Life as I know it.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, ours was really nice. During the day on Christmas Eve, we got a few things done around the house and got my moms car unburied from all the snow. She hadn't touched it since it started snowing a week and a half ago. So Blue plowed out the alley way, including the 3 1/2' berm at the end of the alley. Then we hooked the car up to the 4 wheeler and after a few initial mishaps we got it pulled out and took it around to the front of the garage and put the chains on it. For Christmas eve we went to the early service at my church, it was very snowy out so all 5 of us rode in the truck (my mom, uncle, Blue, Bug and I), it was pretty hairy but we got there OK. Then we came home and cooked up the pizza and after dinner we opened our stockings. Bug got a bunch of books a new Wii game and a Leapster game and some movies, Blue got some movies, his annual new wallet, some little gadgets for skiing and a new Wii game and I got 2 new CD's, 2 new Wii gam

Today I am thankful for the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What a strange way to save the world. To send a baby to rescue us from our sins. I am so thankful that God cared about us enough to try. "For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that who so ever shall believe in him shall not perish but will have everlasting life". John 3:16

Merry Christmas Eve to all my friends and family who keep up with our life via this blog (or on Facebook). Today I am thankful to all of you who care enough to check out what we are up to, through the business of our lives. So I hope Santa brings you your hearts desire tonight and wraps it up in a pretty bow for you all. In our home we open our stockings on Christmas Eve and my Santa Blue was very nice to me, he got me 2 CD's (Pink and Lifehouse), 2 gift certificates for Starbucks and 1 for Borders, and 2 Wii games (Winter sports and and a fitness one with Julianne Michaels) and a really nice coffee cup. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Today I am thankful for something kind of silly, it is modern conveniences. I don't mean like stoves and dishwashers, I mean the modern conveniences of my generation. Computers and cell phones mainly. I love to get on the computer and check my email or chat with friends, or even getting on here and dish the latest gossip, pour out my heart, or just chronicle the daily minutia of our life. I also could no longer imagine my life without my cell phone. My newest phone is a Blackberry Pearl, so I can keep my entire schedule on it, plus check my email where ever I am. It's hard to believe that before I met my hubby I had never been on a computer or the Internet or owned a cell phone. A cell phone was the 1st thing he ever gave me (probably just to keep tabs on me, I was a pretty much a wild child when we 1st started dating). So thank you Blue for introducing me to my 2 best friends, the cell phone and the Internet.

My poor little Bug, as I mentioned in an earlier post Bug was diagnosed with strep throat last Monday and got his 1st ever Rx for antibiotics. Well today when he and his buddy were getting dressed (he had his best friend E over for a sleepover) he kept saying he was itchy, but I didn't think that much of it. Later on he was still scratching his leg complaining about his mosquito bites, and I just figure he must have gotten a spider bite. So then we headed out to see the Tale of Despereaux and as he was getting out of the car I went to help him put on his jacket and noticed spots all over his neck. Come to find out the reason he was so itchy was he had some sort of rash everywhere. So I went over to Rite Aid to see what the pharmacist had to say and he said a possible allergic reaction to his meds. So I called the Dr and they said to give him Benadryl and bring him in after the movie and watch him for breathing issues in the meantime. So after the movie we headed over to the local u

Today I am thankful for our friends Mike and Cheryl and their boys E & G. Mike and I went to high school together and have been friends ever since. We got married a few months apart in 2001. Bug and E are about 10 weeks apart in age, when Mike and Cheryl got pregnant with their 1st boy, Blue and I were debating about kids and decided to go for it. So Bug and E have been best friends basically since birth. When they bought property over here, we were looking to move this way. The 1st winter they owned their property they weren't ready to move over yet, so we rented it from them for 6 months until they moved over. They were our family around here until my mom moved over. They take our Bug when we need the help and we take their boys for them when they need it. Bug loves to have his buddy E over for sleepovers, but it can be hard with both of their schedules to plan one, especially now that E is in school. So with winter break we are having him over tonight. The boys have been pl

Today I am thankful for being able to home school my son. Although it can be very frustrating, I truly love the fact that I can home school Bug. I appreciate that they have not taken this basic right away from us as parents. I love watching my son learn new things, seeing that Aha moment is just incredible. It is nice that I have a real working knowledge of what my son knows. What he is good at and what he is struggling with. I don't have to wait for parent teacher conferences, or anybody else to tell me how my boy is doing. I love choosing what to teach him, and what subjects we want to work on each day. Some days we do a well rounded curriculum and other days we concentrate on one subject. We can get started 1st thing in the morning and be done by lunch, or go do something fun in the morning and work in the afternoon. I love that flexibility. It is one of the great loves of my life to home school my son.

Today I am thankful for wrapped gifts. I don't mean the actual gifts, just the wrappings they come in. I am thankful for 2 reasons, the 1st is that I am done wrapping my gifts, which is always such a load off my mind. Usually I have them all wrapped and under the tree around the 1st of the month. But this year I kept procrastinating, which just stressed me out. I kept feeling like I needed to do more shopping and that I hadn't gotten enough gifts for everyone. SO then I would go shopping and then remember gifts that I already had at home. So now that I have everything wrapped, I can see that I have enough gifts and that surprise, surprise, I have over bought for Bug again. Oh well isn't that why they have Valentines right after Christmas, if gives you an excuse to give them all the extra gifts. Secondly I am thankful for all the wonderful wrapping papers, boxes and bags that they have these days. I am not very artistic about wrapping gifts, not big into bows and ribbons. Bu

Today I am thankful for snow and the ability to stay home in it. Here is a pic of the snow, (see how it is up to the belly of the snow bear). It started snowing around here yesterday and just never seemed to stop. We got around 22 inches in about 15 hours. I love snow, nothing makes it feel more like winter and Christmas to me. From the looks of it we should have no problem having a White Christmas. I didn't have any clients today and Blue didn't work until around 1:00 so we all spent the morning enjoying and shoveling the snow. Blue got a new ATV this fall and bought a plow for the front of it, so he has been out plowing away at all this snow. The only down side so far is we are quickly running out of places to push the snow to. This big lump is my car completely buried in snow. Here is Bug helping to dig out my car, see I told you there was a car under all that snow :0) Here is Bug trying to find the front walk to shovel it. Here's what happens when you sit down, we alm

Today I am thankful for traditions. We moved around a lot when I was growing up, but no matter how many places we lived in my mom was good at always keeping up traditions. I suppose this time of year more than any other makes us think of traditions. Some of the traditions we had when I was growing up were: goodies at Xmas (see day 16), especially sugar cookies that my mom would individually decorate, we would read "Jest for Christmas I'm as good as I can be." We would go out for Chinese food for New Year's eve, we would always go see the fireworks show where ever we were. My mom always made us homemade birthday cakes that she decorated to go with our theme and for everything there were pictures, pictures and more pictures. I hope my son will look back from his adulthood and remember all the traditions that make our lives special. Like stockings on Christmas eve, and Christmas brunch, pictures every year for his birthday, going to Seattle for Halloween every year and I

Today I am thankful for Christmas goodies. I signed up to do 2 different cookie exchanges, the 1st was tonight and the 2nd one is in the morning. I decided to make rocky road, since it is fairly easy and no one else is making it, also it is my husband's favorite goodie. I needed to make about 72 pieces for each exchange, so I ended up making 5 batches of it. Tonight there were 10 of us at the exchange and 2 others who had dropped stuff off. It was nice spending time visiting with friends and snacking away, also my friend Laurie makes the best St Nick's (even though a few others thought they were to strong, mine was fabulous). I ended up getting 11 new goodies to take home. I can't wait till tomorrow to see what else I get. Some of my fondest memories of Christmas's when I was little revolve around the goodies, (including the year I got banned from the goodies 3 days before Christmas). It is nice to have such a variety of goodies without going through the hassle of makin

Today I am thankful for Western Medicine. If you know me at all you know I am not a big user of western medicine. Our family's primary Dr. is a Chiropractor, we all get adjustment and take supplements and Bug and I rarely take medicine. Anyways after my massage & adjustment today I was just getting into my car when I got a call from the school saying Bug was sick with a fever and a headache and needed to be picked up. When I got there he was obviously sick and started crying as soon as he saw me. So I asked him if he wanted to go to a medical Dr. or go see Dr. Bond (our Chiropractor), he said a medical Dr. So we headed off to our local urgent care clinic, on the way he started telling me his neck hurt when he swallowed, so I had a pretty good guess of what they would decide. We got there and they took his temp and did the throat swab and put us in a room. Where he proceeded to lay on the table with a blanket on and a cold towel on his head. The Dr. came in and confirmed what I

Today I am thankful for my nice warm home and my family inside it (for now). It has been in the single digits most of today, very icy and cold out, no new snow. So I am very thankful for the fact that we are able to own our own home (us and the bank, that it). With the hard financial times that people are going through right now, it is nice to be warm and snug in our own home, not worrying about where the next mortgage payment will be coming from. Shortly Bug and I will headed out in to the cold to be townspeople of Bethlehem for our church's Living Nativity and my hubby will be heading to the fire dept for his shift. So for this moment I am really appreciating the warmth of our own home.

Today I am thankful for Christmas Carols. Today Bug and his cub scout troop went caroling at a local nursing home. It was fun to see all the boys caroling and handing out ornaments to the residents. Some of the residents seemed to really enjoy it, but many others did not even know we were there. Hopefully we brought some holiday cheer at least a few. So thanks for Christmas carols and the fact that small children can learn them and use them to bring joy to others.

I am thankful today for the four seasons. That is actually part of the reason we moved to this area, is that is has 4 distinct seasons. We used to live is the Seattle area where the seasons are: foggy & rainy, warm and cloudy, or warmer and less clody, with lots of drizzle thrown in for good measure throughout the year. Here we have nice warm & wet Springs, hot & sunny Summers, cool & nice Falls and here we are in the cold & snowy Winters. We are supposed to be having a winter storm coming in this weekend with tempatures in the single digit and below. So it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas......

Today I am thankful for my mother. As many of you know my mother lives with us. I know for many that would be a recipe for disaster, but I couldn't imagine my life any other way. She is always there for us when we need her. Picking Bug up from the babysitter, watching him for us, helping with his schooling, taking him to do fun things or just participating and helping him with all the creative ideas in his head. Last night is a perfect example of why I appreciate her so much. Blue was supposed to bring Bug to church to meet me last night before he headed out to a movie with his friends. At the last minute he called me to say that I could just come pick Bug up from the restaurant where they were eating dinner. Well I was barely going to make it to the church on time as it was and there was no way I could pick up Bug at this restaurant without being 20 min late. So I told him he would just have to keep Bug with him and miss the movie. Instead Blue went home and there was grandma perf

Today I am thankful for owning my own business and for my faithful clients. I enjoy living a hectic lifestyle, I really dislike sameness, scheduling and regularity. I think this is the nicest thing about owning my own business is that to a large degree I can set my work schedule around the other things that I am doing in my life. Like tonight I need to be at my church at 6:45 so I will be leaving work at 6:25, when normally I work until 7 or 8 :30. If I want to take a trip or days off I can. On the flip side of all that, I am so thankful for my wonderful and faithful clients. Without them I would not be able to pursue all the wonderful opportunities in my life. Not only do they allow me to make the money that I need to make in my life, but they also work with me on the schedule and accommodate their lives around times that I am unable to be there. In exchange I try to do the same for them. So thank you, thank you, thank you to all my fabulous clients out there for not only letting me t

Today I am thankful for beautiful music and how it can touch your heart. We are watching a special on Alan Jackson today and I just love his song "Remember When." It gives me goose bumps and reminds me of all the beautiful songs out there and how hearing a certain song can take you back to a certain time or place in your life.

Today I am thankful for photographs. If you have ever been to my house you know we have pictures of our family and friends everywhere. I love pictures. I was just going through some of the older ones on my computer looking for one in particular. I think there is nothing else that shows how fast time is flying then looking at pictures of your not so little ones when they really were little. I have lots of pics of Bug with his friends or cousins and it is hard to believe they were ever that little and with such angelic little faces. Pictures are my own personal time machine. I could spend hours just looking back in time and remembering. Of course the present always comes in (usually with a "hi mom"), to bring me back to today. But it also puts today in a pretty good light knowing that one day I will be looking back on today's pictures with fondness.

Today I am thankful for my church's Pastor (Terry). I am a fairly new Christian and a lot of what the bible says is either confusing or very contradictory sounding to me. He always does a fabulous job of making it all make sense. He does his sermons by choosing a book and going through it very slowly. Sometimes just one or two verses at a time. By the time he is done, I always feel like I really get it. So I am thankful to God for putting this man in my life who helps me to really get what He is trying to tell me.

Today I am thankful for fun activities to do. Today we went on a Santa cruise, with some of the families in my MOMS club. It was very cute, you get on a boat and they take you out to the "north pole" a little island with Santa's workshop and lots of lights. Then Santa comes out and says Hi and calls out all the kids names that are on the boat. Bug totally didn't understand the whole point of it but he had a good time hanging out with his buddies. I love taking Bug to do new activities, you never know what his reaction will be.

Today I am thankful for other people's perspectives. I have truly learned in the last few years that life is about perspectives. There is no one way to do things or look at things or even to remember things. Everybody looks at life through their own perspective and the way 2 people look at or remember the same situation can be so totally different. Anyways yesterday I hosted a potluck lunch at my house for my MOMS club, 4 woman and their kids showed up and we had a blast. We started talking about giving "the talk" to our kids, sex, marriage, relationships. What age you should start and how different things are from when we grew up. My friend Kayla-Sue gave some examples of how she talks to her sons about sex and marriage and I thought they were wonderful. It was very moralistic, without being at all preachy or even religious. I just thought that was such a neat perspective to have when talking to your kids. So thank you to all the wonderful people in my life that are wil

Today I am thankful for my son's inquisitive mind and willingness to ask questions. Recently they had a Mork and Mindy marathon on TV, so we recorded it and Bug and I have been watching them together. Well the 1st season was very innocent, with lots of prat falls and plays on words. The one we watched yesterday was a little more mature. it was about a woman who thinks Mork is rich and sets out to seduce him to get his money. Of course Mork is totally oblivious to the advances she is trying to make on him and there is a whole scene of her coming on to him and him totally not getting it. This was filmed in front of a live studio audience so there are laughs all around. Bug was kind of laughing along and then he turned to me and said "why is this supposed to be funny." Anyways I just briefly explained that she wanted him to be her boyfriend and Mork totally did not understand that. But what struck me most was that he was willing to admit right then and there that he didn'

Today I am thankful for my husband Blue, he can be such a wonderful husband and father and I know I don't appreciate him nearly enough. Last night he took Bug and I out to dinner and a movie, we went and saw Bolt which was such a thrill for Bug. We don't usually see a lot of kids movies in the Theatre since I am pretty picky about what he can see. But Blue came home last week and suggested taking him figuring he would really enjoy it. He does lots of subtle little thoughtful things for us, which generally pass right over my head since I have the subtly of a drag queen. He tends to notice the little things that I just overlook, our son is very emotional and although I know that frustrates Blue sometimes I also know that Bug gets that from him. Along with the emotions comes a sweetness and thoughtfulness that could have only come from Blue. So thank you Blue for all the little and big things you do. I love you.

Today I am thankful for Holiday decorations. I love decorating my house at this time of year. All my decorations are bear themed and most of them have some special meaning to me. With the size of our house and tree I had to cut back somewhat on decorating. So it was fun to go through all of my boxes (12 large bins in all) and decide what to put out. My tree looks ready to fall over and has way too many ornaments on it but I love them all and had to have them on. I actually now have enough ornaments to decorate 2 trees, so some day when we move to a bigger house I will have to make sure it has room for 2 trees in it. Also alot of my decorations were gifts or items i picked up on my various travels, so it is extra fun to look at each one and remember the person or place that it came from, they are almost better than pictures.

I have seen this on a couple of the other blogs that I read and I thought the month of December leading up to Jesus's Birthday would be a great time to do it. Today I am thankful for all my friends and family, we had Thanksgiving here at our home and it was such a blessing to have so many people here warming our home and celebrating the holiday with us. We ended up with 14 in all with both a mix of my family, Blue's family and our friends. The food was good and the company was even better.

Today was a long day. I made sure to get the ads yesterday and spent the evening pouring through them to decide what stores I needed to hit and what things to get. I narrowed it down to 3 stores to start at: Circuit City, Best Buy and Office Depot. The main thing I was looking for is a laptop for my nephew for his Christmas, Birthday, Graduation gift. He will be heading off for college and you can't do college these days without some kind of computer. So anyways after everyone went home yesterday Blue and I watched a show than I headed to be around 9 and got up at 12 (yes that is 12 midnight) and headed out the door. I 1st ran over to Office Depot where there were about 6-10 people in line already, so I decided to go check out Best Buy and drove by Circuit City along the way (where there was no body in line). At Best Buy there were already about 100 people in line, they had tents and chairs and had obviously started coming sometime quite early in the day. So I debated between the o

Tonight I heard an interesting perspective on the old line "There's no place like home" from the Wizard of Oz. It's the one line that everybody remembers from the movie, but it doesn't resonate with the rest of the movie. Think about it, home is this desolate, grey dust bowl of a place where some nasty old lady is trying to kill your dog and OZ is technicolor. Sure it has its problems; poppy fields, talking trees, flying monkeys but along the way you make friends, good friends. With people that you never even knew existed when you were growing up, straw people, tin people and lions. And you help each other realize that all the things you want to be, you already are and it's fun! It makes me think about all the exciting things in life that we miss because we are too afraid of something new. Friend's are important, they can help you broaden your horizons and become the person you were meant to be. But you also have to step off that ledge sometime and try som

I have been tagged by my friend Brenda So anyhow, here are the rules for this Picture MeMe: * Go to your sixth Picture Folder then pick your sixth picture. * Hope that you remember the details and write a post about your tag/photo. * Tag 6 others…Unfortunately i don't follow enough blogs to tag 6 other so if you see this and want to try it then consider this being tagged. This picture is from this Halloween, it is my Bug dressed as Pikachu w/ 3 of his friends. This is the 1st house that they went to. We go trick or treating in the same neighborhood over in Seattle every year.

We have had a pumpkiny few days. On Sunday after church, we went to meet a couple of friends out at one of the local pumpkin patches. Unfortunately they were both an hour or so late, so Bug was pretty impatient. But we had a great time once they got there. 1st we went through the corn maze, I got to hold my friend Brenda's new litlle girl and the boys had a blast leading us through the maze. After what seemed like forever and many wrong turns, we ended up taking a short cut (cheating) to get into the center. Where they have a great big castle that you can go inside and look around. After the castle Brenda and I were visiting and just letting the boys take the lead, they brought us right out of the maze with barely any wrong turns. I guess we should have just let them take the lead in the 1st place. After the corn maze and playing at the pirate ship at the end of the maze, we headed over to the blow up bouncy toys and the boys went down a big slide, then we went on a

Another busy week around here, especially this weekend. On Sat I worked in the morning and Bug stayed with grandma. When I got home I made French Toast for Bug, Grandma and my uncle Martin, who was over doing some yard work for us. Then after I cleaned up we headed over to Bug's soccer game. They were having a food drive for a local crisis nursery, so we lugged in a couple boxes of food. After the game, (the best one that the boys have had so far, by the way), we headed over to Michael's (craft store). They do kids crafts on Sat and this week they decorated pumpkins, Bug made his into a space ship and we even made a couple of aliens to go inside. I think it turned out pretty cute. That evening I took Bug out to the movies to finally see Wall E. It was interesting, but it has definitely led to a lot of discussions. On Sun we had church in the morning and then a B-day party to go to, for Bug's best friend's younger brother at one of the local farms. (Bug really thought he

Today we went to Break-away at our Church this morning, it is a once-a-month gathering for moms. We talk about marriage, and raising children and just all the things we go through as moms. My friend Brenda and her 2 little ones even joined us. It was a very interesting session. We talked about marriage myths: like marriage will make me happy or feel completed, or fill something that is missing from my life. I loved some of the things that the speaker said, like thinking (of your spouse) why are you not "normal" like me. Everybody comes into a marriage with their own version of "normal" and it can be difficult at times to merge those 2 versions into 1. It was a very eye opening discussion for me. It was especially nice to have Brenda there with me as we already talk about marriage and all it ups and downs. Anyway in the afternoon Bug had his 3rd piano lesson. I have been thinking about calling it quits and trying again when he is a little older. He didn't seem to

Bug had his Baptism yesterday. Everything went well, grandma made it just in time and made me a little nervous but she got there just as he was getting ready to come down into the water. Here is our barefoot Bug waiting back stage. Here he is getting ready to take the plunge. The water made him a little nervous, but after Pastor Terry talked to him about what was going to happen. He was already to go.

Tonight Bug met with Pastor Terry to discuss his Baptism and his decision to become a Christian. Our Pastor likes to meet with the kids beofre we plan the Baptism to make sure that they understand the decision they have made and what the Baptism is for. I was so proud of Bug he did a great job of explaining it all to Pastor Terry and answering his questions. So Bug will have his Baptism this Sun at 9:00 am, he is SO excited and I am so proud of him. I will post a picture next week.

Bug found his Scooby Doo books this morning and was all excited to have me read them to him, so I explained that those were books for him to read to himself. So after a few initial complaints he decided to give it a try and ended up reading one book while we were at home and 1/2 of another book on the way to school and finished up that book on the way home. He was so proud of himself. Yeah for Bug. We also got Bug's 1st official school pics today (at least we got the proofs back, we won't get the actual pis for about 6 weeks). They turned out very cute.

Today i worked my shift at the JBF sale, normally I like working the Sun shift. We are the ones that get everything separated and ready for people to pick up. Unfortunately the gal that was running it today did a horrible job of explaining what to do and this on top of the fact that somehow all of the new people ended up in one area and all the people who have done this before ended up in another area made for a VERY slow take down day. What should have taken up about an hour and a half was still no where close to being done when I left (at the end of my shift) about 3 hours later. Luckily I have a low consigner #, so I was able to get my stuff and head out a little after 6. Oh well hopefully they will learn for the experience and it will be better at the fall sale. I did get to go to the pre 1/2 price sale last night though and found a ton of great stuff. One of the best things I found are these flash cards for homeschooling. I got 10 different sets, but instead of just showing these

Today I did the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's walk for the cure, with some of my MOMS club friends. It was a nice walk only 3 miles long, on a beautiful trail that we have in town along the river. Unfortunately I had to work that morning so I wasn't able to walk with my friends because I needed to get done so I could get home to take a shower and get to work. It was still a ton of fun though. I just put in my headphones and went for it, I was around the 20th person to finish and got done in about 45 min, not to bad for a walking pace. Our group did pretty good on fundraising, last I checked we had raised around $850.00.

The JBF sale is this weekend, Bug and I went and dropped off our stuff before work today and then headed back over to check out the pre-sale in between clients. In case you don't know what a JBF sale is, it is a HUGE consignment sale event. Locally they hold them at the fair grounds twice a year. It is nice because you can price your own stuff and you get 70% of what it sells for. It is usually a 3 day event. They have a pre-sale for volunteers and consignors. I always work the Sunday shift so that I get to go to the 1st pre-sale (that is the only way to get all the good stuff). Anyways we did pretty good a the pre-sale Bug bought some new Rescue heroes toys, one person was selling a ton of them for really cheap, and we found 2-3 different ones that we hadn't even seen before (which is saying a lot if you have ever seen Bugs collection). I also found 1/2 a dozen pairs of pants for Bug and a couple of shirts. He didn't really need any more shirts but sometimes you just can&#

I took Bug to his soccer practice this evening. I am sure his coach is not thrilled with us, because of different things going on the is only the 2nd practice he has made it to and somewhere along the way they moved practice from 6 to 5 so when we got there at 5:50, practice was almost done instead of just getting started. The up side of that is it was done at 6:25 and we were able to head over to the Cub Scout Pack Party at our local elementary school. So Bug is now officially signed up for Cub Scouts, his meetings will be on Mon. Although I am very excited about this we will be very busy people as he now has school and cubscouts on Mon, swimming lessons and piano on Tue, Soccer Practice on Wed, swimming lessons on Thur, he goes to the babysitter while I work on Fri and has soccer games on Sat and of course Church on Sun. It's a good thing we homeschool and have school done by 11:00 on most days.

So this evening we went to listen to the sales pitch for Worldmark (they used to be known as Trendwest). If you have never heard of this, it is basically a time share that you can buy but instead of buying a certain week(s) at a specific location. With Worldmark you buy points, that you then use at any of there 68 locations, each room is given a point value based on the size of the unit, the day of the week and the time of the year. So for an example if you wanted to stay at the Hawaii location for the week of Christmas (the busiest season of the year) you might use 1200 points a night to stay there. But if you want to stay at the Seattle location in late winter (not a very busy time) you might use up only 400 points a night. Make sense? Also on top of your points they have what's called bonus time. Since obviously their locations aren't filled up 24/7/365, you can rent a room with less than 14 days notice and pay something like .12 per point a night so a 400 a point night woul

After the dentist appt we met up with the MOMS club at the local Drop and Play, where we hung out and chatted while the kiddos played. After that we were supposed to meet my friend Brenda to get 1 month pics of her daughter at Kiddie Kandids, Bug and i grabbed some lunch at Azteca while we waited for them. I ended up getting the scare of my life today. I saw Brenda out front while I was in the restaurant and she looked like she was walking away so I told Bug to run out there and grab her. So he heads out the door and I go up front to pay and he hasn't come back in yet, so I leave my purse at the checkout and go outside to get him and NO BUG. I start yelling around the parking lot. I was afraid that maybe Brenda had headed back to her car to get something and bug hadn't seen her and just continued around the building trying to find her. After a minute or 2 of yelling for him I ran back inside the restaurant and there they were. What a huge relief. I ran over and hugged Bug and t

Bug had his 6 yr dentist appt today. He did really well, no cavities and everything is looking good. He had a bit of a hard time with the Xrays, the assistant ended up having to stand and hold the bit in his mouth while someone else pushed the button. His top left tooth is really loose and has been hurting him lately but they told him to keep working at it. He will probably loose the top 2 and 2 more of his bottom teeth (the ones beside the middle ones) within the next 6 months. The way things are going he will be singing "all I wanth for Chrithmas isth my two front teeth" for the holidays. Every time we tell him that he just doesn't get it.

It's funny how an ordinary day can turn into a monumental one, without a moments notice. I am thrilled to announce that my son officially became a Christian today. I guess I should back up a little though and explain. In our church we believe to become a Christian you have to say a prayer that admits your sins, and accepts God as your Lord and Savior who died on the cross, to take away our sins, was buried and resurrected 3 day later and now sits in heaven with God. (I am sure I am oversimplifying it). You then invite God into your heart and become part of God's family. So I was driving Bug home to get his stuff for his soccer game and out of the blue he says something like "I wish I could be in God's family" and I told him you can make that choice any time you like. And he said "no, because I am not baptized". So I explained to him that we didn't believe in baptism 1st. We believe that you become part of God's family and the baptism is just a s

Last night Bug got to film his part for this independent film he is going to be in. It is a short film so his part will probably be only about a minute or less of the film but we were there from 7 till 9:30 filming that 1 minute. Bug did really well especially with the whole quiet on the set part. He learned that quiet really means quiet. As they had to do take after take because of this small problem or that small noise. I think he had a good time and he is very excited to get a copy of the movie. It is supposed to be entered into some Christian Film Festival down in New Mexico and then they will see where they go with it from there.

Our MOMs club had an apple picking today up at the local farming area. We ended up getting there late (no big surprise there). So as we arrived most everyone else was leaving, my friend Meegan and her 2 of her little ones were still picking so we got to visit with her while we picked. After we finished Bug wanted to look around the farm some and my friend KaylaSue and 2 of her kiddos hung out with us. We went the the corn maze and took some pictures at the little dress up boards with the cutouts in them for peoples heads. Me being the bad mother that I am forgot my camera again, so I will have to have her email me the pics that she got. After the maze we drove over to another farm and had lunch and ice cream and let the kids run around while we visited. It was a very nice fall afternoon not to hot, not to cold.

Bug got his 1st official school pictures taken today. Since he doesn't attend school on Tue, we made a special trip up there just to have them take. I will post them once we get them back.

Bug played in his 1st soccer game today (#21). He missed the 1st 2 practices, we were out of town for one and had a missed communication on the other. But we made it to game time. They lost horribly but they seemed to have a great time anyways. I'm not a big fan of soccer, but I do like how they play it locally for his age group. They only play with 3 members at a time and then switch out either every 5 minutes or at the quarters (10min). The whole game lasts a little over 40 min. They also don't have a goalie which really bums out Bug and time the ball looks like it is heading toward his goal he would run over and try to defend it. I'm sure this sounds good, but there were times he would run right by the open ball in his race to get to his goal. We kept yelling at him "NO, get the ball"! It was fun to watch.

I love the new fall shows so far. I know not that many are back yet, but we are already enjoying One Tree Hill and Gossip Girl. Sometimes they start out and I start thinking I don't know about this season, but only 2 episodes in they have me hooked. Another show that I was totally looking forward to was 90210 and so far so good on that one as well. I really like the way they have linked in the original cast (except Shanon Dougherty, never have liked her). But I think Kelly is fabulous and oove how they brought her baby sister into the show. I can' t wait to find out who Kelly's baby daddy is. Now if you know anything don't spoil it for me.

I have it and it's a good thing too. Also my son can sleep through anything. I know your wondering what the heck is she talking about. Well tonight I locked myself out of the house in my bra and undies. I know your wondering "What was she doing outside in her bra and undies!" It started out innocently enough, I wanted to check the mail Our mailbox is just outside the front door and it takes a key. So I thought no biggie I'll just turn out the front porch light lean out the door and check it. Well I accidentally dropped the key, I almost said Oh well, I'll grab it in the morning, but then thought oh it's dark out I'll just run down the steps and grab them, so I did. No biggie I checked the mail and then went to open the screen door to go back inside and remembered The Screen Door has a broken latch on the outside . Oh Great! So I start ringing the doorbell and yelling for Bug for a good 5 minutes, now the front door is still open and I can see Bug's b

We had a busy day today! 1st we tried to get a little schoolwork done, then Bug and I headed to our church for "Breakaway". This is a time for all the moms to get together once a month. We get to spend some time in prayer, some time talking and getting to know one another a little better and of course spend sometime eating, because when can a big group of women get together and there not be food involved. It was a lot of fun and they have changed the format somewhat this year, so it should be interesting. After Breakaway we headed to the fair and met Blue. Bug had such a blast riding the rides. He is of course now more that big enough for all of the kiddie rides, he even branched out and rode on some of the bigger rides in the afternoon. He was a little nervous at 1st so I told him to ask this girl if he could sit be her. Of course she said yea and you can see him chatting her up in the 1st pic. (If he stays as outgoing as he is now his teen years should be a breeze. ha ha

Today was Bug's 1st day of away school. As I'm sure most of you know we school Bug at home. Which means that even though he is technically a Public school student we have always done all of his schooling at home. Last year we went through WA virtual academy, that way the school provides all of his curriculum (K12) and school supplies and we would just log onto the computer everyday figure out what to do for the day and do it. Then you check it all off when your done and that counts as your attendance. This year we decided to try something new even though we really liked the curriculum from WAVA, unfortunately they didn't provide enough opportunity for Bug to get together with other kids. SO this year we are going with one of our local school districts school-at-home programs. We get to choose the curriculum and then they reimburse us up to a certain dollar amount. Also Bug now goes to school 1 day a week. I really like the school house. It is an old 2 room school house tha

How sad and how quickly it went, August especially. Bug spent 2 weeks at the local campfire camp. Very nerve wracking for me, but he seems to have enjoyed it. He even did his 1st overnight camp trip without mommy and daddy. The 1st week he was there he had 5 of his best buds there with him. So between me and the other mommies we had a pretty good idea of what the kiddos were up to. You know how it is each kid gives a small part of the story to you, so between all of the small parts we each got we had it figured out. The 2nd week he was the only one to go but ended up with one of his friends from the play that he was in last spring there. So that was nice for him. The funniest thing about camp is that everyday he would come home with no socks on, so at the end of camp i had to go buy him all new socks. Anyways my friend Brenda had her baby back on the 23rd. She is a beautiful little girl so tiny and pink. So far she is a very peaceful and quiet baby. She came in to work with her mommy t

For Labor day my church held a big Family Celebration, so we grabbed our bestfriend's boys Ethan and Gavin and headed over. They had a huge BBQ and 4-5 of the big inflatable toys. Here are the pics of Blue and the boys at the batting one. Here is E getting ready to give it a swing. Gavy did really well considering that the ball was practically at head level. Blue always surprises me with how well he can hit a ball. he is not really a sporty guy, but I think he missed his calling when it comes to baseball, he can really hit a ball. Somehow I managed to not get any pics of Bug, but he was there. He kept running with all the other kids through the big obstacle course. Everybody had a blast and was well sugared when we left. Besides the BBQ they had cookines, cupcakes, snowcones and cotton candy. YUM, what a fun day.

Bug had a big party day today. 2 of his buddies celebrated today, luckily they were one right after the other so he didn't have to miss out on any of the fun. The 1st party had a Star Wars theme. They trained to be Jedi nights then defeated the Death Star and went and saved Princess Leia (sp). They even had the real Darth Vadar and a Tuskan Raider come for a visit. I haven't gotten the pics yet but I will be sure to post them after I get them. The next party was in the afternoon at a local park with a swimming hole. The bees were atrocious but the party was fun. Here is Bug getting ready to pin the planet on the moon, with the Birthday boy cheering him on. Here is him making his move, he then immediately headed back to the sand to play.

Here is Bug on his 2nd day going to Camp Dart-Lo he found a friend at the bus stop and they both held hands while waiting to get on the bus. So cute! Had to take a pic to remind him when he is older.

Well Friday night was Bunco night (8-8-08), so I made an ice cream cake and a new green bean recipe I have come up with. I know it sounds like an odd combo, but I am trying to eat healthier so I brought the green beans for me and the ice cream for everyone else. They both turned out good and I got a lot of compliments and requests for the recipe for my green beans. So anyway I started out with a bang and won my 1st 7 games and I thought "oh goody", I can win the most wins category but of course as soon as you start thinking that i started loosing a couple but I pulled it out in the end and won 15.00. Then one of the other gals was heading to the casino so I tagged along and put my 15.00 down at the 21 table and ended walking out of there with 45.00. I know some of you are woowho 45.00 big wup but considering I started out with 5.00 that's not to bad for the night. I am a very low stakes gambler. So then on Sat we had our friends Steve and Rachelle and their boy and a neph

Bug has been having a great time at VBS this week. On Thur the parents got to go watch the kids sing and then they had a big BBQ afterwards with a water fight. Bug had a blast sneaking around getting the other kids wet, (he thinks he is so tricky). They had some really cute songs to sing and at the end the kids all stood on their chairs and huge beach balls were bounced all over the place. I have been pretty busy working this week so haven't had much chance to enjoy the alone time. Oh well there's always next week when he is at Campfire day camp for the next 2 weeks.

Here are some pics of Bug singing with the other big 1st graders on his 2nd to last day at our Church's VBS.

So Bug is off for another week of VBS, (you can never have to much God in your life). Our church is hosting VBS this week from 9 to 12:15. So this morning I did a little shopping and got the house cleaned. Very relaxing when there is no one around to ask you a million questions. Bug had a good time today, they got to do 2 art projects today so he was very excited about that. He also learned the word Aloha and that it means hello and good bye. Very fun. So we are starting up again with getting ready to homeschool for the year and I am already stressed out about it. I'm wondering if this is the right decisions for us. I say lets work and he says "oh man" and gives me every complaint in the book. I don't know if I can take a whole year of fighting him to get his work done everyday. We are planning to go with one of our local school districts homeschool program. So he will go there one day a week and be home the rest of the time. Hopefully once we get back in the swing

We headed out earlier this week for a nice little family camping trip. I originally wanted to go to Glacier National Park but with gas prices we decided to stick a little closer to home. So we went to the Southeast corner of Washington. We started out at a park about 6 miles from Clarkston on the snake river but since we don't have a boat and we don't particularly care for skunks as neighbors (we spent most of our 1st evening watching a skunk meander around the campsite next to us, prepared at any moment to grab all of our things and run into the camper should he get to close) and wet everything to hang out on (in the morning they start up their sprinklers which cover every square inch of ground along with the picnic table and most of the driveway that the truck is parked on) we moved on. We ended up finding a really nice KOA park a little further SW. It didn't have much in the way of amenities but the sites were nice and they used their sprinklers at 3am so that things wer

I had the best birthday today, probably the best birthday I have had in many years. It started out with mom taking Bug and I out for breakfast, then Bug and I headed to church, we hadn't been there in awhile so it was nice to see everyone. Bug told his friends in class that it was my birthday so when I came to pick him up I got a bunch of "happy birthdays" from the kids and a card that he had made for me. Then we went out shopping a bit and out to lunch at Applebees. I went and got my free ice cream from Maggie Moo's and then headed home. When Blue got home we opened up all of my cards and they gave me my gift. A new Wii fit. I loooovvveee!!!! this gift. It is very very very cool. It tracks your weight, BMI and fitness level. Everytime you work out on it it keeps track of what you did and how many minutes you spent on it. Also it tracks your age so anytime one of us would hop on it it would say it looks like alykat's birthday is today, yeah me. After that we went

I had to work today and I had no one to watch Bug for me so he came along. Which worked out perfectly because a little church, just a block away from my work was having a free carnival today. They had hot dogs and Popsicles and a bounce house and tons of little games to play including a cake walk where Bug and I both won some delicious cupcakes. Here is Bug playing some darts. Here is Bug wearing one of his prizes. Here is Bug doing a little fishing. And lastly here is Bug working off all that energy (and the sugar from the Popsicles). It was a really nice carnival very well put together. We had a blast.

Bug has really been enjoying his week at VBS, tonight they put on a performance for the parents. I had to work today of course, I hurried right over afterwards and made it just in time to watch him perform. It was very cute. He also had his last swimming lesson today, he has made such tremendous progress this summer when it comes to swimming he was actually swimming by himself a little bit today, I am so proud of him.

This week Bug is going to a VBS at a local church, it runs from 9-3. Which is very nice in a way but also very strange. I took him in this morning and hung out with him for a few minutes while he got adjusted, then I went to the grocery store. Which was all fine but when I had to pass back by the church to head home it felt weird not having him, then all day at home I went back and forth between enjoying my time getting things done around the house and checking to see if it was time to pick him up yet. I got there to pick him up about 15 min early and waited around anxiously, when he finally came out he looked so tired, he seemed to have a good time but he did say "they sang for HOOUURRRS" and did not get to go out and play on the playground, but he is looking forward to going back tomorrow. This will be a strange week without him home all day. But it will be good practice for him because he will be going to a campfire day camp in a couple of weeks where he will be picked up

This weekend my work had their annual get away. One of the ladies opens up her lake place to the rest of us for the weekend. It's a time to relax, drink and hang out on the water. So after I got off work on Sat (around 1:00) I headed over there. I had such a good time that next year I will have to take Sat off and head over on friday, I guess that was the big drinking day. It was nice to get to spend time with my coworkers and get to know them better. Since I am an LMP I really don't see them much at work since when I am there I am generally back in my room doing a massage. We even all did a bead project to remember our weekend by. I made and anklet I will have to get a pic of it to put on here, it turned out really cute.

As anyone who knows me knows, I am not much when it comes to domestic things. So today i am so proud of myself. This week on Mon we went up to a local farm with my MOMS club friends and picked 12 pounds of strawberries. After I got home I thought what the heck am i going to do with all of these. So 1st I took the biggest, ripest ones and washed and stemmed them then put them in the freezer to freeze and use later in my smoothies. Then I stemmed and cut up another batch to make strawberry shortcake. At this point I still probably had 7 lbs left. So I got online and looked up recipes to make freezer jam and on Thursday I made 4 1 1/2C containers of fresh low sugar freezer jam and they turned out delicious. I then cut up the rest of them and set them aside to bring to Bunco on Friday for strawberry shortcake. Who knew I had so much dommesticity in me.

You never know what you will hear coming from my boy, he always amazes me with the things he comes up with. This morning while he was getting ready to feed his guineas he was playing with this wooden star that they have to chew on. He said "mom let me teach you something," so I said sure. He says "see how the left side of the star looks like the right side of the star, now watch if I turn it, see it has rotational symmetry (though he pronounced it semetry)." He then proceeded to show me how it works on a few other objects. Cool huh, like I said you never know what you will get from him.

It has been a rather busy week. My niece has been here since last Sun she is definitely a full fledged teenager now and spent a tremendous amount of time texting her friends. She is very quiet so it is hard to tell whether she is enjoying herself or not but I think overall she had a pretty good time. We went to Silverwood while she was here and I know she enjoyed that, though she would have liked to go on a few more roller coasters but Bug was having nothing to do with that. Unfortunately due to poor planning on my part I had to work quite a bit this week also on Sat I had a baby shower for my friend Brenda and had to spend my free time getting ready for that. The baby shower turned out well, we decorated onsies for her, I wished I had taken pics of them there were some really, really cute ones. Sunday night my sister drove over with my Nephew J and his friend and spent the night. Then she and K came with us to my MOMS club en d of the year picnic. It was very nice, I even got a nice l

On Sun when we were done camping we headed over to Seattle area and picked up my niece K. We took our time working our way home on Mon, we stopped at my favorite bakery and played a game, then stopped at my favorite outlet mall and did some shopping. We didn't end up making it home until after 7 at night. Then we ran to Costco to get tickets for Silverwood, where we went on Tue. We had good weather, not too hot, but not too cold. Bug didn't want to go on any roller coasters this year so K had to go on a couple rides by herself but overall we had a good time. Yesterday I had to work in the morning so Bug and K came with me and K got a pedicure while we were there, then we hung out the rest of the afternoon at home so I could get some cleaning and errands done for the baby shower I am having for my friend Brenda this weekend. I am very excited about the shower and love seeing everything coming together. Everything is about ready so on Sat I will head over to the site and start se