My Frugal Adventures: Behind the Screen

Hey there April!  Where did you come from?

I know I say this every single month but seriously- what happened to March?

So April is here and finally gorgeous weather in California.  Last month I mentioned we were planning a trip to New Orleans and we were so excited for the little mini vacation.  We were all set to go- hotel booked, friends to meet, babysitter booked, things to do and kept waiting on plane tickets and waiting on plane tickets and boo!  We checked daily until the very last minute but the airfare from CA to LA was just insanely expensive.  So sadly we had to cancel our trip- we came so close to just saying heck with it and spending the money but in the end it would have been a really, really expensive 3 days so another time New Orleans… save a beignet for me 🙂

So we consoled ourselves with a fun day in Napa with our girls.  I took a bunch of notes and we are going to go back again for the day sometime at the end of April so I can do a post for ya’ll with fun things to do.  My girls may have actually had more fun than we did on the trip. Heading into Napa we stopped at this amazing roadside hamburger stand and the wait for food was brutal… Luckily the girls were super entertained by taking photos so I have about 100 pictures taken from a 5 year old and 7 year old’s perspective.  So funny!  See the picture above?  There are 20 like it except in every single one my baby girl cut her sister’s head out of the picture.  I kind of wonder if that was on purpose 😉

So what am I loving lately?  Well awhile ago I did a post on cool apps for Mom–  I mentioned an app called Waterlouge that allows you to turn a normal photo into a watercolor painting.  So cool!

Look at this cute restaurant in Napa transformed from a quick snapshot to a watercolor:

So fun right?   And I seriously saw postcards for sale at the gift shops that had watercolor images like this for $5 a pop.   I did it on my phone in about 2 minutes.

And speaking of Napa- I was so excited to see these wine barrel planters in the Home Depot ad this week.  Totally grabbing one to make a little DIY side table for our patio set.

On another note– I just started a new fitness routine.  I am trying to add a lot more strength training to my routine and I fully intend to treat myself to one of the awesome new Nike shoes that just came out.   So many styles so hard to choose!

I am leaning toward the purple Flyknit but these Zoom Agility on the right look really amazing in person.   Nothing like new workout clothes to keep you motivated!

Have you checked out American Crime yet on TV?  Goodness I am hooked!  I basically sit and yell at half the characters (on the inside of course, the kids are sleeping– shhhh!) for the entire hour.

And if you need a book to pick up this month, I just finished At The Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen.   She wrote Like Water for Elephant’s which I loved and I also really liked this book.  I finished this one in like a weekend so it is a great one to pick up for any Spring travel!

And I guess that is about it– same old same old in the Haugsven casa.

I promised last month to get going on some teacher gift ideas and I have a post coming for you later today.  Teacher Appreciation week is May 3-9 so time to get planning.  I have a vision of two gifts for my girls’ teachers and I just grabbed all the supplies to get started on them this weekend.  I will hopefully be posting soon!

In April I also have planned the most amazing buttermilk pancakes with white chocolate and macadamia.  Oh my goodness we had these in Maui and I literally made a zillion batches of pancakes trying to recreate the ones we had.  Recipe coming soon!

I have a fun Father’s Day gift idea scheduled for this month, a homemade Cracker Jack recipe coming just in time for baseball season (Go Mariners!), I have a little artwork project to jazz up my little girl’s room coming soon plus a few other surprises that I hope you will like.

So thank you again for taking the time to come and hang out with me!   I appreciate you and hope Spring is treating you well!