12/21/17

DIY Ugly Sweater Ornament

My oldest had a friend over for a playdate last week, which of course ended up with us making a craft. It's what we do :) This one was fun and easy enough for all ages. It would be cute on package or to give alone as gift. It's the DIY Ugly Sweater Ornament!



12/19/17

December Updates!

Am I the only one who can't believe Christmas is less than a week away?! We have been enjoying the season and preparing our hearts for the big day.  So today I am sharing some of the fun things I have been doing with my family. Keep reading- you might find some inspiration for your crew!

Christmas Tree made out of fruit! Created for our PTA Breakfast by my friend Alli.

11/30/17

Post Thanksgiving - Pre Christmas

Happy Last Day of November! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving with you family and friends.  November flew by and the minute we put our turkey dishes away, my youngest daughter changed our letter board to this :) 

Today's post covers all sorts of things-- like how to do a seasonal table scape with lunch sacks, ideas for where to buy a letter board (and what to put on it), how to make a birthday cake topper from pipe cleaners, a recipe for a holiday treat, where to go hiking if you want to see real dino fossils, and the best place to get a kiss under the mistletoe. Sound interesting? Keep reading below! 


11/8/17

Crafty Thanksgiving Ideas for Kids

I had so much fun in October making Halloween treats. And you all seemed to like them too- because several of you have reached out and asked for Thanksgiving ideas! I will probably make most of my 'crafty' foods the actual week of Thanksgiving. But I thought I would do a round up today of the ideas I am hoping to create. I think this will give both you and I, a 'head-start' on some Thanksgiving fun.



11/1/17

Fall Crafting Ideas

October has just flown by! I did my best to squeeze in all those fun Fall/Halloween ideas I have been saving on Pinterest. Here are a few of the things I have been making.

My PTA friend, Sheri and I put together a "Trail Mix Bar" for the teachers at the middle school. They loved it! We made little tags for the bags, and the teachers filled them with their choice of trail mix ingredients.



10/16/17

80s DIY Costume & Photo Props

Who doesn't love the 80's?! My oldest had her first middle school social and it was '80s themed'. Having a daughter is basically like having a life-sized doll that you get to dress up :)



10/9/17

On Trend: Letter Boards

Are you on the "Letter Board" trend? I have not bought one--- I just keep pinning them. (So that's pretty much the same thing-- right?) I think letter boards have replaced the chalk board. They are pleasing to the eye, require no fancy hand-lettering skills, and they are easy to use.



10/2/17

Donut Themed PTA Event

To kick off the beginning of the school year, PTA does a big membership drive. The goal of PTA is to get families involved at school and advocate for children's education. To do this, local PTA's encourage parents and families to become members. Then PTA shares ways they can get 'plugged in' on their child's campus. To make this whole membership thing more fun-- we set up a 'meet and greet' at our school's "Meet the Teacher" event. We had a donut table and photo booth with the idea of "I DONUT about you, but I am joining PTA!". Food puns make everything better right???


9/25/17

"Game of Thrones" PTA Luncheon

This year I am all about the PTA! As you know, I have always loved volunteering at my girls' school. But this year I am kicking it into high gear! Since I am not teaching preschool, I am completely submerging myself in all things 'volunteer' related. At Maisy's elementary school, I am the Council Delegate and President Elect. And at Afton's new middle school, I am co-chairing the Teacher Appreciation position. I love getting to do so much at both their schools. It has helped me make friends, as well as get to know the staff better too.




9/17/17

Almost Fearless: Family Vacation to Lake Tahoe & Yosemite

Summer flew by and now we are knee-deep in school, sports, dance, cheer and the general busy-ness of life with kids. I finally got a chance to pull all my family photos together from our big summer trip into one blog post.  For those of you who have known us for years, you know that I keep all my family photos and stories on our family blog. Then once a year, I print that blog into a book. It looks like a coffee table book  and it is full of all the photos and stories of our family - for each year. So as I was compiling that - I thought I would share our trip here with you too! I hope it helps inspire you to take your kids to California or somewhere 'out-doorsy' soon!

My husband loves to plan trips. This one was a two-parter. (Lake Tahoe and then Yosemite National Park.) So, first we flew to Sacramento and drove to Tahoe. We stayed at the Ritz Carlton in Tahoe which is about a 15-20 minute drive from the actual lake. After checking in, we drove down to the lake and explored Kings Beach. Lake Tahoe has 70 miles of shoreline and the water is a brisk 55 degrees. The girls jumped right in!


8/8/17

Tips for Broken Bow, Oklahoma

Are you up for another travel post? I haven't been sharing many 'craft posts' this summer. It seems like traveling and playing with my kids has taken over my craft time ;) But I promise this post will bring you both a craft and some travel tips for Broken Bow, Oklahoma. So let's get to it!




7/31/17

Horseshoe Bay Resort - with Kids

We have been "on the go" a lot this summer. Due to the way the 4th of July fell on the calendar this year, Jeff ended up with a nice long weekend. So we decided to do a little get away with the girls to Horseshoe Bay.



7/26/17

7 Days in Nevis

Each year, my husband's company takes the top performers on a 'once in a lifetime' vacation to celebrate their accomplishments. And this year- Jeff's hard work earned us a trip to Nevis! I had never heard of Nevis prior to his win. But now... I will never forget it. 


6/26/17

Family Vacation in Oregon

Last summer we went to Oregon for our big family vacation. I realized that I never shared the trip here on the blog and now that summer is here-- I have a little more free time. So I am sitting down and sharing all the details about the trip with you! Vacations have become something that is really important to our family. I know that everyone has different opinions as to what things a family should invest in. For us, we like the vacation experience. Making memories, trying new things, and just having fun together is something that we want to give our girls. And luckily, my husband really likes to plan our travels! So last July, we headed up to Oregon.


6/16/17

Home Renovation - Part 4 (the end!)

Annnnnd we are almost done! The final touch for our house remodel was to install the light fixtures and paint. At this point, we had been at it for almost 6 weeks. So we were ready to get it all wrapped up and back to normal.

Spoiler Alert: This is actually a picture of when it's all done ;) 

6/13/17

Home Renovation- Part 3

Welcome back to part 3 of our Home Renovation! Today I am showing you the counters and back splash. (If you want to see how this all started, scroll to the bottom for links to all the other posts in this series.) When we originally started all this back in April we were just wanting to do the floors. But if you have ever remodeled, you know that it's like pulling a thread on a sweater. Once you fix one area, then your eye catches on something else that needs to be improved. It is a never-ending project! For our counters, we wanted to replace our Venetian Gold Granite with a beautiful quartz that looked like our favorite marble.



6/6/17

Home Renovation 2017-Part 2

Hello friends! I feel like it has been forever. Between the house renovation and the ending of school, I felt like I was barely keeping my head above water. Fortunately, I was 'drowning' in all things good. They just didn't leave my any time to sit down and write. But thankfully, my world is getting back to normal, so I wanted to give you a house update! Because a lot has been happening.



5/8/17

Teacher Gifts & Staff Appreciation Ideas- 5 Senses

Last week our school celebrated Staff Appreciation. For the past two years, I was the Hospitality Chair at my school and in charge of organizing this week. It was always a lot of fun! But this year, I passed on my "Hospitality Hat" to my friend Tiffany and took on a few other jobs for PTA. My friend has done such a great job as the Queen of Hospitality this year and her activities for Staff Appreciation Week have been so fun I wanted to share them with all of you! She chose to focus the week on the "5 Senses" and created a '5 Days, 5 Ways to Celebrate our Sense-sational Teachers and Staff'.


5/1/17

Home Renovation 2017 - Part 1

Happy First Day of May friends! What have we been up to? Well it all started on Easter Sunday. After the Easter bunny visited and we went to church, we came straight home and began moving all our furniture (fast & furious style) into the garage. Everything that touched the floors had to be moved as well as anything that we didn't want to get dusty. (Which is pretty much everything!) Why did we choose to spend our Easter Sunday doing this?? Because we are finally taking the plunge and doing another round of home renovation!



4/3/17

Modern Easter Decor

I decorated for Easter today! My kids LOVE when I decorate for the holidays. I do it when they are at school and they get SO excited to come home and 'notice that something is different'. (I am guessing it's similar to the feeling I get when Target puts out new stuff. Pure joy!) This year I used a few of our usual Easter decorations and then added a few new things too. Come see the photos- I will take you on a 'mini house tour' that just might inspire you to decorate for Easter too. 



3/28/17

DIY Abstract Art (Using Tape, Paint & a Canvas)

My oldest daughter just turned 11 years old. She is at such a fun age, I know that it is hard to see our kids 'get big'. But every year with my girls is better than the last. It's amazing watching them grow and see their personalities develop. For Afton's birthday, she just wanted to have a few friends over for a movie, some painting and a sleepover. I LOVE this painting project because any skill level can do this successfully. It can be customized for any color scheme. And unlike a lot of 'diy paintings'- you will actually want to hang this in your house!


3/21/17

Family Resort in Cancun: The Royalton

As you know, I like to share our family vacations here. I always enjoy hearing about other people travels and it seems like you all do too! If I was really smart, I would start a travel blog and get resorts to sponsor my trips or something. But... that sounds like a lot of work! So instead, you get my real honest photos and opinions of fun places we like to go! :)



For the girls' Christmas presents this year, we got them passports and a trip to Cancun! They are at an age where they don't need more stuff. We would rather give them experiences and make memories together than have lots of stuff under our tree :) Jeff worked with a travel agent to plan the entire thing.

2/28/17

DIY Pineapple Costume

You know how I feel about pineapples right? Remember when my daughter went to cheer camp last summer and we created an all kinds of 'pineapple' themed decor and treats for the girls on the team? Those were good times! Last weekend, my daughter's team competed at NCA in Dallas in the Youth Level 3 Division. It was a great competition and her team did really well. Prior to the competition, the gym arranged for the girls to have a few dress up days to get everyone pumped up about NCA. Usually, the All Star teams have specific practice uniforms for each day, but during NCA week- it was all about fun costumes/outfits. My favorite one was the "Twins Day". Afton and her friend wanted to dress alike... which gave me the perfect opportunity to craft something super cute!  Enter the DIY Pineapple Costume!



2/17/17

Valentines Ideas (Save for Next Year!)

Timing is everything. Which is why I am laughing as I write this post. Who wants great ideas for Valentines... on February 17th???? Well I am hoping you do! Or at least you are curious to see what we did for Valentines. And if you are sooo over the whole 'pink hearts and love blah blah blah' well... I hope you pin this post and then come back and read it sometime in February 2018.

Here are my favorites from this past month. I had so many cute ideas planned for Valentines this year and happily we got to do almost all of them!




1/31/17

DIY Shrinky Dinks

My newsfeed on Facebook has mostly become food and craft videos. With the current political climate, there seem to be less and less posts about cute babies and the happenings of family life. So I have 'hidden' all the angry posts... which has left me with lots of DIY videos! Basically my FB feed looks like Pinterest! No complaints there right? :) One of the videos that caught by eye recently was "DIY Shrinky Dink" post. I grew up making shrinky dinks. My mom always provided me with lots of outlets for crafting and creating. And some of my favorite 'early craft' memories with her include making shrinky dinks. So of course, I had to try this out with my girls.



1/24/17

"Fancy Lunches" for Kids (fake it til you make it!)

Do you know anyone who makes beautiful bento lunches for their children? Lunches full of fresh veggies, hand-crafted sandwiches, organic fruits... all arranged so artfully they need to be photographed? Well that isn't me! My girls prefer Cheetos, a PBJ sandwich, a few strawberries and a little bit of chocolate. But even if you are a 'lunchable mom'-- you can still up your 'lunch box game'. I have rounded up 4 ideas for creating "Fancy Lunches" for Kids and because I like to keep it real, they are easy!




1/17/17

I Didn't Kill It (Caring for a Fiddle Leaf Fig)

I am such a bad gardener. Every plant in my house is fake. But a good fake (So good that my husband spent 6 months watering one of them before I noticed and told him to stop.) Oh I have seen thousands of pinterest photos- chic homes filled with living plants, but I knew better. I knew that a living plant wouldn't stand a chance under my care.

Until I met Lucy. I spotted her in the middle of my local Home Depot and for some reason, I decided to give her a shot. For $30 I figured the worse that could happen would be that I killed her. And since Home Depot has a 'plant guarantee'-- well, then all would be forgiven.



1/10/17

Snowing on the Sun & Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Cookies

Living in Texas is a lot like living on the Sun. The summers are scorching hot. And the other seasons... are pretty much non-existent. I am not complaining, I really do prefer to warm. I am not used to being cold and I don't own much cold weather gear. (Besides the random gloves I bought at the Dollar Spot at Target and my collection of cute plaid scarves that every girl seems to own.) So we were all surprised to get a dusting of snow on January 6th.



1/3/17

So it's a New Year--- Now What?

It's 2017. We celebrated the arrival of the new year at a friend's house. The New Year is always confusing to me. We get all excited about getting a 'new year', a fresh start!!!! But after the champagne toasts are over and the confetti is swept away... what happens next? Now what are we supposed to do?


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