I got new shoes...

Did you know that Avon sells shoes? Me neither - at least not until my neighbor started selling Avon. I saw these shoes and had to get them. They are quite comfy and I look forward to wearing them with jeans as well as capris and such.

What an unflattering pic of my ankle!!! It really looks kinda swollen or fat - I promise, it's not. I really have chicken legs. My ankles are the skinniest parts of my body!!! But the shoes are cute, huh?

My Scentsy Office

Scentsy colors are sage green and purple. Lucky that our playroom is already green. So I just added some purple accents to make it my Scentsy room.

Here is the desk area... with my dry erase boards to log my monthly appointments. And notice the fabric covered cork boards to the side? I love them because they add a little whimsy.

And this is my favorite... my peg board. I don't have all of my pegs yet, but they should be in on Thursday. Then I can put all of my inventory up on the wall to save space throughout the room.

There are some other adjustments that need to be made - like move my craft stuff somewhere so that I can use the book shelf for all of my warmers. But I'll be waiting until I finish Mom's old dresser for that one. It'll be nice to put things away in drawers so that they're hidden.

Puppy Fever

I'm not sure what it is, but lately I've been thinking more about adding a dog to the family. Jake has no problem with it, but he grew up with dogs. His only issue is the money it will take to buy it and then feed it! I, on the other hand, didn't grow up with a dog and have never really been much of a dog fan, but lately I've been seeing some pups I wouldn't mind having.

So I've been doing a little digging to see what I may want...
My good friend (and director), Angela has a Shih Poo.
Our neighbors and good friends, JD & Nicole have a Miniature Schnauzer.
Our friends the Conovers just got a Yorkie Poo.

All are great dogs. I like the idea of a small fry with a soft coat. Yorkies would be my first choice, but they don't do well with children and are kinda yippy at times. But a yorkie mix is much calmer and usually does much better with children. However Courtney (the miniature Schnauzer) is an AWESOME dog. I love her and totally don't mind her being around.

Jake likes the bigger dogs with the shorter hair, but I think if we're going to get something it's going to have to be a non-shedder. Unfortunately most short haired dogs shed. Plus, a soft coat is more appealing. So wish us luck on our research. Don't be surprised if it's another year or two (or more) before it actually happens that we get a pet - because I could go for an Eclectus Parrot too, but they cost an arm and a leg!!!

Our Monster

We have a monster in the area that preys on our plants.

Here are some examples of his attacks...

The pepper plant. Notice there are no peppers! 2 days ago there were a few large yellow and red peppers. Now, there are none!!! A couple of the picked peppers were even found in the "woods" along the edge of the back yard.

The new mums that were to go in at the front entrance. Both were full of blooms and very similar in size and shape.... until the monster hit.

See how pathetic the one plant turned out? Yes, those are broken stems!

And the tomato plants. We had 4 plants this year, but every time we get some red tomatoes the plants are attacked.
You can see the bunch of green tomatoes growing below. Too bad they will likely be removed from the plant and thrown in the woods or hidden somewhere.

So what kind of animal would prey on plants like this?






Who wants to take a crop before it's ready to eat?







Does this animal work alone?

And here's the animal!!! No, he doesn't always work alone. Much of the time he has helpers --- his friends! He's cute, but beware that he'll pick any nearly ripe veggies!!! He also can't resist picking flowers off of plants either.

Scentsy Team Name

I need some creative help!!!

Once you reach "director" status in Scentsy, you come up with a team name. Most people have already used all of the Star themes since Scentsy has stars all over their packaging. There are things from the Sparkling Stars to Shooting Stars to Blooming Stars (which is my director's team name). I think I'll go with some different slant.

Can you help me come up with a clever name?

Think of me and my personality and see if that can help. If not, we'll go with something else :).

Remember that Scentsy features wickless candles - and no flames - and scented wax - and light, etc, etc.

I'll post the winner once I've had ample comments!!!

Shave and a Haircut...

Travis has been in need of a haircut for a while now. The problem was that the curls just kept getting cuter and we thought of him as the little skater boy. The other night I put him in the tub and got the scissors out to trim around his ears first. When he saw the scissors, you would have though I had gouged his eyes out. He screamed and hollered, so I put them away.

Well then when his BFF Brooke went to get her haircut, her mom was going to take Travis and the lady in the chair next to Brooke's hairdresser would cut Travie's hair at the same time. When I mentioned it to him, he very adamantly said, "NO!"

Finally Jake and I just sat him down in the garage and I got the clippers out. Jake held him still and I cut the first bit as he was screaming and crying. Once it was cut Jake asked him if it hurt and he said no. Immediately he quit fussing and let me cut it the rest of the way.

Go figure!

So here are his happy BEFORE pictures. These were taken the night I attempted to cut with scissors.

And these are the AFTER pics. Doesn't it look so good? I think he looks a lot older too.

Bye, bye blonde. There is some blonde still on top, but definitely not underneath!

Hangin' with my friends!

I love being part of a ward family -- especially since immediately family isn't so close or available for childcare. When I went to Utah last month, my good friend Tanya watched the boys for 2 days. I knew once they were with her that all was well and I didn't have to worry about anything. Well this week she's been in Utah and needed some help too. So we had Elijah over 2 days -- Travis LOVED having a friend around to play with.

I decided in order to keep them contained, so they didn't end up in some other neighborhood, to pull the van out of the garage and put the bikes inside so they had a place to ride. They found the rain boots - both of which swallowed their feet up - and decided to walk around in them for the afternoon.

And here is the result of playing so hard for 6 straight hours. I kinda like it!!!

We've also joined a group from church that is doing a co-op for preschool. We meet twice a week - one day for instruction and the other as a play date or a field trip. In our initial meeting there were 12 children and 9 moms. Some complained that it was too many and that it would be difficult to have any real learning environment. Whatever, I had wrapped my mind around the idea and was fine with it. Then we showed up on Thursday only to have another mom with 2 more kids asked to join and one of the ladies volunteering her neighbor to join too. Hello! Thought we had too many involved before. Don't know if I'm cool with it all and may pull out. Sorry Travis, but Momma can't handle that many people in the house at one time!!!

We'll have to see how it sits with me after the next couple of weeks. To be honest, I don't look forward to it. Oh well, we'll try it on for size.