A Giveaway that EVERYONE will want to enter

Don't you want to win this?

Three Kids and Us is hosting a giveaway for a Hoover Carpet Cleaner Platinum Collection. This is a $399 carpet cleaner.

Scenic Sunday...a day at the River

Yesterday was a beautiful day on the edges of the Tennessee River



To see more beautiful scenery check out Miti at Pieces of Me and The Scenic Sunday Blog.

Pink Saturday

Happy Pink Saturday Everybody!!! Today is Pink Saturday's First Birthday!!! Please join me in thanking Beverly at How Sweet the Sound for hosting this fabulous event every week!

Today we have a hodgepodge of everything PINK that has happened here this week......In honor of Pink Saturday's Birthday, we decided to bake a pink cake. Baby Daughter really likes to mix, but of course licking the beater is her favorite part. We did actually manage to keep her from getting it back in the bowl for more. She had just come out of the bath & was only wearing a fitted diaper & Thirsties cover.
The middle kids had fun mixing the batter too!

The kids & I had an adventure yesterday.....we got to tour the SwaddleBees/Blueberry Diaper warehouse! We were participating in a contest that I will write about in a few days and the wonderful owner offered us a tour!

Here you see one of the many boxes of Pink diapers waiting to be packaged & shipped out.

These are adorable diaper covers that are currently available at an unbelievable price from their outlet page.

This mostly empty box is all the pink Blueberry Coveralls they had in stock.....these are soooo popular they had almost NONE in the whole warehouse. Baby Daughter has one in a Cow print, but now really wants a pink one too!

Another variety of super soft Pink diapers!


Don't you just LOVE the pink Camo? This is a fuzzy soft Minky Pocket Diaper! Baby Daughter picked one of these up & almost wouldn't give it back!


Now for your sweet tooth, my oldest daughter & I found these Strawberry Milkshake limited edition Oreo cookies on a trip to Walmart this week! Yum, the inside is a creamy strawberry frosting, not too sweet, but oh so yummy!

We also found these gorgeous roses! My oldest daughter wanted to buy them ALL, but unfortunately flowers aren't in the budget right now so we opted to take pictures of them to enjoy instead.


And not to be left out, here is my middle daughter showing off her new pink flotation swimsuit

Flashback Friday

Sorry the quality of the photo is so poor, it is a picture of a picture. This is ME (& my oldest) taken in early June 1987. Hubby, my brother, two of our friends & I went to a really cool Renaissance Festival for the weekend. I'm about 6 months pregnant in this picture & wearing my favorite maternity T....it says "Under Construction" (just in case anybody looking at me has any doubts about WHY my belly has gotten so BIG)

Visit More than Words to see more Flashback Friday!

SkyWatch Friday

Visit the SkyWatch Blog to see beautiful pictures from all around the world.

Three Things This Thursday

1. Once a month I answer phones for the food bank our church supports. Today's the day. I enjoy feeling like I'm doing something to help, but I always come home feeling like there is so much more NEED than there are resources in our community to help.

2. The first week of Summer Vacation has gone pretty well. We had a couple days of rain, but so far the kids are getting along & enjoying the freedom that Summer brings.

3. I've been entering lots & lots of giveaways this week. In a few weeks I'll be hosting a giveaway for the first time. The kids & I are busy getting to know the product so we can give an honest opinion of it.

To see more Three Things this Thursday visit Pridelands Mommy.

Thousand Word Thursday....Summer has arrived!

Visit Jen at Cheaper than Therapy to see more A Thousand Words Thursday

Things I LOVE Thursday...Zip Ties

A few years ago, I discovered zip ties. They are often called cable ties & seem to be marketed for bundling together wires, but we have found many other uses for them around our house. Pretty much anything you want to attach, can be attached with zip ties. They come in various lengths and a rainbow of colors, plus they are CHEAP. They are wonderful for attaching things in awkward places, they are strong & flexible, but still fairly easy to remove with a pair of scissors or a knife.



Just yesterday I used them to attach poles to the railing on my deck to put up a clothes line.

To see more Things I LOVE Thursday visit The Diaper Diaries

Wordless/Wordful Wednesday....Where's your belly?

Here's Baby Daughter showing us where her Belly Button is....a game she never seems to tire of. She's wearing one of her favorite pocket diapers...it's a Baby Kanga one size pouch diaper.

Visit 5 minutes for Mom to see more Wordless Wednesday and 7 Clown Circus for Wordful Wednesday.

Reducing my laundry & still using cloth diapers

One of the things that worried me when I first considered switching to cloth diapers was the additional laundry. We bought an HE washing machine almost 4 yrs ago & I've been very happy with it's capacity. Since the HE washer accommodates larger loads than a typical top loading washer and uses less water, I had worked hard at only washing FULL loads to save both water & energy.

My cloth diapers need to be washed about every 3 days & they don't make up a full load. To keep from feeling wasteful, I decided to try washing some of our other clothing with the diapers. The logical solution was to wash everyone's underwear with the diapers. All our underwear is cotton and with 6 people in the house besides the baby we use quite a few pairs in 3 days as a household. It still isn't a completely full load. When we have any mama cloth, white tee shirts or white cotton socks they go in the diaper wash as well. Since the fabrics are similar it has worked well. Instead of having more laundry, I find that I'm doing the same number of loads as before, some weeks even less and that definitely Works for Me! Stay tuned for more about my diaper laundry routine later in the week.

To see more Works for Me Wednesday visit We Are THAT Family.

Cloth Diaper Conversion

Do you or did you use disposable diapers for your babies? Have you ever thought about how much money disposable diapers cost?

Even the disposable diaper manufacturers are starting to worry that they will lose business because of how much disposable diapers cost, according to the Wall Street Journal article "Big Diaper Makers Square Off"

I exclusively used disposables on my first five babies. Looking at the cloth savings calculators , that means I've wasted about $10, 000 over the years on cloth diapers! Wow, that is a LOT of money. Now to be honest, I don't think we really spent that much money. Diapers were considerably cheaper in 1987 than they were in 2005, but the way I figure it, even with most of our kids being potty trained before they were 2 1/2, we have probably spent at least $7,000 over the years on disposable diapers. I've always LOVED disposable wipes, so we've probably spent several thousand more on those.

Last year our budget got really tight & I decided it was time to find a way to use fewer disposable diapers. I doubted that I could cloth diaper full time, but I was sure that with a few cloth diapers I could drastically cut down the number of disposables my daughter was using. Our youngest was 14 months old at the time. At first I was overwhelmed by the choices, then I decided to just keep it simple. I was relieved to find a local diaper store where I could look at & touch the diapers. Once I had seen them in person, I knew it was going to work. I bought 6 Kissaluv Contours and 2 Prorap snap covers.





Within a week I was totally hooked, less than a month after I bought my first cloth diapers, my daughter was in cloth full time. In a few days I'll share pictures of all the wonderful styles we are now using, but in the beginning, those 6 contours & 2 proraps were all it took to convince me that cloth was definitely the way for me to save money.

I REALLY want to win this carseat!

NateandJakesMom is hosting a review and giveaway on the Ricaro Carseat! I am a carseat fanatic when it comes to my kids and I had never heard of this brand. I was very impressed by the Original RECARO Side Impact Protection. Did you know that 1 in 4 accidents resulting in the injury or death of a child are caused by side impact collisions? Even their booster seats have side impact protection. The seat they are giving away is the Vivo Lite. One of the color choices is blush (pink), as soon as my 2nd daughter saw it she was in LOVE. I can already tell that if we win this booster, she will be both comfortable & safe riding in it for many years to come. She is almost 4 and weighs about 35 lbs....this seat will likely last her until she is at least 10 years old! Take a look at the statistics I borrowed from the Ricaro website

Wish me luck!!! My daughter really wants this booster!

Take Me Back Tuesday

This picture is from our oldest daughter's first day of kindergarten in August 2005. She had just become a BIG sister two days before & she was sooooo excited to be starting school.

To see more Take Me Back Tuesday click on the button or visit A Giveaway Addicted Mommy

Memorial Day Music Monday

Hubby & I were in the Army Reserve from 1984 until 1993, seems like a lifetime ago, my prayers are with all our current soldiers and everyone who has given their lives to defend our country.

I put the follower widget back on my blog

so far it seems to be working fine again. Please let me know if it doesn't load well for you or you are getting an error message.

THANKS!!

Pink Saturday

Happy Pink Saturday everybody!!! This week, I've got my two youngest daughters & my 2nd son's new puppy with the little girl from next door. I LOVE dressing my girls in matching outfits.

The puppy is 5 months old. Her name is Sheba. Don't you love her pink collar & leash?

She likes to "eat" sticks. Here is my middle daughter offering her a stick buffet.

Baby Daughter wasn't sure what to do with the sticks

I meant to share these last week, here are a couple pictures of Baby Daughter in her pink ladybug diaper. Our oldest son found this for her at an Earth Day celebration...it's now her favorite diaper.

An action shot of her running away with the play dough she isn't supposed to have...she is

always into something.
To see more Pink Saturday be sure to visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound.

I removed the follower widget & it seems to have helped

I've been getting Internet Explorer errors since yesterday that won't allow blogs (including my own) to load on my computer. One of the blogs I follow suggested that removing the follower widget would solve my problem, at least on my own blog, so I tried it & it WORKED!!! About half the blogs I've tried to visit today seem to be having this same problem......very frustrating.

I'm sure that blogger is working on a fix, but until they get it worked out this seems to be a good work around.

Flashback Friday

This was September 2005. Our youngest son was 7, our oldest daughter was 5 & our 2nd daughter was about 6 weeks. I LOVE this picture!!!

Visit More than Words to see more Friday Flashback!

Family Photo Friday

This is a picture of Hubby from around 1975. I'm guessing he is about 9 yrs old. He has ALWAYS loved baseball.

To see more Family Photo Friday visit Pictures, Pots & Pens

SkyWatch Friday

SkyWatch Friday is a cool blog I found a few weeks ago. Every Friday people from all around the world post pictures featuring the sky. I've seen some amazing pictures visiting the links. Click the button to visit the SkyWatch Friday Blog.
Nothing like a HOT humid day to make you miss Winter......this is the view from our deck in January.

Three Things This Thursday

1. Hubby bought me a new computer monitor on Craig's List....CHEAP!!!! Yay!!!

2. Tomorrow is the last day of school until sometime in mid August!!! I'm hoping to sleep in for a few days next week, then get into a good routine with the kids. I have high hopes of getting a lot of reorganizing done around the house. I've also got some FUN ideas planned that I'm hoping to do while they are out of school.

3. I'm a wimp! I turned on the A/C today. It really doesn't get THAT hot here, but I hate humidity. All the woodwork, including the stair banisters being damp was just more than I could deal with.

To see more Three Things this Thursday visit Pridelands Mommy.