Halloween 2011

I would love to tell you that I have a a dozen beautiful pics of all my kiddos & their costumes, but there's only 3. Yup, just 3. It was freezing outside, the kids were so excited & just wanted to go trick or treating. As you can see, they barely held still for the ones I did get!

Here is Pinky Lee as "Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's" & Lil' C as the Queen of Hearts

 Believe it or not, I did not decide on or make these costumes early. On Thursday, I had convinced Lil' Coconut to reuse her pirate costume from last year, and Pinky Lee was going to wear an old cheerleading uniform. But I went to Hobby Lobby to get the stuff to make Bug & Boo Boo Bear's costumes & found myself staring at tulle, dreaming about the inspiration costumes I'd found on Pinterest. Suddenly not caring that I had less than 24 hours to complete all the costumes for Friday's Halloween parties/parade, I bought supplies & rushed home to get started. I had to make 2 additional trips to the store, but managed to bring them to the school just in time!

Personally, I think they turned out great, and my girls look fabulous in them (as always!). Not quite the same as the inspiration photos, but certainly cheaper and made with love from momma! :)

 Suprisingly, I actually had to explain what boys were dressed as to many people! On the other hand, these costumes got more compliments than the girls' did!

Bug as the Red Angry Bird & Boo Boo as an Evil Piggy.

Thanks to Pinterest (again) for the inspiration for my boys' costumes. Not quite as good as the originals, but I've never claimed to be good at drawing! Boo kept taking the darn thing off randomly & we'd tell him nobody would give him any candy if he wasn't wearing his costume. Occasionally he would put it back on and join the other trick or treaters. Bug on the other hand, thought it was the coolest costume ever & said all his classmates thought so too. Yea!

1st "Green" Smoothie

Not only did I have my first "green" smoothie yesterday, but I actually made it myself. I really liked it. My kids really liked it. And they asked for it again today!

What is a green smoothie, you ask? It's where you put leafy green veggies in with a fruit smoothie. In our case, it was spinach. It's a yummy way to add a little extra veggie serving to your day. There's enough natural sweetness to the fruit and juice to mask any spinach taste. Ours didn't turn out green though because I used a purple juice, so it was a nice purpley-pink color. None of the kids even knew there was spinach (or carrots) in it until they saw me making it today. They actually thought it was funny that there was "salad" in it! Yea!

So if you or your kids need a boost of fruits & veggies here is my recipe. And by recipe I mean an approximation of what I tossed into the blender without really measuring.

Green Smoothie 
Makes approx. 6 - 6oz. servings

2 handfuls fresh spinach

6-8 baby carrots

12-16 oz. plain non-fat yogurt
1 banana

1 lb. frozen fruit

(I used a tropical blend that contained mango, pineapple, strawberries & others 

because that's what was the cheapest at my store this week.) 

1/2 c. juice (I used the knock-off version of V-8 Fusion pomegranate & blueberry)

Water - enough to thin to desired consistency

Blend it all up! You'll probably need to stop & push everything down several times to get it well mixed. If your blender won't break up the carrots or frozen fruit, try putting those through a food processor first. If you try this, let me know how you like it. Or if you have your own green or power smoothies that your family enjoys let me know!

I have a new love...

It's name is Pinterest. Have you discovered it? Oh my. I have avoided it for quite some time, but finally gave in when I kept forgetting where I found all these really great tutorials. I wanted to be able to easily locate what I needed when the time came. So I caved. I have over 1,000 pins in just a few weeks! Even my husband looks at it & and we have Pinteresting conversations. LOL It's my new favorite friend. Do you Pinterest?

The Bridges of Madison County are in Iowa???

  Really? Back in June we met Granny and Papa in Iowa so the kids could spend a month with them. (How awesome is that???) Anyway, as we were driving through Iowa I saw a sign that said Entering Madison County. Okay. Then a sign that said Covered Bridges Next Exit. WHAT? Really? Iowa? Now, I've never read the book or seen the movie, so that probably puts me at a disadvantage, but I really thought they were somewhere in New England. You know, someplace where you'd expect covered bridges.
  So after we parted ways with our children, my husband bravely set out on Iowa's back dirt roads to find covered bridges for his wife to see. Oh, so sweet! Our first stop, though was to see a Danish windmill in Elk Horn, Iowa. It's adorable. There was even a miniature-sized one too. I just found out that Elk Horn also has a "tiny church" that used to be in the running for the smallest church, and I'm bummed that we didn't get to see that! Oh well, they did have this railroad car and station in town that apparently used to be a flower shop. Cute.
  The windmill was easy to get to. The bridges not so much. We had a map, but you have to follow all these unmarked roads to get there. There was an occasional sign, but not at every turn, so we eventually got lost. That's always fun! Finally we arrived at the first bridge. It was not exactly what I was expecting. It was a big red box and you couldn't drive on it. It was cool though. I've never seen a covered bridge before except in pictures. Why do you think they covered them anyway??
  Although there are like 6 or 7 bridges there, we only saw 3. We were way behind on time. One of the bridges is located in the town of Winterset, which we discovered was the birthplace of John Wayne. The hubs was excited about that! His house had something like 4 rooms; it was tiny. The park where the second bridge was located was very pretty. It had this amazing stone bridge and an English hedge maze which was fun. The last bridge was on our way out and I about jumped out my seat when I saw that we could drive over it! That makes it way cooler! So we ended on high note and only about 3 or 4 hours behind schedule. :)

Where we've been

We have not disappeared, I didn't decide to quit blogging, and nothing (too) terribly bad has happened to any of us. Everyone in our family DID get sick, some of us more than once, one person for a whole month, and at one point all four children plus mommy were sick at the same time. Fun. I'm sure you've guessed that since nobody would let their child be sick for a whole month the long-term sickie was me. You know how it is: "Everybody else got better, I'll be better in a few days." or "I don't have time to go to the doctor." Yeah, I see your heads nodding! :) At any rate, I put those "can't get off the couch" days to good use by reading a ton of books, so I will be doing some more reviews shortly.
Sadly, when I finally did go to the doctor, she discovered that I have diabetes. What a bummer! I knew it was coming eventually due to family history and gestational diabetes w/ all my babies, but I still wasn't prepared. The medication she gave me has brought my blood sugars down to a safer (but still too high) number. I go back in next week, so hopefully it comes down even more.
Well, there is another huge thunderstorm rolling through & the lights have flickered a few times, so I better get off here. Bye! :)

Book Review: Promises to Keep

I used to read a lot. Sometimes several books a week. Now I have four children and that has dwindled to several books a year, and most of them are non-fiction. Since I don't read a whole lot anymore, my children don't read a whole lot either and that is just sad. I really miss reading! I recently found a publisher that gives you copies of books in exchange for your review, so I jumped on it in an attempt to force myself into more reading! I'm not sure I've ever written a review before (just book reports way back in school), so I hope this goes well. Without further ado:

Promises to Keep

by Ann Tatlock

Promises to Keep is the story about an 11-year-old girl named Roz in 1967-68 whose mother has taken her and her siblings away from their abusive father to a small town in another state to start a new life. Within a week of living in their new home, an old woman (Tillie) shows up on their porch claiming that it's her house and she intends to die there. Her older brother is turning into a person that Roz no longer recognizes as he obsesses about turning 18 and joining the war in Vietnam. Roz begins thinking she's seeing her daddy around town. During a time of racial unrest, Roz befriends a young black girl whose family life is just as interesting as hers, and together they make a pact that could change their lives forever.

This was a very enjoyable book. It challenges you to think about what (and who) a family really is. I could relate to Tillie because I've met a few women like her! Ann Tatlock's descriptive writing makes it easy to picture scenes and to feel familiar with each character.  Looking at the events through Roz's eyes gives you an innocent hopefulness that everything will turn out right. 

This was the first book I read by Ann Tatlock, but I will definitely read more. Her writing style is very personable and easy to read. I highly recommend this book!

I received a copy of this book from Bethany House in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are 100% mine!

Blog Redesign & March Financial Contribution

I was so busy working on my blog's redesign, that I forgot about posting! Oops! :) First of all, what do you think of the new look? I'm not totally in love with it and would love some opinions about it. Please be honest! Thanks!

I also wanted to tell you about how I contributed to the family financially last month. Saidah at A Proverbs Wife is SOO inspirational, and I got the idea of tracking my contributions from her. You can check out her financial contributions here. Way more than mine! :)

Savings

Groceries = $285.42

Online deals (Groupon, Mamapedia, etc.) = $286.05

Earnings

Surveys, Ebay, Swagbucks, Affiliates, etc. = $107.33

Total Impact to My Family

$678.80

This does not include some really awesome deals we got on brand new clothes at K-Mart's clearance sale. We picked up a bunch of winter clothes (because we didn't really have many) for $2.99-$3.99 each! I just forgot to write down the original prices before the tags got thrown away. Oh, well. I know it was a good deal, even if I have no written proof! LOL It makes me feel good to know that I'm helping a little to drag us out of debt.