Tips for creating a Lego Ninjago birthday party

Two weeks ago was Alex's birthday party. He actually turned 9 on the 24th of September which was on a Tuesday I believe. Therefore we chose to celebrate on the Saturday before his birthday. He decided he wanted his party at the bowling alley. He was very excited. He loves Ninjago, for those of you who know what Ninjago is. For those of you who don't, Ninjago is lego ninjas. So I decided to make that the theme of his party. I did a lot of Ninjago googling. To my surprise I could not find any commercial made Ninjago party supplies. I did however find many blogs with some good ideas on how to make my own Ninjago party supplies. I used Tootsie Roll lollipops to make little Ninjago characters. I wrapped red and blue tissue paper around the Tootsie pops and printed little yellow eyes off of the internet. I cut out the eyes and used a glue stick to apply them. They were very cute! I used a small glass jar with legos in it for the center piece, and tied the balloons around the top of the jar. The balloons were red, blue, white and black, the same as the Ninjago guys. I found packages of fortune cookies at Publix, and put them in the goodie bags. I printed off small Ninjago pictures and tied them around the top of the goodie bags along with a small coctail sword. I also found lego wrappers that you can wrap around minature hersey bars for sale on Ebay for about $2.50. They send you a link to your email after you purchase them and you can print them right from your own computer. I waited to late to order them so I used tissue paper and and a crayon to make a lot of the wrappers. They still looked good, but it did take a long time to make each one look like a lego. I bought paper cups in red, blue, white, and black. I printed out more Ninjago eyes and glued them on all the cups. The cake was very impresive. Winn Dixie made it for us. We took a picture of the Ninjago guys that we had printed off the computer and Winn Dixie used that to make an edible sheet that covered the top of the cake! I was a little nervous about how it was going to look, but it turned out great and all of the kids loved it- mostly the boys! They all had a great time bowling. Alex got lots of nice gifts and raked in $75.00 in birthday cash! Directly after we left the party on the way home Alex started saying he didn't feel very well. We thought he might have gotten car sick. When we arrived home all his little friends who live near us came over to see what all he got for his birthday and to give him some gifts. He put on his Ninja suit that his brothers gave him for his birthday and the next thing we knew he was burning up with a fever and went downhill from there. He was taken to the Dr. three times within a little over a week. The Dr. said he had the flu. He was throwing up and running a fever. His head hurt so bad he couldn't even stand up for a few days because it just made it hurt so much worse. He had solid red eyes in the inner corner and at the bottom of his eyes. It was very scary. The Dr. assured us it was just from throwing up and he had busted some blood vessels. It has now turned into an ear infection and he is taking medicine for that, which he hates. He went back to school this past Tuesday but still has the red eyes. All the kids in his class were amazed by his eyes but happy to see him back at school. I told him to just tell them he was a vampire, lol. Thank goodness he made it through his party and felt fine the whole time as far as we knew. He hasn't even had a chance yet to open all his birthday gifts yet. He got some peel & stick Spiderman wall stickers that we plan on putting up in his room this weekend. He loves all the superheros. I am just so glad he is feeling better and things can get back to normal now. Shockingly my older boys nor I have gotten sick. So I'm very happy about that. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I think we are out of the woods by now. I have uploaded some pictures so everyone can see how cute it all turned out.

Double Checking Receipts After A Shopping Trip

My son and I decided to make a trip to Walgreens today. The weekly sales paper had some good deals on school supplies. I figured I should go ahead and get the supplies that were on sale because right before school starts they are probably going to be triple the price if not more. Many times I have waited until right before school starts and couldn't find the stuff we needed because it's sold out. I enjoy finding great deals, school supplies or otherwise. So not only did we find some very good deals on school supplies but I also found a couple of other clearance items that were a really good deal! I found a LivPure water bottle filter replacement for $1.00 and a pack of Oral-B pulsonic brush head replacements for $1.00 as well. Upon checking out I felt I was charged a little too much, but I had bought quit a bit so I couldn't really tell for sure. When I got outside I checked my receipt and realized I had been overcharged by $27.00 on an item that I was supposed to only be charged a dollar for. I immediately went back in and let them know what happened. They of course reversed the charges and credited my debit card the $27.00 that I was over charged. I have learned to always check my receipts, especially when shopping at the smaller stores like CVS and Walgreens, and other places like that. They tend to post sale prices and not program them in their system. Therefore they ring up at the original price instead of the sale price. I have to say I was very happy to know that it was $27.00 less than what they had originally charged me.

Earning Money

Yesterday I received my second check from Inbox Dollars. It lacked a few cents totaling $37.00. My first check was for around $33.00. It's a good feeling when I get that check in the mail for doing basically nothing. Mostly I just click on emails. They are only worth $.02. Yes I said $.02, but it doesn't take any time at all to do it. While I'm checking my email everyday I just take a few seconds to open up the emails sent to me from Inbox dollars. There are many other things on Inbox dollars you can do that will earn you much more money. Such as shopping, viewing videos, tasks, or signing up to be on companies email lists. I have shopped through the different sites Inbox Dollars has listed on their site two or three times to buy stuff that I was already going to buy anyway. When you do that they may give you anywhere from a $1.00 to $15.00 or more depending on what it is you're ordering or subscribing to. I don't buy anything online without either going through Inbox Dollars, Big Crumbs, Mypoints, or one of my other favorite sites first. That way I get a discount and they put the amount of the discount in my account. It's like extra money that gets put in your account for doing the same thing you would be doing anyway. It adds up and it's fun, like a surprise! I'm posting a picture of my check I received yesterday so you can take a look at it.

There is a link to Inbox Dollars on the side of my blog page if you would like to give it a try.

My First Pottery Pieces

I started pottery classes several months back. It has been a lot fun, but I dragged out what was supposed to be a 4 week class and made it a 3 month class because of my chronic pain issues. Anyway, last week I called up Ms. Lynn Koning, the instructor, and asked her if I could come pick up my pottery pieces. The last time I was there I glazed them. I enjoy the glazing and working with the clay on the pottery wheel the most. The smoothing down of the pottery, not so much! Ms. koning fired my pieces in the kiln after the glazing so I was just waiting to pick them up. I was excited to see how they turned out. I was proud to say they turned out pretty good for my very first time. Every time I look at them I feel proud knowing that I made them myself. I brought the home and served condiments out of them for the tacos I made for dinner the next night. I also made two platters using the slab roller instead of the wheel the last time I was there that are in the process of being fired now. I will post some pictures of them when I get finished with them but for now I am posting some pictures of the very first four pieces I made.

Loving "Bigcrumbs"!

I haven't talked about Bigcrumbs in awhile now. I am $8.72 away from earning $100.00 so far! It is alot of fun. Every so often I check to see if I'm due some money. It may be from purchases I've made or from purchases that others who have signed up under me have made. There are over a thousand online stores listed to shop from and growing. Stores include places like Walmart, Kmart, Toys R Us, Ace Hardware, and so many more. It's so easy! All you do is shop for things that you would normally buy anyway, and then you  receive a small percentage of your total purchase back around the same time every other month. It really adds up! I can not wait until I hit my $100 mark! I encourage you to at least check out the site and see for yourself how great it is. Sign up is free and don't forget to click thru the Bigcrumbs site before going to your shopping site so you'll get credit for your purchases. Payment for purchases is received every other month around the same time each month. Why not save a little money while shopping? http://home.bigcrumbs.com/stacyleearnold
                                                                 

BOTOX FOR PAIN

I finally received the botox injections today that I have been waiting on for over a month now. As most of my blogger friends know, I stay in chronic pain. I started seeing a new neurologist, Dr. Marden, over a month ago. She wanted to start botox injections on me to try and help me with my cervical dystonia (constant muscle spasms and tightness). I have been waiting a long time to get back in for my next appointment and get started because the doctor's office was trying to get my insurance straightened out as to what they would or wouldn't cover. I don't even know how many injections she gave me, but I know it was a lot! She injected the back of my neck, and put several in the right side of my head because the pain travels into my temple and behind my eye, and a few other areas in my shoulders. It will take a few days before I'll be able to start feeling the effect and know if it's going to help, and two weeks before I get the full effect. In the meantime I'll be praying for a miracle!

POTTERY WHEEL LESSONS

This past Monday I had my first pottery wheel lesson! I have been thinking about taking it for a very long time, but no one aound here offers it. I was sitting in "Massage Envy" a couple of weeks ago waiting to be called back for my massage and picked up our local Wiregrass Magazine to browse through it. Near the back of the magazine there it was! Pottery Wheel lessons offered by Ms. Lynn Koning of Pinkard, Al. I was so excited! After I left, I called the number and spoke with her about beginning lessons. She teaches out of her home and also at The Cultural Arts Center here in town. I chose to take lessons at her home because they don't actually use the wheel at The Arts Center, and that's the part I was most excited about.
It was a lot of fun! They were thoroughly impressed at how well I did with it being my first time to ever be on the wheel. The teacher and student kept bragging on me and said I was "a natural". They said the the other girls were going to be jealous of my work. Haha! The class last for 4 weeks. Next week I will probably trim up my pieces after they have become leather hard. After that I will learn to fire it in the kiln and glaze it. I can't wait to learn the entire process, but I'm pretty sure my favorite part is still going to be using the pottery wheel itself. What new experiences have you tried lately?

~Free Pancakes~

I was sent an email today from IHOP stating that they are serving free pancakes tomorrow!! On Feb. 28th each customer that comes in between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. will receive a free short stack which consists of 3 buttermilk pancakes. The email states that it is at participating locations and they are asking that customers consider leaving a donation that will go to help Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. Enjoy!

Space

Guest written by our friend Mason Abbott
I have been learning all this interesting stuff about space and space exploration in my science class in college. I really can not believe that right now we are totally shutting down the space program. I think it is such an interesting thing to learn about. I would love to be an astronaut and explore space. I think it is crazy all of the missions that astronauts have done that people don't even know about. When they went to the moon, everyone was all excited about it and watching it on TV. After that people kind of lost interest, but they kept exploring space. I mean we have sent so many satellites into space to explore for us. I don't even know how satellites work. I was trying to research it and just ended up going to satellitetvriversideca.com! Then I got totally sidetracked and started reading about my favorite TV series and the upcoming episodes! I am thinking that maybe I didn't really grow out of my attention deficit disorder! Ha Ha! Maybe I need to look into that!

A New Start

I think I'm ready for school to start back. The kids start back this Thursday. They are fussing and fighting, and driving me crazy! It's a new year and I'm ready to get it started. It's time to get this drain tube out of my back so I can get in the gym. I probably won't be able to do much at first, but I at least can get on the treadmill and get a good start until I'm feeling better. Once the kids are back in school that forces me to be up early and get back on track with errands and other things that need to be taken care of. Otherwise the kids and I stay up late and then get up late the next morning especially since I just had surgery right before Christmas. I know I can't really do anything anyway if I do get up earlier so it has just given me more of an excuse to not be very organized or on any type of schedule. That can be nice for a short period of time but after awhile all the things I need to do start piling up and weighing heavily on my mind.
I see the doctor for a follow up appointment tomorrow and hopefully my drain tube will be removed. Then either the end of this week or next week I will start my tutoring sessions back up as a representative of A to Z In Home Tutoring. I took a short break from it due to the holidays and my surgery. The next two things on my to do list is to sign my 16 yr. old up for Lifeguard training at the recreation center and also to get him signed up to take the ACT test as soon as possible. So beginning next week things will begin getting back to normal.