I am trying to plan 2 birthday parties for this week. My son turns 8 on Friday and my daughter turns 4 on Sunday. Ya it sucks 2 days apart and 3 weeks after Christmas. We just don’t have the money to plan much and not because we overspent for Christmas but because there just isn’t much money to go around these days. Jake, my son wants a Transformer’s party with 10 of his friends from school. Madison want a Hanna Montana party with the  entire world on the invite list. I usually do a simple family party with dinner and cake but I guess this year things are going to be a bit different. Kourtnee, my oldest has agreed to host the big boy party, it’s not really my thing and for Madison’s special day we will have the family some over. So that was actually the easy part to figure out now I have to figure out how to pay for it with no money!

I found a slamming deal at Wal-Mart. They have on clearance all there Christmas gifts for 75% off. I bought Madison 4 different Hanna Montana gift sets like brush-n-comb, bath-n-body and make-up sets for less than $10.00. She’s done! We will bake the cake and have a simple spaghetti dinner for the family.

Now Jake’s Party is another thing all on it’s own. He has never had a friend party. What do I plan for 10 boys? Hubby wants to buy him a new BB gun for $30 from the bargain basement at Cabela’s, which is a good deal and a good gift as it gets the boys out of the house so mommy can work. Jake got so much for Christmas that he really doesn’t need anything so that will be it. I can’t afford to buy a theme cake so we are going to bake cupcakes with Transformer paper liner’s.

I got a great deal on candy from Wal-Green’s, all their Christmas candy was on clearance for less than a buck a bag DEAL!! So with the deal on candy we will make paper treat sacks with a Transformer sticker on the front. With card stock I already have on hand, we are making hand made invitations with a Transformers sticker on it. We have the Transformer’s movie so we will play that and Kourtnee gets to figure out the games and decorations. She is actually pretty crafty. One year she made paper party hats and decorated the house with left over Christmas ribbon and posters for the kid’s party.

If you have any suggestions or websites please help us out! We only have a few days left to get this all planned out.[ad#ad-6]

This week Kourtnee’s Top Ten was created by yours truly Mommy Machelle. She has been busy trying to get all her homework done in time for the end of the term at school. Kourtnee inherited my “putting everything off until the last minute” gene and we have a tight policy on carrying a 3.0 GPA or higher or she loses her cell-phone for the next quarter. Ya I’m a mean mom and so far she has managed to pull it off but after looking at her grades last night I’m just a wee bit worried. She has until Friday so we will see what happens.

Here is my top ten list of what I think Kourtnee would be interested in reading:

Kourtnee’s Top 10 Facts Of The Week

1. Mosquitoes have 47 teeth
2. Strawberries contain more Vitamin C than oranges
3. You share your birthday with 9 million others in the world
4. The average American will eat 35,000 cookies in his/her lifetime
5. Strawberries are the only fruits whose seeds grow on the outside
6. The city of Los Angeles has three times more automobiles than people
7. The year that read the same upside down was 1961. That won’t happen again until 6009
8. If you doubled one penny every day for 30 days, you would have $5, 368, 709
9. Chewing gum while peeling onions will prevent you from crying
10. The average human will eat an average of 8 spiders while sleeping

That’s it, that’s what I came up with. Now I have to sit down and figure out #8 with the pennies. That blows me away, I just might have to explore a new way of saving for my kids college. LOL!
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As noted in previous articles on my blog I made the decision to evaluate some major issues within my marriage. After 10 happy and not so happy years with my hubby we had hit a new all time low. I had actually tossed the “D” work around a time or too. After one major fight and the breaking of my seven years heart (by yelling those ugly words “get out” that the whole family heard) I had to do some major sole searching and quick. I quickly discovered that our “sexless” marriage was one big problem. I think more for him than I as I was pretty content with not doing the deed, honestly! But I knew this was an issue I was going to have to face so I wrote of list of reasons why I wasn’t willing…WOW click here to see the list:

http://mommymachelle.info/2008/11/20/sex-and-marriage-you-cant-have-one-without-the-other/

My husband wrote a list of reasons why he thought he wasn’t getting any, click here to see his list:

http://mommymachelle.info/2008/12/02/that-sex-and-marriage-thing-part-2/

Once the lists were created and the discussions were now open things actually started to change. Now I can’t say by any means we are having a healthy sex life but we both took the time to see what each other was feeling and thinking.

Things are finally starting to clam down on the home front with the holidays and travel over so I thought I now need to focus on this again. I know what some of the reasons are for our lack of sex as discovered with the “lists” now I needed to find some of the less obvious reasons why sex is important. So with some searching online here is what I came up with:

10 reasons I should be having sex

1. Sex Relieves Stress
A big health benefit of sex is lower blood pressure and overall stress reduction.
2. Sex Boosts Immunity
Good sexual health may mean better physical health. Having sex once or twice a week has been linked with higher levels of an antibody called immunoglobulin A or IgA, which can protect you from getting colds and other infections.
3. Sex Burns Calories
Thirty minutes of sex burns 85 calories or more. It may not sound like much, but it adds up: 42 half-hour sessions will burn 3,570 calories, more than enough to lose a pound. Doubling up, you could drop that pound in 21 hour-long sessions.
4. Sex Improves Cardiovascular Health
While some older folks may worry that the efforts expended during sex could cause a stroke, that’s not so, and the heart health benefits of sex don’t end there. The researchers also found that having sex twice or more a week reduced the risk of fatal heart attack by half for the men, compared with those who had sex less than once a month.
5. Sex Boosts Self-Esteem
Boosting self-esteem was one of 237 reasons people have sex. That finding makes sense to Gina Ogden, PhD, a sex therapist and marriage and family therapist in Cambridge, Mass., although she finds that those who already have self-esteem say they sometimes have sex to feel even better. “One of the reasons people say they have sex is to feel good about themselves,” she tells WebMD. “Great sex begins with self-esteem, and it raises it. If the sex is loving, connected, and what you want, it raises it.”
6. Sex Improves Intimacy
Having sex and orgasms increases levels of the hormone oxytocin, the so-called love hormone, which helps us bond and build trust. Higher oxytocin has also been linked with a feeling of generosity. So if you’re feeling suddenly more generous toward your partner than usual, credit the love hormone.
7. Sex Reduces Pain
As the hormone oxytocin surges, endorphins increase, and pain declines. So if your headache, arthritis pain, or PMS symptoms seem to improve after sex, you can thank those higher oxytocin levels.
8. Sex Reduces Prostate Cancer Risk
Frequent ejaculations, especially in 20-something men, may reduce the risk of prostate cancer later in life,
9. Sex Strengthens Pelvic Floor Muscles
For women, doing a few pelvic floor muscle exercises known as Kegels during sex offers a couple of benefits. You will enjoy more pleasure, and you’ll also strengthen the area and help to minimize the risk of incontinence later in life.
10. Sex Helps You Sleep Better
The oxytocin released during orgasm also promotes sleep, according to research.

To read this article in it’s entirety click here “Top 10 Reasons To Have Sex Tonight”

Pretty interesting stuff. I have always know there was health benefits to having sex but to burn that many calories, hell that’s one step in the right direction in boosting my self esteem. I think this list provides some excellent research of the health benefits of having sex now I will focus my efforts on how to get me to agree to have sex, I think that is where our problems lies.[ad#ad-6]