SHE of 3 Angels...

IM BACK!!!!

2010-05-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

I have sooooo missed Mommy blogging! This past Spring Semester has kept me busy and out of the house. Therefor you can imagine ALL the little and BIG projects I have to do over the summer! I have to give thanks where credit is due.... My Husband!! God bless him for keeping my house still standing, kids fed, laundry clean and ALL the animals alive. I am very thankful I have a husband who's attitude is "it's gotta get done"!!! It may not be done Mommies way but it is DONE!!! With the help of our Little's and myself, when I could, we managed to survive this semester of school. IF you don't remember I am in school to become a Nurse. So my time is consumed with my head in books, flash cards and lecture outlines.

With that said!!!! I am SOOOOO looking forward to the summer off and getting ALL these little and BIG projects taken care of before I hit the Nursing Blocks in Nursing school. Just wanted to take the time today to jump back online and blog to get myself back into the happiness that blogging brings me. Lots of blogging ideas are floating around in my head so I will have to be sure and make a list so I don't forget anything. Looking forward to sharing them ALL!

It's just amazing....

2010-02-12T00:40:00.000-08:00

How time flies when your having fun!!! I have sooo many posts that I want to get on here but hardly no time to post them. What brought this to my attention was; recently my DH recieved a nasty gram from the city folk (city ordinance) re: our storage area he has created on our car port. NOW I'm not one to say "I told you so" but man oh man I am sooo bitin' my tongue. To me this is a blessing in disguise BUT to my DH it is a thorn in his saddle. Now mind you this is the second notice he got after his first clean up.

So now he is gonna have to be more creative with his organizing, purging, and storing. Not sure where this is gonna take him but I will be sure to post before and after pictures as this process takes place. We just had a discussion about how we need to be more creative and may be let go of some stuff because our house is just NOT BIG enough for what we (mostly him, he is a second generation pack rat and that's putting it nicely) keep or store.

I'm sure I will here a lot of belly aching about how it would be nice if we had a garage OR a bigger storage shed. I will be gettin' an ear full and bitin' my tongue at the same time. Can't afford to make those kind of changes so we will have to be more creative. I know with our two heads we can work something out!!

2010 "Creating a New Me" Commitments:

2010-01-05T09:13:00.000-08:00

~ Fine tune and utilize Family Bill Binder
~ Work with and keep DH up to date on paying bills
~ Fine tune and utilize Family Chore Binder
~ Fine tune Kid's Chore Board
~ Fine tune and utilize Kid's Activity Binder's
~ Upgrade and organize filing system in Family Cabinet
~ Reorganise Kids Homework Desk
~ Purge AS MUCH AS possible (our house is just not big enough)
~ Omit procrastination from my vocabulary
~ Work on ALL the things ($$ permitting) to the house that we have been planning
~ Keep on track with loosing more weight, getting fit, and eating right
~ Be a better parent to my children by teaching them life skills and lessons to help them grow into responsible, loving, well mannered and fearless adults
~ Keep DH motivated by setting an example
~ Keep open and honest communication with all my loved ones
~ Utilize my resources when needed, in other words don't be afraid to ask for help
~ Be a better Co-Worker to my peers and supervisor's
~ Focus on the end goal of ALL my schooling and the pay off in my near future, sacrifices are consequences of success
~ Be MORE financially responsible

I know this is a LOOOONG list and I may add more at a future date but remember these are all daily, weekly, monthly reminders of what I want to accomplish this YEAR. Plus blogging this keeps me accountable for my goals.

New Year Brings New Goals....

2010-01-05T07:49:00.000-08:00

I really try hard not to make resolutions only because it is a sure fire way for me to fail. So this year I have settled for "Making Of a New Me". I have blogged on my Sparkpeople.com webpage about how successfull I have been this past year with loosing weight and I even created a new blog called "Livin' in the Skinny". Click
here. I have lost a total of 35 lbs since 9-07-09. I am happy to say I have never felt better and can not "weight" til I get to my goal weight.

So this inspiration brought about the idea of the "Creating A New Me" idea. With that I have decided to resolve old habits and make new habits. After all any time you make changes you have to break the old habits to create new ones. I kicked the year off 35lbs lighter and plan on continuing this adventure. Along with that I am going to start utilizing ALL the organization tools I have created to make life easier on the home front.

For two reasons I NEED to do this; 1. I am, in the very near future, taking my last class to get my Associates Degree in Applied Science and will soon be entering the Nursing Program which will consume A LOT of time. IF I do not get these tools fine tuned and working the Nursing Program is going to be hell. 2. My Angel's are getting older and can definately contribute to the household chores and upkeep.

Some commitments I have made to myself first and foremost (now that I am older and wiser) was to take care of myself FIRST! It is so true what they say about how US Mom's NEED to take care of ourselves first so we can take better care of our loved ones. Hence my previous post about the "Biggest Loser". Us Mommies do need to take care of ourselves first. It is very important, crucial to our well being. THEN, I have created so many organization (Family binder for bills and chores, Kids binders for school and their activities, and other binders/filing systems) tools to keep me and my family afloat and I don't use one of them. AND Finally since the weight loss I really want to make a healthier, active lifestyle for my family. I don't want my kids growing up with my bad habits into their adult hood. I want them to see "IF MOM can do it.... I CAN do it" and that I did ALL of this mostly for me and for them.

So with these commitments I will also be sure to blog about what has worked, what has not and how I made changes to make our lives easier.

Reflection for today....

2009-12-02T08:04:00.000-08:00

After watching The Biggest Loser last night a lot of what Liz "Grandma" reflects on truly hits home for me and I am sure for a lot of Mommies out there. I too have struggled with emotional fat almost all of my life. There are very few memories of me being thin. IF I was thin it was not done in a healthy way.

After giving birth to my 3 beautiful children and the stress of raising a family, marraige, work, trying to find happiness in making everyone else happy I let go of myself. My real "Ah Ha" moment was when I went to the dentist for the first time in many years and I was blessed with 6 cavities and a mild case of gingivitis. Then my dentist recommended Sensodyne tooth paste as a remedy for my sensitivity. I always thought Sensodyne was Old People tooth paste. Well Momma you are 40 years old. Not getting younger just aging gracefully. Knew I was neglecting myself BUT never really knew how MUCH I was neglecting myself until this 6 cavity discovery. I guess it could have been worse, that's what the Dr told me. So I dreaded the next appointment which lead to getting multiple novacane shots. OMGosh!! I had the biggest anxiety attack EVER. Now I do suffer from mild anxiety so I expected some kind of reaction just not a full blown out hyper ventilating anxiety attack. After all was said and done I am cavity free.

To make a long story short: with my current successfull weight loss and cavity free mouth. I have made a change to finally take care of me first. With that I have managed to loose 32 lbs since 9-7-09 (under Dr's care), taken care of myself by eating healthy, buying healthier choices, manage my sleep better, MORE daytime and nighttime personal care, and trying to set a better example for my family.

Looking forward to a Fabulous 2010!!

Busy.... Busy....

2009-11-21T18:27:00.000-08:00

With school 2 days a week and working the weekends my days are flying by faster than ever! I have soooo missed blogging on my Mommy page BUT have been busy blogging on my weight loss page HERE. I have been soooo successful and busy with getting my weight down that Mommy blogging has been put on the back burner. BUT I want to make a better effort now that Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner. So future posts are coming soon.

Oh My!!!

2009-09-21T09:35:00.000-07:00

I have been soo busy lately and have not paid any attention to my blog. Lots on my plate but getting more organized with my time management.

My kids are growing so fast, I can hardly believe they are ALL in school now. My oldest is in 4th grade and my middle is in 2nd and NOW my youngest is in pre-k. Unfortunately my youngest has her birthday in December so she misses the cutoff for Kindergarten. She is sooo ready for school I could not bare keeping her out another year. So we opted for paying for pre-k. She goes Mon-Thurs for 2 hours a day and loves it!!

I'm still slowly pursuing my career goal of becoming an RN. By the time my youngest hits Kindergarten I will be ready for Nursing School. Right now I am still taking my pre-rec's one at a time so I don't have to worry about them while in the Nursing Program. Slow and steady!!

Not much is happening around the house lately. A lot of that has to do with our summer season in Arizona. It's just to HOT to do anything outside. AND if we are outside we are at the pool's. So now that we are nearing the end of our summer season I can see the projects piling up. : ) It's time to get those list started and start cracking down on getting stuff done!

My first goal is getting our carport organized, cleaned and junk free!!

Memorial Day

2009-05-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

On this Memorial Day and just about every day I am very thankful that I am an American. I do know this would not be possible without the sacrifices of our military men and women who serve our country. Talk about the ultimate sacrifice these noble and brave souls go through to protect and serve. These men and women leave their families and friends to fight for our freedom. How do you thank someone for giving so selflessly for what they/we believe in? Well every opportunity I get I give back to our soldiers by donating for care packages, sending cards and letters of thanks in hopes that even for a minute they know that whatever they are going through someone back home is thinking of them and of course praying that God watches over them and returns them safely back to their friends and families.

I only hope that everyone takes a moment to give thanks for our freedom and for those who fight for it.

Updating the House

2009-05-18T08:23:00.001-07:00

I was sooooo excited when we received our tax returns for 2008. My main focus was replacing our front windows after my DS and DH fouled a baseball into my living room window. We had been living with a wooden window for months. Really MONTHS! I'm glad to say all my patience paid off and we bought two new windows for the front of the house. Well !! If I was replacing the living room one I had to get the other for the kids bedroom so they would match! LOL!! No really it's paying off in the end because the old windows were original to the house built in '86. So it was long over due. So this is where it all begins.

My DH had a few helpers lined up and began taking the windows out all by himself. Little did he know his so called helpers did not show up, AT ALL! It's so discouraging when nieghbors offer help and never show up or don't answer the door when you come for help. Luckily my DH is married to a somewhat strong wife who is willing to drop it all to help him out.

This wooden form on the ground was 1/2 of my living room window for quite some time and boy am I glad to see it laying on the ground. I get giddy just thinking about it. We were up til 11pm that night getting the new windows in and decided to add the trim the next day. Not to mention the kids were already in bed and I'm pretty sure they couldn't sleep through the pounding.

Here are my new windows. Dual pane with an extra UV coating on them that will give us a nice little tax break come '09 taxes. See ... my '08 tax return is already paying for itself.

TaDAh !!! Can you see the big smile on my face. These BetterBuilt windows from Lowes are fantastic. The outside noise has dramatically reduced to almost nada. The house is soooo much cooler then last year and my electric bill has decreased. Making money every time a turn around. He he he he!! So the silver lining to that foul ball was my brand new updated windows.

Modern Technology

2009-05-18T07:43:00.000-07:00

I have suffered with a slow and error prone computer for awhile now but have not been financially fit to spend the extra money on a new computer. So I was referred to a techy guy who would not charge me hundreds of dollars an hour to fix my computer and he reformated my computer. The reformat worked for the most part but as I started adding those programs that were lost after reformating some of the same problems started reaccuring. UGGHH!

So I decided since I was making all this extra money pulling some hours at work that we deserved a new computer and the kids would acquire the old one. I am pleasantly surprised that our new computer is fabulous. I did quite a bit of research before making this purchase and have been exciting about finding out what this puppy can do. I have yet to discover it's full potential. It is moderately priced for all of it's features and worth more then I paid for it.

Yes! It's a laptop. I don't ever think I will ever go back to a desk top. With many more semester's of school left and Nursing School on the horizon the portability of a laptop is essential for me. It doesn't help that our house is to small to support an office of it's own. My office is pretty much wherever I can plug in my laptop.

I'm BACK to blogging.

2009-05-18T07:06:00.000-07:00

After many months of CHAOS and more CHAOS I have a short break in my schedule. This last semester at school and starting a new job at the same time was not what I expected. Me and my family have suffered many crabby mommy days. I'm pretty sure I have set expectations on unsuspecting victims to only suffer the wrath of undeserved proportions. I guess sometimes you can't jump in with both feet and expect it ALL to work out.

So with that said I did have to withdrawl from my class to save the sanity of myself and my family. Now here is the kicker - I have to take this class again and I plan on doing it during the summer. Since the class is fresh in my head (A&P 201) Im better off taking it right away then waiting til next semester. All though I am better prepared this time I am happy to say I do not have such big expectations on others. Work has more than worked with my schedule and there is a better plan this time around.

Update - Making MY life easier

2009-01-27T01:51:00.000-08:00

It, going back to school and work, has been a bigger chore then I expected. All this time I have been preparing my family for the BIG change but had not been preparing myself. Shame on me!! I will confess to my blogging friends I have not handled the change very well. My poor family has suffered the wrath of crabby mommy (for many reasons) for the past several days. My brain has gone MIA when I needed it the most. I am slowly finding my sanity but it will take some work and prayer on my part.

I had been spoiled as a SAHM for the past 10 months. Spending lots of time with my children. Napping when needed. Making sit down dinner's with my family. Keeping my house somewhat clean and organized. Spending some well deserved time blogging. Man I miss the good ol' days, LOL!!

BUT with ALL that said I know what we are doing is best for ME and our family. I just have to make the time spent together meaningful. Love, kiss and reassure as much as possible. Don't sweat the small things. Who cares if ALL my sons clean clothes that were loving folded are now shoved into his dresser drawer. Who cares if he wants to wear the same pants for 3 days in a row. Who cares if DD2 doesn't take a shower every night.

Funny how life lessons come in BIG and small packages.

New Chore Board...

2008-12-29T06:32:00.001-08:00

I have not been happy with my old chore board. As much fun as I had putting it together I needed something more user friendly. I found the magnet pieces on the floor more then I did on the board. So after some research I found inspiration at Meckmomdotcom. She has this fabulous large dry earse board that makes me drool. I have utilized her creative idea but on a much smaller board. I eventually would love to upgrade to a much larger framed board like hers. I have found that my smaller version does not allow much free space. I can pretty much fill up each Angels section with their assigned chores and thats about it. So there is an upgrade in my near future.

This chore board definately works better for us. I have a section for each Angel and it is broken down to weekday chores and weekend chores. Weekday chores are switched weekly and weekend chores are switched monthly. I would like to add to the larger board such catagories as School FYI's and other activities such as Little League or whatever the kids are involved in. I also liked her idea of the IN and OUT boxes. I may have to incorporate that some how.

I also wanted to share a video I made of the Family Folder we use during Family Meetings held on Sundays. This folder will be utilized A LOT when I go back to work. I will create list for the kids of xtra things that need to be done, what was good/bad during that week. It really came in handy when we had to get the house picked up before all the birthday guest showed up for DD2's 4th Birthday. I still had quite a bit of running around to do the day of so I made a list of TO DO's and everything got done before I got home. I think it also helped DD1 feel like she was really helping out. Every time something was completed she would cross it off. I think I'm raising my very own mini me. It was a fabulous day. I hope it helps someone.

Making MY Life Easier

2008-12-29T06:13:00.000-08:00

I have spoiled not only my 3 Angels but also my DH through the years. It's all my fault, I know it! I have not really prepared them for helping around the house more then they should. But with a new year comes new plans.

First - ALL the kids are getting older and can help with bigger chores such as helping with laundry by putting their own clothes away. I got tired of all these rows of clean clothes laying out on our bed so I went to one of my favorite stores, Walmart, and bought each kid their own basket. They were pretty inexpensive so it was worth it. Just so they, including DH, wouldn't get confused I wrote their names in their own basket. Now when laundry is done they have their own basket to transport their clean clothes back to their dresser's. Then when the baskets are empty the baskets stack neatly until they are needed again.

Second - I have always "matched" my kids clothes and put them away in their drawers. They have never had to think to much about what goes with what. Just grab n go!! Nice huh!! Well this too became pretty convenient for my DH. He would do laundry, fold it and there it would stay in the laundry basket until mom could match the clothes up. Finally I had to come to grips with this nasty habit and made a few changes. NOW my DS has a drawer for his shorts and a drawer for his shirts. He's pretty much the only one who has some fashion sense other than his mom. As for my DD's well the last time laundry was done I went through matched all the outfits then proceeded to ABC the shirts to the pants. Yes !!! I put an A on the shirt tag that went with the A on the pant tag. So now when my DH does the laundry he does not have to wait for me to match them up. Now did I think I would get through the whole entire alphabet, after all that would mean my girls have 26 outfits. OMG!! I got through the alphabet on my youngest DD. That to me is ridculous.

Soooo this brought up another point - We need to weed through the clothes. Well luckily most of it is her summer clothes and she will no longer fit into them next summer. Fortunately my DH has a coworker and they have a DD who is one year younger then our youngest. I am a firm believer in recycling good clothes. Normally I would drop off bundles and bundles of clothes at Goodwill or other local charities but I saw a need (especially now w/ the economy) to share our gently used clothes. I gladly take hand me downs from just about anyone. I have a nieghbor who has a girl one year older then my youngest so when she goes through her daughters clothes I get a couple of bundles to go through.

Tackle it Tuesday Dec 30th

2008-12-29T05:52:00.001-08:00

I have been giving this tackle a lot of thought. Since the New Year is vastly approaching us AND I am starting a new job AND another semester at school I needed to get MORE organized. Once I get something organized I'm all gun ho and it stays organized for the most part but when you add into the mixture 3 Angels and a DH it doesn't stay that way for long. So part of my Tackle is to make sure everyone is on the same page by helping Mommy keep things clean and organized. I also have to realize that these important tools will only help my children as they grow into adults.

My 3 Angels are well aware that Mommy is going back to work and I will need their help more now then ever. I do get quite a bit of resistance but I know with some persistence and lots of list making things will get done. I am very fortunate to have a DH who does not mind helping out around the house, in fact he is pretty proactive IF he knows what needs to be done. So the list making will commence and crossing my fingers I won't have to loose my sanity in the process.

So I am starting my Tackle by working on our pantry. I have been blessed with a pretty long laundry room that we added some really nice floor-to-ceiling cupboards to. 2 out of the 4 larger cupboards are dedicated to our pantry. In time the cupboards have become a little disheveled. So it's time to break out the gloves and get it organized. I have tons of storage containers collecting dust. It's time to give them a purpose.

Before: I know the left one doesn't look that bad but as you can I have tons more groceries in the right side then the left side. It's time to even them out!!

After: Big sigh !!! Now I know what I have and what I will need to stock up on. Just waiting for that perfect coupon shopping where I can stock up our pantry.

For more Tackle it Tuesday visit JenaW at 5miutesformomdotcom.

Menu Plan Monday ~ Dec 29

2008-12-29T05:20:00.000-08:00

Oh how the weeks go by faster and faster these days. Another Christmas has come and gone. I feel like I just wrapped the presents. LOL!! I think next year Im just gonna hand the presents out in the store bags they come in. Not really!! I love wrapping way to much to get that cheap and lazy.

Christmas Dinner was a lot easier than Thanksgiving. Again my wonderful Parents came to the rescue and bought all the fixin's for our Christmas Dinner. Everything was pretty much pre-prepared so all I had to do was heat up the ham, bake the sweet potatoes, cresent rolls were already baked and stick the green beans in the microwave. Nothing really fancy for our family. We were just glad to be spending Christmas together. Although I did learn that cutting the sweet potatoes in half makes them cook faster.... DUHHH. Hey I'm still learning.

So let's get the MPM ready for another week.

Monday - Homemade Tuna Casserole w/ Bread Sticks

Tuesday - Hamburger Pie w/ Mixed Green Salad

Wednesday - New Years Eve... Pot Luck Night

Thursday - BBQ Chicken Sandwiches w/ French Fries

Friday - Pizza Night

Saturday - Sloppy Joe's w/ Green Beans

Sunday - Help Yourself Night

For more MPM visit Laura at Orgjunkiedotcom.

2009 Resolution's

2008-12-29T04:14:00.000-08:00

I know it's that time of year that we all make resolutions to make some changes in our lives. I'm a numbers girl so I know for fact that most of us who make resolutions usually jump of the wagon long before we give ourselves a fair shot at making those changes. I'm not sure what the percentage is for not keeping a resolution but I do know it's pretty high.

I have been watching a lot of reality show's about loosing weight and the measures some people take to loose the weight. Unfortunately shows like The Biggest Looser are not feesable for the average Joe (IMHO). I would love to go to ranch where healthy food was provided, no distractions of everyday life and exercise everyday. I know all these particpants make big sacrifices by leaving their families behind so they can concentrate on the BIG picture of getting the tools to a healthier, skinnier lifestyle. I just know realistically Im not sure all those people would have had such great results IF they were dealing with life issues as they were going through the program.

So I figuire since I am not in the position to drop everything to be a contestant on The Biggest Looser I will have to create my own Biggest Looser Campaign. I have mentioned in the past that I do belong to Sparkpeople.com and through some mild research (it's kinda early for me today) I did find some inspiring tips to keep me on track. So I will share them with all my blogging friends.

14 Tips for Starting and Sticking With It ....

1 Throw away the bathing suit you wore in high school… and the memory too. It’s normal to have a mental image of yourself when you last exercised like a fiend. But if that image is from high school, you could be in big trouble. Even if it’s from last year, forget it. Remember as little as possible of what you used to look like. Starting today, make new memories.

2 Prepare. We already know you don’t have the time, so write it down like an appointment every day. You wouldn’t cancel an appointment, why would you cancel on yourself? Aren’t you important too?

3 Start slowly. Do much less than what you’re capable of. Take a 20-minute walk if you’re returning to exercise. You might feel like it’s not enough, but it’s a good start.

4 Get the family involved. Run while your daughter rides her bike. Go to a local track and let the kids play their own games. Run with your spouse. Sign up for a local 10K. Walk with your son. Celebrate with a little something special after every activity.

5 Where are your friends? Four words, four reasons – motivation, inspiration, determination, conversation. Surround yourself with friends who think positive and live large.

6 Put the pain in perspective. When the going gets tough, remember that you have survived 600 carpools, 540 loads of laundry (this month), 41 baseball games, 230 dinners and one family vacation. What’s the big deal?

7 Allow yourself to slow down. You’re driving this bus! For the first time today, you are in control.

8 Sign up for a race. It’s a goal to strive for and adds a little meaning to your everyday workout.

9 Run/walk in public. Be proud of your accomplishment. Take in all the sites and be an inspiration to others.

10 Just show up. Go to the gym, class, or the park. Once you’re there, it’s hard to say no. 98% of life is showing up.

11 Eat. Follow a healthy eating pattern. If you limit your calorie intake, you will not have enough energy to work out and your metabolism will slow down.

12 Understand your energy cycle. There are peaks during our days. Even during the week. Try to complete your workout when you feel good about yourself.

13 Wallow in your greatness. You can exercise to become a better exerciser, or you can exercise to become a better mother, a better father, doctor, teacher, or a better friend – or you can exercise to become BETTER. Be proud of that accomplishment.

14 Have fun. Where’s your childlike spirit? When you can make workouts "playouts," you’ve got it made.

Don’t give up on yourself. After all, it’s never too late to be that healthy person you might have been.

Blessing's in 09

2008-12-28T15:56:00.000-08:00

This time of year always brings a little sorrow to my heart for the friends and families of those who are serving or have served our country. I know ultimately it is the choice of the individual who decides to serve our country. I'm sure those families are truly proud of their soldiers but hope and pray daily for a safe return. I try to remember those soldiers in my prayers as time goes on. So I send this prayer out to the soldiers, their families, and their friends.

Heavenly Father -

I pray for our soldiers, their families and their friends that you watch over those who serve our country. For without those brave souls we would not have the fortunes of living in a country that is truly free. I pray for the health and well being of these soldiers. That some day soon you will bring them home to their families safe and sound. For those who parish in this war I hope that you heal the hearts of their family and friends in knowing that their time on earth has been served well and that your children are safe at home. In the name of Jesus Christ I pray !! Amen

Christmas 08

2008-12-28T15:43:00.000-08:00

Finally time to take a breath and enjoy all the presents from family members and Santa. Santa sure was generous this year and gave our DC a Wii. It was dumb luck how Wii ran into a new shipment at Fry's Electronics. I unfortunately had my DC with me at the time but somehow between me and the sales associate the DC had no idea. I originally was at Fry's for a present for my DH from our DC. He had been complaining about the DC's DVD's being scratched up so badly. So how ironic would it be if the DC bought him a CD/DVD scratch repair kit. In the midst of all the chaos I found that the store just received a shipment of Wii's.

How lucky was I to be at the right place at the wrong time (with DC). In the end it all worked out for the best and they had no idea. Now I just need to get the Wii Fit!!!

Tackle it Tuesday 12-23

2008-12-23T10:11:00.000-08:00

Today I really want to Tackle my Master Bedroom and Master 1/2 Bath. Here is my To Do List.

Cleaning To Do's:

Laundry - wash and put away
Clean off desk
Clean off filing cabinet
Clean off night stand
Clean bathroom
Hang hair dryer holder
Dishes

Personal To Do's:

Color Hair
Nails

Christmas To Do's:

Wrap presents
Find serving tray's for Christmas Eve Pot Luck

My bedroom and bathroom have been neglected quite a bit lately due to finals and LOTS of studying. So now that I have 4 weeks off, until school starts back up for me, it's time to get my house back on track. Not to mention I should be starting my new job in January.

For more Tackle it Tuesday's visit JenaW at 5minutesformomdotcom.

Sad News !!! (long)

2008-12-22T11:42:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if I have shared with everyone that I am a Step Mom. When I met my DH he had already had a beautiful 4y/o daughter with an ex-girlfriend. The one thing (of many) that soooo attracted me to my DH was his passion for his daughter. He had a roller coaster relationship with his ex-girlfriend. I'm sure both were to blame for all the ups and downs, because it does take two to make a relationship. Towards the end of her pregnancy it just went straight down hill. A lot of "games" were played and my DH was not there for the birth of his daughter nor was he ever added to the birth certificate. I can only speculate what caused that to happened and I believe it was a lot of immaturity.

After a few days went by he received a phone call that his daughter was born and he is not on the birth certificate. After the shock and I'm sure a few not so nice words (in his head). He took full responsibility for his daughter. ANYTHING that his ex needed for the baby my DH was sure that she got it and she gladly took what ever he gave even though she put him through HELL! They or she agreed to let my DH have time with his daughter and he gladly spent any moment he could with her. I'm sure that was to her (ex) advantage. At some point and time my DH and his ex made arrangements for weekend visitations (no court's involved). And he was getting his daughter on a regular bases.

When I met my DH I knew it was a packaged deal. I had no problems with that. Everything had been going great until the past two years. The visits became less and less and for some reason it has gone ALL down hill and crashed BIG time. I can only speculate again what has been going on. My DH received a letter in the mail from his daughter basically saying she no longer wants to come over to our house. WHAT??? Well I felt something was going to happen because every number we had to get a hold of his daughter was no longer working for the past 4-5 months and every time he went over there no body was home. We couldn't keep playing the game because we have 3 children of our own that we needed to attend to financially and emotionally. The letter stated that he never calls her and when she comes over her siblings get to do what ever they want and she doesn't. Kinda like she's "Cinderella". OMG!!! That is soooo far from the truth. Then she stated she was mad at me for telling her (nicely mind you) that the phone works both ways. I figured she was old enough (12 going on 13) to call her dad when she wanted to. Our number has never changed nor do we not call people back when they leave a message.

I'm not a big fan of her mother because I feel (I'm entitled to my opinion) that she has not provided her daughter with a stable home. Not only has she played the games with her daughters biological father (my DH) but she has had 2 more children with two different dad's. One she was married to (now divorced) and one (who was/is) her male best friend. This poor child has a very unstable life style. For some reason SDD has a harder time with instructions from her mother then she does over here. She acts out like a bratty 2y/o at home but when she is over here she is like a flower that blossoms. She gladly took instructions from us. Never seemed upset or bratty. Never seemed scared or threatened. When we disciplined we disciplined her like we do our children. We may have yelled a few times but always sat and calmly discussed why we yelled and always advised we still loved them no matter what. We could not for the life of us figure out where all this animosity she has now came from. She thinks her dad doesn't love her because he never calls but she does not know he has tried everything he can to get in touch with her including calling his daughter's grand parents on her mothers side. We even asked her mom if we could get a cell phone for SDD so we would have a reliable way of getting a hold of her and she flat out said NO! So we abided by her wishes, reluctantly. My fear is that her mom is starting up the games again after the birth of her 3rd child and my SDD is suffering the consequences. At one point and time, on SDD birthday, my DH was out at her house and the father of the 3rd child intervened and told my DH that he is a "convenient" father, that my DH's daughter is scarred of him, what ever she had to say she said it in the letter, she no longer wants to see you and I have to support her wishes. OMG!! There have been A lot of other "games" that have not been mentioned because there are too many to remember.

I can only pray that this is a stage as it has devastated my DH to no end. She recently turned 13 and everyone tells me we have a bumpy road ahead of us.

So with ALL this drama my kids are devastated that their older sister no longer wants to be a part of this family. I did explain to my children as much as I could that their big sister still loves them but has some issue's that she needs to take care of before she can start coming back over. I feel like my SDD is sooooo confused being tossed around from her dad, her mom's ex husband (yes ex husband), grandparents and who ever else she has to visit at this point and time in her life that she doesn't know which way is up. She is not allowed to grow up and discover who she is. I just pray that some day ... soon she will miss all of us and come to her own.

Unfortunately for my DH he has to endure the boundaries his daughter has set and hope and pray she will talk to him again some day. I know it only sounds logical to take all this to court but the courts have never been involved and we do not have the financial means to settle this. Not to mention putting that kind of strain on her right now, we are not sure that going to court would be sensible. Yes we would have partial custody but at what cost for SDD.

Great News!!!

2008-12-22T11:17:00.001-08:00

I am proud to say that I am returning to work. I know for some of you that may not be good news but I am realizing our family is barely staying afloat with one income. I have always said $Money$ is the root of all evil and this year has surely proven that to us. Now that the kids are all a year older and seem to be handling life issues a little more and more each day it only made sense to go back to work since we need the money.

I also feel that since I have not been working in the medical field I am slowly loosing touch with one of my MAJOR goals of becoming an RN. I was offered and accepted a "On Call" CNA position at a hospital close to our house. It will give me the flexible hours I am looking for. Not to mention it pays more money then my previous job. So I think it's a win-win for everyone. This recession has hit hard for everyone so I felt being offered a job during a recession is a miracle in itself.

God is Good !!!

Happy Birthday!!!

2008-12-22T10:39:00.000-08:00

The last Birthday of the year for the Johnson Family. My beautiful DD2 turned 4 on Saturday December 20th.

Happy Birthday to you...

Happy Birthday to you ....

Happy Birthday Dear Ryannaaaaaa ....

Happy Birthday to YOUUUUU

This year's birthday was ALLLLL about Hannah Montana. Ever since she was HM for Halloween she now thinks she's HM's sister. LOL!!! So we had a HM party for my Big Girl. I was really trying to be creative this year for her birthday because for one she is older and two her birthday is very close to Christmas and three we were tight on money because of the holiday's and the one income household we are use to now. So I remembered a Halloween craft that my DD1's class did for their Halloween Party. They made Graham Cracker Haunted houses!! So how fun would it be for all the kids to make a Graham Cracker Christmas House for their "grab bag" gift. Well the idea went over fabulously with the kids.

My BIL and Missy with my DS Colton. Then here are some samples of all the creative "Ginger Bread" houses. I still can't believe how well these went over. I had some frowny faces in the begining but when they were all done they could not wait to show their Mom and Dad's.

Menu Plan Monday 12-22

2008-12-22T09:22:00.000-08:00

Well it's time to get back on track with MPM. School (for me) does not start again til the end of January.

Monday - Ranch Chicken w/ Broccoli and White Rice

Tuesday - Tomato Soup w/ Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Wednesday - Dinner @ FIL's side of the family. My contribution is a Relish Tray and Xtra

Deviled Eggs.

Thursday - Dinner @ our house w/ my Mom and Dad. I think we are looking at a traditional Ham Dinner.

Friday - Most likely something with leftovers

Saturday - Mesquite Baked Pork Tenderloin, Garlic Mashed Potatoes w/ Green Beans

Sunday - Homemade Pizza Night

For more MPM please visit Laurie @ Orgjunkie.com

Christmas 08 "Open House"

2008-12-19T10:00:00.000-08:00

Please enjoy some pictures of The Johnson Holiday Decorations. On one of my other sites I like to frequent I have made soo many friends that live so far away that we have a "Open House" on our message board so we can share our holiday's with our internet friends. We take pictures of our decorations and ask our friends to grab a cup of cocao or coffee and take a peek of our creative holiday decorating. Im sure I have mentioned in the past that I thoroughly enjoy the last three holidays at the end of the year. Basically my DH knows that come October its time to decorate, decorate and decorate. Come December it really pays off!! I have some other idea's that came to mind after the fact but I will be sure to post them after they are completed.

Ontop of the entertainment center.

Right cubby has a small collection of Snowmen.

Center cubby has our Nativity set.

Left cubby has a small Santa collection

Ontop of the fridge in the kitchen. The picture of our Christmas tree in the family room turned out extremely blurry so no pictures of our family tree at this time. : (

This is a swag that goes across the ceiling between the living room and kitchen. I know the beam itself isn't the prettiest but we have painted it the color of the rooms they face to kinda disguise the unfinished look until we can officially create a seamless beam. But this is the first year I offically created this swag. I use to just flat staple a green garland all the way across and this is the updated version of the garland. I absolutely love this new decoration. This is where my retail experience shines through. Creating "retail type" decorations.

Thanksgiving 08

2008-12-19T09:37:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving brought about many challenges. My DD1 came down with what I thought were Chicken Pox. CRAP !!! All of my kids were vaccinated for Chicken Pox so I was not sure what the heck was going on. We, the extended family, ALL had made plans for the family to get together at our house but with the turn of events (Chicken Pox) all the older folks were "chicken" to come to our house. LOL!!! So we were basically Quarentined.

This meant Thanksgiving was not going to happen because my DH and could not afford to purchase all the fixins for Thanksgiving. But somehow an angel was watching over us and my Mother dropped off all the fixins she was going to bring over (including the turkey). I only had to pick up a few things to make our dinner complete.

Now .... This is my very first Thanksgiving making a complete turkey dinner for my family. I was petrified. My DH was at work so no extra hands there. My wonderful kids kept themselves busy while mom was slaving in the kithcen. I guess that same angel was watching over me because our dinner turned out FaBuLoUs!! I was sooooo extremely excited.

Please enjoy our 1st official Thanksgiving Dinner pictures.

My DH, after a hard day at work, carving our turkey.

Green Bean Cassarole and Stuffing!! Yummmm...

Our Feast! How Thankful I was at this very moment. This looks a lot better then Hamburger Helper for Thanksgiving.

The disappearing black olive trick!! LOL!! She looks innocent right??

My DD1's favorite part of the turkey! Note the calomine lotion her face. LOL!!

Miss me !!! I'm BaCk!!!

2008-12-19T09:13:00.000-08:00

I have been so busy with making sure I get a good grade in my Chemistry Lecture and Lab class, along with still being Mom, that blogging has been put on the back, back burner. I have to say I have missed blogging A LOT!!! But in the long run devoting my available time to concentrating on Chemistry has paid off.

First I got my Final Grade for my Chem Lab class....

Then I got my Final Grade for my Chem Lect class....

I'm not sure if I shared my history with this Chemistry class. I have attempted this class 3 times. The first two times I had to withdrawl from the class because I was taking another class with it along with my other Mommy duties. Plus with too much on my plate Chemistry just made me more insane. So for the sake of my family and my sanity I chose to withdrawl. Well I guess 3rd time is a charm because as you can see I passed with flying colors. To me this is a "Big Win". I was hoping and praying for a "C" and to get an "A" in Lab and a "B" in Lecture is more then I could hope for. Praise God for watching over me. I feel like I can accomplish anything from this point on.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-10-29T09:33:00.001-07:00

There is a looong story behind this picture. I will give the editors cut version. My son was born with a very rare birth defect. Undetected in any ultrasound. He had his first surgery at 5 days old, yes!! 5 days old. He spent 2 months at Phoenix Childrens Hosp before we took him home. The only thing that rings in my head was my DH saying "Don't worry someday he is going to be playing T-Ball and this will all be in our past". Still makes me cry!!

MIA......

2008-10-03T19:12:00.000-07:00

I know I have not been keeping up on my blog
lately but between Kids, my somewhat P/T job,
Baseball practice and this > class, I have very little
time on my hands. My house can definitely vouch
for that.

This year I vowed to myself I would give Chemistry all I can so I don't have to take this class again. Yes I have taken it multiple times. I guess that shows persistence ... Right?

To ALL my Blogging friends I think of you daily. Keep me in your prayers and I will be sure to make a better effort on my part to catch up on my blogging.

Love Ya !!!

Tackle it Tuesday

2008-09-29T09:20:00.000-07:00

My Tackle it Tuesday happened over the weekend. My DH and I cleaned the carpets and couches. With 3 ~~kids~~ angels sharing the same room it has been very difficult to keep their carpet clean. Not to mention all the things that were spilled on the couches through the years. At some point and time my DD2 decided our couches looked better with pink silly puddy on them. Heavens knows silly puddy melds into the grooves and fibers of a cloth couch. Thank GOD my DH remembered from reading "The Queen of Clean" (proud to say she is an AZ native) that using WD40 gets Silly Puddy out of carpets. Works great on cloth couches too!! For more great household tips visit The Queen of Clean at her website (click the link above).

I asked my StepMIL and FIL if they would not mind watching the kids this past weekend and they kept them over night Saturday to Sunday. This gave my DH and I plenty of time to pay attention to the task at hand.

Another Tackle I can dust off my hands. For more Tackle it Tuesday ....

Menu Plan Monday 9-29

2008-09-29T09:09:00.000-07:00

Monday - My Birthday Dinner

Tuesday - DH's Birthday Dinner

Wednesday - Grilled Pork Chops, Scalloped Potatoes, Baked Beans

Thursday - Grilled Hot Dogs and Hamburgers & French Fries

Friday - Chicken Fajitas

Saturday - Spaghetti, Green Salad, and Garlic Bread

Sunday - Homemade Pizza Night (did not do this last Sunday/ had dinner at InLaws for our birthdays)

Did someone say Batter Up!!!

2008-09-29T08:55:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year. We finally registered DS for Coach Pitch Softball with NYS of Mesa. We have always missed the registration date by a few days and this year we were determined to keep our eyes open for the registration papers. So here we are, finally registered.

I am soooo excited for my son. We went through a few medical problems with him when he was born and to see him registering for T-Ball is amazing. My DH always told me that someday he was going to be playing T-Ball and now he is !!! Thank God for small miracles !!

So I am now offically a Team Mom for my DS's Softball Team. Im really excited to start this season. New adventures are always exciting.

Menu Plan Monday 9-22

2008-09-22T10:36:00.001-07:00

Another week has flown by so fast. But it is that time again!!! MPM.. If you are looking to start planning your weekly menu (highly recommended), Laura @ Orgjunkie.com has plenty of resources to help you get your menu planning started. That's where I got started. Thanks Laura for making my life at dinner time so much easier.

Monday - Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes, Veggie

Tuesday - Grilled Southwestern Chicken, Fresh Green Salad, Southwestern Corn Muffins

Wednesday - Impossibly Easy BLT Pie

Thursday - Lasagna Rolls, Fresh Green Salad, Garlic Bread

Friday - Date Night w/ DH

Saturday - Date Night w/ DH

Sunday - Home made pizza night

Incase you are wondering about Friday and Saturday... My DH and I are having OUR birthday weekend. The kids are being ~~shipped~~ picked up to stay at Meemaw and Papops for the weekend. Cross our fingers!!

It's my FaVoRiTe time of year.....

2008-09-19T17:09:00.001-07:00

September is always the begining of a very busy end of the year. First it's Birthday month from H-E-double hockey sticks. The only thing that makes it worth it is my DH and I get to celebrate our birthdays at the end of the month. Our birthdays are a day apart. I could not have planned that any better huh!!!

Then starts the Holiday decorating. We go all out for decoration until the New Year. So the weekend of October fourth my DH will be dragging ALL our Halloween decorations out. Im sure he is dreading the decorating festivities coming up. Although, my DH at this time starts plotting his pumpkin carving idea's. I think he enjoy's this more then the kids. I usually have roasted pumpkin seeds until Thanksgiving!!!

Here are some pictures from previous years:

On the corner of the house we have this huge (handmade) rope spider web that goes from the roof of the house to the ground. I did take pictures last year but they did not turn out so well in the dark. Last year my StepMIL gave us this huge electric blow up Spider that will look perfect ontop of the house. He he he he, I can't wait!!

Now I don't want anyone to get me wrong or get offended but we do not celebrate Halloween in it's traditional manor. It's Trick or Treating, that's it !!!

Then of course comes Thanksgiving with the Scarecrows, Pumpkins, Haystacks and any other Fall decorations I can muster up. I really like taking this time to create beautiful wreaths for my doors and inside my house. Im planning on taking advantage of this SAHM thing to make some beautiful decorations. I never really had time for this before so I can't wait to get crafting.

Finally Christmas!!! Need I say more. I really want to keep putting the tree up after Thanksgiving as a tradition in our family. We normally keep ours up until the New Years. My DH pretty much is the construction crew and I am the decorating crew. Demolition after it is all said and done is everyone's job.

Happy Upcoming Holiday's !!!

Christmas 2008 Countdown

2008-09-19T16:59:00.000-07:00

All this talk around the Blog about Christmas is really getting me worried. I guess it is never to late to get started. I really never plan a budget because for our family Christmas is all about the kids. Rarely do we exchange gifts with our elders. I feel spending time with our family members is more important then how much so and so spent on so and so and look how much they spent on me.

My DH's family does have some family traditions such as a ornament exchange and they pick names at Thanksgiving for a gift exchange at Christmas time. We only participate in the ornament exchange because my kids have 3 sets of Grandparents to deal with so we can't just spend all our time with one side of the family.

Our Christmas can get pretty complicated but for the past few years we have honed it down to Christmas Eve at DH's Dad's side of the family at a designated family members house, Christmas Morning with my parents at our house and Christmas Afternoon with DH's Mother at our house.

What are your family Christmas Traditions??

Menu Plan Monday 9-15

2008-09-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

Really hard to plan this out this week due to a broken refrigerator. We have been patiently waiting for a part. Im pretty tired of living out of coolers.

Monday - Grilled Ginger Sesame Chicken, sticky rice, and oriental vegetable stir fry

Tuesday - Grilled Pork Chops and Apple Sauce, green beans

Wednesday - Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, broccoli/cauli blend

Thursday - Cinnamon French Toast with bacon

Friday - Frozen Pizza night

Saturday - Chicken Enchalida Casserole

Sunday - Grill Cheese and chips

For more Menu Plan Monday visit Laura at Orgjunkie.com

UGGGH!!!

2008-09-12T01:44:00.000-07:00

I can not believe it has been well over a week since I have blogged. In lieu of NOT blogging I have been busy with broken down household appliances. I guess I should be blessed that I have been home to take care of such incidences when they occur but they are by far my least favorite things to do.

Let me start with September 3rd our AC decided it did not like one of the fans it needs to actually keep the AC cool. Soooo... Not to complain but I am not a very happy camper when I have to be subjected to 90+ degree heat in our house OR anywhere. I really do not consider myself a princess but rather enjoy not sweating, not running around in my under wear, or sucking on ice cubes just to keep cool. It was a miserable night for sleeping needless to say. Thank God the kids and I all had school the next day to keep us alive. We were very fortunate that one of our neighbors installed this unit less then 2 years ago, so all parts will be warrantied out. He finally got our AC unit working by 5pm Thursday and I was never so glad to get the call from my DH that we could finally come home from our beautiful public library. (Brought the kids there so we could ALL do our homework in comfort)

Then my beautiful Stainless Steel Side by Side Refrigerator decided it no longer liked the Air Diffuser that circulates the air in the fridge that keeps all the groceries at a nice non-spoiling temp. This little diffuser took some time to figure out so in the mean time we had to transfer all our refrigerator items into coolers. Thank God we have a large energy efficient freezer in our laundry room that I could put freezable items into. After many hours of "Oh My Gosh what on earth are we gonna do?" I noticed quite a bit of ice at the bottom of our "frost free" freezer. Now in the old day's we would have to thaw out the freezer and clean the coils in the back of the fridge as regular maintenance. WHO KNEW in this day and age of modern technology WE still have to once in awhile thaw out and clean the coils??? I guess I am showing my naivety. So now my DH and I have a "date" once a year with the refrigerator. So the fridge is thawed, cleaned and the diffuser is ordered (6-7 days before we get that little puppy, crossing my fingers for 9-12). The best thing about the 1/2 broken fridge is we got to go window shopping and I found my future refrigerator. I love the smell of new plastic!!!

So hopefully (knocking on wood) this is it for my recent adventures. I will be able to get back on track next week.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-09-02T21:59:00.001-07:00

Parkle, Parkle Mamma!!!

I won't mention she picked it off 5 minutes later .... Urrgghhh

For more Wordless Wednesday visit Janice at 5minutesformomdotcom.

Coffee Center

2008-09-02T21:48:00.000-07:00

Nothing exciting here.... Everyone has seen a coffee pot, coffee can and filters. Well in a previous post I rejoiced about being DDP free. Yes I am still DDP free!!! I finally decided to dust off that old coffee pot and put it out on the counter. Now that school is back in session I have to have some sort of pick me up in the am.

I am on the prowl for some neat canister's or container's that I can decorate to keep out on my counter tops. I'm not crazy about the idea of keeping my coffee canister and filters out in the open but it will have to do for now. Keeping my eyes open..... I will update when I find the perfect accessories for my Coffee Center.

Tackle it Tuesday...

2008-09-02T21:11:00.001-07:00

My Tackle it Tuesday consits of me updating ALL my bloggy idea's. I have been sooo busy now that school has started back up for me and I now have a very part time gig as a data entry girl for CouponSense.com. The homework let alone takes up quite a lot of my time. Not to mention the flash card making for ALL the quizes we have (once a week). Then there are the bills, groceries, kids and OH YEAH !! and my DH. So here is my Tackle list:

* Update Monthly Round-Up "Entry Ways" for Orgjunkie.com
* Tackle it Tuesday Post for 5minutesformom.com
* Post my Menu Plan Monday
* Delete A LOT of my blogging pictures from my computer
* Post on my Sparkpeople.com
* Update our prayer list on Sparkpeople
* Print out Chapter 3 Chem101 PowerPoint
* Make flash cards for Polyatomic Ions

I did get ALL this done including spending half my day at school then making dinner, helping kids with their home work, shopping at the Farmer's Market and going to bed with a clean kitchen. Phew !!! It's been a long day!!

Menu Plan Monday 9-1

2008-09-02T05:52:00.001-07:00

Monday - Frozen Pizza Night

Tuesday - Ranch Chicken with Steamed Broccoli and White Rice

Wednesday - Impossible Cheeseburger Pie with a mixed green salad

Thursday - Chili Cheese Dogs and Tatters

Friday - Fresh Fish Fry Friday w/ Baked Potato's

Saturday - BBQ Chicken Breasts, Bush's Baked Beans and Salad

Sunday - Getch yer own darn dinner night

For MORE Menu Plan Monday see Laura at Orgjunkie.com

September Challenge

2008-09-02T05:43:00.001-07:00

~ Work on a happier, healthier home life for my kids
~ Focus on my Chemistry Class
~ Changing my sleeping habits
~ Finding balance at home and my personal needs
~ Focus on Money Matter$

Bucket List

2008-08-27T10:56:00.000-07:00

Im pretty sure everyone has heard of this movie "The Bucket List". Now I have not yet seen the movie myself but I love the concept. Making a "Bucket List". This can be a morbid thought and Im pretty sure I am not going to keel over any time soon, BUT you never know what our futures have in hold for us. So I am making my "Bucket List"

* To be sure to tell everyone I love them every chance I get

* To hug, kiss and encourage my children everyday left of my life

* To finally loose the baby fat

* Take a cruise at least once in my lifetime

* Build a better future for myself (become and RN)

* Finally make a living will (procrastinating on this for awhile)

* Purchase a LARGER home for my family

* Decorate that LARGER home as my dream house

* Not to live paycheck to paycheck (probably impossible but it's worth a try)

* To inspire those who cross my path that life does get better

* Work on a Habitat for Humanity project

* Teach my children to be selfless

* Get rid of the TV in my bedroom!!!

Wordless Wednesday

2008-08-27T09:39:00.001-07:00

Remember it was my DD1's Birthday this month.... WELL !!! Just looking at this picture makes my stomach turn. This was AFTER a purple colored frosting cupcake....

And here is her brother.... Can someone call the dentist!!!

For more WW check out 5minutesformom.com

Confession of a Chem101 drop out

2008-08-25T11:06:00.001-07:00

In my never ending pursuit of becoming an RN I have to confess that I am taking Chem101 for the 3rd time this year. This is definitely not a class you (I) can take lightly. I was referred to a specific Chem teacher and was lucky enough to get him this semester. So with the luxury of being a SAHM I am going to focus on this class like I have never before. I was fortunate enough to be given a Maricopa County Grant for my class this year so I better do good if I want to get any other grants. I have already created my Periodic Table flash cards. Have my Chemistry for Dummies book and tomorrow I will purchase my Chem101 books from the campus book store. Chem101 here I come!!!

Lesson learned - Can not take difficult classes when plate is to full!!

Menu Plan Monday Aug 25 ~ 31

2008-08-25T10:40:00.001-07:00

It's already MONDAY!! OMGosh, where does the time go!! OK Lori think... think... think...

Monday - Pork Roast with potato's, carrots and broccoli

Tuesday - Banana flip pancakes with bacon

Wednesday - Spaghetti, Salad and Bisquik Cheesy Bisquits

Thursday - L/O's

Friday - Hamburger Cheesy Mac

Saturday - Peter Piper Pizza (kids night)

Sunday - Sloppy Joe's, Fried Potato's, and Apple Sauce

For more Menu Plan Monday see Laura at Orgjunkie dot com.

I have been FEATURED on Orgjunkie.com !!!

2008-08-22T14:37:00.000-07:00

I am sooooo excited. My blogging friend Laura @ Orgjunkie.com has featured one of my post on her website. What a fantabulous opportunity to be featured. Now everyone knows I have been working hard at getting my house organized. Having some much needed free time on my hands since I am not working anymore has been a blessing. My house is finally looking like MY house. It has been under mild construction for 7+ years now. (easier to demo then install).

Anyway's... After looking at all the other decorative back pack stations I definately have some decorating work cut out for me.

Thank's again Laura for featuring me on your site. I am sooo honored that you chose me.

My Caffiene Saver....

2008-08-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows by now that I am DDP free since July 13th, 2008. At my favorite health food store I was introduced to a tea that would help me kick my DDP habit forever!! I was hesitant but in the long run it was so worth me taking the chance. I am NOT a tea drinker but tea was better then water. So I replaced my DDP addiction for a Yerba Matte Royale addiction. My DH and I LOVE this tea!!!

This tea is naturally sweetened by Stevia. Stevia is a herbaceous plant (herb) that is grown in such countries as Brazil, Mexico and China. This natural sweetener has been around for more then a millennium. I actually like this sweetener better then all the other sweeteners out there. I know it is safe for my kids and has no added artificial flavors or chemicals.

Back Pack Station

2008-08-21T12:56:00.000-07:00

At Orgjunkie.com , Laura has been getting her house ready for back to school. I so was inspired by her Back Pack Station months ago that I created one for my kids before school ended last year. I know bad timing on my part but it works for us now. I'm sure our back pack station is a work in progress but so far I have no complaints that no money can buy. LOL!! I do not have any before pictures just after.

Here is a close up of the back pack board and a little weekly activity organizer I have made for each of the kids. I laminated these weekly charts so I can use a dry erase marker on them to make any updates or changes. This way not only do I know whats going on during the week so do my kids and DH. No questions!! I did use a calendar method last year and that was OK but the kids had a hard time keeping track of what was what. So I'm hoping this method will work for us. My crafty side of me got the better of me and I decorated these charts for each kid.

This is a close up of one of the charts. I labeled all 7 days of the week and left enough room to write activities in for each day. Then I sticker ed their names on their own chart as well as added some personal stickers to show off their personality. This one is DS's! I'm pretty sure the chart is self explanatory.

Hope this might help someone.

He's Finally HERE !!!

2008-08-20T23:58:00.000-07:00

My Bestest Friend in the whole entire world finally gave birth to her second child. He was born August 9th. Weighs in at 8lbs 11oz. I had the great fortune with her first child (a girl) to actually be there the day after the baby was born. I was not so lucky this time : ( So I have been a very patient Auntie waiting for my first picture of OUR new blessing. Isn't he just adorable?? I so wish I could be there to hold and hug that handsome little guy!!

Congratulations Julie !!! I am so excited for you !!

YES!!! She is going to kill me for posting this picture of her.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-08-20T17:22:00.001-07:00

Our Monsoon Season brings beautiful scenic pictures. This was taken at Ganma and Gandpa's house!

More Wordless Wednesdays can be found at 5minutesformom.com click HERE

Tackle it Tuesday...

2008-08-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

Another Tackle accomplished. Phew!! Today was one of those day's where I saw the inside of my car more then I saw my house. This tackle was more of checking off a lot of things on my TO DO list.

TO DO:

Call Qwest

Drop DD2 at Ganma and Ganpa's

Go to Financial Aide office

Go to bank

Mail quilts

Walmart for meat

Farmer's Market

Vacuum seal and freeze meat

clean out fruit and veggie drawers

clean, cut and store fruit and veggies

Go to Albies

Go to Fry's

Go to Basha's

P/U DD2 from Ganma and Ganpa's (Ganma sick)

I can NOT believe I got ALL this done today!!! Yeah ME!!!

For MORE Tackle it Tuesdays go see Carolyn at 5 minutes for Mom

I Love My Albies...

2008-08-19T20:53:00.000-07:00

Albertson's, General Mills and Box Tops for schools was having a GREAT sale this week (sale ended 8-19). When you purchase 8 certain items you get $8.00 off at the register. Adding coupons made the items super cheap. Here is what I purchased:

Trip 1
Albertson's
9 boxes of Hamburger Helper
3 boxes of Trix
3 boxes of Cheerios
5 bags of BC cookie mixes
8 boxes of Pop Secret popcorn
4 boxes of Pillsbury Toaster Strudells
2 1lb boxes of Challenge Butter
10 Gatorades
4 boxes of Mrs Cubbins croutons
4 packages of Farmland Bacon

Total of 52 items

Total bill = $153.28
Less mfg cpns 20.75
Less promo 32.00
Less str svngs 54.32

Total OOP 46.21
Total savings $107.07
* I won't mention I also got a catalina for 50 bonus box tops for my kids school x 3
Normally I would take advantage of these types of sales several times but $$$ did not permit me to do that this time : (

Trip 2
Bashas
2 gallons of milk
2 dozen eggs
6 packages of Farmland bacon
8 boxes of Kraft Mac n Cheese

Total of items 18

Total bill $58.82
Less mfg cpn 14.00
Dscnt crd 28.92

Total OOP $15.90
Total savings $42.92

Trip 3
Fry's
4 cans of Hunt's Manwich
12 cans of Chef Boyardee
8 Hunt's Snack Pack puddings

Total # of items 24

Total bill $45.85
Less mfg cpns 5.20
VIP card svngs 17.68

Total OOP 21.97
Total savings 22.88

Menu Plan Monday

2008-08-18T23:59:00.001-07:00

Monday - Pizza

Tuesday - Chicken Enchilada Casserole

Wednesday - Steak Fajita's

Thursday - Pork Roast w/ Potato, Carrots and rolls

Friday - Tuna Casserole

Saturday - French Toast

Sunday - Fend for yourself night

For more Menu Plan Monday visit Orgjunkie.com.

Coupon Binder

2008-08-15T22:25:00.000-07:00

I have been an off and on again couponer for over 2 years now. Of course now that my financial status has changed I am looking forward to really taking this coupon thing to the next level. I have a green binder, that until recently was stored away collecting dust in another back pack.

Well after seeing the "Show and Tell" on Keeping the Kingdom First I decided I needed to dust off that binder and recreate it. So today I finally got the book organized and 50% of my coupons are now filed in the binder. You will notice my Binder is GREEN!! That's because I will be saving a lot of money everytime some one see's me shopping with it. I have attached a video for my visitor's. Please excuse any and all extra sound effects on video, really hard keeping DD2 quiet long enough to get the video done.

Hope this helps someone.

Happy Birthday!!!

2008-08-14T12:41:00.001-07:00

Today is my DD1's Birthday!! She is offically eight years old!! I am such a lucky Mommy for having a daughter who is so loving, caring, funny, sensitive, creative, and beautiful.

Happy Birthday to YOU !! ,
Happy Birthday to YOU !! ,
Happy Birthday dear DD1 nnnnn ,
Happy Birthday to YOUUUUUUU!!

You look like a monley and act like one too!!!!!

Did I hear .... Challenge!!

2008-08-14T12:30:00.000-07:00

Ok!! So here is the story. My dear friend Amanda has challenged me today because we both have been afflicted with the lazy bug today. Not to mention I have only had 3 hours of sleep. So the race is one, music one, and rubber gloves on. Get ready to eat my dust Miss Amanda!!! LOL!

So far I have;
~ caught up on school clothes shopping at Walmart
~ picked up cupcakes for DD1 classmates, It's her 8th birthday today
~ ran to the health food store for my herbals
~ washed 50% of new school clothes (socks and panties)
~ went to Sprouts to stock up on Tea, it's on sale
ALL of this before 10:30am

Now lets see what the afternoon has instore for us.... BBL (signed out 12:30)

Anti-clutter List

2008-08-14T00:11:00.000-07:00

On behalf of my new friend Amanda I have decided to make and anti-clutter list. We both are list makers so why not add another?? I have had such great success with Tackle it Tuesday @ 5minutes for mom.com that I needed a place to keep a list of ALL the things I want to declutter. So Amanda .... Here is the list:

~ pantry
~ cabinets above washing machine
~ cabinets above dryer
~ shelves on the entertainment center (use baskets from GW)
~ top of freezer in laundry room
~ sock drawer
~
~

I am sure there is tons more for me to declutter hence the empty spaces on my list.

Just the begining!!

2008-08-12T21:09:00.000-07:00

My DH has the biggest green thumb and I am sooo jealous. I am very fortunate to reep the benefits of his gardening expertise. Just for fun last year my DH planted some seeds in our back yard to show the kids how when you plant something and take care of it, IT will grow. Not much produced out of the first garden. BUT this new garden he is attempting has already started producing waltermelon and many grape tomoatos. This is definately giving the kids something to talk about.

Here is our fenced in watermelon patch. We have buds and blooms. Some day soon I'm counting on fresh watermelon.

Here is our trelaced grape tomato vines. As you can see my beautiful black lab Dakota is creeping from behind the tomato vines. Hence why we have most of the garden fenced in.

Behind the tomato vine we have a grapefruit tree that my Dakota has dug herself a hole for keeping cool during our blistering summer months. I try to keep them inside but they are definately out door dogs. We have a Chocolate and Black Lab.

Yummy !!!

2008-08-12T20:09:00.000-07:00

Banana Bread!! Since we are getting into the whole health food thing and getting lots of fresh veggies and fruit I have had to figure out what to do with banana's going bad. I now dread hearing people say they throw old banana's away. I have now made it a habit that if the banana's are going bad I will pre-mash them and freeze 1 cup (3 med banana's) them in a zip lock bag. Always room in the freezer for frozen banana's. When preparing for making banana bread ALL I have to do is pull out one bag or two depending on how much I want to make.

I have always used my mom's banana bread recipe. Most of the time the bread on the bottom half of the loaf comes out pretty dark, not burnt just dark. So I found a new recipe on a 1lb bag of flour from Safeway AND it was fantabulous! I like to tweak the recipe a little once in awhile to give it more substance by adding 1/2 wheat flour to the mix. I have not done that to this new recipe because we are loving it just the way it is. Not so good on the healthy side but with moderation it can help a craving with out going to Dairy Queen and getting that Blizzard.

Here is the recipe: Preheat oven 350

Cream together -

1/3 cup of shortening (I use butter, not margarine or shortening. Our bodies easily digest butter)

3/4 cup of sugar

2 eggs

In separate bowl add

1 3/4 cup of all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

slowly add dry ingredients to wet.

Add 1 cup mashed banana's and 1 cup chopped walnuts after wet and dry ingredients are blended well. (we don't care for walnuts so I will slice a banana and fold it into the ingredients, it gives you that extra moistness and bites of banana in the bread)
* Tip for thawed out frozen banana's in zip lock bag - Holding the zip lock bag (still sealed/zipped) upside down I will cut the bottom tip corner and squeeze out banana, no messy banana fingers!

Pour into greased (Pam works great) 9x5x3 loaf pan and bake 350 for 50 minutes
* For fun I have greased a muffin pan and made kid friendly banana breads.

After poking it with a tooth pick it was done but for some reason the middle did cave a little. Maybe my banana bread thinks it's a souffle... LOL!!! AND Yes there are a ton of banana's behind that banana bread just waiting to be mashed. My DH has a co-worker who works at Circle K part time and they throw out day old banana's. So the past 2 weeks we have been getting lots of banana's. She must think we have monkey's. No seriously!! My kids love nana's.

Going Green

2008-08-12T19:40:00.000-07:00

I have always been "Green" conscious. We have recycled for as long as I can remember. This year we have decided to compost our fruits and veggie scraps. In Arizona the earth is pretty dry and hard so using compost/fertilizing materials are pretty essential to proper preparation of our soil. My DH made a compost bin out of an old tin garbage can after watching one of those home and gardening improvement shows. It's pretty basic! L@@K!

Then one of the tips I learned from the beautiful Rachel Ray is the waste bowl. It's basically a bowl where you put your garbage when your cooking. The only thing I put in my waste bowl is anything that can be composted. Just about any fruit or vegetable waste, tea bags and egg shells.

Really the only thing my DH does not like adding to our compost is the heads and skins of pineapple. Once a month DH will add shredded newspaper, water and then rotate the compost. For more composting idea's click here.

Home School

2008-08-12T14:03:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share the two projects my DD2 and I did with our home schooling today. She was sooo excited. I find all my home schooling ideas so far from Childcareland.com . I have lots of other resources but little time for research so I am using what works for right now. Here are two assignment's we worked on today.

This is a book, BIG and small Shapes, I made with the help of Shelley at Childcareland.com. It is a FREE printable on her site. I added the color, lamination, and rings. I did notice today that I do not have a small square but that is an easy fix. We went through this book 2x's today and she was "spot on". I was so proud of her.

Another idea borrowed from Shelley at Childcareland.com is the muffin color tray. I took a dollar store muffin tray and glued one of each primary color into the bottom of the tray. I had quite a few leftover foam flowers that I decided to use them as color recognition. She did very well the first time around but after the first time it was just a game of sorting colors. I did realize after playing this with her she was also using one of her fine motor skills at the same time.

Tackle it Tuesday......

2008-08-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

Today I have a small tackle (under the kids bathroom sink) and a list of To Do's. First my list:

~ Laundry, fold and put away
~ Wash booster car seat
~ Make more Banana Bread, Post recipe on blog after bread is done

~ Make shopping lists:

Groceries - food and household

School clothes - shame on me, I know but we were dirt poor this week

Vitamins - herbal, store brand

(Burgundy means task is done)

Under the kids bathroom sink there is very little organization in this area. I am pretty sure there is stuff under there that will be going in a donate basket.

This is under the bathroom sink Before and After. Most of the products were re-homed. A few old curling irons and straighteners will be donated.

This is the medicine cabinet in the kids/guest bathroom. This cabinet is shared by my DH and the kids. More re-homing products.

This was inspired by my Internet friend Laura at Orgjunkie.com. She shared her dollar store find that she used to spruce up the old tooth brush and tooth paste holder. So this started my search for sprucing up our tooth brushes and tooth paste. I also found mine at the $ store (which I call the 20 buck store because you can't leave without spending 20 bucks). Honestly without the flash from the camera this matches the green in the bathroom pretty well.

For more Tackle it Tuesday go see Carolyn @ 5minutesformom.com

Monthly Round Up

2008-08-11T22:27:00.001-07:00

We are "bustin' a move on our entryways " this month at Orgjunkie.com. I do not have the fortune of having a "Mud" type entry way so my "Mud Room" is split up by an entertainment center. It's what works for us! Im going to accomplish a lot with this challenge. I have the basics but it definately needs to be fine tuned. So I gladly accept!!

Here is the before:

As you can tell we hardly EVER use our front door. Our house is set up with two entrances, the main entrance (above) and a carport entrance that goes into the laundry room which is attached to the kitchen. This entry way has been my dump spot for far to long. When it is clean I really enjoy the fact that I can have guest enter through the "entry way". HMMMM !!!

Now you can see why I do not have a "Mud Room", not enough room. My Back Pack station and shoe organizer are on the other side of our entertainment center. I posted pictures of my Back Pack station HERE.

Here is the before of our back pack station:

Another place that gets dumped on (3 Angels all under 8 what would you expect). It has looked A LOT worse.

Here is my entry way AFTER:

OMGosh I have a front door ????? I love this area now and plan on keeping it available for friends, family and guests. Don't stare at the floor!!!! It has been under construction for 5 years. We took out the old carpet due to our bad allergies..... No more allergies!!! We intend to either lay tile or wood floors. We have not made up our minds yet. I may do tile in the kitchen and bathrooms and then wood floors in the living room. Cost is about the same no matter what we do.

Here is my little heart warming touch....

Kitchen Favorite's

2008-08-11T00:26:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about how I have so many favorite things that I like to use in my house. They are the relaibles, the one thing I grab for first, and I could not live without. Well my kitchen is no exception now that I have found another new love "Cooking for my Family". I have been trying to provide my family with healthier and more "organic" type foods. I quote organic because I am talking about more natural items instead of bagged, frozen, or processed. Now I still incorporate some processed food because I have not made it to completely natural, YET !!!

So I am starting off with my first Favorite:

It seems pretty plain and boring but I love my 8x10 lime green cutting board, chef's knife and my hand-me-down (DH) knife sharpener. These three things are a definte staple in my house.

Instant Breakfast

2008-08-11T00:06:00.000-07:00

I hate to have banana's go bad so before they get to bad I do one of two things with them. First I make breakfast drinks. Here I have fresh frozen strawberries, banana's, whey protein, oatmeal. and yogurt. In the blender I put:

- 1 banana
- 4-5 strawberries
- 1 cup of yogurt (flavored or plain)
- 1 scoop of whey protein
- 1/4 cup of oatmeal
- splash of low fat milk
(I have in the past added the Carnation Instant Breakfast instead of the whey protein, works just as well)

- Blend and then puree til smooth, then pour into cups. Yields 2 servings. I put them in the freezer and when I'm ready for breakfast I put one in the micro just to thaw (45 sec). Yum !!

Now I have a weeks worth of breakfast ready at my finger tips. I made three separate blenders full of instant breakfast.

The other thing I do with banana's before they get bad, is mash them up and pour 1 cup servings into zip lock bags and freeze them. When I'm ready to make my yummy Banana Bread I take out how ever many bags of banana's I need to make a loaf or two. Usually one cup of mashed banana's is equal to 3 medium size banana's. I will post about my Banana Bread later.

Menu Plan Monday

2008-08-10T23:03:00.001-07:00

Monday - Impossible Cheeseburger Pie, Salad

Tuesday - Spaghetti, Salad, Garlic Bread

Wednesday - Chili dog's

Thursday - KFC family night

Friday - Date Night (without the kids!!)

Saturday - Pizza

Sunday - Taco Salad

For more Menu Plan Monday visit Laura at Orgjunkie.com.

Healthy Dinner

2008-08-10T00:39:00.000-07:00

This was a dinner we had Wednesday night. I think total prep and cook time is less then 30
minutes (exception of marinade time). I believe in having a well balanced meal so we try not to miss anything from a food group when we have dinner. We are also learning to portion our sizes better. I have two marinades going on at the same time. I heard about a Lime/Cilantro BBQ Chicken that I just had to try. I knew this wasn't something my kids would enjoy hence why I have two marinades going on. So I took one of my many FREE Lawry's Marinades ( Sesame Teriaki ) and marinaded some chicken for the kids with that. Instructions below:

Lime/Cilantro Chicken:
-In a large zip lock bag I placed 6 chicken thighs (I'm sure you could use any portion of the chicken).
-1/4 cup of Lime juice
-1/4 cup of chopped fresh Cilantro
-Bag it, mix it up, put in fridge for 2 hours
-Grill on med-high for 12-15 minutes each side

Lawry's Sesame Teriaki Chicken:
-In a large zip lock bag I placed the other 6 chicken thighs
-1/2 bottle of marinade
-Bag it, mix it up, put in fridge for 2 hours
-Grill on med-high for 12-15 minutes each side

Our family loves fresh salads. Yes you can buy them in a bag to make it easier on yourself. I just prefer not to use ice burg lettuce because it has no nutritional value what so ever. So our salads area combination of red leaf lettuce and green leaf lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, red pepper and tomato's on the side. I have made these salads so often that honestly it does not take me but 5 minutes to cut up a large salad.

I decided we needed a starch and I used 2 bags of Knorr's Rice Sides. Normally the directions ask for 1 1/2 cups water with a tablespoon of butter. I like to use chicken stock and water. Void the butter. The rice comes out tasty without the added butter.

My DD1 could not get enough of the Sesame Teriaki chicken. The Lime chicken did not go over as well with the kids but my DH and I both liked it. I might tweak the recipe the next time I make it because it was missing something, maybe some fresh garlic. I will make this dinner again because it was very easy.

BTW did I mention that I am addicted to the BBQ grill. I love cooking on this grill that was once bought for my DH as a Birthday/Christmas/Anniversary gift. 9 times out of 10 if it can be grilled I will be grilling it. The other 1 out of 10 is because I probably ran out of propane. LOL!!

Home School

2008-08-09T22:37:00.000-07:00

OK!! I finally got ALL of my home school supplies purchased and organized. Sunday (tomorrow) I plan on searching the sites for learning activities. I will print and organize them in my new file folder so I atleast will have a weeks worth (if not the months) work sheets already printed out.

In my box I have:
- 2 cookie sheets for different types of writing in rice or shaving cream
- 1 muffin pan that will be used for matching and counting colors
- several store bought ($ store) activity books
- Paint with zip lock bags
- 2 pencil containers for organizing loose pieces (bought @ Walgreens for .49 each)
- 1 dry erase board for practing writing
- 1 package of construction paper

I plan on keeping this box out in the living room right next to "Mud Room" where the kid's drop off their back packs and shoe's. This area will be a future post.

Meet the Teacher

2008-08-07T23:19:00.000-07:00

Well it's official! The 2 oldest Angels met their teachers today. They are both really excited because they saw most of their friends and their class rooms. I am happy to say I had over 85% of the school supplies already purchased. DD1 and I made a list so we will go and get those tomorrow. I am ready to get back to the school routine. My kids function sooooo much better with routines and structure.

The summer was pretty good since it was my first as a SAHM. God bless ALL those Mommies who have been SAHM and those who are. This job is definitely A LOT of work but the benefits are well worth the price of Gold.

Depression and Anxiety...

2008-08-06T23:24:00.000-07:00

Since the birth of my 3 beautiful Angel's I have suffered many forms of Post Par tum Depression. I never knew what was wrong with me because I was told it's just the "Baby Blues". Well for most people I think Baby Blues means you are coming off of ALL the extra pregnancy hormones, emotions, and fear of mother hood. But for me it was worse then just a couple of weeks of uncontrolled crying and tension.

I was sooooo frustrated at one point I thought what am I doing to these kids. They deserve a mother who is kind, patient, loving, emotional stable and happy. I was hardly any of those things. There were days I'm sure if I did not have the right of mind (for a millisecond) I would have been one of those moms in prison blues. One day I broke down (at work!!!) and had a panic attack. I called my OB and explained (sobbing) over the phone what was going through my head. Yes there were many day's that I felt like running away, hurting my children, and even hurting myself. There are terms for these like Post Par tum Psychosis and other dreadful names. All I knew was when I made that call to my OB it was the best call of my children's lives.

They did prescribe an antidepressant over the phone. I finally felt like I was being heard. I wasn't to sure of being one of those mom's on antidepressants. But what other choice did I have. I was not very faithful to my God at the time of all this chaos so praying was not an option. After years and years of taking anti depressants I finally made the choice of going herbal for my anxiety and depression. I'm sure after three full term pregnancy my body was missing something.

I found online a site that offered herbal relief from my disorder. It is called Protazen!! You can find this product at http://www.naturalremedyfordepression.com/. It's primary ingredients are all natural and everything my body needs to have a balanced brain.
I also take a L5HTP (by Solaray) as a booster to what I am already taking. L5HTP has vitamin C, Vitamin B-6, Griffonia and Bioflavonoid Complex. I have read articles where L5HTP helps with depression, anxiety and insomnia. BINGO!!! I need help with ALL of those. Both products help your body to produce dopamine, serotonin and nor epinephrine. I'm sure with each birth, each kid sucked out about 30% of each of these mood changing hormones that I needed. So hence I found two great products that help restore the hormones my mind so terribly misses and needs.

Note: I have found taking both of these products in the am is better then the pm. B-6 is a natural energy booster.

Created new tab... "Healthy Living"

2008-08-06T23:12:00.000-07:00

I want to start working on "Healthy Living" for me and my family. Since I have the luxory of cooking more meals for our family I find myself buying more fresh ingredients. I love purchasing all of our friuts and vegetables at the Farmer's Markets. Not only do we get great prices on ALL our fresh fruits and vegies but my family reaps the healthy benefits of eating them.

My Angel's eat just about anything I get for them at the Farmer's Market. I make them try everything once. If they like it then great if not then we try to find other things they would like. I have never seen a kid eat raw Red, Yellow, Green and Golden Pepper's..... Mine do!!! I can not complain, I will not complain.

There is nothing like taking a few extra minutes a day to prepare a healthy meal for your family and then watch them gobble it down. So this new tab/label will give me opportunity to share all our "Healthy Living". It may include healthy meals, herbal remedies and other nutritional facts that I come across.

~ August Challenge ~

2008-08-06T22:52:00.000-07:00

My challenges for this month are:

Diligently post on My Blog, Tackle it Tuesday and Wordless Wednesday
Focus on home schooling my DD2
Focus on my Chem class this semester
Hit the gym 3x's a week
Keep myself attentive to my children's needs first and foremost

Healthy Living Milestones

2008-08-06T22:03:00.000-07:00

This may not be important to some people but to me this is HUGE! I have been a soda drinker for as long as I can remember. I grew up on Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper. When I got older I converted to diet soda's, which in their own right are supose to be better (except for the aspertame). Diet Soda was my water. I do know it is not healthy for you but water was pretty BLAHH to me. As I am reading my "Body Clutter" book (FLYlady.com) it has taken me to emotional demensions that I have never wanted to cross. I am not getting any younger so I know NOW is the time for me to get healthy for me. I never really looked at who, what, when, where and why the soda drinking happened but it is time to stop.

I am proud to say I am DDP free since July 13th, 2008. It was a long journey but looking back it was well worth the sacrifice. I now drink lots of flavored DeCaffeinated Tea. I really never need the boost that caffiene gave me anymore. By eating right and taking ALL my vitamins faithfully helps a great deal with energy. It's not been a full month but well worth celebrating. Praise God for showing me how to truely treat my body as a temple.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-08-06T16:11:00.000-07:00

Look!!! they do LOVE eachother!! I knew it.... Those are smiling faces from tickeling eachother.

DD1 and DS making the best of thier last few days of summer vacation.

Monthly Calendar

2008-08-06T11:05:00.000-07:00

Every year without fail I buy one of those 5x7 LifeLinks calendars. I especially love the one where it has the monthly and weekly views. I usually spend (6 or 7 bucks... BIG spender huh??) a little more money and get the one with the monthly tabs. I have found this calendar works best for me. Now everyone should know by now I have an "A" type personality. Almost everything in my life is black or white. I like to know "things" in advance, helps me prepare. I do not do very well when my DH drops bombs on me. I make lists and lists and lists, I write everything on two calendar's (big one in kitchen and my personal calendar), I have my daily chores charted, and did I mention I make lists.

Any way's... Since I have started home schooling my youngest DD. I borrowed a curriculum from a very dear friend and wrote all the activities that would be covered that month on the "Notes" section of my monthly calendar. That way if I am out shopping and come across something that I think would be good for a learning activity, I know what month we are covering it. I'm not so bad that I wouldn't switch the activities around but having an outline helps keep me on the right track.

Here is the monthly view of my calendar. Yes.... I'm a Libra so this is my artsy side. Hey!! it makes me happy and it works for me. There is a method to this madness of colors. Each color means something.

Here is the "Notes" section where I have laid out the August curriculum. Every month is laid out this way. At the end of each month I will go over next months curriculum and print out any activities and get activity books that will coordinate with that months outline. With the help of a couple online friends (Amanda and Faylei) they have sent me several websites that offer free activities and layout any craft ideas. I also acquired an online home schooling buddy.... Amanda!!, which I am very thankful for. (wink, wink)

New Picture!!

2008-08-05T15:30:00.000-07:00

I have been blogging since March of this year. After searching several blog sites I felt it was time to update my picture. All the other Mommy Blogs have pictures of Mommies at their best.... So I felt anyone reading my blog deserved my best. I do clean up pretty good!!! LOL!!

I think we all get into "I have so much to do that I don't have time to take care of me". I do know as my kids are getting older I am gaining a little more free time for me. So I am going to think of a new August Challenge. I can't believe July flew by that fast. Changing my picture has given me food for thought as I think about my August Challenge.

Back to School

2008-08-05T13:53:00.000-07:00

It's already that time of year!! YEAH.... Back to School!!! Money has been tight since I became a SAHM so I really have to pinch a lot of pennies. I am still going to utilize my resources..... Grandma and Meemaw to help with back to school items such as clothes and back packs. I have been taking advantage of great sales on school supplies and my first stop was Walgreens. Here is what I got.

Now granted some of this stuff is on sale even cheaper then what I bought it for on Friday so I plan on going back and getting the price adjusted while picking up some more stuff that is on sale this week. I will break it down.

Penway Pencil Holders 2 for .99

Elmer's 4oz Glue 2 for .99

2pk Elmer's Glue stick's 3 for 3.98 (bought 2 got one free)

325sh Penway Filler Paper 3 for 1.99

5" scissors 3 for 1.99

24pk Crayola Crayon's 3 for 1.99

Penway Pink Erasers 3 packs for 1.98 (these will be going back for a price adjustment... This week they are .09 each limit 4)

Penway Eraser Tops 3 packs for 1.98 (these will be going back for a price adjustment, also .09 a pack/limit 4)

12" Penway Ruler 2 for 1.00 (these will be going back for a price adjustment, .19 each/limit 4)

OOP = $11.93

with the adjustments (-4.04) my total will be $7.89

TaaDahh!!

2008-08-05T13:02:00.001-07:00

Both quilts are done. Why is the so important you ask. Well my Best Friend is having her baby on Friday.... YES!! This Friday!! Time flies when your busy with 3 very active kids. So I had to put these two quilts together. Two you ask??? Well I really enjoy making baby quilts for my friends when they have babies. Fortunately and Unfortunately I was not able to make one for her first baby. I know shame on me.... I will explain that later. So here are the finished quilts.

Her second child is a Boy according to her ultrasound. Crossing my fingers!! I made a cowboy quilt because my Best Friend and I were quite the Cowgirls before marraige and kids. Not traditional Cowgirls in that we lived on farms and raised cattle and horses. But we looked good in our Rockies and Wranglers. We also loved men in cowboy hats and Wranglers. Anyways.... That in fact is why I made a cowboy quilt.

Yes!! this quilt does look very similar to my DD2's quilt. My thought would be that how cute would it be if our girls had matching quilts even though they are miles and miles apart. I did add a thin strip in between the bigger rows while stair stepping the pattern. The back is a pale yellow with small pattern of dots and my DD's has a pink back with light green pattern of square dots. Now to get them off in the maill and we will be good to go. Now both our daughters have "Big Girl" quilts.

Now to answer the TWO quilt question and why the first one was never done. I had the wonderful priviledge of being there (Oregon) when she had her first baby almost 3 years ago. My DH, for my birthday, had a plane ticket for me to go see my Best Friend. It just so happened she had her baby the day before I arrived. So I got to spend a whole week with my Best Friend and her new addition. What a wonderful birthday present and husband!!

I think I found it.....

2008-08-04T01:57:00.000-07:00

The perfect Blog Layout. I am so grateful to TipJunkie for posting about this great site that had some pretty layouts/templets. I have been eager to change the templet to something more personal then the ones that are provided by blogger.com. Very special thanks to the templet designer for offering these layouts to our blogging friends.

Chore chart....

2008-08-01T16:20:00.000-07:00

I was perusing the blog pages and somewhere (I can't remember) I found a great page that had quite a few samples of many creative moms who made chore charts. There was one that really inspired my chore chart. I have been racking my brain on how to make an attractive chore chart that would work for our family and look good too.

I really dig the magnetic idea for our chore chart. So an old, rusty cookie sheet came in real handy. One thing I did not have to buy (I still have three other cookie sheets). I found a fabric that I really thought would work well for where I wanted to hang it (in the kitchen). Then my new obsession came in handy AGAIN, spray adhesive. I sprayed the cookie sheet and rolled out the fabric onto the cookie sheet. I found the perfect ribbon to create 3 separate sections, one for each kid, and hot glued the ribbon. The ribbon was to small for spray adhesive, next best thing... glue gun. I had these leftover wood hearts that I glued paper on and wrote each kids name on one. I used my best creative writing to write their names out. Labeling the chores took a lot longer then I wanted it to but I love how sturdy they are. I layered 3 different colors of card stock, stacked them on top of each other leaving a little less at each end so you can see all 3 colors and hand wrote the chores. Then I laminated each chore. 3 chores fit into one sleeve of a 5x7 lamination sheet. I had to run them through both directions to get a good seel on the chore cards. Then the final piece was the magnet on the back. My DH saves those "advertising magnets" and boy did they come in handy for this project. They were easy to cut and easy to adhere to the back of the chore card (hot glue). I absolutely love the finished product and can't wait to start using it. It will be hung in the kitchen so there will be no excuses.

Here it is in all it's glory!!!

Close up ..

A sample of a single row...

My DD1 had the brilliant idea of when a chore is completed that they can put the magnet on the back of the cookie sheet. So I decided to take a piece of card stock and spray glue that on the back, because the back did not look so pretty. It works for me!!!

Blogging Journal ???

2008-08-01T15:08:00.000-07:00

I was so inspired by my cyber-friend Laura, @ orgjunkie.com, when she created and shared with all her blogging friends that she has a Blogging Journal. It totally made sense!!! I constantly am running around the house with idea's in my head. I had so many post it notes and scrap papers with notes on them I was afraid somehow I would loose them. Im not sure how she knows when to share her idea's but this one came just at the right time.

So I looked through my craft stuff and created my own Blogging Journal. The Journal itself is one of those composition books that I purchased at the dollar store. Now is a great time to find them in your dollar stores. The only thing I did a little different was I added reusable tabs for three sections that I can put my idea's in. The tabs are labled Menu Plan Monday (which Im hoping to get into soon), Tackle it Tuesday, and Wordless Wednesday. I still have quite a few pages left in the book so I might have to add a tab for other things that pop up. The front part of the book I left quite a few blank pages. This area is where I will organize my blogging. Laura has hers set up that the page on the left has a monthly calendar taped onto it and the page on right is sectioned into four squared sections each titled: To Do, Reviews, Notes and Idea's. If you would like to see her Blog Journal for another idea click here> http://orgjunkie.com/2008/07/organize-your-blogging.html. I am still incorporating the calendar and 4 sections for my Journal. Just not sure of what the sections will be labeled. But when I figuire that out atleast my Journal is ready.

So here is my beautiful cover. It is amazing what some card stock and stickers can do. I have found a new obsession called spray adhesive. Other than being a bit of a sticky situation I love this new to me glue. Gets me thinking what else can I spray glue??? LOL

Here is the inside. I, like Laura, decorated the inside to inspire myself when I am in blogging mode. With the spray adhesive and stickers this whole project only took me 10 minutes. My kids were coloring and I was beautifying my Journal. Family time and getting projects done all at once. Gotta love it!!!

Inside leftInside right
I really wanted to personalize this Journal so no one in my house would mistake it for their own. Things in my house grow little legs and walk as far away as possible in seconds flat. Hope this helps someone.

Preparing to Home School my Pre-K'r

2008-08-01T14:30:00.000-07:00

Now that I am a SAHM my DD no longer goes to daycare on a full time basis. While I am taking my Chem class this semester she will be at daycare once a week but not enough to get the full benefit of a pre-k class. SOOOO I am preparing to home school her this year with some help from a few wonderful friends. I have a plastic folder that I am putting all my monthly planner pages into and I just bought a 13 pocket file folder (advised by my dear friend) that I can put all my print outs and activity pages in it. Now for someone who is OCD when it comes to organizing both of these items will keep me organized and happy. Happy mom, happy family!!

I am so very thankful for my friends who are helping me through this process. Without them home schooling would almost be impossible.

Busy... Busy... Busy...

2008-08-01T00:58:00.001-07:00

I have been a busy bee the past few days and have not had time to update my blog. This makes me sad :*( I have soooo many pictures to upload and post about. Later today should be a good time for me to catch up on (hoping) everything, during quiet time. I have some really exciting things that I want to share.

The "Angels" have not been such good angels last night so they will be busy helping Mom ALL day. It's a "NO TV" day at the Johnson Corporation. Not sure who it's going to affect worse, ME or the kids. So Im making a TO DO list as we speak OR blog.

Tackle it Tuesday......

2008-07-29T00:18:00.000-07:00

I have a clothes basket FULL of Office/School Stuff that has been calling my name for some time. I guess Tackle it Tuesday would be a good time just to "Eat the Frog" and getter done. It contains the items I took out of my locker and work bag when I quit my job as a CNA. I think there is also quite a few things from my school, such as notebooks, writing untencils, and other stuff that just needs a home. I will repurpose quite a few things since school is just right around the corner for all of us so Im sure purging most of the items will be impossible for me.

So here is the basket. Doesn't look so bad!!! It's just busy work. Im not crazy about busy work.

I placed everything into general piles to make the sorting more tolerable. Quite a bit of stuff was old school papers that I did not need, old pay stubs, and old work papers. I was glad to put all that stuff in the round file. He he he. The rest of it found new homes, will be recycled for this new school year and given back to their original owners.

So now I have a 5th laundry basket. I know that sounds crazy but I really use all of them. Each Angel has a basket (with their name in it) to put their clean clothes away. The fourth one is for actually transporting clean clothes to a designated folding spot and the fifth one well.... I am still thinking about that one. I do use three of the baskets when I am organizing they make great Purge, Donate, and Re-home baskets. It's really nice to have all of my baskets available for when ever I need them. Plus All my office supplies are put in their homes and I know exactly where everything is. It wasn't such a hard tackle but it's one of those tackle's that just bug ya til it's done. I Bit the Frog.

For more Tackle it Tuesday go to http://www.5minutesformom.com/.

Summer fun ...

2008-07-24T16:30:00.001-07:00

This summer has been a blast. The kids had their last day of 6 weeks of swimming and diving lessons. I am the most tanned I have ever been but it was well worth watching my kids have fun in the water.

DS in his swim class Sea Horses. They teach basic strokes, floating technique, jumping in deeper water and water safety. He made a thank you card for each of his swim instructors. How sweet is that????

Here he is in his dive class. I wont mention he is the youngest in the class. OH NO!! I mentioned it didn't I. That is Josh he is the dive instructor. These young kids ,teaching the younger kids at this pool, amaze me how much patience and tollerance they have. They are all pretty darn good at what they do. The dive class teaches different types of dives and hones in on their technique.

Yes that is my fearless one. He normally does this dive off the 3 meter by himself but for some reason when he figuired everyone was watching him he froze. So Josh to the rescue. They all learn to dive off the 1 meter and the 3 meter diving boards. I pretty much signed DS up this summer just so he can learn some other technique then the cannon ball. He had fun and Josh got quite a few giggles out of him.

DD1 in her swim class, Sea Stars. This class teaches stroke technique, distance, treading in water and diving off the side of the pool (preparing them for diving off the swim platform/squares). She was so proud because she was the only one in her class who could tread for two minutes at the end of her lesson. She is my little fishy!! She also made thank you cards for her instructor's. The instructors told the kids this was the first time they ever got thank you cards from their students. That made DD feel good!!

DD1 in her dive class. I signed both of them up for the same class the last two weeks. DD would not go off the dive board after one of her dives ended in a back flop. She came up from the dive just screaming. I knew she was in lots of pain. Ever sincce the back flop she has shyed away from quite a few dives she has been good at. Im sure with some practice and lots of encouragement she will be doing better next summer.

New Beginings.....

2008-07-24T14:59:00.000-07:00

It finally happened!!! I wasn't sure how this was going to roll but I took it one day at a time. It started with a little conversation on how things get old and need to rest after years and years of constant loving, throwing around, dragging on the ground, hiding under and many, many, many nights of cuddleing. It has been over 3 1/2 years since it's birth and has seen better days. It's my daughters "banklet". Yup !! It definately gives new definition to Linus and his blanket on Charlie Brown. My first two DC never had a safety net kinda thing. I love that she finds comfort in her blanket but it is time to retire her first blanket.

We both agreed on the new look of her "BIG GIRL" blanket. After all my hard labor she was so excited about her new blanket and couldn't wait to lay on it, share it, hide under it and snuggle with her Momma, But in the flash of a light bulb when she realized baby blanket was going bye-bye she hated the new blanket. : ( Looks like I have some work ahead of me AND thank GOD I did not put "banklet" in the garbage. Im sure she would have been scarred for life and I would be blamed for all of her insecurities. LOL !!!

Here is my DD2 supposidly enjoying her new blanket. Well she had her Momma fooled to the max. This very pretty smile did not last long. But it is well worth posting.

Kids Bedroom reorg....

2008-07-19T21:42:00.000-07:00

Finally! .... I got the nerve to tackle my kids bedroom. It took about 3 days to get my nerve up but something this morning just told me to get it done and over with. Reminds me of a saying from Orgjunkie.com she says just "Bite the Frog". Well I bit it and I won!!!! So without further due here is the kids bedroom......

Not to bad... Could be worse.... Has been worse... My DH made the bunk/trendal bed for the kids. They unfortunately ALL share the same room which is getting more difficult as my DD1 gets older. She really would like a room of her own BUT I have to remind her Mommy and Daddy can not afford a larger house right at this moment. I would love for all of them to have their own room. Anyways... Under the bottom bunk has become the "stash" spot. Not to mention my DD2 (youngest) has a problem with the paint color green we choose because she keeps picking the paint off the wall (I have a closer look at that... later)

This is the TOY CLOSET. Very unorganized if organized at all. I have all the right tools but no structure. We also never painted the inside of the closet after DH added those shelves. So of course I am not the type of person to do anything half way.... YES we painted the inside of the closet. Not a major change as far as the color because we painted it white, but now it looks more crisp and clean.

Remember my little paint-picker..... Here is the damage before and her is the after! Thanks to my DH who not only plastered the wall but he repainted it to. He must LOVE me.

Under the bed is clean

Closet Painted

DD2's bed with 3 baskets full of toys, not to mention the dirty hamper was full of toys, and the floor. I emptied two large trash cans of garbage and broken toys. We still have to many toys. But the after looks so much better. I made the mistake of purchasing to many containers. (I know bite my tongue... there is no such thing as to many containers) Im sure I will have homes for all my other containers I did not use.

Taaa DHAAA.... I seriously never thought this day would end. I am so thankful for my DH who helped me (during commercials) to get this done. I thought I would never see the floor again and now I wished I couldn't see the floor. New rule: NO FOOD or DRINK in the bedroom. I guess we will have to work on the carpet another day.

This closet now makes me cry. Unfortunately due to limited space we do store a few things in the kids closet so Im sure if space wasn't a concern they would have more room. Actually they would have their own room. LOL!!! Some day... I can only dream.

Ode to my Husband

2008-07-17T13:43:00.001-07:00

I have been struggling with some minor marriage issues until I talked to a very good friend who reminded me of a quote from a very wise friend of mine. We chatted about our ups and downs and how God makes us stronger through every challenge we face. Now mind you she is older and has been married several times until she found HIM. Her soul mate. I feel I am fortunate that I did not have to go through many marriages to find my soul mate. I did marry my best friend but even best friends can get on our nerves right ??? So I wanted to post an Ode to my Husband.

"We fall in and out of love with our husbands ALL the time. It's how we look at the good instead of the bad that makes our marriage stronger."

Tackle it Tuesday......

2008-07-16T16:18:00.000-07:00

As I posted several days ago I had a 15 minute project staring me down right in my own bedroom. Well it wasn't a 15 minute project after I got done with it. It was a bunch of 15 minute projects all bundled up in a 2 hour ordeal. But at the end of a very long day (lots of other projects getting done all in one day) it was worth every second.

So my DH built me this corner desk for our bedroom so I would have a place to do school work. Well it works great for a place to put "stuff" that I did not take the time to find a home for. Shame on me!!! After really thinking about it (deeply) was this a reflection on how I am emotionally feeling at this point and time in my life. Well I was not going to get that Freudian on myself so I just fixed it.

Now I have a beautiful, clean, and uncluttered area where I can actually put my laptop. I eventually want to put up a small bookshelf (that my DH already has made) above the desk on the left hand side where I can put my books. I will probably rearrange the plastic office organizer's already on the walls to the right hand side of the desk. The lamp (way in the corner) was one of my Goodwill finds for $1.50 that I wanted to add to the desk. I am soooo glad that lamp is there. Normally we use the one light on the ceiling fan but normally I do not need that much light, so this lamp works perfectly!!!

This is headache #2. This is a filing cabinet and a set of plastic organizer drawers that are along the wall behind my desk. My original intentions was to have a home for all my office/craft/ coupon stuff. I guess I had more stuff then I knew what to do with. The big black filing box is what I use for organizing my coupons. I never clip coupons until I'm going to go shopping. The big blob in front of it is actually a printer. LOL!! Then all of the stuff on top of the plastic drawers is just that .... "STUFF". After this last semester in school I just threw all my book bags under the desk because they did not have a home. NOW ..........

Everything has a home!!! I am sooo thrilled with this you could not imagine. This whole section of this wall was pretty much just a dump spot. If I needed something you could pretty much count on me buying it instead of looking for it in that mess. BUT now it's heaven on my side of the bed. Quite a bit of the stuff was old school papers so I had a blast just throwing things away. All my office supplies are now organized AND I know what I have and don't have. Yippeee!!!!

Last but not least.... God Bless my DH and his efforts to do our laundry. Yes !! I have a DH who does not hesitate to do laundry. But his efforts only go as far as washing and drying. I have to be thankful for clean clothes but putting clothes away would be even nicer. So this was my last tackle today. Mind you.... this is a combination of ALL of our clothes. Even clothes that don't quite fit my littlest one. One basket way at the bottom is a basket full of office stuff that I will need to tackle on another day because these 3 projects took me way into the night. The end result was well worth all my aching bones.

Trust me this looks much better in person. I can actually vacuum the floor on my husbands side of the bed now. Prays God for little miracles. I have a total of 5 laundry baskets. 3 for my DC (each have their own), 1 for actually doing laundry and the last 1 is for transferring multiple items back to there homes. My DH has one of his VW bug seats in our room (which is behind the baskets) why???? I'm not sure, I think it has something to do with the seat cover we made for it and not wanting it to dry wrought out in the sun while he works on the bug in our backyard.
Any way's I am so PROUD of myself and EXHAUSTED. I'm still trying to get my house back on track before the school year begins. Taking baby steps 15 minutes at a time.

~ July Challenge ~

2008-07-04T16:21:00.000-07:00

My July Challenge initially was a physical/aerobic challenge. BUT since posting that challenge I decided I needed a different challenge. This challenge is a focus on my emotional and mental well being. Not only for me but for my family who deserves someone focused, happy, sane and there for ALL of their needs. I made a decision to be a SAHM for my children who desperately were starving for their Mommy. Now I need to follow through with that commitment. So there lies the motive for my new July Challenge.

~ July Challenge ~

- Relax MORE
- Stay as cool as possible (live in AZ)
- Have more fun with my kids
- Bust my depression with a vengance

15 minute challenge

2008-07-04T16:09:00.000-07:00

I am sitting here on my bed playing on the computer and I have a 15 minute challenge staring me down. My filing cabinet, plastic drawer organizer and desk look like a tornado went through it. I am hoping to get this project done today!!!

My challenge is to purge, organize, repurpose items and clean the area up.

- reorganize and purge coupon's in box
- rehome items that have been misplaced
- create homes for items
- put lamp in corner of desk (for night time reading)
- clear some room on desk
- possibly put up a book shelf
- move office wall organizer's around (make room for book shelf)

I will be sure to post before and after picture when this challenge is complete ; o)

Back from California ...

2008-06-30T23:46:00.000-07:00

It was a long vacation but the kids had a wonderful time. Except for being completely exhausted Im pretty sure fun was had by all. Even I had moments of fun. I say that because we took a 12 yo SD, 7 yo DD, 5 yo DS and a 3 yo DD. Now anyone (Im pretty sure) knows taking 4 kids on a 7-10 day vacation can be a handful. Now add to that a StepMIL and FIL who have no concept of having structure, rules and a schedule for this age range. Well need I say more!!! I fore warned my DH that we needed to set rules before we went and that never got done. The only rule (created by my StepMIL) that was stated was that when someone disciplines a child (my child) that no one is to correct that discipline. I understand it but was NOT to crazy about that rule. Thank God we did not have to use that rule. My kids were pretty good for a 7 day vacation.

Our first adventure was Sea World. My 7 yo DD is our future Veterinarian, so you can only imagine the awwww in her eyes. It was a pretty hot/humid day for us, we are use to a dry heat. We did see two shows unfortunately one of them was NOT Shamu. Due to lots of miscommunication. The kids did walk the entire park so we did see lots of the exhibits. The wait time for most of the rides were way to long with hot, hungry and "I gotta go potty" kids. Made my 12 yo SD pretty sad but I think we made up for it at Disneyland.

The second adventure was a day at the beach which I choose to saty at the hotel to nurse my enormous headache. A jet ski was rented for 4 hours and the kids had a great time. Camera never made it into the beach bag so no photo's of the beach. Unfortunately for my kids their mother is not much of a beach bum. I tend to burn quite fast and the umbrella we had was not the best protection for me. Everyone got lubed up with lotion before the trip so they came home unburnt and crazy happy about their adventures. After dinner I took the kids to the pool for some MORE swimming. It gave me time to bond with them. It was pretty neat because you could see the fireworks from the Shamu show @ Sea World from our pool. The kids thought that was pretty cool.

We had to pack up on the 3rd day to head up North to Anaheim. On the way we stopped to enjoy Legoland. Another hot/humid day for everyone. Quite a few rides were enjoyed. Lunch at the park. Everyone enjoyed the different sculptures that were built out of lego's. That was pretty amazing. All I can remember making out of lego's were square houses and square car's. Lots of talent out there. Thank God none of the rides were made out of lego's. LOL!!!

We hit our hotel in Anaheim around dinner time. So we had some dinner and called it an early night. OK so we hit the pool until closing time (10pm) and then went to bed. That was pretty early compared to the other nights.

Another early morning and a continental breakfast came around fast. Disneyland was waiting. Of course like most first day's at Disneyland it was a lot of crazziness. A lot of excitement was had by all the kids. I understand the concept of family fun at Disneyland but even with the Fast Passes and other short cuts they have created to make waiting in lines more tollerable it still became a hurry up and wait process. I really think the only ones who suffer are the kids. They really do not understand or have patience for waiting. Im not going to go into lots of details about everyday adventures. The biggest highlights were having breakfast with the Disney Characters, getting their autographs, seeing my kids on roller coasters for the first time, watching my DH have a blast on roller coasters (he loves roller coasters), and the fond memories that came with the vacation.

I do think the next vacation we will be going on a camping trip. The hardest thing about camping is finding a camping spot.

I am a Christian

2008-06-12T17:13:00.000-07:00