Some Videos for Easter

Three favorites I thought I'd share.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

This one always makes me smile and sometimes makes me laugh so hard I cry. I hope you enjoy it as much as my family does. :D

Happy Valentine's Day (A Bit Early)

This just felt appropriate to share now rather than on Sunday. :)

Black Friday

I'm not a crazy, rabid Black Friday shopper. I've never gotten up at 4am to go stand in lines to get that thing that everyone just has to have. I do, however, make my way around to a few stores to get things that I want after the main crush of crazy is over. I'm stoked to say that I managed to knock off a big chunk of my shopping today. :D There are still a few things we need to find, but we've gotten a lot finished.

So, do you get up at the crack of dawn to track down the perfect deal?

In The Spirit of Thanksgiving

I had planned to post this on Thursday, but I'm feeling a little brain fried tonight and not coming up with a good blog topic for the day. It's always a good think to ponder on what you are grateful for (especially those challenges that don't feel like blessings at the time). Enjoy!!

Favorite Photo Friday

Pictures of our family in our Halloween costumes are typically among my favorites. This year's picture is no exception. :D Our family has had a "theme" to our costumes from the time Princess Bug turned one (her second Halloween) until the present. This year I had to get creative to pull us together into an overall theme because Princess Bug had a definite plan for what she wanted to be. This just might have been the last year I'll get them all to agree to a group costume. *Sniff*

Here we are as "Our Favorite Magicians."


Top row: Me as Madame Mim, Lashes as Alec (Presto the Magician's Rabbit), and Renaissance Man as Merlin. Bottom row: Princess Bug as Elphaba from Wicked, Bob as Presto the Magician, and Sunshine Boy as Harry Potter.

While I have you all here, I want to share a really cool story about Sunshine Boy's scarf. The Wednesday morning before Halloween I was at "Crafty Ladies", which is group of ladies from my ward that get together every other week for a couple of hours to visit and work on whatever craft projects we have going on. I was using the time to work on our Halloween costumes. I mentioned that the costume shops wanted $20 for Harry Potter scarves, so I was going to sew my own from scraps of felt left over from previous years' costumes. My friend, Teri, volunteered to make one for Sunshine Boy instead. She is very fast at knitting and crocheting and told me flat out that she could have a scarf finished before I could. So, after "Crafty Ladies" was finished for the day, we made a run to Wallyworld to pick up some yarn.

Would you believe she crocheted the entire scarf and had it back to us by Friday afternoon? Would you believe she would have had it to me even sooner, but she got sick on Wednesday night? Sunshine Boy was ecstatic about his scarf. It was just the perfect touch to his costume (along with the homemade light up wand that RM made for him) and it made him feel so special to know it had been made just for him. In fact, he's still wearing it around. I don't think I could get him to put it away into the costume bucket even if I wanted to. :)

A Holiday Happy

I just wanted to share with you one of those "little things" that is making me happy right now. Two years ago I stumbled upon this at my local grocery store.



I am an herbal tea fan and it sounded so yummy I had to try it. I was right. It was perfect, probably my second favorite flavor ever. I bought a couple more boxes before the season was over. When they were all gone a few months later, I was sad. I made a mental note to watch for it the next year. Yay me! Something else to look forward to for the holidays.

Last holiday season came and went, but though I kept an eye open for Ginger Snappish, I never saw it anywhere. So sad!!

A couple of week's ago I stopped into the brand new WinCo grocery store in our area to check it out. (I must admit, I felt a bit overwhelmed. But, I digress.) As I'm nearing the check out stand, what do I see? An entire display of Ginger Snappish and it's sister, Eggnogg'n (which alas is a black tea flavor, so I had to pass it by). It was even on sale for a very good price. I promptly put three boxes in my basket. I may even go back and get more. :D

For those of you who are now curious, here is the description of Ginger Snappish from the Bigelow Tea website.

A snappy ginger herbal tea with a subtle hint of lemon! Bigelow's All Natural Ginger Snappish Herbal Tea...take a special moment just for you! This delicious caffeine-free herbal tea is a blend of ginger with a hint of lemon. 20 individually foil wrapped tea bags per box.

And, here is the list of ingredients:

lemongrass, lemon peel, cinnamon, ginger, lemon verbena, rose hips, natural gingersnap, and natural lemon flavor with other natural flavors (soy lecithin), licorice root, citric acid

If we're lucky, my very cool Master Herbalist sister-in-law will chime in and tell us all about the wonderful healthful properties of these various herbs. Then I might be able to tell you why it is that I crave this stuff. :D

Happy holiday find for me!