My Kayley girl turns eight and Mr. Cole turns six today!

Happy Birthday, Kayley Autumn. You are the sweetest, brightest, smartest, most beautiful girl in the entire world.

Happy Birthday, Cole Michael. You are the coolest, funniest, cutest, most caring big guy in the entire world.

Mommy and Daddy love you both very, very much!

Life Update

The kids' birthday is coming up this week and we have a few fun things planned for them. Kayley's party is going to be a sleepover and Cole's will be a pajama party. Like last year, we're doing both in one day. We bought their presents today but I won't say what they are because Kayley can read and she's sitting near me. But they will love, love, love them!

Tyler's job is going fantastic. I met his boss yesterday and he's pretty awesome. I'm so happy that Tyler gets to do something he loves and put his smart brain to good use. In a few years he will most likely be moving toward the position of an engineer, which is right up his ally. I'm not sure what this means for Idaho, but it looks like we won't be moving for a while now. There may even be a house purchase on the horizon for us, who knows.

My job is great, too. It's getting busy for me but not bad at all. We're hiring a temp starting February first who I'll have to train and supervise. I'm looking forward to the help but I know it will take a while to get the person used to how weird we are in the office. And I'm not kidding.

We start the Dave Ramsey class again tomorrow night and I'm really looking forward to moving farther along in our saving and cutting debt. We should be buying a car in the next few weeks but without a car payment, woo hoo! We really don't care what we drive, as long as it works and we have no payment!

So life is pretty standard. Busy but great. Peace out.

Shiny Everything

You wouldn't normally think that house cleaning would be something worth blogging about. But this isn't your blog now, is it?

I came home last night to the best smelling, cleanest home I've ever seen. The floors were shiny, the tables were shiny, the potty was shiny. You know that part of the door where the kids put their dirty little hands that you only notice while you going to the bathroom but then you forget to clean? Yeah, that part was all shiny, too! I'm a happy lady!

I wasn't the only one happy. The kids were stoked that someone else made their beds and I told them not to get used to it. And at bedtime my darling little Cole said, "mom, I want to get one of those slaves to clean my room all the time." Sweet, sweet boy.

Unless I quit my job and stay at home, I will never go without a house cleaner again!

1. I like this new blog layout but cannot for the life of me get the Christmas stuff off the sides. Help!

2. I got a $1 raise today! My boss (not my dad) told me that I'm a flower that's blooming. Corny? Yes.

3. Kayley sucked up a sock with the vacuum last week and almost burned the house down. Luckily for me, Kathrine had just bought the same one on clearance at Target for $11 and let me have it! Score.

4. Soon I will be the momma of an eight and a six year old. Eek!

5. You like how I ended all the four previous points with one word?

6. I haven't been running regularly until recently. I hurt!

7. Legos are such a big deal around here. It's actually one of my favorite things to do with the kids.

8. Everyone in my house except for me has experienced the flu since Christmas. Even the dog has been throwing up.

9. I want to come up with a new name for my blog.

Hello, hello. Today is a happy day! Everyone except for Brandy and myself are out of the office for a seminar and it's so nice and quiet. We actually just had a long conversation about organized religion. All in a days work, you know?

Krista and I have set our dates for the 5k and 10k's that we'll be doing. I have to admit that she's doing better at it than me already. I haven't been on a run since new years day. But I have been walking every day during my lunch hour.

In other news, we will be soon hiring a housekeeper and starting this Friday someone will be doing our gardening. With Tyler working and in school and me working we have just enough time in the day to eat dinner, slap each other on the rear and call it a night. So, I've resolved that cleaning the dust bunnies off the floor will no longer be my job. Our lives are crazy but pretty much awesome at the same time.

I leave you with these incredibly awesome pictures Tyler took on New Year's at a party. Yes, we're weird people and no, I wasn't drunk. Ha.