TCT #3 Turtle Puppet - 2 kits up for grabs!

Two things make crafts popular with my two year old, glue and scissors! This cutie pie includes both so it was successful!

I cut the turtle out twice with the cricut, using Animal Kingdom cartridge in advance, set him down with the scissors and dark green paper and let him go to town cutting it up.

Then he randomly glued the small pieces onto the turtles shell. It is late and I am cracking up over the fact that I just said my two year old randomly glued....he is two, how else would he do it!

He I then glued a googly eye onto him and a popicle stick and now he (the turtle and the toddler) is prancing around the living room! So cute, so fun, so EASY!

And just so you know how talented my son really is...here he is balancing a pair of scissors on his toe....lol!

Since we are learning about ovals, we also painted with Easter Egg halves this week (the kind that split long ways).

Daddy has pretty much banned the bean playing for now! After he found the box dumped throughout the house one morning while he was on daddy duty! That is ok, the weather has been nice and little man has spent much time in the sandbox.

***If you would like your child to receive some fun mail, leave me a comment saying how many kids or grandkids you have. I will send out a kit with the supplies and some fun stickers to the first two comments! I realize that this is not a large giveaway but all kids love to get mail and all Moms love a "keep the kids busy activity"***

Homemade Pretzel Recipe

Today is Pretzel Day! Fun right! Here is a tried and true recipe for homemade pretzels. We will be making these for after school snacks today!

Pretzel Dough:

1 1/4 Cup Warm Water
1 Tbsp. + 1/4 tsp. yeat
3 3/4 C. All Purpose Flour
3/4 C + @ Tbsp Powdered Sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vegetable oil

Bath:

2 C. Warm Water
1/4 C. Baking Soda

In a small bowl or cup dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Let sit for a  few minutes.

Combine flour, powdered sugar, and salt in a large mixing bowl.

Add water with yeast and the vegetable oil.

Stir with a spoon and then use your hands to form the dough into a ball. Knead the dough 5 minutes on a lightly floured surface. Dough will be smooth when its ready.

Place the dough into a oiled bowl, cover and store in a warm place until doubled (about 45 minutes).

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Remove the dough from the bowl and shape . I always do pretzel shapes but you could just do strips too. They taste just as good!



Make the bath for the pretzels by combining  the baking soda with the warm water and stir until baking soda is mostly dissolved. The baking soda separates from the water easily, so stir it up every couple of minutes as you are dipping the pretzels.

Dip each pretzel into the bath solution. Blot on a paper towel and arrange on a cookie sheet. Spray with non-stick spray. If you want salt sprinkle with kosher salt (we just use regular salt or sea salt, whatever we have!)  Don't salt pretzels ifyou are going to coat with cinnamon and sugar!

Cinnamon Sugar Topping

1/2 C. Granulated Sugar
2 tsp. Cinnamon

Bake one baking sheet at a time. Bake for 4 minutes, rotate the pan and bake another 4 or 5 minutes till lightly browned. Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes. Brush with melted butter if you are going to sprinkle with Cinnamon Sugar topping. Sprinkle generously and enjoy!

Recipe is long but it is not complicated at all! I pinky swear it is simple and yummy!

Graduation Stamp Giveaway

Anyone you know and love graduating this year? I have 4 people that I KNOW and LOVE graduating this year and I know that there is many more that I am still unaware of. My sweet darling niece, my son's beautiful girlfriend who I adore, and my son's half-brother will all be high school graduates in little over 1 month! And my childhood best friend has a lovely wife who is graduating college! I have gifts to give, cards to send, and 1 party to plan. I know I need to get out my graduation stamps and get busy! And I am sharing a set with two lucky winners!

<-----Set 1 and Set 2----->

Here is how to enter my giveaway - Leave me a seperate comment for each please. And if you are commenting annomysously leave your name in your comment too!

1. Follow my blog
2. Like my blog on FaceBook
3. Share my giveaway on your Blog
4. Share my giveaway with a link on your FaceBook page
5. Leave me a comment telling me how many graduates you know this spring!

I will be randomly picking two winners on Monday, May 2nd!

Holidays for Everyday: April 25th - May 2nd

Are you like me and take a big sigh of relief after every holiday? As a Mom the pressure is really on to make the holidays special for our kids. Wait! What am I talking about? What I meant to say is for our kids, our husbands, our families, our friends, our churches, our students our............fill in the blank. As woman we have expectations put on us to go all out and make sure everyone has a "perfect" holiday. Whether our families put those expectations on us or we do it to ourselves it sure can be hectic and stressful and lets face it sometimes after the holiday we are filled with let down and dissapointment. That is no fun! But guess what?

Pretty much every....... single......day is a holiday of some kind. And best of all, no one expects us to celebrate these holidays so they can remain simple and fun! I love the fact that each day we have a chance to do something special with our kids. Of course we can't have a celebration every single day but we can enjoy as many days as we can and if we are needing some inspiration these can be an excellent starting point. I hope to do this every week and I hope that someone is inpsired to celebrate a "simple" holiday with BIG fun for their families!

April 25- National Crayola Day

- This would be a great time to do melty crayons! Learn how at Bits of Everything.

- Recycling old broken crayons to make new ones in fun shapes would be fun too. I first saw this idea at a pretty cool life.

-And if you don't want to mess with that project I thought the blog Going Green had some great info.

April 26- National Pretzel day

-Have you ever made homemade pretzels with your kids? Sooo good! I will post the recipe later today.

-Dipping store bought pretzels in chooclate and sprinkles is also a fun thing to do.

April 27- Tell a story Day

- What a fun family activity during dinner. Have you ever tried doing a round robin story with your kids? One person starts the story with a sentence or two and then everyone takes turns adding a sentence or two.

April 28- Poetry Reading Day

-We have several poetry books and I will be asking each member of our family to pick their favorite short poem to share with our family!

April 29- National Shrimp Scampi Day

-Oh yummy this might be my new favorite day of the year!

April 30- National Oatmeal cookie day
April 30- Raisin Day

- Oh my yum! Do these two days go together or what! Oatmeal Raisin cookies please!

May 1- May Day

-I will be showing how to make simple May Day baskets on Wednesday. All you need is a sheet of cardstock! I always mean to do May Day baskets with my kids and then never do it. This year I am planning ahead and I will!

- If giving away real flowers won't work this year how about a cookie bouquet?

May 2- Brother/Sister Day
May 2- Sibling Appreciation Day

-These are pretty much the same holiday so I am including them both. I think the boys will make cards for each other. Maybe even small gifts if I can come up with something for them to make. Or let the kids come up with their own ideas for how they want to show love to their siblings! They might suprise us!

Scrapbook Display Board

I purchased this piece of artwork the first summer I was married for $2. It hung in our house for several years until I just couldn't stand it anymore. There is nothing wrong with the picture but gigantic pictures of the ocean, just not my thing.

So I did this. (If you love this picture you might want to quit reading now)

I warned you!

Many coats of black spray paint later. Some wire and a few mini clothes pins and now I have this....

An interchangeable way to display some of my favorite scrapbook pages in my home! And I LOVE IT! So much.....I did this project several months ago actually and I STILL feel happy everytime I see it!

Here are the pages currently displayed on the board.

Sorry about the photo quality of some of those photos of my layouts I was too busy lazy too take them down and try to get better shots. But you get the idea!



Hey Mister Easter Bunny! (A note for my husband)

Hey darling Easter Bunny! I have been such a good girl, I cook you carrots, and make you carrot cake, I am in a hoppy mood most of the time, and while we haven't exactly mulitplied like rabbits, we have three handsome young bunnies, I take great care of our little bunny hut and I hope we are hopping hoppily ever after for a long time to come! Soooo......you could put any of these in my basket and I would be very hoppy!

I know my special somebunny is thinking Scentsy and that would make me very happy indeed! So I thought I would help him out and make a post of some of my favorites!

Hampton

(Hmmm....dreamy! Imagine this with different colored ribbons tied around the top for different holidays or seasons!)

Farfalle

(I love the rustic look of this one! Would go perfect with my home!)

Morocco

(Very traditional looking, I really like this one too!)

My favorite yummy scent is Welcome Home. Oh man, it would be welcoming to come home to a house that smelled so good!

And here is another idea! Right now Clinique is having their Bonus Days sale! You know how I love a good freebie with purchase. Well you simply can't beat Clinique at that game. And just think of all that free swag you could put in my basket if you hopped on in and bought me some foundation, which I always need by the way!

With much love, Mrs. Easter Bunny

TCT #2- Pipecleaner Butterflies (2 kits up for grabs)

First of all let me say that I would love to show some adorable pictures of my sweet little boy making these butterflies with me. However, that would require my little boy being sweet yesterday during Mommy and Me time and yeah he had other plans. Moving forward.......

My little mister loves to string pony beads on pipe cleaners, so I thought of this little butterfly to make something pretty and spring like out of the activity. Where it all fell apart for me is when I asked him to count out ten beads and THEN string them on the pipecleaner.

Step #1:  Fold your yellow pipecleaner in half, about an inch down start twisting the doubled up pipecleaner, curl the straight ends around a pencil. This is the antennas and body.

Step #2: Have your kids string some pony beads onto a pipecleaner.

Step #3: Wrap one end of the pipecleaner around the top of the body, shape like a butterfly wing and wrap the other end around the lower end. Repeat with the other wing.

You can attach magnets or wire or simply fly them around the room.

***If you would like your child to receive some fun mail, leave me a comment saying how many kids or grandkids you have. I will send out a kit with the supplies and some fun stickers to the first two comments! I realize that this is not a large giveaway and that you probably all have pipe cleaners and pony beads :) but all kids love to get mail.***