Late nights on the floor

My kids look forward to 'late nights' on the weekends. They get to stay up late and watch movies out in the family room. Jackson always sleeps out on the couch for late nights but lately he's done more sleeping on the floor! I started moving the coffee table away from the couch and putting a couple pillows on the floor under him as a precaution since he kept falling off the couch! After it happened 3 or 4 times in a row, it just became funny. One morning I went out to the family room and while I was using the computer he started to stir. He was laying on the floor and rolled over in his sleep, hitting his arm on the coffee table, waking him up. I sat there trying not to laugh but then he said, "not again", and I couldn't help but laugh. 

These pictures still make me laugh. I pulled the blanket off his head when I walked out to the family room that morning and the next morning he was sleeping with his legs still on the couch but his body on the floor. Lucky for Jackson, he hasn't fallen off once since we got the new couch. Haha

Parents & Pastries

Jackson's school had a unique activity before school last week. Students and parents were encouraged to come to school and hour early and met in the gym and read together. There were fun questions set up around the room about reading (what type of book do you like best? fiction or non-fiction. If you wrote a book, what would it be about? Etc.). After they answered the ten or so questions, they got to take the answers to the center of the gym for a doughnut then sit and read with their parent.

The school had ordered over 20 dozen doughnuts and they ran out! I was happy to see so many families there and nice to see some neighbors.

St. Patrick's Day

When we woke up in the morning on Saint Patrick's Day a couple weeks ago, we found out a leprechaun had visited us overnight and left a pot of gold!


A leprechaun visit is very exciting as a toddler but one of the saddest parts of your kids growing up is that they don't buy into the fairy tales anymore. Even though Jackson kept saying it was me that left the pot of gold, he was quite taken back when he poured a glass of milk and it was green!

He was questioning it all day because, of course, Mom could never have done that. It must be magic.

Ashleigh wanted to make sure Copper was in on the festivities too. She put one of her green t-shirts on him. He kept tripping over it as he ran back and forth playing in the house though, so Ashleigh opted for a green strip of fabric tied to his collar. I think he was much happier with that option!

I was glad to see St. Patrick's day fell on a Saturday this year and it just happened to be a weekend I had off from work! We had fun all day, especially with our meals.

Breakfast was green pancakes, oranges & kewi. For lunch, we had pot pies which ironically had  peas and  carrots which I found very fitting. Dinner was Irish chicken and dumplings, complete with turnips and we enjoyed pistachio pudding parfaits for dessert. Yum!

I think mother nature has a sense of humor. After a few beautiful days earlier this month we got quite a few inches of snow overnight. It felt like we got a little taste of spring, enough to get excited about, but then woke up to this:

        

 So, I gave in and made be best of it. 

I must admit, it turned out to be a great day after all. 

007

I bet you didn't know we are secret agents. Haha Rusty discovered a fun application on his iPhone called, Field Agent that we've had fun with. Jobs are listed in our area by a market research company to gather information or provide feedback. Each job shows the location, description and how much it pays. If you accept a job, you have two hours to complete it and they money is deposited directly into his Paypal account.

The first job we accepted was for Walmart. All we had to do was count all the registers at the front of the store and of those registers count how many had chapstic of some kind, how many were out of a certain flavor, and take a picture. It only took us a few minutes and was kind of fun walking around, being sneaky to gather information and we got $5.00 for it!

New Couch!

I had been wanting to buy a sectional for my family room for over a year. I've looked off and on at furniture stores and checked the classified section on KSL since last year. With two growing kids already fighting over who gets to sit where and a hundred "they're on my side", I wanted to get something that worked better for us. After Rusty moving in last summer and now a puppy added to the mix, it is defiantly time for more seating so after getting my tax return I decided I was going to find the perfect couch.

 It needed to be large enough for all four of us to lounge, watch movies, and guests to sleep on. Presidents day weekend the four of us took to the stores with all the sales determined to find our couch. I knew I wanted an "L" shape sectional with a chaise at one end. It seemed every one I found was either to big, to much money, or ugly fabric choices. We ended up finding this beauty at RC Willey and I LOVE it. It's perfect!

Now the rest of the room needs to be updated to match. I took down all the old curtains and will keep an eye out for some new ones. A fresh coat of paint is on the horizon and updating the fireplace. For now, I'm really enjoying our new couch. No fighting and plenty of space for everyone.

 

Thankful Thursday

Of the many blessings I have, I am thankful for:

• Stepping out of my comfort zone and having a great time (I'll have to try it more often) 
• Music that brings people together and makes you want to dance
• Learning new things in unexpected ways
• Things just working out
• Days when work is fun
• Unexpected appreciation 
• Finding the seeds for my garden I've been looking for
• Spending a lot less than anticipated for my new windshield

Happy Birthday Colton!

We had a blast at Colton's birthday party this year.  Colton is the kids cousin and he is exactly six weeks older than Jackson. His party was at a family house on the hill above the capitol building. It's a beautiful home and we enjoyed the huge fireplace, heated indoor pool, hot tub, steam room, sauna and amazing views of the valley. It was fun watching the boys play chicken in the water and try and make a tower that touched the ceiling by stacking on each other's shoulders.

Colton turning nine, means Jackson's birthday is right around the corner! I loved catching up with Colton's mom, Cinnamon and meeting her new boyfriend. Unfortunately, Russell had to work so he wasn't able to make it. I am hoping we can all meet up at the Festival of Colors next weekend.

Promotion

Jackson was asked to be a part of his dojo's first ever demo team. They have been practicing for just a couple weeks now on a choreographed demonstration. They will be performing as a demo team in the spring tournament and they gave us sneak peek at this months belt graduation.

Jackson was proud to promote from blue to green belt. There were some students that haven't gotten to promote yet. There are days when Jackson doesn't feel like going to karate or keep up with his leadership journal so I was very happy for him to see that hard work pays off.

Last month, Jackson's karate instructor, Leah,  did a demonstration at his school. The entire third grade was invited into his classroom to watch and participate. Leah had Jackson demonstrate some kicks and forms. He also got to break a couple wooden boards with both a punch and a kick, the audience went crazy . Jackson is the 'cool karate kid' at school now. He's had kids come up to him at recess and ask for him to show them some new moves. Last week I watched Jackson talking to another student as he was headed to my car after school. Jackson got in the car and told me the other boy was asking him how to protect himself because a boy was threatening to "beat him up". Jackson's face lights up every time he tells me about another student asking him about karate. I love it.

Thankful Thursday

Happy Thursday. It's especially happy this week because I am not working this weekend. One more day of work then two glorious days off in a row. I sure am looking forward to it.

I am thankful for the many blessings I have. Here are a few on my mind today:

• My kids are tucked safely into bed. There have been so many sad stories in the news about children lately. It broke my heart to read about the bus full of kids that didn't make it back from a school trip earlier this week and the little girl walking home from school with her mom downtown yesterday.
• Compassion
• Russell. On his day off this week, he cleaned, vacuumed, took out trash and did all the laundry. It was such a nice surprise to come home to.
• Movies. It's nice to just sit a relax sometimes.
• Weather. We have been taking full advantage of warm weather. We have been grilling outside for dinner almost every night. I've been preparing a new spot for my garden. I've loved watching the kids play basketball, volleyball, and soccer together. It's so sweet to watch them run and play with our puppy too.
• Waking up in the morning just to look at the clock and realize I still have hours to sleep. And with that, I am off to bed.

Valentines Day

Valentines was fun. Both kids had valentines again this year. Jackson and Emily (little sister to Ashleigh's best friend, Kylee) were valentines for the 4th year in a row. So cute. I had an adorable picture of Jackson standing in front the the valentines isle at the store trying to decide what to get her. But, Jackson deleted it off my phone because he thought it was embarrassing. So you will just have to picture a little boy standing in front of wall to wall candy, flowers, & stuffed animals, it looked like an overwhelming decision. He ended up getting her a cute stuffed animal and a box a chocolates. Ashleigh gave her valentine a stuffed animal, which she had just gotten from one of her teachers as a prize the previous week.


I had all sorts of treats on my desk when I got into work. That night, I took Rusty and the kids out to dinner at Sizzler. Rusty had never been there since there are no Sizzlers in Iowa and I hadn't been there for years. It was one of the most entertaining meals in a long time. My kids are hilarious. The food was delicious. We all filled up on the salad bar items and ended up taking our main course home. We ended up with so much food. Admittedly we all filled our to go boxes with extras from the salad bar before we left and on our way out, Ashleigh whispered to me that there was an avocado in my purse! Silly girl.


I got a sweet homemade valentine from Jackson and Rusty gave me some jewelry, which I got to pick out. Great day.

Tiger's Eye and Black Onyx Bracelet & Black Onyx Bracelet 

   

We sent off a a package to Rusty's parents with a bunch of pictures from the last few months and Rusty had bought is mom a bracelet and matching earnings. We were surprised to come home to a big box on our doorstep a couple days later. His parents had send us a valentines box also! His parents, but his mom especially really love dogs and they were so excited when we got Copper. They sent us a fun care package full of things for Copper. They had wrapped each thing individually so we had fun taking turns to open each item. I couldn't believe they sent three Cezar Millan (the world renowned dog behavioral specialist) books on CD, and I was so excited to listen to them.

Beast in the night

You know how the dumbest things can become incredibly hilarious when you are tired? Well, here is a little story of that very scenario.

After a super busy, non-stop day, I finally got to bed sometime after midnight. As I was settling into bed, I noticed a giant creature on my bedroom wall. As you can see from the shadow, there was a ferocious beast about to devour a grown man! Every time the beast moved or made a noise it became even more funny until I had tears running down my face from laughing so hard. 

It was undoubtedly one of those, you had to be there moments, but it was something worth sharing and a fun little memory worth being reminded of as I read though old blog posts in the future.

 The grown man was a wooden mannequin for sketching I got for a collage art class. It just happened to be positioned perfectly on the bookshelf to make for a funny scene. And as far as the giant, ferocious, beastly creature....

 isn't he frightening? hahaha

Joys of getting older

Jackson loves Subway sandwiches but Rusty and I don't care for it much so we hardly ever go. For Christmas, Rusty gave Jackson a Subway gift card though and he was so excited.

I took Jackson one afternoon for lunch. I sat at a table and let him get in line to order and pay all by him self.

He was absolutely beaming afterward. He told me he felt, "so mature" since he ordered by himself.

A little later we headed out to our favorite Sushi restaurant, Simply Sushi,  to pick up Ashleigh & Kylee (who had been dropped off earlier by Kylee's mom for lunch). 





Ashleigh was so excited that she got to go with her best friend and no parents. They sat up at the sushi bar loved every minute of it.





She told me she felt, "so mature"! I thought it was ironic that both Ashleigh & Jackson had a similar experience on the same day and then described it the exact same way.

Small steps towards growing up. I loved how proud of themselves they were.

Exercise Room

My laptop is up and running (woo-hoo!).  The kids are at their dad's for the weekend, Rusty is sleeping in a little bit, and Copper is basking in the sun on the back of the couch which leaves me with a quiet, peaceful house. I'm sitting on my new chaise, still in pj's with my favorite blanket and a hot cup of coffee. This is what weekends are for. The rich aroma from pouring my coffee took me back to my Grandma Alice's house as a little girl. We would visit a couple times a year and the grown ups always had coffee in the morning. I have very fond memories of visiting grandma's so it brought a smile to my face and it was a great way to start my morning.

On a Thankful Thursday post last month I wrote about my new exercise room so here is the long overdue picture. (Pardon the poor quality but it was taken at night and with my cell phone.)

This new space is in the 'game room' off to the side of our entry way. The trampoline has officially come down and this exercise spot is across the room from the fireplace. I should have taken a before picture but I did manage to track down an old picture of that space. With the trampoline down, the couch and bookshelf moved to the other side of the room. Sadly Sierra's fish died after a power outage with no air pump for a while but gave way to us getting rid of the HUGE fish tank.

It's nice having a space we can all use. Ashleigh and Jackson like to use the treadmill especially. The key is to actually use the new space on a regular basis. I'm still working on that part.

Thankful Thursday

I miss blogging on my own computer, which is sitting in the other room, dead as a doornail. I finally ordered a new battery and power cord so it should be up an running again in the next week. I feel like I have a hundred things to catch up on. I realized a couple days ago that I didn't post my thankful thursday last week and when I loged on today saw that I have actually missed the last two. That means time is going by even faster than I thought! Projects around the house, work, school events and class projects, karate class and promotion, dog sitting, puppy training, and constantly chauffeuring have kept me pretty busy.

I have a million things to be thankful for. I thank God everyday for all the blessings in my life. Some things are very basic:

• Clean running water
• Nutritional food
• Electricity
• Heat
• A place to call home
• Freedom

I honestly don't take any of those things for granted but I'm sure listing, "water" or "power" on my blog week after week would not make for an interesting read. I'm sure I have duplicated some things since starting Thankful Thursday in 2010 but I try not to repeat. Aside from the basics necessities, I have a lot of things I am thankful for that just make my life easier:

• Cell phone
• Computer, laptop & ipad
• Dependable vehicle
• Washer, dryer & dishwasher
• Crock pot, oven, stove & microwave

My list of feel good items and beauty of mother nature could go on for days, but the few at the top of the list would have to be:

• Hot water
• Fireplace
• Cozy blankets
• Fresh flowers
• Sunshine on my face
• Curtains blowing from a warm breeze

Pardon me for being cheesy but I feel very fortunate to be where I am in life. Loving family, good friends fantastic children and a wonderful boyfriend. I do live in the real world however, so things aren't always perfect. For every thing that doesn't go as planned, for every annoying or frustrating thing that comes my way, I have a hundred more things to be grateful for and remembering this makes everyday a great one.