Children's Books

I remember going to the library with my mom when I was little. Oh, the smell of the library and all of it's books! My mom would let me check out as many books as my little heart desired. I would always choose the books with the best covers! My mom is a huge book lover, and so am I. My children and I are frequent library visitors, and I love to read to my kids. Emily has always been a great listener, and now loves to read books to anyone who will listen. Laney is a bit more on the go, but also enjoys a great read. We will soon start reading to Henry. He is pretty laid back; therefore, I think he will have fun with books! Here are a few books that my family loves:

Favorite Baby Series: Anything by author Sandra Boynton. I love them all, but especially love these. My husband and I love the sing song words! My children love to sing song along as well!

Favorite Back To School Books:

Laney will be entering nursery school (two mornings a week), so I am going to give her this book the night before her first big day! The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn is one of my very favorite books! The main character is a raccoon named Chester who is not so ready for his first day of school. Laney loves the raccoons in our woods, and I think Chester may be one of them.

Is this Chester and his family?

Or maybe this is Chester and some friends?

Chester and some classmates?

(Yes, Chester etc. are at our house morning, noon and night!) There are more Chester books that are wonderful as well!

Emily will be entering the first grade, so I am going to give her this book the night before. This is a series by Barbara Park and Denise Brunkus. It reminds me of the Ramona series by Beverly Cleary. I have not read this series, but I know we will have fun reading it together.

Favorite Series Books:

1. We started reading chapter books to Emily when she was about 3 1/2. She would just sit and listen! Our first series books were Cobble Street Cousins by Cynthia Rylant and Wendy Anderson Halperin. Emily and Laney have two cousins right down the lane, so Emily could definitely relate to this. This is a very sweet and loving series, one of my favorites so far.

2. American Girl. We just finished this one and loved it. Great family books!

3. My mother in law is a middle school media specialist and just adores books. She wants to start Emily and her cousin, Megan, on this series. I read The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder as a girl and loved them!

Favorite MOM Books: A wonderful opportunity came along that I just couldn't pass up. It was a dream to illustrate my friend's mother's books! This past spring, Emily's kindergarten teachers asked me to come in and talk about illustrating books. Emily and my niece Megan were so proud of me and that meant the world to me. Emily now writes and illustrates her own books. I hope I am a good role model in this department.

Take a look at some of these books before school starts! A book is a great, great gift.

Shopping Bargains

Today, the children and I went here and scored some great deals!

School is starting in two weeks (gasp!); therefore, I bought the girls some cute tops ($8 each), madras shorts ($12 each), sleeveless tops ($6 each) and a ton, ton of GOLD TOE socks! (I always bought their socks at Gap, but lately I have had horrible results...they shrink terribly!) I even let Emily pick out some socks that had cute little eyelet ruffles around them. (She's such a girly girl!) It's always fun to add some great bargain pieces into the girls' wardrobes!

The girls were needing some new DVD's. Emily is getting out of cartoons, so we have been renting some great family DVDs from the library. Today, I got some super DVD deals! All were on sale and one even scanned in at $4! I got all of these for the price of one regular priced children's video. I will even watch these movies, especially Because of Winn Dixie because this guy sings in it! Oh, how I just love, love, love him!

I would like to go back and stock up on some DVDs! I'm thinking birthdays, Christmas, etc! :)

I only wear shorts at home, but will wear these chino style shorts all the time! Along with the shorts, I picked up a cute casual dress for $15! I don't care if these two items fall apart in another month or two, because I will be ready for fallwear! Finally, I got Duncan Hines white cake mix for 74 cents!!!!! WoW!

I was in LOVE with Target today! If you are looking for some fun bargains, run...don't walk to Target!

And...to top it off...at McDonald's (the girls' favorite, not mine) we received three large drinks instead of small drinks at no extra charge! Yeah for bargain day!

Eat 'Em Up, Eat Em Up...Rah, Rah, Rah

Food...

Like so many others, I have a love/hate relationship with food. I love it,but it doesn't love my thighs, etc. I love to cook and bake, but my results aren't what I intended... a few oops meals. So, here is a breakdown of this week's food week. As I said in this post, my husband helps me out in the food department. On Sunday, I write out our weekly menu then make our grocery list and attached coupons. Jon tackles the grocery (after work)on Monday. (I buy misc. and fresh meat at our local town grocery, also on Monday.)A list is great because I think it definitely saves money and I know that I have nightly meals for our family to sit down together to.

Here is this week's family menu (Yes, my children eat it all.)

Sunday: Beefy Potato Casserole, fresh sweet corn, tossed salad

Monday: Tuna Noodle Casserole, corn bread, fruit salad

Tuesday: Cubed Steaks, fresh sweet corn, yeast rolls

Wednesday: Baked Chicken with green beans red potatoes, tossed salad

Thursday: Taco Bar

Friday: ?

Saturday: ?

Sunday: Grilled Chicken Kabobs, salad or Sausage Egg Casserole, yeast rolls w/ cinnamon and sugar

I usually keep Fridays and Saturdays open, because we usually eat out or are not home. I also make one evening a very easy meal night (like Taco Bar). Yes, sometimes my meals do change throughout the week, depending on how busy the day is. Also, I usually bake one dessert a week. This week's dessert...Buttermilk Breakfast Cake with Buttermilk-Vanilla Glaze!

Here are a few of my week's recipes:

Beefy Potato Casserole: (original recipe from my sister, but I've changed it.)

1 # lean beef

1/3 onion diced (I use my Cuisinart)

1 can cream of chicken

1/2 can milk

1 bag shredded cheese

instant mashed potatoes (box)

** I always add green beans (1 can) and corn (1 can) to this mix as well!

1. brown beef and add onions.

2. Once beef is finished, add cream of chicken and milk. Stir together. (Add green beans/corn too if you desire.)

3. Meanwhile, make mashed potatoes as instructed on box (I usually make enough for 6)

4. pour meat mixture into a greased (Pam) 8x8 baking dish

5. pour cheese on top and spread around evenly

6. Add potatoes on top of cheese and spread around evenly

7. Bake 350 for about 30 minutes

Buttermilk Breakfast Cake (from Southern Living)

1 box of white cake mix

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup melted butter

5 large eggs

3 Tbsp. light brown sugar

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

shortening (I use Pam)

1 Tbsp. granulated sugar

1. preheat oven to 350. Beat first 3 ingred. at medium speed with an electric mixer until thoroughly blended. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition

2. stir together brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl

3. grease a 12 cup Bundt pan with shortning (Pam); sprinkle with 1 Tbsp. gran. sugar

4. spoon 1/3 of batter into prepared pan; sprinkle brown sugar mix evenly over batter, top with remaining batter

5. bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until a long wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Cool cake in pan on a wire rack 15 min; remove from pan to wire rack, and cool 20 min. Drizzle Buttermilk-Vanilla Glaze over warm cake.

Buttermilk-Vanilla Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar

1 Tbsp. melted butter

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 to 2 Tbsp. buttermilk

1. Stir together first 3 ingred. and 1 Tbsp. buttermilk until smooth, adding additional 1 Tbsp. buttermilk if necessary, for desired consistency.

Sausage Egg Casserole:

8 eggs

1 cup shredded cheese

2 cups milk

6 slices bread

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. mustard

1 # sausage (roll of it)

1. Cook and drain sausage.

2. Beat eggs, add milk, salt and mustard.

3. Cube bread and stir into milk mixture. Add cheese and sausage.

4. Bake 45 min. @ 350 in 9x13 sprayed (Pam) pan

What is your staple dish? I'd love to get new ideas!

Tour of Homes

Today, six of us got together to tour each other's homes! We planned this earlier in the summer, so we all had time to prep and stage our houses! :) Here we are at my house: me (holding Henry), Jon's grandma, Jon's mom Kathi(with Laney), Kathi's friend Karen, and Karen's mom. My SIL also showed her home.

My parents came over to watch the children while I toured, which was wonderful! I was the next to last tour; therefore, I only have pictures of Karen's beautiful home. Hopefully, I will get some pictures of the other gals' houses...very lovely!
Karen loves the color purple and her style is very contemporary. She has a lot of white and glass in her home. Here is her fireplace. It's all mirrored! You can see the rest of the room in the reflection.
Here is a side table by her entry way. I love this piece of art! It has glitter laced throughout. All of her accessories have shades of purple.
Karen also prepared a fantastic lunch(chicken pasta salad, watermelon salsa, spinach strawberry salad and cheesecake...YUM)! Here is her beautiful table! Her glasses and placemats are such a great shade of purple! Her great dishes even have purple swirled throughout! I love this light and airy look!
Our tour of homes was a lot of fun! All of our homes are such different styles, but it's great to get ideas from others. I definitely came home inspired. Now, if I were to start from scratch, here's exactly, exactly, exactly what I would want: white, shades of grey, traditional...these photos are perfect to me! PERFECT!
This first photo is from another blogger on my sidebar, but I have no idea who...speak up if you posted this oh-so-amazing photo! I've looked at it 1,000 times!

I immediately fell head over heels for this next house. To see more pictures, go here. This is a fabulous post from a great blog(and I have seriously looked at these photos like 1million times! I've checked out every detail. Every little one! YUM!)

Touring homes was super! I enjoyed having a girl's afternoon! Off to eat bon bons and look through home decor magazines now that my house is clean! :) Happy Tuesday!

Boy Oh Boy Canvas Art

I always say that Henry is like a campfire because I can just sit and watch both for hours. While endlessly watching Henry, I wonder what kind of art he will eventually like. Here are some pieces that I've made for different clients who have, you guessed it...little boys.

This little transportation set was fun! I added some brown felt for dirt and puffy paint detail on the wheels and other parts as well.

This is another truck set that matched some Potterybarn bedding that the client provided. The puffy paint detail was fun! I attached a blue ribbon for each canvas.

Here's a baseball piece that was painted to match a little boy's room!

A family friend has a son who is involved in many sports. This is a 30x40 piece for his room!
I added some black puffy paint detail (on his name, the golf clubs and stitching) which made some of it just pop out!
This baseball jersey was painted for the same room I added real buttons!
Raggedy Andy...such a classic! His sister, Raggedy Ann, looks just as lovely! Andy has hand sewn red thread hair and a hand sewn bow tie and real buttons.

This artwork was painted for a little boy who loves car racing and his dog! I added some black felt for the dog's eyes and nose. Puffy paint adds a touch of texture! I made a little banner to go under this piece! (I hung it on my dresser drawers for a picture--hence the knob under the art!)The little boys' room colors are red, white, yellow and green!
Finally, what little boy (or in my case...little girls down our lane) doesn't like frogs? I added google eyes to make this little guy extra fun!

Hopefully, Henry will enjoy art as much as I do. I think his choices are going to be more on the rock-n-roll, skater, pirate style! (His mama will cross her fingers! Ha!)

*All artwork custom. Prices depend on the size of desired piece.

Raggedy Andy in stock (11x14...$30)

Barn Party

Last night, our friends down the road had a barn party! This was our first barn party, so we were quite excited. All of the guests were local, and we knew most of them (and get together with a lot of them as well)! Even most of the children already knew each other!

The girls had a lot of fun on the trampoline! This was their first time on one!

There was a carry in dinner, and WOW...there was a ton of yummy food! I made mini turkey and cheese sandwiches (on Hawaiian bread rolls) and a cheese, cracker and grape platter for the kids. It was a hit! I will make a note to do something like this for the children again!

While we ate, the live band started to play! How festive! Henry enjoyed the music, but then actually took a nap while the band played!

There was some unexpected entertainment as well! One gal (with the band) started to do palm readings! I didn't get mine done but wish I would have! :) Also, this dog was everywhere...eating, dancing, taking pictures! All of the kids adored him! Smile! After dinner, the kids decided to try out the slip and slide! The girls loved it! Here's Emily in action! Emily and cousin Megan.

Here are some of my mommy friends. We all have kids going into the 1st grade and initially bonded over that! We get together for Mom's Night Out, which is always so much fun!
As the sun went down, the barn lit up! The girls and I showed some of our dance moves! Emily just loved dancing with me! Laney decided to go play flashlight tag after dancing, but Emily and cousin Madison danced to the beat!

Henry even got out on the dance floor! I love this picture of my friend Laurie dancing with Henry. (Laurie and I used to teach together and her husband helped build our home!)

After a super night of playing, visiting, singing, dancing and eating...we were all ready to head back down the road...to our beds! Here are the girls under the twinkle lights that lined all of the trees! There were rows and rows of them! It was so beautiful! It was extremely dark and I could not see very well when I took this picture. A little boy came behind me and scared Laney (and her purse)! Ha!

Our first barn party was super! If you haven't, I highly suggest a summer barn party!