Preschool

This weeks Lesson is "I have a body like Heavenly Father" -this one can be really fun!!

Mon- Sing songs and Discuss the lesson for the week.  Songs:  Head, shoulders, knees and toes, Do as I'm doing, I have two little hands, Stand up, Two little eyes. . .

Tues- Library Day. . .any books about the body or body parts, shouldn't be hard to find!

Wed- Body Part Dice. . .make a large die and draw pictures of six different body parts, have the kids roll the dice and find the body part!

Thurs- Get a large piece of butcher paper and trace your child's body, let them draw the details in!

Fri- Show your children how the heart pumps!  Get a clear balloon and fill it with water that has been colored red with food coloring.  Put a straw into the balloon, and tape it really well.  Have the kids squeeze the balloon while you hold it over the sink, this give the kids an idea of how the heart pumps blood.

BeadBoard

So I finally did something I have been wanting to do in my house for a long time!  I wanted to do it in our last house, but by the time I got enought guts to do it myself, we put the house up for sale, so when we moved into this house, I knew I wanted to put beadboard somewhere. . .at first I thought the kitchen, but then some chain of events changed my mind about what I wanted to do in the entry way and so I decided that the entry way would be a perfect place to do beadboard. . . 

We love how it looks!  I got about half way done and realized I didn't take a before picture. . oops! I put a picture of the hallway in to give you kindof an idea of what it looked like before.

If you want to do beadboard in your house, go here she does a great job at explaining how to do it, and she is fun to read :)  Also don't feel like you have to have a bunch of tools to do this project.  I did this with an exacto knife, a hand saw, hammer, nails, and a caulk gun. It took probably longer then if I had all the tools, but I still was able to get it done.  I did about 15 feet of beadboard, and spent about 90.00 .  (I bought the pre-cut wood slates)You probably can't tell, but I made a mistake when I bought the beadboard, and bought 2 packages of beadboard and 4 packages paneling.  I didn't notice until I had stained everything, and couldn't take it back, so I just aternated the beadboard with the paneling.  I love how it makes the beadboard look subtle.

Kitchen Tip

Not sure if this is a well know tip, but no one has ever told me, so I thought there might be a few of you out there that might not know!
I am not a huge meat eater, and I really really don't like chunky ground beef.  I like my ground beef to be soft and small pieces, so what I do to get this is make sure my meat is completely thawed, then I break it up with a wooden spoon and then add about a cup of water per pound.  I don't know scientifically what it does, but every time I do this my meat comes out soft, moist and small, usually the water just cooks out, but if you have some leftover after cooking then just drain it off.



Chenille Blanket

A few months ago I was searching for a tutorial to do a rag quilt, when I came across this site.  I wanted to try the technique out, so I did it on my daughters place mats for her birthday. . .

I then used it yesterday to make this one. . . .I am in love with how this one turned out!! It looks so boy!!

A few things I want to add to the tutorial is: she says to use 1/2 inch as a guide for the width of the stitches, which is what I used on my first project but I used more like 3/4 of an inch and it was much easier to cut-I could cut the length of the scissors, instead of just doing a bunch of tiny little snips, and the other thing is make sure you use the fabric she suggests.  For the place mats I used flannel, which frayed, but frayed so much that there are just a bunch of strings hanging off of it, which isn't that big of a deal for what she uses them for, but for a blanket you won't a million strings hanging everywhere.

What's nice about this quilt is that I used a bunch of scraps, and one of the fabric was a really dark blue with flowers on it, you can't even tell!! 

Skipping Preschool

I am skipping the preschool posting this week, we have been trying to play "catch-up" after all the snow days we had, and I feel like I was bombarded with things to do this week. . .  One of those things was that my husband and daughter went to the broadway Beauty and the Beast.  I wanted to make her a little Belle outfit for the night, because she was so excited to go on a date with her Dad, so I made these for the girls!

 I forgot to take pictures to give you a nice tutorial, but I found one here (this is basicly how I made it, but I used a lot more fabric to make it fuller, and didn't do two layers.  It's hard to tell in the picture, but I glued on the word BELLE with little gems.  As you can tell the girls were really excited to go!

Preschool

This week is Lesson #5 Jesus Christ showed us how to love others!- this is a perfect one for right before Valentines Day!!

Mon- Discuss and sings Songs- I'll walk with you, I'm trying to be like Jesus, Love one another, Jesus said Love everyone

Tues- Library Day. . .We are just going to use the books from last week, but if you want to take a trip to the library that is always fun!

Wed- Go through closets and take clothes you don't wear to a donation center.

Thurs- Bake some heart shaped cookies and take them to a couple of special people.

Fri- Write thank you/I love you notes to family that lives far away or if they live close, mail is always fun to get.

Organizing the Bathroom drawers. . .

Look at these drawers!!! Can you believe I have been living with this for months. . .I finally decided today was the day it needed to be clean.  I thought I would share my organizing tips along the way.

 1.  Dump everything out of the drawers
2.  This would be a perfect time to wipe the drawers out, I love to use the Clorox wipes!
3.  Start putting stuff in piles.  Group things together that you want to go in each basket. for example I put my toothbrushes and toothpaste in a pile, I put my flossers and floss in a pile, I put my makeup in a pile-things like that, and make a trash pile-get rid of stuff you don't use or need, and a pile of stuff that doesn't belong in the drawers.
4. Make a list of what kind of baskets you will need to get.  Stick with square or rectangle ones, using round ones just takes up to much room
5. Make sure you measure the depth of the drawers so you don't get a basket to big.
6.  Leave your mess sitting on the floor and head to the store to get baskets. . .I like to shop at Wal-mart or the dollar store for things like this-you don't need expensive ones, just functional ones.
7. When you get back home all you will have to do is put the "group" of stuff all into one basket.
8. Then organize the baskets. Put things you use more up front, try different ways and see which one works best for you and your stuff.

Look at what a difference that makes. . .aaaaahhhhhhh!!  So nice.  I ended up having extra baskets so I did my Husbands drawers too!  Won't he be surprised!

Perfect For Almost Every Meal

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 1/3 cup butter melted
• 1/4 cup Parmesean Cheese
• 3 tsp of garlic powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, garlic and cheeses. In another large bowl, beat together egg, milk and butter. Stir the flour/cheese mixture into the egg mixture, stirring until just moistened. Pour batter into prepared pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of loaf comes out clean.

My Family loved this bread... it is so delious. And it goes great with any meal. Especially those meals that you decide at the last minute that a bread would go great with the meal... Here is your fix. Super easy and super yummy. Mix and bake.

Valentine Countdown 9,10,11,12,13 and 14

Day 9:  I love you "smore"

Day 10:  I'm stuck on you! -Package of Stickers 

Day 11: We're "mento" be! 

Day 12:  We Connect Valentine!

Day 13:  I'm not "fudgin" when I say I will love you f"oreo"ver! 

Day 14:  You keep me a "float"! 

Hope you all have a great Valentines Day!

Brownie Bites

This is also something the kids would have fun with! First you need some kisses. It works best if they are the fun flavored kisses like I used the peppermint because the kisses were red and white strip. But you can use any kiss. You make a pan of your favorite brownies. My favorite recipe is Baker's one bowl browies. They are so easy to make and so very chocolatly delious! Then you let your brownies cool until they are ready to handle still a little warm. Then you mush the brownies around the kisses until you have a ball. Freeze these for about 20 minutes, then you can dip them in some chocolate. And then I drizzled them with some red decorating chocolate.

Valentine Countdown 5,6, 7 and maybe 8

Day 5:  Pencil Toppers- Take a pipe cleaner and push it into the top of the metal part in between the eraser.

 After that, wrap it a couple times around the metal part. *you can add a bit of glue to secure it*  Then bend it in any shape you want- I really love how the kinky ones turned out.

If you want to do spiral, hold the pencil next to your pinky finger, and use your pinky to wrap the spiral. 

 Use Shrinky Dink for the top part, remember to punch your holes before you bake it.  I had punched two holes, but only ended up using the bottom hole.

 After you bake the hearts and let them cool, thread the pipe cleaner into the bottom, and fold it over to hold. So CUTE!!

Day 6: They have Rice Krispies Treat that you can WRITE ON!!!!  Any message you want! So fun!

 Day 7:  Here is a link to make your own custom Valentine BINGO .  So many options and way to custom it to your kids or Husband- Have Fun!


Day 8:  I actually did this for my Husband for day 5, because I have never seen him use a pencil, but this could be fun to do for a day too!  I use Shrinky Dink and drew and colored a key.  I am going to put on the saying "You hold the key to my Heart"  You could make anything into a keychain-

Window Pane Hearts

Window Pane Cookies. These cookies are great to do with kids they will think that they are the coolest cookies ever. How you make them is you take your favorite sugar cookie recipe, it works better if the sugar cookie is a harder cookie. Then you roll out the dough inbetween two pieces of slightly floured wax paper. (This is actually a great way to do all sugar cookies! It works great!) Peel off the top layer of wax paper. Cut the bigger heart. Then place on pan ( the pan needs to be covered in tin foil that is slightly greased). Then you are going to use a smaller heart and cut out centers and remove. Then place a hard candy in the center ( I used jolly rancher, but you can use any hard candy. Then bake at 375 8-10 minutes. You need to let it cool for about 10 minutes before you do anything with them.

Preschool

We are going to go back to the lessons we skipped. So for this week it will be lesson #4 Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ Love Me

Mon- Sing Songs and discuss Lesson- Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam, Where Love is, I'm trying to be like Jesus, A child's Prayer

Tues- Library day! -This would be easy to find book on love-one of my favorites is Love you Forever. *this week and next week are lessons on love, so get a lot of books and just keep them for two weeks

Wed- Play hide the heart.  Cut out a bunch of hearts and take turn hiding and finding them.

Thur- Get a box and fill it with something that taste good, smells good, and looks good (colorful). *one for each kid if you don't want fighting lol*  Let them each pick objects out and either smell taste or look at the object.  Explain that we know Heavenly Father loves us because he gives us these things.

Fri- Help your kids make this heart shaped bookmark (origami) to use in their scripture reading!

Easy Peasy Icecream Cake

I have discovered and easy way to make an ice cream cake.  All you need is a package of ice cream sandwiches and a tub of cool whip.

 Stack the ice cream sandwiches three at a time, and then rotate and stack next three on top. In this picture I used a Carmel sauce I made for the filling.  I would suggest not doing this because it was hard to cut after I froze it.  If you are wanting a filling you could use some of the cool whip or maybe some pudding.

 After you stack the sandwiches how you want them use the cool whip as your "frosting" and frost it!

I think I'm ready. . .

. .to show you the laundry room.  You will have to use your imagination for one picture, my amazing dad is in the process of building me a counter to go above my washer and dryer. I know it will tie everything together. For now here is what we have. . .

I found the perfect thing to help with the other side of the room- I went into Joanns and they had these green vases filled with feathers, I loved the color of the feather, and they were on clearance almost 70% off!!  I am still debating weather to make the pizza thing green. . .hmmm. . .

 Here are the curtains I made here

 This is our "drop" zone-where we drop everything when we walk through the door. . .

 I love all the little details. . .

 This is where you are going to need to imagine a beautiful counter. .  it's going to be amazing!!!

The color I used is Martha Stewarts Phlox.  I was hoping it would of been a little more gray, but I love it with the curtains, and now that I have everything up I don't notice the purpleness in it anymore. .

Valentine Countdown 1, 2, 3 and 4

My first few days will be this:

Day 1: "Bugs and Kisses"- I used kisses, gummy worms, and chocolate covered raisins.

 Day 2: This is more of an inside joke with my Husband and me, so I got Chapstick and am going to make a tag that says "Stick with me, babe".   You could also use the Napoleon quote, if you find that funny.

Day 3:  I got cherry sours, and I am going to make a tag that reads:

"I wanted to get you something special,

So here's the scoop

I love you so much

I found you Cupid Poop!"

*you could also use red hots, twizzler bites, or anything small and red :)

 Day 4: Valentine Tic-Tac-Toe
I made the hearts out of felt, since I was using black thread, I just traced hearts on the pink felt with a pen, and then sewed over my line. 

 I cut them all out.  You will need nine hearts for each game you make.

 I just drew lines in Word and trim them down to the size I wanted.  I made the squares 2x2 so the board is 6x6. 

 I think the kids will have fun with this one!



Valentine Mail

I love Valentines Day. . .the red, white, love, candy, flowers, cards!!  It's just a fun filled holiday that you can do so much with!!  Every year I do the 14 days of Valentines for my husband.  This year I thought it would be fun to included my children.  When I was at Sam's Club the other day I was looking at their "clearance" section and I found these cute Christmas boxes filled with chocolate covered pretzels. They were 2.91 for three of them, so I thought "well if the chocolate is nasty I can always use the boxes for something". . .I wish I would of picked up another set. . . so I could of made a set for each of the kids, but since I didn't I am just making one for my Husband and one for the kids.

Here are the boxes. . .aren't they so cute. . .I love the tops.  My first thought was to use the tops as is, so I had some blue paint almost the exact same color as the blue background, so I painted the boxes blue.

 I was very surprised at how it covered, and I only had to do one coat. I love the little window!!

 I added some little touches. . .very simple.  Do you notice how the "mail" on the left side is not centered.  After putting the stickers on I realized they needed to slide over a little bit to make it centered. The M and the A came off, but when I went to pull the I off the paint started to come with it. . . .yikes. . .not wanting to have to paint it again and wait for it to dry (I am so impatient like that)- I just tied the ribbon around and put the knot in the middle of the I and L. . .hehe    After decorating everything the tops still made them look to Christmas-y so I left them off.

Stay tuned for what I am going to do for each of my days of Valentines. . . since my husband and children don't ever read this blog. . . I can post them for you. . . .if you would like to join along, go find some cute boxes to make over, or check out these cute chairbacks from potterybarn if your ambitious, those would be easy to make and super cute!

Preschool

Lesson # 8 Sunday is the Day to Remember Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ

Mon- Discuss and sing Songs- Saturday, The Chapel Doors, When I go to Church, The Commandments, Pioneer Children Sang as they Walked

Tues- Library Day. . .Get books about church or Sunday. . . there are a few at our library. . .you could do books about the days of the week, calendars ect

Wed- Help them use their fine motor skills, and make this

Thur- Make Ice cream sundaes using this idea

Fri- This is a really cute legend-you could make and laminate a sand dollar they could hang in there rooms, to help them remember.

Einstien

If any of you have been in my shoes, well I am sure you have, let me just say the insight I have recieved from this book and the wonderful insight of my mom in getting this book for me. Two years ago when my son was born I found my self worrying about his future. I kept thinking what if he is not smart... what if he fails at school... what if.... what if... I was becoming overrun with what if's. I confided in my mom and she found this book and got it for me.

I actually have not read the entire book. I am working on reading it in my spare time. I do have to say that I have very much enjoyed what I have read. This book offers great insight, especially if you are worried about a certain child. If you are fleeding because your mind is being bamboozled with what if's, try looking through this book.

Hidden Valley Ranch

It really does make everything taste better!!

My kids aren't big into eating veggies, and the only way I can get them to eat them is if they have some Ranch to dip it in. . .most of the time they ended up eating more Ranch then veggies, so the other day I cut up cucumbers and carrots into bite size and added a squirt of Ranch (you don't need a lot-a little goes a long way) and my kids ate it all up, I have never seen them eat so many veggies in one sitting!!  I later tried it with adding tomatoes and green peppers-the kids weren't as thrilled with that, but I sure loved it!!

New Product

When I thought about decorations for the laundry room there was one thing I wanted to do and that was cover frames in moss, I love the color of the moss and I wanted to add that texture and look into the room.  I went in search of some moss, and could only find big clumps of stuff sold in a big bag. I held off on getting something and I am glad I did, because when I ran into JoAnns the other day I found this:

It's moss, but a sheet of it, almost like moss fabric :) It says it's a new product, not sure how new it is, but I haven't ever seen it. . . I knew this would be perfect to cover the frames.

 First I covered the frames with the green flower tape I had from another project. After completeing the project I would say this step is a must. . .it helped hold the moss while I glued it down, and it helped camoflauge the frame so I didn't have to cover the whole frame.

 As you can see in this picture I layed it up next to the inner frame, and then wrapped it a little bit around the side.  I used my hot glue gun to glue it down.

 I used the same ribbon i had used to tie back the curtains, and hung them on the wall.  I love the softness look of the ribbon, and it turned out just how I wanted!!