Girly Baptism fun!

May God richly bless you
As you take this step of faith,
Being baptized in His name
And to walk within His grace
So you may always carry
The light of Jesus love
To those who may not have
Faith in God above.

© By M.S.Lowndes

Can I just say that I had a blast actually doing girly things!  Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy playing soccer and digging the mud with the boys, but frills and bows get me weak at the knees! 

I saw the idea of barefoot sandals on Pinterest and couldn't wait to make a pair for Cassidy, the late summer was nice enough for dresses but not cool enough for tights, so I thought making these would help keep her little socks on and boy do they do the trick!

I made my first pair white as it's a neutral color, but as soon as she put them on I knew they had to be worn for her baptism!  Who needs $20 booties that will never be worn again, verses $2.00 sandals I can reuse!  Each flower was $.80 and the elastic was $1 for 2yards- super cheap!  So then of course she needed a headband to match, as I'm sure she won't keep the bonnet on all day!

The christening gown was truly adorable, it reminded me of the lace detail I had at the bottom of my wedding gown.  My Mom offered to buy her gown but a fun trip to the Mall revealed there are no real options in-store, christening gowns are all online.  So after some research I found a website that was reasonably priced and had better options than Macy's- http://www.pinkprincess.com/christening--girls-christening.html , and fell in love with a dress called Sophia.  But come to find out after a Google search Walmart online had the same dress $20 less!

 

 

Then came my favorite part, reception planning!  For the cake I knew I wanted to use the cross cake pan I had from the boys Baptism but this time cover it with flowers.

 

 

But the longest process were the Christening gown cookie favors.  Three days of non stop baking and decorating, my first time using royal icing, home with all 3 kids by my self, talk about a labor of love!  No wonder these kinds of things sell for $40/dozen on esty.com!  But do have to say that even though I did most of them at midnight, piping the dresses was super fun, I see other decorated cookies in my future.

 

 

Welcome to the faith Cassidy!

 

 

Baby Cassidy joins the wildflower family!

 

She came late but our new addition, Cassidy Jean, arrived July 25th at 12:35am!  She arrived in a hurry, and thank goodness because she was all natural and I don't think I could have endured that pain if she took as long as the boys did at birth!

 

 Everyone is so excited to have a girl in family, I finally feel our family is complete (and yes, I'm thrilled to see pink in the house too), but I think no one is more excited than the two big brothers! 

 

They are always checking on her, singing to her, and there are limitless kisses and hugs every time she's in their presence.  Of course life doesn't stop when a newborn arrives and you have 2 older ones who need to get energy out so we've been quite busy until school starts, thankfully my recovery was quick.

 

She was an early smiler at a few weeks old and now at 3 months she's teething, reminds me a lot of Carter hitting early milestones when he was a baby.  She also has Carter's 'chipmunk cheeks' and nose, looking a baby pictures they look a lot alike.  So far she's petite and long, growing out of the length of sleepers before filling them out, reminding me of Gavin and how tall he always was, and still is!  It's neat to see both of her brothers in her!

 

Cassie and I have some one-on-one time while the boys are in school which is nice because boy oh boy does it get busy once they get home at 4pm.  I can't believe how much homework Gavin brings home in 1st grade already.  Thankfully Carter doesn't have much in Kindergarten but helping them both with trying to tend to a baby was pretty trying the first few weeks.  Now we're on a routine and she recognizes the bus, is all smiles when her brothers come home and most days watches them contently while we talk about their day and do homework together. 

 

Can't wait to go thru the baby stages again and will truly soak up every moment this go-round.  I look forward to the many blessings she will bring and receive while with us... welcome little wildflower to our family!

 

 

Carter's pirate party invites

 

I am so behind on Carter's party, well not really as it's still 3 weeks away, but at this time I'm usually done the planning and making process.  Guess baby #3 is wearing me out more than I thought :)

I had been looking for neat message in a bottle invites for his pirate theme party and did come across a neat set at Oriental Trading, but found them too late as there was a week wait time to ship.  Craft stores only carried small ones for sand projects that wouldn't be big enough for even a 4z6 paper to go inside.  So I opted to dig up some old Scrapbook paper and make my own bottles on the fly.

Carter loves Jake from Disney Jr. so I used a picture of him I found on a napkin to make the bottle label, which looks much better for younger ones than the skull and bones theme now that I compare the two.

Can't wait for his party that's a Pirate Adventure Cruise on a real pirate ship!!!  No mess at home and an afternoon cruising around Annapolis Harbor, right up my alley this year!

What will baby Bee? Gender Reval Party!

This past weekend we had a gender reveal party for famiy and friends, what fun!  It was so much more special than calling or e-mailing everyone! 



 

It was an after dinner affair where we provided sweets and drinks but most of all we had cupcakes filled with either blue for a boy or pink for a girl.  Everyone could come dressed in the color they thought baby would be.

So glad the boys were involved with the decorations- they did awesome!

Honeycomb out of cut-out toilet paper rolls!

Super easy!

 

 

 

 No matter pink or blue, we can't wait to share the news!
 

 

Everyone chose a cupcake,

 

 

 

chose a pink or blue plate to make their guess,

 

and bit on the count of three to find the color....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...PINK!!!!!

We are on cloud nine and it was wonderful to share this news with all our friends and family!  Can't wait until July to finally welcome our little Girl!!!

Cork Reindeer Ornaments

 

Between hubby, myself and both our mothers we go thru some wine, and some are special so I have been saving the corks.  I saw in a catalog that there is a cork trivet you can make and wondered if there was anything else you can make from those little stoppers. 

(made the cork trivet for Mother-in-Law btw, it was a hit!)

 

Then I found them... the cutest reindeer ornaments from corks!

 

 

 

 

 

You need a few corks, 2 per reindeer

Small sticks to use for legs, neck and antlers (kids helped collect these)

Hot glue gun

Push pins with balls on the end, for the nose

Wire cutters

Small Philips head screwdriver or metal nail

Ribbon

Scissors

 

Make 4 holes on the bottom of one cork using the small screwdriver or nail, making sure the stick will fit in the hole. The corks are very forgiving so dig in!

 

Make sure to break or cut 4 twigs the same length and see how they look in the cork.  It's easy to twist them around or swap spots to get better balance.

After you're happy with how it looks put a dot of hot glue into the holes one at a time and push in the twigs.

 

For the head, I cut my second cork down a bit with a knife, it's all in how you want the reindeer to look.

 

 

Then poke a hole in the cork for the neck and another hole on the top of the first cork for the neck to fit in.  Glue in place.  Do the same for the antlers and you're all set!



 

I added a red pushpin for the nose and another to hold the ribbon at the base of the neck.

 

They turned out super cute and the wine-o's at Christmas enjoyed their gifts made with love!

A Special Announcement

I've been looking for a different way to announce something special and one night while in bed it came to me... use a photo!

 

 

Since we knew this would be our last child we wanted to spread the word a little different this time around, and do you know how difficult it was not to tell my Mom right away, but she deserved a surprise just like everyone else!

 

I waited until Thanksgiving to tell the immediate family by having the boys wear their shirts, what a way to get a reaction!  Then instead of chain phone calls we sent out postcards to everyone else to let them know the big news.

 

The post cards were super easy, I just took a photo of the boys in their new Big Brother shirts (which were made by VistaPrint and shipped super fast) and used the photo as the post card!

 

I didn't want to risk the chance that someone wouldn't get what the photo meant so I came up with a saying to put on the back, printed it out on sticky paper and stuck the poem to the back of the photo, added the sending address and finally a postcard stamp- super easy and inexpensive!

 

Poem:

 If you haven't guess by the photo

just read what our shirts say,

we found out that our family will be

growing by one more just the other day.

 

Daddy says this will be our last addition

and Mommy does agree,

but we can't wait until July to meet our

new Baby-to-be!

 

Two Proud Brothers,

Gavin & Carter

 

 

We are so excited for our family to grow even more, and I have  to say that he or she is lucky to have two great big brothers to grow up with- can't wait for the fun to begin!

Homemade kind of day

With all of the festivities this weekend I'm surprised I had the energy to make all that I did in a 3 day period! 

 

First up was making a Mummy cheese spread and some strawberry filled pumpkin cupcakes on Friday.

 

 

This little guy was super easy to make, using Tastefully Simple's Smokey Cheese Ball Mix I shaped it into a person and then with 2 raisins, about 4oz of softened cream cheese and a Ziploc baggie I wrapped him up.  And have to laugh that Gavin calls it an astronaut every time he sees it!

 

Then that evening was our 1st time driving Go Karts as a family, sooo much fun!!!  Expensive, so a thanks to Plum District for offering the coupon, but fun nonetheless!

 

 

 

Then the boys had their last Soccer games Saturday morning, so sad as they were both getting to be so good and enjoying every moment!  I can't say enough good things about the Upward division, the Christian values that were taught is something I hope the boys remember just as much as all the fun they had!

 

Next we were off to a dear friends home for some Halloween fun with homemade games we created earlier in the week!

 

 

 

And it looks like we might be missing out on trick-or-treating at the Grandparents on the 31st with hurricane Sandy on the way.  Glad we did our neighborhood festivities last week!

 

 

 

 

Then while spending hours in the kitchen on Sunday after Church (while Mike and kids cleaned-up outside before hurricane Sandy arrived) I had time to contemplate, how in the world did Mom's have time to spend with their children when there was no such thing as prepared foods or microwaves back in the day?  Prepping, cooking and cleaning the aftermath took me hours on end, at least we had the meal to talk and have quality time together but then it was off to clean the dishes and start on canning our apples, which took more hours out of the day.  At least Mike got to spend 1 on 1 time with the boys, but him being home is rare so I know I wouldn't have been able to cook anything if he wasn't home!

My 1st from-scratch Chicken Pot Pie turned out amazing!  It wasn't too hard to fix and was well worth it, sorry Marie Callendar, you're pies are good too but there's nothing better than enjoying the love and fresh ingredients that goes into the meal instead of knowing it came from a factory!

A great tip I found somewhere said you can shred warm chicken in the mixer, so true and much easier than doing it by hand!  Thanks to Safeway's $5 Friday pre-cooked chicken- this saved me so much time!


Simmer chopped onion in a sick of butter, add flour, chicken broth, bag of frozen veggies (or fresh as I had some corn and carrots on hand) and shredded chicken... so simple!  You don't even need to measure ingredients, just eyeball it and it'll still taste good, take my word!

Then while the pie was cooling I remembered there were lemons that needed to be picked from our lemon tree.  This will give the boys something else fun to do, and teach Daddy as he's never done it with us before!

6 lemons rolled to perfection, water and sugar to taste... Mmmm!

 

Then while the kiddos were getting ready for bed, with Daddy -which never happens either so maybe my cooking day was a good thing for everyone, I had to cook-up the apples we picked at the farm a few weeks ago before the hurricane takes our power and they all go bad.

 

And couldn't go wrong using the Apple Pie Filling recipe I've used the past!  But somehow I ended up with 2 more jars than last time, bonus!  Guess the apples we picked were a bit larger this year!

Hope your Autumn has been just as busy, and yummy, as ours!