Read it. Pick it.

I saw this on pinterest and fell in love. I have a grid 1-100. I picked a number and for every 50 pages hannah reads she gets to choose a number. If and when she chooses my number she gets $10. Fun and motivating, perfect!!

Pinned and Tried

I have tried a few more recipes I have pinned on Pinterest. Here is my report.


Best Burger. I am not an expert when it comes to burgers, but these hamburgers were really good. I will keep trying different burger recipes, but I have a feeling I will be keeping this one and using it again and again.
CONSENSUS: KEEP PINNED


Strawberry Lemonade Cake. I made this for Father's Day. The presentation of this cake is worth it alone. People see this cake and they think WOW! As for the taste of it. It is good (I am mean how could it not be), but I felt like the tastes were a bit lopsided. Maybe too much cake. It was good, but I don't know that i would make it again. I think I will keep looking for something a bit better.

CONSENSUS: DELETE PIN (but if you are looking for a "make a statement cake" that is still edible... you might want to try this one!



Pineapple Chicken Sandwiches. I made these last night and was disappointed. The way the originator raved about them. I am not sure if it was because I used canned pineapples or what, but not that great. It was missing something (specifically a sauce of some kind). I added barbecue sauce and it was better.) Overall, it was so-so.
CONSENSUS: DELETE PIN

PS - the images come from the blogs that I link for the recipe. The credit goes to them!

Buzz invitations

I forgot to post a picture of the invitations I sent out for Jake's birthday party. Here you go.

Buzz Lightyear Party

Jake wanted a Buzz Lightyear Party and has been talking about this party since Ella's birthday party. I was so happy that it had finally come so he could have his very own party. Here is what I did.






The kids decorated their own rockets. We used Crayola Neon Explosion Paper which was really neat and stickers. Then we went outside and the kids throw rockets through a hole in Gamma Quadrant Four. We played Buzz Bingo and then ate lunch and had cupcakes and opened presents.

The party favors where this sphere balls I got at PartyWorks and filled it with Toy Story pez, a squirt gun, suckers and starburst. It was fun as alway with good friends!

Birthday Boys

My husband and son share the same birthday. It is always a fun day to have them celebrate together. One of these days i am going to throw a party that celebrates both of them, but for now, Jake gets the party and Chris get the birthday dinner, favorite birthday cake and presents.

Jake's favorite gift was a book. He has the "little blue truck" book and it is his favorite. I found the companion book "little blue truck goes to the city" and he loved it! He said it was his favorite gift.

Here are some pictures of the two of them celebrating their special day!
pictures of his buzz lightyear party are coming soon.

End of school Festivities

The Last day of school was a crazy day full of fun! Here is what we did!


Ella had a end of the year program. Her class sang "My daddy is a baker". it took awhile for Ella to get into it, but by the second half of the song, she was acting it out and singing. We got to say good-bye to her wonderful teachers. I love the preschool she goes to and the great teachers the just love my children and do so much for their educational and spiritual development.

Then of course we had to pass out goodies to the teachers and friends. This year I gave the preschool teachers these gifts (click on link to see them).

I gave Hannah's teacher this summer kit gift. It has a beach towel, magazine, sunscreen and treats. I included the tag I used, in case you wanted to use it too.





And all the kids in their classes got these adorable gumball treats. I of course got the idea from Pinterest and this blog! I changed the tag up a bit and I am including it if you would like to use it.





Then we had to take Grandma to the airport and say good-bye to her. That is always our least favorite thing to do. Then when the girls got home from school I had this banner waiting for them. Again, found it on Pinterest. Loved it and whipped the thing up quickly. They weren't really sure what to do with it. I told them to run through it. Hannah has hesitant, she didn't want it to get ruined. But I told her it was okay and they went for it.

Then I let the kids watch a movie with popcorn and just veg out for the rest of the afternoon. Nothing like a great start to the summer!

help!

I am turning to all you moms out there to help me out if you can. It has been 6+ months since i have had a good night sleep. And most nights, I average getting up 4 times a night. I am slowly questioning if I will every sleep again. (I know I will, but not anytime soon). So, here is what is happening....

Child #1 (3 year old boy) = he gets up every night at 3:30ish. He doesn't' have to go to the bathroom. He just wakes up, yells "mom", I go in and say "it's okay, go back to bed" and he rolls over and goes back to sleep. (But now I am up and it takes a while to get back to bed). This has been going on for months now and it is consistent every night. How do i get this to stop? Any ideas?

On the positive side, he used to be getting up at 6;00 am, so that wake up call has stop, thank heavens.

Child #2 (6 month old boy) = he typically wakes up after 4 1/2 hours of sleep and I have to let him cry it out and he eventually goes back to sleep and then wakes up after 6-7 hours (but typically 6 hours). I feed him than and he goes back to sleep. I know he can sleep at least 7 hours (because he has done it before (usually once a month he sleeps through the night), but I think it is an answer to prayers, more than anything.

If I let him cry it out, it usually works for about 4 days (we sleeps and doesn't wake up until 6 hours) but then we start all over again and he wakes up after 4 1/2 hours and I have to let him cry it out again. A cycle that has been going on for months.
Any ideas on this one? Am I alone out there with a baby that "Crying it out" doesn't work long term?

Please help this sleep deprived and tired mom!

On a good note my first born is still asleep and it is 9:30 am... why can't they all sleep like her!

Baptism Dessert Table

For hannah's baptism, I did a fun dessert table to celebrate with friends afterwards Since we weren't able to have all the cousins and aunts and uncles around for her baptism, i wanted to make it an event for her friends to it felt extra special for Hannah on her extra special day. And boy did it ever. She loved it and so did all the kids. It was the perfect ending to a perfect occasion!

Hannah's Baptism Day

Hannah has been waiting for this day for quite some time. She was very excited to baptized.
When she had her interview with the bishop he was very impressed with how much she
knew about baptism and what she was doing. That is because she was so excited.

Grandpa Brimhall gave a talk on baptism, Grandma Brimhall played the piano. Uncle Brian and Grandpa were the witnesses. And you primary teacher Sis. Pittam gave the closing prayer. Three other children were baptized with you that day. We also asked Claire Evans' dad and Kyle Kriebel's dad and the Bishop and Brother Pittam to be in the confirmation circle. it was wonderful. I was a proud and touched mom.

As for the rest of the meeting, it was pretty rough. The rest of the kids
were horrible. Jake cried the whole time, ella had to leave crying and Graham was
passed around to everyone pretty much through the whole meeting. It was a bit rough
and really quite unpleasant, but Hannah had no idea and got to enjoy the meeting so that
was good.

But for the record, the reason the kids were so bad is they were up until 11:00 pm that night before,
basically woke up early and then went to the zoo and it was 95 degrees and no nap and
had they had reached their max. Jake couldn't handle it, so he went bonkers (literally).

Spring Dance Recital

Last week the girls had the spring dance recital. Ella danced to "Surfin' USA" and Hannah danced to "Girls Just wanna Have Fun". They had a great time and did so well. The best quote of the day was that Hannah said "I am sure people are looking at me wondering why I am dressed so old-fashioned". I told her she is not old-fashioned... she is vintage!

baptism invites

Hannah is getting baptized this weekend. She has been so excited for this day for months and months. And since we have no family where we live (although we are lucky to have a few coming to town) I wanted to make sure that the people that were important to Hannah knew she was getting baptized. So, I made this invitation and had them printed on to postcards for her to give to her primary classmates, teachers (school and church), friends and other instructors (dance, piano, etc). She was so excited to pass these little invitations out. My hope is that since we can't have all her cousins there to celebrate her big day that she will be surrounded by friends that will make this important day all the more special.

Cute boy

Okay, I need to post this now that Graham is 5 month old. I wish I could say time was flying (and it is), but he is the worst sleeper at night that sometimes to be honest he isn't getting old fast enough. But then I look at pictures like this and I realize that I will miss him being so little, so I try to enjoy it as much as I can (even through the sleep deprivation).

Some things about Graham:

He has found his voice. There is a lot of screaming and squealing. You can tell he likes to hear himself and he is trying to figure it all out. He even does it at 5:00 am... better than crying, right?

Because he is the youngest of 4 kids, there is always excitement and attention, so when he doesn't have it... he wants it. He gets upset when no one is with him.

I love the way he looks at me. You can just tell that when he sees me, he gives me this smile like I am the most important person in the whole world. I sure feel loved and that is one thing for sure I will miss as he gets older.

He loves to grab his toes and suck on them. It is so funny and one of my favorite things to watch him do. I have to admit, something I help him out and "feed him his toes."

He only takes a pacifier when he is going to sleep. And he sucks on his thumb/fingers but not with any consistency. Sometimes i wish he would commit, but maybe it will be good because I won't have to have get rid of anything in years to come.

So, that is my little update about our Graham. I love taking his picture... he is so darn cute!

Pinned and Tried

So, I figured I would share some of the goodies I have pinned from Pinterest and have actually made. There is so much out there - that I figured I would start trying some of them and see if they are worth keeping. Friday has become "dessert testing day". Something my daughter and I can do together while the boys take a nap.

Now, I realize that opinions are all subjective and if I say there are good, you might disagree (that always happens to me when I make desserts other say are the "best in the whole wide world" and then I think to myself "what were they thinking... not that good".

But if you value my opinion :-) you might want to at least give some of these recipes a try and see for yourself.


The first one is Butterscotch Marshmallow Bars. I really liked these. They remind me of blondies with a bit of chocolate. I would say these are great brownies to make when you need a little something sweet. I wouldn't make them to take to a party (I wouldn't say they are that WOW-worthy... but they are good and definitely hit the mark when I needed a little sweet something-something.
CONSENSUS: KEEP PINNED


The next thing I tried. Salted Caramel Pecan Bark These two were good. Probably more just okay. Now you can't really go wrong with pecan and toffee, but I think I have had better with saltine crackers. And I think I would have preferred more toffee and less graham cracker. But again... still good enough to snack on during the day.
CONSENSUS: DELETE PIN

So, there you go. I am slowly starting to go through all the dozens and dozens of yummy "pins" I have collected and actually make some of them to see what is worth keeping pinned.

PS - the images come from the blogs that I link for the recipe. The credit goes to them!

Preschool Teacher gifts

I can put these gifts on my blog because i know my daughter's teachers don't know about this blog. This is not original, it is all over Pinterest, but it is a good one. I included a Jamba Juice gift card inside.
The saying says "Thanks for sparking my creative juices this year." FYI - I got the cups at Target for $5 in their summer section.

My daughter's elementary teacher is getting a different gift, but I have to wait until the end of school, because i think she does know about the blog :-)

Here is the tag I created, just download or drag it to your desktop and it is yours to use.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to my mom. For being the best mom ever. It is interesting to see how motherhood evolves (now that I am one) and I love recognizing the different stages of evolution of my mother. She was the "do it all" mom growing up. Then she evolved into a mom that set the example of the important things in life that we as kids needed to know and recognize. Then she evolved into the mom that showed her concern and love almost daily as I became a mother myself and had all the trials, difficulties and good times as a mother. She is there to help me through it all. Now, of course she is more than those things and more than those qualities at any given time. But those are the things I remember most of her now that I look back and think of her great example to me. I love my mom and am thankful for all she does and has done for me. I hope to be that good of a mom to my children when they look back at me and my mothering through the years.

Teacher Appreciation Week

I decided to try some new cute gift ideas for our teachers this year. Sorry, if this is late for some of you. But hopeful you can tuck it away for new year :-) Here is a recap of what I did for Teacher Appreciation Week.


Monday's gift - Potted Tulips. I let Hannah pick out the flower she wanted to give and she chose tulips. I got the label from here.



Tuesday's gift - Flashlight. I made this one up. I found the flashlights at OfficeMax for $3.00 and thought perfect. How couldn't use a nice little maglight flashlight.



Wednesday's gift - my favorite. It is a pringles can made to look like a pencil. I filled it with teacher items and a few fun treats. Here is a link to the tutorial.




Thursday's gift- Post-it note Apple Dispenser. I saw this and thought how perfect. It is an apple and it holds post-it notes. Hannah' drew and wrote her a nice note to go with it. This one was a bit more than I wanted to spend, but I only bought it for one teacher and thought what the heck, why not? I was in a good mood that day, so I went with it.

Friday's gift. Mug filled with treats. I love the initial mugs at Anthorpologies. I think they are the perfect gift, so for the last day. That is what I got. So darn cute and practical. They are $6 a mug. For Anthropologies, I feel like it is a great deal. Something in the store that is relatively cheap and it is so cute. It is my go-to gift for just about anyone! I buy a lot of these.



You might think I am crazy spending this much on teachers. Now granted I have only one kid in elementary school and a preschooler. I didn't get each teacher all the gifts (since my preschooler only goes MWF), so I could spend a little bit of money on some of the gifts.

But my philosophy when it comes to teachers is.... they do so much for our kids and they get paid so little... I am more than happy to spend a little bit of money on them. They deserve it!!! And I hope it brings a smile to their face and shows them just how much I appreciate all they do!

Oh, and my daughter begged me to give something to her student teacher since it was her last day. So, this is what I came up with.

The day to day...

I have to be better at writing this stuff down ... so here are some funny things in our day to day life.

Ella loves to play with Graham and do "tummy drums' where she uses his hands to drum his own tummy.

Jakes has been saying 'yes sir" every time I ask him to do something.

Hannah got braces and an expander and they are not being nice to her. I feel so bad for her. They hurt and it is so hard for her to talk, eat and close her mouth. i thought she was a messy eater before... it is so much worse now.

We are potty training Jake. It is going pretty well. But he is so funny about the things he says when he goes. like "that's a big one" and "push the button" (use your imagination on both). And he loves picking out his underwear each day.

Graham is so ticklish. Every time i dress or undress him, he tilts his head to the side and smiles so big. You can tell he is on the verge of laughing because it is so ticklish. If I touch around his armpits for a prolong period of time, he laughs and giggles.

Ella graduated from speech class. She no longer needs speech and I am so grateful she has come such a long way since the day we started speech 2 years ago.

Hannah got an American Girl doll for her birthday. I have never heard/seen her so excited. She just squealed and squealed with delight every time she look at her new doll. And all we kept hearing was "I love her. I love her" all night long. Hannah has always loved dolls, so it was a no brainer to get her a AG doll and it was worth every penny!

While Graham is nursing, he loves to sneak his little thumb into his mouth. It always finds its way into the corner of his mouth. I keep telling him there isn't room for both :-)

Arts & Craft Party

Hannah's 8th Birthday party was an arts and crafts party. There were so many great ideas on the web, so here is my take on those ideas and how I put the whole party together with all the fun details. The entrance when they walked through the door had these lanterns. Lanterns are so cheap now ($1 a piece) that I was able to have fun and use the whole rainbow to create a colorful entrance. This is a good website with tons of colors and sizes. Also, since it was an arts and crafts party, each girl needed their own apron to keep the mess of their clothes. I got the aprons at Oriental Trading Company and then glittered their names onto each one.



The first station was a self portrait station. I made fun frames out of card stock and had the girls draw themselves using colored pencils, markers or crayons.



The next station was Picasso Pops. I got the idea from here. I crushed hard candies and kept some whole like lifesavers or Jolly ranchers and let the girls create their own creation. I didn't know how well this would go over, but it was the favorite among the girls. They loved seeing how their creation turned out after they melted in the oven. They really liked this! As a side note, I stuck the warm lollipops into the fridge to harden them up super quick. Worked like a charm.



The last station was the canvas painting station. Each girl got a canvas and were to paint a cupcake. I placed a collage of different cupcakes in the middle of the table for them to draw inspiration from. it was so interesting to see how each girl painted. Some hardly did anything and some painted every square inch. I got the canvases at Michaels (7) 12X12 for $15 on sale. The perfect size and price!



For the food, we did an ice cream sandae bar and cake. I had the ice cream be the "blank canvas" and the toppings were "colors and supplies". The cake was the 8 layer rainbow cake that is going around the web right now. Here is a great tutorial. The cake was "the masterpiece". I made pretzel rods dipped in colored melting chocolate for "paintbrushes" and the drinks were "creative juices". I had some chips too as "paint chips". Just too much fun with the food.




I used paper chains out of construction paper for the decorations with different arts and crafts items I cut out of my Silhouette that I hung from the ceiling. You can see the end result of the self portraits... too cute.




I made rice krispies paint brushes for the girls to take home. Each girl also got a bag to put all their artwork in plus all their goodies. I got the back from Oriental Trading company. I didn't pay very much for them, but I can't find them on the site right now.


I made awards out of cupcake liners. Each girl got an award for the cupcake painting. The awards were like "most eat-able", "most picasso-like", "most use of paint", "most artistic and so on. We presented each girl with an award and put it on their canvas painting.




It was a great party and so much fun to watch the girls be so creative. I would highly recommend this party theme for girls 8 years of age and older. Now onto my next birthday party.... it looks like we are going to "infinity and beyond" for the next one.