Santa Pics

Kids are growing up so I know they won't want to take santa pics much longer but I loved this year. Found out at the construction company my aunt works at they had pics with Santa on a forklift...thought it would be fun and different. I love it.

Costume contest winners!

We won the costume contest at Great Wolf Lodge. I was so excited. The 4 adults dressed up as the Flintstones. Kids dressed up too but the Flintstones were the hit so all 8 of us get to come back for FREE!

the celebrating continues

The official birthday was Friday (22nd) but the celebrating goes on!

Heading to Great Wolf Lodge for the weekend to celebrate Britt and her best friends 13th birthday.

I will have pics from the Halloween party posted sometime. We are all dressing up.

Happy Birthday Britt!

She has went from my princess to a diva! She is 13!
13 Things about Brittney:
1. She would do anything to help out anyone.
2. She is very good with those younger than her.
3. She is smart!
4. She is pretty!
5. She loves animals.
6. She is protective of her brother.
7. She has a sweet spirit.
8. She can talk your ears off:)
9. She loves to read.
10. She is soft hearted.
11. She loves spending time with her family and we love that!
12. She never wants to hurt anyones feelings.
13. She is the only one who will talk politics with her dad!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY GIRL!

Planning for the teenager

My baby girl will turn 13 in just a few days...planning the big 13 birthday.

Friday will be low key it is her actual birthday. Matt took off of work that day and Brittney chose her dad making her choc chip pancakes, and then off to shop at stores we don't normally go to and then lunch at Olive Garden with a friend. The big celebration will be a week later than her birthday her and her best friend will combine their 13th's and we will spend a weekend at Great Wolf Lodge in Dallas.

I have bought them a tiara with 13 on it to wear out to dinner that night at Great Wolf Lodge. Should be lots of fun.

I am still having trouble believing she will be turning 13 on Friday!

easy breakfast

Tortillas make such fast easy breakfasts:

We use rice tortillas for Braden since he has to have gluten free. I also keep regular ones.

One tortilla breakfast we make is spread peanut butter on the tortilla and then sprinkle granola over it and roll up sometimes I drizzle honey before I roll them up.

Sometimes I use peanut butter and bananas or just peanut butter and honey or jelly

You can do cheese.

Sometimes I will use veggie cream cheese and some grated carrots and cucumbers.

So versitile and easy to eat on the go!

Practicing Spelling Words

I have posted some of these ideas before but I have added more too.

My kids love to practic their spelling words! Love it! We try to make fun and have a list of activities and things that we change around each week to practice that weeks words:

* Write them, but not just on paper we use Brittney's doodle bear and Braden has a doodle monster that are often covered in new words (just throw them in the washer for the next weeks words).
* Use washable markers on a white pillow case just changing up where they write their words helps.
* Write them using window markers by crayola and they can write on the glass door front or back (it just takes a windex wipe to clean it off quickly). They can write them on their bedroom windows.
* Write the words with a marker on 3 x 5 cards then cut them apart, let the kids put them back together.
* Pour salt on a cookie sheet and spell out the words in the salt.
* Use magnets to spell words on the washer, refrigerator, etc.
* Make a cheer spelling out your words
* Make a word find puzzle
* Print each spelling word then draw around each word. Study the shape of each word.
* Type the words on the computer and print them out.
* Use shaving cream on a cookie sheet to write words in.
* Shuffle word cards. Write each word on a 3 x 5 cut each card in half or into syllables. Shuffle the pieces then match each half.
* Write words on the sidewalk with chalk.
* Write silly sentences using spelling words.
* Play super kid. Use 3 x 5 cards with the letters for Super Kid have child take a turn spelling word if gets it right gets a letter to spell out Super Kid
* Make a graffiti poster using lots of colors markers, construction paper spelling out the words
* Tape yourself saying your words and spelling them. Then play the tape back.
* Use paint to paint words, or dot paint.
* Use letter beads to string letters on a string to spell each word.
* Finger paint words.
* Make the words out of playdough.
* Glitter words - write each of your study words with a glue stick or glue pen then sprinkle glitter on the glue.
* Mark the vowels in the words. Mark short vowels and long vowels and cross out any silent letters.
* Write a story using your words.
* Play hangman on a big white board.
* Play Mother May I spelling. I stand at one end of the hall they start at the other. They only get to take a step forward if they spell the word I give them correctly.
* Spelling baseball, set up bases in the living room and to get to each base they have to spell their word correctly.

We do write them on paper but I always try to put a fun activitiy with it. They may write their words 4 times and then we play baseball. Sometimes they will write their words on the front door or doodle bear then sit and do a word search.

Repetitiveness helps them learn but adding in the fun helps them enjoy the learning.

Electricity!

This year we are learning all about electricity. A fun thing I have found is a called a Brain Box. I tried finding them online but couldn't find exactly the same thing. We got ours at Hobby Lobby for $20. You can do over 150 experiments. Learning how circuits work, magnets, etc.

First Day of School - 2010

We are starting school today. Mostly because we quit very early because of vacation. So time to get back to it. Few pics of the school room and the kids first day. I have found some fun extras that I will share later that would work for home school or just adding fun learning in with school.

30 second skirt

Brittney and I are going to try this on Saturday. It looks super fun and easy.

http://www.cutecircuit.com/30secondskirt/

Cooking day...all day

Doing the once a month cooking again today. This is my second month to try it. Sure is nice to have a lot of go to things in the freezer but ugh getting the enthusiasium to get into the kitchen for ALL day is hard.

Helps that my friend does it with me and we just split everything the food costs and the prepared food. Works out nice that way.

Trying a few new things this month. There were two things last month we didn't like the texture of one was an Enchilada casserole and the other was a sweet and sour chicken. So not repeating those but have new things in the line up including beef stroganoff, and Alfredo Lasagna! Yum.

Time to get started last time we went till 8pm hopefully today won't be quite that long!

15 years ago

We look like babies. 15 years ago. Wow at times it feels like we have been together forever others time seems to have flown. I would marry him again in a heartbeat! I have been teasing that Brittney is just a little over 7 years away from being the same age I was when we said I do! Needless to say he doesn't like that idea at all!

Easy Alfredo Sauce

I have tried many times to make Alfredo Sauce but usually mine turns out no better than the jar so I just buy the jar. But no more. Yummy sauce and very easy.

Alfredo
8 ounces cream cheese - cut in bits
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup milk
In large saucepan combine cream cheese, parmesan, butter and milk stirring constantly until smooth. Toss with cooked pasta.

Making ahead breakfast

I am attempting to do once a month cooking. But with everything I do I don't do it exactly like they say:) I am easing into it.

One thing I love and I think is a life saver on busy school mornings is grabbing breakfast out of the freezer. It takes me about two hours to make a TON of breakfasts for the upcoming. I make all or some of the following and all of them freeze well.

Pancakes - I cook them up as normal put them on a cookie sheet to flash freeze about 30 minutes I take them out put a piece of wax paper between them and freeze them in a larger freezer bag. As I need them I grab them out and microwave them. This is especially helpful because I can do gluten free and non gluten free ahead of time and get both kids quick breakfasts.

Breakfast Burritos - By far my childrens favorite. I make them up and wrap them in wax paper then I put them in foil or in a large freezer bag. Just zap them in the wax paper and a quick breakfast on the go. I make variations of egg, cheese, ham, bacon and sausage.

Hashbrown Muffins - My measurements are non existent on this recipe as I just kinda add...but I basically use a small bag of shredded hashbrowns, about 6-8 scrambled eggs with about 1/2 cup milk added, sausage or other meat, 2 cups cheddar cheese and salt and pepper to taste mix all together in a bowl if it is too thick add a touch of milk then spoon into muffin cups. After they are cooked, cooled put them in freezer bags they reheat in under a minute in the microwave and kids love them.

Muffins - I just make several batches and freeze and grab out as I need.

Waffles - I have a waffle maker and I make about 20 waffles and freeze same way I do pancakes.

Sausage Patties - I will fry up sausage patties and have them ready in the freezer as well.

Omelets - They really freeze well. Same cook as you normally would, flash freeze, wrap in wax paper and freeze in large bag.

About 2 hours to make all of the above and then I have lots of easy mornings!

Random

I mean to keep up my blog I really do but it just seems to be the thing that falls thru the cracks.

I plan to start the kids back to school early on August 2. Since we stopped earlier because of vacation. So trying to get things figured out for school year. Brittney will be 7th and Braden 5th...time is going fast.

Trying to prepare for a yard sale and I want to go thru everything. Took me all day just to go thru the desk and file cabinet so I see many more days of cleaning thru things.

My new love is my Amazon Kindle it is the best! I love it so nice to just throw it in my bag and if something takes longer than I thought, etc I have a book on hand.

I have seen the Twilight Eclipse movie twice already! Also finished the new short book that came out in June. I was late starting on Twilight series but now I am so addicted! I am actually going to use Twilight for literature with Brittney this coming school year.

My goal is to update at least twice a week! Hopefully more and hopefully not just random stuff. I want to get back to posting recipes, tips, etc.

Home from vacation!

We had a wonderful vacation!
Glad to be home.
We saw so many wonderful things in Washington D.C., New York City, and Niagara Falls Canada...as well as lots of things in between. I have put tons of pics in my flickr that you can clik on thru the box on the right.

Here is a pic of us in front of the horseshoe falls in Canada at Niagara Falls.

THis is the view from our hotel room it was gorgeous.

In front of the capital building. It was COLD. We bought Brittney a sweatshirt first but Braden and I ended up getting one too.

On the ferry going to Statue of Liberty.

Capital Building

The capital tour was a hit. I highly recommend if you have the opportunity to come then request thru your senator for a tour instead of doing the public tour. It was great! We got a private tour just us 4 and the senator's aide. She even took us underground using the senator subway under the buildings. YOu don't get to do that with the public tours. It was a very interesting tour she also gave us passes to see the senate gallery because senate was in session. All in all a great time.

Day 1 in Washington DC

Our first day in Washington D.C. Walking, walking and more walking. So much to see. We did 3 of the Smithsonian buildings today (the castle, Natural History and Air and Space). Got the lay of the land so we could plan more for tomorrow!

Mothers Day

Me and the kids....who will soon be taller than me...and I am 5'9.

Kids and Matt have been spoiling me today. I feel like I should give them the presents on Mothers Day because I am so blessed to be their mother.

My baby is 11!

He turns 11 today....he has been thru so much in his 11 years and he is SO WONDERFUL!