A slice of Heaven in Wal-Mart

What? I'm sure you're thinking, "this must be a joke!" Nope. An oxymoron, sure, but not a joke. You all know I'm no fan of Wal Mart. But the big blue box is slowly winning me over. I've become a pretty dedicated WM shopper since the economy has fallen apart. They got me when I found out they will price match ANY add. Hmmm... run to one grocery store every week or three....easy decision there. Being the recessionista that I am (can't take credit for the term, but I LOVE it), I've found some hidden nuggets of goodness there. It still doesn't make my heart flutter like Target, but it seems they are improving their merchandising and stores a little bit.

Anyway, after that loooong introduction, this is what I'm referring to. I was doing my weekly grocery run on Tuesday and turned the corner to see this:

Be STILL my heart. It's hard to tell what it is in this picture taken with the camera on my phone. It is Easter candy done by COLOR. Oh my gosh. I about squealed in delight when I saw it. How FUN would it be to do a color themed Easter basket? They had tons of choices: Peeps, Whoppers, Cotton Candy in tubs, huge lollipops, M&Ms, Chocolate bunnies, EDIBLE Easter grass. That's all I can remember. I bought a bunch of the lollipops in different colors and I'm thinking maybe I'll make a cute candy bouquet out of them. The possibilities are endless.

Anyway, that is my HAPPY thing for today! Hurry and get yours... you know how these things go... the stuff you really want {pink} will sell out fast!

Boy Crazy?

{At karate last night, photo courtesy of my iphone}

Makenna was born a little boy crazy. I'm not kidding. When she was 2, I noticed she would flirt with boys that were 6 or 7. Where did she learn that? I have no idea. I am certainly NOT encouraging that kind of behavior. Here's a little conversation we had last night that illustrates my point. We were at Carter's karate class and she mentioned she wanted to take karate too.

Me: Do you want to take karate or do poms/cheerleading?

{both of which she can start at age 4. She has been obsessed with doing poms/cheer for the last year and has been waiting to turn 4}

Makenna: Will there be boys in poms?

Me: No, probably not.

Makenna: Will there be boys there watching me?

Me: Yes, probably.

Makenna: {big grin} ok, I want to do poms!!

Seriously scary! Can't I just lock her in my house until she turns 20?

For being such a flirt, she is really, really shy. She was assigned the scripture for Primary on Sunday. We worked on it and she even had it memorized but when she got up to give it she would not say a word. Even when Allen tried to prompt her, she would not utter a word of the scripture. Allen ended up giving it for her. When she sat down, she promptly burst into tears. Another little boy from her class had the prayer and he did the exact same thing, except he had spaghetti legs too and would not stand at the podium. It was a rough primary for the Sunbeams this week!

Project 365: Week 7

I'm late doing and posting last weeks pages because I was gone on a girls trip all weekend. I came home severely sleep deprived and was asleep before 9:00 p.m. last night. {More on my fun and fabulous weekend to come!} So here are the week 7 pages {click to enlarge/read journaling}:


I realized this week that Carter is getting the shaft in the project 365 picture department. I suck. I obviously spend most of my daytime hours with the two girls, which must be when I take most of my pictures. I'm for sure making a better effort to get his daily activities in my pictures from now on. Sigh. I hope he forgives me!

Valentines Day

It was nice to have Vtines over the weekend. We had a low key and relaxing day.

You'd have thought it was Christmas morning with how excited the kids were for their little gifts. Makenna literally squealed when she opened her nightgown. Carter had a similar, but more boyish, response to his new Legos.

Makenna had dance in the morning and then Allen took the big kids and ran some errands. He came home and surprised me with a brand new iPhone!!!! I am so excited. I've been wanting some sort of PDA device for awhile and really had my heart set on the iPhone. Such a fun, fun surprise. We've both been playing with it all weekend and I am in love. I also went and got a pedicure, which I'll never complain about! {I feel way spoiled this year!}

For dinner, the kids decided that their hearts desire was breakfast for dinner. We just went with it and had pink waffles, scrambled eggs, etc. And of course, fondue for dessert.

Allen and I went out with some friends on Friday night for our date so we just hung out and watched a movie on Saturday night. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the kids in their cute matchy matchy valentine garb!

Oh, and just for the record, this is what I did for the kids' teachers this year:

I thought these heart measuring cups and spoons were so cute (Target $2.50 spot). I decided I wanted some for myself but unfortunately they were all sold out! Next year!

Project 365: Week 6

Another week down! This week was very Addison heavy with the pictures because it was her birthday. Some of the pictures aren't that great. I'm chalking it up to part of the whole experience. So forgive some of my bad pictures! Layouts should be clickable :) Oh, and I have noticed quite a few typos in my journaling the last couple weeks. As far as I can tell there is no spell check in Photoshop. I've gone back and fixed my journaling and am being more careful about proofing everything!

Valentine Cookies

Oh my. You've got to try these. I got this idea from the Little Birdie Secrets blog and made these with my Activity Day girls yesterday. We delivered them to our Bishopric and Primary presidency with homemade Valentine cards that they put together.

It is a super simple shortbread recipe and then you dip half the cookie in melted chocolate. HEAVENLY. It's a good thing we gave them away because they were amazing (seriously, how could it not be with a POUND of butter?!?!)

Here's the recipe via Little Birdie Secrets:

4 cups flour

1 lb. butter

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. almond extract (optional, I left it out since I don't like almond flavoring)

1 bag Wilton Candy Melts or similar melting chocolate.

Cream the butter and sugar, then add flour and mix well. Roll out on a lightly floured surface and cut into desired shapes. Bake at 300 degrees for 25-30 minutes.(Start checking after about 20 minutes. You want them to be just barely browning around the edges.) Yields about 3 dozen cookies, depending on size of your cookie cutter.

{Funny story, I was reading the blog of a friend of a friend because of something my friend wanted me to see on it. Then I saw that she was posting MY recipes as her own. I know they were mine because some of them are family recipes and because she copied my explanations word for word. Come on. Give credit where it is due!!!}

Project 365: Week 5

Here's last weeks layouts. I'll be honest, I was not feeling the love for this project while scrapbooking this tonight. My goal is to have the previous weeks layout done by Sunday night. In the end, I KNOW I'll be so happy that I did this project so I'll keep plugging away.

The Little Lady is ONE!!!

Somehow, we've gone from this:

To this:

In the blink of an eye! Sigh. I am finding it more and more difficult to get good pictures of her since she doesn't want to sit still. I'll have to try again for good 1 year pics!

Addison had a great first birthday.

Cute birthday shirt/bow:

{Seriously this was the best of about 20 shots I took. She won't STOP wiggling!}

Here she is with her fun gifts. She pushed her stroller/walker all over the place yesterday:

A peek at her cake that I made! I LOVE how it turned out. It was surprisingly easy to decorate a cake with fondant! Thanks to my friend Elisa for answering my plethora of questions about cake decorating!About to eat cake. She had no idea how to blow out the candle so the big kids did it for her.

She did not disappoint in the cake devouring department. She dug right in and was eating with two hands about as fast as she could shovel it in her mouth!This random shot is for my mom. She sent an outfit for A that didn't fit so I returned it and bought this instead. She wanted to see what the new outfit looks like:

I've mentioned before that Miss Addie is the love of all of our lives. She is just loved, smothered and adored by everyone in the family. She really lights up a room whenever she is in it. A few more things about her at 1 year:

- FINALLY consistently sleeping through the night

- Almost completely weaned - nursing 1 time per day at night (she would nurse more if I would let her but I'm going on a kid free trip in a couple weeks that she needs to be completely weaned for) I have mixed feelings about it. I love the snuggle/quiet time but know it is time

- Still has 0 teeth!!

- Pulls up and cruises the furniture everywhere. No interest in holding hands and walking. Totally normal for our kids

- Favorite foods: cheese, yogurt, pb &j, noodles, chicken, fruit, bread and fruit snacks. LOVES milk

- We discovered that she has seasonal allergies a few weeks ago. She has to take children's claritin every day or she gets really stuffed up and is miserable

- Saying: uh-oh, mama, dada, hi, bye

- Waves goodbye and claps

- Gives slobbery, open mouthed kisses on demand

- Is VERY attached to her parents. She has separation anxiety more than either of the other kids.

-Favorite toys: Still loves the dollhouse/furniture, keys, stealing Carter's legos and sucking on them (a constant battle around here), my first purse and character pop up toy, phones, still loves to crumple and chew on paper,

- Loves bathtime and especially loves when we bathe her with the sibs

- Taking two 2 hour naps most days

Happy, happy birthday to my sweet, sweet baby! We love you Addison!

Valentine Traditions

I've had a few people ask me about my Valentine traditions. I've mentioned before that after Christmas, Valentines day is my favorite holiday! I love it! Since it's usually C-R-A-Z-Y to go out on Valentines evening, Al and I try to do something romantic earlier in the week. This frees up the actual day to do something fun with the kids.


Valentines Fairy: Starting February 1, the Valentines fairy brings the kids fun treats and small surprises every day. Kind of like an advent calendar but it only lasts for 2 weeks. This year I got these cute mailboxes in the dollar spot at Target and embellished them a tiny bit. The fairy leaves her treats in the boxes for the kids to have every morning. {You could still do it this year, starting whenever}. We write notes to the fairy and ask her questions and she leaves notes back. She also puts "activity slips" on some days {make valentine cookies, make Valentines for grandparents, Valentine craft, etc.} It's so funny to me that Carter is convinced that our Fairy is a girl and Makenna is convinced it's a boy {It's a girl, for the record}.



Valentine breakfast: No big surprises here, just pink milk, heart shaped pancakes. We also get the kids a small gift that is wrapped and at the breakfast table. This year M is getting a princess nightgown she has been wanting, C is getting a small lego set, A is getting touchy-feely books.


Heart's Desire Dinner: For dinner on Valentines day night I do a "Heart's Desires" dinner. This just means that each member of the family gets to pick a menu item for the meal. Their hearts desire {get it?}. This means we get some totally random but really fun meals and everyone gets something they really want to eat.


Fondue Party: We always, always finish the evening with a chocolate fondue party. Highlight of the day for everyone. This is my favorite chocolate fondue recipe ever, given to me years ago by Mindy {who now has a private blog}:


1 t. butter
1 c. mini marshmallows
1/3 c. whipping cream
6 oz. chocolate bar with almonds (it's fine to use the no nut version too)
2 T. milk

Break candy into pieces. Rub wall of crockpot with butter. Place candy, marshmallows and milk in crockpot. Cover and stir every 15 minutes until melted and smooth. Gradually add cream. Continue to heat 30 minutes.

We dip pretzels, marshmallows, angel food cake, strawberries, bananas, rice krispy treats, etc.

Here's a peek at a few of our decoration this year. I made another banner. I'm addicted and think I might need one for every holiday! First year for valentines tree. I've been collecting ornaments for a few years and finally did it this year. I'm hoping to find a taller skinny tree for really cheap after Christmas next year.

Buffet:

So that's it! You can thank my mom for a lot of these ideas as they are traditions I've carried over from my childhood!

For more of my Valentines ideas, check out these posts:

Valentines day with a new baby!

Kids crafts and outfits

Homemade Valentine Craft

{And look how teeny tiny my kids look in these pictures :( My heart is hurting today, a certain someone turns ONE tomorrow. I can't stand it - but stay tuned for lots of birthday fun!}

Project 365: Week 3-4

More layouts for Project 365. Sorry, some of the pictures are repeats. I'll be posting my layouts not because I think they're interesting, but because I know my mom wants to see them and it motivates me to get them done.


Week 3:



Week 4:

(All images are clickable, just in case you want to read my fascinating journaling!)

My mom called me on Friday to see if I was ok. I told her I was and asked why she was wondering and she mentioned that I hadn't blogged in a week. Hmmm... I have no excuse. Just busy doing stuff. Working hard on "The List." Having a super fun weekend that included a date on Friday night, a double date with Adam and LJ to see the Lion King on Saturday night and tons of Superbowl partying on Sunday. More about all that on last week's layout coming up!

I'll be back tomorrow with some Valentine-y goodness!