Kettering rec book exchange

Are you tired of your old children's books? Well, the Kettering Rec Center is having a children's book exchange. My friend over at Dealsfordayton.com has full details here.

More FREE fun!

Still looking for fun summer activities to do with your kids. How about going to family friendly movies for FREE! Regal cinemas is offering a free family film festival this summer on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 am. They have many cinemas through the whole country. Here is the line up for my area. Make sure you check out the Regal cinema site to check your area.

Hollywood Stadium 20 2651 Fairfield Commons Beavercreek ,OH 45431 937-431-9418
06/15/2010-06/16/2010	Alvin And The Chipmunks Squeakquel (PG)
	Hotel For Dogs (PG)
06/22/2010-06/23/2010	Imagine That (PG)
	Tooth Fairy (PG)
06/29/2010-06/30/2010	Aliens In The Attic (PG)
	Monsters Vs. Aliens (PG)
07/06/2010-07/07/2010	Polar Express (G)
	Daddy Day Care (PG)
07/13/2010-07/14/2010	Tale of Despereaux (G)
	Surf's Up (PG)
07/20/2010-07/21/2010	Doogal (G)
	Bee Movie (PG)
07/27/2010-07/28/2010	March Of The Penguins (G)
	Kung Fu Panda (PG)
08/03/2010-08/04/2010	Wallace and Gromit (G)
	Open Season (PG)
08/10/2010-08/11/2010	Mr. Bean's Holiday (G)
	Fantastic Mr. Fox (PG)

I'm bummed that I will be out of town for Alvin and the chipmunks...

Giveaway, a discount and a fundraiser!

Have you gotten your mom a gift yet? Are you a mom who wants a gift? Well, you are in luck. My friend Niccole has graciously offered to sponsor a giveaway! She is a consultant with Mary Kay. Mary Kay has high quality skin care, make up, and pampering products for way less than you would pay for at a department store. While the up front cost may be a little more you are getting a better product so you use less, it last longer, and you buy it less often, which saves money in the long run. Since I am all about saving money this makes me happy. Plus, I love the skin care line.

You can win a sparkling honeysuckle body wash, body lotion, and eau de parfum.  Valued at $55!!!! What a great prize, holy cow. This would be a great gift for your mom, mother in law, aunt, sister, or...you could keep it for yourself too (No judgment here) I will keep this giveaway open until May 2 at 8pm eastern time so if you do decide to give it away it will be there for Mother's day.

In addition, Niccole is offering a 10% discount to anyone who mentions my blog when ordering. Since I love a sale this is exciting to me. But wait there's more! On top of the discount she is offering to you, she is also giving our family 10% of all orders to go toward out adoption! How amazing is that!!! So, please, please, please check Niccole's site or give her a call. If you need anything or wanted to try something new, now is the time. Plus, there's a SALE. I always try to stock up when stuff is on sale.

If you are looking for a good gift for mom Niccole has this gorgeous set on sale for only $49.50! (Regularly $55) It includes satin hands and satin lips decorated and wrapped and delivered before Mother's day. This is adorable. Satin hands is one of my absolute favorite things from Mary Kay. It is actually my mom's fave thing too.  :)

If you would like to order there are several ways to do so.

Call Niccole @ 513.910.9509

Email: Niccole@MaryKay.com

Shop online @ www.marykay.com/niccole to order online hit the "contact me for payment" option to receive discount.

Make sure to mention this blog or my name when you order to get the discount and help us raise some baby money. 

There are lots of ways to enter the giveaway:

Ways to enter:

1: Visit Niccole's website and leave a comment telling me your favorite product.

2: Refer others back here to enter the drawing by posting on your facebook.

3: Refer others back here to enter the drawing by posting on your blog.

4: Place a $25 order (every $25 gets another entry, the more you order the higher your chances.)

5: Book an appointment for a free 1:1 facial, glamorized makeover, or pedicure party.

Winners will be picked using random.org on May 2 and announced by May 3. Make sure to check back to see if you won!

Spring declutter

Yesterday I had my hubby ALL DAY! He has had to work the past few weekends and has just been working late so to have him for an entire day was amazing! We worked really hard on just getting our garage organized. It was a painful mess. I didn't get before pictures, but they were REALLY bad.

We have come to the realization that if we are staying in this house we have to seriously clear out some unused stuff. I have very hard time with this, but my goodness it feels great when we do get rid of some stuff. This is our garage sale pile! There is quite a bit of stuff in there. Bonus, making a cleaner house will help us raise money for our baby girl.  :)

While this may not look that great to some. This is a huge improvement for our garage. The great part is we went through a lot of those bins and got rid of stuff in each.

Also, the other day I finished organizing our craft and school supplies. Here are our crafts. There is a paint drawer, a craft supply drawer and a paper/sticker drawer. I don't have pictures of it, but I also cleared out a lot of my scrapbooking stuff. I am selling a lot of my creative memories tools in our garage sale. Somewhat sad, but when I think about what we are getting out of it I'm way more excited. 

I rearranged some of our school supplies also. I will post some pictures soon with all our school set up.

Lollipops have arrived

My 5 lbs of suckers arrived in the mail the other day. It was very fast! My kids were so happy when the saw the bag. I think they thought it was Christmas.  :)

Yet another fabulous giveaway!

Do you like pizza? How about games? Well, if you do you should check out dealsfordayton.com. They have a great giveaway going on right now. Just go here and leave a comment.

Keep em coming...

So, I'm sitting here trying to think of a clever title for this post. I'm so excited I can hardly type. I have been talking about our big endeavor we will be starting and as of yesterday we just got approval. I know this is kind of breaking our number one goal for 2010, but we are PAPER PREGNANT. We are starting an adoption to Ethiopia!!! We have awhile so technically we have a lot longer than a normal pregnancy.

This was not on our radar for a long while. We had a plan to get here in about 5-6 years, but God has other plans. I think God laughs when I tell him my plans, but his timing is so much better than mine. So, I wanted to announce our new journey. Tonight we are signing all the agreements and soon we will start a whole lot of paperwork. I'm so excited. (Have I said that yet?) Ok, I will keep updating as there is more to tell, but for now that's what I've got. YAY!

We are going to get a GIRL, finally!!!!!  :)

SO FUN!!

My friend over at Dealsfordayton.com has a giveaway going on right now I had to share. She is giving away a pair of quack backs. They are encouragement panties! HOW FUN IS THAT. Go check it out here. I think this awesome. Who doesn't love cute panties. :)

Any one need some suckers?

My kids love candy. I know, they are weird... :) I just got a 5lb bag of organic lollipops for $12.88. If you can use some candy with no artificial anything. I know I can find some good use for them. If you are interested check out this post with full details.

Cheap toys!

Hip2save has a post on how you can get the fridge farm for only $4.99! That is a great price for a toy I can tell you from experience my kids LOVE.

Family fun for cheap

Do you like family fun magazine? I do. I love all the cute ideas and crafts. Plus, there are usually coupons inside! That always makes me happy. Well, right now you can get a 1 year subscription for only $5 on amazon. Check it out! But hurry, you never know how long this will last.

clearly I need motivation

I am not doing as much as I had hoped to accomplish. Toys are organized, my closet is organized. I organized the big boys closet and dresser. I started on my night stand, but I need to finish that. By the end of this month I hope to have all my nooks, crannies, and clutter collector areas organized. Here are a few things I have to accomplish until then...

Craft supplies
Kitchen cupboards
Bathroom closet
Linen closet
school supplies
photos
laundry room
stockpile and freezer

And my dirty little secret... THE GARAGE...
So hopefully this week I can get on some of the small stuff and then I will need some hubby help to get through the garage. I'm determined though that this month is for spring cleaning. We need to find some serious stuff for a garage sale. We are hoping to really raise some money for a really big expense we have coming up.

making THIS house MY home

We bought our house almost 5 years ago. I was a realtor's daughter and I just couldn't stand to rent any longer. I really do love our house, but we bought it with the mindset that we would probably only be in this house for about 3 years. We thought I would finish school and then maybe we would think about a family. This would be fine for maybe one child. Especially a baby.

Dan graduated from Purdue on May 15. We closed on our house May 17. We moved in on May 20. We found out we were pregnant around the 2nd or third week of June. Plans change.

So we quickly started filling up our empty home with stuff. Used furniture, baby stuff, college dorm furniture, stuff from my parents house. Before we knew it our house was full. Isaac came in Feb of 2006 and with him came, you guessed it, more stuff. The clothes, toys, baby gear, was everywhere. Then we found out Asher was coming and our office had to be converted to a nursery. At this point we started considering the idea of moving. However, I was so sick and Isaac was a toddler. Plus, by this point we needed to really work on the house to get it ready.

So we dedicated some time to getting the house in order. Then we listed it last year. We had a few showings, but nothing really happened with it. We followed out our contract and then took it off for the holidays. We listed it again this spring. We haven't had a single showing. The funny thing is I'm ok with it.

My plan has always been a big house. I want a room for homeschooling that I can decorate as a classroom. I would like lots of bedrooms for guests to stay. I love hosting so I would love a large open living room and big kitchen. I have dreams of a laundry room with two washers and dryers. I want a basement with a toy room, but also with fun stuff to have youth over. I want a yard where the kids and dog can run. With a swing set and lots of room to kick a ball. I want a master bath with a big tub, a bathroom for the kids, and a guest bath.

However, I am learning I can use what I have to attain the same goals. Our kitchen is tiny, but functional. When we have house church here we just do an assembly line through the kitchen. Our living room is not huge, but we still fill it with friends and we have others over often. We have turned the basement into a toyroom and I use a bookshelf for school stuff. I don't have to have a room designated to each. Just an area that is functional. I am learning to not hold on to stuff to keep more usable space. I'm learning that I don't need more to do more. I'm learning how to get more and more happy with the space God has blessed us with. I'm learning to be content.

Coupon myths

I know a lot of people don't think couponing will be of benefit to them. I really believe everyone can benefit from coupons. I don't care who you are or what your situation,. Somehow, some coupons can make a difference.

Money saving mom has a great post on coupons and why everyone should use them. I love her blog. I have learned so much from her. Check out what she has to say if you aren't a believer in coupons. Using coupons has drastically changed my grocery budget. I feed a family  of five on only $50 more than I used to feed Dan and I when we first got married. Even then I shopped the sale ad, but learning how to coupon has really made a difference. Trust me, if I can do it so can you.

organizing and recycling

So I am on a mission to get my whole house organized this month. It is a huge task, but I know I can do it. I function so much better in an organized area so this is really exciting. One problem I have is that I hate throwing things out. I love finding a new use for old things, but I'm not all that creative.

A few months ago there were some very cheap wipes with coupon at Target. I like to make my own wipes, but when I can buy them cheaper I am all over it. So now I have a handful of wipes containers that I knew I could put to use instead of just pitching them.

Here are a few ideas I came up with:

Crayon box. This is great for all those small packs you get at restaurants and all the random crayons I find running around my house. (Maybe that is just here.)

Plastic bag dispenser. I keep this next to the diapers on the changing table for easy diaper bags. (Plus, this is a good way to use up all those plastic grocery bags.)

Puzzle box. We have a few wooden puzzles with no box so wipes boxes work perfect for keeping all the pieces together. 

Take off the lid and these hold my kids CDs perfectly. I can keep this on our school shelf for listening stations. 

Organizing craft supplies. I have drawers and drawers of supplies and they all get thrown everywhere. This is a great way to keep ribbons together. (or beads, or glue sticks, or scissors, or whatever. 

Also, the ziploc containers that sandwich meat comes in can be used for art supplies or drawer organization. 

When I get a few more boxes I'm planning on using them for kids sock drawers. Also, possibly a missing sock system in the laundry room. A bin for each person and as I find socks without a partner they can go in the bin until their match is found. 

Anyone else have any great ideas for recycled containers. What do you do with wipes bins, ziploc containers, or formula canisters?

Cleaning out the desk area

Yesterday I tackled my office area. It there is one area I do the worst at it is paper clutter. I'm always making piles and then they stack and produce clutter and so on. This project took forever, but it motivates me to not let it go again.  So here are the before pictures...

I know this is really bad, but here are the after shots.

I also cleaned up the bulletin board which you can't see here, but it really needed it too.

Today's project is getting clothes sorted. My kids are each in 2 sizes and I need to get that all figured out. This is a major project also so we'll see how it goes.

Kids bowl free!

Do you have little ones who like to bowl? Do you like free activities for the summer? Well, then this will make you happy. There is a free summer bowling program available for kids. They can bowl up to twice a day for FREE! You do have to pay for shoe rental, but keep your eyes peeled at a garage sale and that may not be an issue.Just go here and sign up.

This picture was us at a bowling night with our student ministry.

living room and hall closet

So here they are the awful but true  before pictures of my living room and front closet. Our closet looks like a bomb went off. So embaragssing...

Isaac wanted to be in the after shot. I still need to sift through the coats to thin it out a bit. I cleaned off the bookshelf and did a little dusting and it actually looks a bit better. I organized some of my table linens and moved some of the excess to the garage. It isn't a huge change, but it is a difference.

Oh so organized

Ok, in case you haven't met me I love to organize. That doesn't mean my house reflects that, but I do love a clean closet. Moneysavingmom.com is hosting a clear the clutter challenge and I have decided to join. I had decided not to throw a garage sale this year. We never get the traffic I hope for and a lot of times it is just not worth my time. So early this year we sent a haul of our old stuff to a local thrift store. However, now we are starting to save for something REALLY exciting, but also REALLY expensive so we are starting to gather things to sell.

So, today I am going to tackle my hall closet and living room. I feel like I redo the hall closet all the time, but it gets bad frequently. So I will be back with pictures, hopefully today. I am looking forward to some prettier space and finding stuff to get rid of. I'm finding I am a slight minimalist.

Free diapers anyone?

So, unfortunately my kids aren't in the right size to take advantage of this, but if you have a child in size 4 diapers check this out! It is a diaper study. Which means you will get free diapers PLUS you might get paid for using said free diapers. HOLLA!!!!!

It's good to be back

We finally got our new computer so I can blog again. YAY!!! I was missing it. So, hopefully I will find some time to get on soon. Right now Asher is not feeling well so mommy is a little preoccupied. :)