I have been eyeball-deep in preparations for our Spring Holy Days that are coming up at the end of the week. Honestly, the deleavening is really overwhelming this year. I’m not quite sure why, since the kids are older and able to help (a little) and entertain themselves when they’re not helping. Maybe it’s because this is like deleavening on steroids because the nesting urge is starting to kick in. Instead of just getting rid of the crackers and crumbs, I want to clean out every single drawer and cupboard. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any of the things that have been missing (such as Leapster games) or anything remotely interesting (like military coins ).

Luckily, I’m almost done though…..I’ll do the van and carseats tomorrow, the living room furniture and a final vacuuming upstairs on Wednesday, and the kitchen and a final vacuuming downstairs on Thursday. And then on Friday I’ll cook like a crazy person getting ready for Night To Be Observed dinner. I literally cannot wait until next week, which will be my first week in awhile where I don’t feel like I’m constantly running. I’ve been so tired that I fell asleep at 10:00 while I was reading Catching Fire last night!

Posted: April 2nd, 2012 under Random Thoughts.
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Thanks for the article from Jermaine Haynes

Am I the only mom whose children are driving her up the wall this summer? I am hoping that I am not. I am hoping that I am not crazy. I have worked very hard to make our house really nice to live in. The décor is preppy and pretty and the furniture is nice, not like some old junk that we had after college. We have a really nice house. Why can’t my kids see that?! I ask myself this on an almost daily basis when they are running around like banshees leaving doors open and letting all the cool air out. Luckily I have already worked on my electricity rates so they are pretty low but what about all the other things? What about the little grubby handprints running down my beautifully painted hallway? Or the juice stain on the carpet? I need to know how to make these kids behave a respect their home and what they have been given. I think I will call my mom to come over and teach them a thing or two about life.

Posted: March 23rd, 2012 under Random Thoughts.
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We just had a really fun week with my grandparents. They haven’t been down here since last October, so we had all missed them a lot (we did see them around Thanksgiving though).

We had plans to spend lots of time outside going to the park and the zoo, but the weather did not cooperate at all. It rained ALL WEEK LONG. Chad had just tilled up the backyard and planted grass seed and now our yard is pretty much a muddy lake. We are so done with rain!

Luckily, there were other fun things to do like going to Going Bonkers and Union Station in Kansas City. And we had a very special day on Wednesday….Ava’s 5th birthday! We spent a lot of that day getting ready for her Hello Kitty party.

It was such a fun week, so it’s kind of depressing now that they had to go back home yesterday. We will see them again soon though….we’re planning a trip up to visit all of our family in about a month.

Posted: March 23rd, 2012 under Random Thoughts.
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We have been living in our current home for 4.5 years now, and in that time we have done a lot of updates. It’s an older home (which we love), so it’s fun to fix it up and get replace small parts of it to make it more “ours”.

For one thing, we have replaced nearly all of the light fixtures. We have a variety of types of fixtures now, depending on the room…flush mount drum shade , chandelier style, etc. And in our living room, we simply have a tall lamp with long arms that stretch across a good part of the ceiling.

We’ve also done updates to our bathrooms. Both of them have new vanities and the bathtub has new faucets. We haven’t replaced the bathtub yet, but it is in our future plans. I’d love to have a free standing shower , but the only way that’s happening is if we wait to replace it until after the kids are old enough to take showers.

A couple summers ago, Chad built a deck in our backyard and I absolutely love it. The only drawback is that we can’t really have nice deck furniture out there because the dogs would destroy it. We had simple lawn chairs out there the first summer we had dogs and they destroyed those in a couple of days. If it weren’t for that, though, I would love to have an outdoor futon lounger . At least we’re able to have a child-size picnic table out there that they haven’t destroyed.

Aside from those projects, we have also painted most of the rooms in the house, converted an outdoor porch into an indoor playroom for the kids, built multiple shelving units in the basement, installed outdoor lighting, re-landscaped both the back and front yards, and probably a lot of other projects I can’t think of right now. It’s a good thing we enjoy DIY projects!

Posted: March 19th, 2012 under Random Thoughts.
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These next few weeks are going to be incredibly busy around here! Next week is my baby girl’s birthday. I can’t believe she is going to be 5! She has requested a Hello Kitty birthday party, so that is what we’re doing. My grandparents will be coming for the week so they’ll be here for the party too. It will be a simple party (at least compared to last year’s Tangled party), but she’ll love it. We have a pinata and a “Pin the Bow on Hello Kitty” game.

After that, we have a couple weeks to get ready for the Holy Days. We have to get the whole house and vehicles deep cleaned and get rid of all of our leavening. A cleaning service cary nc would definitely come in handy! We’ll also be getting ready to host Night to Be Observed dinner at our house. It won’t be nearly as big as last year, but it will still be nice.

So that’s a little peek into our craziness! After all of that settles down, we’ll have a couple months to get ready for the baby, finish up the kids’ school and hopefully visit family a couple of times.

Posted: March 15th, 2012 under Random Thoughts.
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Spring is here! After this mild winter, spring has really come early. I bet there will be a lot of like-new bobcats for sale from people who thought they’d be using them to clear their snow, but then never got any!

We actually have our air conditioning on. It’s been in the 80′s the last few days and very humid (especially today). I am so not complaining though. I definitely prefer warm weather to cold and snowy weather. The kids are looking forward to pool weather, but I’d like at least a few more weeks of spring, please!

Posted: March 15th, 2012 under Random Thoughts.
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I don’t do any of my own car maintenance, because we are lucky enough to barter with our mechanic. It works out good for everyone, but especially me because I am virtually incapable of doing anything involving car maintenance….I would have no idea where to put windshield wiper fluid, change a tire, etc. But even for someone who knows so little about cars, this ACCEL electric fuel pump looks like a pretty good piece of equipment to have for your vehicle. I do know that at one point, my fuel pump in my van needed to be replaced, so I hope it was replaced with a pump that was good quality like this one!

Posted: March 9th, 2012 under Random Thoughts.
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I personally have never been faced with the possibility of criminal charges or threat of arrest. However, for those who are in that situation, I would imagine that it is a scary time, filled with anxiety. I would also think that, if you live in California, the first step you take would be to find a great California criminal lawyer.

It’s essential to find a good criminal defense attorney los angeles who has your best interest in mind, instead of only thinking of the amount of money going into his or her pocket. You want someone who has plenty of experience and knowledge in all kinds of criminal cases, but especially with defending against the type of charge you are facing. A good lawyer can make all the difference in the world regarding the outcome of your trial.

The Kavinoky Law Firm has attorneys who are skilled and experienced in defending against many different types of criminal charges. If you are looking for a los angeles criminal defense lawyer, they are the people to contact, but they are also qualified to defend people all over the state of California in any federal or state court. Set some of your anxieties to rest by knowing you have a good criminal defense attorney on your side!

Posted: March 5th, 2012 under Random Thoughts.
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Today is the first day of March! It’s hard to even call the last few months winter, but I’m still excited that this month will bring spring! With that, comes preparing for the Spring Holy Days and doing our annual deleavening. This year, I want to be able to focus on spring cleaning at deleavening at the same time, because there is a lot to do! With two preschoolers, we end up with drawers full of random stuff that needs to be sorted through and cleaned out (and don’t get me started on their closets….you might need wolverine boots to set foot in there!). And with two big dogs, the dust and dirt everywhere is at a maximum. I’ve already finished Ava’s room (it took me two days, because she’s kind of a stasher and there was a lot of clutter to sort through) and I plan to get Kelvin’s room done today. His should go a lot faster than Ava’s so I hope I can get it done in one day. Next week, I’ll focus on the master bedroom and sewing room and maybe the hallway area. We’ll see. I’m looking forward to having a house that’s not only deleavened, but deep cleaned!

Posted: March 1st, 2012 under Random Thoughts.
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This winter has been a huge boost to my creative confidence. Historically, I try to attempt sewing or craft projects on my own and end up so frustrated that I just want to throw the project against a wall. But this winter, I’ve attempted and finished a couple of knitting projects. Well, the first one was a sweater and that one was DEFINITELY practice. It has a lot of mistakes. And the second is a sleep sack for the baby and it is ALMOST done…I think I’ll have it finished tonight or tomorrow. It was much easier than the sweater, though, and so it has far fewer mistakes. If I have enough yarn leftover when I’m done with it, I want to try to knit a matching hat , so we’ll see how that goes!

Beyond that, I have several other projects lined up that I actually think I might have the confidence to try….wool longies and shorties for the baby, Angry Birds plush toys for the kids and some random diapering supplies. We’ll see how much I can get done before my sewing time is cut back on drastically when Baby gets here!

Posted: February 16th, 2012 under Random Thoughts.
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