Tip of the Day

When putting bags of spaghetti sauce in the freezer it's best not to set them directly on the wire rack. I couldn't figure out why it wasn't coming off the shelf. Just had to take the whole shelf out to thaw. Lasagna tonight!! Yum!!

Another good tip... When putting boiling hot liquids in the blender make sure the blender isn't too full and the lid is on good and tight because when that stuff lands on you (and all over the kitchen) it doesn't hurt like hell!! (I'm okay.)

New Year's Post (a little late)

Since I was out of town I didn't get to my obligatory New Year's post about the past year. Now is better than never right? 2009 was a very interesting year for us. I'd like to call it a turning point for our family.

Zan's job went well throughout the year and he continues to enjoy his work. I'm continuing to stay home with the kids and enjoy that very much. I do still sell Norwex products on the side, but that doesn't take much of my time since I'm such a horrible sales person! :)

In the spring we decided to try and sell our home. The market sucked but we thought it was a great opportunity to get into a new home at a good price. The conditions that they were we would actually be able to get the house we always wanted but never thought we'd be able to get at this point in time. So we listed our house at the beginning of April. Before we even got our house on the market we had signed a purchase agreement to build a home when ours sold.

We had quite a few showings, a couple a week, which kept me busy trying to keep the house clean with two children. Our Realtor told us our house would sell in about 45 days and she was right. On Mother's Day we got an offer and the next day we signed the papers for that!

Since the market was questionable we decided to hold off building until the appraisal and inspection went through. The appraisal took up until the week before closing before it was completed. They wanted a quick close, so about a month later we were out. We went to live with my parents for the summer. The kids had a great time living with Nana and Papa out on the lake for the summer. It was fun, but I always miss having my own space. Besides the fact that there were four of us sharing a bedroom.

They started building our house on June 20th and we moved in October 1st. Since then we've been trying very hard to get everything back in working order. Pretty successfully too.

Ella started kindergarten this fall and really likes school. Sam has been adjusting to Ella being gone in the morning and gets really excited when she gets home.

Some new things that I'm expecting for 2010 will be Ella starting 1st grade!! Yikes, full day school. Sam will be moving out of his crib into a bed. Hopefully this can wait a while though. Sam won't start preschool until next year because he'll be a little young this year. Ella and Sam are only 3 yrs 4 mo apart in age, but they are 4 years apart in school.

Hopefully this year will be mostly uneventful and we'll be able to just enjoy our new home, do fun things with the kids and have a great year!!

I wish you all the best year ever!!

I'm Saying It Wrong

People have been questioning the correct pronunciation lately of 2010. I've been saying two thousand ten. My reasoning is that I said two thousand and nine and so on.

On the radio this morning they were talking about this very question and had people send in their thoughts and answers.

Apparently I've been saying it wrong. Who would have thought? The correct pronunciation is twenty-ten. The reason being it was the 18th century and the 19th century, so clearly twenty would come next, not two thousand. Makes sense but it sounds funny to me. I guess I'll have to change because I don't like saying something that isn't correct. Especially since I know the correct way.

I wiki'd it, so you can check out all the info here. Now we all need to make sure everyone else is saying it correctly so we sound better too!!

One Tired Little Guy

We arrived home from our New Years trip around 2:45 or so today. It was a non-eventful trip and the kids were happy to be home and out of the car. Sam napped for quite a while on the way home and wanted to play. We didn't get much in the way of lunch except for some snacks, so they had another snack. Around 4:45 they were getting hungry so I got dinner ready.

We were all done eating dinner shortly after 5 and I thought the kids could just play until bath and bed. We thought the kids should go to bed a little earlier tonight since they were probably tired from the trip. Well after dinner Sam was really, REALLY upset and didn't want to calm down. He found his "nuk" and told me he wanted to take a nap. Remember that it was 5:15. I asked him if he wanted to take a bath and then nap. That didn't sound good to him at all. Keep in mind here that the tears are streaming down his face, he's breathing hard and talking incoherently all this time. So I figured the only way to calm him down was to put him in his bed.

He was much better in his bed (once I got him his pillow that is). I decided to get their bath ready and gave Ella her bath. I "talked" Sam into taking a quick bath (3 min. max) with minimal crying and then put him into bed. He was out like a light before 5:30. Wow, he was so tired.

I've never before seen a child scream about how they wanted to take a nap and go to sleep. Other than Zan of course!

I guess they had a good time playing at Grandma and Grandpa's. Maybe a bit too much fun. They even slept well and Sam got a good nap every day. Just too much going on I guess. They like their schedules!!

Snowshoeing

Ella got some snowshoes for Christmas last year and is finally getting a chance to really get out and use them. With all the snow we received last week, it was perfect snowshoeing weather.

These are some pictures I took. Thank goodness for telephoto lenses!!

Blogging Fun in 2010

I know it's not the new year yet, but I've been working on a few new things for the new year. Can't just stick with the same old stuff can we?

If you'll check out my sidebar there are a couple additions. First off since we bought a new treadmill Zan thinks I'm supposed to use it. My goal for 2010 is to run 300 miles. You can track my progress ~or lack of~ on my little ticker.

Second new thing is I'm planning on taking a picture a day and posting them on a separate blog. I've titled it Little Bug Photos. You can click on the picture and it will take you to that blog.

I hope you will enjoy these new additions that I've planned as much as I will.

I have some great photos of Ella and Zan snowshoeing around in the snow that I will be putting up really soon. She had such a great time playing in the snow!! I'll get them up by tomorrow, so check back!!

Merry Christmas!!!

Our traditional photo in front of the tree...



I hope everyone is having a great Christmas. We are having a very nice, relaxing day today. The kids are playing with their toys and I am eating all the yummy leftovers.

We are very fortunate to have children that sleep in on Christmas and don't wake us up to get their presents. We got up between 8:30 and 9:00 this morning to open presents. Ella and Sam both liked what they got. I spent the better morning putting Ella's things together and helping her get her toys organized. The day is really flying by fast.











I have officially been out to shovel 4 times in the past couple days. We have very nice neighbors who snow-blowed our driveway this morning. I don't know if I would have been able to shovel it this morning. It is the heaviest snow!!! I went out just a short while ago to get a few inches that fell this morning and it felt like it was over a foot of snow it was so heavy. Not only that but the snow banks are so high that you have to throw the snow 6 or so feet in the air. I won't even go into shoveling out the mailbox (if you can find it).

Here's what it looks like from our front door. This is the most snow we've seen around here this early in the season in a long time. Thankfully the snow is heavy so it won't blow around. We get a lot of drifting where we are.



Enjoy your Christmas!!!