It's Mandi Land . . .

A Little Help In The Kitchen :)

2011-09-07T17:50:00.001-07:00

This evening my Wonderful Hubz finally was able to get the shelves hung in my kitchen for my Cookbooks!

We've been crazy busy lately with school starting and other things going on but im so glad to see at least a bit of progress on finishing the kitchen!

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Routine . . .

2011-08-22T08:01:00.000-07:00

I’m trying to get into a good routine and get my to-do list the way I like them for each day of the week! I’m looking forward to the girls starting school so I can get to a few of the big tasks around here that have been put off all summer. With a little one and an ornery 9 year old it’s hard to take on big tasks with both of them home running all over messing and getting into everything . . . Here is my to do list that I created in Word last night. Also my weekly task list.. these are the things I hope to get to within the week sometime. What is your plan of action for the day or the week?

The First Pick

2011-08-05T08:13:00.001-07:00

This year we finally took a leap of faith and planted our very first Garden. We figured that trial and error was the best way to learn and we've already learned so much and have so many different garden plans for next year! Im even toying with maybe planting a few things for a fall garden.

So today we got our very first pick from our very first garden and I'm so excited!!! I cannot wait to cook it!

Okra!!!!

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The To- Do's!

2011-08-03T12:36:00.001-07:00

Today I'm tackling something thats been on my T- Do list for awhile now. When i use a recipe to cook dinner i print it out from my computer & tack it to my cork board in the kitchen while I cook. Id love to just bring the computer into the kitchen with me but i have very little counter space. So over time I've accumulated a lot of printed out recipies and have started to reprint some because I couldnt find the one I'd printed before. So today i tackle my recipe binder :)

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Couponing Craze

2011-07-29T13:24:00.001-07:00

I've finally joined the "Coupon Craze" I figure how can saving money be wrong!! Especially when a great deal of our budget is kept for groceries/household items.

I am a bit intimidated about getting the most out of the coupons by combining them with sales but Im anxious to see how much i can save us!

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Treatment Day

2011-07-27T13:00:00.001-07:00

Today we start treatments again for Mom. She was a year and a half Cancer free and today we must start to fight the good fight once more.

one day down. So far - so good.

I kept myself busy. Knitting time is always good.

After only eating crackers all day we're looking forward to some chinese :)

Monster Gifting :)

2011-03-27T08:09:00.000-07:00

For Valentines Day I knit the girls two adorable little Monsters. They were so much fun to knit. The Monster pattern Designs are designed by Rebbecca Danger who just released her book "The Big Book of Knitted Monsters"

For Abbey I knit Daphne & Delilah. A Mommy Monster with her baby in a pocket.

For Ashley I knit Olivia.

The Girls both love the monsters and I look forward to knitting many more!

Fall Campfire Camp

2011-01-06T07:35:00.001-08:00

Back in October (yeah I know it's been awhile (again!) and I'm behind LOL! Anyway, back in October we had our Campfire fall camp. We only camp two times a year. Once in the spring and once in the fall. The fall one can be tricky since it falls at the end of October and in Oklahoma you never know what kind of weather your going to be getting. Three years ago when Ashley and I first became a part of Campfire we nearly FROZE at the fall camp. The next year was a little chilly, last year wasn't bad and all, but this year we got rained out of all of our activities since most of them are outdoors. We still had a great time. We were at least prepared for the rain and the down time gave the girls some extra time to really get to know one another!

We camp in Cabins at Group Camp 1 at Lake Murray State Park. The cabins do have electricity and some have fire places. The bathrooms & showers are within walking distance. This is the Cabin we got this year. The ones we've had in the years before have been much smaller. But our group grew in numbers this year so we needed a bigger one! I was just happy to be closer to the bathroom! LOL!!

This year was the first year our girls got to do the ceremonial lowering of the flag, I was a bit worried about them dropping the flag in the process of folding it, But they did such a fantastic Job! They lead the Pledge of Alliance, Campfire Law and then lowered and folded the flag.

High fives for a job well done!

At fall Camp we also have a fall festival where the kids get to dress up in their Halloween costumes and play games and do cake walks to win Candy and prizes. I was very surprised this year that everyone's costume was different in 7-10 (our group number) Last year we had a couple of princesses and a couple of cheerleaders.

Below is a photo of groggy morning girls waiting for the flag raising before breakfast. We have ladies (former Campfire Leaders/Mom's) who volunteer to cook our meals for us and we always have delicious meals! We always especially look forward to the breakfast.

We love our crafts & this year we took old Campfire Girls skirts and made messenger bags out of them.

This year our BB Guns and physical activities got rained out, those were all set mostly for Saturday. But Margaret our Regional Director set it up to where everyone got to Canoe on Sunday when it wasn't raining.

We always look forward to Camp. We always have so much fun and it's nice to get away from town and everyday life. I love watching the girls do the activities & learn new things. Can't wait for Spring Camp!

Halloween

2010-11-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

We had a great Halloween. Above is a picture of the cupcakes that I made for the Halloween party we went to. (The Icing tastes like ice cream) My Cousin Angie and her husband Scott hosted an awesome Halloween party for the second year in a row. They had Games for the kids and we had some delicious food!

My Costume :)

This year I did not take the girls downtown on Friday like I normally do. Last year it was not a good experience for us. It was too crowded, lots of rude people. People getting in front of you in line and it took 2 hours and the girls got about 25 pieces of candy which mostly consisted of dum dum drops and various candies they didn't care to eat. I've never taken my girls house to house. It makes me nervous but I'm seriously considering it for next year. I did take them to the Mall on Saturday evening and they got a bit of candy and it wasn't crowded and full of rudeness.

Ashley was a Cowgirl for Halloween

Abbey was Snow White :)

The Girls Trick or Treating the mall.

We did have a lot of fun this Halloween it was my first time to dress in costume in a lot of years. I'm looking forward to next year! Now I'll share some pics of the other costumes from the party.

My Sister (Grim Reaper?)

My Mom - The Vampire

The Boobs (Lena and Shauna)

Lane The Joker

Scott the Mad Scientist

Aunt Connie and Uncle Larry

Hope you had a great Halloween :)

Ashley's 9th Birthday !

2010-11-04T11:52:00.000-07:00

This year instead of a traditional invite everyone kind of birthday party, Ashley chose a slumber party. She was allowed to chose 4 friends for the night :) L to R Claire, Ashley, Maddie & Madelynn. (Aren't they adorable?)

We had Cupcakes, Ice Cream & Punch, With Family and a few Friends.

Of course we had some Gifts!

It's all about Justin Beiber these days ya know?

We had pillow fights, movies and lots of giggling and laughter.. oh And Jake took them for a cruise in his "Go Cart" :)

I think she had a great time! She wants another Slumber party next year :)

The Girls Room

2010-10-28T15:00:00.001-07:00

I know I haven't blogged in way too long. The thought of a huge long post turns me sour right now and I have so many things I want to share on here, So maybe one or two things at a time is how we'll go with it for now. As a matter of fact I have a huge post that I started and might finish someday or maybe not.

Lot's going on in and out of the Goodman house these days. Major kitchen redo and De - cluttering in all rooms. Each room is getting a day of the week to be worked on now. Today was the girls room. I did not take a before picture. Mostly because I might have broken my neck getting in there to take and picture and because I would have been too embarrassed to share it. This picture isn't great taken on the phone. I'm a total neat freak and I sure to some the room was just fine but It was driving me crazy and since the girls share a room they had WAAAAAY to many toys in there. Took me four hours! With a tinsy bit of help sorting from Hubs. I think we hauled off several trash bags of stuff and some bigger items as well. Glad it's gone and all is tidy in the pink bedroom for today :)

The house is quiet now as Ash is gone for the evening with her Daddy and Jake is at work. Just Abs and me and we're a quiet couple of gals when left home alone :)

Until next time . . .

Hot Summer!

2010-08-12T12:54:00.000-07:00

The Oklahoma heat is awful this Summer. It was pretty awful last Summer but every Summer it seems to just get worse. It's simply too hot to do anything outside during the day unless it's something that you have to do. With both kids at home right now, it makes for a bit of a challenge some-days but overall they haven't been too bad considering the amount of time we've spent shacked up together :) I am looking forward to school starting though!

Okie dokie what's been going on around here...

Homestead

You may or may not remember the Guinea Pig Situation we had. We had bought Ashley a Guinea Pig for Christmas from a local Pet Shop. We named her Lucy and noticed she was putting on a bit of weight and 3 months later she had babies grr . . so we took all of the babies but one back to the pet shop, making darn sure they were both female! Up until now they have been in one big cage and getting along fine. But as of late the Momma has been picking on the baby a bit so we had to separate them into different cages. Thank goodness we'd picked up a Guinea Cage at a garage sale a few months back so we didn't have to get a new one. They seem fine in their own cages and even seem a bit happier :)

Nothing else new with the house. Our hot water heater is on the fritz yet again. The pilot light won't stay lit so we keep having to light it to warm water for dishes and showers until we can get it fixed. As much trouble as we've had with it, we're tempted to by a new one.. but the price tag is so heavy!

Jake did get the brakes on our van changed. I'm so proud of him, His first time doing so and he did it all by himself :)

Family

My Mom had her first 3 month Check-up. They did a pet scan and everything is still clear. No cancer this time. We're back in 3 months for another check-up. She seems to be getting back to her normal self slowly. Her Neuropathy doesn't seem nearly as bad now, So hopefully it's on the path to getting better.

Back in June on the 16th to be precise my Darlin hubs had a Birthday. He turned 33. I think he had a good birthday. His gift of choice was a Dell Mini which he seems to be enjoying. For his Cake he requested a regular white cake with Chocolate whipped icing. So that's what I made for him!

We celebrated my Sister's 33 birthday Just a few days ago. We bought her a few Necklace, earring and ring jewelry sets and She wanted a chocolate cake with purple icing so I made sure that was what she got. Happy Birthday Sis :)

Jake is back to work full time at Michelin. Sadly they never could find what was bothering his shoulder so they moved him to a different area of the plant where he wouldn't be using his shoulder. He seems to like this work much better. The hours are very different from what they were in the other area he worked in. But we're happy he's back to work.

Next week it will be time to enroll Ashley in school. She will be a 2nd grader this year! I pray she get's a good teacher that can work well with her. She struggles a lot it seems. She's been keeping herself busy this summer watching episodes of The Adventures of Sarah Jane (Dr. Who spin off) and playing My Sims on the Wii. A little reading now and then per Mom's request.

Sadly Abbey did not get into the Headstart program I'd enrolled her in. They had more apps than they had room for. I was really hoping to get her started in school early but it wasn't meant to be. Next year she can start at the regular head start.

Ashley, Abbey and myself have started attending church. We've been visting the First United Methodist church and attending their Contemporary service called Epic. The girls attended their Childrens church this past Sunday and they seemed to really enjoy it. I was glad. Soon we'll give the Sunday school classes a try.

Knitting & Crafts

There has been a lot of knitting going on around here for sure. What better to do when everything is clean and your stuck indoors right?

I did finish my Revontuli Shawl. First lace piece, first shawl and first time blocking for me. I'm happy with the way it turned out. Waiting for cooler weather to wear it the first time.

Awhile ago I knit a baby blanket for the new baby in the family this pattern is from the Creative Knitting Magazine The pattern was called Key Lime Baby Blanket, named after the original colors but of course I knit it in white and pink for a baby girl :)

I also finished up a Cabled Hat. Not sure who this one is for, I'm thinking of trying to sell it actually. But it is cute on Ashley. This one is Sarah's Cabled Hat... there is errata for this pattern if you should decide to knit it :)

I've also been working on some Dishcloths for my kitchen. I only had a few hand made ones and the other ones are in bad shape and need to find a different purpose. Both of these I sorta made up. One came from a stitch dictionary I have.

OTN's I have my sweater, a cabled sock pattern (a first for me), another dishcloth, a cowl and my table runner still. Abbey brought her mitts in from last winter yesterday and they are too small so I've been itching to knit her some mitts but I don't have any extra wool in the house so they'll have to wait until I do.

I've had the sewing itch lately. I finally made room on my craft desk in the dinning room to leave my sewing machine sitting out on it so I could get more use of it. I've been making a few bags here and there. Mostly using tutorial's from blogs and You Tube. Right now I have bought the stuff to make me some new hot pads. I need them desperately.

A bag for Ashley's Knitting Loom.

Project bag for me.. complete with lining and zipper even!

another knitting project bag for me :)

Cooking/Baking

Even though it's been too hot, we still have to eat. I have been wanting to make some bread so bad. But I keep putting it off. I have posted some new recipes on my recipe blog though. If you want to check those out.

Beef N Black Bean Taco Bake
Best Easy Beef N Broccoli Stir Fry

I have a few other new ones I need to get posted in the next week.

I guess that's it for this time.. so until next time . . .

Fourth of July!

2010-08-11T08:19:00.000-07:00

We had a really good fourth of July weekend this year. We were invited to a celebration at Jim & Donna's house. Everytime we're invited to their home we always have such a great time & this time was no different. There is always good food, good conversation and always something fun for the kids to do. I made homemade cookies to take and some canned green tomato Relish that my friend Sis had given to me. Donna and Jim fried fish that Jim had caught I believe it was bass? and Donna made the best hushpuppies I have ever eaten (ya didn't leave without that recipe!) Lot's of sides and everything was so delicious!

Donna had some fourth of July goodies for the kids (& adults) to dress up in for pictures!

When it was dark enough we had an awesome fireworks show that Scott put on for us!

We had the best time and Abbey even cried when we had to leave :)

Until next time . . .

Since March!

2010-07-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

I mean really, How long should one girl put off posting a blog entry? Definitely not this long! Well, anyway I'm back, hoping to post a bit more often :)

Where shall we begin . . .

Homestead

Not much productive going on around homestead. There is a massive list of things we NEED to be doing but aren't. I tried planting some flowers on the porch and even got some seeds started for bell peppers, and tomatoes but all have failed, The flowers got roasted on the porch, It was a combination of the Oklahoma Heat sneaking up on us and me not watering them properly. The seeds I'd planted with big plans of transplanting them to either the ground or bigger containers. But that never happened and like the flowers they roasted as well :( I'm disappointed, I should have taken better care of all and now I'm SO jealous of everyone who has successfully grown veggies so far. There were a lot of other things going on so maybe I expected too much of myself. Maybe I will try next year or maybe I can do something still this year but I don't know.

Yesterday Jake and I went through and organized our movie collection and got rid of ones we didn't want anymore and made a master list so we know what we do have without digging through the cabinet for them.

We also finally got our bedding on our bed that we'd bought at Ikea way back in february! Now I need to get some curtains in there that match and get some decor hung in there. It really needs to be painted in there too eventually.

I also found a cute little house shaped shelf at a garage sale for $2. It was brown and I brought it home and spray painted it black and hung it in the dinning room. It works out perfect for my cherished teddies which was what I was hoping to use it for.

Things we need to do: I have some shelves I need to spray paint for the bedroom, make or buy curtains for bedroom, clean out clutter from behind door in bedroom, de-clutter the girls room again, major things are new floor in dinning room or rug and painting kitchen (been dreaming about this one forever) also want to paint the dinning room table and chairs to match since they don't.

Family

Mom has a Dr.'s appointment at the end of the month after she has a pet scan. I'm praying that the cancer has stayed away. Her health hasn't been so great. She's been having trouble with Neuropathy in her feet. The Dr. got her on meds for that and it helps a little but she just can't stand on her feet for too long or they start to swell.

Jake (hubs) has been off work an on work-mans comp for several months now. I can't even remember when they put him on it. At Michelin if your on light duty for more than 90 days they put you on WC. We made the necessary cut backs on some bills and aren't feeling the financial crunch too badly, which we're thankful for. The scary part is that the two Dr.'s he's been to haven't found anything wrong. So now we're playing the waiting game on them to tell us what is next.

Ashley finished up summer school a few weeks ago. She is finally washing her hair and showering good enough for me not to have to stand over her while she's in there. Thank goodness! I was beginning to think it was never going to happen. She did finish her preemie hat that she was knitting on her knitting loom. Her first ever loomed project! So excited. For a summer project I let her pick out some yarn and she has started her a beach bag.

Abbey is getting taller and more clever everyday. She goes potty completely by herself now and dresses herself. I signed her up for the 3 year old program at Chickasaw head-start I'm hoping she get's in. I've been told they have a waiting list.

As a family we've started to get a bit healthier. I've added more veggies and fruits to our meal times and snacks and we've started to walk together as a family in the evening. We really enjoy that. We also bought the "Just Dance" game for the wii and we've been having a bit of fun playing that.

Last month we also had Day Camp with CampFire. It was a fun day! The kids got to do archery, nature, build bug houses, and make ice cream in a bag. We had a good turn out. It was a hot day!

Knitting

WIP (On the Needles) right now I have a Shawl, my first one ever. I've heard that until you block a shawl you can't really tell how pretty they are going to be. I hope mine turns out nicely. I also have a table runner for our dinning room table going and a sweater for me called Margot :)

The Shawl I'm knitting is Revontuli

The sweater I'm knitting for myself is Margot.

OTN (off the needles) I just finished up a pair of socks for a very dear friend of mines birthday. several weeks ago I'd finished up a pair of socks for myself. A scarf for my Mom, Bella Mittens for Ashley and a log cabin dishcloth from Mason Dixon Knitting and a hat for the girls.

My Socks were a plain vanilla sock pattern knit on 3mm and knit up in some hand dyed sock yarn that was given to me by a friend.

The pattern I used for Mom's scarf is one I bought at Gourmet yarn co.

Dishcloth from Mason Dixon Knitting Book

Bella's Mittens is a pattern a lady designed to replicate the mittens worn by bella in the movie Twilight.
The hat I knit for the girls was the pattern Chevron

Not sure what projects I have coming up, I'm itching to start another pair of socks and knit more dishcloths.

Well I guess that about covers it for this time.
Thank you for stopping by &

Until Next time . . .

Marchtime :)

2010-03-25T13:25:00.000-07:00

Hello! Well, It's Thursday and I'm glad the weekend is coming. Nothing special planned but I always look forward to the weekends that my hubby has off. He will have to change his schedule over in the middle of the weekend to nights, it's time to work nights for a month then we get to change back again in a month & so on. We've been working on catching me all up on episodes of Dr.Who since the new season starts next month. We only have a few more episodes. After we get all caught up we will start watching Torchwood from the beginning. Jake has of course already seen all of these, I'm somewhat of a late comer to Sci-fi :)

We've had quiet a bit going on in our lives lately. Jake hurt his shoulder at work. We're in the process of physical therapy & Dr.'s appointments to find out what the damage is. He's on light duty at work. With this we are worried about the possibility of surgery and his job position as well.

We got what we hope remains to be wonderful news on My Mom. She was diagnosed with lung cancer several months ago and has been receiving Chemo treatments every 3 weeks in between about a million Doctors appointments. They were in the process of getting her set up for radiation treatment and discovered that the chemo has shrunk her tumors so small that she doesn't need radiation. If your one of our wonderful family/friends who has been praying for her please continue to do so. She has one more Chemo treatment, then we'll do scans and and see what the Dr says to do from there.

3 weeks ago I lost a very special friend, Susan, It was so unexpected and still so hard to believe. Danette and I met Susan 3 years ago at the Scrapbook Warehouse in Lewsiville, TX while we were of course Scrapbooking. We had since become so close with Susan and met so many other wonderful friends thru her. Susan was such a special Lady, She had a big heart, a big smile and gave lots of love. We're going to miss her so much. but I truly believe she is one of Gods Angels now.

This past week, Jake lost his Grandfather who had been fighting Lung Cancer himself for I believe a little over a year. I've met Elmer two times and he was a special man, He loved his family and his family loved him very much. He will be greatly missed by his family & I feel especially sad for my girls who not get to see Grandpa as they grow and My husband who's lost someone that he looked up to & loved so much. So it's been a hard month for us.

In between the many things we've had going on. I have managed to make some time to do a few Happy things with the girls.

I'm so happy to say that Abbey is potty trained. We've been wearing big girl panties and haven't had any accidents (day or night) in two weeks. Today for the very first time She pooped all by herself! What a big girl, I'm so proud of her!

Ashley finally has mastered the knitting loom, She is almost complete with her first preemie cap. She loves it and I love that she loves it!

The girls and I also picked a nice warm day & painted some old Terra cotta planters and planted some flowers in them for the porch.

About a month ago we had a bit of a surprise! Jake and I had bought Ashley a Guinea pig for Christmas and it seems when we bought her she was expecting! She had four adorable babies and we enjoyed them so much when we had them, We were able to find a home for one of them and we kept a second one for ourself, Then we took the other 3 back to the pet store.

The girls both go new haircuts, very short haircuts that are easy to care for a comb out :) they turned out very very cute!

I have some knitting and yarn goodness to share. But I think I will do all of those in a separate posts.

Until next time . . .

Our Christmas :)

2010-02-05T10:47:00.000-08:00

I feel like we had a really good Christmas this year. Jake still hasn't decided for sure what he wants.. we waited until tax refund time so that he could get himself something nice :) He mentioned something about clothes the other day but I really don't think that should be a Christmas gift.. he should get something he wants right? Not something he needs :) The biggest gift for our family was a new Pet, She was supposed to be for Ashley, but we have all taken up with her quiet a bit. Definitely not a gift purchase we regret. Her name is Lucy, Lucy the Guinea Pig :)

We did our traditional Christmas Eve Mexican dinner with My Mom and Sister and Ashley was with us this year for Christmas so we did Christmas morning at home :)

Here are some pictures from our Christmas. I was very very spoiled for Christmas..so spoiled in fact that it well get it's very own post *grin*

The Lord's Prayer

2010-02-05T10:34:00.001-08:00

Hello, This is yet again another entry that should have been posted months ago :-P This is from November!

The week before Thanksgiving Ashley's school put on the Lord's prayer for the parents. They signed to the music, It was amazing to watch and all the kids looked so cute dressed as pilgrims and Indian's. After the performance they had a "feast".

Menu Plan!

2010-01-22T08:20:00.000-08:00

Here is this weeks menu plan. I have two 5 lb bags of cornmeal that my grandmother gave me so I tried to plan the meals around using some of that up!

Chicken Stew served with Yeast Cornbread
Cornmeal Pancakes
English Muffins
Layered Tamale Pie served with Mom's Spanish Rice
Panko, Parmesan, & Parsley Pork Chops served with baked potatoes & green beans
Ranch Chicken Thighs served with steamed carrots & mac N cheese
Zesty Italian Sausage Pasta served with bread of some kind I think

Okay that's it!

Handmade Christmas Goodness :)

2010-01-18T08:10:00.000-08:00

I love Handmade gifts. You cannot make me happier than to gift me something that you created with your own two hands. I'm very lucky to have very crafty friends with very giving hearts. This year, I was truly blessed with so many wonderful Handmade gifts from friends. Now I'd like to share those with you :)

First up is a Shadow box from Peggy & Her Husband Sandy. Peggy is a friend I made through knitting. She's from Montana and has so many crafty talents. She Knits, Crochets, Loom's, Spins, Gardens and makes wonderful soaps & lotions and cheese :) In the shadow box I have a layout I'd done on canvas awhile back..I plan to use it to display cards and special things I receive.

Next is my gift from our Knitorious Knit group Christmas exchange. Katie (Peggy's Daughter) drew my name and I drew hers. Funny story about this beautiful yarn. Katie Spun these beautiful fibers and had them for sale ... She was so kind to give them to me after I told her how much I loved it. at that time there was only one hank of it and I was having a challenge to find something to knit for me with that one hank, So as my gift Katie bought more of the fibers and spun more of that yarn just for me, It's so beautiful! I'm still looking for what I want to knit with it but now I have more to work with! I just know someday the perfect project for this will come along.. just for me :) Katie is a fantastic Crocheter and she's always coming up with the most unusual projects! She's crocheted market bags from leftover wal-mart sacks and used her leftover scraps of yarn to felt a gorgeous back-pack. I always look forward to her next adventure!

This is another wonderful gift from Peggy, She handmade these gorgeous knitting needles for all the knitting girls in our group, I just love them! Since she gifted these to us she has also taught herself how to make circular needles! I told you she was crafty!

and last but most certainly not least is a gift made by my friend Stephanie, Stephanie and I went to High School together. We only knew each other a little then as we were only in band together and in different grades. I met up with Stephanie again through Camp Fire and we've become great friends because of our mutual love of Sci-Fi & crafts and we're now Workout buddies. Stephanie is an awesome person, positive and Happy :) Great fun to be around! She somehow came into some cigar boxes, She added her special touch this one, made especially for me. She knows my two favorite things are Animal Prints & Pink :) Thank you Stephanie, I love it and now have my knitting needles in it just as I said I would :)

Thank you ladies, I love you all, you have a special place in my heart always.

December/ Christmas Parade

2010-01-04T09:19:00.000-08:00

December was such a busy month for me, It flew by after all was said and done but while it was going on I thought it might never end. I still had my Christmas spirit and was excited about gift giving and watching the girls on Christmas morning. More about that later.

The busiest part was getting ready for the Christmas Parade. We have a float each year in the parade for our Camp Fire kids. The parade has a different theme each year and floats are judged in different categories according to that theme. The theme for this year was "The Magic of Christmas" We decided to the kids that meant, Santa's gifts. Our float turned out so cute this year! LynEd and Stephanie made the doll bodies for our Elves and I created the clothes and faces. Each group dressed as a specific kind of toy & We were very proud how everything turned out and as it turns out our adorable float won first place in our category!

Here are some shots of our winning float!

As I mentioned before, Each Camp Fire group picked a toy idea and dressed accordingly, our group was Jack n the boxes, it turned out to be a bit trickier than we had originally thought to keep the boxes up on the girls, but all worked out and the boxes barely made it to the end of he parade.. hehe! Here is a shot of Me, Cathy and our group.

Our Toy Soldiers..

Our youngest group was Rag dolls...

Our Puppet Group...

Alpha blocks...

Teddy bears...
Here are some close up shots of the elves, I'm so proud of the way they turned out! I even knitted scarves for all of them!!!

That's all until next time!!

Halloween Posting Laaaate!

2009-12-30T10:10:00.000-08:00

I realized while looking thru my resized photo's folder this morning that I never posted anything from Halloween, So this is what that post is about :) The girls both picked what they wanted to be this year. This is the first spooky Halloween costume that Ashley has ever worn :) I think it turned out very cute, the different parts of the costume were bought at different places and I made the broom myself. Abbey's costume was a hand made dress we bought at a garage sale last year and Tiarra from Hobby Lobby :)

We took the girls downtown to Trick or Treat the businesses then we went to a Halloween party at my cousin Angie's house. Everyone had a good time. Abbey was a bit whiney because she is so shy of everyone and the costumes made it that much worse.. haha! I didn't dress up this year, I waited until too late and couldn't come up with anything.

Abbey was a princess :)

Ashley was a witch!

Mom and Kristi Joined us, They even dressed up Sister is a pirate and Mom as the Devil :) Funny thing was when we arrived at the Halloween Party we discovered that my Uncle was the exact same devil as Mom... we laughed about that one..too funny!! Great costume!

Here is Ashley with her cousin Maddie, She was the ghost because her Mom, Dad and brother were ghost busters... I wish I would have gotten pictures because all the cotumes were great!

New Hair-Do!

2009-12-29T08:35:00.000-08:00

In the later part of November I decided it was time for a change with Ashley's hair.

Her hair is extremely thick and has a weird natural wave in the very back.

She's very grumpy in the mornings and pulling her hair back is quiet a deal. So I decided we should go shorter and put a light perm in there to make it look a bit cuter and an easier fix in the morning :) It worked! Her hair looks so much better

Ashley's 8th Birthday (Back In Sept.!)

2009-11-24T13:31:00.000-08:00

Well, since I was doing such a bang up job of blogging the last few months (insert sarcasm) I'll now post and Shar pictures from Ashley's 8th Birthday Party, which was just a bit ago (IN SEPT!!!!!) argh! Anyway...

Ashley had a great party, She chose to have it at the lake & She wanted a Jonas Brothers themed party. So I ordered all the plates and the goodies and I printed out little pictures of the Jonas brothers and matted and glittered & toothpicked them and make some cupcakes for them :) She was very pleased with her party and had a lot of fun...

Her gift from us was an iPod Nano (5th Gen.) which she was so excited about she leaned over into a cupcake resting on her place.. hehe! Funny child! Here are the photo's from the days events. We all truly had a fun time and the weather was so nice!

Swiffer Covers!

2009-11-18T10:37:00.001-08:00

Last weekend was our Carter County Fall Arts & Crafts Fair. Crafters and Sellers rent booths and sell their beautiful handmade goodies. I always look forward to going each year and seeing all of everyone's crafts and getting a few ideas of my own. This year a very good knitting friend of mine had a booth and offered to let me put a few of my own things in it for sale. I decided on my Swiffer Covers since I enjoy them so much and they save me so much money! They were a hit! I put 12 in the booth and all but one sold! I was exctatic! I'm planning on knitting up some more household helpers for a booth next year :)

What We're Cooking This Week!

2009-11-17T07:38:00.000-08:00

This Weeks Menu!

Tuesday - Cheeseburger Cups (NEW!) with steamed california mix veggies & Mac N Cheese

Wednesday - Pioneer Woman's White Chicken Enchilada's (NEW!) w/homemade spanish rice

Thursday - Breakfast for dinner - Ham/Sausage, biscuits and sausage gravy, hashbrowns

Friday - Italian Meatloaf (Mom's Best!) (NEW!) - Mashed potatoes - Corn

Saturday - Chicken & Veggies With Dumplings (NEW!) (this weeks recipe challenge found at
HH)

Octoberfest!

2009-11-14T21:17:00.000-08:00

Since I've been such a great slacker about my blogging, I've missed posting pictures and stories from things we've gone and done recently. So I'm going to blog a bit about our October. A not so fond memory I have from October is all the rain we got. It was crazy the amount of rain we were getting here. In Oklahoma when you get lots of rain with high temps all you end up with is a bunch of uncomfortable humidity! It's nuts for it to be 60-65 degrees outside and you have to turn the A/C on! Ah well... rain with humidity is still better than 108 Deg. any day!

Onto October! We had a bunch going on in Oct. it's always a busy month! Camp Fire Fall Camp, Pumpkin Patch visits, Halloween.. Lot's to plan for. This year we took the girls to a different Pumpkin Patch, one we've never been to before. We had a good time. Ashley and I were so wore out that day though because we went on the Sunday that we got back from Camp Fire Fall Camp. The Pumpkin Patch was fun, they all sorts of regular pumpkin patch events for the kids to enjoy but their pumpkins were $7! Even for a small one, so we ended up making a pit stop at the big "W" to get $2 pumpkins to carve instead. I got some really sweet photo's of the girls at the Pumpkin Patch and we look forward to going again next year! Here are the photo's from our Pumpkin Patch visit...

We carve our pumpkins that same night but we have the worse luck with pumpkins! Last year we sat them out on the porch and it rained and they molded, so this year it was raining and I sat them on the table and they still molded :( We're all new to this so maybe there is something we're missing that we're supposed to do... or maybe it's just the Oklahoma Humidity. On any count I did get some pics before they were a total waste.. here are our short lived but Cute pumpkins...

Well, that covers at least two things I guess :) I still need to post about Camp Fire Fall Camp and Halloween :) It was a fun month & November is sailing by way to fast, I'm scared at the speed Christmas is coming towards us! argh.

Until next time ...

Long time no see . .

2009-11-05T08:04:00.000-08:00

Wow, August was when I last posted. I've become a really good blog reading junkie and a really bad blogger!

Things have been good. Jake is currently working at Michelin Tire Plant. I think when I last posted he had just started to work there. It's going well we think, But then we never take anything for granted and always expect the unexpected. Especially with the layoffs and the economy being as they are.

Ashley is doing wonderfully in school, She's reading pretty well now, does awesome on her spelling tests but she struggles with her math. Abbey is not potty trained. I'm terrible... I need to get consistent with it but she rebels when I try. It's discouraging. But I'd like to try to get her into a 3 year old program next year :) She's so smart :)

I'm holding steady with the normal Housewife duties, cooking, cleaning, laundry, errands etc. I have started something rather new for me this week. I joined a Gym! Seems weird even typing that, I've never been a member of a Gym even though I should have been a very long time ago. I've been meeting with a friend in the evenings and getting a good workout. I'm eating better. As hard as exercise can be... for me the real struggle is with the food. But I feel so good when I leave the Gym. I'm proud of myself, I'm doing this for me. To make me feel better.

My Mom quit smoking about 6 months ago. We're so proud of her for that but a few months ago she started having trouble breathing. After a few scans they discovered some spots on her lungs, We're not quiet sure what they are.. after a full body scan the spots have grown in numbers and size... so now we're waiting for an appointment call from the Dr. for a biopsy. If you pray... please do so for my Mom. I'm trying to NOT get myself too worked up until we know something definitely but still I feel like I need to prepare myself for the worse. I'm very close with my Mom and cannot imagine life without her.

I am still knitting of course, Let's see right now on the needles I have an OU Sooners colors scarf for my Mom, socks for Abbey, Swiffer pad, Bella Mittens. I want to do some knitting for Christmas gifts but I'm not sure what to make for people.. LOL!

Scrapbooking I haven't done in awhile, I have made a few cards here and there. But no pages for the books. I had a getaway planned this weekend with a couple of girlfriends for Scrapbooking but with everything going on with Mom I decided to cancel.

I did finished a sweater I'd made for Abbey that's what the photo is at the top you'll see.

Well, I guess that covers it for now. I miss blogging and I'll try to post more often :)

Goings' On :)

2009-08-24T07:29:00.000-07:00

I have a few random photo's and things to Share.

We've been going through a job change in the house. This time it's expected and hopefully for the better :) In case you haven't been following me for too long, Jake had worked for Circuit City Distribution for almost 14 years when they went bankrupt and he lost his Job. Almost right away he hired on at DOT foods, Which was a good company. The pay just wasn't good. He worked there for... I want to say 3 or 4 months and then attended a job fair at Michelin that my Cousin had told him about. He did some testing for them and got hired a month or so ago, But received a letter stating they didn't have any open positions at that time and would contact him when they did. So anyway he started orientation for Michelin last Monday. He's still in orientation and will be for another couple of weeks. They had told Jake he would be on Crew 2 but the Gentleman that's going to be his Supervisor said that wasn't correct and that he would be on Crew 3 after he came off of Orientation/Training. So we're just waiting until then to find out. Jake is very excited about something new and being able to bring home more money.

Ashley has started school. The first two mornings she did fine. She isn't a morning person at all.. so cranky. But come the third day the mornings started going down hill and got worse from there. So we sat and talked with her about it and she seemed to believe she isn't getting enough sleep. So we started putting her to bed at 8pm. Since we've done that she has been much better in the mornings. She doesn't like going to bed when everyone is still up but dealing with getting her to go to bed earlier is easier than dealing with her the morning after going to bed late. I hope this continues to work. She truly is unbearable in the mornings . .

We are still working on potty training with Abbey. The problem we've noticed is, if we stay consistent and get her to the potty on a regular basis she tends to hold her poop and winds up having trouble going :( I truly hate potty training. It's such a challenge for me... tips anyone?

I don't think I posted about it but awhile back my knit group decided to have a knit out and we took a field trip to three different yarn stores in Oklahoma City. We had such a fun time and look forward to doing it again.

Lord help me but I have finally taught myself to Crochet :)

On our field trip to the city I found the cutest coffee mug....

Okay that's everything for now, I do have some scrapbook layouts I want to share later :)

Ashley's First Day of First Grade :)

2009-08-17T09:44:00.001-07:00

Abbey In Yellow :)

2009-08-17T09:25:00.000-07:00

If you click on the picture it's a clearer copy :)

Jake and I bought this dress for Abbey at a Garage sale... when she wears it she says she is a "Pincess" So cute!

Knitted Goodies :)

2009-08-01T09:29:00.001-07:00

Okie Dokie! In my last blog post I mentioned that I'd do a seperate blog post with knitting. I've finished up a few things that I had on my needles far too long.

This is a cover for mu Swiffer Wet Jet! Those store bought pads are way expensive!! I'll be making up a lot of these. Fun to knit and very handy as well as money saving!

This is a scarf I started a long time ago for Mom :)

Vicki Howell's Mae Day Dress for Abbey

A slouchy hat for Ashley called Gretel!

A pretty flower cloth
Ashley's first pair of socks...

Terrible Blogger

2009-07-28T12:53:00.000-07:00

Oh my gosh, I cannot believe it's been a month since I've posted here! I did at least add a few recipes to my recipe blog in the last month. I knew it had been awhile since I posted here but I didn't realize how long :( As soon as I upload pictures from our camera I re-size the ones I'm going to blog and save them in a special folder, There are quiet a few pictures in there. So I guess this blog will be about all the random things that have gone on in the last month! I'll do some knitting in a separate posts since I've finished a few things lately I want to Share!

First up we Have two pictures from our friends Greg & Andrea's wedding. Jake doesn't get into a white collared shirt and black tie very often so I took advantage of it and snapped a shot of him and then one of him and Abbey together. Ashley wasn't with us for this event as she was at her Dad's for that weekend. Jake looks so handsome and Abbey is of course as adorable as always!

Two of the ladies I knit with Garden and are friendly with other Gardeners and so lot's of goodies have been coming home with me and I've been finding lots of goodies on my porch now and then :) The girls and I are loving the squash!

These shots are cute, Abbey's first time on a Trampoline, Taken at a friends house
at a birthday party we were invted to. She LOVED it :)

I've been trying to do some fun things with the girls this summer before we started having 108 degree days I took the girls to Broadlawn park and let them play on the Splashpad. Ardmore has now got one of these at each one of our parks, They are free to the public and I think that's great!

We also got together with Mom and Kristi one day and visited Sunset beach. Abbey loves playing in the sand especially when Nanna get's dirty with her, The funny thing about Abbey is, She always asks for a bath afterwards.. LOL!!!

Jake had a birthday :) he turned um... 32? haha! He requested a coconut cake :)

Jake, Abbey and I took a trip to Frisco, Texas. The hope was to get Jake some glasses but because of his prescription they were not able to fill it in one day. But inside the Frisco mall there is a carousel, Daddy and Abbey got to take a ride!

This past weekend. I went to a Scrapbook retreat with some of my favorite ladies. I had a wonderful time and it was great to have a few days all to myself :)

We may be having some very exciting changes in the next month, It's looking like something very good may be coming our way in the career department for Jake. I've prayed about it a lot. We're hoping the changes can help us to plan a better future for our family. Please pray for us that this is best decision for our family.

Well I guess that pretty much covers it for now, except for the knitting things I'll post soon! Have a great week!!

Fathers Day!

2009-06-28T08:12:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone had a special Fathers Day and made all the wonderful Daddies out there feel special. Fathers Day was good here, Since Jake sleeps during the day the time was short but sweet, we let him sleep in and he opened his gifts in the evening when he got up. He had requested the Pioneer Woman's Chicken Spaghetti so he had that for dinner :) His gift was Candies he loves and a Gift Certificate for Amazon!

Jake is a wonderful Dad, He helps me so much with the girls and he's always coming up with neat little things and ideas for the girls. We are partners in parenting and I'm so glad for that :) Here is a photo of Jake with the girls.

Also for Fathers Day every year for Ashley's dad I scrapbook pictures from the year gone by and he adds them to his album. below are pictures of the pages I did for his book :)

Knit In Public Day!

2009-06-24T06:53:00.000-07:00

Our Knit group Knitorious celebrated World Wide Knit In Public Day on June 13th. We met at 9am at the Marketplace in downtown Ardmore. It's where local farmers and crafters set up booths to sell their goods. Last year we met at Central Park but I feel like the Marketplace was much more fun and the people showed much more interest in what we were doing there. We had a great time as we always do when we meet to knit. The group has grown so much since we first began and I've created special bonds & friendships with the ladies in the group. So here are some photo's from our special day, I'm already looking forward to next year!

Left to right Sis, Diane, Amanda, Mandi (me), Katie & Peggy.

This is Peggy, She and Katie are mother daughter. They are, for now, the only spinners and dyers in our group. They both spin lovely yarns :) She is holding a basket of their gorgeously spun yarns :)

This is Diane, learning to spin for the first time, I'm pretty sure she may end up being our spinner as well :) hehe

This is Sis! This lady knits up a storm!

Diane knitting.

I've learned so much from all of these ladies. They are great friends of mine. I adore each of theme individually.

Biker Girl

2009-06-19T08:14:00.000-07:00

Several months ago Ashley's Daddy bought him a new motorcycle, His first one. I was relieved when it only had one seat... then he informed me he would be adding things to it to make it a two seater *sigh* Now, I myself have rode on motorcycles. But I am in no way shape or form okay with my 7 year old riding. Everything he pulls away from the house with her on the back it makes me a nervous wreck and I have to occupy myself while she's gone to keep my mind off of it. I do say a small prayer everytime she leaves... with that aside She of course loves riding with her Daddy and I'd say she makes a rather cute Biker Girl :)

Camping

2009-06-19T07:56:00.001-07:00

When my First Husband and I were married we went camping with some friends of ours quiet a bit. I hadn't been since my first marriage what I would guess to be around 6 years. We always tent camped and I loved being in the outdoors relaxing and swimming.

So last weekend Me, My Mom, My Sister and my two girls packed up and decided to go camping for the weekend, We had a great time! The only bummer was, what was to be our last night there a bad thunderstorm game through a flooded everything! Argh! We had to leave and come back the next morning to get everything. But while we were there we enjoyed it so much and look forward to going again soon!

We went down on Thursday morning and stayed till Sunday (almost)I cooked breakfast every morning & dinner every evening. I cannot wait to go back. Here are a few photo's from our camping trip! No tent shots though... darn it!

Garage Sales!

2009-06-08T08:31:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I have recently discovered that we love going to Garage sales!! Since he's off on Friday and already up in the early hours because of night shift, we decided one Friday 3 weeks ago to go check out some garage sales! We were addicted after the first day, Now don't be mistaken we're not the clutter bug types so we only look for good deals on things we need :) or could actually use! I've been posting a little about my Garage Sale adventures on Facebook and everyone always asks if I found anything good, so I decided to take a few pictures of the goodies we've found. So here are some of our finds :)

First up we have Abbey's Sit N Spin, Funny story about this toy, On her second birthday we looked all over for one of this things and couldn't even find one online! We're not sure exactly how old this one is since we can't find a date but we're guessing the 80's! But we paid $2 for this and Abbey absolutely loves it!!

These are those space saver things for your closets. In our bitty house we for sure needed these!
I paid $1 for these.
These are Ashley's garage sale finds but the lady was very nice and let her have them :) free is good too!

I got this crackle painted mirror and shelf both for $2.50. Not sure where to hang them yet :)

This purse is the brand name, The Sak I'm not familiar with the name brand, since I'm not a name brand kind of girl, but I paid $5 for this... Mom says she thinks they are expensive and you buy them at Department stores like Macy's and Dillards I wouldn't know.. LOL!!!

These are some stinkin' cute dresses that I paid $2 a peice for for Abbey they were in perfect condition and looked barely worn!

These are my proudest find to date, This are the most wonderful mixing bowls, I already love them! A set of 10 for $10. Nice heavy ceramic. They were a bit more than I wanted to pay but they are totally worth that.

We've found a few other things a peculator to take camping for $1 a high chair for my Mom's house for $2. and a bike for Jake for $15.

This past weekend we even had my cousin's husband Scott ride along with us and Mom has gone a few times :) We enjoy getting out and doing something to start the weekend :) I'll try to continue to share my good finds :)

A Few Months Ago & Several Easy Pays Later . .

2009-05-30T09:51:00.000-07:00

Before we found out that Jake was loosing his 13 year job to Circuit City because of bankruptcy I made a rather large purchase for myself, more than I'd normally spend on something just for me. I'd wanted one for ooooh so long .. . . as sad as it seems it really was a dream of mine :) So good old QVC had the one I wanted on 6 Easy Payments... and so I splurged . . . . Even though it's a bit tight paying it off it has totally been worth it and I have no regrets . .

Here you go . . a serious cooks best friend I present to you My Red Kitchen Aid Artisan Mixer . . .

I love you . . . . .

A little Scrapbooking :)

2009-05-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

I have a book that I bought a few years ago. It's Elsie Flannigan's 52 Scrapbook Challenges. I haven't officially used any of the challenges from the book since I bought it, So I thought I'd start! So this is challenge #1!

Here is what I came up with :)

It's May!!!

2009-05-06T10:28:00.000-07:00

Wow! I cannot believe it's already may :) May is a special month for me, It's of course Mother's Day and My Birthday :) Love that! I'll be 34 this year... I don't feel a day over 25, so that's good.. hehe! Don't know what my plans are for that... I always like to have my chocolate cake with my chocolate icing. with Chocolate Ice Cream :) YUM! Other than that not sure. I've thought I'd like to have a few people over or something... We'll see. For Mother's Day I'm hoping my hubby keeps up tradition and takes Mom and I out for dinner :)

So this last Thursday my friend Danette and I headed down to Maypearl, TX to our favorite retreat place, Stolen Moments Inn! We hadn't been in so long and the two of us had been thru so much we needed to girls weekend for sure. We had a great time, enjoyed spending time with our Texas Girlfriends, I'd missed them all and enjoyed catching up and having girl talk. I also managed to get 35 pages completed a few layouts to go and the girls scrapbooks are all caught up, then it's time to work on my OOOOOOLD pictures.. LOL!!

The flowers you see above are the beautiful flowers that hubby had waiting for me one morning last week, He's thoughtful like that :) I love being showered with love :) and he is sweet like that!

One day last week before we left out for school I took a few pictures of the girls out in the yard... So I'll share those. Nothing big planned for the week getting caught up on things around the house and online that I got behind on over the weekend and getting my scrapbook stuff unpacked and Mothers Day gifts started :)

Here are those photo's of the girls . . .

Until Next time . . .

Blog or Blog Read?

2009-04-27T12:07:00.000-07:00

It seems lately I've been doing a lot more blog reading than blogging. I love the more visual blogs, with lots of pictures and crafty goodness oh and let's not forget cooking goodness. My favorites OH and Yarn pron is good too :) Love the yarn and knitting needles!

So anyway, I'm here blogging now (after blog reading of course) but there really isn't very much to blog about, sometimes I envy people who have much going on and blog about it, but then I remember how much I enjoy my non-dramatic non-surpising days :)

My days are filled with toting Ashley back and forth to school & campfire meetings. Laundry, grocery shopping, cooking cleaning and of course sweet Abbey :) here and there I find time for Facebook and emails :) There are a lot of other things I need to be doing... making appointments for the girls, potty training Abbey etc.

All that aside . . I'm getting the weekend off, from everyday mundane life, I get to go to a Scrapbook retreat at the wonderful Stolen Moments in with some of the best friends a girl could wish for. I can hardly wait, It's been such a very long time and so many things have gone on that I've needed this for sometime. I always miss my hubby and girls while I'm gone but it is so nice to get that weekend to relax and worry only about myself. So it's time to pack the scrapbook stuff up!

The only bummer about the weekend is that I will be missing two things with Ashley, on Friday her class is taking their end of the year trip to the zoo and this weekend is Spring Camp for Campfire :( I really hate to miss that one, but I need the break and it will be good for Ashley to do things without me this once :)

I'm knitting on a dress for Abbey and a pair of socks for Ashley :)

that pretty much sums it up for this time :)

Until next time . .

The Weekend . . .

2009-04-20T08:36:00.001-07:00

Happy Monday! (not)

Abbey didn't sleep very much at all last night, I'm still not sure why but after her diaper this morning I suspect her belly must have been bothering her. I'm exhausted I got almost no sleep & neither did She or Ashley.

We did however have a pretty fun weekend overall. Friday night was girls night with Mom and Kristi. Normally Ashley is when her Dad on these nights but She was with us this weekend. For girls night we always hit the mall & eat dinner. Ashley was in desperate need of some new clothes. She was growing out of the old ones. JcPenney was having a great sale so we got her some clothes to get her thru summer for very little. I tried to let her pick things out. She's 7 now and I know I need to let her choose and make some of her own decisions. After that we had Chinese for dinner. It was fun.

Saturday night we had my cousin Angie and her husband Scott and their little girl Maddie (who I used to sit for) over. It had been way too long since we'd gotten together with them. We let the girls play while we had a few drinks and caught up on life. We order pizza from a local Italian place. We had a nice time. Ashley ended up spending the night with Maddie.

Sunday was a lazy day I caught up on a few TV shows I was behind on (Hell's kitchen mostly) and then I watched a quirky little movie called "Smart People" I enjoyed it :)

Well That was our Weekend...

Not much going on today really.... Thank goodness because I'm tired... LOL!!!

April End . .

2009-04-19T07:34:00.000-07:00

I can hardly believe I haven't posted here since the beginning of the month. It has been a rather busy Month, Nothing especially new or exciting going on just busy with everyday life and still getting the hang of Jake's new work schedule. We're doing much better with it now than at first. But it's not great and I'm pretty sure it won't be as long as he works nights. He sleeps well and everything but we don't get to see him very much on those 4 days that he works and that's a little hard. But we do what we must and are thankful for what we have for sure.

Let me think... Where to start. Easter was great! We had a ham dinner with Mom, Kristi and Grandpa. The Weather was a little icky but it did stop raining long enough for us the hide and let the girls hunt their pretty easter eggs... Abbey was very cute... asking please before she picked up her first egg. Very funny... Here are a few photo's from our Easter Day.

Abbey & Ashley had another big change this Month. Abbey was sleeping in a toddler bed, the same toddler bed we had used for Ashley, A plastic peace broke on it and we couldn't see buying another toddler bed for her to use for maybe another year. The girls room is too small for two twin sized beds, They would fit but they wouldn't have room for much else. So I went on a hunt for the best deal on bunk beds. I had to find something affordable and something with a removable for Abbey's safety. We got lucky because Ashley's sleigh bed had a hidaway bed so we already had two mattresses and we didn't have to buy that. I found a bunk bed that we all really like and it had the best price tag to boot... Here is a shot of the girls trying out the new bed.

Our weather here in Oklahoma has been absolutely rediculous. One day we have severe thunderstorms with tornado warnings and the next day its in the 80's and the next day it's too dry and terrible wildfires are raging everywhere. it's scary... It's those few nice days we've had me and the girls have made the most of it by spending sometime outside on the swingset :)

In knitting news. I've got a few new projects going. I'm going to stop with the dishcloths. I'm spending all my time on those and not trying new things and learning to knit new things. I've started the Mae Day dress for Abbey, I'm almost half finished with it and I started a pair of socks for Ashley that I've been promising her for awhile :) My knit in nights were on Monday's but with Jake's work schedule I wasn't going to be able to attend very often, so the ladies in the knit group were so nice and more than willing to change the night. I enjoy the ladies I knit with so much, Such an interesting group :) I'm learning a lot from all of them.

I did finish a long time project I'd been working on, When my friend Brie told me she was pregnant I knew I had to find the perfect baby blanket pattern and knit it for the baby. It took me awhile to find a pattern I liked enough to make for a good friend. But baby willow finally has her blanket... here are some shots I took of it before mailing it out :)

Okay I think that's about all there is to post about this time.

Until next time . . .

April!

2009-04-01T07:40:00.000-07:00

Hello! Above you see a photo of Ashley's strawberry plant that she planted in Camp Fire, It's already grown much more since this picture was taken.

I haven't been posting much because there hasn't been much exciting going on. I will share the KAL and I work further on it. In case you haven't guessed it's a Table Runner. I figured it out on the third day. Only because I already had it in my Ravelry Que forever :) I'm glad to finally see it cast on!!

The last week we've been working on getting a swingset together for the girls. Yes I did say this last week, It was hard and I thought we were never going to get that thing together. We're mostly finished now we just need to do the tie downs and put the teeter totter on. The girls are very excited and love it already.

I've had some time for more knitting lately. especially with Jake working nights, On those nights it seems I'm here alone a lot with the girls. We've all adjusted fairly well I think. Jake is still keeping his eyes and ears open for something on days though. It's hard not getting to spend very much time together. But we are grateful to have income of course.

I guess that's about all for now. I should have some pictures up in a few days of the swing set and the girls playing :)

Until then...

Rachels Knitting Room Mystery KAL Day 10 & 11

2009-03-27T07:50:00.000-07:00

This is just so pretty and it's so enjoyable to knit!!

Rachels Knitting Room Mystery KAL Day 7&8

2009-03-23T17:41:00.000-07:00

No post on yesterdays progress, I was late getting to knit the rows But here is what the KAL looks like today, I've already guessed what the KAL is.. hehe! I guessed on Day3! Only because I've had the pattern saved to make myself :) Oh those knives you see there are my QVC good find, cheap and no shipping :) It's good to finally have a good paring knife in the house!

Saint Patricks Day :)

2009-03-21T08:37:00.000-07:00

This is our first year to celebrate and do something special for Saint Patricks Day, We had a lot of fun decorating and cooking, so I look forward to making it a part of our traditions. Here are some pictures from our dinner :)

Green Deviled Eggs, My Mom Makes the Best!

Ashley's pretty Decorations

Shamroom Cookies - Yum!

Beer Bread!

Irish Stew and Cabbage

Rachels Knitting Room Mystery KAL Day 5!

2009-03-21T07:07:00.001-07:00

Posting a little late yesterday was busy! Did some deep cleaning and Girls Night :)

Rachels Knitting Room Mystery KAL Day 4!

2009-03-19T11:06:00.001-07:00

Rachels Knitting Room Mystery KAL Day 3!

2009-03-18T13:33:00.000-07:00

It's looking so pretty!!! I Love it! I had made a boo-boo on yesterdays rows, Thank you to our wonderful List Mommie Rachel for letting me know ! I'll be making a St. Patty's Day post soon!

Rachels Knitting Room Mystery KAL Day 2!

2009-03-17T08:54:00.001-07:00

Rachels Knitting Room Mystery KAL!!!

2009-03-16T07:33:00.000-07:00

I'm a part of a Wonderful Group of Knitters all in the Group Rachel's Knitting Room on Yahoo Groups. We have wonderful dishcloth KAL's (Knit Alongs) on the group, This Month Rachel has decided we're going to do something a bit different in celebration on the groups Anniversary! I'm very intriged and excited about this KAL its a mystery! So I'm going to try to post updates here and show how we're moving along :) Today was our First Day of Rows and the photo above is my completion for the day, I can hardly wait for tomorrow.... If you'd like to join the KAL you can join the group (link above) or I think Rachel will be posting the lines to Her Blog :) While your there look around for Rachel's beautifully designed cloth patterns!

Thanks for looking!!!

Mandi

Camp Fire 99 Years!!

2009-03-15T17:53:00.000-07:00

This past Thursday we Celebrated Camp Fire's 99th Birthday. We had a nice birthday Banquet where we brought boxed dinners and dessert to eat and each group performed a small skit and we got to watch picture slideshows of the events so far this year. We had a fun time.

The day before the event Ashley finally got her Campfire Vest along with the emblems she's earned so far this year. She's very proud and the tips of Mommies fingers are very sore from those! hehe! But I'm a proud Momma as well, We are so glad we joined Camp Fire this past year, We've had the BEST time and made some great new friends, We look forward to being involved for many years to come...

Here are some photo's to share....

Scrapbook Time!

2009-03-02T11:30:00.000-08:00

On Saturday Danette joined me here at home for some Scrapbooking time. She played with her stamps and made some adorable Cards and I got a few layouts completed, The first shot you'll see if of the table we were working on... hehe! The rest of the photo's are of layouts that I did.

March Is Here :)

2009-03-02T10:22:00.000-08:00

These beautiful tulips were waiting for me this morning when I woke up, My husband is so special, and so good to me :)

My first day of March was not a very good one. I caught some yucky stuff from the girls and it had me on the couch all day yesterday with a bad fever I tried my best to fight off. I'm feeling a little better today but I know the yucky stuff will linger around for awhile.

After laying on the couch for an entire day yesterday and getting nothing accomplished (except playing catch-up on episodes of American Idol) I felt I needed to do something to make up for it. after watching the Episode of John and Kate the other day where they were showing the new house to the kids and she was cleaning the fridge out it made me realize I've not REALLY cleaned this fridge out since we moved into this house. I mean, I've wiped the shelves out with a soapy cloth but not breaking them all down... so that was what I did today, Just finished... Let me say... it was gross it there, but it's not now *smile* I feel much better :)

PS. Our fridge is empty looking, I've noticed since I started frugal cooking that not alot of the ingredients I buy go into the fridge..... hrmmm... interesting. The Pantry on the other hand is very full!

I found a very cool Application for my Ipod that is a knitting stitch/row counter. OMG it rocks, the only is.. I wish you could save more than one project.. hehe!!!

Speaking of knitting, I finished up Mom's Thermos Cowl last night while I was lonely (hubby at work) and counch ridden (see above) I just need to get buttons, I'll post more pics when I get someone to model it for me :)

That's all for this post, I'm tired :( Wiped out from the fridge even!!! argh!

Totally Random - Some Things I'm Loving :)

2009-02-25T07:58:00.000-08:00

Just some totally random things that I took pictures of and that I'm loving....

A slice, if your not a Scrapbooker you may not know what this is, It's a cutting machine that cuts alphabets and shapes out of your paper. My Birthday isn't until may but I begged for this early when our income tax came in, so i used a 40% off coupon from Hobby Lobby and this is my Mothers Day/Birthday Gift :) I love this thing.

I may have posted this photo before, but I'm loving these calenders! I hae the Pattern a Day one beside my bed on my nightstand/chest and the yarn harlots calender is on my craft table :)

You may remember that for Christmas Jake had purchased me a refurbished 1st Generation ipod. Well, it locked up and crash on me :( It was a very sad Day. Jake was talking to a lady at work and she told him her kids had bought her an ipod nano for Christmas last year and she didnt' care for it and wanted to sell it... for $75... well an Ipod Nano 8gig is around $150 this is an Ipod Nano

Good price but the nano's are kind of small.... so I rolled my change up because I desperately wanted another ipod... When Jake took her the Money..... this is what he came home with . . .

IPOD TOUCH!!!!!!! OMG I'm in love with this thing... these are regulary priced around $240 apparently the poor lady had no idea or something.... This thing is wonderful, I can twitter, check my emails store recipes (saves on ink from printing recipes) play games, listen to music watch movies and video's this thing rocks... it does everything an Iphone does it's just not the phone :) I'm so happy.

Mom bought me a subscription to Simple & Delicious for Christmas, Love this magazine

Other things I'm loving right now are Animal Crossing on the Wii.

I'm addicted to twittering find me here

Valentines Pictures..

2009-02-25T07:40:00.001-08:00

I had some pictures from Valentines Day that I never shared so I'll share those now.

Ashley and I made Candy Bracelets as her valentines for her class, you used cling wrap and twisted the hard candies up and tied together, We found this idea in our Family Fun magazine.

The girls gifts from their Nana

Ashley's gifts from her Dad

Pizza Party at Ashley's school, Abbey enjoyed some pizza as well

Silly kiddos

sweet Abbey

Sweet Ashley

We had a good valentines Day, Jake got chocolates and a 6 pack of his favorite beer and I got some external speakers for my ipod so I can jam while I scrapbook in my corner.

Facebook

2009-02-18T06:09:00.001-08:00

I've had a Facebook account for quiet some time, I've deactivated and reactivated it a few times, But I just reactivated it and I'm leaving it that way, So if I'm not already on your friends list I'd love to be there, I'm under Mandi Goodman of course :)

2009-02-14T09:58:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day
by LoVe AnGeL

Having you beside me
Another perfect day
Praying you will never leave
Praying you will always stay
You and me forever and always

Vow that you will stay here
Always by my side
Life without your presence
Each day I will cry
Nothing compares to what we have
The love we possess inside
It is like an eternal flame
Never does it die
Each memory that we made
So wonderful and nice
Deeper and Deeper our love bacame
As the days went by
You're the reason I can touch the sky...

in case u didnt c it, the first letter of every line spells HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Lone Grove - Tornado Disaster

2009-02-11T06:59:00.000-08:00

Lone Grove, OK is 9 miles West of Ardmore, where my family lives... please say your prayers for these families. We sure are ....

CARTER COUNTY, OK -- A tornado touched down in Lone Grove at approximately 7:25 p.m. Several are injured, several are trapped in cars and homes, and we're told 8 people are dead.
Carter County Emergency Management tells us the area affected is southwest Lone Grove. There are reports of downed power lines. They also say there are power outages in Springer, Wilson, and Lone Grove.

Lone Grove Police Chief Robert Oldham tells KXII-TV several people are injured and some are still trapped in their houses and vehicles. Oldham also says there are gas leaks and that the primary area affected is downtown Lone Grove.

Little Bit of Spinning . . .

2009-02-09T17:38:00.000-08:00

At our last Knit in, Peggy & Katie were so nice and brought their spinning wheel and drop spindles as well as some roving to show us all how to spin. I must say it was much harder than I thought! She says she'll bring it again and let us play, we did have a great time and got a lot of laughs. Here are the pictures from our night of spinning . . .

Calling All Crafters!!

2009-02-02T08:52:00.000-08:00

Check out Vickie's Blog for the Details!!

Abbey's Birthday & Goodie Week :)

2009-02-02T06:38:00.000-08:00

The week is full of goodies for me :) Tonight I have Knit In night at Starbucks with Knitorious. One of our members spins her own yarn, so she's bringing her wheel and drop spindle to show us how you spin your own yarn, I'm so excited! I can hardly wait.

Then on Friday I'm headed to Arlington with Danette to spend a girls weekend at Susan's house. I can hardly wait, I miss Susan so much, I haven't seen her in awhile and I haven't scrap booked since the last time I saw her. It's been awhile since I've been on a weekend trip away and I'm looking forward to it :) I miss hanging out with my girls :)

This past weekend was Abbey's 2ND Birthday Party, we had a nice turn out. I made Chocolate and Strawberry cupcakes and punch. She got Lot's of Barbie and Mostly Little people stuff which she loved, It was so cute the way she squealed when she opened the little people stuff. Too cute! She loved everything she got because she spent the entire weekend playing with all her goodies. She got a few cute outfits as well, Danette always has the best taste in clothes ;-) I have some pictures from the birthday I'll share below.

I went to the bathroom to cry for a bit last night, I had gotten pretty far on Ashley's Gretel hat and realized that somewhere I had gotten off on rows.. and with all those cables and increases I had to rip the entire thing out and now I'm starting all over again :( I was sick. Ah well, no matter how frustrated I get I must remember that knitting the item is 80% of the fun :) This hat is really fun to knit, I love making cables. Even though it's already brought me to tears once, but PMS did play a part in that. LOL!!!

Rumor has it that the Circuit City Warehouse may be cleared our before the end of this week. So Jake's job with CC will be over. We are waiting to hear from DOT foods. So keep your fingers crossed for us. We're trying to not be stressed about that chapter ending and remembering to welcome the new changes we will face.

I guess that's about it for this time. I have a lot of things I need to get pulled together to get ready for this weekend, I have a ton of pages already done that I need to add to scrapbooks so I can see what I need to work on next, I Scrapbook chronologically. The last time I scrapbooked I caught up on the girls books, so since it's been a few months I should only need to work on those few months :) But I am mostly going down for girlfriend time, so I may not get anything accomplished. LOL!!!

Until next time . . .

Cold Day . . .

2009-01-27T07:23:00.001-08:00

It's cold here today. Well, cold for Oklahoma, They cancelled all the area schools for today. The roads are mostly water for now but they are expecting it to freeze today. We'll see. Oklahoma weather is unpredictable, Freezing today 80 degrees tomorrow. so Both girls are home today and here is what they are up to as of now . .

Jake has a Job interview at DOT foods today at 1pm. It looks promising. He will take an almost $5 an hour paycut. But in Ardmore there aren't a lot of other choices. If he get's hired there is also a very real chance that he will be working the night shift. Which will be quiet an adjustment for all of us. I can't emagine keeping the girls quiet enough in this small house for him to sleep. But we will work it out and be very Thankful for the job if he is offered a position.

We put Abbey's toddler bed up sunday, She has done really well adjusting, she only got out of the bed one time the first night, Jake told her No no and placed her back in bed and we never heard or saw anything else. Her 2nd Birthday is Thursday. We're having her party on Saturday :)

I got two Knitting related desk Calenders this year. Last year I had the Stitch N Bitch one which I loved, These are great too, I got them half off at Barns and Noble several weeks ago.

I finally finished my Monkey Socks, ignor my fankles.. LOL!!! I love this pattern but it took me forever to get these finished because I can't have too much distraction when working on them. I knit them out of Panda Cotton yarn. It feels so good on my feet :)

I finished one sock for Mom and am now half way thru her second one. Just using the Yarn Harlots basic sock recipe. I love doing it this way because I don't need a pattern to knit these

up. I can't wait for Mom to wear them and let me know if she likes them or not :)

I've started a hat for Ashley, The pattern is called Gretel, I'll have to wait to get some different circular needles to work on this, these plastic lion brand needles are killing my hands :(

I stayed up on yahoo messenger last night and played Domines with Mom so I started a simple dishcloth to work on while we were playing. I love this variegated color, It's peaches n cream Fiesta. I've worn out most of my dishcloths so I needed to get me some more knitted up :) Oh if you read my blog and have yahoo messenger please add me, I enjoy chatting but hardly have anyone on my list... MissMandiGirl :)

Abbey is very much into playing with the Barbies right now :)

Okay I guess that's about it for now. I'm wanting to get some Animal Crossing time in this morning before Jake get's home and takes it over.. ROFL!!!!

Welcome Mr. President.

2009-01-20T07:14:00.000-08:00

Welcome President Barack Obama! You bring with you the hope of change, the hope of a new and a better future for us and our children. I look forward to watching the change and watching our country grow into a better place.

God Bless You & Your Family.

Circuit City to Close

2009-01-19T08:14:00.000-08:00

I thought I posted this here on Friday, and for some odd reason it's not showing up for me here but shows up in Multiply... I'll post again... hopefully it's not a repeat...

Edited to say: I know what I did now, I posted it to my recipe blog by accident. LOL!!!!

Circuit City to Close After Failing to Find a Buyer

Circuit City, once a bellwether American retailer, is going out of business for good, stripping the nation of its second-largest consumer electronics chain.
The company, which filed for bankruptcy protection in November, said Friday that it would liquidate its stores and other assets.
Just last week, Circuit City — which has some 30,000 employees and 567 stores — was in talks with two potential buyers, but it was unable to reach a timely agreement with its creditors and lenders.
“We are extremely disappointed by this outcome,” said James A. Marcum, vice chairman and acting president and chief executive of Circuit City Stores Inc. He called the liquidation “the only possible path for our company.”
The demise of Circuit City, while not surprising given its declining sales, is part of a radical shift taking place in American retailing. Weak chains — unable to weather the freeze-up in consumer spending, and choked by tight credit markets — are shuttering their doors.
Last year, a raft of retailers including Boscov’s, Sharper Image, Mervyns, Linens ’n Things, Whitehall Jewelers and Steve & Barry’s filed for bankruptcy protection. This week alone, Goody’s Family Clothing and Gottschalks Inc. also filed. Many more retailers are expected to follow suit as they run out of working capital or are unable to finance their debt. But emerging from bankruptcy is harder than ever because of changes in the bankruptcy code and vise-like credit markets.
Indeed, Wall Street analysts said in November that the prospects of long-term survival for the Circuit City were bleak. Months of declining sales during the recession sent the company over the edge, although its problems go back a decade, from buying cheap real estate leases in inferior locations to laying off its most experienced sales staff. The latter saved money but cost the company employee morale and countless customers.
When the retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November, its shares had lost more than 90 percent of their value since the beginning of 2008.
The company is still awaiting final approval of the liquidation from federal bankruptcy court

Goodreads

2009-01-19T07:52:00.000-08:00

I joined GoodReads this morning! I got an invite from my sweet friend Sabrina :) Ty Brie! I don't read a lot of books, mostly because it's hard for me to find books that hold my interest :) So your interested or already a member please add me as a friend :)

Still Going :)

2009-01-16T06:37:00.000-08:00

I'm here because I finally have a few things to share. Hee! It's been mostly boring around here. Not too much going on. Jake's job is still going. But Circuit City goes up for Sale today. So we'll know more soon. Things are looking good for the company so if someone doesn't buy out they may shut completely down. If you pray, please pray, Jake's job is our main source of income and right now is NOT a good time to be looking for a job.

I've moved my craft table all over the house. well in the corners I could find to jam in it in this 900 square foot house. LOL!! The last place I moved it was in the corner of our bedroom and I really do like it in there. The corner was getting pretty piled up and being the OCD person I am I couldn't stand the clutter anymore. I bought this wall shelf at Lowe's for like $15 and asked sweet hubby to put up. Now I might actually get in there and scrapbook and make cards! LOL!!! Here are some pictures of my cozy corner :)

It's 18 degrees in Ardmore, Ok this morning. That's pretty cold for Oklahoma, but would be warm for some areas of the world right now. My heart goes out to those with the flooding and all the snow. We almost never get snow. Tornado's but no snow.

I don't guess there is much more to post right now. I kind of wish there were but at the ame time I'm glad theirs not LOL!!

Until next time . . .

Happy 2009!

2009-01-03T19:49:00.000-08:00

Things have been pretty calm and relaxing since the holidays have now come and gone. it's been very enjoyable actually :) I like same old same old day in and out stuff :)

We didn't do anything special really for New Years Eve. Jake and I watched Star Trek Nemisis. We've now completed watching all of the Star Trek movies :( I feel sad about that, I've gotten attached to the stories and characters. But we have the new movie coming out to look forward to. Plus I think we're now going to start watching The Next Generation series as well.

I've been getting a little more knitting time in with all the movie watching. I'm glad to be getting close to completing some projects I've had going for awhile. Like these socks, the pattern is called Monkey, it's a very popular sock pattern amongst sock knitters :) These will be mine.

I've been working on a scarf for Mom as well.

and here is a shot of the yummy sock yarn I bought for my next pair of socks. I bought it at L&B yarns in Norman, OK I can't remember what the name of the yarn was though :( Also Ashley picked out some Patons Stretch sock yarn at Hobby lobby tonight, She'd like me to make her some socks now :) That makes me happy :)

I guess that is about all for now, I've been doing a lot of fishing in Second Life. I attended a Stitch N Bitch Knit in at Yarnation in SL as well the other day, We had a good turn out of people. It was nice chatting and getting to know everyone. Anyway here is a shot of me fishing in SL and a shot of our knit in as well :) The hat I'm wearing BTW is a hat that you catch parts of and once you get all the pieces you put them together and get the hat :) Unusual for sure.

Christmas Presents Time!!

2008-12-29T08:18:00.001-08:00

It's almost time for the new year. Hope everyone has some special plans. None here, We'll probably be home playing games together or something as a family :) I'm looking forward the new year. I don't have any resolutions although I should be getting on a weight loss plan and finding a church for the family. Those are just thoughts. But we'll see.

I feel like we were really blessed this Christmas and my girls were spoiled. As always I do have pictures to share from our Christmas. Here is a picture of our tree with the girls gifts :)

Here are a few photo's from our christmas with Mom :) For some reason I didn't get a picture or Abbey with her gifts from Nana or any of the rest of us with all our gifts, I hate when I do that, A picture of everyone with all of their gifts in one shot is so much easier to Scrapbook :)

Christmas morning at home was delightful, The only thing missing was Ashley, She was at her Dad's this year for Christmas Morning. We hd the web cam set up so Jake's parents could watch Abbey open her gifts. Abbey opened her gifts and she found her favorite right away :)

Here I am with my gifts from Jake, He spoiled me :) I got an ipod 20GIG!!, a kitchen dock for the ipod (thank god! as much time as I spend back there music will make it so much more enjoyable:)) and a tuner to use it in the car although we're having trouble finding a station to tune it into.. hrm...

I didn't get pictures of Jake with his gifts, I'll have to sit him down for one, I can't believe we didn't take one!!!

Of course Ashley was not left out completely. We let her have her Christmas as soon as she got home last night. The easy bake oven was a favorite right away, She's already made cookies in it and she loves it, She squeeled when she opened it.. hehe!!!

Well that was our Christmas. We had a good one. Ashley is out of school for the week but now she has lots of goodies to keep her occupied. I have to clean out the girls room one day this week to make room to organize all the new stuff in there.

Ashley is sleeping in this morning, When she came home from her Dad's yesterday she was all snotty and not feeling to well, So I'm letting her sleep. When she get's up we need groceries so I hope she feels up to the trip.

We had a good weekend, I got to do LOTS of knitting which I hadn't done in awhile. Jake and I watched Seven Pounds at the movie on Christmas Day, That is the saddest movie I've ever seen and so good, Will Smith is such an amazing actor. Then on Saturday we watched 3 movies at home the sequal to National Lampoons Christmas vacation via Netflix, it was awful, It was only about Counsin Eddie and so dumb Jake fell asleep half way thru. Then we watched Silence of The Lambs because I'd never seen it. It was as disturbing as I knew it would be, which was why I never watched it when I was younger. LOL!!! Then we watched "The Bucket List" which was a wonderful movie, I love Jack Nicholson he sure is aging :)

I guess that's it for now, I need to get some meal planning and grocery list things going.

Until Next time . . .

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T12:17:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the big day, We're ready we just have a TON of wrapping to get accomplished tonight. Good thing my hubby is as into wrapping as I am :) hehe! Above are some photo's of our tree. I always hang the cards we get with Photo's on them on the tree.

We had Christmas with my Mom and Sister last night we had our normal Mexican Christmas, Mom made the turkey enchilada's from our leftover thanksgiving turkey and we exchanged gifts. Mom spoiled me as usual. I got an awesome repositional tray for my laptop that slides under the edge of the couch, I also got THE BEST bread knife which I needed so badly I didn't have a good knife to cut through the homemade breads and I got the most awesome silicon Apron!!!! Water proof and heat proof. I was very Happy with my gifts, The girls and Jake were spoiled as well, Mom is always so good to us and she always worries it's not enough when it's really too much.

Ashley will leave this evening for her Dad's. It's her Dad's year to have her for Christmas. So Abbey will do Christmas morning alone. Ashley will get her gifts from us when she comes home Sunday evening. I hate making her wait so long but thought it would be even more cruel to let her open them all today and then have to leave it all to go to her Dad's. LOL!!!

This past Friday was Ashley's last day of school before Christmas break. so her class had their Christmas party. I went and brought iced cookies and took pictures, Ashley's class was cute. I was surprised at how well mannered everyone was as well. Lot's of Please and Thank You's being used. I do love that. So here are some photo's from the Party, Abbey even got to enjoy some goodies.

I found the most awesome thing at Starbucks on last Monday nights knit in. A coffee mug that looks like a cabled knit!!!! awesome! I got it of course.. haha!!!

I guess that's about it for now. Until next time . . .

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

Lighting of The Tree

2008-12-21T11:39:00.000-08:00

Every year downtown we do the lighting of the tree which is located downtow in our Central park. Following the lighting of the tree they have a parade of lights, every year the girls and I attend with My Mom and Sister. here are some photo's from the even this year . . .

The pre lit tree
My Sister, Ashley, Mom & Abbey

Me, Mom, Abbey, Ashley, kristi

Questions That No-One Asks . .

2008-12-19T10:09:00.000-08:00

Ryan's Blog is one of my favorite blogs He & The Pioneer woman know how to keep a serious blog reader entertained for sure. I always look forward to Ryan's posts & Today he posted this entry. It made me realize I often like to answer questions that people never ask me. hehe, So here are my questions that people never ask . . .

Why do you chose to stay at home instead of going to work?

Because I want to raise my children, I love them and I want them to have

my morals and my values. I want to teach them to love others and be good

people no matter what they do in life. I want to be there for them %100 when

they need me. I sacrifice a nicer house and material things, so what? :)

Why do you keep your house so neat and tidy?

Hehe, First of all because I'm a control freak> TOTALLY! Stuff has a place

and it needs to be there. Secondly, I'm a SAHM to me my house and my

children are a direct reflection of what I do each day. Third I'd say because

my Dad was... maybe it's genetic.

Why do you think your overweight?

No-one is ever brave enough to ask this one. I'm fat because I love food. Not

because I'm unhappy because believe me I'm VERY happy. I love to cook food

I love to taste food and I love to eat it :) oh and I hate excercise... I'm an addict

to food. it's serious. Sometimes I wish I could be one of those people who forgets

to eat.

Why do you scrapbook?

I love recording my Children's lives for them. I love knowing that I'm creating something

that will be cherished of me long after I leave this world. I love that my Children will see

themselves grow and live thru my eyes.

Why do you knit?

Simply put, I started knitting because I needed something to keep busy on while I'm sitting and watching TV with the family. It drives me nuts to not be getting something accomplished while sitting there. I feel as thought I'm wasting time if I don't. I knit because I love handmade things, I knit because I LOVE the way those two needles and yarn feel in my hands. There is just something that is very comforting to me about it. Only a knitter could understand what I mean.

Are you truly Happy?

Yes, I believe I have found true Happiness. Jake and I could not be more perfect for each other & I believe the two of us could get thru almost anything together. My girls are Healthy, Loving Children. Sure I complain sometimes about not having a bigger (maybe even nicer) house. But we have a home & I know inside I am to just be thankful for that. I'm only human afterall, we like nice material things don't we?? I thank the Lord very often for being so blessed.

Okay corny but true, There they are. Ryan asked to link back to his blog if you followed his lead. So if you decide to do this on your blog please leave me your link in my comments, I'd love to visit and see what your Un-asked questions are.

Christmas Time :)

2008-12-18T08:19:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that Christmas is only one week away, Wow. It really did sneak up on us this year, Way to many things going on last month, I guess it made the time pass quickly.

I have a few photos saved in my blog folder to share. So I'll do that, These first three are some snapshots I took of Abbey a few weeks ago. She was being too cute, Saying cheese for me and Hamming it up to the camera :) She's getting so big and learns something new everyday. We got her potty chair back out of the closet today and we're going to start working with her on getting potty trained. She'll be 2 at the end of next month. She loves Elmo and wearing Hats & Pretties (any accessory)

Our Thanksgiving was good. Nice and relaxing. We had Mom, Kristi, My Grandpa, Then Me, Jake, Ashley & Abbey. Nice and small. We had the basics that everyone has for Thankgiving, Everything was yummy and we had plenty of leftover Turkey for Mom's yummy Turkey Enchilada's for our Mexican Christmas Dinner :) Here are a few photo's one of The family, One of Mom Making giblet gravy, The food and My Grandpa and sister Kristi :)

Ashley & I were in the Ardmore Christmas Parade on 9th with Campfire. This was Ashley first time to be in a parade, She loved it! All the Campfire kids were dressed up like Snowmen with Top hats and we walked along behind our float. Here are some pictures I took from that day. This took me back to High School when I used to march in the parades with the school band. I sure miss those times. I always had fun.

I haven't been doing very much knitting. I haven't had a lot of time to sit still lately. at least not to sit and relax. I did finish two more of the playful plaid dishcloths. I'm thinking I'll give these to someone since I'm not in real need of any new ones right now. This is one of my favorite dishcloth patterns. here they are.

Okay that's it for now, I do want to say to everyone who's blog I read, I'm sorry I haven't been able to leave comments, I am reading them, I just haven't had the time to reply. I promise to get back to that soon. I know how cherished comments are :)

Happy Holidays!!!

Sometimes when it rains..

2008-12-09T09:53:00.000-08:00

.... it POURS.

November was not a good month for us at all. It was not a good month for many different reasons.

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, My Grandma Tipton passed away. I knew the time was coming. She had liver cancer and the last two weeks when I would go to visit her she looked so bad and was basically unconcious :( It was so hard seeing her that way. She and I didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things. She was hard woman because she had a hard life. It was hard losing her but she is now where she wanted to be, With her Husband and boys. So I've been handling things involving that.

then in the middle of everything I got served a subpeona to appear in court for a child custody case for friends that Jake and I no longer meet with. I won't say a lot about it here. But it was definately not something I needed to go thru in the middle of losing my grandma and planning her funeral.

I was so stressed out there for awhile I didn't know which was was coming or going. Things are settling a bit now so hopefully I will start to relax a little. I have pictures to share from the Holiday and some things with the girls.But I'll save those for another blog post, I just wanted to let my friends who read this know where I was and why I hadn't posted anything.

until next time . .

Star Trek & Rosie :)

2008-11-18T08:53:00.000-08:00

Hello, It's so boring around here lately I don't have anything new to post about. hee! Ah well uneventful is good for a change :)

Jake and I got a subscription to Netflix awhile back, Truly one of the best things we have done for ouselves, We enjoy it so much, I'm working my way thru the Season's of Boston Legal and Sex and The City. Jake and I are looking forward to the new Star Trek movie to be released in 2009 because it has Zachary Quinto from Heroes play Spock! So we've been working our way thru watching the Star Trek movies, I've never seen them!! I love William Shatner, He's so funny. Love Spock. my Favorite, it's been fun watching these old movies.

I've been knitting on several things, I have nothing finished lately though. I'm getting close on a pair of socks using the Monkey Patter by Cookie A. I'm learning that no matter what the sock pattern says for my fat feet and ankles I need to use the size 3 needles for socks for me.

Okay, Next week on the 26th on NBC Rosie Odonnell has a special on called Rosie Live, I've been a fan of Rosie's for years and I CANNOT WAIT to see the show, I miss seing her on TV :)I've heard that if this show does good, there are plans for a weekly show in the future :)

Okay well, nothing else to babble about I guess.

Until next time

Hello!

2008-11-12T06:24:00.001-08:00

This is a photo of my Grandma and Mom, Aren't they beautiful?!? My Grandmother raised 5 children of her own, She now raises 3 children that belong to her youngest daughter, She taught us to be strong and independant and how to do things for ourselves. My Mom raised Me and My Mentally Challenged sister pretty much on her own with a husband who'd rather be gone than home, but she never stopped loving him until he was gone. Both did everything alone, Both are strong and beautiful. I love them. They are a part of who I am :)

I've been thinking of ways to cut down on our living costs. Not because we're starving or anything but I'd like to start saving us little bits of money wherever I can, So I've been reading a lot of money saving articles online this week and educating myself. Jake and I have always budgeted our money, He's good like that and anything I can do to help save some of our money is a good thing.

Many of you already know, some don't, That jake works at Circuit City Dist. here in Ardmore, He's worked for the company for a little over 13 years I believe. The company hasn't been doing great for the last couple of years and with the economy like it is right now it's hit them pretty badly. They laid off a lot of corporate employees and filed Chapter 11. They want to try to Restructure the company. I do so hope it works, But Jake and I are going to begin preparing our life and ourselves in the even that it doesn't. We're okay now, as we always have been, but we have to be cautious and think ahead so if he does lose his job we're as ready as we can be for it.

Not too much going on around here, saving money means no extra spending so I've been home ALL of the last two weeks.. LOL! That's okay though, I enjoy being at home :) Lot's of cleaning, Second Life, and Knitting time :)

Guess that's it... until next time . . .

Bad Week

2008-11-07T06:49:00.001-08:00

It's been such a bad week for me, I'm stressed out about various things, mostly relating to money and my hormones have been worse than they have ever been with my pms. I've been sleeping a lot. Normally I like to stay up late and play on the computer after everyone goes to bed, but I haven't been able to stay up very much past 9pm this week. I'm half asleep before we get both girls in bed, which is sad. and I have no energy, So I'll be glad when I get passed all of this.

Ashley had a bookfair at her school this week, She used money she'd been saving from her piggy bank to buy herself 3 new books. I'm so proud of her, You may remember she was held back to T-1 because she wasn't reading yet. The other night she sat at the table and read 37 pages of Dr's Suess Hop On Pop. I couldn't believe it!! Just in this short time she's come such a long way. I'm so proud of her. Her Teacher is wonderful, Ashley has always loved books, I knew she just needed the right person to help her.

I've been cooking at home all week, We knew we wouldn't have the money to eat out very much this week so I bought plenty of meals to get us thru to payday. So that means cooking everynight :) Here are a couple of things I've made this week posted to my recipe blog . .

Taco Stew

Banana Muffin Recipe

I have a few more I'll try to get posted on there tomorrow.

Tonight Ashley and I are going to attend the meeting of another campfire group. They are learning safety sells and cents, so we're going to join in, This will help Ashley earn her Sells and Cents emblem.

I haven't been doing very much knitting, I'd like to get some hats and scarved started soon. But I'm unmotivated for all of that right now.

Until next time . . .

Halloween Post

2008-11-04T07:15:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween, Mine was busy but fun!

Ashley was Hannah Montanna and Abbey was a Kitty Cat since that is one of her favorite things right now. hee! They were both too cute!

It was very hard to get photo's of them this year. I've not been real good about taking pictures in the last month, I need to get back into picture taking mode but our digital camera is getting older and it pretty much only takes good pictures in natural light which is hard to get just right sometimes. I think that is what I will be begging for, for Christmas, ours is way old... like 5 years old.

Anyway, Jake and I took the girls down town to trick or treat the businesses from 3-5pm. Ashley went with her Daddy at 5pm and then I headed to Maypearl, Texas with Danette to a Halloween crop at the Stolen Moments Inn. We had a fun time and I got 18 layouts done. I'm almost caught up on the girls albums! After that I hope to get to some of my old pictures from single life :) hee!!

I did my weekly menu plan yesterday. Here is what's on the menu for the week.

Au Gratin Beef Bake (Melissa's week)
Seasoned Burger & Potato Packets
Italian Crock Pot Meatloaf (New Recipe)
Chicken Stew (my week)
Easy Chicken Cacciatore (Melissa's Week)
Easy Taco Stew (My Week)
Spaghetti (made with Mini Penne Noodles as always)
Beef Roast (not sure how I'm going to cook it this time yet)

I have a few bread recipes saved I want to try and a new tea cookie recipe I'm going to make for our campfire meeting Wednesday night, I also have a few banana's about to go bad so I'm going to make banana nut muffins with those :)

I just posted 3 new recipes to my recipe blog that we tried last week. As always we really liked them or I wouldn't have posted them. Go check them out when you have time and if your interested.

Au Gratin Beef Bake

Bacon Chicken

Hillbilly Goulash

Abbey got to have a little fun with Ashley's Hannah Montanna wig after Halloween, or Monya as Abbey calls her :)

Until Next time . . .

A Bella Card :)

2008-10-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

This is a card I made a few weeks ago, The Stamped Image is is from Stampin Bella and it's called superbella. I do not have this stamp yet, some very nice ladies from my bella group shared it with me. I figure this card will go to Ashley's teacher sometime this year :)

Our First Camp Fire Camp :)

2008-10-27T10:44:00.000-07:00

Ashley and I had our very first camp with Camp Fire. We all camped at Lake Murray group camp one, Each group was assigned a cabin for the weekend. since Ashley and I were the only ones from our group to attend we got a small cabin all to ourselves.We had a great weekend, We had so much fun and met so many great people and made so many new friends.

We got there on friday at 5:30pm. got settled into our cabins and we had our little carnival at 8pm then we sang some songs and returned to our cabins for the night.

saturday we had flag raising, breakfast, craft class (turkey), nature class (tracks book), fitness (zumba which was sooooo fun), BB gun shooting class, then we had dinner, lowering the flag, some free time which Ashley I joined some other girls in their cabin and they danced, jumped rope, painted fingernails. Then that night we had campfire council, a traditional even for camp fire, everyone walked in silence to the water front and we circled the camp fire and even sat around for lots of fun camp fire songs.

Sunday was flag raising, breakfast, then canoeing, I had to say Ashley really surprised me, She's always so scared of trying new things, I thought for sure she wouldn't canoe but she did and she LOVED it :) then we did our flag lowering and it was time for home :) We were sad to leave, We had such a great time :)

Here are some photo's from our awesome weekend!

2008-10-20T10:17:00.001-07:00

Whew! Just sitting down from some morning cleaning. It never really ends, just the basic cleaning, so when you do that on top of some deep cleaning it can wipe you out :)

Jake and Abbey came home Saturday from their trip to Washington. They went to visit with Grandpa and Family, Jake's Grandpa has lung cancer, her's been going thru chemo and radiation so Jake wanted to go up to see him and since Abbey can still take a seat in his lap on the plane she went along. They had a nice visit, I missed them terribly & am glad to have them back home.

This next weekend we go to our very first camp fire camp out, Ashley and I. We are really looking forward to it, I think we're going to have a fantastic time :) I'm sure I'll have lots of photo's to share from that.

I finished another of solmama's dishclothes....The Dash Cloth

and I also finished Ashley's lopi tote for her to carry her leapster in :)

Not a lot else going on I don't guess :)

Until next time :)

A Little Test Knitting...

2008-10-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of test knitting a beautiful dishcloth for this wonderful designer! and She has posted pics of my test knit along with her free pattern :)

Knitting Article On Dark Roasted Blend . .

2008-10-12T14:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/10/strange-knits-and-yarn-monsters.html

Pumpkin Time :)

2008-10-12T13:33:00.000-07:00

I never remember carving a pumpkin. Mom said Dad mostly did it when we were little but that there was one time they let us do our own :) We have never carved Pumkins as a family. This year Jake bought pumpkins he wanted us to carve together as a family. So yesterday evening that's just what we did. It was a lot of fun, They turned out so cute, This will be a family tradition each year I think :) here are the photo's from our pumpkin carving fun :)

Blog Challenge Maybe??

2008-10-09T08:27:00.001-07:00

Hrmm.. I was wondering.. no-one will probably follow... but I'd love to see photo's of everyone's pantry/pantries . . .

Card Time Again :)

2008-10-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

When I went down to Arlington for Scrap Pink, Susan and did a little shopping at Joann's (a couple of times shhh) anyway I fell in love with this cupcake stamp set and it was a must have... So on Sunday I got to sit and play :) Click for a larger photo

Camp Fire!

2008-10-09T08:07:00.000-07:00

Awhile back I'd signed Ashley up for Camp Fire, I thought it would be something fun she could do to learn and make more friends, I also thought it would be fun things I could do with her as well. I bought a family membership. I was in camp fire for a short time growing up and I have fond memories of camping and the craft activities.

We started our meetings last week... here are a few photo's from this week and last week, She really enjoys it already :) She's looking forward to camping :)

VOTE!

2008-10-08T07:10:00.001-07:00

I'll admit it, I'm 33 years old and I've never voted. It's terrible that I've never exercised this right that my country men and women fought so hard to give me. I've never followed politics much or been involved in learning about the candidates... but this year I'm informing myself and I'm voting. I'm stepping up because the possible future of our country scares me and I want to use my voice, and to give them my opinion so if you don't vote... you should, go here and register to vote deadlines to register are approaching and some have already passed . . . .

https://electionimpact.votenet.com/declareyourself/voterreg/

Video to Share :)

2008-10-07T07:30:00.000-07:00

I'm not normally one to share or pass along things like this but this dog and his owner to a dance routine to "The One that I want" from the movie Grease it is really cuet to watch if you have time...

http://www.koreus.com/video/chien-danseur.html

Scrap Pink

2008-10-06T06:20:00.000-07:00

On September 26th I headed down to Arlington, TX to my friend Susan's house, We had a great evening of Joann's shopping and Panda Express for dinner. It's always great to meet up with Susan, we always have so much fun, She's just an upbeat and funny person to be around. The next day we were to join the Scrap Pink event. A crop from 10am to 10pm. Part of the proceeds going to the Susan G Komen foundation.

Dusan and I had a fantastic time and met and made some wonderful new friends! Everyone was so nice! Danette was supposed to be there with us but she had a bit of an accident and couldn't come. We sure missed her being there though.

Here are some of our pictures from Scrap Pink.

This is the contents of our goodie bag, minus the t-shirt :)

The group of us :)

The coordinators speaking . . .

The Crop space . . .

me and susan!

Let's Scrapbook!!!

Yummy cupcakes . .

Picture Day!!

2008-09-30T11:33:00.000-07:00

Today is picture Day at Ashley's school, I bought her a new outfit for the occasion and curled her hair a little. The pictures are so darn expensive, I bought a small package and it was still $32! Outrageous! She looked really cute. Her tummy was bothering her this morning, So I hope she's feeling better now, I was thinking maybe she was just a little nervous from picture day . . .

Ashley's 7th Birthday!!!

2008-09-24T07:24:00.001-07:00

My oldest Daugther is now 7 years old :) I can't believe she's 7! She's still my baby. Even if we do have another baby in the family! Hey, They can both be Momma's babies right?

The party was small but nice, We had it out in the yard here at the house. It was a beautiful day and it was wonderful to have the family altogether. We Burgers, Hot Dogs and of course Cake and Ice Cream! BTW did you see this beautiful cake??? This one . . . .

Isn't it cute... guess where I got it?!?! From MY Kitchen :) I made it and decorated it too!!! 8 years experience in a Wal-Mart Bakery did do me some good I guess :) I did get the icing recipe from Jake's Mom since she is the professional and I knew she would have a good recipe. She did not disappoint it was delicious!!!

Outside Time :)

2008-09-23T09:14:00.000-07:00

We're homebodies, We enjoy being at home together, Probably a little too much! So we've been trying to make more of an effort to get outside with the girls now for a little bit each day... They have both taken quiet a liking to bubbles and playdough on the porch :)

Today I'm doing some Laundry and getting pictures ready to have printed, Friday I'm heading to Texas to spend sometime with a friend and do some Scrapbooking. I'm looking forward to it :)

Loud Music & Anniversary Celebrations!

2008-09-21T20:47:00.000-07:00

My body is exhausted and I'm tired all over but my minds wheels are still turning, So I'm here, blogging, Something I'd LOVE to spend more time doing. I haven't been blogging alot and I'm sorry for that. I promise myself and my friends that I will try to be better and post more often then I have been. Today is Ashley's 7th birthday!! (do i really have a 7 year old) It was a small party here at the house, I'll post about it later :)

So last weekend was a busy and exciting one! A few months ago tickets went on sale to see no other than Mr. Rock of Love himself, Bret Michaels. Having been a long time fan of poision and an addict to ROL and the fact that he's a little hottie doesn't hurt, I HAD to get Tickets, Danette went with me. Name like Bret, dont' come to Ardmore very often, We don't have a really good concert hall for the bigger bands so I was surprised when I heard he was coming to Ardmore, even if he's really not so big anymore :) It was a great concert. It was wonderful to see him in person as well as Amber and Catherine from ROL 2 :) In case your wondering I am disappointed to hear there will be another ROL because I really loved Amber for Bret but in the same note I am very much looking forward to watching another season ;-) Hehe!

The night before the concert we had a get together at my Cousin Angie's house for My aunt Connie and Her Husband Larry's 40th Anniversary. It's always wonderful to celebrate with a couple that many years of love and commitment, They are both very special people. Funny thing to share, Their anniversary day was the same as mine and Jake :) They just celebrated theirs later with family :) Here is the anniversary card that I made for them :)

I've been playing in Second Life as much as I can lately (this being part of the reason I haven't been blogging as much) I have a Ravelry Stitch N Bitch group in SL and we try to meet once a week on Thursday's here is a photo of us knitting in SL. You should be able to click on the photo and see a bigger photo if you'd like to.

That's all for tonight, I'm trying to finish up Season 2 Disc 3 of Boston Legal before we send it back to Netflix. I love this show. I'm new to watching it. My Knitting Buddy Diane got me hooked :)

Until next time, Goodnight! :O)

Happy Anniversary - September 9th

2008-09-14T08:52:00.000-07:00

Me and my wonderful husband celebrated our 3rd anniversary on Tuesday September 9th. Jake surprised me by taking the day off work to spend with me and We had a nice dinner and I got some beautiful flowers. Here are some photo's from the day of our Anniversary.

Menu Plan Monday :)

2008-09-08T07:33:00.000-07:00

It's been a wild week, the new job is still up in the air because of the pay offer that was made, I won't know anything definate for a few days. either way, Life is good of course :) Today is MPM so here is my Menu Plan for the week, We ended up eating out quiet a bit last week and so I still have a few recipes from Last week to repeat. I'm hoping no eating out this week except for out Anniversary dinner :) So here is my menu for this week . .

Bacon Cheeseburger Meatloaf

Taco Salad

Bacon Sloppy Joe's

Crockpot Tuna Casserole

Garlic Pizza W/White Sauce with this Bread Machine Crust

Chicken Linguine in Tomato Sauce

I really need some different and good ideas for lunches for me and Abbey. We're bored with everything! Any suggestions?

I'm Going Where ? ? ?

2008-09-01T07:50:00.000-07:00

I've had five jobs my entire life, I babysat a little girl named Jill as a teenager, When I got my drivers license I went to work at Winchell's donut house and worked there for almost 2 years. The Summer before my senior year in High school I started working at walmart, I worked there for 8 long years in the bakery and I quit when I was pregnant with Ashley to be SAHM/Homemaker. I've been doing that for almost 8 years now. I love being a SAHM, I love cooking, cleaning & taking care of my family :)

With that said... an opportunity knocked at my door a few weeks ago, one that I couldn't resist. My Aunt Connie is and RN, She works in the ER, I'm not sure of her exact title, but she does a lot of coordinating and auditing and paper work from what I understand. Her boss Is the Director over the ER. He made the decision to hire an Assistant Part Time, To help them with computer/paper work, a variety of things since they were having a bit of trouble finding time to keep up with everything. My Aunt thought of me and gave me a call. I wasn't looking for a job wasn't even thinking of going back to work, but this is such a great opportunity and the pay was very good for part time in our area.

So I went in for an interview with Jake (The Director) on Friday, I was a nervous wreck, I hadn't had a job interview in 16 years!!! LOL!! The interview went well, He was a very nice guy and basically told me the job was mine :)

I'm very excited, I'm so glad that I'll be able to help bring more Money into our budget and still take care of my family like I did before. I'll be working 8am to Noon Monday through Friday. I start as soon as we get through the paper work and drug testing :) I'm going to be so nervous the first few days & I'll have a lot of info to absorb but I'm just looking so forward to it :)

New Cards . .

2008-08-27T06:53:00.000-07:00

The Week before last I sat down and made a few cards, We have a lot of birthdays in August and September so I had to get some made, I really do want to get a back-up of cards made but I never do seem to be able to make enough in one sitting for that..Hee!

This one is my first time using my Stamping Bella stamp that I ordered. I don't have any good markers yet to color my bella's all pretty but I love the way this card turned out :)The Birthday stamp and paper are all CTMH, my most favorite scrapbooking company.

This one is using CTMH stamps and Paper.

This one is using CTMH Stamps and paper. This one was fun to make, I used versa nark ink and embossing powder to make the flowers white and a sponge and my CTMH inks to color in the flowers and background, I look forward to doing another background like this again :) Love the way it turns out :)

Grocery List - Menu Planning

2008-08-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

Mondays are normally my grocery shopping day. The Monday following payday (like this one) is the heaviest one. The cost of groceries have gone up so much that I've had to cut down to frugal yet yummy recipes. So I've been doing a lot of searching online and different places to fine low ingredient, cheap ingredient recipes. We are a family of four and we live on one income so we do live by our budget. If I spent more money on groceries than we allot for that means no fun extra's. So I try to keep within the grocery budget.

So I'm meal planning this morning and after the baby finishes her nap we'll go grocery shopping before Big Sister get's home. So I thought I would share my menu plan with you this week. You may already know I keep a Recipe Blog if any of these are well liked by the family they will wind up posted on there maybe even with a decent enough picture, I always like to see what things look like before I make them but my camera is a cheap one and I'm no photographer.

So here are the recipes I have on my grocery list to make this week!

Bacon Cheeseburger Meatloaf - This is one of the Recipe Challenges for this week.

Crockpot Tuna Casserole

Garlic Pizza With White Sauce - I'll be trying this Pizza Crust Recipe

Chicken & Rice Casserole - another Recipe Challenge recipe for this week

Beef & Rice Casserole

Chicken & Linguine In Creamy Tomato Sauce - Made this one once before

Dawn's Layered Chicken Casserole - Made a million times for years.

Only two recipes I've made before, Something has to really be excellent for us to eat it more than once a year because I try a bunch of new recipes every week.. Keeps it from getting boring for sure :)

Guess that's it for now :)