We moved!

All of our stuff is in our new house.  It only took loading a huge 26' Uhaul (loaded Friday, unloaded Saturday) and three minivans (that we packed and unpacked on Monday).  We managed to make it through the loading and unloading!  My back only hurt for awhile, phew!  Yesterday I finally came up for enough air from unpacking to remember I really needed to get utilities on here.  So, I did that and everything got turned on today!  AT&T had an awesome deal for tv and internet for only $55 a month!  Nice!  We both have cell phones, so don't need a home phone.  The only utility we have to pay a deposit for is water, not bad!  It's great to get a price break somewhere, considering how much I'm not used to paying a ton for rent. 
Scott made his first sale yesterday!  Hurray!  Now to make other 39 in the next month (or so).  If you want an insurance quote, he will gladly help you!  He can do almost any insurance (other than health insurance)! 
I won a prenatal workout DVD, which will be fun the last month (or so) of this pregnancy!  I've stopped entering so many giveaways, because I felt like it was a waste of my time.  I might do better going through stuff and selling the extra!  That way I'm earning the money and getting rid of unneeded things! 
The kitchen is unpacked, the living room is doing a little better (most of the boxes are in the closet), my room is slowly getting a craft section, and I've done some research on making cloth diapers.  I really want Joshua to be a cloth diaper baby!  I want to make some matching ties too, because I think that will make for some very cute pictures!  I am also working hard to get a new DSLR for way cheaper (due to the fact that Scott paid off his entire credit card bill today which shortens our reserve after we pay back our family).  I have high hopes that I can do it!  If nothing else, we'll be getting our Gas deposit back from Emporia!  Woohoo!
I will gladly post pictures when there aren't any boxes and I have pictures up.  Maybe in a couple of weeks (we'll see)!

`

Moving

We're supposed to be moving tomorrow.  My house is a wreck of boxes and such everywhere!  I even packed a huge box of clothes to be separated (don't be too mad at me)!  I'm so tired and tomorrow I have to wake up first thing to try and figure out the whole truck thing.  They want me to drive an hour away to pick up the truck!  Ugh!  I don't want to have to buy gas!  The stinkers at Uhaul.  But, I have sold a few more things, which helps me feel oh-so-happy!  Those are things I don't have to move!  Hurray!  As soon as we're all moved in and I take pictures, I'll post.  I'm hoping all goes well.  If nothing else I have awesome family that helped us out a ton!  Thanks to my Mom, Scott's Mom and his sister!  I'm so lucky!  By the way, I got my double electric breast pump that I won in the mail yesterday!  Woohoo!  It looks awesome!  I never thought I'd be so excited about a breast pump!  It even comes with a cute carrying tote!  I'm beyond excited about living with my husband!  So much so that I forgot to turn off the utilities here and turn them on there.  Another set of phone calls to make tomorrow.

Kids' last day at Walnut School

Today was my kids' last day of school.  I came to pick them up and was doing fine until I saw one of the teachers giving each of her students hugs and thought about the fact that not only would my kids not be coming back to this school next year, but next year I'll be saying goodbye to students that I've helped teach!  Wow!  So, I was already feeling emotional and it took a little while for Ben to come out with his Resource Room teacher.  We LOVE her!  She told me that they had a sad day and got teary and I couldn't keep from crying.  We're going to miss her too!  Ben got sniffly too, so we were dealing with some runny noses.  Then Ben's para came out.  We said goodbye to her too.  She's been with him the whole time we've been here, so she'll be missed too!  Ben wanted a picture of them, but he had to be in the picture too!

I like that he's holding his hand on each of them.  He was very sad to leave them!  Luckily, they're both on Facebook and they gave us their addresses!

Here they are where we took the first day of school picture.

See?

They look a lot happier on the first day! 

Right after we got around the corner from the school today, Kira started sobbing and just held onto me, because she's going to miss her teacher so much!  I think that it's so sweet!  She's worried about having a mean teacher, so I informed her that if they're mean they get fired!  I can hope, right?

Sick and tired of being stressed out

I found out today that we're not getting my financial aid for summer until the 4th.  Which would make it so that we are not able to move this weekend.  And possibly not at all into the place that we've paid a deposit on and Scott (and his sister Jenn) have done a ton of painting on!  Gggrrrr....  Who thought it was a good idea to give six days to pay for a class, especially since it takes three to five to get into the bank!  These are online classes, so you don't have to be on campus and there's no way you can get a book for a class in one day if you're not on campus.  Summer school.  Blech!  Okay, moving on.
The good news is that Cecilia is having a blast being the only kiddo at home while Ben and Kira are at school.  She's currently napping, which helped me get a lot done!  I should probably get back to it!  I need to build up enough stuff for a garage sale that will earn $1000.  Fun times!

It's going to be a weeklong day kind of day

I just have a feeling!  Probably due to the fact that Ben was up at 4:30 and deperately wanted someone awake with him.  And the girls constantly waking me up at 6 to complain about a toaster strudel dictator.  Then Cecilia has a runny nose and I have a sinus headache.  And my house has been wrecked, but I have to bend over to clean and that hurts my head.  The kids had a hard time sitting still for scripture time too.  Good times ensue.  Leah did go potty though!  That's exciting!  She has to have me hang out while she does, but that's fine by me! 
Bring on the cleaning and laundry and such.  I can do it!

Giveaway of someone else's

One of the requirements was to have a link to their website, so here it is:  http://www.doorsnow.com/.  I could really use the $200 Amazon money to buy school books or maybe getme closer to a new camera, since my good camera broke and I sold it (to keep from having to pay to have it fixed).

I did it!

I did get all A's this semester! 

Undergraduate Course work

CRN	Subject	Course	Section	Course Title	Campus	Final Grade	Attempted	Earned	GPA Hours	Quality Points
12795	AR	324	C	Elementary Art Education	ESU	A	2.000	2.000	2.000	8.00
11582	EE	311	PE	Planning and Assessment of Teaching	ESU	A	1.000	1.000	1.000	4.00
11587	EE	313	PE	Reading for the Elementary Teacher	ESU	A	3.000	3.000	3.000	12.00
12229	EE	314	PE	Teaching Social Studies in the Elementary School	ESU	A	2.000	2.000	2.000	8.00
11593	EE	316	PE	Teaching Science in Elementary Schools	ESU	A	2.000	2.000	2.000	8.00
11673	IT	371	A	Advanced Instructional Technology for Educators	ESU	A	3.000	3.000	3.000	12.00

See?  Proof!  Now to wait until they add my credits for this semester to the total to see how that looks!  I'm hoping to get more scholarships for next year, since it's going to be so expensive!  I'm super excited!  And to add to that excitement, Scott is thrilled that he has his first selling appointment tomorrow and he didn't even have to make it!  Hurray for Scott!  I'm sure he'll do fantastic!

Daisy by Josi Kilpack

This is the Second Book in the Newport Ladies Book Club.  The first was Olivia.  I was super excited to read it!

About Daisy

Motherhood is not for the faint of heart. And no one knows that better than Daisy. Raising two kids as a divorced, single mom, Daisy has faced each and every one of the obstacles in her life with courage and determination.
Now with her oldest daughter ready to have a baby of her own, her youngest daughter ready to graduate from high school, and her new husband, Paul, ready to embrace the life of an empty-nester, Daisy feels like she might finally be able to check "motherhood" off her list of things to do.
Except life often has a mind of its own. When, at age of forty-six, Daisy suddenly finds herself facing a very different future than the one she had planned--and an uncomfortable evaluation of the past she thought she understood--she realizes that there is still some growing up she needs to do.
Looking for a distraction to escape the growing tension at home, Daisy joins the Newport Ladies Book Club, where she meets Paige, Athena, and Olivia--unlikely friends who offer encouragement and support when Daisy's perfectly crafted life is turned upside-down.

My Thoughts

Wow!  I can't even begin to imagine how Daisy felt getting pregnant for the third time without meaning to!  Especially after trying to comfort a coworker who just had a failed IVF treatment!  She was having a hard time with her teenage daughter and then to add a surprise pregnancy would be hard!  Her oldest daughter was having her first baby at the same time too!  Luckily she had a support group in the newly started book club.  Without them, I'm sure she wouldn't have done well.  Since I'm eight months pregnant, I could tell she was pregnant and was sad that she put off knowing as long as she did!  She had a rough go of it with her family and husband.  I really want to see what happens next!  It was a wonderful way to learn more about the ladies of the group and lead into their individual books! It's amazing to me how well this book series goes together, with it being the same time frame and all!  What an amazing group of writers!  I'm looking very much forward to Paige and Athena!  I'm also hoping we get to read more about all of the members of the book club, since they are all so very different!  I love that it helps bring together a group of ladies that probably would have never been friends otherwise!  This is a great clean book with hardly any LDS themes in it.  Great for all!

*I was provided this book for free in exchange for a review, I was not paid for my opinion and these are my very own thoughts!*

Great news

I am so incredibly excited!  I was super worried about having Joshua a couple weeks before school starts back up, since I'll be gone all day long, but this morning I found out that I won a Simplisse Electric Double Breast Pump!  Hurray!  It sounds fantastically awesome!  Check it out here.  I feel like Heavenly Father reached down and said:  "It's okay Tamera, you can do this!"  I was super worried, so the peace that came made it so much better!  I'm feeling very grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who helped me take out two of my worries in one day!  My Pell Grant got split between Spring and Summer, so school will be paid for the Summer, and I'll have the money I need to buy my textbooks by July 1st (which is a requirement).  Phew!  Now I just have to sell everything we don't want to trash or move and MOVE!  The landlord promised to give us the keys as soon as we pay the rent for next month, so we'll be able to move right after the kids get out of school.  At least start moving.  Either way, Cecilia and I are feeling considerably better and things are going well again!  Hurrah for Israel!

Headband Tutorial

 Start with satin circles.  I cut out three different sizes, to make my flowers, you can make more or less.

 The cardboard circles I cut out.

 You flame the edges of each circle, and the middle too if you want a more textured flower.

 This is what it looks like after just the edges have been flamed.

 Repeat for the other circles.

 You can stack them with different colors.

 Or with the same color.

 Here are the ones that I placed together to see how they looked.

 These are all the pieces I flamed.  I did the middles of the middle circles, the rest I just did the edges and it took at least an hour.

 Ribbon, about 3 inches long

 Cross the ribbon over itself and put a little glue at the meeting place.

 Then fold it down and glue there (I do it a little below the original place I glued).

 Here are the bows I made, I liked the USA one without folding it over!

 Flame the edges with a candle or lighter.  I would have used a candle, but my daughter desperately wanted to blow the candle out.

 Glue a little circle on the bottom largest circle.

 Place the middle circle on the glue where you want it.  This shows how the burning the middle looks.

 Glue on the littlest circle.

 Glue on a middle, I just used a crystal bead.  You could always skip the glue and just sew the bead/button/adornment on, so no glue needed.

 I placed the three together to see how I liked it.

 And placed the bows how I liked.

 Then I put hot glue on the edge of the elastic that I cut to the size of my kiddo's head.  I use the small thin elastic from Bitsy Bands.  Once again, you can sew this instead.

 Once you glue the edges overlapping, glue a piece of felt on.

 Glue another piece of felt on the other side.  This gives us a place to glue the flowers on and it makes it so it doesn't hurt the kiddo's head!

 This is what it looked like after I glued.

  On the daughter who picked how it looked.

Four made a little differently.

 Some of the Summery ones I made after.

 Using thicker brown elastic and some animal print.  I love animal print!

 Another way of using the burned circles.  You can overlap them to make a larger flower in the back and the middle and small one to finish it off.

 Or you can make a HUGE one.  My 8-year-old LOVES it!

And another variety.



MIllion Dollar Diva Review

When I read the premise of the book, I was super excited to read it and learn more!

About the Authors (from their website):

Brett Kitchen is a co-author of the national Inc. Magazine bestseller Safe Money Millionaire. His family tree of entrepreneurship dates back to his great-great-great-grandfather, a watchmaker on Jersey Island off the coast of England. He has created two million-dollar businesses and has coached thousands of financial and insurance representatives on how to help people grow rich safely. Financial problems destroying families have caused Brett to help change the way Americans save and invest their money.
Tristi Pinkston is the author of eight novels, two cookbooks, one religious inspirational book, and over two thousand articles. She works full-time from home as a freelance editor, and is a featured presenter at writing conferences all over the Intermountain West. Tristi enjoys mentoring fledgling writers and helping them rise to their full potential as published authors.
Ethan Kap is a leading expert in changing the way American families save and invest their money. He is the co- author of the best-selling book, Safe Money Millionaire, and co-founder of the Safe Millionaire Academy. He is adamant about teaching others to take ownership of their financial destiny instead of being hooked on handouts and entitlements. Ethan is also a serial entrepreneur and has coached thousands of business owners to success.

About the Book:

Finally - the woman's answer to growing rich safely! Women today face more money challenges than ever before, from managing careers and families to finances - the demands on their time and resources are increasing. Bad financial advice abounds, and it can be hard to know what to do. Award-winning author Tristi Pinkston teams up with bestselling authors Brett Kitchen and Ethan Kap to bring you Million Dollar Diva. Experience Tristi's real-life transformation from stuggling in debt to million-dollar retirement!

In this book, you'll discover:

The 5-step, simple, safe, and predictable process to change living paycheck-to-paycheck to enjoying wealth and security.

How to give yourself a $400 per month raise without asking the boss or working a minute of overtime.

"Spend Like a Diva." How to have anything you want - nice vacations, eating out, trips to the mall. It's all part of the plan!

The secret formula of how to completely eliminate your debt in 1/3 the time and save tens of thousands on interest costs in the process. You'll see why all the TV gurus are wrong!

5 Million-Dollar-Diva investing strategies that will grow your money safely and predictably every year, without the guesswork.

Plus! Discover the key to stop fighting and quarreling with your spouse about money forever!

Imagine yourself living debt-free and building a million-dollar retirement safely and securely, so you can have total confidence in yourself and your future.

My Thoughts

I LOVE this book!  You really get to go through the process with Tristi, and I love that she's so real!  She lays everything out there, and you can see how she can pay down debt without making any more money, and changing up her spending plan to add more money to the Drive Down Plan.  They taught her a lot, so I was learning right along with her.  I was very excited about the spending plan, since budgets are my downfall.  I can make them like a champ, but nothing ever goes as planned!  If I follow their guidelines, I will do much better.  I am absolutely a person that needs cash in an envelope and a little notebook to write everything down.  I feel better about the fact that I'm not the only one!  The ideas they gave her and her husband as to making more money and moving debts around to pay less in interest amazed me!  I had never thought of any of that!  I'm glad that I got to read about the beginning of her journey, and I'm looking forward to reading updates on the blog!  Oh!  I also really like the Freebies tab on the page, because it tells where you can find the apps to help track your expenses!  So cool!  My husband will be getting one!

Buy it!



Until June 15th, you can get the book for free, you just pay the $5.95 shipping fee here.  If you find this review after the 15th, you can buy the book on Amazon.

Exhaustion is setting in...

I finished this semester of school yesterday.  Woohoo!  I have sold enough things to almost pay what we owe on our deposit for the new place.  Today I picked Ben up early from school and arranged for a friend to get Kira (she was on a field trip) and we all headed up to Olathe.  I dropped the kids off with Scott and went to the Elementary school where we met for our Pre-orientation to Block 2.  I looked at the schedule and where the school is that they're putting me at and I wanted to cry.  I am through and through a breastfeeding mom.  For the first year, at least.  This told me that the only way I can do that is through a TON of pumping.  What is the likelihood that they're going to give me time to do that?  Slim to none.  I am just a student and am paying (out the bottom) for the privilege.  The people at the school I am going to sound awesome though!  I got to meet the Principal and a lot of the mentor teachers and it sounds like a great school that is very much a family community.  So, that was the best part of the night.  The whole starving (there was cookies, orange slices, grapes, cheese and crackers and lemonade) for three and a half hours.  I expected real food, since we had to be there from 4:30-7:30 (it ran over, of course).  I'm not sure why I did, but I did.  Oh well.  Then we were informed how many extra fees were going to be added on this next semester, what all we needed to do to prepare, what we should wear, etc.  Modesty is not an issue for me, but the cost of that many business casual clothes?  Yikes!  Add to that the TONS of books we have to get for the semester and I'm feeling very overwhelmed financially.  Plus we have to take the PLT and Content tests, which cost about $220.  So, it's looking like a considerable amount of my needed student loan is going to go to all of that, and not to housing, bills, etc.  Bummer!
We got to leave at about 7:45 and I met back up with Scott and the kids.  He had been busy and hadn't taken them by our new place (which we really needed to do), so he hopped in with us and we went and looked at the place.  The bedrooms are a good size with good closets.  The living room is tiny.  The house is a WRECK!!!  Scott is painting, but there are roaches everywhere (which grossed us all out)!  There is paint peeling in the bathroom and it just looks like the place was trashed and we're going to have to clean it up.  I don't handle insects well at all.  Especially when I'm paying twice the rent that we're paying now, for a place without a basement!  It does have a garage, but it's only for storage, it has vents in there, so it's not safe to park there.  Really, I'm very disappointed with the landlord for even showing this place at the level it's at (and that's after Scott has primed alot!  There was orange trim!  On purpose!)  I'm praying we don't have to live here more than a year, because I was obviously lying when I told myself I could live anywhere for a year.  I was more imagining a bad place with a lot lower price point.  The kids were all talking about how ugly the place is and how there's bugs everywhere and it has a small backyard.  They were thrilled about the stuff in the garage though!  It's the stuff I picked up from Bulky Item Pickup!  So, something is good here!  Phew!
We dropped Scott off and he gave me some fruit, so I could make it home!  We picked up Kira and came home.  I'm sneezy and my nose is running a lot, but we made it through this crazy day!  Hurray!

Pictures from Field Day

 Faith jumping high

 Kira pretending to jump, she still got pretty high!

 Ben and Aurora

 Ben running around

 Ben getting ready to kick his shoe.

 Cecilia hanging out in the stroller

 Kira hula hooping, she almost made it the whole time!

Ben hula hooping

We have a place up North!

On Friday afternoon I gave in and paid the $85 (BOOOOO!!!) to rentsourceinc to find info about rentals in the area.  They, of course, have all of the Craigslist listings for rentals in their database and you can only get the landlord's info if you pay.  So, I did, found out that one of them had most of what we were looking for and it was in the kids' old school area!  Success!  With Ben having Autism, I try to not stress him out too much and this was something that I really wanted to do!  So, good news, Scott was able to go see it on Friday night and talk to the Landlord.  He put down most of the deposit yesterday and will put the rest down next week.  Plus he gets to paint all of the walls and ceilings, in order to get our rent lower.  My husband is such a hard worker!  I'm looking forward to seeing it on Thursday, although I hear it's about like the place we're in, without a basement or back porch and with a garage.  Only twice the price as here.  Bring on the budget sheets!  We're moving!

Sad journal

Wow!  I had a whole big journal dedicated to about one year and it was a miserable year about six years ago.  We were looking into moving and/or buying a house and poor Scott was having a super hard time!  Here we are six years and almost four kids later and haven't progressed much at all in the house area.  Scott is doing TONS better and we have some pretty awesome kiddos, so we're doing much better in that area!  I'll take it!  Scott has graduated from College (with a useless degree) and I'm about to start two semesters of Student Teaching.  Right after I have this baby boy.  I'm absolutely an emotional eater!  I've gained almost 12 pounds in two months.  YIKES!  Scott not going to school has really affected our finances.  Especially with him in training (for a really long time) and working for his mom!  Plus the whole having him in Olathe and still having to do stuff here has been mad craziness!  I'm looking very much forward to moving on to this next phase of life when Scott's able to work regularly, I'm done with school and we can save up enough for a downpayment on a house!  I'm thinking another six years ought to do it!  In the meantime, Scott looked at a place yesterday and it's going to cost twice as much as where we're at now, and there's no basement.  So, he's going to talk to the landlord soon.  We would like the place, but in the ad it said it had appliances and doesn't and Scott would have to paint the whole place (and he was only going to give a $300 discount).  I talked to Scott for awhile last night and he looked at a closeby place that was priced more reasonably to talk to the landlord about (as a comparison).  I hope that goes well, because it was the only place in our price range with two bathrooms in the Ravenwood School District!  I DESPERATELY want a place where Ben and Kira already went to school, so that way it won't be as bad an adjustment for Ben.  Even if he does have to be away from Aurora (a girl at school and church whom he loooves).  That was the only thing he was concerned about, was moving away from her. 
Now to start the cleaning/dejunking in earnest.
 I only have one final and a quiz next Wednesday and I'm DONE with this semester!  I think I've learned a ton this semester and I'm really looking forward to what I hear is mad craziness in Block 2 when we have classes and student teaching.  I do a lot better teaching kiddos over adults! 
Anyway, last night I had to SOMETHING fun!  I picked fabrics and cut out the "Big Bro, Big Sis, lil bro, lil sis" letters and separated them into baggies, so now I just have to find shirts that I want to put them on, iron them on, and then figure out how to embroider their names on them.  Every kiddo I have to do matching shirts for the first baby with big siblings (I started with Leah) and the shirts get progressively better.  So, I'm hoping these look fantastic!  I used zebra print for every other letter and a light green/dark green for the "bro" and dark pink with light green for the "sis."  I'll stitch them with a coordinating color.  I'll post them when I finish.

Funny Journal

So, I was reading through an old journal to find something for my mom (and brother) and kept flipping to the end.  I have Thank you, Happy Birthday and I love you in 7 languages, You're welcome in 2 (which is strange, since I know it in 3), and then
Qualities looking for in Possible Husband: (mind you, don't need all.  I'm stuck with who I'm given)

Happy, Loves me for me, Doesn't mind my liabilities, Doesn't have a temper, Wants lots of kids, Has priesthood and honors it, has strong testimony and doesn't mind sharing it, mature, loves reading the scriptures, prays before big decisions (and little ones too, maybe), doesn't mind exercising, will go into Labor room with me, likes music, will dance with me, doesn't swear, is musical in some way, even if can only play radio, and somewhat confident.

I won't tell you which ones my husband has (or doesn't have), but it certainly cracked me up!  With almost everyone of the qualities, I think of a guy I dated (or refused to date) that helped me build that list.  Funny!

Then I was going through my son's first journal and I have two pages of BYU Football team signatures.  Cool!  I think I'm going to have to scan those in!  His Grandpa was a HUGE fan of BYU, so I'm sure he was very excited to help get those signatures in Ben's journal!  Somewhere I have pictures of Ben with his Grandpa and a few of the football players.

I should probably get to going, since I have to finish lunch for the kiddos, so we can head to Field Day.

My google website

It's pretty much done, so here is my working website that tells about me as a future teacher.  It's here.  Let me know what you think!