Friday Fill-Ins:#113

1. I'm married, I'm a mom, and I hope to own a business some day.



2. Why do I stay busy all day and not seem to make any headway?



3. How does this Wii work anyway?



4. Every morning, I put miles on my feet and legs!



5. I consider myself lucky because I have a pretty nice life.



6. One day we'll see Alaska.



7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to having a non-homework, non-lunch night, tomorrow my plans include CJ's first baseball game of the season, and Sunday I want to have a nice relaxing day!

For more Friday Fill-Ins go here

Wordless Wednesday!

Does this look familiar to anyone?

For more Wordless Wednesday go here

Tackle It Tuesday - Banquet decorations

This weeks "Tackle It" project is a wrap up of my Cub Scout Blue & Gold banquet decorating project. This was a very time consuming project for me, but I think it turned out great. It is nice to be able to put this one behind me.

Our theme for the banquet this year was baseball. We tried to have fun with it and go all out on the baseball stuff.

The tabel decorations included a blue table cover topped by a white table cover that I made look like baseballs. This was pretty easy. I drew two curved lines with a black marker and then added the "laces" in red marker. They do not look exactly like a baseballs, but it gives the feel of a baseball. Also on each table, I placed 8 "baseball buddies." See last weeks "Tackle It Tuesday," for more info. on this project. In the very center of each table was a balloon weight, covered in blue and yellow tissue paper and two balloons.

On the walls of the room I added a painted scoreboard, and poster paintings of a few of the logos of Major League Baseball Teams. I cannot take credit for the painting of these decorations. One of the other mom's from the pack helped me out with this project. They were great, and they really helped to make the room look more like a baseball field.

Here are a few of the MLB logos that were hung on the walls to decorate the room. All of the decorations turned out great and really helped to add some fun and excitement to the banquet.

I am so glad to put that project behind me.

For more Tackle It Tuesday projects go here

I Just Want to Blog!

Ugghhh! I have been so busy for the last few days, I can't get any time to catch up on the blogs let alone post something of my own. I thought that things would slow down, but now I am playing catch up on all of the things that I neglected while I was busy doing other stuff.
I am still here and I have lots of things that I want to blog about. I just need to take a break from my crazy life and write.
It WILL happen soon!
Until then.....

Friday Funnies!! ;-)

I have to go submit myself to this torture soon.

I thought I would add a little laughter to an uncomfortable situation!

HaHaHa!

For more Friday Funnies go here.

Surprise!

Look at all Those Missing Teeth!

Yesterday Caley came out of school with a perplexed look on her face.

"What's wrong," I asked?

"Caley has a loose tooth, and she is afraid to tell you," Caitlyn answered.

"Oh," I said, "do you want to show it to me?"

Caley did not answer, she just shook her head no. She doesn't like when her teeth are loose. So, we just went on with our day and didn't think about the tooth for awhile.

When dad came home, Caitlyn told him that Caley had a loose tooth.

"Can I see it," dad asked Caley?

This time she did let him see it. He came to the conclusion that the tooth was not ready to come out yet.

Fast forward to bedtime. I am picking up toys in bedrooms, dad and CJ are putting baseball clothes away in CJ's room and Caley is in the bathroom brushing her teeth.

"My tooth came out," Caley yelled from the bathroom.

What? I didn't think it was that loose, I didn't even know that she had a loose tooth until yesterday afternoon.

So, long story short, the Tooth Fairy visited us again last night. She brought Caley this cute Webkin frog (I think the Tooth Fairy shops at the Disney SALSA sale). It was her first visit to our house, this year.

She will be back. I checked Caitlyn's teeth this morning. She has one that is getting ready to come out.

Wordless Wednesday

To infinity and beyond!

For more Wordless Wedneday go http://www.5minutesformom.com/.

Tackle It Tuesday

This coming Saturday is our Cub Scout Pack's Blue & Gold banquet. One of my responsibilities for the banquet is the decorations. The theme for the banquet this year is "Season Opener." So, my challenge was to come up with baseball themed decorations. One item that I wanted to include in the decorations was some type of table favor. Of course, being a not-for-profit organization money is always a consideration, so I knew that favors would have to be inexpensive.

After searching the web this is what I came up with.

On a website called DLTK-Kids I found this "Benny the Baseball Sports Buddy." You can find it at www.dltk-kids.com/sports/pbaseballbuddy.asp.

The website allows you to print the templates to make your own "Benny" in either color or black and white. I choose black and white so that I could color it blue and gold to match our banquet theme.

Before I could color my baseball player I had cut out all of the template pieces, glue them together, and take the finished product to our local office supply store to have them copy and shrink it to fit on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. The actual finished project as printed from the website is much larger. Since I knew I was going to need 150 of these for our banquet, I wanted it to fit on a standard size piece of paper for copying.

My next step was to color "Benny" in the colors that would compliment our banquet. In this case, Cub Scout Blue & Gold. I choose crayons as my medium for coloring, but you could also use markers or paint. After I had my baseball player all colored, I took him back to the office supply store to have him copied onto card stock. I choose card stock, because I wanted him to stand at each place on the tables at the banquet.

Here is the finished project. After having copies made, I brought them home to cut out (150 copies, that is a lot of cutting! I did have help, thank-goodness!). Next we turned them into paper dolls. The little stand piece at the bottom was our own invention. We used old shirt boxes, cut them into rectangles, cut a slit in the top and slide it onto our finished "Benny."

It was a much more time consuming project than I had hoped for, but hopefully they will make a fun, themed addition to our Blue & Gold banquet!

Where are the Hands?

"Many hands make light work." -John Heywood

We hear that quote all the time. Yet I wonder, does it really mean anything to anyone?

This week I find myself up to my eyeballs in decorations and awards for our Cub Scout Pack's Blue & Gold banquet. I am driven my sense of responsibility and a desire to make things nice for my son and the other boys in my Cub Scout Den. I am driven by a desire to make it a great banquet, to "do my best," to do all that I can for the good of the group. But still, I find myself one of the few parents who is willing to go the extra mile to do these things. Where is everyone else? Why do others find it acceptable to sit on the side and watch while the same old die-hards carry the load?

In recent months I have actually had people tell me that I do too much (duh, but no one else is stepping up). I have actually had people tell me that they take pride in sitting on the side. They take pride in NOT volunteering. I have had people tell me that I should SIT ON MY HANDS in meetings so that I will not volunteer and have so much work to do.

Is that who we are? Is that the example that we want to set for our children?

If we as parents, citizens, humans do not step up when we are needed then who will? How does the work get done if no one will volunteer to do it? How does an organization stay in existence if no one is willing to do their small part to help out?

We are all needed to keep our schools, churches, non-profit organizations, sports teams, government, and on and on going. Everyone complains about the injustices going on around them. But what are you actually doing to change things?

I will not stop volunteering to help the organizations that I and my family are involved in. I believe that we are doing the right thing. I only wish that others would step forward, extend their hands and help us "make light the work."

Happy Valentine's Day!

Friday Funnies - Valentine Edition

Just a few Valentine jokes to put a smile on your face!

• Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right and the other is a husband.

• My wife and I always compromise; I admit I'm wrong and she agrees with me.

• When a man opens the door of his car for his wife, you can be sure of one thing: either the car is new or the wife.

• Before marriage, a man will lie awake all night thinking about something you say. After marriage, he will fall asleep before you finish.

• A man is incomplete until he is married. After that he is finished.

• Marriage is when a man and woman become as one; the trouble starts when they try to decide which one.

• Marriages are made in heaven. But so again, are thunder and lightening.

For more Friday Funnies go to http://homesteadersheart.blogspot.com/.

ENJOY!

Wordless Wednesday - Principal's Award

Congratulations on making the Principal's Honor Roll girls!

For more Wordless Wednesday go to http://5minutesformom.com.

Tackle It Tuesday - Award Certificates

As seems to be the norm with me these days I am deeply entrenched in another Cub Scout function. This time, it is the Blue & Gold banquet. The Blue & Gold banquet is an annual celebration that all Cub Scout Packs hold to celebrate the birthday of scouting in the US.

My duties for this year's banquet include decorations and awards. This week I am working diligently to finish up some of the adult awards that we will be handing out. Many of these awards will be certificates. I really did not want to give everyone the same generic certificate, so I started hunting around the web and found a GREAT site that offers really nice certificates, FREE.

The website is http://dyetub.com/. They offer over 150 different designs in 6 separate categories. The categories include; traditional, educational, scouting(perfect for me), family reunion, sports and themed. Honestly they have so many great designs it was hard for me to choose the ones that I wanted.

Another perk of this site is that you can completely personalize your certificates with the name of the award, the name of the recipient, a description of the award, and the signatures/names of the people presenting the award. It's a beautiful thing.

I ended up printing 25 certificates for our banquet from this site. I printed all of them on white card stock, but you could use colored card stock for many of the designs. It was a great time and money saver.

Here are a few examples of the certificates that I printed.

For more Tackle It Tuesday ideas go to http://5minutesformom.com.

"Jon & Kate Plus 8" Pajama Party Marathon

After a week of Cub Scout meetings, school functions, and baseball practices, I decided that Friday night was "stay at home and hibernate night." The adjenda for the night, do as little as possible and have a "Jon & Kate Plus 8" pajama party marathon. I had bought the seasons 1 & 2 DVD a while ago, but we had not had a chance to watch it yet. The kids did not even know that I had it.

Now, if you have not already guessed, we are big fans of the Gosselin's. I am not exactly sure what it is about them that we all like so much. But we cannot get enough of this show. So for 2 + hours we watched episode after episode of Jon & Kate. It was great!

More exciting news...Monday night at 9:00 is an all new episode. It just so happens that we will just be getting home from Cub Scouts and getting ready for bed at that time. We will definetly have the show on and be watching!

Jon & Kate fans ready for a night of viewing

What's In A Name?

I saw this on another blog and thought it was kind of interesting. Most of it sounds like me - relaxed but tightly wound - how true. Lucky - that one I am not to sure about. Either way it was a fun thing to do.

The meaning of Julie

You Are Level-Headed and Trustworthy

You are fair, honest, and logical. You are a natural leader, and people respect you. You never give up, and you will succeed... even if it takes you a hundred tries. You are rational enough to see every part of a problem. You are great at giving other people advice. You are a very lucky person. Things just always seem to go your way. And because you're so lucky, you don't really have a lot of worries. You just hope for the best in life. You're sometimes a little guilty of being greedy. Spread your luck around a little to people who need it. You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow. You are light hearted and accepting. You don't get worked up easily. Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is. You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing. You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long. You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start. You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone. You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together. At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

Give it a try. Does the description sound like you or not?

Friday Funnies!

My 100th Post!!!

Today I am celebrating my 100th post to this blog. When I started blogging last fall I really had no idea where it would go, or if I would keep up with it. I had seen other people's blogs and always wanted to give it a try. Well here I am, and I still have tons to learn.

I had no idea how enormous the blogoshere was. I am impressed with how many fun, interesting, emotional, informative, and personal blogs I have happened upon it the last few months. I love reading all of the things that other people write about. It is very cool to be able to share small pieces of other people's lives.

I am still not exactly sure what direction I want my blog to go in. "A Day In Our Life" is, and I guess always will be, a work in progress. For now, I am just going to continue to write about the things that happen to us, the events of our lives, and the things that interest me. Maybe, somewhere along the way I will find that 'pot of gold' that I have been searching for.

I honor of my 100 day, I wanted to share a very cute conversation that I had with my kids on our walk home from school today.

Everyone was in an especially good mood. We were talking about what they did all day, and all three of them had something great to share. Out of the blue, Caitlyn, my most happy-go-lucky, child said "I had 4 great things today." It was so cute and she said it with such conviction that I decided to ask all three of them to list the great things that happened to them today.

Here are their lists;

CJ

#1 - I got a 5.5 out of 6 on my writing prompt

#2 - They gave us carrots for our fresh fruit/vegetable today. (CJ ate his carrots and two other boys)

#3 - I have baseball practice tonight

Caley

#1 - I ate peaches for lunch

#2 - I ate raisins for lunch

#3 - They gave us baby carrots for our fresh fruit/vegetable today

#4 - We are going on a field trip next month

Caitlyn

#1 - I ate peaches for lunch

#2 - I ate raisins for lunch

#3 - We had baby carrots for our fresh fruit/vegetable today

#4 - We got our February homework packet

It was nice to hear them look at their day at school in a positive way!

Wordless Wednesday

A crisp Central Florida morning.

When I walked a little further, I saw these guys walking in the water. Burrrr....

For more Wordless Wednesday go to http://5minutesformom.com/

Happy Groundhog Day!

Happy Groundhog Day!

Back to school, back to homework, back to Scouts, back to Baseball, back to laundry etc...

Hummm...it sure feels like the movie to me.