Powdered Wig

I went looking for a fun craft to go along with our social study lesson on government leaders. It happen to fall right here around President's Day. So I thought we would talk about President's Day and why we celebrate it as well.

I happened across this website http://www.freekidcrafts.com/presidential-powdered-wig.html where we found the directions on how to make a powdered wig.

So, today in honor of President's Day we made a powdered wig. Here is Emma modeling the wig:

 

  

  

It was really easy to do. You can find the instructions by clicking on the link above.

We learned several things today about George Washington. He didn't actually wear a powdered wig. His hair was red and he powdered it to make it look white. 

We also grew up being taught that Washington had wooden teeth. It seems that is not true either, actually the  set made when he became President was carved from hippopotamus and elephant ivory, held together with gold springs. The hippo ivory was used for the plate, into which real human teeth and bits of horses' and donkeys' teeth were inserted.  Ewww...gross....I'm just sayin'.

We learned some new things today...hope you did too!

Snow Day in Texas

We have got 8 plus inches of snow today here in North Texas. It's been a while since we have seen that much snow in this area.

We of course had to bundle up and go play in the white fluffiness for a while. Here's a few pics.

Jumping on the snow covered trampoline.

Ethan making a snow angel.

 

 Our crazy dog eating a snowball out of Emma's hand.

 

Emma and daddy building a snowman.

 Emma throwing a snowball at daddy

The finished "Cowboy" snowman

Emma making a snow angel

Emma's snow angel

Daddy and Ethan having a snow ball fight.

Fun was had by all. We were cold and covered in snow, but memories were made.

Monster Bash

My little guy turned 5 this January. I can't believe he is already 5. We found some great loot bag items in the dollar bins at Target back in September; and that's how we decided to have a Monster bash.

We made up a invite calling all monsters to Ethan's 5th Birthday Monster bash.

We found plates and napkins with cute little monsters playing instruments through Oriental Trading. That so fits Ethan because he loves music.

www.orientaltrading.com

For decorations we took these same monsters; printed them out and made a transparency out of them. We did this by sliding the picture into a clear page protector and tracing with a black permanent marker. We then placed them on an overhead and blew up to about 3-4 feet tall. We taped white paper onto the wall; and using the overhead traced first with a pencil. We then painted them with Tempera paint. Then after they dried we then took a black permanent marker and outlined them to give them a finished look. Here's how they turned out.

 

  

Ethan absolutely loved them! We thought they were pretty great too!

Here is Ethan with a couple of his friends. Notice their monster headbands. A friend of mine made these headbands for everyone. We used thin wire headbands and craft foam to make these. Everyone wore these and loved them; even the adults.

We danced to some great music like; Monster Mash, the Purple Peopleater, Thriller, Addams Family theme and many more great monster themed songs.

Then we moved to the kitchen table and everyone got to make there own monster. These little craft kits were part of the great items we found in the dollar bin at Target. Here's the birthday boy and a few of his friends with their monsters they made:

 

We then played the mummy wrap game. I split the group of kids up into 3 groups of three. One would be the mummy getting wrapped, the other two would be wrapping. We gave the two wrappers a roll of toilet paper and yelled go. Here's a few pics of the game:

And last, but not least...the cake. Here is the monster I created. I baked 2 8 inch round cakes and then baked a third cake in an 8 inch round pyrex bowl. I stacked the three cakes together with bowl cake on top to give it the rounded top. I then iced it with a large star tip, by pulling straight out. I made my butter cream stiff so it would stick out.  We used ping pong balls for the eyes. Mouth, tongue and the blue balls on the antennae are all fondant. The arms, my husband cut out of a styrofoam plate. Ethan absolutely loved it!

 

Unfortunately I did not get a picture of our loot bags that we got from the dollar bin. They had these cute little bags made out of the recycled plastic with handles; that had pictures of the monsters on them. In them we put monster theme notepads, pencils, sticker books, capsules that you soak in water and out pops a monster sponge.

A great time was had by all and memories were made!

Mermaids, Wizards and New Moon

Title got ya wonderin'?

That is the theme of the last few cakes I have done.

This was a wizards hat that I did for a Wizards of Waverly Place theme party. This cake is 100% edible. The bottom is a 8 inch chocolate cake, filled and iced in vanilla butter cream. The hat is also chocolate cake, iced in vanilla butter cream. I baked the hat portion of the cake in a 4 cup & 2 cup pyrex measuring cups and then stacked and iced. All the yellow accents you see are fondant. The clients were very excited. The mom had originally asked me to just do a 2-d version. Me, being me, and loving a good challenge, I was like OH NO, we can make this bad boy stand up. So they gave me the creative leniency to go for it. I always hate myself during the process for saying I will do something like that. But in the end when I have the finished product and it turns out great, and the client is happy..then I am happy I took the challenge on.

This cake was an 8 inch red velvet cake, filled and iced in vanilla butter cream. The mother to be was decorating the nursery in the sock monkey theme, so I was asked to make a sock monkey cake. This was my own design I came up with. If you ever google sock monkey cake, you will see some very scary cakes! All of the accents I hand made out of fondant; the monkey, blocks, dots and banner.

This was an 8 inch strawberry cake; filled and iced with vanilla butter cream. The wine bottle is made from fondant. The grapes and vine are all butter cream.

This Emma's 6th birhtday cake. She wanted a mermaid cake. It is a 8 inch red velvet and 6 inch white cake; as requested by the birthday girl; filled and iced in vanilla buttercream. The stars are made from chocolate using a mold.  All of the other accents, anemones, clam shell with pearl, turtle, fish, sea horses, mermaid, lobster, were all handmade by either the hubby or I. 

This was a 8 inch chocolate and 6 inch vanilla cake; filled and iced with vanilla butter cream. All of the accents are made out of fondant. This was designed to make the plates and napkins for the party.

Here is mine and the hubby's version of the New Moon book. It is all edible. It is a vanilla cake, the "pages" are vanilla butter cream scored to look like pages. Then it was covered in black Satin Ice fondant. With fondant accents on the cover of the book.

This is just a few of the things that have been keeping me so busy over the past couple of months.

Call me crazy

After a 4 1/2 hour wait, a couple of new friends made ( Hi Charlotte!) I finally got to meet PW!!!!

She was at Border's Bookstore in Dallas last night promoting her new cookbook The Pioneer Woman Cooks. The hubby and I arrived about 5:15 p.m. I got my pink wristband (how fitting...if you know me...you know I love me some pink.) Each wristband color represented 100 people. I was the 4th color. That's right, that means there were 300 plus people ahead of me. But oh the number of people behind me....I believe there were at least three more colors behind me. They called my color to line up around 6:30 p.m. I finally made it to the front and got my booked signed about 10 minutes after 11:00 p.m.

It really didn't seem like 4 1/2 hours. All the ladies in line around me made it go by pretty fast. I stood in line next to a sweet older lady whose name was also Ree. Her name was not short for anything though. Apparently it was an old family name. I am sure you will see her on PW's site. PW took some pics of her when she made it to the front. Hubby stood at the front and called me on my cell phone with updates of when they made announcements and as each wristband color passed through. So we kind of felt like we were in the know.

I had plenty of time to look through the cookbook. It is great, of course! I love that it is so personal. She has included all kinds of photos of friends, family and the ranch life. The recipes have step by step photos; which is just awesome in my book. I love to know what something is supposed to look like so that I know I am doing it right. I can't wait to try out some of the recipes.

I met Charlotte while standing in line. She was standing in line getting a book signed for her mom who lives in Ohio. Charlotte herself, had never been to PW's website until that day. She went to look and see what this woman she was about to go stand in line for was all about. I think by the end of the wait though, she may be a fan of PW now also. She was even talking about getting herself a copy of the book. Gotta love it!

All in all, it was a great experience. Note to self: eat before you go and take a bottle of water!

Can't wait for Black Heels to Tractor Wheels to come out; I will go do it again!

He's a big boy now

My little man went off to preschool on Tuesday.

I wasn't sure he was going to go. He had been wishy washy about it for several days.

At times he was really excited and then there were times he would say he didn't want to go.

Tuesday morning came and he was SO excited. He got to take his teddy bear with him for a teddy bear picnic.

Here he is so big and handsome getting ready to go.

He walked right in, found his basket and put his stuff in it.

He took off into the classroom with no time to hug his momma.

His teacher caught him and had him go wash his hands. (A requirement for all students when they enter the class)

I was able to snag him for a quick hug, but he didn't really have time.

Then he was off to find his spot with his new friends.

When we picked him up that afternoon he was wore slap out. Finally someone wore that boy out!

 He is your typical male. He didn't want to share a whole lot of details about his day at first. I think he needed time to decompress.

 As the day went on he began to share details of his first day. He had a great time. He loved music class; which was no surprise. He told us they took their bears with them and sang "We're going on a bear hunt"

We are so blessed to have Mrs. H as his teacher. Sissy had her last year as well. She was a Kindergarten teacher for 25 years at a local school. She retired two years ago and is now teaching preK. Funny thing is she was my cousin's 2nd grade teacher back in the day.

WFMW - Kraft Food and Family Magazine (Giveaway)

UPDATE: Congratulations to Buffie. She won the 2 yr subscription to Kraft Food and Family Magazine! Thanks to everyone for stopping by!

I love love love this magazine. Kraft foods and family magazine.

Most recipe magazines have a bunch of what we call "froo, froo" food recipes in them. They have recipes that you have to have special ingredients that you can't get at your local grocery store.  Or they have recipes that require A LOT of prep time.

But not Kraft Food and Family Magazine. Oh no! This is a quarterly magazine put out by Kraft foods. They have yummy, easy everyday recipes. Recipes with ingredients that you probably have right now in your pantry. Recipes that your kids will more than likely eat. Their recipes are easy to follow. It's very bright and colorful. They offer great tips, tricks and ideas about cooking throughout. There are usually some coupons tucked in the middle of the magazine as well. I have been subscribing to this magazine for several years now. I always find something that I like in every edition. They also have a free digital version you can sign up for.

You can go here to sign up and start receiving your own copy of Kraft Food and Family Magazine.

Or you can leave me a comment and I am going to giveaway one (1) 2 - year subscription to one lucky blessed reader. Along with that subscription Kraft is including a free Best-Loved Recipes Cookbook. Please leave me an email address to contact you to get the necessary information to get the magazine to you. This giveaway will close at 8:00 p.m. CT on Thursday. Winner will be notified shortly thereafter.


Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Kraft foods or any of their affiliates. I am not getting paid to talk about, offer this giveaway or in any other way advertise for Kraft. I just love this magazine and want to bless someone else. Any questions, contact me.

Now go join We are THAT family for some great organizing tips.