A Dog and an Indian

Okay, I know my posts lately have mostly been self-indulgent. I just think my kids are so funny and so cute, and the blog is where I showcase their idiosyncracies. This is the last one of its kind for awhile, I promise.

Elliot is teething. This means pain for me (you know what I mean, breastfeeding moms), less sleep for him, and a lot of crying. Especially if he's getting four teeth at once like last time. His favorite teething toy is this little purse of Dottie's. He crawls around the house with the handle in his mouth, just like a dog. It cracks me up.

Dottie had her Thanksgiving lesson at Joy School today. She won't take off her Indian hat.




My two little trouble makers sharing the love.

So next post, I will have pictures of my siblings for Thanksgiving. Carrie, Jared, and Bryan are making the trek from BYU to be with us. I'm so excited. Any fun plans out there for Thanksgiving?

Elliot and the Turtle

This is what I find Elliot doing sometimes when he's supposed to be taking a nap. He LOVES this turtle. Now that he knows how to push the buttons, it gives him immense joy. After he's done taking a nap, I'll just leave him in his crib for like a half hour so he can play with it.

Once Upon a Dream

Another Dottie video. She LOVES Sleeping Beauty. Here she is singing Once Upon a Dream. She knows the key words, but alot of the words are over her head. Plus she was playing with her Cinderella toy and was distracted a bit.

Charlotte the Bargain Hunter

I'll admit it: I am a bargain hunter. I don't know if it's a genetic thing, but my mom is too. I've become even more extreme now that I have children, my husband's finishing his master's, and we are a one-income household on a teacher's salary. We basically don't buy anything that's not on sale.

I thought I'd share some of my knowledge with you. The most obvious is searching the weekly ads. All kinds of deals are to be had this way. Getting the paper is definitely worth it's weight in gold. And people who say that coupon clipping isn't worth it are crazy! I save only about $4 with coupons each time I shop, but I shop once a week. So that's $16 a month, making a total savings of $196 a year. That's a lot!

Now for the websites. Reader's Digest had articles on saving money in the September and October issues. They were so good I saved them. Here are a few of the websites I learned about from them:

thriftyfun.com: all kinds of useful tips on saving money. If we ever got into a Great Depression again, this would be the website to go to to learn how to scrimp on everything.

retailmenot.com: This is my favorite website! You type in any retail website you can think of (amazon.com, even redlobster.com) and it will come up with discount codes for purchases, or even helpful hints on saving money from these retailers. It's an awesome site. Check it out.

Now for the Black Friday information. Hopefully you're still reading at this point. Black Friday is the day when I do the majority of my shopping. The deals are incredible. Well, I saw on the Today Show this morning that you can see the circulars to some of the stores now for the Black Friday deals instead of waiting until Thanksgiving! Here are the websites that will tell you all about the Black Friday deals: bradsdeals.com and blackfriday.com. I've already got my list started on what stores I'm going to, what I'm going to buy, and who I'm going to buy it for.

Happy Shopping!

Where's my baby?

A tragic thing happened on Friday afternoon: I cut Elliot's hair. Yes, in a moment of frenzy, a moment of pure stupidity, I cut my baby's hair. He was in the bath, I was washing his hair, and I couldn't deal with the bangs in the eyes, the fringe creeping around the ears, a moment longer. I got a pair of very dull scissors, and right there in the bath, attempted to trim the mange.
It was a very bad idea. I was going to take a picture to show you, but I'm too embarrassed. When Joe got home, he just laughed at me. We unfortunately had to go to dinner at someone's house just as Joe arrived home, so we didn't get a chance to repair the damage right then. My friends were kindly sympathetic; they assured me they had done similar things to their own children.

Saturday morning, we got out the clippers, and Joe and I repaired the hair. Did I mention how wiggly Elliot is? I definitely shouldn't have attempted anything on my own. Trimming his hair was like trying to ride a mechanical bull; you think you've got it, but 10 seconds later, you fall off.

Now that his hair is short, I can't believe how different he looks! Hence the title, "Where's my baby?" He's getting to be a grown-up toddler. And I know with the buzz his hair will just get thicker and thicker. Is this the death of his infancy?

And the token Dottie pictures. I can't take a picture of Elliot without her wanting me to take one of her. Plus, this is such a scary picture, I had to share. This is her attempt at the camera smile.

Holiday Update

First things first: the Halloween update. You know you want it. Every blogger out there posted Halloween pictures. Well, sorry to disappoint you, but once again, I was flaky with my camera and didn't have any pictures from the actual day.
However, for your viewing satisfaction, I dressed up the kids again today, just for you, so you can imagine that this is them on Halloween.

See our pumpkins? The little one is the one from the pumpkin farm. It's now completely caved in and corroding away. Dottie's sad about it.

I'm sorry my child looks like she's half-crazed in every picture. She still hasn't mastered the camera smile. Plus, she really is half-crazed.

I love my little pumpkin with his wild, constantly moving hands.

We are very into the holidays in our family. Dottie has dressed up as a witch several times since Halloween. And I anticipate that she will keep on doing this.
One of our favorite things about this time of year is the eggnog. Did you know that there is Halloween eggnog? Maybe not in every store, but definitely in your local Walmart. We buy it. It's one of those impulses Joe and I cannot resist.
Dottie also loves eggnog. Now that it's November, the Christmas variety is available. The particular eggnog we buy (not pictured below; I tried to find an image, but couldn't. And we already drank all of ours) has a Snowman on it. Dottie calls the eggnog "Christmas Milk." The other day I asked Dottie what the Christmas milk tastes like, and she replied: "Snowmen." Dottie thinks she's drinking snowmen because of the picture on the carton. That is actually an accurate assumption, since when you drink orange juice there is an orange on the carton.

One more Dottie holiday anecdote. She's very excited for Christmas. She's realized that she can ask for things, and that mommy has also hidden some things. She asks me all the time for a little mermaid jack-in-the-box (there is actually one that exists, but it's a little expensive), and for a pink stick horse (one of her Joy School friends has one). She also knows she is getting some Sleeping Beauty items: the movie, a dress, and a doll. They are all hidden in Elliot's closet. There's limited room in our small house for hiding such things. I didn't think she knew about it, but I will now find her looking in Elliot's closet at the toys. When I ask her what she's doing, she says, "I'm looking at my Sleeping Beauty things for Christmas."

One more unrelated story: the other day, I was putting Elliot down for his nap and I left Dottie in the bath. She just got a new shampoo, blueberry. When I came to check on her, I discovered her trying to shampoo herself. There was a big clump of shampoo at the front of her hair, and she also decided to shampoo her face as well. You can't see it that great in this picture, but there is blue shampoo all over her face. She cried a lot when I cleaned her face, because it ended up in her eyes, nose and mouth. She was spitting out soap for the next hour.