My Collections...PANDAS!!!!

Here I am a few years back on my birthday, notice my shirt?
Isn't that pretty clever, a cupcake cake...I love it!

OK, so I collect dreamsicles too, just not as crazy about them anymore, I still like them tho:-)


A better picture of my special message build a bear from my dear husband.

My dear, dear friend drew and painted me that panda picture. I've got the border and comforter too.

The 3 8x10's on the wall were ones we took at the Memphis, TN zoo.

This is my profile picture, I'm not REALLY touching the mural with my lips, don't worry. This was taken at the San Diego, CA zoo last year. We even bought matching shirts. We have 2 more zoo's to tour...Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, GA.

Over at http://www.kellyskornerblog.com/ everyone is linking up with their collections today. These are what I collect and make me smile when I see them. This one I got in Florida on vacation many years ago. He swings above the t.v. in the living room, so I see him everyday:-)
Our bedroom, they guy with the safari hat has a special message my husband recorded at the Build a Bear store. You can't see it very well but the curtains have pandas too, and the valance has bamboo.

from one of my Sanfran music statues

This rock weighs 35 pounds and came from my parents, they brought it all the way to Ohio from PA. My sister has an armadillo (she collects them) and my brother has a groundhog (he was born on groundhog day) I've had it for about 15 years, it's been thru 5 moves! Talk about a back breaker.

Valentines Day (a little late post)

Sam had been eyeing this car for a few weeks and he knows I have to be able to drive it too. The weather was not co-operating with his plan so we didn't go the first weekend because of the snow...The next weekend we were able to make a deal and put him in this bright shinny FORD TARUS SHO. Then the weather turned bad again and he hasn't drove it for an entire week it just sat in the garage waiting and waiting for a snow free trip to the local shopping center and out to dinner. Now it sits back in the garage. We need to get it sealed before we really start driving it around. He doesn't want the dealership to drive it to the sealer place because really now; don't you just love to jump on the gas and see what a new car can do???!!!! So why would they be any different? They offered to give us a loaner while it's being taken care of but we declined.
This is the message Sam had on my vase of flowers.

He totally caught me off guard because I've always told him to NEVER get me flowers for Valentine's Day because they're just too expensive. Besides I don't need flowers to know he loves me. (Awwww, I know) The were delivered the Friday before Valentine's Day. So maybe be got off cheaper than THE DAY.

I couldn't resist one more picture.

Bargain Shopping at CVS

Can you read that receipt? OK, I made a close up bellow.

Oh and I still have $14.00 FUN money to spend.

Shopping Bargains Walgreens

These are SOME of my purchases from Walgreens this past week

I used several coupons and brought this soup way down to LESS than 15¢ a can!!!!

after coupons and RR this ended up costing me just $1.36.

And I STILL have $22.00 in FUN money.

Our Funny Valentine

Last Saturday we had our Prayer Partner reveal at church, it was such a joy to let our "anonymous self be revealed" to the person we've been covering with prayer for the last year. Jennifer was getting ready to leave and Jayde took it upon herself to grab all their bags.
and now she looks like she's been shopping for the day with 3 bags hanging off both arms.

We All Scream For ICECREAM!!

Superbowl Sunday we were at our friends house and Seth was all about making ice cream, he put ice cubes and salt in one bag and put another bag consisting of milk, vanilla and I don't know what all. We tossed it around for 3 min. and wa laaaaa, we had ice cream! I didn't think to take a picture of that.

Then I suggested he make my recipe for snow ice cream, here he is after he went outside to get some clean white snow, putting in the ingredients and mixing it up. (I just discovered snow ice cream this week and right now I can't get enough of it.) Then we took a sample of each down to Cori to be the "judge"

The winner was Seth's ice cube version but she wasn't jumping up and down for either. Nothing beats Graeters Ice Cream!!!!

Tippy Tuesday

I thought I'd share with you how I take my clothes out of the washer in the winter time,

I wear mittens and then my hands don't get cold:-)

Kid Chatter

"I'm going to text myself" Her mother says she doesn't say "I'm going to text so and so" and I don't have a clue how to text but this child said it and when I repeated it she said "a ha!" I think she's a little too young for texting.

Haiti Help

Our church is collecting items for a drop off location that will forward collected items onto Haiti, Matthew25 Ministries (www.m25m.org) I have been shopping and collected and dropped off a bunch over at the church. Since I am such a great bargain shopper, I enjoyed donating some items I got for cheap or free. Some stuff here has been bought with donations of cash from our church family but mostly I've been able to make this pile larger by hunting out of my "stock piles"

When we go to a hotel we scoop up all our freebies (I'm sure you do it too, so don't laugh at me)

20 rolls of t.p.

5 pkgs of wipes,7 if you count the Wet Ones I got for 12¢ each

2 btls of bbq sauce

4 tubes of toothpaste

1 shampoo

2 pkgs of diapers, I already dropped 3 off at church the other week.

rice, personal things, 48 bottles of water, cereal, crackers
4 pkgs. of Kleenex

2 pkgs of cotton balls

2 cans of chicken gravy.

I can't wait till Tuesday when Becky and I load up ALL the stuff at church and deliver it, it's going to be an awesome feeling. I'll try to remember the camera on that day to show you.

A BIG DEAL

The other day I was at the mall and stopped in one of my favorite stores, The Children's Place. I couldn't believe I was able to snatch so many good finds. The fleece top/jacket for Jayde was just $2.99 both pj's were $2.99 each, (one has snowmen and I just know Jayde will enjoy them, not sure if they are boys but she won't mind) but my favorite finds (and ONE of my weaknesses) mittens, gloves, and hats were just 99¢ EACH. I ended up with the lion set for a friend who just had a baby he'll be warm next year (I think ahead) and I'm sure the striped mittens will go with whatever color coat Jayde has next winter. The gloves are for the following winter, maybe even the one after that, we'll see how long we can get them on her. Kids need lots of mittens when they play in the snow and a pair at grandmas house too. I would NEVER pay FULL price but w/o sale it comes to $71.50 and I PAID $14.82 and that includes tax, yeah ME.

Not Me Monday

When we moved into our home a few years back certainly we didn't have new carpet installed, we enjoy ratty, old, dog urine stained and smelly carpet, yip, so I don't mind one bit trying to potty train my 2 year old granddaughter. So then why are we playing on a blanket on top of a shower curtain? I must not want our 3 year new, recently steam cleaned carpet destroyed just yet:-)

If you have any tips on keeping the carpet and furniture free of urine during times like this, (besides the obvious of keeping this precious child out of my house) I'd love to hear from you.

Enjoy your Monday, I sure am.

SHOPPING TRIPS

Here are all my envelopes and I'm ready to walk out the door. My fantastic savings trip to Meijer, (I made a caption at the bottom of the picture)

I had a successful trip to Walgreens, YIP I only paid 9¢ for EACH candle; and I'll be getting $5.00 back in a rebate too!

This is from 3 different stores it wasn't much alone so I put them all together. The dishwasher tabs came out to just 6¢ a load so I got 5 boxes. Both canisters of wipes ended up costing me ONLY 25¢/ 12.5 cents each waaaa hoooo! Oh and the tide was FREE . Lean Cuisine was 79¢ and the shrimp was just 69¢.

What We've Been Up To

Skating Party! A precious picture of Jayde and her baby blues
Here, they are "putting their left hip in, and shaking it all about"

Owen, Jennifer and Blake

daddy and Jayde

Jayde on wheels, not quite zoom, zooming...yet

AND...

We took Blake to the Home Depot to buildSam is so brave to hold it while Blake hammers in the nail
Sticker time, and now we have a....

pro at making calendars, pretty good, young man!

Here he is with his certificate and apron.

SOMETHING ELSE...

I kept Jayde overnight a couple weeks ago because they were calling for snow and I wanted to play with her and didn't want to drive to get her either. Our Little Bengal....

and SNOW we GOT!!! I got a work out getting her dressed and she got a work out shoveling!

Then Cori was out for a walk and here they are, they just love each other so much:-)
Jennifer, Jayde's mom, used to babysit Cori and now Cori babysits Jayde, it's the circle of babysitters:-) Hmmmm, will Jayde babysit Cori's children one day?

and after her I mean our work was done, we...

took a little sled ride:-)