Great Finds.

After working the last 5 nights at the hospital and collapsing from exhaustion, I needed to get out of the house and have some fun. When I met Eric, he had over 100 shirts in his closet and all from thrift stores. I was known as a Thrift Store Queen in high school. Since having Tyler, rarely have we gone to thrift stores. Since we have been on a tighter budget lately, we have been trying to find ways to cut our cost and still find clothes and toys for Tyler.
we finally realized that thrift store shopping would help us. You will be surprised with amount of really nice stuff you can get at a thrift store if you know how to look.

We decided to spend the afternoon and go to a couple of thrift stores we have seen while driving around. I am soooo glad we did!This is what we got:

A desk, a blanket for the dogs, a monkey pillow, a tie, fabric, 7 nice shirts for Eric, and two brand new skirts with original store tags still on all for $30 at the Salvation Army's 60% off sale. Yes, Thrift stores also have sales. All of this stuff would have cost about $80 at the thrift store's regular price which is still pretty cheap compared to getting this amount at a regular store.

My new sewing desk for $16, original thrift store price of $40. It will have an folding extension table and some other custom designs once Eric is done with it. Now I can get my sewing machine off the dinning room table.


A huge Tonka Truck, two other cool trucks with lots of sounds and gadgets, a dress shirt for Ty, memory game, book, fireman hat, baseball bat all for $25 at Goodwill store. Ty had a blast in this store just giddy with happiness and tried to carry all the trucks around by himself. Of course he couldn't, but he was determined to try. Playing outside for him now is going to be even better.

This is all the fabric that I have been buying over the last couple of months. Some are from thrift stores, other discounted with sales and coupons, and a couple full priced, but all very beautiful. I have a lot of sewing projects in mind with this fabric.

Just Me and Mommy.

I have been working a lot of overtime at the hospital lately. You would have thought we delivered everyone in the whole town by now. Though I love my job, I would rather be spending time at home. Poor Tyler has been a little neglected lately with mommy being so tired. Today I decided that we needed to have some special Mommy-Son time and go to the Zoo.

We arrived when it opened and were greeted with hundreds of school kids waiting to have fun and see animals. Tyler joined right in and started following then everywhere. I think he enjoyed the other kids more than looking at the animals. He was a good sport with the large crowd and spent time looking at each animal then waving and saying,"bye" to each one. His favorite animals was the giraffe and the flamingos. He just giggled when he saw them. He also loved the carousel and giggled and waved to the man working every time he passed by. It was a great day even though there were tantrums at times. Hopefully there will be more Mommy and Me days to come.Tyler mesmerized with the Lemurs.

Tyler's favorite animal. He said, "Oooooo!"A little frustrated at still being small and not able to climb up the frog by himself like the other kids. The carousel.

Zoom! Zoom!

Last weekend, Tyler was able to spend some man with little man time with Daddy at a Studebaker Car Show. I had worked the night before so I needed to sleep. Tyler had a great time and Eric had an even better time talking car stuff all day. The hardest part was keeping Tyler from trying to get in the cars. He is just like his dad.Tyler loves getting into Daddy's car and trying to drive off in with Mommy.

1955 Studebaker Speedsters. Eric's car is the Lemon and Lime on the left. It's the original color. Pretty Stylin'!One of the cars on Eric's wish list. Packard Hawk. There are not very many of them out there. I still like Eric's car better.

Happy Mother's Day!

I couldn't ask for a better Mother's Day than spending this weekend with my own mother. I feel this was the best weekend ever. We walked in the Race for the Cure, had a BBQ with our family at my house while the kids all played, took naps, and just spent time having a relaxing time together.My hubby and the BBQ. He had fun.

Grandpa and the grandkids playing piano.

My niece thought she was a great piano player and constantly ran back to play.

Since it was Mother's Day this weekend, I wanted something special for my mother. I really did not have money in my budget to get her what I really wanted so at the last moment I decided to make her something like I was a little kid again. It took me a couple hours and I used what fabric I had. It was probably not a gift that she would use all the time, but I wanted it to be something that I made.
A nice Apron was her gift with some little recipe books. She is holding up my creation thinking that I just wanted a picture of it my archive of my crafts that I made. She did not know that she would be getting this as her gift the next day.

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

Race for the Cure, Sacramento

This weekend my mom, my sister-in-law, and I walked 3 miles for the Race for the Cure. We had a lot of fun. There were over 25,000 people registered, but about 20,000 people walked. It was really fun to see all these people, men, women, and kids wearing pink. The best part was seeing all the pink survivor shirts for those who survived breast cancer. Mom looked really cute in hers. I know it made here feel really supported. It was also sad at times. On the back of a lot of shirts were signs that said " in memory of" The most recent death was on May 4th,2009 that we saw. One older gentleman had 3 signs clipped down the back of his shirt in memory of his wife and in celebration of his two daughters. One of his daughters was walking with him. It was a very emotional time and being around all these people you could not help but tear up. Mom said once during the day that she felt a little guilty because she was so lucky to not have gone through all the chemo and radiation and suffering that a lot of these women and their families went through. I truly feel that she was blessed and that she had a greater purpose from this experience.

Next year we will make this an entire family event and have our own team. Thanks everyone for their donations and thoughts for my mom. A total of $345 was raised on behalf of my mom. She was the 2nd highest person for our team and she doesn't even work for Sutter Memorial Hospital.Our exercise instructors who helped us warm up for the race.

Mom warming up.

My sister-in-law and mom walking. It was at times really crowded.

Some of the different teams that walked. The finish line!