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More home projects

Finally got this one done today.  Thanks again to my handy hubby.

Now I have to handle this:

But I'm gonna tackle that in the morning cuz I'm sleepy!   (And it's dream homes week on HGTV and I really need to sit down.  It's been a long and very busy day)

Until next time~

ohhhh so nice!!!!

Ok.. just a tip for all of you out there in internet-land!  Borax is an amazing all around cleaner.  It is awesome for laundry, kitchen, floors, bathrooms... everything!!!!!  I just did my kitchen counters and they look better than when I use Clorox.  Seriously.  I'm gonna do my tubs with it next.  Also, speaking of tubs, my husband is a super hero.  Remember my broken tub faucet?  Well... he fixed it for me.  It was funny.... it took 3 trips to Home Depot to get it done.  First trip, he got the wrong faucet.  (no fault of his).  Second trip... right faucet, but the set was missing the hardware.  (no fault of his again).  Third time was the charm though.  Check it out!

As you can see... the old one was pretty yucky.  We're glad to have the new one.  It was only a 20 dollar fix.  Horray!

Memorial Day

Park Day

Lots of room for frisbee

And golfing!!

Live Every Moment photo challenge

This weeks theme is "vibrant colors".  Here is my capture:

This was taken while we were living in Japan.  The tree was in our neighbor's yard.  We loved watching it bud, bloom and then turn green.

Why?

Why oh why is this my son's idea of a good time???????

psssssh!

I know I've been a bit behind on the blogging this past week.  It's been super busy, but not with anything interesting.  My little man has been sick with croup, so we haven't been sleeping too well.  Literally happened today:  I made the bed with freshly washed brand new sheets and then he threw up all over them and me while we were having evening snuggles.  Now I have to wait till they re-wash before I can go to bed.  I have the humidifier in his room since he starts the night there, but halfway through, he moves to my bed anyway.  I'm just praying he kicks this thing for good soon, or this will be me:

  A little trick.... Instead of putting vapor rub on  your child's chest (where it can be overpoweringly strong and possibly get on their hands and into their eyes when they're real little) rub it on the bottoms of their feet and put socks on them.  It sooths coughs almost instantly.

The HOME maker challenge is going well, I will post a detailed update soon.  One thing though.... I'm noticing that some of the tasks are a bit hard for me to do... like steam clean my carpets... I don't own a steam cleaner.  I'm modifying a bit to make it doable for me.  I vacuumed all the carpets instead.  Also, because the challenges are deeper cleaning items (like washing windows or polishing furniture) I'm having to give priority to my everyday tasks.  (Like laundry and dishes).  It's been hard to balance it all with a very needy, clingy toddler who is also the cause of sleepless nights induced fatigue.  Right now, I'm happy if I'm wearing clean clothes and eating off of clean plates.  LOL :)




In other news:  Praise the Lord... my request to be excused from jury service was approved.  Seriously... who is going to take care of my home schooled girl and my still nursing 2 year old if I get on a trial?  I'm glad they were understanding.  Phew!!

Well.... I'm going to take advantage of both of my kids sleeping and try to take a shower.  Here's to hopin' J stays asleep long enough for me to rinse shampoo out of my hair.  I'm totally considering going poo free.... just so I can shower faster.  Oh wait... I gotta do this first:

I'm going to go re read my post about the 50's housewife to gain some perspective.  Good night ya'll!

Live Every Moment photo challenge

This weeks theme is "water"





I really wanted to enter the photo from this weeks Wordless Wednesday, but my mom snapped that one.. not me.  Check it out anyway.  It's awesome.  You can find it here

Wordless Wednesday

Evening pleasantries.

J wanted to help me with dinner.  Or at least I thought... he actually wanted to feed the dogs.

Lasagna rolls for dinner

 Washing the spoon

My pups

Disney.com playin' gal.  

Mother's Day wall hanging

I made this for my other MIL for Mother's Day.  I had several fabric scraps and I wanted to make something with them.  Our budget was super limited this year, so I knew I had to make do with what I had on hand.  the only thing I bought for it was the dowel that went into the top to hang it.

 I clipped the fabric to my cutting board..... kinda silly, but HEY!  it worked.

 I pinned all the scraps that I had cut into shapes onto the front of my fabric.

 Nice close up of all my pins.

 Then I sewed those pieces down.

 Then.... I had to iron.  The wrinkles were terrible!!!

I printed my quote onto a square of fabric and sewed that to the base of my tree trunk.  It looks like this

I then attached a nice dark green to the back and created a slot to slide the dowell through.  After attaching some braided rafia to the top for hanging, I ended up with this:

We have a great new toy

Our family is a blessed one.  Check out our new toy......

Happy Birthday Mom!

We celebrated my mom's birthday today.  She is a perfume lover for sure... so I decided to try to make her some myself.  Imagine the smell of Autumn air freshener.  There you have it.  That's what it smells like.  She can wear it starting in September and she'll be fine.  hahahaha! I used sweet almond oil as a carrier, some clove bud oil, orange oil and a tiny hint of vanilla.  Very warm.  Next time, I wanna try something a bit more.... floral-ly.  I had this GREAT bottle to put it in... it may even be worth $$.  I used a bit of cork wrapped in linen to make a stopper/dabber for the top.  At least it looked cool...

Happy Birthday Mom!  Love you!

Chick fun

Freschetta winner

I chose my winner using Random.org.  The winner was comment number 4... Amber!  Congrats.  I'll get in touch with you and get you your prize.

Thanks for playing folks!

Giveaway reminder

I only have one person entered into my giveaway.  Don't forget to enter here.  The benefits of giveaways on smaller blogs mean your chances of winning are higher.... take a shot peeps!

Ballet hair

I found the neatest tool for making my ballerina's hair perfect.  It was about 3 dollars at sally's beauty supply.  It looks like this:

I got the light brown one to match her hair.  

HOMEmakers challenge

This week we learned about the six list, the curse, how to overcome the curse,  how to deal with laziness, and feeling overwhelmed.  We talked about how our daily work at home has eternal value and we should maintain our domain's unto the Lord.  I forget this all the time.  I'm always cleaning for my husband, or my kids, or my company, or even myself.  I needed the reminder that  “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for me…” Colossians 3:23.   I so easily let laziness get the best of me.  There was a quote from Martin Luther that said, "How soon 'not now' becomes 'never'".  It's so true!  The Mary challenge for that day was to stop and pray for the Lord to give me a spirit of diligence every time I catch myself saying "I'll do that later".  This challenge has made it easier for me to "pray without ceasing" for sure!  This is my battle for sure!  I am the queen of "do it later-ville".  I don't want to be.  I'm officially relocating to "get er done-ville"  Maybe soon, I'll be eligible for a permanent residency card!  LOL.

This weeks challenges included organizing my pantry, drawers, mopping my floor washing my inside windows and window treatments.  I'll be honest... I'm a bit behind.  I still have to organize a couple drawers still and clean my blinds.  I'm working on it now actually!  Really.  See?

Well... I better get back to it!  If I stop for too long... I get distracted and never go back.

It's not to late to join in!

More Mother's Day gifts

I saw this idea and decided to modify it a tad to make it work for my kiddos.

You will need:  

Construction Paper

Scissors

Glue

Tissue paper in assorted colors

Markers, stickers, misc decor stuff

Frame

Trace your child's arm and hand on the construction paper.  Cut that out and glue it to a sheet of paper.  Tear the tissue paper into small squares and crinkle them up into tiny balls.  My kids loved doing that part.  Then you just glue the tissue balls onto the tops of the fingers to make blossoms/leaves.  Decorate it with your favorite quote, stickers, or whatever suits your fancy.  Then.... frame!  Ta da!  Perfect gift for Mom!  (Or in our case... Grandma)

Mother's Day gifts....

I had fun making things for Mother's Day this year.  I had some odds and ends and a limited budget, so this is what I came up with.

This was my first ever attempt at a pillow.  I made the cover a tad small, but I think it turned out ok in the end.  Man alive..... getting the letters on there was harder than I thought.  It's hard to keep them straight.  I had 500 zillion pins in it and it's still a tad wonky.  It works though.  I hope my MIL likes it!

See?  Wonky.  Quirky.  Unique.

I also sewed a dryer sheet into it so it would smell nice.  I love dryer sheets.  I keep them under my fitted sheet on the bed so the sheets are always fresh smelling.  Try it!!

Wordless Wednesday

Our Freschetta Dinner

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of FRESCHETTA® for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

In the mail the other day, I received  a coupon to try FRESCHETTA's new Simply Inspired pizza.  Usually, I enjoy making my own pizza because I can load it up with all the toppings I want.  Lately though, because our schedule is so hectic, there are times that I'm looking to save some time.  Here's the thing with these pizzas.  I can save time without having to compromise on quality.  They are loaded with topping goodness.  Now... when we got our coupon to try one... I was thinking we would try Harvest Supreme... or Farmer's Market.... They have this really neat tool on their website that lets you find out what variety you'll like best.  But when we got to the store... this is what the kids wanted.  Yawn!!!!  I'm not gonna lie... I was a tad bummed that that was the one they wanted.  But, I wanted them to eat it, so I was a softie and got it. 

Fast forward a few hours and I was pleasantly surprised by the robust flavor of this pizza.  Also, the packaging is unique in that it has a "fresch-taste" seal that cuts out the need for shrink wrap around the pizza.  This leads to 30% less waste.  And it is super easy to open.  It was made with tomato and garlic pesto sauce instead of plain tomato sauce.  Super yummy.  My kids loved the pizza!

 The thin crust was yummy, but if you have wide spaces in your oven rack, I would recommend setting the pizza on something.  I used my round baking stone to keep the melting cheese and soft (before fully baked) crust from drooping through the slats.  I really want to try the other varieties now.  The options they have currently are:

Farmers Market Veggie

 Hawaiian Style

 Harvest Supreme

 Southern BBQ

 Chicken Bianco 

Rustic Pepperoni Pomodoro

 

You know... they also have plain pizza dough that is another good time saving option for me.  If I want to make my own without worrying about the dough, and I want a great tasting option, I can make my own pizza's on these.

 

So here's the deal.  I know your mouth is watering now, so I'm gonna give you a shot at a free pizza of your very own.  And to sweeten the deal, I have a Simply Inspired cutting board/cheese platter to give away as well.  

 

 

Here's what you need to do: 

 

Mandatory entry~ Leave a comment telling me what variety of pizza you are hoping to try.

 

Extra entries~

    

    Follow Regi:Create

    

    Like Freschetta on facebook  (this gets you a $2 coupon as well)

 

    Follow Freschetta on twitter

 

    

 

Make sure to leave a separate comment for each entry.  Good Luck!

 

Giveaway will close at midnight Friday May 13th.  I'll announce and email the winner on Saturday May 14th.  You must be willing to provide me with your shipping address.  I'll guard it with my life.  Promise.  

 

For more info on FRESCHETTA, go here:

 

FRESCHETTA® Simply…Inspired™