Mini-Goals Update

• 10 orders at Shopapalooza. I'm really not sure how many people will be there, so I'm shooting for this. Would LOVE more, but will be very happy with 10.-Did not happen. Let me say though, I'm not disappointed. There were only 5 shoppers, hard to get 10 orders when 10 people did not walk through the door.
• Get Elf plans made for December. The kids have elves who spend from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve with us and I want the plans made ahead of time this year. Tired of scrambling to figure out what I want to do.-I've got a good start. Working on some new fun things for the elves to do each day in order to deliver their notes. I'm excited!
• List something new in the Etsy shop every week day. Will try for Sat and Sun as well, but week days will be awesome!!-I think I've missed a couple of days, but for the most part I'm doing well. I did miss a Friday, but listed 2 items on Saturday so that makes up for the Friday.

• Start Christmas gifts. As I said in a previous post, most of the adults are getting all hand made gifts so I need to get started. Kids are getting a few handmade gifts as well. -The lists are started. I have lots of ideas marked so I'm ready to really get going on the stuff. Have a few other things on the to do list before I can really get started on these. 

I also want to put this out there. Yesterday our hot water heater was fixed by a small local business. I know I am always pushing buy handmade, buy small when it comes to gifts, but after yesterday I was reminded that we need to not only support handmade, but support other small, local businesses. Whether it be a repair to your home or car, getting your oil changed, yard service, and even eating out. Don't get me wrong, I know there are times it's just not possible, I know we all love our Applebee's or Chili's(believe me I know about Chili's I could live on their chips and salsa!). I know getting your oil changed at a chain is usually cheaper, but the service you will get from a small shop is going to beat the price any day. I know the economy is bad and so we need to cut costs wherever we can, but these people are your neighbors, their kids go to school with your kids, they are the ones who will be there when you need someone. Supporting local companies in anyway we can supports the cities we live in.

10 on Tuesday

1. Chopped my hair today! I love it. Will try and take a picture later. It went from my shoulder blades to now being just below my chin. Actually has a style and body to it!

2. Dinner is in the crockpot and I can't wait to eat chicken tacos tonight. Love the crockpot on Tuesdays when Audrey has gymnastics.

3. Tonight we meet with the superintendent to discuss boundary changes and bond issues. Sounds like fun doesn't it!?

4. Does anyone know where I can buy transparencies? Seems no one uses them anymore now that most teachers have smartboards. I need some for scrapbooking!!

5. I went to bed early last night and while I didn't fall asleep for a while, I feel much better today. Spent probably an hour in bed reading. It was so nice.

6. Why oh why do toy makers not think little girls want advent calendars like the lego ones for boys? For a couple of years Audrey had a Littlest Pet Shop one and loved it. Now if you find one on Amazon they are like $70+. UGH!! She doesn't play with legos so buying the lego one is out.

7. You have to read this article about choosing your battles.

8. Got some fun new goodies to play with later. A new punch and some masks. Also got some adhesive, but that's not all that exciting.

9. My hot water heater is being fixed as I type this. In the last few days it went from working fine to having about 3 minutes worth of luke warm water if you were lucky! Not good when it's COLD outside.


10. The weather is GORGEOUS right now. Nice and sunny with temps in the 70's. Tomorrow...Upper 40's for the high. God love Missouri weather!!

To do this week!

• Finish editing pictures for a friend
• Edit sister's wedding pictures.
• Major shop update!
• Make Thanksgiving subway art.
• Make journals.
• Christmas banners
• finish a banner order
• Cards for winners of a contest!!

I hope that's enough to keep me busy this week! The Thanksgiving Subway Art will be a printable item, so no shipping. I think it would make a neat thing to add to your table. I'm hoping to do more printable type items for the shop, even offering customizable subway art prints. They are so much fun to make. For those who aren't sure what a Subway Art Print is, here is a sample of one I did for the 4th of July:

The great thing about these is they can be done for any occasion or event. Coaches gifts with team name and words about the sport, teachers gifts with kids names, wedding with party names or info about the couple, if you can dream it it can be made!

Menu Plan Monday

Hoping this will force me to plan each week. It was so nice last week having a plan.

Monday-Tuna Casserole I think I pretty much have the recipe in my head, but here is the one I basically make. I add cheese to the top while it bakes. Can't wait to eat this!!
Tuesday-Slow Cooker Chicken Tacos Using this recipe. Busy night with Audrey's gymnastics and also the superintendent speaking at our PTSO meeting about school boundary changes with a new high school opening so I need something easy to do and my crock pot is great for those days.
Wednesday-Chili Dogs
Thursday-Veggie Soup Found the recipe in my Taste of Home Heartwarming Soups book.
Friday-Pizza making my own sauce again(will share later this week) hoping to attempt my own dough one of these times.
Saturday-Buffalo Chicken Nachos Using this recipe Not gonna lie, my mouth is watering already. Adding some other finger foods we already have in the freezer and green bean fries. Will do chicken nuggets for Audrey if she isn't a fan.
Sunday-Yankee Pot Roast Found the recipe I'm going to use in my Taste of Home Family Favorites book.

I will let you know next week what we think of our new recipes. I love knowing that we have a plan for dinner each night and that everything is in the house. I HATE going to the store everyday or pretty much everyday which is what we were doing. We also weren't eating very good.

Update to do list and other stuff

• start handmade holiday shopping series on the blog, which means I get to spend some time "screen" shopping on Etsy for awesome gift ideas. If you have something you are looking for let me know and I will see what I can find.-got the ideas, just need to start posting
• 3 banner orders-one last one needs a few things to finish it.
• cupcake topper order
• Christmas tree shadow box for a friend for her school Christmas party-got paper picked out
• new banner for my blog-Haha!!
• Thanksgiving cards-nope
• edit a friends pictures I took-working on still
• edit sisters wedding pictures-went through and deleted bad ones
• pictures of new items
• list something in the shop everyday!
• work on more product-got a few ideas

This week ended up being really crazy due to book fair and some other stuff. Hoping to do better next week.

Spent 3 hours today CLEANING Audrey's room. I mean we sorted things back into the correct buckets. My goodness Barbie stuff is tedious to sort. Cleaned off the book shelf and it looks so pretty now. After it was done had a long talk with Audrey about keeping her stuff picked up. We'll see how long it lasts!

Hard to believe Thanksgiving is 2 weeks away. I'm looking forward to the food, the football, and hanging out laughing with my family. And of course shopping on Black Friday. I will get my lists made this week of who is getting what!!! Can't wait to share the stuff that I'm making this year.

To kick off the gift giving ideas, here is a great idea for the person who has everything, you never know what to get, or has arthritis. It's a jar opener my grandpa makes. It mounts under your cabinets freeing both hands to hold the jar you are attempting to open. My grandma has really bad arthritis in her hands and she uses this with no trouble. Opens everything from spaghetti jars to 2 liter bottles. It really is a great gift idea! If you are interested see my etsy store or email me.

11-11-11

11 things about our 11-11-11

1. I worked on some banners
2. A glimpse at the new bookmark the kids picked out for me while at Barnes and Noble with grandma.
3. Audrey watched Scooby Doo! We are big Scooby Doo lovers in this house.
4. A look out my living room window! Clear sky, bare trees, nice crisp fall day.
5. Audrey's box of crayons. She spent a little while sorting them all by color.
6. Dart playing Madden '11 on Wii.
7. My new favorite drink. Fuze Peach Mango! So yummy!
8. Pizza for dinner. Made the sauce from scratch(will share the recipe soon)
9. Watched Alf while we ate. We have season 1 on dvd.
10. Spent lots of time perusing Pinterest. Love that site.
11. Audrey and Dart played Wipeout on Wii for a while after dinner.

Nothing real amazing or out of the ordinary for our 11-11-11, but I want to remember this day even if it wasn't any different than most days. Kids were out of school because it was parent/teacher conferences. Their conferences were last night. Great reports on both kids. Audrey is "very social" as her teacher said. Ha, we all know that! Dart is a hard worker and able to seperate himself well when others are talking instead of working. I was a bit worried since 2 of his closest friends are in his class, how all of that would go. Proud of both of them.

Another quick story to share; Dart came to me today and told me he wanted to talk to me in private. We went on our room and he said "I want to go see a movie with Jenna in January. This gives you all of the rest of this month, all of December and part of January to meet her parents." I tried hard to keep from screaming "are you crazy????" I listened to him all the while thinking "why is my baby growing up so fast. I want my baby boy back!!!" I'm not ready for him to have any interest in girls and dating. Now obviously he won't be going on a date, he is only 10, but I know this is just the beginning. When I texted my brother to tell him about it his response was "That's my boy!" Yay, thanks a lot there brother. Wonder if he would feel the same way if it was Audrey wanting to go see a movie with a boy! Something in me says not only would his response be "He## NO!!!" but he'd be stalking her at school to make sure no boy came within 100 yards of her. I do have to give Dart credit for the fact of thinking it out so that we could meet her parents and he also said he would go see whatever movie she wanted to, even if it was a romance. I'm just not ready for this. I want my baby boy who loved Bob the Builder and Spiderman back. I want the boy who only wanted to go see a movie with his mommy back!

At the Moment....

Listening to-CMA Awards. Complete with our choices for each award.  We are just a tad competitive in this house!
Eating-Nothing. Full from Baked Potato Soup
Drinking-Water
Wearing-Fleece jammie pants, CYFL/Mizzou Golf Tournament shirt, socks
Feeling-Stressed, lots to do and not a lot of time.
Weather-Cold!!!! Was FREEZING this morning on Walking School Bus
Wanting-more time, more sleep
Needing-to see Footloose(haha!), more sleep
Thinking-about all the things I need to get done, Christmas gifts
Enjoying-life!!! Crazy as it is, very thankful for it.
Wondering-how I can get everything done I need to.

Took lots of pictures today of projects that need to be uploaded in the store. Ready for a big update soon!
Tomorrow is parent/teacher conferences!!

 Just a glimpse at all that is to come! Pictures are distorted a bit, in real life everything looks normal!