Just Call Him Sir Clicksalot

Friday night while we attended a rehearsal dinner, my mom kept the kids for us.  She had this funny story to tell me when I picked them up the next day.

Xander has really gotten into computers lately.  Playing games on Noggin (now NickJr, but will always be Noggin to me) or Highlights.  He’s also really interested in watching my mom feed her fish in her Facebook aquarium.

Friday night she had walked away from the computer but had left open the aquarium not thinking anything about it.  Later on when she went to check on her fish she noticed there was a log, a rock and a crawler in the aquarium and she only had a mere 10 coins left in her account! 

Xander had watched her and learned how to go to the “fish store” to purchase things and took it upon himself to spiffy up her digs!

But it didn’t end there. 

She had also done some Christmas shopping on Amazon but didn’t close the browser when she left the computer.  Xander seized the opportunity to add all the toys he wanted to my mom’s cart and when he was through had racked up a whopping $300+ worth of stuff. 

Good thing he doesn’t know how to check out.

We’re gonna have to watch that boy because apparently he inherited an online shopping addiction from his momma.

My e.l.f. Experience, Part 2

I'm over at Chic Critique today sharing part 2 of my e.l.f. experience.  This is a great line, so click over and see what I liked and what I didn't.

Some shots of a look a did with the black and grey mineral eyeshadow:

Giveaway: Ruffled Scarf

I went shopping with my friend Lindsey on Saturday to find something to jazz up my black shift dress for a wedding we were attending that night.  (More on that later this week…)

We stopped in at Charlotte Russe and my little eye spotted this:

Remember this ruffled scarf from my Scarf Show & Tell video?

I had so many people email me or comment to ask me about it or to tell me that they couldn’t find it online or in their Charlotte Russe store.   So when I saw it I got giddy because I knew it would make a great giveaway for you lovely people that may have missed out in finding one :)

I’ll give you a few ways to enter your name in the hat.  However, please please please make sure I have a way to contact you.  If you have a blogger account and your email is listed on your profile, we’re good to go.  But if you don’t I can’t email you if you win.  If you’re not sure, just leave your email address in your first comment to be on the safe side.

1. REQUIRED 1st entry:  Leave me a comment on this post that says “Enter me!”
2. Optional 2nd entry:  Tweet about it & include my Twitter name (xoxo_trina), then come tell me you did.  You may copy and paste this as your tweet:  “Ruffled Scarf #Giveaway! Enter for a chance to win a fabulous scarf from @CharlotteRusse at @xoxo_trina’s blog!  http://bit.ly/5epxmf“  (You may do this more than once, but make sure you leave a separate comment each time you do.)
3. Optional 3rd entry:  Blog about it and include the picture above then come tell me you did.  Don’t forget to leave me a link to your post.

Please leave a comment for each entry separately to make things easier for me :)

Deadline is Monday November 30th at 11:59pm CST.  This giveaway is open to US residents in the 48 contiguous states.

Fun fact:  I actually ended up wearing this scarf in our family pictures this year.  I can’t wait to show them to you!

 

1 Dress, 4 Ways Contest

My friends over at The Looks for Less are having a contest inspired by this Free People image:

The idea (obviously) is to take one dress and wear it 4 unique ways.

One of my favorite things to do is take a few hours at night or on the weekend and play in my closet.  I try to look at items I’ve had for years and either reinvent them or wear them with something I’ve not paired with them before. 

I’ve got my “foundation” dress picked out, and it happens to be a dress I’ve had in my closet for about 15 years from Express.

Needless to say, I’m super excited about this contest.  It will get me thinking outside the box and I’ll discover new outfits to wear.  I’m also going to try and put all my looks together with things I already own, aside from maybe a new pair of tights (which I really need anyway).

The winner will be voted on by the readers so I’ll be asking for your votes between Dec 2-4.  The one with the most votes will win the dress of her choice from Lulu’s! 

Wordless Wednesday: What’s Fun About Fall?

Head over to 5 Minutes for Mom to check out more Wordless Wednesdays!

Spaghetti Squash

I love to try new things and tend to do things on a whim (remember The Coconut Fiasco of 2008?).  So last year when I read about this interesting thing called a spaghetti squash in the Kraft Foods magazine, I was intrigued.

However, I didn’t run out and by it then because there were other recipes I was trying at the time and then I forgot about it. 

Fast forward to last week.  I was in Publix admiring those cute little baby pumpkins (they are oh.so.cute! but what do you do with them?!) when I spotted this:

On sale for $.79/lb even!  So I scooped one up and took it home to experiment with.

As I do whenever I undertake anything new, I consulted Youtube. 

Yes, it’s my Go To website for information. 

Weird, yet surprisingly effective. 

I found a couple of videos that were helpful and got to work on mine.

Rayna was my enthusiastic helper

Cutting it in half was really hard, so I ended up nuking it for 5 mins in the microwave.

fresh out of the oven

separating the insides from the skin

up close, you can see the stringy pieces which look kinda like noodles, hence the name, spaghetti squash

 

My verdict:  Great substitute for diabetics and people watching calories/carbs.  Of course I prefer actual noodles, but this wasn’t bad at all.

 

What’s great about this is it’s good with just salt and butter or you can fancy it up with a gourmet recipe. 

 

I tried this three ways.  Salt, butter and parmesan cheese.  Spaghetti sauce and parmesan cheese.  And finally butter and brown sugar.  They were all pretty tasty.

 

Two things though:  If you don’t cook it long enough the “noodles” tend to be a bit crunchy.  It needs to bake at least an hour.  You definitely will want to microwave it first to soften the skin enough to cut through.  Unless you have a very good knife and strong hubby to cut it for you. 

My strong hubby was in the middle of an intense workout and since I’ve cut myself too many times with my super sharp Pampered Chef knife, I didn’t want to risk it.

If you try this let me know!  Or if you have any recipes you love to use that feature this particular gourd, pass it on!

A New Place to Call Home

A few months ago hubby and I started attending another church.  We’d heard awesome things about it but I had my reservations.  I finally gave in and we visited during the series the Pastor was doing called The End.

It was intimidating at first.  It’s a very big church, lots of people and very contemporary.  But I just knew we needed to be there.  God’s presence was so intense during worship  I honestly was overcome.  I knew these people weren’t just going through the motions, these people were going after God.  That’s what I wanted to be a part of.

Since we started going there I’ve learned and grown so much.  There have been so many days I’ve stood in worship there and just sobbed.  I’ve left there each week wanting to tell someone what I learned.  (I’ve wanted to share with you all but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to do it justice.  I need to just do it afraid, as Joyce Meyer says lol.)

The series that really has changed me was the one that just concluded last week called Life Support.  I believe I mentioned it in a previous post, but I highly recommend listening to this series.  Alot of times I will listen to the podcasts while I do data entry at work.  Yes, even though I’ve already heard them in person, I still learn something new while listening again :)

I love our new church and am so thankful for Pastor Hodges and the heart he has for our city and his congregation.  You can tell he really is committed because he tells it like it is and not what would keep us comfortable.

Do you have a church home like that?  Is your Pastor committed to your growth or are they keeping you comfortable?

Friday Fragments

It’s been an out of the ordinary week for my family so let me fill you in. 

My father in law, John, came down with pneumonia last weekend.  In case you’re new to my blog and don’t know, he comes to my house every morning, takes my kids to school, picks them up (at separate times no less) and keeps them until either Jonathan or I can pick them up.  (I know, I’m so blessed!)  But when he is out of commission we have to have a back up plan for childcare.  So this week Jonathan kept them Monday, I took off work to keep them Tuesday and Wednesday, Jonathan kept them Thursday and they are with my mom today.  That’s the reason I only posted short blogs Tuesday and Wednesday.

me and the kiddos!

Anyway, they also found a spot on John’s lung and ran a test this morning.  I called my mother in law earlier today and they think it’s just a spot of infection.  We are relieved that it’s likely not a tumor or cancer.  But if you think about it, please pray he recovers from this infection soon. 

Now, that I’ve filled you in with all that, here are my Friday Fragments.

• Wednesday I decided to take the cans we have saved for the last several months to the recycling center.  You know how much I made?  A whopping $3.15 for 2 bags of cans.  Awesome. (NOT!)
• The thrift store by my house where I went to look for jeans for Xander has such a crappy selection.  I found absolutely nothing in his size (a 4T).  A sweet reader of mine (Thanks Sarah!) emailed me a Old Navy coupon for 30% off good for this weekend, so I may stop by there to see what they have in stock.  With that coupon the jeans should be less than $9.00 each.  Not thrift store prices, but still good.
• I discovered I’m missing good morning TV while being at work.  Wednesday I got to watch Regis & Kelly, Rachel Ray and Dr. Oz.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
• I really could get used to the whole stay at home mom thing.  Not saying it would be easy, but I loved being there with my kids. 
• I am super excited to get our pics back from our family photo session this past Sunday.  We used the photographer and same location as last year but scoped out a few different spots for variety.  One of the places was a old wooden wall that was painted teal.  You know I was all over that!   Money has been tight around our house lately (because I got a speeding ticket that ended up being $140.00!) so I wasn’t able to buy new clothes to go with the color scheme I wanted.  I had to get creative with what we had and I was really pleased with what I came up with.  Stay tuned!
• Anyone else glad Glee! is back on?!  I love that show and was pleasantly surprised at the scene with Sue and her sister.  Such a sweet surprise.  I may or may not have had to hold back tears.  I’m just sayin’.
• I tried spaghetti squash for the first time this week and I think I’ll be blogging about that soon.

Well I think that’s about it.  Hope you all have a great weekend!

What I Would Wear – Holiday Party

I recently started playing around with Polyvore and it’s quite addicting. 

It reminds me of playing with paper dolls in a way.

Anyhoo, I was playing the other day and decided I would put some looks together based around my black shift dress I scored from Forever21 for $22.80.

I thought this would be a great idea to share with you because most people have a basic black dress.  It takes little effort to transform it into something fabulous with just the right shrug, wrap or cardigan and of course a killer pair of shoes and some fabulous jewelry.  I would definitely add tights as well, but just didn’t add them to the set below.

Dressy Holiday Party by xoxotrina featuring Forever21

1. Shift dress from Forever21 $22.80 (no longer available)
2. Dot Framed Jewel Ring from Forever21 $4.80
3. Metallic Satin Shrug from Forever21 $25.00
4. Glistening Ball Pearl Earring Set from Forever21 $4.80
5. Ruffle Sequin Shrug from Charlotte Russe $11.00
6.  Grey Stone Ring from Agaci $5.50
7. Knit Tie Shrug from Charlotte Russe $22.00
8. Green bead trim shrug top from Debenhams $47.00
9. Ruched Buckle Booties from Charlotte Russe $33.00
10. ruffle side suede boot from GoJane $26.00
11. Women's Mossimo® Kadisha Lace-Up Booties - Black : Target $30.00
12. Rampage Lollypop Shoe from Buckle $25.00
What do you think?

Reader Looks for Less

Just a quick post to tell ya'll I'm being featured for the third time on The Looks for Less.

Please go check it out and tell me what you think.  I would love some comment love!

Thanks ya'll!