Videos of the kids

Ellie dancing


Kids splashing around


Playing in Rowan's room

Time for change - and not just the seasons!

I feel it is now safe to say that winter 2008/2009 is behind us. Sure, we may see an occasional snow or two, but for the most part the highs are above 40 degrees. We are still having to wear jackets, especially since it's been raining a lot, but we don't have to bundle up completely with gloves, hats, extra layers, etc. And we have also been blessed with a few warm days - no jackets required! It is unbelievably freeing to be able to run outside without stopping to bundle up. Now we have to start thinking about what to plant in our garden!

Another change coming soon - a sad one - is that 3 out of the 6 families in our building are moving this summer :( I don't know if anyone else truly knows how close the families in this building are, for I've never seen such true community anywhere else. But as always, the student life is very nomadic, and people are constantly coming and going. One of the moving families we are very close with, and we will dearly miss them. Ellie is losing 3 of her closest friends (how to break it to her?!?) and I will be missing my closest Madison friend. We can only hope that the 3 families who move in will have young children for Rowan and Ellie to play with, and kindred spirits for Jason and I to build friendships with (and swap date nights!).

It has been over 2 months that we've been using the public bus to travel around town, but the end is in sight. We are flying to AZ on May 19th for Jason's sister's wedding, and then driving home in my mom's car, which she so graciously offered us. It will be soooo good to have a car again. There are just some times when it is very difficult to get somewhere with the bus. I do expect that I will continue to use the bus often after we have a car again, because it is nice to not pay for gas!

About the family: We've all been sick lately, but things are starting to get better. The kids are pretty much well, with Jason and I lagging behind :) Rowan is starting to put 2 words together into sentences, like "more juice" or "mommy up." He is so funny, because he has a definite opinion about things and will do all he can to get his point across. Like if I am slow in getting up to play with him, he will come over to me, put both hands on my cheeks, and say emphatically "Mommy, choo choo." Then he'll grab my finger to pull me to his room. It's hard to deny such cuteness!

Ellie is just getting smarter and smarter. Every night after dinner, Jason hides an index card in the kitchen for Ellie to find. Ellie finds it, then reads the sentence on it to get her dessert. I think it's the highlight of her day, because Jason makes it so fun for her. An example of a sentence she reads would be "I want to go outside." She does pretty well reading it outloud herself, sounding out the words. Yesterday Rowan received a magazine in the mail (thanks Gram!) and Ellie volunteered to read it to him. So, they hopped up on the couch side by side. Ellie read the first page, "Cleo the clownfish." The word "cleo" she had to have some help with, but Jason and I were amazed when she read the rest no problem. I'm certain she's never even heard the word "clownfish" before! Today, Ellie was spinning in a circle pattern and I said "Come here, you dancing princess." She quickly corrected me and said, "I'm not a dancing princess, I'm the Earth orbiting the sun!"

We thought spring was coming

But then it snowed today. Actually, it started off pouring this morning and switched to snowing in the afternoon. So now, once again, the sandbox is now a skating rink with toys frozen in it. It's like the movie The Day After Tomorrow, everything is frozen in the ground and covered with snow. At least we enjoyed the few days of warmth by playing outside with the neighbors.

Rowan's talking more and more every day, and it's fun to hear new things he says. Yesterday he dumped his applesauce all over his tray (his favorite thing to do) and I said to him "That is not nice" in a firm voice while wagging my finger at him. So he sticks up his chubby little finger and says "Not nice." Of course I couldn't hold back the laughter, which probably wasn't the best move. But he really is the sweetest boy. Although he enjoys swiping Ellie's toys sometimes, if I can get her to calm down long enough to ask him nicely to give it back, he'll hand it right over. Tonight he got into some Christmas candy and ran away laughing with it, but he gave it up willingly when I asked for it.

Ellie is loving school as usual and has been having more friends over to the house. She loves to ask if she can have a play date with a friend. She's so funny, because she loves the phrase "play date" and uses it all the time in different variations. Like "lunch date" if they stay for lunch or "outside date" if they play outside. She has grown quite close to one of the girls who lives in our building. In fact, I often hear them plotting something they want to keep secret from the adults. The little girl told me they were planning a "stay date," but Ellie shushed her and swore her to secrecy. I'm pretty sure their "stay date" entails one of them hiding in the closet of the other's room and staying there forever.

I'm not looking forward to this summer, when that little girl's family and the other family we are close to in this building both move on to different universities in other states. But, that means new families in the building for us to meet. I'm rooting for more families with preschoolers!

Pictures and Videos!

Okay, okay, I brought out the camera tonight to take some videos of the kids playing. Here they are:





And then Rowan wanted to hide. So, he pulled out his clean diapers from the dryer, and hopped right in. First time he's ever done that!

I haven't blogged about this in a while...

I borrowed a neighbor's car tonight and went to the grocery store to do some deals. Want to see how I did?

This store that I went to doubles coupons up to and including $1. But, only 5 at a time and you have to have a minimum purchase of $25 (after sale prices, but before coupons). So, I did 3 separate transactions to maximize my coupon doubling power.

Transaction #1:
- 2 gallons of skim milk
- 2 bags of sharp cheddar cheese (8oz)
- 18 count large eggs
- Oreo cakesters 100 calorie packs (free with coupon)
- Cascade dishwasher rinse agent (free with coupon)
- 5 bags of chocolate peanut butter chex mix (YUM!) (5 doubled $1 coupons)

Total before all sale discounts: $28.47
Total after discounts but before coupons: $20.49
Total after all discounts and coupons: $3.90

Transaction #2:

- 8 cups of yoplait yogurt ($2 after doubled $1 coupon)
- motts applesauce 6-pack
- 2 chubs ground turkey (free after coupon)
- one sharp shredded cheese (8oz)
- Boost kids multivitamin drink (free after coupon)
- 2 huge canisters of old-fashioned oatmeal (we eat this almost every day for breakfast) (doubled $1 coupon)
- 2 more bags of chex mix, 3 bags of honey nut cheerios snack mix (doubled $1 coupon, 2 doubled $.60 coupons, one $.60 coupon)

Total before discounts: $45.98
Total after sale discounts but before coupons: $35.22
Total after all discounts and coupons: $12.33

Transaction #3:

- 4 cans tomato paste
- one can kidney beans
- 2 chubs ground turkey (free after coupon)
- 2 bags spinach
- 3 lbs bananas
- Frozen shrimp scampi (this alone was $8) (doubled $1 coupon)
- 5 more bags of chocolate peanut butter chex mix (I'm telling you, this stuff is good!) (3 doubled $1 coupons, one doubled $.60 coupon)

Total before discounts: $32.89
Total after discounts but before coupons: $20.55
Total after all discounts and coupons: $9.37

Picture of everything:

Grand total before discounts: $107.34

Total after discounts and coupons: $25.60 Savings of 76%!

(And yes, I bought 12 bags of chex mix. Did I mention how good they are? That should last me a month or two)

Happy Birthday Swagbucks!

I hope this is the last post I write about swagbucks, because I don't want to be a pest (and I know most of you read this to hear about the kids). But I just have to say that today is Swagbucks birthday, and they are giving out a bunch of points today. If anyone wants to join, now is the time!

Swagbucks is a search engine that you can earn points (called swagbucks) while you search. As you collect points, you can redeem them for prizes. In the 2 months that I've been using it, I've earned $20 at amazon.com! You just use it as a normal search engine (like google). Here is the link to sign up: click here

Have fun, it's totally worth it!

Just call me "Nurse Kirsten"

Yesterday, Rowan started coughing, enough to have the humidifier going whenever he slept. He seemed to cough a lot last night, so I was a little worried to be bringing him with me today for my all-day childcare job. Little did I know, he would be the least of my problems...

Ellie started complaining that her stomach hurt after we arrived at the house of the boy I watch. I suggested she might be hungry or might need to use the bathroom. We remedied both of those situations, and she seemed fine. Until about 2 hours after eating her oatmeal, when it all came up on their rug. For those wondering, it looks pretty much the same coming out as going in :) (Are any of you ever going to eat oatmeal again?)

I thought that maybe this was a fluke and it was from all her running around, but it was not. When she threw up a couple hours after lunch, I called the mom and asked if she could plan on driving us home today instead of us taking the bus. She is wonderful, and came home an hour early and drove us home. Thank goodness, or Ellie would have been puking on the bus. As soon as she got out of the van, she knelt down on the sidewalk and threw up again. Luckily by now I have figured out it is about 2 hours after eating, so I was able to run into her room with a bowl just now and save a big mess.

The odd thing is, Ellie does not have a fever, but Rowan does (and is still miserably coughing). Wish us luck tomorrow!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hmm, what did we do to celebrate Valentine's Day? Not too much! We were supposed to watch our neighbors' children for the afternoon, but unfortunately one of them was sick. So, we had pink heart-shaped pancakes for lunch (I didn't take pictures of them like Tara did). They were pretty good; I used a new recipe that calls for whipping the egg whites separately and folding them in to make them extra-fluffy. I'd say they were the fluffiest I've been able to get them using all whole-wheat flour.

In the afternoon, I braved using our car to drive to the grocery store, walked from there to Ace Hardware, and then picked up Pizza Hut on the way home. It was a major bargain day (what day isn't?). I had a $5 rewards card to use at Ace, so the bolt for Ellie's new bike, some shelving brackets, 2 halogen light bulbs, and ziploc bags totalled $2. At the grocery store, I spent $36.90 and saved $35.20 with coupons. 50% is pretty good! Then, I picked up our pizza at Pizza Hut (the first time in about 3 weeks we have had a meal I haven't cooked), used a $15 giftcard I received at Christmas, and spent $1.20.

After the kids went to bed, I made a chocolate fondue with strawberries, bananas, and angel food cake as dippers. Let's just say I ate too much. After we stuffed ourselves, Jason and I played U-dance. I convinced him to let me post this video I took of the screen (and a few seconds of his feet so you can kind of see the correlation between the screen and the steps). The green footprints on the screen is the left foot, the red is the right foot. Now you can see how easy it is to get lost on what steps come first, especially when it's super fast!

U-Dance fun

Okay, Jason won't let me put up videos of him dancing (even though he is much better than I am), so here are my humiliating examples of how to use U-Dance. It's fun and exercise at the same time!

Cotton Eye Joe:



And a much harder song:



And the kids having a giggle-fest:

Swagbucks - a way to earn giftcards (or other prizes)

Less than a month ago, I registered for Swagbucks. It is a site where you can earn points by using their search engine. I use it instead of google whenever I want to look something up. The points can be redeemed for different giftcards or prizes. After less than a month, I've earned enough points to redeem a $5 amazon.com giftcard! After you register, you can either keep going to swagbucks.com to search, or you can download their swagbucks toolbar, which puts a little search space on your internet browser. I downloaded the toolbar, and have not had any problems with it, in fact it makes earning points a lot easier.

If you are interested, you can use this link to sign up: click here

There are a lot of different websites that I try out to earn money or giftcards, and this one was easy enough that I wanted to share it with everyone. If anyone has any questions about it, you can comment and I'll comment back :)

R.I.P. 1992 Buick Century

We have some sad news. Our car bit the dust this weekend. We took it into the mechanic because it had been making a really loud clanging noise, and the transmission was acting up. After looking it over and test-driving it, the mechanic called back with the bad news. It would cost more to fix our car than it is worth (over $3000). Okay, so we were planning on just driving it until it quit completely, because that is what we pretty much did with our past cars. Nope, not possible, because apparently something unrelated to the transmission, the part that was making the loud clanging noise, is breaking off and when it breaks off completely, the car will come to an instant stop. No warning, no coasting, just a dead stop. Obviously, this would be dangerous in traffic, so we will not be driving our car.

In the meantime (not sure when/if we will buy another car), we are taking the bus. Every Monday and Wednesday I work all day watching a 3-year-old boy at his house. I take both kids with me on Mondays, and Jason watches Rowan on Wednesdays, so it's just Ellie and I then. On Tuesdays I bring the kids with me to work in a church nursery. We take the bus, which is not too difficult, it's just a bit of walking and a lot of waiting. The downside? This morning it was -4, feels like -15, when Ellie and I were waiting for the bus. That is cold! At least we can bundle up and not worry about car seats and bulky coats. Luckily the kids are great ON the bus, it's just the walking and waiting that they don't like. I've dragged two screaming kids down the street to catch the next bus, and it is not fun at all. In fact, it hurts my heart to think about Ellie remembering the days that she was dragged from bus stop to bus stop as a kid, always running. Thankfully we are figuring out the best routes now so we don't have to run; we can go at Ellie's pace. This morning, even though it was freezing, there were no tears and it was actually a good, fun experience.

We also just made an exciting purchase, an electric bike! Here is a link to it: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=8467095&findingMethod=rr We paid for it with a couple of walmart giftcards we had, so we only had to spend about $130 out of our bank account for it. We received it last night, put it together, and now I can't wait to try it out! It is a regular bike, and can be used as a regular bike. The difference is that when I am going uphill, or need an extra boost, I can turn the throttle and the battery-powered motor kicks in to help spin the tires. This means I can go much further than my weak legs can take me. Actually, I have ridden a bike once to the grocery store (about 1.5 miles away) and it was extremely difficult coming back for me because it's mainly up hill. Big hills. So, now I can hook up our burley trailer to the back of the bike, ride down to the grocery store, pile the groceries into the trailer, and ride back, hopefully easily. :)

Now our transformation to hippies is complete, wouldn't you say? Natural foods, check! Cloth diapers, check! Reusable grocery bags, check! Growing our own vegetables in an organic garden, check! Homeschooling (possibly) and co-op preschool, check! Bussing and biking instead of driving, check! Anything else we need to add to our list?

Fancy Nancy and teeth brushing

The kids came back from AZ with new obsessions. For Ellie, it is Fancy Nancy. Fancy Nancy is to 3-5 year olds what Hannah Montana is to older kids. She is all the rage right now. She is a girl who likes to be fancy and use fancy words. There are no Fancy Nancy movies (that I know of) but there are now plenty of books. Of course there are also dolls, accessories, and dress-up clothes. So, with all the dress-up clothes that Ellie received for Christmas, she is able to get really fancy.

Yesterday we went to a Fancy Nancy tea party at Barnes and Noble. It was INSANE how many little fancy girls there were. Attenders were supposed to RSVP, but it was obvious by observing the flustered bookstore staff that they were not ready for such a crowd! There were probably 75 little girls, plus all their moms and some dads. Ellie didn't care that she and her friend had to sit on the floor because there weren't enough spots at the tables. She still had a blast! See how fancy she's holding her cookie? :)

Rowan's new obsession is with brushing his teeth. Every time he passes the bathroom he wants to brush them. I max out at 3 times a day, or I'm afraid his teeth will just be brushed down to nubs. The funniest part is when he is brushing alongside someone else, because he copies everything they do. I love brushing my teeth with him in the morning!

Rowan is not too happy when we take away his toothbrush. Seriously, I snapped this after telling him he couldn't brush anymore, right after that video.

Who needs a blog when you've got Facebook?

Sorry to those who have been waiting for a blog post (all 2 of you). I have recently discovered Facebook, and I spend most of my free computer time there. Also, my computer time has dwindled, since I am working about 30 hours a week now in addition to the usual household tasks.

We had a good time in AZ, although we do wish our trip was longer. We calculated every hour to ensure that every grandparent received equal face time with the kids (seriously), but it didn't amount to as much as we wanted! However, we will be going back in both May and December of this year to attend Nikki and Nichole's weddings.

Later tonight I hope to put up some pictures and perhaps a video. Right now naptime is almost over and I have someone from Craigslist coming over to buy something!

Hip hip hooray

Our car was fixed today!

It turns out it was an easy, cheap fix, just not one that Jason and I knew enough about to fix it ourselves. So after a week, we now have a car again. I spent this afternoon driving to Walgreens, Target, the bank, and the grocery store. It sure felt good. And now we can plan for our week-long trip to AZ in January. AZ here we come!

Just FYI, all the Christmas items at Walgreens and Target are 75% off. I bought a new 6 ft. prelit tree for $10 and a bunch of Christmas decorations for next year, plus Christmas cds and some clothes for Ellie. I spent about $30 and came home with a TON of stuff. So check out your local stores!

**Merry Christmas**

Well, for those of you who don't know, we missed our flight to AZ on Monday. Boohoo! Seriously, I cried. And so did the kids. To make a long (LONG) story short, our car wouldn't start, we thought it was an easy fix, Jason worked on it for hours, and by the time we realized it wasn't the battery, it was too late to get to a rental car place and drive to the airport (3 1/2 hours away). Looking back of course there are a couple things we would have done differently, but nothing we can do about it now, right?

So, we made the most of it. All of the neighbors in the building took some part in helping us on Monday, trying to get us to the airport. One lent tools, one tried to jump-start our car, one drove Jason to get a new battery, and one offered to drive us halfway to the airport. All of that really showed us the true Christmas spirit and how generous our neighbors are. We truly love living here! Luckily we have one family in the building that didn't travel anywhere for Christmas, and they were able to take me to the grocery store on Tuesday to get food. We had eaten most of it trying to empty our fridge! A woman from my Bible study offered to pick us up, take us to Christmas Eve service, and to their house for dinner (and back home again). We had so much fun with her family. They have 2 kids, a 4-year-old boy and a 7-month-old boy. Ellie had sooo much fun with her son, their personalities are very similar so they chattered and played pretend games the entire time. Here is Ellie all dressed up for the Christmas Eve service:

Today we didn't do too much, because we actually celebrated Christmas here on Saturday, in anticipation of being in AZ on Christmas day. The kids loved all the toys, but of course they loved the cheapest ones that were afterthoughts. Ellie is attached at the hip to a new baby doll we bought her, and Rowan loves his magnetic set of balls and sticks. Pretend that we opened presents today, and here are a couple of pictures:

Our tree

Opening presents

Ellie's very own computer

Since we didn't actually have any presents to open today (and I even packed away the tree and lights on Monday morning), it was pretty much just a normal day for us. The only special things we did were make a cake (gingerbread) to celebrate Jesus's birth and read the Christmas story. Here are my little helpers:

Ellie the elf

Rowan will NOT be left out of anything!

"I gotcha buddy"

All the bakers (and my new haircut)

The finished product

So, our car will not be seen until Monday, as everywhere is closed until then. A whole week without a car! Yesterday and today there was no bus service, so we were stuck at home, but tomorrow we plan on taking the bus downtown to the library so the kids can GET OUT OF THE HOUSE! Unfortunately it's been too cold to play outside (below zero a lot of times), but I think the weather is looking up. Tomorrow it's above freezing!

Oh, and a side note, my sister Nichole is now engaged to her long-time boyfriend Warren. Yippee!

Ellie sledding with Daddy

From Ellie's perspective

From the bottom

A whole lot of snow!

This is what the kids have been doing lately. Jason has taken Ellie sledding a couple of times, and she gets to sled at school too. Rowan enjoys it for a little bit, but he gets cold and cranky after a while. Maybe next year the kids will be perfect ages for family fun in the snow!

Today all the schools are closed, including Ellie's :( I had to unbury our car this morning (at 6am) to get to work. Lots and lots of snow expected today!

"I didn't get to crunch"

Ellie had a bad dream last night, and she wants to tell you about it.

Ellie: A dinasaur was trying to eat me. The dinasaur was saying "I am hungry" and I said "No, no, don't eat a nice kid like me." I closed his mouth and it broke into pieces. Then it said, "I didn't get to crunch."

And then a fox came. It was trying to eat me. I was running away

And there was a powerful teacup with hot tea on my clothes thing. I didn't touch it. It went away because it was just pretend.