Brand Name vs Generic

So this is a poll for all you mom's out there. As my clothes get dingier and my floor is harder to clean, I keep wondering if it's worth it to pay for the more expensive things in life, ie Clorox and Mr. Clean. What brands do you guys think it's worth paying full price for? I general buy store brand food, and I don't notice a big difference in that most of the time, but I'm wondering if cleaning products, especially detergent, would be worth paying full price for. So chime in, I need my clothes to last!!

Meet Me in St. Louis

It's Spring Break! and here in MO that's a WHOLE WEEK! We wanted to go to Nauvoo, but the timing just didn't work out. It's about a 7 hour drive, and we could only be gone 2-3 days, Chris has a ton of assignments to do for school and his boss needed him to work some extra hours this week as well. So we decided to do Nauvoo another time, and just take a short trip up to St. Louis. We stayed at a nice hotel, swam twice in the pool, went to the St. Louis Zoo, which is FREE! :) and went to the Gateway Arch in Downtown. We also walked down to the mighty Mississippi, Maci was quite impressed. We ate lots of yummy food, and had a great time as a family. Here's some pics of our adventure.







Maci is out the rest of this week, we're hoping to go to Silver Dollar City if the weather will cooperate. It's supposed to be rainy the rest of the week. Maci was sick 3 days last week with a really nasty virus, so she's going to have a hard time going back to school next week after so much time off! It's been fun to have her home for a while.

Life flashing before my eyes

So I got this new computer and I just transfered all my stuff from my old one. I just did my pictures, and it needs to upload them to your new iPhoto. So I'm sitting here staring at all these pictures of my life from the last 7 years. In fast forward motion, from start to finish. What a great life I have! What wonderful friends, family, husband, and kids. We've all grown up so much, not just the kids but Chris and I too. It makes me proud to look back at where we've come from to where we are now. And I love seeing all those familiar faces, sisters, best friends, grandma's and grandpa's, little babies. This is the stuff that matters, and I'm glad I have so much of it. Anyway, at 2 in the morning, this is what I'm thinking about :) Life is good.

Lion's, Tigers, and Soccer, Oh My

We had a fun week last week, BUSY! but fun. I'm trying to get caught up on my craft stuff, I think I'm finally there, but got a couple orders yesterday and have an enrichment for my ward next week. Just when I think I'm caught up! I've sent out 15 boxes in the last 6 days, not too shabby! It's really blessing our family, so I can't complain about the time. Lots of late nights, but sometimes I can't sleep anyway so might as well get some painting done, right?

So besides painting stuff, Gavy and I went to the Dickerson Park Zoo with some friends last week. We had gorgeous weather last week, in the 70s mostly! but it's plummeted back down this week back into the 30s, rgggh Spring. The Zoo was pretty good, the kids had a great time and the mom's had fun chatting. Gavin really wanted to see a lion with "big hair", but they only had mommy lions. He was kind of disappointed, but still had a fun time with his girlfriends. He's one of 2 boys in his sunbeam class, seems like all our little friends his age are girls! He keeps saying he wants a friend that's a boy :( He's already working the ladies at this young age!

Who knew Iron Man visited the zoo so often?!

Maci also had an exciting thing. On Monday she started soccer! We'd decided to take her out of dance, seemed like they were doing the same thing week after week and it was about 20 min. away, and to be in the recital was 130$???? and none of her little friends were doing the recital either because it was too expensive, so we decided to try something new. She was so excited to start practice, her coach called and let us know when it would be and she could not stop talking about it. We got her a little ball and cool tall socks, a neighbor let us borrow some shin guards. She looked so cute all dressed in her garb! She was a little nervous for her first practice but did a great job! Her coach was really great at motivating the kids and showing them how to do it right if they were a little lost, but in a very positive way. She made great improvements just during the 1hr practice. She's very excited about her first game on the 28th. I'm proud of her for trying something new and trying her best. Way to go, soccer chick!!

Nuttin' Much

So we haven't been up to too much lately.  I've been really busy with craft stuff, Chris has midterms next week, Gavin's hanging out with me in craft business training, and Maci's pluggin away at school.  I got a nasty cold this week that put me out of commission for a couple days, but I think I'm almost 100% now.  I did get a fabulous new laptop, with proceeds from our tax refund.  My little mini was WAY low on RAM, and it would take me minutes to do what takes seconds now with my 2gb of RAM on my laptop.  I got the lowest end Macbook, but it's a great little machine, I LOVE it, it's so fast.  I know, we're so spoiled these days! But it has improved my productivity, that was my justification, and selling a few things on Craig's List too.  So if you're in the market for a Mac Mini, let me know, I've got one to spare!  

This weekend, Thurs-Mon, we're watching some friends kids while they're in FL.  They have 4, the oldest is 9, youngest is 10 mo.  So it's been an adventure so far!  The kids have been really good and no major catastrophe's yet.  I did have to drive the baby around in the car last night to get him to go to sleep. . .  We're staying at their house, since it's a little bigger than ours and we don't have beds for everyone.  I honestly don't know how people have more than 4 kids!  I think I could handle 4, that's our goal to get 4, but all you out there with more than that, hats off to you! You have nerves of steal and energy for a marathon.  It's been fun to have a baby for a while too, you forget how much you forget! until you're thrown back into it.  But it's been fun.  So it's Fri, have 3.5 days left, we'll see if we all survive!!  Have a great weekend, all.

Vday Fun

We had a great Valentine's Day. One of the best I can remember actually! No Chris did not wisk me away on some romantic getaway, although that would have been nice, in fact we didn't even do presents this year, we just spent time as a family and had a great day. Chris started out by cutting out 12 sets of Spring letters for an enrichment thing in our ward, which was a HUGE deal for me, I was getting overwhelmed by the prospects of cutting that many out and he just took up the job and did it all for me. He did 5 more this morning in fact before he went to school. What a sweetie! Seriously the best Vday present I could have asked for. Then we ran some errands, Home Depot, the Dollar Store for the kids, then we came home and made heart shaped pizza's and had Sparkling Grape Juice in our "fancy" glass goblets. We ate by candelight and just had a great time. Chris and I watched Ghost Town, pretty funny movie actually. It was just a perfect family day, no froof or frill needed. Maybe next year ;)

My 5 year old is 6!

Maci's birthday was Feb. 12th. We had such a fun day! She started off by going to school, with poster in hand all about her, what she likes, who's in her family, etc. She got to share this with the class. They didn't have school on Friday, so the Valentine's Day party was that day. She said it was a party for her though :) I usually go into the library with her on Thursdays, but they had the party during that time, so I got to go help all the kids go from station to station at the party. It was fun, I really enjoy seeing Maci in her element at school. We made rice crispy treats cut out in heart shapes to share with her class. Unfortunately, the schedule was busy that day and they didn't have "snack" time in the afternoon, so her teacher forgot to hand them out! They had plastic wrap over them so maybe they'll keep till today, we'll see.

We decided to let Maci have a sleepover with her 3 best friends from the ward, Emily, Emma, and Lilly. These 4 go to dance together and are just best buds. Luckily they did have school off on Friday so we could have the party on her actual birthday. We ate spaghetti and breadsticks, which is her favorite dinner, and had a My Little Pony cake, (thanks again Anne!). We let the girls decorate crowns, and just hang out and play. They had a blast, went to bed at a decent hour, but woke up at 4:30am! and would not go back to sleep. Now I know why most parents hate sleepovers! They had such a great time though and I'm glad Maci got to spend her birthday how she wanted to.

She got some great presents from all the family back home, so thank you Grandma's and Grandpa's Boren and Ward!! She loved it all and has played with it all already. We took her to the store on Friday to spend her birthday money from Gma and Gpa Boren, she loved getting to pick whatever she wanted, but had a hard time choosing!

Here's a few things about Maci (so I'll remember when she's old ;) )
She loves to draw and color, paint and craft
Her favorite food is spaghetti, but she's not a very picky eater. She loves fruit and veggies!
Her favorite thing to play is Barbies and Dress-up
I love hearing her play with her friends, they have great imaginations!
Her favorite Board Game is Leap Frog Bingo, we play it ALL the time!
She is an excellent student and stays "on task" at school. She's reading at a
1st grade level already!
She is very friendly and makes friends easily
She's very passionate about things, some might say dramatic??
She loves to laugh and often gets the uncontrollable giggles
She's a great helper, and loves to help me cook especially
She loves her brother, even though he causes said drama on occasion
She is a daddy's girl
She's started to take showers recently, and loves to stay in there for as long as I'll let her
and loves singing in the shower.
She is a girly girl through and through. She loves getting dressed up, wearing jewelry and
doing her hair in a special way. She'll get dressed up if we say we're going out to dinner!

She is by far my favorite Daughter in the whole world! Love you Maci!