I don’t pass on grass!

I love Easter! I love the colors, I love that it (usually) means warmer weather is on the way, I love the decorations, I love hard boiled eggs, and I love the meaning behind it. I love pretty much everything about Easter!

Last year I saw online how you can grow your own Easter grass and I was determined to do it this year. I was a little skeptical that it would grow since my dining room table (where I put the containers) don’t really get much sunlight. I needn’t have worried! It’s growing like….a weed? Soooo ridiculously easy! I love having a little greenery around, too! It’s getting so tall I think I might have to mow it soon! Oh, and I totally found that ceramic bunny at Goodwill for a couple bucks.

Here’s how to do it:

Soak some wheat berries in water overnight. (Finally! A use for all that food storage!!!) Fill a container (with no holes in the bottom) with potting soil and water it very well. It should almost be like mud. Then put a layer of wheat on the soil and cover with more soil and water again. Place in a sunny (or not so sunny) spot and watch it grow! It sprouted in a matter of days for me. It actually pushed up the top layer of soil and I had to brush it off the grass tips. So, you still have time to do this before Easter. I think I’ll put mini eggs in the grass. Cute, cute. Bonus: you can go all Jamba Juice style and juice it all up and have a wheat grass drink. Or not.

Moving on.

I found these woodland creatures, as I like to call them, at Goodwill awhile back. (Geez, guess I must go there a lot!) I thought they would be perfect for some springy decor. But as cute as they are, there were a little granny-ish to me. So what did I do? You guessed it! Spray paint!

Now that’s more my style. I debated forever on what color I wanted to do. And I’m still not sold on the white. I might paint over them in lime green. Who knows. And hopefully I didn’t ruin some priceless antiques.

Of course, I have an Easter wreath in the works. This one is from She's Kinda Crafty, as shown to me by my friend Nicki. Now I just have to find cute ribbon.

Any other hoppin’ Easter crafts I should know about out there??

A series of unfortunate events

I feel like I shouldn’t even be allowed to talk about my misfortunes considering all that’s going on in Japan. But throughout everything that’s happened to us in the past week, we’ve tried to see the positives. Our glass is half full! (Even if the other half did spill all over our basement…)

First event: Coming home from church the day after daylight savings time. We had to drive separately to church that day and pulled into the garage at the same time. Derrick needed help setting the clock in my car so I quick turned off the car hopped out and changed it before getting the kids out.

The next day we were about to go to the store and I couldn’t find my keys. Of course, they were in the ignition. Turned “ON”. Not running the engine, but just “on”, you know? Battery completely dead. DEAD. Derrick gets home and we jump it and it starts right up. I decided to go shopping after the kids are in bed, but once I tried to start the car it wouldn’t start again. It wouldn’t even jump. So we let the two cars sit connected for awhile and then it magically started. I was so relieved….I didn’t want to have to go buy a new battery! Positives: brushed up on our jumping skills, located the anti-theft radio code.

Second event: This past Saturday night our friends the Spencer’s and Ryan were over to watch the BYU/Gonzaga game. I decided we should get some Chili’s chips and salsa so I ordered some to go and then Jess and I went to pick them up. Her car was parked in our driveway, but on the opposite side of my car and, you guessed it, I backed up into her. I felt like a complete schmuck. Of course we’ll pay for it, and they were super nice about it, but I still felt like a big horse’s ass. I HATE doing stupid stuff. Positives: it’s just a car, nobody was hurt, we saw the Supermoon on the way to Chili’s, BYU won, despite all the swearing I was doing in my head.

Third event: We had some really warm temps last week in the 50’s, which had melted almost all of the snow. Sunday we had a huge rain/thunderstorm. Both of those combined make for a LOT of water hanging around. We had been checking the sump pump all day and it seemed to be doing fine. Monday morning as Derrick is getting ready to leave for work I take Summer downstairs to watch TV and as I stepped onto the floor….SQUISH. I ran upstairs and flagged Derrick down before he could leave and we got to work cleaning up the 1/4” or so of water throughout our basement. One call to our insurance and an adjuster was in our home within the hour, and an hour after that Servpro was there to take care of everything. They packed up our stuff and moved it upstairs to the living room, some to the craft room, and some behind the bar. A few hours later there were huge dehumidifiers and air movers everywhere and our carpet was floating. It was our first time dealing with our insurance company, Erie Insurance, for a claim and they so far have been fabulous. (Which is good considering I recommend them to people all the time! So cheap!) Anyway, I’m so grateful for insurance, and especially grateful for the backup sewer/pump clause we added!

See the wet footprints?

It has been a challenging week living in our home. The only places to sit are at our kitchen and dining room tables. Neither of which are very comfortable for long periods of time. There is nowhere for Summer to play, and she can only handle watching movies on the laptop at the kitchen table for so long. Plus the fact that the weather has been downright CRAPPY for the past 2 days makes everything worse. I want my house back! Luckily we have friends that let us crash at their place for a bit here and there to break up our stir-crazy days. And honestly, and somewhat embarrassingly, not having a TV is driving me crazy. Summer misses her Sesame Street. I am missing Idol, Survivor, and Martha. Luckily most of what we watch is online, but not right away. I hate waiting. It’s probably all for the best though, as I was supposed to make some cookies for an Eagle Scout Court of Honor that was this evening. I spent the evenings baking and decorating instead! Quite relaxing, and yet one more thing I’ve found myself becoming obsessed with. Positives: we didn’t lose anything valuable, I’ve been able to reorganize a lot of stuff I’ve been meaning to organize, I realized I will never have to purchase a gift bag for the rest of my life, I have that many.

My sweet cookies. One scout kid told me they were the best sugar cookie he’d ever eaten, because it was so soft. I give credit to the Lion House recipe, but I’m sure all the humidity in my house didn’t hurt either. ;)

And even though these two can drive me crazy sometimes, today at dinner they totally melted my partially cranky heart today. Hannah was eating and Summer was making her laugh by pretending to sneeze. Hannah was absolutely cracking up. She never laughs like that for me. I loved watching the two of them together and it made my heart happy to know they’ll always have each other.

So they say bad things happen in 3’s.Well, we’ve had our 3, thank you. We’ll take our share of 3 good things now!   

Going green

Everyone’s a little bit Irish on March 17th, right? Not one to pass up an excuse to throw a party, we had ourselves a bit of a get together.

I’ve been dying for an occasion to make this rainbow cake and what better time than St. Patty’s? I love, love, love how it turned out, both visually and….tastibly? What is the word I’m looking for? I can’t think. But it tasted amazing too. I might be addicted to Swiss Meringue Buttercream frosting.

On the outside, just your normal, white-with-shamrock-sprinkles, unassuming layer cake.

But on the inside…..A PARTY FOR YOUR EYES!!! AND YOUR TASTEBUDS!!!

This was a really fun cake to make. A little labor intensive, but totally worth the reaction and results. Can’t wait to make it again. Just imagine all the color possibilities. And a side note….Ever since I was a little girl I have always loved rainbows. I was always drawing them, always arranging my crayons and markers in rainbow order. I loved Rainbow Brite and had sheets and pillows and dolls of her. Fast forward 15 or so years, and now my beloved color scheme has somehow been adopted by “alternative lifestyles”. Ugh. I hate that it’s been tainted, and honestly it’s the only reason I haven’t decorated my kids’ rooms in a totally rainbow theme. Coincidentally, my favorite color used to be purple. They stole that too! Sheesh!

Back to the party.

I got an idea for a rainbow fruit tray here and decided to make that, too. Love how it turned out. I made the classic cream cheese/marshmallow fluff fruit dip.

I made green glass block holiday jello from Our Best Bites. Summer loved this. I love the way it looked. Very festive.

I found a rainbow craft to do on this blog. My orange didn’t turn out as vibrant as I was hoping, but they still turned out cute, and I think the kids had fun making them. I’m already thinking of other uses for dyed pasta. (Very easy to do…soak pasta in rubbing alcohol and food coloring in plastic baggies for a couple hours, flip occasionally. Dry overnight. Mine were kind of splotchy…I think next time I won’t skimp on the alcohol and completely submerge the pasta in colored alcohol.) Once they dry, you hang them in your window…like little sun catchers! Cute, right?

Green utensils and plates, of course. And Brazilian lemonade in the pitcher off to the side. I tried to cheat and use Simply Limeade like a friend had done. Don’t do it. Not nearly as good. I also whipped up some Shamrock Shakes, a la McDonald’s.

My friend Brandy recently started a blog called Holiday Snobs and I saw a cute idea for little favors. Super cute, and under a buck (with a coupon!) All of the “Who’s your Paddy?” sanitizers were passed out, so I only have a shot of this generic green one. That subway art in the corner is from the same site, here. I just had it printed at Wal-Mart. It’s all sized and ready for an 8x10. It came out a little grainy, but from far away you can’t really tell.

And then just a shot of my mantle, which is always so festively decorated (I hope). I saw the idea for the garland on Etsy. Just felt circles sewn together. And yes, I know I need to buy 3 green candles. Just haven’t made it up to Hobby Lobby in awhile! Gasp! 

It really was such a fun little party. As you can see, I am a master copycat. I’m not the one to come up with cute original ideas, but I can copy the good ones with the best of ‘em. And I’m so lucky to have such great friends who not only put up with my crazy theme parties but always bring such delicious and theme-y treats! We were definitely treated to lots of good eats today!

I feel like I have been so cranky lately and today was just what I needed to pick me back up. Why have I been cranky? Honestly, I think it was because potty training was stressing me out so much. So thank you, ALL of you, for all of your comments and advice about what to do. As of Monday we quit potty training. I asked her if she wanted to wear diapers or panties and she said, “Diapers. No panties. Mommy change me.” That was all I needed to hear. We’ve both been much happier since then. But I do have to clarify that I started so early with her because she would tell me every time she peed or pooped, and asked to sit on the potty. So, what else what I supposed to do? At least I know she can do it for a few days, so hopefully next time we try it should go relatively smoothly.

And now it’s time for…..EASTER!!!

A cry for help

No, I’m not talking about Rick Astley.

I’m talking about Summer and potty training.

Now, I know there are some of you out there (and you know who you are) who did not share in my joy that Summer was potty training relatively easily. Well congratulations, naysayers, you win. She is practically UNtrained now. And it is infuriating.

She does not tell me that she needs to pee anymore. I put her on the potty every 30 minutes and she will go, but not on her own. When I ask her if she needs to go, the answer is always “no” and when I suggest she go sit on the potty, she tells me “all done potty!” and runs away. And even if I put her on the potty every half hour, there are times when she will have peed her pants in that half hour.

And just today, I was talking to her face to face, and I asked her if she needed to go, and she said no. So I checked to see if she was dry, and she was. And then she tooted. And then she looked at me. And then I checked her underpants and she peed!! Right in front of me! What gives???

Maybe the few days she got it was just a fluke. Maybe she’s bored with it? Maybe M&M’s aren’t a good enough reward?

I hate to give up and put her back in diapers. I would feel like a huge failure. I would feel like we would be making negative progress. But so help me, I’m sick of changing wet AND poopy undies all day long. I mean heck, we only have 6 pairs and I have to wash all 6 at the end of the day.

So, mothers (and fathers) please help me. What should I do. Seriously, what should I do? Someone please tell me.

Ok, so maybe I am talking about Rick now. Love me some Rick Astley.

Our little monsters

I had the girls’ pictures taken last month since it had been awhile since I’d had professional ones done. I used their Christmas dresses and made it more of a Valentine-ish theme.

When I take pictures of Summer at home I can’t get her to turn off the cheese. But put her in the studio and all I get is the deer in headlights stare and weak smiles. What am I gonna do with this girl? Still, we got one decent shot of both of them.

And then I get the biggest smiles when they hold this heart. Crazy girls.

  Silly, silly girls. I love ‘em. 

7 months!

Has another month really passed? Hannah continues to be a chill little lady and the apple of my eye. I love to just love on her and squeeze her and attack her with kisses. She usually gives me a little belly laugh so of course I keep doing it.

She really is just so sweet. She loves company, and if left alone will whine incessantly until someone comes near or picks her up.

She loves to eat. She loves sweet potatoes, squash, and carrots and gags instantly when green beans hit her lips. She also likes bananas, pears, and applesauce. She had yogurt for the first time tonight for dinner and inhaled it.

She goes to bed between 6 and 6:30 pm. She still goes down swaddled but breaks out of it more often than not. And while she’s still a lazy bum, not rolling or crawling or sitting up, she can rotate herself in her crib 180 degrees, fully swaddled. I don’t know how she does it. It’s magic. She wakes up between 3 and 4 to eat and sleeps until around 7. Although lately she’s been getting up around 6. This does not make mama happy. Hopefully Daylight Savings Time can give us a better schedule again. She takes 2 naps a day. If she’s up at the crack of dawn we can squeeze in 3.

She adores her sister and will smile and laugh at whatever she does. She loves it when Summer sings to her, and often tries to sing along. Summer is equally as obsessed with her little sister and always wants to know Hannah’s latest status. “Hannah awake! Mom! Go get her!” or “Hannah asleep! Shhhh!”

She still loves that blasted pacifier. But now she’s quite adept at grabbing it and putting it in her own mouth. Sometimes with force, if needed.

If you remember from her 6 month appointment, she hadn’t gained any weight. Well, we had a check up and she had gained a half a pound in 2 weeks, so we’re back on track. Guess I’ll never be taking any birth control pills while I’m breastfeeding ever again!  

She’s just learned how to blow raspberries too. All day long all I hear is her buzz her lips and see spit flying everywhere. I even caught it on camera.

Hannah has a lot of faces. Here’s just a couple I snapped while trying to get her to smile.  

   What a silly girl. We all just love her to bits!

PB&J in a glass

Thanks to my good friend Linda, I get the Food Network Magazine. I love, love, love this magazine. Fun articles, good recipes, and every month they have a pull-out brochure with 50 recipes all of a certain type. 50 burgers, 50 stir-fries, 50 pizzas, etc. This month was smoothies. Perfect, as I recently acquired a Montel Wiilliams HealthMaster blender. (aka a wannabe VitaMix)

I love having a high powered blender and not a dinky one that can’t even handle ice. I’ve used this to make Hannah’s baby food, milkshakes, sauces, you name it. I’m always on the lookout for a good healthy smoothie recipe so when I saw this months issue I was totally excited.

And when I saw #33, I made it right away. Banana PB&J. It was delicious. And I haven’t stopped thinking about it, so I made another one today. The best part? It’s pretty healthy! Try it for yourself and see!

Blend 1 frozen banana with 1 cup soy milk, 1/4 cup each creamy peanut butter and wheat germ, and 2 tablespoons seedless strawberry or raspberry jelly. I used regular milk and strawberry preserves I made last summer. It was a bit too germy for me so when I made it today I used about half the amount of wheat germ. And you probably already know this, but I found out the hard way, you should freeze your bananas already peeled.

If anyone has any favorite smoothie recipes, send em my way!

Panties!

Can’t wait to see all the pervs that find their way to this post only to be disappointed. Ha!

This past Tuesday we embarked on what I was dreading the most: potty training. I was not looking forward to pee everywhere, cleaning poop out of pants. Ugh. But we did it anyway. Summer would tell me when she was poopy and started expressing a little more interest in using the “big girl potty” so we gave it a shot.

So Tuesday morning after breakfast, she put on her brand new panties and plastic cover pants and started chugging liquids. Her first tastes of chocolate milk and apple juice (diluted) were like parties in her mouth. And within 45 minutes, she had peed through 5 pairs of underpants. I wanted to cry.

Then I realized I wasn’t having her sit long enough on the pot, so we started singing songs and reading books and she finally went! And her reward? 2 M&M’s. Wow, this girl was in heaven. But after that….no more accidents!

I cannot believe how well she’s done with it. She tells us when she needs to go, sits on her Elmo potty ring, and goes. (We still have to help her undress/dress and sit up on the toilet.) She’s even pooped on the potty! First time she did, I cried. I really did. I cried over crap.

Accidents are scarce, and usually happen when friends are over or when she gets overly excited. Like when we were dancing to “baby song” by Justin Bieber. Oh yes, Summer is a Belieber. She loves to sing along to “Baby”, and I couldn’t be more proud.

Changing a diaper is definitely easier and faster, but it won’t be like this forever. And goodbye expensive diapers! Now if we can just get Hannah trained….

Here’s to many trips to every bathroom we ever encounter on every trip out of the house!

Pinterest

Have you heard of it? I found out about it first through my friend a girl I blog-stalk, Annie. I’ve never met her, but from what I know of her and her blog, she is all the stylish and trendy things I wish I were. Plus, I think her husband comes from some Callister’s somewhere, so we’re somehow related!

Anyway, Pinterest is like your online bulletin board. You see something you like and you can instantly “pin” the image to your virtual board via a toolbar button. (Get it? Pin your interest! I’m sure you do get it, but I just realized that Groupon is a group coupon. I know, I know.) You can add little notes if you want and it automatically saves the link where you found it. It’s so much better than just bookmarking it and adding it to a huge list. I love to see all the images in one place. Plus, you can see what your friends are pinning and get even more ideas. You can pin crafts, books, places, spaces, anything. Love, love, love it. My boards don’t have too much yet but I find stuff to add all the time.

They’re still in the Beta stages right now so you need an invite to join. If you want an invite, say something nice about me and maybe I’ll send you one!