My Crazy Kid

She puts her little finger on her mouth when she is thinking :) and she steals my hat all the time!

She takes no less than 10 toys to bed every night. I have to purge the bed before I go to sleep. One night I rolled over on a block and about had a heart attack.

Acting crazy
She likes putting bobo on her head - she thinks it is the funniest thing ever.

Pooped

Garden Dreaming

I love Burpee emails!

I am not going to grow tomatoes because I can get "seconds" for $6-10 a box (30-40 pounds). I am going to do my own organic lettuce (I'm over paying $7 a pound for it) and beans. I am not sure what else, but look how pretty the cauliflower is :)

Meal Plan Monday

With the first being on a Friday, and my meal plans running to Sunday, this is the first official meal plan of 2010.

I am off of work this week so this plan is a little different than normal. We eat fresh and dried fruit for snacks. I am going to make a cake sometime this week for our sweet thing.

Monday
B - egg biscuits
L - leftover chicken casserole (2 stove tops, 1 cream of chick soup, 2 chicken breasts, 2 shredded carrots, 1/2 head of cauliflower) & broccoli salad
D - home made pizza (1 large tortilla topped with tomato paste, Italian seasoning, pepperoni and pizza cheese) & salad

Tuesday
B - bacon biscuits
L - chicken chili (2 cans of northern beans, 1/2 can of green chilis, 1 chicken breast - plus whatever seasoning it needs) & steamed cauliflower
D - Leftover chicken casserole (freeze the rest) broccoli salad

Wednesday
b - egg biscuits (the batch on Monday makes 6)
L - tuna salad sandwiches & broccoli salad (use brown and serve rolls)
D - Sliders & fries (use brown and serve rolls, freeze the rest)

Thursday
B - apple oatmeal
L - Chicken nuggets (homemade) & cooked carrots
D - Bean burritos (canned pintos, salsa, onions & cheese)

Friday
B - Cheerios and bananas
L - Chicken Broccoli Alfredo
D - Ravioli & Salad

Saturday
B - Blueberry Waffles
L - Chicken Broccoli Alfredo leftovers
D - Pizza and salad (ground beef and onion this time)

Sunday
B - Cheese Omelets
L - Beenie Weenies
D - Tuna Noodle pasta salad (or any leftovers I have floating around)

Shopping List
Milk
Apple Juice (if a good price)
Eggs (if a good price)
ground beef (1-2 pounds)
bananas
lettuce
carrots
whatever fresh fruit that is on sale

This meal plan should use up all the fresh veggies, fruit and bread in the house. It should also use 14 things from the pantry. YAY!

Merry Christmas!

The day wasn't bad at all. I fully expected to cry most of the day because Dad wasn't there. Instead I focused on Natalie and how happy she was and how much fun she was having.

She was a wild child for most of the day. Eating chocolate for breakfast can do that to a girl. She was pleased with all her presents and once it was all unwrapped, didn't look like a whole lot. (the pictures in the previous post included 9 presents to my mom from me and like 6 from her to me). She has already used her new playdough sets and has played with her transforming rocket quite a bit. The zippidty requires EIGHT C batteries. So tomorrow I have to go to walmart and get a rechargable set. It is going to cost $30-40 to get set up for batteries for a $60 toy. DOH

Anyway, the biggest hit of the day?

Chapstick.

Um - ya, chapstick. Last night in bed she rolled over and said with such passion, Mama, I hope Santa brings me chapstick, I REALLY want it. Well lucky me, I had bought her a tube for her stocking. She carried that chapstick in her pocket all day. Now she is sleeping with it.

Chapstick.

To recap, last year could of been a big wheel and cardboard house. This year could of been rocket and chapstick. I don't think next year will be as gift-y!






Her shirt says good things come in small packages :)

Ho Ho Ho

We started early....

Christmas picture

This might be all I get to this year. My little one hamming it up in front of the tree tonight before we went to her school for her Christmas dinner. I do have a great red ruffle dress that I hope to get Olan Mills pictures in.

2009 Blizzard

To us it was one... 5-6 inches of snow over two days. It was really pretty and we enjoyed it. But of course, we didn't loose cable, power or have our water turned off for a repair. I know a lot of people that were big time inconvenienced. We just stayed at home for three days straight.

ready to play

my angel making angels

frosty - we have seashells in the flowerbed btw

SNOW!!!

THE WINTER STORM WARNING IS NOW IN EFFECT FROM 3 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 7 PM EST SATURDAY.

RAIN WILL CHANGE OVER TO SNOW THIS AFTERNOON AND CONTINUE THROUGH SATURDAY. SNOWFALL WILL BE HEAVY AT TIMES TONIGHT AND SATURDAY MORNING.

TOTAL SNOWFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 5 TO 10 INCHES EXPECTED BY SATURDAY EVENING... WITH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS POSSIBLE ACROSS THE HIGHEST ELEVATIONS.

We've not had more than an inch or two since....hmmmm. 10 years? 15 years? YAY!

Mines

as Natalie likes to say it.

Two years today I signed the papers to adopt Natalie. All the way up until signing the papers I just knew China would change their mind and take her away. When the papers were all stamped and signed I was like NA-NA you can't have her back! in my mind :)

The Tree

Sewing

I went to a new thrift store today and got a few wool sweaters to turn into diaper covers. I especially love the last one. This is going to be my winter project.

Put Natalie back in cloth again. She just won't potty train. Yesterday she told me she was wet and I asked if that was ok. She said YUP! It keeps my butt warm!....now how am I supposed to argue with that? She did come back about 10 minutes later saying she was cold and icky. I really hope to have her trained starting on Dec 23rd when she is off from school for 1.5 weeks.

Snow

Yes, those are socks on her hands. And yes she is wearing PJs. And she probably froze her rear end off but she had fun!

Call Waiting

She talks on the "phone" quite a bit.

Thanksgiving

Her plate. Um ya, I did eat most of it.


No longer afraid of puppies!

Some of the herd that showed up in the back yard. There were about 12 of them.


(I am playing catch up btw)

Old Navy

I am feeling the Old Navy love. The reddish one was spent on Mom's jacket for Christmas, it was free ($10 off of ANYTHING!). The yellow one was used for a pair of PJ pants and a top. With my additional 15% text message, I paid like $2 for it. The hot pink one was used to buy a work shirt for me and slipper socks for the baby. I paid $.54. I am hoarding the green and blue one until after Christmas, my ON is empty, I hope people return some good stuff.

We have almost moved

The little house is 75% set up with the things I decided to keep. I've got a few things left in the big house that I am moving as I go back to clean it up so I can show it. Never did I think I'd take so long to get it ready to show. I just knew that I'd have it ready to go by the first of Nov. Now I'll be lucky to hit the beginning of Jan. But I tell myself, money wise, it will all work out in the end.

I've already started trimming the budget. The $84.84 cable bill is now $19.99 plus tax. I can only pic up ABC with my digital rabbit ears. I might try one more brand before I give up, I'd like to get PBS too. My first power bill for 20 days in the little house was $15. For some reason, I freeze at 70 in the big house but I'm very comfortable at 63 in the little one. I have the big house heat set high enough so nothing will freeze, so that will help quite a bit with that bill. I am trying to decide if I should turn off the water once I am 100% out. It is a minimum of $70 per month, I have to pay a premium to the city for sewer services. I'll get to cancel the $30 a month trash service next Wednesday after pick up.

Tomorrow I find out if I get paid for the time I am taking off of work. If I don't get paid, I will still take the month of Dec off under FLMA and just suck up the cost. Can you tell I'm just over money in general?

But anyway, back to the little house. The playroom is fantastic, Natalie can spend hours in there with all her toys. I've found all of the lost pieces and parts and put sets back together. Her bedroom only has clothes in it. I've set up the changing table for DD#2 and I've got all her cloth dipes organized. I have infant clothes in drawers, Natalie clothes hanging in the cabinet, all the clothes that are still too big hanging in the closet (what an impressive collection that is) and all the clothes 12 mon-24mon bagged in the bottom of the closet. My room is still a wreak but that is ok.

So I'm just plugging along. My to do list is a mile long and very overwhelming but I try to do a little bit everyday or it will just grow.

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