Make your own free t-shirt!!!

A friend e-mailed me this awesome deal! You can get on Vista Print and make a custom t-shirt, and it's free! You only need to pay for shipping. (Lowest is less than $5)
Think of all the awesome things you can put on a t-shirt!
I've got too many in my head to choose from right now...I need more sleep to make this decision.
Let me know if you make one!
www.vistaprint.com
(More real posts will come after Spring Break.)

Smell my clothes

Seriously, our clothes smell so good.
I lie in bed at night and try to sniff my sheets.
I keep telling my kids to smell their clothes.
Little kids don't really know how to smell things on command.
They just blow air out of their nose, instead of in. So I don't know that they really appreciate it. It smells so good!!!
I think I need Febreze everywhere.
Especially in my van, where a new Bacak family rule has been firmly established.
No milk cups.
I blame their father.
It's so foul. I want my van to go take a bath in Febreze and then come back to me.
I picture it like in the movie "Cars", shaking off like a dog. Wouldn't that be great?
We don't buy expensive detergent with as much laundry as we do, but this little kick of Febreze sure makes us smell good.
Smell us.

Starbucks' skinny latte

One of my new favorite things...
The skinny latte.
I'm always afraid to try new things at Starbucks, because if you're paying $5 for coffee, you better like it!
But I do like this...It's sugar-free, non-fat, and I got the caramel mocha. (You can get sugar-free mocha powder.) All of that comes to 90 calories for a tall.
I think a regular mocha would be like 600 calories.
That's pretty cool.
It's not quite as good as what I would regularly get, but almost!
(Rusty didn't like it, but he would never like something that had skinny in the title.)
It's even better when I get to sit in Starbucks with my husband and drink it on a date. Nothing better.

Magic...pure magic

Breathing is good.
I mean nose breathing, because mouth breathing sucks.
There's nothing worse than trying to sleep, but you can't find a millimeter of a space in your stuffy nose in which to breathe so you can sleep.
Last night it was reaching 1am, and I still couldn't nose breathe (the superior way to breathe versus the gross mouth breathing) OR sleep.
There's not much time between 1am and 6am, when I must be up.
I start to panic at that point.
So I got up and started rummaging through all the medicines we own, which is not very many, even in a Doctor's house.
However...I found the MAGIC.
Afrin. Have you tried this? It really is magic. One minute, no matter what you do, you can't get an iota, or however you measure oxygen, into your nose for superior breathing's sake.
Then you squirt this disghusting stuff into your nose, and I DO MEAN disghusting, and
VOILA
PRESTO
MAGIC-CHANGE-O
HOBBY LOBBY
(you get the picture)
You can breathe!!!! It feels like a miracle to me. Whoever invented this stuff was genious. I wanted to find them and hug them last night at 1am. I didn't know if it was working at first, so I squirted a lot in, and I think maybe burned the inside of my nose a little, but who cares?
I could breathe!!! It really was magnificent.
But Rusty was not happy to see the Afrin out this morning.
Well, maybe cause I had a little problem with it when we first got married.
I had a super bad cold that wouldn't go away, and I discovered the magic.
But then I had to use it everynight for like a week to sleep.
Maybe it was two weeks or longer...I don't know.
But Rusty planned an intervention, and he cut me off.
He wouldn't allow me near the stuff after that. The magic really is highly addictive.
Who wouldn't be addicted to magic breathing potion?
I've known a few people close to me who were addicted for years.
You know who you are. You can leave anonymous comments if you like.
So I haven't gone near it since then. I knew I had a problem.
But last night...when I was rummaging...I was never happier to find the magic potion spray. It was disghusting (because anytime you spray something into your nasal cavities, it's disghusting) but thrilling at the same time!!!
Oxygen in the nose. It's good!! Sleep. Even better!!!
When Rusty saw it out this morning, he gave me a stern "What's this, little missy?"
I said "Magic. It's my new best friend."
Don't be surprised if you are asked to attend an intervention for me in the near future.
I am a person prone to addiciton. If I didn't know Jesus, I'd probably be addicted to several things by now.
Like Magic Breathing Spray.
It's magic.

You're Cool, Craig.

My friend Bethany always gives me useful information.
I just love her!
She told me about Craig's List.
You all probably know about it already, but I'm slow.
It's a local forum for buying and selling things...kind of like e-bay, but without the fees and no shipping issues. Everyone lives in your area!
That's brilliant!
My brother Robbie just bought a trampoline for his kids on it.
I have posted a few things on it already.
I want to buy the Star Wars trilogy on DVD for my boys for Christmas.
So I posted a WANTED on there. I'm also going to sell our train table.
I may just sell enough stuff around here that we MAKE money on Christmas this year!
Who knows?
My question is: Who's Craig?
Did he have this great idea?
Was he trying to sleep one night, but couldn't, because he had too much caffeine after 4pm, and it hit him!
Is he somehow making a profit off of this?
And why can I not have a brilliant idea like this when I can't sleep?
(Yes, the story about caffeine and not being able to sleep is really about me.)
The brilliant idea I'm waiting to hit me is how to attach socks together and wash them so that they never get lost.
Can you imagine?
One sock never wanders off into the black hole called Sock Funland beneath your house ever again.
Wouldn't I make millions?
Wouldn't you buy this, ladies?
Well, hats off to you Craig.
You're cool.

It's Back!

There are MANY wonderful things about Christmas time.
Celebrating Jesus- right at the top of the list!!!
But one of the little things that makes me happy is this creamer.
Peppermint Mocha.
Only available during the holidays.
I know, the fact that I look so forward to this in the morning speaks of my addiction to coffee. But I would like to propose that there are some addictions that aren't so bad!
Addicted to the Bible? Great!
Addicted to coffee so you can read the Bible every morning? Super!
And the Peppermint Mocha is out already at HEB!!!
Good news. I'm drinking some now. I love the holidays.

Favorite items at HEB

Butternut Squash:
How I love it! It's by far my favorite vegetable, and it definitely does not get enough press! Many people who come to eat at my house say they've never had one! This is a travesty! It must stop! They are in season, and should be readily available at HEB. If you've eaten at my house, you've probably gotten my commercial for butternut squash, because I love it so!
Just a few tips: they can be expensive, just so you know. They are EXTREMELY dense, sort of like a sweet potato, and I am a wimp, so Rusty cuts them for me, or at least gets them started, a lot of the time. (He's the bomb.) I use them many different ways. I cut them up into pieces and put them in my steamer with some broccoli. Serve that with some grated cheddar cheese on top! So good! I also but it in my Chicken Pot Pie. It totally makes it! I just recently put it in my Crock Pot Chicken Noodle Soup. So you can do lots of things with it. If you use it in something like that, make sure you cook it a long time, or saute it a little before-hand because it takes them a while to get soft, because they're so dense. I have a recipe, if you're interested, for a Butternut Squash and Sausage soup where you puree the squash. That might sound weird...but it's really awesome!
Go get yourself a butternut squash. But leave some for me.


Bread Machine Ready-made mixes:
These are brilliant. Seriously. You can simply pour the contents of the box and some water into your bread machine, turn it on, and voila! Your house is filled with the smell of bread for hours, and that is worth it all to me. I feel so domestic when I bake bread, and all I did was pour the box in!!! I love fresh bread. I buy the Hawaiian bread mix often. It's so good.


Canned Chicken (in water, NOT oil!):
This might sound kind of gross...I was scared of it for years...but it's become a dear friend to me. Erin and I like to whip up chicken salad using this just about every Friday. All you do is mix the chicken with 1-2 T of mayo, and add some sliced almonds, grapes cut in half, and a little sugar. This is so good! Erin likes it on toasted bread, and I like it with Ritz Chips (kind of like crackers, but less crumbly.) This is so easy, and so good! I make it for lunch company (Shannan Feldman!) and when we go to the pool.
Believe it or not, I actually experimented and put the canned chicken in my Crock Pot Chicken Noodle Soup to see what would happen. It was great! I totally skipped the time consuming step of boiling and cutting up chicken, and just put it in the crock pot, and it was so easy!!! Again, this probably sounds gross, but it's just so easy and good I have to pass it along.
These are some of my favorite items on the Bacak family grocery list. I would really like to know some of y'alls!

Laugh till you snort

My sister-in-law, Liz, put this on her blog, and it's too funny! As Liz put it, you'll laugh till you snort. I did. I've watched it about six times now. This is exactly why we occasionally pause when pageants are on TV. Moments like this. Priceless.
I'm really mean, aren't I?
Y'all pray for me.

La Bodega!!!!!

Tonight I am going to La Bodega. I feel like this place is the best kept secret in town. If you live near College Station, TX, or EVER come here, this is important information for you. At least 50 times, I have mentioned my great love for this place, and people tell me they've never eaten there.
I'm baffled.
I'm confused.
It's right across the street from Cafe Eccel, and I've never met anyone in this town who's never been there.
It's owned by the Cafe Eccel owners.
It's in Northgate.
It's guacamole!
a+b is not equalling c.
I'm going tonight, and I am super excited. It may be ridiculous and a little sad that I get this excited about food, but if you know me, you are not surprised in the least.
I will have the queso guac, Crab Enchiladas, and of course, a Strawberry Tart. (Beamed down from heaven to Cafe Eccel, and transported across the street to me.)
I also recommend the burritos, because they're nothing like the burritos served on a school lunch tray that come to my mind...nothing! And I've never had the tacos, but I've heard they're good.
Their chips and salsa are even the hands-down best, if you ask me.
This is also our favorite date night site. This is where Rusty and I sit in a booth and look at each other. And as soon as we sit down, we take a deep breath, as if taking in the quiet of a restaurant and adult conversation, and Rusty says "You're pretty." I say "me?" and he nods affirmatively. Then he winks at me. This is a date night ritual. Gosh, I love date nights. I smell pretty. I wear clothes NOT smeared with undesirable things. I do my hair. (at least a little.) I eat guacamole, across from my favorite person ever. What could be better?
So I just felt the obligation to spread the word. It's almost never crowded, so selfishly I thought "why tell people?" but it's just too good to keep to myself. Awfully altruistic of me, hu?
Anything for you people.

JUST A TIP: La Bodega is one of our more pricey date night places, but we get on www.restaurant.com and occasionally (like this past week) their coupons are 1/2 off and we buy a $25 value coupon for $5. You must spend $35 to use this, so ultimately we spend $15. If this confuses you, go to restaurant.com and check it out. We are using a dining certificate from there tonight. I feel like I've beat the system!

Baked Cheetos- So much better than you think!

I know, I too was skeptical.
You really shouldn't mess with Cheetos.
It was a gamble when I bought them.
But they're SO GOOD! Seriously, I can hardly tell a difference.
My kids didn't even notice.
And they're less than half the fat of regular Cheetos.
Really, this is my favorite new find!
Try them, and tell me what you think.
You're still going to have bright orange all over your fingers, either way.

My Own Man Vs. Wild

Have you seen this show?
This is my husband's favorite new show.
He told me he "wants to be him."
This guy is surely going to die very soon.
It's crazy what he does!
I personally enjoy the show, because I enjoy hearing him talk. He has a British accent, and I could listen to it all day. I just have to close my eyes when he eats raw zebra, and my husband is saying "What did he say???"
He things people with any foreign accent are completely unintelligible.
I remember going to see a lovely British film with him early in our marriage...I was loving it! And 20 min. into it, I look over at him, with this puzzled look on his face, and he whispers to me "I have no idea what they've been saying for the past 20 min.!"
I love my own personal Wild Man!
Sometimes I wonder how I'll survive with the sheer amount of testosterone that courses through this house, with a husband and three boys. (Plus a daughter who is pretty darn wild herself. She would ABSOLUTELY go on a wild adventure with her Daddy!)
Check this show out on Discovery channel if you haven't already.

My New Favorite Thing

Cherry Coke Zero. I love it.
Rusty likes the Vanilla.
It rocks.

My New Yellow, Best Friend

Once again, my husband has changed my life.
We have a bad history with vacuum cleaners.
For some reason, they are just not our friends.
You cannot have a Golden Retriever dog, and a vacuum that refuses to suck.
You can't.
It sucks.
To see dog hair on the floor where I put my baby down is not acceptable.
It's just not.
So remember my birthday post, where I was so excited about getting a new vacuum cleaner?
How cliche is this? A stay at home Mom so pumped about a household cleaning appliance? Some might find this sad, but I feel as though my readers will understand.
This thing is magic.
I'm in love with it.
It sucks up everything, even on my hard floors, and just leaves the items too big to vacuum alone, on the floor. It doesn't suck them in and make a God-awful noise! No. It just leaves them be.
Also, there are no long tubes to get clogged up, so it doesn't lose suction.
And best of all...this one is going to win you over...It's bagless, like all of the vacuums I've had, but to empty it, you don't have to reach in and pull out the huge glob of disghusting matter that was just under your feet. No. You don't even have to touch it. You just pull a lever, and the bottom falls out and it empties into the trash can.
The first time that happenned, I wanted to cry.
Vacuuming is now one of my favorite pass-times. (As if we have pass-times in our life, but you get the drift.)
If you call me, I may not hear the phone.
I'm vacuuming.

The Fruit Fly Infestation

Does this picture make you want to throw up?
I picked one of the lesser graphic ones.
We have had a fruit fly infestation in our home.
Similar to the massive love bug plague of 2004. Do you remember that?
Who could forget? It was right when we got Justus, and I didn't want to leave the house. The love bugs were truly like an Old Testament plague. I kept wondering when we would repent here in B/CS and make them go away!!!
This is similar, but not quite near that severity.
We may not be the only ones experiencing the fruit fly problem, because I've heard other people complain about them and have seen them buzzing around the fruit at HEB.
It has reached the point where I've wanted to pack our bags.
I love this house, but those nasty little bugs make me lose my mind.
I literally become an irrational human being.
No matter what I was doing to keep the house super clean and remove any food sources for them, they just wouldn't go away.
They were the worst in my bathroom!!! What the heck is in the bathroom with sugar in it? NOTHING. They were just mocking me.
They've been laughing at me.
Every time I would kill some, I would say "Go tell your friends! IT'S ON!"
But they weren't scared.
They just kept making babies and making themselves at home.
Rusty said they only live for like 24 hours, so we've had about 14 generations of these nasty things, and they weren't planning on leaving.
I checked into having our house bombed by our Pest Control Company (One Above Pest Control...they're such nice people.) But Rusty was not ready to spend the money until he tried it himself.
Men.
Well, I have to sing his praises once again. He did it. He bought some spray and some fogger things at HEB last night, and he set it all up before we left for church this morning. I decided maybe we should couple that with some real prayer while we were there.
As we were leaving, we were talking trash to them, trying to intimidate them...hoping we could really back it up with these things.
IT WORKED! I haven't seen one since we got home from church!
We have won!!!
Way to go husband. The fruit flies are gone.
There is hope for anyone else out there whose home becomes infested.
Trash talk and HEB foggers.

Quick!!! I Need Vacation Reading...

Rusty and I are so excited to be vacationing soon. We are headed to Camp Ozark for our yearly nature adventure. Of course, I will keep you updated with stories and pictures this year of the Fearless Emma, capable of awe-inspiring feets on the ropes course and zip line, crazy hole-in-the-wall places we will eat at on the way there and back, and the ultimate adventure...sleeping a family of six in a one-room cabin. It will be wonderful!
But I am in desperate need of some really good vacation reading, and I need your book suggestions.
I want fiction. I don't want any book that's going to make me think hard, or make my life better. Those are the books to read during my real life, not my vacation life. I really enjoy Christian fiction, like Francine Rivers. What is wrong with that woman? Why can't she write faster? I don't think I've had a new book from her in years! She would definitely be my favorite.
Anyone have a good recommendation that I could run to the library and grab? I don't want to take a gamble at the library, and end up with a stinky book. I like to do a lot of late-night reading by flashlight while at Camp Ozark. It will totally make my week! Help!

Just In Case I'm NOT the Only One Who Doesn't Know...

You all may know this, but just in case...
There is this amazing show on the Discovery channel called Planet Earth.
I got the tip from my parents, but scolded Heather for not letting me know first, and she just "assumed I would know."
Well we all know what happens when we assume.
So I'm assuming some of you don't know.
You may not be interested in a nature/wildlife show.
I would never have given it a first glance before I married Rusty, who LOVES this stuff, and then passed on a massive obsession for it down to my daughter.
This is Emma's absolute, hands-down favorite show! She thinks the "woman from Planet Earth" (narrator: Sigourney Weaver) knows everything, and is the greatest source of knowledge she has! It has opened up a new world for Em. I am very aware that I have nothing left to offer Emma as a teacher when it comes to animals. She has now surpassed my knowledge of animals. My only edge on her is I know how to read big books. When she conquers that, I will lose! She has an insatiable thirst to know everything she possibly can about nature and wildlife. After she watches a "Planet Earth" once, maybe twice, she has it memorized. She wants you to watch it with her, but she will narrate the whole time. You don't get to hear it from Sigourney Weaver.
So this show...it's pretty cool. I was just watching the filmmaker's stories about how they get the "never before seen footage" (which they say every 10 minutes). For instance, we saw some rare and beautiful birds from a remote area of the world do their mating dance and it was AMAZING. But the poor camera crew waited for 8 weeks, 8 hours a day, in a camoflouged tent, waiting...all day...doing nothing but sitting in the same spot, looking at birds. Can you imagine? All of these stories astounded me.
You truly do see things never before seen in nature. They are learning things no one knew about all kinds of species on land and in the sea because of new technologically advanced cameras, and somtimes filming with them from the sky. You've got to check this show out! It's so educational for kids and adults, but be warned: the circle of life is accurately represented. Animals eat other animals. I have to skip forward sometimes because I don't like that, but Emma doesn't like to skip anything. She can take it. Can you believe that? But if there was a hunter, of ANY animal present hurting an animal, she would be irate!!! She'd get on her six-year-old soapbox so fast! If you hunt, please don't mention it to Emma. She will never be able to see you the same.

It Will Change Your Life...

My husband is always re-inventing my life...for the better...with gifts.

Several years back, he got me this scrapbooking software.

I used to scrapbook by hand.

It was fun. But it was messy. We couldn't eat off of our table for weekends at a time, because there were papers, glues, scissors, and pictures spread everywhere. I would cut, stick, and create every free moment on certain Saturdays, and would literally be sore the next day.

I was headed for a terrible chronic scrapbookers disease, that has yet to have been diagnosed in the medical community, but just wait...it's coming. It will be known as CSD. It will consist of crippled hands, necks, and backs. Not good.

The software is still fun, creative, and best of all, sticker and glue-free. I can sit in bed at night with my laptop and scrapbook. I never pay for scrapbooking materials anymore. (Ch-ching. money saved.) I only pay for photo paper and page protectors. And ink cartridges of course. (You have to have a decent printer to pull this off.)

I do less pages, because you can fit more pictures on a page. Instead of 6 pages on a trip to the zoo, it's more like 2-3. You can make your pictures as big or as small as you want, change their shapes, coloring, add effects, crop, etc. I usually just pick a background or border, add my text, and I'm done. Voila. No chronic scrapbookers disease. Easy.

So this begs the question, why was I nearly two years behind on scrapbooking?

There is an answer.

We were cruising along, totally up-to-date each month in my books, chronicling our lives. Then a few years ago, my in-laws got us a SUPER COOL digital camera. We love it!!! It's awesome. But it was not compatible with my scrapbooking software. So I stopped. I didn't know what to do. I refused to go back to the old way. I refused to get pictures printed and payed for. So I just stopped. I became a delinquent scrapbooker. That wasn't me!!! I was so on top of things! I was so proud of my books! How did this happen to ME?

I would lay in bed at night and worry about how I would ever catch up. Almost a year and a half passed. What could I do? Rusty had bought me a different software to try to remedy the problem, but it was no good. My motherly self-esteem plummetted. You all know, we Moms don't need extra cause for the "mother guilt," as I call it.

Well this week, all has been set right. The 'lost years' have been restored. I have been a woman CRAZED! On a mission! Ask anyone who's been in my home this week. I have been eating, drinking, sleeping, and breathing scrapbooking. First, Rusty and I went and got the NEW Scrapbook Factory...but not the old program I had. No...it's DELUXE. They're not kidding about the Deluxe. It's so much better! Then, I just gave in and took all my CD's of pictures and stood at the machine at Target until it practically exploded. I printed out all the pictures over the lost years, and slid them into books. Not creative. Not fun. But done.

Then I scrapbooked starting with November 06, almost to the day we got the call about Treston, for our family book, and started Treston's life book. I'm in February now. I'm getting there! It feels so good!

I will sleep better at night. My inner Mom rating, which will always find a reason to be low, is on the rise. I think this is God's gift to the over-weary scrapbooker. Especially those with many children. And cute children! Come on, who can resist pictures of these kiddos!

So come over anytime and look at my books. I don't know if you'll think they're as cute as books done by hand, but you have to factor in the time, money, and energy saved.

My husband is a genius.

Mother's Day is coming up. Seriously, this will change your life!