Friday's Foto Finish Fiesta

It's Friday and that means Candid Carries Friday Foto Finish Fiesta. I have been waiting for this day all week because I knew last Saturday what I was going to use for this. This week I actually have two pictures so I will get right to it.



This is of Emma eating a cupcake from Uncle KJ's birthday cupcake cake. For some strange reason my little brother has gone against the rest of the family and decided to be a Pittsburgh Steelers fan when the rest of us are Browns fans. Man just typing that makes me cringe! Anyway because of his weird love of this team my mom had his cupcake cake done with white and black icing with yellow lettering. This is the effect of that black icing.

Of course I couldn't leave Ian out of this so here he is eating his cupcake.



I don't think there are words for this one.

So now it's your turn to join in all the fun.

Chest Pains

Work was absolutely horrible today. I was swamped before I even walked in and it stayed like that until I left.

I spent my day doing two different things. The first was trying to figure out why a report I printed on Monday was now showing different figures today when nothing had been changed. The second was working on my monthly billing and trying to figure out why my percentage breakdowns on my billing report was not calculated correct. Now I don't know if any of you work with numbers but when I am trying to figure out problems like these it's very hard for me to get up and walk away from my desk for anything. Once I get going on a solution (or what I think will be a solution) I just can't stop for fear I will forget where I was going.

While I was working on my first issue this morning I started to notice this weird stabbing like pain in my right boob. The pain was not near any of the edges of my bra so I knew it couldn't be the wire. Since I was in the middle of problem solving I just keep tugging on my bra straps to move my bra around thinking that maybe it was just laying weird. This went on for about 3 hours before I got a chance to get up and take a break. On my break I went to the bathroom to try and figure out what was causing this awful pain of mine. When I pulled my shirt out and looked down I realized that the back to my earring was inside my bra and my bra was pushing it into my skin. I didn't even know the back to my earring had fallen off and I really couldn't tell that there was actually something inside of my bra. I was also shocked that something so little could cause so much pain. I guess next time I will have to force myself to get up and check out my pains a little sooner.

Lights Out

Let me start this post by saying that in no way am I being paid to endorse the following product. I would if they offered but they haven't so....

Eight years ago next week Dave and I moved into our very first apartment. It was a cheap one bedroom economy apartment. We had a living room and kitchen on the bottom floor and a bathroom and bedroom upstairs. Of course Dave being the law enforcement junkie that he is wanted to make our apartment as safe as possible both day and night and that included using one of the oldest tricks in the book. Keep a light on in the living room over night to make it harder for criminals to sneak around unnoticed.

After two weeks of keeping our living room lamp on over night we had gone through a four pack of cheap light bulbs. While at Walmart doing our weekly grocery shopping we were in the isle with all the light bulbs and we noticed these really weird looking bulbs. It was a new product that General Electrics had come out with. The package stated that these light bulbs would last longer, up to five years, and save money on electricity. Doing the math in our head we decided that spending the extra money and buying that bulb would be a heck of a lot cheaper than buying hundreds of the regular kind over a five year period.



We went home that evening and placed this new light bulb in our living room lamp and it stayed there burning overnight every single night and a few hours each evening, even sometimes during the days when it's been cold and dark out for the past 8 years.

Yesterday evening around 6pm I turned the lamp on as the kids and I were leaving to go to Emma's gymnastics class. It wasn't dark out yet but I knew by the time we got home it would be and I didn't want to walk into a dark house. It stayed on the entire evening and was on when Dave and I went to bed around 11pm. When I got up this morning the living room was pitch dark. At first I thought that maybe Dave got up and turned the light off in the middle of the night. I came into the living room and turned the switch but nothing happen. I checked the plug but it was plugged in so again i tried the switch before I realized that our first GE Smartbulb had finally burnt out.

After eight years and what Dave and I have figured to be over 35,000 hours of burn time our light bulb finally died. It's kind of silly but I was a little sad this morning because that bulb has moved with us twice now and been around for everything. It even got a new home (lamp) this past spring which is much nicer than it's last one and now it's gone.

I was curious about how long these bulbs were really supposed to last so I did some research before I started writing this post and from what I have found the type of bulb we had should last between 6,000 and 12,000 hours. The longest lasting bulb they have only goes up to 15,000 so ours burned far more hours than these. If I can find a contact email address I think I may just have to email them to let them know just how long their bulb really lasted.

When Dave and I moved into this house we started replacing the light bulbs that burnt out with these energy saving bulbs. Our front porch light was the first one to be changed and it has been burning every night for almost 3 years now. We still have about three bulbs all of which are can lights that have not been replaced but we don't see a reason to take them out when they still work.

So if you don't own any of these bulbs go to the store and buy them so the next time your light burns out you can replace it with one of these awesome bulbs. I'm serious about this just based on how long they last you will save money but then you have to add it the fact that they don't use as much energy to use and they are better for the environment. So why not buy them!?!

Yee Haw

Three years ago when we were getting ready to move into this house the owner was awesome enough to let us come in the week before and do some painting. I knew when we decided on this house that I wanted to let Emma pick her room decor and I was going to do a Ian's room.

Emma's nursery was done in Raggedy Ann and Andy and Emma always seemed to love it but when we asked her if she wanted her new room to be the same she said no. She wanted a Princess room. I knew that doing a Disney Princess room (which is what she wanted) would get old to her in a few years so I decided to go with a very girly room with a few Princess items. I have always been a huge fan of quilts so I asked my mom if she would make Emma's bedding. We went to JoAnn Fabrics and I picked out the fabrics I want and laid the pattern out for my mom and she sewed it for me. It only took her a month or so and it turned out great!

It took me a little bit of time to decided on what I wanted for Ian's room. I had the normal choices of sports, or cars, or even the zoo animals but I wanted something a little bit different. I finally decided on a Cowboy themed nursery for him. His room was already painted a dark cream color so I took one of the walls and painted it red because I knew I was going to find a way incorporate the red bandanna fabric in his room. After Emma's quilt was finished my mom and I went back to the store and I picked out the fabric for Ian's. I decided that I wanted small squares of the red bandanna, khaki, and denim fabrics. It was at this point that things kind of stopped. For some reason my mom just couldn't get into making Ian's quilt. Once she finally finished the quilt I had to come up with a design for the stitching in it which took me alot longer but I finally found some really cute patterns that were cowboy hats, stars, and cowboy boots.

Finally after three years of work my mom finally finished Ian's quilt. She brought it over for Ian when the family was here for my brothers birthday on Saturday. Ian loved it instantly and I must say my mom did a great job sewing it and I love my design.

So without farther ado here is Ian's new quilt.



and this is a close up of the quilt stitching.

KJ

I was busy yesterday claening and playing referee with my kids and wasn't able to get on here to write this post so I'm doing it today.

Yesterday we celebrated my youngest brother KJ's 13 birthday. Most years we celebrate his birthday on the 28th of February except for Leap Years because KJ's real birthday is February 29th. That's right by brother was born on leap day. When my mom was pregnant she joked that she would have KJ early and it would be on leap day but it really did happen.



This year KJ's birthday seems very strange to me for a few reason. The first one being that my baby brother is now a teenager. The second reason is that I was 13 when my mom got pregnant with him. It was the summer before my Freshman year. I remember one afternoon during the week my mom had taken it off work and Steph, Nick, her, and myself were all cleaning the family room when the phone rang. I answered it but the lady asked for mom. For some reason mom decided to take it down there and while her conversation sounded vague I hear the words after the first trimester. At 13 I was smart enough to know that was referring to pregnancy but I was very confused as to why my mom, a 36 year old single mother of 3, would be talking about it. When my mom got off the phone I followed her upstairs and just asked what was going on. Apparently she wasn't going to tell us kids until after the first trimester but since I asked she told me she was pregnant.

For the next nine months I barely spoke to my mom because I was so angry that she was going to have a baby. I was embarrassed by her but really it doesn't take much for a parent to embarrass you at that age.

I remember waking up the day KJ was born and going upstairs to get my medicine. I was at home sick with strep throat. While I was taking my medicine I could hear my mom was up and on the phone with someone which was strange because it was barley 6 in the morning so I walked back to her room to see. it just so happen that she was on the phone with her doctor because her water had just broke. Later that afternoon KJ's dad called to say he was born and it was for sure a boy.

Now I didn't want much to do with KJ's when he was in my moms stomach but once he was home I fell in love with him. I used to love to sit a rock KJ to sleep but it got really fun when at 7 months I taught KJ how to walk. Mom was so mad at me but I thought it was so cool that he could finally walk because that's when he really got fun. I remember when I went away for College KJ would call me just to talk because he missed me and he was very excited when I moved back to Columbus. I also remember how he was when Emma and Ian were born. He has been a very good uncle to both of them and they just think he is the coolest person ever.

So to my baby brother Happy Birthday and even though your a teenager now you will always be my baby brother. :)