Braggin' Rights!

When I post my layouts to galleries like DST or DSA I usually post them on Friday and don't make it back there until the following Friday to add more layouts.  I just don't have time to be online all day like some scrapbook chicas do.  So, imagine my surprise when I go to upload more layouts this week and see that I have 10 messages.  I never have that many messages, so I took a peek at the first one, and was STUNNED to find out that one of my layouts had been put on the GSO{Gallery Stand Outs} a few days earlier!  SAY WHAT?! {oops, I've been watching too much Hannah Montanna with Lily}  The messages afterward were comments on that layout. I know GSO isn't a huge deal, but considering I never get nominated for things like that I was THRILLED!  So you wanna see what layout it was for?!

I'm really glad this layout was chosen.  It took FOREVER to do the journaling on it.  I was bawling the whole way through.  I {HEART} this layout!

Still sick....

This flu whipped me!  I was officially in bed{or our recliner} from Saturday until Monday. Russ was so good about taking caring of me.  He took care of the girls, fed them, played with them, got me Sprite, and even cleaned up my one trip I didn't make to the bathroom.{Sidenote: Our bathroom is REALLY far from the living room when you are sick.  Just sayin....}He even took Monday off to stay home with me because I still couldn't move from the chair.  Tuesday he went back to work with me still not moving much.  My chest and back felt like someone REALLY HEAVY had sat on me and bounced up and down.  It was painful to breathe, talk, laugh, even to sit.  Tuesday afternoon I moved around enough to get a simple frozen meal out of the freezer for dinner.  I was still on the "no food" diet but I knew the girls and Russ needed to eat.  Then Russ texted me and said, "Put away dinner I'm coming home"  Since it was 3:00 in the afternoon and he doesn't get off until 5:00, I knew what that meant.  He had caught the flu :(  The poor guy apparently had been "toughing it out" since lunch but didn't make till the end of the day.  Russ is over the worst of it today, he's just got the aches and the "someone sat on me" syndrome but feels like he can go to work tomorrow.  I felt a lot less pain today but after going shopping for food that we desperately needed I was exhausted, sweating, and getting fuzzy spots in front of my eyes.  Apparently I'm not 100% yet.  We have all this fun thanks to Lily.  I have no idea where she picked this up from, but I'm sure it will be the first of many flu bugs she brings to our house. The good news is.....Allie hasn't gotten it yet.  I got her a flu shot back in October and I'm crossing my fingers that it is keeping her healthy.  Well that and the fact that she isn't allowed within a five foot radius of the sickly parent.  Beware of this nasty flu bug going around, it knocks you flat on your back!

Kindergarten Registration

Lily turns 5 on July 28th.  She sneaks by the school cutoff by just a month.  As soon as I found out that I was pregnant with her I've been concerned whether I would have her by the oldest or youngest in her class.  This year though it has become more and more obvious to me that keeping her home would hinder her academic progress.  For Pete's sake she can read a book that is made up of sight words!  There is NO WAY 2 or 3 hours of my "schoolwork" with her would challenge her growing mind.

The week after we moved into our house I walked to the local elementary school and found out when Kindergarten registration would be.  Well that day was TODAY!!!!  I dragged my sorry bum of the recliner, got into some clothes other than PJs, loaded Allie in the stroller, and threatened Lily{remember I'm still sick} that if she didn't behave at the school I wasn't going to sign her up.  

The whole process was quite painless.  A few papers to fill out including one that allowed my child to take Pepto Bismal.  {YUCK!  I don't even take that stuff}  The crazy secretaries ooohhhed and ahhhhed over Lily and her curly hair.  We reported to the nurse about Lily's special need of an epi-pen, and we were done!  I came home and collapsed in the chair.  The walk was too much exertion for my flu recovering body.  But then the tears and the thoughts came on.....

MY BABY'S LEAVING ME!!!!!

Oh boy.....here we go!  

{More tears to follow in May at our first Kindergarten meeting!}

sick

Lily had the flu last week.  I thought I had been careful since I wasn't sick.  Last night proved me wrong.  I've got the flu.  Russ got home from California just in time to take care of me.  I'll update soon....

$3 off Huggies

I am a loyal fan of Huggies diapers.  I cringe everytime I buy them because they are soooooooooo much more expensive than the off brands that I used to buy.  But my darling girls got my ultra sensitive skin and get horrible diaper rash when I put them in the off brand diapers.  Poor Lily just dealt with it because we didn't have a single penny extra back when she was a baby.

As mentioned before I've started doing some couponing.  Already I caught $4.00 of a box of Huggies last month.  I know $4.00 isn't going to break our budget, but every penny help me get closer to getting a few "extras" that I would love.  Ya know, like a DSLR camera or something horribly expensive like that.  Now imagine how thrilled I was to check my favorite couponing site and find out they have a link for $3.00 off Huggies!   SCORE!  I highly suggest that if you buy Huggies you check out THIS POST to find out where to print your coupons.

PS I suggest you turn off your colored ink when printing these coupons.  No sense in wasting precious colored ink when the stores will take a black and white coupon :D

Miss Smarty Pants

Lily is too smart for her own good.  I have a hard time keeping up with her.  She loves when I do school with her, and sits patiently the whole three hours. So it shouldn't have surprised me today when she did some logical deduction, but it did.  She even outsmarted me!  The tale goes like this...

Both girls have been begging to blow bubbles since Tuesday when I pulled them out of their bathroom box. The sun was out and shining today, so we hurried outside after lunch but before naptime.  Back when Lily was 1.5 yrs old I bought this bubble gun that you dipped in the solution and it would shoot bubbles.  It kept me from getting lightheaded from blowing countless bubbles.  I tried it out today, but for some reason it didn't work.  I'm going on the assumption that the solution isn't very "bubbly" because it is old.  So for about 10 mins I blew my brains out and called it quits.

Lily begged to blow bubbles, which I immediately said no to.  I didn't want to clean up the sticky dirty mess off her that only a 4 year old can make with bubbles.  Then a nagging voice in the back of my head said, "let her have fun.  It isn't going to cause that much more work to wash her clothes and give her a bath"  I knew the voice was right so I let her have them.  After awhile I think she got tired of blowing them and picked up the bubble gun.  I reminded her that it didn't work, but she said, "let me see"

To my utter surprise she held the bubble gun up to the bubble wand in her hand, pushed the button to get the fan moving, and from the wand blew bubbles.  I sat there shocked wondering, "Why didn't I think of that?!"  It was such a random thing to do, but it worked!  And it worked well!  I was so proud of Lily at that moment for thinking through a problem and creating a solution for it.  It could have been purely accidental, but I like to think my daughter has got some smarts in her and thought of it by herself.  

What cool things have your kids taught you lately?!

Random Bits and Pieces

I'm a lame-o blogger right now, and have a ton of fun things swirling around in my head that I want to blog about, BUT I haven't taken a single picture of one of them. Hopefully without these pictures you will see the little snippets of sunshine in our lives that have been peeking through the clouds that continuously hang around me.

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Yesterday I promised the girls early on in the day that we would go outside and have a picnic.  That fell through when mommy was too tired to deal with it.  Watching the light go out of Lily's eyes when I told her this made me promise that AFTER lunch we would go outside and play.  The girls rushed through lunch and quickly found their "coh" as Allie says it.  And of course there were some "shoooooos" put on.  

Originally I had taken my laptop outside to do some things on it while the girls played, but apparently it had been unplugged while inside and the battery was dead.  I set it aside and sat in our camp chair and enjoyed the sun on my face for about 2.5 seconds.  Lily started doing things while chiming in, "Watch this trick mom" and I realized that my girls needed me.  The needed to be outside playing, but they needed to be outside playing with mommy.  So often they beg for my attention and I give it to them, but there aren't nearly enough times that I give them my undivided attention.  In my heart I felt the want to change, so I did.  I got up and the girls and I played. 

The hour went by quickly with lots of laughter and peace between the girls.  It was Allie's naptime all to soon.  Throughout the day I noticed Lily was more agreeable.  I had another one of those aha moments and realized that a lot of Lily's misbehavior that have come on when Russ is gone would probably lessen if I gave her more undivided attention. Aha moments are nice.

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Target has a great sale on clothes for the girls right now.  Shirts and shorts are $3 and $4 dollars apiece.  For $25 dollars I was able to get 5 shirts, 1 pair of shorts, 1 pair of capris, and a romper.  Granted I used a $5 coupon but I was so excited to get so much for so little!  I also scored some $8 joggers{tennis shoes} for Lily.  We've been looking for two months now for cheap/sturdy joggers for her.

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I've been trying my hand a couponing lately.  I've found some mild success.  I haven't really seen the cost of what I spend on groceries go down.  However, I have found that my weekly food budget has been buying us A LOT more food.  I wanted to share with you all this amazing steal I got today.  I bought 5 bags of salad and 1 loaf of bread for $6.24 and saved $12.57!  So cool, huh?!  And YES I will eat that much salad in a week or two.  I eat salads a lot. Oh, and did I mention the loaf a bread isn't that cheap full of air bread?!  It is the "pay-an-arm-and-a-leg-thick-real-whole-wheat" bread.  DOUBLE SCORE!!!

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If you look over at my sidebar you'll see a few "worthwhile goals" area.  One of those being my goal of not drinking Dr. Pepper.  In the last 3.5 weeks I've only drank Dr. Pepper THREE days!  All of which I blame on Russ if you are wondering.  He drinks it in front of me and I have a hard time resisting that.  I must admit I miss drinking it, but it is a bad habit that I really needed to kick if I want to feel better.  

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I went to the dentist about two weeks ago.  I had a tooth in the front that was hurting, and also since my last visit {1.5 yrs ago} my mouth has ached on and off.  I received the AMAZING news that I didn't have any new cavities.  I think that has only happened one other time in my life of visiting the dentist.  No matter what I do, I ALWAYS have cavities.  The tooth that hurt?!  Well, I part of a filling on it had chipped off and needs replaced.  That is better than having a new cavity right?!

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And if you are wondering, YES WE LOVE OUR HOUSE.  It is very, very, very, very slowly starting to come together.  So far the kitchen and the girls bathroom is unpacked.  We spent all last week taking care of our apartment that Russ never had time to help me unpack.  I get little done during the day because I'm running around all morning, and in the afternoon I'm too tired to want to do anything.  Hopefully, I can find some more energy this week to get the girls room unpacked.  Wish me luck :D

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And one last tidbit, Allie's black eye is 99% gone.  It was a fast recovery.  Now if we could only say that about the cold she has caught......

Perils of Moving

Moving is quite perilous, and this time Allie got hurt.  Boy did she get it!  Here's the damage....

I wish these pictures showed it better, but that is a huge swollen black eye she's got there.  It actually happened innocently.  On Sunday night Lily and Allie were playing peek-a-boo in the living room.  {Mind you our living room is still strewn with boxes, bookshelves, chairs, and other paraphernalia} Lily would throw a small blanket over Allie's head then pull it off and yell BOO!  Allie would giggle, and Lily would start the whole progress over again.  

I watched as Lily yet again threw it over Allie's head and pulled it down.  Except this time Allie last her balance, stumbled, and landed face first on the corner of the speaker.  I'm surprised she didn't take her eye out!  She instantly was crying in pain.  Her sobs were uncontrollable.  Almost as fast as her sobs started, so did the swelling.  It turned a little pink and puffed up but that was it.  We decided to leave it alone and put her and Lily to bed.

Allie woke up Monday morning with it more swollen and more discolored.  She hasn't complained a bit about it, except when I tried to take a picture of it.  We bribed her with some ice cream and got the shots above.  It swelled a little again today, but I think it is from her sleeping on it, not because it it getting worse.  At least this should be the last time for a LONG time that anyone gets hurt from moving :D

Gratitude and Patience

I know this blog has become a boring place for me to write my thoughts, and not much of a place to show off my family, but I think I am enjoying this transition.  I do hope to get back into a routine of sharing more photos of the fam, but for now this will suffice.

This weekend we moved.  All week I had been stressed that no one or very few would show up to help Russ.  I simply would not be able to help Russ lift those heavy furniture pieces down the apartment stairs.  I was quite humbled when no less than 10 men from our ward showed up to help us move.  What could have taken all day took a mere 3 hours {if even that long}.  I was so grateful to have one more stress taken off my shoulders.  All I could do was say thank you over, and over, and over again hoping that the elders would know how truly thankful I was for their help.  We have been blessed with a wonderful ward, and I am learning the meaning of what a "ward family" is.

One experience that truly impacted me through this move was when I went back into the girls room at the house to deposit a box in there.  I was quite surprised when I walked in and found an elder we know particularly well putting together Allie's crib.  I quickly tried to discourage him from putting it together.  He turned to me with his mild manner and replied that he had hurt his back earlier in the week, but had wanted to be of help anyways.  He said he couldn't lift the boxes for us, but he certainly could put together Allie's bed so that when she was ready for a nap, her bed would be also.

I left the room with a smile on my face and tears in my eye.  What he had said was true, Allie would need a bed to take a nap.  But what struck me is that this guy had an excuse NOT to come and help out that morning, but he came anyway.  How grateful I was when after running around all morning we were able to lie Allie down in her crib because this man had made the decision to come and serve us.

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On a completely different note is patience.  Apparently, I'm not a patient person.  I want things done NOW and I want them done the way I want them done.  Lately, I've been giving many gentle reminders from the Lord that things are on his time scale, not mine.  Every time I get this gentle reminder I vow to do better, but then again the reminder comes and I realize I have been anything but patient.  So for this month of reaching composure in my life I hope to gain some patience.  Don't think me a fool when I say this.  I know perfectly well I won't gain patience in a month.  However, in the first two months of my striving to find composure I have discovered a trend in the goals I set each month.  NONE of these goals are really achieved by the end of the month, but each month I lay solid foundations of habits that will help me continue on toward achieving the smaller goals, and in the end composure.  I hope that this month I can lay some solid patience groundwork so that I can continually strive to be a more patient person.

At this time in your life what are you grateful for?  What goal are you laying groundwork for?

Another Haircut

It seems that whenever I'm under stress/busy, that is when disasters happen.  Okay not disasters, but bad things.  With the move I've been stressed.  I assume no one would know that because I haven't voiced that I am.  Today my stress level soared when I couldn't find Lily.  After a little bit of searching I found her under the kitchen table.

I knew that she had thrown a tantrum five minutes earlier that she had to wait for Lily to go to bed before she could play with her play.  From this I assumed that she was hiding under the table playing with the playdough.  But there wasn't  playdough anywhere when I stuck my head under the table.  Then I saw the blonde pile of curls.  I think my stress level went through the roof.  I probably good have given myself a stroke from how stressed I was.

Lily got marched to her bed where she stayed for a LONG time.  I gathered the pile of curls and took them to the bathroom.  Then I texted Russ....and started bawling.  Russ suggested that we take her to get it fixed and I just laughed sarcastically.  Where am I supposed to fit ONE more thing into our busy schedule?! 

One thing I want to note about this whole experience is the WHY Lily did this.  I asked her in a rage why she had done it, and her response was that she wanted her hair to grow longer like mine.  Sigh....apparently we are still dealing with a comment a little girl had made to Lily last year.  Kids have way to long of memories.  The second time I asked her when I was much more calm Lily replied that "Jaimon did it. Not me"  Imaginary friends are abundant in Lily's life.  I think she has 3 or 4 currently.  Jaimon is a new addition.  I had to discuss with Lily how blaming it on an imaginary friend is lying.  It took a couple rounds of explaining this before she would admit she did it.  I've heard that kids this age, actually believe that their imaginary friends have done things when they blame it on them.  They aren't outright lying, just confused on the truth.  I never realized that I would have to delve into psychology so much to be able to help/understand my children.

Needless to say, ALL scissors have been put in time out from Lily.  We have marked on the calendar two weeks with X's.  The X's represent how long she must go with out them.  This is going to be tough for her because a day doesn't go by that she isn't cutting something up with her scissors. 

I haven't found the strength yet to take pictures of the damage, but I'll add some soon.  And just to make me feel better....Who has a tragic hair cutting experience they want to share?  ;)