Turns Out, We Don’t Need Cable

Remember how I asked you all for your advice on making the big leap to give up cable? I couldn’t believe how many of you already had, how many of you had lived without it for years. I felt a little bad for those of you without it. You poor, deprived souls, living without your Bravo and HGTV. Oh, I didn’t want to have to suffer through like you had.

But, we would save $65 a month, nearly $800 a year. *sigh* So I stood idly by while my husband unplugged the cable box and drove it back to the Verizon store. And then I had a moment of silence for the loss of Teen Mom and Real Housewives of the OC.

Scott, being the frugal and handy man he is, built us a digital antenna that is now in our attic, and we get THIRTY THREE channels for free. Granted, half of them are Spanish and a third of them are religious programming and weather channels, but STILL. Free.

Among those, though, are actually some pretty decent channels. Did you know PBS plays kid’s shows Monday through Friday from 6 am through 5 pm? Not gonna lie, most days our TV just hangs on out PBS during the day. Well, that is after I get done drinking my coffee and watching Kathy Lee & Hoda (a sick addiction, I tell you).

We also get a channel called Qubo, which is kid’s programming all day, although it’s sorta like b-list, low grade animation programming, but it doesn’t seem to bother the children.

And here in Dallas, I’ve discovered NBC Nonstop, which, while not an HD channel (we can pick up the basic channels in HD with our digital antenna), it fills the void of not having HGTV and the Food Network just a little bit. You know, it’s just one of those channels that’s nice to have on while you’re folding laundry and not too invested in what’s on. They have programming about local food places, and home decorating shows.

If that’s not enough to satisfy my home decorating and cooking cravings for knowledge and ideas, I just turn to the internet. Pinterest is my new muse for both of these things.

Really, we’ve found things like the internet and digital magazines on the iPad, and, *gasp* books and toys to fill the time we used to spend watching crap TV on cable.

We still get to see all our favorite shows in some form or another. We can watch prime time shows on ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox in HD on our TV still. We have Netfilx hooked up through our Wii, and hopefully we’ll add Hulu Plus to that soon, too, whenever they release it for the Wii. We can hook our iPad up to the TV to watch shows we can find online.

The only thing we’re really missing at this point is a DVR, but Scott says he can make us one out of our old computer. Oh, and sports. I guess sometimes it can suck that we don’t get ESPN or TBS, but we don’t watch it enough to justify $65 a month, especially when you can still see plenty of games on the basic channels.

Honestly, seriously, we one hundred percent do not miss it. Sure, there was a bit of an adjustment period. I’d say it took a couple weeks to get used to it, but now I just can’t believe we went that long paying that much money for that much crap.

So there’s my update. We’ve been without it for 3ish months now. If you’re on the fence, I say pull the plug and give it a couple weeks. I really don’t think you’ll miss it.

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Mommy Truth: Seriously, GO TELL YOUR FATHER.

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Warning: The Cute May Cause Spontaneous Ovulation

Last Friday I thought it would be fun to have a couple kids over for a play date (sisters) and have a little photo shoot. I’m at the point in my photography journey that I feel I have enough of a grasp of the technical stuff to exercise a little creativity, and I’m at a place where I’m really excited to exercise that creativity whenever I can.

Unfortunately, my kids are over it. Well, that, and also I’m their mom so there’s that whole, “Really, mom? REALLY?” ‘tude they have going on. Other people’s children, however, find my camera novel and listen like little sweethearts when I tell them to stand there and look here… but DON’T say “cheese!”

So I commandeered my friend’s children and made it sound like she’d be getting a great deal by letting me take their pictures, when really, I was the one who was having all the fun.

Aren’t they the sweetest?!

I was inspired to do (okay, basically stole the idea of) the baking themed shoot from the amazing Ariana from Becoming Mom (who was inspired by Sandy Wagerman of Lucky Ladybug Photography).

I got all the supplies I needed at Target (but of course). The baking supplies and “LOVE” wooden blocks were all found in their dollar section, and the colorful heart backdrop is a vinyl tablecloth from a Valentines end cap in housewares. We didn’t have time to find or make aprons, so we just folded a hand towel (also found in the dollar section) in half and ran a ribbon through it, then tied it around the child’s waist. Though, you really can’t see the apron much in these pictures.

I was glad I got some great pictures of my friend’s children with this set up because I knew mine wouldn’t cooperate with the idea. All is not lost, though. I managed to score this beauty of Kendall, which I turned into a wallet sized card for him to exchange at school.

Fitting, what with his love for all things sports.

Leyna did manage to model her pretty Tea Collection dress.

Have you entered to win that $100 shopping spree yet?

And, overall, she just had a grand time licking and chewing all the new photo props and hanging out with her little bestie.

Oh, and these pictures were taken in front of the floor to ceiling window in our newly enclosed home office. I never realized what beautiful light comes in there most of the day until we put a wall in front of it. Scott doesn’t know this yet, but I’m brainstorming ways to turn it into a home office SLASH mini studio. He’s going to rue the day he ever bought me that camera.

Kendall is 3.5 and Leyna is 1… annnnd they already get annoyed at the sight of my camera. 

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I Gift You Cuteness and $100 to Tea Collection

Present #1:

Little miss Leyna, baking up some love and smiles at our fun at-home Valentines photo shoot this morning. The new office we built (pics to come!) is the most amazing little natural light studio space. I’ll show off more of the pictures from the shoot next week, but I adore this dress from Tea Collection that she’s rocking here and wanted to share it now. Also? Look at her all standing up and stuff. And yes, that is a very big bow on her head, and I like it that way.

Now, for present number 2!

Tea Collection is giving a lucky one of you $100 to spend on some of their fabulous clothes! I have never seen clothes like this for babies and little kids before. The quality is outstanding. More expensive than your average baby clothes, for sure, but definitely pieces that will be worn and passed down for many years to come. We bought the kid’s Christmas outfits from them, too (Leyna is wearing her’s here), and received so many compliments on how nicely they coordinated without being matchy, matchy, and how unique they were.

They also have women’s clothes , which are really beautiful. I love me a pretty tunic.

If you’d like to win yourself a little Tea Collection shopping spree, all you have to do is comment below telling me what your favorite piece from their website is.

You can get an extra entry if you like Baby Rabies on Facebook
And another if you like Tea Collection on Facebook

Please leave a separate comment for each entry. I’ll use Random.org to draw a winner at the end of next week.

**Disclosure- I was not paid for this review, but I did receive clothing samples from Tea Collection at no cost. All opinions and pictures are my own.

Contest closed. Congrats to Laura, commenter #145, as chosen by Random.org!

 

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