Spring Break

Planning our spring break vacation to Universal/Disney/Cocoa Beach!

Dylan's 9th Birthday

So we went with the Lego theme and thanks to mom's help it was a success.  We played Lego guy scavenger hunt, group building, and guess how many Legos there are.  The kids loved the scavenger hunt.  I hid 12 Lego guts all over my dining room and they went to town.  I would not play the group building again but it seemed to never end and they got board.  They did have some great guesses for the guess how many Lego game.  I set the game sup in stations and used left over invitations to label the stations and put the rules of the games on them.  I also had Lego themed coloring pages to keep the kids entertained during transition times.  Everyone won a prize and the kids had a great time.
Below are the cakes made by mom.  She made rectangular cakes and the Lego tops are marshmallow.   They were a bug hit with everyone.  The gift bags were purchase from Party City and we used a hole punch to make the circles.  We filled them goodies for the kids including Lego shaped candy purchased at our local Amish store.  The juice box covers were made form card stock and the same hole punch.  The invitations were made from card stock and a smaller whole punch. Here are the Lego cakes, the Lego gift bags, and Lego juice box covers.

Here is shot of the invitations.

Couponing

I spent last Tuesday attempting some extreme couponing.  Here are the results....

CVS 3 Lady Stick Deodorents & 3 Hallmark Cards $3.98 and $3 RR

Meijer-2 Lipton Green Tea, 1 Tennessee Pride Sausage, and Peanuts (not shown).

$4.21

Kroger-5 Heluva Good Chip Dip, 1/2 gallon Skim Milk, 5 Bird's Eye Steamfresh Vegis

$6.72

Walmart-3 Cortaid and 1 Oral B Floss

$2.27

Walgreens-1 St. John's Aspirin, 2 Heart Snickers, 1 Ornament, 1 Christmas Potpourri

$3.20 plus $2 RR

Scrapping with my mom.

Now that I have my own Slice machine it was time to get some serious scrapping done.  So I went out to mom's house right after picking Dylan up from school on Friday to begin our weekend of scrapping.  My first project was some party favors for my friends baby shower.  I got the idea from Pinterest.com of course.  I decided on baby shoes made out of paper.  They turned out to be a lot of work but they are really cute.  I got the template from Small Fry & Co. blog.  Here is the finished project....



 

Next I made a baby book for my friend.  I used my slice to cute of the letters for the cover.  This turned out pretty good for my first try. And this was all my own creativeness.  :-)

Cover

Page 1

My mom is awesome!

I love my mom!  She bought me a Slice machine from Crop Chocolate. 

My New Slice!!

My new Prius!!

Finally got the car of my dreams.  A blue 2007 Prius!!!  Love it!!!

Mac and Cheese

Just made and ate the best mac and cheese ever.
1 cup milk
3 eggs
4 tbsp. of butter
1 tsp. of seasoning salt
1 package of Wacky Mac
1/2 cup of sour cream
4 oz. of shredded Hoffman's extra sharp cheddar cheese, separated
.24 lbs of Italian Pecorino Romano, crumbled, separated
.25 Vermont White Cheddar, separated
1/4 cup freshly shredded Parmesan
3 pieces of toast, crumbled

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare pasta as instructed but subtract 1 minute.  Mix egg, milk, and seasoning salt together in a bowl.  When pasta is finished put in a greased baking dishes.  Pour the egg mixture, sour cream, butter and 3/4 of the cheese into the baking dish and mix well.  Add the toast and bake for 35 minutes.  Add the rest of the cheese and bake 5-8 more minutes.  Cool, cut and serve. 

Hubby and son loved it!

Next on my list is Dylan's 9th birthday party.  We are going to do a Lego theme.  I am so excited!!!

Mom and Me Time

So, I have officially become a scrapbooker.  My mom has been doing it for years and I just haven't gotten into it until I started being addicted to Pinterest.com.  I spent most of today in my mom's scrapbook room having a blast.  I used a bunch of my stuff I got in my hot chocolate from Crop Chocolate!  So here is what I made....

My first attempt at making a Valentines card. 

My second attempt was much better!!

My Christmas card book...I got the idea from Pinterest.  I think I'm going to make one for birthdays too!!

It was fun to make stuff and spend time with my mom!

"Crack" Bread

I just got some feedback from my New Year's Eve guests about the "crack" bread I made.  It was awesome!  Everyone loved it.  I got it off of PlainChicken.com.
This is what I used...
2 medium sized round sourdough loaves
1 packet of Hidden Valley Ranch seasoning
2 sticks of butter, melted
1/2 bag of shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 bag of real bacon bits

Preheated the oven to 350.  Cut the loaves in a criss cross pattern but don't cut all the way through. I mixed the melted butter and ranch packet. Then I poured part of the mixture into the grooves I made in the bread and then topped with cheese and bacon.  I poured the rest of the mixture on it and covered with foil.  I baked for 15 minutes and then baked 10 more minutes uncovered.

I am making this again Saturday for the Bengals playoff game so I will have pictures.

My 2012 Goals..

1.  Get more organized!  Since we moved my office is still not unpacked and my couponing(more on that later) is totally taking control of my living room.
2.  Get more sleep.  My goal is to go to bed by 11 every week night.
3.  Limit fast food.  No more than once a week which means I need to come up with some breakfast and lunch ideas on the go. 
4. Start a craft business on the side.  Not sure yet how this will go but I am determined. 
5.  Blog at least once a week.  This is a new experience for me but I'm excited.

We survived 2011!!

Although this time last year I was not looking forward to life at all, 2011 was not as bad as I had originally thought.  Now I'm not going to lie.  The first few months were rough being a trucker's wife.  My husband was gone for over 6 weeks the first time he went out.  I really struggled being a mom all by myself and gained a whole new respect for single parents.  I relied on my parents so much and thank God they are amazing.  As hard as it was for me it was 10 times harder for my son.  He started acting out at home and at school.  Being 8 it makes it harder for him to express himself.
But here we are one year later and I am ready for life to get back to some normalcy.  My husband is still a trucker but he is now home every weekend.  I am finished taking classes for my master's degree and will have a teaching license by next fall.  We moved into a great new house.  Hopefully my son starts getting his behavior under control.  This could be a great year for us.  And so our journey begins.....