Grandma & Grandpa Davids

Here are a couple of pictures from when Dan's parents where here visiting.

Shake The Money Tree

I've been considering buying or at least wanting a digital camera for quite some time and with the big vacation on the countdown (less than 30 days away!) the feeling of needing vs. wanting a digital camera has been changing. I need a digital camera the voice inside my head has been repeating over and over and over for the last 2 weeks. So, this weekend Katelynn and I went shopping on Saturday and checked out a couple of camera's at Sam's Club and on Sunday after our grocery shopping went to the store and I bought one, I couldn't help it, the voice has finally calmed now and the joy of having a new toy is in full swing! I just cannot lug around my big 35mm Cannon Rebel to every playdate, to the park, or to Katleynn's tumbling class any longer, it's just too big. I bought a small digital Cannon Powershot that I can drop into my purse or pocket and it even takes little video's on it - so cool! My family is already tired of me in 2 days taking numerous pictures around the house of them, just for fun (because you can do that with a digital, not with a 35mm). Katelynn even told me the other day to stop taking her picture because the flash was starting to hurt her eyes - oops, bad mom. I am however interested to see after I actually have a few pictures developed if the quality is as good as my other camera, only time will tell. So hopefully now my blog will be more up-to-date with the times and I won't be posting Christmas pictures at Easter time!

Teach Them Early

We bought Katelynn this interactive computer game. She sees me playing on the computer and always wants to push the buttons. This came with a keyboard just for her and goes right on top of our keyboard. It teaches them letters, numbers, and the cause and effect and has 3 different levels of play. She really enjoys it and I figure it's never to early now-a-days to start learning how to use the computer.

Valentine's Day Pictures

Here are a few pictures of Katelynn making Valentine's Day bags for her friends. She of course had to taste some of each sucker and candy that we put in the bags to be sure they were good! We made 20 bags to hand out this year, whew, but we had a great time doing it.

Katelynn

A picture of Katleynn's Tumbling Class.

Katelynn and Trey having a playdate after Tumbling.

Katelynn's Tumbling Class

Here are some pictures of Katelynn in her Tumbling class that we go to Saturday mornings for an hour. She loves her teacher Stephanie. Her best is probably the balance beams that they have. It's pretty fun and entertaining to watch the little kids learning all these new things, although some days they get a little out of control and have trouble waiting their turn, but the parents try to help round them up as best we can!
Some new things that Katelynn has been doing is playing with her language skills. She told me this last week - Did you know that my babies are dolls? and Did you know that my nuker is a pacifier? She has been really irritating Dan lately by calling him Dan or Danny, I just laugh because he gets so frustrated and thinks that I am telling her to do it (and I'm not!) She also has started shorting words, babies are now her babes, if she wants to call you silly, she says "you are a sill" and she calls Shelby, our cat, either Shelbs or Shelb.

Stretching

Forward Rolls
Backward Rolls
Balance beam
Bars

2008 Denver Stock Show

The Family at the 2008 Denver Stock Show.

More 2008 Denver Stock Show

Katelynn and Dan checking out the tractors.

It's cow poop hunny!

Meet Darren with B&D Lowlines (Barnseville, MN)

Graduate School Here He Comes!

Adrian the morning of his interview to grad school.

Adrian & Taryn
Adrian and Katelynn working on puzzles.


Adrian has been accepted to UNC graduate school. He will be moving to Greeley, CO in June or July this summer. We couldn't be happier to have some more family in Colorado.

Good Luck Adrian - we know that you will do great things!

Long Days

Another busy week.

Wednesday night my cousin Adrian flew back into town to look at apartments. He has been accepted into the UNC (Greeley) Masters program - Congratulations! I picked him up at midnight on Wednesday night in Loveland, let me tell you, I was tired the next day and draggin butt at work by 2pm. Thursday night we had a nice supper and just hung out and Friday Adrian dropped me off at work and borrowed my car for the day. I had to be at work early Wednesday, Thursday and Friday due to auditors being at our office all week, whew, I am glad that is over! Friday night we had a few beers in the garage and stayed up later than I would have liked, but it was fun. Saturday Katelynn had her tumbling class and then it was off to our friends house to have an Easter Egg Hunt for the playgroup / Baby Shower - Going away party for a girlfriend of ours that is moving to Ohio this next weekend. We are all very sad to see our friend leaving town, but her husband is a football coach and his new job is taking her away, hopefully we will be able to keep in touch. The kids loved the Easter egg hunt and there was enough for everyone to get a entire bucket full. We as always had great food and great fun! I am keeping up with the grocery game and my goal is to get over 50%, it is hard, this week and last week I had over $20.00 worth of coupons, but still couldn't do it, maybe if we can get Katelynn fully potty trained then I could stop buying pull-ups and get there. She is on again off again on the potty training, if anyone has any suggestions I am open to try anything. This week I will have my first HOA (Home Owners Association) meeting now that I am on the board, it should be interesting, I am hoping I didn't take on something too big or too time consuming since I don't get paid for it. Another update is that the fun Florida trip with the girls for our 30th birthdays has been changed to a family vacation / 5 year anniversary trip for Dan, Katelynn, and I in May. The girls had to back out each for different reasons, but I am hoping in a couple of years to try and pull another trip together for all us and see if we can make it happen next time. So, my family is going to Sanibel Island, FL and we couldn't be more excited. Katleynn can't wait to go to the beach, we rented a one bedroom cottage that is 250 feet from the beach on the Gulf of Mexico. Sanibel is supposed to have the best sea shelling around and I am hoping this will keep Katelynn very busy, I cannot wait to go and catch a tan and Dan is hoping to get a half a day of some fishing in. This vacation also gives me an excuse to go and buy a tanning package and start tanning! I also made Dan pull the treadmill back out of the closet and am trying to do some running on it at least 3 nights out of the week, I am out of shape - this is my conclusion to this and it's not as easy as it was in high school (yes, I thought that maybe it would be the same, damn that 30th year coming up). Everything else is the same old / same old. I will be posting some pictures later this week.

A couple pictures to share

Lindsay and Landon

Hmm... Oatmeal for breakfast, my favorite.

I Love my Uncle Jeff!
Lindsay and Katelynn.

Busy Week Ahead

We are looking at a busy week ahead of us in the Davids' household. Monday is President's Day and I obviously have the day off, but I am using my time wisely and driving to Boulder to meet with a company and re-write my resume. There are a couple of situations at work right now that I am not very happy with and in looking at the road ahead I'm not sure that it will get better. It seems that I am in a bad position based on circumstances and it may be time to either light a fire under my boss and let her realize that I won't do certain tasks at work that do not benefit my advancement or my knowledge/brain or it may be time to start looking at a new job. So, with all that said I am going to go and have this company help me out for the bargain price of $90.00 and will walk out with what I am hoping is a fabulous resume ready to submit. (I also know how to play the game at my current job so to light the fire with my boss there are definitely a couple of key people that know exactly where I am going on Monday and will not be able to help themselves, but tell my boss that I may be looking for work elsewhere)
Next on the list is to finish the last 2 items that I need to get done to my accountant so we can finalize our taxes for 2007 and see what the damages are going to be and hopefully get them paid in March and then start paying quarterly taxes yet again for 2008 on April 15th - the joy of the IRS, so this will be on Tuesday's list.
Wedensday will be a clean-up the house day because we have company coming starting on Thursday. Dan did help me clean the house pretty good this Saturday so it shouldn't need much, but a quick vacuum and sweeping and pcking up. (Dan commented that we should really clean like that every couple of weekends and it's not bad when we all pitch-in, I'm just looking at him, going "ya-think" I do it every weekend on my own. I'll let you know if he helps out again in a couple of weekends).
Thursday I will be picking up my cousin, Adrian, who is flying out to interview at UNC, the college in Greeley, payroll that night and LOST.
Friday I will be heading to work early (if I can get out of bed early) so Adrian can use my car for the day and pick me up later. Friday night we have a babysitter for Katelynn and we are going out to eat and possibly going bowling and checking out Greeley.
Saturday, this will be the busiest day. After a night out, I will still need to get up and take Katelynn to Tumbling class at 8:45am and then come home for a half an hour and then we are off to a birthday party in Loveland (Brooke's youngest is turning 1!). Then it's back home for Katelynn's nap and we will be having family from Louisville coming to visit with us and Adrian and Dan's parents will be pulling into our driveway at some point that day. I have yet to decide if I want to attempt to cook for everyone or attempt to go out to eat with that many people. Those of you will a 2 year old can imagine my dilema on the going out to eat, we don't go out often so the patience is not quite there yet for Katelynn, we'll see what happens, wish me luck.
Sunday I will be driving Adrian to the airport to catch his plane ride home and back to my house (I'm trying to figure where I am going to fit in my grocery shopping on this day, hopefully Dan's mom won't mind if I either slip out for an hour or maybe she will want to come with me and see what this game I play is all about.)

This past week of course was Valentine's Day and I have to say that Dan actually gave me exactly what I was wishing for. I was thinking at work that day and realized that what I wanted was for him to pick up a bottle of wine and sit on the couch and watch LOST with me and just relax. I got home and he had a dozen roses for and 2 roses for Katelynn and we ate supper and then he said he put a bottle of Champagne in the fridge for us later - wow, I was in shock. It was really a great day! Thanks, Babe.
For anyone who is following along with my grocery game totals, here are last weeks and this weeks.

Last week - spent: $90.98
Saved: $84.34
For a savings of 50% ( I did have $20.00 worth of coupons last week)

Today I spent: $ 86.06
Saved: $ 76.83
For a savings of 48% (I bought 44 items today)
I know have over 10 boxes of cereal in my stock pile that costs .50 to 1.00 each, not too bad when regular price they about $3.59 each.
I also have enough cake mix to make it through 10 birthdays and these were .88 cents each, with the regular price being around $2.59.
Hope everyone has a great week !

Vikings vs. Broncos December 30th, 2007

Randy Dickhaus Bowls a 300

Here is a video of my dad from Thursday night. What a great feat! He bowled a perfect game, 300 score. My brother was sick with the flu and my dad subbed for him on league bowling and he threw a 300 in his 2nd game. This video is of his last strike. I am so excited for him, what an amazing achievement!
The video is from a friends cell phone so give it a minute to get on my dad actually bowling!


Congratulations Dad!

Busy, Busy Week

This last week was pretty busy for us. One night our accountant came over and did our final payroll taxes for 2007 and W-2's for our employees over the year and then we got into the 2007 taxes - I had just about everything to turn into her, just waiting on some information from other people now. We are hoping to not have to pay in too much this year (otherwise Dan has threatened to fire me yet again as his bookkeeper, this would be the 5th or 6th time, I've last count). I had a dentist appt. one morning to get a cavity fixed, that was loads of fun and then went to work with half my face numb, I refused to answer my phone for half of the day. I also had yet another cold last week, the sickness seems to be never ending this winter. At work I had two extra projects that were handed down to me from my boss and then due this last week as well, I did get them both done and was able to get a little catch up work done on Friday for all the work I put aside during the week (thank goodness we will be back to full staff on Monday, one worker was hired to fill a position and the co-worker on maternity leave is back full-time as well!!) My favorite show LOST was finally back on last week and there are I believe 8 new episodes (down from 16 because of the writer's strike). Then of course running payroll Thursday night and bookwork and paying bills that are due the 1st of the month. Saturday morning Katelynn is now taking a tumbling class from 8:45am to 9:45am and she just loves it. The kids all listen fairly well to the instructor and she is great with the kids. Katelynn looks so cute in her little leotard they are required to wear (for safety reasons). They work on forward and backword rolls, the balance beam, the low beam and a trampoline and do other fun little activities. One of Katelynn's friends is also in the class so this Saturday they came over afterwards for a playdate until around 11:30am. Of course today was grocery shopping day and it was as great as it was the last couple of weeks. Today, as everyone knows is Superbowl Sunday, we don't have any plans except to chill at home and watch the game on the big screen, not sure yet who I will be cheering for. Hope everyone has a great next week!

Grocery Game Update:
Total Items Purchased: 68
Total Spent: $15293
Total Saved: $146.00
A percentage of 50% - yes !! This week included New York Strip Steaks that I paid $20.87 and the regular price was $44.06. I also got Pork Country Rib ValuePak for $6.02 and regular price was $17.33 - what a savings, I had one happy husband when I got home!