Kindle Fire

I am really starting to be amazed by the popularity of my husband’s Kindle Fire with our children. I guess the fact that it shows cartoons and allows you to play games represent an obvious draw for kids. However, you could do the same on my husband’s iPod or our Playstation 3. However, they never regularly asked to use the iPod or the Playstation every day the way they do with the Kindle. Fortunately, there are a number of kid’s games and applications that are educational. Thus, hopefully their use of the device will actually help to reinforce some useful and practical skills.

floor care solution

We are in the process of completing the replacement of the existing floors in our dining room, kitchen and family room. Originally, the rooms featured an oak floor, ceramic tile and laminate, which we replaced with Brazilian cherry. I think the new floors are beautiful, but I wonder about the best floor care solution to keep them looking great.
Our home is rather large and our new floors cover well over one thousand square feet. I have seen some very elaborate commercial floor cleaning machines, but I think those might be overkill to maintain our floors notwithstanding the large space. I am guessing that all I need to do is find a good wax and polish. I suspect that the right combination will adequately address all of our floor care needs for years to come.

decorating tips

I am pretty excited about all of the progress that we have made this year with our home remodeling projects. First, we replaced our old refrigerator with a large built-in model. Then, we purchased all of the material needed to update our backsplash and some of the materials needed to remodel our basement. Over the past week, we have been replacing the old oak floors in our kitchen and dining room as well as the laminate floor in our family room. These are all huge projects, and I am excited to see how everything looks when we are done. However, I remain nervous about decorating more generally. Thus, U could really use some good decorating tips.
In addition to our home remodeling project, I continue to finance the construction of a new home for my father in the Philippines. I suspect that when it is all done, we will make it into one of our back-up holiday homes. Thus, I will need to make sure that the home is comfortable by western standards. If all else fails, or if my father chose to live elsewhere, perhaps we can find someone who counsels people regarding how to make money from your second home. That way, the house can work for or us when it is otherwise not occupied.

We need more people like him in this world!

holiday homes

It is pretty amazing to me to think about the fact that we will surpass our four year anniversary in our home later this year. One lesson that I learned is that houses are certainly not the best investments – at least not in the midst of current market conditions. It seems like we make almost weekly visits to Home Depot or Lowes to purchase some sort of home improvement items. I guess we should have known that furnishing such a large home would take both time and a lot of imagination. Although my husband usually has a pretty good idea of how he would like for a room or area to look, normally, I could use good decorating tips.
Another thing that I find rather fascinating is that I am in the process of building a house in my homeland of the Philippines. Although the home is intended to be for my father, I suspect that it will also serve a one of the holiday homes for my family. As we now have four children, I expect that hotels will soon become too expensive and we will need to rely on holiday rentals or serviced apartments for all of our trips.
One great company to use for finding and renting a holiday property would be HomeAway. You may be wondering, “why choose HomeAway.?” Well, for us, the decision was easy. First, the size of our family demands that we utilize rental properties rather than hotels. We understand from the publication called Real Homes that there are well appointed accommodations it certain places that Homeaway offers. Thus, we thought it was a no-brainer

My daughter asks me

My daughter asks me,
Mom, how can I be sure my husband someday won't cheat on me? I said, you can't be sure because all of us are capable of any sins. It helps though if you marry someone who is God fearing man. "A real Christian", You see the enemy is always there to take us away from God. That's why you just have to trust in Him and be in His words daily. Don't worry I will be your watchman.

Nap time girls

Our three youngest daughters are taking a nap right now. Although they are not really asleep, it is still nice to enjoy a bit of peace in the middle of the afternoon. I expect that I will let them get up soon and I am sure that the noise will kick-in once again just like clock-work. That said, I am hopeful that the naps can help us to avoid some of the cranky activities later in the evening as we approach bedtime. I am also hopeful that having our newborn sleep now but be awake in the hours before bedtime my help her to stay asleep when she should be asleep.

significant bill

I just got a significant bill for my hospital stay when I gave birth to my daughter last month. My husband said that it wasn’t expected, which made the bill a challenge. I remember that it was only a few months ago that my husband took my SUV in for servicing. That visit also resulting in a significant bill. In that case, the bill was well over $1200. Hopefully, now that we are past the holiday season and have received our bill from the hospital, there will be no surprises.

Talking my boyfriend into loving The New Girl

Guest post written by Deanna Bristoe
My boyfriend and I don't really agree on most of the shows that we love. He's way more into comedy and I love dramas. But, there's one comedy show that I really wanted to see this new fall season, The New Girl. Zooey Deschanel is definitely one of my style icons. I just always love seeing the cute things that she wears to premieres and big red carpet events. So I decided that I would have to make an exception to my drama rule and watch that show.
I read a lot about it online in the weeks before it premiered. While I was looking online for some of those, I ran across the site clearwirelessinternet.net. After I looked through it a little bit I decided to change over my home internet service to one of the packages that I saw on there.
My boyfriend loves the comedic elements of it, plus my boyfriend once lived with a girl that was just a friend and so I think that he understands how awkward it could be. I think it's funny, but i mostly just love Zooey.