personal blog
My day…
My new camera arrived.
I had so much fun taking pictures.
My husband came home from work with these.
And this
Big brother has poison ivy, and little brother had his tooth knocked out by big brother’s knee.
I went here for dinner.
And now I am going to bed.
For more Wordless Wednesday visit 5 Minutes for Mom.
This contest is now closed and we have a winner!
Here are your random numbers:
69
Timestamp: 2009-04-24 23:33:58 UTC
Congratulations Heather R. check your email for more information!
As you all know this is National TV Turn-Off Week. Subway along with the National Institute of Health has teamed up to create P.E.P. kits (Play more, Eat right, Push away the screen). Each kit is filled with fun activities to get your kids moving.
My kids were super excited when their kit arrived today. Unfortunately our weather isn’t cooperating with fun outside play.
My kids played with a few of the toys inside for a while and then decided to brave the weather and head outside regardless of the rainy 50 degree day. (Translation: the inside play became too loud and wild so I sent them outside…)
There are so many alternatives to watching television and I have to admit I am proud of Subway for jumping on the healthy bandwagon. There is so much garbage marketed to kids these days it is refreshing to see a company do something a little different.
Since you know that I am not a TV gal, and would love to help my readers kick the television habit (well, more so for their kids) I want to send one of these P.E.P. kits to you!
The kit I am giving away includes a bug net, water balloons, sidewalk chalk, a bucket and shovel, Frisbee, bubbles, jump rope, kite, flower seeds and a $10 Subway gift card. (Just promise me you will order one of the healthy subs, okay)
To enter to win a P.E.P. kit leave a comment. For a second entry tweet about this contest and make sure you include the hashtag #screentime. Leave me a second comment letting me know you tweeted about the giveaway. I will chose a random winner Friday evening (Cora will once again dictate the ending time).
We decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and visit one of our local parks. Today we visited Quiet Waters Park, in Annapolis, Maryland. This park is beautiful with miles of biking/ jogging trails, lots of open fields, a few small playgrounds, one large playground, as well as boat rentals in the summer and a museum.
There is a fee to enter the park in a car, but admission is free for military and dependents.
Here are a few pictures of our afternoon.
Sculpture Gardens
Isn’t it funny how you can take a kid to a park and all they want to do is run up and down the stairs?
A small pond with ducks and turtles, I wonder if you are allowed to feed them?
Winding roads
Excited about something…
Loving the park…. Sleeping like a baby 🙂
Lots of space to throw the Frisbee.
We will return soon.
My extended take it easy time has allowed me to find some link worthy articles over the past week. I have also caught up on my reader, but since I am not a one-handed typist, I haven’t left many comments.
Here are some sites worth visiting if you have the time.
If you can sew check out this link for skirt tutorials, many of them are super cute and easy to make. There is even a link to a 5 minute skirt, which is about all the free time I have right now!
Erin at $5 Dinners shares a healthier chocolate chip cookie recipe. Since I now have no excuse for pigging out, I plan on making these soon!
Do your kids love to clear the table? My niece and nephews do! My sister-in-law shares a neat idea for getting your little kids to want to clear the table.
If your home is like mine you are constantly tripping over balls; soccer, football, bouncy, basketball, it doesn’t matter they are everywhere. This ball storage idea is cheap and easy to make. I hope my husband will make one for us soon!
If you are looking for a fun activity to keep your little ones busy over spring break try this cute craft I saw at the Homeschool Post this week.
Just in time for all those adorable Easter outfits, 5 Minutes for Mom shares some tips for taking great photos of your children.
Remember the Reason we celebrate this Easter weekend.
Welcome to all my Ultimate Blog Party Hoppers! I know you are all busy jumping from blog to blog finding all sorts of new and wonderful bloggers. To keep it short and sweet I’ll introduce myself and then tell you the rest of the story with pictures to keep you moving right along.
I am The Happy Housewife. I have been blogging on this site for over a year. I feel like my site can be summed up by my tagline, “thriving on one income in a two income world.” I am always looking for ways to save money and reuse items in order to live thriftier and “greener.” This year our challenge is to live on half my husband’s income in order to save for a house. I am also a military wife and mom of 6 (soon to be 7 kiddos) so I write about military life, kids, and homeschooling. The newest project on my site is writing Our Story, or the story of how my husband and I met, got married a few weeks later and well, it isn’t finished yet so I don’t want to give away the ending.
Now on with the photos….
This is me, the picture is actually a bit deceiving because we don’t live on a farm… we live in the suburbs of D.C.
This is the rest of the fam…
Yes, I am married to Mr. Incredible. You can read all about him here.
We have a big family, sometimes people ask if we are trying to field a baseball team, I tell them we prefer soccer.
We love parties so much around here we celebrate 8 of them every year… but that wasn’t enough so this year we are adding another!
We especially love making and eating cake, would you care to join us for some ice cream cake?
or perhaps a Barbie Cake?
I almost always make the cakes myself, because I am frugal…. and I have lots of help in the kitchen.
I love to cook and share many of our family recipes too.
Okay, I don’t really make meals like that, they look more like this…
Every other week I write about Commissary deals to help military families stretch their grocery budget.
I also run a program that donates expired coupons to our military families overseas.
Occasionally I will post super great bargains, like how to get free ice cream just by going out in your pajamas.
We love to have fun and learn ways to make things cheaper and better ourselves.
I love to sew and find new ways to use old things.
Shirt
Dress
Thanks for stopping by, I promise I won’t keep you any longer.
For lots of frugal ideas, “green” living tips, homeschooling adventures, great recipes, organizing tips, military deals, and fun crafty projects subscribe to The Happy Housewife and have each post delivered straight to your inbox or reader.
You can also follow me on Twitter for daily musings, deals, and updates.
If you have a moment you can hop over to my giveaway and enter to win a copy of Melissa’s Great Book of Produce.
There are some great prizes up for grabs at the Ulitmate Blog Party this year. I hope I win some cute hair bows from Chesapeake Ribbons, for my soon to be 3 girls. Or maybe a Made by Michelle diaper bag for the new baby. A gift card to the Heavenly Homemakers gift shop would be great too!
This contest is now closed and we have a winner!
Here are your random numbers:
29
Timestamp: 2009-03-16 23:43:15 UTC
Keonte‘ will be taking her family to the circus!
When I was a kid I wanted to be a trapeze artist when I grew up. My dad even installed a trapeze in our back yard for me to practice. I remember swinging for hours at a time, I really think I had a future in the circus. I even found a college that had a circus!
Well, 20+ years later I am not flying through the air with the greatest of ease… but I do enjoy taking my kids to the circus. Although I fear that my boys will decide to run off and join the circus, not to fly on the trapeze – but to tame lions or shoot each other out of cannons.
We were able to attend the Ringling Bros. Circus during our Florida vacation. It was great fun and the kids sat mesmerized for 2 hours while we watched all sorts of death defying tricks and laughed along with the clowns.
Now the circus is coming to the D.C. area!
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® proudly presents Over The Top
Washington D.C. Show dates: March 19 through March 22
Washington D.C. location: Verizon Center
Fairfax, VA Show dates: April 8 through April 19
Fairfax, VA location: Patriot Center
Baltimore show dates: March 25 through April 5
Baltimore location: 1st Mariner Arena
Using the discount code “MOM” you can purchase 4 tickets for $44. Tickets must be purchased from Ticketmaster, enter the MOM code in the “MC Promotion box” when purchasing tickets. This offer is good for all performances. This offer not valid on Gold Circle Seating, Circus Celebrity Seating, Front Row and VIP seating or with other offers.
There are a select amount of Front Row and VIP seats that have been reserved for you to buy before they go on sale to the public – just enter the code “MOM” when purchasing those seats.
Now here is the best part… I have one family 4-pack of tickets to the circus to give away to one of my readers! These tickets are good for the opening night show in either DC, Fairfax, or Baltimore.
To enter this giveaway please leave me a comment. For a second entry tweet about this contest. For a third entry write about this giveaway on your blog and link back to this post. Make sure you leave a comment for each entry. Contest ends March 16 at 7 pm EST. Tickets will be available for pick-up at will call.
For those of you not living in the DC/VA/MD area the discount code is good for the following performances as well.
Houston
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® proudly presents Over The Top
July 15-July 26
Dallas/Ft Worth
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® proudly presents Over The Top
July 29-August 16
Kansas City
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® proudly presents Over The Top
September 16-September 20
Phoenix
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® presents ZING ZANG ZOOM
June 24-June 28
Newark/East Rutherford/Uniondale/NYC
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® presents ZING ZANG ZOOM
March 5 – April 13
Offer not valid on performances from April 10 – 13 at Madison Square Garden
Philadelphia
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® presents ZING ZANG ZOOM
May 13-May 25
Anaheim/LA/Ontario
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® presents ZING ZANG ZOOM
July 8-August 2
San Francisco
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® presents ZING ZANG ZOOM
August 12-August 23
Sacramento
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® presents ZING ZANG ZOOM
August 27-August 30
Wow, this was a great giveaway, I can’t believe there were almost 400 entries. I guess you all love Fritos as much as I do! I loved reading about your favorite chips as well as your Frito recipes. Apparently Frito pie is a big deal! My absolute favorite way to eat Fritos is to put them on a ham sandwich, it is really quite tasty.
Anyway, congrats to the winners and thanks to everyone who participated in the contest.
Here are your random numbers:
19 251 370 105
Timestamp: 2009-03-08 03:07:28 UTC
The winners are
Lesley
Kelly
Wandababy
Emails will go out in the next 24 hours, winners have 48 hours to respond or I will choose another winner.
If you didn’t win this contest, enter to win a free online cooking class. I am taking it right now and love it!
Here are a few items I wanted to pass on from this week.
Don’t forget move your clocks an hour ahead tonight. Whoever invented Daylight Savings Time obviously did not have children. This hilarious post written by a friend of mine pretty much sums up how I feel about this twice a year event.
Have you signed up for Swagbucks? Since posting about this a few weeks ago, I have earned almost 200 Swagbucks that can be traded in for gift cards, music, dvds, and other great stuff. I know that Carrie bought all of her Christmas presents last year using Swagbucks. Swagbucks are earned by searching the web, isn’t that easy? They even have a toolbar you can download to make searching via Swagbucks easier. There is also no spam involved. Since signing up I don’t think I have received a single email from them trying to sell me something or promote a product.
Claire over at Choyster Cash if running a free coupon course. If you are new to couponing this might be something worth looking into.
I saw this Depression Era cooking video over at Mom Advice and I am hooked. It is a great perspective on how things use to be, and will probably make you appreciate what you have. Her cooking tips aren’t bad either!
Dawn has some great tips for attending blogging conferences. I attended my first conference, Blissdom ’09, last month. I learned a lot and had a great time. If you think a blogging conference is in your future I would definitely read her post.
Are you gardening this year? I hope to start my square foot garden soon, if things ever settle down around here. I found this great post about making pots for your seedlings out of newspaper! I can’t believe what a great, free, and eco friendly idea is.
Finally, do you Twitter? If not you really should. Twitter is a great way to find deals, keep in touch with friends (real life and bloggy) and to stay connected in the blog world. Many times I will tweet about a deal on Twitter that I do not blog about. I also tweet personal updates throughout the day. So if you just can’t get enough of The Happy Housewife follow me on Twitter.
This giveaway is now closed. Thanks to all who participated!
I am not a big junk food or snack person, but every once in a while I will splurge and buy a bag of Fritos. Since all my kids love them too, they don’t last more than a day around our house. So when Frito-Lay contacted me about hosting a giveaway, I couldn’t resist.
Frito -Lay recently launched a new site called License to Snack. It is worth checking out if only for the personal dashboard section of the site. This section has several interactive calculators figure out your BMI, how many calories you should eat every day, calories burned, target heart rate and many more features. Once the baby is born I definitely plan on using this site to help me get back to my pre-baby weight.
To help promote their new site, Frito Lay has offered to giveaway four prize packs to my readers. To enter the contest all you need to do is leave a comment on this post. For an extra entry, twitter about this contest and then leave me a second comment letting me know. This contest will end Saturday, March 7th at 10 pm EST. Four winners will be chosen at random from the comments. Please make sure you leave a valid email address so I can contact you if you win.
Weight loss seems to be a typical New Year’s Goal. I think this goal tends to get pushed out the window beginning on February 14th. As a walked through the grocery store tonight I didn’t pass an aisle without some sort of Valentine’s Day treat.
Last week I was given a sample of Weight Watcher’s Peanut Butter Cups to try. I was a bit apprehensive as I am a huge peanut butter cup fan. In fact, I don’t have a sweet tooth, but I love peanut butter cups and peanut M&M’s. I guess I have a peanut thing or something. Anyway, after sampling several (had to make sure I really formed an opinion) I must admit these are pretty darn yummy! The best thing about them is that they are only 2 points each on the Weight Watcher’s plan. This means you can eat the entire bag and still have a few points leftover for dinner… (kidding, really I am kidding).
I would not torture you by talking about chocolate without giving you some chocolate, so I am giving away a bag of Weight Watcher’s Double Chocolate Mousse candies to one lucky reader. To enter leave a comment telling me your favorite candy. You can enter a second time by tweeting about this giveaway, just leave a second comment telling me you tweeted.
I’ll chose a random winner on Monday February 16th.
