Meet, Stickers......

Meet Stickers, our new family dog. Yes, dog. Even though it looks like a rat, it is, in fact, a dog.

Since I've been sewing pillows a lot lately I have had bags of pillow batting laying around the house. The bags have pictures of all kinds of stuffed animals on them. My son saw them and decided that I needed to make one. My thoughts? "Umm, Seriously? A stuffed animal? No, thanks..." And of course with his amazingly accurate memory he did not forget about it. So, because I love my child, I attempted to figure out how to make a stuffed puppy(his choice).

Thanks to some tutorials online this is what I came up with....

Puppy Patterns I made...

My son decorated this one :)  

I used scraps of fabric from my oldest's baby bedding. We did red gingham for the main part of the puppy and a "fuzzy" ivory for the belly and ears.

It took a little figuring out, but the puppy did in fact get finished.

We added buttons and ribbon for a collar.

In my opinion it's kinda ugly, but my son loves it, so that makes it totally worth it...even a little cuter :)

The things we do for our kids......

Monday's with the MOB

Man oh man I have been busy! We are in project mode still and today we finished up our garden area and planted our Zucchini and Cucumber plants that are already crazy big.

So I thought I'd do a quick round-up of some highlights from my boys over the past week or so....

Quote from my oldest: "Mom, can you please go away?" Envision him poised towards our youngest waiting for me to leave so he can take his toy... :)

My youngest today as he dove(purposely) into a mud puddle while some friends and I were letting the kids play at a nearby college campus. In an attempt to make him "cleaner" he became shirtless the rest of the time while still having a blast in the puddle. Cute boy was in his element. And then later on tonight when we arrived at a track night(the kids get to run and have "races" with other kids) at the same college I was getting our youngest out of the car and realized we forgot his pants. HA! So, yes, he was shirtless and pantless on the same campus in one day. Needless to say he didn't mind a bit :)

The next pictures are from the hike we took the boys on last Friday. They LOVED it! They could throw rocks, jump off rocks, play in the dirt (get dirty), splash in the water, and just be free to be boys....

A park at a nearby campsite

We kept attempting to take a "good" family pic, and this is the best one!

Throwing a million rocks :)

I hope you have had a good Monday (with the MOB)!

Fab Food Friday: Lightened Baked Oatmeal (overnight)

Today's Fab Food is one of our family favorites, but lightened.

My family loves baked oatmeal and I do too, but it can be pretty bad on the--uh--hips if ya know what I mean. I took a few recipes I had, tweaked it to our tastes, and then lightened it and made it more hearty...that way we don't start the morning with a big sugar rush! After a friend's suggestion I also started making it the night before to let the oats soak(to soften). It makes the morning craziness a little easier to know I don't have to "cook" amongst the chaos.

Here's the recipe I have figured up....

Light-n-hearty Baked Oatmeal

Serves 6

1) Whisk these ingredients in a large bowl:

3 tbs. corn oil

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

2 Tb sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

3 egg whites

1 Tb. milled Flax seed

1 Tb. vanilla

1 1/2 cups skim milk

2) In a smaller bowl mix:

1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking powder

2 1/2 cups old fashioned oats

1 tsp. cinnamon

dash of nutmeg

3) Combine the two mixtures in the larger bowl then add:

1/4 cup craisins

1/4 cup raisins

1/3 pecans (I like big chunks) 

4) Make sure the ingredients are well mixed then pour into a greased baking dish

5) Cover and let sit in the refrigerator over night

6) Remove from fridge in the morning and let sit 15-20 minutes

7) Bake at 375 for 30 minutes or until slightly browned on top

We were so ready to eat this that I forgot to take a picture of the finished product until it was almost gone :)

Enjoy!

Spring Break?

I have been MIA this week in the blogging world. My computer hasn't been on it's best behavior so I decided to take that as a sign to enjoy my wonderful hubbs who is home for the week and also get projects knocked off the list. A friend lent me her sewing machine for the week which meant I could get a lot of sewing done for the pillows and curtains in our *new* master bedroom. There has also been a lot of painting and spray painting done this week...yay!

Here's a sneak peek of some of the projects I've been doing all week....explanations will come later!

Surprised one morning that our zucchini and cucumber seeds sprouted!

Amazing monogram from my friend Carrie of Cuckoo Caboodle

Laundry Room Makeover!!!

Today was a special day. I received not only my Southern Living BUT ALSO my (free) subscription to Better Homes and Gardens. Can all the ladies in the house say WOOT WOOT?! These were much needed today...so, yes, I may have been spotted sitting outside in the beautiful sunshine reading these this afternoon instead of folding laundry....Magazines before laundry, that's how it is.

On a side note.....Today I did my 2 mile run that is part of my couch to 5k training! It went great! Woohoo!

I hope you all have had a great week. Don't forget that tomorrow is National Toast Day! We will be celebrating with French Toast in the morning and then hiking afterwards just for kicks :)

No Pinching in my house!

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all!!! I hope each of you have celebrated this wonderful holiday in all it's glory. Like I said in my post yesterday, this is my favorite holiday. Green is my favorite color and this holiday gives me a great excuse to go crazy with it!

The holiday started off with my take on "green" nail polish. It's called "Need a refreshing Mint?" by Wet-n-Wild. I know, again, with the Wet-n-Wild. Inexpensive nail polish (This one I got for $.99!! with a coupon of course), but this is seriously an awesome polish. It has this great flat brush that lets you paint your nails incredibly fast and it stays on your nails great. All-in-all, I like it.

And I digress....anyways, there is this book I love for St. Patrick's Day called, "Twas the Night Before St. Patrick's Day". It is a twist on the "Night Before Christmas" story. In short it is about 2 kids who set traps to try to catch a leprechaun to find out where he hid his treasure. The leprechauns make messes and in the end still tricks them in a cute way.

So for the past few days the "Leprechauns" have come and made messes in our house with my boys toys and left "footprints" to prove it. Our son loved it and wanted to catch the leprechaun. The fun ended with him getting to still have a piece of the rainbow and some of his "treasure"(Rolos). We had a lot of fun with it.

The Leprechauns messed up our son's beloved cars..."Look Mom! Leprechaun footprints!"

Our food for the day was themed also.....Green chili egg "muffins" and a Green Monster Smoothie for breakfast, Shamrock shaped sandwiches(3 heart shaped sandwiches formed into a shamrock with a stem), fruit rainbow :), Mint M&M cookies, and fabulous Green cupcakes my dad brought from Oklahoma. The Hubbs and I had a FUN date night/game night with friends from church tonight and had green themed food. We brought Bacon Brown Sugared Green beans and a Pistachio Cake/Pudding Trifle(I make this every year!). We had so much fun!

Some other pics of the day.....

My awesome Dad...Some of you wonder where I get my "spirit" from?!

Starting the kids off right ;) Our youngest in his "Kiss Me" Tux...

I think it is fun to take an ordinary day and make it a little more special and out of the norm. It makes life more interesting. I hope you all have had a good "no I didn't get pinched, I wore my green!" type of day.

Fab Food...Chocolate Strawberry Frozen Yogurt...

Okay so today's Fab Food is pretty simple, but has been my favorite healthy treat as of last week.

On the way home from church last Wednesday night we were passing by all kinds of fast food restraunts (which was not helping the "hungry, but I need to eat healthy" thought) and I began craving ice cream. Knowing I had almost made it through the whole day and had not "blown" my healthy food plan I knew I couldn't give in. Instead, I created this.....

Chocolate Strawberry Frozen Yogurt

2 oz. plain fat-free yogurt

2 oz. vanilla yogurt

1/2 tsp. dark choclate cocoa powder

2 or 3 strawberries, diced

1) Put yogurts in a bowl and mix to combine

2) Mix in cocoa

3) Add diced strawberries and mix

4) Put in Freezer for 30 min-1 hour

5) Take out, stir a little and enjoy!



This was the perfect amount and the perfect level of sweetness to calm my craving.

Using the yogurt I had it came to about 100 calories 1.5 grams of fat.

In other news, tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day. My favorite holiday of the year(No, I'm not lying)! Green has been my favorite color for a long time and this gives me a great excuse to go overboard in it! This year has been exceptionally fun because our 1st born is finally old enough to have fun with on this holiday(I'll explain tomorrow!)

I hope you have your green meals, pots of gold at the end of the rainbow, and green clothing all ready for the BIG day tomorrow!!

Pinterest makes me a better Woman...

Seriously. How many women(okay, and some men...) are now inspired to go beyond our "norm" all because we now have a place to store great ideas AND steal (in a good way of course!) ideas from others? Millions!

Have you noticed how many people are now celebrating St. Patrick's Day (and not just wearing green)who never did before? All because of that darn cute fruit rainbow with the pot of gold that's rolling through Pin-land!

Or how many moms are doing WAY more creative activities with their kids because of all the colorful pictures the scroll by our eye?

Or how many more incredibly happy husbands there are because of the awesome dinners their wife is (finally) inspired to cook?! All because we get so darn hungry every time we scroll through our "Pin-Wall"!

Or how much "cuter" homes look with new decor outside and in?

Yep, thank you, Pinterest.

Thank you for the joy I now feel towards random, hardly celebrated holidays.

Hobby Lobby thanks you.

Lowes thanks you.

Our local supermarkets thank you for our spur of the moment cravings.

Our families thank you.

Some think we waste time on Pinterest, but I say NO, no, we don't. We are creating a better life for our family. That's my story...and I'm sticking to it ;)

xoxo


So what is your new "I MUST try that today!" Pin?!

Mine? The St. Patrick's Day banner I pinned today!

THIS girl is in love...

Friday was a wonderful day in our house....

THIS was brought to our house by my handsome husband...

I'm in love :)

Our oldest "helped"  the hubbs set it up and then they upcycled the box into a Car Garage(Caden's choice). 

The box is always the best part of big items for the kids! We'll see how long it lasts around these rowdy boys....

New Look!

Don't worry! You're in the right place!

To go along with my "theme" this week of cleaning out and reorganizing, I am also mixing up the blog a little. To tell you the truth, I'm not too sure about it. I'll probably play with it more over the next few weeks, so let me know what you think(be honest!)!!

Not only did I clean out and re-organize our master closet and rearrange our room this week, yesterday, to top things off, we (okay, I) decided to rearrange and clean out our oldest's room and closet. The room was a mess, and had way too many unnecessary things in it. After a loooong day of cleaning out, throwing away, sorting, and rearranging IT was finished. This "new" room as my oldest calls it will at least last him until we move our youngest into his room at the end of the year and redecorate(woo-hoo!).

 

Amidst the chaos...after rearranging, the closet exploded

Pryce found a monkey backpack

The oldest in his "clean" closet...if you would have seen this before you would not recognize it!

We moved his dresser into the closet to make more room for play and all of his toys, pushed his bed against the wall (mattress and box springs are still on the floor because he likes to run and jump on it), put an extra table by his bed, and spread out his tons of toys.
Overall, we are happy with it....it's functional for a 3 year old and that's what we needed!

Hiatus...

Wow, so I took a break didn't I? This week has been filled with great weather(till yesterday's monsoon) and Spring cleaning.....oh and our clothes dryer broke---definitely wasn't expecting that *new* investment we were going to have to make.

Monday as I was putting the hubbs clothes away I realized our closet was WAY too packed, especially my poor husbands side...somehow I have begun taking over that side as well as my own. Hum, not sure how that happened! ;) I decided I needed to clean it out. Okay, and and my youngest's closet....oh, and rearrange our room a little. Slightly overboard, but I am so glad I had the energy to do it! My oldest currently has a love for vacuuming(woo-hoo!) so he helped clean too! I could get used to that.

Tuesday the dryer broke. Boo.....pretty sure the 20 loads I did last week was the culprit. We were able to find an awesome one on sale though and it comes in TODAY! How's that for speedy?!

The boys "helping" me with the laundry. Right before the dryer broke.

Also, let me give you an update on how my "healthy living" plan has been going. If you remember my post last week. It definitely didn't start very well! But, guess what?! It got easier! I basically cut back on sugar and flour and increased my fruits, veggies, and protein. That combined with my couch to 5k program helped me lose 2 pounds! Woot Woot! Plus, I just FEEL better overall. Take THAT Hoshimotos! :)

Fav new "meal." Green Monster Smoothie

Speaking of the couch to 5k program I have officially completed week 3 and am beginning week 4 today. So far everything is going well and I feel really good. A lot better than the first time I did the program.

It has been a good, productive week. I feel more energized and also less cluttered. Happy Friday everyone!