Funny Friday -- Have some free laughs!

Here are some videos that always make me smile!

Sunday Snapshot -- Monkey Toes

How Clara earned the nickname "Monkey Toes".....

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!!

Rainbow Slides

On the drive back from the Pancreatic Cancer Symposium last weekend, we were so lucky to spot a fantastic rainbow!! (A sign I took as a good omen!) Emily remarked that she wished she could slide down the rainbow, and I thought that was a great idea!

First, take some photos of the kids pretending to go down a super-fun rainbow slide! Ya-hoo!!!

Cut up some small pieces of colored paper to make your rainbow mosaic picture. We focused on one color at a time. This was great cutting practice for Emily! And it's a good exercise for fine-motor skills too!

Clara was soooo happy to see the glue!!

Glue on the cut-out photo, and admire your FUN artwork!! Emily thinks Clara's picture is soooo funny!

Weeeeeeeee!!!

We also found that leftover confetti makes for some fun pixie dust!

Have fun!!

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Please help send me to Vermont for the Stonyfield Barnstorming Tour by voting for me here! As an added bonus, if I make the top 3, Stonyfield will make a $5000 donation to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. ((fingers crossed!))

You are allowed one vote per day per valid email address, and voting ends TOMORROW @ noon EST.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who is voting for me!! I truly appreciate it!

Sunday Snapshot -- High Tech Toddler

We purchased this refurbished ancient iMac on eBay years ago as Emily's first learning computer. This week, it has been officially passed on to Clara! It takes a lickin'... and keeps on tickin'!

Easy City Scape Mural

During taping for a segment on today's 10! Show, I had the pleasure of meeting Eren Cannata, a very talented singer/songwriter who was today's musical guest. Eren performed his title track from his latest CD "Blame it on the City" -- a fantastic song, and it was the inspiration for our lovely city scape mural!

Emily and I put the mural together using inexpensive masking tape, construction paper for buildings, and Post-It Notes of various sizes for the windows. I love how bright and colorful it looks in our living room!

Added bonus -- it makes a super-fun backdrop for spontaneous jumping on the couch sessions!!

Feliz Cinco de Mayo

Clara's Top 3 Frugal Fashion Tips for Cinco de Mayo:

1. Cinco de Mayo is the perfect excuse to dress up in bright colors and fancy shoes! Yellow is very hip this season. Be confident -- Walk that catwalk and strut your stuff.






2. A smile is the best way to dress up any outfit, and it doesn't cost a penny!

Cheap Thrills -- Poolside Edition

It was such a sunny and warm day, Emily decided to take a dip in the pool.

Ahhhh... refreshing!

Happy April Fool's Day!!

Frugal Family Craft Fail: This is awful, and you should feel bad for doing it

Mark here. With this project, Valerie and the girls were not repurposing all of my stuff but...

Things don't always go according to plan, even at the Frugal Family Fun house. Sometimes crafts don't turn out like they were supposed to. You might call them "awful", if you are being nice.

Valerie and Emily were attempting to make a "Scratch-n-Sniff" rainbow for St. Patrick's Day. Here is how NOT to do it.

Step One: Paint a canvas with water...

Step Two: Sprinkle some red unsweetened powdered drink mix on top.

Step Three: Repeat with all of the colors of the rainbow

Step Four: Make some (hideous) Bacon????? Emily got a big kick out of this.

Wow. That was awful, and you should feel bad for making it. Color blind people could do better. This is seriously the saddest rainbow I have ever seen. It goes "blood red, bright red, burnt red, toilet stain (if you are generous) and cajun".

Does it smell nice? No. It smells like some sort of mutant fruit. Not a good mutant fruit either. (I'm looking at you, Grapple!)

My suggestion? Try to recycle it. However, even the recycling company will not take it, and it will be left at the curb for animals to peck at and get sick.

Forget this! Let's go play Invisible Basketball instead!

I hope you enjoyed "Frugal Family Craft Fail" Of course, none of this was Emily's fault. Craft failures happen all of the time -- you won't know what works unless you try!

Invisible Basketball

We had beautiful weather this afternoon, making it the perfect day for a fun game of basketball. There were just two problems:

1. We don't have a basketball, and

2. We don't have a hoop.

So while our neighbor was out running errands, we snuck over to his driveway for a quick game of INVISIBLE basketball. It was so much fun! Turns out, we are all invisible basketball super-stars! Who knew??

Mark is an expert dribbler....

.... and Emily got nothin' but net on every shot!

It was a close game!

Emily scored the game winning basket, right at the buzzer!

...and the crowd goes WILD!!

I'm thinking this has the potential to be an Olympic sport. Who's with me?

Sunday Snapshot -- Frugal Entertainment

Mark and Emily were outside raking leaves, while I was inside taking care of some laundry. A few minutes after they left to start raking, I heard Clara struggling with something...

... it was like a grunting sort of noise. Was she trying to lift something heavy? I went to investigate...

...and I found this! She had dragged her princess chair to the front door to watch the "show".

I could have sworn I heard her say, "Hey, you missed a spot!"

More frugal crafty goodness, and a special blogiversary celebration is coming up this week! We are very excited!!

Sunday Snapshot -- He's got some life

Sunday Snapshot -- Fueling Emily's Obsession with China