Two Projects In One Post

Today is a twofer.  You know, two for one, or what me and my mom call: a twofer.  Two projects in one blog post! This is what happened.  Monday and Tuesday I spent all day both days furiously cleaning my house.  I'm not much of a neat freak, but I do get into these spells where I want my house spotless and tidy.  Over the weekend the inside of my house was hit by three tornadoes I was powerless to stop.  They were named Kenny, Connor, and Brad.  I've completely given up trying to do anything cleaning on weekends, it's like nailing jello to a tree, it's not going to happen.  So, after two days of the marathon cleaning I decided Wednesday I was going to do nothing except what I wanted.  I wanted to finish two projects I had started.  And that's what I did!

Project One: A picture of my boys.  There's really not a whole lot involved in this project.  Just picking out pictures, paper and any embellishments.  I got the idea from my mom, who got the idea from Pinterest.  She had shown my her completed project that was just adorable and I wanted to copy it.  Mine came out different than hers, but still the same basic layout.

So that was project one.

Project Two: Menu Board
Remember how much I love chalkboard paint? Well, I got it back out and made a menu board.  I was tired of calling my hubby and asking what he wanted for supper and getting one of two answers: 1) ah, I don't know, it don't matter (and then whatever I cook that wasn't what he wanted) or 2) I'm not really hungry, I probably won't eat. (Then when he gets in he's starving and wants some big supper) So I told him we would start working out a menu for the coming week, I would buy groceries accordingly and there would be no changes.  He agreed and I started looking for something I could use as a menu board.  Also remember how I'm a boarder line hoarder? Yeah, so I found the perfect thing that Brad has had since 2003.  Don't judge me.

This is a 2003 Thomas Kincade Framed Calendar.  It had six sheets you could slide in and out to change the months.  I had thrown the sheets away since they were out of date and Brad didn't want them anymore, but I hung on to the frame thinking I could use it again for something.  See, sometimes it's good to hang on to something for a while.


With it being so long and skinny I knew it would be perfect for a menu board.  So I painted the front of it with the chalkboard paint.  But it left a hole at the top where the sheets were slid in and out.  I want to fill that hole, it was driving me crazy.

 So what I did was pick out a font I really liked and printed the word Menu on a piece of paper

Then cut a piece of scrapbook paper to fit the hole.







Then I put the two pieces on my light board, the printed piece under the scrapbook piece.







Then I traced the letter onto the scrapbook piece.  I love light boxes, they sure make thing a lot easier.

So now I have this:

After I glued it to the back of the board to fit the hole, I have my finished project:

 Now we have a menu board and we've already worked out our first weeks menu.  By the way, those round magnets you see are part of my grocery list.  I'm still working on those and plan for those to be another project post.  But each one has the name of something in the fridge, when we run out, we move the magnet to the front of the fridge so on grocery day I can just write them down on my list instead of pawing through the fridge to figure what's missing.  Currently I have ten done, but plan to do more!

I hope you enjoyed this project twofer! I love making things, and sharing them with all of you! I hope you can use this to come up with your own ideas on something.  Until next time, Happy Crafting!

My Childhood Meets Today

Today's post is brought to you by my sister and our childhood! 

I was sitting at home, watching tv, keeping an eye on the children while they played because if my attention is diverted for even a second something bad usually happens: a crash that means the room has been devoured in a wave of toys, a thump that means somebody has fallen and have every bone broken until the ice cream comes out, or a scream that means some one is dying unless I get there in time to give the toy back to the first owner.

My phone rang and the caller i.d. shows it's my little sister.  Ok, I can answer it, I haven't talked to her in a few days and it would be nice to catch up.  Of course being on the phone means I have to pay extra attention to the kids so one of the above doesn't happen.  She was telling about her day and how she, my mom and my grandparents had gone to see the our cousin's new baby girl.  Then she asks me which Nintendo 64 games I have because she has some of mine. Uh.......I'll have to go look.  It's been a good while since I've played Nintendo 64.  It was our game system of choice when we were teenagers.

I get up and go look.  They were stuffed in the bottom of the entertainment center (such a good place for games) in our bedroom.  So I drag out the games and we start talking about which ones we have, which ones we want to trade and remembering when we would play them.  Then I get curious about the Sega that's also shoved in there too.  I pull it out and look through the games, still talking to my sister about all of this.

But I get the brilliant idea that Connor, almost 4 years old, would love to play these old games. Yes, old, the Sega Genesis was released in 1989 and we got it in 1992.  Which, funny story on how we got it: My sister was getting ready to start school and she failed the vision test because her peripheral muscles were weak.  The doctor said the best way to strengthen them was to play video games.  My dad was fist pumping the air at that point.  So what did we get for Christmas that year? A Sega!!  Then N64 came out in 1997, I believe that's the same year we got it.  That's 23 years of gaming for us.  Anyways, I think it would be so much fun to hook these games up and play them.  First I hook the N64 up in the living room. I scrounge around behind the tv, grunting, because if it's one thing I learned from my daddy, it won't work right if you don't grunt while you're doing it, and I get it all plugged in and switch it on.  Success! The grunting worked!

So I go back in the bedroom, get the Sega and all it's cords and get behind the tv in there.  This one didn't take as much grunting, but I grunt anyways for good measure.  I flip the switch and again, success! They work!

Connor immediately picks up the Sonic game because he recognizes Sonic.  I stick it in and I'm immediately transported back to my childhood with the theme music.  I think this will be easy for Connor, all you do is move Sonic around with the D-pad and jump with the buttons.  Easy.  What I didn't think about was -Connor is used to playing Wii.  Do you see the problem? He picks up the controller that's attached to the game system by a cord, which he's never been used to, and starts tilting it back and forth trying to get Sonic to move.  I didn't realize I would have to teach him how to use a controller all over again.

So then he wants to play the N64 in the living room.  He picks MarioKart cause he's played it on Wii before.  And again the game starts and he's trying to steer his go kart by tilting the controller.  So I'm laughing while trying to show him how to hold the controller.  You remember the N64 controller? What three finger alien freak designed these controllers? Do you know how hard it is to make a 4 year old understand to put his hand on the middle part? He still doesn't have the hang of it.  But he's smart, he'll figure it out.

It's funny, when we got the N64 we were in awe over how much better the graphics were over the Sega.  Even though everything was squared off, it still looked pretty good.  But after playing them again after years of seeing the newest graphics of games where sometimes you wonder if it's real or digital, they seem almost laughable.  But that won't stop me from playing them again.  I used to love playing these old games and can't wait to relive that.  Now all I need is my dad to play with me.  We would get him to play shooting games with us because he was so funny.  He never knew where he was in the level, he could never find a gun, and when he had a gun he didn't know how to load it.  Oh, all the good memories we have, all of us piled up in front of the tv, just playing.

If it hadn't been for my sister's call and her curiosity over the games, the Sega and N64 would still be shoved down in the bottom of the entertainment center.

Just Eat The Cookie!

My husband, Brad and I got into......let's call it a debate.  It wasn't an argument because we were laughing at each other the whole time.  It was so stupid I have to share.  We do this a lot by the way.  Oh, we get into genuine arguments often.  But we more often have these "debates", where no one is angry, we're not really fussing, and most of the time we're laughing.  We usually try to get Connor in on these and take our side.  He'll side with whoever has candy, sometimes I think he's smarter than we are.

Anyways, back to our recent "debate".  I have this problem.  I guess one could call it an addiction.  I'll be going along fine, but when this particular item enters the house I lose all self control and over indulge myself.  It's called Chocolate.  I think a lot of women share this addiction.  I don't really know I'm craving it until I know it's in the house.  I have even hid the last Reese's Peanut Butter Cup from Connor because it was the last one and he would've just taken two bites and thrown it away and I didn't want it wasted!! At the time, it seems a legitimate reason, but later I feel like a bad mom!

Brad knows I have this addiction.  We've been married almost eight years, he has noticed how I dive into chocolate and before you can say "save me some" there's empty wrappers everywhere and chocolate smeared all over my mouth and hands!  So being aware of this problem he comes in from Dollar General about three weeks ago with a package of Chips Ahoy Chewy Gooey chocolate chip cookies.  I pounced.  He didn't know what hit him.  But we're not talking about any ordinary cookie here, these cookies have chocolate all through the middle!! You can even put them in the microwave and heat them up!

Needless to say these cookies didn't last very long.  In less than a week we were left with an empty package.  Connor ate about two of them, and Brad didn't get any.  I almost feel terrible.  When Brad came in and found the empty package he asked what happened to them all.  I fluttered my eyes up at him with my most innocent look and very nonchalantly shrugged my shoulders.  He didn't buy it.  His reaction was "Oh my gosh, girl! You ate all of them? You know they won't go out of date in one week right? I didn't even get any!"

It wasn't MY fault he didn't get any, they were sitting in the pantry in plain sight behind the cereal! He knew they were in there, he could've ate some at any time before they were all gone.  I told him "Fine, I'll buy another pack you can have some of them."  So the next time I was at the grocery store I bought a pack.  He messed around so long he didn't get any of those either.  And again I get in "trouble" because he didn't eat any.  I really tried to control myself with this pack! I'd eat one or two about every day or two.  I made them last as long as I could, and he didn't touch them once!  I couldn't just let them sit there.  Every time I opened the pantry to get cereal or chips or any of the things I cook with, they were there....staring at me....one time I even heard them calling my name, it was very faint, but I hear them.

So now we're on our third pack of these gooey chocolate chip cookies and only two are gone out of it.  I wanted a snack after my supper last night.  I showed them to him, I told him it was our third pack, please just eat the cookies so I don't feel guilty.  I'm not going to buy any more cookies after this whether he gets any out of this pack or not.  I can't keeping eating the cookies for everyone else!!

Lava Lamps and Pudding

I've been trying to find more things for Connor and myself to do that will keep him occupied so that I don't spend the day yelling at him and pulling my hair out.  So to keep myself from early baldness I turned to the internet.  We've been looking at different learning game sites for preschoolers.  We've come across a couple of them, not quite what I'm looking for but Connor's had fun just being able to play with Momma's computer.

On one of these websites a video was playing in the top corner called At The Craft Table.  The lady was telling how to make a homemade lava lamp with just water, vegetable oil, food coloring and kosher salt.  She demonstrated by putting food coloring in a jar of water, pouring in oil and adding the salt.  The salt would push the oil down to the bottom and as the salt dissolved it would release the oil back to the top in pretty bubbles.  I turned to Connor and said, "We can do that!" and he was all for it.

Now, I can cook, I know my way around a kitchen and know about different ingredients, but I'm not an accomplished chef.  I didn't have Kosher salt and thought, surely sea salt or regular salt would work just as well as Kosher salt.  I have no idea what Kosher salt is, but apparently there's a difference.  But I'll get to that.

So we start our experiment.  I found an empty jar, grabbed the vegetable oil, food coloring and sea salt.  After all the salt in the lava lamp ladies video looked big and chunky, sea salt is big and chunky.  

        So I drop a few drops of food coloring in the water and mix it up

        I let Connor pour in the 1/3 cup of oil and we wait for it to settle. 

         Once settled, we pour in the salt and watch for a lava lamp effect.  There are a few little bubbles, but nothing like what had been in the video. 

 So I thought maybe we would have more luck with the other salt.  So I dump that experiment in the sink, rinse out the jar and we try again.  Water, food coloring, green this time, oil, wait for it to settle and pour in the salt.  This time we get more bubbles, but still, not like what had been in the video.  Oh well, I guess it really does take Kosher salt to make a lava lamp.  Or I could just go plug up my old lava lamp I got when I was a teenager.

So when that didn't work I turned to Connor and said, "Let's make something I know will work: Instant Pudding". He like that idea too.  Of course he wanted to help with this 'experiment' as well!

 He dumped in the pudding.... (You can see our second lava lamp attempt sitting there too)

 Poured in the milk....

 And mixed it all together....

After we made the pudding, we had to lick the mixers, that's just part of making pudding.

We may not have gotten a home made lava lamp to work, but at least we got some good pudding out of it.  I love to do things with Connor and watch him learn how things work.  Sometimes, things don't work the way we expect them to.  All we can do when that happens is say oh well, and make some pudding!   I'm trying to teach Connor that sometimes it takes more than one try to get something right, and sometimes it's not going to work at all, but that's okay too.  As long as he tried.  

So all in all we've had a good day with lava lamps and chocolate pudding.   

Project: Chalkboard

Up-cycled Picture Frame into a Chalkboard

I've discovered the neatest product: Chalkboard Paint! How did I not know this stuff existed? And that I could buy it at Hobby Lobby? Honestly I did not know I could buy this and turn literally any surface into a chalkboard until I got on Pinterest.  Now I'm finding all these do-it-yourself projects using chalkboard paint. You can buy this in green and black.  At least, that's the two colors I saw at my local Hobby Lobby store.  The directions on the can make it very easy to use.  Shake the can, spray your surface, let it dry, spray it again for a chalkboard finish, give it 24 hours, and voila! Chalkboard! They're so reusable, and if it starts wearing out, you can resurface it with another coat of the paint!Some, not me, seem to think I'm a little obsessed with the chalkboard paint.  Simply because I see every surface as a potential chalkboard, like cabinets, walls, my fridge, I'm called obsessed.  I just don't get it.  

I've already completed one chalkboard project.  The idea came from here.  Understand, I'm a procrastinator.  Also my house eats paper and pens, and dishrags.  I can never find a dishrag to wash with when I need one! Anyways, since I can never remember to write things down right then, and since we never have paper or pens when we need them, I'm usually scrambling around the kitchen on grocery day trying to figure out what we're out of.  So this was one way to eliminate that.  Chalkboard paint on the inside of my cabinets.  Now when I reach in to get something and it's the last of it, I write on my cabinet door.  Then on grocery day, I hunt down a pad of paper my house missed and make my grocery list.  My pantry has three cabinets, one on top of the other, I painted all three doors on the inside.




For this project that I'm actually doing this blog about, I needed a fun potty training tool for Connor.  We've been doing the pull-ups and potty chair, and different things for about a year and he's still not consistent with it.  We tried different treats for peeing, pooing, and keeping his pull-up dry.  But once he learned he could have a piece of candy just for peeing, he was going all the time.  That was good and bad, cause now I was dealing with a three year old on a sugar rush! So we tried other, non-sugary treats, but he didn't like those, or we were running out too fast and having to buy them all the time.  I needed something non-expensive.
     I had seen different charts you could download and print out, but I thought, that's a lot of paper and printing.  I wanted something I could use over and over.  That's when the lightbulb went off over my head.  A chalkboard!! And I already had the chalkboard paint!  Now I just needed a surface.  This is where my borderline hoarding came in handy.  I dug around in my back closet and found an old picture frame I hadn't used since 2002.  It still had my high school graduation pictures in it.

So I took the pictures out, cleaned the glass with glass cleaner and started painting.

I let the first coat dry, it took maybe about ten to fifteen minutes.  During that time I busied myself by doing some laundry.  I'm sure there's an "as-fun-as-watching-paint-dry" pun in here somewhere.
Once it was dry, I sprayed on the second coat. And again with laundry.  After the second coat got good and dry I put it back in the frame.

When I was done I had a cute, framed chalkboard.
Right now I'm planning on using it for Connor's potty training, then probably Kenny's potty training, later on I plan on using it for something like a menu board in the kitchen, or a chore list for the kids.  There are endless possibilities.  I'm already looking for more unused frames I can turn into more chalkboards.  And if I can't find any more here, then look out thrift stores, here I come!

 I could put one in every room in the house!!

Kenny, the Baby

As I said in my last post, I miraculously survived my own childhood and became a mother myself.  It went so well the first time, we said "let's give Connor a sibling" and so now we have Kenny.  Kenny is now seven months old.  There's not a lot to say about him yet.  Although I believe he's going to be a whole different kind of handful than his brother already is.

Kenny was born about a week early.  But that's the only thing he's done early.  Everything else he doesn't do until he's good and ready.  It's really hard to keep to any kind of schedule with him because if he's not ready for his morning bottle, he refuses to take it.  If he's not ready to go to sleep for that much desired (by me) midday nap, he will just stare at me while I try to make him sleepy.  I could work with Connor, when I tried to give him a bottle a little early, he would take it, slowly, but he would take it.  Not Kenny.  He has actually thrown the bottle down as if to say "I'm not having it".  But when he decides he is ready for it, he lets me know by pretending he's starving to death and dying right in front of me.  If his meal is two seconds later then he thinks it should be he starts crying in a manner that would suggest I haven't fed the child for days.  And I know exactly where he gets all these characteristics from.  The impatience I must admit, comes from me.  The flair for the dramatics comes from my husbands mothers family, and the 'going-to-do-it-when-I'm-good-and-ready' comes from my mothers side. (She reads this blog, so I'm sure I'll get a phone call about that! heehee)

It's fun to watch him discover his likes and dislikes.  To watch a baby's personality emerge is an amazing thing.  I love giving him new foods.  The other night I tried him on some Gerber 2nd food Cheese and Macaroni,  I figured that had to be something he liked because I craved it while pregnant with him.  I was right.  He gobbled it down like it was going out of style.  If I was too slow getting the next bite to him, he'd lunge for the spoon himself.  Last night I tried him on Gerber 2nd food Chicken with Chicken Gravy.  He spit that out and wouldn't have anything to do with it.  I couldn't even airplane or choo-choo train it into his mouth.  Nope.  So we swapped to some veggies.

We have discovered he's a very jumpy little thing.  He can be looking right at us and if we make a sudden noise he'll jump two feet in the air.  Needless to say we've had a lot of fun with that! My dad thinks it's hilarious and tries to see how many times he can make him jump.  Kenny must think it's pretty funny himself because he laughs every time he jumps.  It's not hard to tell when he get genuinely scared.  He goes completely stiff and has this look of terror frozen on his face.  He won't breath for about four or five seconds and then wails.  That comes from my sister, I don't know how many of those roller-coaster snapshots we have where she's had that same frozen terror on her face.

Kenny is learning to crawl, which has been an interesting development.  He's been moving around, getting where he wants to go for about a month but is just now learning to crawl in the traditional sense.  He's been doing this inch worm thing for the past month.  He would get up on his hands and knees, push forward with his feet, and lunge to his belly.  He'd gain a few inches doing this.  He would do several of these in rapid succession and be across the living room  in no time.  But the other day he discovered he could pick his hand up.  For about two days he looked like was limping.  He'd do his knees forward, use the one hand like normal, then lunge to his belly.  But he's finally getting the hang of both hands.

From birth Kenny has been a pretty easy going baby.  We don't have to do anything more than look at him and he breaks out in the biggest grin.  It doesn't take much more than a silly face or noise to make him laugh.  Connor can get him to giggling hysterically.  I can't wait to see what other personality characteristics he develops as he gets older.  He's definitely going to be a sweet, loving boy.  I love both my boys so much and feel so blessed to have both of them and their daddy.

Connor, the Oldest

Since I never thought I would even make it to adulthood (I thought my own mother was going to kill me a few times during those teenage years, once in 8th grade for sure) being a mom myself seems a miracle.  It was hard to picture myself as a mom until I actually held that sweet baby in my arms.  I thought "I'm going to be the best mom to the best kid in the world!" Taking care of that precious child day after day, watching him sleep, learning to smile and coo, I thought there was no way this little boy could ever do anything wrong.  There would never be any reason for me to raise my voice at him, let alone spank him! He was just too sweet!

Well, he got older.  He's three now, and every bit of it! I'm not sure what happened to that sweet adorable baby I had three years ago.  He was replaced by an energetic, tantrum throwing, smartypants, monkey/boy hybrid thing!!  I wish I had half the energy he does.  He makes me tired just watching him.  Sometimes I have to just plop down on the couch and catch my breath, then realize I hadn't been exerting any energy.

I also had no idea a three year old could have such a smart little mouth on him! It doesn't help when his daddy is teaching him phrases like "That's how I roll" and "Chill out".  I didn't realize how many times a day I say "Stupid thing" when I get aggravated at something until he started calling his toys "stupid thing".  It's when he turns that smart mouth towards me or his daddy that he gets into trouble.  Telling me "No, I'm busy, you do it" when told to pick up his toys, or "Yea I can do it, it's making baby brother laugh" when told to stop a certain annoying or potentially harmful activity.  If I had a nickel for every time I said "stop, quit, get off that, get down from there, put that back, put that up, leave the dog alone, don't do that to your brother, don't throw that, what is that, what are you doing, I don't think so, hush," or some variation of any of those, I'd be rich.  And if I had another one for every time he had a smart remark to any one of those, we'd be living in the lap of luxury.

He's also at that age now where he thinks he can do everything himself.  Nothing makes me happier than to see him trying to put his shoes on by himself.  But then I hang my head in shame when the shoe goes flying across the room and Connor yelling stupid thing, when it didn't go on right the first time.  Unfortunately he gets the short temper from me.  So not only do I have to break him from throwing these fits, I have to break myself from them too.  It's not going to well.


Of course, nothing sets off my mom radar more than silence.  I remember my mom telling me that she always knew my sister and I were doing something we weren't supposed to when she didn't hear us.  When I can't hear Connor, I start preparing myself for a mess of epic proportions.  Like half a gallon of milk in the kitchen floor  because he was going to pour himself a drink, or melted scentsy wax splattered on the table, wall, and floor, because he discovered that stuff wasn't hot and fun to play in.  (Yes, these are actual messes I have cleaned up because I left him alone for two minutes)  And then there was the time I noticed he had my MP3 player, when I start toward him to take it away he took off running straight towards the bathroom.  Can you guess what happened next? I'll give you a hint: *splash* *flush* "hahaha" "NOOOO!" bye bye MP3 player.

And who knew little kids could turn into monkeys at will? I have seen him playing with things I know was put up out of his reach, and yet he still has it.  It started young.  He was a year and a half when he learned how to pull the dresser draw open and use it as a step to get to his daddy's change on top of the dresser.  Before his brother was born, he somehow climbed up into the crib and couldn't get out.  Climbing isn't the only way he imitates a monkey either.  There's the weird noises and a unique way he runs through the house that has me convinced he has monkey blood mixed with his DNA.  

Needless to say he can definitely get me going.  Never a dull moment with him.  And yet as bad as he can be, he can be just as sweet.  There's nothing more precious than we comes to me, puts his arms around my neck and says "I love you Momma."  Nothing brings tears to my eyes quicker then seeing him stand up in church and sing "The B-I-B-L-E" or "Zacchaeus Was A Wee Little Man".  Nothing is cuter than to see him playing with his little brother.  He likes to help me sometimes and although doing a chore with him helping usually takes longer to complete, it's good for him and fun to watch.



I wouldn't trade my Connor for any other little boy in the world.  I know he will be four soon and some of this typical three year old behavior will disappear and give way to new things, both good and bad.

I will definitely NOT have any illusions that his baby brother, who is learning to crawl, will be too sweet and precious to get into trouble.  Or any other babies we may have in the future.  I cherish these early days with my boys, soon they'll be going to school, having friends, learning to drive, graduating and heading off into their lives.  So while I have them here at home with me, I will hug them and kiss them and play with them and smother them and make sure they know how special they are to me and how lucky they are to have me and their daddy as parents!