My Saturday--

I didn't get to blog yesterday because I was very busy. My youngest sister in law got married yesterday! I was at her mercy all day long since I was her wedding photographer. Which involved getting up at 5am to get myself ready so I could be her shadow. She looked very beautiful!

So...

I'm rather uninspired today. Perhaps it is because there was so much to be done today. My son got a haircut...I had to find a shirt to wear...housework...made my daughter some flower bows as options to wear..had to clear up my memory cards and do some basic maintenance on my cameras....Now just waiting on my husband to get home so we can drive to his mothers for the weekend. His sister is getting married tomorrow. I am hoping the day goes by smoothly for everyone, myself included (I am the photographer). So I will end todays blog with this:

Free Shipping on Mark orders today!!

Think About it Thursday

My Pinterest Project...

First off let me start by saying this: I am not a crafty person at all. But golly gee Wally, I sure do want to be. So that doesn't stop me from trying. I would almost say that I am craft challenged. No matter how hard I try it just never quite works out for me. I'll admit it. I am green with envy with people like Martha Stewart. Who needs to make gift wrap out of an empty toilet paper roll anyway!

Anyway, on to my little craft project idea that I got off of Pinterest. I plan to do several crafts that I see on Pinterest. This is just Project #1. I am proud of my first try results even though it's not perfect. Maybe just maybe after the 3rd or 4th try I can get it right.

The Supplies

Mod Podge (awesome stuff!)

Work in Progress

Finished Project

Hobby Lobby

Hobby Lobby has got to be one of my favorite stores. If not my #1 favorite store. I can go in there and spend at least an hour just walking around looking at stuff. I went there Monday to get my supplies for my Pinterest project that I previously posted about. While there I saw so many more projects that I want to do and things I just want to buy just because. I found a pretty nice clock that was on on cleareance for $17. I didn't get it and kinda regretting it since it would have went perfect in my living room, but I just might snatch it up if it is still there later this week. Hobby Lobby is definitely going to be where I spend alot of time. I plan on doing lots of crafts. :)



Just click the link below for a great coupon from Hobby Lobby!
In-Store Coupon : Weekly In-Store Specials : Hobby Lobby - Hobby Lobby

Yesterdays "MOMventure"

So, I took the kids to on a picnic and nature hike yesterday. Boy was it hot!! But I believe they enjoyed it. So I just wanted to share some pictures!

                                                           Picnic Before We Hiked

Fun tree face

Catching Frogs

Resting along the way

So pretty!

There was also a covered bridge that we stopped at and could feed the fish and turtles!! After we were so tired we went for a milkshake!

For the Love of Books...

I'm a serious book fanatic. I love books and firmly believe that you can NOT have too many books. (though my husband feels much differently about that) I am always looking for new books to read. I actually have quite a few that I haven't read yet. I just like having them as back up.

I've loved to read for as long as I can remember. My mom had joined a book club for kids when I was younger or something and I remember getting the books in the mail. But my real obsession started when I was in 10th grade and had to do a book report. I went to my schools library and picked up the first one that looked interesting. Thus beginning my love affair with books. That book was Loves Music, Loves to Dance by Mary Higgins Clark.

I loved it!! And I never stopped reading her books. I admit I am definitely behind on reading her books, have a few in my unread "library", but I will definitely be finishing them. She is definitely on my list as one of my FAVORITE authors!!

Lucky #13

Today is my 13th Anniversary! I started dating my husband in 1997 and we got married on this day in 1998! Happy Anniversary!! 

Pinterest and the awesome things it inpsires me to do..

Seriously, I love pinterest! I find about a dozen things I want to do every time I go on there. I have about 100 projects that I want to do right now. But this is currently one of the top 5 things.

I WILL be doing this sometime in the next few weeks!! Will post when I have it completed!

And you can check out my Pinterests at My Pinterest!

Loaded Potato Skins

This is something that I have been craving for a while now so I am adding them to our menu this week. Potatoes are a huge weakness of mine. I could eat them nonstop.  Just thought I would share the recipe!!

Ingredients:

• 6 small to medium sized russet potatoes, rinsed clean
• 8 oz of sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
• 8 slices of smoked, thick cut bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 1/2 stick of unsalted butter
• 6 tbsp sour cream, optional
• 2 tbsp of chopped chives, optional
• Salt to taste
• Pepper to taste

Begin by preheating your oven to 400 degrees. Poke the top of each potato with a fork and place on a baking sheet. Cook in the oven for 1 hour. Once cooked, remove from the baking sheet, and place on a plate to let cool for about 15 minutes.
In the meantime, if you are a fan of sour cream, add the sour cream to a small bowl, toss in half of the chives, mix, and let this sit in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
Cook your bacon, low and slow on the stove, for about 15-20 minutes. Remove the bacon and let any additional fat drain on some paper towel, before you crumble it down.
Once your potatoes are cooled, use a sharp bread knife and you will cut lengthwise, into three segments of one potato, long slices. So each potato will yield two skins, right? Discard the middle slice and reuse for breakfast the following morning, or heck for that matter, add some butter, salt, and cream, and make some rustic mashed potatoes.
Continue this cutting process with the rest of the potatoes. You should then have 12 skins. With a small spoon, being careful, scoop out about 70 percent of the potato, as you still want some potato in your boat.
Next, melt your butter in the microwave. Get your broiler heated to high. Brush the butter on the inside and outside of each potato skin and place them back onto the baking sheet. Season the inside of each skin with salt and pepper.
Place them under the broiler for 8-10 minutes until the insides get a bit crispy from the melted butter. Remove, and place generous amounts of cheddar cheese into each skin, topping with bacon pieces. Place these back under the broiler for about 3-4 minutes until the cheese is nice and bubbly. Carefully remove from the oven, and get ready.

I got this recipe off of Simple Comfort Food! There are so many good recipes on there!! I'm going to be trying lots of them!

Think About It Thursday

I'm a little late tonight had a crazy day! I read the following a few years ago and thought it was brilliant.

An elderly Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life…He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me, it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf is evil—he is fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, competition, superiority, and ego. The other is good—he is joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”They thought about it for a minute, and then one child asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win, Grandfather?”The Elder simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Rule of Thumb

First off, sorry for no entries the last few days. I didn't do Monday Monventure because I was stuck at home. My sister, who live about 2hours away accidentally took them home with her. lol And then yesterday I just had so much to do.

Anyway. So, my daughter is a thumb sucker. The first time she discovered her thumb I thought "Oh how cute, but I'm glad it's not a regular thing". I even posted a picture of it on Facebook. Here is the picture:

Cute right? Well now my daughter is 2 and I have the dilema of trying to figure out how in the world to stop her from sucking her thumb!! My son took a paci. Getting him to stop was so easy. I threw it in the garbage and told him my sisters' dog ate it and that was it. I even tried to reintroduce a paci to my daughter early on, but she refused. Now I'm just worried that I am going to have a daughter who still sucks her thumb when she is 5. (or older!) For me, a last resort would be putting anything on her thumb. I just don't like that idea. :( She does it alot when she is tired, but she will also do it if she is sitting and watching something. This is going to be such a hard habit to break. UGH.

Furniture Project

Today, I came to my sisters house because she found me a nice little piece of furniture. It was hideous looking, but let me tell you...we made it AWESOME! I could not be more tickled with how it turned out.

The hideous BROWN....

 

The Top is Sanded, now for the rest...

Ready to paint!!

This is the first piece of furniture I have EVER been in love with!! LOVE LOVE IT!!!

Let me just say, we will most definitely be doing this again!!! Even through the sweat, this was so much fun to do! 

New beginnings with Mark.

I decided that I would begin selling Mark. What is mark? It is a network of women who sell first to market exclusive products. Makeup, skin and hair care, accessories, we have it all!

I would love to help you in any way I can as your Mark. representative! You can order online at my store  My Online Mark Boutique. Just click the link and it will take you right to me! Also for first time costumers you can use the code WELCOME at checkout and recieve FREE shipping!!!

Fun Fun Fun!

Yesterday was one of my nephews birthday party. We had a blast!! Let me tell you what I learned...
Me+Water Slides= DISASTER! lol Ok, I went down several times and had a blast. But the last time I did..WAS.NOT.GOOD. Let me just say I know have scraped up elbows and a scraped knee. And the way I fell into the water, touching the bottom of the shallow pool, I thought I was being ripped into pieces. BUT it was so much fun before all of that! And I have to say, my sister came out alot worse than I did. She has the same scrapes but she also came out with a know at her eye. I'm wondering if it has turned blue this morning. I'll be heading over there soon to sand and paint a stand she found for me to use for my tv. Here are a few pictures of my son and of the water slides:

This really was a fun place and I only found out it was even in Hunstville in the last couple of months. There is also a area for toddlers and a poll that is about 3ft deep. And indoors there is a rock climbing wall, bumper cars, numerous games, and etc. Oh, and mini golf. So it is a really great place to take the kids! It's called  Southern Adventures. SO MUCH FUN!

Well, today is just an "off" day for me. Meaning I am just not up for anything and feeling a little down. So I am trying to inspire myself to get over the things that are bothering me and just be happy today. I was planning to blog much happier today, but we all have those days were you just want to crawl back in the bed under your covers and not do anything else. Being a mom doesn't allow that though does it? So now I think I will go make myself a stack of pancakes (and I'll make the kiddos some as well lol) and then we just might make a huge fort in the living room and watch silly shows all day. 

Think-About-It-Thursday

Halloween

So, today I got to thinking about Halloween and the fact that it is not that far away. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I love having my children dress up and seeing other little kids dressed up all cute. My son is 9, he stopped being fun to dress a few years ago. Meaning, he wanted to be things like a zombie or and ugly ghoul. No more cutesy costumes for him. His first Halloween he was a cow. Now my daughter has only had 2 Halloweens so far. Her first she was a "flower". She was just 4 months old and I really waited til the lst minute and just never found her anything better. Last year she was a baby chick. I'm excited to try to come up with ideas for their costumes this year. (oh and mine, I used to always dress as a witch, but I've been a clown the past 2 years)

So, I'm think that I just might crochet my daughter a Strawberry shortcake hat and make her a yarn wig. Then I will just have to find the rest of the outfit. I found a blog that has a cute hat like I want here: http://wiccanmakesometoo.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-grandkids-need-hats-for-frozen.html I just am not sure if she has a pattern for it yet or not. (will be looking into that soon)

Work In Progress

So, I am trying to think up new and fun things to do with my blog. So I have decided to do theme days like I have seen others doing. So I am trying to think of what I want to do on each specific day. These are just the ideas I have right now:

Silly Sundays: This is going to be our stay home and chill out day. We will most likely make forts, pop popcorn and watch silly movies.
Monday MOMventures: Every Monday I am going to try to do something fun with my kids. I don't want this to get expensive so I will mix it up and try many different things.
Try it Tuesdays: I am always ALWAYS trying to get my kids to try new things. So on these days I will be cooking new recipes for ALL of us to try. I've already been wanting to cook more so this will give me and excuse.

I'm still thinking up the rest of my week. I am open to any suggestions! I will update when I decide all of my days!

Deals Deals Deals!!!

 So I am trying to learn the tricks of the trade when it comes to couponing and using sites like www.livingsocial.com or  www.groupon.com . I have NO clue what I am doing when it comes to couponing, but hope to learn fast. I see so many people say that saved a very nice amount of money. Ok, to me anything over a $20 savings is nice to me when it comes to coupons. lol But I've seen people post that they have save OVER $100. That is amazing to me. My only thing is that I want to be using coupons for products I WANT and NEED because I have also seen people post that they really didn't need the product but they got it anyway because of the deal. To me, that is just me spending money on something I will not use. I have yet to take advantage of anything off of Groupon, but I made my first LivingSocial purchase today. I got a coupon book to various places in my city for $10. That is a pretty great price to pay considering the amount of coupons in the book.

Any of my fellow bloggers out there that can give me tips to save $$$$, send them my way!!!

Oh Today, you are NOT my friend...

Or is it Oh apartment stairs, I hate you. My plans for today included taking some Engagement portraits of my cousin Ryan and his gorgeous fiance Shaina. They had never been to our new place before so I was kinda keeping watch out the window for them. I spot them and he calls my phone at the same time. My phone, being a picky little android, was having a moment and just refused to let me answer so I RUSH down my apartment stairs so I can let them in. Now, my husband and I have have prior discussions about leaving our lights to  our stairs on because we have both missed the bottom step. So, you see where this is going. Not only did I miss that bottom step..but I MISSED that bottom step...bad. Honestly on the way down I was concerned that I was going to break my neck. Several things went through my mind and out of my mouth..I actually really hope the neighbor didn't hear. So I landed very badly on my foot. It's not broken because I did grin and bear it and limp through the portraits. BUT this hurts very bad and now after not taking care of it all day, I can not walk. I was able to limp before but I had my husband help me off of the couch and got up wrong and now it hurts worse than in did a few hours ago. Which suck because I really REALLY need to run to the grocery store.

I am at least tickled with the portraits. :)

Pictures from the beach...

So we actually got back from the beach fairly early on Monday, but I was so wore out that when we got home we just dumped our stuff and bummed on the couch. So this week was dedicated to cleaning and just chilling out. I loved the beach and had a great time, but the 7 hour trip home I did not like. My son had an AWESOME time. He loved playing in the ocean. My daughter didn't really care for the ocean until our last night there. We had went down so I could take some pictures of my cousin and the kids ended up in the ocean, in their clothes. Here are some pictures:

Oh, we stayed at the Beach Club in Gulf Shores. VERY NICE place. It is a perfect if you want to go and just relax on the beach and not have to worry about all the tourists and touristy things. It is separated from the main drag in Gulf Shores. We have already decided that this is going to be our go-to place when we go back. This is one of the I believe 4 buildings that are part of Beach Club.



My Facebook Page for Willow Blue

Just got it going and hoping to add more to it soon. Check it out! http://www.facebook.com/pages/Willow-Blue-Creations/212417838795571

Beach Bound Baby!!!

As soon as my husband gets home from work we are beach bound!! I am excited about it because it is my daughter's FIRST time going to the beach and my son has been dying to go! The trip came unexpectedly thanks to my sister. :) However, I am so not looking forward to the drive. I figure once you calculate pit stops, we will get there about 1am. UGH...and I am doing all the driving. I planned on napping today but that just did not happen. I had to go renew our car tags, stopped and got some beach toys, and my house still needed picking up due to my procrastination yesterday. The good thing is that I pack days ago. I just had to get it all out and into the car. Which is halfway done right now due to the fact that it is ridiculously HOT. I am hoping to be on the road at 6:00pm. I love going to the beach, I just hate all it takes to get there. Hopefully I will have some awesome pictures to share with everyone. If I can get at least one great picture of my own children I will be a happy woman. But my children never cooperate with me it seems. I think most of my time will be spent trying to keep my daughter from swimming away. She loves to swim and I just know she is going to love the water!! Pretty much the plans are just to bum at the beach and pools. I'm taking a flashlight and some buckets so that we can catch some crabs on the beach at night. Will share some pictures soon. :)