ShamROCK 2011

I saw this shirt at the Children's Place last June and knew that my boys had to have them! They will both be sporting these shirts to the party!

I really like that when I start to type in the title, I only get to "Sha" and blogger knows that I am typing "ShamROCK"! I hope all of you, my blog friends, knew that this post was coming, too! It is getting to be mid-March and time for our annual St. Patty's karaoke party.

So, here are the details for this year:

When: Friday, March 18th

Time: 6:00 - 8:00

Where: Our House (of course!)

Who: If you're my friend and reading this, come and part-ay with us as we ShamROCK the night away (well, evening hours before the kids need to go to bed - we are on a schedule here).

Dress: As always, costumes are recommended but not mandatory!

The V-Day Presents

So, Valentine's Day has come and gone (like over a week ago), and I finally got around to taking pictures of our homemade gifts.

Richard has been talking about trying out the Mediterranean diet for awhile, so I got him supplies to start that. I got him a book/cookbook specifically for the Mediterranean diet, some supplies, food and made him this:

My version of a crafty menu board!

Richard, well, he always does something on the computer. This year he put his nerdiness to good use, if I do say so myself. He made me a new karaoke dvd with some of my favorite songs past and present. I love it! Nelson loves it, too. We karaoke every night before breathing treatment, per Nelson's request! The last song on the dvd is Nelson's favorite song, so it is sung the most.

I had to take a picture of each screen of the dvd because I thought it was cute how Richard titled everything! Love it!

Update: Swagbucks

Remember how I talked about Swagbucks back in August and said that I was earning Amazon gift cards to buy Richard a Christmas present? Well, I decided I better update you all and let you know what "present" I bought for him. My goal was to earn $50 worth of gift cards and to my surprise I surpassed that goal by a long way! Little did I know that when I first posted here about Swagbucks and how "you can use their search tool and earn points and then trade those points in for gift cards" that when you refer someone and they start earning points, you do, too! In fact six of you joined Swagbucks through my referral link on the side of my blog and I earned up to 1,000 points from each of you! Wow! Thank you! A $5 Amazon gift card can be traded for 450 points so most of my referrals earned me $10+ of Amazon credit.

Now let me tell you what I bought from Amazon with that credit:

* Wii Ultimate Band (for a friend)

* Lego City Fire Car X2 (for nephews)

* I-Dance Buzz Lightyear (for the Toy Story lover in my house for his birthday)

* 3 GB of computer memory (for the nerd) - this alone would have been the $50 I wanted to earn for Christmas

* Brigham Young: American Moses book (for the same hunky nerd)

* Cassette car adapter (he has to listen to his podcasts on his way to and from work)

* Electric shaver foil and cutter replacement pack (for my father-in-law for Christmas/birthday)

Since Christmas, I have been using my gift cards on diapers, wipes, head phones, and H&R At Home tax software. I pair up my gift cards with good deals I find on my "deal websites" to stretch the money even farther. I also signed up for Amazon Mom to get free 2-day shipping on most of these items.

Anyway, I first wanted to thank those who signed up under me. And, for those I just now convinced to start using Swagbucks as a search engine (you can also earn points by watching videos; printing and using coupons; participating in daily polls or surveys and other things on their website), continue to share the love and earn points for yourself. I heard that they will be celebrating their third anniversary next week with some great point offers, so now is a good time to join!

A Love Story

When Richard and I were engaged, he spent way too much on me for Valentine's day. The next year we were poor and I didn't want him to think he needed to spend lots, so we decided to make our gifts that year. Richard put our story (or at least his version) of how we met and fell in love to music. I loved it so much that I told him that we needed to make our gifts every year! So we do.

Anyway, I put the tracks to our "Love Story" off to the right. I don't expect you to listen to it all but if you want to feel love, listen to a couple or three or four. It's really THAT good.

I was going to put a picture up of what I made for Richard this year, but he just came up the stairs and is sitting right behind me. That will be for another post - post-Valentine's. So for now, enjoy the love songs!