Fall break is not nearly long enough

The weekends go by way too quickly these days. Last weekend, Thursday through Saturday, was Fall Break from school for me so I didn't have class Thursday or Saturday and it went by so fast. This week I have a couple papers to get done for my culture class Thursday so I need to get those done. I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately with school and appointments and life. When I get a day off I like to just lounge around and do nothing. I'd love some comfy nursing scrubs to relax in, I don't really have a lot of lounging clothes. But being lazy doesn't help because then the housework piles up. I think I'd be able to handle everything better if I was able to sleep all night and feel rested, but the babies still wake up often. But I know that won't last forever so I just live with it. And I don't mind some nights, sitting there in the dark nursing Isaac, or having Caleb cuddled up next to me, I know I will miss this time when they are so cute and little and dependent on me.

MyMemories Suite Scrapbooking Software Review and GIVEAWAY!!!

I've never been much of a scrapbooker, I just don't have the time or will to come up with all the cute little layouts myself. Plus I never print out pictures, which makes it a little harder lol. But I do think digital scrapbooking is cool. I love creating photo gifts, like calendars and photo books, for the grandparents for Christmas. I know a few of you readers are into the digital scrapbooking also, so I'm sure you'll be interesting in what I'm about to say.

I was asked to review the MyMemories Suite scrapbooking software, award winning digital scrapbook software rated #1 by Amazon. I was so excited to get it and see what cool things it could do. I was not disappointed. My favorite part is how many cute layouts they have available for free to use with the software. Since design is not really my area of expertise, I rely on other people to be creative for me lol. They have templates for boys, girls, holidays, birthdays, outdoors, babies, and more.

The next best thing is how easy it is to pop in your pictures. Just click the add picture button, upload your picture, and drop it where you want it. You can also change around the picture and text elements if you want, adding shapes, word art, embellishments, etc. So you are able to personalize the pre-made templates as much or as little as you want.

Once you are done creating an album you can choose to display it as a calendar, video, photo album, and more. You have the option to upload it online and order a printed version of what you want, share the album, or you can print it out yourself.

I am loving the MyMemories Suite software and hopefully I will be able to get some time to create some more fun albums and try out all the cool little features they offer.

As a special for all of my readers, you can use this code to receive a $10 discount off the purchase of the MyMemories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store - $20 value! Just enter STMMMS4082 when ordering.


GIVEAWAY!!!
One lucky reader will win the MyMemories Suite scrapbook software! Simply go to MyMemories.com and come back and comment on which digital scrapbooking kit is your favorite.

Extra Entries: (leave a comment for each entry)
-Like MyMemories on Facebook
-Follow MyMemories on Twitter

Giveaway will end Monday, October 17th at 10pm MST. Winner will be determined using Random.org.

*I received a free copy of the MyMemories Suite software to review and give my own honest opinion.

And the winner is...

I almost forgot to post a winner for last week's giveaway for the Grime Guard Foaming Glass Cleaner! Better late than never!

Congratulations Melissa! I will be contacting you about getting your prize to you!

Upcycled Dress!

My youngest brother is getting married today! And that means I had to find a dress to wear. Not normally a problem except their colors were baby blue and pastel pink, and I don't happen to have anything in either color lol. But I then remembered I have a hand-me-down maternity dress that would work. Well, sorta. The color was about right, but it was quite obviously a maternity dress. So, taking some inspirations from New Dress a Day, I decided to upcycle the dress into a cute non-maternity dress! I even went so far as to make it something I could nurse in. The hardest part was finding time to make all the alterations. It's not perfect, but actually came out pretty much like I'd hoped. If I'd had more time I could have made a few more adjustments, but it will do. There is a bit of greenish stain on the shoulders (baby spit up is my guess, and Oxiclean didn't help), but considering I didn't notice them until the 3rd time I put it on, hopefully nobody else will either lol. So here we go:

I shortened the length, added some elastic and darts to bring it in around the middle, trimmed with some lace for the ties, and made it so the top front can be moved up and an elastic-y chest flap can be moved to nurse.

Also, my 5-yr old Jakey is the ring bearer and since I don't know if they had a tie or anything for him to match the wedding party, I whipped up this cute little blue bow tie.

Stanley Home Products Review and GIVEAWAY!!!

I was given the opportunity to review some cleaning products from Stanley Home Products, their Glass Cleaner Foaming Spray and Degreaser. Stanley Home has been providing quality cleaners for 70 years. They provide great products at affordable prices, as well as offer home-based jobs for Customer Representatives who want the freedom to work at home for a good company.

Grime Guard Glass Cleaner Foaming Spray

From their site: "GrimeGuard™ provides an invisible shield to guard against accumulated dirt and repel water spot build-up. This protective shield keeps surfaces cleaner longer and makes on-going cleaning, quick, and easy. Plus, the foaming spray is non-streaking and quick drying!"

I tested the glass cleaner out on my main floor bathroom. Since this is the bathroom my children use (and abuse) the most it gets pretty dirty. The mirror was streaked with a soapy mess and the faucet was covered in soap, fingerprints, and water spots. I sprayed on the cleaner and was amazed at how easily it wiped all of it right off. With my normal cleaner I usually need a bit more scrubbing and occasionally a reapplication of cleaner, but the Foaming Spray worked with very little effort for a spotless mirror and shiny faucet.

Degreaser Concentrate
"Concentrated to work hard: Dissolves grease in seconds on cookware, countertops, broilers, dishes, tools, and walls - wherever grease build-up is a problem."

I was really excited to try out the degreaser. From working fast-food years ago I know how important a good degreaser is. I knew exactly what I was going to try it on first- my stove top. My poor stove does not get cleaned as often as it should, and so it had quite the buildup of caked on food and grease. I even decided I should tackle the stove hood while I was at it. I hate the greasy dust that builds up on that thing.

So I took off the burner spider cover things (hm, wonder what they are actually called?) and soaked them in some of the degreaser and hot water. Then I put a few tsps of Degreaser in a bowl of hot water and wiped down the whole stove top with it then let it sit for 5 minutes, or it was supposed to be 5 minutes but the babies woke up and needed fed and eventually I got back to my stove about an hour later lol. Once I got some fresh hot water and degreaser I took my sponge and wiped down the hood. Now typically when I clean the hood it take a lot of work and frustration. But this time most of the greasy dust came right up, then I just had to go over it a few more times to scrub the really set in stuff.

The stove took a bit more work because of how dirty I'd let it get. I don't think the degreaser made the job much easier or quicker than how I normally do it with dishsoap, but it worked pretty well. And the burner covers cleaned up really well after soaking. My stove looks so much better, which is great because I have a group of ladies coming to my house to do some cooking Saturday and it would have been embarrassing for them to see it as it was.


Overall, I am extremely happy with both products, especially the glass cleaner. And now for the fun part- a GIVEAWAY!!!

GIVEAWAY
One lucky reader can win a can of the Grime Guard Glass Cleaner Foaming Spray! Simply comment below telling me what your least favorite household chore is to enter. For an extra entry, go to the Stanley Home Products website and tell me which product other than these two you could use the most. This contest will end Saturday, October 8th, 2011 at 8pm MST. Open to U.S. residents.

*I received a bottle of each product, and an extra bottle of glass cleaner, free of charge to review and giveaway. All opinions given are my own honest opinions of the products.*

Stop the train...

...I want to get off! I seriously feel like life is going by too fast to keep up. My house is a mess, I can barely keep things straight with the boys' school, college, appointments, kids, etc, and I'm just exhausted because I haven't had a good night's rest in who knows how long. I love my life and my kids, and actually enjoy my college classes, but I just need everything to freeze for a few days so I can catch my breath! We went out to eat tonight, and after dinner I noticed Jason's shorts were inside out. His blue plaid shorts that he was wearing with a tan and orange striped shirt. Oh yeah, he's the height of fashion! I've given up on caring if they're wearing carhartt pants with a long sleeve shirt in 80* weather, or if anything matches, or if they've been wearing the same outfit for 3 days (ok, maybe not that last one, I try to notice if they haven't changed their clothes when I tell them to lol). As long as everyone is fed, dressed, gets to bed before midnight and is reasonably clean I count it a successful day.
I know this crazy time won't last forever. Eventually I will be done with school. Eventually the babies will sleep through the night. And eventually I will get around to the million chores I'm slacking at. But for now I'm in triage, taking care of what needs to be done most first. My kids are loved, the babies are happy and healthy, and the boys and I are doing well in school. When I have a free minute I prefer to spend it relaxing with my boys instead of making the house spotless. And I'm lucky to have an amazing husband who helps me with the house and kids, picking up my slack. One day I'll have an empty clean house and wish for the days when I had a full messy house. :)
"Quiet down cobwebs, dust go to sleep. I'm rocking my baby, and babies don't keep."

Plagiocephaly Helmet

I don't know if I've mentioned Isaac's helmet on here? About a month ago he got a helmet to improve his plagiocephaly, a flat spot on the back right side of his head. It has already made a big difference and he should only need it for a few months.

Isn't he just a cute little guy? It doesn't really bother him either. It does get pretty sweaty and stinky though, so when he gets to have it off for an hour a day we wipe down his head and the helmet. And luckily our insurance covered it as durable medical equipment, I've heard a lot of people who had to pay out of pocket, and those things are expensive! I'm so used to seeing him with it on that he looks so different when he has it off and you can see his hair better and everything. It'll be nice when he's all done with it, but I'm glad we were able to get it for him so he wouldn't have a misshapen head the rest of his life.

Babyproof

I'm on a few messageboards with women who have babies the age of my twins and now that our babies are all around 7-8 months old and getting mobile there have been many discussions about babyproofing. I've gone through 3 other kids so we have the outlet covers, baby gates, and cabinet locks pretty well covered. One thing I mentioned to some of those first time moms is something I think gets overlooked a lot- securing furniture. TVs that don't have tv mounts on the wall like ours should be connected to the wall, I know you can buy safety straps that connect the TV to the wall. Also dressers, entertainment centers, book cases, curio cabinets, etc should all be secured to the wall at a stud. Once those babies start pulling up on things you want what they are grabbing to be as sturdy as possible with no chance of it falling on them. Cords should be out of the way too so they can't pull lamps, candle warmers, CD players, etc down on them. My boys are now army crawling around the house so it's time for me to make sure things are safe by getting some cords tucked away, replacing a few outlet covers, and getting out the gates.

At your fingertips

I often think about what the Internet was like when I first started using it back when I was like 12. The main browser was Netscape Navigator, and you had to pay for it because Internet Explorer at the time sucked (at the time? doesn't it still? lol). There wasn't a whole lot of information on everything out there, it took forever to find stuff because of the slow dial up connection, and there were not many social networking sites. Nowadays everything is on the Internet. You want a new outfit? Look up wet seal coupons. Need help with your homework? Look it up! (I've been doing that lately with my HTML class). Movie times, local news, random tidbits of information. It's all on the Internet, along with all the people you want to talk with. Pretty cool for someone who remembers life without it.

Shop Class

One of my favorite classes in junior high was shop. I totally loved working with tools and making stuff. I still do like to make stuff, and I'm pretty much the handy one around here, except when it comes to power saws. In junior high I wasn't afraid of band saw blades or circular saws or anything. It was so cool to get to use them. But now I've gotten wimpy lol. I let Hubby handle the sharp stuff. I think having kids has made me soft, plus I worry about them getting hurt by anything. And I think part of it is not having a designated "shop" area, it doesn't feel like I have a safe place to use those kind of tools. We have a work bench in the garage but it's pretty messy and I wish we had some nice strong clamps for when we need to saw stuff, usually I'm acting as a human clamp while Hubby saws lol.

Poor little bloggy

So, I started Fall semester of school about a month ago and things have gotten even more sporadic for my poor blog. It's been so neglected. I would love to post more about the cute things my kids do, pictures of them, and about life in general, but I'm just exhausted these days. The babies still don't sleep well at night, I feel like I'm getting more behind on housework every day, and having school 3 nights and 1 morning a week is messing with when I can schedule and do other things. I don't mind school, in fact I really am enjoying my classes (and if you've been reading this blog for a while you know that normally I HATE school), I've just had to let less important things slide for a bit, like my little blog here. Poor thing, I want to pet it and say, "It's okay little bloggy, I still love you." But that would be weird.

Slim These Days

I hear every day that jobs are hard to come by. People in our neighborhood have been laid off and it seems everyone is scrambling for any job they can get. I'm not sure what they define as a job. There are jobs like Convention Services/Events Staff Jobs, which are good for paying bills, but I'm not sure how permanent they are. Then there are jobs that require degrees. These jobs seem to be in bigger supply. When I think of a job, I think of something that can be permanent and steady. We need more of these jobs.

First Day of School

Arg, one of these days life will slow down right?! No? Yeah, didn't think so. :P

OK, so first day of school pictures! Jason started first grade this year and Jakey started Kindergarten. At first it was so weird having Jason gone all day. He was so thrilled to get to take lunch with him. We didn't do much back to school shopping. They didn't really need a lot. They have enough clothes (though come colder weather we may have to buy some more pants) and they didn't have any supply lists to buy. Jason needed some new shoes so we got him some cheap sandals. When it gets cooler we will need to get some easy spirit sneakers or something cuz I think his tennis shoes are getting snug. We also got him a lunch box and a few basic school supplies. Jakey didn't need anything, though he might also need some new shoes by the time it's cold out. Anyway, enough chatter, here's my cuties on their first day of school.

Jason

Jacob

Oopsie

Oops, guess I lied in my last post. Said I'd be back soon with pics and stuff and here it is 3 weeks later. At least I'm not letting anybody down since hardly anybody even reads my blog lol, don't have to worry to much about my traffic like sites such as www.wholesaleinsurance.net do. I do have pictures of the boys' first days of school, and I will try to get them posted in a little while. I have 2 fussy babies who need to go down for naps, then I should have time for a few updates.

Be back soon, maybe

Yikes, keep getting behind! Days are flying by and before I know it weeks have passed since I last blogged. I think I need a time advance, like those cash advances, borrow some extra time now to get caught up in life. Of course I don't know how you could pay back borrowed time lol. Anyway, it's late but I promise to get some new pics up of Jason and Jakey's first days of school and Isaac's new helmet.