Happy Birthday to Me :)

34? How did I get to be 34 already? Yikes!

Scooter went to Mom's to spend the night and Chelle and I (and G-ma!) went to Harrahs in Cherokee NC. I didn't win big (lost a ton) but it was a lot of fun :)

Dad bought me a new camera :)

I'd always been a Kodak girl because my Dad sorta worked for them, but at $119 and 8 MP and being able to take a picture every 1.5 seconds totally won me over (its red too... can't leave that important fact out!). I don't want to say my last Kodak camera was a bad one, I do think when Natalie slammed it into the ground that it didn't help. Plus it was handled roughly in China. So rest in peace Kodak camera that takes one picture every 7 seconds.

A few pictures from the trip...

If you yell pretty pony the neighbor's horses always come to the fence :)
The pond that goes with the estate that is across the "road" from the horses.


And their alpacas (or lamas?)

What could be on the end of our tunnel?

look close.....do you see it?
SNOW! Yippee!

Maggie Valley

Pretty tree in Maggie Valley. This is what I expected to see, not snow!





3 inches easy on the mountain between Maggie Valley and Cherokee.

We are here!

lots of neat statues

art
creek under the walkway to the casino



Casino floor

won 52.14! (I lost it tho lol)

lost that too lol

Ate two really good meals in the hotel too, a lunch buffet with corned beef and red cabbage and a break buffet with fantastic bacon..mmmm......bacon.

Bye for now!

First "Portrait"

Taken at work on Saturday with a $5 donation to United Way :)

A HUUUUUGE Post - Go Vols!

Tonight was our trick or treat night at work. Lots of people brought in their kids and they circled our large conference center room and got candy from about 20 stations. Scooter scooped up all kinds of good sugar :)

She wouldn't wear the poodle costume so that left me scrambling. She has like a dozen Chinese outfits so I thought about putting her in that. I hand washed one of the new ones because it smelled funny and it got really stiff. What do you know, what I thought was polyester really was silk. Anyhooo I decided that wasn't a great option. After all, Halloween is about dressing up different and a Chinese outfit on a Chinese kid..well that isn't a lot of fun (but I do think she'll wear the outfit on Christmas because she'll be pretty in it).

Then I had a duh moment. Dad brought her a VOLS outfit to the airport when we got home. I had to swap it for a 2T because it was so short and it kinda sorta fit her now (sleeves too long and too wide...I did say sort of!). With white tights and orange curly ribbon in her hair, we now had a new costume! PLUS if you want to be all frugal about it (I do after all, belong to a frugal blogger group) it was a cheap costume. The outfit was $11 on clearance from Kmart. The tights were one set out of three for $4. The "hairbows" was curly ribbon from a 75 cent spool (her fancy hairbows are at the house). So for less than $15 she got to wear a non scratchy outfit that she can wear anytime (plus her little jacket was $2 at a yard sale!).

GO VOLS!

ready to go

leaving the condo

in the elevator

at work, waiting for her picture to be taken

Then we went to Perkins and she pigged out. She ate mac and cheese, carrots, meatloaf, a baked potato and a lot of Dad's salad. She put on quite a show and all the kitchen staff came out to say bye bye and they gave her a big cookie. What a ham!

This is her cute Elmo outfit from this afternoon. I had a credit for Kmart and it was just $10.50. What you can't see is a big Elmo on the front and little elmos on the jacket. It is a great "skinny" outfit if anyone has our problem with pants falling down.

I know of 4 good deals for Christmas this year if you have started shopping.

1) Barbie deal. Buy $100 of a certain kind and get a $50 visa card. Go to Super Mom for more info.

2) The Vera Bradley clearance is still going on. They are shipping things very slowly, I just got my first bag today. I loooooove it! It is the seaside tote, the colors are great and its just nice :) It was $32 ish with tax and shipping, you just can't beat that. The Lindsey and the bowler bag are being discontinued, you can get the current fabrics for just $25. I have a raspberry fizz coming and a java blue coming..both current fabrics - yay!

3) www.AmericanGirl.com coupon code 159926 $10/$30. Natalie is getting a bitty baby for Christmas from one of her Grandparents. It comes out to $39.95 with shipping with the code. And they have an almond eye baby :) ALSO if you have a bigger girl, QVC has a Kit kit (haha) for $112 on sale. And if you call them and ask, you have a good chance of them breaking it into easy payments over three months.4. There are a lot of Melissa and Doug wooden toys on sale at Amazon with free shipping. This kitchen is $123.87. Regular price is 199.99. You get extra off with this promo:

Save $10 when you spend $50 or more when you pay with Bill Me Later®. Offer valid Oct 13, 2008 - Dec 30, 2008. Limited to items sold by Amazon.com. Subject to credit approval. One per customer. Enter code BMLSAVES at checkout. Here's how (restrictions apply)

Ok I'm done for now. I think I could of spent 1K online today easy. Soooo much fun stuff to buy, sooo little moola! lol bye!

Mid Week Pictures

This morning, she wouldn't pose for me. That is the cute top from the kid's consignment sale :)


All wrapped up in the morning after her bath. She'll sit here for 10 minutes while I finish getting ready.
New PJs :)
She has become a neat little thing!

Check out all the hair :)

She was so cute on Monday, she was very proud of her new shoes and showed them to everyone. (that is the NWT Baby Gap sweater from goodwill that was $1.97 :)

She has put on 2 pounds since her last Drs appt and I think it is all in her belly.

Playing with her blocks...well maybe just the block bucket!

She now sings on command, I have cute video that I will upload. It is usually some variation of "Happy Thursday" mama, papa, ookie, nana and she really belts it out sometimes, it cracks me up. I am pretty sure Santa is going to bring her a microphone!

Natalie's Books

After 10 months, I am finally working on Natalie's books. Natalie - Year One is going to start with her little finding ad picture and the few pictures I have from her foster care. Then I'll move into her referral, pictures of some of her cute loot, our trip to China and the weeks after we got home all the way to Jan 31st. I'm up to 65 pages so far and I still need to get pictures from our travel group. The book only holds 100 pages and I plan on maxing it out. Might as well make it a really GOOD book! :)

Year two will start on her birthday. I think I'll have a hard time craming this year into just 100 pages. I might need a volume one and two :)

I decided to go ahead and spend the cash after reading that Stephe had planned to spend a bunch to make one. I looked into shutterfly and I really liked their layouts so I am going with them. Anyone have a coupon code? Each year is going to cost $175 eeeck! But I think it is worth is an if you want to rationalize it, think $14.58 a month :)

I got some cute stuff today at Kohls. Scooter pie is getting this for Christmas:


I also got my Dad two Hawaiian silk shirts for the cruise, 2 -3packs of white body suits for scooter (marked down to $4.25 a pack yay!) and two pairs of sneakers for the baby.

Except hers are pink and white instead of navy. They were on sale for just $13.50 a pair, I thought that was a steal. I got a size 6 for now and a 7 for later. She also got a pair of little black yoga looking pants.

At Target I bought some little stuff but did see an easel I liked. I hear the phrase "Natadee colowr mama now thank you please" a lot. Does anyone have this?

I thought it might be a good idea to organize her art loot early, it is already piling up!

That is it for now, will post more pictures later - bye!

Murphy's Lesser Known Laws

Murphy's Lesser Known Laws

1. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

2. He who laughs last, thinks slowest.

3. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

4. Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.

5. Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.

6. The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.

7. If you lined up all the cars in the world end to end, someone would be stupid enough to try to pass them five or six at a time on a hill in the fog.

8. If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.

9. The things that come to those who wait will be the things left by those who got there first.

10. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

11. A flashlight is a case for holding dead batteries.

12. The shinbone is a device for finding furniture in a dark room.

13. A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.

14. When you go into court, you are putting yourself in the hands of 12 people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.

Wandering around online

I've spent a lot of time lately looking at little girl rooms to get an idea of what Natalie's big girl room will look like. I didn't spend a lot on her baby stuff on purpose, because I knew it wouldn't be used forever and I'd get the best value out of it by selling it later on.

Check out this room from Pottery Barn Kids

This room is over 2K. What? really? yikes lol And the only furniture you get is a little night stand and the headboard. This does not include paint, trim or the mattress.

I think it is really a cute idea but lets break it down Kim (read cheap) style.

First I think the key ingrediants to this super cute room is the bedding. You have to find a good knock off. Pieces that don't match but sort of all go together to give it that cool Pottery Barn look. The secret to saving big bucks is buying extra fabric. Just get an extra sheet set or two, there is a ton of stuff you can do with all those extra pieces. Go to TJ Maxx and look through their stuff, they have a lot of cute things. It doesn't have to be hot pink to look great!

This is the base of the bed with a boring cover on it. It's time to wash and measure out your extra sheets. You can make this headboard with a piece of plywood and cotton batting (just wrap it around..you've seen this on trading spaces right?). You'll need to cover it with your extra sheets. Can't sew? Use hot glue. No, really, you can use hot glue. Just don't use too much. You are basically making a huge pillow case to slip over the padded plywood. It's not rocket science. Just don't glue your fingers together.

Don't put away the glue yet. Cut strips from your sheet, the length of the drop on your bed plus a couple of inches. Use stitch witch and put a nice clean line on the edge. Then glue that sucker to an old dustruffle, something that won't show through (or just glue it to your box spring. No one will know and I won't tell).

See that black curtain rod? I bought one just like it at Ross for $11.99 instead of $59.99.

See those curtains? Now things start to get tricky because they have circle doo-hickies on them. How many sheets do you have left over? Hello stitch witch (and ideally you can sew...or con someone into sewing for you. But I have been unsewing like this for years, it really works!). If you are willing to not have circle doo-hickies then curtain panels are sooo easy! If you need circles..tooooo bad!

See the monkey prints on the wall? Cute huh? So easy to duplicate. Find a poster you like. Find frames you like. Arrange the frames in a pattern you like. Cut up your poster. Hang pictures. Frames are very cheap at walmart. If they aren't the right color then spray paint them. For $3 they can be any color you want. This works especially well with frames from yard sales. Dull brown color? You are just seconds from a gleaming red or a pretty pink.

I love how the bed is set up. Primarily white sheets with the pink and yellow. The get gradually darker with the duvet and go WOW with the quilt. Hey - did you know a duvet is just two sheets sewn together and put over your old quilt? No really, it is. (how many sheets are we up to anyway?)

Accessories can really add up but don't let them. Decide how many doo-hickes you want on the bed and create a budget. Don't forget yard sales and consignment stores. But don't go over your budget. There is always a less expensive option out there, just look (and hey - don't you still have a few extra pillow cases to create with?).

Check out the cute lamp on the table. Both pieces are $64.98...puuuleeze. Get thy rear end to kirklands and buy a cute lamp for $15.

The nightstand? I am not sure what to tell you there. Any furniture store can beat PBs $400 price. Not to say their isn't good quality but you can do better. Painting a second hand night stand gives your room a put together look because you can match it all up to your bedding.

Ok that is enough for tonight. If you can't tell, this room is one of my favorite little girl rooms because of the colors and the monkeys. So I am going to try my best to duplicate it without spending a ton of moola. Wish me luck!

Crocs Outlet

Natalie loves her crocs :) If you log on to www.crocs.com and click on girls, on the left there will be a small outlet word.

AHA OUTLET!

If you use vipoct8 lower case, you get free shipping.

Since the boots didn't fit unless her feet were bare (sniff :( ) I got her some more crocs instead.

Are they trying to kill me?

Dear Kim,

Today's the day! The 2010 Camaro is now available to order (production starts early 2009). Starting at $22,995, the Camaro isn't just a sports car, but a bold emotion sculpted in sheet metal that drops jaws and inspires envy in those not behind the wheel. Simply put, with its creased, taut lines and unexpected array of standard features, this cutting-edge performance machine is passion — perfected.

Vera Bradley bags are on clearance :)

If you haven't bought one because they are just too expensive now is a great time to wander over to http://www.verabradley.com/Site/Store/Colors.aspx?dept=36 and check out their clearance section. I got $398 worth of bags for $125 (5 of them, two of the blue/brown and the red). Some will be Christmas, some will be for ME! :) I thought $25 was a good price. If you find a style you like, be sure to click on all the fabrics, the brown and blue is not retiring and was the only bag I found on clearance in that fabric :)

Let's see, we have colds. I didn't leave the condo all weekend long. Scooter went on two excursions with grandpa. On Saturday he took her out to run errands while I slept (mine is 10 times worse than hers). I didn't realize until he came home that he took her in her pjs with breakfast still on her face and her hair all knotted up. Of course she loved it because she loves to be dirty but I was a little embarrassed :)

Turkey was 59 cents a pound this week and I cooked a 21 pounder today. I am making stock now!

hmmm hmm good!

Ok that is it for now bye!