Good deals!

Today was the day of shopping! I went out to a local kids consignment event this morning and did pretty well for C. I have been wishing I had a portable booster seat high chair and also a changing pad. (I bought a large purse instead of a traditional diaper bag which usually includes one.) I found both things as well as a little pop up toy. One of his grandparents have one and he loves it. I also found a cute little musical dog and a few tops. All this for $21. Yeah!

The haul!

While I was there I also picked up some Norwex cloths. I've been wanting an all purpose one and also their window/glass polishing cloth. 

I.am.in.love. 

I cleaned four windows this afternoon and I seriously had fun! :)

I hit Target on the way home to just get a few things, but C actually fell asleep, so I decided to walk around and do some shopping. I found some great stuff! 

Maternity swimsuit bottom (to go with a top I got somewhere else.)

Cute jade colored dress. Maternity, but I'm going to wear it now. Watch for it in a WIWW post soon!

Chrome piggy. I've been eyeing him for several weeks. Originally  he was 10, then dropped to 5 a couple weeks ago, but I couldn't justify the $. Today he was 2.50, so he got to come home with me. :)

Grey leggings.

Two lamps and two shades. (Wasn't crazy over the ones that came with the lamps.)

The lamps were reg. $30 each, but I got them for $6.75!!! The shades were reg. 15 each, but I got them for $3.75 each. Major score!

Because I love this type of thing...

                                  

                                                 Regular price this would have cost $156

                            I actually paid $41.50

                                                                              -------------------------

                                       I saved $114.50

Have you gotten a great deal lately???

Giveaway for a cause

I came across a beautiful story today. A story of a woman, named Sharlie, who is battling cystic fibrosis. She has been surviving on 18% of ONE lung. She is currently waiting for a double lung transplant. Two of her closest friends decided do what they could to help her raise money for the procedure. They put together an online shop from which all proceeds will go to pay her medical bills.

I was very touched when I saw this. I noticed that they were asking anyone who wanted to support her to consider doing a giveaway one their blog. I immediately knew I wanted to do it.

So here's the deal. I am giving away a free pair of earring from my shop. Winner chooses.

Here's a few things that are currently in my shop.

To get entered in the drawing leave me a comment letting me know you donated $5 here or purchased something here. You can get extra entries for each additional $5 you donate.

Thanks for supporting this beautiful woman.

Simple Lasagna

  Recipe time!

Here's what you need for a 9x13 pan of lasagna:

1-1 1/2 lbs. ground hamburger

2 cloves garlic

2 jars pasta/spaghetti sauce

1 can mushroom

1 large container of cottage cheese

 1 egg

1/2 cup parmesan

1 box lasagna noodles

        

 Cook the meat with the garlic (minced).

.

While that's cooking, stir together cottage cheese, egg, and parmesan.

Drain the meat. Add spaghetti sauce, spices (I usually add basil and oregano), and mushrooms.

In greased 9x13 layer 1/3 meat mixture. (I added tomatoes from the garden. Yum!)

Layer uncooked noodle and 1/2 cottage cheese mixture. Drop it on....

....then spread it out.

Put on another 1/3 of the meat mixture and another layer of noodles.

Add the other 1/2 of  the cottage cheese mixture.

Add the rest of the meat mixture and a little bit of mozzarella cheese.

Bake covered for 40 minutes at 375. Uncover and cook for another 20 minutes.

Let sit for 10 minutes.

Keeping the lasagna covered for 40 minutes helps cook the noddles through so you don't have to precook them. I like to make as few dishes as possible when I cook, so I love that about this recipe!

The finished product!

New Jewelry

  I've been busy!

 Here's some new designs I've been working on

 Anchors away!

 Pearl cluster necklace.

 Multi glass Necklace

 Boho Sparkle Earrings

 Filigree Dangles

 Pearl Chandeliers

Freshwater pearls, Mother of Pearl, and brass necklace.

 Filigree Puff Heart w/ freshwater pearls

Some of these are listed in my shop

I'll be getting the rest of them up soon!

90 day challenge update

I am almost 2/3 of the way through my challenge! 34 days left!

 

If you didn't read my first post about what I'm doing, here it is:

                                                                 Joining the Challenge

I'm loving this! I make a shake for breakfast that 23 vitamins and minerals in it and it tastes great. The best part? This is "breakfast dishes":

 

Now that I'm done breastfeeding I can eat chocolate so I've started making a chocolate peanut butter shake. Um.... Pretty much amazing! I just use a little peanut butter powder from the Hy-Vee health food section  and cocoa powder mixed with the shake mix.

I'm doing much better with working out. I have a kickboxing DVD that I've done sporadically, but I've decided to start trying to do it three times a week. I learned a great tip while reading a magazine article this week; "Don't let yourself take shower before you do a work out." This has helped me a lot! I got in the three kickboxing workouts this week on top of my walking.

What about you? What is a tip you have learned that helps you be more disciplining with your eating habits or exercising?

Finished!

Within a few days of leaving the hospital we had a couple awful nights with C. Nothing could console him. He would screw up his little face and scream. We tried the swing, holding him, bouncing, rocking, his vibrating bouncy seat, even the car! It was so sad! We couldn't figure out what was wrong!

I was nursing him at the time and we pin pointed that it was something I'd eaten, specifically lasagna. I soon discovered that C couldn't tolerate tomatoes in any form. (Bye, bye spaghetti, pizza, lasagna, salsa, and italian.) Unfortunately, those were not the only things he couldn't stomach. Soon my list grew to include:

Coffee
Chocolate
Onion
Garlic
Peppers
A lot of dairy
Chinese
Mexican food

So basically all of my favorite foods. Nursing didn't really end up working for me, but I very much wanted to give C breast milk because of all the benefits. ( Have you ever been to a hospital class about breast feeding? They tell you that your child will have less allergies, be smarter, have a stronger immune system, read younger, have better hand eye coordination, have less ear infections, and grow up to have super powers. Ok, I made up the last one, but really, they make it a big deal.)

So, I decided to pump for him. My goal: one year. I had no idea what a huge time commitment it would be. At first I had to pump 6-8 times a day (Including in the middle of the night) to keep up with C's demand. Until just 2 months ago I was pumping 5-6 times a day. It meant every time I went somewhere I had to think about finding a place to pump or working around getting back home to do it. And of course I still couldn't eat any foods off my list.

C turned one on the 3rd. This Saturday I pumped for the last time. It was kind of ridiculous how excited I was to be done. Since then I have eaten a chocolate blizzard, salsa, chocolate fudge granola bars, onion, ketchup, and tonight I'm making Lasagna! I plan to get coffee ASAP. I'm a bit of a coffee snob, so I want to wait until I could get to my favorite shop to get a traditional macchiato. (2 shots of espresso with two oz. milk. Seriously amazing!) 

There were many times a long the way I wanted to quit, but I'm glad I stuck with it. There have been several benefits. C hasn't had any ear infections, only a few colds, and is well on his way to being able to cut holes through walls with his laser eyes.

Mission accomplished.

A Confession

I have been married for 3 years. ( That's not my confession) 

I haven't once cleaned a single window in our home. I shared this fact with my husband last night and he said, "I don't doubt this. My sweet wife is not a fan of cleaning. This is also the same woman that I reminded to dust, vacuum and mop the kitchen floor in the early days of our marriage."  :) 

Tis true. I am not a clean freak and as it usually works in marriage, my husband is. Any ways... I decided that today is the day. I am going to tackle these windows before winter.

I'm going to take it in pieces though. I've learned that I am a person that will be much more likely to attack a project if I can break it into bite sized pieces. I have 12 windows. If I do three a week I'll have them done by the end of this month. 3 a week seems reasonable. 

I do this with lots of things. When I have a huge pile of laundry I just tell myself I'm going to put away all the bath towels and hand towels. Then I come back to it and hour later and hang all the hanging clothes and so on. Otherwise I just procrastinate and don't make any progress. 

Sometimes I get frustrated because it's more difficult for me to get things done now that C is so active and getting into things all the time. I'm learning to adjust my expectations. The last few times I've gone grocery shopping I've felt frustrated because once I'm back home and get everything put away I don't have much of the day left. Last week I had an aha! moment; I need to expect on grocery day that groceries are probably all I'm going to get accomplished. And that's ok!

I think the biggest thing that's helpful for me right now is making a list with just a few key tasks for the week. This week's are windows, cleaning up the garden a bit, mailing a package, menu planning for Monday's grocery trip, making a few pieces of jewelry, and doing a couple blog posts. Each day when I have some down time (Like naps) I pick one task and work on it til it's finished. Later that day if I have more time, I'll go after then next item. This has helped me be much more productive. 

Here's a great post I stumbled on yesterday about being ok with not always getting everything done every day. It was very timely because I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Check it out Here.

I will leave you with a before and after picture of my windows.

BEFORE:

 See how clouded and fuzzy it is. Blech!

AFTER:

 Ahhh..... That should do it for another 3 years..... :)

WIWW

I wasn't going to participate in WIWW this week because I thought I only took pictures of a couple outfits this week, but when I looked I actually did 5! 

Running errands:

 I've been trying to be a bit more creative with my hair. The front worked....

 The top....not so much.

I borrowed the inspiration for this outfit from Linda Z. over at  Thoughts on These Things

Here is her outfit where she combined florals and military. Love!

Wedding:

 Top: GW $3

Cami: Gordman's $7

Skirt: Hand-me-down

Necklace: Thrifted .25 cents

 Four generation picture with my Mom and Grandpa.

Church on Sunday:

 Dress: Target

Cardi: Target

Belt: Thrifted $1

Leggings: Walmart

Shoes: Naturalizer

Michael's craft supply run. (Yay!)

 Top: Gordmans $7
Jeans: Kohl's

Headband: Claires

1 Year Doctor Check for C:

Necklace: Two Jennifers

Here's their fb page. They have a lot of great designs.

Sweater: Thrifted $3

Lace cami: $7

Skirt: Hand-me-down

Shoes: Bear Traps, Younkers

Birthday Boy

We celebrated C's birthday yesterday with our immediate families and it was a lovely time. 

We kept things simple, which was perfect, but a little difficult for me. 

I'm a DIY-er and I love to make food from scratch so I wanted to make everything, but I realized that would just be stressful. I didn't want to slave in the kitchen all day and miss just being with C and the Hubster. So I made some shortcuts and I'm glad I did. The day was very relaxed and fun. Hubby, C, and I even had time for a walk before family came. 

There's a phrase that I've heard in blog land that I think originated with the Nester

"House work done imperfectly still blesses your family."

In my case, "A meal and cupcakes not all entirely made from scratch still bless my family."

The menu:

Beef dogs
Potato Salad
Watermelon
Chips/ fresh salsa
Veggies and dip

Cupcakes

The short cuts I took; buying the potato salad, (Wal-Mart has a great loaded baked potato one) buying veggie dip, and using a cake mix for the cupcakes. I did make my own frosting though. I don't like store bought at all. I'm a bit of a frosting snob. :)

Here's a few shots of the cupcakes. (Yellow and green were my theme colors.)

I love baking pretty stuff like this. I used be a baker at a coffee house and made stuff like this everyday. I told Hubby I loved doing this again and he said, "Just feel free to bake for me whenever you want!"

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I wondered what C would think of presents since the last time he 'opened' one was back in December. He thought the bows were pretty and sorta got into opening them with Dad's help. It was fun to see his reaction when he saw the actual gifts.

 A new book! C loves to read.

 Chef's hat... (Look at those cute little teeth!)

 ..and apron. They didn't stay on very long.

 Starting to get the hang of it!

 Hey guys! Can I get to my present??? :) 

C's cousins thought his presents were pretty cool too.

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We went for the traditional "let the kid destroy the cake" method. (In this case 'cupcake.')

 I think I like it.

 Yep! Good stuff!

 Smushed and smeared cupcake.

He got a little messy, but really not too bad! I wasn't too surprised because he's usually a pretty tidy eater.

Hope you had a fabulous Labor Day!