Junior High DANCE... what was I thinking!

So Missy and a bunch of her friends went to the junior high dance at the rec center! What was I thinking letting her go????!!!! She danced with a 9th grader for heavens sake!!!!! YIKES! Anyway, I am so proud of Missy. I sent her to the dance with my cell phone and about 45 minutes after I dropped her off I got a phone call saying that she and one of her friends were really uncomfortable with the way some of the kids at the dance were acting and she really wanted to leave. I am so impressed that she would get herself out of a situation like that. So I drove back down there and picked up her friends and took them to one of the girls' houses to continue the party where they were comfortable. Way to go Missy!

School Parties

I seriously love my kids' teachers and school. I couldn't ask for better experiences for them. Scotty's teacher is my good friend too so that makes it even more fun. (She was Missy and Fuzzy's teacher too!) I feel very blessed to have been able to go in their classrooms and work with them, help the teachers and be a part of the class parties. Some of my dreams have been put on hold while I stay at home and be a mom, but honestly I get more joy from serving them than I think I could in any other way. Some days I go a little crazy, but I have always tried to be very involved so that I didn't go too crazy!

Build-A-Bear

Really? Build-A-Bear. Now why couldn't I have come up with that business idea! Brilliant.

Anyway, we took Alli for her a belated Christmas present to pick out her bear. We had been to the mall a few times before but not with Corry, so she had everything picked out when we all went to the store together.

She loves her bear and Corry gets a kick out of what she named her. HALLI ... and she calls her my Halli Beary. Funny!

Dance Recitals

As I said before, the girls are in dance companies at their studio this year. They absolutely LOVE it! I feel a little like dance is taking over our lives with me teaching too, but I still love it! They got a chance for the first time to perform on a real stage. They had to miss half a day of school and go to lots of practices which lets face it, that is the fun part! They were really blessed to be able to sell all there tickets. So many people came to support them and that was just awesome. Sometimes it amazes me who really cares about them that I didn't know! Anyway, they did an AWESOME job. Missy did a cancan and had this beautiful BIG hair that we spent 2 hours at Julane's getting done. She also wore false eye lashes and LOTS of bright make-up. Her dad wasn't very happy about that part, but she had a blast. Fuzzy did a dance to one of the songs from Princess and the Frog so it had a New Orleans swing to it. I sat there in beaming pride watching my daughters that night. They have put so much time and effort into this it was so fun to see the result.

Miss with her best friend McKenzie

Grandma and Grandpa were wonderful to come too and we brought all the kids one night!

Miss with her teacher Margaret

Fuzzy's best friends all came one night with me too

A few of Missy's friends from school came and the other is another girl in her group.

I wish I could have taken their picture with them in their costumes, but they weren't allowed to leave back stage with them on since they were rentals. It was such a fun couple of days. Way to go Miss and Fuzz! Thanks Kim and Drew, Amy and Cory, Emma and Mikel and Mrn and Chad for coming to support the girls. You are the best! (And thanks Mush for being there in spirit!)

Wax Museum

For Fuzzy's last book report, they were required to find an American Hero, read their biography and then prepare a speech about them. They had to dress up as their character and pretend they were a wax statue until someone came to push their button. Then they got to tell the person a little about themselves and then become a statue again. Very cool! Fuzz decided to be Sacagawea and a few of her friends were Louis and Clark. They did a great job telling their story, although Fuzzy does talk awfully fast when she is nervous!

Allowance...yes or no

I can't remember if I have posted about this before or not, so I am just going to do it again! Corry and I have had the great allowance debate for a good part of our parenting career. We did it for awhile. Then we took it away because the kids were associating getting paid allowance with helping out. It became a, "will I get paid for it?" "no" "then I am not going to help" sort of attitude. So we took allowance away and told them that they could help because they were part of a family and that is what families do... work together and help each other out. The down side of not doing the allowance is how do you teach your kids about money if they don't ever have any money? So, we brought allowance back with a new twist.

I was talking to one of my friends who mentioned that they have their children pay for their own shoes. People thought she was the meanest mom for that and her retort was "where do you think they get the money to pay for their shoes?" She gave them stewardship over the shoe money. It taught their kids valuable lessons, so we decided to try it. Our kids get their age a month for allowance. We didn't want them to get a lot because we wanted them to still value working together as a family because we are a family, not because they are getting paid. We also give them a shoe allowance. So, here is the easy breakdown. I will use Fuzzy since she has nice round numbers:

Missy - $12 allowance $15 shoes (her point shoes for ballet at between $50-$100 a pair)

Fuzzy - $10 allowance $10 shoes (she doesn't have the point shoes, but still has expensive dance shoes to buy)

Scotty - $7 allowance $5 shoes

Alli - $4 allowance $5 shoes

So, Fuzzy ends up with $20 a month. $2 goes to tithing (money for our church to build and maintain church buildings, build temples and maintain them, to pay for some of the cost of BYU, etc); $2 goes into her savings account, more if she chooses; $10 goes into her shoe money jar; which leaves her with $6 a month, not a lot, but really what does she need that we don't provide her? Also, we will give extra money for really hard chores when the kids are saving up for something and we pay the girls to babysit when we need a babysitter for fun. When we are serving in our church, the school or other things like that, we don't pay them, that is part of being a family. Another thing we do is they have to pay half for big things they want to do. Missy went to 5th grade camp and had to pay half ($75), the girls summer dance is really expensive and a big extra thing for the summer, so they pay half for that too. Missy wants to go to AFY (click on it to find out more) next summer and it costs $400. She will be saving this year to pay her half of that expense.

This system has worked great for us. The kids have learned to save their money and to shop for good deals. They have also learned that the cheapest bargain isn't always the best deal. Take for example flip flops. They all HATE the cheap ones because they hurt their feet. So, they usually buy themselves their flip flops at the end of the season and buy the NIKE brand that they can run and climb in. They generally spend $6 or so for a pair ($2.50 is the best buy we found). Corry and I do provide church shoes for them because we never want them to use "not having church shoes that fit" to be an excuse for not going to church.

Say Cheese

I love pictures. I am not very good at taking pictures, but I love them. (It helps that my kids are so darn cute that the pictures come out decent despite the photographer!) Sometimes I just sit and look through my photos when I am having a down day. There are those days that I just feel like a failure as a mom and when I look through the pictures it reminds me of all the good times we have as a family and it puts the down days in perspective. They are just moments. Overall life at our house is good. Take this photo for example. This morning Alli was throwing a major tantrum because she didn't have soft pants (sweats/leggings) to wear. (Laundry is another thing on my list today.) I was looking through trying to find a photo for something else and came across this one. It reminds me why I love that little kids so much - even when she is a turkey!

Deals

I LOVE a good deal! End of the season is like heaven to me to go shopping and get the good deals for next year (I always try to buy as much as I can a year ahead), so I thought I would share some of my favorite stops:

JC Penny - for everyone

• Penny's has some great deals. I just got a pair of pants (grey soft denim) there for $7. I love them! Thanks mom and dad for the birthday money! I found a simple black dress there for $1.24 one time! Wait until the clearance it at 80-90% off and you will get some great deals.
• I love them for me, Corry loves their stuff and I find great things for the kids too. I got the girls these super soft hoodies for next year for $7

Kohls - for everyone

• I just scored at Kohls on bra's and underwear for the girls. The bras were $1.74 a piece and the underwear were 3/$1.24 (boy short ones, they had to try them out and make sure they liked them. I had bought 3 packs of them so I told them to only open one and make sure they liked them because if they didn't and weren't going to wear them, they became expensive because they wasted the money).
• Kohl's is one of the few places I find things for Scotty. He loves the Tony Hawk stuff, but it is normally so expensive. I just got him a Tony Hawk long-sleeve shirt there for $3.
• I love their clearance, but then you can use coupons on their clearance too and get an additional 15-30% off the clearance prices.
• I also love to shop their power hours. At Christmas I had scored on some great deals for the girls, but forgot about the coupon I had in my bag. I took the stuff bag to use the coupon and because I was there during their power hour, BEFORE the coupon my bag of stuff was $10 cheaper!

Target - for some clothes but great deals on toys and games too

• I just got a bunch of toys and games for my kids to give to their friends that were originally $5-$20 that I paid between $0.24 and $6 for. I have a huge box in my room for my kids to find gifts for their friends from. Some toys/games I used manufacture's coupons found on the blogs I have listed on the right and some were just on sale. Check the end caps of the toy section. That is where the best deals are.
• More bras for the girls, this time $0.87 each!!!!
• Breathe Right Strips $2.49 a box!!! That is an amazing price. I bought all of them though, so there are no more at either store by me!! :) (Corry and Missy both use them and really think they help a lot.)

Justice - for my girls

• They send out 40% off the whole store all the time and I love it! We pretty much only shop the clearance there, but sometimes we buy something off the regular rack (but not without a 40% off coupon). Also a lot of times they put their clearance accessories on for buy one get one free and you can use the 40% off on top of that!
• Missy went to a b-day party and brought a scarf, some earrings and some other little thing from there as her gift to the birthday girl. The gift cost us $1.78 total. All the girls there said, "I want to invite you to my party!" to Missy. (That seriously makes me giddy!)

Ross/Burlington - for everyone

• Just got the cutest pair of Bass slip on canvas shoes at Burlington for $4.99! (thanks mom and dad for the b-day money again!) You just have to shop those stores. Sometimes there are great things and not other times!

I am also not above asking for more deals. I was at JC Penny and found these cute shirts for summer that I don't have to wear a shirt under that rang up as $12.50 a piece (normally $22 each). I told them that the sign said 2/$14 (it really did, I wasn't making it up) and they gave them to me for that (I love you mom and dad - now the b-day money is gone). Sometimes they tell me that they can't give me the lower price, but most of the time I get it lower. A lot of times they will have signs mismarking things or left up from a previous sale. Most of the time, they give them to me for the price I saw on the signs. Another time at Kohl's I found a pair of really cute pants for Missy. They were clearanced for $8. There was a decorative stitch that was coming out on the side, so they gave them to me for $6. I just pulled the rest of the stitching out and they looked great! I haven't paid more than $10 for a pair of jeans or pants for her!

I know there are great deals to be found at yard sales too, but mostly I stick to new stuff, just getting it as cheap as I can. Sometimes I can even get things at are cheaper then they would be at a yard sale or DI.

My Birthday

I love birthdays! I seriously do not get very upset about getting older, except when my body hurts and doesn't do what I want it to, and then I am annoyed. Last month was my birthday and it was fabulous.

Let me back up to the day before though...

The night before my birthday my good friends took me out to dinner. I had been telling them that when we felt like we had money in the bank again I really wanted Corry to take me to Tepanyaki, a Japanese steakhouse where they cook the food in front of you, because I LOVE it!!!! So, my sweet friends took me out there for dinner! Oh my goodness, it tasted SOOO good! They always give you a lot of food and I guess I was either really hungry or just missed eating there so much that I ate everything: the salad, the rice, the veggies, the steak and the shrimp, plus I caught two shrimp in my mouth that the chef tossed to me. Can I just say HEAVEN!!!! Then they brought me out ice cream for my birthday and I ate that whole thing too!!!! I have the greatest friends! I was so not expecting that when I mentioned that I love that place to them. What great friends to listen and do something so kind for me! That wasn't even the end, they figured Corry and I needed a date night out too, so they gave me movie tickets and dinner gift certificates. I almost cried. They have been there through everything with Corry's work situation and were so thoughtful. I feel very loved!

The next morning I woke up to yummy muffins for breakfast and a sweet family trying to do all they could to make my day special. Fuzzy had made a sign that I will have to post later after I scan it in. It was tickets to "Lame Is". I about peed my pants I laughed so hard! It was so sweet to want to give me something the whole family could do together. Alli made me a picture, Scotty made me a necklace, and Missy made me cupcakes. Thankfully Corry didn't get me anything tangible for my birthday. We are trying to save up to do something for our 15th anniversary later this year! But he did all he could to make my day special and that is the best gift.

After everyone left for school, I had Presidency meeting and went to visit ladies in my ward. It was really the best way to spend my day. I love visiting the ladies in my ward. It is so much fun to sit in their homes and learn what neat people they are. When I got home, my visiting teachers had left balloons, cupcakes, and flowers for me. They are awesome!

For lunch some other friends came over. They brought in sandwiches and we ate and laughed, and then it got weird! They started dressing me up and taking these strange pictures of me. (If I ever get any I will have to post them.) They took my picture with a train, in a wig, with a ball, all bandaged up, playing games, and the list goes on because they are going into the book, "Oh the Places We'll Go". They are hilarious! I love their creative minds. Then they give me a card and tell me we are all going HORSEBACK RIDING in the summer!!!!!!! Oh my goodness, I have always wanted to go horseback riding! How fun is that going to be. I asked if we got to go on a ride, tether the horses in a meadow and have a picnic. I think they all laughed at me but that is my dream!!! They also gave me this new game that we had all played the Sunday before with our spouses. I was so excited and it is my kids new favorite game to play (it is called For Sale). I have the greatest friends.

After that, I taught dance, drove the girls to dance and then Corry took the family that was home out to my other FAV restaurant, Thai Village. YUMMY! I love love love Thai food! I was in HEAVEN! We had a wonderful dinner and a nice evening just being a family. Add in all the phone calls, emails and facebook messages I received and I went to bed feeling very loved, although slightly sad that night. Why am I so blessed to have so many wonderful people around me that love me? I feel bad for those that don't have that, but I guess in the process I have decided that I need to be a better friend to the ones I have and reach out to others and be that kind of friend to them too. Thank you, thank you to all my wonderful friends and family!

I LOVE YOU!

Kamree

Kamree got to come spend the weekend with us over Martin Luther King Jr. Day. She and Fuzzy had such a great time. She lives about an hour and a half away, so they don't get to see each other much, but I love that they love being together. This is my ideal family situation, cousins loving to hang out together and become friends. I always wish I had had that as a kid.

I forgot to take pictures until right before she left so these are all the pictures I got.

They made up this crazy hand shake.

Thanks for coming Kamree. We loved having you!

Ahh, Mom what did you do???

is the typical reaction when I cut all my hair off. I love my new sassy "do". It is so much easier to get ready in the morning. I was thinking of just doing it for a change, but I am thinking it might last longer than that. We will see, but for now, it is short.