Surrounded by Boys!

Nutella Party sponsored by MommyParties!

2011-03-30T12:01:00.000-04:00

I was recently given the opportunity to host a Nutella Party. I already love this stuff, even before this opportunity. I was very excited to host this party.

My box arrived, stuffed full of wonderful goodies for myself and my guests. They included recipe cards, Nutella samples for guests and a giant jar for myself, Nutella spreaders, Nutella branded travel mugs, coupons and more.

My favorite way to enjoy Nutella is with salty pretzels! I LOVE to dip them in Nutella, it's sooo yummy! I tried a different way for this post as I recently joined Weight Watchers. YIKES!!! I love Nutella but this is NOT the kind of think you want to be eating on WW! I made an exception for the purposes of writing a review. I spread my Nutella on low fat whole grain Thomas' English Muffins and topped with sliced strawberries. It was sooo good but definitely needed the berries so it wasn't too sweet.

My boys also all love Nutella on their toast in the morning. I think this weekend I may just whip up some crepes for them and fill them with assorted fruit and Nutella for a nice treat.

This is a great "sometimes" food, not an "all the time" food, only because it is so high in fat and calories at 11g of fat and 200 cal per 2 TBSP. It also has 3.5g of saturated fat per serving. As they say, Nutella is great as part of a healthy well balanced diet.

*I was provided with a box of samples and other party items in exchange for my blog post. All opinions above are my own.

Smuckers Stars on Ice ticket Giveaway (Momma D and Da Boyz)

2011-03-16T20:17:00.000-04:00

My friend Jenn over at Momma D and Da Boyz is giving away a 4 pack of tickets to see Smuckers Stars on Ice at the Broome County Arena in Binghamton, NY. I've entered, though I rarely win anything, and you can too if you're within driving distance of Binghamton. Head on over and check it out!

CSN Giveaway Winner!

2011-03-02T20:23:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Sheila! You have won a $55.00 CSN Stores coupon code to use as you wish! Have fun shopping!

CSN Stores will be contacting you shortly with your code information.

Thanks to all who participated!

Disclaimer

A $55.00 coupon code will be provided to the winner of the giveaway in exchange for my post.

CSN Stores Giveaway! $55 coupon code!

2011-02-18T10:22:00.000-05:00

As a preferred blogger with CSN Stores, I'm given the opportunity to do reviews and giveaways every 60 days. This month, I'm excited to offer a $55.00 coupon code to one lucky reader! Who doesn't love free money? It's been a while since I last wrote. Since the last post, we've gotten a new carpet (thanks to a rainstorm and insurance) and painted the living room walls. Next is new furniture since it's tax return time WooHoo!! I've also been wanting to get more wall art and decor for well, every room, really. A great place to find those things is at CSN Stores where there's a great selection and free shipping on tons of items! They also have a price guarantee! If you see the exact product at another site for less, follow the links and send your request for the lower price. Great, right?!

So how do you enter?

Visit CSN Stores and tell me what you'd buy with the code if you win. This is REQUIRED for any other entries to count!

EXTRA ENTRIES

Follow Surrounded By Boys for 1 extra entry

Blog about this giveaway and post the link in the comments for 2 extra entries (labeled #1 and #2)

Follow me on Twitter @muffinscakes for 1 extra entry

This giveaway will end on 2/28/11 at 9pm (eastern time). The winner will be chosen via random.org and posted shortly after the giveaway ends. You will receive an email from CSN stores containing your code for $55.00 off any purchase. Good luck!

FRUGAL FRIDAY: In the kitchen

2010-12-03T15:04:00.000-05:00

I missed Frugal Friday last week because I was busy with cakes. Today I made sure to set some time aside for some tips.

We waste so much food here in America that it's just a sin. There are so many ways we could cut back on our waste and save money at the same time. Winter is a great time to make homemade soups and homemade bread. With Thanksgiving just last week, what did you all do with your turkey carcass? And might I just add...what a strange word carcass is! If you're like myself and my mother-in-law, you put it in a pot, covered it with water and boiled it to make some great homemade turkey stock! I don't use recipes for my soup, which makes my sister terribly nervous. HA! I just don't. So for you recipe lovers, here's a recipe for Day-After-Thanksgiving-Turkey-Carcass-Soup. You can also use your ham bone (my favorite!) and chicken carcass. I'm not particularly fond of using beef bones but some love it. I just don't enjoy the flavor. Another thing I like to do for stock just enhances your meat stock or if you're vegetarian, it's great veggie stock. I wash my vegetables before peeling and save peelings and ends of onions (skin and all), garlic skins, carrot peel and ends, zucchini ends, celery ends and leaves. The list really is endless. As I get little bits of scraps, I stuff them into a Ziploc bag and store it in the freezer until I've got enough to make stock! Brilliant!

Milk on the verge of the expiration date is not something that ever happens in my house. Some days, we go through an entire gallon...in one day! My boys are definitely milk drinkers. Anyhow, don't throw it away! Make pudding and have dessert. Better yet, since I'm a cake baker, I save the scraps of cake from leveling and sculpting and such to make trifles. Cube the cake and freeze for the perfect time. My entire family loves trifles and they're so simple. You can find tons of different combos for these desserts but our basic is layers of cake cubes, pudding in any flavor, bananas, cool whip and repeat. How easy?!

Banana's go bad very fast. If you've got a banana or 2 getting beyond the point eating, it's probably perfect for bread or muffins. No time to use it right away? freeze the entire banana, peel and all! Make sure that you put them in a bowl to thaw because they do give off a lot of liquid and they will be very mushy...but again, perfect for bread!

That's all for now. Happy cooking and have a great weekend!

Upcoming Review From CSN Stores!

2010-11-28T19:54:00.000-05:00

I love being a preferred blogger for CSN Stores. It allows me to offer giveaways and host product reviews on a monthly basis. For Christmas this year, my family has decided to fore go the presents and take a trip to Florida to visit family and go to Disney! We are very excited! Having 3 boys, something that would come in handy for us is children's luggage . We usually just pack out things in one large suitcase on wheels and many different bags. I think the kids would enjoy having luggage of their own.

Visit CSN Stores for all your holiday shopping this season. They offer free shipping on tons of different items and they have a price guarantee. If you see any particular item on a different site for less (including shipping), email them using the special link and get a special code for the lower price! I love that!

Stay tuned for my review.

Frugal Friday! Energy Costs

2010-11-19T12:01:00.000-05:00

Well, as promised, I'm trying to get back into my Frugal Friday series. I'm in the middle of 3 cake orders for tomorrow so today's tips will be short.

Recently I had NYSERTA come in and do some energy saving things in my home. This was a free service to us because we received HEAP last year to help pay for our heating bill. I feel like I basically know what it takes to cut down on my energy bill but they did give me some interesting information as far as putting numbers into the equation. It costs, on average, .17 per hour to run your electric dryer! WOW! With the amount of laundry I do, that adds up very quickly. I'm guilty of being very lazy in this area. I do have a clothes line outside but really, I can only use it in the spring and summer. I have a retractable clothes line in my bedroom but that holds like 1/4 of a load! I honestly don't have room for those wooden drying racks so other than the dryer, what's a family to do? I'm thinking of hanging another indoor line and at least hang half of each load. I also learned that you use more energy using a dryer if you aren't cleaning the lint filter after every use. Obviously, it runs longer if the lint filter is clogged.

They also changed 16 light bulbs to the super energy efficient compact florescent bulbs. They produce the same amount of light and use a whopping 75% less energy than a regular bulb. Over the life of one CFL (compact florescent light bulb) you can save up to $70! Multiply that times every light bulb in your house and that's a decent amount of money back in your pocket!

So here are some frightening numbers for you as far as average costs to run different things around your house. The numbers are based on NY State average electricity cost of .16/Kwh. Appliances obviously vary so these are ballpark estimates.

42" HDTV: 6 hours per day = $7.01/month
Radio: 6 hours per day = $1.44/month (listen to the radio for that "white noise" instead of the TV!)
Computer: 6 hours per day = $7.82/month
Fish Tanks: $14.03/month!!!
Waterbeds: $16.77/month
Swimming Pool Pump: 12 hours per day = $150.69/month!! My brochure says we run these much longer than needed and suggests a timer.

Did you know that you can lower your heating bill by 1% for EVERY DEGREE you lower the thermostat for an 8 hour period! Hello!! Get some extra blankets and turn that heat down at night! This is the example given:

Lowering your thermostat from 70 to 68 for a 24 hour period saves 6%
Lowering your thermostat from 68 to 60 when away from home or sleeping for 8 hours saves an additional 16%

These savings add up to 22% and for every $1000 you use to heat your home, that's a savings of $220!!! Holy Cow! I really think I need to be better about this at night! I freeze all winter long so I'm guilty of not turning it down. I think I'll change my plan since we're not applying for HEAP this year.

This one hits home for me as a SAHM with a cake business...on average it costs .17 per hour to run my gas stove!!! Puts my costs more into perspective and makes me think twice about what I'm charging for cakes!

I've got more info but no time. I hope some of this info helps you and gives you the desire to change! Have a great weekend!

Night Terrors: YIKES!

2010-11-18T09:16:00.000-05:00

If you've read previous posts, you know that my Max has SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder or Sensory Integration Dysfunction). Now that his routine is established and he's back in therapy in school, things have mostly gotten better. Summertime is hard for Max because we're more relaxed and don't really have any kind of schedule. It took him a few weeks to get back into the routine of school and homework and set bedtimes. I'm thinking ahead of time and have decided that when summer rolls around again, we need to figure out how we can keep him on some sort of schedule.

It's only been this school year that we're really understanding how this SPD works and how we can help Max deal with it. We've tried a couple of things to make up a sensory diet for Max. This isn't a diet that involves food, this is a diet of different techniques we do with Max to help him calm his senses. We do brushing before and after school and that seems to be the most beneficial to Max. I occasionally, although should do it every time, do joint compression after the brushing and we got Max a small indoor trampoline for him to jump on. In church we use our fingers to tickle his arms and back and it's like magic to get him to calm down and behave.

We've noticed that Max's behavior and the severity of the SPD on any particular day is almost always directly related to his sleep pattern from the previous night. The first time Max had a night terror, needless to say, my husband and I were scared! To see your child in that state is truly terrifying! I remember at one point before we had the diagnosis of SPD thinking he had some sort of Schizophrenia! For Max, and I guess is characteristic of night terrors, is that it happens early in the night, usually 1-4 hours after going to bed. There's no set pattern for him as far as the frequency. Last night, he got up, came to the kitchen for a drink and by the time he got back to his bedroom he was crying really loudly. This is the first time our oldest, Zachary, had witnessed one of his episodes. Zach went to him and asked him what was wrong and I heard Max say "I don't know." Zach got him back into bed and layed with him until he fell back to sleep. This was a rather short and mild episode compared to some I remember. I can remember one time when he cried hysterically and insisted that there were spiders all over his bed. He cries loudly (without tears), taps his fingers together nervously, looks terrified, has no idea what's going on, doesn't seem to know who we are sometimes and never remembers in the morning. You can bank on him having a terrible day if he's had a bad night.

Max has always had trouble calming down and going to sleep at night. I know all the experts say (and some friends and family with sometimes unwanted advice) that the bedroom is only for sleeping and I shouldn't let him read in bed or listen to music but I find that these are the things that may help him. If the kid has trouble winding down, should I simply tell him to lay in bed for an hour until he falls asleep? Then he's up and down twelve thousand times with different excuses every time for why he's out of bed! There are only so many things that work with Max as far as getting him to do what he's told. I can't simply tell him to stay in bed and have him listen, he just doesn't work that way. In fact, there are very few things that might work. The threat of not having computer privileges the following day seems to be the thing of the moment.

SPD kids are so hard to deal with on a day to day basis but Max's sense of humor and his deep love for his family just amaze me. These are kids that are definitely misunderstood and looked upon as kids who are simply "bad kids" who just don't want to listen. As their parents, we're judged as bad parents because we can't "control" our kids. Our SPD kids have trouble making friends in school and are sometimes looked upon as "one of those kids" by classmates parents. You know, the kids you say "ugh, I don't want that kid coming to the party" or "that kid cannot come to my house." It's heartbreaking to have a misunderstood child. It's heartbreaking to think that people can't look beyond these issues to see the heart that my child has. That's why, as an SPD parent, I'll do what I can to help him with his sensory diet and to help him figure out how he can deal with it when I'm not there to help him. My heart goes out to all you families dealing with these issues. We've got super special precious children. God chose us to be their parents for a reason. Love, learn and teach!

Missing In Action and a little ranting.

2010-11-17T10:22:00.000-05:00

I think part of the reason I quit doing regular posts about everyday life in my surrounded-by-boys world is because I feel like they're falling on deaf ears. Man, the blogger world is fickle! What's the key to having loyal followers who like to comment on posts? I think in my blogging world I feed off your reactions and comments. If I'm getting nothing, I guess I'll give nothing.

Maybe I'll actually take the time to sit and get some things written and see how it goes. I'd hate to be a blog that only does reviews and giveaways....how boring! So, I'll try to update regularly on Max and his SPD and I'd love to continue my Frugal Friday series I abandoned before it even got established. I've been doing lots of thinking about the direction of my blog. A sort of support group type blog for other parents dealing with SPD...recipes...tips on being more frugal...reviews & giveaways...a bit of all? What do you, my followers, look for in an interesting blog? I'd love to know.

CSN Stores $35 Coupon Code Giveaway!

2010-10-27T08:15:00.000-04:00

Head on over to my cake blog and enter for a chance to win a $35.00 coupon code to use on your next purchase from CSN Stores! Giveaway ends on 11/5 so hurry over!

ENTER HERE!

CSN Stores Upcoming Review: Pawleys Island Castaway Air Chair

2010-10-27T08:09:00.001-04:00

We've been waiting for a very long time for this chair to come in so Zach could try it out in his bedroom. It took so long that CSN Stores emailed us a code for an extra 10% off our order! Nice right?! CSN Stores has graciously offered us the chance to do a review again and this time Zach got to choose the product. Weather you're looking for a new dining room table or a fancy waffle maker, CSN Stores is your place. CSN Stores offers over 200 online shops to choose from and offers free shipping on TONS of items! Who doesn't love free shipping?

If I were shopping for a new dining room table, I'd probably choose something like the Tradewins Cherry Expressions 7 Piece Set. Head on over and check them out and watch for my upcoming review!

CSN Stores Review: Pure Fun Mini Trampoline

2010-10-27T07:56:00.000-04:00

We recently had the opportunity to work with CSN Stores again decided to go with something for Max this time. As you know from previous posts, Max is living with SPD (sensory processing disorder) and one of our issues with him is that he's forever doing somersaults and headstands on the furniture. I'm not sure what made me think of a trampoline but what a God-send!

The Pure Fun 40" Mini Trampoline arrived VERY quickly and I didn't pay shipping charges. I've mentioned in previous posts that many of CSN Stores items offer free shipping, which for me, is a big hit!

It didn't take long to figure out the directions. I normally wait for Cory to put things together but we were too anxious. I'm not the most patient person in the world.

I apologize for the sideways video but I'm not savvy enough to know how to flip it around. You get the idea and can see how much Max loves it! You can also HEAR how loud my house is! Right away he was trying to do tricks on it. I love the handle on it because I think it allows him to jump harder on it and therefore increasing the input he's receiving on his legs. Luke is a bit too small for the handle but he likes to hang from it..HA!

The sensory diet we're trying to provide for Max is really helping and we're finally seeing results. If you're not familiar with a sensory diet, it doesn't involve the food he eats. A sensory diet includes different techniques we do with Max to give him the sensory input he needs such as brushing and the trampoline. We're working on figuring out something he can do for oral stimulation as he's constantly eating and especially loves gum and chewy candy. We're worried that this will lead to some sort of eating disorder and result in him being obese. This is also where the trampoline is beneficial to him as it's also great for burning calories! You mom's could play on it when the kids are away at school!

Overall we're very pleased with the trampoline and I really can't think of any criticisms other than the size of it and lack of storage. That was something we were aware of before we ordered it though. It's sturdy, has nice soft foam handle grips and holds up to 220 pounds.

I highly recommend this trampoline for any family and especially those who are dealing with SPD. Imagine how great this thing will be in the dead of winter when they're bored and sick of the cold!

Head on over to one of the 200+ CSN Stores and get your Christmas shopping done!

CSN Stores

2010-09-11T16:19:00.001-04:00

If you haven't had the chance to visit CSN Stores from my previous posts, you're surely missing out. I'm happy to be working with them again for another review. It's been a busy summer so those reviews will be coming up now that the kids are in school again. CSN Stores has over 200 online stores where you can find everything from from coffee table to fantastic fitniss equipment to cookware.

Stay tuned for my review and in the meantime go visit one of the 200 CSN Stores and shop!

CostumeSupercenter Review!

2010-08-17T09:46:00.000-04:00

Recently I was contacted by CostumeSupercenter to do a review of a costume of my choice. I was super excited to have been chosen for this particular review as my 7 year old son, Max has always been a fan of dressing up. We actually purchased extra costumes on clearance from WalMart after Halloween last year just so he could dress up throughout the year. His costumes of choice are usually Star Wars or Ninja characters. He followed suit with this costume and chose the Clone Trooper Leader Rex. CostumeSupercenter has a great selection of Star Wars Costumes!

When I told Max what the review was for, he was giddy! He literally spent hours searching through the many, many costumes offered on Costume Supercenter. The choices offered by this site for Halloween Costumes is wonderful! The prices are very competitive as well. Price is always an issue for my family and this is a site that even families like ours, on a tight budget, can afford.

Max's costume arrived in record time! Our order was placed and before the week had ended, Max was a Clone Trooper! My first impression of the costume was that it was very high quality, unlike many Halloween costumes that are out there. We're so used to those cheap costumes from WalMart that this costume was a treat!

The costume came with several parts. The 2 piece mask was the first thing Max put on. There's something about a kid putting on that mask, that's when they truly become the character! The mask is a heavy duty plastic and has Velcro pieces on either side to keep the mask together and on the child's head. We've had issues with the Velcro staying together, honestly. Max actually commented that he didn't think they were both the same size as they don't seem to fit together correctly. I'm not sure how they could rectify this issue, maybe longer strips of Velcro or snaps would be better.

The next pieces were the costume, belt and neck piece. I hadn't read the size guideline and ordered a large which fits an average 12-14. I should have gotten a medium. I'm hoping by Halloween he has a growth spurt as it's quite big on him. He doesn't care, though, he still wears it around the house. The costume is very detailed and true to the character.

I think I'll still have to adjust it somehow so it doesn't look ridiculous on him. Being too big is better than too small though, now he'll be able to wear it for a long time. I do believe it'll hold up to Max's rough-n-tumble ways as well.

Overall, we're very happy with our experience at C ostume supercenter and will surly use them in the future as I don't anticipate Max growing out of his love of costumes any time soon.

If your family is in need of a great costume this Halloween or anytime for that matter, please check out Costume Supercenter. Take advantage of limited time free shipping on all orders over $40 with the coupon code FREE40. Now go shop!

I received this costume free of charge from Costume Supercenters in exchange for my honest review. Opinions in this review are my own.

Oh so far behind!

2010-08-16T09:04:00.000-04:00

I've been MIA again. I guess it's just my blogging style to post in spurts..sorry! It's been such a busy, busy summer that I honestly haven't had time to sit and write. We've done summer camp, short vacations, swimming lessons and I've been incredibly busy with cakes. I'll be back for a bit as I've got some reviews to share with you! Stay tuned....

Yo Gabba Gabba tickets!

2010-08-02T15:08:00.000-04:00

I've entered for a chance to win tickets to take Luke to see Yo Gabba Gabba at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. Luke would love this concert! Go over to Momma D and Da Boyz and enter for your chance to win these tickets!

Yo Gabba Gabba Contest

Wilton Giveaway

2010-07-19T08:05:00.000-04:00

Head on over to my cake blog and enter for a chance to win 2 great Wilton products.

Surrounded By Boys Wilton Giveaway

Writers Block...I guess

2010-07-12T07:53:00.000-04:00

I guess I just have to accept the fact that my blogging desires come in waves. Or I just get some serious cases of writers block. I just haven't felt like posting for a long while again. Does this happen to you?

I haven't had lots of cake orders lately, but I do have some other exciting business related things happening. First is that I've been asked to sell cupcakes and cookies in a local bagel bakery. It's been a couple of months in the works, but I'm finally dropping product off on Friday for the weekend crowd. The second, more far fetched is that I've applied to be on a new competition series in TLC as a spin off of Cake Boss. My next step is to make a video showing my personality which terrifies me! I'm waiting to hear from a fellow church member to see if he'd help me out with this. I'm really not hopeful, but I suppose I've got just as good a chance as anyone, huh? I guess we shall see!

The boys are starting swimming lessons this morning as they do every summer. I have to say, though, that I don't look forward to them at all! They're 5 days a week for around 8 weeks. One boy has lessons at one town pool, the other at another, 5 miles away. Monday and Wednesday's when Luke has his, we're out for over 3 hours and have over an hour in between lessons to kill time. But, they love doing them so I can't say no.

Next week Zach goes to camp for a week. This will be his first time going to a sleep-away camp and I'm a bit anxious. I know he'll have a great time, though. It's a Christian camp in Pennsylvania that our church is involved in. We were blessed to receive a scholarship so he could go. I'm sure Max is looking forward to having a break from his brother for a week too.

I'm hoping I can get the blog-juices going again and resume my normal posts. Have a great week, all!

Upcoming Review with CSN Stores!

2010-07-07T12:51:00.000-04:00

I've been given the opportunity to review a product from CSNStores! I'll be honest, I had never checked out their site until now. I had no idea what I was missing! Goodbye Amazon....HELLO CSNSTORES! Seriously, I could provide you with a list a mile long of things I want to purchase from their site. At the top of the list is one of their dining room tables! The selection is amazing and you won't believe the prices! I'd tell you which one I'll be saving up for, but I can't decide! Too many affordable beautiful choices!

Anyway, my review will be from csnstores.com and will be for the American Plastic Toys: My Very Own Kitchen. Since Luke has been so interested in my cooking lately, I figured he would love this! Kitchen sets aren't just for girls anymore! My boy will turn chef...stay tuned!

5 minutes for me

2010-06-30T08:20:00.000-04:00

As you know, I've been pretty much absent for a couple of weeks. I've been crazy busy with cake orders, the end of baseball season and school and everything else in between. I had a total of 11 orders between the last two weekends. I'm so thankful! But that also means less time to spend on my blog. I have to say that I've been missing it and sort of feel guilty. I have a feeling such will be the case the rest of the summer. I'd like to get back to my Frugal Friday's at least because I know a few of you were looking forward to it. So, this is what I've been up to.... I didn't take pics of all of the work since some was repeat of other cakes and plain cupcakes.

Time just slips away!

2010-06-23T19:21:00.000-04:00

I've been so busy lately with my cake business that time is just slipping away. I'm grateful for the increase, seriously grateful! I just told my friends the other day that I used to pray for God to give me just as much business as I could handle. Then, after listening to Joyce Meyer one day on TV, I changed the way I pray about it. She said if you are going to pray, ask big! Don't underestimate what God can do for you. So, I started praying for God to just flood me with business. No joke, I've had 11 orders between last weekend and next! Just about every day I have inquiries about orders. God is good!

Anyway, what's been happening besides cake and icing? Well, Max turned 7 on the 15th. We haven't been able to celebrate with his friends yet because of the cakes. I made him an ice cream cake and we had his dinner of choice, chili cheese dogs and macaroni and cheese. He got a new bigger bike this year and he was very excited.

He wants to take 2 friends to the movies to celebrate. He also got to spend 2 nights with his aunt and went to Six Flags Hurricane Harbor. He and Zach came home baked from the brutal sun, even though they said she put sunblock on them twice.

My niece graduated from 8th grade today and I went and watched that ceremony. It's amazing how quickly time slips away. Tomorrow Zach will have his moving up ceremony. He's going into 7th grade. I can't say that I'm really looking forward to having Zach and Max home all summer......together. All my 2 older boys do is argue and it's sooooooo aggravating! We'll make it work I suppose.

So 2 more days left of school, then no alarm for me! Yay! I'll be back early next week...in the meantime, I'll be cakin'

Please forgive me and hang in there!

2010-06-19T19:31:00.000-04:00

I'm so sorry! I've been MIA for a few days as my cake business has suddenly taken a turn for the better! I had 6 cake orders for this weekend and I have 2 more to go. I missed my Frugal Friday :-(.....

I'm trying to sit down tomorrow and update you on all that's happend, including Max's 7th birthday!

Bear with me, please.

SUPER MAX

2010-06-14T11:22:00.000-04:00

This is what happens when your six year old gets hold of the camera. It's quite comical!

SUPER EXCITED!

SUPER SCARED!

SUPER SILLY!

SUPER......GROSS?

I have no idea what he was eating but, clearly, he's not the cleanest boy alive.

Frugal Friday 6/11

2010-06-11T19:17:00.000-04:00

This turned out to be a busy week since I got 2 large last minute cake orders. I hope you all enjoyed my first edition of Frugal Friday last week. Earlier in the week before my 2 orders came in, I thought to myself that I should write my post for Friday just in case and I never did. Big mistake! So, I'm taking a break from caking to bring you some more tips.

This week...IN THE KITCHEN!

Homemade Stock

I have to say that nothing tastes quite as good as a homemade stock when making soup. And I know what you're thinking..".stock? I'm NOT making my own stock. There are so many good ones on the shelf of the grocery store!" Not only is this a better tasting stock but you control what goes in! And, not only are you getting a great tasting stock, you're also cutting down on household waste!

Here's what you do:

Every time you get ready to use a vegetable, wash the outside thoroughly, even onions and garlic. Get yourself a freezer container or baggie and every time you peel a vegetable, stick the peelings and ends that get cut off into this container in the freezer. When it's full, add it to water and boil it. Strain and voila! stock!

You can use anything you like in it. Carrot peelings and ends, zucchini ends, pepper tops, onion and garlic skin, green trimmings (collards, escarole, etc), celery tops and bottoms, mushrooms, broccoli and cauliflower stalks, honestly the list is endless!

No more expensive extract! (Citrus)

I'm a baker so I know how expensive flavoring extracts can be and lots of them don't even really taste good. If you do any baking with orange or lemon extract, stop buying them! Before you peel that orange to eat the inside, use a microplane grater and get all that flavorful zest off! EVERY time. Keep your zest in a small ziploc baggie in the freezer and each time you eat an orange, get that zest off. And the same with lemons. Zest it before you cut it open and save it in a ziploc bag. Each time you need lemon or orange flavor for a recipe, pull out some and stick it in your recipe!

That's all I have for today. I know it's not fabulous but I'm actually in the middle of making 2 last minute cakes. I'm making a 20" standing Dewar's bottle and a club penguin cake, both for the same family. They've been very time consuming and not very cooperative..sigh. Until next week....

Finally!

2010-06-08T09:25:00.000-04:00

I'm finally starting to lose weight. I decided to do South Beach for a while just to kick start the weight loss. Exercising alone just wasn't doing it and when I don't see results week after week, I get discouraged and quit. So now I'm feeling better and I just started week 3 and have added in a serving of fruit each day. Still no bread, pasta, rice, sweets. It got hard around days 9-12 but I suppose now I've trained my brain, as they say you do. I rarely have the cravings for carbs like I did. I can't say it's easy to get a salad when my family gets cheeseburgers and fries at fast food joints (not that we eat out so often.) I've been trying to avoid them and when we do stop somewhere, I try to go to Wendy's where I can have chili. And it's not easy to snack on cheese sticks and nuts when my hubby is eating chips and salsa. It's especially hard now because my son Max is playing baseball. Games are twice a week and at the concession stand they sell all those fattening goodies like cheese dogs, cheese fries, nachos with chili and cheese, meatball hero's, chicken nuggets, onion rings....the list goes on! What do I get? A cheeseburger and throw the bun away. And I get to watch my husband eat the greasy fries that I wanted so badly. Breakfast? Forget about it...I'm sick of eggs, but having a piece of fruit with them now makes it much more bearable.

I am losing weight, I just can't tell you how much because my scale is wacky. For the first time in years, someone actually said to me "WOW! you're losing weight!" YES! I am!

Maybe by the end of August, I won't be so embarrassed to sit next to my size 6 sister on the beach.

Who's leaving the plastic baggies at the store?

2010-06-07T22:35:00.000-04:00

And the winner of the PB Green Re-usable Lunch Set chosen by random.org is.....

Keira! Congrats Keira, I'll email you shortly with contact info so you can order your new lunch set.

Thank you to PB Green for working with me on my first giveaway!

You've gotta speak up!

2010-06-07T10:33:00.000-04:00

For quite some time now, when I receive a product that's damaged in any way or not up to standards, I contact the company. You've gotta speak up when you spend your hard earned money on something and end up not being able to use it.

Recently, I had purchased Wilton gum paste on 3 separate occasions at Michael's and AC Moore. When I opened them, all three of them, I found that the top portion of the gum paste was already hardened and un-usable. Now this stuff is expensive and there's not much in the package, so when you're having to cut a portion of it off to get to the usable stuff, that's upsetting!

I got on the phone with Wilton customer service and guess what they did? They replaced all three bags! Nice, right! It came via FedEx in less than a week. Now that's how a company should react to such problems. Thanks Wilton!

Last Reminder!

2010-06-07T06:38:00.000-04:00

Tonight at 9 pm EST the PB Green giveaway ends. Don't miss your chance to win a re-usable lunch set including 2 snack bags and a sandwich wrap! Enter here ------->PB GREEN GIVEAWAY

FRUGAL FRIDAY! 6/4

2010-06-04T21:56:00.000-04:00

I'd like to start a weekly post to share tips on how I try to be more frugal. I'm hoping that you will learn something new and it will help you and your family. What better day than "Frugal Friday"!!

And so, here's the first weekly installment of Frugal Fridays. I'll be asking for guest bloggers from time to time to share your ideas so if you're interested, please email me at littlemissmuffins2@gmail.com!

This week I'd like to talk about your dirty laundry. A while back I gave you the recipe and instructions, complete with pictures, on how to make your own laundry detergent. Don't worry, it's really easy! You don't need to be Suzy homemaker to do it, I promise.

So how much does a bottle of Tide cost these days? Like a hundred bucks? No, seriously, it's really expensive and it's one of the worst ones out there as far as polluting the environment. Check out this article from Naturalnews.com to read all about it.

So let's say you pay $12.00 for a 64 load bottle of Tide. The 64 load estimate is for small loads. Do you only fill it to the bottom line? Let's even say you do. That's .1875 cents per load. I'm guessing you only get more like 50 loads and therefore pay more like .24 cents per load.

The recipe I shared with you HERE, cost .71 cents for 64 loads! That's a whopping .01 cent per load! If you need me to post the breakdown I will but trust me, it's accurate.

So I ask you, will you please try a batch or 2 of this? You won't be disappointed! I do an average of 10 loads per week so it costs me .10 cents per week to wash my clothes. If you use Tide, you're spending $2.40 per week, $124.80 per year. Mine costs me $5.20 PER YEAR! I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but if you add that to 5 or 6 other things you save over $100 on, you've just freed up an extra $500 or more per year!

I hope you're inspired. It's cheap and green!

NOTE: From reading several other reviews on homemade laundry detergent, I've decided to use Ivory soap next time as several posts have reported color fading from using the Fels Naptha. I have not experienced this color fade as of yet.

PB Green Giveaway Ends Monday 6/7 at 9 pm EST

2010-06-04T13:43:00.000-04:00

A reminder to all you wonderful followers, that my PB Green Giveaway will end in just 3 days. Be sure to visit the post and enter for your chance to win a FREE set of re-usable snack bags and a sandwich wrap in a pattern of your choice! These are wonderful high quality items that you shouldn't be without!

BUY THEM! PB Green Bags

WIN THEM! Surrounded By Boys!

Please stop by the post and enter! And please visit PB Green Bags to see her beautiful items!

A whole new level of frugalness

2010-06-02T14:42:00.000-04:00

I haven't always been frugal. I've always worried about money because we've never really had any but we had credit cards, right?! Isn't that what credit cards are for? To buy things you can't afford? Yeah, well that got us into trouble for too many years. We have only 1 credit card left and it's in my husbands name. I haven't personally used a credit card in a year and a half. It's been interesting living on cash only. Liberating and scary all rolled into one tight little ball of nerves. So, I've come up with more and more ways to be more frugal, out of necessity.

A whole new level of frugalness needs to be achieved in the coming months. Things are tight now and come September they're gonna get much worse. You see, because of the foolishness of those evil demon plastic cards, we took out a home equity loan to pay off the first round of debt. We've been paying interst on the thing for 5 years and now the draw period is coming to an end and repayment starts. Not only that, we now have a brace payment every month. So, I have the daunting task of cutting back at least another $250 per month. Now, I've got some perfect ideas, but I have a husband who has some say in those decisions, unfortunately. If I had my way, we'd switch from our $80 per month satellite tv to $35 cable. He won't budge. I'd also take his Jeep off the road and have 1 car.

Instead, I've got to come up with other ways to cut back. Things I have total control over like hanging the laundry instead of using the dryer all the time and calling around to get better insurance rates, paying the bills on time so there are no nasty late fees. I've also started making my own laundry detergent and when all of my dishwasher tablets are gone, I'm planning on making that as well. My mission is to cut my grocery bill by a third. I save so much money already on groceries that I'm not sure how I'll accomplish that one, but I'm certainly gonna try! Luke is turning 2 in July and is showing an interest in the potty so another goal is to potty train him this summer so I can cut out diapers except for night-time. I'm having the kids do more eco-friendly crafts like making magazine bowls. I've gotten re-usable snack bags and sandwich wraps instead of using plastic baggies. All may seem like little things, but they all add up!

So, what money saving tips do you have for me?

Wordless Wednesday!

2010-06-02T07:44:00.000-04:00

Mama's little apprentice? Looks like my 22 month old's gearing up to take over my cake and cookie business one day!

PB Green re-usable snack bags and sandwich wrap giveaway reminder

2010-06-01T08:10:00.000-04:00

Just a reminder to enter for a chance to win a re-usable snack bag and sandwich wrap set from PB Green. Your odds are good as there are only 19 entries right now! You get to choose which pattern you would like to have for yourself.

Enter Here-------------------------->PB GREEN GIVEAWAY

Please do not enter any comments for contest entry below this post. You must visit the original contest post to leave your entries. Thanks!

Orginazational Genius, I'm NOT

2010-05-31T19:11:00.000-04:00

I'm desperate to be more organized and I don't even know where to start. We've got so many things in this house that just don't have a proper place. In every room! We've got the junk collector in my bedroom, aka my giant desk. In the kitchen, it's a large junk bowl. The living room, it's the bottom shelf of the end table. The dogs room/laundry room it's the large filing cabinet. I could go on and on. I need help and I need it FREE! Who has tips for me? I don't know where to start!

Bittersweet Visits

2010-05-31T09:53:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we were blessed with a visit from our former Pastor and his family. You may remember me mentioning that our Pastor Dave had been at our church for 18 years and was leaving to go to another church over 300 miles away. He and his family came to attend the wedding of the couple whose wedding cake I made below. The delegates at our church voted and so he was our guest speaker yesterday at church. It's been almost a year since they left and we're still without a full time pastor. Each week, we have a different speaker and I have to say that I've seen our church grow and bond together. It's been amazing! I think it's time, though.

I often sit in church and in my head I can hear Pastor Dave speaking and I can see his little manorisms. His Elmer Fudd impersonation and talking about the Yankees. What a spirit filled man! His sermons always, always were a perfect fit for what I was going through in my own life. His message at our Christmas Cantata one year was what brought me to Christ. He's prayed for my family and I for his. He baptized two of my boys. And Sherry, his wife, shared her faith story with a group of women that was just uplifting and wonderful. We laughed and cried and felt closer to her when she finished. Sherry and I have made a special connection through letters that I'm grateful for. I was so sad to see him and his family go and I still miss them dearly. Sometimes I romanticize about them coming back!

Pastor Dave stood in church on Sunday and told us how proud he was of us for sticking together and keeping the church moving along. He also told us how he greets his new church on Sunday mornings and wonders if he's said L****** or G****. He said his head's not there yet. I read that as his heart's still in L******. Maybe that's just what I wanted to hear and not actually what he meant.

Pastor Dave shared Communion with us this Sunday. It was even more special for me as this was the first time my husband has taken Communion! My heart raced as we walked up together. I could feel the tears running down my face and as we approached Pastor Dave and Sherry, I said to them "This is Cory's first time taking Communion" and I could see the tears form in Sherry's eyes, too. I heard Pastor Dave say "God bless you, Cory" and I walked back to my seat. I don't know if Cory knew why I was crying but I was secretly celebrating my husband's choice. I was filled with joy! Praise GOD!

I was so happy to see Pastor and his wife and daughter and very sad to see them go again. What a blessing they've been!

Sweet Endings

2010-05-29T20:42:00.000-04:00

Oh what a week! I started out this week set to do South Beach so I can kick start this weight loss. I've had many-a-temptation, but I've resisted and it feels good....mentally. Physically I've been exhausted! It can only be because of the week I've had and not the diet. The last time I did this no carbs thing, I felt great! I was energetic and my skin cleared up and I was losing weight too. This time? Well....I'm not energetic, my skin looks the same and I'm not really sure if I've lost any weight because some little boy lost the pointer thingy, and yes, that's a technical term, and my scale has been wacky. If I lean to the left, I'm much lighter, so I suppose I'll go with that number!

I had to take Zach to the orthodontist on Wednesday to have a thicker wire put on his braces and as we were getting ready to turn into the plaza where AC Moore and Michael's are, we saw a horrible accident complete with a medical helicopter. I always get shaken up when I see car accidents. They terrify me.

I also got started on 75 wedding cake shaped sugar cookies I had to make for today. Thursday, Friday and today I spent decorating and wrapping the cookies and making a 4 tier wedding cake. That much work makes for early mornings and late nights! But I love doing it and I was very pleased with the results. I'm completely worn out and am welcoming the little break before my next order.

Have a happy and safe Memorial Day!

By the way, what do you think of my cake? I think it turned out beautiful! This was the sweet ending to my stressful week!

Wilton Giveaway (sadly, not here)

2010-05-27T13:02:00.000-04:00

Please visit Two of a kind, working on a full house and enter to win a set of Wilton UltraGold Bakeware valued at $180.00.

Being a cake decorator, just the name Wilton gets me going. So many products I couldn't live without! Who better to win these than an avid cake decorator!?

Go ahead, visit Wilton and see all the fabulous products I dream of having.....all....at....once! If only my pocket book said yes.

PB Green Review and Giveaway

2010-05-24T21:02:00.015-04:00

As promised, my first review & giveaway!

Introducing:

PB Green. Reusable snack bags and sandwich wraps.

Do you go through tons of baggies? If you have a family of 4 and use 3 baggies per day, that's a total of 3000 baggies in one year! Times how many families around the U.S.! That's a ton of trash just for lunch alone. And I'll take it a step further and show you how much money you can save each year by purchasing a set of these re-usable bags and sandwich wraps. Estimate that a box of baggies cost $1.99 on sale and there are 35 bags per box. That's $170.00 per year! I know it doesn't seem like a lot of money but if you do this with several items in your household, you've saved a lot of money and have done your part in keeping our Earth clean.

Meet Paige, the very skilled owner of PB Green.

Paige Baran is a former elementary school teacher who is now a SAHM. Paige noticed the number of plastic baggies that were thrown away each day in the elementary cafeteria and decided to do something about it. She began by making the re-usable bags for her husband to take his lunch in to work. His colleagues loved them and had to have their own. When more and more people became interested in them, PB Green was born. She lovingly gives credit to her mother who gave her her sewing machine for her birthday.

Here's what I got:

Max picked out the lunch set in Army Green that came with a small checkered green bag, a medium guitar camo bag and a green sandwich wrap. I was immediately impressed because the packaging was so professional, clean and modern looking. It came wrapped nicely in a piece of tissue paper with a logo label. It took me all of 2 seconds to tear into it, I love getting new things! The lunch set was tied together with a nice soft string and had a label tied on. On the back of the label were instructions for using the sandwich wrap. Paige also included a business card that's now on my fridge.

I originally anticipated not being able to use it until tomorrow for Max's lunch but as soon as he saw the set, he got out the bread and PB&J and made himself a sandwich.

This is my boy who inspired me to find new ways to be green. He loves the idea of being able to re-use. The sandwich wraps are 15 inches in diameter so there's plenty of room to wrap even your biggest sandwiches. It's made of high quality designer cotton fabric and lined with waterproof food safe ripstop nylon. It wraps up like a burrito and holds shut with a strip of Velcro. I especially love the logo tab on this one. Even with the messiest sandwiches (and Max chose one of the messiest), the wrap wipes clean with a damp cloth and is top rack dishwasher and washing machine safe. My only criticism of this piece is that the oil in the peanut butter stained the nylon. This isn't a quality issue though, it's still usable and perfectly fine.

Don't those look like happy eyes!? He loves his new set and can't wait to show his friends.

See how dirty he got it? And the crust thing? Every kid does that, right?

Here's Max's sandwich wrap after a washing.

Next are the re-usable snack bags. These are so sturdy and well made. The bags are also made of high quality cotton but are lined with a water resistant fabric that does not contain DEHP, phalates or BPA plasticizers. The length of the bags are lined with Velcro to keep snacks inside. The smaller bag measures 6 3/4 x 4 and medium bag measures 6 3/4 x 5 1/2. These bags are plenty big to hold whatever snack you might like. Because they're waterproof, you can carry anything you would normally have in a plastic baggie.They turn inside out and sit right on the top rack of your dishwasher along with your other dishes. They dry within a couple of hours and are ready to use again and again.

Just one more little step in becoming more green. Max and I love his lunch set and I'm sure he'll get many years of use out of it!

Now the fun part...

You can buy your own set at PB Green for $20-22 or you can follow the instructions below to win a set!

Mandatory First Entry: Visit PB Green and tell me which pattern you like the best.

Extra Entries:

1 Entry: Become a follower of Surrounded By Boys! (leave a comment if you're already a follower as well!)

1 Entry: Become a Fan of PB Green on Facebook

1 Entry: Become a follower of my cake blog Little Miss Muffins Cakes!

1 Entry: Blog about my giveaway and comment leaving the link below.

Be sure to comment for each entry and good luck! If your email address isn't listed on your profile, please leave it along with your comments below. If you aren't a registered user, please make sure to leave your first name and your email address or your entry will be deleted (because I won't know how to contact you!)

Contest ends on Monday June 7, 2010 at 9:00pm EST. Winner will be chosen via Random.org and will be notified via email. Contest is open to US residents only. Winner must contact PB Green within 3 days of contest end to arrange shipment and order the pattern you like.

I received the re-usable lunch set from PB Green free of charge in exchange for my review. Opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Family Reunion

2010-05-24T10:35:00.003-04:00

This weekend my family gathered together for our annual BBQ. We don't all make it each year but we try. We have such a good time, I wish we could do it more often. We joke and laugh. We eat and drink. We chase kids and take walks to the river. We enjoy the sassiness of our beloved eldest member and cherish each moment with her. We talk about chocolate and the restaurant we'd love to open together. We make precious priceless memories that I'm thankful for. God has blessed me with a wonderful family.

So to each of my family members: I couldn't have hand picked a better family! I love you all very much and feel incredibly blessed to have each and every one of you bunch of smart alecks! Until next year........

Poop! Poop!

2010-05-21T15:36:00.000-04:00

Don't worry...I don't have any pictures to share with you this time. You're welcome.

Luke is now 22 months old and he's recently decided he doesn't like to wear his diaper. He does this thing where he pushes the back of it down so the crack of his butt hangs out. All the time. It's really kinda cute.

Now I know this is my clue to start potty training, I'm just really not looking forward to it. They have such little bladders and have to stop and pee every 10 minutes. Makes for looong outings with many-a-interruption. Anyway, that's not really where I was going with this.

Yesterday Luke woke up from his nap and had wet through his diaper and his pants were wet. I took them off and let him go bare butt for a while to air out his little bits. He had pooped earlier in the day so I wasn't worried about letting him go diaperless for a little while. BIG mistake!

I was in the middle of cleaning the boys' bathroom when Luke came running in and very excitedly yelled "Poop! Poop!" Naturally, with 2 dogs running around the house, I expected it to be from one of them. He ran out of the bathroom and into his bedroom all the while yelling "Poop! Poop!" When I came into his bedroom, he pointed to the floor and there it was. It wasn't from the dogs.....it was his.

Never assume they'll only poop once a day. I'm just thankful he didn't play with it. You're welcome for that mental picture.

Have a nice weekend.

Stay tuned for my 1st giveaway!

2010-05-20T20:50:00.000-04:00

I'm very excited to announce my first review and giveaway! This is something I've wanted to do for a while and it's finally becoming a reality. I'm joining the mommy-bloggers-giveaway club!

Head on over to PBGreen for a sneak peak at what's on it's way!

Wordless Wednesday

2010-05-19T08:12:00.000-04:00

I love little boy hands!

Precious Moments

2010-05-18T22:33:00.000-04:00

I just love these moments with my babies!

I'm feeling awfully lonely over her at my blog. Where are all my commenter's? I miss you!

55R99F95DEZJ

Eh, who needs sleep?

2010-05-18T07:47:00.000-04:00

It's beyond me what his thought processes are. I wish he came with a husband manual. My husband likes to stay up late......every night. Sometimes I don't even wanna know just how late. So he gets to deal with the midnight wakings of the resident toddler. Lately his decisions regarding said toddler have been quite puzzling.

Luke developed a double ear infection late last week and was taking Motrin for pain. Sometime in the middle of the night, hubby came in to the bedroom, woke me up and asked me what time Luke could have his next dose of meds. I told him he really should wait until 1am. The next thing I know, I'm hearing my toddler come in and out of my bedroom....like 3 times.....in a row. Naturally, I get up to see why he's not in bed. Hubby answers "because I'm letting him stay up 'til his next dose of Motrin" YOUR WHAT?!?!?!? Are you INSANE??? So at this point, it's midnight. Yep, he was gonna let Luke stay up for another hour, running around the house and playing.

Last night I heard Luke's little feet running up and down the hallway and had to get up again. As I walked into the living room, he's climbing onto the couch and his father is giving him tortilla chips! When I asked hubby why he wasn't in bed, he said that Luke wasn't tired and he was giving him 5 minutes. NO! NO! NO! I did not spend the last 22 months trying to keep him on a good sleep schedule for you to undo it because you don't think he looks tired!

I scooped him up, put him in bed and turned on his turtle night light. As I walked by hubby on my way back to bed I was seriously wondering how often this kind of thing happens. Luke is up every night at least once. Is DH the reason why? Is this the reason why Luke is such a daddy's boy?

Well, with any luck I can get this sleep thing turned around. Men.....sigh.

Homemade Laundry Detergent!

2010-05-17T13:32:00.000-04:00

I'm very into saving lots of money lately, especially since I started couponing heavily. One of those ways I wanted to save was to make homemade laundry detergent. Until now, I didn't because I had 2 of those mega sized jugs from Sam's Club I had to use up first. I'm nearly at the end of my 2nd one so today I decided to make my homemade concoction. I was able to get these 3 ingredients at my local grocery store in the laundry section. Here's the recipe:

2 cups grated bar soap such as Ivory, Zote or Fels-Naptha (I used 1 bar of Fels. Grated, it was exactly 2 cups)

2 cups A & H Washing Soda (NOT baking soda)

2 cups 20 Mule Team Borax

1 quart boiling water

2 gallons water

After grating the Fels-Naptha with a cheese grater, I added it to the 1 quart of boiling water. I have to say, it took much longer for the soap to melt than I had expected. I got out my wisk to help it along.

Once it was completely melted, it was quite foamy. It's now poured into a large bucket, or in my case, a canning pot. I might add that my house smelled lovely from the melting soap!

Next you add your washing soda and borax and mix until there are no lumps. It makes a pretty yellow paste.

Once your powders are well mixed into the soap mixture, you can add your 2 gallons of water. I added 2 quarts at a time and mixed very well in between. Within an hour, it was gelling, which is what it's supposed to do.

The goal is for it to be goopy, lumpy and runny. I used a funnel and poured it into orange juice bottles that I had saved for this very purpose. For large loads you can use 1/2-3/4 cup of the detergent. It should be shaken or stirred before using.

And Luke gave me the perfect opportunity to test it out today when he got a hold of a decorating bag full of buttercream. Greasy, green buttercream. I didn't pre-treat the jeans at all, on purpose. I always wash in cold water and I used 1/2 cup for my large load. At first, it was like little gelatenous lumps mixing around in the wash water but it did mix in once it had a chance to agitate. I was pleasantly surprised to see the jeans come out of the wash sans said buttercream! Just take a look---->

Not only is this a cheaper method for cleaning clothes, it's much better for the environment. Commercially made laundry detergents contain a "laundry list" (pun intended) of chemicals that are harmful to humans and animals. I was gonna go into this long post on the dangers of commercially made laundry soap but instead I'll add a link for you to read that's very informative. Click HERE to read.

If you enjoy the scent laundry soap leaves on your clothes, you can add essential oil to your detergent. I, however, am still using commercially made fabric softener. Once I'm done with my dozens of bottles of that, I want to try making that as well.

I encourage you to try making your own. It's not hard or time consuming at all. Who doesn't wanna save money? And being eco-friendly is an added bonus!

Our 10th Annual Mother's Day Bronx Zoo Trip

2010-05-11T21:30:00.000-04:00

Since Zachary was a year and a half we've gone to the Bronx Zoo on Mother's Day. My family and I and Cory's parents. I can remember one of our first trips, thinking how clean and beautifully kept the zoo is. So many animals and rarely did you smell them. We like to buy memberships because they're good for 1 year from the month of purchase so we get in 2 times on one membership. The membership also includes free admission to other zoo's in and around NYC. The only other one we've visited was the NY Aquarium at Coney Island.

We all have our favorites at the zoo but the monkeys are quite popular with all of us. We enjoy looking for the babies.

It's also been fun to take the same pictures and compare them from year to year. This is in the reptile house, not one of my favorites as I have a HUGE fear of snakes. We still remember Samantha, one of the largest anaconda's in captivity. We visited her each year until there was a sign posted on her exhibit saying she had passed. We talk about her every time we're there.

We also found out after the first year, after having $7.00 hot dogs for lunch, that we're better off bringing a picnic lunch. So every year I make piles of sandwiches and pack all the trimmings for them, and macaroni salad and potato salad. My Mother-In-Law brings snacks and drinks and we pull this massive wagon around toting our cooler.

This year was one of our colder visits and we were all glad to have had extra sweatshirts and a blanket for Luke. We always enjoy the days when the weather isn't wonderful because the zoo isn't as crowded. It's really special to create family traditions with my boys and I'm looking forward to next year!

Sometimes Crack Kills......with cuteness!

2010-05-06T16:20:00.000-04:00

This is Luke's newest thing.....the sink! He has this cute little red chair that he got for Christmas and if I had foreseen what said chair would be used for, it would have never entered my door! So his cute little red chair takes its rightful place on the counter top just about every day. There are some days, however, that I forget. On those days I hear the kitchen chairs being pushed across the floor. Today was one of those days when I forgot. I came out of the laundry room after putting a load in the washer to this.....

The little red chair took it's place back on the counter......again. And his diaper is so full of water from pouring it on himself that it's barely covering his little hiney!

Hand Me Downs

2010-05-04T20:32:00.000-04:00

As you know, I've got 3 sons. What you may not know is that they're all 5 years apart and were born in June, July and August. Zachary is August 15th, Max is June 15th and I tried to have my OB induce Luke on July 15th but he wouldn't...boo! So Luke is July 26th. I never really thought about being Eco-friendly when I put Zachary's outgrown clothes and sneakers in the shed for Max, knowing that each season's fashions would sit in the shed for 4+ years. It was really all about money at the time. It's always been tight and clothes are expensive! Zachary was always so gentle on clothes and he grew so fast that he rarely wore anything out. I don't really get to put Max's old clothes away for Luke because he's very rough on clothes, ya know, the busted out knees, frayed shirt cuffs, stains in every possible spot. Luckily I've got a friend from church who has given me 95% of Luke's wardrobe.

I'm glad now, for different reasons, that we were able to do the hand-me-down thing. What a perfect way to be more eco-friendly! Do you do hand-me-downs?

Becoming Environmentally Conscious

2010-04-29T09:20:00.000-04:00

This past week Max had an assignment for Earth Day. He chose to make a poster about Recycling. I was surprised at how much he got into it. We should learn more from our children! Here's his creation made from magazine pictures.

He's proud of his work and the ice pops we made with reusable sticks instead of buying the store bought variety. Saves on tons of packaging!

And finally, he was so into it that he made a Macaroni and Cheese pencil holder for the refrigerator! All by himself he took the box out of the paper garbage and stuck a magnet to the back. He took this to school to use in his classroom. He couldn't wait for his teacher to see it!

I think my kids are inspiring me to be more environmentally conscious. I never really thought about it much before and I suppose I always felt one family couldn't make a difference. Then I realized it's not just one family because some day, God willing, my kids will have families of their own. If they grow up learning to care more for the environment, they too will carry it on as adults and then their kids and so on. This summer we plan on trying a solar oven. I'll continue to post our new ventures in sustainable living. Maybe my family can inspire yours!

Update on Max and SPD

2010-04-26T20:34:00.000-04:00

I haven't seen huge changes in Max since he began therapy at school. I haven't seen many since getting his glasses either. I did, however, get a phone call from Max's teacher (whom we adore, btw) to let us know that she has seen a difference in Max since getting his glasses. She's been such a great teacher for Max and he just loves her. I'm pleased that she's seen a difference. That's almost enough for me. Almost.

We took Max to a developmental optometrist last week for evaluation. The specialist Max's eye doctor said he didn't need. It was a quite interesting visit. Max went through a plethora of testing. I was very surprised at how poorly he did on some of them. It was testing such as reading letters across a page, reading letters down a page, finding hidden shapes, drawing shapes to see how well he could copy them and so on. The visit ended with the doctor saying that Max is having trouble with tracking. She recommends he have vision therapy. I'm thankful for a few things in this situation. The first being that we're that much closer to helping Max become a better Max. The second being that they offer a computer program for home therapy and the cost of $350 that isn't covered by insurance (nor was the visit for that matter) is probably a lot cheaper than in office therapy. The third being that my in laws are helping financially and I am truly grateful!

We'll start within the next month 5 days a week. I'm excited for what's to come!

Al's Big Buys 4/18-4/24

2010-04-25T09:12:00.000-04:00

I didn't take pics for you and I've certainly been slacking on the blog lately. I guess I haven't been inspired to write. It's a rainy Sunday and I should be getting the family ready for church. Instead I sit here on the laptop, waisting time. This week at ShopRite I got $248.92 worth of groceries for $112.12, a savings of $136.80. Here's the deals worth mentioning.

Chock Full O Nuts coffee on sale for $1.99 minus my doubled .75 coupon for a total of .49 per can.

Nexcare Bandages on sale for $1.49 minus my doubled .55 coupon for a total of .39 per box.

V8 V-Fusion on sale for $2.50 minus my doubled .75 coupon for a total of $1.00 per bottle.

Betty Crocker Cake Mix & Frosting on sale for $1.00 each minus my doubled .75 coupon (off the purchase of one mix and one frosting) for a total of .25 each (don't worry cake customers, I don't use box mixes or jarred frosting on my orders, they're all from scratch.)

Skippy Peanut Butter on sale for $1.99 minus my doubled coupons for .60 for a total of .79 each.

Reynolds Recycled Foil on sale for $1.99 minus my doubled coupon for .75 for a total of .49 each.

Keebler Cheesecake Middles Cookies on sale for $1.99 minus my doubled coupon for .55 off for a total of .89 each.

Perdue Chicken Nuggets on sale for $1.99 minus my doubled coupons for .75 for a total of .49 each.

Marcal Napkins on sale for $1.49 minus my $1.00 coupon for a total of .49 each.

Lays BBQ Chips on sale for $1.69 minus my $1.00 coupon for a total of .69.

Yoplait Greek Yogurt on sale for $1.25 each minus my b1g1 coupon for a total of .62 each.

That's about it. I'm actually hoping for a week of no-good-deals so I can have a break! Or a week of lots of free stuff.

Bad things come in three's, right?

2010-04-12T14:28:00.001-04:00

The other day my husband came inside after starting his Jeep to go to work. It's an older jeep..it gets him back and forth to work. He was livid! He said "WHERE'S MAX?" Uh-oh! I asked him why and he proceeded to grill Max as to how the 3 holes and the long crack got in his windshield! OMG! He should have ran away and hid under his bed at this point. All I'm seeing is dollar bills flashing before my eyes. We don't have glass coverage on the Jeep. His story was that he and his cousin did it. It was his cousins idea, he shot it once with the BB gun and his cousin hit it twice. So I texted my sister to let her know. Later on that night my nephew was calling me saying that Max was lying! "Aunt Alli, I DID NOT do it! I swear! Max is LYING!" So I put Max on the phone with him and made them talk it out. After the brief conversation he handed me the phone. I asked him who was lying and he pointed his little finger out and drew and air circle around his face. I was sooo mad! Even more mad that he lied! I immediately made Max apologize to his cousin for blaming him. Then I walked him across the street to my in=laws so he could tell them, knowing it would upset him. Next he was to call his aunt and apologize to her. We've since had several conversations about lying AND safety of his BB gun, which has been taken away indefinitely. The replacement windshield will cost around $250. So that's number 1.

Today my hubby, who I'll dub Mario for the day, drove hours away to a computer seminar for work. He didn't rest well last night as our sweet little toddler climbed out of his crib and woke us up at least a half dozen times between 11pm and 2 am. I asked him to call when he arrived safely. He did. He sounded annoyed. He got a speeding ticket! And not just any speeding ticket...he got a 75 in a 55! So not only is it a fine and points on his license (4 of them to be exact), it will also make our car insurance go up! Fines and court fees will probably be around the same, if not more than the windshield. Now if you know me by my previous posts, I don't work except for an occasional cake order. Trying to come up with $500 plus out of no where? That's about impossible! That's number 2.

Now I'll wait anxiously to see what our third setback will be.

Good Friday

2010-04-02T16:58:00.000-04:00

God made the ultimate sacrifice for you and for me when his one and only son died on the cross to save our souls. Today is Good Friday and it commemorates the crucifixion and death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Take some time today to thank God for what He did for us! Happy Easter to you all!

Friday Follow!

2010-03-26T07:19:00.000-04:00

Wordless Wednesday (on Thursday)

2010-03-25T08:41:00.000-04:00

Why is he so happy you ask?

Well, because of this, of course!

Our brand new car! (that seats 6 so the boys won't be squished anymore!)

Busy Fruitful!

2010-03-20T22:30:00.000-04:00

I've been watching lots of Joyce Meyer lately and she doesn't like the word busy so we say we've been fruitful!

It's been a "fruitful" couple of days. Thursday Max got his glasses and he looks adorable! He wasn't crazy about getting them and we're having a hard time getting him to keep them on his eyes. He's got bifocals and they positioned the bifocal part up so high that he has to wear them lower on his nose so when he looks normally he'll be looking out the right part. He's complaining that he can't read the computer with the glasses on too. I'm really wondering if they're right for him and I think we'll take him back this coming week when the hubby goes back to pick up his contacts. After the last visit with the Dr. I believe this family will be switching to a different eye Dr. The more I think about it the more I think he was out of line. On top of it all, he got picked on in school Friday. My poor boy came home crying! OOH! Those little SNOTS! Kids are so mean! His teacher did call to let us know that overall he did well with them and seemed to be more well behaved.

My boy with his new specs!

I made his appointment to see the developmental optometrist the first part of next month. His vision was the biggest red flag in his sensory profile done by the OT at school. That'll be a whole other battle since the insurance doesn't pay for these visits. I'm prepared to fight them though. Developmental problems aren't considered medical which is absolutely ridiculous to me. Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing if that's another piece of the puzzle in figuring out his behavioral issues.

Friday was a half day at school for the boys. My mother in law, myself and the boys went to Chuck E. Cheese as a sort of reward for Max not giving his teachers a hard time with his glasses. The boys had fun. I left with Zach so I could take him to get his separators in for his braces. They took loads of pictures, x-rays and did molds of his teeth. That was the worst part for him. The goop they put into the metal mold sort of squirts out everywhere and has to sit for 30 seconds or so then it's taken out. When she did the top mold poor Zach gagged and gagged! She had an interesting trick to help him stop and that was to pick up his leg and move his foot in a circle. It worked! His separators looked like miniature blue rubber bands with strings attached. They wedged them in using the string for leverage then pulled the strings out. He was nervous but it ended up not being as bad as he expected. Today he's very sore and not really eating well. That's where the Tylenol comes in! His braces go on on the 29th.

Luke riding the horsey!

Today we met the hubby's sister for lunch and she took Zach and Max to her house for the night. Cory and Luke and I went car shopping! YIPEE! We have an '05 Scion XB that we have outgrown and were very anxious to get out of it. I went in knowing I needed them to take the Scion without flip flopping payments and our new payments couldn't go up. I did tons of research on the car I wanted and the car salesman knew it. It felt pretty good to feel like I was in control of the sale and not him. We were looking at the 2010 Mazda 5. It's a small mini-van that seats 6. I fell in love with it with all the research I did and I knew we could afford it, it was just a matter of weather the salesman would haggle with us or not. We test drove it...well, Cory test drove it and I sat in the middle row of seats with Luke. It was really nice! So the first deal he came back with was $25.00 over our top price per month and I flat out said NO! So he went back out and the manager came in with a lower deal of $11.00 more. I should have said NO again but I got excited and said we'll take it! I'm still happy and don't feel like we got ripped at all. We got the sport model in copper red and we pick it up on Tuesday! We're super excited!

Our new car!

Tomorrow we'll drive the hour and forty-five minutes to Cory's sisters house to get the boys. He's set to do some odds and ends around her house as she's hoping to sell within the next couple of months.

That's it...that's my fruitful weekend! Looking forward to so many things coming up I can't stand it!

A Friends of Gevalia Offer Awaits You

2010-03-19T22:09:00.001-04:00

Join us for our special Friends of Gevalia offer and enjoy a premium coffee kit including a stainless steel coffeemaker, scoop and a pound of Gevalia coffee-Just $12.95 (a $100 value!) Gevalia’s guarantee-you’ll love your coffee or it’s free!

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Friday Follow!

2010-03-19T07:16:00.000-04:00

Al's Big Buys 3/13-20

2010-03-17T21:29:00.000-04:00

This was a good week for coupons. I got $244.20 worth of groceries for $75.73. I'm starting to run out of places to store all my stuff! There's always underneath beds..HA! I've also earned my free ham and my sisters. Here's what I got.

18 cans Chock Full O Nuts Coffee $1.99-.75 (doubled) coupon= .49 each (This isn't included in the above total because it was from last week. I didn't get a chance to post my savings for last week but just wanted to mention it.

16 International Delight Creamer .99-.55 (doubled) coupon= FREE

32 Barilla Whole Grain & Piccolini Pasta .99-.75 (doubled)= FREE

35 (yes, 35) Quaker True Delight Granola Bars $1.99-.75 (doubled)= .49 each

40 Nesquik Chocolate Milk $1.00-.40 (doubled)=.20 each

1 Huggies Overnights Jumbo Pack $8.99-$1.50=$7.49

2 Huggies Wipes $2.49-.50 (doubled)=$1.49 each

1 Frito Lays BBQ Chips $1.99-.55 (doubled)=.89

4 Mens Suave Shampoo $2.00-.50 (doubled) $1.00 each

10 Keebler Wheatables $2.50-$1.50=$1.00 each (plus I have a mail in rebate for $10.00 back on 10 so they'll be free)

2 Tropicana OJ $2.50-$3.00 off 2= $1.00 each

1 Breyers True Inspirations Yogurt $2.49-$2.49 coupon=FREE

1 Baby Spinach and 1 Baby Romaine..no coupons but worth mentioning..on clearance for .50 each and there was enough to split with my MIL.

I'm not done yet, I'll be getting 8 more pasta, 20 more Nesquik and 10 more Wheatables on Saturday. Sometimes I have too much and need to make multiple trips. The list above isn't all I got. I also got lots of fruit, dog food, soda for the hubby, graham crackers and some other stuff.

Flubber!

2010-03-15T11:39:00.001-04:00

This weekend my boys and I made homemade flubber! Everyone in the family enjoyed playing with it. Here's the recipe

1/3 cup water

3 Tbsp. Borax (found in the laundry isle)

2 cups white glue (such as Elmer's)

2 cups water

food coloring (optional)

First dissolve the borax in 1/3 water. In a separate bowl mix the glue and the 2 cups water (now is the time to add color if you like). Once your borax is dissolved, mix into the glue mixture and get dirty! Use your hands to mix and knead until the water is absorbed. I ended up making more of the borax/water mixture because it just wasn't absorbing the liquid like I though it should.

A safety note to parents wanting to try this fun concoction...Borax is toxic if ingested so I don't recommend trying this with little guys (or really letting them play with it for that matter...just in case they decide it looks tasty!) I made this with Zach (11) and Max (6). Luke (20 months) has not been allowed to play with it as he likes to put everything in his mouth.

This was a quick and fun family activity that provided hours of fun for my boys and I. Max and I rolled it into a ball and played catch with it. We made hand prints in it, bounced it, tore it and made piles and watched it ooze all over the counter! Your flubber makes a nice mess if left on carpet or fabric so don't make that mistake (we were picking pieces of flubber out of the carpet for a bit on Saturday). It can be stored in a large ziploc bag.

Taking Inventory

2010-03-14T13:33:00.001-04:00

Recently I've read several blogs that list their inventory and I always find it interesting to see what other families are buying and are able to stock up on. So here's what's in my stockpile (and this is not my entire stock of food, just the items I have stockpiled)....

In the pantry:

53 boxes assorted cereal (Post, Kelloggs, GM)

7 Kraft BBQ Sauce

10 Krustaez Pancake Mix plus a giant bag from Sams Club

6 Solo Plates

2 Solo Cups

1 Solo Bowl

21 Progresso Soup

29 Lipton Soup Mix (Beefy Onion, Onion, Savory Herb & Garlic, Vegetable, Noodle Soup)

10 Ritz (Wheat, Vegetable, Snowflake)

27 Ragu Pasta Sauce

6 Wheat Thins

6 Triscuits (Cracked Pepper & Olive Oil, Rosemary & Olive Oil)

20 Hefty Trash Bags (Kitchen size and Lawn & Garden size)

11 Hefty One Zip

4 Mt. Olive Pickles

4 Mt. Olive Relish

19 Quaker Mini Quakes assorted flavors

29 Hamburger Helper assorted flavors (after these are gone I plan on coming up with

homemade versions of these not-so-healthy dinners)

7 Planters Big Nut Bars

5 Fiber Plus bars

31 Boxes Ronzoni/Barilla pasta

7 Orville Redenbacher's Popcorn (I found a recipe for homemade microwave popcorn!)

6 Cheez-Its

9 Marcal Small Steps Tissues

14 Kraft Mac & Cheese

31 Peanut Butter (Skippy)

22 Coffee (Melitta, Foldgers & Chock Full O Nuts)

6 Pepperidge Farms Goldfish

10 Wheatables Nut Crackers

15 Quaker True Delights Granola Bars

In the kitchen:

13 Finish dishwasher gelpacs (I've been working on my stockpile of this for over a year!)

33 College Inn Broth (beef, chicken, turkey, vegetable)

12 Lysol Pourable

7 Lysol AP/Bathroom Cleaners

2 AP Greenworks Cleaner

3 Greenworks Dish soap

In the laundry room:

5 Bounce Dryer Bars

10 Clorox Bleach

13 Spray N Wash

3 6 packs Fruit2O

In the bathroom:

19 Olay Body Wash

31 L'Oreal for kids Shampoo

11 Softsoap Handsoap

2 Softsoap Body Wash

9 Colgate Toothpaste

18 Colgate Toothbrush

10 Garnier Fructis (Hairspray, Shampoo, Conditioner)

17 Lysol Bowl Cleaner

26 Shampoo/Conditioner (Citre Shine, Finesse & White Rain)

4 Edge Shave Gel

12 Schick Quatro Titanium Reusable Razors

4 Speed Stick

6 Lady Speed Stick

106 rolls Marcal Small Steps Toilet Paper

13 Wetones Canisters

20 Nesquik Chocolate Milk

In the freezer:

40 Oscar Mayer Bacon

36 Birds Eye Steamfresh Veggies

3 NY Texas Toast Lite

6 NY Garlic Bread Sticks

4 Butterball Turkey Bacon

8 Butterball Chicken/Turkey Strips

13 Tony's Crispy Crust Pizza

19 Birds Eye Boxed Veggies

Keep in mind when you read the numbers that I do have a family of 5. I also donate to the food pantry at my church and often give items to family and friends. I can't pass up a great deal! My stockpiled items are all either free or very close to free!

Share your stockpiles and comment back so I can read it!

BIFOCALS??? Say WHAT??

2010-03-12T17:31:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Max got a notice home from school saying he needed to be examined by an optometrist. His eyes had been checked by the school nurse and found to have 20/50 vision in both eyes. Naturally, I jumped on the bandwagon and made him an appointment for the next day.

We all wear glasses/contacts in our family. Myself, my husband, our 11 year old son, both our siblings, parents, grandparents...ALL of us. It's just a given that eventually all of our children will need them. I just didn't think at 6. So we talked with Max about getting glasses in a sugar coated way.

Oh, how much more handsome you'll be!

You'll be *just* like your big brother!

YOU get to pick out whatever glasses you want!

This morning he was excited at the prospects of coming home with his new spectacles. He had already been picking out different frames when his brother got his new ones earlier in the week. (And did I mention that we have to drive an hour and fifteen minutes to get to this eye doctor?) Armed with my arsenal of distractions for Luke, we headed out the door.

Max was called in and examined. I mentioned to the Dr. that the OT at school wanted us to pursue a developmental optometrist. (You can read about why Max has to see an OT at school HERE) He looked at me dumbfounded. He asked me why he goes to an OT and I told him that Max has Sensory Processing Disorder with the worst part being with his vision. That he's being seen because of behavioral issues at school and at home. Then he asked me if Max's teacher was male or female...? Ummm....not sure why it's relevant but, a female. So he suggested that next year I ask for a male teacher that maybe the female teacher just didn't like boys! WHAT? Dear Lord. No I said, we, his parents pursued treatment for him, NOT his teacher. In fact, she rarely, rarely calls with a problem.

The next part of the conversation just flabbergasted me. He asked me what I feed Max for breakfast before he goes to school. I said I feed him something different every day...breakfast sandwiches, cereal, bagels, whatever. What kind of cereal? he asked. Uh, well we have lots of different kinds...yes, bad ones I'm sure I said as I laughed sarcastically. So he proceeds to tell me I should take all refined sugar out of his diet and he'll behave! Then points to his Gatorade and says see, refined sugar. So I said well? everythings bad for you anymore.

Seriously? Who does this guy think he is? Honestly, the more I think about it, the more aggravated I get. I suppose I should just laugh and shrug it off.

Back to Max. My poor little boy of six needs bifocals. He's nearsighted and he over corrects while reading. I could have done lined bifocals or progressives but his lenses are so little that they would have been hard to progress and I figured if he can see the line it may help him adjust to using them. I know it'll be a challenge having a six year old boy be half way responsible with glasses and now on top of it he has to learn to use bifocals and have a line across his eyes all the time. The fortunate thing is that he may not have to use bifocals forever.

After we were done with his appointment I took them to Max's new favorite place to eat, Sonic. Max ordered popcorn chicken, apple slices and a bubble gum slush (and some of my x-tra long chili cheese coney with mustard and onions (YES, I had a chili cheese coney and tater tots AND a watermelon slush..Tony Horton (P90X, the hubby and I are doing a modified version) wouldn't be impressed!..and some of Luke's corn dog..and some of my tater tots). It's a good day when you get to eat at Sonic. BTW...our closest Sonic is an hour and fifteen minutes away and that's probably a very, very good thing.

Next week we'll go pick them up and start our journey. It'll be an interesting one.

So what do you think of my Dr.?

Strawberry Bandit!

2010-03-10T21:02:00.000-05:00

Today I was on Facebook chatting with my sister as I often do. Today I noticed it was unusually quiet. Having a toddler around that has 2 older brothers to mimic doesn't make for a quiet household by any means. This is what I saw when I turned the corner from the living room to the kitchen.

*NO* I didn't even hear the chair move. I swear. *YES* I left him on the chair so I could get my camera. He's my third, what can I say.

Just look at those little bites. Cute right? I guess he had to taste each and every one to make sure they were okay.

And at almost 20 months he was even smart enough to pull off the stems and leaves! (Now if I can teach him to make it to the garbage.....)

I guess this was the winner since it's half gone!

A Stand Up Company!

2010-03-10T15:31:00.000-05:00

All too often you call a company with a complaint or comment and you simply get a "we're sorry for your inconvenience, ma'am." I'm in the business of calling with whatever issues I might have because frankly, it's my money! Most people don't bother and I think that's a problem. We work hard for our money and can't afford to waste it on inferior products and services. You have a problem? CALL!

That being said, I recently got 2+ cases of Stonyfield Farm Oikos Yogurt for free (sale+coupons=very happy me!). I did notice in the store that the foil lids were puffed but I honestly didn't think anything of it. The next day Luke and I each had one and I noticed they tasted a bit tangy. I called Stonyfield Farms customer service number listed on the cup just to find out if they were safe to eat. The customer service lady, Allison (I like her already..we share the same name!), was very pleasant and explained to me that it just meant the yogurt was fermented and was fine to eat but would taste "off." She also said it was a refrigeration issue and said she could send some coupons for free replacement product. She was sort of taken aback when I told her I had gotten 30 of them! She put me on hold for a brief moment and when she came back on she said I should take the product back to the store to have it replaced and they would send me some coupons anyway.

Today I got the mail and found an envelope from Stonyfield Farms. Below is what they sent me.

A very nice letter, coupons for 12 free Oikos yogurts and another packet of assorted coupons! WOW! That's fantastic! Very impressive Stonyfield!

Now you should go check out their website. They've got a program called My Stonyfield Rewards where you enter codes from products you buy and earn free products. Check it out! They also have great recipes and printable coupons. Go on over and check them out! And their Oikos yogurt is SOOO good!

UGH, so sick!

2010-03-06T12:22:00.000-05:00

My husband works at a school (germ city), the same school that my 2 older boys go to. He came home Thursday from work complaining of a sore throat. By 7pm he was down and out on the couch with the shakes and a fever. He only got about an hour's worth of sleep all night. He went to work the next day much to my dismay. By noonish he was home and having his mother take him to urgent care. $45.00 later he was home toting his giant horse pills. I never understood that! You have strep throat, can barely swallow your own spit and they expect you to take these giant pills the size of a small child!

Yesterday I knew I was getting it. Midday I started feeling my glands swelling and by 8ish that night I took my turn on the couch. What a horrific night! I haven't been that sick in a long time. Fever, sore throat, swollen glands, bad bad headache, chills, body aches, nausea..you name it I had it. I barely slept. One thing I do often when I have body aches and can't seem to get warm is to let the hot shower beat on me. I did that 3 times last night. Then I'd get into bed and cover up with my 2 comforters (on top of my flannel pj's) and wake up in a cold sweat. It was miserable.

Today I went to urgent care myself. I was hoping I could just go in and tell the doc that my husband had been in the day before and he wouldn't do a throat culture and charge me an extra 20 bucks. No such luck. He said to me after looking at my throat that he was giving me an antibiotic either way. So why do the culture? I don't get it.

I just have to say that WITH health insurance if we all get this that co-pays and antibiotics for 5 of us would be $225! OH DEAR LORD! Please God, don't let the kids get it. Not only do I not want them to feel this way, that's a LOT of money! How ridiculous is that?

Oh well, I'm going to shower and lay in bed.

Conversation Starters!

2010-03-04T11:11:00.000-05:00

So it's been a very long time since I've done a conversation starters with Zobmondo so here goes.

Here's the question:

Would you rather...

For the rest of your life, choose the same drink and the same meal to ingest every time you eat

have someone else always choose what you eat?

My answer?

I've gotta have some variety folks! Let them choose what I eat. I'll just have to learn to be more adventurous. What's your answer?

KitchenAid..such a love-hate relationship

2010-03-03T22:07:00.000-05:00

I broke down a couple of years ago and bought myself a KitchenAid Professional 600 6 quart mixer. I was so excited I couldn't stand it! If you know mixers, you know that I paid a pretty penny for this baby. I didn't mind because I wanted one so badly.

For an entire year I was thrilled with it aside from the volume of it. Lets just say you can't talk on the phone next to the machine when it's running. It's claim to fame is that it can mix up to 14 cups of flour at a time. I'm a huge homemade bread/roll/cinnamon bun/pizza dough/soft pretzel fan...anything involving yeast, really. My mixer gets a workout but it's okay because it's a KitchenAid, right? Heavy duty, right? Huh! That's what I thought. Literally 2 weeks after the one year warranty was up the stinking thing stopped working right in the middle of mixing dough. The motor ran but the mechanism wouldn't spin. Gears stripped. PERFECT! *SIGH*

I called KA customer service and much to my surprise they replaced it with a new machine! I was very impressed and my faith in the company was renewed.

After doing much research about my problem, I found TONS of others with the same problem! I guess they started making the gear box with plastic parts rather than the all metal that they claimed. At this point I figured it's all good because I've got a new one coming and another full year warranty on it.

Here we are 1 year and 3 months after I received this new mixer and guess what happened? Yup! Right in the middle of a batch of pizza dough. I cannot express to you how aggravated I was and still am. Not realizing it was 3 months past the warranty date I called KA again. The lady in customer service was very pleasant. She allowed me to explain what happened, put me on hold and when she came back on the line she explained to me that they would send me a refurbished model with a 6 month warranty.

Now am I supposed to be happy? afraid? I guess both? I'm very happy that they are sending me another one knowing that the warranty was outdated. I'm very scared that the gears will strip again. Part of me wants to sell it on EBay and buy a different brand. I just don't know. I do know that this should NOT be happening. It's not like I bought some cheesy floor model from WalMart! I suppose what I'll have to do is mix my dough and then knead by hand? I'll have to think of it as therapeutic.........

Al's Big Buys 3/2/10

2010-03-03T07:34:00.000-05:00

So I had planned on taking a picture for you of my groceries this week and completely forgot. I don't know why, but I find it interesting to look at people's grocery pics. Here were the deals I got this week. SR is doing "dollar days" this week so they offer money towards your next shopping trip when you buy specific items plus free reusable shopping bags.

I want to first start by telling you of the opening conversation with myself and the young cashier. He said "Hi, how are you?" Me "Good, how are you" Him "Good and you?" I just thought it was slightly amusing. Then as he was scanning my coupons he called me a coupon warrior. That's a first..ha!

Oikos greek yogurt was on sale last week from $2.49 to 1.00. My store only had 3 kinds, plain (bleck), vanilla and strawberry. I was only able to get 8 because they didn't have enough in stock, so I got a rain check. Yesterday I used the rain check and got 32 more for free with my $1.00 off coupons. So in all, I got 40 of them for free.

Motts was the first dollar days deal I got. Their juice was 2/4, buy 5 and get $5.00 off your next shopping trip. I got 6 for $12.00 minus the $5 off my next trip = 6 juices for $7.00 plus a free bag.

Lysol toilet bowl cleaner on sale 2/4. I had coupons for .75 off each making them .50 each. I checked them out in 2 batches of 5 so I could get 2 dollar days deals with them. In all I got 10 for $5.00 and got $10.00 to use on my next order and 2 free bags. They paid me 5 bucks to take the cleaner and bags!

Green Works cleaners on sale 2/5. I got 3 dish soap and 2 all purpose cleaner minus my .50 off coupons, making them $1.50 each. Then I got $5.00 off my next shopping trip plus a free bag making them .50 each.

Perdue Turkey Meatballs (my favorite) on sale for $2.21 minus my .75 off coupon making them .71 per box. BTW, I used Perdue ShortCuts Chicken coupons on these.

Clorox bleach on sale for $1.69 minus my .50/2 coupon made them $1.19 each, plus a $5.00 off your next order coupon making them .36 each and I got another free bag.

Bounce Dryer Bars on sale for $4.00 each minus my $1.50 off coupons made them $2.50 each. Then I got a $5.00 off my next order for a total of $1.50 each.

In all I got $160.27 worth of groceries for $60.58, a savings of 62%!

High Speed and a Shiny New Laptop!

2010-03-02T08:20:00.000-05:00

So here on my road (you'd think I was in the middle of absolute nowhere!) we JUST got hooked up to cable last week..right in the middle of our blizzard. If you've recently switched from dial up to cable internet, you know exactly how my family and I feel. I can say honestly that it used to take me 20 minutes or more to upload ONE photo to the internet! I'll admit that we've been a little obsessive since it's so new to us. It still feels strange when I'm on the internet and the phone rings.

Anyway, we're elated and I can't wait to get my projects started that required high speed internet. I've stumbled upon digital scrapbooking and I'm looking forward to trying it out. I've always loved the way a well-put-together scrapbook page looks but lets face it, scrapbooking can be ridiculously expensive! Never mind storing all the tools, glues, marking pens, paper, embellishments...the list goes on and on I'm sure.

One of the things I need to get started in my new endeavour is a better laptop. I'm working on a laptop that was given to my son by his Aunt Heidi and it's good for surfing the internet and whatnot, but isn't good enough for the programs I want like Photoshop. Sooo....my husband being a LAN tech, helped me pick out a new one on a budget.

I searched for days and days and went from buying refurbished with only a 90 day warranty to getting a really good deal from OfficeDepot.com. I'm very excited to get my new one. Anyone looking for a good laptop for the money check out this deal from OfficeDepot.

Who knows? Maybe I'll start blog design!

SNOW!

2010-02-24T21:14:00.001-05:00

My car during the heaviest part of the storm.

Our clothesline in our back yard.

My car the day after.

Across the street from my house.

We got a total of 14 1/2 inches for this round. We have another 10-20 inches on its way tonight and tomorrow. I love it! As long as we don't have to go anywhere...school gets closed, the kids AND the hubby get to stay home and I don't work so we get to stay home and enjoy the beauty of winter.

Max and SPD

2010-02-03T20:35:00.000-05:00

We've always known there was something about Max. We just couldn't put our finger on what it was. Since he was 3 or 4 we've had a hard time with him. He doesn't listen, doesn't follow directions, and recently has become quite aggressive.

His second day of first grade, his teacher noticed. She noticed that he fidgets a lot. I told her that we've always known there was something, we just couldn't put our finger on it or explain exactly what it was. She then allowed Max to use a squishy ball to fidget with to help him concentrate. That prompted me to do some research on the internet to find out what conditions would use that type of therapy. Sensory Processing Disorder or Sensory Integration Dysfunction. It was like a lightbulb popping up in my head! Someone was describing Max to a tee! '

The next time I spoke to his teacher, I mentioned SPD to her. Our next step was to contact the Occupational Therapist at school and fill out questionnaires. The therapist observed Max in class on several occasions.

I was right. She called and explained his condition. I was so thankful to have answers but now what? I knew what she was telling me made sense but what do we do now?

He sees the occupational therapist weekly in school and his teacher (who we love, btw) is working with him to help him through his day. They allowed him to take a quick walk around the hallway, wear earplugs, move his desk when he felt distracted and some other comforting things that seemed to help. Until this week.

He was doing well for quite some time. This week, I got a call saying that his behavior was taking a turn for the worse. I feel really bad for his teacher because she has 18 students to deal with and I know how hard Max can be at times. I also feel horrible for Max because if we can't get this under control, he's gonna become a social outcast. He's become quite aggressive lately and doesn't understand the consequences of his actions. He outright lies. He does extremely well academically right now but I'm worried that eventually his disorder will get in the way of progress. And because of his inability to follow directions it'll be very hard for him to be a part of a sports team or learn an instrument.

So for now I'll continue my research, possibly seek out a good neurologist and PRAY! My poor Max. We'll get there.

For more info on Sensory Processing Disorders click HERE and HERE. It's easier for me to include links than to explain the entire disorder.

Pool? Not this year.

2010-02-02T10:41:00.000-05:00

It's tax return time and that nice large chunk of change should be deposited into my bank account this Friday. Fingers crossed. We had originally planned on buying the kids a "real" above ground pool this year and next year's return would build a nice big deck from the house to the pool. I've dreamed about it and stood on the little back porch imagining and planning. I say real pool because we have an easy set pool that comes down every year. While it does the job, it's a pain and frankly, not big enough.

This was the plan. 'Til yesterday. I took my oldest, Zachary to the orthodontist. I was imagining about $2000 out of pocket and $1000 being paid by our insurance. Boy was I in for an awaking.

Let me start by saying that as a child, braces were available to me at, I believe, no charge because of insurance. I don't ever remember expressing that I would like to have them, but my teeth are far from straight. I've spent my entire life covering my mouth when I laugh and pictures that showed teeth? GARBAGE! So, as an adult, if I had the money, I'd have braces. I feel very strongly about braces and sometimes feel robbed!

After the panoramic x-ray and a quick exam by the orthodontist, the Dr.'s assistant went over the charges. (Cue dreams of my pool crashing to the ground)....$6000. That's SIX. Seriously? Is it April fools? Am I on some sort of hidden camera show? His teeth aren't even crooked! He's just got a major overbite. I guess that's more expensive. Full braces and headgear at night, then this spring thingy called a Forsus that helps pull the top jaw back and bottom jaw forward. Well, whaddaya gonna do? The kids gonna get braces.

Bye, bye pool........

Homemade Hot Pockets

2010-01-31T19:59:00.002-05:00

My boys LOVE Hot Pockets and I usually get them for .50 a box with coupons. That's a really good deal but let's face it, even though they're quite convenient, they're not healthy! I told my boys that after we ran out of the breakfast variety we had in the freezer, we would try and make them ourselves. Not only would they be much, much healthier, they'd probably be cheaper as well (which I LOVE!).

I'm lucky enough to have a KitchenAid Professional 600 series mixer with a dough hook (cue the Hallelujahs) so I make yeast doughs very frequently. I love to make homemade soup and a nice loaf of homemade bread on cold winter nights for dinner. Max loves it so much that he asked me to make a loaf to take into school so he could share with his classmates. I made him a loaf and sliced it that morning and sent him in with a little tub of butter, plastic knives, napkins and his bread. He was proud to be able to share with his friends. You don't need a fancy mixer to make this dough but if you don't you'll be kneading by hand....think of it as therapy. Here's the recipe for the dough....

10 Cups (possibly more and I'll explain after) All Purpose or Bread Flour

4 Eggs, beaten

1/2 cup sugar

4 1/2 teaspoons Active Dry Yeast (I buy the big double pack of Fleishmanns from Sams Club)

1 1/2 cups milk

1 1/2 cups water

1 tsp. salt

2 sticks of butter or margarine, melted

Instructions are for my mixer. If you're kneading by hand, you'll want to search the internet to look for instructions for that. Heat your water and milk until it feels hot to your touch. Not scalding, but past luke warm. Pour into your mixer and add yeast. Mix well and allow yeast to bloom (just let it sit for 5 minutes or so). Once your 5 minutes is up, you can add eggs, sugar, salt and melted butter. Next comes the flour. I usually add all of what it calls for and begin mixing. I ended up adding much more than 10 cups of flour. If you're not experienced in bread making this is what you want to look for...you want to add flour slowly until the sides of your mixer are clean and your dough has all come together. Then I let it knead for a good 5-7 minutes. Next, oil your dough and make sure the whole thing is coated. Cover your bowl and allow to double in size. Once it's doubled, you're ready to make the hot pockets. You can cook your fillings while your dough is rising. I didn't really use a recipe for that. I do, however, have some useful tips for you for fillings. I made scrambled eggs. I always make fluffy scrambled eggs (I've seen them dry and crumbly before and so unappetizing). I add about a teaspoon per egg of water and then salt and pepper and whip them up. The trick is to let the eggs sit and set in your pan before you start scrambling them. Once you see a nice layer of cooked egg on the bottom, gently fold and continue that until they're cooked through. I also grated my own cheddar cheese because I had a block from a previous sale and I think it tastes better than the stuff already shredded. For meat, I used breakfast sausages and bacon. I removed the sausage from the casings and chopped it up before frying. The bacon you should also chop before frying, that way it's all ready to go into the dough and you don't have to be bothered crumbling it after it's cooked. I have ham pictured above because I intended on making some with that as well. Upon opening the package and touching it, I found little hard crystal like bits embedded in the slices. It was really quite strange and I've never seen it before. I'll be bringing it back to the store.

Next is filling the pockets. I have a food scale (for my business) and so I measured out 4 ounce pieces of dough, just so I knew they were uniform and would bake more evenly. That's not necessary though. I also realized after baking them that 4 ounces is really too large unless you're feeding really hungry children (or husbands). So I rolled out the pieces of dough into rectangles and layered the fillings. First meat, then a little cheese, egg and cheese again. Pull the sides of dough up together and seal ends and place onto your baking sheet (I used a Pampered Chef baking stone. HIGHLY recommended!) and allow to rise while you heat your oven to 350. I'm sorry that I never time anything. You'll have to just watch them and bake til golden brown. I'm guessing around 20 minutes or so. You can eat them straight out of the oven or allow them to cool completely and wrap and freeze. They can be reheated in the microwave or oven, though I haven't actually tried this yet because I just made them today.

This is what I figure it cost me to make them. I got the eggs for .59 per dozen and used 17 for a total of .84 cents. Bacon, on sale/coupon for .67 per pound. I used 1/2 for a total of 33 1/2 cents. My sausage was on sale/coupon for $1.40 for 12 ounces. I used around 8 ounces for a total of .93 cents. My cheese was .77 for an 8 ounce brick and I used the whole thing. Sugar may have been .25 worth? Flour $1.25, butter $1.25, milk .25, yeast .02 and I'm not even counting the salt. My total estimated cost is $5.89. I made 12 hot pockets probably double the size of those in the store and I have at least half the dough left over in my refrigerator to try pizza hot pockets tomorrow. Considering the cheapest I've gotten them in the store with my coupons makes them .25 cents per hot pocket, I'd say my homemade ones that are double the food and double the nutrition are a real bargain at .36 cents each. This is how I got my figure....I added all the ingredients for the dough and halved it because I only used half, then added the fillings and divided by 12.

Let me know if you try them and if you like them or not. I'm super impressed so far and can't wait to try all kinds of fillings (like veggies and low fat cheese for Mommy!).

Enjoy!

Al's Big Buys 1/24-1/30

2010-01-31T08:43:00.001-05:00

I finished up my shopping for the week yesterday while my middle son Max was at a bowling party with his dad. Actually it was 2 parties at the same place and time. They managed to place the 2 parties at complete opposite ends of the alley giving the 2 boys who were invited to both a little exercise getting back and forth. He was one of two to walk out with 2 goodie bags and was thoroughly tired.

My quick tip this week before I get started on deals is too take coupons with specific flavors, such as Original Cheerios, and try it on other flavors or varieties of the same brand. More often than not, they will work.

So this week I got $233.98 worth of groceries for $100.25 and that's a total savings of $133.73 or 57%!

Here are my best deals for this week...

Quaker Quakes on sale for .77--I got them for free with my .75 coupon doubled up to .77 (which I had to go to customer service for b/c it didn't double at the register). I got 40 bags of assorted flavored mini rice cakes and fiber crisps (which are delicious btw!).

Johnsonville Sausage, 2 breakfast (for homemade hot pockets) and 2 turkey cheddar on sale for 2/5--I paid $1.40 each with my doubled .55 coupon and had another coupon for $1.00 off eggs with the purchase of Johnsonville sausage. I LOVE combo coupons! So for 4 sausage and 2 dozen eggs I paid $6.78.

Rayovac Batteries on sale for .77--I got them free with my $1.00 off coupon (coupon was for hearing aid batteries but worked on all types! Hence my tip for the week? Some cashiers will not allow you to do this and some will...trial and error). I got 14 packs of batteries for free!

Tony's Crispy Crust Pizza on sale for $1.00 each--I got them free with my doubled .50 coupon (expired in December...again, trial and error will tell you what stores will accept them. My store technically doesn't, but the cashiers rarely check). I got 13 pizza's free.

Hefty Trash Bags on sale for $1.24--I paid .14 with my doubled .55 coupon. I got 8 boxes of trash bags for $1.12.

Smithfield Bacon on sale for $1.77--I paid .67 with my doubled .55 coupon. I only got 4 of these because in a previous sale I got Oscar Mayer for .35 per pound! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!

Pepperidge Farm Goldfish on sale for 3/5--I got 3 @ .56 each with a doubled .55 coupon for Pepperidge Farm Natural Baked Crackers (TIP) and 3 @ .66 each with a doubled .50 coupon for Pepperidge Farm Bread (TIP again...). I got all 6 for a total of $3.93.

Fruit2O 6 pk. flavored water on sale for 2/4--I paid .50 each with my doubled .75 coupon. I got 12 6 packs for $6.00.

Hershey's X-L candy bars on sale for 3/4--I paid .33 each with my $1.00 coupon that was for Special Dark only..I got all types including Kit Kat and Reese's (TIP). I got 12 XL candy bars for $3.96.

Nesquik single flavored milk on sale for .77--I got 15 free with my doubled .40 coupon. I had ordered another 125 coupons (yes, that's one hundred twenty five...they freeze well!) from another seller on EBay but they didn't make it for this sale. Bummer! But I can use them in the future.

Cheez-Its on sale for $1.99--I paid .99 each with my $1.00 off coupon. I will end up getting them free as I have a mail in rebate form for $10 off the purchase of 10 Sunshine or Keebler products in one purchase. Actually, they'll pay me for taking them since I paid $9.90 for 10 and will get back $10.00!

Yes, you need room to store when you stock up like I do, but if you want to save 50% plus on your grocery bills, you'll find the room! Good luck!

Al's Big Buys 2009 End Report

2010-01-28T13:44:00.000-05:00

This is a little late but better late than never. I'm lovingly known as the coupon queen by several of my friends and my family. I stumbled upon it by accident one day while browsing EBay. I had always wanted to coupon but there were so many each week in the paper that were worthless to me so I never really did it. Until that one day.

What I do, basically, is on Friday's my local grocery store posts sales for the following week. I pull their circular up in one tab and EBay in another and compare sales to coupons available. YES, I buy coupons. In future posts I'll give you little tips that you can try that have worked for me.

So last year I decided to start saving my receipts from this store to keep track of how much I've actually saved. I don't have 100% of my receipts but probably 90%. Keep in mind when you see the numbers that I'm feeding a family of 5, 4 of them being male who are hungry all the time, and 2 dogs. I consider this part of my "job" as a stay at home mom.

I probably spent around $300-400 on coupons but they saved me a WHOPPING $4254.71! I got $8871.18 worth of groceries for $4616.47. I think that's awesome! I could probably not shop for 6 months and not run out of any toiletries, frozen veggies, cereal, paper products, spaghetti sauce, canned stock, and many more items.

I get very excited on Friday afternoon's when the circular posts and look forward to all the money I'll save this year!

Oooooh! Max has a GIRLfriend!

2010-01-27T08:10:00.000-05:00

How quickly our little ones grow up. Some milestones are bitter sweet, knowing that soon enough, they'll be headed off to college. I had another post in mind for today as I haven't yet updated you on my savings at the grocery store from all of last year. Last night changed my mind as I really need to get this down so we don't let the memory slip away.

My middle son Max is 6 1/2. He is in 1st grade and smart as a whip. Not only academically, but the kid can come up with an excuse or story with the blink of an eye. So my husband works at their school as a LAN tech (Local Area Network...computers) and this week he's been using my car to get back and forth. The kids have been going to his office after school and playing on the computers instead of having Mom pick them up. As I was sitting here waiting for them to come home, the phone rings. I didn't recognize the number and therefore didn't answer (thank you caller ID). It was a little persons voice and I automatically said they must have the wrong number. Later when I played the message back it said "Hi Max, it's me. Call me when you get home from the bus." "It's me"?...hmmm...he must have been expecting her phone call, huh? So later after homework and while we were enjoying pork chops for dinner, I mentioned that someone had called for him and that it was a girl. He then proceeds to put his chubby little hand into the pocket of is ripped jeans and pull out a piece of paper with some random numbers and a few letters and says it's another girls phone number and he has to call her too! I laughed out loud as I read that number/letter combination. I guess that's the thing to do as a first grader as they've all been exchanging numbers.

After dinner I let him call her back. She didn't leave her number but we pulled it off the caller ID (again, thank you caller ID). I dialed and handed him the phone. He ran down the hallway and into his bedroom where I hear him say "Hi [insert girls name here], it's ME...." and nothing...click. Then I heard a huge sigh. I went in and he said "I forgot what to say, it was the answering machine." Awww..poor kid. I felt awful for him so I said we could call her back and I would help him with another message.

Not expecting to hear a person actually answer the phone, he was caught off guard when they did. He was so nervous that he shoved the phone into my face and whispered "somebody answered, it's her, you talk." I pushed the phone back to his ear and whispered to him "say Hi this is Max, may I please speak to [insert girls name here]." And so he did. Apparently it was her who had answered and as soon as he knew it was her his entire tone changed into sort of a babyish accent. It was the cutest thing. He was very nervous and had the beet red face to prove it. He clearly didn't know what to talk about because he just looked at me so I sort of helped him out a little. As I was leaving his room I heard him say "what room are you in?" The kid who never stops talking was at a loss for words, I guess. Then she had to go and told him she'd call him back after they were done making cupcakes.

While getting ready for bed he asked me if he could call her back because she had forgotten to call him. Unfortunately for him, it was too late. I told him not to worry, that he'd be able to see her tomorrow in school.

I'm pretty sure as an 11 year old, my oldest still hasn't gotten a phone call from a girl. Not because he's not worthy, but because he's so shy that he'd probably die before he'd hand a girl his number and ask her to call him.

Now I'm sitting here thinking to myself "Oh Dear God! I'm going to have 3 daughters-in-law someday...that'll be..um...interesting?" How time slips away. Sometimes we need wake up calls so we don't miss out on these precious moments, like first calls from little girls.

I'm glad to be back to blogging so I can catch moments like these. So much time has gone by and so many little memories with it. My boys are growing up entirely too fast...such is life.

My 4 Month Hiatus

2010-01-25T15:05:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure why it's been so long since I last posted. So much has happened and I've had many perfect things to write about.

Anyway, I'm back. I decided that if nothing else, my children might enjoy reading these in the years to come. I've missed reading posts of my favorite bloggers. I get incredibly inspired by many of you, thank you.

Til tomorrow....

Conversation Starters!

2009-10-01T10:21:00.000-04:00

Conversation Starters with Zobmondo!

The rules: You MUST answer the question

You MUST NOT add to or take away from it to suit your answer.

Would You Rather....

Have a see-through nose

Entirely white eyeballs?

I love this question! I think the thought of a see-through nose is hilarious. And so that's my answer...here everyone...look at my boogers! The white eyeballs kinda freaks me out.

Wordless Wednesday!

2009-09-30T15:47:00.000-04:00

The Godfather

2009-09-29T08:44:00.000-04:00

Growing up, my husband looked up to him. Phil taught Cory so much. Phil is a computer guy and Cory was his young apprentice. I met Phil when Cory and I started dating and I can remember being totally taken aback by his forwardness and giant personality. I was this shy, self-conscious, sheltered person and he was most definitely not. We sat on the porch steps of his weekend escape from the city and that's where it began for me. The yellow house on the little hill with the pig flag hanging off the porch.

I've truly never met anyone quite like Phil. I've never met someone who's done so much in his life. He grew up in South Philly and migrated to Greenwich Village in "the City." A fitting place for Phil. He lives there with his wife Curly, the inventor of the "special wave" and lover of all things swine. On the weekends they come up to the "mountains."

We've got so many fond memories of Phil. Sterling silver Tiffany barbell rattles engraved with the boys' initials and birthdates, sharing Thanksgiving dinner, corn and ribs, cowboy hats, Indian rainsticks and incense, New Paltz craft fairs, Buddy the cat, pig overalls, Red Rider BB guns, Cory's bestman....the list continues on and on.

He's a photographer, writer, lover of art, an actor, a deep thinker, he's stubborn and has strong political views. He's forward and he'll catch you off guard. He loves deeply from the bottom of his soul. He's a submariner, a son, a brother, a husband, a friend. He's Phillip, The Godfather, Our Godfather.

We're thankful to have Phil in our lives and blessed to be able to call him The Godfather of our 3 children.

7 down 50ish to go?

2009-09-28T09:25:00.000-04:00

We did things backwards, my husband and I. We met in 1996 at a little tiny restaurant in the town over from where we live now. I was, at the time, a waitress headed to being baker, chef and later on all of the above plus dishwasher all at once. One day this dorky double bar glasses wearing boy came in to fill the dish washing position. He was still in high school. I wasn't. We got to know each other and I slowly fell in love. He was, despite the dorky glasses, sexy and smart. So smart.

We started dating in Spring of 1997. He would come to my apartment after school and lay on my bed doing homework. Did I mention how smart he is? Yeah. I met his parents and his sister. The first time I went over for dinner I remember the lovely salad his mom made with those pretty little purple flowers on top of chives garnishing it. I made the terrible mistake of eating one and secretly suffered as my mouth was on fire and I was left with the worst onion breath ever. I was so shy. So much that they thought I didn't like them because I never talked. I remember thinking they were so strange. Cory's mom and sister would go to the bathroom together. I always figured they were gossiping about me. They were so close knit and that was very foreign to me. My family wasn't close then, really. Thankfully we are now.

We always watched X-Files together and Cory would stay until the last possible second and then fly home in his red Ford pickup you could hear from a mile away. We would pray for snow storms in the winter because his mom would call up and tell him not to drive home. We loved those nights, they were the best! So that's probably what lead up to us doing things backwards. I found out in December of 1997 that I was pregnant. Oh man were we scared! Especially Cory who thought for sure his life was over. He would be disowned by his parents, never go to college and be a pizza delivery boy forever. I, of course, had a much better outlook on things. We'd do whatever we had to for Cory to finish college so we'd make a good life for our baby.

It was probably the hardest time of our young lives. Zach was born in 1998 when Cory was just 19 and I was 22. We went through more than anyone should have to over the next 2 years. That's another story. One I'm not ready to share. We waited to get married so Cory could keep his health insurance with his parents. He went to college. He graduated with an associates in liberal arts from SCCC. He went there on full scholarship through their honors program. After SCCC he went to SUNY New Platz and graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelors degree in Computer Science. I told you he's smart! I remember holding Zach as I stood on top of the chair watching Cory in his cap and gown that day in New Paltz as he graduated. I was so incredibly proud of him.

We were married on September 28, 2002, 4 years after our son was born. We were so happy! Zach was our little ring bearer, looking all handsome in his sweet little tux. We were married by our family friend who had married many other couples in our family at the church where my mother and father and my sister and her husband had been married. Tradition. Our reception was so much fun. We drank, danced, laughed, cried, ate and had the time of our lives with the people we loved. My mother in law and I had done most of the work ourselves to keep costs low. I made music CD's with pretty labels for our favors. We did table scapes, our unity candle, the bows on the cake knife and serving spatula, and these beautiful satin and lace pillars with candles on top that surrounded our cake. We made our card box too. Looking back, it sort of looked like a stacked wedding cake. We did what we could on our little budget and it turned out beautifully.

We honeymooned at the Poconos for 2 nights and picked Zach up and continued on to Williamsburg, Virginia. We had a very nice relaxing vacation then headed back to reality.

So, today, September 28, our 7th anniversary. No romantic dinners. No date. Boo. He's working and has a soccer game tonight. So he'll spend our anniversary coaching and I'll spend it having dinner with his parents. Oh well, there's always next year, right?

Conversation Starters!

2009-09-24T09:33:00.000-04:00

It's Thursday and time for Conversation Starters with Zobmondo!

The rules: You must choose one or the other, and do not change any part of the question. These are the ONLY 2 choices.

Would you rather....

For the rest of your life, eat your least favorite foods hygienically prepared

Eat your favorite foods prepared in risky circumstances?

My answer...

There's no question here...I'm a bit of a germ-o-phobe when it comes to food and restaurants. I'm totally choking down my least favorite foods. I'll learn to love them!

What's your choice?

Wordless Wednesday

2009-09-23T10:43:00.001-04:00

JOY!

Whining

2009-09-18T11:17:00.000-04:00

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

You ever have one of those days? *sigh* I'm having one of those months, I think. Feeling teary all the time. I'm feeling like such a whiner but maybe if I just get it out maybe I'll feel a little better. So here's your warning...the first part of this is a pity party whine fest.

I feel like I've had a lot on my emotional plate lately and I'm so ready to blow. I'm feeling like relationships are falling apart, like I'm ALWAYS mommy and wife and never Allison. I guess that comes with being a stay at home mom, huh? Feeling like I'm not good enough for certain people or like I'm not worth people's effort. Like if I disappeared, the only one's to notice would be my kids because there'd be nobody to wash their clothes or feed them. Yep, I warned ya....a big whiner I am today. On top of that, we overdrew our checking account by a few hundred dollars, don't have credit cards to fall back on and my son's behavior is getting to be unbearable. I guess that's the most pressing matter at the moment. The only one I feel like I could possibly have some control over.

My middle son is such a honey. We've always felt like there was something off with him. Behaviorally. You have a "bad" kid and of course immediately know that people judge you as a parent and you feel it's ALL your fault. Feeling like you're not doing enough. I know there are certain people in his life that would rather not even have to deal with him and it makes me incredibly sad. He's such a funny loving boy. Some can only see the bad things he does. My grandmother always comments on how she's never seen a busier boy or how he never stops moving or what a handful he is. She always says how Max and my nephew can't get together because they're awful together. My sister and I get so sick of hearing it. Or people will watch him do something wrong and say "boy, I DON'T know how you do it." And I do worry about what people think of him and us.

This year he started first grade. On the second day of school his teacher and I ran into each other at the end of the day when I came to pick them up. She expressed her concern about Max's inability to control his fidgeting. She wanted to know if he had always been that way or if maybe he was just nervous. I told her that it wasn't uncommon for him and we've been concerned about his behavior for some time now. She told me that she had given Max a squishy ball to squeeze while doing lessons or whenever he needed it to help him focus. He is very easily distracted. Last night we went to open house at school and happened to be the only ones in his classroom during the session we attended. It was a perfect opportunity to talk to her one on one about what we should do. We've also been in contact with the occupational therapist at school. His teacher is so on top of her game,it's great that he ended up with her. We've set up a conference for the end of the month to go over his behavior and so we can stay on the same page.

When the teacher mentioned the ball to help him concentrate, I immediately started doing research on the internet and came up with Sensory Processing Disorder or SPD. Reading about this condition was like having a light bulb go off in my head! The amount of symptoms I checked off for Max was unreal. I'm also wondering if it's possibly ADD (not ADHD). The therapist said there's a fine line between the two, so she was giving my husband and Max's teacher a survey to fill out and she'll look it over and we'll go from there. I'm not hoping there's something wrong with him, but if we do come up with something I'll be happy to know how to deal with it now. I'm very hopeful for his situation. I will NOT jump on the medication bandwagon and WILL learn how we can work with him and what will benefit him and us.

Now if I can get finances, marriage, friendships and whatever else going in the same direction, I'll be a much happier camper!

Okay, I'm done...thanks for letting me vent.

2009-09-17T15:55:00.000-04:00

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The boys at the Fairground

2009-09-17T09:50:00.000-04:00

Up til today, for the past year or so, my husband and I have been living with one vehicle. Most days it's fine, but there are times when it's incredibly inconvenient. I feel like such a mooch having to rely on other people to help us get where we need to go. My husband has this Jeep Cherokee that last spring (08) failed inspection. At the time we had no money to get it fixed so it sat and sat and sat. It was mowed around, plowed around, and sometimes used for storage. When we finally had the money, he got too "busy" (lazy) to call and set up an appointment and get it to the shop. The tires were flat, the hood was rusted shut and there was a hole in the brake line. My mother in law would joke about opening the hood and planting flowers in it. I'm sure when it finally moved out of the driveway on Monday our neighbors threw a party. So today he's going to DMV to register it and he'll finally have his baby back and I'll have a little more freedom.

So since the boys started school, this is our day: Cory gets up early because he's working 7-3 so he can coach modified soccer. His mom or dad pick him up and drop him off at work. I get the boys ready and take them to school. At 2:30 I leave to pick them up and we go to the fairground for 2 hours. Then we go back to the school and pick Cory up and go home. It's been such a pain. The baby has been missing or getting a very short afternoon nap because it falls right when I have to get the boys. I've been shoving their bikes and the stroller into my tiny car and taking them to the fairground after school. I drive a Scion Xb, you know, the little car that looks like a shoe box? Yeah, tiny. I've joked in the past that I was going to call Nike and tell them I'd advertise for them and they could paint my car to look like a Nike shoe box. The seats in the back of the car are split 1/3-2/3 and so I have to put the 1/3 part of it down to get Zach's bike in. Every time I put it in and take it out, the handle bars scrape the roof of the car. Every time I say "I am NOT doing this again" and I do anyway. It's been good, really because the boys get to ride their bikes and get out some pent up energy. Especially Max who is normally a lazy boy. It's been good for me too because I've been walking a lot. I'm sorta bummed that it's raining today because we won't be able to go.

So, now that I've gone completely away from the subject I was actually going to write about....here are some pictures I snapped while we were there on Monday.

Max sharing his unusual find.

He fell asleep watching the front wheel turn. And yes, that's a Darth Vader sticker on his stroller..it says "Who's your daddy?"...his name is Luke..get it?

Some sort of aphids the boys found under a milkweed leaf. I think they're very cool looking!

Looking for caterpillars

What a cutie!

He was trying to run away from me so he could eat the flower.

Max showing Luke his cicada nymph skeleton. He found tons of them under the Oak tree.

Cicada Skeletons

We had a nice time and I hope next time we find lots of interesting treasures!

Conversation Starters!

2009-09-17T08:24:00.000-04:00

It's Thursday and that means it's time for my conversation starters with Zobmondo!

Just a reminder of the rules:

You MUST choose one or the other, you can't add to or take away from the question to suit your answer.

The question:

Would you rather...

As a woman,

have quadruplets

have four babies, all 10 months apart?

My answer?

This is a hard one. I guess I'd have to go with quads. I think I'd rather do it all at once than to do diapers for like 6 years straight.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-09-16T10:51:00.001-04:00

Wordless Wednesday

What? I have teeth?

2009-09-16T08:53:00.000-04:00

This morning while getting the boys ready for school, as I do every morning, tell Max to go brush his teeth. This is the conversation:

Me: Max, go brush your teeth please.

Max: Why? When did we start THIS?

Me: When did we start what Max?

Max: Brushing our teeth morning AND night?

OH MAX!

Seriously?

2009-09-14T10:28:00.001-04:00

I don't know what made me notice this or why it bothers me, but seriously? Look at the outside package of the butter. The salted butter has a red outer package and the labels on the sticks are blue! The unsalted package is blue and the sticks red! What? Why? Some sort of stupid joke? Trying to confuse us? I think it's kinda funny actually. What person came up with that idea? "Yes, that's what we'll do, a switcharoo on the colors, perfect idea!" Yep, it's the little things...

Conversation Starters!

2009-09-10T15:23:00.000-04:00

It's time for my weekly conversation starter with Zobmondo!

This week's question:

Would you rather....

Have one long, thick, furry eyebrow across your entire forehead

an inordinate amount of ear and nose hair that cannot be removed?

My answer?

Well, I'm thinking since it doesn't say I can't get the unibrow waxed, that's what I'd choose. If I'm not allowed to wax it, at least I can grow bangs long enough to cover it.

What's your answer?

Twas the night before school...

2009-09-09T23:39:00.000-04:00

Twas the night before school, when all through the house, not a child was stirring, not even my spouse! The backpacks were laid by the door with care, in hopes that they wouldn't leave them there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of recess danced in their heads. And pappa in his flannels and I in my apron, he went to bed and I was a-bakin'.

When out of his room, Max came with a clatter, pappa sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. Away to the hall I flew like a flash, turned him around and started to laugh.

The dirt on the bicycles lain in the front yard, today they had been ridden really quite hard. Morning came and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a sleepy sixth grader ready to start a new year.

With brand new clothes and even cologne, he thinks with the girls he will surely be known!

I wake up my Max and give him his slacks, he dresses with speed and I don't have to plead!

Patties of sausage and eggs on the table, I tell them to come eat whenever they're able. Finish with haste we've no time to waste, if you don't clean your plate you're sure to be late.

It's really quite strange we're actually early, they've plenty of time to make they're teeth pearly.

To the top of the porch, to the front of the car, having ten minutes to spare sure is bizarre! We buckle our belts and the nervous energy is felt, we go down the road, we're finally in school mode.

I drop them at school and Zach looks so cool, with his new skater look, he's off the hook. His wristbands and chain complete his outfit, he's sure looking hot, there's no doubt about it!

Max's face looking so excited, with his friends he'll soon be united. My heart filled with pride and I almost cried as I watched my first grader wave see ya later.

Now I am home and what do I hear? So quiet and peaceful I could shed a tear. We're so happy to begin another great school year, but soon we'll be wishing for summer to be near.

What will Luke do with the house to himself, no brothers to bother him and mom to his self! He'll nap without being woken and I'll be soft spoken for mommies love naps more than babies perhaps.

I think I will clean and make the floor sheen for a very brief stint my mirrors will glint. More than two rooms this time I'll take away the grime until two thirty and they make it dirty.

It seems my kids got a couple of extra days at home. My boys just went back to school this morning and mommy is one happy camper! I started writing this last night but couldn't keep my eyes open, so I had to finish today.

Cookie Giveaway?

2009-09-09T14:41:00.000-04:00

So I've been wanting to start giveaways lately and wasn't really sure how to get started. I'm wondering, since I'm a baker selling on Ebay, if anyone would be interested in a homemade cookie giveaway? Good idea? Bad idea? It's okay, be honest!

Jillian Michaels' Fitness Ultimatum 2009

2009-09-09T10:48:00.000-04:00

Should you buy it??? NO! Let me tell you why....

Let me first start by saying that it's not all bad...just mostly.

Jillian Michales' workout game is for Nintendo Wii and is compatible with the Wii Balance Board but also works without it. When first turning it on it prompts you to set up a profile with your name, age, height and weight. If you have a balance board, you can weigh yourself on that. The next screen allows you to personalize your character by making it male or female and choosing clothing colors. Once that's done you can go to the main screen which is set up like a camp. The cafeteria is where you can go for fitness and diet tips, most of which, I've found aren't helpful. There's a multiplayer option which I haven't tried, office, stats and training. Choosing the option to train brings you to your workout.

There are 4 different types of workout to choose from. Weight loss, intervals, strength training and hill climb. The descriptions are as follows:

Weight Loss: Helps you lose weight

Intervals: Maintain a steady workout

Strength Training: Increase and maintain muscle tone

Hill Climb: Build your endurance and push yourself

With each you are able to choose your time limit of 5, 10, 15, 30, 46 and 60 minutes and intensities of light, medium and hard. I've only done medium. With each one you start off running in place and swinging your arms. You run through a park on a dirt path past trees, trees, benches, and more trees. No flowers, no people, no nothing. How long you run depends on the length of your workout. At an hour it's approximately 4 1/2 minutes. After each running session, you do things such as paint grenade toss, cannon attack, handcar pump, log jump, boxing, punching bag dodge and more. I have been finding that only with this particular game, the Wii controls aren't sensitive enough. About a quarter of my workout has been spent shaking the controls now knowing why they don't register on the game.

As I said before, the graphics are awful! The workout is set to the worst music! I actually find it much easier to get through the workout if I turn the volume down and turn on my own music. And I have to say that Jillian isn't very motivating. Unless you call random insults motivating. Such as "I could have done it better than that." Not my idea of motivation.

So, I'm very happy that I'm only borrowing it from a friend and that I didn't actually pay for it. At first I did like it, but I got tired of it very quickly. It does it's job of getting you sweating, but I hate exercising in the first place, the last thing I want is something that's boring on top of it.

I also have to say that after 372 customer reviews at Amazon.com, this game has only a 2 star rating (out of 5.) Hmm...shouldn't that be a clue?

Now just remember, this is my opinion and there's always gonna be people who like and dislike things. If you have this game, let me know if you like it!

King Scotty!

2009-09-08T20:44:00.000-04:00

This is a picture of Zach (r) and Max (m) with my friends son Scott (l). Now just look at how my boys are looking at Scott....and see how Scott is eating it right up? It's so funny how the younger guys worship the ground these older kids walk on. How they think every joke is hilarious. They're the smartest, the fastest, the best dressed, the funniest. This is how my boys feel about Scott. Seriously! It's the funniest thing.

Scott came to babysit once and since then my boys haven't stopped hounding us to go out again so Scott can come over. "No MOM, you can go out, really...PLEASE! Why can't you just go?...ah, can't ya feel the love?! Max had so much fun with him that he locked the front door when his mom came to pick him up so he would have to spend the night. Ha...a five year old having a sleepover with a fifteen year old. That would have been the highlight of his summer!

My boys were the lucky recipients of some hand-me-down clothes from Scott...Max got one of the shirts and wore it for 2 days straight! I had to force him to take it off so I could wash it. The best part was when he was putting it on, he said to me "hey Mom, it even SMELLS like Scott!" HAHA! Dear Lord!

This is Max's birthday party this summer. Scott came over with his mom and brother and lets just say we ended up with a mud pit in the back yard. I let Zach have some buddies over too and just look at all of them gathered around Scott just hoping they're the one that gets chased by him with the water. Because we all know that would make THEM the cool kid too!

So Scott, in case ya didn't know, you've got a couple of fans over here, so anytime you need a little ego boost, come on over!

Giveaways....?

2009-09-08T13:33:00.000-04:00

Okay, I've searched and searched and posted on twitter and on mombloggersclub.com and can't get any info. I really, really want to do giveaways on my blog but have no idea how to get started! Can anyone give me some info? Pretty Please?

Momma's littlest helper

2009-09-08T08:23:00.000-04:00

Momma's little helper

Helping Momma with dishes.

And cleaning the fridge.

And he's an organizational expert!

(He made the mess, not me..)

He's learning early on how to coupon!

And trying to be like his big brothers.

Ah, the reasons there are no two rooms clean at one time in our house.

Soulful Sunday

2009-09-06T20:33:00.000-04:00

I love this picture of my boys at the Bronx Zoo. This year was our 9th annual trip to the zoo, our Mother's Day Tradition. We go with our children and their grandparents.

Choose Your Battles

2009-09-05T16:52:00.000-04:00

I love this phrase and remind myself of it daily as I raise 3 little boys and 1 very big boy. Fighting battles like putting the toilet seat down, even if there are more of them than me and getting the pee INTO the toilet and not spraying it onto every surface of the bathroom. The battle I've given up on is keeping their bathroom fresh smelling and I've decided that with 3 boys all 5 years apart, it's bound to reek for the next 17 years weather I like it or not. That or make them sit like girls to pee (which I threaten to do on a regular basis.) Like taking drinking glasses out of their bedrooms BEFORE the milk curdles and then finally dries out and you can't figure out why your room smells like vomit and foot funk. I know, ewww! Comes with the territory I suppose.

And I'm wondering why, when the garbage can is in the cupboard under the sink, do they put it IN THE SINK? Or when all of the spoons are dirty (all 3...they've lost the other 5) do they have to use my plastic ones I keep for cookouts and such instead of washing one. Or they get a drink and not only leave the container out, but don't clean up the sticky juice they spilled on the counter that's now dripped onto the floor and between the counter and the stove? Perfect to attract those colonies of ants I'm battling to get rid of.

I wonder why my hubby always leaves the car without gas, leaves his dirty socks under the end table and candy wrappers on the couch. Why he thinks he's done a thorough job cleaning his whiskers OUT of the sink and completely ignores the ones stuck to the faucet and all surrounding areas. Why HE has to use the toilet right after I've cleaned it. Again, I know...ewww. But come on, I can't be the only one!

Some things I guess are never-ending battles.

Go Fish!

2009-09-05T12:29:00.001-04:00

Zach casting with his grandmother watching

This morning my in laws took Zach and Max fishing. They picked them up at 8am and headed out. I had to send Max with a breakfast goodie bag because he wouldn't eat and well, I worry about them being hungry. So away he went with his Nesquik, a bag of grapes and some not-so-healthy snacks into their grandfathers pickup armed with all their fishing gear. I have to say it was nice and quiet here for a couple of hours with the big boys gone, Cory sleeping in and the baby napping. Mommy had plenty of time to sign up on twitter and get herself completely confused!

Max fishing...in his underwear...don't know why?!

About an hour ago I heard the telltale sign that they were home...the dogs barking their fool heads off. In ran Max with a Ziploc bag containing his catch. The only Ziploc bag...my loud, dancing around, fidgeting boy was the only one who caught a fish and not only did he catch one, he caught 9! My father-in-law's face was completely animated as he retold the events that had happened at the lake. He said Max, in his underwear (haven't figured that one out yet), did this funny knee wiggling, butt shaking happy dance every time he caught a fish. At one point I guess they got a fish off the hook and it was flopping around the dock while Zach was about laying on top of it trying to catch it and it flopped itself back to the safety of the lake.

Zach watching his reflection?

Wish I could have seen it, but glad they got some time away from us and some nice bonding time with their grandparents!