I Think the Emergency Room is Going to Start Giving Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Rewards Points Soon. But maybe just to us...

I feel like I should be thinking up cute and original Valentine's crafts to pin on Pinterest in hopes of driving people here by the truckloads.

But the fact of the matter is, my school's main interest in Valentine's Day is in arguing over whether or not it's appropriate to celebrate in the first place.  Besides, the REAL holiday comes the day after Valentine's Day, when the chocolate goes on sale for half price.

I did learn how to make these cute socks from watching this video from the Chicken Chick:

I suppose that if I REALLY got my act together, I could buy some heart shaped beads and make the Head of Demolition festive footwear for Valentine's Day.

We're still getting tiled around here - the living room is more or less done now:

I say "more or less" because apparently the entire thing needs to be sealed.  I don't know how that's going to go, since our Chief Content Provider and Head of Demolition is hellbent on spreading as much food on the un-sealed floor as is humanly possible.

Don't be fooled by the sweet smile in this next picture.  I'm sure she was thinking something along the lines of, "Thank you for this delightful palette with which I can create my masterpiece!  I'd like to transform the tile into a gorgeous shade of purple and red reminiscent of Jackson Pollock yet with a smeared and ground in look."

Meanwhile, we've doing our best to keep the pediatrician, urgent care facilities, and emergency rooms in business this month.

Our Head of Security has been battling Staph tooth and nail since late December.  He deserves a medal for the trudging through his midterm exams (and getting mostly As!) with his various ailments.

But, he had to settle for Phish Food.  Amazingly enough, that was an Amazon affiliate link (meaning I will make like 8 cents if you buy the ice cream upon clicking it - see full disclosure here.)

I have absolutely no idea why anyone would buy ice cream from Amazon. I just wanted to see if they sold it.

Happy weekend all!

Wordless Wednesday - {Early Peach Blossoms and January Roses}

Wordless Wednesday - {Early Peach Blossoms}

In Which I Receive Something New for Our Chief of Destruction to Perform Her Magic - (plus GIVEAWAY!)

I have been using the Tea Tree/Melaleuca essential oil since 1998.  That's how hip and ahead of my time I am.

This once.

By accident.

So no one could be happier than me that essential oils have unexpectedly become trendy and ubiquitous. And *obviously* I was excited to get this pack of bath products chock full o' essential oils!!

Now, here's the part where I have to offer a disclaimer.  It's just an offer:

My new friend Nicole from It's The Balm sent me these bath products to review AND giveaway!!!!  And yet, all my opinions are my own.

(If she had wanted someone else's opinion, I assume she would have asked them.  And not me.)

So here's my honest to goodness true review.

It passed the "I have to be able to pronounce all the ingredients" test.  It even passed the "I know what all the ingredients are" test.  So...I sort of knew that before I approached Nicole in the first place, truth be told.

Test two - the smells.  Since our Chief Travel Correspondent has both eczema and asthma, I've been careful about smells and stuff for so many years that I've gotten pretty sensitive to it.  Here's the weird part!

Even my Partner in Crime enjoys the smell of these products!  That pretty much never happens.  Usually I use something new and he's all, "What's that smell?"

But fair's fair.  I generally do the same to him.

And now for the specific stuff:

The body lotion is nice.  It is a surprising pink color and feels a little tingly almost.  It smells great, and I even tried it out on areas where I can tell eczema is ready to pounce if winter in Houston lasts any longer.  The eczema to be did not complain one bit!

The hand sanitizer: what can you really say about hand sanitizer?  I can't see the germs, but it smells and feels nice.  I'm hoping the germs are running like crazy, because I teach preschool, so I practically hold a meet and greet for every last germ that enters the greater Houston area.

The foot scrub is WONDERFUL!  I've tried making the stuff myself, and although what I made scrubbed and smelled nice, this really soothes and scrubs at the same time.  The one I made just kind of left the bathtub sort'a greasy.

The foaming bath wash is equally as DIVINE!  It looks like a regular foaming wash, but it feels like a million bucks!  It's smooth and moisturizing and smells incredible!  Considering it's truly reasonably priced, it makes for a wonderful small luxury.

The candle. I'm not really a candle person.  I used to be before all the allergies, eczema, and asthma led me to ban them.  But my Chief Travel Correspondent is the only one with actual asthma, and she left for college, so we threw caution to the wind.  And, to be honest, the wind ended up smelling pretty nice!  Plus there's no dreaded lead or phlalates (I didn't even know phalates were a thing in candles, but none for me thanks!)

Now my FAVORITE!!!!  The foot balm!  I am ever in need of a great foot balm and this one did not disappoint!  It has Tea Tree Oil (did I mention I've been using Tea Tree Oil since 1998?) and is whipped and wonderful.

Actually, ALL the products (except maybe the candle) have essential oils and smell fantabulous.  And here's something even MORE wonderful!  Nicole has put together a gift pack for me to give to one of you guys!!

So why not get some free?

It turns out that Nicole is GIVING some of her bath products away!  Look at the nice set she put together!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

So let's enter and win, folks!

Disclosin':

Prize will be mailed AFTER 2/8/2015.  No purchase necessary. US entries only. Must be 18 years or older to win. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. You understand that you are providing your information to this blog and not to Facebook. Please note that Do Try This at Home is not responsible for sponsors that do not fulfill their prizes. I will contact the sponsor regarding your prize. The sponsor is shipping the item to you directly. I will make every effort to assist you obtaining your prize. If there is an issue, please notify me within 4-6 weeks for assistance.  After that I may be unable to assist you.

Digestive Disease and Washi Tape

In case anyone thinks that just I'm just letting my Partner in Crime do all the work around here while I just sit around and eat bonbons, that's totally not true.  While he's been getting all the wiring and lighting done in the kitchen, I've done some very important stuff!

Like, for instance, I color coded our drinking glasses with washi tape:

Seriously.  I did that.

And not only did I do it, but I stand by it as the best thing I've ever done with washi tape.  Six people make a TON of dirty dishes, especially if the tendency is to drink out of more than one per day.

If the colorful tape weren't enough to encourage people to use their same drinking glasses day in and day out, I threatened them with their lives if they didn't follow my ingenious plan.

So far so good.

I also made four of these hand soap dispensers.  Because I can never find the foaming ones that I like for anything less than, say, $12 and who wants to spend that when we already have tons of jars hanging around for the taking?

Plus my partner in crime has this most wonderful clippy cutty thing that made making the holes in the lids so easy.

I sort of glanced at the instructions on this web page before totally ignoring them and doing my own thing.  As usual.

Last but not least, I've been looking to solve the eternal problem of the Head of Destruction destroying every spice in the entire house.

I know she's only doing her job, but cleaning up all that parsley gets old fast.

In case you're thinking, "That's it?!?" don't worry.  There we still have a giant box and two baskets of spices that are not represented here.

Because I forgot to count the number of spices before ordering the jars.  So these are the ones that are lucky enough to be stuck to the side of our fridge using magnets.

Meanwhile, the tile is coming along.  Sort of.

I did mention I had a Twipply Skwood old style photo, right?!?!  Please excuse the quality (or lack thereof) since I had to take it in the rain on a cell phone.  But I've always wanted a picture of the Denny's and Subway right next to the Digestive and Liver Disease Clinic.

Convenient, no?  You can get the digestive disease and cure it right in the very same plaza!

Aside from the Editor in Chief having the flu (and me not having a flu shot), that's about the news from here!

If you'd like to see more of the kitchen renovation, try these posts!

1) Walls May Come and Go But Toddlers Requesting Breakfast Out of the Garbage is Forever

2) If Only We'd Have Known We Could Have Just Locked the Cat in the Bathroom, We Wouldn't Have Had to Do this Whole Kitchen Renovation Thing

3) Our Kitchen Renovation Has Leaked Out All Over the Living Room

Wordless Wednesday {Boy and Boy}

Our Kitchen Renovation Has Leaked Out All Over the Living Room (and the Demise of "Dat Be Nice")

Well people, what can I say?  I tried out the link party thing, and although I enjoy it, it really does take up a lot of time.

I really don't want to do this thing if I can't do right by the people who take the time to link up.  I've pinned and commented and shared.  And while as the cliché goes, it's been real and it's been fun...my toddler ("Me not baby!") is jealous of the time spent.

And so...I'm putting out this one last Dat Be Nice so I don't leave anyone who comes by hanging.

Mean time, here are the features from last week!

Most clicked and my favorite (I might do this one with my class!) were cupcakes for the birds from Crafts a la Mode:

Fun, right?

And most pinned were these yummy looking cookies from Shoestring Elegance that I will definitely have to try making kind of soonish, because my Partner in Crime adores shortbread:

Meanwhile, in the home renovations department...for reasons too long and boring to explain, we can not move forward on the kitchen cabinets.  But my Partner in Crime did get a bunch of outlets put into the one-day kitchen:

We moved all of the books out of the study.  Who'da' thunk that so much dust could collect behind books in a mere 6 years or so?

And we moved them somewhere totally more convenient (like the middle of the doorway to the living room), so that we could have tile put in.

Also my Partner in Crime installed an extra shelf in my closet:

So that now I do the majority of my crafting in the bathroom.

And that's about what's been going on around here!

I have a real, honest to goodness old school Twipply Skwood silly sign picture in the works, along with some soon to be taken photos of the tile.  But that will have to wait since this post is already way too long.

Please link up if you are so inclined and thank you folks who are bearing with me as I explore all the terrain that Blogsilvania has to offer!

An InLinkz Link-up

Wordless Wednesday {Toddler in Snow}

Plates R' Us! The best thing to come around since sliced bread! Or since disposable photo plates. One or the other.

As you may or may not know, I started offering affiliate links on this blog awhile back in the hopes that one day somebody would click on something and...who knows?  Maybe I'd even make enough money to, say, buy a camera card on sale or something.  Maybe a $10 lens cleaner one of these days.

A girl can dream, right? (Contains affiliate links.  See my disclaimer for more info.)

 

I also get opportunities emailed to me on a fairly regular basis asking me to promote this or that product. YES!  Unbelievable but true!

I obviously usually turn most them down for one reason or another.  I don't know the product, I don't care about the product.  I'm not much of a shopper...whatever.

But when I got sent an email from Birthday Express asking me to post about photo plates, how could I help myself?

I haven't actually tried this product.  And I'm not sure how I feel about eating off of my baby's FACE:

But I can say that they were so, so sooooooo easy to make.  And fun.  Obviously.

They're reasonably priced if you consider  how much it costs to buy party plates at Target or the grocery store or Halmark (for cryin' out loud!).  Plus when I visited Birthday Express, they even had a special 15% off offer going on too.

Yes, I realize there's something the matter with me.  But at least I'M not selling the pizza!  I just took a picture of it at the rodeo.  And put it on a plate due to a demented sense of humor.  Hopefully I don't get myself kicked out of the affiliate program for it.

And so now, if you haven't lost your appetite and you feel like eating off of a picture of your kid (or your dog or your cat or your most recent vacation spot), here's where to click for Birthday Express!

Toddler Seeks Perpetual New Year's Eve Party

Happy New Year one and all!

There's been an amazing epiphany already this 2015! Had we only realized two and a half years ago that full time partying would cure grouchiness and lactose free milk would cure vomiting, I'm sure we could have completely prevented colic and four months of screaming.

Here she is at 1:30 am (soon to ask, "Not still music?  But still party?")



Obviously all the Head of Demolition needed was lactose free milk and a 24/7 party and we could have avoided so very much of crying and barf:



Here are the last thirty seconds, because I wanted to have mercy on my poor overburdened phone:



Pictures will be coming one day soon when I am reunited with my computer, but happy New Year in the meantime!!!