The Sensible Mom

Crafting with Breanna

March 16, 2012 by Sandra Leave a Comment

I’m not a very crafty mom. I don’t know how to knit, crochet, or use a sewing machine. But that doesn’t stop me from carving out time to make crafts with my craft-loving daughter, Breanna.

Only, we almost always use pre-made kits. Almost everything is included in the kits that we use except for maybe scissors and glue sticks.

I do try to be careful to read the instructions, so that whatever we are making looks almost 100% like it’s supposed to. My girl appreciates this.

So even if I don’t have amazing craft skills, and I’m no Martha Stewart, I try for Breanna.

Are you crafty? Do you have any fun and easy crafts that you can recommend (emphasis on easy :-))?

P.S. My mom has been kind enough to sign Breanna up and take her to sewing classes at our local JoAnn Fabric craft store. Pretty nice of Grandma! There she is learning how to use a sewing machine, and so far she has created a really nice pillow case and a purse. So when we get a sewing machine sometime in the future, Breanna can teach me how to use it.

For the record, I can hand sew. It may not be pretty, but it gets the job done. 🙂

Huggies Pull-Ups Potty Party

March 15, 2012 by Sandra 2 Comments

A few months ago, I applied to host a Huggies Pull-Ups Potty Party. I could hardly believe it when I received the email that I had been chosen as one of the moms to host a party!

Part of the reason I was chosen was because I have my own little potty-trainer right now. His name is David.

David loved the little blow-up plastic guitar that came in each guest package provided by Pull-Ups. He liked playing with his guitar while listening to the Pull-Ups potty dance song, which we played over and over and over during the party. I’m singing the words in my mind now…..Do THE…..Potty Dance!

The Pull-Ups people kindly provided me with a coupon for a free bag of Pull-Ups for hosting the party. Pretty neat.

All in all, a fun time was had by all.

For food, we had orange chicken from Trader Joes (this is better than take-out chinese food), the best frozen pizza ever from Whole Foods, cheese & crackers, olives, Annie’s Mac n’ Cheese, and homemade chocolate chip cookies. I think I served corn, too.

We played one game, and I gave out Starbucks gift cards to the first and second prize winners.

It was a fun afternoon, and I’m thankful to Pull-Ups for choosing me to host a party. 🙂

Other than putting together a quick list of what I wanted to serve at the party and preparing it all, Pull-Ups made the rest of the preparation very easy. The Facebook page set up for the party was very helpful with its printables and ideas for the party.

If you are interested in applying to host parties for a wide variety of different products, be sure to visit the House Party website!

P.S. I still have potty packs leftover, so if anyone local would like one, just let me know. They come with a toy guitar, stickers, coupons, a dance mat, DVD, a milestone chart, and two door hangers.

Losing the Baby Fat Update

March 13, 2012 by Sandra 11 Comments

Its been way too long since I’ve updated on my weight loss progress. The truth is, there isn’t much to report. I haven’t lost ANY weight since my last update.

I think after I lost the 30+ lbs. from the pregnancy, my body has decided that for me to lose any more weight, I’m going to have to put up a fight.

Fight, I will.

I weighed in at 215.5 lbs. yesterday morning, so at least I haven’t been packing the pounds back on. I was a little concerned about my weight during our trip to Georgia because of all the eating out that we did. But I managed to eat salad a few times, and I had the veggie omelet every morning during our 3 day hotel stay at the Embassy Suites (they make omelets to order) in Georgia. I also decided to skip the breakfasts at the hotel we stayed at on the way to and from Georgia. The breakfasts there consisted of egg substance, not-so-tasty waffles, and lots of sweet baked goods.

So, all in all, I made it through the trip unscathed! 🙂 I did enjoy lots of McDonald’s coffee, Chick-fil-A, and the Mellow Mushroom (pizza joint in Georgia) cheese sticks.

I do notice that my clothes are fitting better, and I can actually fit and feel good in two pairs of jeans that I hadn’t worn in ages.

I started counting my calories yesterday, and just counting for one day has been eye opening as to how easily the calories add up. I lost weight in the past by counting my calories, so I’m going to give it a whirl again. I am nursing Elisabeth, though, so I’m keeping my calorie intake on the high side at around 1,900 calories.

In all the craziness, I have been failing at keeping up with daily, intentional exercise. I’m going to be more intentional about exercise this week. I have a plan to get on the treadmill at least 4 times this week, and we are going to try to squeeze in a visit to the zoo, which usually results in around 2 hours of walking.

Here are my stats:

Current Weight: 215.5 lbs.

Goal Weight: 170 lbs.

# of total pounds I want to lose in 2012: 50lbs.

# of pounds to go until I reach my goal: 45.5 lbs.

Total # of pounds lost to date: 4.5 lbs.

I promise to be better about updating my progress from now on. 🙂

10 Goals for the week

March 12, 2012 by Sandra 3 Comments

I know I haven’t written out goals or updated my progress for a couple of weeks, so I’m just going to start fresh this week. The last month has been out of the ordinary with so much going on right now in deciding where our family is going to buy a home. After 10 years of marriage and 10 years of renting, the Lord has answered our prayers to be able to purchase a home. And we thought that home would be “home” in Illinois, where Ruben and I and our children have lived all of our lives.

Our whole family was born in the same city.

Well…..it doesn’t look like Illinois is going to be our permanent home after all. At least we don’t think it is.

Because we put an offer on a short sale home back in November, and after months of waiting and dealing with issues, the deal has fallen through.

And even though it’s a ‘buyer’s market,’ the homes in an expensive state like Illinois, in our price range, are ugly. They would be fixer-uppers that we don’t feel we have the skills to take on. Actually, they’d be fixer-uppers with HIGH property taxes.

We were thrilled to find the great short sale house that we put an offer on back in November – the house that fell through for us because the bank wanted $20,00 more than we could give them after the home ended up with a seemingly unfair appraisal.

We’ve looked at MANY other homes in Illinois in our price range and there’s just nothing else, no other home we want to make an offer. And after much prayer and getting over some fear….we feel the Lord may be leading us to move out-of-state.

To Georgia.

Hence the reason for our recent trip to Georgia. We were there looking at houses. Lots of houses. And we found a few that we like.

So we made an offer on one. It’s a great house, in a great location, at a great price.

We are hoping to find out this week whether or not our offer has been accepted. Things certainly move MUCH faster in Georgia than Illinois when it comes to the housing market. Good news for us because we just found out that our landlord is listing the house we are currently renting. So whatever happens, we can’t renew our lease, and we have to move somewhere next month. At this point, we are hoping it’s Georgia! 🙂 I’ll let you know.

Onto my goals for the week!

*one note* I’m anticipating entering “Survival Mode” this week as we pack and get ready to move our entire family and all of our possessions, so my goals will be fairly simple. We are taking a break from Family Day, Day Out with Dad, and Cooking with the Kids until after we move.

Family/Mothering Goals:

1. Start reading through the Psalms with the kids.

2. Spend more one-on-one time with David.

Personal Goals:

3. Walk on the treadmill 4 days this week.

4. Start counting my calories.

5. Wake up by 8:00am every morning.

Home Management Goals:

6. Finish de-cluttering the house for when the landlord’s real estate agent comes by to take pictures on Tuesday morning.

7. Pack up as many boxes as possible.

Business Goals:

8. Post one blog post each day.

9. Work on client project.

10. Go back over the WordPress Web Design for Dummies book to the places I marked to revisit.

What are your goals for the week?

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