2 kids is a piece of cake!

So since the 2 kids are at Grandma's, I got a lot done today! It felt so good to clean a room and when I left and came back, it was still clean! The two little girls aren't as messy as Jordan and Jocee are. I cleaned up Jordan and Jocee's bedroom--even under their beds! Boy do they like to hide stuff under there! They don't think I know they put stuff under there--but Moms know everything!
I even had a little tee party with Katee and Callie! It was so fun! Katelyn was cooking and baking all kinds of pretend food. She had a blast. Callie wasn't quite sure about me eating nothing. She kept opening her mouth for a bite and then when I'd giver her a pretend bite she made a face like "uh Mom, there's nothing there!" They were so cute playing together.
My house was so quiet. No tv's blaring with Spongebob! Yeaaa!

We started out the day taking Callie to her 1 yr old well child checkup. She only weighs 17 lbs and is 27in tall. The dr was concerned about her weight because she's not gaining so she told me to give her Pediasure every day to help her pack on some lbs. That stuff's not cheap though! Maybe I can find a coupon. She had to get 3 shots, poor girl!

When it rains it pours!

Just an update on our van situation: We dropped it back off to them 2 Saturdays ago because when Chad's Dad drove it home earlier on Saturday he said it was still hot. So he called the guy and told him what he thought it might be and the guy said to bring it back asap and they would work on it first thing Monday morning (last Monday). Well, we never received any phone calls. We always had to initiate the call to find out what was going on. He told Chad's Mom that they had run all the tests they could on it and couldn't find anything so they were going to take it to a Nissan dealership to see if they could run other tests that might find the problem. Well, they discovered the problem and back it went to the Mazda dealership for them to fix it. So that was Wednesday. We hadn't got a call from them at all, so Chad called on Friday to find out what was going on and when he asked for the guy who's been handling our vehicle he said that he no longer worked there!! So now we have a new guy who seems to be nicer than the other guy. Although he told Chad that it was almost done and we would be able to pick it up hopefully by the end of the day. Well, no call Friday. No call Saturday. So Chad called again today and the guy said that it was fixed and that we could pick it up today. I couldn't believe it. I called and arranged for Chad's mom to go down with me to pick it up. About 30 minutes later Chad called me and said he got a call from the dealership and they said that it wasn't working anymore so we couldn't come pick it up! Oh my heck!!! When are they gonna get it right?? I don't know what to do at this point. My van has been at that place for about 3 weeks now and they wouldn't even give us a rental car again after the first week. So if Chad's aunt and uncle didn't have an extra van for us to use, we would have been stuck at home for the last 2 weeks and counting.

Then, the truck's registration was due by today and it needed an emissions test. So Chad went today after work and it failed! So if we want the truck to get registered, we have to get a bunch of stuff fixed on it so it will pass emissions! When it rains it pours!! Then for some odd reason while I was figuring out what bills to pay today I totally forgot about one bill that gets automatically deducted at the end of the month! So we are probably gonna go over because I had already used all the money to pay other things. So we'll probably get some lovely fees to pay. Bills stink. Money too--it stinks not to have enough and from what I hear, it causes problems when you have too much! (I obviously don't know about that though. Maybe some day.) I know that we have experiences to make us stronger and to teach us. I guess I'm not a fast learner ;( LOL...

Callie's First Birthday Weekend

It all started with a swim party at the Gardiner's house for Uncle Peter's birthday on Friday. The kids had a blast swimming with all their cousins. They swam the whole time!! By the end of the night, they were exhausted! There was tons of really good food and conversations with family we don't see that often.

Here's Jocee and Jillian playing on the Crazy Twister!



Jordan getting ready to jump in!

All the cousins eating their dinner. Katelyn, Jocelyn, Jillian, Chloe, Kenya or Kira (not sure which twin, sorry Susan!), and Bradley.
After dinner, we made ice cream in a bag! We had to shake the bag like crazy to get it to freeze the mixture. After a while, my arm was tired! But the ice cream was good though! We added chocolate chips to it too.
Daddy and Callie hanging out.
Katelyn enjoying her ice cream! Yummy!
Jordan and his best buddy (cousin) Kyle enjoying their ice cream in chairs in the corner of the yard. I went over to take their picture and Jordan said, "Mom, this is the greatest day of my whole life!!!" It was hilarious!
Here's me shaking my bag making some ice cream.
Then we sang to Callie and she got her own little cupcake (thank you Erika!).
She loved it!!


"Mmmmmmmmmm!!!"
"That was soooooo good!" She ate every last bite of it!
On Saturday, my mom and brother came in to town with my dad (he had to work) and we hung out and had a little party for her. I took Jordan to a party in the morning and didn't have to pick him up till 3pm! It was nice to have one less child to worry about for a while. So I hadn't had time to get Callie a present so my mom, Jocee and I went shopping while Chad worked in the yard with Katelyn and Callie slept. It was so nice to get out with only one child and get to hang out with my mom. Since gas is so high and she lives so far, we don't get out to Coolidge that often. And when we do, I don't get to just hang out with my mom with all the kids running around her house. It was a nice break from the every day mumbo jumbo. I think Jocee really enjoyed being with her Mom and Grandma by herself too. She was really good..


After we ate homemade tacos with all the trimmings I let Callie open her presents. She found us wrapping them in the bedroom and really wanted to open them. So I figured, "I'm the Mom. I set the rules. I can let her open her presents whenever I want!"

Grandpa got her some cute nesting toys.
Grandma got her some keys that had a little beeper thing on it that had buttons that play different sounds. She loved pushing those buttons! She also got this train that plays music, has games, and teaches numbers and even math! So it will be a great toy for all the kids! I'm gonna have Jordan play the math games on it so he will get better at math. I looked for toys at Wal-Mart and they were freakin' expensive! So we went to Once Upon a Child and got her some great musical toys for a fraction of the retail price!

This little phone book toy was so cheap and she loves it! I love a bargain!

Her beautiful birthday dress I got her to wear on Sunday.

My mom got her these adorable Levi's. They were on clearance at Mervyns and they were really cheap too!
She also got her this pretty pink dress for cheap too. We got some really good deals today, which is why she got so many presents. We are awesome shoppers!


After playing with her toys, she climbed into the little cubby in the entertainment center! She thinks it's so funny and she loves to climb in and out and just laugh at us! She's so stinkin' cute!!!

I got her these cute sunglasses at the dollar store. She thought they were so funny!


Katelyn helping her put them on upside down.

I love this picture of Katee. Look at her eyes underneath the glasses! So cute!


My adorable little 1 year old!!! I am the luckiest mom!!

Since I wasn't home much all day, I didn't make Callie's cake, my Mom made it for me while I was out picking up my dad from work and getting some last minute items. My sister came over too and she (along with some helpers) was kind enough to decorate the cake for me. The kids had so much fun 'writing' on the cake.

The final product! Isn't it pretty?!

After all the presents, Callie was really tired and wanted to go to bed. So she actually was asleep while we sang to her and ate her cake!! Oh well, at 1, she doesn't know the difference! Saturday wasn't really her birthday anyways!

Here she is in her new birthday dress with our dog, Rocky by her side.







Chad, Katelyn, and I sang to her and gave her a piece of her cake. (Jordan and Jocee went to Grandma's house for a while. Jordan's last day of summer school was Thursday and all he's kept wanting to do was "go on vacation to Grandma's house!" so she let them go home with her on Saturday night.)






Grandma Gardiner brought over some presents for her today. She liked these little bath puppets!

She also got her this cute My First Baby. She immediately hugged it and kissed it and held it. How can a 1 year old already have motherly instincts?


Then her finale present was this really cute farm toy that plays songs and sounds and stuff! She loves it! She and Katelyn played with it all night.

Katelyn was trying to sing along and repeating the words. So it's helping her with her speech too! Woo hoo!! Isn't she cute?!

Hair Day

Today we went to our cousin's house for a hair cut. Jocee wanted her hair cut a little bit shorter and she went first.
Here she is sitting so still. Before:
After:

Katelyn's needed to be trimmed too. So she was next.
Before:


After:
Then it was my turn. Here's a couple of before pictures to show how long my hair was.


After:



A before picture of me and Jocee:


After:


I was in a rut and tired of my hair looking bland and boring. Plus it's so hot that I just put it up in a ponytail anyways so I was ready for it to be short and off my back. My cousin is going to beauty school and was willing to give me some highlights and a new style. She did the color first, then while it was processing, she did the girls' cuts, then washed out mine and cut and styled it. I think she did a great job! Thank you Aarin!! We all love our new hair!