Thursday, July 29, 2010

A Few New Faves

I've been participating in the SITS and Problogger Summer Challenge - 31 Days to Build a Better Blog (31DBBB) and it has lead to me finding a bunch of new blogs to read.  The support, the writing and the blogs in this challenge are phenomenal.  I want to share some of the new blogs I found this week, that I have added to my reader.  I'm not sure that all of them are participating in the challenge.  I just know that I found them, I like them, so I'm passing them on to you (in no particular order)

  • A Beautiful Mess is one of my new favorite photograpy/life blogs.  Of course, I love Alicia's beautiful photographs, but it's not all about the photographs.  She's witty, informative and fun!  She also hosts a fun Wordless Wednesday link up.


  • Life Without Pink is on my list for a few reasons.  I can't imagine living in a world so full of testosterone.  I imagine it must be tough for my husband to live life without blue.  I guess I am biased, but I like that she's local to me.  I love finding local bloggers and websites.

  • One Day I Will is written by Megan.  She's young, she's fun, she's got a cute little blog.  Need I say more?

  • How to Homemaker has some great tips, information, lists, basically anything to do with home and family.  I've already added some things to my To Do List because of posts on her site.

Those are just a few of the many new sites I've added to my reader this week.  Hope you find the time to stop by and visit them too.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Mr. Sandman, Send Me a Dream

My daughter really needs one.  LaLa is 3 years old.  Someone please tell me why I can't get the kid to bed before 10pm.  Regardless of what time we start getting ready for bed, she doesn't fall asleep a second before 10 pm.  Often it's much later than that.  Her 5 year old sister, Noodle, goes to sleep without much problem most times before 9pm.

Last night LaLa fell asleep at 11:45PM.  This was after spending all day at school, then heading to the swim club after I finished work.  Silly me, I even put her PJs on for the ride home thinking maybe she would be so tuckered out she would fall asleep in the car.  Not a chance.

She laid in bed, she laid on the floor.  She went in her room, she came in my room.  She got a pillow to lay on the floor.  She laid on the floor singing to herself for 30 minutes.  I was totally okay with that, BTW, if it meant she was going to go to sleep, I didn't care where she did it.  She went back in the bed, back on the floor, crawled around the floor all while I tried to ignore her hoping she would tire herself out.  She finally decided to lay down and fall asleep just before midnight.

I'm tired just thinking about all that.  What time do your kids go to sleep? How do you get them into bed easily without a fuss?

Monday, July 26, 2010

Meet & Greet Monday

Come meet some new bloggers!






Fancy Meeting You

Where Did The Weekend Go?

Why do the weekends fly by so quickly? We had a nice weekend, it just went too quickly.

On Friday night we took the kids to see Despicable Me.  It was a cute movie.  The kid loved the minions.  I think my favorite parts were the song in the beginning and the minion floating in space at the end.  I also had to chuckle at the Bank of Evil, formerly known as Lehman Brothers.  Noodle's favorite part was when the little girl puts a mud pie on the desk of the lady that runs the home.  I immediately thought that was something Noodle would do when I saw it.

Saturday we spent the day test driving used cars.  I couldn't believe how well behaved the kids were considering how many times we were in and out of cars, and moving booster seats and the like.  They did so well.  Of course, their favorite car was the one with the DVD player.  We hurried home and went to a birthday party after that.  It was a long but fun day.

We just hung around the house on Sunday.  We did some food shopping and light cleaning.  Just as we were getting home it started to get really dark and stormy.  The winds really picked up and there was a bunch of lightening.  I thought for sure we would be making dinner on the George Forman grill in the kitchen.  The rains cleared just in time for us to throw dinner on the grill. 

All in all, it was a pretty good weekend.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

It All Falls Down

Ever have one of those days where nothing seems to go right?  Yeah?  Well, I'm having one of those months.  It seems like everything around us is falling apart.  It started with the check engine light coming on in the car, then the heater broke, then the check engine light came on again, and finally tonight the garage door stuck open. These were only the major things.  We won't even mention all the little day to day stuff.

Luckily, my husband is a pretty handy guy and fixed most of these things.  We're still left with a broken heater, that will have to be replaced before winter and will suck up all money and available credit.  Sigh. 

I decided, in an effort to start saving more for that, we should use coupons and plan better.  I've been browsing some Frugal blogs to learn more about couponing.  I am overwhelmed by the amount of information.  When that happens, I tend to give up.

We are pretty well stocked and should only need fresh fruits/veggies and milk in the near future.  So I'll keep reading and trying to figure out how to go about this.  I know how to actually use a coupon, it's mostly the planning, matching and organizing that have me stumped.

Any advice for a complete beginner on couponing?

Friday, July 23, 2010

I'm Hopping

I decided to participate in a few blog hops today.  If you are looking for some new reading material, please check out the following hops:



New Friend Fridays



 
 



friday-follow






badge



Smart and Trendy Moms



My Wee View

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Our New Favorite Read: Mommy's High Heel Shoes

It's not often that a book catches the interest of both of my girls at the same time, unless of course they are fighting over who had it first. The other day, I received a really cute book, that they both  absoultely loved!  It's called Mommy's High Heel Shoes by Kristie Finnan.  As soon as I pulled it out of the packaging, my girls were immediately drawn to it.

The illustrations are so cute. We spent a good hour reading the book and finding the ladybugs, cupcakes and hearts that are hidden on each page. We were also excited to find a local farm featured in the book. Noodle, my older daughter, has been there a few times in the fall for pumpkin picking and was happy to tell her little sister she had been there before.

I love how this story points out all of the different shoes a mom wears, or the different jobs she has.  As a working mom, I know what it's like to wear all of those different shoes.  It's so fun to see the girls trying to walk around in my shoes and pretend to be Mommy.  We related so well to this book, it brought up lots of discussion about things we do that the family in the book also did.  It was nice to see the parts of the book that the girls got excited about and how those parts reminded them of things we did in our daily life.

Noodle, has been carrying the book around since it got here and flipping through it.  I love that she is starting to read and is taking an interest in doing it herself.  Beans would like to carry it around too, but a few too many books have met their demise in her unsupervised hands.  So instead, Beans and I sit and look for ladybugs, cupcakes and hearts together. 

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Today I am Thankful

I thought with all the things Murphy has brought us lately (like being sick as a dog, broken heater, transmission fail, etc) I would take a moment to count my blessing. I'm sure they outweigh the bad things going on right. That being said, I'm thankful for:

  • My Husband: He does a wonderful job taking care of his family. He is super handy and can tackle most projects on his own. A few hours of reading and he is ready to go. That alone has saved us a bunch of money. Not to mention the fact that after 7 years of marriage, I still get butterflies when I see his name on the caller ID of my phone or when I see him after some time spent apart.
  • My Daughters: They are my world. They are so smart and funny. At times they do push my buttons, but they are lucky they are cute. I can't imagine my life without them. They make me smile each and every day.
  • Our Health: I'm thankful we are all healthy. Yes we had a nasty virus, but there are so many people out there suffering from so much worse, that I can't even complain about that.
  • Family/Friends: We have a large network of family and friends. Each one of them has a special place in our hearts!
  • We are Employed/Have a Roof Over Our Heads: I know there are so many in this economy that aren't in that position. We have to be thankful for these things as well.
  • My Camera: Don't laugh. It's true. Even though I haven't used it as much as I would like lately, it's my creative outlet and it helps keep me sane. I sometimes have dreams that it breaks/doesn't work. I wake up from those dreams feeling devastated. If something did happen to my camera (my DSLR) I know I wouldn't be able to replace it at this stage of the game.
  • High Speed Internet: Or internet at all. I think I may have a slight addiction. Is there a program for Internet Addiction? I don't know what I would do without it.