Ggrrr...

Poor Scott had a hard time leaving this morning, but he did! I'm so proud of him! And when he got back he was feeling pretty good! In the meantime, I managed to do a few loads of laundry, a huge amount of dishes (we had lasagna yesterday), sort a big basket of socks, keep us all fed, and enjoy some free time. So, yeah! I wasn't at all interested in cooking, so we had hot dogs with chili. Yum. Not so good on the diet scale though. I think I would do better investing in good fruits and vegetables than all this Special K stuff. We'll see.
I took Emma with me to do errands. We went over to my mom's to make sure their dog was fed (Bill did it) and pick up a DVD to return to the library. We went to the library and Emma did pretty good, except for the run toward the Emergency Exit (she was so close to pushing the door handle)! She was excited to pick a movie. She got a Dora movie and a Sesame Street movie. She saw a huge stuffed Elmo and had to give him big hugs. It was pretty cute! Of course that was before the Post Office. Have you ever noticed how many places your kiddo can put letters without you noticing that you can't get back? I know now. I had to send a package to return some stuff and while I was doing that, my adorable little Hash Baz managed to put my Healthwave application and my huge letter to my brother on his mission somewhere. I still don't know where. There's 2 trash cans. One that's locked. There's a recycling bin that's locked. There's 2 mail slots (though I know she couldn't reach those). There's also the Express Mail slot. So, I don't know whether they're gone for good or if I'll be getting Chris' back wanting postage (I hope, I hope!). I was so mad! You know how when you put water in the microwave and it's boiling, but you can't tell. That's how I felt. Then we got home, because there was no way I was taking her with me to the grocery store. And the first thing she did was clim a chair, stand on the cabinet and take down a glass jar of peanuts. Yeesh! Needless to say, she got to go to bed before FHE. Sad, but needed. So, Ben got a personal lesson about Alma. Good for him! Kira will soon be in Louisiana where she's staying for 6 days. I miss her, but it sure is a nice break! I hope she has lots of fun! I even had Kira tape me singing the song we sing at bedtime and post it on Youtube, so she doesn't have any problems. I tried to ease the transition! But, it's time for bed. Especially with Hash-baz waking up about 4 every morning! Meanie!

At the end of the day...

So, I ended up going over to my parents' house to trash what was still left from the garage sale I didn't really have. And give some stuff to my mom and mamaw. It didn't take long, which was good! After we had lunch we went to the Deanna Rose Farm. It was so hot! Oh my goodness! We had fun and hopefully some of the pictures turn out! I ended up feeding Leah with my new Uddercover (not very impressed with it, but it was free) in the Dairy Farm movie room. It's a fantastic place to cool off! We all shared two little cups of ice cream to help the cooling off process! We even got to see the cow be milked! We then went to the Half Price Bookstore to sell all of the books from the garage sale. I'm talking 2 totes of books and we got $1. That's it. Very disappointing! Especially to Kira who didn't get to get her $2 movie. Ben got his $1 book. I know it wasn't fair, but she got the squished penny from the farm to even things out. She felt better after we went to Hyvee and she got to push a little cart around. Hers was filled with fruit, so she was a pretty happy camper! We spent enough on groceries (super good sales) to get the 9 cents off of gas. Hurray! So, we filled up. Not a bad deal. We came home to put away the groceries and then I bought pizza at Papa Murphy's. Love it! We all watched Home Improvement (the second season). Ben always laughs so hard about everything that we can't hear what the next funny thing was! It's still cute! Anyway, I need to get pictures on and head to bed!

Crazy morning

We were up a little late last night. But, I got some stuff done! Yesterday I taught my mom and mamaw how to make bows. FUN! I love making bows! They turned out pretty good and I figured out a new way to decorate clips without bows. Woohoo! I still need to make some. Anyway, I was up late getting stuff together for mamaw, since she leaves soon. I'm going to miss her. I love my mamaw and Louisiana is far away! I hardly ever get to go down there. Though I am sending Kira (It'll help immensely here)! We figure Emma will be talking by the time she comes back. Hurray! She is getting better (at talking anyway).
Now I went to bed at about midnight, and at about 3:30 this morning Scott brings me Emma. Wide awake. I didn't hear her cry or anything. She did not want to go to sleep! So, she hogged my side of the bed for thirty minutes (no sleep) and I tried to put her back in bed. She started screaming! Since Leah has been sleeping inher crib in the same room, I had to get Emma quiet. The last thing I needed was 2 little girls crying. Emma wanted me to sing to her, so I did. She wanted me to read a book to her, in the dark, and I couldn't. She wanted a diaper change and of course all the diapers were downstairs. After trying to get her to go to sleep in my room, she was thirsty after screaming, so I had to go back downstairs for juice. Ugh! Then she stripped and wanted to wear Kira's pants. Over her head. I managed to find her a shirt tat made her happy. What a long morning! Needless to say I was not happy with Scott for bringing her in (though to give him a break, he was only semi conscious) and Emma for not going back to sleep. Without her sleeping I couldn't sleep, since she is Maher-shalal-hash-baz. That makes me very cranky! I told her I didn't want to see her for at least three hours and she gave me five! How sweet. Especially since she poured her juice on my bed and made me wet. No one wants to wake up wet! But I was too tired to care, so I stayed there and fed Leah while Scott dashed off to his thing. Leah's so sweet, she went back to sleep. Now, if only Scott didn't tell me that he's feeling drowsy. GGrrr...

Things are looking up!

Especially with Emma pushing a chair next to the fridge. That little girl is so independent for a kiddo that can hardly talk. She can say the different parts of the face though! As she pokes you! Right now she's getting Kira's shells in a bag down. Probably to make a mess!
Scott started a temp job today, hurray! I just hope it lasts at least three weeks. If four, we can go on a little camping trip to Nauvoo. Kira really wants to camp. In this heat, I don't even want to go outside! Poor missionaries! They have to dress nice and walk!
Speaking of missionaries, my wonderful brother wrote me twice today! I feel so special! I wrote him probably four. And I plan on sending him a letter this week. I need to! The kids want to send something to him and I have pictures to send.
I just ordered 2 free Uddercover sets. One boy and one girl. I figure $28 is completely worth it for 2 Udder covers, 2 breastfeeding bracelets and 8 washable breast pads! Woohoo! I would probably order lots more if I had the money! What a great baby shower present!
I cleaned up a tiny bit in the basement. I managed to find a library book that I paid for about 3 years ago! How sad is that? I remember being sad, because I couldn't find it and it was a good book! I called the library and they said I could donate it or keep it. Since I paid for it, I think I'll keep it!
I should probably check on my cute baby, see if she has woke up yet!

Crazy happenings

I did manage to sell some clothes. I figured it out and I put about 30 hours of work into the garage sale and earned $90. That's about $3 an hour, so the pay stinks. I won't be doing that ever again! Now I have to make $600 in order to make it until I start getting paychecks again. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I'm very happy to stay home and clean and be able to feed my baby. It's a very nice break, but it's also nice to know that you have some money coming in to buy necessities! I'm glad that we had as much in savings as we do (soon to be did).
Today I managed to deep clean the kids' rooms. I say that, but I didn't mop. It still took me 5 hours! I did a lot of organizing, rearranging and changing out the sizes. Leah is now in 3-6 months. Whether she likes it or not! She still fits the smaller pants, but not as well. I'm getting rid of her stuff as she outgrows it, unless it's going in her "box." I have a shoebox for each of the kids that I keep birth memorabilia. Some of them have cooler things than others. I'm hoping to find all of Emma's stuff, since it's missing. I think it's in her journal and I don't have to worry about it! I also started a list for my daughter(s). I figure since I can't go back in time and do things differently that I'll help my daughters to do well. If anything happens to me, they still have my advice and thoughts on things. We'll see if they care or not!
Tomorrow is my room and the hallway. I'm going to count it as a room, so I finish it quickly and can be all excited to accomplish something so fast! Hurray for small rooms! Then if I can ever get the grout cleaned the way I want it, I'll have the whole upstairs clean. Happy day! And when I'm done with all of that, I'm going to see about recording more videos onto my camera to put on my computer to put on Youtube. I like that we're doing that now. It's so fun to be able to go online and look at old home movies! I've got some on already and I just recorded Ben's ultrasound and a DVD that I was supposed to make copies of forever ago for Jenn, that I never did. So, I'm making up for it by putting it online Privately, so the family can go and see it without having to find a DVD. I love it! I'm totally going to throw out all the old videotapes as soon as I get them online. Especially the ultrasounds, since that is the only thing on the tape. Sad!
On to the crazy happenings! So, Scott was watching the kids brush their teeth and Emma managed to dig in the trash and pull out my old razor cartridge and cut right above her lip in two places. I was trying to feed Leah, so I was nowhere close and didn't notice until I came up for prayer. I ended up using Scott's styptic (sp?) pencil to try and stop the bleeding, but Emma kept crying and licking it off. So, I used a clean non matching sock to put pressure on until it finally stopped for the fifth time. (She kept licking it and reopening the wound). She kept crying, "mouf, mouf." Then when I was trying to put her to bed, she started crying, "Be!" Since Leah was really mad that I didn't finish feeding her and was crying very loud (for her, she's usually pretty quiet). Poor kids! I love that Emma cries for me now. It's so sweet to hear her calling: "Mommy, Mommy..." If only she'd call for her daddy when Leah is calling me at the same time! If nothing else, I know I'm needed. No doubts there!

More and more

It seems like I'm always getting rid of stuff. It might be because of all the cool stuff I find doing the bulky item pickups! Yesterday I got a bookshelf for both of the kids' rooms, presents for my dad, Scott and Ben, and some dishes. Not bad for an hour's work! Now I'm working on getting rid of all the stuff I collected for the garage sale, since we need to get the garage clean. It's kinda our present to our dad. Sam's doing all of the work though. Maybe because she doesn't mind mice! I do!
Hash-baz is at it again! This morning she has: thrown Ben's grapes on the floor, put on her shoes, and stomped them; poured a whole container of goldfish crackers in Ben's bowl (which was dirty), found a cup of peanuts that she hid in my room and dumped them on the floor in the upstairs hallway, brought me lots of Leah's clothes for her to wear (Leah not Emma), ate the tops of three popsicles (she left one to melt on the floor), ate 2/3rds of a yogurt container and disappeared with the spoon, dumped out a bowl of cereal that I thought she ate, but hid in the baby's swing; poured "bur" (her version of root beer) from one cup to another twice and made another mess...and the list goes on. She's not even dressed yet! She hasn't peed on the floor today, but she did poop a little on the chair. Yuck!
I, hopefully have some of these clothes sold. I can hope to get something out of all my hard work! Now, speaking of work, I need to get to cleaning. Ugh!

What a day!

I woke up early this morning to go "junking." My mom went with me, so I could use her van. She's so sweet! We filled up the van with free stuff in Lenexa (east of Lackman, since west of Lackman is next weekend)! Woohoo! I love it when you're picking up stuff at someone's house and they give you more! I had a lady give me a whole bunch of clothes, too bad they're not my style, my size, but more older lady. I don't wear bright prints (huge flowers) or elastic waist pants! Anyway, I had an older gentleman ask me what I was looking for and I responded, "Baby stuff. " So, he let me go in his garage and I got 3 baby toys (Emma loves them), a Graco carseat with two bases (that matches the swing we already have here),and a bouncer! So, I have more stuff for us and for the garage sale that will be forthcoming at some point! There were a ton of garage sales across Lackman, so I'll be going there first, next weekend! I did some more grocery shopping, but didn't save near as much (probably because I didn't spend as much)! Kira has gotten awesome at riding her four wheeler (bike with training wheels)! When she takes a corner too fast, she hops off. It's pretty funny! Ben, on the other hand, collected ants "for his collection." He put food with them in the Lego shark's mouth! "Isn't that silly?" He asks me that all the time! Emma is so cute, but so destructive! What a mess! It's a good thing that I follow her around to pick up the discarded half-eaten popsicles and ice cream cone! Leah is just a doll! What a sweetheart! She's such a happy baby that I enjoy just looking at her sometimes! What a great big smile! I can't believe she'll be 3 months old on Tuesday! Wow! Woo buddy, it's late! Too bad Ben's still not asleep! GGrrr.....

Tires, ugh!

So we replaced all of our tires. Luckily, Firestone has a deal where you buy 3 and get 1 free. So, instead of paying more for the lowest end tires, we got to upgrade to better tires for cheaper! Love it! Here's hoping that our van keeps running all of the 55000 miles the tires are guaranteed for! Maybe I should be knocking on something! Either way, it cost us $340. Luckily Scott got a paycheck for the few days he got to work and that paid for some of it! Now he's trying for the interview for Croft trailers again and I'm praying he gets it! We could definitely use the money!
If nothing else we have super cute kids! Even if they're incredibly messy!

A Little Catch Up

Yanni
Before the concert

Outside the Sprint Center

Ok, crazy stuff this past week! I tried to have a garage sale last weekend! I stayed up super late with my sister getting everything over to my parents' house for the sale, and then got everything out to have it start raining. So, we cleaned out some of the garage for all of the sale stuff! Crazy! So, I have the opportunity to try again some other time. Right now it's looking like it's going to rain again this weekend! Well, I'll do it when I can and hope to make enough money to make up the gap that we have with neither of us working right now!

Emma got checked out on Monday and she'll be getting speech therapy once a week to get her talking. She's started trying to talk more which is nice! She says "no" a lot! It sounds more like "non" in french.

I did get to go and see Yanni Voices in concert. That was awesome! A family in our ward (church) were able to get tons of free tickets. So, Kira, Leah, my dad and I went. I went to the Thrift Store and got a very nice outfit for $5 (though it was pretty big on me) an got Kira a very nice dress for $1.20. Not bad! We got awesome seats. We were in Section 117, Row 4, seats 22-24 in the Sprint Center. We were pretty much eye level with the people on the stage! I loved it! Leah did fantastic (though I did have to feed her twice)! Kira really wanted popcorn the whole time, and finally got it at the intermission. We had fun and had lots of people comment on my pretty girls. The lady in front of us said that my girls were very well-behaved.

Now, on to the bad news. You knew it was coming. Today I was so excited, because yesterday was so good. My house was a mess, but that's pretty normal, since I was too busy to clean. So, I cleaned up and then Scott got a call for an interview (which is awesome)! But, on his way out to Kansas City, he managed to do something crazy to the tire. All I know is that he was going to put on the spare, but it's not going on, because the place where you put the gas in has fallen. Say what? So, either he had a flat tire and kept driving and broke something or I don't know. Of course, I had no way to get him and luckily was able to get ahold of someone at my mom's house to get him. Hopefully they figure something out. I'm thinking our tires need to be replaced, which stinks! We just bought our car about a year and a half ago. Stinky used car dealers! Either way, I'm going to have to figure out how to afford tires on our bare bones budget. Yuck! Then I was feeling sad, because Kira and I specifically prayed for Scott to be able to make it there safely and not get lost, and here this happens. I'm not impressed. I'm sure there's a good reason, but I'm not liking the "in the meantime." Add all of this to the fact that I was already feeling down and just lackluster. My poor kids who expect me to cater to their every whim and wish are getting the brunt of it. Oh well! Back to the work grind, because of course I need to clean again and figure out something that my picky eaters will eat for dinner.

Fun kids!

So, even though I got to bed at one and had to get up at 7, I'm doing pretty good! Emma's talked some today! She's said: "more" "apple" and "please." Woohoo! Then I read a funny part of the book I just finished (Previously Engaged by Elodia Strain) and laughed, to hear Leah do the start of a baby laugh! And she was sleeping! So incredibly cute! I love it when babies start to laugh, because then you can start the tickling! I've done absolutely nothing to clean this morning and I'm still in my pjs, but I did exercise for twenty minutes! It's a lot easier to get away with doing nothing when Scott's at home to help. His work finished yesterday, so he's home again. Bummer, moneywise. I'm excited about making my favorite recipe for Enrichment tonight! I hope to get everyone else as addicted as I am!

Sleep, need sleep

Ok, I spent forever (two paragraphs) talking about how tired I am and publish, but it didn't publish. I'll just add that to the annoyance of getting five hours of sleep. And I can't figure out how to find drafts. What's the point of saving if you don't know where it goes? I'm exhausted. I think I'm going to read some Darwin Awards for some laughs!