The zoo

M being brave standing on the elephant. LittleMan was scared of it because it "sneezes" and blows air out, lol.



L going for a ride.
I loved watching the elephant eating, he/she worked so hard to get that hay.

LittleMan's interpretation of a gorilla.

M hoping he is just as tall as the gorilla, not quite there yet.


L being so excited to be as tall as a gorilla, she loves it that people thinks she is 12 or 13, those long legs are deceptive ;).

K wanted to be in the picture too, hehe (a son of my friend we went to the zoo with, Thanks Sabe!)

Honesty

I always tell my kids that they will get in more trouble if they lie to me about whatever it is that they have done, than if they just told me the truth.

I was working yesterday morning, almost done with my transcription and the kids kept getting louder and louder. Several times I said "please be quiet, I'm almost done." finally I got upset "How many times do I need to tell you? Be quiet!" Little Man was standing there and said "Five." Then he turned around and went outside.

Such a funny kid ;).

Halloween

I'm slow, but better late than never, right? ;)

Here is Little Man, he is a Zombie, can you tell? hehe.L as a Rock Star, her choice.

M is way up there at the top, the best pic of him that I can find right now, unfortunately. He is a Marine ;).

The kids had a great time, they went to a school party, trick or treating at Stu's office and then more Trick or Treating around Grandma and Grandpa's house and our house, they got more candy than every before!

Next post, a recap of L's 11th b-day party, it was a blast.

Without further ado

Hehe, get it, ado? ha! Oh man, I think I need more sleep :P


Hehe, get it, ado? ha! Oh man, I think I need more sleep :P

I love my new haircut still, I feel all sassy and fun again. This picture was taken the day after I curled it, when I got up that morning I just brushed it, so easy and it looks good still :).

ETA: I just got back from Mervyns, I decided that I'm tired of my hand me down dresses and my dresses I purchased in High School (graduated in 1993, eek). I have two new skirts and a new shirt, ahh, feels great to spoil myself from time to time :). The "Feeling Old" blues are gone, yay!

I'm looking so old!

I started this post in my head about a week ago, after Stu and I had decided to get contacts. I've never had contacts so I wasn't sure I'd be able to get them. I was going to get new glasses at least. Much to my surprise, they do have contacts that work for me (I have astigmatisms in both eyes!), after a week and a follow up appointment, I'm now cleared for contacts and it's awesome!

I need to warn you though, I don't photograph well (and this is where the comment on the kids always making weird faces on my field trip post), not to say that I'm some drop dead gorgeous woman, but I'm not too bad looking, after seeing these photos I may have to re-evaluate that thought ;). I did take these photos of myself too, so that didn't help ;).

Here is a pic of me with no glasses....

And after, with my really cool sunglasses.

I just look so tired and worn down in these photos. I'm sure the, no style hair doesn't help either.

I do have to brag about the place we purchased these glasses from SunGlasses Only
They were awesome to work with and had a huge variety of sunglasses from "cheap" ($50) to "holy crap, how much?" (the most expensive ones I tried on were $350). I recommend them to everyone. Oh and they had these awesome massage chairs too, that's worth the trip in and of itself ;) (many people came in, sat in the chairs and got a massage and then left, it was funny (free to use the chair) ).

I also want to add that I went to visit my parents for the weekend and got a new haircut. I think it looks great! so I'll try to get L to take a pic of me and I'll update this post later today.

Remember my before shot?

Of my hardwood floors as I was refinishing them? No, well here is a refresher....


And here they are, all finished :).

I'm very happy with the results. I really dread doing the bedroom floors though, this was really hard work. I did most of the sanding by hand, with the little rubber block thing and it sucked. I'm thinking we'll have to get a nice big sander to do the other floors if we decided to refinish them too :).

Field trip!

Yesterday was our first field trip with our new homeschool group. We had a lot of fun and the kids *gasp* learned some new things in the process.

It was very windy, but pretty warm considering how cold it has been in the mornings. We went to a local apple orchard, we learned about cherries and apples and had a fun wagon ride to the apple processing plant. The boys loved going in the big refrigerator, no I did not take a pic in there, I'm whimpy and it was cold :P.

Here is Little Man, why can't I get a normal shot of him?

Or them? It must be genetic. (you'll understand why I say this in an upcoming post)

Oh wait, I can, if they aren't looking :).

Maybe eating fresh apple cider donuts will distract them enough to allow a good shot? Yeah, worked okay.


We had a great time and look forward to the next field trip at the end of next week!

A tip

Because I haven't taken any pictures of my newly refinished hardwood entry/hall, I decided to pacify you with a valuable tip I learned in the process.

If you get polyurethane or stain on your hands and they are sticky yet soap does not help, try the germ-X, that stuff with it's high alcohol contents, works wonders! I was desperate trying to get the sticky, icky off and decided to give it a try, works great!

Plus, it kills any germs you may have ;)

I'll try to post pics soon and maybe start talking about my kids again or even, *gasp* start running again ;).

1st day of school :)

We started school a little bit late this year (the public schools started on August 21st) due to the move, but we don't usually take days off for Holiday's, at least not as many as the public schools do, so I'm sure we'll finish on schedule.

We decided to go with K12 this year, I needed something cheap, planned and assistance as needed, K12 fits the bill. These are two pictures of all the books we received yesterday, we have two more boxes coming next week with at least 3 more books in them. I missed the shot of "my" books, behind the box by M's feet...



You will have to trust me when I say that I was overwhelmed with all of the materials, Holy Cow!



But we jumped in today and it went rather well :) I can see that it will be challenging with three different grade levels, but I think we'll figure it out soon. I am loving that we are doing all the same things public school kids are doing but in the level that the kids are on. M is doing mostly 3rd grade work, though he's in 2nd grade and LittleMan is doing 1st grade math, though he's in Kindergarten. L is on level, doing 5th grade work, but they gave me lots of idea's on how to challenge her in the Language Arts department since she is above grade level in several areas.

And to think, just yesterday I was feeling fairly settled with the living room, we get 9 boxes of things and wham-o the room is a disaster once again :P.

Before and after :)

I had hoped to be farther along in some of my "surprise" projects, but such is life. I'll show you pictures anyway, because it still looks good :).

Before of the fireplace....


During...

And after...




I absolutely love the fireplace, it is my favorite part of my house by far! My dad is a tile setter and tiled this for me the weekend he and my mom came up to help us move. My mom painted the door thing for me and I love it too!

And now on to my entryway and hallway, it's still a work in progress, but I'm getting there!

Before...
And during....



I already started sanding it at this point, so the floor looks pretty beat up, but it's in great shape and will look fabulous once it's finished, if it gets finished ;).

I'm still unpacking, organizing, sorting and all of that fun stuff, hopefully some day I'll feel settled, we'll see how long that takes, lol.

Utah SEO.

What wouldn't I do for my hunny? ;).

Hubby Goes Utah SEO for Free Lunch

If you haven’t heard, my husband has been trying to rank on Google for Utah SEO. He has until the end of this month to land in the #1 spot for the term. If he makes it, he gets a free lunch… and he loves free lunch!

It doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, but at this point he is getting desperate, and so has been trying to grab some last minute links to his site to improve its ranking.

If you’re willing to help out, create some links to his blog (http://stuthewise.wordpress.com) using the link text of Utah SEO. After the end of the month, you can take the links back down.

Since the first week of this month, he’s gone from not ranking at all to #92, and all the way up to #55. Looks like the free lunch is a lost cause, but he’s a never retreat, never surrender kind of guy. And me posting this on my blog helps fill in the gap of me having to find my camera, take pictures of my "surprise" and write a post. I'll get to it soon, I promise!

A surprise!

You will have to be patient and wait for it, but we made a few changes on our list of remodels for our home. It's hard not to tackle new projects when you have great minds gathered together with no TV, lol. My parents and my sister and brother-in-law have been staying at the new place the last two nights, so we discussed future plans and most of them were met with "let's do that today" or "tomorrow we can do ...."

I will post pictures of the changes soon. I'm sure some will be surprised that we tackled the projects right now. I know I have been thinking "but we move tomorrow, should we really be doing this now?" hehe.

And thanks to everyone for the support and enthusiasm, I appreciate it very much :)

The rest of the house.

The boys room, I like the contrast of the two colors, two walls are the blue color and two are the beige color.


We let the boys put their hand prints in their closet and left the closet the rooms original blue color. I also put the date we put their hand prints in their, so we can see how they grow :).

This is my bedroom, the color is a bit more green than it looks in the pic, I really like it. It's calming to me, I will probably go with some "beach" theme in here, not overboard, but just a little something so it looks like this color was intentional and not the $5 mistint paint, hehe.

The Laundry room and 1/2 bath, I wanted something bright for this area, it's strangely close to the same color as my bedroom, lol.
And here is L's room, she wanted tons of color so we compromised and made a bouncing ball theme, the circles travel up and down the walls around the room. She loves it, as do I.
We also let L do as she wished with her closet, she also added the date she painted her room too.
A better view of the "balls"

I didn't add a picture of the full bath because it's small and really hard to take a picture of, it's a sage green in there, it will look perfect with the shower curtain I made.

A few pictures.

I just realized that I only took pictures of two rooms, doh! So I guess tomorrow when I go pick up the Rug Doctor, I'll take some more pics :).

First up is the living room with the old paint on the right-side wall and my older sister on the right (though we are currently the same age, ha) and my "little" cousin, that is 6 inches taller than me, on the left. They are painting over the dirty, icky fireplace brick. The "brown" is really a purple color, but it's ok, it's better than before.




Now you can see the room with the walls painted "Ivory" and "cloves" I love. Love. The orange color, though it does have a tiny bit of brown in it that isn't showing up in the pics, it's more "pumpkin pie" than "orange" as it looks here.

Next is the kitchen, which we did nothing to, except make a big fat mess in :)



Here is my sister cleaning up after herself, which was hard to do with all those paint supplies and snacks around.
And the last view of the kitchen, the paint really is yellow, it doesn't fade to white, not sure why it looks like it does. And I'm pretty sure I'll be removing those sunflowers, just a bit too many flowers for my tastes.

I only added the kitchen pictures because I forgot to put them up on my post with all the house pics and it's the only other room I took pictures of, lol.

Oh and I found another picture of the living room, this view is from the other end with my back against the fireplace. I'm trying to show that the front door is now "redbrick" which is actually almost the exact "orange" of the fireplace wall, lol. I apparently can only pick a few random shades of certain colors as you'll see when I post more pics later. (We were going to get a new door right away, but after sanding it and painting it, we'll probably wait a bit, it looks pretty good now).

We are officialy homeowners :)

Last friday at 3:oo p.m., we got the call that the house was officially ours :). After dancing around for a minute, my sister and I jumped in her car and took off over there to get working on the paining. We planned on painting 6 rooms in the house in two-three days, yikes. (pictures to come soon). We arrive and the homeowner is still there packing and moving, sigh. But two rooms were empty so we decided to take those two over and maybe that would put a fire under his butt and get him moving, totally worked too ;).

He did say that we didn't put the dishwasher in the contract so he planned on taking it, but the contract did have a a/c unit in it and he didn't have one, it was a family members, so if we wanted to keep the dishwasher we needed to say never mind to the a/c unit. We happily agreed since we are lucky enough to get my sisters a/c until instead, ha. I didn't feel like arguing with him, I just wanted him out of my house. He then asked if we wanted to keep the carpet or if we planned on replacing it. I said that we will replace it eventually but not now and he said "okay, I guess it can stay" um, who are you? weirdo.

We painted and painted and painted our little hearts out and it is now complete. A few minor touch ups and a little finishing then I wont have to paint for quite awhile :). We already started moving too, though we don't plan on bringing the furniture over until Saturday when we have a uHaul and some helpers.

As you can imagine, I have a very busy week ahead of me, but I'll post some pictures as soon as I can. This week also starts the kids online school, which I need to finish choosing the curriculum for and I'm still working part-time from home, so we'll see how often I get on here :).

Shameless post :)

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me :)

I think this year I'll be getting the most spoiled for my birthday, lol. I get a new house, my mom and my sister will be coming up to help me paint (Sabra, you are more than welcome to join us ;) ) and I'm getting over the flu I've had the last couple of days, woot!

Less than a week until closing, let's hope the money transfers quickly so we can get the keys the next day and start painting and painting!!

Pictures!

The home inspection was yesterday so I took some pictures of the house :)

First is the living room, I didn't get a close up of the paint, but it's a pretty cool technique, looks like they used rags. I just don't like the colors or that they put it on every single wall! (also, the paint is really darker in person, so keep that in mind).



The sideways laundry room and half bath :)

The hallway leading to the other bathroom and the bedrooms, more paint, oh and you can see it a little closer on the left.

L's future room, I took pictures of all the walls but figured you got the gist of it here ;). Yes, it does cover the whole ceiling too.

Master bedroom, same paint texture technique as the living room, just in blues. (This paint is also darker in person). A pretty good sized room though, they have a lot of furniture in there so I just showed the one corner.
The boys bedroom, I'm thinking of leaving one wall this color and painting the other three, or maybe leaving the bottom half of the wall this color, not sure yet. Any ideas?

Remember that news I told you to stay tuned for?

Well, I can now say what it is.

We are under contract to purchase our first home!!! Woohooo :)

It is a 3 bd, 1.5 ba, 1200 sq ft house. Our closing date is August 9th and then I plan on painting several rooms, luckily my sister volunteered to come help, yay. The sellers love texture and color and pattern, not so much my favorite thing for walls.

One regret though, the smallest bedroom, the one L will take over, would be perfect for a baby, it has a Winne The Pooh mural painted on all the walls and ceiling, it looks fantastic, but not ideal for a 10, going on 16 year old girl ;). So we'll be covering it up. I'll be sure to take some pics first, because they really did a good job with it.

Happy dancin' at our house!

Wordless Wednesday, who says "baby" wearing is just for moms?

Not surprised.

I said suck, one time (well, now twice) and that was the only "bad" word, ha.

Go here to see how your blog rates.

Post formerly known as Wordless Wednesday.

When I went to bed last night, I decided to post a picture of LittleMan sleeping and it would be easy because it's Wordless Wednesday, I wouldn't have to think of anything to say. But as I sit here this morning, I want to talk :P

I have gained some weight lately, really sucks. My pants/shorts are all tight, I don't like how I look in the mirror, I feel fat. I'm not fat, but I'm squishy and I really hate being squishy, add a few (or 5) extra pounds and I'm not a happy girl.

I went to the Dr. yesterday, I have been having a few, or a lot, of health issues lately and finally decided to go in and get myself fixed up. They always weigh you when you go in, I guess they want to torture you a bit. So I have officially gained weight, it's not just in my head. Hopefully the new medicine I received will help me feel well enough to start running again. I know my butt and thighs hope so :)

And here is the picture I had planned on posting. It's one of LittleMan and his friends watching over him.



and, yes, he is sleeping with all those beady little eyes staring at him.

Run a go go, a no go.

I'm sure most of you noticed that I didn't meet my 100 mile goal, but I am not giving up. I haven't had time to really work out lately and my saggy butt is proof ;). I decided to start working out at home again, more of a stress relief than for toning, but something to get me back into a routine.

I discovered yoga today on someone else's blog (sorry, I can't remember who or I would link you) and decided to try it out yesterday. All of the lessons are free and they have new ones every day, amazing! It is a great stress reliever and a surprisingly good workout!! I plan on doing yoga several times a week, if not daily, from now on. I also hope to start running again soon, maybe when I'm back down to one job rather than two.

Oh and for some good news, I only have 7 workdays left with my second job :). I'm very excited to be home more and be off the phones, hehe. The job really isn't that bad, really, I just want to be home. So, July 7th will mark my days as a WAHM and not a WAHM/WOHM mom :) woot!

Cool!

Sitting on the couch the other day, I was sick and didn't do much other than that, and I heard a really loud noise. I looked out the back window and saw an airplane, really, really low to the ground and it was turning around, coming back our way. L came in and asked if she could take a pic, I said "sure, take a bunch in case some don't turn out." She did a pretty good job :)

And we all survived Stu being gone for four nights. Well, that's what I'm telling the authorities anyway, you haven't seen any photos of the kids recently have ya? ;) hahaha.

Unfit to be a single mom.

I don't know how those of you with dh's that travel a lot or those of you that are single moms do it. I have help and I am still exhausted! My husband is gone for 4 days and nights and I'm not looking forward to it :(.

I think I may have a brain meltdown before the week is over ;).

I'm hoping to take the kids to the "fun" park later this week, so I'll post some pictures of that soon. Pictures always make the blog more fun, lol.

Oh, and the exciting news I was going to share earlier was that we were going to buy a house but are waiting a few more months, so I still hope you stay tuned, it will just take a bit longer than planned ;)