Ten

Ten Things I Did Yesterday:
1. Painted the front piano/computer room
2. Painted the upstairs landing
3. Painted the small 1/2 bath off the kitchen
4. Painted the ceiling of the small 1/2 bath off the kitchen
5. Laundry
6. Made Easy Chicken for dinner-thank heaven for Crock Pots
7. Contemplated whether or not I like the color I painted the front room
8. Watched a little of the Olympics
9. Cleaned up the house a little as I have people coming over tonight
10. Showered 2 times!

Nine Things I'm Doing Today:
1. Working
2. Pick up Parker and Halle after work/school
3. Going out to my favorite Mexican restaurant, Sagebrush, with my favorite person, Brad
4. Going to a Phil Keaggy concert at church
5. Laundry
6. Cleaning up house
7. Figuring out dinner for kids and babysitter
8. Kiss my kiddies
9. Watch my DVRed Olympics

Eight Things I Am Doing This Weekend:
1. Hangout with Al, who is spending the night on Friday
2. Clean the house/paint?
3. Premier Design Jewelry Party on Saturday
4. Church
5. Relax
6. Taking Halle to get the stitches out of her ears
7. Go shopping for Halle and me an outfit to wear to "Beauty and the Beast" next Sat.
8. Grocery shop for the coming week

Seven People I'm Hanging Out With This Weekend:
1. Brad
2. Parker
3. Halle
4. Allyson
5. Mom-in-law, Micky
6. Scott
7. Erin B.-The girl hosting the jewelry party

Six Random Questions:
1. Could the Winter Olympics stay on for the remainder of the winter? I don't want them to end!2. Am I the only one confused at some of the Top 24 picks (especially the guys) on AI?
3. Will I ever be done painting? I starting to feel a little overwhelmed.
4. Would Spring get here already? I hate winter!
5. Is it time for lunch yet?
6. Will I win the GMC Terrain that Ellen is giving away today? I REALLY REALLY like the GMC Terrain.

Five Songs Playing On My Ipod:
1. Need You Now-Lady Antebellum
2. American Honey- Lady Antebellum
3. Say Hey (I Love You) -Michael Franti & Spearhead
4. Temporary Home- Carrie Underwood
5. I Run to You- Lady Antebellum

Four Things I Want To Buy:
1. Tables for my living room-Coffee, Sofa, End tables
2. Curtains for living room
3. Wall art
4. Valances for kitchen

Three Ramblings:
1. As a substitute teacher, it's always a boring day when the teacher leaves a video to show. Plus, you end up watching the same video four-five times (when you're in the high school). It gets old after a while. (Don't tell anyone, but I'm typing this up as I watch an episode of "Numbers" for the third time)
2. I wish I could hire a professional interior decorator to decorate my house. I want it to look like the PotteryBarn catalog, just for a fraction of the cost! I will admit that Target, my favorite store, has quite a few home decor items that look a lot like PotteryBarn stuff, but is WAY less in price! Thank you Target!!
3. I HATE my dry skin in the winter. I also HATE the price of good lotion. Why do I need to pay 10-15$$ to get a decent lotion for dry skin. It almost makes me just want to suffer through the itchy, dry skin instead of spending that much on a small bottle of lotion. I did buy some though, and it's still as dry as can be. Plus, my scalp is extremely dry. It doesn't matter what dry scalp shampoo I use, it doesn't take it away.

Two Blessings:
1. Brad and I both have jobs. Although they might not be the greatest jobs in the world, we are able to afford to live in a beautiful home and put food on our table. We are paying off all our debt and are starting to get back onto a "financial" track. We know we are every fortunate as many families are really struggling to find any sort of work. The Lord is definitely taking care of us!
2. We've got the best family in the world. Without them, we would definitely be in a pickle when it comes to having someone to watch our kids. I've got lots of family volunteers to babysit during the day (so I can work) and in the evenings (when Brad and I decide to go on a date). Today, my brother-in-law, Scott, has volunteered to show up at my house at 6:45am to watch the kids before school, take Halle to school, watch Parker while I'm at work, and then come back and watch both kids this evening for us. It's nice knowing a family member is willing to spend their entire day helping us out! Thank you to all my family!

One Favorite Recipe:
I will post my recipe from last night, as it is fresh on my mind:
Easy Chicken
(You can either cook this at 275* for 3 hours, or put it all in a crock pot and cook for 3-4 hours)
6-8 Chicken Breasts, can be cut into pieces
1 can Cream of Celery
2 cans Cream of Chicken
1 soup can of Milk
Parmesean Cheese
1 cup rice, uncooked

Mix everything together and put in 9*13 or crock pot. Sprinkle cheese over top.

"This is freaking me out"

Those were the words that came from my sweet, little 2 year's mouth last night as he was heading upstairs to take a shower. I was a little unsure as to what he meant by it because he really enjoys taking showers in my shower because it is huge and has 2 little bench-like seats in it that he can sit on. He begged and begged us to let him take a shower last night, and when I said "yes" he jumped up and down yelling "woo-hoo!" It was like a child being told they are going to Disney World or something. As I sent him upstairs with Halle to start getting undressed, I hear "This is freaking me out" come from his little lips! I just about starting peeing my pants! He's such a crack up. After putting two and two together, I realized he didn't like the idea of going upstairs to take a shower without me or Brad going with him. He needed one of us to stand there while he showered (a.k.a. play in the shower). Hahahahahahaha!!!

Sickness, PLEASE go away

For some reason, this winter seems to be hitting my family hard with sickness. As I fought off sickness all fall long, my kids are getting slammed with being sick constantly this winter. When one is sick, the other is healthy, and sometimes I've got two sick kids at the same time. It starts to tire me out, and I'm not the one blowing my nose, coughing, sneezing, and fighting ear infections.Parker has battled 3 ear infections since December. It doesn't help that he has always had problems with his ears since he was born. I mean, he has still never passed a hearing test! We have been seeing an ear specialist since December, and FINALLY, they have scheduled Parker to have a set of new tubes put in his ears and his adenoids out. The scheduled date of surgery is March 8! YAY!! Hopefully, this helps as just last night, he was screaming bloody murder and grabbing at his ear. We figured out the infection must have popped his ear drum and all the fluid came out-which I realized after seeing a bunch of gunk on his pillow and crusted around the inner edge of his ear. So...hopefully, the surgery will help take care of that problem. It can't come soon enough.

Along with ear infections, Parker's also battling a nasty cough and runny nose. We are keeping him on medicine to help aleviate some of the congestion. Halle has been fighting the same stuff too! She spent her entire Sunday on the couch, hacking up a storm. Her teacher won't let her go outside for recess this week as her cough is still really bad.

This has been going on for sometime now, with no end in sight. I think Parker believes everyone just takes medicine on a daily basis, because he is always begging us for medicine, like it's candy or something. He doesn't know a life without constantly taking medicine.

Winter AND sickness, I beg you to leave and bring us warm, sunny days and health! PLEASE!!

Snow Day

Gotta love snow days!! We got 5 inches of snow throughout the night so school was closed today!!Brad still had to work, but the kids and I played outside for a couple hours this morning and now are watching the movie, Robots.

Tonight, I'm going to the movies with my sis to see Leap Year, and Brad is taking the kids to see Alvin and the Chipmunks 2!

Snow Days are the best way to start the weekend! Happy Weekend!

Back into the swing of things

Well, reality set in this week as school and work started back up for most of us. I am very thankful to be working most days of the week, but boy when that alarm clock goes off in the morning, I DO NOT want to get up!!

I got started back into Zumba class on Monday nights. I love it a lot and am thankful our rec center doesn't charge an arm and a leg for classes! My arms have been feeling the pain all week though! Ha!

Halle started back into school and piano lessons. She's got a big weekend coming up with her 8th birthday on Sunday. We have lots of fun stuff planned for Saturday (and possibly Friday night too)! As fun as her birthday will be, I must admit a January birthday is difficult to plan and buy presents for. There isn't much you can do outside, unless you want to go sledding, and everything she wanted was bought for her for Christmas (and everything is picked over in the stores-all that's left is what people didn't want to buy for Christmas). I have just resorted to being REALLY creative, and I'm not sure how good I am at doing that! More to come on all our fun activities and celebrations later this weekend.

Parker is doing his normal routine-getting up, eating, playing, eating, watching movies, playing, playing some more, eating, and sleeping. HA!! He's growing so fast and talking more and more every day. We are slowing but surely starting the "potty training" routine, but I'm thinking it's going to be a while before it really works.

Brad is back to working, well, wait...He never stopped working! Ha!! He's loving his job, even with some of the issues that test his patience and sanity! We are extremely thankful he has a job as we continue to hear of other families really struggling right now.

We are still in the midst of buying a house!! The financial part of it is in the works now (not sure why it takes so long to sign a few papers!) We are hoping to close the end of Jan/beginning of Feb. Keep your fingers crossed for us!!

My sister found out this week that she recieved 2 $1,000 scholarships to finish off her dental hygiene program. So, she will now be able to use that money to cover her state board test at the end of this semester! Praise the Lord!!

Happy New Year!

We've made it to 2010!! It seems like just last year everyone was freaking out about Y2K, and now it's 10 years later!

I have realized I haven't done a very good job with my blog this past year. I think I was trying to blog about WAY too much on each post and throw in a bunch of pictures, which would end up taking me an hour to post one blog. I really don't have an hour every day to dedicate to blogging, so I found myself not blogging at all. I like the idea of blogging, not so much that millions of people (or even one person) will read/comment on it, but so that I have a memory book to look back on of my family's memories.
I have a bunch of posts from this past year that I wrote, but never posted because I was waiting to add pictures to it. I feel like I should finish those and post them, but I think I will just keep those in my archives and start fresh and anew for the new year!
So, here's my first post of 2010!! It's a recap of our Christmas vacation!!

Merry Christmas!! We spent Christmas Eve with my family! We all got spoiled!!Buzz Lightyear came to live with us Christmas morning!

We now have a singing sensation living with us! We spent New Year's Eve all singing karaoke!

Christmas Day with my hubby!

We went and saw Trans Siberian Orchestra at the Palace! They rocked out!!

We played in the snow!

Overall, it was a WONDERFUL break and we don't want it to end. Tomorrow is back to reality for most of us, and we aren't looking forward to it! Happy New Year!! May 2010 be the best year yet!!

Week in Review

Well, this week flew by and I didn't get a whole lot accomplished. That could have been because I was sick with Strep Throat (again) for the majority of the week! I thankfully didn't have to work Tuesday, had to cancel work for Wednesday, and already had scheduled Thursday off due to Parker's ear doctor appointment.
Needless to say, there were some HUGE things that happened this week!!
1. 2 weeks ago Brad and I went house-hunting (for the 100th time) with our realtor and came across a house we absolutely LOVED!! We figured there was no way on earth we could ever get it, but we put an offer on it anyways. The bank called this week and said they accepted our offer!! WOOHOO!!! So, Brad and I are still standing in shock with our jaws dropped and are waiting for all the adendums to come so we can sign our life away!! Hopefully, we can move in in January!!
2. I got a little Christmas shopping done. After visiting the doctor's office on Tuesday and testing positive for Strep, I headed to the mall and got a few gifts bought. I know, I should have gone back home and crawled into bed, but I wasn't going to let my throat that was on fire stop me!! I spent all day Wed on the couch to make up for it!:0(
3. I finished a puzzle in 2 days! (That's whay happens when you can't work)It was only a 500 piece one and quite easy! I'm going to glue it together with puzzle glue and put it in a frame. It's a picture of two snowmen! I thought it would look nice hanging up for the holidays! My parents did this last year and it looks awesome!
4. Parker went to the ear doctor. Our insurance for him doesn't start until Jan 1, 2010, so I was planning on paying the bill to see the doctor this visit. Well, the doctor didn't end up charging me anything!! I think it helped that he knows my father-in-law and my father-in-law refers alot of his patients to him. Parker has fluid in his ears again, so it's looking like he might have to have set # 2 of ear tubes put in. We are doing a nasal spray for the next month to see if it helps. Just imagine-nasal spray and a 2 year old! Yeah, it's not going to be fun doing that every night!
5. I got some more done on Halle's homemade Christmas gift. I'm not saying anymore than that, as she tends to read my blog occasionally. Will post pics after Christmas!

That's about it! We have LOTS of shopping to do this weekend and I would really like to take the kids to see "The Princess and a Frog". Halle is spending the night at Bailey's to celebrate her 9th birthday, so we might not have enough time to cram it all in.
Hope you have a wonderful weekend!