Snow camping.

Luke's the one wearing shorts and a red t-shirt in all that cold!

So while D and Chad were having their "sleepover", Luke was out at Mt. Hood with his Scout troop having their own camping experience. They really did camp though... at the Boy Scout lodge, and then spent the next day playing in the snow. Pretty, isn't it?????

One of my MANY projects!

A super cool digital scrapbooker, Kerri Bradford, created these great monthly digital projects. I download the whole thing, print out the backgrounds, and all the parts and pieces get magically sent to my die cut machine, and then I just put the whole thing together. Super cute and I look forward to seeing her new ones each month.

Pretty nails.

What we do after church on Sundays? Paint nails. Haley's, all pink, purple and glittery, and Macy's? Lime green, of course... her favorite color.

Sleepover... NOT!

So D is one of the leaders over the 14-15 year-old boys in our church, and they wanted to have a "campout" at our house, so we were invaded by 10 14-15 year-old boys on Friday night. It was really a fun night. There was a lot of junk food consumed, video games played all night, and about two and a half hours of sleep obtained. I came down at about 7:45 in the morning to find people asleep all over our house, and apparently they had just fallen asleep about 2 1/2 hours prior... so needless to say, we were all pretty tired on Saturday.

Portland International Auto Show

D, Chad and Luke went to the Portland International Auto Show. This is a tradition in D's family, to go to the Auto Show, and once Chad, and then Luke, got big enough, the tradition has continued. Someday Reed will get to go too.

The guys always have a great time, and D always comes home with his dream "wish list" of all the cars our family will someday own. Reality check there.

To call or not to call????

Ok, so being at Scentsy Spring Spring the other day, one of the things that they talked about was goals. Setting goals and then achieving them. Apparently writing down the goal makes it halfway done. So, I've been working this afternoon, writing some goals. My main goal is to become a Director. (I'm putting it out to the universe right now.) I would like to become a Director by June. I am so close, and it is so doable... it's just a matter of doing it. I have a rocking team of girls below me, but sometimes, I am the one that is lax. My problem is, I hate to call people (I inherited this from my mom, I think.) When I was working at WB, I could call people any time and tell them that they owed me millions of dollars and it didn't matter, but when I'm calling some one about hosting a Scentsy party, it's personal and it totally stresses me out. My heart races, my palms sweat, I try to come up with things to do instead. I am trying to get over this. This is something I need to do to achieve my goal of becoming a Director (and I totally realize that!).

So, I set a goal of trying to call 3 people a day (if I have 3 people to call). I have called 2 so far today. The first one was super nice, but one of her friend's just signed up to sell Scentsy and they had a party LAST WEEK. (Dang! Why didn't she sign up under me????? Guess I should've called sooner! I met this girl in November after all!). Second one, I left a message. I like that a whole lot better. Hopefully she will call me back, and I don't have to try again in a week or so!

So, wish me luck on my calling. Wish me luck on achieving my goal... and if you want to host a Scentsy party, you know who to call! :)

Spring Sprint!

Me and Kari, one of my "girls" who I LOVE, in the Scentsy Success store

Joy (my Director and good friend), Cariann, me, Alicia, Sandy, Kari, Kim and Diana - some of our awesome team!

On Wednesday, I was able to go to Scentsy's Spring Sprint in Portland, OR. It was a great time! I was able to hang out with some of the people on our team, find out about new product, and get lots of free stuff (that's always the best part!). Well actually, the best part is that I always walk away from these things feeling super pumped up, so watch out... here I come!

Holy coats Batman.

For a family of 7, we have a lot of coats, jackets, sweatshirts... and not a lot of places to put them. This is one of our coat areas. I was walking past it, on my way from the garage to the kitchen and just felt like it needed to be the Picture of the Day. We also have a coat closet, and another one of these hangy things in the front hall, plus coats in our bedroom closets. Really???? And most of these belong to me, D and the girls.

*MY* Dumpster.

Well, people asked to see a photo of my coupon dumpster, so here it is. I visited it again on Monday, and for about 5 minutes of my "dumpster diving", I was able to come up with 5 full sets of coupon inserts. Hey... the way I look at it, that saved me $10 for not having to buy the newspapers to get the coupons (kind of defeats the purpose if you ask me. Spending money just to get the coupons out.) So, might embarrass my kids a bit, but whatever. I love MY dumpster.

(Sorry, not a picture of me actually "diving" in the dumpster... I was by myself after all.)

Cake Pop trial.

Our first set of Cake Pops. I was a bit crazy, and tried for the Cupcake Pops. Probably should've stuck with Cake Balls first. Mine don't look quite as good as in the book, but everyone had fun making them, and fun eating them, so all is good in the cake pop adventure.

Please send flowers.

Ok. So on Friday, Luke was on my Facebook account playing Farmville, and as my status he wrote "someone please send a bouquet, I really need it." He didn't reference Farmville or anything, and people thought I wrote it. There was some confusion, and some concern on the behalf of my lovely friends who thought I might truly NEED a bouquet (I mean really, who doesn't?)

Anyways, yesterday we are out running a bunch of errands. Pull into our driveway, and behind us pulls a florist delivery truck, looking for me. I'm like, who would be sending me flowers???? And why???? I read the card, and it says, "thinking of you, Alondra". One of my sweet Young Women from back in the day. A little confused (although happy out of the world to receive some beautiful flowers), I'm like, what the heck? And Derrick says, "I bet it has to do with what Luke posted on your FB account yesterday."

Sure enough. She read the post, was worried, the florist was closing in half an hour, and before I could answer her back, she had sent me flowers. Goes with the chocolate cake. I love when people do the unexpected just because. I hope that I am one of those people too.

So thanks to my friends and family out there who think of me and everyone else. Thanks for listening to those inner voices, and for trying to make people's day with a little effort. A smile goes a long way, ya know?

Chocolate does the trick.

My sweet friend, Allison, showed up with this for me. She said that every time she talked to me this week I sounded kind of down and needed to be cheered up (doesn't help that I was also fighting a cold - just like everyone else!). She also said that I didn't have to share - nice (I will... but it's nice to know that sometimes I don't have to).

(Although I did take a few bites at about 11:00 last night, when everyone else was asleep, way after I had already eaten my Healthy Choice low-calorie fudgesicle for dessert. I won't tell if you don't. Besides, it was a gift after all. I don't want to seem ungrateful.)

I am thankful for friends who bring you treats (or call or write a letter or whatever) just because they think it might be needed. Thanks Allison for being a good friend and for taking such good care of me. I hope that I can return the favor someday!

Coldstone treat.

Ice cream at Coldstone for 7 people: $28.60. 5 birthday coupons for 5 kid people plus one Payback coupon for a B1G1 Free... new balance? $5.49 (plus a $3 tip for all the pain and suffering of dealing with our family). Thanks Coldstone for a cheap, yummy treat. Less than $1 per person (not counting the tip). Not bad at all.

Cake Pop Mama.

My friend, Dawn, was running a "contest" on her blog. The only thing you had to do to enter was email her your favorite kind of cake. (Um, hello? What isn't my favorite kind of cake???)

Well, I totally won! I never win anything! I was so excited!!! So today in the mail arrived my shiny new copy of Bakerella's Cake Pops!!! For those of you that know me, cooking, baking, the kitchen are so not my thing... but cake, frosting, cupcakes, I'm all about that... and I am so excited to make some of these. They are so dang cute!!!

So thanks Dawn!!! I'm excited to try out my new book!!!

(Random side note... anytime we watch one of those baking shows, I tell the children that one of them needs to marry a baker when they grow up so that I can have good cake WHENEVER I want it! Not a bad deal if you ask me!)

To dumpster or not to dumpster????

So Macy, Haley and I are out shopping at Safeway the other day. Using coupons (I [heart] coupons!), getting good deals, having a great time. We go outside, pack up the car and are leaving, when I notice this giant dumpster on the side of the parking lot. We drove over to get a closer look, and what do you know? It's a recycle dumpster. For paper products only.

(Any of you watch that show "Extreme Couponing" on TLC???? How the one lady had herself, her four-year-old son and her pregnant friend in the dumpster looking for coupons???? I was so there!!!)

Now granted, our dumpster had a lid on it (we live in the rain after all!), but I was still able to stick my arms in and get quite a few coupon inserts. Macy and Haley totally stayed in the car, embarrassed. (Where's the love, I ask you?) So Luke was nice enough to start the process of cutting out some of the coupons. Next time I'm near that dumpster, I will totally take a picture of it so you can all see what I'm talking about. Just like striking gold! :)

I totally want to be on that show... or at least do as well as they do... problem is, they don't double the coupons where we live. Every week in the ads there is usually a coupon to double 3 or 4 of your coupons, up to $.50, but nothing like when we lived in California and they doubled EVERYTHING!!! I so miss that!

Our new family member.

So Macy's really been wanting another fish. Why? We don't know. Doesn't really matter that we already have a dog, two cats, five kids and two adults. We totally needed another pet in her mind.

Well D and I discussed it, and we decided that if we were going to get another pet, it was going to be something a bit more entertaining. So, meet Melvin. We went to the pet store and talked to the hamster dude. Told him we wanted one that was kid friendly, and this is who we got. He now lives in Macy and Haley's room and hopefully won't have a heart attack in the next few days from all their joy and excitement at being new hamster owners. Welcome to the world of rodents to us! I always had mice, hamsters and guinea pigs as a kid, so I knew it would happen sooner or later, but really... what were we thinking????

Young Womenhood Recognition

It's a really bad picture of the sign, but it was BEAUTIFUL!!! One of the leaders made it and it said "Personal Progress" and it was in all the colors of the Personal Progress program. I LOVED it!

On Sunday I was able to attend a Young Womanhood Recognition program in our ward. For our church, it's kind of like when a Boy Scout earns his Eagle Scout. This is the highest honor that our Young Women can earn while they are in Young Women's. I was really happy to be able to attend this. I was happy for both of the beautiful young women who were getting recognized. I've been their Sunday School teacher, dance instructor, and "Step-Ma" to one of them while on the trek a couple of summers ago. They are both beautiful, inside and out, and I am honored to know both of them and love the example that they are setting for my daughters.

Cheap theatre.

We love to go to the movies. Watch movies. Rent movies. Whatever. We just love them. I think they're kind of in our blood... at least in the kids. For many years D worked on movies and so we've always just enjoyed them. However, being with the economy the way it is, that movie tickets cost so DANG MUCH!, (and the fact that there are 7 of us doesn't help much either), we have had to forego our movie love some. So now we only go to a "new" movie if it is something we were desperate to see... or only some of us will go. Like "Tron" at midnight, only attended by D and Chad. Anyways, we found the cheap theatre not too far from our house, and this is now one of our favorite hang-outs. A little bit older movie (like 2 or 3 months, so not too bad), but only $3 per ticket, so $21 for our whole family. Yes please. Count us in!

This past weekend, we went and saw "Megamind". We also "Red-Boxed" or "Netflixed" (more loves!) "The A-Team", "Social Experiment", "The Guardians of Gahoul (?)", "Eclipse" (D hadn't seen it and he wanted to), and "Amelia". See... I told you, we LOVE them! And that was only for two days!!!

Bunco Bell

Macy looks a little crazy in the picture, but she was very excited to keep getting the Bunco Bell!

All the "Girlie" Scouts!

Macy's Girl Scout troop had a Mommy/Daughter Bunco night last night. Macy kept getting Bunco, and every time she did she got to keep the "Bunco Bell"! Did I ever get it... no... and all I wanted was that dang ball! We only played one round and Macy ended up tying with another girl for the most Bunco's (they each got two), and they got to share the Grand Poombah prize... a bag of chocolates right from Germany!

It's Cookie Time!

Having two Girl Scouts in the house means one thing... LOTS of cookies to sell! Lots of asking people at D's work, lots of emailing friends, families and neighbors and LOTS of booth sales! But I tell you this... for the most part I enjoy it, and I think the girls get a kick out of it too. So, if you need any cookies... let us know! We can totally hook you up!