Not just a Pink Christmas...

Have you checked out the link on the side of my blog to the Pink Christmas blog? If you haven't now would be a great time to check it out. And if you are interested in participating next year then bookmark the site so you can sign up in July. Anyway, my new online friend Jen Cowsar had my name. I was a good girl and actually waited and opened my presents on Christmas morning. If I didn't I was afraid I wouldn't have much to open. What a wonderful surprise to get from someone I hardly even know. She gave me the Payne sign which I love because it has the names of each member of the family through it. Then I was surprised to see two more really great gifts. This ornament is big and beautiful and has bling on it which I love. She copied the profile picture from my blog and made this tile. The cool thing is that this tile has a felt picture frame back on it. It stands by itself so I don't have to have an easel to go with it.

So the day after Christmas Jen emailed me to see how I liked my gift. I don't think she will ever know how wonderful and personal I thought this was so I wanted to do something nice for her as a thanks. When I found out that the girl who was supposed to send Jen a gift dropped out at the last minute I knew I had to be her pink Christmas friend. So this is my chance to make something personal for Jen in hopes that she will love it as much as I loved my gift. Thanks again Jen! And even though you didn't get a pink Christmas I hope you enjoy a Pink New Year! It is going in the mail tomorrow but here is a sneak peek. The flowers in the pail are actually blue ink pens. I couldn't resist since you love pink like I do. Oh and one more thing Jen, I already replaced the e with an a. Thank Heaven for Undo! Happy New Year!

Christmas for my dad...

My awesome brother Ryan made this really cool video of the pictures I sent him for my dad for Christmas. The first link is of just my family. If you know Shanna and Ryan's families then you might enjoy their links too. The link that says "allsmall" is of Shanna, Ryan and I when we were little. They are pictures I borrowed from my dad a couple of years ago and scanned into my computer. Ryan made a great DVD of all of it. Anyway, they are all about 5 minutes each I think so make sure you have time to watch it before you click on it. Enjoy!
http://rfgd.com/deannasmall.wmv
http://rfgd.com/allsmall.wmv
http://rfgd.com/shannasmall.wmv
http://rfgd.com/ryansmall.wmv

New hair-do, Libby's funny face and Amy...

Well, I finally got my hair styled again. I love and hate the fact that my hair grows so fast. If I get a bad cut it doesn't take long ot grow out. However, the bad thing is I wish I could get a cut a have my hair stay that way until I give it permission to grow again. I hate getting hair cuts. My friend Tami recommended her stylist and she is very inexpensive and really great. So maybe it won't be so bad getting it cut often. So if you don't recognize my new do, it is the style of Alice's hair on Twilight. If you havn't seen that movie go see it. Great flick!

Amy was sitting in my craft room the other day and I was looking at how pretty she is. I just snapped a picture and decided I need to share. It has been a while since she has been featured on my blog. Oh and something great about her. She is the best big sister in the whole world.

Liberty came in to show me her face the other day. My camera was sitting next to me so I made her make the face again. The other picture is just her looking cute and waiting to go to my friends house. I had to tell her not to smile and take the picture quick before she could say cheese. She usually has the CHEESIEST smile.

Twice in One Week...UGH!

Well, I just got home from the ER again. Ok so I never posted about our first trip there on Sunday. We were playing in Grandma Payne's backyard and Emily carried Liberty across the yard full of crunchy leaves so her bare feet wouldn't get poked. Instead of setting her on the porch she tried to step up onto the porch and tripped. She came crashing down on top of Liberty. Liberty cried for a good 5 minutes while I rocked her in the porch swing. Within 10 minutes she was asleep. She slept for about 1 hour and when she woke up she grabbed her head and said OWWW! She cried for a while and then vomitted all over me. She threw up 5 times that night and each time it seemed was when I was jostling her. Anyway, I took her in to have her checked out and the doc said she was just needing to be watched and so I could do that from home. About an hour after we went home she seemed to be back to her old rowdy self.

Tonight Emily lost her balance and fell backward onto her arm and buckled both her radius and Ulna. Those are the bones in your forearm just above your wrist. It was swollen and deformed. She had it xrayed and that made her cry because it hurt so darn much. Then they came in and cast it in a soft cast and sent us home. We were only there 2 hours tonight. I am impressed. Anyway, I will post a picture of Emily tomorrow. Too tired tonight.

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2008 Christmas Cards are finally finished!

Well, I finally took a picture and made these cards a few days ago. I only ordered a few and due to a tighter budget this year we aren't mailing them except to friends and family that we know don't use email. Since William is working out of town already I decided that this year we would feature the kids instead of the family on our card.

Merry Christmas everyone!

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Elf Yourself is back...

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Beware of the Doghouse...

My mom sent me this funny video today. I think everyman needs to see this. It is funny how much my wants have changed over the years. I would love a new vacuum and I would love new memory for my computer. But the older I get the more I am thinking that sentiment would be nice. However, I think I have trained William to shop practical for me. Maybe that is a mistake for down the road. I usually shop practical for him too. Not a good example I know. Anyway, this is a funny video. Check it out!
http://bewareofthedoghouse.com/videoPage.aspx

One of the funniest things that is hard to catch. Pause the video when you see the man in front of the board of review and read what it says on the seal on the desk. Hahaha!

Good News and Bad

Ok the good news first. We think we have a house to rent in Farmington NM that is nice enough that we won't miss this house so terribly and large enough that we won't be cramped for the next couple years until we can start building again. The bad news... The buyers we had for our house fell through. Darn it! So we listed with a realtor. The other bad news... we are going to have to stay here in Las Cruces without William until our home sells. We just can't afford to make two house payments on one income. So we will stay here for now and the kids will finish school here. Unless of course the house sells sooner than the end of the school year. Gone are the times when houses fly off the market so patience will be my greatest struggle right now.

Oh and more good news... My mother in law Lauana has been taking her medications correctly and eating right. The doc put her on an anti-depressant so she is functioning much more like the mother in law she was when William and I met. This is the one I LOVE. She has been a joy to be with again. She plays hard with the kids and loves on them and smiles and laughs again. What a relief. I think things will be easier with William gone now that she is easier to deal with too.

Designer's Holiday

I got an email from a gal today who started a blog for her new business venture. I can't believe how amazing and adorable some of her ideas are. I wish we were able to decorate the kids rooms now cause she gave me tons of ideas for some awesome rooms when we move. Anyway, here is a link to her blog. She should have an actual website up and running soon enough. I will probably add her site to my sidebar when she emails it to me. So check back here later or you can bookmark her blog yourself. http://www.designersholiday.blogspot.com/

Confessions of a Deperate Brother...

This picture brings back memories of when I was little. Shanna and I would dress Ryan up just like this and we would even put make-up on him. If you look closely Mason has mascara and lipstick on. Oh and some Oreo cookie pie to save for later. The girls love to dress him up and think it is so funny. Now that I am a mom I see how deperate this poor little boy is for someone to play with him. What other reason could he have for letting his sisters do this to him. Someday I will try to get the picture from my mom of Ryan in a Southern Belle dress and parisol to match. I would love to scrapbook that one with this.

Diarrhea can be a good thing!

That title sounds so gross but let me explain how my last week went. Liberty had a bad case of the runs and her bum got really burned. She screamed each time I had to change her and so I told her that it was cause the poop on her bum was burning it and if she went in the toilet it wouldn't get all over her bum. She didn't seem to care and her bottom got better after a few days. William and I were relieved cause we were sick of cleaning her messes. Well, Saturday I was gone all day and when I came home William told me that the diarrhea was back but that Liberty had pooped in the toilet ALL day long. And he said she just went and did it herself. Then Sunday she pooped and peed on her little potty all day long. And today is day three of no accidents. The exciting things for me are that I didn't have to train her at all. And no more diapers or wipes to buy. Yeah! I am officially done with the diaper stage of life now! Until I have grandchildren of course. So I guess I am grateful for diarrhea. Yuck! Oh and I am so glad to not have to worry about training while trying to move again.

Happy Birthday and Moving Again!

Happy 12th Birthday Makenna! I can hardly believe how fast time has flown by. It seems like yesterday when she was my only child and it was just her and I. She has grown up so much even in the last year. What an amazing person she has turned out to be. I love her with all my heart and am so proud of her! Last night we gave her all of her presents cause today she has play practice until time for her first Young Women activity. She will be gone all day. Anyway, she got a bunch of new clothes, shoes and make-up. I think make-up is what she is most excited about. She woke me up at 6:30 this morning asking me to teach her how to put on her makeup. She doesn't even go to school until 9am. Good grief kid, I need some sleep. So she was also very excited cause I got her the twilight movie companion book. She is a huge Twilight fan. Look at her in the picture below. Texting her friends has become one of her favorite things now. Good thing we have unlimited texting.























On to another totally different subject...
We sold our house last night. YES, our brand new dream home. This is a total surprise to most people but not to William and I. The fact is that William's business is only doing well enough to pay the bills and his partners paycheck. A family needs a steady income to pay the bills. When we started building our house things weren't looking so terrible in the economy. And of course things have steadily been getting worse. William has been worried about his business paying our bills when our savings runs out so before that can happen he found a new job. Bad news is that we have to move AGAIN! Good news is that it will be to Farmington NM, where we have always wanted to live. It is a small town like Logan Utah. The schools and shopping are good and the church is big up there. But the biggest thing we look forward to is being close to William's two older brothers. They have 6 nephews between the two families and my kids adore them all. So they are excited too. They aren't excited about moving out of this house or away from friends but they are willing of course. We aren't sure yet when we will move. William will probably start his new job before the move. He hasn't gotten a start date yet but it is a good job and he is happy with it. So I will be a single mom here again while he is up there. Oh and I will be repacking this house that I just finished unpacking. And I have to do it myself again just like when we moved from Utah. UGH! We are hoping to rent again in Farmington and buy land with the money we will make on our house here. Then when the time is right we will rebuild this house.

transfer tape

Look what I found on Ebay tonight. I was watching an infomercial about the cricut expression and was wondering how they get the vinyl to apply to the walls in one piece. Well, after cutting your vinyl project I guess you remove the pieces you don't want to apply then you put this tranfer tape over it and then peel off the back and you have a piece of vinyl that is ready to apply to your surface. No more sticking one letter at a time. Yeah! Just wanted to share my find.

Halloween party guest...

ThisWas the creepy crawly creature that was found on the wall at my girlfriend's house after her Halloween party. This is the deadly hobo spider. He, I mean She is a flesh eating poisonous spider. I have found several around this area. I thought they were only in Utah but nope here they are too!

Look what we did today!

Liberty and I went out early today. We did grocery shopping, a little Christmas shopping and then we went to the mall for lunch and these pretty little earrings for Liberty. She sat in church yesterday playing with my earrings and admiring them. I asked her if she wanted her own earrings and since she said yes I took her to do it. I didn't warn her that it would be like getting a shot and she had to do them one at a time. She cried but didn't try to get away. She was mad at me though. But, she looks so cute in them. And, let me tell you, she has been babying them and trying to get as much attention as she can. Her jacket already got caught on one earring and was pulling at it until I could get it off. That made her hate them until of course Mason saw them and told her how pretty they were. Hehe!

Some house photos to share...

Ok, I haven't made time to fix the memory on my computer so I have yet to download most of my pictures from October. I took these pictures of my house the day we started moving in. It wasn't finished yet so I haven't wanted to share photos until I can share the ones that are on my camera now. Anyway, Here is a link to my album on Facebook. Let me know what you think. Oh and if you aren't already on facebook it is a ton of fun. You should created an account and request me as a friend.

My Facebook Album click here.

Exhausted!!!

Here is a list of things that have been exhausting my body and brain lately...

• It has been 20 days since my last post and I only feel a little guilty.
• We have lived in our new home for over a week now and I still haven't posted pictures yet.
• I did most of the moving of the non- heavy stuff myself.
• I spent 7 hours cleaning my rental before handing over the keys. And that would have been multiplied by a million if it weren't for great friends who came and helped me clean last Friday.
• I finally got my Scrap Studio mostly unpacked. Not organized though.
• Last week I spent three important unpacking, moving and cleaning days with William's mom. Took her to the doctor and now she HATES me. She won't even speak my name.
• I am struggling terribly to understand how this disease (Alzheimers) affects the brain and the memory and makes her say such terrible things about me. I still love her so much and I think that is what hurts the most. I hate seeing her deteriorate like this. I hope my children never have to deal with me this way.
• I should be finished unpacking but I found a new distraction. I have been reading the unfinished book by Stephenie Meyer called Midnight Sun. It is a must read.
• I did get to scrapbook with my girlfriends today. I finished two pages. I doubt I will think to post them any time soon though.
• I am having a HUGE Halloween party on Friday night and I am so NOT ready for it. But it should be really fun. I NEED to quit reading and get my house ready.
• My laundry is starting to pile up again. Only about 3 loads behind but I decided that in my new laundry room I don't want piles anywhere but the basket. That means I should never be more than two loads behind.
• I haven't walked in a week now. However, with all the stress I have managed to loose about 7 pounds. I couldn't handle the South Beach thing so I decided to just cut my portions down and cut out most of my sugar intake. That along with exercise has really done wonders.
• I am so tired now that I need to get to bed.

This is a first for me...

I am offically on a diet for the first time ever. I weighed in today at the heaviest I have ever weighed not pregnant and I am doing a whole neighborhood biggest looser with some of my friends here. Our goal is to loose 5% of our current weight by four weeks from now. Each of us are putting in $5 for the winner. So William is totally pushing me to win. I am hoping to win since I used to be able to loose 5 pounds by skipping a meal but since I have been here I haven't gone down at all. So who knows how hard this will be. I am going to try the South Beach diet. Carbs and sugar are my two favorite food groups so self control should be incredibly difficult. Especially during Halloween. AAARRRGGHHH!!!!

Black eye and Temper tantrum!

I am not a very sympathetic mother. I took pictures and laughed when Liberty threw a fit over Mason having something she wanted. She didn't have it first so I told her she couldn't have it. The face just made me giggle and since I had my camera in my lap at the time I just had to take the picture. She is so darn stubborn.
Ok this picture of Mason is supposed to show his swollen black eye. I couldn't get a great picture of it. When I came to pick him up after school I thought he looked a lot like Quasimodo. The swelling has gone done a ton and he doesn't look so bad. Anyway, he fell off the monkey bars at school today and landed on his eye I guess. It is his right eye. Your left. In person it is actually purple. Maybe I will take another picture in the morning when the color gets worse.

Liberty - Does not mean free reign of the house!!!

If anyone ever wonders what I do all day now that I only have one child at home. Here is one of Liberty's incredible things she does that scares me to death. Well, not really. I am pretty confident that she is strong enough to hang there for quite a while. This is usually where I find her when it gets quiet. She started this when she was about 18 months old. This is the first time I have caught her and had the camera within reach. That is the top shelf of the pantry. Here is what she was after...

Her therapist suggested that I start having her chew gum. She loves it now. Funny thing to me is that when I got her down she very clearly said GUM! I think she is going to be just fine with her speech when she wants to talk. Ok some more funnies.

Check out in this next picture how far to the right that gum bucket actually is. Oh and she put her feet up to high to be able to hang on and stand up. Hmmm...what did she plan next?

Ok this next picture is the funniest to me. It is a close up of the look on her face when she got busted. Look at the smile with her teeth together as if she knows she was being sneaky and got caught.

What a day!

This morning I woke up and went walking with my friend. I actually walked almost 2 miles. Wow! And I didn't die! It felt good. I can't say it gave me energy for the whole day but I did feel a lot better. I got on the scale last night to find myself the heaviest I have ever been not pregnant. So that is kind of what motivated me!

Today is World Card Making Day! Here is a card I made based on a sketch Shanna made for Create My Keepsake. I am looking forward to playing at CMK tomorrow. They have some great challenges going on with some really great prizes.

I also packed a bunch of my kitchen today. All of my decor is in boxes now and my wet bar cupboards are almost empty. We are still hoping to move in on Friday or Saturday. Not holding my breath though. We bought William a costume tonight. He is going to be Napolean Dynamite. He looks ridiculous in the wig and glasses but so did ND. Hahaha! Anyway... Anyone own a Vote for Pedro Shirt? Maybe I can make one. This should be fun. I decided to be a Renessaince princess.

We are having a Halloween party and so I HAVE to dress up. I want to so it is a great excuse. So what are you dressing up as?

Speech Therapy

Liberty had her speech evaluation yesterday. It is so interesting how they evaluate a child. Liberty had so much fun. 3 ladies came to our home and pulled out tons of toys and just played with her a bunch and asked her to do things. At first she was hiding behind the couch and then snuggled into my shoulder. When I started playing she warmed up to them. They pulled out scissors and she was intrigued. She cut with them for a long time. Anyway, the results were exactly what I suspected. She is the development of a average three year old in her gross and fine motor skills and her social skills. Her understanding of language she rated as a 24-30 month old and her expressive language skills they rated at the age of 9-12 months. My first reaction was Woah! That is so low. I guess the way they rate is that there are several skills they have to master in each age group. If they master all but one they still don't get rated at that age they have to go down to the lower range until the find an age range that they have all of them mastered. So that is why she scored so low. So we are going to start speech therapy soon. I am kind of excited about it after yesterday. It was so fun for Liberty and it is just like having a preschool teacher in our home for her. Yeah for state funded programs like these. I hope soon we will be able actually figure out what she is saying to us without having to guess.

Scrapping friends...

Guess what I finally have? Friends to scrap with. We get together every other Tuesday morning to scrap and let the little ones play. This is one of the pages I made this Tuesday. My girlfriend Naloni did a page for me too but I haven't photographed it yet.

Sneak Peek of our new home...

I took this picture of our house yesterday. I am so in love with the color. We are still waiting on the doors to be painted red. They are also adding white shutters on all the windows. You can't see in this picture but the garage door looks like barn doors. We are also adding fencing on the porch.

Old & New pics to share...

Amy bought this birthday hat for Libby at the Dollar Tree. She gave it to her the morning of her birthday and she wore it for a large part of the day. She loved it. And isn't she adorable in it. And of course everyone in the house loves Mason's Batman get-up.



These are pictures of the diaper wreath I made for Nicole's baby shower.

Look Who is Feeling Better...

Liberty and I spent about 6 hours in the Emergency Room yesterday. Miserable for both of us. All of my kids have passed around a Croup virus and Liberty got it so bad that I thought she was going to stop breathing. Poor baby was working so hard to breathe. I had just taken her to urgent care on Saturday and was sent home and told they couldn't do more than what I was already doing for her. Oh I only took her in cause I thought that she may have had an ear infection. Anyway, she woke up Sunday sounding like she was having an asthma attact. I called a friend of mine who is an allergy and asthma specialist and he told me go to the ER not to the doctor. So I did. They gave her a breathing treatment with a steroid for the throat not the lungs. Then they monitored her for hours while she slept on me. Then they gave her another liquid double dose of steroids and monitored her for another couple hours. Then I finally got to take her home when she was breathing a little easier. That was actually pretty scary to me. And I don't scare easily. So today she is breathing more rattley and not tight. And she is having fun playing with mommy. Mason and the girls are all back in school and she gets me to herself again. I love these days. I am so glad I decided not to put her in preschool yet. It reminds me of when I only had Makenna and took her everywhere with me. So fun!

So much I forgot to post about...

So my sweet little monster started preschool a couple of weeks ago and I completely forgot to blog about it. Here in New Mexico we have a UPK program that is free on a first come first serve basis. Mason got in to it. He was so thrilled to start and talked non-stop about the time he met his teacher. He loves her and loves the friends he goes to school with. Olivia and Trevor carpool with us. They are in our neighborhood and they go to church with us. Oh and Mason thinks Olivia is his girlfriend. Cute stuff huh? Anyway, Mason gets to eat breakfast and lunch at school and he gets to brush his teeth. His teacher also told me he doesn't listen well sometimes and her drinks the dirty water from the water table. Gross! And yeah we are definitely working on the behavior issues. He takes a nap now every time he gets a bad report. Which has only really been once so far. We will see how things go from here though. He hates taking naps so I hope that works for him.

I also forgot to post about what I did the week before going to Arizona to see Casey. It was a week of getting green chili ready for the freezer. My sister in law Sarah and I did three whole boxes of green chili to share and man is it tedious work. It is not hard but just takes a while to stand at the sink and peel them and take out the seeds. It took us two hours per box. It is worth it though cause we love green chili in everything! Thanks for helping me Sarah!

This last picture is of the rosting process. Walmart roasts them free if you buy them there.

One more thing I wanted to share was these picture of my kids enjoying popsicles at Grandma Payne's house. They eat one every time we visit and it is one of Grandma's favorite things too. I think it is because the kids are not running all over the place and she gets their attention for a few minutes. It makes me sad that these moments are numbered. As her alzheimers gets worse she won't be able to live in her home and swing with the kids. But for now we will enjoy what we can and in a couple of weeks we should be living across the road from her. So the kids should get a good fill of Grandma or maybe Grandma will get too much of the kids. We will see!