First off I am moving back to blogger due to the ability to customize my blog more.

Here is the new family blog:
Life and Times of the Yarnballs

Here is the blog about me and my attempt to loose weight:
The Unraveling of Mama Yarnball

Hope to you see you there!

Kari

But in the last couple of weeks I have had some really good buys and I wanted to share them.

I think this is my favorite purchase.  I bought myself a fancy breifcase bag, I love it!!!!  I got it for $29.95 and it is normally $45.00.  Now I can look extermely professional when I meet with teh CEO’s, Presidents etc… of the donors at the center.

Then there is my new digital camera.  I scored this one for $125.00 and it is normally $185.00.

Then today I scored a geat deal Produce.  My total bill was $13.68 for the below items:

That is all.

Here are some pictures:

Wow… Powers of the body are restored.  SO that must mean I am running on only half my powers.  I can’t imagine what I might get done if I have all my powers restored.  Since I was pregnant with Alaina I haven’t selpt like I used to.  Frist it was the pregnancy that caused me to wake, either I was uncomfortable or I needed to make one of my many midnight trips to the bathroom.  Then Alaina arrived and then came the multiple infant wake up calls.  Thankfully she was sleeping through the night about 5 weeks old.  Which was a major blessing since I went back to work right before she turned 7 weeks old.  Even though she was sleeping through the night I still never slept the best, better then I was for those weeks of pregnancy sleeplessness and newborn wake up calls.  But nothing close to pre-pregnancy.  Then I was pregnant again when Alaina was 11 months old.  Not long later I was back to the pregnancy sleeplessness mess.  Then in April Thomas arrived.  Well he is now 9 months old and all I can do is hope and pray I get one night a week where he doesn’t wake up.  But the normal is he wakes at least once a night and is up for the day at 6:30 a.m. 

Yet through all this I somehow survive. I have always wonderful how it is possible.  I am so fustrated in the morning because I am so darn tired and then about 1 to 2 hours into the day this mommy is fully charged.  Even after a night like last nights where Thomas went to be at 9.  He woke up at 1, 3 and 5.  Then he woke for the day at 6:30 a.m.  But here it is 10:30 and I feel fully charged for the day.  I am sure I will crash later but at this moment I am ready to go. 

This makes me wonder how a family of multiples can possibly survive.  Take the Gosslins, the stars of Jon & Kate Plus 8. (there personal site click here)  I don’t know how they did it with twins, let along the twins and the sextuplets.  MORE POWER TO THEM!!!  I can’t imagine the exhuastion they feel. 

SO when will I feel like I get to sleep again.  Probally not until my childern are grown and have families of their own.  Because after they are sleeping through the night, I need to worry about what they are doing when out with friends, and if they are okay and how is school going.  Then it is the teenage years and we can all guess what I will be worried about.  Man this is going to be a long 16 plus years until I might be able to stop worry. 

Now that comment makes me realize I have nother worry… Alaina will be old enough to more out of the house in just over 16 years!!!  NO way that is going to come way to quick.  UGH!!!  How sad!!  I was married at 19 years old, so that means only 17.5 years from now she could be married and just about to start a family of her own.  WOW!  Time is going to fast, since Thomas will be not far behind on that, they are only 19 months apart. 

SO now after this sombering note, I am going to go enjoy my 2.5 year old and 9 month old, by playing what ever they want to.

(Click on pics to enlarge)

Okay just towels and washclothes but Alaina can do it!! 

Part of becoming a SAHM goal was so I could have more control over my house in terms of maintenance.  When working full time I found that my house was totally out of order!  And that is no exagerating.  My kitchen was never clean and that is the room that everyone enters from.  The kids toys where a mess and over taking the play room and living room.  My new office was in disaray.  Our bathrooms needed clean desperately.  The upstairs has not been vaccumed in probally 2 or 3 months if not possible 4 or 5 months.  Mike and I’s bedroom was the worst.  Clean laundry was all over our bedroom floor, NOT folded.  My wonderful amazing hubby took over doing the laundry about 6 or 7 months ago, thank goodness.  But it was up to me to fold it.  Well I never found time to do that.  I barely had time to deal with the semi clean mess I had. 

One of the goals I have set when I found out I was going to be a SAHM was I need and want to get my house in order.  I long for a clean orgainized house.  BUT before I could get there I needed to excavate through the months and months of mess that began to pile up.  But I found I need to do that somehow around working 25 hours a week for CCWS and tending the kids and dealing with Strep Throat.  I thought this would be no big deal.  WRONG!!!  I found later it wasn’t going to be so easy.  I started by finishing organizing my new office (pictures coming soon).  I figured if I was going to work from home I need to have a good office that way when I sit down I can actually work.  Then I decided to do the dishes, but even with a dishwasher I had a little bit more dishes then would fit in one load.  So I decided I was going to wash the rest by hand.  Well I washed two dishes and the kids woke up.  So that was the end of that.  Not to mention I still needed to make dinner.  So that meant more dishes to go on the pile.  UGH!  Two steps forward and one step backwards.  I also vaccumed and dusted the living room.  I started folding the pile that was on my bedroom floor.  But never completed it.  And somehow I got 2.75 bhours of work in here.  That was Wednesday.  That was after being at my parents house (working, not visiting) for 11.5 hours on Monday.  Tuesday I was tired and the strep throat returned so I was pretty much a bum and just took a day to spend with my kids. 

Then there was today.  Thursday started off good.  Thomas slept in until 7:45 a.m., which is wonderful considering that he is usally up at 6 or 6:30 a.m. everyday.  Once he woke up I decided I was going to get some work done.  I did for about fifteen minutes and then it was time to give Thom his cereal.  He ate and then Alaina woke up.  So we just hung around playing.  I decided then lets finish the wash.  Okay well it isn’t finished at this moment but we are getting closer.  I have about two-thirds folded.  That is an accomplishment.  While I was working on the wash, I discovered Alaina is very good at folding towels and washclothes.  I am so excited since that is one less item I need to do.  So where do I stand in my goal.  Well, I need to still accomplish about 10.25 horus of work for CCWS and need to still finish all the laundry folding and somehow accomplish the rest.  But I guess my thoughts of what I could accomplish was bigger then what I really could.  Oh well.  I now have the time to get to all of this.

I thought I share how my week is going and how proud I am of Alaina for helping me around the house.  I need to go feed Mr. Thom!

Kari

I used to love when hearing school was canceled and then getting all bundled up and going out side and playing in the snow.  Even though it would only take about 15 minutes of playing until I was froze to the bone and about another 15 until I couldn’t feel anything, I didn’t care I play for hours on end.  I grew up in a neighborhood when a lot of kids mostly around my age.  We would all get together and work our way through the snow probably about quarter mile (actually pretty much all down hill on the way there) to the local Amish (yes I said Amish and I mean Lancaster County Amish) cow pasture and we would climb all the way to the very tippy top of their hill and we would spend all day sledding until we could barely walk anymore.  It was a blast.  The best part of it was at the bottom of the hill was a creek that is about 5-7 feet wide.  For those like me that loved the thrill of danger we would build a little ramp and as we would come down the hill at full speed aimed for the ramp.  Once we hit the ramp we hoped and prayed we would make it over the creek.  I would say about 75% of the time we made it over.  The other 25% of the time we either ran full force into the ramp and got thrown from the sled or we laned in the creek.  But it didn’t matter which of the three ways we landed we loved every second of it.  After the down hill thrill was over and we recovered from the crash and burn (which happened no matter if you made it over the ramp, which by the way hurt even more then not making it over, trust me the fall was horrible, but worth every ounce of pain), we would run to the top of the hill and do it over again. 

Okay so forget about the sledding what about the building the forts, who in the neighborhood had the best fort.  Then there was the snow ball fights.  Yeah the snowballs hurt but they really could never really seriously hurt you.  Now if you tried you might put someone in the hospital, if you can even make one.  Since each and everysnow fall this year you couldn’t even make a snowball since ice has come right with it.  That is sad for today’s kids.  Kids spend enough time in the house watching TV, on the computer, playing video games etc… You can’t even enjoy the season like we did. 

Now I have a 2.5 year that so wants to go out and play in the snow.  I feel horrible since all I can tell her is no.  We get snow and it turns to ice.  You can’t play in that.  She just sit at the window and watches it for about 5 in intervals through out the snow storm.  I have been praying that God will send us a nice little storm not to much but enough that a 2.5 year old can go out and play in will come.  I know when it will have it probally will happen on Valentines day.  I hope not.  Lani and are both in a wedding that day and that would stink since again she can not go play in the snow.  UGH!!!

Well I guess I should get back to doing my dishes, not that it is hard to load and unload the dishwasher but I have been struggling with this lately.  I need to find some really good motivation inside of me.  Maybe it is the winter blues.  Maybe mommy needs a good snow day to go out and play like a kid again.  OH MOTHER… on the next snow day and when it is safe to drive 1.5 hours I plan to bring the grand-babies down to take advantage of the mini hill in your yard for sledding.  Won’t they love it!!!!

Kari

I will give you start on mine:

One site that insprires me as a wife and mom is from a good friend of mine:  Barefoot Mama

For Money Saving Tips I really like:  Money Saving Mom

Recipe sites: Recipezaar

Well that is it for me.

I can’t to see what you have to offer to my reading collection!!!

Kari

Thank you to all who prayed while we made our decision, this job is truely a blessing from God.  It will allow us to keep our kids out of daycare and for me to be able to spend alot more precious time with them, before they are all grown up.

I will tell you more later, but wanted to post this to let you know what is going on.

I will be keeping this blog, even though I will not be working out side the home or full time But I will consider all moms as full time working moms.  Full time can mean a bunch of things. Instead of the orginal direction of sharing the ups and down of working full time out side the house and being a mom of 2 little ones, I will share the ups and downs, amazing momments and fustrations of working 25 hours a week from the house with the kids at home, while a non-profit is depending on me me to raise them money!!!

Kari