The "Up" House

 Me: Hey J, do you want to go see the Russell house when we go to Utah?

J: YES! Will it fly away with all the balloons?

Me: No, I think it landed there so someone could live in it.

J: Could we live in it?

Me: I'm sorry buddy, we don't have enough money to buy it.

J: Well I just want to live there? Who has enough money? Uncle Scott? Could he give us money to buy the house?

 Me: I don't think he has enough money to buy the Russell house either, bud.

J: Well I just don't like this house that we live in, it's so boring. I just want to live in the Russell house!

Me: We can't go live there, but we can visit when we go to Utah.

J: Will it have a chicken on the top that they can use to steer the house when it gets to para-nice (paradise) falls?

Me: Well it looks like there's a chicken on top from the pictures. Should we watch the youtube video again?

J: Yes! And then let's tell daddy so he can get us money to buy the Russell house!

Me: Ok, we will see what we can do.

 Me: Look buddy, there's Carl and Ellie's hand prints on the mailbox.

J: Like in the movie when he gets paint all over?

Me: Yep. That was silly of Mr. Fredrickson.

J: That was daddy and I am Russell.

 Me: Oh I didn't know. Did you help him get to Paradise falls?

J: Yes, we just dragged the house with the hose and then we fell on some rocks and then Charles Muntz burned the house and then we had to save Kevin.

Me: Wow! You guys have been busy.

J: And then I gave Kevin some chocolate and he followed me. "An explorer is a friend to all, be it ant or fish or tiny mole. Hey! That doesn't rhyme! Yeah it does. Hey Look!" Mom and then you say "Hey get down from there."

Me: Oh I'm Mr. Fredrickson now?

J: Yeah and Kevin is eating the balloons and you say "Hey get down from there" and then he pops the balloon.

Me: Ok.

 J: Mom, why do balloons pop? Is the ground sharp?

Me: You mean the balloon that the tree popped when we were at Sugar's house?

J: Yeah, why did it just go pop?

Me: I don't know bud, balloons aren't very strong and if something sharp gets them then they pop.

 J: Like when my balloon popped?

Me: Yep. That's what happened.

 J: Mom, let's watch Russell and I'll be Russell and dad can be Mr. Fredrickson.

Me: Who am I?

J: You can be Ellie.

Me: And I can form a club? And say "You and me, we're in a club now."

 J: Yeah, let's watch the movie about the Russell house again.

Me: Ok, look the house even has a chair like they have in the movie.

J: Mom, can we buy the Russell house when we have more money?

Me: I wish we could, that would be fun to live in that house wouldn't it?

J: Yeah, this house that we live in right now is boring, I don't like this house anymore. I thought I did but I don't.

 Me: Well, I wish we could, but remember we are moving to Kansas.

J: Mom, who can give us money for the house? Do you have money?

Me: Not enough for that house.

J: Yes you do!

Me: Where?

J: In your wallet.

Me: That isn't enough to buy the house, maybe we could go see it though.

J: Yeah, mom, let's just watch the movie about the house again.

Man time with Uncle Sam

Jeffrey misses his daddy a LOT when he has to go away for work. Mommy just isn't good at wrestling or doing the boy things that daddy does. So when we went home to Utah, Uncle Sam went for a bike ride with Jeffrey. He didn't make it very far, just up and down the street a few times, but he enjoyed it. He always loves heading to Utah to visit everyone!

My Grandma's Cookies are better than your Grandma's cookies!

This is my grandma's chocolate chip cookie recipe. I found two copies of it in the recipe box at home and asked if I could have one. Remember when I said I had fond memories of making those cookies for my grandpa? Well now I can make them for my bean. I love, love, love that it's in my grandma's own handwriting too. I can picture her writing this and see her small hands now. I miss my gram!

Want proof that these are amazing cookies? I made a batch of 36 cookies and they were gone within 24 hours. Yep! It's the magic recipe! (The only thing that Gram and I disagree on is the nuts, I don't love them in my cookies!) Too bad I didn't have this when I was in my "man catchin" days, I'd have had Cory from the first bite. Instead I had to woo him with my mad dancing skills.

A Month of Vacation...

Jeffrey and I just got home from a month of wonderful memories in Utah. With our upcoming move to Kansas this was probably the last trip we could make before we head further East, but it was awesome! We had a great birthday party for the cutest 1 year old ever! I got to be an auntie all over again and hold the sweetest baby you've ever seen! And we had lots of visits with family that made the trip and the flat tire on the way home worth it!

Pictures and stories to come!

Single Mommy Chronicles

Being an army wife gives you the opportunity to live as a single parent sometimes. Not willingly, but then who on earth would want to be a single parent? Once when Cory was deployed and I was able to go to a Relief Society meeting with Julie Beck she made a quote that has stuck with me, "Even coal miners get time off," well this coal miner isn't going to complain when the other half of the team gets back.

Jeffrey and Cory are both morning people, like 6 am morning. I don't even consider it morning until after 8:30. (So don't try and plan anything early unless you want a grumpy me!) Jeffrey will pop out of bed bright and early and start talking. About his dream, about his plans, about a movie, how he wants to ride his bike, about primary, and on and on and on. And that's all before 8:30 when I decide it's time to start my day. He wants to always be busy, he rarely will just sit still. That's another Cory trait, if Cory sits still for more than 10 minutes, he falls asleep. So round about 4:00 in the afternoon I am usually exhausted and tired and feel like all I've done all day long is follow after Jeffrey cleaning up his messes, or pretending that they didn't happen at all. I'm starting to think, "When does my shift end?" (Jeffrey JUST brought me his shorts that he decided to wash in the sink by himself...dripping water all around the house!) Then I realize, I'm the mommy, my shift NEVER ends. Then I realize that I only have to do this for 9 weeks this time and maybe a year next time. There are women who have to do the forever, who don't have someone else to help with the swing shift. That's usually when I feel tired and start rummaging in the cupboards for chocolate (which is gone 85% of the time because Jeffrey continues to find my hiding spots!).

Bottom line, being alone sucks! I am lucky enough to be able to visit Utah this next few weeks for a little bit of sanity (or insanity, at least there will be others present!) and I am going to give Cory a big kiss when he comes back on shift and I can get a little rest. Family with mom and dad both present = Sanity for this mom!

First Steps...

For ten years I have been Irish dancing. For ten years I have wanted to be a certified TCRG (which is the initials for the Gaelic words for certified teacher). I started after an obsession with Riverdance when it came on TV. I had danced when I was younger and always loved it and when I got the opportunity to take an Irish dance class from Tina Shelley, I fell in love with the dance form and wanted nothing more than to be an Irish dancer for the rest of my life.  I began competing at feisanna and loved that even more.

Along came the love of my life who swept me off my feet and took me to Colorado where there is, thankfully, a very strong Irish dance community. I danced with the Bennett School before moving to Germany. I was worried that the move to Germany would put dancing out of my reach since there was only one certified school in the whole country. Thankfully I was able to take classes briefly with the school there and loved every second of that, when that became impossible I decided to teach beginning Irish dance on post to the dancers there.

Then came the other love of my life, Jeffrey, and I thought I was going to have to give up dancing again because mommies don't have time for dance. Thankfully I was wrong and realized that mommies need time to themselves in order to be good mommies and continued teaching my sweet little dancers in Germany, always hoping that one day I'd be able to be a certified teacher.

With a move back to Colorado I went back to dancing with the Bennetts and have been able to dance a little (with all my breathing troubles) and teach a little more. Molly has always been very supportive of me wanting to take the TCRG exam and so I've taken the first official step towards that.

Today I ordered Ár Rincí Fóirne (the ceili dance bible!) to begin memorizing the 30 dances required for the exam. Mind you that's only one section of six I have to pass, but it's the one that's the most overwhelming to me. So wish me luck and know that if you see me between now and September 2012, you'll probably see my little friend too!

More Sewing

So I didn't sew all of these in the last week or anything (but I've been just about lonely enough with Cory gone) but I did make them over the past few months.

Things I heart!

My mom and I are similar in that our creativity comes and goes in waves. Right now she's into sewing with felt, I'm just into sewing anything that is cute and has any number of ruffles! So imagine how excited I am when I saw this on one of the blog I stalk...

A ruffle bag! I am drooling already, apparently it's her new book (Cory bought me her first book for my birthday) and it's available in September! How can I possibly carry a boring bag without ruffles until then? I guess I'll live!

Hoodie Makeover!

So I love my hoodies (don't ask Cory how many I have!) and when I saw this tutorial for making over a plain hoodie I kicked myself for having given my only plain hoodie away to goodwill. But since I've been flexing my thrifty muscles lately I decided I could do the one thing I haven't done for years and years, go to a second hand store and find some on the cheap. So I visited a thrift shop (yep I did) and got this stuff to make one for myself for under $10.00. Originally it was supposed to have two ruffles, the cream and the pink, but my machine didn't like the cream knit and I honestly didn't feel like fighting with it anymore than necessary so I decided pink was just as good!

Here's the final project. Unique and fun and it has Ruffles!!

Home Decor on the Cheap!

So this is my new wall decor. Total cost? $1.99! The frame came from a thrift shop and I printed the butterfly on the page from my printer...stuck a few odds and ends on the page and Ta-da!! A great framed piece of art for almost nothing!

The Fourth of July

 This year we decided to go the Monument 4th of July parade...it's hot and long but I don't think the 4th is right without a parade.

 Gotta love the Shriner cars!

 The King and Queen from the Colorado Renaissance festival. Imagine marching through a parade in 40 lbs of velvet!

 The knights from the festival!

 And and elephant too! Very cool!

And a pink car is awesome!

My battery on my camera died after this but it was fun! I love parades and I love that my birthday is on the 4th of July!!

My Progress

So on the 1st and 2nd I went shopping for two weeks worth of groceries (we have milk delivered so I don't have to worry about going back mid week) and with about an hour's worth of planning and coupon clipping I was able to get our groceries for under $200 and saved a total of $122.92! or 61%! Everything I bought was something that we will use for meals in these two weeks and something that we would most likely have bought without a coupon. I was so happy with one of my shopping trips that I had to call my mom to let her know...she's good at humoring me! Every little bit I save means more money to play with later! YAY!

Pammy Lou's Visit!

 Two weeks ago I was invited by Lynn LeMieux (another dance teacher and TCRG at our dance school) to sing at the Breckenridge Celtic Festival. I've sung Irish songs during music competitions at a feis, but singing into a microphone over loud speakers is an entirely different thing. I was really nervous and forgot the lyrics to my songs a few times and just wanted to hide after a while.

 Jeffrey still likes to cuddle with me. It's my favorite thing ever!

 Our impromptu singing group.

 The dancers who performed after us.

 Jeffrey couldn't decide what he wanted to have painted on his face, so daddy came up with the idea of having them paint Thomas on his hand. I thought it looked a little bit like a bottle with a smiley face on it.

 Me and my cute sister! So yes, I have braces and went with a much darker hair color. Now you all know!

 Enjoying lunch in Breckenridge.

 My cute Cory.

Jeffrey and Aunt Pammy in Garden of the Gods.

A Change in the Blog...

So as of July First our blog is actually titled, the Sergeant First Class, the Dancer and the Bean. Cory earned his promotion and got the title SFC MacNeil on July First. I'm very proud of him, he's an amazingly hard worker and deserves this promotion!

Ruffles and Stuff

I've recently stumbled onto this blog, Ruffles and Stuff. Can we say new obsession?

I am a self proclaimed girly girl! And as we girly girls know, the style comes and goes, sometimes things are lacy and frilly and sometimes things are straight and plain. I am so glad that recently the trends seem to be lacy and frilly and vintage inspired. But since I am not a working girl (outside of a few hours teaching dance each week) I don't have the budget to buy every amazing thing that I see. But I was blessed with an amazing talented mother who taught me by example the motto of "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without" and so my new adventure in life if going to be turning boring things that I wouldn't wear (like a hideous vinyl cosmetic case) into an adorable headband like this one.

Good part is that I already have an amazing photographer husband who can document it all for me!

The one thing this may require me to do that I haven't done before is go to a thrift shop. I am also a self-proclaimed germaphobe and wearing other peoples clothes is one of those areas I haven't been able to face as an adult. But I'm sure if I go in armed with some good hand sanitizer and some good detergent back home I'm going to be able to do it! First project? Lengthen my cute denim skirt that it about 4" too short and make it wearable again!

First Preplanned Shopping Trip

So Today I went to Walgreens (I've never shopped there before) and Safeway to pick up a few things on my list. I had coupons for everything (in some cases two since you can use a store coupon and a manufacturer's coupon on one item at most places) and went in for just the things I had on my list. Some of my better buys were 6 nestle crunch bars for $1.56 and 2 boxes of cereal for $2.00 each. Everything I bought was on my list and were things that I needed.

My totals:

Total before coupons $61.52

Total after coupons $34.13

I even got a rain check on the boxes of mac and cheese that were on sale but out of stock.

Coupons

So I've seen that show Extreme Couponing a few times, I think those people are crazy, but I do want to learn how to save money on our monthly food bill. I found this website and it was really helpful to watch some of her videos to learn some of the tricks of using coupons. I've been getting the newspaper the last few months on Sundays to clip the coupons, the record for the amount I've saved was $40 on a $150 grocery trip. With a little more planning I want to up that amount each week until I can say that we're almost saving 50% of what we're spending right now...that's the goal and I know it will take time to learn the ins and outs, but if some crazy lady can buy 100 boxes of pasta for $.37 I can save a few hundred dollars a month by planning ahead and looking for the best deal.

Splash Park

 On Tuesday Jeffrey and I went to a splash park with my friend and her kids. In true Jeffrey fashion it took him a while to warm up to the idea of running through the water.

 Once he started he didn't want to stop! He had so much fun!

Jeffrey is a HUGE Phineas and Ferb fan! In one episode one of the characters Buford wears a paper bag on his head during a jump in the mud stunt and Jeffrey (owing to his incredible ability to remember small details) wanted one of his own. Here's the one Cory made him...

Here's a reference so you get the idea.