{ Kelcey is one of the best party throwers I know!  She has some amazing ideas so we are thrilled to have her guest post for us!  Hopefully we can get her to post more of her ideas in the future!   -Jamie }

Our good friends (and former neighbors in London last year) H and S are having a baby girl next month!  I decided on a “fiesta” theme for the shower because S’s family is from Mexico and bright colors inside are a cheery contrast with the grey winter outside.

Since H and S live about an hour away, we hosted the shower in the “common room” at their apartment complex.

FOOD

Heavy appetizers are perfect for an afternoon shower.  Mini snacks in cute cups and bowls made munching easier, less messy, and fun.  Since H and S are healthy eaters I did my best to make it a menu they would approve.

Shredded chicken and carne asada quesadilla bites were a big hit.  To make them easy to eat on a small party plate, I used a colorful mini fork or cactus toothpick ($0.99 for 25 at Oriental Trade) in each bite.

Mini fiesta fruit salads add a tropical, sweet kick: chopped mango, papaya, kiwi, and fresh mint tossed in orange juice.  (The fresh mint is the secret ingredient).  I found these cute spoons and mini cups/cupcake wrappers at ShopSweetLulu.com, my favorite party accessory website.  I like to get one or two cute, original items from the site to mix in with my Costco/Target finds.

Mini corn and black bean salads with basil lime vinaigrette.  I love Giada’s recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/corn-and-black-bean-salad-with-basil-lime-vinaigrette-recipe/index.html

A salsa bar is essential to any fiesta… and always seems to become the center of the room when there is guacamole involved!  I picked up three kinds of salsa, fresh chips, and guacamole at my favorite Mexican restaurant and filled colorful bowls.  I had the bright place mats from a recent trip to Mexico and the red plastic table cover left over from Christmas.  The mini maracas are from Oriental Trade, recycled from another fiesta party.  For the chips in the center, I used a pink basket from the dollar bin at Target and added a few pieces of natural brown tissue paper to help absorb some of the grease from the warm, fresh chips.  You could use any colorful containers you have on hand.

DRINKS

Jarritos (Mexican sodas) from Shoppers and raspberry and mandarin orange Vintage seltzer water.  I love that the blue vintage cans had polka dots to match the pink polka dot paper straws and napkins.

GAMES & DECORATIONS

I placed colorful sombreros around the room on chairs, filling the dual purpose of decorations and fun party picture accessories.  The boys helped me hang some fiesta bunting and pom poms before the guests arrived.

We also played two games: “Baby Shower Price Is Right” and “Guess How Many Diapers.”

For the winners, I wrapped up (clear cello and pink polka dot ribbon) cute bottles of OPI “It’s A Girl!” pink nail polish.  (There was also one for H, the guest of honor).  Everyone else snacked on pink “It’s A Girl!” Hershey kisses.

Since H worked at a hair salon in London, we also made hair accessories for Baby S. The girls had so much fun getting creative with glue guns, ribbon, buttons, and hair elastic.  H went home with an armful of cute hair bands, bows, and clips for Baby S made with love.

Then we opened gifts.  I think sometimes gift opening can drag on at showers, so the giver of each gift said something nice about “why H would be a great mom.”  This gave H a little pep talk and reminded her how fantastic she is.

FAVORS: MEXICAN HOT CHOCOLATE CONES

Since it is still winter after all, Mexican hot chocolate was my first thought for a cold weather fiesta favor.  Hot chocolate cones are an inexpensive and super easy take-home treat.  Here’s what you need to make 25 hot chocolate cones:

• 50 clear cone shaped cello bags (Hobby Lobby, $1.99)
• Small, clear hair elastics
• Ribbon, twisty ties, or string– whatever best fits with your event theme
• Toppings — sprinkles, mini marshmallows, cinnamon sticks, M&Ms… anything you like!  I used mini marshmallows and sprinkles.
• Hot chocolate mix
• Stickers or favor tags.  I ordered personalized event stickers online, but you could also easily make your own or use a sticker.

Just fill the cone cello bags (be sure to use two bags per cone to prevent leaks) about two-thirds full with hot chocolate powder.  Then add marshmallows and sprinkles.  Tie off the bags with a small, clear hair elastic.  Tie the ribbon over the elastic and add your sticker or favor tag.  Fast, easy, cute, and delicious!

Group photo

S came by after the shower was over for a quick picture with H.  We can’t wait to meet Baby Olivia!

 

Below, I’m linking to three Easter crafts and two yummy treats. Easter is right around the corner (March 31), so live it up before it gets here!

I just think this craft is so adorable.  It would even make a great party favor with some candy in it!

 

Check out this Bunny craft!

 

Click here to find out how to make this yummy popcorn cake!

 

This is such a fun way for kids to learn words that rhyme and how to sound out different words!  Check it out!

 

Look at these adorable little nests for candy eggs!

 

I just posted this two weeks ago, but it’s a good chance to pull out all those craft supplies!

It’s amazing how quickly the holidays come and go the older you get.  I feel like I get so caught up in time (and possibly the fact that I’m 29 weeks pregnant) that I forget to do things with my kids.  I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter!

We have had a busy week!  We went to the beach earlier this week.  I think my three year old scratched his eye rubbing it with sand.  You know how the little ones get the sand all over their hands and then rub their face?!?!!

By Thursday we were in the doctor’s office to have it looked at and found out it he also has an ear infection.  Poor little guy.  My husband is out of town (has been for 4 out of the last 6 weeks).  It has been a bit overwhelming to say the least.

Did I mentioned I just found that my dog has been laying in the Florida grass and despite us treating the grass and treating her, she has fleas?  Fun.  So I have been bathing her, washing her and everything else I can think of to make this better while dealing with sick kids, a huge research project from my 2nd grader, 3 sports games and practices each week, while the 3 boys and I stay in a two bedroom one bathroom house with my sister’s family of 5… all without backup with my husband out of town for work so much lately.

Have I mentioned that my 7 year old likes to do things like this:  (Be aware this video makes most mommies panic)

Casey Climbing a Palm Tree from Danny Hinckley on Vimeo.

I know this post feels like such a downer, but looking on the bright side I found this very inspiring article written by a mother of 8 boys.  That is not a typo… she has 8 boys.  Anyway, she wrote this article about how she keeps it together in times of being overwhelmed.  I thought I would share it in case anyone else is having a week, month, or year like me. 😉

It is a fabulous article called Dear Overwhelmed Mother of Little Ones by Brandy over at theMarathonmom.com.

I know this is all temporary, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t hard.  Thanks for your article Brandy.

The moms that don’t stay at  home might not ever want to after reading this.

Here’s how my day went today.  It usually goes at this pace pretty much every day.  I hope I don’t scare anyone away from having kids!

7:45: Wake up courtesy of my 3 year old…. Before you judge me, wait until you see the rest of my day BEFORE you wonder why I get up so late.  Real story is that Ella has school on Mon/Wed/Fri so we all sleep in a little on Tues/Thurs.  She’s ready to get going.  I go downstairs and get the coffee going and tell her to let the pups out.  I feed them and get bfast going.  Breakfast is no joke in the Patterson house.  See below.

While I’m scarfing down food, I get some news in.  Hooray for Robin Roberts being back!  Followed by this, I fold some towels and took the laundry upstairs that I folded yesterday.

After we eat bfast, I go upstairs and get ready for the gym, make bed, put laundry away, iron my 3 year old’s shirt (crazy I know, but it takes less than a minute and looks SO much better) and lay her clothes out for her to get dressed.  By this time, it’s 9:00.

I have to wake my 1 year old up.  She went to bed at 7:30 last night.  Such a sleeper/grower.  I take her downstairs, change diaper and throw the girls laundry in.

She eats bfast (real fast) while I get Ella dressed and iron her shirt.  I get her dressed, pack a snack and we head out to library.  It’s 10 am by this point.  We finally get ready to get out the door to the library for some new books to take to Grandma and Papa’s this weekend.

We get to the gym around 10:50 and I’m on the treadmill by 11:05.  I s-l-o-w-l-y get my 3 miles in.  Hey, better than nothing right?!  My stomach is getting more and more in the way.

I pick up girls from childcare and head home for lunch.  We get home around 12:20.  I threw the girls clothes in dryer and all of our jackets in the washer (they were a little too much on the dirty side), made lunch, did dishes and ran dishwasher.

We read some library books and I put Anna down for a nap around 1:30.  Unfortunately my 3 year old doesn’t nap unless I want her up until at least 10 pm.  So, I have to try to entertain her and get things done at the same time.  I took a shower while she played with magnets and colored.  She came upstairs bored at the end of my shower- go figure right?!   No time for drying hair and forget make-up.  I threw some clothes on, put darks in the washer, got out her puzzles, folded their laundry and she helped me pack their bag for their grandparents house this weekend.  I kind of multitasked by packing the clothes that I just folded.  I probably could have found some cuter outfits to pack, but this was easy and convenient AND I didn’t have to put most of them away.  My butt felt oh so good to sit down and fold laundry.

Next, my toenails needed some help so I painted both of ours along with doing a couple of thank you cards for the people that made me feel special on Sunday for turning dirty 30.  I let Ella help with the cards.  She put letter stickers on them (learning letters right?!?!).  I’m afraid this is the last time my belly allows me to paint my toes.

Right after finishing up our toes, Anna woke up around 4.  I got them a snack and put the dishes away in the dishwasher while they ate and watched Barney.

After this, we went down to the basement so they could play and I could yet again fold a load of laundry.  I folded while they jumped in the bounce house.  They had just enough bounce house when I had two pieces of laundry to fold (never a dull moment).  We also played dress up and play-doh.

After killing time til dinner in the basement, Brian finished work.  I sent asked him nicely to go upstairs and put the new baby’s dresser together, I’m such a wonderful wife.  I got the girls and myself some dinner.

When dinner was over, Anna said she poo poo’d.  I took them upstairs and gave them a bath and got them ready for bed.

While they watched a show in my bed, I put laundry away and then clipped their nails.  We also gave our small dog a bath.  Finally, they were ready for books and bed.  I was done with this around 8:00.  I came downstairs and put some orders in for a catalog party and then started this post.  It’s now 11 pm and I still need to finish picking up the house and would love to put the baby’s clothes in her new dresser that I washed.  Maybe I will get to bed by midnight!

Anyone wanna say that stay at home moms are lazy?  I do believe that I could sit around and let my kids watch shows or movies all day, but for my sanity and theirs, we like to get out of the house and do fun things.  Not all days are this crazy busy, but most days add some sort of craziness!  There are some days when I wish I could go back to work and get a break from the home life, then I quickly realize that life is too short to not enjoy every minute I can with my kids.

A couple of things to take note of:

• I did not sit down all day unless I was scarfing (literally) food down OR folding laundry.
• I did not have any other adult interaction (barely any with my husband either).
• When I was folding laundry, I was either singing or trying to make conversation with the girls.
• There were several things that I didn’t get to that I should have – i.e. call doctor about them not filing insurance on a claim.  ugh.
• Forget a phone conversation or fun internet breaks today.
• I’m leaving for Florida for 4 days in 2 days, I have yet to pack a thing for us.
• I love my friends, I really do and I know one day they’ll understand why I’m so MIA all the time.

There you have it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last November my 2nd grader set a goal to memorize all this multiplication tables.  He memorized them in order until he had memorized all the way up to 12!  We told him when he started that we would all go out to ice cream once he memorized them all.

Read this article on How to Teach your Child Multiplication to see how he studied and learned all his tables!

He worked so hard and was proud to have an ice cream party in his honor!  We all went to Friendly’s and invited Aunt’s, Uncles, and Cousins to come along!

 

 

 

 

Winter can seriously peace out.  I’M OVER IT!!!!  While being stuck in the house today, my 3 year old and I made this cute bunny that I found here:

All you need is:

Plus, you’ll need some scissors and a hot glue gun.  So simple to make, yet so adorable!

After this, I just got out a bunch of craft things and just kind of let her go at it creatively on a new paper bag.  She loved it!  Happy Easter, a little early!

Spaghetti squash is so yummy and can be cooked so many different ways!  We have been cutting down on carbs lately and trying to eat more veggies!  Spaghetti squash is a great carb substitute!  We regularly use it in place of pasta in our spaghetti.  So yum!

This recipe has been floating around pinterest lately so I decided to give it a try.  I did change it up a bit to take the carbs out.  The original recipe is made with flour and milk.  I did like the dish, however, if I made this again I wouldn’t bake it.  I would just cover it in parmesan cheese and eat it!

 

 

 

I try to use the No Sodium salt and smart balance butter when I am cooking.  It is much healthier.  I also opted for the 99% fat free chicken broth.  It all gets mixed in together and tasted great.  My uncle would laugh at this, but he is the one who introduced me to the No Sodium salt.  He calls it the “girl salt.”  We use to eat dinner with him all the time when we lived out west and he would always say, “Please pass the girl salt.”  It always made me laugh!

 

 

 

 

 

I haven’t written much on here about my resolution, only because I think it might be a kind of odd or even vein {sort of???} resolution.  The whole healthy and super active lifestyle option was out the window since I’m pushing 6 months pregnant.  So, I took the make-me-feel-good-while-I’m-getting-fat approach.  I chose to keep my nails pretty, nicely filed and chip free!

So, now that we are getting closer to spring (adios winter!!!), I am going to show some you of my favorite spring nail colors!  I think OPI strikes again, their colors are amazing and last for so long.  Here’s what I’ve chose.

My fave is You’re Such A Budapest.

Next, I love this sexy blue color: Can’t Find My Czech Book.  It is kind of the same tone as Budapest, but I just love the blue!

I also love this because I think it will look awesome with tan fingers: Oy Another Polish Joke

AND This one is also just so classy!  Such a pretty pink color: Suzi’s Hungary Again.

Lastly, I’m so excited to try this simple, elegant color: My Vampire is Buff

I’m for sure buying all of these!  Let me know if you have any favs, I would love to try more.

 

Trying to be active as a family can be daunting!  I have not been great at it in the past, but have set my goals much higher this year!  Previously, we would all work on being active on our own;  I would take kickboxing and zumba classes at the gym, Danny would run, and the kids would play sports during different seasons.  It isn’t that we dont still do these things on our own, because we absolutely do, it’s just that now we would like to also incorporate having active lifestyles into our family activities as well.

It takes more effort and planning, but is way more fun and rewarding!  We have made a lot of changes to how we spend our free time and you can to!  It doesn’t matter how old or young your kids are.  These ideas will work for all families with old and young kids alike!

1.  Sign up for a race.  Start off easy, like the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving or another 5k or shorter.  Have your kids train with you!  My kids loved wearing a kids pedometer as they ran/walked.  It was still a bit hard on my five year old so he road his scooter beside us as we trained.  Fun and non competitive races are great for younger kids and for getting started.

We just ran the Color Me Rad Run this past weekend.  They have these all over the country.  They basically spray or throw paint at you as you run by so at the end of the race you are tie-dyed!  The kids loved it!  It was very laid back as far as the run goes.  It wasn’t timed, it was just a good time out getting exercise with the family.  There were lots of kids and even parents pushing strollers.

 

 

2.  Plan active things to do on the weekends.  Instead of the usual dinner and/or movie, we try to plan more active outings.  We go to the beach, the pool, hiking, fishing, roller skating, ice skating, the park, the zoo, camping, bowling, … it doesn’t matter as long as it is an activity that keeps your family having fun and on their feet.  It was hard to detour from our typical weekends of eating out and sitting at movies.  We still do these things from time to time, but as a general rule we try to make more ACTIVE plans.

3.  Invite friends over to play games rather than just to eat and sit around.  Meet at a park or plan to be in the backyard playing wiffle ball.  Set up a slip’n slide for the kiddos to play on while you BBQ.  We recently went to our church with some friends in the evening when there were no other activities going on and played freeze tag using the entire building where  adults and kids together would run, hide, and take turns being it.  It was a blast!  Even my three year loved it… he thought he was pretty cool going and unfreezing all the big kids!

4.  Get a basketball hoop!  This is a great way to have something active to do each night!  It doesn’t count if you just send your kids out there to shoot hoops (not that there is anything wrong with this).  The goal is to be active as a family, so go out there and play some HORSE and elimination with the kiddos.  We even set up a mini Little Tikes hoop for our three year right next to the big hoop so he can be part of the game too!

5.  Support your kids in their own sports!  We try to have each of our three boys pick a sport to sign up for each season (as much as funds permit).  We bring the entire family to each game to watch and cheer as much as possible.  Sometimes their games overlap and we have to split up, but more often than not we spend our Saturday mornings going from one game to the next.  It is really important that the kids know we feel what they are doing is important and that we are all there to watch and support their hard work!

6.  Take walks or go on a bike ride after dinner.  This is hit or miss for us because we often have practices on weeknights, but we love to just walk around the neighborhood and talk while the boys ride their bikes beside us.  Taking family walks are never overrated!

7.  Bring back the old school games!  We recently taught our kids how to play Kick the Can.  It was a huge hit!  They are obsessed with it and have all the neighborhood kids coming over after school to play it!  Not a fan of Kick the Can… try dodgeball in the backyard, capture the flag, SPUD, wiffle ball, or even a good old fashioned water fight!  Bring back all those games you use to play around the neighborhood before iPads, wiis, and xboxes ruled the world!  You might feel silly playing these along side the kids at first, but after the first round you will be in it to win it!  Our kids will spend their lives trying to beat us!

8.  Start a garden!  The kids love this!  They are all about weeding, planting, and of course watering!  Gardening helps them take pride in eating healthy home grown produce as well as taking care of the yard.  Each weekend we bring the kids out to help clean up, water, and take care of the garden and yard.  My littlest guy loves pushing around his toy lawnmower while my husband mows the lawn.

9.  Sign up for some adult co-ed sport leagues.  They have everything these days!  You can do softball, volleyball, kickball, flag football, etc…  Bring the whole family to the games to watch and cheer!  It is fun for them to see their parents participating in the same type of organized sports they do!  Last year I did softball.  It was a blast.  We brought Grandma along with us to the games to keep an eye on the kiddos while we played.    The kids loved going to the games and running around with their cousins (whose parents played on the team).  I think we will sign up for kickball next!

10.  Take up tennis!  Tennis is easy because most communities have courts you can play on for free.  These days, you can also get a decent racket for $20.  We like to take the whole family to the courts and play around.  The younger kids mostly just run around the courts throwing tennis balls around while the rest of us practice.  Either way, it is a fun and a free way to be active with your family.

These are just a few ideas and I would LOVE to hear what you do with your family to stay active and healthy! Change takes time, effort, and planning, but this change is so rewarding that it is really worth the fuss!

An active family is a happy family!

 

 

 

Here are the 5 easy steps to making your own popcorn without spending a fortune on the portioned bags from the store!

• Just buy the huge bag of popcorn kernels (the everyday price on 32 oz. at my grocery store was $1.97).
• Pour 1/4 cup kernels into a brown paper bag.
• Roll bag two times.
• Hit popcorn on microwave.
• Remove and enjoy!  Feel free to add the amount of salt and butter you prefer!

 

 

 

Yum yum yum!

You could also make a popcorn cake or caramel popcorn from this recipe!