yeah for good days

First completely random but these are from last year at this time. me pregnant with Hadley and this is Ellie on Feb 10, 2009
I cannot believe how much she has changed and that she was outside with no coat on and I remeber how nice it was. :( we have not been outside to play in forever because our snow piles are over her head. We are on day 80 of connsecutive days with a five inch snow depth. The record before this year was 54 days.

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this am. I was tired and cranky. (obviously by the time I am bloggin I have a problem with staying up too late!) the boys came and were kind of loud and before you know it Ellie and Hadley were awake. I snapped my way through breakfast and brushing of teeth and then TRIED to check my email but was interupted. I then get ready to get dressed and a lovely white truck with the letters FEDEX stopped in front of my house. I threw on my hoodie and ran for the door. What could it be! I opened up the package and it was..............FREE JEANS!

I became a fan of lee jeans on facebook back in December and somehow won a free pair of jeans. I completely forgot about them and needed that surprise today. I was eager to try them on and they fit great and did I mention they were FREE! they smelled like fuel so I threw them in the dirty clothes and finished getting dressed.

I then went and everyone got ready for school without complaining or without me nagging to get ready over and over and over. Team Umizoomi was on when we returned and so Jayce and ellie were happy. They helped themselves to the cheezeits and even got a sippy cup of water after going potty by themselves (seriously when did my 2 year old become big enough to do so much for herself) hadley and I decided to farm (on her farm this time :) ) and everyone was happy.

Maggie came over with Corbin and we dined on cheese quessadillas for lunch and then.... WAIT FOR IT......EVERY ONE OF THE KIDS NAPPED! you have no idea how long it has been since they all napped. I sat down and searched for some swagbucks and farmed (my farm this time!) After nap I hurried them off back to sadies so i could go see my cute new little cousin in 3D/4D! Abbie invited me to her ultrasound and I cannot wait to hold that chubby cheeked little girl. She is adorable!

I got home and my friends Christina and Jon Weber swung by to visit and drop off some DVDS for me to watch. It was great visiting with them and talking about all that fun stuff that goes along with being a grown up and starting a family. we really need to spend more time with htem because I miss my Istina!

Jess then came home with Cheese Pizza Hut Pizza (double prize for him for bringing home dinner and remembering no meat on Friday!) and brought in the mail. and what was in my mailbox but a free sippy cup from juicy juice!

My great day is finished off by earnign some more swagbucks through searching and codes! I have no idea what I am going to turn them in for but I am excited at the possibilities!

swag bucks

If you have not already today is the day to join swag bucks! it is their birthday and they are having some major fun. I have been at it about a month and I have already earned the equivalent of about $15 in amazon gift cards. I am saving mine up for chirstmas as we are going to try and do a lot more shopping online this year.
To get there just click here.

I truly only earn by searching the sites like facebook, farmville, blogger, and any other thing I am looking for that day on swagbucks. I have just been racking up the swagbucks and it puts a little excitement knowing that I am essentially earning free things with tasks I do every day!

farming

I was doing good but those weekends are hard on me. My weekends are crazy with work thrown in and Jess has started the girls practice so there is not a whole lot of extra time and when there is I like to spend it with my 2 great kids and my wonderful husband.

Saturday was very nice around here. I played with the girls all morning, they both napped (which is a very rare occurance with ellie anymore) and I worked on my farm. Everybody needs their thing and since scrapbooking is my thing of choice and quite frankly I one cant see my table and two dont have a big enough block of time to do it, I have taken up farming on farmville. :) Laugh all you want it keeps me sane, gives me something to look forward to and makes me manage my time better. I have even started Jess a farm. I often get the eyeroll from Jess but this weekend he was off and on the computer a lot. I finally said what are you doing and he has found a castle game. I laughed and rolled my eyes and said farm or castle there is no difference! I think the eyerolling about my farm will stop :)

UGH!

Here i am trying to make my life better and on the very second day of Lent I feel yuck! I am trying but I just have a negative outlook on things. So I am going to get out all my complaints so I can forget about them.

I am so SICK of the snow. I love Iowa the change of seasons, the people, and not beign cramped. But seriously, the snow can stop. We currently have snow in our yard up to ellies armpits. Now how are we ever supposed to even try to play in it when it would just bury her. I desperately need to get outside and soak up the sun but we cant. It is freezing all the time and it seems like it is just one snowstorm after another. In all seriousness i told Jess to start looking for jobs somewhere warmer. I say this all the time but I honestly mean it. I am so sick of this weather and I feel that spring will be skipped over here because 1)it will take the snow forever to melt and 2)once it melts we will be having major flooding everywhere. And then to top it all off the past 2 days the sun has been shining but opening my curtains causes me the greatest headaches from the reflection of that wonderful sun of the blanket of snow. UGH!!!

Because they have been cooped up inside for months now Jayce and Ellie have their outside voicesinside ALL the time. It wakes up Hadley, gives me a headache, and just irritates me. But really can you blame them since the last time they got to play outside it was OCT!

My house is cluttered. There is junk everywhere. I want to start over. Get rid of everything and only get the necessities. I really plan on doing this but honestly I cannot get motivated.

It has been one year exactly now since I have scrapbooked. You cannot even see my table under the piles of junk. Jess is always gone working or football (which is already starting to irritate me and it is just starting) and I have no time to do the things I want. When he is home I feel like I should be hanging out as a family. I just cant win.

I am in a rough spot right now with my job. I am just not feeling like it is what I should be doing anymore. For all the reasons I took the job are slowly being taken away one at a time. But leaving is not the best interest of the church right now and I just dont know what to do.

Im sure there is much more that are on my complaints list but this is what is heavily weighing on my mind right now.

On a much happeier note at Ash Wednesday mass last night the sermon was on bettering your life during lent. He spoke how there are 3 steps to do it. a) Take an inventory of my life; b) Make amends; c) Make a difference!

I know there are many things I can change to make my life better and I feel i have a good grasp on step 1. Step 2 making amends is what hit me in the face. Part of me is holding on to anger that I need to let go to better me. I need to stop and realize that forgiving and forgetting will help me grow. You do these things for yourself not for the person you are forgiving. And lastly I am left to think on how I can make a difference this lenten season and everyday after.

Lent 2010

I have decided this year for Lent that I am going to better my life. My hope for this year is to make my family more of what I want it to be and also to deepen our faith inour family unit. I want to blog everyday, pray as a family every day, and spend more time together doing stuff that is fun and that we all enjoy.
I have heard it takes 30 days to form a habit and I want all of these things to be a good habit I have. And since Lent lasts 40 days it will be perfect.

well hello!

It has been forever since I have blogged. I dont know what my deal is but I just seem to be dreading it. I love to have documentation though so I have decided that I am goign to try to blog everyday during Lent to get back into the habit. I know the girls will enjoy looking back on these memories and I will too so here it goes

So much has happened in the months since I have blogged last so a very quick picture catch up with very vague descriptions.

In October we decided to head west to California because ticket prices were just so cheap. We spent $39 each way for 3 of us, stayed with my cousin Cindy and just hung out. We had a great time and it was nice to just get away! while we were there we took family pictures on the beach. they turned out great and here is a quick shot

Upon returning our Hadley Jean was baptized into our Church. Her godparents are our friends Jon and Christina Weber.

Louie and the rest of the Madrid Tigers made it to the dome again to the state semifinal game. Unfortunately they lost but we have loved watching Louie play all these years and he has now signed to play for the Grandview Vikings next year. We (I) am an incredibly proud big sister!

Hadley had a matching outfit as well :) they also used these as their Halloween costumes

On Thanksgiving my sister Sadie announced she is having another baby. We announced with both girls that we were expecting at Thanksgiving so it was kind of neat to continue that tradition although I will admit I am very thnakful that is was not me who was pregnant this time! (I dont have a pic for this)

We had a great first Christmas with our Haddie. The girls got tons of presents and despite the weather we made it to all of our family functions. I love holidays and spending time with our families!

In January we welcomed another nephew into our family. Corbin Joel Furness came out a boy much to Maggie and I's surprise! We just knew he was a girl but I guess we thought Hadley was a boy too so it shows how good we are at the guessing game ;) The girls love him and Hadley is very interested in his binkie! We have now gotten to babysit 2 times and we love having him around! This Valentines Day Nick proposed to Maggie and now we are looking forward to a wedding!


And lastly we have adopted a new dog into our life. I have been wanting a dog since we lost Blue but with kids I was not looking forward to potty training one. Someone we know was getting rid of their dog because their cat was not to happy about sharing the space with a dog. We went and picked up Maggie changed her name to Maddie and welcomed her into our home and hearts. She is a great dog, loves the kids, and is 100% potty trained! The chunky monkey is the picture is quite cute as well. I wonder who her mom is! :)

And because I now have a 7 month old and a 2 1/2 year old and they are so stinkin cute here is a recent pic :)