Monday, February 28, 2011

Spinal Muscular Atrophy


My friend Marion's friend's nephew died today from SMA. He was only 6 months old.


This is a little about SMA.

Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is a motor neuron disease. The motor neurons affect the voluntary muscles that are used for activities such as crawling, walking, head and neck control, and swallowing. It is a relatively common "rare disorder": approximately 1 in 6000 babies born are affected, and about 1 in 40 people are genetic carriers.

SMA affects muscles throughout the body, although the proximal muscles (those closest to the trunk of one’s body - i.e. shoulders, hips, and back) are often most severely affected. Weakness in the legs is generally greater than in the arms. Sometimes feeding and swallowing can be affected. Involvement of respiratory muscles (muscles involved in breathing and coughing) can lead to an increased tendency for pneumonia and other lung problems. Sensation and the ability to feel are not affected. Intellectual activity is normal and it is often observed that patients with SMA are unusually bright and sociable. Patients are generally grouped into one of four categories, based on certain key motor function milestones.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Tastefully Simple

Last night we went to a benefit for Anthony's friend's friend that died from Cancer. They had lots of yummy food. I ate way too much. They raised about $5000 for his family, so that is great. I love helping out & going to benefits, even if I don't know the person. I won this Tastefully simple raffle.

We couldn't see if there was anything inside the basket. We were hoping for the Almond bread, beer bread or some dips. But we got these 3 soups. I think I will have the chicken & dumpling soup tonight. Good night for soup. Cold & snowy.



Saturday, February 26, 2011

Making Lemonade's Spring Clean Sweep

I'm participating in the Spring clean sweep over @

It starts on Monday, February 28th. This is the info from her site.

Making Lemonade's
Spring Clean Sweep
* ideas and advice * weekly challenges * weekly giveaways *guest bloggers * clean{er} homes

We're striving for participation, not perfection!

Here's how it works, if you choose to participate: I'll post a cleaning task with tips on Monday. You have all week to work on it, and then on Friday I'll post my progress and ask for yours! That way, if you didn't get it done by Friday you'll have all weekend to work on it, post it on your own blog, and link up to mine. I'll highlight a few homes on Monday and randomly pull a winner for that week's giveaway before posting the next task. As always, you don't need a blog to play along. Comments will count as entries as well.

By the end of March our homes will be sparkling clean, organized, and ready for spring! Or at least a little cleaner, a little more organized, and certainly we'll still all be ready for spring.


The Schedule
Week One (Feb. 28): Closets
Week Two (March 7): Cabinets and Drawers
Week Three (March 15): Deep Cleaning
Week Four (March 21): Freshen up!

Friday, February 25, 2011

Flickr


I've been on Flickr for a few years, but haven't added many photos on there for a while. I'm starting to add more photos & am looking for more people to add as contacts/friends on there. I'll be adding more scrapbook pages since I've been doing more pages. So let me know what your name is on there & I'll check out your pics & add you on there.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Twitter blog hop

I'm doing my 1st Twitter hop today. Love Twitter. Check out Kelly's blog for info. Click on the button below.


Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Police station tour

Yesterday we did a tour of a police station. It was pretty interesting. This policeman is part of the swat team. I've never been that close to a real gun before.

I've also never seen a real jail cell, so it was really interesting for me too.


This is in back of the police car. I have been in the back of a police car before. My friend & I were driving on the highway & a metal piece fell off of a truck & my friend hit it & we got a big hole in our tire. Her bright idea was to walk on the highway to the next exit. A trucker called the police or walkie talkied it in (Do truckers still walkie talkie things? haha) that we were walking along the highway, so a cop came & drove us back to our car & lectured us on "Never walking on the highway".


She got a little police badge sticker & I swiped it & am planning on doing a scrapbook page with it.

A Little help from my friends

We are painting our downstairs bathroom very soon. We are trying to decide between these 2 colors of green. At 1st I liked the bottom 1, then it dried. Now I'm leaning towards the top color. I think it will look great with the white closet doors, but the rest of the doors & trim are a drab dark brown. I wanted hubs to paint all of the trim white, but he doesn't want to do that right now. I'm hoping to get him to paint all the trim white eventually. So what do you think? I know it's hard to tell when you can't see the whole room. We have a white sheer shower curtain with light green & blue flowers & dark blue rugs. I might get new rugs sometime.



Tuesday, February 22, 2011

New England Minute

Not sure if everyone has heard of marshmallow fluff. Being from New England I grew up eating it. Sometimes I think people don't realize that only their area has certain items. Tara noticed the raspberry fluff a few months ago in the store. I didn't even know that they had raspberry. This is 1 of the many fun products from New England.




Sunday, February 20, 2011

Mommy & Me Monday

This pic is from Valentine's day. I took the pic & e mailed it to my hubby in work. She totally looks like a "mini me" in this pic.


Check out Krystyn's page. She hosts Mommy & Me Monday.

Mommy and Me Monday at Really, Are You Serious?
Hosted by Krystyn at Really, Are You Serious?

In the Mood for Scrapbooking

I've been wanting to scrapbook more lately. I've been scrapping while T is napping (I didn't mean to make that rhyme. lol). I did this page, that I actually like. I might add a few "things" to it. I haven't had any pages lately, that I really liked till this 1.


I organized my craft room a bit today (& all of my pages that I haven't added to books yet). I can't seem to figure out how to make everything on the shelves look the way I want them to. I think I'll rearrange it a few more times. I'm trying to get everything organized before I go to the scrapbooking convention in April. I still haven't registered for it. My friend registered about a month ago.


Friday, February 18, 2011

New toy

I got this netbook this week. I'm so excited. It's hot pink just like my camera. I was on it last night entering
my info on the computer. I'm hoping it doesn't take too long to get use to. I was so slow on it last night. The buttons are so flat & I'm not use to not having a mouse.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

CSN stores review

I recently got another item to review from CSN stores. Tara had an empty wall, so we decided to get the heart vinyl chalkboard wall decals. We got them from All Modern. 1 of CSN stores many online stores. We thought these would be very cute for Tara's room.


They were very easy to apply. It took all of 5 minutes.



I've been loving all the chalkboard decals that I've been seeing lately. I would like to get 1 for the kitchen, so I can keep a to-do list or food list right in the kitchen. All Modern is 1 of the many stores from CSN Stores. It's a fun & funky store with fun furniture, cool coffee makers & devine dinnerware & anything else for your household needs.

Yum of the day

I just discovered this scent the other day @ Bath & Body works. It smells really good. I can't put my finger on what it reminds me of. It has Sparkling Riesling, Golden Amber, Hypnotic Incense, Bright Rose Petals. They have a bunch of yummy new scents.

Monday, February 14, 2011

New England Minute

Years ago my Parents & I went to visit my sister in college in VT. I was really young, but I remember having snow with maple syrup on it. It was really good (even though I hate maple syrup) & they served it with pickles on the side. I just recently found this on Disney's family website. I'll have to make this for my daughter someday.


Maple Snow Taffy (or sugar on snow)
By Catherine Newman

Ingredients
1 cup maple syrup (ours is B-grade amber-cheaper and darker-and we love it)
1/4 cup salted butter
clean snow (or, need be, ice cream)

Directions

In a medium-sized pot over medium heat, heat the syrup and butter together until the mixture reaches 220ºF-235ºF on a candy thermometer, aka somewhere between the thread and soft ball stage, for you candy-making hardcores out there. If you don't have a candy thermometer, time it for about 5 minutes after it comes to a boil, and then pour a little onto a plate that's been waiting in the fridge: when the syrup is ready, it should thicken up into a soft taffy on the plate; if it doesn't, then cook it a minute or two longer. Needless to say, your children should be nowhere near this while it's on the stove. "There is nothing hotter than hot sugar," my mother used to say ("Really, Mom? Not even the sun?"), and, because of the crisp English certainty of her pronouncements, I still assume they're all true.
Let the mixture cool for a couple of minutes, then pour it by the spoonful over bowls of clean snow (or ice cream) where it will harden into a sweet lump of maple insanity. You won't be sorry -- well, until it's gone, and then you'll be sorry.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Date night

Last night hubs & I went on our 1st date night in like a year & 1/2. We went to a Mexican restaurant in Manchester. It was really good.


Cheers.


After we went to a bar that we had been to before & got some peanut butter cup pie & split a slice. We need to do date nights more often.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Baking with Miss Drama Queen



This past Saturday we made a recipe from the cookbook that I got for Christmas. We made the banana muffin bites (but I made a bread instead of muffins). Tara helped me with it.


It was really good, but I think next time I might leave the chocolate chips out & add walnuts instead. I love choc chips, but they just didn't taste right in this recipe. I've made banana bread with choc chips before & liked it.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

365 project


I am trying to do the 365 project again this year. I started late, but am doing good at taking pics everyday. Just not so good at adding them online everyday. For those of you who never heard of the project. You take a photo everyday for 365 days. I pretty much take photos everyday anyway. Right now my camera is missing though, so I really need to find it. I can't function without it. I recently joined this site, 365 project. You can share your photos with other people & find other people who are doing the project.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Valentine's date night

photo from We heart it

We will be going out on a date night on Saturday night. We haven't been on 1 in a few years. I don't even know what we will do. I know we're going out to eat, but other than that I have no clue. It doesn't seem like there's much going on that night. Any ideas on fun things to do for date nights? We don't do the movies. I have no idea what I'm going to wear. I've decided today that I don't look good in pink though. I always end up wearing pink for Valentine's day instead of red. I don't own much red.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Hefty basics giveaway


I recently got 2 packages of Hefty basics plates to review. I've been using them a lot since I got them. They are very strong. It's so much easier to just use a paper plate with a toddler. They also sent me a seed covered paper & we can plant some wildflowers as soon as the weather gets better.


Hefty Basics
™ disposable paper plates deliver the strength and value you expect from the Hefty® brand and much more. Free of inks, dyes or coatings, Hefty® Basics™ paper plates are biodegradable in home composting making them a perfect choice for environmentally-conscious consumers.
Win: I have 1 coupon for a free package of Hefty basics paper plates for 1 of my readers.
Mandatory entry: You must be a follower of my blog through google friend connect & "Like" Hefty basics on Facebook. www.Facebook.com/Hefty.BasicsTableware
Winner will be chosen on Friday, February 11th, 2011 at 10pm est through random.org. U.S. residents only. The winner will have 48 hrs to reply. I will have to choose another winner if I don't hear back from the original winner.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

New England minute

I LOVE cupcakes. They're so yummy & fun. This is a shop out of Boston that has a bunch of fun cupcakes. Wicked Good Cupcakes


Some that sound super yummy are:
Peanut butter surprise

National Velvet (Red velvet cake)

Chocolate coconut



Saturday, February 5, 2011

Friday, February 4, 2011

Cafepress winner

The winner from my Cafepress giveaway was #9, Laura. Congrats.




Thursday, February 3, 2011

Icicles

We have some crazy icicles going on around our house. Most people do around here. This is what I see when I look out our living room window. They're very cool looking, but I would want them to fall on my head. There's tons of roofs collapsing. It happened in 2 of the towns I lived in, in MA. Anthony went up in our attic to see if the roof was sagging & lucky it isn't. The roof is pretty new & strong.




Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Sorry that I've been MIA

We've been sick here. We went to 2 birthday parties this weekend. The 1 on Saturday was at a gymnastics place & then the 1 on Sunday was @ our friends house. Sunday night I couldn't sleep & ended up throwing up (I know, tmi) & then Monday morning Tara threw up a few times. I found out that 3 of her friends from the party, at the gym also were sick. I guess most of the kids at the party got sick. Then yesterday I had a migraine & today the snowstorm continues from yesterday. T didn't have gymnastics today & Anthony didn't have work. We've been stuck in the house since Sunday. I'm hoping that we can get out tomorrow for a bit. Maybe the mall or the library. So I have lots of catching up to do on here. My Cafepress giveaway ends tomorrow night.