Happy Leap Day

Wishing you a

Happy Leap Day!

It's an extra free day!

So make the most of it!

Relax and play in the grass!

(or mow the grass in my case! lol)

Or go for a swing!

And hopefully next Leap Year Anden won't have a black eye!

Yes, Yes.

My son is ultra dare devil

and ultra coordinated

and RARELY gets hurt.

But yet his first black eye occurs

when he rolled out of  bed and hit the corner of the nightstand!

And just because Lil Miss Animated cracks me up,

here's two more!

Wishing you a great day!

Facelift - Part 1

There's a few areas in my life that need a facelift

(almost including my face too! lol but i'll wait 30 more years for that!)

One of those are my kitchen/family room.

Don't get me wrong,

I love my house.

But there are a few design flaws.

It's a big ole open house

with awesome huge ceilings and tons of room.

But the smallest rooms in the house are the MOST used.

The kitchen and adjoining family room.

I could be wrong,

but knocking off one of the 6 bedrooms

to add to the kitchen/fam room would have been beneficial.

But since that is not an option,

I reverted to redecorating.

I decided to lighten & brighten things up.

Previously I've always used the dark colors

browns, burgundys, olive greens, tans.

Lately the rooms just seemed so dark and drab.

They needed some perking up.
On a very limited budget!

I've despised my kitchen cabinets since I moved in.

So that was the first thing that had to change.

Especially the lovely NON matching cabinet hardware.

When I first walked into this kitchen,

I was severely confused.

Somehow I had taken a wrong turn an ended up

at the Home Depot cabinet hardware show room.

The interior designer that staged the house prior to us buying it,

took the mismatched hardware 10 minute trend too far.

And I've lived with it for almost 4 yrs!

(cmon I meant to change it, but had a baby 6 wks after move in!)

So I took on the biggest task first.

And of course that's the one that's still not done!

But here's a preview...
(and yes this is the WORST you'll ever see my kitchen! lol)

Hopefully it'll be finished by the end of the week.

Or I'm going to lose my sanity from the disheveled mess!

And from painting the SAME DANG thing

8 different times

with 8 different substances.

But it'll all be worth it!

Right?!

Please tell me so...!!

It's a Tough Job

Friday after work, we headed to

for "Family Open Jump".

(yes this is the super fun place I had the kids bday party!)

Unfortunately I only had my phone for pics

and that combined with non stop moving children

and a dimly lit arena,

made for some awesome blurry photos.

But at least they show how much fun they had!

And let me just say,

It's a tough job playing with these kiddos.

Five minutes into it I got smacked by a foot or hand or something

and got a bloody nose.

After a quick timeout for injury repair,

I was back in action.

Twenty minutes later.

I got head butted by Anden.

With a resulting fat lip

and a nice big blood blister.

Awesome!

And when Taylee realized the ice cubes the staff gave me

were actually star shaped.

I lost the ice to her too.

She suddenly had an injury on her elbow that took precedence

over my swollen lip.

And better yet,

I cruised around all weekend looking like I had

dirt or food on my lip.

Nope, it's permanent.

Thanks kiddos!

I love being your punching bag Mom!

Young Love

Do you think someone has a crush?

Taylee & Noah

Leaving a romantic dinner at Chili's

with their older siblings

and Moms!

President's Day Weekend - Part 2

I actually had Monday off of work.

So the Groupon weekend continued.

Today we corralled the Russos into playing with us.

And we hit up

This place is an indoor playground with a "town" of a bunch of mini playhouses.

Anden & Noah spent most of their time in Jail.

Appropriately so.

Taylee & Sophia spent their time in the dress up store.



Then we all went to lunch together!

Kids Eat Free on Mondays at TGI Fridays!

Ahhh we love a discounted day of fun and friends!

President's Day Weekend - Part 1

Since it was President's Day weekend,

I decided to save my "benjamins"

(ok more like "jacksons")

and make it a Groupon filled activity weekend!

Saturday I took the kids to Jambo Amusement Park

Aside from the fact that it's in an older area of town and we were the minority,

(white with blonde hair!)

we had a blast!

And it was easy to spot my kids!

First we hit up the swings!

  

Then we headed to the train ride!

Next they bolted to the jungle gym.

Next Up: Laser Tag

Only 5 and up could play

But they let Taylee in anyway.

She thought running around in the dark was overrated.

But Anden loved it!

Then we moved on to mini bowling.

Where Taylee marched right up there and

overhand THREW the ball down the lane!

Anden quickly showed her the proper way though.

(and clearly she really was paying attention!) 

We stopped at the Flying Elephants for a ride

Now onto the Robotic Animals

That was Taylee smiling until 1 minute after that picture.

 when the worker wasn't paying attention and accidentally directed the giraffe

RIGHT into that free standing huge palm tree.

I watched in horror from behind the gate as she panicked to pull the giraffe out of the way

while the palm tree came crashing down

RIGHT on Taylee's head.

It was slow motion and I could see it was going to smack Taylee.

But all I could do was yell "WATCH OUT!"

After the collision, I jumped the fence and ripped Taylee off the giraffe

while giving my best Mama Bear stare at the worker.

Taylee was shocked and frozen.

The worker was apologizing profusely.

Taylee had a big goose egg on her head.

So we rushed to the food area where the manager gave her a

 free bag of ice.

Wow, really?!

You think that'll offset a negligence suit?

Seriously why does this always happen to my kids?

(Remember Anden & Costco & the resulting bag of ice?)

When I could see the lack of obvious customer service,

we moved on to the next attraction.

With the bag of ice attached to her forehead.

Final stop: Mini Golf

As we were getting our clubs/balls from the worker,

he glance down at Taylee and says

"Ahh sweetie are you ok?  I saw that crash right on you! That's never happened before!"

Well of course, she's the first.

Once she saw the mini golf course, she forgot about her wound.

"Here Mommy, hold my ice in your purse so I can play!"

And off they went.

Anden was very competitive

Taylee...well she just did her own thing!

And of course she managed to hit her head underneath the horse

on the same spot she got hit by the palm tree earlier!

(and I managed to get a pic at that very moment!)

Double Goose Egg!

After mini golf, Anden was begging to play arcade games.

So I finally relented and reached inside my purse to get quarters.

And wouldn't you know it.

My wallet somehow wasn't in my purse,

Really?!

I proceeded to stick my whole head in my purse just to make sure.

Then again did the mental scramble.

(it's a dance move I've unfortunately mastered)

And the same conclusion occurred.

I'm losing my marbles.

I was paying bills at home earlier

and hopefully left it sitting on the couch.

So not only am I saving "benjamins",

I'm also saving "washingtons" too now.

Talk about a humbling and desperate feeling to not have a single penny with you.

Good thing I got gas before I left home!

So I marched the not so pleasant troops on out of there.

And proceeded to explain how we weren't going out to dinner after all.

Unless they take gum wrappers for payment.

Because the bottom of my purse is filthy rich with those.