$10 at Target [March]

From the very first time I saw Becky do a post on $10 at Target, I was intrigued. I mean, who only spends $10 at Target??? Then I read a little further and realized she gave herself the challenge to only spend $10 at Target on something fun for herself and I was intrigued again. I commented on her post that I loved the idea of her post and would love to try something similar (and a few other people must have too) and this blog hop link up was born!

I'm excited to be back again today co-hosting this link up with Becky and some other fabulous ladies!  If you posted today as well, don't forget to link up with us below so we can see your awesome $10 hauls!

This month I ACTUALLY stayed on budget! Hallelujah! I'm back on track. Going into this month, I actually had no idea what I wanted to shop for. As always, I hit up the dollar spot first to see what kind of goodies they had there. I found a couple things that I thought might be winners, but ultimately decided to put them back and ended up with these things.

Half of the items are from the dollar spot and half of them aren't. 

After I hit up the dollar spot, I wandered over to the clothing section and was pleasantly surprised to see that my favorite tanks were on sale for $5! That's practically half off (they're normally $9), so of course I had to get one. The only problem was deciding on the color. I chose this periwinkle color and have worn it a bunch of times ever since. (I have to admit that I love these tanks so much that I went back one more time that week and got 5 (FIVE!) more. Yes, they're that good!).

The weather has since changed, but back when I went shopping on March 7th, it was cold and these hot cocoa k-cups sounded good. I don't drink hot chocolate that often, but I love the ease of popping one of these in the Keurig when I have a craving for some.

The last two items came from the dollar spot - the thank you notes and the pad of paper. The thank you notes are for no specific occasion other than the fact that they are super cute (I love the gold writing!) and I always like to have some thank you notes on hand, just in case. You never know when the occasion for a thank you note will arise and for $1 for 8, you can't really go wrong. The note pad has a magnet on the back and I hang it on my fridge and jot down any notes about things I need to buy, etc. I love the cute polka dots at the top!

I'm finally back on track! After all of those overages that I'd been having, I knew I needed to pay close attention to what I was spending this month.  Total I spent $9.55. I even had $0.45 left to spare! Next month I hope to come just as close.

I had so much fun shopping for myself and am excited to continue this link up! Now, link up and then hop around and check out how the rest of my co-hosts (and everyone else!) spent their $10!

Becky at bybmg // Instagram // Facebook // Pinterest

Beth at Our Pretty Little Girls // Instagram // Facebook // Pinterest

Courtney at Sweet Turtle Soup // Instagram // Facebook // Pinterest

Elizabeth at Chasin' Mason // Instagram // Facebook // Pinterest

Rachel at Garay Treasures // Instagram // Facebook // Pinterest

Stephanie at Wife Mommy Me // Instagram // Facebook // Pinterest

Tif at Bright on a Budget // Instagram // Facebook // Pinterest

Whitney at Polka Dotty Place // Instagram // Facebook // Pinterest

Next month, we'll be sharing our hauls on Monday, April 18th. It's going to be a link up again, so get your shopping on and then link up with us on the 18th and show us what you got!

An InLinkz Link-up

Five on Friday!

Happy Friday!!! For some reason, all week I've been confused on what day it was. On Monday, I thought it was Tuesday. On Tuesday, I thought it was Wednesday. On Wednesday, I was just confused. But now, after consulting the calendar, I am positive that today is Friday and I couldn't be happier! A few hours of work, and it's officially the weekend! Let the countdown commence.

ONE.

Easter Basket Link Up.

I'm super excited to be co-hosting a super fun Easter basket link up, starting next week! The link up will be open from March 23rd all the way through March 30th. Feel free to link up and show us your child(ren)'s Easter baskets any time next week, or even after Easter. I know this may sound nosy, but I totally love seeing other kid's Easter baskets and getting ideas for Mason's for next year!

TWO.
Making a Murderer and Parenthood and the OJ Story.

Apparently I've been watching a lot of TV lately? A couple weeks ago, we seriously binge watched Making a Murderer. It was at the height of it's popularity and I had to see what everyone was talking about. I literally think Seth and I spent one weekend watching all of the episodes. Darn you Netflix for making it so easy to binge watch things!

We started watching the OJ Story a little late but have been catching the episodes online and have almost caught up. It's so interesting to me to watch and learn details and kind of re-watch it since I was so young when it all first happened.

We also watched the first episode of Parenthood and it hit CLOSE to home. I definitely almost cried in episode 1. We haven't watch anymore and Seth isn't sure he wants to keep watching, but I think I do... with a box of tissues.


THREE.
Non-Dairy Ben and Jerry's.

I came across the news that Ben and Jerry's just came out with a new non-dairy line of flavors a couple weeks ago and keep forgetting to share! You can find out more about it here and find out what flavors they came out with. I don't personally need non-dairy, but I know a lot of people who might so I didn't want to forget to share! Exciting news!!!


FOUR.
Bloglovin' Organization.

I follow blogs and read blogs on bloglovin. Wayyyyyy back when I never used to and I had all the blogs I followed bookmarked and I would just check back every couple of days to see if they posted a new post. And then I discovered bloglovin and my life was forever changed. Ok, that is a bit dramatic, but it saved me A LOT of time I'm sure. Now, the only way that I follow a blog is on bloglovin. You don't have bloglovin? I don't follow you. #sorrynotsorry . There is one exception to the rule, but I might try to convince her to get bloglovin too :) Anyways, I recently was getting so overwhelmed with posts that I hadn't read and the people who's posts I wanted to make sure I read were getting hidden. Then I remember this post from a long time ago that Jess posted about organizing her bloglovin feed. I FINALLY had time earlier this week and I hope this keeps me more organized and more on top of the posts that I want to make sure I read daily.


FIVE.
Champagne stopper.

I ordered this champagne stopper a couple months ago and finally tried it out last week and all I have to say is... that thing is amazing! It kept my champagne bubbly for a couple days, as if I had just opened it. I never knew stoppers specific to champagne existed, but now that I know, I'm never going back!

Happy Weekend!

[Thoughts on Thursday] Confessions

I must confess...



... that Mason's school provides snacks and lunch everyday and I (not so) secretly love it. He gets a wonderful variety (I don't think lunches duplicate at all all month!) and I don't have to think about packing anything. I literally just make sure I have him, he's wearing a sweatshirt if it's cold, and that's all!

... that I really like drinking out of the Starbucks plastic cups. It's weird I know, but sometimes after I'm done with whatever drink I bought, I'll fill it up with my own iced tea or water and keep drinking out of the cup. One time I even used it the next day to bring iced tea to work.

... that I kind of giggled and smirked when Seth told me this story ...

(on the phone)
Seth : Hi, I was wondering if I could make an appointment to bring in my truck for an oil change this afternoon.
Midas Man : Sure, does 1pm work?
Seth : I was hoping for more around 11am.
Midas Man : You do know that you asked for after noon and 11am is before noon, right?
Seth : Haha. You're right!
Midas Man : We do have an appointment at 11am if you want to come in then though.

(the Midas Man was nice, not a jerk, but I don't know if how I typed it comes across that way!)

... that I almost always have 5-10 windows open on my computer at any given time. When I find something I'm interested in (an article, a recipe, etc.), I click the link and open a new window. I never have time to go read it then so I "save it for later" by leaving the window open. I literally have windows open from 2 weeks ago that I still haven't gotten to but I'm afraid that if I close the window, I'll never remember and never read it.

... that I drink soda so infrequently now that when I do, if I drink it too fast, I get the hiccups, especially when it's in a can.

... that sometimes I get so, SO far behind on blog reading that I just hit "mark all as read" and start with a clean slate. I WANT to read all the posts, and I feel terrible, but reality is, I just don't have the time.

... that when Mason has a cold, sometimes I "blow his nose" with my fingers. It's disgusting and gross and I can't believe that I admitted that, but sometimes when your kid sneezes and you don't have a kleenex, you do what you have to do. And then you immediately go wash your hands.


So, there you have it! Can you relate to any of my confessions?

Ten on the Tenth [A Day in the Life : March]

I've seen a couple people do these posts and I've always wanted to do one. I don't really think my typical, everyday weekdays are exciting enough to take ten pictures on normally, but on this particular tenth day of the month, it was Seth's birthday so I thought this would be a fun little way to document the day.

Even though March 10th was Seth's birthday, it was business as usual for the majority of the day. Seth went off to work like normal and I finished getting myself and Mason ready and we headed off to work and school like normal.

But first, we stopped to take a selfie. Sometimes he is cooperative, sometimes not. Today he wasn't too into it, so I was trying to make funny faces to get him to smile. We ended up with this and I kind of love it.

We stopped by the post office because I needed to mail something and of course I let Mason mail it. Nothing makes him happier than being a little mail man!

We finally got to school and I attempted another selfie. This one was slightly better. I think he's perfected the duck face.

9:51am

Eating a cupcake. Hey it's my Seth's birthday, no judging.

I got off work a little early and was too early to pick up Mason so I headed over to a local Starbucks to blog a little.

Happy Birthday to me Seth! I scheduled my Stitch Fix to arrive on March 11th but it came a day early. Nice little surprise when I got home!

Mason had his home ABA session and we practiced spelling words. Cake seemed pretty appropriate for Daddy's birthday!

Since Seth is the one that normally (always) cooks dinner, I thought it would be nice to go out on his birthday and give him the night off. I told him to choose where he wanted to go and he chose Lucille's. I definitely didn't complain. Their biscuits and apple butter and fried green tomatoes are THE. BEST.

Family selfie!

Back home and ready for bed. Mason recently got Stripes (the yellow monster truck) for doing SO good at going pee pee in the potty and now he won't go anywhere without his Blaze monster truck and his Stripes monster truck!

And there you have it! A few snap shots of our not so typical Thursday in March!

Six on Friday!

Wow. This has been a week. And I don't just mean from Monday to Friday. This exhausting, overwhelming week started last Saturday and has finally ended today. To say that I am excited for the weekend would be an understatement! This week I decided to do my five six a little differently in the fact that I wanted to recap what we've been up to this week since this week was a bit out of the norm.


ONE.
Saturday and Sunday.

Oh, Saturday and Sunday. They seem like such a blur to me at this point. Saturday was a full day of work from 8am-5pm and then a whole lot of praying that the rain would skip us on Sunday and hold out until Monday. Unfortunately we did not get our wish and Sunday was a whole day of work in the pouring rain. I mean, come on Mother Nature. It's 80 and gorgeous for WEEKS and then the weekend of my outdoor only event, pouring. Oh well, it was definitely a learning experience and I will definitely be buying some rain boots and a rain jacket/pants just in case it happens again next year. Walking around in soaking wet shoes for 12 hours is not my idea of fun.  That being said, I did walk 9,923 steps on Saturday (which was pretty much done in the second half of the day since I was sitting for the first half) and then 16,666 steps on Sunday. Even though I had to work all weekend, I did get to be with Seth all weekend, did get paid, and did get a good amount of exercise - so that's a plus!

Oh, and as a side note, I also fell asleep on the couch at 5pm on Sunday afternoon, missed dinner, missed picking Mason up, and woke up at 5am the next day (well rested). I guess that's what waking up at 1:30am and working from 3:30am-2:30pm and walking 16,000+ steps will do to you!


TWO.
Monday.

Monday morning I went to work, had an event recap meeting, and then had a work lunch. I left work, went to Target, ran a couple errands, and came home to wait for Seth and Mason to get home. That night we had plans to go to a Bachelor : Women Tell All viewing party that my friend was hosting. They recently opened a new outlet mall by us and my friend is the marketing director.  They've been having several events at the mall since it's new and they're trying to get the word out and since Amanda from the Bachelor lives local to us, she had a Bachelor viewing party with her that night. Seth's mom came to watch Mason and Seth and I headed down. Poor, poor Seth was one of three guys at the Bachelor party but he was such a good sport about it. Luckily we had the hookup and he was able to get more than our two allotted drinks. But really, I think he didn't hate it (too much) since he watches the show with me (not by choice, because I turn it on and claim control of the remote lol). And, bonus, Amanda was super nice and we got to meet her and take a picture with her!


THREE.
Tuesday.

Tuesday was back to work for the majority of the day. I got off a little early where I had enough time to run by Total Wine and More to pick up beers for Seth's birthday present. I bought him 34 beers for his 34th birthday and let me tell you, when I was piling my 5 custom 6 packs of beer into my cart as well as my 4 large beers, I got some strange looks. Was it looks because they were impressed with my beer selection or because they thought I was an alcoholic, I will never know. But once I found all the beers I wanted, I headed up to pay and found out that one of the beers that Seth loves and that is extremely hard to find - Pliney the Elder - had been released that day, I had to get one more. (I am happy to report though, that no matter how silly I felt, Seth LOVED his birthday present, which made me super happy!) I had just enough time to head home and drop off and hide the beers before I had to head to my eyebrow appointment. After the appointment, I ran by the grocery store since we officially had no food since I hadn't gone to the store in nine days - oops. Then I met my boys at home for dinner and Mason's bath time. Seth had softball that night so he headed out and I watched Fixer Upper (it was SO good!) before falling asleep on the couch around 10pm.


FOUR.
Wednesday.

Wednesday I took off work since I had a dentist appointment in the middle of the day. I planned to use it as a day to catch up on life and to prepare for Seth's birthday yesterday, but let me tell you... having a day off goes by SO FAST. I dropped Mason off at school and then headed to Target to "get a few things". I ended up with a bunch of new tank tops (the ones I raved about here!) that were on sale for $5 (from $9!), some birthday candles, and some ingredients for Seth's cupcakes. I came home, did some laundry, made some cupcakes, did some blogging, had some lunch, "wrapped" some beer presents, went to the dentist (to get not one, but two cavities filled (yay!)), made the filling and the ganache for the cupcakes, hung out with Seth and Mason for a while, met some friends for dinner, finished my blog post, and finally was in bed by 11pm.
(PS you can find the recipe for the cupcakes here - I blogged about it a couple years ago, re-shared it last year, and have been making them ever since. Believe me, they WILL NOT disappoint!)


FIVE.
Thursday.

Thursday was Seth's birthday. We both went to work - me for a little less time than Seth. I ended up getting off slightly early and didn't have to pick up Mason until 3pm for his ABA home session so I went to Starbucks to try to get some work done. I succeeded for about an hour or so and then went to pick up Mason. We came home, he had his ABA session and then Seth came home and we went out to dinner for his birthday. I figured since he is the cook in our house, it was only fair to let him have the night off :)


SIX.
Friday.

And now we're finally to today! Hallelujah! I'm super excited about this weekend because we plan to celebrate the birthday boy all weekend long. There's a birthday dinner tonight with some friends, a birthday brunch on Sunday with family, and hopefully a little get together with Desiree, Scott, Marcus, and Julia if Marcus is well. I'm hoping the antibiotics that he got kicked his sickness's butt and Marcus and Mason can have a play date because I know the boys are excited to see each other!

And with that, have an amazing weekend!!!

The Picture Perfect Project [March] + a huge Starbucks Giveaway!

First of all, I have to start off this post by saying...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SETH!!!

Today is my husband's 34th birthday and for his birthday I got him... 34 beers. Plus one more because it was a special edition and I knew he would love it. It's like that extra candle on the cake for good measure or whatever you call it. But really, I'm sure he didn't mind. He's never said no to a beer before :) I will tell you though... I did feel sort of like an alcoholic in the beer aisle filling up 5 "make your own 6-pack" boxes and then choosing 4 large beers. I'm not sure if the guys who kept walking past me were impressed with my beer selection or thought I was crazy, but either way, I know the person who is the most important is happy and that's all that matters! So, with that, HAPPY BIRTHDAY SETH!!! Can't wait to celebrate with you after work tonight!

And now, on to the Picture Perfect Project for March!

As I mentioned back in January in my goals for 2016 post, one of my goals for this year is to take more pictures. As a blogger, you'd think that would already be a given, but as a working mom, I feel like most of my pictures are taken on the weekends when the "bigger events" happen. There's plenty of stuff that happens during the week as well but it just gets... missed. Enter The Picture Perfect Project. I've been making a real effort everyday to make sure I take at least one picture. The problem is, when I get home from work, it's dark. So that doesn't leave me any time to take pictures outside, so I have to get creative. My goal for myself for The Picture Perfect Project is to take at least one picture a day. It doesn't matter what it is of, just as long as I take one picture per day.

That being said, today I plan to do something different. Since today is Seth's birthday, I want to share some pictures of him. Some are older, some are newer, but all are of Mason and my favorite guy.

Seth, you are the best dad to Mason and the most amazing husband to me. There's nobody else that I would want to do life with but you. From the simplest of moments to more extravagant dates, I love spending every day with you. Mason and I hope you have the best birthday! We love you!

And there you have it!
How has your Picture Perfect Project been going?

Don't forget, our next link up is Thursday, April 14th. So gather some photos between now and then and then link up with us on the 14th and show us what you've been up to!

Oh, and I almost forgot!!! This is totally unrelated but I'm also co-hosting a HUGE Starbucks giveaway with some of my favorite bloggers for a chance to win a $150 Starbucks card! Now that could buy a ton of peach green tea lemonades :) Giveaway runs from March 10, 2016 to March 17, 2016. Winner will be announced and contacted on March 17th. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up

Easter Gift Guide + a Giveaway!

I may be a bit of a scrooge around Valentine's Day and not really give Mason anything but maybe a few chocolates, but for Easter, I love to build a little Easter basket for him. It's nothing super extravagant, but I love to pile a few of his favorites into his little Easter basket to have something fun waiting for him in the morning. We usually do an Easter egg hunt at Seth's mom's house later that afternoon/evening too, so it makes for an egg-stra special day for Mason!

As you can see, most of the items listed below would not easily fit into Easter eggs. I used to try to fit everything into the actual eggs in the basket, but quickly realized that the only things that small would be candy, so now I just pile them into the basket and call it a day.

Whenever I give a gift to Mason, I try to follow the saying "wear, read, want, need". I feel like it gives a pretty well rounded gift.

For the wear category, I got Mason some new Natives. Over the summer he lives in these. He hates anything between his toes, so flip flops are out, and ever since we got the first pair of these, he was hooked. All during the winter, I would tell him to go grab his shoes and he'd grab the Natives. Sadly I had to burst his bubble by telling him it was too cold for those and now he's out grown the ones he wore all summer. He's going to be so excited to see these new ones!

For the read category, I opted for some new Pete the Cat books. Lately they've been some of his favorites. He asks us to read them over and over and over again and while I love Christmas, the Christmas version is kind of getting old now (you know, since we've been reading it daily for four months). I thought this cute Easter version, Pete the Cat : Big Easter Adventure, was pretty festive and then I also opted for one of the classics, Pete the Cat : Rocking in My School Shoes. Believe it or not, as a big Pete lover, we don't have the Rocking in my School Shoes classic yet!

For this basket, I feel like the want and need categories kind of got combined into more of the want category. I guess you could argue that the food is a need and the toys are a want, but when it comes to goldfish crackers and kettle corn, I consider that more of a want. I found both the goldfish and the kettle corn at Target in the Easter aisle for $1 each!

Mason has been really into hot wheels cars lately. We probably have about 10-15 right now, but I thought these would fit perfectly in his Easter basket (maybe even in the eggs??) and would be a good addition to the ones he already has. He likes to line up all his hot wheels cars and then have his Blaze (from Blaze and the Monster Machines) monster truck jump over them. It's quite cute to watch him do his monster truck impression. And then, speaking of Blaze and the Monster Machines, I found this Crusher on sale at Target a couple weeks ago and knew he'd love to have another monster truck so I picked it up. I wish it wasn't one of the "bad guys" on the show, but honestly I don't think Mason knows the difference and will just be so happy to have another monster truck.

Magformers has these really awesome new sets called My First Sets. They are the same concept as the regular sets but don't have crazy hard instructions. They are meant for littler kids (around pre-school age) to be able to make just by looking at the picture on the "instruction card". I say "instruction card" because there aren't really instructions, just a basic, easy to follow picture of the finished product. The set comes with minimal pieces so you can easily tell what goes where. I think this is perfect for littler kids who haven't learned to read yet. I got this cute little blue buggy set for Mason and he LOVES it (oops! I gave it to him early!). He has recently been obsessed with cars so anything with wheels is a big hit for him. He also loves the fact that he can build any car that he wants. The set comes with 14 pieces and a few "instruction cards" (seen below). I did have to help a little but he was able to see what he was going to build just by looking at he pictures for most of them. And then for the others? He just used his imagination! Though the set is small, the possibilities and the creations are still endless! I also love that you can mix and match them with other sets (if you should so choose) so your car can really be as big or as little as you want it to be!

As you can tell, Mason loved it! It easily kept him busy for 15-20 minutes straight which is practically eternity to a kid!

And now for the good news... Magformers was so generous as to let me host a giveaway so one of you can give one of these My First Sets to your child for Easter as well!

Giveaway runs from March 9, 2016 at 12:00am PST to March 16, 2016 at 12:00am PST. Giveaway is open to US residents only. Entries will be verified. Winner will be contacted by me and will have 48 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer : I was given this Magformers set for free in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own as are Mason's and my love for Magformers.