Thanksgiving

Last Monday I was able to fix my dryer-with help from Scott.  Hurray!  That made me super happy!  So, I was able to pay $30 and had a working dryer again!  I only had one class on Tuesday, and did pretty well.  My art teacher seems to like what I'm doing lately.  Strange.  I'm not used to having my stuff pointed out to the whole class, so it's really awkward for me.  Either way, Emma was thrilled that she had me at home!  My girls have missed me a lot lately while I am school.  It makes it hard for me to be on time to school, because of all the kisses, hugs and reassurances I give on my way out.  I'd rather be late than have my girls sad! 
Wednesday we got some cleaning done and lots of laundry! 
Thursday was Ben, Kira and my first Turkey Dash.  We had to be there at 7:30 and ran late (of course).  So, it had started as we were running up.  Ben stayed with us for a little while and I gave him my car keys, because he had pockets.  Then he ran off once he realized this was a race and there was a winner!  We didn't see him for the rest of the race.  I was super worried, because Kira was not able to run very often,  so we had to walk a lot.  I had her run downhill everytime though.  I knew there was no way that we could catch up to Ben, so I called Scott to have him meet him at the Finish Line.  We were at the First Mile at that point and Ben was done when Scott go there.  He was just sitting on the sidewalk.  When Kira and I were near the end (the last two blocks), I wanted to run in, but Kira's side was hurting her from her skipping.  Poor kiddo!  I could hear Ben yelling and screaming, but Kira cried whenever I went off without her.  We finally finished our 5K in about 52 minutes.  The good news is that we weren't last!  There was another ten people or so behind us!  Ben was mad, because he didn't win!  There were Cross Country kids that won and got trophies.  I thought it was sad that the elementary school that put this on, wouldn't think of having age or grade rewards, not just the first three people.  Personal opinion and all.  Ben refused to get his picture taken and everything.  So, the only picture I have is of him running away at the beginning of the race!  Yeah.

 He's in the white shirt in front of Kira in the pink.

 Kira and the sunrise

After the finish.
We went home and finished the packing to head up to Olathe.  We enjoyed Thanksgiving lunch!  Later that afternoon I got some sales at Old Navy, Michael's and K-Mart.  We had leftovers and put the kids to bed.  Once Cecilia was asleep, I headed out again.  I went to Old Navy and waited in line for an hour and a half to get a free Kodak waterproof camera!  I got it!  Then I went to Target and only had to wait in line for a little while before getting the sales there.  The line to buy took about half an hour.  I tried Kohl's next, but it was so packed, I said nevermind and left.  I got to Toys R Us about one and left at two with my sales.  At that point I was exhausted, so I went back to my parents' house to finally sleep!

Taken with my new underwater camera
Saturday was Ben's birthday, so he got his presents first thing in the morning.  I had bought Krispy Kreme doughnuts for breakfast and he loved them!  We had Burger King for lunch and it was the worst Burger King ever!  They didn't have ketchup (but gave us the little packets), barbecue sauce, apple juice, carbonation, Sprite or toilet paper.  Ben only gets Sprite, so declared it, "The Worst Birthday ever!"  And Emma is the worst sister ever, because she didn't want to swap toys with him.  Oh well!  We had cake and ice cream sandwiches at dinner time.  And food when we got home.  I gave Ben his presents from us and he LOVES his Leapster (that I got super cheap)!  So much so that he had a hard time sleeping.  But he's learning!  I ordered a couple more games to focus on Math and they'll be here next week.  Fun!

 Huffing and puffing and blowing the cakes down!

With his Leapster

As for today I tied some loose ends together for my talk and luckily I prepared a lot, since I was the last speaker!  I was told that I was the middle speaker!  Scott was sick, so he stayed home.  Luckily I had some people help me out with my kiddos.  They probably got tired of seeing Emma and Leah going up and down and up and down.  Either way, I made it though and only cried a little at the end when I talked about how grateful I was for all of the people that have helped us out!  Nursery went pretty well.  Cecilia did fantastic!  And our usual crier made it all the way through!  I was THRILLED!  Leah didn't terrorize too many people.  Phew!  And Scott even let me take a nap after lunch!  Woohoo!

What a day!

And it's not over yet!  I stayed up late last night watching some Westhoff movies to decide which 24 I wanted to send off to be professionally done (it was super expensive, so I could only do 24)!  My favorite one was when my family came to carol Scott's family.  It's funny to think that I was technically one of their kin before the next Christmas!  Yep!  My next favorite was watching the Utah Westhoffs with the "baby" back in 93 (I think).  Super cute baby, so I was sad that there was no sound! 
I had the opportunity to wake up early and do math problems, because that's what Scott's alarm clock makes you do to turn it off or snooze.  Very nice!  Too bad it didn't wake him up.
Anyway.  I got the kids to school.  I even dropped them off early!  Hurray!  I got to work on washing some clothes, so we have clothes to wear over the weekend.  I was ready to go to the Laundromat when Scott announces his wallet disappeared!  Aaahhhh!!!!  He has this test he had to take at 4 in Topeka and had to have a photo id.  The test cost $80 and he has to take and pass it to graduate next month, so very important!  We spent the next hour, if not longer, trying to find his wallet.  I found all kinds of other lost stuff though, so that was happy!  We now have a DVD player remote again.  I can Zumba again!  We have 2 cordless phones again!  And I was able to turn in a library book that was due today!  Since I've already paid $25 in late fines for this book, the last thing I wanted to have to do was buy it!  Either way, it turned up in a super simple place!  I felt bad, because I prayed and all I got was that it was dark where it was.  And it was.  It was up under Ben's dirty clothes!  We found it with enough time for me to dry our clothes at the Laundromat.  Phew! 
So, I brought our washed clothes and dried them at the Laundromat.  It only cot $3.25.  Not too bad!  As I waited I cut out everything to make 6 Turkey shirts.  So, now all I have to do is iron them on!  Bring on Thanksgiving!
Scott got to leave with plenty of time to take his test and in about an hour and a half he should be done!  After he left I got the girls ready to go and went to return the book to the library and send off the box with the 24 videos.  I went to the UPS and it turns out that they're only open from 4:30-6:30 pm.  Yeah.  So, that was a no-go.  I went to Staples and sent it off there and picked up some more DVDs, so when I get the DVDs back, I can make copies.  While waiting in the line, Leah put Mentos in her jacket pocket.  Luckily the lady behind me pointed it out, so I could put them back.  She said she was "hungee."  I explain to my children a lot that hungry is not real if you want candy.  Hungry is for real food.  My opinion.  I really don't like my kids having candy!  We checked out and went to get Ben and Kira from school.  Since Leah is obviously starving to death, she proceeded to scream and cry and refuse to walk.  It's a good thing this is a small school and people know us!  Two-year-olds!  I get everyone home safely and maybe five minutes later (I put her on the stairs until she calmed down), she's fine and apologizes.  I'm convinced all 2 year olds are bipolar!  Maybe I'll do a Master's Thesis on that someday!
Yep.  It's been a day of highs and lows, so I'll settle for some middle this evening!  Yeah, here's hoping!

Goofy Pictures

I felt bad for just putting a tutorial, so here's some fun pictures!

Make a Snowman the warm way!

A Tuesday Tutorial of sorts.
I made this, because I wanted to sell some of the shirts I had made, so I posted them online and got a response of:  Can you make this?  Really?  I'm trying to sell stuff and you want me to make something else instead?  Of course, I took her up on the challenge and spent money to buy all of the necessary items.  Which only works out okay if MORE THAN ONE PERSON BUYS ONE!  So, to make myself feel better, I'm posting it here, so you all can make it!

 Materials needed:  Shirt/Onesie (or whatever clothing you want to add a snowman to), Wonder Under-Lite, Scarf material, White felt/flannel, and a little bit of orange material, the template which consists of a large circle, a small circle, a long neck piece, two large triangles and a small carrot triangle; Some tiny black buttons, scissors, an iron and ironing board, clear and black thread and a needle-I got everything at Wal-mart).

 Technically, before this point, you were supposed to wash all of the fabric, but surely you already did that, right?  And you ironed out the material, yes?  Now you iron the Wonder-Under (or whatever it's called) to the WRONG side of the fabric! 

 After it's cooled, you cut out the pieces and place them how you like them!

 Then you iron the clothing you're putting it on (which you've already washed, of course)!

 Now, figure out where you want to place it!

 Iron the bottom scarf part first!

 Then the head and carrot nose.

 Then the body-I did mention that you take the little paper off and you follow package directions, didn't I?

 Now iron on the top scarf parts.

 Sew on the little buttons wherever you would like with black thread.  Make sure they don't go anywhere!

Now sew all around every edge!  I edged the snowman with clear first, then the scarf with a matching color.

Tada!  Now you can make your very own Snowman!  Or if you still want me to make it, I have a few shirts in 12-24 months and 24 months that are just waiting for adornments!  But, it'll cost you ten bucks!  Hahahaha!

Fun long weekend

On Friday (Veteran's Day), Ben and I got to be in the parade with all of the other Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts!  Ben and I were in the back of a Hummer (which is incredibly uncomfortable, in case you were wondering) with a tank right behind us!  The pictures are all on the laptop which is with Scott in Olathe, so I'll add pictures at some point.  Scott was kind enough to stand with the kids where I could see them!  Hurray!  Last year I was incredibly sad that I didn't see them!  It's really nice to have our own cell phones, so we can communicate! 
After the parade, we went to the Park, where I did Desiree's Senior Photoshoot and the kids got to play for a couple of hours!  They were happy campers!  I would have been happier if I hadn't needed to hold the lens on, because one of the screw on pieces broke.  But the pictures still turned out fantastic!
We packed and headed to Olathe.  In separate cars, so Scott, Emma and Leah can stay for a few more days.  It was nice to be able to wake up in the morning and go take my test.  I had to take the PPST at a special testing center.  I got 183 and 185 on the Reading and Math parts (out of 190).  That makes me very happy!  I also did it in in less than half of the time needed.  Which is fantastic considering I would have gone crazy spending four and a half hours taking a test!  Now I just have to retake a Handwriting test (and finish this semester out) and I'll be ready for Block I.  Then I'll "only" have a year and a half till I graduate!  Hip hip hurray! 
We hung out with family until I had to head out with Ben, Kira and Cecilia.  We came home and Ben and Kira went straight to bed, at six pm.  That should have been my first hint!  Cecilia kept me up a little later than I would have liked.  Pretty soon after I went to sleep I heard one of my least favorite sounds ever!  Ben was SICK!  And I got to clean it up.  Yuck!  Usually that's Scott's job.  So, he lucked out this time!  I didn't feel well either, but I didn't throw up, so I consider it a SUCCESS!  And Ben's feeling fine this morning.  At least that's what I assume after watching him eat an apple, orange, strawberries and some Lemonade cookies.  Kira is fine, so she's been "helping out."  She made Ben some toaster strudels and me two "I love you" cards!

I've started my "diet"

And by diet, I mean actually eating the right amount of calories, not eating junk, and not eating at all after nine.  Although I did eat some carrots thirty minutes ago, at least it wasn't junk.  Right?  I'm not reading as much (probably because I have a ton of homework) and I am trying to exercise, but I'm stinking bad at scheduling time.  In the meantime, Time Out for Women was awesome last weekend!  I really do think they should expand it to be two days, instead of just a day.  Here's some of my pics from it!

 Michael McLain

 Jericho Road

Cecilia walking around as Anthony Sweat talked.  We liked the big open lobby that was perfect for toddlers to walk in!

I loved the Spirit that was there.  I was really hoping to keep that for awhile!  Not so much.  The kids had a HARD time while I was gone!  Poor kiddos!  The good news is that I bought the DVD from last year (for $10, a LOT cheaper than the $50 to go). So, I can try to get that Spirit back!  As often as I need to!

I'm getting busy with school, and haven't been able to craft much, but since I still need to get all of my super-cute appliqued shirts on Etsy, I am not too worried!  I am looking forward to getting my photography business off the ground.  I have backdrops, props, a great camera and a LOT of posing guides.  I'm ready!  

Application in!

After working super hard yesterday and today, I got my Block I Application in (which means I'll only have 3 semesters left)!  Woohoo!  I've felt completely unorganized lately (imagine, having five kids and not being organized) and time has been flying!  So, I'm just taking things a day at a time and to get things figured out and paperwork turned in is HUGE!  It makes me happy!  I rewarded my Cub Scouts for their hard work and let them watch half of Cars 2, which went over very well!  Ben went ahead and finished it and was walking around with the laptop until he finished!  He was super excited and told me the ending (grrrr), but he can't wait for Cars 3 (maybe in five years?)! 
On another subject, this whole going to school for a ton of hours isn't good for my psyche.  My girls have been crying when I leave to go to school and need tons of hugs and kisses and when I get home, Cecilia doesn't want to let go of me at all!   It's so hard leaving them and I'm leaving them with their dad!  They get to stay at home and play!  I wonder how they're going to do this weekend when I go to Time Out for Women without them (my husband doesn't want everyone to go up)!  I hope all goes well!  It's so hard knowing I have to go to school in order to support them!  I'm teaching them that education is important, but hope I'm not teaching them that it's more important than they are, because they are the first on my list!  I LOVE my kids!  I just need to go to school to be a better mom, and I hope they understand as they get older!