Flat Stanley

Flat Stanley visited our house this week!  While this is exciting in and of itself, this was no ordinary Flat Stanley.  THIS Stanley has a milk allergy.  Just like Hunter.  Hunter has a milk allergy.  Just like Stanley.  It was magic, I tell you!  (This magic was the brain child of Jamie over at Milk Allergy Mom.  If you have a kiddo with a milk allergy, you simply MUST check out her blog!) Just look at that face! He was so excited!!  

Stanley had already visited three other families of kiddos with milk allergies, so we got to read a journal of what they did when Stanley was visiting them.  One child took Stanley to see the Sears Tower in Chicago.  Another one took Stanley to see Central Park.  

Hunter really wanted to take Stanley to school with him.  He wanted to share his new friend with his whole 1st grade class.  I warned his teacher that Stanley had come to visit, and let her have the journal.  Like the super-amazing teacher she is, Mrs. G took the idea & ran with it!  She read the Flat Stanley book to the class, and even took a class photo with Stanley.  Stanley helped Hunter do his Word Work on the iPad, and got to enjoy story time.  I think Stanley liked going to school! 

Hunter also wanted to take Stanley to Bass Pro. Seeing as how the locally owned store is the "Grandaddy of all Outdoor Stores" and ours is the largest Bass Pro (at nearly 500,000 square feet) it seemed like a great choice!  Hunter likes to go hang out there and just wander around & look at all the animals.  It is more like going to a giant hunting and fishing museum than a typical sporting goods store.  Hunter and Stanley had all kinds of amazing adventures that afternoon.  They even got to take pictures with the Robertsons of Duck Dynasty!  Hunter said his favorites were trying out the tents, driving the boat, and taking a picture with the stinky skunk. 

 

Iced Coffee, anyone?

I'm having a Longaberger Open House today.   Not many customers, but the ones who have been here have had a good time and gotten away with some GREAT deals!!

One of the fairly new things Longaberger has started is the Coffee Club, and it has been a huge success.   4 half-pound packages of Private Reserve Pure Arabica Coffee delivered to your doorstep each month.  Regular, Decaf, or a combination of both.  You choose. Change your mind (and your order online) as often as you like.  What could possibly be better??   Iced Coffee?  OK.  I can do that. 

 

I cannot take credit for the creation of this recipe (it was shared on a consultant site)

but I can tell you it is well worth trying!!  YUM-O!

Summer Snapshots

School starts one week from today.   Oh my holy my goodness!   We have a short summer anyway, only 6 weeks, but throw into those 6 weeks.....

One week of Marketplace VBS...

One week of basketball camp...

(complete with Crazy Hair Day)   

The oldest celebrating birthday number 10...

(Double digits is a big deal, ya'know.)

Springfield Cardinals Baseball for the 4th of July...

Catching Andy Roddick at the Springfield Lasers game...

Archery Lessons...

Friends staying with us in between moves...

Fishing...

Watching new movies...

Trying new recipes...

and of course many hours of LEGO building....

all in all, I would say we have had a pretty good summer.  :)

Homemade Febreze

I like this stuff, but the cost is outrageous.

After searching several different recipes on the Internet, I came up with a combination of recipes that I think works great. MUCH cheaper than the real stuff. :)

3 cups water
2 Tablespoons baking soda
4 Tablespoons liquid fabric softener

Mix all together in a spray bottle. Shake well.

Shake each time you use it, because the baking soda tends to settle. My chemist husband would spout some blather about precipitates and falling out of solution... But for the rest of us, it settles to the bottom. ;)




Spray on anything that stinks.

Test, 1, 2, 3...

So I just downloaded the Blogger App for my iPhone & thought I better give it a try.

Today I made the snack mix for the valentine parties at school tomorrow. It turned out very cute! I used pretzels, strawberry shredded mini wheats (cuz they are pink!), craisins, Quaker Whole hearts cereal (like Cheerios - only shaped like hearts), and valentine m&m's. I will see if I can load a photo of it with this new app. :)