Spiders and thriftiness

Poor little sisa had the scare of her life a couple weeks ago. She had a little, big to her, spider land on her leg. It wasn't a poisonous one or anything just a little yellow spider, but I can' even imagine how scary that would be for a little 2 year old, I can't imagine how scary it would be if one landed on me!! So far Devin has been the one who has woke up a few times since us being married with a spider on his arm, luckily he doesn't freak out about those things but it freaks me out!

Well poor Sisa has been apparently traumatized from this experience because she woke up last night screaming, I went in to get her and she said " A spider, where'd it go??!" So I searched her whole bed and didn't find a thing, she let me turn on spongebob for her then she went back to sleep. I just feel so bad for her, what a horrible experience! 

 Well I have a crafty blog stalker maniac lately. I have seen so many creations that just got me motivated to start some of my own. The awesome and I mean AWSOME thing about these creations, is it's women taking cheap things they picked up at yard sales or D.I.'s or antique stores for dirt cheap and fixed up! So I have started some crafts of my own and have been stalking the D.I. every weekend, sometimes I sneak out during weekdays but shhhhh. Anyways these are my latest things I picked up at the D.I. and fixed up.

I really need to work on remember my before and after photos, this frame silver and I spray painted it black. My living room theme colors are a minty green, black and white. So I have been going crazy spray painting things black and white. We have a wall with built in shelving that I painted white and have been working on decorating up. Here are a few things I have been working on, I'll post the whole shelf decorations once I get them all decorated up.

 I have really been into finding fancy frames. Every once in awhile I find some cute ones at Somebody's Attic or at the D.I. The more random and fancy the better. I have a whole wall of random photo frames, that i'll post when they are finished, I just need to fill them with pictures :)

 This was one of my FAVORITE little finds. I really have a thing for birds and owls. I found this little gold owl hiding behind a bunch of glass things at the D.I. Here he is all painted up and on the shelf. He turned out better than I imagined :). I found a couple other little bird at the DI too that I need to post. I have really been crafting it up lately and I LOVE IT!

This was one of my FAVORITE big pieces that we pretty much "stole" from the DI. They have been really expensive lately I have noticed. When this rolled out on the floor while we were there I for sure thought it would be way expensive. A whole swarm of ppl gathered around it so Devin ran over to it, looked at the price tag ( $40 BUCKS!) and we snagged it. There were alot of jealous people. I was SO excited. We have big plans for it but for now it turned out really swell. I finally have a nice piece that just makes out living room. I also got the 2 mirrors at the DI, they were a creamy color that I painted black. I also found vintage looking picture frame and painted it black as well. The clock I found at a yard sale over the summer for $2 dollars.. adding this whole decor up it totals too.. $55 bucks! I am thrilled.. I love being thrifty!

Potty Training 101

First of all I am sure those of you with kids or had kids know.. potty training is not the easiest most glamourous thing to do. Elysa has been showing interest to go potty since she was 1. She'd see us going potty and so she would want to too. She would go here and there but getting it to be a consistent thing just hasn't happened yet.

Saying that I have to applaud my wonderful husband, since he is a stay at home pappa right now he has taken on the task of potty training Sis. As it has been for the past year and a half Sis has shown interest and goes here and there but we just couldn't get her to do it consistently. I even made a potty chart and we would give her stickers if she went potty. That worked for a day but she soon forgot about the stickers.

So Devin has been doing some research on how to potty train and I think he may have done it! :)

He found a site that was about potty training your little one in 3 days!! One main part was to learn a potty dance and when she would go potty we would all break down into the potty dance. OH MY HECK HILARIOUS! Sis LOVES IT! She loves to dance already but she wants us to do the potty dance with her all day long. We remind her that we only do it when she goes potty so she'll immediately say " I have to go potty," and sure enough she will. SOOO proud of her. So far 2 days in and she is doing great and still loves to do the potty dance. I got a little video of her doing the dance for you to enjoy she loves it! So you know the dance goes "Step to the right, step to the left.. step... step.. Toes, hips, CELEBRATE!! DO THE POTTY DANCE" Her fav. part is " Toes, Hips, CELEBRATE".. as you can see :) ( Sorry it's sideways.. I didn't know how to change it )

Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year

I have to admit I am a little relieved the holidays are over this year. I was one grumpster!  Don't get me wrong I love the holidays and getting together with family. Normally I am so stoked for Christmas, I was even more prepared this year then I have ever been in the past but I think all the crazy people and the "buy buy buy" feel this year drove me nuts. I had to take a few breathers and remember the true meaning of Christmas and what it was all about and I felt a little better.

We decided as a family to make Christmas more meaningful that we would find something charitable to do each year. This year while cleaning we found we had 15 too many coats haha. So we donated them to the Food Drive. The guy there was so greatful. Wish we could have seen the faces on the people that received them but just the thought that we made some people a little warmer this year made us smile.

I decided the reason I wasn't to excited this year for Christmas was because it was so Chaotic.. but it's hard because I love family but we spent all 3 days, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the day after Christmas driving here and there to get to all the holiday parties. But as usual once getting there and enjoying everyones company it eased the Chaos feeling.

Thursday 23 we had a party at my mom-in-laws place. The kids all opened presents, we watched movies, and played games.

Friday 24 we went to Grandma Bonnies traditional Christmas party. As always Santa was there. When he called Elysa's name to come sit up on his lap both me and Devin jumped up to go help sisa because last year she was not at all thrilled to see him. To our surprise she hopped up of Uncle Brittons lap, walked right up to Santa and sat on his lap. She told Santa how old she was and what she wanted for Christmas ( a dora ). After he gave her her present she hopped off, said "Thanks" and went back to Uncle Britton's lap. We were both in awe and so proud of her. She was the best little girl there :)


I will admit.. Christmas with a 2 year old is so much fun! Altho at first Sis didn't want to get out of bed on Christmas day. I told her " Sis, remember those presents under the tree.." that got her to perk up a little bit " Well you get to open them now." After that she sat right up and said " I get to open up presents now?" she then ran to the living room and started shouting " I open the presents now!"

We let her hand out the presents to everyone, we have my Brother and his fabulously cool wife Becky living with us right now. Elysa would get so excited when she got to open her presents, it took her 10 minutes to open each one however lol she would tear little pieces of paper off and throw it in the garbage before tearing another piece off, I don't know why she is such a neat freak lol. After she would open her present she would take it over to her pile and stack it neatly on top. Then she would RUN back to get another present. What a nut ball she is. I couldn't get her to hold still at all so I didn't get too many pictures.





Later that day we went to my moms to open presents. Elysa got just as spoiled there. She got a little kids trampoline! She freakin' loves it which is nice because she can easily burn off all the cookies she likes to eat. I  thought I got a picture of her in it but I can't find it anywhere but I will get a picture because it is so hilarious.

After that we went to Nanny's for presents and food, back to my moms for MORE food and watched movies and pretty much crashed.

Sunday 26 we went to my grandma's for our family Christmas party. It was so nice to see everyone. Especially my cousin Janet and her hubby Jon who are living in Texas now. We hardly ever get to see anyone anymore so that is one nice thing about the holidays.. brings family together. We had fun laughs during White Elephant gifts, which we always do :), and had excellent food. Sadly I did not get pictures, we FINALLY got a video recorder so I got loads of footage but no pictures. I'll try to do both next time haha.

After 4 fun filled exhausting days I was not ready to get back to work. It was nice to get another break for New Years. We were planning on just staying at home and doing nothing this year but ended up having a pow-wow with both our families. We had a house full and I mean FULL of people. It was loads of fun, we had tons of food and pretty much played "Wipe-Out" on the Wii until midnight where not soon after we all crashed.

I wasn't sure what to make my new years resolution this year. Usually its the same, which it is..

1. Lose weight - which Crossfit is totally helping me achieve. I am down to what I was before I had Elysa and I plan on having a six pack by the summer woot! haha
2. Work on always being positive - that is always hard for me in the winter
3. Put money in savings and try TRY TRY to keep it there - it always seems that when we get a savings built up we end up needing for some unexpected expense, which makes me glad we had the extra money but sad that it never just grows and grows

I haven't thought of anything new yet but I am working on it. Altho I do want to lose this last 10 lbs and once I do we are planning to bring another bundle of joy into this world.. Elysa really wants a little sister.

I hope all your holidays weren't as grumpy as mine and I make it my resolution to put on a non-fake smile next year :)