Getting Ready for Spring Break?

Many of us are either getting ready for or just coming off of Spring Break. So here is my Spring Break funny:

Q. What did one oyster say to the other oyster?
A. Just a minute. I've got something stuck in my mouth!
Sorry, that was bad! I was given the task of coming up with my own joke about oysters to help make you more aware of Gulf oysters benefits and safety. Especially as we approach Spring Break, there will be lots of visits to the beach and a huge increase in people eating oysters. Before you plan and take that trip, make sure you visit Be Oyster Aware and educate yourself. You will learn that oysters are an excellent source of zinc, vitamin B-12, and omega-3 fatty acids. But make sure you evaluate the risks as well so you are informed and take care of yourself. Have a great Spring Break!

Thankful Thursday- Forgiveness

I know it's been a few weeks since I've done a Thankful Thursday post. It's not that I haven't been thankful, I've just been busy with illnesses and Bunko!

Last night, my youngest daughter Alyssa (almost 5), was having a little spat with her sister Abby (7). So Alyssa decided that she needed to hit her sister because of this injustice! (I promise I really am thankful for something here) After we discussed how we don't hit because we are mad at someone and she went to apologize to her sister, I told her there was someone else she needed to apologize to. This was probably the first time that I felt like she was old enough to understand that the things we do wrong are sins and that God forgives our sins if we ask Him. So we talked about that and I told her we needed to pray and tell God that she was sorry and ask Him to forgive her.

She cried because she didn't want to tell Him. I explained to her how when we ask Him to forgive our sins He chooses to forget that it happened. It really struck me how much like my daughter I am. I don't want to tell Him when I've messed up. Even though I know what a precious gift that forgiveness is! I've always hated acknowledging that I've done something wrong. It was so important for me last night to help her through that and in turn to help me see how important it is for me to continually accept God's forgiveness! What a precious gift!

I pray that each of you who reads this blog knows that God loves you so much that He sent His only Son Jesus to die for our sins over 2000 years ago. God raised Jesus from the dead and He is now living in Heaven and will come back for us to take us to Heaven to live with Him one day. This is why we will celebrate Easter next weekend because of this wonderful gift!

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9



For more Thankful Thursday posts go to Sting My Heart.

WFMW- Alarm Clock

If you are looking for my Ultimate Blog Party post click here.


I don't know if you are as put off as I am about the time change from this past weekend, but these past few mornings have been awful! My kids have had a hard time waking up and I can't blame them because it's been rough on me as well.

However, I am here to tell you about the greatest thing in the world that my hubby gave me for Christmas that saved my behind this weekend! As you may or may not know, President Bush changed the weekend that we spring forward and fall back for Daylight's Savings time a few years ago. I have owned a SmartSet Alarm Clock that sets itself for about 7 or 8 years. Well, he did not realize that President Bush changed the weekend and woke me up 1 hour early on the wrong weekend (yes I refer to my alarm clock as "he", my Tivo is a "he" as well!). This did not become a problem until the second seasons time change when I forgot that it was going to happen again! It is no fun to shower at 6:00 in the morning when you think you're showering at 7:00!

So here is what my sweet hubby gave me for Christmas:


This is the Emerson Research SmartSet Clock Radio. This weekend, he changed automatically for me! Wasn't that nice? My alarm went off right on schedule. When we woke up Sunday morning, he was set correctly and my hubby's clock was still an hour behind. I should probably get him one, too, right?

This clock is so great! I love how big the numbers are because I'm blind as a bat without my glasses or contacts. It has 2 alarms, so I set one for our weekday wakeup time and one for our Sunday wakeup time. And the alarm starts out soft and gets louder! It's so awesome to not wakeup to a shrill alarm. There's also a cool thing that will project the time onto the ceiling. My kids love that feature.

So that's what worked for me this week. To see other WFMW posts head over to Rocks in My Dryer.

First Ever Heads or Tails

If you are looking for my Ultimate Blog Party post click here.

This is my first ever Heads or Tails post! I have seen it over at my friend Jen's blog and have so enjoyed her posts that I thought I would join in the fun. Head over to Skittles Place to see more and to add your own.

This weeks theme is green in honor of the upcoming St. Patrick's Day holiday. My first thought was how I am often green with envy! Right now I am struggling with envy in 2 areas. I have house envy and car envy. Is that a problem for anyone else?

I drive a 2001 minivan and it still works just fine, but when I see so many friends getting new cars its really hard to not want heated seats, too!

My house is the exact same. It was just built in 2004 and is plenty big for my family. The problem is that I play in a Bunko group that meets in different houses every month. I see things in each house, whether they are larger or smaller than mine, that I would love to have in my "next" house.

I know that we are not supposed to envy what others have, and I really have to work on that. I'm just being honest about my personal struggle here! Do you have a personal issue with things you envy? Come on, get it off your chest!

May I Introduce ...

The Ultimate Blog Party- 2008

Fresh off the Bunko party, it's time for the Ultimate Blog Party! I'm glad you're here! If it's your first time here, please leave a comment so I can visit your blog or email to say thanks for coming by. If you're a long time reader, thanks for your faithfulness! Your comments keep me going. And lastly, if you are a lurker feel free to de-lurk. I promise I am harmless.

I started this blog in the summer of 2006, but I didn't really know what to do with it. This past fall I started reading some blogs that I really enjoyed so I am now committed to writing on a more consistent basis.

I am basically a SAHM but I work at my church a few hours a week in the child care area for extra money. I taught first grade for 3 years before I had kids and have been a homemaker for about 7 years. I have a master's degree in Early Childhood Education. I teach 1st grade Sunday School at my church so I feel like I am still putting my degree to good use.

I have been married for 10 1/2 years to my sweet hubby Alex. Here we are on our 10th anniversary trip to Hawaii last summer sharing a Diet Coke. I gotta tell you he's a keeper! He does some of the sweetest things for me and he is very helpful. I am a lucky girl!

I love children. I have 2 of them, both girls. My oldest is 7, Abby, and my youngest is almost 5, Alyssa. We are also a dog family. We have a 9 year old Yorkshire Terrier named Jonathan.
I am a Christian, so I try to be upbeat and a little inspirational when I can be. I wish I was better at lots of things, namely housekeeping and dressing fashionably, but we all have our downfalls and I'm not afraid to share mine! In my free time (who has any of that these days), I like to scrapbook, sew, and watch Days of Our Lives. You will often find a post or rant about the latest happening in the town of Salem!

One last thing about the ultimate blog party hosted at 5 minutes for mom. There are some wonderful prizes being given away this week so make sure you go visit their site as well after you leave your comment. Some of my favorites are:

1. Judy at Welcome to My World of Dreams is giving away a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com
2. LTD Chix is giving away an adorable "Living the Dream Mom" Tshirt and there are 8 you can choose from
3. Angela at Mommy Bytes is giving away a $25 gift certificate to Target.

I also liked prizes 8, 9, 116, and 103. Make sure you go check them out!

Boy Do I Love Bunko!

Last night was the long awaited Bunko party and we had so much fun! I fully intended to take pictures of the actual Bunko part, but I was too busy actually playing. Sorry. If you've never played Bunko it is a dice game that is fast paced and loud but requires no skill. This month we added a theme which was chosen right here on my blog.

By popular vote, we all decided to have a pajama party! We ate pizza, popcorn, and ice cream. Then, in between rounds of dice rolling, came the karaoke. I have to say that was my personal favorite. Bunko is played at 3 tables and your goal is to get to table 1 and stay there. There is a prize for the most wins at table 1. So every time you lost at table 1, I decided your team of two people would sing a song. Here are the pictures:

Lesley and Denise were the first to lose at table 1. They chose to sing "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves. Denise (in the blue) was a little nervous at first but boy can she sing!
Sadly, my partner JoAnn and I were the next losers! Here we are singing Madonna's "Holiday." JoAnn was a much better singer than I was but what I lack in ability I make up for in enthusiasm! We made a second trip to the karaoke round later and sang "Sweet Dreams" by The Eurythmics.
Melanie and Kim came next and sang "Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones. Melanie (in the red) was spending her anniversary with us! What a great friend. Thanks for sharing Reed!
Stacey sang next and she was playing without a partner because we were missing one person from our group tonight. There was a death in our community and one of our girls was at the visitation (We missed you Kim!). Stacey was brave, though, and sang "Rio" by Duran Duran brilliantly. Randy and Paula were impressed! (It's an American Idol game)
Our last singers were Jennifer and my sister Cyndi. They sang "Knocking on Heaven's Door" by Guns N Roses. Jennifer (in white) was a big fan of hair bands in high school. She even did the Axl dance and we were all impressed!

So, Pajama Party bunko was a success. You've all seen me in my jammies now! I wanna hear if any of you like to karaoke. What songs do you sing?

I Got a New Thing Going!

Have you ever wanted to try something new? Well I am trying to branch out a little bit, and have taken on my very first paid post! I started researching some of the sites out there and found Pay Per Post. I just started the registration process over the weekend and I must say it was relatively quick and easy. I have already begun looking around their site for opportunities. It is extremely user-friendly.

The thing that impressed me most about Pay Per Post is that they require you to keep at least one non-sponsored post before and after each paid post. I don't want my blog to become a walking advertisement. I want you guys to come here for the fun stories and know that I will now get to tell you about some really cool things every once in a while.

As a stay at home mom, I am really looking forward to getting paid for doing something I have really come to enjoy. I have been begging my husband for years to have laser correction surgery on my eyes. I think I'll take the money I make from this and start my own fund! That's only if my car doesn't go out ... then the money may get diverted to the car replacement fund!

What would you do with some extra money?
payperpost

Let the Bunko Preparations Begin

Abby is still home from school today with a little bit of fever, but I did get a little bit of my Bunko preparations done. I have bought all the prizes (there's a total of 5!) but I haven't finished wrapping them yet. I hope to have that done tonight.

I got a good bit of cleaning done today. I'm going to give a shameless shout-out to my favorite cleaning tool- the Swiffer Sweep and Vac. That saved the day for me today. My whole downstairs is hardwood floors and we seem to accumulate quite a few dust bunnies. I was chasing them all over the place with the broom until a friend suggested the Sweep and Vac. Now I can clean my downstairs in under 5 minutes!

The best part of the preparations so far has to be setting up for the karaoke. We bought Karaoke Revolution: American Idol Encore for the WII, so of course we had to take it for a test run:

Abby and I have danced all around the room singing Madonna's "Holiday". She really does have a fever. I didn't just keep her home to help me test this out!

Guess What I've Been Doing

You're probably remembering how sweet my hubby is and thinking that he took me on some romantic getaway for the past 3 days, right? That would certainly explain my absence, but what I was doing was nowhere near that sweet!

You may recall the 2nd round of illnesses that came through our house last week and left my sweet Abby with strep throat on Monday. Do you remember my quote? "At least it's not the flu!" Why don't we ever learn to not say things like that!!!!! My dear Abby kept coughing Wednesday and Thursday and we couldn't figure out why. By Friday when she woke up with a fever of 103 degrees, we were back off to the doctor who said she had .... THE FLU! How about that?

After spending $100 on medication for the whole family, we have spent the weekend pretty much holed up in the house. Hubby and I have traded off taking excursions out!

Here's the really bad part. I really need this child to get well and back to school so I can clean this house (and we all know how much I hate to clean!) because Bunko is going to be at my house on Thursday. BTW the theme is going to be a pajama party and the group was very excited about the vote. I will post pictures afterwards!

Just Another Busy Day

I apologize for not having my usual Thankful Thursday post. It's not that I'm not thankful today. It's just that I'm so incredibly busy I don't have time to do it justice!

With Abby at home 2 days this week plus coming home early yesterday (that's a whole other long story) I haven't had any time to do any of the things I desperately need to do this week ... like color my hair! So that is what I am doing right now. The color is in and I will post a photo of the new me later. I have been holding on to my blonde hair for far too long and today I am letting it go!

Here is a picture of me with my blonde hair:

Stay tuned for the new me with brown hair!

Here's the update! Now keep in mind the blonde picture was about 6 months ago so my hairstyle is a little different. It did not come out quite as dark as I thought it would but here I am today in all my glory ... drumroll please:


To see this week's Thankful Thursday posts go to Sting My Heart.

WFMW- My Girls are Crafty

My two girls are very crafty. Not sneaky crafty, but artsy crafty. They love to do any kind of art project. I found that their art projects were taking over my house! And because they love to do them so much, everybody began to give them cute art projects for gifts, which we love to do but we couldn't get a handle on the mess.

Luckily, my dear hubby is a much better organizer than I, and he came up with the idea of using these office organizers for the girls craft stuff. There is one in each corner of our eat-in kitchen. This one is labeled for crayons, glue, stickers, crayons, coloring books, and all types of paper products:

This one holds all the craft kits we have received. At any given time when they are bored they can go get modeling clay, make sand art, create their own soap, or create a Spot (one of their favorites). Of course their is much more in the drawers and I'm sure they can list every item in there but you get the picture!
The main thing is they have freedom to craft and clean up-YEAH! Here is Abby's latest creation that she made Sunday afternoon. Alyssa was over at the grandparent's house with Dad so Abby made this for her. Any guesses what it is?
It's a music stand! She made it out of construction paper rolled up. It will actually raise and lower. How about that? The green piece is folded up to hold the sheet music.
Here you can see the back that she reinforced with a plastic knife because her sheet music kept flopping backwards :) LOL! I think that's pretty crafty for 7- years-old! Watch out Martha Stewart!

For more Works for Me Wednesday posts click here.

Confessions of a Bed Hog

I confess- I am a bed hog! I need my space when I sleep. When I first married my sweet hubby, we had a queen sized bed and things were just fine. Now we have 2 darling children who are afraid of thunderstorms and like to sneak into bed with us early in the morning.

A few years ago, sweet hubby felt the pressure (intense pressure) to upgrade our queen bed to a king bed. We thought that would be the answer to all our problems.

Last night we had quite a thunderstorm come through around 3:45 am, so my darling Abby comes tiptoeing into my room. Thankfully Alyssa slept through it! With Abby tucked in between me and hubby, I tried to return to my peaceful night of sleep. Somehow I was awakened every 15-20 minutes by an elbow in the back or a foot to the back of the knee! It was brutal! I know someday she will be too big to want to sleep with us, so I tried to suck it up and somewhat just enjoy the fact that she is still little and wants to be with us! But come on, Mama needs some space, too! Is that horrible?

Again?

Do you ever get tired of the same sicknesses revisiting your home? We appear to be getting another visit from the stomach bug!

If you recall just last week, the wee one Alyssa missed 2 days of school with it. She is on round 2 of it and it appears that big sis Abby may be getting a dose of it herself. Although Abby actually has a few more symptoms (fever and a bad headache) so we are going to the doctor this morning.

So far every time we have gotten sick I have said, "Well at least it's not the flu!" Do we want to take bets on whether this turns out to be the flu or not? I will give the results this afternoon!

2:15 Update: Doctors says strep throat - Woo hoo! No flu!

Time for a Vote

Fear not, this has nothing to do with politcs! I need some help! It's my turn to host Bunco and I need to pick a theme. If you're not familiar with Bunco, its a dice game played with 12 people usually once a month. Each person hosts it one time a year and it is my turn. It is so much fun because it requires no skill, you just roll 3 dice and try to roll 3 of the same number. When you do you yell "Bunco" as loud as you can. It is a loud, fun game and you win prizes. Who doesn't love that?

Last year I did an 80s theme. Everyone brought a picture of themselves from back in the day and we listened to a great mix of 80s music on my ipod. There was a prize for the best picture and signs all around the room that said "Gag me with a spoon" and "Totally Awesome". The best part of the night was when Vanilla Ice came on the ipod and everyone simultaneously stopped rolling to sing "Stop, collaborate and listen!"

So how do I follow that? I need another great theme and I have narrowed it down to two choices that I can't pick between. So I need you to vote!

One choice is "pajama party" where everyone comes in or changes into pajamas. We would eat pizza for dinner and listen to High School Musical songs. Maybe even do a little karaoke between rounds. The prizes would be spa type things like eye masks and lotions and nail kits.









The other choice is a "Grease party" where everyone would dress in 50s gear. The best 50s outfit would get a bonus prize. Music would be the soundtrack to Grease and food would be hamburgers, hotdogs, fries, and shakes. The prizes for winning Bunco would be a little harder, though. I don't really know what to do for those or if most people would be able to pull off a 50s outfit.



So go to the comment section and vote now! I need to send out invites on Tuesday so I REALLY need some help here!

Prayer Request

I just received an email from the director of a mission trip that I am going on at the end of May to Guayaquil, Ecuador. I haven't heard anything about this on our news but it just broke my heart. Apparently there has been some pretty severe flooding there (click here for the story) that has resulted in the loss of at least 10 lives including one newborn.

One of the hardest hit areas is a suburb of Guayaquil that we will be ministering in in May. Please pray for these people as they seek shelter and try to regain some sense of normalcy. Pray also that their hearts will be prepared for the time of our arrival. We will be doing medical and dental clinics as well planting and growing area churches.

Thankful Thursday- Alabama Weather

On this Thankful Thursday I feel like I have been doubly blessed! Yesterday was a great day to live in Alabama. We had gorgeous weather with a high in the 60s. I took my 2 girls to a nearby park for some much needed outdoor playing. Today of course we are having some rain. Since we have been in a state of extreme drought for almost a year, that is an answer to many prayers as well!

The past week my family has been overcome with one sickness after another. Abby (the 7 year old) had walking pneumonia last week. I had a return of the never ending bladder infection this weekend. Then on Tuesday morning at 4 am Alyssa (the 4 1/2 year old) woke up with the stomach virus. Never fear this is a Thankful Thursday post- there is good news! We are all restored to good health and very grateful for it! So grateful that we got outside and enjoyed some beautiful Alabama weather!


Here are the girls on their scooters at the park. They came zooming by so fast I had to retake the picture to catch them! You can't even tell they were ever sick can you?

Alyssa loves gymnastics so she always finds her way to the bar.

Maybe Abby has a little bit of monkey in her!

For more Thankful Thursday posts go to Sting My Heart.

Wordless Wednesday- Hawaii

The most fun thing that I never dreamed I would do:

Mama Got Honked At

... and it wasn't for a good reason! Has this ever happened to anyone else? This morning I was taking Abby to school and I got honked at for not pulling out from the stop sign I was at! Can I just say we were at a busy street and I had been up since 4:00 with Alyssa vomiting! I would think that little Mr. My Horn Works should thank his lucky stars that I did not get out of my minivan and come back to give him a piece of my mind!

I was so furious! I might have said some ugly words inside the van, though. I am an excellent driver and I can't stand to get honked at. I never honk at others unless they have failed to realize that the light has turned to green. Even then I try to give a reasonable amount of time for them to prove they are worthy of keeping their driver's license :) before I honk!

So, are you guys big honkers? What do you do when you are the honkee?

Getting Fit in February

Fit Mama Friday Presents "Get Fit in February"

Let's get fit in February! I'm kind of coming in on the tail end this but Metropolitan Mama is doing a 5 day fitness extravaganza from February 14-18. If you're like me and intended to get in shape this year and just haven't started, head on over for some inspiration, fitness websites, and some great giveaways. Don't waste another day of 2008 wishing you had started your fitness routine. Let's jump in and do it together! Who's with me?