Last Day of School

I'm one of those weird moms that loves summer vacation and gets sad when the kids go back in the fall.  Today was our last day.  My son's last year in middle school and my daughter's last year in elementary school.  Luckily I still have two left in elementary school.  I went to pick up  kid#1 and all of the teachers were outside in the parking lot waving to all of the honking school buses full of kids waving back.  It made me cry.  I am so thankful for people who become teachers.  Thank you for touching our children's lives and helping them grow.
My daughter and I made M&M gift bags for all of their teachers.  I originally thought, hey four kids, that's four teachers, how easy is that?  Wrong!  We ended up making 32!  I forgot about all of the teachers that are involved in my making my kids awesome.  I found this awesome poem on Pinterest (ofcourse) and can't find the source of it, so if you wrote it, tell me and thank you!

 

Here's the poem that I retyped and added a little "Laura" flair too! 

You can use it if you want. Just right click and do your thing!

Watermelon Jello

Drove really far to spend Memorial Day weekend with DH's family.  I got put incharge of dessert for our picnic.  I would love that task except I was hundreds of miles from my kitchen, so what to make????  Last year, one of my lifelong BFF's (Jenn!) made this awesome watermelon jello so I thought I would give it a shot. 

You gotta buy:  one watermelon, better to go for the long oval ones that seem to stand up by themselves. (You can also shave the bottom a bit to make it stay up),  a bunch of boxes of red jello, (I used six-raspberry),mini chocolate chips, and  boiling water.

Step ONE~ Slice watermelon long way and scoop out fruit. 

Step TWO~ Combine one boiling cup of water per one (3oz) box of jello. So six boxes, would be six cups of water.  Pour it in.  An extra pair of hands would be helpful here because you don't really want to slosh around boiling water.  Remember to not use the directions on the box.

Step THREE~ Put it in the fridge for a really long time.  I made mine around midnight and just left it in overnight, worked great.

Step FOUR~ Adding the watermelon 'seeds'.  Ideally you would want to add the mini chocolate chips right around that time when it is almost jello but not totally.  I am not good at that at all.  My mom was the expert at adding things to jello.  She would have jello masterpieces that you didn't even want to eat, just look at.  I did not inherit that jello gene, so.... I just sprinkled some chocolate chips onto the top and pushed them in with a skewer.  SShhhh!  haha.  It worked though.  You honestly couldn't tell that I made little holes on the top. 

Step FIVE~ keep in the fridge until time to serve.  Slice into watermelon slices and enjoy! 

Follow Up~  My kids thought it was the coolest thing ever!!!  My SIL, BIL, and MIL all thought I was crazy, but who really cares what adults think, right? Finger food is fun.   They did however enjoy the fruit salad that I made with the watermelon chunks and red grapes. 

{Sorry for the lack of and bad photos,  I forgot my camera and had to use my blackberry}

Linking up to...

Homemade Laundry Soap

I've been making and using this recipe for awhile and thought I would share.   I use...
1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
1 cup Borax
2 cups of shredded bar soap (which is exactly one bar of soap)

I use a very fine shredder that I bought at this wonderfully exclusive store (Dollar Tree).  I use it only for soap, I'm sure you could just use your regular one and wash it but I'm weird like that.  Anyways, the fine shredder turns the bar soap into powder.  I usually make a few batches at a time.  Use an old ice cream bucket (the kind you buy for your kid's birthday party) to store it in.  You just need 1/8 cup of  detergent per load of wash.  Amazing, right?  Less soap, works better, and is better for the environment, oh and the best part.... less than 2 CENTS per load!!

Nesting!

I'm a Mom. As a mom, I've made my four children several blankets, and I am sure I will make them tons more.  My mom made me a gorgeous quilt a few years ago.  That's what mom's do.  They comfort you, coddle you, throw an extra blanket on you in the middle of the night. It's their job!

My tip for this week is how to help other Moms comfort their babies {sort of}

Gather: yarn fragments, scissors, a mesh bag with big holes (I used the mesh bag my onions came in) and a yarn needle.

Cut yarn in foot or so sections.

Fill up your bag with the yarn fragments and sew it closed.

Hang it in the tree!

Why?  it's Springtime.  Birds are building nests.  They are searching for things to make their nest out of and who wouldn't like a few strands of warm, soft, cuddly, yarn woven into their nest?  Recycling to help others, love it!


Linking up at...

Happiness is just a FOAM away!

Don’t you hate it when you carefully evenly ink up your stamp, press it down with good even pressure being careful not to rock it and you pull it up and it looks like this????

UGH!!!!  I hate that. 
Sooooo….. here’s my tip.
Use fun foam (you know, that stuff that you probably have tons of because of all the kid’s projects)  Place a sheet on the table and then put the paper you are planning to stamp on top of the foam.  Then stamp and watch the magic happen! Your image will be crisp and beautiful!

Tada!!!

How to add a Signature to your blog.

Ok, that was way easier than I thought it would be.  If you want to make your own....

1. Make your signature in whatever graphics/word program you use and save as a jpg.

2. Upload to photobucket and then get the code.  You want the "direct link" one.  I tried the other links and they did NOT work!!!

3. In your blogger dashboard, click "Settings".  Click on the "Formatting" tab and scroll all the way to the bottom where it says "Post Template".  Copy and paste this code:

<p><image class="centered"alt="post signature" src="RED" /></p>

Change the RED to the direct link for your signature image.

Make sure you click SAVE SETTINGS or it won't appear!Now each time that you start a new post, your signature image will automatically appear!  Just make sure you post before the signature or it will show up before your post instead of at the end. 

Any problems or you want me to make you one?  Just let me know.

Gross to Shiny in 3 minutes!

With four adorable, fast-growing, and hungry children, my microwave gets used a lot!  When I say alot, I mean constantly.  My baby(5 yr.old) is so excited that she can make her own corndogs and now makes them for everyone, including the cat. While I love that they can fend for themselves, I don't enjoy cleaning the mess that their independence brings.  My most hated job is now my favorite!  Here's my tip....

GROSS!!!!!



Microwave a cup of water for 2 minutes.





Just wipe CLEAN!  That's it.  The steam cleans it for you!



Bunches of Punches

So.. my punches are not exactly sharp.  When I say 'not exactly sharp'  I really mean totally suckish.  I punch and have to finish cutting out the shape with scissors.  Ugh!  Everyone tells me to just punch through foil and it will amazingly sharpen them.  NOT!  Ok, to be honest, it is possible that it might have sharpened them a tiny bit but I really didn't notice.  Today, someone told me to use a soda can.  I really didn't believe it because in theory it shouldn't work.  I mean you don't cut metal/aluminum unless you want to dull your knife, not sharpen it.  I tried it and it totally worked.  I recommend this tip.  Just be careful when cutting a soda can because it is sharp.  I used a pair of scissors, should've used gloves.  Flatten it out and then punch through it a few times.