Moving.... Again.

Yes- again. i'm so sick of it all. and out of all the moves we've had this year, this has been the smoothest. (knock on wood)
So we leave first thing in the morning. Truck is packed, everything is out of the house, and i'm ready to be done with the whole moving thing.
and wha'ts better... we get to do it again... in 8 months. yah. but that will be OK- cause hopefully by then, we'll be in a place to actually get in a place semi-permanently. (as in a few years at least)

so wish me luck. Don't know if if i'll be able to post tomorrow- and i'll try on Thursday, but who knows. don't have internet set up at the new place yet, so we may just have to wait a while until i get it. Unless of course i can bum it off a neighbor! :)-

next time you hear from me... i'll be a Utahan. this should be interesting....... lol

Christmas

Isnt' it crazy it's already the holidays? Still doesn't feel real yet- although the Christmas music has been out for a couple weeks already! :)- ( and that's just for you Jamie!)

We decided this year that we will get the kids the ONE gift they really want. then we'll get the typical christmas outfit and the traditional socks and stocking stuffers...... but that's it. one- we've spent everything we have on moving 3 FRIGGIN TIMES and because of it, have a buttload of debt to pay off. SO...... one great gift sounds pretty good to me right now!

anyway- Here's what we're getting the kids. They will seriously flip. I'm very excited to see their reactions when they get exactly what they asked for!

Hailey:

Kayleb:

Mia:

And little Jayce:

totally cute right? so excited!

Nook December Kit

This kit is SO NICE! I love it. I got a lot done on friday- so Just want to show you the pages I came up with. Haven't shown some eye candy lately... so here it is to enjoy!


And Little boy is becoming such a fun baby. (finally) I put him in the swing the other day and handed him a stuffed toy to play with. When i turned around... this is what I saw.....

Adorable right? love it!

Oh... and we're moving! again. moving on wednesday- so I'll fill you in all about it once i get internet again. hopefully i don't have to break the whole NABLOPOMO thing. until tomorrow!

OH MY WORD!!

Dang.... i wrote this post and it got lost. ugh.

anyway------- the report.... SO STINKIN GOOD! the movie was fantastic... the actors were dreamy (esp. Edward), the acting was very good, the specail effects could have used some work, the story line follows the book to a T. Very very good show.

now.... I wish they would have gone into more detail with a few things and added other details... but you can't add it all or it will be like 10 hrs. long.

The audience was hilarious. I've never attended a movie that was so packed. every seat filled, standing in line for more than an hour, 99.9% of the attendance was swooning married women. hahahaha
I was laughing a lot because of all the commentary that took place during the movie. Some women are seriuosly into this thing and it cracks me up. I mean, i appreciate and love the series like the next girl, but hello!!! there were people with signs and edward faces plastered on sticks to wave. more than half had Twilight shirts on.... SO FUNNY. I was content enough to just go and watch the movie.

anyway-I totally plan on seeing it again...... if i can find a sitter and someone to go with. lol

GO SEE IT!!!

TWILIGHT!!!!!

Ok... so yes- I'm involved in the Twilight obsession- it's true. But how can you not?!


So I am SO STINKIN' EXCITED because I have a ticket to see the show tonight at 8!! I was up all night last night. THis is just as exciting for me as it is for a kid on waiting for christmas morning. I can't wait to see it! Aren't they all so dreamy?!

Rest assured that I will definitely be posting some pictures tomorrow of my experience. :)

(i'm pathetic... i know!) :)-

This is seriously crazy!

So remember the mention of the house that I wanted? Too good to be true.

I receieved an email this morning saying that they would allow us to rent for a little cheaper and to send them the amount of $1250 to a specific name via money gram through walmart.

WHAT?!?!?!?!?! that sent red flags flying everywhere. We knew they were "working in Africa" and that they had the keys. It was a legitimate house, a legitimate name, and a legitimate company they "worked" for.

So I sent Rick over there this afternoon to check it out. Got to the house, it was for rent. went around and saw that the house was empty and went to a neighbor's house to ask some questions. Come to find out, it's an older couple who own it and they are very trustworthy people. Rick then mentioned that he thought they had gone to Africa. The neighbor seemed surprised because she hadn't heard that. So rick gave me the number off the rent sign and I called it.
An older gentlmen answered and I asked if the house was still for rent and how much they were charging. WAY more than what we were quoted. So i then explained what had happened and he then said that he had gotten 8 previous phone calls saying the same thing.

They posted an ad on craigslist and it was "stolen" and used as a scam to get people to send this jerk of a guy money. LUckily, no one fell victim to this scam that he knew of.

So what do i do? I look up his name on Facebook and find out that it is indeed a guy from Africa. Look up his friends and they too are all from Africa. I then go to the email that he has been writing me from and write an email back to him. THis is what it said......

"YOU HAVE BEEN CAUGHT!!!!! I went up to the house and called the phone number and you are NOT the owner. I have forwarded all of our emails, and the information i have from you to the police. They have assured me they are looking into this and have been aware of your scam. You should be ashamed of yourself for doing this to people. Luckily for me..... i'm not as stupid as you thought I would be. I googled your name and saw you on Facebook as well- rest assured that that information was sent with the rest to the authorities! Shame Shame Shame on you. I hope for your sake you decide to become an honest person and stop trying to steal other peoples' hard earned money!!! "


It was totally my moms idea to write him. lol
Maybe I should have said FBI instead? hahahahaha

Hopefully this jerk will be scared off, but hello!!!! I mean, we aren't dumb enough to send the money anyway, but to think we were being scammed the whole time. Wow. Crazy i tell ya.

SHOOT!

Ok-- so i totally spaced writing yesterday. DANG! so much for the every-day thing. oh well..... i'll keep going. just pretend it never happened! :)

So... the report would be: We found a place.... MAYBE. i've seriuosly never encountered a place where it was so stinkin hard to find a place to live! what it boiled down to was cost and availability. if it was the right price and it was available now... we took it. So we applied through this management company for a condo just 5 min. from Rick's work. We'll find out tomorrow whether we get it or not.

Pros: close to work, good schools
Cons: too small, next to freeway, and it's another STINKIN APARTMENT! something i swore i'd never live in again. oh well..... that's what i get for talkin' huh?

we're crossing the fingers that they will let us only have a 6 mo. contract so we don't have to stay in such a small place for too long. for those of you who saw my apartment in Savannah... it's smaller than that. yah. with 4 kids. so you can imagine how tight it will be. we just need to get into something so we aren't separated anymore. once we're in- we'll focus on truly finding something we want. and hopfully we'll be able to buy.

OK... there's the reports... i swear- i'll have something interesting to read tomorrow. i have too many things to do today to say much else.
bye!

Oy Vay!

Ok...seruiosly...house hunting here sucks. anyone wanna fork over about $500 a mo for me? that would make things A LOT easier. Had it narrowed to 2 and then realized we'd be REALLY pinching if we went with them... so we started all over. i'm so over this. OR...anyone with a house- wanna just rent it to me for a fwe months really cheap? thanks. :)

as you can tell.. totally don't have time to write a whole lot. 4 kids and house hunting on my own= a huge headache.

All Better!

Luckily it was only a 24 hour bug. And it's a good thing- decided last minute to take a trip to Utah to go house hunting. So here we are. Going out looking tomorrow- wish us luck, because from what we've seen so far, people are just out to rip us off. Seriously... how can you feel good about charging$950 a mo. for a dinky 900sq. ft 3 bd apt?
that's INSANE!!!

anyway- i'll keep you posted. off to bed!

FLU......BAD

See this guy- i feel worse. 'nuff said.

You're going to laugh

Because over the weekend.... guess what came out of storage?

This guy: (swoon)

And even though it was my idea... i wasnt' the one who got it out. But now that it is..... had to pull out this one...

and the mother of all christmas CD's and the one piece of musical genius that should be in EVERY christmas collection....

Yup.... i'm in the christmas spirit and it can't come soon enough. Love it!!!

Ok.... go ahead and laugh now...... :)

Eye Candy

I finally did it. I was able to actually sit down and do a page today. What I like: I actually did something using one of my favorite companies. What I don't like: I haven't scrapped in so long- my creative juices have come to a completel halt and I don't know if i like it or not.

So... here ya go. you be the judge.

I've also taken a picture of 2 cards I made. the first one... LLLLUUUUUUVVVVV it. it's one of those inspired dreams and i had to write it down otherwise i would have forgotten. The second one- eh.... it's ok. i love the little owl i made though. cute huh? Enjoy!

Long Days

You know... I LOVE days that are cloudy and rainy all day. SOmething about them just makes me happy. But I do have to say that the past few days of it.... just makes the days seem to last FOREVER! seriously- it's like they never end. It might have something to do with how early i get up- but i'd appreciate if time would speed up a little around now. :)

SO guess what I did today? I applied for jobs. Looking at our financials- looks like I need to do something to help out. Let's just say Craigslist is awesome. We'll see if anything comes of it, but I applied for about 15 PT secretarial positions. Keep the fingers crossed that something comes along- otherwise... i may have to sell off everything i own. ;)-

And on top of everything else- I have flippin' pink eye! Don't know where it came from. my guess is the stinkin' carts at Walmart. I hate grocery carts- they are almost the epitomy of germ infested material. I'm no germophobe- but there are few things that make me cringe just touching.

And lastly (since i'm full of all sorts ofuseful information today).... you should seriously go and join up with My SCrapbook Nook kits. THEY ARE FABULOUS! And there are some changes taking place, so they will be even better come the new year. You get so much product for the money- and super fast shipping. Come over and join the boards too....who doesn't enjoy making friends all over the world? I always laugh because when I think about it, because of the Nook, if ever i travel around the world... i literally have a place to stay! it's so fun! So here's a picture of the November kit. The December kit is coming very shortly... so look for that as well.

Tagged

You know.. i'm not good with being tagged. anyone who ever has tagged me- knows that more than likely I won't do it. And it's not because I'm rude or have better things to do.... honestly, I just forget. lol That's what kids do to you right? and in my case... they took my butt, my thighs, my boobs, and my gut- on top of the brains..... so there's my excuse! :)

Anywho... Today I'm turning a new leaf. I've been tagged and i'm actually going to do it! Thanks to my incredibly talented friend Zarah- I'll be telling you 7 random things about myself. Yay for you right? just what you wanted... to hear more about my ever enthusiastic and event filled life!

1) I'm a sucker for Musicals. I love everything about them. al the music, dancing... incredible talent. I often daydream about my past life and how i must have been incredibly famous and talented... in that exact era. ;)-

2) If you want to see me nice and happy... DON"T WAKE ME UP!!! There's nothing that willl turn me into a monster faster than waking me up. I hate it with a passion. If i'm going to wake up.. i'll do it myself thank you very much. So now is when you wonder what on earth I do when i have a baby and i'm waking up several times a night. Well my dear friends... that is the ONLY exception. hahaha

3) I would love to have my own company some day. What will it be in? It's a toss up between scrapbooking, photography, and graphic design. pretty sure it will be photography first. (but that's now.)

4) I HATE the cold. everything about it sucks. I seriously need to live in a place where it doesn't get colder than 65 and never snows. Find me that place and that's where i'll live and die.

5) I have this secret desire to be an interior designer. Yes- I have SO many interests... but all those home makeover shows on HGTV- man.... i could watch those forever and never get sick of them. If only i had the money to make my house look that good.

6) I love to move. And you probably wouldn't guess that by how many times i've done it over the past 4 months..... but i love change. I'm afraid my poor family will have to deal with moving every few years just to appease me.

7) I am terribly in love with anything oriental. Love the culture, love the colors, food, styles, places...... believe me- when i have my own home- there will beone room completely dedicated to oriental decorating. Send me over there any day and I"m sure I'd love every second of it!

Ok....so there ya go. entertaining right? huh.
got to attend to the screaming child once again. Story of my life right now! toodles!

Oh Money Tree...

where are you? lol

You know what i hate most about this past 4 months? the fact that we saved and saved and got a good bit amount of $$ in our pockets- just to WASTE it on moving two times. And where does that leave us? pretty much suckin' it up to the boss man to hand us over a bigger chunk of change to afford this move.

well.... they are going to pay for the move- which is a HUGE blessing. so at least we have that covered. But for some reason, everyone and their dog in Utah County feels the need to jip the average joe out of renting a place because they charge an arm and a leg for it all. So we've been looking at the typical 3 bedroom places to rent for now. That's all we've ever lived in, so we know the space restraints and whatnot. Over the past few days I've gathered a bunch of listings to call. So i start making the phone calls this morning and this is how the first phone call went. It was for a 3 bed 1.5 bath duplex, 1400 sq ft. (this is the largest we would have ever lived in)

Dude: "Yes we still have the duplex available. When would you be moving in?"
me: "Over thanksgiving break. Could we schedule a time to come look at the place?"
dude: "Well, how big is your family?"
me: "I have 4 kids, then my husband and I"
dude: "I don't know if that's enough room."
me: "every apt. we've ever lived in has been 3 bed and less sq. footage than this. So we are fine on the space if you are."
dude: "Yah. I don't think that will work for us."
*CLICK*

Seriously? I just got turned down because i have too many kids. 1- makes me a little mad... that's discrimination right? and 2- is he flippin serious?

So i put that aside and continue calling. Guess what? There must be some sort of petition or law floating around that tells people whether they should rent to people with more than 1 kid. 80% of the calls i made this morning- they wouldn't talk to me because i had TOO many kids.
i don't know whether to be shocked and dumbfounded... or to just be plain pissed. I guess it's a lesson learned that if you want to rent a place in Utah- you better plan on not having children- which is completle ironic since it's the place where the largest saturation of mormons live. lol

And where does that lead us then? Well.... one of two options, and the last one is almost out of reach. 1) i tak eon a job to help pay for higher rent so we can accomodate a larger house and a larger rent payment. 2) attempt the impossible and try and purchase a house. which probably won't happen since we have student loans up to our eyeballs to pay off.

Wow. looks like unless a miracle can happen, we may just have to put off moving until the perfect place becomes available. and we all know THAT would suck. lol

So hence... if anyone has a money tree- wanna lend it to me? i could really use a nice down payment to get my family a home. :)-

Oh... and for those of you who were kind enough to lend me some advice with the whole moving thing.....We are looking to rent a house/duplex/townhome for now. If you find anything in the Provo/Orem/Spanish Fork/American Fork area.... email me at winwards4@comcast.net
THANK YOU!!!!!

Last Night

Ok- so I'm working on creating a photography blog for myself. And although i don't have a lot of professional experience, I'd like to showcase the things that I've captured and share them. With moving here to Idaho, I've been presented with quite a few opportunities to use this talent and once of those came last night. My mom is in charge of the dance team at one of the high schools here and they sponsered a dance. And because of that, I was asked to take pictures at this dance. I was so excited!!! Well... after it was all said and done, I was able to only get 6 pictures from people and then a bunch of shots of the team. i was disappointed, but I guess people don't want to pay for pictures at a STAG dance. I had fun nonetheless!

And today- I'm going to show you some pics. And being that it's been a really emotional couple of days for me, i'm gonna go all sappy on ya. :)

See this lady? She's pretty huh? :)

This is my mom. She's the one that holds everything together. I've never known anyone who can juggle so many things at one time and still stay sane. She's the one that raised 5 kids and miraculously all 5 of us turned out normal. (and that's according to me!) She makes really good meals and some of the best chocolate chip cookies. She can multitask, organize, and clean better than anyone on the face of this earth! (just ask anyone) She's passed on the qualities of motherhood that I hope I can live up to. She (and my dad of course) have taken us in more than once and provided for us in our times of need. And especially now, she is maintaining a family of 11 under 1 roof and still finds the time to laugh and have fun. And I know that even though I don't express it or show it often enough- I love you mom. You are a wonderful example and I will always look up to you and admire you for all you do. Love you!!!

Guess What?

WE ARE MOVING TO UTAH!!!!!

Rick got home yesterday and he got the job!!!

so now on to house hunting and finding schools (yet again).

we're looking in the provo/orem/spanish fork area to live. So if anyone in that vicinity reads my blog..... hook me up with a nice place ok? :)

I'll post more later... just had to share the good news!!!

Information

So..... some of you may not know this (i was trying to hold off until we knew for sure)- but RIck has been down in Utah these past 3 weeks working for a Graphic Design firm. They offered him a position and said "lest go 30 days and see how it goes and then we'll go from there".

well, being what we've been through already this past summer, ther'es no friggin' way i'm going to move again without knowing that this job is secure. So he's been living down there with my grandparents while i've been here with the kiddos. He comes home late friday night and leaves Sunday evening to get back. It's not a lot, but it's OK.

Honestly, going through this "separation" has been easier than what it was in Memphis. Until last night. It's been a rough week with sick kids and baby has been awake a lot at night- hence no sleep. And no sleep mixed with single mom and sick kids.... not a good thing after a while. But things will get better. I have faith they will get better. And we will hopefully find out today whether or not we will be moving yet again. So keep the fingers crossed, the prayers coming, and the well wishes available... cause we could use everything we can get right now!

OK- enough with that schtuff..... I was digging in my scrapbooks the other day and found these pages that I did a while ago. I love it when i can go back and still love what i've done. 99.9% of the time, i look back and think "how on earth did i come up with that crap?"- so on the blue moon occassion where i don't think that, i get pretty excited. Maybe i should just frame them! lol

And because I haven't left any eye candy for a while, I'll post a few of my favs i've done from the past. Hopefully, (if i don't fall asleep or have to hold a baby all day) I'll actually get to create something today as well. wish me luck!

A Laugh.... or two

Ok- honestly, don't know what to say today. BUt i'm determined to continue this every day thing. ( it's actually kind of fun!)

anyway.. i'll just leave you with something SO FUNNY- i found it the other day. Hope you enjoy it!





hilarious right? HAHA!

Milestone!

Oh my word. Ok... this will probably seem really funny to ya'll- but seriously, i'm a little freaked out.

Take a look at this adorable little girl. isn't she cute? Now... notice anything different about her?

notice it? if not... take a look at this one.

Notice it yet? here's the last one....

And if you're seriously THAT blind ;)-, Little Hailey lost her first tooth today! At first she was really reluctant- until I mentioned the tooth fairy. ANd of course she was all about getting the sucker out as fast as possible once the $ thing came into play! lol

So here I sit, wondering how much- I mean... how much the tooth fairy will leave under the pillow tonight and how in the heck I'm at this point in my life already. For some odd reason- I feel like i'm getting older just because of this little milestone. lol

all right- now you can all laugh at my expense. Man... even with one gone, she's still a cutie! :)

Wow

so although i did sleep a little better last night, i was still up at 4:30 am and couldn't go back to sleep! makes me so mad....now i have to attempt to do the impossible 2 days in a row- ask me tomorrow how that goes. lol

soooooo.... i thought i'd share some of my fav blogs/sites today with you. If you don't know by now- i'm huge into photography and the second i get the chance to go back to school- tha'ts what i'm going into. Ideally- i'd like to be a wedding photographer, so we'll see how it plays out. I'm also very interested in graphic design, so i'm sure that will play a roll in how i graduate also. but you have to check out the sites- i mean... seriously AMAZING. I"ll just place a list of them and you should check them out! Hopefully one day... i can add my own site to this list!

Petra Hall
Passing Notes
Ashley McNamara
Cheryl Spelts
Kimberly Garofolo
G. Haygood
Susan Stripling
Jessica Claire
The Wiebners
Amy Squires
Jane Morba
Jessica Stickland
Liana Lehman
Next Exit

Ok- now after viewing all those- how can you NOT want to take awesome pics?!?!?! enjoy!

My Night....

was torture! sick kids and kids waking up at 4:30am.... don't mix for a good nights sleep AT ALL.

oh well..... you're bound to have them now and again right? I'll get over it- maybe I'llbe lucky enough to get a nap in (knock on wood) :)

but for now... i'm too tired to really post anything significant... so i'll just leave you with the final pics of our halloween bash. i think the pics say it all. lol

More Halloween fun

Ok- so here are more pics of the fun times we had on Halloween.

These were taken right before we went out Trick or treating. Hailey was a witch, Kayleb was a knight again, Mia was the princess, and Jayce was a skeleton (and as you can tell, he absolutely loved every second of it.) They were all just so stinkin' cute. And yes- i'm too cheap to go out and purchase a new costume for each of my kids every year, so we recycle and use dress ups. lol :) So here they are. Oh... and i dressed up as myself. original huh? :)-

NaBloPoMo

What is that? NaBloPoMo my friends is the abreviated version of what is known as National Blog Posting Month. Yah. hilarious- i know. It's a funny word- one of those words that gets stuck in your head and won't leave. lol

anyway- because of this NaBloPoMo..... the goal is to do a post on your blog every day for an entire month. Doesn't sound hard right? Well i've never done it before, so i wouldn't know. Hence the reason I"m gonna give it a shot. Yes 'tis true.... you will get to hear from me every single day this month. And it will happen barring any major catastrophe. :)-

So what do I have to say today... well it was Halloween yesterday and I have about 220 pictures to prove it. So lets just say there will be a lot to see over the next few days. Cause when you have kids as cute as mine (I know.. i'm totally biased)- how can you not take that many pics?

I'll start with the first thing.

The kids had the annual costume parade in their school. THey got to dress up and go around the school and show all the students and parents how cute they are. Then they had a fun class party.

The pics I'll show now are of the kids before all that. Hailey was a Ballerina Princess and Kayleb was a knight. Aren't they so cute?

And a cute little pic to top it off is that of Jayce sleeping. He was taking a little snoozer while the kids were carving the pumpkin and Mia decided to give Jayce her stuffed animals to sleep with. Isn't that adorable?

until tomorrow! :)