My first Giveaway!!!!

You read that right.

I have a real giveaway.

A couple of weeks ago an college friend of mine, Susan mentioned on her blog about an ebook from Motivated Moms that has really helped her to clean and organize her home.

Now you should know that Susan has a two year old and 9 month old twins...living in New York City.

In a two bedroom apartment.

Think about that for a minute.



I think we need a moment of silence for her right now.



I figured that this ebook could help Susan out, it could help me out too.

In TN I use to have a daily schedule to help me clean the house.

Mondays were laundry days.

Tuesdays were bathrooms.

And so on and so on.

Since moving here I am just overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done that really only the kitchen and den would get cleaned due to the fact we are in those rooms the most.

So I bought the ebook from Motivated moms and it has really helped me.

On Sunday nights I print out the list for the upcoming week and stick it on the fridge.

Each day is detailed out with what to do and a box to check off when you are done.

For example today I had to change hand towels in bathrooms, clean top shelf of refrigerator, vacuum main/public rooms or 1st floor, clean toilets, and replenish stock of toilet paper in bathrooms.

Just to name a few of the things.

Still to this day I get such a deep satisfaction with checking off a "to-do" on my list.

There have been a couple of days that I haven't been able to get to everything on my list so the next day I know exactly what I need to do.

Now I am not here to say that my house is now perfect but I definitely feel that I have much more of a handle on it.

So I thought that all my great friend and family that read this blog could also benefit from this. I emailed Deann from Motivated Mom to see if she would be interested in doing a giveaway, and she said yes!

So someone will be able to win one of Motivated Moms products!

So click here and pick look over the products Deann has to offer and she what would work best for you.

You will get a calendar for the rest of the year. Deann is working on the 2010 calendar right now and plans to have it done in October.

To win you just need to leave a comment with your email address so I can get back in contact with you.

I will draw the name of the winner on Friday night around 7pm.

Good Luck!!

Just what I needed

So Friday, I had a melt down.

I was exhausted.

Homeschooling is mentally exhausting.

My boys are physically exhausting.

The mess the resides in my house is overwhelming.

The Lord knew I needed a pick me up.

On Saturday, I was coming into the house from playing with the boys in the backyard and the screen door closed on the heel of my foot.

OUCH!!!

Obscenities were being shouted in my head.

It actually ripped the skin off the back of my heel.

Can we have one week where blood is not included.

Wild Man saw me wince in pain and then turned into Dr. Wild Man.

He ran over to the bathroom and announced that he has Scooby doo and his friends to make me feel better.

He then ran to the couch put a pillow down and told me to lay down and cover my nose.

Translation- lay on your tummy.

He then took the band aid out of the paper and then put it exactly on the "boo boo" all by himself.

Gotta love getting taken care of for once.

Then later on that day.

My little sweet Romeo who has taken his sweet little time to start talking.

Had yet to put two words together and the one words sentences he says is from a very limited vocabulary.

Yesterday I was getting his shoes on and he leaned in close to me and said "Love you mommy."

I then became a large puddle of mush on the ground.

Thank you Lord for that.

My life this week

Oh where to begin.

I started back couponing again and oh how I miss Kroger and Publix.

Then I started homeschooling Wild Man this week.



Romeo joins in on the action when he wants to.

I have never considered myself a teacher type of person. Nor am I a crafty person. But thanks to the wonderful world of google. I have found some great website that are pretty much like homeschooling for dummies. ABC Jesus loves me and Preschool Express


Romeo got his stitches out.



Our great neighbor is an ICU nurse so she offered to take them out for us.

It also rained everyday this week. Yuck.

So we went to Jump Zone.

Wild Man loves it.





Romeo would rather play on things that were more stable and not full of air.

Like a slide.



a fish rocker.



or the good old standby... the ground.



I have always loved pottery barn kids but this week I found a new love... The Land of Nod.

and Romeo found a shopping cart that he walked all around the store with.



He is clearly my child.

Today our playgroup went to Costco.

This may sound like a weird place to take your playgroup.

But the kids really liked it.

Wild Man was not happy about getting his picture taken and Romeo's outfit makes him look like he is going to jail.



Wild Man also wasn't happy about the funny hat he had to wear to go into the bakery.



Romeo thought they were funny.



Then at the end of this long week we all had some frustrations to get out, so we hammered out some chicken.



and I am one tired momma.

Making our grand appearance

When we were getting ready to go to the library Wild Man insisted on wearing his super cape and rain boots.



I was going to get a better picture of my super Wild Man, but the lights in the library went out.

Sometimes it is a good thing not to know anyone in the area yet.

By george I think he likes it

Since the day Romeo was born he has been solely a momma's boy.



His first 6 months of life I was the only one that he would allow to hold him.

Then after 6 months, when he was in a very happy mood, he would then let Mr. Genius hold him and my mom.

Other people were allowed to look at him but not too long though.

Not even kidding people.

So as you can imagine the poor workers at church had a fun time with my little Romeo.

I am not even exaggerating when I say that he would cry the entire 3 and a half hours.

The whole church knew of the little blond haired boy whose hair stood on end and was always screaming while being walked done the hallway in the stroller.

At 15 months Romeo learned that he loved fish crackers more then screaming.

So as long as I put him straight at the table with a pile of fish crackers he would just whine a little.

Then we moved up here and went to a different church every week and my sweet little Romeo turned back into a screaming machine.

We finally decided on a church and have been going there for about a month now.

Today when we dropped Romeo off at the nursery, the sweet little boy who would scream at the thought of me leaving actually reached for the nursery worker and smiled. Then he turned to the worker and pointed to me and said "mama" as if to say that is my mama.

Then I walked away to the sound of him laughing.

That my friends is a miracle.




I am partly happy that he isn't a burden to the nursery workers and I am also sad that my little man is growing up.

We got in!

A few weeks after we moved here, I searched on the internet for a play group. I found 3 in my area. 2 were full and one said that they felt sorry for me for just moving here and not knowing anyone, so they thought they wouldn't mind meeting me.

For security reasons they wanted to meet me somewhere in public rather then someones house, to see if me and my boys would be a good match to their group.

Now I totally understand that they want to make sure that I am not some crazy person who beats their kids or cusses them out for spilling a drop of milk. But either way when we were getting ready to meet then at the Fair I can't say that I wasn't a nervous wreck. I felt like I was rushing for a sorority again. Except there is only one sorority and there were also kids that had to be on good behavior too.

We had a great time at the fair and they waited two whole days to email me back to tell me that they would love for me to join the group.

So today we got to meet the group at someone's house.

We made it in!

The lady's house we went to today had the cutest game for the kids to play. I am not sure exactly what it is called. But the kids would wear these belts and on the back were tails of different animals that can be pulled of easily.

So they just chase each other around and grab each others tails.



I have got to find this game. Have you heard of it? It was a fisher price item.

Wild Man slept for 3 and a half hours when we got home!

This game is my new best friend.



While Wild Man was chasing everyone's tail, Romeo found the cutest girls and sat with them in the sandbox.



So we now have a playgroup and everyone seems really nice!

So I can count on a couple of hours each week where I won't have to be the main form of entertainment.

Two birds with one stone

Due to the boys not able to keep their hands to themselves when in a confined area we have decided to do separate baths.

Tonight Wild Man wanted to read Romeo a book while he was in the bath.

We almost had goose for dinner

Today we went back to island park to feed the ducks.

I have been saving my bread butts (does anyone else call it that?) since the last time we went.

We eat quite a few PB & J's in this house, so in just 6 weeks we have accumulated almost a whole sleeve of bread butts.

Anyways, this time we went to the park we started feeding with four ducks, then word got out of our great butts (OK sorry, last one) and within seconds there were close to 50 ducks and geese around us.


(see the ducks coming from afar)

The boys were having a great time.

Then we were just about done and then this goose in front of Romeo was the culprit.




Now Romeo was half throwing the bread and then half eating the bread and apparently this goose was getting impatient at Romeo eating the bread and not throwing it at him.

So this goose bit my precious baby. I think this was the same goose that bit Wild Man the last time we were here.

Now my boys are fearless.

Honestly Romeo thinks he is really 3 and a half like his brother and will try to do ANYTHING big brother does.

But when this goose bit his finger (on his good hand). My sweet baby's whole body started shaking and with his voice all shaky he said biiite, biiite and pointed to his hand.

Now I am not a member of PETA but I was ashamed to be from the same area as Micheal Vick and his dog fighting ring.

Now it was a good thing I had my time with the Lord this morning, but y'all I swear it took everything in me to not drop kick that goose to the other side of the river.

The only thing that went through my mind was...kicking an animal would not be a good example to show the boys.

So instead I snatched Romeo up and grabbed Wild Man's hand and we started walking away.

This in turn confused the ducks and geese and they all jumped out of the water and started chasing us.

I started going through the rolodex my mind what to do to when ducks attacks. Do you play dead like with bears or do you just run for the hills.

I opted for the walking very swiftly.

We must have made quite a spectacle because two bikers and a man that was walking on the trail stopped to make sure we were OK.

They were kind of laughing with how it looked for us to have 50 birds chasing after us.

Everyone is OK and we got home all in one piece.

When we got home, I gave the boys some unhealthy colorful yogurt to make for the scare we had.

I think Romeo liked it.



Gotta show a picture of my other baby. He always makes sure that we are even.

As it stands right now

So here is our...still not done...but everything working...bathroom in the basement.



We can't find a part to the door on the vanity so until I find the part or break down and buy new brackets this is how our vanity looks.



We asked Contrator Joe to take down the beadboard on the little wall going into the shower because it made me nervous being so close to the shower water, so we are getting tile put on that wall.

Another to be done project.



Behind where the door opens up, we are going to but in shelves.



I am hoping it will be done next month.

Mr. Genius keeps talking about going on and starting to add the bedroom too. I don't know if I am ready to live in construction for 6 more months.

Normal day...Hello..Are you out there?

Last night Mr. Genius and I took the boys a new mall.

I love this mall. It has some neat stores.

Well neat stores for me.

You may not get as excited as I did about these stores.

I mean really, now that my days are filled with Bob the Builder and Yo Gabba Gabba I can't help myself but get excited over stores like the Lego's store and RideMakerz.

It is sad, really.

But honestly I was just as excited as the boys were when they saw these stores.

If you don't know what RideMakerz is, it is a store like Build a Bear but for boys. Instead of building bears you build cars.

Wild Man was ecstatic. I can't wait to take him back to build a car. I wanted more pictures of the store but Wild Man was running around to each station so fast I had a hard time catching him.

I did finally get him at the tire station.



You can't tell, but Wild Man is in heavenly bliss right now.

The next store we went to was the Lego's store.

And it was awesome.






Then we went to the Cheesecake Factory for supper.

Now I do realize that some of you will look down on me for this but then again you do not live with my two VERY active boys.

It is a rare treat for us to go out to eat at a restaurant that doesn't have a drive through connected to it, so I wanted to end the dinner with indigestion and a soar throat from constantly saying, "sit down, don't do that, don't throw your food, get your finger out of your nose."

In order for that to occur, I brought the boys our ipod touches.

Have I mentioned before how beneficial it is when your husband works for Apple.

You can get all sorts of toys.

Anyways, Ipod touches with Baby Einstein equal a mom's best friend.



Or if your child is a little older, Ipod touch and Bob the Builder...with bread, is just as wonderful.



After dinner we took the boys to the play area which was HUGE. I was about to take a picture of it, but Mr. Genius turned to me and said why don't you go walking around to look at the rest of the mall while I watch the boys.

Ummm, you don't have to tell me that twice.

I stood up and called him blessed, and just enjoyed some moments by myself to relax a little.

Then we drove home and we put the boys to bed and thus ended a great day.

Oh how I wish that is how our night ended.

Instead...

As we are getting the boys out of the car, Romeo wanted to help close the door like always.

We have a minivan that you can push a button and it will close the door for you.

This time when Romeo pushed the button he decided to stick his thumb back into the door right before it closed all the way. Being that his thumb is so tiny the door didn't feel the resistance then didn't automatically open back up.

Needless to say, somehow this cut Romeo's thumb pretty deep. I actually didn't realize he was bleeding until after I took him into the house I noticed there was blood on my hands.

We saw the cut, saw how deep it was and knew we had to go to the ER.

Now during this time, sweet Wild Man was running around grabbing band-aids for Romeo and telling him it will be all better with this Scooby-doo band-aid that JJ brought.

I wish I could have savored that sweet moment from my 3 year old a little more but the screaming bloody toddler hanging on me kind of distracted me from that.

So Romeo and I headed over to the ER, which was wonderful by the way.

5 minutes from our house and we were in and out with 3 stitches in less then an hour.

MTMC please take notes.

Anyways, I digress.

Is it bad to laugh at your children when they are high on pain killers?

Well then I am guilty.

Seriously, this child was screaming for a hour straight, understandably so, then as soon as those painkillers kicked in.

This was my child.



He seriously looks like he is doing the Joey from Friends, "How u doin' ?"

The bandage makes it look worse then it is. They had to put the big bandage over so he couldn't get to the stitches to pick at them.

So around 9:30pm, this sweet drugged out boy finally got to fall asleep in his bed.

And I collapsed on the floor.

2 minutes of love

My boys like I am sure of most siblings are almost always bugging each other. Romeo being the most loving child I have ever encountered mixed with Wild Man who likes to be left alone makes for a constant battle in our house.

Today we went back to the Zoo and instead of Romeo reaching for my hand to hold, he reached for Wild Man's hand...and Wild Man took it!!!

Usually you can't see that my boys love for each other but for about 2 minutes they actually see the love.



It is in these moments I can't help but smile and think that maybe I am doing an ok job at being a mom.

Then Wild Man runs faster then Romeo's legs can take him, which in return makes Romeo fall and Wild Man then proceeds to drags his screaming little brother to the turtles...and my ego bubble bursts and I go back to being a bad parent.

Whaz up here

This stinkin bathroom is taking up too much of my time.

Well 5 days have come and gone.

We are almost done, we are working out the kinks right now.

During the construction my mom, grandmother (Nanny) and aunt came to visit.

They were troopers, we went to Navy Pier one night and of course we had to go to Ikea.



We have had two crazy trips to Ikea out of the 10 times I have been over these 2 months. Coincidentally both of those time my mom has been there with us.

During this last time we thought there was a Nanny snatcher on the loose, but it turned out that Nanny forgot to tell us that she was going to the restroom.

Romeo kicked off one of his shoes, which are the only pair of shoes that fit him right now. They were eventually found at customer service... Other companies need to take note of Ikea's customer service...*cough*cough* Target*cough*

I got called to get Wild Man early from childcare because he had spit on a little girl.

Sigh

Then Wild Man proceeds to try to bite his brother because Romeo wouldn't let him hold the Swedish fish bag.

Maybe next time will be less eventful.

I took some pictures of the bathroom on Monday, there have been some changes since then but I just rode my bike 5 miles and my legs are noodles so I will take more pictures tomorrow.

So here was the bathroom in its almost finished state with our cute little model (who is now paci free!!!) to help show it off.

The walk-in shower.



The top molding on the bead board is now up and I have painted the mirror white, but here is the other side of the bathroom.



Are you a member of freecycle?

No?

You really should be, you never know what you will be able to get.

We got tickets to the local minor league baseball team!

This was the boys first baseball game. Because God has blessed me with a husband that doesn't care to watch sports all the time, I think that is the first time Wild Man has even seen baseball.

Wild Man was interested in the game for a little while, we got to the 6th inning.




Romeo was more interested in the little girl behind us that was eating the most beautiful food he has ever seen...cotton candy.





I will leave you tonight with a comment from Conner at lunch today.

Conner: Mom, you know what I want to do?

Mom: No, what?

Conner: I want to go to TN.

Mom: Well honey, why don't you ask God if he can work it out for us to go.

Conner: Nay, I will just ask to airplane guys.

Reason #38 why I love having boys.

If you have a two story house they have no problem helping "take" the loads and loads of laundry downstairs.

They actually enjoy it and look forward to it.