Let's Luau!

G's little friend from school had her 5th birthday party Saturday night! She had a luau swim party at a pool and I was excited to take G! She and A have become good friends over the last year; they took dance together and even go to the same school! 

My pictures are totally out of order, but I'm just happy that Blogger uploaded them correctly! 

 Here's G and her friend, A.O., with the birthday girl, A. These initials might get confusing tonight! AO is in G's class at school, so it was nice to have another familiar face at the party!

I love that when we go to birthday parties, all the kids gather around the birthday child opening her presents, which does not help in taking good pictures!  

 Here's G and I before the party! She wore her bathing suit, and a tangerine dress. I wore a turquoise one shoulder floral dress that I found at Macy's this past spring. 

 Here's G enjoying the pool!

 And, with her friend AO. We had pizza and fruit punch with little umbrellas. The girls were thought the umbrellas were fancy, and we're teaching them early that any drink with an umbrella is one that taste so much better! 

The girls did sit and watch A open her presents, at least in the beginning!

Such a fun party! When G and I drove up, she said, "I wish my birthday was in the summer!" And, later she decided she wants a pool party (in January) rather than a bounce house party!

Happy 5th Birthday, A- thanks for inviting us!

By: Unknown On 19.09

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Blogger- HELP ME!

For the past week, my photos have been uploading like this in blogger: 

 I'd love to show you new HPA items, but thanks to blogger, for ruining all of the images. 

 Does anyone have any idea what is happening???

See how annoying this is: 

It's almost as annoying as my neighbor mowing his yard at 6:30 am this morning and waking me up.  

HELP!

By: Unknown On 12.29

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iPhone pics

Since my camera was broken, I had tons of iPhone pictures, that I thought I would just 'dump' into one blog post.

I tired to fix G's hair a little different than our normal go-to style for her; and this is what I came up with: 

It was kind of a mess. I suck at braiding hair and she wouldn't stay still, because she was excited for a friend to come over for an afternoon tea party. 

We had a movie night, and G stole my phone and started snapping pictures; she had me take a photo of her, and this is how she posed: 

We went to eat pizza last weekend; here's MC chowing down on some crackers before our pizza arrived...

MC's hair is getting longer, and crazier. Every day this week, she's come home with all sorts of stickiness in her hair, and she's had to have a bath just to get it out. Here's MC after getting up from a nap this week. 

She's also started skipping a morning nap, or just taking an hour long morning nap, and needing an evening nap after her afternoon nap. Thankfully, i've been able to cook dinner (or DJ has), but it's also thrown off her bedtime. Anywho, here's MC after getting up from her evening nap earlier this week: 

And, here's G and I eating pizza last weekend. 

Happy Friday!

By: Unknown On 12.16

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Water Fun

I have been working on this blog post since Saturday night, and every single time I try to upload pictures, blogger cuts out half of the photos and discolors every single one. So, i'm throwing my hands up. I give up.

This post is going to have about 6 or so less photos than I originally planned. Oh well.

DJ and I decided to take the girls to the water park close to our house on Saturday. It's seriously a mile away, or less, and we wanted to go last year, but MC was too young.

There were three separate pool areas. One was a kiddie pool with a little slide, the other was about a foot deep and had sprays, slides, and other fun stuff. And the larger pool had a beach out area, and 4 slides.  

We let MC have a morning nap, and we packed a picnic lunch to take with us. We spent about two hours there before heading home, and both of the girls crashed as soon as we got home!

We'll definitely be going back! G eventually warmed up to the slides and water sprays and MC was able to walk around the kiddie pool without a problem. DJ and I also took turns on the big slides!

By: Unknown On 18.38

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Pretty Words = Crazy Hair

If you know G at all, you know that she is so strong willed, stubborn, and loves to argue. (I have no idea where that personality comes from!)

We really have been working on her not arguing with us so much when we ask her to do something, or when we tell her she cannot do something. So, I devised a plan that would hopefully encourage her to not argue with us.

I purchased a Chore Chart at Target in the $1.00 section. We were able to write in our own goals and we decided to start on two. One of them was fairly easy, and included her cleaning up. The other one, was using "pretty words". I didn't want to state it in the negative form, so we came up with "pretty words" rather than no arguing.

At the end of every day, if she did not argue and if she cleaned up when asked, she would earn a sticker. We wrote down our two goals through the bottom of the sticker chart, and counted up that she would have 40 days to earn her reward, which, she chose. We decided that if she could be successful for 35 of the 40 days, we would purchase her toy.

She saw the LaLa Loopsy Silly Hair doll on t.v. and said that she wanted. So, I knew that she would be motivated to improve her behavior in order to earn the toy.

There were a few days that she would miss her 'clean up' sticker and there was one day where she missed both stickers. She still argued, but it was much less than she had previously been doing. I also found that I was able to say, G, you're arguing, and she'd instantly stop. Those were pretty powerful words.

We are going to continue a sticker chart for her behavior. I think i've tried everything in the book, for discipline and positive reinforcement, and a sticker chart continues to be very reinforcing for G. I'll again let her choose her reward, but this time we're going to guide her to something a little less expensive. This doll was $35.00! I had no idea how much it cost when we saw it on t.v., but, it was what was reinforcing at the time. I think we're going to work more towards a movie night at the theatre, trip to the park, or ice cream!

What rewards have you tried for your child? Have you had to purchase something super expensive because it was reinforcing?

By: Unknown On 05.00

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SONY X-PLODE 6.5" RM70

By: Unknown On 07.45

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SONY SPEAKER X-PLODE 6X9 RM100

By: Unknown On 07.44

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Lake fun in iPhone pics

We went to the lake for Father's day weekend to see DJ's dad and stepmom and to just get away for a while. Our camera was at the repair shop (remember, it broke in the move) so all of these photos were taken with my iPhone, and of course, they uploaded out of order. So, just bare with me!

We took G's fishing pole that she received on Easter so she could fish off Pops' deck. 

On Saturday, pops and grandma Dee had to go out of town, so we invited my mom, stepdad, brother, sister in law, and their daughter to come up for Saturday and Sunday. It was so sweet of DJ's dad and stepmom to let my family come up while they were away! We did some shopping in downtown Hardy and ate ice cream Saturday afternoon. The babies took naps while we boated (my mom and stepdad stayed to watch them) and then we all went boating again, and swam off the dock while DJ and I cooked dinner.

^ MC and I on the boat. 

Pops has a "sand" box at his house, and G was automatically drawn in. She got so dirty! But, she had so much fun!

MC had a love hate relationship with the boat, well, really with her life jacket. 

G did so good swimming in the lake!

You can't see G's face in this picture, but on our way out of town, we had to stop for lunch. The only place to stop between Tulsa and Joplin, is this McDonald's that is on a bridge over the interstate. So, here's G with the interstate below her. 

DJ and G did some fishing & this is her very first fish she's caught!

They enjoyed swimming off the boat!

And MC enjoyed swinging!

Here's MC and I before heading out to the boat. 

G loves to drive the boat! She jumps in the drivers seat anytime she gets a chance!

DJ let MC take a turn driving too. 

So, this was taken as we were leaving on Friday, this was about a mile from our house.... We pulled closer to the intersection, and saw a man circling a car with a gun pulled. Thankfully, DJ had the sense to stop a few hundred yards away, and all I could think was that someone was going to get shot. We realized it was a police officer circling the car and then saw a man get out. He was immediately escorted to the back of a police car, and then we saw more officers and more doors opening. Within a few minutes traffic was allowed to move, and we realized there was at least 7 police cars and tons of officers and detectives. We still have no idea what happened, but it was pretty scary to see. 

I took this picture of G as we were leaving- she was pretty excited to head to the lake!

On Father's day, we took an evening boat cruise and grilled steaks. I loved that MC and Bailey were both looking out the front of the boat. MC loves Bailey; she feeds her from the table. It's so cute!

G even had some fun pushing MC in the swing.

Sorry, these pictures were horrible quality and so out of order, but we had a great Father's day weekend at the lake! We go back over the 4th and i'm so excited to spend another 4 days on the lake and visiting with family!

By: Unknown On 07.00

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Family Movie Night

Friday night we went out for pizza and then rented two Redbox movies and came home for a family movie night! We've been so busy that we haven't been able to just hang out and enjoy each other as a family in a few weeks. We had a family movie night in April and G had been begging to have another one. 

We let G choose her movie and DJ and I chose "We bought a Zoo".

 If you plan on getting a Redbox anytime soon, do not get Kiara the Brave! G made the lovely choice, and honestly, I can't tell you much of what it was about, but it was 70 minutes of pure torture. I enjoyed snuggling with G on the floor, but the movie was just plain bad. 

 After a while, I looked up and DJ was on his phone, headphones in, and watching videos on you tube. Seriously, it was that bad. 

 After the torture ended, we popped some popcorn, I got on the computer for a bit, and we started "We Bought a Zoo." I would highly recommend that movie. 

Despite the first movie, the night was fun and we enjoyed being together!

By: Unknown On 19.09

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IRIDIUM SPARK PLUG RM140

Ignitability That's a Cut Above

With DENSO's very own U-Groove ground electrode for better spark performance

To increase ignitability, the important point is to let the flame kernel caused by the spark to grow to a large size. Normally, this can be accomplishing by widening the spark gap, however this causes spark voltage to increase, which has the opposite effect. IRIDIUM POWER uses DENSO very own U-Groove ground electrode to realize a superb ignitability while maintaining spark voltage at low levels.

Improved Horse Power(1)

Get more power with an optimal combustion cycle.

IRIDIUM POWER has a low required voltage and a high ignitability, resulting in less misfiring and no spark, the outcome being a dramatic improvement in combustion. Engine output is thus increased. The findings of a bench test using a motorcycle engine to show the improved combustion from IRIDIUM POWER is shown on the below. Compared to normal plugs, a 0.5ps (1.4%) improvement is seen in output at 110km/h.

Improved Acceleration

Increased response and acceleration performance.

IRIDIUM POWER best demonstrates its performance improvement during acceleration.IRIDIUM POWER has a 0.4 mm diameter iridium center electrode and a specially shaped ground electrode. These features combine to achieve higher ignitability and require lower spark voltage than ever before. This enables high-response driving with fewer misfires than under higher required voltage spark conditions, and fewer misfires when ignitability is difficult. As a result, acceleration improves in comparison with normal plugs.

Improved Horse Power(2)

The 0.4mm center electrode increases output under various driving conditions.

The power produced by the 0.4mm dia. iridium center electrode is IRIDIUM POWER unmatched by other plugs. The graph below compares the resulting power when IRIDIUM POWER is installed compared to other high performance plugs. Using a 0.4mm dia. fine center electrode, there is more power compared to 0.8mm and 2.5mm dia. plugs. This is what makes the difference in acceleration and in your lap time.

Improved Fuel Mileage

Even during idling ignition is assured, with less fuel consumption and less noise.

The good ignitability from the fine electrode (0.4mm) of IRIDIUM POWER draws out much more performance from the engine. Comparing a normal plug (W20FS-U) with an IRIDIUM POWER(IWF22) on a 2 cycle 50cc engine, fuel consumption improved from 41.74km/L -> 43.69km/L, an improvement of about 5%. Note: Mileage measured using a chassis dynamo; actual driving results under normal conditions may vary.

The Secret behind DENSO's Iridium Patent!

Plug electrodes conventionally have used nickel and platinum. These were not pure metals, but alloys containing other metals. Depending on the composition of the alloy, the matrix material's properties can be maximized. Using the same approach, iridium is alloyed with rhodium. The rhodium layer covers the iridium, improving the properties of the iridium. This iridium/rhodium technology was recognized by the Patent Offices of Japan and the UK, and in January 1999, a patent was granted in each respective country. (Patent Number - Japan: 2877035, UK: 2302367). Because DENSO had this patented technology, DENSO was able to make dia. of the iridium down to 0.4mm.
The most important things for plug performance are ignitability and sparkability. To make the electrode as fine as possible is the goal of spark plug manufacturers worldwide, and DENSO has taken the lead, succeeding the commercializing the 0.4mm dia. center electrode plug.

The finer the electrode, the more concentrated the electrical potential and the stronger the electrical field strength becomes, leading to a lower required voltage. This results in a steady combustion in a variety of driving conditions, and better starting and acceleration for the engine.

A Pattern from Spark to Ignition.

Electrodes have a quenching (cooling) affect (where the heat of the ignited flame kernel is taken away by the electrode). This cooling affect is greater with larger electrodes, sometimes causing the ignition to stop short of the stage in Figure 4. To improve ignitability, the contact area between the electrode and the flame kernel must be reduced. Improved ignitability is why IRIDIUM POWER electrodes have been made fine as possible.

By: Unknown On 05.43

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