A Family Filled With Love & Fun

Ladies' Craft Night

2011-12-13T22:20:00.000-08:00

I have so much fun getting together with the ladies and having a good ol' fashioned craft night! So last night a group of us got together in a local party room and spent 6 hours working on projects ranging from wrapping Christmas presents to sewing! It was a lot of fun and something that I'm going to schedule on a monthly basis! Thanks to my addiction to Pinterest, I have quite the list of crafts/projects that I want to work on so I started with the glittery ornaments and pom pom pens!

Aren't they cute?! I think they all turned out better than I expected considering I had never done either one of these projects before!

I've seen the ornament project on a few different blogs but I definitely want to give credit for the pom pom pens to Sara at SewSara (click on the blog name to go to the posting). I'm so totally making some of those headbands for my daughter!

I can't wait to work on other craft projects!! :)

Counting down to Jesus' birthday!

2011-12-13T22:12:00.000-08:00

YAY, I love December!! I love counting down to Jesus' birthday with my kiddos! Everyday we do a different special activity! My kiddos love picking out the tag from the stocking and seeing what the plan is for the day!

This is a list of our countdown activities:

1. Get a Christmas tree from the Scouts and decorate it while we listen to Christmas music.
2. Make a nativity
3. Read the story of Jesus' birth in the bible
4. Family Movie Night (we get a new Christmas movie to watch while we eat popcorn and snacks)
5. Make a popcorn garland
6. Cocoa bath night (thank you Vicki for this idea last year!)
7. Make a Christmas card for a friend
8. Decorate the windows w/ window markers and lights
9. Friend playdate
10. Open and read a new Christmas book
11. Go see Santa
12. Christmas craft
13. Family Game Night (we get a new game to add to our collection)
14. Gingerbread House Making party with friends
15. Donut breakfast @ the bakery
16. Ice Cream Night
17. Bake & decorate goodies
18. Deliver goodies to friends & family
19. Pick out a new ornament & go to Shore Acres
20. Christmas Caroling
21. Minivan Express
22. Snow Day
23. Make & decorate a birthday cake for Jesus
24. Open one Christmas present (pj's)
25. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!

Here's some fun pics of our activities so far:

Picking out a Christmas tree!

Our cardboard nativity

Our Elf on the Shelf, Jack! Hangin with baby Jesus and the posse!

Jack colored a picture for Tatym...awww...

Hanging on the Christmas decorations!

Visiting with Santa

Baking some Chex party mix to give out to friends and family!

Family game night!

Our 2nd nativity craft...a little fancier! :)

Random Acts of Christmas Kindness aka RACK

2011-11-23T23:15:00.000-08:00

I'm totally a pinterest addict and as I was browsing and pinning away the other day, I was led to this blog about a family that counts down to Christmas by doing random acts of kindness each day and I knew I wanted in! You can read about it HERE!

Each year I get more and more frustrated with Christmas as it pertains to the commercial aspect of it! Our society is beyond spoiled and the last thing we need is a holiday for us to go into debt just to spoil the kids even more!

I've been praying for a way to give the holiday more meaning than being just about presents! Don't get me wrong, I try to focus on Jesus but as much as my kids love Jesus, they're pretty darn excited about the idea of getting showered with a bunch of gifts that they'll play with for a month and then end up tossing in the back of their closets and forgetting about! Hubby & I had already agreed that we were taming down their presents this year but I still wanted more. RACK is exactly what I've been wanting!

We already bought our kids' presents for this year but I've forewarned them that next year, they are getting 1 big present (nothing too outrageous) and a few little things in their stockings and our focus for Christmas is going to be on what we can do for others and not about what we can get for ourselves!

Money is tight for us this time of year, my husband is an RV salesman and not many people go out buying trailers around the holidays! Praise the Lord, my Scentsy business is doing amazingly well this month but my commission is going to make up for my husband's smaller paycheck with hardly anything to spare. There are still so many things that our family can do even on a super tight budget, to spread Jesus' love this Christmas season! So, I started a Facebook event to get more people on board and started compiling a list of different things we could do. I borrowed some ideas from the original blog that I got the idea from and have daily added new things to the list! I'm so excited about it and I am overjoyed to see the excitement from the others that have joined the event and said they want to do their own RACK!

Here is the list as it is right now:
•Taping candy canes to ATM machines around town
•Bringing hot cocoa and a muffin to a coach, assistant, Salvation Army bell ringer or someone else.
•Taping quarters to vending and toy machines around town
•Grocery shopping for the sole purpose of putting it in the “Food for Families” box in the entryway of the store
•Donating stockings with treats, candy and a craft for one of the grades at a local school in need
•Ringing Salvation Army bells
•Handing out Starbucks gift cards {$5.00 value each}
•Pay past due library fees for 5 people
•Donate a poinsettia to a school
•Donate toys for “Toys 4 Tots”
•Bring your child(ren)'s teachers their favorite Starbucks drinks
•Bring treats to the employees of your local Post Office branch
•Purge from your personal “library” and donate to a school library in need
*Fill a shoebox for Operation Christmas Child
*Help out in a local mission/homeless shelter
*Do yard work or some other helpful thing for a neighbor
*At a drive-thru, pay for the food of the person that ordered behind you
*Give a treat to your mail person or newspaper delivery person
*Write a thank you note for your pastor
*Pick up trash in a park or your neighborhood
*Take goodies to your local police station and thank them for their hard word during these wet & cold months
*Adopt a family and buy fixings for a Christmas dinner and/or gifts
*Visit people in a nursing home
*Take cards to people stuck in the hospital on Christmas day
*Donate coloring books/crayons to the pediatric dept of the hospital
*Offer to babysit for a single parent
*Invite a military family over for dinner that doesn't have family in the area
*Go Christmas caroling
*Rake leaves up for someone that can't
*Pick a name off the Tree of Joy and buy gifts for that person
*Bake some goodies and take them to your local military station
*Take goodies to the fire department
*Invite a widow(er) to join in on some Christmas fun or for dinner or bring them goodies
*Collect pop cans and donate the money to a charity near and dear to you
*Volunteer at your local womens' shelter or bring them treats or donate clothes or toys for the kids
*Donate blankets to a local shelter
*Knit prayer shawls/scarves for the homeless or people recovering in the hospital
*Start a canned food drive and donate to your local food cupboard
*Don't forget to thank the staff at your local ambulance place
*Leave a bigger tip than you normally would
*Donate your time or food/supplies to your local animal shelter
*Thank your Dr. for working so hard, missing out on time with their family/friends to make sure we're all taken care of when we need it!
*Take hot chocolate or treats to gas station attendants on a chilly day
*Do something nice for someone that you don't get along with
*Offer to babysit for a couple you know in desperate need of a date night!
*clean graffiti
*Give carepacks to the homeless
*Help someone you see brokedown on the road
*Let someone go in line in front of you
*Return shopping carts that are scattered around a parking lot
*Write a letter to someone that has impacted your life in some way
*Talk with a homeless person
*Smile at a stranger
*Bring a treat for your co-workers

Now I just need to sit down and plan out our countdown to Christmas and what thing we'll be doing each day! I can't wait!!

2012 is fast approaching!

2011-11-23T22:41:00.000-08:00

As I pulled out our Christmas decorations tonight, it hit me that 2012 is just around the corner! It made me think about the goals I had set for myself this year and how I did with them and what things I hope for in the upcoming year! There are so many things that I want to work on and thought it was a good idea for me to write them (or type them) out to look back on throughout the year!

Here is what I've got so far:
Share Jesus with more people
Pray daily for my husband's salvation
Help grow a women's ministry in our church
Become friends with Marly (my stepson's mom) or at least keep trying
Get more visitations with Taylor (stepson)
Better handle our finances--get out of debt asap
Do more projects with the kids
Spend more time crafting
Invite more people into our home
Cook more meals at home
Lose at least 50 lbs
Keep growing our home-based business fair
Spend more time in God's Word
Spend less time on the computer
Continue to grow my Scentsy business--become a Super Star Consultant
Do more for others
Start walking a few days a week
Be more patient with my family
Stick with a cleaning schedule
Love on my husband more
Don't let the kids watch as much tv
Bible study with my kids
Slow down

So these are what have come to mind so far and knowing me, this list is just going to continue to grow and grow! :) I find it exciting to aim to be better, just have to remind myself that I'm not going to be perfect and I won't do all of these perfectly but at least I can try!

Mission kick-off!

2011-11-01T19:16:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of my mission to do more projects (and blog about them) with my kids, here are some pictures of our day today! Let me apologize ahead of time for the louzy quality of pictures! My camera has pretty much bit the dust *sniffle* so for now, I'm stuck with cellphone pictures! Sadly I'm thinking I have to wait until we get our tax return in February, before I can get a new one! BUT, on the bright side...thinking I'll finally get the big ol' fancy camera that I've been drooling over for the past couple of years! So for now, I'll suck it up and take pictures with my phone!

Back to the fun!! I bougth the kids some glow sticks for our Halloween night in (we're choosing not to celebrate the holiday anymore) but totally forgot to let them play with them last night. We busted em' out this evening and I remembered a pin on pinterest where they put glowsticks in the bathtub and my kids thought it was the coolest thing ever! So as I'm typing this up, my 3 year old daughter is soaking away in her glow-in-the-dark bath! :)

Earlier today, Tatym (isn't she the cutest 3 year old, EVER???) and I made a batch of grape koolaid playdoh! She was so excited about it and could hardly wait for the dough to cool down long enough before she dug her hands right in! To see our recipe, you can look at November of 2009 postings!

Last night we carved out our pumpkins while we handed out candy (our halloween compromise with my hubby) and my son, Keegan, thought it would be so cool to have an Angry Bird pumpkin! Turned out pretty darn good, thanks to some help from my amazingly fabulous husband!

I'm still alive!! :)

2011-11-01T18:09:00.000-07:00

Wow, it has been a VERY VERY VERY long time since I've blogged! Sheesh!
I spent some time looking over my old posts and projects and it's totally got me all pumped up to get back on the blogging train! Thanks to my newest addiction to Pinterest (if you haven't checked it out, run, don't walk there and check it out! AWE-SOME!! Anyways, thanks to my new addiction, I'm all jazzed about doing more crafting and fun projects with my kiddos! We have so much fun and I definitely need to do more of it! So, I'm recommitting myself to this blog and need to come up with a game plan about our upcoming projects and my posts! Stay tuned....

Our favorite BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich recipe

2011-07-06T23:01:00.000-07:00

I got this recipe from the Rival Crock Pot Slow Cooker Recipes for All Occasions cookbook and our family loves it!

Ingredients:
1 Pork shoulder roast (about 2 1/2 lbs--we use a bigger one, about 3-4 lbs so we can freeze for later)
1 bottle (14 oz.) BBQ sauce
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp brown sugar
1 medium onion, chopped
8 hamburger buns or rolls (we use hoagie rolls)

Directions:
1. Put roast in crock pot, cover and cook on low 10-12 hours or high for 5-6 hours.

2. Remove pork; shred meat with 2 forks. Discard any liquid in slow cooker. Return pork to cooker, add BBQ sauce, lemon juice, brown sugar and onion. Cover; cook on Low for 2 hours or high for 1 hour.

3. Serve on buns/rolls

Happy Passion/Holy Week!!!

2011-04-19T20:48:00.000-07:00

As you may know, it's Holy Week (or Passion Week, whatever you want to call it) and this year the Lord has really put it on my heart to study the way Jesus spent His last week before the Resurrection! Thankfully my awesomely, awesome friend, Heidi (who happens to be a fellow blogger at: Everyday-Cookies) shared her study of Jesus' last week from last year and I've really been enjoying it! I can't get enough of it and my notebook is getting crammed full of all my notes! I've had fun sharing with my kids too! I never really realized the importance or significance of Palm Sunday and Good Friday and the rest of the week. The focus has always been on Easter day. So sharing with the kids about all the things Jesus did has been such a blessing!

On Sunday the kids & I went to church in the morning and then just enjoyed a mellow family day at home with my hubby! We worked on Palm Sunday crafts (see picture below)! We colored palm trees, donkeys and palm branches and talked about what they all signified!

On Monday we learned that Jesus spent the day inside the temple, throwing tables over of the people selling things and ripping people off and then healed the sick & the lame. We also learned about the curse of the fig tree. We talked about how Jesus is the "Bread of Life" and made dough for Braided Easter Bread . (Click the name to be taken to the recipe.) I was having issues with the dough rising...ummm, it wouldn't rise! LOL I kept it overnight and it finally rose a little bit so I figured we'd bake it anyway and see how it turned out. The kids had fun dyeing the eggs and braiding the bread.

This was SO yummy!!! We all loved it!!

How are you spending this special week?

Rainbows Everywhere

2011-03-16T21:49:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that time of year again...St. Patrick's Day! WAHOO! No, I'm not Irish, at least I don't think I am, but I do love any excuse to get crafty and/or creative with my kids! I can't believe I haven't blogged since December! Life has been busy running two businesses and homeschoooling and a wild child toddler who keeps me on my toes 24/7! I am an Independent Consultant with Thirty-One and Pampered Chef now. I am putting PC on the backburner for now and focusing my time and energy on my Thirty-One business! Never heard of Thirty-One? Well, I hadn't either until my friend Alisha signed up and as soon as I saw the catalog I was IN LOOOOVE! I'm totally hooked on purses and totes and wallets and all the cute stuff we sell! Wanna check it out? Here's my website:
www.mythirtyone.com/sassychristina
I love my job!!! :)

Ok, so back to the purpose of this posting...St. Patrick's Day fun! I saw this great idea for RAINBOW WAFFLES on Random Thoughts of a Supermom blog and knew I had to make some for my kidlets!! I asked my son if he wanted them for dinner tonight or wait for breakfast tomorrow and he opted to have them in the morning. I whipped up a batch of waffle mix (recipe off the Bisquick box) and then separated them into 6 bowls and colored away! I am IN LOVE with Wilton's icing coloring! The colors are so much more vibrant than the regular food coloring I used to buy! Never again will I use the other kind!
Here's a picture of my waffle batter all colored and ready to be stored in the fridge overnight! (Did you know that its said that if you leave your batter in the fridge overnight, you'll get fluffier pancakes? I'm giving it a whirl and I'll let you know if it's true!)

I'm excited to see how they turn out and to see the smiles on my kids' faces! I love being a mom!!

Another fun thing we did the other night was make rainbow cookies, shamrock cookies and swirl cookies! Awhile back I had made lollipop cookies from a recipe from the Idea Room blog and this time I used the recipe from the blog: Amanda's Cookin. The cookies turned out YUMMY and my kids (and husband) inhaled them!

Well, now I'm off to play some Leprachaun pranks for my kids to wake up to! :) Have a happy St. Patrick's Day!

Gettin Crafty! :)

2010-12-29T21:58:00.000-08:00

2010 is quickly coming to an end and I am beyond excited to see what the Lord has in store for me and my family in 2011! This past year has been full of great moments and also some pretty tough moments! I wouldn't take back any of them, not even the tough stuff because the Lord has done some amazing things in my life and has shown me some awesome things that will help me get through any other hard stuff that I might face! So I had been praying for a week about what the Lord wanted me to focus on next year and my answer... JOY! More than just being joyful, it also means finding joy in the difficult situations or days. The joy of the Lord is my strength! Also, JOY can stand for Jesus, Others, Yourself...remembering my priorities! I have a few other resolutions but that's for another posting! :)

Now that all the Christmas decorations have been taken down and I have my dining room space back, I was able to put up a table and get my hands dirty with my crafting supplies! I bought these letters (spelling my daughter's name) when I was pregnant with her like 3 years ago. I originally painted them brown and hot pink and put glitter on them but I didn't like the way it turned out so they've been sitting in my garage for at least a year now. Today I finally busted them out and slapped on some cute scrapbook paper and distressed the edges. I'm really loving the way it turned out!

I didn't get my fill of craft time so I pulled out a box I had with these blocks that my amazingly handy hubby cut up for me. I sanded down the edges and covered them with the same scrapbook paper as I did Tatym's name. I think I'm going to turn these into picture holders (you know...drilling a hole and putting the wire in it and curving it to hold a picture). So cute, simple and easy to make!

Clay Ornaments

2010-12-10T13:29:00.000-08:00

My hubby made this family ornament for us this year! He made one back in 2002 when our middle son was just a newborn so we needed an updated one with little Ms. Bitty on there! I think it turned out cute!

I made these using white pearl sculpey clay and the blue is a pearl as well. The red has glitter in it but is a different brand and the green & yellow are just plain colors. I then used a sharpie marker to write on it after they had been baked and cooled.

My son, Keegan made this! Such imagination! It's a snowman throwing a snowball, standing behind a brick wall that has a splattered snowball on it and his pile of snowballs next to him! LOVE IT!

He said the gingerbread man was Gingie from Shrek! :) And then he wanted to make a star ornament like mine! So cute!

Christmas Ornament

2010-12-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

While visiting with my hubby's grandparents last month, I saw a really cute Christmas ornament very similar to the one I made tonight. I changed mine up a bit: I used bigger circle punches and used a white pen to make the border around each circle, added green & red ribbon for hanging up and viola...a cute, handmade Christmas ornament keepsake! I made one for my mom-in-law and this one is for my grandma! I may just have to make one for myself! Super inexpensive and super fun!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

2010-11-29T16:13:00.000-08:00

Well, now that we've recovered from our Turkey hangover I can post our fun pictures! :) This year we had Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's house and I took it upon myself to help entertain the kidlets! I found a blog that had these oreo turkeys (sorry I can't remember which site it was...maybe Our Best Bites). They used candy corn for the feathers but I couldn't find any at Walmart so I opted to use Mike & Ike's instead. The kids had fun with these!!

Notice Keegan's turkey's eyes are bit on the bulgy side! LOL

My Itty Bitty got a little sleepy right before Thanksgiving dinner so she grabbed her binky and blanket and plopped down on the couch.

I'm pretty sure my sleepy little princess must have worn herself out taking part in the Oreo Turkey massacre that happened on the table! LOL This is the scene we discovered shortly after seeing her mouth full of whoppers and Mike & Ike's! LOL

I then took the boys outside for a Turkey Hunt!

Found this printable game on another blog (bad Christina for not taking notes on where I found them...I'll do better next time). I printed out the turkeys and taped them to popsicle sticks then stuck them in the ground around my mom's property and sent the boys off and running! They really liked it and it was good for them to get outside and moving!

Getting the table all set! We were blessed to spend Thanksgiving with my grandparents, my mom & my sister Kimberly and her hubby, Chris!

I hope you had an amazingly blessed Thanksgiving as well!

Vacation Fun!

2010-11-21T00:12:00.000-08:00

Well, my fabulous hubby has been on vacation this week and we've been enjoying every second of it! We found this awesome stuff at Fred Meyer called Instant Snow! I had never seen it before but thought it sounded fun! You just put a teaspoon of the powder in a bowl or something and add 1/4 cup water and it starts to grow 100x it's size! The bonus is that one bag will make 3 gallons of "snow" and you can let it dry out and reuse it! I snatched up 3 bags of this stuff and the kids have already played with it for the past two days and LOVE it!

We were blessed to be able to make a road trip down to California to visit my hubby's grandparents! They are two of the cutest and sweetest people ever! We just love them to bits!

They have been married for over 70 years and have lived in the same house for the past 50+ years so I went around snapping pictures of their house and other buildings. I love things with a history, especially history that brings back great memories for my family!

This is my family (minus my bonus son, Taylor) with Josh's grandparents!

Since Fall is my favorite season, it's my favorite time to get pictures of my kiddos! We stopped a few places on the way back home to get some pictures of the kids outside in the Fall colors!

Here's my little Bitty. She's almost 2 1/2 years old now! *sniffle*

Both my cutie pies!

Stopped at a state park with the Redwoods all around! It was crazy to be in our van and feel so tiny next to these giant trees! Absolutely amazing!

My handsome boy, Keegan is now 8 years old!

He was so stoked for this road trip because he just turned 8 and no longer has to use a booster seat!

Wahoo!! He's growing up so darn fast!

Sadly, hubby's vacation is over on Monday then it's back to reality!

Thankfully we'll get another week vacation in January so I'll be counting down the days! :)

Who woulda thunk it? DELICIOUS!

2010-11-03T11:35:00.000-07:00

My friend Theresa made this delicious cucumber water and I just HAD to have the recipe! Lo & behold, it's a recipe from our Pampered Chef website! AWESOME! (FYI, I'm officially a Pampered Chef Consultant! SOOOO EXCITING! Who doesn't LOVE Pampered Chef???) Anyways, this water is beyond delicious and SUPER refreshing so I thought I'd share the recipe!

All you need is:
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
2-3 lemons (PC listed limes but I used lemons)
1 medium cucumber (I only used about half)
7 cups cold water

Directions:
Place sugar and salt into pitcher. Slice lemons in half and juice into pitcher (make sure seeds don't go in). Add cucumber slices and water to pitcher; cover with lid. Mix until sugar is disolved. Refrigerate 30 minutes or until ready to serve. Pour into ice-filled glasses.

Yield: 6 servings

Nutrients per serving: (1 1/3 cups): Calories 70, Total Fat 0 g, Saturated Fat 0 g, Cholesterol 0 mg, Carbohydrate 18 g, Protein 0 g, Sodium 55 mg, Fiber 0 g

Perfect rainy day dinner!

2010-10-24T19:45:00.000-07:00

It was a wonderfully stormy day here on the Oregon Coast and what better way to end the day than with some slow cooker taco chili! I'll even be nice enough to share the recipe since it was so yummy!
Ingredients:
2 lbs. ground beef
2-15oz. cans tomato sauce
2-15oz. cans diced tomatoes with onion & green peppers
2-15oz. cans whole kernel corn
2-15oz. cans chili beans w/ gravy
2 packets taco seasoning

Directions:
Brown the ground beef on the stove. Combine beef and everything else (undrained) in the crockpot and cook on High for 3-4 hours.
Top the chili with cheese and enjoy!
To top it all off, my hubby made a DELICIOUS batch of homemade cornbread! It was a great dinner!

Candy Corn Bracelets

2010-10-24T15:23:00.000-07:00

Today we made candy corn bracelets which took awhile to make and a mere 2 seconds for them to inhale! LOL I used a push-pin to make holes in the candy (less painful on my fingers than the regular needle I used at first) then thread fishing line through the holes just like you would a regular bead. Be warned, about half of the candy will break in half as you are pushing the pin through but my hubby was stoked about that! :) He got to eat the broken ones!

Messy-Clean Fun

2010-10-16T16:29:00.000-07:00

Messy-Clean fun sounds like an oxymoron to me but that's what it is! Shaving cream is a lot like soap so I didn't mind busting some out to let the kids play with! If it got on the carpet it was easy to wipe off and same with the tables and chairs and their clothes...and their bodies (which is indeed where it all ended up)!

Started out with a small amount of shaving cream on the pan w/ some paintbrushes and that lasted for a little while.

Then Keegan came over...

Then we had to pile more shaving cream on to see how big we could get it which led to sticking hands in it! :)

Next was time to add some food coloring...

We had to end playtime with a bang...or should I say a smash?? Keegan (with a little help from me) smashed his face into the mess and loved every second of it! LOL

Bitty couldn't be left out and helped herself to a little face smashing as well! Thankfully she was a little more restrained and just dipped the bottom portion of her face in it!

This lasted for about an hour and the kids had a blast and I was able to relax because it was an easy clean-up! I wasn't worrying so much about if they were getting too wild with it (before the food coloring got added). Taking a mental note to use this on a rainy day when the kids are going stir-crazy inside!

Fun fall projects!

2010-10-16T16:14:00.000-07:00

The other day the kids & I went on a walk around our neighborhood, collecting leaves of all shapes and colors and sizes. It was such a gorgeous morning and the perfect opportunity to talk to the kids about how the Lord put so much love and care into putting every detail into His creation, even down to the changing of the seasons, the colors of the leaves and the way they work! I reinforced to them that God loves us so much and cares about every aspect of our lives and how He created us. We are all different colors, different sizes and we all have our own personalities and that's ok because that's how God created us to be! We're all special to God!

After we got home we laid the leaves out on the counters to dry:

Then we used self-sealing laminating pouches (couldn't find contact paper at Walmart or Joann's) and added the leaves:

We've discoverd...LAPBOOKS!!

2010-09-22T21:50:00.000-07:00

It never fails that I go out and get some new homeschool curriculum and think it's going to work out awesomely but after like 1-2 weeks I'm bored! I had a bit of a meltdown and questioned if I should even be homeschooling! The thought of sending my kids to public school terrifies me and christian private school is expensive and still would expose them to things that I don't want them to be exposed to so yes, homeschooling is what I'm supposed to be doing. I was still faced with the dilemma of being bored with the way we were doing it but needing to help my hubby feel comfortable with everything so I reached out to my fellow homeschool moms and asked for ideas. Several of them mentioned lapbooking so I dug in and figured I'd research it and go from there. Let me tell you, I am totally hooked and Keegan is LOVING it! We still do math & english out of our workbooks but we've changed how we're going to do everything else. Hubby & I asked Keegan what he wanted to learn about and he said space. My friend Tiffany pointed me to an awesome website that happened to have a space lapbook section so I printed off tons of pages and away we went! Keegan is a lot like me. He likes hands-on crafts and being able to show off his work! LOL This solves the problem with my hubby because he's able to see with his own eyes the things Keegan is learning and some of what we do during our homeschool time! It's like educational scrapbooking! AWESOME! So this is what we did day one on our lapbook. Gotta love that Keegan is all boy with his plastic toy gun! LOL

Apple Cupcakes...mmmmmmmm....

2010-09-22T21:46:00.000-07:00

I made these yummy cupcakes on Monday for our homeschool co-op planning meeting! My son and the neighbor boys were drooling over them so I had to guard them with my life! LOL Lucky for them I had a few leftover so I was nice and shared! :)

Team Courtright

2010-09-18T20:14:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited! My stepson, Taylor has decided to play football again this year! Last year we were only able to make it to one of his games because of my hubby's crazy work schedule (only had Sundays off) so we made big signs to show off at the game and hold while we cheered for him. This year we wanted to get sweatshirts made and hubby chose TEAM COURTRIGHT to go across the back! We opted to go with black sweatshirts w/ white writing so we could wear them for all of our kids events and not have to worry so much about team colors. With as many battles and struggles as we've had in dealing with being a blended family, I LOVE looking at us like our family is a team and that we can work together and cheer one another on! They didn't have a sweatshirt in Bitty's size so we just got her a black tshirt and had Team Courtright written on the front so it could be seen. How cute is this?!

So yeah, we're excited to watch Taylor play football again. Can't believe he's in 8th grade and going on 14 years old!!! YIKES! Exciting thing is that means only 4 1/2 more years til he's an adult! WAHOOOOOOOO!! The Lord has been showing me some awesome things and I feel great in knowing that once he's out on his own things will be a million times better! I just have to continue to pray for peace and strength to endure the next few years and then I'll see the reward for my work...for not giving up and for continuing to stand strong in the Lord and what He wants me to do and how He wants me to act. I don't know how people can go through the trials and tribulations of life and not have a relationship with the Lord! He's my saving grace!!!

First day of school!

2010-08-31T11:48:00.001-07:00

Well, yesterday kicked off our homeschool year! I made him this sign and hung streamers around the living room/dining room areas, just to give it a more festive feel. We started the day by surprising Keegan and taking him out for donuts and chocolate milk at our local bakery. He was so excited when we pulled up! I'm bummed that I spaced taking a picture of it but it was really fun for all of us to sit around the table munching on YUMMY donuts and sippin our chocolate! Then off daddy went to work and the kids & I headed home to get started. Mondays I have bible study from 12-2pm so I was really hoping we'd get all 6 subjects done by the time we had to leave and to my pleasant surprise Keegan finished all his work by 11:15am!! That's only 2 hours and 15 minutes!! Since he did so well and finished up so early I decided to take the kids out to McDonalds for lunch as a special treat before bible study!

So yeah, a pretty awesome first day of school! Keegan was able to come home and do his chores quickly and spend a few hours playing with his friends across the street and we ended the day with PIZZA! :) To top things off, our friend Dave is helping make Axe Cop episodes for our friend Ethan (he and his brother created the comic) and asked if Keegan would like to be one of the voices on this next episode which he was seriously stoked about! What a great first day of school!

On a side note, I'm not sure if you guys were aware of this or not but, I have the WORLD'S best and most amazing husband!! Yep, I do! I am so honored by that fact! :) Earlier this summer my hubby made a skate ramp for the kids and we've had a few slabs of leftover wood in our backyard. Sunday afternoon my hubby used that wood to make a super cool shield for Keegan!! We bought the dagger earlier that day and my hubby used his airbrush gun to paint it all nice. The neighbor kids thought the shield was so cool that they asked if Josh could make them one too but we didn't have enough wood! I am so excited for my kids to have such an awesome hands-on kind of dad! Everyday he plays with them and shows them how loved and special they are to him and he's always doing special things for them and he just blows me away on a daily basis! I didn't have much of a dad growing up so I am very thankful and excited that I am married to such an amazing man & father!!!!

A new chapter...

2010-08-29T19:10:00.000-07:00

Well, tomorrow starts off another year of homeschooling! YAY!! When I step back and look at my life it still amazes me that I'm a homeschooling mom and this will be our 4th year of homeschooling! When my son Keegan was 4 years old I was working full time as a CNA/unit secretary at our local hospital. I worked 3-11:30pm so that he wouldn't have to be in daycare very much and this meant that if he was going to attend a preschool, that would have meant less time for me to spend with him and more time of him being sent off to be cared for and taught by people that weren't my husband or I. The thought of that seriously made me sick. I opted to buy the same curriculum that his daycare used for their preschool program and started working on it at home during the mornings before I went to work. The longer I did it the more set I became on homeschooling. Before that I was so anti-homeschooling! I thought homeschooled kids were weird and that they'd turn out to be weird adults, unable to really socialize with the rest of the normal world. LOL It seriously cracks me up to think back to those days. I quickly came to realize that even kids sent off to public school could turn out to be outcasts or anti-social people, not able to really function in the real world. I'll skip all the other points of why I choose to homeschool and we'll just say that it's what the Lord placed on my heart and He made it VERY clear that I was to homeschool! So yeah, that was 4 years ago! We're still learning a lot as we go along. I'm learning what works best for Keegan and what works best for me and this year brings a whole new challenge...a younger sister full-on into her terrible-two's! LOL It's definitely going to be hard trying to balance keeping Tatym entertained and being able to help Keegan with his daily school work. This year I'm vowing to get up every morning before the rest of the family, get showered and dressed and ready for the day and sit down for some prayer & quiet time with the Lord before the rest of the family wakes up. Ideally I'd love to be getting up around 5:30am but I have a really hard time getting up earlier than 7am so it will take me awhile to build up to it. I'll be happy with 6am! :) This past week I managed to get up at 6:40 two mornings in a row! HOT DANG, that's awesome for me! LOL

Tomorrow we start a new tradition for the first day of school: we're going out for donuts and chocolate milk at the new bakery in our town! Keegan doesn't know about it yet but he does know that we've got something special planned and he's excited and anxious to find out what it is!

Tomorrow begins my new journey in scheduling our days more. Since I started homeschooling Keegan a year early (due to his birthday falling in November he missed the cut-off for starting school but since he could already read and knew so much we opted to go ahead and start kindergarten early) I used it as an excuse to be more relaxed with his schoolwork. I was lazy! So this year we're buckling down and getting serious! I also know that for both my son, and I, we do better with structure. We do good when we know what the plan is and have a schedule of what to do during the day.

So as I get ready to tuck my kids into bed tonight and say our prayers, I'm going to be saying a special prayer for the Lord to help us adapt to our new schedule and for Keegan to have a happy heart about his school work, for me to be more patient and understanding, for us to keep pretty close to the schedule (allowing God to still do as He wants with us day-to-day), for Tatym to not terrorize her brother while he's doing his work (LOL) and for this year to go smoothly! Here's to a new chapter in our lives! Thank you Lord for this amazing blessing you have given me, to be a homeschooling mom to two amazing and wonderful children and a stepmom to another homeschooled young man! Bless our school year Lord, we do it all for YOU!

Sassy hair bows!

2010-07-20T10:23:00.000-07:00

I recently was browsing the etsy.com site and saw some adorable hair bows. As always I try to think about whether I could make some of my own so I started searching online for a video or blog on how to make these cute hair bows! Turns out, they are SUPER easy to make!!

Here is a video that I used to learn how:

Here I have some of the ribbon on the wooden dowels:

Here are 3 of my finished bows:

I looked all over town for some alligator clips to put these bows on but couldn't find any. I resorted to ordering wholesale from eBay so now I'm just waiting for my clips to arrive so I can hot glue the bow onto the clip! I'm so excited about these and my daughter kept saying how cute they were! LOVE IT! These would make great birthday/Christmas gifts too!

Completing Him Challenge!!

2010-07-20T10:08:00.000-07:00

I recently discovered a new blogger that I just LOVE! Her name is Courtney and she seems like an amazing christian woman and she has youtube videos that she posts about being a christian wife and they are so encouraging and motivating! Anyways, check out her blog: Women Living Well, you'll be glad you did!

So as I was browsing around her blog I saw the Completing Him Challenge and knew I wanted to jump on the bandwagon! I've recently started a book study with a group of friends using the book Created To Be His Help Meet by Debi Pearl and along with that I've been posting the daily dares from the book, The Love Dare (seen in the movie Fireproof) on my Facebook page. So this weekly challenge totally goes with what I've been working on. My passion and heart is for women's ministry, particularly involving being christian wives and mothers so I can never get enough of this stuff!

Mind you, this challenge is running from June 7th-Aug. 9th so I'm a little late in the game but you know, it's never too late to start working on being a better wife to your husband! So late or not, I'm jumping in! :) Week one says to post that I'm joining in the challenge so here I am! Here is a vido of Courtney explaining about the challenge:

I really hope some of you feel led to join in as well!!

PRAISING GOD!!!!

2010-07-15T11:20:00.000-07:00

My stepson, Taylor was baptized this past week while he was away at church camp!! I just feel like shouting it from the rooftops! We have a complicated relationship to put it nicely. I do get glimmers of hope and I can see that God is fully working in the situation but as always, once things start getting good Satan jumps right in and does stuff to mess things up again. He's 13 now and as he's becoming a young man I can see that he's starting to see truth in things rather than the lies he's been constantly fed since I entered the picture almost 11 years ago. He is still blinded in a lot of ways but that's to be expected until he gets a few years older or even until he moves out on his own, away from the constant influence he gets where he's at. I just cherish the moments, however few and far between they are, that I get with him that are genuinely good and free from all the cruddola. I constantly pray for him because it has got to be so tough being in his position and bouncing from house to house and being put in situations that he's put in. I look forward to the day that God fully opens his eyes and when Taylor is free to love us the way he really wants to without shame or feeling like he's letting the other family down. I am just so beyond excited that he heard God calling him to step out and be baptized! I know that God is working in his heart and that just moves me to tears and makes me want to jump up and down and cheer!!! I still hold strong that God is going to mend my broken relationship with Taylor but even if He doesn't, I know that I'll be seeing Taylor in heaven where things are uncomplicated and perfect and there we will be free to have a perfect relationship without Satan's influence!! That in itself brings me peace!! So today I want to thank God for the work He is doing in Taylor's life and in our relationship! Thank you ABBA!

FOOD FIGHT!!!

2010-07-08T15:41:00.000-07:00

Some friends of ours have a food fight every summer and this is the first year we were able to make it out there and let me just say what a blast it was! We started out having a bbq at the house and then walked down to the lower field where they have their garden area. All the food is tilled into the ground to help fertilize so it's not a complete waste!
The kids running to the field, chanting, "FOOD FIGHT, FOOD FIGHT":

The food fight barely started and Keegan got plastered with butterscotch pudding! LOL

My friend Dea got Tatym with red jello! She didn't think it was too funny! LOL

Keegan had a blast and was picking food out of his ears the next morning! :)

Checking out her messy dress:

Showing me the mess LOL:

After the food fight the kids jumped into the pond to rinse off!

It was so much fun! Maybe next year I'll put the camera down and join in...maybe! LOL

Forgotten pictures...

2010-07-08T15:35:00.001-07:00

Back in May I took the kids puddle jumping and forgot that I took some pictures on my cellphone so thought I'd share! It was so fun and I'm glad I have these pictures to look back on!!

This picture was taken on one of our Girls Night Outs! The sky was so stormy looking and later on it was almost black out and it just POURED down! Luckily by then we were in the movie theater so we just heard it! :)

Lots of summer FUN!!

2010-07-08T14:56:00.001-07:00

I can't believe it's already July 8th but thank goodness we're finally getting some awesome weather here on the coast! The kids and I have been having lots of fun (daddy too, when he's not working) going to the lakes, going fruit/veggie picking, birthday parties, fun projects around the house, Wildlife Safari, 4th of July festivities, etc. It's been a great summer so far!!
Here are some pics from our activities so far! An afternoon at the lake having a picnic and hanging out with friends:
Tatym stealing snacks from our friends and sitting on her throne! LOL

Gotta love throwing sand in the air and managing to get it on your head! :)

The 5 small specks around the grass on the left hand side of the sand dune is my friend Dea with her 3 oldest kiddos and my son, Keegan! Those crazy kids thought it would be fun to climb the dune all the way to the top and run down! It was fun but a LOT of work!

Keegan floating on the lake! Heavenly!!

HOME:

Fun on the 4th of July at the park:

Keegan caught a fish at the fishing derby booth (thank you to the local fire department!!):

ENDLESS performing at the park (they are one of our worship teams at church)--Ray & Christina and Bryan:

Tatym loved the sheep!

Gotta love smores in the backyard!

Wildlife Safari!!
We stopped for a picnic and to get the wigglies out!

My hubby & I have agreed that I have like a million pictures of various animals from Wildlife Safari, the Game Park, fairs, etc. that I don't need to take anymore pictures...but I couldn't help it! However, I did manage to only take 2 pictures of this giraffe and 2 pictures of the elephants and that was it for this trip! LOL

Then it was off to pick cherries (we got peas too but no pics of that):

Tatym would climb up in her stroller, grab cherries out of the box, climb back down and then go put them in another ladies bucket! I think the lady was paying her! LOL

I see a monkey in the tree!!

All the kids and the goods! They were such awesome helpers and I think everyone had a stomachache by the end of the day from eating too many cherries!

Well, that's just a few days of our fun, I'll post more, later!

Blessed Day

2010-06-16T21:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's Summer FUN Challenge event was a special time with daddy and the kiddos so no pics to post for that! I've recently started a bible study on the book: Created To Be His Help Meet by Debi Pearl so on Tuesday nights my living room is filled with amazing ladies that have been called to take part in this study with me so my awesomely sweet husband chooses to take the kiddos out of the house to give me a chance to focus on the study and not have to worry about someone wanting me for something or messing with our books or what not. So super dad took the kiddos out to dinner at McDonalds and then headed to...WALMART! Wahooo! LOL They spent time looking at video games and toys and just enjoying their time together.

Today we were blessed with some visitation time with my stepson, Taylor! We were supposed to have more time with him but that's a big ol' can of worms that I don't feel like opening at the moment! Let's just say that it happens A LOT and it's not something hubby or I really appreciate or like very much...but, what can ya do? This is the hand we've been dealt and we do the best with what we get! I've learned to REALLY lean on God to get me through the aggravations! Anyways, since our time was cut down to just a 7 hour visit, we wanted to be sure to include Taylor in on the fun stuff. We decided to grab some McDonalds (wow, this just shows how unhealthy we are, huh??? McD's two days in a row! OOPS) and we headed to the park to enjoy the gorgeous day!

The boys thought these signs were hilarious so I HAD to take a picture of them with the signs! LOL Boys and potty humor go together like cookies and milk! :)

The kids had fun playing on the tire swing and even hubby joined in on the fun!

We bought this shirt for Taylor's 13th birthday (see previous post about the FarmVille party) and we think it's pretty rockin! :) It says "I'm kind of a big deal on FarmVille"

And since we don't get a whole lot of time with Taylor, I have to take every chance I get to snap some pics of all our kiddos together! So, here are some of the pics of our photo shoot! LOL

A first for Keegan!

2010-06-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

I wasn't sure what today's "special plan" was going to be and the day got away from me pretty fast! I was just going to have us play board games or something but then we decided we wanted to order Little Caesars for dinner and then the idea got brought up that we should call my sister-in-law, who happens to work for Yellow Cab Taxi. Keegan was BEGGING to take a ride in her taxi so that became the fun plan for the evening! LOL Keegan seriously was squealing with excitement and bouncing off the walls while we were waiting for Jessie to come and pick him up! He was even sitting on the window ledge, staring out at the driveway and he kept checking his watch to see how long it'd been!

At last, Jessie arrived and Keegan booked it out the door! Of course I had to take a million pictures to commemorate this special occasion! LOL Keegan's first taxi ride! :)

Today I also ordered Keegan a Snuggie that he's been begging for for months. I joked with my husband that we're raising the next generation of white trash...a kid that gets excited about taxi rides and Snuggies! LOL Oh and sorry for the funky picture coloring, I didn't realize it until later that I had the setting all wrong on the camera!

Summer Lovin :)

2010-06-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

WAHOO, IT'S SUMMER!!! So we homeschool all year long but we're really laid back about it, especially during summer months. I'm so excited about everything that goes with summer...bbq's, camping, 4th of July, picnics, beach days, hiking...adventure!!! I have a mission this summer, that I'm hoping will become such a normal part of life that I do it all year long. My mission is to do at least one fun project or activity everyday this summer with my kiddos. I'm going to try to take pictures during each special event but as you know, sometimes you can't take the camera with you. Yesterday we had a BBQ at a local lake but it was so windy at first that right after we ate, we loaded our stuff up so it wouldn't blow away and then went over to the water, where the kids splashed and played for awhile. It amazes me that no matter how windy or cold it is, kids don't care, they'll jump right in and play around! I love it!

So far this past week we've had a picnic at one of the elementary schools with a friend of ours and her kiddos, where the kids got to ride around on bikes, eat our picnic lunch and play on the playground for 3 hours.

**FYI, mom wasn't using her brain properly and neglected to administer sunscreen on herself (she did however get the toddler covered) and dear ol' brainiac mom has a RAGING sunburn on her back, shoulders, arms and shins that hurts even 3 days later! Yes...lesson learned! LOL

We had a fun lunch of english muffin pizzas one afternoon, where Keegan got to pick what toppings he wanted and make his own pizza. He loved being in charge! :)

We just bought a new tent that fits our family a whole lot better. It's like 18x10 and can fit both of our queen sized air mattresses, Tatym's playpen and still have plenty of room for our stuff. My hubby, who happens to be the world's BEST dad (and husband), was itching to set the tent up to check it out so it's been up in our backyard now for like 4 days so the kids have been having a blast playing in it. Hubby even had a campout with Keegan the night before last. I love our new tent!

It's been raining a lot here lately so one day this past week, I took the kiddos on a puddle jumping walk! We walked around the neighborhood on the hunt for massive puddles which we found some great ones! I couldn't take the camera along for obvious reasons! LOL Tatym was soaked from head-to-toe by the time we got done and Keegan was soaked up to his waist! It was a blast and definitely something we'll do a lot more now that Tatym is getting older...but hopefully it won't rain like that very much this summer! *Wishful thinking!*

We went on a walk around the neighborhood on a sunny day. We walked down to my grandparents house to check on our garden and then we stopped at the park and played for a little while.

Have I mentioned how much I love being a mom?! I feel so blessed to be able to stay at home with my kiddos! It's the best "job" I could ever hope for and I'm cherishing the time I have with them!! <3>

Go A's!!

2010-06-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

Well, today marks the end of my son's baseball season! Today was Jamboree day which consisted of us having to be at the field by 7:45am where Keegan's team played 3 mini games over the span of 4 hours! Praise the Lord, He blessed us with sunshine which is a very welcome change to the massive amounts of rain we've been getting! On a side note, who in the world thought of giving baseball players, especially young players, white pants??? Obviously someone that didn't have to try to keep those things looking clean! LOL It's been a LONG day and thankfully it's nap time for the wee one and I'm getting us packed up to go see my sister, to celebrate her birthday!

Thought I'd share the little treat I made for the BBQ today, yellow & green cupcakes (team colors):

A FarmVille Birthday Party

2010-05-28T11:19:00.001-07:00

My stepson, Taylor is turning 13 at the end of the month and we haven't been able to throw him a real birthday party since he was like 6 or 7 because of how far away he lives and that he always had school or other plans. We've driven the 5 hours over to take him out to lunch and then drive back home so this is an awesome chance for us to celebrate with him! He's a total FarmVille addict so I figured it would be a fun party theme!

I drew out the FV logo and wrote HAPPY BIRTHDAY around it and printed out various FV objects to put around the sign. I got a plaid picnic table cloth to cover the cake table to give it more of a farm feel.

I printed out these pictures and added Taylor's head to the body.

For those not familiar with FV, they don't just have farm animals, they have a bunch of other animals too so I found this monkey pinata at Walmart and thought it would go great!

I searched and searched at Walmart for farm stuff to use for decorations and this is the best I could come up with! Little People farm sets! My daughter (she'll be 2 in July) LOVES these of course so we'll give them to her to play with when the party is all done!

You can see that I bought some fake money then printed out the FV cash logo and taped it to the front and spread gold coins around the table too.

Can't have a party without decorating with streamers, right?! LOL We also printed out bigger pictures of FV animals and barn and taped them around the living room.

And no party is complete without the birthday cake! We always buy this cake from Albertsons, it's a white cake with raspberry filling and white buttercream frosting so I just bought a tub of buttercream, colored it green and slathered it right on top of the cake (so yeah, double the frosting...soooo healthy LOL) then I printed out more FV pictures onto cardstock and taped them onto toothpicks to decorate. I used candles and toothpicks to make the fence and crushed graham crackers for the dirt plots! Pretty easy and turned out cute!

I also have been decorating our front window for birthdays since we've had kids so I drew out the FV logo again and just wrote HAPPY BIRTHDAY (backwards so Taylor could see it when he got here) and that we love him!

I can't believe he's turning 13!!! My hubby and I started dating when Taylor was just 2 1/2 years old, still wearing diapers! I remember when he was 4 and 5 he'd say he wanted to marry me! Awww... then as he got older things got a lot harder, there's been a lot of fighting and he didn't like me for a long time. I've said hundreds and hundreds, maybe even thousands of prayers and every so often over the last couple of years I'd see a glimmer of hope that things were slowly getting better. This past year things have been really great and the visits have been especially nice the past 2 months so I'm getting really excited to see what the Lord is doing in our lives and in our relationships! We're so excited to celebrate with him and I look forward to seeing what kind of man he's going to become!

The Swagger Wagon---LOL!!

2010-05-04T15:58:00.001-07:00

This youtube video is HILARIOUS!! I personally LOVE the Sienna mini-van commercials and this music video had me cracking up!! Just thought I'd share! :)

Blog-aversary Giveaway

2010-04-03T17:08:00.001-07:00

So I finally got around to posting a giveaway! Head over to my blog The Sassy Scrapper to learn how you can enter to win!! GOOD LUCK! :)

Rainbow Egg Cupcakes

2010-04-03T14:29:00.001-07:00

Being in the holiday spirit, thought it was due time to make some rainbow cupcakes! First of all, let me just say that Easter is my 2nd favorite holiday (Christmas is my first). It's the most amazing event in history that we celebrate...Jesus' resurrection! For those that don't know, Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, he was placed in a tomb and 3 days later rose from the dead, just as He said He would do! Because of his death & resurrection, we are now able to join our Lord in Heaven!!!! What an amazing gift that we are all so undeserving of!! HAPPY RESURRECTION DAY!!!!

Today my sweet little Bitty (that's my nickname for my daughter) is sick with some sort of stomach flu. She's thrown up 5 times already and is thankfully now taking a nap. Poor little baby cakes! While she's napping my son and I made these yummy rainbow cupcakes using our Easter cupcake tray. We just used a white cake mix and separated it into 6 bowls and used food coloring:

I then layered the cake mixes in the cupcake tray to make a rainbow:

This is what they looked like when they came out of the pan:

I then topped it with cream cheese frosting and cut it in half to see how the rainbow layers turned out:

Keegan was so excited about it and exclaims, "Mom, I LOVE your cooking!" Awwww...exactly what I love to hear from my kiddos! Have a very happy Easter everyone!!! God bless you!!

A Giveaway

2010-03-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

Over at Thrifty NW Moms they are hosting a giveaway from Baby Legs! You can enter to win 7 different times by doing various things listed. These would be perfect for my DD!
GOOD LUCK!

Can you help Sheena???

2010-03-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

I saw this posted on Be Different...Act Normal and thought I should repost on my blog as well.

Ok friends.
I have a little story to tell. A story about me.
It's kind of a secret....unless you are in the family/friend category of my life.
I'm going to use visual aids....because I like those.
And at the end, they'll be a few questions--I'll need your help.......ok?
Here we go:
Hi. I'm Sheena.

This is me holding a lime.

Why am I holding a lime?

Wait! What is that on my arm?

Well, it's a PICC line, for antibiotics, of course.
*********************************
Let's start at the very beginning, story goes like this. (very, very, very short version.)

July 2008: legs go numb. then hands. then arms.
July 2008-Oct 2008: poked. prodded. tested. retested. scanned. pants dropped for strangers on multiple occasions.
Symptoms get worse. Neurological and joint pain.
Oct 2008: Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
Oct 2008-Jan 2009. Begin, and continue treatment for MS.
Feb 2009 UNdiagnosed with MS (hooray!), diagnosed with Lyme disease. (oh, Lyme/lime, get it?) (to learn a little about Lyme, Click HERE, then to Lyme 101, then click the Lyme Disease Tab)
Feb 2009-Present day. Here I am, still battling Lyme Disease. I'm currently on month 4 of the antibiotics via PICC line.

My body is sooooooo over these crazy antibiotics. Not to mention my poor arm. We're pulling the line in a few weeks (hooray!!!)
But I'm still not better (not hooray).
Lyme Disease is a bacterial infection, carried by deer ticks. If caught early, it can usually be treated quickly with oral antibiotics, and there you have it. Unfortunately, we're coming up on two years for me....it's getting a bit trickier.
We need more options....and this is where YOU come in.
We love my doctor, and we are so thankful to finally find someone who is really trying to help us (we've bounced around alot) But.....big, stinky but......there aren't very many Lyme cases in Utah. While I know he is doing all he can, I sometimes wonder if there is someone else out there who has seen more people with Lyme, and knows some kind of magic trick to help me out.
I thought that maybe, just maybe, by posting a little something here for you all to read (all 20 of you), maybe YOU know someone with Lyme? Someone who's beat it? Do you? Can you help me? Spread the word?? I am quickly growing tired of this, and I'm pretty sure I'm ready to be done. Yep, I am.
So...please....if you or anyone you know is currently being treated for Lyme, or, ever better--CURED!!! YAY!! Please send them my way. I'd love to have a chat with them (no complainers please....I like to keep it positive around here, thanks:)
I have debated whether or not to post about this (it's going to be a struggle to hit "publish")....I like to keep it "happy fun" around here, and this is not so "happy fun", but I also know the powers of the www....and how happy AND fun would it be if we got these bugs out of my body! So I'm really crossing my fingers that this will work.
So there, now it's in YOUR hands. Good luck.
contact: sheenajibson(at)gmail(dot)com. thank you guys!!
and...if you really want to learn more about Lyme, be sure to check out the trailer for Under Our Skin, a documentary on Lyme Disease and the controversy of treatment.

Etching

2010-03-22T00:49:00.001-07:00

First off, you gotta check out Emily's Not So Idle Hands blog and see where I got my inspiration! Here is the project she shared that I just had to give a try! I've never used etching cream before but thought it would be a fun project idea to use for gifts. Come to find out...I'm gonna need some more practice! LOL Here is my first try:

I bought a vase awhile back for this very type of thing. I wanted to etch a "C" on it for my mom-in-law and after I practiced on the frappucino glass, I thought I could handle the vase. The bummer is that I used chipboard and there was just enough space that some of the etching cream went underneath so it looks sloppier than I'm ok with. Turns out I'll be keeping this vase and using it to hold my glittery pens! :)

On another note, my baby girl's 2nd birthday is fast approaching. Ok, ok, it really isn't until July but as I learned last year, it sneaks up on me and catches me when I least expect it! :) This year I vowed to get a jump start so that I could do more of the handmade decorations that I've done in the past for my son. A friend of mine that I went to high school with has an older sister that makes AMAZING buttons. You HAVE to check out her blog The Button Shop. Tessa is amazingly fabulous and I drool over her work on a regular basis. Well, she made a set of buttons that became the inspiration for Tatym's birthday party theme, which is Little Birdies. After I saw this set I asked her to make a set for me as well and she totally did! I am beyond in love with them! Check these out:

Aren't they fabulously amazing?!? The big buttons are the size of quarters and the small buttons are the size of dimes. I plan on using them when I make Tatym's birthday scrapbook page and maybe use them on a birthday tutu as well! Tonight I sat down to start making the birthday party invitations and this is what I came up with:

As Tatym's birthday gets closer and we settle on a party date and time then I'll fill in the rest of the information. I made 3 invites tonight and each one is a little bit different, that's the fun of handmaking them, no two are exactly alike!

Well, it's after 1am and I should be getting to bed. My aunt and 2 younger cousins are coming to town for the week and we have lots of fun things planned, a picnic at the park, a day at the beach, a tour of an old style merchant ship and maybe a trip to a farm to watch the birth of lambs...fun fun fun!!! Have a great spring break!!

Wanna know how nerdy I am???

2010-03-19T14:34:00.001-07:00

Yep, I'm THIS nerdy:

This is my handy dandy way of organizing my coupons! LOL I previously just had a regular 3-ring binder but several bloggers said it's pretty inevitable that you'll drop your binder and things will go flyin here, there and everywhere so I broke down and bought a zip-up binder! NERD NERD NERD!! It is almost impossible to find a cute zip-up binder but I think this one isn't too bad. Found it at Fred Meyers this morning.

This first zipper section has files which I'm labelling with the stores around town that I shop at. I keep their weekly ads in their labelled area and this makes it easy for me to cross-reference sales and what not!

This is the pocket on the inside where I keep my pens, shopping list, special coupons that I want to make sure I don't miss (the $10 KMart coupon that I'm so excited about) and my catalinas.

This pocket insert is where I keep my scissors and doubler coupons. You can also see that I have dividers labelled with different areas in the stores like beverages, snacks, baking, health & body, household, canned goods, etc.

I bought baseball card pockets to organize my coupons. I can easily see what I have coupons for and try to fold them (if they need folded) in a way that I can easily see the expiration date but that isn't always possible). In the very back I have page protectors where I put my JoAnns ads, various stores coupon policies and misc. stuff.

So there ya have it, if there were ever any question as to how big of a nerd I am, these pictures prove it!! LOL I'm going to be "that lady" and the shame my poor kids will have to endure! I'm sure I'm going to scar them for life! Hee hee Oh that reminds me, I need to put a calculator in there...well, I'm off to find my pink calculator, have a happy Friday! :)

Cereal comin out the WAZOO! :)

2010-03-17T15:48:00.001-07:00

Like I said earlier, I'm totally hooked on this whole world of couponing! I was given a heads up that Albertsons was going to be having a big sale on Post cereal and that I should get on ebay and order up a bunch of coupons for $1 off 2 boxes. Then there was rumor that the Albertson's ads would have their doubler coupons making it $2 off 2 boxes. Team that with a deal that for every 5 boxes you buy, you get a $4 catalina (an in-store coupon to be used with your next purchase). So, yes, I paid $2 for 40 coupons. People may scoff at the idea of paying for coupons (we're actually not paying for the coupons themselves, it's for the time the seller put in by getting the coupons and clipping them and mailing them out to the buyer) but you know what??? At the end of this sale I will have gotten 100 boxes of name brand cereal and the only money I will have spent in the end is the $2 I paid for the coupons!!! $2 for 100 boxes of Post cereals...who's scoffin now??? LOL Seriously though, so far today I've been able to get 30 boxes of cereal which is now piling up in my garage:

Well, actually that is only 23 boxes because I gave 2 to my neighbor and I've got 5 sitting by my couch to be taken to a friend's house before I go to church tonight. I also was able to have a friend meet me at the store and I gave her enough coupons to get 15 boxes for her family as well. So far today, that's 45 boxes of free cereal! I'll be heading back to Albertson's before church and again after church! :)
I plan on donating some to our church for food baskets and giving some to other friends and family members...there's no way my family could eat that many boxes of cereal in even a years time but there's no way I'm going to pass up free cereal! LOL

I've also been signing up for a lot of freebie stuff, including the offer from Shutterfly that you get 3 free picture cards and all you pay is the $0.99 for shipping!

I opted to get thank you cards which always come in handy! A few weeks ago I got 280 address labels from Vistaprint and all I had to pay was the $4.60 for shipping! If you're interested in keeping up with all the hot deals, freebies and fun, check out these sites (click on the name to be taken to their site):
Money Saving Mom
Fabulessly Frugal
The Frugal Girls
Give Me Neither
Thrifty NW Mom

I'm totally hooked!

2010-03-13T00:27:00.000-08:00

Tonight I went out on another coupon adventure with my friend Alisha. I blame her for newest obsession/addiction with coupons and sale hunting but I love her for it! :) I was able to get all of this for only $14.85!

Out of all of that, this stuff was completely FREE...well, actually I got paid $0.12 because the Buddies soap was only $0.97 and I had $1 off each of them! I really should have been paid another $1 because the Monopoly card game was now marked down to $4 and I had a $5 off coupon but the store manager at the time just let me get it for free. Can't complain too much about that! LOL

So, go to coupons.com and print off their coupon for $1 off any Johnson's baby product and go to walmart and let THEM pay YOU $0.03 to buy a bar of Buddies soap. Better yet, print off two coupons and let them pay you $0.06 and get 2 bars! :) Then head over to playsaver.com and print off their coupon for $5 off a Monopoly game and head to Walmart and buy the Monopoly Deal card game and either get it for free or let them give you $1 for buying it (depending on how the sales manager handles it). I also printed off the coupons for $4 off Hungry Hippos and Connect 4 and paid $1.24 for each travel size game! Oh and they have a coupon for buy one, get one free of the My Little Pony toys (only the single assortment) so I bought 2 of them and only paid $5! I am totally loving this! :) It's such a great way to restock my gift box (I have 2 rubbermaid bins that I stock up with various things I find on sale throughout the year and when someone's birthday comes up I just look through my bins and put together a present).

My newest adventure...COUPONS!!

2010-03-12T11:05:00.000-08:00

I've always been intrigued by the people that use coupons. Hearing about the CouponMom and how she can buy hundreds of dollars worth of groceries for next to nothing seemed like a fairytale! I've tried clipping coupons before and never quite got the hang of it to really make it worthwhile. I bought the CouponMom book but haven't quite found the time to really read it. My awesome friend, Alisha, informed me that she is a couponer (yes, that's the word I'm going to use LOL). I begged for her to bestow her vast wisdom upon little ol' me and she happily accepted the challenge! :) Last night she told me which coupons to be sure to print out and off we went to Safeway. To make a long story short, I was able to buy 5 boxes of brand name cereal, 10 boxes of a variety of fruit roll-ups and fruit gushers, 2 sandwich lunchables, a bag of salad, 2 bags of mixed veggies, 2 bottles of salad dressing, a bottle of flavored water and 2 little bags of chocolate coins all for around $6.50!!!! Isn't that just magical??? I'm totally hooked!!! So be prepared to see posts about my wonderful finds and all the things I'm learning! THANK YOU ALISHA!!!

Oobleck

2010-03-11T12:03:00.000-08:00

If you've never made Oobleck, you are sadly missing out on some FUN! :) To celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday (March 2nd) I decided to make some Oobleck (read the book Bartholemew and the Oobleck) with my Prek/K homeschool co-op kiddos. They not only liked it...they LOVED it! All the squeals and ohhhhs and aaahhhhs and eewwwwws were priceless! Since it's a gray, wet and dreary day here on the Oregon Coast, my son, Keegan and I decided to make a batch.

All you need is 2 cups of Cornstarch (you can get a Walmart brand for $0.88), around 1 cup of water (you don't want it too watery so add it slowly because you might not need the whole cup) and some food coloring to make it look more interesting!

This stuff is awesome! When you apply pressure it acts as a solid. Try punching it, poking it, etc. It gets hard. Now try gently pushing your hand into it or letting it slide off your hand...it's like liquid! FUN, huh?! Keegan and I played in it for a LONG time and plan on playing with it when my hubby gets home! Keegan asked if we could make it with our Tiger Cubs at the next den meeting! Oh, and this stuff is SUPER easy to clean up! If it dries on your hand or on the counter, it flakes right off or just use water and it rinses right off! Can't beat that! HAVE FUN!

Blogaversary!!

2010-03-02T23:59:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been almost a year since I started blogging. My other blog Sassy Scrapper was started on March 14th, 2009! I had recently signed up to be a Close To My Heart consultant and started dabbling in cardmaking and became completely hooked on crafting. I started this blog to separate my paper crafting from my other crafts and recipes and family stuff. In order to celebrate my 1 year blogaversary I'm going to be giving some blog candy away. I'm going to get a stash of stuff together, take a picture and post it all on here for everyone to have a chance to win! Stay tuned this week for the post! :)

FAITH Glass Block

2010-02-24T22:29:00.000-08:00

Here is the glass block that I made this evening:

I bought the block at a local building material store ($7.50) but I have seen them at JoAnn's in Portland and I hear that Michael's carries them from time-to-time. I used my Cricut to cut out the vinyl ($9 for 2 rolls of 12x24") lettering and picture. The dot lights I found on clearance at Fred Meyers (around $3) after Valentine's Day. I had to buy a glass drill bit ($28) and my wonderfully awesome husband drilled the hole into the bottom for me!

My friend Sarah has asked about how the Cricut works so I took a few pictures tonight during my vinyl cutting. I didn't want to put all my vinyl onto the sticky mat so I cut a 2x12" strip (my letters were only going to be cut at 1 1/2") and attached it to the edge of the sticky mat.

You put the mat up to the edge of the Cricut and hit the "load paper" button and it pulls it in (like a printer):

Each cartridge comes with a keypad for you to select what picture/letter/shape you want the Cricut to cut and there are buttons to pick sizes and so I typed in all the letters I wanted and the pictures and hit the "cut" button:

It cuts out exactly what you want, in the order you want it then I peeled the vinyl off the sticky mat so I could better get ahold of the letters. I then peeled each letter off the backing so I could stick it to the glass block.

It's intimidating at first and I still don't have it all figured out but I'm still super impressed with the Cricut and LOVE having it for stuff like this! Sarah, I hope that gave you an idea. Here's a link to a video clip of the Cricut's awesomeness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z74fevbqcC0

Magnets

2010-02-21T08:39:00.001-08:00

I may be a little biased here but I personally think I have the best husband on the planet! LOL I got nailed with a horrible migraine yesterday that knocked me on my butt out of nowhere! Praise God that I have my grandmother close by that is all too eager to help me with the kids when I'm sick. I hate asking for help, it's one of those things that is REALLY hard for me to do but with having a migraine and a very loud toddler, they don't mix well together! I called for backup and grandma took the kids for 3 hours so I could try to rest. When hubby got home, he took care of dinner and took the kids out of the house for awhile and by the time he got back and the kids got put to bed, I was so sick of being in my bed or on the couch that I wanted to ignore the dull pain and light-headedness and do something! LOL Now I think Josh enjoys the Cricut almost as much as me but he won't admit it, wouldn't be manly! :O} Anyways, we've been wanting to spend some time together because life has been busy and with me working out in the evenings at the gym, we haven't seen much of each other so we busted the Cricut out, my new cartridges, a new blade and a roll of MAGNET!!! WAHOOOOO! We made 2 cards (see my scrapping blog Christina The Sassy Scrapper) but we also made the adorable magnets in the above picture! They turned out so cute and we all love them! What a great ending to a lousy day!! Now we're off to go on an adventure in the beautiful weather!

Spring has sprung, Taco Pie and gulp Weigh-In

2010-02-18T20:08:00.000-08:00

I see signs of SPRING!!! WAHOO!

I took my little sweets to the park today to enjoy the FABULOUS sunshine and totally took the opportunity to get some cute shots in while we were there! Aren't they just precious?!

I also have a recipe that I got from the Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen blog. It's for Taco Pie which may sound interesting but it was so yummy! My son's Cub Scout Pack had their Blue & Gold Banquet tonight so I needed a casserole dish to take for the potluck and this was perfect! Sorry I don't have a picture, it was one of those crazy busy evenings and I was too rushed to even think about stopping for a picture!

Ingredients:
•1 pound Hamburger Meat
•1/2 cup Onion
•1 package (1 Oz. Packet) Taco Seasoning
•2 cans (8 Oz. Can) Crescent Rolls
•1 bag (9 Oz. Bag) Fritos
•16 ounces Sour Cream
•8 ounces Cheddar Cheese

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook meat. Drain, and add chopped onion and taco seasoning packet. Add the water the packet calls for, and simmer as instructed on the taco seasoning packet.
3. Cover the bottom and sides of 13×9 casserole dish with the crescent rolls. Press seams together to make one continuous crust (you may not need all of the second package).
4. Cover the crescent roll crust with a layer of crushed Fritos (I use the larger scoops; you can all use tortilla chips instead of Fritos). Add your meat mixture to the top of your crushed chip layer.
5. Spread sour cream over the meat mixture.
6. Sprinkle cheese over the sour cream.
7. Top with another layer of crushed Fritos.
8. Cook for 30 minutes.

So, now for the bad news...I gained 0.8 lbs this week! *sniffle* Really, I'm shocked it wasn't more because seriously, I've been eating so much garbage and not tracking my points! BAD BAD BAD! The upside is I did workout 3 days this last week so that's probably what saved me the most! This week my goal is to count my points and journal everyday and workout at least 4 days!

Alright, I have a crazy toddler type child running amuck in the house so I need to close this! Have a great weekend blogland friends!

Taco Soup Warms the Soul

2010-02-15T18:07:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite recipe for Taco Soup! Granted, this is the only recipe I've ever tried for Taco Soup but why mess with a good thing? LOL

Ingredients:
2 lbs fresh, lean ground beef
1 onion, coarsely chopped
4 oz. can diced green chilies
taco seasoning packet
Ranch dressing/dip packet
2 cans corn, undrained
4 cans stewed tomatoes, undrained
1 can pinto beans, undrained
1 can kidney beans, undrained
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro (optional)
grated Monterey Jack and/or cheddar cheese

Directions:
Chop onions. Brown meat and onions in 8qt stockpot. Add all the other ingredients (except cheese), stir and let cook over medium heat for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Top each bowl with cheese and enjoy! This makes enough for our family to have for at least 3 dinners. I can usually have enough leftover to fill 2 gallon size freezer bags about 3/4 full. To reheat all you have to do is let it thaw out and put it back on the stove til heated through. SOOOO YUMMY!

Happy Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T09:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I started loading the dishwasher and got sidetracked for a little bit and when I came back, this is what I found:

A little someone must've thought her shoes needed a good cleaning! LOL Now I know to check it before I start it!

Yesterday I hosted a Craft Night at a local party room. It's just a fun thing we do to get us moms out of the house and we all hang out, working on our various craft projects. We order pizza and bring goodies to share and spend 5pm-midnight chatting and getting some stuff done that we might not be able to get done at home. Last night we didn't have a whole lot of ladies come, just 4 of us total but we had fun! I was able to get 3 tu-tu's made, one with red & white tulle:

One with hot pink & green tulle:

And the third had baby blue and yellow tulle:

I also got Valentine cards made for my hubby & kids:

I made a big rice krispy heart to take to Craft night and it was oh so yummy! The perfect amount of gooeyness!

I also made the Peach Crumb Cake that I found on Bakerella.com (my favorite go-to site when I want to whip up a super fun and yummy dessert!

Hubby and I agreed that the new gun and Kitchen Aid qualified as our Valentine's Day gifts to each other so we weren't going to get each other anything else. I already had a box of chocolates and cookies for him along with a card from the kids that when it got opened it made sounds like someone was farting (gotta love farting jokes, huh). I didn't expect him to get me anything else but he surprised me with this cute little guy!

It's a Love Turtle!!! How cute is that?! I really am a lucky lady!!!

Happy Valentine's Day Blogland!!!
1 Corinthians 13:1-8a, 13
The Excellence of Love
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails;

But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

~ One happy lady right here! ~

2010-02-12T21:56:00.001-08:00

Yes, I've always had bigger than normal feet for a girl. I remember being in 3rd grade and wearing like a size 6 in women, maybe bigger. I guess I've just gotten used to my ski length feet but boy howdy, seeing Bitty in my shoes really makes me realize just how big my clodhoppers are! LOL As an adult, I can fluctuate between a 10-11, depending on the shoe brand and style but man, it's like half the length of my daughter! :)

My hubby has a huge love of guns but always feels bad spending the money on them so tonight he said he wanted to talk to me about a compromise he had in mind! He asked if I'd be ok if he got a gun, if he bought me the red Kitchen Aide I've been drooling over for a VERY long time. Hello?! Do you think it took me more than 2 seconds to respond with "OF COURSE!"? I bet it was half of a second for me to answer! I'm sure as heck not gonna pass up that plan! LOL You should have seen how quickly he jumped up, grabbed his phone and called the gun store to try to work out a deal (gotta love the salesman in him, LOL) and flew out the door at 5:30 so he could buy the gun before they closed at 6pm. On his way home he got this *insert angelic rejoicing song*:

Hubby said I seemed more excited about the mixer than I did when he brought home the Cricut for my Christmas present....I don't know, I think it's about the same excitement! :) Let me just say that I love my husband!!!!!! He hasn't been the best about gift giving (definitely not his love language) but the last couple of years (we've been together for 10.5 years) he's really been steppin up and getting me some whopper of gifts! THANKS BABE-A-LICIOUS, YOU'RE THE BEST! <3>

I can't wait to whip up batches of goodies with that little miss as she's growing up and of course with my son too!

Isn't it so pretty??? Now all I need is a bigger kitchen so I have more room to whip up my yummy-ness!!!

Weigh-In and Valentines

2010-02-12T18:43:00.001-08:00

Thursday night was my WW weigh-in from week 1 and I lost 3.8 lbs! Honestly I was hoping for at least 5lbs but sadly, I was a very bad eater on Tues & Wed so it was my own fault! This week I'm going to try very hard to do better and I'm on a mission to workout at least 5 times this week. I was going to go to a ZUMBA instructional class at my gym this evening but was wiped out and not feeling up to it. I am however going there tonight to workout with my friend Alisha. I LOVE ZUMBA!! :O)

Also, it was Valentine Party Day at co-op today so Keegan and I whipped up some Valentines for his classmates. I got the idea from Amy at The Idea Room (could've guessed that probably, if you've read any of my posts lately!) I adore her crafts! Honestly, it was a lot of trial and error and I don't know how many ended up being cooked too long, causing them to turn to pure liquid and although they looked really cool, they wouldn't work for our project so I put them in a ziplock bag to use for baking projects.

Here's Keegan's Valentine box he made last night! In case you wondered...it's an alien! :)

Well, I better close this, my CRAZY daughter is tearing the house apart! Don't you just love the terrible twos stage?!?! LOL

Freakish :O}

2010-02-10T10:52:00.001-08:00

So for my birthday my hubby let me do some shopping around town and I found this A-DORABLE apron and fell head over heels in love with it. Seriously, never in a million years did I think that in my lifetime I would be that excited about an apron of all things but hello...it's FABULOUS! :) I was hoping they'd have one with red ribbon or even pink ribbon (my favorite colors) but this green is super cute too so I'm perfectly happy with it! My hubby thinks it's cute how excited I got over it...he's the best! Here are some pics (click on the pic to enlarge):

Fabulous, right?! :) LOVE IT!

It's getting close to LOVE DAY aka Valentines Day so I needed to get my hiney in gear and make up my Valentines for my Preschool/Kindergarten kiddos at co-op. I made 23 of these bad boys:

The wrapper says, "You're A BLAST!" The inside is a roll of the big, fat Smarties (you could also use lifesavers) and topped with a Hershey's Kiss and then I cut out "flames" from red construction paper and bada-bing, bada-boom: A VDay Rocket! Thank you to Family Fun for the idea, I think the kids will love it! I also bought some Precious Moments Valentines Day cards and stuck them in a sandwich baggie along with the rockets and I used some of the cards for all the moms (about 35) and attached a mini candy bar or bag of M&M's. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Valentine's Day! I pretty much love to celebrate every holiday...any excuse to decorate the house and do some fun crafts and bake some yummy holiday recipes is my kinda fun!

Now I'm off to make some of those yummy cinnamon rolls for our co-op Moms' Lounge! I feel kinda bad since we're all trying to eat better and lose weight but a yummy treat once in awhile isn't a big deal and this recipe makes like 33 rolls so it's perfect to feed the masses! :)
BYE ALL!!

What an awesome day! Beach & crafts!

2010-02-07T23:01:00.000-08:00

It was such a GORGEOUS day in Oregon today and my family & I decided that although it was a little chilly, we were going to take advantage of the beautiful sunshine and head to the beach! Here are some fun pics to start my post off with:

I've been meaning to get a heart felt wreath made up for my mom for Valentine's Day but haven't had the time. My body needs a break from working out and we have our friend Nordy over and that means I'm banished to my crafting area while hubby & Nordy nerd it up on video games! Really, my crafting area is in the dining room, which is right off the living room so I can still visit with them while I craft and I usually turn music on or a movie. The boys just love listening to my music selection! LOL Anyways, my mom's favorite color is purple so I made her a purple heart:

The other day I bought some tulle from JoAnns and an elastic band so I could make my daughter a tu-tu. She seemed to be more drawn to the bright & sparkly pink so I grabbed a yard of it (note: you need at least 2 yards of tulle for a tu-tu even for a baby...learned that the hard way!) and I'll be going back tomorrow to get some more. I'll grab enough to do at least 2 more I think. I just love it because Tatym is such a girly little girl. She loves to walk around in my heels and wear her purple tu-tu I bought for her while I was preggers and even sport some fairy wings that I got at the dollar store when I was preggers. I hoped she'd like to dress up and be all girly and WOO HOO...she does! Here's a pic of the half-done tu-tu:

Just for fun, I'll toss in some pictures of my little dress up girly! This is dadd's favorite, his baby girl holding the xbox controller and wearing the headset...getting her started young! LOL

Wearing an apron that her great grandma sent for her when she was first born:

Wearing her big brother's swimming goggles! She seriously wore these for about 30 minutes, which included a trip in the van to the swimming pool, hanging out at the pool and a ride home! LOL

Here she is in her tu-tu and fairy wings:

Here I go again!!

2010-02-05T17:39:00.000-08:00

Man-o-man I could just kick myself in the butt! Some of you know that I had started Weight Watchers last summer but after 10 weeks I had to quit going because of money and issues with getting to the meetings while my hubby was at work. Anyways, while I was on WW I ended up losing up to 19lbs at most but sadly, with the holidays and me just giving up, I gained back a lot of weight. In fact, I rejoined WW yesterday and paid for 6 months, so I wouldn't have a reason not to go and when I stepped on the scale, I was ashamed and mortified to see that not only had I gained back all that weight that I had lost, I actually weigh 5 lbs MORE than I weighed when I started WW last summer! YIKES!! Talk about a blow to the esteem! It sucks to have to start all over again and actually have even more weight to lose but I'm going to turn my frustration and disappointment in myself into motivation and determination to stick with it! I have signed up for my first ever gym membership at a local athletic club along with the WW and our homeschool co-op this semester is focusing on health and they've started doing an exercise class for the moms on the days we have co-op (first 3 Fridays of the month). I've also started going to ZUMBA class once a week which is by far my most favorite exercise to do! If you don't know what ZUMBA is, check out THIS youtube video! SO FUN and an amazing workout! Everyone is soaked in sweat halfway through this class!! Totally addicting!

So, as embarrassing as it is, here I go again, reattempting to get healthy! My starting weight is now 259.4lbs *GULP* and my goal is to be at least 175lbs by my 30th birthday (Feb. 2nd, 2011). "They" (whoever they is) says for my height I'm supposed to be around 150lbs but I want to aim for what I weighed in high school and judge from there whether or not I want to try to lose more weight. I want to look healthy, not like a stick!

I'll post my weekly weigh-in results just for more accountability! I had my hubby take a "before" picture yesterday so in a couple months or so, I'll take another picture to see how I'm progressing...that's when I'll share my pics on here!

The parents in our co-op are doing a Biggest Loser weight loss challenge so that's another thing that is holding me accountable and pushing me. I want to kick all their butts! LOL In a lovingly competitive way of course! :) Anyways...I'll keep my blog updated as I venture along this chapter in life!

Pinewood Derby Treat

2010-01-29T20:53:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow our Pack is having our Pinewood Derby and we've all been asked to bring a snack to share with everyone and I just so happened to see THIS POST from my new favorite blogger and knew it was perfect for our event!

I was told we have about 20 kids in our Pack and to just plan on making 30-40 treats so I went ahead and made 40 of these sweet treats! I wanted to add a flag to each one but we're pretty much out of printer ink so I gave up on that whole idea!

So, here they are in all their glory! LOL

Lollipop Cookies & Ice Cream In A Bag...OH MY!

2010-01-29T17:05:00.001-08:00

Today I watched 2 of my friend Brenda's kiddos so I wanted to plan something fun for them to do to occupy some of their time. I've been wanting to make the Lollipop Cookies for awhile and also came across the recipe for the Ice Cream In A Bag so viola...our plan for the afternoon! I'm going to do this the lazy way and just let you go HERE to check out the recipe for the Lollipop Cookies. Her pictures are way better than mine but I'll add some of mine to spice up the posting anyways! :)

Next on the list is the ice cream!! Again, go HERE to see the recipe and much better pictures. Can you tell I'm totally in LOVE with Amy and her blog?? She has soooooo many great crafts and recipes and what not. Maybe I could start a blog and do every one of her crafts and blog about it like Julie & Julia! LMBO!!! Totally kidding...maybe! Anyways, here are some of our pictures. We added oreo cookies to one of the bags of ice cream and the boys opted to have crushed candy canes in theirs! Both were DE-LICIOUS!! **SIDE NOTE** Make sure you wear gloves when you are doing this fun little project! We didn't at first and our hands were FREEEEEZING and hurting. The kids gave up and I went and got on a pair of gloves and finished them up!

Yay, co-op is starting again!

2010-01-29T01:24:00.000-08:00

Our homeschool co-op is starting the newest semester next Friday and being the procrastinator that I am, I'm just now getting my lesson plans together. I've had this awesome preschool curriculum from Funshine Express since 2007 and it's come in handy for my PreK/K class. The picture above is of some of the games that came with the curriculum that I'm coloring and cutting out and getting ready for my preschoolers. If you are looking for PreK curriculum, definitely check out Funshine Express. I definitely plan on ordering another year of curriculum from them once Tatym turns 3. I guess now they even have a curriculum for babies but that's not for me! :) That seems a little nuts to me to buy school curriculum for a baby but to each his own and whatever floats your boat, right?! LOL Anyways, I'm super super super excited to be starting co-op again!!!!

CAKE BALLS!!!

2010-01-27T19:59:00.001-08:00

Phew, it's been a busy day for me today! (See the 2 previous posts from earlier in the day.) I saw these red velvet cake balls over on the Bakerella site (LOVE HER SITE)! She has soooo many neat treats that I'm definitely going to attempt! I've never had a red velvet cake before but thought I'd give them a try and if they turned out good then I'd make more for Valentine's Day. Come to find out...I'm not a fan of the red velvet cake! Oh well.

The recipe is really simple, just takes some time because you have to bake the cake then let it cool completely. Then when that's done you have to crumble the cake, mix it together with 1 can of cream cheese frosting then shape into little balls and stick in the freezer for a few hours.

Next you melt some almond bark and roll the balls in the melted chocolate and set on some parchment paper to cool and harden. With the milk chocolate cake balls I put them in the fridge then melted some white chocolate and drizzled it over the top of them and sprinkled candy cane dust over the tops. I used the rest of the white chocolate to cover the other cookie sheet of cake balls and sprinkled candy cane dust over the tops. I put both sheets back in the fridge to harden up and viola...all done! :)

Even though I don't like the cake, everything tastes better with chocolate and peppermint sprinkled on top! LOL Hubby says he thinks he'd really like these made with a yellow cake mix so that will be my next attempt!

The Bomber Jet

2010-01-27T14:25:00.000-08:00

The theme for AWANAS this evening is Drive-In Movie Night so the kids are encouraged to make cars or some sort of vehicle out of cardboard boxes. They'll bring them into the church and sit in them while they watch a movie and eat popcorn. This year I was a BAD mom and waited til the last minute to try to find a box. I called Sears and stopped in everyday this week and had no luck so my DH brought a box home from work that is basically JUST big enough for Keegan to sit in but his legs have to be bent a little. Keegan doesn't seem to care so that's fabulous! I asked him what he wanted to make and he decided on a jet! Now, I'm not one of those parents that takes over the project, I like to let him do most of the construction himself and he tells me how he wants me to help him paint it. Last year I was completely shocked at just how many parents were obviously the builders of their kid's vehicles. A lot of them looked as if their kids hadn't helped at all and that's sad to me! I want Keegan to feel proud of his work and know that it was his creation and that I just helped him! So, needless to say, ours is never one of the more elaborate vehicles! LOL

Here's the builder cutting out the shape of the wings and nose of the jet:

Next it's time for what is probably the most fun part...spray painting:

Now this is where mom gets irritated and starts getting snippety. My wonderful and amazing son has a wee bit of problem paying attention sometimes! He gobbed on a bunch of paint and it ended up getting on his shoes and the ground which then led to getting on his pants and under our shoes which led to trails of red paint on the front porch and one angry mother!

I would like to say that I've been fighting a bad headache all morning so I was extra grumpy (poor Keegan) but we managed to get the jet completely painted and crossing my fingers that it will be dry by the time we have to take him to AWANAS at 6:30pm.

Next year I vow to get a big refrigerator box or something and get started on it at least a week before the movie night...hopefully! LOL

Yummy Letters

2010-01-27T14:15:00.000-08:00

It's been one of those crazy kind of days so here it is, 2pm and the kids haven't had lunch yet. I decided to make up some breadsticks and instead of just doing regular plain ol' breadsticks I decided to spell out my son's name with the dough. I had some extra dough so I made a T for Tatym and a circle and then just some little dough bites.

I just used a regular can of Pillsbury breadstick dough and set the oven at 375*. I greased a baking sheet and made out the letters/shapes and put it in the oven for 5 minutes. After the timer went off I covered each piece with butter, sprinkled some italian blend cheese and some garlic salt on the top and put it back in the oven for another 5 minutes. And of course you can never have to much butter on bread, when it was done I spread a little more butter on the top and served them up to the kiddos! Keegan was super excited about it, Tatym on the other hand could care less! LOL

Magnets

2010-01-26T22:10:00.001-08:00

Tonight my project was making magnets! I found some clear, round, glass rocks at JoAnn's. Make sure you get ones with a flat bottom. These are super easy, super cute and make for great gifts and fun for the kids! I just looked through my scrapbook paper and even made good use of some of my scrap pieces. I set the rock on top of the image I wanted on my magnet, traced a circle around the edge, cut it out (cut inside the line for a better fit) and used my CTMH liquid glass to adhere the paper to the rock. Once the liquid glass was dry, I used my exacto knife to trim off the excess paper from around the edge of the rock and then super glued a magnet to the back of the rock and BAM...we have a handmade magnet!
You can click on the picture to enlarge it for better detail. I LOVE the little bird ones...super cute and I know my kids are going to love them!

Bath Crayons and Paint

2010-01-25T15:50:00.001-08:00

It's kind of a dreary day on the Oregon coast and I wanted to find something fun for the kids and I to do so I looked online and found some recipes for making our own bath crayons and paint! PERFECT! Just as I was getting ready to write the recipe down my wonderful friend, Sara, text me to see what I was doing so I invited her and her 5-year-old daughter, Karis over for a playdate! Let me just warn you...this stuff is MESS-Y!! If you are a neat freak or get anxiety from having any sort of mess...don't try this at home! LOL

The crayons didn't turn out as good as I'd hoped, I think it's definitely one of those recipes that I have to try out a few times in order to get the kinks out but hey, we all had fun so that's what counts!

What you need for bath crayons is:
Two 3.1oz Bars Ivory Soap (all I used was 1 4.5 oz bar)
Cheese Grator
1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
3 Tbsp Water
2 Tsp Food Coloring
Wax Paper

Here are the directions:
1. Grate the bars of soap using the smallest hole on your cheese grator
2. Place the soap shavings, vegetable oil & water in a saucepan
3. Heat the ingredients on med-low. Stir constantly with a spoon until the soap melts and the mixture is doughy
4. Mix in the food coloring
5. Remove from heat
6. Spoon the soap out of the saucepan and onto a plate or baking pan. Soak the saucepan and spoon in hot water ( do it right away or it will never come clean )
7. When the soap is cool enough to handle , knead it with your hands for aprox. 1 minute
8. Divide the soap into 4 sections ( or 2 sections for chunky crayons )
9. Roll the soap into log shapes, then roll a piece of wax paper around each log
10. Put the crayons into the fridge to harden ( aprox. 1 hour )

Be sure to wash out the bathtub after the kids use this so it doesn't stain.

This is where I got the recipe!

Here are my wonderful assistants kneading the soap mixture and preparing to roll them into little crayon shapes:

Now onto the paint portion of our show! LOL This one was ULTRA, SUPREME messy but Karis kept saying how much fun she was having and that just makes the mess worth it!

What you need:
2 Tbs. cornstarch
1/4 cup hand/dishsoap
4-5 drops of food color
1 tbsp water

We used a muffin pan for this so we put the cornstarch, soap and food color in each muffin cup, mixed them together. The consistancy is kind of like slime so I used a spatula to scoop it out of the muffin cup and put it into a sandwich bag and then added the water and squished it all together. VIOLA...it's ready to be used!

This would be a great gift to give to friends or kids in your family and I'm pretty certain that next time I won't be using a muffin pan, I'll just mix them in bowls or cups or something so that things aren't spilling over the sides! LOL An adult can make it a lot less messy but the kids have a blast and hey, it's soap so it's easy to clean up! :)

Wahoo...another one!

2010-01-25T12:36:00.000-08:00

I got another heart felt VDay decoration made! My fingertips were SO sore after I finished this one that I'm gonna wait a few days before I attempt another one! LOL I'm giving this red one to my grandma on her birthday tomorrow!

Heart Felt Decoration

2010-01-22T21:56:00.003-08:00

Ok, so first off, you HAVE to stop by the Idea Room blog! It's my new favorite blog and I can't seem to get enough! I saw this heart felt wreath and knew I had to give it a whirl!

I went to JoAnn's and bought a styrofoam heart and 20 of the 9x12" sheets of shocking pink felt(they didn't have any red).

I had a lid to a can to use for my circle template, it measured 3". In the end I used 16 1/2 sheets of the felt and if I did it just right, I ended up with about 7-8 circles from each sheet.

Each circle was folded in half and then folded in half a 2nd time (sorry, I didn't take a picture of it) and I used a sewing pin at the bottom corner and pinned it to the heart. It took me awhile to figure out how to place each circle but what worked best, for me, was to start on each side and work my way down. It got trickier for me at the top but if you just move things around, you'll figure out what looks good!

And probably like most crafters, I couldn't let the extra pieces of felt go to waste so I cut out hearts which I'll use later for some other Valentines Day decorations!

Mummy Dogs

2010-01-21T20:11:00.001-08:00

Keegan & I made some yummy Mummy Dogs for dinner this evening. For those that have never made these, just grab a tube of fridge breadsticks (we like Pillsbury) and a pack of hot dogs. Set your oven to 375* and take one breadstick, stretch it out a bit and then just wrap it around the hot dog and place it on a greased cookie sheet. Line them all up and bake in the oven for about 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Eat em up! :)

Who knew??

2010-01-21T14:06:00.001-08:00

Who knew just how much fun you could have with mini marshmallows and toothpicks? LOL Keegan and I busted these out while Tatym was napping and Keegan is so proud of his creations that he has them still out on the table, waiting for daddy to get home so he can show off his masterpieces!

Keegan wanted to make a dog but then changed his mind and opted to just make the face:

Definitely keeping this activity in mind for those rainy days we seem to be blessed with a lot lately! :O)

LOVE

2010-01-17T16:57:00.000-08:00

I spent a few hours last night working on this fun little project. I don't think it normally would have taken hours but I was messing around with letter sizes, shadows and settings on my Cricut. Man, I LOVE my Cricut! Anywho...I made this up and it looks fabulous on our mantle! Although the colors aren't your typical Valentines Day colors, the theme of LOVE is obviously perfect for V Day and all year long! :)

My favorite peanut butter cookie recipe.

2010-01-13T10:35:00.000-08:00

It's a FABULOUSLY stormy day on the Oregon coast and as much as I LOVE a good stormy day, I hate that my hubby has to work outside in it! The upside is that he's an RV salesman so there aren't as many customers that come in on a stormy day but of course the downside is...no customers = no paycheck! Eeeek! So, I figured the least thing I could do to show my hubby how much I appreciate his hard work and how much I love him is to bake him some yummy cookies! I feel bad because we're trying to eat better but I LOVE to bake and hubby LOVES to eat what I bake! :O) See, we're a perfect match! Today I decided to make some Irresistable JIF Peanut Butter Cookies! This is by far my most favorite PB cookie recipe EVER!

Ingredients:
3/4 cup JIF PB
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 tbsp milk
1 tbsp vanilla
1 egg
1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda

Heat oven to 375*.

Combine PB, shortening, brown sugar, milk & vanilla. Beat until well blended. Add egg & beat until blended. Add flour, salt & baking soda (I don't just dump it in, I add a little at a time, using my mixer the whole time.) and mix until blended. Drop by heaping tsp. fulls 2" apart onto cookie sheet. Flatten slightly in criss-cross pattern with tines of fork (I don't do it all the time). Bake for 7-8 minutes. I bake them until there is a little golden brown color on the tops of the cookies that way when they cool, they are still chewy and oh-so-delicious!!

Candy Cane Popcorn

2010-01-12T16:25:00.000-08:00

First off, make sure to check out the blog: Skip To My Lou Cindy has so many fabulous crafts and recipes that you just HAVE to try out! I found this recipe for candy cane popcorn and knew I had to give it a whirl! My awesome friend Sara had given us one of those cans that have 3 different kinds of popcorn in it for Christmas, so instead of popping a bag of popcorn, I just had my son fill up a mixing bowl with the butter popcorn from the Christmas popcorn can. I melted a package of vanilla flavored Almond Bark and while I was melting it on the stove, Keegan was all too eager to beat up the candy canes for me in a ziploc bag until there were hardly any solid chunks of candy cane left (about 40 mini candy canes). After the almond bark was melted I added all but about 1/2 cup of the candy canes and mixed it all up. I then dumped the mixture in the bowl with the popcorn, stirred it around until all the popcorn was covered. I then laid out a piece of parchment paper and spread out the gooey popcorn to let it cool and then sprinkled the rest of the candy cane dust over the top. Now, I'm not the most patient person in the world so I opted to put the parchment paper on a cookie sheet and shove it in the fridge to help it cool faster!

This is SUCH a yummy recipe!!! Give it a shot! :)

Yummy Gummi Candy

2010-01-11T16:56:00.000-08:00

I'm having one of those days where I don't feel like doing any sit down, worksheet school work with my son so I opted to find something fun to do instead. I found a yummy recipe for homemade gummi candy and Keegan thought it would be fun so off we went to get the supplies. I found a package at Walmart that had several different candy molds in it (it was in the wedding supplies/birthday cake making supplies/candy supplies section). It was only $9 and it came with hearts, flowers, automobiles, fruit, party theme, letters, numbers and 1 or 2 more. I'm being too lazy to get up and go look right now! :)

All you need to make one batch of this gummi candy is:
2 envelopes (1/4oz each) of unflavored gelatine (I used Knox brand...over in the jello section)
1 box (3oz) flavored jello (I used generic)
1/3 cup water
candy molds although I'm sure ice cube trays would work just as good

Start by putting 1/3 cup water into a small saucepan, add the jello & gelatine, mix together and let sit for 5-10 minutes.
Place saucepan on medium heat and stir until liquid consistancy.
Let cool for a minute and place in something for easy pouring. You could use a small ceramic pitcher but I didn't have one. I just used a paper cup that I could pinch the end and it worked wonderfully. Pour into candy molds (no need to grease the molds) and place in the fridge for about 10 minutes. When you go to take the candy out of the molds, I just used a toothpick to pull up the edge and then peeled it out. Don't worry about breaking them, they are TOUGH little things!

ENJOY!!!

Keegan chose to test out orange and I tested out cherry and both were really good!

Creepy Crawler Treat

2010-01-09T17:00:00.000-08:00

My 7 year old said the dreaded "B" word today...BORED! Yikes, the thing a mom hates to hear! LOL I looked online at my FAVORITE site: Family Fun to find something for us to create. I just LOVE pipe cleaners, they are so great for so many crafts and I happen to have an abundance of these on hand so I decided to try out the lollipop spider. It was under the Halloween crafts (ick...hate Halloween) but I thought it would be fun anytime of the year and even contemplated making some for Valentines Day for the boys in our homeschool co-op.

These are so quick and easy to make and even my 18 month old daughter was ohhing and ahhing over this! LOL

All you need is 4 black pipe cleaners, a lollipop, googley eyes and glue.

Holding all 4 pipe cleaners in your hand, place the base of the lollipop in the center of the pipe cleaners and wrap the pipe cleaners around the stick once, just to secure it on there and you should have 4 "legs" on each side of the stick. Bend the pipe cleaners near the bottom to form feet and in the middle to form knees. Use glue to attach the googley eyes onto the top of the lollipop and viola...a creepy crawly lollipop spider! Easy, huh?! HAVE FUN!!

Oh and before I go...had to add a quick pic of my little basketball player! Today was his 1st game of the season and although his team didn't do that well, he had a BLAST!!!

2009 & 2010

2010-01-08T14:56:00.001-08:00

A fellow blogging friend posted things that she learned in 2009 and things she wants to focus on or do in 2010 and I thought to myself that it was a good idea to put it out there in the universe...so here I am being a big ol' copycat! LOL

2009 was full of ups and downs...mostly ups or at least that's mostly what I'm remembering which is good, right?! Who the heck wants to focus on bad stuff...not this lady!

We had fewer blow outs with my stepson's mom which is always a blessing! In the midst of a few of the explosions the Lord really revealed some things to me which have really helped me grow and learn how to deal with the whole situation. It really showed me that there is a reason we are apart of each others lives and although it's not always pleasant, each obsticle is a growing opportunity and I for one want to be as close and as much like Christ as possible and if it means hitting some bumps along the way to sand down some rough edges in myself then BRING IT! :)

My beautiful and amazing daughter, Tatym turned 1 and we experienced so many firsts with her...first steps, first words, first tooth, first time in the snow, first family vacation and even though some things weren't firsts in 2009 like holidays...she's old enough now that she's really enjoying things and getting excited about things and you can't top the joy you see in your child's face when they get really excited about stuff! We were blessed with fantastic health for both children *praise the Lord* and hopefully that continues in 2010!

My adventurous and animated and wonderful son, Keegan had another good year full of all sorts of activities ranging from sports like soccer, tball, basketball, tennis, swimming to joining Cub Scouts and going to AWANAS every week and being involved in our homeschool co-op. He's really growing up and watching him with his sister just about brings me to tears on a regular basis. He's so loving and protective and he's really stepped up with helping to watch over her and help with her daily needs! He is seriously the best big brother I have ever seen in my life! Never could I have hoped for a better relationship between the 2 of them! It also amazes me at how smart Keegan is. With homeschooling I'm blessed with the opportunity to help teach him things and see how his brain works and see how quickly he catches onto things. With AWANAS he memorizes verses and it blows me away that merely hearing the verse 2 times is all it takes for him to pretty much have it completely memorized! WOW! I wish my brain was that quick! LOL Over the course of 2009 I've been able to learn more about what works best for him as far as school goes...how he better understands things and when we're both due for a break! LOL

I've learned that the kids and I need to have a schedule for our days activities for us all to make the most out of the time we have.

I've learned that it's ok for my house to be a bit messy if it means I'm getting more time to play and do things with my children. It's not always easy to put down the laundry to crawl on the floor and pretend to be a horse but in the end I want my kids to look back on their childhood as a time in their life when they just got to play and enjoy the time they had with their parents. I don't want their memories to be of me in the kitchen, saying I'm too busy to play!

I've learned that I spent WAY too much time on the computer in 2009! With making up a schedule I'm finding I spend less time online and more time with the kids doing fun activities that I get to post on here...our baking and crafts! That's way more fun!

I've learned how my hormones fluctuate now that I've had my 2nd child. I never had PMS before and I thought I was going crazy last year with the changes in my moods and now I've learned when to expect the bad days and how to better deal with those days and not beat myself up for it because it's nothing I can control right now. I can take charge on those days and pray all day long but if I need a break and need to lock myself in the bedroom in the evening then it's ok. It's better for me to step back and say I need some alone time then to spend the day screaming at everyone for annoying me!

I've learned how to better love my husband and I really hope that is something that continues to grow and grow, year after year! I hope to never quit desiring to be a better wife. I want to always be working on growing in that area and I hope that my hubby knows just how much I love him!! I always want him to know that to me, he's #1...there's no better man than him!

On a lighter note, I've learned how to make cards and do lots of crafts and that too I hope is something I can keep doing! It brings me so much joy to create things and find fun things to do with my family!

I've learned how important it is to spend DAILY time with the Lord. My devotional life was awful in 2009 unless I was in the midst of a battle, mainly with my stepsons mom. That is how I learned the purpose of having her in my life. I never understood why I had to have someone in my life that brought me so much frustration and drama and unhappiness until this past year. When I'm in the muck of things I'm forced to realize that I am NOT the one that is in control. God is in control of every situation and at those moments when I'm on my knees, feeling completely helpless and at my wits end...that's when the Lord really has an opportunity to reveal some things to me. I have to fully rely on Him. During those times in my life, that is when I've felt the closest to the Lord and it makes me sad that I have to be going through Hell in order to fully put my everything in His hands and step away from it! It's so easy...at least for me...to say, "ok Lord, here's the problem...you deal with it" but then 2 seconds later, I pick it right back up and try to do it myself! I wish He'd just smack me and say, "hello Christina...let ME do it...get the heck out of the way!" If anything, that's probably the biggest lesson I've learned this past year and all those days of fighting and wanting to scream and punch and run away...in the end, it was totally worth it! I'm proud to report that we haven't had a big fight or even really a little one since last summer so the past 6 months have been a very nice non-dramatic time in our life! LOL I don't know what it is about the ex and I, we could probably be really great friends if we didn't have to deal with that aspect of our lives. Most friends don't have to be THAT involved in each others lives or have to deal with each other in the way that we do so we tend to butt heads a lot in that area. We have so much in common in every other area...it's just very strange! I wish I was able to just let my hubby fight his own battles and quit feeling like the protective momma bear when I see him being walked on and I wish I didn't feel the need to try to "help"...that's still stuff I'm working on and I'm doing better but still have some ways to go! :) I do have to say to my co-mom---thank you for forgiving me when I've been the one that needed forgiveness, thank you for being willing to try to be friends even though I know it's not always easy...thank you for allowing the Lord to use you in my life!

2009 also opened my eyes to my need for a healthier body and it jump started this weight loss adventure I'm on.

Enough of the past...now to focus on the future!
Some things I want to do or improve on in 2010:

I want to do more fun activities with my family.
I want to grow closer and closer to the Lord.
I want to continue to work on losing weight so I can reach my goal weight by my 30th bday in Feb. 2011.
I want to work on being a better steward of our money.
I want to learn some new crafts.
I want to continue to improve my relationships with people that I've struggled with in the past.
I want to get a schedule set for our family.

So yeah, I'm pretty excited for the new year and I have high hopes for what the Lord has planned for us! It's going to be another great year!

Week 1 of my weight-loss for the new year!

2010-01-08T11:39:00.000-08:00

Today was week #1 weigh-in at our house and I'm proud and extremely excited to report that I lost 4.6 lbs this week!!! WOOOOOOOO!!! Now, I am so beyond excited about that but also mad at myself for having gained 10 lbs over the past 2 months! It's so frustrating that this is going to be a life-long battle for me, trying to maintain healthy weight and always having to watch what I eat and make sure I'm exercising regularly. Why couldn't I have been born with the fabulous genes of just being naturally skinny (not grossly skinny) and not having to worry so much about that kind of stuff? Or at least be born with the gene that enjoys working out and eating healthy! LOL My sister is athletic, loves to run and in fact, the last time she was down visiting, she went for her usual morning run and decided to try to see if she could run a half marathon and guess what...she ended up running almost 15 miles that morning! WHAT?!?! I'm so proud of her but I think, who would want to spend 2 1/2 hours just running around town? That doesn't seem at all like a good time to me! LOL

With that said, I do enjoy working out, once I'm in the habit of it and in the middle of a workout. It takes a lot of push and will power to get up and do it but I feel so good afterwards! I've lost my walking buddy because she got a gym membership so she's been going there at night and with it getting dark so early I don't feel all that comfortable walking alone...but I do it sometimes. I just make sure I have my pepper spray and whistle and cell phone and flashlight! My hubby's friend says I should just strap on a big assualt rifle and walk around...sure nobody would think to mess with me then! LOL Hubby has given me the ok to use some of our tax returns to get a gym membership and I can't wait!!! The gym I want to join has a pool and I LOVE to swim! I just need to find a time when no one else is there so I can get in and not feel so self concious about my body! I am determined to lose this freakin weight by my 30th birthday! Just a little under 13 months to go so I better hop to it!

The WORLDS BEST cinnamon rolls!!!

2010-01-07T11:42:00.000-08:00

So I've checked out The Pioneer Woman blog a few times (LOVE HER) but I can't remember what sent me over there to check out her cinnamon roll recipe but I'm EVER SO THANKFUL I DID! I've never made homemade cinnamon rolls unless it came out of a Pillsbury tube! LOL Just the whole process of doing one part then waiting an hour, doing another part and waiting another hour...just doesn't appeal to me. Last night hubby had a friend over so they were playing video games and I didn't have much else to do so I thought I'd give the recipe a whirl and hope for the best! Click HERE to be taken to her recipe which even includes pictures which was SUPER helpful for this first-timer! I made the first portion of the recipe and left it in the fridge overnight (which you can either go ahead and make them right away or save them for a day or two in the fridge) and then busted them out this morning. This recipe, at least for me, made 33 rolls so I plan on putting several in the freezer and saving for a rainy day special breakfast and I plan on giving some to my neighbor and maybe some to our family around town. These are by far the best cinnamon rolls I have EVER tasted in my ENTIRE life! DEEEEEE-LISH!!!

Jello Popcorn! YUMMY-LICIOUS! AND a new book!

2010-01-05T11:46:00.000-08:00

The last few months the Lord has really been telling me that I need to come up with a schedule for my day with the kids. I was whining or venting one day on Facebook and 2 friends suggested I read Managers of Their Homes by the Maxwells. Managers of Their Chores was also highly recommended so, as always, I'm a sucker for trying out new books, I quickly used my Christmas money (Thank you Linda & Emmett--my inlaws) and bought both books! They FINALLY showed up yesterday...now I'm not the most patient person so really it wasn't that long of a wait, I ordered them on Dec. 26th, they were shipped on the 28th and I got them yesterday, the 4th but to me, that's an eternity! LOL Anywho, I'm about 1/2 way done with MOTH and it's really got me jazzed to come up with a schedule! I'll have more time to do fun things with the kids and actually having them scheduled in will make it a major priority and it will actually get done! I don't know how many times I've thought about taking the kids to the park or something and then end up wasting time on something else and before I know it, it's too late! It will also be nice for my son to know what is planned for any given moment of everyday. I probably won't schedule anything on Sundays because those are my hubby's days off and we just play things by ear on those days! We've scheduled Family Game/Movie nights for every Friday and on NYE we all came up with 12 different family things to do (1 per month for a year) so that will be scheduled in too! Life is going to be MUCH nicer and we'll have a lot more fun too!

So...I scheduled in some baking time today and Keegan and I looked at one of my new favorite blogs: Our Best Bites and found a recipe for Jello Popcorn (click the recipe name to be taken to the recipe). Both of us were pretty stoked about trying out this new recipe! I just love that Keegan is so willing and excited to try out crafts and recipes and stuff with me! Hopefully Tatym will like it too! I dug through my cupboards and thankfully found 1 box of jello that wasn't sugar-free. I always buy sugar-free but I think I'm going to have to rethink that because I saw another recipe that called for regular jello too! Something about the sugar-free doesn't let it cook the same way! Anyway, we had blue-raspberry which turned out to be such a pretty color:

I didn't let Keegan do much of the stirring on the stove just because I didn't want it to burn...kids are notorious for only stirring one small area of the pan and not getting it all mixed around! LOL I did let him pour in all the ingredients and he thinks that's pretty fun in itself! Easily amused, thank goodness!

Here we have the end product...a yummy batch of blue-raspberry jello popcorn! It really is soooo good!

Keegan (aka, my assistant) enjoying his snack while doing his math! :)

Ringing in the new year! Happy 2010!!

2010-01-02T19:23:00.001-08:00

Isn't this place GORGEOUS?!

These are going to make for a GREAT scrapbook page!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! My family & I were lucky enough to spend a few days in Central Oregon over New Years and boy was it GLORIOUS! I prayed it would snow and the Lord totally delivered and in the most perfect way possible! It was snowing when we got out there Tuesday night so the kids got a chance to play for awhile while I unloaded and got things ready. The next day there wasn't much snow but enough for it to cover the ground and look breathtakingly beautiful and of course give the kids and my hubby a chance to toss a few snowballs around! By Wednesday night the snow was pretty melted but we knew there was a high chance of more snow so we kept our fingers crossed! The next morning we woke up around 8am and *enter angelic trumpet noise here* there was a good 4 inches of snow outside and it was still snowing! It was the most perfect day! We all got bundled up and went out to enjoy it! The boys (including hubby) built a 6' tall snowman which we all thought was pretty stinkin impressive!

Tatym didn't like touching the snow but she loved walking in it. She'd make little trails and just circle around and around the path...it was adorable! She also has a thing for her blankets...she's not necessarily picky about which blanket she has (thank goodness) but she always likes to carry one around!

Tatym & I enjoying the snow!

To make things more fun for the holiday I brought some decorations that I had made to spruce the place up. Here's one of the signs I made:

I also made up 3 different treasure hunts for the boys to do at 9pm, 10pm and 11pm. The 9pm hunt got bumped up to 7pm. The treasure was a bag with mugs, hot cocoa/cider, popcorn and cookies which quickly got scarffed! The 10pm hunt led to a bag filled with different candy, glow sticks and silly string. A wild silly string fight ensued and the glow sticks kept them entertained until 11pm when the hunt led to a bag filled with noise makers! We had regular party horns, squeakers and each boy got their own blow horn...oh yeah...it was a hit! :) At midnight we toasted with cups of sparkling cider and tooted our horns! It was a great way to ring in the New Year and let me just say that 2009 was VERY good to my family and I and I'm excited for this upcoming year! I've got some of my resolutions planned out and already working on them and I look forward to seeing what the Lord has in store for us!!

Here we are in our party hats:

Our Happy New Year sign:

Here are some other random fun pics:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

C'mon Santa!

2009-12-24T21:54:00.001-08:00

Alright, we're ready for Santa to arrive! :) We've been tracking his travels on noradsanta.org and my son & I set out a bowl of popcorn in the front yard (for the reindeer, of course), a plate of cookies and a glass of milk, along with a note from Keegan! We said our goodbyes to the Elves in our tree and the kids are all tucked into bed in their new Christmas Eve pj's!

We've had an exciting Christmas season filled with fun activities and lots of great memories! The elves came and did their nightly pooping and playing and Keegan enjoyed looking for them on the tree!

Here the whole family is on the hunt to try to spot an elf:

Gotta love the "poop" trails! Keegan cracked up that they pooped on his jacket!

Here are the kids in their new pj's! We only let them open one present from us on Christmas Eve and it's always new pj's. They don't have to be Christmas-y pj's but just new! Keegan was really stoked about his guitar pj's and Tatym seemed to really like her snowman pj's!

This year I gave away some Snowman Soup (so cute, simple and fun)! Here'a the note that was attached to the bags:

Here's the completed bag:

The package includes 1 packet of hot cocoa, a little baggie of mini marshmallows, a peppermint stick and 3 hershey's kisses:

I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!! I'm sad that it's almost over but yet excited for a new year to begin! I've got lots of plans and hopes for the upcoming year but as we know, the Lord is in control and I'm all for that! If my plans don't fit His will then I'm ok with that! He knows far better than I do, what's best for me and my family! So Merry Christmas and bring on 2010!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

2009-12-24T10:17:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to take a minute and wish everyone out in Blogland, a VERY Merry CHRISTmas! I pray that everyone takes some time to reflect on why exactly we celebrate this amazing event...the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ! I pray for amazing time spent with family, love surrounding you and many amazing moments shared with those closest and most important to you! God bless you (although He's blessed us all more than we deserve with the freedom to just accept Jesus and be given the best gift of all...an eternity spent in Heaven rather than being condemned to spend eternity in Hell) today, tomorrow and in 2010!!

Buckeyes...soooo yummy-licious!

2009-12-21T10:01:00.000-08:00

These yummy little treats are a HUGE hit! They take some time to complete but they are SO worth the effort! I've had special requests from friends, asking me to make sure they get some of these!

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups smooth peanut butter (I prefer Jif)
1 stick butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar (about 1 box)
1 package of almond bark for the outside layer

Directions:
Cover a cookie sheet with aluminum foil or parchment paper and set aside.
Mix ingredients together. **I've found that if you cream together the peanut butter and butter, then add the vanilla and add the powdered sugar about 1 cup at a time and mix between cups, it's a whole lot easier to get it blended! Refrigerate for about 15 minutes. While it's in the fridge, melt down the almond bark, making sure you continuously stir the chocolate so it doesn't burn. Next you will dip the PB balls into the chocolate (Almond Bark). I drop them into the chocolate pan and use a spoon or spatula to make sure it gets fully covered in chocolate and then I use a toothpick to pull it out. Place the balls on the cookie sheet. Once the cookie sheet is full, place it in the fridge to harden the chocolate.

ENJOY!!!

Our Minivan Express evening!

2009-12-20T20:21:00.001-08:00

Well, long story short, my normally wonderful son, Keegan was a MAJOR B U T T tonight and really put a damper on the whole evening! It started out good and I'm not exactly why/what caused Keegan's evil twin to appear but alls I know is that I wish we could have a do-over! LOL! We started our day by making these cute reindeer cups.

Keegan didn't seem to into it at first but instead of having him start out doing one himself I just asked him to help me with mine. Then he got into it and made his own!

Next, we went to see Santa and that went great! Tatym didn't seem to mind sitting on his lap. Granted, she never smiled and she wouldn't take her eyes off of her daddy but hey, she didn't cry or try to get away from him so that I am thankful for! :)

I remember one year Keegan wouldn't sit on Santa's lap without us so that year was a family shot with Santa with me on Santa's lap, holding Keegan! LOL We came home and watched Polar Express and Keegan really liked it.

After the movie was over (and this is when I think things started to turn south) I said he could play video games. My hubby said he wanted to get the Express going so I had Keegan go get pj's on and I hid the tickets underneath the couch cushions he had been laying on, on the floor. I started popping popcorn and boiling water for hot chocolate or apple cider. When Keegan came out we asked him to clean up the living room and so he found the tickets.

His face lit up when he saw it but for some reason when we told him it was our version of the Polar Express and that we'd be getting in the van and going around looking at lights, his attitude just went to poop! He whined because he wanted to play video games and said he didn't want to go. I tried to keep my cool but after a minute of listening to his horrible attitude I yelled at him for being rude, caring more about stupid video games then spending time with his family. I told him that I put a lot of thought and prep into this and that he was being disrespectful and a spoiled brat. He got grounded from video games which set off his mouthiness. If it wasn't illegal I would have left him home alone and just taken my daughter out with us. I wanted to call it quits but really my hubby & I wanted to go so we went forward with our plans. I let Keegan pick which new mug he wanted (he chose the red) and he seemed to have a brief moment of happiness as we were getting ready to head out:

But it quickly changed again. I handed him his ticket and said the kids couldn't ride without their ticket and he refused to take it and said he didn't want to play. By the time we got in the van I was just fuming, my husband was frustrated and Keegan was in tears! What a fun event, right?! Uggghhhh... Tatym seemed pretty excited and was just chowing away on her popcorn and diggin on having her own big cup of juice!

Even before we got out of the driveway she was already saying, "WOW!" and "WHOA!". Every house we drove past she was all sorts of excited about which totally made things better considering how badly Keegan was behaving! He was ordered to keep his mouth shut unless he was going to change his attitude and treat us nicer so he was pretty quiet other than a few comments about some cool decoration or something. He never really perked up and wouldn't let us take a picture of him

Gotta love strong-willed, stubborn children...right?!?! LOL In the end I know he enjoyed looking at all the cool lights and he ate his popcorn and drank his juice, I think his stubborness is what held him back from coming out of the grumpiness and showing us he was actually happy to be out and doing this! We delivered goodies to friends and family around town and listend to Christmas music the whole time! Even with the rocky start it was a lot of fun and we saw some really decked out houses! I even took a picture of the front of our house with our few decorations. My hubby (love him to bits) is too cheap to really let us go too wild with the outside decorations. Our neighbors have the house lights plugged in at their house (we're in a duplex) so that's pretty much the only reason we have those up and my mom & stepdad made us the cross and it doesn't take much electricity so he allows me to have it up! LOL I'd love to have the whole yard and house and bushes decorated...maybe when we become independently wealthy! :)
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Santa's letter came today!

2009-12-18T14:33:00.001-08:00

Keegan & his letter from Santa

When Keegan was 1 I paid like $5-$10 for a company to mail him a letter from Santa along with a sticker and something else (I must be getting old, my memory isn't what it used to be LOL) and I think I paid for one the next year as well. I then decided that it was pretty stupid to pay someone else to send him a letter when I could do the same exact thing! Every year since then I've always bought some Christmasy typing paper and envelopes and typed up a letter from Santa. Keegan had his letter to Santa done like 1.5 weeks ago and he mentioned a few times that he hoped Santa would remember to write him back. Oops...way to go slacker mom! LOL Night before last I typed up his letter and had to sneak it into the mailbox yesterday when we were out running errands! Today Keegan went out to get the mail but he never looks through it so he didn't see his letter. I pulled it out and the look on his face was priceless! I LOVE that he still believes in Santa, it adds so much more magic and fun to the holiday. Don't get me wrong, I know Santa is not the main part of Christmas and we do focus a lot on Jesus but the Santa stuff is fun to do because of all the surprises. This in no way means we don't love Jesus more than Santa, we're just having fun while the kids are little! Anyways, I had Keegan read me his letter and every other sentence he'd look up at me with this sparkle in his eye and a big smile would form on his face! I wish I video taped it! I didn't do a letter to Tatym just because she could care less about it but next year...yeah buddy, I'm all over it! LOL

Looking forward to tomorrow!

2009-12-18T13:35:00.000-08:00

Every year in December my mom, my sister, Kimberly, my grandma & I all get together and do some major baking one day. We generally try to rotate who's house we do it at to make the driving fair and this year it's my turn! This year on the baking menu we have Buckeyes (chocolate covered PB balls), which I'll post the recipe tomorrow or the next day! These have got to be the biggest hit of all. I've already got some requests for these so I know I'm going to have to make a mother-load of them! :) We're also going to do sugar cookies, peanut butter blossoms, chocolate (white & milk) covered pretzels, muddy buddies, andes mint cookies, ritz cracker pb sandwiches dipped in chocolate (not sure if there's a shorter name for those), reeses pb bars, and most likely some pumpkin cupcakes! PHEW...it's going to be a long day! Now my kitchen is ITTY BITTY so cramming 4 of us in there and most likely my little Ms. Tatym will want to be in the mix, it's not an easy thing to do. I'm going to set up "work stations" with folding tables and pretty much take up the kitchen, dining room and living room areas! I'm really excited to spend some time with these ladies, we have a great time together doing this! I'll have plenty of pics and recipes to post tomorrow!

A Family Filled With Love & Fun

Ladies' Craft Night

Counting down to Jesus' birthday!

Random Acts of Christmas Kindness aka RACK

2012 is fast approaching!

Mission kick-off!

I'm still alive!! :)

Our favorite BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich recipe

Happy Passion/Holy Week!!!

Rainbows Everywhere

Gettin Crafty! :)

Clay Ornaments

Christmas Ornament

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Vacation Fun!

Who woulda thunk it? DELICIOUS!

Perfect rainy day dinner!

Candy Corn Bracelets

Messy-Clean Fun

Fun fall projects!

We've discoverd...LAPBOOKS!!

Apple Cupcakes...mmmmmmmm....

Team Courtright

First day of school!

A new chapter...

Sassy hair bows!

Completing Him Challenge!!

PRAISING GOD!!!!

FOOD FIGHT!!!

Forgotten pictures...

Lots of summer FUN!!

Blessed Day

A first for Keegan!

Summer Lovin :)

Go A's!!

A FarmVille Birthday Party

The Swagger Wagon---LOL!!

Blog-aversary Giveaway

Rainbow Egg Cupcakes

A Giveaway

Can you help Sheena???

Etching

Wanna know how nerdy I am???

Cereal comin out the WAZOO! :)

I'm totally hooked!

My newest adventure...COUPONS!!

Oobleck

Blogaversary!!

FAITH Glass Block

Magnets

Spring has sprung, Taco Pie and *gulp* Weigh-In

Taco Soup Warms the Soul

Happy Valentine's Day

*~* One happy lady right here! *~*

Weigh-In and Valentines

Freakish :O}

What an awesome day! Beach & crafts!

Here I go again!!

Pinewood Derby Treat

Lollipop Cookies & Ice Cream In A Bag...OH MY!

Yay, co-op is starting again!

CAKE BALLS!!!

The Bomber Jet

Yummy Letters

Magnets

Bath Crayons and Paint

Wahoo...another one!

Heart Felt Decoration

Mummy Dogs

Who knew??

LOVE

My favorite peanut butter cookie recipe.

Candy Cane Popcorn

Yummy Gummi Candy

Creepy Crawler Treat

2009 & 2010

Week 1 of my weight-loss for the new year!

The WORLDS BEST cinnamon rolls!!!

Jello Popcorn! YUMMY-LICIOUS! AND a new book!

Ringing in the new year! Happy 2010!!

Spring has sprung, Taco Pie and gulp Weigh-In

~ One happy lady right here! ~