A poem

No Title
A woman came to my home today
To watch everything I do and say.
She came in and said, " Have these floors been swept?",
And, "Is this the way your house is kept?".

She judged my house and noted things to be done
By the length of the list there must have been a ton.
Dishes, windows, fan blades to dust,
My refrigerator cleaned out and sterilized a must!

When she was done with the house, she turned on me,
With a magnifying glass she said, "Let me see."
"Your make-up is not done and your hair is a mess."
"Did you think of style, when you got up to dress?"

"Your arms are too flabby, your feet to big,
You slouch, your tummy sticks out like a pig?
You move too slow, you don't do enough!"
I must say her critiques were really quite rough.

She did not note the time I spent
With my little girl and how much it meant.
She did not care when I listened to my son
About the things at school that he had done.

She did not think that dinner time was nice,
She was too busy saying, "This is missing a spice."
She did not write down when I listened to a friend,
Or was quick to help a heart on the mend.

All that mattered was the things you could see
And if I measured up to the woman next to me.
The lives I would shape and touch did not matter,
The questions were superficial like, "Would you get any fatter?"

By the end of the day I felt really small,
And that really my life didn't matter at all.
Would you let somebody treat you that way?
"Of course not!", I hope is what you would say.

Then why are you that woman you let in your home,
To judge yourself with a fine tooth comb?
Remember do not criticise or beat yourself up,
If in your sink there sits a dirty cup.

Think of all the good that you do,
From listening and caring, to tying a shoe.
Make sure you give credit and realize,
You are the one that touches many lives.
By Me

* Just a little side note. I am not talking about my mother in law, that's what my husband thought when I read this to him. I was just thinking that as women sometimes we can be really hard on ourselves. I wanted to do some fun things for myself today, but I kept thinking "Oh, I can't leave these dishes, etc. ect. So I sat down and wrote this poem. All you women out there are amazing and I am including myself in that.

Church at home

Church was cancelled today, due to weather problems. Don and I decided we should try to do something at home. It was not 3 hours long, but we did pretty good. Don picked out some short clips off of the FHE video. We would watch one and then ask the kids some questions to make sure they were paying attention and got the point behind it. We did a little role playing, bared our testimonies, and read a small scripture and sang a song. All in all I think that it went well. You never know how much sinks in until later.

The kids are down for a nap, I think we might write letters and color church pictures latter. Oh, and I get to torment Don with soup today. Ahh, ha, ha, ha!

Our Living room is like an onion, it happens in layers

Well we have come a long way in our living room. We are getting closer to the end, but I thought I'd take you on the journey.

We start at the beginning. With our green and brown paint and the one light in the entry.

















Then we painted and installed more lights.










Then we put in crown molding.










Next came a chair rail and a different color paint.










This last weekend we added curtains.
I love watching it change and come together!

Saturday Projects

Today we worked on a couple of projects. (WARNING THIS IS A LONG ENTRY. if you want to know the basic concept, just read the first sentence of every paragraph).

Don made my first two rotating can racks. I was going to make them out of cardboard, but Don didn't want the homeless feel. So these are out of pressed wood, which we probably won't use next time. Do thinks there ugly, but I love them! Each has four rows and each row holds 11 cans. I told him we only have four more sets to make.

The other project was unpacking the last two boxes. They just so happened to be my craft stuff. This picture doesn't do my desk justice. It does look soooo much better. I should have done a before and after picture. I also put together these wire racks. We are going to make a faux cabinet to kinda go over it. (I'll take pictures when we do it and then it will make sense). I love being organized I want to go to the container store some time. I am kinda sad, I didn't feel like I had enough storage bins and my labeler is out of label stuff. I will be really excited when we build the cabinet shell. I love closing doors to visual clutter. Okay, I am a little off the deep end.

It was a good Saturday.

Let it snow

I guess this is the most snow Knoxville has seen in some time. It is the top story in all the news reports. We're suppose to 4-6 inches. Don and I thought yeah right, but when we woke-up this morning there was a ton of snow outside.

We had this great idea to go sledding in our backyard down our slope, using our trash can lids. Well, it didn't work the lids weren't smooth enough. Here Don is trying to get Josh started, and Josh wasn't so sure this was a good idea. After we gave up, we started throwing snowballs and Josh took one in the face. He was not a happy camper. Holly on the other hand loved it. She was laughing and throwing these little clumps of snow. Josh came back after I finished the first snowman and helped decorate it. I have to give it to the kids my hands felt awful, I was wearing knit gloves. Holly had the same kind on and Josh had none. They did finally give in and went back inside.

Don and I shoveled our walk and deiced it. It was our exercise of the day, unfortunately it is snowing again and the drive is covered again. This is serious stuff, so serious that church was canceled for tomorrow. All of those that are reading this from Utah and Idaho please don't laugh. This is a serious four inches.

By the way...

By the way thank you for all your comments about the weight lose. It makes me feel really good and it's almost as awesome as fitting into my clothes again. THANK YOU EVERYONE!

Miracles do happen!

So, the other day when I was putting on my pants my shirt got tucked into them. I looked down and I could see my feet, not my toes, but my FEET! Now I am not saying that all the bulge is gone, but it is shrinking.

I left my shirt tucked in. I haven't done that for so long, I can't even remember. Here's a picture. Sorry about my legs. I had one knee bent, but here it just looks like I have to pee.

It was bound to happen.

Okay, so today is weigh in day. After being on Weight Watchers for 20 weeks I finally had a gain instead of a lose. I gained 0.4 pound. That's the sad news. The good news was my reaction. I didn't want to say forget it, pass the chocolate cake! I actually wanted to know what I did wrong, and honestly I don't think I did anything terrible different. I have been exercising more, and I had a big lose last week. So, I am going to keep on tracking, exercising, and being proud of myself. I have come a long way and the journey isn't over yet.

I am setting new goals (since I finished my last ones). In February I want to loose 5 pounds and get heavier weights to lift. If anyone has any that they're not using and I could use until you're ready that would be awesome. Anything over 5 pounds. I also have a longer term goal of losing 40 pounds by the first week in April and to finish a 5K in April that they are doing at Josh's school. Just putting that out there. It always feels more solid when you tell someone and write it down.

Before and after

These are the pictures that made me think that I need to change my life style in regards to exercise and eating.
BEFORE: These first two

After : These second two.

I still am on my journey, but this is a good mile stone.

My rewarding Saturday

This Saturday was a good one for me. I figured out how to make my homemade pancakes extra fluffy, thank you food channel (I am addicted). It's all about the egg whites and a kitchen aid, I love mine. I also made Julies buttermilk syrup it's dangerous! I can only make it every now and then or else I would never loose weight. The family all went bowling. I was for sure that Josh was going to beat us. He ended up with an 89, two spares! I barely won with 95, I even beat Don, who I guess was having an off day. With the kids it makes the game take a little longer so one is enough which helps the pocketbook. We went home, put the kids down and now it was my time.

I decided to reward myself for my weight lose by getting a hair cut. I am terrible about describing what I want to the hair dresser so this isn't exactly what I was going for but it will work. (It is really raining today, so my bangs aren't doing there thing any more it was working for church)

Then while I was at the mall I went and got my free monthly Godiva chocolate. I love deals! Sorry no picture, it's in my tummy.

Next I went to The Limited, because I had a coupon for $15 off of $15. I was so excited. It was a win-win situation. They didn't have anything that wasn't on sale that was 15 dollars, so I got a shirt that was marked down to $19. Now the other win is the store did get me sucked in, but I did have Christmas money. They had a 60% section where you could take an additional 60% off the clearance item. I ended up getting 2 more shirts. If I had gotten these items when they were brand new it would have cost me $108.50. If I had gotten them when they were mark down it would have been $36.88. I got them with a coupon on super clearance and it cost me $12.35. I love a good deal, and yes I do need new clothes that fit better.

Next I went to WalGreens in stock-up mode. I got this stuff for about$20 dollars, oh there is a candy bar missing, Don ate it. Here's the break down:

(2)Neosporin on sale 2 for $8

(2) Wet Ones on sale 2 for $4

used

(2) Neosporin coupons each $3 off

(2) Wet Ones coupons each .75 cents off

Total $5 and got $4 in Rapid Rewards (RR)

(4) Vicks NyQuil/Dayquil on sale $5 each

(2) Mars candy's on sale .39 cents ( had to can't have more items than coupons and RR count as coupons)

Also used $4 RR from first transaction

Total was $12.70 and got $10 in RR

(2) Children's Tylenol on sale 2 for $10

(1)Mars candy on sale .39 cents

Used $10 RR from transaction above

Total was 1.35 (that tax thing gets you) and got $3 in RR

(2) Kellogg's Raisin Bran on sale $1.99 each

(1) Mars candy on sale . 39cents

Used $3 RR from above and $1 off 2 Kellogg's coupon

Total was .72 cents

Total cost $77.30

Total I paid $20.38

Total saved $56.92

Did I need all that stuff, yep, minus the candy but I will stash it away and give it as surprises to my husband. Did it take along time at the store, nope. I met this really helpful cashier that showed me everything I was looking for. Did I have to keep getting in line, nope. That same cashier worked the beauty counter and even helped me figure out what order to put my coupons in, we had a great time laughing. I love deals! What does take time cutting and organizing my coupons, but as far as my game plan I just got to Southern Savers and go under Walgreen. They have it all figured out for me.

I then went on to Kroger to get my free stuff (again Southern Savers) and ended up buying pasta too, because it was on sale for .88 cents, but this post is long enough so I won't go into that.

He didn't even know what happened.

On Thursday, Josh woke up and I told him we were going to the doctors and it was going to be special. (Yeah, I know I am such a liar) I told him he got to wear comfy clothes and was so lucky, because he was going to get to have apple juice for breakfast (my kids never get juice, I am too cheap!). Not only that, but they were going to give him a special drink at the doctors office. Woohoo! My plan was going well, until little miss Holly was like, "Hey Josh, where is your food? Mommy why doesn't Josh get food?" He was totally sucked into my happy-yeah-this is going to be the greatest attitude that he didn't notice there was no breakfast.

We dropped off the tattle teller at a friends and on to the doctors office. It was a children's center so it was cheery, with tons of toys and cool airplanes hanging from the ceiling. They brought him in the back and the nurse gave him a special bracelet to get his Popsicle at the end. He got his happy juice-life was good. (and he was funny. Pretending his hands were ducks and talking to each other than totally laughing. The whole BLAAHHH kinda laugh. He couldn't even say his own name) Life was good until after the tubes were put in and the anodes taken out.

Josh woke up in a darker room, an ivy mysteriously in his hand, and mom was no where to be found. He calmed down once I got there and rocked him and layed with him. He fell asleep. But I hope it is true what the nurse told me. She said the happy juice acts as a 3 hour temporary amnesia. That way I will still be a great mom that he can trust, and not an evil doer that tricks and lies to him. Ah-ha-ha-ha!

WAAAHHHHOOOOO!

I am way excited. I went to weight in today. And I reached not 1, but 3 goals. Yeahhhhh!!
If you look to the right of my blog you will see a biggest loser section. All those little percents have added up and now there is 19% less of me. I lost 3.6 pounds this week. Making me hit 33.4 pounds down. I also reached, and went over, my weight lose goal for January, and got lower since before I got pregnant with Josh. Plus reaching my 30 pound goal. Now on to 40 pounds and finishing a 5K. I am so excited. I might post a before and after picture. Stay tuned!

Where are your boots and hat?

So when we got home today our little CO2 detector kept going off and telling us that there was carbon monoxide in the house. We were unsure what to do next. Don said that it could be picking up the oil burning off on our new systems, but it just boiled down to being safe instead of sorry. So I called the non-emergency line, then I called our cute grandma and grandpa neighbors (so they wouldn't freak out) and then I told our kids (so they wouldn't freak out). Because we told the kids the house wasn't on fire, they got to enjoy the whole thing. They counted the lights on the trucks and sang a song about a fire truck. They even quoted a kids book they have about firemen.

When the kids finally got a chance to talk to the firemen, Josh asked, "Where are your boots and hats?" I mean come on aren't they suppose to be in full uniform at ALL times. This little set back didn't rain on their parade. In the end the firemen agreed it was probably the new unit and it was better to be safe then sorry.

Oh, your mistaken!

Now this might look like an ugly part of our garage, but you are mistaken. It is our brand new HVAC system that Don installed ALLLL day on Saturday. He promises me our power bill will be cut in half. Please let him be right!

Baby it's cold outside

We have been having nice balmy weather. The high yesterday was 27 degrees. For this California girl that is COLD!! The kids have loved seeing it snow the few times it has, but no playing outside it is just too cold. I am really, not kinda, but really afraid to see our next power bill. Will blog for food!

Josh's first primary talk ever!

This was Josh's first talk at church. Mommy helped him picked out pictures. He told me about the pictures and I wrote notes on the back. This is the trial run at home. I was so proud of him.

What made him do that?

I got a pressure cooker for Christmas. I pressure cooked a roast last week, using my pressure cooker for the first time. At the top of the pressure cooker there is this little knob thing, called a peacock, on the lid that will raise and let out steam and a little whistle to keep the pressure regulated.

My kids didn't know what to make of this. Mostly they just stayed out of the kitchen. Josh though, had to ask me something and ventured into the kitchen. Suddenly the peacock whistled and Josh covered his ears for a split second and then covered his crotch and ran out of the room. (sorry if I offend anyone) I thought, how the heck did he know to protect himself and why? I couldn't stop cracking up. I'm laughing right now and it happened before New Years.

Holly's answer

For dinner tonight we had teriyaki chicken over rice and stir fry vegetables. Holly inhaled her rice and asked for seconds. While she was gobbling down the second helping of rice I asked Holly, " You really love rice, huh?" Basic head nod yes. So then I asked, " Are you part Polynesian?". She just looked up and said, "No, I'm a sunbeam".

Is Wal-Mart evil or is it something else

This weekend was my big once a month grocery shopping. I was in Wal-Mart, one of my big four stores I go to this big trip, my last store. I had to get minutes for my phone and light bulbs and as I was cruising toward the grocery part of the store and I thought "Wal-Mart is evil. (don't you dialog with yourself while you shop?) hear I am just trying to stay in budget and get food for my family and Wal-Mart tempts me as I have to walk from light bulbs on one side of the store to food on the other side. I see you colorful bath towels. Yes, I would like a drapery rod and drapes." then I start thinking "I need a paper shredder and a new cricut and scrapbook paper....wait! I don't need that stuff. Oh... Wal-mart you are so evil trying to get me to buy other stuff while I am just trying to innocently grocery shop. Wal-Mart is EEEEVVVILLL. Stacey, get a grip! Wal-Mart isn't evil your the one that is losing self control, get it together. You're in charge her, not some store!" Yeah I had this monologue with myself in about 30 seconds.

So, is Wal-Mart evil or is my appetite to have more evil? HHHMMM

Blast off! and tubes

When you go to a doctors office and you see a scary chair you make it something else. No one wanted to sit in this chair at the doctors office, until mommy mentioned it looks like a rocket ship chair. Then they couldn't wait to get in it.

This was at Josh's nose, throat and ear doctor. It turns out Josh still has fluid trapped in his hears so he will be getting tubes put in his ears Jan. 21st. It is an in-out procedure that should only take 20 minutes. Hope he doesn't go hysteric. I am excited to see if he can hear better and in return have his speech improve. We shall see.

Sleepy girls

The other day Josh had a late afternoon drs appt. So thought pick him up from school and get Holly to sleep ASAP. Unfortunately, Holly didn't have the same game plan. She thought it would be better to sit in her room for an hour. Then she would come out like she had been asleep. When she cracked open her door after the hour, Josh said "Mommy that's Holly.". I just said loudly, "It can't be she hasn't taken her nap yet". Next thing your hear is the door closing slowly and Holly getting back on her bed. Well, the best that I can put together after that is she sat on her bed in the middle of all her stuffed animals and gave in to sleep.

Sad for her, mommy came in 20 minutes later and made her wake-up. It took a while she was in a deep sleep. The first picture was taken after I had been saying "Hoolllyyyy wake up" for five minutes finally I got louder, went and got my camera and got louder. The second picture is after tickling her feet. The third is after I said "Holly you have to get up now"!

She was not a happy camper. Lesson- Maybe mommies know what they're talking about! (from a mommy point of view). Lesson- Mommies make silly plans and then doesn't even let me sleep. (from a kids point of view)

Smarter than I think

Everyday when Josh gets home, Holly goes down for her nap and Josh and I do homework time. We always read 2 books. He picks one for himself and one for me to read. Then we do homework his teacher sends home. Sometimes on short weeks he doesn't get homework, or on days when he finishes early I will have him do some extra stuff.

Today was one of those days. We practiced writing all his letters lower and upper case. I know I am such a mean mom. ( I did it too to make a game out of it.) Then we went through all the flashcards of the words he is suppose to know by the end of the year. I was so proud he knows them all now. So, we took it to the next level. I told Josh we were going to put a sentence together. I gave him a pile of words that were pronouns, then verbs and so forth. This is the sentence he put together.
He then looks at me and says, "So, can I go play now?" He is smarter than I give him credit for!

The twist!

I tried to do this hairdo once before and totally failed. This time I thought it came out pretty well. Holly even slept with it during nap before church and it still looked decent. I was pretty stoked! (I know stoked. Looks like I had to go back to the eighties for that one.)

The 2009 Christmas Interviews

Josh's interview in his new Buzz Lightyear P.J's

Every year I try to interview the kids and ask them a few questions. They don't always make sense, but I hope it will be fun to look at in about 5-7 years. A friend, that I knew in college, his family had done it and it was funny to see how goofy he and his brothers were growing up.

Holly's interview in her new P.J's. She was more talkative.

A Princess Playdate

During Christmas break we had one of Holly's friends over for a play date. Both girls decided they must be princess. Do you like Holly's choice of crowns?

After they played for a good 45 minutes Holly informed me it was time to play Hullabaloo. Every time Holly has a friend we always end with a few rounds of this game. I was bringing it out because all levels can play it, but I guess it is tradition now.

Handy Holly

This is Holly's version of Bob the Builder meets Handy Manny. She put this together herself. The red thing poking out of her apron is a race track piece, but if you ask her it is her measurer!

Toy sounds

Did you know that when you are playing with toys and you dialog for them, they don't just say , "Hi how are you?"(in a normal kid voice). If it is a girl Holly to they say "Hi" in a falsetto voice and if they are a boy GI Joe or Batman toy they say, "HEY, What are you doing" in the deepest voice a five year old can manage.

Not only do they have weird voices, Josh does different voice for different characters.

Just thought that I would share.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we had our big meal. It was tradition for my family to go to Tu-tu's and Pops house for Christmas Eve. We'd eat a big meal and open presents. I wanted to keep the tradition to have a Christmasy meal Christmas Eve. After we ate and the boys did the dishes. I got Holly and Josh ready as Mary and Joesph. We wrapped a baby doll to be Jesus. Grandma, Grandpa and I were all the other parts. Don read the Christmas Story and we all acted it out. The kids loved it and I loved watching them. (I could kick myself for not getting a picture of them dressed up). We quickly put out cookies and milk for Santa, but ended on a spiritual note with a Christmas Family prayer.

Holly wanted to take baby Jesus to bed with her. I put our manager (a short laundry basket with a pillow in it) and the wrapped baby Jesus and put it between their beds.

Holly still talks about being Mary.

Christmas pictures exstravanza

Here are some picture highlights of Christmas morning. All in all everyone was happy. Don's parents came and spent Christmas with us. The kids loved their bikes and we spent the rest of the day playing, eating and watching movies.

Christmas Hair

I was really proud of this hair do! It was for the Sunday before Christmas.

Atack of the giant preschooler!

At Holly's Christmas party they made a lot of fun things. Like this marshmallow snow man. Here Holly is biting his head of, literally! The poor snowman didn't even know what him.

Decorating the tree.

This year Josh got to help decorate the tree. This was a big deal for him. (Holly was taking a nap, but we did let her put on her ornaments when she woke-up).

Our tree lasted 1 week. Okay, I forgot to water it. Let's just say after that week we didn't turn on the lights. We are now toying with the idea to get a fake tree.

Thank you TU-TU

What's a Tu-Tu you might wonder. Tutuwaina (totally spelled wrong, but pronounced 2-2-wah-e-na) in Hawaiian is grandmother. So that is what I called my grandmother on my fathers side. She was the one that gave this amazing house warming gift! The kids are loving it in all kinds of weather.

The kids call it their playground.

Living room lighting-update

Here is Don fixing our living room over-head lighting situation. There was one light in the entry way area before (see green picture of before). Don installed a similar light on the other side and a ceiling fan in between the two in the living room (see 3rd picture) The last picture is of the room I couldn't get all the lights in. Crown molding is coming next.