Things on my mind...

• I'm going back to work in 4 days.

• I only have 4 more days with my little man all to myself. What shall we do?

• I'm excited to go back to work.

• I'm excited that I'll be helping my family bring home some bacon.

• I'm excited that my boss is excited about me starting. (That makes me feel appreciated already.)

• I'm grateful to my Heavenly Father for blessing me with the comfort I needed to decided to go back to work after 2 1/2 years.

• I'm grateful that I found a job and landed it with only 1 interview under my belt.

• I'm grateful my husband is getting laid off so that he will {hopefully} have a better job soon.

• I'm grateful that we had a lot of warning before they laid him off.

• I'm grateful that Rob has had 4 companies interested in him this week.

• And that he's had 2 phone interviews, an in person interview (today) and another one on Tuesday.

• I'm grateful for my sister in law, Sarah, for sacrificing her time to be with Logan when I go back to work. Logan is going to love being with baby Benson everyday!

• I'm grateful to {soon} have the funds to pay sister Sarah, cuz they need it too.

• I'm grateful for ice cream, even though I don't have any right now :(

• I'm grateful for FB and the ability to reconnect with long lost BFF's. You can never have too many :)

• I'm grateful for free personal trainers that kick start my body into being a better me.

• I'm grateful that so many of my friends are being blessed with little bundles of joy in the next 9 months or less.
  

• I'm grateful that Heavenly Father knows best and that I didn't get pregnant in the last 6 months (we were trying). Too many uncertain things going on. Maybe in a year or 2.
  

I know there are million other things I'm grateful for right now, they just aren't coming to mind.

• I'm worried about juggling work life and home life. I've never been in this boat before. Someone throw me a life vest, please.
  

• I'm worried that Logan won't adjust as well as I think he will.
  

• I will be happy when I'm not the "new girl" anymore. However, it is a good excuse.

• I will be so relieved when our debt is finally paid off!!!
  

• I am already looking forward to the "debt-free celebration" we are going to have when that happens.

Homemade {cheap/free} Picture Frames

I was desperate to get some pictures that I had from a long time ago up on our walls. But you usually need funds to buy picture frames. We were/are fresh out, especially for picture frames. So I let my imagination go for a walk through our house. {Light bulb moment!!!} Hey, I said to myself {since no one else is listening}, you have cardboard, semi-cute scrapbook paper, hot glue and ribbon. I'm pretty sure I can make this work. So I did. Enjoy!

Cut out some cardboard (not too thin, but you could certainly go as thick as you wanted) to whatever size your picture is. All of mine were 8x10.
Lay it out just to make sure it fits. Depending on the picture you may want to trim some cardboard off.

I have learned a few things since I took this picture. It would be way easier, if possible, to use one big piece of paper and cut a hole for the center and fold it over the edges. I didn't have any paper THAT big. Scrapbook paper wasn't big enough to fold over the edges.

Anyway, if you're like me, just cut strips with enough extra paper to fold over the edge and use a hot glue gun to glue it down.

{Our camera's viewing screen has a crack in it, so I can't preview the pics before I upload them. Sorry this one is blurry.}
I was trying to show that I folded the corners over.

This is after I assembled them, but before they got a good coat of modge podge.
For the modge podge, apply 3-? however many coats you think looks good. My number was 3. Let dry for about 15-20 minutes between coats. Then let dry for a few hours before continuing on to the next step.

Then I put each picture in a page protector and taped it to the back of the frame.
Then I cut a piece of ribbon and hot glued that on, it's the frames hanging device. I'm kinda in love with ribbon, just so you know :)

Tah-dah! Black frame with red ribbon.

Red and black frame with striped ribbon. I'm super in love with the red frame. I'm just bummed I didn't have more of it.

Black frame again and the striped frame is red, black and white tissue paper I had on hand and I also heart.
Note to self: tissue paper wrinkles a lot, duh. Stick with card stock.
Note to self #2: Off white paper looks really bad, stick to darker colors. {I'll be refinishing the off white frames you saw in the other pictures}.

Wall in my dining room.

It was pretty fun to come up with a free project that was needed in our home. I will be making a lot more of these bad boys.

Today...

Logan requested "cakes" for breakfast. So that's what I made, pancakes :)

I loaded the dishwasher and started it.

I took Logan to the theater to see Charlotte's Web- the one with real people. Logan would have preferred the cartoon version. We should have seen Planet 51. Oh well, we made it through.

I put Logan down for a much needed nap.

I emptied the dishwasher.

I filled the dishwasher again and ran it again.

All dirty dishes are now clean. Mmm, feels good.

I vacuumed. The whole bloody house. Yuck is the only word to describe what was on my floors. it makes my skin crawl.

I cleaned our bathroom and Laura's bathroom. Again, yuck.

I mopped said yucky floors. Rinsing and re-dunking 1 million times. I like clean floors. At this point, I could guarantee that my floors are clean enough to eat off of.

I am sitting on my bum. A well deserved break.

I am sitting in silence {except for the sound machine in the next room and the clicking of the keyboard} stressing about everything ELSE that has to be done.

I need a job.

With a job {hopefully} coming, that means daycare for my only son that has never been to daycare.

I have a talk that needs to be prepared for Sunday. All I have is a page and a half of facts about me, Logan and Rob to introduce ourselves to the Ward. Great. You think that's good enough? I do. If I end early then Rob will just pick up the slack. How early is too early? I need motivation.

We need to make it to Friday with only 19 buckaroos in the account.

We have a birthday dinner at Ixtapa tonight for my Aunt. I'm excited about eating the food, just not about paying for the food.

I want Rob, Logan and my brother Garrett to be able to go to the Father/Son camp out this weekend. But with talks due Sunday, it doesn't seem very possible. Poo.

I want my throat to stop hurting. It hurts almost every night around 8ish. Stupid. I really don't want to go to the doctor just so she can tell me it will go away on it's own. Thank you, I could've used that advice before I paid you 20 bucks.

I need to get back to the gym. This stupid cold has kept me away for 2 weeks! Enough.

And it's only 2 o'clock.

Happy {belated} Easter 2010

Logan was so much more fun this year then last. He was so excited to find his loot down stairs. It contained 6 Sesame Street books and some candy that I may or may not have eaten all by myself. Logan is so easy to please at this age. It's great!

Time for the hunt...

So our morning was pretty chill then it was off the my Aunt Karen's for the rest of the day.
And aside from Logan not taking a nap, the day was pretty fun.

We started off by opening our Easter baskets from Nana's house. Even us adults get a basket still, awesome! We all got Peeps, among many other things that I can't remember because I'm a slacker and didn't post this right away. I chose to be the "cool" mom on Easter and let Logan eat a million trillion Peeps.
#1

#2

Oooo, Nana was super clever and put banana chips in the little boys' eggs instead of candy! Logan thought that was the coolest ever!

I'm sure there is another Peep in that sticky mouth. So, #3.

Is Elliott saying "cheese" or "chubby bunny"? Should be the later, look at those cheeks!

#4 and a hug, so sweet.

This is still probably #4, but I'm gonna say #5 since I didn't get a picture of the million trillion before, after and in between.

#6

My cousin Lucas, with his little bunny foo-foo. The best part of Easter.

"Can I really touch the bunny, Mom?"

Time to find the Easter Eggs! Thanks Easter Bunny.

Some were easy.

Some he had to work for.

Phew, that was hard work.

He tried to crack every egg he touched. He thought that was the coolest part.

A Carnivore in the Making

So if you're like me, every time you go to Costco you pick up a rotisserie chicken in the deli. They are to. die. for. I love to shred it all up and freeze for future meals. On this particular night we were eating part of it for dinner, fresh. Mmmm. Our little fruit-atarian decides to dig right in before Rob and I could even get to the table. Man, what a beast! He was clearly going through a must. have. meat. phase. I wish he went through that every day. Trying to be polite by using his fork.

Forget the fork, who needs em anyways?!

Man, I love that boy!

Didn't your mother ever tell you...

not to play with your food?! Logan and I were having a picnic in the living room and he made a bat (the flying kind) out of his bagel. I want to tell you he did it on purpose cause he's just that smart, but he really had no idea until I showed him his masterpiece.

Didn't I tell you that Logan is expecting?

The proof is in the pudding, folks.

Oh, that's the pudding.

He is in love with balloons!

This is for the birds. Or...

the ducks. Trip number 2 to the park in Bellevue (end of March).
The first time we went we were empty handed. This time, I had some stale bread that I was about to toss, so we fed it to the ducks.

Logan was in Heaven, of course.

Julie and Elliott also joined us. While we were standing there, some little girl runs over and says to Julie "you're not supposed to feed the ducks". She then runs back over to her mom and says "K, I told them". Way to send your little girl to do your dirty work, just put your big girl pants on tell me yourself! I'm sure we weren't supposed to, but they didn't have any signs, I looked.

All gone!

Just-my-size-drinking-fountain.

That's Logan saying cheese, he has to use his hands too. Funny kid.