Sunday, March 27, 2011
E-mealz
Hi, my name is Chassidy and I am addicted to e-mealz. I found this through my friend Teri on Facebook. It is a dinner/menu planner. It gives you 5 meals to make for dinner each week and the shopping list to go with it. The shopping list is even divided by section in the grocery store!! The meals are really good, I would say we have enjoyed 90% of them and would make them again. There are several plans to choose from - we do low-fat for 2, which always leaves left overs for lunch the next day. I print the menu out on Sunday, get the groceries and we have dinner planned for the week! And it got us out of the rut of eating the same ol same ol each and every week. I love e-mealz! www.e-mealz.com
Sunday, March 20, 2011
The great payoff...
I just find it interesting that these are times when it is the "in thing" to pay off debt and free yourself from bills. I have noted over the last year or two how many more people publicize when they pay off a credit card or a loan. I couldn't have been happier to get a bonus this year and use it to pay things off. Jeremy's truck will be paid off in two more payments, and we may have a "no truck payment party". That payment is a beast, and I can't even imagine not having it, so before we get that money each month and have a chance to miss it, we will be diverting the exact amount toward the student loan payoff and savings. We have been living without that money each month for 48 months and we can continue to if it helps get rid of another payment! It IS something to be proud of, to live within your means and to strive toward being without debt. It's not easy, and it will be some time yet before we are just down to our mortgage, but we are working on it. And we could get there faster, I am spoiled. I drink Starbucks on the weekend and I do a little bit of shopping at Target and LOFT now and again and we are able to treat ourselves to dinner and vacations now and again.... But I put those things in the "work hard, play hard and the life is short" buckets, knowing if we needed to we could give them up. But for now - we will enjoy some of that while working towards the great payoff....
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Are you kidding me?
Yep, you MUST be kidding me. I just called my doctor's office and told them I needed to come in because my tonsils were swollen again. I told the cliff notes version of how I went to urgent care a couple weeks ago for the same thing and that they gave me antibiotics which helped but now it is back. The scheduler said that because of the "screw-ups" they are seeing due to urgent care they are telling patients "if you started there - you have to finish there". Excuse me???? So I replied back - "if I had just called for an appointment and not mentioned urgent care - I would be fine? That doesn't seem fair to me" and "you are telling me they are so incompetent, and now you are going to send me back there?" She also told me "not to mention it to my doctor" when I come in. Really? Really? So I am not supposed to tell my Doctor what I was treated for/with? B.S.! Watch me.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
2
Rece is 2! On his actual Birthday....he got slammed with some cough/cold/flu crap. Poor guy! He had something mild over the weekend, but then on Valentines Day, Monday he got hit by the truck of a virus. So bad so quick they did a chest x-ray again because I swear when this kid gets sick he always sounds like he has the pneu. Chest x-ray was negative but he was so sick they gave him a 5 day course of steroids...it helped some....but then he either got a new cold or the old one wasn't done because it came back. And yada yada yada....I THINK we are finally over it now - no less than 2 weeks later.
Anyway, we didn't celebrate too much that day which made me sad, but we did give him a few gifts from us so that he could play with them when he was home from school over the next couple of days. He liked the opening and of course the playing with the presents.
The following weekend we planned a celebration with all of the grandparents who came in from Michigan. He was feeling much better (compared to Monday at least) and we did it up with Balloons, Cupcakes and a cookie cake made and decorated by my Mom. As you can see by the pictures below it was a combo of Thomas the Train and the "Cars" movie. We decorated and got things set up while he was napping and then when he came downstairs it was all a surprise for him. He could see the balloons and gifts from the top of the stairs and he said "Oh Wow!" then he basically directly to the biggest box and started tearing paper. He is such a lucky boy to have such a great family that loves him so much and spoils him with such neat toys and books and clothes!
We had a really good weekend. (I will spare you the story of the urgent care visit over the weekend and the follow up peds visit on the Monday following for another post)
And it was a crazy feeling to celebrate the little man turning 2. I think I enjoy him more every day. He is so smart, funny, and beautiful and I am proud that I am his mommy.
Anyway, we didn't celebrate too much that day which made me sad, but we did give him a few gifts from us so that he could play with them when he was home from school over the next couple of days. He liked the opening and of course the playing with the presents.
The following weekend we planned a celebration with all of the grandparents who came in from Michigan. He was feeling much better (compared to Monday at least) and we did it up with Balloons, Cupcakes and a cookie cake made and decorated by my Mom. As you can see by the pictures below it was a combo of Thomas the Train and the "Cars" movie. We decorated and got things set up while he was napping and then when he came downstairs it was all a surprise for him. He could see the balloons and gifts from the top of the stairs and he said "Oh Wow!" then he basically directly to the biggest box and started tearing paper. He is such a lucky boy to have such a great family that loves him so much and spoils him with such neat toys and books and clothes!
We had a really good weekend. (I will spare you the story of the urgent care visit over the weekend and the follow up peds visit on the Monday following for another post)
And it was a crazy feeling to celebrate the little man turning 2. I think I enjoy him more every day. He is so smart, funny, and beautiful and I am proud that I am his mommy.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Before he was 2
In just a few weeks my little guy will be 2! I wanted to take a few minutes to capture all of the things that he is doing and enjoying now before we reach the milestone.
- He loves to talk and can now remember what he did at school and tell us about his day - including sometimes confessing to things like pushing or pinching someone.
-He has long since been speaking in complete sentences, and uses words and phrases like "I don't have any milk either?" "Mommy, Emma is silly" "That is awesome" "Oh! (as if surprised by something) Thank you Mommy!" "What's wrong? Oh, you happy now" "I have to tinkle in the potty".
-Speaking of potty, randomly he will tell us that he has to go and he has a few times, other times we have been slow to get the seat set up and he will go in his diaper. Most days he doesn't give it a second thought.
-He loves trains, loves loves loves! And he has several of the Wooden Thomas Railway collection. He is also a big "Cars" fan and right now his obsession is a metal John Deere tractor.
- He has gotten very into coloring pictures, we have his little tikes picnic table inside and we keep it in the upstairs living room and usually when we are working in the kitchen he is busy working on a piece of art.
-He still loves books. We just added Llama, llama, red pjama to the bed time routine.
-He has started calling this baby doll we have "baby seeester" I did not tell him to say this....but I think it is super cute.
-His fave foods right now are - Chicken, cheese, grapes, any kind of berry, whole apples so he can take bites like a big boy, pickles and eggs with cheese and sausage. When we take him out to dinner we give him 2 or 3 choices and he chooses for himself and eats it! Including a plate of broccoli just a couple of weeks ago.
-He likes to sing and do Yoga. I can take very little (no) credit for the lader. They do Yoga at his preschool and the posses he can hold are quite amazing and too funny. As for songs, he will bust out the ABC's, Bob the Builder, Twinkle Twinkle, etc at the most random times.
- Once and a while he busts out with a "Love you". The other day when we were driving home from school I asked him "Rece, do you love daddy?" He smiled and said "Yeah" then I said "Rece do you love Emma?" He smiled again and said "Yeah" . Then I asked "Rece do you love Mommy" and He said - "I want to go to the car wash"
The kid cracks.me.up. And I love that. Love you little monkey man.
- He loves to talk and can now remember what he did at school and tell us about his day - including sometimes confessing to things like pushing or pinching someone.
-He has long since been speaking in complete sentences, and uses words and phrases like "I don't have any milk either?" "Mommy, Emma is silly" "That is awesome" "Oh! (as if surprised by something) Thank you Mommy!" "What's wrong? Oh, you happy now" "I have to tinkle in the potty".
-Speaking of potty, randomly he will tell us that he has to go and he has a few times, other times we have been slow to get the seat set up and he will go in his diaper. Most days he doesn't give it a second thought.
-He loves trains, loves loves loves! And he has several of the Wooden Thomas Railway collection. He is also a big "Cars" fan and right now his obsession is a metal John Deere tractor.
- He has gotten very into coloring pictures, we have his little tikes picnic table inside and we keep it in the upstairs living room and usually when we are working in the kitchen he is busy working on a piece of art.
-He still loves books. We just added Llama, llama, red pjama to the bed time routine.
-He has started calling this baby doll we have "baby seeester" I did not tell him to say this....but I think it is super cute.
-His fave foods right now are - Chicken, cheese, grapes, any kind of berry, whole apples so he can take bites like a big boy, pickles and eggs with cheese and sausage. When we take him out to dinner we give him 2 or 3 choices and he chooses for himself and eats it! Including a plate of broccoli just a couple of weeks ago.
-He likes to sing and do Yoga. I can take very little (no) credit for the lader. They do Yoga at his preschool and the posses he can hold are quite amazing and too funny. As for songs, he will bust out the ABC's, Bob the Builder, Twinkle Twinkle, etc at the most random times.
- Once and a while he busts out with a "Love you". The other day when we were driving home from school I asked him "Rece, do you love daddy?" He smiled and said "Yeah" then I said "Rece do you love Emma?" He smiled again and said "Yeah" . Then I asked "Rece do you love Mommy" and He said - "I want to go to the car wash"
The kid cracks.me.up. And I love that. Love you little monkey man.
Christmas and New Years 2010
Wow - super duper behind on blogging....I am sure the 2 readers that I have, have long sense stopped checking for updates. But I will update none the less.
Our Holidays were great! I was so excited for Rece's 2nd Christmas - I think I had visions of him opening each and every gift and oohhhhhing and ahhhhhing and giving everyone big hugs and kisses of Thanks. So it didn't happen exactly like that....but he really did enjoy the whole opening of gifts thing this year and with each and every box that he unwrapped he would say "open it" so that toy had to be opened right then so he could check out what was inside.
We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day in Jackson at my parents and then headed to Mt. Pleasant the day after Christmas for Christmas with Jeremy's parents. We also had the opportunity to see some friends as well, which was great. On Christmas Eve we went to the 5pm Children's Mass. Rece started off mass with "Wow and ohhhhhh" when they started singing the opening hymn. But by 5 minutes into the actual mass he said (loudly) - "I go home now?" . Overall he was pretty good, Jeremy took him out into the family/welcome area about 2/3rds through the mass because he was too fidgety to stay in the pew.
Christmas Day we got up and opened gifts and then celebrated with the whole Dawson family at my parents house. Although it is crazy, because there were like 40 people there, it is such a cool way to spend Christmas Day, with family - near and far. Rece liked playing with all of his little second cousins. So many babies now, it is so much fun.
When we got up to the lake the weather wasn't quite as cold so Rece got to build a snowman with Gma, Gpa and Josh. He loved that. We also got to see all of his Great Grandma's on the trip. We had been showing him pictures so he would know their names and he did, he did great. He really has never had "stranger danger" shyness, maybe a good thing, maybe not...who knows.
One funny story: on our way from Jackson to Mt. Pleasant we stopped at the Lake Lansing Road Mejier. In the middle of a busy isle Rece folds his hands in the shopping cart and yells out "Thank you Jesus!!" - he was praying. We had to pick ourselves up off the floor of the beer and wine isle....(cough) I mean the cereal isle from laughing so hard. No idea why he busted out the lunch prayer in the middle of meijer, but I am pretty sure people thought he was an angel child.
Anyway, we stayed in Michigan through the new year this year which was also nice - I actually saw mid-night this year. First time in three years I think. Some pictures below of our great 2010 Christmas:
Yoga Master...
Our Holidays were great! I was so excited for Rece's 2nd Christmas - I think I had visions of him opening each and every gift and oohhhhhing and ahhhhhing and giving everyone big hugs and kisses of Thanks. So it didn't happen exactly like that....but he really did enjoy the whole opening of gifts thing this year and with each and every box that he unwrapped he would say "open it" so that toy had to be opened right then so he could check out what was inside.
We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day in Jackson at my parents and then headed to Mt. Pleasant the day after Christmas for Christmas with Jeremy's parents. We also had the opportunity to see some friends as well, which was great. On Christmas Eve we went to the 5pm Children's Mass. Rece started off mass with "Wow and ohhhhhh" when they started singing the opening hymn. But by 5 minutes into the actual mass he said (loudly) - "I go home now?" . Overall he was pretty good, Jeremy took him out into the family/welcome area about 2/3rds through the mass because he was too fidgety to stay in the pew.
Christmas Day we got up and opened gifts and then celebrated with the whole Dawson family at my parents house. Although it is crazy, because there were like 40 people there, it is such a cool way to spend Christmas Day, with family - near and far. Rece liked playing with all of his little second cousins. So many babies now, it is so much fun.
When we got up to the lake the weather wasn't quite as cold so Rece got to build a snowman with Gma, Gpa and Josh. He loved that. We also got to see all of his Great Grandma's on the trip. We had been showing him pictures so he would know their names and he did, he did great. He really has never had "stranger danger" shyness, maybe a good thing, maybe not...who knows.
One funny story: on our way from Jackson to Mt. Pleasant we stopped at the Lake Lansing Road Mejier. In the middle of a busy isle Rece folds his hands in the shopping cart and yells out "Thank you Jesus!!" - he was praying. We had to pick ourselves up off the floor of the beer and wine isle....(cough) I mean the cereal isle from laughing so hard. No idea why he busted out the lunch prayer in the middle of meijer, but I am pretty sure people thought he was an angel child.
Anyway, we stayed in Michigan through the new year this year which was also nice - I actually saw mid-night this year. First time in three years I think. Some pictures below of our great 2010 Christmas:
Yoga Master...
Saturday, January 1, 2011
2011 Bucket List
I am stealing this term from my future SIL Taylor. I was thinking about my 2011 goals and she mentioned she too had a "2011 Bucket List", and well lets face it - it sounds more fun than "Goals". :-)
So here it is, in no particular order and I reserve the right to add at any time, oh and the one that is * out is confidential ;-)
1. Workout and improve my fitness and energy level! And feel good about wearing a swimsuit by the time Clint and Taylor's Maui Wedding comes around in August!
2. Fund raise and walk in an Avon 2 Day Breast Cancer Walk (debating between Chicago and DC walks)
3. Read 12 books
4. Go on at least 12 dates with my husband
5. ***********
So here it is, in no particular order and I reserve the right to add at any time, oh and the one that is * out is confidential ;-)
1. Workout and improve my fitness and energy level! And feel good about wearing a swimsuit by the time Clint and Taylor's Maui Wedding comes around in August!
2. Fund raise and walk in an Avon 2 Day Breast Cancer Walk (debating between Chicago and DC walks)
3. Read 12 books
4. Go on at least 12 dates with my husband
5. ***********
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