Skating

We discovered that our local skating rink is having a pretty good deal on Tuesday mornings for kids. Cheap admission, free rentals, open play in the play area and game tokens! All for $5 a person. Can't beat it! However, I still pay a price - sleep. It's during my sleep time. So we went 2 weeks in a row. I slept on the couch afterwards and it all worked out. I may have been tired when going to the skating rink, but once there I had SO much fun!! I used to skate every weekend when I was 12. What fun it is to skate in the pretty disco lights and listen to loud music. Brandon and Faith had a great time! You can imagine, it is not very busy on a Tuesday morning.

They have these great little helpers for kids learning how to skate. They typically charge $5 an hour to rent them (robbery) but they can be used for free on Tuesday mornings.

Here is a glimpse of our skating experience:

Wordless Wednesday

Thank You Angel and Fam!

We received our Christmas in February package from Angel! I have their package sitting right here in my office. SEE?????? I always seem to send mine out second. I was so close this year tho, I think it can go out tomorrow ! The kids were so excited to get the big box on the door step. They tried on their clothes, stuffed their mouths with candy and played with the monkey and frog pictured above! (Faith named her monkey - polka dot stripes)

All 3 kids got a pair of ear buds! I was especially excited that Zach got a pair. Now he can stop using my good headphones when he is on the laptop. I wasn't sure what Brandon and Faith would do woth theirs, but they quickly showed me! They tried them on their Leapsters, my phone and my ipod.




Brandon loves his ear buds so much, he wanted to wear them even when they were not plugged into anything. The removeable rubber ear piece fell off and he about had an emotional break down thinking they wee broken. I quickly fixed it and he was happy again. He asked to wear them during dinner. Who would have thunk? Not me. I never even thought about buying those. Great idea Angel!






My Boys ♥



They were both thrilled to get a pair of basketball shorts! Zach was happy because he really wanted a new pair and I failed to buy him a pair for Christmas. Brandon was happy because he wants to wear or do anything his big brother does!

I should have waited and posted a picture of Scott and I wearing new shirts too! But I'm always behind the camera and Scott is always in his office. (our room)

He is super excited to go book shopping!

Something else I do have is this video:

Flowers from My Guy

The other day, Scott said he was going to run to the store for some milk. I immediately thought:

Oooh! A trip to the store! What do I want??

Then I told Scott that I felt like I wanted something, but can't have anything I really wanted. Can't have beer and can't have cupcakes. (or I choose not to) So I said, never mind! Guess there is nothing I can have from Giant!

Scott came home with tulips :)

They showed me he loves me, he cares about me, he is proud of me - and they had with them a lesson that there are other things in this world that can bring me happiness without damaging my body! I bet he didn't know all these messages came with a small bouquet of tulips.

The other night we found ourselves awake at 2 am having a serious conversation about myself and my recovery and all the things that are surfacing in my mind. How I can't believe I lived so dangerously for so long, how lucky I am to be alive and how lucky I am for Scott to have stayed by my side! He spoke so seriously and told me how happy he was that I chose to quit drinking. It was a good moment. One of those moments that you have to steal at 2 am because there is no other time to have a serious conversation with little kids in the house :)

Wordless Wednesday - it's everywhere

Love Those Personalities!!

Brandon and Faith have such different personalities - and they are both just darling to the core! Pictured here they are doing a "Wonder Twins Powers Activate" action which they learned from a Super Friends DVD they have. (That show ran from 1973 to 1986)

Brandon says and does so many funny things. I can't possible remember everything, but here are a few cute recent quotes.

• In Starbucks drive thru yesterday when the lady asked if I wanted anything else, Brandon shouted "a cheeseburger"!


• At Church Sunday morning, Brandon went up to my good friend Sarah and said "hello beautiful"!


• The other day, as I was sore from a recent work out, I said something like "I am walking upstairs like an old lady" and Brandon said: "You can say that again"!

Faith has a new fascination with dancing. A fascination that may cost us money as I think I need to enroll her in a dance class. She loves music! (especially "girl" music) She has a little plastic baton with a ribbon at the end and dances all around, swirling her ribbon like in the Olympics. She has rhythm too! She shakes her butt and has a cat walk. She sings to the songs. She has her own ballet type movements - we have no idea where she gets it? But I don't want it wasted. I must look into a class. She loves to play hard, get dirty, play ball, run fast - but she is also such a girly girly girl. So much into purple and pink, butterflies, flowers, hearts and sparkle! Princess dresses, tiaras and wands. She loves to wear jewelry. She has her own "fancy" bottle of Avon cologne and she sprays it on every day. Oh, she LOVES pegasus's and unicorns and believes them to be real. She likes the same ol movies I liked as a young girl. Pete's Dragon, The Last Unicorn, Annie, Mary Poppins....

Oh and she loves her daddy as much as I love my daddy. I am second to him :) I don't mind, because watching that love warms my heart ♥

Brandon and Faith made up a sweet little game. It is the cutest thing ever, It's called "waddle".

They change their voices like little squeaky cartoon mice and they say "WADDLE"! And they actually waddle to eachother, then hug and say "i love you waddle" and kiss eachother on the cheek. They like to play this game in public stores for some reason - and it makes me proud that they are so loving in public.

I can blog a big ol post about my young handsome Zach too, but I will save that for another day :)

Thrifty Shopping

My dad and I talked about shopping at local thrift stores today and I thought I would post pictures of my "treasures". My dad is in Texas and I guess their local thrift store or Goodwill I think it was - has 50% off Wednesdays. Well, my Salvation Army has 25% off Wednesdays. Not as good as 50%, but still good. I bought the 3 shirts pictured above for myself. I generally never even look in the adult section :)

My little Faith made out like a bandit. 4 pairs of jeans, 7 shirts, 3 nightgowns and a pair of silver blingy converse.

Blingy shoes- on a sad little Faith. Her friends were playing with older kids and not her. All the kids are older than Brandon and Faith. This happens sometimes.




Brandon got 4 shirts and a pair of converse.

Wearing his new converse hightops and a VT tshirt because Daddy went there :)

Poor Zach wasn't with me and I never find anything for him because he wears adult sizes now and nothing in the mens section looks cool enough.

I think the kids have enough clothes until spring and summer shopping time!

Valentine's Wordless Wednesday

Then

Now

Happy Valentine's Day!

Wordless Wednesday - Where to Display a Poor Report Card

All in fun of course! It's not that bad and I am not that mean.

Tackle it Tuesday ~ Burst of Energy

I do not know what has gotten into me lately, but I wouldn't mind if I stayed this way forever. It could be that I no longer drink, and because of that I have new found energy! I don't feel dehydrated, achy, moody or run down. Or more likely, it is because I am taking some steroids to battle muscle inflammation/pinched nerves. Maybe they make me super woman. At any rate, yesterday, I did not let any of this energy go to waste. I made a breakfast fit for a king for two 4 year olds. (pretty silly) At dinner time, I made some delicious chili mac. But in between the 2 meals, I spent the day all over the house, cleaning, rearranging, moving around wall hangings and decorations and so on. It is so true - that if you occasionally move around nic nacs you already have, it can give you the feel of a new room with new things! And you don't have to spend a penny!!

My sweet little princess seems to pop in all my pictures. The family room hasn't changed much, but in the left hand corner there, we have a new tv stand. We bought it with a gift card given to us for Christmas by my brother in law. Thanks Mike! It was a challenge on Sunday to put it together and find a spot for the old table we had there. We hooked the tv back up literally in time for the Super Bowl coin toss. Wow.
Now, I did find that white basket sitting on the fireplace which seems to be perfect to hold the little 2 lb fire logs I bought. That is kinda cute I thought. I added another plain white flat basket on the bottom shelf of the tv stand, just so something is there.



The old table that the tv was on was moved into our formal living room. (to the left of that chair)This is actually a file cabinet matching my office furniture, but there is no room in my office for it. Scott thinks it is too tall for that room, but I don't mind it. Plus with the vase of flowers I put on it, it gives us more privacy without actually closing the curtains. I also hung up those 3 crossed today. Those lines are just a reflection of something when I took this picture. The crosses are off balance, but that is because I plan on hanging a 4th - which I haven't found yet.

Now the biggest project of the day was cleaning the spare bedroom. I should have taken a before picture, but I honestly did not think I would blog about it. I use this room to hold the twins clothes. I don't like them to have access to their clothes in their own room. (recipe for disaster)

BEFORE I tackled this room, it was a giant mess! There were 4 laundry baskets of clean clothes that had accumulated from my doing laundry every week and just putting the basket in that room. Thinking I would put the clothes away later - then I never would. So, every day when it was time to get the twins dressed, I had to dig through those laundry baskets. The dresser and rocking chair was also covered in clothes. The bed had pillows and blankets piled on top. And this is a room that I do use!! I take my evening naps before work in this room 5 days a week. So I decided to tackle it clean and pretty and make it more inviting for my sweet naps. It also keeps me from hearing my husband grumble every time he is looking for clothes for the twins and can't find any.

I was able to avoid hammering more nails and just set this picture on top of the window.

That little chest next to the bed is such a pretty hand painted black chest that my dear late mother in law gave me. She gave it to me for the kids to play with ~ yeah right. Too pretty. It's mommy's.

A beautiful and heavy "key" wall hanging gave to me by my best friend, Angel.
That rocking chair is so VERY SPECIAL to me and I will have it forever! My dad bought it for me when I was 4 months pregnant with Zach. It was a Christmas gift and had a big beautiful burgundy velvet bow on it. It was sitting out by the tree at my grandmother's house so I could see it on Christmas morning when "Santa" came. But my grandma brought me in to look at it late on Christmas eve because she couldn't wait. She was so funny. So the chair is full of memories of all kinds, including rocking all 3 of my babies in it ♥

Those are all the pictures I took, but I also did most of the laundry. There is a hamper in the twins room I didn't get to. Swept, dusted and cleaned cleaned cleaned. Finished the evening doing 2 chapters of my Beth Moore study. It was a good day :)