swagbucks!!

I love swagbucks! If you haven't heard about it, it is a search engine that gives you the opportunity to win "swagbucks" for doing things you probably do anyway:search, shop, answer polls and more. Your points are tallied up and you can redeem them at anytime for items in their swagstore. The best thing I have found is the amazon gift card. I have redeemed points for amazon and smilebox gift cards and am currently saving up for another $25 gift card from amazon so I can get a new gps that they have on sale for 67.00. I have heard of a few people adding up their points all year and redeeming them in october for amazon gift cards and using them for all of their christmas shopping. I think I may try to do that for a few months at least.


Another great thing about swagbucks is that you can refer people and when they sign up, you get points as they win points. Imagine if you got even 10 people to sign up. Ive racked up almost 3,000 points in just a few months. It is basically free money for something you are going to do anyway. It is free to sign up and they will award you 30 swagbucks to get started. http://swagbucks.com/refer/momof3intn

creating a banner

So as scatterbrained as I am, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I sat down two hours ago to write a post and ended up getting sidetracked when I decided to change my banner really quick. I created this blog over a year ago and the design is pretty generic. I have been wanting to personalize it for some time but I just haven't got around to doing it.


As I mentioned before, I started to just change my "about" info and decided to look up a quick tutorial on designing a banner and here I am two hours later with no post and no changes to my blog. SO frustrating. I found a few different tutorials that seemed pretty straightforward but try as I might, I just am not any good with reading code. I tried over and over again to cut and paste new code into my html but I kept getting an error message.  Am I seriously just retarded or have any of you had problems with this as well? I actually think I may have found a site with a step by step on creating a banner and plugging it into the header section. Hopefully it won't involve reading any code. Hopefully it will look something like one of these pics below.

I think the bottom right is my favorite!

I watched The Social Network again this weekend and it is amazing to me to think about sitting and writing code for hours upon hours. I took a web design class my junior year in college and somehow managed to create a website from scratch. I remember bits and pieces of what I learned but I think it was mostly just copying from the book and plugging in a few words here and there. Maybe its time to dig through the book shelves and see if I can find any of the books from my class. I think I am going to give it one more shot. Hopefully before my next post I will have a pretty new personalized banner. Once I figure it out, I will share what I learned.

Kristy

Favorite Dinner Ever!

A friend of mine shared a recipe with me the other day for bruschetta chicken and I decided to go ahead and give it a try. I am not so good at picking winners when it comes to new recipes so I was a bit nervous but oh my goodness. It was amazing! This is probably one of the best meals I have made in a long time. I was thrilled because, for once, everyone liked it. 

Bruschetta Chicken. Yum!

I have had soo many requests for this recipe already so I thought I would pass it along to all of you. I served it with Ronzoni garden delight fettucine and asparagus. If you like bruschetta at all you will love this dish. I actually doubled the topping and used it for traditional bruschetta tonight. I am so excited for you to try this.  It actually is a really quick and easy meal that is sure to impress. The recipe calls for traditional bread crumbs but I use panko because it stays really crunchy while baking. Let me know what you think!

BRUSCHETTA CHICKEN

• 4 Servings
• Prep: 10 min. Bake: 30 min.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup egg substitute
• 4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (4 ounces each)
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup dry bread crumbs
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted
• 2 large tomatoes, seeded and chopped
• 3 tablespoons minced fresh basil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions

• Place flour and eggs in separate shallow bowls. Dip chicken in flour, then in eggs; place in a greased 13-in. x 9-in. baking dish. Combine the Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs and butter; sprinkle over chicken.
• Loosely cover baking dish with foil. Bake at 375° for 20 minutes. Uncover; bake 5-10 minutes longer or until a meat thermometer reads 170°.
• Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine the remaining ingredients. Spoon over the chicken. Return to the oven for 3-5 minutes or until tomato mixture is heated through. Yield: 4 servings.

Nutritional Analysis: One serving (prepared with 1/2 cup egg substitute) equals 358 calories, 13 g fat (5 g saturated fat), 86 mg cholesterol, 623 mg sodium, 22 g carbohydrate, 2 g fiber, 36 g protein. Diabetic Exchanges: 4-1/2 lean meat, 1 starch, 1 vegetable.

Cleaning House

I finally had a yard sale this past weekend. Yes, I know it is November. Yes, I know that people usually don't do yard sales this late in the year. My husband was threatening to throw everything away though so I figured it was now or never. I have made him move those boxes around for the past three years. I always meant to get rid of everything but things always came up so the pile actually grew and grew and collected dust. A local preschool offered to "host" the sale for a small donation from each person selling and it worked out pretty good because the school is located on a busy street.

So here is what I learned about yard sales:
-I am definitely a rookie when it comes to having one. I had no idea what I was doing.
-apparently just showing up and setting everything out on a table is not such a good strategy
-your stuff isn't going to go for nearly what you think it is worth
-people are cheap,cheap,cheap
-be prepared to haggle and don't back down!
-it is a lot less stressful if you have at least one other person to help you and if you price things beforehand
-next time(of there is one) I will color code everything and use a master price sheet

I was genuinely surprised at how cheap and aggressive people were with my things. I was second guessing myself on a lot of things because people were commenting on how they didn't want to pay what i was asking. I ended up settling for a lot less than I could have because I was unsure of myself. I have a feeling that some of my things will probably be resold for a bit of profit. Oh well. lesson learned. at least the garage is somewhat organized now. I spent about 4 hours out there yesterday afternoon organizing and going through things. Our plan is to be able to park the car in there by December 1st.

It is amazing to me how much stuff we collect as we move along in our lives. I am the type that gets distracted easily so it was very difficult to stay on task while cleaning the garage. Every time I would open a box I would sift through it and get caught up looking at old pictures and art projects. Little toys that got shoved here or dropped there. I have talked about "cleaning up" and becoming more organized for the past three years but I just can't seem to get it done. I hate clutter but it makes me sad to get rid of old things. I guess mostly stuff that Chloe made or gave to me. Its all just stuff though and its not the stuff that matters.

We will see how long the cleaning streak lasts. I'm sure I will find another project to focus on before too long.

Winter seems well under way. Stay warm. We'll talk soon

Kristy
-

Catching Up

  Well the last time you heard from me I was a little over halfway through my horrendous pregnancy. Things actually ended up going pretty smoothly the last few months. I was able to embrace the fact that this would be my last pregnancy and I think God healed me of my sickness and allowed me to really enjoy it and I felt I was finally able to really bond with my baby before he was born. Things got pretty busy there for a while. Once I was well enough to have my pump taken out, I was nonstop. I felt like I had so much to catch up on.

 We stumbled upon a great house(we had been half heartedly searching for months) about a month before my due date and decided rather in a hurry that we needed to go ahead and take a leap and try to get into it before baby Jacob got here. That was an insane week. Yes, I said week. We somehow packed up and moved our entire place in 7 days. All of this while monty was putting in  9-10 hour days at work.Oh and did I mention that we painted the entire house. All 3 levels. 8 rooms total. all different colors... and not just a coat of white. We decided that we should go ahead and do custom paint in each room. Well, we had to score,soak & rip off the 20 year old wallpaper that was plastered all over the house first, then we had to prime, then we painted. seriously. what were we thinking?  

The kitchen had no floor and we were tempted to leave that lovely trim. not really.

 This was the bedroom in the lower level off the family room. Again, no floor. and some mold problems. My husband had(has) high hopes for this place. Glad he could see through the mess. I on the other hand, could see nothing but what needed to be done.

 This burgundy wallpaper was the bane of my existence. I hate wallpaper. hate it. We have been in the house for about five months now. We are slowly getting settled. We still need to re-do the family room downstairs. My dear husband really wants to decorate it in everything UT but we promised Chloe that it would be half fun hangout room for her and her friends and half playroom for the boys. Im sooo bad at decorating and have no idea where to begin as far as picking a color palatte.

 We are in the process of fixing Chloe's bedroom but we have been having issues with flooding and had to have the floor ripped up again and had industrial dehumidifiers all over the place for a week. I will have to take some pictures of the rooms that are finished so you can see all of our hard work. Wait, that would only give you one picture. I have yet to complete one entire room. There are 2 or 3 things in each room that I still need to make it finished. Maybe I will get around to that this year. Hope you all have been doing well. I promise we will catch up more soon.

Have a blessed day my friends. Talk to you soon....

Kristy



It's a boy!

We had our ultrasound this past week and were happy to find out that the new baby is a boy. We took the kids with us which was a decision I fought for as my dear husband wanted it to be just the two of us. I thought since Chloe was old enough to know what was going on that she deserved to be there so she felt included and she really wanted to go. We took Harrison because we had no choice. We have no babysitters! I don't understand how we have lived in this town for 10 years and we still do not have a list of reliable, trustworthy people to babysit for us. We have asked around but I guess there is a shortage of teenage girls who want to make extra money caring for our sweet, wonderful children. o.k. I got sidetracked. We thought we would make the appointment fun by buying pink and blue balloons and planned to have the kids sit in the hallway while we found out and then we would throw whatever color balloons were fitting out at the kids. Well we never made it that far because Harrison started fidgeting and miss bossy pants started trying to make him sit still (we could hear everything going on outside the room) and he started yelling and she started knocking and the moment was ruined as they both busted in the room. Oh well, it was a good idea in theory.

Chloe was mad anyway because apparently she wanted it to be a girl. Until now, I didn't think she cared as she didn't want me to have another baby anyway lol. It is SO much fun having a preteen. I am learning sooo much about her and myself. Things like it isn't really a good idea to be a moody pregnant woman while trying to deal with a cranky 11 year old. We are like oil and water. I keep thinking it has to get better.    She and I actually get along pretty good compared to how she and my husband are with each other. He just doesn't get it. I don't think he has ever been around teenage girls and he is learning the hard way. I keep trying to explain (tell,yell,command) to him that he shouldn't take everything personally and that he needs to relax a little bit and give her some space. That seems to be one of our biggest arguments. Any suggestion s on how to deal with this?

On another note, I have finally started taking cake/cookie orders again. I was worried there for a while that I wouldn't be able to do any baking while I was pregnant because for the longest time the smell of buttercream would send me running. I have done a few cakes over the past two months and a have two due in the next two weeks. I will try to get some pictures up soon. For now, I am going to finish American Idol and head to bed. Good night to you all!

perfume in my eyes

I spent most of my morning holding Harrison down while trying to flush his eyes with water. He snuck a bottle of perfume past me this morning and ran out of my bedroom. He just shut my door when I heard him scream. Yep. He sprayed it in his eye. I opened the door and he was standing there crying trying to hand me the perfume. I rush him into the bathroom, strip him down and put him in the tub(this seems to be a reoccuring theme for me). He would not allow me to get ANY water into his eye. Monty was at work so I was alone in this which I do not suggest. I fought with him for a good 30 minutes trying to pry his little eye open while he yelled "please don't put water in my eye mommy. just put the towel on it" over and over again. It seemed the only relief he could get was when he had his eye closed with the towel pressed against it.

I finally got him quiet enough to get the doctor on the phone and they suggested I take him to the childrens hospital emergency room which was 40 minutes away. They were concerned that because he was still crying, the alcohol in the perfume might have scratched his cornea. Chloe had a friend over and we were all in our pajamas so we began rushing around trying to get dressed. I got Monty on the phone and he was able to come home for a minute. Harrison seemed to be feeling better but would not open his eye and upon trying to even remove the towel he was holding up to his eye he would start screaming again. Monty finally got his boss on the phone and was able to come with us so we headed out.

Harrison at this point decided he felt better and had both eyes open and said he did not need to go to the doctor. We decided to go on just to be safe. This however was a bad idea. We had only been on the road 5 minutes when my car began to overheat. Oh yes. I was soo happy. I was driving at the time and Monty had me pull over because the engine started making a really loud noise. We were on a backroad trying to get to the interstate and the first driveway I came to was not much more than a clearing in the brush. We sat there for a good 30 minutes trying to decide whether we should try to drive it back home or call a tow truck. Fortunately, the man who lived there worked in an autoshop and his son called him on the phone to see what we should do. He said we would probably be okay to drive the car to his shop which was just down the road.  My dear husband thought it best to get it home and deal with it on Monday since the shop we usually go to wasn't open today. It was at this point that he decided he should drive.... and he backed my car straight into a ditch. mmmhhhmm. not only in a ditch but up over the large concrete/steele rod barrier that was there to keep cars out of that ditch. It was at this point that I began yelling and crying almost hysterically. lol . Chloe's poor little friend in the back seat will probably never come to our house again.

Fortunately it was mostly cosmetic damage although the running board got jammed up so bad that the back door gets caught on it. Can you see that I am having a great day? lol. I don't know if I want to talk to much less see my husband anymore today. But I am stuck with him. And tomorrow is his day off. Hooray....will we survive?

Harrison just woke from his nap and he says his eye feels great and he can see out of it so I am not sure what to do. He is too young to tell me if his vision is cloudy but there isnt any redness or swelling so I guess I'm gonna give it 24 hours and see how it looks then. Well I hope you all are having a better weekend than us. Talk to you soon!!