Walmart Park Job

Yesterday morning, after doing the Kindergarten and preschool drop offs, I took Colby to Walmart with me. We went to pick up some more groceries. I bought the kids those Yoplait Smoothie mixes. It's basically just frozen fruit in a bag. It was cheap though, after my coupons, I paid $1.50 each.



Anyway, when we are all done shopping, we head out to the car. I was unpleasantly surprised at how close the truck next to me parked. I will always be the first to admit that I am a horrible driver when it comes to parking. I really have a hard time parking for some reason. But, if you look at the picture, I was in my lines and I was fairly straight too. The truck was way too close to my car. There was no way I'd be able to get Colby in his car seat from that side. I loaded the back of the car with the bags, taking my time just hoping that this stupid driver would come out so I could get in. But no, never showed up. So, I climbed in the other side and put Colby in. Not that big of a deal. Now for me, I had to go through the passenger side, climb over the middle console and slide into the seat. Imagine how cute that looked, afterall, I'm not a skinny mini!

Grandmaster Mama

You can call me that now. I think I've earned it. I won the DJ Hero from Coke Rewards in December of last year. It was finally delivered on Saturday. I love it! I think it's super fun. Sam is trying to get the hang of it. It's still a little tricky for him. As the game progresses, you have to be able to keep up and do multiple things at once. It should keep us on our toes when we play it.

Dinner with George

I have made a big effort to cook more at home and spend less on fast food. Thankfully for me, John doesn't mind doing majority of our grocery shopping. He's much faster than I am. I'm a browser, a lookie-lou while he's speedy gonzalez. He sticks to the list while I get side tracked.

For Christmas, John bought me a George. I love it (except the cleaning of it - that sucks). I can cook 5-6 hamburgers on it at once. It's amazing (and gross) to see all of the nasties dripping off of it.

We had breakfast for dinner the other night and I even cooked our french toast on it, which was so much faster than the griddle I usually use.

I've been making lots of dinners at home, affordable ones too. It's so much nicer to have a home cooked meal and know that I'm saving some money. I'm always up for some suggestions of what I can make! hint hint.

20, Barb and 40

What's the 20 you are probably wondering. It's a $20 gift certificate to Rite Aid I won from Addicted to Savings! How cool is that? It will come in handy that's for sure. I'm buying and stocking up the household goods like shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste and so on. This win came at the perfect time!
Onto the Barb. I won either a Barbie or barbie furniture from the Barbie Pink ticket game. They will ship one of them out to me. I'm hoping it's a barbie. Chloe would be very excited!Now the forty, and no, it's not my age or even how old I look. Not even close (I hope). It's the amount in pounds I have taken off. I'd say I lost them, but then that might mean I want to find them, which I don't! In October, I changed my eating habits, more of a lifestyle change really and guess what? It's working. The scale is flashing me lower numbers every few days, so that's nice!

Prize winnings for 2010

I just want to draw your attention to the side bar on the right.
I added a new section.
I'm going to be posting my prizes that I've won on the internet for the year.

It's partly so I can keep track of what I've won, but it's also partly so you can say,
"wow, she's so lucky".

Towards the end of 2009 I started entering some sweeps and playing instant win games.
I won:
$25 Visa Gift card
jar of Pace salsa
Movie ticket
$15 Best Buy card
music download
CSI notepad/pen set
DJ Hero for the wii
$10 Home Depot card

Now the start of this year, I've won the $5 gift card to either Sears or Kmart.
I'm sure I'll be using it at the Big K.
I'll probably combine that with some coupon purchases and get a good deal.

I would say you totally should enter some of the contests, but you know, it would lessen my chances of winning!

I'm really hoping to win a larger amount of cashola! Wouldn't that be nice?

Well hello there pretty lady!

This is a special little hello to a special new reader of our blog. Isabella! Not only has she been looking and reading the blog lately, she's been leaving some comments! Everyone say hi to Isabella. In case you don't know, Isabella is my niece. :)

I'm thinking I may need to see if we can set her up a blog if she'd want one. What do you say, Isabella, do you want a blog so we can leave comments on yours?

Once more, more Christmas

These are pictures of Chloe at the Christmas tree lighting ceremony and Sam at his Elf Christmas program at school.

Here's two pictures of our Christmas crafts we did with the kids. We made snowball soaps out of grated up Ivory soap bars. I won't be making those again. The kids got kinda messy with them.

Then we covered styrofoam balls with gumdrops. I love the way they look when they covered tightly in them. They hold up also. I have a larger one that I made a few years back. We pull it out and hang it on our fan/light at Christmastime. I love it! The ball without any gumdrops is Sams creation. He did have gumdrops on most of his, but then decided he liked the "spikey ball" better.

Our Christmas Tree

I meant to upload a few pictures, but I haven't downloaded them from the camera yet.

Our Christmas tree was decorated by Lexi, she was in charge, and the rest of the kids. We sorted out all of the breakable ones, like the glass bulbs and left them in the boxes.

The tree was nicely, evenly covered in the ornaments. It looked nice! Notice I said "looked".

Colby is our destroyer. He has broke so many ornaments that I didn't think would break. He will snag an ornament off the tree and throw it as hard as he can and as high as he can into the middle of the tree. Most of the bottom branches are bent out of shape and missing ornaments. The strange thing is, I don't know where most of them are. I think he has stashed them somewhere. I walked out to the living room the other day and he was whacking the tree with his blanket.

How did I know the tree wouldn't do well in our house this year. Maybe the idea of hanging it upside down from the ceiling wouldn't have been so bad after all.

I guess we can only hope next year will be better! Maybe I'll post some before and after pictures once I get them on the computer.

It's Snowing here!

A rare occurance is happening in our little city.
It's snowing! That just doesn't happen here.

Me and John are very excited. Sam and Lex are already at school. Chloe could care less and Colby just wants to go outside.

There isn't enough to stick, but it's fun to see!

Flies, flies and more flies

I hate flies! After having the door open so long the other night with Colby and the garage door being opened by the kids, we have too many flies in our house. How many is too many? One or more, of course.

I haven't been able to catch this batch of flies. I'm guessing we have at least four right now. Flies are just gross.

Chloe is usually our bug catcher. That's just gross too. Even she hasn't smashed any of these ones. John tries to catch them in his hand. That's even more gross. Apparently, he is like my dad. Catching flies in men's hands is somewhat of an unspoken sport, I guess. Just gross.

I need a fly swatter, but I think those are just gross also. Can you imagine my kids with one of those? Ewww, Gross!

Woo Hoo

I just won a $25 visa gift card from Huggies! Woo Hoo! How cool is that!

Want to try to win? Check out all of the codes you can enter on this blog.

It might take awhile to add all of those codes (just copy & paste), but it may be worth it!

Another prize!

Last night we won a movie ticket from Kid Cuisine.

I haven't won too many things this year. I did win a few months ago a swiss army suitcase from Pepsi. Then the free jar of Pace, now the movie ticket. I can't remember off hand if there was anything from the beginning of the year.

I'm hoping next year will be full of winnings!

I'm entering left and right

I'm entering sweepstakes and contests, that is. I'm bound to win something (other than the free bottle of Pace Picante Sauce coupon). Yep, I'll even take a free item coupon. I'm not picky :).

I would love to win the Philosophy grand prize! Or hey, I'd love for you to win it and buy me something. I'm just about of my Baby Grace perfume.

Or, I'd be happy winning the $10,000 bailout plan from Overstock!

I also signed up for some more survey sites and search finding. Love it when I get a couple extra dollars in my paypal account!

I am now using Swagbucks. I've been using it about a week and have accumulated 13 swagbucks. You can trade your swagbucks in for gift cards. I use the search engine, which is google and ask.com. It's not the greatest, so if I don't find what I am looking for, I go back to my google search bar.

When I have enough, I'm going to use mine for either an Alice.com card or for an Amazon gift card. Check it out, I saved a print screen of my latest winning:
So, you can't really see my name, but it says it, trust me.

I also signed up for YouData. Super easy. I signed up, took a few surveys and now every once in a while, I will click on ads which open up a store website. Then I get paid for doing it! I'm not going to get rich by doing it, but a couple of cents and dollars adds up over time.

Another thing I signed up for yesterday is the Kelloggs Pop Tart Sprinklings.

My kids and John love pop tarts. This program is supposed to send you freebies and coupons. Can't beat that!

Maybe I'll have a post tomorrow with something about the kids. Something more interesting. :)

tidbits from the kids

Today Sam and Chloe were playing in the front room. I overheard Sammy say this:
"Remember when we were leaving Grandmas house and dad had to put the hooker on the car"?
I think Sams version of a hooker is different than mine . . . at least I hope so.

The other day we were in the In n Out drive thru. I yelled back to Chloe and asked if she wanted a grilled cheese. Her response: "no, I'll order a boy cheese".

We were at Costco getting gas. Sam unbuckles his seatbelt and opens the door. John stops him and tells him to get back in his seat. Sam jumps out of the car and says, "Let me out, I just want to dance". He did his little happy dance and then jumped back in the car like it was no big deal.

Sucking problems

It's not a good day for my vacuum to be clogged up. I made the mistake of giving Chloe and Colby a bowl of Fruity Pebbles (without milk of course). They have a little picnic table that they eat snacks at. When they were finished, there were more fruity pebbles on the floor and even more crushed into fine dust all over the table than I think I put in the bowl. Funny how those crumbs seem to multiply.

Anyway, I start vacuuming and realize that my Oreck has some sucking problems. It picked up some, but really just moved them around. Now I have to wait til John gets home from work to take the vacuum apart. We'll probably find enough crumbs and food to feed a small child stuck in the pipe and tubes.

But until then, if anyone wants to come vacuum my house. I'm up for it!

Been Readin'

Since I finished the Twilight books in April, I started reading other books. I hadn't read a book in so long that I think I forgot how much I like to read. So, Bethany gave me a whole bunch of books to read.

Nicholas Sparks books are now my favorite!
Love them! I read:

The Lucky One
The Choice
Dear John
The Wedding
The Guardian
Nights in Rodanthe
A Bend in the Road
The Rescue
A Walk to Remember
Message in a Bottle
The Notebook

Next I moved onto the Shopaholic books. Three down, a few more to go. I have to buy Shopaholic and the sister one before I can start the one sitting on my desk. I hate reading them out of order . . . so I just won't do it!

Then I read two of Jodi Picoult's books: My Sister’s Keeper & Change of Heart.

I still have more of her books to read before I give them all back to my sister. I can't pick a favorite out of all of those. Once I start picking, then I think of another one that maybe I liked better. So, this year, I have read 20 books! That number does not include the many night time story books that I have read to the kids.

Don't BS a BSer

Who doesn't love Jane Lynch?!


The characters she plays are the best. I remember first seeing her in Sleepover, but with Sean Faris playing the cute high school boy, how quickly I forgot she was in it.

*I know this picture wasn't from Sleepover, but I had to post this steamy one for all of us to enjoy*


Getting back to Ms Lynch . . . She is such a great actress. I am looking forward to Glee this fall. I watched the pilot since she was in it and loved it! She was super funny in The 40 year old Virgin, but was even funnier in Role Models.

There are lots of funny lines from her in Role Models, but my favorite is when she tells the boys "Don't BS a BSer".

Be sure to check out what my sister Bethany has to say about Jane on her blog, Gurrola Gossip.

I'll leave you with this sound bit I found online : http://www.entertonement.com/clips/yrbvpfqzwg--Don
Enjoy!

Two new posts today! I better slow down

My second post of the day, that's a hint for you to read the next posting about Lexi's birthday.


Top Gun was on TV the other day. I was sitting with Chloe on the couch watching part of it.

Here's a little of our conversation:


Mom: ooo, he's a cute boy, isn't he?
Chloe: Mama, you have a daddy boyfriend.
Mom: I have a husband, but he still can be cute. Don't you think so?
Chloe: (silly grin) no
a few minutes in silence go by . . .
Chloe: (silly grin again) yes Mama, actually, I do!


Silly little girlie, who doesn't think Tom Cruise was cute in the Top Gun era? Even though he might be an odd duck now, he still passes as a good looking guy, even as he has aged.

Can you believe that John has never seen Top Gun? I won't even tell you what I think aout that!

Let's play catch

Catch up that is!

School is out for all of the kids.
Sam graduated from tot time.
Lexi is now a Sophomore (and very proud of that fact).
Colby has had another set of ear infections that didn't quite clear up with the first medicine prescribed, so, I got to take him back into the doctors for something different. They are now cleared up and he has just a few doses left to take. Have I ever mentioned that our copays are $50? Well, they are. His ears are costing us just about the same as all of his diapers probably have!
John and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary. We went to Reno and stayed at the Peppermill. Our suite had a very nice soaking tub, which was used quite a few times. I would . . . or I will should I say, stay there again!

We've had lots of spiders, some even in the toilets. Good thing the lids are never down, other wise, those big floating spideys would've been big crawling spideys! I did find Colby trying to catch a big spider that was trying to run away from him on a couch pillow that was on the floor. Yuck! That's all I need, him to eat one of those.

No pictures to post just yet. Bummer, huh!

Fear

Like Lexi, I'm going to answer the question from Nathan.

What one thing should we as modern humans fear the most and why?

I've thought about this one for a few days. Is it fear itself? Is it the unknown? Is it life altering tragedies? Is it the loss of ones identity? Is it the loss of everything that ever meant something to the person? Is it the loss of their integrity? I'm not exactly sure. Is there a "right" answer to this kind of question?

When I woke up this morning, I thought about the question again and here's what popped into my head. *By the way, tomorrow morning, I might have a different answer, so I'll just be posting todays thought*

As modern humans, the thing we should fear the most would be the loss of the internet. Not that it would happen, but what if. Shoot, I don't even know if it could, really.

What if the World Wide Web did not, could not exist anymore? No more internet. As a modern society, the internet is everywhere. It's the first place I check for the news, not only local news but countrywide, worldwide news. There is so much information on this favorite "highway" of ours. Without it, we would be lost. Where would Lexi get her celebrity gossip fix and John get all of his sports news/scores all at once? We'd be back to relying on tv stations, newspapers, telephone calls and even back to the snail mail.

C'mon, you all have had a glitch in your internet service at one time or another. For a split second, you may experience a twinge of panic. Oh no, the internet's not working. You click a dozen times, open - close, open - close. You check the modem, the connection, calling the provider to check on the status of outage, even calling someone to see if their connection is out. You know the feeling. Can you imagine if we lost the internet all together? Couldn't even head to a neighbors driveway to snag their connection or if a little "borrowing" isn't your thing, heading to a free wifi location to hook up.

So, I think the thing modern humans should fear the most is the loss of the internet, our super information highway, our link to the information of the past and present. For most of us, our shopping cart, our mail box, our own personal bill payer, our social network.