Think this is how many Im gonna end up buying....

Wow, this year is only four days into school and already we have broken two water bottles! And Nice double walled ones so they didnt sweat on their desks! We even lost a lunchbox this week! ha ha! But one of his friends found it for him! So that was a PTL!! But looks like we will be buying a couple more water btls this weekend! =)

Come on Weekend!! =)

Starbucks Made my Night!!!

So one of my good friends recently introduced me to this beauty!! ha ha! An Iced Passion Tea Sweetened. It doesnt have alot of calories and it is soo yummy and refreshing! Just a nice treat. Well, Jason kept the kids home for me tonight because they were exhuasted!! So I got to go to church by myself... I decided to swing by Starbucks and get me a little treat. Well, I order... get up to the window and realized I FORGOT MY WALLET! Omw, how embarrasing! ha ha! So really I wanted to just drive off and hide my face in shame! lol... but I got to the window and told the lady how sorry I was that I had forgot my wallet! Sooo embarrassing... to which she said, "Its on me tonight!" Which was sooo nice of them. Not sure if that is something they just do but it just made my night!! 

Overnight Blueberry French Toast Bake

(Pic from SixSistersStuff.com)



Ingredients

• 12 slices day-old bread, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1 cup fresh blueberries
• 12 eggs, beaten
• 2 cups milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup fresh blueberries
• 1 tablespoon butter

Directions

1. Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish. Arrange half the bread cubes in the dish, and top with cream cheese cubes. Sprinkle 1 cup blueberries over the cream cheese, and top with remaining bread cubes.
2. In a large bowl, mix the eggs, milk, vanilla extract, and syrup. Pour over the bread cubes. Cover, and refrigerate overnight.
3. Remove the bread cube mixture from the refrigerator about 30 minutes before baking. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
4. Cover, and bake 30 minutes. Uncover, and continue baking 25 to 30 minutes, until center is firm and surface is lightly browned.
5. In a medium saucepan, mix the sugar, cornstarch, and water. Bring to a boil. Stirring constantly, cook 3 to 4 minutes. Mix in the remaining 1 cup blueberries. Reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes, until the blueberries burst. Stir in the butter, and pour over the baked French toast

Made this for Jason's SS Class... and I REALLY liked it. Will definitely make again!!

Garden Saute

Garden Saute = YUM!!!

Found this recipe in an old WW book that I have. Really wanted to find a recipe that was amazing with yellow squash and zucchini. And I found IT!!!

1tbsp olive oil

3/4 cup red bell pepper strips (I didnt add .. ick ha ha)

1/2 cup sliced onion, separated into rings

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 3/4 cup sliced Zucchini

1 1/2 cup sliced yellow squash

1 3/4 cup plum tomatoes, chopped

1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil

1 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup grated parm cheese

1. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over med-high heat. Add bell pepper, onion and garlic; saute 2 mins. Add zucchini and yellow squash; saute 5 mins. Add tomato, basil, pepper and salt; saute 1 min or until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat and sprinkle with cheese. Serve Immediately. Servings 4 .. 1 cup each. 100 Calories per Serving

First Day of School 2012

 Awwww, My Kindergartener!!! Can NOT believe she is in "real" school these days!! Wow! She was soooo excited to go! =)

 Can you guess what her favorite color is?? Ha ha! She just might like pink!

 My sweet kiddos together! They wanted some pics together!!

 And this was after me saying... No, smile NORMALLY! ha ha ha! I guess this is their normal LOL!

 Awww, My FOURTH Grader!! Isnt that crazy??? Fourth Grade! He was trying to look all Gansta here! ha ha ha! Or as much as a white kid from the midwest can look! LOL!

 Every year we take pics by this whale so you can see the different in his height! I feel like he has SPROUTED over the summer!

 Ella in her classroom! Acting like a crazy girl showing off all them missing teeth!!

 Ella sittin at her desk area! Awww!

 Ethan in his class! Soooo Big! Cant believe fourth grade! WOW! He was sooo happy to be back with his friends!

And Momma & Daddy by ourselves... at least for a few hrs!!

Want to post too a bunch of new recipes I have tried! But I spend all my "messing around time" ha ha trying to figure how to change the background on blogger since they changed their format! To no avail! ha ha! So another day I will try again to change it and will post some recipes!



Cozumel Mexico

Just a few from Cozumel... I really didnt take alot of pics this trip! I was just soooo into relaxing and taking it all in. Me and my Love in front of the Big Boat as Ella calls it! ha ha!

We rented scooters this day... there are big signs EVERYWHERE that says dont rent scooters because you can get very hurt on them blah blah blah! ha ha! Seriously they are all over the areas where you get off the ship.. so we went to rent scooters! ha ha! Sooo boys! I had never been on something like that and it took a bit to get use to it but after that it was sooo much fun. So we just started driving down the road and came to this resort. You could use their beach for free.. and just buy something to eat from them. It was really neat. So pretty much for the whole day we just laid in the sun here! And these were all our views from our chairs! Well the Jason and another guy took their scooters and went and explored the island and had a ton of fun! Glad they go to go do that!

Then after we (I) was burnt to a crisp ha ha... this is our view back to the boat! ha ha! I was happy to see her! The hot hot sun was the reason for the hat purchase in the first picture! To quote a line from one of my fav movies... "The white people are melting out here!" ha ha ha Soooo true! But the hat helped alot! We had soooooooooo much fun.. I would stay for a few days on Cozumel. We have enjoyed it each time we have gone!! OH I forgot too... if we ever went back Id go back to their mega mart stores... I wanted a barrette for my hair.. OMW I got three really nice goody ones and jason got a couple of candy bars and we paid like 2.18!!! I was like OMW I should of stocked up! ha ha!Anyways... FUN! Love it there!

More Vacation Pics... Misc Ones =)

We like to go down and have a full day in the area before we set sail just to relax and go see the sights! I had never been to Orlando before and was pleasantly surprised with how nice it really is. We went to Miami last year and some of it is just not that pretty but we found alot we really liked in Orlando.. including our hotel! I looooooooove JW Marriott hotels! Probably my favs! This is the lobby of our hotel. I wish we had had one more day in Orlando cuz our hotel had this big lazy inner tube river out the back of it. Would of LOVED to have gone on it!

This was in the town of Celebration... Used to be an all owned by Disney Town. It is sooooooooooooooooo nice there! We almost stayed at this hotel. Its a Marriott property but it was a tad out of the way. But we went to just check out the hotel... soooo pretty! And the houses in Celebration were just sooo nice!

Then we went surfing! ha ha ha! We went to Universal and walked around for a bit! I had never been and it was a blast!!

Jason and Tom having a battle with their Harry Potter wands! LOL! Just too cute!

My Love and I by the Universal Sign.. Jason looks photoshopped in for some reason! LOL!

Just a few things we saw! Thought this was so cute!

THEN we went to the Harry Potter World! Was sooooo neat how they did it all! Was soooo real looking like you were in that town!

One of the Eating hang outs in the movie

And Pumpkin Juice! Was really neat but at either 5.95 or 9.95 cant remember which I didnt feel the need to try it! ha ha! They did have ButterBeer like in the movies. We tried that... settle down its not BEER! ha ha! Its like Rootbeer except it is Butterscotch Flavored. Was really good!

This was the BIG ride and it was sooooooo neat. It was really a very long line to get in.. but you would of never and known it because you walked through the buildings! Sooo much detail just sooo cool! They had the pictures on the walls that talk to you and other pictures.. they had dumbledores office and he comes in and talks to you (in a movie but looks really neat) another room where Harry, Hermione and Ron talk to you at a balcony and then all of a sudden it starts snowing on you! Sooo neat! And the ride was great.. it was kinda like a virtual ride! Loved it!

Then here is the unimpressive view of being in our room waiting to set sail out of Cape Canaveral! This was Saturday .. we went to Universal on Friday. We had sooo much fun Friday... The guys went on a helicopter ride, we saw the largest McDs in the world, we went to an All you can eat Lobster Buffet! Crazy! I got the BEST pedicure of my life! Amazing, hot stones, paraffin booties.. just amazing! Went to Islands of Adventure.. wow, I know there is more we just jammed packed that day in! I LOVE vacation days like that! Go, Go, Go!!

My Pinspiration .. Storage/Crate Seats

 I saw this idea on Pinterest and just thought it was soooo cute! So wanted to try to recreate it! I will be making some of these for my kids rooms... but these two were a baby shower gift for a lady at church. I heard her mention that she didnt have alot of storage or seating. I was trying to think what I could do for her. I was even thinking of a dresser... I have one I really wanted refinish but I was afraid it would just take too much time. So then these popped into my mind! I went to Joanns fabric with my trusty coupon in hand but found this CUTE fabric on sale .. it was normally 6.99 a yard but was on sale for 2.79 a yard! It is funny how things work out.. I was just gonna get a yard and split it thinking it was PLENTY of fabric. But it just so happened that the piece she was measuring was already cut to a yard and a half. So she asked if I just wanted it all and I was all for that price sure why not and you know .. ha ha.. just in case! =) Which Im soooo glad I did because I split the 1.5 yards in half and that size was PERFECT for one of these seats. I had enough extra fabric to completely cover the bottom of the board. Not that you have to but it just is alot prettier to see fabric on the bottom instead of ugly board.

 Then I went to Lowes.. yay home improvement stores, love looking around them!! I found this big sheet of this board. No idea what it is called but this is what it looks like. I got a big sheet of it for only 6.47!! AND drum roll please... Lowes will cut it for you for FREE! I was very happy to hear this! And Im sure my fingers thank me too! Not sure Im very handy with the skill saws! ha ha! You just measure your crate (the inside of that little lip that you would normally hang your file folders on dont measure the outer area because it wont fit down properly in the crate) and let the Lowes guy know what your measurement is. You can get at least 12 boards out of that one sheet... maybe even 15 I cant remember how many long sheets he was able to cut.. it was definitely 4 and maybe 5... So if you think about it... That is .54 CENTS a board for this project!! (using 12 as the # of them you can get out of one large sheet!)

 Just went to Walmart and got one of those file plastic crates in the home office aisle! You know that look like posh milk crates! =) I believe they were 6.74 a crate. Not too bad! Didnt check Target but wanted to check there too to see if they had better color choices.. Im assuming they do!

 Now for the "stuffing" part of this project .. the Blog I saw this on she used a mattress egg crate thing you can buy from walmart. I looked and the twin size was 9.97. Which isnt bad because you can probably get a few out of it. But I like BIG cushions and started thing Hmmm hope it isnt a pain to double up on that filler and have it be easy to wrap and all that with the fabric. So I started looking around to see what else I could us. THEN I saw the pillows! oooh what a great thing I thought to be able to just lay on the board! No cutting.. not trying to keep all the pieces together. Well the first pillow I saw was 5 something.. didnt think tooo bad... but kept searching cuz I knew I could find something cheaper! =) So I found the above pillow for 3.47.

 Here is a side view of the seat/crate. I have tissue paper in the bottom cuz this was a shower gift.. I put the things I bought her in the bottom of the crate.

And here at the two side by side that I finished for her. I had never tried to upholster anything ha ha.. so it was a tad of trial and error.. I just pulled shorter sides around the board first and stapled those with a heavy duty stapler first... then used the longer sides and pulled tightly and stapled the first side and then with the second side tried to make it look nice enough to cover the board on the underneath. The corners were done alot like hospital bed corners.. just pulling tight and placing a nice fold all the side. (should of taken a couple of pics of that! next time I will) Then when you are done getting the fabric just right the seat should snuggly just snap into place. Cant wait to make some for the kids room!!

Some Vaca Pics...

My love and I on our flight down to Orlando! He treated me to flying in First Class. First time I had ever done that. He flies so much he gets bumped to FC all the time but I hadnt ever been. I use to think What is all the fuss?! ha ha! Ahh yeah, its called Pampering! ha ha! Im all for it! ha ha! Not that I think it is worth the price of FC tickets! But with his free miles and perks like that.. totally worth it! Was so fun!

Jason and Tom.. A friend of the family. We went in a big group on our trip and he is the son of one of our good friends. So he wanted to come down early with us and spend some time in Orlando. We had alot of fun all together!!

Okay, if you are EVER at the Atlanta airport... take a stop by Concourse B and this lovely place!! Buckhead Books... Right by the Food Court. They have the BEST cheesecake EVER! Waaaaay better than Cheesecake Factory! We got to go on our way there and back! I squealed when we got off our flight back and we were in Concourse B! ha ha! I know I have issues!!! =)

Me and Ellie's Sunday

So Jason got asked to fill in for a Sunday at a local church that doesnt have a Pastor right now. I have to work Sunday Afternoons so I wasnt able to go with. So Ethan was MOOOORE than happy to get to go spend the Day with Dad and the whooooole day and all by himself! So me and Ellie got to have a Girls Day. We went to Church together and then after we went to our faaaaaaaavorite Mexican Restaurant! It is sooo yum. Ella LOVES Mexican Food!

 Ella looking at her menu... as if she is getting ANYTHING different that she normally gets! ha ha! She loooves the cheese dip!

 Thought this was sooo sweet. We normally sit on a side together when we all go together.. So we sat on opposite sides. Then half way through she was like Mom can I please just come sit beside of you?? ha ha too cute! and OF COURSE you can!!! So we took some pics and ate some food. One thing about Ella is she is BIG on smells... believe me she is not above telling you you stink if you do! ha ha! Cracks me up! Anyways.. so we are sitting there and she said I love the smell of your breath! ha ha! I just laughed and laughed and I suppose so much better than hearin your breath smells awful! ha ha!

And I know, I know... Terribly not attractive ha ha.. but Ella wanted to do a crazy picture! She just laughed and laughed when she saw it.. so I had to include it!

We had a FUN day. We went to Church, We went to our fav place to Eat and we went shopping! Got some really good deals and picked up a few more things to make some crafts!!! LOVE Crafting!!