Partying Blood

I had to go in for some blood work the other day. So the kids and I go to the doctor's office and I get my blood work done. We then leave and head out to get some lunch. We park and are about to get out of the truck. My arm was wrapped in the bright blue tape. Not wanting to go in to eat with the bright blue tape on my arm; I check my arm to see if it is still bleeding. Ethan is right there with me checking everything out. It is done bleeding and so I remove the tape. Then Ethan says to me "Mom why do they take your blood from right there in the bend of your arm?" I said, "Well that's just the best place to draw blood from on most people honey." He then says, "Oh is that where your blood parties?"

All I could do was laugh! I love this kid. He always comes up with the funniest things.

WFMW - Flip Top Crayola Markers

The kiddos and I were in Target a couple of weeks ago.

I don't know about ya'll but our first stop is ALWAYS the Dollar bins in Target!

We just happened upon these great markers by Crayola. They are called Flip Top Markers.

I don't know how these sweet little things made it in the dollar bins, because I know I would have paid a lot more for them had I known about them previously.


Since, they were only a dollar, I did what any smart homeschooling momma would do, I bought 4 packs of them! Yes I did!

Now, one pack I did send to my sister in law for my 3 year old nephew. Because this kind of stuff should be shared ya'll! Which is the reason I am telling you about it today!

The cap is attached so you never lose it and have a dried out marker.

It doesn't just flip open to the side and possibly get in your way while coloring (tragedy!)

Oh no, it slides all the way down the marker and allows you to place it on the other end of the marker. Like so:

My daughter who loves to do all things artsy; but who would never color with markers because she said she "hates the way they sound" has colored with nothing but these since we bought them.

My son LOVES them too. As a matter of fact he just made me this great picture of Elvis yesterday! Not bad for a 5 year old. We love Elvis around here...what can I say!

And, I love them because I don't have to turn the house upside down anymore looking for marker lids.  I love anything, that saves me time and only cost me a DOLLAR!!!

Now, go join Kristen at We are THAT family and tell us what works for you!

I have been in no way compensated for this. Just found a great thing and wanted to share it.

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!