Missionary Mishap

This is hilarious! I had to add it to my list of funny videos.

Consignment Sale

There is a consignment sale at the Methodist church where I live- well 20 minutes from where I live- and those of you who haven't heard me talk about it, count yourselves as fortunate. I become a little obsessive. Probably because I LOVE a good deal and probably because I am very limited in my income and there is NO WAY I could outfit my kids if I bought retail and this is the BEST thing I have found to help me find a way to do it. So those who HAVE heard me talk about it, I will now prove to you just how awesome this thing is and now that I am back from the hunt, I claim bragging rights.

I decided to volunteer this year and because of that I was able to go to the pre-sale reserved for only the volunteers Thursday night. Wow was that fun and tiring! Women from all over the state and from all different walks of life waited in line with baskets and buckets. When the doors open- chaos! But everyone is really nice and courteous. My sister-in-law Lori joked that men would never understand the madness of women + sales. The real sale was this Friday morning promptly at 9:00 a.m. and if you aren't there when the doors open, you miss half the stuff. Half of my finds were from the pre-sale and the other half was from the next morning at the actual sale.




Emily's shirts and sweaters, 15 total. All were $4 and under, some were $1. Like that purple one- $1 and the striped one with the buttons on the side- $1. Many were brand names, like Gap, Gymboree and a Nordstrom sweater for $3.


She now has 6 pairs of pants. VERY cute and all under $5- a couple were yes, only $1.


Two more under $3 shirts and a Gap coat for $6.


This one was my favorite find. When you volunteer, if you work the clothing floor you get to pretty much shop while you help. You go through the racks and put clothes back that don't belong and you find gems and stick them in your own pile. This one was missing the top and it goes together. Well, we found it. It is Gymboree and was only $3!


Lindsey got a few things too. All of these were also under $3.


The picture doesn't do justice to how beautiful this coat is and the price was $4. The outfit next to it was a Gymboree $4 find also.


Beautiful jeans under $5 and a blouse for $1 and a red jumper for $3.


This sale is every Spring and Fall for both the winter and the summer seasons. Most of the time there are a million dresses and this time, not so many. Last fall I came home with 10 dresses for Emily. As you can see, I didn't have that luck, though there are a few that will work. I was kind of surprised by that. But Emily did get a red and black polka-dot jumper for $4 and a $1 blouse to go underneath. But Lindsey scored with this $6 Christmas dress.


I have to mention, this sale is not just for clothes, but shoes, toys- big and small- books, movies, baby items, furniture, etc. There are women who come JUST for the pre-sale of the toys which is apparently ceiling to floor full of stuff and they have to be in good working order. This year one person sold 700 items altogether of clothes and toys. The seller gets 70% and the church gets %30 and what doesn't sell is donated to charity. I have never gone for the toys, though I still find great ones. I bought my Basset crib and dresser set from them in perfect condition for $350 the first year I ever went. This year, no furniture for us. I bought a diaper bag though since ours was falling apart, this almost brand new black diaper bag was $3, Lindsey's boots were $3, Emily's white dress shoes were $2 and Lindsey's ballet flats were $4- they were too cute to pass up.


This twin bed set for Emily- someday she will have room to be in a real big girl bed- was $10, the books were $1.50 for 3 Usborne game books and .75 cents for the phonics book and $2.50 for the indoor children's tent. Perfect for Christmas and the cold winter months when the kids are inside.


And the last item I got was a little kitchen for the girls for Christmas. It will fit nice in whatever small space we end up in and Lindsey and Emily LOVE to pretend cook. This one was $20 which is a little more than I wanted to spend for a used kitchen, but it is perfect and has all the food with it and the electronic stuff still works. It is being stored in Grandma's basement until Christmas. ;) SHhhhh... I think this was a successful sale, don't you? I spent $150 total and came out with more than I ever could have buying it new.

Cousins

Two weeks after Lindsey was born she came to visit her Aunt Lori, Robert's sister, who was pregnant with her little girl. The night Lori held Lindsey she went into labor and her daughter Sienna was born. These two have become such good friends. They just love each other. When we come to visit, they get so excited, they hug and play, occasionally they fight over a toy, but they are great friends. Sienna calls her "Zinzie" and Lindsey calls her "Yenna". When Lori and I talk on the phone and I put her on speaker phone, Lindsey knows immediately that Lori means her beloved "Yenna". Lori and I didn't plan to have girls around the same time, but I think the Lord did. They are such good friends and there is something to be said for having a cousin your same age. We now have a beautiful blond little girl and a beautiful dark eyed little girl. They are both getting so big and will soon turn 2. It makes us both a little sad that our babies are getting bigger. They both are talking more and more these days and are showing their own personalities. Lindsey and Sienna are our sweet baby girls who are instant friends.

"Fret Not"

This has become my new motto. *Edit*: We are still going to do the house buying hunt. The more we look at renting, the more it seems it would be just as good for us in our situation to buy. So we will keep going and along with my new motto, I will not mention it again until whatever DOES happen, has happened already. I sure hope to be out of here before Christmas! We will have to see how things work out in our favor. As I am working through this, I read a really great talk by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin about prayer and in the talk he says this:

"Fret not" is the first step. To Fret means to worry or to brood about something. The first thing we must do is to stop worrying. When we worry about the future, we create unhappiness in the present. Righteous concern may lead us to take appropriate action, but worrying about things we cannot control can paralyze and demoralize us. Instead of worrying, focus on all that you can, and then leave the worrying to your Heavenly Father. If your heart is right with Him, He will take care of the worry and fear."

Therefore, my motto is to "fret not". It will work out when it works out. Until then, wanna see what made me happy today? My awesome friend has an aunt who was selling tons of duplicate scrapbooking stickers for $1! Not $5 like normal, but $1! I was surprised at my discipline in only spending $21, but I do have kids to outfit for the winter and I will have THAT fun update when it comes! Here is just one of the kinds I got for- you guessed it ONE DOLLAR!

The Sickies Love Us

As I mentioned in my last post, I am trying to get over my cold. The one that is deep set in my chest and Lindsey has been fighting it too. This morning Emily woke me up to the barfies. She has been assuming this position on the chair all day and watching TV.

She has a bucket next to her and she warns me when she needs it and then proceeds to loose her Gatorade in it. She is hungry, but can't keep it down so mean mommy that I am, I am making her wait. Especially after she threw up twice on her clothes and blankets. Poor thing and she really wanted to go to her singing class today. I am hoping in my "weakened immune system" from my steroids that I will some how be able to avoid this one. I don't know how many sicknesses I can take. And mommy really needs to take care of the kiddos and Robert is looking at having some over time in the next two days. Which is a blessing because we need that to take care of our bills. Let's just hope that those nice germs don't find us again.

ER Visit

The plan for this weekend didn't quite pan out the way we expected it to. Saturday we had 5 homes we planned to see with our Realtor. Then we had other plans for that night and hoped to go up with my family to a giant cabin by Bear Lake. Instead, we spent Saturday at the ER for my asthma and left 4 hours later with a giant bill looming over us. Never mind the fact that I really didn't want to be there and even worse I didn't want to pay for it. Especially since our last ER visit with Lindsey back in February took a very long time to pay off. But my sweet concerned husband said he would rather have a wife alive than a house alone, so off we went. Our Realtor came and said he would wait for an hour, but we soon had an orderly tell him to go because it was going to be much longer. They did an X-Ray and nothing was there- GOOD- so no antibiotics. Then they gave me some steroids and medication and sent me out the door with a prescription for more steroids. Not that I want to take them, but they sure do help right now. I also ended up with Lindsey's cold, so I think that had something to do with it, but I felt the asthma effects long before the cold ever set in. That was our fun weekend. So just in case anyone ever wants to you know... cure one of my diseases, I can live with celiac disease, it's manageable pretty well with diet. Can you instead find a cure for the rotten asthma instead? I would very much appreciate it. Then I wouldn't feel like this guy:

Platform- Corruption

I really try not to use my blog as a platform for my feelings too often. But there are times, where I just can't help myself. This is one of them. If more people stand up against this kind of awful stuff, hopefully it won't happen anymore. And the more people know about it, the more it can get out in the open instead of being hidden and LIED about.

The following story is long, but was in our local paper about government corruption and bullying. Where an innocent stay-at-home mom can be arrested for no reason, except for corrupt purposes.

http://fcd.freecapitalist.com/2008/09/08/rogue-agency-arrests-stay-at-home-utah-mom/354

The poor Bradley family, my heart goes out to them and to all those affected by this "fraudulent" state department. I am angered by this and that the Governor has not done a thing to stop it. I pray that they will find a way to take care of their family and that compensation can be made to them for the abuses they have endured for being honest people.

Three Books

I finished this a few weeks ago or so. I really thought it was cute. I laughed a lot at the dad, Frank Gilbreth, as this book was written by 2 of the 12 children. He had so much fun with his kids and they just loved him. He had such great educational ideas, was a good father and they had fun living in a large family. If you ever get a chance to read it, you will really like it. It is a true story by the way, not at all like the stupid, over-the-top movie with Steve Martin that made big families seem like chaos instead of organized fun. Which would make the real Frank Gilbreth turn in his grave as his whole life was devoted to organization and "motion study", how to make tasks more time efficient and that is how he taught his children. In the real story, he dies and leaves his wife with, then 11 kids years after one of the oldest passed away. The old movie is more like the book and I really like it too. Read or watch it, it's really good.


The other one is actually the 2nd book in the Scarlet Pimpernel series called I Will Repay. It was okay. The story wasn't as fun as the first Scarlet Pimpernel series. I couldn't stand to wait for the book at the library so I read it in one night and a morning at the computer as an e-book. The thing is, a lot of the series is out of print. And some of the books don't seem that interesting so I don't think I want to read them, but this now brings me to the 3rd book, The Elusive Pimpernel. I LOVED this one. It was almost as good as the 1st. I think, I can see where it could kill the original story if she goes too far with them, but this was kind of cute. His way of getting out of his enemies hands wasn't as ingenious as the 1st, but still showing that he had more brains than they did. Course, Marguerite didn't. She kind of did the typical thing that she shouldn't do, since we all have come to know her, be a little rash with her judgment. I liked it though.

September 11th

I have never had a blog to share my feelings openly about what September 11th was like for me and where I was when it happened. I have mixed feelings about that whole thing. It was such a sad time, but turned out to be so happy for me long term. I was in the car with my dad, he was driving me to my college classes when we were having our typical fight over the radio. Who should get to control it and will it be my dad's favorite (talk radio) or mine (music). I won that morning, until we heard the DJs talking about a moron flying his plane into the Trade Center building. We were surprised and changed to talk radio where we got the whole story of 2 planes, both towers, terrorists and then the announcement of the Pentagon as well. I was stunned, but thought we would still be holding class.

When I got to English class all the teacher was doing was watching the news and everyone was talking. He excused us for the day and very few professors had class still going. We all watched the TV in the main area and I talked with a cousin of mine, until I decided I needed to go to a spiritual place and headed to the religious Institute building. It was on every TV there too. I talked with my friends and the called my parents because there was speculation of Osama Bin Laden going into China to hide and my sister was then over seas in China, 50 miles from Afghanistan. The next day, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang and the First Presidency did a memorial service that was on broad cast to the Institute. It was there that I felt really sad and heard this annoying guy behind me laughing and giggling during a somber moment. My friend Hilary kept giving him crusties.

The next day I met that annoying guy, he turned out to not be so annoying and in fact was a very cute nice guy. I dated and married him and we have been blissfully happy ever since. So the interesting thing is that when it happened I had a thought that after that time my life would never be the same. And it was true, but in a very positive way. I can't be completely sad during this time. I remember the emotions, the friendships, the worry, the sadness for so many lives lost and the love that I found after such a difficult time.

Lindsey

My sister Rachel tagged Lindsey so I will do a post all about her.

Name and meaning: Lindsey Brooke. Well, I looked up the definition of Lindsey and it is old English meaning "Lincoln's marsh; island of linden trees". Okay... Really before she was born we couldn't agree on any names but this one. We went to the hospital still not convinced it would be her name, but while we were there, nothing else came to us and it seemed to fit her well. It is also a family name on Robert's side, he has ancestors that came over seas named Lindsay with an sAy and they were all men. Brooke is my sweet little sister's name and I have always loved it. The other story with that is that at one time my mom and my Aunt were pregnant with little girls. They had them hours apart and 2 separate days. They both had 2 names Lindsey or Brooke. They decided they wouldn't let it influence their choice and my Aunt just happened to name her daughter Lindsey and my mom named my sister Brooke. So I ended up combining the two. :P

Age: 19 months old. She gets to have a January birthday like her mommy.

Nicknames: Pinsey, Pinseykins, Kinsey, Pinwheel and she now calls herself "Neeny" so that is her new one.

Favorite activities: Playing with pretend food and feeding people, pushing toy cars on the and making it's sound, going outside, etc. She loves to look and books and "read" them just like her big sister. And she loves to play chase and SCREAM with Emily. (the screaming part drives me crazy and has GOT to stop!)

Favorite foods: She likes most foods, meat, peas, grapes she LOVES, bananas, bread, eggs, rice, corn, beans, etc. She really isn't very picky. She of course loves sweets. The other day she had a cupcake for a birthday party, her cousin 2 weeks younger than her, just sat and licked at the frosting. Lindsey took it with both hands and SHOVED it frosting side first into her mouth. :D

Least favorite foods: For some reason she doesn't like pears and just like Emily, won't even try potatoes.

Favorite music: She loves music. She dances to anything, she tries to sing the A,B,C song with us and our night time primary songs. She walks around saying 8 all the time and finally I realized it meant A, but she likes to put a T at the end of words like "shoe".

Favorite toys: Loves the phone, real or fake. She also LOVES her baby doll. She has mothered that cheap ratty baby doll since she was 13 months and still crawling. She hugs it, loves it, feeds it, wraps it in a blanket and puts it to bed. She also has recently become attached to Elmo and our cheap Elmo doll and she can now ask for it by name.

Favorite book: She has a Blue's Clues board flap book that she has pretty much ripped and worn most of the flaps to death but she loves it.

Favorite item of clothing: Well, she LOVES shoes and is obsessed with her shoes, Emily's shoes, my shoes, etc. She puts them on her, on anyone who will let her. And she likes wearing Grandma's play beads and calling herself "petty".

What makes her happy: Going anywhere with her mommy and her sister, swinging, eating, her "key-key"- her blanket. Playing with toys, being tickled.

What makes her sad: When Emily picks her up when she doesn't want it, getting out of the swing, being put in the car seat too many times in one day, being physically hurt in ANY way.

I tag: Spring with Mia
Trisha with Kelsie
Jeanette with Elijah
and Bridgette with Colton

Art Blog

I have now become a serial blogger! I thought 2 blogs was enough, one main blog, one homeschool one. That was all I could handle, right? Wrong! I have added an art blog. I find that because of blogging I take more pictures, I write about what my family is doing and I feel like I get more things done because I am always wanting to document good memories for my kids and I make a point to make those memories. Well, I am finding myself to be more stagnant in how often I paint. I am doing more than before because of my art lessons, but I need to do more. I can't let my talents go to waste while being a mom. I stay up late enough to read through everyone's blog posts, email, message boards. Why not do that at the same time I paint? So I have started it and it has been helping. I really want to have art study goals, etc. and I want to share them too. That is the reason for the art blog. So come and check it out! There isn't much there yet, but the goal is to fill it up! Have fun checking out my work.