L (Love)

Hola, my friends! Valentine's Day, right? So how did it go?

So after I put the big kids to bed last night, I hopped back on the computer and reworked my taxes. Because I had found my mom SO many business deductions, I knew I could find more. I'd bought fonts last year. And an EHD. And a computer. And paid 15 CT girls $10.00 a month in coupons. AND sent them all my new packs, which makes $10 a week. And I paid 2 other girls $10 worth of products a week. And I have internet access. And phone access. And a subscription to Photobucket. And hostmonster.com fees. And all sorts of stuff. And by the time I added it all up, I didn't make anything last year. hehe. That's the point of taxes and very small businesses, right? Make it so you don't make anything?

Anyway, I got another $3000. Yeah, that was SO worth my time!!! I filed it, and headed off to bed, a happy girl :)

I woke up at 7am, and got the kids all ready for school. And out the door and on the bus at 7:30am. Jake took Boxer on a walk, and Jim woke up around 8am. I applied new make up, fixed my hair a bit, and was ready to go around 8:45am. Kari and I were going to Savers! Jake wanted a few new hoodies, and Eme said she needed some longer shirts.

So off we went. I was giddy with excitement. ROFL! She had a box of stuff to donate, and I grabbed a few things out of it so that I could have something to donate too (hehe), and we both got our 20% off coupon. To use on the non-$0.99 items. Because I ALWAYS seem to find a few that I can't live without.

And we looked and shopped and browsed and tried on clothes and had a GREAT time. And went to get in line at 10:30am. See my cart? Yeah, I got a little carried away...



But they had SO many great things! Most of the stuff I bought was on sale, but most of Eme's shirts were not. But they were still only $2 or $3 a piece. Not too bad. And, I found her a few dresses that were on sale.

And for me, it was TOTAL jacket day - hehe. I don't even wanna count how many I ended up with... It's kinda embarrassing! LOL! But for $0.99, right? I got a few things for Tom, and for Jake, also. The little boys have more than they could ever use...

And we paid, and headed home. Kari dropped me off at my house, and my lunch date bailed on me. Hmpf! Sure, sure, sick kids trump lunch dates, right? hehe. Just kidding, Charlotte! Love ya, hon, and hope the little Stew gets better soon!

I was SO wanting El Taco Tote, but settled for cheese sandwich and cucumber. And a bag of microwave popcorn. And some sugar free chocolates. And an apple. And a soda. Yeah, I thought I was STARVING because I was gearing up for more food. You ever do that? We watched an episode of Fringe, and he continued with school.

And I tried on all my new clothes, and made space for them, and hung up all my laundry. So my laundry man is gone. I was getting used to him. I rolled over and bumped him the other night, and actually apologized out loud. Yeah, it was time for Laundry man to go, I think. hehe.


























Yeah, TONS of jackets, huh? hehe. And then I spent WAY too much time on Pinterest. Have you played on there yet? OMHeavens, it's addictive. It's a visual way to keep track of all of the cool pictures you find on the internet. Like if you find some super cute cupcakes at a blog, you can pin it to your board. Or if you find some cute shelves on another site, you can pin that. Or if you find a SWEET vintage skirt, you can pin that. And you can make different "boards" to pin things too. Like "Fun thigns to Bake" or "I want this for my house" or "This is my style". Really, it's pretty fun. And you can waste, spend, a TON of time there. hehe. You have to know someone in it to invite you, but after that, you're good to go :) SO much fun :)

And then I walked to the bus to get Jim, and headed back home (yeah, apparently I wasn't getting little Jake, because his parents were there to get him from the bus...), and finished up with my room. I had all of the clothes on hangers, but they weren't all hung up. Maybe Laundry Man WILL be back another night. hehe.

Soon, it was time to go and get Tom from AQ. Eme skipped, and came home on the bus with Joe. So off I went. I picked up Tom, and we headed to Big Lots. I wanted to look around, and get out of the house for a bit. We found some dog treats, and some supplies for a WordArt project for my wall that I was kicking around.

And then we headed home. But I stopped by 7-11 to see if they had any DDP. If my kids were gonna be home eating every kind of candy imaginable from their Valentine's party, at least I deserved some soda. hehe.

We went in, got the BIGGEST one I could find, and went to wait in line. But it branched off in what I thought was 2 directions, but I guess it was just everyone elses direction and mine. hehe. Eventually I sent Tom to wait in the real line, and I stood where I was and sipped my soda. And waited. Yeah, it was a long line. About 2 from the end where Tom was, this dude looks at me, and asks if the soda is all that I have. Yup, I say, thinking that he's gonna let me cut in line.

"I need to pay for gas on #3, and I want to pay for her soda too". Really??? A stranger JUST paid for my drink! What a sweetheart! I tried to give him a dollar, but he wasn't having anything to do with it. I grinned SO big all the way home. Thanks for making my Valentine's day special. hehe.

And then we headed home. And the house was utter chaos. Valentine's and wrappers and junk EVERYWHERE. Seriously? Did you just throw your crap all around the house when I was gone? Yeah, I wasn't pleased.

So we spent the next solid hour cleaning. Kids did their chores, i helped the little kids get their room cleaned (I KNOW! it's always messy!), we folded all the laundry on the table, and put it away, hung up Eme's new stuff, and the house was looking SO much better when it was time for dinner.

Eme cooked French Toast, and I worked on my project. Wanna see??? I took my LOVE series wordart from this week, and printed it out. And then took an 8x10 stretched canvas that I bought at Big Lots, and some scrapbook paper from Big Lots, and glued it all together. And I thought it turned out pretty cool! I hung it above my TV.



And then I made myself dinner (a little too late, cause I was starting to feel a little sick...), and put the little kids to bed, and Jake and Tom and I watched an episode of Chuck. And then Jake informed me that he still had school to finish (nice). Tom went to bed, and I'm blogging, and Jake is working on school. I'm doing my laundry (cause I was out of underclothes - ROFL!), and then will think about putting Laundry Man away. I don't know if he'll fit in my closet, though... Cause everyone needs 14 zipper hoodies, right?

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks! This is the first part. You'll get the O tomorrow, the V the next day, and the E on Friday! Be sure to come back for each of the parts! It makes such a nice little poem :)

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Valentine's Day 2011

Puking... Yeah, that's what woke me up last night at 12:30am. Jim came into my room, saying he thought he'd puked. Yeah, he was only 1/2 awake. So I turned on the light in the bathroom, and looked at him. Puke on his face, in his hair, all over his jammies, and falling in clumps on my floor and in the bathroom. Nice. Perfect...

Have you ever had to clean up tater tot and red coolaid puke? Yeah, I don't recommend it... So I grabbed some wipes and started cleaning him and the mess up. And he told me that he thought there was some in his bedroom.

So off we went. And yeah, there was some in there. Just a tad. ha! He'd puked ALL over his blankets, pillow, and sheets. And Joe's blankets. And snuggle blankets. And the floor. SO gross. So I grabbed some antibacterial wipes, and started cleaning. And left him with fresh bedding (Joe too - luckily he didn't wake up), a puke bucket, and went back to bed.

And checked my phones Skype right before going back to sleep, and Captain America was on. And we got to messange for a few minutes. He was tired from his long shift, but had the next day off. What he's doing may not be dangerous, per se, but it's sure time consuming. Sorry, honey :(

And I went back to bed. And then we repeated the above scenero (minus puking on Joe's bedding) at 3:30am. Sigh. This time, I moved him to the living room leather-like couch. Cause puke would be easier to clean up off of that.

And I headed back to bed. And luckily there was no more puking. But, I figured, just to be safe, we should skip church. Don't want any more unpleasantness coming up, right?

Poor Tom didn't get the memo that we were not going to church, because he came downstairs in his Sunday Suit, freshly showered. Jake went back to bed for a while. And the rest of them played for a bit in the morning.

And then we watched some Living Scripture movies, and the kids had to say what they'd learned. And then, around 11am, I let them turn on movies. And I napped for a while in between. And was still in my jammies at lunch time.

And I started baking after lunch. We made Banana chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, and Sweet Swirl Cookies of Love. And bagged them up, and used the baggie toppers that I designed yesterday. What do ya think?





Eme and I had a TON of fun working on it together. And then I had the kids write names on their Valentine's, and get them all ready for tomorrow.

I did super good at resisting the temptation of the cookie dough and cookies. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the chocolate chip oatmeal banana ones, but I know what they taste like, so it wasn't that hard resisting. As for the swirl ones, I didn't know what they tasted like, and I don't like giving away food without know what it tasted like. So I chewed one. Yes, chewed. And spit. Not swallowed. ROFL! It tasted like a normal sugar cookie, and was soft in the center, a tad crisp on the outside. PERFECT! And I rinsed my mouth out with Diet Dr Pepper. hehe. My Facebook friends joke with me that I should start at DDP Rinse diet - hehe. I don't make it a regular occurrence, just when testing out new recopies - ha!

Today marks day 6 of no cheats :)

I had forgotten that my mom wanted me to help her with her taxes today, so when she called, we postponed it till Tuesday night. And I ended up chatting with her for a bit, and ended up doing the taxes anyway. It was so quiet and peaceful in my room. ha!

2 hours later, I'd found her a big enough deduction to come and visit me and the kids, and all was good. I tied it up, and headed out to cook dinner for the kids. Biscuits and Sausage gravy. They LOVED it. I had a stir fry, and called it good.

And then we put the little kids to bed, and Jake and Tom and I watched an episode of Chuck, and now they're in bed. It's 8:46pm, and I'm gonna watch a show. Or read a book. Or something like that.

I'm planning on hitting Savers tomorrow AM with the girls, and then my buddy Charlotte invited me to lunch for Valentine's day! SO excited about that!

And I think I'm watching Maggie's kids after the bus so her and her hubby can go to lunch (or maybe it's just little Jacob...) and then at 5pm, we go to the pool, and Kari's hubby invited the kids and I over around 6:30 or 7:00 for her b-day party (they have an understanding that since her birthday is only a few days before Valentine's day, that Valentine's day will be celebrated in August - ROFL). Already my day is full - hehe.

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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Be on the look out for a SPECIAL 4 part LOVE WordArt, coming out Tuesday - Friday. I'm SURE you'll love it! Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Nearer, My God, To Thee

So after blogging last night, GUESS what showed up at my door???

Captain America had used ProFlower to get me flowers! And, timed it so that they showed up on the Friday Date night before Valentines day. What a sweetheart! I love you, honey! Tulips are my ABSOLUTE favorite :) So sweet that you remembered :)

I chatted with Andrea on Skype last night for like 3 hours after blogging. She's such a great friend. More like a sister, really. We can talk about absolutely anything. No secrets between up :) hehe. And nothing is off limits - ROFL!

I think it may have otherwise been a bad, hard night for me, since Captain America and I hadn't been able to resolve anything, and he was on 24 hour shift. She kept me more than distracted. And it was after midnight when we got done chatting, so I went straight to bed. Thanks, my dear :)

I woke up around 8am the next morning, after having told the kids to go to the upstairs bathroom and not wake me up in the morning - hehe. I came out, had breakfast, and started in on a few projects that I needed to get to.

First, those candy sprinkle pictures for my mom. She is making them on Sunday for the girls in Young Womens. So I finished them off, and sent them to her local photo lab. And then I started working on my kids' valentines.

And then Andrea was on Skype again, and asked if I could make her a Valentine card with her son. She'd taken a picture of him holding his hand out, and making a kissy face. She wanted to print them, and glue a hersheys kiss to it. SUCH a great idea :) So I added some text, and some flair, and it was good to go.

Then finished my kids' Valentines. And sent them to Walgreens. But my regular Walgreens was down (or their photo lab, at least), so I picked a different one. Which was near the Transmountain Walmart, so I could go there too, while I was out and about. I was still looking for Valentines sprinkles.

We had lunch at home, and I took a short nap, and then, at 1:30pm, I headed out to the store. The kids were watching a movie (since some of them had been banned from computer for arguments), and I took a little break. No kids with me, thank you very much - hehe.

I stopped at Big Lots to look for a doggie bed that I'd seen there at Christmas time. It matched the pattern of my living room couches PERFECTLY. But they were all gone. So I continued on to Walgreen, paid for the prints, and headed off to Walmart.

I bought sugar free chocolates, and some new conditioner, and I found the sprinkles, and I grabbed some chicken nuggets and fries to cook up for the kids for dinner. I wasn't gonna have time to cook tonight. And then I headed home.


It was about 3:30pm when I got home, and Joe was all ready and dressed for Hockey, and I just needed to get Jim dressed. I'd bought new socks at Walmart (so I didn't have to do laundry, how sad is that - ROFL!), and soon, we were out the door, and on the way to the rink. Jake and Eme and Tom were home holding down the fort.

Kari had a party to go to (she sells Pure Romance products), so Brian brought Leo to hockey. So he and I hung out while the boys played. Jim's getting a little better on the ice, and Joe is still doing great. And I even got a WordArt Pack designed - woohoo!

Hockey soon was over, and we packed up, and headed home. And Jake and Eme had started dinner, so it was almost ready when we got there. I had the kids all get on presentable clothes, I cooked myself some stir fry for dinner, and out the door we went to the bowling party. Busy, busy day :)

And we signed in under the waiting families program, and found out that they were having pizza and a veggie tray and wings and cake and punch. Sa-weet! My kids were pretty excited about that :)

We went to get shoes, and waited what seemed like forever in line. My kids were SO excited that they were being a tad bit naughty...


We got a pair 14 1/2 shoes for Jake (they were out of 13), a size 10 1/2 for Tom, 9 1/2 in womens for me, 7 in womens for Eme, and 2 size 3's for the little boys (Jim's feet are the same size as Joe's!). And we headed down to the next to last lane (by the food!) to bowl. Lane 51, I think. It's a big bowling alley. And nice and newly remodeled too :)

Check out the SUPER cute cake for the waiting families

We set up the game, and used the bumpers. Because I do ok with bumpers. Not so much without it...



And the first 10 minutes of bowling SUCKED. Because Jake was having an attitude. I think it was because it was super loud, and busy. WAY too many people in his zone. And the lady in charge wanted to take our family photo, and he didn't wanna be in it. So we moved to where he was sitting, and he kinda hid behind us, but I made her take the photo anyway. I wanted to say, "Just take the picture, he's kinda special and won't smile", but I didn't. hehe.

And then, magically, about 10 minutes into it, he snapped out of it, and had a WONDERFUL time. He came up to me and wanted to have his picture taken with me, was helping Jimmy and Joe with their bowling balls, and was talkative and nice. Whatever it was, I was glad for the switch. And after that, the night was a huge success.

Before, when he was refusing to even look at the camera

And after, when he was happy :)

Check it out! My shoes matched PERFECTLY with my new Jacket!

I got a strike!!!

Joe being happy for me getting a strike - LOL

And then they brought out the food. Jake and Tom were SO excited to see all the pizza boxes - ROFL! The kids ate and ate and ate. I had carrots and broccoli and a few wings. I figured that wouldn't kill my diet, right? Since I had less veggies than I needed with dinner, and the wings are just protein, I didn't count it as breaking my diet at all. The cake? Yeah, I stayed away from that. There's NO justifying that one.


I think Jimmy took 3 pieces of cake, and licked the frosting off of each one, but didn't eat the cake part. Yeah, I wonder why he was complaining that his tummy hurt when we were ready to go...

I did knock that last one down, too!

We bowled a first game, and I won. Woohoo!!! 122 with the bumpers. And Joe got 91, and Jake got 90. I don't remember what the rest of the kids did. We started on a 2nd game, but everyone had had too much sugar, and the little ones were getting tired and restless. So we decided to head out after round 4. Worked for me, though.

And really, they all did fabulous at the place. We were on the end, so they weren't messing up anyone elses game. There was a wheelchair ramp for them to play around on, and we had our own little chairs section. There was plenty of food, and they had fun with the first game of bowling. I wasn't overly concerned with what they were doing, and they were staying where they were supposed to, and being good, for the most part. We did have 2 cups of punch dumped over, but we just went and got towels for that, and cleaned it up. I was relaxed, so I think they were relaxed too. It was definitely the best bowling with 5 children experience I'd ever had - hehe.

I think the last time I took all 5 of them was for Tom's Cub Scout activity back in Ohio.... Yeah, NOT a good time...

Anyway, we got home around 8:30pm, and I quickly put the little kids to bed, and the older kids and I watched an episode of Chuck together. They've come to really enjoy watching a show in the evening with Mom. Tom will sit near me, and we'll snuggle, and it's really a good time.

And then they went to bed, and I blogged, and finished up the last little bits of a project for my mom, and texted with Andrea for a bit. And Terra. And Aimee at the bowling alley. I love my friends :) They're SO wonderful :)

And here it is, 10:22pm. And I think I'm gonna read for a little while. "I Am Number Four". Anyone read that one? It seems pretty good so far. I know it's coming out as a movie, next week, I think.

Hopefully I get to Skype with Captain America tomorrow. I miss that boy, and want him to be happy with me again :) Hopefully his 24 hour shift gets over soon :) Miss you, honey! Wish you were here today for our family adventures!

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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