15 seconds

If you ever wondered what could happen in 15 seconds...

Picture us at a church potluck. Tony has taken Kaiya to the potty (for the 5th time since sitting at the table), our friends are feeding Kaleb his lunch and I'm finally in line fixing my own plate. I take the plate back to my table and sit down. I am engaged in a conversation with someone I have just met and talk for approx. 10-15 seconds. My mommy radar goes off as out of the corner of my eye I see something strange in my son's hands. Yep. That was my chocolate cake...

This is possibly twice as funny because our kids are allowed NO sugar. :) We've been sticklers about it all of Kaiya's life and it is something we really try to watch. Kaiya's 1st birthday cake was all natural and sweetened with honey. Her 2nd birthday was a fruit sculpture. So... the kid is 9 months and he has officially had more sugar than Kaiya has had ever. :) It was priceless.

Where has all the gas gone?

Ummm... Hello?? We need gas down here in Charlotte!!

We have been searching for gas for the past 3 days. It seems none is to be found. Tony has been gone for the past hour and a half looking. We've heard the wait for gas at stations that miraculously have some is 2+ hours. Police are directing traffic into and through the stations. Good thing because I'm sure there is plenty of gas rage out there.

Needless to say we haven't gone out much in the past few days. We're conserving for very important things. Like... all of our out-of-town guests. This weekend is going to be busy for us. Tomorrow, Ruthie (my sister) is coming up for a few days. Her boyfriend, Chris Allen, is performing about and hour north of us. So she is hitching a ride with the band and hanging out with us. I'm excited about this for several reasons... she's taking Kaleb's 9 month pictures, I've missed her since she basically lived with us for 2+ years, and it will be fun to talk. Our good friends Austin & Kristina are coming for a few days as well. We're so happy they are making us a part of their vacation! While they are here we are going to have a few couples that we went to college with over so it will be a packed weekend, but when you don't know anyone in your town you really welcome busy-ness. :)

I wanted to also share my sister's blog w/ you. You can find the link on my followers section below. Or just type: www.rutheileenhaun.blogspot.com and find her that way. She is a budding photographer and has a few pics posted. She just got this blog up and running so you will only see a couple posts, but I think you'll be impressed! :) I was... of course she is family... but seriously. She's good. If you think so, make sure to leave her a comment and tell her. :) Being that she is a budding photographer she needs all the encouragement she can get!

Wordless Wednesday

Things I love

1) Having some random landscape company mow your yard while someone else must be paying for it. Sweet! They have come twice now, so even though our lease says we are responsible the property manager must not have informed the mower. To quote Tony: "I'm not saying anything!"

2) Rainbow chip frosting - my favorite birthday treat. I bought myself a jar of frosting on Friday and have been enjoying it since.

3) Mums - just picked up six that I am going to plant later today.

4) Potty Training successes - while we have had a small relapse today and yesterday, overall we had an excellent week of potty training. Accidents have been minimal and manageable and I have enjoyed the M&M rewards just as much as she has. :)

5) New Furniture - We are going to pick up a new couch today. It's the one on the bottom left in brown. The price is right and it will be sufficient until we can afford to get a living room set. Plus... it's not going to spot or stain from the kids. You might need to click the pic to see a bigger image.

6) Garage Sales & Craigslist - had fun going with Kaiya Satuday. She's such a big girl and actually fun company now. :) I love craigslist because we have sold our washer/dryer set, microwave and bed frame in the past week. Now just have to sell a stroller and rug and I'll be 5 for 5.

Friday Night Fun

It's Friday night. If you had told me 10 years ago that this is what I would be doing on a Friday night I might have laughed. :) The 60's were a good year for me....

1960

1964

1966

1990

Okay... now your turn! Go to www.yearbookyourself.com and do your photo. Leave me a comment so I can see yours... :)

Kaiya's Dresser

I was in desperate need of a dresser for Kaiya. When we lived in Florida we didn't need to purchase one for Kaleb because we had big beautiful closets with tons of built in organizers. When moving in we decided to keep the dresser Kaiya previously used with the crib and changing table set since it matches. So she needed a new one.

Saturday she and I ventured out to yardsale with hopes of finding something that would work. We found it for $10! An old white dresser with black knobs that needed a repaint job. We brought it home and that afternoon I went to Lowe's for paint. $15 later I had the paint I needed. After getting it painted, it just didn't look right with the black knobs. So I started looking for white knobs. I didn't know how expensive those little boogers are! The whole point of buying a dresser at a yard sale was to get by with spending as little money as possible. So I wasn't a big fan of spending $10+ on white knobs. Fortunately I thought of Habitat for Humanity Restore shops. We have a couple here and they just happened to have white knobs -- for 50 cents each!!!

So here is the finished product -- for a grand total of $30.

Protect Our Children Act

While I don't agree with everything "Oprah" from time to time there are things she supports that I can be passionate about as well. This is one of those things. Her show yesterday was on child pornography and sexual abuse in this country. Much of the episode brought tears to my eyes and put a pit in my stomach -- and having two precious children made this even more real to me. These predators are everywhere and like me, I'm sure my readers agree that they need to put more resources into catching these creeps and putting them behind bars.

The PROTECT Our Children Act is a bi-partisan bill (meaning that it supported by both Republicans and Democrats alike) and passed in the House 415-2. This Act would give the law enforcement the money they need to be able to hire more officers to save these children. Because that is the problem. We have the technology to be able to catch these guys. We just don't have the manpower. One of the officers that she interviewed said that it eats at him that every night when he goes home and there is a stack of work on his desk that has to wait until tomorrow, that stack is little lives being damaged.

I'm sure you can find clips of the episode on You Tube or Oprah's website. But more importantly I wanted to urge you to write your Senator and ask them to pass this Bill. The Senate recesses on Sept 26 and we really need this bill to pass before then. Here's a link to Oprah's website which provides you the information you need to find your senators and contact them. It also has a letter -- already written -- so we're just talking about a copy/paste here.

http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20080911_tows_predators

And pray for these little babies who need rescued.

Reason #259 Why I Love Trader Joe's

Found these fun noodles on a recent trip to Trader Joe's. Kaiya had a blast eating them... it is actually the longest it took her to eat noodles. She took so long eating them she didn't even ask for seconds. :) Pretty unusual!

Fruit Sculptures

Here is the latest fruit sculpture. I made this bumble bee for Connie's twins' 3rd birthday. Just like the last sculpture, the base for the bee is two styrofoam half circles covered in foil and then covered in pineapple. I was going to use blueberries for the black part, but didn't have fresh berries handy and frozen ones would have been a mess. So I got black licorice. And stuck it with toothpicks, pushing them just far enough to make them invisible. The eyes and antennae & stinger are licorice too. The wings are made out of tissue paper gathered with a twist tie.

Things I learned last week

1) Church Community Appreciation Days = free lunch/dinner (depending what time you arrive...we found that arriving around 3 p.m. you can basically count the meal as both lunch and dinner) and free fun for kids. Had we not been homeless, Kaiya would not have had the opportunity to have her first pony ride.



2) Earth's Best Organic Teething Biscuits = peace and quiet while out to eat. We ate out for every meal and these things rock.

3) The public library does not become boring to a 2 year old. Ever. No matter how much time you spend there.

4) On a serious note -- I never ever want to be homeless. I found myself in a mood several times during our "ordeal" last week and really had trouble snapping out of it. Nothing seemed to be going right. I'm not sure the point exactly that it clicked for me, but I remember thinking that my family was together, all healthy and alive, and that is all that matters. I can't imagine having to worry about where the next meal for my children was coming from, having no way to protect them from the elements, etc. That is reality for many people in our country as well as overseas.

5) One of the areas that I need to grow in is how I deal with my expectations. When I get in my mind that something is going to go a certain way: For example... I am going to move all my stuff into the house on Thursday. And then for some reason, I don't get to move my stuff in, I get in a cranky mood. I don't have quite as much trouble dealing with people who don't live up to my expectations, for some reason it is just circumstances that tend to dictate my mood. I'm going to try and make a conscious effort to work on this. It is not something that I want to pass on to my children. Circumstances do not have control over feelings. I choose how I feel.

Better close for now. Tomorrow is church shopping day #1.

Proud to be an American

Like many other Republicans this election, I wasn't extremely excited about John McCain. Regardless of my lack of enthusiasm, I knew I would vote for him because of his stand on things that I value. Since the convention, however, I am really excited about the Republican ticket. I'm excited about Sarah Palin -- she's kind of like a breath of fresh air. After watching John McCain's acceptance speech and viewing footage from September 11th again yesterday, I feel proud of our country's decision to go to war. A friend sent me this video via e-mail and I wanted to post it.



I heard a news anchor remembering yesterday how they were reporting that after September 11th stores were selling out of American Flags. It seemed everywhere we went we would see the red, white & blue... on cars, homes, stores, etc. Where have the flags gone? I'm planning on getting one this weekend.

Our new house

It's been quite a week. We arrived Saturday night and Tony had found a hotel for us to stay in until he heard from the property management group that we had been approved for the rental house. We heard from them Tuesday night and got the keys on Wednesday. We didn't have time Wednesday to get our stuff moved out of storage so we got a few essentials... air mattress, pack 'n' play, etc. to get by for a night. Wednesday evening... our first in the house I spotted a lovely cockroach on the kitchen counter. ICK! If you remember our house in Florida and the scorpions and ants you might wonder, like us, what is with the BUGS? After talking to a few neighbors, they assured us that it happens from time to time and has to do with the weather this time of year. Plus our house being vacant for a while. The property management company hired and exterminator and they are spraying the house as I type this. Anyway... we decided to hold off moving our things in until after the bugs are treated. So, later this afternoon Tony and some movers will get everything in. I can't wait.

The house is PERFECT for us! Here's a link to the details and some photos of the home. Just a few notes... the bright pink striped room is now painted a light pink/peach. The turquoise/pink room is now painted baby blue. Perfect for us!

Internet will be installed later this week, so the posts will be sparse until then.