bountifulplate

I had an acquaintance tell me once that she would never put her younger son in her older son's outgrown clothes. She only wanted him to wear new clothes.  I was so astounded at the time by what she said, you could have knocked me over with a feather.  I love hand-me-downs and I have never turned them down from anybody!!! The picture below is my grandmother holding Lauren.  She is wearing a dress that belonged to me. I have hung on to that dress and I'm hoping that when Lauren gets married and has children, that she has a daughter who will be able to wear it :) When Lauren was little, I bought her a really cute pink denim jacket, that I'm pretty sure cost $1.00.  I lost track of how many compliments I got on that jacket!! Yard sales and consignment stores are also great places to find hand-me-down clothes. When Lauren did competitive gymnastics I was a "regular" at my local consignment store.  Anybody who has kids in that sport knows how expensive those le...

Anybody with a teenage girl getting ready to go to the prom knows how expensive dresses can be. Lauren went out this past Saturday to look for a long prom dress. After an hour or so, she found one that she really liked. I had her put it on hold and on Sunday, I went to the store to take a look, give it my final inspection and pay for it.  I had a coupon for 25% off that I was able to use. The dress was originally $108.00, marked down to $79.99, so it brought the cost of the dress down to $59.99, so I was already happy :) When I pulled out my store credit card to pay for the dress, since it had been so long since I had used that particular card it was no longer valid.  The clerk said, "hey, do you want to reopen the account and get an additional 20% off?"  I was like, "sure!"  Who doesn't like to save money?? The dress ended up costing only $47.99.  Lauren was telling me that she was going to go to school, show her friends a picture of the dress and have them gue...

Mention potty training to a parent who has been through it or is currently in the midst of it and I'm sure you will hear many stories and opinions. My mom told me once she had to hand me over to a neighbor to be trained. Guess I was a little stubborn, huh??  While Dominic has made progress in a lot of areas, the potty training has proved to be much, much slower than we anticipated.  There seemed for years to be a disconnect between him knowing where to do the #1 and #2 and actually having him doing it.  I would ask him "why" he didn't want to do it, but he really couldn't fully verbalize his reasons. Anytime we even attempted to train him in the past, he was super anxious and stressed, so we kept putting it off.  Believe me, I have read just about every book ever published about potty training, both for typically developing children and ones with special needs.  There was no physical reason why he couldn't do it, so it made it all the more frustrating. With mo...

I had someone (whose opinion I greatly respect), tell me recently a good way to relax.  She told me to close my eyes and clear my mind of any "clutter" for just five or ten minutes every day.  As moms, we are always trying to stay one step ahead of everything.  We're thinking of what to make for dinner, which kid needs to get to which activity, does each child have a clean outfit to wear to school tomorrow, etc.  Moms are really good at multitasking - we can be talking on the phone and making dinner at the same time. Trying to find just five or ten minutes to fully 100% relax in a jam-packed day can sometimes be difficult.  I have written before about my husband doing yoga for a long time, like for close to 40 years. He does it every morning to help him prepare for his day ahead.  I have tried to do yoga in the past and found that I couldn't settle my mind down long enough to fully relax. Exercise is a good way to relax and I have gotten back into my walkin...

Since I am the Chief "Officer" in charge of making our household run smoothly, I was thinking about installing a "suggestion box" for my family. Late last week, my hubby was telling me there were a couple of lights burnt out in the house. I told him the maintenance staff hadn't had a chance to replace them yet, but would get around to it soon.  On Saturday, I decided since Dominic had no clean pants it was time to do the laundry.  My husband said, "well, it is kind of getting high!!"  That was a comment for the laundry staff to handle.  On Sunday afternoon, as I was getting Dominic ready to go to his class at church, the hubby was asking, "hey, why don't you buy ice cream bars and sandwiches any more?"  That would be a good question for the kitchen staff.  At about that same time, Lauren was asking me where I put some Skittles I just bought.  The both of them had impeccable timing, I literally was hustling Dominic out the door so we would...

We rarely go out for dinner during the week.  Tonight was an exception because the hubby had a coupon to get a free deep dish pizza at a local restaurant that expired at midnight. I should have had an inkling that the dinner might not go well, because even though we had a reservation, we still had to wait a bit to be seated. As the hostess was taking us to our table, she asked my husband how many kid's menus we wanted.  Since Lauren is almost 17, I don't think she was too pleased that the hostess was asking us that question :(  Anyways, after we sat down, the hubby was telling me there were free appetizers if you ordered a "drink."  He seemed to think that applied to any kind of drink (alcoholic or not). After clarifying with the waiter that the "drink" had to be a beer, only the hubby was entitled to the free appetizers, since Lauren was drinking a pop and Dominic and I were drinking water. We didn't have to wait a long time before our pizza came out.  ...

Is anyone else sickened by the way the Rutgers head basketball coach treated his players in practices??  If you haven't heard about it yet, a tape surfaced earlier this week showing the head coach throwing basketballs, using bad language and pushing the players around. He had evidently exhibited that type of behavior for a few years.  Top officials found out about it four months ago, but didn't discipline the coach very much at the time.  What I found disturbing is, what if this tape never surfaced? How long would this coach have been able to get away with this type of behavior? In my opinion, this coach was a bully!  On Wednesday, he was fired. Today, the athletic director resigned.  I was asking my husband if he ever had a coach that acted similar to the coach at Rutgers.  He was telling me when he played baseball, he had a coach that would use the "f" word at practices. My hubby was only about 11 or 12 at the time.  He said he never told his parents...

Last year, our family went away for an entire week for spring break.  This year, we decided to stay home. During the school week, I sometimes feel like our family is going in different directions and we really don't interact except at the dinner table.  After dinner, Lauren usually heads up to her room to do homework, my hubby does a few more hours of work, Dominic is doing his homework or playing with his toys and I'm cleaning up from dinner or doing some other chores.  This winter seemed very long and very cold. This past weekend, it was warm enough to actually sit outside and not need a winter coat and gloves.  On Saturday, Lauren made this cake in preparation for Easter - On Sunday, Lauren and I hid some plastic eggs outside and let Dominic find them.  We dug out the basketballs and soccer balls and hung outside for a good portion of the afternoon.  It was so warm, I almost fell asleep in one of the chairs outside!  For me, it's just nice to ...