes after the bell rings. She was so sad she couldn't go, but I just can't figure out how to make it work.

Refinance...

I kept hearing how the interests were dropping and I was debating whether or not we should refinance. We bought the house at the end of May so we have only owned this house for 5 months. When I weighed out all the pros and cons of doing it and talked to Jeff we decided we were going to go for it. When I called to get the ball rolling on the refi we got an interest rate that is one whole percent lower than we had 5 months ago. Which is AWESOME. We are going to be essentially starting over but will have only lost 5 months in this house. When talking to my friend and mortgage broker the rule of thumb is if you can recoup your closing cost within 4 years then it is worth to refi especially if you plan on staying in your house for the long haul which is what we plan. We will recoup our closing cost in about 2 years! All the money responsibilities have always fallen to me. I am the one without the outside of the home job and I do all the shopping for the house and pays the bills. I actually enjoy dealing with the household finances, I always have. It works great for us because Jeff dislikes dealing with bills and making sure there is enough money to pay for things. The only funny part of the whole interaction with the refi is that I was the one on the phone talking to the bankers and mortgage brokers but in the end I sign nothing because I don't make any money so the loan isn't in my name but in Jeff's. It's a good thing that he trusts me :)

InStlyer!

After drooling over the InStyler for about a year now. I finally own one! I used it for the first time on Tuesday. Can I just say it is SO much easier and faster than a flat iron in straightening my hair. And AND it gives my hair bounce and curl at the end. I love it. I can't believe I waited so long to get it, oh yeah that's right it is $100...that was the reason I didn't get it when I first wanted it. Now I leave you with pictures of my hair after I used the InStyler...I was trying to get different angles while holding the camera myself.

It will cut the time I do my hair in half...SCORE :)

These lines first caught my attention in the song
You are more than the choices that you've made
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes
You are more than the problems you create
You've been remade

These next lyrics are just so beautiful.
This is talking about Jesus dying on the cross for your sins.
It's talking about the heartache that brings you to the cross of Jesus.
We all have heartache but Jesus is there to love you.
Cause this is not about what you've done
But what's been done for you
This is not about where you've been
But where your brokenness brings you to

This is not about what you feel
But what He felt to forgive you
And what He felt to make you loved

I've only heard this once on the radio before posting it on here and it stuck with me all day. How wonderful it is to know that I am more than what is going on in my life right now. I've been remade through Christ. I have a purpose!

Maturity

I don't get to spend one on one time with my dad much but last night we spent about 3 hours together. We talked a lot...ok I talked a lot and he listened. I told him about this relationship I have that I am always unsure of, I never really know where I stand with this person. A lot of times it seems by their actions or lack of action that I really don't matter to them. It hurts me deeply. I have tried to put a positive spin on all the little hurts and I forgive them all the time even when they have no idea they have hurt me. It was really weird to be talking to my dad about this topic but at the same time it was nice because I know he loves me unconditionally. To be quite honest I'm not even sure how we got on the subject of this person. A few things my dad said that really helped put it into perspective were; it seems like there is a lack of maturity which leads to selfishness. As much as he was talking about the other person it made me look at myself because in every relationship there are two people right?! How can I be more mature in my actions toward this person and how can I be more selfless? Because really I have a part in this too. I think in this world we put the blame on others way too much and never take responsibility for the part we play. I want to be better at taking ownership of my mistakes...I've got a long way to go that for sure.

National Blog Posting Month

I have seen this done for a few years but have never done it because I was always worried that I would miss a day or not have anything to say but this year I think I want to give it a try. For the next month I will be posting once a day. I can't say they will be very long posts but I will try and keep them interesting enough.

My birthday was yesterday. I had a really great day. The kids showered my with hugs and kisses in the morning and they got me tetris for the wii. What a dangerous gift. I asked them, "Do you never want to eat again or have a clean house?!" Jeff's gift was the coolest. He gave me a necklace with a police star that had his department name and his number. I love it. Now I carry him with me where ever I go. Then last night we went to trunk or treat at our church. Every year they sing to me, so embarrassing, but this year took the cake! After they sang one of my kids told our youth pastor I was 42...and he said it in the mic for everyone to hear. Thankfully my GG was right there to correct him and told him my right age of 32. OY Tonight my dad is taking me out for dinner just the two of us so that will be fun. His birthday is this coming Sunday.