Happy Valentines Day

Our Valentines events so far in reverse order... because I don't feel like figuring out how to rearrange them :o)

Cupcakes are a must on Valentines Day, Complete with sugary heart shaped sprinkles!

The Baker

The Artist

The assistant and Sous Chef (I think she looks like my Mom in this one... minus the snot anyway, The Mama is always pretty good about appearing snot-less)

I wanted to make fun Valentines day crafts with Annie today... however I was lacking in inspiration until I realized that the child has never even used scissors or seen a heart cut out of construction paper before! We kept it simple and then fancied it up with purple colored glue stick :o)

Stream of Consciousness

Well the evil twin hair clip showed up this afternoon After lurking in the great abyss for 3 days >:o) I'll spare you the bloggers photo of that one! Lets just say I knew it was in there by the pretty silvery gray paint chips that accompanied it. I guess that is why parents say the smell of their childs diapers could peel paint :o)

Joe accompanied me to the grocery today and can I just say that we saved $58.00! I am pretty stinkin proud of myself! I even MADE MONEY on some things! I also got about 6 items free! I have never done that! With Joe tagging along a few non-traditional items found their way into our cart in the name of packed lunches. Somehow a 3 gallon tub of cheese balls happened to end up at our house, which you should have seen Annie's face when Joe showed her!
Do you ever find coupons sticking out from between items on the shelves from the coupon fairy? I have seen it a lot lately and I LOVE it! Even when I don't buy the item or use the coupon myself it makes me smile that some nice person thought of others enough to put them there.

Amelia pulled herself up this week! She is getting so big! She is fun to watch because she is so tiny and its amusing to see her move around so easily. Pulling herself up was no easy task however, it came with a lot of fear & trepidation, tears and sheer determination. I grabbed the camera but once she was done she was not going to try again, I have caught her staring at the couch thinking about it but hasn't brought herself to actually do it.

Breaking News!

My husband has a comment he frequently uses. Whenever something slightly story worthy happens to us (i.e child choking on the side of the highway) he says "well at least now you have something to blog about", like I don't always have wonderfully captivating things to type to you! I should be offended by that especially since he doesn't even read my blog. Seriously I don't think he has ever read it! Not to my knowledge anyway.

However when something so stupidly boring amuses me enough to grab my camera and it turns out I am sharing about an empty refrigerator.... I wonder if he might be right. :o)

But check this out! Depressing, no? It is exciting to me! It means we are saving money! It means I made a menu and a grocery list over a week ago and it lasted me until now! We only just ran out of milk yesterday and other than my child begging for "spicys" = Doritos, we have not wanted for anything. And I made a grocery list today and have big plans for my hubby and I tonight!
I have coupons in my possession worth over $50.00 that I am prepared to hand over!
It was such a wonderful week of leftovers and savings and good meals every night!

And on a side note we have saved up all of our birthday, Christmas, anniversary money and plan on purchasing a new big huge 26cu ft french door with freezer on the bottom fridge this month! Because if there is anything I like better than an old tiny inefficient empty fridge its a big new shiny empty fridge! :o)

Big Time

This little girl is very proud of her new big bed.














She is so excited she is singing about it!


I love the colors

along with a little pink accent here and there

Oh, yeah, and I love her too!

2 Year Old Tales

The Culprit... or its twin sister anyway.

I realize that kids swallow things, but aren't they supposed to be nice round things? You know pennys, marbles, Christmas light bulbs (what? was that was just me? oh well) Not hair clips!

Let me back up a little... last night after dinner at my parents and a final dress fitting at Gautraud's for Kelly I load my children up and head home with Joe following behind in his truck. We get a few miles down the highway when Annie starts gagging, and gagging, and gagging! I turn to look at her and she has most of her hand in her mouth. I say "take your fingers out of your throat silly kid" and her eyes just get bigger and fill with tears. She sort of gags and makes a weird whining noise and reaches into her mouth.

I then throw the overhead light on and veer off the road slamming on the breaks and whip around in my seat yelling "What did you swallow?". I jump over the console and out the passenger side door, by this time Joe is running up to the car screaming "whats wrong!". Its weird at the moment all I could think of was how loud his boots sounded pounding up the side of the road towards the car. By this time Annie is full on crying with noise and everything and we realize she has swallowed whatever it was she was choking on. I knew as soon as I looked at her that it was her hair clip, she had her hat off and her hair was all messy like it is when she pulls her clips out... yep, sure enough "Annie swaddow my hair bow". Joe gets her a drink while I call Kelly at Gautrauds to explain to Dick what a clippie looks like and if I should be worried... Nope! No need to worry, unless of course she continues to cough because that would mean she has aspirated it into her lungs of course!! Sheesh!

So I guess I will be on the lookout for that little gals twin to reappear sometime in the next few days :o)

I swear

"I swear I'll never be one of those Moms who's children never wear pants and hair never gets brushed" - Me before I had children

I am still pretty particular on making them look presentable. But some days you have to be realistic. It makes more sense to leave the pants off so that we both remember that she needs to be reminded to sit on the potty and a brush wont go through this hair until she gets much needed bath which just doesn't take priority over scrubbing the kitchen while Amelia is taking her morning nap!

Love-ly

14 days and (Kelly is) counting, till the last of the Glenn gals is married off! I can NOT believe it, I am having such a hard time with it. I am super duper excited for her to be a wife, I love, love, love being a wife and doing "married things" and all that it entails ;o)
However I am loosing our Kukuck! The girls will miss their morning kisses and after work excitement to tell Kukuck hi and what we have been doing that day. I will miss having her around, she is the best room mate ever. She is fun and exciting and brings friends over and buys nice things that I can steal from her whenever she is not there, which is quite often :o)

We celebrated her entering married life last night and threw her a bachelorette party. I don't know how Leo and I ended up choosing fondue as our meal but we did and so with a how-to lesson from her mama (the lovely and wonderful Ton-ton) and 4 borrowed fondue pots we had a fondue party for 18!
With only a few snafus (I accidentally partially cooked the steak in the microwave instead of defrosting it...oops had to rely on my big sis to bail me out) we had steak and chicken fondue! I have to say... I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I WAS THINKING! I HATE hot oil! I had 4 pots of hot grease tethered to extension cords! I was SO scared someone was going to trip and pull a pot of hot oil off onto themselves! Everyone who came through the door I told no less than 4 times to watch the extension cords. Despite my nerves it was wonderful and everyone loved it. We had baked potatoes and salad and bread along with our meat.

The fun part for me was giving my home just a little pizazz by decorating with things girly and pink and love-ly. Like this vase that previously had a candle with acorns from the fall was transformed for a love themed party with some conversation hearts.





I love that I am forced to use my china when we have company over because it is the only thing I have enough place settings of. I also made these pom-poms that are all the rage lately and I have been looking for an excuse to make for a while now. I got the idea from Erin who got it from Martha. I thought they turned out amazing and I wanted to make a million more!

I did not have the time or enough tissue paper to make one of these napkin rings for each setting, so about every other one got a simple red ribbon. However I thought that it was perfect having them scattered throughout the table. I was also blessed to acquire 3 lace tablecloths along with the dining room set when we purchased it 5 years ago! Score 1 point for fancy!

Most of the other pictures I will leave to your imagination and to save Kelly from red-faced embarrassment :o)