SIPRESS SCOOP

  Have you heard of “the Elf on the Shelf? Well around the beginning of November I started to see pictures of a little elf in mischievous positions all over Pinterest and I did some investigating (code for Google).   Turns out it is a book and elf combo set you “adopt” for your family.   The elf is sent to your family from Santa’s toy shop located at the North Pole.   Each night while the children sleep, the elf does something naughty or nice based upon how your children behaved.   Now it also didn’t take me long to find a bunch of blogs written about “overachieving elf on the shelf Moms”.   I quickly realized that I would be falling in to this category and from here on out will except that title with PRIDE! Adoptions fees for these elves can add up to almost $40. As I pondered the idea, I shared my thoughts with the people around me (Tyler & my Mom). After a little of her own investigating (a phone call, followed by a trip to Barnes ...

Hello November!!! As Thanksgiving approached each day on facebook, I shared something I'm grateful for in my life. As Americans we are the world’s largest consumers of products and waste.   It can be easy to focus on what we want or what we don’t have and I find it refreshing each day to remind myself of all the fabulous things I do have in life. 1- I'm grateful for having an amazing & loving Great Aunt who is now said to be cancer free!!! 2- I am grateful that my husband has a good Union job that gives him paid vacation. This has been a nice relaxing week with Tyler at home. 3- Today I'm grateful for my cousin Erin . We never spent much time together as children but I have truly enjoyed getting to know her the last two years & I consider myself a lucky lady to have her as a friend. 4- Today I am grateful for L-A-Z-Y Sundays that include a big breakfast made by Tyler & a few rounds of hide-n-seek... 5- Today I am grateful to be an American ...

Maybe it is just me but this year I got extremely stressed out over Halloween costumes.   I know, shake your heads at me but I really like my kids to match to some extent.   I also realize that I only get control over what exactly their costumes are for a couple of years.   Everyone around me kept telling us to just take the kids to the store and let them choose, but what if they choose something weird or random?   Tyler wanted the kids to be Mike Rozoski & boo from Monsters inc.   Someone from his work even lent us a Mike costume.   However, the mike was too big & needed dry cleaning and to purchase a Boo costume was over a hundred dollars!!!   A friend & I did contemplate making a Boo costume but then the amount of the materials was going to be more than I was comfortable spending on a children’s Halloween costume.   I also secretly really wanted them to be Cookie Monster & Elmo, but those costumes were also out of our budget....