Birthday Parties

We celebrated Birthdays in our family this last weekend. We celebrated Andrew's and Wesley's birthday on Saturday at my house and my cousin Lisa's and Andrew's at my mom's house on Sunday. (Wesley's was celebrated earlier with his Grandpa's birthday). We split the birthdays up because my house can't fit everyone! Here's some pictures...

Andrew with his new chair. He loves it! Every day after school he's actually looking forward to doing his homework because he gets to sit in his chair and do it.

It's an Angelina present!!!


Andrew opening getting some clothes from his Aunt Rachel. My sister-in-law Rachel is brilliant. She has some of the greatest ideas for parties and presents. She got Andrew, Wesley, and Angelina coordinating outfits for Easter. They are so adorable. And handsome for Andrew.

Wesley eating the tissue paper. Yum-O!

Angelina and her new cousin Matthew eating sweets at the table. Yes everyone, this is THE Matthew. Our answer to prayer. It's he so cute?!

At my Mom's house. Happy Birthday Lisa and Andrew!

Wesley with his great-uncle Mark.

Bargains

Hey everyone! I have a great story I couldn't wait to tell!! On Saturday when Brett and I were on our date, one of our stops was Value City Furniture. I saw an ad in the paper for a chair I thought would be great for the kids. It was on sale for $29. They only had the floor model available, so I start looking for stains. ***Side note: If you are buying any furniture that is made of suede, microfiber, or like material, take your hand and swipe the material all in one direction. This will help the material become the same color, and makes it easier to pick out any stains or blemishes.*** I found a really small mark on the bottom of the chair that I could easily get out with zout. When we went to purchase the chair I showed the sales lady the mark and asked if we could get "just maybe $3 off?". She called her supervisor and the supervisor sold us the chair for $19.00!!!!! AWESOME!!! We were so excited!!! The chair was originally $49.99 on sale for $29.00, and we purchased it for $19.00!!! That's my exciting bargain story for the month.

Cinderalla Ball

Tonight Brett took Angelina to the Cinderella Ball. Angelina had fun getting her hair done and nails done and getting her dress made. Brett had fun trying to fit into his dress blues. All I can say is I've done my job as a wife. I've given my husband children, taken care of the house, and cooked an extra fifty pounds on him. He looked so handsome and Angelina of course was beautiful. Here are some pictures...

How beautiful!

When Angelina saw her prince (aka Daddy) with his dress blues

Angelina & Brett

Daddy giving Angelina her wrist corsage

Angelina telling Daddy "Thank you" for the flowers

Laundry, Bleach, and Crying

Angelina has the flu. Yeah...REAL FUN! I never thought anything good could come out of having the flu in my house, but I was wrong. The flu makes my house sterile! Not clean, STERILE! You could perform open heart surgery on my kitchen counters. I've bleached anything and everything that could be bleached. Lysoled or vinegared anything that couldn't be bleached - I was very tempted to just bleach my whole house...I like pink. Yes, I did say vinegared. Most people don't know this, but vinegar is also a disinfectant like bleach. It'll kill just about any germ. Better than Lysol, and safer than bleach or Lysol. So, if you have little toddlers or babies, or hey even nine year olds that examine objects by chewing, licking, and/or eating inedible objects like toys, floors, cabinets, refrigerators, door knobs, tables,...the list is endless, you as a mom, don't have to worry about poisoning from a cleaner if you use just plain old white vinegar! It's edible!

Laundry: All of the linens got multiple cleanings...just in case. My kids were changing clothes every few hours. The germs had got to go!

Crying: Poor Angelina. It was so hard for her to understand that she couldn't eat or drink anything for such a long period of time. She cried a lot yesterday. It just broke my heart. I hate not being able to do something that would make it better.

Last note: Pray that no one else gets the flu.

Games

I hope everyone had a great New Year and a Merry Christmas!!! We had great holiday! God has been so good to our family in 2008. Here a list (very short...I could write for a very LONG time) of some of the amazing things God has done for my family in 2008.

• Wesley was born in February
• My oldest brother, Brian, contacted us. We haven't heard from him in about 10 years
• My husband works for a great employer
• We go to a great Church that loves the Lord and has an awesome Pastor and Pastor's wife
• We've gotten to know our neighbors better, and made new friends
• My family is healthy
• No one got into a major car accident
• Andrew has a great 4th grade teacher
• My brother-in-law and his wife brought home their adopted child, Matthew Wyatt, from China the Friday before Christmas
• Angelina isn't having the breathing problems she had when she was younger
• I have a loving, wonderful, amazing, godly, faithful, handsome, awesome, patient husband
• I have 3 incredible cute children that love going to church
• I have loving parents and grandmother

And there are more and more and more and more, but I figured you'd need to do other things besides read my blog. So... Thank you God for such a wonderful year. Thank you.

Computer Problems

Sorry everyone! Our computer was having malfunctions. It would only stay alive for all of 10 minutes before overheating and shutting down. A new computer solved our problems! YEAH! So that's why the blog has been silent. I'll be coming with new blog posts in the new year!

HAPPY (early) NEW YEAR!!!

Christmas Cookies

The Christmas baking has started. I LOVE to bake! I have quite a list this year of cookies. Some favorite classics for my family, and some new ones I can't wait to try. I've started on the bicotti. Tomorrow Lisa and I are having our kolache bake-a-thon. We're simplifying our kolaches this year. Instead of overlapping the dough for the traditional koloche look, we're doing thumb print koloches. This will save us SOOO much time. What will we be doing with this time? Making cookies of course! Some new ones we're trying are: Pecan Clusters, Coconut Pecan Cookies, and Double-Chocolate Espresso Cookies. Yum-O! Our old favorites are: Kolockes (of course!), Toffee Bars, Sugar Cookies (I'm SOOO excited about the sugar cookies! I found a whole bunch of cookie cutters, so we're going to have FUN!), Bicotti, and Pecan Swirls. Let me point out at this time that we will not be eating all the cookies. Some will go in the freezer until Christmas for our Christmas dinner, while the rest will start being passed out to neighbors and friends (except the koloches - my family would disown me if I gave those away). I can't wait to have fun doing all this baking tomorrow!