winner & b-day pics

Yes, I had fun dressing my doll up for her 5 year old birthday photos. It only happens once in a lifetime- and she's my baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (although I have to say each stage has been fun so far and I do not want to go backwards BUT- she can stay 5 forever and I will not mind)


These balloons made our Saturday party fun and colorful - there is something so festive about helium balloons. The boys and I had a blast going to Party City, picking out the colors, running like crazy in the wind, and trying to stuff them all in our car :)


Happy Birthday to our sweet girl :)


I'm linking up to:

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It was great to hear what all of you spend on groceries. Your comments are so helpful and interesting. Thanks for letting us peek into your life!

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Last, but not least....

The winner of the phone cozy is................................................

THE DREAMING BEAR!!!!!!!!!!! Congratulations, Dori!!! I will e-mail you about colors.
Thank you to everyone who left me a comment- I love to hear from you all :)

baby all gone, grocery prices, and CAKE

We have already celebrated today- even though she won't be 5 until Monday. We had a birthday lunch of her specified favorite foods, strawberry cake with strawberry jello/cool whip frosting, topped with skittles and m&ms. Now the kids are watching cartoons and I am editing photos- feeling very relaxed and lazy with a dog sitting on my shoulder (she sits on the back of the couch with her rear end on my shoulder- it is genuinely adorable)

As we were carefully applying the many skittles and m&ms to the top of the cake (as specified by her, "I want a pink cake with pink icing and covered with m&ms")- we realized that they matched her initials. How cute is that?!? Happy Birthday Skittles Mincy :)

She ate the candy off the top and was ready to open presents....

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Our little girl had wanted Baby All Gone for Christmas- we didn't really listen when she talked about it...she had never even seen the doll- just heard about it and that it really eats bananas. But when she continued to talk about Baby All Gone every day since Christmas, I started to listen to her and decided maybe we could get one for her birthday. I started about 3 days ago. First I tried Wal-Mart, then Target. I called Baby R Us and Kohl's...Baby All Gone was all gone!!!!

So we had to order it and it will not be here until next week.

So while she was opening presents she would look at the remaining presents and kind of size up the package, trying to figure out if we could fit Baby All Gone into the gift bag. We finally told her that we had gotten it and it would come in the mail next week. She was very relieved! Reminded me of the year I got my cabbage patch :)

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We are taking The Financial Peace class by Dave Ramsey at church. Dave and I have been working on budgets, etc, and all that other stuff (whatever it is.....it is mostly Dave working on it :)

Anyway, it seems like our grocery budget is inching up each week. I know I am to blame, I have been shopping at Trader Joe's (and LOVE it!), but also, I think it is partly due to our growing children and the prices have been going up everywhere, right?

I would love it if you would tell us how much you spend a month on groceries. And does this price include toiletries?

I would love to know what other people pay for groceries...you could even leave an anonymous comment and I would not try and guess your identity.

This will either be helpful to me so I can say to Dave, "Look how much everyone else spends!"
(except that he is not the type to cave into peer pressure)

Or it will make Dave say, "see how much less we should be spending!!!

In your comment let us know how many people you are buying for.
Thank you!

I have loved hearing your comments about where you work and what you do.

fun thrift store finds

I forgot to show you what we found at the Salvation Army thrift store.....these adorable cubbies! I wanted to put them in every room of the house- but we needed more storage in our little girl's room- so they are there for now.


I found the little coral sweater and the two skirts next to it at goodwill...


and this shirt + sweater. You can always find cute little girl clothes at thrift stores!!! Little boy clothes...sometimes....they seem to be harder on their clothes.


When I brought home this little gingham dress, and had washed it, she put it right on over her jammies.



Don't forget about my phone cozy giveaway. I'll pick a winner on Monday.

Have a great weekend! We are celebrating our almost 5 year old's birthday!!!! Pink cake, balloons...and my goal is to get some shots like these :) :)

speaking of kindergarten..............

Do you love my huge vintage tape measure on the wall?!??!!??!!

I know you love it- I adore it and can you even imagine how much it cost?


Look closer and enjoy the crackly vintage-y-ness.

It cost only for the paper I printed it on!

I found it here...genius, right??

SOOOOO many possibilities......

It is meant to be a growth chart- if you follow the directions and print on legal size paper- then each "inch" will equal a foot. (genius) Cathe even made a centimeter tape!

kindergarten chic + felt = happy (and 1 for u)

This satisfies my need for bright colors against black...add in the measuring tape-type ribbon and I am ecstatic!

I was inspired by the designs over at mmmcrafts. She has a very similar leaf pattern.

But what is it?

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a phone cozy!

It only took me 3 Cosby Show reruns to make it (a little over an hour).

Want me to make you one? Customized with your fave colors? As long as you can put up with my wonky stitches....

....leave me a comment telling me what you do- I would love to know; are you a brain surgeon? A stay at home mom? A trash collector? A teacher?

And I will pick a winner. The winner will get to pick colors for a phone cozy in the design above.

cute pillows, cute letters, cute bag, cute book wall, cute dog

Map pillows! I saw these at my bearded pigeon's etsy shop. Wouldn't these be perfect for my boys' room?!?
adorable.


I recently ran across this super cute blog, mmmcrafts. So many inspiring ideas. Here is the tutorial on the fabric covered letters.


And this beautiful messenger bag.


You will be inspired and you will say, mmmmm...crafts!


Check out the book wall that Little Mama created at Haven of color! LOVE it! She used red chalkboard paint for the wall!!!! How creative is that- and think of the many possibilities she has for changing up the books and writing on the wall.




Lastly, just so you can cringe at my sadie talk voice.....
She is my baby, what can I say?!?!?!

soo 'cited! Boys' room has been clean for 3 days.

A more clean and organized closet for the boys!!


Much better use of the space...I bought the hanging shelves for $15 each. the hanging rod on the bottom right for $10ish. The lamper (laundry basket/hamper) for $7, the green baskets on the top shelf- $4 each. Black hangers for one boy and white hangers for another $4 for all. Everything came from Target. The maps I had on hand- taped to the wall.



They like that everything has a place. They know exactly where to put every single thing. Each boy has a desk with each drawer full of the papers and toys and junk they want to keep. Books go on the bookshelf (what a concept!) They each have a plastic drawer organizer for legos so if needed they can take the drawer out and take the legos elsewhere to be played with.


The dresser holds all underwear, socks, jammies, belts, and t-shirts. The rest of their clothing goes in the closet - and shoes are still in the kitchen area (by the back door) in shoe bins.


Remember the before?

Much better! We will see how it holds up. I feel like their room is finally organized and boy friendly- not as cute as when I finished the initial makeover- but very functional- and that is what a kids' room is about, right?? Fun and Functional- and not always cute :)

raspberry apple danish spread (and various other stuffs)

We bought cinnamon Ritz crackers (I think by mistake) and this recipe was on the back of the box. It was sooo yummy.

raspberry apple danish spread
1 pkg cream cheese, softened
1 apple, chopped
2 tbsp. raspberry jam
1/3 c. granola (my granola had blueberries and cranberries in it- that is what you see up there)
Ritz brown sugar cinnamon crackers

Heat oven to 350*
Spread cream cheese onto bottom of 9-inch pie plate.
Combine apples and jam; spread over cream cheese. Top with granola.
Bake 20 min or until heated through.
Serve with crackers.

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Valentine's date night at home! Dave with his favorite things- Sadie, ketchup, and gold coast shrimp. (but I'm his favorite-est, of course)


Oh my goodness- pure bliss. Although, even I was embarrassed with all of the sauces that I needed for my Outback take-out:

1) blue cheese dressing and tangy tomato dressing for my salad
2) Outback's tangy ranch for the cheese fries (I only had a few...)
3) A-1 for the steak
4) sour cream and butter for the baked potato
5) Some special lemon butter sauce for the shrimp.
Embarrassing!!! And I wonder why I can't lose those last 10 pesky pounds- there you have it. I promise not to eat 7 sauces and butters again in one meal until next valentines ((or my birthday?!))


sweet :)

that was all sugar and spice............................get ready for the snips and snails and puppy dogs tails............................................





The boys' closet before the transformation!!!!!!!!!!!!! Guess what?! Surprise, surprise, I took off those closet doors! It is an addiction- when you start taking doors off you just can't stop. First it was the pantry, then the laundry area, then our girl's closet- now the boys'. I hope to finish it up early next week. Not as dramatic as the purple polka dot one, but better than it was, hopefully!

Would you ever take doors off of a closet or pantry?

just an ordinary moment

eating the alphabet...letter P! (and a bit on kids' rooms)

One day last week we just randomly happened to have a number of foods starting with the letter p. Pineapple!!

Blackberry Preserves!


Pickles! (ummmm, the jar does not even say the word pickle?!)


Popcorn!


Pears!


Peanut butter! (smeared on the leftover purple and pink pancakes with the blackberry preserves no less :)


pomegranate!


Pomegranate cut open!


Pomegranate seed removal made easy by the bowl of water!


Yes, it was a pleasurable lunch.

"Please polish off your portions my precious, pleasing, princess and princes."

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OK! Enough with the p-words....

We started to tackle a nice big project today- organizing the boys room (again)...it has been almost 10 years since our first boy showed up and I still can't get it together!!! Now there are 2 boys in that room and wow! has it ever been a wreck in there!!! They are required to clean their room every day - but when there is too much junk and not enough storage- the poor boys just stuff things anywhere.

I went to Target and got some closet organizer things...I'll show you the before and afters in a few days.

Please tell me this: do you have your kids' rooms under control? Can you walk into the room without gagging and running the opposite direction? How many years did it take you to figure out a system? We have lived in this house for almost 5 years and still- I feel like I am not organized. Please tell me if you are not organized (then I will feel better, and like I am not alone) and tell me if you are organized and how you got there!!!!! (please, I'm desperate)

Red + Pink with sprinkles on top

We had a tiny little party this morning for some tiny little friends.



Have you seen the valentine candy corn? It is an optical illusion- you think they may be strawberry or bubblegum flavored- but they are not...just the regular orange/yellow taste.


The jello was yum!


I promise to share the danish dip recipe with you- you'll like it.


CAKE BALLS!!!!

They turned out OK- I used strawberry cake and cream cheese icing- next time I am going to do chocolate on chocolate :)



Happy Valentine's Day from us to you....hoping your day is sweet. Wish you were at my house eating a cake ball and koolaid with a side of jello :)

I'm linking up to:


And

Jonquils and Ladybugs- COLOR WEEK!