And "The Talk" begins...

Aly has started to become quite curious lately. It first began with wondering what boys parts look like. It took me a few weeks to figure out how to solve that one but I finally decided to give her an opportunity to see a baby boys diaper being changed. Of course it back fired slightly because after seeing the baby boys part she went into her friends room and told him she saw his brothers' penis. This of course was hilarious to her friend and the other boy in the room so all three of them preceded to pull down their pants and show each other their boy and girl parts. So see, they will educate each other without our intervention! Good thing they were all 4 and 5 year olds and it is still very innocent!

Since then she has began asking how Mommies have babies. Of course I started out with the simple, "The baby is in Mommy's belly and when it is ready to come out it does." This satisfied her for awhile but then she began to get more curious. She asked how it got there? So I told her, "Mommy's have eggs just like chickens and the eggs grow into babies inside Mommy's body." She took that in and was satisfied for awhile. Well today she wanted to know what Mommy's egg looks like and wanted to look through a book she knew we had called, "From Conception to Birth." So I sat down with her and flipped through the pages.

She saw pictures of women and men. She saw naked babies. She also got to see the Mommy's egg and the sperm. She asked what the sperm was and what it was doing? So I told her the sperm are just like little fishies and they all want to get inside the egg but only one can get in. She thought those little fishies were cool! Lucky for me she didn't ask where the fishies came from or how they got there! She did ask though why a Mommy can't choose if she is having a boy or girl? I told her that the sperm are boy fishies or girl fishies and it depends which one gets to go into the egg. She was quite happy with that response and continued looking through the book. She was happy with the talk we had and for now we don't have to answer any more questions. I guess this gives me time to figure out how I am going to answer how the sperm get into the Mommy!

Websites address

For some reason it wasn't letting me post this all together so I am making a second post.
The post below shows my daily report for yesterday....
The website if you are interested is calorie counter.

Great free calorie count website

Yesterday I found a great new website to help with weight loss or weight management. It is free and easy to use. I am using it to track my daily caloric intake. I also wouldn't mind trying to loose a few pounds. I let myself have a great time during the holidays and I gained about four pounds over those couple of months so I am hoping to shed those pounds. I am also hoping to become more aware of what I am eating and how much I should be eating. If you want to check out the website click here at calorie count.

Here is my daily report for yesterday:

Nutrition Report

Fat - 37.0% (65 grams) Protein - 16.5% (65 grams) Carbohydrates - 43.1% (170 grams) Alcohol - 0.0% Other - 3.4% Daily Sodium Intake - 3,898 mg Daily Sugar Intake - 28 grams Daily Cholesterol Intake - 126 mg Daily Saturated Fat Intake - 28 grams Daily Fiber Intake - 50 grams

Nutrition Grade

Date	Calories	Grams	Fat	Carbs	Protein	Grade
2009-02-23	1,573	907	65	170	65	A-

Spending time with Grandma

Back in October my Grandma that lives in Sunnyvale began having trouble with her eyes. Unfortunately it was Macular Degeneration and they didn't operate in time. She has lost a significant amount of vision and can't drive anymore. Now my Grandma is one of the most independent women I have ever known. She is 86 years old and has always done everything herself. She has also been very helpful to the community, her church, and her friends. She has driven many of her friends around that could no longer drive as well as driving friends to chemo appointments and waiting in the lounge for them to finish. She has been an amazing role model to me and it is my turn to help her.

While my goal is to try and drive to Sunnyvale once a month I have to realize that is not always possible. I was able to make it in November and December but January threw other challenges my way due to all of the illnesses in my house. So now that everyone is better I was able to make it on Saturday to see my Grandma and take her on some errands. This time hubby decided he wanted me to leave the kids with him. I left Saturday at 7 a.m. and didn't return home until Sunday after lunch. I think the separation ended up being hardest on me. The girls had a great time with Daddy and he spoiled them rotten! He was definitely fun Dad taking them to the zoo, buying them slurpies and dipping dots as well as a stuffed animal.

Grandma and I had a great time too! We went to Kohls and found some rugs Grandma had been wanting. We also went to the mall and found some shoes she needed. As much as I wasn't there to spend money I couldn't resist the sale and I bought Alyssa a pair of Lands End snowboats for next year for $12, a Lands End jacket for me and a pair of Lands end pants for me as well. Sears was having a sale where you could take an additional 50% off clearance prices on Lands End merchandise so it was a great deal. Grandma and I also got to go out to dinner at our faovrite place to eat, The Ginger Cafe. It was delicous!

Subbing Day 11

Luckily today went great! I was even smart this time and packed the girls lunches the night before, packed my lunch, took a shower, and did my hair. Lucky for me my current hairstyle sleeps well! So all I had to do this morning was get the girls up, ready, dressed and take KK on the 45 minute drive to preschool. I had them eat breakfast in the car.

There were two children absent today and one of them was the hard girl so that is why the day went so well. Thankfully no one put anything up their nose or in their ear, although I did witness a few children picking their noses and eating it. Note to self--don't hold their hand or let them touch me! Thank goodness I pack instant hand sanitizer in my substitute bag!!!

Rainy day activity

Need some rainy day fun activities? The girls loved this one. I purchased some bingo markers on ebay and let the girls use them to paint pictures. They both thought it was great and it didn't even make a mess. I did put newspaper underneath just in case it would end up making a mess. So if you are in the market for some indoor fun activities this is a great one!

Aly's Valentine Party

Finding time to blog has been difficult lately, especially with the power outages and my girls being sick so much. So I hope to try and play catch up over the next few days.

For Aly's class party they asked each parent to help their child build a castle for their Valentine's cards. Aly was thrilled of course but due to KK being so sick we had to wait to make the box over the weekend instead of a school night like Aly had hoped for. What made her even more disappointed was that we made the box in time for her to bring it to school on the Monday before Valentine's but that morning we received a call that the school would be closed due to snow. She was so angry and sad as she was wanting to show off her castle box. Luckily the next day we
were able to go to school and she was thrilled to bring in her castle.









The castle was fun to make and I really like it that she personalized it all on her own by adding the draw bridge and her name. The cupcake holders are actually frog ones which of course thrilled Aly since she loves frogs so much.



Here are a few pictures of some of the other castles made. The kids all loved it!



For the class party I made cookie cupcakes with strawberry icing. Aly instructed me to make white ones for the boys! She told me they wouldn't eat pink ones! The cookie cake on the right I made for her teacher as a gift. I also made one for us to have on Valentine's as well although I will say, I ended up eating most of it. I sure need my treadmill this week!!!


Aly chose her own Valentine's outfit which I thought was quite cute. The tie dye pants I made her awhile ago paired with a hooded pink shirt. At the party the teacher handed out princess hats for the girls to wear!




Poor KK due to all of her illnesses missed her own class Valentine's Party but she was able to party with a few of her friends during Aly's class party since these two boys are siblings of Nathan and Bailey in Aly's class. Every time Aly has a class party these three get to sit at their own little table and have a party together too!

And the snow keeps falling!

Yesterday we had quite a bit of snow. In fact I took some pictures and was hoping to post them here. However, today we have so much snow it is crazy! I would guess about two feet of snow! With all the snow comes problems of course. It took hubby two hours to get to work. He said 2 wheel drive cars stuck on the road kept slowing traffic! We also lost power for five hours today! The girls handled it quite well and I am assuming it is quite possible that we will loose power again. So if you don't hear from me for awhile, we are snowed in without power! Thank goodness we have a wood stove. Too bad we don't have a generator though because when the power goes out we loose water too!

We lost power today from 8:15 to 1:15 and then again from 1:30 to 2ish. While the power was out in the morning the girls and I played Candy Land and Memory. They also played quite well together and as a way to get them to help in the cleaning process I told them they could go out and play in the snow after the playroom was clean! It worked and we went outside and had a great time. Here are some of the pictures I took:



The very first thing KK had to do was make a snow angel! Aly was more interested in eating the snow!




The dogs had a great time too even though it was hard for them to run in the snow!



Shasta finds a place to walk that isn't so hard. Check out all of the girls toys covered in snow!



Can you tell that Aly is sitting on a bench in the picture on the left? Our climbing dome was so buried in snow that they had to bend their knees when they hung from the bars.



Check out our patio swing covered in snow! The girls had fun playing in their playhouse.

A $4,000 loss!

Oh man, I just got a check in the mail from my poor performing stock. Yes, the only one I have ever owned. The one that I bought at an initial investment of $4,200 back in 2000, the year before all the dot.com companies began to fall. My friend at the time let me in on friends and family IPO shares. At the time being a single teacher I actually had around 10,000 in savings and was considering putting almost all I had into. After all, my friend who worked for the company was sure that it would double quickly. He and I were both young and naive. Thankfully I listened to an older friend who had been around these IPO's before. He told me to just invest half of what I had...to invest what I could afford to loose.

Well, my older friend was right. It was the biggest loss I have ever had in my life so far. After paying an initial price of $21 a share it fell hard and was down to .57 cents a share at one point. Today, after 8 years they sent me a little check for $190 and told me I was cashed out due to a merger. I had always held onto those shares just in case they ever came back to anywhere near their orginal value. Unfortunately for me they never did! I guess on the positive side I will get to write 4,000 off on my taxes next year! I wonder how much that will actually help???

KK is still sick

Poor KK. She has pretty much been sick for the last three weeks or so. Both of the girls have really as well as hubby too. Thankfully I managed to escape these illnesses but I am guessing I was spared because I have seriously been taking care of ill children and hubby for the past three weeks and needed my strength to do so. I have also been to the Dr. office once a week each week for the past four weeks. I swear one of the Dr. in the hall looked twice at me today wondering if I just could be one of those mom's in the Dr.'s looking for attention!

Well today I took KK in after having a high fever all weekend as well as a bad cough and a runny nose. She was sleeping way more than usual too as much as 15 hours a day compared to the normal 10 1/2 hours. So the Dr. checked her out and she has an ear infection and walking pneumonia! Poor girl. It hurts me just to listen to her cough each time she does. They put her on a stronger antibiotic and we are hoping to see results soon. I hope that in the next 48 hours she starts to feel better. While I am enjoying the extra naps she is taking during the day it breaks my heart to see her so sick!

Sleeping in a box

Have you been to Costco recently? Well, I went just a few days ago and my girls think that playing with the boxes that come home after a Costco run are the best toy ever! Yes, Aly turns her boxes into many things such as tables, cars, boats, and this time she turned her box into a bed! Since it was a small trip to Costco I didn't have any other large boxes and Aly put dibs on hers first.

After KK saw what Aly was doing she just had to do the same thing. She asked if she could have a box to sleep in as well. I had to hunt through the house but the only thing I could find was this little box that you see in the picture. Don't worry, KK wasn't disappointed, she was happy as can be just to have her own box. She tried as hard as she could to make it a box to sleep in too!


The box that KK had was half the size of her body but she made herself fit! IT was quite cute and she was very happy. Neither of them actually ended up staying the whole night in the box--just about five minutes--but they had fun none the less!

Aly and V-Day cards

This is Aly's first year where she gets to personally address each of her Valentine's to each child in the class. During her preschool years she could only sign her name. She was thrilled when she found out that she got to pick a Valentine for each of her friends and write their name on it.

She sat at the table diligently picking each card that she thought would be her classmates favorite card. She said, "Mommy, Nathan would like this card because it has fireworks. Joseph would like his card because it has a skateboard on it. Leanne would like her card because it has pink on it."

She had her list in front of her and carefully copied each of her friends names on a card and then crossed their name out. It was so cute and she was so happy to do it!

My New Hair

Wow, I finally had a chance to go to a real hair salon and get my hair highlighted and cut! This time around I found a few people whose hair I liked and asked them where they got it done. Then I made an appointment with their hairstylist!

I think she did an amazing job with both the color and fixing my previous bad haircut! I am really happy with it. On a more surprising note I had my first ever eyebrow wax and didn't even know it was coming. Seriously, she mentioned she did eyebrows and I said I had virgin eyebrows that had never been touched. She said my eyebrows were pretty good, just a couple stragglers....next thing I know when she was rinsing my hair she put wax on my eyebrows and shaped them! Wow, I didn't even know she was going to do them??? It didn't hurt like I thought it would and they look pretty good so all in all I am fine with it!

On a more comical note when I went to pick up KK from preschool her friends told her that her Mom was there to pick her up. She looked at me straight in the eyes, turned to her friends and said, "That is not my Mommy!" I actually had to convince her that I was her mom!



Here I am freshly home from the salon without make-up!



Here I am after slapping on just a tad bit of make-up...I don't like to wear much on the rare occasions that I do put make-up on. Less is more right?

House Full of Sickies

If you were planning a visit you better stay away. Our house has been struggling with the high fever virus. Yes, first it hit Aly on Sunday and she just started feeling better yesterday. Hubby came down with it yesterday and KK developed it over night. At the moment I am the only person that has escaped it. This could be because I am constantly doing dishes and washing my hands all day, or because I probably eat the healthiest of our whole family, or perhaps I will end up with the high fever virus in the next day or two.

We all know as mothers how this will go. I will continue taking care of hubby and KK over the next few days. What will happen if I develop it? Nothing, I will have to continue my day as if it were any other preparing meals for the kids, getting them off to school if they are well, and taking care of everybody else's needs. Hubby will be back at work and I will be left home to take care of the house.

So when does a housewive get taken care of????

Disney cookies

My best friend Amy gave me a cute Disney cookbook for Christmas that has recipes for different Disney cookies. KK really wanted to make her two favorite Disney characters; Dalmatians and dumbo! So I got all the materials needed and gave it my best shot. The Dalmatian cookies actually turned out cute but the Dumbo cookies---not so good! Here is what they look like:













Before and after!












The girls loved decorating the cookies! We used mini chocolate chips for the spots!














Our Dumbo cookies didn't turn out so good......