My Walgreen's deal!!

Lately my kids have been calling me a coupon nerd. I've just started to do some couponing the last couple of months - nothing extreme (I've never even watched that extreme couponing TV show) - just coupons of things we use or could use.  On average this past month, I've saved $40 - $70 a week on groceries. It has let me stock up on staples and such with really good prices - so I can just "shop" from my own pantry now.

Walgreen's can be a couponer's total jackpot - it can be a little confusing at that store so I've never ventured into trying it. But this week I mustered up the courage and followed some directions and this is what I got - all for only $1.98 - I kid you not!! If I had bought them all without deals, it would have cost $86!!

Now that's a deal I can handle being called a nerd for! :)

F.I.G. Spa Day

  I'm a Faith in God (Activity Days) leader in our church. This is a program for the 8-11 year old girls. We have two activities each month for them to "pass off" different goals in areas like living the gospel, service, etc.

This past week we had a really cute activity. We had a "Spa Day - New Year~New You". I made the girls a little reminder invite with an emery board attached.

I made up goody bags for the girls with an eye mask, gloves (put on after lotion), emery board, and massager in a cute polka dot bag. I found all these things on serious clearance around town (Michael's Craft mostly)!

The girls learned how to give themselves a manicure correctly. Here they are relaxing in warm water with bath salts and listening to spa music playing - so cute!

Then the girls washed each other's feet and learned about how Christ did that to show the example of loving and serving each other. They got to use an electric foot massager/bath and had lotion massaged into their feet!

Super fun and cute girls!!

Remembering

 Remembering my mom today. It was two years ago that she left her disabled physical body behind and returned to live with our Heavenly Father. I have so many special and sweet memories, feelings, and sentiments of my mom  - those will be kept in a more private spot - but I wanted to share a few pictures I came across of her doing the things she loved most - being with grandkids and baking :)  We love you mom and think of you so very often! 

 Almost a decade ago with Marisa & Tess

Marisa & Grandma at the rodeo in Utah

 At Tim's home in Utah - she always had something great baking in the oven or cooking on the stove!!

Christmas Day 2011

Favorite Things Party

Each year a great friend, Melanie, hosts the most fun party - "Favorite Things!"

We are put into groups of 6-7 girls and we bring our fave thing(s) for each member in our group. It is so fun to see what everyone loves - there is makeup & hair supplies, kitchen goods, jewelry, crafted items & all sorts of fun stuff! This year I made a "Girl's Night In" goodie bag for all my ladies - you can see it below. 

It was also a great night because Rebecca came into town from Amarillo for it - extra bonus :)

These are the treats I brought to the party. I think everyone loved them except Rebecca who hates coconut. But Mel doesn't like coconut and really liked them - go figure!

Christmas Card 2011

Christmas Activities

We made a few bags of yummy Snickers Kettle Corn to pass out to some neighbors. We actually scaled back on our recipients this year - I sure wish I had the time to make some to everyone we know!

Just wanted to share an little idea for something fun to make and eat this holiday season!

Is there anything better than chocolate, kettle corn and Snickers? I think not.

I hosted our church's women's Christmas dinner this year. It was a lot of fun - we moved couches and chairs out of the way and brought in tables into the family room (below) and the sunroom. We had almost 50 women over -  the food was so yummy (traditional turkey dinner)!

 Some of the ladies serving out dinner - yum!

Halloween catch up

This was the cute plate of goodies that Tess made in my Halloween Treat class back in October. We also made a cute candy corn pudding parfait that I didn't photograph. Nothing says Halloween like caramel apples, a cute vampire cupcake and some individual s'mores :)

Santa came already?!

Look at this beauty that followed me home tonight!! Don't you just love having something to look at all day that makes your heart sing (since my kids and hubby aren't home)?  Even better - proceeds go to breast cancer research! I love the glass bowl too - I just love everything :)  

The picture reads brighter than "she" really is. Yes,  I think she deserves a name - I'm taking suggestions (Ruby, Pinkie, ??)

Halloween 2011

We had a really fun Halloween this year. The weather was perfect - cool but not cold. Sometimes we can get humid and yucky Halloweens but this year was great. All the kids scooted out to Trick-or-Treat with friends. I never mind having older kids coming to our house for candy as long as they've taken an effort for a costume. Marisa has gone out every year and said she couldn't miss her senior year! Tess was a really cute 50's girl - that's actually a skirt I made Marisa in Kindergarten (you can see Marisa even wore it this year to a party - see top left photo!). Tess and I met up with her best friends in the neighborhood and had a fun time going around - she got so much candy. Her school has a donation that goes to kids in Reynosa, Mexico - so thankfully we'll be sending a bunch there!

Marisa YW Medallion

Marisa earned her Young Women's Medallion today! She completed all her Personal Progress goals and 8 different projects of 10+ hours each. We're so proud of her and all her accomplishments and talents she had cultivated. For those not familiar with this award for the young women in our church, it is equivalent to a scout receiving his Eagle award. She received a cute collection of Value books, a beautiful flower bouquet from her YW President, Sis. Morton, and her silver medallion.

 I wanted to make a special dessert to celebrate with all the girls at church. So I made two six-layer rainbow cakes that had all the Value colors represented.  The frosting is made from a white chocolate ganache and decorated with roses on the top. It was really cute and pretty easy too :)

BYU in Dallas

Yesterday we drove to Dallas for the BYU vs. TCU football game. It was played in the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington. Jose got tickets for us all in one of the suite boxes - yummy food galore! Marisa couldn't attend since it was her homecoming game at school so Ryan brought his good buddy, Keith.  We had so much fun being there even though our team lost :(  That stadium is amazing and it was like visiting the Mother Land for Jose since he's a hardcore - lifelong Cowboys fan! We stayed overnight and drove back today since Marisa had her Homecoming dance/date tonight - luckily her school team won even though BYU didn't :)

Ryan, Keith, Tess and Jose outside "Jerry's World" (Stadium)

American Girl Glamour witch

I taught a couple of American Girl Doll classes this month. The girls made "Glamour Witch" costumes for their dolls. They turned out so super cute. They made a dress with two glitter tulle overskirts, a bat necklace, a trick-or-treating bag, and the cutest hat with feathers, flowers, ribbons and more! I also bought all the dolls some silver shoes to finish of the Glam :)

 All the girls showing off their models (Tess in the middle)

I loved having all these pretty little witches lined up for a picture!

Pumpkin Contest

Both Ryan and Tess are in orthodontics right now. We love their orthodontist and her office staff - not to mention all the fun stuff at the office (arcade, etc.). Anyhow - they have a pumpkin decorating contest each year and the winner gets an iPod - 2nd & 3rd place gets cash!  The kids got into decorating their pumpkins. 

Tess made this spiderweb one with glitter glue, glitter spray, and glitter spiders - sparkly!

 Ryan made his into a mummy - kind of cute, huh? This also shows the cute individual S'mores treat bags we made to give to friends.  I'll keep you posted on if the kids won any of the prizes :)
(UPDATE - Ryan's mummy pumpkin won 3rd place!)

Pinterest addiction

My peppermint cake got on the main page of Pinterest this weekend - now I have over 900 repins and links onto my blog - wow! I know this isn't anything exciting for most of you but it kind of tickled me :)

I've been spending a lot of time on Pinterest. The first time I went to the site, I just saw a lot of images posted and thought "what's the big deal?".  I didn't understand that when you "pin" images to your "boards" (just like pinning a picture to a cork board - you get the drift), you can click on those images and it takes you to the original website or blog from which it came.  So instead of adding dozens of bookmarks to your favorites - this keeps them all for you with images!!  

When you browse through Pinterest, you'll end up seeing all the best of the blogs and sites. There are tons of ideas and inspiration to be found. I really LOVE it - go and see for yourself :) 

Here are a couple examples of how it looks

My Fab Bday (Michelle style!)

I had a birthday recently and just wanted to post about what my dearest friend, Michelle, did for me. On that day, I received a box from her in Utah that stated Marisa knew what to do with everything. So I waited until Marisa got home that evening to open it.  I actually had taken a very late nap and got up around 7:00 pm to this super fun "Birthday Party in a Box" that Michelle had made.  What a cute surprise everything was!

 Look at this garland she sewed for me - she ruffled yards and yards of three colors of streamers together - she's amazingly crazy with all her projects - I love it!

 Then she made me a fancy birthday hat of zebra fabric, plumes of feathers and flowers! I'm having Ryan model for me since I had just woken up and being a year older - it wasn't a pretty sight ;)

Michelle had packed in zebra balloons, cute plates, napkins, "J" cupcake pics, confetti shred, and all sorts of goodies.  She also made me the cutest apron from a tea towel with owls on it and added ruffles and rustic lace - so cute!  Marisa went and bought my favorite cake at Cheesecake Factory and had that there too - yum!

It started as a not so fun day but ended great - thanks Michelle - Love you! (and my cute family too :)

Triple YUM!!

These are so dang blasted delicious!!

Made some last night - bites of heaven - enjoy :)

What's coming to dinner?

These are going with me to a dinner party tomorrow night - I'm opting for the ice cream and hot fudge on top too :)

Good thing I've done some extra cardio today!

Scrapbooking Disney

Stuff...

I just realized that my 3rd year Blogging anniversary just passed by -

Happy Anniversary Dear Blog :)

I've been trying to get my life a little more organized since school has begun. My summers aren't the time to breathe let alone get my act together. I have Girl's Camp at the beginning of summer and then I teach sewing & cake classes all summer long. So now that all that's over for the time being (still always lurking in the corners of my mind), I can get some things done.  Yesterday I felt all tech-savvy and installed more memory on the iMacs in our house. I love the speed it has given me - I'm a little giddy about it all! I'm in debates with myself on purchasing iMac #4 for the house - I don't know the excuse for another one but I'm trying ;)

Summer Trip 2011

We did the killer four days at Disney - a different park a day! I would never recommend doing it that way unless you love Disney - which I do. I guess attending high school in Florida and then living in So. California ignited some kind of Disney obsession in me ;)  We had a ton of fun even though it's always hot and humid - not as bad as we live with daily here in Texas though.

 Ryan with the Test Track car at EPCOT

 Monkeying around in the Toy Story ride!

 The New York City Subway??!!  Just a movie set at Hollywood Studios

 My Disney expert friend, Nicole, recommended taking this drawing class at Hollywood Studios. We loved it so much that we did it twice - learned to draw Pooh Bear and then Woody from Toy Story. Don't you love the cute desks? Disney details - they're awesome!

 Tess trying on a Yeti wig after the Everest Roller Coaster at Animal Kingdom - our favorite ride of all the parks (at least us girls - the boys loved Rockin' Roller Coaster)

 Toy Story ride - really cute and clever - we were rockin' the 3-D glasses :)

Jose and kids on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom - 

We heart Disney!!

After our Disney marathon, we went to visit my Dad in Sarasota. He lives near to Siesta Beach (voted #1 in the US this year) so we went everyday. Jose let Marisa and Ryan go parasailing one day - that would seriously give me a stroke! I don't know how they braved something like that?! 1,200 feet in the air - yikes!

 The crew would bring them down and dunk them a few times - they loved it!

 View from the air

 They had about 10 dolphins playing around their boat

 Marisa, Jose and Grandpa playing in the water

Tess and Ryan taking off on the boogie boards - they loved the clear warm water. It was nice because we didn't have to keep an eye out for jellyfish like when we go to Destin's beaches. It was a great trip!!