Help My Friend win a Wii!

Hey Faithful blog reader(s)!

Help my friend Trisha (who co-runs Momdot!) win a free Wii for Christmas. She's way behind in the standings which is totally UNCOOL because she's awesome, sweet, and funny too!

You can click on over to www.momdot.com to learn more about Trisha & get to know her better!

If you can visit... Classy Mommy, and really quickly vote for Trisha Haas...I'd love you forever!

If you think you've got enough friends, enter for yourself! I know I'd never get enough votes, so Trisha gets mine! (and yours too hopefully!)

Thanks!

Blog Party Day 4

Welcome to the fourth installment of the Momdot Christmas of Dreams Blog Party!

Nov. 17, 2008

Topic: What is your favorite Holiday recipe, describe your Holiday table, biggest holiday cooking disaster…

Day Four Blog Party Question is Brought to you by Bottlewise and Glow Mama! Be sure to show them some love and check out their pages!

Also, for more Blog Party fun, go on over to Momdot and check out what everyone else had to say about today’s post!


My favorite holiday recipe is for Chocolate Drop cookies. The recipe came to me from my Mother (a childhood holiday favorite), who says the recipe came to her from my Aunt Dolly, who got the recipe from my late Grandma Covato.

Here’s the recipe:
Chocolate Drop Cookies
By Dolly Rudolph (Aunt Dolly)

1 & 2/3 C. All purpose flour
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt

1 C. firmly packed brown sugar
½ C. shortening
3 oz. melted unsweetened chocolate

2 eggs
½ C. milk
½ tsp. vanilla flavoring

Spoon unsifted flour into dry measuring C. level off and pour measured onto wax paper.
Add soda and salt to flour, stir to blend.
Cream sugar, shortening, and chocolate thoroughly.
Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture alternately with milk.
Stir in vanilla.

Drop by tsp. onto greased baking sheet.
Bake at 350degrees 12- 15 minutes.
Frost while warm.

They are super yummy and delicious and we have them from Nov. 1-Christmas or maybe even a little longer if they last. My mom always makes a whole bunch and freezes them so we have them for the entire holiday season.

Our holiday table varies by house. At my In-Laws, they don’t really do anything special. We often eat in the living room, on the couch, in front of the t.v. Boo! At my parents house decorating the table is half the fun of getting ready for dinner. We always have a ton of people present, so there’s plenty to set up. We have special Christmas table clothes and place mats; we also have special center pieces. We use my mom’s holly decorated dishes and the good silverware. We have fancy folded napkins and candles too. Then, when it’s time for dinner, we fill every CREVICE with food. Literally the entire table, the china cabinet and the bar are FILLED with food. It’s GREAT! I love holidays at my house.

I think the biggest holiday cooking disaster I can remember would be when my little brother was standing on a bench, “helping” and the bench tipped over. It was Christmas Eve. We were making our traditional Italian fare. He ended up crushing his finger (thumb maybe?) under the bench and Mom and Dad spent the night in the emergency room. He was maybe 3 or 4 at the time. He’s 16 ½ now. We haven’t had any FOOD related emergencies, because my Mother is an AWESOME cook. She doesn’t make anything excited or amazing, but she almost always cooks what she is making perfectly. Again, another reason I love dinner at my parent’s house.
That’s all for me! Head off to Momdot to visit all the other blogs!

Weekend Blather...

Well, with the Bloggy Party & the Christmas of Dreams going on, I haven't done a lot of REAL posting. So, I figured I'd spend a few minutes tonight, going on about the last few days in the life of STIM. (That's Melanie's nickname for Tim and I.)

Thursday was the day I played hookie to babysit for Melanie. I couldn't seem to do anything right though. I nearly put Jack on the wrong bus, another mother caught me and told me we had to wait for the 2nd bus. Then, I was locked out of the house, with Sophia sound asleep upstairs. Rob had to come home from work & I was out in the rain for 30 minutes. Then, the bus driver didn't let Jack off the bus, because there wasn't a car in the driveway, so I had to go to school to get him! Poor guy, he was just chilling in the office. I took a nap while Sophia and Jack slept though, so that was nice.

Friday was a boring day. I got a dressing down at work. Oh well. I hate my job anyway, and I am defintely not going to be there next year. I have to change positions or something. That was first thing in the morning. The rest of the day was fine and I got a lot done. I stayed at work until something insane like 6:45. I had Grayson and Spencer for a while and that was OK. Mrs. White got a kick out of Grayson, but then, most people do, because he's freaking adorable and he's smart.

Saturday was SUPPOSED to be a kid-free relaxing day, but that didn't happen. We ended up sleeping in, getting up, eating, rushing out of the house and then running all day. When we left the house, we went to Tim's folks, dropped him off, then went to Chrissy's, visited for a while, then left with the girls. Chrissy had to take Tony to the hospital because he hurt his foot. The girls and I went thrift store hopping, trying to find an infant carrier and a helmet for the bikes, so we could take Carolynn for a bike ride. We never did find one. Wal-Mart had a Bell helmet for $10, but Tim said no to spending money on it. The girls and I (Brianna, Ashley, and Caro) then went back to Tom and Peggy's and just hung out until around 5:30. Tim was working in the garage with his dad. After I took the girls home, we all went to CiCi's for dinner. I am starting to lose my love of CiCi's, for real. After dinner, we all chilled for a bit, then Tim and I went to Tropical Smoothie Cafe to get smoothies on our way to Melanie and Rob's. They headed out to Kincaid's to do a mystery shop and we babysat the kidlettes. When they got home we headed home and to bed ourselves.

Today, we got up early and headed to church for the Family Life Center Grand Opening Inaugural Worship Service. It was nice. After church we went to Toys R Us. We bought Christmas presents for Chloe (a Klutz Cat's Cradle book), Jack (10 Hot Wheels Cars), and Sophia (Ming Ming Stuffed Animal, Wonder Pets coloring book, Downloadable video game), Ashley (moon sand set and extra sand), and Carolynn (Barnyard Bowling).

Here are some of the goods we bought. Left to shop for we have, Tony and Brianna (who are both getting Bakugan toys), Trevor (who we have to ask J & M what to get for), Frankie (who will get some part of his new computer from us), Loren, Beth, Mandy & J.C., Chrissy, Rob & Melanie, James and Missy, and then both sets of parents. If we manage to get all of the children bought for, we'll probably do gift cards for most of the adults to various places. My Mom wants village stuff and Tim's dad wants a new drill, so we shall see, what we can afford.

After going shopping, we headed to Tom & Peggy's to get our bicycles. When we left there we went to McDonald's for lunch. I left my pocket book there on accident. After we got home, we just chilled and relaxed. We ordered Pizza Hut in extreme laziness for dinner. Then we watched an episode of Season 2 of Prison Break & drove to VB to get my purse from Tom and Peggy's. (They picked it up for me.)

Now, it's bedtime. I have to be on time to work, or else, so I really need to get to bed.

On a TTC note, I don't think I've ovulated & I'm scared that my irregular sleep over the last few days & stress from work may have caused it. Wah. Tim and I talked and we may be taking a break from drugs/meds/doctors. We'll see.

Goodnight!

Blog Party Day 3

Welcome to the third installment of the Momdot Christmas of Dreams Blog Party!

Nov. 14, 2008

Topic:
Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? Do you budget for the holidays? Do you always stick to your budget? Share with us any budgeting tips you may have!

Day Three Blog Party Question is Brought to you by Appledonia, Hippos Toes and My Bag! Be sure to visit their homepages & check them out.

Also, for more Blog Party fun, go on over to Momdot and check out what everyone else had to say about today’s post!

Christmas shopping is normally a lot of fun for me, but not so much this year. My car accident cost us almost $500 that wasn’t planned and then we spent about $200 helping Chrissy out with her car accident. So, needless to say, we are broke. We haven’t really bought anything for Christmas yet.
I picked up a little something for my FIL at Halloween time and a trinket for my Mom last week (it was on sale for less than $3). But, other than that, we haven’t bought anything.

We desperately try to budget for Christmas, but it always seems like something comes up. We planned on $1,000 this year, but never actually saved the money up.

We do have a budget for the rest of our expenses, though. Tim manages our money. He tells me when I have money to spend and when I need to be frugal. I mostly listen. I don’t really want for much. (Except a baby!)

We follow the Dave Ramsey principle of paying off your smallest debt first. We started over a year ago, paying off our lowest loan as quickly as possible. We put a tiny bit over the minimum on all of our other bills except for the target bill. Then on the target bill we put all of our extra money from each pay check. That way we were able to pay it off a lot faster than expected. Then we moved to the next lowest loan. We’ve done pretty well this way.

Well, that's all for today, I'm off to go blog hopping!

Christmas of Dreams

Momdot is hosting another fun event right now, that I just MUST tell you about! It's their Christmas of Dreams contest. One amazingly lucky winner is going to win a huge (over $1,000 value) prize pack to make this truely one amazing Christmas!

The super wonderful and awesomely generous sponsors are (and subject to be adding more as the month goes on):
Dyson
BabyPop
The Shrunks
Soda Club
Kadi Prescott
Uncommonly Cute
Lollipop Book Club
Kuster
Silly Monkeez
LA Plates
Natitys Design
Little Black Box
Koshas
Kidz Sunglasses
jaC Jewelry
Appledonia
LeapFrog
Mutsy
Kushies
Huddy Buddy
Mimsi-Bags
BottleWise
Lets Go Strolling
DaBib
Sassy Baby
Baby Legs
Scentsy
FeeFiFoto
Randi100
Organic Blankees
Shi Shu Style
Georgie Tees



My favorite sponsors from that list include:

1. Dyson! We LOVE our Animal. We bought it almost 3 years ago and it's going strong. We had to buy a new vacuum because our apt. flooded (on Christmas Eve 2006, essentially ruining our first Christmas as a married couple) & we got new carpet. Our little "dorm room" vacuum couldn't cut it against the new carpeting. If we win the prize pack we'd be passing the Dyson portion on to my MIL or one of my sisters. My little sister has 4 cats and three stories in her home. A Dyson would be SO great for her! MIL has 3 small dogs (nonshedding) and could use a new vacuum! The DC25 Animal would be the vacuum I'd buy myself if I could go out and get a new one. Ours doesn't have the cool ball thingy that makes it turn on a dime.

2. Soda Club! Wow that is cool! I didn't even know they made do-it-at-home soda! That is awesome! And GREEN! I love it. Now that's one toy I know my friend Melanie would love too! We are the "hippies" in our group! Hee hee...

3. Kuster (ModernTots) Awesome! The question should really be, what DON'T I love on their webpage! I love it all! The bamboo swaddling blanket is adorable. The merino G blanket would make a great Christmas gift for my niece Carolynn. My Godson, Trevor, would love the Melissa and Doug cutting foods. There are so many awesome things on this webpage. I even already had them bookmarked for a few baby items I want, when I have a baby!

4. Natitiy's Design-Cocoa Blue Paisley Baby Sling....oh beautiful! I don't need a sling & I don't know anyone that does either but this thing is GORGEOUS! It even has an innovative pocket that the sling folds into...nifty!

5. Leapfrog--Leapfrog has great gifts for all of the kids on my list. I especially think my nephew would love the Fly Fusion pen! I'm sure he'd love it, Dh even wants one of those! Hee hee...I don't think you can go wrong when you give a Leapfrog toy as a gift.

6. Appledonia--Cute hand embellished tees! These would be perfect for using with longies!

Now, the wonderful women who run Momdot have asked me to explain why I think my family deserves to win this awesome prize package.

I know that Tim and I are not the most needy people on the planet, from first hand experience.

Tim and I are blessed beyond belief. Tim and I both have good paying jobs, nice cars (a 2005 Toyota Corolla and a 2008 Toyota Tundra), we have a warm house to live in, we make all of our bill payments. We have a few creature comforts, like Digital Direct TV with HD recievers and even a DVR box in the office, we have our cellular phones, which were top of the line when we bought them (Palm Treos), we have our puppies and Blondie. All of those things are bonuses. We don't deserve them and we sometimes struggle to keep them, but they are just that creature comforts. If times get too tough, we'll start cutting from that list. (Pets last!) We live near the majority of our family and have lots of friends who love us. We have a wonderful church family that supports us and prays for our well being. We are trying to concieve our first child and God willing we can afford to pay for all of my fertility treatments.

I would love to win this prize package because it contains many things in it that I could never justify/afford to buy for myself. It also has some things in it that I'd love to be able to share with those around me. Probably the biggest benefactor of the package would be my older sister. She has 4 kids, but only has custody of her baby. Her husband (their STILL in the process of getting divorced after 4 years) recently took all of the kids from her. Tyler (11), Brianna (9), and Ashley (7) all live with their dad and go to their Mom's every other weekend. They see their baby sister 2 weekends a month. Carolynn (16 months) lives with my sister. She was in trouble in the past, but she's been clean and sober for over 2 years and is making a decent effort to get her life together. She is a painter and so her work is seasonal. She struggles every week and is always behind. I know a lot of the things in this prize pack would make her Christmas amazing. I'm sure there will be things in the prize pack that the kids would enjoy as well.

One reason that Tim and I deserve to win this is because we LONG to be able to give all of our friends and family nice Christmas gifts, but this year it just won't be possible. My car accident (Sept. 25) and then Chrissy's car accident (end of Sept/beginning of Oct.) set us back a lot. We had to pay our entire deductable and then we paid to get Chrissy's car towed and Tim helped her get it fixed up. That was basically our entire Christmas budget out the window. We'd be able to bless a lot of people (if not everyone on our shopping list) with this Christmas prize pack. To me, that would be a great thing. It breaks my heart to know that we can't go above and beyond (like I'm so used to doing) this Christmas. So, this prize package would enable me have the Christmas of MY dreams because I'd be able to spread the love and give NICE gifts to all of my friends and family. I'm sure there will be things in there that Dh and I would love as well, so that'll be a nice touch!

Anyway, most of all, whoever wins this contest will be a very lucky woman/family! The sponsors and all of the women who run Momdot have put a lot into it and I think it's awesome!

Thank you Momdot for this GREAT opportunity.

I hope, if you read this, that you go on over to Momdot and check it out. You can even enter for your friends and family, so be sure to read up on it!

I'm a doofus!

Well, Rob had to come all the way home from work. I managed to lock myself outside, in the rain, when I took Jack down to his bus. Ugh. It wasn't TOO bad. I talked to Rob for about 10 minutes on the phone, called Tim, and played Solitaire on my phone. At least I had my phone! No bra...but I've got my celly. Hee hee...now I'm too awake to take a nap, so I'm going to eat and then maybe snooze on the couch until Sophia wakes up. When she gets up, I think I'll shower and get us both dressed. Anyway, I'm a doofus.

Good Luck Chloe!

Well, I'll be getting up at 3:15 am. I am going to go over to Melanie's to babysit Jack and Sophia. Chloe got an audition for a toy company in LA! She fits the bill to a tee. Melanie and Chloe will fly out in the wee hours of the morning and get to LA around 12ish. Then the audition is at 3 something. Then the next morning they'll fly home and be back here around 9 am. Crazy times. I hope she gets it!

Go Chloe!