Zumba

I've been going to Zumba class at our local recreational center once a week. It's a lot of fun and you don't even realize you are working out. You do a lot of Latin rhythms and dance moves throughout the workout. I look like a complete idiot trying to get my hips to sway the way our instructor does, but I really don't care. The music is very lively and set to quick beats and usually really fun songs! If you are looking for a workout, I would highly recommend it.

New Moon

I believe I've officially become a Twilight fanatic! Ha!! I read the books, loved them, but never felt like a fanatic like a lot of people I know. I mean, I haven't bought myself a "Team Jacob" t-shirt-which I am by the way-Team Jacob, that is. I told myself I wouldn't go to the movies this weekend because I didn't want to fight the crowds of screaming tweens that were there swooning over Robert Pattinson. Well, I withstood it for about 12 hours! On the way home from picking up Hal from school, I called my sister-in-law, Jessica, and asked if she wanted to go see it with me. I stopped by the theater and bought our tickets for the 9:45 showing. We got to the theater at 8:30 and ended up having to stand outside for an hour!! The line for the movie was SO long!! and it continued to grow!! We got decent seats, which was really the only thing I was worried about. I did not want to have to sit in the front row while I held my jaw closed after seeing my beloved Jacob without his shirt on. Yes, I know he's like 15 years younger than me! Haha!!
The movie was WAY better than the first one!! I can't wait for the 3rd movie to come out!!

A Little More About Me

Here's a little more about me. I found this on someone else's blog and thought it would be fun to fill out!

1. What is your favorite thing to snack on while you're blogging?

I tend to be eating veggies and dip every time I get online to blog! I'm actually eating them right now! 2. What is one thing you wouldn't want to live without?
My very practical answer would be my flat iron. My hair is so frizzy if I don't run heat through it every day. It makes a world of difference.

3. Beach, Mountains, or Farm? Where would you live if you had a choice?
I wish I could like on a mountain, overlooking a beach. That's probably asking a little too much though! The funny thing is I'll probably end up living on a farm-kinda. Brad and Halle really want to have horses one day. Horse manure reminds me of a farm, therefore, I would be living on one.
4. What's your least favorite chore/household duty?
Putting clean clothes away. I don't mind doing laundry, but I hate putting the clean stuff away. It will usually sit in the laundry basket or in a pile in my room for a week before I finally will stick it back in drawers or in the closet.

5. Who do people say you remind them of?

My sister or my mom. People always said I look like my younger sister but lately I've been getting more of my mom. That is probably because I have highlighted my hair blonde and cut it shorter (just like my mom's).
(If I wasn't filling out this blog while on break at work, I could get on Facebook and copy a picture of my mom/sister on here so you can see what I'm talking about)

6. Prefer parties and socializing or staying home with the fam?

I like a little of both. I enjoy socializing, but not when we are busy doing so every weekend. I do enjoy all getting into our pj's and snuggling on the couch watching a movie. That is my favorite of all time!

7. What's your all time favorite movie?

Sleepless in Seattle

8. Do you sleep in your make-up or remove it like a good little girl every night?

I hate sleeping with make-up on, but there have been times when I go to bed having forgotten to take it off. That's usually only when I fall asleep on the couch and Brad wakes me up to get in bed. I hate how my pillow feels the next day! For the most part, I do wash my face before bed.

9. Do you have a hidden talent or a deep desire to learn something that you've never had a chance to learn? What is it?

I really want to learn how to quilt. I have no real reason why just that I want to make one. Maybe one of these days I will get the chance to learn.

10. What's one strange thing you're really good at?

I'm good at remembering really random things. I can remember odd numbers, facts, movie trivia, etc. that a lot of other people can't. I tend to see the details of things and remember those more than the whole thing.

11. What first attracted you to your spouse?

I thought he was really cute! We met in 9th grade and started dating in 11th grade. Now that we are older and have been married 8 years, I'm attracted to him because he's a hard worker, a good dad, he loves me, and he still looks pretty darn cute!

12. What is something you love to smell?

Men's cologne. Right now Brad is wearing Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue!

13. Tell something about you that you know irritates people.

I assume the worst in most situations. I also try to assume what others are thinking before I find out from them what they are thinking. It bothers me that I do it and I am working hard at trying to stop.

14. When you have extra money, what's the first thing you think to do with it?

Spend it on the kids!

15. Are you a silent laugher or a loud laugher? What makes you laugh the hardest?I'm more of a chuckler. I don't silent laugh but I'm not one of those obnoxious laughers that you can hear across a packed, noisy restaurant either.

The things that make me laugh the most are stories that my brother tells of our childhood (he remembers so much more than I do), things my kids do, and The Office. If I could ever stay up past 10pm (I'm too exhausted anymore to stay up any later than that), I tend to laugh more the tired-er I get. I can't remember the last time I laughed REALLY REALLY hard!

16. Where is your favorite place to shop?

Depends on what I'm shopping for. If I had to buy everything at one specific store, it would be Target.

17. What's one thing you'd do more often if you had more time?

Study God's Word, Sleep, Play with my kids, Shop, Crafts, Scrapbook, Hang out with my sister, Clean, Decorate a house, Read, Blog, Try new recipes, Travel...Can you tell I need more time in a day?

18. Are you a big spender or frugal?

I shop the sale racks at every store and I shop at stores where things are priced reasonably. I like to spend my money on my kids and home decor, so as long as I stay away from stores where those things are present, I tend to save my money better. I will admit, since we are really serious about buying a house now, I haven't bought much lately. I am asking for gift cards to home decor stores for my Christmas present though!!!

19. Who is your favorite character of all time?

This is a hard question! I'll have to think about it.

20. Would you want to be famous?

No. I think you get more perks with being famous, but I have no desire to be. I look at families like Jon & Kate Plus 8 and see how stardom ruined their family. I hope that I can make an impact on people's lives, but not at a "famous" level. You are under too much scrutiny and pressure to be the way the world thinks you should be.

What to Offer?

We are putting an offer on a house today!

We have been looking at homes for the last few months and have finally found one we both really like and would like to buy! It's a forclosed ranch-style home on 4.5 acres. It's in a nice neighborhood, only about 10 minutes from my in-laws (Mom-in-law is babysitter during the week so we needed to stay close to her). Since it was a forclosure, we went over the house quite a few times, just looking around, peeking in the windows, but yesterday we finally got our realtor over there with us so we could actually step inside and look around. It's the perfect size for us and doesn't need a whole lot of work to actually be able to live in it (unlike some of the other forclosures we've seen). It's a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, with a basement that was finished, but all the drywall had to be torn out due to mold (which is something we would look into further if we get the house).

It's a great deal BUT there are 3 other offers on it already. The bank is taking offers up until today, so hopefully, ours will be the last one in before the cut-off time.
I really don't want to get my hopes up but it's hard not to. What is hard is figuring out how much to offer when you know others have put in offers as well. You don't want to lose it because you underbid, but you don't want to offer WAY more than everyone else and lose out on a good deal. We talked to our realtor and my father-in-law, and have come up with a figure we think is good (hopefully, the best because that's what the bank's looking for).

Why do they make this so stressful?? I was hoping no one else had seen the house on the list and we would be the only ones interested, but it doesn't look like that's how it's going to happen.

So, pray for us this week as we figure it all out. I know that God has awesome things in store for us, and if this is the house for us, He will allow us to get it. If not, we'll keep looking.

(I obviously would love to post pics of the house but will wait until we know it's ours before doing so).

Can you buy Amoxicillan by the gallon?

My dad always jokes about the amount of Amoxicillin we took as kids. He always wondered if you could buy it by the gallon because with three kids in the house, we were constantly being prescribed it.Now, I'm asking the same question. Halle is sick! It really was inevitable seeing as how the majority of kids (and adults too) that live around here have been sick lately. I've been sick a couple of times now. Parker had an ear infection just last week (with which he was prescribed Amoxicillin).

Yesterday, Hal woke up complaining of a sore throat. She acted perfectly fine though, so I sent her to school because it didn't seem like that big of a deal. Even last night, she complained of it hurting a little, but she acted normal. Well, this morning, she went to the doctor (Grandpa) and she tested positive for Strep Throat!! So, now I've got two kids taking the blessed antibiotic!(Parker's taking it because he's very likely to get strep and he still is having ear issues).

I might even take a swig of it later tonight to be on the safe side. Ha!!

I think I might suggest my gallon idea to the makers of the drug. For families of more than one member, it really would be quite helpful.

Chicagoween 2009

We diverted from the normal this year and took the kids to Chicago for Halloween weekend. (The "normal" being staying home and trick-or-treating in the neighborhood). My mom is living in the suburbs of Chicago for a while due to work, so we figured if we had a free place to stay and park, we had better take this opportunity while we had it.

It all worked out wonderfully, except that I was extremely sick and the weather was crappy. Allyson got to go with us and Brad scheduled his work so he could go too! (Isn't it nice being the one that makes the schedule?)
We left Thursday evening after everyone got done with work and school. (Yep-I allowed Halle to miss a day of school on Friday, but we did a lot of educational things that day anways, I promise) We packed up the Denali (thanks to Mom D. for allowing us to use her car, otherwise, we would have never had enough room), and took off. About 20 minutes into the ride, I realized we forgot two very important items. # 1-The STROLLER!! How we expected a 2 year old to walk around a huge city for 2 days is beyond me! So, we stopped at Target and Brad schmoozed the girl at the counter to give him the umbrella stroller for the sale price, even though the one he got technically wasn't on sale. We also forgot #2: The CAMERA!! This is what happens when the most organized person of all of us (me) is extremely sick and isn't thinking clearly before we leave the house. So, we debated over buying a new camera (which we will do at some point in time soon), but opted to just use Brad's camera on his phone and my mom's camera.

After all that drama, we were on the road. Driving into the city late at night is the way to go, as we hit absolutely no traffic. We got to my mom's about 9:30p.m. Chicago time (we gained an hour by going). We somehow crammed 6 of us into a tiny, one bedroom apartment. Surprisingly, we all had our own space and it worked out well.

Friday, we woke up, ate breakfast, and took the train into the city. We took the kids to the Field Museum (see, I told you we did something educational) for the majority of the day. Sidenote: Teachers-You get in free to the museum if you have something indicating you're a teacher! I got in free!! (a $23 value)They have Diamonds on exhibit there right now. That was really cool!!! There were a bunch of security guards and vaults that the diamonds were in. Wow!! They were all so beautiful!! This one was on display there. The picture doesn't do it justice. We weren't allowed to take any pictures of the diamonds.

After we were done at the museum, we took a taxi down to the shopping area. Halle wanted to go to The American Girl store (of course), so we did that for a while. We went to eat at our favorite pizza place in Chicago, Giordanio's, got some Garrett's popcorn, and then took the train back home. I was completely exhausted and was getting a fever by this time. I wasn't sure how I was going to make it another day. Thankfully, I have a father-in-law who is a doctor and he called me in a prescription.

Saturday- We went back into the city for the day. The kids wore their Halloween costumes and we went to Franken Plaza for the Halloween festivities going on there. They had the Midnight Circus performing, so we watched the show (twice).Halle made a craft and got a balloon animal. Parker was asleep the entire time!! He missed out, but we were glad he was getting a little nap. We actually ran into some people we knew!!! Who would have thought we would sit down next to our friends from high school in Chicago over Halloween weekend? So, that was a nice surprise!!

The entire time we were there, Halle kept begging us to take her for Chicago-style hotdogs, so after the show, we headed to Portillo's for lunch. The are the BEST!!

We then spent the rest of the day shopping!!! Parker went to the Disney Store and got a Woody and a Buzz Lightyear doll and Mimi ("Grandma" in Parker's language) bought him a Woody and Buzz shirt. Can you tell what movie Parker's into right now? Halle went to American Girl and got her doll's ears pierced and Grammy bought her a new outfit for her doll. I went to Macy's and Mom bought me a pair of Coach tennis shoes!! My mom was spoiling us all!! Thanks again, Mom!! She also bought Allyson a pair of boots, so we all got something except for Brad (sorry Honey).

We were all pretty tired by the time we got back to my mom's place, so we just went and ate at Panera Bread for dinner. It tasted good and warm, which was nice considering it was FREEZING all day!!

Sunday morning consisted of us all packing up and leaving. We had to get back for Brad to be at work by 4. So, it was a quick goodbye and we headed home.

Not much happened on the way home, but we did stop at a gas station and guess who was there in her big bus??? Jennifer Hudson!!! Brad actually talked to her agent and saw Jennifer's sister inside the gas station. I guess all the workers were going nuts!! We saw her dogs being walked in the little grass area too!! We didn't get a glimpse of Jennifer herself, but it was still cool to know that she was in her bus just a few feet away from us!

We had an awesome time this weekend. It went by way too fast!! Halle keeps talking about how much fun she had, even though she didn't get to go trick-or-treating. She said "It's just candy...Chicago is awesome!"