I'm Back and a Mother's Day Gift

Well I am back from the craziness that has been my life lately.

At least I hope it's over.

Thank you for keeping my family in your thoughts and prayers.

You really don't know how much it means.

So Thank You.

Now back to the fun stuff.

I've had some ideas going around in my little brain

and I'm excited to get working on them.

Today I have a super cute Mother's Day gift idea.

(You could also make a teacher gift.  Next week is teacher appreciation week)

I made these for the Grandmas for Valentines Day.

All I will say is 

Huge Hit

So lets get started 

Supplies

Embossing gun/Heat gun (A really hot hair dryer might work.  I've never tried)

White tissue paper

White candle

Ink pad or markers

Wax paper

Scissors

You are going to start by put ink or marker on your child's finger then make 2 fingerprints on the tissue paper to make a heart.

I put their names under them and it would be cute to put the date too.

Now cut out around the picture.

The closer the better.

Take a piece of wax paper big enough to go around the candle.

Put the tissue paper where you want it on the candle

Then put the wax paper over it and pull tight in the back.

Run your heat gun back and forth for about 15 seconds or until you can no longer see the tissue paper.  

Try really hard not to burn yourself because it really hurts.

Not that I've done it or anything.

And when your done you will have a cute personalized candle.
Hope you a have a great weekend.

Absent

Please excuse me the next few days as I will be absent dealing with a family situation.

Your prayers would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Wowza...

The last few days have been craziness.

I've been trying to recoup from Reed and I being sick

and now the kids are 

sick and

cranky and

whiny and

the list goes on.

But I'm sure you know all too well how it is.

On a good note

Reed and I celebrated our 6th anniversary yesterday.

I'm so glad my naive, crazy 18 year old self was smart enough to know we were meant to be together.

It has been a wonderful 6 years full of 

happiness and forgiveness

hard work and lots of play

excitement and trial

but mostly 

FULL OF LOVE

I'm so lucky he's my man.

Now for a quick little project.

I asked my mother in law to get me this vinyl for Christmas.

And of course she came through.

(Sorry I didn't take the time to rotate it)

So I found some scrap wood in the barn and cut it down to size.

Then I painted it a beige I had left from Braeden's room.

I let that dry then watered down some blue paint I had.

I brushed that on in a few spots then wiped it off with a rag.

Sorry I forgot to take pictures of all this.

After that dried I sanded it to death with 220 grit sandpaper.

This is what it looked like after all that.

Can you kinda see???

Then I put on the vinyl.

Can I just say I LOVE it!

The only thing I would do differently would be to water down the beige paint so more of the natural wood was showing through.  Or you could sand it before you add the blue paint.

It feels so good when you finally finish a project.

A Little Pick Me Up

Today Braeden and I picked out some flowers for his teacher.

Yesterday she found out if she gets to keep her job next year.

If there's one thing we know in this house it's how stressful having an insecure job is.

She also opened up at our parent teacher conference and told us that one of her best friends fiance had been killed 2 weeks before the wedding.

And to top it off her assistant has been sick so she has been doing two peoples jobs for the last few weeks.

So with the funeral on Monday and finding out about her job on Tuesday I thought she might need something to help her get through Wednesday.
This is what I came up with.

I got the cute little tag from
http://eighteen25.blogspot.com/
There are some super cute printables there.
So I challenge you to look around and see who could use a pick me up from you.



*On a side note, don't judge my photography yet.  I'm still trying to learn how to use my camera off auto:)

Creative Little Minds

We like to to crafts around here.

I like to do big girl crafts 

and the kids like little kid crafts.

But either way you go Arts and Crafts are a big part of our lives.

Most of the time I come up with something for the kids to make

and they make it and it's great.

But I have a friend who has a blog about Art for kids

Art For Little Hands

The other day she was talking about Art Placement.

I had no idea what this was so I was glad she explained.

Basically you place some art related supplies on the table and let them discover on their own.

I thought it would be interesting to see what my kids came up with and it sure was.

These were the supplies I gave them.

Tongue Depressers

Googly Eyes

Glue

Markers/Colored pencils

And this was the outcome.

 These are Braeden's creations.

And these are gardens he drew for me.

These are Ava's.

She said they are Mr. Wiggles.

It's so amazing what's going on in those little brains.

Give it a try and see what your little ones can create.

Bean and Bean Art

Today we made a mess in the kitchen.

The good thing is it wasn't too hard to clean up.

We have bags and bags of beans and we don't really eat them.

So I thought today we would have some fun with them.

All you need are lots of beans

(we also used jelly beans to get in the Easter spirit)

Cardstock or Cardboard

and Glue (make sure it's not too hard to squeeze
or your hand will hurt when you're done)

Then you just draw your picture with glue and stick on the beans.
So easy!

 This is Ava with Easter eggs all around her.

Braeden did more drawing than beaning but that's not a big surprise.
I'm not really sure what all is in there. 
I know there is a tree, the wind, a bird and himself hiding Easter eggs.
The kids spent forever making these and I had a little fun with it too.

I told you I am sooo artistic...not.

Happy beaning!

Two of our favorite things

Once upon a time a beautiful 18 year old girl followed her

charming man out west.

He would get his learn on at BYU-I

She would fail miserably at focusing on anything besides him at U of U.

While on this adventure of love she would stumble across an amazing restaurant.

Cafe Rio

It would steal her away and he would be left broken hearted.

The End

Ok not exactly how it ended but it's kinda exciting that way.

When I was out west I fell in love with Cafe Rio.

And of course they are not anywhere near Indiana.

So when I came across a recipe claiming to taste like theirs I had to try it.

And it is 

AMAZING!

Disclaimer: It has been 6 years since I've had Cafe Rio.  So I don't really remember the exact taste.  I just know it tastes GOOD and I know that this recipe tastes GOOD.  So that's what I'm going on.

Oh you wanna know the best part about this recipe?

You make it in the crockpot!

LOVE

Now for the recipie.

http://cjaneinthekitchen.blogspot.com/ 

3 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken

1 1/4 Cup Italian dressing

1 Tablespoon Chili powder

1 Tablespoon minced garlic (I usually don't put this much in.  Just play with it and see what you like)

Juice of 1 lime

1/4 Cup cilantro

Place chicken in slow cooker.  Pour dressing over chicken and sprinkle with chili powder and garlic.  Cook on low for 7-8 hours or high for 3-4 hours.  Remove the chicken from crockpot and shred using 2 forks.  Then put it back in the crockpot.  Cover and cook additional 30 minutes.  Add lime and chopped cilantro.  Mix together and let cook another 10 minutes.  Serve with nachos, burittos, quesadillas, taco salad , or whatever.  It's very versatile and great as a leftover.

 It's seriously HEAVEN.

So now that you have the perfect meal, you need the perfect drink.

Henry Weinhard's Root Beer or Cream Soda.

This here is some amazing Root Beer.

Creamy and Delicious.

This was part of a Christmas gift I made for all the guys in my family.

Seriously best guy gift ever.

I'll write a post about that later.

But if you want to find some yummy Root Beer to go with your chicken

make your way to Meijer.

They seriously have a huge selection of bottled sodas.

Hope you have an amazing meal, I know I am!

Just a lil somethin somethin...

Well first of all I want to say 

Thank You

for all the birthday wishes.

It was an amazing day.

It started out with my cake.

My CHEESECAKE

The best part about this cake is Reed got it for $3.50!

I know seriously amazing.

It's funny how happy I was that he was being so cheap lol

Then we went to Fort Wayne

Look how cute we are all blurry.

I think my hand was jittery from eating to much cheesecake!

We went out to dinner at Olive Garden.

I have a strong connection with their salad.

It's a love love kinda thing.

And dinner was amazing!!!

It's the Herb Cheese Soffatelli

and your mouth with thank you for eating it.

Umm Heavenly!

And if that wasn't enough of an amazing day

the next thing we did was the best part of the day.

After our tummies were full and happy we made our way over to Best Buy

and picked up this little beauty.

It's a Nikon D5000 and I'm so excited to get started in Photography!

Doesn't it look good on me!

Ok now I'm going to show you a little something not related to me.

Well kind of, it's my kitchen.

I've been living in my house for about 4 years now 

and I still haven't decorated my kitchen.

I guess I just wasn't sure about what I wanted to do

and I had thought about repainting it.

Anyway, this is what my wall looked like before.

It is what it is, right.

So to spruce it up a bit I got a few Dollar Tree frames

Spray painted them white and put some pictures of my adorable kids in them.

And here is the after.

Just a little something but it makes me So Happy.

BTW the adorable pictures of my kids were taken my friend Sierra Hoffman.

She's an awesome photographer in the Indy area.

You should check her out

http://www.wsierrahoffman.com
http://www.flickr.com/sierrahoffman
http://twitter.com/wsierrahoffman

It's my Birfday!

So today I turn 25!

I'm kinda having mixed emotions about this.

I just keep thinking it's halfway to 30!

So today I decided to give you a few little tidbits about MUAH!

I know you're so excited :)

1) I hate to wear shoes.  If I could go barefoot all the time I would.  They are just too confining.
2) I am obsessed with making lists.  I make lists for EVERYTHING.  Not because it helps me stay organized but because I think it's fun.
3) I always lose my list before I get everything checked off.  It's a real problem.
4) I love to get the mail.  Not because I'm expecting anything good (today I am) but I really enjoy the 3 minutes of alone, quiet time I get.
5) I don't read books.  Not because I don't like reading, but because I like reading too much.  If I'm going to read a book I have to read it in a straight shot.  I don't stop to eat.  I don't stop to sleep.  I don't stop to take care of my children.  And that's a real problem.  So I just don't read.
6) I love to make desserts.  I also love to eat desserts but I really like to make them because they get the best reaction.

Well I think that's enough insight into my crazy self for today.

Maybe we will do this again sometime.

Hope you all have an amazing day I know I will!

Slacker and the Museum

So I have been a huge blog slacker.

It's kinda a combination of the weather getting nice and 

things picking up around here.

But the main reason is probably because I'm a phase person.

I get really into something for about a week and then it goes to something else.

You will probably be able to see it in my blogging the longer I go.

One week I'm obsessed with cooking, then for the next 3 weeks I want nothing to do with it.

The the next week I'm all about crafts, then learning activities with the kids.

It's kind of crazy but that's who I am.

Anyway I'm going to try to do better at blogging this week.

Now for the fun part.

Here are some of the picture from our trip to the Indianapolis Children's Museum.

We all had an amazing time and can't wait to go back.

Spring Bouquet

Today the kids and I made some 

handprint flowers.

These are perfect for Spring and would also make a cute 

Mother's Day gift for the grandma's.

(We gave some to my grandma last year and she still has them sitting out)

So lets get started!

Supplies
Paper
Fingerpaint
Straws
Tape
Scissors

You're going to start by letting you kids make a gazillion painted handprints on the paper.

If you want a faster less messy way of making these you

could just trace the handprints on spring colored paper but of course playing in paint 

is sooo much more fun.

Now go put your feet up, open up a magazine and just RELAX while you wait for the paint to dry.

Oh you have paint all over your table...

and floor...

and the walls to the bathroom sink.

Yeah me too.

I guess you could clean that up while you wait.

Ok so the paint 's dry now.

Next you're going to cut out the handprints.

Now you're going to curl the fingers with a pencil.

Wrap the finger around the pencil TOWARDS the painted part.

Yeah I did it wrong the first time.  

Do as I say not as I do!

Yep that's me doing it wrong.

When all the fingers are done it will look like this.

Now you are going to tape the sides of the hand together.

Make sure that you leave a big enough hole to put the straw through.

 Then put the straw through the flower and tape it to the straw.

After you get them all made put them in a vase or jar and admire their cuteness.