A walk in my shoes...

Valentine's Day Bulletin Board Idea

2012-01-29T07:00:00.000-06:00

Here is a simple and cute bulletin board idea for the toddler classroom. The way it is shown here is by taking a coloring page of I think it's Tenderheart bear?? and having each child color their bear (pink for the girls and blue for the boys) Then I took ink stamp pads and put the kids thumbprints in the heart on the tummy and the pads on the paws and ears.

I used pink for the girls and purple for the boys.

Other alterations could include:

1. Printing out the kids faces and gluing them onto the Care Bear's face so it's literally YOUR students on the board!

2. If kids are older you can have them paint or decorate with something fuzzy like yarn or cornmeal or sugar (just dye the cornmeal or sugar to desired color).

3. If you have a small enough group print out all the different Care Bears (tenderheart, hugs and tugs, braveheart, grumpy, etc...) and each child can be THAT Care Bear!

How to entertain a little boy...

2012-01-28T19:07:00.004-06:00

In my class this week we were learning about Abraham and Sarah and their trip to Ur. I had planned on bringing suitcases and bags with common items you would pack for a trip. The kids were going to have to pack the bags! However one day it was dumping rain and we had tornado warnings and I got distracted by the bad weather and headed out the door without the suitcases. So when I got to school I had to think fast! My idea for the kids was to make a road out of masking tape and have car and trucks out for them to TRAVEL on the road with!

It was a HUGE hit! The boys especially loved taking the cars and zooming them down the road! It was an accident but I'm glad it happened. Now I only had about five minutes to make this one little road (as you can see in the photos) but you can get as creative as possible! Just tape a road onto a kids table or maybe make a whole map out of a cheap rug! The sky is the limit!

Here was my small version - and since it was such a hit I actually did it on most of the table the next day, excluding my little railroad track thing.

A good rest and a good read

2012-01-24T20:43:00.004-06:00

Oh my sweet blog! How I've missed you so! However, as crazy as my fall and winter had gotten I really needed a true rest. I spent Christmas in Kansas with my entire family, then laid around and read as much as I possibly could on my Kindle and just finished spending three weeks with my parents visiting here! And I don't know what "parents visiting" means to you but to me it means that between my mom and I's cooking we eat GOOD food and a LOT of it, we get to go do something fun and magical cleaning fairies always appear while I'm away at work! Haha, it really was fun and I hated to see them go but it's time to get back to a regular schedule and hopefully some more regular blog posts! Wouldn't you say?!

I am working on a couple of posts for the future and one very good guest blog post which I think you will be highly interested in, however until then since I have been avidly reading during my break I decided to share with you what I've gotten myself into.

The Percy Jackson Series by Rick Riordan

I was leery of reading the series because yes it has all the Greek gods and goddesses and demigods etc. in it. However a friend in the faith whom I trust told me she read it to her older son and that she, and her boy, really enjoyed them and as long as it's to an older audience that knows this is FICTION then it does have some educational value along with a great storyline. With every god or creature it introduces it tells the history of it as per Greek Mythology. I have never known a lot about the subject so this easy reading series has been very intriguing to me. It has adoring characters and is written with humor and cliff-hanging suspense!

So I don't know what your thoughts are on the series but it has been some great reading and awesome entertainment to me for a few weeks now. I only have one book left!

Holiday stress-buster: Spread the Love Challenge

2011-12-04T22:37:00.005-06:00

Over Thanksgiving I finally had time to catch up on all the magazines that have been staring at me begging me to flip through them! One of them was my Better Home and Gardens magazine and I loved this article in the back of the December issue that was called "Peace Offering". It was about tricks we can easily do that naturally fight stress and those bad free radicals it releases! The number one item was to "do a good deed daily." Here's what it said under it:

"Researchers have long known that altruism - such as volunteering at a hospital - raises levels of dopamine, a feel-good brain chemical that shields the body from stress hormones. What's interesting is that no selfless act is too small, says clinical therapist Serena Wadhwa, Psy.D., director of the TriQual Living Center in Chicago. To sustain a helper's high, aim to perform a simple act of kindness every day. Easy examples include bringing the mail to an elderly neighbor, surprising a coworker with a cup of coffee, or slowing your car on a busy street to let another driver turn. Optional: Singing "Joy to the World" as you do it."

So I have decided that I'm going to do just that. Not only do I have stress wrapping up Christmas Parties at school (my students and both my own kids) and finishing my final paper for my college class along with just the regular Christmas shopping, wrapping and mailing etc, but showing love is our mandate as Christians and we should be doing this daily anyways!

So for this entire month, yes even the few days AFTER Christmas I commit to do at least one good deed daily and I will post them all on here to help give others ideas. I challenge you to pray about doing the same, it's never too late to start.

Here is what I've done so far:

December 1st: Curled my daughter's hair. That may seem ridiculous but it was her Christmas Program and I asked her how she wanted her hair and she wanted it all curly and done up. So even though I was running VERY late to be there early for our staff photo I accepted being late and made sure her hair looked gorgeous! She was so excited and proud!

December 2nd: Made a Jingle Bell Necklace for my son. His school has the 12 days of Christmas and so every day of school in the month of December has a different theme to dress as. It was "wear a jingle bell" day and we have long lost all the necklaces and other jingle bell items so I found a lose jingle bell and put a string through the top and tied it off so he had a jingle bell to wear. Oh and to double up I cleaned his room up and gave him a freebie for the day :)

December 3rd: Complimented a girl's outfit. It said no deed is too small! My husband and I went on a double date with two of our old teenagers so yes I still call her a "girl" and she was looking all cute so I made sure I really complimented her and made her feel good!

December 4th: I bought Dr. Pepper BBQ Sauce for a bridal shower! This one is bizarre and let me assure you I had a bag full of other good things for the bride-to-be, however this BBQ sauce was actually on the registry which we later found out was because the groom had the registry gun!! I know the guys always feel sort of left out when it comes to wedding gifts so I bought him the BBQ sauce to make his day!

T.T.A.R. Day 3

2011-11-24T23:33:00.003-06:00

Obviously I spent my day having fun with friends and stuffing my face which is why this post is minutes from the midnight hour. And since Thanksgiving is over and you no longer need recipes for that wonderful occasion that our digestive system is so dearly paying for now I want to share on of my favorite comfort Christmas treats! It involves the following two things:

Peppermint Ice Cream Hot Cocoa

And it's just that. You make your favorite blend of hot chocolate. I adore creaminess so I have always made mine with milk but I'm sure if you are happy with your water kind that it will work just the same. Next plop in a scoop of peppermint ice cream and enjoy the creamy peppermint flavor it brings! I always eat some of my ice-cream before it all melts! The hot and cold with the peppermint flavor is divine! And it's my favorite winter curl up on the couch treat! So after what I'm sure was a whirlwind of a day and possibly lots of fun yet stressful times with familia in your house (or travelling to theirs) you deserve to sit your butt down in your favorite spot and kick your feet up. While you're at it, sip on this hot drink - it just makes it that much better!

THANKFUL THOUGHT:

Okay so I really thought all of these would be from my kids but of course as soon as I WANTED my kids to be funny - they stopped being funny! Well that's not all true. They said some hilarious things today such as when my son and daughter started playing chase at our friends and my husband told them not to run in the house - my daughter quickly and politely asked, "May I walk really fast then dad?" However that has nothing to do with thankfulness so I will simply join in the spirit of the day (since it will be over in 6 minutes) and say that I am extremely thankful for a loving husband that absolutely adores me, beautiful healthy children that are respectful and love God, and for good friends, the kind that truly care, that we could spend a wonderful day with! Love and hugs to my family scattered all over the US today - love you bunches! And to my blog family - ENJOY your family and the holidays you have with them!

T.T.A.R. Day 2

2011-11-23T19:45:00.004-06:00

Do you see that delicious chunky sweet yummy-ness to the right in the picture above?? That would be the feature of today's recipe and one that I will be making in T-minus 1 hour. It is a Chunky Pear-Apple Sauce and I found it from a random cookbook from the library a couple years ago. Here is the description straight from the cookbook:

"During autumn holidays, the aromas of slow-cooking fruit and sugar evoke a real feeling of nostalgia. At Thanksgiving I make a point of serving a crisp-tasting apple compote, and with the addition of succulent, fragrant pears, I find that the smooth flavor combination marries well with the savory herbs and spices used in the stuffing, gravy, and-of course-the turkey."

CHUNKY PEAR APPLE SAUCE

6 Anjou or Comice pears, slightly under ripe

4 apples (preferably a mixture of Granny Smith, McIntosh, and Golden Delicious)

2 TBLS Fresh Lemon Juice, or more to taste

1 C. Apple Juice

1/2 C. Sugar, or more to taste

1 tsp. Finely Grated Lemon Zest

1. Core, peel, and cut the pears and apples into large chunks. Toss them with the 2 TBLS lemon juice in a large heavy pot.

2. Add the apple juice, 1/2 C. sugar, and the lemon zest. Stir and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, partially covered, until the fruit is tender but not mushy, about 15 minutes.

3. Uncover the pot, stir, and continue cooking to thicken the juices, 5 minutes more. Taste and add more sugar or lemon juice if desired, stirring carefully so as not to break up the fruit too much. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Then transfer to a container, cover, and refrigerate for as long as 4 days. Bring to room temperature before serving.

Makes 8 cups

Thankful Thought:

Last night at dinner I asked my daughter what was something she was thankful for? My comedian of a husband pipes in before she answers, "I'm thankful I'm not a turkey!" Of course my daughter amused by this (although she probably has no idea why it's funny), then answers, "I'm thankful I'm not a dog!" Of course I follow up with why? And after a moment of thought she says, "No, actually I've always wanted to be a dog."

Oh my children, my children. (Smile)

Until tomorrow...

be thankful and make sure your turkey is defrosted!

Top Ten Tuesday

2011-11-22T14:02:00.003-06:00

Oh and just because it's been so long since I've linked up - I decided to post a Top Ten Tuesday thanks to inspiration from Diaper Diaries! OK my top ten are the things I want to get done over my Thanksgiving holiday:

1. Bake, decorate and of course EAT holiday sugar cookies with my kids!

2. Go on a family hike and have a picnic lunch.

3. Finish the painting I'm doing for my daughter's bedroom.

4. Complete all my homework (unfortunately).

5. Bake the most delicious chunky pear-applesauce and pumpkin pie EVER to take to our friend's that are hosting a Thanksgiving Feast!

6. Blog every day this week.

7. Enjoy some TV shows and movies with my hubby - and I was DEVASTATED to find out that this week there was no showing of "Once Upon a Time" which has become one of our favorites!

8. Make sure I'm prepared for my lesson on Monday because my boss is observing me!!

9. Get out and set up ALL my Christmas decorations!!

10. My favorite - enjoy as much hot cocoa with peppermint ice-cream as I possibly can!!

Want to participate?? Just click on the Top Ten Tuesday logo at the top of this page!

T.T.A.R.

2011-11-22T13:08:00.003-06:00

Do you like my acronym? It stands for a Thankful Thought And a Recipe! I am actually home all week and have been enjoying my time off like no body's business!! In other words I am loving this break! In my new found free time (short lived as it may be) I have been inspired for some blog posts. My first is to share a few of my tried and true Thanksgiving recipes and to also insert a thankful thought. However these aren't the mushy gushy thanks that you may be used to seeing on blogs and Facebook this time of year. Hopefully they will all come from my kids. And you all know that no one ever knows what will come out of their mouth!

So to start off I have an alternative dessert recipe, aside from the traditional Pumpkin Pie (which even when I make this recipe I STILL must make a pumpkin pie too!), and most have heard of it: Pumpkin Roll. It's goodness is incomparable! It's sugary, cream cheesy goodness! And it really is quite simple, it's just time consuming. But the great part is that you can easily make it a day ahead because it has to chill in the fridge before serving anyways.

PUMPKIN ROLL

2/3 C. Pumpkin (100% pumpkin)

3 eggs

1 C. Sugar

3/4 C. Flour

1 tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 tsp. Cinnamon

FILLING:

8 oz Cream Cheese

1 tsp. Vanilla

1 Tbsp. Butter

1 C. Sugar

Mix all ingredients. Cover a 9 x 13 pan with wax paper (covering entire bottom and sides of pan) and spray paper w/ Pam cooking spray until covered. Pour dough onto wax paper. Bake for 17 minutes @ 375 degrees. Take it out and with a damp tea towel flip it over. Let cool for about 10 minutes then remove wax paper and roll the bread up with the towel. Cool for 4 hours. Once cool mix up first 3 ingredients of filling. Once thoroughly mixed, add sugar. Unroll the bread and remove the towel. Spread the filling on top (leave about an inch from the end because as you roll, it will push the icing). Roll it back up with the icing now. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour before serving. When ready to serve, cut into slices about an inch thick.

TOTAL TIME: 6 hours SERVES: About 12

I would have had a picture because I just made one this past week when we had some friends over for a game night, however we devoured it quite quickly and my photo thought was a little late, sorry :(

Now for the thankful thought: This morning my son was digging through his backpack and found his pen pal letter. They do pen pals within the school and he recently received a new letter. We were reading it to him and at the end of the letter his pen pal told what he was thankful for and then asked my son what HE was thankful for. My son, without missing a beat, replied, "I'm thankful for hunting for prairie dogs." And after a response of laughter we calmed down and asked him why to which his reply was, "Cause it's fun! And I get to collect bullets." Don't worry he means the bullet shells. I just found that hilarious and thought I would share. Until tomorrow...

Stay calm and ENJOY the holidays!

Silent Sundays

2011-11-20T05:00:00.001-06:00

I snapped a quick photo of this beautiful bloom at a friend's house a couple months ago. These photos weren't even digitally altered!! (Yes I'm bragging...but just because it doesn't happen often! I mean photos not needing editing, not the bragging, lol)

Travelling?? Have kids in tow??

2011-11-19T16:48:00.004-06:00

If you will be travelling for the Thanksgiving holidays and have some little tykes to entertain I found a perfect, affordable and creative item that is a must have for your to-go bag! I first discovered Crayola's Dry Erase Crayons at my son & daughter's doctor's office. They had a huge white dry erase board and when my kids picked up crayons and asked if they could please draw I quickly told them they couldn't use crayons on a dry erase board and I wasn't sure how the crayons ended up there.

From the receptionist's desk she kindly informed me they are new dry erase crayons and it was just fine for the kids to use! I was amazed and as a teacher of toddlers had to check this out! Sure enough - they are crayons that easily write on and wipe off of dry erase boards!

I dashed to the grocery store (yes they were at my local Kroger's store) and was even more surprised by finding a travel set of these awesome new crayons! I fought impulsiveness and just bought the crayons for me to try for now (which I have LOVED) but plan on buying one or two for my niece and nephew's - especially since my brother and his family will be moving in the spring!

So if you need something new and exciting to keep your kids attention and perhaps keep their noise level down for a bit - head on over to your local Wal-Mart, Kroger's or just click here to shop from Crayola.com!

Thanksgiving Placemat Craft

2011-11-13T21:20:00.003-06:00

It is a tradition at our Day School for every class to make place mats for the school wide Thanksgiving Feast! I've seen tons of versions of turkeys and even the Mayflower and I just HAD to come up with something different. Leave it to me to rock the boat huh? What started out with an idea to paint USING Indian Corn (place in paint, then roll on paper to make a border) changed into thumbprint Indian Corn in itself. All because my local grocery store threw out all the Indian corn the night before I went to buy some for our art project. Of course right?!

But I'm happy with how they turned out! We used paint craft rollers to instead make the borders with and then made lots and lots of thumbprints using yellow, red and brown paint to fill in a light pencil shape of corn I had made beforehand. I added the dark brown outline and the husks coming off the bottom of them and just printed out a poem I had my husband help me with:

With my cute little hands,

this corn I have made.

Like the Indians prepared,

on Thanksgiving Day!

It is super easy and would be a fun craft project for you and your little one to do next week when they're home from school! Not to mention it will save some cleaning up after your Thanksgiving meal!

Have you ever had one of the mornings?

2011-11-10T00:02:00.003-06:00

Have you ever had one of those mornings? Or perhaps one of those days? Today was certainly one of "those" kind of mornings and I was at my whit's end! Kids were driving me nuts, I had completely forgotten to get something I needed for my class THAT DAY so I'm frantically trying to run out the door early enough to get to the store before dropping kids off at school (which typically I'm lucky to barely get just to the school on time) and we get to the store, wait FOREVER while some guy goes in the back to see if they have any to find out the item I needed had all been thrown out the NIGHT BEFORE... yada yada yada. You get the gist right? So when I finally have dropped one child off and we're headed to the next drop off I'm praying to God pleading with Him to PLEASE help me because I just cannot have a whole day like this! I need my day to get better!

Right then as I'm driving and asking God to PLEASE have mercy and bring me some peace some flashing lights out of the corner of my eye catch my attention. And NO it wasn't a cop okay! I looked over and it was an ambulance that you can tell had just pulled up to this person's house. And my first reaction was "Oh Lord I hope everything is okay!" I mean obviously it's not okay at the moment, thus the ambulance, but I was just hoping it would turn out all right. After whispering a short prayer my mind finally realized something:

My morning really wasn't that bad after all.

When you put your circumstances into perspective things really aren't as bad as they seem in that moment. I thanked God for helping me remember to count my blessings and my "problems" really weren't a big deal.

Fall Bulletin Board Idea

2011-10-23T06:00:00.001-05:00

I love coming up with my bulletin boards in my classroom each month and thought I would post my October board. A simple yet cute bulletin board idea for your classroom!

"LET'S HAVE A BALL AS WE ENTER FALL!!"

Chocolate Pudding Art

2011-10-22T13:45:00.000-05:00

For the beginning of October I'm having my students create a huge "Chocolate Pudding Pumpkin Patch" in our classroom! But I had never done the first and most important part of this art before, the chocolate pudding part! So I did mini versions at home with my own kids to have them test it out! They were all for it of course!

So first off you simply make chocolate pudding. My recipe called for 3 cups of milk but I'm not about to waste that much milk on something I'm not eating so I made it with 2 cups of water and 1 cup of milk so it would at least keep it's creamy texture. Once it's made you simply slop a little on some paper (I recommend card stock so your paper won't rip to pieces with the moisture). Then swirl around! I had a basting brush that has individual plastic strands that we used and it created beautiful swishes and swirls! However for my toddlers I had little plastic cars that are easy to clean that they drove through the pudding! And of course you always had a couple of them that were far more interested in painting with their hands so they could then lick the remains off! This is the beauty of this art project - it's safe if your baby attempts to eat the paint!

Here was my daughter's painting. The first one, pictures above, was my son's.

And this was mine! Took about 5 seconds to make. Now if they're older and you are trying to make a more "accurate" pumpkin patch have them make straight lines of rows like a real field would be.

Next, since again this was a smaller version I found some print-outs online of scarecrows and pumpkins. My children picked which scarecrow they wanted and then they colored away! I also had them cut all of them out and glue them on their chocolate pudding (once it was dry). And their chocolate pudding pumpkin patch was complete:

My daughter's.

My son's.

My son wanted his taken in the window too :)

Now at my school each day was a different art project to add to our creation. First we did chocolate pudding art on a big sheet of bulletin board paper. The next day we sponge painted pumpkins. I used big star burst sponge brushes but any kind of sponge or other paint option will do!

Next came our scarecrows. I found a cute scarecrow and had each child water paint them. I was going to try to have them "water paint" with ice cubes but couldn't get the ice cubes made on time this year. Maybe next year.

Then just to make it look nicer I matted the kids pumpkins with some green paper. And then stick them all on your dry chocolate pudding!

For one and two year old kids - this was a BLAST! And they love it hanging in our room because they can point at them all day and you can go over and reiterate the names of each thing and the colors. As for my own kids smaller versions I'm probably hanging them on their bulletin boards or perhaps sending them to the grandparents as a "Happy Fall" picture!

Either way or on either scale it's SO fun and your kids freak out a little when you hand them chocolate pudding to PAINT with!

A craft for the season - WHOO WHOO!

2011-10-17T05:00:00.001-05:00

In case you couldn't tell by my lack of posts I'm working full-time now as a Day School Teacher of 1-2 year-olds. Yes insanity at it's best!! However I've had so much fun finding cute crafts for these little ones to do and the best part is that almost all of them can be altered to fit older kids too. Such as this owl craft.

For my little students I cut out the parts and they just glued them on. However for older kids, such as my own kiddos, I had them cut out their own pieces.

Here's what you'll need:
- Brown Paper Bag
- Brown Construction Paper
- White Construction Paper
- Orange Construction Paper
- Black Sharpie Marker (or regular black marker if older kids are doing it themselves)
- Scrap paper or old magazine
- Brown String
- Tacky Glue (or regular Elmer's but tacky seems to hold better)

And here's what to do:
1. Cut out a brown triangle that fits from one corner of the bottom of the bag to the other corner and the point goes down to the crease in the bag. (bag is still flat at this point, don't open yet). Glue on as the beak.
2. Cut out two white circles and glue on each side of beak.
3. With marker make a circle in the middle of the eye and then lines coming out from circle to edge of white circle.
4. Also with marker make V's all over bottom 2/3 of bag to make the owl's feathers.
5. Cut out two orange feet and glue on facing up the bag. once dry fold the bottom part down so they stick out like feet. You'll glue them on about 2/3 a way down the bag.
6. Wait for all glue to dry.
7. Open bag and using scrap paper or pages of old magazine have kids crumple up paper into balls and stuff bag a little more than 2/3 full.
8. Once nice and stuffed, gather the bottom of the bag and tie tightly with string. Bend up and towards the back to make a little owl tail.
(sometimes you have to work the bottom of the bag a bit to get it somewhat flat and the feet right once stuffed.) Oh and the one on the right was a trial owl - we learned that using yellow makes it look "duck-like" so I recommend the brown and orange :)

And voila! WHOO -WHOO -WHHHOOOOO!

A seasonal craft for you and your little one to enjoy!

Silent Sunday

2011-10-16T20:22:00.003-05:00

My crazy idea and my dad's photographic talent! Here are some FUN photos we took at White Sands this summer! (these are the ones I promised I would post)

So many great ideas...

2011-09-10T11:38:00.004-05:00

I have been rolling through my Twitter roll the last couple days and have come across SO many great ideas from my fellow bloggers that I finally decided I just needed to share some of them on here for you to enjoy too!

The first is a re-purposing idea for organization from Beechem Bright Spots blog

(Picture from Beechem Bright Spots blog)

Second are some VERY thought provoking questions about the book of Ecclesiastes from Rachel Olson's blog (she is from Proverbs 31 Ministries).

Next up (and one I will be trying TODAY) is Homemade French Vanilla Coffee Creamer from Mrs. Happy Homemaker. And oh while you are there check out her Prosciutto Egg Cups Recipe! It looks SO yummy!

And this last thing isn't an idea but a reminder: If you are participating in Beth Moore's Living Proof Ministries Siesta Scripture Team then it's officially time to sign up for the 2012 Celebration Event!! Here's the link: CLICK HERE

That's all for now! Have a wonderful Saturday :)

Cute laterns for any occasion!

2011-09-05T05:00:00.001-05:00

About a month ago I found this cute craft idea in a magazine. It was for the 4th of July and had the cutest star patterns on them but since I found it AFTER the 4th of July...I let my kids just have at them!

Start by filling two aluminum cans almost full of water and put them in the freezer (remember to remove any paper before doing this).

Next pick any pattern you like, or in my case just freehand it, since this was a quick project to keep the kids busy for a bit anyways! Take a nail and a hammer and nail holes to make your pattern in the can. The ice keeps the can from denting or folding under the pressure.

I highly recommend holding this freezing cold can between your bare feet. It felt fabulous! (Just in case you didn't pick up on the sarcasm in that...note now that I was being saracastic and please do not follow my example)

Once you are done nailing your pattern leave out in the hot sun until all the ice melts. You may need to hammer the bottom back in if it popped out due to the freezing.

Once all the ice is gone dry it very well! On the outside! Do NOT stick your hand in the can - the nail holes are extremely sharp! My husband found this out the hard way when I was busy and asked him to please dry the cans.

Next get out some paint and have at it! Again if you want a 4th of July do red, white or blue with star patterns or fireworks perhaps. For fall time or Halloween do a pumpkin shape with orange and black paint...you get the idea.

But remember this was a project for me to keep the kids busy and entertained so they just went at it with all kinds of colors!

Obviously this was my boy's.

And this was my girl's. Isn't it funny how they naturally pick those types of colors??

Then when the paint is dry, place them on an outdoor table or by a fun family game inviting guests to play by a soft warm glow!

Silent Sunday

2011-09-04T05:00:00.000-05:00

My impromptu KIDS DAY! (I highly recommend it)

2011-09-02T19:59:00.007-05:00

I had my first teacher training workshop as a full-time teacher a couple weeks ago. The guest speaker was The Ooey Gooey Lady - which if you haven't heard of and you have toddlers or young children then you NEED to look her up! She is absolutely hilarious. A little sporadic but great! So I spent the whole day being inspired and finding fun fabulous things to do with my little toddlers in class and all the while thinking of my own babies. Granted they aren't babies, but you know us moms ALWAYS call them "our babies". You see a couple days before this my mother-in-law decided she was done fighting. She had battled (and conquered) cancer however the tolls it took and were still taking on her body were horrible. She decided that she knew where she was going and she would rather be there then living this kind of a life. So needless to say my husband took the first flight he could be on back home. My little ones didn't really understand daddy leaving so suddenly and they were also stuck in babysitting at my school all day because we had thought hubby would be home to watch them. I felt bad and really wanted to give them some one-on-one time to let them know we were STILL there for them no matter the chaos around us.

So that's exactly what I did. I made up my mind driving home that I could push everything on my "To-Do List" aside and I would declare tonight "KID NIGHT"! Which meant all fun and crazy activities JUST for my babies and no distractions allowed!

Yep it started out like this! Now granted they DID begin with making yummy Ice-Cream Sundaes, however in my rush that morning I forgot to turn the thermostat back to A/C so our house was in the high 80's when we got home! I thought ICE CREAM would be perfect cool-me-down. But in hindsight with it that hot it wasn't the best of ideas. However the kids loved it! Once it melted it turned into their own soup creations! Haha - they even named them and yes they drained all my syrups.

This picture came soon after. As we were putting the ingredients back from our ice-cream (what was left anyways) it began to rain. Now we live in southern Texas where we've been in some crazy abnormal drought this year so I was Ecstatic! So of course I yelled at the kids "Get your crocks on - let's run in the rain!! After their initial shock and questions of disbelief at what mom had just stated, they quickly obliged. Gracie was a little reluctant so I gave her an umbrella to begin with.

Stop right here for a moment. I also realized reflecting back on my evening that several things had biblical meaning as well. Such as the umbrella. When people are going through things in life and you are trying to help them along or trying to get them to understand a concept that is a little stretching for them - you must remember to be graceful and tactful in dealing with them. Find ways to make them comfortable and allow them to baby step into it. Like giving my daughter an umbrella. Of course she soon ditched it and ran in the rain with the rest of us crazies. But it gave her enough comfort to try it in the first place.

Okay back to our story. So after sword fighting my son with closed umbrellas and twirling with my daughter we came back in the house, wet, but satisfied.

Next upon entering the house and getting in dry play clothes, (Which if you're a mom you know means cruddy dirty clothes you really don't care if they get messed up clothes) my son found an empty box from a package I had received that day. He asked if he could use it to play with. Now this is Kid's Day so I had to respond "yes" instead of a "no, I need that for later". Being a boy he collected all his colored pencils and began stabbing it making accompanying sounds of course.

Which of course triggered another idea - one of those "I never let them do this but they always want to...so today is perfect for it!" I gave my kids hammers and nails!! *GASP* Yes. I said that correctly: I GAVE MY KIDS HAMMER AND NAILS!

Break Time: Another lesson here. Boys innately want to build, to hunt, to create and conquer. Why do we give them cheap little toys when sometimes they just need the real deal so they can learn REAL things?! My son always wants to build with wood. So obviously he has a passion in him somewhere for it. As parents its our job to encourage them to discover themselves and what they are good at and enjoy. So if he wants to build with wood and nails - then we need to give them opportunity to LEARN safely under our supervision while the "WANT" is still in them.

And my boy was SO creative when I let him do just that! He hammered a smiley face in the first box - naming it his robot. He of course then needed another box for the robot's body so once again obliging he nailed a straight line to connect the two boxes. He even got scissors and cut out a square minus one side to make a flap to be able to put his robot's batteries in! He really thought it all through and I was so impressed!

Now I said I was at a teacher's workshop so of course I had picked up some new recipes! I gave my kids a choice and they picked the funniest sounding one: OOBLECK! Yep, like from Dr. Seuss.

And sorry I didn't get good pictures - when I had the chance to take some it was still too watery. It usually is really sticky ucky stuff! Which it did turn into eventually for us!

Okay RULE of a Kid's Day: YOU MUST NOT BE AFRAID OF A MESS! Because let's face it, kids are messy and you can't have a true kids days without mess.

Which brings lesson #3: When wanting someone to try something, or maybe you want to try something yourself, be prepared and UNafraid of the mess that COULD result. It's a learning experience after all.

Okay wrapping up our night couldn't be something small after all we did so we made a fitting fort ,in mom's room of course, for the kids to "camp out". When I say we made a big fort I wasn't kidding:

And it's hard to judge from pictures but we have a fairly large room and this stretched across almost the entire way! Want to recreate it - just get some sheets and tie them onto your curtain rods as so:

I think it goes without saying that my kids had a BLAST! They asked if every day could be kids day, lol. And of course God always has perfect timing for about two hours after they drifted off to sleep after a good story and bedtimes kisses - I got the call that their grandma had passed away.

A Quick Look Back...

2011-08-13T12:33:00.003-05:00

This summer has been crazy. It's been hectic and stressful, yet fun and relaxed. It's been hot and miserable yet exciting and full of surprises! It's been a SUMMER! Since I've taken a LONG break from my Project 365 due to way too many personal circumstances going on in our lives right now I am going to reminisce for a bit however on my great summer before it's gone forever. Well until next year! So here's some recap and some pics to cover my butt:

This was technically before summer but HAD to be mentioned! I met one of my all-time favorite christian rap artists, KJ-52! He came and did a concert for our youth group and it was SO neat getting to meet him in person and go eat with him afterwards (yes I'm bragging a bit) He was very down to earth and we even agreed on an herbal tea that does wonders for sore throats!

Next of course is Graduation which seems to officially start our summers as youth pastors because we always know WAY too many graduates! It's a bittersweet time - we are SO proud of them and can't wait to see the lives God has for them yet we hate to see them go! We will miss them!

After the hectic end to every one's school year our friends grabbed us away for a much needed weekend camp out! Did I mention this camp spot had four-wheeling trails through the forests, jumps and all?! Oh yes. F-U-N!

We also got together with my husband's side of the family and all took off on a Caribbean Cruise to Progresso & Cozumel! Snorkeling in the coral reefs of Cozumel was SO breath-taking and such an awing experience that I am hooked for life! I can never describe how it felt. It was incredible!

Only downside - this was our "potty" on this fishing/scuba boat! HAHA

In between this time I took my trip to New Mexico but more posts on all that later - you've already seen the Fredericksburg one of that trip! And we weren't even to our destination yet!

The end of our summer wrapped up in South Dakota with my husband's family and his momma who is still battling cancer. It's been a hard and long fight but she is still fighting with everything she has. South Dakota also means my brother-in-law, Nate. And his new toys. Enough said.

Yes I shoot. Yes I hunt. And I LOVE every minute of it!

(Oh and the first picture of this post was a new fave picture of mine my husband snapped of us while on our cruise ship.)

How has your summer been? If you have a post of "your summer" please share it with me! I'd love to check it out!

A stop on our journey...

2011-07-31T18:35:00.008-05:00

Since my blog name is "A Walk in My Shoes", I figured I'd give you a literal walk in my shoes. Well okay not MY technical shoes but I WILL tell you all about a fun stop we took on my latest trip to New Mexico! One of my parents and I favorite spots to stop is Fredericksburg, TX. It's located in Hill Country and has SO many cute little shops on their downtown strip. It's blocks and blocks of fun shopping! It's tourist crazy in the summer so beware of summer weekends but if you hit it in the off-season it's not bad at all! Course if you don't mind crowds then who cares!

A couple days before we left my mom hopped on her iPad and made reservations at the Peach Tree Tea House. This is a quaint and DELICIOUS place to eat! We had a late reservation because of travelling and were starved and tired when we got there but my complaining ceased as soon as I tasted their food! It was WELL worth the wait.

Again this a highly popular place so I recommend making an online reservation if it's a weekend. But SO worth it! They also have an attached gift shop with home decor and a few other things that you can toodle around in while you wait for your table. It's located just one block off of the Main street.

The second place is a new clothing boutique shop I found called Hip Dingo! Don't care too much for their logo, however the clothes were very fashionable and trendy and SO well priced!

To make my point I bought this adorable summer dress there:

And it only cost me $30!! I know right?! Tell me that isn't a cute dress! (okay not really - I don't want to hear if you don't like it because then you'd burst my bubble!) But still lots of cute clothes including the blinged out pocket jeans similar to Miss Me brand! There are only 5 locations or something like that. I did find a website but I'm thinking it's brand new because hardly any clothes were really on it yet. However you can just click here, or on the logo above, to find it. Maybe they'll be adding things soon.

Last but not least (we were travelling THROUGH so we didn't have much time, sorry) was a kitchen store that we ALWAYS stop at! Literally we ALWAYS stop. Of course we are Italian and so cooking is a passion for us. So if you're Italian, or you just like cooking definitely stop in at Der Kuchen Laden! It has so many fun gadgets and pretty serving and prep dishes! This past trip I got a Le Creuset Grinding Stone for my mom's birthday, two crown shaped cookie cutters (one large, one small), a cow-print chocolate milk maker mug - I may have to post about this, it would make a GREAT gift for a little boy or girl - because it has a button on the handle that you push and it stirs up your chocolate milk! My kids LOVE IT! And then I also threw a Blender Bottle (those cool smoothies cups with a metal ball inside for mixing!!) and a fridge magnet that says"My Cup of Tea" (because I'm a daily tea drinker!)! Okay I'm rambling but it's a fun store - go check it out! Click on their logo below to see their website:

And I really need to be going but if you are spending some time there my mom would also highly recommend tasting some Becker Vineyards wine and definitely stopping to see the lavender fields at Wildseed Farms! Oh and who can forget some fresh peaches! (If it's peach season that is :) ) Happy traveling!

One of my favorite APS

2011-07-28T14:58:00.004-05:00

I feel like a well-worn traveler! This summer has been kind of crazy as I'm sure a lot of yours has as well and in the last month I have been home maybe 5 days. My first trip was the best: I spent two weeks in New Mexico (home) with my parents. We slept in, had big breakfasts on the back porch, went camping and played Scrabble among several other things. Oh and we took my new favorite trick photo - which I'll be sharing later! But first a story about our Scrabble games. You see both my parents are teachers, my dad even being an English teacher for some time, so Scrabble was something we always LOST at. And badly. Well thanks to technology and aps there is a new highly popular game called "Words with Friends". It is essentially Scrabble on your phone. You play against a friend who also has the ap, sending your turn to them to open up and play when they want. Since I have been playing this quite a bit this past year as soon as my mom (with her brand new iPad) asked me "know any good aps?" I immediately saw a grudge match in our future!

I showed her the game which she was excited about. It also has conversation or texting abilities inside the game for you to communicate with just in case you wanted to know that. However, I did challenge them to an old-fashioned Scrabble game. And guess what happened? I CREAMED 'em! Ha ha, what did you think I would say I lost? No way Jose! It was fun and of course my mom called for a rematch. Oh of which I won as well may I add, however it was a VERY close game second time around. Anyways, it was good times and if you are like my mom looking for fun aps, Words with Friends is a fun, challenging, and playful ap!

Dangerous Chocolate Cake In a Cup

2011-06-13T10:33:00.006-05:00

(to buy this Pride & Prejudice Mug click on picture)

Last weekend I had one of our teens staying with us and this young girl is a romantic. When I first found this out I told her I had a movie she HAD to watch - Pride and Prejudice. So she had come over for a sleepover and we watched Pride & Prejudice and I taught her how to make Chocolate Cake in a Cup - which needless to say she is a die-hard fan of both now and that's what she requests every time she comes over to my house! Since she was just here and we once again made the yummy desserts and watched our chick flick I thought I would share this quick simple recipe with you!

Oh and why is it called dangerous? Because you can make a chocolate cake in FIVE minutes!! That IS dangerous!

CHOCOLATE CAKE IN A CUP

1 large coffee mug (the bigger the better)
4 TBSP Cake Flour (plain, not self-rising)
4 TBSP Sugar
2 TBSP Cocoa
1 egg
3 TBSP Milk
3 TBSP Oil
Small Splash of Vanilla
3 TBSP Chocolate Chips (optional)

Add dry ingredients to mug, mix well with a fork. Add egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in milk, oil, & vanilla, mix well. Add chips, if using. Put mug in microwave and cook for three minutes on 1000 watts. Cake will rise over mug - do not be alarmed! Allow to cool a little, tip onto a plate if desired.

GLAZE (optional)

1/3 powdered sugar
1 1/2 TSP dry flavoring (such as cocoa powder, vanilla powder or lemonade mix - to match cake used)
1 1/2 TSP milk

Mix all ingredients and then pour over cake - EAT AND ENJOY!

Uprooting

2011-06-12T09:26:00.004-05:00

As a follower of my blog I'm sure you have wondered if I dropped off the end of the globe?! However the reason for my absence from "A Walk in My Shoes" has been that God has been doing some major uprooting in my family's life.

We have been youth pastors at Lone Star Cowboy Church in Montgomery, TX for 6 years now. We moved here when my son was only a month old and have enjoyed the roller coaster ride God has had us on! It was such a blessing to see and be a part of a youth group of 15 becoming an average attendance of 200-300!! To see these teens turn their hearts toward God and yearn for Him! So many belly laughs, tears and memories of this place and OH SO MANY faces that I will NEVER ever forget! And even if my old age does try to take the memories, I have most of them journaled! We have learned so much from our dear pastors, Randy and Darla Weaver. I've told them before in cards and in person but Randy taught me to love people - even if we don't like them - that they ARE God's greatest treasure and we must choose to see them through God's eyes. Darla taught me about forgiveness, grace and mercy. A saying that is forever embedded in my heart and mind was something she told me when I was having a good ole' struggle with God over something. She told me, "You are no less a sinner than they are." You guessed it - the struggle was about a "somebody" not a something. But it was my light bulb moment. It doesn't matter how justified you think you are - you are a sinner just as everyone else is. No person is higher or lower - we are ALL equal in God's eyes. And when you realize that it's much easier to have mercy on them knowing that we all make mistakes and when I mess up I want whoever I hurt or offend to forgive me - for you reap what you sow.

As much as we love the people of LSCC and have loved our time there, God has told us plainly that He wants us to go somewhere else now. Our season there is over. And I know that as HEARTBREAKING as it was to sobbingly say good-bye to our teens there, I have no doubt that God has great plans for their future there, and ours as well. God has called us to Dayton Christian Center in Dayton, TX. Thankfully it is not too far and so I will be able to commute to where I have worked this year - which by the way, in case there isn't enough change having to happen - I interviewed for a teaching position at the Day School I work at and GOT IT! So I am now a full-time teacher at a Day School of...you ready for this??? A ONE -YEAR OLD CLASS!! I know - I'm crazy! Trust me I know. However this was totally God too, because when my boss first asked me about the position I told her no. I had no intention of working 4 days yet because I am trying to finish up college. But God has assured me it will all work out and I trust Him fully.

The other day I was thinking about a book I had read and that started my mind down some random trail and God ended up giving me a beautiful scene in my head that fit our transition. It was a plant being uprooted. The longer a plant stays somewhere the deeper the roots go and the more established that plant becomes with the ground there. A plant endures seasons - summer and sunshine, rainy springs, and cold harsh winters. And if you live here in TX a plant will also undergo the burning sweltering heat of late summer! However, sometimes the gardener decides that He would like to move this particular plant to another part of the garden this year - perhaps to give it more shade or more sun, or perhaps just because he woke up that morning and thought "ooh that would look divine over by the whatcha-ma-call-its! And then ooh I could put a doo-hickey where it used to be!! Oh man that is gonna look SO good!!"

Can't you just imagine God getting all excited, just like a gardener, uprooting and planting new and old plants alike all over His beautiful garden?! I could. However, uprooting a well-established, deep rooted plant takes hard work and no matter how deep He digs or how careful He is when he finally pulls it out of the ground some of those roots will rip and tear. This is the heartbreak we experience when leaving a place. The roots, or the people and memories, go right along with us in our hearts to the new place but it is a hard experience and those smaller roots that rip and are left in the old ground cause tears but also make for good fertile ground for another plant to build off of and around.

Now I am not a gardener by any means and if my analogies were off a bit than please forgive me, however it was fitting to me and made for a wonderful thought path that afternoon in the car. *smile**sigh*

Thanks for letting me share and I will hopefully get slowly back into my regular blogging.

Cute Easter Ideas: Goodies & a Craft

2011-04-20T17:53:00.009-05:00

You know what is alright - a cupcake paper. And a cute one too! If you are looking for a cute Easter treat idea OR a beautiful homemade card you can make for family and friends then look no further!

First select a cute Easter cupcake paper or a bright green color would work good too for this cupcake creation. Here is the ingredients you'll need:

Cake Mix

Eggs

Vegetable Oil

Buttermilk

Robin Eggs Candy

Chocolate Frosting

Vanilla Frosting

Green & Yellow Food coloring

4 Black Jelly Beans (small ones, like Jelly Belly's)

White Circus Peanuts (or just cover the orange ones with white melting chocolate)

24 Chocolate Covered Sunflower Seeds

Oreo Cookies

Small Flower Sprinkles

Mini Marshmallows (4)

Light Corn Syrup

White NonPareils (sprinkles)

Ziploc Bags - a good sturdy kind like freezer bags

Mix up the cake mix using the same amount of vegetable oil, 1 Cup of buttermilk and 4 eggs. Fill cupcake papers 2/3 full and bake for about 25 minutes if using a dark pan like stoneware. If not just follow box directions for cooking. While they are baking spoon 2 TBLS of chocolate frosting into the corner of a Ziploc bag, squeeze out the air and seal and set it aside.

And then if you are like me and can't find white circus peanuts go ahead and cover them with some white chocolate melting wafers!

Next take a handful of Oreo cookies and crush them completely down to crumbs. Call your little boy or girl into the room to pour the bag of crumbs and take the opportunity to use both hands to take a photo! hehe.

When the cupcakes are cooled completely - take four of them and cover with chocolate frosting. Next roll the tops in the crushed cookie crumbs until covered. These are your "holes" for your cute bunnies!

Next split the vanilla frosting in half and color one a dark green color while mixing green and yellow food coloring in the other half to make a brighter green (or cheat and buy the neon pastel food colors like I did).

I have to pause to apologize because at this point I got so into it and was just a truckin' through these that I forgot to keep taking pictures. However I will do you the honors of still walking you through it all! Aren't I nice?

Once you have both colors carefully place one color on one half and the other green on the other side so when you pipe it from the corner of the bag both colors come out at the same time. Once it's ready cut a small tip from the piping corner side of your Ziploc bag and then use a squeeze and pull technique to form grass on the remaining cupcakes. Squeeze and pull technique: simply placing the tip of the bag against the cupcake, giving a slight squeeze and then pulling the bag straight up and away to form a stiff peak with the frosting.

Then add small patches of flower sprinkles and robin's eggs candies around the grass cupcakes.

To make the bunnies feet take your circus peanut and cut them in half lengthwise - you just need the smooth side. For the pads of the feet cut your jelly beans in half also and pipe a small dot of chocolate frosting (from the frosting you earlier set aside) and place one half of your jelly bean on each foot. Then add three more dots at the top end of your feet and place the sunflower seeds with the pointy side pointing inward.

Last step is to roll your 4 mini marshmallows in the light corn syrup and then cover them with the white nonpareils. It worked easily for me to put both into small bowls.

Then you just place your feet together in their pairs on your dirt holes and give them each a fluffy tail! And I know no pictures to go by - but I DID at least take pictures of the finished product so in case you got lost on the last few steps just take a gander at the photos and hopefully you can figure it out!

WARNING: Undertaking this project may result in undesirable kitchen conditions.

HOMEMADE EASTER CARDS

These are super easy and quick! Just start out with some blank cards that you can find at Hobby Lobby. Draw three rounded rectangles on the top half of the paper, off set a bit. Have your kids finger paint dots (using their pointer finger) to fill the rectangles completely, even covering your light pencil lines too!

Next have them paint a straight stem down from each flower using a thin brush. Finally using a thicker brush have them make small leaves at the bottom of the stem by doing a quick short stroke starting at the very bottom and brushing diagonally up in both directions.

And voila! Just like that you have yourself some Texas bluebonnets! My kids are 4 and 5 and they did these ALL by themselves! The above picture is a card we did together (I painted most of this one to show them an example) and I added our initials at the bottom of the one we finger painted. However here is one they did all on their own:

There you go - a fun cupcake creation to do for a class party or perhaps a family Easter Egg Hunt and some pretty Bluebonnet cards to send to family this spring holiday and the day of Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ!

31 Days to Clean - Day 1 Challenge

2011-04-16T06:00:00.000-05:00

I highly doubt I'll share every day on here but I will share when I feel the...feeling to. The first day was an interesting Mary Challenge and I figured I would share it here on my blog. Sarah Mae asks you why YOU clean. You are to figure out why you clean and then come up with a mission statement and of course just because we're crafty moms and such to display your mission statement somehow where you can see it daily. Here are my five reasons why I clean (in no particular order): 1. To make my home a haven. HAVEN: any place of shelter and safety; refuge 2. To set an example for my kids. 3. To keep my mind clear and focused. If your surroundings are cluttered, so are your thoughts and if your surroundings are clean and organized then your mind can be too :) 4. To keep my home healthy and sanitary! 5. Because God called me to tend to my home. My Cleaning Mission Statement: To keep my home healthy and happy so I may create an environment of rest and refuge, as an example to my children and husband, as God has called me to do.

A Blast from the Past

2011-04-15T05:00:00.000-05:00

I was born in 1986. Yes I'm young. And I'm proud to still be able to say that because I know my time is coming. However awhile back some friends of ours got in a conversation about trolls. I believe we saw some hair or something that reminded us of a troll and our minds just went spiraling down the mountain of our past toys and shows etc. It was a fun journey. So I thought in honor of the past (and I can call it that because the teens I work with don't know most of these things I mention) I would do a blast from the past post! 1. Obviously I have to start with the famous Troll Dolls! Their crazy straight up hair, their often naked little backsides and the petite little gut they all had. Once the craze began it spilled over to character trolls such as doctor, baby, girly and even animal trolls! I'm pretty certain I had a unicorn troll at some point.

2. POGS - okay who remembers these? Because they were a short lived wonder. You stacked them up nice and straight and used your thicker pog, called a Slammer; which were often made out of metal or plastic versus cardboard like the pogs were, to throw it at the top of the pile and however many you could knock off the pile you got to keep! And it had to be a straight down shot, sideways shots were obviously considered cheating. It was a fun game and I remember being excited to go through my new pogs I won after a game. Best part was they were DIRT CHEAP!

3. Sand Art - These are actually still around today but were huge when I was young. Every event or fair or place you went you could either create your own or buy their "souvenir sand art" It was simply colored sand layered odd ways into a creative container. Plain and simple. And I'm sure I did one or two as a kid.

4. POPPLES - This was one of my FAVORITE shows when I was really little! They were cute furry animals that looked like an ordinary ball until their owner (a kid) was by himself and then they would POP out into them self! Very cute and taught good morals. They had some funny popple characters. I still own a Popples shirt and plan on cutting out the front graphic to sew onto a new shirt - since my current shirt is a little short for my "mommy look" now.

Do you remember some crazes from your childhood? Or perhaps just something you loved back then? I'd love to hear what it/they were!

31 Days to Clean!

2011-04-14T09:38:00.004-05:00

If you're like me and spring is passing you by and you keep telling yourself you REALLY need to do some spring cleaning before summer arrives then you'll be just as excited as I was when I saw this on a fellow blog I read: 31 Days to Clean, Having a Martha House the Mary Way!

Sarah Mae, writer of "Like a Warm Cup of Coffee" has written this e-book (which means you can buy the download or it's also available on Kindle - woo woo since I have one now) and it helps you keep your house clean while also doing some spiritual picking up and dusting as well! This is right up my alley and I will most definitely be downloading it ASAP and thought I should share it with my readers as well, in case heaven forbid you have a dusty windowsill as well, *gasp*. Obviously it does this by giving you daily challenges and just a wild guess but I'm guessing there are 31 of these daily challenges but that's just a wild guess.

I also thought you'd be interested to know that she is having a giveaway in honor of finishing the e-book! Among the prizes (yes as in plural) is a $50 gift certificate to DownEast Basics! (See below)

And to get an entry is a cinch! Check out all the details at her blog (just click the above link)! And here's a super easy way to get an extra entry: just put this button on your sidebar and let her know in a comment - do you notice my sidebar :)

Excuse me now while I go download something on my Kindle...

Project 365

2011-04-09T20:42:00.002-05:00

March 9th

My daughter Gracious & I at her class Valentine Ice-Cream Social!

March 11th

Girls Retreat - I took a group of 15 girls to my friend's Girls Retreat she hosts at her church. It was an AMAZING EVENT and those girls and their stories bring tears to my eyes even now. I love watching a girl hear God for the first time & realizing it's REAL. The above photo is me and my two group leaders that tagged along and got kept up that night :)

March 12th

We got to bed by 2:15 AM but still arose ready to hear more from God. Here is a picture of our group at the end of this fantastic journey.

March 14th

If you read my previous post you know that we unexpectedly took a trip to see my in-laws. So I was a bit distracted during this week...well this month so don't expect a picture from everyday or perhaps that week :/. However even though I'm not in it here is a picture of the sunrise over my husband's home ranch.

March 15th

It is my birthday. However due to plans we postponed my "party" plans for another time and instead I played in the snow piles with my kids, cooked for my in-laws, visited with some aunts I rarely see and ate chocolate cake they brought - not to mention enjoyed gazing at the flowers they also brought. My favorite flower is a Lilly. And they just happened to have brought me some :)

Cancer

2011-04-03T15:26:00.004-05:00

I seem to always have excuses for not posting yet this one you may actually give to me. And I realize by choosing what I did for the title of this post that my best friend back home is already freaking out asking herself a million questions of who has cancer and why am I posting about it. No I do not have cancer. Feel better Jaci? However my mother-in-law did. About a month ago (thus the no posting last month) we got that dreaded phone call saying that my husband's mother had been diagnosed with cancer. Adernocarcinoma to be exact. (Did I spell that right? I'm truly not sure) Anyhow it is a lung cancer and a very aggressive one. So we waited another week for her to get her PETscan and then hear what the plan of action would be. So one week later we get the call on how the PETscan results came out: It has consumed her body. Words that no one ever wants to hear. Especially as fearful as everyone has become of this dreaded disease. However our family serves THE Mighty God, THE Healer of all and we had no fear. She CHOSE to rely on God as her source and Provider and Healer especially after her son (not my husband - the other one) found a verse in 1 Kings 18:21 which says, "...How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him." God is God. And God is Healer and we should have no fear. We took the family up to South Dakota - which God provided all the details and ways for us to do this trip so perfectly that all of that is a testimony in itself - but we went to see them and help them. I cooked and cleaned so Cathy could rest and Nick helped his dad with his church services. My father-in-law is a pastor in South Dakota and does circuit preaching (drives to several locations each week to hold services because of the distance between people out there). It was a great week, Cathy got the rest and fresh food she needed, got to be encouraged and cheered up by her grand kids and we got to come together as a family to fight the spiritual fight of this whole ordeal. Her faith is incredible! She would NOT allow herself to think any negative thoughts, not ONE. She had a CD player (yep old school CD player) playing in one earphone all day - she took her "treatments", which was reading and speaking the Word of God over her life and claiming the healing promises. Not to mention she had praise music on 24/7, it never got turned off. It was awesome! And I'm proud to say that she let us all know this past Monday that she FELT the cancer leave her body! She is healed and is on her way to building her strength back up! Don't you dare tell me God doesn't STILL do miracles and don't you DARE tell me something is impossible for Him - He is God of ALL and He can heal ALL. Period.

My class is done!! Woohoo!

2011-03-19T21:06:00.006-05:00

To celebrate my class FINALLY being over (for quite awhile too) I'm going to attempt to catch up on my Project 365! Hey don't laugh...it's possible. (sheepishly) Right?

Well we'll find out. Here's the first set:

February 14th

We celebrated the Friday night before since we were both working on Valentine's Day but I had to take a picture with my honey anyways today! Cuz he's my BABE!

February 16th

This lil guy is a Sugar Glider - our new CrossFire mascot! (Not really - but a teen owns him and brings him so we can play every Wednesday night :) )

February 17th

I wish I wasn't behind on photos so some of them like the one above could be bigger for you. I have said on here before that mu hubby REALLY is a good photographer - he has a very creative eye. I came up with this shot (as we finished a Domino game) however he had to pull it off and he did MORE than pull it off don't you think?

February 19th

We are on the Speed the Light Walk to Drive Event with some teens from our youth group - we are walking 5K to raise money for missionaries! The above photo is a tile mural in one of the tunnels on the waterway where we walked. The picture below is some of my walking buddies.

February 21st

I finished the month long boot camp at Gold's Gym and have now started some P90X a couple times a week as I figure out what workout schedule I want next - so I thought I'd celebrate with a Muscle Picture!

February 22nd

Okay so this picture is at like 11:30 p.m. - I had spent the last three hours making horse cupcakes for Cowboy Day at Gracie's school to only have a major disaster at the end and they not turn out! GRRRRRRRR! None-the-less I got a photo of my annoyance.

February 23rd

Cowboy Day at Gracie's school!

February 26th

If you can believe it, weeds are already growing around here! My kids being the age they are bring mommy every flower they find (weed or not)! And it's adorable. And sweet. And cute. And it touches a mommy's heart. So I wanted to take a picture to remember it by.

February 27th

Sunday night is the night I meet with my prayer partner. Every other week we meet at Starbucks and treat ourselves to a mocha or something yummy, however the other weeks we simply call each other up. Tonight was a stay at home night but we still ended up "meeting" for like an hour and by the time I was done I had two bibles, two spiral notebooks with scriptures and prayers, my journal, an array of pens and highlighters and me! Sheesh this definitely deserved a picture!

March 2nd

Okay so you can't see me exactly but I'm sure you guessed that these are my footprints. One of the things I LOVE it watching the birds feed at our feeder in the mornings. This morning I had looked out to find it empty (hungry little things) and so tiptoed through the dew covered grass to quickly fill it back up. And lo and behold my footprints were left as a sign that I'd been there. And then I had to raise my lens a bit as my dog Menina came to see what in the world I was up to but also to capture the foggy morning it was.

March 6th

Nope, I haven't changed THAT much.

March 7th

Before you go accusing me of not following rules let me explain. I DID take this picture - and it's of myself. So what is the problem? I actually took a photo of a photo in my scrapbook for my Facebook photo challenge that I'm doing. And hey it fit the rules so why not use it? It's of me and my two cousins at the San Diego Zoo when we were probably around 12??

Okay so everyone can thank my best friend, Jaci, for me ACTUALLY catching up (I know I still have more but they are coming in separate posts - I didn't want to overwhelm you in one post). She sent me a birthday wishes email and reminded me how far behind I am in this project, and since we live a state away she told me how much she enjoys seeing the pics of me. :) I know it warmed my heart too! So I decided I'd been bad for too long and owed it at least to her. So here you are Jaci - and thank you for my sweet Birthday Wishes, I miss ya girl!

And I also realized if I switch to the smaller photos I can get these done much quicker - so are they okay or are the bigger ones worth the time? Please comment and let me know!

Oh and did you notice I got on a Sepia kick there towards the end? Guess I see my life in brownish tones right now, hmm.

I'm having withdrawals

2011-03-08T21:45:00.004-06:00

I am so glad to announce that I will be taking my final for my college class this week and then I will have a long break until the fall! SOOO I might actually get to come back to my poor abandoned blog! I feel like I finally start getting some momentum and then I get so swamped with homework and, well the rest of my life, that I just crash and burn and then I'm left trying to pick all the pieces back up and build up my masterpiece again. Can you relate?

But since I have a moment I wanted to share an awesome writing by Charles Spurgeon that I read in my textbook.

"Jesus is more ready to pardon

than you are to sin,

more willing to supply your wants

than you are to confess them.

Never tolerate low thoughts of Him.

You may study, look, and meditate,

but Jesus is a greater Savior than

you think Him to be

when your thoughts are at their highest."

Isn't that beautiful? And this is my college class. I love attending a Christian University and am getting SO much out of my classes, not just intellectually but spiritually too.

On another note, here are a few more catch-ups from my Project 365:

February 3rd

Okay no, it's not me. We're just going to call February my forgetful month because I forgot a lot of days to take a photo of myself. However I still am a photo freak and DID capture some moments - so here is my daughter with the ONLY snowball of our winter!

February 4th

My daughter made her own HUGE snowflake at school with a massive coffee filter paper! She was so proud and it was too cute.

February 6th

SUPERBOWL!! Need I say more?

February 9th

Okay I'm back in the photos finally! On this night my daughter, who is 4, was walking around the house talking. When I stopped to ask what she was doing she informed me she was reading her bible. (which yes she was carrying a New Testament around) When I started listening, everything she said was dead on...perhaps it didn't quite form a structured sentence but the points she made were right! I was such a proud momma that night.

February 10th

Partly because he can't EVER wait to get a gift or give a gift and two because I challenged him to actually surprise me this year and NOT tell me what I was getting before I got it - I arrived home on Thursday afternoon from picking up my son from school and when I walk up to my house I find a note taped on my door. It is a clue written in my hubby's handwriting and it explains to find the next clue. I think 8 clues later and after being in and out of my house it eventually led me to my favorite reading chair where my Valentine's gift lay! It was so sweet and he knows me to a "T" because I love treasure hunts and things of the sort! He got me one of my fave movies - Avatar!!

Crunch Time

2011-02-26T22:17:00.003-06:00

Can you tell I'm in the last couple weeks of my class?? I have passed my Mid-Term and am now in the final two week stretch of the current class I'm taking in college. Which is why I've almost been absent from my blog. However, I finished up my homework tonight and figured I could afford a quick post. And since I'm WAY behind (only like a month right?) I think I better do a few 365 of Me Project Pictures! So here are a few.

January 29th

A very good friend of mine, Jenna Hardin (yes I must brag that she is a former Miss New Mexico), got hitched to her best friend on January 29th and I was not about to miss it! It was right over the Guadalupe River in the Hill Country of Texas - divine. So I grabbed my honey and got a couple pics with the beautiful river in the background.

January 30th
My mother-in-law is too organized! She already got her Valentine's out! Man I wish I was that good.

February 2nd

I realized a lot of my pictures are taken in my kitchen. And to be honest I'm sick of seeing it in the pictures. So I cropped it out! (Smile) And if I do say so myself I look like a model in a magazine showing off the winter line (this is Texas winter but still I had to snap this picture to show I actually had to get a hat, scarf and mittens and everything out!!)

My new friend

2011-02-12T14:10:00.007-06:00

So on a sunny Friday morning I was out front pruning my plants getting them cleaned up and ready for the hard freezes coming up. When I lifted a few dead leaves I found this little brown lizard lying there. I was stunned it hadn't darted off yet as usually as quick as you see them, they are gone. When I moved around some more and it still hadn't moved I assumed it must be dead. So I gently picked it up by the tail to add it to my trash bag but instead the little booger latched on to the stick underneath him! He was alive?! So now I assumed it was "almost" dead but figured I would give it a chance. I called my husband out first to see this lizard. Why? Because I'm weird. He apparently knew some lizard knowledge I did not. He said they are cold-blooded animals and if they can't find sunlight to warm themselves back up they will end up freezing to death.
Well, after learning this I moved him to the grass in full sunlight to see if he would warm up and survive.

You can't see it well in this photo but as he started warming up he turned GREEN! It was really cool to watch. The whole time I'm like 2 inches from him snapping photos of course and he just calmly watched my every move but still never moved. My husband again came outside to see the lizard and when he came out the commotion finally scared or jump started this lizard enough to move. Do you know where he went?

Right straight to me and up on my boots! It was insane and I've NEVER seen one do this or even get near you like this! And I've lived around these lizards my whole life!

It kept going too! It started climbing my boot so I stuck my hand by it...

And what do you know - it hopped right on like we were pals!

My husband loves this next shot he got - he said it looks like the lizard is hugging me in thanks for saving him. Hehe, I'll let you decide.

This lil guy stayed on me for near an hour! And I just enjoyed every minute of it.

(this is also my January 28th picture of Project 365 of Me)

My daughter wanted to hold it too, so we tried it...

Sure enough - no problem there either.

God gave me a sweet moment that day - I'll never forget it.

365 of Me - jumbled update

2011-02-10T21:21:00.006-06:00

Okay it's late and I've been studying and reading for my college class, thus I feel lazy. So I'm going to update my 365 of Me Project in an un-orderly fashion. If this bugs you, close the screen now. Okay you had your chance. Here goes:

January 25th

KSBJ - our local Christian Radio Station hosted a FREE Brown Bag Concert (an outdoor concert at a Chic-Fil-A) with Brandon Heath! Woohoo! Wasn't gonna miss this one - especially since this was only 15 minutes from my home! Before the show I got a pic with the Chic-Fil-A cow!

January 27th

This is me holding my...drum roll please...My Italian Family Recipe for Minestrone Soup! One of my New Year's resolutions was to cook recipes from my family heritage cookbook (try to do one a month) and for January it was "Luisa's Minestrone" It took literally ALL day and I'm actually in my work out clothes above because I left to work out and came back to finally finish up this absolutely DELICIOUS best Minestrone soup I've ever had!!

January 20th (?I think?) Is all I remember is I was having a bad day and didn't want to take a picture so I snapped one not caring that my emotions OBVIOUSLY showed. I'm human. I'm allowed to get upset.

January 24th
Daddy was at Monday night church so it's our "kid-meal" night. We did a home-made pizza with Pioneer Woman's Pizza Crust dough recipe (tried it here for the first time). It turned out fabulous!

My little mini-cooks are great help!

January 23rd

I'm doing laundry on Sunday afternoon. Yep that's my day-to-day regular life.

January 25th

I received my Beth Moore "Siesta Memory Scripture Memory Team" spiral notebook in the mail from a fellow Siesta blogger!! Was SO excited!! Thanks Sheri! You can check out her blog here: The Leaking Window
(I HAD to let my daughter take a picture w/ me too!)

January 18th

Here was the picture I was missing because it was on my phone! It's me and Gracie at the library gettin' us some new books to read at bedtime.

And that's all I could find and download before I got too rummy to do homework anymore. They are out of order, missing days and just downright jumbled. Sorry - I'll at least apologize. But I won't change it. It is what it is. I'm tired. Goodnight.

Day 17 of Project 365 of Me

2011-02-07T05:00:00.000-06:00

A Special Day at the Station

Day 19

This day was a special day for me. In the above picture I am stuffing teddy bears into my car to take to our local Fire Station. Back in November I was praying about something our youth could do to help our community in some way. I remembered reading a Dee Henderson book about a firefighter that honestly changed my outlook on all firefighters everywhere. I just can NOT look at them the same (in a good way). Anyways in this book there is a part where it described the firemen giving a teddy bear to a young child when his house was destroyed by a flood. With this in my mind I talked to the local Fire Chief to ask what would be a good way to serve them. I mentioned this teddy bear idea and he told me that all 3 stations around our area were sharing one bag of teddy bears. Hearing that, it was decided - we would do a teddy bear drive for our firemen! So for one month we collected bears and I have to admit the teens did us proud bringing in over 270 teddy bears! And they were CUTE ones! So to wrap up my story, on January 20th Nick, myself, Caleb (our new Ministry Assistant) and a few teens that are homeschooling (most couldn't go because we went during school hours) loaded them all up and headed to the Fire Station!

This is Nick and I with Fire Chief, Bobby Harris. A wonderful man of God that leads the stations with excellence. And below is the crew that was there that day and the BAGS of teddy bears we were able to bless them with! They said because there were so many that they would split them up between all three stations!

We got the grand tour and my daughter Gracie was even allowed to look through their truck and sound the siren! She had a blast to say the least.
I absolutely loved that morning and hold it close to my heart. It was just teddy bears but it's that feeling of knowing you are doing something right by blessing people. I look at those bears and see little kids, crying or in shock receiving one of them and a half of a smirk comes back to their face or maybe the stream of tears stops for an instant - however big or small a difference it makes to them in that moment, I'm SO glad I got to be a part of it!

My top 7 Kitchen Utensils, Gadgets, etc...

2011-02-05T20:21:00.007-06:00

WOOHOO my computer actually uploaded all the pictures! It took awhile but I got them on here and I have been dying to post this particular one because for one I love cooking and have so many FUN things to cook or create with! Mainly because my mom's side of the family is Italian so we automatically love the kitchen and second because my mom and I have a tiny obsession with fun kitchen stores. We could literally spend all day in a Sur La Table! So for a nice break from my 365 of Me project (which yes I'm going to catch up on my posts with that I promise!) I figured we would dive into MY kitchen in particular! So drum roll please...and now announcing the 2011 winners of Ivy's Top 7 Kitchen Utensils!!

The Number 1 Winner is my Glass Mugs!!

Just guess where they are from too! Wal-Mart. I know, sad isn't it? Yet I have also seen them at World Market (more appropriate I think) and it is by far my favorite thing in my kitchen. I start every single morning with a cup of hot green Tazo tea. These mugs not only look so chic but they somehow miraculously keep my drink cool enough for me to sip and hot long enough for me to drink it (unless I get distracted...which I do about every 2 minutes...hold on I need to go switch laundry). Point is I love them - the look of them, the feel of them, everything. My mom and I found these first at a Bed and Breakfast we stayed at during a Scrapbook Retreat. From that moment it was a quest to get them and my mom graciously brought me four this Christmas season when she came to stay with us. I think she quickly bought her some too upon returning home :)

Number 2 Award goes to my Oil and Vinegar bottles.

I cook with Olive Oil probably every day as well. I love it and the healthful benefits of it. So when I found these two "Made in Italy" bottles at World Market about three years ago I had to have them so I could finally keep my Extra Virgin Olive Oil handily on my counter top. They've never left.

Number 3 Award will be for my newest cheese grater.

My mother-in-law gave me this grater this past year and it has been the handiest thing that I feel my other graters might be jealous and perhaps downright depressed. For one the handle pulls out to easily stand on it's own on your counter top. By doing this it also props itself at a handy angle to push easily against while grating. Then because it wasn't cool enough it added measurement markers on the side so you don't have to stop and transfer your cheese to another cup measure (in case you are one that MUST get the exact amount).

And oh I'm not done yet when you close the handle you can lay it on it's back (does it have a back? I suppose I should say lay it ON the handle) it will rest perfectly like a cupped bowl for you to distribute the cheese easily after removing the grate front.

On to Number 4 is my...okay I actually don't know the proper name for this. But I can make a fill in name for now: My Hot-Meat-Holder-So-I-Don't-Burn-My-Fingers-Thingamajig!

I think my made up name gave away too much. In case it didn't this is inserted into hot meat of any kind right out of the oven, pan or grill allowing you to cut it up as needed for the recipe or maybe just for some little kiddos mouth! I love this tool because I can't tell you how many times I forget I have to precook the meat and so I'm rushing and don't have time to wait for it to cool and so I ended up burning the heck out of my poor fingers! Do you want to hear something sad though? I received this as a wedding gift but didn't know what it is was. So I graciously placed it in my kitchen drawer hoping I'd figure it out someday. Thankfully that day did come when I attended a Pampered Chef Bridal Shower and the consultant did a cooking demonstration and happened to use that VERY tool! I was elated to say the least! And also mad that I'd had that tool all along and still burnt my fingers so often.

Number 5 is just a tool for spoiled cooks honestly. It's my egg-separator!

Again I admit - it's just for spoiling reasons. It hooks onto the edge of a bowl and you crack the egg into the wire spiral and wait for the egg to separate all on it's own - no flip-flopping from egg shell half to the other hoping that yoke doesn't break right over your bowl of ingredients!

Number 6 is similar - mainly for spoiling but serves a purpose of course! It's my miniature whisk:

I took this picture weird like that with it in my hand on purpose OK. I wanted to show you how small it really was. And my hands are TINY - just trust me. This handy tool allows me to whip up one or two eggs easily for omelets or to make french toast or Saltine Pork-Chops. For recipes like that I like to put the eggs in small bowls so as not to dirty a big bowl just at the expense of an egg or two but with a big whisk it's impossible to KEEP the egg in that small bowl so again my mom got this for me as a stocking stuffer after experiencing it for herself.

Last award - NUMBER 7 goes to my Pampered Chef serving bowls! These mini square bowls are the handiest, multi-functional things ever! I use them to put out nuts and candy with on my counter, to mix eggs up with my mini whisk for omelets, to put garnishing in when company comes over, and EVEN to flip over and set snowmen on so they sit high enough above the fake snow I pile up around them! I have two white ones and then three colored ones that came with small square trays to set them in (which I actually use just as much). I like using the trays to mix seasonings in for recipes so I don't have to take the time to measure out of 5 or 6 little seasoning bottles while something is cooking too long on the stove.

So there you have it! If you have questions on any of these products I'll do my best to give you a consumer opinion of it! Until next time, happy cooking!

It worked!!

2011-01-30T22:29:00.002-06:00

So I must apologize for being absent so long but for the last week or so every time I went to upload photos my upload wouldn't work! It got very frustrating since I have limited time to blog as is. However it decided to allow me to upload a few tonight so I'll try to begin catching up! Here are some of the "365 of Me" photos:

Day 16

Cooking. Something I LOVE to do (when I want to of course)

Day 17

You will be seeing this photo in an upcoming post! I decided I loved the blueberries so much though that it had to be my picture for the day. I adore berries!

Day 18

(will have to wait until the next post - it's still on my phone, lol)

Day 19

CrossFire Youth time!!! I love our teens and especially my girls I work with! I grabbed one of them, Michaela to do a fun pose with me - we're jumping off our stage! Life must be fun! I think so anyways!

AND it won't let me upload again... I'm trying guys I promise. I guess the suspense will have to hold you for now. Until my computer works again, bye bye.

Tinkerbell Birthday Party

2011-01-19T05:00:00.001-06:00

My daughter's 4th year birthday is one to remember! And all it took was some creativity and elbow grease on my part. So here is a complete breakdown of the Tinkerbell Birthday Bash:

You start with (of course it IS me you know) CUPCAKES! I chose a very simple yet VERY time consuming decoration idea - flowers. Birthday girl wanted Strawberry Cupcakes so that's what we started with. The next step is cutting mini marshmallows in half diagonally and then, if you so desire, dipping the middle part while it's still gooey into any color of sprinkles you desire. I did white, pink and green for our particular fairy party. Then simply place the "petals" on in three tiers. Each cupcake averages about 17 marshmallows, or 34 pieces. The result is a beautiful "Mum Flower"!

My daughter spotted the cupcake tier stand at Walmart and it comes with the Tinkerbell cupcake wrappers and the toothpick inserts you see in the center of my flowers. for about 9 dollars it looked great!

Next we added all the decorations! I printed out all the Tink Friends from the newest Tinkerbell movies, cut them out in detail and then laminated them. These adorned the edge of the breakfast bar where all the goodies were stashed.

I also printed out a cute picture of the fairies and decided to tape up a quick welcome note for the arriving guests on our front door.

Then when my bestie arrived to help I quickly gave her orders to help me hang up ALL the streamers and banners all over our living room! I had hung paper lanterns the night before. The lanterns and streamers gave it such a festive feel!

Who could forget the best part?! I printed in all the invitations for the girls to come dressed in "fairy attire"! Here is my little fairy - who went as Rosetta (since she just got the costume for Christmas).

Here is a sweet friend of ours daughter dressed as Tink herself. (Most of the wings had been ditched by this time)

May I also suggest for any little girl birthday party that you buy sidewalk chalk. My goodness I found a 52 piece chalk set at the Dollar Store and the kids had a blast! First thing the girls wanted was of course a Hop-Scotch board of which I quickly obliged.

Okay on to the games:

1. Ring Toss - for this game I took 3 paper towel tubes and painted them lime green (excuse me fairy green) and even added some glitter while the paint was still wet to give it that pixie dust look. Then my husband cut a piece of plywood into three rectangles of which we just duck taped the bottom of the tubes onto. They were extremely stable and cute to boot! And guess what I made rings out of? Weed eater wire! Hehe, yes I did. I made 3 rings the same size with our weed eating string, wire...not sure what it's called and even duck taped the ends together as well. Did I mention the wire was lime green in color? I love my ingenuity. I gave bubbles as a prize for making a ring.

2. Can Explosion - this one required painting 15 empty coke cans lime green (and adding pixie dust as well). After that you just stack them up pyramid style, find a cute small ball and mark a line about 8 or 9 feet back (more feet for older child) and let them go! Obviously they must knock the cans over with the ball. Knock them all down and Tinkerbell sticker sheets was your prize! This game was actually their favorite and they wore me OUT wanting me to continually stack cans over and over!

3. Pin the Wand on Tinkerbell - this one is self explanatory however with much trouble over trying to blow up a photo to poster size for this game my mom had to give a last minute ingenuity idea - cut the front out of a Tink gift bag (which I DID have). So that's what we did and it looked cute!

Last tips are never forget party hats, noisy horns and yummy punch! (recipe at bottom)

After the party was over and my bestie helped me tear everything down we had to celebrate with our own photo - for surviving the whole ordeal AND cleaning it all up in one day's time!

That's all folks!

Sherbet Punch Recipe

1 - 2 Liter 7-Up

1 - 2 Liter Hawaiian Punch

2 Tubs of Rainbow Sherbet

Pour in drinks first then scoop sherbet on top of punch. I like to drizzle a little punch over each scoop to give it that foamy look. You can also adjust to taste by adding more 7-Up or Hawaiian Punch - whichever way you like it best. Enjoy!

365 of Me - Days 11-14

2011-01-15T20:19:00.006-06:00

I have officially missed my first day of photos. I'm very sad but at the same time I was sick, felt miserable, wanted the day to end and my head to meet my bed and that's about all I was concerned with. So with that mentality I'm not surprised a picture didn't happen. However on the good side, my other photos have suddenly sparked inspiration for a couple of future posts here on the blog! So I can't wait for those! So here we go...

DAY 11

Nothing.

DAY 12

I wear neon socks almost everyday. It's a huge trend right now and sadly one where I thought how cute! And fun! And went to Academy and bought like 12 pair.

DAY 13

Like previously stated in a previous post I have started boot camp at Gold's Gym. This was a photo of me right before I headed out the door to the gym. This day also reminded me of a not-so-cool disease that I have. It comes and goes and always creeps up at weird times if you ask me. What is this horrid disease I have, that even my mom is wondering what in the world could this be, right now??? Hair-Boredom Disease!!! EEK! I know. It's bad. I will wake up, look in the mirror with a defeated look and then think to myself - let's try something new today. So I end with hairdo's like this one. I've included a close-up of the back of my head just so you can actually see the whole effect here.

Yep. Not only am I diseased but I have horribly sun-bleached ends!

DAY 14
This one was especially fun because this is a picture of me finding (and writing my name on the log) my very first CACHE! As in from Geo-caching!! I know most of you have no clue what I'm talking about (neither did I four days ago) but this will most definitely be on a near-future post!

Mt grip looks so strong! It's the boot camp. Uh-huh yea.

My favorite eye-makeup application

2011-01-11T07:00:00.001-06:00

Today is a first time post on this blog - a "How-To" Makeup post. Yep that's right. Yesterday I applied my eye makeup in my favorite way possible. You can take this application technique and use it with any color combination you want and always get an amazing eye! So here we go!

The leading actors are:

1. Loreal Paris Pencil Perfect Self-Advancing Eyeliner - my particular color was "Espresso"

2. Covergirl Lash Blast Fusion Mascara - again my particular color was "Very Black"

3. Almay Intense I-Color Powder Shadow - my color was "Trio for Browns 001"

4. Clinique Soft-Pressed Eye Shadow - color was "Ivory Bisque/Brandied Plum"

Okay first off let me explain reasons why I chose some of these particular items. For starters I have dark brown eyes and so will always use a dark eyeliner to bring them out. Light colors just look odd on my eyes. Black eyeliner is over-pronounced and makes me look gangster or goth. And although soft black does work I love the softness of using a dark brown color to match my eyes - this way I just outline my eyes but don't draw attention away from them. Now on the other hand it is the opposite with my eyelashes. Girls always want attention on their long lashes and with a dark colored eye I must use a VERY BLACK mascara to make them pop and not blend in.

Onto the eye shadows I love smoky eyes or similar colored trios instead of going with opposites attract sort of thing. 3 different shades of the same color is my favorite and makes an eye look so classic and sophisticated. Being olive skinned with dark eyes a color that will always look good on me is Plum. (and no I'm not just saying that because I think so I have had probably three makeup artists or stylists tell me so and all articles read on the subject have agreed.) So it's just me but I either go with a neutral palette - browns and beige's to match my eye color or with a variation of plum. This is typically speaking. Other colors I love on my eye are burnt orange, olive green, and grey - again all with different shades of that base color. Anyways on with the application technique.

One of the first things I was taught by a make-up artist (and trying several other ways just to see if she was right) was when applying eyeliner to apply it under lashes - not on inner lip of eyelid as some do to bring drama to the eye, and to apply from outer corner to the invisible line of your inner eye circle. In other words the circle of your eye that has the color of your eye - stop your eyeliner before reaching the inner corner at the edge of that circle. It's about 3/4 of the way in. Repeat the same thing on top lid.

Next is mascara. Here is a handy tip when applying mascara - do your lower lashes first because when you open your eye wide to apply to lower lashes often your upper lashes hit the skin above your eye causing you to have to go back and wipe it off and also losing some of the application off your top lashes. By doing the lower lashes first you eliminate this problem.

Okay so to the good part - eyeshadow. You will apply the lightest shade to the top of your eyelid - this starts at your brow and goes down to the crease in your eyelid. Next take your middle shade color and apply just to lid. Last with a thin application brush apply darkest shade to just the crease in your eyelid. For an example with the colors I used:

"Shimmery Beige" from the Almay Trio was used on upper eyelid. the "Soft Plum" color also from Almay Trio was used on lid. Then in the crease of my eye was the Clinique "Brandied Plum". Here is a picture of the finished product:

Obviously showing someone something in person is always much easier but hopefully you got something from this. The key to an eye like this is blending. The easiest for me is to take the tip of my finger and gently smudge the dark color upward toward the lightest color. The lid to crease doesn't usually need blending as you want the distinction there. By doing a quick browse I found a great picture guideline (but I know nothing of the site or makeup - it was a quick search - I just know the picture guidelines are the same as I described. Click here for link.

Oh and one last thing, the Clinique color is SUPER old because I use small amounts of it so you may not be able to find that exact color anymore! But I'm sure you can find something close.

365 of Me - Days 7, 8, 9 & 10

2011-01-10T21:11:00.007-06:00

Wow I'm so excited I just found some fellow Project 365'ers!! Quickly I'd like to add their links in case any of my readers are interesting in joining this fun quest!

1. Sara Bowyer @ Make music from your heart to the Lord - this blog includes a link up to fellow Project 365'ers and also a button of Project 365 for your blog sidebar!!

2. Barbie @ My Freshly Brewed Life - I have followed this blog for quite some time and my jaw dropped when she included that she was also doing a Project 365 in her Miscellany Monday post!

Okay on with my photos...

Day 7

The night before my daughter's 4th birthday party I stayed up until midnight hanging paper lanterns and painting empty coke cans Tinkerbell Lime Green! Oh AND adding glitter...of course!

Day 8

My hubby can be SO stinkin' creative with the camera and I am always amazed at the unique eye he has through that lens. I wish he would do more because he really does have natural talent. Anyways enough bragging here was a "Down the Streamers" pic he captured of me right before the party started!

Day 8..still

Okay sorry but I LOVED this picture of my best friend, Julie, and I that we took after all the guests had finally left and we both sighed a sigh of relief. *Sigh*

Day 9

This picture I giggled when I took because it was me sitting in my car on the drive home from the restaurant on Sunday afternoon. But I thought, "this is interesting and unique to me -what is on my lap and at my feet in the car" So here is what is on my lap: my bible - a small cute leather one I like to haul to church because it's lightweight and well cute, and my kindle - my Christmas present from my honey!! At my feet: to the left is my new purse that a teenager and his mom from our youth group gave me for Christmas and to my right which you can barely see is a plastic bag which holds our leftover sushi and my son's chicken strips. Oh and did I mention because it was DOWN POURING for like 24 hours I had on my black and white "oh so cute" rain boots??!! OK well now I mentioned it.

Day 10

This is by far my favorite so far! I was home already (realizing it was pajama day at my work which is also my daughter's school and SHOULD have taken a cute picture of her and I at school in our jammies but with the realization that I'm not as good at capturing moments in life as I once believed and my daughter in bed I grabbed my camera and just started thinking. This is what I came up with - one of my favorite features of myself. And back off I'm not egotistical or anything like that I just know that God created every single person beautifully and creatively and that I should like His creation and appreciate it. And I do. I love the deep brown eyes God gave me and my whole family and now my children (being that brown in a dominant eye color)! And I also love close up photos of just about anything. The above picture used the Pioneer Woman Photoshop "Colorized" Action so I actually posted the original colored photo below too.

I loved the eye picture so much I will actually be doing a "first-time" post on my blog tomorrow using a similar photo I took while getting this one. Maybe it will help someone or perhaps it will just serve the purpose of keeping things completely random on this blog! Either way I'm happy!

Psalm 122: Beth Moore Assignment

2011-01-07T06:00:00.001-06:00

So the assignment I had yesterday was to rewrite Psalm 122 making it about my church and my town instead of Jerusalem. It was just that a homework activity to get us to think about something in a different way NOT to take anything away from the beautiful scripture itself which we had spent the last two days studying it of course as it is! With that being said here was my rewriting:

I rejoiced with those who said to me, "Let us go to the Lone Star Cowboy Church." Our feet and hooves are standing in your gates, O Montgomery. Montgomery is a melting pot all its own, knit together as a single unit. This is where the cowboys, the lake-goers, blacks and whites alike go up - all the Lord's people - go up to praise the name of the Lord according to the law of the Word. There the arena stands, the fishing hole if you will, for our community. Pray for the peace and prosperity of Montgomery. May all who love this city (it's people) prosper. O Montgomery may there be peace within your town and prosperity in your government and economy. For the sake of my spiritual family and friends, I will say "peace be with you." For the sake of Lone Star Cowboy Church - the house of the LORD our God, I will seek what is best for you, O Montgomery.

365 of Me - Days 4, 5, & 6

2011-01-06T11:19:00.006-06:00

Since beginning this journey of 365 of Me I have already re-learned something about myself: I am bad at remembering! It is so hard to remember to take a picture of yourself although I'm hoping after awhile it will become an easy habit. That being said on the 5th was my daughter's birthday and, as horrible as this is to admit, I still forgot to take a picture! All DAY! Mainly because her party is Saturday so I wasn't thinking about my camera yet but seriously how pathetic huh?

Okay moving on... Day 4 was a forgotten day so the picture is my legs about to climb into bed! Hehe...

(I have to add that yesterday I read a post at Pioneer Woman about converting pictures to Black and White

and so of course being inspired I had to try one today)

Day 5 was a long day being the first day back to school for my daughter and me to work. I took cupcakes to her class, ate lunch with her, treated her to Smoothie King (her choice) after school and then took my kiddos to the movie "Tangled" that evening! Phew...see why I didn't have time to remember a photo? So literally two minutes before I crawled in bed I told my husband to snap a photo of me. However since I was make-up-less by this point I had him take a picture of my hair. So yep this is what my hair looks like after being in a side braid all day long. I know you were just so curious to know right?!

Since I had done so poorly the last two days I was determined to take a picture on purpose today! So in the morning after dropping off my son at school I got my daughter and I a mid-morning snack and sat down at my favorite spot (by out kitchen window that looks right out to our lone tree in the backyard with the bird feeder in it - which is always FULL of little birds this time of year!) with my Beth Moore bible study I'm doing right now. I actually will have a post tomorrow about a cool assignment she gave us in my daily homework today! I found it pretty powerful - perhaps you will too. However this was a photo I let my daughter take all by herself.

She's pretty good huh? I think so too.

365 of Me - Day 3

2011-01-03T23:31:00.003-06:00

Tonight (once again in scrubs from working church nursery) I spent a couple hours on my computer looking up ideas for my daughter's birthday party! She will be 4 years old on Wednesday and is wanting a Tinkerbell Birthday Party on Saturday! So I'm sure you'll see a Tinkerbell post soon enough too ;) So I spun around on my computer chair stuck my Canon Rebel out in front of me and snapped a photo! I have a feeling tomorrow's picture might be buying Tinkerbell supplies, lol.

"365 of ME" day 2

2011-01-03T21:53:00.005-06:00

So for two hours last night and another hour and a half tonight I have been trying to upload pictures for a wonderful post of my DAY 2 Picture along with a huge feast I cooked for our Sunday Dinner with no success. So finally out of desperation I tried to JUST upload the day 2 picture and FINALLY had some success. I do not know why it is not working and I promise I will add more later (because seriously you don't want to miss the dinner post!) but here is my Day 2 picture which was taken Sunday afternoon. I am wearing a scrubs top because I work our church baby nursery a couple times a month and had worked this particular Sunday. Also on Thursday of last week I signed up for a month long boot camp at Gold's Gym - they had an INCREDIBLE deal that I couldn't pass up! Along with getting back on track with my exercise after splurging over the holidays on food, food, and more food (mainly starches and sugars) my acne has FLARED up like no other! So I started eating my Anti-Inflammatory Dr. Perricone diet again. I had done SO good all week but it was bittersweet because I had gotten the Pioneer Woman cookbook for our book dinner this Christmas (see previous post on Book Dinner). So I thought I would just look through it and write down future recipes to try. My above picture is me doing just that after church - pouring through her hilarious and well photographed cookbook! As you can imagine after a couple HOURS of pouring through a cookbook like this I could about smell the cooking buttermilk biscuits and taste the juicy steaks! So what did I do? I cooked a FEAST for dinner throwing all diet no-no's out the window! We had Beef Tenderloin, Buttermilk Biscuits with Honey Butter, Grilled Zucchini and a Mini Apple Pie for dessert! Whenever my picture upload starts working again I will let you have the visual from my decadent meal! In the meantime...I'll try to at least keep up to date on my daily photos! Ta ta ya'll!

"365 of ME"

2011-01-01T23:07:00.003-06:00

What: 365 pictures

of Who: ME

When: throughout the year of 2011 - one per day

Where: this one will be fun to find out!

Why: so that I, Ivy Morrison am chronicled throughout the year and not always behind the lens of the camera but in FRONT of it!

How: I will take one picture (at least, lol) every day of this next year and will post them on my blog so my friends, family and fellow readers can join in on my fun!

So here it is the VERY FIRST official post of my "365 of ME" project:

OK I know it's pathetic for my first picture but on the contrary, I said I was taking a picture of myself, but I can be creative with it as long as I AM in the photo. Plus I wanted to remember my first time making this Southern New Year's Tradition! So yes my first photo is my hand showing off my Black-Eyed Pea Soup! (Unedited and everything so it would be on time! Just for you guys)

I feel so SOUTHERN!

2011-01-01T21:16:00.003-06:00

Happy New Year everyone!! I'm especially glad to see last year behind me although I treasure SO many good times and blessings from it! But I love the feeling of a new year and a fresh slate. Which technically it is only one day away from yesterday but something about that number changing on the calender date just makes you feel like it's miles away from yesterday. Or maybe it's just me. Anywho...

I have been DYING to share with you the surprise I mentioned in a previous post about something I had for the coming year!! It is technically, I guess, my New Year's Resolution: to take 365 pictures of myself (one per day) throughout 2011. Crazy - perhaps. Sound like total fun to an avid scrapbooker AND photographer - YES! I heard of it from some friends of mine. The idea behind it is that scrapbooking mommas are always taking pictures and never end up IN any of them. And even though my hubby is a GREAT photographer and I constantly make him photograph me (actually I take back that statement - my husband will usually take the camera from me to make sure I get in some photos) I still think this is one step further. Okay yes it's a giant leap but when I heard about this it was just SO up my alley! So I will take ONE photo of me for one whole year and yep, I will share them on this blog!! WOOHOO! You're as excited as I am aren't you? I knew it! So have I taken my photo yet? Yes! Is it uploaded on this post? No :( right after I snapped my one photo my camera gave me a direct order - CHARGE BATTERY. So it is charging right now unable to upload :( :( I know. I'm sorry. HOWEVER I will TRY to get it done before sleep comes to my eyes. And at this time I would like to issue a warning. If you are a regular follower of this blog you know I lead a very busy, hectic life and can get inconsistent about my posting. So I have also told myself I WILL upload photos of my "365 of Me" Adventure at LEAST once a week. I made a reasonable goal OK.

So in the meantime to quickly explain my post title (because my hubby is waiting to watch a movie with me) I just found out through the Pioneer Woman blog that the Southern New Year's meal is Black-Eyed Peas! Most of them make a soup and even add a dime to see who will get the dime in their bowl of soup which grants them luck for the coming year. Now as I am COMPLETELY opposed to putting nasty dirty money that has passed through numerous sets of hands I opted to leave that part out BUT I did make a big pot of Black-Eyed Pea Soup today! I'm so proud. Although with this meal I must send out a huge apology to my dad. You see he is a true northerner from Ohio where it is a downright SIN to not eat Pork and Sauerkraut on New Year's Eve. I grew up holding my nose and taking two to three bites to say "see dad I ate it" right after midnight stroke year after year. But being a whole state away I figured I would at least be physically safe from any repercussions from skimping the sauerkraut for soup!

It was absolutely delicious and actually the first time I have ever made a Black-Eyed Pea soup AND it is what my first "365 of ME" photo is about!

(you can find the Black-Eyed Pea recipe on the "Tasty Kitchen" part of her blog)

Salt Dough Ornaments

2010-12-19T11:50:00.004-06:00

I told you I had been blog-hopping lately and I saw these adorable and easy ornaments to make and thought it would be a great project for the kids and I plus they would be a perfect little gift for my husband's co-workers. I hand picked what kind of ornament shape so I could come up with cute sayings or stories with each one so it would be more meaningful to them as gifts. So here is what you need:

And here is the recipe:

SALT DOUGH ORNAMENTS

1/2 Cup Salt

1 Cup of Flour

1/2 Cup Water

Mix all ingredients together. Roll out on floured surface and cut out shapes with cookie cutters of your choice. Make a hole in the top of your shape by pressing the end of a straw into the dough. Transfer them onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 2 hours at 275 degrees. Allow to cool completely before adding embellishments.

It said to use a type of sealer - we had Mod Podge on hand so I just applied a thin layer to each side. If using Mod Podge do not make a thick layer, it goops up and leaves a chunk of glue on ornament that will rip the paint off if you try to remove (yes I know from experience).

Here are a couple ornaments that we made:

I also got this next idea from a blog and thought it was a priceless keepsake. I had my kiddos place their hands gently on the dough and made a faint outline with a pencil. Then they removed their precious hands and I cut out their hand print shape with a knife. Now we have adorable hand print ornaments to keep for years to come!

This is my son's hand - 5 years old.

And this is my daughter's hand - 3 years old.

If making as a gift you can make the wrapping cheap and easy too: I bought a package of small plain white paper bags and simply stamped on a silver snowman and "Merry Christmas" (they have some clearance Christmas stamps on sale at Hobby Lobby right now!! So check your local store) Wrap in one sheet of tissue paper and Voila!

Hope you are having fun making many memories this Christmas Season!

A couple cool giveaways...

2010-12-14T10:43:00.004-06:00

I found a couple giveaways that were just too cool to keep to myself and of course the added bonus is I get extra entries for sharing them on my blog!!

1. For a beautiful book of "The Night Before Christmas" by Clement C. Moore and Illustrated by Robert Ingpen can be found at Brimful Curiosities. Ends 12/15

2. A Blu-Ray Disc Player and Redbox Rentals for a YEAR over at "A Not-So Blog's Experimental Mommy, Dissecting Mommyhood one review at a time" ! ONLY 24 hour giveaway, ends 12/14 at 11:59 P.M.

Hope your Christmas season is full of Christ and joy!

GINGERBREAD HOUSE!!

2010-12-14T10:10:00.008-06:00

Christmas = Baking and vice versa. Am I right? My kids have never done a gingerbread house (mainly because they are still very little and don't understand my desire to make it pretty and let it sit to admire before eating it, lol) However we made a ton of cutout cookies in October for Halloween and Thanksgiving and with my son studying gingerbread men in school it just seemed the right time. I didn't want to attempt to make a homemade one (shocker I know) for the fact that it's so hard to get them flat and straight and that young kids aren't patient. I wanted a simple, quick and easy to construct house that the kids could do almost all by themselves. I found a perfect one at Target for only about $10!

It was great! It constructed so easily and even came with a building tray to set the pieces in. And the icing set in 15 minutes, enough for my kiddos to handle. I let them loose with the candy pieces and only decorated one half of the roof myself - that's it! They had SO much fun and I giggled at their corky designs.

You can't tell that they're proud can you? hehe.

I take that back. I piped the icing on the Santa and Tree cookie pieces that went in front of the house. My bad. Although I was thankful for those cookie pieces - it gave my kids something to eat right away and kept my pretty house intact for admiring purposes! (At least for a little while)

I added some powdered sugar to give it that "just snowed" look. So if you're looking for a quick fun gingerbread house to create with your kiddos check out this fun kit at your local Target!

Now I had to laugh because we read a cute book my mom gave us that night at bedtime however I was reading through some of my blogs I follow and someone beat me to the punch on sharing this adorable kids book so instead of re-sharing, I'm sharing her post instead! Hop on over to Brimful Curiosities for a great gingerbread kids book to go with your creative fun! Not to mention she has an even EASIER idea for gingerbread fun with your little ones!

A sewage pipe, a turkey, and 6 kids...

2010-12-05T21:07:00.000-06:00

I have been SO wanting to get on here just about every night since my last post and I'm so sorry ya'll that I have been absent during the holidays! But to say my house became a zoo would be an understatement! My holiday week started Sunday as my parents arrived that afternoon. That very night as my mom took a shower she heard some funny bubbling noises coming from the drain of the tub. A few minutes after she was through with her lovely warm shower our sewage backed up.

Yep. The FIRST of my company arrived and I have 6 more coming in two days and I have sewage backup. Isn't that a great start??! Thankfully my daddy was there and from his wisdom found the pipe and dug it up so the sewage never leaked out into our house. Again - thank you dad!! We had finally (after talking to 3 separate Roto, Rooter, Plumbing, Whatever companies) we found a place that we came over that we called because they had the christian fish logo and a verse on their advertisement! They lived up to their advertising too. It was a FABULOUS company and the guy got started right away, worked with us, was so clean and orderly about everything he did and stayed until it was done!

Now I made that seem simple but this wasn't just fixing a broken pipe...this was fixing a pipe that was a foot into the foundation of our house. Yes. He had to chip away our foundation just to remove the old pipe. All the while I'm supposed to be trying to focus on buying all the food that is supposed to stuff my kitchen to the brim with carbs and sugar for our Thanksgiving feast!

However life continued and the company arrived! It was 6 kids and 6 adults in our little house but I did have a couple tricks up my sleeve and I want to list them here for ideas for ya next year:

1. If you have little kids buy some butcher paper at a teacher's store (or something similar) and cover their table with it! It keeps them busy and quiet and AT the table while you set the food out! I even took it a step further and put black butcher paper on my wall for them to do chalk art also! It was a HUGE hit and it's SUPER CHEAP!

2. If you can see in this picture I also picked up some cheap leather crafts from Hobby Lobby for the kids to do that morning while we were busy in the kitchen. I got Indian necklaces for the boys (with real arrowheads!) and a tom thumb purses for the girls. They were all about 2 to 3 dollars a piece.

3. Plan make-ahead recipes! I try to get half of my meal done the day before so I'm not so exhausted on Thanksgiving Day that I don't enjoy it. I have made Cranberry Salsa with Pita Bread, Pear-Applesauce, and Cranberry Salad as make-ahead recipes before.

4. Keep it simple. Don't stress about having or doing everything perfect or above and beyond. the focus is on thankfulness and family - focus on spending time with those around you instead of the things around you. Here was my simplistic table this year:

To round up our holidays most of the family went for a walk while my dad and I stayed behind to clear the kitchen of dishes...only to get drenched by the rain!

And we battled my dad's wits with his favorite Trivial Pursuit! Lastly we celebrated his 60th with dinner at Papadeaux (cuz seriously NO ONE wants to cook the day after Thanksgiving!)

It was good times and fond memories made. Hope you had a special, even if chaotic, holiday as I did. See you guys soon with a VERY COOL project I'm planning for next year - all to be displayed on my blog the whole year through! Can't wait to share...

A funny thing happened on the way to the psych ward...

2010-11-19T13:34:00.004-06:00

(Excerpt from my latest book, "Help I'm raising kids while doing ministry" by Josh Mayo)

"David Roshenhan illustrates this principle in a study he conducted with a group of psychiatric patients: Eight mentally stable people, including three psychologists and one psychiatrist, were asked to pretend to have symptoms so they could gain admission into the psychiatric wards of several hospitals for treatment. During the initial interview, they falsified only three pieces of information: their name, their occupation, and the admission of hearing voices. All other questions about their personal background were answered truthfully. All were successfully admitted.
Once diagnosed and admitted, the eight people stopped faking all symptoms, but the staff never detected their deception. They continued to relate to the eight volunteers as bona-fide psychiatric patients. Embarrassingly enough, many of the real patients could tell the difference. At times they voiced their suspicions strongly: "There's nothing wrong with you; you must be checking up on the hospital."
Rosenhan's point was clear. Once a diagnosis was made, even normal behavior was reinterpreted to match the clinical diagnosis. The people who evaluated the disturbed patients labeled them incorrectly. In the same way, prejudices regarding P.K.'s (Pastor's kids) can result in them being treated as if they are going to rebel, whether or not it is a reality. These labels can come from other pastors, teachers, leaders, and parents. Usually those closest to a P.K. know the truth, but it's hard to convince the rest of the world."

This particular chapter was SO interesting and full of good information for parents in full time ministry! As a P.K. or just a ministry kid prejudices and labels are most definitely put on the kids and false expectations are also part of that deal. Why can't people understand that pastors and ministry leaders are human too and no one is perfect and everyone WILL make mistakes? By EXPECTING a child to act a certain way or do certain things you speak over their life -for words have the power of life and death so as a Youth Pastor and a Parent do me a favor and speak life over your ministry leader's kids. Please.

LOVE THE PIE party entry!

2010-11-18T12:40:00.004-06:00

FRENCH SILK PIE
(a special recipe from my BFF Jaci Laney)

Pie:
1/2 C. Butter (softened, NOT melted - very important)
3/4 Sugar
1 oz. Semisweet Chocolate Square (melted)
3 TBLS Cocoa
1 Tsp Vanilla
2 Eggs
1 Pie Crust (Pillsbury frozen kind is an excellent flaky one to use)

Topping:
1 C. Whipping Cream
1 Tsp. Vanilla
1/4 C. Powdered Sugar

Bake pie crust so it can be cooling. Beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add semi-sweet chocolate square, cocoa and vanilla until very well blended. Add 1 egg and beat on high for at least 5 minutes. Add the 2nd egg and beat another 5 minutes. Make sure your chocolate has turned a lighter color. Then pour it in baked cooled crust and refrigerate 2 hours (I sometimes freeze it to make sure it sets!). Meanwhile in another bowl beat whipping cream until stiff peaks form. Add vanilla and powdered sugar to whipping cream. Pour over pie. Garnish with your choice - I take another semisweet baking chocolate square and shave off some onto the top.

(Because I didn't know about the awesome LOVE THE PIE party until today I didn't have time to make the pie and take pictures as I usually would so this picture is courtesy of BakeMeMore.com - just click the photo for link)

10 Reasons I DO and DO NOT drink coffee...

2010-11-18T10:06:00.004-06:00

Yes it is an oxymoron. But my life has a lot of oxymoron's so I just roll with it. So for a moment I ask you to do the same. If you are OCD and can't take reading an oxymoronic (and no it's not a real word) post then exit your screen now and go back to reading the latest Thanksgiving recipe you just found.

So I found this idea from Twitter - one of the gals I follow posted a funny sounding tweet and in the next tweet she said something about a Writer's Workshop so I checked it out in curiosity. I don't know the blog but the assignment sounded fun so I did it anyways! It's from Mama's Losin' It! blog and it's Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop. There are several prompts to pick from and I picked the one of list 10 reasons why you do/don't drink coffee. Okay so I DO occasionally drink coffee but I by no means drink it on a regular basis so I wasn't sure what to do with this and it occurred to me the reason I will drink coffee is for a few reasons but why I don't drink it regularly have other reasons so I'm combining my list to allow you to see my dilemma!

Ten Reasons Why I Do AND Don't Drink Coffee:

1. I DO drink coffee because it is a delicious warming beverage (or cooling if it's the iced version) to indulge in.

2. I DO drink coffee with lots of creamer or should I say I drink creamer with a little coffee. And it MUST be the real deal liquid creamer - milk, sugar, half and half or powdered will NOT work and I've tried.

3. I DO drink coffee because it's a great excuse to meet up with my busy working BFF!

4. I DO drink coffee because our church staff is addicted so everywhere we go we automatically pull into the Green Round Sign!

5. I DO drink coffee because it seems to just be American to do so!

6. I DO NOT drink coffee because I know many of the reasons it is bad for your body

7. I DO NOT drink coffee because I get jittery

8. I DO NOT drink coffee with my hubby because he hates it.

9. I DO NOT drink coffee in the mornings - I'm avid about starting my morning right nutritionally so Green Tea is for me when it comes to the AM!

10. I DO NOT drink coffee on a regular basis because I remember as a child my dad's heart starting skipping beats at one time and the doctor's told him the number one thing to do to get rid of the problem was to stop drinking coffee or at LEAST reduce the amount dramatically (he was drinking around a pot a day at the time) Ever since then I decided if he likes it there is a good chance I will and I don't want my heart to start skipping beats so I will not allow myself to drink it regularly, ever.

So there are the real reasons why I don't drink coffee and yet the reasons why I love to and do.

Hidden Blessings

2010-11-13T12:46:00.001-06:00

Around holiday time things get hectic. Stressful. And down-right nuts. Which allows things such as forgetting a backpack at home or realizing you don't have a clean bra because you haven't done laundry in...well awhile, to happen. The other day was a day just like that. Yet God gave me the grace to see through the oops'. It started like this...

We have dropped my son off at his school and my daughter and I are headed to our school (she attends and I work as a Teacher's Aide). I had realized by this point I forgot to put the bills in the mailbox this morning before leaving and had just missed calling my hubby to do it for me (and they HAD to get out THAT day) The radio was off and so the car was quiet and out of nowhere my 3 year old starts singing "Open the Eyes of My Heart" and she sings it all the way through perfectly. I was smiling away in the front thinking that sound makes every care disappear, even the mail oopsey.

Then after getting into the school I realized we had left her backpack, yes with her lunch in it, at the front door! So I frantically get someone to cover my work for 40 minutes or so and run back out to the car and proceed home totally flustered. On the way home I'm talking to God about the lovely start to my day and He reminds me - now I can mail my bills. Because I'm headed home. Okay so a smile came once again to my face and I realized even though I could have REALLY let all that chaos of the morning get to me (cuz you know when your morning begins like that the rest of the day is set...which some other things did come after) yet I chose to accept that God works around our silliness and sometimes offers us huge blessings and grace THROUGH our seemingly bad circumstances.

So this holiday season when something seems to be going wrong - look for God's grace and blessing in it because I guarantee it's there!

Starbucks in Heaven

2010-11-12T11:15:00.005-06:00

Starbucks. For a lot of people you just say that word and it brings relaxation (and perhaps a sudden overwhelming craving). For me it means special time with my daughter. You see I love enjoying a good mocha or if I want to be good a hot Tazo Green Tea, however I'm not a daily coffee drinker by any means. Mainly because I know it's bad for me and God has told me not to drink it regularly. Pretty good reason if you ask me. And this is for me - not you so don't worry you can indulge if you must. But this year as you know 9mainly from my absence of posts) I started working a couple days a week at my daughter's Day School. We get done with our school an hour before we can line up (yes LINE UP) for car-rider line at my son's school to pick him up. So with not enough time to get home and actually get out of the car before turning back around a Starbucks right near the Day School has become our special mother-daughter time. I cherish it and I encourage you to find simple little treats for you and your kiddos for some one-on-one time. However what does this have to do with heaven?

Well lately the kids learned about going to heaven when you die if you have Jesus in your heart in Sunday School. So of course it was weeks of questions over that one. I loved some of those convos: "Mommy I want to wear a Cinderella dress for the big party in heaven" (when explaining in kids terms about the Wedding Banquet when we all get to heaven). and of course my son in sobbing tears, "But mommy I don't want to have to go to heaven, I like it here in Texas". Oh good times. And too cute and funny!

So with that in mind out of the blue the other day we are in the bathroom at Starbucks (of all places to be) getting ready to head out and my daughter says, "Mommy can we live in Starbucks when we go to heaven?" (Because yes I had explained we would have beautiful houses to live in.) Now this is not the funniest part - I then of COURSE had to tweet and Facebook this funny quote and in a response back from a dear friend of mine she wrote:

"OK, now we just need to rewrite the song.

This world is not my home, I'm just passing through.

Starbucks is waiting for me too, somewhere beyond the blue,

the angels beckon me through Heaven's Drive-thru door,

and I'll have a Venti Mocha Extra Hot No Whip in my cup forevermore!

lol, I'm likin' Gracie's thinkin'!"

P.S. here is a pic of my fave Starbucks drink - Peppermint Mocha, steamed to 120 please!

Messy Fun

2010-10-31T19:03:00.010-05:00

Need some good messy fun with your kids? Just keep reading...

She finally arrived: Our long awaited guest. She has been highly anticipated since early June and we love the time she spends with us, the time never being long enough. Several times we thought her flight had arrived only to be disappointed with another flight delay.

Who is this wonderful and joyful guest we are so pleased to entertain and host?

Our dear friend Autumn. (And yes I mean the season, not a person - just in case anyone was lost.)

Before Autumn came the kids and I decided to make some preparations! Because we needed everything ready when she DID arrive. And what better way to start prepping for a guest than to BAKE! Woohoo! Typically sugar cookies wait until Christmas but hitting the %50 off Fall items at Hobby Lobby my eye glanced upon a package of cute Fall Cookie Cutouts and I couldn't resist. Plus - during the course of my college class most evenings consisted of homework and I figured I owed my kids some good quality (and messy) time.

So out with the ingredients:

Recruit some help...

Since I owed them I let them do it all - from step one to step...100? (Although I did crack the eggs and ice the cookies. There had to be SOME limits to these youngin's!

My kitchen paid for it. Dearly.

I think I "cut" out ONE cookie, the rest were ALL theirs...

Candy Wonderland!!! I had three bowls of icing, 7 bowls (yes SEVEN) of sprinkles, and two dozen cookies for them to do. (By the way have you noticed that we started in daylight and by this photo it is pitch dark out?!)

I love my hubby - he graciously captured all of us on film for me!

These kids had no rules with the sprinkles.

Should I have re-thought that one?

Nope. Never. Even though that first photo in this post was the "leftover" sprinkles off the cookie trays and my table. (No not including what little was left in the bowls. And NO not including the new sugar floor my kids gave me) But all totally worth it. Have you done something messy with your kids lately?

Class Auction Project

2010-10-19T22:30:00.001-05:00

Little Tree Red Christmas 5x7 folded card

Make a statement with custom Christmas cards at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

College Hill Bed and Breakfast

2010-09-28T11:10:00.007-05:00

An account of our late summer travels, part 1:

On our way to retrieve our kiddos from the grandparents we decided to make our last night without kids special. We would be stopping in Wichita, Kansas and so I googled the city and found numerous B & B's. This one caught my eye with the private outdoor hot tub and my husband liked it because it was SO close to the Insterstate and we wouldn't be spending forever in the dark trying to find our way there. So reservations were made for College Hill Bed and Breakfast. (Oh and we got a 10% discount for being full time clergy!! This also applies to active military I believe)

When we pulled up we found the cutest country-style house with bright blooms and bountiful foliage everywhere! I love Bed and Breakfasts because it feels like staying at a friend's house versus the "I'm just a room number" feeling you get from hotels.

Here are the owners, Jerry and Suzanne who are originally from Dodge City. They are a delightful christian couple that were incredibly inviting and hospitable. They even easily worked around our getting in late and my husband's food allergy.

Here is the dining table where we sat and had the most delicious breakfast EVER! My mouth waters just thinking about it - it was Banana Stuffed French Toast (I think is what they called it) and of course sausage, eggs OH and who could forget their homemade pecan syrup. I think the syrup, with crushed bits of pecans in it really made the meal for me! The inn keepers sat with us as we all relaxingly chatted about this and that. Oh and I was delighted to know they had REAL coffee creamer not just the powdery stuff. I think Suzanne realized my delightment because she offered me a refill in a To-Go cup knowing we had a long day of travelling ahead. Here are a couple more pictures from around the dining room:

Our bedroom was the Library Suite. It had a soft, plush king size bed, our own dining area, sitting area with HD TV and a small collection of books, and of course the private outdoor hot tub! Here are a few views of our room:

And Nick and I can't just visit a place without exploring it a little bit! So we ventured off to Downtown in HOPE of eating at a quaint Italian restaurant but arriving too late settled for the local sushi place. Hand in hand we strolled around the Downtown square and seeing an ad for a Music Festival going on that very weekend I wished we could have stayed two more days and enjoyed it!

But none-the-less we left the next morning South Dakota bound - but if we ever return to Wichita most likely we'll be back to see our new friends Jerry and Suzanne!

This is what college does to you

2010-09-28T10:02:00.004-05:00

As stated in my last post I have recently started back to college (FINALLY!!!). I am SO excited to finally be finishing up yet when you get into your homework and have to focus all your attention on a certain subject it can mess with your head.

Case in point: I am driving in the truck (by myself - rare occasion) and on the regular christian station that I listen to, KSBJ, was a talk show. They have talk shows every Sunday night and I will listen to some of them but this one was of NO interest to me. So I flipped the station to some country music and was enjoying hearing some old favorites and a few newer ones I wasn't familiar with yet. The radio switched songs to "You're Gonna Miss This" by Trace Adkins. I really begin listening to the words, you know listening, not just hearing and before I can catch up with my own thoughts I realize that I am comparing the similarities between this country song and Robert Frost's poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening".

Okay I mean come on! Seriously brain! Although to give my brain credit they really are similar in theme and I could probably write a whole other paper on comparing the two...but still.

This is what college does to you.

(Click on the link to hear the poet, Robert Frost, recite this poem)

To Do List #5, Check!

2010-09-03T20:29:00.005-05:00

I know it has again been a long time but just get used to it. I have just in the last two weeks - got a new job, started back to college, and signed my son up for his first team sport ever! Phew - it exhausts me just listing all those newbies! HOWEVER - I still plan on popping in to update with some fun and exciting things. First on the list was a thing that has been on my "To-Do" list for forever! I did a post this early spring of what were your spring cleaning goals. Mine didn't ALL involve cleaning, although I got a LOT of cleaning and organizing done, they also involved projects. So I went from Spring cleaning to Summer Projects just like that. And this one was a ton of fun!

It was mainly fun because I absolutely LOVE to create things and I also LOVE bold beautiful colors. Since I was a child I always remember walking into THOSE houses and thinking, "Wow how brave and yet SO beautiful for someone to paint their kitchen this color!" Or "Ooh that is SO different!" I always remembered them and so since I own my very own home now I wanted to BE that bold beautiful home that most people not DARE try to put on their walls! Hehe - can you tell I like to be BOLD?

So here was my order that I made from the paint counter:

I first did a test square with the small tester containers. I left it up for about a month so I could stare at it and make sure I liked it! I highly recommend the "test paint containers" before any major painting job. They are super cheap and you can look at a color in different lighting's before making the big decision and the big payment!)

And after cranking tunes and having to sing along to "I feel like a woman" we got the job done!

Don't you just love paint??!!

The return of the infamous Ivy!!!

2010-07-23T17:18:00.006-05:00

I needed a break.

I didn't have time.

This summer has been a whirlwind.

Take any of the above three facts to answer the question of: "Where have you been?" Did I forget about my blog? No. I actually had SO many ideas for great awesome posts throughout the entire summer but it just never happened. I would go almost a week without even checking my emails it got so bad. So after a few weeks of wanting to blog and never finding time or when I did I was way too tired I decided I would just accept reality and take a well-needed break.

BUT - my kids are off with their grandparents staying with them for a couple weeks to give my husband and I a "oh-so-needed" break and thus...I have returned to my blog! Yay! I know I can hear the shouts of praise from here. Yes all 24 of my faithful followers and maybe a straggler that accidentally stumbled onto here by accident.

Anyways, so you ask what is my first post back going to be about? Well....how about a little bit of this and a little extra of that? I figure I owe you one.

First off is another "Spring Cleaning" idea. That WAS what my last post was about and I'm proud to report that I have come a LONG way in my cleaning and organizing this summer! My house hasn't been this organized in quite awhile. One particular day of organization I found myself in my craft closet. Although honestly I'm not sure I could define it that way because it holds quite a few other things but they are all holiday/craft related. Back to the point. In the top of this closet was my kids Easter baskets along with a couple other cute baskets I had received at one point or another and I never could find myself throwing them out. They were good baskets. I had become tired of trying to get them not to fall every time I rooted around up there so my ingenious idea was to use the clothes bar in that closet which was currently not being used for clothes. I really liked the result and it cleared up SO much room! What do you think?

Next up on my list is an idea for someones birthday. Or anniversary. Or Christmas. You get the point. It's multi-functional. Have you seen those window markers that teens love to "tag" other teens vehicles with? Or the occasional adult too :) ? Well it says on there you can use it on windows OR MIRRORS. You there with me yet? If your husband is like mine and doesn't eat breakfast (I know - it's a crime) then breakfast in bed for his special day isn't really gonna work. So instead I surprised him with a fun birthday greeting on our bathroom mirror!

It still was a surprise and made him smile just the same! It's cheap, and washes off pretty easy, I mean why NOT do it?!

Speaking of my husband, he took some of the cutest pictures of our daughter this one summer morning right after she had woken up. She wasn't hungry quite yet so instead she crawled up in this chair I have that sits right by the bookshelf and I always stack our latest checked out library books on it (so as not to be mixed with our books and impossible to find when they are due). She sat there so quietly and went through book after book.

It was so adorable and heartwarming to know that my kids are developing a love for books! It did this mother's heart good. Summer is a great time to encourage your kids to read because:
1. They have TONS of downtime that will at some point be vocalized with an "I'm bored".
2. Your local bookstores and libraries give great incentives to get your kids reading!

My kids did the BORDERS Bookstore Summer Reading Dare! If they read 10 books they got one free! They have specific books you may select from and yes my kids are toddlers and no the selection is not toddlers books but we got them anyways to keep for when they are older and to reward them so they felt happy about it I bought them a book each from the discount shelf! So they were happy and I was happy! AND I got two free books that are both excellent reads for when they grow up.

Also if you have a child between about ages 6-10 my Summer Reading Recommendation is the Magic Tree House Series!! I have already started reading one or two chapters a night to my son and he LOVES them! they teach about all kinds of places and people in history and with my son LOVING locations and where everything is he is IN to these books! And for my princess toddler well you just can't beat a good Fancy Nancy book!

Okay last thing has to do with school since yes it is already fast approaching. If you happen to be a scrapbooker or at least a mom who likes to record your child's events in some way this idea is for you. I myself am an avid scrapbooker and HATE to throw anything away. I want it all as memorabilia for my albums but some things are just too big or too bulky or the pile can just become ridiculous. So as my son would create the COOLEST things at school I had to come up with some way to scrapbook them without actually scrapbooking ALL of them, ya know? So is what I did was I hung up a cork bulletin board in his room to display all his school art work and projects. It would hold one month's worth of stuff (STUFFED full...but it did) and then at the end of the month I would take a picture of the bulletin board.

So instead of having a year's worth of art (I did save I think two of my favorite's though) to scrapbook I now have 9 pictures of that month's school projects! Cool huh?

I thought so at least. Well hopefully this will make up for being gone so long. And I promise another post to come SOON! Until then, thanks for allowing me my break (although you technically had no choice) and see ya next time!

Spring Cleaning

2010-05-24T12:43:00.005-05:00

It is Spring. Which by social commonality means you should be doing all those cleaning jobs that you only are required to do once a year. Such as clean out your closet, or organize your cupboards, or move your stove and suck up all the dust bunnies underneath! EEK!
However there was a pressing matter this year that desperately needed my attention and it became one of my many Spring Cleaning projects.

Okay do you see this filing organizer?

It wouldn't close. Not because I wasn't strong enough to force it together but literally it COULDN'T close. Why you may ask? Because this is holding three years of my paperwork! I know. That's bad. So I set out to make this right again.

Fresh file organizer - ONLY holding 2010 papers! YAY!! Which by the way - writing your own names for the tabs really helps cut down confusion between husband and wife of where something goes or is located. I highly recommend it!

And here is my big finale! After about an hour and a half I finally had them sorted out year by year. and yet what are those extra papers on the floor? Believe it or not they are from 2007-2005. How they got out of their proper filing and ended up in my current one is beyond me. But then again, these things happen when you commence Spring Cleaning.

AH. Feels good. So how bout you? What are you tackling this season??

1 Free Month Trial of Netflix

2010-05-19T12:21:00.005-05:00

My husband and I really enjoy our Netflix. Being pastors we don't make bu-cu money and so we have to plan our date nights sparingly. However Netflix does give us the chance and excuse to set aside a night or two a week where we pop some popcorn or scoop some Blue Bell and sit and cuddle together while enjoying a movie together. And for your sake I hope your relationship is like ours in the sense that afterwards we always start some conversation from the movie. Sometimes that conversation can be deep and lengthy while other times it is left at "wow that was a horrible movie. Score it a 1!"

If you have never tried Netflix before you choose your movies and also have the chance to rate your movies after watching them and from these ratings Netflix will recommend movies you should like. I say SHOULD because occasionally they are wrong, HOWEVER I can vouch that we watched some movies we absolutely LOVED and had never heard of nor would have ever watched. So it's not pointless.

Okay now to the point. Right now until June 15th Netflix is offering a one month free trial (and yes you can cancel AS SOON as the trial is up and pay nothing! So thought I'd let you in on that deal. I of course got a thing in the mail with this offer to share with friends - so I shared it with you. It comes with cards and Priority code numbers so I'm just going to share them with you on here in case they actually mean anything, lol. (Please check comments to see which ones have already been used)

Priority Code #1: M833284220105
Priority Code #2: M853214220045
Priority Code #3: M823254220025
Priority Code #4: M863224220035

This is what I'm asking you do IF YOU USE A CODE:

Please leave a comment telling us which priority code you have used. (this way people won't try entering it after it's already been used)

So what are you waiting for? It's a little less than $8 a month!!! To me that is far worth some relaxation time to enjoy a good movie!

Or some much needed cuddle time with my honey!
(and no, I'm not being paid to say this or endorse Netflix, lol. And no
that is NOT me and my honey pictured above.)

I just enjoy it and wanted to share that with you!

Cracker Chicken

2010-05-15T22:09:00.003-05:00

I finally cooked one of my husband's absolutely favorite meals again the other day. And half way through making it realized I wanted to blog the recipe so I captured a few pictures! The recipe is for Cracker Chicken and is family-friendly! (No really, it is!) Here is how simple it is:

CRACKER CHICKEN

4 breasts of cooked chicken, diced
Can of Cream of Chicken
1/2 Tub of Sour Cream (about a cup, or cup and a half)
1 package of Ritz Crackers
1 stick of butter

Combine cooked diced chicken in bowl with sour cream and cream of chicken. Pour into 8x8 (or 9 x 13 if you double the recipe - serves 4 to 5).

Melt stick of butter completely. Place Ritz crackers in gallon size Ziploc bag and seal. Beat the crackers in the bag until they are completely crushed into crumbs. Pour crumbs into melted butter and mix.

Then sprinkle the butter/cracker mixture over top of chicken.

Use all of it, coating well. Then pop in 35o degree oven for 1 hour.

It will be nice and bubbly when done! ENJOY!!

It has come at last...

2010-05-06T13:49:00.002-05:00

About 38 minutes ago I had the first "I want to cut my own hair" experience with one of my children. It skipped by my first child thankfully but sure enough it had to happen. Here is the 3 year old culprit:

She is showing you the hair that she cut (thankfully that was it!!) and her look explains the talkin-to she got before the photo op. And here is the beautiful lock forever lost.

And where did this thought come from? Who is to blame?? THIS FOUL CREATURE:

Yes. Who knew a Chia Pet could be so dangerous! Seriously why don't they put THAT on the warning label? (I'm not serious, in case you are wondering.)

So I warn you: BEWARE THE EFFECTS OF A CHIA PET!!

Teacher Appreciation Week Idea

2010-05-06T13:20:00.006-05:00

It is Teacher Appreciation Week! In case you didn't know. Teacher Appreciation Week is from May 3rd-7th this year and as the school year is coming to a close is a wonderful time to show your gratitude for all the blood, sweat and tears your kid's teacher poured into their classrooms and students this year! I found this awesome idea I believe over at Skip To My Lou (it was either there or it was a link from there!) But either way Skip to my Lou has some good ideas!

So anyways here is what I did for my son's WONDERFUL teacher Ms. Lisa at Methodist Day School in Conroe, TX. (By the way if you live around here and want an incredible Pre-K teacher I HIGHLY recommend her!! And I should know good teachers - my parents were both teachers themselves *wink* *wink*)

We decorated her door as a huge thank you card-type thing! Since it is beautiful outside her door might as well reflect it too right?

Then bottom part was the "Blooms" and each flower has a kids name on it. Then the parents over the next couple days sign each flower (or by it, since some are small) so that it becomes a life-size thank you card!

You can also do a Hot Air Balloon and say "Ms. Lisa, you've made us soar!" and each patch on the hot air balloon can be a kid's name. Or a simple one (for the less-creative ones out there) Just make jagged circles and say "Ms. Lisa you ROCK!" And each rock is a kid's name! The ideas are endless! And you only have one day left - EEK! So show your appreciation this week, SOMEHOW!

Cuz they deserve it.

Finer Things Friday

2010-04-30T21:16:00.002-05:00

Found a new blog. Had a cool "theme day". Had to participate. Nuff said.

What was my Finer Thing this week? That I have curious kids interested and intrigued by nature, bugs, flowers, birds. And that I get moments as a mom to capture photos such as this:

Snapily 3-D Flat Card!!

2010-04-28T09:54:00.005-05:00

Want to order a FREE 3-D Flat Card for your mom for Mother's Day?? Is all you pay is shipping which comes to $2.23 which hello is cheaper than regular Hallmark cards at the store! And this one you order from the comfort of your home and it is personalized with a photo of you or your kids or whatever you want to choose!

Where can you get this? At Snapily.com that's where! (I have to add here that I now feel like a T.V. commercial) However I did recently order from them and in my confirmation e-mail it had this great offer:

Let your friend get a FREE Flat Card so they can try Snapily.com too! Just enter coupon code LetMyFriendTry at checkout to receive the discount!! So hurry up Mother's Day is SOON!!

Pancake Topping Recipe

2010-04-26T06:00:00.002-05:00

OK if that picture makes your mouth water then your taste buds are in TUNE! Because this Pear Topping is DEE-LISH! And here's the best part they are SO easy!! Doesn't look like it right? Oh but it is!

Here's the secret: Use CANNED pears! GASP! I know. Canned pears. Okay now that we are past that. Pour a little bit of REAL Maple Syrup in a frying pan and cook the pears just until well coated and heated. Also sprinkle a little bit of cinnamon on them right before you are done. Then slap em on your favorite pancake recipe and you are headed for taste bud heaven!
(Also if you don't happen to have real maple syrup in your cupboards you can substitute molasses just as easily and they both taste great!)

No I can't leave so soon because I HAVE to share with you this COMPLETELY HEALTHY Anti-Inflammatory Pancake recipe of mine that truly tastes delicious! I know completely healthy and delicious don't go together in most people's minds but these are truly good. (If you don't agree apparently we have opposite tastes!)

Almond Flour Pancakes

2/3 Cup whole-curd cottage cheese
3 large eggs
1/2 Cup Bob Red Mill's Almond Flour
1/8 Tsp. Vanilla Extract
1/8 Tsp. Ground Cinnamon
2 TBLS Oat Bran

1. In a large mixing bowl combine all ingredients except oat bran. Beat until smooth.
2.Heat a nonstick griddle or large nonstick skillet.
3. For each pancake, pour about 3 TBLS of batter onto the griddle or skillet.
4. Sprinkle each pancake with oat bran (I sprinkle the batter side as the first side cooks - and go LIGHTLY or you will end up tasting it)
5. Cook pancakes 1 to 2 minutes until puffed and dry around edges. Turn and cook other side until golden brown.

Box of Chocolates Cupcakes

2010-04-24T21:27:00.005-05:00

I promised pictures of my latest Cupcake Creations: Box of Chocolates*... and here they are!! First I have to show you my "Sprinkle Station".

You see first I made a whole batch of mini cupcakes. Then you frost about 2/3 of them and roll the edges in various sprinkles or jimmies. The remaining 1/3 you heat the frosting up until it is liquid and dip the tops of them into it to give it a shiny glazed look!

Do you see the shiny ones?? The ones in the back are the regular frosted ones.

Then to make half of them look like actual chocolates you cut marshmallows in half and dip in the same heated frosting (by the way the heated chocolate I used was DARK chocolate - which gives it the rich dark color) Once they are all dipped you place them in the fridge for about 10-15 minutes to allow the chocolate to set.

Then carefully place the marshmallow piece on a cupcake and to add to the look you pipe the milk chocolate frosting design on top. *Marshmallows cut horizontally you make swirly designs on. Marshmallows cut vertically have drizzle designs.

Here is the finished product - you can see the drizzle vs. swirly. The rest of the cupcakes you decorate with various candies in coordinating colors. These were for an Acts of Grace** Retreat so the theme was PINK! Can you tell? Oh and there is no picture but once you are all done you fill in the in-between space with (again color-coordinating) skittles!

And no I did not put this in crooked on purpose. I reloaded this picture and it shows everything is right and turned the right direction but WILL NOT load the right way! So sorry - you get to turn your head and observe my beautiful cupcakes crooked!

*These cupcake creations were made from "Hello Cupcake" by Karen Tack

**Acts of Grace is a ministry to Post-Abortive and Sexually-Abused Women (and Men) For more info please click on the link above!

Quick hello and PRIZE WINNER!

2010-04-20T11:02:00.005-05:00

I feel a little alienated from my blog recently. But one thing I strive for is keeping balance in my life and for this past week I really needed to tend to my family and my home and NOT put it off so I could blog! So I don't apologize - I'm a mom and wife first and blogging is my hobby so for weeks like this past one I'm sure you can busy yourself until a wonderful new post on "A Walk in My Shoes" DOES finally come out! hehe. How's that for an introduction?

Okay but on with some business. First of all I want to CONGRATULATE the winner of my Creative Memories Mini PicFolio Boxed Set........Comment #1120 Gina!!! I'm SO glad you joined in on the Ultimate Blog Party fun and I'm so happy to bless you with this prize! I hope you enjoy it! (I haven't received your info from 5minutesformom.com yet but as SOON as I do I will get it mailed out to you! - and for the chance that you follow my blog or pop back by go ahead and let me know so i can get you it even sooner!)

Also since I don't have time to post my OH SO CUTE and YUMMY "Box of Chocolates" Cupcake creation today I did want to leave you with a cool project to help restore women enslaved in the red light district in India.

The project is called "Princess International" and you can read their STORY HERE.

They sell pajamas HAND-MADE by these women to help support them and give them a life of freedom out of and away from the Red Light District. It's such a simple way to help. And the jammies are SO adorable and beautiful! Browse through several here. Oh did I mention they have a cute name too? Punjammies! Isn't that adorable! Love it. Here is the Balamani Dawn p.j. pants. Beautiful right?!

Just wanted to quickly share that with you - since Mother's Day IS coming up...just sayin'.

Ultimate Blog Party Post!

2010-04-11T22:58:00.005-05:00

So leave it to me to join something last minute and not understand the directions fully! I went BACK to the site and now know I need an OFFICIAL blog party post! hehe so here it is! For everyone new to my blog disregard the first two sentences!

SO HI!! Welcome to "A Walk in My Shoes..." I am a wife of 5 years to a wonderful man of God (see the picture of him kissing me? hehe, isn't he cute?!), and mother to 2 toddlers: a boy, 4 yrs old (almost 5) and a girl, 3 yrs. old. My husband and I are youth pastors at a fairly large Cowboy Church in Montgomery, TX and if you are stopping to ask what the heck is a cowboy church just click here and find out! Besides that FULL time job I am an avid scrapbooker and photographer! I am very outgoing and love going new places, meeting new people and just exploring period. I blog about things that intrigue me - books I've read, what my four year old asked his daddy last night, the BEST toilet cleaner in the world! (yes that post DOES exist). I also typically post yummy recipes, complete with photos, at LEAST once a month but can be four a week! You just never know. And thus my life - you just never know! Want to see some pictures of recipes I've posted??? Okay you twisted my arm:

I said I'd never live in Texas but after being here 5 years am finally thinking it WOULD be cute to take pictures of my kids in the Bluebonnets and I DO enjoy Moolenium Crunch Blue Bell Ice Cream...so I will survive here.

This is my first year at The Ultimate Blog Party hosted by 5 Minutes for Mom and if you've never heard of it or are not in on the action you MUST go check it out! Just click on the button above. If a MASSIVE blog party doesn't already peak your interest then how about fabulous PRIZES! And LOTS OF THEM! That's better huh? Here is what I would like if I win:

1. USC#8 = $55 e-gift card to Amazon.com given by Kelly's Lucky You

2. US#75 = $100 Gift Card to SummitCampingGear.com given by Stompermom

3. US#112 = $50 gift card to Amazon.com given by Our Homeschool Home

Besides those top 3 picks (can you tell I have books to buy at Amazon.com???) here is the other great gifts I'd like IN THE ORDER I list them in!

US#11, US#95, US#96, #USC15, #USC27, #US56, #USC30, #USC53, #USC43, #USC13, #USC3, US#4, US#16, US#20, USC#57, USC#19, US#84, US#107, US#70, US#32, US#50, US#52, US#61, US#102, US#76, US#31, US#14, US#35, US#69, US#8, US#47

Yes I looked through EVERY single prize post! But you couldn't tell I know! But hey it allowed me to visit most of their blogs too so yay for them!

I'm also giving away a prize! It's a Creative Memories Mini PicFolio Gift Boxed Set. It includes 2 albums - red and blue and comes in an adorable little display box with a drawer for each album! Just go on over to 5 Minutes for Mom and get in on the prizes and making new blog friends during the Ultimate Blog Party 2010!

Wisdom of a four year old...

2010-04-11T21:22:00.004-05:00

My son was in the living room with my husband tonight and randomly asked him the following questions:

Tyler (my son): People call you Nick?
Nick (my husband): Yep that's right.
Tyler: And people from church call you Pastor Nick?
Nick: (grinning) yes
Tyler: And people who don't know you yet just call you Hey?

And thus I give you the Wisdom of a Four Year Old. Thank you.

Ultimate Blog Party 2010 & Prize Giveaway!

2010-04-08T22:23:00.005-05:00

So I had an interesting turn of events tonight. My husband didn't want to watch the sad movie that came through Netflix today and I didn't want to watch whatever he was watching on TV or playing on Xbox (he's a youth pastor. Yes. He plays games) SO...I decided to come on here and catch up on some posting. Instead though I found in my email a new BlogFrog friend had added me. If you don't know what BlogFrog is, and you are looking to expand your site I encourage you to check it out! Just click here. Any who, back to my story. When I saw this I thought "cool". So naturally I clicked on her profile to check her blog out and see who this was. Which then brought em to a discussion thread of "what is your favorite blog?" (besides your own!)

So I'm scrolling down the few replies that had already been made and a couple blogs sounded interesting so I began clicking away at links and somehow through my massive amount of blog-hopping happened upon this blog: 5 Minutes for Moms. There was talk of some huge Blog Party and my interest peaked!

To make a long story short I got into this blog party idea and ended up signing up to donate a giveaway!! That's right my VERY FIRST BLOG GIVEAWAY! Monumental moment I know!

So first of all since this does look really cool and there are TONS of really neat prizes to win (I know I've browsed through 50 already and just took the tip off the iceberg!) you must go check out this Ultimate Blog Party 2010! Then of course you are all wondering what my prize giveaway is right?????

Well you should be if your not! Many of my followers know I scrapbook. Although very few of you know that a couple years ago I was a Creative Memories Consultant. During that time I stocked up a few products of which yes I still have a few of to this day. Unopened. SOOO I am giving away the PicFolio Mini Albums Gift Boxed Set!! You can see a picture of it on Amazon.com because Creative Memories no longer sells this Limited Edition product (just click the link). Although I warn you the picture lighting isn't the greatest! The album colors are red and blue and come in a cute box with drawers that can be easily displayed on the edge of your desk at work or even a counter top!

So I encourage you to go to the UBP (Ultimate Blog Party) and enter the Prize Giveaways listing my prize at the top of your list of course!! Best wishes to all of you!

By the way...please don't leave so soon - feel free to browse through my blog and *ahem* I really like reading comments *ahem*. Just Sayin.

Clover Pin Craft

2010-04-02T18:05:00.004-05:00

We made these cute lil pins to wear on St. Patrick's Day! And of course I snapped some pictures to share this fun craft with you guys. This is super easy and takes only like 20 minutes from start to finish and the best part is you can adapt the design to fit any holiday or occasion!

You start by gathering the following supplies:

1. Hot Glue Gun and hot glue sticks
2. Decorative Ribbon

3. Stiff Felt (I used glittery ones to add sparkle)

4. Adhesive Pins

5. Scissors

6. Sharpie Marker

7. Decorative Embellishments - we used the glitter foam clover stickers

8. Clover Cookie cutter (or whatever cookie cutter fits your theme)

I had to take a close-up of the cute ribbon I found!

And in case you don't know what an adhesive pin backing is - this is what I'm talking about. Not sure I'm even using the right name but a picture is worth a thousand words right?

Next take the foam and trace your cookie cutter on the BACK side of your felt (you don't want marker lines showing on the front of your pin!)

Next you will take you cute ribbon and hot glue it down around the outer edge of your design.

To add a background layer trace a wider design on the darker color felt. I just placed the cookie cutter on the felt and drew about 1/4 or more above the cutter. If you don't have the skills required to do this somewhat free-hand buy a large and small cookie cutter of the same shape!

Then just hot glue the pieces together! If you are using sparkly felt make sure to hot glue so that both pieces are sparkly side up.

Next add your embellishments. However and wherever you like!

And last but not least remove the strip from the adhesive pin backing and hot glue it in the middle of the back of your pin. Because no the adhesive won't stick real well to furry felt.

I made each one just a tad different to experiment. We show them off below:

Have fun crafting!

St. Patty's Day Recap

2010-04-02T17:27:00.005-05:00

ERIN GO BRAGH! That was the theme around our house on March 17th! For if you couldn't tell we are Irish and proud of it! I had a handful of things I wanted to do with my kids and most of them got done! Yay! We started by reading a book all about St. Patrick's Day. It explained the history, why we celebrate, how most celebrate and so and so forth. It was written for kids so it was short enough to keep their attention. The best quote from the day came from reading this book, allow me to break it down for you. We turn the page to a picture of St. Patrick and it explains who the actual man is. When I point to the picture and say "See this is him here." My son goes "Mom that's not Patrick. Patrick is a starfish!" Oh you got to love children. (If you are out of mom loop he was referring to Spongebob Squarepant's best friend Patrick the Star Fish.)

Anyways after knowing ABOUT the day we started our festivities. First things first find some clovers! We had some growing around our yard so I made them go out and hunt for them. I eventually had to help give them a general area to look in because they kept pulling everything green out of my yard saying "Is this a clover???" We found the clovers and took a quick pic on my phone of which was sent immediately to Mima and Papa to wish them Happy St. Patrick's Day.

2nd we painted some on our faces. Since now we knew what they looked like! I painted proper heart shaped three leaf clovers on both my kiddos but by me I got lazy and did a quick circle 4-leaf one. I know. Shame on me.

Since my clover wasn't up to par - I had fun playing with this photo in my editing program, lol - and no I didn't go for good - just goofy mainly! (see below)

We then made really adorable Clover pins to wear proudly on our green shirts (or dresses if you are Gracie) - but this will be saved for a separate craft post.

So then in the hot afternoon we made some Leprechaun milkshakes to cool off! These were so fun for the kids and made a yummy snack!

Just vanilla ice-cream, milk and green food dye.

Ta-da! Looks like slime in the pic but I promise it was dairy goodness.

This was gone about 5 seconds later. Well maybe 2 minutes later, considering 5 seconds would result in a massive brain freeze!

I was watching one of our neighbor's kids that day so all three kiddos enjoyed slurping up their Leprechaun milkshakes!

This picture doesn't even need a comment it's so cute! So hope everyone had a Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Scrapbook Retreat Accomplishments

2010-03-24T13:51:00.004-05:00

Now after looking at all those wonderful pictures of the retreat location it'd be nice to show you I did actually get something DONE!! So I'm going to share just a couple of the pages I completed. First of all I completed start to finish my baby girl's 1st Birthday 8x8 album. It is SO cute and was a Princess birthday. And as I started this post I asked myself: "Why don't I have a picture of the album for this post?" My answer: no clue. Sorry.

But when I was done with that project I moved on to a BIG project: my FFA album. I was in FFA throughout high school and since I love photography have WAY too many pictures for my own good! So I started in on that massive album, which will be in a Creative Memories 12 x 12 album.

Here was one of my favorite double page layouts from the FFA album thus far:

I'm also realizing these are pathetic pictures and don't show the details such as that tiny strip of black paper on the 2nd page is folded like an accordion - or that the title square on the 1st page is a shiny metallic "F". Guess I'm already owing you one with this post but at least you'll get the idea right?

This was a close second because it was fun to make these little arrows on the Cricut (which if you are a scrapbooker and have not tried one -you MUST!!!) and put #1, 2 and 3 like a kids page! Hehe it was fun!

This was our camp group photo - so I decided to whip out all my scraps to create a funky background for it.

Now these next two are from my hubby and mine's "Dating Album" but I didn't take very many of the other albums (none of the birthday one) so I picked a couple of my fave pages and randomly stuck them in here too!

This was my husband's bull riding group at a Jr. Rodeo Bible Camp of which he was the Bull riding instructor. These lil guys were adorable and since I didn't enlarge the group photo needed some pizazz to make the page special. I'm a fan of the swirly's so they won out!

Here is a good scrapbook idea - that journaling box on the previous picture - see how it's worn out looking on the edges? Take a nail file and file the edges of a paper you're using to give it the natural "worn" look. Makes GREAT pages!

And this page was especially fun because it was the first time I purposefully crumpled a scrapbook paper! See the heart? I crumpled it to pieces, then flattened it back out. Gives the page some texture and depth to it.

Happy Scrapping!!

Scrapbook Retreat Part 3: The Graveyard

2010-03-19T21:29:00.005-05:00

Now I already know what you are thinking, or should I say asking? "Graveyard? I thought we were talking about scrapbook retreat? Well it just so happens that I have not totally lost my mind yet although that is questioned on a regular basis - but a graveyard lies just at the top of the hill next to this Round Top Inn. AND it is the best place to watch the sunset!

Isn't it beautiful?! It is a small yet OLD German graveyard.

THIS is what sits below the graveyard - a huge open plain. Gorgeous.

This is my favorite tombstone and is all I can imagine is these were wealthy loggers. I mean why else would you have a tombstone like that?! But it is COOL!

Here is the main log, I mean tombstone. Well no I mean log. It belongs to Theodor Michaelis, 1825-1889.

Here is the one that lies beside it.

Yes I put this picture in twice on accident but LEFT it purposely - just cuz I can!

And this is a glimpse of what it begins to look like at dusk.

Can you picture it in real living color?

In case you couldn't I helped you out a bit.