I can not believe how quickly my little Kylee is picking up the skill of crawling, she is EVERYWHERE!  It scares me to death because she has a strange fascination with the stairs now.  She can climb up, and... I'm not really excited to see if she can climb down.  I admit, I'm a nervous mother and vividly remember Katie making her way to the stairs the two seconds my back was turned and yes... fell all the way down, stopping on our tile landing.  :(

Kylee has only been crawling two weeks, and is perfecting the skill rather quickly.  I don't know if I'm quite ready for her to be mobile but ready or not... it's that time.

I am CONSTANTLY stopped at the store as people gasp and admire my Kylee's big beautiful blue eyes.  Pictures don't quite do them justice, if you've seen her you know, she has these big piercing blue eyes that catch you off guard because it feels like she is looking into the depths of your soul.  And perhaps she is :)

Kylee has another strange obsession with dog bones.  Anytime Beanie leaves one laying around, once she catches sight of it, she makes a beeline for it (in fact the first time she crawled she was after a dog bone).  This is the look on her face when I took the dog bone she was trying to get.

It's true what they say, if you want your kids to eat well it is IMPERATIVE that you eat well too.  I can never get Katie to eat healthy foods, unless I am eating it and she is taking it away from me. Veggies are a different story, we have to dangle some form of garbage food (cookie, cake, brownie, goldfish etc.) and tell her if she eats her veggies she can have a little.  That is quite literally the only way I have successfully been able to get her to eat veggies.

Kylee learned to clap a few weeks ago and she LOVES to do it

Kylee loves our little dog too :)  I'm glad my kids like animals... except for peanut, Katie HATES my brother and sister in-law's dog peanut who is a bit snippy and will attack unprovoked (snipped at my baby Kylee the other day who was heart broken but had forgotten about the incident after about three minutes).  Poor Katie has nightmares about that dog, but it's good for her to know not all dogs are nice and it's good to be careful.

We have been enjoying this nice warm weather.  Katie would spend all day outside if she could :)  That makes me happy, I am really paranoid about having my kids feeling like they NEED TV, or iPhone games.  I avoid those things when at all possible because I want my kids to learn to be creative in the ways they have fun.  Memories aren't built in front of the TV, I want them to look back on their childhood and have fond memories about all the fun things they did, not all the shows they would watch (but technology sure is helpful when Kylee is sleeping and I am in need of a shower, keeps Katie occupied long enough).

I tried making my blog private for like a week, but was just having too many problems with family members who do not have a blogger account not being able to access it so... no more private blog. Oh well

We are cutting every possible financial corner we can so as to keep our student loans as low as we can. The first thing we wanted to do was eliminate as much debt and monthly costs possible. Getting rid of a car payment was the first item of business. The best option was to sell my already paid off car, to help pay off our newer more reliable car. Jeff got an Auto Trader estimate of 3100, and we were pleased with that because we would only have to take about 2000 out of savings to pay it off.
Low Book Sales called us, telling us they usually like to beat Auto Trader by at least a couple of hundred dollars. We made an appointment and took our car in. The sales person (who was not aware of Low Book's new deal with Auto Trader) offered us 2200, take it or leave it. We were outraged, especially since they called us saying they wanted to try and beat it. My car was in GREAT condition and I was not about to sell it for 900 dollars less that what we had originally planned. I told the sales person there was absolutely no way, and that I would just sell it on KSL. He told me while you can always get more selling it yourself, you have to wait quite a while for it to sell. We decided to take our chances and we listed it for 4500 online. Before Jeff even had time to post pictures of the car we had 3 calls and someone on their way with cash to take a look, and yes 1 hour later SOLD... double the price.
A few days later that same sales person called us, and told us he was just made aware of their deal with auto trader and would offer the full 3100 we originally planned, to which we responded TOO LATE :)
Jeff's grandmother passed away a while ago, and his family was just recently able to sell her home and so Jeff's parents gave some money to their kids.
Here's the good part: With the money we sold my car for and the money Jeff's family had given us we only had 1.26 left to pay, and so we rummaged through some coins and took it all to the bank. Not a single dime out of savings.
We thought being a one car family would be annoying so Jeff found a good scooter for a great deal and purchased that, took a test to get his motorcycle endorsement. He plans on taking that to school in good weather, which will also help us save on gas since it gets 80 miles to the gallon.
We're feeling blessed!!! Things are working out and I am so thankful, all I can say is the church is true and it is a blessing to pay our tithing :)

Whew, that may have been boring to some but quite exciting for us. Now past the boring part and on to some fun spring pictures. Unfortunately all of the pictures from our Easter egg hunts are on our extended family member's cameras, thanks to our SD card that decided to go corrupt. But here's what I do have:

My mother-in-law made matching Easter dresses for the girls :)

The scooter

Katie and Kylee had a fun time playing the boxes from our shed .Fortunately it entertained them long enough for us to finish (with a nap in there somewhere too).

It was fun to watch them. Honestly that was more entertainment than any toy has been EVER

Kylee has a new fetish, the car seat. She like me to set her in unbuckled, give her the buckles to play with and let her go to town. If I pull her out before she is ready she throws a fit. Strange little girl of mine

 

 Forgive me for the quality of pictures, they were taken on my phone.

Katie has a new hobby also, she likes to "babysit" Kylee.  She has me put Kylee with some toys in the crib and she'll sit and play with her.  The catch, I have to "go away" so she can babysit.

I sit in the next room and listen in.  Usually after about 10 minutes Katie is done and starts bullying little Kylee.

Isn't it funny how a toy seems far more appealing when it's in someone else's hands?  Poor Kylee, she can not grab any toy without Katie suddenly deciding she wants it.  We're having a real battle teaching Katie to share with her baby sister.  Well get there.... right?

 

Katie sees her dad working on the computer at night, She opened it up today during Kylee's nap.  I asked Katie if she wanted to play in the toy room with me.  Her response, "One second mom, I'm busy typing. I will in a little while"  LOL crazy girl.  She's fun and always keeps me smiling

My girls

Kylee playing at Grandma's house

Love my cute Kylee

Katie got to help her grandma and I make homemade noodles

It was messy but fun

Here are some pictures I just found:

Katie at the aquarium

Kylee didn't care much, she was just happy to be out and about

Lunch with Derek for the last time (this was back in Feb, but I just located the pictures today):