dinner for four

OK, let's get back into this blogging thing...

Mikayla is just one month shy of turning six years old! It's a little hard to believe that her Kindergarten year is coming to an end. She'll be in first grade next year!! But I'm getting ahead of myself...

At the end of January (yep, I'm that far behind) Mikayla was helping me a little with dinner prep (which she will do on occasion...mostly out of free will and not when she's forced to). She asked if she could make a fruit salad for everyone and I figured, why not?!

This sweet thing makes the best fruit salad, so if she asks you if you want some...do say YES!


She didn't just stop at making individual sized fruit salad cups, but she also set the table for everyone.


And even included a name tag where everyone should sit...


Yep...her momma's girl!

her very own craft sale

I had my 1st Annual Craft Sale last Friday. It was A LOT of work and took A LOT of energy, but it was a great success and I already can't wait until next year!

I have slowly been putting things away this past week after a full weekend didn't leave me much time (never mind the lack of motivation!). Much of the stuff I had to decide if I was going to keep for next year's sale, donate, or put back in my craft room (*wink*). Some things I had permission to throw away (recognize the paint, Kim?) but somehow Mikayla found them...plus some tags I had tossed, as well. (Do I dare admit this, but she likes to dig things out of the garbage that I have thrown away...she seems to find a use for them!)

Before I knew it she had spread a tablecloth on one of the tables I had left up in the house and she was setting up her very own craft sale. I thought it was so cute that I let her use anything should could find of mine that I was planning on keeping to add to her table.

All set up for her very own craft sale!

She even brought down her toy cash register...

Mikayla's best customer!
(He even had play money to pay with...love it!)

Hmmm. I'd like a couple of these...

She was quite the saleswoman...
I just love the imagination of a child!

silly snacks

In the middle of my recipe & cookbook organizing for The Organizing Junkie's February Round Up, I came across a kids' cookbook I didn't even know I had! We were enjoying a lazy Friday afternoon of a little organizing and playing, and so I decided we should give one of the recipes a try.

One of the cookbooks I found is called Favorite All Time Recipes - Silly Snacks. The recipe that caught my eye was {not so creatively} named...

Cool Sandwich Snacks.

Ingredients Needed:
*graham crackers, cracked in half
*chocolate fudge sauce
*Cool Whip whipped topping, thawed
*sprinkles

Spread the chocolate fudge sauce on one half of the graham crackers.

Spread whipped topping about 1/4-inch thick on remaining 1/2 of the graham crackers.
Press crackers together lightly, making sandwiches.
Roll or lightly press edges in sprinkles.
Freeze for 4 hours or overnight.
After the wait is over...dig in and enjoy!
Austin was a little surprised to find out how cold his bite was.

Now that I have found some fun cookbooks that need to be tested out, I hope to make some more fun snacks in the future!

For more kid friendly ideas, check out I Blame My Mother (a fun, new blog I found!)

last minute turkey treats

Thanksgiving is literally just around the corner. In almost exactly 24 hours we'll be having my husband's side of the family over and hosting our first Thanksgiving at our house! I'm very excited because I love to host (it gives me an excuse to do some fun, creative things) and I think it will be fun to watch the cousins play together, and enjoy some time with family. On Saturday, we'll also be hosting dinner and family time with my sister and brother and their families. My parents are in Alaska, so we'll definitely be missing them (hi mom and dad!) for Thanksgiving, but they'll be "home" soon!

I thought I would try to squeeze in one last fun project before the big feast tomorrow. This idea had been in the back of my head for awhile ever since I saw it on Make and Takes (You have to go check this blog out! Marie has so many great ideas and many of them are meant to be creative with your kids.) Have I mentioned yet that I'm pretty good at borrowing ideas? I borrowed some ideas for a few of my October projects, too.

It wasn't until Monday that I got the necessary supplies to create these little turkeys and then finally this morning we went to work creating some turkey treats. This was one of the traditions I wanted to add to our Thanksgiving this year (along with the other two that I shared about here). I tried to keep things simple this year (no, really I did) since I am heavily involved in my local MOPS group and also working on building my photo card business. However, I still wanted to make the most of this holiday and celebrate being thankful, and of course adding a little bit of fun into it, too!

So, here's the fun...
**For a better explanation than what I'm about to give you, go here where Marie from Make and Takes shared her turkey treat idea. You'll have to scroll down about halfway to find it.

Make a batch of rice krispie treats using Cocoa Krispies. After they cool for a few minutes, grease up your hands with cooking spray and form into balls. Gather together candies (we used Mike & Ikes, candy corn, mini M & M's, and Fruit Loops) and you'll need some toothpicks. Oh, and don't forget to take lots of pictures of your little ones enjoying building their creation. (As you will see, I did plenty of that!)

Enough with the pictures...let's get to work, mom!

Using candy corn, make the turkey's beak. (I used the end of a spoon to make a hole so Mikayla could put the "beaks" in.)

Now find some eyes (mini M & M's). This was a good lesson in matching colors since she had to find two of the same kind. See, I'm even using my teaching skills!

For the feathers, poke 5-6 toothpicks into the rice krispy. I had Mikayla use Fruit Loops to make the feathers. Also a good lesson in sorting colors. I also used candy corn as feathers, but found that they didn't stay in quite as good as with the Fruit Loops on the toothpicks.


And this is what Austin did with his Fruit Loops...


Death by toothpicks. Yikes! I was busy doing something and came back to this. I'm thinking Mikayla wanted to give her turkey acupuncture or something.


Voila! Turkey treats! Cute huh?


I decided to wrap these little turkeys up and give them to our guests tomorrow for a take home treat.


Just remember you don't always have to come up with your own ideas to be called creative. You can still be creative by borrowing something you see. It's just a matter of doing it. I think that's one of the reasons why I have loved blogging so much. I am keeping myself accountable for making the most out of daily life while I stay home with my kids...both in creativity and productivity.

OK, enough fun for now. Time to get back to dusting and figuring out how to cook this darn turkey for tomorrow! Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Enjoy this time with your family and friends...

the making of Jack Junior

A week ago, we headed out to the pumpkin patch to find the perfect pumpkin. Fast forward a week later to today and we finally got to carving the little guy. Mikayla was so excited to carve her "pumptin" after her nap. We laid out the newspapers, cut out the top, and let her dig in.

Let the surgery begin

What's inside of this thing?

Hmmm... Let me see what this is.

Cleaning out the "guts"

The excavators

The designers

The foreman

Meet Jack Junior by day...

...and by night!

And, in my preparation for this year's Christmas season, today's 100 Days to Christmas challenge was to do just this... Perfect!

as the story goes...

Pack for vacation....a week's worth of stuff for only 3 days.

Leave a clean house. There's something about coming home to clean.

Had a great time on our 2 day trip to the beach with the Moore's. Lots of pictures and fun times to be shared later.

Home again with no major fits. Thank you, Nemo.

Unpacked the car. Dumped everything in the living room. Too tired to sort.

Kids let loose from the car like they had been caged animals, adding to the mess already made from unpacking the car (see below picture).

One word (or two?) Naptime!

Car in serious need of a deep cleaning inside and out. Left the mess in the house (pretending like it's not there) to tackle the mess outside. Minivan shines like new!

Distracted by the horrendous cluttering of the garage. Left Ryan to tackle. Sorry, Babe.

Austin naps 40 minutes (typical). Mikayla naps 3+ hours!! Probably catching up on sleep from her 6:00 AM "rise and shine" mornings at the beach. Not the highlight of the trip.

Ryan and Mikayla wash both cars.

Heidi is distracted by the computer, checking e-mail and looking through all the fun pictures of our mini-vacation as Austin plays at her feet...literally.

Off to make...er, get...dinner.

Then to turn this house back to NEW before the kids head to bed.

Wishful thinking?



Anyone empathize?

tackling the pantry

Well, if it wasn't for those bloggers out there who posted challenges for some of us mommies who stay at home all day, I don't know if I would get any of the housework done! It always just seems like so much more fun to take "before and after" pictures to share and show off what you accomplished.



Today, I took part in Tackle it Tuesday sponsored by 5 Minutes for Mom. Every Tuesday, they encourage you to tackle a project in your house (or whatever is on your "to do" list) and show off your accomplishment. There is always so much on my list, but I desperately needed to clean out the pantry! (Does anyone else relate in that this is a hard area to keep organized?) I had already done the "big clean" once before, where I added some organizing containers and such but it really needed to get reorganized so I knew what I actually had in the pantry. It didn't take me that long, but I feel so much better that I accomplished a much needed "to do"!

So, here's to another project crossed off the list!! If you haven't visited my other blog about how I organized my bathroom cabinets and drawers, check it out here. Also, go visit Tackle it Tuesday and see what other mommy bloggers tackled today.

Before

After

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After

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After

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And, because this post wouldn't be complete without talking about one of my blue eyed blessings, I thought I would share a few pictures from the past that shows how Mikayla most likely got my reorganizing fetish.

In order, ages 13 months, 15 months, & 16 months.

Mommy's little helper!

strawberry pickin'

Saturday was a nice, sunny day, so Ryan took Mikayla out for some strawberry picking. I was happy to stay at home with my little boy (especially since he would be taking a nap). Mikayla was all excited to go with daddy, but mostly because she got to wear her favorite rubber boots. It was reported that Mikayla had a wonderful time (who knew she would like playing in the dirt?) and probably polished off a dozen or so strawberries (good thing they were small). It sounded like it was a successful morning and they brought home about 12 pounds of strawberries. Many of them we froze, some we will eat during the week, and others we will save for yummy desserts (strawberry shortcake anyone?) Tonight we enjoyed a fresh strawberry smoothie and as Mikayla would call it...a "moothie". Summertime is meant for fun times and fun memories! I hope you're all enjoying yours!