My 5 year old!

Happy Birthday to my sugar and spice middle daughter Selah Reese!  What a blessing she is to our family!  Selah has really been our first daughter that we can truly say “Sugar and Spice and all things nice” about!  She keeps us on our toes for sure!  I did this scrapbook page of Selah because I felt it perfectly described our girl!  I can’t say she is always a happy girl if I am being perfectly honest.  She definitely pushes the limits when she can – but I am certain that one day that will really pay off for her!  She’s strong, she’s serious, she’s funny, and she can be so sweet and cuddly too!  She really brings a lot to our family!

Today at preschool Selah got to be special helper! She was so excited because that means a parent gets to go to school with you and help out!  I was so nervous that school was going to be cancelled this morning because last night we had gotten the freezing rain.  The last time she was supposed to be special helper there was a fall “snow” day of sorts and school was cancelled and she was BUMMED.  I also had made 40 mini pumpkin muffins for that day that we had to eat all of.  Well yesterday I spent half the day making krispie treats and packaging them for her birthday treat to give away, so I would have been equally BUMMED if it had gotten cancelled!  I like to say because of my prayers we were one of the only public school districts in the vicinity that was open today yet!  Here are the treats we made for Selah’s birthday!

And the darling celebrating her birthday at school!

And we had a party on Sunday too with Kyle’s side of the family!  Selah shares her birthday with her cousin Cobe, so I made a cake for both of them!

So happy birthday to my Sassy Selah!  We love you more than you will ever know, but we pray you feel more love than you can ever grasp!

MandaKay

Been a While since a LO post

I feel like it’s been awhile since I posted a LO heavy post, but I looked at my blog and I posted some LO’s in the post before last!   Guess it hasn’t been a while!  Oh well, here is a LO heavy post anyway!  Last weekend the site called “Mousescrappers” hosted a Speed Scrap marathon in honor of the marathon that was held at Disney last weekend (in which our friends Beth and Jeff ran the 1/2 marathon and rocked it!).  Well, I decided to do the half marathon at Mousescrappers and did 7 speed scraps.  A speed scrap is generally done in an hour or so in a chat room, and you are given 7 different instructions all leading you to scrap a page.  We host these chats/scraps at The-Lilypad too sometimes and I love them, because it really forces me to get some pages done, and generally they are pages that I end up LOVING, despite the speed I did them in!  So, without further ado…here are some new Disney pages I have scrapped!

And a few of my recent non-Disney ones:

And I made this super cute cootie catcher that Braelyn just LOVES with Val’s Cootie Catcher template.  She has all kinds of goodies for Valentine’s hybrid stuff right now!

 

Enjoy your weekend everyone!!!

MandaKay

Some Seriously Good Info!

I’ve been meaning to write this post for quite some time now, and I just keep putting it off.  I have a tendency to do that with certain things in life.  So without further ado…I am going to share some information on sites I love!!!

First off – DIGITAL CREA ART

This store has the most amazing works of art!  Each kit definitely has a unique style all it’s own.  The store is a French/English store, and up until recently, here in the states we could not shop at this digital store because the only form of payment they took was the euro, but I just discovered they now take the US dollar as well.!  But guess what else?!!  They have the most AMAZING freebie kits!  Take for example this one that came out today – it’s so so so cute!  And you can download it from their store right here since it’s free!

A couple tips on using their store:  make sure you change the language over on the top right hand side of their store.  You will see two flags.  If you hover your arrow over them one will say French and one will say English.  Choose English – it obviously will make navigating the store that much more easy!  Second tip is to sign up for their newsletter.  They send out a newsletter about once a week and it will link you right to that week’s freebie!  You will never have to miss one!  If I could find where to sign up for their newsletter I would link you, but at the moment I cannot seem to find it.  The unsubscribe is down along the lower left side, but I don’t see subscribe.  So sorry.  I know you can subscribe though, because I get their weekly email with freebies!  Hope that is some useful information for you digital scrapbookers out there!

 

Secondly – SWAGBUCKS

I signed up for Swagbucks last March.  Swagbucks is a web premier rewards site.  You can earn virtual money by doing things you do on the web everyday.  With pretty little effort I have earned over $100 in Amazon gift cards!  I got a few really nice Christmas gifts for the kids by using those giftcards and waiting for deals.  A few things that I would recommend to get the most swagbucks:  install the Swagbucks toolbar.  I have the Swagbucks tool bar installed on every computer we have (which right now is 4 working computers!!!  Yikes – can’t believe I am admitting that!).  By having the toolbar you basically will earn 1 swagbuck per day just for opening up your internet.  Also it has a search box (just like a google search box), that you can earn random bucks for searching the web.  So anytime that Kyle or I are searching the web we just type it in there at the top of the screen and we can earn swagbucks (happens quite often – I think the average is 1 out of 5 searches)!  There are more ways to earn bucks too.  If you visit their site you can answer the daily poll for 1 swagbuck a day.  You can click thru a couple offers to earn a swagbuck a day.  And the newest way to earn swagbucks is by printing and using coupons! If you know me, you know that is probably how I am going to start earning BIG Swagbucks!   On Swagbucks website they have a tab on the top that says EARN.  In that drop down there is a coupons button.  Click that and it will bring you to Coupons.com, which is a site I use to print coupons ALL THE TIME!  So now I am just doing it thru their website and I should start earning 10 swagbucks for every coupon turned in to them.  It will take a while however (8-12 weeks) to get those swagbucks since they have to kind of wait for each coupon to be processed and tallied back to them.   But I am excited! I bet I have used probably 20-30 coupons already thru printing from there, so hopefully I will start seeing those swagbucks start rolling in from that as well!   OK – enough about that!  Sign up here and get started with it!

 

Thirdly – SYNOVATE

If you are at all into filling out surveys for a little extra cash I would suggest Synovate.  I have been a panelist for Synovate for almost 7 months now, and I am almost up to the $25 threshold.  I know it’s not much money, but it’s extra cash which is always nice.  The surveys are always short and easy.  Another good benefit is that they send you stuff to try out as well.  I got a free bottle of shampoo to use for 2 weeks and then filled out a survey at the end.  I don’t know what kind of shampoo, but it was free and I actually liked it!  I think I have perfume coming my way to try next because of a short intro survey I took.  I have even gotten dog food to try.  Weird huh?!  I love it though, and if that is up your alley then I would recommend Synovate – it’s a very good company. 

 

And last but definitely not least – VIEWPOINTS

Viewpoints is a public review site.  You can read reviews and give reviews on basically everything.  It’s people’s honest opinions on products from strollers, to tv’s, to computers, to lotions, and everything in between!  About once a month they offer their reviews (which can be you) a $10 gift card to Amazon or something similar.  They ask that you review 10 products (900 character/paragraph long review), and then they email you a giftcard within the next month.  I have earned $40 so far in Amazon cash for reviewing thru this site.  Again – adding to my Christmas shopping!   Join here today!

 

I hope a few of these were new for you guys!  I just wanted to share a few ways I get free things!  This year on Amazon I got my Wii Fit Plus, the girls a motor scooter, Pop on Pals, Toy Story Mania game for Wii, a book given as a gift, my fitness watch, and a few other little things all from gift cards basically to Amazon.com from Swagbucks and Viewpoints!  I hope to be able to save up even more for this coming Christmas since I will have a few more months under my belt than I did last year, since I didn’t start these things until March and later! 

 

Have a great day!

MandaKay

Project 365

So I am committed to doing project 365 again – a photo a day for a year.  I did really well in 2010 and looking back at my folder of my 365 photos I am reminded by what a blessed life I lead and what a blessed year we had, despite losing a job, a less than ideal economy, and a few other hardships!  I can’t wait to get them in some sort of album – another project all in itself!  So join me and see my pictures in my weekly posts over at The-Lilypad forums for P365!!!  Here is this week’s posting.

 

No new year resolution for me – I figure if I don’t set one, I don’t have to dissappoint myself!   In reality though I am really trying to lose a few extra pounds and have been working out every day since Dec. 1.  It’s going good, I missed 3 days so far total since Dec. 1.  I haven’t changed my eating too much, but for the month of Dec. I tried cut back on my pop intake, but that didn’t last long.  I am probably down on my consumption a little bit, but not much. I am realizing that I am getting older though because to lose weight now takes longer and longer.  I feel like I should be seeing visible results by now and I am not.  In high school I would have lost 5 lbs at least with all this working out.  I am feeling stonger though…I guess that’s good.  And a few other little non-resolutions I set every year are, to keep working on saving money and not spending it, to read my Bible more and grow closer to God,  to be a better wife and mom, and to enjoy life!

 

And here are a few LO’s to share!  Thanks for looking!

All with The-Lilypad Goodies!  They are having a sale too this weekend!!!  30% off the store (20% off BYOC products)!  Come out and do some shopping from the comfort of your home!!!