It's Party Time! Let's Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means..

It is time to Dare to Share! 

Happy Memorial Day Weekend! 

This week was a busy, but fun one. We had graduation for our preschoolers on Thursday.  Several of the kids will be back again for another year of preschool, but there are a few who are leaving us for kindergarten. 

Right after the graduation ceremony, we had a surprise baby shower for our baby teacher. She is due with her first baby in just a couple of weeks. She did not need much in the way of traditional baby gifts, so we had a diaper shower. She was so surprised and happy.  She will have a lot of diapers to last her a long time for her little one. She has been a baby teacher at the center for 8 years, so other than the giving birth part she knows what she is doing once the baby is born.  We are all so excited for her. :) 

 We were off of work today for a long holiday weekend. The weather here was very rainy, so I pretty much stayed inside all day, and worked on a new Etsy listing. I am making a new American 250/4th of July treasure hunt that will be in the shop later this weekend.  We will be attending a holiday cookout on Sunday weather permitting. As of right now it should be dry at least during the daytime. When I was looking for old Memorial Day posts on the blog, I came across one of my favorite photos.  My youngest was walking with her girl scout troop during our town's Memorial Day parade. They were given small flags to hold and wave while they walked. They had just started to walk when she held her flag up high, and started waving it. I was standing behind her, so I was able to snap this beautiful picture. 

I did find the post I was looking for to repost.  It is Last Minute Memorial Day Ideas with a few crafts, a few recipes, and a fun way to put together a patriotic flower pot. It was easy to make, and was beautiful all summer.  

Now that you know what I have been up to this week, I would love to see what you have been up to. Link up and Have FUN! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Read More »

Let's Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means.. 

It is time to Dare to Share! 

We are in Michigan again celebrating a friend's birthday at the dance.  Tonight we celebrated the birthday of our friend Marilyn.  It's also the birthday of another friend, but he was not able to come to dance tonight.  We will hopefully celebrate with him at the next dance.  

Hopefully those who celebrated Mother's Day had a good weekend.  Last week I mentioned I was making a project with my grand baby for her mom. She loves to color but since she is not quite 2, she is still in the scribbling stage.  I had her color printed flowers, and then I cut them out for her.  I helped her add them to the bouquet with glue dots on the back of each flower.  Her mom loved receiving flowers that she can keep for years to come.  I will be adding a flower bouquet kit to my Etsy Shop at some point in the near future. 

I also mentioned at last week's Dare to Share party that I would be sharing more about the Day Without Childcare.  On May 11th, day care workers and parents participated in the 5th annual event. People around the country went to their state's capital to request affordable and equitable child care for all.  If you have ever worked in or taken your kids to daycare, you know how important and sometimes difficult it is to find good and affordable care.  Child care workers do a very important job, for not a lot of pay. Many people are not able to stay in the field and afford to pay their bills.  A lot of centers have to close, because they can not afford to stay open.  A lot of parents can not work, because they can not afford to put their children in  child care. I do feel blessed that I work at a good center in a job that I really enjoy. I am now in a position where I do not have to pay a lot of big bills.  I know that is not true of everyone though, and hope to see a positive change in the future.  

I just looked that the time and realized it is getting really late. I better get this party started!  Link up and HAVE FUN! 

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Read More »

It's Time to Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means..

It is time to Dare to Share! 

Happy Friday! 

Do you have anything planned for Mother's Day? Mine is going to be pretty low key. All three of my kids live in other states, so I won't be seeing any of them in person this weekend. My own mom is also a different state, so I will be some phone calls with both my mom and kids.  We will do something with D's mom, so it should still be a nice day. 

I am making a project with my grand baby to give to her mom this year. I did not post the project on Etsy yet, but I plan on it at some point once I see how it turns out. She loves to color. I had her color (scribble) on several printed flowers. I will cut them out and have her help me add them on a flower bouquet.   One thing nice about a paper bouquet, it will last a lot longer than real flowers.  If you do need an idea for a Mother's Day activity, I do have a Mother's Day Treasure Hunt and coupons on sale in my Etsy Shop.  

While this week was a quiet  one, next week will be a bit more exciting.  As many of you know I work as a baby and toddler teacher at a day care.  Monday is the 5th annual Day Without Childcare. It's a day where providers, parents, and child advocates get together to raise awareness to show how important affordable equitable child care is for so many families.  There are so many families out there that can not afford child care. When people do not have child care, they are not able to work.  Pay for child care workers is on the low side, so many people chose other jobs, so they can afford to pay their bills. Many day care centers close because they can not afford to stay open, or do not have enough qualified staff.  My center participated last year, and we are participating again this year.  I will share more about it at next week's party. 

 It look's like it is time to get this party started.  So link up and HAVE FUN! 

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Read More »

It's Party Time! Let's Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means..

It's time to Dare to Share! 

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF MAY! 

It is hard to believe that it is May already.  The year is flying by! Does it feel like that to you too?  I remember the May months when my kids were younger.  They were always very busy with a lot of school and dance activities. Now that the kids are grown they are a little less busy, and a nice kick off to the warm weather of summer. We do have a huge trip planned for this summer, and it will be here before we know it. I will be sharing more about that in upcoming weeks. 

We spent last Saturday celebrating Kyle's birthday with some yummy sushi. I still remember taking him for sushi the first time when he was 14. I actually shared a post about it back then, which you can read here.  He is a lot more adventurous with what he eats now, and always eats the salad.  :) That was a memorable day, and I am still very thankful for the couple at the next table and what they did.  That act of kindness came at the perfect time. 

We live close enough the Ohio Buc-cees to visit whenever we want.  We stopped by tonight to look for a birthday gift for D's daughter when I saw this funny, but true, dish towel.  I work with several people who were born in the mid to late 90s and even one born in 2001. Another teacher was born the year after I graduated from high school. I am the oldest one at work.  While I look young, and don't feel my age that I am on the calendar, I think I need to get this towel.  LOL

When I was at Walmart this week, I saw they had a new line of T-Shirts with 90s music acts.  (BB, Brittany Spears, Spice Girls, and Shania Twain) I still love the Backstreet Boys who are still touring and being awesome, though they do not look like boys anymore.  I would have bought this shirt if it wasn't  cropped tee. Since I am from the 1900s, I would look ridiculous in cropped shirt at my age.  LOL   Were you a fan of boy bands in the 90s?  Even though I love Backstreet Boys, NSYNC is my favorite boy band. 

I have been fighting a cold this week that I got from one the babies at work.  This week was little more low key so  I did not take a lot of pictures.  

Well it is looking to be time to get this party started.  Link up and HAVE FUN! 

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Read More »

Let's Dare to Share!

 

It's Friday night, and you know what that means..

It is time to Dare to Share! 

The party is getting a little bit of a late start tonight. I have been dancing the night away with D and a few of my friends in Michigan.  It was a fun night, and we stayed until the end of the dance. 

On the way to the dance we had some rain, and then a really pretty rainbow.  The photo does not really do it justice, but it was bright and vivid for a very long time. 

 

I mentioned at last week's party that we were going to go to a Time Warp Prom.  It was so much fun! We do not have a lot of photos, because it was dark in the venue, but we took this one in front on the prom sign.  We had a random stranger take the picture. While it is a pretty good picture, we were not lined up in front of the Back to the 80s sign. Can you tell who we were? People thought D was possibly from three different movies.  He is George McFly from Back to the Future.  Some people thought he was the Michael Douglas character from the Falling Down movie.  We had never heard of that movie, but he looked exactly like that character.  A few other people thought he was from Revenge of the Nerds.  While I did not look have the infamous prom dress than Andie Walsh wore in the movie, I am in all in pink for the movie Pretty in Pink. I found this dress from Goodwill just a few days before the dance. It was pretty comfortable, and a very bright 80s pink. 

One reason why we are in Michigan this weekend to celebrate two birthdays. 

If you are a long time reader, you may remember this guy.  This is Kyle who used to share his recipes on the blog under the Cooking with Kyle link.  He is turning 27!!  The years are flying by..    Another one of my friends share the same birthday so we plan on celebrating with her too.. 

 

Well it is really late, so I am going to get the party started.  Link up and HAVE FUN!! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Read More »

It's Time to Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means.. 

It is time to Dare to Share! 

Happy Friday! 

Last weekend I went to a church rummage sale and lunch with a friend.  When we stopped at the sale it was the last day and many things were marked down even lower.  I was so surprised to find an actual NFL authentic Brady Patriots jersey for sale. The tag said $20, which I thought was a good deal. When I went up to pay for it, I was told since it was the last day of the sale it was half price. I am a Tom Brady fan so I was very happy with that find! 

Another great find that weekend was at the Once Upon a Child store.  Our grand baby is obsessed with Gabby's Dollhouse.  Grandpa was looking through some bins, and found this Gabby doll for $3.99.  That same day I was at the Dollar Tree and found figurines for several of the Gabby Cats. She was so happy to see all her new Gabby toys.  I am still hoping to find Pillow Cat and MerCat, and then we will have the entire set. If she is still a huge Gabby fan in a couple of months we will probably be having a Gabby Dollhouse birthday party.  I did find some paper mache boxes to make some Dollhouse Deliveries and Meow Meow mailbox. 

This weekend we have some fun plans. We are attending an 80s themed prom.  The theme is Back to the Blockbusters. We are supposed to dress as characters in our favorite 80s movies. D is going as the dad in first Back to the Future movie. I loved all John Hughes movies, like Brat Pack, 16 Candles, and Pretty in Pink.  I did not want to spend a lot of money on an Andie costume, so I went to several thrift stores. I found a few things that kind of look 80s inspired. I am dressing all in pink for the Pretty in Pink movie.  I will share more about the prom at next week's party. :) 

Well it is getting to be that that to get this party started. Link up and HAVE FUN!  

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Read More »

Let's Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means...

It's time to Dare to Share! 

Happy Friday! 

Did you have a nice Easter weekend?  We had a busy one. We saw D's mom earlier in the day, and then had all the kids and the grandbaby over for a late dinner.  I had a lot of fun putting together the baby's Easter basket.  We did do a little egg hunt. I found the cutest animal eggs from Dollar Tree, and hid some around the living room and dining room. She found them with just a little bit of assistance. Next year she will be old enough to find them on her own. 

* this is an affiliate link 

While visiting D's mom on Easter,  we played a few rounds of Rummikub. It's her favorite game, and we play it often. It is similar to traditional rummy, but with tiles.  Each player starts with 14 tiles.  You can put tiles down once you have 30 points.  Well during this game, I was very unlucky and did not have enough points to lay down tiles for several rounds. Then when I was finally able to get some points, the person right before me went out and I did not get to play.   Oh well, I still had a lot of fun, and did much better the next game. 

On Thursday,  we went to one of the first games of the season for our local minor league baseball team.  We won the tickets playing trivia, and they are great seats.  It was a fun night with great weather, and our team won! 

Are you familiar with Buc-ees? If you are not, it is basically when a large gas station and an amusement park have a baby. They are mostly in the south, but they are adding several new stores around the country this year.  The first one in Ohio just opened the day after Easter.  I have been to five of them in four different states.  The place is huge and they have good food, fun merch and cheap gas. I am so excited we have one driving distance, so we can go as often as we want.  It has been extremely busy this week since they just opened, but not too bad when we stopped by after the baseball game. 

Well now that you know what I have been up to this week, I would love to see what you have been doing.  Link up and HAVE FUN! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Read More »

It's Party Time! Let's Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means..

It is time to Dare to Share! 

Happy Easter Weekend! 

This weekend is back to normal.  We are not traveling, and I have my computer plugged into the wall so there is no risk of running out of battery like last week. 

Here are some of the photos that I had planned on posting last weekend from the dance. The birthday boy we were celebrating was not in these photos, but the first photo is of one good friends from Michigan.  I met her at the dance several years ago, and it is always fun when we have the chance to get together. 

I know several people commented on my heart rock I posted for the last Dare to Share Party. .   Here is a little bit more of our rock collection that I collected with my grand baby.  She is such a nature girl already. I love that something as simple as looking for pretty rocks made her happy. 

This week I shared a fun and easy DIY on my Instagram, and TIK TOK. In case you are wondering what they are, it is light sabers made out of pool noodles. We made them for the kids at day care, and I made one for my grand baby. They all love them!  I post a lot more on my social media because I take a lot of videos. If you are on either site follow and let me know, so I can find your accounts as well.

 If you plan on having a ham for Easter dinner this year, this is one my favorite recipes for using leftover Ham.  I make Easy Leftover Ham Casserole every year. It disappears almost as fast as my Leftover Turkey Pizza. 

If you are looking for a last minute Easter activity this weekend, I have several  Easter Treasure Hunts over on my Etsy Shop.  They are digital downloads so they are perfect for last minute activities.  

Well now that you know what I have been up to this week, I would love to see what you have been doing.  Link up and HAVE FUN! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Read More »

It's Time to Dare to Share!

It's Friday night and you know what that means..

It is time to Dare to Share! 

Happy Friday! 

I hope you had a good week.  We are visiting Michigan again for a friends birthday today. We went to the dance and are staying at a hotel.  I forgot the cord to my computer at home, and already on battery saver, so my normal Friday night post has to be a short one.  

I have pictures I want to share, but with such a low battery they will have to wait until next time.  The picture above is a really cool rock I found this week in the shape of a heart.  

Since I am almost out of battery, it is time to get this party started.  Link up and HAVE FUN! 

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Read More »

Let's Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means..

It is time to Dare to Share! 

Happy First Day of Spring! 

Hopefully the weather where you live is finally settling down. I know there have been record highs out west, and blizzards in the upper Midwest.  A friend of mine in an area near the upper peninsula in Michigan had so much snow that they had to be dug out by construction equipment. They had several feet of snow. Where I live in Ohio we started the week with extreme winds and freezing temps in the 20s.  Just a few days later we are finishing the week in the 80s. I know it will go back to the 50s in a few days, but for now we are going to be thankful for the warm sunny days.  

Isn't the kitty in the picture beautiful. It's a new cat of a friend of mine. She was so sweet, and I love this photo of her. 

One thing we did at daycare this week was make light sabers learning about light.  After making colorful sabers at school, I found a white pool noodle at Dollar Tree.  I will be making some more for home, and plan on posting it on the blog. They are perfect for a kids craft or birthday party. 

Easter is just around the corner. Are you ready?  Spring is the perfect time for an outdoor treasure hunt.

I am probably going to make a bunny cake for my grand baby this year. If are looking for some other easy Easter treats, you can find them on this post here.

It's time to get the Dare to Share party started and I would like to see what you have been up to this week. Link up and HAVE FUN! 

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Read More »

It's Time to Dare to Share

 

It's Friday night, and you know what that means..

It's Time to Dare to Share! 

Did you miss the party last week?  It was not on purpose.  We decided to go to Gatlinburg for a few days. On Friday night, I went to write the party post and realized I left my computer at home! Oops! I thought about posting the party a few days later when I got home, but I wasn't sure anyone would see it so I decided to wait until this week. 

 While we did not see any bear in the wild, we did see BJ the rescue bear at the top of Ober Mountain.  All of the animals at the Ober Mountain animal sanctuary are rescues. 

We stayed in this really nice hotel, in the middle of the Parkway, the Historic Gatlinburg Inn.  It is right beside the Sky Park. We really loved staying at the inn.  When we were inside the inn, we felt like we were back in time. It was back from the road, so we did not have a lot of noise from the Parkway.  It was in a great location near all the restaurants and activities. We will definitely stay there again.

After a few days of spending time in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, we also spent a day in the Smoky Mountains National Park. It's so beautiful there.  

This weekend we are in Michigan.  Spending time with our friends at the St. Patrick's Day dance, and then spending time visiting with my kids and another friend.  I am a bit late getting this post up now, because I catching up with a good friend while writing it. 

But it is getting to be that time.. so lets get this party started!  Link up and HAVE FUN! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Read More »

It's Party Time! Let's Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means..

It is time to Dare to Share! 

During last week's party, I mentioned that we were going to have a Galentine's Day party on Saturday.  There were 8 of us that attended. We had some amazing food, played a few games, and got to learn fun things about each other.  I made a Galentine Get to Know the Guest game and a Galentines Day Trivia game.  While they are not in my Etsy Shop yet, I do plan on adding them and other games soon. I also brought these love bug cookies and chocolate strawberry brownies.  I was hoping to share a cookie recipe this week, but I ended up forgetting to set the timer and burned the cookies.  I may try to make them again soon. 

One thing I do have in my shop is a Pot of Gold treasure hunt and a few other St. Patrick's Day treasure hunts and games.  The holiday will be here before you know it. It's hard to believe that February is already over. 

Another thing that will be here before we know it is Spring and Easter.  I decided this week to update the house I made for my grand baby from Valentine's Day to an Easter house. I changed all the decor on the outside, and they toys on the inside. She really loves her Peep Ducks from Target and Easter Eggs that look like blocks from the Dollar Tree. She also really loves her stacking bunny tower that replaced the snowman and gingerbread tree. 
 

I am still posting my amazing clearance challenge on Instagram and Tik Tok if you would like to follow along. So far there have been 9 days of clearance finds and deals, like the books at Dollar Tree, 90% off at Kroger, and $3 blouses and tops at  Walmart.  This S'mores cookbook is such a fun find and it was only $1.50.

This next week is going to be a fun one. I have a week off of work for an early Spring Break. We are planning on going on a mini vacation for a few days some time this week.  We still have not decided where to go and what days to go.  We will figure it very soon and I will share where next week. 

Now that you know what I have been up to this week, I would love to see what you have been up too.  Link up and HAVE FUN! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Read More »