Fun Giveaways!!

Better Home Interiors, an online store with alot of fun decorating items is having a few giveaways. Here is the first one up for grabs: Metal Family blocks!!!

To enter this giveaway visit http://betterhomeinteriors.blogspot.com/

I VOTED!!!

They must be discussing voting at school because Whitney has been asking me on a regular basis when i was going to vote and who I would be voting for. So this morning after dropping the girls off to school I took Brooke with me to Whitney's school and voted-I had put Brooke in the stroller but she just screamed. So here I am with a ten month old in my left arm-pushing the empty stroller with my right and trying to juggle my ballot inbetween. I was thinking "great this is going to work-just punch in the holes and be done," then I find out that my ballot was one that you had to fill in the circles manually with a black markerpen-and that the booth was one of those light cardboard booths that can easily be knocked over. Lets just say that the process took forever and that my left arm was close to falling off by the time we reached the car. I now have on my "I voted" sticker to show for my troubles and to show Whitney when I pick her up. By voting I feel it demonstrates my appreciation for those that made my right to vote happen. I was telling Whitney this morning that Women haven't always been able to vote and neither have African Americans. It is a great thing to be able to help choose our leaders and the way our country is run. Every vote makes a difference. It was neat to share that with her this morning and see her excitement about what an important thing it is. She can't wait until she can vote now!

Chick Flicks..

I will be going to watch "Twilight" in theaters this month with a bunch of my friends and was thinking about other movies that are strictly "see it with your girlfriend" movies or what guys like to label "chick flicks." We all love a great movie-one that makes us laugh and cry and sigh a little-here are a few of my favorites:
Lake House, The Notebook, Pride and Prejudice-95' version, Persuasion(the newer one) Never Been Kissed, Return to Me, The importance of being Ernest, While you were sleeping, Sound of Music, P.S. I love you, Somewhere in Time, Anne of Green Gables series. Plus just about any movie with dancing in it: Girls just want to have fun, Moulin Rouge, etc.
Which ones are yours???

Halloween Night!!

Me and my witchlings!!Trick or Treating

Seriously, Who comes up with this for costumes??? My friend Mistie-that's who-Can we say Creative?? Every year she comes up with costumes Outrageously Fun and different.

Halloween Faces!!

Lunch Today: Jackolantern Quesadillas with Roasted Pumpkin Seeds!

Jacko'lantern Twins??? TinkerBell -Turned out Better than I thought it would.

School!!

I met with my school district and they have decided after testing-and observing Amber for a week that she is eligible for the early-intervention preschool and gets to start going to school regularly next week. It will be so nice for her to get the help she needs to catch up with the other kids her age. Her language is continually improving-but she still hasn't said too many 6 word sentences and she still uses jargon to fill in gaps. On the other hand-she loves to count and can actually count up to 20. She is doing alot more by herself-because I make her. I don't help her put her shoes on anymore-next will be her socks-if i make her put them on herself-she usually will skip them altogether and just wear her shoes without them..so yes, i still put them on. Don't want those little toes to go cold. And she is also really showing that she wants to do things by herself which makes it really easy for me-I no longer have to provide motivation or reasons "why" when she acts this way. Most of the kids that get into this program no longer need special education when they go into Kindergarten and that is our goal for Amber. She has a really great teacher and speech pathologist working with her and I am sure that every month that passes we will get to see her grow and blossom!!

This week is full of Fall Fun!!

For FHE tonight we raked our neighbor's yard. Who knew service could be so much fun?! Afterwards we went for a walk and then we snuck into our Halloween candy early for treats. We will be carving pumpkins on Thursday and Whitney cannot wait to do hers. She doesn't have school on Halloween day so we are having a Movie Party at our house watching TinkerBell!! Whitney has waited like two-three years for this movie to finally be released..so tomorrow is the big day for me to finally go and buy it. I am not sure she will be able to wait for three days before she can watch it-but I think it's only fair to the other twelve girls we have invited over if she doesn't tell them what happens before. It is going to be an adventurous week with mutual and cubscouts and girls night out tomorrow..super excited about that-we are playing a murder mystery game written by myself so I hope it will be successful. I will let you all know how it goes and post more pictures of this weeks events. But for now-just look at these sweet girls:

Adults still play childhood games

So my sistah tagged me for this one, so here goes:

1. When I get crumbs or salt on my hands from eating fries, brownies, etc.-i rub and flick my fingers together to shake them off-before using a napkin.
2. I have always wanted to design clothes
3. My pinky fingers are crooked
4. I really do think boys play more loudly than girls. (disagree if you want-it's just my opinion based on my experiences)
5. My parents got my middle name from the girl who won the Jr. Miss pageant the year I was born-i'm not joking.
6. Since having kids-my gag reflex is super-sensitive.
7. I always felt my maiden name was difficult to say

Now that you know more about me..
I tag Celeste, Angie, Brooke, Heidi, Nadell, Emily, and Emmalee.

Progress

So we finally have all of our kitchen flooring removed-and the tile and materials purchased. As joe was unloading everything-he was telling me how i was going to be doing a good deal of the work as I am home most of the day-as if that really means i'm free most of the day or something. Everyone says that demolition is the worst part. We still have to pull up the existing tile in the entry way before I can say the demolition part is totally complete. We have been asked to Speak on Sunday so I can't say much will get done tomorrow-but our goal is to have it done by Thanksgiving-that is practical for us-since we will work saturdays and hardly at all during the week-due to Mutual and cub scouts+whatever else life throws at us. I can't wait until it's all done and my kitchen no longer feels like a construction zone. I just keep thinking of what it will look like when it's finished--oh i'm sooo excited!!

Brooke 10 months old

Last time I posted a picture she looked like this:

Look at her NOW:


I haven't posted any recent pictures of Brooke on here lately so here is what she looks like now-her hair has grown a little and it is starting to curl at the ends..her hair is definitely strawberry blonde now, it still surprises me how fair she is.

bedtime snack conversation

When I am old I will cherish these little moments:

Whitney woke up one night wanting something to eat, so as we sat around the table eating a midnight snack..we had the following conversation:
"Mom, can i be a grandma when i grow up?" She asked me.
"Sure-when you have kids and then they have kids you will be a grandma then" I replied
after thinking for a while she then continued:
"Then when I grow up I am going to be a teacher, then a fairy, then a mom and have babies, then a grandma..then an old grandma."
She threw the fairy in there like it was a job or something to be taken seriously. I laughed a little at that. And I guess theres a big difference between a grandma and an old grandma.

New Paint and Floor Demolition

BEFORE PAINT:

After Paint: We painted our front room, kitchen, dining room and hallway about three weeks ago and here are the pictures of before and after. We went with a khaki color-which is fun because in different lighting it goes from a light tan to a khaki green-as you can see in the second picture the garden shelf looks lighter than the the wal behind it. We also painted the ceiling white to open up the room since we went with a darker color from the original and wanted a nice contrast.

Flooring:

We started pulling up the flooring in the dining room and kitchen last Fri/Sat. The dining room was easy since there was carpet down there so we only had to pull up the carpet and padding. The portion under the bar and the kitchen however has turned into a nightmare just beginning. We have found out that our vinyl is attached to particle board which has not just been stapled-but glued heavily down to the plywood beneath it-which we are trying to salvage. It took about 6 hours for Joe to remove the 2 x 6 ft area you see him working on-so you can imagine how long it will take us to remove the entire kitchen floor using a skilsaw/chisel and hammer..very slow going. Wish us luck and that somehow the rest of floor might not be glued down as much as what we have encountered so far. To anyone laying floor-never use particle board and don't ever glue it all down...