I am a winner!

I won (and already spent) a $50 gift certificate to Walmart.com. It was perfect timing!  I got a few things the kiddos want for Christmas that you can only get online anyway. The top prize was $300. Man, wouldn’t that have been nice? But anything helps right now.

I’m also plugging away at ChaCha to earn some Christmas cash. Luckily the kids don’t really want anything too expensive this year. And they already know that Santa only brings three gifts (tradition started last year). Plus, little things in there stocking and usually one gift for the whole family to enjoy. Last year was a Nintendo DS plus games that we managed to score (used) for only $50!

I have als been having an email marathon over some rebates I should have got months ago. Supposedly they will be here by mid Dec. now. So that is another $100 I can add to Christmas!

Rebates +  ChaCha money + the $50 I won + the things I snagged already = a rocking Christmas!

Let’s hope it all falls into place that way now!  I don’t want to give Dennis a train table with no train or tracks lol. Not that he would care. He’d just jump off of it.

What?  Where did I win the $50? Right here on the Totally Her message boards. Don’t worry, there are tons more awesome prizes to win. There are actually some gift cards, a printer, some movies, and other things up for grabs right now. Just in time for the holidays!

Christmas Cookies on the Tree!

Every year we decorate the Christmas tree with cookies!

I start with a good sugar cookie recipe. We use a straw to poke a whole in the top of each cookie before we bake it. After they are cooled, we decorate them with a yummy glaze that we make in all different colors. Once the glaze has set, we put a hook through each cookie and hang them on the tree.

They look good and taste good. Also, the kids have a blast decorating them.

The only drawback is that the tree starts to look a little bare by Christmas!

Here is an example from a few years ago.

Scrapbooking, the journey begins…

My goal is to make scrapbooks of the kids for everyone for Christmas. By everyone I mean the grandparents, my sister, and one for daddy too.

Scrapbooking is new to me, something I have never done before. So it is one of my personal challenges too!

I ordered a tiny scrapbook kit from my daughter through her school fundraiser and played with that first. Here are some pictures of what I did. Just a sample of the pictures. Any and all advice is welcome! I need to know what is good, what sucks, what I can do better. That kind of thing. I’m going to be making bigger ones for everyone else, the 8.5 x 11 size.

The flash got the picture here, but that is not really important. It’s the page I want you all to see.

Notice the difference in the writing here?  I was trying out a calligraphy set that I had on hand. I’m not so good at it, as evidenced by all the other pictures. But this one here was done by  my husband. All these years and I never knew he had a knack for calligraphy. Guess who’s going to be doing the rest?

A new cloth diapering site!

I am very excited about the new site Cloth Diaper Nation!

This is a new board where you can buy, sell, trade, and talk about cloth diapers. Of course, you can talk about so much more there too. There are also no annoying ads or popups to deal with.

Come on by and check it out!