A Giveaway & Some Random-ness

There is an awesome giveaway that I just learned of. Just thought I'd share it with you all. It's a bunch of stuff to help get you organized and boy do I need to get organized! So I decided to post about it to help me get more entries. Go check it out here.

Hope you're all having a great weekend! I just Jazzercised my little (big?) patooty off. I only have one more month of Jazzercise then no more, due to family budget cuts :-) My poor husband (who has affectionately named himself "RePete the Plumber") is back at it, trying to appease the city building inspectors.

Now, I have a date with our laundry. It's been a while since laundry and I have had a date -- at least a week. I wish my husband and I could date as often as laundry and I. Wouldn't that be great? I'm off to sort the whites from the darks!

No Dice, but I saved a lot at Safeway!

The inspector did not pass the plumbing. He passed 2 of 4 things, but what he didn't pass is going to take all day to fix. Apparently, Tripp is supposed to use a different kind of copper for the pipes. The first inspector didn't tell him that. What a bummer this permit stuff is!!

On another note, I saved 68% off my bill at Safeway today! I had just $20.46 on a gift card so I went with my coupons and my ad and kept track of my total. Here's what I got for $20.22:
2 boxes of wheat thins
2 boxes of triscuits
1/2 gal. milk (not on sale, but needed it!)
4 pkgs. jhnsnville brats (not healthy in the least, but just $1.50 each!)
3 lbs. bnls/sknls chicken
2 lbs. red grapes
1 pkg. salad (for a meal I'm bringing a family tonight)

I had to fore go the CPK frozen pizza I had. Though on sale from $7 to just $3.99, I didn't have enough for it. Oh well.

I'm so glad that Sunday is the start of a new month and a fresh grocery budget! If you live in AZ and want to know some good deals in our area, visit my real life friend, Becca here.

Remodel -- part 5 (will it pass?)

The permit guy is coming by today. This will be his second time. The first time he came (last week) none of the plumbing Tripp did passed "code". Tripp took some bad advice to put the plumbing pipes in the footings and that was wrong. So he had to re-do everything. It took him 2 full days to fix it.

Here are the pipes he removed and now has to reconfigure after digging new trenches.

In the picture below, he has begun repositioning the plumbing out of the footings.

Here he is removing the siding from the house. He had to move the A/C wires that you see going down the right side of the house (per inspector guy) which meant removing the siding. Doesn't our house look pretty? He will not put the siding back up until the very end. Sigh...

In the picture below, you can see the new trenches he's dug.

And now, hopefully, this will pass the inspection and the guy will permit us!

The guy should be here any minute, I'll let you know if it passes this time!

Some People Suck

The stereo was stolen out of Tripp's truck last night. The thing is 15 years old! Yeah, it's a detachable face, CD player, but it was a birthday gift for my 17th birthday!! How much could the silly thing be worth? I have anger pulsing through me right now. I just want to scream! Why are people so flippin' selfish ?

It doesn't look like forced entry. I was the last one to drive Tripp's truck. I can't remember if I locked it or not when I got home.

This is the 2nd time this very stereo has been stolen. The first time, we lived in Washington. The stereo was in our '85 Chevy Blazer. Some inexperienced stereo thief broke the lock on the door and popped the detachable face off, but left the rest of the stereo. They also took Tripp's huge case of CDs -- Christian CDs. Maybe they actually listened to the music. Maybe they got saved because of it. Maybe...

I will try to get over my anger at people who suck and try to earnestly pray for the person/people who did this. It's not a big deal in the scheme of crimes committed on a daily basis in our world. It's just annoying.

I'll tell you what I'm so thankful for though. We left our van out in the driveway because while Tripp is working on the bathroom, the kids have been playing in the garage so there are toys all over the place. Last night, I went out to the van to get my Bible study bag out. The van was unlocked and the keys were in the ignition!! So I'm very thankful that the Lord prompted me to go out and get my Bible study bag or we probably would've woken up to a stolen minivan, not just a stolen stereo.

Lord, I pray that the person who stole the stereo. I don't know why they did it, but I pray that they would turn to you. I pray that this person could find peace in turning their life over to you and stop committing crimes. Thank you, Lord that I can see a bright side. My anger is dissipating as I pray these words. Thank you, Lord.

I'm Outta Here!

Not that I'm excited about it or anything! But tomorrow afternoon, I'm going to the Bay Area ALL ALONE . Don't get me wrong - I love my kids and husband. But sometimes, a mom just needs to get away. I actually wish that my husband could come with me, but someone's gotta tend our flock! So I will enjoy a visit to my dad and step-mom's and help celebrate her birthday (but don't tell her, it's a surprise!). I'm pretty sure she doesn't read my blog! What I look forward to the most are 2 nights of uninterrupted sleep. I will lay my head down on that pillow on the new sleep number bed my dad just put in my step-sister's old room (I can't wait to find out what sleep number I am!) and fall into sleepy blissfulness knowing that I will not awake to a crying 18 month old or a disoriented 3 1/2 year old telling me "his breath hurts" or a 5 1/2 year old who is often ready to get out of bed at 5:30 these days. Ahh, a little piece of heaven, right there. That, and dark chocolate covered mini pretzels from Trader Joe's.

Tripp was hard at work on the bathroom today, but I haven't taken any pictures because he's just been working on the plumbing. I'll take some pictures when I get back.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Remodel -- Part 4 and just for fun

Not much change this week. Tripp is just continuing to work on the footers and placing rebar down in them. He spent 4 plus hours on the end of a jackhammer just digging out this one section of existing footer to be able to bring the plumbing through.

The pictures below are just of the rebar. I know, contain your excitement, people!

Ooh, aah! It's not much, but Tripp is doing it single handedly! Well, he's really using both his hands, but you know what I mean. Okay, I'm a dork. Time for bed. But first, just to make this post a little more colorful, here are some pictures for your viewing enjoyment. I was just perusing some of my older photos and found this picture of Ryan and our Chia Pet cat that my Gram had given him for Christmas in 2005. Yes, the thing actually grew! Ryan really liked it, can you tell? And how cute was he at 3 years old?

Here are 2 of my guys. Ryan and Tripp are watching TV on the floor.

Then Casey joined them! Aren't they cute?

Not Me Monday

Welcome to "Not Me Monday"! This fun little dealie was started by MckMamma. Go check out her "Not Me's" after you read mine.

At "Muffins With Mom" in Ryan's Kindergarten class, he did not, when asked what is your mom's favorite thing to do, say, "play computer games"! Apparently, he thinks that emailing, blogging, blog-lurking, and putting together my grocery list is, in fact, playing computer games.

I did not cry when it became apparent that, in order to figure out how cut $1,000 out of our monthly expenses, we will have to not just cut back on the home phone/t.v./internet services we receive, but in fact, get rid of them all together. As well as my beloved Jazzercise. *sniff, sniff, dabs at eyes just thinking about it again*

I did not throw away perfectly good collard greens that came in my produce basket from the co-op I'm a part of because I haven't a clue as to what to do with them. And I was not too lazy to actually search a recipe website to find one with said leafy green because I'm pretty sure that my family will all turn their noses up at it and I will have wasted time searching for a recipe and preparing the dish.

I have not been spraying Afrin up my nostrils everyday for the past 5 days even though I know that you shouldn't use it prolonged but I just want to be able to breathe!!

I did not fill a prescription for my son that he doesn't need just in order to use a coupon to receive a $30 gift card to Safeway to fuel my Starbuck's addiction.

I did not get really excited when Safeway's ad last week had a coupon on the back for a FREE tall tea at their in-store Starbuck's. I did not grab 10 extra ads the next time I was there only to forget them in the cart and upon realizing this make a special trip to Safeway with all 3 kids just to grab more ads!

And speaking of the FREE aforementioned beverage, I did not promise my kids bagels Saturday morning after picking up our produce from the co-op with the selfish underlying reason of wanting to use one of those coupons for a FREE tall tea. Not only that, but once I filled the unneccesary prescription for my son, let my kids choose their bagels and then pay for said items (with that ever loving Safeway gift card!), did I notice that the person who had served me my first beverage was no longer there and it was a new person -- I absolutely DID NOT use another coupon for another free beverage before leaving the store. I just would not do that. I don't love free things that much that I would abuse the fine print of the coupon which clearly states, "Limit one coupon per visit." And now that it is Monday, I am not already planning the next day and a half that I have left to use up the coupons before they expire tomorrow!

I need help, people.

Remodel...part 3?

I'm not sure how to title these continuing bathroom remodel posts. Anyway, as it progresses, I'll keep sharing the pictures! Here's the latest:

Tripp has now knocked down the doorway to this opening. This is the outside of the house and you are looking into the old toilet/shower room which will become my walk-in closet. This doorway will be the entrance from the new addition master bath into my closet. I hope that makes sense.

This is just another angle of the same doorway. We're leaving the window in the new closet because I like the natural light. But is it weird to have this huge window in a closet? I wonder if it will just be blocked with storage tubs or a dresser...

This is yet another angle from the same doorway. But you can see that Tripp patched up the old doorway that led into our master (the wall that the ladder is leaning on). Below is a picture of the closed up doorway from the other side.

Not very exciting pictures, but I'm so amazed at Tripp's progress. How do you think he's doing on his "2 week" time frame? Yeah....

I'm it!

So here's the deal - I was asked to go into my pictures on my computer and open up the 4th folder and post the 4th picture. Here it is:

This is Ryan opening up a present on Christmas in 2006. We still lived in Washington at the time and I was newly pregnant with Emily. Like my friend Meredith, who is making me do this, I got very sentimental about all the pictures in this folder.

It really made me miss Washington and our life we had there and all of our friends there. Sorry the above picture is sideways, I didn't take the time to rotate it for you! It's Casey barely 2 years old. He was so little!

Above is Ryan and his buddy Jake. This was Ryan's first time playing soccer. Having a buddy from preschool made it so much more fun for him!

Our happy guy. He has a couple nicknames that we still call him: Beebs & Baby Guy (this name originated from a Sesame Street sketch with Baby Bear where he plays "Hero Guy". He sings a song that goes like this: "He's a hee-wo, he's a guy! He's a hee-wo, he's a guy! He's, duh-duh-na-nah! Hee-wo Guy!!" I tried to find a clip of it on You Tube, but to no avail. That's probably because it's really annoying!!)

On a totally different note,

it's brave of me to post this picture of my bare belly, but I was so blissfully unaware of what was about to happen in 24 hours. I was 34 weeks pregnant with Emily.
Less than 24 hours after this picture was taken, my beautiful mother went to be with Jesus. I'd had belly pictures taken this day with the boys. They turned out so cute. I ordered a couple for my mom. She never got to see them.

The rest of the pictures are from her memorial. The amount of people who came to pay their respects was overwhelming to me. I've included a few pictures below. Is it strange that we all smiled so cheerfully for the camera?

God was my ROCK through this extremely tough time, but Tripp was a close second.

And Mere, along with many others, was a friend who was there when I needed her most.

My sweet, sweet Gram. I can't imagine what it must be like to lose a child... She went home to be with the Lord just 4 months after my mom did. I have such comfort knowing that they are together. They were so close. The 3 of us, were close. They were special ladies.

Not Me Monday!

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So I've never been very good at these "Not Me Monday" things, but I've been thinking of all the things I most certainly did not do this week and this is what I've come up. But remember, no matter what anyone tells you, I did not do the following:


I did not rip a tag off the side of my new cute shirt because it was scratching my waist (why do they put tags there anyway??) and then create a gaping hole but not change said shirt because I was already dressed and even accessorised and felt too cute to change nor did I have time to change. I did not just safety pin it and walk out the door hoping it wasn't noticeable.

I did not earn a $30 gift card at Safeway for having a new prescription filled at their pharmacy and then proceed to spend it on my Starbuck's adiction rather than put it towards groceries. That would be selfish and careless and definitely not in keeping with our new plan for "financial peace" with Dave Ramsey. I would NOT do that!

I did not laugh and encourage Casey when he was irritating Ryan. That is not good parenting! Who cares that his older brother is always irritating him and doing things just to get a reaction out of him. I should not encourage that behavior.


I most certainly did not have just a bowl of oatmeal and coffee for breakfast and not eat again until 5pm. At which point I was not so incredibly hungry that I ate a quarter pound of deli meat straight from the package before fixing dinner. I am WAY healthier than that. I know better.


Well, that's all I can think of that I DID NOT do this past week! What didn't you do? Try your hand a "not me" or two. It's kinda fun once you get going! And check out these other "not me's" while you're at it! My Charming Kids (who I believe is the inventor of this wondrous account of things not done) and 2 of my real life friends: Boo Mama, Therapeutic Ramblings

Happy Birthday, Mom

Mary Margaret O.

(1948-2007)

This is my mom. Today would have been her 61st birthday. So I'm doing a little tribute to her today. She was a daughter, a sister, a mother, a grandmother and countless people called her friend, including me. Our boys called her "Mimi".

She ADORED her grandkids. They brought her such joy. We lived in Washington and she lived in California, but she came to visit regularly. Our boys adored their Mimi.

This picture was taken the last time she came to visit us.

Dear Lord, it seems that you brought my mom home too soon because she was so vibrant and full of life and had so much to live for. But I will not question your will. Thank you that she accepted your gift of grace in receiving Your Son just 14 months before you called her home. I miss my mom so much but You needed her to come home. I have immense peace in knowing that I will see her again someday. Help me, Lord, to preserve her memory so that my kids will always know how much they meant to their Mimi. Ryan asked if she was having a birthday party in heaven. I hope she is.

Happy Birthday, Mom.

The remodel continues...

Tripp knocked down the wall along side our driveway in order to dig the footers (I pretend to know what "footers" are because I feel cool). Below are some pictures of what he's done over the last 2 days. Poor guy, his body hurts now after knocking down a cinderblock wall and heaving the broken pieces of concrete into the trailer AND from having to dig these 2 or 3' deep footers.

The window with the maroon awning is our master bedroom window. We used to have a lovely view out our window to the cement side yard and ugly storage shed. The window will come out and go where the current vanity mirror is (see here).

In this picture, Tripp is saying to me, "you know that's annoying, right?" I said, "What? Taking your picture?" He said, "Yeah! What if I came in and took pictures of you cooking dinner?" I said, "I'd love it! Especially if you posted the pictures then blogged about how your wonderful wife takes such good care of her family!". He had no comment.

This is one of Tripp's "hammer holders" or "junior apprentice". Casey wants to be just like Daddy.

The Remodel Begins

Okay, this is probably going to be a really boring post, but I don't really have anything exciting to share with you right now. Nothing funny like my friend Trish who just posted a hilarious story about something her husband did. And I'm not very good at Not Me Monday posts like my friend Mere is. Nor can I brag about my potty trained child like my friend Dee. So this is what you get. Terribly unexciting pictures of our bathroom demo. Can you stand it? Hold on to your hats, here we go!

This is the vanity that is in our bedroom. It will come out and go in the new bathroom addition, with a different counter top. A window will go where the mirror is (which will look out to our backyard) and this area will become my "sitting area" with a couple of comfy chairs. I envision it as my sanctuary. I want to curl up with my coffee and some good reading material! Whether that's my Bible study, a good fiction novel or just my People magazine!

The picture above and below is the current toilet/shower area. This is the area that Tripp demo-ed the other day. I love my "garden" shower, though it took some getting use to, to shower in front of a window. But I love the natural light that pours in. It's like I can sunbathe while showering!

Do you like Tripp's "work bench"?

Here is the demo-ed toilet/shower room. It's already been a challenge to share one bathroom between 4 toilet trained people! Casey was "taking care of business" at the same time that Ryan really had to go. So I told him to just go outside in the corner of our backyard in the bushes. Problem solved.

So that's it. I can't wait for it to be done. Tripp says it'll take just 2 weeks. I couldn't believe he said that with a straight face. Why don't we go ahead and just say 2 months instead. A bit more realistic!

Happy 2009!!

It was time to get rid of the festive holiday background and try something new! I love those free backgrounds!

Last night, we didn't celebrate the New Year with a big she-bang. Tripp was at the station and really, when you have little kids, it's hard to ring in the year! Babysitters aren't really an option - I wouldn't ask the grandparents to babysit, it's just too late. And what teenager is going to want to babysit instead of hang out with their friends on New Years? So we have the option to go to friends' houses who have little kids too and just let them stay up and play. This works o.k. for kids over the age of 3, but not so much for 1 1/2 year olds.

Anyway, last night the kids and I at least had sparkling cider. After I put Emily to bed I told the boys they could stay up until midnight if they wanted. Casey fell asleep on the couch by 9:45. Good effort, Beebes! Ryan made it until midnight! I let him watch Noggin and we played Candyland, then about 10 minutes before midnight we tuned in to watch the ball drop in New York. Then, since Tripp was working, I let Ryan sleep in my bed. He thought that was pretty special. I hope he isn't crabby today from staying up so late...

So good-bye 2008 and welcome 2009. I'm not as happy to say good-bye to 2008 as I was to move past 2007. For me, 2007 will forever be remembered as a year of emotional chaos filled with great highs but also great lows. I'm tempted to pray that we never have a year like that again, but I won't - because it was a great time of growth for me. It drew me closer to my God. I learned to lean on Him more than I ever had to before. 2008 was much less emotional. More calm. I wonder what's in store for 2009...

This weekend, we are moving out of our master bedroom and into the guest room as Tripp begins to tear into our master bathroom. I'm not looking forward to going from our nice big king sized bed to our little queen nor am I excited about sharing a bathroom with the kids. But Tripp wants to get this done before summer. The end result will be worth it too! We will no longer have a vanity in our bedroom. Who actually thought that was a good design? I guess it's pretty common for houses built in the late '70s & early '80s.

On another subject, I'm not really into New Years resolutions, but I'm really excited about starting this year off right, financially. Tripp and I are 2 CDs in to Dave Ramsey's "Financial Peace University". We are going to learn how to get out of debt and live within our means. We'll have to cut way back and get rid of some luxuries and that will be hard. But I know it will be worth it. Trying to do a remodel on our house will complicate things, but we have a "remodel fund" and we will just have to stick to our budget! I want to be a good steward of what God has blessed us with, and that in itself, will be a blessing for us. I'm acutely aware of how much we really have. I'm soooo thankful for our house, that my kids have a safe neighborhood to grow up in, that we have food to eat, even that my husband has a job! So many people are not so blessed. I pray for them. I pray for my little girl I sponsor in India where they live in fear right now because of terrorists persecuting Christians and destroying anything even remotely associated with Christianity. Thank you Lord, that we can praise you and worship you here in America without the fear of being killed for it.

Well, that's all the insight I will share for now! Happy New Year!