Two Tip Tuesday

Happy Tuesday everyone! I can't wait to see the latest episode tonight of The Real Housewives of NYC. Holy catfight, it looks like Bethenny and Kelly will have round two in their fight. I probably won't get to watch it until tomorrow, but I can't wait. Should be interesting to say the least.

For those of you visiting my blog for the first time, every Tuesday I try to post two tips that I hope you'll find helpful. They are just little things from beauty to fashion, to great deals, to household tips that make life a little easier and a little brighter. I love finding a good tip, so I figured others might like them too.

And now for the tips this fine Tuesday...

My first tip for this Tuesday is to use a household tool in a different way. Yesterday I pulled out some shorts for Sawyer that are adjustable. They are the kind that have tabs in them that button. Well, at some point when the shorts were in the wash the tab retracted back inside the band of the shorts. I had to somehow pull out that tab so I could button it in the pants. For those of you who may not have kids, or who haven't seen kids pants like this, it is the same problem you may have encountered if you've had a hoodie on a jacket and the string goes back into the hole. So, what I did to pull the string out was to grab a nut picker and use that to pull out the tab.

I found this picture in case you weren't familiar with this tool. It is the second one in the picture with the slight curve to it. So, if you have one around the house it is not only useful for picking nuts, but can also help you retrieve those pesky tabs and strings that get lost.

If you don't have this, I'm sure a small crochet hook would be another great option to assist you. Either way, one of those tools would help you solve that lost string problem.

My second tip for Two Tip Tuesday is collecting points for prizes. A number of months ago, I saw that Stouffer's started marking their meals with special codes you could collect for points. I started collecting the points in the hopes of getting something free. At that time, their rewards program only allowed you to "bid" on monthly auctions. I found this very frustrating because you seemed to need a lot of points and it was hard to win any of the prizes. I never won anything. So, I just ignored the program for a while and let my points sit there.

I was pleased a few weeks ago to see that Stouffer's has revamped their rewards program. Now instead of only having the auction items to bid on, they have a catalog that you can pick from to order items with your points. I decided to use my points to order two really nice looking reusable grocery bags. They also come with coupons for Stouffer's products which will come in handy. I am looking forward to receiving them. So, if you like Stouffer's meals you might want to start collecting the points on the packages.

So, that is all from my neck of the woods this Tuesday. I hope you are having a great day!

Deal Seeking Mom Forums

I just found out that Deal Seeking Mom is doing a Crocs giveaway due to the launch of the new Deal Seeking Mom forums. Be sure to check it out. http://www.dealseekingmom.com/announcing-the-new-deal-seeking-mom-forums-giveaway/

I think the forums are going to be great. I've loved following her blog and finding great deals. It is so much to save and get things for free.

I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed I win a pair. I just got my first pair of Crocs and got the Mary Janes in a cute pink. I think the color is called cotton candy. I want another pair in black now. I think I will be living in these shoes this summer.

Hope you are having a great Monday!

Fabulous Favorite Friday

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you are having a good day. First, I'd like to start off this Friday's blog post by wishing Mr. Jay Leno a speedy recovery. I read that he became ill and checked into a hospital with a minor illness. I hope he will be on the mend soon. I'm a big fan of Jay on The Tonight Show and it just isn't the same when he is gone. I hate the thought that he will be transitiong from the show soon. But, I'm glad he will be starting up another show. I will definitely be tuning in.

For my Fabulous Favorite Friday pick today, I wanted to share with you the new Air Wick i-motion. I just got one of these and I really, really like it. I have been trying to get my house in order with some spring cleaning and this little machine has helped to freshen things up.

When I first saw the commercial for this I wasn't sure if I would like it because it seemed like the machine would put out bursts too often because the longest setting you can put on it is 30 minutes. That seemed like an awful lot of bursts, but it has been fine and is just the right amount. We are in our family room alot and it is where our Pack N' Play diaper changing station is located. I've put our little machine close to that area and the bursts have been nice to freshen up the station. And with two in diapers, we can definitely use some bursts of freshness. LOL

This little machine uses batteries that come with the starter machine which is great. All I had to do is pop in the little air freshner canister that came with the machine and then it was ready to go. Very easy to use assemble.

So, if you are looking for something to freshen up your spring, check out the i-motion. I recommend it.

Have a great weekend!

Two Tip Tuesday

Hello everyone. I know that more than half the day is over, but I still wanted to make a Two Tip Tuesday post. It seems like we are just so busy these days. We got back from our spring break beach trip on Sunday and I've been trying to catch up from being out of town. While it wasn't a relaxing trip, we did have a great time and the weather was perfect. I need to pull my pix off the digital camera. I can't wait to see how they turned out.

Today for my Two Tip Tuesday, I thought I'd continue with some more beauty tips. With the economy still in the tank, I know that folks are looking for inexpensive ways to live and sometimes going back to homemade recipes for beauty treatments are a great thing to consider.

Tip Number One
Yesterday my sister sent me a recipe for a home made facial scrub that she tried recently at a girl's night out. She said that after using this one she felt a difference the next morning. So, here is the recipe.

Brown Sugar Scrub

Mix one cup brown sugar with 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil.
Gently rub a small amount into skin, working it in slowly.
Gently rinse off with warm water.

Tip Number Two
The second tip is another mask recipe. This one is for aging skin and can be used on your face, as well as your hands and feet. And, we can all use some help in the aging department. LOL

Sugar Mask for Aging Skin

Melt 3 tablespoons of sugar in 3 tablespoons of hot water, add 1 tablespoon of honey. Gently rub mixture into skin in small circular motions. Leave facial on for ten minutes and then rinse with warm water. This mixture also produces nice results on the hands and feet.

So, I hope these tips are helpful to you and that you have a great week!

Fabulous Favorite Friday

Happy Friday everyone! This post is coming a little later this morning because I'm on spring break in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. My little boy literally slept 2 hours last night. He isn't used to sleeping in a bed, so I think he is getting used to being a new place. So, this will be a trip that is definitely not restful, but at least my parents are on their way so it will be a nice extra set of hands.

The winds were crazy strong here yesterday and I've never seen the surf so rough. I took some video and will try to post it when I get home. It reminded me of what you see on the news how the surf looks when a hurricane approaches. Today seems much nicer with the weather and I am hoping we will have a nice weekend.

For my Fabulous Favorite Friday pick, I wanted to share a great tool I've recently discovered called Tweetdeck. It has made using Twitter so much easier. If you've never used Twitter and want to play with it, I'd suggest dowloading Tweetdeck (it is a free download) and giving it a try. http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/ The great thing about Tweetdeck is it organizes your tweets and it also has a feature which will shorten urls for you. I feel like slowly but surely I'm getting the hang of Twitter, especially with using that tool.

Since I'm on spring break, I'm going to just do one pick this week. I hope you are having a good Friday. Have a great weekend!

Mmmmm, I love a good recipe

Hello everyone. Happy tax day. If there is such a thing as a happy tax day.

I am happy to say I'm starting to feel better. Hopefully I was just suffering from exhaustion and not some tick related disease.

Today I wanted to blog about the famous Pillsbury Bake-Off competition. This will be the 44th annual Bake-Off. It is hard to believe it has been going on that long. What a great tradition to have gone on that long.

I think entering this contest would be such a cool idea and I hope that when my kids get bigger I will come up with an awesome recipe I can enter. I think it would be a fun thing to try. Right now my life only seems to revolve around peanut butter and jelly and chicken nuggets.

Here are the four categories that you can enter for the contest: Breakfast & Brunches, Entertaining Appetizers, Dinner Made Easy and Sweet Treats. I have such a sweet tooth that I would probably like to enter the Sweet Treats category. I'm sure that must be a popular category. You have until April 20th to enter.

I read recently that last year's winner who won the grand prize won with a recipe called Double-Delight Peanut Butter cookies. They sound good to me. You can't go wrong with peanut butter.

So, if you have a great recipe you'd like to enter you can check out the details. http://www.bakeoff.com I'd love to know if you enter.

Wouldn't it be awesome to win a million dollars? What would you buy with the prize money? That a lot of dough. Sorry, I had to thrown in some kitchen humor. What a crock, right? LOL

Have a great day!

Two Tip Tuesday

Hello everyone. I felt bad that last week I missed Two Tip Tuesday. I've been having a hard time with my little guy sleeping and it has just wiped me out. I think I've gotten so run down I may have caught a bug. I have had joint pain and headaches for a few days. I had to go to the doctor yesterday to have blood work done since I had gestational diabetes and so while they were doing that, they went ahead and ordered a Lyme's Disease and Rocky Mt. Spotted fever test just to be safe. I pulled a tick off Sawyer two weeks ago and was concerned maybe I'd have been bitten and didn't know it. I've heard of that happening to people before. So, hopefully I just have a bug and none of those tick related things.

The two tips I have for you today I heard on the radio and thought they were so clever.

Tip#1

We've all had times where we either have a good lipstick break, or we get to the end of the tube and there is still just a little more left. Well, I heard a great solution for what to do. You can buy the plastic cases that people use for storing their contact lenses. What you can do is take a Q-tip and get the remaining lipstick out and put it in the contact lense case. That way you can have a way to get at the lipstick and use up what is left. They said you could use a chopstick to get out the lipstick, but I think a Q-tip could work just as well. I thought this was such a clever idea.

Tip#2

This second tip is also for the lips. They were saying if you buy lipgloss that has the wands in them, a lot of times you loose the lipgloss because of it getting stuck to the sides. When you are getting down to the end of the tube, what you can do is screw on the top tightly and then stick the tube in some boiling water for a few seconds. This will melt the lipgloss and cause it to drop to the bottom of the tube. I'm sure you don't want to leave it in long because you don't want the whole case to melt. LOL

So, those are my two tips for this Tuesday. I hope you are having a great day!

Fabulous Favorite Friday

Happy Good Friday everyone. It is hard to believe it is Good Friday. I have had a really rough week. My little Logan is still not on schedule for sleeping. We are getting up multiple times in the night. All momma wants for Easter is sleep. I don't function well without sleep.

I thought today for my Fabulous Favorite Friday picks I'd share some ideas I've come up with for Easter baskets. It can be so hard to shop for kids when they are 5 months and two. I especially it is hard to shop for boys. So, here are a few ideas.

For a two year old....

Bubbles. The weather is getting warm and bubbles make a great activity. Of course these are great for old kids too.

Books. I went to our local Christina book store and they had a great selection of books for Easter. And I loved the ones they had geared towards the toddler age group.

Mr. Potato Head Easter bunny. Sawyer is not getting this because we already have the original one, but these are really cheap at Target and Wal Mart. They are great for helping them with their fine motor coordination. Plus, they are funny and cute looking like a bunny.

Kites. They had cute little kites for a dollar in the Easter seasonal section of Wal Mart. We are going on a beach trip soon, so I thought this might be fun to put in the basket.

Filling Easter eggs...

I'm going to do an Easter egg hunt in the yard for Sawyer and it has been hard to come up with things for him. We don't do candy, so I can't use that for filling the eggs. But, I have come up with three other ideas. He loves Goldfish so I'll put some of those in some of the eggs. For the other eggs I'm going to put little plastic animals. They have packs of them in the dollar spot at Target. The third thing I'm going to put in the eggs are Curious George stickers. Those came from the Target dollar spot too. Sawyer LOVES George, so those are great.

For a 5 month old...

Logan is getting a book from the Christian book store that is about spring. It has flowers for him to touch and has flaps we can lift to look at different things. I really like this little book.

He is also teething, so I got him a teether toy to put in his basket.

Since we will be starting solid foods soon, I got a box of Pampers Disposable Bibs. I know they will come in handy for when we go out and will fit nicely in the diaper bag.

The final thing I bought for Logan is a baby swimming pool. It is a real small one that will be perfect for when we go to the beach. They are $5 at Wal Mart. I suggest if you want one, buy it now. In our area, the first sign of hot weather means all the baby pools sell out. I learned my lesson and so I thought it would make a great thing to tuck in his Easter basket.

So, those are the Easter goodies we will be having around our house. I'd love to hear what you are planning on doing.

I hope you and your family have a blessed Easter.

Winners and a Wrongful Termination Commentary

Happy Monday everyone! I hope everyone is having a great day. I am so wiped out. For the last week, my little guy has been getting up at 3 and 6 a.m. I guess we are going through a growth spurt. I really want to go back to sleeping through the night.

On another note, I'm so excited to announce the three winners of the Yoplait Prize packs. You ladies are going to love these. Using the random generator, here are the winners....

Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:4 1 3
Timestamp: 2009-04-06 13:42:44 UTC



So Christina, Kate, and Norma Kennedy are the winners. Yay ladies!! I just need to get your contact information so I can pass it on to the sponsor. You are going to love this prize pack and have such fun with your families with all of these goodies. I can't wait for us to use these fun toys this summer and the yogurt is awesome too!


And now for some tv commentary...

Today I'm blogging about the Celebrity Apprentice. I don't know if anyone is watching, but I have to say I was so disappointed with the outcome. I've been a watcher of the Apprentice since it started. I know a lot of folks don't watch it anymore, but it is kind of like watching a train wreck. You just can't look away. If you didn't see last nights episode, you may want to wait to read this post.


Prior to this season's Apprentice, I had only briefly heard of the Kardashian family. I know they have a reality show, but I've never seen it. Khloe Kardashian has been a contestant this season. She has openly admitted on the Apprentice and in interviews that she got a DUI months ago and has taken responsibility for her actions. During the tast week, she had to miss some of the task due to having to attend a class in Los Angeles due to the DUI.

During last nights board room, Donald Trump brings up the fact that she got a DUI and came down on her very hard. He stated that somehow it was never brought to his attention by his staff and that if it had she would never have been on the show. He then proceeded to berate this girl and was very judgemental and condescending. After giving her an earful, he fired her.

Ok, I definitley don't think that getting a DUI is right. There is no defense of that. But to use that as the reason to fire her was crap. This occured before she even started filming the show. And, he admitted that his staff drop the ball and didn't tell him about this prior to filming of the show. As "project manager" of this show, "The Donald" really dropped the ball on this and should be called out on it.

It is curious that he is supposedly good friends with Dennis Rodman, let him on the show for a few weeks and then last week the guy's team called Dennis out in the board room for his drinking problem. What is up Donald? Why is it ok for Dennis Rodman to show up drunk for this show for a few weeks, yet Khloe is going to a court mandated class, appears to be sober and remorseful and you give her grief? Boy if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black I don't know what is. As someone who has had their own personal indiscretions and been in the spotlight, I find it laughable that this man sits as the moral authority over others.

Yes, I know this is a reality tv show, things are done for ratings. But, I do feel for this girl and certainly hope she is able to learn from this experience. I also hope that Dennis Rodman is able to make a turn around and gets the help he so desperately needs. I hate to see folks hurting and in trouble. Even on tv. So, that is my two cents on last night's Apprentice. Any thoughts?

Fabulous Favorite Friday

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you are having a good day. The rain clouds are supposed to move out of here and the sunshine is supposed to move in. We are ready for this rain to dry up.



Pick Number One

Today I wanted to share with you a new thing that I'm loving for one of my Fabulous Favorite Friday picks. It is the Black and Decker Convection Countertop Oven Broiler. About two weeks ago we needed to replace our ten year old toaster oven. I told my husband that I wanted something a little bit bigger. Well, he did some searching for me and found this one they had for sale at Kohl's. I have been in heaven since we got it.



I now have double ovens in my kitchen which has come in handy. Just this week I was able to cook a dish in this and use my big oven for a bigger dish. The thing I love about it is that I am able to cook so many different things in it. This oven came with a 12 inch pizza pan so you can cook a pizza in it. As you can see, it is big enough to cook a whole chicken in it too. I've baked brownies in it and they came out perfect. It is also great for cooking those Grands Biscuits (I love the Southern style biscuits). This oven toasts bread perfectly. I'm so glad that I picked something that is giving me a lot of versatility. I would highly recommend this oven. While it does take up a fair amount of space, I'm fortunate to have a small counter where this fits perfectly.



Pick Number Two

My second Fabulous Favorite Friday pick this week is Dole's Orange and Guava juice. I saw this at the store this week and decided to give it a try. I personally love blended juices. I've been getting Dole's Strawberry, Banana, and Orange juice. This new orange and guava juice has a different taste to it. I think it would actually be really good as the base for a punch recipe. This juice would also probably make a great smoothee. Something to think about as warm weather finally starts to move in.


Giveaway Reminder!!
Don't forget to leave a comment on Wednesday's post if you would like to be entered for the Yoplait Yogurt prize pack. Have a fabulous weekend!

I'm Just a Fool in Love...

Happy April Fool's Day! I hope you are having a good day and no one plays any tricks on you. April Fool's Day will always be a special day for me because that is the day my husband chose to propose to me. I'll never forget that day, it was a beautiful spring day. I was completely shocked when he popped the question. So, April 1st will always hold good memories for me. Back in 2000 when he proposed, it was hard to imagine what life would hold for us nine years later. But, we have been so blessed to have a wonderful family with two sweet boys. And a spunky boston terrier.


Remember a few days ago when I told you it would be a good idea to check back today? Well I'm excited to share a wonderful giveaway with y'all today. So here is the story.

I received this awesome Yoplait Kids pack in the mail about a week ago. Even before I got this in the mail, I had already discovered the Yoplait Kids Yogurt drinks. Last summer we went over to a friend's house for a playdate and that is where we were first introduced to these drinks. Sawyer has been in love with them ever sense. He loves these drinks so much he would drink a whole 6 pack of them in one day if I'd let him. They come in a number of different flavors. They have banana, mixed berry, and strawberry. The containers don't take up a lot of space, so with summer coming up they are great to put into a cooler.

The other thing that I love about these drinks is that they are a Box Tops for Education product. I really love that. Even though Sawyer isn't in school yet, I am already saving these tops and sending them on to the school that he will one day attend.

I love being able to give stuff away and I'm pleased as punch to let you know that I have 3 of these awesome prize packs to giveaway to my blog readers. So, in order to enter the giveaway, I'd love to hear what you and your family do to stay active and healthy. Do you take walks together, go to the gym, , ride a bicycle built for two, or run marathons? Enquiring minds want to know! LOL I'll leave this giveaway open until midnight EST on Sunday, April 5th. I'll announce the winner on Monday, April 6th. Please be sure to have a way for me to get in touch with you or else I'll have to choose another winner. Also, I'll give the winners one week to contact me or I'll choose another winner.

This prize pack is so fun. As you can see from the picture, you'll get a small insulated bag to carry your yogurt, a coupon to get a yogurt product for free, a jump rope, frisbee, Jai-Ali, water bottle, and paddle ball. And I love the great bag all this stuff came in. This is going to be such a fun summer at the beach with all these fun toys!

If you are exciting about the Yoplait Kids products and would like to try them, here is a link so you can print of a $1.50 coupon to use on them. These work for the Yoplait Kids, Go-Gurt, and Trix yogurt products. http://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?tqnm=qcmlerw91296928&bt=wi&o=53375&ci=1&c=BC&p=S6sQZiLW

Have a great day and watch out for pranksters!