More Faves

These are a few (more) of my favorite things:

1. Crayola Floating Art Desk:
Kalia has been bored with bathtime lately, and in an effort to make it more fun, I bought her this for 9 bucks at Wal-Mart. She LOVES it, and it's amazing how the crayons will draw on the desk when wet, but then it washes right off when you rub it with water. And the big purple and red crayons on the sides are storage compartments. She almost has more fun putting stuff in them than anything else. 2. The Proper Care and Feeding of Marriage:
Thank you Emma, for recommending this book. I have never listened to Dr. Laura or read any of her books, but this one has made a HUGE impact on our marriage and I just love this book. Remember my post about complaining? It has really helped me change my ways. BIG TIME. She's so blunt and straightforward, but really quite accurate. It surprised me how often the women she described...sounded just like me. I recommend it to everyone.

3. Olay Moisture Replenishing Mousse Cleanser:

This is a mousse cleanser from Olay. I got the moisturizing one (it is NOT oil-free, just so you know) but I need some moisture in this desert. I have to say, washing my face with a mousse is FUN! And it makes my face soft. If you use this, just use a tiny bit, it goes a long way.

4. L'oreal Infallible Never Fail Lip Gloss.

Website says: "Longwearing lipgloss in only one step! No touch-ups. No top coats. No Feathering. No Fading. Hydrating formula keeps lips soft, smooth, colorful and glossy for six shining hours." They aren't kidding. This stuff is great! It didn't get sticky until about the 6th hour. Stayed on amazingly. This is not kiss-proof though. They have another Infallible product that is, and it works really well too. Watch for the Buy One Get One Free sales to try them!

5. KY Warming Jelly:

This stuff is the greatest on the planet. Thanks to Amy J. for sending it to me right after I got married.

6. Dreyers (or Edy's if you live in the South/East) Slow Churned Ice Cream: Take the Cake:

Thanks to my cousin Holly for reminding me about Slow Churned Ice Cream! We tried out Take The Cake this week and OH MY WORD, I think it is challenging Cold Stone's Cake Batter for BEST EVER! The best part is that it has 1/2 the fat and 1/3 the calories of regular ice cream, and I cannot even tell one tiny bit. So I ate twice as much. Oops.

7. Best new addition to Google Reader: http://365daysofcrockpot.blogspot.com/

Thanks Mel, for letting me know about this one! A girl is posting a crockpot recipe EVERY day for a year! Crockpotting (is that a word?) is so easy, it's about the only way I'm cooking these days. And these recipes are really easy, most of the stuff I have on hand, and she gives the recipes a review (1-5 stars) after she makes them. Seeing the recipes on google reader every days just makes it that much eaiser to think about starting dinner earlier.

Money Money Money

I know absolutely nothing about the stock market. I don't really know what the NASDAQ or Dow Jones is...and I just found out that I can only buy stock between 6 and 1 p.m. Vegas time, since that's 9-4 on Wall Street. Did you know that? Well, I am learning a few little things because we are investing in the stock market for the first time in our lives. I know a lot of people (some members of my family included) have lost a TON of money on the stock market right now. I feel terrible for them, but rumor has it that if you leave your money alone, eventually it will go back up and your money will be back.

Well, we just bought 600 shares of this certain stock, and as soon as the rest of our money transfers over, we're buying about 1500 more. I found a website that only charges $4.50 per trade to do it (zecco.com). The company is called Lifevantage, and their stock is only 45 cents a share right now. (update: It climbed to .60/share today). However, we happen to have some information that leads us to believe that this stock is going to TAKE OFF in the next few months!!

I've heard of Insider Trading, and I know Martha Stewart went to jail for it. I'm pretty sure that what I'm doing is not that, but I better go googling and find out (just googled...looks like we're okay here.) Now, I am about to explain WHY we are buying it, and I am telling you this because I would want someone to tell me this if they knew it. Maybe you can make some money off the stock market too! (And to me...that just feels like free money.) If you are not interested in that, then don't waste your time reading any more (cause this is going to be a little long), but I will seriously kick myself if this stock takes off, we make a lot of money, and I didn't tell anybody about it before it happened.

This company, Lifevantage, has a product out on the market called PROTANDIM. It's been on the shelves of GNC and other stores (as well as online, like at vitasprings.com). Protandim, in a nutshell, is breakthrough in anti-aging. It's an herbal supplement (there are five herbs: Tumeric, Milk Thistle, Green Tea, Ashwagandha, and Bacopa) and apparently a doctor has been working for 40 years to get JUST the right balance of each herb. When you have the perfect ratio, supposedly this supplement causes your body to produce a ton of natural antioxidants, like, way more than you could ever get from eating anti-oxidant rich foods. Now, without going into a huge science course, your body has to deal with something called Free Radicals. They are BAD. They make us age and as they break down they cause something called Oxidative Stress. Oxidative Stress is the cause of over 200 diseases. Antioxidants fight free radicals, and lower oxidative stress. That's why you hear all about the importance of eating blueberries, pomegranate juice, etc. As we age, our body produces less and less antioxidants, thus, our bodies deteriorate and disease often sets in.

Okay, back to Protandim. This stuff has clinical studies that have been published in scientific journals (very important) showing that it reduces oxidative stress by 40% in everyone, old and young. It brings your oxidative stress level to that of a 20-year old, or younger. They call it "patent-pending", and I looked into it, it's true, there are two patents on this product.

Well, Lifevantage has been around for years, but they have not been able to market the product very well. Nobody knows what it is or what it does. So they decided to adopt a multi-level-marketing platform to increase sales and get the word out on what it does. Samuel's cousin approached us about it, even though we NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER join multi-marketing things. We hate sales and don't have the personality to do them. But because of Samuel's cousin's success in another company, he was approached to help found this new marketing campaign, so he was one of the first to know what was going to be happening...and he shared the news with us. The news has rocked our world and kept us awake at night.

Samuel's cousin is very successful at network marketing. He knows a hot opportunity when he sees it. (And by the way, I just barely found out that he invested 12k in this stock!) And according to him, this is the hottest he's ever seen. If you know anything about network marketing, if you "get in" at the very beginning (or on the "ground floor") then after a few months of work and recruiting others, the money starts POURING in. Again, we've never experienced this because we hate MLM's, but we've heard all about how much money his cousin was making. So much it was obscene. And yes we were jealous. Still didn't want to join. Well, he then told us about this Protandim, and we were both like, Hmmm....we want to buy that and take it. Then he tells us that quite a few people are going to want to buy it/take it--there is a HUGE market for anti-aging products, especially if they REALLY WORK...and this one just might!! It's worked in their studies at least.) Lifevantage is recruiting people now, and you don't have to pay any money (for the next few months) if you want to get in to selling it.

We are pretty excited about this. And what I'm getting at is....we did the unthinkable and agreed to try to become distributors. It goes against the grain in every way, but the truth is, we need to get out of debt, and we would probably be complete idiots to pass up an opportunity to get in so early without having to "buy in". When I say early, I mean they haven't even done the "pre-launch yet." This just started about 3 weeks ago, so getting in now means you're at the tip-top of the pyramid. That kind of opportunity is very rare, even without a great product. Plus, like I said, you don't have to put any money down right now. So we're going to give it a try.

Now before you think I'm recruiting you, THINK AGAIN. I did a lame little effort and e-mailed a small group of people asking if they were interested in extra income. It was probably hard for them to believe, but I truly have their best interest at heart- I want everyone I know to get money from this, if they want to. A few people replied, a few of those even talked to Samuel's cousin, but the bottom line is, it was very uncomfortable, and most of those people didn't even want to hear what I had to say, as soon as I mentioned the dreaded MultiLevelMarketing cuss word. I HATE ASKING PEOPLE (FRIENDS) TO DO THIS, AND THEY HATE ME FOR ASKING! It's true! One girl, who is not even really my friend, more of an acquaintence, was SO RUDE to be about it, and it hurt my feelings. Like I said, I was never meant to be a salesperson. Men are better about saying, "It's just business."

So...we are not giving up, but because of that reaction, and the reactions of others that I consider my friends, I am NO LONGER RECRUITING and friends or family, SO REST ASSURED! YOU ARE SAFE! If we make a lot of money doing this, I know you will be happy for us to get out of debt and stuff. If we fail, you can feel glad you didn't join in! Either way, I am going to take more of a "missionary approach" and just work with people I don't know that well. Rejection, at least on my mission, was not quite as bad because they were strangers.

All right, if you're still reading this, I'm coming full circle. The stock is only .60 a share as I write this...It has tripled in the last three weeks. It doubled after Montel Williams (who was on Oprah, but didn't talk about the product) made it known that he is taking AND distributing Protandim. He is supposedly recruiting other celebritites. The stock doubles. A few years ago, ABC Primetime did a special on Protandim, it was 5 minutes long. (You can watch it here, click on the first video.) The stock shot up to OVER 15 DOLLARS A SHARE!) On May 15th (roughly) they are officially going to do the pre-launch. All the distributors also become customers. The company's sales are going to start climbing REAL FAST and so, logically, the stock will too. Do you get where I'm going with this?

I'm saying that I believe this stock is going to go up, FAST, and make people some money. If you want to buy some, GO FOR IT. The "ticker code" is LFVN. I'm making NO guarantees. You have to know when to sell it, or you won't make any money off it it. If you lose money in this, please don't hold it against me. I don't get any benefits from telling you to do this. But it would make me really happy if we all made a load of money off of this!! You are taking on all the risks of the stock market if you want to. We are definitely taking on that risk. We know that realistically we could lose our entire investment, so we are making a very small one. If we do lose it, we won't die over it. That's our take on it. I really REALLY hope it works out for us. I hope it works out for you.

Finally, since I don't really know who I am going to recruit for this, if anyone has ever tried to get you to do network marketing, will you send me their contact info? I am going to go after those people, since they already want to do it, know what I mean?? I'll repay them the favor of "bugging" people. :)

PHEW!! That was long. Now lets just watch that stock and wait...

Answer me this...

I don't know why I was wondering, but...I am!


1. What time do your kids go to bed?


2. What time to YOU go to bed?


3. How long does it take you to fall asleep?


4. When do you fit in time for a shower?


5. How many kids do you think you'll have?


6. How often do you eat ice cream?

Clothes (Follow up)

Thank you for your nice comments about the clothes. I finally made Samuel sit down and tell me what he really thought as I tried on every single thing. The verdict: I am not very good at picking out clothes for myself. DANGIT! The green shirt goes back ("it washes you out") and the yellow cardigan too ("it's not a flattering fit") and my favorite Gap pants are going back too, he said they were just too loose. The smaller size was a smidge too small, but I guess I'll be motivated to lose the last few pounds to get into them, they were so cute and comfortable. It's just sad to me that I don't know what looks good on me. I used to watch "What Not to Wear" all the time. Have I learned nothing? I guess I'll have to take Samuel along from here on out. He's gonna be thrilled.

Fun Times

Warning!! You're about to see pictures that I took of myself in the bathroom mirror!!!! I'm a nerd!!! But let me explain. I had 2 gift cards to the Gap and Banana Republic from Christmas and our American Express points....and then Jaesi sent me a 30% off coupon for this weekend only, AND we have outlet stores for both BR and Gap just 15 minutes away, so I was forced to go buy clothes JUST FOR ME (because all of that is just too good of a deal to let slip away) but you mamas out there know this is a very rare occurence to shop for yourselves, but at times must be done. (Hello run-on sentence!) I was just so excited to get so much "bang for my buck" if you know what I mean. At BR I got 7 things and the most expensive one was only $16!!

Well...I came home to three sleeping beauties, so I was hoping YOU could be excited with me (and tell me if I should keep the following:) Navy blue sweater from Gap (I just loved the cute buttons on the neckline)

Simple green t-shirt: This is way plain, but could be cute with the right accessories. I've just never been a green-wearing kinda girl, but with this new hair color, I'm trying to branch out.
BRIGHT YELLOW. My beautiful friend Kat always pulled this color off so well with her dark hair. I got this cardigan from the Gap and I'm hoping I can pull it off too...however...looking at the picture, I'm not sure. NOW GO AHEAD AND BE HONEST, I don't want to pay money (or, correction, use my Christmas gift cards and 30% off coupon) for things that don't flatter my coloring!! I got 2 pairs of pants, a belt, a necklace, a cute pair of wedges, and 6 shirts and I am feeling so spoiled. I love Banana Republic shirts too, they are the softest ever. So...yes or no on the yellow?

Okay, onto another quick family update. This week we celebrated our Anniversary. I should say our anniversary rolled around, but we didn't really celebrate it yet. In a few weeks we're trying out a new 4-star hotel (only $50 for a Sunday night stay!). I'll let you know. Some of you remember our fabulous stay at the Venetian (click here to see the pictures if you missed them.)

Anyway, my MIL blew up this picture and put it in this beautiful frame for us, and I love it. (Now...where to hang it?)

(Picture by Deb at Funny Face Photography )

Kalia seems to be better from whatever made her so sick...at least there's no more fever or throwing up. I still can't get her to eat hardly anything though, and if she's not outdoors, she is still extremely whiny and quite the cranky monster. (Could it be another tooth? Are the terrible twos hitting early? She just turned 18 months a few weeks ago, so I HOPE NOT!) She is having another "language explosion" and she makes me laugh all the time with her interpretation of words. Sometimes she just surprises me with words I've never heard her say, like the other day she pointed at her food and said (for the first time that I know of) "red, orange, green, blue". She didn't get any of the colors right. But it was still enough to make me smile. She also likes to come find me when I'm cooking or doing laundry and says, "Hep you" and she likes to pour in the detergent or stir the food...if only I could get her to FOLD LAUNDRY!! That's the "hep" I really need. So anyway, most of these pictures are from outside, since that's where she's most likely to smile. Annaliese....oh this little thing is SUCH A HAPPY BABY!! You know, during those 2 months of miserable crying I thought "I WILL NEVER GET THROUGH THIS!" but once we got the allergies taken care of, she turned into the sweetest little thing. When she hit 4 months old (last week) I decided it was time to sleep train her, using a mix of all the books I've read on the subject. I admit, we are not 100% consistent (more like 95%) so we're probably shooting ourselves in the foot (feet?) but she is doing really well, and is probably about 90% consistent in return. She cries for about 30 seconds before naps, then sleeps for 2, sometimes 3 hours. If she gets 3 naps, she will usually sleep through the night until 6 or 7 a.m., but with 1 or 2 dream feeds in there. Every now and then she will just fight it and resist and cry for an hour or two til it's time to eat, so I have to get her up. I hope I can figure that one out. She's in her own little pack and play right now (in the walk in closet. Hey, come on, it's all we've got for now! Nice and dark!) but anyway, I AM HAVING THE HARDEST TIME FALLING ASLEEP AT NIGHT. I love co-sleeping with my babies, and I miss having a warm little head in the crook of my arm.

:( Anyway, it's worth it in the end. Oh yeah, and I was wrong about the eyes. They are turning brown after all. I guess that's one little piece of me that she got, since everyone says she looks like Samuel!! Whatever!! Here's a few recent pics of her:

Bows by Alisha (she can make anything...check her out.)

Here's our stupid van. It's back. You know we aren't driving it anymore, just trying to get it fixed so we can sell it. We found it at a tow place across town. When it got stolen it was at somebody's house getting "repairs" (this guy was/is a total scammer and we got screwed there too but...you live, you learn) and we don't know if he had anything to do with the theft, but it came back with the rear bumper crunched up. Makes me so dang mad. If only we'd had the comprehensive coverage on it, we would have jumped for joy that it was stolen and we were rid of it! But on the brighter side, at least I never have to drive it again.

Well, that's all for now...INFORMATION OVERLOAD! And if you missed the last post, add me to your google reader with biglerfamilyupdates.blogspot.com

The End

Blogging Woes...

Well, I love reading blogs. I love commenting on them, and I love getting comments. My sister-in-law just started reading my blog, (she's pregnant for the first time) and she said it reminded her of the saying, "It takes a village to raise a child"...but then she said, "more like a blog to raise a child." I thought that was clever. I really feel like blogging has enriched my life. However, I've really struggled to find time to do it lately- or at least to read other people's blogs, much less comment. I think I am going to try to limit myself to an hour a day. That should be more than enough to read, comment, and write the occasional post, right? If I don't limit myself, I know I'll spend way too long, and my cleaning schedule will go to pot. So that's a new goal. I've been setting some goals and I'm trying to change bad habits (I just spent that whole weekend cleaning up my bad habits and I'm traumatized. Not really. But motivated to change.)

I think I've turned over a new leaf...the days of total chaos and craziness are mostly over (for now.) Things have really started to calm down around here and I'm really grateful for it. So, that means I finally got my google reader down to zero, but now I have to tackle private blogs next.

I was part of a "group blog update" for private blogs- basically you just tell people that you've updated your private blog, and it shows up on google reader. A lot of you have done this, and I think it's a great idea. I thought I might as well just start my own update google reader thing, since I realize a lot of you don't know the other girls in that group, and wouldn't be able to read the other blogs...is this even making sense? No, oh well.

Either way, add this link to your google reader:
biglerfamilyupdates.blogspot.com
And then you won't have to check in on my blog randomly. Google reader will let you know.

I'll do a better post later...maybe I'll tell you about how our van has been stolen, and we don't know where it is, and didn't have comprehensive coverage on it, so kiss that money goodbye (I can't think about it, it makes me sick.) And then I'll tell you how Annaliese's sleep training is going. And how Kalia got a fever of 104 and threw up all night...our first time dealing with that. But for now my hour is up and laundry is waiting.

Ahhhhhhh....

Wow, it has been a long hard weekend and can I just say it was some dang hard work and I am going to hopefully get a massage TOMORROW! My back is killing me! But it feels soooooooo daaaaaaaaaaang good to have this apartment clean. Samuel will be home any minute, but I thought you might like to see....I got a few new decorations (we are SO bad at cluttering this counter, so I hope this deters us...)And this for a wall...which I will have to have Samuel re-hang, but I wanted it lit when he walked in the door.

Here's the before picture of the clothes from the girls' closet that I had to sort:
Here's the before picture of the laundry. (I was stunned. I had NO IDEA I had accumulated so many dang girl clothes! These are not the same clothes as the ones in the bedroom, mind you.)
Here's the after picture of the closet...
And the girls' bedroom... (don't knock the decorating skills, I admittedly have none and although I do look forward to having a cutesie "girl room" one day, today is NOT the day. Not until I have a house of my own.)
And then instead of using this hutch for CLUTTER, CLUTTER, AND MORE CLUTTER, my friend Marylin helped me display my dishes that have been stuck boxes in a closet.
Now can I just give a huge shout out to Marylin, she spent SEVEN hours with me on Saturday, and I would NEVER have been able to finish if I hadn't had her help. She is the same one who took our family pictures in December, and she was so happy and willing to help me, it just amazes me. People in Vegas are so dang awesome!!

Now I just have to maintain this place, and I am DETERMINED to do it. I have a weekly housecleaning schedule so this doesn't happen again.

I think I hear Samuel pulling up now!!! My babies are home too! Yipee!!!!!!! Just in time.