Need a break and feeling guilty

I am a stay at home mom, and I chose to be a stay at home mom. I could go to work full time but the costs of daycare doesnt make it worth it. I love my daughter, I love her more than anything on this planet but I need a break. I feel so guilty about writing this but its true. I need some time alone. Im not asking for alot just maybe a day, two max and I think I will feel better. Every mom needs a break right? Why do I feel guilty about this?! We have never been apart more then eight hours in the three years she has been in my life. I hope I feel better soon, Im told I shouldnt feel guilty but I do.

Happy Veterans Day

Today is the day that we honor all the brave men and women who served in the US Military. I can proudly say that I served in the US Navy for six years. My husband is going on ten years serving in the Navy and is ready to put in another ten plus years. The military has been good to us. I would not trade this for the world. Yes, times can be rough but at the end of the day I have the most important thing in the world, the love of my husband and daughter.

Sometimes I wish we had more then one day to honor those who served. Yes, I am a vet but I think there are many more who gave alot more then me. I never saw combat, I never went to a war zone. My job was making sure my fellow service members were ready medically speaking to go into combat. I think there needs to be more done for them. 

I am so happy to see people showing their appreciation for our servicemembers today and I just pray that their appreciation, thoughts and prayers continue beyond today. Thank you to those who support our troops and pray for them every day.   We still have many brave men and women overseas protecting our country and need our prayers and support. Thank you to all my fellow veterans and thank you to those who are still putting their lives on the lines to protect this great country.

Trying to save money

We moved to Connecticut a couple months ago and as of right now I am not working or going to school. Money is a little tight, it is for most families right now. I have started a quest to save money. I check blogs for coupons, check out coupon sites for coupons, and try to get free samples when I can (samples usually = coupons so its a win win). I have even started buying more store brands because those few cents can add up. One of the biggest things I am trying to do is shop at the Commissary. The Commissary is a grocery store on military bases. I guess you can compare it to Wal-mart. The prices are usually pretty much the same but the commissary is usually tax free. If there is one thing I have learned to buy at the commissary it is meat. This brings me to my point:

I was picking up a few things for dinner tonight. I'm making chili. I was checking out the ground turkey because its usually cheaper, tastes just as yummy as ground beef and its healthier. I found one pound packets of ground white meat turkey for 50 cents a pack!!! After I went a little turkey crazy, I had 6 pounds of ground turkey in my cart. A grand total of $3.00 for 6 pounds of turkey. Why was it so cheap you ask?? Because the sell/freeze by date was today. Thats okay with me. I will use 2 pounds for the chili tonight (freeze leftovers for a later time) and still have four pounds for another use. I'm so proud of myself.

I think my money saving quest is paying off. Hopefully..........

Ok, so its been a while

It has been way too long since I wrote something on here, so I figured it was about time that I did.

C told me the other day that she hates it here. It broke my heart. She told me that she hated the house here, specifically the fans, and wanted to go back to North Carolina. I knew this was too good to be true. C didn't cry once during the moving process. I was so worried that she would start sobbing at the sight of her toys being packed up and put on a truck. Nope, not a tear. So here we are, two months later, and its biting me in the butt. What is a mom to do when not only she is miserable but so is her baby?!?!?!

The solution: C and I went to Lowe's today and picked out some paint to make her room pretty. She picked out the lightest shade of pink that I have ever seen. Hubby can't even tell the difference between the shade of pink and regular white paint, lol. Hopefully this weekend we can start to paint her room and make this place a little nicer for her. We live in military housing, so there isn't much I can do about the ugly fans. Then, we went to Target and picked out a simple white and pink lamp for her room. I just need to find some other inexpensive things to make her room her own little paradise.

The second thing I need to work on is meeting some people. I am a bit of a recluse and I can sometimes have a hard time meeting people. Hubby on the flip side can make friends with anyone and everyone. I don't need a lot of friends, just a couple women that I can hang out with and maybe have a glass of wine with and vent or chit chat. C needs to make some friends too. I feel so bad that we have lived here for two months now and she doesn't have a friend yet. I saw that the base youth center is having sign ups for dance classes on Monday. I hope C is old enough to get into one. I think it would be a perfect chance for her to make friends and hopefully a chance for me to meet some other moms. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Other then that, things are same as usual. C and I are still working on letter crafts and other projects that I come up with. I have been baking and cooking up a storm just to pass the time.

That's it for now. I promise I wont stay away for so long this time.

Strawberries and three year olds should not be left alone

C is at the age where she can go in the kitchen get out her own snack. We set up our kitchen here so she could do that. She has her own special shelf in the kitchen with snacks for her and she has mastered opening the fridge and getting out whatever fruit or veggie she wants to munch on. Well, today our brilliant plan kind of bit me in the butt. This morning while laying half awake on the couch C came over and asked me if she could have some strawberries. Of course I said yes and told her to eat them at the table and try not to make a huge mess. I also told her not to eat the green tops of the strawberries. Now, usually I will cut the green tops but as I said before I was only half awake. About ten minutes later I hear C saying in her sweet little three year old voice "Momma I ate all the stwaberries" Hmmmm all the strawberries???? Immediately I got a little worried and decided to check out what she meant by "all the strawberries." Well, I found a huge pile of strawberries on the tables with just one bite taken out of each of them. I wasn't quite sure I should laugh or get upset that C just took one bite out of every strawberry in a brand new container of them. While I pondered what I should do C chimed in with "See momma I didn't eat the green parts." All I could do was laugh and then explain to her the right way to eat a strawberry. Lesson learned: I need to drag my behind to the kitchen and cut the tops off the strawberries, lol.

After the strawberry incident, I decided it was time for us to make a project. I once again reffered to the brilliant No Time For Flash Cards and saw the idea of making a sensory tub. Hmmm a sensory tub??? I was a bit skeptical about the idea at first but decided it might be alot of fun.  So, off we went to Walmart.  We picked up a dishwasher tub (in red, Cs choice), 4 bags of dried beans and lentils, some measuring scoops, and various packages of $1 toys. Once we got home with our new supplies off to work we went. C helped dump all the beans in the tub and added all the little toys. I gave her the stack of measuring scoops and just let her imagination go. Wow! I can not believe how much she loved it. As I said before, I was a little skeptical on whether or not this would be fun for her. Of course there was an appeal to the idea to me or else  I would have never decided to try it. C sat there for over and hour just scooping, pouring, digging, and just letting her imagination run wild. A little later I grabbed some chopsticks from the kitchen but she wasn't too thrilled with them. The worst part of this whole activity was when I told C it was time to put our tub away and take a nap.

To all my mommy friends who may be reading this, No Time for Flash Cards has some brilliant ideas for activities to do with your kiddo. No, I do not know Allison McDonald or any of the other people who contribute to that site. It was just a blog that I came across and LOVE. It has saved me many times now in finding something new and fun to do with C.

My attempt at teaching.....

So, about a month ago C was screened for a preschool program here which she qualified for but was put on a waiting list. Bummer. My thought was what can I do with her that is fun but she is learning something at the same time??  That is when I started looking around the blogs and found a blog called No Time For Flashcards. There were so many great ideas to do with C that I just had to try them.

So far we have done capital A and B, and made an apple tree. The first day was a little rough because she was cranky, I was cranky and it just wasnt a good combo. Her "A" turned out great despite our crankiness. We did the apple tree next which she loved! She loves any opportunity to use glue and scissors (her enjoyment of scissors worries me at times, lol). Finally today we did the letter B. She did such a great job picking out her buttons and gluing them down.

I am really enjoying doing craft projects with C.  She asks me almost everyday if we can do a "pwoject" As long as she is enjoying them I am one happy mommy. I just hope I have enough ideas and supplies to keep going. :P

Muffin Tin Monday-Posting a day late- Ooops

I know today is Tuesday and yes and yesterday was supposed to be MTM. I did make C her Shapes meal but for some reason decided not to post anything about it until today. Blame it on a case of the Lazy Mondays. Anyways, here is my MTM...

The theme as mentioned before was shapes. I asked C what she wanted for lunch and she decided on a peanut butter sandwich. So, I cut her sandwich into circles. Then, I cute some cucumbers into hearts, a slice of cheese into stars and about half of a banana, which were circles. I served it up on one of her trays and voila! She demolished it. It is the simple things that she loves. She wasn't quite sure about the cucumber hearts until I told her that they were in fact cucumbers, lol.

My first Muffin Tin Monday!

So, I was browsing through the blogs and came across this great idea called "Muffin Tin Mondays" I clicked on the MTM link and was totally inspired. I think this is a great way to try something new and different and do something fun. So here is my first Muffin Tin Monday Meal!

This weeks theme was movies. Cassandra's two favorite movies are Tinkerbell and Finding Nemo. I decided to go with Finding Nemo.  She was a little confused with the whole idea of eating an entire meal out of a muffin tin but she ate just about everything and liked it. We did have to tell her a little lie and say that the fish sticks were chicken tenders. We knew if we told her they were fish sticks she would never try them. A little lie won't hurt her, right??  Also, I decided that since this was my first MTM I would make it a dinner so Ed could join in on the fun. He agrees that this is a fun and creative idea.

Finding Nemo MTM:

1. Fish sticks

2. Seashell Noodles with butter and pepper

3. "Nemo Sticks and Sea Cucumbers"

4. Gold Fish Crackers

5. "Dory Dip"-ranch dressing tinted blue

Cassandra trying the "sea cucumbers"

And she likes it!

New......

I am pretty new to blogging but I thought why not give it a try. I have looked at a few blogs and thought it would be a good way for me to document the crazy, wonderful thing called my life.  Cheers!