Category: Misc

Uncommon Goods has long been one of my favorite places on the internet to find those amazing off-beat gifts that you don’t see just anywhere. So when they approached me about doing a review and giveaway on my blog, I was thrilled! Over the years I’ve ordered some great gifts from them, and happily have received some hilarious gifts from them … in fact, one of my favorite onesies the kids wore came from Uncommon Goods! (you can see it here modeled by Tabby) – so I knew I was in for some fun. They allowed me to select a couple of items for review and I had a heck of a hard time choosing.

I am a sucker for cool lunchboxes so one thing I wanted to check out was the Box Appetit Lunchbox. This is one really well-thought-out lunchbox. The body of it is a good sort of flat bowl shape and worked great for my salad. It has two removable compartments, one pretty small for something like a condiment and one larger for a side dish or half-sandwich – good and versatile. The lid also has a clip for the fork that it comes with as well as a depression that you can use to put sauce in for dipping! The whole thing is dishwasher safe and microwavable (up to 2 minutes). It is roomy without being too big and worked well for my entree salad.

The other thing I selected was Wildlife Bingo – for the kids of course. French and Spanish Bingo are huge hits at our house – both kids beg to play them, and I thought they’d love this as well – and I was right. Each card has 24 full color photos of wild animals and their name below them. There is also a matching card to be drawn out randomly and marked on the card. These cards besides having the name of the animal give facts about it including things like what it eats, where it lives, etc. The kids and I played two rounds and had a great time. I think it would be a fun one to keep in the camper and bring out when we’re in the woods.

It was fun checking out Uncommon Goods’ products but I felt bad that I didn’t select anything specifically for Matt! They have some really great gifts for guys so maybe I can find him something for Fathers’ Day.

Last but certainly not least, they are giving one of you the opportunity to win a $50 Gift Certificate to Uncommon Goods. So check out the giveaway below. You can enter up to three times:

1. Tweeting a link to one of Uncommon Goods’ family pages (listed on the left side of their site – things like “for her” or “for him”
2. Follow Uncommon Goods on Pinterest
3. Like Uncommon Goods’ Facebook Page.

Good luck! I will be announcing the winner on Friday. Thanks so much to Uncommon Goods for this great opportunity!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Man it was a great weekend. We were crazy busy (duh) and it was jam-packed, but such fun! I’m also pleased to say the house doesn’t even look too terrible.

Friday I kicked off my leisure days with a 12 mile run in the AM with my good friend J. We got two hours of quality time pounding the pavement around our ‘burb. It was good sweaty fun and I was glad to get ‘er done. Then I started the MOST FUN of the weekend, working on potty training with Ben. If nothing else solidifies my (our) resolution to be done with having kids, potty training will do it. He apparently has the stubbornness of both his parents and about 10 generations worth of other ancestors combined into one little man. And that’s about all I’m going to say on the matter, oh and just a piece of advice … tackling potty training AFTER a 12 mile run is probably a bad idea. Aside from potty training, we did the normal Friday things like a run to the grocery store, naps, dinner, etc. We dyed Easter Eggs after dinner for some extra fun.

Saturday I officially started my career as a Soccer Mom. Tabby joined the ranks of soccer players with her first practice/game with her team. Our friend is coaching a team, and his son, one of Tabby’s good buddies is on the team and they are SO EXCITED to be playing together. Tabby is a good little runner (yay) and does pretty well kicking the ball, but she seemed to get a little intimidated when it got too wild chasing the ball. She did seem to get more into it as the game progressed.

Ben was a bit peeved that he couldn’t play too, but he got over it fairly quickly. He rotated activities, one minute greeting his public with enthusiastic “hello!”s, playing pick-up games with the other siblings hanging around, mooching snacks off anyone and everyone and taking up residence in whatever chairs were on the sidelines. I think he may be mayor of something someday. Kid cracks me up.

Post soccer, we headed home and had lunch then Matt dropped the kids at my parents’ house. They were staying over so we could attend a surprise party for a friend. The party was a decided success. The birthday girl was very touched and happy about her surprise and it was a great opportunity to catch up with many good friends. We had a great time and got to bed really late and super exhausted.

I hated missing the kids excitement over the Easter Bunny this morning, but I got a great call from Ben telling me, “The Easter Bunny came today! He brought cars! and candy! and jelly beans!” Love that jelly beans get their own specific call out. We met up with my parents and the kids and then headed to my grandma’s for Easter with the extended family. It was great seeing everyone and catching up. The kids had a great time hunting eggs and consuming sugar. SUGAR! There were no naps and we put the kids to bed a little early after a light dinner. So much to do before tomorrow.

I did not make it to the gym yesterday morning. But I have a good reason … no really! I lost 2+ hours of precious sleep in the middle of the night thanks to some strange things afoot in our ‘hood. I woke up from what I presume was a pretty dead-sleep around 2 AM thinking I heard someone open and/or close our front door. I asked Matt if he’d heard anything and he said no and noted that the alarm panel wasn’t registering an open door. I was fine with going back to bed, but for some reason, he decided to go check things out.

So he headed downstairs and as he was coming downstairs, someone started knocking loudly and repeatedly at our door. Matt whistled for our trusty hound and Loki came running, bark at the ready. At some point in time the guy rang the doorbell and I heard a lot of barking from Loki. Whether it was just because he wasn’t getting a response or because of Loki’s barking, he went next door to our neighbor’s house. He was on their porch for a while and we thought maybe our neighbors were talking to him, but we found out later they didn’t open their door either.

I’m a bit fuzzy on the sequence of events, but when he was done with our neighbors’ house, he ran off down the street towards the (entirely closed) commercial section of our little enclave (home of a yoga studio, pizza shop, salon, dentist’s office, vet, martial arts studio, and coffee shop). Matt called over to our neighbors to check on things and he was glad he had because her husband was out of town and he let her know that he was next door if she needed anything. Soon he saw a police cruiser coming through our ‘hood and he flagged them down and let them know what was up. About that time the guy came running down the street again (not sure where he’d been) and the cops were on him in an instant.

We watched the rest of it unfold from Ben’s room – both kids slept through the whole thing – using the binoculars to get a better view. We still don’t know what was up, but he sat on the ground obviously agitated while the officers talked to him. By the time the whole thing was over, probably heading towards an hour after they first detained him, we had four cruisers on the scene. We joked that if he was just having a bad day he picked the worst place … our city has a surplus of very bored cops. Eventually, an ambulance showed up and hauled him off.

Curious as heck, but also concerned about possible threats in the ‘hood, Matt called the police department and talked to the officer who responded. He indicated that the guy was very very drunk and quite lost. He was looking for his friend’s house … a friend who lives in a completely different neighborhood. That’s pretty darn drunk.

• It has been the longest short week ever. The kids have been over tired, sick and generally grumpy. The courses of antibiotics are just about over with and I think they’re on the mend, but the sleep has been sketchy and patchy and we’re all pretty over-tired.
• At Christmas we ordered Tabby a bike. It was damaged when we tried to assemble it on Christmas Eve and we ended up giving her a scooter we’d picked up during a Christmas sale instead (or Santa did? I can’t remember now). We decided to save the replacement bike for her birthday. Unfortunately, when Matt went to assemble it yesterday (yea, I know, procrastination!), it was no better than the first one. Continue reading “The Haps”

We spent the weekend with some of our Nashville Family. They came to town to enjoy some CO winter fun and to show off the latest addition to the family, our darling niece, Autumn.

We got going after work on Thursday and made the short trek to Vail. On the way we stopped at Silverthorne to check out the Ice Castles there. Unfortunately, it was frigid out which made it really hard to enjoy the castles. We did a cursory look-through and headed back to the car. Continue reading “Visitors from Nashville”

A few weeks ago we had a crazy blizzard that duped 4 feet of snow in parts of the state. We’ve had some nice weather since then, so it had mostly melted. And yesterday, it got up in the mid to high 50s and we got WIND. Not a little wind. Like Your Little Dog Too kind of wind. I had a friend who had her mail box blown over. Not a single home mailbox, one of the giant 15-house ones that are metal and they put in the same time as the curb. Another friend had a giant trash can blow right in front of her. I saw two fences blow down on my way home from work. Our neighborhood was strewn with garbage cans. Speaking of which, why does this always happen on trash day, or really trash and recycling day??? Hmmm??

Then for the first time since we’ve lived in our neighborhood, we lost power. Our neighborhood is newer and has most of the power lines buried (a very good choice for the weather we get), so something killed our substation. It was a huge dark area. Matt and Tabby were at her skating lessons (where they didn’t lose power) so it was just myself and Ben. We used my phone to hunt around and find flashlights and we lit some candles. Unfortunately, the meatloaf was in the oven and hardly cooked, so when Matt and Tabby got back, we wound up going out and getting some great Mexican food. By the time we got home we had power again.

I went to bed with a forecast for a single inch of snow. By the time I got up we had 3 inches. The plows were behind, the interstate closed, and they say we’re getting a few more before it’s done.  But the mountains have powder and our family’s flight is on time. To top it all off, we’ll be in the 50s and sunny this weekend. Gotta love the 303.

Remember the time when my wedding ring flew off and went up underneath our kitchen cabinets behind the baseboard? Yea, that was fun. Well it went on another adventure last week. Only this time it had help.

See last week, I was taking a shower and the kids were hanging around playing. Just as I was getting out of the shower, Ben came in the bathroom. I was drying off when I noticed him near the door to the throne room. I heard a funny metallic clink and saw Ben was playing with the strike plate on the door casing.

“What are you doing, buddy?” I asked.

He turned around, pleased with himself. “It fit. So I put it in da hole!” That’s when I saw he was holding the engagement ring half of my wedding ring set. And I realized what was in the hole. After an admonishment to my son, and rescuing my engagement ring, I went to investigate. The ring had actually been lodged just below the opening in the strike plate. I tried to retrieve it using my seam ripper (handy, pointy) and just pushed it down further into the casing. Yay me.

Matt was kind enough to take on the process of retreiving it for me. He got to remove the trim strip inside the door, as well as some tack-strip after he pulled back the carpet. We found that my ring had fallen down a foot and a half or so and lodged itself on a shim.

It is back safely on my ring finger and will stay there … except for showers and I have found a more secure location to place them. The trim strip is still missing and will likely be for the foreseeable future. Possibly this will push up our get-rid-of-the-nasty-carpet-in-our-bathroom project. Possibly.

Christmas has come and gone in a flash. I remember when I was a kid and it was all joy and excitement and anticipation and fun. It’s still all those things, but now there’s a hefty dose of exhaustion and work in there too. We spent Christmas Eve running all over the place with this and that left to done. Santa assembled two bikes … or tried to. Ben’s darling balance bike went together in about 10 seconds, but Tabby’s big girl bike didn’t go together AT ALL. The fork was bent so badly we couldn’t get the front wheel on, so we had to call Amazon for a return. Luckily, Santa had picked up a scooter on sale in prep for Tabby’s birthday, so that went under the tree instead. Yay. We had a lovely rest of Christmas Eve, drinking margaritas, eating excellent Mexican food (as is tradition) and cooking food for Christmas Dinner.

Christmas Day came about as early as normal – the kids were up by 7 AM. They both were overjoyed to see their Santa gifts. The bed for Tabby’s beloved doll was a huge hit, as was the tent Santa constructed for Ben (I’ll have to post specifically about this later – meant to before Christmas but time got away from me!). They also loved the bike and scooter. Loads of other presents from us and my parents. Ben loved his new Buzz and Woody figures and Tabby really loved her spinny toothbrush my mom got her (go figure).

After present opening, we went to my grandma’s house to meet up with the extended family for brunch and a few more presents. Then back to my parents’ house for naps (unfortunately only the kids) and dinner prep. The extended family then showed up for a lovely Christmas Dinner and more wonderful time spent together. It was a lovely Christmas and everyone was very spoiled and well fed and blessed. Hope your Christmas was equally wonderful.

Guess what wasn’t in my gym bag this morning … oops!