1 tooth gone, about 20 more to go

My son, oh my little man, He's growing up way to fast. He lost his first tooth on Jan 18th, we were at my parents house watching the game (because we still don't have a T.V.) and he bite into an apple and it fell out. His tooth had been loose for awhile so I knew it was going to fall out soon but it still made me get all choked up. Any who Gandma and Gamppa where totally excited that they got to see him loose his tooth. It was really cute, there was a lot of jumping up and down, and screaming and big smiles.

So of course the tooth fairy came to our house and apparently she's a rip off, because $2 a tooth for a 5 year old just isn't enough, of course these are the words of a 5 year old. Oh well he was excited she came and excited to spend his money on Candy for him and his sisters, so she can't be that much of a rip off, right?

So here's a picture and yes that's his new tooth already coming in, and I know it's dark but It was taken with my phone. He's only 5 people, it's so crazy to me that he's already got a big tooth coming in.

On Top of Spaghetti

About a year ago we borrowed On Top Of Spaghetti from the library, and we do return it sometimes only to pick it back up again when my kids come across it or start crying that they want to read "On Top Of Spaghetti momma"

Has anybody else read this book, it is really cute, I enjoyed it the first thousand times I read it. I wonder what it is that catches my kids interest so much. It must be the song. I would love to buy it but I just can't justify spending $15 or more for a book that MIGHT (as in big might) get riped, or colored on or peed on, that's right peed on. LLOL peed on one of ABB's school books the other night.

So If you've read it tell me what you and your kids thought about it, I'm just curious as to why they love this book so much more then any other. It's strange to me because it's not just one of them that has a love for it, it's all of them. If you haven't read it check it out and tell me what you think.

Tuna-Egg Salad Sandwiches

I had a craving for egg salad sandwiches, and I had never made it before, I know it's sad. Well I looked up a recipe for it and found this one

Ingredients
4 eggs, hard-boiled and chopped
1 (6 ounce) can chunk tuna in water, drained
2 tablespoons minced red onions
3 tablespoons mayonnaise or Miracle Whip
2 tablespoons honey mustard
salt, to taste
pepper, to taste
10 slices bread
5 leaves lettuce
5 slices tomatoes
1 1/4 cups alfalfa sprouts


The only thing I changed was that I used yellow mustered, and added paprika.

Directions

1In a bowl, mix together the first 7 ingredients.
2Spread mixture evenly over 5 bread slices.
3Top each tuna mixture with one lettuce leaf, one tomato slice, and 1/4 cup alfalfa sprouts.
4Top sandwiches with remaining bread slices; slice diagonally and serve.

I made this on Tuesday and I loved it, HWAG loved, the kids however did not love it in fact they didn't even like it. Oh well more for me!

Taco Soup

Here's another new try for me and my family. I made this last week as well just didn't have time to post it.

I got this recipe from G-Ma K at my mommies group.

This soup was a HUGE hit at my house!

1 lb cooked ground hamburger, I used ground Turkey

2 cans of kidney beans
2 cans of pinto beans
2 cans of white corn, I used white but I like yellow corn, so I'm going to try it next time.
1 large can of diced tomatoes (My family doesn't like tomatoes) I used a smaller can

1 can tomatoes and Chile's, like ro-tel
1 packet taco seasoning

1 packet ranch dressing mix

After you cook the hamburger, drain the fat and add the meat to the crock pot, then add the taco seasoning and ranch dressing packet.

Add the entire contents of the tomatoes and corn, then drain and rinse the beans and add them

Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 4-5.

And you can add your favorite toppings of course, we added cheese.

This is a huge pot of food so for smaller families just cut all the ingredients in half.

I wanted a big pot, I wanted to have the leftovers, after the first day it's not as soupy and you can use it as a side dish. I loved making white rice and adding it to that.

If you try it, let me know how you like it.

Tortilla Soup recipe

My special treat to myself on my birthday and the first time I have ever made tortilla soup. And only my second time using the crock pot.

Here's what you need


3 cups of chicken broth
1 1/2 cups cooked Shredded or thinly sliced Chicken
1 cup frozen corn, I did add a 1/2 cup more to mine
6 Scallions thinly sliced
4-6 plum tomatoes, I used 4 but I'm the only 1 in my that likes tomatoes
3-4 cloves of fresh garlic minced
2 small minced jalapeno Chile
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
Season with salt and pepper


Dump it all in the crock pot

-it's okay if it's frozen, my Corn was everything else was fresh

Cook on low for 8-10 hours or
on high for 6 hours

Optional Toppings
I add lime juice and tortilla chips



Here's what it looked like before cooking

And here's the after, YUMMY!!!!

I didn't get to eat it on my b-day but I did eat it for lunch the next day and HWAG had eaten it and he really liked it (and so did I of course)

The kids however thought it was to spicy, which just meant more for me.

What I did for my birthday this year.

Yesterday was so eventful I just had to share.



I got up for work like 5 min before I had to start.

Got ABB ready for school super fast, walked him to school and then went for a 2 mile run, which I did horrible at. I guess waking up and going for a run 15 minutes later isn't such a good idea for me. I ran about a mile and half and had to walk the rest of the way.

Got home finished my work out.

Read my favorite blogs.

And then made one of my favorite soups for dinner, we cut up everything and threw it all in the crock pot.

Then I stood there thinking wow HWAG still hasn't wished me a happy b-day what's up with that.

Listened to HWAG sing happy birthday to LLOL but still he hadn't realized it's my birthday.

Weighed myself and guess what I'm down 1 pound. Yey me.

Asked HWAG to run some errands for me. At this point I'm really wishing I would have showered before sending him out and about for a few hours.

Got a call for childcare and had them come over for an interview, landed a new job. Yey, It's only part time but hey I'm making a little more.

HWAG comes home FINALLY and asks "is today your birthday??" I totally don't answer him, so he pulls out my Drivers license and begs for forgiveness and claims he's the worst husband in the world. Not only did he forget my birthday he forgot what day my birthday's on.

Put the kids down for a nap and play a game of Phase 10 with HWAG and completely kick his butt at it.

HWAG goes to get ABB from school and I decide to make a phone call to our credit card company cause I've finally sent them a payment, they say I'm sorry to inform you but we no longer deal with your case you'll have to contact so and so, well so and so is an attorneys office, that's right they are suing us for the money we owe them unless we start sending them a $200.00 payment every month which is the least amount they will accept for only the next 4 months. Yey for getting bills paid off, not so yey at the amount at which we have to pay.

Call our car insurance company to see if they can lower our payment now that I'm 25, get this yes mam while most insurance company's offer discounts like that we do not however. By the way they claim that the premium for our state went up so now we have to pay $25 more a month then the past 6 months which truly bites.

HWAG and ABB come home with a huge thing of flowers for me and I tell HWAG the not so good news, which truly makes his day. NOT!! It pretty much put us both in a really bad mood, we just don't have $200 extra a month.

My friend Navy Mama comes to get her son, and I tell her to smell LLOL and tell me if she thinks that she might have an infection. (On Saturday we noticed that LLOL's nose STUNK really really bad, and it would start to smell better then it would get worse and yesterday when I would blow her nose it would come out a bright orange color so I was thinking maybe I should take her in to get it checked out.) Well NM said I bet she shoved tissue or something up there cause that's exactly what happened to my bro when he was younger. So I lay LLOL down and close her one nostril and blow in her mouth and sure enough a huge think of moldy, nasty tissue came flying out. Who knows how long that was up there. Talk about gross!!!

Don't ever do something like that right before dinner because guess what....you won't be able to eat. So I made my favorite soup and couldn't even eat it.

Then I went to work out with NM and came home took a bath, cut and organized my coupons, and went to bed.

What a fun birthday, let's do that again next year. DOUBLE NOT!!!

By the way I CAN'T WAIT TO GO OUT SATURDAY, I do believe I deserve it.

Goals for 2009

Here are my New Years resolutions (but seeing how I have NO FAITH in New Years Resolutions), we are going to call this my Goals/Checklist for 2009.

• Lose weight- I'm working on and still want to lose that 38 extra pounds I've been carrying around. My goal was to lose it in 8 months, that goal was set 2 months ago (and seeing as I still weigh 165 I'm not doing all that great (well I didn't gain, that's always a BIG PLUS in my book). I'm sticking to the 8 months goal I'm just set back a little (so I guess I'm starting over), so 8 months from now I will be 38 pounds lighter. I can't wait to get my butt into a size 7-8, 7-6, 6-5 or a beautifully small 5-4. I wonder what lucky number it will be!?!
  
• Run a half marathon, maybe (big maybe) even a full before 2010?!? I love to run and I have trained two years in a row to run a half marathon and I chickened out. I don't have a clue why I chicken out I just do. I started running last Tuesday I have about a week worth of more training at two miles just to make my miles faster, I like to run about a 10 min mile and I want to run it without stopping. Then from there I add miles and adjust my time. Wish me luck
  
• Find 3 (more) full time kiddos, I want to watch 4 kids all together, I want to be making at least $400 or more a week.
  
• I always say I want a Saturday job so I guess I need to decide if I really want one (I think for me it also depends on what kind of job I'm doing and how much I'm making. I really need to decide do I really want to work outside the house?? Do I really want to work Saturdays?? If so I need to find myself a kicking job that keeps me from spending my Saturdays shopping (spending money we just don't have) or at home depressed because I'm not out shopping.
  
• Get HWAG on the same work schedule as me, we want him to work an 8:30 to 5:30 shift. We don't care if we don't have the same day's off just that we can all be home, together, every night as a family. For now it's not a really a possibility because it does mean taking a pay cut and ABB would have to go to an after school program everyday and I don't know that we can afford that yet but I'm hoping by the end of this year, like once we get some or most of our debt paid off, it will be. I would love having him home for dinner, homework and bedtime routines. And if he gets on day's with me it will be our first time ever on the same schedule, how wonderful would that be!
  
• Get the house (and garage) organized. Sell what can be sold, trash the trash, Goodwill the goodwillable. Organize paperwork, clothes, and everything else. I can't wait to get this place completely organized, I'm already working on it. I'm hoping to be able to go room by room and to do some serious cleaning out about 5-10 hours a week.
  
• Pay off all debt (we will do this, this year). Credit cards, school loans and family will be paid off (or back).
  
• At the end of this year like I'm thinking maybe around August or September I'm going to apply and take the test to work at the post office I really want to be a mail carrier and I think it would be a really good career move for me, I hear they make good money so until then I'm going to be studying to take the test and hopefully not chicken out ( I really don't want to be turned down when I apply).
  
• Buy a second car. Maybe!?! I know I want one and have wanted one for a few years now but how badly do we actually need one?? If we get our debt paid off do I really want the expense of a second car? All questions I really need to consider and think about, this is something that won't happen until the end of the year either. If I land that mail carrier job, we will HAVE to buy a second vehicle
  
• I want to find a church that's close to us and that we can call home, I know the kids will love going to church and me and HWAG might even learn a thing or two. Really, I know we need God. WE CAN'T DO IT ON OUR OWN ANYMORE. And I'm done trying.
  
• Go to counseling, me him, us, us and the kids, we need it all of it.
  
• Get our lives on a schedule, I want to be on a schedule from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed at night. I want to find a good schedule that works perfectly for us and can be easily flexed around doctors appointments, van maintenance and so on. I want to have a schedule for cleaning house/organizing, planning meals, clipping coupons, to paying bills, and for shopping. I want time for things I enjoy and time for things I don't really enjoy but that need to be done. I'm tired of feeling like I have no control over anything everything has been such a mess. I'm ready to clean up our lives!!!
  
• Cook a new meal (or dessert) at least once every two weeks for my family,I would love to try at least 1-2 recipes a week but I'm not sure how well that will work out so I think once every two weeks is a good start and if it ends up being more....great!
  
• I'm going to remember to enjoy my family everyday, I'm going to spend time with my kids and my husband daily. I feel like I haven't always put them first in my life, sometimes I think they have been on the bottom of my list and that's changing. We are going to be a big, and strong family. Me and HWAG have started thinking of ways we can spend time together, there will be a few things scheduled every week.
  
• Blog 2 or more times a week because I really do enjoy it, I would love to do it daily but as of now that's not a possibility but maybe in the up coming months it can be.
  
• We need to take better care of the van, it's our baby our only vehicle and it's always a mess and we never have the money to take care of it and it needs to become more of a priority rather then something we keep putting off. I will add maintenance into our budget and make it a priority, I should think about this when considering buying a new car. Right now our van needs about $700 worth of work done plus it's up for the 60,000 maintenance which will cost us around $600, but if we had it budgeted maybe $1,300 worth of work wouldn't need to done on it or $1,300 worth of work wouldn't freak me out so much.
  
• Get my oldest two kids in some kind of sport, club or activity that's outside my home and involves other kids. I think they both need to interact with other kids there own age more and they get so bored being at home all the time. I guess this is another thing we need to consider more but I've thought it a good idea for a while, the only thing that's keeping us from doing it is our finances, I'm hoping once our financial situation changes we can figure out what they would like to do and sign them up. We will take it slow, I don't want them to feel like they are to busy once we start going to Church and counseling on a regular bases we will have to see if adding sports is a good move for us
  
• Get ready for C2MM, she's in her last year of school, yey. And she turns 18 in December if she decides that she wants to come live with us (which we will offer her) we want it to be a good idea for us and for her. We need to be ready financially, emotionally, and physically (such as having the room ready for her) and so on. I also need to be okay emotionally if she chooses not to stay with us, I want her to know whatever she chooses to do we will love her and help her the best way we know how.
  

I hope I got them all I know it's a lot but they are all important goals and doable, pray for my family that we can find a good church home and a good consular and that we can remember what's important in life and that we do all that we can to make that better this year, that's what I'm praying for.

Please share some of your 2009 goals with me, I would love to hear them.

Organized my closet

Yey!! I did something productive today!
I took some time while the kids where taking a nap to clean out the closet (a little anyway). I was able to bag up some stuff that doesn't fit for goodwill and organize the rest of the clothes, that's all I got done but it's something anyway and I thought it blog worthy. I have organize my house on my new years resolution list but you wouldn't know that cause I haven't had time to post it yet, but now you know and I ORGANIZED!!!

Before

After

My life is sooo exciting I know

Okay the pictures doesn't do justice to what I actually did. : (

Oh well I know I worked hard.

Happy "LATE" Christmas

Christmas this year at our house rocked!
I had so much fun this year, I loved all the shopping I got to do, I loved the amount of money I could (and did) spend. I loved making the chairs for my kids, wrapping all the presents and helping my mom clean up her house and cook for Christmas. I LOVE THE HOLIDAYS!

I can't wait to go shopping again next year on black Friday, that was probably my favorite day of shopping. I love the chaos and craziness and of course the savings. I'm excited just thinking about it.

I didn't see any new Christmas movies this year, which I'm a little sad about but I did get to watch some of my favorites so I'M NOT ALL THAT SAD. I did however get A Christmas Story the ultimate collectors edition for Christmas from HWAG. I'm totally excited about it and can't wait to us it next year, that's right use it, it came with a cookbook, an apron, and cookie cutters that rock my socks. They have the Leg lamp and the bunny suit, I'm going to have some pretty awesome cookies next year.



If there's a new Christmas movie that is a must see please let me know. Some of my favorites besides A Christmas Story are of course Elf and The Family Stone.

I was totally excited to get 10 years of Trans-siberian orchestra box set this year (before x-mas of course) and the Elf Soundtrack which has my favorite song Baby it's cold outside by Zoey Deschanel and Leon Redbone. I also fell in love with a new song A Baby Changes Everything by Faith Hill, I love it as much as Mary Did You Know which I think is song by Rita Springer (not positive on that one). Also check out Winter Wonderland by Annie Lennox. Oh the joy's of Christmas music. Did I mention that they started playing Christmas music on Halloween night, So we listened to nothing but X-mas music for 2 whole months (it's always exciting when your kids love a holiday as much as you do). ; )

HWAG and me had a good Christmas we got tons of stuff from my parents and sisters. I finally got the crock pot I've been wanting for like 4 years. I got clothes which was a need and a want (I mean for some reason my size 9 high school pants aren't fitting anymore, hmmm I wonder why) HWAG got some really nice stuff as well. And we got a tent!!! I'm so excited we can go CAMPING!!!

Oh and we started a new tradition this year which was really cool. SANTA drops of PJ's right before we go to bed Christmas Eve, I'm guessing this was my kids favorite part about Christmas, ABB was in awe, I can't wait to see that look on his face again next year.

Speaking of ABB, my son, oh my son. He got some amazing toys this year but his favorites will crack you up. His Rubik cube of course because what 5 year old won't love sitting in front of a computer for hours watching this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsQIoPyfQzM while trying to solve the Rubik cube. And his next favorite would of course be the Chess set his dad got because what 5 year old doesn't love learning how to play the frustrating game of chess. I swear this kid better be a genius, lol.

SOS got some awesome stuff as well, but I'm going to share with you something else about my little SOS. We went and saw Santa at the mall this year (we didn't take pictures though) and as soon as we got home SOS started crying and told me she forgot to tell Santa some stuff she wanted for Christmas. ABB came home from school later that week with a flyer that said Santa would be at his school and you could have pictures taken with him for free, so I decided to go. This was only a picture thing this was not a sit on Santa's lap and tell him what you want this year for Christmas thing, well if only SOS knew that. It was a scene very much so like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jCr8QSGYss SOS was yelling down the hall and Santa don't forget...., while he and all the parents and teachers laughed at her, only because it was so cute of course.

And last but not least is LLOL. She got some toy's that she absolutely loves and I'm so excited we got them for her. It's so hard to shop for SOS the first thing she liked on her own without it being something her bro likes was puppies but from the very beginning LLOL has been very girly and she only has one baby doll so we ended up getting her the twins from Walmart they are baby dolls but tiny not tiny tiny but perfect for her size considering she is very tiny. We also got her a little stroller she can push them around in and it is such a big hit we did good. So did my parents (who of course got her a ton of presents) but they picked her up a sock monkey and it is like her favorite toy ever. LLOL has this cuteness about her, and she has this sweet very innocent voice and way of using it, that cracks....well.......everybody up. She was using that voice this Christmas with a very whinny "Hey where's mine" every time the big kids had a present to open and she didn't, and of course everyone would bust out laughing (hmmm I wonder if she was the last to get her presents every time on purpose, nah her DAD wouldn't do that to her)

That was pretty much how Christmas went down (in history) this year at our house.

So Merry Late Christmas and please share your x-mas stories with me.

While I have a minute

I have just a minute to ramble on about....well....nothing really.

I've been wanting to blog about so many things but I have so little time. For once my life has been crazy busy. Plus I think I mentioned this setup HWAG's got going on SUCKS! And makes me uncomfortable the minute I start typing, I can't wait to get a computer desk.

Expect some up coming blogs (that are a little late) about......

• Christmas (the happiest time of the year). Well my favorite time of the year anyways
• A recap of last year
• A blog about my new years (which rocked).
• My so called "New years resolutions". Which I'm preferring to call it a check list.
• More about my book She's gonna blow
• And my weight

I'm pretty sure that's everything that I've been wanting to share. I don't care if I don't blog about them until July I will blog about these things.