End of 2010

So as I look back at my blog posts for the year of 2010, since it will end in just a few short hours. I've realized several things:
We're only on the letter L, we started on the letter A back in January of this year. Being that he's a boy and he's somehow stuck on letter B, I'm kind of taking it easy with this project- but I'm expecting to finish the rest of the alphabet by the time 2012 rolls around! Our wall for our letters is rather small, so I can only put up 4 letters at a time, then take them down, then do it all again... it's fun to see how it grows. Christopher likes to show daddy what he's made when Roy gets home from work. Right now the letters on the wall are: H, I, J, K, and L hasn't made it up there yet! So somethings you might see on my letter wall right now are Helicopter, House (He thinks it's Bob the Builder's house) Ice Cream Cone, Igloo, Jaguar from Diego, Kangaroo, and I have yet to put up his Lions- there's a mommy lion and a daddy lion.We

We've had a fun year, with plenty of times to go to the library story-time, NEST, and try to to do (usually without much success)  No TV Tuesdays!

So for next year we need to have some goals:
+ Re-try potty training with the end goal in mind (No more Diapers!)
+ Stick with the No TV on Tuesdays, no matter how much he wants to 'watch'
+ Get out and walk/ exercise- this is for both of us because he has energy and I have weight I'd like to loose!
+ Finish the alphabet, which shouldn't be to hard since somehow we breezed through the letters H-L since September when I stopped working

Taken in January 2010

He sure is growing up fast and I can't believe it was 3 years ago at this time of year when I was about ready to pop! He is the joy of my life and sometimes he's a drama king, but we love him anyway, we wouldn't trade him for the world- he's our son!





Taken in December 2010


Here's to a super-duper, God-filled 2011! Happy New Year!

'Tis the Season

Merry Christmas to all.... and a busy rest of the year as well!

So we finally got our tree up, granted it's only the top half of our big tree, but it's something! It's cute and little and it fits in the corner, rather than taking up 1/4th of one of our rooms! It made it super easy to decorate as well, we could rotate it without a problem!

Christopher's birthday is coming right up, and so I'm planning his birthday party all around Toy Story 3, I thought it appropriate because he'll be 3... I found clip art here. I found these other great ideas for the party here! You have to love free already made printable Party Invites that I found here! It should be a fun party... because he's turning 3 he gets to invite 3 friends + 1 friend. I realized he has a whole lot more girl friends than boy friends! I guess there's nothing wrong with that- yet! So the majority of his friends at the party will probably be girls, I hope they like Toy Story 3, because that's the theme!

Three days before the party I agreed to have a Tupperware Party... what was I thinking??? I guess it motivates me to clean the house for his party and get free stuff for myself!

On top of that I have been asked to teach the Lunch and Learn (L&L) Program on Jan. 25 at Main Street Ottumwa! I'm being expected to teach for about an hour, and I have a lot of information I'm gathering, but the general aspect of the L&L class will be Social Networking for Your Business. Social Networking is Facebook, Blogging, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. How are businesses using these and how you can use them in your business as well, for positive gain. So I'm figuring out what I can talk about and teach these business people in Ottumwa. Meanwhile, I have to write my Bio and provide a somewhat professional photo. It gets more complicated, because I don't have money to buy all the research books I'd like to, I have to check them out from the local library, the problem is that the local library doesn't have all the books that I want. So off to the next town I have to go within the next month or so to check out a few of their books!

On top of that I'm making most of my Christmas gifts for family and of course printing the above Christmas Card for far-away family and friends as well as for the people at church! I think everyone will enjoy their gifts!

Time marches forward and Christmas is right around the corner, and all I have left to do is finish making the gifts and find some stocking stuffers so Santa can come! But most of all I enjoy taking Christopher to church and he knows Baby Jesus is in the manger! He also understands that he's not supposed to play with mommy's Baby Jesus that's part of our nativity set, because he's breakable... and without Baby Jesus, well, I guess there would be no Christmas!

Road Trip!

So for Thanksgiving we went on a road trip, with our family and my brother-in-law. Don't get me wrong, I love my brother-in-law and he loves my child, but sometimes we just don't get along, my husband says it's because we are so much alike.My husband is driving and that's my brother-in-law on the right. He's a great guy, he really is and my husband and him have a relationship that I'll never understand- it seems like it's more than brothers, like best friends too! Which is awesome, and I know both of them need 'guy' time so for the most part, when they are together doing their 'guy' thing I try to leave them alone.

The bad thing was that I was stuck in the back seat of my Toyota Camry for 10 hours straight, with my child who was fairly well behaved for being on a long road trip like that. My back is still paying for the 10 hour trip down there and grandmother's spare bed and then 6 hours to the hotel on the way back and 4 hours home. All in the back seat. Next time I might offer to drive.

We met my parents there- they drove in from South Carolina, where they now live. They drove 2 vehicles, my parents just recently bought a Ford Fiesta and needed to sell/give us mom's 2005 Toyota Carolla. But the problem is we drive on gravel a lot- to Roy's mom's house, to our church, etc. Small cars like the Carolla can't handle the rough gravel roads, especially if they are really bad in the winter. So we saw a need, Roy's brother, Jim had just hit 200,000 miles on his van and it needs some work done on it. So we thought why not give the car to Jim, he can have a newer car (the newest in the family) and then he can pay us in monthly installments. Everyone in my family (even my 99 year old grandmother, whom I love dearly) thought that giving the car to Jim wouldn't help us out. Yes, it will in the long run. By Jim coming down to Kentucky with us he just put himself in debt. Not good, according to Dave Ramsey. But I know that he has every intention of paying us off, the earlier the better for him.


Speaking of Dave Ramsey, we were able to tour Financial Peace University while we were in the Nashville area on Black Friday! Roy and I have a college classmate that now works for Dave on his website team. It's also pretty cool for us because we got to tell Luke, our classmate how Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University has impacted us in the last year. One year ago we took the class through our local credit union and at this same time Roy was laid off, and I was on unemployment as well. God brought us through that tough time and now Roy is back at work full time (although with some added duties) and I am back to being a stay-at-home mom and graphic designer from our home. During the economic downturn somehow, we manged to pay off 2 credit card bills and finish Baby Step #1- $1,000 in the bank! We are about half way through Baby Step #2- The Debt Snowball- and looking forward to being debt free!


Luke's Mom and Dad, Luke, my husband Roy and myself at Financial Peace University. Everyone in this photo is a Judson College graduate (now they call it Judson University in Elgin, Illinois). Great time, thanks for the tour, Luke!For our first event of Black Friday we enjoyed ICE! on the grounds of the Opryland Hotel with my parents and Jim. It's a walk-through of ice sculptures and the theme of this year was Santa Claus (the movie) so it was neat to walk through the whole movie done in Ice! It was a cold 9 degrees in there, so I was thankful that they provided us with lovely blue parkas to keep us warm- but felt like a bad mommy when I left my sons mittens in the car! He survived and we even had fun going down the ice slide that was inside, yup, a slide made of ice! I remember going down a really long one in St. Paul when I was little as part of the winter festival they have there, but I forgot how fun it is!

We also got to spend some time with my 99 year old Grandmother, here we are saying good-bye, I wish I had taken more photos of her, but for being 99 she's doing pretty good, she only has to use a walker and her memory is starting to fail a little, but that's to be expected at that age! Next year for Halloween we will be down there, Lord willing celebrating her 100th birthday. I was 12 or 13 when my family went down there and celebrated her mother (my great grandmother) turning 100... so that will be pretty neat to celebrate 2- 100 birthdays in the same family! All weekend Christopher didn't want to give Grandmother a hug, she told us "that's okay" but I could tell she really wanted a hug from my little boy!

All in all, we had a good trip and my brother-in-law has a new car, which he promptly put in a CB radio in it (no, I'm not sure why)! It's awesome to that Jim is thinking about his future more and reading and listening to Dave Ramsey- possibly looking to see if he could even get a job working for Dave, and yes, we would miss him, but I think that would be good for him and now he's looking to give Dave's book to other people. The next step for him is to sell the van, which he originally wanted to keep.... right now it's in my garage- but I'm okay with that, because last weekend he was down getting it cleaned out and this weekend he's coming down to finish it up and put a 'For Sale' sign on it! I'm even going to let him park it in my front yard so he can sell it!

God Bless,

Christopher's year in Review 2010

So yesterday I spent a good 6 hours, almost straight working on a Christmas present for my parents, mom if you are reading this- stop- don't look any further! I went through the ghastly amount of photos of Christopher taken this year and picked 2 for each month- except for October... October just had a lot of good photos! But I figured if I'm not doing the month of December (it's not here yet), they may as well have twice as many photos on the month of October. So here it is, my labor of love:

January

February

March

April

May

June

July- "Grandmas hold our hands for a little while, but our hearts forever"

August

September

October- the stamp says "I did it All by myself"

November

The pages are 8x8... now I just have to figure out a front and back cover and my nice hubby can have it bound at work before we leave. The problem with doing Christmas at Thanksgiving with my family is that it sneaks up on me! But hubby said I did a great job with each and every one of the pages... many of the sayings were found on the internet- downloaded and printed out... time saving, despite the 6 hours I put into scrapping it all! That's not counting the time spent looking through, deciding on 2 photos for each month- which was hard! Plus, formatting them and sizing them down to get them to print on 2 pages of 8 1/2 x 11 photo paper! Good thing I know what I'm doing, or this could have taken weeks!

I'm happy to report that everything in these pages, I had on hand, and it's a good thing too, because if I would have tried going to the local Wal-Mart store and looking for what I want in the craft section, 9 out of 10 times, it's not there- they just don't have it anymore!

Mom and Dad are going to love this! I hope she will bring it to work and show it around for all my hard efforts, even if she just keeps it on her desk and nobody ever looks at it, I'm still proud at the work I've done. I almost don't want to give it away- some of my best scrap-booking pages- yet!

It'll be good to see them, I haven't seen them since early July, and I'll get to see my 99 year old grandmother... her mother (my great-grand mother) lived to be 103... so she has a few years, but we are already thinking of the grand celebration next October when she'll turn 100 years old!

Happy Thanksgiving, I am so blessed to have such an awesome kid and an amazing, hard working husband, so I can stay home with our child!

Halloween Fun!

My husband decided to dress up for work for Halloween at the last minute. He put this outfit together Thursday night for Friday morning. Yes, he shaved his goatee... this is how I met him 10+ years ago.... with no facial hair. Now, it's like a blast from my past every time I look at him. He looks so much younger. Yes, he's dressed as Bob the Builder.... because our son is Bob the Builder too!

Stephen (my son's friend) as Super Stephen and Christopher as Bob the Builder at the local PAT playgroup earlier this week. Christopher was not at all thrilled with having his picture taken... at least his friend was there to sit next to him, otherwise he wouldn't have been up there at all! It was fun, Kathy read a story to us, we did a craft or two, watching pre-schoolers play a version of musical chairs was hilarious. I loved the part when Christopher... deciding to opt-out most of the time, jumped in between the gap of the other children walking around the chairs, and with his hammer, he precisely hammered 3 bangs on one of the chairs, then jumped out of there before the other kids ran into him! Apparently, he had to 'fix' on of the chairs, as only Bob could do! We made a decoupage pumpkin this week, yes... it took all week, and no, it's not quite done yet. It's hard to tell an almost 3 year old little boy who loves to paint that he couldn't paint the 'pumpkin' on the first day, because at that point it was just a balloon! When we are done it will be a Jack-o-Lantern... for our last 2 weeks of the letter 'J' we have studied the topics: Jump, Jellybeans, Jack-o-Lanterns, Jets, etc.

Studying the letter J.... Jellyfish, Jet, Jack and Jill, Joker, Jack-o-Lanterns.... plus we read this book: Moonstruck: The True Story of the Cow Who Jumped Over the Moon.... then I took paper plates and cut them the shape of the moon and we practiced jumping over the moons like the cow in the book!

The Jack-o-Lantern Christopher made at the PAT playgroup!

Some stickers he got at the PAT playgroup... that we used the next day! Mixed in with his ghost stamp he loves and wants to have all the time! As you can see, he grouped the pumpkins... the top group has more than one pumpkin on the sticker, the left group are the single, round pumpkins, and the right group are the pumpkins that have cats or dogs next to them or on them. Smart kid... he did this all on his own.

He colored his Jet red and black!

Potty Training is tough....

So round 2 begins of Potty training my little boy.... he's over 2 1/2 (he'll be 3 in January).
A few weeks ago my husband put actual underwear on him and took him to the potty... we proceeded to go out to my husbands mom's house (the farm). Shortly after we got there he wet his pants- my son then proceeded to complain that it was cold! My husband wanted him to experience this... and my son did! Good thing for Grandmas who always have extra clothing for little boys!


This photo was taken at the exact time he was going, or at least about to go... can you see the concentration on his face? The interesting thing is that his dad wore those bibs when he was his age... yes my mother in law keeps stuff like that, and no, I don't know why... but I think it's nice to have some things from my husbands childhood that my son can now wear- which I know is rare, considering my husband has a younger brother and I'm sure both boys wore their clothes out... living on a farm might do that!

I was very productive the other day and printed out this Thomas & Friends Potty Training Chart, since my son loves all things Thomas! I then searched the internet high and low for some sort of stickers that I could use on my sticker paper I have to correspond to the chart I printed off.. (silly me thinking that this would motivate him.) At last I decided... why not make the stickers yourself? I have the skills and programs, everything I need to make a sheet of stickers for my little boy. So here are the corresponding stickers to go with the chart. I printed mine on clear sticker paper, but you could use white as well. So far, he's earned 2 stickers, one for upstairs and one for downstairs. Hopefully he'll earn more in the coming days!

We are studying the letter I this week and probably next week too, and it's pretty hard to find books that have anything pertaining to the letter 'I'... but I've started with Iowa, Insects, Igloo, Ice Cream. We loved this book: H is for Hawkeye... an Iowa Alphabet whatever I can get, sometimes I have to take! Plus, learning about a state I didn't grow up in it's fun to learn right along with Christopher! I grew up in Minnesota, so I know a lot about that state from growing up, but I've only learned what I know about Iowa in the 8+ years I've lived here.
Here's to the cutest kid in the universe! Being awesome on a day I decided to torture him and take him to the park for pictures, but not very long at the playground to play (it was lunch and nap time)! He's growing up so fast and there's nothing I can do to stop it!

Letter H Song

This is our new favorite YouTube Channel!! It's really hip, and they have done all the letters and even done the alphabet song in a hip-hop got the beat kind of music. The song also teaches them to 'write' the capital and lower cases of the letter in the air. But I stumbled upon their blog rather by accident, and now am in love with their videos they have on YouTube. Have Fun Teaching is great!

Since letter H is the letter of the week we are going to make helicopters, and yesterday we made a paper house with simple shapes. We are reading books that start with the letter H- like Halloween Howl, Hello Shoes!, Up in Heaven, Harbor, Horton Hatches the Egg , Henry and the Buccaneer Bunnies, etc.

Another thing I found and printed off for him was a list of H items in square boxes (2 whole pages)... surprisingly he knew what most of the things on each page were... there were a few complicated ones like hen (he called it a rooster), hook, and hut- and I can see how hut would be hard, seeing as no one that we know who lives in Iowa lives in huts. Get this download here, from Homeschool Launch... where you can network with other homeschoolers and share files too!

Maybe we will make a small cardboard house for his train table sometime this week too, which would include painting and I just usually try to avoid that all together... but maybe I need to jump in with both feet, and let him do it!

What does it mean to be a stay at home mom?

So I've been struggling with this question, as of late, and recently I've read some articles (one in a magazine and one online) that deals with this aspect of the women's role as a provider. Not so much as a provider, like the man provides the food- drags it home and kills it, but a provider in the home.

Titus 2: 3-5 tells us this:

Tell the older women to behave as those who love the Lord should. They must not gossip about others or be slaves of wine. They must teach what is proper, so the younger women will be loving wives and mothers. Each of the younger women must be sensible and kind, as well as a good homemaker, who puts her own husband first. Then no one can say insulting things about God's message. (Contemporary English Version)

One of the articles I read is here, the other article was in a magazine, but unfortunately is not online. The online article focuses on husband and wife, while the magazine article focuses on differences of boys and girls in learning.

So I told my husband the other night that being a stay at home mom isn't easy, he told me he knew this, but he has faith and confidence that I can do this. So whatever stereotype that was brought into my mind as a child or even as a young adult that stay at home moms don't do anything but sit around and watch juicy soap operas all day has been (thrown) far out the window! Do I enjoy my time in front of my TV?

Oh yeah, and maybe a little to much. The dishes need done, I don't have any clean clothes to wear because I haven't done laundry and I'm sitting here blogging instead of doing all of that. Why? Because it's nap time right now, and judging by the way my little 2 1/2 year old boy was acting right before he went down for nap, it should be a good 2 hours before he wakes up. I enjoy nap time more than he does- obviously. I get to do what I need to do, or want to do, and in yesterday's case, I sneaked in a nap myself!

Is the house a mess? Of course... does my husband expect it to be clean each day he comes home, like on Leave it to Beaver? I'm sure he would be ecstatic, but no, he just expects me to get something done. I love my husband, especially because he believes in me.

I was able to get some teaching time in with my son today, we are working on the letter G (we skipped F, because if you ask him to say Fish... it comes out sounding like "phish"). That's okay. The letter G is awesome, especially now because he has it in his head that anytime he puts a towel over his head he's a ghost, I made him a really cool box guitar (see photo) and of course we spent some quality time on Starfall this morning! I love that website, it's the best. Granted, I have to help him do a lot of the clicking, otherwise he gets click crazy like his mom! But it was so good because he's getting to the point where he's repeating everything on Starfall, and he loves the ABC song and was even trying to sing along with that.... so this website might actually help him learn his ABCs!

I had a friend over yesterday and showed her my whole house, and I told my husband that when he came home last night and he said, "so you showed her the mess, huh?" Yup. The crazy thing was, I didn't care, because her house isn't spotless either. We are both okay with each other's houses not being 'commercial' ready! I wish I had a clean house all the time, but lets be realistic! Is your house a show house, or are you actually living in it? If somebody were to walk into my house they would definitely know what kind of person I am- because I live in my house. I'm not the neat freak type person, never have been- just ask my parents! I told my girlfriend that it wasn't going to get any better. Wrong... it will get better. It just takes time and motivation- she knows that and so do I, the hard part is getting motivated!

My husband and I are currently in the process of moving our computer room down to our 'guest room' - albeit it hasn't been a guest room for some time, more like a storage/junk room! It's been a lot of work so far... and all the big stuff isn't even out! But I've taken 2 loads to Goodwill, and will take another load today, plus a drop off at the local outreach center! I feel good about getting rid of my stuff, and I feel good that I can help someone less fortunate than me.

Whoever is generous to the poor

lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed. Proverbs 19:17 ESV

Life As a Designer

I've set off on a new adventure. I've been busy writing up a proposal to design a website for a local non-profit agency. They don't have a website, and are needing one. So I hope they decide to go with Royall Design. Although we are a new company, we have plenty of experience, just no current clients to speak of, although we have a few happy clients that we have completed projects for in the past.

We don't have our company official, but hopefully this income will provide that shortly. I've decided to work about 10 hours a week on Royall Design projects. So, I'm trying to implement 'lightbox' onto our website and it's supposed to be easy to do, but for some reason I can't get it to work. It's a photo thing, where I would like to have a thumbnail of a previous project we have done and then it 'zooms' into the actual version, but for some reason I can't get it to work. I've done all the research I can possibly do, so hopefully my husband will have to help me on this one!

I've gone so far as to copy other websites that have this element on their website and copy paste it into my Dreamweaver program, but it doesn't work because I don't have their images on my computer. I'll get it figured out- I've never been the fastest learner in my family, so hopefully this is something that I can do, I just have to figure out how. I don't need it on the website that I'm going to design, but it would be a nice thing to know how to do for Royall Design's website.

Meanwhile, Christopher is growing by leaps and bounds and is always talking up a storm! He's all boy and enjoys shooting stuff with his guns (fingers) and making noise with anything that will make noise for him. He loves Thomas the Tank & Friends, and is into Dinosaurs and Dragons right now- he also loves Diego, Dora and Bob the Builder! He's so smart, and next week our letter of the week is "G" so we will be concentrating on things that start with G: Grandma, Grandpa, Guitar, Garage, Go, Goat, Grass, etc.

I'm making him a box guitar, and we'll probably do a craft that involves him collecting some grass and gluing it on to a piece of paper!

The photo above is Christopher, Grandma and Papa John worshiping at revival in Keokuk!

Summer Fun!!

So I've been working for the YMCA for the summer... not sure if I will continue on through the school year or not. When you are working for 1/2 pay, it's a hard decision to make! Plus when you get that job and that dis-qualifies your family for WIC (Women Infants and Children) program, and NEST- the local mom's group in Ottumwa that you can earn points for going to doctors appointments, participating in PAT (Parents as Teachers) and going to weekly meetings. Those points can then be used to buy diapers, and other things my child needs at the NEST store.

I haven't been able to go to these things, and miss going to the library every Friday for story time to talk with other moms!

It's not that I'm working for 1/2 pay, it's that I'm only taking 1/2 of my actual paycheck home because of daycare costs! I miss being home with my son.... and I think truthfully my husband misses me being home with our son as well! Sure, he's fine at the YMCA Child Development Center, but I like to get an update of cute things he did during the day, what he's done that was naughty, etc. I don't get that there, and I don't know how his day is going because I'm usually not even in the same building.

Christopher at the YMCA holding a worm- with the 'big kids' at the YMCA... we had a worm farm this summer!

McKena and Christopher on the alter at Youth Camp 2010- she's wearing his hat... does that mean anything when you are 2?

Last week Christopher and I took a little mini-vacation by ourselves and went to church camp with the youth for part of the week. I'm kind of the camp's webmaster, so I needed to take photos, and we did have fun! Now I have a lot of work ahead of me to upload photos, get other people's photos, and creating a place on the website.

I have one more week working at the YMCA... then Roy and I are needing to look at our expenses, my income and if it's worth it or not for me to work or stay home with our son. I miss teaching him his ABCs and getting all that together... right now he thinks every color is either pink or green- so we need to work on that... and he's right on the verge of actually wanting to be potty trained. Why do boys have to be so hard to do that?

So I have a lot of goals for myself and for Christopher, and it's hard to implement them if I'm only here with him half days (he naps before I go to work when school is back in session.) So we shall see, what becomes of the job.

Logically, I need to stop working otherwise I'll have to re-name this blog! LOL

Hope your summer was a great one. Here's some of the things that I was able to do:

Go to a St. Paul Saints Game with family

Minnesota Children's Museum in St. Paul

Como Zoo in St. Paul with family :)

Mall of America

Youth Camp 2010 at Inspiration Acres

Vacation Bible School teacher at Zion Community Church of God

Big Bang 2010

Jordan Creek Shopping Center

Iowa City to see family

Wapello County Fair

The Beach Ottumwa (several times)

Albia Pool (loved it!)

Rollerskating

Knoxville Sprint Car Museum

Pioneer Ridge Nature Center

Nelson Pioneer Farm

Toured Ottumwa Airport

Toured Al-jon Mfg.

Created a library for the YMCA Summer Safari

I've been blessed this summer and yes, I have photos from almost everyone of these events- some of them I can not show you because they 'belong' to the YMCA. But, my goodness- I've been a busy lady! Hope your summer was as good as mine was!

Life Goes On

So, I've been a busy mommy! I have successfully organized and supported Olan Mills coming to our church to get portraits done. It was a busy 2 months of April and May! I am still working on the final design of the church directory that everyone will get for participating. I am anxiously awaiting our family portraits and still deciding where to place them on my walls....

Where did the month of May go? Some years it seems like I always want May to last just a little longer because I know when June and July hit it's going to be HOT!!! But I shouldn't say that this year, because come the end of May we did put the air conditioner in my little boy's window- haven't gotten the one in our bedroom window in yet. That was supposed to be done this weekend by the hubby... but we were out 'playing' at the farm this weekend. His mom's place, where he grew up, and usually when he goes out there he isn't playing- he's working- I'm playing :)

I enjoy the farm, but this past Monday (Memorial Day) I would have chosen to be anywhere else other than the farm. You see, earlier this spring, my mother-in-law thought it would be a good idea to get some meat maker chickens. Great, except she bought like over 50 of them! So this past weekend was D-day for some of the chickens... the rest are having their day soon! I don't have a very strong stomach, I have never claimed to and so I watched the kid and a friend of ours kid while she was helping with the chickens. I didn't enjoy going over to grab my child from the hen house area when there were (excuse me- if I get kind of graphic here) chicken heads laying on the ground. It just didn't seem appropriate that my child be in there at the time. He went in there because he enjoys helping grandma feed and water the chickens, and putting down new sawdust. I walked back to where it was okay for them to play- and of course I gagged. Twice. Not fun. I don't enjoy doing this, it's something that my body has done more frequently since I had my son. Road kill... don't think about it or the gagging reflex will happen.

I was lucky- the first day they did the chickens- I was absent- I was home. The second day they did chicken... not so lucky- I saw way to much- and mind you that's why I'm not posting any photos- because I didn't even Feel like taking my camera out during that day- to disgusting to even get chicken feet in the background of my son playing.

The way I would have rather spent Memorial Day? Driving around to grave yard sites of my husbands ancestors. Don't ask me how that's different and better- but it is. I enjoy genealogy(when I find the time)... I enjoy taking photos of grave markers and maybe I should have done that with my son anyway and placed some flowers on his grandfather's grave- a man I never met. A veteran. A dad. Now a grandfather. A husband. A hard-working man.

So here's to the father-in-law I never met: thanks for serving your country, thanks for being a dad to my husband, and a husband to his mom, thanks for taking care of the farmland we all love so much, I wish I could have met you- hopefully I'll meet you in Heaven one day.

Clifford Duane Howk

Born December 31, 1949

Died March 25, 1999

Buried: Zion Community Church of God Cometary on Copperhead Road

No TV Tuesdays!!!

Thanks to my local mom friend, Julie, we are trying something new, No TV on Tuesdays! Which is especially hard because Tuesdays are my day off..... and all I want to do is veg out in front of the TV.

But I can honestly say this past Tuesday Christopher did not watch any TV, despite the fact that mommy had to sneak in a few episodes of Jon & Kate Plus 8 while he was taking a nap! And I might have enjoyed some TV with Roy after Christopher went to bed for the night! I will do better next week! Hopefully the weather will still be nice and we can take a bike ride to the park!
So I am looking into finding someone else to care for Christopher while I'm at work... I love the program at the YMCA, and the fact that I get a discount, but it's getting ridiculous if I get a paycheck and all of it, plus $10 goes back to the YMCA for child care! So we are going to look at a place this morning... hopefully this will be the one, because a lot of home child care centers don't take part-time kids- or are full, like my neighbor. I wish Jennifer wasn't full, but she is- that would be nice- but oh well!

I am busy getting ready for Olan Mills to come next Monday and Tuesday afternoons to our church for Portraits- we are finally getting a new church directory- after a good 11 years, it's well needed for the new people who are in the church, and certainly might not know how to contact anyone! It was a year ago this past March that I was actually working for Olan Mills, and then after 2 weeks of being on the road- I decided I couldn't leave my precious little boy and my husband alone while I worked for Olan Mills. It was a decision I don't regret one bit.... there was a time in my life I wouldn't have minded traveling and meeting new people, but not after having a child. In the short 2 weeks of training that I had I pretty much made my poor husband a single dad.... never again... especially when I was gone for a good week before I came home for a day and a half and my son didn't even recognize me :( He was scared... and at 14 months I would have been scared too if my mommy had left and didn't come back for days!

Since I've last blogged on here, we've been introduced to Vemma, a liquid vitamin supplement, that tastes yummy! It's got Manogsteen in it (it's a fruit). We take a shot of it every morning and seem to have more energy throughout the day... breakouts on my face seem to be less and few and far between than before taking Vemma. They have one product, but several different ways to get it into your system. They have Vemma NEXT for kids, Vemma Verve! an energy drink- but it's actually good for you! They also have Vemma Thirst that you can add to a bottle of water!

This is also something that you can sell to other people, and my husband and I are thinking about getting into, but the money isn't there right now to start a business... but once we do we can have our Vemma that we get paid for..... we just have to introduce it to people who are also interested in the product or even the business!

So if you are looking for extra income.... and an easy opportunity. Or are looking to stop taking all those morning and evening vitamins and just want something much easier- contact me and I can help you out!

To Be Employed or Not....

So.... working at the YMCA has been beneficial for me emotionally.... I get out of the house... it's not all about me and Christopher.... I feel like I'm contributing to society as a whole.

But financially it's been not so great... the extra income has put us over the income guidelines for WIC (Women Infant and Children) Program. Gets us free food, able to shop at the farmer's market in the summer with vouchers. The free food is what we like most- Christopher does have to eat, ya know!

But because I work on Friday afternoons, when they have NEST meetings, I am no longer earning points to gain free diapers... so we now have to pay for those out of pocket- I can't remember the last time before that I actually bought and paid for diapers with my money... that's how great the NEST program is!

Plus I decided to put Christopher into the Child Development Center to be around other kids his age.... his language skills aren't what some of his peers are- but then again he's a boy, and usually when he has something to say, he will say it! But I'm unsure of how the YMCA is charging us- because if they are charging us for a full day of care, when Christopher is only there for a couple of hours- I might have to look at other options.....

One option might be dropping him off at my neighbor's house- because she has a home day care and it's right next door, which would save on gas and travel costs of dropping Christopher off! I will have to see and take another look at our options for Christopher while I'm at work!

Summer may be an entirely different story.... I may be bringing in more money than now- working 6 hour shifts... but not more than 32 hours a week.

Yes, I'm a stay at home mom, but I have a job- I think I need it for my sanity!

It's not as if I'm not happy with the Child Care center at the YMCA- they are great- and they do tons of activities and art projects with him- but it's almost advantageous for me to drop him off at 8am or whenever and go work another part- time job in the mornings.

So these things all add up, gas costs for driving to the Y, then to the church-site, child care costs, clothing costs, etc.

The budget doesn't call for the food that WIC pays for or even diapers- and diapers are expensive, as most of you moms know!

We'll be looking into our options for the little one- as one of my co-workers put it "he just needs to come here!" Yes and no. That'd be great on one level... on another... all mommies need a break from their children- and this is my short break!

Life goes on and I have some investigating to do!

Old Mail

Sorting through some old mail today on our overgrown mail center I find this letter from Google.... I love mail from Google..... only because we have our own business we are wanting to start.

Royall Design

But low and behold... it's a historic day for Royall Design, because we are a Favorite Place on Google! Little old Royall Design has become a Favorite Place- not that we've had any business from this, mind you- but the statistics say that our business has been searched for some 129 times... and directions have been asked to our house 39 times. Really? Because these people aren't showing up at our house! Not for Royall Design, anyway!

Read more about it here:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/explore-whole-new-way-to-window-shop.html



Meanwhile, we've survived our "D" week of ducks, dinosaurs, "dots" on our capital D, and even a half coloring page of Diego made it on our letter wall.... it's on to the letter "E" and I have found out that the local library will be closed for the whole month of April for remodeling... good and bad feelings about this! No story time in April makes me sad :( How will I get my books for the weeks of up coming alphabet weeks? They said to call ahead and see if they are there or not, I guess. So that's what I'll do... or travel 30 miles to a different library for the month of April... which could be done, then I can have an excuse to go to story time in Osky and make a run to Smokey Row Coffee House!

Life goes on and Spring Break is upon us- which means longer hours for me, but it should be a fun week- for the kids we have several activities planned- swimming, roller skating, even a tour of a local fire building! The first day will be super fun because it'll be a Luau themed party! I'll have to get my water squirt guns out and all my Luau stuff from the basement- it'll be so much fun!

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, and although I'm not Irish, it is fun to see the kids get all excited about little leprechauns coming to 'visit' them when they aren't looking! Christopher and I get to go to a play date at a local church and will be sure to bring our bubbles and our bubble machine! He's excited about that!

Here's to a cheerful St. Patrick's Day!

Gifts to Grow, NEST & PAT

I've realized since I've had my son two years ago that I should have signed up for Pampers Gifts To Grow... where you can earn points for putting in codes found on diapers and wipes containers.... as soon as I was buying diapers! I would probably have a lot more points than I do now, but oh well....

I found some free codes online with just a little bit of looking:

These codes are worth 10 points each!

WELCOMEBONUS089

JUSTBECAUSE2009

WELCOME2GTG2010

GRATUIT89102009

OHAMANDAAWGTG08

STARTEARNINGNOW

GROWWITHVILLAGE

THRIFTYMOMMYGTG

XKCMYXFVD96VXVK

JOINTHEFUNGTG09

That's 100 points if you enter all of them!

These two codes are worth 30 each!

GTGTEAMUSA2010

GTGPLAY2USA2010

for a grand total of 130 points... so I can actually get something from the program now, but I'm of course saving up for the 2,500 item of the LeapFrog® Fridge Phonics® Magnetic Alphabet for Christopher!

I had been getting my diapers for free... but now that I am working part time, I'm not sure if I will be able to participate in the Wapello County NEST program. Although it's a great program, it's doesn't look like it's going to fit into my schedule anymore. I enjoyed the free diapers, wipes and other items while it lasted! I especially enjoyed getting to know some other moms in the area, and my son has made some good friends out of this program as well! It's not income based, and anyone can join (as long as you are pregnant and/or have a child under the age of 3). You earn points by attending weekly classes, going to story time at the library, and of course by going to doctor appointments for you and baby! Points are then redeemed for diapers and wipes (mostly) in the NEST store- if you bring a support person with you to meetings and doctor visits, you get extra points. You also get points for getting and being involved with PAT (Parents As Teachers) which SIEDA handles in several counties in Southeast Iowa. PAT is a great program too, because the Parent Educators come to your house, on your time- they also have scheduled play groups where the kids can come and do activities related to the theme of that play group! It's really fun and usually involves a small snack at the end.

You really can't beat a program like this in the economy we are in now! The program is run by Iowa State Extension Office of Wapello County- in downtown Ottumwa.

I've been involved in NEST since I was four months pregnant with Christopher and I've been involved with PAT since Christopher was less than a year old (but they do offer pre-natal visits). If you have any questions, feel free to ask!