Adventures in La La Land

1. We had our house appraised last week and got the results this week. It appraised for $1,000 over what we needed it to in order to refinance! Woohoo! Thanks for the prayers. 2. So we started potty training this week. Oh boy. If you're looking to develop patience, try potty training a 2 year old. Haha. Really, she's done pretty well. She goes every time I put her on the toilet, but it's just a tedious process. I try to take her in every half an hour. And she insists on putting the ring on the toilet by herself and pulling her shorts and undies down by herself. It takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r! Even with taking her in every half hour, she's still had her fair share of accidents. Fortunately, she hasn't made any huge messes. Most of the time, she just goes a tiny bit and catches herself. One time she started yelling "floor!" I looked over and there was a tiny puddle on the floor. We're just going to keep at it and hope it starts to click in her brain soon! 3....

1. Lucy had her 2 year well child check up yesterday. She weighs 25 lbs (32%) and is 35 inches tall (83%). It's so crazy that she has consistently been tall for her age! I don't know where she gets that from! She had 3 shots. When they put the first one in, she just yelled "owie!" When the second two went in though, she really cried. :-( She recovered quickly though thanks to a sucker and some Elmo stickers. :-) The doctor is referring us to a pediatric podiatrist because her left foot points in so much when she walks. I'm glad she's being proactive about it. Hopefully at this age it will be easily correctable. 2. I made a couple new winning recipes this week. Chicken Tortilla Bake and Cream Cheese Spaghetti Casserole. The spaghetti was my favorite, so I'll share that recipe here. I linked to the other one if you want to look it up. Cream Cheese Spaghetti Casserole  (from Plainchicken.com) 12 oz spaghetti 1 (28 ounce) jar prepared spaghetti sauce ...

1. I planted some stuff in my garden this week! (With my dad's help.) Potatoes, strawberries, and flowers. Dad says we have to wait to plant the zucchini, melon, and squash. I loved digging my hands in the dirt. And Lucy has loved helping me water the garden. 2. Wednesday was a beautiful warm, sunny day. After dinner, Justin, Lucy and I went to Morley Park in Cedar. We've lived here for 3 years and have never been there. It was so nice! They had 3 or 4 different play structures, swings, a merry go round, even some bongo drums! Lucy was in her glories. Except that all the play structures are on sand and she was wearing sandals. She was not a fan. Haha. Note to self: next time, put her in tennis shoes. She found a set of little slides with a short set of steps. Justin and I sat on the grass and watched her go up the stairs, down the slide, up the stairs, down the slide . . . over and over and over. I can't wait for her to get a slide for her birthday! Hours of entertainment...

1. My craft with Lucy and Lyla this week was fruit loop rainbows . I got the idea from Pinterest and was pleasantly surprised with how it went! I didn't think it would hold the girls' attention very well and that I'd be doing all the work. I was wrong. I was especially surprised with how well Lucy did. I gave them each a pile of fruit loops then told them to pick out all of a certain color. I'd pick out a couple for Lucy to show her what color we were doing, then she found the rest herself! Picking out the blue ones. (She lined them all up next to her paper.) And both girls did great with making the rainbow. I squirted some glue on and they lined up the cereal! (One of Lucy's favorite OCD activities. Haha) The finished product! 2. Last week, I got all "Mom of the Year" and pureed a bunch of carrots. I froze the purees in ice cube trays and started putting the carrot cubes into everything - mac n' cheese, beef-a-roni, spaghetti (we eat a lot o...

1. Last Monday marked 1 month since I gave up Dr Pepper. I did it with the intention of losing some weight, so I replaced it with 0 calorie, 0 sugar Crystal Light. Once in a while I had a diet Dr Pepper, but again that's no calories or sugar. I honestly drank a LOT of pop before. I'm sure it was upwards of 500 calories a day. I was sure cutting it out would result in weight loss. Wrong. I lost absolutely nothing. 0 pounds. So not worth it. I bought a 2 liter yesterday and already have it half gone. 2. So it's been kind of a depressing week around here. We're having some major  financial problems. For all the years we've struggled financially, we've never actually missed any payments on our bills. But unless something miraculous happens this weekend, the electric bill will not get paid by the time it's due on Monday. (So if there's no Saturday 7 next week, it's because our electricity got shut off. ;-)) The reason we're having such problems is b...

1. I had this week off for Spring Break. It was fabulous! On Monday, we went to the zoo with Kelly and Presley and Carrie and Abby. (Lucy can say "Abby" so anytime we talk about the zoo, she exclaims "Abby!" She hasn't quite figured out Presley yet. Haha.) Lucy was kind of a grump the whole time. I realized why later that afternoon . . . 2. We got home around 2 and she went right down for her nap. She didn't wake up 'til 6 and I knew we were in trouble. Sure enough: 104* fever. I gave her some ibuprofen and went to Bible Study, leaving her in Justin's capable hands. At 9:20 I got this text: "Lucy just puked all over. You need to come home and clean the carpet. She won't let me put her down." Haha. I was having flashbacks of the night she puked every 20 minutes for 8 hours, so hurried home. I had nothing to fear. She slept soundly all night and woke up fever free! Woohoo! 3. Tuesday night, my nephews Tristan and Tayton came over. (M...

I decided to bite the bullet and just do it. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, read point 6 of the Saturday 7 below.) I'm not going to make a separate blog. I'll probably just update my progress every week in the Saturday 7. (More for accountability's sake than anything.) Here's the plan I have mapped out so far. 1. Read through the Bible in a year. I signed up here for a reading plan. I chose chronological because it's something I've always wanted to do. Right now, I'm signed up for NIV readings, but I'm looking for a different version. I posted on facebook that I want something different enough to feel new to me, but not just a random version that doesn't have merit. Any suggestions? Also, the website has a link to commentaries, which I'm really excited about. So many times I read sections of the Bible and think, "What on earth did that mean?" However, it gives me a lot of options for commentaries. If you happen to ...