End of Year Teacher Gift

Henry's very last day of preschool is Thursday. I can't believer the year has gone by so fast! I wanted to make his teachers (he has five) a little something as a thank you for the end of the year, but I didn't want to spend a bunch of money either. I found these cute little 'Thanks for helping me grow' labels here and my inspiration ran from there. Here's what you need:

   - A container. (I found my at Dollar Tree, five for $1.00!) - Flowers of your choice. - Pinwheel (I got these 2 for $1.00 also at Dollar Tree!) - Soil - Labels - Scrap paper - A popsicle stick or bamboo skewer. Print your labels, pretty them up by gluing them to some pretty scrap paper, and add your flowers and you're good to go! I cute down my pinwheels and skewers so they weren't so tall and taped my label to the stick. Easy, simple and each one cost less than $3.00! You can't beat that for an adorable gift for that perfect teacher!

Homemade Bathtub Crayons

3/4 bar of Ivory soap

+

1/8 cup of water

+

food coloring

=

tons of fun

Mix, mold and allow to dry for two days. So easy!

P.S. - We received the soap complimentary of #Influenster for testing purposes. If you're interested in receiving products for testing purposes too, leave me your email address and I'll send you a personal invite! #Ivory #SudLife

Easy Italian Veggies & Chicken

The nights that I have to work during the week I typically have to work late and don't get home until after 9:30. Jeremy and I have always, always, had the traditions of eating dinner together so many nights he will wait until I get home to eat. It's not our ideal time to eat dinner, but it's more important for us to eat together as a couple than to eat separately. It's our time and that's important to us.
Many nights I will try to have something prepared before I go to work, whether that be something easy that doesn't need to be cooked or something thrown into the crock-pot that essentially cooks itself. With the warmer weather, the crock-pot has been less than appealing so I've been trying to come up with recipes that can easily be put together and then cooked later so all Jeremy has to do is throw them in a skillet or the oven.
One of our most recent favorites has been Italian Veggies and Chicken. It's quick, it's easy, and it's delicious. I don't recall ever seeing a recipe for this, Italian chicken is something we've loved for years in our house. I'm pretty sure I just decided one day to throw it in the oven with some veggies and see how it turned out.

Need It
4 medium red potatoes 2 cups of frozen french style green beans 3 chicken tenders (or your choice of chicken) 1/2 cup of Italian dressing 1 zip-lock bag 1-2 tablespoons minced garlic glass baking dish
Make It
1) Marinated your chicken in the Italian dressing for as long as possible, preferably overnight. I just put my chicken in a plastic baggy and pour the dressing in the bag as well then put it in the refrigerator. Typically ours only marinates for 5-6 hours but it still gives the chicken a wonderful taste and helps to keep it tender.

2) Dice your potatoes into (somewhat) even pieces and put them into the bottom of the glass baking dish.

3) Rinse your green beans so that they are no longer completely frozen (you could use canned too but I prefer to stay away from canned veggies) and rinse well. Layer them on top of your potatoes and sprinkle your minces garlic on top of that.

4) Cover your dish with aluminum foil and put it in the refridgerator until you're ready to bake. When it comes time, preheat your oven to 350 degrees and pour your chicken (italian dressing and all) right on top of the veggies. Recover with the aluminum foil and bake for about an hour or until your potatoes are tender.

I love this meal simply because it takes me no time to prepare it and my husband can easily just throw it in the over an hour before I get home and forget it. There's no stirring, no checking, just cute, combine, and bake. 
Serves 3 at 350 calories per serving.

Easter Printables

Happy Friday!

Easter is right around the corner and I've been busy decorating and planning out all the crafts, decorations, and festivities to go with the holiday. I may or may not already have Henry's outfit bought and ready, and I may or may not have already decorated my house a week ago...

I love Easter. To me it symbolizes spring, and hope, and the truest form of love and victory in our Savior's death and resurrection. I was scouring Pinterest to find a new printable to put in my frame for the season and I just wasn't finding anything that I really loved so I thought I would make a few of my own to fit my perfect style.

I thought you may enjoy them too so I'm offering them to you for free to print and use as well.

You can download these here for free. Keep and eye out because I will be adding the cutest homemade bunny treat bags for sale in the next week for Easter baskets.

DIY Personalized Phone Charger

If there's the chance that I can update something and make it my own, especially simply, I am bound and determined to do it. I am not a huge fan of the ordinary, in case you haven't noticed. It took me a little while, but I finally jumped onto the washi tape bandwagon. At first I thought, seriously, it's just tape, I don't get it. But soon I realized that there was a mound of endless possibilities as far as what these little rolls of tape could do.

I wanted my first project to be simple and fun and completely unique, so I decided to tackle personalizing my phone charger first. I love how it turned out and it seriously takes an entire FIVE minutes to do!
[Step One] Buy some washi tape.

I found this little gem at my local grocery store for $1.00. I think I can afford this DIY! I loved it because it was something neutral but fun so it would go with just about any decor in any room of my house and yet also stand out from just a plain charger.

[Step Two] Grab your phone charger & go to town!

You can add one strip around the middle, around the top (like I did) or cover the entire thing! You can mix it up and add two different colors, or cut the tape so that it's tinier strips and add a bunch of different colors. This project is limited as far as your imagination can go - so have fun with it and make it your own!

[Step Three] Admire the finished product!

I love how the simple design of mine doesn't scream 'look at me!' but still gives my charger a little unique pop of personality. When my husband saw it he immediately said: Now when are you gonna do mine?!

Face-Lift

Henry and I are a little under the weather today so we haven't done much but lay around so I took the down time as an opportunity to give my little blog a new face-lift. The best part? It's completely custom and I did it myself! I have always wanted to take the time to create a custom blog template and although it's super, super simple, I love it!

Hand-print Spider Art

If there's any one thing that I LOVE to do, it's crafting. Give me a pile full of craft supplies, a hot glue gun, and an hour and I'm one happy girl. It's a very convenient hobby and trait to have when you're raising children, especially younger ones. My walls are covered in Henry's 'masterpieces' and I love seeing his artwork on a daily basis. However, I know that I cannot keep every finger-painting and doodle that he will do over the years. This has caused me to take great care to plan certain projects that I know I can hang up and keep on my walls year after year without feeling like I'm going to be that silly mom in 20 years who still has her son's finger-paintings on the wall.

So when I saw this pin, I knew I had to do it! It would be perfect for the fall season every year and would also capture those small precious hand-prints that we all adore so much. 

The best part? It's super simple to do and SUPER fun too!

We used an 8x10 canvas but you could use any size and you could also use paper and then frame it. Canvas can be pricey at most 'big' craft stores, but you can often find it now at other places for pretty cheap. I paid $1.50 for mine!

I used regular old latex paint for the orange and craft paint for the silver and black. Lowe's has samples of paint for $2.98 and if you find a mistint, they're sometimes sold for as little as a dollar. I bought my orange as a mistint and I had the craft paints around the house, but you can buy them for fairly cheap at any craft stores as well.

(On a side note, I'm sure you could use regular finger-paints or 'kid's' paints for this project. Henry and I play with paint quite often and we have a certain routine to where I really don't have to worry about him flinging paint across the room or getting it all over the floor/furniture/etc... Once dried, you're going to have a heck of a time cleaning this up, so just be aware if you choose to go this route!)

I let Henry finger-paint the orange onto the canvas until it was covered and then we smoothed it out together. Then I blow-dried the canvas with my hairdryer on low heat. I only did this because (hello, I have a toddler) I didn't want to lose the attention of Henry and risk him moving on to another craft. After the orange was dry and our hands were washed, we moved onto the silver. I coated his hand with paint, pressed it gently but firmly onto the canvas and then we washed hands again. We then painted the webs and name on together. This is something we do often so Henry is totally okay with both of us holding the paint brush and allowing me to guide the strokes. If your child isn't so used to the 'help', you could have a major issue with paint flying and a temper-tantrum. It may be best if you just allow them to move on while you paint on the details.

Let your canvas dry and WAH-LAH! a pretty new piece of artwork that is perfect for display every fall and a ton of fun for both you and your kiddo!

Bargain Buys with a side of Crafty Goodness

I really need to start learning to just take a photo and write a quick blog when I buy something that is a real 'bargain' instead of waiting for weeks on end. I rarely buy anything unless it's cheap. This includes clothes. I really can't get over the price of clothes. I mean - as a girl, I want a fairly large mixture of clothing and paying $100.00 for a pair of jeans just seems ridiculous to me. It'd cost a fortune to stay fashionable!

So I buy things on clearance and with coupons and I ask for lower prices and I haggle and do anything I have to to get that price down.

I've bought 2 pieces of clothing in the last few weeks.

This cute little sleeveless dress that I had planned on wearing to our pumpkin patch wedding (it was canceled due to weather).

Original Price - $54.99

What I Paid - $8.00

It will make a cute summer dress next year. I still need to do a few alterations though. It was on clearance (as in, here-take-it-we'll-pretty-much-give-it-to-you clearance).

Then I bought a pair of jeans from Maurices. I love that store, it makes us heavier girls feel like we're normal but the prices reflect the effort, I assure you.

So I went in expecting to walk out empty handed because even their clearance stuff is usually too expensive for me. These had a price tag, (already marked down a couple of times, mind you) of $89.99 . Yeah, um...no thank you.

But upon looking a bit closer, they were on the 75% off CLEARANCE PRICE rack. Now that I can do!

Original Price - $120.00

What I Paid - $22.50

The catch here was that they were literally six inches too long. Plus they were hugely bell-bottom, which worried me, but I took them anyway because HELLO! Did you see that savings?

So this morning I attempted the 'hem your jeans while keeping the original hem' thing. Guess what? It worked! I LOVE my jeans that are finally JUST THE RIGHT length!

This is my half, I pinned it and then sewed right along the outside of the hem.

The best thing? It's really simple to do.

1. - You pin your jeans where you want them hemmed just like you would for any other type of hemming.

2. - Measure how much you need to take off and divide that in half, but don't include the hem. Then pin the half in place instead of the full amount.

The finished product! It's not completely straight (I'm still a beginner here!) but you'd never be able to tell unless you were really looking at them. And look at that wonderful frayed hem that was part of the jeans all along!

3. - Sew right along the outside of the hem on the inside of the pant. If you have crazy bell-bottoms or flared jeans like I did, make sure your side seams line up!

4. - You can either cut off the excess or just iron it in place (good idea for the kiddos) from there. I cut mine off. Then iron the front side of your jeans so that the jean lays right again.

My directions are never the best, so go check out this tutorial for a more detailed look into the process. Pretty awesome, right!

Jeremy's Big 3-0! (and a recap)

We celebrated my husband's 30th birthday on Saturday night. The theme was Vintage 1982.

I found all sorts of things that happened, cost, and were popular in 1982 and made little sheets and pasted them to newspaper for people to read. Then I hung them on my cabinets, it was the perfect place for them. I also cut out some pacman figurines, put them face down on some tape and then just attached put the tape along the bottom of my cabinets too. 

Then I made these rad neon tape banners by printing and cutting out the tapes and then sewing them together. I've gotten pretty good with my sewing machine and I've discovered that sewing paper is pretty easy!

The cake was German Chocolate, although I was told by almost everyone that it tasted more like a Mounds or Almond Joy. Either way, it was a huge hit and there was none left at the end of the evening. I will have to share the recipe sometime, it's not hard to make!

We mostly hung out in the backyard around the fire-pit, so I put together a tray for smores, made a huge pot of hot chocolate and then had Bailey's close by for a little bit of kick for those who wanted it. ;)

Henry and his cousins on the back of the firetruck!

The party was great, but it didn't start until 7 so I worked all day. But for once work was really just another fun-filled day. We had our annual Safety Awareness Day. 

There were fireman, police men, police dogs, all sorts of vehicles, food, a jump house and the highlight - care-flight.

Henry mostly loved the dalmatians.

The next morning I got the privilege of photographing one of my best friends, her husband and their little girl. Henry and Layla are only a month apart and Jessica and I try to get together about once a week. They are such a gorgeous family and we all had a great time. I just thought I would share a couple of photos from their session as well!

It was a busy and good weekend, and although it's Wednesday - I thought I'd share anyway!

Rooooaaar!

I made the executive decision yesterday that Henry was going to be a lion for Halloween. I don't care if it's overdone and I don't care if it's cliche; I figured this will probably be the last year that I get to make the decision on what he gets to be. From here on out, I'm sure he'll have an opinion (and that's fine, he should) but for this year, he's all mine and this is what mama wanted so this is what mama is gonna get.

I made it all in one day. (I may have been overly excited to finish it and see how it turned out.) Either way, it turned out GREAT and I can't wait to show it off when we go trick-or-treating this year. I figure I'll match the hat, tail and foot collars with a beige shirt and pants. No need to go toooo overboard. (I mean really, I think that hat is enough. No?)

Lion's Costume

It's really not that hard to make either, I made a simple crochet hat with ears, earflaps and braids. 

There are plenty of free patterns for such - just Google it!

From there you add the fuzz that make your hat fantastic. 

Starting at the bottom of the earflaps, I attached my yarn, holding two different colors together. I single crocheted over each previous stitch on the earflaps until the entire earflap was covered. For the main part of the hat, I attached my yarn, still holding the two colors together. Then 'chain 4,sc' all the way across and up several rows until you have a mane as thick as you'd like. Chaining throughout the top part of the hat really added an extra fuzz that I loved.

I attached my ears after I crocheted the mane because I wanted them placed in the middle of two rows of fuzz. Also, when I braided the sides, I added a few strands of the fuzzy yarn to make it fuzzy too.

The tail was super easy.

Chain 3, slip stitch to join.

"dc in each sc around, slip stitch to join each round"

" " repeat this until you have the length that you'd like of the tail

When you've reached the length that you'd like, chain off of your last stitch until you reach the length that you need to go around the waist of whoever will be wearing your costume. When you reach the last chain, leave your end in a loop, pull a little extra yarn so that the loop is a little bigger and then tie a knot (or two, or three) so that it won't come undone or unraveled. Then sew a button onto the top of the tail, this way you can just slip the chain around and button it in the back - easy on and easy off.

To make it fuzzy, do the same as you did to the hat. Attach your yarn, holding both colors together and chain 4, sc all the way around and up as far as you'd like. 

For the cuffs (I just made ankle cuffs, but you could make wrist cuffs too and it would be super cute.) I just chained as long as I needed for it to fit around my son's ankle's, then slip stitched to join the chains, then I dc in each chain and slip stitched to join. You don't need these to be very thick. I then just added the fuzz the same way I did the others, only I only chained 3 this time.

There you go! Homemade lion costume! I really did this in about 18 hours, crocheting on and off. It's not that hard and the end result is just gorgeous! Let me know if you have any questions and I'll try my best to answer them!

If it's dirty - clean it!

I've spent most of my day cleaning, mostly because I've spent most of the week not cleaning. Bad Mama, I know. I figured I had to do something about this. I had to stop waiting until Friday - when I have until 5:30 p.m. to get my crap together and clean because I work out of the house all weekend long.

I've been wanting to create a Cleaning Schedule for myself for quite awhile now. I would give you a whole list of reasons why I hadn't, but the truth is - I knew if I put up a cleaning schedule somewhere visible in my house, not only would I have to keep myself liable to do it, but my husband would be MORE than happy to too.

So I bit the bullet. I sat down for about 20 minutes and created me a cute little cleaning schedule. I'm going to laminate it and put it on the refrigerator so I can write what I plan on doing each day every week. I would go ahead and bring it up in paint or word now and just create a weekly schedule, but my schedule changes so much week to week that I figured this would be better for me.

Do you like? If you do - you can totally steal it. Go ahead, I don't mind. Right click and save the sucker, print it out and use it!

DIY Wall Art

I found about 30 minutes to myself this evening while Henry was playing with Daddy to get a little creative. I am a lover (and collector) of quotes. Love quotes, inspirational quotes, quirky quotes and a lot of quotes by C.S. Lewis and John Green. I started the process tonight of transferring some quotes to random cardboard boxes and such that I've been recycling for this very reason. I even made my own modge-podge to use; I'd give you the recipe but I eyeballed it.

It's something a long the lines of 1 cup of flour + 1 1/2 cups of water + 1/4 cup of sugar + a 1/3 cup vinegar. I'm sure that modge-podge works better than the homemade stuff but I use it and love it - I mean, it gets the job done.

Anyway, if you have some favorite quotes, an empty cereal box and a few minutes, try your hand at it! It's super easy and super fun!

Henry's Puppy Themed First Birthday Party!

Well, I believe Henry's first birthday party went pretty darn great if I do say so myself! We had an amazing turnout (I think our final count was around 45 people) and everyone seemed to have a great time (minus the heat).

This was my food spread - I made the banners behind the table with scrapbook paper and then sewed them together. (I've been putting my new found love for my sewing machine to good use lately.) I taped down photos of Henry from birth to 12 months down the front of the table and then used all red, white and brown decorations. I served some things in dog bowls and the rest on matching plates, bowls and platters.

Besides the main dishes of hotdogs, hamburgers, 'dogs' in-a-blanket, 'pup'corn, chips and dip, baked beans and mac'n'cheese, we had LOTS of desserts. We had a cupcake tree with both chocolate and white cake/icing. The chocolate cupcakes had toppers that I made out of construction paper and printed designs that I had created and the white had paw-prints made from junior mints and upside-down chocolate chips.

I also made dog-bone sugar cookies with chocolate sprinklers in addition to a mini-candy bar.

I made all of the chocolate and peanut butter suckers as well and a HUGE batch of puppy-chow - which seemed to be everyone's favorite.

I attached little dogs and bones to a lot of things to make them stand out - like my fork and spoon cup holders here.

I also had a special area set up for the kids - a picnic table of coloring pages and crayons, as well as a puppy adoption center and grab bags - all of which I made myself!

I made a matching banner to put around Henry's high-chair and added a puppy in the center of it as well.

He received a TON of gifts - a lot of books, bubbles and fun things that make loads of noise.

He didn't care at all to open any of them, instead he just picked up a thing or two and played with it while I opened all of his gifts.

He did however, enjoy his birthday cupcake. I used just a single, white candle for his candle because I hate the number candles - I think they're just tacky.

Jeremy spent most of his time at the grill but had plenty of company around him most of the time.

Henry was super excited to see his best-friend Layla in attendance. I'm sure he'll be excited to show her how to play with all of his new toys one day this week!

We felt so extremely blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful family and friends. Jeremy and I have said many times in the past week that things couldn't have gone better and that while it was hot and miserable out, everyone seemed to have such a great time. We are so lucky to have such amazing people in our lives, especially our little boy who I think will have a wonderful first birthday to look back at and enjoy!

(P.S. - I stuck to my guns and didn't take ANY photos!! Most of these photos were taken by my sister Sara and cousin Stephanie. Thanks for helping out guys! You're the best!)