Abundance

Why do the Sauk's reek of Abundance you ask?? Well it is because I declared that I would make a lot of money and we would have a great year full of many things! Also it might be because Aysha believes as well and took this message to heart. How do I know this?  Because she was so sweet and decorated her Valentine box all by herself this Thursday while I was working. As her finishing touch she decided to put the essential oil that Matt's team owner gave us....Abundance (the team owner Kristin puts it on all her money and really believes in it, Aysha knows this) now unfortunately Aysha doesn't have experience with essential oil, as Abundance is our only bottle. Well she put about a quarter of the bottle on the box. Not only did it stain the cute hearts and flowers but it made our entire house STINK!! I put it in the garage thinking it would air out and so then our house and garage stunk. While I believe the smell has mostly subsided I still believe we will have an abundant year!! I was reminded of this just tonight as a matter of fact when I was throwing the last bag of trash in our garbage before it went out to the curb and I thought wow, even our garbage smells like abundance, now who can say that? Though it was not the best smell for our home and garage it really is an improvement for our garbage.

So as you know the Valentine box did not make it. It was seriously cute she put an MP3 player on the front and headphones inside so it would play music. Very clever I thought. Anyway all is well because she went over to a friends and decorated a new one. A suitcase theme, from Pinterest I believe. Maybe I will post a pic later if I get motivated.

Me in an effort to avoid work that I had brought home and work that I needed to do for my home made cookies this weekend. Peanut Blossoms with Reeses hearts and Dove dark chocolate and cherry swirl hearts. Cute, but also simple and very tasty. I normally don't like these cookies (PB is not my fav) but I think with the candy twist I enjoyed them more.

And what is Valentine's without the traditional heart sugar cookies? These are my serious weakness. I make them super fat and moist with yummy cream cheese frosting. Now I just have to figure out how to get rid of all this stuff with out eating it all.

AND I blame my friends...you know who you are. I don't think I was really planning on making this stuff until there was some upset about gluten, red dye, and peanut butter so I guess this was my private rebellion, yet my thighs are punished! I have yet to read my friend Keely's blog because she has posted a pic of heart cinnamon rolls and I just know if I see a big picture or read about them I'll have to make them. I am going to try and be strong. Having this stuff around the house isn't good for any of us. I was reading to Trinity tonight on my belly on her floor for what ever reason and saw SIX chocolate candy wrappers under her bed, WTF. I asked her how they got there and she put her head down as said "I'm going to be grounded from candy, aren't I?" Damn straight you are (well I mean after Valentines and I can get all this other goodness out). I didn't really answer I just gave "The LOOK". Then as I was starting the dishwasher and getting ready to write this. I noticed someone (MATT) had eaten the rest of the Reese's hearts not on the cookies, save one, WTF. Self control people! Luckly, everything is put away now. Then I started writing this and had to dig out  the pictures and thought those sugar cookies look REALLY good, so I had one, at 9:30 p.m. very bad practice. It was really good thought, not to toot my own horn, just say'n.

So I have decided on Thursday we are going to purge the house of all goodness. Yes Thursday, I have too much blood, sweat, and tears in this stuff to just throw it out now. Okay not really because I think those things would make my cookies taste gross, but you get my drift so I am waiting until Thursday. That is when our FAMILY will start weaning ourselves from sweets and treats (that is until Girl Scout cookies get here in a couple weeks).

Blogging/Parenting Skills in Question

So as a protest Xavier started crawling seconds after my last post. So this is the post where a good parent posts a video. You won't get that here. He is quite the little mover now, which is also the point that a good parent would baby proof their home. Oh no, not at my house. I took the white out EZ correct out of his hand and mouth only after I saw that he was ruining it. I try to remember to glance at our stairs every minute or so in an effort to catch him if he strays too far, we don't need no baby gate...natural consequences!

Is your life super lame if you only have stuff to say about your kids??

Aysha, is a super cutie and decided to start a book club. She decided what books she would start with when and how long the meetings would be then made invitations to give to her friends. First meeting is this Saturday at 3 p.m. in case your interested, our house. (hmmm I bet 9 year olds would love to baby proof a house) I think the first book is going to be Shrek 2, but a final decision won't be made until the meeting. Girl Scout cookie sales ended Sunday. Aysha was very motivated to get out and sell. She went door to door in our neighborhood a couple times, there are a lot of adults that wouldn't be willing to do that. Though I have a feeling the delivery will be quite the pain, I think it is worth it to get them first!!

Someone is getting into electrical items and making a ruckus, so until next time...................

Gung Hay Fat Choy!!

Well you now all now how I feel about resolutions, but I have decided the year of the Dragon is going to be a good year for me and my family! I have also been using the extra weeks of the western calendar to fine tune my 2012 goals, so Happy New Year, and here goes...

As you know I have been with U.S. Bank for almost 8 years and have really enjoyed it. I feel lucky to have an employer that allows me to work my schedule, and balance my life as long as I get my work done. With that said I had a baby last year and was quite lazy at work. Again thank you to my 8 years because no one seems to care as much as I do how poorly I did, but rather remind me "um you just had a baby". I finished #24 out of #50 worst ever, but I am pretty sure the 23 folks ahead of me didn't have a baby and that makes me feel even better, come to think of it neither did the 26 below me!! Since I don't really rest easily in the middle of the pack I have decided to make more money this year over any other year at the bank. My good sign for this is that my new boss (of one week) after receiving an email from me that apparently got her excited about me finished the email with "I love it, this is Your year". I agree.

If you see this awesome banker on the street refer her a commercial real estate loan!

A good year at work will mean some sacrifices with the family time. The first decision I have been grappling with is whether or not to continue breastfeeding. Xavier is 8 months this week and I have gone strong, but it compromises when I get out the door in the morning, what I do for lunch, and when I leave the office. So I may need some cheerleaders or some strong scientific evidence for making it a whole year. Since I did with the two girls all I can think is that if I quit and this kid has problems I will always go back to "I knew I should of just finished the year!" BUT everyone with boys tell me what problems they are anyway with school and social skills, so it could be useless anyway. (Case and point: I have breastfed so far and he doesn't crawl or pull himself to a stand and just because you have 2 sisters that carry you everywhere doesn't mean you can just be LAZY).

We are going to go on a family vacation this year I don't know when or where,but we are going. While we have been a lot of places and vacation we have never been on one without extended family. Or really one that wasn't to visit family. Lower cost, crazy fun family ideas much appreciated.

Exercising will start taking place, hard to say exacting when on this one (remember my last post about commitment?). I have always been an exerciser and actually enjoy it, but I am more of a gym person, when I get out the door I work hard. I also don't care too much about exercising while breastfeeding. I like to be close to home, like 5 minutes or less. Unfortunately the gym closest to our house is the most expensive, but it is really nice and I think I might have to just bite the bullet. So I could use some convincing on why one would pay $100/month for a service at one place when they can get the same service for $20/month at another just a bit further away.

The Blaze will make it to the playoffs. I think I might actually pray for this one because Matt is not the most pleasant person around the borders of football so the better the season the better the family!

Mostly, I am going to relax and have more fun with my family. When my house is a  mess I will remember to breath and relax. When the laundry is piled up, I will remember one day the kids will be grown and gone, and relax. When the kids want me to play a game in the middle of cooking dinner, I might just let it burn, and relax. I will remember I am a beautiful, strong, powerful, influential, funny, loving, likable woman and THAT is a relaxing thought. Gung Hay Fat Choy.

Not my New Year's Resolution

So I was thinking I should blog more. I am pretty sure it was a thought and I said Maybe my New Year's Resolution should be to blog more. You know not a firm commitment.(Though Matt is pretty sure I said it was my resolution) For whatever reason I have never been able to commit to the little things (Hence no resolutions). Example: If I know my kids are going to sleepover or go to a friends and they are asking I won't definitively say yes that is the plan. Same thing with dinners, clubs, movies, etc. The moral of this story is....I hope you will see me more but can't commit to it!

So we had Christmas in Palm Springs and it was HOT for the first time in a few years. We actually lounged by the pool in our suits. Normally the kids are swimming no matter the temperature and we are out there in pants and a shirt.

Matt's Dad always gets a really nice house, backing a PGA course, but we don't typically golf there. This was a the first year Matt got to golf on the course we stayed since it was public, which was nice. He got in 2 rounds both in the low 80's and he came back thinking we needed to increase his golf budget and that he should look at some amateur tourney's (neither of those will happen).

This was also the first year without Matt's Mom, not much I can say about that because it makes me sad. She is M I S S E D!

The drive there and back wasn't miserable, but I am glad we don't have to do it again for a while. It is always nice to be home. I seriously cried when I walked in the door because my Mom had been watching our cats so on one of her visits she took down and put away ALL of our Christmas decorations. That is always everyone's least favorite part of Christmas, so that was really one of my best presents and a reminder  of why I LOVE her so much.

Now we are back into the grind of the regular schedule with 3 kiddos, but I better save some of that for next time right??

Xavier 7 months, First Christmas

 Pool fun!

Aysha (9), Trinity (5), Xavier (7 months), the 3 cutest kids I know!

Recent images of the kids

It has been a long time since we posted some updated images of the kids so below you will find some!

They are doing great, both Aysha and Trinity had strep to start December, while Xavier had just a small cold when we got back from California during Thanksgiving.

Xavier Jumping

Xavier has slowly been getting more active as we go here. This is the first time I have seen him really get into jumping in this thing.