*Random Thoughts of a SUPERMOM!*

Friday, February 8, 2013

Valentine Treat on a Stick!

Anytime you put a treat on a stick, it is just so much more fun {We've all experience the cake pop phenomenon}! So when I saw these yummy red velvet {Twinkie-like} cakes at the store a few days ago, I knew that I just had to put them on a stick! And my theory was right! They were cute in the package but they are so much cuter on the stick...and the sprinkles are helping a little too:)

I started with a couple of packs of Red Velvet Bingles, white chocolate candy coating, sprinkles, and lollipop sticks.

I started by melting my chocolate in a tall microwave safe glass. I have found that the tall glass makes it a lot easier to cover the whole cake. Just microwave based on the instructions on your package. I also thinned my candy coating a little with a small spoonful of shortening. Just make sure to follow the directions on your particular package because not all candy coatings can be thinned this way.

Dip one end of your lollipop stick into the candy coating and then insert into the end of your cake. Place them in the freezer to harden up a little so the sticks don't slip out when you are dipping them.

After about 20 minutes in the freezer you are ready to dip.

Make sure to cover the entire cake with the candy coating. Use a spoon to scoop up the coating and cover the end if needed.

Place the cakes on a sheet of parchment paper and shake on some sprinkles while the candy coating is still wet.

These little treats on a stick are SUPER cute from the outside, but they are even cuter on the inside!

Linking up here..

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Kaleidoscope Valentines

Valentine's Day is such a fun holiday! I have so many great childhood memories of making Valentine boxes and passing out cute cards in class. And as fun as store bought cards are, I really love making and sending more personalized Valentines to my boys' classmates. {You can look back HERE and HERE to see other examples of the cute Valentine's that I've come up with for my boys to send to school.} This year, I struggled a little with finding a fun {and original} idea...mostly because there are SO many great ideas on Pinterest these days! Anyway, as I was browsing the aisles of The Dollar Tree last week, I came across these packages of cute Kaleidoscopes that I knew would make adorable Valentines. And the major bonus here is that I made enough for Eli's whole class for around $2.00!

I started with these little kaleidoscopes. I picked them up at the dollar store and they came 8 in pack for $1.

Then I used my Silhouette to cut out these little tags that say "Love at First Sight". If you don't have a Silhouette, you can easily just print the saying on card stock and then punch them out with a decorative hole-punch or even just cute them out scissors.

I tied the little tags on with some red and white bakers twine...and ended up with these adorable Kaleidoscope Valentines!

And a bonus with these Valentines is that the kiddos are getting a little toy to play with instead of even more candy!

Simple, easy, and SUPER inexpensive Valentines from just a few supplies and a little trip to the dollar store!

Linking up here..

Saturday, February 2, 2013

January Recap Via Instagram

We started January off by working on the chicken coop. And I promise to post more of the {almost} finished coop this week!

I lounged around in my Christmas pjs and avoided taking down the tree:)

We took the boys ice skating for the very first time...it was a learning experience for sure.

But I think they had fun!

I painted the chicken coop. This is pretty much what it looks like now except Jason has added electrical and plumbing stuff and he is working on putting the run together.

Eli and I had a lazy Monday at home.

Jason and I started P90X again.

This silly boy took his new puppy to school for show and tell.

I tried to eat healthy...oranges are yummy, but ice cream still taste better:)

I did laundry.

Henry and Grant got their report cards. All A's for both of them.

The boys stayed the night at my parents, so my Saturday consisted of a nice quiet cup of coffee and a pedicure.

We cleaned out our shed and I sorted through all our old paint cans.

Preschoolers at church make such pretty messes with paint:)

Eli and I had another lazy Monday morning.

Snow was in our forecast...but it didn't happen! We were kind of sad!

Henry worked on his reading fair project.

I made some fun snacks for the 100th day of school.

Grant made a Froot Loop necklace at his 100th Day of School party.

Pretty blue skies and a county road.

I made a yummy malted milk chocolate cake for my mom's birthday.

We bought another Airstream...I'll have to do a post about this soon!

Dirty dishes started to overtake my kitchen.

I made another cake for another birthday. This was Neapolitan for my Grandfather's 77th birthday.

Eli played outside all day and then had a picnic lunch. It has been feeling like spring here lately!

I pulled out my old elliptical machine and did a little bit of working out while watching Rachael Ray.

I gave into peer pressure and joined Vine. Come find me!

I took a much needed trip to Hobby Lobby and bought all kinds of pretty fabric and ribbon!

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Fruit Basket Organization

I started off this year with lots of good intentions {aka New Years Resolutions}. I wanted to get my house organized, and I wanted myself and my family to start eating more healthy foods. It can sometimes be really easy to plan these kind of things...but the follow through is often really difficult! One of the first places that I wanted to start my organizing was the kitchen, specifically our fruit bowl! For years we kept a medium sized bowl on our counter where all of our various fruits mingled together. The bowl worked pretty good for the first few years when the boys were really little and it was mostly Jason and I eating fruit {other than the enormous amount of bananas that the boys ate when they were babies}. But as the boys got bigger they started eating WAY more fruit which meant our fruit supply started to outgrow the bowl. Plus Jason hated that the bowl took up half of the island, and I hated that when the bananas and apples hung out together the bananas always got brown faster!

I considered a few different ways to organize our fruit. I had seen a cute under cabinet storage idea on Pinterest, and I even thought about those retro hanging wire fruit baskets. But neither of those really worked with our space. I came across these baskets one day as I was browsing the aisles of Target, and I knew they would be perfect for holding our fruit!

I picked up three baskets, brought them home, and got Jason to figure out a way to hang them on the side of the cabinet {these are actually meant to be stacked up, but they work perfectly hanging too as long as you can rig up a way for them to hang because they don't come with hanging hardware}. I love that I took a basically wasted space and added storage to it. Our fruit baskets also look great right across from the boys Magnet Board that I added to the end of one of our cabinets a few years ago too.

So far the new baskets are working perfectly! Our counter tops are clear of fruit {though I can't say the same about dirty dishes and various papers}, and the different fruits don't have to mingle and make each other go bad too soon!

Linking up here..

Friday, January 25, 2013

Pallet Chicken Coop: Part One

For about a year Jason and I have been talking about getting chickens. With a house full of growing boys, we needed to find some easy ways to cut down on our grocery bill. A garden is on our list of to do's for this spring, and I figured if we were going to be farmers we might as well add a little livestock into the mix too! I did a lot of research online, and I feel in love with the idea of a pallet chicken coop. One because pallets make the cutest stuff....and two because pallets are free which means our project would be way cheaper than if we bought all new supplies at the hardware store.

We started our adventure with a trip to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Our original intention in going to the ReStore was to look for electrical fixtures and old kitchen cabinet doors. I had seen a suggestion online to use glass front cabinet doors as window for the coop, and I figured the ReStore was the best place to look for something like that. We ended up with a couple of glass front kitchen cabinet doors and a truck load of FREE pallets! Jason picked up some extra lumber at the hardware store and then we headed home to start building.

We decided on a layout and measured how big the base for the coop needed to be. Jason started the base with four 4X4 posts for the corners. Then he attached them together with 2X6's to make a rectangle.

We used some scrap plywood from another project as the floor...and we got a little help from the kiddos!

After the base was made, Jason dug holes for the four posts to sit in. We picked up the base and sat it down into the holes, and then let the kids fill in the holes with the extra dirt.

The next step was to build the walls. Our coop ended up being three pallets across. Jason just laid them down and attached the three pallets together with extra wood strips from other pallets.

We had plenty of pallets, so some of them {the ones with broken slates or missing nails} got used for parts.

The design we decided on was a back wall that was one pallet high and a front wall that was one and a half pallets high. After we had the front wall put together, the top edge of the pallets were trimmed so that they could be stacked.

After the walls were trimmed, we put the walls into place and attached them to the base with lots and lots of nails. Here is a picture of the back wall in place:

It turns out that pallet wood is actually really good quality...which means it is HARD! Which means you need a lot of muscle and a little bit of patience to get nails to actually go into the wood! We had quite a few bent nails laying around during this project:)