Church Lacing Cards

One of my best adjectives to describe my children is "busy." They aren't naughty or  mischievous, they just like to be doing stuff. I'm totally in love with is 99.99% of the time. That other .01% is 

1. On airplanes

2. At church 

Our church is unbelievably accepting of small children and we are SO incredibly lucky to go to a congregation that is very patient, so I don't ever feel like we don't belong. That being said, lately I feel like I need to beef up my "church activities." 

I have a pin for LDS lacing cards from a blog called We Talk of Christ, We Rejoice in Christ. Basically they are images with holes around them and children use shoe laces/ribbons/yarn/etc. to thread through the holes. This is a little too much for Lyla (who is 1), but I thought would be a nice one for Emily (4). I got all of my clip art from Melonheadz LDS Illustrating. 

We have only used these for 1 Sunday, but they kept her occupied the whole time. She did a few different activities with them. First she used all of the yarns and went through whatever hole she wanted mkaing a "web" and also would use multiple colors. I'm not really sure what else because I was actually paying attention to the speakers! It was awesome. 

(Justin was in the hall with Lyla spying on the secret service men that were there with Mitt Romney. We'll think of something for her next week.)

Totally awesome activity that I put together in the morning before church and was very effective. Every week it will probably get boring, but rotated with other stuff it will remain a hit.

Oh, one last thing the laces came from Oriental Trading. They work great.

Happy Pinning.

Sandal Update

The evening after I made the flip flops I had to take both my little ones to a pack meeting where I am a cub scout leader. It was later in the evening so I had them in their jammies and Emily desperately wanted to wear her new flip flops. It was kind of a dreary/rainy evening as I remember (it might have just been chilly I dunno). Anyways the poor girl could not figure out how to walk in the flip flops! She's never been one for flip flops to begin with and so it was kind of a mess trying to walk in these alteredones. However, it was too cold and wet to go barefoot. She teary and frustrated, I'm late, and of course the shoes FALL APART. I should have had my cubs tie my knots to make sure they stayed in. They both came apart (while Emily emotionally falls apart) and I was left to carry 1 four year old and 1 one year old up a path to a door only to find it locked. So I carried them both (Em's in tears now I'm chuckling because we look so ridiculous) around the building to another door. Then we have a fabulous time at pack meeting. 

Moral of the story for me is cute flip flops look cute in pictures, but I think I will stick with slip on jellies. 

Ruffle Flip Flop Make-over

There are some CUTE flip flops out there right now. I was at Old Navy and Target this week wanting to buy 15 pairs of flips flops for myself and each of my girls. Then I was also feeling the urge that it was time to get the sewing machine out and make something. I remembered this pin from a couple weeks ago and thought I'd give it a go. Enter Ruffle Flip Flop Refashion from The Mother Huddle.

I bought my $3.00 Old Navy flip flops and went to my fabric scraps for the rest. I actually cut from bigger pieces of fabric, but no joke scraps will literally make this project.

It took a little longer than I thought it would. First time projects usually do, and there is one step I didn't pay close enough attention to that would probably fix the funny looking toe piece, but all in all they're pretty cute. Em likes them anyways.
Now I just have to hope the knots I made with the bias tape will hold and they don't fall apart. Maybe I should have had my Webelo scouts tie the knots as a test :).
Happy Pinning :)

Heaven

Some of our friends hold a monthly game night the first Friday of the month. We gather, play games, and eat whatever snacks people bring. For the first 2 years I was really bad at taking a snack. I had a friend who always brought an awesome treat- and then she moved. There were lots of good snacks still, but for some reason I felt like with hers gone, I needed to pick up my slack. This month I excitedly threw this little diddy, aka Oreo Layer Dessert, together.

The only variation I made was instead of reserving some Oreos for the top (I forgot), I crushed up some thin mints I had in my freezer.

One 12 year old girl who was there said, "Oh this is heaven!" which made me chuckle because if you go to the original blog, House 344, the first line she changes the name to "Heaven". Fun little irony.

Anywho- It was pretty delicious, incredibly easy, and makes a TON. So, if you're headed to a pot luck with lots of people (especially teenagers or kids) this is a great treat to take with ya!

Happy Pinning!

Happy Easter!

I wish I could say I used pinterest as a source of all sorts of wonderful Easter activities, but sadly I can't this year. We did all of the obvious though. Died eggs, neighborhood egg hunt, dresses, baskets, and delicious food.

One pin that I was very excited about was dying eggs with kool-aid. I planned on dying eggs with my Emster Saturday afternoon while Lyla slept. Saturday morning I went to the grocery store to pick up a selection of kool-aid packets. To my surprise, my grocery store sells 2 options for kool-aid packets: lemonade & fruit punch. The tutorial advises to stay away from lemonade so I would have been left to 1. We died eggs the normal way. They turned out fabulous. I suppose I will have to start my hunt for kool-aid packets now so I'm all prepped for next year.

In my little family of 4, holidays are celebrated with food. For Easter we are eating a delicious breakfast and dinner. Breakfast was this little beauty. Stuffed French Toast from Tasty Recipe.

Holy delicious Batman.

For the mixture I mixed strawberry preserves with cream cheese and then topped it with Our Best Bites Strawberry Sauce. It was really easy (does take some time), but if you are making normal french toast it's not too much more. Highly Highly recommend this one.

Happy Easter!

Happy Pinning!

Finger Paint

One of the most common boards for me to pin to is my Preschool board. I do a co-op preschool swap, so I always need ideas for when it is my week, but I also like to have little learning activities goes on with my little ones. I would say it's the teacher in me, but I think it's just the mom in me. Anyways. I tried out Momtastic's Edible Homemade Finger Paint.

With only 5 ingredients and a little cooling time you can easily make some fun finger paints. It lists salt as an ingredient, but then never says when or how much to put in so I never did. Still works.

Here is my assistant for the project stirring in the colors.

And with our finished product:

Next came the project to do with the homemade finger paint! I saw this project from a blog called Attack of the Twins

I thought it would be perfect. I did make a rookie mistake though, that I'll point out in a minute. While I was busy taping up one canvas, I let Emily finger paint all over this one. Nice vibrant colors, but it was clumpy.

The mistake I made was using masking tape. I confess I didn't look at the blog before doing the project, I just saw the picture and thought it was a no-brainer. Well the masking tape pulls up the canvas, had I seen that she used painters tape it wouldn't have pulled it up.

So I will definitely make the finger paint again, but if I do the name thing I will do it with painters tape and/or on a poster board instead of a canvas.

Happy Pinning!

Taco Round Up

We take taco night rather serious in our house. We are both from the west coast where you can get some delicious tacos, so when we moved out east we struggled to find a place to get our taco fix. In fact, once at the seafood counter at the grocery store, I asked the employee what fish she would recommend for fish tacos. She told me she had never ate a taco in her life! I almost invited her over for dinner to try tacos, but I'm not that brave. Anyways, we eat a lot of Chipotle, but we're still looking for a great place. We have 1 more year to find it! In the meantime, Pinterest has offered all sorts of taco inspired dishes. Today is a round up of all kinds of tacos we've tried. Most of them are great, a couple are just so-so.

(Click on the source to go to the recipes)

First up:

Chicken Enchilada Pasta

Souce: Pearls, Handcuffs, and Happy Hour

Pros: Easy, delicious

Cons: CALORIFIC. Like 500 calories in a cup. This is not a diet meal.

Recommend: YES!

mmm Next:

Cilantro Lime Tilapia Tacos

Source: Skinny Taste

Pros: With a couple changes the BEST fish tacos we've ever had, low calorie, easy peasy.

Cons: Can't really think of any.

Recommend: Most Definitely!!

The 2 changes I make are

1. I add cabbage. They needed a bit of a crunch factor.

2. After filling my corn tortilla with the fish mixture I toasted it in a small frying pan to give the tortilla a little substance so that it wouldn't fall apart while I was trying to eat it.

Next:

Easy Lime Chicken Fajitas

Source: Dana Made It

Pros: Easy, lots of pictures, great taste without all the extras

Cons: Taste gets kind of lost if you add lots of extras (avocado, sour cre

am, etc)

Recommend: If you are in the market for a new fajita recipe, sure give it a try.

Sidenote: I like my food plain so I thought they were fabulous. When we had them for dinner my husband who likes to pile extra stuff on thought they were just okay. The next day when he had them for leftovers au natural, he thought the flavors were awesome!

Next:

Quick and Easy Salsa

Source: Mountain Mama Cooks

Pros: Quick

Cons: Not very good. In fact, I threw it away. WAY too tomatoe-y. A possible mistake is I didn't drain the canned tomatoes. It didn't say to, so I just dumped the whole can in. Maybe someday I'll try it again, but probably not. I LOVE me some salsa so I think I'll just stick with what I already know and love.

Recommend: Sadly, probably not.

Last, but certainly not least:

Crock Pot Chicken Taco Chili

Source: Skinny Taste

Pros: AMAZING!, Low calorie, Easy

I've made taco soup before and I've made chili before. Both of which are good. However, this is my new favorite, go-to chili recipe. One thing we liked specifically is the use of shredded chicken instead of ground beef. Both me and my husband loved the leftovers just as much or MORE the next day. Seriously, I recommend this one a thousand times over! Please try it next time you need a crock pot recipe.

Cons: Eventually you run out.

Recommend: A thousand times over!!!

Happy Pinning!