Sledding at Walmart!

So we woke up this morning and got dressed in our matching outfits to go grocery shopping at SPRAWL-MART.





At the back of the store, Gracie found a sled and asked for a ride... (She hasn't got to go except last year when she was 1, so I obliged to show her how it worked.)

Then she had to go potty - at the front of the store. So I just pulled her in the sled right to the bathrooms. Tons of people smiled. Then she didn't want to get out...

So we did our grocery shopping in the sled!

We kept waiting for someone to tell us we couldn't do that, but no one did. Everyone we passed would SMILE, LAUGH, and TELL the person they were with to "Look at that" with exception of only a few dirty looks.

Every little kid we passed told his parents he wanted to do it too. It was tons of fun.
Here we are at check-out!

I wish I could always use a sled because Gracie was SOOOOO good. Even in the check-out line, she pulled nothing off the shelf.

Yes we did buy the sled for $4.50 on clearance and my hands were raw from pulling the rope with one hand and pushing Katie in the cart with the other.

But now I want it to snow one more time so I can show her what REAL sledding is.

Gracie, you have a crazy mom! You don't really go sledding at Walmart!
(Hey that would make a fun children's book.)

Make that 5 e-Books as of yesterday!

We are excited. Here is a link to check them out. And we have decided to offer hard copies of the books to see if that will boost sales.

Hence why I spent an hour and a half at Office Depot trying to get them printed and finding out what price we could get. Gracie danced, sat on the counter, and drew picture after picture for the employee who would then hang them on the bulletin board proudly. When that got old, Gracie went to trying on reading glasses, then dumped out some crackers and crumbs all over their counter. Then we did Ring Around the Rosies while I held Katie who was waiting patiently to eat. I got dizzy. Gracie was bored. I whipped out some Nibs to keep her from going through all the shelves. The employee was nice but taking so long cause she couldn't get her computer to figure everything out. We left without getting our books printed because we need to set up a business account with a certain guy who is going to call me to get a good discount on printing.

Gracie already hates Office Depot I know it. It is right next to Target and when we were going in their doors and not Target's, she said, "No, I want that one." Too bad Gracie, we need to make some money in here, not spend it in there!

We just sold our 3rd e-book!

Wahoo...
Home-Speech-Home.com has been up for about 9 months now. I have 26 books planned and a couple other products, but only 4 books have been up and ready to purchase since mid-December (2 mos). We are starting to consistently get over 100 visitors/day and we are in the middle of re-vamping the look of our site due to Luke's awesome and increasing web skills. We get re-tweeted on Twitter daily and we just got asked if we want to be put on a list of "101 Top educational websites." Our 2 awesome Free Screeners (Speech-Language Development, Speech-Only) which took me 3 months to make and my awesome bro-in-law a bunch of hours to program, are helping a lot of people. Our i-phone app "#1 Chronological Age Calculator" has been bought and downloaded for free a ton of times all over the world so we can make money from the ads. We make about $10-$15/month in ad revenue from only our site (? for i-phone app) which still isn't enough to pay for our monthly subscription to SBI for hosting and planning the website. BUT HEY, WE'VE ONLY JUST BEGUN!
That's what I have to remember so I keep working. But hey we have sold 3!!!

Hmm, how did she get in there?

Gracie got in there and asked for the lid to be put on all by herself. I promise.
Don't you just love Gracie's faces?
I love my Kada-roo too!
Katie's face in this picture cracks me up! What do you think she was thinking?

Happy Valentine's Day Luke!
Love your girls, who are waiting for you to come home...

I went Dumpster Diving!

Yesterday, I put 2 trash bags in my car on my way out. One was full of garbage to dump in the dumpster and the other one was full of stuff to take to D.I.

I forgot to dump the garbage before leaving our circle of townhomes so I decided to dump it in a dumpster at the apartment complex in Draper on the way to my in-law's house so I wouldn't have to drive around with stinky diaper garbage all day. Without thinking, I grabbed a garbage sack and heaved it over the gate surrounding the dumpster and it landed in the trash with a crashing glass sound that did not sound like garbage. I realized that I had thrown the DI bag in the trash and the garbage was still in my car. Oh man!

I am barely taller than the dumpster so I looked in and saw it was empty except for a few bags of trash and one box full of boxes. It took me a couple of minutes to decide if I should really try and rescue the clothes and other house odds n' ends that I was going to donate. But you know me, I always see value in everything and I couldn't just leave it there in the garbage when someone else might need it. So I studied the inside of the garbage can to see if I could get out. There was nothing inside to step on and I wasn't just tall enough to climb out with my arms and besides I would get really, really dirty, and there was even a chance that I could get stuck inside with my girls waiting for me in the running car. I decided I could do it with the box's help. I did a Spiderman move on the outside gate of the dumpster by standing on the lock and then jumping in from there. I rescued my bag. Then I tipped the computer paper box over to stand on and... yes I got out just as the box was collapsing under my weight.

It was a close call, but I decided I was a hero for the day for sacrificing and taking the risk to rescue the DI bag!

And that was just how the day started. By 2:30, Gracie was driving me nuts which is my own fault for pushing nap time. We spent 1 hour terrorizing the waiting room of a dr.'s office we did not even visit (next door to the lab where I got my blood drawn) because Katie was hungry, and Gracie "said" she had to go potty twice, all while I was trying to nurse Kate. So pretty much I fought her in the bathroom, she cried, she played, dumped my diaper bag and it's contents all over the floor in front of me looking for a treat, then we tried to go potty again, she cried and fought me cause she wanted her pink potty at home. I finished nursing Kate, cleaned up my diaper bag, let Gracie have a granola bar, and then fought with her over not playing with the toys anymore and putting her coat on so we could go. Thank goodness I was able to drop her off at Grammy's house for nap time so I could run to three more places before she woke up.

So if dumpster diving doesn't make you a hero, I know motherhood certainly does.
I love being a mom!

Lovin' Tummy Time and Rollin' Over

Gracie hated her tummy, and therefore never learned to crawl...
Kate loves her tummy, holding her head up so high, and can already roll over on the one side by tucking her arm in and leaning her head over that side to flip over. It still scares her a little bit, but she loves being on her tummy. Here's a video to prove it:

I'm hoping Katie will school Gracie on crawling so she will have to learn and she will stop avoiding the tubes on the playground. Gracie (2 yrs) already wants to do everything Katie (12 wks) does, it is hilarious!