Life is Not Bubble Wrapped

Sayre says: How will you express your inner-Giver this season? Do you donate to a major charity? Do you serve food in a soup kitchen? Is your generosity something private that you do without recognition or do you hand the guy on the corner a dollar whenever you drive by? Not only do I want to know what you do, but how you do it, why you do it, and a story about your activity and how it made you feel. So drop by Sayre’s and see who else is playing!

I guess we do different things each year. One year it was a donation to the food pantry, which we processed up the aisle at church and put by the manger as a gift, several years we have donated canned goods, we ALWAYS give to the red kettle from the Salvation Army as much as we have change and go to the store, I have a favorite charity called Leader Dogs for the Blind, we were puppy raisers for them before and I like to give when I can.

Last year, my husband’s older sister was planning on returning for more education in January, so we bought her a computer and donated the rest of the bits and pieces to have a brand new set up to write papers on and so forth.

p.s. this is what my baby looked like last year at Thanksgiving…

First Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2009 Picture

Okay so you’ve seen the cloth diapers before, but I won some recently. Actually I’ve won a few contests in the past 6 months and I’m grateful for that. Here’s the most recent, and actually, I really hope I win one of the big ones I’m entered in soon, if I do, I’m passing the winnings on to my friend E, who uses prefolds currently. Here’s one I won randomly through the Great Cloth Diaper Hunt. Yup, hunting for diapers. Actually it’s a cute little diaper that also looks like an owl, and there are a couple hundred sponsors, and some of them hide the icon better than others, but the general idea is that you can do a mini-hunt with clues or just one clue or the main page, but you ‘hide’ the icon, and then people (like me) go out and find it. See the icon I’m talking about here.  It’s pretty cute, they do one in May and November every year, and the whole point is to double whammy, expose cloth diaper freaks like me to never before heard of stores carrying everything from toys to hostess aprons, and get a chance to win daily, 2nd, 1st, extreme, and grand prizes. Well, one of the sponsors just happened to be hosting a mini-giveaway inside the hunt, and I WON! Check out the fluffy mail!

Tweedlebugs diaper, wetbag, baby legs, soap sample, diaper keychain.

We’ve put the Tweedbugs into rotation, it’s a snap diaper, and we’d never had one of those before, at this point Keeley can’t undo snaps, the pro being unlike velcro she couldn’t rip it off the con being that we’ve heard sometimes snaps are harder to get to fit than velcro, because there’s no real room for error. The diaper keychain so far has been a chewtoy. We put the baby legs on today when we had a diaper oops (not watching the clock and got wet pants), and they kept her legs warm and dry until we got home, when again the diaper was so full she practically floated away.  The wetbag is what you put wet stuff in, this one is small, enough to poke a dry diaper and wipe into while you go out shopping, in case of emergency! Pretty neat!

This is not the first contest I’ve won, and actually, I won another last week, so I’ll post about that when the fluff comes in (should be tomorrow or Saturday!) 2 Rumparooz! Yup, like kangaroo. 2 more snap diapers. Sunshine yellow and lazy lime I think are the colors. As you can see the Tweedlebug is kind of a lazy limeish color as well, baby teal? Something. Anyway, just wanted to share my fluff with you!

Cookie caper

It was only a matter of time until daddy showed her the cookie. The chocolate chip cookie. Does it count that she made it a year without sweets? She still doesn’t get very many, a nibble of dad’s apple pie, a bite of his cookie, no harm done. Dad doesn’t get this stuff very often, so she doesn’t either. She still munches vegetable with abandon as easily as trying to steal a bite of pizza or eat raspberries. (knock wood)… and here’s my cutesy way of making pie.

cutie pie

Hey folks, there’s a reason I can say whatever I want on my blog. My blog is private, and not everyone is privy to both facebook and my blog. Facebook sees everything, I have extended family on there, that’s why I purposefully don’t say certain things over there.

This already happened earlier in the year, someone said something that sounded a bit like I was a psycho and that’s why the neighbors didn’t answer the door to me. The neighbors don’t answer the door because they’re the psycho ones, but someone blurted on facebook that they would call the cops on me. Can you say damage control? You can’t un-ring that bell. Please don’t ring it on facebook.

It’s gonna take my brother ‘a couple of paychecks’ to come up with money for my mom’s Christmas gift, when I know for a fact she’s paying him good money, cash under the table to help tear their house apart for remodel. He’s been doing this, every night, several hours, and all weekend, all day long, for several weeks. How exactly is it that he’s short on cash, then? I wonder if I should call him on it, or just ignore it?

Also, I think it’s crap he’s being paid at all. But that’s just me. I’ve never asked for money for anything I’ve done. Neither has my husband.

This week’s host is Wendishness and she has asked people to share a list of things they are thankful for as Thanksgiving Day is this Thursday in the U.S.A. A number of the fun Monday participants aren’t in the US but we can all be thankful for things and it was a great way to join in with them. Don’t forget to visit the other FM participants and see what they’re all thankful for.

1. My husband, he has to come first, he’s my teammate, my lover, my best friend.

2. My baby girl, she’s so sweet and changing so much every day, last night, her daddy asked her to find a certain toy and she practically uprooted the playpen (the toy was under it), in her haste to comply. We think she’s EVER so smart and talented and wonderful, of course!

3. Family. Especially family that loves us unconditionally, as we do them. Sometimes I don’t get along with my family, but it is still family, also family dinners, yum!

4. Safety. I might be annoyed sometimes all of the time where we live, but at least we are safe and happy here.

5. The future, which seems to hold employment, a new house, and who knows what else?

6. God’s love.

7. Emotions. Without them, how fun would life be, really?

8. The miracle of life, from tiny heartbeats on sonograms to the wisdom of the elderly.

9. Weekends.

10. Modern conveniences, like grocery stores, and cars, and computers so I can talk to all of you!

Click here and give me ’snowmen’ lots of snowmen! The rating is below the picture. I entered my felt candy cane horses into a Michaels’ project, I don’t suppose that I’ll win the grand prize (tickets to see a Martha Stewart show), but a $100 gift card to Michael’s craft store would keep me occupied for a very long time! Thanks!

Here at the mouse house, we prefer to be prepared. Knowing that Keeley’s birthday and Christmas would likely net some long sleeved items of clothing, we did serious recon in August and September. Summer clothing, mission, not so impossible. Most of the items, we picked up for $1. Some were $2.39, and a few were $3 (for a ‘whole’ outfit). The only iffy thing might be the ‘whole outfit’ ones, if they are too short in the stride, but we can pick up some extensioner things if need be. We scooped up a whole summer wardrobe (minus shorts, because I wasn’t sure what size, and pjs) including 4 sundresses for about $42 plus tax. Not bad. Want to see the loot?

Summer 2010 clothes

Another rude awakening. Same time, same place.

Hey I WON this giveaway last week, I won 2 diapers, but they are giving away SO much more now, this would be totally awesome for someone who is new to cloth diapering! They are also giving away a video camera and our simple digital camera takes really grainy videos. Call me greedy, but I am ALL over this one! Click here for Fluff Friday and do all the commenting you can to enter to win!