Raising a Savvy Shopper

Well I love being a frugal shopper, and Rebecca is learning her way to finding great bargains. Saturday the girls and I headed to the local metropolis (about 45 miles south of our small town). I had gift cards to Target that I "had" to spend or die, and Rebecca had $40 from babysitting and of course her awesome fireworks stand tip that she could not wait to spend.

Her first stop to shop was Aeropostale where she slowly stalked the store like a lioness on the prowl, til she found an obscure shelf with T-shirts $5.99 each. I mean we live in South Texas....t-shirts are year round here. She grabbed 3 of them and still got change back when adding Tax.

Then at Target I showed her where all the clearance racks and shelves were located, and she got a shirt, a bra (yes she is ten and buys her own bras....lol), a spiral notebook for school, and a box of Christmas Ferrero Rochere Chocolates all for $12 including Tax. The child went home with change to spare and halfway finished with her summer wardrobe.

She is my fashionista....and now she can buy it for herself and bargain shop to boot!

Texas Summer Camps for Cerebral Palsy

It is time to start planning Regan's summer camp schedule. I am completely serious! It just turned January, and I got email reminders from two of her disability camps that the applications are now online....and since it can be pretty competitive to get the weeks we want, I am scurrying to get them filled out, and sent off so that we can plan for the other two camps she would like to fit in her summer schedule.

What can I say, My girls are summer camp crazy! Luckily there are several disability camps within a three hour radius of our house. In fact there are five that I know of.

We first sent Regan to camp at age 10....to one that was about 45 minutes from us, because I was terrified of her being on her own for a week, and well just unsure about how the whole disability camp thing worked. Well every year since that first week she has added one camp a year. So this year we are up to four camps....possibly five if we can figure out a way to get into the beach camp she would really like to go to.

Now to be honest we are very lucky. The main three camps she has attended are all free to us. Lions Camp, and Texas Elks camp are sponsored by those fraternal organizations and each child is fully funded and sponsored by a local club. In fact John Mark is a member of both of those organizations just to help raise money for the both camps. Camp Smiles is a cerebral palsy only week at camp and is sponsored completely by UCP (United Cerebral Palsy) and they raise the money for those kids for that week.

The two she would like to add both would cost us a bit of money, but in reality with all we save it would not be that big a deal, it just depends on what our budget looks like when the applications come out and are due. Anyway....it is weird to think about planning our June and July weeks for Regan right now as the temperatures have dropped and I have just traded my shorts for a warm up suit. I will be posting more about disability camps for my readers who are interested to let you know what to look for and our experiences as the months progress.

House Inspirations

I have written before that we are intending to sell our current home and hopefully embark on building our dream home within the next two years. The main reason for this is to have the girls (especially Regan) in what I consider the ideal school district in the area. My main goal for the next year and a half is to get my home ready to put on the market...which fortunately is still a good real estate market at the moment.

There are many things that are on my to-do list to get the house market ready...like having matching garage doors (when we needed one replaced a few years ago....the store no longer carried our previous style), replacing rusting gutters, installing crown molding in the master bedroom and dining room, and tiling the master bath and girl's bath. I am in the process of researching the best, most frugal, and very flattering decorative hardware that would get attention from potential buyers, and not cost me a bundle.
I have been inspired by the Inviting Home website and all of their beautiful home decor. A lot of it has that Southern Living Traditional style that I covet with every ounce of my being. The only problem I have when I troll through the website is that I keep taking notes of things I want for my future home instead of concentrating on quick fixes for the home I have. I have been particularly distracted by the gorgeous shutters which would be a perfect addition to our next home should we be in danger of evacuating for yet another hurricane or as potential protection against the random tornado. As you can see there are way to many pretties at this site....I need to focus on my reality....not the dream of what is to come.

Curse of the Bone Pirates Review

I had the wonderful opportunity to review a really cool book called Curse of the Bone Pirates by B. T. Hope thanks in part to Family Review Network. I love reading mysteries, and have always had an affinity for the teen genre....so this was right up my alley. It had such a great combination of intrigue, a little supernatural, throw in a bit of teen angst, and some interesting eco-friendly information, and you have the makings for a great book.

Now I am not the "greenest" person I know, but there are a few tips that I thought were really interesting concerning ecosystem conservation, and working in symbiosis with our environment to coexist without feeling like you give up on life's luxuries by doing so. I also really enjoyed the characters.....especially Sam, she is so cool! I am looking forward to their next adventure have passed on my copy of the book for Regan to read. She is right now on chapter 2 and loves it so far.

Here is the synapses as put out by Amazon.com:

An evil force is destroying the natural wonders of Nui Island, and it’s up to three new friends to solve the mystery. When Big B is dragged from his comfortable life and close friends in Chicago by his grandfather’s mysterious affliction, he’s sure he’s going to have the worst summer ever. But soon after arriving in the tropical paradise of Nui Island, he is caught in a web of danger and intrigue. The Maemae reef is dying, his grandfather’s brilliant mind has been infected and creepy Island legends are coming to life. Big B and his new friends, Sam and Nalu, rely on wit, courage and strength to unravel Nui’s ancient mysteries. What they uncover will help them save the Island, restore his grandfather’s soul, and break the curse of the Bone Pirates. With a captivating plot, fascinating characters and an important ecological message, Curse of the Bone Pirates: Nui Island Eco-Logical Adventures will haunt and delight young readers.


If you or someone you know likes action, adventure, pirates, girls with purple hair, surfing, bats and bacteria, then this book series is definitely the one for you! Curse of the Bone Pirates, the first book of the Nui Island Eco-logical Adventure Series, is like taking a virtual summer vacation on a tropical island, daring you to get caught up in its fun-filled pages. It will haunt you with the past, thrill you with the present and inspire you with your future.

Cool stuff hidden between the covers of this book include: poisonous sea snakes, black gold, biomimetics, Sirius, seagull poop, how to say paradise in Polynesian, hidden volcanic caves, Shakespearean verse, the Cliff Hanger, a shell phone, bioluminescence, names to call your friends in Spanish, dinoflagellates, waste water webs, carrot toothbrushes, drinking green slime, rainbow salsa, getting worked by a wave, the Bloodlust, archeology, screm do kafle, vaporous cannonballs, katuk, an anamorphoscope, eating ants, banana-mobiles and much, mucho, more.

Read it. Life may depend on it.

Well not only am I impressed by the book, I was also intrigued by the sponsor and I think you will be too because the Nui company believes in showing kids a healthy lifestyle and through this book, how easy it can be to have an eco-friendly conscience. They donate half of their beverage profits to children's and environmental charities. There are several activities available on the website like character profiles, coloring pages, and product information.

If you are looking for a great read for yourself or a way to excite tween/teen readers about mysteries and environmental education then this series will deliver. If you are looking for a fun adventurous read....then it will not disappoint.

A special thank you to Family Review Networkfor this review opportunity.

Resolutions for 2009

The girls and I decided to make some resolutions....I thought you would enjoy

Regan: Has decided to give up school and homework (she will be breaking this on Monday I guarantee you that.

Rebecca: Eat healthier (she constantly has her head in the closet trying to bake cookies, or make sandwiches, and eat cheese and crackers...she is my carboholic)
Be nicer to people: she is a little quick to temper like her dad...so she loses patience with people easily and is not afraid to let them know. I have begged her to work on kindness.

by the way she also thought New Years resolutions were only for January...so she had to be corrected in that I expect her to be nicer for longer than one month.

Me: Cut the caffeine, lose a few pounds, try to be a little cleaner around the house....and above all else make more time for God. I sometimes forget to turn to him and put him first in my life. I think a daily devotional would help me a lot.

The Teeth Dilemna

Well, with all the fun issues that come with Regan having cerebral palsy....I have a new one to try and solve. What do we do about her teeth? I know this is very odd, but I would love some input from others.

Okay here is the lowdown:

Originally her mouth was very small for her permanent teeth, and then she fell in her walker at about age seven and chipped one of her front teeth. The dentist fixed it by puttung a little "fake part on there"

Then her doctors/therapists told us she needs to really brush her teeth on her own because not only is it good for her fine motor skills.....I mean she is 13 people....I can't brush her teeth for her. She brushes her teeth every day, but just doesn't do a great job, because she has a difficult time controlling the toothbrush, and doing all she has to do.

Basically her teeth look awful...but at least no cavities so far. They are a yellow that no amount of bad brushing seems to fix, and the fake part on the front tooth is now discolored, and she has two more teeth that now have no room to go growing in from her gums in front of other teeth. Her mouth is basically a mess.

The dentist has of course recomended an Orthodontist that we are going to see in January. We are sure that he will want to discuss an expander and braces with us.....but I can't even imagine Regan taking care of teeth with braces on them any better than she takes care of her teeth now. I am sure we will end up with a mouth of rotten that we just covered up with expensive orthodontia.

If it just weren't the most sadistic awful thing in the world I would have all her teeth removed and just have dentures made. Then she could take them out and clean them or soak them overnight! I know.....bad mom thinking my teen would be better of with dentures

I guess I need to figure out if I fight her own pride and therapist recomendations, and brush her teeth for her....or what kind of other options am I not thinking of?

Thanks for any ideas you guys float my way

National Security Mom Review and Giveaway

Among my holiday reading this year has been National Security Mom by Gina Bennett. It is an interesting book which discusses the similarities of guarding our country and how we deal we foreign threats and how we parent our children.

Amazon.com lists the synapses as: "National Security Mom" offers the basics of current terrorism trends and national security policy making from a parent's perspective. Written by a mother of five and 20-year veteran of counterterrorism in the US Intelligence Community, this book de-mystifies the underworld of terrorism and offers a unique comparison of how the super-secret intelligence approach to securing our nation is surprisingly similar to how parents secure their homes and families. By comparing the expertise parents gain while running their households to the skills required to govern, "National Security Mom" empowers America's parents to engage with confidence in the public national security debate. The simple premise, that everything we need to know about securing our nation we have learned from our family life, offers hope that no matter what security challenges America faces, our nation will be proud and secure. We need only follow the guidance we give our children, such as "clean up your own mess," "tell the truth," and "don't give in to a bully," to ensure our nation's welfare. Moms know that the most important lessons they teach their children will last a lifetime. Who better to entrust the security of our nation than mothers?

I was very intrigued when looking through National Security Mom to see what Gina Bennett's perspective was, and although she made some good points, It honestly was a difficult read for me. I found myself struggling to make the same comparisons on the scale that she did. For example kids needing "timeouts" to me personally are on a whole different level than a country needing a "timeout" to evaluate and make decisions following a terrorist attack. I got lost in the pages of security information, and found I really wanted some more personal references, and real mom skills that were comparable. I read the book, and recommend it to those who wonder about the trials of a working mother under such humongous duress with definitely one of the most stressful jobs I could imagine. I admire Mrs. Bennett's ability to multitask, and handle a home life and high stress job. I did take away with it the importance of getting involved civically even on a small local scale, which is something I think is very important as well.

The wonderful people at Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing have agreed to let me host a giveaway in conjunction with this review.

To five lucky winners I have links to the National Security Kid Center which has:

• downloadable children's pages
• links to online activities
• a printable poster
• Contests to win prizes, and
• a chance to be in future books

To enter this contest please leave a comment below with something you learned by visiting National Security Mom and telling me something you like about the site.

A second entry can be earned by becoming a follower of my blog and leaving me a comment

A third entry can be earned by stumbling this post and leaving your stumble ID in a comment

A fourth entry can be earned by writing a post on your blog and leaving the link in a comment.

This giveaway is offered worldwide, but the link to the security center will not be avalable til January 24th. Giveaway ends Januray 10th at midnight CST, Good Luck!

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This giveaway is now closed, and everyone who entered won the link to the URL. Thanks for enetering.