Birthday Party!!!

So I'm just going to put this out there...October 16th I'm going to be throwing myself a 30th birthday party at at my mother-in-laws place (Cedar Hills, Utah).  I thought about leaving this up to my husband but the man is busy and he'd probably forget about it until the day of.  I just wanted a party so I'd have an excuse to see my family and friends who are in the state!!!  More info will follow but right now I've got my mom promising Mexican and my in-laws say they will grill.  There is Wii, foosball, a pool table, food and of course me.  Mark you calendars for Saturday the 16th!!!

We Made It...

24 hours of driving and we made it to Utah in the small car.  We left the van at home because I'm flying home with the kids in three weeks and Dr. J will be out west here doing 5 more weeks of rotations.  The idea of driving two cars out here and then driving one home all alone with the kids well that sounded like a nightmare.  Instead we traveled 1500 miles with our kids all within striking distance.

-We started at noon.  No ideal time but Dr. J had taken his second set of boards the night before and just didn't have the juice to pack.  We spent the morning packing.  Returned library books and then we were off.
-Our first real stop McDonads in Des Moines Iowa.  It had a play area and we were there for an hour.
-At Omaha, Nebraska Dr. J said he had no more juice.  I made us push on to Lincoln because the idea of the 16 hour day of driving we'd have in the morning sounded horrible.
-At Lincoln we paid 85 dollars (ick) to stay in Best Western.  The kids were happy to be in bed, all but Peach.  She wanted to play after a day of sleeping in the car.
-At 2:30 Dr. J woke up.  He stayed in bed for an hour and then had to get up.  It woke me up and by four we were totally packed up and on the road again.  He told me later he got out of bed because he finally decided he was just going to study if he couldn't sleep.  Meanwhile when I saw he couldn't sleep I started getting this frantic feeling we had to get moving.  I didn't feel better until we were on the road.
-5 AM I reach down and realize the DIAMOND OUT OF MY ENGAGEMENT RING IS MISSING!  I'm not going to lie I cried a little.  Dr. J said, "Hey baby we'll replace it next year after we don't have to spend a small fortune on interviews."  We called the hotel but they couldn't find and I frantically searched the whole car.  It is gone :(  Why does it make me sad: 1)  There went 1500 dollars.  Shesh.  For a cheapo like me it was sad moment.  2) I had it since before we got married.  It represents so much to me.  My first gift from my finance, our young love, or eight plus years of marriage, the beginning of our family.  I never take that ring off and the fact that I won't be wearing it anymore, well it was just sad.
-We don't stop for anything.  We eat cheese curds, sausage, crackers, grapes, apples, chocolate milk, and licorice in the car.  At 1 we finally stop in Wyoming at the worst rest stop ever.  The kids have a blast though as Jason takes them on a hike on and hill and they find dear poop and cool rocks.  I buy my kids silence with rings pops and tootsie roll pops.
-3 o'clock we stop at Rock Springs, Wyoming.  We drive around town until we find the McDonalds with a play place.  This time I eat a salad.  I hope it will make me feel better after all the junk I've eaten.  It doesn't.
-6:30 we pull into my moms drive way.  WE MADE IT!  Captain E says, "I don't want to go home.  All that driving will make me cry."  He was suffering car sickness the last three hours of the trip.  When I tell him we are flying home he is HAPPY!

A Busy Little Helper...

So my kids aren't beating maize but they are good helpers.  Both Captain E and G Bear love to cook.  The queen of clean up though is Peach.  When she was just six months old if I asked her to put her toys away she would pick them up and drop them in a the bucket.  As she's gotten older her skills have gotten better.  If she spills she gets a cloth to clean up.  When I switch laundry she wants to help.  The only place she isn't helpful...with folded laundry.  Out of drawers, off the couch, out of baskets, she just can't help herself.  Hopefully in a few more months I can get her to fold it back up.    

Maybe I should be making my kids work more :)

I Am The Frugal One...

Our desktop computer is one it's last leg...ok, really it's past that point, crawling along, almost ready to die.  I can't say I blame it.  In the seven years we've had it, it's been put through a lot of abuse.  Kids bang on the keyboard, viruses have gotten in, 5 million pictures have been downloaded, programs galore crowd the memory, it has been moved four times, and it never gets dusted.  It has been a work horse and has more then paid for itself.  Now it sits dying and will need to be replaced.  I have to say I'm a little excited.  Who doesn't want something faster, quieter, newer, and yet I find myself with the same dilemma I had just months before when we had to replace our laptop.  I want a Mac.  I come from a Mac family.  They are sexy and cool.  Unfortunately it is never going to happen.  I think my family and friends have this misconception that I'm being held down in poverty by an over dominating husband.  Let me clear something up, when it comes to purchases, to money, to our life, I am the doer.  I look things over, investigate the options, re investigate, agonize over, and then make the decision.  I may sound board off my husband or I may not, Dr. J stays out of the way.  It works for us and I think the main reason why is, "I AM A FRUGAL WIFE," and so I have my husbands complete trust.  And that leads us back to our computer problem, while I desperately wanted a mac book after all my investigation we were talking about something that cost four times more.  I just couldn't justify that cost difference to myself.  I could see no way in which I would get 4 times more productivity, 4 times more life, 4 times more fun out of the thing.  And now we are looking for a new desk top.  Yes I want the IMAC, but  by the time I pay for the screen I want, the memory and the programs I'd need to move over I'd be looking at over $2000.  Meanwhile I found a Gateway desktop with great reviews and 1TB of memory for $515, and I can use $75 bucks of cash back from my credit card toward the purchase.  So while I want the IMAC, my frugal ways will get in the way and in the end I'll be bringing home another PC. 

*I would like to make it clear that in no way do I look down on any friends or family who own IMACs or mac books.  I think they are total fun and look forward to playing with your cool programs when you are around.  I wish I could join you...I'm just to darn cheap from my own darn good :)

Hunger Games

I'm sure I've mentioned this before...I love THE HUGER GAMES SERIES!  I picked it up when another wards book group was reading it last year.  I finished it that night.  The next day I went to the library to get the second book, Catching Fire.  The day after that I looked for the third book Mockingjay.  Darn it wouldn't come out for something like 135 days.  I know this because there was a count down.  So I did what any irrational book fan would do and preordered it.  Then I tried to forget it.  It was nearly impossible.  As the weeks went by I encouraged all my friends and family to read it.  Several other friends preordered it and we would mention to each other..."oh only 85 more days, or 56, or whatever."  Then the day came of the release.  Guess what it didn't come.  It took pretty much all the willpower I had not to stop at Barns and Nobel that day.  Then the next day I saw it at Meijer and picked the book up.  I snuck the cover over, read the first two works and snapped it shut.  "What are you doing," I chided myself, "be an adult!"  I went home and look at my Amazon order and that is when I found out that for reasons I will never know my order wasn't even going to ship for another ten days.  That's when I send Amazon a grouchy e-mail and posted my dismay on facebook.  Two things happened.  One Amazon said, "hey we are sorry and we will get that out to you pronto."  Second my neighbor said, "Hey I have all three books but I just started reading them.  You can borrow Mockingjay if you want."  Thank you Jenny!  So I took her book and read it that afternoon.  Then I returned it to her the next day so she could start in on it.  Yes she finished the first two books in two days.  My books came that day and I reread the Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and then Mockingjay again.  They are lovely.  I mean just fantastic!  I've tried to describe them to other people: a futuristic America where the country is divided into districts and a boy and girl have to fight to the death every year for the entertainment of the rest of the country....it sounds rediculous.  Don't listen to me.  Just pick them up and read them.  The author is Suzanne Collins.  She has another series but it isn't nearly as good.  I loved all three books although if I have to be honest three is my least favorite.  I love the chacter Peeta and he gets less playing time in the third book.  Regardless still TOTALLY WORTH THE TIME, and I'm sure the makeup was much cuter then this.  Ironically he mentions the book Shipbreaker.  I also loved that book.  A great read for Hunger Games fans.

Here Here!!

1st Day of School

G Bear started preschool this week.  She was so excited.  She got new tennis shoes, she talked them up for weeks to anyone who would listen.  Then she was so excited about the backpack.  She loves seeing Captain E take his backpack to school.  She has wanted one for weeks.  Finally she got to shop in my closet.  We have a walk in closet where I keep a tub of clothes for each kid.  Jeans, t-shirts, sweaters, shorts.  Stuff I pick up at garage sales, stuff I pick up at the end of season when it is a dollar or two.  I let G Bear get into the tub to pick stuff out for school.  Her first outfit she insisted on wearing that day.  She sat in the back rubbing her pants.  She kept saying, "I love you mama.  I love you mama!"  Seriously scary.  Watch out world.  Drop off was a cinch.  She was momentarily quiet but then ran off to the toys.  She was happy.  I was happy as well, but even though this is my forth time taking a kid to first day of school it was my first with G Bear and I definitely felt a tug of grief.  My kids won't stop growing :(

First Spelling Test

Spelling has never been my forte.  It was my least favorite subject in school.  Weekly spelling test...blah.  It was the worst!  My darling son though has been saved from my fate.  So here is the big shocker.  Spelling the way we learned it...doesn't work.  Having kids memorize random list doesn't work.  Shocker, they learn the words for the test and then they forget them.  Schools now focus more on having kids learn the rules.  This is how spelling works for Captain E.  His teacher gives him five words at the beginning of the week.  This week they were:
mat
fan
can
hat
that

All week the kids work on the rules.  They build word ladders.  They talk about similar words.  They make word groups.  Then on Friday they have a test.  Like a typical spelling test they are asked the five words they were given.  Then they get five new words they haven't been asked to memorize using the same patterns.  Then they get 2 extra credit more challenging words that use a similar pattern.  Captain E got all ten words right, plus one of the challenge words.  Yeah Captain E!  I love first grade!

All the cuties...

School has started again and our little town is once again overrun with college students.  Yesterday I went to pick my hubby up at school and the kiddos came with me.  We were sitting in the car waiting for daddy to come out.  Captain E says, "I like this place, there are lots of cute people."  "Cute people," I ask him, "What makes cute people?"  "Girls with long hair." he says.  And then he smiles a sneaky little smile.  Then G bear yells out, "No, boys."  "No, girls." "No, boys!"  This goes on for a few minutes until they get bored.  A tiny girl in skiny jeans, blond hair to her waist, carrying an umbrella walks by.  "She's a cute girl," he says.  And I have to say, she was.  Although I'm not going to say my stomach didn't get tight with axiety.  I'm not ready for crushes.

Is it so wrong...

to want someone else to have to do your husband's laundry.  Blah to you internal medicine!

For those of you who don't facebook graduation has been announced.  If you are thinking about coming out, there is an awards dinner May 6th...I don't know if there are any awards coming hubbies way but I won'd count him out.  Graduation is Saturday May 7th.  Hotels book up pretty fast so if you are planning on coming you might want to book now.  You are always welcome to sleep on our couches/floor but it might not be that comfortable. 

In unrelated family news Peach now says Nah for no.  I still love her but maybe not quiet as much :)  J/K!!!!