A new creation!

Spring is not  only the time for baby animals to be born.  Around here..... it seems infants are very popular also. I decided to try something new for a baby present. So I made these......

and these........

I am so used to doing girlie things. These were much easier and I thought they turned out great! This may be a new favorite.

One of them was for my cousin's baby boy. We had to personally hand deliver this one! We will take any chance we get to hold an adorable new baby. 

Isn't he just adorable? 

Once Laney got her arms around him she did not want to let go!

Ella held him for a few minutes and then she was done.

Or maybe Sawyer was done when he realized there wasn't any food in those arms.

Griffin held onto him  long enough for me to take this picture. He is at the age where it is cooler to hold an Ipod or  phone rather than a baby.

Field trip to Atlanta

A couple of weeks ago we went on a field trip to the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. We saw The Stinky Cheese Man. It was cute but not as good as the show we saw last year. When we arrived, we headed straight to the theater to see the puppet show. After it was over, we were taken to the workshop room to make our Stinky Cheese Man puppet.

Daddy helped Ella with her puppet.

Laney designed hers all on her own.

Time for the performance!

If you are ever in Atlanta, I highly recommend making a trip to the Center for Puppetry Arts. They have all kinds of shows, workshops and a museum to tour.

Spring board

I thought I would share with you my Spring board I did outside my classroom. I love doing bulletin boards that the kids can be a part of. There are so many cute crafts to do for Spring!

We made bumblebees out of egg cartons. To make the black lines we used a sharpie. For the wings, we cut oval shapes out of wax paper. The antennas were made  out of pipe cleaners.

Next, we made butterflies. We took coffee filters and colored them with markers. We carefully stuffed them in a clothespin.

Lastly, we made sunflowers. We took a paper plate and painted it yellow. Once it dried, we cut a flower shape out of it and glued brown yarn to the middle. For the stem, we found sticks on the playground and painted them green.

Extreme Couponing!

I don't know if you have seen the new couponing show on TLC called Extreme Couponing. It is extreme! These people  show one of there extreme coupon trips to the store. They will show you where they get their coupons, the stockpile( They are huge!), how much time they spend(usually the same amount as a full time job) and the trip to the store. You can watch as the register gets almost down to zero. On one show, the lady had almost $2000 worth of groceries for $100. 

 Although, I am by no means an EXTREME couponer! I do like  bargains! I love to stockpile whenever the item is free or cheap. Many of you may remember all the bottles of Snuggle fabric softener I got where the store paid me 51 cents each to take them home. Even though I still have 12 bottles of those left, I was not going to pass up another deal on softener. When I found the $3 off  Gain fabric softener in the paper one week, I knew it would be a good one. Instead of buying several papers, I went to Ebay. 

 I got all the bottles in the picture below for 29 cents each. I got $1.13 overage for the fabric sheets.

I think Carmel is going to have to build me a shelf just for my fabric softener!

Strawberry Picking

Other than the fact that my pasty white skin has not seen the sun in 5 months........I love Spring!

I love the warmth, the flowers blooming, the smell of barbecues and newly cut grass. One of my favorite things to do in the Spring is pick strawberries. Last year we almost waited to late and did not get any so this year I started early. We picked the day they opened. We have several places to pick around here. I decided to try the same patch I am taking my class too. 

All five of us picked five big buckets full.

After picking, we couldn't resist the strawberry ice cream.

I am hoping we can go back this weekend to pick more.

How the men spent Spring Break?

Whenever the hubs is off work, the first things he chooses not to do is..........

shave!

I personally don't like the cuts and scrapes I get from the bristles. People think I have been wrestling with a thorn bush! 

Do you think he cares?

NOPE!

Besides not picking up a razor, Griffin and him went to a USC baseball game in their new stadium. Instead of sharing the 114 pictures I have of the stadium and the team, I will share the two that actually have them in it.

Is  my husband the only one that takes tons of pictures of everything else but our kids?

At least, I got a couple this time........even if they are of Griffin standing beside the championship trophy.

Now I don't want you to think that all they did was watch sports and forget about hygiene. They spent most of their time decluttering rooms and ripping up a bathroom at the parents/grandparents house.

A task that needed their help!

How we spent our Spring Break

We started our Spring Break by traveling to South Carolina to Pa and Grandma's house.

The girls and I headed to North Carolina to visit my sister and niece while the men stayed behind to work on some projects at the grandparents house.

The first day of our visit we went to Concord Mills. It is basically a huge mall. You could easily drop a lot of cash in that place, especially if you have children.  I told the girls they could pick 1 activity to do and 1 treat to get. Laney chose something from Clair's and Emma and Ella chose......

a train ride.

We could not sneak past the play area without them seeing it and wanting to play. 

It made me a bit sad when we went in there and my girls were too big for it. They stayed anyways to HELP their cousin be safe. I can remember the days when they were little and it was like an amusement park to them.

For their treat they chose ice cream. Emma decided using her hands was the best way to eat it.

The next day we went to a little town to take my sister out for her birthday.

We ate at The Soda Shop. Right across from it was a park. Perfect for the girls to run around and for me to get a few pictures.

I love Emma's face in this one.

We couldn't resist a cute little cupcake shop nearby.

My sister has no cable only Netflix. Most of our nights were spent watching a couple of movies. 

I was able to shop at a Harris Teeter while I was there. It was their double coupon days (up to $2). We also stopped by a whole foods store. The prices were a bit high but I was able to get some honey and sucanat. 

Check back tomorrow as we travel back to South Carolina and see what the men were up to.