Grocery Shopping

Since my newest hobby is thinking about food and spending less money on groceries I decided I should share that today I went grocery shopping with wild abandon. the evidence:
I bought cherries. hello 5 dollars a pound.
I bought apple apple at the grocery store even though i know it is 30 cents cheaper at target. I got two boxes.
I let my kids pick their own cereal. and then their own box of fruit snacks. Of course I made Danielle swear on her life that she would brush her teeth after she ate them, which she did not do a few hours later.
I got butter with boxtops for education on it.
And Margarine. I love box tops brands- I cut them out and then give them to someone else because my kids aren't even in school yet.
I bought dannonino- also known as the most expensive kids yogurt on earth- you get like one spoonful of yogurt for the same price as other yogurts.
I bought lunchables- even though they are 50 cents cheaper at target. My child asked for them and I just put them in the cart.
I bought a half gallon of milk instead of a bigger one.
I bought gallons of water. someone asked us if we had a boil order on our water the other day. I guess it didn't taste good. So I got some water. and water bottles- with the sports tops that are awesome. Mark has already dumped one on the family room floor. It was a kids bottle with added fluoride.
I bought the most expensive kind of apples- just because I like the way they taste.

reckless abandon.
I almost bought some rainbow chip chips ahoy.
so at least you know I haven't completely lost all control.

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My Dream Linen 80's house

Today I got my restoration Hardware catalog. 300 pages of linen covered bliss. and some very oddly scaled ceiling lights but they weren't linen so who cares about them.

In all seriousness I want a linen couch. This one. Or rather I did when I saw it at the outlet for really cheap but not so much now that it would cost me more than 3,000.00 dollars. Who doesn't need a fancy couch for their house. The best part? This one is comfortable and- covered with linen. Linen. The new luxury fabric.

The other day I was thinking- How could I make my whole home a sort of "Linen" color.
Restoration Hardware came to my rescue. Now I can have a couch, pillows, coffee table, chairs, drapes and furniture all the color of linen. Those Cart Tables really have sort of a linen color to them. So trendy right now and in just the right color! Or I could just get one covered In Linen. I am so excited that my outside table can be linen colored and my chairs and my dining table and all the chairs around it could be linen.

I was hoping to find some peculiar looking chairs- like an egg chair just like one I saw in a museum- only in Linen instead of another fabric. They have one with Burlap on the back. What a wild ride that would be. Linen+Burlap= the best ever.



people are always saying that architectural elements are good for a house. So I thought my 80s house could use a few columns here and there. I could put my kids on top of them for time out. No more wandering out of time out now! Or I could put a stone sphere on them. The best part? Both the color of linen.

Then for the table I might branch out to an almost duck cloth color. Although I could never do those plants- hello green was not in my color scheme! One thing I never realized before was that Antlers are close to the color of linen! So I thought about getting together all my hunting trophies and crafting them into a massive light fixture of death. Hopefully I'm good at cleaning things- right? But then I realized that Restoration Hardware had that Linen lighting Covered! I won't even need to bust out my linen lamp shades.

Or Will I?

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The Road Trip Tryout.

I know you might want to go on a road trip with me and my children. Just the other day I volunteered to drive to Colorado with a friend.

oddly enough, she is no longer interested in road tripping with me.

I don't know why- all we did was drive to the outlets in Lancaster together. Baby Mark cried the whole time. Literally almost the entire 2.5 hour drive in the car he was crying. I tried to time it so he could sleep over his nap time but he had other ideas.

also Danielle fussed about her neck hurting.

and about someone pretending her new bedding was a towel.

and about her headphones getting wrapped up in her hair.

and about being hungry.

and about being thirsty.

she didn't really cry about sharing her game, which I was happy about. Or maybe I just forgot that part.

the girls did try to unbuckle and climb around the car.

and we moved the seats around

and we filled the car too full really.

and Danielle peed her pants in the middle of a store.

Mark finally fell asleep after 12 hours of sleeping- he learned to self soothe from all that great sleep training people recommended to us. I guess Danielle's new big girl seat is too big for her since the seat belt gave her a cut on her neck. I felt terrible when I realized what had happened, just like the whole time the children were crying or complaining I wanted to stop driving and help them. I guess I just don't press on very well, which is probably why it took us 7 hours to drive to New Jersey the other day even though it should have taken 3.5.

I guess if you really want to get somewhere you have to keep driving.

Nichole said I could have warned her.

You can imagine that I was non-plussed, is this not one of the greatest joys of parenting? Don't all children have a constant stream of screaming or complaints in the car?

Danielle, with the help of one dear salesman, learned what Jibbets were, and is now the proud owner of a some which were placed on her new crocs that I bought to replace the urine soaked shoes she had with her. I knew I should have brought along an extra outfit- confirming my faith that my mother's intuition is indeed growing. Also for all you parents if you are buying one light up fairy you should really buy one for each foot or your child will drive you nuts with stomping.

Nichole claims that children like Mark should be able to stay asleep when they fall asleep in the car.

I suppose next she will think it is inappropriate to climb all over furniture at restaurants and try to crawl all over the floor with the baby. I don't know how people ever leave their homes with children. Maybe they have Alien children like Darla that are really good.

Nichole has two girls aged three and two (the three year old is almost four) and they didn't seem to contribute at all to the complaining.

But I think it's important to contribute. I guess I'll be searching for a new friend for road trips with children.

Do you have any road trips planned?

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My Expensive Hobbies

I want to be able to sew my quilts together myself. there I said it.

I want to be able to have a serger. This one is cheap at Joann.com but I really want the on from pfaff I saw for 2,000.00 blah.

beautiful. I always need loads of threads and the joann by my house doesn't even carry 100% cotton thread.

I try to make things every day. but sometimes I have ideas that I don't actually have the things for. I borrowed Sara's cricut for a while and now that I returned it my heart is breaking. I want to cut out about 75 butterflies in bright colors SO BAD! it kills me. also I want to make a quilt but I don't have a machine quilter. I guess I could try to quilt it together on my machine but that isn't the best idea ever. I dream of owning one of those giant quilting machines.

Did I mention that this month I'm trying to make at least one thing a day? well I am. You should too. you could make food or sew something or finish one scrapbook page a day or whatever floats your boat. Check out my post HERE
my etsy shop blog needs more comments. I wanted to thank my fantastic sisters in law who comment on it. smiles.

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Another reason to drive to New York

Sara told me about a great website with exciting shoes. they are called Fluevog shoes and I like them. the founder is Canadian which could turn some people off-but he is from Vancouver which I think is one of the coolest cities on earth. Maybe only one of the coolest cities I've ever been to, but still....
I think there are several pair that I really need. for example there is a pair called Berlin Mitte that would make me feel good about chasing around a toddler. the Wearever Merci shoes have a fun retro feel that I love, and the little bell heel seems really fun.


the site has a giveaway for Moby tickets which I totally entered and people were voting for either pink or purple and orange shoes. The onange ones are really great but I think there is something so wonderful about wearing pink shoes. Danielle is also partial to pink shoes (although honestly I don't know if her crocs are her favorite shoes or her butterfly boots.) Although i love the purple and orange I was sad I didn't make it in time to vote for the pink ones. Here is a copy of the Moby info. You should click here to visit their news and see what they are all about.



We have 2 tickets to give away for every North American stop of Moby's "Wait For Me" Tour from September 17th to October 23rd, 2009. If you live in or close to one of the 24 cities that Moby is playing in this Fall, you can win a pair of tickets to his show. In addition, all ticket winners will be entered to win a brand new pair of John Fluevog Shoes! (If you wonder why Moby and Fluevog chose each other for this contest, put it this way... the longest word you can make from the letters of Moby and Fluevog is 'Lovebug'...)

All of these shoes would be great on a Sunday. Or a monday. I am pretty sure I have a shirt that would match the green on the boots.

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Insomnia and Fall Down Tree

Turns out that I can't really stay asleep for very long these days. I really hate it when people tell me that even though I want to have the baby now in a few weeks I will be wishing the baby was still inside of me because I will be so tired. I don't know many new moms who wish themselves 38 weeks pregnant, especially when they don't sleep anyway. So I do what anyone would do if they knew they should be asleep and will be VERY tired soon... I get a water bottle and a bowl of cereal and shop online. then I think about crying when I am ready to go back to bed and Danielle wakes up. Can this house be causing insomnia? A few mornings I've woken up only to find Danielle at some point in the night has climbed into our bed and is now kicking me in the face or has a big wet diaper in my face. Why am I the only one who wakes up to the smell of a diaper across the bed from me?

Here is something I love.
Well I found some really cute prints for the nursery. Falldowntree.etsy.com makes the cutest little animal prints. this set of six prints is only 75 dollars. they measure 10 by 10 and I think the beaver is surprisingly silly and fun. If you look at Falldowntree.com you can see more of their work.
Daniele really loves animals right now, especially frogs it turns out. She looks at the prints and talks about the new baby, then shows me her frogs. Her frogs go to visit the other animals in the babies room, and sometimes the animals come to visit the frogs or just generally go missing.

Falldowntree also has some really cute robot prints and one about monster friends. If you go to their website they have printable coloring pages. I printed out the Giraffe which is a standard 8 by 10 size. I really like it when they have pages that print on only one page instead of that extra blank page that always seems to come out as a bonus when I print things.
I was going to post about the artist but I can't find much. His name is Adam and he likes to draw and he sent my prints in a record album cover. That seemed really smart because it arrived unscathed. I guess they really don't try to bed records, which is different for the Postal Service.
Like many cute things in my life, I am pretty sure that Rachelle found this artist. Looking through her favorites on etsy is one of the best ways that I've found to shop.

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New Hampshire

Right after moving in to a new house I would recommend driving to New Hampshire. We are now less than six hours away which is pretty nice, and we don't have to drive through New York. Last time I drove up there on my birthday and it took just about 8 hours- 2 of which was spent parked on the freeway. I took a picture.
I couldn't face all the boxes so after moving in Sunday we left on Wednesday. We were able to find some clothes, although they weren't clean.
Danielle really likes Grandpa Ed. I think they are kindred spirits in their love of chocolate. He was in the hospital while we visited, and John helped set up the house for him to come home. Parkinsons has really affected his balance. I went to the baby store with Aunt Sara and got a juice box holder. This is my new favorite item. The one at onestepahead.com is fancier than the one I have and I am considering buying another one. My sister in law Kathryn told me about them at family camp and I saw them. I had to buy one and Danielle loves it. Gone are the days when Danielle squeezes juice all over herself before taking a drink. You can just hand her the holder.
It was nice to see everyone and have John help Mark a little with getting ready for Grandpa. And Danielle got to see grandpa, who shared chocolate with her. She asked for him on the way home.

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My favorite things

I am loving a few things right now.
1. Crinkle cookies from Aunt Sara. Yummy.
2. My armoire turned pantry from IKEA. now if only we could figure out how to the put the doors on.
3. Friends who come help us move. Even if we didn't get any pictures :-(
4. Our Fujitsu ScanSnap. That is some seriously fast scanning and I am not kidding.
5. The Jersey shore.
6. Reading home improvement magazines.
7. Rubber Lizards that Danielle brings to church with her.
8. Gesticare prenatal vitamins since they don't make me sick.
9. Being able to say I am having my baby "next month" and still wearing high heels.
10. Finding John a homeowner T shirt.

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Seriously.

Danielle got a beautiful hat from Rachelle and her roommate the other day. She likes wearing it around the house and asking for hat.
Baby Madsen number two likes to kick me in the bladder. One of my greatest fears is peeing my pants while pregnant and I swear this child will do it. He also likes to move around so much I give up on sleeping and make blog posts.
I like these shoes. They are available at Piper Lime. They would look beautiful with my linen skirt. why are the shoes I like always so expensive? I was looking at piper lime and found a beautiful pair of shoes- which was on sale for 500 dollars. Seriously? who buys these shoes. I guess not that many people since they are on sale. Some days I wish I was one of the people who had enough money to buy five hundred dollar shoes.
Maybe you have to be born that way.

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Sunday Thoughts

My birthday is soon. This Sunday I thought about things I wanted for my birthday. Or just stuff I like. I love birthdays- and lists- what's on yours?

1. I want flowers planted in our flower box and our front yard to be weeded. Not by me.
2. I want pictures of people.
3. I want a picture of Danielle with her dad.
4. I want to wake up and the house is magically clean- meaning I have no idea how it happened.
5. Japanese fabric-http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=23536102 http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=24732012
6. Or Kaffe Fasset fabric.
7. Or minky Fabric.
8. Or the cute pencil holder my sister in law made. Or one of her colorful mugs.
9. Shoes. I love shoes.
10. Chanel Acapulco lipstick- it seems mine had an unfortunate accident with a baby and an eyeliner and isn't really usable anymore.
11. A new queen sized duvet cover.
12. A cute maternity shirt
13. Expansions 3 and 4 to Alhambra
14. Frames- any color
15. Industrial Waste Board game
16. Agricola Board Game
17. Le Havre Board Game
18. Stationery

lots of other things- I was going to make 28 since I am turning 28 but I ran out of steam.

Happy mother's day everyone!

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