Birthday cupcakes...Penguin style

So I had a lot of people ask me how I made the penguins...easy...easy!!! In fact, they have been the easiest cupcakes I have ever made. Now let me tell you right up front, I did not think of this idea on my own...Wish I did, but did not!!! Hello, Cupcake! is the name of the book by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. You can find their book(s) on Amazon for 10.00...They are great table books just to look through, even if you don't bake.

 They were totally cute, but not sure if it was worth the price I paid to make them. For a small party totally worth doing, but not for 34 kids!!!

Here are the directions for the penguins

Bake your cupcakes according to the directions (box or homemade)
Allow them to cool and then begin stacking your creation
1 small doughnut
1 doughnut hole or 1 cake ball (I have used both of them, neither one makes a difference!)
Frost (store bought frosting) the stack and then allow them to freeze (I kept mine in the freezer overnight, allow at least 15 minutes in the freezer)

Microwave your frosting (once again, store bought :)) for 10 sec. intervals until completely runny!

Dip the whole cupcake into the frosting, bring it up slowly allowing any chocolate to drip off and then quickly bring it back up...Allow to dry

Use Famous Chocolate Wafers (spendy, but I could not find any other kind of cookie) cut them in half and press firmly but gently into the body of the penguin.

Cut the tips of marshmallows off and use those as the belly

Cut a Starburst diagonally and dab a little chocolate onto it and place it on the face for the beak

Dab a little white frosting on for eyes and mini chocolate chips (or a dap of frosting) for the pupils.

And there you have your family of sugar overloaded penguins...Enjoy. My kids sure did (and others!)

Dear Cailey Mae

Dear Cailey Mae, today you turn 5 years old. 5 isn't old, but it is too old for me! Just yesterday, I was buying you baby clothes and wishing you could move up just a few more sizes to the little girls because they had a cuter selection. Now we have passed the little girls and are now in the "big" girl section and I hate  it...I want you to go back into the little girls! The "big" girl clothes are way to grown up  for you. I catch myself going to the little girls and having to pry myself out of the section. I ask you to stop growing and you tell me that you have to grow to be big like Shelby (you idolize your cousin!). 

I have loved every minute of you growing up. You have always been a pleaser in the family. Ever since you were a baby you have enjoyed life! When you were sick or when you are, you still keep a smile on your face. You are very sensitive and I love you for it. I and everybody else can always count on getting a hug from you!

You love to be comfy...when I mean comfy, comfy it is...stripped down to your panties! You drive your daddy crazy. Every night when he comes home you are usually running around with just your panties on. I wonder when that will change?

You have plenty of toys. However, your favorite thing to play with is your stuff animals and dolls piled around on blankets having tea parties and birthday parties!

Right now you are really digging the Wii and love playing "Just Dance",  you also like to dress up so you can dance with the music. You asked for a radio for you birthday so you can listen to your own Cd's in your bedroom (when did you start wanting to listen to your own Cd's?). You also love to do crafts and play with play dough, you can spend hours playing with that stuff. You have a huge heart for animals and love them all, okay maybe not snakes, but most animals.

(this is not our dog...We found him while taking your pictures and you fell in in love with him...no we did not take him home either!)

You are extremely shy, painfully shy. I try everything I can to get you out of your shell and it is not working. I want to get you into clogging, but daddy thinks we need to wait. You did not like soccer, maybe this year we will try t-ball!

You don't really love school, but you don't hate it either. You go with the flow. Everyday you take something for show and tell for the letter of the week and your favorite thing to take is something found on yourself. The other day you took your giggle for the letter 'G' and your blue eyes for 'B.' School is going much better this year than last and you don't cry every time Lynn takes you. I wonder how you will do in kindergarten...I already worry about that!

Cayden idolizes you! And you cannot stand that from him. He loves to copy everything you say and do and has learned so much from you...good and bad!

You hate to go to sleep by yourself! I have to go to bed with you and sneak ever so quietly out of your room every night (sometimes you catch me and I play dumb and tell you that I fell out of bed!). Deep down, it does not bother me much. You are not going to go away to college with me sleeping with you so I will enjoy it while I can. You always wake up around 2ish and sneak into daddy's and my room and finish sleeping on the little bed that I make for you every night, always next to my side of the bed. Which once again drives your daddy crazy!!!

Cailey, I love you so much and always want you to stay little. I know I have no control over you growing up, but I do have control over how much I love you and that will never change.

Love you,

           Mommy

Happy 5th birthday bug! I sure hope you have a wonderful Hello Kitty 5th birthday!

project life

Just in case anybody is trying to get their hands on a project life kit...they are in the house. Go over to amazon and type in Project Life...They are there, better hurry before they sell out!!!

Valentine's Day preparation

Even though we have a little less than a month away until Valentine's Day...Cailey is in full swing of it!
I always make Cailey's Valentine's for her to give to her class. I cannot help the control issue and I love anything pink and brown or red and white!  Anyways, we were in Target going through all the Valentines and Cailey could not resist looking at all the Valentines, in fact I was even in aw! We stared at all the Valentines for a good 10 minutes and my logical brain (yes, sometimes it does make practical decisions!) decided to let Cailey buy her Valentines this year! She decided on Hello Kitty and Rapunzel.

I figured we would buy them early and she could work on signing them throughout these cold and miserable dark nights....Oh no! She sat down that very night and worked through all 34 Valentines. I am so proud to say they are all signed, put together, and placed in a nice clear ziplock bag! It is such a breath of fresh air to know that I am not working on them day in and day out... sewing,stamping and distressing the edges....just for the kids to tear apart and realize that there is no cool tattoo or sticker!

Now, don't get me wrong I have a lot more Valentine's Day ideas. Especially now that I don't have to make 34 cards.

A nice surprise

This week has been a pretty drab of a  week! Even though I had Monday off (always makes a longer work week when you have a Monday off), it has been a long week!

During recess time I went into our school office to check my mail box and right on top of the counter was a little gift for me! Yes, a gift for me...super excited as I was, I dropped everything to check inside the bag...


JACKPOT...A scrapbook Etc. magazine and a cute jar with the red flavor starbursts...it totally made my day. In fact, I had tests to grade and things to get done, but I just went back to my classroom, closed the door and kicked back and read through the magazine while I enjoyed some starburst!

It is such a great feeling to have a something given to you for no good reason. It really makes a person feel really good. So I am going to make a goal once a month to do something nice for somebody...It does not have to be much, just something little to let them know you are thinking of them! So to all my readers, even the ones that do not follow (maybe you should...hahaha) it just might be you that gets a nice surprise one day!!!!

All I have to say is thank God we did not have indoor recess!!!

And if you are that certain someone (that happens to read my blog) that "made my day" THANK YOU!!!

Project Life 2011

Super excited to say that I am up and running on Project Life 2011...Thank you Mrs. Becky Higgins. I did not think she could do it, but this kit is better than the last one. I bought the turquoise edition, but there is an Amber edition too. If you have not seen or heard of it you need to! You can get all the information here .

As I was finishing up on my Project life 2010, I was amazed! To see a complete album done front to back in chronological order, is amazing. The kids really do change a lot in a year! This album is real life...not perfect pictures with the perfect clothes... Instead it is pictures of Cayden having croup in the hospital, my nephew James being life flighted to the hospital, Cailey learning how to ride her bike without training wheels and having the training wheels put back on, medicine bottles from both kids being sick at the same time, Cayden in his underwear and on the potty for a billionth times trying to get the potty training down, to the kids sleeping and playing together (yes they do love each other sometimes). Don't get me wrong, I still love to scrapbook, but now I don't feel like I have to document everything in those pages. Instead, I am going to choose only a couple special events out of the month and scrapbook those moments. Project Life has really let me let go of the overwhelming feeling of never being caught up in the kids' books!

So now I have put together my new book. This time I took a different approach and put the whole entire thing together. Now all I have to worry about it writing on the cards each day and dating them. At the end of each month I am going to print all my pictures from that month and then place them into my album.

Here is how I put my album together.

First, I distressed every card! It took an evening, but totally worth it!

Second, I place each stack of cards onto the counter and then placed them in order into the album

Third, journal...this is an ongoing daily project...

Fourth, insert pictures at the end of the month.

I am super excited to continue doing Project Life...It is quite contagious! My little Cailey Mae even asks to take pictures or put things into my album...I wonder how many more years I have until she asks for her very own????

Happy New Year

So Cody and I partied the night up at some wild New Years Eve party. Didn't go to bed until well after 5:00 a.m. and slept in all morning long....YA, right!

Instead, we went out to dinner with friends to Idaho Pizza and then they came over to our house afterwards.

We had intentions of playing board games while the kids played. Instead, kids (mostly Cayden) fought with everybody and himself and needed a lot of mommy time. The kids did not know how to play the Wii...Becky was needed very much and the guys......they hung out in the living room and did nothing.

From our little family to yours...Happy New Years

                                                              I love my little family

Nighty Routine

I hate cleaning up after the kids. I hate it more than anything and it is an ongoing battle! Not anymore! Welcome to my nightly routine...the clear, plastic tote!

During the day any toys that are not being played with and are just lying around on the floor get picked up and placed into the tote. Some days it gets really full (see picture below) other days none at all.

After showers the kids have to check the tote and clean up all toys that are placed inside of the tote. If the toys don't get picked up, the toys left inside of it get donated to the Youth Ranch. Cayden (my youngest) is so scared of toys being taken away that he is constantly checking the tote for toys to be put away. He freaks when he sees one of his toys inside of it.

We just started this system a few weeks ago, it is working great and saving me a lot of screaming and doing it myself! I know one day I am going to have to take a toy to the youth ranch, I am going to hear a lot of crying, and I will probably have even a harder time following through; however, I guarantee that it will show them that I mean business!


Here is a pictures of a full tote, within 5 minutes the toys were put up where they go and the house was straightened up again!

It is a toss up!

Last night I took Miss Cailey Mae to the local theater (I love our theater...it is hard to beat a $10.00 price tag for the whole night) to see Tangled. I love Disney fairy tales and my all time favorite is The Little Mermaid....Well Tangled came very close to beating it! The story was put together very well. It is a definite must buy when it comes out!

My scraproom

Before we had kids, we had the master bedroom and  two extra rooms...one a guest bedroom and the other a scrapbook room/office...few years later still a master bedroom, a scrapbook room/office, and a nursery....22 months later after that, master bedroom, little girl bedroom, and a precious boy nursery.

My scrapbook days were over, at least that is what I thought and Cody put it nicely to me! I was devastated knowing I was going to have to box every thing up and put it in a closet and only bring it out when I have time (ya, when would that happen with a 22 month old and a new born?).

Well, lucky for me we were able to add on more space...YES, once again I got a scrap room (quite dreamy, if I say so myself), another guest bedroom/toy room, and a family room, and Cody got a barn...We are very lucky!

Welcome to my heaven.... (I personally asked for the half door (A.K.A...Mr. Ed door) I can close it and still see what is going on. Of course the kids can open the door now, so it is pretty pointless, but I still think it is pretty cool!)

My room has been neglected lately...Project one not getting cleaned up before project two started and so on. So guess what??? two garbage bags later and 6 hours, my room is good to go and probably better than before. I purged a lot of old product and paper and made room for new (even though I promised myself that I was going to use all that I have first! Ha!!!) I got a wonderful gift card to Archivers so of course I have to buy new stuff...Any suggestions???

Well here's pics of my CLEAN room...Yes pics, I have to have it documented! It may never look this good again!!!

Enjoy...I sure did!!!

Closet where I store stamps, cutting supplies, and the kids creative stuff so they can join in

My magnet boards that I picked up for 20 all together. They were hot pink and green, I sprayed painted them black and added the vinyl

My cubbies where I store my paper and all other supplies...I have everything labeled

Up close shot...punches, and creative memories cutting supplies

My workspace, sewing machine, and supplies I use all the time

Supplies I use at any given moment

I keep all my ribbons in these jars according to colors...I just think it is cute eye candy!!!

Of course there are better rooms out there and nicer work spaces...but this works for me and it is a place I can call my own (or ours...Cailey thinks she needs to be part of it all the time!!!)