She Will Try To Enjoy The Snow

As in most places across the US, it snowed on Tuesday in central Illinois.  As I was watching the snow fall, my mind envisioned these grandiose plans.  We would pick up the girls early from daycare, play a little bit in the snow, make cookies and then drink warm hot chocolate while the cookies were baking and we were getting warm.  As most fantasies in my head, it did not work out quite how I had planned.  Morgan was sick so we had to pick her up a little early from daycare and race (very slowly due to road conditions) to the doctor's office so that we could still be seen.  After confirming everything with Morgan was fine, we headed home with the hope that we could still make cookies together.  I found a recipe for breakfast cookies, which seemed fairly easy and healthy.  The cookies turned out fine, but Morgan didn't end up eating them since she decided that she wouldn't eat her vegetables and spit them out on the floor.  Not exactly the calm, cozy night I had planned!

Breakfast Cookies
Degree of Difficulty: 4
Mess Factor: 5
Taste: 6

I was really lucky because I had all of the ingredients for this recipe on hand, including an abundance of ripe bananas.  The first step is to mash up 3 ripe bananas.

I'm sure some of you moms have read the dangers of squeeze food packets, but I'm not sure how we are going to stop consumption in our house since it's the easiest way to get Morgan to eat vegetables and they are so easy to pack and bring along for any outing.  I did find out that she does NOT like the Meijer Organic brand and there is about 1/3 cup applesauce in each packet, so this was the perfect opportunity to use one more of these up!

After adding the rest of the ingredients, I let Morgan mix it all up!

Then I plopped down heaping spoonfuls on some parchment paper and stuck them in a 350 degree oven for 17 minutes.

They came out looking exactly like they went in, although I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting here.

They tasted pretty good and the best part is I didn't have to feel bad about giving them to either girl.  We normally do berries for dessert, so this was a different treat.  Morgan ate out all of the raisins, but Amelia devoured the whole thing!

This is what is leftover after Morgan gets to it!

I hope everyone stayed safe and warm during the snow!  Hopefully this weekend the weather gets warm and stays warm!

Lori 

She Will Be Inspired by a Birthday Present

My birthday was at the end of January and as always, it was a great day!  I received many thoughtful and well appreciated gifts, but one stuck out in particular.  My sister-in-law found this fun picture at Hobby Lobby and thought of me!

 The color scheme is a perfect fit with our style, but we had a hard time deciding where to put it.  Matt finally came up with the idea of hanging it on the wall soffit above the sink.

My photography skills are severely lacking so the lighting and viewpoint is awful, but the picture does look great above the sink.  Unfortunately, this left us with a blank soffit above the stove and fridge!  What is a Pinterest fan to do?  Fortunately, I did remember some fun kitchen printables I saw on Pinterest from Over the Big Moon

As you know from my last Valentine's Day project, our printer is NOT up to any heavy duty printing, so this was not an option.  Since I love my silhouette and am always looking for a new way to use it, I thought this would be a great project.

I knew I wanted to do a layered effect with three different colored papers that matched my new picture and white on the bottom.  Off to Michaels I went and I was extremely luck in finding a green, navy blue, and bright orange that worked perfectly with my design aesthetic and the picture.  I also stopped at Meijer's to pick up three $5 white frames.  The wall soffit is only 12 inches high, so we wanted something with a small frame.

I decided to start with the "Be Grateful" sign as I thought this would be the most difficult, but was also my favorite of the three phrases.  We had already decided that we wanted the pictures to be horizontal instead of vertical to match the original picture, so we knew the layout would be different than the original.  The project had not been going on too long before I realized that there was no way to use a holed grater and NOT have to glue tons of little dots.  Since I have zero patience for that type of thing, I decided to go a different route.  Some graters out there use lines so you can grate whole slices of cheese, but lines wouldn't be fun to look at so I pulled out the zig zag border from the Silhouette library and came up with the sign below.

Even though it doesn't have the holes, you still get the grater effect.  Below is a wonky view of the sign with the $5 white frame.

The next sign I worked on was Roll With It.  I used a different roller pattern and layout, but again I think it turned out really well.

Neither Matt nor I loved the Spoonful of Sugar phrase, so we immediately started to brainstorm different ideas.  It was Matt who eventually suggested "Variety is the Spice of Life" and using pictures of different types of peppers.  I liked the idea, but went one step further and suggested "Spice Up Your Life" with just one pepper.  I told Matt my reasoning behind this change was that it would be more consistent with the other pictures as it used just one picture and was still an action, if you will, instead of a phrase (i wanted to call this parallel structure, but I don't think that is the right word here)  While this is true, "Spice Up Your Life" is also a Spice Girls song and I LOVE the Spice Girls!

How amazing is this!  I get to use a Spice Girl song title to decorate my kitchen and it gets approval from my husband (granted, he really does not have a clue)!

The final product turned out great and I love the splash of color it adds to the otherwise drab kitchen.  I'm working on "spicing" up the kitchen a little more, but that may still take some time.  In the meantime, I also purchased fabric to make window cornices and it turns out the colors in the fabric perfectly match the colors in the pictures I just created for the kitchen!  I didn't even plan it!  It's fate, kismet, destiny!

If you are interested in making these designs for your own kitchen using the Silhouette, please do not hesitate to reach out to me and I would be happy to share my templates.  I also created one with a knife that read "Stay Sharp," but it didn't make the cut (hahahahahah).  Seriously, I crack myself up!

Lori 

A Friend Will Make the Best Crock Pot Recipe EVER!

We had some friends over for dinner a couple of weeks ago and they brought the most amazing crock pot meal ever!  We made it ourselves for my birthday at the end of January and decided to bring it out again for Valentine's Day.  Check it out below!

Crockpot Cheese Tortellini
Degree of Difficulty: 2
Mess Factor: 3
Taste: 9-10 (depends on sausage used)

Like always, I have linked back to the original blog that posted this recipe, but I am going to share the ingredients below because this is so simple you never need to write down the recipe!

• 1 bag of frozen tortellini
• 1 small bag of fresh spinach (we used 1/2 of bag found in salad section)
• 2 cans of Italian-style diced tomatoes
• 1 box or 4 cups of chicken broth
• 1 block of cream cheese (cut into chunks)
• 1 lb of roll or ground sausage (we used Italian)

The first step is to brown the sausage.  If you have read my blog before, you know I don't like taking any additional steps with my crock pot recipes, but I am willing to complete this step without complaint since the result is so fabulous!

 Once the sausage has been browned, add all ingredients to the crock pot and set on low.  I took the picture below after adding the spinach, which doesn't make for a good picture, but I didn't want the spinach to get overcooked.

The recipe says to cook on low for 5-6 hours, but if you cook it this long the pasta will get mushy.  I definitely think I would try it for about 3 or so hours next time.  You may want to give the meal a stir about a half hour or hour before serving to ensure the spinach gets mixed in along with the cream cheese.

 After the meal is done, serve it up and wait for the compliments!  Since this is a pretty saucy dish, I think garlic bread is a perfect complement to soak up all that sauce!

I started eating before I took the picture, it was too good to resist!

I decided to show an after picture so you can see this is plate licking delicious!

I would encourage EVERYONE to try this one out.  I have already sent it to my family and my co-workers. If you try it out, let me know how it goes and if you made any edits/additions that are worth trying out.

Lori 

She Will Spend WAY Too Much Time on Valentines!

I always have grandiose plans for Valentine's Day and this year was no different.  I scoured Pinterest and the internet for Valentine ideas that did not include candy.  Morgan gets tons of candy for Valentine's Day, so I was hoping to give out something a little different.  I came up with tons of ideas and haven't settled on the final plan, but I'll be sure to share that later this week.  I did come across a great idea for teacher's gifts that all came together rather well.

First, I need to start by stating this past weekend was Lady's Weekend in Michigan with my sister and mom.  We spent Saturday shopping at the outlet mall, checking out a winery, eating and most importantly, drinking (perhaps a little too much for me).  While shopping at the outlet, we came across a big sale at Bath & Body Works.  I was able to pick up travel size bottles of their Valentine-appropriate scent, Paris Amour, for a steal!

I was going to use my regular printer (boring) to create a fun tag and then cut out the shape using my Silhouette, but I found that either my printer is out of ink or it just chooses to print anything I send.  Either way, I had to improvise and use the Silhouette alone.  This was a great learning experience because I have a complete understanding now of what fonts will and won't work.  For example, big fat fonts are perfect but skinny, script-like fonts are a disaster! Seriously, PAY ATTENTION!  The script font was a PAIN IN THE BUTT and took forever to ensure all of the letters were cut out.  In the end, I was covered with small white specks of paper and I was exhausted even with the thought of using my Silhouette again.

We were SOAPIN you'd be our Valentine!

Either way, I do think they turned out well and I like the double color.  I picked up some personalized stamps for my girls from Pick Your Plum a couple of months ago and this was the perfect opportunity to give them a go!

 It's a little faint in the picture, but I was able to stamp their names on the bag with green ink (whitish silver did not show up very well and I thought red would clash).  I'm pretty proud of the final product and I really feel it's something the teachers at Morgan and Amelia's daycare will appreciate!

I'll be back on Friday to share our Valentine's Dinner and my final decision for the girl's Valentine treats.  I hope everyone has a fun and happy Valentine's Day!

Lori  

She Will Go Greek

It's been awhile since I posted a recipe, but we found a good one and I couldn't wait to share.  Since it is winter and I am even lazier in the winter I prefer slow cooker recipes.  Last time I made Greek food was when I had a Mamma Mia! viewing party around 2009, but this recipe seemed easy enough and sounded pretty tasty.

Slow Cooker Greek Chicken Pita
Degree of Difficulty: 2
Mess Factor: 3
Taste: 9

I was a little skeptical of the recipe as it didn't include any additional cooking liquid.  I just placed the frozen chicken breasts in the crock pot with the spices and sliced onion, then turned it to low and went about my business.  4 hours later, we had amazingly tender, shredded chicken.  

 We mixed the chicken with 1/2 cup plan yogurt, as called for in the recipe, and it was the perfect filling for our pita bread.  Seriously, there is absolutely no need for any additional sauce.  

The tasty chicken is the perfect vehicle for some fresh tomatoes and cucumbers!

The best part...it tastes even better cold on a pita for lunch the next day!

I would HIGHLY recommend this recipe.  If you get a chance to try it out, let me know how it goes!

Lori  

She Will Talk About Her Kids

I was traveling this week, so there wasn't much time for projects or new recipes.  I'm really hoping I can keep up with blogging once a week so I thought I would talk about my favorite things in the whole world...my girls!  It seems like every time I turn around or check Facebook someone else is pregnant.  A lot of women get excited about registering for the baby, but to be honest, this was the most daunting task (next to labor of course).  There are so many choices for every single baby item and it's hard to decide what will be the best choice for you, your baby, and your family.  I honestly don't think I would have gotten through it without Baby Bargains and my cousin-in-law, Tammy.  We spent 3 hours in Buy Buy Baby and I think I spent an additional 5-7 hours afterwards fine tuning the list with my husband online. I highly recommend taking a new mom with you if you are registering for the first time.  It's a HUGE help as they can steer you towards the products that you will actually use versus the stuff that just looks cool!

Below are the top 10 items/products that we have found the most useful with our girls.  Every single baby is different and what works for one baby may not work for another, even if they are siblings, but we still recommend giving these a go!

Boudreaux's Butt Paste

Lots of people have heard of Desitin, but we swear by Butt Paste.  Our daycare introduced us to this wonder cream and now we don't use anything else for diaper rash.  Desitin has alcohol in it and can irritate diaper rash further, which can cause some ear piercing screams.  As soon as we switched to Butt Paste, the screaming stopped and the rash started to clear.

Burp Cloths

I understand that not all kids spit up constantly, but you can't go wrong picking up a couple packs of burp cloths.  We have found that your basic white cloth diapers work just as well as the fancy ones.  In addition to cloth diapers, we also really like Tiddliwinks flannel burp cloths, but I haven't been able to find them again.

Angel Dear Lovey

A family friend gifted the sheep Angel Dear to Morgan, embroidered with her name, prior to her birth.  We introduced it around 9 months or so and it has been a staple ever since.  We do a lot of traveling, so having a lovey she can sleep with every night allows her one constant, no matter where we are.  We bought one for Amelia after she was born and she loves her piggy Angel Dear.

Sophie the Giraffe

I honestly have NO idea why this thing is so amazing, but it is seriously like crack for small children!  We did NOT leave home without Sophie when we had Morgan.  It got pretty beat up so we ended up buying a new one just for Amelia.

BooginHead Paci Clip

I know that not everyone uses pacifiers for their kids, but we did and we would NOT HAVE SURVIVED without our BooginHeads!  Even now, Morgan has a striped BooginHead and Amelia has a polka dot BooginHead.  They know which paci belongs to which girl and there is no confusion (at least within our small family).

Plum Organics Baby Food Pouches

This is called "sauce" in our house and is one of the few ways we can guarantee our girls will eat their vegetables.  Our favorite flavors usually include two veggies like, Spinach, Pea & Pear.  We carry these with us everywhere and the kids can usually eat them without making too much of a mess.  Since the mixtures usually contain fruit there is enough sweetness for my girls to think they are pulling one over on us!

Travel High Chair

I cannot recommend this enough.  The Chico chair that we have cost us $30 and we take it everywhere!  It folds up really well to fit in the trunk for trips to see relatives that don't have high chairs!  And while I can't always recommend taking your children to bars, sometimes they have great food, but they don't have a high chair and this helps a lot!  We actually use this instead of a high chair for Amelia so that we can all sit directly at the table.

Take & Toss Cups

I'm sure every kid has a preference on cups, but we have found these work perfectly.  We re-use them, but if a lid gets clogged or one cup gets really really dirty, we just toss it.  They also make the cups with straws or handles for younger children.  We recently picked up some cups at Meijer with a Minnie Mouse design and I have also seen Disney Princesses.  I am sure they have equally awesome boy design options, but alas, I am not usually looking for that!

Baby Oil & Cotton Balls

A lot of people give Baby Oil as part of a baby toiletry gift, but a lot of parents don't really know what to do with it.  When our girls get a diaper rash, we skip the wipes and use cotton balls and baby oil to clean the area instead.  It may sound gross or messy, but there is absolutely NO irritation and can make changing their diapers so much easier.

Musical Walker

We bought this toy well before Morgan could walk and we used it to help strengthen her neck and body for sitting up.  We stabilized the walker so that she could sit in front and play with it.  Morgan was sitting up and looking straight ahead within a couple of days since she finally had something that brought her attention away from the ground.  This toy was also instrumental in helping Morgan to walk, so it did serve a dual purpose.  There are TONS of walkers out there and I really believe anything will work, but I'm just recommending this as a toy you invest in before baby starts to walk as it can assist with other milestones.


Whew!  This was actually fun to put together.  Matt and I walked around the house trying to pin point the items we really feel we could not live without.  Butt Paste is probably my number one recommendation, but we really love all of the items we listed on here.  If you have other "can't live without" baby or toddler items, please share them in the comments!

UPDATE

Easy Go Dispenser

We were not even up 3 hours before Matt and I realized that we forgot to include one very important product, our Easy Go Dispenser.  A friend of ours started this company and we originally purchased one to help support his business.  We had no idea this product would go with us EVERYWHERE!  The dispenser was originally created to store and dispense protein powder, but it works just as well for formula.  We find that one turn equals two scoops (4oz).  It can carry enough formula for at least 3 - 8oz bottles.  It's only a little bigger than a baby bottle and easily fits in the bottle holder of our diaper bag.  We have brought it on the airplane and the security guy even stopped to ask where he could get one.  I will be buying this for every new mom who is not going to breast feed at all or long term.  The best part is that once we are done with formula, Matt will use this for protein powder.

You can only purchase an Easy Go Dispenser online at www.easygodispenser.com

Lori

She Will Come Back With A Vengeance (and a Silhouette Cameo)!

Yes, you read that right, I was given a Silhouette Cameo from my AMAZING husband for Christmas!  The best part...I think he is almost as excited as I am about the endless possibilities!  It took me a couple of days, but I finally opened up the box, read through the instruction manual, watched the instructional video, and pored over numerous YouTube videos!  I am ready to take on my first project!

My favorite thing to do with my girls is finger painting.  The Shady's gifted Morgan with her first finger paint and doodle pad for her first birthday.  I was a little dubious how this would go over with a 1 year old, but after laying out a vinyl tablecloth on the ground and stripping Morgan down to her diaper, I figured out this is a pretty fun way to create lasting memories (emotional and physical)!  We had some friends over yesterday and with the intent of entertaining and tiring out the little ones, we broke out the finger paints.  I normally have a project in mind, but we just let the kids pick their colors and paint what they want.  The end result was a beautiful mish-mash of colors.

I love saving Morgan's finger paint projects, but have never been really sure of how to display them.  I did purchase these cheap 4x6 frames from Ikea a couple of months ago and was hoping I could eventually use them (sorry about the bad picture, not sure why I couldn't flip this).

Originally, I just cut out 4x6 sections of Morgan's finger painting and put those in the frames.  I actually liked the end result, but was hoping for something a little more exciting.

I did eventually find inspiration on Pinterest with a post on Art Gallery Animals from Meet the Dubiens.

This is where my love for finger painting art and love for my Silhouette Cameo collide!  I was able to cut out some fun animal silhouettes with my Silhouette that allowed me to showcase the finger paint art perfectly!  Below are a couple of shots of my first Silhouette project!

This is actually my very first project and I used another little friend's finger painting.  Kamden's color choices look great with the elephant.

Since the first project turned out so well, I hunted for more animal silhouettes to use with Morgan's art.

Close up of the lion, my favorite!

I am so excited about how these turned out, but since these are pretty small frames, I think I'm going to need to create some more art to go on Morgan's bedroom wall.  I have always loved gallery walls, but I have a feeling we are going to go gallery wall overboard in our house!

I am unsure how to post the templates that I used for the Silhouette on this blog post, but if you would like a copy of the template I used, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly at Lori.Siuta@gmail.com

Here is hoping I can do a much better job keeping up with the blogging in 2013!

Lori