Pinterest Projects

I love pinterest! I have gotten so many good ideas from pinterest and I love that I can collect ideas and inspiration and go back at my leisure to implement them. I love doing projects and accomplishing things, but coming up with ideas is the worst part for me. Now I can just take other people's ideas! Awesome!
Here are a few of my latest pinterest projects:

All of my adult life I have kept my jewelry in a glass bowl. Everything tangled up together in it and so if I wanted to wear something, I had to spend a lot of time and energy getting it out. So I never wore jewelry. I decided that I wanted to make an effort to accessorize more, and therefore needed a different way of storing my jewelry. I started looking through pinterest and found the idea of hanging everything up on a corkboard. So easy and simple! Not only does it look pretty on the wall, but everything stays neat and untangled. Plus, I can see what I have and be more inclined to wear something. Once James gets out of the stage of pulling on my necklaces constantly :)

My next project was a way to store electronic cables. For a long time we just threw them in a basket and then had to sort them out every time we needed a specific one. I saw the idea for storing them in empty toilet paper tubes on pinterest and I was sold! I started collecting them right away and now our electronic cables are neatly stored in tubes in the basket, labeled and everything. (Picture is from the pinterest link)

My most recent project is one I am really proud of. I'm not sure exactly how it started, but I think it was one night after I spent a good amount of time picking up James' books from off the floor. I wanted him to be able to get to them and play with them to encourage reading, instead of just having them on a bookshelf, but that usually means that all of them end up all over the floor every day. I started looking for solutions on pinterest and found the idea to put up vinyl raingutters as display bookshelves on your wall. You can make them low enough that your children can get to them and put them away by themselves and I think it looks so cute! Plus, there is a theory that when kids see all the bright covers displayed, it makes them want to read more compared to a normal bookshelf. I was sold! Now we have a reading wall in our living room (that is also James' play room) and I couldn't be happier with it :)

So you see, social networks aren't always just a time waster! They can influence you for good :)

Mardi Gras!

Last night we met up with some friends from a mom's group I recently joined to go to a local Mardi Gras parade. It was so much fun! There were lots of people in costumes, and the parade itself was pretty good. They had fire engines, floats, and they even had an entire team of Clydedale horses pulling an antique fire engine. The horses were so big!!! They were really spooked by all of the noise and commotion and I just imagined them ignoring their handlers and taking off down the road. Luckily, they didn't :)

James did so well, we were so proud of him! The parade started at 7pm, which is when we are usually getting him ready for bed so we weren't sure if he would get fussy or cranky. He had so much fun! He loved looking at everything, especially all of the people. Something cool would come by in the parade and we would have to try to take his attention away from the people around him to get him to look at it. He is such a people watcher! We caught a lot of beads from people throwing them from floats and we put them all on James. He looked pretty snazzy by the end of the night :)

Fun in the Tub

Last night we realized that we had almost no pictures of James in the bathtub. Something needed to be done! So here they are :)

 I love this face!!! He had to come check out the camera and I guess sucking in his bottom lip helps him concentrate :)

Homemade Kumquat Marmalade

Last weekend I caught a homemaking bug and decided to make kumquat marmalade from the kumquats we gathered from the tree in our backyard. I had researched it a little bit a few months back, but was waiting for the kumquats to ripen. So, my mom and I trucked outside to pick the tree clean and I started googling how to slice kumquats...delicate work. because of the tininess :)

The entire process was...challenging. I tried to follow the recipe, but it definitely wasn't specific enough. I think it assumed that you already knew about how to make marmalade and didn't give enough beginner information. My pot boiled over multiple times, burning a syrupy mess onto different burners of my oven and causing me to go through almost every pot in my house. After burning my finger pretty badly, I was ready to just quit and through it all away. But I persevered :) Finally I deemed the mixture at the "gel stage" and put it into containers. I am keeping it in the fridge right now and although it looks good, it does get a little too hard in there. I'm not sure how to fix it since I am pretty sure I can't keep it in the pantry. Right now we are settling for just letting it sit out and soften a little bit before using.

Not too bad for a first try!

Prescription costs can be a pill (Get it?!!)

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Walgreens for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Insurance can really stink sometimes. Of course, I only realized this recently since Anthony's new job is the first one he has had that didn't offer great group insurance (one of the benefits of having worked for a hospital or the state up until now). So I am always on the lookout for ways to save on medical expenses that don't involve insurance, because that is good information to have! With the economy the way it is, you never know what could happen to your insurance coverage. With that in mind, I just wanted to remind you guys about the Walgreens Prescription Savings Club. For $35 a year, a family membership covers everyone in your immediate family included your spouse, dependents under 22 and pets. Individual memberships are only $20! Membership provides savings on more than 8,000 medications, discounts on flu shots, pet prescriptions, nebulizers and diabetic supplies, and discounts when you buy Walgreens brand products and photo services.

If you are interested, there is a list of most medications covered and how much it costs for 30 and 90 day supplies. Anthony sees so many patients that struggle with how much their prescriptions cost, that I think he is going to start suggesting this to his patients as another option for being able to afford their prescriptions. (Isn't he thoughtful?? Once, after coming home from work, he realized that he had prescribed a pretty expensive prescription for a patient who didn't have insurance and he made a note to himself to call them back later to see if they wanted him to prescribe them something different. He's the best!)

If you want to support Walgreens and stay up to date on all of the current discounts, go ahead and like Walgreens on Facebook and follow Walgreens on Twitter  You don't want to miss out on any bargains!

1 Year Old!!!

James is 1 year old today!!!! I have been singing "Happy Birthday" at him all day and he thinks it's pretty funny :) We got him an inflatable ball pit for his birthday and Anthony blew it up for him after he got home from work. The picture on the box showed a lot more balls... in reality there were only a few which was kind of a disappointment for us. I don't think James minded!

He tried to crawl out and the entire thing flipped with him. He wasn't hurt, but he didn't appreciate the surprise!

On Sunday we celebrated his birthday with Anthony's parents and James got to dig into his very own cake! He was really cautious about it, poking and proding it and slowly sampling it until he felt more comfortable. He got a few really good bites out of the cake and then played with the icing the rest of the time. He looked like a little smurf in the end!

I can't believe that it has been a year already! It seems like it has gone by so fast, but at the same time we can't imagine life without our little guy. He brings us so much joy and we love having him in our family!