Garage Sale Day

I drug the boys out to go to garage sales today. They weren't really thrilled but got into the thrill of the hunt after the first sale. These are my finds and I'm pretty darn pleased. The grand total for all this was $12.00. I'm sure a more seasoned garage saler would have got it for $10, but I'm a bargaining wimp.
The topiaries I bought because of the urns they are in. The blocks are for Stella and Jake, the big plastic containers in the back are for my mom to fill with her Christmas party mix and give back to me. :-) There are 10 magazines: Southern Living, Country Home and Country Living--all within the last 6 months.


I've been wanting to get apothacary jars and I'm excited to get this one for a dollar. I don't think the lid is meant to go with the jar, but it works for me

This pretty little light was $2.00 for the lamp and shade. (I checked--it works.) The base will probably get a coat of paint and the shade will get covered. I dont' think it was ever used because it still had that funky plastic thing on the plug that's on brand new lamps. Unless the owner was really OCD and kept stuff like that.

This bowl is pretty big and will definitely get some paint. I'm not sure where it will go or what it will hold---maybe some of that fruit from the topiaries???

Parker bought a stuffed dalmation that sing "Hooked on a Feeling." ????? And Jack bought a motorcycle that also plays music. Parker also got a book about baseball players circa 1990 and a book about Egypt. Jack found a book about castles. Parker spotted the Titanic movie and wanted to buy it (he's very, very interested in the Titanic right now) but I convinced him that 1) it isn't really about the ship and 2) we could get it from the library. Afer the garage sales we went to the library and they are watching it now. Yes, I realize it isn't really a kids movie, but sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

Cleaning Crappy Carpet

Six years ago I bought the world's worst carpet for a family with two boys who live in a bi-level (I only had one boy at the time but two has made the carpet situation 10 times worse.) I know I told the carpet guy that I needed something really durable that would clean easily. Hmmmmm.....he must have heard, "Give me carpet that shows EVERYTHING even lint and make sure it has to be cleaned professionally every 3 months." It is a very light berber with no pattern or texture. Just a solid room of white canvas for my kids to spill on. Did I mention that we live in a bi-level? This carpet is also on our stairs which you must go up or down as soon as you enter our home. Lordy, it's just a wreck. Anyway, I had them cleaned professionally a few times, but it's expensive and a few weeks later they would look like they were never cleaned. On the advice of my friend Angie, I rented a Rug Doctor (from Rural King) and did it myself. It's a pain because you have to keep filling the tank but when all was said and done it looked a whole lot better than it did before. The machine was $25.00 and the cleaning solution was $13.00. However, the thing I'm most happy about is this spot cleaner. It was $6.99 and it works so, so well. I got stains out that have been there for years! I've tried many spot cleaners, but this is my new favorite!

Jon & Kate

I've been watching Jon & Kate Plus 8 since the beginning. I just loved it. Partly because the twins are just a little older than Parker and the sextuplets are a few months younger than Jack. It was so interesting to watch what I considered to be totally normal people dealing with what life had thrown at them. I mean, I couldn't (still can't) imagine having 5 more Jacks in our house! Anyway, I've watched the last two episodes and it's like watching a sinking ship. Not just with their marriage, but just.....everything. Kate acts like she is a movie star. Sorry, Kate. You are just a reality star. What made you appealing in the first place was that you were just a normal person. I don't have a problem with how much she has improved her appearance--I've done the same thing in the past 5 years. It's the attitude that has come with it. Last night, they surprised her by going to Charmed City Cakes. She was excited and then she says, "I'm sorry. I'm acting like a fan." What's wrong with being a fan? What's wrong with being excited? Be excited because your KIDS want you to be over the top excited. It is so painfully obvious that those poor kids are being forgotten in the whole mess. She keeps claiming, "Everything I do, I do for my kids." Who is she trying to convince? Us or herself? If being in the spotlight is putting this much stress on their lives, pull the plug. I can see why they don't want to. They are obviously getting rich, but it's so hard to watch it all play out. My plan is to boycott watching it from now on because I don't want to be a part of feeding into what it's become. It's going to be hard!!! I hope they get this all figured out and do whatever is best for their family---whatever that is?

Pee Wee Baseball With Jack

Jack's baseball season started out very doubtful. He cried the entire first practice. Travis is the coach so this was a little unexpected. Travis came stomping home that first night and said, "That's it! I'm not coaching him. He cried and held onto my leg the whole time." Welcome to my world. Jack is very unpredictable. I just never know how he is going to react to a situation. The next practice, I went and did everything with him. I ran bases, played outfield, etc. After about 45 minutes, he quit crying and got into it. The next practice, he just cried once or twice. Now he loves it and can't wait to get there. He had his first game last week and he was pretty darn funny.

Hey, batter, batter, SWING! He's either yawning or chattering.

Check out his eyes. They are closed! He got a hit though!

Heading to first base. This kid never runs slowly--unless he's running the bases.

Whew. His first PeeWee hit. We were mighty proud. There is nothing cuter than a tiny little boy in baseball pants!

This and that

We had a baseball tournament in St. Louis this weekend and the hotel we stayed at had a lot of cool modern art throughout. When you got off the elevator on each floor, there was a big canvas painting with the number of the floor. I took a picture of the boys with their age.

Tuesday was report card pick-up day at school so we took in a little "summer" gift to Mrs. Reynolds and her kids. Hers had a beach towel, magazine and a SoBe water. The kids had sidewalk chalk and a flavored water. The buckets were $1.00 each from Michael's. I wrote the names on them with one of my most favorite things in the world--paint pens! I use Deco or Elmer's. If these get taken to the pool, the names will wear off. The paint is definitely not water-proof.

My grandma's funeral was yesterday and later that evening we were treated to this rainbow. Coincidence? I'm choosing to think it was a sign that she is up in heaven and having a marvelous time.

Grandma Stewart

My sweet Grandma Stewart passed away this evening. She would have been 90 in October. I honestly thought she would live to be 100. I'm glad she didn't suffer. I'm glad my mom made it to her side before she went to heaven. She knew Jesus and I'm sure she was looking forward to being with Him and with my Papa and my uncles. She and Jack had a special little bond that I loved to watch. She bought him peanuts. I'm soooo glad my kids got to know her and love her. I'm also glad we got to see her as recently as Easter. We sure will miss her.

This is how I will remember Grandma--making food. She made the BEST sourdough bread and flapjacks--and Parker has just reminded me--"don't forget noodles". And my favorite, sweet potatoes browned in brown sugar and butter. Mmmmm.....she knew just how I love them. Parker loves, loves, loves her noodles.

Public Service Announcement, Graduation and Gumballs

Somehow I have gotten onto a baby mailing list and I am receiving all sorts of baby coupons and such that I most certainly don't need. This showed up yesterday. See where the arrow at the bottom is pointing? That is where this poor baby is going to break his little leg. The mom is sitting on a slide, smiling happily because her baby is going to have so much fun. But, oops, his little foot is going to get caught between her leg and the side of the slide and twist it awkwardly so it breaks. Oh, wait. That was me and Parker--not this smiling lady. Seriously. Be very, very careful if you do this. It is so common to break a baby's leg this way that there is a name for it--Toddler Fracture. There's my PSA for the day.

This little graduate is moving on from preschool to kindergarten! He is soooo ready and very much looking forward to going to "Parker's school" Unfortunately, Parker won't be there. Oh well. It's not like he's ever actually gone to the same school as Parker at the same time before. Now they won't be at the same school until Parker is in 6th and Jack is in 4th. Sorry. I think that's strange.


I got this idea from Marvelous Michelle last year only she made cake balls instead of using gumballs. Simple. Easy. Cheap. Cute.

Teacher Picture

Look how cute the McGaughey staff is with their canvas signs! I love that they did this! This is the most wonderful group of teachers and I am so, so sad that Parker has to move to a different school next year. Luckily half of the teachers will be going to the other school so at least that much will stay the same for him. And, we will get two more years at our beloved McGaughey with Jack.

(Just a little note--I don't know why Mr. Blakey and Mrs. Eckenrod aren't holding their signs--they got one too!;-) )

My week!

This was a busy week:
Sunday: Celebrated being a Mom and having a mom.
Monday: Turned....GULP....39!
Tuesday: Recovered from turning 39
Wednesday: I don't remember. Crap, my memory is going already.
Thursday: Shopped solo all day long. Thanks Mamaw and Buddy!
Friday: Jack's last day of preschool and my last day at the Co-Op Preschool. I'm going to miss it after 5 straight years!

Memory Lane

I was searching for this picture because I wanted to frame it. It is one of my all-time favorites. I was trying to get a Christmas card picture and they were cracking themselves up. This didn't make it onto the card, but I sure do love it.

This is just a reminder of when my kitchen looked like McDonalds. See, I always let the crew help me paint.

This was Jack's first--and best--Halloween costume. Really, could he have been anything else!? He won first place in the Mt. Zion Costume Contest. In case you have been living under a rock, he is Charlie Brown.

Cake Ball Day

Here is more Teacher Appreciation stuff for ya'. I bought a bunch (40) of these little boxes from Hobby Lobby during the after-Christmas sales. They didn't look Christmasy at all to me and I knew I could use them for something. We made 4 different varieties of Cake Balls (strawberry, lemon, chocolate and birthday cake) and put one of each in the boxes. We also made a sign that said, "You make it a piece of cake for our kids to have a ball at McGaughey! Enjoy a Cake Ball!" Cheesy? Of course! That's what makes it so much fun!
I should have mentioned the recipe for cake balls. Just bake any flavor of cake and let it cool. After it cools, put it into a bowl and crumble it as finely as you can get it. Add a tub of frosting in a complimentary flavor (strawberry cake/strawberry frosting; lemon cake/lemon frosting; yellow cake/vanilla icing and so on and so on) Mix it up well. Place the bowl in the refrigerator for about an hour. Form into approx. 1 inch balls and place on a baking sheet lined with wax paper. Place in the freezer for at least a half hour. Melt some almond bark or chocolate and dip the balls into the coating. Set them back on the wax paper. Voila...you have the most delicious treat! There are probably a million variations of cake balls. Don't forget to try Oreo or Nutter Butters but instead of frosting, you use cream cheese!

MTZ at Busch Stadium

In the middle of all the Teacher Appreciation chaos last week, we spent all day Thursday at Busch Stadium. Our high school baseball team was playing another local high school after the Cardinal game. It was a very, very long day, but we had fun. We couldn't have gotten a better day weather-wise. There is nothing I hate more than being really hot, really cold or really wet at a ball game! And just in case you were worried that we were letting Parker play hookey--it was an excused absence for anyone who went to the game! The boys have been dying to make a Fredbird at the Build-A-Bear at the Stadium so we did that too.

It takes a Village

It takes more than just teachers to make a school successful, so we didn't forget to do something special for our playground supervisors and lunch ladies. We made them each a necklace with their initial. You can't really tell with my low-quality picture, but the stones are a deep red. I think it's safe to say they liked them.

100 Things

***For Lisa.....the cover is just a piece of cardstock cut to the same size as the dollars. I used my Cricut to cut the fancy frame and letters, but you could easily use stickers. Good luck!
I saw this idea HERE and HERE and wanted to do it for Parker's teacher. I sent home a note with the kids asking them to donate $5.00 and to answer five questions:
1. What I will miss most about Mrs. Reynolds class is...
2. What I love most about Mrs. Reynolds is...
3. Mrs. Reynolds loves me because...
4. My favorite thing Mrs. Reynolds taught me this year is...
5. What I hope I never forget about this year is...
Then I cut out their answers to the size of a dollar bill, put one answer, then a dollar bill, one answer, dollar and so on and so on and bound them together to make something that resembles a very expensive memo pad. Expensive because there are 100 $1.00 bills in it--it only cost $2.50 to have it made into a memo pad. Before you attempt this, make sure you can get the dollars. I have a friend who works in a bank and she was able to track down one pack of fresh dollars at one of their branches. Apparantly, most banks don't keep these on hand except around Christmas. And, the lady at the printing place where I had it bound told me that she thought what I was doing was illegal. I guess she was feeling naughty, because she did it anyway.






This is Mrs. Reynolds realized just what we've done. She took the time to read every one of the kids answers. The kids loved and it and she did too. You know it's a hit when it makes the teacher tear up!

Mod Podge to the Rescue

I've had my eye on Mrs. Reynolds' candy basket and pencil holders all year. I couldn't wait to get my hands on them. I took the pencil cans after school one day and I got a new bucket for the candy. I just Mod Podged some fabric onto them and added ribbon and my favorite--the pom pom fringe. Soooo much cuter than they used to be. (They were halfway covered in faded construction paper held on by packing tape.)