Sunny Days

I'm working weird hours this week to make up for the fact daycare is closed. Today was a half day so I took scooter out in the sunshine for a little fresh air to practice up on her big wheel skills.

She can pedal maybe two cycles and still prefers to scoot. Scooting is faster and the clickidy clackidy sound is much louder.

(doing tricks already!)

The only benefit of a condo is the big parking lot to big wheel in.

Then we went to the park and did a little swinging and sliding.

I set up a new blog today to talk about money and how I'm not going to spend it and make more magically appear this year :)

Bye for now!

9:00 fireworks :)

Someone has set up a web cam in their room at the Poly. Fireworks are at 9:00 if you'd like to watch them too :)

http://www.ustream.tv/videoplayerpopup/channel/407437

Christmas, Christmas, Christmas & Christmas!

My parents have been divorced for like 20 years now, so that really stretches out every holiday. Christmas Eve is at my Mom's. Christmas morning is at my Dad's (ok my place too!). Lunch is at my maternal Grandparent's house then dinner is with my step family. Lots of food, lots of people, lots of loot!

I thought she did really well today considering her two small naps were in a car and were too short. She ate quite a bit and only got really whiny once. She is enthralled with the Elmo boom box my aunt got for her but she can't seem to get the concept that she sings in front of the microphone, she doesn't have to put it in her mouth (eeewwww). She sings parts of Elmo's World, I am pleased to report my kiddo isn't tone deaf and can carry a tune. She'll need that skill when she wins the Miss America pageant (ha!).

I totally cheated this year, and it is probably the last year I can do it. Kiddo's presents looked a little slim so I wrapped up her 4 pairs of summer shoes and a new pack of markers and added them to her stash. She can wear the crocs with her "fat" socks now, especially when it is going to be in the high 60's on Saturday (helloooo global warming!).

I did something smart. Since we are so limited on space, I took a big box and filled it with old toys to sell in the spring consignment sale. There are a bunch she never had interest in, and they were blocking her massive MegaBloks collection which she does like. Of course she got like 3 boxes of stuff, so I'll be on the lookout for ideas on how to store everything.

Here are pictures :)

First glimpse at all the toys!

I had to make her open presents. The big wheel was a BIG hit!

Monkey flashlight - it goes oooh oh oh ah ah ah! I've had this for her for 2 years now!
Ohhhh what is this?
Kitchen!
Breakfast
With Grammie
Passing out gifts
Ohhhhh
aaahhhhhhh
With Grandpapa and one of my cousins!

Tomorrow I am driving past a house to check out the neighborhood before I look at it on the inside. Without going into to too much detail, I have enough for the downpayment without messing up my stocks and once the house sells I can have it paid off in about 4 years (no new car tho). It is a standard 70's split foyer for this area, actually it is on the big side at 2,480 SF. It is a little low on curb appeal but it has hardwood and an updated kitchen :) (update - the house was a foreclosure owned by countrywide. It is under contract pending financing so I have a very slim chance of even seeing the inside.)

That is it for now, Merry Christmas!

Ho ho ho!

Heee heeee heeeee





ho ho ho!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Natalie's pictures came in today! Every single shot was so good that they talked me into an additional package for $32 that included a CD and copyrigth release for every picture. She went and changed every picture to sephia and black and white so I got a lot of great pictures :)

Here is a preview!


We went shopping and picked up our last minute gifts that I couldn't decide on. People were not crazy like I thought they would be, that was a nice surprise. I got another $10 off of $10 coupon from Pennys so I got a new sweater and paid $13 for it so I was happy with that.
Ready to shop!

I was strong, even though I was in the toy department for awhile today, I only added one more toy to the pile. I don't know if she's Chinese, but at least she is dark headed. She is a hard doll with snap on clothes :)

Then we went to my Mom's. She got a lot of loot:


Now she is in bed and I think I hear Santa coming :) Bye!

Christmas Party and Chuck E Cheese

Today was Natalie's Christmas party at school, she ate a Happy Meal, exchanged an ornament and made crafts. I heard the big guy was there too and she was all for talking to him. Let's hope she asked him for a huge play kitchen, several sets of fake food, shoes and an Elmo vacuum :)

Tonight we went to Chuck E Cheese
I love Chuck E Cheese!

Dancing on the big screen.

Racing cars with Josh. Chelle was our token holder.
We has a good laugh over this. They take your picture and he was driving the princess toon car. I hid from my camera, I was the green dinosaur, it was big eyeballs on dark hair hehe

Giddy up!
(look at her from Feb 14th :)
teaching her how to cheat at skeeball



She was a big fan of this ride.Ready to go HOME!

Deal Time

I thought these deals were worthy of a post. I got the shirts with built in undies for $2.99 each at Ross in Ft Lauderdale.
(the pink one is pink and peach, my camera took a funny picture)

These jeans and black knit pants for next winter were from JC Pennys. They were half off, then an extra 20% off then I had a coupon.


I got all four items for under $9 total :) With just a couple of solid tshirts I should be done with all of her spring/summer clothes.

Then remember how excited she was about the knock off crocs that were really too much @ $15?? Look at what I bought a few days ago. They are on clearance, with a 20% code, free shipping and no tax, just $11.99 and they are way cuter (and real crocs). I must learn to say no to my kiddo when it comes to shoes!

They are the size I think she'll wear in August/Sept when we head to Disney. I have been 100% on guessing her shoe size in advance :)

Our Tree and Scooter's Christmas Pictures

We are running late in decorating this year because of the trip!

I've not had a tree since 1999, the last Christmas I spent with my ex in TX. I've never had a tree in the house, I didn't see a need to put up a tree for one person.

So last night we drug out my Dad's tree (which was his birthday present from me several years ago) and put on his ornaments and all the ones I had been buying for the past 8 years and hadn't used yet. I am still missing a big box of fancy ones but I have 50 more balls and a bunch of little gold leaves to hang on it still so I'll wait until next year. Hopefully next year we'll be in a house with a high ceiling and I can get a couple of tall skinny trees that I've always wanted.
Here she is! The tree is prelit and will twinkle, do waves of lights, burn in and out or just blink.

I like stars and snowflakes the best.


Natalie's hand ornament. Those are her fingers from the bottom of the ball, how cute is that?

And here are Natalie's Christmas pictures. She kept pointing at them going "meeee Natalie!"
We went back on Saturday. She wore the pink cashmere dress I bought years ago. It was a TJ Maxx dress (I think I might of bought it in Nashville in 2001?) that I stalked until it hit the clearance rack. Had a $75 tag on it, $40 TJ Maxx price, $10 Kim's patient it did go on clearance price. Woohooo! She also wore her pink pom pom boots. I pinned her bangs to the side, she was just stinkin cute all around.

Here is a small preview. I buy the package coupons for $12, that gave me 2 8X10s, 16 wallets, 2 5 X 7s and a calendar page. I got an extra 5X7 and 4 wallets of the 2nd and third pose. All her pictures were great except she had a stray hair right down the center of her eye in ALL of them but the first. ARG! lol I almost redressed and refluffed her to have them done again. My hopes are the 5X7 in the other two poses won't show the hair because they are smaller.


Bye for now!