My Little Pirates (a not quite Wordless Wednesday)

Yesterday was Pirate Day at the McWane Science Center. The kids made pirate eye patches and hats, got a full lesson in how to speak pirate, went on a scavenger hunt and received a treasure, dug for gold coins, and racked up in pirate booty (necklaces). They had lots of fun. 

If you are within a 2 hour drive of Birmingham, the McWane Center is a great field trip. You can easily spend a day there. For my full review, click here! 

Digging for gold...

He was so happy when he found his gold!

(Not Quite) Wordless Wednesday

Enjoying the summer weather yesterday:

He fell down, but was so mesmerized by the cool things on the sidewalk that he didn't even cry...

First scraped knee

Today we went to the park. It was his first time at the park since he started walking - he loved having some freedom to roam.

He was fascinated by the rocks.

But the swings were still his favorite!

I love that smile!

Publix Best Meals Happen at Home Event + $25 Gift Card Giveaway!

I love Publix. We don't have one close enough to us, so I have to drive 45+ minutes to get to Publix. But it's so worth it. If you have a Publix near you and aren't shopping there, you need to start. Not only is Publix a great place to shop, it's also a great place to save. They run weekly specials and Buy One, Get One deals that are very cool!


During the Best Meals Happen at Home event, you'll find great savings on your favorite participating brands like Pillsbury, Cheerios, Betty Crocker, Campbell's, and Bertolli. The even runs March 8-14th. You'll find valuable in-store coupons that are valid through March 28, 2012. I was provided a gift card to shop at Publix and so Jaxon and I made a trip there last night to check out the great savings during this event.

Upon entering the store, we found this great display. It had store coupons, pictures of featured recipes, and a QR reader to scan to go straight to the Best Meals Happen at home site. I love it when Publix hands out store coupons!  Publix allows you to stack store coupons and manufacturer coupons. One of the store coupons on the display is for $1.50 off of 2 Prego jarred spaghetti sauce. When that coupon is combined with the .50/off of 2 Prego jarred spaghetti sauce I already had, it's an especially great deal, especially since my Publix doubles manufacturer coupons to .50 (check with your local Publix to see if yours does this as well). I picked up two jars of Prego spaghetti sauce for a total of $1.56! Since Publix also had pasta on a buy one get one special, I also picked up a couple of boxes of spaghetti noodles (total of $1.17), so we're set for a couple of spaghetti dinners. Some of the other coupons on the display were $1 off a box of Chex cereal, $2 off Bertolli frozen meals or soups, and $1 off a bottle of Wish Bone dressing.  


Want to get in on the savings? You can visit BestMealsAtHome.com to sign up. You'll receive emails with weekly recipes and exclusive coupon offers. You could save up to $200 this year! Some of the recipes on the site look great. I saw this recipe for Tuscan Glazed Chicken on the store display and I had to look it up when I got home. It looks so good!

Be sure and like the Best Meals Happen at Home Facebook page to stay updated on all the great meal ideas and coupons. 

Want to win a $25 gift card to Publix? Of course you do! Enter using the super easy Rafflecopter form below!

We're All Moved In

So we are finally all moved in and we are starting to get settled. I got the schoolroom set up first, since we spend half of our day there everyday. The living room, dining room, kitchen and our bedroom were pretty easy too. The bedrooms are still needing some work. Our kids went from 3 bedrooms, plus a playroom, to 2 bedrooms and no playroom, so there is a lot of cleaning out and consolidating still to do. We took a big pile of things they no longer play with to the thrift store and got rid of anything that was broken before we moved. But we still have too much. So our garage is a mess right now as I weed through everything in there and try to decide what they REALLY play with, what's worth saving for Jaxon to play with in a couple of years and what is easiest to just get rid of. It's a very slow process, which is frustrating for me, because I'm a "everything needs a place, and let's keep everything in its place" kind of girl. Thank goodness for the garage - at least I can shut the door when I'm tired of dealing with the mess! 


As always, Jaxon slows down the process since it's hard to keep him in the garage with me, but since he only naps for 47.3 minutes each day, it's also hard to get things done during his naps.


A few random things:


The cabinet doors in this house have handles, so I can use cabinet locks that don't require drilling holes in everything. Jaxon no longer empties the cabinets 9 times each day. This is one of those little things that makes my life easier.


The toilets in our new house messed up very soon after we moved in...backing up into the bathtubs - gross. We called our landlord and she immediately got someone out here to fix it, even though it was Sunday and she had to pay extra. When she found out they couldn't fix it the same day (they came back on Monday to finish the job), she called and told us she would pay to put us up in a hotel room. Isn't that so sweet? We were extremely pleased that she was so responsive and caring. It's very different from the rental situation we were previously in.


Moving + Parkinson's = days and days of pain. We moved most of our stuff in a weekend early because of forecasted tornadoes. I was sore that night, which was to be expected because I lifted some things I probably shouldn't have lifted. I was even more sore the next day and by the third day, things that didn't hurt the night we moved were hurting. It's like my body was mad at me. Then we spent last weekend finishing up, moving smaller things and cleaning the old house. It wasn't as much work as the first weekend, but my body thought it was. It's now Friday and I'm still sore. My body seems to take a long time to recover from things these days. 

We are going to have some chickens so we can have fresh eggs. We just got our baby chicks last night and the kids could not be more excited.  

We're also going to be planting a garden soon. I'm so excited (and so glad that my sweet husband is planning to do most of the work)! I love fresh veggies, but after seeing how I reacted after the move, I'm not sure my body is up for the work of a garden. We're hoping the garden will be productive so we can provide fresh produce to the community through the food pantry. 

We also are going to have some chickens so we can have fresh eggs. We just got our baby chicks last night and the kids could not be more excited.  


Anyone else out there have a garden? What do you grow?