Toys for Tots

Hey all,
Kara (my blog partner) and I are donating $.10 to toys for tots for every new Facebook fan or Twitter Follower that we get through the 26th.   Please sign up or spread the word to your friends, thanks!

Kylie's Ready for Vegas

I am not really sure where on Earth Kylie learned to play the "shell game" at age two. She started doing this out of no where at dinner last night and Justin and I could not stop laughing.
"Round and round and round. Keep your eye on the shell. Now, pick one!"

Halloween Pictures... At Last

Here are the Halloween pictures. First, here are their coordinating trick or treat bags. About halfway through this project I decided that I went a little overboard to line and quilt bags for them that they would use once but the girls loved that they matched their costumes!



Here are my cuties on Halloween:



Can anyone else believe how old Macy is getting???








And this is how they got to Trunk or Treat at our church. Fortunately, their costumes fit over their coats pretty well and there wasn't 6 inches of snow on the ground like there was last year. By this time the girls had worn their costumes several times and Macy's was getting trashed so it didn't look fabulous but it was good enough for her. Earlier in the week I had thrown a little Halloween party with some of our friends (camera died half way through so no pictures) so they could enjoy being in costume for more than just on Halloween. They also got to dress up for dance class (where Macy's costume really got destroyed) on Thursday. Overall, they had a lot of fun!

Haloween Night Videos

We went to our friend's house for a Halloween party Saturday night (after Trunk or Treating) and the girl- who were the only kids there, had a blast. We ate, played games while the girls cheered us on and had lots of fun. As we were about to leave our friends pulled out a pinata and dangled it from the upstairs balcony. They decided to let Macy and Kylie go first but everyone thought it was so funny watching them whip Little Bo Peep's cane around (that was the bat we used) that we watched for 20 minutes as Macy tried to destroy that pirate. I don't remember the last time we laughed so hard. Around the end she started "ducking and covering" as the pinata would get close to her head and that made it even funnier. More pictures of the girls in costume to come later. Enjoy!

Liar, Liar

This should make your day.

My Little Pony Dvd!

Want to win a My little Pony DVD for your little one (or a little one you love)? this would make a great Christmas present! Head over here to enter. We are giving away 2 copies this week as well as a Pink Papaya Body Wash. Come enter!

Halloween Preview

Between Conference sessions today I made Kylie her Halloween costume. it isn't complete yet (I want to go back and buy a couple more of the big dots and I need to get her a black headband) but you can get an idea. I will also give her a black nose when we dress her up to go party. This was fun, easy and super cheap.
On a related note, this is the first time I have used my sewing machine in four months! Between moving (twice), unpacking and enjoying out wonderful summer, it got put on the back burner but now I am excited to start up again (although not as much as before because I have the whole other blog thing taking up my time) and start making Christmas presents.

Cheerleader Kylie

I went int he bathroom to "go" and Kylie walks in as soon as I sit down. She grabbed her stool and sat down on it right in front of me. Then she said:
"I watch you go potty Mommy."
Eyeroll... "Ok Kylie" Why bother fighting for privacy anymore?
Then a second later Kylie starts clapping and cheering:
"Yay Mommy! You peed! Do you want a cookie?"

Maybe you had to be there but I couldn't stop laughing...

Macy and Kylie: "Dancing Queens"

Here are some pictures of Macy at her dance class. She loves it and gets so excited for it every week. Kylie is in a dance class/ preschool program at the place too and Macy gets to tag along to that one for free, which is nice. Kylie's requires parent participation which is why I have no pictures from that one... guess I will have to take some next Thursday.

Sorry about 1 picture being there twice and the random fair picture- I couldn't get them to delete. Enjoy the video of Kylie dancing!

And my coupons site was nominated for a little award, which is nice! I know we won't win but the exposure is nice so go here to vote if you want to take the second to do it!

By Career & Money

Win a 1 Year Costco Membership!

Go here to enter to win a Costco membership! I wish I could win this.... bummer for me, good for you.

My Girls Lately

Things you should know about my girls:

-If Kylie wakes up from a nap in a bad mood, she will want to be cuddled. Sometimes she will walk up to Macy and say "Hold Me!" If Macy is in a good mood she will happily comply.

-If Kylie wakes up happy, the first thing out of her mouth is "Sticker now!" as in "Put a sticker on my chart, I was a good girl at bed time."

-Macy rediscovered some Polly Pocket toy that we got in some sort of kid's meal at a fast food place. The girl looks like a call girl but Macy loves her and tonight she names her "Sweetie." Justin's response is, "Yes, she looks like a Sweetie."

-Tonight, Kylie was not going to bed well. She was at her door crying and yelling something I couldn't understand until I opened the door to hear her say "Pick Nose." And, yes, there was a surprise on her finger for me.

-When Kylie gets in trouble, all you have to do is give her a hug and kiss and then she will say "(I'm) Happy now!" and she will walk away happy.

- Macy was so excited when I told her that she was going to start a ballet class. She asked if I could get a leotard and be a ballerina with her. Sadly, that is a sight no one would want to see.

-Tonight I had a bried period of chaos where Kylie was trying to go Potty (she has yet to be successful), Macy was telling me she had to go too (a one bathroom house is not a wonderful thing) and I was on the phone with a telemarketer that I actually wanted to talk to. I quickly took Kylie off the potty to let Macy go. As I got Macy off Justin came into the house saying, "Lose something?" Apparently he had left the door leading to the garage open and the garage door open because he was taking out the trash. He found Kylie, buck naked, at the end of the driveway. Lovely.

-Kylie is greatly saddened by the fact that she can't eat the glow int he dark stars that are stuck to her ceiling (by previous owners). She laments this fact every night at bedtime.

- The girls are often excited for Daddy to get home so they can share his smoked salmon or Moose jerky sticks with him. Kylie has taken to asking for a "moose stick" every morning when she wakes up.

- Macy has discovered and loves Altoids. I know. She would eat 10 at a time if I let her.

-Macy was very concerned when I explained that there are kids out there who don't have any toys. When we were cleaning out her toys she was ready to give them almost all of her favorites because "they might be sad that they don't have any toys!"

-Macy loves being my coupon holder at the grocery store. She also loves pushing the cart and she insists that she can do it on her own. I don't agree so I pull the front while she pushes and tells me to let go. I pretend to for a second until she notices and then tells me again. It works for us.

-The girls love to go fishing. We have learned that it is best not to put a hook on Kylie's pole because she prefers just to swing it around like crazy. Yeah, we learned that one the hard way.

-Macy regularly insists that there is a baby in my tummy. When I tell her I am not ready for a baby she says "But I am ready!" She also thinks that she is fully qualified to change diapers because I taught her to put some sample newborn ones on her dolls. Yeah, I caught her trying to Change Kylie's stinky diaper one day. It wasn't good.


Any questions?

Sweet Sisters Pt. 1

Cents of Style

One of my best friends, Courtney has an amazing company called Cents of Style. I am probably her number 1 fan out of anyone, at least in Alaska. She is doing a giveaway on my coupon blog so go here to enter!

Partylite freebies!

I think everyone out there should go here to sign up for this great Partylite giveaway valued at up to $90!!! There are also other bonus prizes for 5 winners total. Sign up and show me some love (since this is what has been consuming my life recently)!

Macy's Fishing Date With Dad

Justin and Macy went fishing Saturday morning and I wanted to show off these cute pictures. Justin caught one on her Princess pole and let her reel it in. Although it was muddy and windy, they both had fun and Justin is now smoking some fish in the backyard as we speak!


How cute is she? Later that night we got a babysitter for the girls and Justin and I went on a fishing date. I hadn't been in years but I always loved going with my dad when I was younger. We had fun even though I only caught 2 dead fish. Justin caught several but they either got away right as he got them to shore or they were snagged (not caught in the mouth) so he had to throw them back. We had a lot of fun and now that I have my license and boots we can go more easily.

Bargain Bragging

I wanted to let all of my friends who haven't heard about the Old Navy Clearance sale (half of clearance prices plus an additional 15% off), know how great it is. You can save a ton of money and get some really great items. Go here for how to do it!

I scored three pairs of shoes for myself, a pair of shoes for each of my girls, a new swim suit for my three year old, pants for my husband, jeans for myself (my first pair of skinny jeans!) and an incredibly cute jacket for me, all for just $39.02.

Check out the other great deals people find here.

Poor Girl

Its like watching a dog chase it's tail.

We have a problem

We have a biter in the family. Poor Macy gets bit pretty regularly and usually at bath time. Any ideas on how to stop this?

Fun Camping with Friends

Here are some camping pics for you:Justin's first Salmon.

Anchorage women take couponing hobby to the Web - KTUU.com | Alaska's news and information source |

Anchorage women take couponing hobby to the Web - KTUU.com | Alaska's news and information source |

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Giveaway

Hello friends!
We are doing a giveaway here of some of my lovely homemade goodies. Head on over if you want to enter!
thanks!

First Things First

It turns out that the cable for Macy's camera works on mine. Silly me. Its late and I have a lot going on tomorrow so I will just give you a few pictures from Yesterday's picnic first:









Ok, time for bed! More later.

At long last...

I finally gave in and even though my house is not yet remotely put together and we have a lot to do, I used Justin's camera to take a few pictures tonight. His camera died pretty soon- so yeah, there would have been more and better ones but take what you can get:)Here is our living room (or part of it, the battery died after this pic). We still need to put the molding back on the walls and clean more but this gives you an idea of how our walls and floors look now. I am really impressed with the job that Justin and our friends did on this floor and for how cheap we were able to do it!
Here is the shower that Justin and another friend of ours tiled. Before it had been a nasty old stained and broken tub with ghetto glass doors but he ripped that out and replaced it with a perfectly good used $20 tub and then tiled the rest. This is currently my favorite part of the entire house.
He needs to re-plaster above the shower but I wanted to show it off more. So many projects to do... We still need a bathroom door, doorknobs, a kitchen floor and to gut the rest of the bathroom. And those are just the big things but it is fun and Justin has learned so much in this process.

And here is cute Macy the night before we officially moved in to the house. We had her watching a movie on the computer while we cleaned and then I went back to Randy and Debi's (where we had been staying) with Kylie and Justin stuck around to keep working but pretty soon he discovered a zonked out little Macy Jo.

Other than this we just keep working away at our house, cleaning, doing little projects and unpacking. I am looking forward to being unpacked so we can focus on finishing everything else up. We took a little break from everything and went camping in Hope (70 miles south) Wednesday night and then Justin fished much of Thursday while the girls and I played outside and watched. It was great to see him get his first Alaska salmon and I know he had been looking forward to that since we moved up here. I have pictures on my other camera that I will get up as soon as I can.

I have been working away on my little coupon blog with my friend and Monday we are going to be on the local news to talk about our site. I am excited and anxious to get ourselves out there more and I think it will be fun for the girls because our five children (between Kara and I) get to all be on too. I will post a link to the video if we can get it, wish us luck!

I have to brag again...

Again, I can't yet hook up my camera to post pictures of the house or children. Sorry guys- the required cable is still MIA in some box somewhere. So you will have to deal with a brag post about the great deal I got at Target today!

I got 6 Kashi items for $5 bucks! I am very excited about this. This deal is even better for those of you who don't live in Alaska. If you want to see how I did it (without even using a newspaper coupon), visit my new blog: Alaska Coupon Diva. We have been having a few glitches with the navigation bar but hopefully they will get worked out soon!

Hilarious Child

I know I have been a non-blogger lately but between our trip down south, moving and not being able to find the cord that connects my camera to the computer, I haven't been very motivated. Soon I will have pictures of the house, I promise. I can't wait to show off the amazing shower that Justin is finishing tiling. You will be very jealous of my husband's mad handyman skills when you see this gorgeous shower and soon to follow beautiful floor.

So the reason for the post is that Kylie is just the funniest little child on the plant. She is no longer a baby, but really a child. Yesterday morning she figured out how to climb out of the pack and play that she has been banished to for the last month. Since then, she has become a pro at scaling up the sides and getting out before I can even shut her bedroom door. Tonight when I took her to bed she did her usual routine of climbing onto Macy's air mattress and laying down to go to sleep. She has made it clear to us over the last several months that she would much rather be in a toddler bed than a crib, I just haven't wanted to deal with 2 crazy kids at bedtime. I usually pick her up and put her into her own bed right away but tonight I decided to let her sleep there to see what happens. I tucked her in and left and heard nothing. 20 minutes later I went to check on her and she was sound asleep and it was adorable.
Fast forward another 20 minutes and I hear noise and whimpering coming from upstairs. I figured she had rolled off the mattress so I run up to discover her laying down in the pack and play with all of her stuffed animals and her asking me to put her blanket on her. Absolutely hilarious to me that she put herself to bed, stuffed animals and all.
Anyway, that was just a story I wanted to remember. Pictures coming as soon as I can. Hopefully we will finally be in our house this weekend!

Things that keep me up at night:

Why the Rooster in Robin Hood has a Southern hick accent.
Why the Boise High fight song came from Robin Hood.
Why Clifford (the big red dog) has a comb over.
If I am a bad mother because I gave my girls ice cream cones for dinner. (they had fruit for a snack) I think I was trying to suck up to them because they keep asking to go home and also to see Daddy.
If it is actually possible to get a $75 off $100 coupon from old navy weekly so I can justify the girls and myself getting some new clothes.
Why the Man in the Yellow Hat treats a monkey like a child except he never supervises him. The whole relationship is just too creepy for me.
If I could marry Randy and Debi's washing machine. I kind of love it. A lot. Is that wrong?
If I could somehow convince the Anchorage Daily News to Offer a Sunday only newspaper subscription instead of a just a Friday, Saturday, Sunday one.
If I will ever be able to run two miles in a row without slowing down to walk.
If Macy will ever go to bed and then to sleep in under two hours.
If the thirty minutes I spent doing Wii fit today actually counts as 30 minutes of cardio. I was really working to beat that hula hoop record.
If another child will push me over the edge into insanity. I want one eventually, but can I actually handle one more?
If Eagle River in the summer equals paradise. Seriously, it has been 71 the last two days and beautiful.
If Macy will ever learn to go number 2 in the potty... I am terrified to even start trying to train Kylie. Ever.

Chatterbox

Kylie has been learning to talk more and more lately and her latest new phrase reminded me that I ought to be writing these down more so here are some of the cutest things that come out of her mouth:
- "I don't know!"
- "What Happened?"
- "I see you!"
- "Where are you?"
- "Why?"
- "Where Macy go?"
- "Want it" while shaking her head means "I don't want it"
- "Done!"
- "Lay Down!"
- "Hair" and "Bow" for when she wants me to put a bow in her hair to keep it out of her face.
I wish you could hear the cute sing-song way that she says all of these things. Maybe I will have to try to record them later.
Currently we are residing at my cousin's house in Eagle River (just outside of Anchorage) and really appreciating their generosity in letting us stay here. The girls have been loving the trampoline and I am learning how to take care girl of the girls without the help of PBS in the mornings (it is very useful for giving me and the girls time to wake up and allowing me the chance to shower) Justin has been back in the routine of working on the house, work and back to the house to work some more. I am glad he is working so hard but the girls and I definitely miss him. Hopefully the house will be suitable to live in this weekend.
Here's to a sunny 65 degree day!

I should be packing...

but there are some things I want to document before we no longer have a computer to use. First, we spent the day painting the walls and ripping up carpet at our new house. It already looks better but there is a lot of work left to do before we can move in. We had been hoping to find someone to refinish the hardwood that was under the carpet but apparently no body wants to do it for the amount we want to pay...imagine that. It looks like Justin will get to dive in and learn how to do it on his own- I just hope he doesn't sand a hole through the floor :). Here are some of the before pictures, I will have to take some "post day one work" pictures tomorrow.


These pictures were taken a few weeks ago and not really for the purpose of a "before and after" but maybe they will give you a hint of what we are dealing with. If not, here are some tidbits we learned form the neighbors today:
- This family was nice but a Korean family that spoke no English so no one really knows much about them.
- In this house they had several dogs, a muskrat and chickens (yes, you read correctly) living in the crawl space. This does explain the odd smell in there and the chicken wire over the entrance to the crawl space from the house. I am glad I am not the one who had to clean up down there! Wow, definitely no regrets in pulling the flooring up. I am soooo not an animal person.
- Apparently this family only owed 50,000 on it when they were foreclosed on. Instead of selling the house for $100,000, they asked over $200,000 which no one in their right mind would pay with it in this condition. Therefore, they were foreclosed on and apparently left in the middle of the night, taking their boiler with them (thanks HUD for replacing that) and also all of the doorknobs, I might add.
- At one point this family had a stove fire that tragically scarred what would be a gorgeous stainless steel gas range. We are left with the remnants of that fire.
- There are planters in the back because the lady was a gardener and there is already rhubarb sprouting up around the yard.

So this is now what we know about our new little house. Aren't you jealous that this loveliness is not all yours???

I don't really want to write about what we did yesterday, I don't have the energy. That will have to come later but here is a shot of the girls enjoying their S'mores.

And because I have had s'mores on the brain lately I finally decided to try a peanut butter s'more tonight. I toasted a marshmallow over my electric stove, spread peanut butter on a graham cracker, put chocolate and that and voila! An amazing- too good for words- Peanut Butter S'more.

A friend suggested I try it with a peanut butter cup and that will definitely be tested out soon!

When Mom is in the Shower...

While I (mom) rush to take a five minute shower the girls can, dump out every toy in the toy room, eat every cracker within reach, and strip off their clothes and climb inside moving boxes...

Their cuteness is what keeps them alive...

Our lives...

Nothing major has been going on in our lives lately (except for getting ready to close on our house this week) except a lot of time playing outside in the perfect 65 degree weather. If it weren't for all of the trailer parks, Anchorage could be heaven on Earth in the spring.
Justin went camping Friday night with some of our friends. The girls and I were going to go to but we woke up Friday morning to pouring rain and colder temperatures so the girls had to stay home. I was disappointed but it wouldn't have been worth taking the babes. Justin was a little worn out after his trip and Macy refused to take a nap Saturday afternoon so this is what I was greeted with after I put Kylie down for bed.

Yes, they were both out cold. I placed Macy into bed and told Justin to go lay down and then enjoyed an evening to myself, which was kind of nice although I had been looking forward to hanging out with my husband since he had been gone the night before... oh well.
And then this morning the girls insisted on helping me make frosting for our cupcakes for today's linger longer after church. Justin seemed to get a kick out of this. What he doesn't realize is this is what happens whenever I try to make anything.

And then some of our wonderful friends bought themselves a nice new bike trailer so they kindly gave us their old one. Justin couldn't resist testing it in the backyard after dinner:

The girls were huge fans. We are off tomorrow to get them some proper helmets so we can go on a real bike ride.

And here is Kylie playing outside. She really enjoyed laying in the grass and searching for rocks. She's pretty adorable, if you ask me.



And to answer any lingering questions about our new house, here you go:
1. No I am not excited to move. I love my ward and the part of town we live in, I love being by the coast and so close to the airport. I will miss our friends and location a lot.
2. No, it isn't bigger. But it is ours. After having owned our homes since we got married, we have hated renting up here. Finally though,we are getting a little house. It has a heated garage (a must for up here) and a fully fenced yard. Those things I am excited for. Homes are crazy expensive up here so it has been difficult to find something in our price range, especially since we still own our house in Spanish Fork. We ended up buying a HUD foreclosure so, you guessed it, this new place is going to be quite the project. We are going to work on flooring and painting before we get in there and hopefully we will be able to fix and replace things a little at a time. (Ok, everything needs to be replaced, but we will just have to be patient...) I don't love the part of town we are moving to (ghetto but not terrible) but at least we will be really close to Target and Joann now :) Justin is going to love having projects again and we are happy to not be throwing money away on rent anymore. Hopefully, after some sweat equity, we will be able to sell it for a bit more in a couple of years and then get something that we will like more, but that will come in time. We were thrilled to discover hard wood under the nasty carpet so hopefully that can be refinished fairly simply and cheaply.

So that is the story on our house, because I keep getting questions and I realize that I have not explained the situation well. Wish us luck and if anyone knows anywhere in Anchorage to get cheap doorknobs we need a few! (The previous owners took them all when the left :))