Piggy-tails

Recently my little girl has been obsessed with pigtails (you'll remember a post I did a while back with her and her Dora doll both with pigtails). I don't do them often because I don't wash her hair every night and trying to go back to having her hair down after a whole day of pigtails makes it all kinky and lay weird. Well, when I did her hair a few days ago and did pigtails for her, she kept asking me why I never did my hair that way.

So on Saturday, I decided that since I wasn't going anywhere, I would do my hair the same way so we could be twins (she likes to call it twiner-sames when two things are alike). She walked around saying "Mommy and I are twiner-sames with our piggy-tails" all day. I didn't feel like I looked my best, but it was worth it just to have her so excited. The things we do as parents to make our children happy. Here are a few pictures for you to laugh at:


(She's by far the cutest!)




Although I felt a little silly, it was fun and I would do it again just to see the smile on her face.

Have You Ever Seen Anything This Cute???

I know all mothers are biased towards their children, but I really think mine are special. They are the cutest things when they want to be. I just love them and can't imagine life without them.

Today we were all getting ready to head out the door and I just had to snap a few pictures of my beautiful children.



Are they cute or what? They are just so super sweet and love each other (most of the time). They were all dressed and ready to go and gave me their best smiles despite how many pictures I was taking trying to get that "perfect picture."



This is my Zachary. He's very sweet and very helpful. He is so smart and absolutely loves school. His favorite shirt is his school dragon shirt that he wears every single Friday.



I can't help but laugh at some of his smiles. He knows that I always take tons of pictures, because I don't do it that often, so he's ready with his "ok, take the picture already smile" most of the time. But every once in a while I can get him to loosen up and catch a few precious pictures like these.



And this is my Hailey. Isn't she something? If you know her, you know that she's both the sweetest angel and biggest terror all rolled into one. And yet, I love her to death. Although she's the biggest girly girl, she still like to play trucks, balls, and such with her brother, whom she absolutely idolizes. She so much wants to be just like him and doing just what he's doing.



She's a bit of a tease (ok, that's an understatement), but she's really a good girl deep down. She loves all things pink, princess, and ladybug. She loves to shop, in fact she'll be the first to tell you that her favorite store is Target.



Even though my kids fight, like most normal kids do, they do have those times when they are so sweet to each other. One of those moments is every night when we get them to bed. They ALWAYS have to give each other a love and kiss goodnight. If you think you can get away without them doing it, think again.

And then there are other times during the day, when I catch them playing well together and just plain being cute. Recently, they have both been into playing Jeremiah's XBOX. And today as I was working, I got them set-up playing soccer - Zach plays, Hailey just holds a controller and plays the part of the computer on the opposite team. It's cute because she really thinks she's playing and gets so excited when her team does something good. Well, as I walked by to put the laundry away, I saw the two of them laying on the floor, right next to each other. They were giggling and talking about what they were doing. It was so cute.



I wish all times were like this, but I guess I'll be content to see a times like these every now and again.



Those are my special kids. Cute as can be. I love them dearly and think they are the most precious things on earth!

Valentine's and Temple Open House

I've been a bit bad at keeping up with blogging the last few days. I wish I had a reason why, but there really isn't one. I guess my only reason is that I decided to "take it easy" these last few days and not worry so much about the little things. Boy has it been nice! I've enjoyed a very lazy and laid back weekend and now that I'm somewhat recharged, I'm ready to get back at it.

Since I've not updated in a while, this post will be a collage of a few recent experiences in order to catch up.

The first I wanted to fill you in on was our Valentine's. Jeremiah and I actually celebrated a little early on Friday night at the ward YM/YW's Fundraiser which was a Valentine's dinner, dance, etc. night. Before you ask, no we didn't do any dancing - that's really not our thing. But the food was good and we enjoyed watching some of the more talented dancer couples in our ward go to it out on the dance floor. We were priviledged enough to have Kylie and Jedd come down to watch the kids (which was part of their Christmas gift to us last year). They watched our two rugrats and I'm sure went home exhausted! Anyone who knows our kids knows that they can run you ragged in a very short amount of time. Aunt Kylie painted Hailey's toenails, which was a big hit - in fact, she's run around without socks on ever since. And Uncle Jedd played XBOX with Zach, which he absolutely loves to do! The kids had such a fun time and thanks so much Kylie and Jedd for coming all the way down to watch them.

Our actual Valentine's Day was fun too. We started out the morning with a big breakfast, then headed to watch Jeremiah's basketball game at the church. The kids have really been into watching Daddy play basketball and had a blast! After that we headed home, had lunch, then basically just relaxed all afternoon. We had big plans to go out and do something fun, but it started snowing and we all decided we'd rather stay home where it was warm instead. The kids had fun opening up their Valentine boxes they made at Nana and Papa's house and seeing all the fun valentine's and of course, eating all the yummy candy! The evening was pretty uneventful too, but very relaxing, which is just the way we like it!

Today both Jeremiah and the kids have school off for President's Day (one of the perks of being married to a teacher). I, of course, had to work, so there wasn't much going on this morning. This afternoon, however, was lots of fun. We took the kids up to the Draper Temple Open House. It was a lot of waiting and walking, but we had a wonderful time. The kids have been very excited about this day since they have had to wait outside during weddings and stay home with others while we've done temple work, so the thought of actually being able to go inside themselves was really exciting. They loved looking at the little brochure they gave us and finding the rooms that matched the pictures. It was a really long time - we got there at 1:30 and didn't get finished until 5:00, but the kids were really, really good. In fact, I'm not even sure those were my kids because 3 1/2 hours is a record for being good for them. Just kidding. They did really great and we rewarded them by taking them out to dinner. It was so much fun spending the day together.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of any of these events - I seem to be forgetting my camera a lot lately. But I promise I'll take some more pictures soon and post them for you all to see!

Gaming and 100th Day of Kindergarten!

I couldn't resist taking some pictures of Zach. For Christmas, we gave him a Leapster Game System and some games. Little did we know how much he would love it! He spends a lot of time playing it and we don't mind since it teaches him the alphabet, numbers, and things like that.

The other day he asked to play it and when I turned around from working on the computer a few minutes later to check on him, I saw these feet sitting up on the side of the recliner.



He was really intent on his game because he didn't even notice me snapping these other pictures.




I'm so glad to see the gift we bought is so well appreciated and loved. He even showed his Leapster to his cousin Ashton during a ride in the car and it was fun to hear the both of them talk about the game and how to play it. I think he's got Ashton convinced he needs one too!

On a different note, yesterday was the 100th day of school for Zach. He was so excited to go and celebrate. They had a little party and did all sorts of fun things. They came out of their classroom sporting these nifty 100 days of school hats. Zach was so cute, I had to take a picture to post.





Zach was so excited to tell us about all of the different things he chose to put on his hat - stamps, macaroni, stickers, cotton balls, etc. They had such a fun day and it was so fun to hear him tell us all about it! Has it really been 100 days that he's been in Kindergarten? Time flies by so fast!

Dressed to Kill

A couple of days ago I was standing at the sink emptying the dishwasher. Hailey was upstairs playing and Zach was watching cartoons. I heard Hailey come down the stairs and come clomping into the kitchen. I could hear that she had on some of her dress-up shoes due to the little clomping that the plastic shoes make on the kitchen floor. I was working on putting things away, so I didn't turn around right away. I didn't hear much for a few seconds, so I turned around to see what she was doing. When I did, I saw this:




Yes, that's my little girl, dressed up in her hat, shoes, and purse and wielding a squirt gun. You see, we have been having fights lately (the kids and I) about going outside to play. They want to go out and play in the snow, but with the frigid temperatures, I think it's too cold. So that day we had compromised and decided to pull in a few squirt guns to play with inside the house. Not my favorite toys (I hate guns) but after a crazy morning, I was just happy to not have to hear about wanting to go outside for a while. I had forgotten about the squirt guns since it had been a few hours earlier and about lost it when I turned around and saw Hailey all dressed up with her gun. I had to grab the camera and get a few pictures.

I guess you could say she was dressed to kill or in this case, dressed to squirt!

I took the big plunge!

Ok, I got so many responses for my little couponing write up in my last blog, that I had a thought about starting a whole new blog to concentrate just on that kind of thing. So after checking with a few people, who assured me it wasn't too crazy of an idea, I took the big plunge and did it!

I'm really excited about this new blog. I'm figuring it will be a lot easier to post all of the shopping, food storage, and emergency preparedness stuff on there instead of fighting for space with this family blog. I have all of the details over on the new blog as to how I'm thinking of doing things. And of course I want input from everyone who's interested - I want the blog to be more of a place all of us contribute to so that everyone can get excited and learn new ideas and techniques.

So you're asking, what is the web address to this new blog right? Well, here it is:

http://www.allprepared.blogspot.com

Nothing too fancy, so it should be easy to remember. Thanks to all of you who encouraged me to do it (especially my patient husband who is very supportive of my new hobby!), I don't think I would have had the guts to do it without all of the support. I really think this is going to be a lot of fun for all of us!

Am I Still Alive???

Yes, I'm still alive.

Hard to tell since I haven't posted in forever. Seems like Januaries and Februaries are always slow and boring months for me. I always hate these months, at least until Valentine's Day. But this year has been a bit different. I'm not so sure on the change, other than the fact that I seem to be keeping myself out of the "winter blah" mode somehow and find that I'm being more productive as a result.

Something that I know that has contributed to my upbeat attitude is something that might make you laugh - couponing. I've really been into couponing lately and anyone that talks to me knows that is all I talk about. But the truth is that I really am saving a ton of money, building our storage, and it's even become somewhat of a hobby for me. Now when was the last time you heard of a hobby that saved money???

Now I know that some of you are saying, oh man, I don't have time for that. And it's true, it does take time. But I've found that by putting in a little bit of time, you can save a whole lot of money. Since time is money, I guess it's a fair trade - you can't get something for nothing, so if want to save the money, you have to put in a bit of time. Luckily, there are suggestions and methods out there that help reduce time spent and endless clipping of coupons.

For those of you contemplating the big jump into the world of bargain shopping, I'll just share with you a couple of my recent experiences as encouragement:

- Just 3 weeks ago, Albertson's had a huge sale.
Items purchased = I won't list them all, but it was over 100 items
Total Spent Out of Pocket = $50
Total Saved = $260

- This week at Walgreen's
Items purchased = 5 12-pks of pepsi products, 2 bags of Tostito's chips
Total Spent Out of Pocket = $10.30
Total Saved = $18.63

- Today at Smith's
Items purchased = 10 cans of Hormel chili, 3 bags of Quaker Quakes Snacks
Total Spent Out of Pocket = $2.64
Total Saved = $11.87


So if you're doubting whether this really works, then let me tell you - IT DOES! I've kept my grocery budget as is for the past few months and have really been "stocking up" on things to get our family's year supply completed. Now that I'm completely stocked, I will just be in "refill mode" and need only buy the items as needed when they go on sale. This will be exciting because I'm interested to see how much I save in purchasing groceries each month.

If you are embarking on this whole thing and are interested in any information, let me know. I typed up a little instruction sheet on how I do things for someone who recently asked and I'd be happy to share it with you too! Just email me or post a comment and I'll get it to you.

So this is pretty much what has kept me from keeping up on my blogging. I'm having way too much fun saving money! I promise to take more pictures and share more about the family and kids better in the next little while.