Best snack ever!

Kudos to Gourmet Mom on the Go for this brilliant idea! Very Hungry Caterpillar Snack

After reading this book to the boys almost every day I just had to try out her idea and boy was this most fun the kids had with food in a while! It was super easy to print out her template, attach it to a straw and then let the little caterpillar go to town making holes everwhere!

Next we'll have to see what other foods the caterpiller can make holes in (with Mommy secretly hoping to sneek some veggies in there to try too :)

Print template, cut and attach straw

Munch away!

They were so into it!

Worst Cleaning Jobs Made Easy

If I was a working mom I would truly look into hiring a cleaning service! I don't know how my girlfriends who work do it, come home from a long day, cook dinner, clean up from dinner, spend what time of the night is left with their kids before bedtime routines start- not to mention even having a conversation with their husband, and it all starts again the next day. Where the heck does cleaning time come in, especially with birthdays and weddings taking the reigns every weekend for the rest of the summer!

Heck, as a stay-at-home Mom I would rather be spending time with my kids than cleaning! MSN had this link I thought I'd share for those of us that have to do the dirty work ourselves in the worst cleaning jobs made easy! Even if you know how to clean like there's no tomorrow, I'm sure there are a few on this list you haven't done yet this year!

It was great that they stated when certain tasks that you don't think about on a regular basis should be undertaken, like cleaning under the fridge at least twice a year, guess I'll start on that one here soon! Maybe I'll finally find those missing fridge magnets we've been looking for too :)

Rainy Day Activites

Energy + 2 Boys = Mommy getting creative!

Rainy day activity today: Using a sheet

• As a parachute to bounce a beach ball


• As a tent


• As a wagon to pull things, and people, around the house

Up next... using 10 rolls of paper towels as building blocks and then bowling pins!

(They'd better sleep good tonight, I know I will!)

Spring has sprung and is on it's way out

"Look at us, said the violets blooming at her feet, all last winter we slept in the seeming death but at the right time God awakened us, and here we are to comfort you." ~Edward Payson Rod



It's hard to believe that the flowers of Spring are on their last legs! The roses are blooming strong as the iris' and phlox are displaying their last show of the season.

The peaches and cream rose tree will be my biggest challenge again this summer, I can see the beetles coming from afar already!

Even though some flowers have exhausted their abilities this year, it is exciting to see new blooms riping for the summer season! Hopefully I can contain the Sedum this year from going wild!

And I'm truly looking forward to the display the Blue Hydrangea near the house has to give, planted as a reminder of my first born's baptism!

The Red Carpet Daylilies are always a vibrant sight when pulling into the driveway! Such great perennials for borders! And the perfect height for little helpers to water!

Now the next task at hand is mulching! It has been pushed back due to an abundance of weeds I wanted to get rid of first and then with last weeks car accident, I hope to utilize my little guys to help me out next weekend! They both can't wait to use the garden tools the Easter bunny left for them! They helped out Mother's Day weekend by planting some annuals but haven't had a chance scrape the dirt as much as they'd like I'm sure :)

Once all this rain subsides, watch out garden worms, nothing like avid little gardeners with ducky tools and excitement to burn!

Mother's Day

"Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of their character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning". ~Lydia M. Child

The gusty winds out today seem to have put a damper on Mother's Day plans of spending the day mulching the gardens. But it's okay, it now gives me time while the boys nap to share the photos of our Mohter Day Session that I mentioned last month.

Jen captured the true essence of us, I can't thank her enough!

PS- If you're interested in utilizing her services I have a promotional card to give you, it has our picture of sitting in the grass on it :) If you mention to her you'd like to book a session she'll give you a free $50 credit towards your prints!

Gotta love planning a kids birthday party!

I am truly excited about planning Carter's 2nd Birthday party! My one girlfriend Sam and I keep saying that we had so much fun planning our weddings, and now our children's birthday parties, that we could make a living by becoming a party planner. But there's always the down side of working non-stop and being away on the weekends. But it doesn't stop me from going all out for family functions!


With the exception of thier 1st birthday's, which I still kept their interests in mind but was excited to find an 'I dig being 1' and 'Lil Slugger turns 1' themes, I got to choose the themes myself. Now I've been letting my boys choose thier own theme and give them specific ones to pick from. This way I know they won't choose a princess theme just because it has the picutre of a horse on it, it's usually gender neutral or from characters they might recognize from TV.


Carter obviously watches what Gavin does, a year apart doesn't quite matter with TV programs, so I couldn't re-use Wonder Pets that Gavin chose for his 3rd birthday. So I copy and pasted several screen images from an online party website onto a blank word document page, plopped Carter on my lap and let him point to the one he wanted. He saw the farm animals theme and smiled, scanned past Pooh and Tigger, past Elmo, and ended up pointing right to Curious George and in his best 20 month old way he says 'e-e, ooh-ooh!' They've only seen Curious George once or twice since January of this year but when it was on boy did Carter crack up like there was no tomorrow at the noises George made when he "spoke." As soon as his eyes lite up and pointed to that picture I knew we had a winner! And I also knew how much fun this was going to be (for me)!



Just a tease of what's to come for those of you who are attending later this month:

*Can't wait to try out an awesome banana cake recipe I came across

*Great park nearby with enough room for everyone

*Oh, and did I mention this park has a minature train... you can RIDE! Thus I have to use this as one of the party favors: