Spillin' The Beans

Ok, so if you're a regular reader of Hosmerville you know that we've had some exciting news that we were waiting until today to share. Drumroll, please....

Today is Tom's last day at K&J Goodyear Tire (yee ha!=)!!!

AND...

on Monday he will start as manager/OWNER of Hubbard Auto Center, Service Department in Onsted!!!

This is a small business but a HUGE opportunity and we're super excited to see where it's going to take us. Tom and I are headed down there tonite to scope things out and start giving the waiting area a fresh look. We're going with a coffee house feel and hope to have it done by the time he opens Monday morning. You know~ new owner, new look.

Now, on to the little contest I had going. I have to admit, I was sweating a little bit with everyone thinking I was pregnant. Sorry to disappoint you all, but I am not. not. NOT! pregnant (and definitely not with triplets, Leslie=) There were 2 ladies that guessed correctly, Nicole and Emilie. I did an old fashioned drawing and had Austin pick a name from the bowl and he drew... Nicole. So, Nicole, if you could email me your address, I have a goody bag to mail out to you. purple(underscore)butterfly22@yahoo.com. I, of course, took pictures of the goodies, but you all know how good I am at posting fresh pics so I'll tell you that the bag includes a few of my favorite things: spring kitchen towels, B&BW hand soap, a little journal, fun pens, scrapbook ribbon, and chocolate. And a bit of shameless self promotion~ a free oil change at Hubbard's=)

But wait! There's more! Goodies (sort of) for everybody. Any blog reader that stops in to visit Tom before April 1st and mentions they heard the big news from Hosmerville can get an oil change for only $14.99 (limit 1 vehicle per household). (Yes, I really am shameless;) Happy weekend, all!

There's Still Time...

... to get in on my very first bloggy contest! I'm not spilling the beans until Friday so if you haven't guessed yet, do it! Your comments are cracking me up and there may be one (or more) that have guessed the correct answer already;) Ok, that's enough hints. Resume guessing.

Woo Hoo!!!

(this is our happy face)

Just heard from the bank and our appraisal came back a little low but still high enough to make it work! Yay! Double yay because even though the housing market has crashed we haven't lost much value these past 5 years=) I literally felt the weight of the world disappear for a moment. Still a couple of technical hurdles to cross before we finalize everything. Pray things keep going smoothly=)

My Little Man Is 6!!!

Tuesday, February 18th, 2003 @ 10:54am you made me a mommy & my life was forever changed. I love you, my Austin James!!!

~XOhugs&kissesOX~

Mommy

Stay Tuned....

BIG announcement coming soon!!!

(I wanted to do one of those fun little polls to have everyone guess as to what this was all about but Tom thinks the real answer will be obvious. So if you'd like to guess, leave it in the comments. The person with the closest answer will get a fun little goody bag. No fair guessing if you already know what's going on;) I'll make the real announcement next Friday, February 27th!

The Power Of A Good Bribe

*UPDATE*

Austin's home. He had a fabulous time. And the first thing that he said to me was, "where's my money?".

We headed out to Tom's parents' tonite for a belated birthday party for Tom with his family. Audrey had arranged earlier in the week for cousin Katy to spend the nite tonite after the party. All week long she's been asking "this today?" When she woke up this morning and found out that today was indeed "the day" she was ecstatic. We were all bundling up to head home after tonite's festivities when Austin received an impromptu invite to spend the nite at cousin Anna's. He readily accepted and Anna being so excited she was having a sleepover began to expound on all of the great things they would do. And then she mentioned about how to go downstairs during the nite if he had to go to the bathroom. How it would be dark but he could use a flashlight. And then his smile began to fade.

Suddenly he didn't want to spend the nite. He wanted to go home to sleep "in his own bed". Anna started bawling, big alligator tears rolling down her cheeks. She started listing all of the "cool" things they could do:

• we can get out George (the hamster)
• my mom will make us root beer floats
• you get to go to my basketball game tomorrow
• we can leave the lights on

Nothing could convince him to change his mind. He was determined to go home and since we were taking Katy we didn't have enough room in our van to bring Anna along, too. It looked as if Anna was going to be heading home alone with a broken heart. I was encouraging him to go. As his mom I wasn't brushing aside his fears, I just knew they were completely unfounded; and he was just being stubborn. He's spent the nite away from home lots of times before. There would really be no reason that he would have to go downstairs in "the dark" by himself. He would be sleeping with Anna in her room, not secluded off by himself somewhere. So I did what any rational mom would do. I leaned in close and whispered in his ear, "I'll pay you $5 when you get home tomorrow." *Sniff* "ok". And he was off. Crisis solved. Good nite, Jamers, I'll see you in the morning!

New Year, New Look

First off, Eddy seems to be back to his normal self. We've held off on treats to give his stomach a rest and he hasn't gotten sick since Monday morning. I made sm'ookies yesterday and let me just say... holy butterscotch chip cookies, batman!!! These things were seriously amazing! Warm from the oven with a melted milk chocolate and marshmallow filling~ yummy!!! Like a smore but better=)

Well, I promised pics of my newly painted kitchen, oh... a month ago and here they (finally) are! I picked the green color before we moved in not realizing how dark the back of the house usually is (not a whole lot of natural sunlight). About a year and a half ago we converted the what-was-the-formal-dining-room-turned-playroom back into a dining room and repainted the dark blue walls "stony mountain". It was amazing how much a new coat of paint brightened up the space. Ever since then I've been wanting to repaint the kitchen but was putting it off because I didn't want to have to paint the paneling and paint around the appliances and cabinets. I finally determined to get this project done and asked for gift cards for Christmas to help fund the expense. The paint color doesn't have a name. Tom took in a ribbon that I absolutely loved and had Home Depot color match it in their computer. The final result is a bit brighter than what I was imagining (it was closer to the ribbon color before it dried) but I love the way it gives my kitchen a whole new look. So...

BEFORE:

AFTER: Originally, this was going to be a simple paint job but Tom had this James Dean picture that we ended up putting on the big blank wall which inspired us to go "retro". See the metal magnet board under the phone? I didn't put that back up (I took it for my scrapbook room, ha ha=). We moved all of the magnets over to the garage door.

And some new kitchen accessories for our retro theme:









This is command central. I found the fabric at Jo~Ann's to cover our cork board. I'm not sure if this is "retro" but I like the print. So, what do you think?

Weekend Update

• Friday nite I pulled out all of my old The Body Shop foot tubs, towels, and product and headed over to Skiff Lake Bible Church to treat the ladies at their pj party to foot soaks.
• Tom came home from work Friday sick so I left Austin in charge for the evening. He was thrilled with his big brother responsibilities, the girls... not so much.
• Saturday morning we headed over to Austin's school for the annual Groundhog Derby cardboard sled races. I had brought Austin a ginormous orange bin home from work which he and Tom transformed into a dog house. We wrote his name Austin "Snow Dog" Hosmer over the top of the door. The kids raced in heats of 3 and as Austin lined up I could hear the other kids chanting "snow dog! snow dog!"
• I worked both days this weekend. We were super busy for the Super Bowl. Every time I walked past the bins of grapefruit I could see Austin's smiling face sticking up over the top of his "dog house".
• I'm teaching Austin's Sunday school class for the next 2 months while his real teacher is snowbirding in Florida. Usually there are approximately 3 or 4 kids every Sunday. Yesterday I ended up with 10 because my cousin who teaches the 2 & 3's was home with a sick child. And did I mention that 3 of those 10 were 4 year old triplet boys!? After a brief moment of panic, I pulled things together and got through the lesson. I had brought Audrey's pink Little People castle, king, Little People men and lions to re~enact the story of Daniel and the lions den so that totally saved me by helping keep the little kids busy for quite awhile.
• I got home last nite exhausted. Eddy was sleeping with Audrey in our bed and threw up all over the floor when he got up to greet me. Tom said he had thrown up 4 other times during the day. I was sleeping soundly when Audrey woke me up crying. I rolled over into a pile of dog puke. Somehow Eddy had thrown up all over the bed and I had slept right thru it. I cleaned it up as best I could and laid a towel over the wet spot. This morning as soon as he woke up he got sick again. I'm starting to get worried because he's never been sick like this before. He barked for the girls' leftover toast and has chowed down breakfast so hopefully he can keep this down. The last thing we need right now is an outrageous vet bill but we really just want Ed to be ok.
• I'm looking forward to doing a little baking and cooking with the girls this week. Austin used to be right alongside me in the kitchen, too, but now he prefers to play b~ball and only appears when samples are being passed out. I found a recipe for homemade oatmeal apple scones in a Rachel Ray magazine. We all love scones around here so I'm anxious to give this one a try. I also found a yummy recipe for sm'ookies. It calls for peanut butter cookies sandwiched with a chocolate and marshmallow filling. I'm tweaking it just a bit and making butterscotch cookies in place of the peanut butter. I'll let you know how they turn out;). I also want to simmer up a big pot of Beach Bar tomato soup. I'm not a huge fan of tomato soup, but Tom *loves* this stuff.
• And today's Groundhog's day. I can never remember if it's good or bad if he sees his shadow. Here's hoping spring is on its way!!!