As for Updates

There hasn't been too much exciting stuff going on here. No first steps yet, although hopefully any day now. But, for the un-exciting stuff, here is what we have been up to lately:

*I got a part time job, working at Ross Dress for Less! I am actually enjoying it so far, it's been about 3 weeks. I work two nights a week a week, and I have worked one Saturday for 4 hours. So, it's good, it gets me out of the house, and I am not spending money (well, at least I am making a little bit to cover what I spend at Ross!)

*Ashley stands by herself now. And she is trying to climb, she climbs the fireplace step, which she only fell off of 3 times, and can now get down pretty well unassisted too! She is trying the couch but can't quiet make it yet, thankfully!

*Tessa is in a home-based preschool and loving it! She goes right in and doesn't look back, and when I go in to pick her up, she tells me "Not Yet Mommy!"

*Rosco has been in Obedience Training for the past 5 weeks, he has 3 weeks to go. He is doing awesome, as long as you have treats in your hand. If you have no treats, forget it! But he is becoming the dog we always wanted, just slowly!

*Tessa hasn't used the potty yet. Has no desire, just screams no if you ask her. But one day, one day this will all change... I told her that all I want for Christmas if for her to use the potty!

*Kirk asked me last week what my thought were on having another kid, I mentally froze for a moment, and he filled in the silence with "I don't want to even really think about it until the first one is potty trained" phew! I don't want to think about it until the second one is consistently sleeping through the night and that isn't going to happen until all her teeth come in, I believe. And until the first one is toilet trained. I DO NOT want 3 children in diapers, no way no how, thank you very much. Two is too many to change already.

*We finished painting the kitchen this past weekend. It has a chair rail, so we went a lighter shade on top and our through-out-the-whole-house beige on bottom. It looks sooo nice, I just love it! And I feel more complete looking at an entirely painted wall instead of a big brown and white line down the middle of the wall :) Thank you very much Kirk!!!

*Tessa has began asking for ponytails!!! I knew that this happy day would come! She sits and waits and then asks for hairspray. I let her pick out the color barrettes she wants, and all goes well, and I LOVE IT!!! She is darling!

Anyways, these are some of the things that we have been up to lately, like I said, nothing exciting, but just our normal daily doings :)

Crate

About two weeks ago, I had been rearranging the garage one evening. While laying in bed, Kirk asked if I had shut the garage door. So I hop out of bed to come down and shut the door, and it's very dark out I notice. So I reach out to push the button for the door, and think to myself that someone could be in the garage and I wouldn't know since it was so dark, so I shut the house door and lock it, just in case, you know. As I switched the lock, I hear a noise behind me, in the family room or toy room (although I am not sure why a burglar would be in the toy room, perhaps stealing our little people collection?). So I quickly, and I mean quickly, run up the stairs to tell Kirk to go check the downstairs. As I am telling him this, I hear a loud crash. I am totally freaked out at this point, absolutely sure we have a burglar, and I have locked him IN our house now. Kirk swears he didn't hear the crash, I don't know now he didn't, but anyways. So we totally check out the downstairs, and then the upstairs. No burglars, and totally puzzled about the crash (which the next day we find out was a super big branch falling off the tree outside the family room window), we go to bed. So I have a dream that night that we had a burglar. In the dream, I am sleeping and wake up, only to see a man in black clothes in our hallway, he notices me sit up and steps into the room Tessa is sleeping in. I can't even talk, all I keep saying in k-k-k-k-k, stuttering Kirk. I was frozen with fear, totally frozen. All I kept thinking was, we don't have any weapons, well, there is a baseball bat, but it's in the garage, and the phone jack upstairs isn't working, so the phone is downstairs too. And Rosco, our big, scary looking with a really deep growl, but gentle as can be Rosco is outside. In dream Kirk says he is going in to confront the guy, or get Tessa or something, and I don't know what to do. I am afraid to go downstairs, because what if there is another burglar (they do go in pairs sometimes) and I am afraid to go outside to get Rosco, because what if they lock me out and Kirk and the girls are inside alone. I know, I have crazy dreams. Anyways, I woke up with a pounding heart, and had a hard time going back to sleep.

So now, lucky for Rosco I have scary dreams, he is happily sleeping in a Crate in our front room, with a great view of the front door and glass door. So, I know, what good is he going to do in a crate?? Well, I have the idea that if someone breaks in and starts coming up the stairs in the dark and hear a very large dog growling that they will quickly turn and go away because they can't see if he is crated or not in the dark. Hopefully we will never have to find out, but I do sleep a little better at night now. Thank you Rosco.

As a side note, Kirk told me last night when I was opening the front door around 9 pm after getting home, Rosco heard the noise and started growling, but then saw it was me and stopped. So Rosco is paying for his keep!

Growing Up

Tessa is getting so big. It just amazes me. When I read to her now, I let her finish the sentences. The other day, we were reading Cinderella, and I started with "The stepsisters tried to push..." and she ended with "thier big, ugly feet into the glass slipper." It was funny to hear her say "big, ugly feet" I just laughed to myself and was proud that she is getting to good at remembering. Which makes me also realize that she remembers, and that she probably remembers everything now. So, I need to make sure she has happy things to remember. (although at dinner time when Kirk asks Tessa what she did today, she always says "i don't know" so maybe she isn't remembering as well as I thought! haha)

Educated

I have such a wonderful husband. He let me go to Education Week this year. Well, I guess I shouldn't say let me like he is controlling or something, it's just that he was fine with me being gone every night for an entire week and putting the girls down by himself. So for this, and all the other nights I am out and about, I love him, he is such a wonderful husband and awesome father. Thank you Kirk!

I want to write a little about Ed Week. I had such a wonderful time. Next year, I want Kirk to go with me, it would be a lot of fun to go to classes together so that we would have so much to discuss, other than the kids and fixing up the house! So, I would recommend it to EVERYONE!

I went to a lot of different classes, some spiritual, some financial, some parenting, some marriage related, and one fun organizational class. The organizational class was very encouraging. It was taught by Marie Ricks, author and professional home-organizer. www.houseoforder.com I really enjoyed her classes, I actually only got to go to two of them, for they fill up fast. But I bought her book, House of Order Handbook, and have read it cover to cover already. So I am now going back and starting over and this time going to try putting it into practice. I really want our new house to be an organized one, this is why I still haven't put everything away yet, because I am scared of putting it where it shouldn't go, and then having to move it all again, so therefore I just leave it all in the garage packed up still. Yes, I sometimes have to go down searching for things, like last week the blender, so now I think I might have the courage to start unpacking! We will see!

I am actually taking her classes again at a stake center down the road in PG on Thursday nights, it's an 8 week course, free which is good, because I didn't get to see all of it at Ed Week. Some of the things I have learned though are:
*keep only half of what you already own. Like if you have 3 staplers, only keep 2 (she says to round up), or if you own multiple pots (like 10 or 20... I don't have that many) you really only need 4, max of 5, because your stove only has 4 elements on it.
*keep quality, and buy quality. Don't spend your money on junk products because they are cheap, save up a little more and buy something you will use more often and that will last longer. Her example was with kitchen utensils, don't buy dollar store plastic tongs, splurge and buy $10 metal ones that won't rust and will last years and years.
*File, don't pile. I love this saying! She talked about the counter top next to the fridge, how almost every single house has a "pile" of paper next to the fridge. So, she said when you come into the house with paper, like mail, don't set it down, set it in it's file (bills to pay, insurances to file away, etc.) She also said that 90% of the paper in your current Pile you will never look at again if you file it away, so she said have a pending file that you put things into, and then file them 30 days later, and with that 30 day buffer, you will have forgotten why you wanted to keep it anyways, so you don't file only to move them around forever but to never look at them again.

Another speaker that I loved, I mean absolutely loved, is H. Wallace Goddard. I went to both his marriage class, titled Inviting Heaven into Your Marriage, and his parenting class, Bringing up our Children in Light and Truth. He is also a columnist for Meridian Magazine. I just can't say enough about his lectures, except that if you ever have a chance to listen to him, it would be well worth your time. My favorite except from his class is as follows, from the marriage class:
*You want to build a house, but you have two favorite architects. So you ask each of them to build half a house. They both ask what specs you want, and you tell each of them to just build what they think is best. You then have your halves delivered and go to put them together so you will have the best house ever, from your two favorite architects. Problem is, they don't fit together. One may be a rambler, 3 bdrm, 2 bathroom style with a basement, but the other half is a two story, 6 bdrm, 3 bathroom, with a balcony. You can try to do the remodeling your self, to build a second story onto the rambler, dig a basement underneath the two story, but your chances of actually making a functioning, non-leaking, going to last a lifetime home are slim. What you need is a carpenter, someone that can come in a build a structure to unite these two homes into one. Someone that has experience, someone that knows what they are doing, someone that will make sure there are no leaks and gaps. That someone is the Lord.

If we let the lord unite our halves, then we will last the test of time. Our marriage is never just between husband and wife, but also between Heavenly Father because he is there to help us and keep us strengthened.

I love analogies, and this one takes the cake in my opinion. I just loved it and wanted to share it with you. I hope it can help you to take a look at your marriage and see what needs some "updating" or "home repairs" that Jesus can do for you.

The other time I went to this class, the night was titled, Looking on Your Spouse with Compassion. I was expecting something about changing ourselves and being humble, but what he spent almost the entire time on was the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). He totally went in depth on it, and pointed out how it applies to our marriage. Fabulous class.

Anyways, there where lots and lots of other great classes, but maybe I will give recap of those at another time. So really, if you can make time for it, Education Week is awesome!!!

Happy Birthday Girls!!!

My goodness, it has been a long time, and so much has happened. Tessa turned 3 on July 12. Kirk and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary on July 23. Ashley turned 1 on August 27. And lots of other fun things have happened too, I just can't remember all of them right now. So, with that in mind, I will try to start posting things more often. See, the problem with blogging is that Tessa thinks she doesn't need to nap anymore, but Mommy thinks she does. So to get her to nap, I have to lay down with her. Only, it is usually me that falls asleep first and then doesn't wake up until Ashley wakes me up. So, my free time has been drastically cut, but I am much more rested now (or am I? Ashley has been waking up once a night for the past 4-5 weeks).

Anyways, here are a few quick pics to enjoy of the big celebrations. Sidenote, our anniversary wasn't a big celebration. We got a sitter, went out for ribs (yum!), and then walked around a few stores "window shopping" until our 10 pm curfew. So, there are no pics of this great party!! haha.

She blew out the candles before I could even get a picture!

We decorated cloth crowns and tiaras with foams stickers, it was a huge hit!

(and now they are part of the dress-up box we gave her for her birthday!)

Tessa's cake!

The decorations are melted Starburst rolled out flat and cut-out with cookie cutters, super simple and way fun!

The great balloon race.

Tessa was a bit camera shy at her party. Daddy had to hold her tight to catch just one picture. Don't you love the tiara?! :)





Happy Birthday Ashley!!!

Party Girls!

Ashely's cake!

So, the story about the cake. Well, it all starts when I spend like 3 hours on Saturday working on her cake (I know, it should look like a wedding cake if I spent 3 hours!) I felt a little bad that we didn't have any glorious presents for Ashley (her toys are from a yard sale, but she loved them anyways, as a side note) so I thought I would try out some fondant and try to make her a glorious cake. Well, after much research, I decided I wanted to make a cake that looked like a present wrapped up, with a big 3-D effect bow on top. Perhaps that was a little ambitious for my first try. So I decorated the cake with the white fondant, and then set about trying to make a bow. It wasn't working out, well, it has to set overnight, but I didn't have any faith that it was gonna set up hard enough to stand up as a bow, so I then undecorated the cake, only to start over, and this is what I ended up with. Still it looked really pretty in real life, I was and still am proud of it, since it was my first fondant try. Now, for Kirk's birthday, he is getting a cake that looks like a present wrapped up!! haha.

Anyways, it didn't really matter about the cake, because Saturday night Ashley is puking, so the Sunday party is off. So we celebrated Monday night, after everyone is feeling better, with just the four of us. The cake was a little 3-days-old by that time, but still ok. Oh, it didn't help that Tessa totally un-decorated the cake Monday afternoon when I was trying to lay Ashley down for a nap. I come into the kitchen and Tessa is next to the cake, saying she's "playing play-dough"! I tried not to be mad, but I was sooo mad, I hadn't taken my pictures yet!!! haha. Long story short, we had fun and that's all that matters!

So excited!

Tessa is a great candle-blower-outer!


Too bad for Ashley it was made out of marshmallows, so she couldn't eat the little circles! But she enjoyed playing with them and squishing them. And don't worry, there was icing underneath!


Yeah for Presents!

Tessa is always a helper!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIRLS!