Busy, Busy, Busy

Life has been pretty busy lately. We have had some great family time and fun experiences, along with the normal business of life and work. This last weekend brought beautiful weather so on Sunday we headed to the neighborhood park. We invited my sister and her family over. It was lots of fun and the girls loved playing together.

Lexi hung out in her stroller for part of the time. We also set her down on the grass. It was her first time experiencing the feel of grass and she didn't seem to mind it.

Paige enjoyed climbing on the playground equipment. Because of a nervous mother, her dad helped her with some of it.

The girls love to play and spend time together - especially at a park!

Monday night, I had a friend in town from North Carolina and so six of us girls all went out for a girl's night. We just went to a steakhouse and visited. My friend was so nice and bought my dinner. It was great to get out and just hang out with other women for awhile.

I forgot my camera so I won't have any pictures until I get them emailed to me. It was weird because the guy at the table next to us starting taking pictures of us also when we posed for the hostess to take our picture with my friend's camera. We have no idea why this guy was taking our picture but he was clicking away. It was somewhat creepy, yet funny at the same time.

Yesterday I was really busy with work as I have one listing on the market and am in the process of listing another one. My brokerage is also merging with another brokerage and so there is some chaos and business with getting to know the new broker.

I had gone into work for an office meeting, leaving the kids with Joseph. When I got home, Lexi was peacefully sleeping in the bean bag chair. I thought that it was so cute!

Last night, we had a Stake Enrichment night. It was really good. The theme of the night was on Sister Julie Beck's conference talk last October entitled "Mothers Who Know". We had several mini classes that we could choose to go to. I went to "Doing More With Less" and "Faith In Every Season". After that, we did some service projects and ate refreshments. I also got to spend some time visiting with our Bishop's wife. I have known her for a couple years and absolutely love her. She is a pillar of strength to me and I always walk away after talking to her feeling so enlightened!

Today it is back to the grind. I have another girl's night coming up on Friday night and then a date with Joseph on Saturday. We got FREE season tickets to the Boise Burns (an indoor arena football team) and Saturday night is their first home game. We also have a friend who plays on the team so it should be fun.

Family Feud Tag

As some of you may know, I LOVE the show Family Feud. I found this tag as a bulletin on Myspace so I decided to start a tag on here!

Copy and paste to your own post. Rules of the game are that you have to answer the question but you can't repeat anyone else's answer. Make sure you copy and paste the previous answers. At the end of the questions, tag 3 people.

Name something you use in the shower.
1. Washcloth

Name something people hate to find on their windshield.
1. Bird poop

Name something a man might buy before a date.
1. Flowers

Name another word for blemish.
1. Pimple

Name something you'd cook in the microwave.
1. Bottle

Name a piece of furniture people need help moving.
1. Piano

Name something a dog does that embarrasses its owner.
1. Poops in someone else's yard

Name a kind of test you cannot study for.
1. Parenthood (only those of you without kids question whether this is a test!)

Name something a boy scout gets a badge for.
1. Archery?

Name a phrase with the word "home" in it.
1. Love at home

Name a sport where players lose teeth.
1. Boxing

Name something a teacher can do to ruin a student's day.
1. Give them a pop quiz

Name a bird you wouldn't want to eat.
1. Seagull

Name something that gets folded.
1. Clothes

Name something a person wears even if it has a hole in it.
1. Socks

Name something that gets smaller the more you use it.
1. Eraser

I tag: Melinda B., Mandie A., Trinity A.

Stubborn With A Temper Part II

I had a hard time getting this picture to upload in my last post. This is the first picture ever taken of Lexi. I guess I should have considered it a warning to her stubbornness and temper! The lower lip makes me laugh every time!!

Stubborn With A Temper

I never thought that an 11 month old could get so angry if she didn't get her way....

Then I had Lexi.

Don't get me wrong, I love my little girl to pieces and I wouldn't change her for anything, but she has a TEMPER! Unfortunately, I am sure that she gets it from me. Thankfully, for the most part, she is a happy baby and very laid back. However, if she doesn't get her way when she really wants it, WATCH OUT!!!

Lexi has been battling one cold after another for about the last month. Just when I think that we are on the downhill side of a cold, the runny nose starts all over again.

This week, Lexi hasn't wanted to sleep through the night. Yesterday, she woke up at 4:45 in the morning and decided that she was all done sleeping. I finally got up with her, gave her some Tylenol and a bottle and then put her back to bed. Then, in the afternoon, she tried to only take a 45 minute nap. I am not even sure she fell asleep. So, being the stubborn person that I am, I decided that she would have to go back to sleep.

She SCREAMED her pretty little head off for an hour! After that, she stopped screaming but would just talk and play. Occasionally, she would let out a yelp as if to let me know that I wasn't going to get my way. The most frustrating part of all this was that I was trying to nap too.

So, this morning, she thinks it is time to get up at 5:15. However, I don't want her to get into the habit of having a bottle again during the night. So, I didn't get up with her. Joseph went in and put her pacifier back in her mouth. As he started to walk out, she proceeded to SCREAM and throw a fit.

I got up and sternly told her that it wasn't time to get up and that she could scream all she wanted but screaming didn't make it time to get up.

I then turned all the fans on in the bathrooms to block her screams and went back to bed. Joseph just got up since it was about 20 minutes before his alarm was set to go off. I proceeded to go back to sleep. When Joseph left, I asked him if she was still screaming and he said that she had stopped within 1 or 2 minutes of us leaving her room. Hopefully, she is getting the idea.

The Diagnosis Is..........

NO SURGERY!

Joseph went and saw the ortho doc yesterday. The diagnosis is that he has a partial AC shoulder separation. What this means is that he has tearing in the ligaments that hold the collar bone to you shoulder. Had it been a full tear, Joseph would have been heading for the operating room.

The doctor says that he needs to be careful because until it heals, it is very fragile. Another fall could tear it completely. Good news is it should be better in 2-4 weeks.

The BEST news is that Joseph doesn't have to have surgery. He had 6 surgeries between August of 2005 and August of 2006. His body doesn't need any more and either do my nerves!

My New Favorite Thing

Yesterday, I was paying bills while talking to a friend. She asked me why I didn't use automatic bill pay through my bank to pay my bills. I had never really thought about it. I knew that such a thing existed but had never really investigated how it worked.

She explained to me how it worked but the thing that convinced me to try it was that in the time that it took me to FIND stamps, she had paid 4 bills. Are you kidding me? What have I been missing out on all this time?

Let me back up and explain to you my feelings on paying bills. I HATE PAYING BILLS! Not necessarily because it means money is leaving my bank account but more because it is such a pain to find the checkbook, write checks, write my return address on the bills, find my stamps, and then get it to the post office. Due to this pain, I have been known to pay the bills that have no late payment consequences a few days late. This drives Joseph crazy.

So, I got on and set up all my payees. I was bummed that I still have to pay a couple bills because it is close enough to the due date that I need to pay them online this month. However, I did schedule like 5 bills to pay. I love how some aren't due until the end of the month, but I scheduled them and now I don't have to think about them again until next month. Half of the pain of bills is making sure you get them paid and in the mail on time. Next month, I will be 100% converted to the automatic bill pay with my bank.

Thanks, Rachel!!! And to those of you who may be skeptical about bill pay or just have never really thought about it, TRY IT!

My New 'Do

Last week, a girlfriend of mine came to town and wanted to go get our hair done together. I decided that I would go and perm it. I have such thin hair that it always looks so limp and lifeless. Whenever I get really fed up with it, I just perm my hair to solve the problem. Joseph LOVES it permed so it is a win-win situation.

We decided to go to a beauty school since it is so much cheaper. Once there, they told me that they didn't feel comfortable perming it because I have color in it that has grown out and they were afraid that the hair with no color would perm differently than the hair with color and that it wouldn't look good.

Well, since I was there, I decided that I wanted to do SOMETHING with it so I decided to cut it. I found this cute hair style that was chin length. I thought that would be perfect. Joseph doesn't really care for me to have short hair so this would work. Then I would grow it out and perm it.

Well by the time they got finished getting each side even to the other side, my hair was to my EARS!

I have never cried over a haircut and I have never hated a haircut. However, I HATED this haircut when I came out of the beauty school. Absolutely HATED it!

When I got home, Joseph was less than thrilled and Paige said that she didn't like it and wondered where my hair had gone. So much for family support.

However, now it has grown on Joseph and I. I actually am starting to like it. I finally was brave enough to let Joseph take my picture the other night after his speech competition and even BRAVER to decide to post it.