Happy St. Patrick's Day!

A wee little leprechaun heard we had a rainbow at our house today!

Inspired by Maddie's 2nd birthday cake, we made some cupcakes to celebrate my upcoming birthday and St. Patty's Day all in one. (excuse the lame frosting.. needed to feed our hungry leprechaun her promised dessert and didn't have time to whip up homemade.



He didn't find any gold but we know he was here because he left some green pee pee in the potty! (I spared you a photo of that.)






Yesterday we had a MOMS Club meeting at the park with two crafts.. one was gluing Froot Loops onto a rainbow (teaches kids to match colors while getting hopped up on sugar). The second was to paint a brown beard, staple on a hat and insert leprechaun.


Hope your day was filled with green beer and rainbow cupcakes!

Moorpark College Teaching Zoo

We had a really fun time at the Moorpark College Zoo on Sunday. If you haven't check it out yet, you should. America's Teaching Zoo is open every weekend, Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 5pm. (Admission is $5 for Adults, $4 for Children & Seniors)

You could easily go through the animal exhibits in an hour but the students that are working there, are really great about explaining the animal behaviors and answering questions you might have. One girl explained how you have to kill a pigeon with your bare hands to pass through the program. Apparently many of the animals eat pigeons and even some of the monkeys ate the wings.. gross.. lol We did note there were no pigeons in the area, or flying overhead.. they must have heard the news!

We enjoyed seeing all the animals, real and not so real!




Our little fairy can fly!


My two winged beauties!

Love Me Some Daylight Savings

Today was the first time in two and a half years that I've slept in until 8:00... thank you Daylight Savings! (yes, I do know I actually "lost" an hour but it's all relative.) Now ask me tomorrow if I still love it after trying to get Miss Maddie to sleep tonight. :)

I haven't blogged because we've been having fun with my in-laws!

Friday we spent the day at Disneyland. It was fun once again to see the magic through a two year old's eyes.


Grandma Lena, Papa, and Auntie Alyx joined us this time




A trip to Disneyland wouldn't be complete without a visit to Maddie's beloved Tinkerbell (and Vidia)


Maddie picked out a Princess Tiana doll to add to her collection


At the end of the day, we were ALL pooped!


Princess Grandma!


Today we're off to the Moorpark Zoo!

Free Episencial Full Size Product

WOW, that was fast! Their site was overwhelmed and they took down the free offer.. hope mine comes in the mail.

Ok, I know.. enough of the advertising. This is a FAMILY blog but this one I think you'll like. I found this product when doing a search for Eric Carle (Hungry Caterpillar) images for an upcoming project. I had never heard of Episencial products but when I saw this link for a free full size product I checked into it more.

All you need to do is watch this video and fill out a short form and they'll send you a full size container of Protective Face Balm.. it's all natural and great for babies and little kids. I HATE the thought of rubbing all those chemicals to "protect" my little one.

So, click on the link, watch the 15 minute video and if you don't want your free product, you can give it to me. :)

Lean Cuisine, Anyone?

Hey there!

I'm saving Lean Cuisine codes to order this super cute lunch bag. If you eat one for lunch and aren't saving your codes, please let me know.. I need 20 of them by March 31st!

Have You Tried Swagbucks?

What Is Swagbucks?

Swagbucks is a search engine which rewards you with Swagbucks for searching. You can use it just like Google (though I still like Google better) for searching and you will be randomly awarded Swagbucks for searching, usually around five to 10 Swagbucks once or twice each day.

These Swagbucks can then be redeemed for a variety of different free items, such as Amazon gift cards, Starbucks gift cards and much more.

While Swagbucks started out as solely a search engine, over the past few years, they’ve morphed into much more. In fact, they now offer many different ways to earn more Swagbucks making it much easier to earn enough Swagbucks to cash in on their prizes.

How Do I Sign Up For Swagbucks?

It’s very simple. Just fill out the form here and you’re all set.

Please do note that you can only sign up for one account per household. If you try to open and use more than one account per household, they will close down your accounts. I read many comments posts about this happening.

Does It Really Work?

YES! I've read about a blogger being able to lavishly bless her families with Christmas gifts last year thanks, in large part, to the gift cards she accumulated through Swagbucks. I know dozens of friends who’ve also had great success with Swagbucks — earning at least a gift card or two every month and sometimes much more than that.

Right now there is a Fandango deal for two movie tickets for just $9... plus you ear 315 Swagbucks!

Just 450 points = a $5 Amazon e-card... to me that means a streaming movie with my hubby just for doing my normal web searches.

They do have a search bar available for download but I would suggest NOT downloading this. I've read many accounts of people having computer problems after doing this and paying lots of money to have it removed. Just bookmark Swagbucks as one of your favorites and go to it to search a few times a day and you should be on your way to earning a gift card in no time! (Free money, right?)

Swagbucks does have a referral program where you'll earn up to 1,000 matching points for people that sign up through your link but if you're prefer to not go through my link, that's ok, just go directly to the Swagbucks site.

(If you're unsure of how this works and want to give it a try, send me an email and I'll walk you through it.)

I'll keep you updated on all my "free" stuff as I earn it! Best of luck searching!

Rock Star Party

Here's my latest party. I met a local mom a few months back. We share the same position (Membership VP) for our MOMS Club but in different clubs. She's "West" and I'm "East". We've done a few joint events in the past. She was really involved with organizing our MOMS Club Preschool Fair... when I say "involved" I mean "doing 80%" of the planing and implementing. She was awesome!
Anyhow, we've really hit it off as friends. She has a background in child development and is a pretty smart chick.

Just as the preschool fair was ending, she wanted to start planning her little guy's first birthday party.. you all remember how important that party is to us moms.. Obviously Maddie isn't going to remember, but for me, the party was an outward showing of what she means to us.. a celebration of her life and being in our life.

My poor friend's brain was fried after all the work and planning for the huge fair event. I offered to help with some party printables and this is what we came up with... something sweet but revolving around music. They attend Kindermusik and he loves to jam!

Just as my previous computer took it's last breath, I was able to email her a file for her thank you notes. I wish I had pictures of everything to share because it all came together nicely. It was nice to collaborate and think of cute ideas to may his party so personable.

I designed, snack boxes, water bottle labels, CD envelopes and burned images into CDs for her. I also created a gift bag topper and food labels.
Take a look!








She did a great job!



I'm so glad we were able to work together and create such a fun party for your little guy that people are sure to remember!