Raising Awareness

Alzheimer’s Disease is such a heartbreaking disease that seems to take over many people every day. I have not had to deal with this in my family yet, and I hope that I never have to. I’ve had friends with grandparents that have been diagnosed with this horrible disease and it breaks my heart.

Awareness needs to be made about this and what better way than the Alzheimer’s Memory Walk. There are walks in over 600 communities in our nation and finding out if there is one in your area to raise awareness so that we can find a cure for this awful disease.

I personally could not imagine one day having my mom not remember who I am. Can you? Could you imagine looking into your husband or wife’s eyes and having them ask you who you are? Like the movie The Notebook ~ how heart breaking.

There is a way to raise awareness, and I hope that you check out the Alzheimer’s Memory Walk so that we might prevent ever having to go through this with our loved ones.


Sponsored by Alzheimer's Walk

It’s Fixed!

After 10 hours of being on the phone with Dell, my company files for Quickbooks being lost then found and many tears shed, I am happy to say that my computer is fixed. I’ve been using my Grandma’s in the meantime, so technically it wasn’t like my life crashed along with the computer. I was still able to waste all my time online and pretend like I’m working hard.

Highlights of today: I will get to take pictures of a brand new, precious baby girl.

I will post pictures up when I’m done along with her birth announcement that I’m designing.

Getting Out of Debt is IMPORTANT!

It seems that nowadays in this world of ours we are solely leaning on credit. Credit has taken over so many people’s lives, and destroyed families. We learned young, and I’m so thankful that we did.

When I turned 18 my mailbox was flooded with approved credit card applications. I applied for probably every single one of them, and got approved and then went shopping. Unfortunately, Gino also lost his job, so then we lived off of our credit cards. We were a mess! Luckily, we were able to do a Debt consolidation and get our lives back on track.

Since our Debt relief we have found a new way to live, which requires much planning together and sacrifices. Our new motto is if we don’t have the cash to buy it, then we can’t have it. We actually have made a dream list and work towards the things that we want. We make sure that we budget our bills, our eating out, our groceries, our fun, basically anything we make sure that it’s budgeted before we do it, or buy it.

There is a wonderful website that will help you with financial advice and help if you are in need of Debt help. BillIQ is a great website, and it’s free. Can’t beat that, right? We all love free, especially if we’re in a sticky financial situation. If you’re over your head they can help you to Consolidate debt , and from personal experience, it’s a great way to go.
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Sponsored by Bills.com

Family Home Evening – Extended Families

It’s a beautiful Monday. Church yesterday was very inspiring and the lessons that were taught had me really thinking. We’re going to try to get back into the swing of things and start back up Family Home Evening. For this week I was thinking about reaching out to our families that live so far away. The families that don’t have internet access. The families that have no idea about our family.

We’re going to work on a family letter and Jayden will draw pictures and we’ll print out pictures and get ready to send them off. It’ll be a fun little family project.

For our lesson we’re going to talk about the importance of family and our extended families. Jayden is starting to understand these things, so I think it’s important to discuss it. I’m going to work on a family tree with pictures. Something that would be fun ~ we can build it up to who’s still alive. On my side we still have 5 generations. It’ll be a fun lesson & project.

For our treat we’re going to do ice cream.

For more information on Family Home Evening CLICK HERE. It is such a wonderful way to build a strong, loving home.

Happy Birthday, Mitch

20 years ago today my baby brother was born. I miss him so much and wish that I could spend this day with him. I hope that his day was filled with happiness as that’s how our birthdays are supposed to be. Through it all, Mitch, I’ve always loved you more than you know. Happy Birthday, baby brother.

The breakdown of My Day


My birthday was wonderful. It started out with a party with my friends from church. It was much fun and I had probably the best cake I’d ever eaten before. It’s called ‘Better than sex cake’ yeah… pretty darn good.

Then my friend Emily and I took our babies to Lithia Park to play with my camera. We got AMAZING shots and it got me beyond excited. I can’t wait to learn about the true potential this thing has inside of it. Here’s a couple of pictures I took. I think Emily is going to let me do their family pictures. I can’t wait!


After I parted my ways with Emily I headed over to pick up Jayden from his camp and then went out to pizza with my dad, Lili (his wife), Alyssa, Tiona & Rocky (Lili’s brother). Amazingly, I had a lot of fun! Afterwards, Gino finally got off of work and came over to my dad for cake. Then I took the girls home with me for a sleepover.

Great day huh? There’s more!

First off Gino surprised me with Diamond earrings. They’re beautiful and I can’t believe what a wonderful husband I have.

The topper on the whole day ~

my wonderful friend Jen got me a gift certificate to a day spa in Ashland. I have NEVER been to a day spa and have always wanted to go to one. Jen ~ thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are an amazing friend and you made my day! And the flowers are beautiful no matter what you say 🙂

So, here’s to another great year!

Happy Early Birthday to ME!

Today I got spoiled. I got 2 things that I’ve been wanting for a really, really long time! First thing I got was a Canon EOS Rebel XSI 450D camera. OMGoodness!!!!! I have always wanted a really nice camera, and now I have one! I have no idea about anything about it, but I learn quick. I’m going to be reading through the manual and I’m planning on taking a class on digital photography. So, now everyone gets to read about my fun times with my new hobby in the making – PHOTOGRAPHY!!

The topper on the cake…. I got an Epson 1400 printer. I can now print out my 12×12 layouts. I can’t wait to hook it up and print out a layout and see how they really look printed out. I’m refraining myself from doing this until I clean up my kitchen. I know once I open that box it’s all over.

It gets even better…… what makes me happier than anything??? Olive Garden!

We celebrated my birthday today, because Gino is working 10am-7pm tomorrow. It’s a crappy schedule to work on my birthday 🙁

My friends at church are throwing a birthday party for me tomorrow, so that will make my day!! I might even bring my camera and get some good pics of my new friends and I. I love those girls so much! I am so lucky to live in such a wonderful ward.

After the party I’m going to take the kids to Lithia Park and take pictures.

White Noise

When the first White Noise movie came out I watched it with my brother. We were scared to death! That is one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen. The idea of the whole thing scares me. I don’t like thinking that spirits can try to communicate with us through air ways, while it’s kinda neat, it’s scary.

Yesterday I was on the phone w/Dell for HOURS and while I was in my room I heard some talking. It sounded like people talking on a walkie talkie. At first I thought ~ is there cops or something in my house? So I walk out of my room and hear that it’s coming from Jayden’s room. I walk in and it stops. I looked around and couldn’t find anything that this noise could come from.

Last night I get in bed and I’m laying there when all of a sudden I hear it again. My heart dropped and I said, “Gino, it’s happening!” I had told him about it earlier. He gets up and goes into Jayden’s room to find that it’s coming through his TV. He said it sounded like Spanish and he turned off his TV.

First off, I didn’t know Jayden’s TV was even on. It was just a black screen, so that makes no sense to me. Secondly, that scared the CRAP OUT OF ME! Gino got back in bed and said, “Amanda, don’t even think about it. It’s not what you think.”

Hmmm…. it’s not? How does he know. He came up with the conclusion that Jayden just has this amazing TV (thanks, Disney!) that can pick up conversations maybe on a CB radio. Then he decided that maybe it’s the Mexicans making their drug deals. Okay, so he watched Bank Job last night, and I’m thinking he got that idea from that movie. I’m still stuck on my original idea.

Is Gino’s Spanish speaking, Mexican ancestors trying to get through to him?? I’m a little scared here. I’m tempted to go upstairs and turn on the TV and see if anything happens, but I’m too chicken. White Noise scared me to death, I bet I’d actually die of a heart attack if that really happened to me.

A little of this and that

My computer is on the outs. It all started with that minor little printing problem, which turned into a total between 2 days of 6 hours on the phone with Dell and a laptop with nothing on it. Luckily, I went and bought an external hard drive and put everything that’s needed on it. I went and picked up my Grandma’s laptop and now I’m back to work.

I anticipate another few hours with Dell today, and if they don’t fix it I’m demanding a new computer. That’s what warranty is all about, right?

Changing subject here:

Last night I was going to go to the first book club meeting at our church and was sadly EXTREMELY excited about it. However, we’re at the store and Ella throws up all over herself. I feel her head and I swore she was burning up. So, we’re off to buying pedialyte and pediapops and stuff to make her feel better ~ preparing for the flu. So, I call Miss Amy Hill and let her know that I will not be showing up and we’re off to home to deal with a sick baby. So, we get home and guess what ~ no fever and she’s not sick. Lovely.

New subject again…………:

My birthday is on Thursday!!!! And I’m getting a new camera!! I’m going to pick it out today and I’m just not sure yet what I want to do. I could either go with a Nikon or a Canon Rebel. Right down the street from my house is a camera shop and I’m going to go and have him explain them to me today. Pretty soon you’ll see beautiful pictures of my babies (not that you haven’t already LOL)

Unhappy

I’m not happy. Today I’m not happy AT ALL! I got my hair done yesterday and this is something that I’d been waiting to do for a while. Unfortunately it turned out NOTHING like I expected and have to decide whether I call the girl who did it and have her fix it, or do I go to another salon? I’m so upset over this.

I don’t let people do my hair ~ I have 1 girl, in Sac and she does a PERFECT job, and it’s really hard to let anybody else touch my hair. Every time I get my hair done else where it’s a disaster (Ksee if you’re reading this I loved the job you did). My hair looks yellow w/roots ~ Ewwww. I just want to cry.

Then, to top things off, I have SO much work to do and now my computer decides that it can’t communicate with my printer. WTF?!?!?!? I feel like jumping up and down and cussing and throwing things. This day is so stupid.