Follow up to Cans for Comments

The deadline for commenting on my blog post has passed.  Thank you everyone who participated.  What an easy way to give by only taking a moment of your time.  I generated my first 3 followers (YAY!) and got 7 comments.  That makes for 13 total can goods to be donated, but that was still lower than the 15 minimum I had promised.  Instead of just adding the last 2 cans and calling it a day, I have decided to go ahead and donate the 13 generated from the blog and the additional 15, for a total of 28 cans!

Max and I went to a few stores and got cans, mostly because we were there anyway and secondly he was having meltdowns so we had to leave each store early and couldn't finish gathering our cans. Here is a pic of our haul

As mentioned in previous posts, I have a preference to which food pantry and second hand store I like to donate our stuff too.  This isn't for any reason other than my mom goes thrift shopping at this particular store weekly and we both see first hand the line at the food bank and the need for donated items there.  It is of course the Agape House in Pacific Mo. 

I wanted to get the cans out there before Christmas but we didn't make it, and then I thought about the old saying, "Hunger knows no season" so I figure any time is as good as any, so we will be headed out there sometime this week.  My plan is to get a picture of Maxsen donating the items and make sure we talk to him about this sort of thing and make it a frequent thing.  I would love to get him started early doing whatever he can to help others.

Little Fishes Swim School

Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of being invited to my first mommy blogger event, a swim meet up at Little Fishes Swim School in Brentwood.  Maxsen had taken classes there this summer but we decided to take a hiatus for the winter and it was great to be back.  We have a swimming pool at our house as well as a condo at the Lake of the Ozarks, so Maxsen's water safety is a top priority for us. 

Just some quick swimming facts that I found on the Internet:

From the CDC's website: Every day, about ten people die from unintentional drowning. Of these, two are children aged 14 or younger. Drowning is the sixth leading cause of unintentional injury death for people of all ages, and the second leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 14 years.
Click the link for more information on water risks.

Here's a link to some children pool safety tips to follow.  Pool Safety Tips

I feel like one of the best things I can do is teach not only Max but myself how to keep both of us safe in the water, and swimming lessons are the first step.  Plus, it's fun!  Who doesn't like to have fun?!

sliding down the ramp

swimming to the fish before pancakes

We started the event by chatting with the other Bloggers and playing with all the cool toys they have in the waiting room.  Then it was time to swim!  I could tell Maxsen remembered the process of getting ready in the changing room but once we got to the pool it was a different story.  He was a little scared of getting in without me, but once I was in with him he warmed up to the situation again.   We did our island work, pancakes, and even went underwater (which I stated earlier that day I wasn't going to let him do but we got caught up in the moment and I knew he would be fine with it) .   He took to it like, well, fish to water!  HA HA I AM A COMEDIAN! 

Once class was over and we got dried off, we had snacks and chatted some more (we are women you know) and then painted some fishies.  Played, swam, painted fishies, had snacks, a one year olds little slice of heaven.  Click here for Little Fishes Blog.

After the event was over I realized how much we missed the class.  Swimming is so important to us given our situation and seeing how much Maxsen really loves it, I cannot wait to go back.  Swim lessons are not only a fun activity, but a life lesson as well.   Spring, hurry up!

Mom's Day Out

Maxsen has been going to a Mom's Day Out program at a local church for a few months now and he loves it. Around here we just call it school. I pack a lunch for him and I have to drag him out of bed to go there so I see this as a premonition of things to come when real school starts. His teachers names are Mrs. Marsha and Mrs. Andrea and when ever I say, "Max do you want to go to school today? " He yells, "MARSHA!!" with the utmost enthusiasm.  I Love it.  I even taught him to say Marsha, Marsha, Marsha, and then I felt like a total hypocrite being as that I am positive she probably hates that as much as I hate being sung to.  But just about anything is cute when a 1 year old says it (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

Anyway, I always loved when my mom did things at school or made special things for the class or for my teachers and Mrs. MARSHA! and Mrs. Andrea are Max's very first "teachers" so we spent a couple days making something special for them. I of course saw the idea on the idea mecca of the world, Pinterest.

Max made thumbprint reindeer

Big box of Goldfish for the class

And judging from the stories Max's dad has told me about his school days, it won't hurt to start sucking up now.  Maybe I can get it perfected before Max really needs it ;)

So I'm sure you can see that this is a fairly new blog and I am doing my best to update it at least 2 times a month until I really get the hang of it.  I currently have zero, zilch, zip in the way of followers or subscribers and to a blogger (new or seasoned) that's like a proverbial kick in the b@lls.  (If I had b@lls, which I don't of course because I am a woman.  Hence the posts about fabric and rug making, but I digress.)

 I came across Cans for Comments idea on a blog that I read called great expectations and I thought not only is this an awesome way to help this time of year, it might help me get my blog out there.  

Here's how it works, for every comment I get from today until Dec 20th I will dontate one can of food, for every new follower I will dontate two cans of food.  I will make a minimum donation of 15 cans of food anyway in good faith, but I would love to see how much you all can help me out!

Kitchen update progress

I am still in the thrones of updating my kitchen.  Ever since we moved in (like 7 years ago) we have not liked the cabinets and so our first project was to make them current. We previously had the regular old builder grade oak cabinets (hello 90's!) and we finally had them painted. We could have done it ourselves and gone the divorce route but we paid a real professional to do it.  I can't find an old pic of the hideous oak, but here's the freshly painted ones:    

I've also been busy making some pinboards that I saw on Pinterest.  I absolutely love them and they were super easy to make.  I have already hung them even though I still need to paint, but it was suggested to me that I go ahead and put them where I want them and paint over the holes so I don't have to mark up my newly painted walls.  Plus then if I make a mistake I can just patch before I paint. Sounded like a good idea to me so that's what I did.  I failed to take a pic of them before I hung all kinds of stuff on them but here's some pics of the process.  I got the fabric at Hancock Fabrics.

Next up for the kitchen remodel is the paint color.  I want to paint it yellow.  We get tons of summer sun and I can't wait to see the yellow in the summer against the sun.  Instant happiness!  Here were some samples we were thinking about and ultimately I chose the one in the middle called Moonlit Yellow.  Just need to buy it and get it done.  Being realistic, it will not happen before Christmas though.  Here are the paint samples:

Next couple projects include a T- shirt shag rug that I saw on Pinterest and  DIY granite countertops  they have at all the big box stores.  I already got my husband to agree that we are doing that project this winter so hopefully we actually do.