Hee hee

This must be heaven

My kids have eczema, the baby has it the worst, and I haven't found anything that has really helped. We've tried multiple prescriptions but they only work to take the redness and itch out. So my poor baby has had alligator skin for as long as I can remember.

Then just a few days ago, we were spending time with my family and my SIL said she had some lotion we should try from Melaleuca. It was miraculous! My daughter's skin has never felt this soft since the day she was born. My SIL works at Melaleuca and receives product for free every month, so she gave us three bottles! SCORE! I use it everyday and it's been heaven. All those dry patches are mostly gone and the baby's skin is now baby soft again! I love it, I'm so happy.

I've been using it too and my hands are in heaven. They have always cracked after washing dishes but not anymore! So, if you haven't been able to find really good lotion, I highly recommend this! I love stuff that works. :D

I think we're done

We'd better be done, I'm close to being sick of shopping! But I think we have everything. There were some amazing sales going on today though, so that was nice. I think between the day after Thanksgiving sale and those today, I'd save a lot of money! Now we just have to wrap it all. Oh the joy of wrapping.

I've wrapped about half of the presents so far and I might leave the rest to my husband. I'm tired of wrapping too. It's very tempting to just throw everything in a bag and stick it under the tree. My children are young enough they wouldn't even care! So why should I? LOL I should say, that this year I've really tried to not waste the paper. I'm not the best wrapper, but I try. I think I'm getting better, but that could just be the egg nog talking.

So is everyone else done? Do you have everything wrapped too? Maybe I'm the only last minute shopper/wrapper. Also, is it just me, or does it feel like Christmas should be tomorrow instead of Monday? Just curious. Merry Christmas to everyone! If you don't celebrate Christmas, have a great day anyway!

What day is it?

Here I thought I would get a "break" between semesters. I have been going nonstop all week. I asked my husband today if he felt like we've been going going going all week and he said yes, followed by "that's because we have." lol Leave it to my husband to point out the obvious.

I don't even remember half of what we've done that's made me so tired. We did finish our Christmas shopping as I recall. Gotta love the dollar store for stocking stuffers I might add. We also took our girls to story time at the library. That was sure a lot of fun. I wish I could take them during the semester but my class schedule hasn't worked out so we can. They do enjoy going. At one story time, they gave all the children bells to shake during the singing of "Jingle Bells." At the other story time, Santa even popped in to say hello.

On top of a million errands I've had to do, I've been trying to organize more of our home. Everything is unpacked but not really organized. Maybe I should have done that the first time? Oh well. lol

My children haven't been going down for bed as easily as they have in the past. I think that's the majority of my exhaustion. But I love them and it's been nice to see them more.

On a brighter note, my oldest tried ham for the first time. It was shocking she wanted to try it and shocking she actually liked it.

Also, my teacher did say my D+ grade was a mistake and it should have been an A+. So that made me feel better.

I just wanted to leave a quick update. I'm off to bed to prepare for another busy day tomorrow. :D

Error

Something you don't want to see on your report card, a D+. That's what my teacher put down as my grade for my speech class. I know it's a mistake, it has to be a mistake. I aced every speech and the midterm. Even if I bombed the final, I still would have an A in her class. So I know the D+ is a mistake, but I still stopped breathing for a full 3 seconds when I saw it. It's just not a pleasant grade to look at. I hope my teacher changes it soon. I don't need a heart attack right now. lol

Other than that, I aced all my other classes! *throws confetti* I did receive a B in my government class, but for the type of class it was, I'm ecstatic to have the B. With all the ups and downs of the past semester and juggling motherhood and wifehood (that's a word I think) I feel I did pretty well. I'm beginning to look forward to next semester. Well, after my lovely break. :D

Blessings

I love the Christmas season. I love everything about it. The music, spending time with family, giving to others, the food, the lights and so on. One of my favorite parts is giving to others. We were able to contribute to helping a local family. It wasn't much, an outfit for a little boy, but even though it was small it made us feel so good. You do what you can. Christmas is a time of giving. We give to family, friends, and to those in need when able. It really touches your heart when you see a smile on someone's face after receiving a gift from you. It makes it all worth.

We have been truly blessed this year. I have a wonderful little family and my husband still has his job. We moved into a wonderful place and have fantastic neighbors. I feel blessed everyday to have what we do. A few days ago, someone else blessed our lives. I opened our front door to find a large basket of Christmas items. Food, clothes for the girls, and presents for dh and me. There was even a very generous gift card. We were touched and I just cried. We really have been ok, but this was such a thoughful gift. Someone was so kind to think of us, I don't know who they were but I am grateful to them.

Just yesterday our bishop came by and said someone in our ward wanted to anonymously give a cash donation to a family in need. We were one of the families. Again, we really have been ok, sure things are tight, but we always have enough. We don't know who was so sweet but what a blessing. Sometimes you don't know how much you touch someone's lives through acts of service. We have been greatly touched and we'll never forget this Christmas. We look forward to a time when we in turn can help someone in need. For that's truly what Christmas is about, giving to others, for we have been given the greatest gifts of all. Him. (For a great Christmas poem, take a look at Kate's blog.)

Oink~Oink

Today, for the first time in my life, I made ham. Oh. My. Word. It was delicious! I've always liked ham, but I normally don't eat more than one piece. I had two large pieces today. Heaven. Pure heaven! It was very tender and juicy. Yummy! I think honey glazed ham is my new favorite dish. We had Kara and her family over and I wasn't about to kill them with over/undercooked ham, so I'm glad it turned out well.

Your turn! Name a dish that you've made in the last year for the very first time. What was it and how did it turn out?

Look! Look!

I feel so crafty after making this! Kara and I made these today and I think they are so cute! They are called hot chocolate cones. Sorry the picture is so horrible, I had to use my camcorder. The bottom half has hot chocolate, then chocolate chips on top of that, then marshmallows, and a cordial cherry Hershey kiss on top. I love it! I found the idea in our local paper and my husband really wanted me to make them. I'm glad I did and it was fun to do them with Kara. Although she gets most of the credit for putting them together. I had another friend stop by while we were making them and I became distracted. :D Anyway, these were super easy and they really turned out well. We're going to give them to members of our ward that we do home teaching and visiting teacher for and also to friends and family.

This one you can see the top half a little better. I added the ribbon and a little quote.

Here you can see the quote we added.

Done!

I have successfully made it through finals week. It feels good to be done but now I'm exhausted. I was able to take an almost three hour nap today but it felt like two minutes. I know it's pretty normal to not get much sleep during the week of finals but I'm beat! I think it was a combination of studying for finals, stress, and my chiropractor appointment. Hopefully I can get to bed early tonight and do some damage control. This root beer float should help. ;)

Thank you everyone for the well wishes this past week. I greatly appreciated it!

My elephant sized complaint for the day...

First, you should know that I've never had a good relationship with my siblings and my dad. After my parent's divorced, most everything went downhill. With my dad in particular, we've never been close and in a lot of ways he has no idea how to be a dad. So with that said, it leads me to this past Thanksgiving.

A few days before Thanksgiving, my dad sends me an email about when he and the rest of my family will be eating on Thanksgiving day and says he would like for us to come. Two things make this event significant. First, my dad never emails anyone to my knowledge, and this email was sent only to us. Second, he said he really wanted us there. This is also something he never does, he doesn't come out directly and say anything. It was both shocking and very nice to dh and I so we were trying to find a way for us to go. This year we were supposed to go to my in-laws so we tried to see if we could do both. But due to complications from the inlaws, stupid indecisiveness in my opinion, we ended up not being able to go to my dads.

Then about three days ago, I called my sister, who lives with my dad, to give her our new address. My dad answers so we chat for a minute. He goes on to tell me how much we were missed at Thanksgiving. Four things make this too, significant. First, my dad never says he misses anyone. Ever. Second, he said he watched for us for a few hours then gave up. Again, something he never does. He's one that says who ever shows up, shows up, end of story. Third, he had some food set aside for us to take home. Which was really nice and would have helped. Fourth, he said it would have been fun to see the grandkids and have them play with their cousins. This is particularly momentous. He never asks anything about my children, I'm the one to bring up the conversation.

Needless to say, after I hung up I was about in tears. I don't know why he acted the way he did or why he said the things he did or even why he said them now. But he did and it really meant a lot to me.

This all leads to today. I called my mom to check on her. I mentioned we might be coming up for Christmas because we were really missed at Thanksgiving. I made my reasons very vague as I knew my mom might not react well to it. Which turns out she didn't. Her first comment, "oh, well I always want you to come up but you always say you don't have the money." Now this is true. We've missed a baby blessing and other family functions because we don't have the money to drive. We've even missed activities with my husband's side of the family for that very reason. I should have told her that we might be having some money come through by then, but I didn't, I instead tried to change the topic. She kept on and finally I tried to explain why we were really wanting to come, because of how my dad has acted. I should have kept my mouth shut.

After that, she said something to the effect that "oh, well then you should run right over there if that man shows any type of emotion." Then followed with "I'm happy for you, have fun." Yeah right, she wasn't happy at all. I feel like crap at this point. I don't blame her for her response. The rest of my family jumps at every whim for my dad and I don't. The rest of my family doesn't do hardly anything with my mom and I always have. No, we haven't been over to see her a lot since she moved but we haven't been able to. It didn't matter that I told her of course we'd come see her and spend time with her too. I've never been up her way and not stopped.

I was really hurt by all of this. No one understands how important spending time with my dad and siblings really is. We all were never close growing up. When I was engaged, I had one brother married and one divorced. Right after I got married, not that it has anything to do with me, four of my brothers were married. Since then, they've all been doing activities together. Since they all live close, they go four wheeling, hiking, have FHE, and just regular get togethers. This NEVER happened before. Why does everyone get on my case that it's bad that I want to spend time with them? That it's bad that I always want to participate where I live the furthest away? It really makes me feel sad and hurt. I deserve the chance to finally get to know my family. With my dad, I wonder if I'll ever get his love in my lifetime. But if there's even a glimmer of hope I deserve to take it right? Some people are so mean. They just don't understand.

Pie sounds good right now. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

KARA!

I'm sorry but blogger won't let me post on your blog anymore! *cry* I've tried for two days and nothing. Wahhhhhh! I don't like feeling like I'm banned. "Blogger, if you're out there, let me post on Kara's blog right this instant!" I have no clue what the deal is. :( I'm sorry!

For fun

If you're bored and want something to do. :D

They're in cahoots together!

The baby has been very good about pulling her self up onto her knees. We of course thought it was adorable, but now I know we're in for it. She can pull herself up while in her crib too and she looks over at her big sister and the two of them laugh. And laugh. And laugh some more. The first few times they did this we said "awww how cute!" Now? "Go to sleep!"

In the land before time, nap time and bedtime were among some of the easier things. Now it's a struggle. The oldest now thinks it's lots of fun to climb into the crib with the baby so they can play. Have you ever tried to do homework with two, wide awake kids playing in the next room? It's a good thing they're cute. Really cute. I figure it's probably a phase, so I look forward to it ending. Silly children!

Who knew!

You Are 23 Years Old

20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.

What Age Do You Act?

Who knew that I act my actual age! LOL!

He's So Darn Cute

My husband called from work today and told me he had an idea for our Christmas ornament this year. In years past, we'd go out and buy one new ornament to put on our Christmas tree every year. Well this year, we had not found anything. So anyway, he says he has this great new idea. He said that we should take a family photo every year and make a Christmas ornament out of it and we can go back and do this for the previous years also. Plus, it's something we can do when our children get married and have their own children. That way we can see and watch our family grow. I thought it was so sweet! He's so incredibly thoughtful and genuine. *sighs happily*

So, what traditions do you have for Christmas?

Things Keep Getting Better

There is light at the end of the tunnel for my picky eater. Beth came up with a fabulous idea for her son's picky tendencies. So I've adapted her idea with my own and wa-la! I've told my oldest that no matter what I give her to eat, she has to at least try it. Nothing extreme, and I don't force it down her throat by any means but she can't get down until she does. So far so good. The other day she even WANTED to try her potatoes. *faints* So I feel we're moving forward. Oh it feels so good. Now if she will actually like the food I give her and eat it all. lol

Also, my sweet little one has finally decided to crawl. WOOHOO! I began to wonder if she ever would figure it out but she did. Today she two took crawling steps each at different times. Then later, she took three consecutive crawling steps. YAY! I was so happy I was giddy. She gave me a look of like "what?" Then broke out into a full fledged smile. I'm so proud of her. Now she can follow me around instead of waiting to be picked up. My little girl is growing up!

But our good news doesn't end there. My husband and I have decided what we want to major in. *throws confetti* I've decided to become a physical therapy assistant and get my bachelor's of science in health science. My husband has decided to major in geoscience. At first I didn't think there would be a lot of opportunity in my husband's field of choice but after looking into it, there's a huge list! He was so excited. He wants at least his master's then his doctorate. I'm really happy for him. He's never been thrilled about school because so many people said he would never amount to anything but now he knows better. I'm very proud of him! I'm happy with what I've chosen too. There is always light at the end of the tunnel. Always.

A Week of Success

Whew, what a week. I did finish my speech and I think I did pretty well on it. I was going to work on it over the holiday break but I remember my teacher telling us we had to wait for an email from her about the demographics of our class. We had to pick a topic that would persuade our audience so we needed the demographic information to know what to talk on. Anyway, my teacher didn't give us the information until this past Monday. Which left me two days to do an 8-10 minute speech. Needless to say, I was freaking out a little. But I was very blessed and finished it in time and even had a chance to let my teacher review it beforehand. My speech was on how important it is to keep our teeth and gums healthy and a huge thanks goes out to Mimo for helping me with my handout. She made little teeth with some information on it. I cut them out, strung floss through them and handed them out as reminders for my classmates.

Then I had two days to write a 4-6 page essay for another class. It was a film analysis of the movie "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" which I chose. Fabulous movie to see if you haven't. I love Sidney Poitier. Again, I had planned to do this over the holiday but I let myself enjoy the break instead of doing homework. So I was planning on starting it Wednesday but ended up taking a break because I was so tired after my speech. So that just left Thursday. It was pretty crazy because my children were sick and I had a hard time finding time to work on it. But yet another blessing came and in 2 1/2 hours I started and finished a 5 page essay. I was truly, truly grateful.

One more essay and I finished my week of homework. Thankfully, my government teacher told us we wouldn't have anymore quizzes. That was music to my ears! Now I just need to finish up my other blog and then come finals. Overall, I've had a pretty good semester. I've enjoyed my classes for the most part and I've done pretty darn well in all of them. Two finals I'm a little uneasy about but the other two I don't have any worries. I know I've been busy and I'm sorry I haven't responded to everyone's blogs, I'll get to them all soon!