Expecting Guests Today...

 

Dh informed me last night that I have 

4 of my first cousins arriving with the   

The Royal Tongan Police Brass Band    

 today. I've been cleaning house expecting

them this evening! I've only known my 

cousins from my mom's Taumoepeau side.

So I see one of my Taumoepeau cousins is

on the list and then the other 3 are my 1st 

cousins from my dad's Mataika and Niue  

side.

They'll be performing on Thursday, so   

I'll be posting up pictures then. How is your

Tuesday going?

Journal Entry for Sunday, April 25th

Church was good, not alot of people showed up.

I got to watch over the beehive class and listen

to them go over their upcoming class activities.

Lani, Kat and I are planning on visiting the Eteaki

family this evening. We have three of their daughters

in our Young Women and the eldest is one of our

teachers. We pooled together $70 and a card to take.

After church I ended up baking 10 cakes and 2 large
pans of buns baked in sweetened coconut milk to take
with us to their family. Lani ended up going to the
hospital with her family to visit her father in law, so Kat
and I went for all of us. Their mother welcomed us in
and thanked us for coming by and visiting. We had a
wonderful time talking to her and her daughters and
asked her to call us anytime she needed help.

 We said our good byes and dropped Kat back at her
house and picked up the kids and finally headed home
after 10 pm. So tired when we got home..everyone just
hit the sack and got some good rest.

It's Spring Already!

We're so glad it's the first day of Spring. I'm still feeling
a bit tired from yesterday's festivities at our church last
night. Which I'll update you on my next post. I had plans
to do some house cleaning and do laundry all day. It's
been neglected since Monday and the laundry room is
full so it's got to be done today so tomorrow I can actu
ally rest and kick up my feet. I felt like baking a lemon
cake with cream cheese frosting for dessert. Didn't feel
like slaving over the stove today so I just tossed cut up
rib of lamb, turkey tails and chicken thights in lots of
barbecue sauce and baked it until tender, then had corn
on the cob as a side with plantains and cassava.

I told the little ones we can go outside and take pictures
of the city. Since we live high up and the view at night
is wonderful from where we're at. Plus I need some
exercise, I gained 5 lbs this week from cake testing and
then some..uggh..

Journal Entry for Wed, March 10th & Thursday, March 11th

Thursday, 3/11:

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night with a fever.
It carried over to today and you'd think I was lying in bed
getting some rest, nope. I forgot to mention that I ended up
purchasing the digital slr camera I've been wanting yesterday.

I chickened out and couldn't buy the pricier one and ended
up spending $500 at Walmart for a Canon Rebel EOS XS
instead of the $500 Nikon D3000 I was coveting at Target.
why? I got to Target and they didn't open until 8 am and it
was only 7:30am, DH kept calling because he needed the
car to go, so I ran like a madman down the street to good
ol' Walmart and was hoping they would carry it there.
They didn't and the only one they had in stock was the one
that I ended up buying along with the 2 year warranty.
yikes what did I get myself into? I hope that I'll get great
pictures with this one. If not, I could always return and
get the Nikon. So, got home and tried to read all the
instructions as fast as I could and practice on it. My 5yo
was getting irritated real quick and started screaming at me
to stop taking her pictures because she's tired of smiling
and posing..lol..bless her heart. I told her, "mommy's got
to practice on her new camera, ok?" so she held up her
teddy bear and said to practice taking pictures of her
bear..sheesh I swear.

Loni is in a school play this evening and so I called my
dh to get over here by 5:45 pm to pick him up so that
he could go to Loni's play, since Loni is the "baker".
dh has never been to any of Loni's school activities or
parent teacher conference, so I think this would be a
great time to bond with his son. They get back and
he's just raving about how good Loni did his part and
I'm just glad that he finally got to go and see how his
son is doing in school! Too bad, Nesi and I are sick
or we would've gone as well.


Wednesday, March 10th:

I decided to take Loni and Nesi to the mall to watch
Percy Jackson and The Lightening Thief, right after Loni
got off the school bus. We got there and took pictures of
them by a Spongebob Candy Machine that was the size
of a car. Then spent $14 bucks on two drinks and a pop
corn, yikes. I did a silent scream, thinking I should've
brought some cheap snacks from home.The kids were
excited and so did I, I pulled out my camera and started
taking my shots of them, until they said,"no more, mom!"
The movie was awesome, the kids loved watching it.
They asked if we could come back to watch Alice in
Wonderland on Friday. We'll see about that one.

Journal Entry for Thursday, March 10th

Image: BlackBird Ballard

It's been what a week or two? yes, I need to catch 

up on a lot of things. So we got the refund on Friday

and what did I do with it? Well, I knew we had to 

pay our rent since the last day to have it in is the 5th.

So I paid our rent $940, paid the electricity bill $260, 

bought a $299 laptop/notebook for Ami, went shopping 

for meat to stock up in the freezer which was about $160

something, filled the car for $60. Treated the kids 

out to Jack In The Box for $30 which is pretty 

rare and never should've happened, since I'm trying

to pinch pennies. lol.. snatched up this pine bunkbed 

at Walmart for $189..that's a deal. bought me a shirt 

for $13 while we were there and some clothes and 

backpacks for the kids which ran us about $388 to

gether with a new vacuum and console table for the 

living room.  I paid our fast offering on Sunday. which 

felt really good.

So that's what happened over the weekend. This 

morning I just rose up at 6:30 am to get Loni ready

for school and will clean house. I didn't tell you that

two weeks ago I received my order from Avon and

remember when I said that my goal was to pass out

400 books was going to happen? well, somehow 

my order got messed up and I ended up with 1000

books and over 30 boxes of books from Avon. 

I'm still trying to get those all passed out. sheesh, 

I don't think I'll ever try that one again. DH is 

really upset over the books and boxes piled up in 

our living room. so lately I have spent sleepless

nights staying up and writing my info. on each book.

Which hasn't been good for my blogging,

so far I've only passed out 300 books. Looks like

I have to make a call to return the rest of the books

since I don't have the time to finish passing them 

out. lol..I have reviews that still need to be posted

and products that need to be tested. I got two done

yesterday and posted up..which I'm really happy 

about. How is your week going?

Goods in The Mail Today...

I always look forward to 

getting new goodies in the

mail, especially if they're 

from General Mill's Pssst..

program. 

They gave me several $1.25 off coupons to pass out 

to my friends to try the new Chocolate Cheerios. Not

a bad deal:) Got some more new magazines to read up

on. Did I mention that's one of my faves, is to read mags?

Got in some more Huggies and Pampers mailers with 

great coupons inside. Will pass it on to one of my

bffs with babies. 

Cake Bake Proposition

Isin't this cake stunning? Yes,
it's from Martha Stewart Living.

I was approached last Sunday by our
Relief Society Board to create a cake
for the RS Birthday Celebration on
March 19th. They asked me for a price
and I told them I would get in touch.

They were looking at something in
this range but Gold and Royal Blue.

I asked them what flavors they
wanted and they're letting me choose
it. But The would love just 3 cakes
like this one. Nice and elegant.

Somebody asked if it was going to be fruit cake. I almost lost my footing and did
a double take and said, no. It'll either be red velvet cake, lemon cake or a rich
dense apple cake. Still thinking on the fillings. We're also decorating the gym too.

So that's covered as I spoke with Lani [our YW president] and the YW will be
decorating. I asked if it's for the evening and they said, yes. It will be wheeled
in during the dance. hmm, that makes me nervous. I'd rather have it done and
set up at a table instead.

I've been going over the materials I'll need to make this happen and getting
tons of tips from master baker websites. Do you have any tips that you'd like
to share? I'm all ears and would love to hear back from you.

Journal Entry for Friday 2/12

Got Loni ready for school and his Valentine's cards
[Harry Potter] and his treats bagged up ready to go
this morning. He came back from school a happy
camper and talking about how much fun he had.

My gums are finally healing up and I'm now able to start eating solid foods. It was
going crazy for 4 or 5 days not being able to eat like
everyone else in the household and as much as I'd
like to take my meds and sleep in. It wasn't happ
ening.

I lost about 6 pounds within the 5 days I was on
the liquids and soups only requirement. Today I
just went crazy on the white rice and hamburger
helper I made for the kids. Yes, I kinda regret it
after the fact. But, I actually felt full and knocked
out after.[not good]

I just put the kids to bed and just feel peaceful that
the house is quiet and I get to blog or blog hop for
about an hour or two [it's now been 3 hours] and
the dishes in the kitchen are calling my  name as
well as my coupons that are still spread out in the
living room on the couch. The bathrooms need to
be cleaned and I just can't stand to look at anything
right now.

It's now 1:05 am. I can't sleep and I'm thinking
about baking the brownies the kids kept asking me
to bake earlier [trying to avoid being around the
temptation] so that they can cut out heart brownies
for their dad for Valentine's day.

Finally paid our rent today since we got paid from
a job we did. So that takes some stress off my
list of things to get done. I got a load going in the
washer and one in the dryer. So far, so good.

Stepping away to go load up the dishwasher and   
get that going, while I put my coupons in  a shoe
box til' I get to it in a couple of hours.