Will Eating A Popsicle

Kasey sent me this cute video of Will eating his first Popsicle. Yummm..... come on Mom, let me eat the whole thing!

Teacher's Gift & Candle for Mom

Emmy & I made this potted flower for her teacher's end of the year gift recently, and a cute candle for Kelsey. Where did I get the idea? Hmmmmm............. Pinterest of course! I bought a pretty potted flower at the local grocery store for around $3.00. I purchased a medium sized clay pot from the Dollar Tree and some flower stickers as well. Emmy & I transferred the small potted flower to the larger clay pot. Emmy then decorated the pot with the stickers. (I don't think you can see the stickers very well in the picture.) We then typed a little card to be placed in the potted flower. It read, "Thank you for helping me bloom. Love Emmy." Emmy liked it a lot, but I made one big boo boo. "Emmy" is known as Emily to her teacher & classmates. Oh well, we decided it would be okay.:) Her teacher loved it! Emmy had a great year in kindergarten. She adored her teacher. Thanks Mrs. "B" for making Emmy's first year in school so special!

Thank you for helping me bloom! It turned out really pretty!

Cute candle Emmy & I made for Kelsey. Another winning idea from Pinterest!

Yummy Monster Cookies

Kasey told me about this delicious Monster cookie recipe off of Pinterest . She said she had made them and absolutely loved them! She warned me the recipe would make a lot. I thought I would give them a try. Boy, was Kasey right! It made around 75 medium sized cookies! This recipe would be good as gifts at Christmas or for school parties when large quantities are needed. Below is the recipe:

Ingredients

1 c	vegetable shortening
2 c	brown sugar, lightly packed
1 1/2 c	granulated sugar
3 c	creamy peanut butter
1 tsp	vanilla extract
6	eggs
4 tsp	baking soda
9 c	old-fashioned oats
2 c	m & ms
2 c	chocolate chips

Directions

1

 Preheat oven 375 degrees.
Cream together the shortening and both sugars.

2

 Stir in peanut butter and vanilla.

3

 Beat in eggs.

4

 Stir in baking soda and oats.

5

 Mix in M & Ms and chocolate chips.

6

 Using teaspoon, spoon mounded dough onto cookie sheet.

7

 Bake 7-9 minutes. Allow to cool some before removing from cookie sheet and transferring to plate.

The mix is very thick. Mixing by hand seemed to work the best.

Yummy! No, not fattening at all!:)

Fearfully & Wonderfully Made - Psalm 139:14

I was babysitting Jax & Emmy last week and decided to try something I saw on Pinterest. It was a bible  verse written on the bottom of a baby's foot. I tried this on both Jax & Emmy. They were such good sports. I know it had to tickle terribly! We had a lot of laughs that day!

Jax's foot looks big here, but he is only two years old, and has a small foot.

 I love, love, love Pinterest! Did I say love? I have to admit I am addicted to pinning all the things I like, LOVE and dream about. They have so many wonderful craft ideas! In fact, Emmy and I have tried around 10 different projects with great success. I will be posting those in the near future.:)

New Friends - Ryder & Will

Ryder & Will

My niece Jennifer, her husband, and their cute little toddler Ryder are visiting Kasey & Doug. Kasey sent this precious picture of the boys playing on the floor. Funny, Will looks just like Kasey, and Ryder looks just like Jennifer.Too cute! I'm glad the boys were able to get to know each other.  Many more good times together to come!

Tiny Toms

Here is a picture of the cute TOMS shoes that Chase bought yesterday for me to give baby Will. I love the fact that for every pair of shoes you buy from TOMS they will donate a pair to a child in need. They call it "One for One."What a great cause! Kasey plans on having Will's picture made with the new TOMS shoes. I will post the picture when I receive it.:)

Chase holding the tiny TOMS shoes. Thanks Chase picking these up for me!

Cute Onesie Cupcakes

These are onsie cupcakes that I made for a baby shower recently. They turned out adorable if I do say so myself. :) I bought a pack of cute onsies's with cupcakes embroidered on the front. Some were solid colors, others had print. I put a piece of crumpled up tissue paper in the center of the onesie. Then I started folding each side in towards each other.  Once it was rolled together, I started shaping the onesie into a ball. Once it was shaped the way I liked it. I taped the bottom with a small piece of clear packing tape to hold it together. After all the onesie's were rolled into a small ball, I placed them in the cupcake tissue holders. I used average size cupcake baking liners. I placed a small piece of double stick tape on the bottom of the cupcake liner before I placed the rolled onesie in it. This is to keep it secure in the cupcake liner. I bought a really cute cupcake box at Hobby Lobby that held 6 cupcakes. I placed the cupcake liners with the onesies in them in the cupcake box. On the top of each onesie I placed a small colored pom pom that I bought at the Dollar Tree. I used double stick tape to place them. The pom pom replicated a cherry on a cupcake. I used several different color pom poms, but you could use red if you like. Lastly, I bought a cupcake label for the finishing touch! Not too bad for my first try! 

Will Grinding His New Teeth

Kasey sent me this adorable video of Will grinding his two new upper teeth with his two new lower teeth. Time is flying by fast! He will be going to college before you know it!:)

A Sign From God - Keep the Faith!

Ominous cloud. 

Emmy in her car seat.

Emmy laughing 

A sign from God.

It was raining heavily recently when we were driving home from Kelsey's appointment at MD Anderson in Houston. The weather was horrible. Emmy was sitting the back seat coloring. We decided it would be fun to have a coloring contest to pass the time. We both kept commenting on how dark the clouds looked. At one point, it even looked liked a funnel  cloud was forming! We were all tired and just wanted to get home so we could rest. It had been a very busy couple of days for Kelsey. She had her routine 6 month check up at MD Anderson. The days for Kelsey were filled with  numerous kinds of tests. A lot of poking and prodding going on in places we won't mention. Not fun!The anticipation of not knowing if the tests would come back positive for colon cancer or any other type of cancer was stressful to say the least. After several days of testing, Kelsey got the exciting news that all the tests had come back negative! Thank God! The clouds miraculously cleared when we were almost home, and Emmy shouted," Look, there is God!" Yes, it sure was.... our prayers were answered on that drive home. I now look back at that moment and realize it was a sign from God. God is good! Kelsey's next follow up MD Anderson isn't until February 2013. Our faith that everything will be okay in the future remains strong. :)

A Day at the Beach

Took Emmy & Jax to the beach this week. We had so much fun digging in the sand and collecting sea shells. Jax wanted to stay in the water the whole day! It was nice to be outside in the warm weather. The water was nice and toasty!