Is it worth $500...a "corny" picture

5 minutes for Mom is hosting a giveaway with Prego. All you have to do is post a fun, family food related photo on your blog and then link it to their blog for a chance to enter. Here is my entry...


















This was Manny with his first ear of corn. He really enjoyed it once he realized that he could lick all of the butter off!

Ready...set...jump!

The Bloggy Giveaways have begun again and are in full swing...and for those of you with the courage, go and jump in! For some reason the giveaways seem a little overwhelming to me right now so I have only entered a couple instead of my usual 100's.

My friend Richelle is giving away the cutest shoes I have ever seen...














To win a pair of these (also a boy pair being offered) do the swan dive over to her site and enter.

wordless wednesday

And speaking of coffee....

Barnes and Noble is giving away a free cup of coffee! Click here to get the coupon to redeem. Hurry! It is only good through October 31st.

Thanks to MY PENNY PILE for sharing this great info!

You know it's love when...

This evening I started the bedtime routine. It can be quite intense sometimes but I wanted to do it tonight. As I put our little ones in bed (well, actually just my little boy...my daughter was looking at her pet snail. Yes- a pet snail named Sam. My hubby said that she could keep it til' it dies. Did ya know that snails can live a whopping 10-15 years? 10-15 years!!!! I love to hear her talk about him, she says 'yeah, he's a wild one'"

Anyway...back from la-la land...I am almost finished listening to my daughter read from If you give a pig a pancake when my sweet hubby comes in to finish putting her to bed. As I walk toward the living room I get smell a wonderful aroma. That sweet, wonderful aroma of coffee. My coffee. To me, my hubby making coffee for me is one of those sweet acts that a hubby can do for a wife. He doesn't drink it, doesn't like the smell, etc...but he makes it for me.

So, here is my coffee that I should be sipping right now in the silence instead of typing...

















And here is my lovely clean kitchen, thanks to my hubby. Yes, I realize that the door is open, this is my flaw. So, I thought I would leave it open as a true testament of myself...

For The Love of Blocks

I try hard to come up with things that my two year old will sit and do. I also try to incorporate those same items into homeschooling my six year old. There is one single item that I have grown to love....blocks!

I found these foam blocks in the craft section at Wallace World








They came in a box of, oh say, a couple hundred or so (at least that is what they look like when they are dumped in the floor by a two year old!) and they come in such wonderful colors.

Here are our uses for them.

1. They came with a large yellow plastic needle and plastic thread. My little one will sit and string these beads for a good ten or fifteen minutes (which is a woo-doggie! amount of time for him to actually concentrate on something)

2. We do this awesome game (again for my two year old but my six year old enjoys the simpleness of it as well) with them.

I had to head to the doctor's office one day and knew that there would be an awful wait. So, in a moment of pure genius, I grab a pair of my hubby's black socks from the drawer and a these little blocks. I put one or two of each shape and size of blocks in the sock, making sure that each sock had the exact same amount/color/sizes

At the doctor's office, each child was given a sock. I would say "find the large circle" and they would put their little hands deep down into that dark sock (so that they couldn't cheat by looking) and try to find that shape/size.

To my amazement-my two year old did it every time! And it killed a good twenty minutes. Now I must warn you that this game of sticking ones' hand down into a black sock while sitting in a doctors office and pulling out different colored shapes while yelling "I got it! I got it!)" may bring different reactions from those sharing the lobby with you. Just a thought.

3. They are great for homeschooling.







The fact that they are the same size/color/shape makes for a great way to not only practice shape identification/color/shapes but it also helps to teach units/sets/fractions.

I told my six year old, for instance-using the small ones pictured, that the rectangle shape that they make has been divided into fourths. Each one is 1/4. Two makes 1/2 of the shape, three makes 3/4 of the shape and so on.

They do a much better job than chocolate graham crackers (*guilt* especially when one said homeschooling/nursing mom shouldn't eat wheat!)

4. They are great for stacking and making towers