Show Me Some Green : )

I’ve never been terribly great with money. I’m more of a spender than a saver. Not that I have a lot of expensive things—it’s more of a ‘spend it here and there’ tendency. We’re really bad about spending money eating out. I mean, yeah it may only be $3 for ice cream at Dairy Queen but that all adds up, right?

So anyway, after deciding that I’m tired of wondering where all of our money goes (if anyone has any ideas I’d love to hear them) I have made a pledge to pay much closer attention to all of my dollars. I definitely should have made this pledge years ago, but it’s never too late to start! (That may not be true, but it’s what I keep telling myself.) : )

On Tuesday morning while the girls and I were killing time out of the house so the realtors could do a walk-through, we went downtown to Fashion Encore, one the consignment stores here in town. I’ve been going nuts the past couple of months cleaning out closets and such and have taken a number of bags down there to have them sell for me, but I haven’t taken a lot of time to look and see if they’ve got anything I could use for our family. Might as well give it a shot, huh?

When we walked in, the girls made a beeline for the basket of stuffed animals and I made my way to the baby clothes. With all the mega changes we’ve had going on lately, our finances are pretty tight and I feel like I haven’t been able to get special things and prepare for our little Bug #3 the way I did with the girls. So I thought maybe I could find something semi-cute for a reasonable price.

I did even better than I’d hoped! I found a couple of brand new items and a few that were in really great condition. And since absolutely everything in the store was on sale, I got a couple of really great deals. And let me tell you, 75% off all red and purple tagged items is nothing to sneeze at. : )

So here’s what I got. I’m pretty pumped if you can’t tell!

Brand new Beatles onesie for our little boy. There are several people in our family excited about this. Miss Eden’s excited because she loves listening to the Beatles, Sissy’s excited because Eden’s excited, Uncle Bug’s excited because he’s also a big Beatles fan (and is primarily responsible for Eden’s obsession) and Mr. Bug is loving it because it’s Beatles AND it doesn’t have any frogs, turtles or dinosaurs on it. I like it because of the obvious hold The Fab Four have on my family, but also because it was only a DOLLAR!

Brand new sweater vest. Another find for the little guy and should fit him right as we head into fall.

Onesie. Not terribly interesting but considering this is all the girls wore for the first month or two of their lives I figured having one or two extra couldn’t hurt.

A coming home outfit. I haven’t been able to find anything for him that I really like except for one outfit at Target which was too expensive and they didn’t have in a newborn size anyway. : )

Little fleece hoodie. These things are perfect to go over everything. And they can usually wear them for a while—not just for the sizing that’s on the tag since it doesn’t have to be a perfect fit.

A shirt for Sissy. Okay, this one isn’t for Baby Bug but St. Patrick’s Day was looming and it was only $1. Sue me.

Altogether, I ended up spending $17.12 with tax on all of these items. Not bad, huh?! And the best part? I actually had a check for $17.30 waiting for me there for some items of mine they had sold so it’s like I didn’t spend a dime! Take that, recession! I can handle this. : )

Now if I could just sell my house and have this baby, I could really take over the world.

Here's Sissy Bell chilling in the car after our shopping excursion. Yes she IS wearing two pairs of sunglasses. Upside-down. She's awesome like that. : )

Grumpy Days

I’m grumpy sometimes. I know that should be pretty obvious, but I read a few different blogs that seem like the writer is hopped up on sugar and happy pills all the time. Let’s face it – that’s not real life. I have never met anyone who isn’t grumpy or at the very least moody at times.

I’m a generally optimistic person. I think I have mellowed out a bit since my uber hyper/happy days in middle school and high school, but I think I’m still a generally pleasant person. Today, however, I am really just grumpy.

Poor Mr. Bug came home for lunch today after having to make a quick trip to the dentist to get a new crown put on (OUCH) and he had to deal with a crabby wife. I’m not terribly proud of that, but it’s the truth. In my defense, I do my very best not to be grumpy very often ‘cause I know what a downer people like that are. But today I just had to call it a bust and opt for survival rather than overly productive.

To offer a few of my claims on grumpiness, here you are:

Heartburn. Whining little girls. The stress of trying to keep my house clean in case we get a showing. A headache. Being tired because of (stupid) Daylight Savings Time. Timing of the baby is up in the air so I’m not sure if Mr. Bug is going to be here when I go into labor. Finances (need I say more?). And the car’s in the shop.

So I’m just physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. I am, however, planning on a hard-core nap this afternoon after the girls go down, so hopefully the day will improve. Here are a few of my favorite grumpy day pictures of the girls. We’ve all had days like this, right? : )

This is Sissy throwing a fit and crying into the wall because I told her we couldn't go out and swim until after naptime. What a drag.

Pumpkin Carving. This little girl DID NOT like getting the pumpkin goo on her hands. It actually took us a while to get her to calm down. : )



Little Miss Adaleine likes to swim, but she doesn't particularly care for the sprinkler. Too cold maybe?

This is the reaction you get from a three-year-old when you tell her she can't play with her tea set. In case you were wondering.

It's hard to backtalk your mommy and have to sit down on the stool to cool off. It really is.

Those burlap bags at the Pumpkin Patch make you go down the slide waaaaayyyy tooooo faaaaasssst!

Here's hoping you have a great day! If you're having a grumpy day that's okay too. There's always tomorrow : )



Blessed Bugs

Hopefully sometime this month we will be welcoming baby bug number three into our lives. Now, anyone who has known me for any length of time knows that baby number three was not in my plan, but I guess this is a good way for me to remind myself that I’m not as in charge as I think I am. (Dang it!)

As excited as we are now, I have to confess that when I first found out I was expecting this little bug I was far from happy. I had gone into the doctor to talk about getting that permanently taken care of—if you know what I mean—since I have had some complications with being a female. (That’s putting it lightly!) He ran a blood test just to be sure and came back in and just told me to look at the bottom of the paper.

There was a stupid resident with my doctor that day (I always get stuck with those stinking residents and PA students) and it was a male. About my age and looking relatively nervous. I figured the last thing he probably needed was some woman breaking down about being pregnant. I mean, we know how it happens, right? It’s never 100% unexpected. And this guy didn’t know that I didn’t want more kids. He didn’t know that I was looking forward to going back to work when Sissy went to school. He didn’t know that Mr. Bug and I had committed to having me home with our children and how tooooootally out of my element I was some days. Poor guy. So instead of standing there and watching a 27-year-old bawl her eyes out, he got to watch her laugh hysterically for a few minutes.

Fast forward about eight months and you’ve got me sitting here in the middle of three major life-changing events. I’m coming up on 38 weeks of pregnancy, we are trying to sell our first house, and Mr. Bug starts a completely new career – in a new city – in one week. Some might call this crazy, but I think that I can much better handle a couple months of complete insanity rather than stretching it all out over six months to a year.

Anyway, back to my original idea in this post. I was not happy about being pregnant for the third time and having baby number three. Also, I was a server for seven years and any group of five or more is a big-top, and they’re annoying. : )

I’ve had some time to get used to the idea, and some time to think about different ways I can try to keep myself sane while staying home for another few years. Starting this blog was a big part of that. I’ve always loved writing and I love that this feels like a connection to the outside world while I’m still in my pajamas.

I’m looking forward to the next few months of figuring out what the heck I’m doing with a blog, three kids, new place, new town, and having my husband gone with a new job. Hopefully, I’ll stay calm cool and collected enough to share it in a somewhat logical manner. : )

Here I am in all my pregnant glory. This was taken last week, so I was about 37 weeks pregnant. I’m freaking enormous.

Here are my sweet girls giving their little brother a hug. They’re so excited, and that’s beautiful to me. : )

My Inspired Living Room

Slowly but surely we are getting the house ready to list. I have now taken pictures of three of the four bedrooms, both bathrooms, and the upstairs living room. I won’t share all of them on here, but I’m pretty crazy about my living room so I thought I’d share that with everyone. : )

My inspiration for my living room décor was found in (where else?!) a Better Homes & Gardens magazine. I seriously LOVE that magazine. Specifically, in the January 2010 issue. I had made a few of the calls myself before I found this article, but this brought it all together for me.

I think you should be able to see the article and pictures here:

http://www.bhg-digital.com/bhg/201001?pg=31#pg31

 I loved the way she made their home something that was beautiful and still functional and fun. I have discovered in my quest for my own style that I really feel best when I’m surrounded by color. (That reminds me of Rachel’s mom in Friends saying she likes being surrounded by jewel tones!) : ) Anyway, I already had the walls painted blue when I found this article and I think I had the artwork above the sofa done too. I got that idea from another magazine, but I can’t find the article or the picture.

So now that you’ve seen my inspiration, here’s my finished product!

By the way, I re-covered those stupid chairs three times! The first time, I finished them with a very cool green and yellow striped fabric and the girls colored on them with crayon THE NEXT DAY. The second time, I used the same fabric again and about 2-3 months later Sissy threw up all over one of them. Then I came across this fabric at Hobby Lobby and it was perfect for the living room, so I went for it. Scotch Guarded the heck out of them and we've done okay so far. (Fingers crossed and knock on wood)

My version is a lot more simple than what she ended up with, but I think that if I continued on in this house for a couple more years it would definitely have evolved. Different pillows, more wall art, definitely a different rug, and I think it would have been cool to do some kind of built-in bench type shelving under the window…different things.

But either way, the living room has been someplace that I am happy to have people walk into. I think that it showcases my little family’s personality pretty well. We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we still like to have things look nice. : )

To prove my 'we don't take ourselves too seriously' comment, here are the girls messing up the perfect living room roughly 14 seconds after I finished taking pictures. We have a good time.