Circus

So last weekend, Jack was invited to one of his classmates birthday parties. It was a circus theme and I do not like clowns ever since the Stephen King movie "It".  I told jack if this clown was creepy and didn't speak or smile and just stared at me, that we were leaving.  Well, the clown was very nice. I was proud of myself, I didn't sit in the corner with my eyes closed, saying "there is no place like home, there is no place like home". I just assumed they would have nothing there that I could eat, but they had steak, coleslaw and rice. It's hard to find anything to eat at a birthday party when you have Celiac disease, so that was a plus in my book.  There was an inflatable bounce house that the kids played in a lot despite the on again, off again sideways rain and thunder.  Who knew kids could have this much fun with balloons. They had balloon popping/throwing wars, and Jack even pretended do be pregnant!!! I do not know where he got that idea from, but it sure was funny.

                                      Jack and his classmate Miles trying on the Bozo noses

 Sitting still (I can't believe it), getting his face painted. I have no idea why he wanted to be a zombie, we don't watch anything with zombies in it.

                                                        A very friendly clown/ balloon artist

                                            LOL, some of these balloons just would not pop

 A giant elephant pinata, that the Mom got at Kmart, I didn't know they had pinata's at Kmart, but this was huge compared to the price she paid for it.

Jack had a very fun day, but Mom was worn out and ready to go home, we didn't even stay for cake, presents and to break the pinata, because we had been there for 3 hours already and was exhausted.

Fun (mostly) in TN

I have been friends with Cass for a while now. We originally met in a December 2006 group over on Cafemom, cause that is when our sons were born.  Then she started a card making group and I learned how to make cards, I had already scrap booked, but had never made cards. So, then I got into card making and the scrapbooks never got done, LOL Then I decided to quit crafting all-together and lose weight, train for 5k's and get healthy.  Now that I am healthy and no how to manage my time better, I want to get into crafting again.  I went down to her place recently and got the boys together to play, she showed me all of her smash-books and turned me onto Washi tape (love, love, love it, by the way).  I am organizing my craft room today so I can maybe start smashing.  We talked for a while, then took the kids to Monkey Joe's, a big inflatables place. Cass got some great pics of the boys being boys.

 Jack and Noah, friends for almost 5 years. I think they were 2 and a half when we met in person.

                                                                    Love, this picture!!!

 Lunch break and hurricane simulator. What a great day!

Then there was the minor set back of cutting my toes real bad on a sharp edge of the table and a rusty nail, I had to go to Urgentcare. LOL Only me, in a place filled with inflatables would get injured on the underneath of a table.  Had to get liquid stitch with steri-strip and had to get a tetanus shot.  Went back to Cass's house, had more girl talk, drank some coffee and the kids played some more.  It was a great day (mostly). I wished she lived closer, but if she did, we would never get anything actually accomplished cause we would hang out all day. LOL

A very eventful Memorial Day weekend

Well since Jack has been out of school, we have tried to stay busy. He is finishing up baseball, we have played outside with the dog alot and taken her for walks around the neighborhood, had playdates with friends, gone to cookouts and have gone swimming, had water balloon fights, gone bowling and gone to the movies.                                

                He took a picture with Blaine from kindergarten also on his team, as well as Andrew

                       At the park with Lily, feeding (running and scaring-in Jack's case) the ducks

 Lily was a little scared to climb up, Jack is fearless which scares me a little, I am waiting any day now for the first broken bone to occur.

                                                        He wanted Mama to climb up too.

                                           Jack was entertaining (annoying) baby Caroline.

                                  He was trying to scare her with the shark, she just laughed.

 Water balloon fight with Mom. we were both hot, he and Daddy took the dog for a walk, then Jack rode his scooter while I roller bladed, so it was definitely time to cool off.

                                                      It was cold, but it felt so good.

                                                            Pink silly string fight

This was all Memorial Day weekend. Also went running at Keriakes Park, swimming and went to a cookout.Whew, one busy weekend, I had to go back to work to get a little rest. LOL

End of school year gifts

I had trouble coming up with cheap end of school year/yay it's summer gifts for the students in Jack's class this year.  Not to mention that he had a male teacher this year and men are hard to shop for, LOL. I hit the Dollar Tree for the kids and ended up giving them an eraser, a bottle of bubbles, a little tub of cheap play dough, a mini frisbee disc and sidewalk chalk. the kids loved them, so I guess I did good.  Last year I got Jack's preschool class, a tub of snacks, I got the little buckets at the Target dollar spot marked down to .25 each because apparently they were for Christmas, but the colors were green, blue, orange and red, enough of the other colors to not make them look Christmas-like. Jack is getting older and the gifts are gonna be harder to think of, I am hoping to get some super cheap beach balls at the end of summer on sale for the kids for the next school year. The have a great summer tag on the kids bags was actually a free cupcake topper printable found on pinterest, I can't find the link for it now though.  For the male teacher I ended up doing a car washing kit, a gas card and a Walmart card.  For the teaching assistant I did a pedicure kit and a steak and shake gift card.

 Then there was Jack. They don't do kindergarten graduations here, they did last year but quit, so he was sad about that, so I got him a few cheap things for summer. I used the two free $10.00 Kohl's cash that I got in the mail for the Ironman transform car, the swimming pool torpedos and the water balloons, then I went to the Dollar Tree and got the silly string, glow light saber thingy and the wooden Jacob's ladder toy. I only spent $3.00 for all of this and it sure did make his day. He loved the Ironman toy of course but his favorite was the 1.00 ladder toy. LOL

 Here is a picture of me, I had just recently gotten my hair cut and here is the picture of it.

Pinterest???

So I found this recipe on pinterest and thought I would try it out. It claims to be low in calories and taste just like a Wendy's frosty. I was like right, ok I don't believe it, so I tried this recipe exactly how she had it. It was so thick my blender wouldn't even turn so I had to add another half a cup of Almond milk. I used half a banana and stevia to sweeten. If I made it again I wouldn't add the half a cup of Almond milk, I would just use like 3 or 4 ice cubes as opposed to 15.  It did taste really good though.  My total calorie count was 260.



The next pinterest link I tried was this Brazilian Butt Workout and let me tell you I probably won't be able to walk very well tomorrow, this workout is awesome and with swimsuit season right around the corner, what's not to love.  I also did crunches, 10 min of arms and walked on the treadmill for 30 min with this workout.  I am able to exercise more on the weekends.  Hope my reviews helped.

Catching up

I am playing catch up on blog posts since I was too busy to blog my crafty stuff last year.  I was in my best friends wedding in October and I threw her Bachelorette party.  I found this cute kool aid and vaseline lip gloss on pinterest, she even has a link to make your own printables for the containers. I used sticker paper to print the labels on and punched them out with my circle punch, but I had trouble finding the containers.  I finally found the containers at Walmart in the craft section near the beading and jewelry making stuff.  The funny thing is this stuff is great like vaseline cause that is what I used to put on my lips but has a tint to it and a flavor, so even though I made these for party favors, I think I'm going to make more for me so I don't ever have to buy chapstick again. LOl Here is a picture of the ones I made, the containers I found didn't have black lids. This stuff was easy to make, Jack helped me make them.

Penny Pincher

I have always been a penny pincher, and people always ask me what are some of the things I do to save money.  Well I have always been like this.  When I was little I would save up my piggy bank money for toys that I wanted.  When I was a teenager and got a car and a job I did the Dave Ramsey envelope saving strategy before I even new who he was.  I had my car insurance envelope, a car tax one, an oil change and gas one, clothing envelope, and dining out-fun envelope.  I would split my pay checks up this way. Now that I am an adult, I do easy things like open the windows and turn air or heat off when weather permits, if low on gas in car turn air/heat and radio off to save until you get to the gas station.  I also use tap water not bottled water because I drink a ton of water per day.  After Christmas I go the shopping a week or 2 after the holiday and shop for kids toys, I get male and female even though I only have a son. I spent $50.00 bucks this past January and got like 20 presents. I store them in a storage tote all year and whenever Jack gets invited to a birthday party, also for valentines and easter stuff I have instant presents.  My boss takes 6 weeks off a yr and I don't get paid when we are off (I get my 2 weeks paid vacation per yr, but not 6), so this comes in handy around those times.  I also look up in the local paper or online for free activities for kids in the town where I live. I take Jack to as many of those as possible, as long as he has been good, and I almost always will take picnic food there to avoid food costs.  I take my lunch to work everyday, most days anyway, sometimes I eat out but it's like once every other month or so.  I get cheap haircuts at great clips and I use coupons (my hair is so thin, can't do much with it anyway), my hubby and his dad cut Jack's hair.  I make crockpot meals in the summer to prevent the house from getting hot with the oven.  For summer time boredom never underestimate libraries, parks, feeding ducks, sidewalk chalk, kites, bubbles and cold smoothies on a hot day. Don't eat out as much, find free events for the kids, keep a storage tote of gifts for children and I keep stocking stuffers too. I also buy stuff up when they go on sale for future use. In the fall time you can get beach balls for .25 cents a piece and I have found bubbles for .10 cents a piece too. I always get 25 of each item if I can for end of school gifts for all the kids in my sons class.  Same for ornaments or Christmas decorations when they go on sale I use for the next yr for teacher gifts as well.  For clothes I love yard sales, consignment sales, Goodwill, Walmart and store sales.  It's not like I can't afford to buy clothes at department stores, but I refuse to pay 30 bucks for a pair of jeans my kid is only going to wear for 6 mo and probably stain up so bad you can't sell them.  I know a lot of this might sound extreme to some people but but doing all this allows me to pay extra principle on the mortgage every month (to hopefully pay it off sooner), and we were able to go on 3 vacations last year.  Don't know if this will help anybody or not, but I hope it does.