Cuties!!!

I realized I hadn't posted any random pics of the kids lately so here they are! I don't know what Collin is doing in this pic but I thought his face was funny.



Ronni -- of course--- talking on the phone.
Collin laughing at me on the couch.
Ronni, sporting her brand new pink Clemson jersey that her uncle Karl got her (we're a divided family -- Dad thought it should be burgundy w/ a pic of a chicken on it) and carrying around her pineapple purse that is, obviously, carrying her cell phone in it b/c it's not propped up to her ear. hehe! My high maintenance little girl. LOL!!

Dishwasher

We got a new one!! YAY!! Well, new for us anyways. Paul's parents got it for free and gave it to us! It's awesome! It's so quiet and there's not puddle on the floor afterwards or bits of food on the dishes. I LOVE IT!!!!

Food Storage -- Rice Pilaf

I decided I really needed to become diligent with working on my food storage. I have decided to do 1 food storage meal/week and buy double the items for it that way part of it can go in food storage and then we will be used to eating that item to so if we ever have to survive off of it there won't be such a shock to our systems.

For those of you who don't know Latter-day Saints (mormons) are encouraged to have 1 year supply of food in case of an emergency (job loss, disability, depression, snow storm, hurricane, disability, end of the world ;). Anyways!! haha!

I am going to work on my 3 month supply and then progress from there. Right now my goal is three months though. Last night we made Rice Pilaf food storage style. All I used was rice, chicken broth, canned chicken, 3 cans of veggies, and dried onions and ta-da!! A meal! It made a ton though so I stuck some in the freezer to use later and the rest is in the fridge for us to eat when the urge strikes. =D

This weekend I'll be attempting a breakfast... I may do it for Sunday morning b/c it's done in the crock pot. Hooray for crock pots!!! =D

Loooong day -- but fun!!

Okay... my day started at 12am. I was one of the crazy Twilight fans waiting for the DVD... lol!! Then, to make myself seem even more idiotic, I watched the movie when I got home. This put me to bed around 3:30am. I awoke an hour later to a horrible screeching sound in the living room. I ran in there to find the cats hissing and spitting at a neighbor's cat who loves to torment my cats. Our windows were open and this cat decided to jump up on the window sill. The three cats were ready to fight w/ nothing but a screen separating them. I hissed at the cat and he jumped down then I closed the window and cuddled mine for a while until they calmed down.

Whoo!! Tired yet? I am! Then at 6am Collin comes to the bedroom to wake me up. He was ready to start his day whether I was or not. I got him settled and fed then I took a shower and got ready to go. I had to leave at 7:45am to get to a conference in Augusta that was starting at 9am. The conference was awesome -- I learned a lot and it was over around 3pm.

I got back home around 3:50pm. I changed clothes, peed and loaded the kids up in the car to get to a birthday party. It was a ton of fun! Collin, especially, loved it. It was Ninja Turtle themed and my friend did an awesome job. "Shredder" decided to cause trouble at the birthday party and "Master Splinter" sent some help for the "birthday ninjas". Collin and the other kids received bandanas to tie around their heads and received training to earn their weapons before going against the Shredder (pinata). It was really cute!! LOL!! But Collin was having so much fun we didn't get back home until after 7pm. Yikes!

Now I'm home, about to get Collin to bed. I still have things to do tonight including going back to work so I'm going to go so I can get started and maybe I will be able to go straight to bed when I get back from work.

I'm tired. =D

Me, trying to get organized... huh???

Well, those of you who know me know how much I hate house work (even though that seems to be all I do anymore... hehe!). Toys were everywhere and I couldn't seem to get rid of them. A friend gave me a great idea and I took her up on it. I organized the kids toys into boxes and locked them in the closet. We have the car box, and a puzzle box, and a marble run box, animals, farm... etc. You get the idea. Now the kids come to me and let me know they want a toy. I open the closet and they get one box. When they are finished playing w/ it they put all the toys back in that box and we put it away.

In the past I have had trouble w/ Collin starting to clean and then get distracted w/ something else. This solved that problem. Another thing was Collin would want a toy, play w/ it for a minute and then move on to another toy. With this new system he and Ronni have played w/ the same thing all day. I LOVE IT!!! It has also given us more space so we've started moving Ronni's stuff into the room. We're hoping the adoption will be finalized in April sometime so she'll finally be able to move out of our room and in w/ her brother. We have to make room. ;)

Here's Ronni running around w/ the giant blocks in their decluttered room.

Here is my organized closet.

And then I just had to throw this picture in b/c I thought it was cute. Paul sleeping in Collin's bed. Haha!! We'll have to get Ronni a bed soon. ;) She's getting soooo big!

I HEART ALDI... LOL!!

So... until about two weeks ago I had never heard of Aldi (it's a grocery store). It just came here. I saw in the newspaper how cheap things are there ---- like a gallon of milk for $1.99. Oh my heck!!

Anyways, I went today for my normal bi-monthly grocery trip. We are a family of four and I normally spend $100-150 on one of these trips. I know... I'm trying to figure out how to bring it down and I just might have. I got to the store and had to put a quarter in a little attachment on the cart to get it out (I got it back when I returned it) and I thought, "Oh my... why am I here if they charge you to get a buggy?" Anyways... I got inside and went crazy. The prices were so good I bought things I never do. I got all kinds of snacks for dh and the kids; cookies, chips. I even got yogurt in the small containers instead of one big one and I got the kids a generic brand like go-gurts --- which they've NEVER had before. I bought fresh fruits to snack on instead of frozen. I got the nice skinny, yummy sandwich meat that is always so expensive and then all my normal stuff. I went through the checkout isle and..... $78!!!!! WHAT!!!!?????????? I LOVE THAT PLACE!!! I can't wait to tell dh tonight when he gets home. YAY!!!!

Just thought I'd share my wonderful grocery shopping experience. ;)

Our March Afternoon

We played in the sprinklers. A little girl, Gwyn, lives down the street from us and the bus drops her off from kindergarden right in front of our house. She always plays and the last couple of days the heat has been unbearable and it's only March!!! Ronni's little face turned bright red yesterday and she sprawled her little body out over my chest and Collin and Gwyn just sat in the shade. Both of them are very busy so that was pretty odd. It's only been in the mid-80s so I don't know what they're going to do when we get to July. Anyways... today we decided to hook up the sprinkler and it was sooooo much fun!

Here's Collin and Gwyn posing for the camera.
Ronni -- she was tired of the sprinklers. She thought the water was too cold ;) hehe

Here she is in her cute little swimming suit. She's leaving all of us on our own. She doesn't need water to have fun. hehe!

Collin and Gwyn posing for the camera... again. They did this a couple of times.

Here are the big kids pushing Ronni through the sprinklers on her little riding toy.

Collin's first talk

Collin gave his first talk in primary today!! YAY!! He did pretty well. He told the story of Jonah and the Whale. I had to help him out some. I asked him questions to get him going like... who is this? What did God as him to do? Where did he go? What happened next?... etc. He did well. He got a few laughs too. He was a goob and was soooo excited to give his first talk. LOL!! Silly kid. I just wish we had been given more notice. I got a phone call from the primary secretary yesterday afternoon asking if Collin could do it. Last week was conference so things got weird. ;)