Father’s Day is so fun!  I make it a point to do something fun and creative for father’s Day.  This year I asked each of the kids a few questions about their Dad and wrote them down for them.  Some of the answers were pretty cute!

A fun picture idea to attach to your questionnaire

Love these little guys!

If you are interested in my template for the questionnaire, email Jamie@encahntedmommy.com and I can forward it to you.

Tomorrow my baby turns 3, even though she claims she is already 3 since she had her party last weekend.

She's 3 tomorrow!

I wanted to do something fun with her today since tomorrow we are traveling out of town for a graduation.  I knew she would have fun at Frying Pan Park (located in Herndon, VA) and it would be a great spot for pictures.  It is also a great free spot (unless you pay for a wagon ride or carousel ride which is still very reasonably priced).

We were able to see lots of fun animals!

We saw goats!

We saw baby pigs eating.

Cows too!

We also saw roosters!

I also didn’t miss any photo opportunities on this beautiful farm!

A cool old truck!

Even the baby ran around!

It is such a great place for photos!

Sweet Girl!

If you are ever in or around the NoVa area, I highly recommend it here!  It is such a great family place and you actually feel like you’re in the country in the middle of a city!

I have been working on this baby shower ever since a certain favorite mommy found out she was finally having a girl!  Like me, she has three boys and her and I have always joked and dreamed of having that little girl in pink and ruffles one day!  For her, the dream is coming true and I was all about having a fun frilly shower to celebrate!

I am moving in 2 weeks and didn’t have  a lot of stuff left unpacked, but needed some easy and elegant decorations to make the house look great for the shower.  I hung tulle up around the entry way stair case and put cute little flowers in it.  It turned out really nice.  I also have a fabulous friend who does flower arranging who put together a few gorgeous pieces to place around the room.

These cream puffs stole the show! They were awesome!

Personalized M&M's for party favors

We bought a short sale.  Enough said right?!  I mean some people luck out and find a short sale that is in great condition.  We weren’t all that lucky.  We had an HOA violation sheet with about 25 no no’s on it.  One of the items was our shutters.  We have blue siding and we had to work with that (who wants to spend all the extra dough on siding).  The shutters before were a heinous burgundy color.

2012 House Listing -- I didn't take this.

I decided to change the color to black.  Here’s the after.

The after.... shutters look much better

Much better, huh?1?!  I love simplicity, that’s why I chose black.  I had no idea where to start, so I went to Home Depot and the guy there was really helpful with what kind of paint to use.

Behr Paint that we used!

It was an exterior semi-gloss enamel, paint and primer in one. {So what if husband threw this paint can away, and I went dumpster diving to get it}.  It cost about $40.  Not bad for an exterior transformation.  So, we got 18 shutters and a front door painted for $40.

All you do is take the shutters down (some people say to leave them up and spray paint them while they are up, I beg to differ).  Here’s husband taking them down, they aren’t that hard to remove.

Husband taking down the shutters. Who said IT people can't be handy?!

Paint away!!!!!

I actually painted over the pegs that hold the shutters in, but you can buy them for pretty cheap too.  Then you just paint, paint and paint.  We wiped ours down really well before painting over an dust layer.  I’m SO happy we did this.  It did take a good while, but it was totally worth it!!!  Oh yeah, I also got a few cans of spray paint  and painted the backs since we have the old school shutters.  I love it now!

Awesome science activity… all you need is a bar of Ivory soap.  Yep, that’s it!  Turn some Ivory soap into a fun fluffy soap cloud!  The kids will love this… trust me!  I did this today with 4 little boys and they were mesmerized!

Step 1:  Get your Ivory soap

Step 2:  Put it in the microwave on a paper towel or wax paper and microwave for a couple minutes.  Let the kids watch as it slowly fluffs in to a large poofy cloud!

Some very mesmerized boys watched as the soap transformed in the microwave!

Step 3:  Let the kids play!  This is a great sensory activity!  Have the children describe what it feels like and smells like!  Warning:  I wouldn’t let them crumble it up until you have it in a bowl.  It might look soft and squishy, but it is actually very crumbly and flaky when you brake it apart.

Don’t worry this is not wasteful, you can still use the soap when you are done!  You can throw the whole fluffy cloud in the bath tub with them or mold your own smaller soaps from the foam and use those!  I personally like letting my kids use the cloud to soap up the slip’n slide in the backyard!  It makes for some seriously slippery fun!

Tyson declared, “This smells like a bath!!!!”

Crumble it into soap snow flakes and have the kids describe the texture

Add some food coloring and a tiny bit of water to your flakes to mold into your own soap shapes!

A little clean up advice:  Vacuum or wipe up flakes with a dry paper towel or cloth.  Do not try to wipe with anything wet or you will have a much bigger, soapier mess to clean up.

Looking for more sensory activities?  Check out these links for more ideas.

Handprint Butterflies

Spaghetti Sensory

Turkeys 

Pinecone Turkey

Reindeer

Painting with Ice 

Cotten ball Bunny

I’m not writing this post to put out there my gifts, in fact I personally hate it when people do that.   I’m reviewing my gifts for you because I think they are two things that are great for moms or women in general.

I go to the gym, so what if it’s partly to get a break from the girls/life.  I have been eyeing  heart rate monitors for some time.  I wanted one.  I was talking to husband about it for months.  I sent him pics of posters at the gym that had different models on it.  I thought they looked cool on people and the instructors actually interacted with the women that wore them.  I was talking to one girl at the gym and she said hers was $200 something.  Ha, I knew I wouldn’t get one that nice for sure.  So…. I told my husband that I didn’t care about the GPS, I just wanted a good reviewed watch that could tell me my heart rate along with the calories that I burned during the workout!  This is the one I got:

Polar RS100 Heart Rate Monitor

It sells for $81.73 on Amazon (way better than the $200 something price).  It has 4/5 stars with 125 reviews.  My husband is big on reviews and usually buys something less expensive with better reviews.  I’m completely happy with it.  I for sure thought I would feel the band around my chest, but I don’t at all when it is placed under the elastic of my sports bra.  I did notice that it calculated A LOT LESS calories than the machines actually calculate for me.  Boooooo.  It was surprisingly about half the amount.  Dagger.  At least now, I know the exact amount and can plug it into my daily calculations.

So, I’d say if you’re in the market for a heart rate monitor and don’t care much about the GPS (I could care less about that because I hate hate hate running) or MP3 player, this is a great one.  I really think it’s worth the money and it helps you motivate yourself during workouts.

On to gift Number 2.

Maybe I’m the only one that notices women at the sink at the gym.  I secretly watch them putting on make-up (possibly because I’m not that good at it) or what kind of round brush they use.  Yes, call me a weirdo.  A few months back I noticed this lady scrubbing her face this this brush-like thing.  It was almost like my electric toothbrush, but for her face.  Of course, I wanted one and then began to notice them all over commercials.  I was telling my husband about it, with no hints, just that I thought they were cool.  I was actually talking about it at a wedding I was in not too long ago and one of the girls was talking about the brand she had.  I definitely didn’t remember, but I think it was expensive.  So, from the girls he got me this one:

Oil of Olay ProX

It is $21.97 on Amazon and I LOVE it!  My face feels so smooth every night.  I would definitely recommend this to everyone.  This one had 4/5 stars with 620 reviews.  There were several people saying that they had a more expensive one before and this one did just as great of a job.  It comes with a little tube of wash to get you started.  If you have the $22, seriously order it right now.  You won’t be disappointed.

I guess my gifts weren’t the sappy or some piece of jewelry (that I would probably NEVER wear), but they are something that I use almost every single day.

Thanks Brian for making me a Mama.  Love you!

I have been seeing all these work out challenges on pinterest lately and decided to try one out.  After all, my little brother is getting married this summer and why wouldn’t I want to shrink a size for the wedding!?!?!

So I decided to go with the science tested 2 week cardio and strength program from Prevention.com published last November.  It basically has you trade off walking 30 minutes one day and interval walking the next (Changing up the speed you walk to higher, lower, and moderate intensity throughout your walk) with 5 different strength exercises each day.  I figured, it would be a hard two weeks, but I can commit to anything for a two week period!  So I promised myself to follow it through and record my results.

It worked!  I lost 1 .5 inches from my waist and 1 inch from my hips along with 10 pounds of weight loss in 2 weeks!

I was down a size and the smaller size fit loosely!  I hope to continue this program for another few weeks.

Don't forget to take your measurements once a week! It makes all the hard work worth it!

The success in this program comes from doing slower repetitions in your strength exercises.  Each exercise is done while counting 6 to 8 slow seconds.  The slower reps make your muscles work harder and therefor increases your strength twice as fast.  As your strength increases your muscles help you burn calories faster.

I loved that this program did not take a long time out of my day and that it wasn’t overly strenuous.  You also dont need a lot of equipement to do it… in fact, all you need are some hand weights.  You only walk or interval walk for 30 minutes and it takes about 15 minutes to do the strength activities.  You also rest one day a week.

So here is the run down:

Day 1:  Walk for 30 minutes, Strength plan A (mostly core work)

Day 2:  Interval walk for 30 minutes, Strength plan B (mostly a lot of different squats with arms)

Repeat through day 6 and rest on day 7.

Start over for the 2nd week, only try to work harder by doing more reps, or pushing yourself harder on your interval walks.

So what do you eat?  I didn’t do anything special for my diet during the two weeks.  I just tried to make healthy choices and focus on choosing more fruits and veggies during the day.  I admit that I even had chips and guacamole a couple times.

I did push myself hard during the workouts.  The regular 30 minute walk was a 30 minute jog for me and the interval walk was a more of a sprint, walk, sprint walk interval.  I was really busy playing outside with the boys one day and didn’t find time to officially do  my strength workout so I just  did the squat workouts (strength plan B) without hand weights while I was outside watching the boys slip’n slide.

Anyway, check out the site here to see the detailed instructions of the strength plans.

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!

You’re probably wondering why I’m posting this on Memorial Day night.  Well, July 4th is just around the corner and these are the PERFECT thing to make.  People are so impressed when my husband makes these.  He actually made these for two cookouts this weekend.

Look amazing and delicious!

Let’s just say that these are a lot easier to make than they may seem.

All you need is:

Small bag of white chocolate chips
Small bag of semisweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil
blue sugar crystals – found in baking aisle with sprinkles

All you do is:
Put chocolate and one tablespoon of oil into bowl.  Microwave for 30 seconds, stir the best you can.  Microwave again for 30-50 seconds.  Stir like no other.  You want to stir really well because it helps them get shiny on the outside.

Dip them in the chocolate and put them on wax paper to dry.

For the white chocolate, striped strawberries.  Dip about 4 and then dip them in the blue sugar crystals (this gives them time to harden a little, but not too much so the sprinkles still stick).

Refrigerate and wait to enjoy at your next get together!

Wahlaaaaaa!!

Presentation is everything!

*** Side note: Oftentimes my husband will put coconut on the chocolate strawberries.  YUM!

So I am sitting here waiting for a couple students to show up for their tutoring session… wasting time on the internet as usual!  I came across some really funny products you can actually buy!

1.  Mom Spit in a bottle!  This is a no wipe cleaning spray to take with you on the go to clean off those leftover chocolate smears (and anything else) on  your little ones face or hands!  The best part is that it comes in Fig and Green Tea scents… a much better smell than your actual spit clean!  Who wouldn’t want that!  Haha!  This would make a fun baby shower gift for a good friend!  Buy it here.

2.  So I heard once that some people actually save all their kids baby teeth!  Not kidding!  I though for sure I was being teased when someone first tried to convince me of this… but no, it is actually true!  Tonight I came across these baby tooth cases to prove it!  Enough slots to keep each tooth!  Hahahahaha… sorry for laughing for all those people who actually do save baby teeth.  Eeeewwww!  Haha!  Check them out here.

3.  Wiener dog lamps!  So funny!  If you have one of these dogs, you have got to get this lamp!  You can find them in a bunch of different colors and it would make the perfect soft glow night light for your child!  Find them here.

This one might actually only be funny to me… or anyone else who has or loves Dachshunds (also knows as wiener dogs!).  I actually have a miniature Dachsund that I bought as a puppy without realizing I was buying a wiener dog!  You can imagine how bad my husband made fun of me when he realized I didn’t know!

She was just so tiny and so cute staring at me with those big eyes of hers and I just couldn’t leave her.  I actually only went in to the store to buy turtle food for a pet turtle my  little brother gave to my boys and walked out with this adorable 3lb dog that could sit in my hand.  Oh she was really so cute and didn’t look like a wiener dog at all… they just aren’t that long when they are puppies.  Anyway, I love her to pieces despite the fact that my father-in-law calls her rat dog and warns me that the eagles might eat her.

Anyway, for those who don’t have a dachshund or know of anyone who does, you should know that there is a huge dachshund community.  They have Dachshund fairs where everyone brings their wiener dog and dresses it up for the costume contest and they have wiener dog races and games.  It is seriously so fun!  I have never seen such an obsession from other dog breeds, but Dachshund owners… they love their wiener dogs!

Seriously, try to find this lamp in any other dog breed!  Only wiener dog owners are obsessed enough with their dog to buy this!  I love it!!!! Seriously, my boys would love this too and it if wasn’t $79 I would totally buy it for them!!!  I’ll just admit now… I loved the wiener dog fair!!!!

My adorable little wiener dog snuggling up with my baby! How could you not love her! She's no rat!!!!

This recipe is awesome!  It’s great to serve as an appetizer with crackers, on top of a salad for lunch, or even as a sandwich.  Take a look at my lunch from Monday.

A healthy lunch!

This chicken salad is so much more than mayo and chicken.  The more you add, the better it tastes!

I got this recipe here.

Here is what you need:

• 2 1/2 cups diced cooked chicken (I chopped up 4 chicken breasts)
• 1 cup finely chopped celery
• 1 cup seedless grapes, halved (I probably did about 2 cups, I love grapes!)
• 1 cup chopped walnuts or 1 cup pecans (optional) (I used walnuts)
• 1 small minced onion
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 cup Miracle Whip (Since I had more chicken, I used about a cup)

Looks so good, huh?!?!