Slow Down. Have Fun. Create.

   Things are slowing down a bit. Brooklyn is back in school. Life is returning to a schedule. We had a great Christmas! The kids and I made a list of things to do while they were out of school so they wouldn’t get bored… we only got through two of them! ha! And I promise we were never bored! :) I think we will continue to work through them!

Our List:

Click any of the pictures for more info.

Make Puff Paint Snowmen

Play dough Monsters

Winter Bubbles

If it’s cold enough outside they fall to the ground and shatter!

Stamping with Pencil Erasers

Online Story Time

Pine Cone Bird Feeders

Rapunzel Wig for Brooklyn

The tooth fairy made her first appearance to our house too! :D

I’m still working at figuring out my New Years Resolutions for 2012.

Here is some of my inspiration:

 This article on the Joy of Quiet
and this video. LOVE! Happy 2012 friends!

What Matters the Most…

I absolutely LOVE this website.

Cute stay at home momma, that gives you fun little tips and activities on ways to be a better mom and more every single day!

So I’ve been thinking  allot about what is really important, we all know how much we love our families, but how often do our actions say something differently? Do you take the time to read endless bedtime stories every once in a while instead of picking just one SHORT book to get through? Will you sit down and play barbies with her because it’s her favorite thing ever and not just for 15 minutes, as long as she wants you to? Will you take them on that library trip you’ve been promising them for a couple of weeks? These are things that I need to be better about doing. Not rushing, just being there present with my children.

On Friday we had friends over for a sleepover, we played in the snow for hours that day, making snowmen, sledding.

We just enjoyed being together. I loved watching their faces light up when I pulled out the sugar cookies from the oven to decorate,

or when we made a little craft together. It was a simple day, not one that I got much accomplished in the standards of the world, but I felt more alive, more energetic, & I slept good knowing that my children today knew exactly how much I loved them. Okay I didn’t really sleep that good, because after all we were having a sleep over and at 1:00 am we finally had to “turn the lights out” wink. wink. ;)

By the way we made these cute little snowman plate crafts! SO easy, the kids ages 3-5 all loved them. I loved that every single one was SO different, just like the kids themselves. CUTE!

All we did was take paper plates, hole punch and tie them together with yarn. Add any embellishments that you want, it can be as simple as you make it.

Have a great week, and spend a little extra time with your kids or someone you love.

What a Great Day it WAS going to Be…

What a great day it’s going to be! I know I’ve said it before but the fresh start of a new year is so energizing & full of possiblities!

Well the truth is I started writing this post on Monday, today Tuesday started off with a dead car battery, a little girl one hour late for preschool & throw up in the back seat of my car on the way into town.  Life is so crazy and full of ups and downs, but I guess that’s what makes it beautiful.

I wanted to share a few projects that we got done over the holiday. Me and my sisters. {Who I miss already} made these cute necklaces- 

want to make your own? I bought a couple of the kits HERE.

Also, I might as well share my new website obsession: A Side of Peaches. They feature one product a day, like funky one of a kind jewelry, handbags, hair accessories, & more at up to 50-80% off! I like to check it early, since once the product is sold out, it’s gone.

We also finally finished the little boy ties, they turned out SO cute! My little guy wore the one in the middle to church on Sunday! ♥

 

 

We also got all of the Christmas taken down, I am always ready for it to be put away. The house feels a bit bare without all the bling. I think the things I miss the most are of course the tree & it’s sparkling lights, I also love the pine boughs on my stair rail.

But in a close second, I miss our wall of greeting cards. It makes me happy to look at so many of our favorite people! And it makes getting the mail so much more fun the month of December!

To fill up some of our already setting in winter blahs, because for the record I am so over this FREEZING cold weather! I found these cute little snowmen! I bought mine, but you can make your own using this tutorial HERE. They make me happy just looking at them! I want to get this quote printed out in vinyl, to set by them. Just like the one in the tutorial.

 

“May the Sunlight of Faith ever warm your Hearts.”

Gordon B. Hinckley

Snow Ice Cream…

Well it’s the first week in April, and we got dumped on with snow today, not just a skiff, like 6-8 inches! Can you believe it? We couldn’t!  They even cancelled school for the kids in our area. Well we are getting some major Spring Fever around our house, so we decided to try THIS recipe. We had enough snow, that’s for sure! I had been wanting to try it for a while, the kids LOVED it, it was simple and it was actually pretty darn good! So if you got snow where you live too… you might try it out!

Happy Spring!

The Perfect Weekend...

Hello! Hello!

Hope you all had a perfect weekend! We did! We started off on Friday night with a fun & early Valentine Party! We all brought items to put into the love basket (sort of like gag gifts but with a valentine theme). We had a yummy dinner which included Lemon Herbed Salmon, Bacon Wrapped Chicken, Better than Sex Cake & a Tropical Fizz drink. You can find all the recipes right Here.

We were in great company and laughed the night away! We decided that we must make this a yearly tradition!

It snowed all day today and it was the perfect snowman making snow! So we headed outside and built snowmen, played in the snow and made snow angels!

Then we warmed up with my favorite... hot chocolate!

and just when I thought it couldn't get any better, we all took a little nap!

Yep, perfect!

Fa-la-la-la-la...

Hello! I have SO much to share! I La-la-LOVE December! So many happy & fun things going on! First off, will you scrap booker's please go right over HERE to help a cute little girl with Cystic Fybrosis. It's so simple, and I'm sure will mean so much to her! I'm getting a package ready for her right now! Second look at this, SO cute! Brooklyn, Krystal & I made these snowflakes on Sunday. They were super easy, made out of q-tips! Brooklyn loved the glitter part of it! You can find the instructions RIGHT HERE.

Oh I need to post my Recipe for Recipe Extravaganza #4

Egg Nog Bundt Cake

1 yellow cake mix (preferably with pudding in the mix)

3 T. flour2 c. eggnog¼ c. butter, softened

2 eggs, slightly beaten

¼ tsp. rum extract

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

Beat until smooth and creamy. Pour into greased bundt pan. Bake at 350 for 35-45 minutes. Dust lightly with powdered sugar for presentation.

Caramel sauce:

½ lb brown sugar (~1 1/8 c.)

½ lb butter½ lb powdered sugar (~2 cups)

½ T. cinnamon

½ qt. rich vanilla ice cream

Melt together over medium heat. Pour warm over individual servings immediately before serving.

And a few more reasons why I LOVE blogging: Look what I won over atBecky's Craft Closet

These CUTE earrings! Becky is one of the sweetest most crafty and talened girls I know!

Also, I was checking my bloglines the other day and saw my friend Ann-Michelle had posted some of her Christmas decorations. I had to leave her a little comment, because she has the Pottery Barn Christmas stockings that I think are SO cute. (I have been eyeing, since Brooklyn's first Christmas! ) Well a while later I was checking my e-mail and I get a little note back from Ann-Michelle saying she has two extra stockings, I guess there was a mix up with her order and she wanted to know if I wanted them!

I was SO excited. I mean REALLY excited! When I went to get them, I couldn't believe how sweet she was. I even offered to pay her for them, and she wouldn't let me!

I won another give-away on Shaela's Blog, you've got to check out her scrapbooking, she is SO creative! She sent me these darling cards & CUTE stamps! (By the way, she has an Etsy Shop,where you can find all of her handmade gifts!) We need more people in the world like Ann-Michelle & Becky & Shaela! Thank you SO much girls!! I feel like I've already had Christmas at my house! :)

We have a Christmas Party to go to tonight.

I'm excited. I like white-elephant gifts I know, I'm silly but I think the more crazy and out there the better! I can't post the two I'm doing just yet... but they crack me up!

So stay tuned...

I need to make a goal to blog once a day, then I could get caught up!

On a Roll...

I know! I'm on a roll... a few blog posts already this week! It's just freezing cold here and I'm not being a wimp either! We are talking way below freezing, so I don't go out much, if at all! This is a picture of what it looked like out here this morning! I also have this phobia of driving on slick roads, so it's pure misery to go anywhere right now. The roads are covered with a thick sheet of ice. I had a found some great stuff today, surfing around while Brooklyn was napping, so I thought I'd share. First of all have any of you been reading Black Heels to Tractor Wheels?, over on the Pioneer Woman's Blog?? If not, and you have some time to kill, head over to her blog. It's hilarious. She is really a great writer! I highly recommend it. Alrighty... Zach shared this video clip with me a month or so ago, it's so sweet, and so true. Very inspiring! You can check it out Here you'll love it... I promise! I also wanted to share this cute Freebie Kit by one of my new found blogging friends, Chantri... she's one of the sweetest most talented girls ever! She just started making digi-kits... see what I mean about talented?! I also thought these were cute, and made them for my visiting teaching girls... I found them on this cute blog Who doesn't love vinyl lettering and designs??This Blog has some of the sweetest stuff I've ever seen! She has one-of-a-kind designs. I'm loving a few of them right now. Hope you find something over there that you can't live without too. :) And last if you haven't read a single one of my "tagged" surveys, you wouldn't know that one of my favorite foods ever is the Bowtie Festival from Johnny Carino's... it's to die for!Well I was reading Sherelle's blog and she had a recipe that she had thrown together, and mentioned that it tasted just like my Johnny's Bowtie Festival... I made it on Sunday and it was delicious! So for any of you fellow Bowtie Festival fans out there check it out Here I believe it's on her January 21st post. :) Hope you are having a great day!