Now that we’re past all the birthday hoopla (scroll down to see a post and pictures of all that!), you’d think we’d be able to breathe a sigh of relief and relax for a little bit. But you’d be wrong. Because we’re leaving in 3 days to go up to WI and I have a to-do list a mile long of things I need to get done before we leave. Also, you’d think we’d be able to relax once we get home! Once again, you’d be wrong. Because then I have statements and quarterly taxes to do. And once we get past that, you think things would settle down a bit. But you’d be wrong about that, too. Then we have our annual spring Holy Days and have to deleaven our whole house to get ready.

So if you don’t see a whole lot of posting going on, you know why. Who knows, you might not even see much of me after everything calms down because I might have had to book a San Diego California hotel! LOL Hey, it might be either that or the looney bin!

Posted: March 22nd, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 2

Ava had a great birthday! It was so much fun giving her the kitchen we bought her and watching her play with it. She knows exactly what to do with it!! We also gave her a big basket of new art supplies to add to what she already has in her desk. She was thrilled with all of them (seriously, that girl is going to be an office supplies junkie like her Mama!). She’s also a pro at blowing out candles on cupcakes and cakes!!

She had a fun party today, too (and I’m happy to report that I didn’t get super-stressed out beforehand at all! LOL). She had lots of friends over, ate way too much cake and got really nice presents. It’s amazing what a difference a year makes. Last year, I was blowing out the candles for her and helping quite a bit with the present opening. This year, she did it almost all by herself!

I got tons of pictures (if I’d gotten any more I might have needed an sd card to hold them! LOL) You can see all of them here, but I’ll give you a sneak peek right now!

Posted: March 22nd, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 6

Today, Ava turns 2 years old! I can’t believe my itty bitty baby is two already! But you can hear more about my reflections here…

Our plans for the day are to give her the gifts we bought her (including the kitchen we bought!), go to church, and then have her favorite dinner…chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese! Then tomorrow, she has her Tinkerbell birthday party. I’m sure I’ll be posting plenty of pictures tomorrow night!

Posted: March 21st, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 6

I think that having a really good day one day makes “OK” days seem worse than they really are. I had an awesome day yesterday…both of the kids napped at the same time so I got tons of stuff done and was really on top of things. I even had time to go out for coffee with my friends in the evening!

Today isn’t really that bad, but it seems bad because I’m not nearly as on-top-of-things as I was yesterday. I have lots of baking to do for the party and I got the cupcakes and the Rice Krispie Bars done, but the Rice Krispies failed miserably. I’m not sure what happened because I’ve made them before and they turned out, but today is was like chiseling rock to cut them! Needless to say, those will have to be thrown away. I still have to bake the cake and make the Monkey Munch, but Kelvin got up from his nap just as Ava went down. I hate it when that happens. Also I haven’t started washing the diapers yet.

So obviously, even my “bad days” aren’t that bad. I just have to keep telling myself that….

And now I’m off to bake the cake…and if it doesn’t turn out, I’m seriously going to pull the covers up over my head and not come out! Which will be even easier since I’m still in my pajamas! LOL

Posted: March 20th, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 3

Today I was actually BORED!!! The kids napped at the same time for a little bit, so I got the rest of the weekly housework done. I also unloaded the dishwasher, folded two loads of laundry, assembled party favor bags and started washing diapers. Then Kelvin got up and I changed him and had NO IDEA what to do!! It was awesome! It only lasted about 10 minutes, but I’ve missed being bored! LOL

I have so much baking to do tomorrow for the birthday party. I planned to do some of it tonight, but it’s already 10:30, so I don’t want to start anything and then have to wait up for it to bake. I’m sincerely hoping that the kids will nap at the same time again tomorrow so I can get it done.

Ava got some early birthday gifts today! She got some really neat books, wooden animals and a weird kind of ball that I haven’t figured out yet (LOL) from my grandparents. They also sent a Tinkerbell card that plays a Peter Pan song when you open it. It was so funny…when she first opened it and it started singing, she slammed it shut! It kept her entertained for quite awhile, though! She also got a Ralph Lauren outfit from my Grandma Darlene. It’s so cute and it’s a winter outfit that’s a little big on her, so I think she’ll be able to wear it next winter too!

Posted: March 19th, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 3

I’m so wiped out tonight. I got 4.5 hours of sleep last night and those 4.5 hours were interrupted 3 times! I think Kelvin’s teeth are bothering him and I wish they would just come through already! I hate how long it takes for babies’ teeth to come through! I’m sure the babies hate it even more, though.

Since Kelvin was so tired from his very early morning, he took a good nap this morning and Chad was home so I got to go to Walmart with just Ava. That was really nice…I don’t think I’ve gone anywhere with just her since Kelvin was born! We did the last of her party shopping, so I have the next couple of days to make sure the house is clean (it is right now, but who knows what it will look like 3 days from now!), make all the food, and put together the party favor bags. Did you know that they have pre-made party favor kits now? Last year when I bought the favors for Ava’s party, I had to buy bags and then a ton of different packages of favors. Now, they have a kit with 8 bags and 40 favors, so I just bought two of those and that was that! It was way cheaper, too!

We finally got our new dishwasher today (which is why Chad was home this morning)!! It’s so nice and it cleans our dishes so much better than the old one! When I opened the silverware drawer tonight, I almost heard angels sing when I saw all the super-shiny, un-water-spotted silverware! LOL

Well, that’s enough rambling from me tonight! I tend to ramble when I’m very tired….

Posted: March 18th, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 3

Does anyone have any ideas for games at a 2-yr-old’s birthday party?

The only one I’ve been able to come up with is kind of like musical chairs, except they all sit in a circle and pass a wand (since it’s a Tinkerbell party) around the circle until the music stops. The person holding the wand when it stops is out. Other than that, all the game ideas I’ve found would be way over a 2 year old’s head.

If anyone has any ideas, I would be eternally grateful! LOL I only need one or two more ideas…

Other than the games, I have everything else planned (food, drinks, shopping list, to-do list). I also went to Michael’s today and bought the things I need to decorate her cake. It wasn’t even as expensive as I was expecting it to be!

P.S. Does anyone know if you can freeze cream cheese? I’m making a cream cheese frosting for the cake and I want to have extra in case I mess something up, but I don’t want it to go bad while we’re in WI if I don’t use it. I know, I just need so much help tonight!! LOL

Posted: March 17th, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 8

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but we fell off the bandwagon a little this week. Wait, is that just something you say when you go back to an addiction? I don’t know…the point is that we’re not quite as motivated with the Love Dare as we have been in previous weeks.

I’ve been super tired, so some nights we just read the dare and not the entire chapter. I know that’s bad, huh? In my own defense, I fully intend to go back and read those chapters later. I really will.

Also, tonight our dare was that we were supposed to have a special dinner for just the two of us. That so didn’t happen. First of all, we were grocery shopping all afternoon, so dinner came straight out of the freezer. Second, the only way we would ever be able to have a dinner for just the two of us is if we ate at 10 PM! And I cannot wait that long to eat. But we did make more of an attempt to talk to each other while we ate dinner instead of just trying to get the kids to eat their dinners. Hopefully that still counts.

But this week I definitely want to get back on track with the book. In fact, maybe I should go get the book and read the chapter out loud to Chad before I get too tired….after he’s done talking to Jason and Mike on his video game, though….

P.S. If you’re interested, there’s a tiny update on life at our house here.

Posted: March 16th, 2009 under The Love Dare.
Comments: 1

This last week has been kind of an experiment. I’ve been cutting back on blogging in order to focus on other responsibilities more. I’ve still been posting quite a bit here because it’s really easy to write here, but I’ve cut back my posts on my other blogs a bit.

I was getting really overwhelmed with the house and the kids and Aire Master and blogging. Obviously, blogging is the only thing I can really cut back on. So I stopped working on it during naptime and I only blog after the kids are in bed now. I was still able to get three or more posts up on all my other blogs (which is my new weekly goal), so this new schedule seems to working really well for now.

Another goal was to have all the weekly housework and laundry done by Thursday so that I can use Friday to focus on getting ready for the Sabbath. Last week, I was so overwhelmed trying to finish getting the house clean, doing the laundry, making food for the potluck the next day and doing the regular baby care and everything. I told Chad it just wasn’t worth it to kill myself trying to get everything done in one day just so I could have the next day “off”.

So by cutting back the laundry to twice a week (except diapers which have to be done at least 3 times a week) and using Sunday nap time exclusively to get the weekly Aire Master work done (so that I don’t have to try to work it in during the rest of the week), I was able to manage getting everything done by this afternoon. Actually, most of the housework was done by Wednesday evening….all I had to do today was vacuum the stairs and do the laundry.

Now tomorrow I can focus on laying out church clothes, baking cookies for the potluck, and packing the diaper bag. Oh yeah, and washing dishes by hand! Stupid dishwasher decided to quit on me tonight. I use those Electrasol powerball tabs in it and when I went to unload it, the tab was just sitting on the door, not dissolved at all. So I put it back in the little compartment and ran it again. Sitting on the door again. So I left it on the door and ran it again. Tons of soap suds sitting on the bottom of the dishwasher, and all the dishes still dirty. Ran it again (without any more soap). Same thing.

I opened the dishwasher door in the middle of one of those cycles and there was water dripping off the dishes and steam came out, so I know there was hot water in it. I have no idea what the problem could be!

So tomorrow I get to wash dishes by hand and try to get someone out to fix it….yeah right. Like I’ll be able to get anyone out here on a Friday. I’m fully expecting to have to wait until Monday, at least. Lucky me!

Anyway, I’m more than likely taking another blogging break this weekend. It worked out really well last week to use Saturday night to make my menu and grocery list and Sunday to focus on Aire-Master. If I don’t end up posting again, I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Posted: March 12th, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 4

I can’t believe Ava’s birthday is only 10 days away…which means her party is 11 days away and I still don’t have anything done except the invitations!

I do have her present bought, though. A few months ago, Amazon had a good deal on a Melissa & Doug kitchen and I bought it. Chad still needs to put it together, though….it says it takes FOUR HOURS of assembly!! My family is buying/making her more things for her kitchen (food, dishes, etc.) and my mom also gave me a wooden dollhouse to give her on her birthday. The only other thing I want to get her is some more art stuff to restock her art supplies.

Today I finally started planning what I want to do for her cake. I was going to make her one last year, but we bought it instead because I ended up on bedrest because of my pregnancy with Kelvin. So this will be the first fancy cake I’ve ever attempted! We’re doing a Tinkerbell theme, so I’m going to try to make something like this. I’m going to have to go to Michael’s and get some cake making/decorating supplies first, though. It’s also going to have to be a lot bigger than the one in the link. If everyone shows up, there will be 12 kids, plus parents. I think I’m also going to have to bake some cupcakes to have on hand in case the cake doesn’t go far enough!

I also haven’t bought her an outfit for the party or bought the party favors or decorations either. Oy. On the bright side, with all the great deals I get with coupons/sales, we have plenty of snack foods on hand, so I don’t think I’ll have to buy many for the party.

All of this wouldn’t be so overwhelming if we weren’t planning a trip up to Wisconsin a few days after the party. Whew! I’m getting tired just thinking about it!! I can’t even think about Blackberry plants right now…LOL

Posted: March 11th, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 4