Krylon Mini Mystery Box Project

I was lucky enough to get selected to receive a Krylon Mini Mystery Box a few weeks ago.  I was so excited when that box arrived!  In the box was a small wood crate from Walnut Hollow cute wooden buttons, little mini cans of brown and red spray paint, white fabric squares and a strip of burlap.  I apparently got distracted the day I was taking pictures of the crate and contents because this is all I've got...

I decided make a fall table crate.  I painted the crate red and dusted the burlap with the brown to darken it up so the buttons would stand out a bit.  I couldn't decide what to do with the fabric so I chose not to use it but replaced it with a pickle jar to hold my plactic-ware.   I'm very happy with how it turned out!  It will be getting lots of use very soon because we love to eat dinner outside when the weather is nice.  The crate is the perfect size for my younger daughter to carry and get to feel helpful!

Bakin' Bacon Fail

Sometimes, you can't beat breakfast for dinner!  My mother-in-law brought us a tub of eggs from her chickens and my kids couldn't wait to cook them so breakfast for dinner made it on the menu!  I keep seeing people baking bacon so I thought I'd give that a shot.

                         

    

I followed instructions from familyfreshcooking.com.  Her instructions are to put the bacon on a foil lined baking sheet.  I chose to put mine on a cooling rack to help with the grease.  I was afraid that my baking sheet might not hold the grease because the sides are short so I used my broiler pan bottom.  I baked my bacon 400 degress for about 15 minutes.  Just look at all that bacony goodness!

Everything was going so well....until I failed bakin' bacon.  I don't know if it's because I didn't exactly follow the instructions or if it's because I used cheap-ish bacon that I typically only buy when wrapping something in bacon or for making bacon bits but I think I need to try again.

                         

It wasn't crispy unless you count the blackened ends.  If you like burnt bacon (ewe.), my non-instruction-folliwing method is the way to go!  A few more minutes and I'm sure it would have been nice and charred.  No one was impressed with how quickly I finished cooking the bacon.  My younger daughter even turned her nose up to the bacon!  She did eventually eat it because she just couldn't resist but it was the last thing she ate.  

So, follow the instruction and buy decent bacon and your bacon will probably turn out 8000 times better than mine did...or at least it might be met with cheers rather than "what did you do to it??"

Good Luck and happy bacon eating!   

No electronics at the table, please!

I'm not the nicest mom, you can ask my kids.  I don't allow electronics at the table.  I don't allow electronics at restaurants, either.  Instead I have a little pouch with crayons, paper for games, an activity pad, and mini clipboards, if needed.  My kids love it!  I have recently found some cute cases to make it work a little better for me.  

               

We used to have a cute portfolio from The Piggy Story.  It got lost somewhere one day.  I still carried a diaper bag at the time so I just crammed the paper and crayons in the bag.  I no longer carry a diaper bag or even a big purse so I got this pink pouch from Walmart for $3.  It worked pretty good but I really wanted it to have handles and, to be honest, I wanted it cheap!

            

I found this little cutie for $8 at Big Lots!  My girls love it & I love that it has handles.  

            

I got this cute little Macbeth camera case from Garden Ridge for $4.  It holds a 24 pack perfectly!

            

This is the rest of the goods in the pouch.  My kids love that we have this in the car.  I'm not saying that when we go to dinner, I never play a competitive game of DOTS on my phone with my older daughter.  I'm just saying that they prefer the bag of goodies while they wait for their food and I prefer to play tic-tac-toe and color right along with them!  Get out there and color!

Teacher's Gifts

I, like many of you, have been scouring Pinterest for ideas for teachers gifts for the last 2 weeks.  I found a lot of towel, pitchers, cups and such.  I wanted to do soething a little different.  I have several friends that are teachers and they get together and relax with a weekly happy hour at someones house.  Sometimes, there's just not enough chairs.  I thought I'd give my kids teachers a happy hour kit!  Please excuse the pictures.  I forgot to take any until I'd already gotten to school.  

   

Their gifts consisted of a camping chair, a koozie, a bottle of water (because beer isn't exactly approriate at school) a bottle of sunscreen, and some Snickers bites.     

                        

My tag is a little sad because I was in a huge hurry and didn't have time to make a super cute one.  I hope this helps you out!  I bought the chairs at Academy for a very affordable price.  I left the tags on so they could exchange it if they wanted to get a different color, I'm not being tacky ;)  I'm a huge fan of functional gifts and best of all, my kids teachers loved them!  Mission completed!

Strawberry Banana Love

I bought a big container of beautiful strawberries on Friday.  And naturally, I got some bananas too.  My kids love both fruits as a snack and love them in a smoothie.

           

I took my girls swimming today and we were starving when we got home.  Those strawberries were calling my name!  As I was cutting up some stawberreis, the bananas caught my eye.  I decided to whip up a light and tasty treat!  

           

I sliced and diced my fruit and added 2(ish) tablespoons of redi-whip and stirred it all together so the "fluff" was on all of the fruit.  

           

My girls were huge fans of their treat and I love that they got in a nice sized dose of fresh fruit.  My kids love fruit and I have no trouble getting them to eat it but it turns into a treat when I added a little bit of "fluff."  Light, fresh, tasty, cool, happy kids, happy mom!

Ode to Shredded Chicken

I am a huge fan of shredded chicken!  I love how versatile and wonderful it is for light, summer meals.  Honestly, nobody really wants to eat meatloaf when it's 100 degrees!  It's great cold or warm, on salad, in a taco, mixed up with some stuff to make a "salad", mix it with a little bit of BBQ sauce, use it in a sandwich... Today, I thought I'd share two of my absolute favorites!

                 

1) The chicken taco: 2oz shredded cheese, a little colby jack, a spoonfull of guacamole, a handful of shredded lettuce, and just a little bit of ranch = best lunch ever!

                  

2) Green Goodness: Wholly Guacamole, schredded chicken, and just enough feta chese to know there is feta cheese in there.  Cool, light, tasty!  I like to eat it with a few Julio's tortilla chips.  Oh, Julio's, how my family loves you!

                 

I typically use the Fiesta Chicken Rub but sometimes I'll use my much loved Louisiana Cajun Seasoning to season my chicken.  I either grill it or just toss it in a pan with a little oil or chicken stock, and I mean a little!  I use my baby food processor to shred it because it's just easier that way.  

                   

Give me a little time and I'm sure I'll come up with more stuf to do with shredded chicken!  Until then, give these 2 a try and enjoy!

Long Time, No see!

So, I dropped off the blogging wagon for a little while.  I got busy just being mom, birthday parties, holidays, blah blah blah...My best friend is amazing at applying positive peer pressure so, I'm back.  I'll start back with a handy tip that I saw on Pinterest from Let's Fill the Van!

Every few weeks, I take several teachers, the nurse, and office staff Sonic drinks.  It's my little way of saying thanks for taking such great care of my girls and for putting up with me.  I had to modify Let's Fill the Van's idea a bit because I had all large drinks and to be honest, this was the first bin I could reach from the top of the attic stairs without actually getting in the attic.  It worked beautifully!  No spills or drips and it even held my kids lunches.    

     

             

                                

I also found that my pool bag fits perfectly so when we leave the pool and toys are dripping and flooding the bag it doesn't get my car wet.  I, personally, don't care for the wet car smell during our Texas summers.  It held the plants that I bought at Lowe's last night and protected my bananas from the rest of my groceries a few days ago!  It has pretty much become a fixture in my car!

Goodbye Mosquitos?

I found a list of plants that repel mosquitos a few weeks ago.  Mosquitos are starting to join us on our patio in the evenings so I thought I'd try planting some of these plants and give them a shot.  At the very least, I have a pretty pot of plants for my patio.  I went to Lowe's and got some basil, marigolds, a citronella.  I had a super cute lantern that I found at Kohl's last year.  My kids keep taking it off the table because they don't want to break it so it spends more time on the ground next to my patio sofa.  I crammed the lantern into the back of the pot and love how it turned out!

                      

            

 My cute little lantern is now getting used instead of hiding from my beloved children!  As far as how well it repels mosquitos, that remains to be seen.  I will update that in a few weeks!