Amy J. Bennett

The Hills November 12, 2007

November 12, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

Blogging as I watch…

"We’ll handle the situation accordingly." I love when Whitney says things like that. I think because I’d say something like that. Boy this is going to be a GREAT drama-show.

JT!

OK, that was weird. Same exact comment by Lauren and Heidi about it being the first event not working.

What was with Justin Bobby’s boots? Yuck.

I do not like dreds.

LOL after JB’s burp. That look on his face was great.

What. does. Audrina. see. in. him?

Oooo, they see each other.

Oooo, Lauren completely snubs her.

Wow. What a backbone. I could never do that.

So, uh yeah, I have to work with Sean Kingston today too. Kayne West also. Oh, and a little coffee in the afternoon with Alicia Keys. Cause my job is cool like that.

I love that Audrina’s coworker (what is her name?) won’t let her call Justin Bobby.

Spencer! Back her up!!! Gosh that boy gets on my nerves.

Commercial, go away, I want to see the talk!

Flowers? Seriously? "You are very clean…did a maid come??" Seriously? She’s starting off with that?

"This is the person you want to marry for the rest of your life?" THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING.

"I want to forgive you and I want to forget you." Wow. That was harsh. Really harsh. Heidi set herself up for that but wow.

Previews:

Premarital counseling! Yes!

Cancelled wedding?! Yes!!!

*Updated*

Music from tonight’s episode:

Sean Kingston, "Take You There"
Angels and Airwaves, "Everything’s Magic"
Michelle Vice Maslin, "Rainshowers"
The Kax, "Hungry Animals"
Paramore, "Misery Business"
Assassins, "Situation"
Carmen and Camille, "Breaking Down"
Gunderson, "Sarah’s Song"
Taxpayer, "Moving Parts"
Get Licious, "We Are"
Good Charlotte, "Predictable"
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, "Apologies"
Alissa Moreno, "Wildfires"

Target Complaint

November 12, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

I heart Target. Seriously. I can’t remember the last time I was at Wally World and I’m perfectly fine with that. But today I was very unhappy with them. The girls got several gifts for the birthday that were exact duplicates for what they already have and then a few that were too old for them. So I decided to take some stuff back. This was during the potty training excursion today so I thought I would use the money to pay for all that stuff. I had over $40 in toys to take back. But get this. The lady tells me since I had no receipt, the rule is that you can only use your driver’s license two times and each visit can only be up to $20. Well, apparently I have used up my limit this year and they wouldn’t let me take back a single thing.

Fabulous.

And two of those toys are exclusive to Target and they’re the ones we have exact duplicates of.

I don’t understand the reasoning for these rules and I don’t like them. If it’s obvious the stuff was bought at Target, they should take it back. No matter what.

So now I don’t know what to do with my stuff. My choices at this point are donate them to one of our families this year for the angel tree, sell on ebay, sell at work or re-gift this year to someone that wasn’t at the birthday party which will be hard since just about everyone we give gifts to were there.

So that is strike 1 against Target and it’s a big one. Sorry, Tar-jay. I still heart you.

And this would be a great opportunity to tell you Jaynee is giving away a gift card from there. So go comment and good luck. I think 😉

Training Day Results

November 12, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

After lunch today when we got back from Target and the dentist, we got serious about the potty training. I set an alarm and every 15 minutes we’d go and try.

The bad:

Lexi peed on the floor I think 4 or 5 times I think. And the last two times she said "I have to pee!" but only to find that was her way of seeing "I just peed on the floor!"
Lexi never went in the potty.
Lexi was begging for a pull up by the end of the day.

The good:

I’m not a frazzled mess. It was frustrating, yes, but I didn’t lose my cool.
Emma successfully went #2 several times and of course for every #1. Yay for Emma!
The M&M’s were a big deal to both of them. A couple times Lexi didn’t even want to sit on the potty but the M&M’s convinced her.
Lexi did sit on the potty every time. Before today she wouldn’t even sit on the big potty. In fact, she was very, very excited to tell and show everyone possible about her new potty.
Lexi progressed during the day…she first learned that she shouldn’t be wearing her panties while she was sitting on the potty and then learned she didn’t need to take them completely off at the bathroom door. By bedtime tonight, she was just pulling them down enough to sit on the potty. Listen, I’m going with every positive I can come up with.
I also do count it progress that she at least said in some way she had peed on the floor. At least she showed some sort of emotion about the accident.

I wouldn’t call today a failure but I wouldn’t exactly call it success either. I would feel WAY better if Lexi had gone at least once at any point today. But this has to be done, so from now on while we’re at home, we’ll be doing this.

I can’t wait to see the search stats from this post…

Recipe for potty training

November 12, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

1 potty seat

12 pairs of panties

1 lb bag of M&M’s

1 booklet of Motivational Stickers

Lots of cleaning, protesting, praising and you’ve got yourself some potty training going on.

Potty Training and Dentist Day

November 12, 2007 by Amy 3 Comments

Yes, an unlikely combination but that’s what today looks like for me. The dentist part is easy. Emma has her checkup today. But the potty training…

If I have failed at anything (let’s not reduce me to just one failure but let’s just say) as a mother so far it has been potty training. Emma is going to be 5 next week and she has had #1 mastered for quite some time. I think she might have been 2 when she was trained. But she still is having issues with going #2. If you have read for awhile, you may remember that Emma has had medical issues with her #2. But let’s skip that yuckiness and just say she has to take a laxative every day. But the bottom line is Emma usually ends up going #2 in her pull up. She does go sometimes in the potty is quite proud of herself and for awhile I was doing a potty chart but although I was consistent on giving her stickers, she really didn’t care much and continued to go in her pull-ups after a week or two. But now she is turning FIVE next week and I HAVE to do something drastic.

As for Lexi, she was 3 last week and we have not even attempted serious training. A few times I have put her on the potty but she sits down, gets back up and says Yay, I went potty! She has never actually gone here although MIL tells me she did go once at her house. I think Lexi has seen all the potty drama from Emma and has written the whole thing off. Any time you mention going potty..I don’t wanna go potty! Even mentioning wearing a pull up…I don’t wanna pull up, I wanna diaper! Just this weekend after a bath, she peed in the floor and didn’t tell me. I happened to find it and she said without much emotion she had peed on the floor.

People, this is bad and I have to do something drastic.

So today has been named Potty Training Day. I am off work and the girls have a cough and I can’t take them to school. So I’m taking them to Target, buying panties of their choice, buying a potty training chair for Lexi and maybe even some M&M’s or stickers for positive reinforcement. As for negative reinforcement, Emma will have something taken away from her if she goes #2 in her pull up. Either no school or no computer time. And for Lexi, I think I’m sticking with the positive reinforcement only since she’s just starting. I’m not sure yet.

They will be walking around here with panties and no pants and we’ll be headed to the potty every hour to try. There will also be lots of water drinking. And probably lots of carpet cleaning.

If anyone has ANY suggestions, I’ll be GLAD to take them. Even if you think I’m doing it all wrong because apparently I am.

Wish us luck today.

CVS Deals November 11-17, 2007

November 11, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

OK, here’s what I got today. I finally took the time and figured how to make 3 smaller transactions work for me. Bottom line is I got $73 worth of products for $5.50 out of pocket and came home with $13 ECBs. Here’s how I did it.

Transaction #1

3 sets of 16 count Energizer batteries (2 AA and 1 AAA if you’re curious)

2 $1/1 Energizer coupons
$2/10 CVS coupon
$3/15 CVS ECB coupon

Paid with around $20 ECBs I had from last week
Total oop: $.61
ECBs Earned: $10

Transaction #2

Palmolive Dish Liquid
Pull Ups
2 Dimetapp Children’s Medicine

Used
.40 on Palmolive coupon
$2 Pull ups coupon
2 $1.50/1 Dimetapp coupons
$2/10 CVS coupons

Paid with $10 ECB battery deal
Total oop: $.62
ECBs earned: $5

Transaction #3

2 Garnier Nutrioniste Towelettes

Used $2/10 CVS coupon

Paid with $5 ECBs from last transaction
Total oop: $4.26
ECBs earned: $10 and $3 off of $15

Sunday Scripture

November 10, 2007 by Amy 8 Comments

I’m so happy we had several participants last week. Unfortunately I just wrote over last week’s post with this one and now it’s lost forever :(. But hopefully this week will be great anyway. It was awesome last week to see a theme through people’s verses and even through their pastor’s sermons that day.

To participate, simply post a verse, a set of verses or even just a reference to a verse that means something to you now or maybe even in the past. Explain why it’s important or don’t. It’s up to you.

My scripture this week is Galatians 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

I know this is a sort of mantra for several Christians. It is on my list of favorite verses on my about page because it explains my beliefs, or rather my life, pretty succinctly.

So how about you? Go now and post and then come back. Post your name and then a direct link to you blog entry. If you don’t have a blog, feel free to leave yours in the comments.

Here is the code for the graphic above.

That was just plain ‘ol fun

November 10, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

Obviously the birthday party went well. The only glitch of the entire day is that there was MAJOR construction on the interstate and many people were late. One child didn’t show up until an hour into it. I felt bad because they were pushing us out of our tables because we only get them for 90 minutes. The whole thing was kind of hurried but it was great because then we were free to play as long as we wanted after that. The order of the whole thing was play, pizza, show time, cake, play, open presents, play again.

All of the parents were SO nice and SO helpful and it is true most of them were just running around with their own children or making sure they had something to drink and eat. FIL manned the table to hand out coins. Mom helped with the presents and wrapping paper. Dad took some pictures and helped carry ALL the presents out to the car.. Heather was on Lexi duty some and even donated her tickets at the end – Heather, I’m so proud of you. MIL was on Emma duty some. Everyone really pitched in.

Apparently Lexi’s little boyfriend is into Lexi as much as Lexi is into him because he gave her a big hug when he got there. I HAVE to show this picture of them. I will take it down by tomorrow though just so it’s not sitting out in cyberspace. Lexi wanted him to sit beside her but he was a little afraid of the stuffed, moving characters on stage. I can’t blame him but Scott says he doesn’t know if he can let Lexi marry a man that’s scared of things like that. lol. As for Emma, her little boyfriend showed up but he is quite shy and according to his mother is not nearly as aware of Emma as she is of him. He is a sweet little boy though but ended up playing with the other little boy that came from Emma’s class. Which HE was a sweetie. His mom said he would NOT play a single game until he had searched the entire game room to tell Emma Happy Birthday. But Emma was stuck to the hip with this little girl as soon as she showed up during the show time. They had a GREAT time and her parents were nice enough to follow the two of them around the game room to supervise them.

Emma and Lexi both liked their cakes and boy were they delicious! Only spent 18.99 on each and WAY better than the ones I had paid $30-40 for at a bakery. They were obviously very happy with them.

The presents were a hit and I really can not tell you how many they had. They literally had 3 tables worth of presents lined up. I really, really was not expecting that. Everyone was extremely generous especially since I had the double party and people had to buy two gifts. They had a great time opening them. Lexi finally can unwrap a present with no help and she had a great time doing it.

But we all know the REAL reason I let the kiddies have a party at the Cheesola is the skee ball. I love me some skee ball. I didn’t touch it until 2 hours into the party but I put out some coins to play a couple rounds of it. I watched Emma play a few rounds with her little friend and it looked a little more like a game of softball than skee ball. We were lucky there weren’t lost balls. As for Lexi, poor thing couldn’t get it more than 2 feet from the starting line so we let her cheat a little. Somehow we couldn’t convince her to stick them in the 50 point hole instead of the 10 point hole though.

The girls racked up on the tickets though as several people donated theirs to them. They walked out with 500 tickets in exchange for a little 6x6x6 Princess box and two little plastic rings. At one point, D saw me at skee ball and said, "Wow, you’re going to get a GREAT jelly bracelet with that."

By the end of the evening, my girls were tired and Scott had a headache but we all had SO MUCH FUN. I’m so glad we did it and it was worth every penny. I think everyone had a great time. I’m not sure if we’ll be doing this every year, but I for one will always remember Emma’s 5th birthday even if she doesn’t.

And lastly, I must mention the presents again. It was like Christmas morning around here. I seriously considered just wrapping some of these things up for Christmas. In fact, they got a couple duplicates and I think I’m going to exchange them and use them just for that. It’s just really ridiculous how much they got. They were happy as larks with it. I looked at Emma and said, "Remember all those times you say you want a toy at Target? Well, this is it. These are all the toys you want." And as tired as they were, they haven’t quit playing with them for a skinny minute all evening.

We are so blessed.