The gym

This morning I was thinking

"should I cancel my gym membership?"

I went to the gym and saw it was closed. But not just closed...CLOSED...it went bankrupt!

as I was driving off I thought

"question answered"

Birthday coupons

I love signing up for all of those "birthday club" programs at restaurants. I think I'm signed up on like 8-10 different clubs. This morning, when I opened my email I saw I had four free coupons for a "birthday dinner" or "treat" at TGIF, Ruby Tuesdays, Red Robin and a free ice-cream from cold Stone. All these choices and I'm sure more on the way. Which one should I chose? Or...should I use them all!! muahahawhawhahaha!

A few more pictures from the visit

My mom sent me a few more pictures, so I thought I'd add some of them. Below is at Sand in the City, can you see the sand sculpture in the background?
This is my favorite picture that Mom took of Jade. She is trying to blow bubbles with a mega sized bubble wand
Jade showing grandpa the snow bear that Vicka brought as a present for Jade.
Being silly on the couch:)
Grandpa helping Jade to reach the ceiling, I think he did this a dozen times
Jade has a new favorite in the family, and this one buys her super cool balloons

Family visits

Being the silly that I am the whole time my family was here visiting I didn't take ONE picture! I kept thinking everyone else was taking lots of pictures so I didn't have to. I stole the below pictures off my Mom's blog.

Anyway, last Wednesday my brother, GJ and his wife, Vicka and baby Sasha came to visit. A few hours after they arrived my Dad, Mom and sis Jo joined us. My parents came to visit, meet baby Sasha and drive Jo to College in Spokane. My brother and his wife came to visit and get paperwork taken care of at the Russian Consolute in Seattle.

While they were here we did lots of shopping, talking, laughing, eating, hanging out and sleeping. lol. On Saturday, the 22nd, we spent the day down in Olympia for "Sand in the City". My MOPS group was holding a "baby changing station" booth for moms who attended and I was in charge of putting it together. The below picture is of Grandma and Jade walking around while I was at the booth.
Jade may not look chummy with grandpa in this picture, but it didn't take her long to warm up to him. Especially when he brought her princess cookies cutters with a princess cook book that she really loved! Grandma also got her a "princess" bible. Jade sure loves her princess stuff.
Gj and Vicka had taken a red eye and hadn't slept ina very long time, I had to wake up at 5:30 to pick them up at the airport so we were all pretty sleepy. Still, I think we look pretty good;)
Here is my sister-in-law and me being silly for Mom's camera.
Wish I had more pictures from the trip, because it was a good time all around!

Blow drying hair

Every time Jade takes a bath, after she always asks "blow dry my hair!" then she goes out to the rotating fan and says that she is "blow drying" her hair. Cracks me up every time
she is going "mmm, nice" here.
And here she is posing for me...in her little ballerina skirt and leotard.

Comet, I've missed you

I grew up cleaning bathroom, tubs, toilets, floors and sinks with Comet. I use to hate the powdery stuff because if you weren't careful you could make a HUGE mess. Eventually I found other cleaners that I thought worked much better. Scrubbing bubbles turned into my favorite for a very long time.
Then, since being married, I've switched to more natural or organic brands that I see or have heard of. Trying to use good and "safe" chemicals for cleaning my home. However, my bathroom never seems to look, feel or smell CLEAN! Maybe it's just been me, not enough elbow grease or something.

This morning after seeing my shower (which I clean nearly every week and use that stupid shower spray every day) I decided something had to be done. Off to Wal-mart I went, picked up some fruit and some Comet.

I put Jade in front of "Aristocats" and armed in my adorable cleaning gloves (they are red with pink cherries on the top) I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed my shower. Then I did the toilet, sinks, mirrors and lastly the floor. Let me tell you. It all looks AMAZING!! The chrome in my shower is actually SPARKLING...sparkling I tell you! My floor is perfect, no caked on hairspray. I'm so happy!! Granted, I do need to invest in one of those breathing masks...but it was all worth it. Comet, my old friend, I have missed you and your amazing ability to clean some of the toughest messes.

Seahawks Practice

Thursday our little family headed to Seattle to go watch the Seattle Seahawks practice. It was a perfect sunny day, enough clouds to keep it cool but enough sun to keep it nice.
Jade really enjoyed watching them play "foofall"
JB and Jade spent almost the whole time going up and down the hill, to the fence and back to where we sat.
Here are some players getting ready to warm up
I'm pretty sure this is Tatupu, at least, that's what the back of his jersey said ;)
The guy in all black is the new coach, so I thought I'd take a picture of him doing his job.
I think Jade is trying to escape, to go join the guys in playing "foofall"
But, Daddy wouldn't let her. Spoil sport.
This is Jade doing the army crawl up the hill. She'd scoot down the hill on her bottom and then army crawl back up. So funny!
She thought she was pretty stylin'
Oh, one to many army crawls up the hill, I think our little pumpkin is tired.
It was fun watching the Seahawks practice and even more fun getting a week day afternoon together as a family, just having some good times!

Sick

So I caught a cold the other day. It started out as a sore throat, then a head cold, then a fever (which only seemed to last about three hours) and now, this morning I just have a nasty runny nose. *sigh* Why do we have to get colds? Some times I wish we'd either always be healthy or be really sick. Like the kind of sick you have to stay in bed all day and you think you might die. Colds, they are so pathetic. They knock you out, make you feel like crap, but technically you are still completely function able. So trying to sleep the day away is near to impossible...because it's just a cold. Ya know?

Still, I spent most of yesterday laying around watching movies, taking naps and doing pretty much nothing. I think I laid on the floor of Jade's room for an hour or so while she played "princess castle" around me, but that was about as much playing with my child as I did.

Today it's not so bad. I've just used about a million tissues in the last hour, but my sore throat is gone. Praise God! Maybe those zinc lozenges my Mom told me to take really do make a difference:)

I'm looking forward to today, sneezing and all. JB, Jade and I are going to watch the Seahawks football team practice. I'm sure a lot of it will be really boring, but some of it will be really cool. I think it will be the perfect thing to get me motivated to work on my fantasy football team, so when we have our draft in a few weeks I'll be all set.

Anyway, hopefully my cold will dissapear soon so I can be 100% by the weekend. I have big plans afterall;)

Morning at the Fair

We took Jade to the county fair this morning. She really loved getting to see and touch all the many, many animals.
I love it when she squats down to look at things

her favorites were the baby pigs

After looking at all the animals and walking around the whole park, we thought we'd let her go on the Ferris Wheel with Daddy.

It was a big wheel!

After fun rides we went over to the magic show area where a man was do balloon animals to give away free to the kiddies. Jade's fish is suppose to be "Dora" the man was going to do Nemo but thought Dora would match Jade's dress better. Jade LOVED it.
But the highlight of the whole event was getting to ride on a school bus (it acted as a shuttle from the free parking lot area)
Jade loves school buses and is constantly asking me if we can ride on one. Today she got her wish granted and I'm pretty sure it was every bit as excited as she hoped.