Goofy Little Pup

We were worried about JonJon adjusting to being with out my Mom but looks like he is feeling quite at home.

Lazy Afternoon

We just love lazy afternoons in this house. Find time to take a nap, snuggle with the loved ones, play with the kids. Here is a small glimpse into our lazy afternoons...





Wish every day could be like this!

Almost 7

I can't believe our "baby" is almost 7 yrs old. She is just 13 days away from turning the big 7. This year she has chosen to accept $100 in cash to spend rather than a birthday party. We decided to do some casual pics and they turned out great! We still need to get her Birthday outfit and do some official Birthday pictures which yes I am late on this year but what's the rush right?







She is such a Bright and Charming little girl, couldn't of asked for a better gift.

Happy Birthday to ME

My daughter is so sweet and thoughtful. She made this for me a day early!


have to love children's eagerness for Birthdays



I heart my Children!

I heart books

It's so hard to find the time to read these days. So when I do read it's usually something frivolous for me. Something I really enjoy. These aren't all the books I have sitting around the house but the ones I plan on finishing within the next couple months =)

Bed time giggles

I just love how close my three kids are. They make me so thankful that not only we have 3 beautiful healthy children, which we are truly blessed with, but having them just shy of two years apart was a great choice. It was what worked for us and turning out to be all that we hoped for. I am hoping and wishing with all my might they stay as close when they are adults as they are now.



This is Caleb hiding from her dear Mother who wants some pics lol



With lots of night time giggles they finally settled down and went to sleep

Cupcakes anyone?

Well I will be honest I was craving cupcakes. So I get some ingredients together at the store and completely realized I forgot oil...So I am searching the internet since I had no desire to go back out and found some substitutes...Boy I am so glad I ran out oil! I made amazingly moist cupcakes with Vanilla Coke Zero!

AWESOME!

I also made my own frosting although it called for plain powder non creamer again this is where laziness kicked in. The frosting is more on the vanilla caramel side since that is what I had LOL. Lessoned Learned but they are still yummy!


Now I have a pic of the diet coke can. You can use it as well. It's one full can to replace the oil. The batter does come out a little thinner but does bake up nicely.


I had an amazing sue-chef


The batter tasted pretty good too lol


He did all the mini cupcakes


He loves helping me bake!


Ready to put them in the oven!


They look DELICIOUS!


These are the regular sized ones
The batter made 2 dozen regular sized
and 2 dozen mini's




Frosted


Nice and Fluffy!

Dr. Evil is his name

I should of known better that when I convinced the boys to get their face painted at our school spirit night that this other personality "Dr. Evil" would appear lol. Andrew did NOT want to get his face painted he was absolutely positive NO fun could come of it. Boy was he WRONG. After much poking that he should go get a goatee (his fathers idea) he decided to do his OWN thing lol. Boy was it a lot of laughs.

Now at first he only had a stash then he went back and added crazy eye brows and a devious mole as he called it.



" I am Dr. Evil. I steal all the pretty ladies with my good looks"



Man I love this kid!

Laundry Anyone

For the last several months I have been supporting Etsy members and buying deliciously smelling laundry soaps that were home made. Well since I am doing laundry daily and what always seems like a 24/7 cycle I decided to save me some money and the anticipation of having to wait on the mail man I would make my own! I gathered up all the ingredients and yesterday I bought scented oils so my next batch I can try and make nom nom smelling. The detergent works great! And it works out to be about .01 cent per load! Can't beat that now can you!
Recipe:
1 cup borax
1 cup WASHING soda
(not baking soda!!!)
1 bar of fels Naptha soap or Ivory


some ingredients


Finished product
No its not macaroni noodles (Erin)
or Frosted flakes (Vanessa) lol. You take the bar of soap and you can chop it with a food processor OR you can grate it. Being I no longer own a processor I simply just grated it.


and in the washer it went

Disney Sneak Peek

Our Oldest
Where does the time go? He is so handsome



Caleb looking so sweet



Miss Elora our Spunky one

Two posts in one Day

=Just a little sharing going on=

I made some soap scrubbers for Mark to try out for his deployment. If they work out he can take a few to have at some luxury items when he is gone.



Trying this out with a Dennis Anderson home made soap scented in a Chai tea


the soap actually in the scrubber

It's been a while

Yup it has "truly" been a while since I last posted. Looks like October of LAST year! Wow! So much has happened since then. Lots of change in coming in this New Year. Sadly we are already into March 2011. Nuts huh! On our list of things happening...

-Birthday season is quickly arriving starting with mine...
March 22nd- moi
April 4th- Mark
April 9th- Elora's turning 7 *WHAT!!!!*
April 28th- Caleb's turning 9 *yikes*
May 17th- my Mom's
June 10th- Andrew's big 11

I have a few tricks up my sleeve for Mark's birthday none of which I can reveal here on this blog, but be on the look out for some pics when the time arrives.

Back to my list of things going on this year!

- Mark is deploying to Afghanistan in September of this year. He got his official IA orders and definitely not looking forward to him leaving for 350 days. It's quite depressing really.

- getting our 4th bedroom turned into a Guest room rather than the shameful messy room no one is allowed to see.

- Spring pictures of the kids and soon family pictures.

- Mark's Mother coming to visit in July for a while.

- Mark's birthday surprise

- 12 yr wedding anniversary in August

- I was elected VP for our school's PTA for the up coming 2011-2012 school year (yikes)!

- Going on a birthday get away with just my hunny!

- Going on a week long anniversary get away (destination still unknown - we haven't decided exactly where we are going ALONE but talks of Key West have been mentioned).

- Lots of weekends to Orlando to use our Disney World Passes and Universal Studio passes!

- Maybe heading to Tampa to celebrate a sweet little girl's birthday.

-Spring break relaxing and having some fun, oh and LOTS of sleeping in!

- Bestie coming to stay with us before she moves to VA.

- Thanksgiving in VA to visit the bestie and her handsome boys
since her husband will also be gone.

- Picture opportunities in VA with the one and only thing I missed- their fall season. Beautiful.

- Working on getting better at portrait photography

- Christmas with my husband before he leaves officially.

- Christmas with my Mom to help the holiday go a little quicker.

I'm sure there is more but not that I can think of right this second. I need to figure out how to resize some pictures to post here since we just did a great week long Disney World Vacation.

Until next time-

Much Love and happiness,
Michelle