A change is a Coming....

There are some big changes in the McIntire household. They are big yet VERY exciting. As most of you know I went back to work on March 17. It was awful!!! There had been tears daily for two months prior to the return date and the morning of my return was no exception. Devin and I have been racking our brains since Kyra's birth to figure out a way for me to quit my job. Start a new business, babysit, work at night, work from home, book keeping, etc.....anything-but nothing really came up. I decided to go back to work and see what happens in the future. Back to the 17th----I did not want to leave the house. I cried and cried and looking at Kyra's face just made it ten times worse. When I went back to work after having Cortlynn and Tristan I was emotional and cried-but nothing like this. Maybe it's because I'm older, maybe it is because the world is such a different place and I think it is important to try to stay home with your kids, maybe it's because I don't have fun at my job anymore and my job made me feel negative all the time--whatever the reason-I was a mess. The first couple of days were difficult. I would text the sitter throughout the day to make sure Kyra was alright: of course she was, but I had to know for sure. On Monday March 21 (the 4th day back) my manager visited and after his visit my mind was made up. Sometimes you just need that final "thing" to take place that will make up your mind and that is what happened. I've put up with a lot over the last couple of years, but I drew the line and am saying Good Bye to my job. I am SOOOOO excited. I've been working since high school, and working with the bank for 12 1/2 years so this will be an adjustment for me: but I believe it was the right time and the right thing for us to do. Tristan counts down the days until he can stay home with me; and Cortlynn isn't quite sure of "why" I'm quiting to stay home. On the news the other night there was a story on a local job fair and she told Devin that "Mom can go there and find a job". Too funny! The morning I was planning on turning in my notice, Cortlynn came up to me and asked me why I was so happy. You know it is time for a change when your children can see how unhappy you are and it effects the entire family. Now the count down is on: just a few more days and I will be "free".

Yesterday was April Fools and Cortlynn thought I had plans to trick her all day. I picked up the kids after work and told them we were going to take pictures in front of the Weinermobile. Cortlynn thought for sure that I was joking because it was April Fools and didn't believe me until she saw it parked in the Fred Meyer parking lot. I took a few photos and none of the kids wanted to be there. Tristan ended up in tears and

Kyra's blessing

Yesterday was a day of baby blessings. My sister Heather and I decided to bless our two children on the same day to make it a easier for people to travel only once rather than twice. Everyone came down to Pocatello for the blessings and light refreshments afterward. Both Kyra and Clayton were so good. I can't believe how they have both changed in just a short amount of time. We would like to thank all of our family that was able to make it down for the day.


Kyra's hair bow was almost bigger than her head.

These are too cute. Clayton is a few weeks younger but you can clearly see he is bigger. He may be bigger but Kyra is going to pick on him. She kept trying to pull his hair. Too funny and they will hate this picture in a few years.

The two moms and the two babies. My dad looks like he has his arms full.

Smile! I was lucky to get a picture with all of my kids and my grandparents.

Happy parents. A photo opportunity with Devin's parents who will also complain about getting their pictures taken.

Look. my little girl has a Buddha belly. Too funny.

Mom- enough pictures already.

Scrape goes the dentist

Yesterday I had a dentist appointment for my 6 month cleaning. I really dislike the dentist. While I was pregnant I had a few things that would cause me to be sick if I smelled it or tasted it; I've found I have MORE of them now that I'm not pregnant. Weird isn't it. Probably the worst, is scraping sounds. I was sitting in the dentist chair and cute Kristin was cleaning my teeth with her purple instrumets. Holy CRAP! I almost jumped out of the chair. The scraping sounds of the metal against my teeth actually made me gag. It took everything I had to stay and not be a big baby. Than I was going to scrape my toilets with one of those stone things that you can buy: nope not going to happen. I used it once and cringed. That sound....I can't handle it. Tonight when I was telling Devin about it-I shivered just thinking about it. That is so pathetic!!!

After the dentist Devin, Kyra, an I stopped by Devin's parents house to visit. They wanted to go to lunch and asked where we would like to go. (Devin's dad kept saying Perkins; so that's where we ended up going) When I walked thru that restaurants front door---the smell of old people was overwhelming. I swear it was a fog of smell. Don't kid yourself---you know what that smell is: a combination of aqua net, orange lipstick, and dog urine. Wow-it was almost too much. While walking to our table I look around and realize that Kyra and I are the youngest people in the restaurant. For a moment I thought we had made a wrong turn and we were eating at a nursing home. Oh well---Devin's parents were happy and that's what matters. ;-)

Driving home I was counting how many people were texting while diving. I lost count. It is crazy that as a society we make sure our children wear bike helmets, protective gear when playing sports, seat belts, and have laws on what type of seats children should be sitting in while in the car: but people will text while driving 85MPH down a freeway while it is snowing with their children in car?? Does this make any sense?? I get so angry!

Went grocery shopping today for the week (we are having company this weekend so I had to shop early)----I saved 53%.....Iam slowly increasing that number...who knows-maybe someday I will be up to the 80/90% One can dream...

Couponing tryout...

I've decided to jump on the coupon bandwagon and try to save some money. I have researched some coupon blogs, watched "Extreme Couponing", and have spent a few hours trying to figure out how so many people are saving hundreds and some even thousands of dollars with coupons. I still don't understand how it is possible for people to purchase $2000 worth of groceries and only spend $60---with all the coupons I have there is a limit of how many items you can buy, how many coupons you can use etc; how does a person go in and buy 60 jars of spaghetti sauce and 200 boxes of cereal? Hmmmmmm- Anywhoo-I went to the store on Saturday. I made the mistake and took all the kids---not a good idea if you want to have a coupon system and you need to read and check off your list---next time at least 2 of them will stay home. I will also choose a better time to go--in the morning during the week-not as many crazy people who will actually run you over with their cart. Who cares if you have a cart full of groceries, 2 children following behind, and trying to hold a baby while pushing the cart; I can't believe how rude people can be. I wouldn't say I'm an extreme coupon expert-but I did alright. I chose to shop at Fred Meyer because they had a special cart buster sale going on and I get a discount on certain things since Devin is an employee---for me, a better shopping trip than dragging the family to Walmat. I ended up purchasing 45 items, with a savings of $41.00 with aprox a 48% savings rate. Not too shabby.




The other day I got the camera out and took some photos of Kyra and me. I'm not looking too supermodel like-but Kyra sure is a cutie.

Look how big she's getting.

I just had to take a few pictures of the kids-they are all such hams when it comes to the camera.

March 3, 2011

I cannot believe that Kyra is 10 weeks old today. Time flies by so quickly and I just have 2 weeks before I go back to work. I'm dreading going back and want to stay home so bad. I think all my kids would like to have me stay home, not just Kyra.
I've been looking for ways to save some money (with gas prices and food going up-saving $ is probably a good idea). I purchased some hair clippers and attempted to cut Tristan's hair the other day. Good grief---what I nightmare. Now I'm second guessing myself and wondering if paying $10 for each haircut would be worth it. He freaked out! He has such sensitive skin that when hair touches it-it turns red and itches and actually breaks out in a rash. This caused him to cry. He wasn't holding still and the clipper comb wasn't hooked on correctly; so it fell off-while I was cutting the top of his hair. OOPS! Thanks to the almost bald spot-I had to cut his hair a lot shorter to cover up the big oops. Cortlynn just stood there and laughed at me. I wanted to cry. Than when I saw that I actually cut his ear with the stupid clippers I did cry. Maybe the next time will be better.

Happy 10th Birthday Cortlynn Jade

Ten years ago at 11:38am my little girl Cortlynn was born. It seems like yesterday and I can't believe how fast time as flown by. Cortlynn is such a joy to her mom, dad, brother, and sister. She is very smart, talented, sweet, and loves everyone.

This year she wanted to invite a few friends over to celebrate her big day. On Saturday 5 of her friends came over for a 4 hour party. (almost 4 hours too long) ;-) I can't get over how uncontrollable little girls can be. I honestly think boys would be better: less drama, tears, boys don't gang up on each other....These girls weren't as bad as my sisters friends/parties were but it was a stressful and noisy evening. They played, ran around the house like maniacs, dressed up in heels and dresses, screamed, watched part of a movie, locked a girl out of the room, "popped Cortlynn's ears so hard she cried, stained the carpet which took me an hour to shampoo and it's still there, ran around some more, ate ice cream (by the way 9/10 yr old girls HATE strawberry ice cream and are very vocal about it) and ate cake. By 9:30pm Devin and I were both ready for the evening to end. Tristan had fun flirting with all the girls-he prefers blonde's by the way.

On Sunday we invited grandma and grandpa McIntire over for Cortlynn's favorite dinner: BBQ chicken, funeral potatoes, and homemade rolls. She opened more gifts, ate more cake, and had a good time.

I wanted to decorate her cake different but unfortunately the fondant recipe I used didn't work and trying to decorate a cake with a 8 wk old on your hip doesn't work. So-the cake isn't what we planned on. Oh well-she was happy with it.

I thought she would like the Justin Bieber CD but I'm not too sure based on her facial expression.

Kyra is getting so big and "spoiled": she doesn't like to be put down. She thinks she needs to be held all of the time.

Tristan has a new issue....called Geographic Tongue. This isn't a good photo of it but it sure scared his mom and dad. Come to find out it is harmless and just looks gross....it can come and go throughout life....

Happy Valentines Day

Yesterday was Valentines Day and we were able to have a nice quiet evening as a family. Devin and I went to a Valentines Lunch, ate too much, so my plans on making dinner were postponed. In its place-we had heart shaped grilled cheese sandwiches. Yum! The day before we made heart shaped sugar cookies and a red velvet cake. In the middle of baking my oven door handle came off and than the entire front door fell off. It was great! I still had the cake in the oven and had a difficult time getting it out. Thankfully Devin was able to fix it when he returned home from work.
Cortlynn's birthday is coming up and I want to make her cake. I've been wanting to try fondant and told Cortlynn her cake would have it on. I didn't want to mess it up or have it not even work the day of her party, so I decided to make a valentines cake. I thought about buying the fondant already made-but I made it myself. It actually turned out pretty good. Cortlynn was impressed and Tristan loved just eating the fondant off the cake. We'll have to see how her birthday cake turns out.
For Cortlynn's valentine box she had to take to school couldn't be a valentine theme-it had to be based on a book they have read in class. She chose a book about a little boy that couldn't see, or people couldn't see him (I'm not sure-a little confused) he would place a spoon on his nose, look at himself in a mirror, etc. So I helped her come up with a box that had a "mirror" on it, taped a spoon to it, drew a red cross on it to represent a hospital, and made a straw into a walking stick. We were pretty proud. When she brought it home last night from school I was looking at it and told Devin that the walking stick looked more like a cigarette. His response, "Well actually it looks more like the supplies for a drug addict." Holy crap he was right! It did look like supplies for a drug addict. Too funny. Good thing 9/10 year olds don't see things like us.

heart shaped sandwich

My cake

Valentine Box aka drug addict supply kit

my oven door

Kyra holding up her head and looking too cute.