Keeping Connected With Far-Away Family During Christmas

This is our first Christmas where we are not going to join the traveling hoards and make our way home. While we are sad that we are missing our family and some of our favorite Christmas traditions, we are glad to be relaxing at home instead of fighting crowds in the airports.

We have been trying to think of a creative way to be connected with our family on Christmas day. More than just the conference call or pass the telephone that our family traditionally did with relatives that moved away. Thankfully, we live in the 21st century where technology can bring our distant family into our living room on Christmas morning. Thanks to Web cams, they don't have to miss out completely on our two little girls experiencing the joy that Christmas morning brings. In the past, we have web-chatted with our family for a few minutes at a time to catch up on the latest goings on in our lives and to have the girls see and be seen by their grandparents. This Christmas it will serve as our link to our family.

There are many different options for video chatting. Skype, ichat, Aim, MSN, etc. A newer one though allows more than two cams to be connected at a time. Tokbox. With Tokbox, we can connect with both sets of grandparents and maybe even an uncle in another part of the country at the same time. It also works well whether you have a Mac or a PC. So check it out, and see if you can connect your family this Christmas beyond the Merry Christmas pass the phone game.

www.tokbox.com

I have to get back to you on this...

I mentioned earlier that I was going to try out emealz.com and let you know how I like it. Well, I did some further research on www.emealz.com and I decided against it. The best I could do on their plans was 70$ a week. That 70$ was only for dinner foods. So on top of that I would have to get breakfast and lunch makings. Currently, we spend about $70 (maybe a little bit more, but not much more) a week for all of our food and household goods. It's not spectacular but it is better than $70 just for dinner. I did like their variety of foods and having a list that you could take and know just about exactly what you were going to spend. But for us, emealz is not the cost-effective option that we are looking for. So it's my meal plan for now!

Wonderful Wednesday!

I haven't done one of these in a while so I thought I would revive Wonderful Wednesday. Today's Wonderful Wednesday product is my Apple/Peeler/Corer/Slicer from The Pampered Chef. Its a mouthful but without it, there would be no apple pie for Thanksgiving. I seriously don't have the patience to hand cut and especially peel 5 apples for my apple pie. The APCS does it all in a few cranks of the wheel. Really it's an old fashioned tool that does the job perfectly. They can't really improve on this one. Even making it automatic would not be helpful because I still like to think of my pie as "handmade." If you don't have one, I would suggest you get one, it will change your life! Apple cobblers become a breeze, dried apple slices, so easy, apple pies a dream, and your kids can do it too!

Christmas Gift Idea For Your Kids

This time of the year grandparents are probably asking for Christmas present ideas for your kids. This can be hard to come up with as you look at your house/playroom/kids rooms and you see gifts from Christmas past strewn about the floor in disaray sometimes even broken. What could they possibly need? I think it would be good to start with trying to get the grandparents on your side. Of course they want to get your child something they will appreciate and that will make their dreams come true, but does it have to be in the form of a toy or some other item that will become part of the chaos in your home? How about something expendable. Gift cards will only put off the mess and they aren't much fun for the grandparents. How about classes? How many times have you put off getting your little one into dance, music, art, gymnastics because of the cost? Wouldn't it be a great gift for Christmas? It's easy to ship. Doesn't take up room in the toybox. Doesn't require batteries. Doesn't break. Doesn't get fought over. Grandparents can see the joy they have provided by attending recitals in person or via video. It enriches your child's life and therefore is the perfect gift! Big hint to our kids's grandparents!

PS- Sports would be great too (they are so expensive these days!).

Reducing My Grocery Expenses

I've had a revelation in the last couple of days. I spend way too much on groceries! For the last few years we have been on a pretty tight budget. So, my way of saving was shopping at Walmart and buying generic everything. Doing this I got us down to about $150 each week. This was good for us. Recently, however, I found out that I can be doing much better. I found www.moneysavingmom.com . The mom behind this site spends $35 a week on her family of 4. Seriously! I don't hope to get that good but if I could just cut my spending in 1/2 that would be a great accomplishment. So I have begun the process of educating myself on the system of coupons and store sales. Money Saving Mom has a handy little sidebar that helps you get started. She also breaks it down and makes it understandable. She makes it a game for herself to see how much she can save.
The wonderful thing is that we have something our parents never had. The internet. Where we can find out what the best sales and coupons are. Through Money Saving Mom I found www.pinchingyourpennies.com which has boards with savings listings pertaining to your state (some states are better than others, depending on how active members are from your state). I also found a page on that site that gave me sales according to my zip code and stores I shop at. From there I could even select items and print a shopping list out.
I'm still learning and hope to save lots!! If I achieve my goal that would be $300 a month, like a part time job!

I plan on getting some friends on this with me, I know there are several who could use the extra money. So who will join me?

Found!

OK so it's old. We'll call it vintage. Probably older than me. And a little dirty, now that I look at the picture. I had completely forgotten that I had it though and I am very excited to find it. Exactly 2 months ago yesterday, I lost my crock pot to a toddler accident. See the very funny story here. Last night I was going through boxes in the garage while the girls played and discovered the box that held my mom's old Crockpot. The one that she gave me because she doesn't use it but swears she never gave me and now it's in Texas, 2400 miles away, so its mine. (sorry mom) So this pot will have to work for now, I will get a new fancy one with automatic shut off some other day in the future, maybe.

Wonderful Wednesday!

Today's wonderful thing is Ebay. I LOVE Ebay! I started shopping Ebay 3 years ago. I was looking for clothes for my then 2 year old for Christmas. I not only found fun play clothes for cheap but my best buy was CUTE Christmas dresses for both of my girls. I bought Gymboree Christmas dresses new, with tags, for less than $10.00 (including shipping). Yes, it was last years Gymboree but even on clearance those dresses would have been way more than $10. And nobody is going to care if it was this year or last years dress, it's cute! I have found that the prices on Ebay may be more than what you would pay at a garage sale, but the quality is so much better. After spending a little time on the consumer side, I decided that I wanted to make some money for myself. So I began selling this and that. Kids clothes, baby gear, even a dishwasher up on Ebay and out the door. I love using PayPal and getting instant money from my sales. I've used the money to buy more clothes for my girls and to feed my scrapbook addiction. Last Christmas, my husband sold some of his sports memorabilia that included a pair of new in the box Jordan's. We funded our entire Christmas on Ebay sales. At very tight times I've even used the money to pay for food. I've had my good and bad experiences with it, but more good that bad. I'm always looking for things to sell. If it isn't nailed down, watch out! You might find it on Ebay!

Wonderful Wednesday!

On this wonderful Wednesday I want to talk about a wonderful book that I am going through in my Wednesday morning Bible study at church. It's called Mom's Everything Book for Daughters. It's a great book with more than just advice for Mom about building relationships with their daughters. The author Becky Freeman includes activities and other suggestions for building a relationship that can withstand the teen years and beyond. Its a must read for any mother with daughters. She also has a book for Mom's with sons, Mom's everything Book for Sons.

For Dads, there is Dad's Everthing Boook for Daughters, and Dad's Everything Book for Sons by John Trent.

Kaboom! Playspace finder

I found this from a tweet that my husband received (yes, I stalk his tweets). Its a GREAT idea. I know when we moved to Texas I was desperate to get out and find new places to take the girls that were free and fun. The Kaboom! Playspace finder is a place where parents have entered info about parks and play areas that they know about and frequent. The more people add, the more it will become a great resource for parents. You don't have to be a member to search but you do need to log in to add a playplace. They don't add it until they verify the information. So click in and help build this wonderful resource for parents in your area. And take a look around, you may find a place you didn't know about!!
playspacefinder.kaboom.org

Twitter tips

Twitter had taken the world by storm! Early adopters have known for a while how much fun twitter can be. It has connected us to each other in real-time. For those who are asking "What's Twitter?" It's kind of like a Facebook status update or texting. It's called microblogging. Meaning you have 140 characters to express your thoughts or insights. You can read an earlier post about Twitter here: Why moms should tweet on Twitter. Now more people are joining and needing to learn a few things about Twitter etiquette. Here are a few things to keep in mind when tweeting to your tweeps:

1) Your tweets are broadcast to all of your followers. Don't type something about you or one of your tweeps that you wouldn't say loudly in a crowded room. This means that asking someone about her rash is not really tweetable. You can be personal, just not TOO personal. Think also about not putting too many details so that your private information stays private.

2) You can direct message someone. If you just have to ask Joy about that disgusting rash then you might want to direct message her. It goes only to the person you select. Remember also that when you get a direct message, you should direct message the response. I've seen random tweets from people who are obviously responding to a direct message but they forgot and responded in the public tweet.

3) You can respond to someone by clicking on the reply icon next to the message. This starts your tweet with @personsname but can be seen by all your followers.

4) You can make your Twitter account private or public. If it is private, then you will not be searchable. If it is public you can get random people following you and you should keep an eye on your followers to make sure you don't get people following you that you don't want. You can block them. My account is public because I wanted to be able to post it to this site. I have some followers that have their own parenting and/or mom blogs and have found my through some sort of search. I follow them if they seem interesting to me.

5) You can follow some of your favorite news organizations or companies. One of my favorites is Starbucks. Beware though that some people out there have set up fake accounts claiming to be something they are not so you have to weed through the fakes sometimes to make sure you are following the real deal. When Sarah Palin became the VP nominee there were several twitter accounts claiming to be her but they were not.

6) Do look around on the Internet for fun applications that support Twitter. Tweetdeck, Twitterfox (firefox add on), twhirl, twitpic, etc are fun things that can add to your twitter experience. There are also applications for the iPhone and iPod touch.

7) Have fun updating the silly and sometimes mundane events of your day. Your followers will enjoy being connected to you and having a little insight into your day. I recently tweeted a series of tweets about my first experience in the carpool line. I got more comments on how funny it was, I thought I was just keeping myself busy!

8) you can also follow current topics of interest by going to the search page: search.twitter.com (no www). The top trends are listed on the page and you can search key words. For example: John McCain, will come up with tweets people are posting about the presidential candidate.

I'm sure there is more, I'm still learning. Enjoy Twitter, keep these things in mind, it might help!

Other resources:
Twitter Fan Etiquette On Wiki
Blog entry on Global Geek News
Google Search

Teaching kids about money

I found this great product on Parent Hacks, I'm going to purchase it. I thought it would be a good thing to pass on.

Parent Hacks: Introducing Money Management to Preschoolers

http://www.parenthacks.com/2008/09/introducing-mon.html

Blog Surfing

There are so many blogs out there it's hard to know which ones are worth a look. Just clicking on "next blog" at the top of the screen is a little dangerous, to say the least, and usually unsatisfying.
So how do you find quality, informative, interesting and even entertaining blogs? www.alltop.com Alltop is an aggregator of blogs. Meaning it collects, categorizes, and ranks blogs. You can find all of the top blogs for most subjects worth looking into. For instance, if you are looking for mom blogs moms.alltop.com and you will get a list of mom blogs that are the cream of the crop (oh, I can only dream!). Going to the main website, www.alltop.com will get you to a large list of topics that seems to be growing every day. Only a few topics include: homeschooling, adoption, theater, tv, and of course, blogging.

I want to share a blog with you that my husband discovered and shared with me, it is not a mom blog and can be found under church.alltop.com . Her site is www.flowerdust.net and she is an author and serves on staff at a church in Nashville. I find her entries to be interesting and real.

Happy reading!

Beautiful Kids Clothes for FREE??

Check out these amazing kids clothes from Grosgrain, a website I found through Design Mom. The clothes are so cute, one of a kind, and FREE!! The mom who makes these clothes is just blessing the world with her sweet designs. I'm posting this link for a bit of a selfish reason. Creating this link enters me into the giveaway raffle. You can do it too!

Nantucket Weekend GIVEAWAY!!!!

For Sale: One Completely Useful Pot Without Its Crock

Yes, it's for sale. Not that I want to sell my crock pot, but since I don't have crock for the pot anymore it's not useful for me. Maybe it's useful for you??

This story starts with sugar. I was planning for an easy dinner tonight since I am going to my monthly escape from kids and husband (also known as scrapbooking night). One of those easy crock pot dinners in a bag. No work, just set it and forget it! As I was pulling my crock pot out of the pantry, the cord pulled with it the sugar canister. In slow motion I watched the tiny white granules hit two shelves before filling the crate of Tupperware at the bottom of the pantry. I quickly put the crock pot on the island counter near my children who were waiting for me to start making lunch. Reminding the angels not to touch the crock pot as I worked to clean up the sugar all over the pantry. I knew this was going to be a tough mess to pick up. I pulled out all of the affected plastic items (which ended up being all but 3 or 4 pieces) threw them in the sink. Reminded the 3 year old not to touch the crock pot. I then picked up the towels and cloth napkins that were on one of the shelves that was hit. Reminded the 3 year old not to touch the crock pot. Finally swept up as much as I could from each shelf and the ground. As I was taking my last swipe with the broom I heard a ghastly CRASH a few steps away. I turned slowly to find this:
I wish I could say that my first reaction was to laugh uncontrollable at the complete absurdity of the situation, but I didn't. I yelled "I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH THE CROCK POT!!!" This sent the before mentioned 3 year old into tears which I felt completely guilty about. So I decided to force a laugh and try to get the girls to laugh as well and focus on how funny this day was turning out to be. It didn't work for the 3 year old. She cried nearly the entire time while I swept yet another mess up. As far as the glass and ceramic went, it is amazing that nobody was hurt. I was standing where this picture was taken from with only flip-flops on and the girls were on stools shielded by the island. We found pieces as far away as 15 feet and some managed to jump onto the kitchen table. The mess made one huge pile of glass. And as I was putting what was left of the crock into the garbage, a chunk fell off and hit my foot. For the split second before I looked at my foot I thought, "Now wouldn't that just be perfect." Thankfully, nothing was wrong, just a little red.
So now I am left with a lonely pot, missing it's crock. Not to mention back to the drawing board for dinner. The pot needs a new (safer) home, anyone?

I wish I could say that was it for the messes. After the clean up we had lunch and the 3 year old spilled her juice on the floor. My 5 year old keeps saying, "this is such a BAD day!" I tell her, "nope it can only get better." And besides, God's in charge of whether it's bad or good. We are in charge of our attitude and how we handle it.

Dirty work

Just got done cleaning the floors. Not ever a fun job but reminded me of my favorite spot remover and I thought I would share it with you all.
We have horrible carpet. Thanks builder! We purchased our house almost finished. We had done the build our own house thing and weren't ready to do that again. We purchased this one with the understanding that we might not LOVE everything but we were happy to not stress about colors and such. So we have builder grade tan carpet. We also have a problem area that not only gets a lot of traffic, but technically it is in our kitchen thanks to our open floor plan. This area is ALWAYS full of ugly splash spots. So today I decided to get these awful spots up (wish I had taken a before pic). I had put it off long enough. I went to the cupboard and found old faithful. Years ago a friend told us about Folex. He even gave us a bottle of it. We have used it so much that it is sadly almost gone. It's so easy too. Just spray, rub with your finger then with a dry cloth. That's it, stain is gone and you can see the proof on your rag, the dirt comes right up! Now I sound like a commercial but this stuff really works. If you want to find it try their website here.
Another carpet product that I really like for whole floor cleaning is by Orek. This is an investment purchase because the machine itself costs $500. We borrowed one from our friend and Realtor when we were selling our house. It's the Orek Orbiter and it is a dry cleaning system. First you treat the carpet with a pre-spray that loosens dirt and oil. Then you shake Orek's dry carpet cleaning powder over the dampend carpet. Then run the Orbiter over it, which rubs the powder in and agitates the carpet. The last step is using a regular vacuum over to pull up the powder which has absorbed the dirt and oil in your carpet. Lots of money, Lots of steps, but the carpet looks new thanks to the stain removal and agitation of the carpet. Without the machine, I have used the the pre-spray and the powder on very difficult. I used a scrub brush to act as the orbiter. Find orek products at their website here. It might be worth the investment for the years of new-looking carpet.

OK, done with the commercial, now back to your regularly scheduled day.
:-)

Why moms should tweet on Twitter.

I'm all atwitter about Twitter. It would be even more fun if my mom friends were on twitter too. If you don't know what I am talking about, that's totally understandable. Mom's are much too busy to keep up on the latest web-based social networking applications. Some of us are just getting into email. ( I have one mom friend who STILL doesn't have an email account, love her, but I can't ever send her a quick email so we don't keep in touch much.)
So Twitter is the next thing. For those of you who have skipped the Myspace and Facebook revolution because you don't have time to set up a fancy profile or to keep checking your friends' profiles, Twitter is perfect. Twitter allows you to send a message (tweets) to all of your followers (tweeps, instead of peeps, get it?) at once, and to receive your friends' tweets as well. You can even set it up to text your cell phone when your friends tweet if you like. There are lots of options and it is growing more each day. It is a quick way to tell friends, family and followers what you are doing or thinking at any given moment. As moms, Twitter can give us a social outlet and connection even when we don't have time for it. Did you ever wish that you could share the crazy mommy things that happen like "My two year old just pooped on my leg?" (I only say this because a friend recently experienced just that and said it would be nice to just vent in a twitter). Twitter gives you a place to share the fun, crazy and sometimes mundane events of life. It's fun, not time consuming and becoming a part of our culture. Here is a blog article by Cynthia Ware that demonstrates just how Twitter is changing the speed of news. Parent Hacks is on board too (see sidebar for Parent Hacks link).
So sign up and follow me!! I would love to follow you too.

More on Plastic Bottles

A couple of months ago I wrote about my worries over plastic bottles and how they might be poisoning our children. I started on this rant because of a segment on the Martha Stewart TV show on which she spoke to a women who warned that Canada had banned #7 plastic bottles and stores in the US were taking them off of the shelves (not any of the stores I frequent). So fear set in and thus the previous post. (Find it here)
Since then, a friend of mine brought to my attention a Snopes.com article on the subject. Find the article here. Snopes is a great resource for finding the fact or fiction in those forwards that you get from time to time. I never thought of using it to verify this information.
For the most part, the article dispels worries about heating and freezing the disposable water bottles that we get when we buy bottled water. The article stops short of declaring all plastic bottles safe, however. Saying that the debate is still open on bottles containing bisphenol A. While there is still some concern over the levels of bisphenol A, many feel that the amount that passes to the water is of no concern. They also say that many times one's position in the plastic bottle debate coincides with their political views.
So draw your own conclusions. I will probably go out and buy replacement bottles for the ones I threw out (they were old anyway) and I won't even look at the bottom.