EB Awareness Week

This isn't a fun craft or a cute story, but I hope you will continue reading.

About two years ago I came to learn of a sweet baby boy with a very rare disease. It is called Epidermolysis Bullosa, or EB for short. It is a genetic skin disease that causes the skin to be so fragile that the slightest touch causes severe blistering inside and outside the body. 


You have probably never heard of EB because most babies who are born with it die in early infancy. For two years I have been following the life of a Mr. Baby Daylon. He was born with EB and has had a bone marrow transplant to try to cure it. He has been through some rough stuff for such a little man, but some of the worst that he goes through just comes from a lack of awareness of the disease. 


I beg, beg, beg you to go to little Daylon's blog and just read the past few entries. It will help you understand why it is so important to raise awareness about EB. Then if you want to learn more you can go to this site. It is so important to these sweet families who have to cope with this heart breaking disease that people understand or at least know about what they are going through. 


That's a lot to ask, but if you do learn a little more about EB from your readings then share some of what you know with someone so the awareness spreads. Thanks!

My First Cake Pops!

      I have been wanting to make cake pops for a long time. I'm sure you've heard of cake pops, but if not check out this site and let your mind be BLOWN!

      I think everything Bakerella makes is adorable! But when I saw the cute owl cake pops I knew that I wanted these to be my first attempt. If you want to know how to make a cake pop you can find out all about it here. 

      Okay, in all honesty, these things were a LOT of work! I don't think I will ever make them again unless I really have a totally free Saturday with absolutely nothing to do (which never happens of course) but they were mighty delicious. And I will totally make them again just round and dipped in chocolate, because that would be easy, delicious and still pretty cute. 

       

      I wrapped these babies up and tied them with a bow to give to some of the young women at church. Another great thing about cake pops is that they can really easily be made gluten-free. I have 2 young women with Celiac disease and it was nice to have something to bake for them that didn't taste horrible. (No offense to all the rest of the gluten-free baked goods out there, but you are terrible tasting!)

    
     Luke really liked them too, which makes the hard work *almost* worth it. Also, he refused to bite them. Maybe he felt like he was really biting into a cute innocent owl. Who knows, but he didn't get very far licking it!!!

P.S. Because I could not find ANYWHERE what the candies were that were used as the facial features here's what I did:

The eyes: White chocolate chips with chocolate dots.
The beak: a mini M&M inserted sideways
The wings: Regular M&Ms
The feet: Flower shaped sprinkles
The ears: Chocolate chips put upside down before dipping in the chocolate

Potty Training Log: Day 6

Ugggghhhhhh.........






Before I start complaining I guess I should point out the good part. Luke (when he is awake) is totally pee potty trained!!! He hasn't had a pee accident for 3 days straight! Yay!!!

That being said, he is totally NOT poop potty trained and I am getting sick of cleaning up poopy undies. He is also wetting the bed every nap time and every night.

I'm reeeeeaaaallly feeling like giving up on the whole thing right about now. Ugh.

Potty Training Log (pardon the pun) Day 1

          I have been dreading potty training. I mean DREADING it. Even now that I have experienced it for a day, I am not looking forward to waking up tomorrow. But I wanted to put the stats out there of how Luke has been doing today. Here's what our day looked like:

Put undies on Luke

10am peed on the treadmill (Thank you Luke for making it a wipeable surface!!!)

10:30 peed on the treadmill again (Thanks again, seriously)

11:00 peed on the carpet (WHAT??? I thought we had an understanding!)

11:30 said "mommy I have to poop" and peed IN THE POTTY-YAY!!! (doesn't quite understand the difference between pee and poop yet)

For the rest of the day he did not pee in his underwear. He told me 5 more times and went in the potty 5 more times!!!

Oh wait, there's naptime. That's where you mommies come in. He peed during naptime. I don't know how to train him not to because he is asleep!!! Does anyone know how to help him wake up if he has to go during his (3 hour) nap? 

Anyway, I will let you know how tomorrow goes. Sorry, I know there are A LOT of people who don't give a crap (ha ha) about my child's bodily functions. But once this is over it will be my greatest achievement of the year. So I have to brag/vent!

Oh, also I am using this system called 3 day potty training. I am loving it so far! I'll let you know after the 3 days is over how I feel about it. But as of right now I would recommend it.

Count your many blessings

My friends, it has been waaaaay too long. I have been timid to blog because of how much has gone on in the past few months, and my inability to put into words how I feel about it all. I want to just skip over it and move on, but at the same time the things that happened were so important in shaping me and my love for my Heavenly Father that I feel like if I don't share my story in some small way I am being selfish.

So, in early July we found out we were expecting our second baby. We were super excited! It was a busy time with two different week-long family vacations and a cold that started before I even got pregnant and lasted for a month and a half. Life was busy, and although we were beyond excited about our upcoming addition, we really didn't have much time to think about it or process it. 

Then in early August we had a long trip to the ER that ended in us being told that we were losing our baby. It was sad and disappointing. But there was so little time to be sad about it because immediately we were aware of countless reasons why we were so blessed, why this experience could be seen as a blessing in disguise, and reminded that Heavenly Father is watching over everything.

 I know know know that He had his hand in everything that happened. I could list every reason why I was overwhelmed with faith during this time, but there are literally dozens of them and they are personal and special to me. But I just need to say that I have absolutely no doubt that our Father has his hand in every aspect of our lives and even in our times of sadness He is making little miracles happen to help ease our pain and remind us how much He loves us. 

We were also so loved by our friends and family. We had friends bring us dinner all week and I would get calls and messages from people begging me to let them bring me ice cream, or a soda or anything that could help in any way. We are so blessed to have the people we have in our lives. 

Life is good!

Guest Blogging at Radmegan

Hey friends! Today I got asked to write a guest post for my friend Megan's awesome blog. Check it out here:

http://radmegan.blogspot.com/2011/06/guest-blogger-thursday-coconut-candy.html

I'm teaching how to make this tasty coconut treat from Hawaii!

Check out the rest of the blog too! It's amazing!

Kids Crafts: Egg Carton Caterpillar

Lately I have been trying to do things with Luke other than watch TV and play with toys all day. I'm not creative at all, so when I need a craft idea I just google it! Ah, Google, where would we be without you??? Anyway, this cute egg carton caterpillar was one of the first things that came up. 

I loved it because it was beyond easy and I happened to have all the stuff on hand. Here's what you'll need:

Half of an egg carton

Paint

Googley Eyes

Marker

Straws or Pipe Cleaners

All you do is cut one row off of the egg carton, paint it, glue eyes and antenna on, and draw a happy face on him. We painted ours and then read The Very Hungary Caterpillar while the paint was drying. 

I will keep posting the crafts that Luke and I do together so maybe I can save someone the hassle of having to google 'kids craft ideas' like I did!

Happy Spring!

Is it too late to say Happy Easter? I would rather say that.

Winter has been a beast. We traded colds around our house for 4 months straight. So I am excited that the weather is warming up and the crap is all starting to bloom again. I took some pictures on Easter, but the kids were not very cooperative. This is literally the best of all the shots I took.

Then I was going through past Easter pictures and it was so cute to see how the kids have grown!

I am excited to be healthy (hopefully) for the next 5 months and I promise I'll be blogging a lot more. Promise.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

I LOVE Dr. Seuss books. There are books that I dread reading to Luke and books that I look forward to reading to him. And Dr. Seuss books are always in the latter category!

Just wanted to say that today at Walmart.com there are hundreds of Dr. Seuss books for 40% off. This makes me happy because I am trying to build up our Dr. Seuss library and I rarely find sales on Dr. Seuss books. Sometimes Amazon.com will have a buy 3 get 1 free promotion, but the Walmart deal is still better. Also the shipping is free!

Check out the sale here!

Also, there is a free Dr. Seuss printable that you can download here.

I think this is so cute. It could be framed and hung in a kids room, a playroom, or a library. (Although I'm pretty sure I don't know anyone blingin' enough to have a whole room in their house dedicated as a place to house their books.) I found the link to the printable at ishare printables- check this site out and see what other cute printables they have for St. Patrick's day and Easter.

My Frugal Adventures

To wrap up my ramblings on saving money and stuff, I wanted to send you over to My Frugal Adventures.  This blog is great. She keeps you in the loop on all the deals at every store you could imagine. Just this week I saved bunches of money from just reading this blog and doing what she says.

For example: There was a coupon on target.com for $5 off any women's denim. I didn't print it because I didn't think $5 off was that great of a deal and I wasn't really in the market for denim. But then I read on My Frugal Adventures that a lot of jeans were on clearance at Target 75% off. I printed the coupon and went to Target and found a cute pair of skinny jeans. They were $6.24 so after the coupon I got them for $1.24!!!

This blog makes finding these deals really easy, so you don't have to keep track of all the sales and coupons yourself. If you are interested in getting into the whole world of couponing this is the best place to start!

Target Love

Yesterday I talked about some basics of money saving. Today I wanted to get into it a little more, and be a bit more specific. 

I love Target! We are lucky enough to have a Super Target, and it just happens to be the closest store to our house so I get to go there a lot. 

Target is an amazing place to shop if you are trying to save some money. If you don't have a Target close by then I pity you, aaaaaaaannnd also you might not find this post very exciting. 

There are a couple ways to save lotslotslots of money at Target:

Coupons: Did you know that Target will take a Manufacturer's coupon and a Target coupon for the same item? It's true! You can tell whether it is a store coupon or a manufacturer's coupon by looking at the top.

So if you had a Target coupon for $1 off Colgate toothpaste and a manufacturer coupon for $1 off Colgate toothpaste then you would totally get $2 off the toothpaste! This adds a whole notha' dimension to the money saving thing because you can do Sale + Target Coupon + Manufacturer's Coupon! You can get Target coupons a whole slew of places. Sometimes they'll mail you some, sometimes they print out with your receipt after you shop there, but the best place to get them is coupons.target.com. They put out new web coupons every Sunday (same day the ad comes out).

*** Something I should have mentioned yesterday is if you see a coupon for something you'll buy, print it right away. Some coupons are up for a certain amount of time, and some are up for a certain amount of prints (meaning if they set the print limit at 500 and 500 people print the coupon then it's gone). Another thing that I should have mentioned is that you can usually print each coupon twice, both at target.com and coupons.com***

Clearance: Target has some wicked clearance sales. You can expect things to go on clearance after any holiday. But there are random things on clearance all the time. Here is a list of some of the clearance sales I have seen in our store:

Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, etc: These items start to go on clearance the day after the holiday. 

Got these for .19 each this week. Luke loves pez so I am now equipped with a powerful bargaining tool!

Dollar spot: Have you seen the dollar section at the front of your Target store? Before they move in a new batch of dollar stuff they usually put the old stuff on clearance. I have bought sticker sheets, books, and crayons for .25 each when these things go on sale. 

Toys: A couple times a year Target has a massive clearance on toys. This year they had one right after Christmas. Last year they had one in July and we got tons of good stuff for Luke's Christmas and Birthday presents for soooooo cheap. 

Clothes & Shoes: I am always checking out the clearance section for toddler clothes and shoes (although they have clearance for normal people clothes and shoes too). Clothes will start to go on clearance when the season changes to make room for their new inventory. Sometimes I buy things the next size up for the next year. I actually just broke out a pair of shoes that I got on clearance for $3.24. I bought them and stored them away. So last night when I put Luke's shoes on him and realized that his poor little toes were all scrunched up, I just went to the drawer got out the next size up and slipped them on him.

Don't know if you can see the pricetag but this whole outfit was less than 6 bucks.  75% off!

I never wanted to shop clearance because I figured the reason it was on clearance was because nobody else wanted it, so why would I buy it? But that isn't always the case, a lot of the time they are just trying to get it sold to make room for new products. 

Target clearance usually starts out around 30% off. The longer the item sits there, the higher the percentage off will get. Seeing something for 75% off is not rare. I usually look at the clearance when it's 30% off and decide if it's something I really want, or if I can wait to see if it is still there by the time it gets to 75% off. 

So I hope you have found a new appreciation for the wonderful entity that is Target. And I hope these tips can save you some money! 

Frugalicious February

Not much exciting is going on in life right now, so I figured it was the perfect time to blog about one of my favorite topics: frugality(yay!). I know there are many blogs out there that teach you how to be frugal. But for me, none of those things helped at all until I understood the basics of it by someone who had been on the front lines of money saving. Which is why I am writing this rather than sending you off to a different blog. 

Do you know people who go on shopping trips and get everything for free or for ridiculous prices and you wonder "How on earth do they do that??? When I use coupons they are for .50 off of a $5 product and I usually forget to use them anyway."? This was me (and still is sometimes).

And don't get me wrong, even those coupons for .50 add up. I usually head to the store once a week with around $3 worth of coupons (varying from .50 to $1 off) for a grocery trip that is costing me 80 bucks. But they are coupons for things I was going to buy anyway, so that ends up saving me about 150 bucks a year, which is great!

The aforementioned P&G coupon book finally came! Woop!

But the whole extreme money saving thing made sense for me when a seasoned veteran said something like this:

Coupon + Sale = Good Deal

Those people out there who are getting amazing deals are not just using coupons or buying things on sale. They are usually doing both. 

So how do you get started?

 

The coupon part of the equation:

Ever heard of Coupons.com? 

There are a lot of sites where you can get printable coupons, but I have found this site to be a great place to get started. They have lots and lots of coupons for lots of different things. 

I usually browse coupons.com and print out any coupon for something I would normally buy, or was planning on buying in the near future. That way if a sale comes up on that item I already have a coupon for it. Or if I'm definitely going to be buying that item anyway, I get it for a little cheaper.

The sale part of the equation:

Which stores do you normally shop at? If you go to that store's website they usually have a digital version of the weekly ad, which tells you the sales. Look out for sales on anything that you have a coupon for because if your getting it anyway, you might as well get an awesome deal on it. 

Now, an example from my experiences so that you can get a better understanding of what the heck I'm talking about:

My son owns a tag junior reader. It's this little thing that reads books to him so I don't have to. Ha! Anyway. I am always on the lookout for coupons/deals on these books because they are always a good gift for him. Sometime last year a coupon came out for $3 off any Tag Junior book, it didn't expire until February of this year. I printed it just in case a sale came up and I could get an awesome deal. Then in December Target had a sale: buy one Tag book get one free. Now these things are normally $10.99 each. But with the BOGO (buy one get one) sale and my $3 off coupon I got both for 7.99 or $4 each instead of $11 each. Good deal! 

If you're thinking, "well good for you but I'm not in the market for Tag Jr. books right now." No worries, this was just an example, things like this happen all the time with all kinds of different products. 

So, to summarize the lesson for today:

-Print coupons for things you would normally or will buy.

-Check the weekly ads for the stores you normally shop at. 

-If you see a sale for something that you have a coupon for AND would normally buy/WILL definitely use, BUY IT!!!

I will get into everything a little deeper tomorrow and throughout the rest of the week. If you have any questions about what I have said - comment - I WILL answer. =)

Inspitation in Goal Setting

I like to make goals. I have to. I am such a scatterbrain that if I didn't set goals there would be very essential things in life that I would just never do.

 In the process of setting my goals for this year I have come across this bit of wisdom that made me look at my goals in a whole different way. It's called Parkinson's Law, and it states:

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion"

I love this because it puts into words a phenomena I have seen occur thousands of times in my life. Here's a little scenario for you that has happened hundreds of times in our home. 

Monday-Friday: Supposed to clean the house because mother-in-law is coming on Saturday. I start cleaning the kitchen counters and somehow get caught up working on one corner of the counter. All I accomplish in 5 days is a square foot of clean counter and tornado-ridden rest of the house. 


Saturday Morning: Mother-in-law coming in 20 minutes. Clean, vacuum, sweep the entire house and have it sparkling clean by the time the MIL gets here. 

This perfectly illustrates Parkinson's law (okay, I'm sure not perfectly, but I think it's pretty good). When I have a week to clean the house and don't set any specific time limits for specific tasks I end up getting distracted and caught up on one thing. The house does not get clean. 

When I have 20 minutes to clean the house, it is cleaned. 

In the past I have always been timid about goal setting because I didn't want to overdo myself. But this has made me realize that making more goals for myself rather than less is the way to go. So for my 2011 To Do List (aka goals) I plan on adding lots and lots of things to the list and making sure I define my time frame so I don't get too carried away on one thing. 

I am so excited to have stumbled upon this Parkinson's law. For years I have struggled with time management and I feel like this is exactly what I needed to be reminded of. I hope this helps someone else out there. 

i share printables

I just wanted to share a link to this site in case there is anyone who hasn't heard of it. It's called i share printables. It is a collection of cute printable stuff that you can download for free. They have a lot of cute stuff for holidays: cupcake toppers, candy wrappers, and cute quotes to frame.

 I love this quote so much! And I love that all I have to do to turn it into some cute valentines day decor is print it and frame it.

 I thought these candy baggie toppers were too awesome! And the download comes with those little stickers to top off the Reeses. So cute!

I'm going to be checking this site before I send off any holiday treats or throw any parties in the future. And maybe someday I'll contribute with printables of my own. But for now, it's nice to have a place to go where the work is already done for me. All I have to do is click print.

'Cute as a Button' Framed Heart

          One thing we are always needing more of in this house is decor. We have all kinds of little shelvy things with not much to put on them. When I saw this framed button heart floating around the blogosphere I knew just where I could use it. So I got to work making it. 

Supplies:

-Valentine's colored buttons

-Coordinating color of paint

-Paintbrush

-Cheap frame (got mine at $Tree for TWO for a dolla!)

-Glue gun

-Paper

          I started by painting the frame and letting it dry. Easy. 

          

          Then I made a template from the paper that came inside the frame. I did the old 'perfect heart' trick to get my heart super cute and right in the middle. Then I traced the heart and the shape of the paper onto cardstock. 

          I started gluing down the outline of my heart. Once that was done I filled it in. It was not easy. The frame was 4x6. I think a bigger heart would have made for easier piecing. I ended up overlapping a couple of the buttons because I didn't have just the right size for some of the spaces.

          To finish it off I stuck on a label. My labeler was in the same box with my buttons and I'm glad it was, because it gave me the idea for the perfect finishing touch. A little 'love' at the bottom. 

 It's super fast and simple. You could even make it with a kid if you swap out the hot glue for some tacky glue. I like how it looks on my shelf next to my blocks from Target!

Marathon Man

Over this past weekend our family headed out to Death Valley, CA, so that Todd and his dad could run a marathon together. I had never been to Death Valley and was kinda worried about what Luke and I would do while Todd was running all day, but it turned out to be really awesome!

The hotel that we stayed at was like a little village with a general store, restaurants, horse stables, a playground, and even the Borax Museum, which had old buggies, wagons, stagecoaches and trains. This was soooo perfect for Luke as he is obsessed with anything with wheels on it.

 Luke was so lucky to get to spend the whole day with his awesome Grandma Bibi, or "Grandma Baby" as he calls her. She ran around with Luke all day! Luke absolutely loved it, and it was nice that I could take a break from chasing after him!

 About an hour before Todd and his Dad crossed the finish line Luke, "Grandma Baby", and I camped out at the finish line to wait for our boys. We got the opportunity to cheer on the runners that crossed the finish line before Todd came. It was such an amazingly inspiring experience. We watched at least three 70+ year old men finish their marathons and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't get a little lump in my throat every time I watched those men cross the finish line.

 I was so proud to see Todd and his Dad finish the marathon. They did great! Look at that semi-smirk on Todd's face. I know that after 26.2 miles I would not be able to muster any kind of a facial expression.

Luke and I got to give Todd his medal!

We had such a nice, relaxing dinner when the runners were all done, and I can only imagine how good it must have felt for those boys to sit down and eat after the day they had. 

This is the gorgeous sunset we caught on the way home:

I know Death Valley doesn't sound like an ideal vacation spot, but I actually came away quite smitten with it. I am putting it on my list of getaway destinations when Todd and I get the chance to take a little vacation together.

Fun at the Zoo!

One of my goals this year is to spend more productive time with Luke. Like, instead of watching back to back episodes of Ni-Hao Kai Lan (Which, by the way, is teaching him horrible habits! You would think that a network that advertises that it is like preschool for your child would be more careful about what they are teaching kids. )we would do something that would help him learn, or that would be more fun for both of us. 

On Saturday we went to the zoo in Hesperia. I love this place. We got in and out of there for less than 20 bucks including admission, 2 cups of food for Luke to feed the animals, and a little cheetah print jeep toy for Luke. 

                 ***Funny tidbit: Some of the animals, like the monkeys, have little toddler tricycles in their cages to play with. Luke is sooooo obsessed with trikes and cars that when we are looking at those animals he is pointing to and looking at the toy instead of the extremely fascinating animal in front of our faces!

If you live in the area, especially if you have little kids, you need to go here! And I'm so glad we opted for real tigers rather than the cartoon Kai Lan tiger that tells his friends, "I DON'T WANT TO PLAY WITH YOU ANYMORE!!!" Yikes.    

                 

An award? For meeeee?

Why, thank you!

One of my favorite people, Megan, awarded me the stylish blogger award! Thanks, Megan! I do feel like it lowers the standard of the award to be given to a lazy blogger such as myself! But I'll take it!!! I love my blog, however neglected it may be sometimes. I love that it gives me a way to document life when I would never take the time to do so otherwise!

So, along with the award, I have to do some other things. I don't know what happens if I don't do them. Maybe I get erased from the Stylish Blogger Hall of Fame. We don't want that to happen so here it goes. I'll do my best:


Thing #1: Thank, and link back to, the person who awarded you this award
Thanks so much, Megan! I am totally obsessed with your blog. I was just telling my husband the other day how it is such a perfect balance of food, crafts, photography and humor! 
Everyone check out Megan's blog- she's awesome! 


Thing #2: Share 7 things about yourself
1. I have a huge crush on Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec. He is so grumpily handsome! I guess there are younger guys on the show that I could be infatuated with but---meh. Swanson is my man. 

2. I am majorly cursed. My husband and I CAN NOT cook for other people. When we do it always turns out burnt, raw, or deadly in some other way. We have tested our curse out dozens of times thinking maybe it was just a fluke. No, no, it's a curse. 
3. Two things that I wish Todd and I would have done before we started having kids is visited Europe and lived in a big city for a while. I guess now we will just have to wait till our kids are grown and then spring break it up in Europe and New York!
4. I am not creative AT ALL. I would say I am talented, but definitely not creative. I can copy most things that I see, but I could never come up with ideas on my own. Most people don't understand the difference between talent and creativity so people expect me to have good ideas for stuff just because I can make stuff. Not so. 

5. I have a major nap addiction. I literally can not allow myself to rest or lay down between the hours of 1pm-5pm, otherwise I uncontrollably fall asleep for many hours. Some people in my family have narcolepsy. Maybe I should get that checked out. 

6. Favorite dessert when I'm trying to be healthy: Apples dipped in peanut butter and a half-glass of chocolate milk. (Yeah, that is my healthy version of dessert. Can you imagine what I'd eat otherwise.) 
7. Once in college, I pooped my pants a little bit at a Country Steaks all-you-can-eat buffet and I didn’t leave until I finished my second plate of shrimp(***Note: this didn't actually happen but you get a zillion points if you can tell me where it's from!***)


Thing #3 Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers

Well, there aren't 15 and they are not all recently discovered but here are a few people that I know in real life whose blogs are awesome! Sorry, just got too lazy to do 15. I know, I know, revoke my award! 

Maggi's Misadventures
I (Heart) Food
This Just In
Sidmonds Family Inc.
Alter Ego
Cinnaberry Suite
Simpsonized Crafts

These ladies are so awesome! Some of them are ridiculously crafty, some are incredible and hilarious writers, and some make some dang yummy food. Check them out!


Thing #4 Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award!
Done.

P.S. To be deserving of this most honorable award I decided that I am going to try harder at blogging. Stay tuned for my attempts.

Snow Day

I love living where I live. When people visit the desert they always wonder why a person would choose to live here. I have lived here since I was a year old, so the quirks have become charming to me. Christmas day is always sunny, and it wouldn't be Christmas to me if the sun was not shining. In the spring the desert floor is covered with green, of course the green comes from the weeds that are sprouting up, waiting to cause allergy misery. But that is spring to me. 

Another thing I love about where I live is that every once in a while we get a SNOW DAY!!! We never get enough snow to get sick of it, but just enough to give us one day full of pure excitement and fun! 

We loved our snow day!!!

Luke pining for the snow through the sliding door. 

Don't know what this face is all about, but I like it!

 Our snow man fell over when we went inside to get him a  hat. RIP =(