Day 30-Reflections on NaBloPoMo

Whew, today's the last day of National Blog Posting Month and I have to admit I have mixed feelings about it. It's been a challenge to come up with something to post about everyday but because it was a challenge it kept me current on my blogging. Overall, I know I won't post daily forever but this month has inspired me to treat the blog as more of a journal so that someday I can look back on my daily life while my kids are little. I hope I can keep up better on that, just don't look for something every day :)

Day 29 - My New Favorite Stranger Blog

I found the best blog today thanks to a playhouse my friend Brooke made (I have already decided to make one for Maisy's birthday). It's all a bunch of homemade stuff for kids that looks like a normal mom could do it, without being a full-on Martha Stewart type. I'm so excited to get started on the quiet books first and then the playhouse! You really should check it out at homemadebyjill.blogspot.com !

Day 28- May I Suggest

Joey and I had a date last night for the first time in a long time-had a great dinner, got some shopping in, and went to the movies. I've been wanting to see "The Blind Side" since I saw the first trailer for it and I LOVED it! We don't go to movies often but I'm so glad we went to this one. For one thing, I love Sandra Bullock, for another thing this was a great story, and it's a true story. If you want to see a good movie and aren't afraid to cry in public (I was really trying not to!) I suggest you go see this, really, it's not a sports movie or I wouldn't be so excited about it :) Thanks Joey for the great date!

Day 27- A Day Late

Yesterday I woke up at 5:30 am to go shopping, we stayed out for quite a while and then took a little break, then I went out again with Joey and didn't get done until 9 pm. After that we went to a movie and by the time we got home I was really sick so yeah, I missed a day, sorry! Pretty long day but I did find some great deals! I know I must be crazy because I always HATED working Black Friday but I LOVE shopping Black Friday! I find the crowds hilarious, the women are absolutely crazy and everyone I see has split up from their groups and are talking to each other via cell phone about their finds, I swear they remind me of a bunch of stock brokers from Wall Street! My two biggest successes were at Carters and Kohl's: they have the best deals, seriously! Carters had their whole store at least 50% off and if you shopped before noon you got an additional 10% off plus they had emailed me a coupon for an additional 20% off so we picked up 15 items for $80, that wasn't even anything on out of season clearance, it's all brand new arrivals and CUTE! Kohl's was even better-all their toys were at least 50% off, they had games for $3.99, plus gave us 20% off at the register, my mom got another $10 off, and they give you Kohl's cash so I have $30 to spend there free next week! I love getting good deals!

Day 26- Thanksgiving Day

Well, the day is nearly over and once again I am immensely grateful for my family. I'm so thankful to my husband for loving me and taking such good care of our little family. He's out of town working so much lately and I know he'd rather not be but he wants to give me every opportunity in the world to do what I want. He's so affectionate and loves me and the kids so much. Thank you Joey! I'm thankful every day for my kids, who make life so enjoyable. It's not always easy to be a full-time mommy but it's a job I wouldn't trade for anything. Duffy is such a smart and cute little boy and he makes me laugh every single day. Maisy is my little princess, she is the sweetest most darling little girl I have ever seen. It's truly been a blessing to be home with them so much (thanks again Joey!). I'm thankful for my parents, sister, brother, and mom2 every one of them has helped me beyond words. They're always there to help me with the kids when I need to go to class or when I just need a break! I'm thankful that we've been fortunate enough to have a nice place to live, plenty of food on the table, and a bright future ahead. I'm thankful for our dog Buddy who keeps me company and makes me feel more safe when Joey has to be gone. I'm thankful for so much more but right now, I'm really thankful that both of my kids are asleep and tomorrow's Black Friday so I'm going to try to get some sleep while I can!

Day 25- Baking Day

Today I got to spend the day baking with my mom and sister. Everytime we are together, no matter what we are doing, we laugh almost the entire time. Today was no exception! We made apple, lemon meringue, and 2 pumpkin pies. We have never attempted lemon meringue and it is a pretty labor intensive pie, constantly stirring, adding half into the egg yolks, stirring back in, etc, etc, etc. It looks pretty good so I hope it tastes ok! I don't eat lemon desserts and I won't get to go to that family's dinner this year anyway so I guess if it's gross oh well! I know our apple and pumpkin will be good! Anyway, we made a huge mess, made plenty of mistakes, and had a lot of good laughs while doing it. I'm so lucky to have two of my best friends in my immediate family!

Can't wait for tomorrow, I love Thanksgiving. The only bad thing is that when you're married and most of both families live close you have to make a choice on who you are going to see so first we'll have dinner at my Aunt Lisa's (my dad's sister) and then we are going to see Joey's family at his Aunt Leslie's. We'll be missing my mom's side of the family, which I hate to do but unfortunately we can't be two places at once! Luckily we'll see them closer to Christmas.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Day 24- My Kind of Quote

Ok, seriously, this blogging everyday isn't easy. I've been racking my brain for something to blog about today and can't come up with anything! I did come across this quote though and it is one of my new favorites:

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world," Calvin.


Ha Ha, I love it!

Day 23 - Why I Love My Life

She was loving my shoes :)

He made this snail out of Play-Doh all by himself. He was so proud of himself and so was I!

*These are both pics from my phone, sorry for the quality!

Day 22-I Totally Jinxed Us

Just yesterday I was telling my mom and sister that it didn't feel like the holidays to me since it's been such a mild November (ie no snow), well I guess Mother Nature really wanted me to get in to the holiday mood because it suddenly snowed quite a bit! I'm so excited for the holidays and as much as I don't like to be cold or drive in the snow I do REALLY love this time of year. I've got big plans for this year: watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade before stuffing myself silly, Black Friday shopping, making the kids stockings (I started those yesterday), gingerbread houses, Christmas cookie day, the festival of trees, making the kids chairs, Temple Square, finals, etc, etc, etc. I can't wait, hope I get it all done!

Day 21-Running Out of Interesting Things to Say

Sorry the blog has been pretty boring the past few days, but just normal life going on, nothing too exciting. One bit of exciting news (for me at least) is that I just finished my last math assignment, EVER!!! (Unless I do something crazy like return for a masters) All we have left in my 1050 class is a quiz, two days of reviews, and the final! I'm sure we will have some sort of small review assignment but I'm not counting it since it won't be new material and I doubt it will be too long. She already said part of it would be correcting the ?'s we've missed on our exams but I've only missed 2 questions total so that will take me about 5 minutes to do. It feels really good to be so close to done with math!

Day 20-I Know What an Idiot Is

Today's blog is going to be short, again! Aimee and I are just starting Bruno. Today we were in the car and Duffy said "I know what a idoit is",  so I said "Oh yeah, what does it mean?", to which he repied, "A crazy driver". HAHAHA I better watch what I say, but at least it's not a swear word I guess :)

Day 19-Thank Goodness for Sisters

This is my sister Aimee and she's the best! Another example: tonight when I went to school I grabbed my wallet out of the diaper bag and rushed off. On the way there I noticed my low fuel light went on and so I figured I would stop on my way home, I had totally forgotten the only money I had was left in the side pocket of the diaper bag!!! I didn't even have a dollar with me! I called her on my way home and said "It says I have zero miles until I run out of gas!" so she drove 20 minutes to come rescue me! Thank you so much Aimee!!! Lesson of the day: don't separate your money from your wallet, its supposed to be in there!

Day 18-Welcome Baby Carter and Taking Time to Breathe

First off, want to say congrats to my cousin Ashlee and her husband Ryan who welcomed their first baby into the world today! I don't know much yet, my dad wasn't helpful with all the stats but I do know it was a boy and they named him Carter which I absolutely love! Babies are such a blessing in our lives and being a parent is the hardest, and best, job you could ever have so really, truly, congratulations you guys!
So, today was my big presentation on sex ed in Utah schools, it takes so much preparation to do such a short assignment! We've been working and working on it and it's finally over!!! It went really well and we already got an email saying we got 100% so I'm taking the time to breathe tonight, therefore not blogging about a whole lot:)

Day 17-Kids' Fall Pics

A few weeks back my wonderful resident photographer/sister took the kids' fall pictures. The kids had a hard time cooperating but we got a couple of good ones! Click on this to see the scrapbook, it's kind of small but you can click on any of the pictures to zoom in.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Day 16-Time for a Name Change

I've been trying to come up with a new blog name because ours is so boring! So here's what I've come up with: Luck O' the (Semi) Irish. Do you like? I hope so but if not, give me some ideas, I don't have time to be more creative!

Day 15-What? No Tivo?

Tonight this is me:

Just got home about and hour ago and found out my satellite reciever is broken so I'm stuck without TV, and Tivo, for the next few days until we can get a new one! What am I going to do? So here I sit, hubby stuck in Vegas, waiting up until midnight so I can register for classes asap, without anything to watch! Sad times, right?

Day 14- Come Back Fall

It was INSANELY cold and windy today and as I looked through pictures to figure out what to blog about today I saw this one and wish that weather would come back!!!

Day 13- Tis' the Season

I know I'm behind everyone else but since I normally don't start my Christmas shopping until Black Friday I was pretty surprised with myself when I bought the first present of the season today. Actually 2 presents: a play-doh machine and a set of army guys. So officially begins the madness of Christmas, I LOVE it!!!

Also just wanted to share a little bit of my day. You know how they say God only gives you what he knows you can handle? Well, I've had a couple of really stressful weeks and was feeling extremely overwhelmed this morning (ie breaking into tears randomly) and just when I thought I was going to break God gave me a pretty good day. Maisy took a 3 and 1/2 hour nap and Duffy was so good while she was asleep that I even got about a 1/2 hour snooze. Duffy has been testing my patience a little lately, right in line with a normal 3 year old, but was really really good today, at least until we went to my parents :) I got some homework done and I think I'll even be asleep before midnight!

Day 12-Daddy's Little Girl

I absolutely LOVE this picture! Maisy loves her daddy so much, and he's wrapped around her little finger! I have a feeling he is going to be just a little bit overprotective of her as she grows up :)

Day 11-THANK YOU VETERANS

What more can I say other than Thank You so much to all those who have been willing to sacrifice so much for what the rest of us take for granted every day.

Day 10-Black Island Farms

This year we finally made it to Black Island Farms before Halloween. It was SO MUCH FUN! They have animals (it's a real farm for the rest of the year), hay and corn mazes, a hayride, and a bunch of giant slides! Duffy navigated our way through one of the big corn mazes, which was an interesting experience, we finally had to start steering him toward the right way when he led us in a couple of circles. On the hayride they take you out to a huge pumpkin patch and you get to choose any one you want, Duffy really enjoyed that too!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

P.S. If this slideshow really works then Smilebox is my new favorite! It's so easy to use and the other programs I've tried have never worked so look for more slideshows in the future!

Day 9-Two Blessed Kids

This collage is from a trip my kids got to take with my mom, dad, sister, and brother over the summer. It was just a little day trip to Bear Lake but they stopped a couple places along the way. It also gave Joey and I a much-needed date day, we went to Lagoon for the first time in years! Not only am I blessed to have such a wonderful family but my kids are too. It was one of the main reasons we left Seattle, I just couldn't stand the thought of my kids growing up so far from their grandparents that they didn't really know them. My family loves to have fun together and I'm so grateful they are passing that along to my children!

Day 8-Summer Flashback

For those of you who know us well you know we LOVE to camp! We actually didn't get to go very many times this year but we did have a great time when we got to get out of town. These pictures are from our trip to my aunt and uncle's property above Lava Hot Springs. Duffy had a couple of cousins to play with and Maisy even had her little friend (cousin) Marlee. Duffy had a BLAST, he got to run around everywhere since it's private property, ride on the 4-wheeler, and even paint some rocks and make sand drawings. Maisy's weekend wasn't so much fun, she had to be contained most of the time.
As you can probably tell by this blog, I love to expose my kids to as many things I possibly can, and the great outdoors is a HUGE part of that. It's so much fun to see new things through their eyes.

Day 7- Mommy's Little Helper

Ok, today has been a really long day (I was up at 6 to leave by 7 for a four and a half hour test for starters!) so I'm keeping it short tonight! I wanted to post this picture of Maisy watching intently as I sewed her Halloween costume. She was a good girl during the few weeks it took me and hardly ever touched the sewing table, I must say I was VERY impressed! One night she got up on to the horse and just sat and watched while I worked on it for a while. She was really fascinated by the whole thing. Love this mommy-daughter moment!

Day 6-Halloween Costumes

Sorry it's taken me so long for these but you know, I had to get the discs from my favorite photog, my sister! These are pics from Gardner Village and Halloween night with the kids, I think the costumes turned out great, if I do say so myself! Duffy was kind of sick so we just went to about 6 houses and headed back to my mom and dad's. It was kind of sad because he went right in and got out of his costume and into his jammies ASAP. I don't blame him for wanting to curl up on the couch though.


Here are the pictures from our night out at the SkyBar later that night. We have the funnest group of friends!

Day 5-Official First Day of School!

Like the title says, it's official-Duffy started school today! I almost cried but then I thought of how much fun he's going to have and how I can't keep him a baby forever. He was so happy and excited to be there and his teachers report that he was a very good boy. Today they learned about the letter "E", made a pizza with paper and felt pepperonis, sang about going on a turkey hunt, made a picture of a train with cotton ball smoke coming out of it, did puzzles, and I about died when I saw the picture of a robin that he colored with the right colors in the right areas! Everyone who has seen the picture of him so far has commented on how big he looks, and it's true, he has really grown a lot in the past couple of months. I am so grateful that we are able to put him into a great preschool where he can make friends and learn so many things.

Day 4-Doing my Civic Duty

Yesterday was election day and I really enjoy voting for local leaders and issues, it makes me feel like my vote actually counts for something. I didn't start voting until last year's Presidential election but I was in a Political Science class and really got to thinking about our right to vote. We take for granted that which millions of other people are still dying over today. Women have only been allowed to vote for less than 100 years, yet polls consistently have low turnouts. We have the choice but choose not to vote, what if they were to take that away from us? I bet we wouldn't take it for granted anymore. I know it's too late for this year but I would like to ask anyone who reads this blog to do some research and get out and vote next election day, show your thanks to everyone who fought so hard to make it possible!

Day Three-Missing the First Day of School and Kisses from Mais

Yesterday Duffy's cough was almost non-existent so I was really holding out hope he could start school today. All through the night I listened and didn't hear anything but early this morning it was back with a vengence :( He was so looking forward to going I felt really bad. This morning was rough because he felt so bad and we had numerous meltdowns, including one because I wouldn't pack a lunchbox for him. I tried to explain he wouldn't be eating lunch at school but he wasn't believing it. At least we got to go up there for a tour and to get his registration forms. We met his teacher Miss Mikelle and a few of his new friends from class. When we pulled up he was really distraught because he didn't have his backpack, I really didn't think he'd need to take one but all of the cute little kids going in had one so next time he will be sure to take it, I guess he needs something to bring home all of his projects! Now we're keeping our fingers crossed for Thursday, I REALLY hope he can go, he's so excited!

Maisy is really into giving kisses right now and last night we were all just sitting around after dinner. Maisy kept going back and forth between Joey and me making her kissy-fishy face to get kisses. It's the cutest thing and it must have gone on for 15 minutes last night, she couldn't get enough.

I PROMISE there are pictures coming, Aimee is making me a disk as we speak, and there's actually so many we have to do 2 discs. I doubt I'll run out of things to blog about this month!

When I Grow Up

For my second post this month I just wanted to write about my kids current lives (surprise right?). So, here I go:

Duffy is 3 and a half now and is definitely his own little man. His latest things to talk about are all sports, hunting, and what he's going to be when he gets bigger like me. Today he asked me if he could be a police officer and a football player when he gets bigger (his words). I said "Of course, you can be anything you want to be" and he replied, "Thanks". It was so cute. Another thing he asked me today was if he could watch Spongebob when he gets big like me, he's always telling people I don't like him to watch that show, along with any other shows he decides I would think were "bad". The past few days he has had a cough and had a fever for a couple of days (no other symptoms mind you) and has been telling everyone he has the "flus". We were hoping to start him at preschool this week but it looks like it will have to wait until he stops coughing, more to come on that another day.

Maisy turned 16 months yesterday and I can't believe how big and smart she's getting. She has recently started imitating what people say and was so cute on Halloween trying to say "trick or treat". The kids stayed with my parents on Halloween night so we could go out with some friends and they said she INSISTED on going to the door every time there was a group of kids, she even screamed long enough for them to get her out of her high chair to answer the door during dinner. She's used to getting what she wants already, by the way. I would say her favorite thing to do right now, other than eat, is to put on everyone else's shoes. She loves my heels and Duffy's skater shoes most of all, and she has a cute pair of boots that she makes us put on even with her pajamas. She's also gone from having 2 teeth about a month ago to about 10 now, all coming in at the same time. She's really starting to look like a little girl now with all those teeth, skinny legs, and long curly hair. She also likes to say hi to everyone and "thank you" for everything.

My kids are each their own little wonderful person. I really couldn't ask for anything more. I could probably write about them all day but I guess I should get some homework done now :( "See" you all tomorrow!

NaBloPoMo

Just saw my friend Jana's blog and found out it's "NaBloPoMo"-National Blog Posting Month. So, I'm a day behind but who says you have to post once a day, just 30 posts in 30 days right? I'll do two today to catch up. Just want to warn you, since I will be posting that many things, my blog will be a lot like a journal this month but I'm hoping to learn to love the everyday things by posting so often, not just around major events. Stay tuned for all the fun October pictures though, I should have them posted soon!