Reading

While I completely love being a stay-at-home mom, more than I thought I ever would (since this wasn't some childhood dream but more a necessity at first), discovering my love of read has been a mental escape and much needed therapy for me. Lately I've been blessed to discover a new author Colleen Hoover. Okay so story of finding her books. Overhearing another mommy talk about her while waiting to pick up my children. I author stole! Yep, guilty! Some mom, don't even remember her name was talking to another about this latest read SLAMMED and I was curious. Went home, downloaded a sample and I was hooked. Now, she has her latest HOPELESS out and let me just say, there was no waiting for Christmas morning before I opened my present. Hee hee. Late night reading, double coffee portions in the morning, and lost in the world of Holder and Sky.  Check it out for yourself. https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/hopeless/id589118195?mt=11

The Santa list

Seriously, love this time of year but the whole shopping thing is completely not my style. I do the list idea (thanks to whomever came up with that idea.) So the kiddos are 5 and 7, Santa is alive and they have this crazy notion their lists need to be long as to give him lots of options. This year's list includes a Wii (yep we are a family without a video gaming system...what, they do exist...lol!), a dog (and the fence to go with it) and my personal favorite was the "dog skooper for poo." (her spelling not mine!) That way we don't have to buy anything for the dog because it's all free, my daughter says. Yes, it's all free dear. The Santa bubble might have to get popped on this one. Of course, there is the nook color, the laptop (yes a desktop family still too... unbelievable I know right!) But when I mentioned that we still need to pick out our annual family to adopt this year, suddenly, pencils stopped, eyes were focused on me and they started asking if they could get a family with a daughter and son just like us, and their same ages, and can we meet them and can I wrap their presents. This is what I love about Christmas. The giving and today, I'm extremely thankful that even at 5 and 7, my children are grasping the importance of brotherly love.

Leprechaun Poop

Yeah so I'm that type of classroom mom...but you know, the students love when I bring in a new treat and the teacher, well she shakes her head at me. (No doubt this will be a year to remember for her). Because St. Patrick's Day is on a Saturday the class isn't having a big party so I'm off the hook for that but still, holidays are fun. So in honor of all the leprechauns and the trying to come up with a new treat idea, here is leprechaun poop! It's easy and sweet but no golden nuggets inside although that could be an idea for next year. Blend up 1 container of Oreo cookies until finely crumbed, mix in 1 8 oz. package of cream cheese and shape into well what ever shape you want :) Chill for ten minutes. Meanwhile, melt the almond bark and tint well whatever color you want (careful to use candy dye not icing dye or just use Wilton's candy melts precolored.) Dip your desired shape into the chocolate, tap off any excess chocolate and let chocolate reset on wax paper. You're done. Easy! Because of the cream cheese I suggest chilling the treat till serving. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Reupholstering charis

Children...love them and yet, cleaning up after them gets old. My stained up dining room chairs needed a makeover! I had the fabric from a while ago just begging me to be used. So Wednesday I took a quick trip to my local everything store and I got fresh padding, staple gun and quilters batting. After a couple hours on unscrewing the seat base and taking out staples (probably the hardest part of this project, my dining room chairs looked welcoming again. And as my son said, "Mommy, these are more squishy to my tushy. Hey that's a rhyme." He was right, on both accounts.

50 birthday idea

I know it's been a LONG time but now that both the children are in school and I am start to reclaim my identity with various projects, I'll start sharing some of the latest stuff filling the white space in my life. With buying a house soon I'm sure there will be lots of housing projects just over the horizon. Until then, I am busy crafting. My stepdad turned 50 this last week so to celebrate I wanted to do something creative for him because afterall parents love homemade stuff no matter how old their children are! So here is the evolution of my idea. First I saw some paint can filled with suckers and it said Fifty Sucks. Cute but wanted to tailor it to my dad. He has always been in the automotive trade so I thought a tire would be a nice base for this project. A simple lawn mower tire worked out well. I used a serrated knife to shave down the floral foam to fit snuggly inside and be roughly 3 to 4 inches above the tire top. I wrapped it with tissue paper for two reasons; the first reason was because I wanted it to look nice and the second reason was to keep all those little green foam bits from messing up the table it would eventually sit on. Next I just poked all the sucker ends into the foam starting at the bottom and working my way up in a nice rounded shape, hiding as much of the foam base as possible. A little tulle and a homemade sign and we were good to go. While my dad laughed hard, the grandkids loved all the suckers papaw handed out.

Tootsie Pop

I recieved this kaiser craft paper at a crop last year and have been waiting for the right page to use the owl paper on. I paired it with CTMH's caprise paper and hand cut the scroll taking the title and creating some visual movement on the page. While the photo did not pick up on the title very well on the second page, it reads "Home many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?"

Gotta love the two-year old

So my twin won tickets to Dora (big surprise, she's like the winningest person I know) but thankfully she shares so my children and I got the chance to join her and her boys. Carolyn was overjoyed at seeing Dora and while Jonathan was very much excited for seeing Diego, his two-year old streak came out when I didn't buy him popcorn. Nevertheless, his fussy face made for a good photo. LOL Mommy always gets the last laugh!

First Day layout

Yes, this is for Carolyn's book. I previously posted a page for my book about her first day, but as any obessed scrapbooker can tell you, you usually have more than one album going at any one time. For me, I do three...one for Carolyn, one for Jonathan and one for the family. I might start getting into doing ones for others but then what happens when you fall in love with a new creation and you have to give it away ... makes me sad just thinking about it. Wow that's terrible huh!

Jellystone

Well I finally got the pictures added to a layout that I made over a crop weekend in late August. My mom and I went to the crop because of a book series we were reading involving murder, mystery and mayhem...thanks to Joanna Campbell Slan. It was a great weekend and the coordinator, Angela Rhyne, did an amazing job!

Siblings...friends

You know there are days that your children love one another and days they need some space from one another. Well this was a day that they played beautifully together. I wanted to capture these moments of their childhood and I loved this layout idea from CTMH and so here is that company's layout idea with my children having a tea party.

Carolyn's first day layout

I love this page...I love trying so new things for me. I saw a similiar layout on the My Mind's Eye blog and loved the title. I did Jen's trick of rolling the stamp letters to get the edging color different on the word "heart." anyway, now I need to do this page for her book but not using this paper...going with some more classic preschool paper with lots of colors. The journaling reads,

"Carolyn entered 4-year old preschool at XXX Elementary and for the first time, had to ride a bus to school. She was more excited about the bus ride than school but donning a new outfit, she was ready for both. While she only rode the bus twice because of route changes, every day when I drop her off at school, my heart breaks a little more knowing she’s getting bigger and bigger and one day, she won’t run back to give me another kiss before scurrying into school for the morning. I just thank God that today…she gave me two kisses!"

Mom's Christmas layout

So it's no secret that I'm a Close to my heart junkie but I have started experimenting with other company's products as well. This is a layout I did for my mother's Christmas album. We went to a crop together a few weeks back in hopes of finishing up her Christmas pages. This was Jonathan's first Christmas so of course I wanted to do that layout. It's not COMPLETELY done...mom still needs to embellish it a little more but I'm loving the tree and the fact that all us kids and grandkids are featured.

first day jitters

Carolyn had her first day of preschool up here in Iowa. Boy is it an adjustment. She rode the bus the first two days but then we pulled her from the route because she was on it the second day for 45 minutes before coming home...and that's way too long in my book. But other than that, we're learning the ropes and having a good time doing so. She just might the cutest preschooler I know!

The circus is in town!

Wow, a BiG Wednesday night this week with the arrival of the circus. With something family-friendly in Keokuk, we decided to treat the kids to the night in the big tent. Of course we had cotton candy and watched the crazy acts including this teenage boy fit himself in a box (Carolyn said that couldn't be healthy...lol) and motorcycles flipping on cables. Not too shabby for a one ring circus and some good family memories.

Swim Lesson finale!

Well both children were signed up for swim lessons but only one made it through. Jonathan gave up after two days. I don't think the class setting was for him. Carolyn, on the other hand, loved it. On the last day (Friday) she got to jump off the diving board and while she stood there for a few minutes debating and flapping her arms, she did it and LOVED IT! After two or three more times she finally let someone else take a turn. A thrill addict already!

Tag you're it!

I've now been tagged by my bloggin' friend Roxie with 4 questions to answer and 4 people to pass this along to!!So here we go...............

1. 4 things I look forward to:
1. Jellystone
2. Scrapbooking with Sarah
3. Spending time with my family
4. alone time

2. 4 things I did yesterday:
1. Vaccumed
2. Swim lessons
3. Ordered more photos to scrapbook
4. Talked to Sarah

3. 4 things I wish I could do:
1. Get more alone time (or couple time..either)
2. Take my husband's house worry away (we're hoping to sell a home in PA)
3. Go on a vacation with my family
4. figure out a way to make money at home and still be with the kiddos

4. 4 shows I have watched:
1. Criminal Minds
2. Food Network
3. Caillou (does watching shows with my kiddos count???)
4. ahhh CSI: Miami

Now comes my nominations of 4 people:
Beth,
Meagan,
Sarah
Erin

Carolyn's birthday cake

I can't believe that I've forgotten to post Carolyn's 4th birthday cake. It was a lot of fun to pull this idea off for her. She loved Cinderella last year but she was WAY impressed with Ariel this year. She couldn't wait to show her friends at the party. I only had to do Ariel like 5 or 6 times before being satisifed with her. My favorite is Sebastian...so cute. Anyway, wanted to share.

And the blog award goes too...

So I was informed I recieved a Blog Award from Jen Mueller, roommate of my mother's womb and mother to two of my favorite newphews. Her blog is http://www.mueller-time.blogspot.com/

The rules are:

1) Accept the award, and post a link on your blog with the person name and blog who granted the award.

2) Pass the award to 10 other blogs that you've newly discovered. Contact the choosen 10 to pass this along.

Here is my list of blogs I love to check out for a variety of reasons.

1)http://www.charmcitycakes.com/blog

2)http://www.cookiemadness.net/

3)http://bethym99.blogspot.com/

4)http://cakefun.blogspot.com/

5)http://aliedwards.typepad.com/

6)http://cookinglight.typepad.com/

7)http://www.babyhomepages.net/babyschmitt/

8)http://www.theilen.blogspot.com/

9)http://www.babycheapskate.com/

10)http://blog.cakelove.com/

A place to call home

Oh so with a toddler again, comes all the little toys. Jonathan's room here was getting out of control so one weekend when my father came up we built a shelving unit for Jonathan's room. It's roughly 3 foot by 4 foot and we chose red and blue for typical boy colors. I painted the trim khaki and I think it turned out nice. so roughly $50 in supplies (man that wood is expensive at full price!) and now each cubby is full. But thankfully all the little toys are up off the floor so the only things left are the Little People's zoo and farm. It really completes the room. Just wanted to share.

Branching out

We found this really neat park over in Illinois and the kids loved it. All the climbing equipment was wooden and in shapes of transportation like planes, trains, tractors (did you think I was going write automobiles...carefully you'd be dating yourself!) BUT there was a pick up truck.... Anyway, snagged some great pics of the children but the funniest has to be their sudden urge to play with a tree...I guess that was after an hour or better but all the same...plenty of stuff to keep them busy and they choose a tree.