My New Year's Resolution

I usually don't make New year's resolutions because I never stick to them and pretty much find them useless. But this year my resolution is to not eat so much fast food. (Ryan stop laughing!!). I am on the go all the time with the kids. We are out and about every day for school and activities. I find it so easy to zip through the drive through. I eat fast food Every.Single.Day. It certainly isn't healthy and it is very expensive. It is just convenient to eat on my way home. So then when I get home I can get the kids their lunch and while they eat I clean up and do various things. Every time we go through the drive thru Madison says "Mommy french fries aren't healthy, you shouldn't eat them. Can I have some?" and Cooper starts clapping his hands and pointing because he wants french fries also. Not a good sign. And when Madison was younger we would be driving down the street and all of a sudden I would hear "Are you eating French fries up there?!"

My kids don't even like McDonald's, other than the fries. Neither one of them likes the food there and Ryan doesn't like fast food either. Why am I cursed with the love of fast food gene??!! Maybe if I don't eat fast food every day I could lose 5 or 6 pounds, that would be awesome! So I am putting this on here as a way of holding myself responsible for no more fast food. This is my New Year's Resolution: I will not eat fast food for lunch EVERY.SINGLE.DAY.

Ahhh....

It is finally over. The kids have opened all (well most) of their presents and everything now has a home. The Christmas decorations are put away. The baking is all done. No more wrapping presents. Now I can focus a little on myself. I can get back on the treadmill and lose the few pounds I have gained between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Now Ryan and I can get back to our weekly date nights. And now I can get back to scrap booking. Cooper's book is caught up to 11 months. He is 17 months so I have a ways to go away. Madison's book is 14 month behind. I am very excited because this month I am going to 2 crops! One is a Friday night and all day Saturday and the other is an all day Saturday. I am REALLY looking forward to relaxing and working on the scrapbooks. I am also going to go shopping all by myself on New Year's Day. Check out all the great sales and stock up on the kids clothes for next year. I am looking forward to going all by my lonesome!

A side note on the shop. Ryan has cleaned out most of the shop. There are still a few really really heavy things left in there. We will hopefully know by the end of the week if the insurance company is going to rebuild (likely). And Geico was out and wrote a check for the damage to the jeep. Hopefully the shop will be back up by February and Ryan can get back to work!

It's not good...

This statement was made repeatedly throughout the day today. We got alot of snow yesterday. Well this morning we got up and went downstairs and Ryan was looking out the back window towards his shop and had a funny look on his face. So I looked out and I could tell something just wasn't right. The words out of Ryan's mouth "Holy crap!" and I looked again. No roof on the garage anymore. Nope now it is IN the garage! So Ryan tears ass of out of the house to check out the damage. In his shop are thousands of dollars worth of tools and equipment not to mention the fact that his jeep and a customers jeep were inside as well. Good news: No damage to the customers jeep, not even a scratch. Bad news: The entire roof is sitting on top of Ryan's jeep. Surprisingly his jeep is not crushed and just has some dents. I guess we will see what happens once the weight of the roof is off of the jeep.

We had our insurance adjuster out this afternoon to take pictures of the damage. At first glance you think OK the roof needs to be replaced. Then you look a little closer and now you notice that the walls were pushed out as well. Then you keep looking and finding more damage. So it is looking like the entire shop is going to be a total loss and need to be rebuilt. Thankfully it is covered under our home owner's insurance. It is insured for 10% of the worth of the house. Now that would give us about $21,000 to replace the shop. Ryan NEEDS the shop. He runs a jeep repair business on the side and he needs this space. So should Ryan and his Dad take the next couple of months to rebuild it or do we hire someone to rebuild it in a week. Ryan is stressed that we won't get enough money to replace what was there. I think we will, I hope so anyway. The insurance company is supposed to call Monday and let us know what they think.

I feel really bad for Ryan because this is his space. This is where he goes to de-stress. If the kids and I are bugging him, he can go out there to relax. This is were he goes when his 4-wheel friends come over and this most importantly is where he runs his business. I wish I could make it better for him but short of rebuilding it myself I guess there isn't much I can do.

Here are some pictures. All the pictures will be on my facebook page.

Baby words

Madison's baby words are so cute and probably one of the things that I will miss the most as she grows up. One of my favorite words is burbie which is a burger (she already says burger correctly now). On the day that I was induced with Cooper my Father-in-law came over to watch Madison. Before we left for the hospital we had McDonald's for lunch. After we left Madison told my FIL that she had a burbie for lunch. He was so stumped by this word that he ended up looking in the garbage for the wrapper to see what the heck she was talking about! Here are her last few baby words:
My parents live in Honeoye, Madison calls it Honeyway
My brother lives in Hawaii, Madison calls is Hawaida
Pennsylvania, Madison calls it Pennsylangaga
Ariel, Madison calls it Arigel
I know that there a few others that I am forgetting. It is sad as these baby words go away because that just means my little baby is growing up way too fast!

We are going to Bethlehem!

This past week Madison has been getting ready at preschool to put on a Christmas story show. They got manger scenes ready and made special presents for us.

Last night we were playing with Madison's barbies. She had them in a school bus*. I asked her where the barbies were going. And she told me they were going to Bethlehem. Took me by surprise! So I asked her why they were going to Bethlehem. And she told me that they were going to find a room. I love the stuff she learns at school and then comes home with! It is way too cute.

The Christmas story was today and adorable!! Madison was a wise man and had her fingers stuck in her mouth the whole time but it was still very cute! And she is obsessed with the baby Jesus that came in her manger scene. She is carrying it around and made a bed for it!

*For Elliott's birthday we got her a barbie car and ever since Madison has been dying for a Barbie car. She rarely plays with barbies but is fixated on this car. She told her preschool class that she wants her special present from Santa to be a barbie car. I hope that Santa brings a barbie car!!

The will of a 3 1/2 year old

Madison has become very strong willed lately about her clothes and hair! She has curly/wavy hair and I hate seeing it in her eyes. So over the summer I finally broke down and got her bangs cut. Which instantly made my baby look older! She decides every morning how she is going to wear her hair. Last week she wore a pony tail everyday with a bow in it. However, on Mondays she takes gymnastics and has to wear a pony tail. So every Monday it is a battle because she has to wear her hair up. Tuesday through Sunday though she will wear her hair in a pony tail!

Her clothes. I would like to get a pin for her to wear that says "I dressed myself today!" If I pick out her clothes she refuses to wear them. Her favorite outfit is a jean jumper with a pink top and black leggings. If I get this out she WILL NOT wear it. Right now when she picks out a shirt I can usually steer her towards something with a matching bottom or vice versa.

My in-laws took Madison shopping for Christmas presents that were just from her for me, Ryan and Cooper. After she picked out the presents she told them she needed a present for herself and wanted a new dress. They went to JcPenneys and they said that Madison tried on every dress there before she would decide which one she wanted. Here it is:
She wore this to the grocery store Sunday morning. You know the day that was bitter cold and windy!? I insisted that she wear tights and a long sleeve shirt underneath! She did pick out a super cute dress though!

So for those of you Moms that we see regularly just remember that Madison dressed herself!

And the whole strong will thing is only going to get worse!

Is it luck?

I have lots of friends that are stay at home Moms and lots of friends that are working Moms. Some of my friends that are working Moms work because they want to or have to for various reasons. The ones that drive me crazy are the ones that tell me relentlessly that I am so LUCKY that I get to stay home with my kids and they WISH they could. I don't think I would call it luck so much as I would call it hard work and sacrifice. Ryan works hard for Frontier and then has a side business that he does when the kids go to bed. Here is the site www.bluedogjeep.com.

Credit cards? Don't have any. Nope not one. The only "credit" card I have is a debit card. We live on a budget. We have envelopes that get filled with cash once a month (groceries, gifts, clothes, Target- I love this store!, etc.). If those envelopes are empty then no shopping. I don't drive a new car. We recently bought a new to us mini van which we saved tax money and bonus money to buy. Nope no fancy car payment for us! I don't wear fancy clothes and neither do my children. Do I love gymboree and Janie and Jack? Sure do! But my kids wear Children's Place and Penneys. I buy Penneys for myself as well. You can get great coupons for there. I have a nice house but it isn't a $300,000+ house like a lot of my friends have. When the kids out grow their clothes I take them to the consignment shop to help supplement the clothes fund. When the kids out grow their toys I put them on Craigslist to help supplement the gift fund.

So I ask you my friends is it luck or sacrifice?? I am going with hard work and sacrifice! And yes I am lucky because I married a great guy, so there!!

Washers, dryers and Christmas trees

A few years ago I bought a big huge artificial tree. I can't stand having real trees in the house. I hate all the pine needles and the cat and the dog in the tree and knocking the stupid thing down so we went artificial. Ryan doesn't like this tree b/c it is mammoth and it is not prelit. I did not want to put the tree up because darling Cooper loves to touch everything! So Lowes was having a sale this weekend on prelit fake trees for $38. Can't beat that. We went to Lowes for this:
We also left with these!!
Ryan and I have been taking about getting a new washer and dryer. I do an INSANE amount of laundry. Madison's day is not complete unless she wears at least 3 outfits. So the laundry is out of control! I complain when I do it because it is never ending. I don't NEED a new washer and dryer but it sure would be nice! So we checked out what Lowes had and they had these on clearance plus Ryan got them to take an additional 10% off and when he paid for them a $300 mail in rebate printed out! Plus we will put the old ones on craigslist so these are practically free, sorta!! I love them! They are HUGE! I can get three baskets of laundry into one load =) My new ones don't have that stupid spindle thing in the middle and I can wash comforters and clothes don't get wrapped around it anymore. The only thing missing on these news ones is a magic fairy that will fold and put away all the damn laundry.

I am so excited about my new washer and dryer.... guess I need to get out more!

Dinner time miracle

Mealtimes.... I don't know about your house but at ours it is just a delightful time! Madison does not eat meat (unless you count hot dogs as meat... I don't). Cooper basically just eats fruit. Mealtimes usually consist of Cooper shoving his plate away and yelling for a banana and then shoving his chair out from the table. Madison will pick at her dinner and if we force her to try something she will chew it and keep it in her cheeks, I'm not kidding.* So on tonight's dinner menu we were having spinach and feta cheese sausage, corn casserole and snow peas. Madison asked what was for dinner. I told her and she proceeded to tell me she doesn't like sausage and wants cottage cheese instead. We are having sausage. We sit down to eat and they BOTH gobble up the sausage. There were 4 links in the package. They ate one link each and then split mine as well! WTF!!! Did I actually find something that BOTH of my children like?? Cooper ate a ton of snow peas but refused to touch the corn casserole. His corn casserole was thrown onto the table next to me with a big shake of his head no. But whatever he ate sausage and snow peas!!! Madison ate all her sausage and a few bites of peas (which she said she didn't like, naturally!). Who wants to bet the next time I make that sausage they hate it!?!

*Back in September Madison and Cooper spent the night at my In-laws so that Ryan and I could spend our anniversary alone. That Sunday morning they made eggs for breakfast which Madison ate (or so they thought). She ate lunch and wasn't feeling well and fell asleep. We picked up the kids and were home by 4:30pm. I smell a terrible odor coming from Madison's mouth. I tell her to open up and sure enough there are the eggs from breakfast! I'm not kidding that she will keep food that she doesn't like stored in her cheeks... nasty!!!

Open mouth, insert foot!

I typically get to Madison's preschool half an hour before she needs to be picked up. This is because I have already spent two hours entertaining Cooper and am ready to pick Madison up and go home! They have a nice big family room there so parents to wait and off of that room are offices. So on Tuesday we got there at 11am. She doesn't get out until 11:30 am. Cooper is bored and running around like a mad man getting into EVERYTHING! After I got him out of the garbage can he ran over to Pastor Carl's office and pushes the door open and runs in. Now Pastor Carl is very nice and doesn't mind at all that Cooper has whipped his door open. Here is the exchange between Pastor Carl and myself.

M: Sorry about that.
PC: That's OK. I will put him to work and he can help me write my service!
M: If he helps it will just sound like blah, blah, blah, blah!
Silence and my face goes bright red!!
PC: That's how all my sermons sound anyways!! Blah,blah,blah!!
M: I back out and close the door and hope he doesn't remember me!!

So how nice is it that I have just told the Pastor that his sermons sound like blah blah blah!

Good times.