Maybe my lunch was too hot...

I heated up a hot pocket this afternoon for lunch.

Check out this fork!! Maybe I put the hot pocket in the microwave for too long!

Fire in the hole!

Lydia is SO hilarious!

Last night she darted into the kitchen and yelled:

Fire in the hole!

She is a little spitfire...so I guess it's appropriate! HA!

A good teacher

Rebekah has such a great teacher. I just have to brag about her. I'm so glad that she loves Rebekah. It makes such a huge difference.

Last week, Rebekah was really having a tough week at school. We were in frequent contact with Jamie about what all was going on. And she sent us this note:
"Just wanted to let you know how thankful I am to have Rebekah this year. Even though she is going through some kind of "stage"; she is still my angel. You know I hand picked her to be in my class this year. She stole my heart the first day I met her. Thank you for being such a great parent and supporting me. I think you and David are wonderful parents and I'm so glad to have both of you too. I feel very blessed to have the class I have this year. I love them all like they were my own. "
Isn't that just the nicest thing? I guess I need to say thanks to Amy O'Neal for telling us about Jamie. Amy was right. She really is great and really cares about Rebekah.
That's all for now...

100th Day of School

Rebekah's school celebrated their 100th day of school on Friday. They went from class to class doing activities and making crafts. The teachers dressed up like old ladies --- which Rebekah thought was hilarious!

She made this caterpillar hat with each section of the caterpillar listing the 10's...10 20 30 40... She's learning so much so fast!

Just wanted to show off this craft.

Have a good one!

Farewell lunch

One of our auditors is leaving. He's traveled for years and is now moving to a job where he doesn't have to travel anymore. He bought everyone some BBQ and we had a good time joking around.

Here's a picture of the department. Unfortunately, it's not a good one. The lady who took the picture didn't focus the camera first. Oh well.

Happy Sunday!

Girls night!

Dana, Kaleena, and I had a girls night on Thursday night and

WE HAD SO MUCH FUN!

I haven't done something like that in FOREVER.

We went to the mall and hit the stores and ALL got something at the scrapbook store, shared some chocolates and grabbed some Starbucks.

I LOVE the stuff I found at the scrapbook store and it was so much fun to just hang out with the girls.

Just got one picture though...camera batteries were dying.

A Hero and a Spelling Test

First, Rebekah made a 100% on her spelling test on Friday. See the note from Jamie? Rebekah told us that she couldn't remember what came after the "a" in "black" so she looked on the wall to find out that it was a "c." It didn't seem to be a huge issue. I don't think she was trying to be dishonest. Jamie didn't seem to be concerned about it. We'll just keep practicing like she suggested. =)

And, in other news, Ms. Kathy, who was one of Bekah's pre-K teachers last year is the new hero of the school. A boy in her class was choking and Kathy performed the Heimlich maneuver, saving him.

Rebekah said that she just had to send Ms. Kathy a hero card. So here it is. (I scanned it before we sent it to her.) Do you see that Kathy has a cape with an "S" on it for superhero? She also has a star on her shirt, because, after all, heros have to have a star on their shirts. Do you see the little boy choking? Rebekah wrote all of this by herself, sounding things out. It says:

Hi Mes Cafee.
Im proud of you being a hero!
*heart*
Rebekah C.

Isn't that too cute? I love it. We sent it to school with Rebekah this morning.

(click to enlarge the picture)

Dress-up

You're not going to believe this, but I think I've only taken 73 photos so far this month. Crazy, huh?

Anyway, we were at the Yoders' on Saturday night and Rebekah and Lydia played dress-up with Mercey (like they always do). I about died laughing when they came out dressed like this!

Check out that wig on Rebekah!

And Lydia is a little mermaid. So funny!

Little Jaden didn't dress up, but he was there and he was cute, so I just HAD to take a couple of pictures!!

Happy Monday. Gotta go do some homework. Public relations! Fun!

If only she'd been wearing these...

Last night, Lydia was using our restroom when she decided that it would be a good time to play with David's cologne.

Yeah.

Not such a great idea...as she soon discovered.

Well, she sprayed the cologne right in her eye and started screaming. I looked in the bathroom and quickly put two and two together and realized what she had done.

We scooped her off the toilet and proceeded to flush her eye out in the bathroom sink.

Have you ever tried to flush out the eye of a three-year-old that wants nothing to do with saving her own eyesight? MAN! She is strong! I was holding her legs and she was kicking and screaming...but we HAD to get that cologne out of her eye.

Of course, we had just taken her off the toilet. I was just SURE that in all her fighting with us that she was going to go all over me.

But, she didn't. Thank God!

Anyway, we kept taking breaks from the eye-flushing to try to get Lydia to calm down and cooperate. She would have none of it. She just kept saying, "I don't like the water! My eye is fine! See! My eye is fine!"

When we thought it was thoroughly flushed, Lydia was still kicking and crying.

Aaaah! Aaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaah! AAAAAH!

David said, "Lydia, it's over."

Aaaaaaah! Aaaah! AAAA---- it's over? No more water?

Tears stop---just like that.

Then I started washing the rest of the cologne off her face with a wet wipe and she rubbed her eye and started crying that her eye was burning again. She had cologne on her hands too and was rubbing it into her eye!

We explained to Lydia that we weren't punishing her---that we were just trying to help her. We talked to her about not messing with things like that. She understood. But her eye was still pretty red.

After a little break, we decided to use some artificial tears to try to continue to flush out her eye (a little less dramatic this time). She still cried and squirmed...only this time, David was holding her legs while I was holding her head in my lap. He admitted it too. She is STRONG!

Right before bed, Lydia told me that her eye was hurting.

Me: Your eye is hurting?
Lydia: Yeah, but I don't need any more water!"

I looked at her face and could see the splotches caused by the cologne on her sensitive skin--- her nose and cheek under her eye were starting to get red.

Me: Lydia, you really messed up your face.
Lydia: (sigh) Would you just stop de-plaining about it?

I laughed.

Lydia: Stop laughing at me! I'm just trying to make up sense!

Furious.

I am furious.

I ordered a used book from a seller on Amazon.com on December 20. My classes started Tuesday and I never received the book. It was supposed to arrive no later than January 10. I emailed the seller three times with no response. I finally emailed Amazon.com customer service about it. They said that I would have to wait a couple of days and then file for a refund this week. In the meantime, the seller sent me an automated email that said that my request for a refund of $0.01 had been processed. I emailed him back and told him that I had not yet requested a refund, but if he was going to refund me he should refund the full $12.74 that I paid for the book. What’s with the one penny?

Oh!

I found that out today.

I filed a claim for a refund on the book. I filled out all the paperwork and posted a little comment---you know the whole deal.

Then I get an automated email from Amazon.com:

This notice serves as confirmation that we have closed your Amazon.com A-to-z Guarantee claim because the seller has issued a reimbursement through our Payments system…
He is TOTALLY playing the system. He issued that one penny refund to manipulate the system to show that I had already received my refund.

I emailed Amazon.com back with a big NOOOOOOOOOOO!

I’m still fuming. We’ll see what comes of it.

***Oh, by the way…don’t use macedonmedia---they’ll sell you something, never send it to you and then keep your money.***

Being silly

Here are a couple of Nathan and Lydia being silly.

The faces Nathan was making were totally cracking me up! Just wanted to share.

A question only a three-year-old would ask

Monday night, Lydia asks me:

"Why do I have a mouth?"

You know, I don't even think about these things. It's fun sharing these things with her. (At least I could answer this question.)

Everyone is sick

Well, I was sick last week and now everyone else in the house is sick today. Rebekah has been battling a cold and looked to be feeling better. But we took her to the doctor this morning and she has pink eye. Lydia's been coughing a lot too. Now David is getting the cold I had last week. Even Bear is sick! Poor puppy.

So, if you're missing us, we're just here being puny.

Little firefighter

Lydia found this dress-up outfit at the Maizes' the other day. She was LOVING it.

Just wanted to share some pictures.

More later.
Gotta run.

Jayna

In my eyes

We went to a friend's house last night for games and some fun. There were tons of old and new friends there. It was so great to see people we hadn't seen in a while. The girls had a BLAST! On our way home, Lydia said,

"My friends are in my eyes!"

Then she closed her eyes and said that she could still see her friends.

Isn't that just the sweetest little thing?

I love this kid!

It's how we know we're almost to Grandma's

This is a rather odd sight, actually.

But it's normal to me.

All growing up, we would pass this HUGE mailbox in someone's front yard. (Compare it to the regular size mailbox at the end of the driveway.)

Now, it's a landmark that tells the girls that we're almost to Grandma's house.

I've known about this mailbox for over 20 years, but I still don't know the purpose for its existence. I think one day I'll put a little note in their regular size mailbox and ask about it.

I just wanted to share...

Meet Haley

This is Haley.

Lydia absolutely adores her.

Lydia doesn't give her a minute's peace every time we're at church. And Haley is such a good sport about it.

Do you SEE how happy Lydia is that I'm taking their picture together? Now when Lydia takes a picture of something (or pretends to), she says, "Say Haleeeeey!"

It's just too precious!

Okay...one more post today, then I'll stop.

Here's a picture that Rebekah drew of her cousin, Amber. I thought it was really cute and just wanted to share it.

Jayna

Lookie lookie!

Yea!

Look at our new toy!

We just got a new computer.
We found a great deal too! David's been downloading thousands of hours of music already.

It has over 17 TIMES more memory than our laptop. (We'll still use the laptop for traveling). Now I can save a bazillion pictures on the computer without worrying about taking up too much memory!

Yea!!

And, of course, no moment in life is complete without Rebekah documenting it with a picture. Here is a picture of David, Rebekah and Lydia shopping for a computer. See the keyboard and mouse?

So cute!

Our little artist

Rebekah has been quite the little artist lately.

This is one she made before Christmas. I don't think I've posted it yet.

It says:
The femle are setn on the cash

Translation:
The family are sitting on the couch. (David said that we're definitely not sitting on any cash! LOL!)

Rebekah said that this is "a whale shark from the Q-narium."

This is one of Rebekah playing soccer. Her jersey is #10.


This one's my favorite. This is a shark having a birthday party. See his party hat and the card in his fin?
He has six candles and a friendly fish singing happy birthday.

Get Well GG

We had the pleasure of having Grandma and Jason spending the night with us last night--- stopping through on their way back to Missouri. After two follow-up appointments, the doctors said that she could go back home.

I'm very happy about that, but it's too bad that she didn't get the get-well card Rebekah made for her yet. We mailed it to her at my aunt's house.

But... of course I scanned it in before I mailed it. =)

Here is the picture that Rebekah drew on the inside of the card.

It is a picture of GG wearing a cheetah dress, sitting in a purple chair with a green pillow behind her head. She is soaking her feet in hot water because she is tired from walking. She has a remote in her hand and is watching a soccer game on a Lightning McQueen television set. (We saw these when we were shopping for a TV for the girls.)

Here's what the TV looks like---I think she did a pretty good job.

The card says:
Fri Rebekah C.
Der GG I hop dat you fel ber.

(Translation: From Rebekah C. Dear GG, I hope that you feel better.)

On the other side of the card, Rebekah drew a princess and a big kiss.

Little princesses

Aunt Judi bought these fun Disney princess sticker sets for the girls. Now that they have a princess bedroom, I wanted to use these to decorate.

The dresses are made out of real material and sewn together. And they came with all of the additional stickers to go with the stories.

I'm really pleased with how they turned out.

I created a background with my scrapping supplies and then added the girls' faces. I still need to frame them, so don't pay attention to the jagged edges. I can't wait to get them on the wall!!

I have a ton more to blog about, but don't have the time now. Just wanted to get these posted today.

Jayna

Scrappy continued...

Here are a few more scavenger scrapping pages...

This is the other page that I did last night that I couldn't get to post. It's a colorful one and I really like how it turned out.

I used a church bulletin... well a couple actually. I saved them for a few weeks. The colors matched perfectly for the pages I was scrapping.


The page on the left, that I made for my mom's scrapbook is one I was please with as well. It's from Sprint inserts that come in our junk mail.

This one is a simple one. I just used a metallic envelope we got with a card. The color worked great with the sepia photos.

This one I'm especially pleased with. I cut the "Happy" out of a regular piece of paper. I used translucent ribbon I bought at a yard sale. The yellow background in from an envelope that Rebekah got with a Build-a-Bear she made. And the half-flower is from a Polly Pocket color-by-number package that Rebekah got for her birthday. The little strips with the journaling came from somewhere too, but I can't remember just where...

Scrappy

I finally got a chance to do some scrapping and I did three pages last night.

I guess you could say that I'm a scavenger scrapper. I like to take things that aren't typically scrapbook material and put them on my pages. Even ready made pages I have to cut apart and make them my own. These pages are examples of this.

The "abundant" page was part of a calendar that I cut up to make a page.
The "gather together" page was also from a calendar.

I did another colorful one last night that I can't get to post right now. I'll try in another post.

In this one, the yellow are from a Target ad we got in mail.



I've been saving this "blue skies" bag ever since buying a card in their store. I just knew that I would be able to use it for something. And the clouded background around Lydia’s picture is from a Kindercare post card we got in the mail.

This one was one of my first attempts at making something “non-scrappy” into something “scrappy.” I saved the baby food labels from the jars of baby food that Rebekah ate and created the border for this page.

Part of my reason for doing this is that for a while (and still) I don’t have a lot of money to go out and buy scrapbooking supplies. So, I’ve had to become resourceful. And part of it is that I want my pages to be unique. I don’t want a cookie-cutter scrapbook page. I want something that I created---not just something that I stuck my photo onto. Twopeasinabucket.com completely inspires me. I get so many ideas from there. Kelli Crowe is one of my favorites (and I have a few others as well). Kelli Crowe does random so well. I SOOOOOOOOO can’t do random. I can’t do random circles like she does here.