And the winner for 2nd place is my boy
My boy (and hubby) did it again, they came in 2nd place in his den. Hubby bought a dremmel this year to assist in the making of the entry. Both of them had a little more fun making it together this year than last year, when it was mostly dad working on it. I think we ended up calling it the “Freaky Car”, more so for the not wonderful paint job little man completed with help from his sister. It included mixing up all the paint colors we had!
Photo finish
Front angle view of The Freaky Car
Side View
The wolves entries
Other entries
Kids just wanna have fun
I have admired this site for a while but have never joined in on the fun. One of the things I would like to do this year is take better pictures so, to that end, I think I will try to join when I can. Also, I am looking forward to reading the tips about how to better edit pictures, I have SO much to learn in this area.
My entry was taken on our first real snow play day this past year, back in December, love my boys rosy cheeks and his blue eyes.
Hope everyone had a great weekend, we attended a Pinewood Derby yesterday and little man won… more on that later this week. For missing little girl’s snack day at the beginning of the month, since no calendar made it home, I get two days back to back. Trying to be healthy and pick stuff that my daughter will actually eat does not make for too much creativity so we have:
Cheese, Cracker and Apple Juice – Day 1
Cereal Mix with Coco Puffs, Cheerios, M&M’s and cheez its – the scrabble tile looking ones with the alphabet on them and hopefully left over apple juice from Day 1. – Day 2
Let’s see, dinner plans for this week include:
Monday – Hot dogs for the kiddos and left over chicken tortilla soup for us
Tuesday – Cheese Quesadillas w/ Marinated Pork Roast
Wednesday – LOW CARB – Soda Pop BBQ Chicken
Thursday – Meatloaf
Friday – Dad and kids eat out/I will be at work.
Saturday – Trader Joes Curry Chicken
I have pretty much been doing a low carb diet since the beginning of month, I have met the monthly goal I had established for myself and then some. Basically, I fix food for the family and eat whatever meat I have ready or just stick to my low carb bars or shakes, so far I have been able to stick to it with just two planned cheat meals which really did not affect my weight loss efforts it seems.
Hopefully, this week I will make it back to the gym; a class at work and me being miserable with a cold at the end of the week pretty much kept me away from the gym for an entire week. BUT I did stay the course for the diet.
Hope everyone has a great week!
I am so excited!! I have been thinking about this for a long while and never really could justify the money on this purchase. Probably still couldn’t if it was not for my company giving me a gift card for my 20th anniversary with them. They give you a certain amount based on how long you have been with them and for me it was $ 200.00. The gift does come with strings attached, it has be to be spent on an item, no services nor food, etc. So in other words you really need to buy yourself a gift.
So I played along and bought this….
I can hardly wait to get it. I will have to start planning out my projects.
And a shoutout for great customer service for Overstock.com, where I purchased it from. See the debit card was $200.00 even the order with a 10% coupon I had came to 200.94 cents. No biggie, I would charge the .94 onto my personal card. Problem was Overstock does not have the option to split up payment sources. So doing this late at night I thought I would be out of luck in getting it BUT overstock has online chat customer service. After explaining my delimma in the end they gave me .95 store credit… not that that is a huge amount or anything, but the customer service rep understood my issue and fixed it quickly and in a very nice way. NO attitude!!
So hopefully some time soon I can start showing off some projects using my new toy!
This past December was busy with two small school aged children, we did not have time to do any crafts nor bake nor decorate that much. These are the only two things I got around to doing one afternoon with my daughter.
The first will be a special ornament for years to come. I will probably make the embellishment more grand but the majority of it done. Last year while weeding out the coat closet I was throwing away all the unmatched mittens/gloves, etc. I came across this pink mitten which was little girl’s first mitten. I think I retrieved it from the garbage but did not know what to do with it. I wanted to keep it as a keepsake. Then it came to me… trusty modge podge to the rescue. I dipped it in modge podge and sprinkled glitter all over it. After it dried it was perfect. I added the pearl ribbon and rickrack to hang it – not totally thrilled with that but I can change it up next year. 
The second thing I did while having the modge podge out was brush it on to the huge pine cones my girl had found and sprinkled glitter on to them too! I want to get a little greenery next year and make a small spray with them. We will see… for now they are adding visual interest to my inspiration plate. 
“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It is about learning to dance in the rain.”
I am so excited to have stumbled across this blog and the book club they are starting up. I need to read more and this is one way to keep me motivated.
I have ordered the book from our library and the tapes too! Who am I kidding I probably will not get as much reading done as I want to but know I can stay current with the reading by listening on my way to and from work.
If you would like to join in on the fun this is the link for all the vital information. Simple Mom
So last year I found this great little black lamp at a thrift store. It was shade less and I went on the search for the right shade. After searching Wal-Mart and other stores I could not find the right size or shape for the little lamp. Finally, I found it at a garage sale….lonely shade just waiting to be matched up with the perfect little lamp.
Here is my “Vanna” showing the “Before” lamp for you. (sorry about the blur) 
The lamp just did not have any sparkle to it….a couple of years ago I had purchased some trim to put on some curtains (which I had never gotten around to doing) So the trim turned out to be the perfect color for my little lamp shade project.
Here I am working on the project. My little girl is working on her photography skills. 
My quality control analyst checking my work. 
The finished product – I am thrilled with it, a perfect addition to the living room (even though purchased to use in laundry room – maybe if I ever get that space organized and made over!) 
So me and the hubby have been struggling for a while with how to keep a budget…. not really how to keep it but how to come up with one. The first step is to track expenses to see where the money is being spent and then decide on if there are areas to save money and then come up with a spending plan.
Well, we have never really created a system that works for both of us to track our expenses. Truth be told he is much better at it than me! My purse becomes the collecting ground for all my receipts and then when it gets filled up to the point nothing else is going to fit in there..the receipts then get dumped out to a basked, never really to be looked at again. Unless, I need to return something.
So New Year, new goal… I took a spiral notebook on the 1st and at the top of each page wrote a category. So far we have;
Groceries
Eating out
clothing for me
Entertainment
We will write what the expense was on the day it was incurred and using the amount….
Hopefully, we can keep this up. Three days into the new year so far so good! 
This seems to be a simple enough thing for me to do …Hubby would still like to make it more complicated like recording sales tax separately and debating the categories (snacks vs. groceries) but so far I am getting my way …. the important thing in budgeting or a spending/saving plan is to get an idea of where the money is being spent… not to have an exact accounting of every penny… or at least I say so… The accounting type hubby’s I know would beg to differ.
Hopefully, we will be able to keep this goal going throughout the year!
This past week the only thing I think I ended up making was the spaghetti and the chicken and dumplings… My husband was the only one who was able to enjoy the chicken (I did not have the biscuits for the dumplings) but he enjoyed it without it. Hopefully, this week I will be able to stick to the plan a little better… I plan on using most things from my freezer and pantry so it should also be an easy on the budget grocery shopping week.
Monday: Salisbury Steak and Tater Tots
Tuesday: Meatball Hoagies
Wednesday: Trader Joes Curry Chicken and couscous
Thursday: Homemade Pizza
Friday: Chicken Taco Soup and Cheese Quesadillas
Saturday: Breakfast for dinner – Pancakes and Sausage
Sunday: Cranberry Roast
For additional meal ideas go to Orgjunkie.com.
Have a great week!
