SATC

Thanks to Wm Rowe


I have been on a serious DVR kick lately. I’ve been too busy to watch much live TV, so I’ve been recording a ton of shows. I took a quick peek at my DVR the other day and I only had about 10% empty. I knew that if I didn’t start watching my recorded shows it would stop recording my usual shows. I sat down and watched an entire block of Sex and the City one Saturday, and it was glorious. I really miss that show. I kind of went into a period of mourning when it went off the air, and I’m so excited that the Style network has started to show them on constant repeat. The only problem is that I’ve wasted entirely too many Saturday afternoons watching it when I could have been accomplishing more important things around the house. That’s a small price to pay though for a few hours of watching one of the best shows in recent history. Check out the Style network on Direct TV to see if you agree it’s a pretty awesome show.

Rock Band

Over Thanksgiving Break the boys wanted to play Lego Rock Band with daddy.

So Dan dug out the drums and guitars and micorphone.

 I think we have some talent on our hands.

 The took turns playing each instrument and rocking out.

 Ronan wants a guitar for Christmas. He's going to pee his pants when he sees what Mamaw Berry got for him.

 Dylan got in on the action. He'll make a great drummer some day. 



I wanted to take a video of them playing, but I can't figure out how to on my new camera. You would think turning it to video would do the trick. Time to dig out the instructions.

check it out

A few weeks ago I talked to the owner of a local boutique called Healthy Baby Boutique about selling some of my items in her shop. Kendra, the owner, is super sweet and friendly and said she'd love to have some of my baby items. So this morning the boys and I loaded up some hats, headbands, bracelets and sNuggle Me Blankies and took them in to Healthy Baby Boutique! I'm so excited! Hopefully my items are well recieved by customers and I can start to earny a semi-regular paycheck.
For those of you that live close, be sure to stop by and check out all the goodies that Kendra has to offer!
Oh, and don't forget to "like" her on facebook.

Botanica with Friends

Last weekend we went to Botanica with some friends to visit the new Children's Garden. It is amazing! There are so many cool things for the kids to explore that I'm pretty sure it could have kept them entertained all day.
There are stepping stones to cross.

Water pumps with water toys.

 Musical instraments. This is one where you pour rocks into the hole and they hit little tines on the way down making fun tones.

 A cave with water and paint brushes.

 Dylan of course took a spill intot he river that runs through the cave.

 Bridges to play on.

 Bugs to sit on.

There are tons of other things to play on as well, and even dress up clothes! Hopefully in the spring we will make it back for another visit.

 And of course at the end we had to visit the butterfly house.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is probably my favorite holiday to decorate for. (I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that my birthday is only a few days before). Someday I hope to have a beautiful mantel to decorate, but for now, I'll do what I can with what I've got.

My bats and garland were inspired by this post.  I love how they turned out!
(I had more photos, like of our Mr. Potato Head pumpkin, and the huge spider web, but I can't get blogger to load them. Maybe later)
We also had our anual kids Halloween party this past weekend. The kids were all adorable in their costumes. I look forward to this party every year.

 Isn't he the cutest puppy ever?

Collin wasn't happy about taking pictures.

Happy Halloween!

it's about to get random

A while back I joined a site called "Blogsvertise". This is a site in which they assign you blogging tasks and pay you for them. Some of the tasks are Guest Post tasks in which all I have to do is copy and past whatever this person has written and I get paid. Pretty easy and on my $0/year salary I figured, why not? So it's about to get random. I'll always tag my post with Guest Post when I post one, you can read them or not. It's my little way of contributing to the family budget and hopefully one day getting a bigger house!

date night

I'm always looking for a way to spend time with my husband without spending a lot of money. Being a stay-at-home mom living on a single (teacher's salary) income doesn't exactly leave a lot of room for fancy date nights out. A few weeks ago I came across a blog called The Dating Divas. The blog is dedicated to date nights and keeping the romance alive in your marriage, without having to leave the house and spend tons of money.
Last week they had several different ideas but the one that caught my eye was a Ghostbusters date night. I'm a huge fan of the 80's and Dan loves the Ghostbusters so it seemed like a fitting choice. I started off by sending Dan an "invitation" to our date in the form of a news article. It looked something like this:

BerryPage Fun Times 1 1 of 1 10/24/2011

Ghostbusters to Exterminate Local Residence

The Ghostbusters are scheduled to investigate a haunting at a local residence on Friday, October 21st. The investigation/extermination is set to take place around 8:30pm, after the children have gone to sleep. Home owners stated that the ghosts must not want to scare the children as they never make an appearance until after the children are in bed.

The team stated that the appointment could last anywhere from an hour and a half to 4 hours. “We have no doubt that we can take care of the problem” stated Dr. Raymond Stantz, a team member of the Ghostbusters.

The Ghostbusters encourage others to call immediately if there is any suspicious activity. The Ghostbusters can be reached at 1-800-GHOSTLY (1-800-446-7859).

So it's a little corny, but it was fun. The plan for the date was to watch the movie while snuggling and eating some not-so-spooky snacks. I didn't really want to eat lots of junk food so the first snack I prepared was veggies and dip.

The carrots are supposed to look like fingers in the dip with fingernails made out of slice almonds.

Next I made some swamp juice which was simply a green soda (watermelon kiwi) that I found for $0.89 with some gummy fish and gummy worms in it. I don't reccomend eating the fish and worms after they have st in the soda for too long. They got all bloated and the texture made me gag!

We also had some candy and loaded potato bites.

The date was simple, cheap and fun. It was nice to spend some quality time with my husband without worrying about whether or not the kids were behaving and if we should really be spending the money.



Aunt Sue's Sugar Cookies

Last week the boys and I made a batch of my Aunt Sue's Famous Sugar Cookies. For as long as I can remember she has made these cookies for basically every family get together, and they are amazing! When I got married for a wedding gift she gave me a cookie sheet, cookie cutters, a rolling pin and her cookie recipe. I've made them before, but this last time they turned out extra delicious. I don't know if it was because I mixed the dough differently, or if it was my extra sweet helpers.

Dylan and Ronan helped me mix the dough while Collin was at school and after lunch that day the 2 older boys helped me roll the dough and cut out the fun shapes. Once they were all baked and cooled we gathered around the table to frost them with our homemade glaze (another Aunt Sue classic).

We had a lot of fun frosting the cookies...

but the best part was getting to eat them!

I hope to make this a regular tradition with my boys around the holidays.

Vote for me!

A few weeks ago I started participating in a Croceht Along over at one of my favorite blogs, Maybe Matilda. We've now finished up our cowls and have displayed them for everyone to see! Head over here, scroll towards the bottom of the post and vote for #69 (that's mine)! The top 4 win crochet patterns from some awesome sponsers. Hurry! Go vote!

Come out and see me!

I've been busy, busy, buys getting ready for this...

So come out and see me!

ham

I got a new camera over the weekend (insert giddy excitment here) and have been having fun taking pictures, mostly of my boys. In return, they have enjoyed cheesing for the camera and being little hams.

 Collin even set this photo shoot up for him and his brothers. I had the back drop set up to take some photos for my shop and he decided that him and his brothers needed to pose with all of their blankets and best friends.

 Cheese!

 Gotta love the lunch on his face!

 How in the world has my baby gotten so big?

Aren't they just adorable? I hope to have some time to really play with my photo editing and hopefully take some good photos. I have a friend coming over with her little girls to model for my shop this week. It will be a good learning experience. Any tips from the photographers out there?



zoo day

Last weekend we took advantage of the free admission day at the zoo. They were celebrating the zoo's 40th birthday, along with the 90th birthday of Dillon's.
It was hot, and crowded, but it was free. We hadn't been to the zoo in about a year. We used to have a membership but gave that up to save a little money. Hopefully we can get a new one this next year.

 This is Dave (an African Hunting Dog). Dan used to work at the zoo and had a stuffed one just like him that he gave me when we were dating.

 We waited in line a really long time behind some incredibly rude people to see the tigers. I won't give you the whole story, but the parents acted like children and at one point I had a bottle of water splashed all over me without any sort of apology... the tiger is beautiful though.

 Just before we left we even got a free cupcake from Dillon's. We were sweaty and tired after pushing through the crowds to see very few animals so we headed to Mamaw and Papa's house to go swimming.

We love free fun days!