She's got Bangs

Since I grew up with bangs I had determined I would never give my daughter them until she was old enough to decide for herself.  I dreamed of doing pretty things with her hair; pony tails, braids, you name it.  Then I was awarded with a beautiful daughter with hair at birth.  It grew quickly and I soon saw that dream fulfilled but it would not be for long.  The beautiful girl grew up and now I am lucky if I get a brush pulled through it on a daily basis.  A year ago she cut her own bangs.  I hid her scissors for a month and let it start to grow out.  Her hair began to hang in her face all the time.  I have the pictures to prove it. She then began to ask for bangs like mommy's.  Finally I decided to give her proper bangs.  I never saw me in her until I snipped that hair and my childhood face leapt out at me.  I also cut a couple of inches off the back (it needed it.)  Moments after taking this picture she told me she didn't want them anymore because they tickled her.  I asked her three times before I snipped away.  Now two weeks later she doesn't even notice them.

And in other news I have a few more pictures that are just random:

My two cute cupcakes.

Clowning around

Very big brother.

Valentine's Day

My husband got me this beautiful bouquet of red tulips for Valentine's Day.  Tulips are one of my favorite flowers. We also went to lunch at Olive Garden (one of his favorite restaurants) on Saturday.

I made the kids cupcakes for Valentine's Day.  They also got little goodie bags and Valentine cards.

My three special Valentines.  Since it was Sunday I dressed them so they were all wearing some red.

Touch Base

I finally downloaded my pictures but now I am ready to blog my baby is fussy so that will have to wait.  We are going to St. Augustine this weekend for work.  St. Augustine is the oldest settlement in the United States.  We will only be there a short time but we hope to see a few sites before we head home Saturday.  Sheila and Timmy will be staying with their grandparents but Kimberly is coming along.

She's Five

Sheila turned five on Saturday and we had her birthday party.  I made her birthday invitations by cutting up Valentines and then making my own cards and strawberries.  No one has Strawberry party supplies except the party store.

The kids played three games but I only got pictures of two of them since Ray kept getting calls from work and he was suppose to be the photographer (usually my job but I was running the games.)  Sheila's friend's mom ended up taking most of these pictures.  We had eight kids in all come.

Sheila had fun opening her presents.  She got a lot of strawberry shortcakes stuff.  She also got a Cinderella princess doll (she has four now and none of them are alike) and a doll with homemade clothes plus the quilt and pillow case I made.

Also luckily one of the local bakeries have strawberry shortcake theme cakes.  However, they did away with the one we really wanted to get just a week before her birthday so we got the second best one.  It turned out to be cute and was just enough.  After the party there was just enough for each of us in our family to have one more piece.

It took a few tries but she finally got the candles blown out.  I think she and all the kids had lots of fun.  An hour after her party she went to another birthday party for one of the little girls that came to hers.  It was a busy but fun day and Mommy was glad it was over.

Here It Is

Here is our 2009 Kia Borrego EX Limited.  Very nice indeed.  We got a really awesome deal on it.  It was used with only 7000 miles but we got it for $13K less than the sticker price.  The place Kia Mall of Georgia also gave us more for our trade than most places would so our payment came out very nicely indeed.

As you can see it has navigation.  Some of the other nice features are: sunroof, heated seats in first and second row, leather interior, memory seat for the driver seat, smart key technology, tri-climate control, and 7500 lb. towing.

Here is Ray and Sheila enjoying it.  It was an adjustment to lose the cargo room but we found that it will sit three car seats comfortably across the middle row so we can put down the third row for cargo room.  The kids really enjoy it too.

Report on New Year Goals

So the first day of every month I will try to post how I am doing on my goals and things I was looking for in 2010, mostly so I can remind myself and see how much I need to do.

10 things I look forward to:
1. trip to Idaho-planning away.
2. Winter olympics-11 days and counting.
3.  Ray's raise-still waiting but should be this month.
4. "Tower of Midnight"- unfortunately that is not being released until December but I have ordered some other books that I look forward to plus I have my list of books I want to read.
5. Kimberly's firsts-she began laughing this month and rolled over for the first time on January 25 from her belly to her back.  Hasn't done it again.
6. new van-well, we got a SUV instead (pictures and blog to follow.)  We got a 2009 Kia Borrego EX Limited.  It was used but only had 7000 miles on it so we got it for a really good deal.
7. beach-still too cold but hopefully we start going at least monthly in March.
8. Sheila going to kindergarten-in the fall.
9. temple-probably  not until the summer since Kimberly is so little and the temple is so far away.
10. moving-that may not happen this year but I would like to start fixing up the little things in our house at least.

10 Goals for 2010
1. learn to use my serger-probably won't get to that until April.  I sew every third month.  I had to get the kids quilts done for their birthdays so I sewed these last two months meaning February and March are my scrapbooking months.
2. finish Old Testament-going slower than I hoped.  I am only on Second Kings (starting the year at the end of First Kings) so I plan to start reading at least two chapters a day.
3. catch up on one scrapbook-I hope to do it this month, starting today.
4. paint the inside of the house-haven't started.
5. finish the "Work and the Glory," "Harry Potter," and "Twilight" series again.  I am on the 8th book of the "Work and the Glory."
6. make my own cookbook-still marking recipes but should also start working on this these next two months.
7. lost 14 pounds, and then start working on 5-10 more-I have lost the rest of the 4 pounds from the pregnancy weight.  Just 10 more to go.  I hope to have that gone by middle of June when we head out to Idaho. I have been leaving two bites at every meal (read to do that in a magazine) and just purchased a pedometer and going to try to walk 7000+ steps a day.  So far (we were traveling) didn't get nearly that much.  Today will be my first normal day to wear it and see where I am at.
8. make over $200 at the fair-have a few projects done and working away.
9. get a fence and new shed-hopefully this spring or fall.
10. start writing again-still need to start.

So there are my updates. I hope to be making more progress on more of them by next month.