Free Food Printable

For my first freebie, I'd like to offer you a free food printable. In our home we have a freezer in our basement that stores other food until we are ready to use it. Such as hamburger from the mother-in-laws cows, or bacon from her pigs (yummy!), we also visit the local bread store and buy bread cheaper than at the grocery store, and we freeze it. Sometimes hubby's work sends home a ham or turkey for the holidays. Thus the need of the freezer.

 Back of my basement door

With Bread missing

 

Bread on the front of my basement door

My problem came when we don't always remember to bring up the ever-important bread for sandwich making. Thus these cards are my solution. I've affixed them to the back of my basement door with sticky-tack,  so hubby or I can move one or two from the back of the door to the front of the door, so we can remember to go to the basement and get that item. This is only if we don't go right that minute or if hubby wants to tell me he wants pizza for dinner and I'm not awake yet.

These could also be used for your kids as a matching game of food that you might regularly serve at your table. Younger kids can match the pictures, and older kids would have to read the words and spell them too.  Each square is 3 x 3, so its easy for small hands, as well as manly hands to handle.

So here's the links, 2 pages to download- enjoy!

DownstairsFood

DownstairsFood2 

If you do download, please comment so I know you are getting good use out of them! 

Happy Eating and Happy Easter! 

Wordless Wednesday

PlayDates & Pizza!

 Playing on Little L's tractor and wagon!

 Little L and my son!

 Happy little girl!

 Hugs Goodbye!

Easter is coming!

Although Easter isn't for almost another month, April 24, 2011 to be exact. I found these cute little bunnies here. Mine are a little different, as I didn't have any pink pompoms laying around the house. But using what I did have around, I think they turned out pretty cute! Even hubby said so! The one on the left is actually a cloth diaper from when my little boy was in diapers, it worked just as good!

 These are some of the decorations I put up earlier this week! Just a little bit of curling ribbon and some plastic eggs that have holes on the top and you have yourself the easiest Easter decoration ever! I have some individual eggs hung all over our front room, just for fun! They were fun to put together and so easy and simple!

 The ducks like to look out the window... one of my many finds at Target after Easter one year, long before I had a child- mostly for the point of my duck- themed bathroom.

Happy designing and crafting... I'm having a blast!

Name signs

So my son got invited to a birthday party a few weeks ago, and it was requested by the dad for no more toys as gifts. So I thought, "why can't I make something for this little 3 year old girl to hang in her room?" So because I couldn't remember what color her room was, I did both pink and purple. I had another friend remind me that her room is purple, but when I went into her room at the party- her bedspread was pink! Perfect! I found the paper background here. 

 

I used pink and purple paper to print her name on, then cut that out, and then pasted it on the paper background printed on non-white card-stock. Using 3D foam adhesive squares, I elevated the striped background and the name off the paper card-stock cut to size for 8 x 10 frame. Using a bronze stamp, I make the corners look old on both the striped background, cut with fun scissors. 

Ordinarily, I would have done something more electronic like the wedding gift I made below, but this was fun to use some new tools and craft supplies I got at our new local store, the Craft and Hobby Connection, run by a friend of mine. 

I enjoy being creative, and now that my son is older, I might actually make more time to do it! I looked up the little girls name, and I believe it means Bethlehem, which is kind of cool, but a name meaning like that doesn't mean anything to a 3 year old, but her name on pretty paper does. I hope she enjoys it for many years to come, even if her decor does change over the years!

Both of them together. I could have framed them with a black frames, but I figured her mom might want white or another color, so I left them unframed, and beside I think the black frame wouldn't have looked right. I'm always fearful of giving people frames, unless I know their decor.

It took about 1 1/2 hours to complete this project, cutting and printing, and perfecting. It probably took me longer, but that's because I had to hunt out the right paper and the right font to go with her name.

Like Dandelion Dust

It was hubby's birthday on Friday and he wanted to play a computer game with his brother over the internet that night, which meant no Netflix for me! That's fine, I was smart enough to have checked out this amazing movie from the public library for the week- free of charge!

I have been a fan of Karen Kingsbury for some time, as some of your know, and can't ever get enough of her books- I think I've read all of them and am waiting for the Bailey Flanigan series to come out with Leaving on March 22, 2011!

The movie is based off the book with the same title, Like Dandelion Dust. It's about a couple who adopts a little boy, but seven years later when his birth father gets out of prison and finds out about him he wants to be a father. Obviously this is devastating for his mom and dad (the adoptive parents) to have to send him to Ohio to spend time with this other couple, who might take him away forever. The only life this little boy has ever known has been with them. The mom and dad devise a plan to just disappear, like dandelion dust. The movie plays out and well, I'm not going to give the ending away, you'll just have to rent it for yourself!
I did cry during the movie, more than once! Which is why it was a perfect movie for me to watch without hubby, because he can only take so much of the 'chick flicks,' which I'm sure he didn't want to watch one of 'those' movies on his birthday.
What was really emotionally exhausting was not the movie, but the testimonies that are on the DVD. One of the testimonies was done by Karen Kingsbury, but from reading her books you kind of get an insight of what her life is like with 3 adopted children and 3 of her own children. The one that got to me...(bring out the box of tissues)... was the producer of the movie. He and his wife were adopting a little boy from Hati when the earthquake struck, they got moving and made some major phone calls and got out 80 orphans from Hati that were all in the process of being adopted and coming to the United States. It took a lot of work, but the kids are safe now, with their new parents, and it was a total God thing!
I read a few adoption blogs every now and then, one that I read regularly has been one of my college roommates, April Diaz and following her adoption story as she and her husband adopted 2 kiddos from Ethiopia.

I recently watched China's Lost Girls, a National Geographic Special with Lisa Ling, and it was very touching,
and even Christopher was watching the kids in the video- like he was interested in what they were doing.
But as Karen said on the DVD, maybe God's not leading me to adopt, or not just yet, because we are in no way financially ready- but then are you ever financially ready for a child?

But maybe God has brought you beside people who are called to adopt in order to pray for them- like my friend April who, although I know it's been such a struggle for her, wouldn't trade those two precious children in for the world! There are ups and downs with raising any and all children!

Maybe God has placed on your heart being able to financially help someone else adopt, not for us, yet.

I guess if God wants us to adopt he will open the doors and show us He wants us to do it... to take that step of faith and follow Him through it. Maybe He is showing me that, and preparing the way for my husband to follow me, although both of us know now is not the right time.

I will not leave you all alone like orphans; 

I will come back to you.  

John 14:8 NCV

So it is my prayer, one day, that we will be able to adopt either from another country, or one from our own- to give my son a brother or sister that he needs and would love! 

God is not done with our little family, 

I hope and pray to add a little girl one day!

Birthday Pie!

 Matthew Streeter and my son sitting on the pig at The Machine Shed Restaurant in Des Moines!

 The birthday Pie with no whip cream and ice cream on the side, just sung to by the waiters/ waitresses at The Machine Shed Restaurant in Des Moines. The ice cream I shared with my 2 favorite boys, and the pie was delicious!

 Taking photos at the Park while my son played one warm(er) February day this week.

 My child, who won't hold still for 2 seconds to get a photo!

 He has so much energy some days.... he wears us both out! My two favorite men in my life!

My hubby, who works hard, so I can stay home with our son! It's hard to believe we've been 'together' for almost a decade already. In May we will celebrate 9 years of marriage!

Taking a photo of the High School from the park we were at.

I am taking it all in that I'm 32 years old, but enjoying the thought of being somewhere tropical on or near my birthday next year! My parents are celebrating their 40th Wedding Anniversary and are taking the whole family on a cruise- yes,  kids are included!

I'm in Charge of What?

This is a video of my dad, my nephew Aidan, and my son Christopher, my other nephew comes in at the end. 

This is a clue in how the week went..... granted this was taken BEFORE we accidentally lost the little one at the mall, and we were so thankful that a nice lady brought him back because he had gone all the way to the end of a hallway where we could NOT see him. We are also lucky that he was willing to go with the lady and not throw an almost 2 year old fit! 

Our trip home was interesting to say the least, and I'm about to share with you a little TMI, so if you don't want to hear it, stop reading.

My son, Christopher doesn't poop but once every 3 days, usually, at HOME. But we weren't at home, we were at his cousin's house in Minnesota. So we were up there all week and I couldn't remember the last time he had gone- was it Sunday morning? or before that? Geesh, I know, I'm a bad mom! So I called the pediatrician on Friday morning. The nurse said to try to give him prune juice- yum! We were able to get him to drink about a cupful by mixing it with Orange juice and even a little Vemma. Keep in mind, I was leaving Saturday. Whoops. I'm not going to do that again! The kid waited until the second rest stop in Iowa to go- painful crying all the way, when he wasn't sleeping (which he did for about an hour and a half)! He was crying "Mommy, hold me." I felt so bad for him, because it had been almost a week! But he finally went in the rest stop, and yes, made a mess in the process in his pants. Quick change of the diaper and using the last of my wipes, we were back on the road after I put on a new pair of pants. This incident has since made me think about what goes into the diaper bag we have. We no longer need an extra shirt for mom or dad, but an extra pair of pants for the little boy!

We are doing fine, and then I call my husband to tell him I'm getting on the homestretch road that will take me all the way to our town, and as soon as I hang up with him I hear crying in the backseat. I realized he had just thrown up! Great, what else can go amiss? I pull over, clean him up- and realize I'm out of pants for this poor kid, they are all shoved in the trunk in a garbage bag because they are all dirty clothes. So I strip him down to his diaper and cover him with a towel (just in case he does it again)... and bring him on home! Then when he gets home he's running around saying he's "Naked Boy!" I told him that once in the car... ONCE! I knew after he had thrown up he was feeling better because he was talking more. It's not like him to get car sick, so I'm not sure what happened.

All is well now, and we are adjusting back to our schedule and sleeping and playing on our own has been a struggle all week!