Too Cute Note Too "Toot"

Are you ready for some more great ideas?  Check out all of these below!

Valentine's Day is just around the corner, can you believe it?  Lolly Jane gives a super easy tutorial to make a fantastic heart wreath.  I seriously love this and would like to make several - one for each door in our home.  As I've said before, I don't do a lot of decorating for Valentine's Day but with two little one's, I want to change that by next year.  (I've learned to keep my ideas and make them over the course of the next year instead of racing to make then all now!)

Don't you just love the bright pink??

This idea for a piece of framed art is super easy and inexpensive too!  I like finding things that I can use to cover up existing pictures for a little while and the tutorial from Racks and Mooby fits the bill

I shared one of these last week but here is another example of a quiet book.  Check out Diary of a Crafty Lady for lots of pictures and ideas.

Here's another adorable Heart Wreath that is super easy to make or at least Life in the Thrifty Lane makes it look easy!

This next idea is great for teaching your kids!  I'm already thinking about our next Mommy Time Unit and, of course, Valentine's Day will be right in the middle of it.  I think I need to work this idea into our routine! My delicious ambiguity gives all of the instructions and you can even purchase her cards through her Etsy Shop if you don't have the time (or creativity - like me!) to make up your own!!

My delicious ambiguity gives another easy, cute idea to make a play stove.  Like her son, Josh loves to go into the kitchen now and look in all of the cupboards and pull out "things".  I may use this idea in an upcoming month as a "sensory" bin idea.  I don't really want to buy or make a big play kitchen but this would be a great play item for both boys.

And she also gives this great idea for a Toddler Busy Bag - both the insides AND the Bag :-)

The "insides"

And the "outside" too!

This is a super cute idea for kids to do with simple, plain hoodies.  Just Sew Sassy gives a step-by-step tutorial to make these.  I think I may have check out good will for cheap hoodies to practice on (and maybe keep if they turn out well!) 

I love these Valentine Bags with a full tutorial over at Our Scoop.  This links you right to the PDF Tutorial (hopefully!) but check out their blog here.  I know that I can't whip these up for the boys they year but it is on my "to make" list before next Valentine's Day.  I think it will be fun for them to wake up that morning to find these on their chairs with little special treats inside!

 That's it for today - so many great ideas out there in blog land :-)  I'm working on a few more crafts inspired by what I have found out in blog land - I'll share my success (or failures) as I complete them !

Funky Lunch

I came across this website on another blog and thought it was adorable so I thought I would share.  It is called. Funky Lunch and shows some adorable ideas for making lunch creative.  Check out these ideas:

Aren't those the cutest lunches ever?  I don't even like sandwiches and they make me want a sandwich!  For more pictures check out their gallery.

Funky Lunch also goes into schools and teaches kids how to make these adorable lunches!!

They also have a recently published book called Funky Lunch: Feed your imagination.  I also noticed that coming soon - they will also have a really cute apron and cut lunch accessories.  I'll be watching the site for all of those items to be available.  The book, well, I'll be ordering yesterday LOL  Ok, maybe not - but I'm going to order it ASAP. 

This caught my attention because I struggle so much with 1) planning lunches for my kids 2) be creative and 3) getting them eat a balanced lunch. 

So check out the site if for no reason other than to look at the cute pictures!

Getting Organized Challenge

Day #12 over at A Bowl Full of Lemons 21 days of organization was the Spice Cabinet.  Surprise!  I have one :-)  Actually, I call it my "Spice, Open, and Need this week cabinet".  It is one of only two food cabinets so it gets messy a lot!! 

The Before Mess!

And The After

The bottom shelf holds my little used spices as well as all of the packets of things like taco seasoning.  This is also where I store Salt and Pepper for cooking.  The second shelf keeps any items I need for recipes this week so I don't have to constantly go downstairs to the pantry plus it also is where I keep things that are open like bread crumbs, peanut butter and Crystal Light.  Than the top shelf holds pasta boxes and pancake mix.   My true spice holder is on my counter (you can just see the silver knob on the top of it)  I actually took this out in July thinking I would get rid of it to free up counter space but I found, over the next few months, that I missed the ease of it!  I brought it back in, cleaned it up, took off the old labels, added new labels with the help of my label maker and have not regretted it for an instant! 

Day # 13 was the Medicine Cabinet.  and, guess what?  I have one of those too!  I've only had one for about 9 months though!  When we did our minor bathroom re-do, instead of putting up just a mirror, we added a medicine cabinet and have not regretted it for a moment!

The before - it really isn't that bad - just needed to be cleaned.

The after - I wiped it all done and put the stuff back in :-)

I'm linking up to:

The Eensy Weensy Spider - Craft

YEAH!  I'm finally getting some time to craft!  I saw this adorable idea over at Oopsey Daisy and thought it looked so fun!  We sing a lot of songs in this house and the Eensy Weensy Spider is a true favorite!  This is such an easy craft and so much fun!  I only made one but I think I might need to whip up a second one so each boy has one (and will need to make one for my friends munchkin too!)

Supplies
Black felt
Red Felt (or scraps)
White felt (or scraps)
Pipe cleaner
black thread
rice

 First, I made a template by tracing a large bowl on a white piece of paper.  Than I stapled the paper to the black felt and cut around my circle.  I did not worry about perfection in my cutting since I'll be sewing it together.

Than, I just free hand cut out the eyes, mouth and tongue.  I thought the tongue really did make it cute.

I sewed the "legs" into the circle while leaving enough open to be able to put a bag of rice inside

Than I hot glued the eyes and mouth on the spider and let it sit for awhile (Partly because I had no rice to finish it up until later in the day!)

Once I got the rice, I filled a Ziploc bag and stuffed it inside; than finished sewing up the circle.  Isn't he cute???

I can't wait to use this when we see "The Eensy Weensy Spider" this next week.

Things I learned:  I need to make sure my circles are exactly the same size since you don't sew this inside out.  My circles don't line up but that's ok.  Also, I would stick the legs inside further and hot glue them on one circle prior to sewing it all closed to make them more secure. (Also, if it was smaller, you could use only 4 pipe cleaners and have them stick out on each side too!)   One of the legs pulled out and I had to re-sew it (I actually re-sewed over all of the legs about 5 times to secure them) .  Also, I think if I make another one, I'll make it a little smaller, this guy is huge! Otherwise - this really is a super easy super fun project.

Happenings in this House

One of the things I love about other blogs I follow are the pictures; real life, every day pictures.  That is something I haven't done a whole lot of more because I focus on other topics than my family on this blog.  I saw an idea on one blog about doing "A Year in the Life . .. " and she posted one picture from each day (or almost every day) from the past week.  It's a great concept.  So, my warped view of this is just doing one post a week (or almost every week) with some of the happenings in this house.  I know that many people use their blog as their scrapbook but I scrapbook so I don't need the blog to do that!  But I do think that this is a great memory to keep ;-)  Who knows, one of these years I might get a "Blog Book" of all of my articles from the past year! 

So enjoy - Happenings from this House!

On January 1st, we just enjoyed the day at home.  Josh loves playing with his new train set and Nate enjoyed the bean bags :-)  We also went outside and took down the lights before winter really hit!

My three boys - Darryl, Josh and Nate!

Nate enjoys posing - but this look?  I don't even recognize this little guy!  He looks so much like Josh did at this age but, honestly, we never see this.  Love how the camera catches these looks!

Josh LOVES to hang in the kitchen.  You can't really see it  but there are sprinkles all over the floor.  He's attempting to pick them up, one at a time, and throw them away before China eats them LOL



Yep, he is a state fan (or at least his mom is!) and notice the hair?  People pay alot of money for hair like that!



We had the finally Christmas party on Jan 8th (post poned due to illness).  The boys were awesome!  They enjoyed getting gifts and they loved playing with their older cousins!

Josh's new favorite past time is watching cartoons while laying on our bed.  He no longer takes naps (I know . . ) so after lunch he will usually ask to get up on the bed and just chill out.  Some days, he falls asleep.  I guess he needed some extra shut eye!





Yep, he LOVES his trains.  Notice the neat train track, the puzzle all put together, and all of the extra trains lined up neatly?  That describes this little guy to a tee!

Today, January 15th, we finally were able to take the boys outside in the snow.  It has either been way too cold or muddy with no snow.  After several small snows this past week we have about 6-8 inches so it was perfect.  We bundled everyone up (which takes a good 20 minutes!) and headed outside to have some fun.

Josh enjoying the snow and figuring out how to walk with all of that stuff on!

Nate was like a bulldozer through the snow.  He chose not to walk and just crawled through every drift.  He kept his mittens on and only cried when his face hit the snow first!

Having some fun on the sleds .

My Three Boys in the snow :-)  (Notice Josh's face - he HATE's mittens.  H.A.T.E.S them and was trying to get them off! . . Darryl's face? He's just cold LOL)



Hope you enjoyed this little walk through our week :-)

Mommy Time - Winter Unit

Welcome back to Mommy Time!  If you haven't checked out the Winter Units make sure and check out this Post - awesome ideas!

One of neat ideas I've seen in blogland for awhile is something called a sensory bin.  I decided to create one for this unit and this is what it looks like!

It is filled with all kinds of things for winter - cotton balls, a big letter W and S (for winter and snow), some diamond shaped beads (for ice), snowman playing cards, and I took a garland that had sparkly fuzzy white balls on it and cut it up - keeping both the fuzzy balls and the metal beading that connected it.  You can get as creative as you want and than, let the fun begin!

Testing it out for the first time.

Starting to pull stuff out.

Unloading the box.

He loved the "crystals"

Notice it is all on the floor?  Don't worry, when he was done, he picked almost all of it up on his own.

I really didn't see what the hype was about the Sensory Bin until I tried it today.  Josh loved all the textures and items in the tub.  I saw him putting just the cotton balls back in, than he would lay the metal beading along the side of the tub in rows and when we finished cleaning up, he liked to grab the things that looked alike at one time.  This bin only comes out when Nate is napping because, right now, he would eat some of those items.  I look forward to when they can both play with the bins in a few more months.  It will be a great treat for them to be able to play with each week.  I hope to be able to pull it out 2-3 times a week and later be able to use it for sorting games and activities.  Right now, I'm just letting him play with the things in his own creative way!

As far as storage - I dont' have a ton of space to store this stuff so I think I'm going to have one tub and than, store the "stuff" in a bag instead of having 12 boxes or more stored somewhere. The bags I can squish down into one box. 

Have fun! And let me know if you try out a sensory bin - I'd love to see pictures.  (And yes, I'm already picking up stuff for my February box - not sure yet what the "main" stuffer will be - to replace the cotton balls - I think a trip to Hobby Lobby is in order!!!!)

Chicken Scaloppini

I made this for dinner tonight and we really loved it alot.  It is really easy and so tasty. 

Chicken Scaloppini
(6 servings)

6 thinly sliced chicken breasts
2 Tbsp butter
2Tbsp oil
2 cups flour plus 2tsp
2 cups chicken broth
2 Tbsp lemon juice (from 1 lemon)
1Tbsp basil
1Tbsp parsley

Chicken:
Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. In a dish add 2 cups of flour- coat each chicken breast with flour. Melt butter and oil in a large pan on med-high heat. Add chicken and cook on each side until lightly browned and cooked through. Take chicken out of pan and set aside on dish.
Sauce:
Leave the remains in the pan you cooked your chicken in. Add 2 tsp of flour to make a paste, then add 2 cups of chicken broth. Let simmer for 5 mins or until it begins to thicken. Add lemon juice, basil and parsley.

Pour sauce over chicken and enjoy.  Serve with rice, noodles, or risotto.

This recipe came from Comfy in the Kitchen

My Notes:
* I really only have one note.  Due to my first batch of rice not cooking (not sure what happened!) my sauce had to sit for 20 minutes while I cooked a second batch of rice.  When I had first tasted the sauce I thought it was very "lemony" but letting it sit for that time allowed the flavors to blend and it was soooo good!  So, make the sauce and let it sit for a few before serving.