Friday was our 5 year wedding anniversary. Yay! (Everyone’s been teasing Eddie this week because he looks about 15 in that picture. He was old enough to drink the champagne, promise.)

We decided to celebrate by going back to the same restaurant where we had our wedding reception. We also decided, at the suggestion of my wonderful mother-in-law (whose birthday is today, so Happy Birthday!) to open the envelope that told us the gender of the new baby.

The last time I was pregnant, we had the ultrasound tech write down the gender and we opened the envelope on Christmas morning. We had been debating about whether or not to be surprised this time, but we decided that this would be a fun way to find out too.

So Friday night we dropped the kids off with Eddie’s parents and headed down to Baltimore’s Pier 5 Hotel for dinner at Ruth’s Chris.

We had to snap a photo on the back deck of my in-laws first, though, because that’s where we take all special occasion pictures. We have a picture of the two of us getting ready to leave for the high school prom right in this spot. 🙂

We were worried there would be a lot of traffic because the Grad Prix race is in Baltimore this weekend, but we lucked out & the roads and the restaurant were practically empty because the race was on other side of the city. The restaurant staff was very sweet and opened the ballroom so I could snap a picture of the room where we had our reception. The room was twice this size on our big day because the dividers on the right were open.

Eddie made me wait until the end of dinner before we opened the envelope. AGH, the suspense! We ordered the calamari appetizer, salads, filet mignon, wine (for him, not me) and they gave us a complementary cheesecake dessert for our special day. 🙂

Then it was finally time to open the envelope!!! It’s a…

GIRL!

I took a video of the envelope-opening process if you’d care to watch:

I highly suggest heading to Kohl’s right now if there is one in your area because all of the games are 60-80% off. Plus if you sign up for their email list there is an extra 15% off your entire purchase, including clearance items, coupon this week.

I bought all 6 of these games for $25. I can’t usually do much better at the thrift store and these are brand new. Not bad considering the Scene It games retail for $30 each. I also got some Pj’s that Abby needed, which brought my total high enough to qualify for $10 in Kohl’s cash that I plan to use next week to but two more of the games if they are still on sale (The cashier thought they would be) which would make 8 games for $25.

At least one will be going with my hubby tomorrow because he’s playing in a golf tournament to benefit Toys for Tots, but the others I can save for Christmas & birthday gifts. The Twilight game is going to elicit some major eye rolling from Eddie when I gently twist his arm into playing it with me tonight. (Hey, I couldn’t pass it up for 5 bucks.)

We had to break out the Cooties game right away. My sister and I used to play it with my Mommom when she would babysit us as kids. Nicholas loved it too. It is great for fine motor skills, colors, and counting practice. Plus it’s fun. 🙂

It was the first time he’s ever sat through an entire game.

I’m addicted to games. We have an entire 7 foot tall shelving unit in our basement stacked with board games. They are my second biggest vice, right behind hoarding children’s books. Are you a board game family? Which games are your favorite?

Recently I was asked to serve on the advisory board for the upcoming book The Entitlement Trap by New York Times bestselling authors Richard and Linda Eyre.

The book will be available on September 6th, but you can pre-order a copy at a 33% discount on their website by clicking here (You will pay $12 instead of $18.) or you can pre-order on Amazon.com, where the Kindle addition is available.

I’m excited that a new book is being published addressing the issue of entitlement in children because as a former private school attendee, and especially as a teacher specializing in gifted students in an upscale area, it is something I have seen frequently: spoiled kids who believe they have the God-given right to have whatever they want, regardless of the consequences.

I try very hard as a parent to get my children to accept the word “no” because it’s an important life skill they will need as an adult. No, I’m not going to buy that if I would have to put it on a credit card. No, I’m not going to eat a second piece of cake even though I want it. No, I’m not going to take out a home loan that big even if the bank says I can afford it. (We all know where that one gets us.)

It’s easy for parents to fall into the trap of trying to “keep up with the Joneses.”

I had second graders whose cell phones would go off during class and a former employer of mine had three children, drove two brand new BMW’s but was worried about his house going under foreclosure and had to close his business. Parents of children who were not even in the gifted program would come to meetings to give their peers the false impression that their children were in the gifted classes, and one family even wrote into a local magazine complaining about my class (their daughter wasn’t gifted and I never even met her, let alone taught her) just to get their picture & false story published because having a child in the gifted program was a huge status symbol in our community. When children didn’t pass the tests the school gave, parents paid hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for private psychologists to issue the tests to their children, repeatedly, until they passed, never mind that Florida was in the middle of a horrific housing crisis and many of their home were under foreclosure or short sale.

Priorities, people.

The Entitlement Trap is about having them and how to set them for ourselves and for our children.

Of course, the examples I gave were pretty extreme. It can be something as simple as always offering to buy a candy bar or a small toy as a way to keep the kids quiet and well-behaved in the store. In a surprisingly short amount of time they come to expect it and the one time you decide not to buy it, you will be met with temper tantrums & tears.

This book is about setting ourselves up for success rather than failure.

I believe it’s always easier to do the right thing in the first place, and we have a responsibility to do right by our children.

You can visit the website here for more information.

**I will be compensated via a review copy of the book before it’s publication date, but all opions in this post are 100% mine.**

After my post yesterday about how our veggie garden is actually pretty successful this year I had a big, fat massive FAIL. A series of them actually…

I thought I would be all Martha-y and make some homemade tomato soup with all the tomatoes we were able to harvest. (There were 10 ripe ones for us to pick yesterday. Yay!) I’d never made tomato soup, so I looked up a few recipes and altered them to work with what I had. I’ll give you the recipe in a minute, but first I have to warn you that it might be cursed.

After I simmered the soup for about an hour, I transferred it to the blender. That was a big disaster. I was holding down the lid, but still managed to have burning hot soup shoot out like a volcano everywhere. Cabinets, counter, sink, stove, dog, me…you name it, it was covered in soup.

I cleaned that up and transferred what was left of the soup into the refrigerator, where I proceeded to knock it over. It had been on the top shelf, so it spilled all over eveything yet again.

Then as I was doing all the dishes I created in the soup fiasco, I dropped a ceramic plate. Of course it smashed into 1,000 pieces. Of course I was barefoot and stepped in one of them and cut myself.

Basically, yesterday I picked 10 tomatoes, 2 green peppers, some basil, defrosted homemade chicken stock, cooked for a few hours, and all I got was one measly bowl of soup and a HUGE mess. The soup was pretty good, but a little too spicy for my taste. Next time I’d leave out the red pepper flakes.

If you would like to try your luck (I hope yours is better than mine), here is the recipe:

Spicy Tomato Soup:
3 cups of chicken stock
10 tomatoes, seeded and smashed (strain juice, discard seeds, keep juice)
1 tbs fresh basil, chopped
1 diced green pepper
2 tbs brown sugar
salt and pepper to taste
optional: red pepper flakes
optional: diced onion & celery (I didn’t used these, but would if I had them on hand)

Combine ingredients on stove top and simmer for 45 min-1 hour
CAREFULLY transfer ingredients to blender and blend until smooth
Cool and store in refrigerator or freeze

Everybody loves saving money, right?

Here are the best deals that I found this week.

You can get free dinner tonight at Chick Fil A because it is Cow Appreciation Day. Just download the printable mask from their website.

Tomorrow (7/9) from 8am-noon Old Navy will be having a grab bag sale in the store. You pay $20 and get a mystery bag filled with $100-$125 worth of clothes in your size. The consensus on their Facebook page seems to be that you can use a Groupon, so if you got the Groupon that was out a few weeks ago, you will only pay $10. It’s kind of risky because you can’t see the clothes until after you buy them, but I think I’m going to try it.

Canvas People are having their free 8×10 photo canvas sale again! You just pay the $14.95 for shipping. That’s expensive shipping, but an amazing deal on a photo canvas. You can also get discounted upgrades on larger sizes at checkout.

Also, we were pleasantly surprised to learn last week that our Regal Cinema has $5 movie tickets all day on Tuesdays. Eddie took Nicholas to see Cars 2 and was happy to learn that it only cost $10 for the two of them to see it. Apparently only participating Regal Cinemas are doing this, but call and ask yours if they are! Seeing new releases in the theater can get expensive!

Finally, Dress Barn is having 50% off a lot of their online merchandise, plus you get an extra $10 off if you buy two dresses.

I’m still on the lookout for a winter coat that will cover my 9 month pregnant belly come December, so let me know if you find any good deals on one!