Bunny Lights

It wouldn't be a holiday at my house without some lights in the windows. As you remember I had shamrock lights a few weeks ago. They've been replaced with bunny lights. I only got two of them for two of the front windows. You can't push the tacky factor too far, right? LOL

Dh has given me a hard time about these lights and he doesn't like them. He said they look like the Playboy bunny. Um, no.

The lights are for the kids. Really.

I hope to have more pix of our other Easter decorations to post on the blog. I hope to be able to get more posts up this week. I've missed blogging. The last two weeks have been rough. We know two sweet families who have lost teenagers. My heart just breaks for them.

We are getting ready for Easter with the family and the weather looks promising for outdoor activities. Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods.

p.s. If you too would like your very own bunny lights then hop on down to Walgreens. That is where I got mine.

Winners

Here are the names of the two winners from my contests last week.

The winner for the ELF Makeup was...

Anonymous said...
I love reubens! And I'm not Irish in any way :)

Christie

ropp(dot)5@wright(dot)edu

March 23, 2010 3:01 PM


The winner for the Happy Family coupons was...

Deb K said...
I follow you on Twitter

Tweet!

http://twitter.com/Deb55106/status/10808985524


deb55106(at)gmail(dot)com


I'll be back to posting tomorrow with Easter decorations. Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods.

Back in a Jiffy

I'll be posting the names of the contest winners later today. I've got to paddle out to the grocery store this a.m. Apparently these children like to eat. LOL


Hope you are having a great Monday!

Guest Blog Post

Happy Monday everyone. I didn't realize this, but they put up another one of my guest blog posts on the Eyes, Lips, and Face Beauty Blog. Be sure to check it out and please leave me some comment love.

And don't forget to scroll down below to check out my two current givewaways. Odds are good to win.

Happy Monday everyone!

Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway #2

Every Leprechaun needs to look her best, so win with Elf and they'll do the rest!

This giveaway runs from Wednesday, March 17th through midnight EST Wednesday, March 24th. Winner be announced on Thursday, March 25th.

Lucky Leprechaun Giveaways

I'm very excited about St. Patrick's Day so I'm having a number of giveaways. I'm calling them the Lucky Leprechaun giveaways because everyone should have some good luck this month.

The second giveaway is for a surprise from Elf cosmetics! All of Elf's things are fabulous, so I know you are going to love this. What could this pot of gold be, enter and you'll see!

You have a number of ways to enter. You must post a separate comment for each entry on this post.

1. Follow me on Twitter @chiccraftychick and tweet the following message: "Lucky Leprechauns win with the @chiccraftychick blog in March. http://bit.ly/1Xck5k Check every week for different giveaways."

2.Leave a comment here letting me know your favorite Irish dish, or do you wear green on St. Patty's Day, or are you Irish? Let's have fun people. LOL

3.Grab my button and add it to your blogroll. Come back here and leave me a link.

4.Subscribe to my blog and leave me a comment letting me know you did.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

This morning is a crazy morning, but top o' the mornin to ya! It's St. Patty's Day. I hope you are wearing green. No need to get pinched today.

I'm running the Happy Family Organic Product giveaway again. What a mess. I didn't realize that Blogger was having problems with letting folks comment on extra pages. Doesn't look like they've fixed that bug, so I thought I'd go back to the old fashion way and run the giveaway in a regular post. So check the post before this one if you want to enter. This is for a coupon, so even if you don't have kids this could be a great prize to win to add as an extra for a gift for a little one.

I've got another giveaway starting today, but I'm going to wait and announce it later today. Every Leprechaun has to move their pot of gold around, right? LOL

Hope you are having a great St. Patty's Day!

Lucky Leprechaun Happy Family Premium Organic Product

Current giveaway running from Wednesday, March 17th through midnight EST Monday, March 22nd.

Lucky Leprechaun Giveaways

I'm very excited about St. Patrick's Day so I'm having a number of giveaways. I'm calling them the Lucky Leprechaun giveaways because everyone should have some good luck this month.

The first giveaway is for a coupon to receive one free Happy Family Premium Organic Product. I use these to get the Happy Family Organic Puffs for my little guy. They sell them at Target. They come in a really big container which is nice because kids seem to inhale these. And who doesn't love organic product?

You have a number of ways to enter. You must post a separate comment for each entry on this post.

1. Follow me on Twitter @chiccraftychick and tweet the following message: "Lucky Leprechauns win with the @chiccraftychick blog in March. http://bit.ly/1Xck5k Check every week for different giveaways."

2.Leave a comment here letting me know your favorite Irish dish, or do you wear green on St. Patty's Day, or are you Irish? Let's have fun people. LOL

3.Grab my button and add it to your blogroll. Come back here and leave me a link.

4.Subscribe to my blog and leave me a comment letting me know you did.


(This is not a sponsored giveaway. This is a coupon I received as a reward for purchasing YoBaby Yogurt and I wanted to pass it on to my readers as way to say thanks.)

Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway

Due to technical difficulties, I'm going to be running two giveaways starting tomorrow. One will be for the Happy Family Puffs that are currently listed on my giveaway page. The other I will announce tomorrow. You'll want to check back for it.

I'm having a draggy week. I'm still fighting the sinus battle and so is everyone in my family. My husband went to the doctor this morning and they gave him an antibiotic and then I took our youngest to the pediatrician this morning and he has a sinus infection too. Tis the season I guess.

I'm very excited tomorrow is St. Patty's Day. We are all ready and have our St. Patty's Day T-shirts. I can't wait until the boys get older so we can do fun things to celebrate. Who wouldn't love green mashed potatoes? LOL

Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods!

Catch ya later

I'll be posting later today with giveaway information. Got a sick little one this morning, so I'm off to the pediatrician.

Hope you are having a great day!

Celebrity Apprentice

Celebrity Apprentice. You're fired! You're hired! It's back! The challenges. The boardroom. The Donald's hair.

Last night dh and I caught the 2 hour season premier. I have to admit I've watched every Apprentice since it started. DH has given me a lot of grief about it, but then he watched it with me last year and has started to again. I can't explain why I love the show, but I do. And it certainly isn't for Donald Trump. I think what I enjoy is getting to know the celebrities and seeing the tasks they pull together. And since they've changed it to Celebrity Apprentice and the money all goes to charity, that is nice that some different causes are raising much needed funds.

If you didn't catch the premiere, they've got some great celebrities on this year. This group has a larger number of people I've actually heard of prior to the show. You've got folks like Cindy Lauper, Sharon Osborne, Sinbad, Brett Michaels, fastest man on earth Michael Johnson, and celebrity chef Curtis Stone. And of course there are other folks on the show too. If you aren't watching or you aren't familiar with Curtis Stone, start watching. He is a tall, blond Aussie chef who isn't hard on the eyes. And you've got to love that Aussie accent. LOL

One of my favorite lines of the night was Sharon Osborne's description of Cindy Lauper, "She's barking mad." Hey pot, you're black. LOL

In case you haven't watched it, I'm not going to spoil it and tell you who got kicked off. But if you want to watch it you can check it out on Hulu. http://www.hulu.com/ In case you've never seen hulu, you can go and watch shows for free. So if you miss a show or your dvr flakes on you, keep it in mind.

So are you watching Celebrity Apprentice? Who do you like? Any predictions on who will win? Who will get kicked off next?

Life Shapers

Today is a Pepsi and candy kind of day. I need those to help me get through. I like to post upbeat posts, but today I'm not feeling upbeat. I haven't slept a full night in over a week because someone in my family is always waking me up. Last night it was my 3 year old who decided he was going to yell in his room because he had insomnia until 1 a.m. I've also got some sinus thing going on which is dragging me down and I'm wiped out. I don't want to be grouchy.

This morning I got some sad news. A friend of our family, a beautiful person named Vicki lost her battle with cancer and went to be with the Lord. We've known this was coming for some times, but my heart breaks for her family. She leaves behind a husband, daughter and grandson and of course extended family. When we found out she had a limited amount of time, I started thinking back to when I was growing up and the interactions we had with her. What I will also remember about her is that she was a good mother, wife, and friend. She had a kind spirit and was such a sweet person.

When I was growing up, she was a woman that was in my life besides my own mother, that was a good example. I titled my post today "life shapers" because in her own way, she was a life shaper. Just by living her life she shaped the lives of those around her. She leaves behind a wonderful legacy with her family and wonderful memories for those who were blessed enough to know her. I hope that one day someone would say the same about me.

I hope you are having a good day in your neck of the woods.

Bunco

Bunco. Have you ever played? Have you ever heard of it? It is a dice game that is really easy. I've been playing in a group for almost nine years and I love it. We play one night a month and we all take a turn rotating who hosts. It is a great way to get together with neighbors and friends and to have some me time once a month. We have prizes and a lot of times folks like to use a theme. Last night we played and the girl who hosted had a St. Patrick's Day theme. Last month it was Valentine's. You get the idea.

We start at seven and have appetizers and then we have a break around 8:30 where we have a dessert. We usually wrap up around 9:30 and hand out prizes. We have about five prizes. We have the person who has most Buncos, most wins, a fifty-fifty prize, most losses, and everyone who didn't win gets their name put into a hat and one of them is a winner. We all have such a fun time and enjoy the food and fellowship.

I'm so glad that I've had my Bunco group for all these years. It helped me make new friends when I moved into this area and to meet and stay in touch with my neighbors. We've celebrated the birth of babies and kids graduating high school and going off to college. The great thing about our group is that all of the ladies are different ages and at different stages of their lives, but we all come together and find things to talk about and enjoy each others company.

If you don't have a Bunco group, I'd encourage you to start one with your friends and or neighbors. A lot of groups start with twelve people, but our group started with nine and one of us would take a turn sitting out a round which was nice for potty breaks. You can do what works for you. We got up to twelve people, but our group is back down to around nine now.

If you have any questions about Bunco, please feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email. I'd be happy to help answer any questions.

Don't forget to check out my giveaway page for my current giveaway!

Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods!

Darth Vader and Lucky Leprechauns

First off, I'm sleeping with Darth Vader. My poor dh and the rest of us have either a cold or sinus troubles and he was so stopped up he couldn't breath and was breathing through his mouth at 4:30 this morning. Needless to say it is hard to sleep with that Darth Vader sound. I'm so tired, I had to laugh at that thought. These are the crazy thoughts that come into your head when you haven't slept a full night in about a week.

Bless his heart I hope he will be better soon. I hope we all will be better soon. Spring can't get here fast enough. But, we've been getting a taste of it with 60 degree temps yesterday and today. Woo hoo!

Have you noticed some changes to the blog? I've got a new giveaways page I'm excited to share with y'all. There is a new giveaway that starts today. I'm running Lucky Leprechaun giveaways each week for the rest of the month. So be sure to enter and check out the goodies. There will be different things each week. You may want to dance an Irish jig. I'm just sayin. :)

Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods!

Oscars

I got a chance to watch some of the Oscars last night. I always love watching those shows not so much to see who wins, but I love to see the beautiful dresses and jewelry all the stars wear. Cameron Diaz looked lovely and Monique looked great in her blue dress for her big Oscar win. Whoever let Sarah Jessica Parker go out with all those fly aways in her hair should be fired. Her dress was ok. I've seen better.

I think it would be so much fun to be able to get dressed up and attend something like that. Before kids, dh and I used to have an opportunity to go to some dressy events, not Oscar caliber, but still it was fun. I sometimes miss those times, so it is nice to live vicariously through watching events like this. Can you imagine wearing one of those expensive gowns? I think I'd be afraid to eat or drink anything wearing one of those.

Unfortunately over the weekend, my sinuses started acting up so I am fighting a sinus infection and dragging. So, that is what is going on here. Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods.

Real Houswives of New York

So tonight is the big premiere of the Real Housewives of New York City. Tonight there is a party through Twitter Mom's. I've been invited to be an honorary hostess. http://www.twittermoms.com/events/real-housewives-of-nyc-season It should be fun to see what all the New York socialites are up to and how many cat fights will break out.

I read somewhere that they are adding a new Housewife to the mix so that should be interesting.

Oh, and it is the season finale of Real Housewives of OC. Wonder what cliff hangers we will be left with?

Anyone else going to watch tonight? Who is your favorite NYC Housewife?

Catch ya later today

Gotta run to preschool, but I'll have a post up later. Happy Thursday!

The Wizard of Late Night

Happy Wednesday everyone. I thought I'd share this video of Jay Leno's return to the Tonight Show. I have to admit I didn't get to watch his first show back because I was feeling icky Monday evening and fell asleep. I think this is such a clever take on the whole situation.

This week is a great tv week. Last night Lost had me on the edge of my seat. I won't go into details because I don't like putting out spoilers, so if you haven't watched it yet run, run to your dvr and watch it. They said there are only ten more new episodes after this. I can't imagine Lost not being on after this year. If you've never watched it, check out episodes online or rent the series from the beginning. The show is like a good novel you can't put down. Seriously.

I can't wait to see The Office on Thursday. I think we will finally get to see Jim and Pam's new little bundle. Can you imagine how Michael and Dwight will be? Remember when Jan had her baby and those fools were practicing delivery with a watermelon? LOL

And Thursday night also means the season premiere of the Real Housewives of New York City. Bethenney Frankel is expecting and I'm sure there will be a ton of cat fights. So, I can't wait to see all of the drama unfold. Twitter Mom's will be hosting a RHWNYC party during the premiere, so you can follow along with the #RHTM hashtag. The party starts at 11 PM EST, 8PM PST.

Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods!

Pioneer Woman Perfect Pound Cake Review

Have you heard of the Pioneer Woman and her Perfect Pound Cake? I've recently discovered her blog and decided I wanted to tackle this recipe. I'm a sucker for a good pound cake. And this recipe really intrigued me because it has butter and lemon extracts and you also use sprite/sierra mist/7 Up.

So, I decided to whip this cake up about a week ago. I have always liked baking, but I've especially liked doing it more lately because it has given me the chance to bond with my little guy Sawyer. I like baking and cooking with him because it is providing me with a way to work on following instructions and counting. I think it is great to sneak in some learning during a fun activity.

The recipe calls for three sticks of butter, but I switched one of those out with a stick of butter flavored Crisco. When I make cookies, I do this a lot. I've found that it really intensifies the flavor of the cookies and I thought I'd like it in this recipe. Since it calls for the butter flavored extract, I figured how could more butter flavor hurt? It works for Paula Deen, right?

As you can see from the first picture, the top of the pound cake came out with a beautiful crust. Then when I popped it out of the pan a little bit of it stuck. Which was annoying because I felt like I put a fair amount of cooking spray in the pan.


When we had the taste test, my picky eater Sawyer decided to pass on his piece after the first bite. Dh and I finished our pieces. And then I may have had another. But who is counting?
So now down to the nitty gritty. I know the name of this recipe is the perfect pound cake, but I don't think I can call it that. It is a good pound cake and yeah I'd recommend it, but it isn't the perfect pound cake. The most perfect, most delectable, moist, tasty pound cake I've ever eaten is the pound cake recipe I got from my friend Lynn who lives in Georgia. It is her momma's coconut pound cake. That recipe is the perfect pound cake recipe. Even if you are someone who doesn't like pound cake, you'll love that recipe. Because you could easily omit the coconut and it is still just fabulous. No disrespect to The Pioneer Woman because I love her bunches, but I like Lynn's momma's pound cake better.
I am going to give this recipe another try, but I want to play around with changing the flavors of the extracts. I think that is one thing I love about the pound cake. The recipe is basic and you can change it up in so many ways.
Here is a link to The Pioneer Woman's recipe if you want to give it a try yourself. http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/01/perfect-pound-cake/ I'm going to try to see if I can get in touch with Lynn to make sure it is ok to share her momma's pound cake recipe now that I've raved about it. I don't want to leave y'all hanging. :)
So that is all from my homestead. They are calling for more snow here tonight. Spring just can't get here fast enough.
Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods!
(Edit: If you are popping over from Money Saving Mom, welcome! I hope you'll come back and check out my blog often. I like to think of it as a conversation with girlfriends. Thanks for stopping by. Y'all come back now!)

Playing Hooky

I decided to play hooky today and not blog. I've got a lot going on and so I've got to get busy. Hope to be back tomorrow with a new post. Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods.