Sorry I haven't written more!!

It has been a pretty hectic week! I have been trying to update it at least every other day. Well with the week I have had I am surprised I am on now :)

To start with I have started couponing to save money since we will be buying a house soon. I love it! It makes shopping so much fun! And the girls love it! Its like a game for us all. And our new favorite store is CVS!!! I never even went there before until 2 weeks ago. And it is GREAT!! I have gotten soo much cheap/free stuff there. For instance today I went and I got 4 Gillette Shampoo for men (2/$9)
1 Fushion Razor ($10)
3 Dawn dish liquid ($.99 each)
2 ColgateToothbrushes (2/$5)
2 Colgate Toothpaste(2/$5)
2 Cover girl base (which I dont even use but wanted to ECB's for it! ($5.79))
2 Febreeze

I had a coupon for everything!!! And ended up spending aroung $10 for all! The only reason I spent that much is because I needed the Febreeze and that didnt earn me money! With only spendin $10 I earned over $15 ECBs for my next time! (ECB is Extra Care Bucks that prints at the bottom of your reciept for a future purchase!! I used some on the purchases on the above items today just used more than one transaction! It was great!! I was super proud!! The girls loved it! Now I feel like I am doing something to contribute to our life! And Madison and Rylee are getting great at cutting! HEHE! I always thought that it was easy and the reason I never did it was because I was too lazy and didn't feel like going through all that just to save like $.50 on something. Well little did I know what all was in it! Its actually fun! And now I am spending like 30% less on our groceries/household items!! I know it will come down more but since I just started I am doing pretty good! Well enough about that for now!!

I have tried to stay busy this week because both girls were starting to get a little ansy with daddy being gone for awile!! It has been 2 1/2 weeks and he still says it will be a while. I am thinking the end of Oct. but hopefully sooner. Although I have learned not to get my hopes up now! I just wish he had a set schedule on when he leaves and when he comes back home. I think it would be easier on the girls and ME! I feel like a single mom all over again! But life goes on. We know he misses us and we talk to him everyday!
Madison had a couple of rough nights (3 to be exact) where she would wake up SCREAMING at the top of her lungs for daddy. And she didnt want anything to do with me. I felt soo hopeless. Rylee didnt seemed phased by her screamig the first night but the second it was a nightmare. Finally I called Colin because all 3 of us were sooo exhausted and I let him talk to her. He decided he would come home for a couple hours the next day to see all of us. The girls were sooo excited. I just felt bad because, although I knew the girls needed him and wanted him to come home, he works nights and that would mean he wouldnt sleep the day he came home. But he didnt care of course. He is such a good dad. So after he came over the girls seemed ok again. FINALLY Madison was sleeping again. Of course then Rylee gets sick! It never stops of course!! She is such a good "sick" baby. All she wants to do is cuddle! I LOVE IT! Although I hate when she doesnt feel well.

Madison has been doing great in school. She loves it! She is learning to do soo much. She colors better than I do! GO MADDIE!!! Granted that isnt saying much but she is doing great!

Rylee loves her time with just mommy! We get soo much done together! She has turned into such a little helper! So sweet. She folds clothes with me, puts them in the washer and dryer by herself, unloads and loads the dishwasher and she even vacuums!! We have this vaccuum cleaner from our old apartment that is a rechargable one. VERY LIGHT! We had it because of the stairs. Well that is now hers! She vacuums her whole room and the hall way! And is pretty good at it! She is such a big girl! She reminds me sooo much of me though with her little sarcasm and temper! HA! Its cute. Sometimes I cant help but laugh!

We have slightly started looking for houses! GREAT right?? NOOOO!! I realized that with how much we pay in rent each month we can get a pretty nice house! Yea why didnt we? Oh yea because we didnt know the area. Well I found an area that I love and the schools are great! But the only thing is that Colin does not want to live in a Subdivison. Which is fine with me but geez there is a lot of Subdivisons out there!! His reasoning is because he doesnt want to live somewhere that he is going to have someone telling him what he can and cant have on his lot. Which is totally understandable! But its pretty hard. And I am pretty picky! HA! I dont want a new looking house I like the older white homes. They just have sooo much character to me! Who knows. Hopefully we find what we want. And there is also a possibility we could move back home?? WHO KNOWS!!! Stay tuned to find out just where we move? Down in Cajun Country or back to our roots?? Who knows?? ;)

Fall is HERE

We have had some GREAT weather here lately!! Not too hot and certainly not too cold! HA! Like it gets cold here right? We are outside almost every day which the girls absolutely LOVE LOVE! This past weekend we went to see Colin's Parents and my parents! Colin's parents took us to an alligator farm. It was sooo cool! I forgot my camera so I will have to get some pictures from them. The girls REALLY seemed to enjoy it! It was too cute. Rylee also loved the Cajun music and dancing. She wanted to dance the whole time. Madison wasn't feeling too great so she slept through the music. It did rain on us but it was still a blast. Good food, Good music, and Alligators Who couldn't love all that right?!?!

Then we went over to my parents house to eat some supper and watch the game! GO LSU TIGERS!! We weren't planning on staying for the game but of course we couldn't miss it so we stayed! It was fun! The girls ate all their food and I gave them a bath so they would be comfortable on the way home! The girls are just as big of fans as the rest of us when it comes to the Tigers, if not bigger fans!! Rylee ended up finally falling asleep in the 3rd quarter! VERY unusual for her! She always goes to bed early!! And then Madison fell asleep a little after her in Gigi's arms!! It was cute! My mom of course ate that up.

Sunday we went to church and then we came home! Daddy cooked us steaks, potatoes, mushrooms, and onions on the grill for lunch! It was YUMMY! The weather of course was gorgeous so the girls enjoyed playing while daddy cooked!

Monday was a pretty boring day! We went to story time that morning, then to the library! After that we picked up Jojo and headed to the park to play! Madison still wasn't feeling like herself so we didn't stay long. They did have this big tractor that both girls went crazy over the whole time we were there though!

We have been doing a lot outside because of this weather. We just cant get enough of it! HE HE! It is our favorite time of year! The Holiday season is quickly approaching!!!!!

Overalls???

OK So I cant hide that my girls are definate DADDY'S GIRLS! Even when he is not here they try to be JUST like him. Its sooo cute! I dont even think Colin realizes just how bad it is. I dont think I did until the other day they both found their overalls in all the winter clothes I was going through. It was priceless! They both wanted out of their clothes and to put on their overalls like their daddy! At first I said no because that just means MORE clothes for me to wash since they had already worn the outfits they had on most of the day. They were upset to say the least! So I of course caved in and let them put them on! They were SUPER excited. Oh and just to let you know if you dont know Colin that well he wears overalls that he has had forever when he works on the cars! And they think it is GREAT! Anyways, so they were prancing everywhere saying that they were just like daddy now! So cute right! Well bedtime came and time to take the overalls off. NOPE! They wanted to sleep in them! HA! Of course this one I didnt give in on but they threw some fits! Still thinking it was cute I put them in the dirty clothes and the girls finally went to bed. The next morning both ran in my room already in their overalls! OH GEEZ! So needless to say my little country bumpkins are obbsessed with them! Its cute of course but geez! 2 days in a row! they do have 2 pairs each but I can only do so much overalls! At least they are cute! I guess daddy and "cajun country" is starting to rub off on us!

Madison Marie Age 3

Rylee Nichole Age 23 months

Daily happenings!

I have cleaned the girls toys and clothes out FINALLY. And started to go through what I can sell and what I can donate. WOW! Its a lot of stuff. I didnt realize it would take soo long to do. And I also didnt realize all the stuff that the girls STILL need. I started to sell everything to a little second-hand store here in Lafayette called Once Upon A Time. Cute Cute store! And we have gotten a pretty good bit back so far! YAY! I figured if we got rid of all the things we dont need it wont feel so cluttered here. I think we are all ready to get a house to be able to spread out all of our stuff. Right now its just clutter. But hopefully soon right!
Colin left again for work. He went back to the same place he was before which is good because its close to home. But I am sure he will be gone a while now.
Madison is in school today! She is doing GREAT! Starting to really open up. She also didnt cry this morning and was SUPER excited to go!! I think a whole weekend with all of us (Daddy included) was more than she could handle! HA!
Rylee is starting to speak so well now. She is getting to where she will tell you what she wants! SO WONDERFUL! She is turning into a little girl right before my eyes. I miss my baby!! Its cute though. And she LOVES LOVES LSU Football! She sat and watched pretty much the whole game and cheered in her little cheerleading uniform. All she kept saying is GOOOO TIGERS! It was precious.
Well that is it for now...

Hurricane Ike and Birthdays!!

Ike touched down last night! And wow it was nutts!!! The eye went straight up Galveston, TX and they had a lot of flooding there and in Houston. We had some pretty bad winds here in Lafayette and a lot of trees snapping. We actually went walk our doggie, JoJo, yesterday around lunchtime (wasnt supposed to be too bad then) well when we were on our side of the apartment building the wind was not bad at all. But as soon as we turned to go towards the back of the building the wind was CRAZY! Not sure how fast it was but it was hard. JoJo got knocked over a little and Rylee got knocked over pretty hard. I would have never went out there to walk JoJo with BOTH girls if I would have known it would be that bad. Madison did OK but it scared her so I grabbed both girls and the dog and ran inside. (We were pretty far from our door at this point). That was a VERY scary thing. They had trees snapping because the wind was so hard. CRAZY! But all in all we all are good and the power only flickered a couple of times. There were A LOT of tornado warnings and a bunch touched down but no harm to us! We are VERY lucky!

This is a picture around lunchtime! One branch down! HA! The pictures I took later on in the middle of the night didnt come out! Sorry!

Today we decided not to let Ike keep us inside all day! We had a friends birthday party in Gonzales that we really didnt want to miss! So we packed everyone up and headed out to Gonzales! The party was a blast!! Although I did forget our darn gift on the table at home! GREAT! It seems like I am always forgetting something. They got a new swingset for the birthday and it was a huge hit! Madison and Rylee loved it!!! After the party we decided to go see the house I grew up in since a tree feel through the middle of it during Gustav. It was a lot worse then I thought. It was horrible!! I cried. I had a lot of memories there. It was just so sad. After that we headed to Colin's parents house to watch the LSU game. We had lots of fun! The girls LOVE LOVE LOVE going over to Maw Maw and Paw Paws house! They are best friends! HEHE! We ended up waiting until the end of the game to leave! And of course the Tigers WON! YIPPIE! The girls both cheered them on the whole time in their cheerleading outfits! SO CUTE! And I of course forgot my camera too so couldnt take any pictures.
Today was a super busy day! But we all had a blast! No hurricanes can stop us!

Stupid Hurricanes & GAS!

Yep thats right another hurricane headed our way. As if one wasnt enough right? Well this one is Ike and its headed straight for Houston/Galveston area! So that means we are on the bad side of it. People arent nearly as bad as they were for Gustav but I guess only time will tell if this will be a big devastation as Rita was to our part of town in 2005. Ike is supposed to make landfall late Friday night to early Saturday morning. But they keep changing it every broadcast. So far its a Cat. 2 hurrricane with 105 mph winds. We are supposed to get at least 80 mph winds here if not more. But I am not really worried about that part I am worried about TORNADOES!!! Never experienced one but I am terrified over them! Hopefully everything will be good!
Also, all of the refineries have shut down due to Ike in the Gulf and you know what that means GAS GOES UP! But only in the Gulf states! From what I understand some Gas stations arent even getting gas if they run out until AFTER the hurricane and if they do get it they will have to pay like $4.50 a gallon. Of course they cant sell it at that since that is what they are paying so that means gas could get to $5.00 a gallon! OH MY GOODNESS! And to think I was mad when I first started driving when gas was $1.35!!! Man I wish we could go back to that. HEHE! Colin I think likes gas this high! He says its job security! HA! At least thats a good thing right?
Madison update--Today was her second day of school and she is doing great! She loves it! She did get upset when we left her there this morning but was fine as soon as we walked out the door. And her teacher said she is starting to open up more! Which is good since the first day she didnt say a word! She is also taking her naps with no problem! YAY MADISON! Its so cute when we pick her up! She goes straight for her sissy! SO SWEET!
Rylee update--Rylee loves being at home with mommy! We play and play! I have realized just how smart she is! She amazes me!! She knows her colors and her ABCs! And she speaks soo well now. She is saying full sentences. Its so cute watching her copy what you say to her! Although sometimes it isnt always that great! HA! She is growing up so fast its sad. But she is becoming her own person and has her own little personality! Which is TOTALLY different than Madisons. Rylee is very daring. She will try ANYTHING. Madison is a little more hesitant but will still try it! She has to think about it before she does it! Rylee just goes for it!
Well I think that is it for now....gonig get some sleep since this hurrican is supposed to make landfall late tomorrow night. And we are supposed to out of power for a good bit of the day!! GREAT! Take care everyone!

Madisons First Day of School and Rylee and Mommys Quality time!!!

Well she is officially in preschool! The day couldn't have gone any better.
We woke up around 7:30 am (late for us!!!) and Madison was still in bed. So me and Rylee went in there and as soon as we walked in Madison sat up in bed and said I get to go to big girl school today! It was so cute!! So of course we sang and danced and cheered in their room while daddy got dressed! Daddy was in charge of breakfast while I got the girls dressed. I ironed Madisons clothes and she put the on all by herself because she is a big girl now (she tells me this!). I get Rylee dressed and we head into the bathroom to brush teeth and wash faces so we are all clean!! HA! Well then I let Madison pick out which bow she wanted to wear on her first day and I did her hair! It was cute! All curly and precious! After that we ate breakfast really fast since it was getting late at this point! And after breakfast we were out the door on the way to school!! We finally got there at exactly 9 am!! (doors open at 9 they are offically late by 9:15!) Madison was soo excited. She had her princess nap mat and booksack all ready to go! She wanted to wear them both but then soon realized she couldnt so she made her daddy wear her princess bookpack! We all walked in together! Madison held her daddys hand the whole time. I think he asked if she wanted him to hold her but she said no! We walked in and as soon as we got in the room she was taking off her princess nap mat and down playing! She was so not worried about us! Rylee even went straight for the toys! We finally convinced Madison to tell us bye and give us hugs and kisses! She did and we told her we would be back!! NEver even phased her that we were leaving! It was really cute when Rylee kept giving her kisses and hugs!
As we were leaving I of course cried. At first I didnt think I would but I did! It was sad leaving her there but I know she loved it!
When we got home Rylee got really bored REALLY fast! She kept asking where is sissy? where is sissy? So I decided to take her to ride around so she wasnt just home thinking about it! We went to a couple of stores and she was having a blast! She was sooo good!! I didnt even put her in a stroller! hehe! She was pretty worn out though and fell asleep at 12:45. So I got a little time to myself which was nice! I did some dishes and cleaned up a little. Then it was time to go get SISSY!
Rylee was SUPER excited! She was running around in circles because she was so excited! It was soo cute! So when we get to Madisons school Rylee runs in and pretty much tackles Madison! I think we might have actually scared her a little! OOPS! But she was very excited to see us! I asked her teacher how her first day was and she said great! Madison even took a nap for her! WHAT?!?! She doesnt take a nap for me anymore! But Mrs. Tammy said she went straight to sleep and slept the whole time. Madison was so cute telling me about her day! She got to ride a bike, sing the ABC song, color a red apple, and lots of other stuff! Mrs. Tammy even told me that Madison didn't talk the whole day! CRAZY I know! But I assured her that it was because she was observing everything and her surroundings and that once she is fimilar the teacher won't be able to stop her from talking!! HEHE! just like her momma I guess. But all in all I think MAdison loved her first day of school. She was upset when I told her that she wasnt going tomorrow! It was sweet and sad! But Rylee enjoyed her mommy time and Madison enjoyed meeting new friends! Hopefully it keeps going as good as it did today!

Madison starts preschool tomorrow!!

Well, my baby is going to school. I say baby but of course she isnt anymore :(. We had her open house tonight at 6:30 and Madison had a blast. She loved meeting all the little kids in her class and her teacher. When we first got there the teacher Mrs. Tammy had the table set up with all the kids folders on a chair with their name on it! It was sooo cute watching all of them dig through their folders to discover all that was inside (of course it was just important papers for the parents but they didnt know that). Her teacher was SUPER sweet and Madison loved her right from the start. And of course I got the picture of Madison with her teacher!! I had to! I am so happy with my choice to send her there. We also got to see what the Computer Bus was!! Found out that it really isnt a bus! Well at least not at Madisons school! HA! It is a super cute program and we are thinking very hard about signing her up. We will see! Madison loved being in her big girl school so much that she didnt want to leave.

After we left the Open House Colin and I decided to go drive around Youngsville since that is where we want to move next May!! It was super nice there! We loved all we saw! Colin even got a kick out of this one house that had a shop off to the side for the man and it had one of those old Gas pumps in the front of it! Super sute! Of course it was not real but it was once!! HA! I think he wants one now! Great right!! But now that we drove around we decided that was our top place we wanted to move too!

Well once we got home we gave the girls a bowl of sherbert and then baths. Madison was super excited about tomorrow that she went straight to bed tonight! WAHOO! I just hope Rylee handles it ok! This is the first time Madison gets to do something without Rylee. But I think Rylee will really enjoy her time with just me and her!

Tomorrow dropping her off will make me very sad but seeing her so excited makes it all worth it! She is ready to be a big girl now and make her own friends! I will post again tomorrow on how her day went!

What a day...

OH MY GOODNESS!! So I needed to make my weekly shopping trip to get a few things. Just the little things. Bread, milk, cereal and some others. Nothing major! Well, I guess everyone else had the same idea and especially since the hurricane. Well, the stores were PACKED. I went to 4 different places trying to get the little things and everywhere was sold out. Wal-mart, Super 1, Piggly Wiggly, and CVS. They were all on the same street so I hit them all up. Well, finally at the end of the street was Target. And thank goodness they had everything we needed! Mostly Milk!!! We usually get the store brand milk since my girls dont care what kind it is as long as its milk. Well, they were out of the Target brand and only had Kleinpeter left. I have NEVER paid over 6 bucks for milk ever!!!! But we were desperate and that was all they had. $6.19 for a gallon of milk. WOW! That just seems outrageous to me. But the girls were getting aggravated with the crowds and wanted to go home. We had been gone for over 3 hours to get like 4 things that should have only taken like 20-30 min. tops! Well we get all of our stuff and head to the line!! We ended up waiting in line at TARGET for over an hour. People were crazy too. And you can tell none of them were from Lafayette (people have VERY thick cajun accents). I was so aggravated. And then finally I was NEXT in line and the lady decides to just LEAVE. At this point my girls were screaming because they were exhausted. I was soo mad that the lady just left. Come to find out she walked out and quit right before I was up. So I found a manager to tell him that this lady just walked away and her light was still on and I had been waiting for over an hour. He was SUPER nice I might add, and checked me out himself. He kept apoligizing for it. Of course it wasnt his fault but geez I just had NO luck today!!!! But finally we got to the car to put the groceries in it and the girls. And both girls fell asleep as I was putting them into the cars. It was sooo cute. And as I was putting my stuff in my car some crazy woman in a minivan was blowing her horn for me to hurry up. Some nerve! Well, just wanted to vent on my shopping experience today!

Daddy back at work!

I think the girls got spoiled being with Daddy for so long! We got to see him for over a WEEK straight and now he is gone again to work. This time he is in Cameron, LA where the hurricane hit pretty hard. I am sure he will be out there for a while. Hopefully not too long. The good thing is this time he is on a land job and he isn't too far away so he can come home for a couple hours here and there so he can see the girls. He said he wanted to try to come home for Madisons first day of school on Tuesday. But I guess it depends on how busy they are!! The girls are getting better about him leaving though. I am not so sure he is though. I think he will be working a whole lot now since the hurricane is over. Now lets just PRAY Ike stays away!!!

Hurricane GUSTAV & our trip to Houston

Well, the hurricane touched down in Louisiana. We did OK during the storm though!! We went stay with Colin in Houston. He was up there taking a class for work already so we decided to go up there so our family would all be together. We had a blast in Houston!! We took the girls to the beach which they LOVED. And I think JoJo loved swimming in the water too! We went to a park just about EVERY DAY! They had this one park that was under a huge pavilion that we went to mostly! It was great being in the shade and plus it was fenced in so we just let JoJo run loose. The girls loved having JoJo go down the slides with them!! We ended up staying in Houston for 6 days!!!!! I think we were ready to go home.

Gustav spared us at our apartment BIG TIME!! There was a pretty good bit of trees down EVEYRWHERE but luckily the only thing that happened to our apartment is one of the shutters on the windows fell off. Pretty lucky compared to some! We went drive around and didnt see too much property damage around Lafayette. Dont get me wrong there were A WHOLE LOT OF TREES DOWN EVERYWHERE but for the most part it looked a lot better than we expected. We did see a good bit of trees on houses though. There was a gas station that lost the top part that goes over the gas pumps. It looked like someone just took it off and threw it down!! That was pretty bad! We checked on Madison's school and it all looked great there. A lot of branches down but nothing to the church or preschool. Me and Colin's hometowns didnt do as great though. At least everyone over there is starting to get power and things. But the traffic is CRAZY!

Hugs and Kisses to all!!