Visitor Appreciation GIVEAWAY!

Sometime in the near future (most likely today) I will top over the 5000 visit mark since I started this blog in January. I know that many of those visits are my own mother but by far not all of them. I would like to share my appreciation to all of you who pop into my life every once in a while. I like knowing that you are checking in on me.

Here is your chance to make yourself known!

I have decided to do my first ever giveaway in honor of my 5000 visits. If you are reading this you have a chance to win! I have lovingly made this adorable crochet monkey that will go to one lucky commenter. To enter leave a comment letting me know you were here. Make sure that I can track you down either by blog address or email. I will take comments until Monday night, December 1st. Tuesday I will draw a name and notify you of the winner.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Have a happy day and a great Thanksgiving Holiday!

Black Friday Sales

For those of you gearing up for the sales this Friday there are some websites out there that are posting Friday ads already. Black Friday 2008 has Ad Scans for many stores. They also have a lot of information about pre-Black Friday sales and items that are already priced at Black Friday prices. Check it out, make your lists, and check them twice! There are some great deals to be had.

Sam the Helping Man

Sam has become quite a helper around the house lately. Last week he discovered that he could get the broom out all by himself. He then preceded to sweep (aka push around) all the floors in the house, carpet included. He was even thorough enough to move all the chairs and push around under the table (which happens to be carpet). He was really good at hitting the walls with the long handle of the broom while pushing around all the crumbs in the house.

Last week he also helped me with the laundry. I handed him a pair of my shoes (my nicest pair, I might add) to take from the living room into my bedroom. He promptly disappeared and I assumed he had completed the job as asked. Later that night, after I had run a load of laundry, I discovered my shoes soaking wet in the washing machine having gone through a complete cycle. Not the recommended way to get your shoes clean, by any means, but my helper made sure that his mommy would have clean (and wet) leather shoes.

Funny stories aside, Sam really is a good helper. He is always willing to set the table, loves to help stir anything I'm making (and unfortunately insists on doing it even over the stove), helps me find his shoes and my keys, and much more. He's turning into such a big boy and I'm very grateful for my little buddy and helper.

Coupon Organizing

Recently my sister in law was initiated into the world of coupon clipping. I was writing a long comment on her blog then decided I might as well post it here complete with pictures.

I have been clipping and using coupons for about a year and a half, off and on. There is a kind sister in my ward that is crazy about coupons and has shared her know how. She helps watch the grocery ads locally and lets us know if there are any great deals and what coupons might be available. Until recently I was using the same method of coupon organizing as "the Pro" which consisted of a three ring binder with baseball card sheet protectors and dividers. The sheet protectors allow you to easily flip through your coupons and see what you have. The down side for me was that it was so large to carry with me to the grocery store and because of this I didn't carry it with me regularly (a carnal sin for the avid coupon clipper).

A few weeks ago I read in some random place (blog or magazine, can't remember which) about someone using one of those cheap 4x6 photo album books to carry her coupons in. I jumped on the idea and conveniently had one such book lying around. I divided it into sections using labels folded in half as dividers and then slipped my coupons into the sleeves. Granted it can not hold as many coupons as the three ring binder method, but for me it is more readily usable and limits me from clipping coupons for things I really don't use. The book fits easily into my purse/bag where it stays unless I'm adding new coupons or using it in the store, thus it is always accessible. I can also easily hold it in my hand while going through the store. Because of the smaller size I have labeled some pages specifically for certain brands that I get coupons for often ie. general mills cereal, Pillsbury, Loreal makeup, etc. If I see that brand is on sale I can easily pull out all the coupons in that specific sleeve and pick out the ones that apply.

Overall this new system is currently working well for me. Ultimately it comes down to you finding something that works for you and your particular style and needs.

As far as coupons go... I subscribe to one paper and get coupons on Sunday with a single duplicate packet on Thursday. I check http://www.boodle.com/ regularly for coupons that you can print off online. It allows you to print two of each coupon per computer (ie. I can print two of the General Mills cereal coupons off of my desk top and two off of my laptop even though they are using the same router). Also many stores will take expired coupons up to a month past date (depending on the store and the cashier) and you can combine store coupons with manufacture coupons, especially wonderful at Walgreens.

Please share any tips or ideas you have gained from your experiences.

Happy coupon clipping!

Elijah is 4!

It occured to me that I haven't posted pictures of Elijah from his birthday yet. It is amazing to me that he is actually four years old. The time has flow by so fast. He is a smart, sensitive, observent little boy and I am so grateful to be his mother.

He was so excited for his birthday and kept asking if it was the day yet for days before. He had to wait patiently though all the festivites of Sam birthday and the joint party before it was finally his day to turn Four. By then I was pretty partied out, and very caked out so we went to the store and Elijah got to pick out his own little cake and they wrote his name on it in Green (his most often favorite color that changes periodically depending on his mood). He was very proud of that little cake and excited to put in his special #4 candles. Sam was also very excited about the cake because by then he knew how all this partying worked. We sang happy birthday with the candles lit and Sam jumped the gun and blew out the candles before Elijah could get to them. We ended up doing a do over and that time (as shown in the video, sorry about the sound I seem to have a habit of covering the mic) Sam sang and pointed to himself claiming the song for himself.

Elijah and Sam are great buddies. They have become better friends in the last month or so and spend a lot of time playing together (about as much time as they spend fighting with each other). They do the sweetest hugs with each other that often end in a giggling mass on the floor. It is wonderful to see them love each other so much.

Blues Clues Birthday Party Plan

There are a lot of websites with ideas for Blues Clues parties and I thought I would share what I narrowed it all down to.

First off, Nick Jr. has an amazing site with all kinds of Blues Clues printables and activities. If you have a child into Blues Clues you have to check it out! They have many things like calendars, charts, books, cards, etc.

Invitation:
-Printed from Nick Jr.

Decorations and Such:
-Chalk Paw Prints on the sidewalk leading to our apartment
-Blue balloons and streamers
-Blues Clues Ears (pattern below)
-Blue dog nose painting
-Mailbox (I used our little tikes mailbox to deliver a message with their Handy Dandy Notebooks to the kids from Blue)
-Blues Clues Coloring pages
-Dog bowls (from the dollar store)
-Handy Dandy Notebooks (sold at some party stores, I got mine off eBay)

Games:
-Pin the Paw on Blue (four page poster you print online; I printed extra pawprints for Blues Clues game)
-Blue Says (like Simon Says)
-Doggie Doggie where's your ball? (original game uses bone but we didn't have one)
-Blues Clues -like on the movies looking for three clues

Activity:
-Blue Gak (recipe below)

Food:
-Hot Dogs wrapped in bread dough to look like bones; I found some mini hot dogs (a little bigger than the little smokies)
-cereal for dog food; used Captain Crunch
-fruit
-Blues Clues cake (curse of my existence, I HATE frosting!)
-Ice cream with blue sprinkles (which I forgot the sprinkles)
-Blue Gatorade

Party Favors:
-Small Playdough picked up at after Halloween sales
-Glow sticks; also from Halloween sales
-Stickers
-Paw Print Oreo Pop (see below)

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I had seen in the store and online super cute blue dog ears for the children to wear. The one's in the store were expensive and the patterns I found online used either paper or foam. If I was going to spend time making them I wanted these ears to last at least as long as the party. My mother and I thought about using felt to make some ears. While I was mulling over the fabric at the store I noticed the fleece and that got my gears turning. It turns out that I had picked up a scrap of blue fleece at a garage sale this past summer. With that scrap of fabric this is what I came up with (and wish I had).

Blues Clues Ears

Need:
Piece of fleece with selvage edge wide enough to go around a child's head (22 inches or so)
Sew on Velcro
Good fabric scissors
Thread


With fleece there is a stretchy side and a not so stretchy side.

*Cut 2 inch x 22 inch* wide strips with the long side being the non-stretchy side (the one thing I wished for was that my scrap of fabric had been 3 inches or so longer. I had 19 inches which was a bit tight for the 4 year olds' heads, I ended up making extensions. Measure a child's head to see how long you really need.)

* Cut out an ear pattern out of paper. There's no right or wrong here but use most of an 8.5 x 11 sheet to do it.

*Cut two ears out of you fleece using your ear pattern. If there is a right and wrong side to your fleece be sure to flip the pattern for one ear.


*Cut two inch pieces of both sides of the Velcro. The two inches allows some adjustment to each individual head.

*Sew one piece of the 2 inch Velcro on one end of the fleece strip. The 2 inch length should be along the longer length of the fleece strip and in the middle of the strip near the edge (see above picture)

*Sew the second piece of Velcro onto the other end on the opposite side of the fabric. When the two pieces of Velcro are brought together you should have a circle headband.

*Measure wear to put the ears with the Velcro together, fold the band in half with the Velcro in the middle on top. The fold on either side is where you can put your ears. Pin them into place making sure they are both on the same face of the fabric and pointing the same direction.

*Sew around three sides of the ears on the band. I guess you could sew around all four sides attaching it to the band but I guess I was lazy.

*Tada! you are done. Make sure you have you camera ready because you are in for some super cute pictures!

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Blue Gak Recipe

There are a lot of recipes out there for Gak on the internet. This is the one we used and we all had great fun with it, especially the adults.

Borax can be found in next to the laundry detergent (Safeway carries it). I have a HUGE box so if you need some and live in the area, please give me a call!

2/3 Cup Elmers Glue
1/2 Cup Warm Water
Food Coloring of your choice
Combine in small bowl

1/3 cup HOT water
1/2 Tbs Borax
Combine in DIFFERENT bowl

Then combine the two containers and stire the mixture very well.
Store in an air tight container.

We used straws to try and blow bubbles with the Gak. Very amusing!

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Paw Print Oreo Pops

My mother pointed me to this blog where she shows you how to make Oreo Pops. They are super cute and great for any occasion. In a moment of inspiration I thought maybe I could make these pops into paw prints for the kids. I used white chocolate to dip the oreos and imediately after dipping them stuck 4 Dots candies on the top for toes and sprinkled the cookies with rainbow sprinkles. There was a mixed initial reaction as to what they were supposed to look like but I thought they turned out cute.

Blues Clues Birthday

Elijah and Sam (Sam especially) are really into Blues Clues. It's one thing they both agree on so for their joint friends birthday party this year we went with a Blues Clues theme. The party was a success!

The day started off with pancakes (like most Saturdays) but we added a little twist to these pancakes. We poured them in the shape of Paw Prints in honour of the party day.

For the party we had two families over that each have two kids my boys' ages. The kids were so cute in their dog ears and painted noses and we all had a lot of fun. By far the biggest stress was the cake (I have frosting issues!) but other than that everything went pretty smoothly.

Sam was glued to his Handy Dandy Notebook. He spent the entire party with that notebook in his hand wandering around the house looking for clues and he was pretty good at spotting them too. He was pretty serious about the whole thing and super cute. Elijah actually did well at drawing the clues in his notebook. You can actually tell what they are. He's becoming quite an artist.

Thank you mom for all your help. Thank you friends for sharing in the festivites with us, you made it so much fun.

The details and party plan are in a post to follow soon!

Free Shipping

I am a big fan of online shopping. I find it less stressful and easier to find the best deal without even leaving my own home -which is a big deal with two small children. I have most (not all, I'm holding out to see what Black Friday deals might be irresistable) of my shopping done and all of it was done online. Anyway, shipping can make or break a deal when it comes to shopping online. Hopefully with gas prices coming down -locally ours finally made it under $2- shipping costs will come down too. Meanwhile I came across a website called FreeShipping.org. The website points you to those online stores who are having shipping promotions and provides you with the coupon code if you need it. Pretty cool!

Just throwing it out there!

Check out Christ Centered Christmas for ideas on how to focus your gift giving and keep the true spirit of Christmas.

Good luck with the Christmas shopping.

Just like Grammie

While my mother was here Sam noticed her book and glasses on the couch and proceeded to mimic his Grammie reading. He was also willing for me to take a lot of photos of him being as cute as can be.

p.s. that's my afghan on the couch. It is basically done. I still have a few threads to hide and I need to wash and block it. But the crochetting is all done!!

Sam's 2 Years Old!

Sam absolutely loves making pancakes and waffles for breakfast with his daddy. We spiced up the pancakes for his birthday by adding blueberries. Sam is getting super independent. He wants to put the syrup on, smear it around, and cut the pancakes all by himself. He does a fairly good job but comes out very sticky!

Sam also helped me make cupcakes for his birthday. He is totally hands on in the kitchen. Both Elijah and Sam enjoyed putting the sprinkles on the cupcakes. They especially loved eating them after Sam's dinner of choice, Little Ceasers Pizza, which he got to go get alone with daddy. He's got the blowing the candles thing down (in fact when it came time for Elijah's cake Sam jumped the gun and we had to do it over again so Elijah could blow them out).

Sam's also got the unwrapping present thing down. He was very good a ripping all the paper off and his reactions were super SUPER cute. Below is a video of him opening his new baby. He is the sweetest boy with it. He hugs it and kisses it, tucks it in, wraps it in his blanket, etc... It melts my heart.

It is so hard to believe that my baby is all grown up. Elijah was his age when Sam was born! Time flies so FAST! I am so grateful to have sweet little Sam in our family. He is such a blessing and brightens every day.

Birthday Week

This week has be a week full of birthday celebrations. I have had enough birthday cake to last me til next year! We had Sam's birthday, then a joint Blues Clues party, and then Elijah's birthday; each with their own cake and presents. The boys have had great fun with all the festivities. To make the week even better, my mother was able to come out and share in the fun. The boys were super excited to have her here and we were sad to see her go this evening.

I have gobs of pictures to go through. I think I have over two hundred photos! So needless to say I have some weeding down to do, and slide shows to make, before I post about everything here.

But to appease those who have been waiting patiently to see pictures here is a darling video of Sam and Elijah playing with the Playskool Honeybee Hop. The idea is that the bee goes around and they are supposed to jump over it. It even plays Flight of the Bumblebee at two different speeds. Well, watch the video to see what the boys end up doing.

It's like a mini dog track for toddlers. Sam is especially funny to see running around with his little elbows pumping. They do this over and over and over. I got 10-12 video clips of them doing it today (I know it's pathetic) and they played with it a lot yesterday too. It's great; it wears them out. I can see this being a lifesaver this winter, if it survives that long.

Check in later for more stuff on the boys. Thank you to everyone who made my boys' birthdays happy.

Birthday Festivites... Coming

We have been having a week of birthday festivites. I know there are a least a few out ther biting at the bit waiting for birthday pictures.

THEY ARE COMING! and well worth the wait!

New Blog: Christ Centered Christmas

I, partnered with my mother, have added another blog to my author list. This one is focused on Christ Centered Christmas traditions. My mother and I have been brainstorming, plotting, writing, and editing and now I think we are to the point where we can open this project up to the general public. Keep in mind it is a work in progress but I hope that you might find the information helpful in some way or another. If you have anything to add or come across something on the internet worth sharing, please let me know!

As my mother has been pumping out these posts it has gotten me really excited for the Christmas season. Josh is very adamant that it can't start til after Thanksgiving though. That gives me three weeks (the fourth week we will be in Utah) to implement these amazing traditions. I'm going to need all the time until then to plan them.

Here's to a well planned Christ Centered Christmas!

I Voted

(and copied Ashley's blog post idea)

Despite all the precedence of long voting lines and stress on actual Election Day, I put off voting until today. But happily there were no bumps (for me, Josh had a bit of a registration in the right district issue) and no long lines. It was a pretty stress free event. The stress was all the time up to that putting up with the attack ads bombarding Colorado viewers, phone call after phone call (i got5 today alone) and actually deciding who I was going to vote for. I am happy to say that it is DONE and in the end I am grateful for the opprotunity to (go through the whole messy election process and) be able to vote and proudly wear my "I voted" sticker.

Tutorial Wish List

I have added a link list (at the bottom of the left column) where I have linked a bunch of the cool tutorials I have come across in my hours of aimless blog surfing. Many of the blogs I linked also have other great craft ideas. Be sure to take a peek if you are in the mood to try something new. I'm sure this will be an ongoing list so be sure to check it every so often.

Have a happy crafty Fall day!

Thankful Turkey Count Down

Tonight with it being Fast Sunday and Daylight Savings, we had dinner early and had time after dinner to do something as a family. I had read yesterday about a turkey feather countdown for Thanksgiving and decided it would be fun for the boys to make and do throughout the month. (I found the idea that you are slowly plucking the turkey in preparation for Thanksgiving to be amusing.) As I was getting my craft supplies out some popsicle sticks caught my eye and the gears turned from there. This is what we ended up making.

We ended up coloring enough popsicle sticks for everyday until Thanksgiving with markers to add color. It was something that Sam and Elijah could both do. I threw together a turkey head and feet and attatched them to a small teracota pot with hot glue. He's a bit of a funny lookign turkey, but you get the idea. The idea is that each day we will take out a "feather" and then write something we are thankful for on it and place it in a jar near by. There are also additional blank sticks in the jar for additional thankful notes.

Tonight Elijah picked the first feather and said "I am thankful for my SELF." So Elijah's name went down on a stick. Then Sam wanted in on the action and we put his name on a stick too. (That crazy kid can't say his name but he recognizes many letters and can SPELL his name, it seems a little backwards if you ask me.) Anyway, I'm excited for the opprotunity to share what we are grateful for as a family throughout the month. We truly have a lot to be grateful for.

I put a stick in tonight too. Mine said I was grateful for testimonies. Every first Sunday of the month members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have the opprotunity to share what they know about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Today's meeting was particularly moving. Strong witnesses were born, I felt the Spirit, and my own testimony was strengthened. There were a few children that bore their testimonies. It's kind of a Mormon joke that the kids always get up and say "I know this church is true, I love my mom and dad, I love my brother's and sisters... etc." But today it hit me differently. Last week I read an article by Elder Oaks of the Twelve Apostles titled "Testimony." He talks about how it is that we can KNOW.

"What do we mean when we testify and say that we know the gospel is true? Contrast that kind of knowledge with “I know it is cold outside” or “I know I love my wife.” These are three different kinds of knowledge, each learned in a different way. Knowledge of outside temperature can be verified by scientific proof. Knowledge that we love our spouse is personal and subjective. While not capable of scientific proof, it is still important. The idea that all important knowledge is based on scientific evidence is simply untrue."

Anyway, the talk goes into some good detail, but I was struck today by the simple connection of the love for our family and the love of our Heavenly Father. That we can come to know of our Heavenly Father's love and feel it- like and through the love of our earthly family.

There are many things that I do not know, but I DO know that there is a God and that he is my Heavenly Father, I am his daughter. He loves me, he knows me and he has provided a way for me to return to live with Him again. I know that Jesus Christ lives, that He is my Savior. The Atonement is real. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has His priesthood authority on the earth today. I know that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God. I love my family and know that we can be together forever. And for this knowledge I am daily grateful.

my little Dino-mites

We had a great Halloween. We went to our ward's trunk-or-treat which turned out being a little slimmer than we anticipated (Halloween night probably being a factor in that) but there was enough of a turn out to keep the boys occupied and for me to bring home the extra chocolate. Sam was really into the trick-or-treat get candy part of the event even though the silly kid doesn't talk and can't say "trick or treat". Good thing Elijah is his side kick and does all the talking and they both got the goods.


















Our friends have the cutest little 11 month old and they came up with a super creative costume for her. She was a fire hydrant complete with leg lifted dog. It was the cutest thing to see her waddling around. Man, she makes me baby hungry! especially for a girl.