Fazoli's.. Real Italian? Who cares??

Head on over to http://www.freespaghetti.com/ to register for Fazoli's coupons. Right now they are offering a coupon for a free Kid's meal with the purchase of an Adult entree. Guess what we're doing for New Year's Eve dinner!! So exciting!! :-)

Be safe. Be smart. And most of all - Be HAPPY! Happy New Year!!

HHmmm...

Found these really great blog post today...it hurts 'cause it's true. Nothing like a New Year's Eve kick in the pants!!

http://blog.aqufit.com/post/2009/12/29/I-Call-Bull.aspx

What a great day!

Today I:

- scored a free pre-lit Christmas tree (freecycle)

- purchased boots for Riley AND Brenna and snow pants for Riley - ALL three for under $10! (Kids consignment shop I found today!)

- found a small Little Tikes table and chairs for the kids for $15 (consigment shop!)

- I got this shirt for Christmas from my sis-in-law (it didn't arrive until today!)

If you aren't sure what this is all about, click here.

- didn't have to cook and ate a delicious meal at Outback Steakhouse with the fam thanks to second part of above sis-in-law's Christmas gift (An outback giftcard!)

All in all it's been a really awesome day!

Christmas 2009: the year of the Snuggie

Hi! How are you? How was your Christmas? We had an awesome Christmas! We spent Christmas Eve at Jeff's parents, Christmas Day we spent at home and I hosted our first official Christmas dinner at our house! And the day after Christmas my mom came up to spend time with us. It was a wonderful, exhausting three days of celebrating!

I was truly spoiled this year and got some amazing surprises. Before Christmas, anytime I would ask Riley what he was getting me for Christmas he always had the same answer, "a pink Snuggie". I had never expressed a desire to own a Snuggie so I'm not sure where he got that gift idea, but sure enough he delivered on his promise and I got a pink Snuggie. Jeff got a blue Snuggie from me and Riley got a Lightening McQueen Snuggie. Poor Brenna didn't get her own - they don't make baby Snuggies! As cheesey as they are, they are WARM! I dare you to wear one, lay down with a good book AND DON'T FALL ASLEEP! It's impossible!

I also got a really nice sewing machine

A Keuring Coffee maker!!!! (I love, love, love this thing. So shiny, so pretty, makes a perfect cup of coffee....ahhhhhh heaven in a cup! )And I also got Band Hero! (My guitar is the pretty red one!) Now I can pretend I'm Taylor Swift and 'play' my guitar while singing, "Love Story"!!

Now I'm off to search for snow boots. I made the mistake of not picking any up before Christmas and now everyone is sold out of boys snow boots! Even online! I REALLY don't want to pay $30 for a pair of boots he'll wear for a year, but he needs them for playing outside at school. Wish me luck!!

**bloggers note, I found some pretty sweet deals on ebay for boots and snow pants! The countdown begins!**

December Daily: 12/23

One of the best things about having Riley in preschool is all the little crafts he brings home. My absolute favorite is the angel ornament, made from his hand print. PRECIOUS!!

p.s. thanks for the comments/emails from yesterdays post. It's nice to know I'm not alone :-)

December Daily: 12/22

Snowing outside, wrapping presents and watching the thousands of Christmas movies from the DVR. The kids have been BRATTY lately (isn't that whole, "I'm telling Santa!" threat suppose to work on them this time of year??) and God literally answered my prayers when they both laid down for a nap at the same time. Do you ever have those days (or weeks!) when you just feel like everyone else has it together except for you? Every other mother has their children on a schedule - wake up at a certain time, eat nutritious meals and snacks, nap and go to bed at a certain time - while your life seems to just be continued chaos? Do you ever feel like you are drowning in dishes, laundry, and toys? Do you ever just stop and say, "Really God? Are you sure you wanted to trust ME with these children? Cause I don't have a clue what I'm doing!"?

Well, I have, and do, feel this way. Not wanting pity - just understanding. :-) Going to make some hot chocolate, take a breath and enjoy the silence.

Lord, Give me patience to handle my Blessings!

December Semi-Daily: Catching Up

So what have we been up to lately?

Taking pictures in our Christmas Jammies

Playing.

Getting our heads stuck in Combos bags.

Cuddling.

Baking.

More cuddling.

And Cuddling in Snuggies.

December Daily: 12/12

Riley and I went to Pottery Schmottery with my Goshen Mom's Group and painted some pottery! (Brenna did not go because taking her would have been the closest thing to taking a bull into a china shop. My girl is not dainty!) I painted a plate that we'll put our Christmas cookies on for Santa and Riley painted some ornaments to give as presents. They are firing our pieces now and we'll pick them up Saturday. I'll post pics of that when we get them!

December Daily: 12/11

Since Brenna is so little, she really doesn't get Christmas yet. So I didn't worry much about getting her a lot of presents. I did take advantage of an awesome sale at The Children's Place and got her two of the cutest shirts for $6 a piece! I love you my little super girl!

December Daily: 12/10

In the play-doh we can build a snowman...

December Daily: 12/9

One of my new favorite things about Christmas is seeing all the little touches in decorations that show we are a house with little ones. I have always LOVED the little Christmas villages and dream of having a big elaborate one someday. But with two little kids I know that would be very impractical - I can't imagine having something so tempting for them to play with and have to tell them "NO!" constantly. So this year, I found a little village set at the Dollar Tree. I have quite a cute set up complete with a grocery store, Town Hall, school, candy shop, and several other little buildings. With each piece costing just a buck, I can let Riley play with them without being worried about him breaking it. The other day he was sitting on a stool playing with the little people, rearranging my houses and telling his own little story. When he hopped down, I noticed that my fire station was being attacked by giant goldfish crackers. :-)

December Daily: 12/8

Santa's Little Helper! One of the things I was most excited about when we got Lilly was being able to dress her in little outfits. Our yellow lab Lucy is 70 lbs and just didn't cooperate with dressing up. ;-) So I picked up this little elf outfit from Target and viola! instant cute! Lilly hated it. It had little bells on it so I think it freaked her out. It was cute while it lasted!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

December Daily: 12/7

The Tiny B has been an absolute gem lately. ("...truly outrageous, truly truly truly outrageous...Whoa!" - name that 80's cartoon theme song!) She really doesn't do anything except cry and want me to hold her. Last night she went to bed at 6 - extremely early for her! - so I thought she'd sleep it off and be fine. But no. We've been up since 3 AM. One second she'll be her funny, smiley self - then BAM! insta-crab. It's like Dr. Jekyll and Baby Hyde. After some chocolate milk, oatmeal and cartoons I finally got her to go back to bed. But now I'm wide awake!! Here's our menu for this week - I'm not sure exactly what meal will be cooked on what days, but here's the gist of it.

• Chili (a weekly winter staple at our house)
• Tacos
• hot dogs, mac & cheese and baked beans (this is a special meal Jeff and I used to eat when we first got married. We were talking about it last week so I decided to fix this little throw back treat as a surprise. Mix your mac and cheese with the beans....it's SO GOOD!)
• Fettuccine Alfredo
• Beef Stew Ala Pioneer Woman
• BBQ Chicken
  

I've also been storing lots of cookie recipes that I want to try this week. The guys Jeff works with will LOVE me when they get to eat them all! (Because Lord knows I'm not keeping them all in my house!) What's for dinner at your house?

December Daily: 12/6

Have you seen the website Cake Wrecks? YOU SHOULD! I got sucked into this website last night and couldn't leave. Too much funny awesome-ness all in one site! My favorite was the cake turkeys - which end up looking like poo/penises.

I give you the turkey poo-wang:Visit this website. Belly laughs will follow!

December Daily: 12/5

At least once a month I get a chance to hang out with the best ladies known to mankind. What started out as a book club (because of our mutual love of Twilight) has become an awesome, awesome friendship. We laugh (a lot), cry, talk, whine, complain, and celebrate together. It's wonderful to know what true unconditional friendship feels like. Oh, and they are pretty good at picking out books too!

Joy - the newbie who also is an AMAZING hair stylist!

Michaele - my fellow curly girl and the incredibly photogenic one.

Robin - the mommy. Always, always thinking of others.


Amber - my complete opposite in just about every way (She doesn't like "Glee"!!) But is a dear, dear friend.
(missing from the photos is Sarah who couldn't be with us this month!)

*Cue Golden Girls Theme Song!*
Thank you for being a friend, travel down the road and back again...
Love you girls.

December Daily: 12/4

He's a dancing machine!! Riley loves to dance and has perfected the use of jazz hands.
Play that funky music white boy...

December Daily: 12/3

We are big dog lovers in our house. Riley and I can sit and watch America's Funniest Home Videos and laugh until we are in tears at the silly dog antics. So when I saw this gem at the library, I knew it was one we had to borrow.

We giggled all the way through and will read it over and over before it's returned. Definitely one for the Christmas stocking this year!

December Daily: 12/2

I love new calendars. They are fresh, blank and give me hope that this will be the year when I get it all together. (A mommy can dream - can't she?) Imagine my delight when I stumbled on this very pretty one designed by Brenda Arnall:It's free to download on her blog It's A New Day. Almost too pretty to write on!

December Daily: 12/1

I heard a few friends of mine are doing the daily blog thing in December. And since I'm never one to be left behind - I want to do it too! I really have nothing blog worthy to write about. Today was a pretty busy day for us - preschool, the library, Target (also known as our second home), and Aldi's, then home for pizza and a movie (Thomas and the Magic Railway. Possibly some of Alec Baldwin's best work pre-30 Rock!)

No pictures from today, but here are some from a little while ago. Brenna climbed into Riley's dump truck so he spent a good hour pushing her around. They both had a ball. That's one load you can drop off at my house any day!
And here are the four reasons why my house never seems to stay clean:
But I wouldn't trade any of them for the world! Off to bed - I'll come up with something that has more substance tomorrow! (maybe!)

My Grown-Up Christmas List...

Of things to do! I LOVE this season, but I'm finding my to-do list filled with things that aren't so fun. So here is my FUN grown-up Christmas to-do list. I encourage you to make one of your own and make time to accomplish it!

1.) Take the kids sledding (weather permitting!)
2.) Browse the shops in Shipshewana - I live literally ten minutes from Shipshewana and have been there once! And that was a very brief visit. I can't imagine how beautiful they have it decorated for Christmas!
3.) Visit The Christmas Tree Shop in Mishawaka at least one more time. This is my new all-time favorite store.
4.) Learn how to make Mexican Wedding Cakes - I've heard these are super easy, but have never tried them!
5.) Dance to Christmas music with the kids on a regular basis. Dancing in the kitchen is a daily thing for us, so that shouldn't be hard. :-)
6.) Bundle everyone up and drive around to look at Christmas lights.
7.) Find a new Santa to visit. (as opposed to that creepy missing-finger Santa from the mall!)
8.) Make sugar cookies with Riley and let him decorate.
9.) Watch "Love Actually" a thousand times. My favorite movie ever!
10.) Build a snowman.

I'm sure I'll add many more...but I think this is a good start to my jolly holiday! :-) What are you planning on doing to enjoy this season?

Lilly & the Best Dad Ever

The puppy's official name is Lilly. We thought it went nicely with Lucy (our other dog). She is often called by many other names: Banjo, Charlie, and Little Dog. Brenna just growls at her. ;-) (Speaking of the Tiny B - she's walking!! We weren't sure she'd ever give up crawling, but she's fully mobile on two legs now. Look out!)

She fits in very well with our family and is HILARIOUS to watch! Everyone keeps telling us how much energy Jack Russell's have, but I swear all she does is sleep.
Jeff's boss GAVE us this Thomas the Tank Engine that the kids can ride on. Here is a pic of it in Jeff's car. We're planning on setting it up early Christmas morning so it's the first thing they see. I'm pretty sure they will go CRAZY! I'm not sure if we'll be able to wait that long to give it to them though! It comes with a big track, makes noises and plays music. God Bless you Mark!!! You just made Jeff the best daddy ever - as if there was any doubt of that already.

Liar, liar pants on fire

You know that last post where I said I would blog more because I have something to say?? Yeah, I lied. :-)

But I DO want to say that I went to the midnight showing of New Moon and it was worth every single minute of missed sleep!!

Super Slacker

I can't believe my last post was on my birthday! October 20th! I used to be so good about keeping up...now I'm afraid my facebook addiction consumes most of my computer time. But I will be better! Why? Because I think I have a few things to say. :-) So ya'll come back now, ya here?
I leave you with a picture of our new Jack Russell puppy. She's nameless! We can't decide on one, nothing seems to fit...any suggestions??

Back to School

Today I spent a few hours helping out at Riley's preschool. I was super excited! I thought for sure I'd be able to wow the kids with my talent of being able to recite every single Wiggle song and dance from memory. Unfortunately my talents went unnoticed and I was stuck in the kitchen with a stack of paper and scissors and had to cut out a bazillion squirrels and pumpkins. I understand why they did that though - not only because they don't want to cut out squirrels and pumpkins any more than I do, but within minutes of me joining the class, Riley threw an embarrassing temper tantrum. It seems my son has problems when he can't be line leader and got even more worked up "for my benefit" (as Ms. Johana put it!). But there were some really cute moments:

• During the class the kids pretended to drive cars around the classroom. Ms. Jeanne said, "Are you ready to start your trip?" And my son proudly proclaims, "I'm going to Target!" That's my boy. :-)
• While playing with the plastic food, Ms. Johana asked a little boy, "Do you help make dinner at home?" and he replied, "No, we usually just go to Taco Bell." HA!!

I only signed up to help twice (today as a birthday gift to myself and on Riley's birthday to supply the goodies!) but I think I'll sign up for more!

15 Months (Almost!)

Brenna and her best friend Kitty.

She LOVES corn on the cob!This is how Brenna smiles. Smooshy face!

Tomorrow Brenna will be 15 months!!! It's gone so fast. Love you Brenna Sue!!!

Finding My Groove

It's been almost seven months since I became a stay-at-home-mom. There are a lot of things that really surprise me about this new gig. I certainly wasn't ready for how hard it actually is. When I was working outside the home, we really had no structure as far as routines went. It was always just 'fly by the seat of your pants and hope it all gets done!'. Now that I actually have the time to take care of things in the house, I have spent the past seven months trying to figure out how to actually do it. It's embarrassing to admit it's actually taken me this long to find a groove. I really thought this was something that would happen immediately and without much effort. Even now, when I feel like I sort of have a handle on things, I know I still have a long way to go. I'm curious if anyone has any suggestions on how you get things done?? I'm interested in hearing them all!

I'm still here!

It's been a gazillion years since i've posted anything, so here is a quick update:

• riley is doing an awesome job sleeping in his own bed. he doesn't get up in the middle of the night and no longer feels like he has to sleep with the carrot bat.
  
• he had to get a physical for preschool and they made him wear a gown. it made him so MAD!
• Brenna is as rotten and sweet as ever. Not quite walking, but she certainly is trying. She loves Elmo and Yo Gabba Gabba (particularly Foofa) and is THE BEST cuddler this side of the Mississippi.
  
• 
• we're hoping to go to a local orchard this weekend for their fall festival - more pics to come!
  

Be Prepared.

We're working with Riley AGAIN on sleeping in his own bed. He keeps saying that he doesn't like his room because it's too scary, so Daddy convinced him that sleeping with a (carrot shaped) bat would help protect him. [I've tried to convince him that there is nothing to be afraid of and that mommy wouldn't let anything hurt him, but the boy has an incredible imagination!] We've had to do the 'tough love' approach with bedtime; telling him it's time for bed and that we aren't discussing whether or not he's sleeping in his own bed. He is giving us less hassle but he still gets pretty upset and hearing him tear up and say, "I'll see you in the morning mommy" absolutely breaks my heart! I know it's for his own good but it's hard! This parenting thing is tough! :-)

The Simple Woman's Daybook - September 14th Edition

FOR TODAY...

Outside my window...is a gorgeous day. Clear blue skies and bright sun!

I am thinking...how blessed I am to stay home with my kids and how excited I am about the Mary Kay training I've been in!

I am thankful for...my husband who works hard so that I can stay home.

I am wearing...pink sweats, a gray t-shirt and bare feet!

I am remembering...how cuddly my kids were when they were tiny babies.

I am creating...a blanket and birthday card for my nephew Aiden!

I am going...to be running lots of errands today.

I am reading...A Season of Ice, Think and Grow Rich and Come Before Winter.

I am hoping...that Kanye West will humble himself and apologize!

On my mind...booking, practicing, reading...I'm very much in business mode this morning!

Noticing that...Brenna's hair looks especially red today.

Pondering these words..."The words we choose today can either build up or tear down."

From the kitchen...lots of dishes that need done today!

Around the house...a few projects that need finished.

One of my favorite things...listening to Riley and Brenna interact with each other, even though she can't talk yet.

A few plans for the rest of the week...lots of planning, playing and fun!

From my picture journal...
Read more daybooks at The Simple Woman's Daybook.

The Pooping Spot

Brenna has been hiding when she does her business (which I hear is a sign of getting ready for potty training - YEAH!) Her favorite spot is the little couch in her brother's room. These pictures are from two seperate days when I caught her in her 'pooping spot'. Nice of her to do it right by brother's bed...I think it's payback for all the times he's knocked her down for getting into his trains! I love how in the second picture she has a book in her hand - because who doesn't like a little light reading while taking care of business?

Spreading His Wings

Riley starts preschool on Tuesday. On Sunday, we went to the preschool for the 'meet and greet' and he got to meet his teacher Mrs. Jeanne. He loved being there, loved playing with the fake food (which I made a mental note of for Christmas!) and is so excited about going back. I was completely fine registering him and was very excited to go to the meet and greet. But once we got there it hit me like a ton of bricks. My baby boy is growing up. Soon he's going to have his own little friends and spending time with mommy won't be as cool. So I cried. At the preschool meet and greet.

My job as his mom is to prepare him to be a responsible adult. I want to give him strong roots so when the day comes, he can confidently spread his wings and begin his own life. I understand my purpose in his life and that I'll always be his mommy, I'm just not sure I'm ready for him to grow into my big boy. :-)

Fun-Fun-Fundraising!

Riley's preschool is doing their fundraiser! Being the SuperMom that I am, I want to raise as much as possible. I've scanned the brochures - let me know if you'd like me to email the images for better viewing! Check it out! If you want anything, I can guarantee hand delivery by the cutest 3 year old this side of the Mississippi! (And maybe his 1 year old helper too!) It has to be turned in by 9/11. For my out of town friends, payment can be made at the time of delivery.