It's My Life

It has only been five months since this guy came to live with us. He was so tiny when he came to us. He has certainly gained some weight. He is six months old now. Despite his cuteness he really is very ornery.  I often find myself thinking, " I can't wait till he grows out of this stage so maybe he will be more cuddly."  We have started to let him roam around outside. It has truly helped his disposition. I am going to try and stop wishing his life away.

It is the weekend.  I love the weekend. I love carving out some downtime. It helps me to recover from the crazy fast-paced days of the work week. No alarm clocks. No deadlines. I actually look forward to some morning television, a luxury I absolutely do not get during the work week. However; my daughter has a completely different plan. From the minute her eyes pop open she is on the go. She has to talk out loud. Sing. Dance; even while lying down. Her imagination needs no priming. Unfortunately it does need an audience. So, here we are...up early. She is peppy and I am disgruntled. I just really want coffee and she wants macaroni art. She wins. For the first time ever, we dyed macaroni. It is pretty easy.  I liked that most of the supplies needed were found in my kitchen. That was helpful as The Husband was upstairs still sleeping.  The Short Chic liked this activity because she was able to do nearly everything herself. She added the food coloring to the macaro...

I love Halloween! I love trick or treating!  I love seeing children all dressed up excited to be receiving candy. The Short Chic's school hosted a Trunk or Treat and we volunteered to host a trunk. My kids are slightly obsessed with Minions so we decided to use them as our theme. I have been busy making decorations for the past week. I even painted. Which is something I do not consider myself good at. I also made our costumes. Here is a photo of our completed trunk: I painted a tri-fold black poster board with white paint. It was my attempt to make it look like a chalkboard. I painted mathematical problems, diagrams of weapons, and sketches of Minions.  In front of the chalkboard we hung an old window. I painted a Minion on the window and hung a cute rag tie banner in Halloween colors. The finishing touch for me was to paint and make a Minion treat bucket. Honestly, I did not even notice that I forgot his mouth until I was home looking at the photos! No on...

We did a little updating this weekend. We bought a new outside light. Then we spray pained our house numbers. They were tarnished brass. Now they are black.

The question at this year's Family Camp-Out was: How many ways can you fix a hot dog on a campfire? We had some fun answering that question! First: The Traditional Roasted Hot Dog There is absolutely nothing wrong with a hot dog cooked on a stick over a fire. The cooker gets to control how cooked the dog gets. I personally prefer mine with a fine coating of burnt!  This is how my daughter prefers her hot dog with a little ketchup and some chips. She is happy as can be! Second: The Campfire Corn-Dog Oh, this was new to us all. We all know corn-dogs are deep fried in oil. But, I wondered, can you cook them on the campfire? We purchased a few of those campfire pie makers and I honestly thought maybe...just maybe you could make corn dogs in them. We used Jiffy Corn Meal Mix, which was easy enough to mix up at the campsite.  I started by cutting up the hot dog. Then adding the corn meal mix.  Then we put the pie iron in the fire, ...

 Today, we celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary. My husband will tell you all we have only been dating six months. He never lets the truth get in the way of his story! Six years ago we merged and created our blended family.  I am not gonna lie to you all, it has not been all roses. Merging a family is hard work. There have been some thorns. But we faced them together and have come out stronger. Six years of feeling like the luckiest woman in the world. The year before we met, I had my palms read. The reader told me I would met my life partner and we would travel together. I wonder if  our little pop-up camper is what she had in mind?  I don't know about him, but I look forward to the next six years.  Our oldest will be finishing college. Our youngest starting middle school. Our lives are always moving so fast. The Boy is not with us this weekend so the Husband gave me my anniversary present early so the whole family could be...

Last year's camp t-shirts were a reverse tie-dye using bleach. They were a huge hit!  You can check them out  here . This year I decided to do some tie-dying using spray bottles.  I spent an entire Saturday using my Cricut to cut out the letters C-M-P. I used the Going Places cartridge to cut a pup-tent out to use instead of the A.  In preparation for the big day I purchased several inexpensive spray bottles to put the dye into. My plan was to adhere the letters to white t-shirts, use the spray bottle to add color and then remove the letters to reveal white letters surrounded by dyed shirts.  It was a good plan, too. I am positive it would have worked. In fact, I know it would have. If I had not forgotten the letters at home and forgot to take them to the campsite.  By the time I realized I didn't have the letters it was too late to run home and get them. A back-up plan was needed.  My back-up plan was to just let the kids hav...

A while back I purchased a set of metal stamps from Pick Your Plum. {Are you a registered Plumster? You really should be!}  The Second Annual Family Camp-Out finally gave me an opportunity to use my metal stamps. The first craft at this years camp-out was to stamp metal and make necklaces. We made  Wood Chip Necklaces  and they were a big hit. I hoped the campers would enjoy metal stamping just as much. These necklaces were pretty easy to make; even the youngest children had fun making them. We started off with a washer. I bought an entire package of them for less than $4.00 that had enough washers in it for the entire group. The first step is taking a hammer and your metal stamps and "stamping" your word onto the metal by hammering the stamp. It only took about three/four strikes to do the job. I found if you hammered more then the stamp went through to the other side. Alignment and spelling are your two biggest obstacles at this point! At the c...