St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!!

I had so much fun making these decorations this year. I hand stitched the shamrocks onto the banner after I realized the Steam-a-Seam wasn't going to hold the felt on. I like the look of the hand stitched better anyways don't you?

We had such a great time with St. Patrick's day this year. Our day started out with the leprechaun flipping the boys high chairs over. Ben was so upset about the whole thing. We heard about it all day long and several days after that. Then that naughty leprechaun turned our pancakes into green shamrocks.

For lunch we had ham, cheese, and cucumber sandwiches all cut like shamrocks. We made pistachio pudding, and even had shamrock shakes.
When the boys were napping that tricky leprechaun came back to our house and made a big mess with shamrocks, hand-prints, footprints, and pots of gold. Sam was the first one up. As soon as he came out or the room he said "Oh no! Made a mess!" (or in Sammy language it sounds more like mee a mees!" He just kept saying it over and over again wandering through the house. Until the "pot of gold" filled with yellow M&Ms distracted him.Ben was a little different. He was so mad! He made his grouchy face and was yelling at the leprechaun until we told him it was ok. For days after St. Patrick's day Ben would look for leprechauns and their treasure.

For dessert we had rainbow cupcakes. They are so fun to make but are a little time consuming. first you take a white cake mix and separate it out into little bowls. Then you add food coloring to each bowl to make different colors. Once you have all your colors ready you layer them into the muffin tin. (this is the part that takes forever) This is what it looks like when it is baked. I forgot to take a picture of what it looks like when you brake it open but I found this picture online. Mine really did look just like this. but with green and white sprinkles on the top like on the pistachio pudding.

For dinner we had the best corn beef ever! (sorry no picture, I forgot to take it and when I went back to the store a few days later to buy more to make it again it wasn't on sale anymore. I had no idea how expensive it is because I only buy it once a year and it is always on sale during St. Patrick's day) anyways here is the recipe

Cook your Corn beef in the crock pot like usual. Then right before you are going to serve it put it in the oven for 20 minutes with this glaze

1 cup Dijon mustard
1 tbs paprika
brown sugar

It makes the meat a little bit crispy and extremely delicious.

Hope you had as great a day as we did! May the luck o' the Irish always be with you!

Wordless Wednesday

Dr. Seuss' Birthday

I absolutely love Dr. Seuss' Birthday. It is one of my favorite holidays! There are so many fun things to do to celebrate. I usually spend several hours online trying to come up with some great activities but this week has been crazy so I had to think on the spot. I think these ended up being my favorite activities I have done so far.

The morning started out with pancakes shaped like Dr. Seuss' hat. Then I added strips with red food coloring mixed with 2-3 drops of water. The boys had a great time painting the stripes on. I had special visit from my friend Katrina and her girls to join in our fun party. She read the kids Dr. Seuss stories while I finished up making lunch. Doesn't it look yummy! For dessert they got to frost their own cupcake. They were looking forward to this all morning. It is always so much more fun when they get to do it themselves. What is a party with out a party hat. (I had these left over from last year) It took some convincing to get Ben to take it off for his nap but when I went in to check on him an hour later I found him like this.
For snack that day I let Ben paint stripes again because he had so much fun with it in the morning. I think the banana hats turned out really cute.

Wordless Wednesday

Just Playing

It was a beautiful day today so we went outside to play. It is so much fun for me to take my camera along when the boys are playing. It is always when I get the best smiles out of them.

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day Everyone! These are the valentines I made for Ben to take to pre school today. I love how they turned out. I am so glad my sister-in-law Shauna made them earlier this week so I could have a better understanding of how to do it. Thanks Shauna!!!!
We also had pink pancakes and eggs shaped like hearts (I just used a cookie cutter after they were finished cooking) The boys loved it!

Movie Monday ~ Sammy saying his ABC sounds

Sammy's favorite show is "Leapfrog Letter Factory." Because of this show, Sammy has learned almost all the sounds of the alphabet. He is only missing about 5 letter sounds. He was only 16 months old when he started doing it. This video was taken a few weeks before he was 18 months. Sorry it is focused on the blinds and not Sam. Don't really know what happened here.

Potty Training Secrets

Ben was really easy to potty train. We had him in underwear when he was 2 years and 2 months old. He only had a few accidents and then he was pretty much done (he regressed when we moved but that only lasted about 2 weeks).

So since it worked out so well with Ben we are going to try the same method with Sam.

Here is what we do. When they are about 18 months (Sam will be 18 months in one more week) we start sitting them on the potty before bath. While they are there we pour warm water from the bathtub on them. The warm sensation triggers them to pee.

After doing this for a about a month they won't need the cup any more.

We kept doing this for over 6 months with Ben. Very low key - only the one time a day. I'm not really sure how long I would have kept going with this but Tom lost his job so we didn't really have a choice. We couldn't afford 2 kids in diapers so Ben had to be potty trained. He showed no other signs that he was ready to be trained but we did it anyway and it worked perfectly. (Well almost)
We started with Sam a few weeks ago. For a long time nothing really happened. But this week he started going. He has now gone 3 nights in a row! I am so proud of my little man. His favorite part is getting the toilet paper to wipe!

Flash Back Friday ~ Grandma's Crepes

When I was a little girl every time I stayed at my Grandma and Grandpa's house, my grandma would make us "Swedish Pancakes;" now I call them "Crepes". To this day they are my favorite breakfast food. Unfortunately, she doesn't remember making them for us and doesn't know what recipe she used so I had to get mine from the internet and tweak it a bit. This is what I came up with. This recipe feeds my family of 2 adults and 2 kids.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 C flour
3 eggs
3/4 C milk
3/4 C water
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbl butter completely melted
3 Tbl granulated sugar

Directions:
1. In large mixing bowl, whisk together flour and eggs. (I actually use a hand mixer for the whole thing)
2. Gradually add in the milk and water, stirring to combine.
3. Add the salt and melted butter. Beat until very smooth.
4. Heat a lightly oiled frying pan.
5. Pour a small amount of batter in the middle of the pan and swirl it around until it creates a very thin layer covering the entire bottom of the frying pan.
6. As soon as the bottom has been covered it is time to flip. Gently start lifting the sides until the entire crepe is loose from the pan, then flip.
7. Let it cook for about 1 minute and then it is time to remove and try the next one.
8. We like to put jelly and whipped cream in our crepes but you can get creative. Try banana and chocolate, or caramel sauce, or maybe even peanut butter.

What do you like to put in your crepes????

Let me know if you need me to take pictures as I make them next time to understand how to cook them.

Cleaning out the Camera Dropoff

The week before my Mother-in-Law passed away was actually a very busy and fun week that I never got to blog about because my life got turned upside down. Well, now that things have leveled out a bit I will show you a few pictures from that week.

Monday~ My brother Brad and his girlfriend Laurie came to visit us for a few hours so they could ride bikes on the river trail by our house. I am so bummed I didn't get a picture of them on their bikes. I guess they will just have to come back and do it again. Tuesday ~ I took the boys to a park near our house to feed the ducks. I had a hard time taking pictures of Sam because he kept trying to get in the water with the ducks. I finally passed my camera off to some guy that had a fancier camera than I did to take some candid shots and I am actually in them, which doesn't happen very often.

Wednesday~ My best friend from childhood, Betheny, came to visit us from Utah with her family. We haven't seen each other since Ben was less than a year old. We now both have had another kid since then. It was so great to see her and spend the afternoon with her family.
Thursday~ At around 9:00 PM I went to the movies for the opening night of the new Twilight movie Breaking Dawn with a few friends. It's always more fun to see these movies with friends that loved the books. We had a great time but didn't get home until after 2:00.

Friday~ I had a hard time moving the next day after staying up so late. I picked up Ben from school and came home to find a few phone calls from some of Tom's family members. Before I could even process who had called Tom walked in the door and told me his mom had just decided to refuse further medical treatment. She either had a few hours to live or a few weeks - we really had no idea at this point. He jumped on the computer to change our flights that we had booked for a few weeks later, and I jumped on the phone to see if my mom could come over and get the kids for a few days. I remember trying to get the kids lunch and I was crying. They didn't seem to notice that I was upset. Ben was being a turkey and I was trying with every ounce of will power to be calm and collected with him. I put the kids down for a nap and left for the airport soon after that. I sat in the airport crocheting and sobbing quietly. When they announced that our flight was going to be delayed 2 hours I was angry. Part of me knew that I was going to miss her last moments here on earth with us. I was right. We missed her passing by about 2 hours. As soon as our plane landed we got a call from Tom's sister Nancy who let us know she was gone. We held each other and sobbed again in the terminal of the airport.

We went to the hospital for a few hours to be with her. I am so glad I had a chance to say goodbye. Once again I didn't get home and in bed until after 2:00 AM.

Saturday~ The next morning when we woke up it was my father-in-law's birthday :0(. That was one of the hardest days I think I have ever had. I spent most of the day cleaning the house just trying to stay busy. We all wandered through the house numbly looking at all the stuff that reminded us of her and her love for us. She was an amazing crafter. Each time we would see each other we would always make sure we had a craft in mind to do together. Her crafts are everywhere in the house. There isn't a single room in their house that hasn't been touched by her and her talents. None of us talked all that much that day.

Karol's visiting teacher came over that morning to deliver a red velvet cake to Bryan (my father in law) for his birthday. That was Karol's specialty. She made it for everyone's birthday. Her visiting teacher let us know that Karol was very insistent that Bryan got this cake today. She had no idea that Karol had passed away the night before. It was such an amazing reminder at how truly thoughtful Karol was. She was always thinking of others and making sure that their needs were met. I miss her!

Thankful Thursday

It has been a long time since I have done a Thankful Thursday.

I upload my pictures from my camera pretty much every week (sometimes more often then that) But I just upload them to a folder on my desktop called "Camera Dropoff" until I have time to blog them, then I move them to where they belong in my "My Pictures" folders. So since I take at least 100 pictures a week and only blog 1 every 2 weeks. I am really behind. This is not something I am thankful about.

I am thankful that I have a blog to journal all of the fun things I do with my kids and the craziness that is my life. I'm glad I take time to sit down and post even if it is totally sporatic. I'm hoping I get a little better with this and get a little better at passing my camera off to someone so I can be in more pictures. So there are 2 of my New Year's resolutions (stated a month too late, but I am okay with that.)So back to Thankful Thursday. I wanted to show you a picture I found in my camera dropoff taken in November. At the beginning of the month I made a Thankful tree and each day we would all write down something we were thankful for. Any visitors we had during the month also got to add something. It was a lot of fun and I now plan to make it a Thanksgiving tradition. (I got the idea from Pinterest)

It was so easy to make. I just went down the street after a big storm and collected all the branches off the sidewalk. I gathered them together with some Rafia. I wanted it in a vase but I was afraid the boys would knock it over. I then cut out little circles out of fall-colored scrapbook paper for the ornaments, punched a hole and tied some rafia through that. I had a whole bunch and had them all ready to go in a Ziploc bag with a marker in it sitting on the kitchen table so I would remember to do it each day.The kids could say anything they wanted and it would go up. Ben's first response was candy.

Peanut Allergy :0(

When Ben was a little over a year old we found out he has a peanut allergy. We never knew how severe it was or if he was allergic to any other nuts. So when he started pre-school I took him in to be tested.
He was such a trooper! It turns out he is only allergic to peanuts and it is a mild allergy. What a bummer that he is always going to be "that kid" in the class that ruins all the peanut butter fun for everyone but at least he can be in the same room with it and if he accidentally get a bit of something like a peanut butter pretzel he isn't going to go into Anaphylaxis shock. We are really lucky it is what it is.

These pictrues are actually from October but I just now emptied my other camera onto the computer and found them. :0) Shows you how much I use it now that I have my nice one.