I Love Cupcakes

On sunday the girls and I made delcious cupcakes....Ok really I made cupcakes and frosting and got it all ready and they slid in for the decorating part..just like them :) In the process I found the best chocolate fudge frosting recipe and thought I would share here is the link to it  Chocolate Frosting Recipe scroll through the recipes to find the chocolate fudge one. ENJOY!

Speaking of Cupcakes ...Check this Out
Last Fall for and event for our church Young Women we decided to serve cupcakes for the event. I soon roped my nice hubby into building this great cupcake tower for me. The best part is I can use it over and over and it comes apart and stack inside itself for storing. Unfortunately in the picture I mixed up the top and bottom center rods so the top one is taller. We are also going to have shorter ones so you can have adjustable sizes. I love it! It can be covered in paper, fabric, ribbon and more to customize it for each event.

Our annual Valentine's dinner born out of the fact that for this time in our lives having a couples romantic valentine's day does not usually work with three kids. So about 4 or 5 years ago we started a new tradition where Sean and I make a very fancy dinner for the kids we deck out the table and give them small gifts to let them know we love them. I LOVE this tradition !! I hope that one day they will look back and no matter where they are on Valentine's day they will always know that mom and dad love them!


This years menu:
Filet Mingnon with crusted blue cheese (yummy- we have Filet every year)
Yummy gooey Potatoes with cream and Gruyere cheese
Parisian salad (yes this was the kind you get in a bag at Costco)
Big fat fluffy rolls ( they are the ones I put in the middle of the table on the cupcake stand)

 Mom's Gift to the kids:
This year I bought each of them their own copy of the book "I'll Love You Forever" I loved reading this book to the kids and so I wanted each of them to have their own with a message I wrote inside to each kid.


Dad's gift to the kids:
Ok he usually gets the award for being the most creative since he does not have much time and waits till the last minute- honestly I did not think he would pull it off this year since work was crazy and he was sooo busy but he came through with these  "license plate" gifts and the kids LOVED them see if you can guess what each of us got?

And of course you can't end the evening with out a fabulous dessert! 

Why do little boys have to grow up?

My oldest daughter Emily is currently taking a photography class at school.  She often has projects that need certain perspectives so one saturday as we  ( me and the children I was forcing ) were cleaning the backyard I noticed all of Adam's tractors lined up behind the sandbox rusty with weeds growing up through them. I thought how sad it was, he used to spend hours playing with those tractors in the sandbox and now they needed to be gotten rid of. But before we moved them I made the comment that they looked like they were in a tractor graveyard so Em grabbed the camera and shot these great pictures of the Adam's tractor graveyard and I mourned just a little bit for the little boy who played with them.

Super Superbowl Decorating

It's that time of year again so I thought I would re-post my superbowl spread from last year. This was seriously the easiest decorating with the biggest punch!
click here to see the original post.

Here's what's on the menu for SuperBowl around here
Chips and homemade Guacamole-Of course!
Slow cooked fall apart Baby Back Ribs- My Favorite!
Spinich Dip and Crusty on the outside, Soft on the inside bread-YUM!
Chocolate Chip cookie Bars- for a sweet treat :)

Hope you have a great day and that your team wins :)

So it's been a while...

Thought I would join the blogging world once again (new years resolution thing). So i thought I would share these Ribbon Smoothies I made for our card swap Christmas get together over the holidays. I saw a smaller version of these at a scrapbook show and kept the idea tucked away in my brain waiting for the perfect time.
It took 2 trips to in & out to get the drink holders and the rest of the supplies I purchased at our local Smart and Final store that sells restaurant supplies. I ordered the ribbon from this amazing (cheap) site I found called Always Underpay. These could have been made way cuter if I had not been in the middle of my big craft show for December but they are still worthy of a post.

Glad to be back
Hope to see here again soon...I have more to share already :)

What's Happening

So here we are already April...where does time go? Here is an update on some things we have been doing and some projects I have completed.
I made this cute Rag Purse fro my friend Kadee's Birthday. I LOVE the way it turned out. I have big plans to make more of these for friends for birthday's. You can check out how to make it here.

My assignment for card swap for March was Adult Birthday. We are doing something new this year in my card swap group where we each have an assignment so we go home with a stack of different themed card each month. You can check out all our card swap cards at The Rowdy Rooster
I saw these on a blog somewhere and decided it would be a quick fun journal to make. It sits on my desk and I like to keep track of all the projects I would love to do....if only there was more time in the day.


These were some fun Valentine cards I made with just 3 sheets of paper. I was playing around with the technique of wetting down paper with a squirt bottle and folding and twisting it... I saw a lot of this at the craft and hobby show.

For our February Card swap we had a baby shower for our fellow card swapper Amber who was having a boy. We each brought her a set of thank you cards she could use to send thank you's after her shower. These were mine...you can see more at The Rowdy Rooster.
I love this Baby gift Jar. It is my favorite gift to give right now. I usually fill it with cute ribbon burb cloths , an outfit, and or toys. Everyone loves a gift that includes cute storage right? :)
In March my kids preformed "Joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat" with Arts off Broadway. They had a blast! The Uncle Jon was the Director and their cousins and Aunt were also in the production. It was a lot of work but they had a grea time. Emily played one of Joseph's brothers, Sarah was an adoring girl and one of the wives, and Adam was evil corn.

Nothing says spring like a little boy ( ok not so little but still little to me) hunting for easter eggs in his baseball uniform. Easter and Baseball it is certainly spring!



Ok so the girls think they are too big to hunt for easter eggs but I did convince (and it took a lot of convincing and eye rolling) them to pose for these cute pictures.



We have just returned from the land of cold and snow in Park City Utah. We spent spring break sledding, skiing, shopping , seeing new things, reading books, hanging out and just plain Family fun. I will post mor fun pics once I get them organized. Here is part of the clan heading to the sledding tow to take them back up the hill for another thrilling ride.

Where does time go?

So I said (in my previous post ) I has all these wonderful things to share and now it has almost been a month and where are they sitting right here I tell ya...those cute Valentine cards I made and need to photograph, and those fabulous Valentine tiles I made for the kitchen sitting right in the pile with the other Valentine stuff ( I have yet to put away). Oh Yeah and that Great Valentine banner I was working on....sitting right here to, only it only made it to half done :( So what to do with all these projects??? Start new ones right? That is what we crafters do. I really want to work on my kids bedrooms this weekend. Sounds fun right not sure how hubby will feel about half done projects and new ones starting. :) I will let you now how it works out.