Scrapbook baby shower

Last week we through a baby shower for a friend who just had a sweet little girl!   Our friend is just getting into scrapbooking so we thought instead of playing games we would have a little craft party and each make a layout for her.  

We had lots of 12 X12 card stock, punches, stickers, coordinating baby girl paper, ink, stamps and of course page maps.  Each women created their own page for mama to take home.  The awesome thing about the party was our photographer friend had just taken the new born shots and she gave them to her as her shower gift so she had lots of pictures to go home with to place on these beautiful layouts!

Right now we are still waiting for baby # 3 to make his or her appearance.  Today I am 39 weeks so hopefully you will be hearing the news very soon.   But in the mean time I wanted to share with you some of the photos we had done last week by our good friend Grace who is getting into the photography business.  I can't wait to scrap book these pictures!  

DIY wedding gifts

Here is a fun project I did last weekend for a wedding gift.  Sorry I don't have many pictures but I was working fast to get them done.  

So I started out with this beautiful porcelaine fruit bowl; which I got on clearance!!!   And these two porcelaine pens.  One was fine tip and the other was a thicker tip.  For the bowl (sorry I don't have any after picture)  I put the couples monogram in the center of the bowl.  Then around the edges I wrote out the scripture Galatians 5:22; the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentless and self control.  After it sat for 24 hours I baked it in the oven according to the instructions on the pens. 

I really love how they turned out and will be getting some different marker colors to do up some more gifts and even cute things for around our kitchen. 

Here are the cute little Salt and Pepper shakers I also did. 

So what kind of wedding gifts do you usually give?  Are they homemade or do you stick to things on the couples registry?  

Scrambled Egg Bake

 

Here is a delicious breakfast that my husband made for me on mothers day.  He found a recipe and then improvised (which is awesome for him) to make this delicious Scrambled Egg Bake.

Recipe

1-2 large grated potato

1 onion

Eggs

Sausage

Cheese

1.  Heat up a grill and fry up your grated potatoes and onion.  You can use oil or butter which ever you prefer. 

2.  When the potatoes are crispy you can remove and scramble up some eggs

3.  Place potato, onions, scrambled eggs and cooked up pieces of sausage into a cast iron pan.  Top with grated Cheese and bake in the oven until cheese is melted. 

Enjoy with some delicious whole grain toast and a glass of OJ!!!  

Waffle cone dessert

For our mothers day get together this year we served up some delicious fruit filled waffle cones.  I was going to pre-fill them with fruit but Micah thought they would get soggy so we turned it into a dessert bar where everyone got to fill there own cone and top with their choice of toppings. 

We placed the cones in the center and then let the kids pick out whatever they wanted to put in them.

We had lots of different fruit to choose from oranges, mango, strawberry, pineapple, watermelon and blueberries.  

Once they were filled with fruit they were topped with whipping cream and either chocolate or caramel sauce!  This dessert will definitely be on our summer menu again.

Smartie Cookies

 

These cookies are one of our favorites around here.  They are simple and quick to make and they make a large batch which is great for freezing.  You can use chocolate chips instead of smarties but its always fun to add some color to the cookies so I keep a stach of candies hidden just for these cookies.  I have done them with crushed up mini eggs, mini M&M's, chocolate chunks and of course the Smarties. 

Recipe

1 cup margarine

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 cups oat meal

3/4 cups coconut

2 boxes of smarties

Beat Margarine, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla.  Combine flour, baking powder and soda and add to margarine mixture.  Add last 3 ingredients and mix.  (I did it all in the kitchen aid)

Drop by table spoon and bake for 8-10 minutes in 350 oven. 

Makes 3-4 dozen

Yummy cookie ready to be eaten!!!

These two joking around while enjoying their afternoon snack of warm cookies.  I am playing around with the new camera I got for Mothers day and I love how I got this action shot of the two of them.

Crayon Carrier

 

Here is a project I did a couple of years ago and thought I would give it away as a birthday gift.  But now with a little girl who loves to color this has been a blessing for times when she is sitting in her high chair, doing blanket time or when we are out.   It rolls up nicely and as long as I have some coloring pages with me she is good to go. 

I am not sure where I got the pattern but I found this one that was pretty easy to follow.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

This is a great recipe to make on a cold rainy day.  And since they are calling for another rainy day tomorrow I thought some of you readers might want to enjoy a delicious treat to go with your hot coffee, tea or whatever.

I first saw this recipe while browsing pinterest during the kids nap time and being pregnant I wanted them immediately so guess what I did.  Thats right as soon as the kids where out of bed I was in the kitchen making a batch for our afternoon snack.  They were very yummy and didn't last in our house for 2 days.

For the recipe and step by step head on over to Bakeralla.

Mama secret popsicles

Today I am sharing with you my secret popsicle recipe.   I started making our own popsicles a couple of years ago and have been testing out different combinations ever since.  It kills me how much sugar and color are in boxed popsicles and of course they are not cheap to buy here.  

So let me share with you my frist two toned popsicles.  I started off my popsicles with the recipe for these Strawberry Banana with a twist  popsicles.   I have some experience with making spinach popsicle from doing them for my son's 21/2 birthday party.  So when my spinach started going bad I decided to puree it up and make these delicious treats.  

Green Smoothie

Spinach

1 can of pineapple with juice

Apple

Vanilla yogurt

* The key to making green smoothies is that you only want to use white or light colored fruit if you want it to keep its green color.  So use fruit like banana, pineapples, pears, apple and juice that is not dark in color.  If you do add other berries like strawberries it will turn a brown color which isn't as appetizing as this beautiful green color. 

When your smoothie is done pour it into molds.  This was my first time using dixi cups so I filled them up about 1/4 to 1/3 full.  I put them into a cupcake pan so I could put them into the freezer without having to make too many trips. 

 I put these into the freezer for 1 hour before I put the sticks in so that they were partially frozen so the stick would stay straight up.  

Now for the red or pink part.  Its our simple smoothie recipe. 

Strawberry part

Strawberries

Strawberry Yogurt

Banana

Puree until smooth and add to the green part and let freeze.

Now for enjoying of course.   Hubby was impressed when he opened it to see the green part.   These have been a hit in our house so I decided to take them over to a play date to see if other kids would eat them.  Four little ones sat still and quiet eating their special treat up!   These will be a summer time treat in our house this year.

If you have any family favorites that you enjoy please share.  I have made a summer time fun board on pinterest for lots of treats I will be trying this summer. 

School time

With Eben being preschool age he is really enjoying having a school time each morning.  These times use to be during Jaelyn's morning nap that way I could really focus on Eben, play games with him, reading, puzzles, sight words or cooking in the kitchen.  But now that Jaelyn doesn't have these naps any more it became more difficult until I learned about blanket time and start implementing it with her.  This has helped so much.

We have been doing so many different things to learn from counting and building with Lego to fishing with letters; he really enjoys learning through fun activities.   There are days though that I do make him sit down to work on his writing skills.  This activity book I bought at Costco last fall and he has been bouncing around doing different pages.  It is a french book so Daddy works with him in this book but for this day he was working on his letters.

His orange crayon B's are getting better and he is really doing a good job trying to make all his letters.

Another way Eben loves to learn is on "his website" as he calls it.  When I was searching for some homeschooling stuff I happen to come across abcmouse.com  its an awesome site for kids with lots of learning activities on it.  You do have to pay/month ($7.95) but its so worth it.  They teach through reading, song, puzzles, games and coloring pages.  He has a little avatar that we made to look like him and every time he completes something he gets tickets which he can use to buy stuff in the stores on the site!  He has a very big hamster set up right now that he bought from saving up LOTS of tickets.   If your child loves to play games this is a great website.  I love that it makes learning fun.  He thinks he is playing but we know he is learning!

Another great source of information for teachers or homeschooling is pinterest.  There is so much stuff on there its hard to decided what to do.  I have a board set up that keeps getting fuller and fuller and Eben isn't even in school yet! heheh.    

So what are some things you do for school time or resources that you really love?

Smoothies

One of my biggest pregnancy cravings (this month) has been smoothies.  We have been enjoying them almost everyday around here.   The kids really like to help out in the kitchen (Jaelyn loves yogurt!!!) so they enjoy putting all the ingredients into the blender and of course pushing all the buttons.  One thing I recommend is don't have your blender plugged in until the cover is on tight and you are ready to let them push the buttons.  Sometimes we have to learn from others mistakes! heheh

So here is how we make smoothies around here.

We start off with frozen strawberries and we add a little bit of water so that they can crush up nicely.  After a few pulses with the ice button I add 1-2 spoonfuls of OJ concentrate (we usually keep a can open in the freezer) and maybe a little more water to get it nice and smooth.  Then in goes the banana, yogurt (we like to use a greek style or bulkan style either plain or vanilla) and vanilla.  We blend until smooth cause I don't really like chunks in my smoothie.

 Then we enjoy them with these fun twirly straws daddy bought us!   I killed two birds with one stone in this picture it was one way I could get her to sit still long enough to get a picture of the headband I made.  

Now I have gotten a little sneaky with the smoothies.  Last week I had some spinach that wasn't good for salad anymore so I decided to puree it up with a can of pineapple chunks and vanilla yogurt.  I poured the mixture into an ice cube tray and let freeze.  Once it was frozen I poped all the cubes out and put them into a large Ziploc baggie.  Now when I make our strawberry smoothies I add 1-2 cubes into our drink.  I did this the other day and Eben said it was the best smoothie yet!!!

So what are your family favorite smoothie recipes.  I would love to know and try them.