The Moral of the Story Is...

Always drive with your radio on.


Or maybe this is just the moral of MY story. I don't know. But after having locked my keys in my vehicle tonight for the bazillionth time, I know this is what I need to do.


Okay, let me explain. Now, I normally restrict my "locking-in-of-keys" activity to the shopping area that is right up the street from our house. This shopping center is also not too terribly far from Mike's office, which has also come in handy on more than one occasion. Yes, the people at his office know who I am. I am The Wife Who Calls Her Husband To Bail Her Out.


I have locked my keys in at Chipotle, when I had the boys with me (they were just a teensy bit antsy, and anyone who knows my boys will know exactly what I mean). I called Mike at work, and he went home and got the extra set of keys and came and bailed me out. He's my hero, have I mentioned that before?

Then there was the time I was at Target.


Now, keep in mind that I am not one of those people who closes the car door and while it is closing I have this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach, and almost stop closing the door but don't quite make it in time. NO, I go into the store, do all of my shopping, and it is not until I am leaving and am digging in my purse for my keys that I realize that they are not there. THEN I get the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.


Anyway, I was at Target. I actually had to call my parents to come get me that time, because Mike had taken the boys out of the house and didn't have a cell phone. Yeah, that was embarrassing. I am almost 30, and my parents are still rescuing me.


Then there was Half Price Books, which is actually in the same "strip" as Target. Mike came that time as well, but I think it was on a Saturday, and the boys weren't napping, so it was barely a blip on the radar screen. Not quite as memorable of an experience.


Um, let's see. There was the time I was at the flower shop that did my wedding flowers. Won't say the name here because I don't want any creeps to be able to find me. I was there with Heather, who was planning Bonnie's baby shower with me. Turns out it was the same lady who had done Heather's wedding flowers also (small world!) and we wanted to go in and see the "flower lady", but the store was closed, so I parked and got out to talk to Heather for a minute before heading home. We had already done our major "shower shopping" at Party America, with Bonnie calling every few minutes because she was SO upset that she wasn't being included in the plans and she was SO jealous that we got to do all of the planning. Tee Hee!! Just kidding. She just kept calling because it was funny. Okay, you had to be there...


Mike rescued me that time too. He actually had to wake the boys up from their nap to come and unlock the truck. Yeah. Not good.


And tonight. Well, tonight is when I learned that I always need to drive with the radio on. Well, at least when I am in the truck. (I am almost always driving the truck -- well, not DRIVING it, but you know what I mean -- when I lock my keys in. Except for the time at Chipotle.) Especially when I have someone else with me and am distracted. See, when you park the truck and turn it off to take the keys out, the radio turns off too. Only when you don't have the radio on to begin with, there is no indication that the truck is still on when you get out. It doesn't beep at you like the van does if you leave the keys in it and open the door. Well, okay, there were no indications except for the fact that the lights were still on. And there was exhaust coming out of the back, because the heat was on. Yeah, no other signs other than that.


And I had locked my cell phone in the truck too, did I mention that?


Yeah. The universe was conspiring against me tonight. I usually don't take my phone out of my purse, but I was expecting a call from someone and had left my cell in the armrest cupholder. She called, and when I got off the phone with her, I put the phone back in the armrest. *sigh* Okay, maybe that was my fault too.


Bonnie and I went to get in the truck when we had finished our shopping at Archiver's, and as soon as I stuck my hand in my purse I knew that I was out of luck. And the store had closed, so of course the doors locked behind us. But fortunately, they were holding a crop (a time when all of us crazy scrapbookers can get together with friends and design scrapbook pages and cards) and everyone was going to be at the store until 11pm. Yay!!


My hero was putting the boys to sleep, so he didn't answer the phone when I called, so Bonnie called Caleb, her hubby-hero, and he hadn't gotten home from his movie yet, so I called my sister Christy, and she was only too glad to get out of her house (right, Christy?) and come rescue us. She stopped at my house and picked up the extra set of truck keys on the way.


Well, Bonnie tried Caleb again, and he had just walked in the door, and he decided to come and rescue his almost-9-months-pregnant wife. I think he just didn't want me to drive her home. heehee!


Anyway, Caleb showed up and then about 30 seconds later, Christy showed up. Oh yeah, and Christy has the coolest new minivan. It has automatic doors, stow and go seats, and even has that new car smell. AHhhhhhh, so nice. I'll have to admire it in the daylight sometime.


Preferably when she's not rescuing me again.

This is a happy blog post. I am sitting here, drinking my coffee, and the boys are... well, okay, they WERE napping, I can hear that Sammy will be coming downstairs soon. I just wanted to share a few pictures of things that have made me happy.

Pink Gerbera Daisies. They make me so happy! Daisies really are such a friendly flower, just like Kathleen Kelly says in "You've Got Mail." I especially like Gerberas because they are so hardy and don't wilt easily and don't have leaves on the stems, which makes for nice pictures. They are a very "clean" looking flower.

I picked up the flowers at Whole Foods about a week ago. They still look great! I wanted to capture their beauty on film so that I could remember the combination of flowers in the bouquet. It just smelled SO amazing as I walked past it that I picked it up and put it in my cart without thinking twice about it. It has eucalyptus, some sort of evergreen with little pink flowers on it, the Calla Lilies, and flock, which I had never smelled before but quickly fell in love with. It is a very clean smell, but flowery too!

I am such an impulse shopper, and the stores really know how to find their way into a girl's heart (and purse!). As I looked at the bouquet, I was struck by how similar it looked to my wedding bouquet. Okay, so it has some major differences, but they both have Calla Lilies, my other favorite kind of flower. I'm not going to say they are my second favorite, because I love them both equally as much. That would be like saying I have a favorite son!

Here is the wedding bouquet, sorry about the blurry picture!

The "LaTte" mug was a birthday present from Bonnie, along with a gift card to one of my favorite places ever, Starbucks! She knows me too well. I think she has heard me commenting on the "word" mugs... you know, "Coffee," "Latte," "Joe,"... well, maybe not "Joe," but you get my drift... every time we have gone any place that sells mugs. And she bought me one to shut me up. Just kidding. I LOVE IT!! I have had coffee in it twice, and she gave it to me on Wednesday night. hehehe... I know they say that caffiene is bad for you, but I honestly don't think I am as nice of a person if I don't have any in my system. This was evidenced a few weeks ago when Griffin asked if we could go to McDonald's for breakfast, "and please can we go get you some coffee, Mommy?" Yeah. Gulp.
Okay, so Sammy fell asleep again, which is why I am still typing away. And with caffiene in my system, I feel like I could go on for hours!! Yippee!!!!! Just kidding. I do have other things I could be doing (don't we all!) but I just love blogging.
I dug the last 3 days' worth of mail out of our tiny mailbox, and in it was the new Sonlight curriculum magazine! I'm SO excited to sit down and pore over it. Even though I know we're going to be getting the P3/4 (preschool for 3-4 year olds) curriculum, it is still fun to look at. Griffin snuggled up next to me and we had fun looking at all of the books in the catalog. He's so excited about school, even though we have been doing some school-type things already. It is the "official" feeling of getting your books, planning your schedule, and writing out lesson plans that is so exciting at the beginning of the school year. I remember every year being so jealous of Mom. She got to do all of the "official" stuff, and I had to do all of the work. Well, I know I will be doing a LOT of work, especially in the beginning years before the boys can read fluently, but I get to do the "fun" work, too, and that is exciting.
I know I have mentioned this family before to many of you, but hop on over to Angela's blog at www.thepaintedhouse.blogspot.com to read more about their struggles and triumphs over 32-year-old Clayton's Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. They are a young couple with three precious children who are 4, 3 and less-than-a-year, and they recently moved to a new state so that CLayton could start his ophthalmology practice, and also recently decided to homeschool Ashton, their 4-year-old. Then the cancer struck, and they have put their lives on hold to fight it. They have even begun a strict vegan diet, and you can check out her dinner blog with tons of great vegan and non-vegan recipes at www.dinnersready.blogspot.com. They appreciate any prayers on behalf of Clayton's health and their family's sanity as they go through all of this. So check it out and say a prayer for someone you don't even know! God can do amazing things if we only ask Him.
That's all for today, I am going to go look at my homeschool magazine now! Have a fabulous day.

Birthday Dinner

Trains, trains, and more trains. When you have two little boys, and you have visitors who are also little boys, trains come very high on the priority list. As in, who was playing with which train, who knocked over whose train (usually Sammy AKA King Kong), which track is the best, which TRAIN is the best (always the one someone else is playing with), who needs to move their train to make way for someone else's train, who stole someone else's train (King Kong) and on and on and on.

Well, Mike and I were offered a break from the "train-talk" for an evening, and it was wonderful! Bonnie and Caleb invited us out for dinner ***without*** the boys, and we had an awesome kid-free time at the Cheesecake Factory. Now, anyone who has ever been to the Cheesecake Factory knows that the food there is absolutely delicious. I have ordered their Orange Chicken a few times, and it has always been superb... just the right blend of sweet, tangy, crispy chicken bites mixed with carrots, squash and

Okay, I have been interrupted about 12 times since I have started writing this post, so if this is not flowing smoothly, you'll understand why. I hope.

so... carrots, squash and those chinese peas... what are they called? My coffee hasn't kicked in yet. And a big scoop of white rice that is so pretty next to all of the colors of the chicken and veggies. Everyone else's food looked wonderful, too. Mike got the Spicy Cashew Chicken, and it looked and smelled SO good. He asked for extra of the sauce they had made it with, and the waitress was happy to bring that out for him. Bonnie got a *small* Chicken Caesar Salad, which was the biggest *small* salad I have ever seen. Her plate was piled high with fresh, crisp greens covered in a tangy, creamy Caesar dressing, with pieces of grilled chicken surrounding the salad. And Caleb's meal... well, let's just say that I will be ordering this next time I go to Cheesecake Factory. He got the Chicken and Biscuits. It looked like something out of a magazine. Chunky vegetables in a creamy sauce with several biscuits surrounding them, and a mound of mashed potatoes with a biscuit next to it also covered in the sauce. Oh. My. Goodness. It looked like heaven on a plate.

So yeah, that's my next meal to "conquer" there. Or, as the guys were saying, the meals conquered us because no one was able to finish their food. We don't go there very much (you get what you pay for at this place) but I will definitely be looking forward to a future visit.

We got presents from Bonnie and Caleb, too, along with having our meal paid for and a kid-free night out! We'll definitely have to do that more often. hahahaha

Since Bonnie is due to have her baby in exactly three weeks from today (yay!!!), it was kind of a "final fling" for us and for them. Because you can get a babysitter so that you can go out to dinner after you have a child, but your time is not your own anymore, so you feel pressure to get home to take care of them. As if the babysitter wasn't doing a perfectly fine job. When we went to pick up the boys last night from their friend's house, we had to drag them practically kicking and screaming out the door. Because he has lots of trains.

It is lunchtime. Sammy has asked me nine times for cereal within the last 5 minutes, so I think I'll go feed my children. We won't be having cereal, but the little bean and cheese burritos in blue and red tortillas will make them happy.

Funky Hair

After the boys' bath tonight, they requested the luxury of sitting on the big bed and having Mama use the blow dryer on them until they were nice and toasty warm. Griffin especially likes this, and he has recently become aware of the fact that when he sits still for me, I can actually make his hair do some pretty fun stuff!! Tonight was no exception, so after he got warmed up from his bath, I worked extra hard creating this masterpiece.

He just came out of his room for the third time tonight, and the masterpiece is beginning to flatten. First time: bathroom. Second time: he forgot to take his imaginary worms (????) into bed with him; he had left them in my room, so he carefully collected them and deposited said worms into a purple tube, and set the tube beside his bed. Third time: he was sad because I didn't rub Sammy's back. I say, "Is Sammy asleep?" "Yes," he says. "Well," I say, "Don't worry, Daddy will rub his back tomorrow night. Okay?" "Okay," he says, and he goes back into his room.

Man, I would love to fall asleep to MY back being rubbed every night. I choose to sing to them instead of rubbing their backs. I know they don't like it as much, but I'll let Daddy keep his backrubs.

Mike is playing poker right now, and seeing as how it is 10pm and he isn't home yet (the game goes from 6:30-9:30), I am assuming he won 1st place and is playing in the second game. I usually get a phone call letting me know he is playing later, but oh well. At least he is having fun.

Okay, little G. is out of bed again. Time to interfere in this negative cycle! I wonder what it is this time...

A New Venture

I have been slacking on my blog lately, I know!! I have been working on something that is very exciting for me, and Mike has been such a big help and an encouragement to me through the whole process. He has even stayed up really late a few nights working on this new venture of mine. So what is it, you might say? Well, I'm so glad you asked. :-)

Mike and I have been working on building a website so that I can sell my cards. I love to make cards, but have never really had a good way to get "the word" out to people about what I have available. Now I have a place to post pictures of my cards, and give the prices, and even talk about what products I used to create the cards. I'm so excited to be doing this! I have sold a few cards here and there, but now I feel like I have a chance to really get "into" my hobby.

I have been working on Mother's Day cards lately. Here are pictures of some of them. I also have blank cards, baby/kids cards, and birthday cards. There is not a huge selection yet, but I'm working on that. I usually make a couple of new cards every night after the boys go to bed.

So here they are! And you can go to www.thekidwellfamily.net/ if you want to see some more.

New Furniture!!

The view from the entryway of our home.

And yes, I know that the top of my china cabinet is an eyesore.

My next project!

Our family room/TV room -- anyone have a media cabinet?

One of my favorite walls in the dining room.

This is right above the toy box, so I figured I could safely put up baby pictures -- this is Griffin in the hospital, and in his jumper-thing.

The view from the dining room.

Our living room, complete with new furniture!

People, really, you all need to come sit on it. You'll never want to leave!


--------------------------------

I'm so excited right now, I really can't sleep, and it is after midnight! We got two new (to us) pieces of furniture, a couch and matching loveseat, that have found a new home in our living room. The couch we had in there was my sister's old one, and it had many ailments (it was fine when she gave it to us -- we are hard on our furniture around here!), including no attached cushions/pillows on the back for support (we lost or ripped the ones that it came with, but they weren't attached, and were used for throwing on the floor a lot by the boys), arms that were too high to sit comfortably, a board that bit you in the behind every time you sat down too hard on it (yeah, I'm a plopper, I plop when I sit -- I'm still working on my ladylike sitting habits!), a spring that was popping out the back of the couch, a tear on the right arm (right where your hand would rest if you could get it up on the arm comfortably -- it was so high, almost nobody used the arms), and fabric that was detaching from all around the bottom of the couch. Wow, did you enjoy all of those parenthesis (parenthisi? parenthises?)?

Needless to say, it had lived its life, and was ready to succumb to the "Jaws of Mike", A.K.A. "Mike -- Armed With A Saw, A Box Knife And Lots Of Trash Bags."

I found the new beauties on Craigslist and went berserk. Mike could tell you how excited I was... I honestly didn't think I would find something this "high quality" (okay, for $340 it IS high quality) on Craigslist. I had only been onto the site once before, when I was looking for little boy clothes, and was disappointed. But the furniture section is amazing! You just have to be willing to drive a bit -- this was about 45 minutes away -- and ask a ton of questions before you commit to purchasing it. Mike was very helpful, because anyone who knows me well knows that if I find something I like, I am bound and determined to get that very thing, and it is hard to talk me out of it. But Mike gave me some very good questions to ask the sellers, and I learned a LOT from the experience. I feel like I can go into my next Craigslist purchase armed with a lot more knowledge. Mike, is that you groaning in the background? (This was a lot of work for him. I love you, Babe!!)

My next tax refund purchase will be a laptop for use upstairs while the boys are awake, and for homeschool purposes, and also for the boys to play games on. And a bench/mirror/storage thing to go in the entryway of our home. Don't know what it's called, but it's going to come in handy for throwing all of our outerwear in in the winter. And as Grandma suggested, my shoes, which tend to end up all over the floor, hallways, bedrooms... what can I say, I like my comfort, and I tend to take them off and then forget about them. Maybe this will reform me!

Make a Card Monday # 6

This card was inspired by Bonnie's baby shower, where we tried to stick to mostly lavenders and blues because we knew that she loves those colors and is incorporating them into Diamond's nursery. In case it is too hard to read, the stamp says "Sweet One... Dimples, giggles, cuddles divine, all come together, sweetness combined." It is from a new Stampin Up! set called So Many Scallops, which is part of Sale-A-Bration.

Every year in February and March Stampin Up! has SAB (Sale-A-Bration), which means that when you buy $50 in products, you get to pick a free stamp set out of their special SAB catalog. I ordered some punches at our last group meeting, and got to pick out a free set. Well, since one of the punches I had ordered was the Scallop Circle Punch, I got this SAB set (So Many Scallops) to go along with it! Yay!! I just love coordinated products.

The colors I used in the card are Bashful Blue for the card and lavender (from Archivers) for the strip on the front. I used white grosgrain ribbon, and the stamp is also in bashful blue. Pretty simple card, but I like to keep baby cards simple and clean. Just like babies. Well, most of the time.