Monday, November 29, 2010

For the Mommas

Here's a good deal...

Have you ever heard of Amazon Mom? You can sign up here, but basically it's for all moms or dads or grandmas, etc. It doesn't cost a thing, but it provides its' members with free 2-day shipping for 3 months, and for every $25 you spend, you'll get an additional month of free shipping. Read all about it here. (Free shipping on anything, not just diapers and stuff).

Free shipping is pretty great, but the really awesome thing about Amazon Mom is that you can sign up for "subscribe and save". Which is where you sign up to have diapers or wipes or other such things sent to you automatically. I just signed up to have 2 boxes of diapers shipped to my house each month. The good thing about subscibe and save is that it saves you 30% on top of the already good amazon prices. And of course, you don't have to go to the store and all of that junk. My diapers (Huggies Little Movers, size 3, 76 count) cost 17 cents a piece, which isn't as great as an awesome coupon/sale deal, but it's much better than Costco's price of 25 cents a piece and Wal-mart's price of 27 cents a piece.

I just wanted to let all of you other moms know about this good deal on diapers, wipes, and other items you most likely fork over a ton of money for each month. No, Amazon did not compensate me for this post, but they should have.

Happy diapering!

Thursday, November 25, 2010

The deals of Black Friday Past

Black Friday...

It's about the most ridiculous thing in the world! But, for some reason, I love it!

2007- Circuit City at 2:30. We got a laptop!
2009- Target at 10 pm (Thanksgiving Night). Got some hard drives and DVD players for the car. Chunk & Muck got a TV. Read about it here.

I think we'll do it again this year. Call us crazy, but it's actually a lot of fun!!!

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

My Ramblings....

*****WARNING*****
When you get about half way through this (if you make it that far), you may be wondering if there is a point to all of this rambling. Please be assured that there is no point.



I have only seen my husband's chin, cleanly shaven, once in person. He could have a huge mole or wart on his chin, and I would not know it. The day he got home from his mission was the only time I've seen his bare chin (I'm sure his bare chin was the last thing on my mind). He was cleanly shaven after his mission for the amount of time that it took him to grow his goatee back, which is not long. I met him when I was 15, and even then, he had a big-ole goatee.

Casey was the kind of kid in high school (and Jr high) that could grow a beard faster than any of his teachers. His hairiness has grown on me (grown on me! ha ha ha). It's one of those things that I wasn't so sure about in the beginning, but now, I'm quite fond of it. Like Molly's red hair; at first I didn't know what to think about it. I didn't expect a red-headed child, and so when I got one, I had to get used to it. Now I freaking LOVE her red hair. It is so beautiful and unique, but it had to grow on me. And Benson's glasses; they have grown on me. Having a child with glasses seemed like a tragedy to me at first, but the more he wears them, the more I love them on him.

Maybe I love Molly's red hair and Benson's glasses because that's the duty of a mother. I'm sure my mother did not love everything about each of her seven children, but if she didn't love us, we didn't know it. Sometimes I think that I would love to turn into my mother. She is the sweetest lady I've ever known. When I hear myself saying something she would say or doing something she would do, I secretly thank my mother for teaching me the way to be a wonderful woman.

I'm turning out to be a lot like good ole Jan. When I was little she used to wash the dishes in boiling HOT water. I thought she was a nut! Who could stand water being so hot? Well, now I love HOT showers. Like almost to the point of scalding. I'm not sure why, it just feels so good. I don't care if my shower is long, but I do prefer it hot.

I also like me some good smellin' product in the shower. I love shampoo that smells like coconuts or soap that smells like raspberries. I do not, however, like to eat raspberries. I don't like to eat things with seeds. My sister in law made some really yummy pomegranate salad for Thanksgiving dinner, and even though it tasted so good, I couldn't eat it because I couldn't handle the pomegranate seeds. It was the highlight of Nick's Thanksgiving dinner, but I just couldn't do it, no matter how wonderful it tasted.

Everything is soooo super good on Thanksgiving, especially the potatoes. I always volunteer to bring the mashed potatoes to Thanksgiving dinner because I really love potatoes. I don't care how they're cooked, I just love potatoes. I like them baked, fried, mashed, whipped, scalloped, in soup, in salad, twice baked, and french fried.

I probably had more french fries by the time I was 20 than more people have in their whole lives. I started working at the Burger Bar when I was 14, and worked there off and on (mostly on) until I was 21. My favorite job to do there was fry (make the french fries and other fried food). I loved that job because it was the most complicated and hardest job of all. I used to love to push myself, and being in the middle of all the action was awesome. There were days when we'd be so busy I could hardly stop to think.

Where has all my ambition gone? Now I never volunteer to do the hardest jobs. I don't want to be caught up in all the action and business. I don't really want to ever have a real job again. I love being home with the kids and teaching them and helping them learn new things. I love when I see the kids grasp a new concept. Like Benson just figured out that there is a capital and a lowercase of each letter, and it has been really thrilling for me to see him recognize the differences. Joy school has been really fun for us because other moms teach 7 out of 8 times, and so Benson has been able to learn new things that I wouldn't have thought to teach him and then he gets to show me. Like today, he wanted to say the Pledge of Allegiance, so we started saying it and I went completely blank in the middle. But Benson just reminded me what came next.

Can you believe I forgot the Pledge of Allegiance. I know, right? You would think I'm completely un-American. I will assure you, however, that I am proud to be an American. In fact, the other day there was an awesome deal online where you could get a free pair of glasses, just pay shipping. So I ordered a pair of glasses for Benson and one for myself and they were called "Sarah Palin". So there, I'm pretty much as American as I could get.

Sarah Palin is an interesting character. Sometimes I think she says the dumbest things, yet, I still think she's just nice and sweet as can be. I'm not sure how I feel about her being the President or Vice President, but I don't mind seeing her sitting on the sidelines of Dancing With the Stars. Yes, I watch Dancing With the Stars. In fact, I really like Bristol Palin, I'm not sure why. She isn't that good of a dancer, but that's because she's NEVER danced, unlike miss cocky Jeniffer Grey who has been on a little show called "DIRTY DANCING", and complains every single week about being so old and having so many injuries. I really hope she doesn't win. Yeah, she's the best dancer, but Kyle is so funny and Bristol is so nice and pleasant. I'm pretty much addicted to that show. Casey doesn't mind it too much, he's just glad it's not the Bachelor, which starts in January. Let the train wreck begin.

Dancing With the Stars is on tonight. It's the final show of the season, so you can be assured that I will be here tonight, watching. It's not like I can go anywhere anyways. The weather people are predicting a HUGE BLIZZARD to come tonight, so we're not supposed to leave our house. It's supposed to be so bad that Casey got sent home a little early from work today so he could beat the storm home. They say to keep your porch lights on so they can tell where the power is out, and UDOT has already decided that they aren't going to be able to keep the roads clear, so we are not supposed to go anywhere. I cancelled my hair appointment tonight, and so here I'll be. I think I'll make some soup and hot chocolate and we'll wait out the storm while we boo Jennifer Grey. I'm really excited for the storm, so let's hope the weather people are right about it or my high hopes will be crushed.

The End.

Did you get anything out of this? Yeah, me neither.

Friday, November 19, 2010

The best thing I ever did.

The best thing I ever did was to give benson a wipe and let him go. He wipes all of the places he normally touches. Goodbye tiny fingerprints.

Ok. The best thing I ever did was marry Casey. Giving benson a wipe was pretty good, though.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

The boy with glasses


Here is the story of how Benson got his glasses:

Last week I noticed Benson was closing one eye a lot. He was doing it so often, that I even took a picture. I didn't think much of it because I thought he was "aiming" at things, like he usually does with a gun.
Then on Saturday, he started to cross his eyes a lot. Actually, just crossing one eye, his right. Then once he would cross it, he would sometimes close it right after. We kept getting after him for it, but a lot of the times he would say that he wasn't crossing his eyes... So we weren't sure if he was doing it on purpose or not. On Sunday, we decided to ignore it and see if he was doing it just for attention or not. Well, he kept doing it and he wasn't making a big deal out of it either, so we were pretty sure he wasn't doing it on purpose. Casey gave him a blessing. We decided that it would be best to have his eye seen. I called my pediatrician and they said to bring him in on Monday. So we went to see Dr. Zane, who confirmed that it wasn't something he was doing on purpose. He said that he thought he had something called strabismus. Basically his eyes were aligned most of the time, but every once in a while they would get out of alignment. So he sent us to the opthomologist on Tuesday. He confirmed that Benson did have strabismus, but we had caught it early enough that he didn't have to have surgery or wear an eye patch. Basically, the remedy would be for Benson to wear glasses. We aren't sure how long he will have to wear glasses, maybe for the rest of his life. Tuesday, we went and picked out some glasses, which were obviously too big for his face, so we switched them yesterday for some that fit him better. We will pick them up today and see how he does with them.


Here's how I feel about it. Since I know you are all dying for my opinion... I am so grateful that we caught it before it was a big deal. Wearing glasses is minimal compared to wearing a patch or having surgery. It will take some getting used to for me. Benson is such a cutie, that it kills me to see glasses on his face. Also, he has the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen (next to Molly), so I hate to cover them up with glasses. I do, however, think he still looks really cute with his glasses on and I know that once we all get used to them, they will be just fine. I also think that we have been really blessed to have found it this early and to have such good doctors who can take care of us. We are just going to be really positive with Benson. For now, he still thinks his glasses are pretty cool, and I hope it stays that way.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Photography Mini Sessions

My camera is sick of being stuck in the closet, it needs to get out and take some fabulous pictures!

For the holiday season, I am offering mini sessions. I've never done this before, but I think it would be a great {and inexpensive} way to get some family pictures for your Christmas Cards...
This is only for families, up to 6 people. I will not be doing individual pictures during these sessions, like I usually do.

Here's what you'll get:

*1/2 hour session
*3 to 4 poses
*about 25 images edited on a disc
*I'll design your Christmas Cards. (4x6 or 5x7) You get them printed.

All for $40.

I have set aside about 12 sessions in November. Once I book those sessions, I won't be offering any more. Please call if you would like to schedule an appointment.
{I do have some Saturdays}

801-710-4204

Monday, November 8, 2010

Tree Climbing

I just randomly came across this picture on my computer and I laughed... Cory was climbing this tree to get the hundred dollar bill that Dad had hidden up there. So funny. We miss you, Cory.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

About Our House

You may remember a few weeks ago when we thought we might have accidentally sold our house... Well, we did not. The people were very interested, but they couldn't get financing.

Since then, we have gone back and forth over and over again. Should we really sell it? Do we really want to move? Can we really afford a new house? Trust me, we've been totally gung-ho about selling it and then the next day we aren't so sure.

After a lot of discussion and praying, we have decided that we are going to pursue selling it. We aren't going to hire a realtor or go crazy trying to sell it, but we will show it and have it listed "for sale by owner" and if we get some interest in it, good. If not, then we will stay here for a while. So, if you or anyone you know is interested in buying a duplex, we are selling ours and we'd love to show it to anyone interested.