A spring time nursery!

I am so in love with the fact that spring is here! I love spring time; it's not too hot and not too cold. One thing that I love is decorating my house. I actually feel like my whole house is in a sort of spring time color feel all year long. When I was trying to come up with how I wanted to paint my daughters nursery, I had so many ideas in my head. I wanted to do either crazy hot pink with zebra stripes or crazy colors that just screamed girl all the way. I then realized that at this stage in life, I would be the one that spent A LOT of time in this room and wanted to make sure it was something I would like as well as my girl.

Here are some questions to think about as a parent when deciding to come up with you color choice......
* Will I feel relaxed in this room?
* What can I afford?
* What colors would make me stressed out with a screaming baby?
* Would my baby enjoy the colors over time?
* (if a small house) What will help the room look bigger and more open?

When I came up with my nursery, it fit so perfect and whenever I rock my baby to sleep I get a calm and relaxing feeling.  I think that is so important when dealing with screaming or temper tantrums when it's time for naps, bed, or changing yet another diaper.

One of the most important things when painting is to make sure you love it.  I love this room and I guarantee there are many people who hate it, but guess what? I don't care! I'm the one that spends all day and night in it and it makes my baby and me happy.

Another thing I know you're thinking is "There is no way I can do those stripes!" I was nervous at first, but then I sucked it up and if you look close they are not perfect, but once you tie everything in, you don't notice. Here is how I made the stripes. Deep breath.  I know you can do it!

The most important thing is to make sure that they are straight so get out your long yard stick and your leveler, they will do all the magic for you.

The first thing you need to decide is how thick you want your stripes or how thin. You can look at mine if you want but I seriously just winged it and made it up as I went.  I really tried to make it look as random as possible and no patterns.
I started at the top and if I decided that I wanted my stripe 3 inches wide I then had to decide how much white I wanted between the two stripes and add that on top of the three inches. Also make sure to take the width of the tape into account, it will make the white thicker. Next I put out my level and my ruler together horizontally and measured the appropriate distance from the last tape (or the wall for the first stripe). I did this at the top the middle, and the bottom. *It is very important to always look at your leveler that will save your life and stripes! I would also do a cross check with my leveler vertically to make sure that my three marks were adding up straight.

Good luck, and happy painting!!

Yummy family favorite

I love an easy dinner recipe.  Tostados are fast and my kids love them.  

Tostados

1 lb Hamburger

2 cans pork and beans

1 8 oz can tomato sauce

1 pkg taco seasoning

Cook hamburger.  Add other ingredients and let simmer about 15 minutes.

Pour over small Fritos.  Add cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, salsa, and sour cream on top.  My kids also like ranch dressing.  My husbands family calls this mock tamale pie so I am sure there are other names out there for this meal.  WW points: 5 points for Hamburger mixture.  Add any points for toppings.  

Skirt Extender for growing girls

I have a little 7 yr old who is tall and skinny. So it seems every few months I am either buying her new dresses or new pants. Its so hard and frustrating. So what do you do? I know that I am not the only one out there that is in this same situation. So, they have these things that have become very popular out here called skirt extenders with is basically a slip with lace that looks like it is part of your dress or skirt. I have not been able to find them for my daughter. So, I took it upon myself to make one for her. And since I made one for her. My 5 yr old wanted one as well. And why not make some of those cute dresses my girls have last just a little bit longer. By the way, YOU can make them for yourself as well. Its the same way just adjust the sizing.

1. I used a serger and did both sides. ( but you can use your regular sewing machine)

2. Fold one of your edges over and sew making sure to leave it big enough to be able to put your elastic waist band through as well as not sewing it all shut to that you CAN put your elastic in.

3. now to slide your elastic through. Easiest way is to take a safety pin in and put it through the hole you left unsewn. When you get it to the end sew the two ends together and close up your hole. 

4. Add first layer of lace to the inside. That means to the wrong side.  No one will see the  edge on the other side anyways because it will be covered by your second layer.

this is what will be hidden

5. Sew second layer on the front of the skirt covering the showing edge.  And that is it!

Before... (Not so bad. I told her just to go get a dress that had white in it)

Cute huh! She loved It. Makes it a little bit longer to.

Olaf Treats

In case you didnt know, Frozen came out on video last week.  Ever since I took ML on a Mama - daughter date to see it in January we have been obsessed at our house (I say "we" lightly).  We decided to have a Frozen party at Granny's house to make Olaf snacks and watch the movie.  We had so much fun and loved every minute of it.  The Olaf treats turned out so cute so I wanted to share with you how to make them.

 They are so easy to put together.  We used powdered donuts for the base and large marshmallows for the other two layers of the snowman.  Mini chocolate chips were the buttons on the body, pretzel rods were the arms, mini marshmallows for feet and orange tic tacs for the nose. 

For the eyes you can use the mini chocolate chips or get sugar eyes in the baking section of the grocery store.  For the mouth we used Twizzlers ropes in the mixed berry which has red, pink and blue (we used blue since hes a snowman and probably has cold lips!).  You can also get the Twizzler ropes in black and stick those out of the top marshmallow for his hair but ML decided she didnt want hair on her Olaf.

 We literally licked all of the pieces to make them stick and it worked perfectly.  ML was so proud and every time Olaf came on the screen she would say she made Olaf and go in the kitchen and look at him.  All of the other kids ate theirs pretty quickly but ML kept hers to show Daddy when he got off work.  Such a fun project to do with all the cousins!

Bullying.....STOP IT!

This was not my intended post today. I had a great tutorial that I will save for another day. I was supposed to post yesterday, but some things came up and I was unable to.  This subject has been weighing heavy on my heart. Bullying. Everyone knows it is out there.  Everyone at one time or another has been a part whether they have been an active participate,  silent, or just standing back and watching. 

 I will not go into details but my son and his best friend have been having arguments. I love teenagers and male testosterone! Especially at 14!! It has escalated from calling each other names to the macho "well what can you do to me!"  "Oh yeah show me!" 

 I finally took the Ipod, texted this boy, and told him "this is the mom I know what is going on. They are friends they need to stop and that is that leave it alone". I'm sure having mommy come to the rescue did not help, but what else am I to do.  My son says he has a right to defend himself.  I told him your right, but at what cost? How bad would you feel if you seriously hurt your best friend or vise versa?  What does it prove? You can be the stronger person with more strength if you go up, shake his hand, tell him your sorry for the misunderstanding.  Ask for forgiveness even if you did nothing wrong, and hope that you guys can work things out. That shows more strength than a punch to the face or the gut, or these big bad words being passed back and forth.  I also want to add, my son was not innocent in any of this.  He was just as much involved sending back texts and so on.  I do want to make it clear that he was doing his part in this as well.

 I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons)  The church recently put out a short video on bullying. It is not in any way a religious video or promoting the church, but it really hits home. Take a few minutes to look at it because you never know where bullying is, or starts.  To those that are being bullied, from the bottom of my heart I am so sorry. I saw my son in pain last night. I hurt for him. I cried with him. Please talk to someone!  Find strength in parents, friends, loved ones, peers. To those who are doing the bullying. STOP! Turn the tables around, put yourself in their shoes!  Make today the day to be the better person you are!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYVvE4tr2BI&feature=share

Chocolate Dipped Cookies

To me this is an old favorite and my Grandma's recipe she has always made them and thats the only person that I have ever seen make them.  She has been making them since I was a kid. But some of you may have had them before. I remember taking them to a family get together and everyone thought I spent all this time on them. I wanted to act like I slaved all day. But that was far from the truth. These chocolate cookies are to die for, and literally take like 20 min. The longest part is waiting for the chocolate to dry. I just made them again for a neighborhood lunch/play date and the same thing happened everyone made a fuss. So really people if you want to impress. Make these things. If you just want some dang good cookies. MAKE THESE COOKIES!!

All you need right here

Ingredients

1- box ritz crackers

peanut butter

almond bark (or some kind of melting chocolate thats what I have in the background. You can find almond bark in the baking section. It comes in brown or white chocolate. At Michael's, and JoAnn's as well as some WalMarts you can find other kinds of melting chocolates in other colors which would be fun for easter or a baby shower. )

1. take cracker put peanut butter in the middle top off with another cracker

a batch to show what they look like

2. melt your chocolate with the almond bark you can do this in the microwave. Place your cookie in the chocolate and turn it over. Making sure you coat both sides well.

3. Place on wax paper to dry. This is just easier so that is doesn't stick. If you choose to get fancy you can melt white chocolate and drizzle. Or change it up and dip some all in white chocolate in drizzle with the brown chocolate. Wait for the chocolate to dry! Thats it!

So from my family to yours Eat Up and ENJOY!!!

Baby Deals!

I love online shopping! If it was a sport I would totally win all.  I don't know why but I feel like it's a competition to find the best deals and I have to win. I am one of those people who hates going to the store. there is something about getting all the baby stuff ready and having to drive in my car that makes me want to have everything come to my doorstep. I also get this weird thing where I don't like seeing people I know because I always see them when I'm either in my pj's or no makeup on, and I don't like to socialize.


One of my best friends seriously is AMAZON. We have all heard of it and you name it they probably have it! I even get my toilet paper, dish-washing soap, paper towels, school books, bath toys and I could go on and on. Three reasons I love amazon: #1 you don't have to pay taxes on your items #2 is that you get free two day shipping (that is if you have prime, and well worth the investment in our house).  #3 and the biggest reason is their diapers! When you go to Amazon if you click on the diapers over to the right is an option to click and save 20%. What this will do is it will put you on an auto-ship program and you can schedule it to automatically send you diapers either every one through six months, whatever works best for you. I always forget to check if I'm out of diapers and then I get a knock at the door from the diaper fairy. Another reason I like this is I have priced it and compared to other places it makes the diapers way cheaper. When I priced it at Sams club it made the diapers $0.23 per diaper and on amazon they are $0.21 per diaper that saves you $3.60 per box. Yeah!

 



I recently have discovered another place that my friend showed me that I'm pretty addicted to. They have  the cutest baby clothes, hair bows and shoes for so cheap, no lie. This one is called Dollar Daisies and here is a preview for how cute it is.

I know you don't believe it either but the price of these shoes say $2.99 and they have some that are only $1.99 it's great! The last pair of baby shoes I bought were $9.00 and she grew out of them so fast. They also have bows, skirts, and other things all way under $10; it's quite a great bargain.






Last place we all probably know is Zulily I love this site because you find great things at great prices. It's hard to find things for your man to have that isn't so girly and they have these cute sport things I found and also sport diaper bags. With this site you have to snatch them fast because they are always changing things up. I love it. 

Planner Nerd

So I know I am probably one of a very few who still uses a paper planner.  I use my phone calendar on occasion but something about writing it down keeps it in my memory.  A few years ago I used to scrapbook a lot.  I loved it.  Now I really don't have the time so I mainly do Project Life.  Well I belong to a few facebook planner groups and have found so many ideas.  One that I am loving is to incorporate scrapbooking to your planner pages.  I am not talking adding pictures or anything.  It is quite easy really.  I took some pictures as I decorated this weeks pages to show you how easy it is and how pretty it looks.  Some women go all out and add clips and stickers...I find that I like mine a little more simple since once all the writing goes on it seems to look a little cluttered.  I have a desk size daytimer in Malibu purple.  I really like it.  I want a filofax but they are quite pricey and so we will have to see.  Maybe for Christmas or something.  

Here is my planner all clean and white...ready to be filled with washi tape goodness.  These pages do not come with the daytimer.  They are called Piacric and can be found on facebook.  I really like them.  They are printed on the best paper.  

 Here is where I have set my decorations out.  I kind of like to see them all together so I can make sure it looks good.  Target dollar spot is my go to for all things planner related.  I even found some washi there the other day.  It put a spring in my step for sure!!

 Here it is with the washi and two page flags.  I add the flags to important days so I know to pay close attention to those.  

Here it is after I add my week.  In the notes section I usually write a fun quote.  For St. Patricks day my week was decorated in green and gold.  It is fun to add a little holiday flare.  I also write my menu on here so my kids just look on the day instead of asking me a few times for dinner.  

I will usually have a weekly to do card that I punch into my planner.  They aren't specific to a day but need to be done sometime during the week.  

Happy Planning!!

Planting Seeds

My family and I decided to try something a little different this year. We usually start a garden around the end of May because in Idaho, the ground doesn't thaw before Mother's Day. We typically plant our garden using starts we buy from a local nursery, but this year, we decided to try planting seeds early. We found the kids were really excited to participate (bonus number one) plus the cost difference is huge. So this year we tried this ! 

we bought indoor boxes and planted them to grow inside until they are ready to transplant outside to the garden

This is how the cost comparison panned out: 

$5 per each plastic greenhouse box (we bought 3)
$2 for each packet of seeds (we used about 8 packets of seeds in 2.5 greenhouse boxes)
$4 for the bag of soil

Essentially, we ended up planting around 175 plants for about a total of $40.00.

Now if we were to do what we normally do and buy the starts from a nursery, we would pay about $4 for a pony pack of 4 plants, meaning 175 plants would cost us up around $175.00 (assuming we buy the small, cheap starts).

In addition to the cost benefit and involving the kids, the other benefit we get from starting our planting now (especially for someone like us living in Idaho were it stays colder longer) is we can actually start harvesting earlier than if we planted it in the ground. The other fun thing is the kids get involved. They get to see the seeds sprout, watch the seeds grow, and get excited about the whole process from start to finish.

*on a side note, my husband is a food law guru, so I will add little tid bits here and there. One interesting thing research is showing is that if a fruit or vegetable is not in season, buying frozen produce is more nutritious than the "fresh" in the produce department. Essentially, farmers will pick produce when it is not ripe, chemically ripen it, then ship it, meaning by the time it gets to you, most of the vitamins and beneficial nutrients have depleted and are gone. Yet another great reason to grow a garden in order to have the fresh food on hand (and to freeze or can your product so you can have great fruits and vegetables through out the year).

German Pancakes

Happy National Pancake Day!! Today I want to show you an easy yummy recipe of fun pancakes.  These have so many names.  At our house we call them Mountain Pancakes because they make little mountains when they cook.  My kids love these.  

German (Mountain) Pancakes

6 eggs

1 cup flour

1 cup milk

1/2 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients in a blender.  Meanwhile melt 4 TBS butter in a 9x13 pan in a hot oven. (450 degrees) until bubbly.  Pour batter in and bake 15 minutes.  It will puff up to be all kinds of funny shapes.  Serve immediately with syrup, honey, or jam.  

So keeping it real...This is what it looks like all yummy and ready to eat.  It is also what it looks like when the butter was left in the pan a little too long :)  It is still super yummy though!!

Hamburger Casserole

   

       This is probably one of my very favorite go-to meals. My mother always made this and I loved it.  Now that I'm a mom, I understand why she always made it:  it so easy and it goes a long way. Every time I'm either out of food or don't know what to make, I always have the ingredients on hand to make this meal and my husband loves it. 

Hamburger Casserole:


1 lb of hamburger
1 can of corn (sometimes I do 2)
2 cans of tomato soup
about 1/2-3/4 bag of noodles
lots of cheese, I probably use about 2 cups.

Directions

1. Cook the hamburger and add some seasonings, I like some salt, pepper, seasoning salt and a little garlic.
2. While the hamburger is cooking boil your water for your noodles.
3. While noodles are cooking and once the hamburger is cooked through, add your tomato soup and drained corn to the hamburger and let it simmer.  I will usually add a little cheese here too (we love the stuff) along with some salt a pepper. 
4. When the noodles are cooked, drain and add to your hamburger/soup mixture.
5 Top with more salt and pepper and lots of cheese.  Cover until cheese melts and you're done!

This meal is so great because not only is it fast, it tastes really good too! It also is great the next day for lunch.