I have officially moved to Life as I know it. I will leave Crazy Life of Mine up though for the archives. Hope to see you at my new online home. :)

I know you all have been wondering where I have been. Please visit my new blog: Life as I know it .

Blue!!!

I finally got around to taking pics of the kids completed room. I didn't take another pic of their Ikea flower and star lights since I already posted that one a while back. I absolutely LOVE their room now.

Not a single photo but a really great time

Yesterday my hubby didn't have to work so we decided to do something together. After going through hell and back to find a sitter my best friend came directly after she got off work and babysat for us. THANK YOU TONI!!! I LOVE YOU GIRL!!!

So where did we go? A fancy restaurant? A movie? Nope none of those. We went to the country to shoot our handguns. Three hours and over 500 rounds between the two of us and we packed up and went to dinner. Hubby insisted we stop and try a sushi place and I was completely grossed out. But we ate there anyway and let me tell you it was fantastic. We ordered California rolls with crab and shrimp. SO good. There are 12 of them in our fridge right now waiting to be eaten. It was a fantastic day. Just me and hubs out in the woods. Very relaxing and a perfect stress reliever.

And I must say that my aim was pretty darn good. I even hit a glass bottle dead on towards the end. Yea me! It was the most fun we have had together in a long time. :):)

FINISHED!!!

We finally finished the kids room today. I couldn't be happier! The photos aren't capturing how beautiful the walls are but believe me it is a fantastic blue. I haven't gotten any really great photos yet since the kids are home but I will do it when they go back to school on Monday.

I was browsing Flickr a few weeks ago and came across the idea to use Ikea spice racks as bookshelves so I bought three of them and each of the kids have one above their beds. They turned out so cute. Here is the boys bed and I will take photos of the rest of the room very soon.

Next stop on my mission to paint every room in this house....the bathroom.

Bummer

It is a pretty big bummer when you have about a half hour more painting to go in a room and you run out of paint. It is an even bigger bummer when the paint you bought does not come in anything smaller than a gallon size. But the biggest bummer yet is when that gallon of paint costs $33.99.

Thankfully I love the color enough that I can paint my bathroom with the leftover.

Family Movie Night

Last night hubby came home late after a job and handed me a Willy Wonka chocolate bar from Walgreens. He then told me that we were going to watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. My response was not too pleasant. You see I had never seen the movie and there was a reason for that. I DIDN'T WANT TO. But he insisted.

The kids were supposed to be asleep already but Makayla was still up so I told her she could come in the living room with us since it was Spring Break. Shortly after Macie woke up and wanted to come in.

So we made it a no notice family movie night. The girls had a blast and loved it. As for me I did NOT like the movie. But it was fun to watch it as a family. Even Limo got in on the family movie watching. He laid on Macie and me most of the time.

Memories

A few weeks ago I was at my mother-in-laws house and she was starting to pack to move. She opened her huge armoire filled with antique quilts and made a huge pile for me to take home. She said that she had carried them around for 30 years and that it was my turn.

I love these quilts. Each of the kids got a completely handmade one for their beds and the rest I washed and folded up to keep until we need them.

These quilts have always been a part of my in-laws home. I can't count the number of times she pulled some out for us when we stayed the night.

I hope that one day I will pull them out for my grandchildren when they spend the night.

We have been cleaning like crazy around here. Today I am continuing to purge and do a complete clean sweep. I am so tired of having so much useless stuff around the house. Spring break started today. The kids are going to be put to work too. :)

I really didn't want to

I just joined the grocery game again. I really really didn't want to. It is great savings but the time it takes to keep up with the coupons, plan the lists, etc. is a pain in the you know what. So I am not happy about joining again. I just felt like I needed to in order to build up our stockpile again for cheap.

It will probably cause me more stress than it is worth but oh well. I will give it a try again.

Almost done

.......and loving it!!

Wishing......

I am so ready to plant our garden and go blueberry picking. We have had some beautiful weather lately. Let's just hope it keeps up. There is great excitement in the air over our soon to be garden.

( Photo taken last summer)

Batman and the Bad Guys

One thing I never get tired of is hearing ( and seeing) the boy play with his toys. Right now he is very much into Batman and other super heroes. He carries them everywhere we go.

It is hilarious to hear him play. He makes the cutest bad guy voices and sounds when they are fighting. I also must brag that he plays extremely well by himself. Today he was at the kitchen table for almost an hour playing with Batman and the "bad guys" as he calls them.

I LOVE having a boy!!

A much needed family trip

Saturday turned out to be the most beautiful day we had seen in a long time. So on the spur of the moment we decided to pack up and make the very very long trip to see the Battleship Texas and the Texas Monument. We had such a fantastic day as a family. We really needed a day to escape the sadness and stress and focus on us.

We went to the battleship first( kids were absolutely mesmerized) and then we ate and visited the Texas Monument. The kids were great the whole day even in the monument museum. By the time we got home we were beyond exhausted. Macie came up to me shortly after we were in the house and said...." Mommy, can I PLEASE go to bed now?"

I took over 50 pictures but blogger is acting up so I will have to post them another time. The last pic is of me and the kids. I love the pic except it was very windy and my hair is blowing in every direction. Oh well.

I will post the rest of the pictures as soon as blogger starts acting normal. I am SO glad we went.

A little sneak peek....

My aunt and I have been painting since 9:00 this morning. She left at 5:00 and we still aren't done BUT it looks so incredibly awesome that I can barely contain myself. Oh my I am excited.

And my kids are pretty happy too. :):)

I *heart* IKEA

Today I went to Ikea with my friend and her kids and what a blast we had. I got everything on my list and can't wait to paint the kids room so I can put everything up. SO EXCITED! Towards the end of the trip my friend let the kids watch Monsters Inc. on her phone. The boy looked SO cute watching it.

I really do love IKEA. I could have easily spent $5,000 there today but instead I showed restraint and only spent $80. Not bad at all for everything I got though. The day really got my mind off of everything that has been sad around here and I feel a lot better tonight. I think reconnecting with my friends is going to help me.

Here are the pics of my cute cute kid. I *heart* this boy..............and IKEA. :)

Together

Every 100 years or so my kids will sit down together and play nice and calm. And if I am really lucky I will be able to capture the rare moment on camera.

( If you look closely you can see that the boy brought an action figure to the loving family neighborhood. )

Think before you throw away

I have really been struggling with being frugal lately. I have several auctions on Ebay I am bidding on. I am doing my best though and truly trying to watch what I spend. I love to make smoothies for the kids and me. Usually I use milk and they turn out great. I have been reading that plain yogurt is great for making smoothies so I bought a HUGE container of it and tried out a smoothie with it. YUCK!!! I couldn't even drink it. Nasty texture and taste.


The kids love yogurt but only strawberry or peach. So here I have an enormous container of plain yogurt in my fridge. Normally it would have been thrown out right away but I kept it in there thinking I could put it to good use somehow. So I did some research and found a master muffin recipe mix here. I choose the liquid option using the yogurt and voila! Cocoa muffins that the kids and hubby devoured in one night.

Sure it was only a $2 container of yogurt but think about how many times you throw something out after a failed recipe. You may not be guilty of it but I sure am. So I saved myself $2 and in the long run maybe I will think about finding another way to use something before I throw it out.

The Return of Scrapbooking!

Shortly after we moved to the house I stopped scrapbooking. It wasn't something I intended to do. It just happened. I missed it terribly but just couldn't find the motivation to get back to it. My mother-in-law asked me to do an album for my father-in-laws funeral and I was very touched. I had to complete a 20 page album in less that a week after taking a year break.

I did get it done and I was thrilled with the results. After that I felt my creativity and the want to sit down and record our history coming back. Friday night I sat down and worked on 4 pages for myself. I am back! This time I am scrapbooking for ME. For my family. I don't care about what others think is "in" now. If I like it great but I don't care if others think the techniques or products I use are outdated. If I love it then it is a great page. I am not done with this page yet since I need to go buy an archival safe pen. This is the start of oodles of pages I will be working on now. It feels so good to be back! :) ( You can click on the pic to make it bigger if you want. )

Moving Forward

Part of the reason I have had a hard time blogging is because I feel guilty about doing the things I enjoy. I feel as though I should be mourning 24/7. But when I stop to think about it I know that my father-in-law would want us to be happy. He wants the kids to laugh and run around happily. He wants hubby and I to move forward together. I know this because family was everything to him. So now I am trying to make an effort to get back to the things that bring us joy.

It isn't easy and lord knows it hurts deeply but we are trying to move forward. We miss him SOOOO very very much. The picture was taken several years ago on Thanksgiving.

Now

Right now we are struggling in many ways. Our hearts are SO heavy. One thing that came along with this is an extra burden of financial stress. We had to pay for the funeral. Well my brother-in-law and mother-in-law helped too but it was still a large amount of money that we now have to pay back. We can live with that. We accept that. Now we also have to be able to help out my mother-in-law financially if she needs it. So with this tragedy came a new way of looking at how we spend our money.

We have been trying for a very long time to agree on how we should save, etc. Well now we don't have a choice. Things are changing with how we view our income because they have to. Since everything has happened I have not felt the need to buy a lot of stuff. The day before I had four packages arrive at my door step. I was buying books and other things. Now I don't feel the need to spend each chance I get.

Today I made an exception. Our home is our sanctuary. And right now it is the ONLY place that any of us want to be. Since I was a teenager my favorite artist ( besides my aunt who is truly the most AMAZING artist) is Amy Brown( link in my sidebar). I used to collect postcards of her prints. For years I have wanted an 8.5X11 print of her work but for some reason I always held off. Today was the day. I went to her site and feel in love with several prints. Then I looked on Ebay and found a print that I had never seen on her site. I feel instantly in love and have already paid via Paypal. It cost me $19 after shipping. But I don't feel guilty. I LOVE it. It is something I will treasure for years to come and I have waited years to buy one.

Being frugal is something that we have to do now. I enjoy being frugal but I also believe that sometimes you have to make an exception.