Stephanie, Author at Binkies and Briefcases • Page 59 of 80

Autumn Babymoon

October 31, 2011 By: Stephanie1 Comment

For a while now, Eddie and I had been planning our “babymoon” to the Shenandoah Valley to visit Skyline Drive. He has accumulated quite a few Holiday Inn points while traveling for work, so we were able to book a free suite for the weekend at the Holiday Inn in Front Royal, VA. (and we still have enough for another weekend….eventually.)

My wonderful in-laws took the kids and the dog for the weekend and we made the trip, which is about a two and a half hour drive from us.

Friday, the day we left, was beautiful. The fall colors of the leaves were breath-taking on the drive down, and we even saw a hot air balloon while we were driving.

The hotel was on a gorgeous golf course with great views.

This was the view Friday evening when we arrived.

Unfortunately, as you may have heard, we had a record early snow on the east coast this weekend, so this is what we woke up to Saturday morning.

We tried the park entrance twice on Saturday and once on Sunday, but it was closed because of the weather, so this was a close as we got to Skyline Drive.

No worries, though, we had a nice time just resting during the day on Saturday and going to dinner, bowling & to see the new Justin Timberlake movie In Time that evening. There was the craziest little theater in town! They made us stand outside in the snow until show time, then they let everyone in and our theater was tiny. Then the show didn’t even start for another half an hour because they couldn’t figure out how to work the projector. It could have been a frustrating day after not being able to get into the park either, but we were determined not to let anything ruin our trip.

On Sunday we spent the morning visiting some really cool antique shops and an architectural salvage store.

We tried the park again but it was still closed, so we decided that plan B would be to visit Harper’s Ferry, which we were going to have to pass through on the way home anyway. So we got to see the fall foliage after all, with a little bit of a history lesson thrown in. (Now I know a lot more about Stonewall Jackson & John Brown.)

If you’re looking for an affordable get away, you really should consider visiting the National Parks in your area. We had a great time and we really didn’t spend much money at all, no more than we would have staying home for the weekend. 🙂

$20 Coupon Challenge

October 23, 2011 By: Stephanie7 Comments

With baby #3 on the way and some more exciting news in the not-so-distant future, we need to cut back right now. After looking at our budget, we saw that we did the most unnecessary spending on food & clothing.

I’ve decided to start a weekly challenge for myself. I’m going to take $20 and some coupons to the grocery store each week & see what I can get. I’m not very good at couponing right now, like, at all, so my hope is that with practice I will start to get better and it will be fun to see the pile grow bigger over the weeks.

$20 Coupon Challenge Stretching $20

This week I went to Weis, our local supermarket. I printed a bunch of coupons, but none of them were great deals when I matched them up with the sales at the store except the $1 off Philadelphia cooking cream coupon I got off the internet. The store had the cooking cream on sale 2/$4, and I used 2 coupons since I bought 2 of them, so each one was $1. I was hoping the store would double the coupon & they would be free, but they only double coupons up to 99 cents, so no such luck.

They were also having a sale where if you bought $12 worth of Heinz/Ore-Ida products, you would get a coupon for $3 off your next purchase at the register.

So I broke it into 2 separate transactions and bought the 2 bottles of ketchup, hash browns, french fries, and pasta sauce first for a total of $12.98. Then the registered printed me a $3 off coupon, plus an extra $1 off coupon I wasn’t expecting.

I used those to buy the rest of the stuff & my second total was $7.76.

So this week for $20.74 I bought

2 bottles of ketchup
1 bag of frozen hash browns
1 bag of frozen french fries
1 jar of pasta sauce
1 bottle of apple juice
1 64oz Snapple
1 box of oatmeal cream pies
2 Philly cooking cremes
1 bag of baby carrots
and 1 grapefruit

Without coupons & my store card, the total would have been 31.34, so I saved $10.60 this time, which is about 1/3 of the order.

Eh.

I’m no Extreme Couponer, but as my good friend Mr.Steve likes to say, “It’s better than a stick in the eye.”

*Update: Here are all of my couponing adventures!

How Do You Coupon?

$20 Coupon Challenge

Coupon Monday

Coupon Monday, Round 2

Coupon Monday (on a Friday)

Couponing Update $ 1st Month in Review

Back to Non-Extreme Couponing

Double Take

October 14, 2011 By: Stephaniecomment

My aunt & uncle came to visit us yesterday and they brought me some pictures from my childhood. Everybody thought I looked exactly like Abby does at this age, even Abby, who thought she was looking at pictures of herself.

The picture on the top is one I took this morning of my daughter, the one on the bottom is me in 1987. Can you see the resemblance?

Update on Nicholas

October 12, 2011 By: Stephanie2 Comments

I’m very happy to report that all of a sudden Nicholas is doing amazingly well! (For those of you who don’t know, our son is adopted and has been struggling for a few years with severe behavior problems related to his attachment to me.)

Milestones for special needs kids

First, apparently, we are potty trained! I have to give my husband full credit for that one. On Saturday he decided to put Nick in underwear and stick with it. He took Nicholas everywhere he went (Lowes, Target, the dump…) that day and just kept changing him when he had an accident. Nick had 9 accidents that day and I truly thought that he just wasn’t ready yet, but then the next day we tried the underwear again & there were NO accidents. As a matter of fact, he hasn’t had one since, and we are going on the fourth day. I think seeing that daddy really wanted this from him made him try harder than when I was doing the same thing. I know there might be some regression, especially with the new baby coming, but I am SO happy that he is making this kind of progress!!! He’s going to kindergarten next year and I was worried he would be held back or sent to the school for kids with special needs just because he wasn’t potty trained yet.

Second, we have been seeing some dramatic improvement in his behavior. He still hits us and tends to have an inappropriate level of anger over minor issues, but he is really working on it and genuinely sorry afterward. The biting, throwing things, and other destructive behaviors (knocking over the tv, taking markers to the furniture, etc) really haven’t been around for a few months. I’ve sent Abby in with him to his last few play therapy appointments so he could practice playing with peers & I have really seen him trying to apply the skills his therapist has been working on with him. I also haven’t gotten any poor behavior reports from preschool, which is awesome because it was about this time last year that he was taking off his clothes and rubbing feces on the floor. (God must have been working overtime in those teachers’ hearts because I truly don’t know how he never got expelled.)

And finally, he actually seems to be learning lessons from his mistakes. This is huge because, obviously, that’s a really important skill to have as an adult and I honestly didn’t know if that would ever happen, so to see it clicking at four and a half is pretty amazing. It gives much more hope to his future.

Yesterday, for example, my friend Staci & I were at our church sorting clothes that had been donated. The clothes were in a small room behind a stage and in front of the stage is a large open area, so my kids and her youngest daughter, who is the same age as Nick, were running around in the open area playing tag while we moved the clothes to where they needed to be, keeping an eye on the kids as best as we could, but there really wasn’t much that they could get into.

Except there was a water fountain.

And Nicholas & his friend were very proud of themselves for making up a new version of tag, one where you took a big drink from the water fountain & then ran after your friend spitting the water at him/her. They both got pretty wet and the floor was gross.

But they are four and they honestly didn’t know they were doing something wrong, so I didn’t feel comfortable punishing them, although it was pretty exasperating for me to have to deal with. So instead I had them clean it up as best as they could with paper towels from the bathroom & I obviously told them that we couldn’t play games that involved spitting or destroying the church. But Nick didn’t seem to be affected at all by having to clean it up or my talking with him, so I thought I needed to make the lesson stick a little better.

We went home and got some money from his piggy bank & took it back to the church office. I called to make sure someone would be available, then we drove right back over there. Our pastor took some time and talked to Nicholas very patiently about what it means to be tempted & thanked him for admitting he did something wrong & trying to make it right. Then Pastor Bob asked Nick what he should do if he was tempted to spit again & guess what?

Nick actually said, “Maybe don’t spit?” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That might not seem like a big deal to you, but my kid has never in his life made a connection like that before & I didn’t know if it was a skill I’d ever be able to help him learn, so for us it was huge. In the past, he would have changed the subject & started talking about the airshow he saw last month or something.

And this morning when he hit his sister at breakfast & I asked him what Pastor Bob said to do if we found himself wanting to do something he knew he shouldn’t he said, “Don’t hit Abby. Sorry, Abby. ”

That’s what I call progress!

It would have been so much easier & faster to just put him in time out for the whole spit tag thing, but I’m really glad I took the time to try to make it a learning experience because it certainly paid off.

Serendipity

October 7, 2011 By: Stephanie1 Comment

Sigh...Don’t you just love when you find exactly what you wanted?

That’s what happened to me today at Home Goods.

You might have noticed that yesterday when I posted our bathroom reveal, I left out the corner to the right just as you enter the room. I did that on purpose because I hate the cheap KMart particle board storage unit we were hiding over there. I knew what I wanted, I just hadn’t been able to get my hands on it yet.

I’ve been in love with this ladder shelf from Pottery Barn for about a year. (Is that sad?)

But it costs $200, plus shipping.

Ana White has plans to build your own, and believe me, I wanted to, but all of the angles were just too out of my league. Poor Eddie already has about 70 million honey-do projects on his list, so he wasn’t going to be getting around to building me one any time soon. Plus, he said we needed to scale down the plans to fit in our half bath & it was going to be complicated. Blah.

Guess what I found at Home Goods today??? Do you hear a choir of angels singing, or is it just me?

They were only charging 35% of the PB price, I didn’t have to pay for shipping, it was already a smaller scale to fit our room and they offered to give me an extra 10% off because it is “damaged.” (One paint drip and there are some small gaps where the shelves meet the sides because the manufacturer didn’t use caulk.)

There were only two left and one actually was damaged. I literally yelped when I saw them, called Eddie, and proceeded to loop my arm through the top rung, and waddle around the store 6 months pregnant carrying this ladder and pushing the cart that was holding Abby and the baskets I originally walked in to buy. Nobody else was talking this puppy.

Mine.

Powder Room Reveal

October 6, 2011 By: Stephanie7 Comments

I know I’ve been MIA from the blog for a while, sorry, life’s been getting in the way. 🙂

I’m 26 weeks pregnant now, we just celebrated Nick’s Gotcha Day (the anniversary of his adoption), my mom and I presented at a child development conference, I’m working more hours, and Eddie has been sick.

Although it’s not quite finished (most people would probably consider adding a door a pretty important step) our bathroom is finally looking good enough that I thought I could share the pictures with you.

Do you remember where it started?

Yeah, yuck. I really don’t know who ever thought brown shag carpet in a bathroom was a good idea. Or that brown as an overall color scheme for a bathroom is a good idea for that matter. It’s not. Also, that yellowish stuff on the top half of the room? Not wall paper. All the paper fell off before we moved in, that’s just the old glue. Plywood streaked with old yellow wallpaper glue wasn’t adding much to my decor. We’ve been working on it slowly over time as we had extra money to spend on this project.

And now we are here:

Here’s what it looks like at the moment. shhh…the sink still isn’t hooked up yet.

Eddie did all of the work himself, except for a little help on my part installing the new floor and the toilet. The space was just too small for two people to be in there working together, plus he didn’t want me doing too much heavy lifting or being exposed to all the dust & fumes while I’m pregnant. He had to take a long break, like several months, off from house projects to study for his PE exam, but he passed. Yeah!

Our final cost came in around $900. (That includes the cost of the door, which we do have, it’s just not up yet.) I think that’s a lot, but then again, I’m really cheap. I guess any time you can spend under $1,000 for an entirely new bathroom it’s a good deal.

Walls $300 (Beadboard, adhesive, plumbing behind sink & paint)

Sink $30 (Craigslist)

Mirror $50

Accessories: $20 (towel rack, outlet covers)

New Floor $130 (vinyl and underlayment from Lowes. We had some left over from our kitchen. We didn’t spend this much on the materials, but some of the extra money went into the electric costs to add a new outlet.)

New blinds for window: $40

New moldings: $50

New toilet and Faucet $200

New Door: $50

Bathroom ladder shelf: $100 (Homegoods)

Total: $970

Most of the expenses you can’t really see. Eddie basically had to rebuild the entire wall behind the sink because the studs weren’t properly spaced to support anything & he insulated the crawl space behind that wall, added an electrical outlet, redid some of the plumbing for the toilet & sink…it all ads up. The only surfaces we didn’t need to replace were the window and the ceiling.

We also didn’t spend all that money at once. We stretched this project out for over a year.

So my job was to find affordable ways to make it look pretty. This little corner showcases some of my best deals. The pedestal sink was $30 on Craigslist. The mirror was $49 at the Pottery Barn outlet. (That’s $200 off retail because it was missing one washer. We were easily able to find a replacement at Lowes for about $2.) And the towels I bought for $5 each last year when Pottery Barn had a free monogramming/free shipping sale after Christmas.

Everybody gave me a hard time about taking the bead board all the way to the ceiling, but we didn’t really have much of a choice because behind the original paneling every wall was a different material. Plaster, cinder block, you name it. If we’d tried to frame out drywall against the cinder block, we would have needed to relocate the plumbing for the toilet and that’s not something within hubby’s skill set, so it would have gotten really expensive really fast. Plus, I had seen Gina do it, so I knew it would look nice. Eddie’s not thrilled that the bead board is just attached to the cinder block with liquid nails on the wall behind the toilet. He calls shortcuts like that “putting lipstick on a pig.” I call it good enough.

I’ll be so happy when our lower level is finally finished! We’ve been in this house for almost 3 years and we only use about half of our square footage because we completely avoid the downstairs. With baby #3 on the way, I really think we can use the extra space!

Turkey Hill Experience Review

September 22, 2011 By: Stephanie1 Comment

So…there’s a new attraction that just opened recently about 20 minutes from our house.

It’s called the Turkey Hill Experience. Turkey Hill is a company in our area (Columbia, PA) that sells ice cream, iced tea, lemonade, and such. The Experience is like a hands-on science museum for kids that takes them through the process of making ice cream. Coincidentally, today is also National Ice Cream Cone Day. True story.

Turkey Hill Experience Review

Um…Say what? There’s a science-based children’s museum down the road from my house that is focused solely on the process of making ice cream. And my kids are young enough to get in for free? And they give us free ice cream while we’re there? Yes.

For some reason, I’ve heard some negative reviews about this place from other parents, mostly that it was too expensive & kind of boring. I guess if you have 3 or 4 older children, admission would get expensive at $12/ person. But my kids were both 4 & under, so I only had to pay for myself. We went with my friend Chrissy & her little boy, Jack, and they both had a good time as well. I would not say it was boring at all.

Before we went, I had my kids watch the video here, which was over their heads, but they seemed to like anyway. Once we got there, I liked that it was ok for the kids to touch everything.

We each got a free scoop of our choice of flavors. The little ones got vanilla, but Nick, Chrissy & I got a graham cracker, chocolate, marshmallow s’mores-ish flavor named after the Phillies baseball team.

As a former science teacher of gifted children, I was geeking out just a little bit (ok, a lot) over the way that science was incorporated into almost every corner.

Even the ball pit was used to model homogenization.

Although, that would be my one critique: I think there was a slight disconnect between the educational concepts and the age-appropriateness of the attractions. For example, the little ones LOVED the ball bit but couldn’t care less about the homogenization concept it represented. Kids who are old enough to understand that concept (I’m thinking 3rd or 4th grade and up) are too big for this ball pit.

Same thing about the slide that was, if I remember correctly, supposed to represent the machinery used to process & package the ice cream.

But whatever. We still had a great time, even if my kids can’t grasp the higher-level science concepts yet.

(Yes, I’m 6 months pregnant and wearing a shirt that says “bumpalicious.” You are still required to take this review seriously 🙂

They do seem to understand that ice cream is made from milk and milk comes from cows.

We also got to design our own ice cream flavor, its packaging and create & star in our own tv commercial in something they call the Create Your Own | The Turkey Hill Experience. (Click on the link and scroll to the bottom to watch our commercial.) It would have been awesome to be able to taste our own creation if they’d had a Coldstone-style set-up instead of the ready-made cart, but, hey, I’m not going to complain about free ice cream.

Overall, as a mom, I really liked it. I would take my kids back again, probably before Nick turns 5 so he can still get in for free. I like anything that shows kids where their food comes from and anything that gets kids interested in science. Although Chrissy and I both said afterward that, while all of the exhibits were beautiful & well-done, we wished there would have been a few more. We went through pretty quickly, so I’m sure older children would be able to do everything in 40 minutes or less.

As a teacher, I think it would be a great place for a third-grade field trip. Any younger won’t understand the science, and older will be too big for the attractions. I’d say that’s kind of limiting your market. I also think they could easily add more math & science concepts like the idea of physical & chemical changes, pints to gallons, etc.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars for kids ages 9 and under.

On a related note, I spent all morning trying to order a copy of this book. I got it in college & used it in my classroom (so much that it fell apart) when we would talk about liquids changing to solids & make our own ice cream using this ball.

The book is out of print now & Amazon wanted almost $40 for it. I was able to find it for $6 on a religious gifts site (??) here.

So there, next time we go to the Turkey Hill Experience, I’ll be prepared with our bedtime story.

A little background about me, I’m slightly obsessed with finding children’s books that connect to our experiences. We’re going to an apple orchard tomorrow to have our family photos done by a fabulous young photographer you might have seen around blogland before (YAY!!! Can’t wait to share more with you afterward!) and there are no less than 6 books about apples on our living room shelf at the moment…you can’t take the classroom out of the teacher, I guess.

*UPDATE: Since we’ve visited THE, the ticket prices have changed and free admission is only up to age 3. They have also added an experience you can purchase where you do get to make your own ice cream flavors!

Looking for more fun family activities in the Lancaster area? We LOVE Dutch Wonderland and they are very accommodating with special needs. I wrote all about our experience here.

Vacationing with kids with Autism (1)

I’ve rounded up my favorite family-friendly activities for the York and Lancaster area and share them all in this post.

Kid Friendly Activities

Next Week’s Meal Plan

September 9, 2011 By: Stephanie2 Comments

I’m on a Crock Pot kick lately, thanks to the overwhelmingly popular Crock Pot Girls

I wrote out my meal plan for next week (which is way easier now thanks to Pinterest!) & thought I’d share it with you, in case you’d like to do it too since all the work is already done. 🙂

I found almost all of the dinner recipes there.

This week I’m using these recipes:

Toast Cups
(I’ve already made these once & they turned out really well!)

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Meat sauce

Apple Bacon BBQ Chicken

Crock pot apple sauce

Here Goes:

Week 1

Mostly Crock Pot Dinners

Week of:

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Breakfast

Toast Cups

(bread, egg, bacon)

Cereal

Blueberry pancakes

(make extra & freeze)

Cereal

oatmeal

Pancakes

Oatmeal

Lunch

Grilled Cheese

Chicken nachos

Made from left-over soup, drained

PB & J

Broccoli & cheese baked potatoes

w/ left-over broccoli

FREE

PB & J or grilled cheese

Left-overs

Dinner

Crock Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup

Spaghetti w/ Crock pot meat sauce

Crock Pot Apple BBQ chicken

w/ sweet potato fries & broccoli

Baked ziti from left- over meat sauce

Pork chops & crock pot apple sauce

Left-overs

FREE

Snack

Carrots w/ ranch dressing

Raisins

Popcorn

Celery sticks w/ peanut butter and raisins

Pretzels

Carrots w/ ranch

Popcorn

When I’m writing a meal plan, I try to match up ingredients for the week as best I can without making it too boring. For instance, the bacon will be in the toast cups and the apple bbq chicken and the apples will be in the chicken and the apple sauce. I also try to be thoughtful about what I will probably have left-over in order to save money. That’s why broccoli & cheese baked potatoes are for lunch the day after broccoli is our dinner vegetable. Then I’ll probably have left-over potatoes so I’ll use them the following week for something.

I wrote out a shopping list (which is in no particular order, sorry!) but I already have a lot of this stuff in my pantry, so you probably do too. I didn’t include any of the dry spices or things like sugar in the meat sauce recipe because I know I will always have those on hand.

2 packs boneless skinless chicken breasts

2 lbs ground beef

Pork chops

Minced garlic

BBQ sauce

10 Apples

Bacon slices

Sweet potatoes

Russet potatoes

Frozen broccoli

Lemon juice

1 can corn

1 can black beans

1 can South West tomatoes

1 pack taco seasoning

1 can cream of chicken soup

4 cans tomato sauce

Shredded Cheddar cheese

Shredded mozzarella cheese

1 dozen eggs

Loaf of bread

Frozen spinach (I like to put this in my baked zitti)

1 box spaghetti

1 box zitti

2 cans tomato paste

1 onion

Cereal

Oatmeal

Bisquick

Tortilla chips

Sour cream

Milk

Cheese slices

Carrots

Celery

Ranch dressing

Raisins

Peanut butter

Jelly

Pretzels

popcorn

Blueberries

I’m trying to get a few weeks like this together w/ meal plans, shopping lists & recipes, using lots of crock pot meals so that I can make my life easier after the newest baby comes this winter.

Hope it makes your life a little easier too!

We Might Need an Ark

September 8, 2011 By: Stephaniecomment

Yesterday was our first day of preschool, but it got overshadowed a bit.

Tropical Storm Lee hit us pretty hard in Central Pennsylvania yesterday! And it’s still raining. The roads were flooding all day yesterday & it was getting pretty insane. People were being evacuated from their houses, some even by boat! The schools closed early, but a lot of the buses couldn’t get the kids home because of all the road closures & a mudslide on the highway. Eddie’s boss’s son got stuck in his high school, they weren’t letting the kids out or the parents in to come get them. The zoo even had to euthanize two bison because they were drowning and couldn’t be moved in time. 🙁

They are saying this is the worst flooding around here since the 1970’s.

Here are a few pictures that some of my local friends posted on Facebook.

And this is a picture I took of a yard down the street from us (This was at 10am, it only got worse.)

Our house and family are fine so far (fingers crossed) but it might be a while before things get back to normal around here. Eddie did go in to work today because the road he takes was clear, but the schools are closed and police are asking everyone to stay home if they can.

It’s a Disney movie marathon day for me and the kids here today. I hope Nick gets to go back to preschool tomorrow. (Abby doesn’t go on Fridays.)

Date Night and a Special Envelope

September 4, 2011 By: Stephanie3 Comments

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:

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Autumn Babymoon

$20 Coupon Challenge

Double Take

Update on Nicholas

Serendipity

Powder Room Reveal

Turkey Hill Experience Review

Next Week’s Meal Plan

We Might Need an Ark

Date Night and a Special Envelope

Binkies and Briefcases with Stephanie Giese

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