Mom of 2… (taking it one day at a time)

April 5, 2013

Homesteading

I don’t know about you, but after reading about the way the world is heading, I think it’s time I seriously start looking into starting my own homestead. Granted we live on less than an acre so it’s going to be a little hard, but the time has come I better start gardening and even looking at getting some chickens! That’s on top of starting to can and dehydrate food.

It’s just so nerve wracking reading about how people in Cyprus lost a lot of their money that was in banks due to their government “needing it more than them”. I can totally see our Government doing the same thing here. Then with our Government & the UN talking about taking our guns away from us and North Korea threatening to bomb us, Lord only knows what our country will be like by the end of this year. All I know is I’ll feel a lot better if I can get our household under control and being able to live off our own land a little because we aren’t well off where we have gold & silver laying around in case the dollar is worth nothing anymore.

So now I’m spending time looking online on how to make a container garden, make my own green house and would love nothing more than to figure out how to make some solar power things so if we lost electricity we could still get by a little. My only problem is reading the directions on these things are way over my head and I really wish my husband would get on board with me. Heck if I know what plastic lobed knobs are. I hear knobs and think of something that would go on my cupboard doors.. not for whatever they are really used for.

How are you feeling about the way everything is going? Do you think that I’m just being paranoid? Or do you too feel like you should start prepping in case something happens sooner than later?

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Filed under Economy, Family

March 28, 2013

Weekend of Tests

Last weekend was the weekend of Karate Tests in our household. Katie ended up testing for her 4th Gup (Brown belt) last Friday night and Kevin for his 1st Gup (Red with stripe) Saturday morning! At both tests I sat there amazed at how much my kids have learned in such a short amount of time. (3 1/2 years for Kevin, 2 yrs for Katie) I’m just so proud of them for sticking with it as I’ve seen plenty of kids start and quit in those few years. Here are some pictures of them during their test.

grappling board break

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Filed under Karate, Katie, Kevin

March 15, 2013

Long Winter

This sure has felt like a long winter and that’s even with us having a green winter and not seeing any snow until the new year. Let me just say Mother Nature ended up making up for the lack of snow in the beginning of winter with the end of winter! At least for the last couple weeks we haven’t had any big snow storms, but it seemed like all of February was one storm after another.

All I know is I can’t wait for all this white stuff to melt away, have the sun start warming up so the birds start chirping and the tulips start making their way up and out of the ground! Then Spring can be here in full force where you can sit outside on your patio with your patio heater on and feel confortable and can just enjoy the outdoors!!

The Groundhog did see his shadow right? So spring should be here soon?!? (Crossing my fingers)

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Filed under Thoughts, weather, Winter

March 15, 2013

Mystery Reader!

Week 2 of my crazy month is now in the book!! Two days this week I was the Mystery Reader for my kids class! Tuesday was with Kevin’s class. I have no clue why I was such a nervous wreck since I help out with the class every Friday, but let me just say…. I didn’t know a mouth could get so dry! It was awful!

The two books I read for his class was Unique Monique (his classes theme this year is Dare to be Different so I wanted a book that went with that theme) and I read a story out of one of our Encyclopedia Brown books. Before starting the Encyclopedia Brown books I asked if anyone had ever read them before and was shocked that only 2 out of 23 students had! I remember when I was about their age (3rd grade) reading them and hoping to figure them out before reading the answer in the back of the book. What was fun, was I picked a story out and read it to my husband and he didn’t get the answer right away. So I told the kids I was going to see if they could figure it out since he wasn’t able to. (He used to help out on Friday’s too so they know him pretty good too) I’m glad to say the 2nd kid that raised his hand had figured it out! You should of heard all the kids cheer for him. It was pretty cool! What was really cool though was the teacher taking a picture of me with the kids afterwards. I just love this class to death as they are a great group of kids!

Then on Wednesday I got to go in and surprise Katie’s class! What was fun with her class was the teacher met me in the hall so I could put on her Mystery Reader cape and then walk in to the music from the Pink Panther! For some reason I wasn’t as nervous reading for her class. I think it was because instead of holding the book up for the class to see with all 23-26 eyes looking at me, I put it on the teachers cart where it then showed up on the screen so the kids were looking at the book up there. Here are some pictures of me reading in Katie’s class. (oh yeah… I read a favorite of mine when I was little as I had my Mom read it over and over and over and over to me. ~wink~ The Digging-ist Dog)

Does your kids school do Mystery Readers? If so, what has been your favorite book to read so far?

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Filed under Katie, Kevin, Kids, Me, school

March 15, 2013

Vacation Getaways

I can’t believe Spring Break is just around the corner! Even though we went on a vacation last month, I would love nothing more than to get away from our rat race we call life and go on another vacation. To be able to go somewhere quiet and warm were we could dig our toes in the sand and have fun looking for seashells again just sounds heavenly! Of course mentioning the word Spring Break and I can see the price going sky high.

That’s one thing about going on vacation in the month of January or February, the prices down in Florida & Alabama are a lot lower than if you go during the month of March. Thankfully the kids Winter Break has been in February the last couple months, but if it ever falls in March I think I would have to start searching for package vacation deals in hopes I can find something more reasonable.

I know my best friend searches for packages when her, her husband and their friends go down to Mexico for a couples getaway. I do have to think it would have to be a lot less stress being able to get everything done all at once instead of hoping and praying that flights along with hotels and cars all line up perfectly.

The more I talk about it, the more I want to start looking. Maybe, just maybe I can find a good deal somewhere. Even if it is just for a few days. The hard part would be where would I want to go? Have you ever searched for a good deal on a vacation package (without a certain destination in mind) to find one and buy it to say I guess we are going to _____ ? I can’t help but think that would be a blast to do! If you ever did such a thing, I would love to hear your story! If we didn’t have kids, I could totally see us doing that!

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Filed under vacation

March 9, 2013

Winter Vacation 2013

I know I’m way behind on blogging, but since I’m going through my Disney pictures I thought I would post some of our Winter vacation from this year!

Celebrity Limo arrived to take us to the airport! Thankfully it had quit snowing a few hours before we were suppose to leave so we were able to get our driveway blowed for him. To bad our road never got done. Our car would of probably got stuck, but the driver had no issues with the limo!

Believe it or not, it was actually cheaper to ride in a limo than to park at the airport for us! What a fun way to start our vacation!

Passing a Spartan Truck thinking that could of been Paul right now! Glad we are heading to Florida & Alabama instead!

France!

After Disney went drove to Orange Beach, Alabama where we
stayed with my parents for a few days!

The first day there we ended up seeing a replica of the Nina & the Pinta! They made these boats with the same tools they would of made them with back then. Everything was the exact same. We learned so much that day. Did you know that kids Kevin’s age was working on these ships? Their father’s would bring them down to the docks in hopes they would behave. If the Captains liked the kids they would give the Father some coins and the child would work on the boat until it came back. I can’t imagine letting my 9 year old go sail the seas never knowing if he would come back to me or not!

After visiting the ships we went to Pensacola’s National Naval Aviation Museum! If you are ever in Pensacola, FL I highly recommend going there. The kids had so much fun! I took so many pictures, but I thought this one of the kids in front of Marine 1 was cool! (This was the Helicopter that Nixon used)

The rest of the pictures of various beach pictures! It felt so good to be able to enjoy the beach instead of digging ourselves out again up north where we were getting dumped on with snow!

The stuffed animals on the beds are all the ones Katie got at our first Mardi Gras parade! We still had one more to go where she ended up getting MORE!

The limo on the way home! Let me say it was nasty weather that day and walking out of the airport to a warm car and not having to worry about roads was PRICELESS!! If you are ever in the Grand Rapids, MI area and are looking for a limo, I HIGHLY recommend Celebrity Limo! They were wonderful to work with and as you can see in the bottom picture, Katie had complete trust in them as she fell asleep on the way home.

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Filed under Disney World, Family, Florida, vacation

March 6, 2013

Kids and Piano

Last year for Christmas we ended up buying my in-laws digital piano. We have yet to start the kids with real piano lessons, instead whenever they want to learn I will sit down with them and teach them here and there. My thought was that way they won’t HATE it because if they took lessons they would HAVE to practice and I can already hear the fighting. (Maybe that’s because that’s how it was for me when I was their age)

This is my question though. Why is it they always want to play the piano when you want to hear the news? I could care less if they played during the sports segment, but to play when the news first comes on and the “important” things are being said drives me batty! Yesterday I asked if they could put the headphones on (that’s the great thing about digital piano’s) and Katie said they don’t know where they are. UGH! So guess what I’m going to do today… I’m going to see what the best akg headphones I can get for a reasonable price! That way I can leave them on top of the piano so when they want to play when I need to hear something they can just throw on the headphones and it will be a win/win for everyone!

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Filed under Kids

January 31, 2013

I’ve had enough!!

I’ve had enough of this Michigan weather! We had an easy end to 2012 with no snow, which I do have to say was a bummer as there is something about having a green Christmas. The year 2013 has been crazy with lake effect snow! Usually it would be no big deal, but now that Paul’s driving truck I tend to worry about him. Last week the weather was AWFUL!! Paul ended up running out of hours (a truck driver can only drive for 14 hrs.. if they have a computer on board that keeps track like Paul’s does, then their truck will shut down no matter where they are at) one night so a couple guys from his work had to come get him. One to drive him back to the warehouse and the other to drive the semi back. Then the next day it was just as bad if not worse! He was just lucky he didn’t have as many stops to make.

Then we had a couple days ago where it hit the 50′s and all the snow pretty much melted! Let me say though… it was really foggy out! So bad you couldn’t see to far in front of you. Then today it and it started snowing like crazy again. They are saying we are suppose to get 1-2 FEET of snow between now & Saturday! And we wonder why our sinuses are all out of whack! Poor Kevin is now hacking like crazy. I’m really hoping the onion syrup I made yesterday will start kicking in and he can start feeling better!

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Filed under Michigan, weather, Winter

December 19, 2012

What I am!

Since I get to hear this song every day (Katie’s class learned it) I thought I would share it with you! I do have to say I love how it makes kids feel great about themselves.