Saturday was a good day!

Munchie got to spend the weekend with us again, so we all got up early and went to see Granny M. Guess what she was doing, uh huh, making WAFFLES !!! Yay! The morning was cold and windy but it sure was nice to have hot waffles, home made jellies, bacon and sausage. We ate like little piggies and loved it. The Poo decided she wanted to stay and play so I took the opportunity to fuel my spring fever.

The sun had come out and it was another beautiful day. I came home, started the tiller and went to town. The before and after in the garden is sure great to see! Then Papi got home from work and decided he would take over tilling so Munchie and I repaired my home made ghetto compost tumbler. Ugly....yes, but it works very well. We got it all put back together and then I got the mower running and used the bagger to fill my tumbler with dry grass and leaves. Add water and there you go. We are officially up and running for spring. Compost on the way and first till on the garden done!
If that wasn't enough we then got to clean up a bit and go to a bar-b-que at our friends/family's house. The first one of the year but only one of many to come I hope. We got to spend the evening with wonderful company, great food and good times. We started watching a movie after dark. We watched Avatar for a bit but the Poo was tuckered out and started trying to fall asleep so we decided to head home and put our girl to bed. Everyone was in bed early for a change. It was just a great day! Thanks to our dear friends Lynette and Dear Hubby for the great food and even better company!

Lets Get Outside

Many of you know that the Poo and I spend as much time as possible outdoors. We fly kites and play baseball and kickball. We play red light green light and garden with veggies and flowers. We go for walks and go play at the park. She loves to be active and Papi and I encourage that as much as we can. Even if it is just coloring with sidewalk chalk. When Papi is not at work he joins us in our outdoor adventures and loves it just as much as she and I do. But even we run out of things to keep us outside and that is why I really have enjoyed reading a new book Lynette from Crazed Mind lent to us. 15 Minutes Outside : 365 ways to get out of the house and connect with your kids by Rebecca P. Cohen is a wonderful book packed with ideas to get you and your kids outside and moving no matter the weather. Rebecca shares her story of how she got the idea to get her kids out everyday and took a leap of faith to change jobs after 15 years.

In this book she has ideas for every month of the year and all kinds of weather. There are tips to get your kids imaginations going as well as their bodies. She has put in the tricks she has found to make things easier and quicker to get out no matter the weather and how to stay warm in winter and cool in summer. Some of the ideas are super simple and tons of fun, some require a little more planning but are worth the effort it takes to get outside. One of the ideas I really liked was create your own drive in. In the evening, get some lawn chairs or blankets set up, pop your popcorn and head out with your laptop or portable dvd player and enjoy a movie night outside with your family. Simple but not something I would have thought of on my own and a great way to have a nice family evening. I have really enjoyed reading this book and think the ideas are wonderful and enjoyable for all ages. I would recommend you check out Rebecca's website at www.rebeccaplants.com/outdoorliving.asp.

This is a review of this book. I recieved no compensation for this. Lynette recieved a copy of this book for review purposes and all opinons are my own.

Texas Tea Party

Last night the Poo was very sad. Her Papi, who is daddy when she is sad, had to go away for the night. He has sleep apnea and had to go for a sleep study. This was not ok with the Poo. She is not used to him not being here for bedtime and cried her little heart out when it was time for him to leave. It was made worse by the fact that he had to go so quickly after getting home from work since the study was in another town.

So to help her out we decided to make it a girls night and change the focus. We bake home made strawberry muffins, sliced fresh strawberries and strawberry whipped cream with strawberry tea in a REAL tea pot. What fun we had! She picked a table cloth and we had to put on dresses and rings and use our very best many at the tea party. It really took her mind off of Papi and gave us some much needed play time. She even shared her muffins with Lynette @ Crazed Mind. When it came time for bed it was the same old routine. Teeth brushed, potty done, nightgown on, story read and she crashed! No fussing or crying at all. She sure is growing up fast. I hope to squeeze in as many tea parties as possible before she outgrows them. If any of you would like to have your own tea party with your little ones here is the recipe for the muffins. They were great!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2/3 cup butter

1 3/4 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoons strawberry extract

3 cups sifted all purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups milk

8 to 10 fresh strawberries diced

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and both extracts. Sift together dry ingredients and add alternately with milk while beating. Beat for 1 minute. Pour into two 9 inch round pans and bake for 30 to 35 minutes. We used a mini muffin pan and started checking after about 15 minutes.

Easy cake to make and so delicious. Would be a good birthday cake as well.

Dream Big

As most of you know, The Poo is a very active girl. She is also very bright and catches on to things quickly. She runs and plays all day and I do what I can to encourage that. We go fly our kites when the weather is nice or play baseball or kickball if there is no breeze. We go to the city park or walk to Lynette's house. Sometimes however, I want for her to be still and get some rest. Bedtime can be a hassle around here so we got into the routine of you have 30 minutes to get your wiggles out, go potty, brush teeth and then comfy and cozy its time for a story. The Poo loves for us to read to her.


She has quite a nice book collection. She gets books for birthdays and Christmas and as rewards when she does something new and keeps trying even though it may be quite difficult. Right now she is learning to write her letters and sound small words out.


As a reward for working so hard our friend Lynette @ Crazed Mind let us borrow a wonderful story for the Poo to hear at bedtime. Dream Big Little Pig by Olympic skater Kristi Yamaguchi is such a wonderful story. Poppy the pig has big dreams, just like my angel. In the story Poppy wants to be a famous star and tries many things. Nothing seems to work out for Poppy and the teachers keep telling her this just isn't for you. It is so sweet to hear Poo cheering her on " You can do it if you try!" Poppy dreams of being a figure skater and even though there are those who think pigs can't skate. Poppy achieves her dream just by doing something she loves. Poppy's family and best friend are very supportive of her dreams and it is very inspiring to a little girl who wants to be a football playing ballerina doctor. We have very much enjoyed borrowing this book and I am sure we will have to purchase this when it is time to return it.


It is a great story for boys and girls alike who have big dreams and parents who encourage them and help them to strive for their goals. The pictures are beautiful and the story reaches out to little ones and grown ups alike. I highly recommend this book to anyone with a small child. If you get the opportunity go buy it. I know we will!





This is a review for this book. I received no compensation and the opinions are my own. Lynette @ Crazed Mind received a copy of the book for review purposes.

Valentine pictures finally

As I had said, I would post pictures and I finally was able to get them loaded and here they are. We had a really nice day filled with family and I think that is about all you can ask for :)

The Poo loved her caterpillar and it looks likes the dogs did too! The center is a glow necklace Papi got her and she decided it would make a good halo. She looked so pretty in her polka dot dress and she made valentines for all her loved ones. She wrote her name on each and every one all by herself and gave everybody tinker bell stickers so their day would be magical. Papi and I even got to spend a few minutes together after her story time. I hope everyone feels as blessed as I do. Hug the ones you love!

Too hot in the kitchen? Nope!!

You all know how I love to cook. I cook almost everything from scratch. Not only is it usually much cheaper, but you get better food and you know what is in it. Growing up in my family a good meal was another way to say" I love you enough to go to all this effort to make sure you are well cared for". The two things I don't like about cooking are the dishes after and the heat. I bake all winter long but when the weather warms up, I would rather chew on my shoe than heat up my house with the stove.

Lucky for me my dear friend Lynette @ Crazed Mind thought about how much I enjoy cooking and shared a wonderful cookbook with me! Yay! Slow Cooker plus Casseroles, Soups and Stews was her gift to me! It is put out by Hearst Magazines and is reasonably priced at $9.99. Now
I can do more in the crock pot and less on the stove. As it turns out, she could not have given me this at a better time. It has been in the upper 80's for over a week and College Girl had tech weekend this weekend and has a play that runs all week long so she can not get home for dinner. I have been cooking up a storm to send food with her and still I am able to keep my home cool! We have cooked several recipes out of this cookbook and so far everyone has loved them all. Just to be fair we wrote down page numbers and pulled them out of a hat to decide what to make. We ended up cooking beef stew, coq au vin, roasted bell pepper cheese straws, Italian wedding pasta, coconut rice pudding and a great country loaf bread. All were fantastic and the only complaint I had was the cheese straws were a lot of work since I even roasted the peppers and by the time the second tray was done...the first one was GONE! Oh they were so good! I have done my baking in the evening when its cooler and used my crock pot during the day. For us, we had enough food to send to College Girl, eat dinner and have leftovers for lunch the next day. What a blessing from my dear friend. Naturally I thanked her with food :)

Just to let you know, this is a review and I recieved no compensation for this. Lynette recieved a copy of this for review purposes which she kindly shared. My opinions are my own and the food was fantastic!

What is your sense of style?

This weekend my niece Munchie and I were getting ready to take her graduation photos. She has made her invitation style and wants to add photos on the inside to show how she has grown through the years. She has picked her young and middle photos and has asked that soon we go take some "now" photos for her to add to the invitations.

I am so proud of her and want to help her in any way I can, so this weekend we played with styles of eye makeup to see what she wanted to do. We were lucky enough to be able to borrow a great book from our friend Lynette @ Crazed Mind. Style Eyes by Taylor Chang-Babaian not only has beautiful photos of perfect eye makeup but a breakdown of how you can gets these looks for yourself. With the step by step instructions it was truly easy to accomplish model perfect makeup on Munchie.

This book was so much fun and it even has a beauty school in the front of it to tell you how to properly care for your skin and eyes, how to fix fine lines and dark circles, even how to prevent eye infections. There is a lot of wonderful info on different types of concealers, how to shape your brows even how the way you put your eyeliner on can change the shape of your eyes.
We had so much fun trying some of the different looks. We went for some of the more dramatic looks because they aren't something you could wear everyday where we live. What fun!

Munchie picked out her look for the pictures and it was great because none of the looks took very long to do. If you just want to have some fun with your makeup or you have a daughter coming into the makeup age I would highly recommend this book. With all of the information on care and cleanup of the eye area and safety tips to prevent infections as well as all the different step by step instructions for eye looks this would be a great teaching aide. Just so you know, I did not receive any reward for this review. Lynette received a copy of the book and darn the luck I have to give it back. The opinions are my own.