Our Special Guest

We had a nice surprise visit with a good friend on Sunday. Alyssa showed up just in time to go grocery shopping with Noelle and I. I hadn't seen her for a little over a year so this was definitely a nice surprise, especially since she didn't mind the shopping trip ;)

We talked about so many things and had a really good time and didn't want to see her go. She was the first person I knew who was homeschooled (even though it was only for her senior year) and I used to take her with me to the local YMCA for ladies volleyball two days a week. What fun! She dove after everything not caring how many bumps and bruises would result (she refused to wear knee pads, lol). When Alyssa would come and babysit the kids, they couldn't wait for mom and dad to leave and didn't want us coming back anytime soon :) Kyle said she was the *best* babysitter even if she was a girl, lol. I found out yesterday that they were always sure to pick up everything before we got home, implying it was quite the mess, lol.

Last year she got to spend time in Israel as a nanny for her niece and nephew, she blogged a little about it if your interested http://alyssaparker.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2007-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=18

The funny thing about her visit is the fact that she actually goes to a church in our town. She definitely needs to visit more often!

Spring Cleaning

We live in a small two-story house with many small rooms and are coming to a time in life where the rooms' uses need to be re-purposed. Noelle's bedroom is actually the size of a nice walk-in closet (worked great as a nursery) and she ended up with it being the youngest. She turns 11 on the 31st and needs room to spread out, as apposed to spilling out into the hallway, lol. Kirk and I will reclaim the downstairs master bedroom (now our multi-purpose room) so she can have our bedroom upstairs (much more space) and her room will become the mutli-purpose room.

Well, I started the process of going through all of our "stuff" in the multi-purpose room yesterday (need to downsize it or redistribute it throughout the rest of the house). Wow! I filled an entire garbage bag (30 gallon) to bursting and I'm only half way through the room. I guess the cleaning was overdue, lol (amazing how much paperwork is accumulated from homeschooling).

All of this is a good thing because I developed allergies about 2 years ago and realize that I need to raise my standards in cleaning around here. Well, I've begun and it feels so good!

My Hyacinth

I bought a Hyacinth and my whole kitchen smells great! I think its the reason for my longing for Spring, lol.

Spring

I'm so ready for all things green (and yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, etc.) and sunny skies! My daffodils are poking through the soil so I know Spring is coming. I'm certainly not ready for summery weather so I'm hoping Spring actually stays Spring (50-60 degrees). Need time to walk off the winter poundage before shorts and bathing suit weather ;)

Make-Up

I never wore much make-up until I developed rosacea when I was pregnant with Kyle. Well, now I need it and I don't like it. Whatchya gonna do? I have yet to pick the correct shade of foundation for my skin tone. I've always been confused by the whole undertone color stuff. This conversation came up recently on message board I'm on and I was actually looking at Physician's Formula mineral foundation before the topic came up. I chickened out and didn't buy it but I did purchase one of their concealer duos to cover the rosacea. It works quite well, if I want to spend a lot of time applying it, sigh. Everyday Minerals was said to be a good choice so I went to order some samples of their mineral foundation. Talk about confusion!!! Too much information for this simple gal. Asked someone and was given a link to Color Me Beautiful , I feel a little more confident in my ordering decisions. I'll let you know if it was a success when the make-up samples get here.

Up and Running

I finally took the plunge and decided to try blogging. I don't make any promises of coherent thought some days, but then again, you don't have to read if you don't want too ;)