Happy New Years

Just incase I do not get back on again this year Happy New Years. Oh and happy holidays sorry I am just now telling you that we have just been busy.

I hope you all have a wonderful and happy new years and that 2018 brings you joy, peace, health, and wealth. Do any of you makes goals or etc. ? I usually do not but there is things that I hope would happen. But I am going to try to make some goals for myself for the year of 2018.

My goals for 2018

1. Is to get our finances in order.  Yes, we have been trying our hardest to get this straighten back out and it has been tough, especially when there is only one of us working and have a growing toddler but we will get out it all in order again.

2. Is to at least lose about 5lbs. Yes, I hope it is more but I am being realistic on this one. I know I know I say I hope I will lose weight each year and each year I try but I always dont. But I am going to try my hardest to at least lose 5lbs.

3. Is to get my photography business up and running completely. I know the first year or two you do not see much of a profit but I really want to get this up and running as this is something I have dreamed of doing for several years now.

4. Go on more date nights with Mike. This past year we have tried to go on at least one a month but there is been times that we have not been able to do that. But 2018 I want us to really try. Even if we have to wait until Addison goes to bed and then watch a movie in the living room together or something like that.

5. I want to be more positive then what I am.

6. To have at least one time a month where we do not get on any kind of technology at all for a day. I say we are going to do this but then we never do. But I am going to buckle down on this one as we really need to do it.

7. Spend more time with friends. I do not spend that much time if at all with my friends and I really would love to spend more time with them.

8. Spend more time with family. This past year we have tried to spend time with family but between money struggles it has been hard to and I really want to buckle down on this as you never know what will happen.

9. Find more time to blog more. I have been able to do much blogging here lately and I am going to try to find more time for it.

I think that is about it for right now but if anything else comes to mind I will write all about it.

Again Happy New Years and I hope you all have a safe, fun, and wonderful New Years.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving

I know it is a day late but I just wanted to wish every a happy thanksgiving. I hope you all had a great holiday. I know we did. We went to my parents house. We got there early as Mike had to work the night before.  I drove us up there and when we got there Mike went back to sleep. We had a great day just spending it with family. Then we went to walmart for that black friday and never again will we do it. The people were very rude. Not only was the costumers rude but some of the employees was rude also. I just wanted some of those towels that they had for $1.60 but they all was gone. I seen one woman with a shopping cart full of the towels. I thought to myself save some for others. We did get a few things and I think we may have spent like under a hour there. But we will never go again at least not at that hour. We just did not want to go home and then get back out as we had just got back to town as soon as the sales starts.  I people kept running me over with their shopping cart and some wouldnt even some sorry and the ones that did they did it as soon as I turned around and was fixing to say something and people was just standing around talking right infront of the items that they had on the sale. I cannot stand when people just stand around in a store talking to each other but last night was the worse. I was trying to get to the kids pjs to try to find some for our jelly bean but people was just standing there talking. I would say excuse me and they kept standing there talking. It really pissed me off.  And then when we was standing wait to get to the check out a worker came up to us and said in a rude way that we needed to move back. We was not in the way what so ever and then she would send others up to the cashier that came up after we did. So never will we go to a black friday sale on thanksgiving night. Also please dont say that the worker was tired because she was having to work. Because that is no excuse to be rude. There was a lot people who was having to work yesterday and if you work in stores and etc and if you are having a bad day do not take it out on your shoppers, as it is not their fault that they are having a bad day.

But enough of that. I really do hope you all had a good thanksgiving.  Now to start getting ready for Christmas. So can not believe that Christmas is just a month a way.

Work at home jobs

I have been trying to find ways to earn a little extra money from home to help out with bills and etc. and then I thought I would share what all I have done so far and before I get started with the list I just want to say none those companies has given me any money to write this blog. I am doing it on my own as I want to help other mothers or even fathers out. Yes I am using the referral link for some of these companies so I guess in some ways if you join they are paying me. But you do not have to join if you do not want to.

okay on to the list

1. Inbox Dollars is a good spot. I have made about $60 after being with them for alittle over a year. I would have made more but there is times that I have not been able to do the surveys or offers or etc on there.

The referral link to that is https://www.inboxdollars.com/?r=ref19804251&s=7 

2.  Swagbucks is a good. I think now days everyone is on swagbucks. If you have not heard of swagbucks, all it is a place to earn points to redeem gifts or etc on there with. I have probably gotten about $200 to $300 of amazon gift cards on there every since I joined with them several years ago. 

Here is the referral link to that http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/seats31

3.  Ebates,  is a good place to earn cash back for doing your online shopping. I also think that it has a spot where you can link a card to and earn cash back from shopping in store also. I have earn nearly $270 since being with them. It probably would be more if I didnt keep for getting to go there first to before shopping lol 

I am going to share a referral link for this one also https://www.ebates.com/r/MIKEBE259?eeid=28187 

4.  Amazon Mechanical Turk is a good spot also to earn some money there to. I probably have been like $30 to $40 on there since 2015. I have not had much time to do much on there but you can earn money from there so that is good. 

There is no referral link for that one so the website is https://www.mturk.com

5.  Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. Is a good spot to earn money from there if you like writing. You can write a novel and have it published to ebooks for amazon on there without going through a publisher (but you can still go thru a publisher if you want to) 

The website to that is https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US

6.  Fiverr is a good spot to also earn money from there. I use to earn a little money from there but after the birth of our daughter I haven't had the time to do much writing ( I usually got paid to read books and write a review for them on the fiverr). 

the website for that is https://www.fiverr.com/


7.  blogging is a good way to earn some money also. I know on Blogger you can add google Ad sense to your blog and earn earn money when some one clicks on the ads. I think I have made like $100 or $200 doing that. But with this you are taken a chance of no one clicking on that ad.

This is it so far. If I find anymore I will share with you. Also please remember that I am not getting paid to write this blog I just wanted to help others looking to earn a extra money from home.

My birthday was yesterday

My birthday was yesterday and I turned 37 years old.  I am not one of those type of people that will give you a false age. I am 37 years old and I am not afraid to emit. Yes, I have grey hairs and yes I will dye them out. but I am scared to get older as we all do it. No use into trying to hide it. I have been told that I do not look like I am 37 but that I look younger. Hey dont know if that is true or not but what ever.
There are things I wish that I had done before I was 37 years old (mostly lose the weight I need to lol ) but I am not to worry about it. As I am happy, healthy (healthy as I can be, I probably could be healthier), and I am loved. I am loved by my family and friends and that is all that matters to me.
I would like to make some goals and try to get them done before I am 38 years old. So lets see
Goals

1. Lose about 80Lbs ( or at least half of it or even a a quarter of it would be okay also. as long as I do it in a healthy way)
2. Become more healthier
3. Get a job (whether it be a at home job or out of home job)
4.  Finish at least one of the books I have been writing on
5. Keep a spotless house (I use to do clean every day but have gotten lazy with it some. Dont get me wrong it is not bad but could be better)
6. Become better at saving money
7. Try to spend more time with family

I hope I will be able to get these goals done by the time I am 38 years old. I do have like 364 days left to get them done lol.

getting out of debt journey update

I just thought I would update you all on our getting out of debt journey. Things has been going very slowly with getting out of debt and also seems like it has gotten harder. Yes we have gave up some things to help get out of debt but so far it still has been a struggle. So like the last part of May I got to looking for some settlement companies and I found one that seems to be pretty good. Yes I know what some may think that it is a lazy way of getting out of debt and that you are adding more debt to your already debt but I really do believe that is not the case.
With this company we already settled one debt. Okay, let me back up a little and tell you how this settlement company works. You start like a escrow account (To me it is like a saving accounts also) with them that goes towards your settlements. You have a set price to put in that account. Like right now I have paid in about $800 since June and have one settled debt that will start coming out of it I want to say today. Yes, one of my credit cards has been settled and now they are working on the others. The one thing that a settlement company will not do is help with the secure loans ( like student loans, and car loans and mortgages). Yes, there are fees that you have to pay but I can tell you this that with my first settlement and the price of the companies fee for them working with you still does not total more then what the debt itself was so we are still saving about $2200 on that whole debt. So to me that is a good deal.
I cannot tell you what it actually feels like to see a debt being settled. It feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Yes we still have lots more debt to take care of and we will get them took care of but I can say this that in June of 2018 one debt will be completely took of as there will be no more of it at all. So just a little under a year it will be gone. I think with this settlement company we have estimated it will take 3 to 4 years to have all my debt took care off. So cannot wait. We are still working on Mike's (which it all is both of us but some is just in my name and some is in Mike's name. ) We will be done with our debt journey I want to say hopefully by 2022, at least that is hope. Actually I hope it is before then but I am trying to be real here lol.
I will keep you updated on everything goes (and if you want to know the name of the settlement company please let me know)

Seriously where has the time gone

Seriously where has the time gone. It seems like just yesterday that we was getting the phone call that our Jelly Bean was born. Oh how I remember that day so much. We had missed a few phone calls and text messages as Jelly Bean's birthmother had went into labor at about 12 something. Then she was born at about 1 something I do believe. We did not find this out until like I woke up at 6 something to go to the bathroom and I decided to check my phone. Once I checked my phone and seen the voice mails and text messages I woke Mike up telling him that our Jelly Bean had been born. We got up and started packing our bags and Mike called his boss to let him know that he would not be at work. Then we started the long trip out to OK to pick up our daughter. We did not get to meet him until like the morning of the 23rd as it was like after midnight by the time we got to OK.  I will say this I was so scared and nervous at the same time. Scared and nervous to meet our daughter.  There will never be enough words to express how grateful we are to Jelly Bean's birthmother.

I think Jelly Bean has had a good birthday today. We got up and daddy went and got her her favorite breakfast food (which is a biscuit from Jack's ). Then we let her open up one gift from us. She opened up a little disney princess baby doll we got her. Then she took a bath and got ready for her birthday party. Then we went and picked up her cake and the food for the party and came home and got everything ready for the party and then everyone started showing up to party. We all had a good time and she got lots of gifts and has been enjoying them lots. Now it is getting close to bed time and mommy is tired so I will be getting off here and getting ready for bed. I hope you all have a good day and night.

Two years already

Okay not quite yet but will be very soon. I just wanted to go ahead and write a blog before I forget lol.
I cannot believe that our little Jelly Bean will be two years old this coming saturday. Where has the time gone? It feels like it was just yesterday that she was placed in our arms. It has been the greatest two years and I know we will have many more years ahead of us.
Lets see where to begin. Jelly Bean is becoming more beautiful with each passing day.  We did have to give up the pageants for right now, as we do not have the money for them and couldnt get anyone to buy tshirts for her pageants or etc so we decided to wait for hopefully next year.  We may also have to give up her dance classes (even though she hasnt started those yet. Wont get to start them until sept ) we are hoping she will be able to do them but it will be depending on if we have the money for it. We will see.  On to other things lol.
We had to carry Jelly Bean to the Doctor on wednesday as her allergies are really bothering pretty bad. You should have heard the poor girl. She is doing better though. The doctor gave her like three different kinds of medicine to take. and she is doing better. She still sounds stuffy and has a runny nose and has a little cough but not like she had been. At the doctor office she weighed about 24 lbs but she did not wait to stay on the scales long enough for it really to show the right amount. She does get on our scales and they say she weighs over 25lbs so I think I am going to go with that. I think she pretty much has all of her teeth. At least it looks like it to me haha. She talks alot. She will say Dash for Down stairs and she knows where her leg, feet, arm, hands, and etc are at. She loves given high fives and hand shakes. She will also say hug time (she loves the troll movie lol.). Lets see what other movies she loves. She love Moana, Trolls, and she has gotten into watching the Ghostbusters. She loves the originals ones and the one that came out what last year or was it the beginning of this year (i really do not remember if it was this year or last year lol).
We have been trying to take the pacifier away from her ( or use her word for the pacifier, nene). We started to take it away from her actually friday night after she went to sleep and spit it out we got it and put it up and boy when she woke one during the night wanting it she kicked, cried, hit and etc. (She has a temper lol) so we had to give it to her as we was getting tired of the kicking and hitting. But after we got up yesterday morning we took it from her and would not let her have it back. Well that is until bed time. She would not go to sleep at all without it. And sleep is more important then fighting with her over the nene. So far today she has asked for maybe a handful of times but the real test will come tonight when we go to bed.
Things she loves
She loves baby dolls, learning new words, cars, going to the park to slide, she also loves ducks and fish bath toys. She also loves to put puzzles together. She has about six puzzles now. And she can sit and play with those for probably 15 to 20 minutes. She will put her pieces together then take them a part and put back together. She loves her Ipad also but there is days that i wish we had never gotten it for her and then there is days I am grateful that we have it for her.
But other then all that she is doing good and I cannot believe that she is going to be two years old soon. Her birthday party is a Breakfast at tiffanys party ( more like breakfast at Jelly Bean's lol ) it should be fun. I at least I hope so. I hope everyone we invited to come to her birthday party actually show up.
Now to see what 2 years will bring (which I really do believe it is going to be a trouble two year lol but maybe not to bad )

pageants pageants

Over the weekend we tried a new pageant system with the Jelly Bean. It went pretty good. We had to get up early on Saturday morning to be able to get to the town where the pageant was going to be at. We had to drive like 45 minutes to 50 minutes, maybe a hour after stopping to get breakfast. We had to have her register by 9:45 am. We got there about 9:20 I think dont remember the exact time we got there. After paying for Mike and I to get in to the venue I got Jelly Bean registered and then went to the dressing room to get her ready. There was two things that brother me about the dressing up. One was that there was a guy in there helping his wife with their daughter. I get that they was babies and toddlers but I do believe that father's shouldn't be in the dressing room full of little girls. They had separate dressing rooms for boys and girls for a reason. As they dont want males in the room with females. So I really think father's shouldnt be in the dressing rooms. But that was not my biggest issue with the dressing. I was trying to fix Jelly Bean's hair and get her ready. Jelly Bean was already fighting me a little with me fixing her hair, so I was already struggling with her alittle. But Jelly Bean does not like it when anyone laughs at all. She will scream and crying. Well in the dressing room some people started laughing and you guessed it she started screaming and crying. It just felt like these people knew it to ( I know they knew it as I was telling her that they was not laughing at her. To try to calm her down) as it just seemed like they would get louder everytime she would scream and laugh. Needless to say this mommy almost had a melt down in the dressing room. I just got so tired of trying to calm her down and finish up her hair so I just left it like it was and just put a bow in it and then put her dress, socks, and shoes on and gather up our stuff and walked out of the dressing room. 
Jelly Bean wouldn't even walk out of the dressing room because she was so upset about the laughing. I carried her to her daddy and left her with him while I went cooled down a few minutes. Once she calmed down and mommy calmed down also we had a pretty good pageant day. Jelly Bean was walking around and dancing around until she had to go up on stage. I was kind of worried that she would crying and pitch a fit on stage but she didnt. She didnt really want to walk on stage but she did not cry on stage like she had done at last pageant or two. She even gave them a little bit of a smile on stage and waved bye when she started to get off stage.  ( I will post a link to a video of her pageant. at the end of the blog so you can see her in action. ) She got Second alternate and that is okay we really dont do the pageants as we got to win the big titles. If she wins them she wins them it is not going to hurt our feelings if she doesnt. I want her to learn that is okay to lose some and it is okay to win some. We are just proud of her for doing her best. And we was really proud that she did not cry on stage. That may have been because we promised her if she did not cry on stage then she would get a toy. And yes she got a toy for not crying on stage. She also got photogenic. She is very photogenic lol. She has gotten photogenic in the last two pageants (counting this one makes three).
She has three more pageants coming up but we are hoping that we will be able to put her in at least two more pageants this year but three more would be good. We are hoping to put her in one that is in July. She has one in August and one in Sept. We are hoping to put her in a halloween one and a christmas one. She also has one in Nov also. The christmas one we are hoping to put her in is with the pageant system we started with and we are looking forward to that.

Here is the link to our youtube channel. We will have videos of her pageants there and videos of other things. But it will most likely be videos of just Jelly Bean. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz8LDUzYq5k&t=106s  follow us on there. We are really just now getting started on videos on there.
We hope you all are doing good and had a good weekend.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there in the world. I hope you all have had a wonderful day. My day has been wonderful. I got to wake up next to my husband and daughter. I love getting to wake up next to her and see her smile every day. Yes, there is some days she will wake up cranky but most days she wakes up with a smile on her face. This morning mike told me to stay in bed for a little while. As I was going to type a mother's day status on facebook mike and jelly bean walks by thru the door and says Happy Mother's Day mommy. They gave me to cards one from just mike and one from just Jelly Bean and I love both of them. Jelly Bean got me some flowers (which she gave them to me on Friday lol) and a necklace set that had one for me and one for her. It is so cute. and Mike got me a amazon gift card. hey i did tell him to get a gift card. didnt matter what kind. (he really did not have to get me anything but I glad he did). After opening gifts we got ready to get our day started. We went to eat breakfast and then drove like 45 minutes away to the space and rocket center. I do believe that has become a mother's day tradition and that is okay with me. I love getting to see Jelly Bean's reaction every year. We just let her walk around every where we did not use the stroller at all and I think she enjoyed that more then anything else lol. She had fun and that is all that matters.
Okay on to something else, Jelly Bean's pageant had gotten rescheduled but the days that they rescheduled it for we will not be able to do it so She will not be doing a beauty and beast pageant. I do plan on taken some father and daughter photos of Mike and her and I think them dressing up in their outfits will be the perfect outfits for that photoshoot. I so cannot wait to do them. She does have another pageant coming up at the end of this month and then one in Aug, Sept, and Nov. We are thinking about doing one in Oct and a christmas one but we will see if we have the money for those as we have joined a dance school for her and it starts in Sept so there will be that monthly payment and I think it will be worth it as she loves to dance. We may just do these next four pageants and then call it quits on them for a little while. But we will see as we do love doing them.
Well I am going to go but will try to write another blog post soon.

Beach Trip

We had decided to take a vacation back in Dec or Jan but we was not sure on where we wanted to go. There was like three possible choices that we had. We thought of the Great Smokey mountains, a beach trip (not sure which beach when we was thinking of going to one), and Atlanta.  We put each one down on a piece of paper and let Jelly Bean draw it out of a hat and which one she drew out was where we go on vacation.

 Lucky for us and for her she reached her little hand in the hat (okay it was a bowl but we will call it a hat lol) and pulled out a piece of paper. We opened up that paper and seen the word beach. So that is where we went on vacation. We started to looking into which beach we wanted to go and what hotel we wanted to stay at. We had decided on Pensacola Beach and the hotel was a Holiday Inn Resorts. It was a very nice place.  Up next was deciding on when to go and saving up the money for it. We had original decided to go the last week of April but plans had to be changed because Mike had to work. It was a good thing we hadn't reserved the hotel room before we found that out. So we went down to Pensacola Beach on the 1st of May and came back home on the 4th of May (May the fourth be with you lol).

On our drive down to the beach I started to get a little sick. I thought it was because of motion sickness as I was sitting in the back with Jelly Bean but nope it wasn't. That night I was up pretty much all night sick. Then the next morning I did not feel like doing anything. I did have Mike go to the little hotel store to see if they had anything for upset stomach. I took what he got for me to take. I told him that him and Jelly Bean could go on down to the swimming pool but not the beach as I wanted to see her  reaction her first time on the beach.  After maybe about a hour or two I went down to the hotel pool and tried to enjoy some time with them. Then we walked out to the beach (why yes we stayed at a hotel that was the beach, so much easier to do) and it was really great seeing what Jelly Bean thought of the ocean and sand. She really loved it. She didnt love the waves coming up on the beach. The current was very strong the whole time we was there. After being on the beach for a few moments we decided to go back to the room as Jelly Bean was starting to get tired and needing a nap. 

After she took a nap we had lunch and then got ready to go play in the sand. She played for a little bit in the sand and watched the waves but she was ready to go back to the hotel swimming pool. She loved the swimming pool the best. I think because she was in her little floaty we bought with us to have in the pool for her and she was just going around the lazy river (yes we was still with her floating around in the lazy river. She never got out of our sight).

The next day we took family photos on the beach and then went to a aquarium. It was not all that great of a aquarium. So we plan on carrying her back to another aquarium before the summer is over with. I had really thought I was feeling better on this day but nope that night I was sick again. I am glad I had gotten sick that night instead of on our back home. Yep we was left the beach the very next day. It was a long trip back as we had stopped of to see some of Mike's family. 

Jelly Bean did very good on the trip down to the beach and back. We was so scared that she was going to be crying the whole time, as she does that sometimes when we go see my parents who lives like two hours away. But she did pretty good. I am glad that we took this trip while she is still this young as now we have this experience of seeing her enjoy it. We hoping to go back to the beach again next year. We are also hoping to be able to take a little getaway for our adoption day celebration. I do not know where we will be going on that. We was hoping it would be Disney World but I do not see that happening, as it would cost to much. Maybe we will be able to go to the Smokey Mountains for that but we will see. 

We hope you all are doing good. I will try to write more later. I will try to write about Jelly Bean's Beauty and the Beast pageant that is coming up on Saturday. It should be fun.

If I dont get to write then or for mother's day Happy Mother's Day to all you mommies and mommies to be out there and to all the dads that are both mom and dad happy Mother's day for you also.

getting out of debit part 1

getting out of debit part 1

Mike and I have decided to do our form of dave rasmey’s baby steps in getting out of debit. Are you asking what is the baby steps. Well the baby steps are like this. Step one saving $1000 for a emergency fund. Step 2 is snowballing your debit but the house. Step 3 is a fully funded emergency fund of 3 to 6 months of expenses. baby step 4 is investing 15% of your household income into retirement. Step 5 is start saving for college. step 6 is pay off your home early. Step 7 Build wealth and give generously.

We have gotten the $1000 in our savings for Step one. We are working on Step 2 now. I know that in step two (if you google the dave rasmey’s baby steps you will find out all about it in more details) is the snowball of paying of debt. But instead of doing it the way he says to do it we are going to start with paying off credit card debit first. We set down and looked at our bills and put them in order of like credit cards, personal loans, car loans, student loans and etc like that and total each one up and what is eating most of our money is credit cards so we are going to work on getting those paid off first. ( yes we will still be paying on the other bills but we are staring with credit cards and paying off the one with the lowest % rate.) Then we will work on the personal loans, then car loans, and then student loans. Yes that is all we have besides our house payment which that is not until step 6 so we will be waiting on snowballing it lol. I have no idea of when we will have all these credit cards paid off but I hope we will soon. I will say this that if it hadn't been for the credit cards we would have never been able to pay for the adoption, so I am thankful for that but I wish that we had had better luck in the fundraisers we had to try to help pay for the adoption. We hoping that we will be able to have our credit cards paid off within a few years, four years tops. At least that is what we are hoping. If we can get them paid sooner that will be great also but we aiming for four years tops. We maybe in the baby 2 for like 10 years but hopefully no more then that. I actually hope that it will be less then that. we are going to try to get us out of baby step sooner then 10 years but I think that is about how long it is going to take us.

I will try to update you again on how it is going within a couple of months. hopefully in a few months we will start to see a big change on how things are going.

A product review

I am reviewing a product for you all on my own. I am not getting paid to review this or did not even get it for free just to review it. But I just had to review this product as I love it.
I just bought the Salon perfect nail polish and I love it. It is fast drying and the color is very pretty. I got the Bermuda Baby color and I love it. It is not very bright or dark. It is just the right color. But I really love that it is fast drying. It dried so quick that I was able to grab my daughter before she could grab the bottle and spill it. And if you ever had to do that before you know that it messes up the nails you just painted but this nail polish did not do that.
One thing that I dont like about it is the price on it. But I will not let that stop me from buying more when I want some different colors. I recommend that all you that likes to paint your nails to go and buy it. You will love it also.

cake making

The pass couple of months I have been making cakes. Just for a hobby. I do not plan on ever selling cakes at all. May do them every now and again for family or just to have at home. Well, I am going to try to make at least one once a month. Well in Jan I made a Hello Kitty cake. (will be making another one for next weekend for my great niece's birthday party).  ( I will post pictures at the end of this post lol). Then in February I made three cakes. One was for Valentine's Day. It was a square cake and the first time I used fondant rolling it out and putting it on the cake. I then cut out hearts for it and made some little balls to go around the bottom part of it. Then I made two cakes for last Sunday.  One was a cowboy cake that I made for my dad for his birthday. I was going to put fondant on the bottom part of it but did not get enough of fondant to roll out to put on it. So I just that fondant to make a cowboy hat to put on the cake (the bottom part of the cake was like a sheet cake) I made the hat out of cake also. Then I made a star and horse shoes to put on it. I made a old timey gun  out of chocolate and bullets to go on it. On the day I carried it to my dad I got to thinking that I should have made more bullets to put on the edges of the cake but if I make another one like that I will. The cowboy cake turned out pretty good. Then I made a smallish round cake with rosettes on it for my mom for her birthday. My parents birthday is so close together that I thought I would just make them both a cake and carry it to them. Yes my mom's cake was simple in some ways. I had never really made rosettes on a cake before but it turned out to. I got that color mist to add color to the rosettes and I think it turned out for it to be the first time ever doing it. Like I said I am making another hello kitty cake for next weekend and then I may try to make a Minnie mouse cake as Jelly Bean likes minnie mouse and why not make a cake like that. But undecided if I want to do that cake before or after easter. I am so undecided on how I want to make the easter cake.
Couldnt find the picture of the hello kitty cake sorry.
Here are the pictures of the cakes.

how have you been?

How is everyone doing? I hope you all are doing good. Sorry I have not wrote since New years Day.  Things got busy and there was times that Jelly Bean would not let me get on the laptop to make a post. It always seems like everytime the laptop comes out she is trying to climb up in my lap. But that is okay.
Like I said that things has been busy. We got busy with carrying Jelly Bean to the park on the warm days. I am so surprised at how warm this winter has been this year. Dont get me wrong there has been some cold days but not like it usually is. It just doesnt really feel like winter here in Alabama. But glad that we have been able to get out (that is when it is not raining) of the house. It has been nice. and Jelly Bean loves going to the park. Like this pass week at this one park we go to Jelly Bean got to chasing after the ducks and saying ucks. She does not have the d sound down yet.
I love hearing Jelly Bean say words. She can say fish but it is more like ish. We have been trying to get her to sound out the whole word. I know the more we help her out on trying to say it right she will get the hang of it. I got us some flash cards to help her out with learning numbers, letters, and some words. The other day she brings them to me and wanting to learn. I love how she loves to learn. She can say sock and it actually sounds like sock lol. She can also say pants. She knows where her nose is at and where her lips is at and belly and cheeks. She also knows where her eyes and ears are at to. If you ask her where her hair is out she will put her hands in hair and smile. She is growing up so fast. She is actually in size 2t now in some of her clothes. Her 18 months still fit her some. But we have been trying to buy up 2t clothes for her to have also.
Jelly Bean had a valentine's day pageant like two weeks ago and she got queen in her age group. She also got some side awards. most photogenic and prettiest hair and most beautiful.  She also got buddy supreme to with another little girl in a optional that we decided to do. On the buddy supreme what they did was combined the scores with the buddy you enter in and the highest total got the buddy supreme. (I think there was like four buddies that got this reward. ) So Jelly Bean got two crowns and two sashes and three side awards. We was surprised that she got all that as she did not have a good day that day. She did not want to walk on the stage. She did not want to wear her shoes and she also would not take the pacifier out her mouth.
speaking of the pacifier she has not had it during the day the pass two weeks. She gets it at bed time but that is it. Maybe in a few weeks she will not have it at bed time. I think once we get the pacifier took a way from her we will start the potty training. She already acts like she is ready to potty train at times. She will hide when she poops at times. You can ask her if she needs a diaper change and she will grin at you. So maybe in a few months we can start the potty training process.
That is how we have been. How have you been?

Happy new year

Happy New year yall. I hope you all have had a good start to 2017. Ours has been okay. Just rainy and that rain has made me sleepy. You know the saying that if it rains on New Years day that it will rain half the year. I dont know if that is true or not but we sure do need the rain.  We havent done to much of anything today. Just went to some flea markets and that is it. Neither one of us hasnt felt like doing to much of anything today. We also have been watching the lord of the rings. but we always watch them around this time of the year. We usually start them sometime on New years eve and finish them up on New years day or the day after one. Just depends on when we start watching them.
How did you ring in the new  year?  I rung in the new year asleep.  Yesterday mike, jelly bean, and I went to toy r us and then target (we finished up some birthday gifts buying for our great nephew and nieces yesterday. we just decided to go ahead and get their gifts so that way we are not stressing about getting them closer to their birthdays. I wish we could get all our nieces and nephews something for their birthdays but we cannot and yes it makes me a little sad but i know that they understand). then we came home sit around until time for dinner. after going getting dinner we came home and started watching lord of the rings and I was asleep about 8:30 or 9 last night. I remember waking up at about 11 last night talking to mike (yep he was still awake. he usually is around that time lol). He said that when he came to bed at 12 I was talking to him. I do not remember talking to him at midnight lol.
I am not going to make any goals or anything this year. I never keep them so why make them. I am not even going to make a bucket list for this year. I did not even do anything on the bucket list I had made myself last year so why even make one this year.
I hope you all have a wonderful year this year and that good things come to you all.