Bought my Ticket

Someone will be turning one year old on September 20th,

and Grandma felt the need to celebrate with her.

So it's a date.

They are picking me up at the airport and we are stopping for

ICE CREAM!

1st pigtails - I think Audra was desperate.

 

Lala sent her some Popsicle molds a while back.

Between the heat of New Mexico and waiting to cut her

teeth so late, I figured these icy molds would come in handy.

By the looks of it, she's enjoying them.

Gramie LaLa can't wait to kiss those sweet cheeks

and to take a ton of pictures.

It took me forever to figure out the plane ticket, because

I'd make up my mind that I could only afford to go if the flight was free.

The Delta flying miles account said I could combine miles and cash to get

a flight, so I tried that route.  But the cash they were referring to

was using cash to buy miles, which are ridiculously priced.

It would cost more than original price of the ticket, to buy what

I needed to go with the miles I'd already earned.  Ugh!

So then I had to start back at square one.  Two of my credit cards will mail

me a check, so I used miles from each one to cover the cost of the flight.

I'm flying Delta to get one bag free so I can take hand-me-downs to Rowyn

and hopefully rack up enough miles from this flight to be able to get another

free flight from Delta without buying any of there stupid miles.

  Wish me luck.

Saved Big Time

It's been ages since I bragged about how much I've saved at the grocery store.

Since it won't post right side up, Ill reiterate for you:

Total Meijer Promotions       1.18

Total Noncoupon Savings    15.29

Total Coupon Savings          13.35 

Savings Total                    $ 29.82

What I spent to save this amount was pretty low,

I spent $39.88 - with the bottle return I actually only had to pay $25.88.

My goal is to actually save more than I spend - without using a bottle return.

I'll work even harder next time, since I'm managing to hit pretty close on a

pretty regular basis.

Garage Sale

Can I complain?

Pout?

Cry?

I wanna call the newspaper and let them have it, but

my husband says, I don't have a legitimate complaint.

They ran my ad and I paid them $31.00,

but it was my worst garage sale ever.

Maybe my prices were to high, but I had customers

say that my prices were good and my stuff was clean & neat.

I slashed the prices every day as I said I would in my ad.

My worst problem....not enough traffic coming to my house.

You can't sell anything if you don't have customers.

First day I made $60.00. 

Okay, then subtract my useless ad.  I made less than $30.

Second day I made $28.00.  Whopeee!

Okay, so maybe Thursday isn't the best day to have

a garage sale after all and on Fridays, some people are still working.

But Saturday should have been a good day, the weather was

beautiful.

-Nope -

get this.....

unbelievable

one

(yes, this is true)

one customer, and she was from my neighborhood

making a return visit.

All the days and days of hard work.

And setting up in the 90's & humid day we had on Wednesday.

Yep, all the headaches of harassing my husband to help me

get the boxes down from the loft and haul the borrowed tables etc.

I even tried to get my hubby to stand out at the road and walk

up and down with a sign, but he wouldn't do it.

You would think in this economy everyone would be

out buying stuff at garage sales to save money.

Next.... I have to return the tables,

haul the leftovers to Salvation Army

and call the Pregnancy Hot Line for the baby things.

I'll try to do it without grumbling and mumbling,

but it won't be easy.

Unbelieveable....

Way Back When #__?

I'm busy and have writer's block, so this is what you get today.

Arent' they just adorable in their matching sweaters & necklaces?

Will Amanda ever forgive me for keeping the same hairstyle for so long?



100 Potter's Park

100 pictures that is, of us a Potter's Park in Lansing.
I'll share just a few of those with you.

The weather was beautiful and we had a great time.

This is my friend from work, Natalie and her daughter, Rosie.

The little girls decided not to ride the ponies this time, 

maybe when they are a little bit older.

Daniela riding in style and having a snack, a little something

the birds & squirrels would enjoy if she dropped some.

An African tortoise.  He had this extra shell piece in the front

that his chin could rest on.  I thought that was pretty neat.

I loved these paintings that were in the barn area.

The goats were by far the biggest hit.  They were so tame and laid

back and didn't seem to mind the hordes of kids coming through to pet them.

This goat was scratching her fanny.

It was a real hoot to watch her antics.

Daniela had to great each one with a "Soooo Cute!"

This guy looked like he had orthodontia or false teeth,

his teeth were so perfect and showed like he was smiling.

I like the double picture of the burro and his shadow.

We went in the WINGZ exhibit and fed the birds.

You could buy these little Popsicle type sticks with

 bird seed glued to them and feed the birds by hand.

Rosie was mesmerized.

Both our little ones had a ball at this exhibit and so

did the Mama and the Gramie.

Rosie finally got up the courage to hold a stick all by herself.

"Wow! Look at that --Do you want to try it Daniela?"

She was game, but didn't get any takers.

They had camel rides, but we were chicken.

We decided to ride the giraffe instead.

Personally, I think we had the cutest girls in the park.

These munchkins were asleep before we hit the highway.

It was a fun filled day for all of us and

we highly recommend Potter's Park.

It was affordable, clean, organized and not over-crowded.

New Models are never as good as your Original

Just like when you are watching a movie series and get

used to a certain actor portraying a character, it's never

as good once they switch to someone new.....

Well I think you'll agree, even though these models did

their best, non of them are as cute as my original headband model, Daniela.

I've completed 10 headbands so far.  I have others braided

but not sized or adorned.

Do you like the new leopard ones?

I went to Salvation Army on Tuesday and

found four clothing items for $1.00 each

that I could take apart for material.

These cute leopard ones used to be pj bottoms.

I also bought a tan-colored camo shirt, but

it didn't look  camo  at all once it was braided.

I'm pleased with it still, because it go well with anything khaki.

I also purchased a pink floral skirt that

yielded a whole yard of material, but I haven't

braided it yet, to see what the finished pattern of pinks will look like.

Ashley chose to keep two of these headbands.

 The one Lily frog is wearing

and the leopard one, Kitty is modeling.

This latest project is keeping my hands busy in the evenings,

so I'm not tempted to be snacking.

Drum roll, please***********

So far on Weight Watchers - I've lost

20.4 pounds!

Measure your Heads

It was a success!  I enjoyed making the headbands

and the directions were perfect.

I added a flower to my first one.

Ashley said Daniela wouldn't wear it, but

she kept it on all day.

I'll admit I did bribe her with candy to get these pictures,

but after that I was okay with her tossing the hairband aside, but she didn't.

 She even wore it to the park, where she climbed, swung and

went down the slide for over an hour

and Daniela never lost the headband.

I dressed her in denim, but those pictures didn't turn out as cute

as the first ones I took in pj's.

The brown T-shirt material ones were my first, but

I haven't figured out if I want to finish them as plain

headbands or adorn them somehow.

I'll be making plenty more of these.

Girls if you have any specific colors or styles

you want email me.

I can make for Mom's too if you wish or just the grand-girls,

let me know.

Good Reads

I've been reading in the evenings.  

I have shelves filled with books thanks to Paperbackswap.com

As I posted the pictures it was obvious that there was a theme here.

If you guessed autism, for a change you'd be wrong...

Yes, that's a passion of mine, but these books

all have a child in them.

Just the first one is a special needs child.

I'm not great at writing reviews, so I recommend you

check them out on a book site, such as Amazon.

And now I'm starting this book, which was highly recommended

by my friend Sherry that just visited.

This book is about a teenage boy with Asperger's.

What have you been reading?

I would love to hear what good books have inspired you or

taken you away from your normal everyday life for a few hours.

Daniela's New Friend

Daniela had a play date with Diego last weekend.

He's a year older than her, but they hit it off and played really

well together.

I had to take some pictures, because Diego

wanted to know why he wasn't on my refrigerator.

I said "Oh! Let me take a picture and you'll be on there

next time you come over."

Busy trying to make these......

Headbands anyone? 

 Click here for the instructions  HERE

I borrowed the picture, so you could see what they look like.

You can make them out of old t-shirts or new jersey knit material.

I have some stretch denim I may try as well.

I'll let you know if you should all start measuring your heads.... or not.

Sometimes a craft will really click and I'll make a bunch, and

sometimes these ideas fall flat and never get finished.

Yes, that's the truth...........I have a few of those

unfinished projects in my closet that just won't let me lie.

Anyway, that's how I'm keeping busy at the moment.

Walked 2 1/2 miles this morning.

I picked peppers to put in the freezer for future omelet mornings.

Keeping busy hasn't been a problem so far.

The Ghost Child's Potty Skills

In the middle of the night I heard an unidentifiable sound, something like a cell phone jingle or a game which sounds a tune when you get the answer right.  I thought maybe our recent guests had left their cell phone behind or something.  A few minutes later it sounded again and this time I recognized it as the noise that Daniela's potty chair throne makes when she goes potty on it.

I tried to think up a scenario that would make the potty chair go off without someone peeing in it, but nothing logical came to mind.  Perhaps we had a ghost child in the house practicing their potty skills.  Just about the time I was about to fall asleep the potty made several congratulatory trumpet sounds in a row and then I could hear Ashley in the bathroom frantically taking the potty apart trying to stifle the commotion before it woke up Daniela. 

Reconnecting

We've been friends for 25 years and when we get together

we just reconnect and start again like we never parted

when our girls were in Kindergarten.

We hugged and laughed & cried.

We ate Gus's Greek Salad and bread sticks for lunch.

We talked about our kids, our jobs, our husbands and our pets.

It was much to short, but I know how it is when you have to

make the rounds during a long weekend visit.

We dreamt up ideas for getting together in the future.

It was so good to reconnect, there's no one

else on this earth I can be myself and feel more comfortable with.

After the fourth of....

It's after the fourth of August and I'm still posting after the fourth of July pics.....

so what's new?  I'm always playing catch-up.

These are to good not to share, cute wise anyway.

I think I focused on Sydney, because Griffin is slightly less in focus.

I tried to fix it by playing around on piknic's site using different

applications.

What do you think?  Do you like the edited photo?

Just chilin' on his cell phone.

His big sis doesn't have the corner on posin' anymore.

I love this one.  The pacifier "papi" (as Griffin calls it) disappeared

 a few days after this was taken.

So I dub this one....the last great papi picture.

Stairs are great props for pictures.

Believe it or not, I have even more pictures from our NC trip

that I want to share....but that's another post.