On The Verge is having a giveaway. Hop on over to her site and check it out. Here's my entry.
So here's the "baby" I made using my picture and my husband's picture over at RoutanBabyMaker3000. The only thing that looks even similar to my children is maybe the nose. Our youngest one has a flat nose like that.
Check out MomDot for the latest question in the Christmas of Dreams Blog Party.
What is the most unusual gift you've received?
All of the gifts I've ever received have been appropriate, with one exception. I have an aunt who is cognitively disabled. She always bought a present for everyone, but would always mix them up. It was so cute. My brother would get hair stuff, I would get tools, my sister would get pencils. When we got older, like high school ages, she would buy us little kid presents. You just never knew what you were going to get, but you had to love her for it. She tried so hard and she always sat there with such an expectant look on her face to see if we would like what we got.
What was one of my favorite gifts?
Well, it wasn't actually my gift, per say. One year my dad bought my mom a plane ticket to come out here an visit us. It was awesome to have her here for a week. She lives in Wisconsin and we live in Colorado, so we don't get to see each other very often.
Do you think re-gifting is okay?
Sure do. I don't do it often, and I usually don't use it as a gift, I just give it away. But if I receive something that I won't use or something I already have, I would rather give it to someone who I know can use it or donate it.
Do you shop on Black Friday? What time do you start? Do you finish all your shopping on that day? What's the best deal you have found? What's your shopping strategy?
Hell no. That's all I have to say.
Sponsors: Day Eight Blog Party Question is Brought to you by Koshas, Leapfrog and Soda Club.
Round 7 over at MomDot. Hurry up and enter the Christmas of Dreams Blog Party!
Who is on your naughty list? Who is on your nice list? Tell us why.
Naughty list:
1. Weekend manager at bowling alley who grabbed my arm and scraped me with her nasty nails. I feel like I need a rabies shot.
2. My dog Bogey for doing a high speed rolling dive into the middle of my back right on my spine. It's gonna leave a mark!! He's like 90 lbs of pure crazy lab.
3. Mother Earth. She made it snow today!! What the heck was she thinkin?
Nice list:
1. My pharmacist. I always forget to reorder my meds, so he put me on the automatic dealy without even asking me. Just did it. He's awesome.
2. Gather. It's a great community and I won $150 for groceries in one of their contests. That freed up more money for food sale and coupon shopping, and of course the holidays. Thank you Gather!!
3. Last, but surely not least, my most wonderfully awesome family. They're great and they don't even have to try. I love ya's!!
If you'd like a chance to win a Smartphone by Nokia, head on over to MomDot. She's got a great contest going on, and it's easy to enter. Good luck!
She has some other great things going on too. There's the Christmas of Dreams Blog Party going on. She's got some great prizes to hand out at the end of that.
Wii want to play! She's got a contest going on for a Wii too. All you have to do is vote for her. Details on her blog. Peep 'em out.
Once again, AWESOME prizes and a load of fun. Good luck!!
Round 6 Christmas question from MomDot. It's quite interesting to read everyone's answers. Click over there and see what's going on.
What is your favorite holiday memory from your childhood.
Ladies & Gents, I honestly do not remember a lot from my childhood. This is a tough one. I guess one of the funnest things my step-dad did at Christmas is he would letter or number our gifts so we wouldn't be able to shake them and see what we had received early!! The anticipation was great. One year he made a mistake on his list and got the presents mixed up just a little towards the end. It was a hoot!
Today, make a blog post about what you do to give back during the holidays. Do you volunteer your time? If so, please tell us where. What do you do to teach your children the true meaning of the holidays?
Honestly, and sadly, we do not do much in the way of volunteering during the holidays. If I meet a family who has no money to bring smiles to their childrens' faces, I will do a drive to get presents or gift cards, and food for them. That usually happens every other year or so.
My oldest child is almost 10 now. Last year his classmates told him that there was no such thing as Santa Claus. He asked me if that was true. I didn't want to break his heart just yet, so my reply was, "As long as you keep Santa in your heart, he is real." It seemed to satisfy his curiosity.
Now, I realize that the true meaning of Christmas isn't Santa. But I just had to share that. It was a very touching moment for me and my son.
So, on to the true meaning of Christmas. I am a believer, but I do not know much about the bible, or anything like that. I do try to teach my children what I do know, which isn't much. We always give money to the bell ringers, and give whatever extra we have away. I tell them Christmas isn't about presents (even though they are nice to receive). The main thing we stress is that Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ and it's about being together with friends and family. There is no greater blessing.
Sponsors: Day Five Blog Party Question is Brought to you by Baby Pop and Chic Covers
You can still get in on the Blog Party over at MomDot. I'm having a blast and even getting a few entries in for the prizes to be given away at the end. Oh yeah, did I mention all the traffic? Way more traffic to my blog than I've ever had! Got MomDot!
What is your favorite holiday recipe?
TwoThree of them. I can't help it. If we are invited to another's house -used to happen when we were a younger couple, but doesn't happen so often anymore- I always made these two, just to make sure I had them available. I remember one year we were invited somewhere, and she had everything that I usually have at my Thanksgiving table, except the green beans were plain green beans with slivers of almonds in them. I was like WTF??? I looked at my husband and almost cried.
Green Bean Casserole 2 cans green beans, drained
1 can cream of mushroom soup (use cream of chicken if you don't like mushrooms)
3/4 cup milk
1/8 tsp. pepper
1 1/3 cup French's Fried Onions (seperated)
Preheat oven to 350° . Combine green beans, soup, milk, pepper, and 2/3 cup (half) of the French's Fried Onions, mix well. Bake for 30 minutes, then sprinkle with remaining French's Fried Onions. Bake for 5 minutes more.
Apple Pie (This recipe thanks to Betty Crocker's New Cookbook, with my own little bitty adjustments) Two pie crusts
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp salt
8 cups thinly sliced peeled VERY TART apples
4 Tbsp margarine or butter
1. Heat oven to 425°. Put one of the pastries in the pie pan.
2. Mix sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in large bowl. Stir in apples. Pour into pastry-lined pie plate. Dot with margarine. Cover with top pastry, seal and flute the edges. Then put a couple of slits in the top so steam can escape. Cover edges with foil so they don't burn or get too brown.
3. Bake 40 to 50 minutes or until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in crust. Cool in pie plate on wire rack.
Rainbow Jello (Make sure you let each layer COMPLETELY set, or it won't be pretty!!)
Black Cherry Jello
Cherry Jello
Lime Jello
Lemon Jello
Orange Jello
Apricot Jello
Strawberry Jello
1 can of evaporated milk (350ml)
1. Mix black cherry with 1 1/2 c. boiling water until dissolved, put in pan. Let set.
2. Mix cherry with 1 cup boiling water until dissolved, let cool, then add 1/2 cup evaporated milk, add to pan. Let set.
3. Mix lime with 1 1/2 c. boiling water until dissolved, put in pan. Let set.
4. Mix lemon with 1 cup boiling water until dissolved, let cool, then add 1/2 cup evaporated milk, add to pan. Let set.
5. Mix orange with 1 1/2 c. boiling water until dissolved, put in pan. Let set.
6. Mix apricot with 1 cup boiling water until dissolved, let cool, then add 1/2 cup evaporated milk, add to pan. Let set.
7. Mix strawberry with 1 1/2 c. hot water until dissolved, put in pan. Let set.
Describe Your Holiday Table
Well, it looks an awful lot like my everyday table. It's a pretty small table, so we only have room for our plates. All the food stays on the counter, and there for sure isn't room for any decorative junk.
My Biggest Holiday Cooking Disaster
One year I tried to put the jello layers on too fast and they blended in a little. Oh, and once the pie crust didn't turn out as pretty as I wanted it to.
Sponsors: Day Four Blog Party Question is Brought to you by Bottlewise and Glow Mama
The party is going strong over at Momdot. Great questions and tons of other great blogs to check out...plus free stuff at the end!!
Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? Do you budget for the holidays? Do you always stick to your budget? Share with us any budgeting tips you may have!
Hell no, I haven't started my Christmas shopping. Well, I take that back. I received a $50 gift card from Target for posting over at Gather, and I bought some stocking stuffers. Other than that? Nope.
We sort of budget. First, my husband gets a bonus every year. This is what we spend on the kids. The bonus is different every year though. Sometimes it's $400, sometimes it's $1,000. We never know. We can get it anywhere from 2 weeks before Christmas, to getting it on Christmas Eve. Then we use whatever is left over from the few paychecks before Christmas for stocking stuffers and for presents for each other.
We always stick to the budget because we use cash. You cannot spend more than your means that way!! Sometimes it can be frustrating, because we want just one more thing...but in the end it's better to stick to the budget than put ourselves in debt for the rest of our lives for some cheap piece of crap made in China, that will probably b
reak in a month anyway.
To stay with your budget, I suggest the "envelope system." Every payday figure out what you need for bills, gas, food, extras, etc. Stick the allotted amount for each into an envelope that is labeled. When the money is gone, it's gone. There's no way to overspend with cash. This is how we do it. We never go over, and we usually have a little extra left over. It's a little hard to get used to at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's way easy and worth it. Happy shopping. I hope you have tons of fun. :o)
You have got to check out the Blog Party over at Momdot. It looks like it's going to be a ton of fun, with some great prizes given out.
The Jimenez Family Traditions (Or Lack Thereof)
Honestly, we don't have many. We live in Colorado. My family lives in Wisconsin. Mike's family lives in Virginia. It's just us out here, so it's not as easy to make family traditions when you're not near the fam.
The first few years after I came back to Colorado we traveled back to where I grew up for Christmas, once again not making it easy to make our own traditions!! The last couple of years we've stayed home. Although it's a bit lonely, it's much easier not to have to travel 1200 miles just to deal with family. Ugh.
The one thing we do for Christmas is let the kids open one present before they go to bed. After they're in bed and asleep then my husband and I open ALL of our presents that we gave each other. Yes, all of them. Why? We can't help it!! We love to give gifts to each other. Unfortunately, we are not able to give them very often, so Christmas Eve we make each other open the gift that we gave. We're funny.
I pretend like I send out cards every year, but the truth is....I've done it like 3 times in the last 10 years. I'm a total procrastinator. And when I don't procrastinate, I just forget. Damn ADHD.
For Thanksgiving the five of us usually stay home. I start cooking a day or two ahead of time. I cook enough food for 20 people, I swear. Ummm, if not more. I can't help it!! My family was HUGE growing up, and I learned to cook BIG!!
Since I obviously cannot think of a single thing to blog about, I decided to join in on the blog party over at Momdot. They will be asking a new question every day. It's going from Nov 12 to Nov 27. Jump in on the fun over at Momdot!! (and yes, of course, I'm starting a day late).
Introduce You & Your Family & Share Holiday Photos
And three little monsters named Dylan, Michael, and Madison.
We also have 3 dogs, Gruff (black one), Goldie (dark yellow), & Bogey (light yellow). Then there's Luke, our Iguana. Next we have Guinea(pretend like you have a french accent), who is our (wait for it) Guinea pig. I have 3 hermit crabs, all of whom are named Mr. Krabs. We also have 2 parakeets (named birdie) and a cockatiel who we call Girly. Last we have a fish. I think we call him fish. I will spare you all of the pictures, and just put one in of our dogs.
Let me try to find a couple of Christmas pictures from last year......Well, I can't seem to find them. I will post them when I figure out where hb is hidding them.
Okay, yeah, so I've been slacking off. I haven't had hardly any posts to my blogs in quite a while. Hopefully that will change soon. I'd like to get back on track. Till then here's picture I took just a couple of weeks ago.
