And Gwen Some

Look at me! I walk now!

I learned how to stuff my waffles into my chair! How gross, but so fun! I thought I was being so sneaky, but mommy caught me!

I recently learned that I like TV.  For some reason, Mommy is always moving me away from here.

I love to cuddle with my sister and daddy. 

And comfort my sister when she doesn't feel well! I understand because I had the same thing!

Gwen words:

More

Mama

Duck

Dada

Quack

and we think we heard an Amen the other day.

Groceries

This has been bugging me all day today. Certainly it bugs me much more often than that, but I've been trying to do something about it today. How can I cut down on how much I spend on groceries? My real simple magazine presents a persons budget every month, showing everything they spend. Some people claim to only spend #300 a month on groceries for the entire family. This I don't understand! What do they eat? I mean is it all PB&J all the time?  I can't live like that! Brian sometimes thinks he can live like that, but then goes out to buy whatever he wants anyway! We sat down to have the food discussion again. Which goes like this: we need to eat at home more, what do YOU want me to buy so that you will eat here? Brian will list off a few things, usually hundreds of options for breakfast. Obviously I will not purchase all of them at once. But when I sit down with food on the table in the morning and the girls are eating it, he is running late and just leaves for me to later learn that he purchased something at school to eat instead of whatever he had requested from me. 

Anyway, this is not the complaint I am wanting here! That is a side issue I am having to deal with. What does everyone do to cut down on groceries? What do you actually eat at home? Is it a variety and interesting (like Brian requests)? or is it mundane and dull? Do you eat the same thing everyday for lunch and/or breakfast? What do you actually eat? How do you track your groceries? Do you have system set up? 

I'm trying to track what I purchase and the price and when so I can better budget how much we can and DO spend. Its very frustrating! It seems like a gigantic futile task! I should start using coupons! Ugh! Any suggestions?

Sick, sick, sick sick, SiiiiiiiiiiicK!

Our family is once again SICK! We were down for two whole weeks last month - completely lost from the world! At least that was a common cold. What we have right now - I have no idea what it is! 

We took Gwen to the doctor on Saturday (her doctor has a clinic on Saturday and after hours - we can reach at least a nurse 24 hours a day!). She had a swollen throat with a little puss on it, fluid in her ears, pink eye, stuffy head and RUNNY nose. They put her on Amoxicillin. First time either of our girls have been put on antibiotics of any sort. (We have been REALLY lucky!) 

Saturday evening Brian and I got hit with the worst soreness ever! Neither of us wanted to move! Sore throats, headache, ear pain, watery eyes, congestion. I have to say the sore throat is the WORST! Sunday we were dumb and had family over - Natalie, her boyfriend Wes, Tim, and Tracy. We felt bad about canceling so we didn't. 

So today my sore throat was an 8 on the pain scale. My deliveries didn't even go that high to me (mostly just kidding). Brian searched around for a cheap clinic for me. I do not have insurance. We found one in Payson so we drove down and I was able to see a VERY nice doctor. They did a strep test and put me on Amoxicillin. 

On the way home we noticed Gwen had a rash on her legs and under her arms. We took her immediately to the doctor. The office people seriously asked us if we had their phone number!! I was like YES I HAVE YOUR PHONE NUMBER! I'm so tired of people assuming I'm an idiot because I break a pattern! My one year old daughter just broke out in a rash after starting Amoxicillin for the first time! It was either rush her in or take her to the emergency room later. I chose to test my luck with the doctor I already knew. I hate condescending people! Anyway - they did get her back (quicker than her normal visits I might add), they looked at Naomi too. The doctor wasn't 100% that it was an allergy rash but to be safe he wanted to take her off the Amox. Naomi wasn't so bad but he did prescribe an eye drop for her. Naomi is VERY good at going to the doctor and being brave; she also takes her medicines very well even if they are kinda scary, like eye drops. Her strep test was negative.

I still do not feel any better! This is the worst sore throat EVER! The worst of our worries is that it might be Mono. We babysat for 3 children because their mother has Mono. The doctors were not particularly encouraging because the symptoms do fit, particularly Gwen's rash. Unfortunately even tests at this point wouldn't show up positive yet so we have to wait and see if the symptoms persist. I have NO IDEA what we would do if we all 4 have mono!! I think I'll just curl up and die! 

A quick story - with a moral!

I promise more pictures of the girls will be coming soon! 

Gwen is currently sick again so we are just trying to work through it!

Now for my story with a moral!

Most of you know that I'm pretty crazy about things! For example, I recently ordered a few things online: girls halloween costumes, my halloween costume accessory, and the new stephanie meyers books (Breaking Dawn and The Host). I decided it was time to just order the books because I was NOT going to be getting those from the Library anytime soon! So, when I order things online I track them daily on their tracking websites. Its crazy, I realize this! So yesterday I did not check because of Gwen's sickness. Today when I checked two of the packages say delivered on August 13th. I had received NO packages! Brian had already checked the mail today so I was livid! Well not yet livid, but I was worried! I went out to the mailbox to double check if there had been a delivery key in the box - there was not. I opened the delivery boxes anyway and there inside were my two packages! 

Moral - If I had not been so crazy I would have lost my packages to someone else! Anyone could have taken them at anytime!

So now I have to decide if I should read Breaking Dawn or The Host first. I'm pretty sure I'll go with Breaking Dawn! 

And My Next Idea Is...

So this is what I do....

I get all hyped up and start planning something - it can be any scale (large or small or even gigantic). I spend 2-3 straight days planning extensively and get it into perfect order, then I rework something and change my mind completely. 

This is what has happened to the family vacation planning. I have the entire trip worked out down to which rides and shows the girls would enjoy. I even changed up the entire plan to include 3 days at Disneyland per my friend Jesse's suggestion because I had not realized it was that close, and it would be totally awesome! We were even going to do a princess lunch! How fun would that be with two little girls?? 

Anyway, last night I started up a new plan and I think we are going to postpone the Family Vacation. Brian was saying we could wait until January and go when it will be less crowded. So we shall see when we wind up on our family vacation. 

This rework came up because we realized that instead of spending the money on a trip we could put it into savings and start saving up for buying a house after Brian is finished with school. Once he's done with school we should hopefully have some real kind of income coming in - that is if he doesn't decide to do graduate school. Anyway, you can see why I was so excited to  plan something stable I could put in the calendar - everything beyond next year is completely up in the air! Who knows what will come next? I always fear the worst!

In better news, Gwen has started walking! Real walking! She took her first steps early in  July, but really didn't seem to care. What I think she was doing was getting used to it a little bit at a time and then she just took off! She now will walk all the way down the hallway of our house into her room! She is so smart too because she will stop and hold on to the wall to rest if she needs to! The poor child has been teething so badly. I keep forgetting and wondering why she is being so fussy! She has 8 teeth in the front which she has had for awhile now. She just got 2 of the back ones last week, and there are two more giant ones pushing up from the bottom! 

Naomi has all on her own started sounding out letters whens he seems them. I haven't attempted this with her too much so I think that she has picked it up from Word World! She doesn't use it for real words though. She asks me to write a three or four letters usually S, M, and P ( her favorites), then she sits and sounds them out individually - she's so funny! 

Brian is almost done with his term. His finals are Wednesday and Thursday. I think he has done well this semester! Unfortunately the week he has off from school I have to go to Jury Duty! How awful! I'm a little excited to actually sit on a Jury, but I just hate the idea of having Brian stay home so I can go. Last time I was called to Jury Duty it was cancelled. I think it'd be too much to hope for that again!

Planning a Family Vacation

Brian and I have been married for 5 1/2 years and have never been on a vacation. Yes we have moved across country several times, and we do usually get to travel to visit family over the holidays - but as I've told Brian several times those are NOT vacations! So we have begun planning our FIRST ever family vacation! We are planning to go to San Diego next summer probably in June maybe July. Brian will finally be done school by then! I've been wanting to go to Sea World again forever! And lucky for me Brian served his mission in San Diego! How perfect! 

We are working on budgeting everything out so that we are sure to have enough money and actually enjoy the trip! So here is what we have covered so far, and we would love any suggestions from people who have traveled or traveled with kids on things we might be missing out on budgeting and things we may want to take into account with the children. Gwen will be almost 2 and Naomi will be 4 1/2. 

We have taken into account for travel/gas (we'll drive down), hotels, food/dining, park prices, and parking at the parks. 

We want to go to Sea World, San Diego Zoo, and Wild Animal Park. I originally got the idea because I wanted to go to Legoland really bad! However, in considering the children and exhaustion from 4 parks I've ruled that one out. It'll also save over $200! We found a 3 for 1 pass that gets us into those 3 parks for 5 consecutive days! We, of course, will also have to hit up the beach and some of Brian's mission sites. Our girls have never seen the ocean! Isn't that horrible? For two people who grew up on 2 of the countries 3 coasts - our girls have never seen it! And how funny that when they do it will be the one neither of us lived on!!

We are considering staying in a hotel that has some form of a kitchenette so we could purchase our own food and store it and cook it in the room. Its a possibility! 

So, what are we missing? And what are the things we need to take into consideration for the girls? Yay for vacations!

Some side notes not related to the main body of the post:

I am so excited to live somewhere that doesn't have all of its people having the same idea at the same time. I am speaking specifically of the library. I am tired of going to the library and checking on books that interest me and finding out that it has 261 holds on it!! I feel like I'm reading a ton of books that aren't at the top of my list and the top of my list just sits there getting longer! 

Secondly, I think having a card to Sams Club is a horrible thing!! I like walking around in there looking at everything, but the things that I purchase are horrible! I come home with a giant box of Famous Amos cookies, enormous amounts of goldfish crackers, two bags of chips (doritos and sour cream and onion), and some Quaker granola bars. I did purchase other more useful things as well, but I never buy cookies or chips, ever! So here I am with a house full of food that doesn't have to be stored in the fridge so I eat it! Horrors! I can't buy a lot of the useful stuff because we simply don' t have the room. Anyway, I think I should stop shopping there!

Happy Birthday to Gwen!!

Yay for being 1!!

Here is the big girl! On her feet she wears her coolest present by far! Those little moccasins were handmade by Carlee Dynes, she and her husband, Adam were here with their son Jack! I didn't get any pictures of the kids, but Jack and Gwen were actually playing together!

Uncle Tracy and Uncle Tim were in attendance as well! Here they are practicing their gang signs.

Brian helped me design our rooftop flower made out of streamers.

King of the mountain!

Guess who the presents are really for? See Naomi's face! What is always really funny to me is that both Naomi and Gwen were there when I bought this farm toy, they also both saw me bring it inside from the car a few days before. The wrapping, however, was done at night so the surprise was still tremendous!

She's such a contemplative girl.

She was a little hesitant at first. 

And then it was really good! She ate the entire thing!

We had a very nice time! It was a lower turn out than we thought, but it was very casual that way. We only had 4 guests as opposed to the 16 we invited. That should teach me to actually mail invitations as opposed to just make some phone calls.

I was very happy though because I did impress Tim and Tracy with my going-all-out-on-parties abilities! 

After the Dynes' left, we put the girls to bed, and I headed down to the church to enter in all of the August Visiting Teaching companionships. It took quite awhile. Then when I came home I was up until 2 am typing them into a pretty format, printing, and cutting. Then I made some cute background to hold the assignments with magnets! It was quite daunting, but I'm glad I got them all done. 

At midnight we got a call from Andy, Brian's oldest brother, saying he was in town and wondered if we were still awake. He came over to visit with Tim and Tracy in tow for about an hour or so! Quite the fun adventure! Brian was so surprised that I said it was ok for them to come over, especially since we had 8am church. 

We made it to church only about 10 minutes late! Surprisingly! I was so exhausted that I talked a lot more than I usually do during each of my classes, also volunteering myself for a prayer and to conduct the music. Very much not like me, but it worked quite well to keep me awake! 

Gwen wore her adorable moccasins, and they stayed on her feet the entire time. If you want any Carlee is accepting customized orders- let me know!

I'm hosting book club this month for Relief Society so read along with me. We are reading A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban. It should be a fun quick read!  

Silly Girls

Naomi and Brian were practicing kicking. You can see the ball flying towards her! 

This is Gwen's favorite activity right now. 

Messy Eater! She is constantly running her hand through her hair while eating!