Spring Break Fun

My son has been on Spring Break this week, and we have been stuck inside most of the time! He had a few gift cards left over from his birthday in December! We thought it would be fun to go to a movie and get some Ice Cream today! And the best part...Completely free!! :) 

 My daughter was so happy to see Sully and Mike when we walked into the movie theater! The movie Monster's University is coming out this summer, and I can not wait to take her to see it! She LOVES Monster's inc. The movie we went to see was really funny, and my 7 year old and 2 year old really enjoyed it! Escape from Planet Earth would totally recommend it if you need a few hours out of the house! If you can go to the first viewing it is only $6.00, we got in for $12 and my little one sat on my lap(most of the movie)...and there were only 3 other families, so she was able to have her own seat without any issues. 
Then when we were finished we went over to Cold Stone Creamery! It is right across the street, and if you bring your ticket stub from the movie you get $1 off your purchase. Something you could look into, maybe see if your cold stone does the same thing! 

Look at all these choices! How are you supposed to choose just one, when they all look so good! My son got the most "chocolate" he could and ordered the Chocolate Devotion. My daughter wanted the "green" one...which was mint! I got a chocolate shake! 

It was yummy! We do not eat this type of stuff very often, and so this was a real treat! We are now home, and my daughter is taking a nap, and my son ...well he is suffering from a tummy ache! To soothe his stomach I put a drop of  Peppermint Essential Oil**         in some water and had him drink it! So hopefully he will be all better here in a few minutes! What are you doing on your spring break?

**Please make sure the essential oil you use is safe for internal use.  

Baked Oatmeal + Essential Oils

I have been looking for breakfast recipes that I can make ahead of time and use during the week for my son and daughter! They usually have eggs, or cereal. Last time I went to Sam's Club I bought a big box of oat meal and knew I would be able to use it for other meals (meatloaf, cookies, breads ect.)! I was so excited to try this Strawberry Baked Oatmeal with Chocolate recipe! When I went to make it, I did not have Strawberry, or chocolate and my banana was too ripe to cut so I mashed it! I used dried cranberry instead of strawberries. 

I think that is what I like about this recipe, you can change it and add any fruit you like! I plan to make this and just change the fruit so it is something "new" each week! I also want to use essential oils the next time I make it! I will be adding between 3-5 drops of  Cinnamon Bark and Wild Orange Essential Oils  in place of the orange zest and cinnamon in the above recipe!

After getting everything mixed up and in my pan I waited for it to finish baking! It smelt so amazing in the oven! As soon as it finished my daughter and I tried it out, and we wanted to eat the whole pan! It was so yummy, and I can not wait to try it with the Essential Oils  and different fruits!

**** If you plan to cook with essential oils Please be sure to check that they are safe for internal use before using in foods! Toni from A Bowl Full of Lemons just had a great post on essential oils, Essential Oils 101, and will have several more with info that will be useful to this recipe and many more you will find on my blog (in time)!  Please feel free to leave a comment with your favorite breakfast recipe, maybe it will get featured on the blog ;)

New Car!!

Hey everyone! How was your weekend? Mine was GREAT!!! On Saturday we sold our 2001 Jeep. The weather was really bad, snow and ice everywhere. We thought it was crazy that anyone would want to come out and test drive the jeep, and boy are we glad we agreed to it, because they bought it!!! :)

We had to borrow my mom's truck over the weekend, since I was left without a car! Which was not really an issue since my son is on Spring break, and the weather was so bad we did not want to leave! We did some "online window shopping" over the weekend to see if we could find a vehicle for me! We knew we wanted a Tahoe between 2008-2010...and we had a price range we were comfy with...So we were really excited to find one an hour away! When we got to the dealership we told them we wanted to do a test drive, and found out someone else was doing a test drive :( Lol and of course I told them something that would get the keys in our hands! Within 15 minutes we were in it, and falling in love with it!!! We knew we were planing on driving it home yesterday, we just needed to do a test drive and check it out in person to be sure it was exactly what we wanted...And guess what??? It was amazing!!! I may be way more excited then anyone else when it comes to buying this car, because this is the first time I have EVER purchased a car!!! :)

And here it is! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  2008 Tahoe! Leather seats, dvd players...its got lots of extras, and my favorite is the remote start, that we did not realize we had till we got home!! What do you think???

Spring is Here

Good Morning! Today I spent some time changing up the way the blog looks! How do you like it? I wanted it to be fun colors, something that makes me happy, and hopefully you too! Now was the perfect time to make the update, Spring is here! Adding color that "pops" off the page and filled with joy makes me think of spring and summer (my favorite time of year)! What will you be doing to bring on the nice weather? Yesterday some people came to get some rock we have for "free" and it is so nice that someone wants it! We have river walk around our front grass, and no longer want it, but have not had time to remove it, we listed it on Craigslist for FREE and a few guys showed up and started shoveling it out! Great for us, now we do not have to do the hard work and we can lay more grass in the area the rock was in! Yay for us!! Speaking of grass, every year when it gets warm, these ants come back. We have tried several different things to get rid of them, and they still come back! Do you have any suggestions on what would get rid of them, but not kill the grass in this spot???

Cleaning Toddler Toys

 If you have been following my posts, you know my daughter was sick last week. I did not want her playing with her toys again until we could get them clean! The worst thing you can do is get sick a week later...Right or get your other family members sick! I know my daughter has a tea set that she often pretends to drink milk out of. I did not want to clean her toys with something I did not want her to get in her mouth. If you have a dishwasher, then you are in LUCK! Toss your child's plastic toys on the top wrack and run them through and your done! I on the other hand, do not have a dishwasher (YET) so I had to used the good ole sink!

 I put all her toys in the sink and turned the water on its hottest setting. Added a squirt of dawn dish soap and a 1/3 a cup of Vinegar! Let it soak in a toy bath for an hour. Rinse and let dry in the dish wrack! Now I do not have to worry that she might get bleach or something awful in her mouth! And NO her toys do not smell like vinegar! If you want to go the extra step (which I plan on doing next time) add a few drops of your favorite essential oil!

Linked up at serenity you and a bowl full of lemons

Front Door Mess

 This is the front door mess I needed to get under control! I use the area on the right for our shoes. We have been trying to remember to take our shoes off at the front door, and this helps to remember since it is so easy to just put them in their spots! The box needed to go to the donation center and had been sitting there for a few weeks, so I loaded it up in the car with several other items to take. See the mail on the floor?? It should not be there...it should be in that nice mail holder that has the hangers (those should be in the kids closets)! So many things are not where they belong! The bucket on the bottom shelf holds items I am selling on a local Facebook page! Everyday when the mail comes, I will put my mail in the front part of the box, and hubby's in the back, if we get junk mail it goes right to the recycle bin. We use this area for keys, and if we have something we do not want to forget to take when we leave we will put it in this area! Here in this photo you can see how it should look every day!

My Coke Rewards

SO WE DRINK A LOT OF POWERADE HERE AT OUR HOUSE! WE NOTICED THAT THEY HAD CODES TO ENTER ON MY COKE REWARDS! I FIGURED WE ALREADY BOUGHT THEM WHATS 5 MINUTES OF ENTERING THE CODES GOING TO HURT? I JUST WISH I HAD NOTICED BACK WHEN WE USED TO BUY DISANI WATER BY THE CASE. THEY HAVE CODES TOO! I NOW HAVE 108 POINTS AND AM NOT SURE WHEN I SHOULD CASH OUT ON THEM? DO YOU HAVE A COKE REWARDS ACCOUNT? IF SO WHAT HAVE YOU GOT IN THE PAST WITH YOUR REWARDS?

Time to Declutter

Hey everyone, how is your weekend going? Hopefully great! This weekend I decided to take a look at my clothing, and get rid of a few things! I have quite a few items that I have not worn in several weeks. Why am I keeping them? I always have that "I might wear this soon" or "I like this, maybe I should keep it" (only to find out it does not fit well) going on in my head! I just kept thinking I really should go take those items out...and then I would put it off longer. Well after reading this great post from Organizing Made Fun I knew it was declutter time!  So far I have 8 shirts from my closet, and am going to go through the house and see if I can find more things we do not use or need anymore!       

In an effort to not leave my house to take these to a consignment store or donation center, I listed them on a Facebook Auction Page starting at $5.00! The best part is someone has placed a bid for that amount, so they will sell and someone will come pick them up from me! I make a little extra $$ while someone gets a great deal, and I get rid of clutter! Now go see if you can find 8 items in your closet or home, and report back to the page with what you are getting rid of! :)  

Do You Recycle??

Do you recycle? We do! We have been for about 3 years now, and we will continue to do it! In my kitchen I have a laundry sorter that we use to recycle. We use a company called We Recycle that picks up a bag every Monday! We acutally have two bags, one for Plastic, cardboard, paper, cans...and a second bag for glass only. Since we recycle about 80% of the things that most people throw away, that means we do not have as much Trash going into the dumpster. We do a bi-weekly trash pick up and usually never have a full dumpster, unless we did something major over the two weeks. In the laundry sorter we have the left side, that we put papers, plastics and cardboard. The middle we put the glass, this takes forever to fill up, and when its full we send the glass bag with the regular recycle. The right side we have soda and beer cans, and we CAN recycle these with We Recycle, but we DON'T. We save them and take them to a place that pays us for the aluminum. We usually take other items in about once a month and get between $20-$50! The best part about our recycle center, is that its a curb side pick up, so we just leave the recycle bag by the front porch every Monday and they pick it up and leave us a new bag! Both my kids help with putting things into the recycle, and we feel great that we are cutting back the waste going into the dumpster! 

Cloth Napkins Save Money

Do you buy napkins or paper towels? Have you ever thought about how much money you spend on something you are throwing away? Here in my home I have been trying to eat more fruits and veggies, use green cleaning products, and cut down on unnecessary spending! We purchased a bunch of cloth napkins a few months back, and have saved at least $50 by not buying paper towels and napkins. You might say, oh I have kids, they make messes, we need our paper products! Well guess what, I have two kids...a 7 year old who always has crumbs under his seat and sometimes spills and a 2 year old who ALWAYS makes a mess when she eats! We have managed for about 3 months without paper napkins and towels. I bought all of my napkins (about 40) on clearance at Kmart when it was closing down. Then I found some nice rectangle glass containers on clearance at Target. I fold them up nice and neat so they fit into the container and they sit in the middle of the table for everyone to use. Once we have used one and it is dirty we toss it in a mini trash can.

 When one of the containers is completely empty I just throw the dirty in the wash on HOT and in a few hours we have clean napkins! The best part...I did not have to leave my house to get more! I challenge you to try a month of cloth, and see how much you like it and how much $$ you save! 
 

Spring Cleaning Time

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CLEANED UNDER YOUR APPLIANCES? SPRING IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER, WHICH MEANS NOW IS A PERFECT TIME TO GET EVERYTHING YOU USUALLY FORGET (OR AVOID) CLEAN! SEE THAT PHOTO UP THERE?? THAT IS WHAT IS WAS UNDER MY OVEN. WHAT'S THAT BROWN STUFF ON THE FLOOR?? YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE! WHAT I DO KNOW, IS THAT IT WAS A PAIN IN MY REAR TO GET IT OFF. I NOW CHALLENGE YOU TO GO MOVE YOUR OVEN AND GET IT CLEAN, AND REPORT BACK TO MY PAGE AND LEAVE A COMMENT WITH WHAT TYPE OF SCIENCE EXPERIMENT YOU FOUND!

What my Home Looks When We Are Sick

See this mess ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That is what happens when someone get's sick! :( Everyone just piles the dishes up, and does what the can when they have a few minutes. The first few days that my little lady was sick, she just wanted to cuddle with mama all day....So when she finally let me put her down while she napped I got to work quickly in the kitchen! When we get sick I always want to do a big deep clean of EVERYTHING that we all have been touching! I figured starting in the kitchen is the best spot, because we still need to eat!

 

See all those Arrows in all that Clean Space?? Well let me explain them...The left photo, I have some bananas that are really ripe! Any suggestions on what I should make? Was thinking banana bread, but it seems like I always throw away a half a loaf because we never finish it. The middle photo, I am pointing at the bucket in the sink...That is where we put the dirty dishes after we have rinsed them. It is a lot easier for me to lift the whole bucket out when its time to wash dishes then it is to stack the dishes on the counter to start the water. The Right photo, I am pointing at the drying wrack...that I can not stand! I really wish I could get the microwave and drying wrack of the counter. When we start the remodel on the kitchen we will be adding a dishwasher (Yay for me) so I can get rid of the drying wrack, and most likely the bucket in the sink! I am not sure if we will be doing an over the oven microwave or leaving it as is, but I will take what ever I can get, as long as it looks better then what we have now! We almost have all the new cabinets, and now we just need to decide on what type of floor we want for the kitchen. Can't wait to share the new kitchen with everyone when we finish!

Flu Bug has Hit!

Life has been a little crazy here at my house. We have all been fighting the sick bug. My two year old was hit with Influnza A and has doctors orders to rest all week! The last few days have been sleepless nights for me and lots of meds for her! I feel so bad for her, she has a really bad cough and has finally been able to keep her foods and liquids down! I have joined the A Bowl Full Of Lemons Book Club and started reading! Anyone that knows me, knows I am not a big reader. I bought a nook about a year ago and have read a handful of books, and over the last few weeks I have realized that reading is a great way to unwind and step away from life! I have made it a goal to read 12 books this year, more if I am not to busy! What a great way to start, then with a book club! The best part is this book club is completely virtual, which means you can join too!

This is the March 2013 book! It came in the mail today, and since my daughter is sick in bed and wanting to cuddle up to mama, I broke it open and in two hours I have completed SIX chapters! I am warning you now, if you start this book, be prepared to keep reading, because it is a very good book! What book are you reading, or would you recommend if you were in a book club??