1 Free Month Trial of Netflix

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

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...

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

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

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!!

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

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

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!

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!

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...

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!

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

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

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!!!