Last night at ECFE we were briefly sharing some tips and hints about how to save time and sanity over the next few days.  Thought I’d share a couple of them that I do and could not live without this week!

Coborn’s Delivers — Home Grocery Delivery

This one is NOT just holiday related, but rather year round!  Our neighbor introduced us to this concept and I’ve been thanking her ever since!  You would think it would be MORE expensive to order your groceries online, but I promise, you will SAVE money and sanity!  Who can beat that?

I ordered my groceries for my Christmas Day cooking last night at 10 pm, in my jammies and they will be delivered this afternoon!  Who can beat that?  No standing in line at the packed grocery stores and fighting the crowds and forgetting at least one thing on your list!

And, we save money because I’m not throwing unnecessary items into my cart because they’re “on sale”.  Check out their Facebook Page for frequent coupons and discounts!

Lunds & Byerly’s Online Grocery Ordering & Pickup

While I love Coborn’s that I reference above, there were a few things I needed to getthat were a bit more on the gourmet side that they didn’t carry.  Of course I did NOT want to go to the grocery store unless absolutely necessary, so the next best thing is to go to the store, but just drive through and pick up the groceries!  (They also deliver, but I’ve never tried that out, so cannot comment).

So, today after work, I will be going through their “grocery drive thru” to pick up the rest of my groceries!  Can’t beat that on a cold winter day!!

Avoiding those ImpossibleToOpen Toy Packages

I will probably never understand why toy manufacturers feel the need to use screws, twist ties and other semi-permanent means of packaging toys.  I swear you need an aresnal of tools just to get them open sometimes!

Of course, what little kid wants to wait 30 minutes for Uncle Bob to find his pocket knife and open the packaging to play with their toy?!  So, I have found a great work around for this.  Of course it does take some time upfront to do it, but you’ll be SO glad you did on Christmas when the kids are able to bust into their new toys right away.

I like to take the toys out of the packaging and get them all setup BEFORE wrapping them.  That means putting in batteries, testing it out to ensure it work correctly.  Removing the twist ties, screws, pastic bands, etc.  If you must somehow attach the toy to the packaging, just use some scotch tape as that’s WAY easier to remove!  Then, just put the toy back into the box it came in and wrap away!  And if you have destroyed the box in frustration, just put it in an entirely different box.  The kids won’t care if it’s not in it’s original packaging!  They’ll be too busy playing with it!

Last Minute Gift Purchases

Um yeah, so there may or many not be a person that I completely forgot to get something for!  Thank goodness for Amazon Gift Cards!  You can choose from a great variety of delivery options, email, print your own at home, etc and the best part is it’s INSTANT!! Whew!  No need to rush to the mall and grab something they may hate!  Amazon has something for everyone!

I hope these tips help save you a little bit of sanity over the next few days and have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Do you know what a Gleek is?  If not, you need to walk away from the computer at this very moment and go rent the first season of Glee on DVD.  If you do, well, then you’ll probably really like this post!  :-)

The Sunday before my birthday, I saw in one of the Sunday Ads that they had just come out with a new Wii game, Glee Karaoke Revolution! This was MADE for me!!!  It takes 2 of my favorite things, Glee and Karaoke, and puts them in a game together!!  So, I dropped MAJOR hints to the men in my life and thank goodness they came through for me and I was stoked when I opened this up on my birthday!

Watching Glee is kind of my “thing” with Ty.  He loves the singing and dancing in it, he’s my little superstar.  :-)  So, he’s loving this game just as much as I am.  But, the problem is, he only knows one song on it: Don’t Stop Believin’  Don’t get me wrong, that’s my favorite Glee song of all time, but seriously, after him singing it about 56 times over the last week, I’ve grown a tad tired of it.

But, he’s freaking adorable when he sings it.  He does a knee bounce and everything.  The next little American Idol.  :-)  So, here’s a little snippet of him singing it with the game:

Happy Tuesday!

One of my favorite things to do in all of my spare time (ha!) is to look for fun and unique things online.  While I’ve been doing my Christmas shopping online, I’ve come across a few things that I thought were so cool and unique and would be fun to share and maybe give you some gift ideas!

Uncommon Goods is one of my FAVORITE places to find unique items!  It’s the place I go when I have to get something for the person that has everything, you know we all have at least one!

1.  The first thing I found from there is this cool Grandparents Journal.  I have lost all of my grandparents, and Tony only has one grandparent still living and one ofour favorite keepsakes is a book that was written by an author that interviewed his Grandpa about his life.  He put it together and we all got copies and it’s justone of the most valuable keepsakes we have.   So, I know that someday our children will appreciate having something along these lines as well as a keepsake and to know more about their heritage and family history.

2.  Another find from the same site is for the golfers in your life (and we have a LOT in our lives!)  It’s this neat little Golf Scorecard Keeper.  You can attach your scorecards from your best rounds or famous courses you’ve played and jot down a few notes from the round as well.

3.  If you know me at all, you know that I am obsessed with Etsy.  For Mother’s day, I bought myself got a mother’s necklace from the Vintage Pearl.  I just love having it with the kids’ names on it and their birth stones.  This would make an awesome gift for any mommy for Christmas morning! 

4.  The last find for today are these great little storage/totes/containers from Baffin Bags.  I have several of these that I use in my office and they’re great for the bathroom to hold toilet paper, toiletries, or just about anything else that you want to have available, but concealed in a fashionable way.  She even has some holiday stylesa available now as well!

I’m hoping to be able to post some Fun Finds on a regular basis, so stay tuned and I’d love to hear about what Fun Finds you have found too!

Group coupon sites such as Groupon and Living Social are all the rage right now.  And while there are some great deals to be had, they are usually for restaurants, spa services or other things that don’t always pique my interest.

I was recently introduced to One Kings Lane, which is an online sale site for housewares and home decor from different designers around the world. I’ve gotten some crazy deals on stuff for around our house and each day they have several different sales opening up and they stay open for a day or two.

It’s completely free to setup an account with them and they send you emails when the new sales open up.  I’ve gotten a giant clock for our family room, several blankets for my newborn sessions, picture frames and a few other home decor items.  They have such unique pieces that you really don’t see anywhere else.

Check them out here or at the link above!  Happy Shopping!  

Is furnishing and decorating it!  It’s kind of a bit overwhelming to have this blank canvas staring at you day in and day out and not even knowing where to begin.  And my hubby won’t let me paint until after our 11 month appointment with our builder when they fix all of the nail pops in the rooms, so until then, I’m a bit limited in what I can do.

What I CAN do though is look for ideas for inspiration and get some accent pieces!  So, I’ve been doing a bit of shopping.  I’m LOVING Overstock these days.  I’ve been finding some great deals for things here and there and you can’t beat their prices or their $1 shipping!!

Today I snagged this console table for the entryway

And then this corner shelf for our guest bathroom.

It’s going to be nice to have a few more places to put some of our decorative things, especially with the holidays approaching!