Inside Ride 2010

Saturday was yet another St. Alphonsus Inside Ride at the mall. Last year Nate rode about 25 miles in one hour. This year he made it 27.5 miles in ONE hour! That is pretty awesome! He was only .77 miles behind his best riding buddy Jared. Last year Jared beat Nate by 2 miles so he was excited to be so much closer. Maybe he will get him next year! Haha. They finished in 1st and 2nd place! WooHoo!

We had quite the cheering section. Mom, Dad, Jason, Grandma EE, James and Sierra (James's new girlfriend) all came to cheer him on.

And so begins a new racing season........sigh.

Attack of the killer animals.

Today we went to Julia Davis Park to feed the ducks. I thought it would be a great opportunity to get outside, enjoy some fresh air and let the boys run around for awhile.

Little did I know all of the animals at the park were apparently dying of starvation.

We stepped out of the car and were literally BOMBARDED by geese, squirrels, ducks, seagulls and starlings. The geese immediately started chasing us down and hissing and snapping at the boys. The squirrels looked like little puppies coming within inches of us begging for food (and even took some bread right out of my hand.) A seagull almost landed on Parker's head. Parker and Landon tried to hide behind me but  we were quickly surrounded. They were both terrified and started running from the ravenous animals.

We all jumped back in the car and enjoyed the animals from a nice safe distance.

CHEAP thrills!

Getting an amazing deal makes me H-A-P-P-Y! It is so funny how I can leave to go shopping in a "blah" kind of mood and then come home on a total coupon high! What is even more crazy is I have been doing this coupon thing now for an entire YEAR! Happy Anniversary to me and all of the thousands of dollars I have saved this past year! It really is a lot of work but is the pay off is so worth it. I scored on a couple of great deals this week.

First off I got 38 boxes of pasta for FREE! (except for tax) I spent less than 2 dollars on all of this:

Last night I ran over to Albertsons to get something and I was thrilled to see they were CLEARING out their landry detergent.  Each bottle (64-79 load size) was $1.00. BUT, it gets better. You see, I had .75 off coupons! HOORAY! So yeah, $2.50 for 10 huge bottles of detergent! I usually make my own laundry detergent but hey, you can't beat that kind of a price!

Awesome!

Boys and Barbies

The other day a commerical for Barbie Potty Training Pups came on the tv while all of my boys were watching cartoons and I was cleaning the kitchen:

I knew the boys would have something to say about it. Here is the conversation:
Parker: Ewwwwwwwwww! SICK!
Dallin: Why do girls like to play with toys that pee?
Dad: Seriously....that is so gross. Mom, do you know why girls like to play with puppies that go pee on newspapers?
Me: Nope, I sure don't. Maybe watching puppies pee is fun??
Dallin: Girls are so wierd. I don't get it.

I thought that was bad until today while I was trying to find a picture of the peeing pups. Apparently it gets WORSE people:

Thank heavens my kids didn't see a commercial for THIS particular Barbie. Seriously, does this toy teach young girls moral lessons about the responsibility of cleaning up after their pets or is the feces eating dog teaching impressionable youngsters that it is ok to consume their own excrement?

I guess we don't have to worry about it. After all, there are no Barbies and no puppies in this house!

And so it begins

Yesterday while I went through Dallin's backpack I found a cute little note from a girl in his class. Her name is Annalee. It was all folded like the notes I remember passing in the Jr. High days....not in 1st grade. Dallin said everyone passes folded notes...its the cool thing to do. I think nothing of it....after all, its just a little note with a bird on it holding a flag. Dallin doesn't like girls anyway....he is oblivious to those things right?

Last night before Dallin went to bed he INSISTED on writing a letter back to Annalee. Here were the 3 letters I saw on the table this morning: 

1: A letter asking Annalee to be his valentine: (with a HEART on it.....gulp)

  

2. A kind of a word puzzle or word game with Annalee's name all over it. Now, if you know Dallin, you will understand the magnitude of making some sort of puzzle out of a girl's name. Yikes....he must like this girl a lot.

3.) Well.....this one states the obvious truth:

Crap.

Valentines fun!

Tonight for Family Night we talked all about LOVE! We made valentines for each other and we put them up on the closet door. I love Dallin's valentine where the frowny faces are crossed out and the happy faces have a correct check through them. SO Dallin.

Landon worked SO hard on his little masterpiece:

I also made a cute little heart pillow (if you can even call it a pillow) out of some leftover felt I had lying around. I am too lazy to actually pull out the sewing machine so I just hot glue gunned the edges and the letters and polka dots on it. We are going to use it this week to secretly show another family member that we love and appreciate them by doing a little service for them and then leaving the pillow where the bed was made or the note was left.....whatever the service is. The boys are all THRILLED about this. (Thanks for the idea Missy! :)

I absolutely LOVE my family......cheesy to say but O so true!

Can't think of a title

I love this picture of my Landon Lou. His personality is shining through more and more lately. This week he peed in the potty 5 times! We are nowhere NEAR potty trained.....he will only go in the potty when he is completely naked and it's usually right before a bath. We're getting there...slowly but surely! I can't even imagine how GREAT it will be when we have no diapers in the house. Yay!

This morning he jumped into bed and cuddled with us. Nate asked him what he wanted for breakfast and his response was, "Ummmm....I want GUM!" Nate said, "Ok....well, what do you want OTHER than gum?" He  laughed and said "GUM" again. He thought he was SOOOO funny. 

It's been a great weekend. Between a temple session with my man and a fantastic Best of EFY morning with the youth I'm feeling quite rejuvenated. I'm grateful for perspective and reminders today. It's so important to have:
1. a cheerful heart
 
2. patience.

3. time to study the scriptures EACH day. I will be doing this hardcore for the next week as Nate and I have a deadline of finishing the B of M by Valentines Day. He already finished......I have a little ways to go you could say. :)

Ahh Man!

Looks like my blog is needing to go private.....at least for awhile anyway. I don't necessarily WANT to have a private blog but we probably need to right now. 

I'll miss you.......unless you leave me your email address or email me dalandparksmom (at) yahoo.com.

TTFN. (Ta Ta for Now)

Couponing....the new way to a man's heart.

Guess how much I spent on these groceries tonight? (Oh...and BTW, not ALL of the items are even in the picture)

$12.42 (that is a $327.00 savings!)

 2 men proposed to me tonight. Seriously. I was getting my loads of cereal and granola bars that I had pre-ordered from the back of the store. They starred as the stock boy piled the boxes into my cart. One of them said, "Looks like you really like granola bars and cereal there." When I told them how much it was going to cost me for these lovely items their jaws hit the floor. They were like... "Holy %$#$" are you married?....Will you marry one of us?"

I laughed and told them I was happily married going on 9 years. I told them if I WASN"T married to Nathan, I would be married to Albertsons. I freakin LOVE Albertsons!

In other news...here is a picture of my little preschool kids with their "dentist hats" on. We're learning all about dental health this week! So fun!