::Thank You Kelloggs::

I was so excited to receive a box of goodies from Kellogg's a few weeks ago!

They sent me 2 boxes of Frosted Mini Wheats (which we usually buy anyway), and a cool cereal on the Go cup, which of course was fought over and used within minutes of opening up my box of goodies=)...by the kids of course.



I may have to buy another, if you are a mom, I am sure you agree that anything to make breakfast on those busy morning easier is worth it!!
Along with these goodies I got a fun recipe to try, it took me awhile to get to it, but me and E had so much fun this morning making Sassy Sun Pops...



He crushed up all the cereal all by himself in his PJ's may I add.

Check out Kellogg's Snacktivate website for some really fun and easy recipe ideas, I want to try a few for sure.
I love to bake and the kids love to help, so it is a win win situation, a bit messy but enjoyable.

Come back later and I will let you know how they taste, they are baking right now.
I made my sassy Sub pops, a bit different, less almonds so the kids wouldn't be intimidated, and I just made them cookies, not "lollipops", like suggested (and much cuter!)



I couldn't keep E away from the batter, so I guess they can't be too bad;)

THANKS KELLOGG'S!!

Don't Call me....

While at Costco today...

Me: "Merci, can you give me those coupons now."

Merci: "Don;t call me Merci, call me Magnolia. Magnolia is a beautiful name."

Me: (Shaking my head, amazed at the things that come out of her mouth!)

You can't beat this!

Let's have a bragging war here.
I am hoping you are taking FULL advantage of Summer garage sales.
I very randomly stop at them ( I know shame on me). This past Saturday I had Josh with me so we stopped at what we thought was 1 garage sale and it ended up being a street sale. We found some GREAT deals!

Black snow boots for E (look brand new): $.50
A box of about 20 Rescue Heros, plus MANY vehicles etc: $10
(Josh's ides to get all for $10 instead of $1 each)
An awesome older transformer that E LOVES for $.25
Polly pocket stretch limo: $1
2 games for $.50 each
old school rubber band shooting wooden gun .$50

AND

Drum Roll please....

Hallmark Fresh Ink cards 200 to be exact (no envelopes, but hey)



FOR $2

wait....

did you get that....

$2.00

YEP, 1 cent a piece.



I originally only got 100, but walking back, I told Josh I just had to get 100 more...LOL...for a buck.

I love them all, there are probably less than 2 dozen that are in the Weird category.
The rest are cute, and ones I will use.

Any good deals lately??
please share

Renata & Family

This weekend I got the opportunity to invite a family over to my house that I have never met.

I had read her blog randomly when I saw a post about her moving hundreds of miles across the US.
The I get an e-mail from Drea (whom I got to meet when she lived here in my state) telling me Renata moved close to me. Through e-mails and such, I found out she lived pretty close (within 25 miles). We talked about having dinner or getting the kids together, and finally scheduled something.

It was a great evening. Her kids are so sweet, not to mention that here and her husband were so easy to get along with! I was nervous...but from the time she got out of the car, we weren't at a loss for conversation.

Stop by her blog and say HI!

Renata, it was a pleasure having you!
Let's do it again soon.

Always thought it was cute idea

Usually around Christmas time the mall is filled with kiosks of all kinds.
I always thought the personalized children's book and cd's were a fun and different idea.
Never did buy any though.

My mother made us listen to way TOO much "childrens" music growing up, I tend to stay away from it as much as possible. My poor kids. My mom traumatizes me so I deprive them! LOL.

a CRAZY day & A QUESTION

Today was supposed to be a relaxing quiet Monday.
Merci slept over a friends house so just me and E this Monday morning.
My day did NOT go as planned.
I did get to sleep in!!!! 5 stars for that.

Then my mom (who does the payroll for our guys) called right when I was waking up to tell me that I need to pick up our paychecks and quarterly taxes and I had to send out our city taxes by TODAY.

WHAT?? I just woke up don't throw this at me...WAIT, Josh has the business check book, how the heck am I supposed to write the check and get it in the mail by the time the post office closes???
He is like 45 minutes one way, my mom 15 minutes the other way and I need to pick Merci up 35 minutes another way...uggg.

E and I were in the car for at least 5 hours today (with no A/C...and 80+ degrees, ick) going here and there and everywhere.

Which leads me to the question (the point of this post):

How much grace do you have with your 3 year old son when you know he has been in the car way too long, but proceeds to scream and cry and demand and be rude and call you a stupid mom on top of all that??
(If it is any consolation, I wanted to scream and cry too)
Where is the line between correction and grace? disobedience and stress? defiance and aggervation?

Any helpful words?


Which leads me

Ahhhh...

I just can't find the time to be on here like I used to.
Good thing??
Probably!

Maybe next week;)

Wordless Wednesday...or not

Last Wednesday July 9th was Merci's 8th birthday. I had pre-wrote some posts to keep you entertained (or not) while we were on vacation so I didn't get a chance to wish her a Happy Birthday!

Here are some pics from the past 8 years!
( I found a folder with some of her scanned professional photos, thought it be fun to share!)


3-2001 37 weeks Easter







1 year 7-2001





Valentines Day 2001


2-2003


Aug 2003



Holiday 2003

We are back

I didn't publicize too much that we were leaving for vacation.
But we are back now! July 5-12 we went to Michigan where I have been going on vacation since I was a wee little one.
Nothing special, tiny little cabin, bugs, bugs, lake and more bugs.
it has meaning to us and holds many dear memories so that is what keeps us coming back.

As you know we bought a jet ski this year, so it was great to be able to jump on that whenever we wanted, and actually we bought a 2nd one which I never mentioned, so it was double the fun=)

Here are a few pictures I really liked!
I will post more this week.



Me and my babes!



We enjoy Superman ice cream since
we can't find it much around here.


Some scenery of the lake.



Up close and personal with the dragonfly's



E LOVES the jet ski, "Let's do tricks" is all he said!



My kids turned into fish tis week and wouldn't leave the water!

On our way

Right now we are heading home from our vacation.
Driving, Driving and Driving.
Please keep u sin your prayers today for safety!

Be back with vacation updates soon!

Toy Box

Before we clean out the toy box



After we clean out the toy box!

Wordless Wednesday

Another Funny

As E was standing on the top of the slide for the pool the other day he looked at me and said, "Mommy, I sink there is a hole in dis suit, the pee is coming out." LOL.

Well yeah, they aren't a diaper!
This was after he had gone inside to pee earlier, so it isn't like he doesn't know.
KIDS!!

At least he gives me good blogging material=)

4th of July!

8 years ago when all the fireworks were done and all my
friends there to witness, my wonderful husband proposed to me.
I was carry Merci in my belly and was due the next day.
That 4th of July I will never forget!

I love you honey=)

The 4th of July is my favorite.
I love gathering with friends and family, eating lots of food and having fun.

My dream is to have a HUGE yard so I can host the biggest and best 4th of July party around!!!

Unfortunately today I am stuck inside packing for our trip.

The kids are with my aunt having a fun time,
so I am enjoying my last bit of quiet for at least a week.

I just wanted to wish you all a HAPPY 4th of July.
Have fun be safe and watch fireworks!!
(I will be doing this, in my front yard, people around here are CRAZY)

Oh yeah the winners of the toothbrushes are TeamCraun
(who is a friend of mine and NEW to the bloggin world, stop by!) and Andrea!!

When it rains it pours

It did rain lots last night and I mean all night.
But that is not what my title refers to.

My kids sleep very well, nap time are another story, BUT nighttime is great.
My kids rarely wake up, maybe a few times a month and that is exaggerating.
Last night, OH my.

Ethan was climbing on the jet skis yesterday (that are on a trailer) and fell off
( He knows better, and hopefully he will learn his lesson), he got a scrape on his thumb and I didn't realize his wrist was hurt too, until last evening.
It isn't bruised, swollen, nothing, but it really hurts and I can now see him favoring it.
So he was up at least 5 times last night, and Merci 2-3.
YIKES.
It was a rough night.

So pray for my little E that it gets better soon.
We won't be taking him to the DR's because it is probably only sprained and they can't do anything anyway and we have no ins as of right now, I will ice it and keep an ace bandage (which he thinks is the scariest thing in the world, UGH) on it for a few days and see how he is.

Weekend Roundup

A busy weekend for sure.

Saturday was Merci's Luau birthday party. We had her friend party and then later in the evening we had our family party. It was a LONG day for sure. Josh worked in the AM so I had to prepare and set up all by myself (E was at my aunts and my brothers girlfriend came for the kids party, both a great help.) I was nice to have a few hours to clean up and sit for a bit. The parties went very good and Merci had much FUN!!



Each girl got to have a PINK coconut cup
(Thank You Target dollar section!!)



I served fruit kabobs as a snack, and luckily my day lilies were in bloom for accents, how PERFECT!!



Cupcakes served at the kid party



Cupcakes served at family party

Onto SUNDAY.
Sunday was one of our weeks to do Sunday school. And after than I was excited to have nothing to do, and then Josh's friend Pete called to invite us over for a party for his girlfriends daughter, and then my brother called and wanted to meet us at the beach to ride the jet ski's. UGH, forget relaxing. The jet ski date didn't work out so we napped for a few hours and went to Pete's. I was nervous I have never met him and wouldn't know anyone there. It ended up being a great time. There were tons of kids and ones that were age compatible with mine, BONUS.
We played with Rosco the toad and road dirt bikes of all sizes, swam and just really enjoyed the company of the strangers.




AND

I actually kinda had an extended weekend because I got to go out for a girls night with a few friends on MONDAY. We went to The Melting Pot (a fondue restaurant) YUMMY!! It was ladies night so we also got a spa treatment, we all picked the hand paraffin! The we wandered a few stores and then decided to do goofy photo shoots in a public area. We had to keep reminding ourselves how old we were!! Fun times. Oh and while wandering the outdoor shopping we were blessed with a beautiful view of a FULL rainbow (even thought I couldn't capture the whole thing in a picture)

Plasma

Awhile back the big thing was plasma TV's. Then people realized they are kinda pricey to keep up with. especially if you have to replace the plasma. If you have a plasma TV then you my want to know about the many different kinds of plasma tv mounts that are out there.
But for us we will stick to non plasma TV's.

So many

There are so many fad diets and diet pills (Alli, Metabolite, Orovo, Hoodia...) out there, it is just too overwhelming to even pick out anything. The bottom line is that if we just ate better as a whole we wouldn't have to have diets, pills, clubs etc.
Why is it so hard???
It is hard because of things like oreos, pizza, Burger King, ice cream, pop, cinnabon, ya know things like that.
For me anyway=)

FREE Preserve toothbrush by Recycline

I have 2 toothbrushes to give away!! How fun is that???
A GREEN toothbrush!
A toothbrush made from recycled yogurt cups.

And you can find them at my favorite place, TARGET. For a great price.
And HERE is a coupon.

They will even send you a mailer to mail used products back to be recycled AGAIN.
I love this company.
I really like doing my best to preserve more.
It feels so good=)

Wanna WIN??



Leave a comment and you will be entered
One per person please, OH & spread the word for me!
You can pick your color too, I have one each of Purple, Red, green, Blue.
I get to keep two and give two away!!

I will pick 2 winners on Friday July 4th