Ashley's 7th Birthday!!!

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 :)

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!

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

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 :)

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 ? ? ?

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 . .

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

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 :)

The Bathroom :)

If you've been reading any previous blogs you may remember that we were doing a lot of work in our bathroom. It certainly turned out to be a lot more than we bargained for but you have to expect that with these older houses. Jake and I did everything ourselves. We know nothing about home improvement. But we're learning as we go along, This house needs a lot of work to give it an updated look and we can't afford to pay anyone to do the work :)

So I present to you the bathroom... before . .

and the bathroom at present time :)

One of my favorite things about the bathroom besides the lovely new paint color is this :)


I'm an organizing junkie of sorts, I like for things to look and be orderly, clutter brings me down so I love these things for the bathroom :)

Twitter

Twitter is so neat! I had to give in and see what all the rage was about... If you twitter add me and if you don't I really wish you would :) So I could follow you :)

http://twitter.com/MissMandiGirl

Casey's Visit

2 weeks ago we had Jake's friend Casey fly in to spend a week with us. Jake and Casey have been friends since early childhood. They were video game buddies growing up. I'd met Casey before in Washington, we were all very excited about his visit. We did have such a great time while he was here.

He flew in on Tuesday, The girls and I had planned to ride up to Oklahoma City with Jake to pick Casey up, but the night before Ashley was up sick all night, It must have been something she ate because she seemed fine the next day.

Jake and Casey had tickets to see Weird Al in Concert on Wednesday night in Grand Prarie, TX so we planned it to be a family trip. We reserved us a hotel room and I made plans with my sweet friends in Arlington to join them in their girls night out. Me and the girls had a great time. Jake and Casey enjoyed the concert.

Thursday morning we ate breakfast, swam at the hotel and loaded up. We decided to go in the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum. It was so neat there, There was also a wax museum and a mirror maze that we did. We spent about 4 hours there and everyone really enjoyed it :)

After leaving Grand Prarie we took Casey to Frisco Texas to our favorite mall and we loafed about there all day then headed home, We had a great time.

Friday & Saturday were lazy days and Casey went home early Sunday morning. We had a such a great time and look forward to him coming back to visit again someday :)

Here are some photo's from our fun time....

This Weather . .

Oklahoma Weather is well known for it's crazy, unpredictable and ever changing weather but this is insane, This was an article in our Ardmore newspaper from 3 weeks ago, The past two weeks, It's been raining!! It's insane! We're "supposed" to get the rain back in spring, when we hardly got any. It has cooled things off considerably though, we're staying around the 70's. It will be nice to see the Electric bill go down :)

I haven't posted in forever I know and I have a ton to post, but don't see posting about everything in one blog, so there will be several :)

Mandi

Bloggin Crazy

I think what has happened with my Blogging is that I have taken to reading so many blogs that I forget to post to my own! BAD Mandi! I am really addicted to crafty blogs though and there are so many good ones out there I just love it... and with my 3 hobbies (knitting, sewing & Scrapbooking) that means even MORE blogs to chose from, They are a great inspiration though! Seriously.

So we've had a lot going on around here (and yes I do mean other than blog surfing LOL) We have some special company coming on Tuesday. Jake's friend Casey from Washington is coming down to spend a few days with us, He'll arrive on Tuesday and we'll pick him up in OKC from the Airport. Then come home, Then on Wednesday Morning we'll head to Dallas (Grand Prairie really) Texas. Jake and Casey have tickets to go see Weird Al (insert eye roll) in concert and while they are there me and the girls will be meeting up with my retreat Girlfriends for their normal girls night out for dinner. I'm really looking forward to it and everyone meeting the girls :) We have rented a room to stay in on Wednesday night and have a lot of piddling planned for our trip home Thursday who knows where the road will take us on the way home, We're open for anything. The rest of Casey's visit is planned to be filled with lots of visting and playing the WII. . .

Speaking of the WII we are pretty excited around here about a big upgrade we made. It was badly needed.... A New TV!! Our old TV didn't have a very good picture and we were just waiting on it to go out.. So here is our entertainment center before. . .

and here is our entertainment center after.... wowoowowowowo BIG TV :) We're so happy to have a nice TV to play the WII on and watch movies, Plus getting rid of that old entertainment center made the living room look bigger...

If you have any young girls in the house you probably already know all about the Hannah Montanna 3-D concert that aired last week on the Disney channel, That day I had been gone to a small crop in Nebo Oklahoma. I was looking forward to coming home and watching the Concert with Ashley. She had been so excited about it. HM is so cute and I love her music :) Here we are with our 3-D glasses.

If you've been following me you know we've been working on redecorating our bathroom and hall, we are almost finished and I will have pictures of that soon. But I had taken everything out of the hall closets to paint them and was astonished to see all of the blankets that family and friends have hand made for me and the girls and Jake even has a few in there... Here they are 3 stacks of them even!!! I love handmade gifts.

Something else new and exciting in our house (but only to me) is my very first order with Stampin Bella stamps. I just LOVE these stamps, They are adorable, We've been so busy putting trim down in the hall and bathroom and getting ready for the Garage sale we're having tomorrow I haven't even had a chance to mount and play with them!!!! I can hardly wait!

I have been finding a little time for some knitting, I managed to finish this dish towel, it's called the Leftovers Dishcloth :)

I think that's it for today, I need to get the girls their lunch and call AT&T about some HD DVR action for the new TV :)

Not Enough Time . . .

I hate when I wait so long in between posts, I normally end up overwhelmed by everything I wanted to share and end up forgetting half of it! LOL!!! Sad I know, I'm too young to forget things so easily, But I've always had a terrible memory anyway.



I want to start about sharing a photo of all the wonderful ladies that were a part of the Scrapbook retreat that I went too, I think this was my fourth retreat and I had such a great time, I always do, Suzy and Randall own Stolen Moments Inn where we have the retreats and we are lucky enough to even get to Scrapbook with Suzy for the weekend. They are such wonderful people and always make everyone feel so welcome and right at home, Teresa hosted this retreat and she always does a great job planning our meals and taking care of us, It's just a great time... This particular weekend was very productive for me as I got 55 Scrapbook pages done! This means the girls Scrapbooks are caught up to the end of May! I just need to do June and this month to be caught up, I hope to stay caught up so I can work on some of my older pictures from before I had my girls :)



We've been pushing on with the work on the bathroom and the hall between the bedrooms. Jake surprised me while I was gone on the retreat by getting the linoleum down in the bathroom, I was so glad to walk in there and NOT see chip board.. LOL!! This week I got the hall painted, and tonight Jake put the flooring down in the hall, So now we just need to get the trim, doors, hinges, light fixtures and things like that in and we finished in that part of the house. I'll share before and after pictures when we're all finished :)

With all of the painting going on and scrapbooking I haven't been able to sit long enough to do much knitting lately. I certainly do miss it when I haven't done it in awhile, these dishcloths are some I finished a long time ago and finally got to weave in the ends this morning. I did get to go to the knit in last night so it let me scratch my knitting itch for a few hours.

I've figured out that I'm now addicted to craft blogs, Knitting, sewing, cardmaking, scrapbooking, I love them all!! I need to add more to my list to the left because I have so many favorites now!! I've really found some wonderful blogs to subscribe too! I love those feeds!

Big Brother started! YAAY!! Even though I watch so many different reality shows, This one remains my favorites one! I love it!!!

Speaking of reality shows, Guess who is coming to little ol' Ardmore, Ok in concert, Brett Michaels from Poison! WOW!! I had to go, I've been a faithful watcher of Rock of Love 1&2! And yes I plan on watching the third one... yeah I know another one I really liked Amber but ahh well, more trashiness and of course more Bret to enjoy :) Anyway where was I?? Oh yeah I got tickets to the concert.. WOOT! Me, My BFF Danette and My Cousin Angie are all going to go together, Girls now out! WOOHOO!! :) Should be fun! That's in September.

In two weeks we have Jake's friend Casey flying in from Washington to visit for a week, So I'm going to be decluttering and cleaning the house like a maniac until he get's here. I always do that when i know I've got company coming!! Besides I hate clutter and with the bathroom/hall renovations everything has just been piled up everywhere! It will be nice to have it all clean and tidy again :)

The Girls are doing okay. We've been having a few problems with Ashley, Nothing out of the ordinary, Normal behavior problems. I hope she grows out of these soon, They are hard to deal with some days. Abbey is doing well, learning lots of new words and doing some of the cutest things. She's such a smart little bugger!!!

I guess that's about all for now, I want to watch Flippin-Out and do some knitting before I get too tired :)

Until next time . . . .

Ready - Set - GO!!

Hi, Howday & Hello!!

Let's see, we've had a few things going on new around here :) Jake's birthday money was used for Guitar Hero for the Wii :) It's Wonderful for Jake, not my sort of thing, I get way to befazzled when I try to play it.



Abbey apparently took a liking to her new potty as she peed in it as soon as I took it out of the box, Now she tells me a few times a day she needs to pee and we sit and pee, it's located in the living room for now, She is still wetting her diaper and we're letting her go at her own pace :) She's such a smarty :)

I bought new Close To My Heart Stamps from Danette and I've been playing around with
them this week, I'm getting myself geared up for my GLORIOUS weekend of Scrapbooking this weekend. it's retreat time, I'ts been a long time! I'm SO looking forward to getting lots done :)

That's the good stuff for now ....

Until next time . . .