Tiny Dancer

The only thing my girls like better than dressing up is dressing up and dancing to princess songs!

It's done. Time for ketchup...catch up.

My online classes are DONE!! Finalmente he terminado y tengo mucho feliz porque estoy muy embarazada y ya no funciona el cerebro. My classes were working toward a certification to teach English language learners in California. Thought it might be a good idea to try to brush up my Spanish skills, which have always been way better with reading and writing. I have great pronunciation, but my speaking skills are like my public piano playing skills--I just clam up when it's time to perform. Jeremy has some new missionaries in his office and they are a couple from the Spanish ward. They actually live in our ward boundaries. They are very eager to get Jeremy and I speaking Spanish again. They were not shy about letting us know they were looking for a pianist for their ward choir and a Sunday School teacher. :)

So, some quick facts about what has been going on recently:

Jeremy had a birthday on St. Patrick's Day, and wore his awesome bow tie and top hat that the senior sister missionaries got him. We got carpet in our living room--a HUGE improvement on having to clean so much tile and grout AND the echo is gone. Mommy loves a quiet house. :) The kids won't stop growing. I kind of had to let them run a little wild for the last 6 months that I've been doing my classes, and feeling sick and tired from being pregnant, but they are in for a shock. Healthy meals and fewer cartoons again! I passed my glucose screening test. Yay! I'm only 28 weeks and I already feel like the baby's gonna drop out of me every time I stand up. Really achy a lot. Bad water retention. Even at 9 am, I can already push a good half inch dent into my shins. Other than that, we are pretty happy. It was a great Spring Break that we had. Jeremy took some time off, we got a lot of landscaping done in the backyard, we spent tons of time outdoors at the park, went for bike rides, and walks, got haircuts, went out to lunch as a family, had an outdoor movie party with friends, made a family history photo book for the kids, and today we have a retirement party and a birthday party to go to. Excited to do an egg hunt in the backyard tomorrow morning since Jeremy will be out of town for Easter Sunday. Now we just chug along to the end of the school year and wait for baby to come.

Privacy Please

So, my stats show that I have some Russian porn sites referring to our blog and trafficking here. I have no idea if it is just spam type stuff or if some perverts across the world are looking at pics of my kids. I researched if I could block them from viewing or linking to my blog, but that's not possible unless I make the whole thing private and just have invited readers with a password. So, leave a message with your email if you'd like to keep reading a once or twice monthly update with pictures, videos, etc. I'm going to make this change in the next week or so. I'll contact whoever wants to keep reading with info on how to log in to read.

Shopping trials

So I outgrew my regular clothes just before Christmas. No big deal to move on to maternity clothes, except that after three pregnancies, my preggo wardrobe is stretched pretty thin--no pun intended. I have a few shirts and a couple pairs of pants. Not too bad since I don't have to really be anywhere special these days. Not like when I was pregnant with Paul and Katie and teaching and I had to be dressed up every day. So my problem is I have one skirt and one dress that I can switch between for church. I still have four months to go and it's gonna get warmer and warmer around here and I want to be able to wear something besides the two pairs of jeans I have. I went in search of maternity clothes at Old Navy, Sears, JC Penney, Kohls, Target, Walmart, Gap, EVERYWHERE!! No one here sells maternity clothes in store now. They are all in a catalog or online only. OR their selection is one tiny rack with a couple shirts and jeans. All I need is a couple skirts to get me through this!!! Finally today I found a few racks of maternity clothes at Macy's. Of course the prices were ridiculous, but I was so desperate at this point I didn't care anymore. So, I got a cute knee length jean skirt and a mid-calf cotton black skirt and paid $60--and one of them was on sale. Ugh. Oh well. Now I have something to wear on my bottom half AND they are generic enough that I can pair them with any of the tops I have to make a few different outfits. Wish I were one of those girls that can wear their regular low-waisted jeans the whole time and not have to bother with having to get new clothes for only a few months. Everyone has their challenges, right? :)

Catching up

December was very busy with 1st grade programs/parties, my own final essays, morning sickness that lasted all day, choir concerts, a trip to the ER, a long drive to and from Utah, Christmas, Katie's birthday, New Year, and all kinds of other fun stuff!

Well, the kids had a great Christmas thanks to their wonderful grandparents--ALL of them! I think they got some awesome toys that will make them very happy for a long time. It snowed a lot while we were in Utah. The kids totally loved playing in it. Wish I could get my videos to post.

We switched health insurance at the beginning of the year. I have a new doctor. He is great! Excited for an ultrasound in two weeks!

And after years of dealing with dining sets that were either from the 1950s, way too big and not my style, or one that you could never keep clean because of it's sticky coating on top...I got the dining table and benches of my dreams as an early birthday present! I got a steal of a deal because it was on clearance and being discontinued and the store only had one bench and couldn't see that it was in stock in any other stores in California. I thought I might be able to get some chairs to go on the other side at a later date, so we bought it. Well, I went home and got online--completely out of stock and unavailable. So, I called all the World Market stores in the valley. Everyone was sold out. Then, I got a break! There was one left in Stockton--almost 3 hours north and one that a customer decided not to get after all in Tracy--2 hours north on the way to San Francisco. These were the only ones left in California, so if I wanted that other bench, I had to get it the next morning pronto! So we called the Tracy store to hold it for us and drove north. Although I couldn't persuade the manager at that site to match the price of the other bench, I still got a good deal and she gave me a small discount. In total, I paid an insanely small fraction of the retail cost for this solid wood, brand new set that can seat 8! I absolutely love it. It cleans so easily. No more hassle with chairs. I can sweep right under it without moving everything around. Who says money can't buy happiness and make your life easier? This purchase certainly has!

Baby J #4 - The final installment

Who is glad to be nauseated? I am. Every day that I have been sick has been a day that I know everything is alright with June Bug. But, I am excited for it to be over. :) 

Fuzzy Math

It's the most wonderful time of the year--for credit card companies. Didn't get a statement from Kohl's, therefore I forgot to pay off my recent charge of $34. It consequently had a $8.55 late fee tacked on. I called to ask for the late fee to be removed and to pay my $34 bill in full. Because I have a great payment history, they were more than happy to take off the fee as long as I agreed to pay the bill in full over the phone right now. Sure, no problem. Then, the service rep says that there will be a $10 processing fee for me to be able to pay the bill over the phone. What?! They just took off $8.55 in late fees only to add on $10 in processing fees because I HAVE to pay over the phone right now?!! I calmly explained a little math to him and asked how this equation could possibly benefit me. He was quiet for a minute, then said, "You're absolutely right, ma'am. That doesn't make any sense at all. I'm not supposed to do this, but I'm gonna dismiss the late fee and the processing fee and just charge what you owe--$34." Thank you! Happy holidays to everyone, and remember to spend wisely and pay off your credit purchases pronto! :)