Hello my friends!

By now you may be wondering where in the world I've been.  I haven't fallen off my craft-wagon or anything (actually, I've been on it a lot more than normal)!

Everything is going very, very well here!! So well in fact, that I've decided to take a short break from my blog to juggle all the GOODY-GREATNESS that's going on! When I return, I've got SO much to show you & something rather BIG to share with you also.

So don't forget about me! Give me a few more weeks!

"...I'LL BE BACK..."

love,

julie

Insta-Friday!!

It’s Friiiiiday!!!!!

Insta-Friday! And I’m linking up at Life rearranged to share my week through my cell phone pictures.

There’s our sweet “baby” boy!He always gives us so many reasons to laugh One of these Fridays I’ll have to post a video. We had ice cream after dinner one night & his fell out of his cone. He didn’t like holding the cold ice cream in his hands so he kept leaning over to try to eat & lick the ice cream off his tray. Pretty cute!

Wondering what this is?? I’ll be posting about it soon, but it’s rice! Rainbow Rice!

I got my hair cut this week!!! Yay!! It’s healthy again!!!

This is something very fun that we got in the mail this week. It’s an invitation to our friend Nash’s 1st birthday party! His mommy & daddy are both very clever & creative to come up with such a cute invitation. It sure made opening our mail a little more delightful!

Mr Coffee failed me this week when his coffee pot broke. Now I’m not a big coffee drinker (I don’t even think you can call it coffee after I load it with cream & sugar) but I do like to have a cup or two a few days a week. Well, one afternoon I really wanted a cup so I got creative. I used a toothpick to wedge into the springy thing that releases the coffee. Bliss!! Then last night my friend dug through her stash of saved pots & gave me a pot identical to the one that broke. No more hillbilly coffee makin’!

Adventures in Babysitting! This week I was asked to babysit for 2 amazing little people, twice. We had a wonderful time together! We played with the rainbow rice, made play dough together, played pretend in costumes, made potato soup together (This was SO fun. The kids counted out the veggies & helped me figure out how many more I needed or many I needed to put away. GREAT way to learn math!), and we also painted with watercolors, & read lots & lots of books! Our days were filled with fun as usual, but having two friends to join us made the days extra special!

 

snack time outside, table top time, & painting with watercolors

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the review of my week!

Now here’s a question that I have for you, Have you ever had a babysitter? What was your favorite activity that he or she did…with your kids or with you?

Insta-Friday

Welcome to Insta-Friday, a review of our week through my cell phone pictures!

It’s been a rather normal week at house…and by normal I definitely mean crazy! I spare you all the details. I did snap some pics here & there so…yeah, take a look!

Keston is my busiest boy. When he wakes up from nap I like to have something for him to do. I don’t always take time to plan activities, but one day this week I got out the water-table & we played a game called “Sink or Float.” We put lots of different kinds of things in the water & talked about whether they were heavy or not, how they felt & then we put them in the water to see what happened. It was a great time & when we were done he soaked himself even more  

Pretty pretty flowers that I’ve been working on (for therapy) after my boys go to bed.

Meet Monster. She’s a sweet kitty that spend all day Wednesday at our house. I’m not a big cat fan (sorry!). But I did like this cat. She played so well with our boys, seemed desperate to come into our house & was obviously someone’s pet. So we loved on her & fed her & after dinner we found her owner.

Today was FOOTBALL day at Caleb’s preschool. All week they’ve been talking about sports & wearing sports themed clothes. Today he picked his Colts jersey & was so proud! He wanted me to take this picture to send to his Uncle Dan who LOVES the colts & gave Caleb the jersey when he was just a baby. Now it fits pretty good!

 

   

Today was not just Football day but it was also COOKIE day! My friend Deb hosts Cookie day almost every Thursday & several moms/dads & kids get together to hang out & play (if they don’t have work/school). It’s always fun!  Eli had a ball with his buddy Wade. They are a week apart so are both 18 months old now. I snapped a few good shots of them with my phone today & couldn’t resist sharing them. They’re so cute!

 

Have a great weekend everyone! We hope you find many reasons to SMILE!!!

But before you go, tell me - What was the big highlight of your week???

 

AND

If you want to see more of Insta-Friday, head over to Life Rearranged!

Fruit is good for monsters.

My blogging days have been very few lately. If you're friends with me on facebook you can probably have read my updates, seen my pictures & know why I haven't been on the computer much. Three days in a row there has been a 3ft monster in my house. And no matter how consistent I am with our routine or with discipline, it has just been one ROUGH road!  I just finished the book The Strong Willed Child & it's as if the Lord is putting me to the test. And from this test I'm learning that no matter what knowledge I have about good parenting, I MUST rely on the Holy Spirit to help me mother my boys. I MUST. Without him I am a terrible mother. I am a defeated mother. I can't do it.

Galatians 5:22-23 "But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!"

See, that's all I need to prove my point!
...and now I'm hungry for fruit. maybe i'll go whip up some apple crisp!

Spicy Baked Pretzel Recipe

Yummy!  These are so yummy and so easy to make!!

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 (1 ounce) package dry ranch salad dressing mix
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• 1 (15 ounce) package mini twist pretzels

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees F (95 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, mix together vegetable oil, dry ranch dressing mix, garlic salt and cayenne pepper.
3. Place pretzels in a medium baking dish. Coat with the vegetable oil mixture.
4. Stirring occasionally, bake coated pretzels uncovered in the preheated oven 2 hours, or until toasted and crispy.  

Enjoy!

Wild Thing I think I love you - no sew vest

This has got to be the most simple no sew project EVER!  I must give credit to the gal who came up this - I ran across it on Pinterest and remembered a piece of jersey I had picked up last year.  Honestly I picked up this fabric with the intention of sewing a vest with a pattern that very similar vest.  Then when I saw the Behind the Scenes blog post I knew what I had to do...

This was my fabric - I had bought 1.5 yards (to use with my pattern that still remains unused).  It is a jersey fabric so it lays nicely and doesn't fray or tear.

Since I had 1.5 yards and Behind the Scenes called for 1 yard I cut my fabric to 36 inches long but left the 54" width as is.  

I measured 6 in in from the top and 6 in in from the bottom (see my green mark).  Then I made a 6" long line and cut along it. To make it more of a hole than a slit I cut out about 1" wide slit to accommodate arm holes.
Since it was a little looooong to begin with (fell below my bottom) I used a yard stick to cut an angle from the outside points up to the middle 7".  I love how it drapes and flows!!

But I was left with a half yard of fabric - the dilema was what to do with it?  I thought about making a hair flower then I hit brilliance check out what I did below!

There was enough fabric if I cut the piece in half to make a mini-vest for mini-me!!  I used the same technique as before only on a smaller scale for my little one.  Then since I still had 1/2 of a 1/2 a yard left and the oldest (who generally begs for her picture not to be put online anywhere.... begged for one too).

Hers ended up being a mini-vest since I didn't have a ton of fabric left - honestly this fits her style much more than a long one would have anyways!!

Check us out!!  We're going to debut our new No Sew Fabric Vests tomorrow at church - YEAH!