10 items to entertain the children while traveling!

I’m taking my boys on their first ever airplane trip in a few weeks.  My husband is interviewing for graduate schools, so we will be on the plane and in the car for hours!  Here are 10 things we will be taking with us to help entertain the boys on the trip.
-cheap digital camera (my guy loves seeing pictures of himself).
-Blue Painters Tape (to mold sculptures, play find the tape, stick on things or maybe to cover a mouth or two….Don’t worry that last one’s a joke!)
-Home-made games like I spy with my little eye.
-Magnetic Drawing Board (this way we won’t worry about dropping crayons everywhere)
-My soon to be started and finished quiet book! I’ve got the layout all picked out and will be busy making it in the next week.  ; )
-Juice Boxes or Gum (to help ease ear pain) and other favorite treats.
-DVD Player, headphones & favorite DVD’s
-Mint tin full of magnets.  My toddler loves magnets!  Try placing stickers on the magnets and be prepared to lose a few.
-Educational Flash Cards (the kind that are bound together in the corner)
-No need to pack these ones, Cup of ice and straw from flight attendant.  Also I’m hoping to get a window seat so we can watch everything get smaller and bigger as we land and take off.  
I’m excited to give my little man lots of ATTENTION!

What do you do to keep your children entertained while traveling?

Taco Salad

This is such a yummy dish and it’s super quick to make…a lot like spaghetti. You can make it as simple or fancy as you want. Here is the simple version:

Ingredients (Serves 4-6)
1 lb. ground beef
2 Tbsp. taco seasoning
1 bag of iceberg lettuce or 1 head of iceberg lettuce prepared
1 1/2 cups shredded Monterrey jack cheese or cheddar cheese
1 bag of tortilla strips/chips
Top with: Chopped Tomato and Avocado, Sour cream, Salsa, and Ranch (We love the cilantro lime ranch)

Directions:
Brown ground beef with taco seasoning, drain and cool. Mix cooked beef, lettuce and cheese. Top with tortilla chips just before serving along with tomato, avocado, sour cream and ranch.

Cilantro Lime Ranch (Makes 1 Cup)
Ingredients:
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup cilantro (about a small handful)
1 Tbsp buttermilk ranch seasoning mix
1 small clove garlic (1/2 tsp of chopped garlic)
Juice of 1 lime
Combine all ingredients in a blender. Store in refrigerator.  
Enjoy!

Digital Scrappin

I have been busy trying to catch up on our scrapbooks and stay caught up...its a job, but one I LOVE! One of my favorite digital scrapping sites is the Shabby Shope I pretty much learned everything I know from them and I love there products, both what they offer free and what I have purchased. They offer a free template each month and have what is called Project Scrap 2012...it is a fun way to stay caught up on my scrapping. I used the free January template to create the page above...my daughters first birthday. I logged on this morning to find I was the Layout of the Week winner!!! If you are interested in digital scrapping check em out here. They have some awesome tutorials to help you get started plus some super cute free kits and templates!

Happy Scrapping!

Mommy Moments on my Mind!

There are a few moments that I have experienced as a mother that make all of the hard times worth it.  Yes, sometimes these moments are just that….very short lived moments but I LOVE them!
I LOVE:

• that when my child gets hurt, Mommy’s kiss and snuggle will ALWAYS make it better!
  
• it when my child lays his head against my chest and I can tell they feel totally content and secure.
  
• Hugs, Cuddles, Loves and Kisses that come most of the time for no reason at all.
  
• that no matter how my voice sounds while singing  or how silly I look when dancing my child things I’m AMAZING!
  
• how my two year old calls me his “ very best friend” at least daily!
  
• that even when I feel I have been unfair or too hard on my children they are so quick to forgive and love me anyway!
  
• the way I feel when I have spent quality time with my child doing an activity that they picked.
  
• it when my child learns something new and I can see them apply it in life!
  
• Watching my children play nicely.  I LOVE it when my 2 year old makes my 6 month old laugh.  It brings my heart JOY!
  
• I love smiling faces that greet me every single morning, It’s nice to know they are happy to see me! ; )

What are some of the Mommy Moments that you Love?

My Kiddos Blankets

I have a tradition of making a special blanket for each of my kids when they are born.  I made the blankets small enough to be a baby blanket yet big enough to be comforters for their toddler beds.

  I made this for my little boy and it has become his favorite blanket...I love that he loves it so much.

His is a simple rag quilt - the only kind of quilt I knew how to do at the time:)
Outdoor/Fishing Theme

My little guy with his blanket!

I also made this special blanket for my little girl when she was born!  It was a lot of work but I loved the way it turned out...so girly!

I didn't have a pattern...just drew up my own.  Each flower petal is sown on individually and then covered with the center/circle.  I clipped the petal edges and then washed the blanket to give it this look...a lot like I did with the rag quilt.  

The backing of the blanket is minky...I love the feel of it and so does my little girl.  (I wouldn't use it again because it bunches really bad...In the future I will use it for borders) I sewed a flower design around each daisy to hold the blanket together, it also helps the daisy pop out.  

My little girl with her blanket.

Here are a couple picture of them together with their blankets:

Thanks for looking and letting me share one of our traditions! 

  

Building

Our two toddlers had a blast! These two are best buds, they probably feel more like brothers than cousins! Here they are having a little "Bob the Builder" night together!  They loved wearing matching PJ's, taking turns with the hard hat and bob and being complete BOYS! ; )

Our boys love to BUILD FORTS!!!

We also played with BUILDING BLOCKS! 

Here is a Tractor Tutorial if you would like to try BUILDING something fun together! ; )

We got daddy's gear and headed outside for some pictures....

Then we went on a walk and talked about all the building while wearing a hard hat!! ; ) I'm pretty sure the neighbors think we are nuts!

For our snack this week we built with pretzels and marshmallows, EASY and YUMMY!  If you haven't tried   Home-made Edible Play-doe you could give that a try too!

Enjoy and have fun building together!

Fun with Masking Tape

Holly and I are both Dental Hygienists but spend most of our time at home as moms.  Occasionally, we pick up a day of work here or there and help each other out by watching each others kids.  Last week I watched both of Holly's kids for the day.  Holly's oldest and my oldest are best friends but get acting a little to much like brothers when they are together all day so I decided to break the day up with different activities.  We pulled out a roll of masking tape...they had a ton of fun helping me!

First, we set out my little boy's 3 favorite toys (his barn, car set, and zoo) then we built roads to each of the different toys.  I let them help rip the tape and put it on the carpet...they felt so big helping.  We had lots of fun playing too.  Here are a few pictures:

We also put together a game of hopscotch using the tape from the roads.  They had no idea what this was until I showed them and even then had more fun running to stand on the number I called out then playing hopscotch...I guess this was more of a my generations thing:)

 

Theme Week 15: Organization

This ended up being more of an us (moms) thing but we involved the kids too.  Here is what we did for Theme Week #15! You can click on the links below to read more or simply scroll down...the posts are listed in order. 

We organized the craft/sewing area

Created these Crafting/Sewing Tag Printables 

Organized the Toys (The kids helped with this one!)

Shared a few EASY organization tips

Organized Embroidery Thread

Showed how we use baskets and bins to organize

Shared 20 Things that make life for us as moms easier!

Have fun getting organized and having your little ones help!

Crafting/Sewing Tag Printables

I created these simple tags to attach to shoe box bins to help organize all my crafting items.  We live in a small home with very little room for all my crafting/sewing needs...okay more like wants.  I kept everything in 1 bin and in the upper right side of a closet.  It was a tight spot for a growing collection of stuff and it was getting difficult to find things so I decided it was time to organize things.  

Lovely Before and After shot (everything still pictured in After shot)

Here is a close up of how I organized my ribbon, it used to be in a shoe box.  I like this lots more!

Here are the tags so you can use them too...if you want! I left the tags single so you can print what you want verses having to print them all.  Simply save the image you want to your computer and then copy and paste it into a document and adjust the size to preference. (I printed 3 to a page and the size was perfect) You can also download all of the tags at one time by clicking here.

The  ribbon, thread, and frame were purchased from the Shabby Shop Blossom Collection and the font is Fontmoochers Regular from Kevin and Amanda.

Hope you can use these too! It feels so good to get things organized:)