Free (Yummy and slightly healthy) Chips!

Go to www.flatearth.com to print a coupon for a bag of FREE Flat Earth Crisps! If you haven't tried them before, you're missing out. We've been fans for several months now. Our favorite are the Apricot Mango ones, and the Farmland Cheddar are good, too. The coupon expires March 9, so hurry!

Tipping the Scales

So, I had a decision to make today and I chose the harder one.

I had to decide whether to buy new clothes, especially for Sunday, or buy a scale.

I bought the scale, and I wish I were as enthusiastic about it as E is. She loves that thing, and keeps weighing herself and wants to know what my "number" is, too. Are you kidding me?! Every grocery clerk we see for the next month would hear about it, not to mention her entire pre-school.

I really don't know how I got so heavy. I mean, I have gone through periods of not making it to the gym, but I never "binge" and we don't eat a ton of fast food. I have a friend who dropped 15 lbs in 3 weeks just by omitting her daily drive thru McD's. That kinda depresses me, 'cause I don't feel like there's that much I can omit and drop weight like that. I know that's screwy thinking...right along with, "If I don't drink coffee (lattes, espressos, or mochas) how come I don't have spare cash?" ;)

I really am ready to tackle this weight gain; just having a momentary pity party. I need to do it for my health, and that's a huge motivation. That, and the fact that I have a closet full of cute dresses that are too tight!

So, thanks to my bro, Brian, and his wife for the fantastic scale! (They gave me a gift card for my b'day, and that's how I finally chose to use it.) I just realized that my other bro, Eric, and his wife sent me yummy, yummy chocolates from NY for my birthday. Hmmmm... Finally, I found my culprit! ;)

Well Trained!

When we were leaving Super WalMart today, I pointed out the new sign they had up, advertising the upcoming release of "Bee Movie" on March 11. E stopped and admired it appropriately, then said,

"We'll have to get it. From the library."

Another Reason to Love This Girl

As we were leaving Super WalMart today, where we had just grabbed a few boring old groceries, my "sidekick," E said,

"Mom, you know, we haven't been to Target in awhile lately."

I answered, "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"A bad thing, Mommy! I think we need to go."

So, we drove across the street and pulled into the Target parking lot. I think she was just hoping for an Icee, which I didn't buy her, but she was still a great little browser. (I save the Icees for the BIG shopping excursions!) I remembered that I did, in fact, need to buy a baby gift, so we came up with a real reason to be there. She was really experimenting with the, "Mom, you look at that stuff, I'm going to be right here." Of course, I let her go all of four feet from me, but she felt like hot stuff. She had a big interest in checking out the packages of "undies" today, even though we just got some new Barbie ones for her. She scored a new PINK neck pillow in the dollar section (actually, it was $2.50), so she did not walk away empty handed (she had a boring old black one in the car, which she has now deeded over to M).

Oh, that reminds me...I also found this cool "gold" box for $2 on the 75% off clearance section and bought it 'cause it looked like a great prop for all the pretend play they do (princess or pirate treasure...choose your own adventure!) I forgot about it until bedtime, and I said, "M! Look at the cool box I found for you and E today on clearance at Target!" and she said,

"Oh, Mom. You and your clearance."

(And then she admitted that, yes, it did indeed have potential as a great prop.)

ATTENTION:

This blog has been discovered by an extremely curious and well-read eight year old girl with curly hair. Any and all postings and comments to this blog, and to all those on my Blog-O-Rama list, will hereafter be perused by the aforementioned child, particularly if she's related to you or knows who you are.

Consider yourself warned. All my secrets have already been unveiled to her, "MOM! You HID the cookies in the freezer at Christmas?!?" And, she also learned that she's not the only one who picks her hangnails. *sigh* To think that I thought I was safe here...

;)

71 words

Science Fair

I always swore I wouldn't be one of those parents who did school projects for my kids, and M's recent science fair put me to the test! She was required to do a project and 3-fold board, along with a journal. Not an ordinary "volcano" project, mind you, but one that answered a question and included only one manipulated variable, some standard variables and one other variable that I can't remember now. Seriously, it took me 3 or 4 times of reading through the packet they sent home (15+ pgs) describing their expectations for this project...and I have a bachelor's degree in elementary education! It was a HUGE undertaking for my little eight year old, but she did it! OK, well, I helped, but she did every step!

Her hypothesis was that heat from the stove would pop popcorn with fewer "klunkers" than popcorn popped in the microwave or by the air popper. Do you think she was right???

Grandpa R's visit

Wow! How time flies! It's been forever since I posted! I always tell myself that things will slow down after Christmas, and it's never true. I'm sure I've been busy doing important stuff, but the most fun important stuff was enjoying our visit with P's dad this past weekend. He lives in Illinois, so we don't see him too often....usually just once a year when he takes 2 weeks off and drives to see all his grandkids in Arizona, Washington, and Utah! The girls had a great time with their willing playmate; many games were played and books read aloud. He even watch Cinderella 2 (or was it 3?) with them, though I'm sure he enjoyed Shrek 3 more (which we also watched). Of course, went on some ferry boat rides, which is always the highlight for Grandpa. Here's some pics we took...note the gorgeous weather! We got so lucky and throughly enjoyed our blue skies!

(I didn't mean to include this fuzzy pic that I took of the girls at A&W while we were waiting for our burgers, but it's still cute, isn't it? No one was there, and they really enjoyed keeping the juke box going and dancing around the restaurant! Never a dull moment, right Gramps?!)

Fabulous!

My girls are fans of the High School Musical movies and own the second one. (Funny how I would have never let M watch them at age 4, but E gets to b/c M watches?!) There is this, admittedly, really fun song called "Fabulous" that the snobby girl, Sharpay sings. Sample: "I want fabulous, that is my simple request, I want fabulous, bigger and better is best..." you get the idea.

OK, so it is a catchy little song and we sing and dance to it and then I ALWAYS say, "I'm sure glad my daughters aren't like her!" to which they always readily agree.

Until yesterday, that is! After my mini-sermon, E said,

"But, Mommy, I AM fabulous!"

And, what could I say to that?!

The 3 Curly Girls Say "Cheese!"

The girls and I had time to kill this morning (with yet another 2-hour school delay) and they were being really mushy, so I decided to have a photo session. They loved taking turns being the photographer. I guess that's what I'll have to do to get them to look at and smile for the camera in the future!

(Now you know what I look like with almost no make up on! Worth it to capture these smiles, I suppose?)

Are You Smarter Than a Third Grader?

M brought home some school work on Friday and I thought I'd share the following bit:

"The three brothers embraced an extreme orthodoxy in their halcyon years. But misfortune and trauma led to disillusionment and apostasy. However, their sister followed a different path. She never gave up what she learned as a child. She held on to her _________. She knew what was right and stuck to it."
a) salary b) home c) suitcase d) beliefs e) pets

Now, of course, these were exercises designed to teach the kids to read for content and this example was from the "difficult words" page (of the 8 questions, M got them all right). There was another page with much simpler questions (with M's doodles all over the page) that the whole class did.

I just thought it was cool that she wasn't intimidated by all those big words. In fact, she said she liked doing it. That's our girl!

(We don't watch Jeff Foxworthy's show too often, but when we do, M is enthralled and really thinks she should be on there. We just want to know, "Would it pay for your college expenses?!")