My Shopping Buddy

Today after I dropped Evan off at school, Emmaline and I had some errands to run. Before we left the house, Emmaline had to make sure she took her purse with her. She kept saying, "I take my purse like mommy." She got her shoes on, put her coat on, grabbed her purse and put it up on her shoulder. Then she said to me, "Like this mom, up here, mommy do like this?" She wanted to make sure she was carrying her purse right just like me.

When I was getting Evan ready for school I realized his spring coat from last year didn't exactly fit anymore. The sleeves were pretty much 3/4 sleeves and the length was, let's just say not so lengthy. So Em and I headed to Children's Place to see if we could find him a new spring coat. I had picked up one for her awhile back, but couldn't find one for Ev at the time. When we got out of the car Em wanted to take her purse. I knew how bad she wanted to be like mommy so I went with it and told her she could. I said she had to carry it the whole time, I wasn't going to and she couldn't set it down anywhere. She said, "O.k. mommy." Here's my sweet little Emmaline carrying her purse into the store ready to shop.

She was doing this all on her own. She didn't even know I was taking her picture until I told her to turn around to take this photo. Isn't she adorable? All the customers in the store were just giddy over how cute she was being. It really was the cutest thing.

Do you see what her shirt says? "I was born to $hop." The funny thing is I had this outfit picked out last night before I even decided we were going to run errands today. She was also dressed way before she decided to take her purse shopping when we left. I think the saying fits her well! Here she is helping me check out. She had to hold some items pretending she was going to pay with her "credit card" (used gift cards she carries in her wallet that she calls credit cards).


Oh my little girl is growing up to fast wanting to carry a purse. I don't think I even knew what a credit card was at the age of two! The good news is we did find Evan a new spring coat (Em is holding it) and Evan liked what we picked out for him.

A Spartan Celebration!

Yesterday after the game Greg was wondering if there was going to be a "welcome back" for the basketball team like last year. I had totally forgotten that they did that last year. He and Evan went, but I had stayed home because it wasn't until later and Em was in bed. This year when he mentioned it, I was thinking "if there is, I'm going... we're all going." Soon after talking about it, the announcement popped up on Facebook that at 9 o'clock there was going to be a pep rally for the team. So after dinner I had the kids get all dressed up in their Spartan gear and we headed off to welcome back the team with a lot of other Spartan fans! The Spartan spirit was so exciting and it was just a great thing to be a part of! The kids had fun and actually got into it more than I expected! Here's some of our fun we had at the Breslin Center last night! ( I posted these on Facebook, but they're so great that they have to be in my blog!)

The tunnel at the Breslin Center

Evan at the Breslin all decked out in his Spartan Gear!
My little Spartans so excited to celebrate!

Emmaline cheering for the team as they entered the Breslin CenterThe team arriving with the trophy

Coach Izzo talking to the crowd, joined by Sparty!

Living in Spartan Country this time of year when the basketball team is headed to the Final Four is AWESOME! Unless you're a true Spartan you probably don't get it, but believe me it feels great! Next up is Indy on Saturday! GO STATE!

Time To Get Caught Up

Here I am readers! Time for me to get caught up since I haven't blogged since Tuesday. I've been a little busy working on a project that's taking longer than I thought. On Wednesday I started cleaning out my cupboards. I'm talking really cleaning. It's been on my to-do list for awhile, and my friend Ann had talked about how she was tackling her cupboards a few weeks ago. I thought that was going to be my push to really get going, but then a couple weeks went by. Finally on Wednesday I went at it. I started taking everything out of the cupboards, wiping them out, washing everything that doesn't get used that often (the everyday stuff I figured was pretty clean since it gets put in the dishwasher often). Then I weeded through stuff to see what I wanted to get rid of and started a garage sale box. Finally what I wanted to keep went back into the cupboards. I started off by doing a few cupboards at a time thinking I'd be done in a couple days. Well by Friday, I almost finished. I've just got the pantry cupboard left. I've done all the others plus the drawers so I think I've done pretty good. I can't believe how dirty cupboards get when the doors are shut 99.9% of the time. Seriously there was dust like I couldn't believe. Now they're all nice and clean, all organized, and I've got a full box of stuff for the garage sale. I found baby bowls in there that should have been gone a long time ago. They were the kind that suction to the high chair. Seriously, no wonder the cupboards were a mess. It feels good to have them done, well almost. I don't think the pantry one will take to long. It's mostly organized already and it's just a matter of taking everything out and wiping the shelves down and then putting everything back in. I'm glad I finally tackled that project and it feels good to make some progress. Now I'm going to have to find a new project to tackle. It won't be hard believe me, I've got many on my list!

Now to the serious stuff that's been happening over the past two days! My beloved SPARTANS!!! A win on Friday over Northern Iowa meant a trip to the Elite 8 and even better was a win this afternoon over Tennessee which means a trip to the FINAL FOUR!!!! Woooo Hoooo! I'm so proud of our team for playing their hearts out and making it this far with all the injuries they've incurred. What a great day to be a Spartan!!! Our friend Brenda came over to watch the game and Greg made this awesome taco dip. We had this taco dip kit thing we bought awhile back and have been waiting to find a time to use it. Finally today was the perfect time so I asked Greg if he'd make it. He did a great job and it came out delicious! Check it out!


It made a ton, but it was delish! The only problem is that it's from a kit with different packages of spices combined with fresh ingredients, etc. so I can't give you a recipe, but believe me it was yummy! The hubs and the kids even helped me clean this morning which was nice. I think Brenda should come over more often then we have a clean house! Haha! Now we're all waiting for 9 o'clock to roll around. It's a family outing for us tonight at the Breslin Center. There's a pep rally to welcome the team back so we're going to go partake in the excitement. Last year just Evan and Greg went, but I'm not missing out this year so Em gets to go to and stay up a little late tonight! Six Final Fours in the last twelve years! Better yet three Final Fours in the last six years! And to top that... back to back Final Fours last year and this year! Indy here come the Spartans!!!!

Sleep Or Should I Say Lack Of Sleep

Wow, it's been a long day and all I really want to do is crawl in bed and go to sleep. However, I feel like I need to blog because it's been a couple days, and I don't want to neglect my faithful readers, although sometimes I wonder if you're reading because the comments have been slipping lately. I know some of you do read faithfully, but don't comment. I've had another migraine today, which if you're on Facebook you've heard I've had a lot of them lately. It started about 1pm and is still with me. Ugh! It's especially not a good thing when I really feel like I'm lacking some sleep lately. This time change has been in effect for over a week now and for some reason I just can't get adjusted. First I was staying up late for the Olympics, then the time changed and while the clock was saying midnight my mind & body was telling me it was only 11pm. Then Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I was staying up late watching basketball. Plus over the last few days I haven't been sleeping well and it's catching up with me. I've had a hard time falling asleep at night. Then once I finally do fall asleep, I've been waking up in the middle of the night tossing and turning and am wide awake not able to fall back to sleep for like an hour or two later. Then when it's time to get up in the morning I'm so tired and all I want to do is stay in bed, but I know if I don't get up and moving I'm going to have a messed up day. Thankfully my kids aren't up too early, but it still doesn't allow me to sleep the morning away. I'm really hoping that I get a good nights sleep here really soon!

Tonight we had Kindergarten info night for East Lansing schools. It was kind of weird going to it, thinking my little guy is going to be starting kindergarten in the fall. I'm not sure how I feel about that right now, mixed feelings. It just doesn't seem possible that he will be in kindergarten already. Most of you know, but for those of you that don't... we're actually Lansing school district even though we live in East Lansing. The boundaries are really weird where we live. Most of our neighborhood is East Lansing schools, but phase three is Lansing schools. The house across the street from us is East Lansing school district, but we're Lansing school district. We have an East Lansing address, but live in Clinton County although most of East Lansing is Ingham County. Are you following me? I know it's weird! We pay Lansing property taxes which is nice since the house across the street pays about $1000 more a year in property taxes. However now that we're about to send our first little one off to school we have to go the schools of choice route because we really don't want him going to Lansing schools. We knew when we built that our property was zoned Lansing schools, but we were told that by the time Evan was in school it would more than likely be East Lansing schools. Well, that hasn't happened and that's a whole other topic in itself about things promised when we built. Anyway, it is what it is and now we're opting to do schools of choice for Evan in hopes that he'll get into East Lansing schools. I'm saying my prayers and keeping my fingers crossed. They won't announce until the end of May how many openings and then there's like a 15 day period when you can apply for schools of choice. Then they do a lottery, and you hope your name gets picked. It's not a first come first served basis so you really have no control over it. So while we don't know for sure that Evan will be going to East Lansing we still thought we should go check out the kindergarten info meeting. It was good to get some info and now we just have to wait until we hear how many openings. Wish us luck! Now it's definitely time for bed. I sure hope it's a good night.

Great End To A Great Week!

Wow what a week it's been! I've had a great birthday week and I couldn't have asked for it to end any better. More on that in a moment. Here's a little recap of the past few days. On Friday I finally got to have my belated birthday lunch and Noodles & Co. Mmmm so yummy! I just love that place! Then Friday night brought about some Spartan basketball. We chilled at home Friday evening and made a pizza, had a beer, and watched the Spartans win in the first round of the tournament against New Mexico State. It was a little to close for my liking, but a win is a win and I'll take it. I love my Spartan basketball!

Saturday we woke up to SNOW! Seriously, only in Michigan people! Ugh. I'm so done with winter and got used to this nice warm 60+ degree weather. I'm really hoping that was the last of it. Just a dusting to cover the ground, but more than I'd like at this time of year nonetheless. As of yesterday it is officially spring, so come on spring stick around! Saturday afternoon we watched some b-ball and then Greg and I went to the Lansing Home & Garden Show. I scored some free tickets from Lansing Mom's Like Me so we figured we'd check it out. It was o.k., but didn't really find much there. We want to put a patio in this summer and were hoping to find a couple places to talk to, but there wasn't really anyone there for what we're looking to do. I was glad I didn't pay to go, but since it was free I can't complain. Saturday night can you take a guess what we did? Yep, more basketball! Oh I love March Madness!!!

On Sunday we ran a couple errands then got home in time to watch the Spartans take on Maryland in the second round of the tourney. Good good game! The Spartans pretty much had it in the bag most of the game, but come second half which happens often with Big Ten teams in the tourney when they're ahead the calls started going against the Green & White. Bad calls refs, bad calls! With 6.6 seconds Maryland scored and went ahead by one. The Spartans hustled down the court and rallied with a 3 point by Korie Lucious to win the game. Spectacular basketball and while these games are stressing me out being nail biters to the end, it's what March Madness is all about. Now can you see why I couldn't have asked to a better end to my birthday week? A trip for my Spartans to the Sweet 16 was a perfect way to end the birthday week! Not to mention that it was also bunco night so that was also a fun way to end the week. My friend Liana across the street was hostess this month and she had "Gift Card Madness" bunco. Bring $5 to play and a $5 gift card of your choice. I of course brought a gift card to Noodles! While I didn't win big money this time or a big bunco prize, I did end up with my own Noodles gift card to bring home so I was happy. There was lots of stealing of the baby bunco prizes this time and the Noodle gift card kept getting passed around, but in the end I won it! Yippeeee, another trip to Noodles is in my future. Thanks Liana for hostessing. The theme was great and the food was delicious! It's been a great week despite the little cough and sore throat I've been battling the past couple days. I'm hoping it travels on soon and I get better. Waking up in the morning with a sore throat is no fun! I'm looking forward to seeing the 50 degree weather heading our way this week!

March Madness Has Begun

It's hoops time! B-ball from noon until midnight as the NCAA Men's Basketball Tourney has officially started today. That means the brackets are in place and it's time to watch the upsets, nail biter games, and the blowouts in each round of the tourney. I like basketball during the regular season (mainly MSU b-ball), but I love this time of year when it's basketball fever! The first four days of the tourney are the best when you're watching one game and then it's halftime and they switch to another game and it's back and forth all night. Very little breaks and all basketball! It's fun to see the upsets unless it's your bracket taking a beating. Then it's not so cool. It's great to see your team win and keep advancing in the tournament, but it stinks big time when they lose and are knocked out.

My Spartan hoops play their first game tomorrow night, While I'm not expecting them to play for the national championship like I was thinking at the beginning of the year, I am hoping they'll advance a couple rounds and make me proud. Play hard Spartans, play hard! I'm hoping teams like Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Florida St. and Florida lose early. Which Florida did lose earlier today so that was good. I can't stand Florida teams and I really can't stand Duke basketball. They're way overrated as a #1 seed this year and they play absolutely no one so they're more than likely to make the final four which just plain stinks!

I've got three brackets going and they're all just for fun. I'm bound to get some of the picks right in each because I pick different teams to win. I've been on a roll the past few years beating Greg in the brackets so we'll have to wait and see if I can do it again this year. I feel a little guilty picking against my Spartans after a couple rounds, but I'm just not feeling it this year. This is one time I'd love to be wrong and have my Spartans surprise me (fingers crossed). There's been a few upsets already today in this first day of play, as well as some really close games, and a couple of OT games. I'm hoping my brackets don't turn to red by the end of the night. Looking forward to some great games ahead and overdosing on some basketball over the next few weeks!

It's My St. Patty's Day Birthday!!!

Have you heard the news? It's my birthdaaaaaay! I'm sure you know by now that I just love the day my birthday is on. Seriously, what a great day to have a birthday on St. Patrick's Day! It's just fun to see everybody celebrating the day and to see all the GREEEEEEEN! Love it, love it, love it! The weather today was beautiful for March. It was 65 degrees and sunny! I really couldn't ask for it to be any nicer today. Okay, maybe 70, but hey my mom is in Florida and it was only 67 there so 65 in Michigan in March is great!

The morning started off great with a "Happy Birthday" from the hubby. Then when I went in Em's room this morning to get her up she said, "Happy Birthday Mommy!" Awwww, my heart melted. My little guy sang "Happy Birthday" to me when he got up. He did such a great job! I made the kids green milk for breakfast this morning and they thought that was the coolest! I tried to make them green eggs, but they wanted cereal. I had me some Lucky Charms to start my day! My cell phone was blowing up with texts today with facebook messages from everyone wishing me a "Happy Birthday" on my facebook page. I really felt the love today and it was super nice for so many people to think of me. Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes, it really meant a lot! I'm very lucky to have some great friends and family!

The plan today was to go to lunch with Greg and the kids before we took Evan to school and then to dinner tonight with some friends. We were going to go to the Noodle Company to use my free birthday entree coupon, but our plans got postponed when I got a call from Greg saying he wouldn't be free for lunch and I needed to take Evan to school. Someone got laid off at his work today, and he had to take over the assignment since the other guy wasn't going to be there. I admit I was bummed that we couldn't go to lunch, but I'm also very thankful that he has a job. We'll do lunch another day this week and just extend the birthday celebration. Nothing wrong with that, right? Instead after I dropped Evan off at school I treated myself to McAlister's Deli for lunch and used my birthday coupon I had for there. I brought it home and shared with Emme.

Greg did get out of work a little early and he picked up Evan for me. When they got home we headed out a little early to Bennigan's for dinner. We were meeting our friend Brenda, and our friends the Marr's there at 6pm. I figured we'd go early to get our name in because I was sure they'd be getting busy. Then I had planned to run to Target during our wait time. On our way there Liana called and Rich had a little accident at the skate park with Veronica and she was heading to the ER. His back gave out or something and he couldn't move and they weren't sure what was wrong. He ended up getting some x-rays and that was the last we heard because when Greg talked to Rich he was waiting for the results. Hopefully everything turns out o.k. We got to Bennigan's around 5pm, and they weren't super busy yet and they said we'd probably be fine around 6pm with that many people. I asked if I could put my name in and the girl was asking someone else if they could take names. He said no, but we shouldn't have much of a wait. I told them it was my birthday and the girl says, "Well in that case of course we'll take your name... a St. Patty's Day birthday, that's awesome!" I love getting the preferential treatment! We ended up having a nice dinner with Brenda and her daughter. I had a couple green beers so I was happy. Although I had a headache since 2 o'clock and knew the beer wouldn't help (and it didn't) I still couldn't pass up my green birthday beer! It was tasty! Check out my green beer. So cool!


On the way home we picked up some shamrock shakes for dessert. Of course I had to have a shamrock shake on my birthday! The kids enjoyed their shake too! I had a great birthday and thanks to my wonderful kids for wishing me "Happy Birthday" all day! My birthday is even more special these days with my two lucky charms in my life. Here they are all decked out in green today!

Giving each other some St. Patty's Day lovin'.

A kiss for good luck today!

I'm officially in Club 35 now! Boy, I'm getting old! Now the big birthday is about over and it's another year until it's time to celebrate again! Thanks again to everyone for the birthday cards, presents, and birthday wishes. Thanks to Greg's mom for the Ukai birthday dinner last night. It's been a great week so far! I hope you all wore your green today, and I'll finish this by wishing you all a Happy St. Patty's Day!

Extra Storage- Yippeee!

Yesterday Evan headed back to school after being off a whole week for spring break. Greg had rode his bike to work yesterday which meant he wouldn't be home at lunch time so I had to take Evan to school. So when it was time to leave I was getting Em ready and told her we had to get going to take brother to school. She kept asking "why?" something she says A LOT these days! I told her brother has school today and she replied "Scooby Doo. Brother bring Scooby Doo home." It kind of surprised me that that was her reply, but guess what readers? Emmaline knew something we didn't because when I picked up Evan from school he had the backpack that contained Scooby Doo. His name got picked again and he got to bring Scooby home! We pulled up and you should of seen the look on Em's face. She was so excited when she saw Evan standing there. She knew right away he had Scooby Doo. Too funny!

It turned out to be a beautiful day yesterday once the sun came out in the afternoon! That meant a great day for a walk according to Evan. So after dinner we headed out for a walk and of course Evan rode his bike. He insisted on taking Scooby with us so he put on his backpack and carried Scooby along. Here's him and Scooby riding the bike!


After our walk, Greg hung my new cabinets in the laundry room! Sunday he had put them together, but it got to late to hang them. So last night he said he would and he did. Wow, I didn't realize how different it would make the laundry room, but I think they look good. I'm so excited to have some extra storage now and get everything off the counter. I've already filled them up half way. I need to figure out what else I want to put in them. What a nice early birthday present to have them up! I really expected it to take Greg a few weeks to getting around to it! LOL. Here's my new cabinets! Yeah!


We still need to find some knobs for them, but at least they're hung and I can get stuff in them. Now looks like we need to make a trip to Home Depot to pick out the hardware!

Birthday Celebrations!

Wow! What a weekend it was! Friday night our friend Brenda came over and brought pizza for dinner. It was so nice not to have to cook and it was a great way to welcome in the weekend! After dinner we all headed for our first trip to the Tasty Twist. This year the Tasty Twist has a new location. It was kind of weird to visit the new place on Friday. A few months back it was announced that Tasty Twist closed up and was relocating down the road. The spot they had been in for years had been a leased location and the owner of the property chose not to renew the Tasty Twist lease because he was going to expand the parking to the gas station which is next door (the owner of the property owns the gas station and the Tasty Twist building). So Tasty Twist decided to move into the old Baskin Robbins location. Well come to find out, the whole expanding the parking lot was a joke. The gas station owner decided he was going to open his own ice cream shop. The whole story is quite unbelievable. This guy is going to name it Tasty Treat, the sign has the same blue and white colors as Tasty Twist does, and the lettering on the sign is almost the same exact font. It's ridiculous. Everyone who is a loyal customer to Tasty Twist is boycotting this new place and the word has been spread to not go to Tasty Treat. I hope it doesn't do well because what this guy did to Tasty Twist is just rotten. I wish the new location of Tasty Twist lots of luck. It's going to take some getting used to because the new spot is indoors and while that means it will be open year round, it's not the same as walking up outside to order your ice cream and sit outside to eat it. Evan kept asking why we couldn't go to the old location. I had to explain to him it's still the same place, same ice cream, just new building.

On Saturday it was a day long of birthday celebrating! Since I'll be turning 35 in a few days, I decided awhile back all I wanted to do was have a little girl time and do something fun. So I planned pedicures and manicures followed by lunch with some of my close friends. Unfortunately with everyone's busy schedule only a few could make it, but we still had a good time. The morning started off with my friends Wesley, Liana, Christina, and I all getting pedicures, and my friend Carla got a manicure. It's been FOREVER since I've had a pedicure and let me tell you, it felt so good to have the feet pampered! I'm thinking I need to go more often! Which thanks to Christina, I will have to return. She got me a gift card for Douglas J which I was going to use, but then Wesley and Carla surprised me with buying my pedicure for my birthday present! Thanks ladies, you really didn't have to, but it was greatly appreciated! You all are awesome! Here's Christina, Liana, and Wesley waiting for the toesies to dry.


Carla was getting the manicure so I couldn't get her in the shot with the other girls so here's her & Wes. Thanks gals for treating me to the pedicure! So sweet!


Some of the gals couldn't make it to lunch and vice versa, some couldn't make it to the salon. Carla however made it to both so she and I headed over to Champps after wards and we met up with my friends Marie and Jessica. A couple other girls had to cancel last minute so it was just the four of us for lunch, but we still had a great time! Thanks to Jess for the Bath & Body goodies and for buying my lunch! Again it was greatly appreciated. Unfortunately we were all so engrossed in conversation that by the time we left I realized I never got a picture. Bummer. I had a great morning/early afternoon celebrating my birthday early! Thanks ladies for helping me kick off turning 35!

I have to give a big shout out to my husband for offering to watch Jess' kids while she went to lunch with me. She had canceled that morning because she didn't have a sitter. Greg offered to watch her two kids so she could go. So while we were out having fun, he was watching four kids! Evan and Em loved to be able to play with Grace and Matthew. Thanks honey for offering to watch them! I was glad Jess was able to come to lunch!

Later Saturday night we were invited to a birthday party for my friend Jenn down the street. She's the one that turned 35 on Monday and she was having a belated birthday celebration. It was at Spartan Hall of Fame Cafe. Greg's mom watched the kids for us so we were able to go which we really appreciated. We had a great time at the party. We even met some new people from the neighborhood as well as mingled with some of our friends from the neighborhood! It was the first time in a long time we've been out late and actually enjoyed a few drinks. We had a lot of fun and thanks again Jenn for including us in your birthday celebration! Here's Jenn kissing the bottle of wine we got her.


This was her awesome birthday cake from Mirabella in Grand Rapids. It was cherry chip (so yummy) and it was decorated in all her favorite things- Michigan State, Yoga, & Dogs! So neat!


Now as I'm writing this post I'm a little messed up on my time with it being Daylight Savings Time. We of course had to spring ahead, and my body is telling me really it's an hour earlier and I'm not tired, but in fact it's an hour later and I should really go to bed!

Evan's In The Organizing Mode Again

Today Evan was sitting at his table coloring away, and out of the blue he asked me if he could organize the coloring bucket (it contains crayons, paper, coloring books, paint books, etc.). I told him he could as long as once he took everything out of the bucket, he put it all back in. Sure enough he took everything out and worked hard to organize the bucket, and then he put everything back in it all nice and neat. Then he wanted to organize the toy closet for me. I had told him earlier that I was going to clean the closet out, and when I did I wanted it to stay nice and neat. So he said he'd clean and organize it for me. I met him halfway and told him if he took everything out, he could help me put stuff back in, but I had to help. There's certain places some things need to go because Em needs to be able to get to them. Then there's also certain things that need to go a little higher up on the shelves so she can't get to them. So while I was doing some things, Evan went to town taking the toys and games out of the closet. This is what I found when he was ready for part two and me to help.


You can see the shelf in the closet is empty. He took everything out that he could reach. Then we worked together putting the stuff back in so it was neatly organized. Evan was so proud of his work that he wanted in the picture after we got everything back in the closet.


After the closet was done, Evan was not. He wanted to help me clean and organize some more. So we picked up all the stuff in the play kitchen and got it put away. We dumped everything out of the two toy baskets and organized those and got rid of a few things. Then we cleaned out the two drawers in the bookcases that have toys in them, and we finished just in time for Em to wake up from her nap. Evan was quite the good little helper today and we got a lot accomplished. Thanks Ev for your hard work! Now let's hope it stays organized and picked up. Cross your fingers!

One More Week!

Well folk, we're on the home stretch here until the big birthday! Only one week until the 35th St. Patty's Day birthday! Yeah! I was just reading my friend Ann's blog and her neighborhood does a progressive St. Patrick's Day party. How fun does that sound? Ann, I think I need details on this. Sounds like something we need to get going in our neighborhood here. Don't you agree neighbors that are reading. How fun that would be! It's a little late to put together this year, but I'm thinking for next year we should make this happen.

Today my friend Wes came over and the girls had a little playdate. She of course brought the baby too! I can't believe how big Drew is getting already and that he'll be a month old tomorrow already. It doesn't seem possible that a month has flown by! It was nice to catch up and the girls had fun playing. Apparently Em got worn out because she took a good long nap for me today! While she napped I was going to work on cleaning out my cupboards, but instead I got the urge to move furniture. I know it hasn't been long since I moved the living room furniture around, but I've been itching to move the couch. I'm glad I did because I had forgotten how much I like the couch how it is now. This arrangement seems to work well in the spring/summer time.



When the couch is angled in the corner where it is now, it just seems to open up the living room some. It's not blocking the window (it was in front of the windows before) and with spring coming I like the windows to be visible and not block so I can open them up and get the fresh air flowing through the house. Also, with the couch this way then the chairs get moved and it opens up the area by the front door so you can just walk right through. I think it will be staying like this for awhile now since the weather is warming up. I particularly like my chair by the door in the spring/summer when the front door is open often! However now that I've moved the furniture it makes for a little problem with room for the kids' toys, but that's o.k., I'll figure something out. I'm a little tired of the toys taking over the living room so it's time for the furniture to be how I really like it and the toys come second in finding a spot!

An Impromptu Shopping Trip

Happy Monday everyone! It seems like I was just saying it's the weekend, but that came and went fast enough! That's o.k., the sun is shining for the eighth day in a row, I've got the front door open and am loving it! This week Evan is on Spring Break since it's MSU Spring Break so no running back and forth to school. It'll be nice to have him home everyday. Yesterday Greg comes downstairs and shows me this picture on his phone of a couch he found online. For those of you that don't know, we've been thinking about getting a new couch and have recently started looking, but haven't found anything yet. We saw one at Art Van that's on the "like" list and then he showed me this one yesterday online that was at IKEA. So after talking about it and saying we should go there sometime soon and check it out we decided sometime soon would be yesterday. So within a half hour of looking at the couch online we loaded up the car and headed to IKEA. We got there around noon which of course meant lunchtime so we decided we'd grab something from the cafeteria there. We lucked out with a special they were having for the weekend that was only a $1. Yes, that's right $1! it included 10 meatballs, mashed potatoes, & lingonberries. Can't beat that price for all of us to eat there for lunch. It was yummy too. Love the Swedish meatballs at IKEA!

After we ate we shopped around and of course it was crazy busy there. We looked at the couch and did like it. We're not sure if we like it better than the one at Art Van or not. We want a leather couch and are kind of picky about the style of it. Too many leather couches have the big buttons on them and we're just not into that. This one at IKEA and the one at Art Van don't have the buttons so that's a plus! As we wandered our way through the store we came upon the kitchen department and remember I said I wanted cabinets for the laundry room? Well, since we were there, we looked at their cabinets. Although Greg wanted them to kind of match the other one's I on the other hand didn't care because for one they're in the laundry room and for two nobody is really gonna see them much. It's not like I show off my "exciting" laundry room when people are over. So after convincing him to go with the one's that were just plain white with no design on the door he agreed and we got the cheaper one's. I had to convince Greg to go with something cheaper, go figure! Usually it's me that likes the more expensive item! So I'm happy to say that soon (once Greg puts them together and hangs them) I'll have some extra storage in the laundry room! Yeah!!! I know it's a little pathetic that I'm excited about cabinets, but believe me it will make me very happy. I've always wanted them in there! I also got a few things to use for my UL parties to put some expressions on so I guess that means I can write off the trip to IKEA, huh?

Of course since we were over that way and went right by it, we had to make a stop at Trader Joe's. Love, love, love Trader Joe's! I really wish they'd put one around here! When we walked in I discovered some little shopping carts that the kids didn't see. So when I walked up behind them with their size carts they were more than thrilled. Shopping for a few groceries suddenly didn't seem so bad and boring. Here's our two little helpers that were all set to shop! It was nice, I didn't have to push a cart.


Em got so excited she just started grabbing stuff off the shelves and put them in her cart. I had to remind her several times to wait until we got something we actually wanted to buy and then she could put it in her cart. Here are my happy little shoppers all done shopping and ready to go checkout! They had a blast with their little shopping carts.


After Trader Joe's we headed towards home, but had to make one last stop in Howell at the Outlet Mall. We went into the Coach store to look for my birthday present and some little girl who takes after my own heart was all set to make her purchase. Take a look...


My little princess Emmaline loves purses just like me! Sorry Daddy, but she is a girlie girl! I couldn't believe how into the purses she was. She became quite attached to them and really wanted to buy one, or two, or three. Oh and she needed a wallet too she said. It was the cutest thing. The ladies working in the store thought she was so adorable. She really wanted this pink one in the picture, and had a little melt down when we put it back, but at $90 on clearance I don't think so for a two year old. Maybe if I win the lotto, but sorry Emmaline, mommy is getting a $90 purse before you. I almost got a bigger version of this pink one, and I could just picture it for a moment at how cute it would be for us to have matching purses. She melted my heart carrying it around. It was the cutest thing! I did love the bigger pink/tan one, but I decided to be practical and go with all brown instead of the pink. I figured in the winter time I didn't know if I wanted to be carrying around a pink purse even though I'm a huge fan of the color, so brown it was. They had an extra 20% off too so we stopped on a good day! Here's my birthday present from the kids and Greg for my 35th!


It's so nice and new and clean I'm a little nervous to use it, but my other purse really needs a good cleaning so I'm thinking it's a good time to switch over. Thanks to my three favorite people for my early birthday present! I love you all bunches! So I'd say we had a successful trip to IKEA, TJ's and the outlet mall! Unfortunately we didn't have time to make a Home Goods stop. Bummer, but next time for sure! Ann you'll get a kick out of knowing that Evan wanted to go visit you yesterday after we walked out of IKEA. He asked me, "Can we go see your friend with the orange basement?" I told him we couldn't just bust in on you and show up! He really wanted to see Sylvia and play with her in the orange basement. Too funny! Before I leave you today I'd like to wish our neighbor Jenn a very happy birthday! She's joining Club 35 like I will be next week! Happy Birthday Jenn! Can't wait to celebrate our birthdays together this weekend!

It's The Weekend!

Wow this week flew by! Holy cow almost a week of March is done. Greg got his car back finally today. They fixed the oil leak and did some other maintenance work on it and ended up being $1800 worth of work and it only cost us $125. Greg had taken it to the Subaru dealer here in town last week for a used car inspection, and they recommended at 105,000 miles to change the timing belt. It's something that should be done because if it's not and some thing goes wrong it would do a lot of damage and be costly. They told Greg it would be about $800 to have it done. Thank goodness we've got some time and that's down the road. However when Greg dropped off the car on Monday, after they looked at it the guy mentioned the same thing and recommended changing the timing belt. Then he said since he's got to take the engine apart for the other stuff he'd do the timing belt free of labor charge and all we had to pay for was the part which was $100. Greg immediately jumped in with a yes go ahead. $100 sounded a lot better now than $800 down the road after he puts 5000 miles on the car. Then they ended up putting new spark plugs in because the car needed them soon so those were only $25. So in the end we were quite pleased with the service we got in Elhart in Holland, and know we definitely picked the right dealer to buy the car from. Definitely worth our drive there a couple of times!

So now that we have Greg's car back, now it's time for mine to go in on Monday. Last Saturday when I went to GR for my party my check engine light came on. Lovely, I thought... or NOT! At least I know it's covered because my car is only two years old so whatever it is will be under warranty. We think it's a defective thermostat so hopefully it shouldn't take to long to get done and I'll have my car back Monday night.

Enough car talk, I know it's not that exciting, but hey it's what's going on at the Shearwater Nest. Now that it's the weekend we started it off with a playdate this afternoon at a friend of Evan's. Emmaline went too sine Evan's friend Baleigh has a little brother about Em's age. They all had fun playing together. Then tomorrow Em has a playdate with her friends so that should be a fun afternoon. I've got some things to get done around the house this weekend and I'm not sure what Sunday holds yet, but I've got some things in mind. We'll see how the weekend plays out. Now I'm off to bed since it's late and I'm tired. Before I go though I'd like to wish our neighbor Liana very HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Hope you had a good one Liana! Also, I wasn't caught up on Ann's blog yesterday and after reading this morning, I found out it was her husbands birthday yesterday. So a belated Happy Birthday to Jason! I told you it was March Birthday Madness!

The Numbers 3 & 17

First I must begin this post by wishing my wonderful niece Kaite a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I just can't believe Kaite is 14 today. My oh my, where have these last 14 years gone! I remember getting the phone call from my sister the morning of March 3, 1996 while I was in Chicago on college spring break like it was yesterday. Kaite you're growing up too fast, but I'm proud of you and how well you do in school and what a wonderful young lady you've become! I love ya bug, hope you had a wonderful day. Happy birthday to my March birthday bud.

I told you in my previous post "1 month to go" how I have some crazy stories about the numbers 3 & 17. Maybe not so much stories, but some crazy times those numbers pop up. It's really weird and a little freaky. You know my birthday is March 17th, which would also be 3/17. Those have always been my favorite numbers until I got married, then I added my anniversary numbers 6 & 23 to the group of favorites. Then I had kids and I added 12 & 31, then 8 & 1 to my numbers. You know... the numbers you play in the lotto... birthdays, anniversaries, etc. Well 3 & 17 appear more times than I can keep track of. One of those is in the time 3:17pm. I'd say 5 out of the 7 days of the week I'll look at the clock and no kidding it's 3:17pm. Often when Evan's in school because I have to keep track of the time so I leave to pick him up on time. That is a major one which happens A LOT. Those numbers also pop up often though when I've filled my car up and the "miles to empty" says 317, or my change at the grocery store is $3.17, or I'm at the drive thru at McDonald's and the total is $3.17. Do you see where I'm going. Those numbers are everywhere around me. I've even run across them on expiration dates, the balance due after using a gift card, and you remember back in January when Em was sick and we were up in the night? Well, I had been on the computer and as I was ready to shut it down, I looked at the clock and it was 3:17am. Weird, very weird I say. There's more I know which I'm forgetting now, but you get the point. While I have played those numbers in the lotto they've come up a few times when I've played, but unfortunately there's not just two numbers in the lotto. I can't seem to hit the other numbers. If only there were two numbers to win the lotto, I'd be a millionaire... but then again we all probably would because that would be a lot easier to win! So I think you'll agree with me in saying that March 17th, 3/17 is a perfect day for me to have a birthday!

It's March!!!

Happy March 1st everyone! March means four things. One, it's soon to be March Madness time! Love March Madness! Everything from filling out the brackets, to watching non-stop basketball, to cheering on my beloved Spartans! Here's hoping my Spartans can get it together and play hard these next few weeks and make it to the Final Four! Hopefully the win over #3 Purdue yesterday is the push they needed to get going again in the "win" category.

Two, March means St. Patty's Day on the 17th. So you better get ready to wear your green, act like your Irish even if you're not, and oh yeah... drink a green beer!!! I love St. Patty's Day! Such a fun day to celebrate, not only the holiday, but a birthday if you're me! Which brings me to number three on my list of "March means four things."

Number three, in case you haven't heard... it's BIRTHDAY MONTH! Woo hoo! Now that the birthday month has arrived I'm feeling a little better about this turning 35. Come on March 17th the countdown is on!!!! Greg hates it that I start in so early about my birthday, but I just love my birthday. My birthday being on St. Patrick's Day couldn't fit me better. I really can't imagine if my birthday were on a different day. I think it's cool my little guy and I both have holiday birthdays! So fun!

Today kicked off the birthday celebration a little early. Greg had to take him car to Holland today. Long story, but we've been very pleased with the service from the dealership and they're fixing an oil leak we discovered plus doing some other work for free. The car won't be done until Thursday or Friday so they gave Greg a rental car for the week. Anyway since he had to head that way today, the kids and I hung out at my mom's while he took his car. Then when he was done we all went to lunch to celebrate my birthday early because my mom is going to be out of town on my birthday. We tried a new place in GR that I had heard about from a friend on FB. I'm a huge fan of On The Border which is where I was going to pick, but I thought since we don't get to GR often I'd switch it up and try this other Mexican place called El Arriero. It was pretty good, and I'm glad we tried it, but I still like On The Border the best. Thanks to my mom for the birthday lunch and the kids had fun playing at Grandma's.

So with that said, the birthday countdown is now posted on the side of the blog, and I was delighted to see such a sunny day to start out the month of March which brings me to number four... SPRING. Let's hope that the weather today is an indication that spring is right around the corner! Once again, happy March. It's going to be a busy month I know already, and I can't believe how many people I know now that have birthdays in March! It's crazy! You'll be hearing lots of birthday wishes this month!