Hallmark Shopping/Saving Spree

The benefit of subscribing to a bazillion magazines is that when a coupon promotion runs through a group of them, I end up with a stack of money saving gems.

This one from Hallmark is pretty good. You save $5 on a purchase of $10 or more. So as you can imagine, I've been over there several times in the last few weeks.

First I snatched up this Eeyore mug. Cute, Cute, Cute!

And I also got Kyle his baby ornament.

But best of all, according to Tyler anyway, is the new Countdown to Christmas ornament.

You just give the ornament a tap and the screen lights up so you can see how much time is left, down to the second, until Christmas.

Black Friday Deals

Last year on Black Friday, Rick and I took Tyler with us when we went shopping for early morning deals....which was kind of silly because we couldn't really shop for him since he was right there with us. So this year we decided that if we saw any good sales, one of us would stay at home with the boys while the other went to the store.

Well none of the sales motivated Rick all that much, so I was free to go out by myself. All I was interested in though were the sales at Joann's and The Craft Warehouse. I didn't go crazy, but I did pick up a few things....

At Joann's I picked up several pairs of sewing scissors for a great deal. They were 60% off plus I had a coupon for an additional 25% off the purchase total. I also used the 50% off 1 item coupon on a card making idea book. Then at The Craft Warehouse I got a new BG calendar for 40% off, which is about as good as it gets for those.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today at our house it was all about the 'feast', as Tyler called it. I went to the grocery store early this morning to pick up the newspaper along with a fruit tray and a cheese and cracker platter so the boys would have plenty of food to munch on throughout the day.

Since I was in charge of cooking the dinner, which is sometimes hard to do with a little baby, I decided to go a bit easier this year. I made only 1 pie and skipped the homemade rolls. Still it took forever to get everything finished and we didn't sit down to eat until 5:00.

Mmmm, but the yummy food was definitely worth the wait.

As for the highlights, I went with Alton Brown's recipe for roast turkey for the second year in a row.

And I tried a new stuffing recipe. My old one with artichokes and parmesan was too fancy for the boys and they never ate much of it anyway. So I went with a recipe I saw Sandra Lee make on Good Morning America....it's just a straight up basic stuffing with the addition of walnuts and yellow raisins.

Following the theme of Food Network recipes, I made a batch of Paula Deen's sweet potato biscuits as seen in the latest FN magazine. Much easier than yeasted rolls.

We also had mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, deviled eggs, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie for dessert.

Now with a stuffed belly, I'm off to go look at the ads. We don't really plan on doing much for Black Friday, but I'm going to the Craft Warehouse in the morning for sure so I can replace the Basic Grey calendar I lost in Seattle.

First Snow

Yesterday was our first official snow of the season, which brought us about an inch of the white stuff. And even though we knew it was coming, it still caught us unprepared.

The trampoline is still set up in the backyard.....guess it's time to put it away for the winter.

And we never even had a chance to rake up the leaves that have been falling from the trees.

Heck, we still have our pumpkins from Halloween on our front porch.

But even with the small amount of snow that fell, Tyler was still able to make a snowman.

Albeit a small one.

A really small one....but that's what baby carrots and tiny buttons are for.

Pacific Science Center

On our last day in Seattle we spent the afternoon at the Pacific Science Center. It had been several years since our last visit and since Tyler's older now, he was able to appreciate the exhibits a little bit more.

One of his favorite things was this wheel and gear gizmo. The more you spin the wheel on the outside, the more gears you can get to turn on the inside. The first gear represents 10 spins of the wheel, the next 100 spins and so on. Tyler was super determined to get the billion gear to spin....but that never happened. Maybe next time.

Making our way up to the plaza level.

Where we walked around in circles trying to find the cafe. Let me tell you what....don't follow the map they give you, it's terrible!

Then Tyler spotted the Perplexus maze ball that he saw in the latest Family Fun magazine and that he desperately wants for Christmas. We were stuck here for awhile.

While Tyler was doing that, Rick and I were trying to play the giant Rubicks cube, but it turned out you needed three players to operate all the sides. If only we could have pulled Tyler away from the Perplexus maze ball, then we would have been in business.

At the animal exhibits I fell in love with the naked mole rats. Yes, they're kind of ugly....but so much fun to watch.

Kyle and I checking out the Puget Sound model.

Then we took turns at the anti-gravity mirror. Tyler had trouble hiding his left leg all the way so it kind of looked like he had a tail.

My turn. I should have stuck my leg straight out in front of me rather than bending it at the knee so it would really look like I was floating. Oh well.

In the butterfly room, Rick and Tyler stopped to play the pyramid game. It's kind of like Chinese Checkers where you have to move all of your pyramid pieces from one corner of the board to the other.

And before long we were all out of time and had to leave, but hopefully we'll be back again soon. Maybe we'll be able to catch the King Tut exhibit that's coming next year.

Nightmare Weekend

We spent our Veteran's Day weekend in Seattle with the purpose of attending the CK Scrapbooking Convention and also hitting a few family attractions. We got into town late Wednesday night, went right to the hotel, unpacked the car (for the most part) and went straight to bed. Then in the morning we found this:

The driver's side rear window on our car was gone.

Well actually, half of it was on the ground.

And the other half was inside the car.

Someone had broken the window so they could steal my scrapbooking bag that had been sitting on the floorboard. Nice.

So instead of going to get breakfast or doing anything else, we spent the majority of the day at the hotel dealing with the police and such.

Tyler didn't mind, he had computer games to keep him busy.

And I hung out on the bed with Kyle while Rick was out trying to find a shop that could fix the window on such short notice. Turns out everyone was either booked solid or didn't have the window in stock. Anyway Rick finally found a place that could order the window and put it in the next day.

So with that out of the way, we spent the rest of afternoon at the local craft stores trying to replace my basic supplies so I could still participate in the classes I had on Friday and Saturday.

Friday morning we headed over to the Meydenbauer Center for my first two classes. I didn't take any pictures at all on Friday or Saturday because I.just.didn't.care.

This is what I worked on though. My first class was called Merry and Bright Christmas Cards and we made 4 cards and 1 gift tag. I got most of them done, but I still need to finish that card in the top right.

The next class I took was called The Latest and Greatest Basic Grey and in that one we were making 4 different page layouts. That class was way too fast paced for me and I essentially got nothing done. I'd like to say, 'no problem, I'll just finish it later', except for the fact that the class kit comes with NO written instructions.

I finished the classes around noon and still had a few minutes to browse the booths at the convention center before we had to split to meet up with the window guy. By that time the storm had rolled into town and it was raining buckets. BUCKETS. Let me just say, thank you for garbage bags.

Then on Saturday I had a card swap and two more classes. Needless to say, the cards I made for the swap were in my bag that was stolen, so I had nothing to exchange with the others.

I had made 3 different cards....a congratulations one with a bride and groom on it, a coffee themed one that said 'espressly for you' and a thank you one. I try not to think about the time I put into these for nothing.

I still attended the swap if for nothing else than the free magazine, but the others were kind enough to share their cards with me despite the fact that I had nothing to give them in return. I felt like the sort of person that goes to a potluck empty handed but leaves with a full belly. It made me feel bad.

Here's a look at the cards I got...they're nice, huh. And see that one in the top left (with the deer)....a guy made that one, with his cricut no less.

In my next class we worked on 4 coordinating layouts that were created by Ali Edwards. Mine are still a work in progress.

My last class was called Dazzle Cards and it used a kit from Hot off The Press to make 10 different cards. I finished two of them, but honestly this was my least favorite class. Not really my style, I guess.

I also attended both crop nights at the Hilton and here are the prizes I won. A simple page kit and a sewing kit from Stampin Up that included fabric, batting, and gold thread.

At the convention I won a door prize for $15 at the Paper Loft booth, so I bought a mini Christmas album kit and a pack of cardstock.

And now that I'm back home, it shouldn't be too hard to find a place for my new stuff....my scrapbooking room suddenly seems so much roomier.

Friend or Foe

Friend :)

With Tyler we discovered the cutest line of toys for babies, so of course we had to get some for Kyle as well. The brand is called Lamaze and their toys have all kinds bright colors and textures that are perfect for babies 3 months and up. This guy here is Stretch the Giraffe and Kyle has been having a great time with him. Two of his feet have jingle bells in them, one has a squeaker and the other one makes crinkly noises. Let me tell you what....Stretch gets a smile every time.

Halloween 2011

Halloween being on a weekday this year made things a little more hectic, but we still made it work. Once Tyler got home from school we really had to jam to make sure everything was done in time before the trick-or-treaters starting showing up. 

First on our to-do list was to carve out a few last minute pumpkins.

Tyler carved that pumpkin on the bottom and added it to his collection, bringing his total to 3 pumpkins carved.

I carved these two the other day....a cat bat and some ghosts.

These are mine too. A ghoul floating over some tombstones and Phineas from the Phineas and Ferb cartoon. I did that one last, but I kind of wished I'd saved some of the other pumpkins for Ferb or Dr. Doofenshmirtz or Perry because that was everbody's favorite.

During the day Kyle wore his festive Halloween shirt that had three glow in the dark ghosts. Cute, right?

But here's his real costume. He's a Tootsie Roll.

And here is Tyler just as he was heading out to go trick-or-treating.  He did not appreciate me taking pictures of him although he loved his costume, so that explains the not so happy look on his face.

Rick stayed home and handed out the candy as usual. I bought 9 bags of candy this year...you know the smaller 9-11 oz sized ones. Anyway, it was all gone in less than an hour. Craziness! It must have had to do with all those drive by vans that unloaded hoards of trick-or-treaters from who knows where. Um, don't they have their own neighborhood?

Still Tyler was able to collect a nice haul before everybody starting running out of candy and turning off their lights.

You'll notice that there are no Twix or Almond Joy....I already stole those for myself. Too bad he didn't get any Mike and Ike's. I love those things.