Brooke is obsessed with Princesses and pretends to be one at some point every day. Tonight she got all decked out in a pretty little dress her Aunt Janna and Uncle Richard got her for Christmas. She absolutely loves this dress. And you might have guessed, she calls it her Princess dress.

We added the purse and heels. Then I flat ironed her hair to finish off the look. I couldn’t help but have her pose for a few camera shots. Well, maybe we got a little carried away, but it sure was fun.

I think the camera loves her, but you know I’m just a little partial.

That being said, I want to add something after the name “Mommy’s Idea Book” to indicate that some of the stuff I’m writing about will be on various subjects. However, I’ve got to figure out exactly what I want that phrase to be.

Here are a few ideas that have crossed my mind:

• “Mommy’s Idea Book…and Other Spontaneous Thoughts”
• “Mommy’s Idea Book…Etc.”
• “Mommy’s Idea Book…and Other Interesting Stuff”
• “Mommy’s Idea Book…and Life As I See It”

I’m leaning toward either the second or last one. What do you think? Or do you have any other ideas?

Photo Credit: Arnold Gatilao

Challenge Twice,yard bedroom communication fruit they content intention alternative difficult reader gas short narrow guest touch terms like smile nobody basis credit north type behind impose direct form vary advance annual reasonable who this switch watch united democratic solution buy extend recent floor official without owner method visitor maybe escape executive fire house right remember challenge human order treaty army software unit above surprise regulation truth home dry stick argue telephone our anybody arrive human surround shut notion priority fairly opposition human mainly still publication true before sum

So, did that make any sense to you? No, it didn’t to me either. You thought I’d lost my mind didn’t you?

Yeah, this was actually a spam comment I got the other day on one of my posts.

I mean – COME ON!!

Do these people actually think they’re accomplishing anything by sending out a jumble of words. All this does for me is make me hit the DELETE button and do this .

Just a word of advice….if you’re going to spam me, at least leave an intelligent remark. Make yourself sound interesting.

You’ve likely seen all the deals I’ve been getting by combining coupons and sales. Well recently I’ve decided to branch out a little more and try some other money saving/earning strategies.

About a month ago I joined Ebates to start getting cash back on most of my online purchases. It’s a completely FREE site and since I’m going to be continuing to order online anyway, I figured I might as well be getting some cash back in my pocket.

Ebates is very easy to use. All you have to do is sign up and then choose one of over 1,200 stores and click through to the website and shop as you normally would. Ebates then automatically credits your account, based on your purchase amounts, for the specified percentage of cash back for that particular store.

You also get a $5 sign up bonus. Then once you earn $5 cash back you’ll be eligible to receive either a check in the mail or have your earnings credited to your paypal account. It’s a win-win situation!

The other site I recently signed up for is Swagbucks. Basically with this site you earn Swagbucks for searching the web. In other words, you use Swagbucks as your search engine and you earn Swagbucks for certain searches. The fun part is you won’t know which searches will win you bucks. The best thing to do is just search the web naturally like you would with any other search engine.

The best part is once you get a nice stash of bucks saved up, you can redeem them for prizes. This site is also FREE and since you’re going to be doing internet searches anyway, you might as well earn prizes along the way.

It may take a little while to save up for the better prizes but you’re not losing anything in the process.

Here is one example of what you can do with your swagbucks. One of the prizes is a $5 Amazon E-gift card, which you can redeem bucks for once you have accumulated 450 swagbucks. There are many other prizes requiring more or less swagbucks.

UPDATE: I have been using Swagbucks for two weeks now and have accumulated 470 swagbucks.

Here’s the breakdown that is showing up on my account:

• 30 for signing up
• 50 for referrals (Some friends signed up through my referral link. You can earn up to 1000 swagbucks from each referral – when they win by searching, you win too.)
• 220 for searching (I earned these simply by searching the web as I normally do, just using the Swagbucks search engine.)
• 40 for Swagcodes (You can get at least one of these each week – very easy to do.)
• 130 for special offers (You don’t have to do this. I just do some of the easy free ones to earn some additional bucks.)

One other thing, I recommend downloading the Swagbucks toolbar. This way you’ll have the Swagbucks search box easily accessible no matter where you are on the web.

Have fun shopping, searching and earning!!

Check out this cool photo below! Who would have thought Brooke had such talent for balancing things?

Yesterday, I turned around to grab my Sobe Lifewater only to find an apple balanced on the side of the lid.

Last Thursday, we went to David’s award’s ceremony at school. We didn’t know for sure if he would be getting an award or not, but I thought he probably would since he got 100% on his report card. I took some pictures, unfortunately the lighting was not very good so the pictures are not as clear as I’d like.

In this photo, you can find David on the far left side of the group of kids lined up across the front. He has on a green jacket.

This is a picture of the ribbon he got. Just in case you can’t read it, it says, “Roaring with 100%…Vinemont Elementary School.”

We are so proud of our little man.

I meant to post this yesterday but forgot to do it. As I walked past our back door last night, I was in awe of the colorful  sky and I wanted to share it wth you. Isn’t it beautiful? David described it as “a rainbow of colors.”

I’m  once again reminded of our awesome God and the beauty of His creation.

Photo by: Playful Librarian

Whew!! I’m tired from my second and final day of baking. Nevertheless, here’s what I managed to get done today.

Homemade Flour Tortillas

Initially, I thought these tortillas were not going to be good because they felt too stiff. However, as I cooked them, I placed them under a warm cloth and by the time I was done with all of them, they were nice and soft. They taste really good too. I will definitely be making these again!

Turkey and Cheese Hot Pockets

I really wanted to make some Fried Apple Pies with this same dough recipe, but I ran out of flour. Oh well, maybe I can try those another day. It’s not like we really need any more sweets right now anyway.

Baked Spaghetti

We’re having one of these for dinner tonight and the other one is going in the freezer for later. It looks and smells so good. I wish it was time for dinner now.

Happy Baking!!

After being inspired by a few other bloggers out in the blogosphere, I finally decided to have my own baking days this week.

Technically, I didn’t do a whole lot of baking, but rather prepared items for the freezer that will make it easy to bake them on days my time is limited.

Here are the fruits of my labor from today.

Breakfast Casserole

I’m leaving one of these in the refrigerator to bake Saturday morning for breakfast and the other is going into the freezer for another day. I’ve never tried freezing one of these before, so I hope it does okay. I guess time will tell.

Oatmeal Cookies

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I ended up with three dozen Oatmeal Cookies and four dozen Chocolate Chip Cookies. All I did on these was mixed up the dough, dropped tablespoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and put them in the freezer for a few minutes to slightly harden the dough so that I could drop them in freezer bags without the dough balls sticking together.

Now when I need a few cookies I can get them out of the freezer, a dozen at the time, and bake them.

Honey Oatmeal Wheat Bread

I made three loaves of this bread. The plan is to eat one now and slice and freeze the other two for later. Homemade bread is just so tasty and David thinks there is nothing like it.

Tomorrow I start again. I’m going to try my hand at homemade tortillas and hot pockets. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Every now and then, we end up eating a bowl of cereal for supper. Well, tonight was one of those nights. I took out all the cereal and placed them on the counter for the kids to choose which ones they wanted to eat.

Upon David’s inspection of each cereal, he advised me that he didn’t want those Frosted Flakes because it isn’t a good cereal. I proceeded to tell him that not only is it good cereal but it’s a kid’s cereal because it has Tony the Tiger on the box.

David’s response was simply that he didn’t want it because it has a tiger on the cover and the box is Auburn colors.

What else needs to be said here?