Glasses Magoo?

At Emma's 5-year check up the doctor reported that Emma may need glasses.  Ugh.  So Emma has a very exciting appointment with the eye doctor next week to find out if she needs glasses. 

I am trying to act like glasses are the coolest things in the world, but between you and me, gee I hope that girl doesn't need them. 

Do you like my rendition of Emma with glasses?  I know you are super jealous of my mad drawing skills in the Paint program.  Try not to hate me because I'm so good.  I also seem like a stellar mother, drawing goofy glasses on my child, right?  I should earn awards for these skills, I tell ya. 

So please pray for Emma to not need glasses.  It will save us money and headaches, and jeez oh pete I just don't want to deal with cleaning a 5-year olds glasses!

"The profound impact that a solid marriage, familial love, and godly order has on the children in a Christian home is dramatic." ~Passionate Housewives Desperate for God

I am currently reading/have been reading this book forever and I just love the quote above.  Nick and I mulled over it last night and have made it our parenting mantra.  It is just so true.  What we do and how we raise these children affects them for the rest of their lives. 

Often I get so caught up in the day to day, so overwhelmed by the needs of the everyday that I forget the big picture. 

The bottom line is that my ministry is these children.  Our life, leading them to Christ, raising them to somehow manage without their mother, that is what I am doing here. 

The quote has helped me to put it in perspective.  My children need to have our marriage strong, and our home filled with order and our family's love. 

Happy Tuesday!

I try to get a cute picture of the kids during the summer.  There's just something about summer pictures.  They're tanned and happy and all smiles.  Just look at these kiddos.  Aren't they just the cutest?  I could just eat them up.  One reason I love this picture is because up until now I hadn't realized how much they look alike.  But if you look at their smiles and their eyes, noses, and cheeks...they have the exact same features!  I am so in love with them. 

This weekend Nick had to work.  As mentioned before he has a crazy weird schedule.  He works something called a "swing schedule" which is kind of what nurses in hospitals are on.  Anyway, he worked this weekend so he should get Monday and Tuesday off.   But the man is working. 

And let me tell you, these kiddos are missing their Daddy.  Every day he comes home exhausted and they just want to climb on him and wrestle.  He's such a trooper.  But having Daddy home in the evenings just isn't the same as having him home all day.  Friday though he will be home and I know we all can't wait. 

One reason I can't wait for him to be home (besides the fact that we are crazy in love) is because I am planning on doing some serious garage saling. 

If you are wondering why I haven't mentioned my finds lately, its because I haven't had any!  Can you believe this insanity???  Needless to say I am itching to get out there and get some good deals! 

As much as we missed Daddy this weekend, we had loads of fun doing nothing!  Cal has started making sound effects...lazer shooting noises and the like.  So cute! 

Emma has taken to football so we've been out back playing catch with her.  The girl has some mad football skills.  Crazy!  She is reading so well and is just advancing so well.  Also have to tell you that she dances hilariously!!! I should try to get a video of her.  The problem with my kids and videos are that once they see that camera, they just become complete goofballs and distracted from what they were doing. 

Well that's all from here.  Hope you had a great weekend!  I have a sleeping Nicholas next to me.  Time to drag him upstairs to bed. 

Look What the Postman Brought!

I am so happy that this little bundle of joy has arrived!  This is the purse/tote Nick got me for Mother's Day.  Isn't it beautiful?  It's so me!  I just love the color combination!  Anyway, I guess I shouldn't say this is my Mother's Day gift as this is now the third one of these I've been through.  Hopefully this one will last forever like a Coach bag is supposed to.  That is why the man bought it for me anyway.  The first one the little threads of the c's started pulling out...after a day!  The second one the leather on the bottom started pulling apart, so hopefully third time's a charm and I don't have any problems with this puppy! 

The ladies at the Coach store were super nice.  This last time though was fairly upsetting.  I called the store and was told that they no longer have that.  Maybe I'd be able to find it at an outlet store by calling random stores and then visiting.  I was upset.  I mean, this is 2011!  Isn't there some way to find it at another store without me hunting down outlet stores? 

So Nick took their advice and called the store in Myrtle Beach.  We're vacationing there soon.  Maybe they could hold it for us???  Mail it to us???  Something?  The manager ALL THE WAY down there heard our cry for help.  She started calling stores around the country and found one in New Jersey that would send it out.  We've been told this is just about the last one in the country for sale. 

Needless to say I was so thankful for that manager in Myrtle Beach.  I am planning on visiting her in person to thank her for her customer service. 

So that's the highlight of my week.  All is right with the world now that my purse has been replaced.  Now if only I could find my camera battery...

But I'll save that story for another time!  :)

Math Scavenger Hunt

Well if you are like me you were ready for the weekend!  Not quite sure why I was ready for the weekend as I don't work and this weekend Nick has to work.  I guess it still feels exciting when its the weekend! 

Emma's in the picture above doing math.  She is getting so big!  Cannot believe it!  Anyway, to practice our math we made a math scavenger hunt.  She took her little plate of manipulatives (frozen marshmallows) to each math problem she found to figure them out. 

She got 100%.  She is just doing so great.  I've been searching the internet high and low for new ideas.  I guess I just have to keep things interesting for her.  She like the scavenger hunt and was super careful to keep those marshmallows on the plate so she could gobble them up when she was done...smart girl! 

Hope you all are planning on a great weekend!  As I mentioned Nick has to work this weekend (blah!) He has a weird schedule in case you hadn't noticed!  :)  I'm debating whether or not to take the kids hiking this weekend.  It would be by myself so not too sure about that.  Maybe during the week next week I will. 

I hope ya'll are staying cool.  It has been super, super hot here.  Hot where they have weather advisorys telling you not to go out, hot.  Ugh.  Needless to say we all feel spent simply because of the heat and we are all pulling out our hair because its so hot.  It's only supposed to be 95 today so hopefully that will offer some relief.  I really cannot believe I just sait "It's only supposed to be 95 today..." Sheesh!

Well Happy Weekending!  Do lots of relaxing and summer things like eating corn and watermelon! :)

The Birthday Boy!

Okay this is a terrible picture to post as it's not of anything special except one thing...look how much hair Nick has!  This was a picture of Nick on our honeymoon and today he celebrates his 33rd Birthday!  I love him so much and I feel so honored to get to share my life with him.  Happy Birthday Honey!!!!

Blueberry Picking

Last week we went blueberry picking.  It was hot.  But then again it is the middle of July in the midwest, so I guess that is to be expected.  We are so blessed to live about 15 minutes away from an organic blueberry farm. 

Our kids LOVE blueberrys.  That may even be an understatement.  We save so much money picking the berries ourselves.  To give you an example of how much we save, Meijer had blueberries on sale for $1.50 a pint this week.  At the blueberry farm we got organic blueberrys for 1.75 for a pound!  I get dizzy with the money saving excitement!!! 

We picked 30 pounds of blueberries.  Holy Cow that is a lot of fruit!  We froze almost all of them.  I am hoping to have enough left over to use throughout the year.  And I'd love to have enough to make fresh blueberry muffins for Christmas morning...yummy!

 Here's the gang on the tractor taking us out to the farm.  This farm is so organized it is just unreal.  They have acres and acres of plants.  They drop you off at a row where a worker takes you and puts you at a bush.  The bush hasn't been touched so you have an entire bush of berries to pick rather than try to aimlessly look for a bush with fruit still on it.  Yeah!

 Don't they look delish?

 This is what Cal did the entire time!  The worker gave him his own bush and when I was done with mine I picked from his.  That little stinker had half of his bush's berry's gone and NOTHING was in his bucket.  Nothing!  That's a lot of blueberrys to eat!

Emma was hiding!  She picked berries the entire time!  She is so diligent in her work!  She was keeping a berry track of what she would eat which was so cute. She'd yell out "I've eaten 5 now!  I'm up to 5!"  She cracks us up. 

Can you tell we were kind of hot?  Ugh, it was miserable.  The good news is that I got a rockin' awesome farmer's tan!  The blueberrys are behind the kiddos.  So when we got home yours truly got to package them all for freezing.  14 bags later and I was done!  Whew!  It is so worth it since we love blueberries!!!!

Garage Sale Finds

As I mentioned earlier I had the chance to go garage saling this weekend.  I was so happy that I did!  Here are some of the things that I got...

 This wonderful fireplace screen for $5.00!  I thought it was a steal.  I realize some of you have never seen this chairs before either. I don't think I had them at Christmas time.  Anywho, they are from Nick's Auntie up in Chicago.  I love them!  Our fireplace looked pretty ghetto-fabulous when we moved in so I think they jazz the place up a bit. 

 I got these three shirts for Cal at a garage sale.  I think total I paid $1.75 for them.  One even has the tags still on it!  SCORE!!!  Two of them are from the Gap and the other from Old Navy. 

 These are practically new GAP girls jeans.  They had a bajillion pairs of them; Nick wanted me to buy them out of jeans to ebay them, but I hate doing that.  I'm glad I stuck with my gut because these sell but not super well.  We got each pair for $1.00

 These are some other shirts to ebay.  Two are gymboree and one is gap.  I paid $1.50 total. 

This is a sweater I bought myself for $1.50.  I actually bought two more of these...the exact same sweater in aqua and black.  I am no fashionista but I think this is called a shawl neck sweater.  And I think I look super duper cute in them so I bought them.  This was actually my first purchase for myself at a garage sale.  I got some other things at the sales but have no idea where they are right now...weird, huh?
I got:
A brown eddie bauer vest for myself for $1.00
two recorders for homeschool music for $1.00 total
A few homeschool books for $.25 each
a super cute gap sweater with a hood for emma for $1.00 (I might have to hunt this down to show you...so cute!)

Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I am always so thrilled when I find good things! How about you?  What did you find?

We're getting there!

See this cash register?  This is the gift my Aunt Jan gave Emma for Christmas.   Simply because she's an awesome Aunt is the only thing I can figure. 

This register has helped me in more ways than I had ever hoped for. 

See first of all, the kids LOVE this thing. 

But also on the box I saw that it was made by this company called "Lakeshore Learning". So my interest was piqued.  Hmmm...what's this place?  So a few google requests later and I found out it was this awesome educational store and there was one in CHIGAGO!!!  Actually there are 2! 

If you have never been to one of these stores, you should go.  Even if you don't homeschool.  There are games and toys and books galore. 

Anyway, we went there once when we decided to homeschool but didn't really get much.  I had no clue what I was doing (still don't!) and just kind of wanted to see what they had to offer.

This weekend we went back to the store, flagged catalog in hand, ready to do some serious shopping.  I spent $73.00 which I don't think is much in the grand scheme of things. I was in need of a lesson planner too because the one I had bought from the buck section at Target was already falling apart.  And I had found a coupon on their website for a free planner!  God is so good!!!! 

I got trays to put Kazoo's work in, a magnetic wand thing for science projects, all kinds of curriculum, writing strips, a multiplication activity/game, THE PLANNER, paint sets, crayons, and lots, lots more.  I am excited because we are almost there! 

The attic however still isn't done, which consequently means that all of my homeschool stuff is stored in boxes.  I now have three giant boxes filled with supplies and things just itching to be put somewhere super cute!  Can't wait!  But we will get there, I know it's just a matter of time and patience. 

Our garage sale was pretty successful. We didn't make enough as we had hoped but we made some.  And that's all that you can hope for, right?  God is soooo good,folks. 

I even had a chance to do a bit of garage saleing (saling???) myself.  I'll try to take pictures of everything I bought during naptime today and post that. 

Happy Monday ya'll.  Hope you had a great weekend!

Coupons. 
I've become one of those people when it comes to coupons.  I am in no way hoarding things or what not but I do have quite a few coupons and I know how to use them. 
However, I do realize that quite a few people don't know how to coupon. 
I know you know how to clip them, how to save them, how to never look at them again.  It is hard work, this couponing.  So here are some pointers for those of you wondering. 
1) There are different types of coupons.  Mainly there are STORE coupons and there are MANUFACTURER coupons.  The type being determined by who is footing the bill regarding the money that you are saving.  So either the manufacturer is going to foot the bill of the $1.00 you save, or the store.  These two coupons can be used together at most stores.  So say you have a $1.00 off coupon from the newspaper.  Well if that item is on sale at, oh, say Target, you can look on Target's website for a Target coupon for that item.  Wham, bam, thank you ma'am.  That would be the perfect coupon equation...sale +manufacturer coupon +store coupon= darn good deal :) 
2) If you are looking to get into couponing, google "coupon blog" there are a bajillion out there.  Some of my favorites are Money Saving Mom and My Frugal Adventures.  These lead you to the coupons to just print and take to the store. Just look around and surf a little.  You are bound to find some that you really like and that can help you save some money.  A lot of these sites also have tutorials on how to coupon.
3) Have a game plan before you go to the store!  You have to!!!  Especially if you have children.  If you are the one standing over your coupon book in the store trying desperately to find "that one" coupon that you "just know has to be here somewhere" than I'm guessing you don't really like to coupon.  Start at home first.  I go through the sale ad and list everything on sale I need.  From there I look for coupons in my book that I can match with the sales.  If I don't have a coupon I look online.  Then I look for coupons in the same ways for things that weren't on sale but I need.  If say I need toilet paper, but can't find any in a sale flyer, then I will pull out all of my tp coupons and put them with my coupons to use.  That way I know where they all are when I get to the paper aisle and can start comparing prices rather than trying to find a coupon among hundreds of others. I take my coupon book with me but only for one case: clearance.  A lot of times Target will have things marked down that I can pair with a coupon I have.  Other than that I try to have all of my coupons ready to go and with my list before I ever set foot in the store.
4) Don't let coupons lead you to sales. I have had coupons before that have almost gotten me.  Let me explain.  This week Target had a coupon on Keebler cookies (and maybe you want to go snatch this deal).  Well they were 2.39/box.  Target had a coupon for "buy 3 cookies, get 1 free" and being that that's 4 boxes I could have used 2 coupons of "1.00 off 2 boxes Keebler Cookies"  Well that math for that makes the cookies 1.29/box!  That's a pretty good deal, right?  I almost put them in my cart too, except my voice of reason, aka Nick, pulled me in.  Because after all, we don't need cookies.  Let alone 4 boxes of cookies!  So I put them back.  Deals and coupons are only helpful when you are buying things you need and use, not something that you wouldn't normally buy had you not had the coupon.  That is by the way, one of the reasons company's put coupons out there...to try to get you to buy something new.  Don't fall for it! Unless you can get it for free! :) 
So there are a few tips.  Maybe sometime I'll share more with you.  Feel free to share some too!

HomeSchool Resource: Homeschool Share

Homeschool Share is a website that I stumbled across thanks to Money Saving Mom!  There are lots of unit studies there to help you out.  They had oodles and oodles of lapbooks.  What is a lapbook you ask?  Well a lapbook is a little book that you can make about something you are studying.  The theory being that if the information is in something that the kids put together and then have to look at and study, that maybe the info will stick a little better.  Nice, huh? 
Again you don't have to be homeschooling to use a lot of these websites.  I saw that they had a lot of information regarding Beatrix Potter's books.  It would be fun to make your way through those books and do the fun little activities about them. 

Book to Read: The Hand that First Held Mine

The Hand that First Held Mine
This is a book that I am wanting to read but also not because I'm such a reader who can't put a book down. 
Motherhood. 
It consumes me and binds me, and yet has identified me in a way that is beautiful and freeing.  Anyway, this is an excerpt from the book that I stumbled on.  It's a dead on description of my life.  And that of any mum's.  All of you mother readers out there, please feel free to comment.  This can't just be me feeling this...now I know at least this author feel's this way too!

We change shape, she continued, we buy low-heeled shoes, we cut off our long hair.  We begin to carry in our bags half-eaten rusks, a small tractor, a shred of beloved fabric, a plastic doll.  We lose muscle tone, sleep, reason, perspective.  Our hearts begin to live outside our bodies.  They breath, they eat, they crawl and-look!-they walk, they begin to speak to us.  We learn that we sometimes walk an inch at a time, to stop and examine every stick, every stone, every squashed tin along the way.  We get used to not going where we were going.  We learn to darn, perhaps to cook, to patch the knees of dungarees.  We get used to living with a love that suffuses us, suffocates us, blinds us, controls us.  We live. We contemplate our bodies, our stretched skin, those threads of silver around our brows, our strangely enlarged feet.  We learn to look less in the mirror.  We put our dry-clean only clothes in the back of the wardrobe.  Eventually, we throw them away.  We school ourselves to stop saying 'shit' and 'damn' and learn to say 'my goodness' and 'heavens above'. We give up smoking, we colour our hair, we search the vistas of parks, swimming pools, libraries, cafes for others of our kind.  We know each other by our pushchairs, our sleepless gazes, the beakers we carry.  We learn how to cool a fever, ease a cough, the four indicators of meningitis, that one must sometimes push a swing for two hours.  We buy biscuit cutters, washable paints, aprons, plastic bowls.  We no longer tolerate delayed buses, fighting in the street, smoking in restaurants, sex after midnight, inconsistency, laziness, being cold.  We contemplate younger women as they pass us in the street, with their cigarettes, their makeup, their tight-seemed dresses, their tiny handbags, their smooth, washed hair, and we turn away, we put down our heads, we keep on pushing the pram up the hill.

Maggie O'Farrell, The Hand That First Held Mine

Our Gorgeous Girl

Well as you can see, our little girl, Emma Kazoo just keeps getting more and more beautiful.  It's a curse really.  I thought I would make this post all about her as she is just getting so big!  Here's a little secret...Emma and I have a special club.  Now, I am sworn to secrecy as to the name of this club or where meetings take place. But we study Proverbs 31 and try to carry out some of the traits God instructs us to have. 
Emma's favorite trait is Eagerness.  Ever since we've started it, whenever I need a little helper-bee, she is there.  And she talks about it...a lot.  "I just love my new life mom, I feel so much better".  She's talking about having Jesus in her heart. Our precious little one asked Jesus to forgive her sins and have Jesus come and live in her heart.  It makes me full of emotion to see her so on fire for God.   She is just so tender and sweet.
Last night we were at Nick's parent's house getting ready for the garage sale.  She had been coloring on paper with a marker, found a shoebox and had started coloring away on that.  No big deal but I had asked her, "did you ask Grandma if you could color on that?" and she immediately started crying.  No, sobbing!  The poor dear felt so bad for having Messed it up (as she told me later).  I felt so bad for her. :(
She just wants to make everyone happy, and that's a pretty tall order sometime. 
Here are some other tid-bits about Kazoo:
The girl would eat cereal all day long if I let her.
She'd also play video games/computer games/watch television all day if we let her.  She's our little techie girl. 
She loves worksheets, and math problems, and writing.  She begs me to put together math problems for her to do. 
The girl is a whopping 36 pounds.  She weighs only 3 pounds more than her brother. 
She is tall and very thin...we are in a world of hurt come college time. 
She is also hilarious.  HILARIOUS. Have you ever seen Dispicable Me?  Well the kids have and they also have listened to the soundtrack about a kajillion times.  Just a note, the music in that movie is a lot of heavy beats/rap music...moving on.  I was out garage saling one morning and Nick said she came downstairs and breaks into this rap, saying "Cause Gru got the speakers and the trunk to make you bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce bounce".  Needless to say my husband had no idea what was going on and was just kind of like what???? Um, she dances to it too.
She's the neighborhood busy body.  She likes to open up her window and yell at people.  Not being mean, just saying hi, seeing how everyone's doing.  She knows when people are coming and going.
She loves Mac and Cheese and Shrimp Stir fry. 
So that's a little bit about our girl.  Hope you have a great Thursday. No garage sales for me as I am HAVING ONE!!! I am praying that we have a good turnout and get rid of lots of stuff! 

Power Outage

Do you like what our family does at Target?  Today we were having a pretty hum-drum morning.  Nick had the day off so he was cleaning the gutters and all of the sudden the sky darkened, the wind was blowing at about 80 mph and the power went out.  Blank.  Thankfully Nick had basically threw the ladder down and came inside because it looked scary...praise the Lord he did. 
Well we passed a couple of hours iin the hosue with no elecrtricity and no air conditioning before deciding to hit it and head to Target.   Holy Moly we got some good deals.  If you like coupons and haven't discovered Target coupons you need to look them up.  Like now.  You can use them with manufacturer coupons.  I end up getting so many things for free by combining coupons it is just unbelievable.  
So we kicked around there and three slurpie refills for the kids later we were ready to go home.  Thankfully we had power and life was good again. 
So that was our Monday, how was yours?

Cherish Those Little Ones :)

I saw this on a website frequent, Baby Good Buys and thought I would share.  It really irritates me when I see mom's just buying crap for their babies.  Grrr.  When I go into the Target baby section to get Cal's Pull-Ups, I'm irritated just by the fact that all of that junk is there in the first place.  Wipe warmer? Nope, don't need it.  8 different bouncers?  Nope, not needed.  On and on.  So if you are preggo's and getting ready to register, please think twice about everything.  I know you need stuff (good lord the amount of junk that my kids have is mind-boggling!).  But you don't have to have ALL of the stuff that the baby stores try to convince you that you need.  And to those moms who already have a baby, please don't start the suburb-competition game.  You know what I mean.  The game of "so and so" has a better stroller, so now I'm going to get a better one. With every little thing.  I've been down this road with some friends and trust me, it's just not a good road to start down.  It will consume your life and as the quote above talks about, take away from time you could be cherishing your little one.  And that is the most important thing, right?

Happy Sunday!

Lazy Day

Today we didn't do much of anything.  It was very nice.  I woke up with Nick at 4 in the MORNING!  He left for work then and I couldn't get back to sleep.  So I was able to work on the garage sale stuff then and haven't touched the stuff since.  I have over 500 items priced for this silly, silly sale.  I have charities ear marked that various things are going to.  Clothing is going towards a woman's charity, books are going to our library's organization that has book sales to raise money, on and on.  Our garage sale is this coming Thursday and Friday if you are in the area and want to hang out. 

For the rest of the day we did nothing.  It was nice.  I guess I shouldn't say "we did nothing" because we did some stuff, just not much.  Our zoo has these mornings called "Member Mornings" on Saturday mornings where you can go in before the zoo opens to watch them feed the animals.  So the kids were both up by 7 and we trekked over to the zoo.  Only there were no animals.  Bummer dude.  Lions, Tigers, Crocodiles, Otters, Camels...all were down for count.  They must be in pens somewhere.  The kids were so sad.  I was kind of irritated.  But live and learn, right?

Then we went to Target.  I went to get more labels (which cost me $1.94 btw) and ended up spending quite a bit more. Whoopsie-daisie.  I did get some really good deals and I simply have to tell you about this one...

Starbucks Coffee, originally $8.99/bag was on sale for $8.49.  If you bought 3 you got a $5.00 gift card back.  Score.  THEN I had 3 $1.50 off 1 bag of coffee coupons that I used so I got 3 bags of Starbucks Coffee for $20.97 or $15.97 after you factor in the value of the gift card! That made each bag only $5.33.  I usually get Meijer's ultra cheap/on-the-verge-of-being-gross coffee for $5.99/bag so I was super, duper excited.  It's the little things, I guess. 

After we got back home I did nothing.  Well I got the job of watering the grass.  Which is dying by the way.  It makes my heart tense with sadness to have to tell you that.  Mr. Nick is not a happy camper after paying to sod our yard twice now.  He's been talking to the sod company to figure out what to do.  The good thing is that we at least have SOME grass.  They said since we have some we should be able to put some shade seed down and it should work.  Ugh.  But anyway, probably only my Aunt Jan knows, but our yard is about the size of a post stamp and it is a straight up crazy weird shape so to move a sprinkler somewhere that isn't hitting our house is, well, let's just call it a challenge, shall we? 

After that I made the awesome mistake of not even getting anything out for dinner so after our incredibly boring/unproductive day I am now sitting here writing this instead of making dinner.  I made some homemade yogurt so I wouldn't feel so bad.  It helped.  A little. 

Nick is on his way home and I made the mistake of calling him for dinner ideas.  It went something like this:

me: hey babe.  I didn't make dinner what do you want?

Nick: I don't know what do you want?

me: I don't know.  See me calling you here to ask?  (silly!)

Nick: Gyros.  I'm picking up gyros. 

yeah

The End

Lesson learned I should have said...

me: hey.  didn't make dinner.  I called an order in at Blank-blank restaurant.  Can you pick it up?

But he did have to work on Saturday so if the man wants Gyro's he should get Gyro's.  It's not that I don't like Gyro's.  I do.  Really I do.  My intestinal tract however, seems to have a different opinion. 

And on that note...Happy Saturday night!  :)

It's Been a Bust

I realized that I haven't written about my Garage Sale finds and, well, that's because I haven't had any.
Bummer Dude as my youngest sister would say. 
We went out and haven't come up with anything. 
Last weekend was the holiday weekend so I think most people weren't too into the garage sale scene.
This weekend there were a gajillion sales and I just couldn't find anything. 
I was frustrated with myself this morning because I thought maybe I was just being too picky.
But as I mulled it over during the rest of the day I came to the conclusion that there was just nothing out there for me.  Everything I saw wasn't nice.  Things were broken or incomplete.  Not for us, thank you.
So there you have it on my update as to the sale situation.
Tomorrow there is neighborhood sale with over 100 homes.  I may go but Nick has to go into work so if I do go it will be me taking the kids.  We shall see!  Have a great evening!

2 Teaching Mommies

I wanted to tell  you about this website because I was so, so excited to find it!  It's 2 Teaching Mommies!  You should totally check it out!  There are all kinds of amazing ideas for field trips, family fun nights (can't wait to have a baseball themed night at home!), devotions for little ones, and printable lessons.  Such a great, great resource. 

I know that not all of my readers are homeschoolers like I am soon to be.  But so many of these sites can be used for so many things.  Sunday School classes, playdates, time with the grandkids.  They aren't "teachy-teachy" things but more fun things to do with kids.  Such a wonderful thing! 

Anyway, hope you enjoy this site as much as I am!  I just printed off the devotional about shining like the sun with God's love and we will be starting that tomorrow morning!

Fair Time

Wednesday we made it to the fair.  We went in the middle of the day and it was very caliente, hot!  Next year we are totally going at night.  I think it's fun at night with the lights and all of the action, but it was definitely less crowded during the day which was a nice advantage.  This was also the first year that the kids could actually ride some rides together.  Last year Cal was too little and Emma was barely able to ride a couple of rides so while she rode those two rides she was tall enough we tried to console a grumpy two year old who didn't understand the concept of not being tall enough. Plus, last year Cal wasn't potty trained so we had the diaper bag, and the sippy cups, and the stroller, and on and on.  Boy what a difference a year makes!  It was nice to just go to the fair.  Just to get out of the car and go.  No gear, no bags, nothing. 

 The first thing the kids wanted to ride were these motorcycles.  Notice how happy Emma is.  She loves it. and then you have...

 Mr. Serious.  He was intent the entire time.  I really think he legitimately thought he was driving this motorcycle. It was his job and he wasn't about to take it lightly.  So cute. 

 Here's Cal with his 4-H project.  See how nicely he stayed in the lines?  NOT!  He's so cute!  This was his first year so he was excited to find his project.  Not as excited as he was to try to tear down everyone's model building projects, but still excited.  Don't worry...no models were harmed! 

 Here's Emma...she did a sewing project.  Hard to see, sorry!  It was a butterfly and when we turned it in the fair people thought there was no way she did it on her own.  I'm not the doing my 5-year old's fair project, type of Mom, you know. 

 My little hear swelled a little when the kids passed up another ride in favor of the carousel.  So many kids think they are boring but our kids LOVE them.  They watched the mechanics the entire time!  Emma picked a horse away from Cal and I was so worried she was going to fall off and die in some fiery crash.  I kept asking "Are you okay?" And by the end she sounded like a teenager answering "ugh, YES, maummm.  Leave me aloooone!"  Okay, okay.

Here are Cal and I...he's such a happy little guy!  I love his hat!  We scored it at the GAP.  If you like the GAP you should go.  They had things on sale and then an additional 40% off.  His hat was some crazy cheap price like 2.00.  Holy Moly. 

 I love these three people so much it makes my brain hurt thinking about it. 

Here is my favorite moment of the fair.  Nick took them on this ride.  I have never been on it.  My mom would never, ever let me go and as a result I am now terrified of it. But Nick wanted the kids to experience it as it was always the thing he looked forward to do (isn't that just the cutest thing?) So he took both kids up.  I was really expecting that Emma would get out there and chicken out.  But she didn't...she loved it.  She screamed the entire time coming down!  I guess as a result of me not going I got this cute picture so it was worth it.  :)

 A fair's not a fair without some weird side show race thing, right?  Here we have the "weiner dog" races...don't you just love their costumes? 

And here are the pig races.  Seriously my husband was more excited than anyone to see them and I have no idea why.  They were pretty cute though.  We had fun and then went home. 
The End.

HoW's tHiS???

Do you like this font? Is it okay to read? Sorry to put you all through the font-wringer lately. I am so not a "Times New Roman" font size 12. But it's also hard to find something that is readable on all ya'll's computers. PLUS I REALLY like the font of my title's of each blog (that's not going anywhere no matter how much anyone makes a fuss) so I want something that kind of goes with it. Ya know? Do font's really go together?
Well I'd better get going. It's my turn to do some shopping (grocery that is, yee-haw) and I need to get crackin' on my list.
Eggs and bacon till we meet again...

4th of July Fireworks

This past weekend Nick ended up having 4 days off and we did nothing. NOTHING. It was heavenly. We worked around the house, we spoiled the kids rotten, and we made tons of little family memories. The only thing on our agenda was turning down invites to picnics and people's houses...we just wanted to be together and recoop after our seemingly crazy schedule. So we did a lot of this...

Ah! I'm sad this is probably our last year for footie-pjs. There's nothing like snuggling up with a kid sporting those soft pajamas. Here he is waiting for fireworks to start.

And here they are! All together now...oooh, ahhh. It was a fun night. I love living downtown for the fact that we drove 3 blocks to see them.

Here's Emma watching...

And Cal with Daddy (and blue easter bunny...cleaverly named, right?)

So that is what we did. I did do some garage saling but found practically NOTHING! So we went to Goodwill and had a grand old time. I found the ugliest dress EVER! And bought it :) hahaha!

Hope you all had a happy 4th and did everything you wanted to do :)

Parade!

Well as I mentioned we went to a Parade on Wednesday. It's a family tradition of ours that we go down to Nick's mom and dad's and watch the parade go by their house. The kids love it. Here are some pictures of the big day...

Emma dancing...isn't she so cute? And yes folks, that is gen-u-wine shag carpeting...museums are starting to call...

Here's my boy shotgunning black olives as fast as he can get them on his little thumb. It's amazing to me how much he's looking like Nick and Emma's looking like me...weird, right?

Here we are getting ready for the parade. Believe it or not but this was the time when they were NOT getting along at all. We were having some "be by each other, but don't talk to each other, don't look at each other...just leave one another alone!!!" time

Seriously...this girl loves to pose. vogue, vogue, vogue

Their annual spot...CHEESE!

So sweet.

They both were wearing red shoes...I am thinking of blowing this pic up REALLY big and finding a place for it in our home. What do you think? I just love the simplicity of their little feet in cute little shoes out on the curb, waiting for the parade.

I try to get a picture of their profiles, side by side, every year. No idea why...it just makes my heart go pitter patter...

The parade is also the kick off to the town's fair so afterwards we walked down and got some carny good. I think the kids were a bit overwhelmed by their cotton candy.

Happy Fourth of July!

Hang in There

I am going Garage Saling by myself this morning. Super excited about that. I have such an amazing husband that is cool with sleeping and not getting up to go with me at the crack of dawn around town. But I like doing it.
Anyway, me and my punk self TRIED fixing the font but I think I made it worse than it was before. SORRY!!! Just wanted to let you know I am working on it still and I think I am going to have to call in the big guns to fix it (Nick).
Happy Friday!!!