Pedestrians Beware!!

Well...Maybe it won't be that bad but I feel a moral obligation to warn everyone that my oldest is the proud new owner of her first learner's permit. Dan is taking her out this weekend for her first driving lesson. Better keep an eye out when you're walking down the sidewalks.

Wordless Wednesday - The Joy Of Mastering Hopscotch

Holly Hobbie Dress

Here is another old post to read. This one is from last year around this time.

We didn't do much to post about this weekend so I had to come up with something different. I noticed a dress in Rebecca's closet that she hadn't tried on yet. This dress was made for me by my grandmother when I was about 2. We've always called the dress my "Holly Hobbie" dress. Over the years, each of my girls have worn the dress with pictures taken. I went on a hunt a few days ago and found pictures of Taylor and Teresa but couldn't find Jaquelyn. Then I remembered that I used to used Searsphotos.com to develop all my film. Lo and behold I found her picture on their website. I took pictures of Rebecca wearing the dress and now I can post pictures of each of us wearing the dress. Cool, huh? Unfortunately, the bonnet disappeared along the way.

Here I am wearing it with the bonnet at 2 or 3






















































Here is Taylor at 3 or 4 with my grandparents. This is my grandmother that made the dress for me.













































Here is Teresa wearing the dress. Again at my grandparents house a few years later.





















































Jaquelyn wore it for Easter when she was 3.



































And finally it was Rebecca's turn.

I Love Pictures!

I was at a loss for posting ideas so decided to rerun an old post from back when I didn't actually have any readers.

Here is a really cool idea that I borrowed from my Mom. We all love pictures of our kids, right? Well you can only put up so many with frames. And then you have so many holes in your wall and if you happen to rent like we do it is a major pain when you leave to fix them all. (Although this time I invested in those cool 3M hooks that don't leave any marks on your walls....they work for the most part but aren't perfect every time.) I do still have some framed pictures on the wall...mostly ones from Sears and quite a few on the table in front of the wall as you can see by the pic.

Soooooo the perfect solution?? Put up a collage of pictures of your kids all over a section of wall with blue painters tape. It is really cool and so much fun. I love looking at it and noticing pictures that I haven't looked at for awhile. It is up to you how you do it. I trimmed a lot of my pictures so that I could get just the part of the picture I really wanted to see, but there are some that are still whole so they aren't ruined. Then just start arranging them on your wall, mixing them all up time wise.
It is a big hit when guests come over. Especially if you happen to have a picture of them up somewhere. Challenge them to find it. I will say that Teresa dubbed it the "Wall of Weirdos" but that is to be expected from the teen aged girls who are totally embarrassed when their friends come over and check out baby pictures of them.

Gotta Love Coupon Shopping!

I had a stellar day yesterday at the grocery store. Acme was having a great sale and I didn't even realize it. It's a good thing I read Shosh's and Sara's blogs or I might have missed it completely. I didn't make out quite as good as they did since I didn't have any coupons for cat/dog treats but I did pretty well with the other items on my list. I was dangerously low on oatmeal for the upcoming winter months and Acme decided to have a sale before I completely ran out. So glad am I. I picked up 4 big containers of Quaker Oats for .875 cents each. Gotta love it! These normally run about 4.99 so that was awesome in my opinion. Throw in some Barilla Picollini pasta at .25 cents a box and a ton of yogurt with great coupons and I am sitting pretty. The Quaker granola bars were a mere .50 cents per box and I even had coupons for Crush. I rarely see soda coupons so that was unexpected but welcomed.
All told I spent 43.07 on groceries that would have been 127.43. Definitely a good day at the grocery store. Gotta love coupon shopping!

Wordless Wednesday

So Much For Normal

I guess I spoke too soon. Dan's work sent him home because he is still not functioning where he should be. He goes back to the doctor tomorrow and we'll see where we are going from there.

Back To Normal

Well we are back to normal finally. This is the first day in two weeks that everyone has been at school or work like they should be. Unfortunately I only get two days of normalcy. The public schools have Thursday and Friday off for parent conferences and some in-service day so three of the kids will be home again. I truly can't wait til next week....normal all the way. (providing no one gets sick or their head bumped)
This is really cutting into my tennis playing. :-( And I only have a few more weeks and then the weather cuts it off until spring. There are times it would be nice to live on the west coast or in the south. Tennis all year round! Oh well, maybe I will have to try out the racquetball courts more this winter. I am not looking forward to going back to boring working out on the various machines in the Y. Once you've tried Cardio Tennis, you'll never go back. It is so much fun! The hour goes by like lightning.

Boot To The Head

Well I know I joked about my poor hubby and his bump on the head but it really was quite the bump. He had a cat scan done Sunday evening at the emergency room but everything was normal. The doc said no work til Wednesday but see your regular doc first. We went and saw a doctor at the practice (his regular was sick) and she said no work all week! He was still feeling pretty dizzy when ever he moved around and being in a moving vehicle was particularly bad for him. He was rather slow when answering her questions, yk the ones they ask when trying to test your cognitive skills. Like, what day of the week is it...count backwards from 100 by 7's...who is the president...etc.
We went back today and he did much better ( with only minor cheating such as memorizing the counting backwards thing and checking the calendar for the date & day of the week before she came in). He has been cleared to head back to work on Tuesday (Monday is a holiday for his office). I am hoping he is truly better by then. Driving for himself is still a little iffy but hopefully by Tuesday that will have faded too.
It's times like these that I truly dislike the place he works at. They have NO sick leave. If you don't have any vacation time saved up and you get sick, then you don't get paid. This totally stinks!! He is hoping to be able to claim short term disability so we will get a portion of his check but otherwise, this is a whole week with no pay. Not good in times like these. I have applied to several places in town looking for a part time job to pick up some extra work but nothing has come of it so far. This is a definite disadvantage to living in a small(er) town. There are not nearly enough overnight positions available. Oh well, keep your fingers crossed and hopefully something comes up soon.

Wordless Wednesday - Locks Of Love