Snippets ... it's the little things.

My new "go to" meal

2012-01-25T10:49:00.000-06:00

My sister made these crockpot chicken & dumplings when we were at her house for Christmas. They are delicious, super-easy to make and my kids loved it! This is definitely going to go in the regular menu rotation and be made for many families with new babies!

Crockpot Chicken & Dumplings

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 T. butter

2 cans cream of chicken soup

1 onion, finely chopped (or 1/4c. dried minced onions)

bag frozen mixed vegetables (optional)

2 (10oz.) cans refrigerated biscuits, torn into pieces

Place all ingredients except biscuits in crockpot. Cover with water. Cook 5-6 hours on high. 30-45 minutes before serving, shred chicken and add torn biscuits. Cook remaining 30-45 minutes or until biscuits are no longer raw in middle. Feeds a crowd!

Project Life Tuesday: Week 3

2012-01-24T07:32:00.000-06:00

{Click on the icon above to visit Jessica's blog and see other Project Life inspiration.}

Another week and I am still behind. I planned on getting my pictures for the week off my camera and working on these layouts on Sunday afternoon, but life got busy and it just didn't happen (and I watched the last 4 episodes of "Friday Night Lights" on Netflix to finish the series. So good!).

Here is my layout for week 2 (January 8-15). I don't have time to do it this week, but next week I am going to put the photos and journaling separate below the spreads so you can actually read it (for all the grandparents reading).

2 down, 50 more to go.

P.S. Thanks for all the input about the background. Looks like everyone thinks the light gray background works.

Menu Plan Monday: January 23

2012-01-22T20:00:00.002-06:00

I actually stuck the menu plan this week and got around to making everything on the list!

The two new recipes I tried this week were big hits. One was the Italian tortellini soup which came from one of my favorite all-purpose blogs, Make It Do. (All-purpose meaning she has great recipes, cleaning tips, activities for kids and sewing ideas, using stuff you already have.) The second recipe I found on Pinterest: shrimp pasta with pesto cream sauce. I used fresh shrimp I purchased from Whole Foods when they had shrimp on sale a while back (from our freezer) and homemade basil pesto that I made last summer (also from our freezer). It was DELISH!

Here is the menu plan for this coming week:

Monday: Baked Pizza Roll & salad for Will and the kids (I have bookclub)

Tuesday: Slow-cooker black bean soup, guacamole/salsa & chips

Wednesday: Leftovers (we have a lot of random things to choose from, but not enough for a meal for everyone ... so, every man, woman and child for themselves!)

Thursday: Pecan crusted salmon, brown/wild rice, steamed broccoli

Friday: Chili night at friend's house

Saturday: dinner out with Will's parents

Sunday: Lunch out with Will's parents, dinner: leftovers again!

Check out Laura's blog for more Menu Plan Monday.

Project Life Tuesday: Week 2

2012-01-17T05:50:00.000-06:00

{Click on the icon above to visit Jessica's blog and see other Project Life inspiration.}

Here is my layout for week 1. It took me a little while to get back in the groove of using PSE. I do love how much easier (and less messy) digital scrapbooking is for me.

I can't decide what to do about the background color for my layouts. Obviously, if you are doing a traditional album, this is just clear space on your page protector. I am going with this light gray for now because when I put a color on the background, it seems like a little too much. What do you think?

I was hoping to have spreads from week 1 and week 2 finished in time to post, but it just didn't happen. I will catch up before next week.

1 down, 51 more to go.

Happy scrapping!

Preschool Corner: Letter F

2012-01-16T17:00:00.002-06:00

Welcome to Letter F week where we learned all about Firemen and Fish!

{David is 3 years, 9 months old}

David hard at work on our Firemen lapbook. We made the lapbook on the first day and then reviewed it throughout the week. He really enjoyed it!

Firemen colors.

Firemen shadow matching.

Firemen puzzle (we glued this to the back of our lapbook).

Firemen patterning (and a good view of the entire lapbook).

Watching "Fireman Sam" on Netflix. Claire (age almost 6) actually liked these videos much better the David did.

Coloring his fireman cut & paste activity.

The finished product. I thought this turned out so cute. He did an excellent job coloring. I did most of the cutting and helped him with the pasting.

Our shape fire truck turned out really cute too.

I found a tube of plastic firemen at Target for $4.99. Both of the kids had fun playing with these!

Love this sweet face! Runny nose and all!

Our F bible verse was John 3:16. David had absolutely no interest in learning this long verse. I think he was a little overwhelmed! We did the activities anyway, so hopefully something stuck!

Bible verse story from My ABC Bible Verses: Hiding God's Word in Little Hearts.

Bible verse coloring page and other activities below from RRSP.

Reviewing our F vocab words and making our alphabet book page.

Working on the preschool firemen printables from Homeschool Creations.

Somehow, this ended up being the only picture I took of our Fish activities from LOTW. He always does a great job with the uppercase/lowercase letter sort.

Another photo of the lapbook in action.

Our F board for the week. My favorite crafts are on the board ... the handprint fishbowl and the handprint firefighters. How cute are they. Click on the links for my inspiration (and instructions).

This post is linked up to these great homeschool blogs:

Menu Plan Monday: January 16

2012-01-15T15:59:00.001-06:00

The recipes we used from Make 5 Dinners in 1 Hour turned out good last week. One thing I really like about this meal plan service is that you get 4 menu plans for each month at the beginning of the month. So you can pull from other weeks if you don't like something one week or another. Or mix up the weeks if that is your fancy.

Just as an FYI ... if you see a repeat from the previous week it is most likely that I never made it and I'm just moving to the next week. I say this because I've had ham & cheese quiche on our menu plan for the last 3 weeks and I've just never gotten around to making it for one reason or another. (I just didn't want anyone to think we eat the same thing every week.)

Monday: Kids' Night at Moe's. (Will and Claire had a bet to stop biting their nails and Claire won ... so we are eating at Moe's.)

Tuesday: leftover slow cooked baked potato soup, salad

Wednesday: ham & cheese quiche, pumpkin bread [I made the pumpkin bread over the weekend to take with a meal to a family with a new baby (it makes 3 loaves) and it is excellent!]

Thursday: crockpot chicken & dumplings

Friday: Italian tortellini soup

Saturday: breakfast - chocolate chip pancakes (I add 1/2c. chocolate chips to this recipe) and pumpkin pancakes (we did not eat these last week); dinner - shrimp pasta with pesto cream sauce, garlic bread

Sunday: Leftovers!!

Check out Laura's blog for more Menu Plan Monday.

Sew What? Edition: it's been a while ...

2012-01-13T08:00:00.000-06:00

Will granted me a reprieve from the house one Saturday and I was able to get some "sewing" done on my mom's embroidery machine. I'll be sharing some good clothing bargain ideas too in this post.

This outfit came from Lolly Wolly Doodle. They are a flash sale site on Facebook. I think this outfit was $34. That is a steal for this high quality tee and cute ruffle pants. Even though I could easily make these pants, nice fabric would probably cost $12-$15, plus my time to make them (which doesn't come cheap). This was a Christmas gift for my niece.

A close up of the stitching on the "e". This applique came from here. Lolly Wolly Doodle will add monogramming to their shirts for $5, but I wanted to let my sister choose this one so I did it myself. (Plus, I didn't want to spend $5 for a single letter ... but for a name or applique, it is totally worth it.)

Here is my cute niece wearing her outfit to school for "red" day.

I did a similar "c" on a shirt for Claire. This is a nice thick tee that I purchased wholesale from a friend ($4) and a pair of Castles & Crowns pants that I purchased at Zulily (another flash deal site) for $15. (These would normally run $30.) You can sign-up for daily emails from Zulily by clicking on this link (and I will receive a $15 credit).

{On a side note, Zulily has tons of great products from kids and moms ... everything from books, games, clothing, educational products, maternity clothing, shoes, etc..}

I purchased these two rompers from a friend for $8 each. They are lined corduroy from Castles & Crowns. She had her son's initials monogrammed on them. I covered the monograms with a patch and put Luke's initials on them. (Also, the brown and green paired with a red turtleneck was a super-cute Christmas outfit for him.)

I love cute playclothes! I bought these pants for Claire on clearance at Target for $2.50 each. The tees were on sale at Target for $5 each. I added the monograms/initials.

Super Simple Side

2012-01-12T21:20:00.000-06:00

I made these yummy roasted sweet potatoes tonight for dinner. Will had seconds and thirds. And he does not really like sweet potatoes (unless they are mixed with lots of sugar and butter in casserole form).
Here is the recipe.

5-6 sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
1 pkg. onion dip mix
1/3c. olive oil

Mix all ingredients until potatoes are well coated. Spread on baking sheet and bake at 450 degrees for 40-50 minutes.

2011 Reading List

2012-01-12T06:48:00.000-06:00

I started my booklist for 2011 here. This is the rest of my reading list for the year. I read a lot more this year than I did last year.

I think that is due to my Kindle. (It could also be that I am really tired and like to get in bed early just to "chill" and end up reading a lot.) I also think it is because I've found some good stuff to read this year. Last year I was kind of on a bad roll of reading several long, slow, boring books and kind of lost interest.

Maximum Faith by George Barna: We read this book in our class at church. While the book itself is not an exciting read, the premise, the ten steps along our lifelong faith journey, is a very interesting one (and accurate I believe).

Deep Dish by Mary Kay Andrews: This book is still in progress. I lost interest about half-way through. I'm usually a big fan of Andrews and quickly read her funny books, but this one just didn't do it for me. I like it enough to try and finish it but I'll certainly put it down to read something else.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand: It literally took me all year to read this book, but it was totally worth it. I started it in January upon the recommendation of my sunday school teacher and many others. It is a long book and after prison camp, after prison camp, after prison camp, I kind of got bogged down. When I picked it back up to finish in November, it did not disappoint! An excellent read for sure.

The Hunger Games, Girl on Fire and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins: This trilogy was a fun easy read. And I'm not sure how I am going to make it until March to see the first movie. The trailer looks excellent. We read the first book for bookclub and then I very quickly read the next two books. My hubby read them too. The third book was a little slow for me and the ending of the series was a little disappointing and unbelievable, but overall, I give the series a big thumbs-up.

Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell: I picked this book up on a whim and read it quickly. It is an interesting tale ... realistic but somewhat gory. Maybe you saw the movie last year? I did not. (On a side note, this is the first Kindle library book I checked out.)

Heaven is For Real by Todd Burpo: Another bookclub pick. I read this book in about 2 hours on the way to an Alabama football game. Very good. If you ever doubt that heaven is a real, physical place, you should read this book.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett: I have several of Patchett's books on my "to read" shelf thanks to Paperbackswap.com. This is her newest release so I had to purchase it on my Kindle. Totally worth it though. Think big pharmaceutical company, crazy researcher/doctor among natives in Amazon rainforest, and secret drugs. Interested? I look forward to reading more of books.

The Paris Wife: A Novel by Paula McLain: I have about 50 pages left of this book. I checked it out from the library and couldn't get it finished before I had to return it. (I haven't figured out how to renew Kindle books from the library. I am back on the waitlist to get it again.) I love this book. The period in which it is set (the roaring twenties) and the characters Hemingway and his wife encounter are very interesting. Although this book is fiction, the lifestyle portrayel is accurate I think for writers and artists in Europe during that time period. I have picked up other Hemingway books to read, including A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises.

Vision in White (Book 1 of The Bride Quartet) by Nora Roberts: This book was a easy read. I've never read Roberts before but she writes a lot. This book is about 4 BFFs who run a wedding business, each one doing a different part of the business (photography, flowers, etc.). Each book in the quartet is about how each girl finds their own wedded bliss. I liked it enough that I want to read the rest of the series, but not enough to run out and buy them, so I am waiting for my turn at the library.

Project Life Tuesday: Week 1

2012-01-10T22:30:00.002-06:00

One of my goals for this year is to get back to scrapbooking. I do a decent job of memory-keeping here on the blog, but I love to have books to hold in my hand and look at in person and not on a computer screen. Plus, I don't necessarily blog about everything I would scrapbook about. One of my favorite blogger is Jessica over at The Mom Creative. I am going to try Project Life this year. (Project Life is a 365/daily photo project created by Becky Higgins. You can read all about it here.) Jessica has a weekly post where she displays her weekly PL layouts and has a linky where other people can do the same. Accountability works ... or so I like to believe. I do think this is a good way to stay on top of my scrapbooking for each year. I decided to do digital project life and then I will print my 52 spreads (one for each week of the year) in a bound photo book at Shutterfly or Snapfish when they have a good deal going. I just purchased my digital kit TODAY and got Photoshop Elements loaded onto my laptop. (It runs super-slow on our desktop, which is why I avoid using it very often.) Here is my cover page for the album. (I have blurred out our last name.)

Although I hate to be behind already, since I just started today, I will try to post my layout for week 1 and week 2 next Tuesday.

We are the Champions!

2012-01-10T08:09:00.000-06:00

We had a fun time watching the Crimson Tide bring home another National Championship title last night.

We were all decked out in our Alabama gear.

We grilled burgers and dogs before the game. And had our favorite gameday snack ... buffalo chicken dip with Alabama chips. (That is what Claire calls Fritos scoops.)

Game watching would not be complete without tattoos!

The kids also needed the hats and shakers.

David and Will watching the game.

My big kids and me. Luke went to bed before the game started but we let the big kids stay up as long as they wanted. They started fading around 9:30 and we put them to bed.

I'll spare you any commentary on the game. I've heard enough to last me a lifetime. The important thing is that Alabama brought home a WIN! ROLL TIDE!!

Menu Plan Monday: January 9

2012-01-09T06:00:00.002-06:00

Well, it was so nice to be back to a regular routine this week. I even stayed on our meal-plan schedule. The quiche and pumpkin bread will carry over from last week because we had a ton of leftovers so we ate those on Friday night. (We ate 4 meals off the enchiladas. I highly recommend splitting them into two pans and freezing one for later.)

Most of my recipes this week come from Make 5 Dinners in 1 Hour. This is a meal planning service that I joined several months ago. I've used a few recipes here and there, but I haven't really stuck to the plan and the whole premise of the meal plan, which is to make 5 meals at one time and then just pull them out and cook them each night (with all of the prep work already done). I did do this for one week using Michelle's sample menu before I joined and I liked it a lot. I just never could get my act together to both shop and prepare the meals on Sunday and then have them to use for the rest of the week. I hope to be better at this now that we are done with the holidays! Even if you don't prep the meals ahead of time, the recipes are still fairly simple to prepare if you just want to cook as you go through the week. (The cost of the service is $5/month and includes a grocery list and ideas to lighten the dishes if you so desire.)

Monday: Hamburgers, hot dogs, tater tots and sweet potato fries. We are having game day food in honor of the big game on Monday night.

Tuesday: slow cooker fiesta chicken bowls, Spanish rice

Wednesday: leftovers from Monday night (we have to eat quick due to church)

Thursday: Teriyaki beef, rice, snap peas

Friday: slow cooked baked potato soup, salad

Saturday: breakfast - chocolate chip pancakes (I add 1/2c. chocolate chips to this recipe) and pumpkin pancakes; dinner - glazed pork chops, broccoli, roasted red potatoes

Sunday: lunch-ham & cheese quiche, pumpkin bread; dinner - leftovers

Check out Laura's blog for more Menu Plan Monday.

Preschool Corner: Letter D (Dinosaurs and Dora the Explorer)

2012-01-08T20:30:00.006-06:00

Our Letter D week revolved around Dinosaurs and Dora the Explorer. Fantastico! (Let's just say I've seen a few too many Dora episodes.)

{David is 3 years, 8 months old.}

We did a dinosaur on our Melissa & Doug sort/snap color match puzzle.

We made a Dora Tot Book at the beginning of the week and used it to review our colors, shapes and numbers throughout the week.

We also worked on our bible verse from RRSP. Our D verse was "Do all things without complaining or disputing." (My 5 year old really needs to learn this too!)

Our cut & tape bible verse activity. It wraps around his head!

Our bible craft ... learning how to respond without complaining or disputing. (I'm hopeful it sticks!)

Reviewing our letter D vocabulary words. We are finally holding our pencil sort of correctly. (In his defense, this is exactly how I hold a pencil with 2 fingers on top.)

A close up of the pencil grip.

Working on some of our Dinosaur activities from our LOTW curriculum.

We tried out a new alphabet maze you can find here. We used beads to mark our path through the maze (on the letter D). And then we colored the letter D boxes.

Donut and duck dot painting from here.

We made these shape dinosaurs that I found here and then decorated their background.

Handwriting.

More dinosaur activities from LOTW.

Making a playdough D ... and being silly with the playdough. Playdough pages came from here.

Dinosaur dot-to-dot that I found here.

Dinosaur coloring page from LOTW.

David's coloring is SO MUCH IMPROVED. I have to document his first time really staying in the lines.

He loves reading his easy reader from RRSP.

The dinosaur dig was a hit! I added dried pasta, beans and some small plastic dinosaurs they sell in a tube at Target for $4.99. He played with this for a long time!

Dinosaur fossil craft. I got the idea here. And happened to have all the appropriate pasta pieces in our pantry. Yeah me!!

Letter D poke page.

Dinosaur magnet page.

Dinosaur puzzle.

Dinosaur pattern activity.

We love these alphabet coloring pages. D is for Dog.

Our project board for the week.

Linked up here:

Luke: 15 months old

2012-01-05T11:20:00.001-06:00

Well, by default, the picture in the red chair pose that we did monthly the first 12 months of Luke's life has ended.

He is quite the mover and shaker now and will hardly sit still long enough for a picture.

Here are some stats from his 15 month checkup:

Weight: 23 lbs., 9 oz. (40th percentile)

Height: 30-3/4 inches (30th percentile)

Luke is a silly and sweet boy. He is much needier than my other two kids were, but then gets mad if you try to hold him or help him. He is very loving. He will come up and pat me on the leg and say mama and put his head against my leg like he is hugging you.

He is wearing mostly 18 months clothes (but still some 12 months). He drinks whole milk, eats all table food and feeds himself for the most part. He really like to try and use utensils but mostly he uses his hands. His favorite food is anything you are eating. I'm not joking!

He is sleeping 12 hours at night and around 3 hours during the day after lunch (we are down to one nap now).

Seriously, this little guy is into everything. He can empty every cabinet, drawer, container in my kitchen in the blink of an eye. His favorite thing to do with all his toys is to just pull them out (and make a huge mess). He doesn't really care for playing with them all that much. Now that he is mobile, he is unstoppable.

And I wrote about his love for sitting in containers here. He got in there all by himself.

He is talking a little. He says more, milk, bye-bye, bite, mama, dada, uh-oh and thank you. He points at things, shakes his head no (or pushes away), waves and blows kisses.

He is a sweet, sweet boy, but my most difficult toddler yet. Glad he is my last! I don't think we could handle another one like him.

Preschool Corner: Letter C (Caterpillar and CARS)

2012-01-02T16:30:00.003-06:00

David loved his letter C week ... mainly because it involved lots of CARS!

We used the Disney Cars preschool pack and tot pack from 1+1+1=1. Here we are doing some Cars matching and shape identification.

Coloring a C is for Cat page also from 1+1+1=1. (And very interested in what sister is doing.)

Cars pre-writing, numbers and spelling.

Caterpillar size sorting from LOTW curriculum.

Luke played with cars on the floor while we learned about cars.

Cars stickers on the letter C. This activity was a big hit!

We also spelled "cars" with some circle Cars stickers I found at the dollar store. This boy sure does love stickers!

Caterpillar counting.

Tuning those fine motor skills with the mini-clothespins.

He liked standing all of the caterpillars up when he was done.

Letter C poke page from LOTW.

Our C memory verse was "Children obey your parents in all things for this is well pleasing to the Lord." Working on our daily bible verse activity from RRSP.

We learned what it means to OBEY.

Cutting out our bible verse.

Taping our verse together. He likes to do this himself.

This one was almost as long as he was!

More fun caterpillar activities.

I love this face! He was not into the pictures that day.

Lacing caterpillar.

Ummmm, I believe we need to do a little work on our lacing skills!

He really enjoyed decorating the background for his caterpillar cut & paste page.

Our bulletin board for the week. (It has finally moved from the kitchen to the school room. Yeah!!)

This post is linked up to these great blogs:

Happy Birthday to Will!

2012-01-02T16:24:00.000-06:00

Will turned the big 3-5 earlier in December. We got a sitter and went out to our favorite adult restaurant on his actual birthday, but we celebrated with the kids the night before.

The kids made him birthday cards that afternoon after school. My stamping and scrapbooking supplies were put to good use. (At least somebody is using them.)

Time to open gifts. The kids were very excited about this. He got a photo calendar and journal that I made here. (This website has awesome photo gifts.)

A birthday nose honk from Luke. (He thinks all noses honk.)

And a sweet birthday kiss.

My trip to Costco for birthday cheesecake was thwarted by a monsoon rain, so I made this family favorite dessert instead. (It really is the BEST chocolate cake ever.) We even had 3 and 5 candles (David's and Claire's current ages ... how handy for me).

Time to blow out the candles.

Menu Plan Monday: January 2

2012-01-02T15:18:00.000-06:00

Oh my! Is it 2012 already? This year has flown by. I am ready to get back to a normal routine and normal eating. I am done with all the yummy holiday food.

Most of my recipes this week come from Faithful Provisions. If you haven't checked out her site, you really should. She has great quick, easy and healthy recipes and great tips for budgeting and saving money.

Monday: Black bean beef enchiladas, chips & salsa/guacamole, salad

Tuesday: black-eye peas with ham over rice, collard greens, corny cornbread muffins

Wednesday: chicken taco chili, fritos

Thursday: grilled chicken over lemon pasta with spinach, garlic bread

Friday: Ham & cheese quiche, pumpkin bread, fruit

Saturday: birthday party

Sunday: leftover buffet

Check out Laura's blog for more Menu Plan Monday.

From our family to yours ...

2011-12-23T15:03:00.000-06:00

Christmas Goodies

2011-12-17T11:30:00.001-06:00

I love to bake during the holidays. This year, we've made a few goodies so far (mainly for teacher's gifts) but I wanted to share the ideas with you.

White chocolate party mix. Corn chex, pretzels, Cheerios, peanuts and m&ms all covered in white chocolate. Yum!

These little gems are so festive. The original inspiration came from here. My friend over at Phillips Phamily Phive also put a tasty spin on it with salted chocolate caramel pecan treats.

We made our first batch with candy cane kisses (my all-time favorite) and Christmas M&Ms.

We made the second batch with plain chocolate kisses and the M&Ms. The plain kisses took about 2-4 minutes longer to melt than the others. It would also be good with peanut M&Ms.

And last, but not least, the salted caramel chocolate shortbread bars. These things are RICH, but very tasty. I found the recipe here.

Most of these things were bagged up for preschool teachers and Wednesday night choir teachers' gifts. We will finish off the rest of it. Enjoy!

Christmas Kids

2011-12-16T06:00:00.002-06:00

The kids after church Dec. 4th. I love Christmas outfits! You will see these outfits a lot this Christmas season since this is the only year they will all 3 fit in them.

And saying that David's outfit fits is stretching it a bit. It's a 2T. He's 3-1/2 and wears a 3T. The pants are still fine, but the shirt is barely too short. I think we can tough it out for a couple more weeks. No growth spurts between now and Christmas please.

And this is me trying to use my camera in manual mode. That is one of my New Year's Resolutions ... to learn how to use my camera for real!

Above is a good setting to take photos of your Christmas tree with the lights all sparkly. However, it is not the best for photographing a child in front of said tree. As you can see below, the tree and lights look great, but there is not enough light on the kids faces and they look kind of grainy. (I actually added some fill light to these pictures in my editing software ... without, it was hard to see the kids at all.)

As you can see, even though I've had my camera since Feb. 2009, I still have a lot to learn. Up until now, I've shot everything in automatic mode. I see a lot of Internet reading "how to's" in my future.

Cheap Entertainment

2011-12-15T13:00:00.001-06:00

All three of my kiddos are great at entertaining themselves with everyday household items. Luke, for example, is a big fan of the Tupperware cabinet. After a few times of cleaning up this mess, that cabinet is now locked up tight.

He likes to pull everything out of the cabinet and climb inside. He won't be able to fit in there much longer. Sniff, sniff!

Claire and David are both big fans of the cardboard box. They talked Daddy into cutting windows and doors into this one from our new water heater purchase.

In addition to cabinet climbing, Luke is also a big fan of drawer sitting. (This is at my in-laws' house. He loves their cup drawer.)

All 3 of my kids love playing with laundry baskets. Luke is pulled around in one often.

When the laundry baskets are full (which is all too often in my opinion), you can always find another box of some type to sit in.

Or trap yourself in the laundry basket cage.

Button Art

2011-12-15T07:36:00.002-06:00

We made this button branch back in the fall. I'm not gonna lie ... it was a long, drawn-out project. The kids had fun though and now we have pretty pieces of ART to display in our house.

The canvas are 11x14 flat canvases with a hard back. I think it was $6.99 for a 3-pack at Hobby Lobby. The buttons were a bag-o-buttons from the scrapbook section of Hobby Lobby. These colors looked fall to me. Buttons were $4.99 per bag. We did not use a full bag for both projects. I used Tacky Glue to glue the branch and buttons onto the canvas.

The hardest part of this project was gluing the branch to the canvas, because, guess what? Branches aren't typically flat. It took me the better part of a day to get the branch in place, glued and dried.

I let the kids arrange the buttons on the canvases and I glued them down. This took a long time. We worked on it over the course of several days because Mama can only glue so many buttons in a sitting.

David's project. This art matched our blue dining room walls perfectly.

Claire's project.

My inspiration. I love the fall colors, but I love our spin on it too.

Source: meetthedubiens.blogspot.com via Susan on Pinterest

This cute project is linked here:

It's a Christmas Miracle!

2011-12-13T11:48:00.000-06:00

We visited Santa. Nobody cried. Everybody smiled AND looked at the camera.

AT THE SAME TIME.

All joking aside, I know that Santa has nothing to do with the real meaning of Christmas, but it is always something fun that the kids look forward to each year. At least they do now. See our visits with Santa of past here, here and here.

"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

Menu Plan Monday: December 12

2011-12-12T05:10:00.000-06:00

I must say that this is the most boring meal plan ever! I'm trying to avoid the grocery store and just pulling together leftovers and stuff I have in the freezer.

Monday: chicken artichoke lasagna, salad, bread

Tuesday: black bean & corn quesadillas, Spanish rice, salad

Wednesday: breakfast for dinner

Thursday: Spaghetti, salad, garlic bread

Friday: chicken Alfredo, salad, french bread

The rest of the weekend is kind of up in the air. We may try to get together with some friends for the holidays or we may just chill at home. I'll have to come up with something!

Check out Laura's blog for more Menu Plan Monday.

Jingle Bell Run 2011

2011-12-06T13:00:00.001-06:00

Will and I both got to run in the Arthritis Foundation's Jingle Bell Run this past weekend. Last year, he was sick with a sinus infection and sat in the car with the kids while I ran my very first 5K by myself. Boo!

We ran into my friend Melissa and she took a quick family photo for us before the race. David was not cooperating. He was way more interested in eating his donut.

Will before the race.

Ready to run! I told Will I was wearing my headsets and his response was "I wasn't planning on us staying together anyway." Gee, thanks!

David and Luke watching the race.

The kids were entertained in the awesome kids area while we ran. They made necklaces, Christmas cookies, ate candy canes, etc. They had a grand old time!

Claire modeling her jingle bell necklace.

Claire and David waiting for us at the finish line.

Here I come. My time was 31:27 which was MUCH improved from my time last year (of almost 37 minutes). Last year, I had just had Luke less than 3 months earlier. I was just happy to run the whole race to be quite honest.

Here comes Will. Please notice that I finished first. The pictures are in the correct order. Ha!

Will and me after the race.

Go Team Madeline!! My friend Claire's daughter (Madeline) who is David's age has JRA. We ran in her honor. Such a great group!

Claire and the Vanderbilt Children's Hospital mascot "Champ".

Luke just chillin' with my sports drink after the race. He was so ready to get out of that stroller.

Claire in her reindeer antlers.

Me and my friend Claire. She is all decked out in the Christmas attire. She chaired this event last year and helped a ton with it this year too. This event is always a fun way to kick-off the Christmas season!

Some aDult Fun!

2011-12-06T06:00:00.002-06:00

My old bible study group had their annual Christmas get together dinner at a local steakhouse this past weekend. Good food, good friends and good fun was had by all.

All the gals. On a funny side note ... the guys left us to pay while they headed to a sports bar across the street to watch the end of a basketball game. One of us (Heather) forgot her check card to pay and another one of us (Beth) forgot her car keys. Are we really that helpless without our hubbies?

Twinkies! This seems to happen to Will a lot.

The guys acting silly. (Chad is re-enacting an uncomfortable moment Carey had in the church preschool department a few weeks ago. And Will looks like he is riding a horse. Kevin is just happy to be there.)

Here is a better picture of the guys.

Fun times as always!!

Claire in Kindergarten: November 2011

2011-12-05T21:00:00.001-06:00

This has been a busy month for Miss Claire! The reading is finally started to click and I really think the extra sight words activities we have been doing is making the difference! Thank you to Carisa at 1plus1plus1equals1 for creating the You Can Read program and sharing it with us!

You Can Read Unit 2 activites ... our words were: I, can, me, you.

Some Thanksgiving activities from her Abeka curriculum.

Pilgrim hats (David got the boy hat).

Handprint turkey. She drew this all by herself. Even tracing her hand. (The house was another Abeka project and the gift was a Wednesday night church activity.)

Praise pumpkin patch. (The turkey was made at church one Wednesday night.)

You Can Read Unit 3 ... our words were: like, it, is, my.

We used a new activity with this one ... rice sensory box. The sight words are on small pieces of paper in different fonts and Claire has to find and sort the words. She loves this activity and we do it 2-3 times per week.

We used or playdough mats to sort the words.

Another use for the Bingo cards ... roll a word. We used our Education Cube printables with our 4 sight words and Claire marked each word she rolled on the Bingo cards.

Sight word graphing ... another of her favorite activities.

We always do our playdough activities together ... Claire's sightwords and David's letter of the week.

I finally got our word board ready too. Except that Luke pulled off the Q and W. I'll have to get those put back on! This is a good way for her to review our past words too. We take them all off and put them all on each week (new words and old words).

Making words with beads.

You Can Read Unit 4 ... our words were: love, mom, dad, at.

We also made this awesome nativity scene as one of her art projects in her Abeka program. She is super pumped to use it to tell us the Christmas story on Christmas Day. She mentions it frequently.

You Can Read Unit 5 ... our words were: go, here, up, down.

Ok. I think that is about it for the month of November. I really do some extra number work with Claire. She can count to 100, but we are having trouble with number recognition. Any suggestions?

This post is linked up to these great blogs:

Menu Plan Monday: December 5

2011-12-05T07:24:00.000-06:00

Monday: roasted turkey sausage, peppers & onions, mashed sweet potatoes, green beans

Tuesday: Eat out for Will's birthday

Wednesday: grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup

Thursday: Spaghetti, garlic bread

Friday: black bean & corn quesadillas, chips & salsa/cheese dip and salad

Saturday: AM: french toast casserole, sausage, fruit, PM: turkey & dressing casserole, green beans & rolls

Sunday: lunch out with a coupon, PM: chicken enchilada soup, chips

Check out Laura's blog for more Menu Plan Monday.

Preschool Corner: B is for Batman!

2011-12-04T17:35:00.001-06:00

Letter B week! So many great things start with B ... bugs, balloons, butterflies and Batman!

(David is 3 years, 7 months old)

David working on a coloring page with our Bible verse for the week ... "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God." (All of our bible verse printables came from Raising Rock Stars Preschool.)

Tracing our B words from RRSP.

David loved all of the Batman printables from 1plus1plus1equals1!

Size sorting Batman.

Batman letter matching. At first, I called out a letter and David placed his Batman character on the letter.

Then, we matched clothespins with the corresponding lowercase letters. This was a little trickier for him.

Claire was more than happy to help. She is super-nosy about everything David does.

Batman number matching.

I love how he just stopped by to listen to Claire read.

Batman coloring.

Batman pre-writing practice.

Batman color matching.

Batman playdough mat.

Other "B" activities. Butterfly uppercase/lowercase letter matching. (The butterfly printables came from our LOTW curriculum.)

Putting various ball stickers in a sticker album. (I picked this up at Dollar General for $1.)

Butterfly magnet page.

Balloon stickers on B. I think he was mad I was taking his picture here.

Letter Bb writing practice.

Bug watercolor painting. (I also got this at Dollar General for $1. FYI ... the picture did not turn out great but he really enjoyed painting.)

Butterfly puzzle.

Sticker mosaics. Claire made a Ballerina and David made a Bus.

Other great resources: Berenstain Bears books, Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle, Bob the Builder, Blues Clues and Barney videos on Netflix.

This is linked up to these great blogs:

Ballerina Girl

2011-12-02T13:00:00.000-06:00

Claire had these ballet pictures made back in September. We missed her group photos this year (where they wear their recital costumes) because we were in Disneyworld. This photographer had photographed at Claire’s studio before and he was leaving the area to do travel photography, so he offered one last shoot at the studio.

I couldn’t be happier with how they turned out. I love the simplicity of the black & white photos with the plain black leotard and white tulle. They even had a fan to achieve that wind-blown look.

While I love these photos, she sure does look so grown up, I almost can’t stand to look at them!

Advent Update

2011-12-01T21:46:00.001-06:00

I don’t plan to give you a daily play-by-play of our advent activities. However, I just wanted to let you know that Day 1 was a success.

Here are pictures of the kids with the advent calendar and Claire looking at the clue for Day 1. She actually “got” the story and enjoyed the craft. David was in a pretty funky mood this morning. I read our scripture from The Message but later realized the Claire’s bible (given to her by Will’s dad) is a Children’s International Version and much more kid-friendly, so we will be reading from there the rest of the time.

Here are the kids with our advent tree and their ornaments. All I can say if you do this craft is “go easy on the glue”. These things took most of the day to dry. I bought this little tree at Target for $8 and plan on having Will add a strand of lights. I need to find a place to put it where baby brother can’t get his grubby little hands on it!

Our fun activity today was visiting Santa Claus. That is why the kids are all dressed up in their Christmas finery. I’ll get our photo up soon, but let’s just say Santa has gotten pricey … and they don’t let you take pictures with your own camera now even if you buy their photo too (which I always do). All the kids did great and no tears were shed, which is what I call a successful visit to Santa. The big kids even told him what they wanted for Christmas.

We stopped by here on the way home and the kids were so excited. David was crying when he went to bed tonight because he wanted to look at more Christmas lights. I have that planned as one of our “fun” advent activities … lights, pjs and hot chocolate.

All in all, it was a busy and fun day and a great way to kick off the Christmas season.

Our Advent Calendar

2011-12-01T08:59:00.001-06:00

This year, we are doing something a little different for advent. In the past, we have read our Advent book each night beginning on Dec. 1st. By the time we get to the end, the kids have heard the entire story of Jesus’ birth from the book of Luke. (The story builds on itself each night, so the children learn it well.)

This year, since we are home so much, I found something different to do. We are using Truth in the Tinsel: An Advent Experience for Little Hands. Each day, we will read part of the Christmas story from the Bible. Then, we will make an ornament related to that part of the story and hang on a mini Christmas tree I bought the kids at Target ($8). We can talk about the story while we make the craft. The crafts are really simple and age appropriate for my 3-year-old and 5-year-old. (Luke will sit this one out this year.)

So, here is a picture of the advent calendar I made last night.

I used cardstock bookmarks from Joann's folded in half. Then I punched the scallop circles from scrapbook paper and punched out the circles with the numbers that I printed here. Each “day” has a clue about our story and craft for that day, and a fun Christmas activity on a sticky note (so I can change them out each year or move them around as necessary … like tonight, we plan to go see Santa at the mall, but that may or may not actually happen depending how our day goes).

The calendar itself is an 11x14 flat canvas that I had leftover from a previous craft project (they came in pack of 3) and I covered it with the red/white gingham from my scrap fabric bin. The cards are attached to jute twine that I hot-glued to the back of the canvas. Pretty simple.

And just to keep it real, here is my “work station” late last night while I was putting this all together. And for the record, I suffered a pretty bad glue gun burn on my thumb.

I will try to post our progress through the month. I think it will be fun to have a tree full of handmade ornaments when we are done.

Menu Plan Monday: November 28

2011-11-28T06:00:00.006-06:00

Do you have a Thanksgiving hangover? I do! We only ate one Thanksgiving meal this year and I cooked it. We had the best meal! Our favorites were the cornbread dressing, fried confetti corn and chocolate ice-box pie. (I pretty much live and die by Southern Living recipes now. They are guaranteed to be good.)

Monday: southwest taco soup, corn muffins

Tuesday: chicken enchilada soup, chips & salsa, sopapilla cheesecake (I'm hosting book club ... dessert required)

Wednesday: pizza, salad (we love Papa Murphy's take & bake ... plus we have BOGOF coupons to use up before the end of the year)

Thursday: Thanksgiving leftovers (one last time)

Friday: Dinner out with my old bible study group and spouses

Saturday: Spaghetti casserole, salad

Sunday: lunch out with a coupon, breakfast for dinner (at Claire's request)

Check out Laura's blog for more Menu Plan Monday.

So Thankful ...

2011-11-27T21:30:00.000-06:00

This is a picture of my parents and all of their grandchildren that was taken with my sister's phone. (I haven't gotten my TG pictures off of my camera yet.)

I am so thankful for all of the MANY blessings that God has given me. I was reminded of how truly blessed I am as I was spending the entire weekend surrounded by my loving family. I am so thankful that we were able to spend all day Thursday with my family and all day Friday and Saturday with Will's family. I am so thankful that Will was off Wednesday-Sunday and we were able to spend family time together cooking a Thanksgiving meal, Christmas shopping, watching the Iron Bowl and putting up our Christmas decorations. It was so nice to have an extra "helper" at home. I am so thankful for my three sweet children who are so loving and kind and funny and sweet and sometimes a big fat mess. I am so thankful for my heavenly Father who has saved me by grace and loves me in all of my flaws and weaknesses. I am thankful that it is those weaknesses that I am made strong in Christ. I am thankful for the material blessings that God has given me, but I am also thankful that my joy is found not in what I have or don't have, but who I am in Christ.

I hope that you and yours had a blessed Thanksgiving day!

It’s been a while …

2011-11-23T13:00:00.001-06:00

Since I got any pictures off of my phone. I looked back at my blog and the last time was here. Oh my, that has been a while!
Claire and David playing around our hotel lobby on the day we left Disneyworld (in May).

My cuties on Memorial Day … all dressed up in their red, white & blue.

All dressed up for our knight/princess tea party. One of our theme weeks over the summer was princesses & knights. The kids had a virtual tea party on my ipad (Toca Tea Party app). They had a blast dressing up. (David is actually wearing a ninja costume that I bought on clearance after Halloween last year.) We made the crowns they are wearing too.

This was when Luke first starting pulling up and standing.

Claire’s new haircut back in June I think?

Showing off their metals after swim lessons. David thought this little caution guy was grand. He would stop and play with him every day on our way back to the car.

At the beach with RiRi and DiDi. She brought David some Toy Story band-aids and he immediately covered his body with them. She spoils him rotten!

The cookie that was formerly Elmo made quite a big mess with all that RED frosting!

Claire loves this BIG BEAR at Costco. Can you believe it is only $30? We did not purchase it but she wanted me to take her picture with it.

Luke loves black beans! It looks like he missed his mouth a few times!

A nice day for a jeep ride … helmets optional.

Grocery shopping with 3. I had never seen this cart before. I typically try to avoid going grocery shopping with all 3 but sometimes I have to.

Showing off more band-aids. He doesn’t even care if they don’t have characters. He still wants them!

Riding the dolphin at the dentist. I’m glad they have lots of things to keep my kids entertained because we waited forever.

This boy gives the best sloppery kisses.

And I’m guessing you don’t want a chocolate kiss from this guy? That would be pudding.

My very own Mr. Potato Head. David does this often, but I finally caught it on camera.

I’m pretty sure this is not the safest thing to do, but at least it kept them from fighting over the tricycle.

Eating pizza at Aunt Ashley and Uncle Jon’s house. So proud of feeding himself.

Heading to the beach … and riding face-forward in his carseat for the first time. He thought he was BIG STUFF!

David helped me make pumpkin muffins one Saturday morning for breakfast.

Claire and a friend at soccer practice one night.

Claire and David with hooded blankets from RiRi and DiDi.

Sweet CeCe’s … one of our favorite after school treats. Claire always gets chocolate with M&Ms and David gets chocolate or vanilla with sprinkles. I love the cheesecake, cake better and Dulce de luche on any given day.

Luke gets pretty upset when the ice cream is all gone.

Playdate with Aunt Ashley, Ian and Evie at Meme and Poppy’s playground in their neighborhood. What a beautiful fall day!

Claire modeling her cute Halloween outfit.

Luke has figured out how to stick his finger up his nose and he thinks it is the funniest thing. Boys are so gross!

Pilgrims. Claire made this hat in her homeschool program when they were learning about the first Thanksgiving. They included a boy hat in the packet so we made that one for David. Don’t you love the look on his face?

My kitchen helper David helping make a cake for a wedding shower. I’m beginning to think he only helps me so he can taste the batter!

At our neighbor Kate’s 4th birthday party. My kids had so much fun. They love Kate bunches.

Time for princess cake and Happy Birthday singing.

Kate and Claire.

Luke loves pulling things out of our garbage can. The other day I had run upstairs for something real quick and as I was coming back down David said “Luke has something on his face.” I knew exactly what he had done.
Now he is known as Headwound Luke. (Remember that SNL character?) I had lasagna for lunch and he found the container I had thrown away with some leftover sauce. He thought he was pretty funny!

Goodness … this was a lot! I need to get photos off my phone more often.

This is Alabama Football!

2011-11-23T06:00:00.112-06:00

Since I have not managed to get any of our football pictures up, despite the fact that we have been to several games this year, I decided to lump them all into one big post.

Will made the trek down to Tuscaloosa with some guy friends for the Arkansas game in September, but I stayed home for soccer. (Those are words I never thought would come out of my mouth!)

My first game of the season was the Vanderbilt game (which was also homecoming). We got to take Claire and David with us and they were so excited!

Luke stayed home with Meme, but he still showed his school spirit!

C & D loved their Big Al shirts. Our only family photo of the day.

Our best buddies in Tuscaloosa ... David and Nikki. We stopped by to see them at their awesome tailgate before the game.

We finally made it to the Quad. Will and the kids in front of Denny Chimes. An U of A landmark.

Checking out the handprints and footprints of captains past.

David got this fun hat as his game-day souvenir.

Claire and Daddy.

In front of the stadium ... heading into the game.

Daddy and Claire in our seats.

David and Me. David was pretty content as long as the snacks were running freely. There was a little incident with sticky hands after he ate a fruit-by-the-foot that I thought might send him over the edge. Did I mention he doesn't like loud noises? (He covers his ears when he flushes the toilet.) He was NOT A FAN of the fly over after the National Anthem.

I love this picture. The kids made it until the 3rd quarter before we started packing up to head home.

Will has definitely succeeded in raising two Bama fans. Claire still does some of the cheers she heard at the game. She watched intently. David ... not so much yet.

The next big game was the Bama/UT game and we were without kids which was a nice treat for the day. It took us forever to get to Tuscaloosa due to a wreck in North Alabama on the interstate. We finally got there and had a quick little tailgate time before the game with David & Nikki. The blond is our friend Rebecca, who works in the Southern Living test kitchens and she is AWESOME! You should check out her blog here. You definitely want to eat whatever she brings to the tailgate.

Me, Nikki & Casey

David & Will

Alabama takes the field with lots of fanfare!

Will and I eating yummy football cookies.

Pictures of the field from our seats.

The last game we attended was the big one ... Bama vs. LSU (#2 vs. #1) ... maybe you heard about it?

We left the kids with Will's parents for the weekend and headed to T-town for a big day of tailgating and football.

Rebecca, Me and Nikki

We met up with our friends Jay and Jennie (we drove 4 hours to hang out with them and they live 5 minutes from our house ... go figure). It was a long day so it was nice to change up our tailgate site for a bit.

Will and Jay unintentionally wore their matching shirts. Funny!

Here's to another great football season even if we don't bring home the big title. (I think it's still a possibility at this point.) Every year we say we are not going to buy tickets the next year, but then we have a great time and decide to keep them another year.

Party Planner Extraordinaire

2011-11-22T06:00:00.002-06:00

Remember these? My friend Kaisha made them for her daughter's 2nd birthday party.

I thought I would show you the rest of the pictures from this super-cute party (in case you are planning a very special birthday party for a very special little girl).

Lots of color-coordinated sweet treats. The fabric for the tablecloth and matching scrapbook paper (from which the invitations were made) were both purchased at Hobby Lobby.

Another view of all the treats.

Time to open gifts! Notice the matching balloons and birthday banner.

A nice touch for the whole family to coordinate with this lollipop theme!

Lollipop cakes. I'm not sure if she made these herself or had them made. You would probably make them yourself if you have a round cake pan and some basic frosting tools.

My sweet friend and her little E-bug. Notice my friends orange & green attire. She really does pay attention to every single detail. Me ... I'm just happy that everybody is dressed most of the time.

Sweet sisters (in matching lollipop shirts).

Menu Plan Monday: November 21

2011-11-21T06:23:00.000-06:00

Love the menu planning for the short week. Especially a menu plan that includes leftovers only. I will be busy cooking on Wednesday though as we are hosting my family on Thanksgiving Day.

Warning: You will be seeing a lot of creative leftover turkey recipes in the coming weeks. I purchased a 20-pound turkey for my family of 6 adults and 5 kids (5 and under) to eat.

Monday: leftover margarita grilled chicken from Chilis, black beans, chips/salsa/guacamole

Tuesday: leftover breakfast casserole, hashbrown casserole and blueberry muffins

Wednesday: eat out with a coupon

Thursday: Thanksgiving!

Friday: More Thanksgiving with Will's family

Saturday: Game Day food! The Alabama/Auburn game is on at 2:30! Roll Tide!

Sunday: leftovers

Check out Laura's blog for more Menu Plan Monday.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ...

2011-11-19T21:40:00.000-06:00

No, I haven't forgotten Thanksgiving ... my favorite holiday. But it seems the retail industry has. My kids went berserk when we saw Christmas trees at Target yesterday. And I will admit, I have listened to Christmas music once ... check out the Bing Crosby Christmas channel on Pandora. (White Christmas is my all-time favorite movie and I make Will watch it every year ... he knows all the songs now too.)

Anyway, one of the first things I always do to get ready for the Christmas season is order my Christmas cards. I'm a little late in the game right now, but I have decided to order them from Costco this year so I can pick them up quickly in the store. And, I'm going to order them tomorrow. I've had my pictures since September so I really have no excuse.

I love to receive Christmas cards. Especially photo cards. And I love looking back and previous years' cards. But how is the best way to store them? In the past, I've scrapbooked them in the back of our annual family scrapbook. But, since I haven't done one of those since 2006, it really is not the best solution. Plus, I would like to get the past years' cards out at each Christmas ... not every annual scrapbook for the history of our marriage.

So here is what I have come up with.

(1) Purchase a Christmas Memory box from Paper Coterie. Cost is $38.00 plus shipping. But I got mine for $8 plus shipping because I had a $30 off coupon code. Like them on Facebook. They give you discount codes all the time. Also, follow The Mom Creative (Jessica Turner) on Facebook. She finds and posts coupon codes for this website all the time. I will keep this box out on our coffee table and put our current year's cards in it as they come in.

(2) For past years' cards that are not already scrapbooked, I am going to stack them together, hole punch them and connect them with binder rings and make a notebook of sorts. I found the idea on Pinterest.

Source: allendesigns.typepad.com via Susan on Pinterest

I could probably put current cards and past cards clipped together in one box. (These boxes are huge and super-nice ... take my word for it.)

And sorry for all the rambling. Will accidentally made a pot of coffee after dinner so we drank it and now I am going to be up all night long. (He was making the coffee for tomorrow morning and instead of setting the timer to brew in the morning, he turned the machine on and the pot was already half-way full when we realized.)

Test

2011-11-19T14:59:00.000-06:00

I am testing out blogging with Windows Live Writer.

Um, so far so good.

Preschool Corner: P is for Pumpkin

2011-11-19T07:00:00.000-06:00

Since David finished learning all of his vowels, I decided to skip ahead to Letter P (for pumpkin) to coincide with our trip to the pumpkin patch and Halloween.

{David is 3 years, 7 months old}

Here is David working on his letter P words from Raising Rock Stars.

Handwriting ... I think this is his least favorite thing right now. As you can see, we are still working on the correct way to hold a pencil.

Watching a Halloween Barney video with Claire & Luke on my Ipad. Hello ... see all those blocks on the floor? Luke was keeping himself very busy while we were doing school.

Most of our pumpkin printables came from Confessions of a Homeschooler's LOTW curriculum. We used pumpkin seeds as our counters and David thought that was grand. He did not like eating the pumpkin seeds though.

Tiny, tiny seeds that I continued to find on the floor several days later. Maybe not such a good idea after all!

This was our first week to do a magnet page and it was one of his favorite things. I made our own magnets with sticky circle magnets and pom poms.

Crafts for the week included a pumpkin shaker and stained-glass pumpkins (neither of which I have a finished product photo). Oh well, he had fun making both of these crafts.

Paint and/or color coffee filters.

Spray with water. (His most favorite part by far ... he can entertain himself for hours with that spray bottle.)

Dry. Make pumpkins. Laminate and hang on window.

More LOTW activities (with all of my laundry in the background).

Playdough Ps.

P is for penguin coloring page. This boy loves penguins. We even walked around like a penguin.

Reviewing our P words one last time before cutting and pasting them onto our alphabet page.

Sometimes I let him cut, sometimes I let him glue. Whatever interests him that particular week.

Working our our RRSP verse craft/activity. Our verse was "Praise the Lord! For it is good to sing praises to our God." This was a patterning activity with the music notes. Then we just glued them on in no particular order.

Reading our easy reader from RRSP. We do this every day and it is one of his favortie activities every week.

Cutting/taping our verse together. Another favorite weekly activity from RRSP.

More handwriting practice with our pumpkins.

Pumpkin puzzle.

Pumpkin number matching. (No way was I getting the pumpkin seeds out again!)

This post is linked to the following sites where you can find other awesome preschool (and Kindergarten) ideas:

Fall Soccer

2011-11-17T14:00:00.032-06:00

Claire played in a new soccer league this year and we LOVED it. (1) The season lasted 6 weeks. (2) College soccer players run the practices so she was actually learning soccer skills. (3) Everybody practices and plays games at the same time so when David plays next year, only one practice night and one game day per week. The only "con" of this league was that it was co-ed. But that didn't seem to bother Claire!

Meme keeping David entertained during one of the games.

I only took pictures at a couple of games, but at the last game, Claire was super-aggressive and scored 5 goals for the day. Her soccer skills have definitely improved and she is still a super-fast runner.

Her buddy Sophie. Her dad was Claire's coach.

Claire's #1 fan.

Our motley crew on the sidelines.

Team photo. The last game fell the week before fall break so several team members were out. And we probably should not have posed the kids facing the sun. Sophie (in the center) was clearly not a fan!

Pickin' Pumpkins

2011-11-17T06:00:00.002-06:00

Before we get too removed from fall, I wanted to document our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. Our favorite little patch from last year was quite a bit more crowded this year! We still got to hit our fave things though.

I'm really not sure you can call this a hayride since there was NO HAY! We took a little spin around the farm in the ~~cage~~ wagon and the kids had a fun time.

Sweet baby Luke. He was a trooper as usual.

The corn popper is always a big hit. However, right before we got on to jump (after waiting in line about 30 minutes), David had a complete come-apart and didn't want to jump. He was not loving it at first.

But then he decided it was really fun and had a blast.

Claire jumping high.

The hay maze. I can't believe David went in. He lost Claire and came back out the entrance.

Here is Claire at the end.

Say cheese!

The kids couldn't wait to ride the cow train. It was a big hit last year.

Three little piggies at the farm.

My sweet baby boy ... loving the corn maze.

Time to pick our pumpkins. Each kid got a free mini-pumpkin to take home.

So much fun climbing the tractor tire mountain.

The big memory that David & Claire had from last year was the pig races. David clearly remembered that the pigs raced for Oreo cookies. So funny!

One last picture of my little pumpkins before heading home. So much fun!!

DIY: Kitchen Message Center

2011-11-16T06:00:00.002-06:00

Another Pinterest project completed. My inspiration ...

Source: makeandtakes.com via Susan on Pinterest

BEFORE: My kitchen wall with plain, boring bulletin board to hold the kids' art.

Bulletin board removed. Wall taped for dear hubby to hang 6 12x12 frames. (Sadly, my kitchen wall looked like this for about 3 weeks before we got the pictures hung.)

12x12 cork boards went in 3 of the frames.

The other 3 frames hold a menu board (from my original inspiration), a shopping list board and a family photo with scripture. All of the "photos" were created on Photoshop Elements 7.0 and printed at Costco for $2.99/print.

AFTER: here is the message center in use. I love it! I attached the dry erase marker above the "menu plan" board with a velcro dot. I also used a velcro dot on the bottom center of each frame to hold the frame in place. Otherwise, I might drive myself crazy trying to keep these frames all lined up.

To summarize:

Supplies needed:
6 - 12x12 frames with glass. (These were $5/each at Hobby Lobby on sale.)
3 - 12x12 cork board. (Approximately $5 for 4 at Hobby Lobby.)
3 - 12x12 prints or pieces of scrapbook paper (this step can totally be done without Photoshop)
velcro dots
dry erase marker

Total cost = $45 (does not include marker and velcro dots that I already had but that cost is minimal)

1st Sleepover = Success!

2011-11-15T15:00:00.001-06:00

Claire had her first sleepover friend a few Friday nights ago. It was our niece Evie. I felt pretty confident that it would go well ... and it did.

Will picked Evie up on his way home from work and brought her to our house. We made Smores cookies and I even let these two girls crack the eggs. Can you tell they were excited about the eggs?

We ate dinner at our favorite chicken finger place and then the girls came home and watched a Barbie movie. I thought we had decided on watching "Tangled" but Evie saw the Barbie movie and wanted to watch that instead since she had not seen it before. The funniest line of the night was when Evie was starting to get a little scared at one part of the movie, and I heard Claire say something like "you're the one who picked this movie." Oh girls! There was lots of popcorn, milk and smores cookies with the movie.

After the movie, it was time for a mani/pedi. I painted 20 fingernails and 20 toenails 40 different colors. (Not really, but every nail was a different color on each hand/foot.)

Evie slept on Claire's trundle bed in Claire & David's room. The kids had fun jumping on the trundle.

Time for bed! Finally! Mommy was pooped!

We were worried we might have a middle of the night drive home, but once we got everyone to sleep, we didn't hear a peep out of them until 8AM the next morning.

After a breakfast of Claire's favorite chocolate chip pancakes, we headed out to take Evie home.

Overall, I think the first sleepover went really well. I'll have to rest up for the next one!

Menu Plan Monday: November 14

2011-11-14T06:00:00.002-06:00

Here is our menu plan for the week:

Breakfast treat: Chocolate chip pancakes (I use this recipe and add 1/2c. chocolate chips), pumpkin pancakes

Monday: Creamy baked flautas, mexicorn, chips & queso

Tuesday: Grilled pork chops, green beans, chipotle sweet potatoes

Wednesday: Ham & cheese quiche, blueberry muffins, salad

Thursday: Spaghetti casserole, salad, french bread

Friday: Eat out with a coupon

Saturday: Eat at wedding

Sunday: leftovers

Oh, and on another food related note ... drop everything you are doing and go make these now (the salted chocolate-caramel ones). They are divine!

Check out Laura's blog for more Menu Plan Monday.

My Boys!

2011-11-13T08:00:00.004-06:00

In case you haven't noticed, I love matching outfits! This is the first season I haven't purchased a matching set for all 3 kids. I bought one matching set for the boys, so I tried to snap a few pictures of the two little monsters after church when the finally wore them.

Easier said than done ...

On a side note, Will is not a fan of these outfits because: (1) they match, (2) Luke's outfit is smocked and (3) they scream Rocky Top. Ha! I will say that I intentionally waited until after the annual UT/Bama game for the boys to wear these. Glad that Bama won that game or it might have been money down the drain!

Claire in Kindergarten: 2nd 6-week period

2011-11-11T06:00:00.002-06:00

We took a little "fall break" from our Abeka video program during this 6-week period (which actually made it more like a 7-week period). We also started the You Can Read program. (Unit 1 is covered in this post.)

One of the great things about homeschooling is that Claire gets to do things like "bring a friend to ballet" with our neighbors' preschooler (who is taller than Claire) in the middle of the day. They had so much fun and got to go to McDonald's for lunch and play afterwards.

We also did some Kindergarten fall printables one day. Here is Claire working on her handwriting. Sadly, her manuscript writing is not all that great since she is learning cursive in her K program. David is working a scarecrow puzzle beside her. Another great thing about homeschooling ... extra time with our siblings!

More fall printables.

We played outside a lot (we had great fall break weather) and got some extra playtime with some of our friends.

Let's go for a ride in the jeep!

Our neighbor came over one afternoon for a playdate and we made Halloween crafts. (Really, we just played with foam Halloween stickers from the dollar bin at Target.)

About 3 weeks ago, I started doing some supplemental reading activities with Claire to help her learn some sight words.

We have about 15-20 activities to do each week and we learn 4 sight words each week. She is really enjoying it so far and I enjoy actually getting to do some school with her as opposed to sitting her in front of a video.

Here are some pics of our different activities. We do 4-5 activities per day (in addition to her regular school work) and it usually takes about 10-15 minutes.

We also made a pumpkin shaker. I got the idea for this craft here.

The completed shaker.

We also read The Pumpkin Patch Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs and used these fun printables to go along with it.

More sight word activities.

Making sight words out of playdough is a big hit. We made our own playdough with this recipe.

And finally ... our little Indian princess. This was one of Claire's art projects with her Abeka program. She spent A LOT of time decorating her vest.

Find other great preschool and Kindergarten ideas here.

This post is also linked up at:

I get around ...

2011-11-10T06:00:00.000-06:00

Guess who is walking! This little guy took his first steps on October 4, 2011.

My last and latest walker. (Luke was 12-1/2 months old. Claire walked at 11-1/2 months and David walked at 10 months.)

He seems to enjoy it. He is quite proud of himself.

It took a while before we made any real progress. It took him a few weeks to get the hang of it.

Now he can make it across the room before he falls down. And he prefers walking over crawling. Now he really is into everything.

"Delicious hot smoes"

2011-11-09T06:00:00.001-06:00

The title is one of my favorite lines from Toy Story 2 ... from the mouth of Buzz Lightyear himself. (If you haven't seen the movie, "smoes" actually refers to SMORES, which is what this post is about.)

Our neighbors texted us over for smores one Sunday evening. It was the perfect for night for a fire.

Time to roast the marshmallows. I like mine charred and crispy. Claire was not a fan. David on the other hand, may turn into a marshmallow he eats them so much.

The smores were a hit with the kids and the adults!

Luke had fun when we finally let him out of the stroller. Three kids around the fire makes me a bit of a nervous wreck.

Coming off our smores high, I was craving more. I found these smores cookies on Pinterest. It's basically chocolate chip cookie dough with mini marshmallows placed on top of a graham cracker square.

When the cookie bakes, it bakes onto the graham cracker. They were yummy. Even picky cookie eater Claire liked them. (Take note ... they are better the next day after the graham crackers have softened.)

Thank you Pinterest for yet another AWESOME idea!

Salty and Sweet Fall Treats

2011-11-08T21:00:00.000-06:00

We made some fun fall treats to send to school with the boys on Halloween. They could definitely carry over to Thanksgiving as well.

(1) Pumpkin Marshmallow Pops.

I found the idea here.

My helpers. Put sucker stick into marshmallow.

David snuck more than a few marshmallows into his mouth.

We dipped the marshmallows into melted white chocolate food colored orange. (I recommend buying the orange candy coating chips instead of trying to color your white chocolate. I think you can find them in the cake decorating section at Hobby Lobby or Joann.)

Cool on wax paper. Tie with green ribbon.

Package.

(2) Halloween/Fall snack mix.

I made a variation of this mix a couple of years ago. I found the recipe I used this year here.

I bought these jars for $2-3 at Hobby Lobby (half price) filled them with snack mix tied a black ribbon around the lid (that I secured with hot glue) and made a cute tag. I gave these to the boys' teachers and they were a big heat.

Preschool Corner: U is for Umbrella

2011-11-04T10:00:00.000-05:00

(David is 3 years, 6 months old)

Most of our activities came from our Letter of the Week curriculum.

This is the first unit where I had my new laminator! So, this is our first lacing page. David called it a kite all week and pulled it around by the string.

Working on our cut/tape bible verse from RRSP. (Like how our school room also doubles as my sewing/craft room?) David actually does a pretty good job of cutting in the gray area.

Dot painting our "U" words. This printable came from here.

Hooray! Coloring our bible verse page from RRSP.

Tracing our "U" words. At the end of the week, we cut out the pictures and add them to our alphabet book.

We made a Noah's Ark tot book. You know, umbrella ... rain. It was a stretch, but gave us a fun bible story to read and a fun way to review our numbers, shapes, colors, etc.

A fun umbrella craft I found here.

We also took an umbrella walk outside ... see the sunshine? Clearly the umbrellas weren't necessary but it was still fun. (I got this idea from Claire's preschool class last year.)

Working an umbrella puzzle from LOTW.

Color matching umbrellas from LOTW.

Oh the insanity ... I just love this picture with ALL THE SILLY BANDS! I think he was just tired of me taking his picture at this point.

Uppercase/lowercase Uu matching.

Claire played with some of our matching puzzles too.

Letter matching to spell umbrella.

One family activity I really wanted us to do but never got around to was an upside down evening. I'll save this for our Pre-K letter U week next year.

Check out what other preschoolers are doing here.

Sweet Sleep

2011-11-04T07:45:00.003-05:00

Follow my friends Brooke, Tate and Jenny as they head to Cape Town, South Africa this afternoon to serve with Sweet Sleep. This will be Sweet Sleep's first trip to South Africa and I pray that God will bless their efforts there. And, I pray that Sweet Sleep founder Jen Gash will find the strength to unbuckle her seat belt and move around (and maybe even go to the bathroom) during their 17 hour flight! (She has never unbuckled on an airplane before ... and she travels a lot!)

If you have never heard of Sweet Sleep before, watch these videos to see what they do and their work in action.

The morning after ...

2011-11-01T19:56:00.008-05:00

Happy Halloween!! I didn't get the kids in their costumes until 4pm yesterday and we left at 5 to head to our friends' house for dinner and trick-or-treating so there was no way I was getting costume pics up on the blog last night.

Here is Fireman Dave. I really hope he doesn't have to put out any fires because he could not lift that fire extinguisher. It is not a prop. It is the real deal and it is heavy. I just ran it out for the picture.

For some reason, David felt the need to hold his hat on (with both hands) all night long.

Claire specifically requested to be Rapunzel. After studying my options online for several weeks, I finally decided to order directly from the Disney Store because (1) their costume was by far the prettiest, (2) I liked the braided wig versus big, crazy loose hair wig that is not braided (Hello, have you seen the movie? Rapunzel had braided hair.), and (3) I had a 15% off coupon code that made the Disney costume the same price as any of my other options.

Claire got to wear silver sparkle shoes and makeup. She was in heaven!

Scooby Luke was not a fan of his headpiece. This was my one attempt at a photo before Will got home and before Luke scampered off. (This costume was a hand-me-down from big brother.)

Ah, there we go. He finally wore the hat for a few minutes. (Notice older siblings holding his hands.)

Claire and her BFF Kate (posing as Sleeping Beauty ... Claire's favorite princess until Rapunzel came along).

All the kiddos at our little trick-or-treat gathering. Claire is the oldest and Luke is the youngest and one more is on the way (he is not ours).

Our hosts. This is the third year we have trick-or-treated in their ginormous neighborhood.

Much to Will's dismay, we dressed up this year. I already had the Daphne costume and I borrowed the Fred costume from a friend. I knew it would be our last chance to go as a Scooby gang since Luke was wearing the costume this year. I'm thinking neon orange hair is not my best color!

The whole gang.

And now, I'm off to eat some Halloween candy!

Menu Plan Monday: October 31

2011-10-31T11:20:00.002-05:00

This week is kind of crazy for us with Halloween and work travel and a really big football game this weekend. (Watch this super-cool promo video here if you love college football.)

Monday: Pizza, salad, Halloween candy!

Tuesday: Lime cilantro steak, mashed sweet potatoes (I am going to pick a recipe from Pinterest), salad (WE NEVER ATE THIS LAST WEEK.)

Wednesday: Chicken puffs, green beans, mandarin orange salad

Thursday: pepperoni pizza puffs, salad (ANOTHER CARRYOVER)

The rest of the week/weekend in kind of up in the air. I'm guessing there will be some FAST FOOD involved. Yuck! Hopefully, we can find a Chick-Fil-A!

Check out Laura's blog for more Menu Plan Monday.

Fall Fun Links

2011-10-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

Here are a few fun activities we have done this week to celebrate fall and Halloween!

Source: littlefamilyfun.blogspot.com via Susan on Pinterest

Source: bystephanielynn.com via Susan on Pinterest

Source: almostunschoolers.blogspot.com via Susan on Pinterest

Source: meetthedubiens.blogspot.com via Susan on Pinterest

Source: adventuresofabettycrockerwannabe.blogspot.com via Susan on Pinterest

Source: icanteachmychild.com via Susan on Pinterest

Preschool Corner: O is for Octopus

2011-10-28T07:00:00.001-05:00

Today is my first time to link up to Preschool Corner over at Homeschool Creations. This website has been an AWESOME resource for me for getting started with homeschooling. And, it has some great preschool resources (that are FREE!) for the little man.

(David is 3Y, 6M old.)

Our theme this week was mostly Octopus from our LOTW curriculum.

Oh my word ... how cute is that face. Octopus puzzle.

Octopus letter matching. This is the first time I've included this activity (because I had not make the letter discs yet) but he did great.

Is that a smile I see while coloring? David is normally not a huge fan of all the coloring. I try to break up his schedule so we only color one thing per day.

Playdough is always a big hit with this little guy. He got a little silly with the LC "o". You can find these great playdough mat printables (that you can laminate or slide into a page protector) here.

We also pulled in a few "Ocean" activities for our O week. (It just so happens that we went to the beach at the end of this week too. That was handy planning on my part ... or just lucky I guess.)

We did this measuring with goldfish activity that I found here and we made a fun ocean tot book that I apparently did not take any pictures of us using. He really does love looking through the tot books everyday and it helps us review basics like numbers (1-10), shapes and colors.

Writing the letter O.

Craft time. We made an Octopus and a gold glitter Owl, both of which were found here. We added a little impromptu glitter to the owl because (1) he looked a little plain without it and (2) David loves the glitter glue. It is definitely his favorite crafting item.

Our O board for the week (which also includes some crafts from church and mother's day out.) We got back on track learning our RRSP verse this week, which was "Oh, give thanks to the Lord for He is good." David still enjoys doing all of the activities for our bible verse each week as you can see them on the board.

Photobooks ... my new memory-keeping love!

2011-10-27T11:08:00.003-05:00

I have been faithfully reading The Mom Creative's 31 days of memory-keeping posts during the month of October. She is a full-time working mother of two who loves to read, craft and SCRAPBOOK! (I think we were separated at birth. Ha!)

Scrapbooking will always be my first crafting love, but I just don't have time for traditional paper scrapbooking at this time in my life. Right now, this blog is my main form of memory keeping, but I like to have current things to hold and look at in real life (i.e., not on a computer screen).

My first photo book was of our most recent trip to Disneyworld. I think I purchased a $10 Shutterfly Groupon and then paid about $8-10 for shipping. So my total cost was about $20 for a $30 book.

Thanks to The Mom Creative's series, I've made two other photo books (for great deals) and a journal over the last few weeks.

The first photo book was another Shutterfly book for 40% off. I think I ended up paying $20 for the $30 book plus shipping. (If I had spent $30, I could have gotten free shipping but I didn't have it in me to make another book and the coupon expiration was fast approaching!) I made a book of Luke's first birthday party.

I am posting this book since I never posted any pics of Luke's birthday party. (FYI ... the first page is blank because it was the invitation, which I've already posted here, and I didn't want all of our personal info on the Internet.)

Click here to view this photo book larger

The second photo book and journal were FREE thanks to special coupon codes from The Mom Creative and they were from a new website called Paper Coterie. (These coupon codes have expired but she currently has a code for a free memory keeper, which is a super nice box for storing mementos.) I received the journal yesterday and I am impressed with the quality. I should receive my photobook today. (This photo book was made of Luke's professional photos at Newborn, 4M, 8M and 12M for a first year sort of book.)

I know the photobooks are pricey, but if you watch for great deals on Snapfish, Shutterfly and other photo sites, you can make them whenever and order them on sale!

Happy memory-keeping!

Menu Plan Monday: October 24

2011-10-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

Here is our menu plan for the week:

Breakfast treat: French toast casserole & bacon

Monday: Creamy baked flautas, mexicorn, salad

Tuesday: Chicken puffs, green beans, mandarin orange salad

Wednesday: Slow-cooked chicken & vegetables, bread machine wheat rolls

Thursday: Lime cilantro steak, mashed sweet potatoes (I am going to pick a recipe from Pinterest), salad

Friday: pepperoni pizza puffs, salad, campfire cookies

Saturday: caramel apple muffins (breakfast); I think we are having friends over for dinner so our menu is still up in the air for now.

Sunday: Leftover buffet

Check out Laura's blog for more Menu Plan Monday.

I is for Igloo and Ice Cream and Inchworm!

2011-10-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

We had a fun "I" week. Who doesn't love ice cream in August?

Making playdough I's.

David was not in the mood to have his picture taken this particular day.

Inchworm puzzle. All of our LOTW curriculum for the Letter I was inchworm themed.

Inchworm counting.

Ice painting. We made the ice cube paints the day before and got lots of color mixing practice in. We found that the darker/brighter colors painted the best. Also, cover with foil to hold the toothpicks in place.

Claire joined us the next day for painting our ice cream cones. This was really pretty mess free.

Inchworm craft from toilet paper rolls. David played with this thing a long time.

Marshmallow igloo. David ate marshmallows and pretty much watched me make this craft.

Our "I" board for the week (including a butterfly Claire made at church.)

Our Bible curriculum came from RRSP. David had a hard time with our verse ... "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." I did find this fun song to go along with our verse.

Our igloo printables came from here and here. Our ice cream printables and activities came from here and here.

Do you Pin?

2011-10-20T07:45:00.001-05:00

By now, lots of people are hearing about Pinterest. You can follow me here.

It's really just another social networking site (you can invite friends, follow friends, etc.). But I love how it organizes all of the great ideas I find on the internet in one neat organized spot.

What it really means is that I no longer have piles and piles of recipes that I printed off that I want to try someday. Now they are all neatly store in cyper-space and I can just pull up my Pinterest account when I am ready to make them.

I call it crack for crafters.

Well, what fun is just looking on Pinterest? Although it is pretty darn fun, I needed to get my booty into action and make something.

My friend Kaisha kick-started me when we had our Saturday scrapbooking day a few weeks ago. Except for she didn't scrapbook. She made crafts she had found on Pinterest.

Exhibit #1. Yard lollipops (for her sweet Emma's 2nd birthday).

Exhibit #2. These canisters will hold seasonal candy. "Boo" for Halloween and "Joy" for Christmas. (You can change out the lettering.) This was a birthday gift for her sister.

Exhibit #3: ribbon storage. I love me some organizational containers. Will says I just like to buy containers to put stuff in. This is an awesome way to organize ribbon. I came straight home and made this myself. I already had the containers, purchased some pre-cut dowel rods from Hobby Lobby and voila. 3 containers full of easily accessible ribbon.

So on to my own first real Pinterest project ... covering the kids' bathroom stool. (These stools came from Target and run $12-14 I think.) We've had these a while and the tops were starting to look ragged and dirty.

Supplies needed:
stool
Mod Podge (I used matte)
Clear acrylic spray (this was $5 at HL)
scrapbook paper
foam paint brush
Time

(1) I traced the top of my stools onto my scrapbook paper. I actually ended up having to cut it a little smaller to fit the top. You can figure out what works best for you.

{Cute helper is not required.}

(2) Clean stool. (3) Brush modpodge onto stool and put paper on top. You might want to use something flat (like a Pampered Chef stoneware scraper) to smooth out the wrinkles. (4) Dry. If you don't, your paper will wrinkle up from being too wet when you apply the top coat of modpodge. (5) Apply top coat of modpodge. (If you've never used modpodge before, it will be clear when it dries.) (6) Dry.

(7) Spray entire top with clear acrylic spray. This will water-proof the paper, a necessity since these will be near the bathroom sink.

The finished product. You can see the tutorial I used here.