R.I.P. Lincoln

We've had a lot of extra activities going on that really helped the month fly by. Last Monday we had the sister missionaries over for dinner. All the kids, especially the boys, love to have the sisters here for dinner. They show off all their tricks and Mom and Dad can barely get a conversation in all night because they all want to talk at the same time.

On Tuesday, Jessie had a concert at school for Music for Minors where the kids shared all the songs they learned this year. Jessie took her job seriously the entire concert. She knew every word of the songs and seemed to furrow her brow in concentration during the fast ones. I took Logan and Syd, who was sleeping in her car seat. Dave took Toby to his soccer game that night which made things easier on me at the concert. I happened to remember to take a small bag of Skittles in case I needed them to keep Coop quiet and interested. It was a good thing because half way through the concert he was ready for bed and started to get disruptive. I opened the bag of Skittles and told Logan to tap my knee quietly if he wanted another one. Worked like a charm and he was quiet the entire time. Just to keep things in perspective, unfortunately, sugar makes this boy tick. I call him my candy bloodhound and we don't have it in the house that often. We played at the park a little while after and headed home for bed.

On Wednesday, Jessie and Toby had a special surprise because they got to go to an Oakland A's game with their Thompson friends. We swapped our 2 oldest for their 2 youngest so they could enjoy the game without little ones to take care of. Dave and I were a little worried about Toby being at the game. We call him our sight hound because he will bolt through a crowd to get to what he wants without even thinking about asking Mom or Dad. Dave suggested to the Thompsons that it might help if they took a rope for everyone to hang on to through the crowds. They did and it worked great. Jessie liked cheering , "Go A's!"with her girlfriends, and Toby like watching the score board and the players, and eating food with his buddy Milo.

Logan was so excited to have his bff Niah over the same night. They played house, ate dinner, had tickle wars with Dave and watched 101 Dalamtians waiting for Thompsons to get back. Logan thinks Niah is the cat's meow. She is a little older than him and sometimes she likes to push him away. literally. We were at a spaghetti feed fundraiser for the Young Women at church on Saturday when someone related a confrontation between our little friends to Dave and me. Niah was running to keep up with Toby (the official 3rd wheel in this "love triangle") when Logan called after her to wait for him. She turned around and pushed Logan who fell down and said, "but I like you Niah!" as she ran to catch Toby. Tragic.

And speaking of tragic. My Mom's car blew up on Monday. I got a call from her Monday afternoon that she needed a ride to Costco to buy stuff for our BBQ because her car was fried, literally. She was just driving away from home when it decided to smoke and catch on fire. She reversed back into the driveway and called Tom out to help her take care of the smoke. Little did she know it was going up in flames. Dan drove up at the same time and he and Tom emptied 4 fire extinguishers on it plus water from the hose before the fire department came and helped them put it out for good. That marks the Lincoln's final resting place. Thankfully, no one was hurt, the gas tank didn't explode, and the neighbors property wasn't damaged in any way. The neighbor is directly related to the wicked witch of the west so that's an important one. She would have made my parents lives a constant b@#chfest if that happened. Mom's stereo system seems fine which is a good thing because I think it is worth as much or more than the car- before it got burnt to a crisp. Jessie and Toby thought is was cool that we watched the whole episode back on the security camera for family night. Reality TV at its finest.

Today was one of those days where my job as Mom was not that enjoyable. I guess it was yesterday really because 3 AM is technically tomorrow, but I haven't finished sleeping it off yet. I'm up feeding Syd and decided to vent.

The day started out great. Dave took Jessie to school on his way to work. The boys and I got dressed and started the day. We left the house by 10 AM to visit some ladies from church then went to Trader Joe's for much needed grocery shopping. The boys were so good in the store and so was everyone else. Usually, there is a grumpy old lady or two that shoot me dirty looks or snide comments while shopping with 3 kids in tow. Seriously. It's usually at the checkout line when they are standing behind me with their measly 10 items in a basket. Walk your grouchy self over to the freakin' express lane lady and leave me alone. Well, those ladies were thankfully absent today. I had Sydney in a front sling, Logan in the cart and Toby was my awesome cart-side gopher. Most of the people we talked to were Moms or happy Grandparents who were very complimentary and told me about their families while we shopped. I always love to see people's reaction when I tell them I also have an older girl in school. My opinion is that the majority in this area think having 3 kids is a stretch. They see me with my 2 boys and infant girl and think, "Awww, she got her girl." If I'm out with all 4 kids though, the reaction is usually "are they all yours?" It's become a fun game to try to predict people's reaction when I proudly say, "yes!"

So we're out and done with shopping in less than an hour with no tantrums or meltdowns. Yes! We pick up Jessie from school and get home about 3 PM. As soon as we walk in the door Logan starts in with his poopy dance. Since starting potty training last Monday he is a rock going #1 on the potty. However, he is deathly afraid of going #2 on the potty. We have no clue why he can't do it calmly. It's always after a few hours of dancing, crying and trying to pretend nothing feels wrong. Today was no exception. The hours between 4-6 PM are hard enough, but Logan took them to an entirely new level today. To spare everyone the horror, and the fact that I don't want to relive it again, we'll just say that after 3 hours straight of prancing around saying "Oww, owww,"crying, pouting, kicking, screaming, banging on doors, falling asleep in the shower (which was supposed to calm him down and get things moving) he finally pooped 10 minutes before Daddy got home at 6:30. Figures right? In my experience everything could be going wrong until right before Daddy gets home and then I have no proof. good thing hubby still believes me. He could tell I was at my whits end when I called him after 5 to see if there was any chance of getting some backup with this crazy little person we usually call Logan. I joked with Jessie and Toby, who were trying to stay under the radar that entire time, that the cops were going to knock on my door any time now because the upstairs neighbors probably thought Logan was in mortal danger down here. I kept my calm even through that split-second urge to lock him in the bathroom or duct tape him to the toilet and find some earplugs for myself.

I almost forgot the best part. Logan is all done pooping after such a huge ordeal and he looks at me while washing his hands and says, "Whew, that was easy!" Nothing like some fresh salt in a wound, eh? I was traumatized by the whole experience and he skips away to play with his cars like nothing out of the ordinary happened. We ate dinner, put the kids to bed early and I sat on the couch to calm down for awhile.

thrifty thursday

Our dear Logan is doing so well with potty training. He stays dry at night and hasn't had any accidents since we first started last week. If only he could learn to poop on the potty without freaking out. He is a nervous, whiney, grumpy, fragile bull-dog right now because he has to poop and won't let it loose. I finally gave him an ultimatum- go sit on the potty or go to bed. He finally fell asleep while thinking about his choices.
like this























That's his tuna sandwich in the foreground that he refused to touch. He almost fell off the chair right before I scooped him up and put him in bed. There was no way I was waking the sleeping beast so we stayed quiet and my friend Li-Li picked up Jessie from school today. Thank you!

It's a few hours later and all is well with Logan's bowels, since inquiring minds want to know.

So back to the reason for the title. In our quest to become debt free as soon as possible I am really trying to find ways to tighten the budget. I have run across a lot of articles lately that give advice- especially with gas and food prices going up. Some of the things we have already done lately are; down-grade the cable (no more BYU-TV to watch General Conference so we'll just visit family those days), cut eating out to special occasions and no more than once a month. Dave and I both like to eat out with our family and alone, but we all know how fast that adds up. Learn to live with less. I can buy kids clothes at the Thrift Store (which I enjoy anyway) that look great. If Dave or I need clothes we go to the discount stores like Ross or Marshalls.

Some of the things I am going to start doing now that I know will help curb unnecessary purchases are; a). Shop with a list and don't stray from it. That one is going to be tough for me but I will do it and see the benefits. b). make up a menu for meals and shop with a list for those meals. This one is also going to be hard because I also shop sales to build up our food storage. I'm sure my system will be modified but I am trying to stick to a list for now. I also talked with Dave about changing the way we shop all together. In light of the spike in food prices, and the shortage of rice in our area right now, I am looking into purchasing staples on a yearly basis. I think I'm going to price things out and try to buy a year supply of one thing every other month (for now) so that we can have a surplus as our church has advised and be able to weather fluctuating food prices better.

Any other clever ideas to lower expenditures?

I couldn't help it. Here's a sneak peek of Dave's website (hope you don't mind babe). It will be clean, straightforward and DONE soon!

Potty training is going surprisingly well with Logan. He has not had an accident since his first day on Monday. Last night we had a super late dinner because I completely lost track of time. I'm still not used to it getting dark at almost 8 PM. Logan had been dancing around and saying he had a "raspberry" on his bottom since before dinner. He said the same thing Tuesday when he pooped in his pants (I guess that's 2 accidents) so we knew what was coming. I didn't realize how scary going poop on the toilet could be to a little 3 year-old until I saw him try everything he could to NOT have to sit on the potty even though everything else has been going fine. Being the great parents we are ;) we bribed him with ice cream if he could be a brave boy and push poops on the potty. I'm not ashamed to admit I wanted him to succeed so I could get some ice cream too. I have been trying so hard to cut sweets totally but dang it if it isn't hard for this sweet tooth mamma.

So he did it and freaked out at having to wipe his bum clean. No idea why. To stop the screaming he got in the shower instead. Logan went to the store with Dad to pick out his ice cream. When they got home he was in the middle of calling Grammy's and Grampy's, Aunts, Uncles, anyone he could think of (even Uncle Mark while on duty as a police officer, oops) to tell them he went "poops on the potty and pee-pee's four times!" We would have called cousins Breven and Jackson but it was 10 PM their time. He really is a big boy now and that huge box of diapers we bought for him last week is now packed away for Syd to use- in awhile.

I'm pretty obsessive when it comes to protecting us from identity fraud. The #1 thing on my wish list is a cross-cut shredder so I can stop taking all that paperwork to Mom and Dad's house to shred. I have given Dave enough hairy-eyeballs, worried rants and warnings about guarding all our personal info and not throwing any of it in the trash that he basically leaves all the mail for me to take care of. (love you babe) You know those people that call doing a survey and want all your personal info? It makes my day when I can a.) play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the phone buttons for them, b.) let my 3 year-old tell them all about Batman fighting naughty Joker or c.) tell them they're stupid if they think I'm going to give them my address, date of birth, etc. and hang up. So now I am going crazy because someone stole our credit card number and bought a bunch of iPhones last Wednesday. I really want to know how this jerk-head got our number and where he lives. The Apple lady couldn't tell us what address they were going to, but it is on our street so we're thinking mail was stolen or delivered there. I hope the police find the idiot waiting for their iPhones that will never come! Needles to say, cards have been canceled, passwords changed, and no more promo mail sent to us from our current accounts.

In equally exciting and more messy news...........Logan is officially potty-training since yesterday. I wasn't ready for this but Dave started up with the big boy pants talk and sword-fighting in the toilet hype so we are full-steam ahead. Everything is going okay- except for the time this morning when I was sitting down nursing Sydney and Coop comes out of the bathroom half-naked trying to wipe poop off his bottom (he hasn't pooped on the toilet yet). I freaked and poor Syd was almost thrown to the couch so I could go contain the mess. The thought of having only one kid in diapers is enough reward to keep running to the potty every 20 minutes until Coop gets it. I hear "I'm starting to pee! I'm starting to pee!" all day long. Good thing we don't have much planned for the week.

Today our little Nee-Nee girl is 3 months old. It has flown by in the blink of an eye. I still haven't captured her cute smile in a picture but this one is sweet. Her eyes are going lighter and I hope they will stay blue. She is also a front runner for the chubbiest cheeks. I tell you if all babies were this easy I could have a couple more. (I know babe, don't give me that look) Last night she slept from 7 PM to 3 AM, woke up for a quick refill of the tummy and slept again until I woke her up at 10 AM. That's basically 15 hours folks. I was getting worried, and frankly, wanted to play with her. She is so sweet and talkative in the morning. I don't think Dave saw her awake but for 10 minutes last night because she was so checked out.