The Pajama Birthday Party!

This past weekend we were homebound yet again. It was the weekend of partying. First on Sat was my daughter's birthday. As I planned, we had a pajama party birthday. We had total 14 kids (including my son - the only boy) in the party. Everyone wore their PJs to the party.

We started off with claming the spot with their sleeping bags in front of the TV. I didn't know if it will fit everyone but since they won't be sleeping for real being on top of each other wasn't much of a problem.

After they were settled down, they headed for the snack table. It was simple enough yet full of everyone favorite. Cookies, marshmellow, vanilla waffer and pretzel. The drink's choices are milk, juice or water.. The kids were so happy with all the snacks. No drama at all.

After they finished their snack, we went to the dinning room where I prepared the pillow case crafting project for them. Basically, I got the cream pillow case and let their imagination run wild. Provided them with fabric marker and glitter glue we were all set. The kids were very artistic.

Then, it was time for movie and popcorn. I had two choices between Bratz-Sleepover Party movie VS Mary-Kate&Ashley Sleepover party.. Well, needless to say.. MK&Ashley were a bit too old for them to know. So Bratz it was.. What a great idea for the party because the kids sat there quietly gave us adults time to chat and eat our pizza.

After that, it was cake time and wrapping up the party. Cake, as usual, was from Publix. This time we tried the fresh strawberries filling.. OMG, it was the best yet from Publix. The filling was so yummy and the cake was light yet tasty. Sorry, didn't have time to take the picture. By the time I thought about it we almost finished the whole thing and the picture won't be that pretty. :)

Overall, it was pretty easy to do and stressless party!! We sent them home with a goodie bag full of toothbrush pack with toothpaste, a bag of cocoa, raisin box, nail polish and their own personalize pillow case.

Coupon clipping, anyone?

Ok, with a long weekend this past week it would have been nice for us to get out of town and hit one of those places that I have been researching, blogging and dreaming about. But unfortunately, my husband had 5 wisdom teeth pulled on Friday. Yup! You heard that right.. Five.. He is one smart guy to have 5 wisdom teeth!

So this weekend, we ended up enjoying another day of snow at home. And I decided to try something new this week. I will try to see if I can really save on my grocery using coupon. Well, watching Oprah and all gave me some inspiration. :)

First of, went to Walmart to get myself a Sunday newspaper. Who knew that they had BOGO (Buy One Get One) deal for newspaper too. So I got 2 Sunday newspaper in the price of one. I promised myself that if I can't save at least $10 then I wouldn't bother to do it again. Cutting and sorting coupons does take some times and I want it to be well worth spending.

After I cut and sorted and checked out the deal on the newspaper, I went to see how much I can save. Well, my first try wasn't bad. I saved $16.41 in Publix and another $17.76 in Ingles. So I have to say I will keep trying this coupon thing and one day I might be able to say that I pay $10 for a grocery worth $100 like other moms. We will see.

Let's it snow!!!

My daughter's wish came true last night! We had about 3 inches of snow. We were so happy. I think I was as excited as they were. When I got home it started with just light snow. We didn't know if it will stick on the ground or not. So we thought this was it, their snow experience was more like a shower.

Then after dinner, when we looked out the window we saw the snow started to stick to our deck. We started to gather appropriate outfit and accessories for them. Winter jacket - checked, glove - checked, hat - checked, scarf - checked, boots - checked, camera - checked.. And we were ready.

We went outside and could hear several kids in our neighborhood were out having fun as well. Not sure because they really enjoyed the snow or they knew that there will be no school tomorrow.

We got to make snow angel, check out our neighbor's snowman and have a snowfight. Finally, I did manage to try to make a snowman ourselves. Well, I forgot to take the picture when we were done last night because by that time we were all ready to go inside.

So here is the picture this morning. I'm glad we did it last night because now the snow starts to melt.

Thank you Lord for answering my daughter's prayer. We had such a good time last night. Now I hope that they don't get sick from the cold last night. :)

Going to the library

Before having kids, the only time I spent time in the library was when it was final and I needed to catch up on my study. But teaching them to learn to read and love to read is one of my major to-do that I want to step it up this year. I have to say that I have been to the library more often now than ever but it's still not on the regular basis.

Now that I have a friend who also takes her kids to the library on the regular basis. I decided to join her. :) She will be my motivation to go there. Plus my daughter loves to play with her daughters so it will be like a playdate in the library.. I know.. I know.. We have to tell them to be keep the voice down. :)

It's such a fun outing for the kids and it costs nothing for me. The library here in Forsyth county is not as big as in big counties or cities. But I like the size as it seems more manageable to find book and watch the kids. Plus they do have good kids section with lot of books for them to choose from.

I love that they provide a list for non-reader like me to check out various books with different topics for my kids. Like train specific book, plane book, book for toddler, book for kindergartener.. and a lot more.. The personel there is super nice and very helpful.

I just wish they will have current movies for us to check out.

We went there after dinner right around 7 p.m. I think it's such a good timing. We gave them a bath first so when we got home they can hop on to bed.

The library is not that busy at this time and it helps limit us on spending too much time there. Not that's it's such a bad thing but come on.. I have other chores to do as well. So this will give us enough time to pick out the books, read a few, play on a computer a bit and then head home.

Finally, I get to use the portion of my tax that I have been paying.

One Tree Hill's groupies!!!

Ok. I confessed.. I'm a big fan of One Tree Hill and Dawson's Creek shows. Well, for Dawson's Creek I got to start watching when the show was already canceled. I caught the whole series on rerun while on maternity leave a few years back. And last night I got to watch the season premiere for One Tree Hill. It brings another potential trip that is yet another advantage in living in Atlanta.

One Tree Hill is filmed in Wilmington, NC. Wilmington is about 7-8 hours from us. So this will be a long weekend trip. It's a city on the coast with the small town feeling. Looks like it can be a good vacation for us. The kids will get to visit the Battleship and we can take a tour to the studio for the sets of One Tree Hill..

There are several places that we can check out.

1) Screen Gems Studio - They offer the tour every Sat. It will be nice to get to see the sets of the shows and movies that I like. Ok.. Sound so much like movie groupies, heh?

2) USS North Carolina Battleship Memorial - I'm sure the kids and us will have a blast checking out the battleship. I have never been on one. So I would love to check out the history and get the real sense of the history of this ship.

3) Bellamy Mansion - They have tour for the mansion that also operates as a museum of history and design arts. It's time to take in a little bit of culture..

4) Relax on the beach - We will have to plan this in Spring or Summer to also take advantage of many beaches that we can choose from in Wilmington. I would love to walk on the board walk on Carolina Beach to check out the archade, restaurants and a pier.

5) Ride around town in this cool fun wheel suitable for the whole family. And what could be better way to check out around town than with this fun wheel from wheelfunrentals..

There are probably more stuff than I can think of right now that we can do there. Now we just have to find the perfect weekend and plan our trip.

126 Days to go..

Yup. That's my countdown for our cruise this May to the Carribean on the Carnival Victory. Well, finally I have made up my mind on the excursion on Ocho Rios. One port down and 2 more to go...

In Orcho Rios, I decided to go with Carnival excursion to Bamboo Beach Club. As typical with my luck when I tried to do it online the system is not available. So I will have to wait till tomorrow to do so.. Gosh!!! Don't they want my money. I hope I won't change my mind till then.

The Bamboo Beach club seems to be a nice, low-key, all-inclusive beach club that we can spend the rest of the day after the Dunn's River Falls. Plus it doesn't hurt that we don't have to worry about food and drink. The kids will get a chance to enjoy some beach time there. The price of this excursion is not bad for $45 if that price will remain the same after they upgrade the system. :)

The reason that we didn't book Dunn's River Falls because our son age doesn't meet the minimum age so they won't allow us to book that excursion. I guess on the bright side we will get to just have yet another relaxing day and save some money for more shopping. I know that most of the review for Jamaica says Dunn's River Falls is a must but quite frankly I have seen prettier falls in Thailand. So I rather spend time on the beautiful beach which is what Jamaica is famous for and indulge in food and drink.. Just think about it already want me to push the fast forward button to our trip... 126 days to go!!!!!