Easter!

I wanted to share with you all some things we do for Easter in my family! Every year since I was a little girl I have always written the names of each family member on an egg then used that egg as a seating card. I usually use a napkin ring or even a shower curtain hook to have it sit upright but I think it adds a personalized touch to each plate. Every year we (the women in my family) VOW that we will not do cleanup. We have cooked for days prior and cleaned and decorated so seriously fellas you need to clean up! Unfortunately, that never happens. So a few years ago we decided "heck with this, we are using paper plates." It may not be the most chic looking set up, but hey survival of the fittest. This year I also decorated the cupcakes and made the jello eggs! I tried to make the cupcakes resemble a bird's nest but I couldn't quite get the chocolate to shave like I wanted it to. I still think they look cute though. I made cupcakes the way a person normally makes cupcakes then iced them with white icing. After that I shaved some bakers chocolate onto the tops and arranged it to look like little nests (not very well though.) Finally,  I topped with the whopper eggs. I think they look cute, what do you think? I also decorated some of my eggs differently this year. I cut out different shapes (primarily flowers) from previous year's Easter napkins. I made a water flour mixture to serve as glue then pasted the cut outs onto the eggs. Some of them turned out really nice! Others not so nice but there is always next year to perfect the skill :) Well I suppose that is about it. I just wanted to share with you all a few things I did for Easter this year. Thanks for reading! Of course Happy Easter! He is Risen! 

Easy Jewelry Organization from a Shower Caddy

So as many of you all know, I am a crazy Pinterest fan. I mean, come on though, who isn't? I have been seeing all of these adorable ways to organize your jewelry but many of them involved wood and screws and all kinds of other accessories to purchase which could cost some money. So me, being the cheap thrifty person that I am decided I could do it much cheaper and easier and in some ways better. A few years ago someone gave me this cute bath set. It included a soap and shampoo and conditioner, bubble bath and this cute little medal shower caddy. I always loved it but really had nothing to do with it until now. It now serves as my earring and bracelet organizer! There was no drilling or nailing, cutting or spending! Simply hang it up (heck I even used a thumb tack! LOL) Not only does it display my earrings but, unlike so many of the other jewelry organizers you see online, this one also holds my bracelets! If you don't have a shower caddy check out your local dollar store. Most of them carry them. Well I hope I was able to offer you a quick and cheap tip to making your jewelry look fab!

Build Your own Pita Pizzas

   Since I was a child one of my favorite meals was our build your own Pita Pizzas. They were delicious, fun to make and actually somewhat healthy when you use the whole wheat Pita bread. I really wanted to share this with you as my children love creating their own and it tastes so darn yummy! Now I did vegetable Pizzas this time because it was Friday and we are in Lent so we can't eat meat. Now before someone says "Umm, isn't that a can of meat sauce you are using?" let me explain. Sometimes I do things that don't make much sense. i told you something always goes wrong. This would be an example. I planned the meal to be meatless, not a single pepperoni was purchased. So as I am standing at my pantry trying to pick out a sauce I came across this one.  No one in my family is particularly fond of this sauce so I figured ok, it might be great for Pizza and completely forgot about the entire Friday/lent/no meat thing. complete accident. I actually didn't even notice it until I was finished eating! OOPS. Oh well, it was an honest mistake. But any way back to the Pizzas! here is what I use to make them.
*Whole Wheat Pita Bread
*Jar of favorite marinara
*Mozzarella Cheese
*Favorite Pizza Toppings

Pre-heat oven to 425.
Decorate Pizzas with whatever toppings your little heart desires.
Bake for 10-15 minutes (oven temps can vary, just keep an eye out)

My Kids LOVE making their own

Choose your toppings. Personally I love broccoli, olives,
 tomatoes,  mushrooms, onions and peppers. Believe it or not
Broccoli is my favorite on pizza. Who knew?

Ready for the Oven

Bake at 425 for 10-15 minutes

  

Enjoy!

Chris and Ki's Birthday!

I seriously cannot believe I have not posted on this thing in over a month! How horrible am I? Today I just figured I would share with you some of my kids birthday party. Christian and Malachi (commonly referred to as "the twins") turned 5 on Dec 21st! Having birthdays that close to Christmas is really tough let alone 3 of them. Of course I want them each to feel special so I asked them what kind of cakes they would each like. Malachi chose a green spy cake and Christian wanted a superhero cake. I made them each a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache icing then covered it in fondant. We decided to have a big movie day. We rented "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days" because they have been wanting to see that for a long time. We ordered pizzas and had a vegetable tray along with chips and cheese balls of course! Even though it wasn't a huge party the boys had such a blast and enjoyed their cakes so much. 

Set up: Sleeping bags with dollar store "popcorn" containers

The Table

More of the table

The Cakes! Malachi's Green Spy Cake and Christian's Superhero Cake

My oldest Isaiah made them their presents. For Ki he created
A spy decoder and for Chris he made a Captain America Shield-
Both out of paper plates and markers. I love him!

Watching the movie

Malachi (Left) and Christian (Right) enjoying their super cool
presents from their brother.

The North Pole Has Nothing On My Mother... (A Christmas Decorator's Dream)

So I think it is safe to say that my mother goes a bit extreme while decorating especially at Christmas. It can take us anywhere from a few days to a week to complete her living area. It is absolutely beautiful and I personally think we should just start charging admission LOL! I decided I should definitely share some pictures because something of this magnitude should never go unnoticed. At almost every "station" she has a color theme and Nativity.  I hope you all enjoy! 

View 1

                                    

View 2

The Blue Snowman Theme

The Green Area 

 
  

The Christmas Mantle

The Rocking Horse or The Wanna-be Rudolph as we call him.

The Maroon and Burgandy Nativity Scene

A Close-Up

The Purple Nativity Scene

Part of the counter 

The Red and Gold Area with Large Black Nativity Scene

The Gold Area (yeah sorry thats me!)

More of the Counter

Coffee Table Center Piece

Dining Area

The bar Counter

The windows with all the stocking that won't fit around the fireplace

Her Polar Express Train Scene in the Window

                          

                          The Outdoor Lights

Well I hope you all enjoyed the show! Big shout out to my momma for being so awesome! 

They Grow So Fast

I was feeling a bit nostalgic today and created this! I wrote this poem a few years ago for my kids. On a piece of paper I put their hand print and their picture then wrote this poem on it. I cannot believe how quickly they are growing up and it saddens me that they won't be little anymore. Heck I still call them my babies and they are going on 5 and 7 years old. It does help though when they tell me sweet little things like "I will love you forever Mommy" and "You are my perfect Mommy" they are always there to say something sweet just when I need it the most. I look at this poem frequently to remind me that even though I may feel frustrated with them at times, they are getting bigger and one day I will miss this time in my life when my kids always needed me. 

♫ Christmas Time Is Here ♫

Hello All! This is my absolute favorite time of the year. It is so exciting. Family and friends with so much love to go around...ok I know I sound like a hippy but that just fine and dandy with me! This past weekend I had the pleasure of having my niece and nephew over for a sleepover while their parents (my sister and her husband) and my husband helped them move. They recently purchased a home so on top of their already overworked lives they are throwing in a move too! Anyway, my children get so excited to spend time with their cousins and I am always so happy to spend time with them. So we all decided to start decorating for Christmas. We put together our tree (I cannot do the real trees because my ENTIRE family and I are allergic!) and strung up lights. As I started to get my ornaments together I realized that I am missing an entire box :(    See I told you-- something ALWAYS goes a bit wrong. I am missing bulbs and ribbons and I am pretty sure a strand of lights are gone too. Unfortunately this month is always extremely tight with us. We have Christian and Malachi's birthday (December 21st) my birthday (December 22nd) and of course, Christmas for 3 children.  So obviously going out and buying some new decorations is out of the question. But at this point my tree looked ridiculously empty. Think Christina, Think. I got it! Pine cones! We have them everywhere! So I went out to the yard and snagged up about 2 dozen pretty ones and grabbed a bit of string. I hung them and I LOVE them! I go with a Gold, Cream, and Silver theme on my tree (with white lights of course) and the homemade Pine cone ornaments made it look very chic. I may wind up dipping some of them in a bit of glue and applying some glitter as well just to make it sparkly! I am overall very happy with how it turned out and hopefully my other box of Christmas Decor shows up (fingers crossed please!)

Pine cone + String= Ornament!

      Later on in the day we played outside, rode bikes, watched Jumanji (which they all loved) and enjoyed tacos for dinner. After dinner we all went out on a walk to see all of the beautifully decorated houses. The kids all enjoyed sharing which lights were their favorites and it reminded me of driving around in the car looking at Christmas lights with my family when I was a little girl. I just love this time of year. It is so magical!!!!  

Rather Pretty!