Merry Christmas

Hey everyone! I hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas and that you all enjoy your day no matter what you are doing or who you are with. I am so grateful for my family and the love that we all share. I am grateful for the wonderful friends that I have that are always lending a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on. I am grateful for my wonderful husband and my 3 beautiful children that I waited so long to get. I am grateful for the financial stability that we have in these scary times. To all of my friends and family that are reading this, I love and appreciate you. Have a wonderful day.

Naughty Kids

Is it just my kids that are being especially naughty this week or is it just the anticipation of Christmas and all kids are being naughty? It seems to me that knowing that Santa Claus is watching would inspire some GOOD behavior, not the other way around. I'm so CONFUSED!!!

One Week..

Well, there is one week until Christmas. I can't believe it! Time goes so fast. Are you all done with the shopping? I have been done for a while, now I need to wrap everything so that after 15 minutes on Christmas morning I can have wrapping paper all over. Christmas goes by WAY too fast! Now I know why my parents made us take turns opening presents, one at a time. That way they didn't feel like all of Santa's hard work was gone after 15 minutes. Oh well, it's all part of the fun right?

Saw this on KSL

We saw this on KSL's Live 5 show today. She has some great ideas and gifts. Just click on the button to be taken to her blog.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope that you all have a wonderful day, sharing the time with family and not worrying about all the calories that you are eating! Did you know that the average person eats over 4,000 calories on Thanksgiving? The thing is, it's not the dinner that's the killer, it's the snacking while watching football! I'm finally up to 20 pounds lost, I just hope I don't pack them all back on today! Have a great day!

I finally went....

to see Twilight. I just have to say that I LOVED IT!!!! It was a very well put together movie. I thought that it followed the storyline of the book for the most part. There are always things that are different in the the movies, of course, but it was done well. I really liked the actor and actress that played Edward and Bella, they did a phenomenal job! I WILL be going to see this again for sure!

Twilight

Well, Twilight came out on Thursday at midnight. I STILL haven't seen it. I figured it would be the same movie whether I saw it on opening night or a week later. I'm going to end up seeing it twice anyway, since I didn't lose as much weight as my friend. Oh well, at least I'm still losing!! I just hope that the movie isn't a disappointment after all the hype....

I just don't understand...

The fury over the 'Twilight' movie will soon be over. It's crazy, all of these women going nuts over a fictional character. One of the nurses where I work is completely in love with Edward (our hero). She asked me, "Why can't husbands be more like Edward, he has so much romance and he really cares about Bella." (brain dead object of Edwards affection). That's an easy answer, Edward was created by the mind of a woman. He could never exist, he's the ideal man for women because he 'thinks' like a woman. He is every womans dream guy. If he had been created by a man, he would be a man's man, and his name would be James Bond. Anyway, I have read two of the books, and I want to see the movie. I made fun of the nurse that was letting me read the books, and she wouldn't let me finish the third one. Of course Melissa has read them all, I don't think she is as wound up in the books as some of the other women that I have seen or heard about. I put a countdown to the madness on top of this blog just in case someone is not as well informed about 'Twilight'.

Pictures, finally!

As you can see, I did finally post pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes. Now we are trying to get ready for Christmas. I think we are almost done with the shopping, WOO HOO!! I like to try it get it done before the first week of December, then we can actually enjoy the holidays. I love this time of year, the food, the smells, the giving spirit, it's great.

Halloween

The kids had a blast on Halloween this year! We went to the downtown trick or treat in the city that we live in, and then they went trick or treating around the neighborhood. I have a HUGE bowl full of candy and I will probably end up throwing a bunch of it away before Christmas. I just don't think my kids will eat all of it, even with mom and dad's help.
I will have to post pictures later. Makenzie was a witch, Michael was a vampire and Emma was a pink poodle. They all looked adorable, of course!!!

Sprained Ankle

So I'm able to blog a lot this week because I sprained my ankle on Saturday. It looks like I have a golf ball on my ankle. I stepped in a hole, twisted my ankle and it popped. I feel like the biggest loser....
Anyway, I'm confined to the couch with my leg elevated for the most part of the day. (At least when I'm not trying to chase the kids.) I'm getting really good at the club live games on the internet! :)

Happy Birthday Emma!

I'm a little bit late on this entry. Emma turned 2 on Sunday. I can't believe that my baby is 2! She has been with us since she was 3 months old. Time has a way of just slipping away, doesn't it?
She has the most adorable laugh now and cracks us up. Anyway, happy birthday precious girl.

Happy Birthday, Michael!

So our boy turned 3 years old today. Man, time sure does fly! I can't believe that he has been with us for over a year and a half already! He is such a good boy. He is smart, loves to giggle and cracks us up with his grumpy face. Happy Birthday Michael, we sure love you!

Contest

The Biggest Loser contest at work ended on Saturday, and no, I didn't win. I do however think that in the long run I will be the one that keeps the weight off. The girl that won did the Atkins Diet, and I just did the boring eat less, exercise and drink lots of water. She ended up losing around 15 pounds and I only lost 11.
I'm finding it hard to stay as motivated now that other people aren't going to see how much I weigh, but I do still want to lose weight. I walk Makenzie to school every day, which is about a mile and a half round trip. I am also trying to still eat less. The water thing is my challenge because quite honestly, I HATE WATER!! Isn't that weird?!?! It's not like water has a flavor or anything, maybe that's why I hate it....
Anyhow, no new wardrobe for me. I think I am going to have to invest in some belts, though, because all of my pants are too loose and tend to fall down. WOOHOO!!!!

School

So Makenzie has been in school for about 2 weeks now. It's still hard to believe that she has grown up so fast!!
She was ready to drop out the second day. She came home with a bunch of homework and did the "drama queen" thing... "It's too hard, I can't do it." (In her whiniest voice, of course!) Now that she has gotten used to the routine, she really likes it, she even WANTS to do her homework when she gets home, even when she doesn't have any!!
This will hopefully be her last year at this school and she should be going to the charter school out here next year, if I can get in enough hours to have founder status...
The school is called Excelsior Academy, and I am so excited for them to open!! You should check them out at www.excelsior-academy.org. My teacher friends should especially check them out and then come out here and work at the school!! ;)

Happy Birthday Makenzie!

Well, it's here. Makenzie is 5 years old today, I can't believe how fast she is growing up! It seems like just yesterday that she could fit in Cabbage Patch clothes, and now she is a big girl that will be starting Kindergarten in a few days. Happy Birthday, honey. Mom and dad love you lots!

Camping Trip

It has been a while since the last entry. That's because we went camping for a week. It is so nice to get away, but it's nice to come back home.
It was a fun trip. We went to one of our favorite places, Stillwater. It was so peaceful! That being said, the biting gnats were horrible!! They really liked Emma's skin around her eyes and my face. I ended up getting a bite near one of my eyes, and it was swollen almost completely shut.
Oh, and what's a camping trip without at least one person getting hurt?!? Michael decided that it would be a great idea to ride one of those little ride on cars down the steep hill that goes to the bathroom. After he crashed and burned, he decided that it wasn't such a good plan after all. He has a scraped nose, elbow and forehead now.
We went on a hike to Arta Lake. It was a little over a mile, and well worth it, it was beautiful! Oh, and in case you were wondering, we did take our children on the hike with us, and they did great! The picture is of them at the lake.

Learning

So we have been going to these foster parent classes to get our license renewed. They are geared toward people who have teenagers in their house, but I have found it very helpful. At least I know what to expect down the road and have some ideas, right? Anyway, the trainer talked about asking indirect questons, kind of like Columbo does. I tried this with Makenzie the other day, and it was hilarious! Someone had spilled GermX on my bathroom floor when all of the kids were supposed to be asleep. So the next morning I told Makenzie that she needed to help me solve a problem. I said, "sometime last night when my kids were supposed to be sleeping, GermX got spilled on my floor. I can't figure out how that happened." She immediately told me that she got too much on her hands, sorry mommy. HA, it works! Whaddya know?!?!?!?

Foster Care

So we have been talked into renewing our foster care license. We weren't going to renew because we have no space in our house for a placement and we are SO DONE with our family! But I guess it is easier to renew and have to do 12 hours than start all over and have to do 32.
So we are taking three 4 hours classes in the next 5 days, and we will be done. I guess at least I'm getting A LOT of sanity time in the next week...

Losing weight... I hope

So at work we started a "Biggest Loser" competition. Yes, I am participating and I keep joking that I will be the biggest loser for sure because I will gain the most weight. LOL!!!! Anyway, so now I'm doing the exercise and calorie counting thing, UGH! I really need to lose the weight, and having to pay $5 for every pound that I gain is going to be great motivation, because I literally can't afford to gain any weight.
At the end of the competition, whoever loses the biggest percentage gets all of the money, and it started out at about $140 because we all had to pay $20 to start out with. New wardrobe for me if I win!!

Swingsets 2: Revenge of the Swingset

Well... the swingset is up and running (admission $1 (I gotta pay for it somehow)). It was a monster to put up although Melissa did do quite a bit of the drill work since I was doing a lot of holding of pieces. This was not an easy thing to build, especially in 102 degree weather. Now comes the sore muscles, and sunburn is quite evident. I didn't know that you could sunburn your eyebrows! I had a hat on, but my sunglasses gave out about an hour into the project. I'm almost sure that I won't get skin cancer on my eyebrows. This reminds me of an old Marty Feldman movie line (for those of you too young to know who Marty Feldman is I refer you to the Movie 'Young Frankenstein', he played the part of Igor). In the movie he is explaining to another character that he was gored in the cheek by a bull in Spain and had to have a skin graft. When asked where they got the skin from Marty's character replies "I don't know but everytime I get tired my face wants to sit down."

Life's too short, Laugh!

Swingsets...

So we FINALLY bought a swingset for the kids. It's really cute, but when they say 4-8 hours to put it together, I only have one word, LIAR!!!! It took us all day today, literally. We were working from 9:30 AM until 8:30 PM on it. It was worth it though, the kids love it. I wonder how long it will be until the "new" wears off...

Happy Pioneer Day!!

So it's Pioneer Day. We are going to go to my parent's house later today for lunch/dinner.
For some reason, I'm just sad that my kids are growing up so fast today. Most days I think I can't wait until they are all in school, but I really enjoy them at the ages they are at now, too. They play so well together and Makenzie says that Michael and Emma are her friends, I don't want that to end. Oh well, I guess it has to happen eventually.

Make a Smilebox postcard

Coupons

Coupons are a beautiful thing! I never bothered to clip coupons until the last year or so, and have decided that it is well worth my time to do so.
For those of you that haven't heard about www.pinchingyourpennies.com, it is an amazing site. It will rank the items on sale at the stores, tell you what coupons are available, and what the final price of the items are after instant rebates and coupons. AMAZING!!
As an example of savings, the other day, I went to Macey's, used 15 Powerade coupons for $1 off one. At Macey's they put the other 50 cents that you don't use on the coupon toward another purchase, so I just got another Powerade, since they were on sale for 50 cents. In the end, I ended up getting 30 Powerades for 45 cents. Isn't that cool?!?!
So at the end of the day, when all is said and done, I am now a coupon junkie...

Loud Voices

So in Sunday School today we were talking about the loud voices of the world and how the loud voices are not usually the righteous voices and how the spirit is a "still, small voice." I was thinking about how that is true with so many things. The thing that I have been thinking about lately is the new show on CBS called Swingtown.
I have never seen it, but I am disgusted that they would even air something that is so degrading to the family. Our world has enough challenges with families as it is. Unfortunately I have seen more of this than I would like.
On the positive side, Disney is now doing their weekly movies on ABC on Saturday nights again. I wouldn't have even known about that if Kenny hadn't mentioned it. Again, it's a case of the loud voices drowning out the good.
So I guess the point of this is to encourage us all to make our voices a little louder on the things that matter. Anyhow, that's my soapbox for today!

Kids....

So, this is my first attempt at blogging. I'm not quite sure what I want to talk about, other than the title of my blog TOTALLY fits me!!
My 3 kids keep me going. Especially the almost 5 year old, who likes to ask questions that I think are WAY above her age level!! ;)
Her last questions were about if her baby sister came out of my tummy, and I reminded her that she came out of her birthmom's tummy. She then asked me if SHE came out of my tummy, and I told her that she came out of her birthmom's tummy. She then wanted to know if her birthmom threw her up. When I told her no, she asked how she got out. EEEEEEK!!!!