Sea World - Wedding - Father's Day

We decided to plan a mini-vacation in the midst of going to Jonathan's friends' wedding close to San Antonio.  We though Hallister could handle Sea World and thanks to finding a Preschool Pass he was able to get in free!

We went down on that Friday night to get settled in our hotel. We even took the scenic route down to San Antonio going the "back way" through small towns and ate a good home style cooked meal. It was a lot of fun.

Hallister enjoyed having the couch bed all to himself and getting cozy with all his "lovies".

Saturday morning we headed to San Antonio!  Hallister got to ride his first "roller coaster" which he went on I think 5 times.  We headed straight for the kids area so the lines weren't long.

I wish we could have stayed longer but we needed to head back to get ready for the wedding.  At least now we know what rides Hall can and can't ride.  Next year he should be taller to be able to ride more.

The wedding was outside then the reception was in a beautiful old dance hall. It was fun to see Travis, who was a groomsmen in our wedding, get married.

Sunday we got up early to head down to Walburg to celebrate Father's Day at Zion Lutheran and meet my parents, who had kept Liberty and Preston.

We then headed to Florence for lunch.  I am so thankful for our family and love how well we all get along, keep in touch, and are there for one another.

Investment

Each summer we get a plastic pool and each summer somehow it gets moldy or messed up.

I decided to use some of my Jamberry earnings to invest in an inflatable pool.  It has been great!  It easily inflates, Hallister knows how to turn on the blower and fill it up with water, and the kids play all morning until it is too hot.

The water does not get higher than 2' so I don't have to worry about Liberty drowning.  The boys actually put their goggles on and act like they are swimming and practice holding their breath.

We love not having to leave the house to stay cool in this Texas heat!

We will be sure to store it in an outdoor over sized toy box so that it lasts for a long time.  Our friends that have one have had theirs for 3 years.

Homeschool

Hallister had a great year in half day Preschool at Castleman Creek Elementary, the school right beside our house.  At the beginning of the year I was thinking this is great, he will be at school 12:30-3:00 while Liberty naps. I'll get time with Preston and get to do work during that time.

We attended a Lifegroup through our church and they homeschooled their four children. I was thinking more power to you, not for me.

Then as we got into the year I missed Hallister, and it became annoying to have to remember a certain time get all three kids out of the house.  Most days I would have to wake Liberty up from her nap to walk over and get Hallister.  I wondered what he was learning, not necessarily from his teacher, but from the other students.  And the Lord really started to work on my heart about homeschool.  My "no way" was starting to become a "maybe".

I sat down at the beginning of the year and was trying to think what gets me stressed.....it's getting out of the house with all three kids! I always have to look.... do they have drinks, do they have shoes on, diaper bag with epi pen and Lib's foods.....whatever time we have to be somewhere I have to start loading the car thirty minutes before or we are late. So I talked to another friend of mine Shira who homeschools to get the low-down on curriculum. I asked a friend of mine who bought Jamberry from me about why she homeschools.  She said because at her friend's school, where her daughter went to elementary, Planned Parenthood (known for performing abortions) came and talked and handed out pamphlets. Umm....no didn't want him to be subjected to that. Also, a friend of ours whose son goes to Castleman Creek, where Hall would be going, was bullied and threatened with a gun. Plus, instead of Midway school district giving raises to teachers they bought all the students of every grade iPads AND are building a $60 million dollar indoor football facility. Really? That is not money well spent.

I just don't want to subject Hallister to any of that.  I just feel like homeschool is the way to go, which I never, ever thought I would be saying or doing.  Now that our curriculum arrived in the mail and Hallister opened it up and was excited, that got me excited too.  We decided on Al About Reading, Handwriting Without Tears, Saxon Math and Sonlight Bible and History. I am very excited to teach him to read and say "I did that"!

I am not worried about him not socializing. We have our church family we see every week.  We have playdates every other week. Plus Hallister will go to a homeschool co-op on Fridays!  He will get to learn farming (go to a real farm), art, history, and it will be like a normal school day. So once a week we will get out and I know he will enjoy those classes.

So this is where we are at and how we came to that conclusion.  I'm glad we can get our 2 hours of school done each morning and go to the museum or Zoo in the afternoon, fun stuff.  Because you know public school has fillers with recess, lunch, walking to classes....Next year we can always re-evaluate, but for now, homeschool here we come!

Hi, my name is Elizabeth, and I'm a Jamberry Nails Consultant....

Say what?? Liz is selling nails?

Yes, this is yet another WAYYYYYY overdue update. But I do think not posting about this shows how busy and successful getting into a business of selling nail wraps has been for me, since I began my Jamberry Journey in January.

So rewind back to January.....One of my good friend's Elise invited me to her online Jamberry party at the end of last year.  I was busy though with designing a prom magazine and the kids/wedding magazine I design every other month, so I really didn't have much to pay attention to it.  The nail wraps looked really neat though.

In January Elise posted that she had made enough in the few shorts month she had doing Jamberry to pay for her and her husband to go on a nice 10 year anniversary trip next year.  That was exactly what I had started to talk to Jonathan about, maybe a cruise or all inclusive resort, but we didn't have the money.  So I contacted Elise, I said okay tell me more about Jamberry....vinyl nail wraps heat activated, over 350 designs. She did Facebook parties and was making a lot of money, but also a lot of friends, and there was online support system in place with Jamberry consultant pages.  THEN she said, and you know we have a Nail Art Studio where you can design your own wraps.  As you can imagine my jaw dropped....how perfect was that! So I discussed it with Jonathan, the starter kit was not that much, and I joined after just trying a sample for a few days.

January 13th I started my launch party and I was amazed at all the support I got and interest in this new product.  My goal was $400 and my party closed at $632.  I was thrilled to book more parties through mine and get them going in February.

In February I created my first design for nails, Star Wars!! I am so proud of this design. I even had to go through Home Office in Utah to get it approved. I did a big push for it in March and April, and a lot of my customers wore them for May the 4th!

Fast forward to now...I have promoted 5 times and I am now a Senior Team Manger. I have a team of 17 "Level 1s" directly under me and a total of 96 in my downline.  The nice thing about Jamberry is that you can have either, Facebook or home parties, and I have them online since I am at the computer anyway designing invitations/magazine ads.  Having online parties allows me to have hosts from all over. When a friend of a friend of a friend books an online party with me, it is amazing to find out how far away they really live.  I've host parties in Texas, Maryland, Washington, California, Arizona and Colorado.  I have team members that live in California, Texas, Hawaii and Alabama. I share a Facebook Team Page "You're In Good Jams", with my Team Manager Tana and Premier Consultant Kelly. They were the first to join my team.  I am also honored to have two of my best friends on my Jamberry team as well, Ann and Ginny.

We still continue to live by Dave Ramsey's quote....I want to live like no one else so one day I can (truly) live like no one else. I want to be able to give like no one else." One of my downline team member's lost her daughter tragically and we were able to give towards the funeral expenses.  We still live frugally with our envelope system, don't go into any more debt, and really want to build up our savings so we can purchase/build our dream home.

A neat thing about Jamberry, and why it is not a pyramid scheme, is that the people "below" you can actually pass you in rank if you slack off.  I can't sit back and make commission off my friends I still have to sell $700 a month and as a team sell $8000 a month to maintain my rank.  I have, on average, 5 Facebook parties a month, usually 3 at a time, then 2 at a time.

Since joining Jamberry our family has been able to dream BIG.  We saved up enough for our anniversary trip next year with my first two month's of working with Jamberry.  We have been able to fix the cars without dipping into our emergency fund.  Now that I am almost an Executive with the company our dreams have changed. Jonathan always wanted to go back to school, but to finish his degree in a timely manner, going part time and working a full time job was just not what we could handle. Then came Jamberry, and once you build a team, and are consistent with sales and supporting your team, those bonus checks start to double and triple.  One of my upline ladies makes $10,000/month minimum!  If I can maintain this consistency I will be there soon enough. Our dream is for Jonathan to be able to go back to school full time next year!  If that is God's will then I know it can happen.

So there you have it, my Jamberry Journey in a nail shell.  Thank you all for your support!

Transition

(I know, I know waaaaaaay late, but better late than....well you know.)  If I had to describe 2013 in one word for our family it would be the year of TRANSITION!

January thru March all was well, pretty much the same for our bunch.

April -  Liberty had her incident with touching peanut butter. That was the scariest day of our life. Praise God nothing terrible happened and we were thankful for His guidance through all of it and keeping us calm. I still cringe thinking about it. She is our healthy, talkative baby girl.

May - Mr. P-man potty trained. That was so nice going down to just one set of diapers. He seemed ready and we just went for it. He is different though than Hall, he doesn't mind being wet or dirty.  Still to this day in 2014 he is not great about telling us if he needs to potty, unless it is #2. We just have to pay attention and take him when he crosses his legs, before going outside, before bath and before bed.

July - Preston turned 3 and we had his awesome Super Hero Party. I am proud to say I made the capes as party favors, out of felt, and no sewing was involved. The kids still play in them and have worn them to the Zoo!

This month we also had a stay-cation to celebrate our anniversary, just at our house. We saw the Broadway show Grease and fixed up a few things around the house!

August - Hallister started half day preschool at the public school behind our house. We really thought we wanted him to go to a Montessori school but found out some things we didn't agree with and 1 spot was left at Castleman Creek Elementary so we took it.  We were thankful he had a small class of 9 and that is was just 3 hours a day.

This month we transitioned the kids into the same room, made Liberty's room my office and started the long process of turning half the garage into a playroom.

September -  We had three different people give us quotes for building our playroom but we decided we would save money so we wouldn't use all of our savings, and build it ourselves.  I picked out the paint, carpet, decor, fun floor mats and Jonathan did the months of work designing and building on evenings and weekends.

We did decide this month to finally have a back porch poured.  We needed something level to walk out on. I called some people that I used to design an ad for and they gave us a great deal!

Hallister turned 5 this month. After Preston's party I realized how much time and effort I put into parties and wear myself out. We decided to ask him what he wanted since he was old enough. He wanted just his best friends and a pirate theme. It was fun, buried treasure, walking the plank and all.

Preston gave up taking naps. It was pretty sad to not get a break while Hall was at school but thankfully Pman is our easy-going child and plays well by himself.

November - A friend of mine painted her kitchen cabinets that were brown to white using chalk paint, and right when I saw it I knew we needed to do that too.  Most every other painting project we have had in our house I have been pregnant and couldn't do much.  So I decided this is going to be my project! It was a lot of work, took a good 2 weeks, but we were so very happy with the results. The kitchen was brighter and it just seemed like it was always meant to be that way. We have a small kitchen but after painting it it did seem bigger.

We got to enjoy Thanksgiving at our house this year, which was so very nice not packing up everything the kids need and heading out, and then forgetting something and then worrying about getting back for naps.

Our  "'Lil Bit" turned 2! We had a fun party at Jump n Place to celebrate, a place full of bouncy houses. The theme was 'Lil Stinker because we often called her that.  We got her gluten free cupcakes, but really she didn't eat much, doesn't seem to care for sweets, which probably comes from going so long without them due to milk or egg being in them.

And also this month Jonathan finished the playroom, in enough time for our Thanksgiving guests to enjoy it! Finally all the toys were contained in one room!

December - We transitioned to a smaller Christmas celebration, focusing on the real reason for the season and not wearing ourselves out with traveling. I got into wreath making and really enjoyed it! We saw Christmas lights with Jonathan's parents in lieu of exchanging Christmas gifts and that was fun making memories. We stayed home all day Christmas day and spent time as a family.

So I am pretty sure you can see why 2013 was our year of transition. It wasn't bad, just a lot of transition happened. 2014 has already brought us many joys and a few changes. I will be sharing those in more posts coming soon!

Food (Allergy) Update

Hallister - No known food allergies, although he did break out in hives after eating some Easter candy. We think it may have been the lemon drop or sour punch.  A bath and Benadryl made it go down right away.

Hall loves pizza (he asks for pepperoni but then pulls off the pepperoni), hamburgers, chicken nuggets with honey mustard, spaghetti, celery and salad with ranch, biscuits with grape jelly, donuts, apples and grapes! He has an amazing taste bud complex.  He can tell when Jonathan gets donuts from Daylight Donuts and when they are from Shipley's (which he prefers). It is just amazing, his since of smell and taste. Perhaps he will become a chef!

Preston - Still no tomatoes, milk or eggs.

Pman loves Eggo waffles, sometimes plain, sometimes with syrup, donuts with grape jelly, HEB brand chocolate almond milk, strawberries, bananas, grapes, strawberries, celery with ranch, chicken nuggets with honey mustard, cheesy bread.

Liberty - No PEANUTS, not even contact with peanut butter. We had another incident. We went to a birthday party, they served PB&J. Of course I kept Lib away but apparently someone who ate it touched her party favor bag and a week later when she touched the bag she started to break out and her face swell. At least we knew what to do and this time bath and Benadryl took care of it, didn't have to use epi-pen. Ugh. I guess I'll have to start asking friends what they are going to serve at birthday parties and we just can't go if peanut butter is going to be around.  No milk or eggs still but gluten allergy has gotten better.

Lib can now eat and loves Pillsbury crescent rolls and Pillsbury frozen biscuits.  She likes turkey dogs, Tyson chicken nuggets, Gorton's fish sticks, HEB brand blueberry gluten/dairy free frozen waffles, Rice Chex cereal, Glutino gluten free pretzels, strawberries, apples, grapes. As far as fast food places, not that we get stuff from their often, Lib can have Whataburger, Bush's and Sonic chicken nuggets. She can eat Papa John's cheesy bread sticks.

I am thankful no one is allergic to corn syrup. That would be much more difficult for us.  We are thankful for our healthy kiddos!

Cast

(Yes once again catching up on posts.)

Who would have thought that Liberty would be our first child to get a cast.  She was standing on Hallister's desk in the playroom, like they have been doing, to wave goodbye to Jonathan through the window. Well she slipped and fell just right on her arm.  Poor baby. She cried pretty good right away, but then stopped and just held her arm.  She kept holding it so I knew it was not a good sign and rushed over to the doctor.  They did x-rays and found that she fractured it. Thankfully it was not a full break and we got a soft cast. The doctor was impressed, the only time she cried was during the x-rays. The rest of time she just held onto me or her arm.

It was a rough month of being careful at bath time not getting her cast wet.  I am thankful though that it was not during the summer because then it would have been hot, sweaty and smelly.

I jokingly said I was going to invent clothes called Cast Away because she only had a few long sleeve shirts she could wear that would stretch over her cast.

When we had it taken off the doctor said it healed with slight curvature but that it would straighten out on its own. The body is truly an amazing creation.  We were glad to get that thing off and I hope we never have to go through that again! 

Family Pictures 2013

I was contacted by a photographer through Facebook about designing some business cards.  I asked her if she would be interested in a barter because I bought the letters "JOY" and really had wanted some updated family pictures taken.  She was willing and we got some cute photos. Unfortunately Liberty had woken up super early so she got quite fussy. Also, I had always wanted pictures with our dogs because they are also part of our family.  We did the best we could with a bag of treats (one for the kids and one for the dogs).  Enjoy!

Play Room: Take 2

It is done! (And yes it was complete two months ago.....it's catch up blog time.)

The kids love their playroom.  Liberty immediately sat down at the table by our rain gutter bookshelves and pulled a book off the shelf.  Preston found his niche at the train table.  Hallister bounces all around that room, but mainly likes to sit at his desk and draw.

I am so very thankful to have such a talented husband who worked just about every weekend for three month's on this room, and even sometimes when he came home from work.  We had three different contractors give us quotes on it, but we knew we could save money doing it ourselves.  Moving all the toys into the room helped us weed some out toys with what the kids don't play with as much anymore, or baby toys.  We have tried to keep it simple and make them be thankful for all the toys they do have.  They don't need to get overstimulated.  I got to pick out the paint colors.  It all turned out so nice.

Right now we have the laptop in the playroom, but do hope to be able to mount a TV on the wall eventually.  They do enjoy learning shows on Netflix, like Leap Frog and Sesame Street.  Liberty has started to say Elmo a lot or Diesel, which means she wants to watch Thomas & Friends.  We do want to limit their TV time though and have them enjoy their many toys they can learn with, and use their imagination.

Thanksgiving 2013

 

We hosted Thanksgiving for the first year at our house with my Mom's side of the family and it went really well!  We actually only made one dessert and everyone else brought the big parts of the meal.  We cleaned our house and had our playroom ready to show off.  It was so nice not having to load up in the car to go somewhere, worrying about forgetting stuff and how miserable Liberty would be without a nap. 

Thankfully it was a nice day so we got to play outside.  We have had to do so much work on our house but having people over made us appreciate it all the more.  We are thankful for our huge backyard, our playroom, new updates to our kitchen and our new back porch. We are so thankful for our family who chose to drive to our house to celebrate Thanksgiving.  Hopefully we can host again next year as well.

Liberty Turns 2!

(I know, I know WAY LATE.)

We had Liberty's 2nd birthday at Jump n Place.  It was a lot of fun.  Basically the adults got to visit while the kids played on bouncy slides and bouncy houses.  Fearless Liberty did it all.  We have called her "Lil Stinker" as long as we can remember, so it just seemed appropriate to go with the stunk theme for her party.  Everything turned out really cute.

Liberty is a go-getter.  She wants to do everything her brother's do.  She is SO SMART.  Thanks to listening to Hallister she can count up to 20.  When you ask her a question she will answer bluntly the way she feels.  For example, "Liberty do you want some more food."  She answers, "No", very matter-of-factually. The boys always take time to think about their answers, and are wishy washy, but Liberty knows exactly what she wants or doesn't want, and she is not afraid to express herself.  She says "Diesel" or "Veggiebales" and points to the TV.  That means she wants to watch Thomas, Day of the Diesels or Veggietales.

Lib loves to clean.  She will sneak into her room (that she shares with the boys), steal the container of wipes, take wipes out and start "cleaning" the coffee table.  She now likes to feed the dogs in the morning.  It so cute, she doesn't like the pieces of dog food to not make it in the bowl so she will pick them up individually and place it in front of Wriley or Ranger wherever they are laying.  She also enjoys puzzles.

She has been going to Mother's Day Out and every time I go to pick her up someone tells me how happy she always is.  Even with other kids crying she is laughing or will try to cheer them up.  She is a joy, and usually even sweet to her brother's, bringing them a snack or their drink cup.  But if they take something from her then IT IS ON. :)

We love our Lil' Bit, Lil' Stinker, Libby Lou and our so proud God chose us to raise this Lil' Lady.

Fall Festival

 The church behind our house, where Preston and Liberty go to Mother's Day Out, was having a Fall Festival.  They had hot dogs, games that you won candy for playing, costume contest and a bouncy house.  They had a great time and looked OH SO CUTE!

Originally I wanted to get Liberty a skunk costume.  We call her 'Lil Stinker and that was going to be her party theme.  Well the costume didn't come in the mail in time.  So instead I looked for a Jesse costume so she would match Woody and Buzz but that didn't work out either.....maybe next year because the costumes were a little big but the boys personalities fit right in with what they had on.  A friend of mine gave us this little princess dress and Lib looked oh so sweet.