Fostoria Pretties!

A good friend of mine and former co-worker brought by a belated birthday gift from her and her mom (who is awesome because she's a loyal blog reader who I have not scared off yet) Her mom came across a sugar and creamer in my beloved Fostoria crystal pattern, and a dish for them to sit in. LOVE! Thank you sooooo much!

I also forgot to mention when we went to Lurray, my friend and I were able to get our husbands to stop in a flea market, where we were amused by a few imbred families, (seriously, I am not being mean, I am being serious) but it was worth it because I got this dish ( I guess it's a candy dish?) in the same pattern for just $8.

Spooky!

I cleaned my porch today -cause I am getting ready for Fall! As soon as the pumpking patch opens up I will be there ready to throw down for lots of awesome pumpkins! Here's some photos I found from google that I love. Seriously, halloween in my favorite! I would of put out some other decorations on the porch, but we may be getting a hurricane next weekend, so no need to drag anything out now. So I just scrubbed, and put some other items in the garage until the hurrican scare is over.... crossing my fingers we don't get it.

I am sneaking other halloween decorations out in random spots through out the house, I can't help it.

Struggling...

See this dip in my hand above? It's messing up my WW. Our friends brought this dip when we went camping, and made the mistake of letting me know that it is from Costco. Costco is part of my holy trinity of shopping (along with Target and Tjmaxx). I bought this huge container telling myself I would just have a tiny bit and save the rest to serve at Emily's birthday party... That plan is not working out so well for me. It is all I can do not to shove my face into this and lick it dry. I want to slather it on sandwiches for goodness sakes.... ok so I did... stop judging me...

A reason to spend...

For those who have wee ones there is a really cool sample sale website called Zulily.com During the week they have new items at deep discounts... such cute stuff- I actually ordered my oldest daughter's halloween costume off of it last week (she changed her mind from Snow White, and picked "Pink Princess") Anyways, todays showings had me using restraint.... I am a huge sucker for halloween- and they had this dress:

OMG cuteness.... I didn't pull the trigger on this one, or the other cute halloween clothing they had...So cute though!

I did however have to take part in the 30% off Give and Get going on at Gap/Old Navy/Banana Republic. I mean I can't turn down that.... I picked up an outfit for Emily for her birthday, some tights for the kiddos, and jeans for my older two. Lovely deal I tell ya.

I was upset that Old Navy didn't have this dress in their store today, but I am probably going to order it online because I have stared at it and pictured myself in it all day, and hello it's on sale...

I am a bit horrified to see the grunge look is coming back... see below

Yes Old Navy has a million of these for men and women. Nothing makes you feel old like seeing a fad come back around... Oh how I used to raid my dad's closet for his flannel shirts and beg my mom to buy "cool" flannels at Express back in the day. I will not be buying any flannel that I promise you. I would just feel a little too Kurt Cobain.

If anyone needs me to email them a coupon code for the 30% which goes all weekend please send me your email address, cause I gotta feed everyone else's shopping addictions as well. But please don't use it to buy a flannel shirt, that you can get at a thrift store for a $1.

Oh and keep me in your thoughts and prayers tomorow as I am heading to Busch Gardens tomorow with all three kids by myself, (well I am meeting a friend and her wee one, but I wont have a husband helping) This will require lots of deep breaths, and possible Valium, and hopefully I wont scare my friend out of having more then one child.

Mini vaca recap and what nots...

We took a mini vacation to Lurray, VA with another couple and their daughter. It was a lot of fun! We stayed at a cabin that we had been to last year, and we were able to tour Lurray Caverns, float in tubes down the river (which is why Emily didn't go... the floating down the river taskes about 4 hours give or take, and I didn't think she would appreciate sitting that long in a inner tube). True to form I ate way to much, and unfortuantly somehow gained almost 3lbs while away.... Don't know why I was surprised given we ate a ton of smores, drank wine, and of course hit up PF Changs and Cracker Barrel and I didn't exactly pick healthy options... yeah I went a bit crazy. EEK. Oh well hopefully I can get some of it off this week. The weather was so pretty and kids loved being outside and enjoying new things!

In other news, we are getting ready for school as our oldest meet their teachers next week, so I busy making sure the girls physicals are in, and also starting to get ready for Emily's birthday! I had the invites done, but of course messed up on the spelling, so I have to reprint them and mail out. I ordered her cake today, and I have items to make some party favors. I am going to make chocolate dipped pretzel rods covered in sprinkles for the favors. I am going to do a trial run next week early on and make a few bags for teacher gifts.... It pays to suck up in advance with food....

Love it!

While stalking my favorite consignment shop I found this hand made dress, that is adorable! Sorry for the cruddy cell phone picture. Yupp only $6.50! I can't wait for one of my older two to wear it with a red turtle neck and some red tights.

Behold you chocolate addicts on WW I have found something to help my cravings, and keep me on track. Vita Top muffins. I found these at Farm Fresh in the organic/healthy frozen foods section. It's pretty much what it says, just the tops of a chocolate muffin, and it's high in fiber, low calorie (only 100 cals), and low fat, and works out to being one WW point. My only gripe, is that they are a bit on the expensive side.... I think the box I got only had 4, and they were $5.00 ish. But that's cheaper then stopping at McDonald's I guess. This week I would heat up one of those to eat for breakfast, and then eat a banana, and it would keep me hungry free until lunch.

WW is going well, however I have a major road block coming Sunday.... We are heading to the mountains to go river tubing/floating, and on the way we are stopping in Richmond to eat at PF Changs.... I took the liberty of printing the nutritional info from their website, and lordy.....Oh how I love that place, but my gracious....Let me put it this way, I get 24 points a day, and what I would normally order from there is 24 points (General Changs Chicken)....Seriously I studied the menu for a good hour, and have decided I will get the Singapore Street Noodles (they are super yummy too), that meal will be 19 points if I eat it all, but at least it has lots of veggies, and will give me some options for a light breakfast and dinner. But who am I kidding, I am sure I will have to really tap into my extra points.... I will just call it a blessing if I don't have any gains when I weigh next week.

In other not foodie news, I hope everyone took advantage of Groupon.com local deal yesterday. It was a awesome deal! For $25 you get $50 worth at Gap, good through now till November 19th. Sweet!

If only I had drag queen friends...

I have looked high and low, for some orange feather boas....The local crafts stores did not have them, but I finally found them through amazon.com. Don't worry I wont be prancing around with them, I want them for a craft project. I plan on wrapping them around a wreath form, so I end up with a orange feather wreath, and then I have this cool crow I want to put on it probably with the help of a glue gun, and maybe some big glittery black spiders.... I think it will make a super cute halloween wreath, and look good on our black door.

We start celebrating halloween September 1st in our household. I love halloween, so I figure hey, I can enjoy my decorations a bit longer. I firmly believe having them out earlier is in no way tacky- I feel leaving things up late is tacky/lazy, so I am just being proactive. If you don't agree just humor me, and my halloween obsession! Will post pictures once I have a finished product.

WW update and some jesus.

I am still hanging in there with weight watchers.... of course it was disappointing to see two weeks of big weight loss, and then this week when I weighed myself at work it wasn't a lot, I still had some loss. I have been really good with sticking to the diet regardless, and I can't even begin to tell you the wonderful desserts that I have passed down. I joined my local junior league, and at the new member kick off they had all kinds of desserts, and I pretended they were not there.... What's going to be hard is we are going out of town soon for a mini vacation, so it's hard to say if I will be able to behave myself.

In my quest to find a church, I went to a CRAZY church with a friend where people talk in tongues. I kept praying they wouldn't bring out any snakes or try to save me. I will say though the service lasted over two hours, it kept my attention, but all I could think were that all of these people there were out of their minds.

First week of Book Club discussion questions

Confession, I was only supposed to read chapters 1-10, but of course I couldn't stop, and ended up finishing the book, but I promise I will be good and not post spoilers. I will be linking up this post with the book club site. Check out the site for more info: http://bookendbloggers.blogspot.com/


1. What was your first impression of Tim?
I thought he sounded pretty awesome. He sounded like the perfect guy, and a wonderful boyfriend. Of course given the fact that Cee Cee is just 16 and he's in college, I was wondering why he would go for someone that young.

2. If you were in CeeCee’s position, would you be willing to help your boyfriend in the way that she is willing to help Tim?
Two words. Hell no. When I was 16 I was pretty naive, but I wasn't that naive. I would never do something that illegal.

3. Why do you think CeeCee is so eager to please Tim?
She was in love, and thought he was in love with her. Also, being that she didn't really have any male role models in her life, given the fact that she was fatherless, and also lost her mom at a young age, the attention that she got from Tim made her latch on.

4. Who do you think has it harder? Tim or CeeCee?
Cee Cee. She's a waitress, struggling to have enough money to try to go to college one day, and he's a spoiled rich kid. Though they have both been through some hard times in different ways, money can get you pretty far.

5. What character trait(s) about CeeCee stuck out the most to you in these first ten chapters?
Strength and loyalness hands down.

6. Do you think CeeCee is as mature as she seems?
I thought she was, though she was just 16, but other then being naive and being blind by love she was pretty driven.

Christmas is around the corner...

I have found Christmas dresses for my wee ones... I was searching Etsy and found these pretties for outstanding prices! I am having her do the girls intials on my older two, and then Emily will be wearing the smocked one. I just love these, and thought I know it's way early, I just couldn't pass up the deal. Plus since I will have the dresses early I can attempt to do a Christmas card photo early of them... Wish me luck.

Master bathroom new paint job

Our painter finished up our projects as requested. We were able to get the two bathrooms done and the hallway upstairs, and little hallways downstairs that connects the kitchen, laundry room, and dining rooms.

I didn't take a picture of the kids bathroom yet as God forbid I go upstairs and take a picture and wake them up early, but above is the master bath. I really like the color. Our bedroom is painted a light blue, so I think this was a good color for our bathroom and looks good with the dark wood. Dave now wants to rip out the bathroom floor (its just linoleum right now), and put tile down himself. It's been picked out, and maybe later this fall he will get going on it. I know it will take him several days, so I am not in a hurry for my bathroom to be torn to hell after just getting it painted. I am so excited about this room being painted you just don't know....When I was pregnant with Laura we had an issue with a leak in the ceiling in the bathroom, and had to fix that and redry wall the ceiling. My husband and a friend fixed it, but never retouched the paint, so for five years now I have been staring at that lovely sight.

PS. Make sure you check out my scrapbook blog for some new stuff I have been working on... http://robynsscrapblog.blogspot.com/ I ended up catching up on 2010, but I am still working on finishing up Christmas so my 2009 book can be done =)

Back to school stress

Oy. The end of summer is coming, and I can already feel myself tensing up. Hello, my name is Robyn and I am a control freak, and I get overwhelmed very easily. I don't know why, but every fall I get all worked up about back to school, and my kids are only in pre-school. I have been focused on fall clothing shopping, getting the needed supplies, making sure important dates are scheduled on the calender I also am joining a community organization that is going to take up a lot of time. You know what stresses the bejesus out of me? That this preschool has been functioning for years and years, (I went to this school as a child so you know it's old) but yet every freaking year they can't give you details on the begining days of school. Each year about this time I get a notice with who the teacher is, supply list, and when to come for orientation, but then they get all secretive. On the letter they write down that the day after orientation they will have classroom visits for the children and the time for that will be given the night before. Every year they do that. Of course I made a point to take that day off from work, but I just don't get why they can't get their crap together and set times ahead of time so that working parents can have some notice. They also do a slow start as the kids just go for one hour the first day, etc, but they wont tell you any of the specifics until the night of the orientation. I hate it, but of course I love the school, so I attempt to deal.

I am excited that Rachel got the teacher I requested (Laura's old teachers from last year), and I am a little nervous that Laura has someone that has not been a lead teacher before, but I feel that Laura is very smart for her age, and she is a fast learner. If she wasn't I'd whip her into another class in a heart beat. Also, I know I shouldn't be quick to judge someone without giving her a chance, but stressing out is what I do best.

Geeze as I type this post I can feel myself getting tense. I just like to know dates and times ahead of time, it just puts me at ease.

Not sure if it's the stress I create for myself, or all WW credit, but I am down 8lbs now total from starting my diet. woohoo! Hopefully the numbers keep going down..

In other news, the online book club started yesterday. It's funny really, I ordered the book, and it's been sitting here, and I had refused to start it until the group leaders said how they were going to do it yesterday. Yesterday they assigned the chapters for this week which were 1-10. I told myself I would read 1-10 only this week like they said. FAIL! It's been less then 24 hours and I am halfway through the book, like on chapter 32. I can't help it, this is a really good book. To be honest it reminds me somewhat of Wally Lambs book She's Come Undone. That's my favorite book EVER. It's not that they have the same story line, but I think the main characters just suffer so much, have such dark secrets. I am glad this book was chosen because I love it, and I probably would not have chosen it myself.

I love EBATES!

Dave and I picked out our paint yesterday. I work well under pressure lol. I wasn't sure when I left what we would do our master bathroom in, but when I got there and I ended up picking out a light mint color. I think it will look good with the dark wood, and the tile that we will eventually have. Yeah I picked out some tile too, but no idea when we will get around to that....

When we left there I tried to go by Ulta as I have been running low on makeup for freaking ever... Were talking I for like 2 months now I have needed new stuff... I like the bareminerals stuff and was hoping to get some. The store had already closed though.... boo hiss...However after looking through ebates.com I saw you get 8% back from going through them, so I purchased through them on Sephora.com- got free shipping with my order AND sephora lets you pick 3 free samples, and I had a promo code for a free mascara sample, so four freebies coming soon. Not bad!

Projects coming from every end...

Isn't this picture of Emily adorable! I just love it. The bathing suit she has one came from Goodwill for $1 and I had my mom embroider the E on it. My mom is just so stinking talented. We had an evening swim last night at the pool and I got in a few pictures. In the household we are gearing up for some projects (besides me trying to catch up with my albums). We have Pete the paintman coming by Tuesday. He's a awesome cheap painter that just charges by the day. We still need our upstairs hallway painted (Pete did our entryway, kitchen and living room last year, and we were very happy with him. We also want to have him paint the upstairs kids bathroom, and then our master bath. We are hopeful that maybe, just maybe he can knock all of those out in one day.... If not then we will just put off our master bath for a while.

I would like to do a bright pink in the girls bathroom. As for the hallway I plan on sticking with that we have in our den, and for our bathroom I don't have a clue....I have until tonight to pick out the paint... eek!

Another project in the works is attempting to repaint my grandmother's sewing machine table. It's a dark stain wood now with lots and lots of scratches. I would love for it to be painted a turqoise color and replace the hardware on it. I have pretty much no idea what I am doing though. Do I just sand the bejesus out of it and then prime then paint? I'm no expert here. Guess I will be googling some!

And one thing I just have to brag about, I have purchased a christmas gift, and I have it wrapped up with a pretty bow. Go me!

Scrapbooking crisis

I have been a digital scrapbook fool lately. I am currently working on summer pictures. My 2009 book was pretty much done (or so I thought), and just needed to put together the album. I was putting that together today and noticed I was missing some Christmas pictures. I had forgotten all about Christmas! Ugg! To top it off I never loaded my Christmas pictures on my photo manager. I use the Creative Memories programs to organize and also do the digital organizing, and I never put them on. I have a pretty good idea I have already erased them from the memory card on the camera, but at least I have a bunch of them on facebook. Annoying, and very stupid on my part.

I gave myself another panic attack by trying to look at my 2008 book that I knew was alread slacking because when I had Emily I made the switch to digital. That book was a nightmare....I had done up until part of Spring the traditional way, but we had a lot going on that Spring. The girls had their first swim lessons EVER, Dave and I took a trip to Charleston, SC, I went off with my parents to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame in NY, I also had skipped ahead and did some digital scrapbooking through a website called- howfasttheygrow.com cause I had not bought the digital program yet. I discovered I still had some pages on that website that I had not purchased yet, (some fall pictures, pictures for Emily's baby book, etc) I went a head and purchased those that were already done, and I sat down and attempted to scrapbook the traditional way to complete what I started on 2008. It was pretty miserable. Umm I don't think I will be making books the traditional way ever again. I am an official digital crossover now. I had to do one freaking layout and it took for EVER and I still don't like it.

I refuse to even look in their baby books right now. Laura's of course is pretty much done, and Rachel's is about done, but Emily's, is super slacking, but hey, it's started. One day one day... I also have books going on each girls birthday. I just do one page on those for each year. I have not started Emily's though yet, YIKES. I think I need to buy a album for her. It's just a mess I tell you, but I am determined to knock out some of the mess this weekend in the evenings. I will not give up.

Rue-la-la Lilly Pulitzer Sale

Ruelala.com is a invite only discount shopping site that has select brands on sale. They have everything from Vera Bradley to Tory Burch, and run a a few sales a day. Today began the Lilly Pulitzer Sale... I took my lunch early today as the sale started at 11am my time, and got ready and put some stuff in my "shopping cart" when I went to check out my items were already sold out. Craptastic. There was a lot of great stuff for super great prices. I ended up getting back on the website when I got home to see what was left, and was happy to see some little girl items were left. I was able to pick up this dress for either Laura or Rachel as they are wearing the same size currently:



I also got this skirt that is reversible:


It's weird picking out clothes for my 3 and 4 year old with a model thats like 12 modeling them, but whatever...

They had some men Lilly available too, and I am sorry but what kind of "man" would wear this?


The clothing options for men just had me in giggles. Scary enough those pants are on super sale on this site for $69 dollars, and retailed for $195. Please oh please do not buy a straight man anything from Lilly. I support the gays and all, but I don't want my husband looking like one =)

Struggling with the diet today...

I know frozen lunches are not that exciting, but they make life easy when your trying to diet, or just are too lazy to prepare a lunch to take to work. However, I am pretty smitten with a Smart Ones Frozen meal I found found called Thai Chicken and Rice noodles. It's the bomb. It's got a yummy peanut sauce, and doesn't have that frozen meal taste. I have found it at Walmart and Target.

It's been a hard day on the diet as a rep brought in breakfast from Chickfila, and gosh darnet a big ole platter of those chicken mini's and cinnamon clusters smelled really good, and of course the smell drifted into my office ALL. DAY. LONG. Pure torture. Oh and did I mention a patient made a chocolate bundt cake. They are killing me! I did eat one chicken mini, but one is only 2 points so no harm done.

In other non- dieting news I am attempting to get caught back up on my scrapbooking. I did a lot last weekend during naptime, and am going to attempt to do some this evening. I will post some updates on my scrapbooking blog. I am working on summer pictures so I am not too far behind.