Spring Break

Ben and Amanda just got stationed in Jacksonville for their new place in the Coast Guard so I got to keep Addy while Amanda and my mom headed to Jacksonville to look for a house. We stayed at our house while they were gone and had tons of fun on our adventures of me having "twins".

The first day she was there she lost her beloved MAM in the drain outside my apt. She was looking in the drain with Landon and it fell out of her mouth and straight down to the bottom.

There were lots of tears but we graciously gave her another one of Landon's and she was happy! Addy staring down at her MAM wondering how she can get it out!

Bubbles!!

:)

Love him :)

The weather was so nice while they were here so we ate up the sunshine!
Monday night we went on an adventure to Dunwoody to visit Kelsey and have dinner and dessert with her.

Being silly with MAM's while waiting for Kelsey to get there!

Chick-Fil-A dinner and playhouse was a hit!

Gigi's cupcakes for dessert! They are the BEST cupcakes!

Couldn't wait for their cupcake with *pink* icing!!! Tuesday got very cold and chilly so we decided we would head to GameTime with the Leigh's and Collinsworth's. It is the best place ever! $5 per kid and they can jump their little heart's out. We brought a sack lunch and the kids had a blast!

Yep, head first down the slide!

The rest of the week was consumed with lots of outdoor time. Both kids would stay outside if they could. While my dad was cleaning up the back yard, he found a frog. Landon fell in love.

I told Landon to kiss the frog and when he was about to kiss it, it jumped right at him. Hence the face in this picture.

They had so much fun playing with Papa and riding in the wheelbarrow.

We went to Atlantic Station so Amanda could see it and also meet up with one of her friends that just moved to Marietta. We ate at Doc Greens and then spent the next 2 1/2 hours with kids letting them run all over the green space. Addy really just wanted to lay on the beach and read her book she said. She could care less what anyone else was doing while she was on her beach with a book! :)

We had a great visit and can't wait until they are only 6 hours away from us and we can visit them and the beach anytime we want! :) I see a lot of beach trips in our future!!

3

I can't believe Landon is already 3. Time has flown by. He is so full of energy and brings so much joy to my life! He is developing into a very bright child and the kid can literally see or hear something one time and it is embedded in his memory forever. Seriously. I have to be very careful sometimes with what I say because he will remember it and remind me of it every day. He is so sweet and has recently become obsessed telling me how much he loves me and anyone that is around how much he loves them. He is a pure blessing!

He wanted to have a Mickey Mouse birthday this year so we went with it. My friend that I teach with, Lisa, has a friend that does cakes on the side and has done some really cute ones for her kids and some other teachers we teach with and she did a fabulous job on this one as well. I really wanted to make his cake because I knew that it would be a pain being the week before spring break. So maybe next year.

We had a great time with all of his friends and family that came. We had it at my parents house which is normally big enough. O.M.G.-we were out of room and none of my dad's family even got to come because it was the same weekend as our family reunion. I really don't know what we would have done if they were all were able to make it. Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE a party and don't mind a lot of people, but we were busting at the seams. Looks like I might need to be thinking about next year and where we can have it so everyone is comfortable! It was a super fun time though. What more could you ask for than loud, chaotic, rambunctious children running around to celebrate the cutest curly blonde haired littel boy!?!? NOTHING more! :)

I really don't know what blogger is doing with these pictures, but here are some from the day. I just realized that all the present pictures are on friend's cameras or my mom's. So this is what we have! :)

This was by far his favorite gift he got...a chainsaw like Papa's! :) It goes everywhere with us! Actual birthday night:

Since Ben couldn't be with us we Skyped with him on Landon's birthday and he got to sing happy birthday with us over the computer! :)

April

It has been super busy since the last time I was here to blog. I have been so busy with teaching and preparing my little angels for their End of the Year Test (previously CRCT), that I am drained by 3:00 and have no motivation to blog. And not to mention that something "happened" to my internet at the apartment and they cancelled it without me knowing so I don't have internet access at the moment. But here is a little list of things that have happened since we last met: (pictures will follow)

* Landon got into RCA's 3 year preschool next year!!!! Which means no more daycare expenses! WOOHOO!! (Still accepting the fact that we are leaving Amy though. :( *tear*)

* Landon turned 3

* Amanda and Addy flew in for his party and we got to spend a week with them over Spring Break

* Financial Peace is going great

* Jay and I attended Opening Day for the Braves which makes me beyond happy that the season has kicked off

* Actively looking for safe houses to possibly rent instead of staying at the apartment when my lease is up in Sept. (I really have a fear of living by myself in anything but an apartment so we'll see if it actually happens. :/ )

* I became the "official" pool monitor this summer for the apartment's pool

* And there are only 26 days left of school!!!!!!! :)

* And the best for last.....Landon is potty trained!!!!!!! :) This was an impromtu idea the last Friday of Spring Break and it was beyond successful!


I am going to attempt to blog each of the major things that has happend recently! Stay tuned! :)

Secret Cupid

Since Monday was Valentine's Day and we were here at school, I got together "Secret Cupid" for our staff. We played it just like Secret Santa except it only took place for one day. It was super fun because we had a smaller group and it was really fun people who participated. We were to give a small item in the morning such as chocolate, card, etc and a little clue. That afternoon we had a revealing party and all brought snacks and then revealed who our secret cupid was. I had Stephanie who teaches 3rd grade and I wanted to make her something. I totally stole the idea from Kroger, but it was $28 to buy...so I made it for only $11. These were my supplies...glass (I was originally looking for the 1950's soda fountain glass, but couldn't find it anywhere, so I went with the beer glass from Dollar Tree for only $1!!), 4 inch foam ball from the flower department, 4 bags of Twix, and hot glue!

I set the foam ball on the glass and kind of outlined where it touched so I would know where to start gluing the Twix on. (I did not glue the foam ball to the glass. It actually sat there just fine without being glued on.) I put a little hot glue on the end of the wrapper and then attached it to the foam. You have to hold it there for just a few seconds to get it to stick.

Half way done with it.

Another view of the half way point.

I started out using the "fun size" Twix and had only bought two bags of them. I ran out so Jay went to the store and bought me more. I told him to get me mini's (totally thinking that is what I had been using, but it wasn't) so when he got back I realized it was the wrong size, but it actually worked out better to use mini's on the top half. The mini's stuck out a little more and looked cuter like that.

At the top I attached some red stuff....I don't know what it is called, but you put it in presents and it's that curly looking stuff. I also cut a straw and poked into the foam to create a "milk shake, coke float", whatever you want to call it kind of look. Since it was Valentine's Day, I added the candy hearts to the glass just to be more festive!

Here is final picture! I wanted a better one, but the light at school made everything really bright.

It was a huge hit and everyone wanted to know how to make them, so I thought I would share it with you guys! You can use any kind of candy you want!! :)

Happy Making Friends!!

My life is changing...for the good...in only 13 weeks!!

Last night my little financial world was rocked and it's because of the man on the picture above!! For the next 91 days I am going to start to get myself out of debt and start saving. I joined 6 other adults (well 7 including the teacher) last night at Crosspoint Church to start Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. (I will now refer to it as "FPU" for the sake of my fingers!) I have struggled with money and finances for a while now, but just never put my mind to it to fix the problems.


I was meeting with my assistant principal one day after school and we were just discussing life in general. I mentioned that I was just stressed about money and she offered this class to me through her church! I immediately knew I needed to do it. It is the perfect time in my life to start this so I jumped on board.

*These next points will be all over the place because my mind is racing with everything I want to tell you guys. So forgive me please! :)

*Sidenote story(this is neat for me and was almost in tears of how happy this made)....at the end of the meeting we were asked to find one more accountability person if we wished outside of our meeting group just to help us along with any "struggles" during the week. I sat and thought of who I should ask to do it. I thought of someone but decided that against that person for various reasons. I thought of someone else, but quickly "x"ed them off the list for other various reasons. I thought of my friend Kelsey because I talk to her a lot and she is good with money and numbers. So I called her on the way home and was telling her about my new adventure and asked her to be my accountability partner. She told me that she had just said that she wanted to be a financial advisor for friends!! How cool!! I had no idea that she wanted to do that and she was wanting to do it for friends! Super exciting!! We were both blown away by it and knew that it was meant to be! ;)

So this is the point of me blogging about this....I have 13 weeks of "lessons/meetings" on Wednesday nights. I have 7 other accountability people to walk through this with me, but I would love for you guys to walk through this with me too in prayer. I'm really excited about this class and can't wait to see how everything works! My goal is to blog after every meeting just to keep myself accountable and to let you guys follow too!!

My first goal is to get $1,000 in a savings account. My plan is to start putting money towards it, but also using some of my tax return money to get me to that $1,000 quicker. Dave Ramsey says that this is the "easiest, but hardest step." This is the step that makes you think "am I going to take this step or not?"

We have to change our priorities in order to save....if it is that important to us, we will save!! Saving money is about emotion and contenment. I have to be ok with where I am than buying something. I have to tell myself that it doesn't matter about anyone or anything else...I am content with where I am.

Proverbs 21:20 "In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has."

Everyone in life is looking for a quick fix, but building weath is a marthon, not a sprint. Will it take a while, absolutely. But you must be disciplined and focused in order to get there. We must be patient.

20% of this is math, 80% is discipline.

Money is "as you will it"!

I am super excited about these next 91 days and the rest of my money saving life!! :)

I'll be back next week with more updates!!

Happy Savings Friends!!

Marvelous Monday

I really don't blog much about me and Jay. Not because I don't like him (because I REALLY do), but I just always blog about Landon and by the time that is done, I am out of time. So this is a quick post with a cute picture of us! ;) We celebrated Kelsey's birthday this weekend at Taco Mac and she took this lovely picture of us!

We are normally acting silly and being stupid so our pictures aren't always the greatest, but this time we got a good one! He is my favorite!

It's a framer friends!! :)

But anyways Happy Birthday to Kelsey and happy picture taking to us!!!!! haha

Hair Salon

So this is what I walked into when I went to pick up Landon yesterday from Amy's!

Landon loves Amy's house and never wants leave. Yesterday when I came in she was in the middle of playing hair salon with the girls. Of course, Landon and Mac wanted their hair done too. It was really funny to watch them sit so still have have their hair done too.

Getting his braids done.

"I would hate to do this everyday" hahahaha

Lila

Taylor

Mac

Thankfully he didn't mind taking them out before we went in the store! :)