Spazz Attack Is Here!

Cassady, tween sensation, has ventured into the blogging world. I've featured some of her writing in the past, here on my blog. Her school essays were just the beginning though. She is now taking on more of a challenge, with daily topics, pictures and even polls to answer!

Go listen to some fun music while checking out her creative project...enjoy!!
(That was my way of warning you about the autoplay :)

Spazz Attack

Get ready for the Anime...

The Happiness Project: Autumn

This week's blissful moment? Taking my 10 month old to the park and letting him crunch around in the piles of leaves. Barefoot.

Share your happy moment, too!

Flashback Friday

Cassady has always loved animals - particularly cats. Unfortunately for her, I am super allergic to them, so she has to love on them away from home. Grandpa & Grandma had two kitties that she loved chasing (read: terrorizing) when she was 18 months. Today's picture is from November 2001. It was Thanksgiving - note her little camo dress paired with Nike's. We know how to do fashion!

Progress Report - Cassady's Room

I waited a week to post these "after" shots to make sure that Cassady's room stayed clean. Of course, since she is a tween, you know that clean is a relative term. She has done fairly well, though. There is only a small pile of laundry behind her bedroom door right now, and just a little picking up is needed. Overall I would say our cleanup project in her room was successful, since I wanted to make sure that she is able to maintain keeping it picked up herself. I have the rest of the apartment to clean up! So, without further ado, here's her room.

Her craft and game closet. She can actually get to her stuff now! It's a miracle!

Her bed, bookshelf, TV and big chair. So pretty now!

We plan to do a redecoration project soon. She wants a new comforter and color scheme, but since she changes her mind every other day I am holding off. I also want to make sure the room stays clean. No point in redecorating if we can't see it!

The Happiness Project: RAK*

Why is this happiness, you ask? Well, I was having one of those days. Nothing was working right, babies were crying, tween was sassing...you get the picture. My husband was heading off to work and the last thing I wanted was to see him leave. I needed a pick me up in a major way. He left for work & my doorbell rang. (Great. Another thing to handle) I opened the door and found these red and white beacons of hope. Seeing this picture reminds me of how sweet and thoughtful my husband is. And that is why this picture, to me, is happiness.

Want to see more happy? Check this out!

*RAK: Random Acts of Kindness

Weekend Project: Cassady's Room

Today we began to tackle the disaster that is Cassady's room. She is a typical tween with way too much stuff. We have gotten rid of most of her toys from her younger days, but her room is still very crowded. She's got lots of craft supplies, a huge chair, a TV, a bookshelf and a queen size bed. All that has to be squeezed into a pretty small space. Here's what we were looking at before we started working this morning. Warning: it is very scary!!

This is the (dismal) view from the door. Her bookshelf is empy because I will be moving it to a new location.

The bed. We'll be ditching the headboard as it seems to be a gathering place for too much junk.

Her craft closet. She never uses any of this stuff because she can't even get to it!

Her clothes closet. And a lot of dirty laundry, much to my chagrin.

After spending most of the day rearranging and decluttering, we have it looking a lot better. I think I threw away about 5 (grocery) bags full of trash, and we have some items ready to donate to the Goodwill as well. I need to find some containers for her Build-A-Bear and American Girl clothes. We also need to go through her clothes - she has too many to fit into her closet right now. She doesn't have school tomorrow, so we will have a "fashion show" session to try on all the clothes to ensure that everything still fits appropriately. We will also be vacuuming and doing a few other small organization projects.

I will have the finished room pictures up soon. Then it will be time to move on to the next project: the bathroom. (Cue scary music)

Take That, Fisher Price!

After bringing home gently used toys for Jack on Craigslist, I discovered that the plastic balls for some of the toys were missing. I searched online for replacements - I looked on Fisher Price's site, as well Playskool. Both sites basically required the purchase of a new toy including the plastic balls. No replacement sets - why? I then scoured amazon.com. They did have a set of 4, but for $19.00?!? I didn't even pay that much for the toy...

Why are you eluding me, cheap plastic balls?

Next, I tried bidding on a set on eBay. Had I won (and of course, I lost by 5o cents. That is how it always happens!!), I would have been the proud owner of 5 plastic balls...for the (still ridiculously high) price of $12.00. The shipping would have been free. Woo. Still too expensive for this bargain shopper!

My favorite thing to do!

Since I didn't win, I got creative. I ended up at Kmart today while waiting for a car repair (hey, touring Kmart is better than sitting at the car place!) and found exactly what I need. I spent $2.19 and now have 12 little balls for Jack to use in any of the new toys we bought. Practice balls - originally for golf - ended up fitting the bill. And for so much less!! Hooray for saving money in creative ways!!

Besides the fabulous price, the best part is that Jack loves his new toys. They're big enough that he can't put them in his mouth, yet small enough to fit into the playsets. Perfect!

Progress Report - Living Room

A few weeks back, we had a nasty flood in our apartment. (For exciting* details, go here!) Upon returning home from our stint in the corporate apartment, our living room looked like this:

The Horror! The Horror!

Ten days, two sick kids, one asthma attack, and a whole lot of decluttering later, I present you with this. My new & improved living room.

Ahhh. Much better!

I still have a few projects to tackle in here, such as cleaning the carpet and going through the drawers in the white hutch (aka: the white thing, in our house, which is currently scarily full of too much stuff). I am happy with my progress, though, and now am slightly obsessive about making sure things get put away. I don't want to go back to the before picture ever again!

*"Exciting" is most likely a strong exaggeration. I apologize for attempting to mislead you.

The Tale of the Bake Sale

Cassady's school is having a bake sale tonight at open house. I love making yummy treats for these types of events, so of course I had to scour my favorite sites for a few new ideas. I decided on two treats: brownie pops and s'mores cookie bars.


The brownie pops were very easy to make, up until the step where I had to coat them in melted chocolate. I prefer using candy melts - especially since I do not have a microwave. The coating ended up being a little lumpier than I was hoping, but nothing a ton of red & white (the school colors) sprinkles couldn't hide! Here's how they turned out:

Now onto the s'mores cookie bars. They were really fun to make - Cassady helped with crushing the graham crackers. They smelled absolutely amazing while baking, too. I allowed them to cool for over three hours, and then tried to cut them. Unfortunately, they cracked and fell apart. Sadness! They are no longer presentable enough to take to the bake sale - but now we get to eat them! These bars are delicious and you really need to make them ASAP. I have no picture, as mine are not quite as cute as the ones you can see here.

Since the cookie bars were a no go, I decided to use my favorite cookie recipe instead. I love these cookies! Since coming across Jamie's amazing recipe a few months ago, I have made these three times. I usually add coconut and use butterscotch chips, rather than the chocolate. Since these are for school, I went the traditional route and used chocolate chips. They turn out beautifully...see?

Now go make some yummy treats :)

I Love Craigslist!

Jack has been growing increasingly more mobile, and was in need of some new toys. I decided he needed some standing toys, like an activity table. He also really needs problem solving toys, like shape sorters. Well. I hit up my local Craigslist and spent a few nights emailing and calling, and for only $35, our living room is full of "new" things to play with!

He loves his new table :)

Flood Update

We returned home this morning. As expected, although the carpet was dry, the mess was unbelievable. In their haste to clean up all the water, the carpet cleaners basically threw everything from our bedroom all over the rest of the apartment. They also decided that leaving wet clothes all over the house was a good plan. After two days, laundry left sitting in toilet water does not exactly make a welcoming smell.

Scary living room picture. I won't frighten you with pictures of the rest of the house, because it just got worse.

I had the pleasure of spending the day washing clothes and digging my house out. I decided to look on the bright side: we finally got around to rearranging our bedroom & living room. Also, I am now nearly caught up on the laundry. Hooray for silver linings!

Flood!

Well. Our week has certainly turned out much differently than I planned. After using the bathroom earlier today, our toilet decided to become a geyser. It was unreal. For 20 minutes, water was spraying everywhere. Naturally, I was the only one at home (with the baby), and I am not only completely unskilled in plumbing matters, but also I am not the biggest fan of wading through toilet water. Our apartment complex did send the maintenance man to stop the flooding (after two frantic phone calls), and he proceeded to tell me that this could have been prevented had I let them know that the toilet handle was too short. Remember when I mentioned I am not a plumber? Yeah.

This was only the beginning of the flood.

After another 3 hours of sitting in the flooded apartment (luckily the mess was confined to the back half), the carpet cleaning crew showed up to work their magic. They were very amazed/impressed with our new lagoon. It was decided that the cleanup process would take two days, and after some intense conversation with our apartment manager, they agreed to let us use their "corporate apartment".

We moved the bare essentials over to our temporary digs. It is very spacious - Jack has had a great time crawling around to explore his new surroundings. Hopefully we will be able to go back to our apartment soon. I have a feeling that there will be quite a mess to clean up there, even after the carpet is dry.