More Projects I Would Love to Try!

I have a number of projects I'd like to try this summer, including:

1. Homemade Finger Paint - This looks amazing.  I found it through one of my favorite money-saving websites and the tutorial can be found here (photo credit).  Going to try this out this summer...but I think we are going to paint out on the porch!

 2. Homemade Pancake Mix - My son LOVES pancakes.  I have a great from-scratch recipe, but a friend brought over a box of pancake mix and left it and I realized how much quicker and easier it was to make it from a mix.  I found this recipe and thought I might make a bunch up instead of buying the mix.

(photo credit)

3. Patriotic Oreo Pops - These look fun and easy.  I think I may try these for the 4th next week.  According to this tutorial, they should be pretty easy!

Yard Sale: Week 6

I was out for about 45 minutes this morning and scored all kinds of great stuff!

 These are clothes for my niece.  Some will fit her now but most will probably be for next year.  They were $.50 per.

 PJs for my son and nephew.  The back stack is my nephew's and includes two sleepers, a pair of Thomas the Train PJs, and a pair of Buzz Lightyear PJs.  The front stack is for my son and includes three sleepers and two pairs of Thomas the Train PJs, all $.25 per.

Name-brand jeans for my son - $1 per

Okay, now here's where it gets exciting.  We are having a little girl in November (more on that later), and I have about four clothing items for her.  I hit a sale today where the clothes were $.50 per, which is above my target but I decided to look anyway.  Not being a girly girl myself, it's hard for me to imagine my daughter in pinks and frills and ribbons, so I kept my eyes out for cute things that didn't scream pink, and I found some adorable stuff!

These onsies are so cute and in good shape.  I love the top one - I don't know if you can see it but it's Baby Gap and it has super-cute embroidered flowers.

These are sleepers, mostly Gymboree and Carter's.  A few of them are snap-ups, but the rest are zip-ups, which we prefer.

The picture didn't turn out great, but these are two pairs of jeans with little embellishments, a denim skirt with an attached bloomer, and a pink hoodie that says "love" on it.

Total for day: $16.50

Not bad!  Looking forward to adding these items to my small stash of little girl items.

For Fun

I've seen this on a few other blogs...and it's summer.

Obsessing over::
Wearing whatever I want.  WHATEVER I want.  No making sure laundry is done or that my outfit is set out the night before.  I can wear whatever I want.  And flip flops.


Working on:: 
-getting a big-boy bed for my son
-studying the book of James
-preparing to start my maternity lesson plans :/

Thinking about::
How summer is nearly half over :(


Anticipating::
Finding out on Thursday whether we are having a boy or a girl

Listening to::
Doctor Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog - what the heck is this show? I don't get it...


Munching on::
These.  I remember eating them at daycare as a kid...and I couldn't help it when I saw them in the store the other day.  They. Are. Delicious.

(photo credit)

Thankful for::
My husband being home all summer.  We are having a great time together. :)

Yard Sale: Week 5

I have taken a break from yard saling for the past few weeks.  We had our yard sale, I helped with my sister-in-law's, and I decided there wasn't really much I needed.

Except a side-by-side double stroller.

(photo credit)

This is the type I've been dreaming of - it has an adjustable handle (so my abnormally tall husband won't have to bend over to  push it), shades, cup-holders, and is SO much easier to steer than those stacked ones.  I got this picture from Amazon and it is listed at $509.  Yeah, right.

Anyway, I woke up at 7:30 Friday morning (how's that for sleeping in?!), grabbed my Nook, and looked online to see if there was anything worth getting out of bed for.  Answer: a sale near the lake with a side-by-side double stroller.  Which opened at 8:00.  I jotted down the address, jumped out of bed and made a beeline for the East side of town (which, as it turns out, I don't know all that well...I definitely took the long way).  I made it at 8:02 only to find that they had sold it.

I was devastated.  Had I realized there was a highway connection less than a minute from this sale, I might have beat the scumbag who bought it.  (Okay, that was a bit harsh.  I'm sure she was a nice lady.)

But it ended up being worth the trip because I got a ton of little boy clothes!

1. 2T clothes and PJs - $.50 per I got 4 pairs of PJs, 1 pair of jean shorts, an Elmo AND a Thomas shirt, and a spare pair of swim trunks.
2. 3T and 4T clothes - $.50 per These will go in the tub in the closet until my son is big enough to wear them.  I got 4 pairs of jeans, 1 pair of khaki cords, 2 shorts, 2 short-sleeved shirts, one long-sleeved shirt, and 3 sets of PJs.
3. 5T clothes - $.50 per My friend Jen (the one who helped me make my crate seat) has a 5-year-old boy, so I picked up 3 pairs of PJs, a pair of jeans, a pair of jean shorts, and two shirts for him.
4. 3T and 4T clothes - $.50 per I got these for my nephew who is the same size as my son.  Because of this I rarely pick up things for him - if I like it enough to buy it, I usually keep it for my son!  But today's sale was from a set of twins, so if I liked it, I just kept one for mine and got the other for my nephew!  I found 4 pairs of PJs, 5 pairs of shorts, and two pairs of pants, including identical khaki cords!

TOTAL = $25.00

More than I normally spend, but I'm not sorry.  It's a lot of stuff, and I know from experience how much easier and cheaper it is to shop this way than to try to shop sales at the stores!

Organized Home: Week 3

Week1 and Week 2 down...only two more to go!  This week's list of assignments from MoneySavingMom.com proved a bit easier because I was home all week.

Day 1:

• Make a list of 5-10 weekly goals - I had 8 and crossed off two that day!
• Pick up all the major living spaces in the house with 15 minutes on the clock
• Clean out your silverware drawer - yeah...this really needed to be done

Before...lots of baby silverware on the side that we don't even use anymore!

I couldn't believe how gross this had gotten! I soaked it in the sink and scrubbed it free of all of that gunk!

And viola!

I bagged these up for storage with bottles and old sippy cups.

Day 2:

• Refer to weekly goals and make about 5 specific ones for today
• Vacuum the main living areas of your home with 15 minutes on the clock - I vacuumed our new rug for the first time!  In case you missed the picture from last week, here it is again!

• Clean your microwave, stove top, and/or oven - at first glance, I interpreted this to mean I could choose which I wanted to clean, and I definitely wasn't choosing the oven.  But upon further reflection, I thought the "or" might be for those without one of those things.  So I gritted my teeth and did all of them.
• Stove Top: the stove top was a piece of cake because I clean it daily - no problems there.
• Microwave: my microwave was grosser, and I am embarrassed to say I don't remember when I cleaned it last!

You can't see it from this angle, but the top was DISGUSTING

Inside of the door, also disgusting

I started by heating a glass of water in the microwave, just like my momma taught me.  This helps loosen any stuck-on foods.  I then used my scrubber sponge and got it cleaned up in no time!

Voila - a clean microwave!

• Oven: Yuck. I seriously hate this chore.  I hate it so much, in fact, that as we were driving to Kansas City to have dinner for our anniversary, we realized we hadn't deep cleaned our oven since we've lived in this house - almost two years! Yikes!  Fortunately, we have a self-cleaning oven!

The clean cycle was three and a half hours and made the house smell like burnt stuff!

While the oven was cleaning itself, I scrubbed the racks.

Once the cleaning cycle was over, all I had to do was vacuum out the bottom and wipe out with a mixture of baking soda and water.

And a stove you could eat off of.  (Or, "A stove off which you could eat" for my grammar police friends.)

Day 3:

• Refer to weekly goals and make about 5 specific ones for today
• Clean your bathroom with 15 minutes on the clock
• Clean the top of your kitchen cupboards and the top of your refrigerator - Our cabinets go straight to the ceiling  and our refrigerator is built in, so no cleaning there!  I did, however, clean open tops of the cabinets:

This is what they looked like once I took all the pretties off.  (You can't see it, but there is a very noticeable layer of dust.)

Cabinet #1 after cleaning

And Cabinet #2!

 I also wiped down the front of the cabinets.  The instructions said to do this as well.

Yuck!

Day 4:

• Refer to weekly goals and make about 5 specific ones for today
• Clean all the mirrors and glass doors in your home with 15 minutes on the clock - Okay, I forgot about this one until right now, when I'm writing the post.  I will do this! 
• Clean out your utensil drawer in the kitchen. Get rid of any items you don't need, wipe out the drawer, and reorganize - This was a great assignment.  I am often unable to get the drawer shut because it's so packed with stuff!

This is the drawer before.  You can see why it was sometimes hard to get shut!

This was the drawer emptied...eww.  The spot was a hunk of cinnamon, I think, that must have accidentally tumbled into the drawer and gotten spread around!

This is everything that belongs in the drawer.

This is stuff that was in the drawer but belongs elsewhere.

And these are things I don't need and will be getting rid of!

Interesting side note: I found six - yes, SIX peelers.  I don't even use peelers very much! Why in the world would I need six?

And this is the finished product - an organized drawer that fits neatly into the drawer slot!

As I said, this was a great assignment.  I even discovered I had a pastry cutter! I was particularly excited to find this after reading this post from Everyday Home Cook.  I have been asking for a post on must-have kitchen gadgets and I got it this week!  Looks like the only one I don't have is a silicone mat!

 Day 5:

• Refer to weekly goals and make about 5 specific ones for today - hmm...I didn't do very well with this this week.  I did make a cleaning list, though, and I got it all done!
• Set your timer for 15 minutes and do something you really enjoy - I chose to go garage saling! More on this later...
• Clean, declutter, and/or reorganize the files on your computer. - I did this earlier this week without knowing it was an assignment.  Instead, I tackled Charlie's chair:

This is where he sits at the table.  You can't see it, but the arms and sides were gross.  And can you see all the crumbs on the seat?

There - that's better.  And when I removed the cover, it was even grosser.

I ended up using the vacuum attachment to clean up the crumbs.  Then I vacuumed around the seat and used spray to wipe it down.  I tossed the cover in the wash to be sure it was thoroughly cleaned.

I also tackled my pantry and the counter beneath it this week.  I didn't take any pictures, but my husband was very impressed when he saw it!

Mini Vaycay Part 2: Great Wolf Lodge

We took a mini famiy vaycay to Kansas City.  We went to the zoo and then to Great Wolf Lodge.  It was...okay.

PROS:
Location - it is near Legends, so we were able to hop over and do some shopping and eating without wasting too much time.
Facilities - the pools were nice and very warm!  There were multiple water tube rides and they had a lazy river...my favorite! We didn't go, but they also have an outdoor pool that looked like fun.  Also, we stayed in a "Kid's Kamp" room (view photo here), so our son could stay in his own room in a big boy bed, which he thought was super cool.  (So did Mommy and Daddy!)
Cleanliness - the water and swimming areas were very clean and orderly.

CONS:
Rules - there are apparently many more rules than the ones posted.  For instance, our son is obviously too small to be able to reach the basketball goal with the basketball.  My husband lifted him from the water so he could shoot and got a whistle for it.  We also got whistled at when we tried to seat our son on the floating snake.  If it's not there for kids to climb on, what is it there for?  Grr.
Staff - the staff we encountered were quite rude on the whole.  Every single lifeguard who blew whistles at us (several) acted like they were doing us a favor when we asked them to explain what we were doing wrong.  One even rolled his eyes at me.  At one point we had a problem with our debit card, and rather than being kind and patient, the lady was very snooty and sniped at my husband.  When we checked out, they did not ask how our stay was.  I know this because my husband spotted mold on the ceiling in the bathroom (eww) and was going to mention it when they asked. They didn't.
Not much to do - our son was too little for most of the things, and for whatever reason, parents weren't allowed to ride with kids on many of them.  The water park was also closed until 9 AM, which meant that we had two hours to kill in the morning when it would have been nice to have been swimming.

Overall, I was rather disenchanted with the whole thing.  If we go back, it will be in several years when our kids are older and I have forgotten about the rude staff!

Happy Anniversary

I am more in love with you today than I have ever been.  You are the love of my life and I count myself blessed each day to be your wife.  Happy Anniversary.

Bye Bye Binky

Our son was a binky baby.  We took it away during the day at one year but allowed him to keep it for bed and nap time.  Though the doctor said it was fine to use until he was three, we knew the time had come.

So, after a fun-filled evening of activity for Father's Day, we put him down for night night.  Having read this article and polled friends on Facebook for advice, we decided to snip the end of the binky off, that way he would still have it and discarding it would be his decision.  I handed it to him and he happily popped it in his mouth, only to remove and say, "Binky broken. Help, Mommy?"  It was too much for this mommy.  As he started to cry, I did, too.  We left him in his room screaming "My binky! My binky!"  We went in several times to check on him and try to soothe him, but when he was still screaming fifteen minutes later, and asked Daddy if he could "snuggle," Daddy relented and we got him out of bed.  We snuggled on the couch together for half an hour or so before putting him back in bed.  Same thing.  After a few minutes, Daddy went in to talk to him.

And here is where our miracle happened.

You see, being the worrier I am, I had agonized over taking the binky for weeks.  As I was lying in bed listening to my husband head to my sweet boy's room and bawling my eyes out, I began to pray, confess my worry, and ask that God would simply take care of it.  At the same moment in the other room, Daddy was telling our son that he needed to go night night.  Our sweet little boy looked up at Daddy, reached out his hand and said, "Pray?"

Pray.  Daddy, will you pray with me.  I hurt and I need God to help me.

Daddy took his hand, bowed his head and prayed that God would help him go to sleep without his binky.  When he finished, our boy said, "I love you, Daddy," and rolled over.  It's 6:41 the next morning, and he is still sleeping.

Beautiful.  Thank you, Jesus.

Thank You 3: Father's Day

Today is Father's Day, and I grew up with one heck of a father.  Rather than write a long, sentimental post about how much I love my dad and why, I've written a list of some of my favorite memories:

• Reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on my parents' bed in our old house
• the three things before bed
• practicing hitting in the front yard, and my dad constantly telling me to "watch the ball" (I never ever got good at this)
• dad's tea in a big glass, with lots of ice
• having to wait at the grocery store, movies, or wherever we went while dad talked to former students who stopped him
• how commercials were free reign - dad would tie my brother and me into knots or tickle us until we could say "I love you tickle monster"
• getting busted for throwing a battery at my brother in the truck (he ducked and it put a big dent in the dash)
• accidentally burning my dad with the s'more stick while camping
• long, long, long car trips
• "last again"
• getting in trouble for rushing through a prayer so we could eat, because I wasn't really thinking about being thankful, was I?
• my dad walking down to meet me at the middle school to tell me my brother had been suspended from school (I think he needed the walk to cool off)
• telling my dad that this guy (my now husband) had a crush on me and might ask me out, and him saying "Good.  I think it's high time and he's a good kid."
• the prom speech
• my wedding day
• calling my dad when my car broke down - 
• Dad: "What did your husband say?"
• Me: "I don't know, I didn't ask him."
• Dad: "Hang up, call your husband. He's the man in your life now." Click.  Call husband.
• Me: "My car broke down. What do I do?"
• Husband: "I don't know - call your dad." Call Dad.
• Me: "He said to call you."
• Dad: "Okay - now I can help you."
• talking shop at the dinner table (much to the irritation of others present)
• watching my dad play with my son
• knowing I can call anytime, day or night, good or bad

I love you, Dad!

Organized Home: Week 2

Last week was great! This week...not so much.  We went on our mini family vaycay this week, so by the time we got back, I was behind two whole days!  Here's how it went down:

Day 1:

• Make a list of 5-10 weekly goals -did great with this!
• Pick up all the major living spaces in the house with 15 minutes on the clock - this didn't take 15 minutes, so with my remaining time (and a little extra), I cleared off the desk:

This is what it looked like before. It's basically the catch-all for the junk in the living room.

And this is what it looked like after about 8 minutes of work!

• Clean out the inside of your car and vacuum it - my mother-in-law rode in my car over the weekend, which doesn't happen very often. I was embarrassed by the state of it, but assured her I would be cleaning it this week!  Here are a few before and after pics:

This is the floor behind the passenger door...oops.

And here it is, cleared of clutter (except the umbrella and scrapper) and vacuumed!

• Find 7 things to get rid of - This is on the list every day, but I'm cutting myself some slack on this one, since we just purged our house for our garage sale

And it was downhill from there.  We were gone Tuesday and Wednesday, and Thursday I helped with my sister-in-law's garage sale and went to Bible study, so by the time nap time rolled around I was pooped!  I took a nap too, and then we had a friend over for dinner.  This meant I had to do ALL OF THESE TASKS on Friday:

• With fifteen minutes on the clock,
• Clean your bathroom
• Go through your dresser drawers and clean out things that are old or not worn regularly
• Vacuum heavy traffic areas of your house
• Do something you enjoy 

• Clean all the baseboards
  
• Wipe down all the door handles
  
• Wipe down all the light plates
  
• Clean all the light fixtures and ceiling fan blades

Oh, this was going to be rough.  I left the house Friday morning to go back to my sister-in-law's yard sale to help, thinking I was never going to get this done!  Lo and behold, when I returned to my house after lunch, my wonderful husband had found my to-do list and done all of it.  This was such a service to me - there is literally nothing he could have done that would have made me more happy! He is seriously the most amazing man I know.  So all of the credit for this week's work goes to him!

Our other accomplishment of the week was replacing the rug in our dining room.  We have had it since our very first apartment nearly eight years ago and when we painted the room, the greens didn't really match.  We'd been looking for a replacement rug off and on since then - about 9 months ago! - and we found one in Kansas City this weekend!  I took the old one to my sister-in-law's garage sale and sold it within 5 minutes for $3!  (I probably could have charged more, but the lady who bought it was really happy!)

Old rug

New one :)

Mini Vaycay Part 1: Kansas City Zoo

Since we couldn't afford to go to the tropics :( we opted for a quick mini vaycay to Kansas City.  Our first stop was the Kansas City Zoo, which none of us had visited before!

(photo credit)

We arrived just after lunch and, because we are members of our local zoo, we received a half-price discount on tickets.  Our son was free.  The zoo is divided up into three main sections - Kid Zone, Australia, and Africa.  We opted to head for Africa first.  This, as it turned out, was a LONG walk.  I didn't mind it so much because it was very pleasant.  The stroller ride was smooth for our boy, and the landscaping and pretty flowers made for a very scenic walk.  There were no animals along the trail, though, which I thought was strange.  When we finally arrived, we took the air tram (which our son kept calling an "airplane") over the African plains, sighting zebra, giraffes, and all kinds of other plains animals.  We then walked on the trails and saw cheetah, lions, monkeys, rhinos, and hippos.  I forgot to take pictures at the zoo, so here are some of our pictures from the real Africa several years ago:

The monkey that tried to steal our oranges

Elephant - one of the Big Five

Giraffe

Lucky the lion - found at two days old after his mother was killed and raised on a reserve

Bonita, a 1-year-old cheetah who also lived on a reserve

Okay, quick story and some useless information on hippos: While we were at the hippo exhibit, I overheard a man explaining to his wife that hippos are Africa's most dangerous animal.  This is false (and if I hadn't been concerned about embarrassing my husband or following the rules of normal social conduct, I would have set him straight).  I know this is false because I have been to Africa - the actual one - and listened to our native tour guide explain why this is false.  The truth is that, though very dangerous, hippos are not considered the most dangerous because, in the majority of cases, you must get in a hippo's way to anger it.  That is not necessarily the case with Africa's other dangerous predators, such as the Big Five (rhino, water buffalo, leopard, lion, elephant).

Hippos in the wild!  You can't see it in this picture, but there are crocs on this beach too!

These two people at the exhibit were also discussing who would win in a fight - a hippo or a crocodile.  According to our guide, they actually coexist quite peacefully in many of Africa's rivers, though there may be the occasional skirmish.  So there you go - two pieces of utterly worthless information that these two poor people may go the rest of their lives without. :)

We were pretty pooped by the time we finished Africa.  We opted to do the Kid Zone and skip Australia.  We watched the sea lions for a bit, fed the deer, rode the carousel, had some ice cream, and headed to our hotel.

Overall, I really enjoyed myself and would highly recommend it, though I don't know that I would feel the same way if I'd had to pay full price.  It was a lot of walking, but we had fun!