Sneakin in some Peas

Giveaway!!! Giveaway!!!

Tune in Monday for my very first giveaway!

What is it?
I'll give you a hint...it's something fun for a rainy or snowy day.  It's educational and it comes from a great new website I discovered that has over 200 online stores, including one for kids bedding!  Now I have you thinking, huh?  You'll have to wait ALL weekend to find out what it is.

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How do you sneak in some veggies with those kids?

Well, my son is a little unique.  He likes broccoli but won't touch a pea with a ten foot pole.  So the other night, I made a chicken noodle casserole that he likes and I snuck in some peas.  I usually put broccoli in the casserole, but this time I chopped up some peas (yes, I chopped up little tiny baby peas) and added it to the broccoli.  He thought the green stuff was just broccoli.  Boy, did I fool him!  I felt almost giddy from pulling off that switch.

Here it is cooked:

 

And all chopped up:

See you can't tell the difference now, can you?

Valentine's Day...a little late

Um...Now I know it's been almost 2 weeks since Valentine's Day and this is probably coming a little late, but in my defense I've been pretty busy over those 2 weeks - retreat, kids (always) out of school for snow, a new nephew, etc.  But I did want to share with you some of the things we did for Valentine's Day this year.

I had sent out a post asking for ideas for Julie's school party.  Someone sent in a great idea to play Valentine's Day Bingo.  So I found this cool website to custom make Bingo sheets (but I forgot to bookmark it - oops).  Anyway, you click a button to generate a Bingo sheet, then print it.  I was in a hurry so I clicked, changed the print quantity to 17, then printed.  Guess  what?  It printed 17 copies all right...of the very same Bingo sheet.  Yup, you got it.  They all won at the same time because they were all playing off the same sheet.  Good thing, 6 and 7 year olds don't really care.  They were just happy to all get the mini Hershey bar prize :).

Also for that party, I found a cute little craft to make. 

When I was little we called these warm fuzzies.  I'm sure there are tons of names for them.  To make it easier on the parents helping me out, I divided each craft up into individual Ziploc baggies.

They just grab one per child and go. 

As a background on this next project (and to justify my filling my children up on pure sugar), our county has been out of school A LOT for snow this year - 15 days since Jan 1, including today.  Luckily we have 10 days built into our schedule so we only have to make up 4 at the end of year ... for now.  Anyway, I really needed an activity to occupy my kids during one of these days, so we made heart shaped rice krispy treats and I let them decorate each one with icing and loads of candy.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

Lastly, I wanted to show you something I made for the house.  I got the idea from The  Idea Room.  She showed us how to make a felt heart wreath.  Here's mine.

 

 

  

Once again, sorry these ideas were late in coming out.  Hopefully, I've given you some ideas for next year.

 

Thanks for the award!

I have some great readers!!!

I love you guys.

I'm glad you decided to take the time to read about my little space in the world.

Two of those wonderful readers gave my little blog an award.  Thank you ladies!

Tesa of 2 Wired 2 Tired and Crystal of Crystal's Craft Spot have both given me the beautiful blogger award.  Thank you so much Tesa and Crystal!

 

There are rules with accepting this award.  

The Rules:

1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award and insert a link to their blog.
2. Pass on the award to about 15 other bloggers who you recently discovered and think are great!
3. Contact the other bloggers and let them know they have been chosen for this award.
4. Say 7 things about yourself.

To start out, here are things about me:

1.  I love reality TV - American Idol, So you think you can Dance, Survivor

2.  My new hobby is couponing.  I just started in December when I discovered a great couponing blog (see list below).  I spend a couple of hours a week printing and clipping coupons and from that effort, I have been able to cut out over $100 a month in our grocery bill.  I'm pretty proud of myself over that.

3.  Scrapbooking is my old hobby.  I still love it, but don't find myself doing it as much as I used to.  When I do decide to work out on, I usually do digital scrapbooking.

4.  I'm allergic to chocolate (and oranges, cauliflower, mustard and watermelon).  I know, I'm weird.

5.  I hate to have the bottoms of my feet touched!

6.  I love musicals and any movies with dancing, even if it doesn't have singing.

(Wow, it's hard to come up with 7 new and interesting things about myself.)
7.  I love to play Trivial Pursuit, but can never find anyone who will play it with me :(.

Now, to pick 13 blogs (I decided to do 13 instead of 15.  Rules are meant to be broken, right?):

1.  My Aussie Blogger Friend - 5 Minutes Just for Me
2.  My nutty Blogger Friend - A Nut in a Nutshell
3.  My FAVORITE couponing blog - Hip 2 Save
4.  A wonderful Christian Mommy blog - It's Almost Naptime
5.  A blog that cracks me up - Nanny Goat in Panties
6.  Great craft ideas - Somewhat Simple
7.  An amazing Story - The Journey
8.  My favorite hairstyle blog - A Princess and her Hair
9.  For home improvement ideas - Thrifty Decor Chick
10.  Life with Triplets - Triplets, Who Knew?
11.  Awesome family blog - We are THAT family
12.  Saving Tips - We, the Savers
13.  Craft ideas and mommy humor - Controlling my Chaos

Go check 'em out and give 'em some bloggy love.

I'm back!

Well, it's been a week since I've posted, dear bloggy friends.  Did you think I fell off the face of the earth?

Luckily, I didn't :).

I didn't have time to blog because I spent some time last week learning the basics of HTML.  Yes, believe it or not, I have been a blogger for several months now and knew absolutely nothing about HTML.  So I ordered some CD-ROM lessons and completed the first CD (7 lessons).  So now I know more about formatting text on webpages, making tables (i.e. columns), etc.  Stuff I always wondered how to do.  Obviously I haven't made any changes to my blog yet, but I plan to in the near future.

I also got the wonderful opportunity to go to a women's retreat with my church this weekend.  We had a huge cabin for all 35 or so of us and really had a good time.  Our speaker was awesome and taught us how to retreat, refocus, relearn and reprioritize our time so we can have a better relationship with Jesus, with our husbands and with our families.  She told great stories and kept our attention.  But the best part of the weekend was spending time with friends - both old and new.  I also loved talking with the more mature women of the church, those with grandkids, who have been where I am...and survived :).

I hope you had a good weekend too.  Look for my very first giveaway soon!!

More 4 year old Logic

D:  Is Lightning McQueen real?

Me:  No, he's not.

D:  Yeah, he's just an actor.

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D:  I know that Mickey Mouse isn't real because mouses can't talk.

Me:  That's true.  That's very smart of you.

D:  Yeah, but cows can.
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Julie:  I can't wait until I'm 8.

D:  Yeah, me neither.  But when I'm 11.....I'll be 100!!

Me (laughing hysterically):  No, you won't, honey, you'll be 11.

D:  Yeah, your right....I won't be 100 until I'm 13.

(Gotta love 4 year old logic!)

How the Dinosaurs Got Dead

(Like every little boy David is fascinated with dinosaurs - how they lived, what (and who) they ate.  But the question I get over and over is always...)

"Mommy, how did the dinosaurs get dead?"

Well, David, there are many different theories on that.  Some people think that an asteroid came down and killed them, some think the weather changed drastically and they died. 

"No, that would be silly, Mommy.  I know how they died."

Really, how?

"People threw sticks in their mouths and the dinosaurs swallowed them and died."

So you think people went and found every single dinosaur and threw a stick in their mouth???

"Wouldn't you die if someone threw a big stick in your mouth and made you swallow it?"


(Duh!  Never argue with 4 yr old logic.)

I resolve to...

I have been putting it off long enough.

I had read everyone else's, but haven't made any of my own.

Yup, you guessed it - New Year's Resolutions.

It's always so hard to resolve to change my ways and to actually follow through with it, so I procrastinated. 

Guess what my first resolution is?

Not to procrastinate!

Hmm, maybe I'll wait until March for my next one :).

Let's Pretend

Toys??!!

We don't need toys to play with!!

Not when we have couch cushions!!

 

  

YOU may think they are cushions just lying on the floor, but really they are beds in their house.  Oh and that thing that looks like a tool bench?  It's their kitchen :).

SNOW!!

I wanted to show you pictures of the last snow we got here. We did not get the huge storm that those in Virginia and above got this weekend. But we did get about 5-6 inches the last weekend in Jan. Luckily our neighbors were out playing in the snow and luckily they were gracious enough to share their sleds with us. And luckily we have a great hill in our backyard that we can sled on.  (To our credit we tried to buy sleds after the last snow but every place was sold out and getting in their Spring stuff, so, sadly, no sleds for us this year.)

 

  

  

  

Even Daddy got in on the sledding action.  He had to take a break from sledding because he was too tired.  So to "relax", he went and shoveled the driveway. :)

 

 

What to do when you are snowed in

Like the rest of the world, we have had our fair amount of snow this year.  In fact, according to the local news, we have had more snow this winter than we have had in 14 years.  To top that, we had more snow in January than we average for an entire year!

You know what goes along with an abnormal amount of snow, an abnormal amount of snow days - i.e. days I have to find fun things to do to entertain the kids.  So I thought I'd let you in on a few ways we keep from getting bored around here.

1)  Being the nerds we are, we got out Julie's science kit and made a mini-volcano that changes colors.

2)  I could tell you that I'm a steller mom and never let my kids play videos games, watch TV or sit mindlessly in front of the computer where they essentially just watch episodes of their favorite cartoons online...but that would be a BIG, FAT lie.  I try to limit it to about 2 hours a day.  Some days I do better than others.

 

3)  To redeem me from #2, I will tell you that we read a LOT of books around here...some of them over and over and over...

 

 

4)  Last but not least, of course, we play with the camera.

 

(Notice everyone is looking at the camera but me.  I am looking at the screen on the side of the camera.)

May your days be full of fun things to do and may Spring come soon!!

Need V-day Party Ideas

OK, So I've figured out something monumental.

Blogging, specifically finding time to blog, is hard!

I realized that I went an entire week without an update.  I apologize for that.  So as I sit here and watch the Super Bowl (and cheer for the Colts who are behind at the moment) I'm going to try to write and schedule for the whole week. 

So here is my reason for posting today.  I am in charge of a first grade Valentine's Day party on Friday and I need fun, FREE, games to play for the party.  For the Christmas party we played Bug in a Run and did an M&M relay where they moved M&M's from one bowl to another with little cups.  They really enjoyed those, but I'd like to do something different.  So, please, comment me up with your ideas and/or links to game ideas.  Thanks, in advance!