It's my BLOG and I'll cry if I want to

Over at 5 Minutes for Mom they are having another wonderful contest! The winner of this contest will win a bedroom set for their little one. My 5 year old sure could use this! We have been looking around at different sets for her since she is still in a toddler bed. She is finally just too big for it anymore and this would be a wonderful win for us with another little one on the way. The rules include posting a picture of your "sleeping angel" so here she is.....

Doesn't she look so angelic?




Here is the bedroom set we are hoping to win! It is called the Lily Rose.

This morning I decided to tackle my tomatoes. I went out and picked my cherry tomatoes that have been turning the last few days.


Over the weekend I also tackled the ever fun job of going through the kids wardrobe and weeding out the stuff they outgrew. Last night I went to the outgrown shop and picked up 3 name brand outfits for my kindergartener for fall and a cute little baby gap sweater for the new baby and also a London Fog snowsuit for baby too (snowsuit was only 18.00) my total bill was only 54.50. I think I did good.
What have you been tackling?

Monday Beef Stroganoff
Tuesday Pulled Pork Sandwiches and fries
Wednesday Chicken Fingers, mac and cheese and applesauce
Thursday Take out Pizza and wings
Friday Sausage, butter noodles and veggie
Saturday Italian Chicken, lipton rice pack and veggie
Sunday Roast Beef in crockpot, mashed potatoes and carrots

Stop by Organizing Junkie for more great menu ideas!!

Handbag Planet is almost here. To celebrate the October 15, 2008 launch, we are giving away a free handbag every hour for 24 hours on the day of the launch. Our high fashion, trendy handbags are inspired by popular designer brands and priced between $30 and $80.
Sign up today for your chance to win!!

Ok, so I need to get a new washer. Of course I would love to get one of those fancy expensive ones (in a nifty color) but my budget does not allow for it. Instead I have been looking online and found these three models.

Maytag Bravos 3.8 Cu. Ft. Washer

Whirlpool®
3.8 Cu. Ft. Ultra Capacity Plus Washer


White Kenmore Elite Oasis™ Agitator 4.5 cu. ft. Capacity Top-Load Washer

They are all in the price range I am willing to pay. Any one have any recommendations or have one of these I would love to hear what you have to say.

Galco sells tactical gear of all kinds. They offer free shipping on all orders over $50.00, free tactical operations flashlight with of over $100 in products, 3 free pairs of socks with the purchase of boots. They have a wide assortment of clothing, holsters, flashlights, gloves, accessories and more. Remember the holidays are fast approaching stop by and check them out today for the best selection! And don't forget to sign up for the newsletter too so you don't miss out on any specials!!

Today I am spending the day going through the summer clothing in the house. I doubt we will get any hot weather anymore so I am packing it up to store until next year and digging out all the fall/winter clothing that was packed away.
DH and middle son are out hunting. They love to be in the woods and now the dreaded hunting season is upon us. I don't mind them going and enjoying themselves but it does take away from much needed sleep for me on some days. (in case you don't know I work the night shift and then come home to care for the kids) Maybe I will get lucky and they will get their deer today and put an end to the everyday hunting.....


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A picture of my son at the races last weekend.

I just came across a cool blog called Life is like Champagne



I really like this blog. She also has a lot of great giveaways like this one for Shop Wise Reusable Grocery Bags. These are very unique grocery bags that are handmade. And Shopwise gives 10% of all profits from these bags to Heaven's Gate , a home in India for children with AIDS.

Stop and check both sites out!!!

I wish I would have remembered pictures but today I tackled my backyard weeds and things that needed to be pruned. I have 2 butterfly bushes that I trimmed back quite a bit. And a passionfruit vine that I took down from my lattice fencing. I feel much better that all that is done now for fall. Now to go get some fall mums and plant them in the containers I used over the summer for my tomatoes. I promise I will put pictures of the mums when I do them probably this weekend.

Frugal Upstate shares a tip on fabric softener sheets and an alternative to using them. I really like this idea and may have to try it myself.

She writes: Speaking of the dryer-you don't have to buy dryer sheets. I bought a huge bottle of the cheapest fabric softener I could find about 2 years ago (less than $2 for the bottle) I bought some sponges from the dollar store (4 per pkg) and cut two of them up into 8 pieces each. I soak the pieces of sponge in a mixture of about 1 part softener to 8 parts water. When I throw my laundry in the dryer I squeeze out a sponge until it is just damp and throw it in with the laundry. When I fold the laundry I take the dry sponge and throw it back in the mixture. I've read that some folks like to put their mix in a spray bottle and either spray it on a washcloth and throw it in, or else just spray it onto the laundry.

Check out her blog for other great tips!

Mercedes over at Common Sense With Money is giving away a Couponizer this week.
If you win this is what you will be getting:

The Couponizer® – 8" x 5 ¼�? booklet with 18 grocery coupon pockets, 4 Non-grocery coupon pockets, 3 gift card/shopper loyalty sleeves, shopping pockets
Shopping List – 20 page tear off list pad with cardboard backing
CoupStacker – pre-sorting mat color coded to match the system pockets
CoupTracker – 15 page spiral bound list pad with cardboard backing
“Your Guide to Smart Savings�? – instruction booklet with spending strategy and coupon tips
Scissors – blunt tip
Carrying Bag – clear vinyl zippered bag
AND it comes with the Free Book" The Greatest Secrets of the Coupon Mom"

She is celebrating her 1 yr blog anniversary with giveaways all week long. Stop by and check out her blog and enter a giveaway yourself! I know I sure could use one of these couponizer's myself to get all my coupons in order!!!

Organizing Junkie hosts Menu Planning Monday each week and with this week being Family Favorites I thought I would join in.
Here is our menu for the week

Monday: pasta and sausage

Tuesday: LO (leftover) Homemade Chicken Corn Noodle Soup

Wednesday: Meatloaf (I use a McCormick seasoning packet for this and my gang love it)
Mashed Potatoes
Candied Carrots

Thursday: BBQ Pork Chops on grill
Buttered Noodles
Broccoli

Friday: burgers and dogs at the High School football game

SAturday: LO meatloaf slices with gravy, baked potato and corn

Sunday: Chicken Patty sandwiches and french fries

Wow, I woke up this morning to a chilly 48 degrees here. I am not ready for this kind of weather yet. All week the mornings have been in the mid-upper 50's and that was cool enough for me but this 48 I do not like. Made me start thinking of winter....I live in an older home that has some drafts and is a bit chilly in the winter. We have been fixing what we can with the budget we have but it takes time to do it all. The wheels are now turning to think of what I will do this winter to keep the heating cost down. (we have oil heat) What do you do in the winter to save on heating costs? Share your tips and ideas with me!!!!
Just got back from shopping....
I hit the grocery store that just opened this week. They had large eggs 3/99 so I grabbed 6 dozen. We tend to use pretty many eggs in this house so it was a great deal. Another good deal I hit was those GE compact flourescent light bulbs. They had a 2 pack on sale for 3.99 and I had a 1.00 off coupon. The Banquet sausage links (breakfast kind) were on sale for .85/box so I grabbed a bunch of those. 2 liter bottles of Mt Dew were 85 cents too. There is some kind of 85th anniversary so that is why a lot of things are .85. They also have scanners that you can scan and bag as you shop. I really want to try this next time. This is a first for in our area.

Well my oldest boy left after school today. A friend of his invited him along on a trip to Dover to the races. The boys brother couldn't go so my son is going in his place. They are going to the Nascar races on Saturday and Sunday and have pit passes for both days. What a great time I am sure he will have.

Hubby and middle boy just left to go to Delaware/Maryland now too. They are going fishing though. They will be down where my oldest boy is staying for the race. So I am left alone with the two little ones until sometime Sunday.

Our local grocery store offers a thing called Gas Rewards. You earn 10 cents off for every $100 you spend in the store. Lately they have been running specials where if you buy a certain quantity of certain items you earn extra points on top of that. Well the last 2 weeks have been deals on MANY items I use and buy. I rounded up my coupons for these items and hit the store. This week they also offered and additional 20 cents off if you had their coupon and spent $85. Well with my large family that is easy for me to do. All in all in the last 2 weeks I earned a little over 2000 points and got $2 off a gallon of gas. I ended up paying $1.59/gallon. It cost me $38 to fill my minivan gas tank. Can you remember when the last time you paid that for gas?!?!?
Hopefully I can get to the store again this week and stock up on a few more of the items and earn some more points for the next tank.

And here is a picture of my laundry soap stockpile....



And a picture of it before I put it all on my freezer to sort through.

I love these photos of my nephew and son.

Well my task to tackle this week is one I have been putting off for some time. I just emailed my family to share the news with them that we are expecting a little girl in January. This may seem strange to some but being this is child number 6 it gets a bit rough to share the news with people. Not everyone is eager to congratulate you when you get to this number. Mostly they have some kind of comment like "another one?" etc. So I had put this off and dread it but this morning I sent out the email. So my Tuesday Tackle is done and now I sit waiting to read the replies in my inbox.

What are you tackling today?

I am so happy right now. I just got myself Elton John tickets for next month. I have always wanted to go see him. I got pretty good seats near the stage. Yes the tickets were a little much in my eyes (but all concerts are these days if you ask me) but I REALLY want to see him. Plus it actually cost the same as seeing him out in Vegas at a show. (without the airfare and hotel to pay too lol)
Just had to share that with all of you since I am bursting with excitement.

It's Friday and hope you all have a great weekend. Bear with me as I make some design changes to my blog.

When the five finalists of the Great American cook off were named they were given several challenges in creating their dish for the final round of competition. First, the dishes had to contain one of two mystery ingredients, either Southwest Airline Peanuts or select brews from Michelob Brewing Co. Next, keeping it healthy and simple, the dish’s ingredients had to represent all five food groups and be a dish that even the most harried home chefs could prepare.
Vote for the dish that best represents the tastes of domestic, sustainable American seafood, the creativity of a talented chef and a great idea for a family meal.
I voted for Pan Roasted Glazed Rockfish with Peas and Carrots by Maryland Chef Tafari Campbell. I chose this recipe because it was very family friendly looking. The other recipes looked too professional for a family for me. The recipe seems very easy to make for anyone.
Rockfish is very easy to get locally and is great tasting. Many people consider it a favorite. Health experts highly recommend eating fish and seafood: sources of lean, nutritious, quality protein. When it comes to mercury levels, the FDA reports that in America's favorite seafoods (which makes up 80% of our seafood intake) there is no health risk.
Vote for yourself and enter to win a "Trip to New Orleans" prize package including two Southwest Airline roundtrip tickets, hotel accommodations, dining experiences and more!
The judges of the cook off made their choice and it was Mississippi’s Chef John Currence! He beat out 14 other prestigious chefs from across the nation to be crowned King of American Seafood at the 2008 Fifth Annual Great American Seafood Cook-Off! It was a spectacular battle between great culinary talents at the Louisiana Foodservice EXPO, but at the end of the two day contest, only Chef Currence became seafood royalty. And that’s no title to take lightly.

The judges were ‘hooked’ by his Mississippi Redfish Courtboullion with Seafood Dirty Rice as he didn’t ‘scale’ back on authentic, unique flavors.
www.GreatAmericanSeafoodCookOff.com stop by and check it out today!

Last Friday my little man had oral surgery as an outpatient in the hospital. Being he is only 2 it was the only way to take care of things. His teeth were in pretty bad shape. Call it genetics, his meds his takes for his heart defect whatever the poor kid needed some serious work ($4,000 worth to be exact and that is only the dentist bill) He did awesome with the surgery. He did wonderful and was very calm the whole time in the hospital. But hey this kid is used to it by now. A few hours there was nothing compared to days from open heart surgery. He was a little sore in the gums due to the work they did but now his teeth look great. Today was his post op visit with the dentist and all has healed up nicely. We go back in 3 months to check and see how things are going. Hopefully we won't have to repeat this type of event any time soon. He throughly enjoys his dental visits though (they give him tons of goodies) and everyone there thinks his is too cute....
Isn't he though?
Dancing at Station Square in Pittsburgh



Car ride home

Outdoor Fountain Show in Pittsburgh

I just went to cvs and spent 36.30 and saved 60.60 they have summer stuff 90% off got some goggle and dive sticks and flip flops stop by and see what your cvs has. here is my list

flip flops .49 saved 4.50
dive stick .39 saved 3.60
goggles .69 saved 6.30
goggles .29 saved 2.70
goggles .29 saved 2.70
huggies pull ups 9.49 saved 4.00 then had a 2.00 off coupon
huggies pull up 9.49 saved 4.00 then had a 2.00 off coupon
aussie shampoo 2.49 saved 1.80 then had a 2.00 off 2 coupon
aussie conditioner 2.49 saved 1.80
colgates 6 @ 2.79 each buy 1 get one free had 6 1.00 off coupons
ladies speed stick 4 @ 3.29 buy 1 get one free had 2 1.00 off 2 coupons
huggies little swimmers 8.99 had a 1.25 off coupon
earned 2.00 extra bucks for aussie purchase.

I also listed an auction this morning on ebay to get rid of some outgrown clothing from my little guy. You can see that here.

We took a vacation to Pittsburgh over Labor Day weekend. WE visited the zoo and aquarium, aviary and children's museum while there.
My middle boy

Little guy and daddy. They just crawled through the sting ray tunnel and were looking at the rays in the water.

cool fish

feeding the lories


this is a cool picture of the kids in a water fountain that was all steps and you could "swim" in