Rough Night?

This is how Leah looked when she came out of her room this morning...

Advertisement?....Maybe

My kids have wanted a Touch-n-Brush since they first started advertising them on TV.  I remember Leah seeing it on TV and saying, "If we had a Touch-n-Brush we wouldn't have to struggle for that last drop." She's the only kid I know that pays attention to those dumb commercial slogans.

Well, I'm too cheap to order something that involves paying for shipping, so I googled it and found out that they were going to be in stores at the end of September.  I decided that we could wait...

Well yesterday my mom said that she saw them at her Walgreen's!  My kids were so excited!!!  I had some shopping to do yesterday and the whole time, Carter kept asking can we go to Walgreen's now?  Well we finally made it there and low and behold...they had 'em!!  You would have thought that it was Christmas!  Both Leah and Carter were so excited, they were opening the box as soon as we got in the car. (Maybe I should have waited for Christmas...)

Yesterday they brushed their teeth at least four times.  I know that's not unusual for Leah, but for Carter that is VERY unusual!! 

Now maybe I won't have toothpaste all over my bathroom every morning...  Yeah right!

A day in history?

I never thought I would see a car change to 100,000 miles...

When Jason and I were first married we went through new cars just about one every year or less.  We were so upside down every time that we would just finance them for longer periods of time so we could afford them.  So when Jason and I were out shopping for a car I told him I just wanted a car that we could keep for a long time and just run it to the ground.  Carter was only 10 months old and our only child, but I convinced my wonderful husband that if we bought a van, we would keep it forever and then fill it up with kids later...He agreed.  So to this day we still have our 2003 Grand Caravan and we really are running it to the ground.  I don't know how much longer it's gonna last, but at least I can say that we haven't had a car payment in about 3 and a half years and I'm lovin' that!!  So I guess our car repair bills haven't been too bad if you look at it that way...

What-a-week

Well Leah's last couple of days in preschool has gone much better then her first.  Her teacher said it was like night and day with her.  On Wednesday, she was even named a SUPERSTAR!!  I asked how she did at preschool and her face lit up and she tells me; "I'm a superstar cause I followed all of the directions, and my teacher even gave me this pencil with hearts on it cause she really loves me."  It seems like each day is getting a little bit better...

Carter has been doing really well in school so far.  He has a spelling test every Friday, so every night for homework we study, write, play games with the words, and then write them some more.  I even tape the words that he's having trouble with on his bedroom wall so he can see them again in the morning.  Well this week he was really struggling with them...On Monday when we started with his new spelling list, he missed more than half of them when I had him right them down.  We worked really hard every single night and I thought he would never get 'em.  Well today when he took his test he only missed two.  It probably meant more to me that he missed two then him.  Last night he had them down, so I'm not really sure what happened, but I guess only missing two is better then the 13 he missed on Monday...

We decided to have our half-day Friday fun at Peter Piper today.  The kids did such a good job with school this week that I thought they deserved it...

Leah with her painted apple on her cheek.

(They learned the letter A in preschool.)

Every time we go, Mila has more fun than the time before... This time she LOVED the slide and crawling up on any game or machine that she could.

I don't know how Leah does it, but she had two tickets that she found in machines and then comes back from the prize counter with a prize worth 75 tickets.  I guess the prize guy can't resist such a cute girl...but it tends to make Carter mad every time.

Only two weeks till Fall Break...  I can't wait!

Leah's first day of preschool

Well Leah is officially in school for pretty much the next 14 years of her life...  Her preschool class started last week, but she wasn't feeling well, so her first day was today.  She was really excited to finally be able to use her new backpack, and didn't want to take it off once she knew it was time to get ready for school.  She even asked if I would take a picture of it...

I'm not really sure how her first day went...  When I dropped her off she was really excited and ran right up to the door to line up with her class.  She couldn't wait.  And then when I picked her up, her teacher said that she did really well, but when I asked Leah how her first day of school was, she said that she had to sit in the time out chair because she couldn't follow directions.  I asked her what she was suppose to be doing when she wasn't following directions and she said that she wasn't cleaning up like she was suppose too.  She had a good lecture from her dad and me, so I'm hoping this doesn't happen again.  I also asked her if she made any new friends and she said "Everyone had friends but one girl, so I said I would be her friend."  That is so Leah.  She seems to make friends easily. 

I know she is really looking forward to going back to school... I just hope she can be a better student.

I know why we do not have a sandbox...

Carter's playground at school is mostly sand.  He comes home from school every single day with two shoes FULL of sand. (I don't know how he can stand to feel it...) And no matter how many times he's been told to take them off in the garage, he "forgets" and makes me a wonderful mess of sand all over my kitchen floor.  And then every morning I tell him to go and put his shoes on in the garage and then there's more sand wherever he chose to put them on again...  I've been sick this week, so my floor hasn't been vacuumed all week...  I think we just might have enough sand to make our own sandbox!

Are you able to ban your own kid from the school playground?  Cause I'm seriously thinking about it.

Afternoon of Lego's

My step grandma (Iris) recently found out that she has bone cancer. Her and my Grandpa came down to stay with my mom while she does radiation treatments for two and a half weeks. Today was her first treatment, so I had the opportunity to stay with my grandpa while they went. He is very low key...so I just played Lego's with Carter. (He stayed home from school sick).

My mom has a HUGE tote filled with Lego's from when my little brother was a kid, and Carter looks forward to going to Grandma's just so he can play Lego's. Well, after trying to build something for over an hour, I decided to start sorting out all of the pieces... It ending up consuming our WHOLE DAY.

After the pieces were all sorted, I was able to build him a few things...

I just want everyone to know that from now on the Lego's are off limits! I'm not spending another day sorting, so if you need something built, just put in your order and I'll get to it... :)

Labor Day

Our long Labor Day weekend, wasn't very exciting with two sick kids... Carter was running a fever off and on and then I took Leah to Urgent Care because she was complaining that her ear hurt. Come to find out, she had two ear infections. The antibiotics that they gave her must have been pretty strong, because after only a day she was feeling lots better. Now she is starting with the fever and she's supposed to start preschool tomorrow. I guess we'll have to wait...

On Labor Day we spent the day swimming at Grandma's house and then we went with my sisters' family fishing at the Power Ranch Pond. The kids loved it!!



We spent a lot of time chasing Mila. Especially Carter. He's so paranoid with her around water, and I think she wanted see how close she could get before someone would catch her.

This is a picture of Jason's tackle box...



When Leah saw it, she says, "What do we need all of these old fish for?"



This is a picture of the only "Catch of the Day". Clayton's pole looked like he had a fish pulling on his line and everyone was really excited to see the big fish, when is all he had was a tree limb. Bummer!!



The kids all had fun...and maybe next time we'll actually get to catch one.

It's nice to feel appreciated

Carter woke up in the middle of the night last night running a fever, so Jason said that he and Leah would go to church while I stayed home with him and Mila.  (I didn't complain...)  While they were gone I was pretty productive...I picked up the house, made all of the beds, did laundry, gave Mila her 1st haircut, started lunch, etc.  Well, when Jason and Leah got home, Leah noticed how clean her once disgusting pink flip flops were, sitting on the shelf in the garage.  She comes in and says, "Thanks for cleaning my flip flops mom."  (I was surprised that she even noticed.)  I then told her to go upstairs and change her dress, so she could eat lunch.  I told her that I put some clothes on her dresser...  She then says "Mom...you did everything for me...Thanks Mom, I love you."  And then comes and gives me a big hug. 

That made all of my days work well worth it!!

Our Climber

We now have a climber... 

Mila has discovered that she knows how to climb.  EVERYTHING!  She pushes a chair over to whatever she wants to get on, and just climbs right up.  I've even caught her carrying around a step stool so she can reach something.  I didn't know she could do this, and one day I came downstairs and she was standing on the kitchen table.  I don't remember my other kids doing this...

Our Flagstaff Get-a-way

Leah and Carter both went to Safford to spend the weekend with Grandma and Papa Nelson, and Jason's sister's family, so Jason and I decided to go somewhere ourselves for the weekend.  I wanted to go somewhere where it was cool...Sedona, Payson, Flagstaff. (I've never been to any of them, so I was up to where ever.)  We decided to head up to Flagstaff. The only time that I had ever been there was when my cousin played football for NAU and we went to one of his games, but that trip was there and back and we didn't get to see the town.

Jason saw a show on the Food Network: Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives where Guy Fieri went to a Mexican restaurant in Flagstaff, so we decided to drive up there and try it out...why not?  The restaurant was called Salsa Brava.  Here's a link to the video on the food network's website:
 http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/chicken-stuffed-sopapillas/33704.html 
(Just sit through the 20 second ad.) The food was soooo good!  We ordered the Pork Stuffed Sopapillas (Guy had the chicken ones on the show, and they looked yummy!).  The meat tasted like it had been smoked on a campfire, yum!  They also had a salsa bar that included six different types of homemade salsa to choose from.  (Anyone that knows me, knows how much I LOVE salsa.)  I was in heaven!!  It was worth the 3 hour drive just for this restaurant...

Thanks for the tip Guy!

Our hotel was so worth it too.  We stayed at The Drury Inns and Suites which was so nice.  Can you tell how much Mila liked it too?

I don't know if she loved being the only kid for once or if she was just happy to be out of the car, but she ran around that place like crazy.  Everyone she would see in the hall she would yell, "Hi".  She was so funny.  I took her swimming in the indoor pool that night which she loved!  Jason tried to get in with us but got in up to his knees and said it was way too cold, so he got out.  Mila didn't seem to mind; once we got used to it...  She played forever!  When we got back to the room I bathed her and she was out...which was very unusual for her since she has to have her crib to sleep, so that was nice.

This is is a picture from our hotel window.  A room with a view...of a big cow.  When we got back to the hotel it was 67 degrees outside, I wasn't quite prepared for that when I dressed Mila in a tank top and shorts.  Oh well, it was nice to be cold for once... When we woke up it was 57 degrees.  I think I could move there about now...So NICE!

On the way home we hit the outlet mall in Anthem for some shopping.  I didn't know how many great stores were out there!  Next time I think we'll go there instead of the ones in Casa Grande.

It was such a nice trip...and Mila was exceptionally good the whole time!  I just kept thinking about how much Carter and Leah would enjoy it too, but then Jason would remind me that they were having just as much fun in Safford.  (And they were.)  Hopefully we'll be able to take them when it snows...

Me...Venting

I finally got my van back yesterday from being in the shop AGAIN... So far this year alone we have spent over six thousand dollars on this stupid van! If I would have only known this back in February when it all started, I don't think I would still have the darn thing! 

It just seems like when it rains at our house, it pours...if you know what I mean.  With our van repairs, house A/C repairs and a huge SRP bill, I just want to know when it's going to get better...it's to the point where it's almost comical now.  I mean how much worse can it get? 

At least we have each other, right?