Happy Mother's Day!

I have been feeling sorry for myself a lot lately because I haven't been able to make time to do the things that I want to (including blog). I ran acrossed this video on a friends blog and it really touched me, so I want to share it with you. My trials are nothing and yet my faith is so shakey. I hope this video touches you the way it did me. I am so grateful that I have been blessed to be a mother and I pray I can find the joy in it the way this courageous woman has. Teri

Birthday Prezzie

Hey remember me? If not, I’m Teri the older of the 2 sisters (hey those are a long 4 minutes). I just thought that I would throw that in there since it’s been not weeks, but months since I blogged. It’s been a little crazy around here, with a trip to visit Micki in March and a birthday in the family in March and 3 family birthdays in April. A layoff for my hubby last month and subsequently my return to full time work (I have been part time for the last almost 2 years). That’s my life in a nutshell. So, on to the fun stuff!!!

For our birthday Micki made me a very cute prezzie (not to mention the other gifts she showered me with). I promised her I would blog about it, because she forgot to take pictures of it before she mailed it to me. So here is the darling bag she made for me for our birthday!

Isn’t it darling?!? Plus unless your name is the same as me you won’t be able to steal it (or maybe she thought we were getting so old that I might need to remember what my name is).

See the inside is a cute as the outside and see how much it can hold (and yes those are graham crackers and there is frosting in the fridge to go with them).

And I won’t even lose my cell phone or keys!

Now don’t you all wish that Micki was your twin sister too?

The Shield (Micki)

My daughter had an end of the year project and she wanted to make a Roman shield. She wanted to make it out of wood even thought the ancient ones were made out of metal. Then my dad had the brilliant idea fo making it out of the sattelite dish he had just put in the garbage (thanks dad). Shhhhhh.....don't tell Direct TV or Dish Network or whoever. We thought it was a great idea. We googled images of shields and she picked the one she wanted to do. Her dad spray painted the blue part and then she hand painted the other colors. She did a really good job. I was so proud of her. Then I used some E6000 to glue the straps on the back. We loved it. She got an A on the project. However she got marked down for using metal.....WHATEVER. lol

Hair Flowers (Micki)

When Teri was here for craft day and her daughters birthday we wanted to make her daughter some flowers to go in her hair. My daughter wouldn't be caught dead with something as girly as that (she is a tom boy). I had learned how to make them at a church activty. They are super easy. Here is a tutorial I found since we forgot to take pictures of the steps. Instead of sewing ours together we just stuck a scrapbooking brad through the center and used hot glue to glue them on aligator clips. Here's our finished products. The green ones in the middle are the leaves off some of the flowers. Our mom came up with that idea. Thanks mom....they are supere cute!!

Cupcake fix (Micki)

So I had to make cupcakes for my daughter for a fundraiser at church. I am still recovering from a field trip yesterday and didn't want to go to the store to get anything. So I had most of the supplies and two yellow cake mixes. How boring. So I wanted to spice things up a bit so to speak and used peanut butter instead of the regular butter in the Golden Butter cake mix. They turned out yummy!! Kind of a weird after taste but good. I think I should have reduced cook time a bit because they are a little dry. But we topped them off with chocolate frosting and sprinkles.

Then on the second batch I beat the batter too much because my butter was a little hard (used regular butter this time so I could have 2 different flavors) and my cupcakes fell. :( I so didn't want to make another batch......
So I improvised with extra frosting in the center. lol Hope everyone likes frosting. My daughter loves basketball so thats why we made basketballs. Nothing better than a little (or a lot) of homemade buttercream frosting.....right Ter? (She hates frosting, how does anyone hate frosting?)

The best part is I made her clean up. :)

Guest Day Thursday: Hot Lunch Tip

We are so excited to have be able to share a great tip with you today (I know, don't faint, we have posted something 2 days in a row, but today's was pretty much a cheat since all we had to do was copy and paste. Hey! What do ya know it's even Thursday today, so I guess we can still call it Guest Day Thursday, hehehe). While blogstalking Teri ran onto this tip and thought it was such a great idea, she asked Don immediately if he would share it with you! He agreed, and so enjoy his great tip for homemade "hot" lunches!

Hi, I'm Don Carey, a full-time software engineer, part-time author, and over-time husband and father. I want to thank the 2 Sisters for inviting me to be a guest on this blog. I'm excited to share our handy little trick for sending hot lunches from home to school and work.

Both of our girls have food allergies, so when our oldest started kindergarten nearly eight years ago, we thought it would be best to send lunches from home. Not wanting to go the soggy sandwich on stale bread route, we came up with a system for sending hot lunches, and it has served us well.

The first thing I do in the morning is boil water in the teapot. Today's lunch menu is tortellini soup, so I also started some water in a second pot.

Once the water in the teapot boils, I pour it into our trusty little thermoses - one for each of the girls. There's usually one for me, too - no need to make lunch twice. But today I decided to pass on the tortellini soup in favor of left-over pizza in the fridge. Yum!

While the boiling water heats the thermoses, I make breakfast and heat lunch - either on the stove, or in our handy little toaster oven. This is also when I nag the sleepyheads.

Yum! Tortellini!

Now mix in the soup.

I empty the water and fill the thermoses with hot food. We usually try to plan our dinners so there are leftovers to use in lunches. Soup, stew, chili, and pasta dishes all work great. We've had mixed results with nuggets and burritos - they stay warm, but tend to get soggy.

Casseroles all work very well. Except for tuna casserole, which is never good. Ick! Yuck! Blech!

I then pack the thermos in an insulated lunch box with the sides, snacks, utensils, and a bottle of water. Today's menu includes goldfish, grapes, a granola bar, and bunny-shaped sugar cookies, just in case you were wondering.

All in 30 minutes or less. My only fear with this method is that one day I'll accidentally forget to fill the thermoses and send my children to school with nothing but hot water for lunch. But so far, so good.

My youngest still asks for hot lunch at school once in a while as a treat, but the 7th grader insists I pack her lunch every day so she doesn't have to wait in the long cafeteria lines. And she insists the food is better, too.

The Craft Day Spring Bracelet

Remember our darling Christmas bracelet we made at our last craft day. Well here is our spring one. It is so so so cute!!! Isn't my mother-in-law so talented. She once again made all the beads by hand for 21 bracelets. WOW!!