4th of July celebrations

This year we had several 4th of July celebrations and it all started off with the celebration at our friend Ashley's house on the 2nd of July. She was a wonderful hostess and we enjoyed lots of yummy food, visiting with friends and the kids loved the giant water slide!

On the 3rd of July we went to our friend Christy's house for a homeschool celebration and bike parade. It was so adorable all of the kids decorated their bikes or scooters and then rode around the cul de sac. We had such a fun time visiting with other homeschoolers, playing in the sprinkler and Christy had called an ice cream truck to stop by so the kids LOVED that!

Finally on the 4th we had a party at our house and it looked like it might get rained out but we ended up with a sunshiney day by the time the party started. We ate, visited, the kids swam and played in the hot tub (don't ask me how they could stand the heat) and then we let off some fireworks and watched them all around our neighborhood. The police showed up and told us it was a $500 fine if you were caught letting off anything higher then the roof of your house. WOW that's quite a fine...we were not fined though. They just gave us a warning. The fireworks in the neighborhood went off until around 2am...it was WAY too late and we were in bed and still hearing them!

FREEDOM scrapbook

Happy 4th of July to everyone! Hope you have a great day. We are planning on having some friends over to celebrate and we woke up to a rain storm that's still going. We were planning on swimming in the pool, shooting off fireworks and eating and eating and eating...did I say eating! I hope that the rain clears off and that we can still enjoy tonight. What are you doing for the 4th? Anything special, do you have any traditions?? Please share with me...I love traditions!

Anyway, moving on to the scrapbook giveaway!!! I finally finished it last night and it's so cute that I want to keep it for myself BUT I won't. I think this is my 493rd post so my 500th post should be this week and that's when someone will win this cute scrapbook. Take lots of pics today and hope that you have something to put them in that's ALREADY made up for you! Don't forget to leave a comment so you can enter to win the scrapbook!

Mommy's do you have a dirty little secret????

I hardly ever watch Oprah anymore but today's show just caught my eye. Did anyone else see it??? It was the secret lives of moms and it was fascinating to me and if you didn't see it come to my house because I have it on DVR and we can watch it together and have a good laugh! I see all of these moms at church, small group, from our adoption agency, my home school group, blogs, etc. and I see all of the AMAZING things that they do and I just wonder if I'm ever going to live up to what they are doing. I guess I'm not the only one that feels this way because there were many, many other mom's on Oprah that admitted to these same feelings. Some moms that seemed to have it all together even shared their "dirty little secrets" like one mom wore depends because she drove her kids around to so many activities that she might not make it to the bathroom on time (hello, I would say she needs to slow down some), several moms talked about not bathing for several days or not realizing that their children hadn't bathed in a week (wouldn't you smell that??). Anyway, I was wondering if any of you out in blogger land might want to share your little secrets with me??? If so leave them in my comment section and after I have several comments I will reveal my own dirty little secret that I don't really want to share but I'm willing if you are! You can even leave your comment anonymously if you want to!!!

Noodles and hotdogs???

Tuesdays is the day that Makenzie helps me with dinner and I have been encouraging her to make up meals on her own and try to figure out different dinner combinations that her and Kylan might like. This week she came up with the idea of chopping up hot dogs and sticking noodles through them and then boiling them until the spaghetti was cooked. I wasn't to sure about this idea but didn't want to stifle her love for cooking so we took the plunge and made it. They both LOVED it and it was super easy and fun to make. We are now working on some veggies ideas like cooking carrots for a couple of minutes and then putting the spaghetti through the carrots and she wants to try broccoli too...we'll let you know!

Thrifty makeovers

These were only .50cents each and I thought a good coat of spray paint or maybe some stain and I could make them into a shelf....unless you have another idea.
Everyday my friend Sarah and I walk the neighborhood and everyday we would see these things laying by the curb just calling for someone to take them and every day we would talk about taking them until last Thursday...trash day. I decided that if Sarah didn't take them then I would! I drove over and the trash men were trying to decide if they should throw them in the trash truck and I told them I wanted them and they said "Good we thought they were too good to throw away but we weren't sure"

So, I've never been one to dumpster dive and I actually didn't have to get in a dumpster this time but they were someones trash and now my treasure!

This past Sat. I was out and about and decided to go to some garage sales. I found some items that I thought could use some makeovers but I'm not sure EXACTLY what I'm going to do with everything yet. Kimba at A Soft Place to Land always has great ideas and Traci at The Bakery turned a coffee table into an amazing pet bed....if you have any ideas for what I can do with these things PLEASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSE leave me comment! Also, don't forget about my 500th post giveaway...it's coming up soon!

My fav. thrifty makeover was Kenzie's ugly chair into a cute chair!

489th post

I'm getting closer and closer to my 500th post and I have a 4th of July scrapbook that I'm giving away the day I have my 500th post! If you want to win just leave me a comment saying which post in my blog history is your favorite! It's a super cute scrapbook that says FREEDOM and I posted one of the E pages!

Another garage sale extravaganza!

Kylan .50 cent clothes

Kylan's shirts were $1.00 each



This was a 3 piece travel set in perfect condition for $1 for all 3 pcs.













This was the best deal of all. Makenzie has a look a like American Girl that looks just like her but we have been reading all about Josephina because she's from NM and that's where I was born and the kids have been to NM almost every year since they came to the USA so it really brings that story to life for them. We found Josephina for $40 and she was still in her box!

Makenzie also got the American Girl PJ's for $10 which included the doll PJ's and the child size...her size and both of them had slippers and a sleep mask! Too cute!!

She also got the Greece outfit for her and the doll for $10 including the matching necklaces for both of them!

Kenzie's clothes





Last year I hit the jackpot at several garage sales in our town and this year I hit it again but it was all at 1 garage sale!

Since Makenzie is dancing so much she is wearing out the knees in all of her dance clothes because they have several slides in their dance this year so I bought her 8 pairs of dance pants and they were .50 cents each, 3 outfits that are 2 or more pcs per outfit for $1 each and a cute Christmas dress for $1, 2 camo shirts, 1 leather jacket $1, a pr of black velvet pants and shrug both from Justice for $1. Actually most of these clothes were from Justice which just happens to be Kenzie fav. store.

Kevin and I didn't get anything but that's OK we don't really NEED anything! It sure was fun shopping for my kiddos though. Have you gotten a good find on anything lately???

Now, who wants to go garage selling with me today or tomorrow???