Friday Night Baseball

Those of you that know us well know that we are are a huge baseball family.  Well, the boys are; I really just go along for the ride.

We try to go to at least 1 Braves game a year.

(That's all that I can handle)

This year Zachary's baseball team all went together.  I wasn't going to join them but once I found out all the other moms were going, I decided to go.  This was actually one of the best games I have ever gone to.  I guess that was because I got to sit with people I know, I mean, we've all been together almost every day of the week and most weekends since February.  We've gotten very close!

I hate when we go to a game and we end up sitting with complete strangers who have to comment on every play and can't stay in their seats. 

(Yes, it's a good thing I only go to 1 a year)

My favorite part of going to Turner Field, other than the fact that it's named after us, is the fact that their isn't a bad seat there.   

We were sitting way up in the cheap seats, but the view of the field was still pretty good.

Check out that tv screen, how would you like to have that in your family room?



Brian McCann up to bat.

I love the view of the Atlanta skyline.

Zachary watching the game.

Victoria and Chatty Cathy, oops; I mean our friend Grayson.

The Braves played Cincinnati Reds, they lost but we still enjoyed our evening.  And because it was a Friday we got the end the night with fireworks. 

And now I'm done; don't have to go back until next year.

A Memorial Day Recipe



Instead of firing up the grill and throwing on some hotdogs and hamburgers, I dediced to try something new.

It was so delicious, I wanted to share the recipe with you.

Slow Cooker Barbeque Ribs

Ingredients:

4 pounds pork baby back ribs

salt and pepper to taste

2 cups ketchup

1 cup chili sauce

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

4 tablespoons vinegar

2 tsp dried oregano

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 dash hot sauce

Preheat oven to 400*

Season ribs with salt and pepper. 

Place in a shallow baking pan.  Brown in oven 15 minutes, turn over and brown another 15 minutes.

In a medium bowl mix together the ketchup, chili sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, oregano, Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce.

Place ribs in slow cooker.  Pour sauce over ribs and turn to coat.

Cover and cook on low 6-8 hours or until ribs are tender.

I did mine about 6.5 hours and the meat was falling off the bone.  They were a little spicy from the chili sauce and hot sauce, but I like a little heat to my food.

I made some rice, dinner rolls and brownies for dessert. 

All in all, it made a nice Memorial Day dinner.

WOW

I can only say 1 thing about this picture.....

WOW

Those of you who know my daughter well, you completely understand.  I never in a million years thought that my daughter would dress like this to go to school.

I thought she would never get out of her basketball shorts and t-shirts.  I never thought we would curl her hair or wear nice shoes or even more nice dresses. 

Last week Victoria's school had their annual awards ceremony.  It is customary that the girls wear nice dresses; think formalish.  This year certainly didn't disappoint.

The AP at school thought the girls looked so nice that she decided today would be 'formal day' at school.  So, all the girls are wearing their dresses they wore to the awards ceremony. 

I think that's so cool; I don't ever remember wearing a dress like this to school.

Of course, I couldn't let her go off without a photo opportunity. 

Now, if only I could figure out how to make her smile.....

I love this picture.... now sure how I didn't notice the big shadow right across her face when I was taking it, but I didn't.

She definately has the angry, I haven't eaten in 3 months, supermodel look down.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.



And just for the record; I don't remember being this beautiful when I was 13. 

She must get that from her daddy!

Shopping like a Crazy Coupon Lady.....

Publix finally came out with a new flyer this week. 

I was extremely excited about that because they have had the same things on sale for almost 2 weeks.  

I had already gotten the stuff they had on sale last week and I had coupons that were burning a hole in my binder, ready to be used.

This is my result from this weeks shopping trip:

Now that it's getting warm outside the kids go through lots of Gatorade.  Victoria loves the Propel flavored water.  It was on sale 2/$1 and I had a $1/1 coupon which made all 7 of them FREE.  Zachary and I love the SoBe lifewater.  It was on sale 10/$10; I had $1.50/5 coupon so I got all those for 70 cents each. 

The DiGornio pizza's were on sale 2/$11; I had $1.25/1 coupon so they ended up being $4.25 each and their the ones that include the wings or cookies.  I can't get takeout pizza for that price.

My total retail was approximately $230.00 and I spent $116.55, a total savings of $114..08 which is a 50% savings off my grocery bill.

I am so excited that I just had to share it with you.

Week 3; I'm exhausted and my kids are loving their clean bedrooms

My main focus for week 3 of the 40 bags in 40 days challenge was to tackle my daughter's bedroom.  This beautiful child, who is 13.

I was very frustrated with this room because it was such a mess.  This is totally unlike my daughter.  Of all 3 children, her room is usually in pretty good shape.

She will sometimes lock herself in her bedroom and clean all day.  I guess all the evenings and weekends spent on the baseball and softball field has been keeping her from it.

I can understand that.

Or, she just hasn't bothered because she knew I was doing the 40 bags in 40 days challenge and wanted me to do it for her?  No.... she wouldn't think like that, right?!

Has anyone ever seen a chair that looks like this before?  No? Yes? I'm not the only one right?

Those clothes are ALL clean.  No wonder it takes her so long to get ready for school in the mornings - she can't find her clothes.

Her room wasn't super bad, like her brothers.  She just needed her dressers and desk cleaned off, dusted, trash thrown away and some things sorted to give away or sell.

This is her hutch.  She found this Christmas candle holder I forgot to put away with the Christmas decorations.  oops!!

Her desk.  I hope she isn't upset that I got rid of all the old birthday and christmas cards she had displayed.  It was time!

Her dresser.  See the dusting wand?  She was actually trying to clean a little bit.  I like to think that I was just helping her out.

Her closet wasn't bad.  Shes pretty good about not keeping clothes that don't fit or she doesn't like anymore.

I did find this pile of stuff shoved in the back.

Everything gets put on the bed.  It's a great place for sorting.

The empty closet.  She actually had a pretty good sized closet.  My husband likes to paint the kids closets when we redo their rooms.  I think it's fun and looks cool.  The kids love it.

Most of her clothes stayed.  I did find about 10 shirts that I hadn't seen her wear in a few years so I put them in the giveaway pile. 

Her room didn't take me near as long as her brothers.  I got finished in 1 day.

Her desk looks much better.  Maybe she can actually do her homework there now.

And 1 final finished picture.

She had been asking me all week if I had gotten to her room.  I hope she is happy with it when she gets home.

In the end I got 1 bag of trash and 1.5 bags of giveaway/garage sale items.

Not too bad for a slow start to the week.



Week 2 {40 bags in 40 days)

I'm still knee deep in my 40 bags in 40 days challenge over at whitehouse,blackshutters with Ann Marie. 

Week 2 seemed to be really rough for me.  I'm not sure if it was all the baseball and softball events or the fact that I was working on my 9 year olds room, which happened to be a total disaster area. 

I started out Monday with his closet.  The closets in our house are fairly small, so I figured it wouldn't be too big a deal.  WRONG!  I could have sworn I had just cleaned out his closet.  I couldn't believe the amount of clothes he had that he didn't wear.

The floor of his closet had so much stuff on it that I was almost impossible to get his laundry basket out on laundry day.



So I started as usual and removed everything out of the closet.  I piled everything on his bed. 

The closet completely cleaned out.

Look who came to help!  He actually wanted to sleep in there that night.  I didn't let him.  It's amazing how much room we have when we don't have all the clutter.

I even enlisted his help going through his clothes.  I let him dictate what fit, what didn't fit, what he will wear and won't wear.  He took everything off the hangers and help me bag it up for goodwill or a garage sale.

Look at all the extra clothes that were hanging in his closet.

Tuesday, wednesday and friday, I continued working on his room.  It had really gotten out of hand.  This corner right here drives me crazy.  He seems to just throw everything on the floor in this spot.

His desk is always a mess.  The kid is a genuine pack-rat and loves to hang onto stuff.

Look at this night stand.  Yes, that is a Christmas stocking! 

After finished the closet, we got the clothes he was keeping and promised to wear hung back up.  The floor is clean of stuff and I won't hurt myself trying to get to the laundry basket.

Remember the white bookshelves I had removed from my master bathroom?  Well, they would work perfectly in his room.  He needed the extra storage space too.

It looks so much better and gets all that stuff off the floor.

Check out the night stand now. 

I just hope he can keep it this way.

And in the end, I think 'Ted' the turtle is much happier with a clean room.  Do you see that big smile on his face :)

I promised my daughter that her room was next.  She was totally envious of her brothers room.  I'm slow getting started again this week but I will get there.

One bag at a time!!

I'm linking up with whitehouse,blackshutters.