Mo Willems Books

A couple months ago I was on Banana Fudge Swirl, a photographer that started a kids blog, and Chenin recommended Mo Willems books. We still haven't read the one she recommended but have read at least a half dozen of his books. Logan's favorites are the Elephant & Piggie series books. His absolute favorite is I Am Invited to a Party. He loves it so much that his birthday party this weekend is going to be based after that book. So if you have kids you should check it out. It also helps to use silly voices for each character.

Subscribe & Save

We’ve all heard of Amazon but have you heard of their Subscribe & Save program? I hadn’t until an attorney at work heard me grumbling about going to Costco just to get diapers. I’ll admit it’s not the easiest to find on their site but I believe that’s because the savings are so great they don’t want everyone to know.

Well I went to Costco anyways because each box of diapers I swear it’s going to be the last box with Logan but next baby I’m so doing this. So how does it work? For the best savings you set up for deliveries in increments you choose. So you chose the item and it’s delivered monthly or up to every 6 months.

So now your wondering about shipping costs. Guess what? IT’S FREE!!!

So let’s look at savings.
Costco has Size 4 Huggies at 179/pack for $39 = $.21/diaper
One time delivery price Size 4 Huggies 140/pack for $27.99 = $.20/diaper (small savings)
Subsribe & Save price Size 4 Huggies 140/pack for $23.79 = $.17/diaper (better savings and not running to the store)
Subscribe & Save + Amazon Mom price Size 4 Huggies 140/pack for $19.59 = $.14/diaper (AWESOME and they deliver to my house for FREE = very happy mom)

It’s not just diapers though you can save on. The attorney that told me about it is single and no kids. She uses it to get cereal and canned goods. I’m all ready thinking of all the things I’ll be subscribing – cereal, shampoo, paper products, canned goods and cleaning products.

Yes I know I could spend hours and hours scouring coupons but I believe time is money and even running to the store is sometimes more time then I want to spend so I was really happy to find this. Let me know if you’ve used it and what you think.

Lay Baby Lay

I have MAJOR spring fever at my house so these last two kind of nice days, I’ve spent every second outside instead of blogging.

Today I want to share my favorite site for nursery inspiration. If you aren’t expecting or know anyone expecting, I’d still check out the site. She finds the most amazing prints on Etsy (Bomobob is one she introduced me to) and most of her stuff on there isn’t way over the top expensive like a lot of other style blogs.

I totally love this Lumberjack room she came up with. I totally want to redo Logan’s room right now. Oh and in case you didn’t know we are expecting another boy in August.

Check out LayBabyLay.com

PaperCrave/Domestifluff

While preparing a post about Logan's birthday and looking for a link I was checking out Paper Crave again. Paper Crave has some of the cutest downloads and crafty ideas. Like seriously isn't this 13 Day Advent calendar the cutest. Actually the nest would look great for an upcoming baby shower and those book paper trees - so cute (might have to rethink the church Christmas party).

Domestifluff is the craftier/recipe side of her graphic design site. She has tons of yummy looking recipes and a lot of them are gluten free. Usually gluten free stuff doesn't look worth it but her recipes looked awesome.

Halloween Advent - Crafting Chicks

I had this idea last year to do a Halloween advent. I’m sure it wasn’t my idea but honestly can’t remember who inspired this. Well like most projects I didn’t finish it in time for last year. So this summer I finished it up so I could use it this year.

In case you want some more Halloween ideas check out the two following blogs.

Crafting Chicks

Eighteen25

Both blogs have been posting a Halloween craft almost every day since the beginning of September. Also both these blogs have tons of fun kid projects and crafts throughout the rest of the year that I’ve used. Enjoy.

Ana-White

Last night while sitting around the campfire cooking smores with some girlfriends the subject of home décor came up (along with other topics that will never be mentioned ANYWHERE). I was telling them about this site I love to look at Ana-White. It recently changed web addresses and got a huge face lift. Ana White lives in Alaska and she’s an engineer turned BAHM (build at home mom) that loves to take designer furniture and create easy to use plans that anyone can build their own furniture.

I’ll admit when I first was checking out her site it seemed like lots of the finished projects were cheesy and poorly done. I honestly believe it was just bad photos now. Since her site has grown the photos and the projects have gotten so much better.

Some day I hope to have this desk built by Tad in my scraproom (yep it’s just like Pottery Barns). Yes that photo is an actual desk built from her plans.

I’ll admit I don’t think her site is very well organized but it’s better from her old site. So check it out there might be something you might want to try. The best way to see all plans is click on "Plan Catalog."

Below are links of items I’d love to make

This outdoor sectional (not sure where I’d store it in the winter)

I so want a single lounger like this. The thing that kept me from making it is how expensive the cushions are.

This kid’s kitchen is so cute. Too bad there is no need for it in my house.

The Farmhouse Bed – I so want to replace the oak bed we have with this.

Also totally unrelated but HWTM has a cute free Thanksgiving download. Proceeds go to Operation Give Thanks.

You Can Make This/DIY Dish

This past weekend I was able to catch one day of Spark. I'll post more about that hopefully this weekend. While there I met two of the nicest ladies, Kim and Kris. They live in Utah and are identical twins and they have a web show that they host (new episodes go up each Monday night). I'd heard of one of their sites, You Can Make This but I hadn't heard of their web show site, DIY Dish. Talk about cute ideas and they are on Studio 5 all the time.

I love this garland idea for utensils. I've got to make that for next year's BBQ season. I'll definitely be checking out their site from now on.

Web Wednesday - Martha

By now you know that I love those tissue pom poms. For Easter dinner this last spring I was trying to use up what I had around the house so I made mini pom poms for napkin rings. They turned out so cute and super simple.

Then I used some Ikea plates that I wish I'd so bought a case load of. I love the design, hugeness and square shape of them. I thought the look turned out very cute.

While I don't frequent Martha's website, it seems like a lot of my favorites in Flickr have ideas that go there and so I use her site a lot even though it's usually through other sources.

Web Wednesday - Hostess With The Mostess

Probably my favorite things about blogs is all the ideas I get from other blogs and being pointed in new directions for new ideas. So since I visit a lot of blogs I thought on Wednesdays I'd try to point out some of my favorites.

Hostess with the Mostess, HWTM, has the coolest parties ever. Yes all the parties are more than any party I'd ever have or could afford but just taking one of the ideas from their parties can make your party go from ordinary to extraordinary. Seriously, I know cheesy but it does.

I had two baby showers in April and HWTM had cute downloads that totally saved me. You can find the downloads to this party here.

Ashley's shower was first and she was having a girl. I had a death of a close friend and also got a cold/sinus/ear infection the week before so I wasn't creative at all for her party. I was able to use the downloads on the invites, cupcake toppers and I framed the signs and hung on the wall and it still looked cute.

Laura's shower was the next week and she had a boy (her baby came a little early). I had a couple more functioning brain cells that week so I used the downloads for cupcake toppers, garland and lollies.

I hope you'll enjoy HWTM as much as I have because it's totally helped me in several parties/showers I've had.