Applicant #13: Cassie Betts

Cassie Betts is a mom from Lynnwood.

My video application:

Find me online:

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A bit about me:

I am a 27 year old Mom from Lynnwood. My fiance and I meet when we were just kids in a trailer park in Duvall. You can take the girl out of the trailer park but, can't take the trailer park out of the girl. We were reunited 3 years ago and feel instantly in love. We found out we were expecting shortly after our 1 year anniversary. We were beyond excited and knew we needed to educate ourselves on our childbirth plan. Having a natural childbirth was really important to us. I would love to encourage other moms to look into natural childbirth. At about 22 weeks our baby was diagnosed with Bilateral Clubfoot meaning the rest of our pregnancy we were visiting specialists, genetic counselors, and Maternal Fetal Clinics. We had a wonderful midwife, took Bradley Method Classes, and had a natural childbirth in a Birth Center. July 14th 2010, a boy!! We named him Logan, after Wolverine. To our amazement his Clubfoot seemed like no big deal at all. A s a mater of fact two visits to an orthopedic surgeon for corrective casts and you would never even know! Now we're engaged, and our 14 month old son is running around, crawling on furniture and super smart. I am beyond blessed to get to have the role of Stay at Home Mom! Even though it's been a financial struggle my fiance has been nothing but supportive.

In addition to staying home to watch Logan, I also watch my 3 year old niece, a friends 4 year old daughter, and just now added to the mix after Kindergarten, my 5 year old Nephew. As you can imagine this requires me to take on many roles. I really enjoy planning out fun projects, arts and crafts, and even "field trips". We go to story time at the library and kid/mom play date meet ups.

To stay sane my wonderful fiance watches our little man so I can have wine and ladies nights when possible with my tight group of girlfriends. Which is super nice considering I think we've been on a total of 4-5 dates since our son came along. It's just another sacrifice of being a parent. But, one we're willing to make because we'd rather get out and do things as a family anyway.

My neighbor down the street is Amber Bustanoby from TLC's Extreme Couponing! She also writes a blog, Coupon Connections. I have been lucky enough to get some really wonderful couponing advice from her and have learned the value of clipping them myself! I love to pass the savings onto other moms. I've had quite a few requests through my facebook recently that I write my own blog all about my experience as a stay at home Mom, care provider, Couponer, and Cook. My facebook has 2-3 new photos uploaded everyday of crafts I'm doing with the kids, or a picture of a tasty meal, and of course my handsome little man. I love to have friends over and fill peoples bellies with food love.

I have a lot to say, I'm a lot of fun. And I think I would be the perfect Verity Spokesmom.

My blog post:

The other day while my little man was down for a nap, I decided to surprise the two 3 year old girls that I watch by gathering all the blankets in the house I could find so we could make a blanket fort! We set up our blankets and some building material outside on the patio. At first my motivation was something to keep them entertained and occupied but, the more our fort came together the more serious I got about it. I was stacking TV trays and chairs to make it even taller and more sturdy, and so that we could add even more blankets! Our fort really grew and grew! In the end we used a grand total of 17 different blankets and sheets! We took a step back and examined our construction. Puffed our chests out proudly, and entered the fort. I was so impressed with my architectural skills. "Now that's a blanket fort!" I exclaimed. The first words out of the mouths of the girls were big gaspy "It...is..soooooo....beautiful"! I t was big enough that it had "rooms" and the girls could stand all the way up in it! It had been so long since I had made a blanket fort, something I loved doing as a little girl.

To start off our fort was a house where we had a living room, a kitchen, and a bedroom. Playing house was another thing I couldn't get enough of, as is the case for most little girls. Watching the girls cook tasty meals in the "kitchen" really brought me back to my time of make-believe. After that our fort was a big princess castle and we had a grand foyer and we were all princesses. We raised our pinkie when we sipped our tea, we nibbled on exquisite biscuits, and we'd curtsy as we'd enter our palace. We were true royalty.

Even when the girls had enough of the fort and left to go play out in the dirt, I stayed in there just laying down staring up at the sunlight glowing through the beautiful quilted patterns from handmade blankets my grandma made for me when I was young. My amazing grandma who was just recently diagnosed with stage 3 melanoma. It reminded me not only how quickly the kids grow, how fast life goes by but that in all the hustle and bustle of "real" stressful adult life how important it is to remember to let it all go sometimes and just use your imagination for one wild day. I was reminded that life isn't only about money and bills. It made me glad that part of me will just never ever grow all the way up. Lastly it made me grateful for the imagination of little kids and being able to share that joy with them.

Cassie