I was robbed!

Someone took $122 out of my bank account. Using my debit card! Oh, wait. No, that was me, paying the locksmith to open my car so I could get my PURSE OUT OF THE TRUNK! (with my cell phone, and my keys, and my just boughten groceries. Thank goodness for kind strangers letting me use their phone! At least I wasn't in the Wal Mart parking lot, that would just be ironic.)

I am such an idiot.

That has got to be some kind of illegal to charge that much.

P.S. Yes, I cried. *sigh* Anyone have an extra 120 bucks they want to give us?

hahahaha ha ha HA

pssst...

...WE LIVE IN A HOUSE!!!

Just making sure you knew.

(I am very excited and happy about this)

We made it!

Well, we are in! We made it, the move went super fast this morning, faster than we thought it would, because for the first time in all of our moves we actually had helpers! It was awesome! (thanks to all those that let their husbands come!) The boxes made a very nice mountain in the front room (of course I forgot to get a picture), but after a looooong day, we have made some serious progress. I am so excited for another productive day tomorrow.

Moving is a lot of work! I grew up moving around a lot and I was aware of the inconvenience, or so I thought! It is a lot harder when YOU are the parent! I just wanted to drop in, let everyone know that we made it, Internet is working, phones are working, new appliances* are working. Loving it!

For Jenny

*I was too slow with the poll. I have to honestly say, I totally would have gone with the majority of votes for the washer/dryer color, but Sears called Keith for a decision too soon, and since he knew I wanted the teal ones, those are the ones he got for me. And you know, it IS a treat for me. They are my first ever appliances, and I love them! Oh, and you know what makes them even more fun? They aren't teal, the official color of the set is "twilight"! Hahaha! Seriously!

Brady...

...just counted to 14. Then 16, 18, 19, 25, 22... Still, pretty impressive!

...thinks he is so sneaky when he calls us "stukid" rather than stupid. I am so proud, my 3 year old already making up fake swear words. He still gets in trouble for it.

...is super delicious. (we love that cell phone commercial)

Ballet

For Natalie's birthday this year I really wanted to get her a gift of substance from us. So we decided that it was finally time to put her in ballet. I found a great studio where she can really learn and progress if she chooses to do so. They are pretty inexpensive compared to what we were thinking we were going to have to pay also! So that is a huge plus! She got all her clothing, tights, leotard, and both pairs of shoes, for free with signing up. Woo hoo! I love a great deal!

She went and loved it. Of course all the other girls have been in the class for a few months, but she listens and wanted to be there, so she was picking it up fast. We will work on basic foot positions at home, so she knows what the teacher is talking about. I was so proud of her though. When all the other girls were goofing off and messing around, she held fast, and kept trying to do the moves. Granted she doesn't have any little friends in there too goof off with, yet, but I hope that she will stay obedient, and really have fun with it!
She loves her clothes, but wants to find a leotard with short sleeves. I hope she loves ballet!

Dude.

I am shopping at Wal Mart, do you really think I have extra cash in my pockets to just hand out like candy?

Back away from me and my children.

Small Bumps

Well, it couldn't all be smooth sailing! Every available minute we have (that we aren't falling asleep) we have been spending packing, cleaning, and moving over small loads to the new place. We spent most of Saturday at the house, playing, cleaning, unpacking, and waiting for the Sears people to bring the new appliances.

In enters the first kink. The dryer was too wide. Ugg. The hole is 29 inches, the dryer is 29 inches. Ain't gonna happen. So we have to call Sears, pick out a new set (I want a matching pair), and then this week go back to the house and wait for an exchange. The ones we picked out by hunting online are a little bit nicer so they come in different colors. Oh, how I want the teal set!!! But, it costs a little more for them, then the regular white. We are crunching the numbers to see if we can afford the teal. If we got them we wouldn't get another set until, well, they died! So we shall see!

The next, and most annoying issue. The fleas. In the apartment it was roaches, now in the house it is fleas. There aren't any inside, but Keith took the kids out back to check out the yard, and BAM! Fleas. Everywhere. They went in the storage shed out back, and Keith said he could see the ground hopping. Yummy. At any rate, we are going to have to do SOMETHING about them, before the kids can play out there. Luckily for now they are happy running and screaming through the house.

Aww, well. It all been crazy, and tons of fun. I keep meaning to take more pictures of the front of the house. I will this week for sure! I can't believe we are moving to a house!!

Oh, yeah, and the phone jack in my bedroom, which is my office, is broken. Gotta go call AT&T...

The House

Because I love you all, I haven't wanted to bore you with a million billion updates on the quest for our perfect rental. (Instead I just bored my facebook friends with the updates, and now you with a seriously long post, hehe) Anywho...drum roll please.....we got a house!! Ha! How did you guess that is what I was going to say? Well, we did it! We looked at this house maybe a week and a half ago, immediately put an application in, and then waited. After a weekend, and then one annoying day of trying to get in touch with all the necessary people to get confirmations of job and past rental history we were easily approved for the house we wanted.

We ended up only looking at the inside of three houses. We were hesitant to settle on this one because it is out of our current ward (the area for our church, which decides meeting times, etc), but the price and size and neighborhood was so wonderful, an obvious blessing, that we couldn't deny it. And decided that this was the place for us. We will be in the Arlington 4th ward, in case you were wondering. There are so many positives, that the few "negatives" really just don't make a difference. And I have to say, just to clarify, that the ward we are going to isn't the "negative" it is the meeting all new people that scares me. I am just now feeling REALLY comfortable in the ward we have now, and it has been 3 and a half years. So yeah, I am going to REALLY try not to be so shy. We shall see!

One unexpected bonus is that they changed the carpet for us! We had noticed a few fleas, which we weren't too concerned about, just wanted a bomb done, and they said that since we had kids, they thought new clean, pet free carpet, was needed. Um, THANK YOU!! I love new carpet, and we will take care of it, so that is such a great bonus. They also got us a new microwave, that was another unexpected treat! (We have a spare we are getting rid of if anyone needs one..it is perfect except the display doesn't work anymore.)

We signed the lease Monday, and tonight I went and picked up the keys, and we also bought our washer and dryer and new fridge today! Such a busy and happy day it was! Here are a few pictures, I didn't get one of the front, because I parked my car in the drive. It has a curved drive where the garage doors are perpendicular to the front of the house. The house has great curb appeal which was important to both of us. We wanted it to be cute!

Here is looking from the end of the hallway near the three bedrooms out to the living area. The house is SO full of light, I love it! We will be able to go most of the day without turning on a single light switch. And I love the tile in the hall. And the kids love the "trash cans" where they can throw away their clothes.
The kitchen is small, it was the only interior downside to the whole house. There on the left is where our new fridge will go and through the first doorway there are two little pockets for the washer and dryer. Then out to the double garage, which is HUGE. There is a great landing area where I will put the carpet remnants and have a place to take off shoes. Oh, and I just have to say, when I was signing some paperwork today, I looked up and out the kitchen window on the fence was a blue jay, just sitting there wishing me hello! It was priceless! And having the door open and all the bird songs traveling in? It was a wonderful welcome indeed!
The dining area is small, but it is TILED!! Woo HOOO! No more worrying to death about staining the carpet! And the window there is HUGE, and looks right out to the backyard. I love all the natural light!
Here is the view of the living area from the dining room. That far wall will be my crafting area, and where the kids can craft and learn too. I am most excited about what I hope to have setup there. I want the kids to have a place to do art, puzzles, games, etc whenever they want.
The BEST part of this house. The wall of built in bookcases! This is the view from the backdoor, I just love it! And the fireplace is gas, so we will actually get to USE it. That is pretty exciting! Those carpet remnants are saving me some money! I don't have to get plastic to lay down for move in day, and I can use them in the garage landing instead of buying or hunting down remnants on my own.
Here is Natalie's room from the door. She has two windows, so it is so bright, the one on the left looks out to the side yard, so it can be open all the time. She has a little closet on the wall to the left of the door.
Here is Brady's room. Right next to Natalie's and just the perfect size. He is so excited! Though he has already locked himself OUT of his room twice! Good thing there is a little key thing for Mommy to "magically" open the door.
Here is the master bathroom. That door there goes into the shower and toilet area. There is even a window in there! So many windows!
Here is the master from the door.
And here is the main bathroom. I love that the toilet isn't right next to the tub (and that there is a window!!). The vanity is huge, there is a second "trash can" and tons of storage!
Well, if you made it through, congrats! I just love this house! Can you tell?? Sorry for the rambling post, but I wanted to get it all down!

So EXCITED!!!!!

*sigh*

I am a bargain hunter. I LOVE a good find in the clearance department. And oft times I get some super great things that I could never, or would never have spent the full price on. One of them being my pretty cake plate/dip tray that I used for Natalie's cake here, and I got to use it once for a friend's going away party (and Missy took a rad picture of it here, and a cute one of Nat too...I think I need that one..anywho). I found it on clearance after Easter last year and I fell instantly in love. It's bright and springy, and I knew it would be perfect for Natalie's birthday every year. I was just over the moon happy about it.

And so with much dismay, I show you this.

Poor sweet Keith was cleaning up after the last of the birthday cake was gone and it slipped out of his fingers and clonked into the sink. I have to say I was heartbroken, just a little bit. Keith felt so terrible, I couldn't get mad, of course, he was being so sweet to clean up. But darn it all! At least I got to use it once for both purposes. And I will always have that great picture of Natalie blowing out her birthday candles. Some good advice I heard once, "we don't love things, we love people", but MAN I sure did really like that plate!

Salami

The kids dragged Natalie's chair into their room and Keith went in there to see what they were doing. Natalie was pretending to cut Brady's hair and shave his legs. I had to see for myself of course and when I went in there to see the fun, I found Brady's lips slathered with sparkly lip gloss. The following conversation ensued.

"Natalie, you can't put sparkly lip gloss on Brady. He is a boy."

"But Mom, we are playing Salami."

"Salami?"

"Yes Mom, we are playing Salami store."


P.S. Apparently they were getting Brady dressed up like a girl for Halloween. And so it begins.

P.P.S. Salami is Salon...in case you didn't get it!

All growed up.

Well, I had a little accident today...I washed my cell phone in my pants pocket. That's never a good thing. Funnily enough Keith and I were going to go to the AT&T store to get our numbers changed to our own plan earlier today, but we ran out of time. I guess today was the day! So I headed down to AT&T after naps and we are now the proud owners of our very own cell phone bill. My parents had been paying for it while we were in school, so that was VERY nice. And let me tell you it was a shocker when we saw how much our bill will be, even with the smallest amount of monthly minutes, still...WOWSAS!

Anywho, the best part? We got some SWEET phones, for cheap. We got LG Vus and they are so cool! Touch screen and everything! Woo hoo! We are joining the big leagues now. We even splurged on unlimited texting! (so if you aren't AT&T, text us, hahaha, because we only get 700 minutes a month!)

Oh, and I lost all my numbers with my old phone, so yeah, please email me your numbers! Cause I don't have them!! (and I want to start texting, hahaha)

Birthday Coupons

In the spirit of handmade gifts for Natalie I came up with the idea of a coupon book, full of special birthday things for her to redeem any time she wants (within reason). I really like this idea, and will probably try and do it every year for both kids. It helps keep the birthday excitement going longer than just the one day, and I have to say she loves it! She is allowed to redeem one coupon per day, and that seems to have been a good rule to set!

The coupons range from pricey (dinner date with Mama) to free (wii bowling night). Some of them I planned on her and I getting to do when Keith takes Brady to South Carolina for a friends wedding. They will be gone for a week, so Natalie and I will have lots of time to do girly things!

The idea is easy, and the actual coupon can be made from anything. I made them super quick with a pre made template I found for free online. I wrote in the box, and printed them up like a 4x6 photo. I was really pleased with how they turned out.

Natalie's full list of coupons, we gave her 10:

One trip to the ice cream store (already redeemed, though the baskin by our house is CLOSED!! so Keith took her to McDonald's for an ice cream cone. Not the same, but she was happy.)
One game of Life (she asks for this game all. the. time.)
30 minutes on the computer (we gave her 2 of these)
Dinner date with Mommy
Trip to the park with Daddy
Movie of your choice at home
Night of wii bowling
One movie at the theater (for when Keith is gone)
One pedicure date with Mommy (also for when Daddy is out of town)

Jelly Bean

Sometimes when Brady and I have to kill some time before we get Natalie we will head to our favorite store, Target. Last few times he has wanted to play with the Jack in the Boxes with the sock monkeys inside. He has just fallen in love with those monkeys! I really wanted to get him one, but they were just a little too pricey at Target.

Well, you can imagine how thrilled we were when we headed to Wal Mart on Natalie's birthday and not only did they have less pricey sock monkeys, they had them in all sorts of cool colors! This guy was an instant hit. And obviously Brady loves him. He "posed" for these pictures on his own when I asked to get a picture of him with Jelly Bean.

I love my little monkey.

Turning Five.

Well, she's five. My precious little baby girl is five years old. Five. Wow. Life has just been a little too crazy round these parts to really have time or funds to have a large birthday party, or extravagant gifts, but I think we made her feel loved, and special, and happy without all the bells and whistles (though the bells and whistles are very fun).

One rule of birthdays is getting to choose all the meals. For breakfast we had chocolate chip pancakes, then for lunch Happy Meals (shocker.) and then for dinner she wanted "rice with peas and carrots", otherwise known as fried rice. She gobbled it up, and meal times were a success.

Natalie's main gift this year was dance lessons, and I also made her a coupon book, but I will show more on both of those later. I really, REALLY wanted to do only handmade gifts from Mama this year, or at least Earth friendly ones, but she has been politely hinting for a VERY long time for this phone we saw months ago at WalMart. It is an old fashioned one, with a cord, and the headset resting on top. Like this, but pink, with noisy buttons. I did NOT want to get that phone, but she has been so good, and she really does love it. So I caved. Brady also came home with a new friend named Jelly Bean, I will show pics of that later too.

Anywho, after all the days festivities (shopping, relaxing, cuddling, playing) were over and dinner was cleaned up we had the Taylor's over for cake. Ewan is Natalie's oldest and dearest friend, so of course she wanted him there to celebrate with her, it doesn't hurt that we love him and his family too! This is her third birthday that he has been at. It's craziness.

This picture was just too cute. I had to use it. Natalie had about a million different things she wanted her birthday to "be", but she settled on some cute valentine decorations for her PINK cake. She had fun helping me decorate it, and I love how it looked on my cake plate (more on that later too) that I found just for her many birthday cakes.
Make a wish!

So, I think it was a success. She ended the day happy and pleased with all that we did. I can't believe she is five. I just can't believe it!

By the way...

Natalie turns FIVE tomorrow! That's crazy! I have been pretty much in denial and ignoring it as much as we can, which is why she isn't getting a birthday party. Well that and we have no money and our apartment is basically turned inside out, and we have no money. Is that bad? No party? I am feeling really guilty about it. I am going to make up for it when Keith is out of town with Brady (for a best friends wedding) by taking her for girly treats (eating out, pedicures, shopping, etc.), but still. I guess it really isn't about the party, it's about celebrating HER, right? *sigh* I can't think about it much more, because the guilt is already very heavy on my shoulders.

Mama's Little Helper

Brady came to get me yesterday and told me he had been helping me pack.
Good thing he showed me, because I never would have found these blankies!Apparently he had to do a bit of..unpacking, to have somewhere to pack my 3 couch pillows, 3 blankets, our Cowboys throw pillow, his bed pillow and don't forget his Cowboys bear.
I have also been reassuring him over and over this week that yes, everything is coming with us when we move. At first he told me he didn't like the houses we kept looking at, I asked why, and he replied, "because it doesn't have any of our stuff Mom." He is much more excited now that he knows our things are coming with.

We have an application pending on a house, and we should find out tomorrow or Tuesday. We have decided to go with this one if we get it. It isn't in our current ward (which stinks), but it is in a great neighborhood, on a sort of loop street, so no main traffic. And it is nice, but not TOO nice for our first home. We don't want to rent something nicer than what we end up buying down the road. I will post pictures if we get it. I don't want to jinx anything!

Oh brother(s).

When my Dad was here he took Natalie one afternoon so that I could come home and nap with Brady. While he had her, they watched Camp Rock (which yes, she has seen once before), anywho. Camp Rock just happened to be coming on again tonight, so I told her she could watch it.

She then proceeds to tell Keith that the best part of Camp Rock is the Jonas Brothers. Oh. my. goodness. Of course I ask her why and she shyly says, "I don't know" and hides under the covers.

Oh boy. I guess I kinda set myself up for that one.

And for the family, more on the visit soon. I promise full updates on the house hunt and Papa's visit to come this weekend, at least.

Do it!

If you haven't gone over there to check it out, I say get thee hence! (does that even make sense? haha!) Primp and Tell is doing ANOTHER giveaway, plus the info there is really great! I'm telling ya these ladies know what they are talking about!