Never Stop Improving

On Wednesday my friend Katrina went through the temple for the first time. I was happy to be a part of that. There were quite a few ward members there. I really love being in the temple with people I know and love, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Later that night we had a girls night and just chatted into the late night.

On Thursday I forced myself to do my weekly cleaning because I wasn't going to get a chance this weekend. After we had a relief society meeting on house cleaning I have been cleaning my house much more detailed every week. It's pretty exhausting and it takes about 3 hours and my house is small (and we are pretty clean already). I'm hoping that with time I will get faster and my house will be cleaner so it won't take as long. It's little things that nobody but myself would probably ever notice. I don't even think Scott can tell the difference. Oh well I know it's cleaner, right?

On Friday I took Corbin to the Summerwind chicks program. At the Summerwind Elementary they have the soon to be Kindergarteners come 3 or 4 times and warm them up to Kindergarten. I didn't cry but I wanted to cry so many times. I just can't believe Corbin is going to be in Kindergarten. I'm not ready! He was so dang cute though. They did PE and music and it was fun to see him do the activities. I don't want to let him go but I'm very excited for him to go the school at the same time. School is fun. I liked school and I hope he will too. He had a great time. I'm glad they have this program because Corbin definitely needs a warm up session with me there so it was perfect.

That night Scott and I watched God's Army II. So random. Scott said he's always wanted to watch it and he got it from the library so we watched it. It was pretty intense and edgy considering it's a movie about missionaries. I'm not sure what I think about the movie but it was nice to watch while I worked on a little project for a friend.

On Saturday I went thrift store shopping with my sister in law Anna. We had fun. I found a few decorations and some super cute dishes. I really love thrift stores. It's so fun when you find something great amongst the rubble. I spent the rest of the day making cupcakes and helping my friend get ready for her husband's 40th birthday party. Scott and I got a babysitter and went to the party. The food was so yummy and I won the trivia game about Jared. Score!

I'm trying extra hard to stay within our grocery budget. I think I went over every month last year. I am reading the book The Cheapest Family in America and they are hard core! Anyway Scott and I are trying to pay off our second mortgage and medical bills so I need to buckle down. I made powered egg omelets and they were disgusting. They tasted like I was staying in budget, so pretty good! We eat eggs every day. I can hardly stand  the thought of not having eggs. Just 5 more days baby. I need to plan better to have enough money for the end of the month for eggs, and milk. Or I could be like the family in the book and they only go grocery shopping once a month. Can you believe it? It takes them 5 hours. They must have the biggest freezer in the whole world.For a family of 7 they only spend $350 a month. Told you they were hard core.

I've been on the hunt this week for fabric. I think I want to re-do my kitchen drapes. I want to make a few changes in the kitchen and front room now. I like the Lowes commercial that says never stop improving. That's all!

Corbin took this picture. He's cutting her head off a bit but pretty good.

Gabby wanted to wear all of her Nana hair things. When Corbin saw her he said to her "you look like wonderful." And to me he said, "she's so beautiful." Funny.

Gabby's been a little naughty lately. Yesterday she got into our big bag of chocolate chips and spilled them everywhere. Piper was more than happy to help clean up. Yum.

Piper has been very cute and fun this week. She's also taken more initiate with walking and has walked little stretches several times this week.

Science Experiment

Corbin and Gabby ate their science project. I've never seen them eat so much celery. Food coloring, it's not healthy but it's pretty effective.

Science experiment. If you can't tell those are our volcanoes waiting to erupt in the bathtub.

Look at my cute dishes. They are in perfect condition. I got them for 14 dollars total.

Somebody Had a Birthday

It was Gabby's birthday this week. Her birthday was actually on Wednesday but we celebrated it on Tuesday. We had a special birthday breakfast. We met cousins at Burger King for lunch (just like we do every week) we went to preschool story time at the library. We had a special birthday dinner followed by a trip to PoJos. After that we had cake and opened presents. I thought I was going to have to make her a purple frog for her birthday cake but lucky for me she saw her birthday cake from last year (thanks to Aunt Colie's family calendar) and she wanted that cake again. Works for me! Costco cake: that's easy, and delicious. I asked her several times, "Gabby do you want a purple frog cake or a heart cake?" She replied heart cake every time.

On her actual birthday I babysat a boy from our ward for 6 hours and Scott was gone the entire day. Not much celebrating to be had that day.

On Valentines Day I made heart pancakes for breakfast. When I showed Corbin the pancakes he looked at them and said "oh, that's a surprise!" It was super funny. We opened Nana's huge box of Valentine and birthday presents. Included in the box was a lady bug tent for Gabby's birthday. Scott set that up and the kids had a great time with that. We went to the indoor gym and didn't do much the rest of the day. We had planned on going on a date but I had woken up with a bad sore throat again. I thought I was getting strep again. By 5:00 I was feeling pretty tired and crummy and we decided to cancel on the babysitter last minute. We do not go on dates or eat out often enough to do it when I'm not feeling well and can't enjoy the food or date anyway. Scott was kind enough to sit through a 2 hour episode of Downton Abbey that night with me. Now that is love. 

On Friday I deep cleaned my kitchen all day. I was able to clean the built on grime on top of my cupboards that I have never been able to clean. I finally tried steel wool. Brilliant! That took forever and was very tiring. I also cleaned under the oven and fridge and wiped down all the cupboards. It makes me tired to think about it.

On Saturday I cleaned my house some more for a long time. I am kind of on a kick it you can't tell. I just want to live in a really, really clean and nice house. I went with my friend Jen and ran some errands with her later in the day. That night Kelsey and Justin came and stayed over at our house. Chase, Rachel, Kelsey, and Justin came over to Boise for the weekend. We had a fun time visiting and playing Tripoly with Kelsey and Justin. 

I had enough money in my personal fund budget to upgrade my bathroom a little bit. I bought a new shower curtain and rug. I also prettied up a hand towel and sewed a new kleenex cover. The shower curtain was the one that came with the house. I never liked it but I never did anything about it. I definitely am likely the new shower curtain. To save some cash I just took the shower rings from the old curtain that were purple, blue and pink flowers and I spray painted them silver from leftover wedding paint. Nice!

I have a fabric banner but it does not match at all. I was bugged and so at 11:00 at night I hurried and made the purple banner. You can't read the happy birthday but it's purple so it's Gabby approved. As she always says: "purple's my favorite, and pink." Wow she is such a girly girl.

Birthday breakfast.

PoJos.

Red velvet cake. I don't even think Gabby likes this cake, she didn't even eat a whole bite of the whole cake. The rest of us loved it. She was just happy to have a heart cake.

Funny facial expression.

My Valentines

Before:

After:

That grime does not dust or wipe or scrub off. I can't believe I finally got it clean. It's so white and pretty up there. I want to eat off them.

I saved a piece of red velvet cake for Rachel because it's her favorite but she never came over and ate it. We sent her a text picture of us eating her piece. Thanks Rachel, it was good.

Kids' Room

Well Scott and I didn't watch the Superbowl last Sunday. This is no big surprise. We were missing the Superbowl goodies however. Scott was really wanting some chicken wings and I wanted some brownies. We had nothing! Scott comes up with really good food ideas (I say sarcastically). With our drought of junk food Scott decided to cook himself a baked potato and load half of it with butter and cinnamon and sugar and the other half with honey. Gross! He ate the whole thing.

On Monday my parents came into town for four days. My dad had meetings the whole time and I didn't see him once. My mom came over to my house for a few hours on Monday afternoon. We later met up with the whole family and ate dinner at Pizza Hut. Everyone went to my parent's hotel and went swimming afterward but I decided that my kids were too sick to go into cold hotel pool water.

On Wednesday we had another family get together at Gabe's. We had a potluck dinner and all the food was great. I especially enjoyed Katie's caramel popcorn that I nearly finished off all by myself. I love caramel popcorn!

On Friday I invited Katrina to come over for a special dinner since she babysat for free for us while we went to the temple. I made Cafe Rio pork salads for dinner. I made everything from scratch homemade from the salad dressing to the tortillas. It was delicious. Totally worth it? I'm not so sure. 

I finished my kids' bedroom. It's all done. Scott needs to build bunk beds and then we will be all the way finished. I think it turned out well. I feel like I did a lot without spending very much money. Before I tried to have a girls side and a boys side. Now I am just doing all bright colors. Girl colors and boy colors.

We didn't have the crib up for long but you can see the wall decorations that I had up.

I later added the pom poms and wreath that I made. Those took forever and I love them but they did not go anymore.

This is now. This wall looks empty now but someday soon (I hope) it will be covered up by a bunk bed. Gabby has a matching purple polka dot bedspread.

I recovered their letters with new paper. I took the bean bag and took out all the stuffing and now it stores all the kids' stuffed animals. I bought those baskets from the dollar store. I previously mod podged fabric onto the book shelf. I bought frames from the dollar store and spray painted them with paint I already had.

I took that frame from Chase's reception and spray painted it yellow and put pictures of my kids in it. This wall used to be completely covered with scripture pictures.

Scott still wanted a scripture wall and so did I (so did the kids, they love scripture story time with Scott).

I made fabric banners and the drapes.

This will eventually be Piper's bed. I spray painted the bed frame turquoise and appliqued fabric circles onto the bedspread to girly it up a bit. I recovered the pillow.

I bought a coat rack so the kids could hang up their own coats. I bought those baskets from the dollar store to separate their shoes. (Don't mind how overflowed Corbin's is, I really need to junk some of those).

Scott's "sweet potato"

Homemade Cafe Rio. Yummy!

Gabby:"I like Corbin...he's cute." Ha. I made that dress for Gabby years ago. She can finally fit into it.

Corbin and Gabby built a fort and then wanted to watch a Sunday show.

Piper's almost 18 months. (Still no walking or talking). Hmmm. She does not fail to communicate however. That girl knows what she wants!

Colorado Springs, Strep Throat, and More Strep Throat

This week I went and visited my good friends Scot and Jenny. I spent Monday getting things ready to go. I made several dinners and snacks for the family to eat while I was gone. I woke up bright and early to make it to my 6:50 plane out of Boise. Jenny came and picked me up and we went into downtown Denver to shop and eat. We had lunch at Cherry Cricket which was featured on the show Man Vs. Food. It was yummy. After that we shopped some more and then went and picked up Scot from work. I was exhausted by that point and needed a good nap when we got home as I had gotten hardly any sleep between nerves, Gabby, and Piper being up multiple times that night. We just hung out and talked and watched some TV that night.

On Wednesday I woke up with a sore throat. I decided it would be fun to go to IKEA that day because I am working on redecorating my kids' room and need ideas. Plus I like that store. As we were getting ready to go I just felt really run down and my body hurt. Plus my throat was hurting and I was getting a headache. I still felt like I wanted to go so I popped some pain pills and we went. I found a table cloth there that I bought and made a bedspread for Piper and curtains for the kids' room out of it. That is a good deal right there. That was a great way to buy a lot of fabric for a good price. Score! The bedspread is feeling a bit masculine for me however so my friend Jenny gave me the idea to applique' other fabric onto it. Brilliant! I will see what I can do. My sewing machine frustrates me to no end and I wonder in its ability to do this as it seems to not be able to stitch anything properly. Grrr. Anyway I am almost done with the kids' room. Now I just need to wait for Scott to build the bunk beds.

Back to Wednesday. We went to lunch at Chick-Fil-A and there was a short and curly hair in Jenny's fries. Gross! That was some good times I tell you. This happens to her all the time. By the time we got back from IKEA it was nearly 3:00 and I was feeling pretty tired and my body was hurting. I took more pills and spent the next 3 hours watching HGTV (home and garden television). If I had this channel I would never get anything done, I would want to watch it all day. After dinner we went to Target and Dairy Queen as the DQ was a big tradition for Jenny and I. That night I had a fever and tried to sleep without swallowing.

On Thursday I decided I had better go to Urgent Care. An hour and a half later  I found out I had strep throat. In a way I was glad because then I could get some antibiotics and kill that sucker. We didn't do much the rest of the day. I sewed my banners for my kids' room and we just hung out. Talk about bad timing to get sick. I was a pretty lame guest to be sure. I still had a great time and really in a way it was relaxing to be sick at Scot and Jenny's because I could just sit on the couch for hours at a time without interruption and when can a mom do that?

I love Scot and Jenny. They are my favorite. I'm so glad they let me come and stay with them and they are still as awesome as ever. Jenny has the cleanest most organized house ever. I want to be like her.

I love Scott for being the kind of husband that happily lets me leave him with 3 children for 3 days. He is the best!

My kids have been sick on and off for 2 months now. This is uncanny for us. Usually they get a cold or two and that is it. It's been pretty annoying for everyone. I was wondering off and on if we needed to take the kids to the doctor but I never felt like they were sick enough. When Scott came and picked me up from the airport all three of them sounded terrible. I had Scott take the kids to the doctor on Friday and Gabby came back with a positive on having strep throat. They figured Corbin would have it too so they gave them both a prescription for antibiotics. Poor Piper has to tough it out if she gets it as our doctor thinks she is too young. Although Corbin went on antibiotics when he was 2 weeks old so I don't get it. I feel especially bad for Gabby because she has been the sickest the whole time and she had a nasty cough on top of strep. I can't even imagine. I felt like I was being stabbed in the throat every time I swallowed so to have to cough would be pure misery. Piper has definitely taken a turn for the worse and she was up several times in the night and has been a sad baby today.

I'm also glad to have gotten strep throat because to my memory I have never gotten it before. I couldn't believe how much it hurt my whole body and now I have much more empathy when  people tell me they or their children have gotten strep. Boo to strep. Okay well that is all!

We were in the mall and passed Godiva and saw those chocolate dipped strawberries. Jenny asked for 6 and the teller said that would be $7 a piece. Say what! She reduced the number to 3. Wow it's like they were dipped in gold or something. We definitely needed to take a picture to remember the ridiculously overpriced morsel.

Scott took the kitties to Pet-co while I was gone. Good daddy. They loved it!

Daddy cuddle time.