I heart Ikea. And Joanns. And friends. And only a day of snow.

I had a friend come up and visit yesterday and today. We had a good time going shopping. She lives in an Ephraim-esque place, so I can totally understand the excitement of leaving town and getting to actually go places.

Lucky for her, I don't get out much either (to keep myself from spending money), so going places is just as exciting for me! Plus, as my family well knows, I am the "go buggy" and love going places.

Anyway, first on our list was Ikea.

We fed ourselves and the kids hotdogs, chips, and soda. Oh how I love their $2 combo.

Then we dropped the 3 yr. olds off at Small-land. After a few tears from Alex and much coaxing, we were able to enjoy shopping mostly in peace with our babies.

Alex LOVED Small Land and did his whole hanging his head, "but I don't want to go" routine when we came to pick him and the other A up. They had a BALL PIT, so of course Alex didn't want to leave.

I told Jon we may have to go there weekly. Drop off the boy, wander around, and eat a meal by ourselves... super cheap date night!

So exciting stuff at Ikea.

I got this shelf for my cupboard so that I can get my plates out easier. It is marvelous and cute. I love it.
I did not love putting the screws in it.

As we were leaving we of course had to hit up the as-is section. I was surprised at how empty it was! They did however have a little 2x2 expedit bookcase. I LOVE the expedit series. That is what all of the bookcases in my craft room are. They are deep and tall cubes and are really sturdy. They have been WONDERFUL for our oversized books like scrapbook binders and yearbooks.
Anyway, they had a damaged (slightly on the back) expedit for $30, which is 40% off the normal price. I was all over that and knew we could use it for a bookcase in Alex's room or in his toy closet.

It found it's home in the toy closet and is housing all sorts of toys perfectly. The little people house and barn are the exact depth of the shelf, the 3 containers ($1.50 ea. at Ikea)have just enough room to be all lined up along the top, and there is also a little wood bead maze from Ikea that is the exact width of a cube. I could not have asked for a better fit.

All of the toys you see on this shelf were lining the opposite wall where there is nothing now. Ya... imagine even less floor space in there. The blue bins were where the bookcase is now.

I couldn't have made a better purchase! (Jon totally rolled his eyes when I brought it home, but after seeing the marvelous-ness that it is, also loves it. He says we should get more. :) )

After Ikea, we hit up Joann. Handy how they are right next to each other!
Joann was good to me this week. They sent me 2 50% off coupons and 2 40% off coupons. The 50% one I can print off over and over and just use it in separate transactions. The best part is that all of the cotton prints I usually buy were not on sale, so I could use my 50% off coupon on them!!! SCORE! I may be stocking up on a LOT of fabric this week.

If you want me to email you the coupon, let me know and I'll send it your way!

They also had flannel 50% off. My friend wanted to learn to make a self binding blanket, so she picked out some for her baby. What she picked out was so cute that I had to make one just like it.

Here is her finished product!

we put a strip of the heart fabric down the "middle" to make it the right size. Flannel shrinks like none other and we wanted to maximize the size of the finished product.

this is the heart stitch that we did around the edges. So cute! Oh and it took like 2-3 bobbins of thread to go around all 4 edges. Crazy!

It's quite well known that I am not a fan of the snow and cold. I LOVE living in TX where I still get my fall and slightly chilly weather, but it isn't freezing cold most of the time. There are also warm pleasant days mixed in with the cold that make it bearable.
Every few years we get a good snow storm that brings us a few inches and then it rains and melts it all by the next day. That is my kind of snow.

Here are the two A.'s playing in it!

The sheer joy of snow!

She was so cute! She was running around with her arms out like this going, "snow! snow!"

What could be funner than going down a snowy slide?! (lol... maybe a hosed down slide?)

Alex was THRILLED that going down the slide created this big snowball!

I loved that she was tasting the snow. Seriously... her sticking her tongue out just to lick it was adorable.

It's a little harder to mow in the snow

I loved this picture too. A. just thought the snow was so magical!

It's hard to really tell, but the snow as coming down in huge soft clumps for a while. It honestly looked like pieces of cotton batting was floating down from the sky. Look at how big those bigger bits are compared to the smallest ones.