Cruiser For Sale

Just passing along the news if ya'll know of anyone in need.

Eric and I are selling our beautiful 2002 PT Cruiser. Why you may ask? Oh, you know, we just can't fit all soon to be three kids in the Cruiser. No big thing... JUST NO ROOM FOR MY FAMILY.

Anyway, we are just trying to sell it for the amount we owe on it. Obviously, we are on a time crunch, so if you know of anyone interested in it, contact me and I'll hook you up!

Thanks for the help.

Mixing It Up

So, I feel like I've been complaining a lot lately, so here's a list of things I am super grateful for in my very blessed and awesome life in no particular order. Plus my friend Tanja tagged me to write 5 things about myself, but since I just did 50 things about myself, I'm changing the rules and doing this instead. Hope that's okay.

5 Things I'm grateful for this week:

1. My HUSBAND! So you all know Eric is wonderful, but just how wonderful is he? He's the most wonderfulest! Even when I'm snappy or short, he might eventually have too much of my lip but he is always first to come back with a better attitude and try again. Plus, he's really good to always ask me if I need anything or if he can do anything else for me. I've got a really good guy who is super hot and pretty stinkin' funny too.

2. Preschool. Ty started preschool this week and I am grateful. He'll be in school 4 days a week and he loves going to school. We are both happier people when he's at school being productive and then we have all afternoon to play and have fun together. It is so amazing to see what he comes home with after learning new things. Plus when he's gone it gives me some wonderful one on one time with Tanner. Tanner and I always find some pretty creative things to do while Ty is at school. Having one in school, even if it is just for a few hours a day, gives me hope that I can survive 3 kids.

3. Snickerdoodles. A food I've been craving this week and made yesterday morning while Ty was at school. (the recipe I found is at the bottom of the post) And of course I made a double batch and there are still plenty to share, although I think I ate one whole batch by my self. Well, Tanner helped.

4. Sales. This afternoon Eric needed to take our computer to the Apple store because he broke it. I wanted to go too because I wanted to hit some store in the Arden Fair Mall and figured we'd save gas and go together. This did mean taking the boys, but all in all they have been pretty good lately. But after shorter than normal naps, an over crowed, understaffed, running 45 min. behind apple store, an uncomfortable pregnant woman who had to go potty, but didn't want to take her two sleep-deprived/high-energy BOYS with her, it wasn't the trip I had been hoping for. Regardless, after an hour in the apple store we had to get out and walk around at the very least. Across the way was GAP and my friend had just recently purchased some super cute maternity clothes on sale there, so I thought I would try my luck. I took the boys who made it very difficult to shop, but managed to buy three items. The first was a cute wrap dress in a great green color FOR ONLY $10. The second was a tank, which was a great natural color FOR ONLY $3. And finally, a cute tan top FOR ONLY $2! Not too shabby.

5. A four-year-old's logic. After I successfully bought my clothes at the GAP, the computer unfortunately was still being fixed and the boys were done, done, done, with being good and staying by my side when all they wanted to do was run and play. I had to be the bad guy and put both boys on time out a couple times outside of the apple store. When Eric finally came out about 10 min later, both kids face where tear stained from having to sit on their bottoms and not stick their feet over the side of the second floor railing. I'm such a mean mom. When Eric came out to join us he took Ty while I grabbed Tanner. Eric asked Ty what's wrong and he said, "I didn't listen to Mom," to which Eric asked, "in the store?", "Yes, she bought a dress.", "Why did she buy a dress?", to which Ty replied, "She wanted to look beautiful for you." How can you not love that kind of answer?

All in all my life is so wonderful and even with the trails and the stresses and the lack of sleep I am truly blessed.

Cat Cora's Snickerdoodle Cookies
Yields 2 dozen cookies

Recipe
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Topping
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions
Cream butter. Add sugar and egg and add mix thoroughly. Sift flour, baking powder and salt; stir in mixture. Form dough into balls about the size of walnuts and roll in mixture of sugar and cinnamon. Place two inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 - 10 minutes at 400 degrees.

Tyler & Tanner Tuesday

Week Wrap-up

So this week/1st half of the month was interesting. It seems that the summer was coming to a close so all the plugs got pulled out. Everything from extreme attitudes from the kids to a house that was out of control, work the was piled up and way over due, one super grumpy bride who wont leave me a lone and I can't wait until she goes away, a new budget to try and figure out how to make it work with our already penny-pinching lives and the constant one more thing that was put on the priority list of daily to-do's. I didn't know if I was going to make it.

Gratefully mid week I took a deep breath and step back to evaluate. That alone is a very hard thing for me to do. I kneeled down and said a big heartfelt prayer to Heavenly Father for help, not for patience, I've learned my lesson there. (You don't pray for patience unless you want more trials thrown at you to see if you'll deal with them better:) ) I asked that my heart be soften towards my children and my mind be cleared so I could successfully accomplish all my tasks at hand. Heavenly Father totally answered my prayers. By Thursday all the stresses from the beginning of the month started to turn around. I did kind of take some me time too as mentioned in the previous blog, but then I piled in and got to work. Yesterday morning I deep cleaned my living spaces and the boys rooms. Tomorrow is my bedroom and the bathrooms, and hopefully the kitchen will magically get cleaned by this hunky guy I know ;) During that time the kids and I stayed outside for almost a whole hour and the kids rode their bikes which they loved! Then I worked on some photography during the lunch hour and hit Costco with my mom for some much needed essentials that I had been putting off for too long. To wrap up the evening we hit a birthday party as a family and then I took off to a girlfriends house for an evening of much needed girl talk.

Can you believe it... what a full yet productive day. And overall, it was rather pleasant. Something has click, that rest button got pushed and I think maybe, just maybe my semi-normal chaotic life might be coming back. Thank goodness, I missed it.

Help my sister-in-law get a scholarship

This is Eric's little sister Denna who lives in WY. You can help her out by voting once or once a day. She's super talented!

Me time is good

So the day if half way done and I'm not doing so bad on my goals. Kids are actually sleeping today, YEAH! and I probably should have been cleaning up more messes but instead I made some super cool things on the computer. Yesterday I set my sister up with a blog because she's going to CSUN for college and I wanted her to be able to post pictures and stuff of her new life in SoCal. It turned out really cute. I don't know if she'll use it, but I made it look good if she does. Her blog is www.doingitdeesway.blogspot.com. Even the name is cute. Then Eric wanted me to update his blog, why, I don't know since he's had one forever and doesn't blog. But I had an itch to do something creative, so I redid his too. I love his heading that I made. Here are the headings I did....

www.dadsrules.blogspot.com

www.doingitdeesway.blogspot.com

What else can I do before the kids wake up in 15 min? Maybe I should get up and do something around the house. Bummer.

Ugh

Yesterday was a long day. In fact this week has been very very long. It hasn't really been as packed as some of our weeks normally are, but it's been crazy enough that everything is just off. Sometimes my family or at least I get that way. It's as if we need someone to hit our reset buttons so we can get back on track. For me at least, it's my house that's driving me nuts. After getting home from camping, it's as if my little naughty elf's snuck into my house and pulled everything out of the cupboards and closets and caused clutter to pile up every where. I have actually been putting forth a tremendous effort to clean each day and while I typically have accomplished my goals, it's like the rest is so messy, what I cleaned doesn't matter. And when I move onto the next room or project those sticken' elves come back and mess up what I just cleaned. Anyone know of a good elf exterminator?

So here it is 8:30 in the morning and I'm looking around at the house, the to do list, the work list and all the other misc. things that are apart of my Thursday and it's a bit overwhelming. I found this quote a few weeks ago and wrote it on my calender, and I think it applies perfectly to this week.
So I took 15 min. of me time this morning to create this cute plaque (isn't it cute?) and I wanted to post this blog to remind myself to breath, stay calm and carry on. This day will go on and it's my choice how I choose to react to it, regardless of what happens. I choose to be kind and patient with my kids today, extra attentive to my husband and a helpful hand for anything he needs and overall a pleasant person to be around with a positive attitude and outlook on life. At least I'll try. Now I have to run and clean up the smashed banana that's all over my table that Tyler and Tanner have decided to make into an art project while I was having my 15 min of me time. At least it's just banana, it could be so much worse.

A Lawrence First

Eric and I both grew up camping with our families. It was a past time that we both really enjoyed. When we were married I decided to make Father's Day centered around a camping theme each year so that we could outfit our family in the outdoor necessities for camping. Well, we're still not 100% there, but we're closer and we decided to take the plunge this past weekend for the first time and try out our gear. I am especially proud of our tent that we purchased last year. It's pretty. I think I spent about a month picking it out. It has the main dome then two rooms off the back and a covered porch. Did I mention I loved it.

Anyway, about the trip. We took off on Friday after Eric and I got done working to meet two other families up at Sugar Pine by Tahoe. We made it up there in time to have dinner with our friends and set up our tent while there was still light outside. That night we did s'mores and enjoyed the very nice weather. The boys love sleeping on the air mattresses and surprisingly enough actually did a descend job sleeping. The rest of the weekend we hit the lake, the kids rode their bikes, played ball and got very very dirty. I know getting dirty is apart of camping, and I'm really okay with that..... but, this dirt was that soft dirt, so no matter how carefully you walked it puffed up all around you, plus my kids had to put their hands directly in the dirt every 2 min. Tanner was literally black all weekend.

To finish the trip the boys went on a dinosaur adventure. They've really been into dinosaurs lately so my dad cut out two bones out of wood and we buried them under our tent so when we packed up we went digging for bones. They both found one and they were so excited about them, they held the bones the whole drive home. It was cute.


For our first time out, I think we did pretty well as a family, although we could have never done it without the help of our more experience camping friends. Thanks guys! But now, we know we can do it and I hope to make it a family tradition. Overall we had a blast!

50 Things about me

(26-50)
Here is the rest of my exciting self-indulging list all about me. It's still totally random, so sorry.

26. I love love love getting pedicures, even though it tickles so bad when they scrub the bottom of your feet and 9 times out of 10 that I go, I haven't shaved my legs. That always makes me a little self-conscious but I get over it quickly. Plus, I can never get my toes to look that good on their own.
27. One of my top 5 favorite scents is Love Spell from Victoria Secrets. I also love Micheal Kors perfume.
28. I love reality TV.
29. When I was 8 years old I started my own pet sitting business and made over $500 my first summer. I was very professional, contracts and everything.
30. I don't think I'm allergic to poison oak, cause I've been around it a lot and I've never had it. Knock on wood.
31. I broke my first bone in the third grade while riding my bike down the street. I was pretending my bike was a horse, (everything can be turned into a horse FYI if you want it to) and I slipped on some pine needles and broke my left arm. Then in sixth grade I broke my nose, the next year was my toe, the next year was my left arm and wrist and then finally in tenth grade I broke my collar bone. That's all.
32. I hate shopping by myself. I'm getting better, but it makes me really nervous and I feel like everyone is watching me.
33. I'm not a big water girl, I'd rather be on the boat, or shore, or wherever it's dry unless the water is warm and then I might get in.
34. Taking vacations are too much work with kids. Fun, but too much work.
35. I love to go running, and buy really nice running shoes. I think I run faster when my shoes are new and clean:)
36. When I was eight I flew to LA by myself for the first time by myself to visit my grandma, and the flight attendant let me take a bag a peanuts and offer them to the passengers by myself and then she gave me two huge bags for me to take home and share. They were the good peanuts, honey roasted.
37. Some of my nick-names are Nicky, Nic, Muffy, Nickle, Nicky D., NED and NEL and the latest name per Eric is Dolce. My favorite nickname is Nicky D. and Dolce.
38. I am super competitive to the point of tears typically when I play checkers with my mom if I loose. It's sad.
39. I love Target. I could walk around that store for hours, and sometimes I have to bring exact cash for what I need to buy cause I can get so out of control in that store.
40. I'm not a great at whistling.
41. When I cry, my eyes turn the most stunning color of green. Of course, it's hard to notice that because the rest of my face is bright red, and usually all my mascara is running down my face which is a very scary sight, but my eye color is phenomenal.
42. I have never seen the movie ET or Top Gun.
43. When I'm in shape and take care of myself, I have great legs. In fact as a freshmen in H.S. I could squat the most weight on the volleyball team, Freshmen, JV and Varsity. I could serve the ball over the net because have no upper body strength, but the bottom half is good to go.
44. I love the rain, and thunderstorms and the smell during the storm.
45. I am a horrible speller, as those who read my blog are probably very aware of. Sorry.
46. When I'm preggers I can smell fingernails, and it makes me sick. It's the weirdest sent, and I usually have to get acrylics put on when I'm pregnant so I wont throw-up every time my hand is by my nose.
47. Everyone called me Nicki when I was born until I was in second grade and then my horse back riding instructor insisted on calling me Nicolette because that was my actual name, and it's been a mix ever since.
48. When I was five I fell into a window well full of spiders and my 8 month pregnant mother couldn't pull me out and that experience cemented my huge fear of spiders to this day.
49. At our last Lawrence family reunion in WY we camped out in my father-in-laws backyard and in the middle of our first night there, our tent collapsed on us due to a huge storm that came through. Eric and I had to run across the yard with little Tanner and Ty, then get all our sleeping gear out too so we could finish the night in the garage. Not fun. And the wind didn't stop blowing all 5 days we were there. I'm not a huge fan of WY.
50. I have a huge variety of types of music I like. Everything from oldies to country, hip-hop and r&b and I love show tunes too. The mixes I put together confuse and shock a lot of people.

Bee-noculars

Check me out this morning getting all crafty and stuff. :)

So if you haven't noticed, it's hot this week. Here it is 11:00 in the morning and already I'm already turning on the a/c. Yes, the whole being pregnant things is adding to it I'm sure, but that doesn't make it any cooler.

On Monday the boys and I hit the park with some friends, and even in the short time we were there, the heat became too much. So this morning I decided to pull out the craft box. We decided to make bee-noculars. In case you aren't caught up with Lawrence lingo, that would be a pair of binoculars designed specifically to find bees. It was a bunch of fun. Then we spent some time looking up info about bees online and finally we watched a Magic School bus episode I have on DVD all about Bee's. If I feel up to it when the boys are awake I found a cute bee hanging thingy that we might make if we're not too buzzed out.

What did we do?

Ty has great hair, at least I think he does. Since he was about one, it's been so fun to play with his hair and it looked so cute on him. As he got older, it changed a bit and became semi difficult to style and deal with. The top 1/2 is perfectly straight and silky then the bottom 1/2 become sulry and corse. Now I am no hair dresser... at all, but I get basic hair cutting rules. I've tried to cut his hair various ways and we've taken Ty to several hair dressers. It rarely comes out right and it's hard to get a good cut because his hair is so crazy. Eric never really understood that, and just kept saying it's uneven or it needs to be shorter or something. Finally I got tired of Eric's complaints about Ty's hair and decided to let him see what Ty would look like if he had shorter hair. (I already had an idea due to a accidental cut that got too short about a year and a half ago, but what do I know right?)

I cut off his curls and then took him to my friend to even out the top. Even after we had done that, it wasn't "blending" as Eric would say exactly right, so we cut a little more, then a little more, and finally I said enough before we gave him a buzz cut. Well, what do you know, Ty with short hair just isn't the Ty we know and love. Don't get me wrong, he's the cutest kid in the world, but now his hair makes him look, well, not so cute.

I can't wait for it to grow. I know Eric will probably want to put his two cents to this but for the record, not two days after we cute his hair he told me, and I quote, "I was looking at pictures of Ty today and I think I like his hair longer, let grow it out." Good thing his hair grows fast. It's growing on me a little, I love it when it's all spikey, but Ty thinks it's too mess like that and smooths it down faster than I can spike it up. Oh well, you live and learn right.

Friday Fun

So Smart, Tic Tac Toe on the go

Anyone else out there have a hard time throwing out useful tin boxes? They're so tiny and cute and versatile that I have a hard time ever getting rid of them.

Well Tic Tac Toe in a Box is yours with just a little bit of white Contact paper and some buttons backed with magnets--you could also easily adjust the idea to be a bingo game if you used tiny pictures under clear Contact paper. And you don't have to throw away the tin.

A nice little something to keep in your purse for times when you need a boredom buster on the road. A parent should always have a few great ideas in reserve for those emergencies, right? I remember reading in a magazine useful things kids can play with to make the car ride easier, and one mom posted something about a mirror and how her two year old was mezmoriezed with it for over an hour. All I could think was, ha, an hour, I'd give my boys 5 min. max before they had enough. But this cute tic tac toe idea might be something fun too add to the collection so they can play with it for the next 5 min.

What if make it a Tic Tac Toe, Bingo, and a memory game if you just use magnets on the back of each "board" or paper you put on the bottom of the tin... oh my mind is racing with ideas of other games to play. Who knows, this might last the boys 10 min. Fun!

50 Things about ME!

Have you ever gotten those emails that you have to fill out what you're doing and where you'd like to go etc? Well I love them. I just got one from my friend Tanja, and I had a thought. Why not be totally self-centered, since I'm very good at that, and post an entire blog all about me. So here are 25 things you may or may not know about me. I'll split the m up into two posts because 50 all together is a lot even for me. They are totally random some of them, so good luck, and if you choose not to read this self indulging post, I will not be offended.

1. I have lived in Roseville, CA; Citrus Heights, CA; Provo UT; Granite Bay CA; and finally Orem UT where I was born. Exciting aren't I.
   
2. I love to drive. One of my favorite things is having the windows down, the radio up and going just fast enough over the speed limit that it's against the law, but I'm still in total control. BTW, I haven't had a ticket for speeding since I've had the kids, just FYI.
   
3. I love the color red when I decorate. I would use it everywhere if I could. As of right now, I only have one red wall in my dining room, but I love it.
   
4. I own Friends seasons one to ten on DVD. I also have 90% of the episodes memorized and no matter what, I will laugh at least once if not more every time I watch one.
   
5. I have a new cell phone frequently it seems due to husbands obsession with technology and his impressive ability to get new things for free. I have no idea how he does it, but it works.
   
6. I have a huge secret desire to be a fashion designer and also design jewelry. But I also want to be a model in my runway shows, can I do all three?
   
7. When I was 4 my dad took me sledding and ran me into a tree head first. I still get a nervous rush when sledding today, even if there are no trees around.
   
8. I want to travel to Italy, Australia, the Caribbean, really anywhere I guess. I love seeing new things and new places. I want to go to Mexico with Eric and have him take me to the really good places to eat. Yum.
   
9. Our first family photo we had taken after Tanner was born was on the beach in LA. I edited the photo before printing it and gave my self a bigger booty and shrank Eric down about 3 sizes. The photo looked great.
   
10. I am truly awful at calling people back.
11. In my dream house I have my own photography studio, a library and a craft room equipped with all the fun craft stuff, sewing equipment and material and a wrapping paper wall will an huge box of wrapping accessories.
    
12. I want to have a ginormous flower garden full of all kinds of beautiful flowers.
    
13. I can't paint, color or draw a picture that looks anything better than a stick figure to save my life. Thank goodness for graphic art programs.
    
14. I designed some cute templates for my unborn son today, just trying to be prepared and all. I also started design some family Christmas card templates. Just the template obviously, no pictures yet.
    
15. In high school and some of college my career goal was to be an interpreter for the deaf. I got pretty good at sign, then I got married and went in twenty different career directions including florist, dance studio c0-owner and Pilate instructor until I found my true calling as a photographer. Now my sister is transferring down to CSUN to finish her interpreting degree. Look what I started. Hopefully she'll stay with it.
    
16. I just started reading The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory after coming off a 4 month obsession with the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyers.
    
17. Yes, I read the 4th and final book of the Twilight Saga after getting it from Borders Friday night at midnight, and while it wasn't anything like what I expected, it ended well and it was nice to have closure. But don't fret, the 1st movie comes out 12.12.08 and I will be there opening night at midnight.
    
18. I just set a goal to try to be better about writing Thank You notes so you might be getting one in the mail soon. I love pretty stationary; I'm just not very good at using it. Tyler's b.day Thank You's are 80% done. Next goal, get those mailed out.
    
19. I don't like chocolate, but I do like Twix candy bars, brownies and homemade chocolate chip cookies.
20. From the ages of about three until about eighteen, every birthday wish list started out with, 'A horse'. It's still on the list today, just not as high, cause now I have to pay for it.
    
21. I am self-conscious about all of the pictures I take but if I can get my hands on the photo before anyone can see them and edit all the things I don't like, I'm very happy. But my mother (she's the same way) and I have a goal to be in more pictures so we can be remembered too.
    
22. I love the smell of bleach which helps the cleaning process along. I know the job is complete when the room smells clean with bleach.
23. If I could live by a body of water, any type; a lake, pond, ocean or river, I would be so happy. And by live by I mean have it in my backyard.
24. When I was 5 I bugged my babysitters dog a little too much for one day and he took a bite our of my face. I still have the scare above and below my lips.
25. I will probably never be able to learn how to speak Spanish even though Eric speaks it fluently and I think it would be an amazing and helpful thing for our whole family to learn, but I can not, no matter what, roll my stinkin' r's. Grrrrrrrrrr.
    

Oh, by the way...

So I think most of you already know this info, but just in case I have forgotten to mention it....

We're having a boy!

I don't think Eric makes girls. I'll give him one more try and that's it pal:) We are super excited though. His name is Austin something. I've wanted a little Austin since Ty, and somehow Eric got to name two boys before I ever got my shot, so here I go. Even the boys are super happy they get a little brother. So three months to go... and we can't wait.

LAKE TACO

Whew! That last week flew by, and Aug. has already started out full speed ahead!This weekend we went to Lake Tahoe, or as Ty calls it, Lake Taco, to spend the day with some friends who's parent's have a home there. It was so totally beautiful. When we got to North Shore, we found the beach relatively empty and the boys splashed and played all morning. By the afternoon there was many more people enjoying the sun like we were, but it was still a ton of fun. I didn't expect to be at the beach for very long at all and I was a bad bad mom and didn't bring the appropriate sunblock gear for my albino white kids. By the time I realize we were going to be in the sun for much longer than I had anticipated, we did the best we could to salvage the situation with sunscreen and umbrellas and all the stuff that should have been done first, but the damage had been done. The sun up there is so intense, it's amazing! Needless to say we realized our mistake by that evening, and Eric and I have been dealing with our well deserved punishment, sad, grumpy boys. The worst part is I can't let them outside in the sun, because it makes it burn instantly. Even when I go and dump the garbage, my arms feel like they are on fire. I'm only posting my ridiculous move as a parent so I can look back on this later, when I have another "not so smart" parenting moment, and shrug it off. Until then, no shrugging in the Lawrence house.... IT HURTS!!!

But all in all it was an amazing day, just to get out of town and enjoy the natural beauties of this earth, and Lake Taco is truly amazing. Hope the rest of August is just as nice.