Trampoline Time

For several years it has been Maddie's birthday and Christmas wish to get a trampoline. The first year she asked was 2005. Since then this is the one gift that has consistently been on her wish list.

Owen and I have thought seriously about getting one several times, but for one reason or another things didn't line up and it never happened.

This year is different. Being the bargain hunter I am, I was on-line browsing store ads on Black Friday morning. In the Target ad I found a Big Wheel for James for $27.99, and a walk-n-ride for Matthew for $12.75.

Next, I opened the Walmart ad. As I browsed through it I noticed a 12 ft. trampoline marked down to $140.00, including a safety net that wrapped around the entire outer edge. (Don't worry Blaine, we can pull all safetey features off when you come to visit. Maybe we can even move it next to the pool! Just kidding, don't want to set a bad example for the kids:)) Anyhow, We had yet to figure out what to get Maddie and this seemed like the perfect answer. I rushed into the office to show Owen and he agreed.

We asked Maddie if she would babysit James while he was napping so we could run a couple of errands with Matthew. She agreed and off we went to pick up her new toy!

Goodbye Sour Attitude

Some of you may have noticed that my "Blue Pleated Skirt" post has been up for awhile. It was never my intention to stop posting, but sometimes life throws you lemons and instead of making lemonade you get all sour! This has been my attitude for the last couple of weeks.

The culprit of my sour attitude has been sleepless nights. Precious James, who has rarely slept through the night, decided to begin waking up not once, not twice, but 3-4 times a night and coming into our room. For the first three wake-up calls he only really wanted to be held by Daddy and walked back to bed. The fourth time was usually at 4:30am and he wanted to get his day started. Sadly, Owen and I are not early morning people so we would try our hardest to get him to lay down in our bed. We even resorted to putting the tv on to keep him quiet. This kept him somewhat settled in our room, but we couldn't really get back to sleep.

On top of this, my mom came for an 8 day visit. This is a good thing, but unfortunately she was subjected to a household of exhausted people. Oh yeah, we are also a houshold of virus ridden people, because she caught the 24 hour flu and then got another flu upon her arrival home. Thanks for putting up with us mom!

After 2 weeks of James' sleepless nights Owen finally got to the end of his rope. One early morning at 2am he was putting James back in bed and James wasn't cooperating at all. Owen decided to move Matthew and Maddie to our room and took the handle off the inside of James' bedroom door. Now James was officially stuck in his room. As any veteran parent knows, he cried for 30 minutes and we haven't heard a peep out of him since. We have now enjoyed 6 peaceful nights of sleep without interruption.

Some of you may wonder why we didn't try locking James inside of his room before. After all, it's an elementary parenting strategy. The answer is....We really don't like listening to our kids cry for extended periods of time. Logically, we know it doesn't hurt them and we'd all be happier with a good night's sleep. We know that it would just be 3 or 4 nights of crying, then he'd settle into his new routine. But for us, it took 23 months and 16 days to get the job done. What can we say???

Thankfully Matthew and Maddie have been sleeping through the night since they were 4 months old. Two good sleepers out of three aint bad!

In summary, my sour attitude seems to be fading away and I am once again finding joy in my children and the silly things they do. Hopefully they'll inspire me daily and I can get back to keeping all of you who live so far away updated on the little happenings in our lives.

Blue Pleated Skirts

When Maddie started at Maranatha we didn't really know which uniforms were popular with the girls. We took a chance and ordered a couple of cute skorts with straight skirts.

These skirts have worked out well, but not long after school started we noticed that most of the girls were wearing pleated skirts.

There were two reasons I didn't buy the pleated skirts. First, you have to also buy a pair of shorts to wear underneath them, while the skort has the shorts built in. Secondly, a pleated skirt needs ironing to look clean and crisp and ironing a dozen pleats is not my idea of a fun time.

Well, as Maddie went through her first year she started asking if we could buy her a pleated skirt. I really didn't want to do this because they're expensive and we already had two good skirts. She was bummed, but didn't complain much and life went on.

I mentioned to a friend about Maddie's desire for a pleated skirt and she informed me that the school had a rack of used uniforms in front of the office. You can take any piece off the rack and purchase it for $3. This was a lot more reasonable than the $35 Lands End price. My friend promised to keep an eye on the racks for us. After all, pleated skirts are popular and get taken fast.

It wasn't too long and she found us the perfect skirt. Maddie was really happy and so was her "thrify" mom.

Even more amazing....when I was at Salvation Army looking for Haloween stuff last month I found another pleated skirt for $5. Then about a week ago I found one on the rack at school for $3. And today my friend found another one on the school racks for $3.

So, for a grand total of $14 Maddie has a selection of 4 pleated skirts. Less than half the price of one Lands End skirt! Maddie is happy and I'm so pleased with my bargains that I don't even mind ironing them once in awhile!

Philippians 4:19 "And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus."

Girl Scout Fun

Last Friday night Maddie's Girl Scout troop headed to the mall to earn their Fashion Badge.

We began the evening by choosing outfits for five different types of people. (listed below) The girls then had to do a quick sketch of each outfit and note the prices of each item.

1. It’s a baby girl…but she’s a preemie
2. Dorky boy in your science class
3. That skate boarder that wears his pants way too low
4. Prom Queen with lots of her daddy’s money to spend
5. Mom is going back to work at the law firm

While browsing through the stores, picking outfits, they were to also be thinking of potential careers available in the mall.

Next, we met in the food court for dinner and to complete a couple more activities.

First, they had to pick an outfit from Activity #1 and add up the cost. Once they had a total, they had to divide it by $8.00 ($8.00 is minimum wage). They had to determine how many hours they’d have to work in the mall (making minimum wage) to purchase the outfit.

During dinner they also sketched and colored two outfits for special occasions.

Lastly, they went through the mall on a skavanger hunt. Here are some of the things they had to accomplish...

1. Find a pair of jeans at a low end, mid level and high end store and write down the price.

2. Find a piece of candy. How many calories does it have per pound? If you burn about 300 calories walking for an hour, how many hours would you have to walk to burn off a pound of candy?

3. Find and environmentally responsible product.

4. Find a store credit application. What is the interest rate? Did you know that if you buy $500 of clothes and put it on a credit card that charges 15% interest you would pay $20 on that card every month. If you never buy anything again, it will take you TWO AND A HALF YEARS to pay off that credit card!!

5. Think babies are cute? Find the following five items, and add up the cost. Casual outfit, Dressy outfit, Cute shoes, Stuffed Animal, Car Seat, Stroller

6. How much does it cost for a hair cut and a blow dry? Remember, you tip your hair stylist 15%, so NOW how much does it cost?

The girls had a great time and learned many valuable lessons.

Maddie's Acrostic Poem

Maddie wrote an acrostic poem for a recent school project.

Here it is....

My dog is really cute
Always trying to be happy
Daring to do weird things
Doesn't like seafood
I love pink
Everlasting love for God

Descendant of Bernice Taylor
A great friend
Very funny
I have 3 little brothers
Sings made up songs for fun

Back to the Park

Thank you Deanne for finding my hearts!

Yesterday I took James and Matthew to the park. This is something I have avoided lately because with James still needing supervision on the equipment and Matthew crawling all over the place, it wasn't something I could handle on my own.

We've finally gotten so stir crazy that I decided managing the two boys at a park would be better than staying at home.

All in all I have to admit that it went well. We went to the park by our house. James is really familiar with the equipment and it is fairly well enclosed as to avoid him escaping into other areas of the park.

For Matthew I brought a quilt to lay on and a few toys for him to play with. Once, when I was up helping James, he crawled about 10 feet away over to a baby slide and try to crawl up it. This gave all the mom's on the playground a good laugh because he's so little, yet so physically advanced.

Other than that Matthew did a good job of staying on the quilt for most of the trip and James found some little friends to play with and didn't escape even once!

I think we may even try it again next week.

Missing My Hearts

Does anyone out there miss my old hearts layout?

I thought it would be fun to try something new, but I have to say that I really miss my original page. It just fits me. None of the new ones I've tried seem to reflect my personality the way the hearts did. I feel like I've lost an old friend.

Sadly, Leeloublogs is doing some web renovations and I can't get back to my beloved hearts.

I think it's affecting my inspiration to blog---hope I can get it back soon!

A Rainy Day Recipe

In honor of our first rainy day I'm sharing one of our favorite soup recipes.

I just finished making it for dinner tonight and it's delicious---if I do say so myself!

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

12 slices bacon
2/3 cup butter
2/3 cup flour
7 cups milk
4 large baking potatoes
1/4 cup minced chives
1 1/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup sour cream
salt and pepper to taste

Bake potatoes (not wrapped in tin foil) in a 400 degree oven for about 45 minutes. When potatoes are tender when poked with a fork, let them cool until you can handle them. Use a paring knife to peel away the skin and cut the potatoes into small cubes.

While the potatoes are baking, cook the bacon in a skillet over medium heat until brown and crispy. Drain the bacon on paper towels to remove excess grease. Cut the bacon into small pieces.

Once the potatoes are ready it's time to make the soup. In a large dutch oven, heat the butter over medium heat until it is melted. Add the flour and use a whisk to quickly mix the flour an butter together to make a roux (or paste). Continually wisk the roux until it turns light brown and has a nutty aroma. (Don't stop whisking, if it burns you'll need to start again.)

Now add the milk to the pot, slowly at first, while continually whisking. (Continual whisking will keep the roux from ending up as clumps in your milk.) Next add the baked potato cubes and the chives. Bring this mixture to a boil, turn down the temperature to low and let the liquid simmer for 10 minutes. The soup should have thickened by this point. Add the bacon, sour cream and cheese. Mix until the cheese is melted. Add salt and pepper to taste.

For a nice presentation you can add bits of bacon, cheese and chives to the top of each bowl when serving.

Enjoy!

The Coaster

This evening we packed up the boys and headed over to the beach to play around and watch the sunset.

When we got to our usual beach there was no parking so we drove a mile or so down the road and parked on a side street with an outlet to the beach---or so we thought.

As we got off the street and headed toward the ocean we realized two things. First, a set of train tracks were right ahead of us. We would need to cross the tracks to get closer to the ocean. Second, we were actually on a cliff above the beach and would have to walk down a VERY steep hill to get down to the sand. With the little guys, this wasn't going to happen.

We crossed the track and walked along the cliffside watching the surfers and enjoying the ocean view. Every once in awhile we'd stop, then walk ahead a little more. Eventually we walked far enough and turned around to head back to the car.

As we were walking back we heard the sound of a train in the distance. We stopped, turned toward the tracks and a 5 car passenger train zoomed right past us. James was so happy to see his first real train. He's been watching Thomas the Train and playing with a trainset at his Grandma and Grandpa Krehbiel's house, so it was exciting for him to see the real thing!