Archive for the ‘family life’ Category
A Visit, A Budget And A Mystery
Monday, March 8th, 2010
Yesterday, we had the pleasure of visiting with Lauryn and Daniel for a bit while they were finishing up the week and a half stay of their honeymoon here in New England.
That’s right, their honeymoon. They were willing to share part of their honeymoon time with us! For those of you who don’t know, Lauryn is my cousin….sort of. In law.
When they visited our church yesterday everyone was trying to figure out how we knew each other. Some thought it was a surprise to us that they came while others thought they were a visiting couple that we just happened to hit it off with. And some are probably still not quite sure how we know each other.
Lauryn and I share the same uncle. I’m his niece on his wife’s side of the family (my maternal aunt) and Lauryn is his sister’s daughter. She’s my cousin’s cousin but not my cousin. Sounds like one of those logic/math word problems, doesn’t it?
Lauryn’s mom and my mom have been good friends since they were little meaning Lauryn and I have “known” each other since we were little, although I’m several years older.I haven’t seen Lauryn in almost 10 years.
Lauryn got married two Saturdays ago in Texas and her and her new husband are honeymooning here in New England. Since they were about three hours away from us they thought they would stop by our church for Sunday morning services and then go to lunch with us after. It was a great visit and we were happy to get to meet Daniel for the first time. Daniel and Lauryn are a super cute couple and were glowing from happiness. This was also Lauryn’s first time to meet Katelyn and Madelyn after having read so much about them on my blog! Katelyn quickly attached herself to Lauryn and Daniel and wanted to hold hands with them. Lauryn even kindly took Madelyn to the bathroom while I was waiting to rehearse a song after church! And she didn’t even complain when Maddy got some urine on her. A gracious young lady all the way!
Congratulations Daniel and Lauryn! It was great seeing you! God bless you two as you build a new life together. Love you guys!
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As I’ve mentioned we just started attending a Financial Peace University Class by Dave Ramsey at our church. Tomorrow night will be our second class. Mike and I have been working on our budget all week. We’ve always had a very loose budget and …wow…this budget we have to create for the class is showing us how way off we were living before! We’re also having to share with the instructor {privately} how much debt we have-i.e loans, credit card, mortgage etc. Thankfully we only have a mortgage and some credit card debt. We could be in a much worse financial situation. We cut up our credit cards over the weekend. That was a liberating (yet scary!) feeling. I closed all accounts except the one we have debt on still. We had several accounts open that we weren’t using so it was nice to close those down and be done with them.
I have to say my biggest struggle is going to be a food budget! I’m not used to having an exact, cash only grocery budget. I know we spend way too much on groceries and that’s with the coupons I use when I can. I’m going to try to implement a weekly menu plan, including snacks, and start buying a lot of generic stuff.
I don’t know what the average family of 4 spends on groceries. I don’t know what is considered about right or way too much. I have a feeling we are in the “Spend Way Too Much” category. We usually spend, on average, $160-200 A WEEK on groceries. That makes about $800 a month on just groceries! Our new grocery budges is $100 a week. This will help in our losing weight endeavor as we’ll have to make sure our food lasts the allotted amount of time. We have budgeted eating out on Sundays because that’s what we do. We eat out after church on Sundays and we won’t be be stopping that any time soon. It’s our weekly treat.
This will be an interesting journey but I know we’ll come out ahead! Like Dave Ramsey says ” Live like no else so you can LIVE like no one else!!” (or at least, I think I got that right!) If you get the chance to take this course- DO IT! Even if you think you’re pretty good with your finances it still holds a wealth of info to make your finances even better. He talks about paying off your house sooner, planning for your children’s education, planning for retiring with dignity, and building your wealth. All with wise saving and spending and budgeting. He doesn’t have any get rich quick schemes. His advice and methods are actually hard work and all about delayed gratification- i.e being an adult!
I will most definitely be blogging about our progress!
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To end my post today I thought we’d do a “Guess Those Scribbles” game. Instead of guessing what Katelyn drew you’re going to guess what she was trying to write in this photo:
What was Katelyn trying to write?
I’ll give you some choices:
1) Katelyn Mietzner
2) Katelyn and Madelyn
3)Ni Hao Kai-Lan
4) It’s K-Mart Smart
5) Katelyn and Mommy
Go!!
*Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and/ or fan my blog on Facebook!
Sisters……Friends…..Princesses
Friday, February 19th, 2010
Having a sister is like having a best friend you can’t get rid of. You know whatever you do, they’ll still be there. ~Amy Li
A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost. ~Marion C. Garretty
Is solace anywhere more comforting than in the arms of a sister. ~Alice Walker
You can kid the world. But not your sister. ~Charlotte Gray
Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply… ~Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814
Sisters are different flowers from the same garden. ~Author Unknown
If your sister is in a tearing hurry to go out and cannot catch your eye, she’s wearing your best sweater. ~Pam Brown
When mom and dad don’t understand, a sister always will. ~Author Unknown
To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other’s hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time. ~Clara Ortega
Happy Friday! Hug someone you love today.
*quotes taken from quotegarden.com*
Everything AND the kitchen sink!
Monday, February 8th, 2010
If ever there ever was a post with a mish mash of stuff, this is it! The kitchen sink included!
Way back when we thought we were moving( you know, two weeks ago…) Mike put up a much needed back splash behind our stove and sink. He used left over tile from our bathroom when we renovated that. I thought that was a very smart and frugal move on his part. The tile is pretty and very neutral in color. I took some pictures so my mom could see how it came out. My mom knows how ugly my walls were behind the stove and sink so she’ll really appreciate how much better it looks. You’re welcome to appreciate Mike’s handiwork too.
As usual, I wish I had taken a “before” picture but didn’t think of doing that while Mike was working on this. This may not seem like a big deal but we threw away our ugly, moldy (yes! it was moldy on the bottom, unbeknown to us!) dish drainer and bought a smaller one. The old one used to be to the right of the sink, taking up a lot of that space and making it look cluttered and ugly. I also had a cookie cooling rack laying there too for an extra spot to air dry dishes. We cleaned that area out and I put a smaller, prettier, non-moldy dish drainer to the left of the sink. It looks much neater and nicer and creates extra counter space to the right of the sink. I also took my dish soap, hand soap and sponges out of an ugly, plastic Tupperware container and put them in a glass pie dish. ( I never make pies!) It’s amazing how you get accustomed to certain areas of clutter and don’t even notice them anymore. Then once you finally notice it and make a few simple changes it makes a world of difference!
This is the back splash behind the stove. The walls were hard to keep clean and because I’m a messy cook they were usually splattered with grease and oil etc. Before Mike put up the back splash I scrubbed the wall behind the stove and to the right. It looked much better just with the walls washed. The back splash actually seems to make the kitchen look bigger and “homey-er”
And one last little detail that my mom will appreciate….
I finally changed the kitchen valance. It had a green, satiny looking valance that wasn’t hideous but wasn’t super pretty either. It was dark green. I never changed the valance after we moved in and have been ignoring it for almost 6 1/2 years! I finally put a cheerier one up. The previous owners also painted over the beautiful dark wood work around the window and doorway. Maybe now that we have time, we can sand that paint off and re-stain it.
Now we move on to my health update:
My nurse practitioner called a couple of weeks ago and said they were having trouble with the machine that reads the results of the holter heart monitor. So, I have to wear it for 24 hrs again. They’ll call me…. (hmm..I should probably follow up on that since they haven’t called me yet.)
I’m still having the same dizziness as before but have kind of gotten used to it! I’ve been taking my vitamin D and prescription iron pills. Even if those don’t help my dizziness they’re still good for me.
*If you’re a man reading this you may want to stop reading here if you don’t want to read about women issues..*
My ultrasound results came back and I have a cyst on my right ovary. That’s all the nurse said when she called. She said that could create fertility problems but from what I understand those are pretty common. So, they want me to go through two monthly cycles and then come back in for another ultrasound to see if the cyst has gone away on it’s own.
Fun stuff, right? So, we’re on a new lead with that. Not sure what will come of it but I’ll keep everyone updated.
On a side note, Katelyn just had another UTI so she was on another round of antibiotics for it. The doctor thinks she’s not wiping correctly and that’s what is causing these infections.
Now, I’ll leave you with some cute pictures of Katelyn in her dance costume. She really wanted to wear it all the time when we first got it. I’ve put it away and she’ll forget about for a bit until her recital in May.
Guess That Drawing And An Update
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Guess That Drawing answer—
Madelyn’s picture is indeed d and Katelyn’s picture is of us, my parents and my inlaws eating Christmas dinner together.
Thanks for playing!
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Before I get into the boring exciting update of my “health” and our moving process I want to present TWO drawings to guess about.
One is Madelyn’s and one is Katelyn’s.
This picture is Madelyn’s (obviously!). I’ll make this one a multiple choice. Is this drawing about..
a) A butterfly?
b) Katelyn?
c)Our birdies Zoe and Chloe?
d) Nana, Papa, Uncle Bob, Daddy and Mommy?
This next drawing is Katelyn’s. What do you think it’s about?
Now on to my health and moving update……..
I got the results back from my blood tests two Friday’s ago. Everything came out fine. The only think my NP said was that my vitamin D levels were low and I’m anemic (which I already knew). So she’s prescribing a stronger Iron pill and wants me to take a vitamin D supplement.
I’m still having dizzy spells. I haven’t heard back about my holter moniter results. When I called last week they were having trouble with the print out so they said they would call as soon as they got the results.
I had an ultrasound last Wednesday to have a little look at my reproductive system. The technician said everything looked fine to her but that I would get a call from my doctor in a couple of days. So, I’m expecting that call any day now. I’ll most likely call today about my heart monitor results and my ultrasound results. I’m thinking that if everything comes back normal on my heart monitor results I’m going to keep taking my iron and vitamin supplements and see if my dizzy spells go away. As for my ultrasound results….I think if those come back fine I won’t pursue any more testing. When I had all the testing done when I was trying to conceive with Katelyn everything came back normal. I have a feeling the same thing is going to happen this time. I really don’t want to waste my time and money with all sorts of testing if everything is going to come back….normal. I’m really starting to think it’s a God thing. I’m trying to focus on packing and moving and keep my mind off the fact that that God is not allowing me to get pregnant right now.
As for our moving…
Our goal is to have our realtor come over this Saturday to look at our house , takes pictures and put it on the market. That’s our goal!! So, hopefully by the beginning of next week it will be on the market.
We found another house we love on Saturday. So now there are two. I love this house more than the other one. The only problem is…it’s also a short sale!!! We’ve found out that we can’t make an offer on a short sale house until we have accepted an offer on our house. The banks won’t accept any contingencies. One of ours would be that we need to sell our house before we can close on one. The banks want us to be ready to close at the drop of a hat although they want to be able to take up to six months to accept an offer. That is so dumb! So we can’t put an offer on the house we saw on Saturday until we have sold our house.
Just to make things easier I’ll name the two houses and compare them for you
H1= Dutch Gambrel, 1600 +sqf , 4 bedrooms 1.5 baths, 1 acre lot, nice deck, full basement with two more rooms,nice neighborhood, close to highway. NO garage. Bathrooms would need updating eventually. Needs new carpet in upstairs and new wall paint. Asking price is very reasonable and would save us a good amount of money each month on our mortgage.
H2= Ranch style house, 2900 + sqf, 4 bedrooms, 2 huge full baths, huge deck, about half an acre lot, full basement but not very high so Mike has to stoop to use it. Not usable for anything other than storage. Close to highway, nice neighborhood, close to highway, Katelyn’s school and elementary school. Needs all new appliances and new flooring in family room. No garage. Asking price is reasonable and would also save us money on our mortgage each month. This house has handicapped features which is why the bathrooms are so big. Bathrooms are newly renovated so they wouldn’t need anything. Some of the house would need repainting.
I like H2 better than H1. I love ranch style houses since everything is all one floor!! No more traipsing up and down two or three flights of stairs to do laundry. The floors are brand new in the whole house except the family room. They are beautiful hard wood. The room we would use for the girls is so big that it would be their bedroom AND playroom. We wouldn’t need a separate play area for them. When we were looking at this house we seriously got turned around and confused about how to get back to the front door or which part of the house we were in. I love that the house is that big.
Both houses have been on the market 3+ months and could end up foreclosing. That’s the only thing going in our favor right now. A lot of people don’t want to deal with short sales or foreclosures. I’m really hoping we get a chance to put an offer on the ranch.
So, there you have it!
Oh! Madelyn is doing well with her foot. She has a follow up appointment on Wednesday. She’s been walking around without her boot all morning today and seems to be fine. So, I’m hoping all is well and she can stop wearing the boot.
Please keep us in your prayers!
It’s Beginning To Look (And Feel) A Lot Like Christmas..
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
You probably won’t be seeing a lot of me around the bloggy world the next several days. My parent’s arrive this evening for a week and a half visit and we already have a lot of plans! And….it’s Christmas! Even a blogging lover like me isn’t crazy enough to spend the holidays blogging away. If you want to keep up with what we’re doing you can read updates on Twitter.
It’s really starting to look like Christmas around here! We had a big snow storm this weekend and everything is white. That’s nice for Christmas and all, but it’s welcome to skidaddle it’s way on out of here once January comes.
Keeping this holiday month simple this year was tough but we’ve managed so far! I’ve purposefully made myself not stress about certain silly things and I’ve made myself say “no” to other things. For instance, I wanted to do all sorts of different baking the past two weeks. Well, I left it for the last minute so I was only able to do a little bit. I had planned on making some treat baskets for my Chiropractor’s office and hair salon as a “thank you”. I’ve been going to both for a long time now and I’ve had the same hair dresser for several years! Both are small businesses with a handful of employees so I wanted to share some Christmas cheer with them. Well, several sets of events led me to not being able to do that. And, boy, did I struggle with guilt! And I kept trying to think of something quick and inexpensive I could do for both (I had appointments at both places on Friday). Fruit basket? Gift cards? But I scratched both ideas because both would have been too expensive. I finally decided that I just wouldn’t be able to give them anything this year and that it was really ok. I gave my hairdresser an extra big tip and that was it. I could have let that bug me for days and I decided to let it go.
Another example: Katelyn had a $5 gift swap at her school and I hadn’t reread the newsletter before the day of their Christmas party. So, thinking I had all the correct info on the swap down pat, I bought a $5 toy at CVS on our way to the school. It was a little dog in a pinkish box that when you pulled it’s tail and vibrated and moved all over a flat surface. I thought, hey, this is perfect for boy or girl although with the pink box I hope it goes to a girl. I didn’t know how the teachers were going to do the swap and figured they’d choose the children that the gifts went to. Or something. Boy was I wrong! I got there and was the only one who hadn’t wrapped their gift and didn’t seem to realize that the name of the child( a boy) our gift was going to was taped inside Katelyn’s take home folder.
Duh.
So, I told the teachers I’d go home and wrap the gift and bring it back with the tag on it. They were very gracious and said that was fine. I’m sure they were thinking why do parents not read the newsletter?? WHY??. I used to think the same thing when I was preschool teacher. And I did read it! I just didn’t read it correctly. And it was a long time ago. So I’m all angry with myself and thinking that dog is way too girly for a boy. I don’t want him being disappointed in a gift from Katelyn. So, I was going to return the dog to CVS and find something else more appropriate for a boy, in my opinion. Except that, I had already had other errands I was planning on running during her school time and doing that was going to throw a kink in my plans. I started feeling stress creeping in. Over a stupid toy! So I made myself calm down and decided that dog was perfectly fine for that boy. It wasn’t going to stay in the pink box. Once it was out it looked like any small, stuffed dog. So I went home, wrapped it, slapped a bow and the tag on it and took it back to Katelyn’s school. And didn’t give it another though.
Ahh… that felt good.
We had no Christmas parties to attend this year and I decided to not host anything of my own. We’ve had most Saturdays free, which has been nice! We’ve had to do minimal rushing. It’s been kinda nice! Oh, we’ve had church and school Christmas events but those have been fun and pretty stress free. All Katelyn’s teachers (Dance included) got gift cards from us this year. All of our gifts are wrapped, except for a couple of things. So, now I’m ready for a fun time with my parents. I’m sure we’ll be doing a lot of running around but it will be fun running around.
Here are some pictures I’ve taken recently-
Baking Cookies
Since I have a tiny kitchen and not much counter space I decided to set up on their train table.
Madelyn got a little too care free with the green glitter….
The end result!!
Wrapping Paper Fun!!
The girls really wanted to wrap stuff of their own so I gave them some old wrapping paper and let them go to town. There are several “gifts” under the tree that they wrapped. I have a feeling I’ll recognize these gifts…..
I have to mention that Madelyn is really good with scissors. When I worked in preschool one of the skills we worked hard on with the kids was cutting correctly with scissors. It was hard for some of the children to hold the scissors correctly. Madelyn is a pro!
And last but not least, I just had to share this picture frame. As many of you know, when we went to Texas in October we had pictures taken with our whole family. I had ordered a picture of my sister and her family and my brother. I was having the hardest time finding a good frame for those two pictures until I came upon this one at Kohl’s. It was in the clearance section ($2.50), it was perfect and it was the only one! The colors of the frame go perfectly with the colors in the photos and I love the words on it. I had to post it so my sister and brother could see themselves proudly displayed on my wall. Isn’t it perfect?
I’ll be putting a small post up the day before Christmas but until then, see ya!!
Snow Bunnies
Monday, December 14th, 2009
We had our first big snow storm of this winter last week. Although Katelyn’s school was still open( much to everyone’s dismay!) we took a snow day and stayed home. Once Katelyn and Madelyn saw the beautiful (to them) snow outside I suddenly had two snow bunnies on my hands! I had to capture these magical creatures on camera but I did so from the warmth of the inside of my house. Most of these pictures were taken from my window. Let’s take a look at Snow Bunny #1 and #2.
Snow Bunny #2 was standing right outside our door so I was able to capture a quick and rare picture of her. Isn’t she cute?
She also seemed to like to eat snow. That must be her main diet since she didn’t seem to like the vegetables I offered her.
Here we see typical Snow Bunny behavior. Fascinating!! Sadly, I was unable to get many more good shots of Snow Bunny #2’s face. She seemed to be frightened by my camera.
Here we see Snow Bunny #1. She displayed another behavior I’ve seen in these two snow bunnies. She jumped right into the snow, laid on her back and began flailing her arms.She seems to do this often yet I’ m not quite sure what she’s doing. Curious…..
Snow Bunny #1 seemed to love our snowy backyard more than Snow Bunny #2 as she remained out there and wouldn’t come close to our back door. Here we see her forming snow into balls. Will she eat it? Throw it? The suspense was killing me!
Here we can see just what attracted the snow bunnies. Look at how much snow had fallen! In these next few shots we can see them frolicking in the snow together.
Oh my! Snow Bunny #1 looked right at my camera! Wow!!!
Here we see a rare behavior displayed in snow bunnies. Snow Bunny #1 is helping Snow Bunny #2, who seems to be stuck.
Amazing yet heartwarming.
Here the snow bunnies separate and began building with snow. Snow Bunny #1 was building at a much faster rate than Snow Bunny #2. Snow Bunny #2 seemed content digging while Snow Bunny #1 was methodically shaping snow.
Gasp! Look at purposeful way Snow Bunny #1 is shaping that snow! I wonder if she is trying to make something??
I had heard that snow bunnies love baby carrots so I threw one out and look at what Snow Bunny #1 did with it! It looks like she built a little snow man with it! Wow!
Along with the carrot, I threw out some spoons and cups to see how that would affect the snow bunnies in their play. Well, would you believe that they started playing with those things? Yes! They filled the cups with snow and happily dug and patted the snow with the spoons. It was a sight to behold! They seem to be intelligent and creative creatures.
After the above shot the snow bunnies seemed to tire of the snow and disappeared back to their magical homes. I’m hoping they’ll come out again so I can take pictures and observe these mystical and beautiful creatures at play. It was quite an experience!
Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
This past weekend we set up our Christmas tree. We listened to some Christmas music (hello Carpenters!) and had a great time. It took us longer than we expected to actually get the tree set up and ready to be decorated. Let’s just say the girls had waited all day for it and we didn’t start decorating until about 7:00 pm. Madelyn was starting to get a little tired and cranky by then.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a few years you know we have a white tree. Mike bought a train set to put under the tree this year and it has yet to stay on the tracks and not fall off. We had to rearrange the living room a bit and put some of the smaller pieces of furniture upstairs for right now. I lost my Bible reading corner for the Christmas season! (sniff)
You may be wondering why I chose this picture to post as you can’t see anyone’s face. I love the lighting and how our tree looks in that corner!
Not even Christmas decorating stopped us from using the potty. Madelyn insisted on playing with one of the ornaments while she did her business.
Daddy has the job of hanging the high up ornaments and putting the angel on top.
“K for Katelyn!”
They dressed up in garland for a bit. They take every excuse to “dress up”!
The finished product!
Thanksgiving Recap
Monday, November 30th, 2009
We had quite the Thanksgiving weekend! Not only did we eat way too much, go see a movie on Thanksgiving day and go Black Friday Shopping we also bought me my Christmas gift from Mike-EARLY!
I’ll share some of our story with pictures.
*Note*- You won’t see that many pictures of Madelyn because she seems to be allergic to the camera. Every time I tried to take her picture she would duck, turn her head, run off or get really grumpy!
The girls and papa enjoying the delicious feast
My brother in law, Bob and Mike bonding over heaping platefuls
Us minus,well, me.
Katelyn adding some decorations to Mike and Bob’s shared birthday cake (Both November babies)
Katelyn and Madelyn also get a turn blowing out the candles
Watching “Planet 51″ with nana and papa on Thanksgiving day.
It was Madelyn’s first time and Katelyn’s second to the movie theater. Katelyn doesn’t look to happy here because she was more than ready to leave and didn’t want to stay a minute longer for a picture. Movies are still a tad too long for her ability to sit still at this point. Madelyn did way better than I thought she would! She was quiet and sat in our laps for most of the movie. I was impressed!
This is Zoe and Chloe. Zoe is the yellow one and Chloe is the white one
I’ve wanted some pet birds for ages (no, really! AGES!) and Mike finally decided to surprise me by planning on taking me to the pet store to pick some birds out. This was a huge gesture on his part because he hates birds. He thinks they’re noisy and messy(which they can be) and has sworn we would never own any.We went on Black Friday to get them. I chose parakeets. I tried to convince Mike to also let me get two finches but he wouldn’t have it. Maybe next year….?
Katelyn and Madelyn love them and think Zoe and Chloe are theirs. I’m letting them think that for the next few years. These are going to be the most spoiled birds!!
This year we decided to go Black Friday shopping for the first time. Katelyn and Madelyn would sleep over at Nana and Papa’s house and we would head out to Toys R Us for their midnight opening. I was kind of dreading the trip but also kind of excited for it. I’m not a night owl so this was to be a huge event for me. We got to Toys R Us at midnight to find a huge line of people, wrapped around the building, waiting to get into Toys R Us. They were only letting twenty people in at a time. Mike estimated that there were about 2,000 people in front of us and 2,000 people behind us! I tried to get a picture of the line of people but a) it was too dark and b) I didn’t want to freak people out by taking pictures of them. We waited in line for almost three hours before it was our turn to go in. So, yes, that would mean we went into Toys R Us at 2:50 am. Waiting in that line that night is kind of a hazy blur for me right now. I swear I fell asleep standing up. It was awful!! Mike actually thought it was kind of fun. He said we were making memories. I sure will never forget that memory!! Their were groups of women in front of us laughing and having a grand ‘ol time. All I wanted was to tell them to ” shut up!!”. They thought they were soooo funny…. Many of the people in line were starting their day. They had a whole shopping agenda planned for the rest of the day. I was planning on shopping for our girls and then going home to sleep.
Thankfully Mike had solitaire on his phone and I played that until both my arms hurt. It was freezing by the time we got inside the store so I couldn’t feel my feet and I was shivering uncontrollably. A catering truck pulled up in front of our line around 2:30 am. A bunch of people converged on them and were buying hot dogs, coffee, snacks and drinks! Everyone cheered when the truck pulled up! I have never seen anything like it! By then we were almost there so Mike and I stayed in line , although I really wanted a hot dog!! I got my second wind as we walked into the store. We got the shopping for our girls done with and left the store by 4:00 am. Since the mall is right next to Toys R Us we saw that it was coming to life so we headed over there to see if we could pick up a couple of things for my inlaws. By then I was like “whatever!!” when Mike asked if I’d be willing to check out the mall. We had breakfast in the food court and then walked around the mall for a bit as the stores were all opening. It was actually the perfect time to be there on Black Friday. It was quiet and peaceful. People were already starting to form some small lines at certain stores. JC Penney’s had some great deals and we were some of the first shoppers there. Unfortunately, we were only looking for one thing there and not some of the other nicely priced things. By the time were were done at the mall and got home it was 6:00 am. We were exhausted. We fell into bed and slept until noon. Then went shopping some more! Which, is when we got my parakeets. That was certainly and experience I’ll never forget. I think we will definitely try it again next year but we’ll head out around 4:00 am instead of midnight. And I’ll have a better list of what I want and more knowledge of what’s on sale etc. We are officially done with our Christmas shopping, which has never happened this early before. I may have a couple of stocking stuffers to pick up but that’s it. That in and of itself made Black Friday shopping worth it. It will definitely help in keeping the month of December a little more calm this year.
Did anyone else do some Black Friday shopping?
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Family Update
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
So, I haven’t blogged in a few days so I figured it was time for a little update about what we’ve been doing here lately. Turns out there’s quite a bit I needed to update on! So, I’ll try to do it chronologically.
Here goes…
*About three weeks ago we left our church of almost 4 years. It was a hard decision and one that we had been praying about for awhile. Mike had a great conversation with our old (ex?) pastor and he was very gracious and understanding. One of the reasons is that we live in Massachusetts and we were going to a church in New Hampshire. We drove a good ways each Sunday to get to church and because of this we weren’t as involved in our church as we wanted to be. We have since found a church closer to us that we have been enjoying attending. We’re still praying for the Lord to show us where He wants us permanently. It was a sad and hard decision with lots of teary good byes.
*School/Awana/Dance Update- Katelyn is enjoying all three, although the past few weeks she has balked a little at going to school and Awana. I don’t know what the deal is with that. She usually come out happy, it’s just the going in that she doesn’t want to do. She still LOVES dance. Mike swears he’s noticed a difference in her dancing and rhythm. I can’t really see it all that much and wasn’t really expecting her to come out of this class knowing all sorts of dance moves yet! I think it’s cute that he does, however…
*There were some layoffs at Mike’s company and thankfully he was not one of them. He was told his job is stable and secure for right now. Praise the Lord!
*Potty Training Update- We had been doing so good! I say “had” because for the last 4 days or so we’ve all been sick. So that has slowed down our potty training progress. Madelyn has still been asking to go potty so that’s a good sign. I think we’ll be able to catch up pretty quickly though.
*A couple of weeks ago my friend Allie and her friend Laura (Laura Wagner Photography for those who live locally) came to our house to do a photo shoot in our backyard. It was for Katelyn’s 4 year pictures and Madelyn’s 2 year pictures. The girls did great and we got some great shots. Here are just a couple of the pictures we got. You can go to my Facebook album that I uploaded to here to see the rest of them.
Aren’t they purty?
Laura and Allie did a fantastic job. Check out Laura’s photography website-www.laurawagnerphotography.com. Allie is her second shooter and just as fabulous.
*I bared my soul in this post last week and am changing the direction of my blog to reflect this “authenticity” a bit.
*As to the past few days we have all been sick. Fever, coughing fits, aches and pains. The works. It has not been fun. The only one who hasn’t gotten it yet is Mike. And I’m fully expecting him to come home sick today. Not hoping. Just expecting. I don’t think I’ve been that sick in a looong time. Sunday I stayed home from church. I was in bed most of the day. I finally dressed and dragged myself downstairs to get myself moving a big. I was almost delirious. No joke! I was able to stay awake long enough to watch “Confessions Of A Shopaholic” (cute movie!) before passing out in a feverish stupor again. Then, I had weird dreams about that movie. So, today, we seem to be back on track again. I kept Katelyn home from school and plan to not go to Awana tomorrow night. I think we just need to stay home for a few days. Since I haven’t cleaned my house since Saturday it’s looking pretty nasty. So, while the girls are recouping, I’m cleaning.
I think that pretty much sums it up. Now, I really must go clean. And I apologize if this post was a bit random or grammatically poor. I’m still in the recovery stage myself!
The Carving Of The Pumpkin
Monday, October 26th, 2009
Last week we took one of our poor, unsuspecting pumpkins and decided to carve it up. This was an activity that Katelyn had been begging for since around her birthday. (Which already seems like ages ago). So, finally(roll eyes here) we did it. Apparently I had chosen a really thick pumpkin because this darn thing was super hard to cut through! After about five minutes of messy scooping the girls decided they were done and left me to do the rest of the work. They acted very “girly” about the pumpkin innards. Katelyn even said to me ” Mom, we’ll go play now and you finish the pumpkin and call us when it’s done. Ok?”
Uh…ok. Wimps!
So here is the end result. Not bad if I do say so myself.
And I do.
Ta Da! Meet…Shawn… our pumpkin. Katelyn named it. Can’t even fathom they way her brain works so I don’t try!
Not bad…not bad at all!
