All Girl Weekend

My family is evenly divided between the sexes, three males, three females. This weekend the male half will be heading off to a father-son camping trip with our church. This means we have a weekend of nothing but girl time! I love this weekend (even if it means I'm a single parent, at least he takes half the kids with him).

So here’s 13 things I’m looking forward to this weekend:

1. A weekend of NO sporting events (live or televised)!

2. The basement (the boys’ domain) is clean and will stay that way all weekend!! (Until they come back with BAGS of dirty laundry on Sunday but that’s another story.)

3. A mother-daughter picnic with my daughters, mom, mother-in-law, one of my sisters, most of my sister-in-laws, and lots of fabulous church friends.

4. One-on-one time with each of my precious girls. Maybe get a head start on a Father’s Day project?

5. Making special treats with the girls for the above-mentioned picnic.

6. Did I mention my house will stay cleaner this weekend?

7. Reading in bed until the wee hour s of the morning..if I want to!

8. Knowing all my boys (even my biggest one) are enjoying a great weekend full of fun activities and some serious ‘guy time’.

9. Having the ‘big’ tv ALL to myself..no sharing the remote this weekend!

10. Watching a chick flick with my chicks! (Which just means Disney around here…the girls are 5 and 8)

11. Thankful for a husband who will do anything and everything to have a good relationship with his sons.

12. Making a menu that will please us. Shh…don’t tell but we’ll probably have at least one meal of JUST deep-fried mozzarella cheese sticks! (I’m looking for a good recipe for homemade ones.)

13. Having my tired but happy boys tell me ALL about their big weekend on Sunday afternoon. I can’t wait for the details!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

This post is linked to Thursday Thirteen and Things I Love Thursday!

Things I Love Thursday

I love ‘spoiling’ my kids. Come on, you know you love it too! I don’t mean giving them everything they want or giving in to their every little demand. I mean those times when they feel like you’ve just given them the greatest gift of their little lives. Let me just tell you how our weekend went.

Last Saturday morning we did our weekly inventory and made sure we had:
· Four kids – check
· One lazy, overweight beagle – check
· Three fish and a blue lobster – check

By Sunday afternoon we had to add to our weekly checklist:
· One bunny
· Two puppies

So my kiddos felt like this weeked was without a doubt the best day of their whole life!

Puppies are just the absolute best. I am so in love with them. The bunny is adorable as well. But without further ado…please welcome the newest members of our family: Cupcake the Bunny and Peanut Butter and Cookie. Obviously my family has an unhealthy obsession with food.

And I’m sure the fact that we’ve just increased our family by way too many has nothing to do with me counting down the days until my life changes forever. Our baby starts kindergarten in the fall and our first baby will start high school. The same day people! I've considered starting prozac now in order to prepare. My eleven year run as being a stay at home mom with a preschooler are gone. My era of only ‘elementary age’ children is over.

Sigh. I could go on but I’ll save it for another post. I’m going to play with the puppies.

For more 'Things I Love' head on over to The Diaper Diaries.

Things I Love Thursday

Feast your eyes upon these little ice cream filled cones of happiness. Pure joy. I bought a pack of these delicious, lower fat, lower calorie Skinny Cow treats and they are so fabulous. There were four in the box, I ate three. I did share one with D. But that's it, only one.

These babies have chocolate ice cream inside a chocolate lined cone with fudge, oh yeah, fudge on top all for around 150 calories and only 3 grams of fat.

As you can see by the empty wrapper I left in the photo, I scrarfed down every little morsel. Every single drop of chocolate was licked from the wrapper. Well, if there had been chocolate on the paper I would have licked it, that's how good they are.

Sadly they are all gone, but wait! This was the special club pack from Sam's and there's two other kinds. I'll report later on the vanilla cones with caramel....

For more Things I Love Thursday head on over to The Diaper Diaries.

I Love Indestructible Dishes

I have a split personality. My brain and pocketbook encourage me in my frugalness however my inner shopaholic screams for me to spend limitlessly. I balance a life of couponing and ‘reduce and reuse’ with strong desires for clothes for my kids and household items of any kind.

We’ve been in our house for almost 16 years now and a lot has changed and even more has stayed the same. Our kitchen had one paint job seven years ago—that’s it. We still eat off the same Corelle dishes we were given when we married--hope you can see below the pizza. Yep... peach and green hearts y’all. Can you say 90s? So my heart’s desire is to redecorate the kitchen and my bedroom (which has not even received a paint job during that time). My budget’s desire is to save to pay cash for a summer beach vacation and a golf cart (l’ll share why we *need* this some other day—we’re not golfers).

So today I spent too much time gazing adoringly at new Corelle patterns. Corelle is almost indestructible, in 17 years I think we’ve lost one bowl and one saucer. Do you know how often my children have ‘tossed’ their plates in the sink? It’s nothing short of a miracle really. Over at Corelle they have a feature called “What’s your Plate-O-Scope”? You choose a plate ‘sign’ and it gives you a description. I picked the red paisley..oh be still my heart! I have a secret passion for red (okay considering the boys’ bathroom walls maybe it’s not a secret). The paisley reminds me of the damask print I’m coveting for my bedroom.

Anyway, my Plate-O-Scope says I am practical (mostly) but a romantic at heart (um, maybe, sometimes). You’re as comfortable in jeans as a crepe skirt (wrong-o, jeans all the way). But the dead-on phrase: You believe Scarlett did end up with Rhett. Oh I so do! I totally heart that movie, it brings back memories of all night movie fests with my best friend in high school. This is odd considering I have a strong aversion to movies that don’t end well. I like them to tie up any loose ends AND give me a happily ever after last scene.

Back to the dishes, I have 3 sets of my country hearts, so a comparative amount of the paisley would be a grand total of $210. Oh be still my heart again but this time not in joy. My Corelle is in excellent shape. It has not faded, it has not chipped, it’s still so wonderfully useable, I bet the stuff could have another 20 years of life in it! Actually I know it would because my mom is still using her 1970’s “Gold Butterfly” set. Even though I believe Corelle is and would be worth every single penny I would spend on it, I’m not buying today.

Today my frugal, beach-loving backside has won! Don’t worry kids, mama isn’t spending your vacation money, not today anyway.

This post is linked to Things I Love Thursday.