How can 5¢ save a child’s life?

I suppose we’ll never know because you SENT THE NICKLE TO ME!!!

I’m sorry, but I’m no idiot. Someone, somewhere thought this would be a good idea that might make every American household open their purse strings and give more than a nickle back. But, seriously? Putting money into the envelope? Let’s ignore for the fact how thick the content was without the nickle (more than just a brochure) and the printing cost associated with that (you know, money that could have been turned around to help these kids). Let’s think about that nickle: If we assume that this letter was sent out to every household in America, that’s 110 million nickles, or $5.5 million! FIVE POINT FIVE MILLION DOLLARS!! Even if they only sent out letters with accompanying nickles to half the US households, that’s still $2.75 million! That’s a lot of wasted money!

The real question is, if I do give money, how do I know that my money, or even your money, is actually going towards helping a child, or wasted on an idiotic, mail-based fund-raising campaign that gives away free money all across America?

Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, I’m calling you on this one: You’ve wasted a bunch of money, and lost my respect.

(Yes, it could be possible that this particular campaign is only targeted to Idaho and Montana, which would be significantly less money wasted , but really, how do we know?)

It didn’t want to DIE!!!!

Why do the spiders always come out when Mark Leaves?? And why do they never die? No matter how much wieght you put on it??!!! Ahhh!! Seriously, I hate spiders! We were hanging out downstairs after Mark left to go meet with some guys. All of a sudden Brynnan said something about “A spider Again!” I was like what? And he said there was a spider. The kids know not to joke about spiders with me so I found the spider after Brynnan pointed it out. It was a big one with the legs. They’re so ugly!! Plus, having brown carpet doesn’t help the matter at all because you can’t see them until they’re almost on top of you!! This spider was scared! It didn’t want to move! It literally stayed in one spot long enough for me to call Mark and freak out about the spider! That always makes me feel better, if I let him know I HAVE to kill a spider.

Anyway, so after I got off the phone with him I found some papers we didn’t really need and made it move to where I could kill it. I proceeded to crush it under the papers, but when I went to pick up the “dead” spider, it MOVED!!!!! I screamed and the boys screamed! And I threw the papers on it and put a big metal can on it. I picked up the papers and it started to scurry off again!! I thought nothing would kill this spider. I tried again with the papers and then I stood on the can to make sure it was dead. FINALLY, I had suceeded in killing the spider that was probably just as scared of me as I was of him!! Ah, the life of a hobo spider and housewife.

Isn’t it ugly!! And that’s just the back of him….

California Vacation

Day 2

I’m going to tackle these pictures by days so I don’t overwhelm you with pictures. If you miss a day just scroll down and you’ll find it somewhere!:)

Wednesday morning the boys woke up Bright and Early!! I think it was like 5:45!! I tried to keep them quiet, but we all know how that went, don’t we?! We went downstairs to watch TV. Grandma and Grandpa woke up and came downstairs about 6:30ish. Grandma said she always wakes up early, but she couldn’t hear the boys anyway. She’s hard of hearing a bit and you usually have to yell at her so she can hear you. We love you grandma!:)

Playing tennis with a pretend ball. Grandma got a win, as they would call it:)

We hung out at home for most of the day. We did go shopping at Wal-mart for some scrapbooking supplies for a 50th wedding anniversary scrapbook for my grandparents (more on that in a minute). Brynnan fell asleep on the way home so I put him in our bed and he took a good nap. Jonas on the other hand was being a stinker, yet again.

Here’s grandpa trying to make him laugh. He’s good at that:)

He finally succeeded! Jonas was pretending he was a tiger and was “getting” grandpa.

Grandma looks very amused watching all of this:)

My mom and Aunts made a scrapbook for grandma and grandpa to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary which happened last year. Mom wrote a letter to family and friends asking them to write about memories and send photos, if they had any, of grandma and grandpa. It was really interesting to read what everyone wrote! I wrote something and sent pictures of the boys and drawings they made for them.

Mom, Elyse and I scrapbooked while Brynnan slept and Jonas and grandpa played. Besides the anniversary album, Mom and I were pulling out pictures from their old magnetic scrapbook albums and trying to get those into the acid free album we were making. I loved looking at all the old pictures!! My grandma was so cute and pretty growing up. I love the old look to pictures.

After Brynnan woke up we spent some time outside playing tennis. Grandma didn’t want us playing with a ball because she was afraid we’d brake a window, I’m sure the boys would’ve! They were totally fine with playing a pretend ball game of tennis!

The boys were very excited to eat their night time snack before bed!! Brynnan couldn’t wait for my mom to give him one!

And here’s Brynnan winding down for the night watching a cartoon before bed.

I got the kids in bed by about 8:30ish. Amazing, right?:) They liked to have Ethan read them stories before falling asleep. And a miracle happened, they would actually fall asleep without me in the room with them!! It was really nice! I was able to spend time with Mom, Elyse and Grandpa before going to bed. Mom, Elyse and I did some scrapbooking and then we watched a movie with Grandpa. It was another good day!

A Funny and Useful Tip

We have a hornets nest outside in our backyard. Today I was outside in the garage cleaning up and it was out and about and freaking me out. I decided to look up how to kill them. I found a couple of “How-To” videos and this one in particular I thought was pretty funny, but useful:) Although, I don’t have wasps, I wonder if this would work.

Cook Yourself Thin

I just got an email from Barnes & Noble about  a book that is “Back in stock”. It’s called “Cook Yourself  Thin”. I just thought it was a funny title and wanted to share:) I need to get hold of this book… someday. LOL

Couponing

I know you’ve all heard of this fun little activity that “thrifty” mom’s and wives do. Well, I’m not one of them. I’d love to be, but I just don’t seem to have the organization skills or time to do it. It all seems too complicated to me. I know someone who does it and she blogs about what she buys, how much she paid and how much she saved. It’s amazing!

Am I the only one that can’t process how to do this task of “couponing”??!! Or I guess I shouldn’t say that I can’t process how to do it, I just feel so overwhelmed by it. I think I’m going to try it out though. If you want to try it out with me I’ve found some websites that might be helpful.

Krazy Coupon Lady

Coupon Saving Family

Savvy Shopper Deals

Penny Pinching Diva
I guess Albertson’s really can be “Your Store”, as their slogan goes:)

Mmmmm!!

My friend, Karlenn, brought over a couple pieces of strawberry rhubbarb pie tonight. Oh, man! It’s soooo good!! I’m not much of a pie maker, but, I’m definitely a pie eater:) I love it!! My grandma used to make rubbarb crisp when I was little and I loved it. I haven’t had it in years though. I’ve been wanting to have some lately, I was so excited when Karlenn said she made some. Thank you Karlenn!!

Doesn’t it look YUMMY?!

Fish Milk

Yes, I know it sounds gross right?:) Well, here’s the story….

A couple nights ago I was doing something in the living room and Brynnan wanted to help me. He had a sippy cup of milk so in order to help me he dropped it on the floor, upside down. I didn’t realize it right away and so of course there was a puddle of milk on the floor when he picked it up. He spills his milk all the time so I was about to have him clean it up when Jonas  shouted: “Hey, it’s a fish!” I was like what?! This is what I saw:

Haha! We all had a good laugh about that. I thought it was funny that Jonas noticed it looked like a fish before the rest of us! What a smart kid!:)

Jonas’ Best Boy!

I’ve been meaning to post this video for a while so here it is finally:

So here’s the story: Last Monday I went to pick Jonas up from school early for his speech therapy. As we were leaving one of his friends turned around and said to me, “You’ll bring Jonas to my house, okay?” and Jonas said tht he wanted to play at Marcus’ house. So I said that we’ll see when. Jonas asked about it for the rest of the day! I was glad that he was so excited about hanging out with his friend and I felt bad that we couldn’t do it that day. The next morning I wrote Marcus’ mom a note and put my phone number in it so she could call me. I told Jonas to tell his teachers about the note, but I also wrote a note to the teacher too. Jonas talked about the note for Marcus all morning and after school. Marcus’ mom called the next day and we talked for a while, which was really nice. Since Brynnan was sick last week I told her I’d call her when he was better and we could get together then. Jonas wanted to talk to Marcus so he did and I pulled out the video camera to get the conversation recorded, but when Jonas saw that he immediately said “Ok, love you, Bye!” and wanted to watch the videos!:P I thought it was so cute that in this video he called Marcus his “Best Boy”!!

Anyway, so Brynnan is finally better this week and Marcus and his mom are going to come over on Friday so we can all meet each other. Jonas is going to be so excited when I tell him! (I called Anna a little bit ago while they are still taking a nap). I’ll let you know how it goes and I’m sure I’ll take pictures!:)

Just Because

I don’t have  reason for this post, I just wanted to make sure you all knew we’re still alive:) LOL The weather has actually been pretty nice the past couple days. Not much has been going on. I’ve been really lazy:P Yesterday I forgot Jonas had an appointment to get his braces fixed until I got a call from “The Arc” at 8:50. For some reason that call reminded me Jonas’ appointment was at 9:00!!! Brynnan was the only one dressed and luckily I had just changed his diaper. I had to get dressed and Jonas changed and dressed in less than 10 minutes!! We actually did it! Can you believe it. It took us 7 minutes to get out the door. Of course we were late, but only by 5 minutes! I ws totally psyched. We’re NEVER that fast!! I guess I just need pressure to get out the door.

Anyway, that’s about the only interesting thing that’s happened this week. Mark got half of today off and has all of tomorrow of. I want to take the kids outside to play so hopefully we’ll do that.

We don’t have any big plans for tonight. Mark and I will probably watch a movie. He told me he wanted to have a Back to the Future movie-athon and I was totally up for it, but then he told me he was only joking. Maybe we’ll watch one anyway.

I hope you all have an enjoyable evening. Start planning those resolutions!:)

I decided to make banana bread for our neighbors on Sunday. I normally only do 4 bananas, but I did 6 this time the batter was flying more than normal. I thought it was funny.

And here are my little guys playing with their new star wars toys. They have such wild imaginations. I love to hear them playing together!