Thursday, January 31, 2013

Nesquick Time


So my 3 brothers have a tradition when they get together they have Nesquik time. At 9:15 pm they have a large glass of Nesquik chocolate milk. It has tobe in a glass not a cup, and it has to be a tall one. This is what I think ofwhen I see my daughter sitting on the table with her sticky hands in the Costcosized container of Nesquick powder. Chocolate powder was covering the table andall down the front of her outfit. While in the other room feeding the baby shedecided to help herself to some chocolate milk. I carry her off to change herin the tub so the powder won't get all over the floor. I clean up her hands,face, feet, the table and floor. Unfortunately that wasn't the end of it. Laterthat night after tucking in most of my kids I see Yesenia hiding her handsbehind her back. As I get closer to investigate I realize that earlier she musthave hidden her own stash of chocolate powder into one of her random girlycontainers. She too was licking it up with her hands, face and floor stained inbrown. Twice in one day I was reminded how important it is to keep thechocolate milk up higher in the pantry! Fortunatley I kept my cool, unfortunatley I didn't get a picture.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

One of Those Days...

Have you ever had one of those days where you feel like you have spent the whole day in the car and running errands? Well today was one of those days. Not only did we wake up to non-stop pouring down snow, but I also woke up not feeling well.
 
Luckily Steven only had to go into the office for a few things and was able to remote in from home so I got his help for the day. Yesenia's preschool teacher's baby has been sick with RSV so she stayed home so not to risk getting our baby sick. On top of that lately it has been so cold that I have been putting all 3 girls in the car just to drive Kadan to school around the block. It breaks my heart to let him walk in -2 degree weather. So with Dad helping drive me around he was able to help drop off Kadan on our way out.
This was from a week ago, not today when it was snowing.
 
 

First errand was my Dr's office to get an antibiotic prescription. Then we went back into the snow to stop at Steven's office. Luckily because of the snow there was no clients coming in so the girls and I parked ourselves in dad's office for a bit. While dad finished up some work, I blogged and couponed and the girls colored and snuck treats. By now we are all starving so what quick place has monopolized on kids wants? McDonalds! Sure enough we went into the slick drive-thru for the kids favorite chicken nuggets.
 
Where I live on Tuesday's Walmart will double any coupon up to a dollar. I have been meaning to go for a while but I don't care for the Walmart out here and I miss the one I use to go to. It was better stocked, less busy and had an easier set up if you ask me. Since we were in the area and many of my coupons expire this month that was the next stop. Just like when I go to the office with my husband I get to see what he does best, when my husband goes with me to the store he gets to see what I do best; SAVE! So we spent the next hour with him ooing and ahing at all the savings and deals I find. This trip I saved $31.80 in coupons and about the same in price matching. I try to only buy stuff we actually use as well, such as diapers, wipes, Tide, yogurt, garlic bread, nuts, salsa, syrup, Nesquik, medicines and cleaning supplies. (For my local friends here is my plug for my friends price match website www.pricematchwithrachel.com. It takes a lot of the leg work out of couponing!)
 
After Steven pulled up the car and loaded it we went to the bank, whom hadn't shoveled their parking lot. The snow was so thick for a second I thought we were going to be stuck there. By this time Adrianna has fallen asleep in the warm car.  Steven had to pick up something at my parents house, and I had to get dance shoes for Yesenia. The specialty store that sells them has strange hours and whenever I was nearby it they were closed. So as much as I wanted to head home I had to stop while they were open. Yesenia was so excited for her real ballet shoes. Walmart and Targets dance shoes are more like slippers and it's hard to see her feet in them. She wore them to bed she was so excited!
 
 
 
 Finally we were 10 minutes from home then I realized we forgot to pick up my prescriptions. After we picked up Kadan from school we unfortunately still had to spend the next 45 minutes to go into town and get my prescriptions. Once we got home Steven had to shovel the driveway for the 3rd time today. At this point we are both too tired to cook dinner so all the money we saved on groceries was spent on ordering pizza. Boy was it yummy!!


Sunday, January 27, 2013

Glazed Donut

Earlier today Adrianna came to show me how pretty she looked only to realize she was wearing a Vaseline face mask. Keep in mind this is not the first time one of my daughters has wanted to have the glazed donut look. She seemed to have found the Vaseline container, again, then proceeded to scoop it out and apply it over her cute face. Her happy shiny face was so proud of the initiative she had taken to get ready for church how could I scold her? Simply by laughing and taking her picture of course. At least she will have a moist face and reflective cheeks at church today.
Adrianna (Almost 2)                 January 2013
 
Yesenia (2 1/2)                     February 2011
 

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Keep It In The Closet

My daughter is very much like I was growing up, very messy! She has the messiest room in the whole house, because she can play with the tiniest and most random things. No matter what I hide, donate or throw away she will find some way to make a mess of everything. So I decided if we redid her closet it would be easier for her to clean it up. Before the closet just had one high shelf and a clothes bar under it.  We needed to lower the bar to her height so she could hang up all her dresses while she changed multiple times throughout the day. Then we added 2 shelves.  We used the kind where you could raise and lower the shelves to whatever height you needed.

When I looked at the plethora of girly closet ideas on Pinterest I decided mine wouldn't look like any of them. Most of them had cute matchy, matchy cubbies or boxes. Most talked about how inexpensive they were too. Well I have ugly not matchy, matchy tupperware at home, therefore making them free. Also many of them had stuff on them for the sole purpose of decoration. My daughter can't have decorations cause she would just play with them and it's just more stuff I have to clean.

If you want to talk about how much it has cost me to make her a princess room let me add it up. The pink paint I got on Ace's free quart paint day, which did mean waking up early on a Saturday. The princess wall decals I used my Disney movie rewards points in order to get. Her princess mirror and Tinkerbell light were a gift from her cousin who is out growing out of princess to quickly, and her toddler princess bed was $20 on craigslist. The shelving was given to me from my Grandpa before he moved so all I needed was the screws. Which I spent $7.99 at Ikea for a huge box of all different sizes. So it may not be the cutest, cleanest or magazine worthy, but Yesenia LOVES it and it fit my pocketbook. I don't think it gets any better than that. Now I just need to be brave enough to refinish her dresser, wish me luck.

Friday, January 25, 2013

Sledding


Early in the week my mom invited us over for a potato bar and games. About an hour before we needed to head out I fell asleep on the couch. My good and wise husband took the kids to run errands so I would have peace and quiet. When I awoke I was too lazy to do what it takes to get everyone and everything ready in the car. Until I realized I would have to make dinner for my family (yet again, weird thing huh?)so I decided the prep and drive was worth not cooking dinner for one night. It worked out well because 2 of my kids cousins were spending the night, so Kadan my oldest was left behind to join them. Poor grandma and grandpa and very thankful mom, dad and sisters had a nice quiet evening and morning. We even took the girls out for a yummy breakfast before meeting up with them to go sledding. We had Kneaders yummy french toast, omelets and Orange Juice.


So Monday was a holiday and we went up American Fork Canyon to tibble fork to go sledding. We spent a good hour getting everyone in warm layers and layers. Snow pants, boots, gloves, hats, coats, extra gloves, and extra hats. It was so warm when we got up there, no one wanted to wear all their gear. Thanks to fun Uncle Jacob, cousins and grandparents it was way more fun and chaotic than just our family.
 
 
 
When we first got there I went down a small hill with Adrianna our almost 2 year old and broke our purple sled. It will be a while till I get to live that down. Later I decided to show my kids how daring I was by going down the biggest hill. Here is the video of me narrowly missing my son and nephew at the end.
 

Quick Update

Here we go again. It has been a while since I have blogged and I have decided to start it up again. Only this time I am managing chaos from one place, not all over the country. Steven is working for my parents family finance business again and we are no longer moving where the wind blows. We have moved to what my dad calls the sticks. We are in Eagle Mountain which is about 30 miles towards the middle of nowhere, literally. The closest gas station is 10 minutes away, grocery store and other services closer to 15-20 minutes. Despite the long drives and stocking up on supplies it is beautiful out here. We see huge hawks, deer, coyotes, and lots of road kill. The neighborhood we landed in is AMAZING! So many kids, serving neighbors, and a close elementary school. We wouldn't take back our choice for an instant!
We also have a wonderful addition to our family. The sweetest baby girl joined us November 20th.She not only has added much joy to our family but lots of kisses, diapers, lack of sleep and using one arm for everything. I know how fast this newborn stage passes, so I have decided to limit cooking, cleaning, and laundry so I can soak up as much baby good times as I can!
I am also officially a mini-van driver. I guess the most likely to drive a mini-van award I received growing up finally came to fruition. I have to admit it's not as bad as I thought it would be. I tried to get a SUV, but Steven fell in love with this gold Kia Sedona and we haven't regretted it since!
So the next several blog posts will most likely be a mixture of catch up and current affairs. Enjoy!