Has another week gone by aready?

I don't know how I went a whole week without blogging. I've thought about it, taken pictures to post, but never posted any of them. So here is a look back on some of what we have been doing.

A couple weekends ago, my sister Toni and I went to Ikea. Can you believe this was m first trip to the new Portland location? I was so excited to finally have an Ikea nearby, but it took me a long time to get there. Anyway, I bought a few storage things for the kids. These photos show the kids helping Dan assemble a table for Natalie's dollhouse... "So easy even a caveman can do it!" The table was perfect and it has a shelf to store all the doll furniture too (not bad for $30!) I also bought a shelf for Zander and Hayden's room, but we still need to buy some hardware to mount it on the wall.

Toni and I also went to Fubonn (Asian Market) not far from her house and I stocked up on some yummy food. (Curry sauce, sweet chili sauce, ramen noodles w/out that packet of salty stuff, sticky rice and fun snacks for the kids.) The prices are so much lower than what you can get at the chain grocery stores.

Late last week Toni informed me that all the winter things at Pennies (where she works) was on 70% off clearance (plus her discount on top of that)...so I went in ...twice— to stock up! The selection of 7 year old girls clothes wasn't very good, but I did manage to find this cute outfit. The leather jacket is too big really, but it was marked down from $60 to $6.99 and I couldn't pass it up. (we just roll up the sleeves). I don't recall how much the blouse was, but the shoes were $1.50!!! I also got a winter coat for Zander to wear next year, and a bunch of sweaters as well. Hayden got a new pair of pjs too.

Last Saturday, the kids and I went to my brother Aaron's house because Toni and Chucky were cooking up one of their yummy Thai feasts. Andrea was there too and I got to rock Brandon to sleep! Earlier that day I attended a yearbook workshop in SW Portland (I'm an advisor on Natalie's school yearbook) so I was pretty tired (mostly from the stressful drive over) and gladly accepted the invitation to have someone else cook for us!

Natalie was snacking on a spring roll before dinner was ready and lost her first top/front tooth. It has been wiggly since before Christmas, so I was relieved for it to finally come out. Now Natalie likes telling people she has a "window in her mouth" just like the rabbit in her book "Little rabbit's loose tooth."

Last week while talking on the phone, I got this strong urge to paint the walls in the hallway downstairs. I think I am really struggling with seasonal depression (no sun, cold house, cabin fever etc), so I wanted to do something to brighten up the place. Our home is great in the spring and summer, but can be a bit dark in the winter. Dan and I are planning to replace the front door with one that has a much bigger window to let more natural light in. As it is, I have to have the hall light on all the time for it to feel bright enough. We are also going to replace the dark green linoleum tiles with tiles in a lighter shade...but until all that gets started, I decided to paint the walls a lighter shade of brown; more of a taupe color. We also hope to get an entry table to hang a mirror above to reflect more light around.

Last night after below freezing temperatures made our bed too cold to sleep in, we decided to move it away from the drafty windows and over to a different wall. It made all the difference in the world! The night before I had 4 blankets on, socks, slippers, a sweatshirt and another smaller blanket around my neck and it was still hard to get warm. I told Dan I think there are things in the refrigerator that are warmer than I am!!! We are still going to apply a window film to help save on our energy bill.


Natalie's Science fair was last night and we got to walk around and see what other kids put together. It is optional to participate in the Science fair, but she really wanted to, so we did a little experiment with water density using maple syrup, colored water and cooking oil. We also learned that different objects float in different fluids depending on the density of the object. She was nervous to talk to the principal about her experiment, but afterwards she was telling Zander how neat it was to get to talk to him. (Then Zander was cute and asked me if we were going to invite him over for dinner sometime!)

So that brings me to today...and what's for dinner?

We're having a roast compliments of my handy-dandy crock pot. Hope you are all doing great and staying warm. On our trip to get groceries in Troutdale yesterday (as I was being blown around) I was thinking about how extremely thankful I was not to have to live through another icy cold, windy Troutdale winter...garbage cans blown over, garbage blown and stuck to the fences etc.

Well, that's all for now...happy Thursday!