Weekend

Another wild weekend for us. Only this was prefaced with two quiet days so I really enjoyed my weekend. My house was already clean (and kept that way for a week straight which is a miracle) so I was able to piddle around with other odds and ends in the morning. I spent the afternoon at the church decorating with some of our international stuff for our "missions Sunday" which went over really well.

Left there and headed home to make a meal for our friends who are new parents. Thanks to my husband who started a meal for me while I was at the church. We finished it up and headed over to their house and I held the baby while they ate. He was so little.

Sunday we had a few old and new friends over for lunch after church. We were hungry but the meal seemed to fill everyone up. We followed that with a game of Mexican Dominoe Train which was fun and as we finished that, Ryan served us all chocolate peanut butter milk shakes which were over the top. Later that afternoon, with an over tired child who needed another hour to his nap, Mom came over with a present for Scott. He was pretty excited about the kite she bought him and said "grammy, thank you for the kite. I just love it so much". Yes, he's good with words that little schmoozer. So, we flew the kite for a while and then went in for some hot chocolate. Scott went home with Grammy and Ryan and hung out and played with Bethany for the evening. It was a nice, quiet night at home!

Trip to Galena

Life is typical for me... super busy. However, I spent a few days last week atthe Eagle Ridge Golf Resort in Galena, IL. It was a good time to hang out with my hubby on someone elses dime. A few thoughts from that trip:

1. When you leave the breastfed baby at home, you MUST take your pump with you.



2. When you forget your pump, you MUST go buy a new one.



3. When you buy a new one, you MUST go outside of your budget.



4. When I forget my pump, have to buy a new one and go outside of my budget, I am not a happy camper.

With that said, I have a rock star husband who drove back to town to make the purchase while I showered and got ready for lunch. What guy do you know would make that purchase? Yes, reason 4 million that I love him!

It was a quick and quiet few days. I mostly played on the internet and listened to my ipod while Ryan was in class. We had a fancy meal Thursday night and sat with two other couples that were fun to chat with. Friday we ventured through Galena but it was cold and we didn't stick around long. We headed home to see our little ones instead which was a lot of fun.

What a Day!

I'm pasting an excerpt of an email to my friend Cori. After she made mention of her day, I thought I'd share a little of mine:

if you're having a rough day, just be glad that you weren't in the bathroom pumping, not at all paying attention, but rather, reading the book the land that was everything when all of a sudden, I felt wetness on my leg. Immediately, I moved the bottle to the side then looked down to see the damage. Only two drops of home brewed milk on my slacks. But it continued to spew over as I quickly unplugged one of the lines (think dairy cow milking set up) but there was still a little suction to the full bottle. There was a tiny little puddle of stuff (which seemed huge at the time) on the floor when I got it stopped. Bummer, I didn't get through the epilogue before the drama. Got it all cleaned up and went to put the milk in the fridge. Helped Sheri clean out the fridge quick as it smelled like something nasty. While doing that, my boss hunted me down because we needed to leave for a meeting. Yeah, that was after I already got "the look" earlier for chatting with Connie. The good part, the drops weren't obvious when I walked into my meeting!

He's Too Good with Words

Scott had several funny moments last night. I'll try to recap them real quick:
1. When B informed him that C was coming over, he started doing circles while hopping in the air and very excitedly hollering "C is coming over. Oh, I love her. I just love C". It was stinkin' adorable.
2. Later while C read Scott his bed time story, there were comments back and forth about Scott stealing B's woman. B looked seriously at Scott and said "She's my woman". And Scott looked right at B and said "no, she's my woman, B". We about died of laughter and Ben got up from where he was sitting with Scott and C and came over and sat by me.

Yes, not even 3 years old and already knows how to schmooze the ladies.

Treasure Hunt Revisited

Do you remember my post about the Iowa Treasure Hunt [march 10th]? I mentioned in that post that Ryan's cousin had $28.86 in unclaimed money. I emailed her about it that day. Yesterday she emailed me back with an interesting reply:

[tam4buit], You'll be happy to know that I checked out the Iowa Treasure Hunt site my 28.86 is actually almost $2,000 of a mutual fund that I had forgotten I had. Thanks for the information this will help with our retirement. It is getting rolled into my 401K. [ryan's cousin]

How 'bout that? Maybe you are rich. Go check out the Iowa Treasure Hunt to see if you have some money out there...

Fly

There were two flies trying to attack the light bulb on our ceiling fan last night. It was annoying to hear them. But more than that, those little pests were knocking all the dust off the fan and it was dusting down on me as I tried to read. Dangit pests, I know I need to dust up there but you don't have to remind me.

One of the flies landed (probably couldn't breathe from dust inhalation) on my blanket and I gave him a good flick. Not more than 20 seconds later, the little bugger flew right into my hair. I'm not kidding. It was like he was in attack mode. I'm serious. I flailed around like a wild woman trying to get the fly out of my hair while Ryan laughed and laughed at me.

Now, who says living in the sticks can't be fun!

PS

Happy early Birthday my dear Ryan.

love,
me

ps: I love you

________
Yes, I finished the book and was surprised by the ending. Definitely a good read! Thanks girls for sharing with me. Now, I'm waiting for her to write a sequel.

Babbling Bethany

My sweet little thing is totally expanding her vocabulary. Not that she really says any purposeful words except "dada", but she's babbling a lot more this past week. We've heard her mock several words in the last few days. She's so cute!

Aren't they adorable?!?!?! If you pay close attention, you'll notice that Scott is laying in Bethany's lap. I'm glad my kids like each other... so far!

merritt

I love reading your comments but hate that I don't have your email to write you back. Girlfriend, I need your email address.

PS: I Love You

Cori recently needed a new book to read. I had nothing to suggest as the reading I do wouldn't interest Cori. I left the suggestions up to others who read lots more. A dear friend, Renae, sent Cori a copy of the book PS I love you. Their conversations really had me curious about the book. And let me just point out for the record that I don't do a ton of reading. I prioritize my time other places. And if there's a movie version, you can bet that I'll watch the movie instead (duh, 90 minutes of my time versus how long to read a book???) However, it sounded so sweet and lured me right in. Cori, upon finishing the book dropped it in the mail to me.

I got it Monday night. I opened the package to find the book wasn't an 80 page read, its a novel. Remember, I don't have much time to read, my life is full of other things. Holy cow, when am I going to get this read? However, somehow I've managed to read through 130-some pages already. Yeah, with a busy last two days, I'm not sure how that happened. Well, maybe it was that I put my kids to bed at a decent time and stayed up to read for a while, I read instead of listening to my ipod while I pumped at work and today I plan on reading during my lunch. Hmm, funny how things can grab your attention so well.

I've had a few books that have pulled me right in. I'm not one for love stories (what I call "girl porn") that presents the perfect love story that will never be my love story but this is the second one I've read. The first one is called "learning to breathe again" by Tammy Trent. It was amazing. The book is about Tammy Trent's experience of suddenly losing her husband and learning to breathe again. Amazing. I remember thinking prior to the book (because I heard her talk on the radio) that I would be fine if put in that situation because at the time I didn't have kids, have a career, etc. And then when I read and felt her emotion, I began begging God to not ever test me in that situation. Good read.

Anyway, off to read the book. Thanks Cori and Renae for sharing with me!

A lot on my plate...

1. Plans for a class reunion this summer. Have contact 43 of ~230 classmates. Eek, lots to contact yet.
2. Girls Night Out activity for some friends and bible study buddies for March 28th ish
3. Soup cook-off at the office on March 25th
4. Junior High Girls Mom and Daughter Dessert: tentatively April12th
5. Meals for N&M who are expecting a baby any day now

I think I'm missing something...

Other things in the very near future include Ryan's birthday and Easter. Ryan is on call for Easter AGAIN this year so that will at least be local. But that also means that we need to plan a trip to see his grandparents as they've not seen my kiddos since Christmas. Ahh, when will I be finished planning?

I wish I could get paid to do this kind of stuff full time. I love doing it but don't have the hours in the day to get it done after my work day.

What do you get Paid?

While searching for something else, I came across 3 websites with some interesting information:

1. This random Iowa Treasure Hunt site allows you to search for unclaimed property. I was hoping it would be like a winning lotto ticket for me so I searched my last name. And what did I find? I found that Ryan's cousin has $28.86 in unclaimed property. Fantastagirl, if you were living in Washington, you would have some money too. Iowa Geek, I looked for you but no luck. I was hoping you would have an unknown large sum of cash too. It's a fun site, check it out.
2. So, onto what I was actually searching for: the state of Iowa has a searchable database (by name) for the salary of state of Iowa employees. Do you want to know what your old prof gets paid? You can look it up here. Do you want to know what that DNR guy get paid. You can also look it up on this site. I had a fun few minutes looking up the salary of some friends I know that are state employees.
3. And that got me curious. As a federal employee, I know that my salary is public information. But, I wondered, can it be searched my my name. And you bet, with a little help of google, I found an old one. You can look up salaries from 2006 for federal employees. My old boss at the Forest Service, yep, found his income. Ryan's uncle who does amazing things with "communities" of plaque, yep, his can be found too.

I was amazed at the wealth of information I could find on these 3 sites! Happy Hunting!

DEBT FREE

Okay, so I'm a fan of Dave Ramsey and I thought I was doing his plan for getting out of debt. But, the other day on his radio show, he clarified with another caller that if the guy wasn't exactly doing his plan, than he wasn't doing Dave's plan at all. Hmm, okay. So, I really like Dave Ramsey and would recommend him to everyone but I'm not doing his plan. In Dave's Get out of Debt plan, you would stop investing in retirement until you get out of debt. Because I understand compounding interest and because our debt load was pretty minor, I didn't stop putting money in my Roth. With that said,

WE'RE DEBT FREE

except our home

Yes, that's right, we don't owe any one anything with the exception of our mortgage which we're working to pay down faster than normal. And not only that, but after taking the daveRamsey class, I am much more informed about finances, insurance, real estate, etc.

Church Potluck

Sunday church potlucks are always fun. We typically sit with the same group of people, pass our kids around, eat too much food and have a good time. This past Sunday I decided to sit with Scott's family (Scott, his new fiance, her son and her son's friend). As I walked by the little boys to set my plate down I saw that one of them had his hands cupped together and full of food. My initial thought was that he was playing with his food and trying to gross out his friend. After taking a quick look at the childs plate, I realized that his hands were holding puke. Yup, you got it, puke! I quickly sat my plate down, grabbed the kid's napkin and scraped the nastiness into my own hands. Took my napkin and wiped the liquids off his hands. Ah, the warm feeling of someone else's puke in your hands. How's that for the 'ol appetite. By now the fiance asks what's going on and the friend replies "i threw up in my hands". All the better. I discarded the brat piecess, liquid and other fun stuff into the trash, washed my hands and went back to the table. Good thing the fiance was done eating because she pushed her plate away as it ruined her appetite. Nope, not me. I sat right down and started in on my tasty meal. And when it came time to need a napkin, I stole Shane's since mine had already been used!

Happy Friday!

Pants

Nope, not writing about the brown ones today. Although I guess I can update you and let you know that I wore them once since then and didn't bother to color the string and it really didn't bother me at all. With that said, the real post...

Lately, my pants are too big. This is good and bad. I'm habitual and have gotten very used to my jeans, belts, etc. However, I recently opened a storage tote of jeans. These were the jeans pre Scott that I knew I couldn't wear anymore because of those darn hips. I've been able to wear the pre-scott jeans that were loose fitting but this tote had regular, fitted jeans with a normal waist. I pulled out a pair and told Ryan that it would be nothing short of a miracle if I could get them on. He cheered me on when I had my legs in them but I informed him that I had yet to get them up over my hips. However, I was amazed when I pulled them right up and didn't even have to suck in my gut to zip them up. Gasp. They fit! I've appreciated the low rise jeans that allow my flab to hang over and not get noticed. These jeans worked even though they weren't low rise. My tummy was a little more noticeable but they worked.

Today, I have on a pair of khakis in the original size. Yee-flippin-haw! Now, I just have to get used to jeans that have a waist. Yipee! Its like having new clothes again!

Cookies

A while back at Sarah's (a wonderful cook/baker), I had these awesome german chocolate cookies. Made very simply (my kind of recipe) and with wonderful taste, I had to have the recipe. Made them last week with Scott and shared a few Ryan, my folks and Chris (a bachelor buddy of Ryan's). They were gone, almost instantly. We started with 3 dozen and you would have never known they were in the house except the left over frosting. Anyway, I'm eager to make some more. I love me some good cookies. Girl Scout cookies are out and although not at all what I need if I want to keep my figure, I shouldn't be eating a box of cookies in two days. I really like those things. My favorites truly are the caramel delite and the mint chocolate ones. Umm, I have found that the little elves make both of those however I can only find the mint ones on a consistent basis. My mouth is now watering for some cookies. I NEED COOKIES. Okay, anyway, I read that Merritt has some recipes to make those cookies. Meritt, I would love to have those recipes. Will you put them on your blog or email them to me, please.

Gas Money

The last few weeks I've been picking up a coworker on my way. She's a fun lady and I like sharing half of my drive with her. With soaring gas prices (I know, $3.04 is low for you Cali people), my gas budget has also increased. Well, mid morning, my coworker came over and handed me cash and said it was for gas money for the last two weeks. I was way excited.

Hmm, what should I do with it? Put it towards my next scrapping toy (a dicut tool), towards my summer trip to CA, or something else? We're doing the budget thing and it will likely go right back into the general account, maybe even towards gas money for March, which would then free up some of our budget for vacation, etc.

Butt Kicking

Last night was a bad night, all around. I was supposed to be in the capitol city for work but the roads were bad (Jody, I so wanted to call you but opted to take the kids to see the great g's) and I opted to play it safe and stay home. Ryan's plans for a very quiet evening were a little disturbed and he was a little piturbed. Trying to focus on the reason for this post, I'll skip all the details even though I'd really like to get it off my chest. All these little things that were no big deal by themselves kept happening one right after another. And finally I'd had enough and stormed upstairs and crawled in bed. Knowing that my life in general has been stressed and also knowing full well that it has been my lack of time in the Word and being quiet before God, I avoided the light switch and grabbed my bible. Not even knowing where to begin, I opened it up and decided I would read whatever page I opened to. It was 2 Chronicles 14 and 15. Immediately my mood brightened when I read the subtitle and realized it was about king Asa. Curious, because I have a buddy that named his child Asa, I started right in reading. Now, I was reading The Message version which is a paraphrase but a little light reading was good considering my attitude. I started with chapter 15 first and here's a few things I read:

• God will stick with you as long as you stick with him. If you look for him he will let himself be found
• when they were in trouble and got serious, and decided to seek God, the God of Israel, God let himself be found
• Asa...took a deep breath, then rolled up his sleeves, and went to work
• they bound themselves in a covenant to seek God, the God of their fathers, wholeheartedly, holding nothing back

And then I went back and read chapter 14 because it also pertained to Asa:

• Asa was a good king. He did things right in God's eyes
• God kept the peace
• [asa said:] We have this peaceful land because we sought God; he has given us rest from all troubles

And then on to chapter 16 to get the rest of the story of Asa

• "Because you went for help to the king of Aram and didn't ask God for help, you've lost a victory over the army of the king of Aram. Didn't the Ethiopians and Libyans come against you with superior forces, completely outclassing you with their chariots and cavalry? But you asked God for help and he gave you the victory. God is always on the alert, constantly on the lookout for people who are totally committed to him. You were foolish to go for human help when you could have had God's help. Now you're in trouble—one round of war after another."

How much am I like Asa? Thinking I can do it on my own? I can't, I know I can't. I know that things work out best when I let God be in control. So, what am I doing? God is always on the alert, constantly looking out for people who are totally committed to him! Yeah God, I'm sorry for being the foolish one and trying to do it on my own when I could have your help. Please help. Like my mom said when I was growing up, I need an attitude adjustment!

Sunset

This is a view of the sunset last night just down the road from my house on my way home:

Habits

Bethany has this funny habit. When she seemingly gets nervous, she'll tuck her head down and roll her eyes up to look at you. Now, she does this with an added smile.
Scott has this habit too. He always likes to be holding Bethany's hand. It doesn't matter if she's in her carseat, her jumparoo or asleep in bed, he likes to hold her hand. Its very cute.

Other fun habits that they'd be embarrassed if they knew I shared:

1. They are habitual about when they poop. Scott is a morning pooper and boy am I dissapointed when I don't get him to daycare in time :) Bethany likes to poop when she's in her high chair at the supper table. Its lovely to be chewing on a piece of meat and hear her passing gas, grunting and pushing it out

2. Bethany likes to grab at her genital area when her diaper comes off. Makes for a lot of fun when I'm trying to apply diaper rash cream!

3. Scott will avoid the "big boy potty" at all costs, even if a fresh cookie or dish of change (he loves both) are placed in front of him.