Teaser

So, I lied, I got caught up doing fun things tonight....so I did not blog. I did upload my pictures to my computer just now, and thought I'd give you a teaser preview of what is to come.... ;)

One more giveaway post

So, I will post one night....but oh my gosh, I've spent the past 2 nights looking at all the fun things I need to learn how to sew. My search begins tomorrow. Mom, Bailey or Mom in law....if you are reading this...birthday is coming soon....Joanns Gift Cards are calling to you!!! Or Hobby Lobby or Michaels!! ;)

Ok, back to the giveaway...if you were around from the time Cara learned to walk until after her 2nd birthday, you know that she lived in Robeez. I loved them, and my pediatrician says its better for little feet to learn to walk and develop in no shoes or soft soles. I did not however love the price, but since I probably bought one of her 7 or 8 pairs (thanks grandparents!!), I didn't mind. Searching around on Keeper of the Home, a blog I've started reading, she's found a similar company who makes them, for only $14.99 a pair!! Bugaloo!! I love them, they are super cute. I like the Jack (no reference to yours Val!...haha, although I do like him!). Anyways, she's giving away a pair on her blog, so I might as well enter! Click here to leave a comment and enter her drawing.

Free Veggie Tales DVD

Ok, I promise tonight I will sit down and update the blog, about our trip to Dallas, Micah turning 8 months, and tomorrow, when I get Cara's 3 year pictures.....OH so cute. Anyways, a quick deal alert. If you sign up for the e-newsletter from Big Idea, you can pick one of three DVDs for free. It's $2.99 shipping, which you can even pay with paypal! Christmas gifts early anyone?? Click here and enjoy!!

Thanks Keeping the Kingdom First!

Happy Father's Day

Yes, I post dated this. Yes, I love my husband!! So much so, we didn't even turn the computer on yesterday (Sunday) until end of day to check his flight information for today!! I'm sorry honey. I hope you had a wonderful Father's Day! You are the best earthly father our two kids could ask for, and I'm so proud of the role you've so wonderfully you've stepped into. We wish you safe and FAST travels to Nebraska tonight and home Wednesday!!

Happy late birthday to my sister, whose birthday was yesterday as well! Love you Bailey!!

Happy Birthday my sweet Fancy Cara!!

Today, June 20th, my first born precious baby girl turns 3. I cannot even begin to imagine where my life would be had she not joined our family back in 2006. And oh what a change it was. I had planned on taking some prolonged time off from my awesome job at ConocoPhillips (5 months), which put me going back to work right after Thanksgiving, 2006. One of the very first questions my new boss asked me when he offered me the (internal) job at CoP, and I blurted out I was pregnant (I got the new job 2 days after I found out!!) was, "that's fine, you aren't planning on staying home are you?" My response, "Of course not!! My husband is a school teacher, I couldn't afford it even if I wanted to!" ;) The minute I held her the first time I knew I'd do anything to not have to go back to work. Once we got home, after a few weeks, I mentioned it to Eric. He was oh so supportive, and we decided I'd try to find something part time so we could get out of debt. God is so amazing in His plans and provision!!

Anyways, fast forward to 2009 (wait, WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN!?!??!?), and my girly girl is so amazing. She's beyond me. I never thought I'd have a girly girl that liked playing dress up. She has lots of friends, both boys and girls, and she can hang with both! She likes playing tea party, dress up, doctor (with my old playskool set from when I was a kid), kitchen, with blocks, she LOVES reading, she loves making Micah laugh, she loves cuddling, she enjoys watching the occasional movie, she loves swimming and anything outside. She loves her family. She is so sweet. She has a temper. She is impatient at time (don't know where she gets that!). She likes to learn. She enjoys reading her bible stories each night. She LOVES to dance and we can't wait to find her a dance class here in Katy this fall. She loves all music. She likes her puppy dogs (ok, I guess we can stop calling them puppies as they are almost 9 and 5!). And her most recent interest is Fancy Nancy. So we are having a Fancy Nancy tea party, with homemade tablecloths and miniature table runners for the kids tables, place cards, and dress up!! I can't wait. I think Eric (yes, he admitted it) and I are more excited than her at this point :). It'll be a lot of people crammed in my little house, yet again, but I can't wait!! I will post pictures at some point tomorrow.

Cara,

Our sweet girl, we pray over you each night as you go to bed. We pray for you to come to know Jesus on a personal level at a young age, so your Daddy and I can train you up in the way you should go, His way, so that when you are old you won't depart from it. We pray for your heart to be obedient, kind, patient, gentle, loving, peaceful, and self-controlled. We pray that you know how much we adore our little girl, and how much you changed our lives. We are so thankful for you and your brother. We love you immensely and are enjoying every minute of raising you to be Godly men and women. Jesus, bless our sweet Cara and be near to her.

Happy 3rd Birthday Cara Bell! :)

VERY VERY cute jewelry giveaway

Who likes a giveaway? Who likes a giveaway when there are under 10 entrants and you have an even better chance at winning?? Yours truly!! Hop on over to my sister's friend (ok, and I can call her my friend too now) Valerie's blog, Next To Heaven. She is an amazing jewelry maker, and she's giving away a super cute hoop earring set!! Good luck!

Yes, I am just that cool.....

So, just disregard all the other hundreds of bloggers out there that shared their own code in the past. Now, they've reached greatness. No bother MckMama and her billions of followers, give Misty her own swagcode and your website will SOAR to new heights!!

Totally joking...but I was psyched to be offered my very own swag code for new members!! If you don't remember me rambling and rambling and rambling about swagbucks in the past, visit my old posts. In brief, it's like google in that it lets you search the web, and occasionally (up to a few times a day) you may earn swagbucks. And as you collect them, you can trade them in for REAL things. Like the $80 worth of amazon.com gift cards I have earned so far!! Another blogger got a free iphone because she had so many. Have I caught your attention??

Well right now, since Swagbucks is all updated and pretty now, they have offered my readers their very own code. If you are new, click here and register. Put in swagcode: MISTYSCODE All caps. How cool is that? You get SIX swagbucks for registering and using that code! Here are some of the new things that were on their site as of this week, straight from them:

Video Game Section Expansion: We will be adding 1000's of new and used titles to the video game section of the Swag Store, and offering a special sale on many of these titles!

Shop&Earn Favorites: This great new feature gives you the ability to choose your 'Favorite' stores in our shop&earn mall, and receive updates on new coupons that originate from these retailers. So not only will you get Swag Bucks for your purchases, you will be notified immediately when a great deals becomes available!

Swagbucks.com 2.5 Launch: Swagbucks.com 2.5 is the next evolution of the Swag Bucks homepage. It will feature a new cleaner look, with easier navigation & quick links and a few new special elements - we think its pretty snazzy :)

Happy searching!! Oh, and if you have your own blog, sign up, then click on promote, and you can put your own link on your blog, and you will earn for the first 100 swagbucks your friends receive!! Don't forget, you can have an account, your spouse can have an account. And you can start off with 6 free by clicking here! Hurry, it ends Tuesday!!

So much to blog, so little time

So, I'm limiting myself to 1 hour tonight online. I've been on for I think 45 minutes....so we'll see how far I get on this post, then it's off for the night. I've been asked why I stopped blogging about life stuff (MERE!) :). I didn't mean to, it's just been busy. I have taken pictures of things meaning to blog...like this little gem of all the freebies and coupons and samples I got in ONE day in the mail:

Free Chocolate..mmmmm... (or as Cara would say, "Schlocate") :), but I just never get around to posting.

We've been 'helping' Daddy a lot at his school and playing a LOT in the playroom...

Maybe a little too much..... (No Micah Man was hurt in the taking of this picture:)

This was me entertaining 3 kids in the playroom one fine Astros game night for my friend Mindy and her family. Jonas, Cara and Micah all played great together, and all went to sleep great! :)

We attended my cousin TJ's wedding in Beaumont. I did not get one SINGLE picture of the bride and groom....but that's because I thought it would put my redneck-ness over the top by asking them to take a picture with my camera that I had to use a TOOTHPICK to take the shot. But I did get some decent shots of family (just not MY Family together). Here's my super cute sister and brother in law. Maybe if she reads this she'll FINALLY UPDATE HER BLOG! :)


And my grandparents and cousin Julie and hubby Doug. My grandparents will have been married 59 years this December!!
Here's my cute son before the ceremony. This was right after he woke up. And right before the preacher started and Micah started fussing and I had to get up and miss the whole ceremony, fun times.
And here's Cara asleep on Daddy's arm before the ceremony, right before she woke up fussing mid ceremony and Eric had to also leave and miss it. And yes, Eric's arm WAS hurt in the filming of this shot, have you tried picking Cara up?? Much less holding her like this for 30 minutes?? :)

Here is TJ and my Aunt Gail dancing. Gotta love mother and son dances, especially when neither of them really knew how or wanted to dance, :)

Papa and Cara dancing the night away. You couldn't stop her on that dance floor. The only problem was, she wanted you to hold her to dance. Have I mentioned she weighs 39 pounds?!!??!?

Here's a cute picture of Micah man. Nothing special, just hanging out in Mommy's bed after Daddy got the part and FIXED my redneck camera. I've taken entirely too many pictures since then. Just because I can and not use a toothpick for the first time in oh 3 months!! :)

As I mentioned Cara is way into dress up. This is her halloween poodle skirt from last year. And some pom poms. As I've mentioned to my friend Val (who is a recovering cheerleader...haha, j/k), she's gonna be a cheerleader and I feel like I can't stop it. Where did THAT come from, certainly not me!! :) I got the cutest video of her singing what she calls the "Holy Pokey." It's on a Veggie Tales CD my mom got her that says her name throughout it. She danced around the whole song....maybe one day I'll get the video online too.

Overall, we've just been spending LOTS of family time together. It seems like the kids eat, sleep, bathe and well, poop together!! :) It's like as soon as I change a poopy Micah diaper, Cara is running to the potty to go! ha. Must be all that fiber they eat...ok, off topic. Here they are playing in the bath as they do most nights. Thanks Mere for letting us borrow that bath chair, Micah loves it, and Cara loves him bathing with her so that she can, "squirt the star fish in his belly button." She has a star fish toy that, you guessed it, squirts water, and she gets it really close and squirts it in his belly button. And his arm pit. And his eye. NO HONEY, faces are off limit! :)

My cuties!! We were cleaning up the back yard yesterday for Daddy's party today (and Cara's next weekend) and she wanted Micah Man to ride with her, she is such a good big sister. Riding and holding him ;), and smiling for the camera!

That's all folks. Just a little silliness from Cara today (glasses she got from her friend Mason's party :)

Oh, I forgot to mention, Cara is staying at my parents house for 4 days and 3 nights!! We are working VBS this week (which means like 5 hours at church tomorrow getting everything all finished--decorating, organizing, etc), and mom has some friends who have kids Cara's age that are having a summer 'playgroup' and mom wanted to take Cara on Tuesday morning. She's been talking about having a Camp Kearley when the kids are older, so this is the first run :). She took Cara home today after Eric's party, and she's bringing her back Tuesday after nap time!! I miss her already, but WOW how quiet is my house. The longest she's ever been away from me was 1 night when she was 13 months old, stayed at my moms when we went to Galveston for our anniversary. And 2 nights in November 2007 when we went to BU homecoming. That's over a year and a half ago since she stayed the night away from us!! We'll see how she (we) do :). Please pray over our Kingsland VBS, we have I think 1500 kids registered, what an awesome outreach for Jesus. Eric and I are co-teaching an entering 2nd grade class!!

Oh and note to self, after doing hours and hours of yard work the day before a party is to be thrown at your house, and picking up and doing the dishes and being exhausted, don't leave the vacuuming for the morning of the party. That starts at 11:30. When the power goes off at 9 am for 75 minutes!! Cooking and cleaning and sweating and getting dressed and nursing baby and being overall UGH for the hour leading up to hubby's 30th bash isn't so fun. Just finish the cleaning the night before when you a) know for sure you have power and b) child #2 is still asleep. Because in my house, you just never know when he'll wake up at 10:40 and continue to fuss until 1 am even though he's been changed, fed, medicated, etc!!! Oh the joys of teething.

And if you were wondering, this took just a smidge longer than 15 minutes....and I have one more exciting post to share....stay tuned!! :)

Happy Birthday my Love!!

Today my most handsome husband turns 30!! (and a good friend of mine, Happy Birthday Erin!)

I'm super busy trying to clean before some family friends come over for a little get together (well as busy as can be trying to type this really fast!!). I can't believe when I met Eric 11 years ago that our life would turn out this way! That WE would have our life....together. God is so good that way. I am blessed with a loving husband.

We have SO MUCH fun together. As quiet as he may be in public, he is so funny and talkative at home. He is a great teacher; has taught me so much patience. He's an excellent musician, and really enjoys his family, playing wii, poker, golf when he can, and spending time with great friends. He doesn't have lots and lots of close friends, he has just a close few that he really can talk to about anything, I'm glad I get to be the closest.

I'm so glad God gave him those gorgeous blue eyes, because now our beautiful son has them. He is such a doting Daddy. Is patient when I'm not. Is loving, kind, gentle, a teacher, loves to help Cara learn her verses, loves to cuddle. When Cara asks something so sweet, I just see it melt his heart.

So today, June 13th, I wish you Happy 30th Birthday my love!! I'm so happy God allowed me to find you!

Cara gift ideas....

So, I've had some people ask about gifts for our little Miss. This is in no way a request, or an exhaustive list. Just some ideas for people who may not know what she is into right now.

She loves Fancy Nancy. She has a few of the books: The main original Pink one. Bonjour Butterfly. And the Posh Puppy. Explorer Extraordinaire. And the Boy from Paris. Sees Stars. Favorite Fancy Words From Accesories to Zany. She is also very into dress up, so anything for pretend play and dress up would be awesome. I've even seen Fancy Nancy dress up clothes at Target.

She LOVES to read. We can't just read one book before bed, it is ALWAYS 3, plus 3 bible stories. Yeah, it takes awhile, but who could turn this down, "Mommy, can we please read THREE books??" :) Anything is good. Christian is great.

We are starting our very own 'preschool homeschool' next year ;). My main goals are to help her learn to write her letters and start the phonics training for reading. We already have this book which we have done 1 lesson. Man, summers are just too busy :). She has been able to recognize all her letters and numbers since 2, but we just recently started working on phonics. We have really cut out TV, except now we are introducing Signing Times for Micah (and Cara STILL loves it). However, I have heard of this great DVD about letters....Val, or Mindy, help me out? I want it, will post name of it soon. Anyways, Mardel's gift cards are good, she LOVES that store. I'd like to get her bananagrams, and some writing books.

She loves shoes. Girl doesn't get it from me. Good thing our good friends give us all their hand me downs, which she LOVES. She wears them all the time. Anyways, she's a size 9 in shoes. In dresses she's 4T. Tops and shorts are 5T, pants are 4T.

And I forgot, she LOVES puzzles!! She has 2 alphabet puzzles, 1 numbers, her name, Micah's name, a bunny, some fruit, some animals, a Snow White. What she REALLY loved at preschool this year were these wood food that had velcro, and she could use a wood knife to 'cut' them. They are by Melissa and Doug, and are also sold at Mardels. Here, here, here and here are a few of them.

That's all I can think of. She has too much as it is. Our play room over floweth ;). Oh, and since our big guy is turning 3-0 on Saturday....he REALLY wants Guitar Hero world tour for wii.....he got some birthday money from my grandparents, so best buy gift cards are welcomed to help make up the difference ;)

Free food galore!!

Eric's 30th birthday is Saturday!!!! :) And awhile back, (probably in January) I saw a lot of blogs talking about sign up for birthday clubs and you get free things. I did that, for Eric and I, and forgot about it. This week my email has been bombarded. I've already printed my free Cold Stone Creamery ice cream coupon for him, a free dessert from Fazolis, among others. The great thing is they give you up to and over a week to use them, so we're using them all week! Then, Cara's kick in the next Saturday!! Talk about a fun, (unhealthy), few free treats!! If you'd like an 'invitation' to the Cold Stone Creamery one, send me an email or leave a comment with your email address and I'll send it to you! The great thing (as a mom) is you can register your whole family. So I have one sign in for all 4 of us. Yea! :)

$5 to ebates and JCPenney GREAT DEAL!

So have you checked your junk mail lately?? I do every day. And one day this past week was a coupon for $10 off $10 at JCPenney!! You can use it in store (which I plan to do this week) and there is a code to use on jcp.com, which I also plan to do (and hope you do too: GR8DAD). In their ad this week were polos for men all different solid colors for $9.99!! Great deal if you ask me, Father's Day anyone?? :) Want to get cash back on that free $10 you spend? How you ask? That's where Ebates.com comes in. Go there, sign up, choose JCPenney as your store, shop, and you get 4% cash back!! You're not going to become rich, but you might as well get cash back on ALL of your online shopping. Plus, if you are signing up for the first time, you get a free $5 credit just for signing up!!!

What makes the deal even sweeter if you are a blogger? If you put your own referral link up, you get $5 for every referral, and right now they are offering a promotion, that you get $30 if you get 3 friends to sign up!! So don't keep this great deal to yourself!!

I have used a few different online shopping cash back companies over the past 5 months (see my list to the left). I LOVE them. I got my pet meds WAY cheaper than at my vet, with free shipping, and earned $8 cash back while doing it! Just an idea to save some great cash.

Oh, and if you've signed up in the past (Trayce, Kate, etc) and haven't received your $5 bonus, it's because you have to make your first purchase to get it. JC Penney sounds like a plan!

Free e-book dowload.

I haven't read this, but did dowload it. I'm not trying to turn my daughter into Suzie Homemaker, but man, it would be nice to know a little more :) So I plan to read through this and see how good it is :) Thanks MoneySavingMom!

I just needed this tonight.

I love her blog, and this most recent post was very good!

A La MckMama

So I've been channeling our favorite friend MckMama lately. Her daughter, Small Fry, is so cute with 4 ponytails, so I gave it a try on Cara's hair last week. She sat still....but I'm not a very good/straight parter.

And, I've been wanting variety in our lunches lately, so I made some couscous and added some green onion, cilantro, sun dried tomatoes, walnuts, and whatever else I found in my pantry :). It was tasty.

Micah playing with it, anything on that tray, he thinks is a toy!

And Cara eating her couscous. Now, she likes to smile at the camera instead of running away from it, saying "No take my picture!!" However, it's a very silly smile!

The Wood Family

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Originally uploaded by smwood77.

Congrats guys, we can't wait to meet her. Thanks Shannon for getting me a family photo!! :)

And the big reveal.....

Well, I thought Micah and Cara could do it best. See below posts... :)

I have been promised pictures tonight, but I won't hold them to it :). Our great friends Justin and Ashley Wood are ecstatic (that's a fancy word for YEAAA!!!!!) to announce the birth of their daughter.......Avery Kate Wood. Born Saturday, 5/30/2009 at 11:56 am. She was 5 pounds 12 ounces and 18 inches long. Pure Joy. This is a God sent answer to prayers!!

I have lots of other posts brewing now that all my pictures are off my camera, but this has consumed my thoughts and prayers for 3 days now!!

Cara's Happy Too!

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Originally uploaded by mistylnewsome

Ashley--this is for you! :) This is what Cara did when I told her Sparky had a little baby sister, hahaha.

Yea for Avery Kate

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Originally uploaded by mistylnewsome

Micah can clap now.....it's just happened the past couple days, and what a great time to learn!!

Sweet Jesus, God is SOO good!

We have a baby!! :) I don't have an official picture yet, but one is forth coming. I am again waiting until I get the ok for all the info, but I got an affirmative that our prayers have been answered! Our friends have adopted a sweet 5 pound 12 ounce baby girl. I SOOO wish I could be up near Dallas when they get home to a houseful (I'm sure) of all their family and friends. We have plans to visit in 3 weeks, and it CANNOT COME SOON ENOUGH. Oh goodness gracious, my heart is so happy right now. And my 2 littles are sleeping!! :) No one to cuddle and praise Jesus with right now.

Have I mentioned how good the room switching has gone. It's like they sleep BETTER together! Ok, last night M was up for an hour on and off, but Cara was really good about it, just laid there. Slept through the first 30 minutes or so. Here are some pictures of the play room and their combined room:

That chest is a Lane chest my grandparents got at a garage sale. Currently it houses all the dress up clothes. This nook also has the easle/chalk board and bookshelf/puzzle holder :). Oh, and the mirror Cara CANNOT.TAKE.HER.EYES.OFF.OF! :)

This is the big window to the front of the house, the shot from the door you walk into the room. I know, vacuumed and clean...just for the pictures ;)

This is the right corner. The bookshelf Eric built last summer, the kitchen, and some of the big toys. Those bins are organized...for now :)

Onto the bedroom. Here's Micah's half. Yes, the room has green and pink curtains. They were my first sewing project in this house, and they have blackout fabric on the back. Pain to change. But probably will in a couple of years :)

Cara's side of the room. She normally has a very cute pink with brown comforter on the bed (and Micah has a matching one for when he gets in a twin that is brown and blue), but she spilled something on it, so it's in the dryer. So the bed isn't made either..and those are our 'back up' sheets :)

Jesus--Thank you for answering our prayers with a resounding YES! We are SOO happy you chose to make our friends parents. Help us to lift them up, encourage them, be their friends and resources, and just love on them in this new change in their life!! Amen!