Projects!

We have decided to make 2010 the year of improvements. I know we are a month behind on making new year's resolutions, but we have received the inspiration and motivation we need to make some changes around here.

First! We were inspired by a story we saw on the news about a lady who plans her families meals for a year.s That way she know exactly what is coming and can prepare for it. She knows exactly how to shop the sales at the grocery store because she knows the exact amounts of everything she needs. We are going to try it out. We wrote down the meals that everyone likes and side dishes to go with most of them. We will put them in order and rotate through. I am gathering all the recipes for these meals and putting them all in one place so when it is time to cook I have everything in one place!! I am also going through all the food magazine we have to find some additional recipes and copying them into my new recipe notebook. I am pretty excited about this new plan! Figuring out what to have is half the battle, so we're already partial winners in that sense!


Second! Being inspired by a Martha Stewart magazine to try a new project, I have completed my first scarf. Needle felting is a lot of fun!! I can't wait to make another scarf for me (Jason claimed this one) and one for Paisley. I'm really excited to think of other fun needle felting projects I can do!

Third! Our fifth Sunday lesson was all about the family finance section of providentliving.org. We have decided to crack down and make a better attempt at budgeting. Our current budget is sad and needs a makeover. This also relates to our first project of planning our meals ahead of time.
We are really excited to crunch some numbers and figure out a better system!

Fourth! Fixing things!! Our water softener hasn't work in about 2 years (shocking it lasted that long, can you tell how old this thing is?? hint: older than me!)) The water here is HARD!!! We all are very dried out thanks to our hard water. We were preparing ourselves to have to buy a new one, but the wonderful repair man came today and was able to fix it!! That really made our budget happy! We look forward to losing the itchy feeling that came from our super hard water.

There are a few other projects we have going on and perhaps they will be a different post. We look forward to improving ourselves and our household. It feel refreshing to make improvements!! We know we are behind but welcome 2010 we can't wait for more of you to come!!

Big Crumb

I keep saying that the key to my success with my etsy store is getting the word out. I have found another way to do that!! It is called Big Crumb (if you click on the picture it will take you there) It is an awesome website that let's store owners (even big retail chains, not just small businesses) list their stores and their deals. It is pretty cool. It also has a facebook spin on it where you can be friends with other store owners and have status updates. I'm very new to the website but have enjoy exploring and getting The Purse Place listed on there. Feel free to check it out. You can also join free to become a shopper on the site or add your own store to it. All of their accounts are free. I'm pretty excited to have my store out there more in the public view. Thanks for checking it out!!

By the way my to get to my etsy store the link is thepurseplace.etsy.com or you can order directly though my email at purseplace.etsy@gmail.com

Thanks!

The Purse Place Prize Drawing

The Purse Place will be holding a prize drawing for a chance to win one of my hair accessories!! With every purchase you gain one entry into the drawing. For every 15 purchases at my store I will add another prize!! I will keep adding prizes as needed. The email address that you pay with on paypal will be the email address that goes into the prize drawing and where you will be notified if you win. The contest will end at 11:59pm on January 31. The drawing will take place on February 1. So let's get shopping to get some entries into the drawing!!

My store can be found by clicking the widget on the sidebar, or going to:
thepurseplace.etsy.com

You can also order directly by email me at purseplace.etsy@gmail.com and those sales will also count for the drawing!

Also if you would like to follow my store's progress on facebook, you can become a fan at:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/McPherson-KS/The-Purse-Place/237748328205?ref=ts

Spread the word!
THANKS!!

Our Fun New Years Eve!!

We have had a very fun New Years Eve day! It started out with the tradition breakfast out. We didn't take a picture, but we went to Ihop. It was adequate. We ran a few errands in Salina and then we headed off to the Rolling Hills Wildlife Museum!! Thanks Mom for the tickets! It was sure fun. Jason did a puzzle.

Paisley played with the legos and the animals.

Then she put on a puppet show for us! After the museum we headed to the Russel Stover Factory store to get some chocolates for our part tonight!

This is Jason and Jarom partying it up with a sippy cup. Jarom went to the doctor today and she said it was time he start learn to drink from a sippy cup. The cup makes him a little frustrated because he can't get anything to come out in his mouth.

We made some yummy carmel bugles and Paisley is loving staying up past her bedtime, eating bugles and watching Fern Gully. We are having a super fun party at our house!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

The Exploration Place

The day started by making Paisley's hair cute! Then we headed down to Wichita to use our super fun Christmas present from the Cornwall's of tickets to The Exploration Place!

It was FREEZING today but we had to stop for a quick picture!

The traveling exhibit was "How to make a Monster" which featured monsters from several different films and the process they went through to make them. This was a monster was used in a cell phone commercial.

There was an incredible castle to play through. It was multi-leveled and had a lot of different rooms and activities within the walls. It was pretty fun!
At the end of the monster exhibit there was the crocodile from the Peter Pan movie from 2003, this cute poster was next to that exhibit. Jarom and I would make a tasty dinner.

Paisley would make a yummy snack.

And Jason would be a delicious feast!!

Jason was brave and took a whirl in the tornado simulator. Winds got up to 78 mph!

Meanwhile Paisley was building a tower.

We all took turns flight an airplane in the flight simulator. We all crashed the plane, instead of landing it. We'll leave that to professionals!!

We had a SUPER FUN time today at the Exploration Place!!

Our Anniversary Recap

For Our 7th Anniversary we had a lot of fun!!! We ran a lot of errands all over town. Then in the afternoon our friend called to see if we were interested in going out to dinner for her birthday and we said SURE!! We were already planning on it for our anniversary. So we had a good time going out to eat with a lot more people than we had originally planned. It was a good time!

Reminiscing

I was going over old videos we posted on youtube a couple years back aqnd found this really cute one of Paisley!!