My New Baby Girl

 I would like to announce the birth of out little girl, Taylor!  She was born on March 1st weighing 7 pounds 8 ounces and was 21 inches long.  My labor was fast (1 hour and 15 min) and all went well.  Taylor is keeping me on my toes and keeping me up at all hours of the night, but that's to be expected at this stage of the game.

I miss sharing recipes and hope to soon be back to blogging on a  more regular basis.  Hope all is well with all of you!

$50 Novica Giveaway and Some News!

Contest is closed. Congrats to Sandy "Sugarspice76" ! She is the winner of the $50 gift code!!!

Hey everybody! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I know I've been MIA for a few months, but I just had to take a break! I am happy to announce that I am 30 weeks pregnant with a baby GIRL!!!! We are so excited to welcome her to the world in early March. That will be two girls and two boys for us. Sounds like a good place to STOP! :)

I'm also happy to announce that I have been offered $50 gift code to be given away to one of my readers to spend on anything at Novica.com. Novica offers jewelry, accessories, home decor, clothing and much more that are hand made by highly skilled artisans from around the globe. What I love about Novica is that you can find such unique gifts that you just can't find at the mall or your normal shopping outlets.

Look at this ring I just bought with $50 from Novica

I just love it!

Check out some of the links below for other unique items:

women's accessories

men's accessories

men's scarves

men's sterling silver cufflinks

wool scarves

Novica also has just introduced a Home Party Division called Novica Live. The company is currently looking for women or men who would like to become consultants

Novica Live

So how can you win $50 to spend at Novica.com? Just visit their website and let me know what catches your eye!

One entry per person.
I'll announce a winner on 1/6/12.
Please leave a valid email in comment section.

Good Luck!

Upcycled Halloween Wreath

This is a red berry wreath that I had on my front door for a few winters now. It is nice enough, but some of the red is coming off the berries and you can see the white Styrofoam underneath. It bugs me.

So, instead of tossing it, I bought some pumpkin orange spray paint, a big beautiful bow, a black crow and some cute garland and made this:

Not too shabby!

Cutest Apple Cupcakes

Hey everyone! How is your summer going? I've been taking a break and enjoying some time off work. I made these great cupcakes for my daughter's birthday. They were time consuming, but they turned out great! I got the idea from What's New Cupcake? They were a hit! You can find step by step instructions here.

It's a Baking Party with Activity and Game Ideas!

Last week was my daughter's "friend" birthday party. We usually let them have a "friend" birthday party every other year. For her 10th birthday, McKenna wanted to have a baking party. So this is what we did:

I found some paper chef hats at Michaels and got out some of my alphabet and fun stickers so that the kids could decorate their hats while waiting for everyone to show up.

Once everyone was there, I taught them how to make a cute cherry or blueberry pie cupcake. I had the cupcakes already made so all they had to do is:

Frost it,

put the M&M's on,

make some diagonals one way,

then the other way,

Then make the line around the whole cupcake. Isn't that so easy?

I used white frosting and added a couple drops of yellow food coloring and then added some cocoa powder to make the crust colored frosting. Btw, I got this idea from the book, What's New Cupcake? So many creative ideas!

I bought some cupcake boxes from the Dollar Tree so they could take the cupcakes home and show their parents. There were 2 cupcakes boxes per pack.

This is how I helped the kids with the piping of the frosting:

I put about 1/5th of the frosting in a freezer bag and made sure the frosting was all in one corner.

Then I folded the sides and top down and used packing tape to secure the fold. Now you just cut a small hole in the tip and you have a piping bag to make the crust on your cupcake! There was one bag for every two people.

For the games, we played:

Eat the Doughnut on the String Game- For this game, you will need one long piece of string (about 10 feet) and several shorter pieces of string of equal length (about 2 feet long); you will need enough to have one short piece for each player. You will also need a package of miniature donuts. To set up the game, hang a string horizontally from one side of the room to another (outdoors, you can string it between two trees or fences). Tie a doughnut to the end of each of the shorter string lengths and then tie the shorter strings to the horizontal length so that the donuts dangle. Line the kids so that each one is in front of a doughnut. The object is to be the first player to eat your doughnut--without using your hands! So funny to watch!

Bakers Relay Race- Have two teams lined up with an apron, oven mits, a spoon and an egg for each team. When the race begins, the first person has to put on the apron and oven mits, pick up the egg and put it on the spoon and run to a predetermined target. Then they turn around and head back towards their team. If they drop the egg they have to go back to the beginning. Once safely back to the team, they take off the apron and oven mits and the next person has to put them on and do the same course. Repeat until all have raced. First team finished, wins!

Kitchen Memory- Put a bunch of kitchen gadgets on a table or on a cookie sheet. Have all the kids take a good look and try to memorize everything on the table. You might have to go one by one and name the objects. Give them about a minute to look at the stuff. After 1 minute, cover the objects and have them write down everything they remember. The person who remembered the most, wins!

This was a really fun party and I think the kids really enjoyed themselves! I was able to prepare everything ahead of time, so the only thing that stressed me out was that I had a bunch of kids running around my house with a sugar buzz! Luckily it was a beautiful day and I could send them outside to play!

Welcome to my Home Part 2

I wish that I had some before pictures! My daughters room was a cream, generic, came with the house paint color. We painted it with "A Day at the Jewelry Store" and woke the room right up! We made her a custom desk using a pre fab piece of Formica counter top and then put up the white book shelves. Perfect for that little nook area.

She is currently obsessed with Paris and especially the Eiffel Tower, so that made it easy to decorate!

For the boy's room we gave it a sports theme. Namely the Cowboys, but Jimmer made his way into the room thanks to my dad!



I still have some work I need to do, but I'm happy with how the rooms turned out. Now if only they could stay clean!!!!

Welcome to My Home Part 1

I just thought I would post some pictures of some of our home! We have been doing some work on the house and I wanted to show you the fruits of our labors.

We live in a VERY small townhouse, but we have tried to make it work for us.

This is what you see when you walk in the front door.



I made this gallery with the help of my husband. I like everything symetrical, but he showed me how cool it could look when set up a bit less perfect.

This is a table in the entry way.

Next comes the kitchen:
I'm not sure what I'm doing with the shelf there. I got sick of what I had up there before we painted so I took it all down and am starting all over.


I painted this table and chairs black. I love it!

We repainted all the cabinets white and it really brightened up the place. Too bad I took such terrible pictures!

Next time I'll post pictures of the kids rooms. I love my daughter's room and can't wait to show you! Ciao!