Jelly Bean's 1st Birthday!

I know it seems like I am jumping up in the months, but just trying to catch up on the crafts and baking I have done!

Jelly Bean turned one in May and the theme I chose to do was a bumble bee theme. I wanted to have everything to do with bumble bees, or at least the color of bees. I made the invitations out of the scrapbooking stuff again. I thought I had a picture of the invite, but I guess I don't. Will have to find the one I saved and add it later!

For the decorations, I used a yellow plastic cover and the black wrapping paper for the food table, black and yellow streamer and balloons. Who would have guessed that you could do so much with these simple decorations! I had the thought of drawing a bee on the balloon before I inflated it, but the marker barely showed up once I started blowing air into. So the balloons were just hung up around the house, and again I did a number one on the garage door, actually took a picture of it, but it never uploaded to my computer! How frustrating!

The food was mainly finger foods with fruits, vegetables, a cracker, cheese, and meat platter, and "ants on a log," also known as celery with peanut butter and raisins on it. For the fruit, I got a fresh pineapple and sliced it up and grapes. Those were really the only black and yellow fruit I could think of without going over our budget and everybody likes grapes and pineapple! I laid them out in a yellow and black pattern to represent the body of a bee. For the vegetables, we got baby carrots, celery, and cucumbers. I thought about black olives, but I think Princess Pea and I are the only ones in the family that will eat them, so I opted out. The cracker, cheese, and meat platter was already put together and was on sale. For a drink, I just bought grape juice.

For the "cake" portion, again, I made cupcakes. I wanted to find a recipe that had something with honey in it. I searched high and low until I found one that I really wanted to try. Finally, I found this Lemon-Honey cupcake and frosting. I used the biggest round tip I had on hand to try to pipe a bee hive on the top of the cupcake. I thought about piping up some little bees, but decided otherwise. To be honest, I was lazy and had just gotten back from a trip of house hunting in CA. They. Were. Delicious. The frosting really brought out the honey in the cupcake and it was exactly what I was looking for!

For the goodie bags, I wanted to keep with the bumble bee/black and yellow theme. I kept with the edible goodie bags like I did with Cuddle Bug's goodie bags, but I added a little extra since it was the middle of May. I bought a box of Honeycomb cereal and mixed it with raisinets (chocolate covered raisins), and attached a little vial of bubbles. I used little tiny goodie bags instead of the normal size ones. I made a little sticker tag that read "Thanks for buzzing by!" Of course that picture is lost with my number one made of balloons. :(  After I put the cereal and raisinets in the little bag, I folded the top and  placed the sticker tag over the flap to keep it in place. I used a single hole punch towards the corner of the bag and tied a strand of black and yellow ribbon (the smallest size you can get) around the bubbles, then treaded the ribbon through the hole, and tied a bow.

I took the same concept of the tutu I did for Cuddle Bug and made one for Jelly Bean's birthday outfit. I also crocheted something. I was debating on whether or not I wanted to crochet some sort of summer hat or some kind of headband. I finally decided to do the headband with a yellow flower and little amigurumi bumble bee that I attached to the headband. I was astounded to find that I had an outfit with little tiny bees on it that went perfectly with the tutu and headband! The headband didn't last long as you can see she is trying to take it off her head! It was a little bog on her so hopefully she will be able to wear it when she gets a little older as well.

It was such a beautiful day for her party that I got some cans of silly string and found a couple of bumble bee bubble wands all at the Dollar Tree! So we let the kids run around outside, chasing each other with the silly string. It was a mess to clean up, but the kids had so much fun! The bubble wands were a big hit too and I was so glad to have found them the day of the party. 

Cuddle Bug's 2nd birthday

My second child's birthday is in February. I really didn't want to do anything with Valentines Day in it since her birthday is very close to it. Instead I opted to do a Ladybug theme since she was really into all sorts of insects, more so then Princess Pea is at the moment.

I didn't take as much time to plan for this as I wasn't going to do a huge cake like I did for Princess Pea's birthday. Instead I made cupcakes, which is really my Achilles' Heal, but shh! don't tell anyone I said that! ;) The cupcakes were a lot easier to make, and easier for a two year old to chow down on.

I made a Red Devil's Food cupcake recipe that I found, where else, Pinterest! I used the whipped icing that was colored green, red, and black to decorate the cupcake with. I didn't compromise on the icing with the husband this tim, but he enjoyed it all the same. I do have to say, trying to make a black frosting without the Wilton's icing color was stinking hard! But I managed to get it a black looking color. I also made the invitations to the party with the scrapbooking supplies I had on hand (Thank you mommy!).

At the time, daddy was doing some classes out of state for a few months, but he was able to come home for the weekend of Cuddle Bug's birthday which we were all happy he was able to come!

As for her party outfit, I crocheted her some red and black leg warmers, a ladybug hat, and made a tutu with a bow and flower glued to it. Of course, Princess Pea wanted a set of leg warmers and a hat as well, but I only managed to get the hat done for her, just slightly different from Cuddle Bug's. She was happy with the hat non the less.

For the decorations, I used a red plastic table cover and got a roll of black wrapping paper from the dollar tree to use where the food was set up. I used black and red balloons and streamers. I made ladybugs out of the balloons and placed them around the areas we were most likely to be in the most. I did have a number two on our garage door out front that I did with the left over balloons I didn't use in the house, but they got torn off when we accidentally opened the garage door to run a quick errand, and I didn't get a picture of it! :(

Keeping with the red and black theme, I went for foods of the same color. For the fruits, I did strawberries, black grapes, raspberries, and blackberries. I made a strawberry fruit dip using cream cheese and marshmallow creme. You could let the cream cheese come to room temperature then stir in the marshmallow, but I really like the texture and consistency of having the cream cheese whipped before stirring in the marshmallow cream. For the vegetables, I did grape tomatoes, black olives, and baby carrots. I would have done a red bell pepper sliced up, but I don't think too many of the kids that were invited would like it. I made a ranch dip using 16 oz of sour cream and the ranch dip powder package mixed together. The dip taste better after it has sit for a while in the fridge. I try to do it the day before, but if you are in a hurry, at least a few hours before the party starts. Lastly I made a cheese ball using 8 oz of cream cheese, at room temperature, and another package of the ranch dip powder. The best way to incorporate the ranch into the cheese is by hand. I bought some wheat thins to eat with it, but you can also do triscuits, especially the new flavored ones they sell these days. For the drink, I made a strawberry-watermelon lemonade, otherwise known as "Ladybug Juice." The recipe calls for 1 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice, 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of pureed watermelon, 1/2 cup of pureed strawberries, and 6 cups of water. Instead of squeezing a bazillion lemons just to get 1 cup, I used the yellow bottle of frozen lemon juice (thawed of course) that you find in the freezer section of your grocery store where all the other frozen juices are. I like the taste of this, better then the stuff you get in the green bottle, but if you like the green bottle, by all means use it. :)

For the goodie bags, I dipped pretzels in chocolate and candy melts to make them look like ladybugs! You guessed it, another Pinterest idea. (Don't you just love Pinterest??) I dipped the whole pretzel in the red candy melts, shook the excess off, and let them dry completely. Then I just dipped the rounded edge in the chocolate. Once they were all dipped, I pipped on the remaining melted chocolate for the spots. They turned out super cute and one of my favorite projects to make for a birthday party! Some times it's hard to find toys and little things to put in a goodie bag until I stumbled upon the idea to make these pretzels. I think having something edible for a goodie bag is so much better and less costly then little toys that your kids will only play with once!

All in all, everybody enjoyed themselves and it was nice to have some family around to help us celebrate Cuddle Bug's second birthday!

Princess Pea's 5th Birthday Party

For Princess Pea's 5th birthday, I wanted to do a themed party. Kind of like a step from a toddler to becomig a big girl. I asked Princess Pea what she wanted to do and she told me that she wants a Rapunzel themed birthday. Actually, she wanted a My Little Pony, then a Hello Kitty one first until she settled for Rapunzel. Her birthday is in December and I started planning out the cake design in August! Yes that's right, back in August!

The cake is a combination of four different variations you can do. I took little samples from each and made it my own. It was a two layer circle cake with Rapunzel's tower, her hair, and the colors to match the tower scenery.

The top cake layer looked a lot like this cake, minus the bridge, trees, and rocks. I did want to add the rocks, but I couldn't find the chocolate rocks that this person used. The bottom layer I took the design of  the My First Disney Princess Toddler doll Rapunzel dress. I found a way to make the tower from this cake. It was very simple, just use a cake dole and two regular ice cream cones. Of course you have to have the tower roof so I used this idea. Again, another simple trick. Use a sugar cone dipped in purple candy melts. Worked out great, especially to get the shingle effect for the roof. Lastly, I really wanted Rapunzel's hair to stand out from the rest of the cake. After looking around, I stumbled upon this cake. I really liked how the hair wrapped around the entire cake instead of just a short piece hanging out of the tower. I managed to get the hair to start out of the tower like the first cake and wrap around the two layers. I made some homemade marshmallow fondant for most of the cake decorations. Princess Pea had fun making it with me and really enjoyed the white goo turn into colorful fondant.

I asked Princess Pea what type of cake she wanted and immediately she said strawberry! Who'd of thought ;) So I got two cake boxes of strawberry cake and made them "semi-homemade" to taste like it came from the bakery. I found the tip on how to do this on pinterest of course. All you need to do is to add one more egg, or two if you want it rich, use melted butter instead of oil and double the amount. So if the box says to use 1/3 cup of oil, use 2/3 cup of melted butter instead. Lastly, use milk instead of water. Mix it well and bake according to the directions and there you have it! A way to make your cake taste like it came from the bakery without having to spend 20-40 bucks for one! It actually turned out very moist and did taste like I got it from the bakery at Walmart. As for the icing...that's a whole other story.

You see, in my household, my husband likes the buttercream and I like the whipped. So to compromise, I iced the cake with the whipped and I used the buttercream to hold the layers together and to use for any piping I needed. Princess Pea could care less, she just likes cake!

Procedure wise, I baked the cake a few days before the party, put the layers together, and made all my fondant pieces, covered everything, and stuck it in the fridge. The night before, I iced the entire cake and decorated, that way if anything happened over night, I would have the next day to fix it up instead of dealing with the decorating the day of the party.

The cake turned out to be a success! Everybody loved it and Princess Pea was so surprised!

I'm still here!!

Sorry it has taken me almost a year to write a new post. It has been a whirl wind of tasks and adventures for me and the family.

I do believe the last post I written was from the book I was reading for the mom's group I was involved with at my Catholic Church in MO. Since then, I have moved to from MO to CA over the summer, but I would still like to continue doing post on the chapters I read. The new parish does not have a mom's group, unfortunately, but I do believe I will be busy in other areas of my life starting in a few weeks!

I will mention it in this post and will go into more details later. My husband and I decided that we are going to start homeschooling our five year old...we'll call her Princess Pea in future posts (she really likes the cartoon Princess Pea from the PBS kids show Super Why!). Anyway, the area we moved to in CA has horrible ratings for both public and private schools in the surrounding areas. I was really against homeschooling for the past 3 years. Both Princess Pea and I are stubborn, head strong individuals and I wanted my time away from her just to relax and have some peace. She is very energetic and inquisitive to say the least! I also received some good advice from others who have lived in CA and they all told me that you either want to homeschool or put your children in private schools if you want them to have a great education.

We both wanted Princess Pea to be taught in the classical sense, as in the trivium. Meaning she would learn grammar, logic, and rhetoric, in stages. She would also learn latin and possibly greek by the time she starts the fifth grade. When my husband first brought up homeschooling (3 years ago mind you), we were in our local Catholic bookstore when we lived in OH. The store owner knew us very well as we frequented the little shop. She recommended Memoria Press to us. It has the curriculum written out for you and it comes with all the material you need for the grade you are teaching. They also offer an online academy for the older grades, which was new to us when we started really doing our research about a year ago.

Before I ramble on and on about homeschooling, I think I will stop there and wait for another post to continue on. :)

Hopefully in the next few weeks I will be able to catch up on the things I have been doing so look for a lot of posts coming your way!

Ch 5: Feeding the Hunger of the Heart

As I sit here waiting for dinner to finish up in the oven, I just remembered one other thing about feeding your family for less. There is a website called emeals.com. If you ever have trouble coming up with a meal plan, this website does it for you! You can set it up as a meal plan for 2 people, or you can set it up for your entire family. You choose the grocery store you shop at the most (except for the commissary. Sorry military families that shop there!), and what type of meal you want (gluten free, protein based, vegan, etc.). They send out a weekly meal plan (grocery list included) to your e-mail address. It does cost you since it's a "subscription," but it's only a one time expense. I think you can do a minimum of a year, but I could be wrong. My husband and I have signed up for a year and we have enjoyed it so far! We have printed off each weekly meal plan and have kept it in a binder for later in the future.. So if you want to try it for a year, I think you will really enjoy it!

Ok, onward to the book!

This chapter touched base with the hunger of our hearts. For instance, there are times when we indulge in foods that could potentially lead to gluttony, one of the deadly sins. I know I get this way with candy, especially around this time of year, with it being Halloween and all. This year (fingers crossed) I will try not to eat too many pieces of candy. This is my Halloween "resolution" for the year and if I do really well, then I could do even better next year!

I digress.... Why do you think we overeat or indulge in food? Some will say it's because they have a sweet tooth, or that they are having a bad day and all that will help them is just to eat. Those seem like reliable excuses, but why overeat to make us feel better? Why not eat to enjoy the company we may have? Or if you are feeling down, try talking to someone, like a significant other? Trying other things then just stuffing our mouths full, could help us be healthy, both in mind and body. When you are eating and you feel full, don't try to force that last piece of ribeye steak. Save it for a later time, or even a midnight snack! Try to eat in moderation, making sure you have at least one item from every food group. This is one thing I am trying to do lately, especially with my children.

I know a lot of us are trying to loose weight this year, but you could even over do it. When you exercise, be sure to take it slow, at first. Do not try to rush it! It takes time and patience to loose the desired weight. Find exercises that you like and stick with them for a week or two, then try out some new ones. A really good diet that Kimberly mention is Weight Watchers. She recommends it actually, hehe, "for the practical program for life they promote." I haven't gotten to the state of needing a to do a huge diet, but if you are looking for a good, reliable program, you can't go wrong with Weight Watchers.

One last thing that I believe is great advice when it comes to the health of people is to strengthen them. What Kimberly means by this is if you have a relative who is trying to quit smoking to become healthier, then you wouldn't offer them a cigarette. I personally witnessed something similar with one of my own relatives.

We actually found out that he has a mental illness, but before he was diagnosed, he was drinking heavily. His wife soon found out they were going to have a baby and was a little afraid to tell him about it. Once everything was figured out, my relative stopped drinking, got on his medication and is doing really well. One thing that his wife made sure was that they would stay away from any kind of alcohol what-so-ever. At Christmas time, my family has recently gotten into White Elephant (fun right?) and one of the gifts I had brought was some Bailey's Irish Creme. I asked my mom if this was ok since I knew what was going on with my relative and she said 'yes, that my relative and his wife are trying to keep him away so even if that is the gift he first picks out, it will be stolen anyway.' Because if you are like my family (both my side and my husband's side), the alcohol is always the first to get stolen!

Ch 6: A Mother's Guide to the Eucharist-

Real quick, this is where the sacrament comes in! And what better sacrament then the Eucharist to correlate with food.

Before I even read the chapter, I already had some thoughts come to mind. When we partake in the Eucharist, we are eating the mana which sustains our spiritual life. There are many saints out there that have only survived on eating the Eucharist and that is quite amazing! 

In essence, the Eucharist is food for our souls. It helps us to be like Christ and to be close to him.

Kimberly talks about the Passover and the Todah sacrifice when it comes to the truth about the Eucharist. I am sure we are all familiar with the Passover story so I am going to touch base with the Todah sacrifice.

Todah literally is the sacrifice of "thanksgiving." To me, you can see this....well, hear this happening during Mass when the priest is consecrating the bread and wine. "Jesus broke the bread, gave thanks, and said 'take this all of you and eat. For this is my body which will be given unto you." We also hear this happening with the wine as well. We see that Jesus is giving thanks, the Todah sacrifice, over the bread and wine, the Body and Blood that is our Eucharist; the food for our souls.

Ch 4: She Provides Food for her Household

This chapter is pretty obvious, given the title of it, hehe! This chapter has a lot, and I mean A LOT of great information, when it comes to preparing meals and buying for your family. I will try my best to mention as much as possible without making my post too long of a read!

Kimberly talks about ways in which, we as stay at home mothers (or fathers if there are any out there that are reading my blog!), can feed your families.

First and foremost, trust in the Lord that he will provide for us the basic things in life--food and clothing. Putting trust in the Lord has been a struggle for me, but I am slowly starting to understand what it truly means to just trust God. Our loving God takes care of each and every one of us, he would not put us in any kind of danger or harm that we cannot handle ourselves.

Secondly, and this is more of my own input,... when preparing for meals, try to make a huge batch of it that way you can have leftovers for the week, or store some in the freezer for later time. When I go shopping for my family, I buy a weeks worth of meals that I can stretch out in a manner of two weeks. I make about three to four of these meals (depending on the quantity it makes) and we have leftovers every other day. So far, with our family of 4.5, this method seems to work and I am only spending about $400 a month on groceries (including lunch items and breakfast items). Of course, when our kids get older, I am sure this method will change, but we are doing pretty well for ourselves.

Kimberly also mention making meals ahead of time, by storing your ingredients in freezer bags, and stocking up your freezer with 4-5 meals as your "back up" plan. I haven't figured out a way to do this yet, but will some day and when I do, I am sure I will blog about it, hehe.

If you have a crock pot sitting around gathering dust, get it sown and start using it! There are a whole bunch of crock pot meals you can make out there, especially during the fall and winter months. It works great for making soups and stews that you can stock your freezer and/or deep freezer with.

Thirdly, make meals according to the seasons! By doing this, you will know that the produce is fresh, will taste great, and have the better prices. If you are into canning, do the same thing... can your goods when the fruit and vegetables are in their season. Right now, apples are in season so it would be a good time to make up some applesauce, or any meal that may call for apples.

I love how this chapter correlates with my most recent post on St. Therese's Feast Day. She mentions different ways to make your meal time even more special, especially if you have younger kids like I do. One way is to celebrate your child's patron saint(s) feast day. If you are looking for another way to bring faith into your meals, try to reflect on the different seasons, like Advent and Lent for example. As we do during the Lenten season, we try to abstain from eating meat on Friday's by eating fish, or a vegetarian meal. There lot of different ways make your meals creative and special for your family. If you would like a couple of resources for ideas for the Lenten season are The Catholic Parent Book of Feasts: Celebrating the Church Year With Your Family, by Michaelann Martin, Carol Puccio and Zoe Romanowsky,  and A Continual Feast: A Cookbook to Celebrate the Joys of Family and Faith throughout the Christian Year, by Evelyn Birge Vitz.

Last, and certainly the most important (in my book), try to sit down and have at least one meal with the whole family. Even if you are mad and upset towards something your child/children have done, there is no reason for you to not eat with your family. It is probably the most important thing to do, especially when your husband (or wife) comes home from work that you have not seen all day. It is a great time to spend with your older children as well. You can ask questions about each others day, have a discussion about a topic your child may have, or just have fun with them! If you tire of sitting at the dinning table everyday, try to find unique places to sit and eat with your family. Maybe on a nice spring day, everyone can have a picnic in the backyard. Or go camping in the back yard with a tent and a little campfire where you can cook hot dogs, and make s'mores on the fire pit. This year, we finally used our outdoor fire pit I had bought last year for a really good price, over the summer. Therese got to experience how to roast a marshmallow over a fire and her first "camp fire" s'more. Be creative with what you have on hand and according to the weather of course!

I know this is not everything from the chapter, but I hope the ideas help you on your way to being able to feed your family in new and creative ways!

Oct 1- Feast of St. Therese of Lisieux, Year 1

This year, my husband and I are starting a new tradition with our children. Well, with our oldest for the time being. :-P

To give a little back drop...we have always talked about starting our own traditions when we have children. One of those traditions was to celebrate the feast day of the saint our children are named after. When we first talked about doing this, I wasn't sure what age to start at. This year, since my eldest is 4, she seems to be more aware of what is happening around her and very aware of her ever growing faith.

So here we are, October 1st, the Feast Day of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. We gifted Therese, the night before, with her very own St. Thérèse medal on a necklace.

I really wanted to find a few recipes or foods that the Saint liked, maybe some decorative ideas, and a few things Therese could do by herself while I prepped everything while my two youngest slept during their naps. I found a really great blog, a couple in fact, just for this day!

Shower of Roses was the main blog I looked at for all short of ideas. She has a very special devotion to St. Therese and had a lot of information that even I did not know about and Thérèse is one of my patron saints! She has a lot of great ideas and activities that will last you a few years (and maybe even more!).Within her blog, she had some really great sources linked to other blogs I looked at for the food ideas. The one I read was called Catholic cuisine.



Food ideas:
-- We had a Rosy Punch to drink this evening. It consists of frozen fruit punch concentrate, frozen lemonade concentrate, concentrated tea, White Grape Raspberry Juice, and 7-up. There is an alcoholic version for the adults, but since we have little ones, I made the kid friendly version. When I went to the grocery store to get the items for this punch, I didn't write everything down and just went off by memory. So instead of the lemonade concentrate, I grabbed orange juice and I got sparkling white grape juice instead of the raspberry and 7-up. It turned out pretty well, but I think the lemonade would have be better with the tea and would have made the juice more of a "rosy" color that this orange.

--For dessert, we had St. Thérèse's favorite treat, eclairs! I just bought some frozen mini eclairs, but you can make your own with lady fingers, whip cream, and chocolate frosting. Just cut the lady fingers in half, fill it with the whip cream, and frost the top of them. It was a first for Therese to try them, and she ate 4!

Our mini eclairs!

Activities:

--I printed out some coloring pages of St. Thérèse for Therese to color. She really enjoyed them and kept asking me to print off more for her to color! I could only find a few working links on Shower of Roses' blog. They really don't have many coloring pages of her. I am hoping next year I can find a coloring book with the saint in it.

Coloring her St. Thérèse pictures.

--While she colored, we watched the movie Therese that we had on DVD. She really liked it and wanted to watch it again right after it was over! She did ask some question during certain parts of the movie, like why she couldn't eat towards the end, and asked if she was in heaven when she saw her die.

Decor for the evening:
--We already had a St. Thérèse statue (like I said, she is my patron saint!) and also a 3rd class relic that we found at our local Veritas store in Dayton, OH. I put those as our center piece at our dinner table.

--I made up some paper roses using orange, pink, and white (my girl's favorite colors). I was hoping to have some red paper, but I guess I used them all last Christmas! :-D

Decor on the dinning table.

--In 2010, I made a St. Thérèse costume for my eldest for Halloween. One of the things I made was a braided crown with felt roses glued around the outside. It was in reference to the crown of flowers she wore before her burial. 

Her costume in 2010

Crown of Roses.

I first had it on the table in as part of the centerpiece, but decided to let Therese wear for the rest of the evening. :) As she went to sleep, and I cleaned up the dishes, I put the crown back where I had it when I first put the decorations out.

Wearing her crown at dinner. Surprisingly it still fits :-P

-- I will probably leave out the decor on the table until the 3rd since that is the traditional feast day of St. Thérèse.


At the end of the night, while my husband and I tucked her into bed, we said the chaplet of St. Thérèse (pictured above). We can recite this for 9 days, or for 24 days straight. I had pick this up when I went on a woman's retreat shortly after Therese was born. I had wanted to start a devotion to her, but never got around to it. This year, I wanted to start it with my daughter on this day.



Happy Feast Day St. Thérèse!