First Day

Kaitlyn had her first day at preschool this past week. She had a lot of fun.

Family Home Evening

Our family has had a rough go with family home evenings in the past. With Mike in school...I've been a little less than motivated to get them going. But, now that he has finished and we can all be together as a family for it I am trying to give it a go. So, tonight we made our Family Home Evening Chart. The kids were really excited to see their names on the chart and loved helping out in FHE. I really hope we can get this into one of our favorite habits.

Preschool

Well, it's another school year and Marquis is attending preschool again. He loves Miss Tiff's preschool! Miss Tiff is a wonderful teacher who lives in our ward. She does an amazing job with Marquis and I'm sure all of the rest of her students too. This year Marquis has really improved. Marquis loved preschool last year but was still really hesitant to go. He would cry before we left and then sometimes when we got there. This year is a complete change...he begs to go and this past Friday when he was too sick to go he cried because he wanted so badly to go to school. He even asked me if I would take him to see Miss Tiff so he could tell her he was sick. Such a sweetheart!

Kaitlyn is also going to be attending a little preschool group. Some friends of ours are getting together to teach preschool to our 2 1/2 year olds. I'm not sure how it will work with our schedule but we're going to try it out for a couple of weeks.

We're all doing well. Still waiting for a job opportunity...and enjoying having daddy home with us. We love you all and miss you too!

Choices...

Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything so let me give you an update on what I'm doing. With Mike still studying ALL the time for the Bar Exam he isn't able to work. We have our student loans to cover us for a couple of months but after that....something has to be done. I thought about it and prayed about it and I considered two options. I could go to work part time or I could try to find something I could do from home. After a huge debate within myself...I decided to give the bow making a try. ( A huge thank you to Christine for teaching me how to make the bows!!!) I have joined with my twin sister, Susan, in a business endeavor. We set up a blog www.sistersbowtique.blogspot.com to sell our bows. In August we should have our website www.sistersbowtique.net up and running. It's been a crazy month trying to get things ready and just finding out how to get this going. I'm stumbling through it and I hope we can make this work. We aren't in this to make boco bucks just something to help supplement. I wanted to make the bows as affordable to others as I could. So, feel free to check us out. Let us know what you think and please be honest. We can use all the help we can get! :)

Mike's Law School Graduation.

I couldn't have gotten a better Mother's Day present than this. I am so proud of Mike. He's done such a great job balancing school, church , and his family. He's an awesome daddy and husband!

Easter 2009

I know I'm a "little" late in posting our easter pictures...but here they are anyway. :)

Eating their bunnies.

Gathering up the candy the Easter Bunny left at Grandma and Grandpa Zobell's.

Sweet little Kit Kat.

Our Big Boy....growing up so fast.

You know you're a mom when...

A few weeks ago while the kids were playing I heard Marquis scream like he was hurt. I went over to him and he was coughing a lot and pushing on his stomach. I asked him what was wrong and all he kept saying is "I'm trying to get it out Mommy." I thought, hmm is he getting sick? Then upon further questioning I found that he had swallowed a coin. Yes, my four year old swallowed a coin. So, after calming him down and telling him that he would be alright, I gathered up the different types of coins and asked him which one he had swallowed. He pointed to the dime. Well, I guess if you're going to swallow a coin the dime is the smallest.... Now, Marquis has a history of swallowing odd items. The two worst would be a nickel and oh yes, that monopoly piece...the wheelbarrow. He was around 18 months old and that was the worst week in my life. Luckily, his body was able to rid itself of it but the poor little guy was in misery.

Well, a few days after he swallowed the coin we traveled to my sister Susan's house. He hadn't yet had a bowel movement since swallowing the coin. While we were at a Walmart Marquis started to act odd. He was kinda pale and said his stomach hurt. My first thought was he had some kind of stomach bug. We put him in the back of a cart and he just kept complaining. He wouldn't sit up straight because he said that hurt. Ok, now I'm thinking back to the coin. Great, we're out of town and I have no idea how our insurance works out of state. So, we quickly leave Walmart and I start making phone calls to his pediatrician. They told me to take him to the ER. So, first we went back to our hotel we had to find out about our insurance and locate the nearest hospital. While we were there he said he had to go to the bathroom. So, I took him and YES he pooped...now can you guess what I had to do? Yes, I became the search party for a small coin....wow, never thought I would be doing that....it's one thing when they are in diapers....anyway, no coin.... Great, now what? Marquis immediately was feeling better and after confirmation from the nurseline we wouldn't have to take him the hospital. The rest of the week I had to keep "searching". I must say I was MORE than estactic when the coin finally came out. Yes, indeed another nickel...not the dime he thought he had swallowed. Oh the joys of motherhood!

Take your medicine...

One afternoon I told the kids it was time for their medicine. I had a couple of things to finish before I actually gave them their medicine. Marquis apparently thought he should take care of Kaitlyn for me. I heard him say "Kit Kat it's time for your medicine...don't worry it won't hurt." I heard him in the kitchen and knew I needed to come see what he was doing. He had pulled the chair over so he could reach their medicine and had a large spoon in his hand. He was really trying to give her medicine. Thank goodness for child safety caps!! Though I did find this funny I also found it very scary to think that what if he had opened the bottle...although, you have to practically hold Kaitlyn down to get any bit of medicine in her...but still I have moved the medicine and told him not to get into any medicine.

My own personal trainer...

So, as the new year has started and the holidays have surpassed I am once again back at my goal of losing weight and becoming more healthy. I have looked into gym memberships but they are either too much money or child care isn't offered or just too much of a hassle. So, I have purchased a DVD by Jillian Michaels from Biggest Loser. I have been doing this for about three or four days...not all in a row because it is quite a work out. It combines strength training with cardio and is supposed to be one of the best ways to burn fat and gain muscle. ( I guess we'll see right?) Anyway, Marquis was watching me work out one day and he wanted to do the workout along side me. Unfortunately, he wanted to use my weights which is not safe of course so I had to disappoint him and tell him no. He cried and I promised to find some weights for him. The next day I found his tinker toys and made him pretend weights and he loved it. He begged all day to work out. He was relentless constantly asking if I was ready to work out. Certainly a great motivation for me. But it gets better. I finally was ready to work out so we got our weights and started the work out. Like I said earlier this thing is really difficult especially for someone like me who is FAR from being in shape. So, I was having a tough time. I expressed my concerns with being able to do the work out aloud and Marquis was quick to respond. He said, "Mommy, you just have to try harder...here I'll show you....he got his weights and mimicked what they were doing and of course I kept on working out. Man, what a great little guy! He reminded me to do my work out and he gave me that extra push to keep going....I hope he keeps this up!! :)

Fun Finds...

I went shopping last night. I found this adorable orange tablecloth and the autumn leaves at Yankee Candle for DIRT cheap. I had to buy them and of course had to see what it looked like. I love them! I love getting great deals on things. :) Oh, and Kaitlyn thought I was taking her picture so she was saying cheese! Also really cute! Love my little girl!!

Savings...

So here is a picture of my first "real" coupon shopping trip. I think I did pretty good I saved over 60%. And I have enough toilet paper for just about a year! You can't tell in the picture but there are 42 4pks of toilet paper.

My first Kroger Coupon Trip

I'm still learning how things work so I know I could have saved even more than I did today...but I think for a first time this was pretty good. I combined coupons I had for the Cottonelle Toilet Paper, Kroger's sale on Special K cereal/bars, and Proctor and Gambles deal on buy $25 worth of their product and get $5 back on your bill. Together I spent about $110 for everything in the picture. I saved about $120. I think that's pretty darn good! I am proud of myself and very thankful for all of those who have taught me how to do it. I forgot to mention that all of the toilet paper was FREE!!