State Fair!

Today Peggy (Donnie's foster mom), Georgie (Donnie's nephew), Donnie, and myself headed to the State Fair. What a time we had! We got there right when it opened at 10, and did not leave till 5! Needless to say, by 5 I was hot, tried and ready to go home.

Donnie and I love the animals at the fair. We saw many a farm yard animal!Here are some goats. (I would not touch the goats, I don't like goats)

We also went into the miracle of life tent, and saw a cow giving birth. All I have to say is that it is something I will not soon forget. Also we got to see some baby pigs. One baby pig was not too fond of being petted.
Donnie's highlight of the day was his bottomless cup of chocolate milk in the dairy area. He claims it's the best milk he's ever had. Seeing that it cost 50 cents, and he had three glasses, I think he got his money's worth!
A highlight for both of us was seeing Amanda. We first met Amanda last year at the fair, and fell in love with her. And you know what? She was back this year! We were so happy to see her again!
After spending time with the animals, I entered a cupcake decorating contest! It was so much fun! It was divided up into age groups, so I competed with 9 other adults. I have never done anything like this before, but I would definitely do it again. Sadly, I did not place, however, I did get a ribbon for participating! I am very proud of my state fair ribbon! FYI Donnie took these pictures. :-)
Another fun part of the fair was the rides. This was BY FAR Georgie's favorite part. He rode rides the whole time I was doing the cupcake competition.
Donnie decided he was going to go on this big cedar point type ride that takes you to the top of this tower and then drops you down. Well...things were going fine...untill...the ride broke! That's right, the ride took them up, then they were stuck! Finally they were able to come down. On the bright side, he did get his money back! (Donnie is on the far right in the picture)
I would encourage everyone to head to the fair this weekend! Just don't ride the ride Donnie did!

My Parents Are Home!

My parents were on vacation for awhile and today they came home! Donnie and I had the very important job of picking them up at the airport. Seeing that I have never picked up anyone from the airport before (besides being with my parents) this had me a bit nervous. However, it all went great! We pulled up to pick them up, and within 5 min they were out of customs and ready to go! I think I would do it again!
To welcome them home I brought them a sunflower from my yard. My mom was very impressed that a plant survived in my care. ha ha ha
Other than going to the airport, I have done nothing today. And you know what? It was great! I did get some cuddling time in with Snickers. Frankie is so jealous he is about to pop! Its funny, and cute to see him like this.

I got stuff done!!

Seeing that I did not work today (or the rest of the week, for that matter) I was able to get some organizing done!

The first thing I tackled was the hall closet. While we were moving in, I just throw a bunch of stuff in it, and never organized it. Well today was the day!!!Here is the before picture.
And here is the after. I ended up throwing a way a ton of stuff. Mostly expired medication.
I also made labels on the computer so everything has a spot. I'm very happy how it turned out!
Riding on my success of the hall closet I moved on to my sock and undies drawer. I'm sure if it's appropriate to post pictures of my undies, but here it goes. Here is the before picture
The problem that I ran into while doing this, was finding many, many socks without mates. I have a large fondness of fun socks. However, it becomes a problem when the drier eats one of the pair! Here is a picture of my socks without mates.
I did some laundry and was able to find matches for most of them. There are still a few without mates. And here is the after picture. I'm happy how this turned out also!
Riding on the success of both the hall closet, and the sock drawer, I moved onto our pantry. We have a free standing pantry that we keep in the living room. I think everyone should keep their food in the living room. hahaha So here is the before picture

And the after. I'm not sure if I like this one as much. I have a feeling that I will be moving stuff around. I also made labels for the pantry, but they are not sticking very well, and they are hard to read.
I hope the rest of the week I can stay this productive!

This and That

As I posted a couple of days ago, I was concerned about my sunflower bloom not being proportional to the height. However, I think things are changing! I think the bloom is getting bigger! Is this possible? Also, I have many other buds about ready to bloom!!! Yeah sunflowers!!
This bud picture is slightly frighting. It has a Venus fly trap look to it. Frankie better stay away!
Speaking of Frankie.....once again we are a two dog family. Or as Frankie would say, a Pug and a dog family. We are dog sitting the same dog as a few weeks ago, and I hope this week goes better! Needless to say, Frankie was not super thrilled to have him back. He turned into a pouting pug.

Thanks for all the help on identifying the chestnut! We will have to try and roast some! I even looked online to find out how to do it. Does anyone like chestnuts? However, Katie commented that I can't save them all to roast in the winter. Why is this? Do they go bad? You all will have to fill me in on all your chestnut knowledge.

What Is It?

Here we go with another round of everyone's favorite blog game....What Is It?
We first discovered these things when we were tearing out the bushes in the front yard. They are coming from a very large tree in the yard. As you can tell from the picture they are VERY pokie. I opened one up with an axe and it had a nutty center.

Our friend Any had us over tonight for a barbecue, and seeing that she has a green thumb we took one of these to show her. She was very fascinated with it, but did not know what it was. She did want to know what the leaves of the tree looked like, so here is the leave if this helps anyone out!
So if anyone can help I would love it!

Alpha Pug!

Frankie the Pug tends to think that he runs this house. I have no problem with this seeing that Frankie is the most wonderful pug in the whole world. However, Donnie thinks that HE should run the house, and Frankie should know his place as a dog.
To solve this problem I thought it would be a good idea to have an election for the alpha dog position. Frankie asked me to be his campaign manager, and I was more than happy to help him out.
To spread the word, Frankie and I made a bunch of posters and hung them around the house. Donnie however did no campaigning what so ever!
Also Frankie and I wore signs to show our support of the true alpha dog! Well..the election was held last week, and not surprisingly Frankie won by a landslide. Donnie is wanting a recount.

Around the House

While I was Internet free last week, Donnie and I (and my mom) tackled a big yard project. We tore out the front two bushes! This turned out to be much more work than I thought it was going to be! However, at one point Donnie went to Meijer and bought a new saw. The job went much faster after that!

This is the house before

And this is the house after!

I think it looks better. What do you all think? Donnie was very fond of the bushes when we moved in. However, one of them died so we knew it was time for them both to go.
In other house news, my sunflowers are blooming! This makes me thrilled. I was thinking for a while that it was never going to happen! Here's the odd thing, the sunflowers are SO tall, so I thought that the blooms would be equally as large. However, the bloom part is not really all that big so I think it sorta looks funny. Maybe I'm being over critical. You can be the judge.

I'm alive!

I know many many people (like 2) are concerned that I have not posted in a long while. To ease your minds, I am alive. However I have been sucked in to the world of........
The kids I nanny for both got webkinz about a week ago, and I had so much fun just watching them, that I knew I had to get one! So yesterday I bought an elephant that I have named Penelope. (I got it for 20% off because I had a coupon!) It is SO addictive!!! Once I get online to play it, I can't stop!!! But its so fun! I love it! Has anyone played the Sims? Its JUST like the Sims but for kids. My Penelope stays much happier than my Sims ever were. And she is much easier to care for. So if you don't hear from me for awhile, I'm with my webkinz. :-)

Fasting

This week my church is encouraging people to fast and pray for the church and our community. For the past year or so I have been really thinking about fasting, but have never done it. I came to the conclusion that I love food (mainly ice cream) way to much to not eat. I know that is a horrible reason not to fast, seeing that God told us to do it.

However, I have decided to "fast" from the computer. I'm going to go from tomorrow to next Monday with no computer. This means no email, no spider solitaire, and worst of all no blogging. Will I make it? I hope so! I don't think anyone has died from internet withdraw...have they? I might be the first.

Seeing that I spend WAY to much time on the computer, my hubby asked me if I was going to be spending all the time I would be on the computer in prayer. My answer to him was no. Yes I will be spending much more time in prayer, but I also want to spend time doing other things for the Lord. This may be cleaning the house, writing letters, or doing laundry but I will be doing them for the Lord.

Please pray for me this week while I'm internet free!!!

Weekend Fun

This weekend has gone SO fast! I also feel like this summer is going SO fast! The kids I nanny for go back to school in like a week and 1/2. Crazy. Here's a bit of what went on this weekend


Friday
Friday night Donnie and I always go out to eat. I have been making Donnie go to Bob Evans a lot recently because they have this Strawberry Shortcake that is out of this world! Here a description of it from their website.

NEW! Fresh Strawberry Shortcake So irresistible! Indulge in a treat that starts with a Bob Evans® freshly baked buttermilk biscuit, split and topped with a scoop of creamy vanilla ice cream. Smothered with fresh strawberries in a sweet strawberry sauce then finished with whipped topping and a sprinkling of powdered sugar.

As always we had a great time, and the strawberry shortcake was great.


Saturday

Saturday I left our house at 7:30am and did not come home until midnight. Needless to say it was a LONG day. In the morning I headed to my parents house to help my dad have a garage sale. We did the sale last year, and thought it would be fun to do again. So my dad and I ran the sale until 4pm then we closed down. I made $34!!!! I'm rich! From there I headed over to the family that I nanny for and watched the kids for the night. When I got home I went straight to bed. It was a long day, but I made money!!! :-)

Sunday

This brings us to today. In the morning we headed to church. They are doing a series called Playlist, and Donnie and I greatly enjoyed the message. After church we stayed in Royal Oak and got some lunch. It was nice to spend time together seeing that yesterday I was gone all day!

This afternoon I got to meet someone very special for the first time! I had "met" my dear Sherry online from reading her blog, and today we met in person! I had some school stuff that I did not need anymore so I offered them to her because she homeschools one of her daughters. It was so great to meet her in real life!

The rest of the day has been spent cleaning and going to CVS. Seeing that I had a bunch of extra bucks from last week I knew I wanted to go spend them today. I ended up getting toilet paper, 5 1 liters of propel fitness water, and 10 2 liters of pop, all for 48 cents. Not too bad. I love CVS.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!!

I feel like a wife!

Yesterday I went to Meijer to pick up some odds and ends. One thing that Donnie needed was some new boxers. As I was picking them out I felt like a real wife! How funny. I will not be adding pictures for this post. I don't want women swarming my house trying to steal my hubby!!! hehehe

P.S. This is my 200th post!!!!!

Crafty!

I was feeling extra crafty last night and decided to make a picture mural. I took a box and peeled off one layer to give it a corrugated (I think that's the word I'm looking for!) look. Then I made frames and the letters for our initials out of it. Then it was time to paint and print the pictures from the computer. All that is left is some tape and its a picture mural. What was the cost of this project? It was free!!! I just used things I found around the house!

I Love CVS!

Has anyone looked at the CVS add this week? If you buy $20 worth of post or Nabisco products, you get $20 in extra bucks! That's like getting free food!!!! And I love it!!! In all I spent $30 (I did have to buy some stuff that was not on sale), I saved $18, and I got $23 in extra bucks!!! You can't do better than that! :-)

Funny Dog

As I posted a couple of days ago, Donnie and I are having the pleasure of dog sitting this weekend. The funniest thing happened the other day.

Before Donnie left for work Friday morning he told me to put the dog in their crates and then give them breakfast. He was afraid that Frankie would try to eat Snickers food. When he told me this I did not think that Frankie would ever do such a thing. For one, Frankie is not found of dog food to start with, so I thought there would be no way he would try to eat Snickers food. Secondly, I put Snickers food inside his crate. Frankie does not like his own crate so I was sure there was no way Frankie would go inside Snickers crate to eat food he does not even like.

However, I was wrong. (I know this is shocking to most of you) I was on the computer and I hear some dog CHOWING down on Snickers food. I assumed that it was Snickers, but when I looked over I saw Frankie eating Snickers food amazingly fast. I was shocked!! He did not even eat his own breakfast! I then proceeded to tell Frankie to stop and he just kept chowing down! I had to push him off of Snickers food! I was shocked!

This whole time Snickers is standing next to Frankie looking up at me with the SADDEST little eyes. I swear he was saying, Why is he eating my food? Make him stop!!!! I got the biggest chuckle out of this!!!

News

We are currently a two dog family. I'm sure many of you are asking how did this happen. It happened like this..we are dog sitting. My first ever adventure in dog sitting. Right now things are not going all that great. (for the time being I will spare everyone of the details) I guess dog sitting is not as easy as it looks! However, Donnie said it will be fine for just the weekend. Snickers, the dog we are dog sitting, has been enjoying a lot of time in his crate while Frankie lays outside of it. Its too funny. Wish us luck for the rest of the weekend. I hope we all survive!!!

In other news, my hubby is blogging! He started a blog awhile back, and now he is making lots o posts! He wrote a great blog about our money situation. Check it out here!