July already?

I can't believe the year is already half way over! But I am super happy it is July now, because that means our family vacation is soon! This weekend we met my friend Erica and her kids Sara and Michael. Her hubby now works night shifts at the hospital on the weekend so she wanted to get out of the house to leave it quiet for him to sleep. We met them at Locomotion inflatables. We went here last summer with cousins Nate & Kelly and kids when they visited. The kids were super excited to hang with Sara and Michael here.

I think they got in about 2 hours of play time. Enough time to get all that extra energy out. Of course we were all hungry after so we headed to one of our favs on the lake, the Hula Hut.

After lunch the kids insisted we take the parking shuttle golf cart up to our cars. It's the little things that thrill kids. :) We'll be hanging with the Lane family again next weekend when we head to their home to celebrate Sara's birthday. 

So with our upcoming vacation I knew I had to get my eyebrows waxed (I'm lazy about plucking them and it's been about 2 months since I last had them done). I also wanted to get my haircut and had a coupon. I got a little "me time" today. When I got home I decided to highlight my hair with one of those store bought kits. If you read my previous post about getting gray hair then you'll know that I'm trying to figure out how to cover them up. :) I tried one of those root hair colors to cover them up. But of course missed some of them. I was going to do all over color, but then thought it was summer and why not try some highlights where the grays would just mix in. :) I like how it turned out. Now I'm ready to get "my toes in the water...." 

Clearance Cut

Today was a good day for me. I got a new purse & wallet. And a new haircut. :) What more could a girl ask for right? So I'm not a big name brand, spend a lot of money on an item type of gal. I always browse the sale and clearance racks. And if I can't find anything, I'll settle for the less expensive store brand over a name brand. Today I had an extra 30 minutes to browse Kohl's until my hair guy got back from his break. I've been wanting a new purse and wallet but it's not a necessity. So I just checked out the purse section and to my surprise found this cute purse and wallet. Retail price for the Nine&CO purse $48.00 and for the Relic wallet $19.99. Ready for it...after the clearance prices, my 15% off coupon and $5 off store bonus card I paid $9.10 for this purse and wallet. Not bad.

If you read my 7 Quick Takes today, you read I wanted a haircut. Well here is my before (leaving work and heading to the salon).

And here is my after! :) He cut about 4" off. It feels really good, especially in this summer heat. Okay so give me some honest feedback, do you like it? I sent my brother Tason a picture text, he responded "looks good, now you really look like mom...just kidding." Oh great. I was hoping it would make me look youthful - not older. ;)

Gotta use the coupon!

I'm not a real big coupon clipper/user. Although on occasion I do come across some coupons that I feel are too good to pass up on and try to use them before they expire. A brand new SportsClips opened in our town. I think their haircut charges are a bit high, but I guess you are paying to watch some games while you get your haircut. Well I had a coupon for an $8 boys haircut. For months now I've just been trimming James' hair, but I know it's far from perfect and probably pretty uneven. So I thought this coupon was a good enough deal to get James' haircut. Boy was he not happy. He went into SportsClips with tears. I had to really calm him down. But once he got up on the booster seat he stopped crying and stayed real still for the lady. He had a frown on his face the whole time and was very shy with her. But his haircut turned out super cute! She did a good job. And after James was happy to get a lollipop and a bracelet from the lady. And a happy meal on the way home.

Enjoying Fall

It's hard to believe we're approaching mid October already! Yesterday we had parent/teacher conference with Mrs. Moore, Madeline's kindergarten teacher. She gave Madeline a very good report, she said Madeline is a wonderful student, always willing to help out, she's very artistic, and blossoming out of her shell. She participates by raising her hand and answering questions and is doing well in her studies. Mrs. Moore would like her to focus and study extra with her letter recognitions - there are some students mainly those that came from preschools that have the advantage of knowing their letters better. But she's not concerned at all with Madeline. Stephen and I were happy that Madeline received such a good report. We're proud of our baby girl.
Last night I baked some pumpkin bread. I had some facebook comments asking for the recipe so I will share it here. It turned out super yummy and moist!

• 1 15oz. can of pumpkin
• 3.5 cups of flour
• 2 tsp of baking soda
• 3 cups of sugar or splenda
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup of vegetable oil
• 1.5 tsp of salt
• 2 tsp of Cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp of pumpkin spice
• 2/3 cups of water

Blend ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Pour into 2 greased loaf pans. Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until you can stick a butter knife in and nothing comes on it. Enjoy!

Check out my sewing blog for my latest project!

For those of you that didn't hear via Facebook, I got my haircut this weekend. I cut 4 inches off and had long bangs cut too. The new do feels great!