Feed The Birds.

We've been spending a lot of time at our local library lately.  Sometimes if Sydney and I have a few errands to run while Sam is at school, we find ourselves with an hour or two to kill before it's time to pick him up.  Rather than go home just to turn around and go back, we will drop in at the library.  We recently discovered that they have preschooler play time every Thursday, so we've been making a point to go by for that.  They always have a craft and lots of toys out, and the children's librarian is super sweet.  Sydney beats a path to the children's area as soon as we walk in the door now.  Fair warning if you are there when we are...please stay out of her way.  She probably won't slow down.

 

 

A couple of weeks ago, we made a bird feeder out of toilet paper rolls, peanut butter and birdseed.  We hung it outside our kitchen window so we could see the birds coming to eat.  For the first couple of days, we didn't seem to have any visitors.  I was kinda bummed.  But lately, we've been having a couple of cardinals stop by a few times a day.  There is a male and a female, but the female is a bit more skittish than the male.  She never hangs around long enough for a picture.

 

 

I told Sam we should name them, so he decided we should name them Sam and Sydney.  Hey...if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?

Baby It's Cold Outside!

We are so. over. winter around here.  We were bundling up and getting outside for a few minutes every day, but lately it has just been way too cold or too wet and messy.  And I can really tell a difference in the kids' behavior.  Sam is like a caged animal right now.  Lots and lots of energy with no good outlet.  So I took to Pinterest to find some new ways to entertain the kids.

 

We made a couple of crafts, but I'm not the craftiest person in the world.  We built an obstacle course out of laundry baskets and kitchen chairs.  We made a hopscotch board out of masking tape on the floor.

 

We also played this Spiderman game.  Masking tape across the doorway, and we threw little pom pom things at it.  I thought it was pretty fun, but Sam wasn't all that excited...

 

 

...but then he put his Spiderman costume on to play, and it was instantly more fun.  I guess if you're going to play a Spiderman game, you've got to go all in.

 

 

 

But the thing that the kids loved the most and have asked to do again (and again....and again) was shaving cream painting.  I mixed food coloring with shaving cream and turned them loose in the bathtub.  They thought it was the greatest thing ever.  I'm not surprised.  My kids are total water dogs.

 

I looked into swimming lessons at our local YMCA, and I think we are going to do that soon.  With an indoor pool, I'm actually considering joining so I can just take the kids to burn off some steam from time to time.  I wonder if they allow a fall and winter only membership?

Garden Update

Time for a garden update!  My carrots are coming along...I might actually get to eat some this year!

I planted lettuce for the first time this year.  I planted 18 spots, but only about 5 are actually producing anything.  I haven't harvested any just yet, but we're almost there.  I'm going to need a lot more than what we've got, though.  This year I just did 2 squares...I'll do at least 4 next year, if not more.

I have a few tiny squash.  Squash and zucchini are funny.  One day you go out to check your plants and you have one or two tiny little squash.  Then you get a big storm and two days later you're up to your eyeballs in squash and zucchini.  We had a couple of days of rain this week, so I'm expecting to be eating LOTS of squash next week.

My cherry tomato plant is covered.  Sam and Sydney are going to be thrilled.  No big tomatoes yet, but I've got a lot of blooms.

My beans are getting there.  They were a little big slow-going at first.  I'm not sure if the tomatoes in front of them shaded them a bit too much or what, but they're starting to take off now.  This is another thing that I'm going to need to plant more of.  I did two squares this year...next year maybe 4 or more?

I'm a little unhappy with my herbs this year.  I did them in pots for the first time, and they're just not doing great.  My rosemary is turning brown.  I thought maybe I was overwatering it, but I'm not sure.

I nearly lost the parsley.  It all turned yellow and droopy.  I cut all of the bad leaves, and this is all that's left.  I'm pretty sure by this time last year, the parsley was really big and full.

The basil, on the left, is struggling a bit too.  And I transplanted a bit of the mint from my garden.  It struggled a bit at first, but it's starting to take off again.

I also planted strawberries this year.  I've had several little green berries, but something keeps eating them before they get ripe.  I don't think it's the kids, but I can never be sure.  I think I'll use that space for more lettuce next year.  My peppers petered out.  I'm not too upset about them.  None of us really like green peppers raw.  I mainly wanted to plant them so I could chop them up and freeze them.  Not the end of the world.

I'm thinking I need ANOTHER bed next year...

Getting Ready To Grow

I have a hard time doing something the same way twice.  I like to tweak.  And while I was pretty pleased with my garden last year, it definitely needed some tweaking.  I've been hearing and seeing a lot about square foot gardening, so I thought I'd give it a try this year.  I liked the idea of having my plants in a defined area of a bed, and I thought the square foot plan would keep me from crowding my plants.  I found some pretty simple-looking instructions (simple because I knew I wouldn't be the one following them) for building a raised bed.  Then I snuggled up to my husband one evening, batted my eyelashes at him, and asked him if he wanted to sweat a little. 

Somehow, I'm not sure this is exactly what he had in mind...

Last weekend, he built me one bed, just like I asked.  I had already sorta mapped out what I would grow and determined that one bed would be enough.  Then I caught spring-optimism and decided that one bed was not nearly enough so I talked him into building one more bed. 

We decided to modify the beds a little and added some inexpensive lattice to the back to give our climbing plants something to grab hold of.  We'll see if it works...

 

 

This year, I'm growing tomatoes, cherry tomatoes (never done those before), squash, Zed, lettuce (something else that's new but everyone tells me it's pretty easy), bell peppers, beans, carrots (hoping for the non-arachnid variety this time), and watermelon.  And also something called lemon cucumbers (my cousin got me some seeds....can't wait to see what those are like).  And my herbs.  There is NOTHING better than smelling fresh basil.  And this winter, I made a habit of simmering a sprig of rosemary with some lemon and vanilla in some water on the stove.  It smells AMAZING, and it helps with the dry winter air.  Win-win.

 

I think he did a GREAT job!

 

Also, my grandmother advised me to wait until after Easter to put anything in the ground.  But it was so beautiful last weekend, and I had these brand-spankin' new beds just begging to be dug in, so I put a few tomato plants in the ground.  Then the temperature dropped 40 degrees in 12 hours (welcome to Kentucky), and I ended up draping a sheet over my brand-spankin' new bed.

 

Moral:  listen to your elders.

Just Like Elmo

Remember me talking about Elmo's underwear?  Since that time, Sam has mentioned wanting a pair of underwear "just like Elmo's" several times.  Shawn and I have told him each time that when he is ready to use the potty all the time and wear underwear, he can have some Elmo underwear.  We finally bit the bullet a few weeks ago and started wearing underwear all the time.  I won't say we've had complete success, but Sam has done pretty well.  It was time to make good on our promise.

One little problem:  did you know you can't buy underwear with stars on them?  It's true.  We have searched high and low.  I'm convinced that there is not a company in the entire world that makes starry underwear.  Shawn tried to just distract him and bought him some cool, cartoon underwear.  We have Lightening McQueen, Buzz Lightyear, Mike and Sully, and even Scooby Doo.  And while Sam really likes all of that underwear, he never really let the star underwear conversation die. 

We were in trouble.

My friends at work suggested I just make some.  Ok...paint some stars on some underwear.  Sure...I can do that.

I rounded up my supplies and got some crayons to keep Sam occupied.  He quickly let me know that if there was painting to be done, he would be doing it.  Fearing the worst, I stripped him down and gave him some paint.

I have a craft tablecloth.  I bought it on clearance about a year ago, and I put it on the table anytime I'm going to be doing anything with paint, glue or glitter.  It's vinyl, so I can just wipe it down when I'm done.  I like to think about what it will look like in a few years.  It will, I hope, be covered in messes and memories.



I have to say, he did a pretty good job.  We had nary a mess!  We did, however, have quite a few tears when it was time to put the paint away.

I used paper plates for my paint.  It's just better to be able to toss it all in the trash when I'm done.  


We often get supplies shipped to us at work packed in this really thick foam.  Rather than buy star stamps at the craft store, my friend Amanda just made me some.  She cut the foam into squares, printed out a few different stars, traced the design on the foam, then cut out the shapes using an x-acto knife.  They worked like a charm!  Best part, I just tossed them in the trash can when I was done.
 
I thought the bigger, simpler shapes turned out better than the smaller, more detailed ones.  I will try to remember that for future projects.
 

 Disclaimer:  I thought I was so smart for just tossing my stamps when I was cleaning up, but I probably should've saved them and stamped the front of the underwear after the backs were dry.  Sam doesn't seem to mind, though, so I'm not going to mess with what we've got.

 

I found a star stencil in some of my craft supplies, but the foam stamp-thingies worked much better.

 

Then we just hung them up to dry!  Things were going really smoothly until Sam realized that he wasn't going to be able to immediately wear his underwear.  He spent the next 20 minutes or so standing at the back door crying and screaming, "I want wear star underweeeeeeeeear!!!!"

 

 

I will have to let Sam paint again.  Soon.  But outside.  He loved it and has asked several times since then when I will let him paint another picture.  Maybe I'll let him do some pumpkins.

Garden Update

My little garden is coming right along.  I'm always amazed at how much it can change overnight.  It seems like one night I had little green plants, and the next morning they were all covered with blooms.  One night I have no tomatoes, the next morning I have SIX little baby, green tomatoes!  It's still going to be a while before we can eat them, but I was glad to see them just the same.  (Now if I can just keep a certain fireman from picking them before they're ready...)

 

 

 

And look what else we have---cucumbers!  This is my first time to successfully grow cucumbers.  The last time I tried it, my zucchini plants completely bullied them out of their space.  I actually picked my first two cucumbers Friday night.  Sam and I are going to eat them this weekend.  Judging by the number of little yellow flowers on my plants, we are going to have A LOT of cucumbers.  I will now be accepting all recipes that use cucumbers.

 

I made pickles once before.  They tasted pretty good, but when I canned them they got soft.  Any ideas what I did wrong?

 

I also have a couple of blooms on our watermelon plant.  I have no idea how I'll keep Sam away from it once he figures out what it is.

 

My mint from a couple of years ago came back on its own.  And it is back with a vengeance.  That stuff is everywhere.  I hate to pull it up because it smells absolutely heavenly, but it is starting to crowd out my other plants.  In hindsight, I seem to remember my mother telling me that mint would spread and take over if given the opportunity.  I'll probably try to do it in pots in the future.  But for now, I'm going to freeze some leaves in ice cubes for tea.  I've never really put mint leaves in tea before, but it seems like a very proper, southern thing to do.

 

And I've been witness to a garden miracle!  Remember how I planted one tomato plant and a few tomatoes from seeds?  I also did carrots, zucchini, rosemary, parsley and lettuce from seeds.  Pretty much everything but my zucchini died.  Yes...I was shocked, too.  Anyway, I was okay with my tomato seeds fizzling out because I had bought one mature plant.  But a few days ago, I was pulling weeds, and I noticed something sprouting up in front of my tomato marker.  (It's a good thing I still had the marker there, otherwise I would have pulled the plant thinking it was a weed.)  I've been keeping an eye on it, and I think it's actually going to make it.  I know it's running a little late, but I wouldn't expect a tomato plant of mine to behave any differently.

 

While I was celebrating my tomato plant's narrow escape from death, I noticed a little something in front of the carrot marker.  Could it be?  Dare I hope???  I'm still not sure about that one, but I think I might have a carrot plant that is fighting the good fight, too.

 

I'm tickled with how my cucumbers and squash are doing in their little cage things.  I wasn't too sure about it, but they're staying contained really well.  I will definitely have to remember to do that or some kind of climbing arrangement for them next year.

Lazy Yard Sale

Happy First Day of Summer!  In honor of my favorite season, I thought I'd post about a very summer-ific activity---yard sales!

Our neighborhood yard sale was a couple of weekends ago.  They have one every year, but for one reason or another, we have never participated.  When I got the email a few weeks prior, I kinda mentioned it to Shawn, but neither of us were overly enthusiastic about putting forth the effort that a yard sale requires.  So, we just kinda tabled it.  That Saturday morning, we both woke up rather early, and we laid in bed for a few minutes, enjoying the quiet.  As we were talking about our plans for the day, I almost jokingly said, "You wanna get our stuff together and have a yard sale today?"

"Well, sure--if you want to," was his reply.

"For real?!" I stammered.

"Yeah.  Why not?"

"Well....I haven't priced anything.  And I don't have any change.  And..."

"Oh, don't worry about all that," he argued.  "Let's just see what happens."

So we jumped up and headed to the basement to grab "just a few things" to set out.  Our "just a few things" ended up being an entire trailer full of stuff!  When it was all said and done, we had what I would call a pretty successful yard sale...for absolutely minimal effort.  

Note:  Success can mean a lot of different things, I suppose.  To us, it meant getting rid of some clutter while making a little bit of fun money.  I had a neighbor tell me that she once made $1300 at a yard sale.  That kind of return requires A LOT of planning and effort, I am sure.  This was not that kind of yard sale.  There are plenty of websites out there that have tips for having a successful yard sale, and they tell you  how to maximize your profit.  But they recommend ironing all of the clothes, hanging them up, cleaning dried food off of highchairs, blah, blah, blah.  Seriously, I hardly ever iron the clothes I wear; I'm sure as heck not ironing something I'm going to sell!  So here are my tips for having a successful, LAZY yard sale.

1.  Things will be easier if you already have your stuff pretty well designated as "yard sale."  I keep a box in our closet specifically for this.  Whenever I come across a shirt that no longer fits quite right or a purse that I've grown tired of, it goes in the box.  When the box is full, that stuff gets taken to the basement, and I start all over with an empty box.  Don't go getting any crazy ideas thinking our closet is super organized.  It's totally NOT.  

2.  As you collect things over time and your boxes fill up, SEAL THEM.  Tape them up.  Do not label the box other than to say "yard sale".  If you can't look through the boxes, you'll be less likely to have regrets about getting rid of that electric potato peeler that you got from Cousin Roy three years ago.  

3.  Agree going into the yard sale that nothing will come back in the house.  Anything that doesn't sell gets immediately taken to a Good Will (or similar) drop off.  Even if it's that oh-so-cute pair of black pumps that you totally forgot about...get rid of them.  They really weren't all that comfortable...that's why you never wore them.  

4.  If you have small children, bring them outside with you.  It saves you from having to line up a babysitter.  Also, some people will stop simply to chat with your cute kids and end up buying something before they leave.  

5.  Don't worry about pricing anything.  If someone is interested in buying something and you don't know how much to charge, just say, "Make me an offer."  Remember---your primary goal here is not to see how much money you can make.  Your first concern is getting rid of stuff.  The money is just icing on the cake.

6.  Don't worry about having change.  If you happen to get to the bank beforehand, great.  But if not it's really no big deal.  After you get a few customers, you'll have change.  Just tell the first few people that you need them to pay with exact change.  Offer to give them a little discount if they can.  (This would be a perfect time for one of your cute kids to pop over...it just leaves everyone in a more giving mood.)

7.  Along those same lines, be sensible about your prices.  If you don't have change, don't charge a quarter or odd dollar amounts for a bunch of things.  Stick to whole dollars as much as possible.  

8.  If you do price something and the person looks like they don't want to pay that much, instead of lowering your price, offer to throw something in at no charge.  For example:

Buyer:  How much for this coffee pot?

Seller:  $5

Buyer:  makes a face and puts it back down

Seller:  I tell you what, why don't you grab a couple of coffee mugs to go with it for the same price?

That saves you from having to lower your price by a whole dollar (remember--no change), and you get rid of more stuff.

9.  If you don't have tables to put your things on, use whatever you have.  We ended up spreading a couple of large blankets out on the ground.  Also, Shawn has a little trailer that we used to move stuff, and we left some stuff on it.  Some things we just left in the boxes that we had stored them in.  We just opened the boxes and that was it.  It seemed like a lot of people liked poking around in the boxes and seeing what treasures they could find.  (Personally, I don't enjoy that.  I like for things to be visible, but to each his own.)  As the day went on, I would occasionally rearrange things to make them more visible.

10.  This might be the most important tip of all:  DO NOT YARD SALE ALL DAY.  We got started right around 8am.  The kids and I were back in the house and Shawn was on his way to Good Will with the items that didn't sell by 12:30.  You want to call it a day right around the time it starts getting really warm outside.  Or when your kids start getting hungry and whiny.  Whichever comes first.  As we were gathering stuff up, we had several people stop by looking for end-of-the-day discounts.  Give them one.  Even if they buy a whole box full of stuff for $2 (really happened), that's a whole box of stuff you don't have to haul off.  

So there you have it---laziest easiest yard sale ever!  Do you have anything to add to my list?  What are your thoughts--pro-yard sale or no-yard sale?

Our Garden

I decided to have a garden this year.  I had one a couple of years ago, but with Sydney's due date being mid-July last year, I decided to forgo the garden.  And while it was probably the right thing to do, I sure missed my homegrown tomatoes.  And my zucchini named Zed.  

Sidebar to sing Homegrown Tomatoes:

Homegrown tomatoes...homegrown tomatoes

What would life be without homegrown tomatoes?

Only two things that money can't buy,

and that's true love and HOMEGROWN TOMATOES!

Shawn is shaking his head and rolling his eyes right now...

Anyhoo...after a lot of discussion about where to put the garden, we ended up using the same little piece of our yard that we had before.  Only it was no longer an unused flower bed...we had turned it into just regular yard.  Shawn tilled it up for me, but it still needed a lot of work to remove the grass that had grown there over the last 2 years.  Luckily, I had a very willing helper.

But here's the thing about helpers:  They have short attention spans.

I bought my plants on Mother's Day and spent that evening and part of the next day getting them in the ground.  Here's the thing about going to a nursery or garden center:  you get in there and see all of the beautiful plants and something comes over you.  You start to overestimate your skills.  You forget about all of the innocent little plants that you have sent to Plant Heaven.  At best, I am a novice at this whole gardening thing, but it was really hard to NOT walk out of there with about $100 worth of seeds.  For things that we don't even eat, no less!  Radicchio!  Radicchio looks so pretty in a salad!  And radishes!  I don't really even like radishes but surely my garden needs them...  

Luckily, I reigned myself in and got things back to a more reasonable level.  Tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce, parsley, rosemary and basil.  And carrots, because I just wanted to give them a whirl.  (I have heard that they can be a bit difficult...)  I might add sweet potatoes too, but someone recommended that I do those in a big pot instead of in the ground.  Still thinking about that one...

I have NEVER had any luck with seeds.  They always die.  A couple of years ago, I bought young plants, and they all did fairly well.  Well, I can't do anything the same way twice, so this time I decided I was going to have some seeds.  I bought one of these little greenhouse kits that already has the little dirt pellets in it.  You just add water to make the dirt expand and drop in your seeds.  Pretty easy!

I bought some seeds but got a couple of plants, too.  I figured that way if my seeds fizzle out, I'll still have tomatoes.  If they work, we can have LOTS of tomatoes.  Also, it's probably a good thing that I snapped this picture right after I got my seeds in because one of Sam's favorite things to do right now is to pull out my little label things and rearrange them.  At least now I can refer back to this picture so I can remember what's actually growing where.

I was super excited about Sam helping me with our garden.  I thought he'd totally be into digging in the dirt.  And he was.  Unfortunately, he was also into stomping on the plants, pulling them back out of the ground, and wreaking havoc in general.  In a last ditch effort to give my plants a fighting chance, I told Sam we were going to pretend that the plants were on fire.  And just like any good fireman, we needed to put the fire out.  Success!  And now, that's all he can talk about.  Every. Single. Night. We have to put the fire out.  We need not worry about any drought this summer.  (Also, his aim isn't all that great, so we water the sidewalk as much as we do the plants.  But don't even think about trying to help him!)  I hope my garden survives the summer of Sam.

I saw on Pinterest (where else?) that you can keep your cucumber and squash plants contained by using an upside-down tomato cage.  Mine pretty much took over everything last time, so I thought I'd give that a try.  You can see it in the picture above.  (Any thoughts on that, Doop?)  

I checked on my seeds every day for about a week.  Then, my lettuce sprouted almost over night!  Yay!!!  I eagerly called Shawn out to the porch to see.  Unfortunately, he did not show an equal (nor what I felt was an appropriate) level of enthusiasm.  Sam and I are still discussing if he will be allowed to eat our lettuce.

A few days later, I checked again, and my little greenhouse had exploded!  

I'm pretty sure this means I'm a gardening expert now.  Maybe I should've gotten those radish seeds after all...

But for all of you NON-EXPERTS out there, I have found this very cool and very useful website.  You enter your zip code and tell it what plants you want to grow in  your garden, and it will basically make a timeline for you...when to plant, when to harvest, etc.  I only found out about it a few days ago, but so far it has been very educational.  And the Sprout It people are not paying me to say that.  They have no idea who I am.  I just think it's neat and thought I'd pass it along.

Rice Krispie Christmas Ornaments

I made these cute Rice Krispie Treat Christmas ornaments to take to my sister's house for Christmas day.  

I chose these to take for two reasons.  

1)  They're Rice Krispie Treats, so they're going to be super fast and easy.  

2)  What kid doesn't love Rice Krispie Treats?  

As it turned out, they weren't exactly what I'd call super fast, but they were cute.  And the kids did love them.  And I only used part of the bag of Rolos so I had plenty left over for me to eat later.

Here's the link to the original recipe with instructions, but it took me a little bit of trial and error to figure them out so I thought I'd do an updated recipe.

Rice Krispie Treat Christmas Ornaments A La Flossie

-1/4 cup butter
-10oz package of marshmallows  Use the mini marshmallows so they melt faster!
-1 tsp vanilla
-6 cups Rice Krispies cereal You can get 2 batches from 1 box of cereal.
-food coloring of your choice  I know the original recipe calls for sprinkles to roll the ball in, but I thought this was was much easier.
-Rolo candy
-toothpicks

Melt the butter in a large saucepan.  Add the marshmallows & stir until melted.  Add food coloring a few drops at a time until the desired depth of color is achieved.  Note--make it just a few shades darker than you actually want your treats to be.  Notice that my "red" ornaments are really pink?  They were my first batch.  I learned my lesson with the green.  Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla then quickly stir in the cereal. 

This part is important!!!  Allow the mixture to cool for 5-7 minutes.  If they are too warm, they will fall apart, and you will keep having to reshape them.  (Not that I did that, or anything.)  Butter your hands well (I sprayed Pam pretty generously on mine) and start to shape the mixture into balls.  If they will not hold their form, allow them to cool a bit more. 

Cut a toothpick in half.  Insert one end into the Rolo, then insert the other end into the Rice Krispie ball. 

 

Smooth Operator

We've been on a smoothie kick at our house lately.  It all started with this recipe for a pumpkin pie smoothie.  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  (I modified it just a bit...)  Seriously, I might have a little bit of a cooking crush on the Pioneer Woman.  I want to go visit her ranch.  And eat her food.  And rub Charlie's belly.  And then eat some more food.

Right before Thanksgiving, I was going through my kitchen cabinets trying to get rid of a few things that I never use.  I found an immersion blender that I got for Christmas a couple of years ago and decided rather than giving it away I needed to put it to good use.  

Hmmm...what could I do with an immersion blender?  SMOOTHIES!

Just a day or two after that this little gem of a recipe unexpectedly plopped itself into my lap and we were set.  Shawn wasn't a huge fan of the pumpkin pie flavor (although he does like pumpkin pie...weird), but Sam and I were in love.  I convinced myself that it was a healthy recipe since I used lowfat yogurt and skim milk.  Hey...it's better than a donut, right?   

That got me wanting to try other flavors.  Those bananas that are turning brown?  Throw 'em in!  That little piece of a bag of frozen strawberries that have been sitting in my freezer for who knows how long?  Perfect! 

I have these reusable tumblers with a straw that I LOVE! 

Why do I love them?  Well, they were obviously invented by a mom of a two-year-old.  The straw has a little ridge on the bottom so a certain little boy can't pull the straw out and make a mess.  They're great to have.  This is just about all I use at home right now.  And they're just perfect for drinking smoothies, because everybody knows you have to have a straw to drink a smoothie properly. 

One afternoon this week Sam woke up from his nap & I fixed him a smoothie for a snack.  I was in the kitchen putting dinner together, and Sydney was on her little play mat in the living room.  I heard Sam say, "Bite..." and I looked in there just in time to see him shoving the straw into Sydney's mouth.  Have mercy...

Here's the recipe with my changes:

Wonderfully Delicious Pumpkin Pie Smoothie
-canned pumpkin pie mix  (make sure to get pumpkin pie MIX...not the plain pumpkin)
-3/4 cup milk  (more or less, depending on how thick you like yours)
-1/4 cup vanilla yogurt
-dash of cinnamon
-graham cracker, crumbled

Freeze the pumpkin pie mix.  I froze mine in an ice cube tray.  After it's frozen, pop the cubes out and store them in a ziplock bag.  I like about 3 to 4 cubes in my smoothie.  Throw everything except for the graham crackers in a big cup (the big plastic cups that you get at the UK football games are just perfect!) and blend with an immersion blender.  Transfer to one of your handy, dandy reusable plastic tumblers and sprinkle the graham cracker crumbs on top.  Run and hide so you can drink it all without having to share.

To make other flavors, I just kept the same basic milk to yogurt ratio and changed up the flavors.  Sam and Shawn are also quite fond of the strawberry-banana combo.  I'm thinking about experimenting with peanut butter and banana.  What flavor combinations would you try?

Stars Tutorial

These are the stars that ended up on Sydney's wall.  I am so tickled with how they turned out.  Not only because they're a craft project that I actually completed, but I'm glad she has something from my mom.  Someday, I'll explain to Sydney how she could never pass up a good deal.  How she would buy Halloween costumes for $1 or Christmas decorations for $3 just because you never knew when you'd need something like that.  These stars are a perfect example.  

This is what they started out looking like.  Nothing really special--just metal stars.

But a little spray paint and some glitter spray would quickly change that.  (By the way, if you've never used it, I highly recommend this glitter spray.  It is WAY fun.  I'm pretty sure I'll have to find some other things to use it on--maybe around Christmas time???)

 First they all got coated in paint.  I ended up using 3 coats.

 Then they all got a generous coating of the glitter spray.  (Actually, initially only two of them got glittered because I had thought the contrast effect might look good on her wall.  Then my husband got involved and sprayed the third--possibly without my knowledge.  But I totally dig the result.)

 The finished product.

Sam's Birthday

In case you didn't know, we had a very important birthday at our house a couple of weeks ago.  I love birthdays.  I always want our kids to feel celebrated on their birthday.  I don't think birthdays have to necessarily be all about huge presents or spending tons of money.  In fact, I almost want them to be the opposite of that.  I want to look for ways to just make fun memories.  That's it.  Fun.  Special.  Happy.  Joyous. 

Last year, Shawn and I took the day off for Sam's birthday and just had a fun day with him.  We decided that was a tradition we want to try to keep.  It may not always be something we're able to do, but we're going to make an effort to just set aside a day to celebrate the birth of our children in a fun way.  What that looks like might change from year to year, but our main goal is to just do something out of the ordinary. 

This year, Shawn decided to kick off Sam's birthday week by dragging the mattress from our guest room into the living room and having a camp out.  Let me just tell you--Daddy comes up with the. best. ideas.  I HIGHLY recommend this to anyone who is looking for a way to make their kid's day.  The minute Sam saw the mattress in the floor, his eyes lit up and he immediately flopped himself face-first onto it.  (And then proceeded to repeat that procedure about 4,793 times.)  As usual, his brown, furry sidekick was right there in the middle of the action.

Of course, all of that excitement can generate an overall feeling of happiness and love.

We spent part of the next day just lounging around and enjoying our new setup.  Nothing too fancy--just a couple of folks kicked back, chillin', watching some cartoons.

For Sam's actual birthday, we decided this year we'd do a movie.  Again, this was Shawn's idea.  He said he remembers going to the movies to be a special treat when he was a kid, and he always really enjoyed going.  While I agreed, I was a little apprehensive about taking a 2 year old to the theatre.  But after some discussion we decided that's what matinees are for, so we loaded Sam up and picked out the movie we wanted to see:  Dr. Seuss' The Lorax.

We posed for a couple of pictures.  (And to Shawn's credit he didn't even roll his eyes.)

Then we found our seats.  Sam LOVED the cool chairs.  We had one minor mishap that involved standing up in the chair and it folding up, which then resulted in getting his foot stuck in it.  But other than that the movie was a total success!!!  Sam loved everything about it.  He consumed more popcorn than I thought possible.  He laughed, clapped and danced during the songs.  He cheered when the good guys won.  Honestly, I just don't have the words to describe how much fun it was for all three of us. 

But eventually, the junk food high wears off, and when it does little guys crash HARD.

The next weekend, we had Sam's party.  Last year, we had his party at home.  Even though we tried to keep it small and stress-free, I still managed to obsess about whether the house was clean enough, getting the cake and cupcakes decorated just right, having room to put everyone, etc, etc, etc.  I also may have threatened Shawn's life at one point because he sampled a cupcake the night before and didn't ask my permission.  Good times...

Anyhoo, this year we decided to have Sam's party at a location away from home.  We thought about the park since he always has such a great time there, but in the end we decided that April weather is just too unreliable for that.  So we found a bounce house that would rent the entire place to us (because our previous bounce house experience with the rest of the world was such a disaster), and I started looking for Pooh-themed party ideas on Pinterest.  Then we found out that the bounce house we were looking at would only allow us to have cake and pizza.  And I was so sad because I had pinned all of these cute Pooh-themed food ideas.  And then I mentioned my concerns to Shawn and he was like, "Well don't you just want to order a pizza?" and I shouted lovingly told him, "No!  I don't want to just order pizza!  I want to have my cute Pooh-themed food!"  Boy, planning a birthday party really brings out the best in me, doesn't it?

In the end, we found another bounce house that would allow us to bring in our own food and drinks, and we were back on track.  So here are a few pictures from our party.  I made the food signs on our computer & printed them on photo paper.  I used a font that I downloaded from the internet so the words would have the backwards letters and everything like  you always see on the Pooh cartoons.  (Did you even know you could download new fonts?  I didn't.  And it was FREE!!!  Ain't modern technology grand?)  My very creative friend Amanda fashioned some little easels for them out of some left over cardboard, and they were just perfect.

We had fruit and vegetables from Rabbit's garden.

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I did relent this year and get a store-bought cake.  I wasn't going to be able to take the day off before the party, and I was afraid I would run out of time on the cake.  I have to say, the people at Kroger were very nice and easy to work with.  She let me go on and on about how I wanted the cake to look.  Even though we couldn't do exactly what I wanted (copyright issues with Disney), I think it still turned out really cute.

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I just LOVE how these turned out.  Pretzel rods turned Tigger Tails.  (For anyone wanting to know--you CANNOT dye melted white chocolate with food coloring.  Apparently I should have paid more attention in basic chemistry when they were talking about oil based substances not mixing well with water based substances.  If you need to use colored dipping candy, save yourself the trouble and go directly to Michael's and buy the already-dyed stuff.  Trust me.)

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Piglets in a blanket.

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This is the conversation we had the night before the party:

Me (after making one batch of Stuff and Fluff Salad): Look at this bowl and think about how many people we're having at the party.  Do you think I should make a double batch?

Shawn:  What is that?

Me:  It's that pink salad that you like.  It has pineapple, maraschino cherries, Cool Whip.  But tomorrow it's going to be Stuff and Fluff Salad.

Shawn:  I don't remember you making that.  Can I taste it?

He tastes it.

Shawn:  Yes.  We'll definitely be needing a double batch of that.

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This one was a bit of a flop.  I wanted to have blue punch, so I came up with a punch recipe that would work.  (A container of blue Hawaiian Punch, a container of white cranberry juice, and a 2 liter of lemon-lime soda.)  Then I thought if we floated vanilla ice cream on top it might look like a rain cloud.  So it could be Eeyore's Rain Cloud Punch--you know--since Eeyore always has that rain cloud over his head.  I was so proud of my brilliance.  So on the day of the party, Shawn's mom and I went ahead of everyone else to run in Kroger and pick up last minute items and decorate.  I decided a divide and conquer approach was in order.  So when we got in Kroger I asked her to grab ice cream while I picked up the cake.  "What flavor?" she asked.  On the spur of the moment, I said, "Shawn likes Neapolitan...get that!"  Only when I got ready to mix up the punch I realized that Neapolitan ice cream doesn't so much look like a rain cloud.  Oh well.

Here's another funny story about the punch:  When we were cleaning up the party room, I drained what was left of the punch back into one of the original juice containers, but I had nothing to do with the ice cream.  One of the bounce house workers suggested that I flush it down the toilet.  Great!  Except when I went into the restroom the toilet was still running from where someone else had just flushed it.  Not wanting to risk causing the toilet to overflow, I dumped the ice cream in and made a mental note to go back and flush it in just a minute after the tank had filled back up.  Only I forgot.  Do you know what Neapolitan ice cream looks like when it's in a toilet?  I'm guessing whoever saw it wasn't thinking it was ice cream...

I made this sign for the gift table.  Again...nothing fancy.  Just a Word document printed on paper, trimmed to size and framed.  I brought one of our backup Poohs to hold it.

I found these little pots that I thought looked like honey pots on the dollar rack at Target.  You cannot imagine the funny looks I was getting as I stood there doing my happy dance in the store.  I had intended to put crayons in them and let the kids color Pooh pages, but the Pooh coloring pages didn't quite make it to the party, so I just bought a little bouquet of flowers to divide up and use.

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I was also really proud of this idea.  I made little favor bags for the kids, but since this was a mostly family party, I wanted a little something to give to the adults too.  So I bought a couple of boxes of honey buns (honey...Pooh...get it?) and made little tags for them. 

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This is totally my child:  ignores all of the toys he got and goes straight for the books.  As soon as he opened the gift with books he was done.  As in, he was pushing the other presents away not wanting to open them so he could sit and look at his books.  Or as Sam likes to say, "Book-sssssss."

Cousins are such a nice thing to have around.

Sam loves his Nana--thinks she hung the moon.

Tigger made a surprise appearance at the party.  (Seriously--we didn't know he was coming!)  This was as close as Sam would get to him.  I think we finally did coerce him into giving him a high five before he left.

We tried to convince my grandmother to get in the inflatables, but she decided she'd just settle for a game of air hockey.

But that didn't stop Sam and Daddy from having fun in them!

FYI--for all of you moms out there:  Destination birthday parties are THE BEST!!!  If you are in the Lexington area, we highly recommend the bounce house that we used.  They were so nice to work with.  They pretty much let us do whatever we wanted, we only had to get our stuff out of the party room and they cleaned up the rest, and the kids had a great time.  Seriously, we might not ever have another birthday party at our house ever again.