Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

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This was NOT the view from our hotel room last week. Jason and I did NOT have a great {and much needed} mini vacation...going to dinner, seeing a movie, doing a little shopping, and getting room service breakfast the next morning!

For more than half of last week, I was NOT confused about what day it was. This was NOT because the boys were out of school and Jason was off of work, throwing my whole weekly schedule into a jumbled mess.

On Thanksgiving, I did NOT forgo eating a bunch of SUPER healthy vegetables and really yummy turkey just to save room for dessert. I would NEVER eat dessert instead of lunch or dinner! I did NOT 'sample' almost all of the five or six desserts that were served at my grandmother's house!

I did NOT go shopping on Thanksgiving night {and Black Friday morning}...leaving my house at 9:30 pm and not getting home until 8:30 am the next morning. I would NEVER be crazy enough to completely forgo a night of sleep just to get some SUPER deals and have a ton of fun!

Lately, I have NOT been obsessed with making SUPER cute appliqued shirts for the boys. I am NOT planning a GIVEAWAY for tomorrow....and I am NOT going to make a shirt of their choice {size, color, fabric, and design} for the winner of that giveaway!

I Heart Faces Week 47 We Heart Tooshies

I have for the most part stopped entering the I Heart Faces contest each week...mainly because my photography skills are a bit lacking, and I know my pictures are never as great as the ones that win. BUT when I saw this weeks theme, I just had to enter this picture! This is one of my favorite pics of the boys...I even got it printed on an 18X24 so I could hang it in my hallway. To see more SUPER cute tooshies and some awesome photography check out I Heart Faces.

Wordless Wednesday: Pilgrims and Indians

Happy Thanksgiving!

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.
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I did NOT finish off an entire carton of SUPER yummy Blue Bell ice cream by myself while Jason was out of town last week! I did NOT wait until the kiddos were asleep each night so that I didn't have to share my yummy ice cream! I would NEVER do that....because I always share my sweets and desserts with my oh so calm {sugar NEVER effects them} children!

I did NOT use my tshirt as a napkin while working on some Christmas crafts. I did NOT wipe SUPER sticky and hard to get out Mod Podge on my shirt simply because I didn't want to get up and walk to the kitchen to get a napkin. I would NEVER ruin a perfectly good {but kind of ugly} tshirt just because I was lazy!

I am NOT going on a {much needed} mini-vacation with my hubby today! We are NOT going to have dinner and maybe see a movie by ourselves for the first time in months! I am NOT really excited about getting a little bit of alone time without at least one kiddo tagging along {Who knew it would be so hard to talk my parents into watching three kids at once...before Eli, they watched the older two together all the time}, and possibly getting to sleep past 7 am.

Christmas Advent Calendar

I have been wanting a cute advent calendar for a few years. We had the cheap felt one from Walmart for a few years, but it wasn't nearly as cute as it could have been....so I decided to make my own. I did a little research online, and I got a ton of inspiration from other blogs and from Etsy! I took a few of the ideas that I found and mixed them all up and came up with my own advent calendar.

I hit up Hobby Lobby for

a canvas

wedding favor tins

scrapbook paper

and

a painted star

I already had some stuff at home

fabric

rick rack

mod podge

and

hot glue

I started by cutting out a lot of circle...48 to be exact. 24 without numbers for the inside of the tins.

24 with numbers for the outside of the tins.
I applied a thin layer of mod podge to the inside of the tin and to the inside of the lid. Then I place the unnumbered circles inside the tins and mod podged them in place.
I put the numbered circles in the lids {with the paper and number showing through the plastic} and then mod podged them into place. I cut out a Chrismas tree from leftover fabric and used spray adhesive to attach it to the canvas. I finished off the edges by hot glueing on some white rick rack.

After everything was dry, I put the lids on the tins and hot glued them to the fabric Christmas tree.

Starting on December 1st the boys will get to remove the lid to one tin a day and get a special treat that is inside. I also placed small pieces of paper with special Christmas activites {bake cookies, sing Christmas songs, wrap presents, watch a Christmas cartoon, read the Christmas story} for us to do in some of the tins.

I also made the boys some SUPER cute shirts to wear this Christmas! I used all left over fabrics for their shirts this year...so the only thing I bought was the actual shirt that was $3.50 at Walmart!

It's Magic!

Magic Cookie Bars

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 (14 oz.) can Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk
2 cups (12 oz. pkg.) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/3 cups flaked coconut
1 cup chopped nuts

HEAT oven to 350°F. Spray 13 x 9-inch baking pan with no-stick cooking spray.

COMBINE graham cracker crumbs and butter in small bowl. Press into bottom of prepared pan. Pour sweetened condensed milk evenly over crumb mixture. Layer evenly with chocolate chips, coconut and nuts. Press down firmly with fork.

BAKE 25 to 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Loosen from sides of pan while still warm; cool on wire rack. Cut into bars or diamonds.

For perfectly cut cookie bars, line entire pan with foil, extending foil over edge of pan. Coat lightly with no-stick cooking spray. After bars have baked and cooled, lift up with edges of foil to remove from pan. Cut into individual bars.


I think the MAGIC is how fast these bars will disappear once you make them! This was my first time making these, and they were so easy and SUPER tasty! I will be making these for a few holiday parties over the next few months for sure!

Mail Time

It is so strange to me how something as mundane as the mail can evoke such varied emotions. Depending on what is in your mailbox at the end of the day, you could be SUPER excited or maybe even a little depressed.

Junk mail is just annoying.

Bills are something you never want to see in the mailbox....unless it is a statement saying all your bills have been paid off!

Free stuff, coupons, and catalogs are almost always fun to get.

And packages are SUPER exciting!

In the past week, I have gotten some mail that has made me just a little sad.
This may sound strange, but receiving two American Girl catalogs in my mailbox in one week is just a little too much of a reminder that I don't have a little girl to buy one of those SUPER cute dolls for! I mean, really, how mean is it to send one of these {oh so cute} catalogs to house full of boys who only want to play with trucks and balls!
I remember these dolls from when I was little. They always seemed so fun and interesting, plus they all come with books. Not only are you getting a SUPER cute doll, but you are going to be smarter for reading about your doll and her special place in history! I also remember thinking that one day I would buy my daughter one of these dolls. But so far, that dream isn't coming true....because I'm pretty sure that my boys wouldn't want to play with Kirsten, Felicity, or Molly.

Getting stuff like this in the mail, seeing all the cute girls' clothes at Target, shopping at a craft show that is full of hair bows and headbands, listening to friends talk about dance classes....all these things just make my desire for a daughter even stronger.

Who knows if I will have a daughter one day?!? Maybe I was just meant to be a boys' mom. And if that is the case, then I will be SUPER happy being the mom to Henry, Grant, and Eli. But for now, every time I get a catalog {like American Girl} in the mail....I will hope and pray that one day it will make me happy instead of just a little sad!

Christmas Crafts and a Cutie!

I am in a crafty kind of mood this week!
Yesterday, we took a trip to Hobby Lobby to get supplies for a few Christmas crafts. I am going to start working an Advent calendar soon, and I need to get busy making the boys' Christmas shirts so that we can take some SUPER cute pictures for Christmas cards. I also bought a few wooden cut outs for the boys to Mod Podge since they had so much fun with our pumpkins!

And here is a picture of Eli...just because he was being SUPER cute laughing at me through the gate while I was working on some crafts!

Wordless Wednesday: On the Road

Fall de Rah!

I'm not quite sure what it means....but that is what they call it! I just like all the SUPER cute fall decorations. Even though my boys weren't very cooperative when it came to pictures with the pumpkins, we still had a fun time tromping through the hay and looking at the scarecrows!

Two of the best pictures that I ended up with were in this old rocking chair that was back behind some of the fall decorations! I think maybe it is Santa's chair that they use at Christmas time...but it kept Eli in one place long enough for me to get a few shots!

I'm so glad that Fall is finally here!

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.
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I did NOT spend almost all of last week debating on whether or not I was going to go with Jason on a business trip. I did NOT consider letting the boys miss a few days of school just so I wouldn't have to be home alone {you know, with no other adults} for a whole week. I also did NOT consider just letting Henry and Grant spend the week with my mom while Eli and I enjoyed a little vacation!

I did NOT take Grant to the dentist last week to have one of his {baby} teeth fixed. I did NOT spend way too much just a little bit of money getting his tooth fixed strictly for cosmetic reasons. I would NEVER be so worried about appearance and spend so much on a tooth that he is going to lose in a few years anyway.

{His tooth did NOT go from gross, gray, injured tooth to nice normal looking tooth after 1 1/2 hours and about $500!}

I did NOT take the boys to attempt pictures with one of our local town's fall decorations. I did NOT take at least 50 shots...and only end up with about 3 good ones{I will post the good ones later this week}! I REALLY did NOT realize how hard it is to get three little boys to look {and smile} at the camera at the same time!

Things That Make Me Happy...

Fall Colors
Fearless Boys

Food

{really dessert...but that doesn't start with F}
Francesca Battistelli

What F things make you happy?