Things to make you smile

I'm going to start adding short posts ("things to make you smile") every so often of phrases that Melissa says. Some of the things she says are hilarious, and others make Randy and I realize how special and sweet she is. Here's the phrase for today

Preface - I was asking Melissa what she and Marian did with Daddy last night. She said they watched the Little Mermaid....at the end (with Ursula) she was scared...

Phrase - "Daddy watched the movie with me and he protected me."

AHHH!!! So stinking sweet - and she has no idea!!!

Family Video

This past week has been a whirlwind for me....

Last Wednesday Family Video held open interviews from 3 to 6 pm. Since I've been looking for a part time job, Randy and I decided I should go to the interviews and see what happens. Can I just say that I HATE open interviews! It was chaos and there were over 30 people there when I got there. I ended up waiting for over an hour before being interviewed. But the wait paid off and they wanted to bring me back in for some testing....I know, I was thinking "Testing? Are you serious?". But apparently they were....and let me just say this test wasn't a walk in the park - it reminded me of a mini SAT!!! Well, I took the test this past Sunday and passed. I then had to have a final interview with the district manager (a lot of stuff for a job!) yesterday at 1pm. At 1:20 they hired me and asked if I could come in at 4 pm!!! Aftering finding a quick sitter for the kids, I started my new job with Family Video less than 3 hours after being hired!!! Talk about a crazy day! I'm just glad the job search is over. Everyone seems really great there and I really hope its as great as I think it will be.

Randy's excited b/c I get 1/2 off on rentals and we get to see pre-street movies for free (all the movies that don't hit the shelves until the next week)....for those of you who know Randy well, he's on cloud 9 right now! I think it will take some adjustment for the girls...they are used to me putting them to bed and with me working evenings that could be limited. It might even take some adjustment for me not being able to put them to bed!!! I'm excited about my new opportunity though, so everything should be great!

Cars have bad timing

So I can just say that cars are not so nice.

Monday night (10:30) we remembered we needed to take the movies back to the movie store (after we already went to bed). I volunteered to take them back. I went to start the trailblazer and it wouldn't start. So I took Randy's car instead, returned the movies, and came home. I told Randy the car wouldn't start and he said he would look at in the morning before leaving for work...the battery was probably just struggling b/c of the cold.

Well, the car still wouldn't start, so I checked it later that day, and still...nothing. When Randy got home from work we tried jumping it - and after about 20 minutes finally got it to start up. He took it over to advanced auto to check the battery only to find out that he can't restart the car and the battery is definitely a dud....

So that was a nice $100 fix we weren't expecting....

But it gets worse...

I took the TB in for an oil change this morning and found out the next time we get the oil changed we'll also need to get the transmission fluid changed - $149!!!

As if things weren't already bad......

For my stalker :) ....JK - My new bangs

Okay....so one day I got seriously tired of my over grown bangs - they were about twice as long as they should have been (down past my chin). So remember how my sister cut Melissa's bangs I totally started hacking away. I think I did a pretty good job!

Happy Valentine's Day

Melissa Loves Crafts. So this year, to let her have fun with crafts, and keep her entertained (and from whining :) ) we did valentine's cards for her grandparents. She was so proud of them! I found most of these ideas at http://dltk-kids.com/ but we also enjoy using http://crafts.kaboose.com/ . Here's pictures of her proud projects - each piece of the animal was made by a heart (except the frog legs :) ).

Marian Eats Cereal with Milk

A Room to Play

Well, we've been busy over the last couple of weeks. A lot has happened since my last post. We got dumped on with snow again earlier this week...although the foot we got was nothing compared to the 2 feet Valpo got just west of us. Fortunately we had an amazing "heat wave" this weekend, landing temps in the upper 40's, lower 50's. Almost all of the snow is gone - we can finally see grass again, and our driveway!

While stuck inside from the freezing temps and mounds of snow, Randy and I took it upon ourselves to do some "spring cleaning" in the basement. This should have happened a long time ago, but at least we finally got around to it. We've spent the last 2 weeks cleaning up the basement trying to get it organized. Randy spent an entire day tacking up wires and cords that were never properly secured, we sorted through boxes we still hadn't unpacked and things we didn't know what to do with, filled in some cracks with crack filler, and got the floor cleared of all boxes. There's really quite a bit of space down there when there's not empty boxes sitting on the floor!

When it was all done, we decided to turn it into a playroom for the kids. A long time goal of ours, we didn't think it would be possible for a few more months. But ultimately we were able to move all the kids toys from their room and the family room down to their newly made "playroom". I'm in heaven!!! Here's a few photo's of it all.