Great News!

GREAT NEWS EVERYBODY!!

Potty training Riley has been going extremely well! I couldn't be more proud of my oldest little girl at the moment. Yesterday I subbed up at the high school in the Ag department. Around lunch time my Mom-In-Law text me and said," Riley has something exciting she can't wait to tell you!" So the whole rest of the day, I'm anxious and on pins and needles wondering what on Earth Riley did for me to receive such a text? MIL asked me to meet them at our local Frozen Yogurt shop after school. 

Once I was able to high-tail it down the street to the yogurt shop, I had a myriad of obstacles in my way. First there were some high school kids who had decided it was alright to pop my tail gate down and sit a spell to wait for their rides. Whatever they were thinking is beyond me. I don't like when random people decide to even look at my truck! My truck is mine. It is purty. It doesn't need potential dents scratches or swapped paint. Ya hear me? 

My Purty Truck

After kicking the boys off my tail gate, I headed down the street. My town has every crazy driver known to man. They swerve, go faster than the speed limit, go slower than the speed limit, they decide they have to be in the lane two lanes over right.....NOW! Crazy I tell you! Driving the mile and a half down the street to the shop, I must have got cut off three times. Dumb. It really burns me when someone HAS to cut me off. Especially when there is NO ONE BEHIND ME...! Good Lord just DRIVE! And do it normal! 

So, I get to the frozen yogurt shop right when my MIL pulls in, too. Riley is frantically waving to me from her car seat and I can see through the window her shouting, "Mom! Mom! There's my Momma! Hi Momma!" Love that kiddo! I open her door to start unbuckling her when all of a sudden, "Mom! Momma! Guess What?? I Pooped In The Potty!!"  

Hallelujah Praise The Lord!

My Beautiful, ALMOST potty trained, Oldest little girl: Riley!

I thought we'd never reach this point! After yogurt, we went back home and she even pooped in the potty, again, on her own. Without me even having to remind her to go. I'm so gosh darn proud of her:) :)

DB&D: The Store

Back in August, I opened a FB page with the same name as my blog: Doodle Bugs & Daisies. I started it because I have been making these cute little pillowcase dresses, and everyone kept saying "Sell Sell Sell!!" Here are some photos of these cute little dresses I've made:

I have even participated in a craft fair! It was definitely a learning experience, and very fun to do! Here is the booth I set up: 

I am linked to Cowgirl Up at Craft Texas Girls! {5 blogs ♥ 1 party}

Family Weekend

Every weekend, we spend time with both mine and Matt’s families. This weekend, we had such good weather, that we spent a lot of time outside. Saturday, we stuck around our house till mid-afternoon so that I could get some laundry done. Yuck. But, I’ve had such good energy from doing our Insanity workout; I had to use it for good. Or evil, depending on how you look at it. (Laundry in my house = EVIL, btw) After I had had enough laundry, we went to Matt’s family’s house. We spent the afternoon on their front porch letting the girls play with a Power Wheels 4-wheeler. Riley had gotten this for her 2^nd birthday, but has been scared of it and never got on. Until this weekend! Natalee is our fearless child and will do anything (as long as it doesn’t have to do with swinging fast or being tossed in the air!). Matt held on to Natalee while pushing the button, and she just giggled the whole time! Well, whaddaya know? Riley sees sissy on HER toy, gets jealous and decides she wants a turn! She was still scared at first, but Riley got on and rode like a champ! Maybe that toy will see some more rides in its future:)

Sunday after church we spent time with my mom and dad, celebrating my dad’s birthday. We went to Grimaldi’s for pizza and then let the girls play a little at the waterway. I can’t wait for the weather to warm up; the girls were just itchin’ to play in the water at the splash pad! After the fun, we went back to their house for birthday cake! But, with Daddy holding Nat, you could hardly tell whose birthday it really was! Daddy said he was just letting Natalee get some practice in before her BIG day in one month! Good Lord! My baby will be a year old next month!

 

Looks like we may be getting close to not using bottles anymore! Yay!

 

Potty Training & Insanity

We have been working on potty training Riley for the past week now. Every day I have been getting her on the potty as soon as she wakes up in the mornings. She usually goes immediately. Then instead of a diaper, she gets BIG GIRL PANTIES! She has an assortment of Hello Kitty, because she loves cats, and one of her stuffed animals is a pink beanie baby cat she named “Pinky.” After going potty first thing, I begin to set the microwave timer every 20-30 minutes and when the timer goes off, she gets on the potty. I don’t ask her, “Do you have to potty?” because she will tell me no, even if she does need to go. I just tell her it’s time to potty, and we go! 

The first two days, we did not have any accidents! Yay! We even ran a couple errands in panties! (5 minute drive to Grandma’s and even to the library sitting through story time!) Day 3, seemed to be a disaster. She won’t poop in the potty yet and I don’t really know how to address that. The first two days, Riley must have been having tummy issues because she never pooped. Well, that 3^rd day she had to. Twice. And this mommy had to clean it up both times. (Why does this stuff never happen when Matthew is home?? Grrr) Even though this day SUCKED, Riley still had a pretty awesome day! 

Yesterday (Sunday), I had enough confidence in her to let her go to church in panties. I did pack two pants, another pair of panties, and a couple diapers (JUST in case!) After all, it was a new setting, there were lots of other kiddos, and I wasn’t sure how the teachers would respond or be able to catch her signs. She did OK. I was proud of her! 

I must say, in the process of this past week, I did put her in a diaper at nap time and bed time. I also quit buying Pampers diapers for Riley. They are too expensive to buy just for her to wear two a day! We bought Target brand for her. Much cheaper! So after a week of potty training, Riley has become more compliant with sitting on the potty when she’s told to, however, I don’t feel like she knows when she needs to go. Not once does she ever tell me she needs to potty. Could be that I need to lengthen the time between sitting on the potty. Maybe I’ll try that this week. I am one proud momma, though! I can’t wait for no more diapers for Riley!!

Matt and I were given the Insanity workout by Shaun T. last week. We started it on Tuesday evening. Gosh! That workout really IS insane! But you know what? I feel better during the day! I have had sore joints ever since being pregnant with Natalee. They just never went away and I never seemed to have the energy to do anything to make myself feel better. All this past week, I’ve been sore, but only muscularly! My joints have not been achy like before! I feel GOOD! I did take all my measurements before starting it. I hope I can see some visual results by the time our 60 days are up. As long as we do it together, I feel like I will be able to complete the program. Matt is my motivation and accountability partner! 

Big Hair & Falsies!

All my life I've had frizzy, unmanageable hair that has always seemed to work against me. Until I got a flat iron! This occurred about 8 years ago now. Recently I started wearing my hair teased up fairly high. I say fairly high because my hair is so long it just pulls any height I do have back down. I have layers, but they aren't too noticeable. When I do tease my hair, all my layers seem to appear out of thin air and my hair looks lovely. 

I am a girl who (I think) looks decent without any make up on. So, I do tend to step out in public au natural more often than not. This morning I was getting ready for church and decided to tease my hair and make it pretty. I was running late so I thought I would go without make up today. Buuuut... the teased hair is so special and pretty, it's like I just HAD to do a little make up. So that made me run later than normal. 

So with learning how to tease my hair, I've also learned something new! I have begun playing with false eyelashes. I think they are gorgeous and make my eyes in particular stand out even more. I've watched a few YouTube videos and searched Pinterest for tutorials on how to get the best application. Teased hair and falsies have become my new favorite things!

Last week I stopped in at Ulta to peruse the aisles of make up. I had a couple dollars left on a gift card and thought I would take a look. A long time ago, my favorite lip gloss in the whole wide world was by Rimmell London and it was called Berry Bliss. It was the closest color to my natural lip color I have ever found! Well, I ran out of Berry Bliss several years ago and when I went to buy more, Ulta had stopped carrying that particular line of gloss by Rimmell. While I was in Ulta last week, I saw it! The purple lids! But! They were on CLEARANCE! Ulta had begun carrying them again, but just as I had stopped to look, and found it, now Rimmell is discontinuing the whole line:( sad face :( There was one Berry Bliss left, so I bought it. It's nice to have my favorite color back on my lips, but it's almost like I don't want to use it all the time like I used to since I know it won't be around forever! 

Christmas 2012

It has been quite a while since I have written new posts for this blog. I want to try to change this for 2013. I mean, come on! I've got two kids! There has to be interesting stories from them, right? And the whole reason I started this blog was so that I could keep our extended family informed about our little family of four. So that is what I plan to do. Once again! I want to inform our extended family about my family. If I happen to make a post touting my horn about my small business ( Doodle Bugs & Daisies) or sharing a new craft or recipe, so be it, but mostly, this is about family.

2012 was a fairly good year for our family. It had its ups and downs just like any other year, but it was mostly good!

January: 

Riley playing at the lake

We gained learning experience in buying a house! We did not get the house, and it was a blessing in disguise, but we learned A LOT with this. We went looking at a house after receiving an ad in the mail. We fell in love with the DEAL. Definitely not the HOUSE. After looking back, we can't believe we were trying to buy that house. It had NOTHING that was on our house "wish list."

February: 

Natalee NB photo

Natalee Ann Dye made her entrance into our little world on 02.22.12! George Washington's birthday. These ten months have been such fun having a second kiddo around :) This child is FEARLESS and she keeps me on my toes every day. Her big sister has grown to love her so much and I don't think Riley would know what to do without having a little sister around. I stopped subbing for my six week maternity break. Single income really kind of got to us, but we managed:)

March-June:

  

 

 Of course, Natalee kept me on my toes health-wise, too! At her two-month well-baby check up she was diagnosed "Failure to Thrive" because she had lost soooo much weight. March through June, I believe we were in the doctor's office with little miss Natalee every other week or so. What was supposed to be a six week maternity leave just kept on going... I was enjoying staying home with the girls:)

June: 

My dear husband celebrated his 28th birthday! I also began my new business venture, Doodle Bugs & Daisies. I have been crafting cute little dresses for little girls, making beautiful camera strap covers as well as other cuteness!

July: 

  

Matt and I celebrated two years of Marriage! No great vacation this year for us. We stayed home and celebrated small. I admit, marriage is no picnic in the park. It's been tough. But it's been pretty great, too!

August: 

 

I celebrated my big "Quarter-Century" birthday! Nothing special, but on my birthday, we got to watch some of our best friends get married and it was beautiful :) Matt decided to switch jobs! He had been working for one of the main gas companies for our area, but there were some downfalls to his job that were stressing him out. Such as: never knowing what area he would be working in, driving all day every day, office struggles within HR, having to go out of town for a week at a time every so often. That list probably has something forgotten, too. Now he works not ten minutes away from home, he has a set shift every day, and I know he will be home for dinner usually at the same time. It was a little bit of a pay cut, but we both considered it worth it!

September: 

   

Natalee's weight FINALLY got back onto some resemblance of a curve! We were |ThisClose| to needing to take her to Texas Children's Hospital for many tests for nutrition, allergies, diseases... Thank GOD she gain just as much weight as was needed for her to make her doctor not concerned anymore :) :) :)

October: 

    

Matt and I celebrated three years of parenthood! Our big girl turned three years old! This year was just a tame family-only celebration. Riley had a blast and enjoyed being the center of attention. Oh wait, she's  ALWAYS the center of attention! Ha ha ha...

November: 

Natalee's first Thanksgiving! Also our first Turkey Day with two children. For whatever reason, neither of them were really keen on sitting at the table for a NICE dinner. Screaming. Hollering. Food flying. Mess. Well, not really. But that sure is what it seemed like!

December:

  

  

 I had been taking Equine Nutrition at school this semester. I pulled off an 'A' in this class! I am so proud of that A. It has been a few semesters since I've had such a high grade, and it wasn't like a 90.0 - A. If the scale could have gone that high, I would've had a 126 - A!! I had the highest grade by ten points! I've never owned a horse, I just love them. And I loved the class, too! That always helps. December also brought on Christmas, of course. It was difficult, sort of. I still have not gone back to work. At this point, it's been hard for me to find anything that will pay for daycare, fuel AND have a profit left over to save or go to other bills. I can find everything in the world that will just pay for daycare and fuel, but then again, why work when I could just keep the girls at home with me? So with just Matt having the sole income source, it's been tight. We survive, and that's about it. So, with that, Christmas was tight, but we managed and it was a nice one :) Natalee had a great first Christmas and Riley enjoyed learning more about the true meaning of the season.

So that is our 2012 in a summary. I enjoyed my year, did you?

I hope you had a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!


 I hope I will be more diligent in writing posts from now on.

Cheers!