We may be to blame



 We are trying something new in the boys' room to try and induce some better sleep for Alex. Kelly unbunked the beds and they are now side by side. When we did that Kelly and I both agreed to be more consistent with Al's bedtime routine. We had a rock solid routine with Daryl and he is a sleeper. We got lazy with routines with kid #2. We are to blame for our own sleepless nights.

So last Tuesday we started bath, book then bed with both boys. We start at eight o'clock sharp. Alex still cries for a little bit but he is getting better and better. Every morning I make a big deal about him sleeping in his own bed and I tell him he is a big boy! He always responds with a "No."
He can be a big boy in his own bed but he doesn't have to be happy about it!

On Saturday around 7pm we put the boys in their pjs and loaded them and some blankets in the car. If I still lived in Hanston that would mean we were going to the drive-in. In Topeka it means we are going to watch a movie at the Capital. We saw, "Honey I Shrunk The Kids." Alex stayed up for the whole movie and Daryl fell asleep at 8:30 his normal bedtime. That kid is like clockwork with bedtime!






Sunday was wash day and I spent an hour washing newly spun yarn. I ended up with 1180 yards of worsted three ply yarn from 1lb of fiber. Color is Bristling by Hello Yarn. It is a classic! Can't wait to start a cardigan with it. I do need to get some projects off of the needles first. I should be able to skein it up with my new ball winder I want for my birthday. HINT HINT :-)

You know you are on a budget when...

Living on a budget usually means delaying pleasure. This is something that Kelly and I can make the decision to do as adults. However, the boys get that decision made for them! So the end of any month can be a bit ho hum, (dull) if we have already spent the eating out money and are almost done with the gas money!

Fortunately, living in the city we have many low cost (free) options at our disposal. We are also grateful for our Zoo family pass that the boys received for their birthday!

So here is our Sunday at the zoo!

Daryl loves this tunnel near the bears.

We were waiting and waiting for Alex to come out and turns out he just hung out where he went in the whole time!

Don't believe Daryl's face. He LOVES the zoo!

Saturday we made a road trip to Rossville to play at their awesome park! Our family is a connoisseur of public parks and while Gage ranks at the top of our list we like to shake it up every now and again. Rossville park is worth the drive!  (I have pictures but I can't get them off my phone. Trust me its cool.)


You know you are on a budget when you take your car to the dealership for a recall and the service guy can't get out of it. You forgot to tell him the door handle on the inside of the car is broke and you have to roll the window down to open the drivers side door!
Service guy says, "I can fix that for $130 plus tax."
You say, "For that much I will just roll down the window!"

You know you are on a budget when you ask your husband how much the groceries were and he says $46 and you get really excited. Then you get mad when you realize he didn't get two things on the list. So the groceries were not $46 they were $51. He had you thinking you could get a week's worth of groceries for under $50 and it just wasn't true!

You know you are on a budget when you can have a family fun weekend for free and love every minute of it!
(I almost hate to type this next part because I don't want to jinx us.) If we keep up our tight budget we should be debt free (except our mortgage) in February! This is ahead of our April 2015 goal! shhhhh let's not talk about it and that won't jinx it. If you must just give a ;-) in the comments here or on Facebook.
;-) 

Stupid Little Toe

So what is now referred to as the tragic toe injury of 2014 will probably side line me from my 25K on Sunday. :-( On Labor Day we took the boys to Going Bonkers here in Topeka. They have one of those huge gym things for the kids to climb on. I don't know what I was thinking but I got into it and started chasing the boys. Well I fell through one of the opening little kids use to climb upwards and hurt my toe that is beside my pinkey toe. I always thought it was funny when athletes would be on the injured list because of a toe injury. Now I understand, that stupid toe has hampered my walking and made running almost impossible for three weeks.
I'm disappointed not to be able to run my race but the farthest I ever got on this training plan was 11.5 miles and I've only run 8 miles the past three weeks. I just don't think its smart to try to do 15 on Sunday. Sigh. I will go pick up my shirt, but I don't plan on wearing it until I run my own 25K!

With morning and evening runs out I've been able to focus on something very important. Spinning a sweater amount of Hello Yarn Fiber! This is a color that came out in October 2011 and I've been collecting it since 2012. Fiber does not keep forever so the time to spin it had come! Plus it is very "fallish" so with the recent cooler weather it just feels right!

I have half of the 20 ounces spun and more singles are ready to ply! Yahoo! I have multiple interests so when one totally lets me down I can just go to another!

Out of Left Field

I don't know where the saying, "Out of Left Field" comes from, but I do believe it describes life since the last blog post.
Since the boys' birthday party Kelly was out of town for another week for work. Just when we were going to get back to a schedule I found out my nephew was very very ill. Last Wednesday at about 6pm I got a phone call from my mother that he was being flown to Wichita to be in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. I told Kelly I was going to Wichita and he said, "Go."
Thankfully, he is getting better! I was in Wichita with him and my sister and mom for three days. In those days I saw improvement but the virus that made him sick along with a case of mono will leave him weak for a long time.

Thank you to everyone who was following along with his health on Facebook and kept him in your thoughts and prayers.

The boys missed me while I was gone, but not too much! This was the conversation on the way to the library Sunday night.
Me-Geez Kelly if you hadn't met me you might just be laying on the couch all day watching football on a day like today.
Kel-Ya, wouldn't that have been awful.
Daryl-He would LIKE THAT mom. (he was using a Duh! voice)
Me- Daryl you think daddy would be happier without us?
Daryl- Probably just without you because you don't let him watch Royals. You should just let him watch the Royals mom!
Kelly was totally cracking up and I was laughing a little bit too. Daryl picks up on everything even the nightly debate of is there anything better on TV than Royals tonight. PS-Usually there is. ;-)

For an update on Alex, the kid is an awful sleeper. He is cute, and he gives great hugs, but almost all that good is negated by the fact he might be a vampire. Or whatever mythical character goes without sleeping! Kelly and I are going to soon have to get back on the every other night rotation that we had with both of the boys when they were infants! That way at least one of us is getting some sleep!

While I was sitting with Canyon in the hospital I did get started on a new knitting project. It is a blouse made of lace weight yarn. If you are not a knitter that last sentence should read, this is going to take awhile!  I would love to have it done in time to wear this winter, we shall see! I am using some of my Wollmeise stash. So I am finally knitting with the good stuff!