Bento, or not to Bento...

That is the question.


Bento looks really fun, and cute...but is it something I would have the extra time to do?  Is it something my kids would eat?  Well, I am sure Jaidan would eat it, Riley is my main concern because he is so picky.

Bento, for those who don't know, is a meal, usually served in a 'Bento Box'.  It's usually finger foods, you can make fun designs, or themes with them.  Sandwiches, cheese, and other items cut into fun shapes, fun picks used to eat the food, and sometimes people even do fun themes with their bento boxes.

Here's 1 website I found that shares tips, ideas, and even items you can buy for your bento boxes JUST BENTO.

If you go to Pinterest and search Bento you will find a TON of cool, and also some over the top Bento ideas.  One of the blogs I follow is doing a Bento on a Budget section, and you can find a lot of the cool fun things to use for it at the Dollar Tree, my favorite dollar store.

Bento meals have a lot more fruits and veggies in them, so they are much healthier for your kids to eat too.

I am thinking maybe I will try it...It's a bit more work, but if I try it and decide it's not for me, at least I can say I tried it...plus I can start off with cheap things from the Dollar Tree, so if it doesn't work out, at least I'm not out of a lot of money...right?

What do you think of Bento?  Is it something you would consider trying?  Do you already Bento?

1st day of Preschool

Today was my little man's 1st day of preschool.  It's amazing how quickly they grow up.

I'm sad that he isn't going to Kindergarten this year, because he misses the cut off for turning 5.  We looked into having him tested to go into Kindergarten, but the requirements were just way too high, which is really unfair in my opinion, I doubt even half the kindergarteners can accomplish what they expected him to be able to do.  On the bright side tho, we found a great preschool, that came recommenced to us by some friends, and then we found out our next door neighbor's also use the same preschool.  Riley is the same age as their oldest, and Aislinn is the same age as their twin daughters, so they will grow up next door to each other and going to school together in the same grades, which I love for them.

Riley is going to preschool 4 days a week (Mon-Thur) from 9-12.  He gets to take a snack and drink to school with him in his lunch box every day too.  This week they will be learning about the letter A.  When I told Riley that, he told me that he already knew what sound the letter A made, and then he made the sound for me *proud Momma moment*.  I can't wait to pick my little man up from school and hear all about his first day!

Summer Fun

June 1st...

Tho technically not the official first day of summer, it is considered the first day of summer by many. Most kids (tho not my own, they have 4 more days!) are out of school.

With 4 kids I want to make sure that we have fun this summer....but I also don't want to break the bank doing it!

I went to Dollar Tree today (only the best dollar store ever, they are a true dollar store where things are actually a dollar). I bought a TON of stuff for the kids for over the summer. I figure each week I will pull something new and exciting out for them to have. We have new bubbles, sidewalk chalk, puzzles, coloring books, and more.

I started today off by giving my two youngest some sun glasses to wear outside while playing on our swing set in the back yard. My older two are over at a friends house and staying for dinner. The friend is originally from Australia and this coming week when school gets out they are going with their Mom back to Australia for 2 months to see their family and friends back home.

For today tho, I pulled out some finger paint we already had in the house and I let my 2 toddlers have some finger painting fun, followed by a bubble bath. They had a ton of fun, painted some great pictures, and themselves (tho my 4 yr old told me he did not paint his leg...even tho I saw him do it LOL). They made sure to use every single last drop of paint I gave them too!

Here's to more summer fun and making more memories with my kids.

 Riley painting

 Aislinn painting

 Dirty hands....no Mommy, I didn't paint on my leg....LOL

They used ALL the paint I gave them lol

Valentine's Day Crafts

Jaidan made her own Valentine's this year for her class and I sat down today with Riley and Aislinn and helped them each make something different for Daddy for Valentine's Day.



First up, Jaidan and I made some heart shaped crayons, which I posted about here.  Then, we used the print out provided by this blog.  We didn't have card stock, so we used white construction paper.  We had to cut half an inch off the sides so the paper would fit into our printer.  Here's a picture of the finished product!

Next up is Riley's craft for Daddy!  We had to use 4 pieces of paper, because he did his own writing and he was trying to write too big.  But, he finally did all the writing!!  Then Mommy drew a heart and put a little bit of glue on it at a time and Riley stuck the pasta to the glue!  Here's his finished product!

Finally we have Aislinn's craft!  Mommy did the most of the work, Aislinn just sat there and looked pretty LOL.  I painted Aislinn's feet, 1 at a time with finger paint, then I had her stand up and I placed her feet on the paper.  She made Daddy a heart using her feet!

The paint dried a bit lighter then I would have liked, but it still came out super cute!!!

Did you do any special crafts for Valentine's Day?

Craft Time

Over the last few weeks I've done a couple of crafts with the kids that I found on Pinterest (seriously, if you are not on this site, you are missing out!)  Both these activities have been pinned onto my 'Pinned it, Tried it' board (if you're not following me yet, just click the link on the top right of my blog to follow me on Pinterest!)

The first thing I did was make heart shaped crayons with Jaidan.  This was a trial run, to see how well it worked and how they turned out.  We'll be doing some more for Jaidan to use as Valentine's this year at school.

We had a zip lock baggy with old broken crayons in it that we used (I gave Riley and Aislinn each an old wipes container and put brand new crayons in each container for them, this way they each had their own crayon's and there was no more fighting over crayons!).  First we had to cut up all the old crayons, this was very time consuming...I also should have probably used my wooden or plastic cutting board, not my porous poly cutting boards (lesson learned!)

Once we had enough cut up, we had to fill the trays.  I bought some silicone heart shaped trays at Target in their dollar bins for $3.

Then, we popped them in the oven.  The pin said 230* for 15 mins, but I had to leave them in for 30 mins.

I did stir them with a toothpick at the 15 min mark.  I stirred them again with the toothpick when I took them out.  I put them on a rack to cool (I used my slow cooker's rack).

Normally, I link back to the blog post I followed with my pin.  But in this instance I also used google and read I think 2 different blog posts, their comments, and a forum's post with comments.  So, I kind of read what a bunch other people did and what did or didn't work for them and came up with my own method.  You can find the original pin I used tho on my pinterest board.

Next up, I decided to try the soap cloud with Riley!  Jaidan came in and watched while it was in the microwave.  I had never done this before and was able to get a 3 pack of Ivory soap for $.25, so I decided to do this....Ok, I bought the soap with the intent to do this project LOL.

It's very important that you use Ivory soap, I can't tell you why, but that is what the blog said (supposedly you get a burned mess with other brands)

This is so easy to do.  You just put the soap on some wax, or parchment paper (NOT foil, seriously folks, we don't want any fires!), turn on the microwave and watch it grow!  I set my timer for 4 mins, but we took it out at 2 mins.  It had really slowed down with the growing (couldn't even tell if it was moving anymore), so we did a big huge count down together for the last 10 seconds and took it out at the 2 min mark.

Riley thought it was super cool.....until it came out of the microwave, then he didn't want to hold it LOL.

If you want to see the original blog post you can do so here.  We still have our 'cloud' so I am thinking about letting the kids make colored soaps like she did in her blog post.

Have you done any Crafty fun things lately?

Two Tutu's To Do

As we all know, Halloween is fast approaching.  It is my FAVORITE holiday!  Kids costumes have been ordered, and received!  This year we will have Thor (Austin), Draculaura from Monster High (Jaidan), Kermit the Frog (Riley...he wanted to be a frog, and that was the frog costume he picked out), and a LadyBug (Aislinn).

Last year, before I made Aislinn's 1st birthday tutu I made a practice tutu.  It was done in black and red, which I thought would be perfect for a lady bug costume.  Unfortunately, after the move, I do not know where this tutu is.  The packers have marked the boxes all crazy and we can't really go by what any of the boxes say.  So, because of this I ordered Aislinn a lady bug outfit.  The way the dress lays, a tutu could totally fit under it and add a bit of flare to it.  So, I have decided to make her another red and black tutu for Halloween.

Now, Jaidan's Draculara costume came with a vest, a skirt and some leggings.  The skirt is too big on her (since she is a skinny little tooth pick lol).  It's so big that safety pins wouldn't do the trick, it would need to be tacked on the sides, and as we all know, I do NOT sew lol.  Not to mention, I don't really like the way it lays, since it's made out of that stupid fabric they like to make costumes out of that wrinkles really easily and is hard to make look good.  Jaidan has some black cloth cheer shorts...so I asked her what she thought about wearing the shorts with a black and hot pink tutu over them for a skirt instead.  She of course loved the idea, so we have ditched the crappy white skirt and I will be making her a black and hot pink tutu for her costume.

I went to Hobby Lobby last night to pick up the tulle and elastic.  I was looking for the elastic and when I couldn't find it I asked an associate.  She showed me the 'crotched' elastic....like you see for baby head bands.  I've seen people use them to make tutu's before....silly me, I thought they were just using head bands HAHA.  I grabbed 2 rolls, 1 was black and hot pink mixed together and the other was red and black mixed together.  They were 50% off, so I got 2 for the price of 1.  I will have to play with it some to figure out how I am going to do this, since I am use to just tying it around plain elastic and scrunching it all together so I can add more to make it look fuller.

Lots of work to do!  I will post pics of the finished products after they are made 8)

The Sun is Up!

The sun is up....those are the words that woke me up at 5:59am this morning.  Yep, Riley has this thing with the sun being up.  If it's up, then he thinks that he should be up too.  He's been doing this for about 3 weeks now....ever since Daddy took the child lock off the inside of Riley's bedroom door.  Usually (on the weekends) Daddy is the one getting woken up....when school was still in, he usually timed it pretty good and Daddy was already up but still home, so Daddy would hook him up with breakfast and his shows.  This morning however, Daddy was downstairs eating breakfast, and Riley came straight to our room, so Mommy got woken up.

5:59 am wake up calls, during summer vacation just isn't gonna cut it with Mommy.  It's time to figure out how to get Riley to stay in bed longer, and not get up just because 'the sun is up'.  Anyone have any suggestions?  I'm sure Daddy would also appreciate not being woken up at 5:30 on the weekends too!

Pinned it, tried it, results!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was going to try some pinterest projects.  Here are the results of some of those projects!

First I did the Homemade Finger Paints.  This was pretty easy to do.  I used some empty baby food jars to store it in and then I used Wilton Cake Decorating Icing Colors to tint them.  I don't normally have food coloring on hand, but I have tons of the icing colors for my cakes.

Mixture after I put it in the jars, before I colored it all.  You can find the Wilton Icing Colors at Walmart, Michaels, and I am sure other places too.

All done!  Blue, purple, yellow, red, pink, and green.

I did paint a bit with the green, and then went and washed my hands.  It all came out easily.  I have yet to try it tho, with a kid playing in it forever and then washing it out lol.


Next I tried making the Mind Jar for Austin.  I followed the pin, and she had a great description, but she also linked back in her blog to where she first got it from.  The other lady did it slightly different (added extra glitter).  So I kind of did a little bit of both to make mine.

I used a mason jar that I bought at Michaels.  I know they seal air tight and I didn't want to take any chances!  I used just over 1.5 cups of warm water.  I added 2 tablespoons of orange glitter glue (Austin picked it out himself!).  Like she said, it did take a bit for the glue to melt, so I also stuck it in the microwave for 60 seconds.  This kept the water warm, since the glass stayed warm.  I added a touch of the wilton icing color in orange to the water, to make the water orange.  Then I added some orange glitter to it.  Note....add the glitter last, it settles on the top of the water (I learned this the hard way haha, I was still melting glue when I added the glitter!).

Here it is before you shake it up.  You can see the glitter glue part settled on the bottom (it doesn't completely melt away) .  If you look at the top you can see the extra glitter I added floating around lol.

Here it is all shook up.  I really like how it turned out, and Austin liked it too.  Hopefully it will help him some with his temper!


This next project was soooo easy.  I made the bookmarks with the paint samples.  I picked a few up at Walmart, Austin was with me so he picked out his 2, and I picked out 2 for Jaidan.  They were out of pink, so I had to get her other colors.  I bought some ribbon for $.97 (which will last me quite a while).  I bought 2 punches at walmart, but they kinda stunk, their selection wasn't very good.  When I went to Michaels they had a much better selection and I picked out 2 different ones.  They were all $.97, or $.99.  So super cheap, and re-usable not only for this, but other projects too.

All you do is use the punches to cut out the design on one side, use a hole punch on the top for the ribbon, then tie the ribbon through, super easy!.

Finished bookmarks with the supplies.  Music notes for Austin, hearts for Jaidan.  No more corner's being turned down by kids (yes Jaidan, I am looking at you!).


Well there you have it, results for things I pinned on pinterest and tried.  I do have a few other projects I am working on.  I will post those results when I am done with them.

Pinterest Projects

I have a couple of different projects that I found on Pintrest that I am going to be doing for, and with the kids!  I'm so excited for some of these!

I already posted about the Homemade Finger Paints.  I actually already made those.  I will do a post about them and post pics, hopefully this weekend.  I can't upload any pics from my camera until I get the new computer.

I am also going to be doing the Recycled Newspaper Beads that I posted about earlier too.  Jaidan and I are going to work on that.  We are going to make her hanging beads for her bedroom door.  I got the paint today for them.  She is going to be doing bright pink and bright purple on black string.

Next is Modge Podge!  I'm going to need it for Jaidan's bead's.  I found a DIY on Pintrest that I am going to do to save some money!  As we all know, I am all about saving money!

I'll be making some cheap and super easy bookmarks for Austin and Jaidan! These are so easy and inexpensive that I'll be able to make them whenever I need to, as often as I need to for them.  No more folding the book corner to save their places (Jaidan, I'm talk to you!).

I'll also be making a Mind Jar for Austin!  I'm really excited to make this and have Austin try using it.  He knows what it is, and why we are making it, and he's willing to try it.  He picked out the glitter (you can tell by the BRIGHT Orange lol).  Hopefully this will work to calm him down when he's upset...it's worth a try, right?

I'll do posts and put up pictures for all these things as we do them so you can see them all too!

How To Make Recycled Newspaper Beads

I saw this post on another blog Freetail Therapy and I loved the idea!  It sounds really easy to do.  Being a couponer, I have a LOT of extra newspaper that we recycle.  So I am going to try this out, I am sure my kids will love helping me with this project.  To see the original post go HERE.  I will do another post after we try this out, to let you know how it goes!  If you go to her site, you can also pin this to pintrest (which of course, I already did!).

Materials
Old newspapers Large pot or metal bowl Glue (Elmer’s or other liquid glue) Sandpaper A drill to make holes in the beads Whatever string or ribbon you want to string the beads with Leftover paint Varnish
Directions
1. Grab a few newspapers before they make it to the bin or recycling basket. Try a couple different papers for different colors. The Sunday comics might be interesting!
2. Rip the newspaper into small pieces in a large stock pot or metal bowl.
3. Cover the paper pieces with boiling water (easy if you have a kettle on hand).
4. Allow this mixture to sit for an hour or more, stirring occasionally.
5. Drain the water using a strainer or try to get as much water as possible out with the lid of the pot.
6. With the paper back in the pot, add enough glue so that the mixture sticks together.
7. Squeezing water out with your hands, roll the mixture into balls. You can make the balls as big or small as you like.
8. Place the balls on parchment paper or foil.
9. Roll them several times a day for several days as they dry. Roll them every 3‐4 hours for a couple days for compact beads.
10. When completely dry, use the sandpaper to sand off any rough points on the bead.
11. Drill a hole through each bead for stringing. Bigger holes can accommodate ribbons and the like.
12. You can now paint the beads with any paint you have on hand. When dry, you can varnish them with Mod Podge, clear acrylic spray, or other varnish. For a great painting and drying rack, cut small notches into a shallow cardboard box, such as a shoe box. This will catch any drips when you paint and varnish the beads. Place long needles, coffee stirrers, or sturdy wire through the beads and secure in the notches of the box.
13. When dry, string the beads. Ribbons work especially well for these chunky beads, but you can experiment with other materials.
Enjoy your recycled newspaper beads!

Read more: http://www.freetailtherapy.com/2012/01/how-to-make-recycled-newspaper-beads/#ixzz1kbw9ZBRX
Thanks Freetail Therapy!

Are you ready for some football?!

Football season is rolling around again in our house. Today kicks off the first day of official practice. My oldest is playing Football, and my oldest daughter is doing Cheerleading. August is a busy month for football. It's 5 day a week practices! That's right, 5 days a week, Mon-Fri from 5:30-7:30. That's a lot of late night dinners! But I definitely get my monies worth out of my crock pot!

This year my hubby is going to be an assistant coach for Austin's team 8) He L-O-V-E-S football. Hopefully this means some good father-son bonding time for them. And just maybe, this year will teach Austin a bit of discipline....I can hope, right?

Of course, along with football season for the kids comes a cruel joke for mommy. I am a die hard Dallas Cowboys fan. I can NOT stand the Washington Redskins. So of course, my son's team is the Redskins. The PASS Redskins, but still the Redskins. So now I have to cheer for the Redskins and wear shirts that say Redskins on them. A sad time in deed LOL. But I will do it for my kiddos 8)

Are your kids involved in any sports, or anything athletic?

Upromise

Last night I signed up for Upromise. It's been around for YEARS, and I am sure I signed up for it at one point years ago, but I never really knew what to do, so I didn't do anything with it LOL. But I have done a bit of research and now I understand how it works, so I signed up again. Wish I had kept with it all those years ago, I think I originally signed up when they first started around 10 years ago.

Upromise helps you to save money for college, either for yourself or for your kids. Every little bit helps, right? College is already so expensive, and it's only going to continue to get worse before our kids are finally old enough to go.

The way Upromise works is you register your credit cards, debit cards, and grocery store cards with them. Then when you use those cards to shop at various restaurants, grocery stores, online stores, etc , depending on the store a certain % of your sales goes into your Upromise account.

Upromise is free to join, so it doesn't hurt to go check it out 8) There are 3 different things you can do with your money. You can have them invest it in a High Yield savings account through Sallie Mae, invest it in a 529 plan through Sallie Mae, or once a quarter you can request a check be sent to you as long as you have a minimum of $10 in your account. It's very customizable, and you can change how you want to save your money at any time too, so you don't get locked into one choice.

Another great thing about Upromise is you can have friends and family join YOUR account! So Grandma, or Aunt Sally, or whoever can also help you to save money for your kids for college. You can invite them to join your account, they register their cards, and when ever they shop at a participating place money goes into your account.

Go check it out and let me know what you think! At some point down the road I will update you and let you know how we are doing with it!

www.upromise.com

This n That ~

As you all know from my post about Aislinn, things have been pretty hectic around here lately. I just wanted to do a quick update about everything else 8)

Austin and Jaidan went to the dentist last week. More bad news...as usual. Austin had 2 Abscessed teeth, luckily they were baby teeth, so they got pulled. Jaidan had her first 2 cavities. We went back yesterday and Jaidan got her cavities filled. We did one with the metal filling, since it's a baby tooth, the other one we did a composite on (whatever that is LOL). She had 1 tooth that didn't quite form right, and it had a crack in it (it looked like) we were told last year. Well, she got a cavity in that tooth and the dentist was worried that if he drilled it for a filling that it might shatter apart. So they recommended the composite, it could be done without drilling, or numbing her, and since we had dual insurance, it was covered. Over the weekend (i believe) Austin also lost a loose tooth. So we are now 3 baby teeth closer to his braces.

Riley seems to have a new favorite movie...Cars. We have already watched it 3 times today, twice yesterday, twice on Sunday, and then I think we watched it once on Friday and on Saturday too LOL. For a while we were rotating between The Bee Movie, The Furious Five, and Kung Fu Panda, but now it's all about Cars.

Riley is also starting to learn more animals 8) The other day he pointed to a Giraffe and called it a Dinosaur. I told him it was a Giraffe and then showed him some more Giraffes, so he get's it right now. He loves to point out the Elephants on one of his blankets, and the Zebra's. Today I showed him the Flamingos. I guess I will see if he remembers the Flamingos later on today.

I got the kids report cards this week! Jaidan did pretty good, mostly 3's (yes our schools are super lame-o and don't use letter or percentage grades) She does still need to work on not talking, turning in her homework, using class time wisely, etc. We have an appt for her on March 23rd to be assessed for ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder...not to be confused with ADHD, my daughter is NOT hyper). Austin had all 3's and everything was satisfactory, including turning in his homework!! That is something we have struggled with for ever LOL. I think his new dr is on the right track with him. He was put back on Concerta in January and his grades have already improved! I am sad that his tics are back and not controlled by his meds right now, but his report card is proof that we made the right choice in treating his ADHD over his Tourette's. We are still in the process of changing up his meds, his dr wants to get him down onto only 2 meds (which I LOVE), so it's still a work in progress, but I am happy to be seeing results already. We go back to his dr on April 6th, at which point we will have removed 3 of his meds.

I am anxiously awaiting my first 2 cloth diapers!! We ordered a Kawaii to test out and see if we like it, and I won a free Fuzzi Bunz in a give-away. Hubby has already said that if I like the Kawaii I can go ahead and order a stash and get started with cloth diapering. If not, we'll try another brand. I am very excited to be trying out cloth diapering with Aislinn.

Jaidan's 9th birthday is coming up on the 19th. I am super excited. The presents from Grandma have already arrived, and our present we ordered on Amazon is on it's way. I paid for over half the present using my free gift cards for Amazon that I earned through Swagbucks. We already have her other presents. We are doing an ICarly theme, all the party supplies are in the mail too. We are going to surprise her and serve spaghetti tacos at her party. I can't wait to see her reaction!!

Well....I think that is all for now 8) I plan to be posting up a recipe or two in the next few days.

Wordless Wednesday 3/1

All passed out on Monday because he didn't get a nap

Wordless Wednesday

My 2 youngest babies sleeping in daddies arms.

I ♥ Khols!!

Truly I do! I went there today to get some new pants for the kids. Austin has put holes in the knees of all his jeans....yet again. How he manages to do this consistently is beyond me, but he does. Jaidan on the other hand decided to shoot up like 4 inches in the last 2 months! Crazy! But on the bright side she finally hit (and now passed) the 48" mark. Can you say Hello Disneyland?!?! I know I can!!

So today I bought Austin 2 pairs of jeans and a shirt and I bought Jaidan 2 pairs of jeans and a shirt also. I had a 30% off if you use your Kohl's card coupon. We always use our Kohl's card, it's silly to not take advantage of the extra 10, 15, 20, or 30% off that they usually offer you if you use your card and coupon. Plus, they don't keep the coupon! You can use it until the expiration date!! I saved more then I spent!!! How AWESOME is that?!?! Did I mention that I ♥ Kohl's?! Well I do!! I spent $63.89 and I saved $80.24! Woo hoo!!

Science Fair Success!

Being in 5th grade, it was required for Austin to have a science fair project. It basically decided his science grade for this Trimester. But for Jaidan, being in 3rd grade it was optional. She asked if she could do one, and of course we said yes! We are all about helping furthering their education, and with a momma who is a bit of a science geek herself, I want to encourage it in my children.

We learned a few things after seeing other kids science fair projects. We should make the heading for each section separate from the topic, rather then putting it all together like we did. We should also use a bigger font so it takes up more room on the board, so the board doesn't look as empty. So those are things for us to remember for next year. But I am proud to say that every single word that was put on their boards were my children's own words....not ours.

Austin's is the one on the left, Jaidan's on the right. With every single person in his class submitting a science fair project (and we all know there are some parents out there that do the projects for their kids...) competition was stiff. Austin's was not one of the one's chosen from his classroom to compete in the school science fair. Regardless, I am still very proud of him. He thought of everything on his own, and he did it all on his own, despite his moanings and mumblings about having to do it LOL. He was very frustrated that I had him write everything out on paper before he typed it on the computer.

Jaidan's story is a bit different. Because it was only voluntary, only 2 other children besides her submitted a science fair project in her classrooom. Jaidan's project was one of the two selected from her classroom to go on to the school science fair. I don't know how many 3rd grade projects there were total for her school, but Jaidan wound up getting 2nd place!! Because of this, Jaidan's project was selected to go on to the district science fair! We are so proud of her!

Yesterday afternoon I got a call that there would be an awards ceremony for the district science fair. So we changed our plans for the evening, I packed up all 4 kids and headed to the science fair. They had a viewing time before they announced the participants in each grade level and then announced the winners. They also announced the 9 representatives going on to the county science fair. My husband met us there, he had to go there straight from work. Jaidan was 1 of 9 3rd graders at the district science fair. They had a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, and then Honorable Mention. Jaidan got Honorable Mention, and she is SO proud of her ribbon, as are we!
Here she is with her project at the district science fair

Her Honorable Mention Ribbon

I'm very proud of Austin and Jaidan for the time and effort that they put into their science fair projects. I look forward to next year...even if it did get a bit hectic there at the end!