Music Lover's Punishment

My boys have always been music lovers. It might have something to do with the fact that I'm singing all the time. We love to make up songs together. A hiking ditty is called "Watch Where You Put Your Feet."

Watch where you put your feet,
Watch where you put your feet,
Snakes, and puddles and logs,
Watch where you put your feet.

For about two months we've been working with a special music curriculum called Making Music Praying Twice. One day a week we have friends come over and we sing songs, dance, and play instruments. The curriculum is very broad and includes songs from other cultures and musical traditions as well as some lovely hymns and fun nursery rhymes.

Xavier loves sitting on his new bed and listening to CDs now. Yesterday I overheard my husband settling a skirmish between the boys in their room. It ended this way:

"Xavier, do NOT slam the door on your brother again. Share the room or I'm turning off the jazz!"

It was quite the motivator for fraternal peace.

Big Beds

Goodbye, toddler bed and crib; hello, big beds. Tim and I teamed up to build the boys a pair of beds that will eventually be stacked into a bunk bed in a few years. We used these plans. Tim bought and cut the wood while I did the sanding and most of the build. We bought the mattresses at Big Lots and the bedding at Target.

This was technically the boys' big Christmas gift--it just took a little longer than I thought to complete. I didn't want to rush the process. Xavier got such a kick out of seeing his new bed under various stages of construction. As you can see, though, Jack doesn't seem to mind the delay either.

I'm very happy with the results. These beds are SOLID. And if the boys manage to scratch or break them, we've got the skills, supplies and tools to fix them.

Easel to Love

It's amazing how a simple easel makes learning letters so much more fun. One side is a chalkboard and the other is a magnetic dry-erase board. Both have jump started the boys' letter drawing efforts. They don't even know yet that I can clip paper onto this and they can paint standing up. Wonderful!

Tot School -- January 2011

Fine motor skills, aka sticker fun. Hanging laundry in the dining room. I'm convinced Montessori will eventually turn my sons into little houseminions.

Dressing up to go outside. Jack and Xavier suited up and then came to find me to let them into the back yard.

Working on the letter C.

Hot Wheels

Forgive me. I'm nearly an entire month behind in posting photos so you, dear readers, are going to have to endure some Christmas photos. Tim took Xavier to the park today for a bike riding "lesson" which reminded me that I have a backlog of adorable riding toy photos and one hillarious video. Enjoy!

Yup. That's Jack on Xavier's "big boy" bike. He can't ride it but he likes to try.

Here he is on the Hot Wheel while Xavier puts on his helmet.

Now on to the smaller training bike.

Nope, even if he can't make it go, Jack still wants to sit on his big brother's bike.

And a few days later...

Opposites

Xavier: Mom, what's the opposite of car?

Me: It doesn't have an opposite, sweetie.

Xavier: Yes, it does!

Dad: Yeah? What is it?

Xavier: (pause). Skateboard!

Halloween Pics

Xavier was a construction worker and Jack was an owl. We opted for daytime trick-or-treating at the Ames Main Street Trick-or-Treat on Friday. Tim took off work for the afternoon and the boys had a blast.

A Tale of Two Coats

Nearly six weeks ago Grandma and Grandpa McNicholl sent the boys their very first full-fledged winter coats via the fairies at Land's End. Jack loved his so much that he refused to take it off for about an hour after arrival. These coats are fantastic: lots of pockets for little boys, built in fingerless gloves, water and dirt resistant fabric, and even the ability to add two more inches to the sleeve legnth as the boys grow.

It has been an unseasonably warm autumn here in Iowa so up until now the coats haven't gotten much day-to-day use. Since we are such an outdoors-loving family the coats did come in handy for all the weekend camping trips where we were outside first thing in the morning and the temperatures were quite chilly.

Here are the coats at Grinnell college's homecoming weekend.


At Rock Creek State Park.

This morning it is finally a very chilly 24 degrees with an expected high of 45 degrees. Our first official Coat Day!

Why Is It...

Why is it that whenever I don't have a camera with me, we see the most unusual things? I suppose I should start from the beginning. I had the best intentions this morning of doing craft time at the library and then heading out for a few hours of play and picnic at one of the many local parks. I'm finally getting around to reading Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv and am feeling even more inspired to make sure my kids get plenty of time with nature.

So we woke up, dressed, threw a load of laundry in downstairs, and had breakfast. We were all set to head off for our planned adventure when, as often happens, life had other plans for us. Tim had accidentally gone to work this morning with our car keys in his backpack.

Desperate not to give up so soon on my resolve to spend more time outdoors, I took the boys on a little walk around the office park that encircles our hotel. It is still Iowa you know and the development is surrounded by corn fields and woods. The funny thing about walking when you aren't going anywhere and don't have a set time frame--you start to see things. Sure enough we saw something...goose poop. And lots of it. Then we began to notice goose feathers too. Xavier spotted first the rarest of finds. A goose egg! I have no idea why it was there and I imagine the mama goose was long gone on her flight south for the winter. I just wish I had brought the camera but even then I'm not sure a photo would have captured the amount of awe and wonder we all had at the discovery. It was as if we had found a secret door into fairyland or a leprechaun.

The Great Lakes of Iowa

This past weekend we decided to out drive the rainy weather and headed north to the "Iowa Great Lakes" region. If the name is confusing, no, there hasn't been a great shift in geography--Iowa doesn't border on one of the Great Lakes (Superior, Eerie, etc.). These are the Iowa Great Lakes, folks. See, it's different.

Actually despite the name confusion, this area earns its moniker as "Iowa's number one resort." Frankly, it is probably the only resort but who's quibbling? It reminds me of a midwestern Highlands, NC or Seaside, FL. Lots of big houses, lots of resorts, lots of cabin rentals. It being September we were there in the "off season" so things were relatively quiet.

We enjoyed some quiet camping by one of the lakes. Temperatures got a bit chilly—it was about 45 degrees in the morning with the bonus wind coming off the lake. Some good coffee and cocoa warmed us up quickly though.

Here's our new 6-man tent that we got for the bargain price of $100 after triple markdown and end-of-season sale. (Frugal note: September is a great time to get camping equipment on sale!)

Here's a quick shot of Xavier helping daddy tote water back from the pump a few campsites away.

Our plan is to keep camping on the weekends until the weather just doesn't allow it anymore. We love being outside and enjoying Jiffy pop around the campfire at night and singing campfire songs. Good clean family fun.

Main Street Music Night

Thursday night after dinner we all went down to Main Street for their annual Music Night. About 40 different shops and restaurants had small musical acts in or just outside their doors. Not only did the event encourage folks to take a closer look at some of the downtown businesses but to also get a sense of all the musical talent in the city.

Most of the acts were amateurs but obviously very talented. Some of the acts fit the store. For example the candy store had a series of recitals by the local Suzuki violin students. (Xavier wanted to "take a turn" on the violin after seeing a young boy play.) The genres ranged from bluegrass barn dance to xylophone jazz.

Jack had as much fun watching the people go by as dancing to the music.

This was Tim's favorite...a jug-band styled group.

Xavier enjoyed the acoustic guitars too.

TILAA--Sidewalks

This is the first in what I hope to be a short series of musings about Things I Love About Ames (TILAA). I reserve the right to extend my love to all of Iowa if the topic warrants it!

Pretty much all of Ames is connected by sidewalks. It is lovely. People use them. We use them. Walking is such a nice way to start and end the day. We regularly go on walks as a family now.

One thing that I've noticed about having lots of sidewalks, it makes drivers drive differently. Taking a left turn? You look for cars but also pedestrians. Theres a soft subtle shift in the brain when this happens, you no longer feel isolated in an impenetrable SUV-bubble.

Sidewalks. Love 'em.

Oh Happy Day!

We finally got an honest-to-goodness piece of forwarded mail here in Iowa. While it was nice to get the thank you note from my nephew, it was even better to be able to go to the Ames library and use the envelope to get our library card. The boys and I have been on a meager book diet over the past few months. While in Winston-Salem we did hit the Goodwill to stock up on a few new books at the bargain price of $0.50 a piece but there just wasn't enough room in the truck to get too many.

The Ames library has a single location downtown with a very active bookmobile program that goes all over the city. I don't know if the lack of branches accounts for it but this is the loveliest community library I've ever seen. They have all the whistles and bells of technology: self check out, online reservations, MP3 downloads, e-mail reminders when books are about to be due, extensive and current DVD collection...and I've only been on the first floor!

The children's section is equally impressive. They have a dedicated room for storytime, which occurs about 12 times a week. Some of you may have heard my complaints about our usual storytime in Beaumont. The folks who run this do a fantastic job of really engaging the kids while also giving the parents pre-reading tips. The rest of the children's section includes a fish tank, a puppet theatre, several play areas, rockers for mothers to read to their children in, picture books in kid-friendly bins rather than standard stacks, and so much more. The collection for kids includes toys, CDs, DVDs, musical instruments, puzzles and other toys. It is a godsend for us since we don't really want to fill our small apartment with new toys but do want the boys to have a variety of playthings to keep them interested.

I fully plan to make this library a stop several times a week while we are here.

A Tale of Two Gardens...

...and two cats.

On our way to Iowa we spent a few days in Winston-Salem with Grandma and Grandpa M. Each day we took the boys on a little outing to see some of the sites of Winston-Salem. Sometimes it was just a playground but we did get to see two lovely historic gardens while we were there.

The first was Reynolda Gardens on the campus of Wake Forest. The formal gardens and greenhouse host dozens upon dozens of vegetables, roses, and rare plants. These were the most manicured vegetable gardens that I've ever seen. The dirt in these gardens looks like brownie mix. I can't imagine that the suns sets on a weed in Reynolda gardens.

While looking around a little one-eared, white kitty took to being our tour guide. The boys were enchanted. I suppose I was too as all my photos are of the boys with the cat...none of the garden itself. I'm such a poor archivist! Anyway, here is a photo of Xavier taking an imaginary photo of the cat with his map.

The second garden we visited was a historical recreation of the garden at Historic Bethabara Park. It is a Williamstown-like recreation of the original Morovian settlement of Winston-Salem. It was a weekday so there were no reenactors other than in the gift shop. We had a fun time exploring the fort but my favorite part by far was the community garden. They rent out space with the two rules that you can't plant corn (as it was considered a field crop only in the past) and tomatoes (as they were considered poisonous!). We saw lots of okra, herbs, flowers, beans, peppers and these HUGE sunflowers. Down the middle was a grapevine-covered walk. At this garden we met a black cat/caretaker who was very interested in our turkey sandwiches!

After seeing the gleam in my eye at both these garden tours, my husband told me he thought we might need to get a house with a larger yard. I'll admit I'm inspired to begin planning the winter garden when we get home to Texas.

Summer Images

As we near the end of the summer (which I prefer to mark at the autumnal equinox) I thought I'd share a mish mash of things that were still on my camera as we headed up to Iowa.

A photo of the okra blossom. Our okra plants really produced this year--enough to make several pots of gumbo! I hated to pull them up before we left for our trip.

These beans were pretty but didn't really produce much before it was time to leave. I think I planted them too late or expected the harvest too early. Boys playing chase in the clothesline.

Playing with paper dolls on a rainy day. Jack liked to decapitate his while Xavier preferred to just separate and rejoin his with tape.

All the kids one Sunday before Mass.

Xavier in his "house" made of laundry baskets.

Xavier at swim lessons. Bless his heart, Xavier was the smallest and youngest one in his class. He seemed to enjoy the water but didn't understand most of the instructions. Needless to say, he will repeat this class next summer!

Hello from Ames

Hi gang,

Due to the personal nature of this blog, I'm putting on privacy settings for the months we are in Iowa while Tim is on sabbatical. Sorry for the extra time you'll need to spend signing it but it was either this or writing in "code" about our adventures here, or just not posting at all.

Viewership of this blog is now by invitation only.

Posts and photos to come soon about our vacation and our life here in Ames. The short version is that we are living in a 1BR extended stay hotel room for three months. It is a small but totally manageable space. We look forward to finding lots of things to do while we are here.

Xavier is napping in my room and the camera is in there too so no photos for now. Soon, I promise!

Photo Dump

The boys are obsessed with puzzles these days. Xavier actually puts his together while Jack likes to take the pieces out of the box, spread them out, and put them back in the box. Two puzzles and a table-length distance are required to keep the peace.

Check out the double rainbow we saw from our backyard the other afternoon. There's a pot of gold under my clothesline!

Xavier and Jack on the trike.

Jack and his buddy Keira on the trike.

Hot Lists and Price Books

Did you all enjoy your week and a half off? Sorry about the gap in classes, folks. With my stepdaughter here for the summer I've been so busy living life that I've had little to no time to blog about it. Couponing and bargain hunting has been making its effect on my family. The boys love to play with my discarded coupons when I'm culling out the expired ones. My stepdaughter is beginning to learn more about PPU (price per unit) and just realized yesterday that the popcorn that the movies sells for $4 costs us about $.06 to make at home.

Enough chit chat, let's get down to business. Today we are going to learn about the value and use of price books. If you only do ONE thing from this series of blog posts, this is it. Back in the dark ages before marriage and kids I worked as an editor of a small women's magazine. One of the parts of my job was to keep an eye on the costs of our supplies and vendors (printers, paper, delivery service, shipping service, etc.) and every so often to comparison shop. Money saved was money earned, quite literally for me as my compensation was based in part on the profitability of each and every issue. I had elaborate spreadsheets dedicated to analyzing various business expenses and how they could change our profitability.

When I shifted gears into homemaking, making a price book made perfect sense to me. I was new to Beaumont and I had no idea which stores had the best prices. Why wouldn't I make a list of what I bought and how much it cost? So using both my receipts and flyers from grocery stores I made a new spreadsheet with the following columns:

• Category Organize your price book into whatever categories make sense to you. Mine are Baking Goods, Beauty/Grooming, Beverages, Breads, Canned Goods, Cleaning Products, Condiments, Dairy, Frozen, Meat, Pasta, Produce and Seafood.
• Item, Here you specify the item name. If it is an item you are brand loyal about, put the exact product name (i.e. Sensodyne), otherwise just put the generic name (whitening toothpaste).
• Date, Slowly you'll begin to realize that certain products go on sale about every 12 weeks and others go on sale seasonally. Having the date also lets you monitor how overall prices are increasing over time.
• Store, I have abbreviations for each store I frequent
• Quantity, List the numeral for the size or amount of what was purchased (i.e. 24)
• Unit, List the unit of measurement such as ounces, gallons, pounds, etc. If it is produce sold by the piece just put the word unit there
• Price, List the price paid without including any coupons used.
• PPU, Here you will need to do a little spreadsheet operation to divide your column of price by your column of quantity. The result is the PPU. This is what will help you easily compare the price for a 28 oz can of tomatoes to a 14 oz can.

Now instead to making a massive price book for every single item you ever might think of buying, you are going to start out slow with a Hot List Price Book. To start out you need to write down about 20 items that are staples in your household. Hint: what are you always running out of? What fills up your cart? What do you spend the most on? If Armageddon were upon us, what would you stock up on? Some items on our household's hotlist are milk, apples, bananas, apple juice, eggs, coffee, raisins, bread, whole wheat pasta, and popcorn. If you are a meat eater don't forget to add a few meats to your list. Ours includes ground beef, whole chickens, and pork chops.

A word about brand loyalty. I've said before that you will save more in the long run if you can discard most brand loyalty in the supermarket. But undoubtedly there are a few things that you just would rather go without than buy a lesser brand. For me this is Sensodyne toothpaste and Glide dental floss. Put these items on your hotlist by the brand name.

When I put together my first price book I quickly learned that I could save at least $50 a month by buying milk, eggs, coffee and popcorn at Kroger and canned goods, some produce and most meats at Market Basket. I also learned that for our family, Sam's Club didn't make any difference at all from a PPU perspective and that while some products were less expensive at Wal-mart, most weren't. That's about $600 a year in savings without even clipping a coupon. Pretty cool, right?

Homework: Make your Hotlist Pricebook.
You can make a spread sheet or you can just use a notebook and a calculator. I'm sure somewhere someone has made an app for this as well but as a cell phone Luddite I'm no help to you there. Draw up a price book sheet in whatever way works best for you. Make about five blank spaces below each of your 20 hot list items. Over the next week or so (it may be a while before I post again) fill in your price book when you go to the stores you frequent. Don't forget to include club stores and drug stores as well as supermarkets.

Coupon College: Books, Blogs, & Buddies

Welcome back, class! Do you have your coupon holding devices? How about a newspaper subscription? Great. Now let's start filling those notebooks and wallets with coupons. If you did your homework, Sunday's coupons should already be in your notebook's plastic sleeves. I got two in my paper: Red Plum and SmartSource. Also wrapped around my whole paper was a sleeve containing three cereal samples and three $1 off coupons for those cereals.

In Tuesday's mail the fliers for the three major grocery chains arrived as well. Around here sales run from Wednesday to Tuesday. I try to do most of my major shopping on Monday or Tuesday then as I will have that Sunday's coupons to incorporate into my shopping. During the week I make small fill-in trips as well. More about this in the How to Shop lesson.

Web Coupons
Even with all those coupons from the paper, you can really benefit from couponing by the oodles and oodles of them available on the web. Here are a few of my favorite places to find coupons on the web:

1. Kroger Website This is pretty much the only place you will find coupons on Kroger brand items.
   
2. Coupons.com This is sort of the large clearing house for coupons. Most web coupons piggyback on their printing software.
   
3. Smartsource.com This is the online version of the same item in the paper. It is a great resource for duplicates when you find a really good coupon in the paper.
   
4. Redplum.com Same.
   
5. MamboSprouts.com Great resource for coupons for organic or health food store items.

In addition to these mainstays, many manufacturers have coupons right on their websites. If you have a certain brand that you are insanely loyal to, it is worth it to check out their website for coupons or sign up for their newsletters or e-mail alerts for sales. I have a separate email address that I use just for this purpose.

Coupon Blogs/Websites

More than likely though you don't have the time or the inclination to visit every possible corporate website that you might possibly benefit from. That's where the coupon blogs and websites come in handy. There are thousands of these out there--baby coupons, regional sites, organic, you name it. The trick is to find two or three that are a good fit for your household.

My favorites are:

1. Coupon Mom In particular there are two tools on the site that I use each week: the coupon database and the deals by state. Go ahead and set up an account with this site (using your coupon e-mail address) because it is very useful. Look at those two tools in particular and just poke around this site. We'll get to specifics in a few lessons.
   
2. Money Saving Mom The lady who writes this blog is a SAHM who homeschools and follows a Dave Ramsey style of money management. She also spends a great deal of time collecting sales information. I have a feed to her blog and scan it once a day.
   
3. Frugal Coupon Living This is the newest feed I've added to my collection. I like that it includes sales to places like hardware stores and other retail chains.

Other Coupons/Information

Once you start looking for coupons you'll be amazed at all the places you'll find them. On the packages of food, in the grocery store aisles, in Parade or other glossy magazines. Some of the best coupons you'll get are spit out of the cash register when you check out of the grocery store. I've had coupons for $5 of free produce and $3 off eggs before.

Choosing Coupons

Now obviously you aren't going to need every single coupon you come across. When you get serious about saving money on grocery shopping one of the first things to go out the window is brand loyalty. (A few things you'll never pay for again once you start couponing and give up brand loyalty is toothpaste, deodorant, and toothbrushes.) But even then there will be coupons you just KNOW you will never use. I use the following rule of thumb when evaluating whether or not to clip/save/print a coupon:

Would I get this if it were free or nearly free? Would I keep it for myself or could I give it away to a food bank or friend?

So I'll save the Activia coupons (even though I prefer my own yogurt!) but pass on dog food items. Sometimes I'll find a coupon that I'm fairly sure I won't use but I know it is an item a friend uses regularly. I'll clip it anyway and give it to them. I strongly believe in the be nice and pay it forward principle when it comes to home economics.

Homework
Okay, so your homework for this week is to make a favorites folder on your web browser and add links to all the sites above. Subscribe to the blogs and review a few pages worth of entries. Try your hand at printing out a few coupons just to see what its like. Don't feel obligated to DO anything with these coupons just yet. You're just beginning to build your collection.

Coupon College Intro

Good morning class. You are in Coupon College 101. If this wasn't the course you signed up for feel free to stay a while--you may learn something! Now, unlike my mathematician husband, I didn't prepare my syllabus a few weeks ahead of time. I'm tempted to blame the kiddos or come up with some other excuse but the fact of the matter is that I'm just not as organized as he is. Aren't you glad I don't teach you calculus?

Okay so here's the syllabus that I jotted down on the back of a pamphlet while in the waiting room of my doctors office this morning.

Week1: Introduction and Supply List

Week 2: Books, Blogs and Buddies -- You don't have to do it alone!

Week 3: Hotlists and Pricebooks

Week 4: How to Shop -- it's more than just spending money

Week 5: Coupons, Part I -- find, store and tote

Week 6: Coupons, Part II -- what to use when and where

Week 7: Weekly Sales and Fliers

Week 8: Your Weekly Routine

Week 9: Advanced Couponing: catalinas, ECB and more

Week 10: Other Ways to Streeeeetch that Grocery Budget

Week 11: Long Term Shopping Habits

Week 12: People Skills Can Save You Money

Week 13: Final Exam!

In addition to each lesson, I'll be posting "extra credit" posts listing particular deals I've found each week.

Any questions? Okay, moving right along let's talk about supplies.

A Coupon Carrier
This is the small accordion-file that you will use to organize your coupons. It will need to be easily carried to the store and used while you shop. You can find them in Target, Walmart, dollar stores, and drug stores--usually in the office supply section. I've had several of these over the years and I much prefer the kind you can zip closed. I'm a bit of a klutz so the zipper saves me from playing "coupon pickup" in the middle of the canned goods isle. I also like the zippered pouch in the front. I use it to hold my grocery money and any coupons that I know I am going to use on a particular trip.

You will usually have 12-13 slots in each carrier. If you can, get the kind that doesn't have preprinted categories. You'll want to be able to customize it. I make tabs that correspond to the order in which the aisles are in my most often used grocery store: Kroger. So my carrier categories are:

Produce
Bread
Dairy
Beverages
Canned Goods
Condiments
Pasta & Sauces
Baking
Paper Goods/Household
Baby/Cereal
Personal Care
Meats/Frozen

The nice thing about basing the carrier organization on a particular store is that if I have an item that doesn't clearly fit into a category (popcorn for example), I can put it in the slot that is closest to where it is in the store--in this case in bread.

cheapo option: A bunch of old envelopes with a rubber band around them. I don't recommend it but if you're reluctant to spend money to save money just yet, this is a suitable make-do option.

A Loose-leaf Binder
A 1 and 1/2 inch binder should be just fine for now. Make dividers with whatever is handy: stick on tabs, print-out tabs, or even scotch tape and a Sharpie will do in a pinch.

Throw some loose leaf in the front. On the top page write: Shopping List. Throughout the week, write down anything that you know you will need to buy in the next week.

The first tab should be labelled menu. Later on when we discuss your planning day, this will be where you jot down your menu for the week.

The next tab should be labelled price book. We'll learn more about this in a few weeks.

The third tab is seasonal. This will be where you put a list of seasonal sales (turkeys in November for example) and a list of in season produce. This will be a big help when it comes to meal planning around what is going to be inexpensive.

The fourth tab is labelled Meal Plans. Some folks like to have a few set meal plans for those weeks when things get hectic. For example, I have a one chicken-one roast weekly plan that covers about 6 dinners. Each meal plan has basic menus and a shopping list.

The last tab should be for coupons. Behind this tab put about ten plastic sleeves. This will be where you put each week's coupons out of the newspaper. Just whip them out of the paper, date the top of each and put an entire week's worth in one sleeve. I go from back to front, meaning my most recent coupons are in the front sleeve and older ones are behind it.

Finally in the pockets of your binder is where you will slip the weekly circulars from the grocery stores. These can be found in the newspaper, in your mailbox, or even at the front of the grocery store. Here in Beaumont the circulars list sales from Wednesday to Tuesday so from now on when I talk about "weeks" this is usually what I mean.

Now I like to have a pretty cover on my binder because it spends so much time out in the open where anybody can see it. Your fussiness level may vary.

Newspaper Subscription

This is the most costly part of couponing. If you already get a paper--good for you! Newspapers are a dying breed but still a fairly necessary tool to be an active member of one's local democracy in my opinion. Fortunately, the Beaumont Enterprise offers a Sunday only option with access to their daily e-edition online for less than $10 per month. So you can be frugal and green all at the same time. In a budget crunch? Ask your neighbors/family members who don't coupon for their coupon sections. Then when you save enough money to justify it, go ahead and get your own subscription.

Now newspapers aren't the only thing you'll use to cultivate coupons but it is the most reliable. Next week we'll look for all the best places to find coupons online, in the mail, in the store, and beyond.

Okay, your homework this week is to get your three tools: your coupon carrier, your binder, and your newspaper subscription. Make your dividers and tabs. Have fun making it pretty or use stickers on them to keep you from taking all this too seriously.

Next week: Books, Blogs, & Buddies