I'm a snowman!

Today I was visiting with a friend who was dropping their son off to play with my oldest for the day. My oldest was in the bathroom and taking an extremely long time to come out. Deciding to wait until after my friend left to check on him, I went in there after what had been quite a while.

I walk in on a half-dressed little boy smeared (hair and all) in foam from our soap dispenser. With a huge smile on his face he says, "Look, Momma! I'm a snowman!"

Love that kid.

Every moms dream, right? A boy who is keeping himself clean :)

Hot, Hot, Jalapeno rolls!

I'm always at a loss of what to bring to get togethers, especially the typical Christmas ones where you bring appetizers. Why? Because these are my favorite types of parties and the food MUST be great (I mean I look forward to these appetizers ALL year!) so I put pressure on myself to bring something that I think is amazingly tasty. Ha, and if nobody else cares for it, I am MORE than glad to finish it off :)

We went to a Christmas party this past Friday and I wanted to bring something savory. I decided to be a good wife and keep my hubbs in mind when creating this appetizer. Along with my friend Lindsey, we dreamed this creation up.....

Ingredients

2 cans of crescent rolls

1 1/2 packages of cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sharp shredded cheese

crumbled bacon(as little or much as you like)

diced jalapenos(seeds removed), I used about 1/3 cup, adjust according to your taste!

dash or so of garlic powder

dash of pepper

1. Unroll one can of crescent rolls and pinch together the seams that you would normally tear apart

2. Mix together the rest of the ingredients

3. Spread half of the mixture over the dough

4. Roll the dough (hot dog style, NOT hamburger) like you would cinnamon rolls

4. Using a sharp knife cut the roll into slices 1/2"-3/4" wide

5. Repeat with second can of crescent rolls

6. Bake at 375 degrees for 11-14 minutes

**This recipe will make about 40 rolls**

These turned out better than I thought they would. My hubbs and I loved them and had to force ourselves to stop "taste-testing" them so we could arrive with some at the par-tay :) Enjoy and Merry Christmas Parties!

A room of your own...

Wouldn't it be nice to have a space ALL to yourself?! Once I had my sweet kiddos, of course, I lost all sense of "personal space". There would be times when my own husband would try to hug me and I would slightly freak out because I couldn't take one more person in "my space". Poor guy. About a month ago I was reading a book that a good friend of mine loaned me. It's called Boy-Sterous Living by Jean Blackmer (I recommend it to anyone who has boys, teaches boys, or just wants to understand their hubbs better). It's hilarious, is encouraging, and is all around a good read. Becky, you will be getting this back soon, promise!

Anyways one of her chapters is titled, "Think Pink." Basically the premise for why I started this blog, living out your "girl". As one part of this chapter she encourages women, moms, etc...to create a room that is just for her. She says this will help encourage a connection to your girl..."create, grow, pray, and be filled so you can go out and be useful to others".

My first thought, "I TOTALLY agree with this!"

My second thought, "I don't have a whole room to spare!" Mrs. Blackmer addresses this as well and points out that even if you can just make a corner your own, do it!



Getting so old!



Now that my youngest is approaching the year mark I have slowly been able to regain some of my personal space and time(even though he still insists on being attached to me as much as possible), because him and our 3 year old are able to play together. I have decided to take Mrs. Blackmer up on her challenge to make a space just for "you". Until we move the boys into a room together next year my only room currently that is somewhat mine is the hubbs and my bedroom.

SO I have decided to reclaim our bedroom. And eventually when I redo our room this next year, a "girl" corner for myself to relax.

My first step? Limiting the kiddos "use" of the room. A few months ago I began teaching our oldest the word "privacy" especially when it involves women and their need to have time to themselves(ex: in the shower) and this is another aspect of giving others privacy. Our kids have never really slept in our room or anything, because my husband has always seen some the importance of keeping the bedroom a "special" place for just mommy and daddy. I secretly have always loved this rule, it made me feel special that he valued our time together that much. Anyways, back to limiting the kiddos in the room....

Sometimes the only time I get to myself during the day is when I take a shower and sometimes when I put on my make-up. Doing your hair and getting dressed has proved pretty interesting and definitely not peaceful while a baby is climbing up your leg, in the toilet, and pulling things off shelves and a 3 year old is bouncing on and off your bed(which is a no-no in our house, but of course that is tested daily). Today I decided that they did not need to play in our room because they have plenty of toys in their own baby-proofed rooms and do actually enjoy playing together. So, what did I do? I put up the baby gate in the door going to our room (I seriously have not utilized this device enough).

At first I felt bad about restricting them, but then I relaxed, just a little bit, giving myself a slight break from the pressure I felt to constantly be in the same room at all times. I was okay with it because, a) the room they play in is 3 feet from our bedroom door and I could see and hear them, b) I have learned to get ready incredibly quickly, c) they didn't mind it a bit, and d) I could get ready even faster because I wasn't having to fish things out of the toilet that our little man decided needed to go in there.

The old me, the pre-kids me, would have thought this was an incredibly selfish thing to do. BUT now I realize that in order to be a better momma, a less stressed person, and a much more "loving" wife and mother, you need to take some time for yourself. Know your limits of course...A typical 5 minute routine probably shouldn't turn into 2 hours :)

Day 1 of reclaiming a space for "me", a success. Here's to hoping our 3 year old doesn't realize that he is, in fact, strong enough to push down that gate...

Eventually I'll get to that "corner" in our room.

There's snow day like a snow day....

This morning I woke up to the most beautiful scene! Snow was everywhere and I was energized. This is the perfect day for this post, which will be kind of a mish-mosh of things.

FIRST, what do you want on a cold day like this? In my house we love something hot to drink and warm soup to eat. This week has been pretty busy and I haven't had a chance to go to the grocery store. Luckily I had about 5 lbs of potatoes left from a 10 lb bag that I scored for $.99! SO I decided to make potato soup for dinner tonight. You can follow this link to get the recipe http://www.food.com/recipe/crock-pot-style-loaded-baked-potato-soup-301754

Make it as healthy or yummy as you like. Healthy version would of course be to use a skim milk instead of the cream, light sour cream, etc....

Now for the something hot to drink...After marrying my wonderful hubbs I learned how to make his family's Wassail. Sort of a requirement of sorts :) It is the perfect recipe to warm you up on a cold day and is super easy to boot!

      

Wassail

1 gallon apple cider

Pineapple juice(as little or as much as you want...I have started using half a can of frozen pineapple concentrate per recipe because it's cheaper!)

1 bag of red hots

cinnamon sticks or just powder cinnamon if you don't have sticks

1. Put it all in a large stock pot

2. Heat over medium heat stirring occasionally

3. Pour a cup, curl up, and enjoy!

NOW for the second part of this post.....

This weekend we had one of my sweet friends, who has recently moved away, come visit with her beautiful little girl. We had a blast letting the kiddos play and catching up. One of the projects that we undertook was one of my "Pinteresting Pins". We made adorable and EASY snowman shirts for our kids. They were gender neutral which was great since we had to 2 rowdy's and 1 princess. Quick tutorial on how we made them.......

1. We began by buying white shirts to fit each child, and 3 different fabrics. One darker black patterned fabric, a lighter black patterned fabric(we used black gingham) and an orange patterned fabric. To make 3 shirts we only used about 1/8 of a yard of each fabric PLUS had enough leftover to make a tutu for the princess of the bunch. You will also need a needle, black thread, and orange thread.

2. Make your patterns. We found four different circles(You decide how big or small you want them...my 3 yr old's were slightly bigger than our babies) to trace onto cardboard to make the pattern for the mouth and eyes. Cut them out to trace onto your fabric.

3. Using the 2nd largest circle trace 2 circles onto the lighter black patterned fabric(our gingham). After finishing that go ahead and trace all four circles onto the darker black patterned fabric. Cut out each circle.

We traced the circles onto the back of our fabric. Ha, and we used what we had (lots of toys!!) to make our patterns!

 4. If you can find a triangle in your house to make a pattern out of then great, but if not you might try free-handing it OR find a triangle you like online, printing it, and cutting it out. Naturally, we used one of my son's triangle blocks and rounded the edges while tracing it to give the effect we wanted.

 5. After cutting out everything we arranged them on the shirts the way we wanted and pinned them in place.

 6. Now, if you are the fancy type you can use your sewing machine and secure each piece down. We wanted the raw look so we doubled our thread, knotted it at the end and just did a hand sewn running stitch around each piece (it will fray slightly in the wash).

We were extremely HAPPY with how they turned out. Inexpensive, easy, and adorable.




Our cutie pies were pretty good sports for us as we tried to get pics of them in their shirts!

Yep, they're getting married some day ;)



Loving this snow day and  loving our little snow cuties. I hope you are having a great day as well and hopefully can enjoy the next snow day like I have!