Happy Happy Joy Joy!!

Yay for tax returns!  Ours was WAAAAAAAY late this year thanks to the wonderful workings of A: the state govt and B: the clarity of the county govt.  Long story short, we couldn't file our taxes until we had a SSN for Maelee, which we couldn't get without her birth cert, which we were told would be mailed to us 2-3 months after the finalization hearing in January.  4 months later I did some calling that finally {nixing the part that makes me want to curse here} got things taken care of and we finally were able to file our taxes and thus receive our return.  It's nice in a way, because ours came so much later in the year so we still have it to cushion ourselves for the summer.  But anyhoo... we paid off Clint's truck {yay!!} and bought a new TV and entertainment center.  Yeehaw!!  We are pretty stoked, and any of you who know my husband can understand why I'm so excited.  LOL  He's so good about only spending money of practical purchases that it took a lot of sweet talking {and finally his friend Brian talking} to convince him that this could be justified as a "practical purchase".  {I'm just lucky he plays Halo and realized just how small and blurry our old TV really was!  Thank you Bungee!!} 

So here's the before...

...and here's the after!  We're actually going to mount the TV on the wall, we just haven't gotten that far yet.  Isn't it pretty?

It's amazing how much it opens up the room, too.  Plus it's nice to have all our movies out of sight.  SO much less clutter!  I'll post a pic when we've got it completely finished... I know you're all waiting on the edge of your seats, huh?  :O)

A NEW Toy! (But who is it for??)

That is that real question! Only time will tell!!

We used our tax return this year in a way that we hope will be VERY beneficial to our family because it will give our highly spirited daughter an outlet for her masses of energy… AKA we bought a swing set. Not just a swing set, it’s more or less a guesthouse with a lot of bells and whistles! :0)

We finally got it last Friday, but didn’t have a chance to get to it Saturday. It was a good thing though cuz we got to work on it a little bit everyday, making yesterday a lot easier.
Monday we went through all the parts, built the rock wall, climbing ramp and tic-tac-toe panel.

Tuesday we built the chimney and sunburst dormers.
Wednesday we built the left side of the fort.
Thursday we… I mean I built the right side of the fort! (go me!)
Friday I prepped the rest of the yard, moved most of the wood into the back, labeled and organized it.
Saturday the boys showed up at 6 and got to work putting it all together. By 8 they had the fort built and square. By 8:30 the swingbeam was up. At this point I left (more on that in a minute) but Clint called me at 11 singing "We got a swingset! We got a swingset! We got a swingset, hey, hey, hey, hey!" Lookie at our new toy!!

But, is it for Madi and her friends or Clint and his? Hmmm...

My absense from the rest of the morning's hard work was due to Madi. Her dance class took their group pictures at 9 and were in the Cinco de Mayo parade at 10. Those girls were so freakin cute! I know it's totally cheesy, but I'm so excited and in shock that MY little girl is one of those cute kids in their dance costumes waving like they're princesses!

We picked up pizza on our way home and let the kids run wild (in play clothes, not their costumes) while the Daddies vegged on the floor and the Mommies zoned (we were sympathetically tired!). It was a fabulous day!

Ah, Sunday Afternoon...

I have to say that I love Sunday afternoons. Especially on Fast Sunday - that's when you get to eat again... ah, bliss! I have a blog post at home on my thumb drive, detailing a few fun things we've done lately, but my house is a whole half-block away and I just can't walk that far when I'm feeling this content and lazy. :0)
We are acutally getting internet at our house sometime in the next few weeks, I CAN'T WAIT!! Clint isn't as thrilled, but I told him he could get a 360 and XBOX Live if I can get internet... So to all you avid readers out there, I will be able to post a lot more often and hopefully there won't be such huge lapses between posts (and then such huge posts either!!).
I hope all your Sundays are as lazy as mine!

Secret Homemade Something (or other)!

Here's how it works:

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice, just for you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations...

1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make! But I'll try really hard.
2- It'll be done this year.
3- You have no clue what it's going to be, and neither do I, but I'm sure it'll be great :o)

The catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to leave a comment telling me they did so (and actually DID do so!) win an awesome homemade gift by me!

P.S. You have the right to be excited, but you also have the right to be scared... Bru ha ha!

A New Year… Bring It On!

We started off the New Year with a gray house and have since upgraded to tan! Yes, we FINALLY painted our house! Our neighbor is the sweetest little old man who paints houses for a living. He said that if we bought all the stuff and taped it off, he’d paint it for free. Cool! Then he started bringing over leftover primer from jobs he had done and we thought, cool! Then when we had enough primer, he told us that he and his son had decided that since we were putting our extra money aside for adoption, they were going to pay for our finishing paint as their contribution! COOL! It was a 4-day process that at one point found me (Tiffany, not Clint) up on the roof, hanging on for dear life, leaning over to paint the trim on the peaks… we only have one story but still! Our other neighbor asked us what color we were doing and I told him tan with light brown trim. "Dang it!" he says, "That’s what we wanted to do! I guess we’ll have to paint ours pink!" Guess what color our primer ended up being… you guessed it – PINK!! We had some good laughs over that one. I said we should just leave it and paint hearts all along the trim, call it the "Love Shack"! When Clint got home that day he shook his head and said, "I go to work for ONE day and you paint the house PINK!" We had someone come over and I totally played it like that was the color and you should have seen him try so hard to be polite! Even after I told him it was just the primer he was still saying how nice it looked. Too funny!
So anyway, if you’re looking for the gray stucco house at the end of the road, you won’t find it! Ha ha! Yay for paint! We LOVE it!
There are also some pictures of our car (which is officially ours, YEEHAW!). When I was at the MVD, Madison looked over at this guy sitting next to us. He was kind of scruffy looking, you know, beard, mustache, hair down to his shoulders… I said hi and sat down but Madison wouldn’t stop looking at him. Finally she says, "Hi! Are you Jesus?" He laughed and told her no but it sparked a great conversation with this guy who I probably wouldn’t have talked to otherwise (that makes me sound SO bad!). When he left, Madi yells, "Bye, Jesus! Mom, Jesus just left!" What a testimony to me how innocent and pure little children are and why we have been counseled to be more like them.

Madison started her big girl dance class with Beckie and Brittlee last Wednesday. She was SO excited for it all day, she even wanted to wear her tights and a skirt instead of pants and socks because "I’m going to dance class today!" She was so sweet in her little outfit, and I felt really bad that I had to wake her up from her nap to take her, because she was kind of cranky. She actually burst into tears when I tried to take a picture of her and Brittlee, I think a mixture of being tired and excited… she went in fine, she was just balling! We asked her what she learned and all she would say was "That Ise Madison". There is another Maddie in her class so she has to be Madison at dance class. At least she learned something, eh?!
Her dance instructor Ashley made the girls little tutus that are adorable! Madison wouldn’t take hers off all night! What fun my little princess is! That night she and I made cookies in our matching aprons that I made us for Christmas, and she insisted on keeping her tutu on so it poofed out the back and almost made her look like a chicken! Man alive I love being a mom!

‘Twas the Season to be Jolly!

YAY for Christmas!! I can’t believe the holidays are already OVER!! It’s crazy how much it didn’t feel like Christmas to me… I think it’s because I was working on things since September and so I never had that mad rush to get everything finished at the last minute this year. And now it’s January, sheesh!

This video is Madison engaging in a jolly good (maybe not so safe) activity...

I started off the first week in December by making my Butter Pecan Toffee (SO YUM!!) with Madison’s help. My cousin Jennifer wants the recipe and I took pictures of us making it, so here it is: Toast pecans in a 350* oven for 5-10 minutes, stirring once to avoid burning. Meanwhile, line a cookie sheet with foil, extending edges over sides and butter the sides of a 2-quart heavy saucepan. Next melt 1c butter, add 1c sugar, 3T water and 1T light-colored corn syrup. Cook and stir over med-high heat until it boils, then clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pan (make sure the bottom of the bulb is completely covered by the candy, but not touching the bottom of the pan). Turn heat down to med and stir occasionally until thermometer registers 290* (watch carefully after 280* so it won’t scorch). Pour candy onto cookie sheet and spread quickly. It won’t cover the whole pan, and trying will just make the toffee really thin. Let it set for 2 minutes, then pour 1c choc chips and let them melt a little before spreading over toffee. Sprinkle with toasted pecans (I press them down into the chocolate so they don’t fall off as easy when you eat it) and stick in fridge for about 20 minutes. Use the foil to lift the toffee out of the pan and break it into pieces. Sometimes the toffee will set with some foil inside, so watch for that! Store tightly covered in fridge for up to 3 weeks (like it really lasts that long!!!) I ran into a problem when I was making some and talking on the phone with Clint… I accidentally forgot to pour the chocolate chips on when it was still hot and so they wouldn’t melt. WHOOPS! Clint had a pretty comical idea, heat them with my hair dryer! Ha ha you’re thinking but guess what? It actually worked!! Too funny! I also made chocolate chip pumpkin bread, and finally was able to run around all the apple crisp and apple butter I made back in September!!


Maddie and Clint both ended up with viral infections a few weeks ago and after Clint took a bath, I found this…

After the sick ones felt better, and during a break from wrestling practice (Clint’s the assistant coach for the high school again this year), we FINALLY found time to go get our tree! I was SO excited! Last year we asked for a 7-foot one and ended up with an 8- footer instead which we had to cut WAAAAY down and it was still a huge tree (gorgeous, but HUGE!) so this year we decided to save ourselves the trouble and have them cut it down to a 6-foot one… whoops! It’s SO SMALL!! So, remind us next year that we want a 7-foot tree and we’d be much obliged!! Since it’s so small, and in a corner instead of in front of our window like last year (you couldn’t see much of the tree cuz it was SO big, so we moved it so you could see it better… haha! We’ll get it right someday!), I ended up not being able to fit all our ornaments on it! I’d put a bunch on and then think ok that’s good, turn around and find another bag, then box, then… yeeeeah. They didn’t all make it on! We were going to boost it up, but didn’t do it and didn’t do it and finally decided that a short tree wasn’t so bad after all and left it. :0) I loved the way it turned out, and think that all in all it’s a pretty darn good lookin’ tree!

While we were up town, Madison saw a picture of a McDonald’s Chicken Sandwich and said, "Oh, Mom! I’m just so hungry I could eat the WHOLE sandwich!" So we stopped at Arby’s for dinner and sure enough, she ate a VERY impressive amount for a 2 year old!

Make a Smilebox greeting

Our Ward Party was pretty fun, Madison couldn’t stop eating the mints on the table, and Riley thought it was great fun to build a tower with the ones she couldn’t reach (his smile looks SO goofy, but I swear, it didn’t do anything to it!!). Our friends Parker and Jennie sat with us, and their daughter Eliana enjoyed the evening… until Santa came out! Maddie wasn’t too thrilled about him either! I told her all day that we would see Santa that night and every time she’d reply "No Mom! Not Santa!" What’s funny is that she likes him, just not in person I guess! (I don’t blame her, Santa in person still kinda freaks me out!! LOL) He gave them chocolate anyway and so after that they perked back up!

The weekend before Christmas we went for a visit to see my family and that was SO fun! We got there Friday night and got to spend some time with my mom, whom I haven’t seen for… gosh I don’t even remember… 8 months? (more than that?) And Clint hasn’t seen her since Maddie was born! (They used to drive truck and now live about a half of the country away!) Saturday morning we exchanged presents with my dad and grandma (he made us a wood chest from scratch! It’s SO pretty!) and that evening had a party with my family. We played the funnies games! The best one, we had to blow up balloons and stuff them in pantyhose and when all our balloons were blown up the captain would put it on their head and yell "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer!" It was great! Then we had a gift exchange and we ended up with a Disney Scene It game, and a bunch of scratcher tickets (scratchers are like the cliché present in my family!). My mom got Madison a Sleeping Beauty doll and that little girl spent the rest of the night brushing her hair! It was so sweet! My brother Ryan made the car giving official (with a big gold bow and all!) and I almost cried all over again! YEEHAW FOR A NEW CAR!!! It’s SO PRETTY! It averaged 39mpg on the drive home! Maddie can’t quite say "new" so she calls it our "blue car". :0) As a thank you to Ryan we used $200 of the money from selling the car to Riley and gave it to my niece and nephews to use as cash to spend time with Ryan and then keep the change ($50 to each of the 3 older ones and $25 for the little ones). Ryan was so shocked, it was great!

Christmas was FABULOUS!!! We stayed with Clint's family this year, and Rob, little Russell and Missy were all here. We did our stockings first before Santa presents, and I had (I mean… the elves had) made oven mitts and hot pads for Madison and matching aprons for her and I that were in our stockings, and as soon as we brought her new kitchen set out… that was it! She was SO excited, she whipped that apron on and didn’t take it off for 4 days (until one of the straps broke)! She plays with that kitchen set (and accessories) from the moment she wakes up and has to have all the gadgets on her bed at night before she’ll go to sleep, and if she wakes up and they’ve been moved back to the kitchen set, she’ll get all fired up! She also got a Sleeping Beauty dress and a set of 4 princess slippers (plus two more that Yvette got her!) that, of course, had to be on as well… she was funny!



Well, the holidays have come and gone and have still found us happy, healthy, in love and living our dream! The only thing that could make it more perfect would be a new baby added to the mix, so keep us in your thoughts and prayers and maybe this will be the year!

Halloween, New Furniture, and other fun stories…

I know I know I know! I’ll try to be better at posting!!

That said, now I can get on with catching up!! :) Every year on the Sunday before Halloween, we go to Russell and Jonnet’s house and carve pumpkins. EVERY YEAR I mess mine up and it is SO frustrating! This year I chose my pattern VERY carefully and FINALLY broke the mold! Mine is the owl and he looked AWESOME!! Clint’s is the melting face (his name was Pat E. Melt) and Madison’s was the flag with the stars. Next year I’ll learn and just have one pumpkin for Maddie and I to share because I’m always the last one at the table carving!

So we took the pumpkins outside to light them and Madison yells, “Cool pumpkins Mom!” and her echo yelled back. She paused… and looked around… and said, “Mom! There are friends out here!” Then she started yelling all kinds of things to her “friend”. When she was ready to come inside she yelled to her “friend” that she was going home. Of course, her friend yelled back the same thing and Maddie turned to me and said, “Mom, my friend is going home too!” She was SO funny!

For Halloween Madison decided she wanted to be Jasmine. She is going through this major Jasmine phase right now (intermingled with Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty), and we just happened to have a Jasmine costume from my sister Yvette that her daughter Braquel wore when she was 3 (she just turned 13)! We got SO many compliments on it and Maddie was the only Jasmine we saw. She loved her costume and had a blast at the Trunk-or-Treat and the Football game that night.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Madison went to her best friend Brittlee’s 3rd birthday party a few weeks ago and the whole thing was Princess themed. It was SO DANG CUTE! I stayed to help Michele and it was so much fun for those little princesses! They decorated foam crowns, learned how to dance like princesses, opened presents and had a piece of a castle cake, complete with Cinderella on the steps! Michele made it and I thought it turned out pretty darn cool!

Madison got a dollhouse from Jonnet and has amazed me at how mature her level of play is with it. She set up all the furniture so it formed a wall and sat all the dolls in chairs and faced them to different things, like the Dad was petting the dog and the daughter was watching TV and the Mom was in the bathtub and the baby was standing on a step stool looking at herself in the mirror while Maddie said, “Can you see yourself? You’re so pretty!” She is so smart it amazes me everyday… These random pictures are Clint showing his Rough Rider Pride, the cool moon we had the other night, and Madison chillin’ in Mom and Dad’s bed watching Lion King!

Now for the REALLY fun stuff! This last weekend we went to visit my family and to watch our local high school state football game (we lost, it was a really sad game). My sister Yvette and her husband Troy called us earlier in the week and gave us some pretty drop-your-jaw kind of news: they decided to give us a couch and chaise lounge set! These are NICE NICE NICE!! They are SO comfortable and so pretty and still look brand new – they’re the micro fiber or durapella fabric that lasts like a million years and still looks perfect. We are SO excited cuz the furniture we’ve had since we got married were hand-me-downs (a white pleather couch that my parents bought when I was in first grade and a pink chair my uncle gave us that was probably from the 70’s) that I had re-covered and were starting to look pretty shabby. And the chaise has been sat in more by Clint than by anyone in their family, so he’s super excited to have that here! Here are the pics of our NEW furniture!! WE LOVE THEM!!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

While we were visiting, Yvette and Tawnya’s community had an HOA sponsored Fall Festival at one of their parks. Everything was free and everything was SO MUCH FUN! They had a Sponge Bob blow-up jumping/ball castle that Madison spent an hour playing in, a blow-up obstacle course that Clint totally cheated and beat me in (in the video, right after I fall – SO embarrassing by the way! – I turn around and tell the poor girl behind me “There’s some crazy lady on this thing! Look out!”), and a contest thing that is hard to describe, so just watch the video! It was so much fun! On the second try in that thing, Clint and I both hurt our heads, you can see us both reach up to rub them! But I beat him that round!! Then Madison got to ride a Shetland Pony named Charm. She thought she was SO big!

That night my poor sister Tawnya let slip a surprise 2 years in the making… My brother Ryan loves to give a "WOW!!" Christmas present every year, and this year he is giving us his car for Christmas! It’s a 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid… I know!! This car gets like 40 mpg and is SO pretty! I had NO IDEA and she accidently let it slip. I feel bad for her, and SO BAD for Ryan that his freakin’ AWESOME surprise got ruined. He was going to wrap up the key and give it to me when we go down the weekend before Christmas for our family party, and when I opened it and had that, “What the heck?” look on my face, he was going to tell me to look outside and have a big red bow on the car! How COOL would that have been? He said that when he bought the car he got it with the intent to give it to me when he moved back here from California. I’m really sad the cat’s out of the bag, but I’m super excited for my new car! His actual original plan was to give our car to my nephew Brad (who is turning 16) and have him open up our car keys, and when I was like “Hey! Aren’t those MY car keys?” then he’d give me the box. But our car is having problems, we just had to put $700 into it a few weeks ago. So Ryan didn’t want to give Brad a car that would cost more in repairs than it’s worth. Plus my dad just gave him a beater truck that he loves so now he doesn’t need the Malibu. SO, we’re going to sell the Malibu and use the money for Christmas or Clint’s truck or Adoption or whatever! We are SO EXCITED and I CANNOT wait for Christmas just that much more!!

I seriously have the most awesome family on the planet, don’t you agree?!