Friday Food #13

Next week is VBS so it will interfere with dinner some and the church provides dinner for the kids but sometimes my kids are still hungry.  I have debated back and forth on if I think something of these meals are too time consuming since we will have a week full of busy evenings and I decided its not since its summer.

Sunday – The kids will all be coming home and typically they aren’t hungry when they get home until you ask them what they ate.  But that is beside the point.  Cooking is not on the plan for Sunday night so we are having sandwiches.

Monday – Spaghetti, garlic bread and salad.  We are actually having spaghetti because I need the jar the sauce comes in for my craft stuff.

Tuesday – Pork chops, corn on the cob, green beans and rolls.

Wednesday – Chicken fingers and fries, I know we just had this a few weeks ago but the kids love it and its easy to make.

Thursday – BBQ chicken, baked beans, mac & cheese and rolls.

Friday – I am hoping for a date night.  Even though Alyssa and Noah will have just gotten back from being gone for 8 days they will be with their Dad so hopefully Adam will plan a date night.  If not, I guess I’ll feed him a sandwich.  =)

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Kid Friendly Decorating

A few days ago I posted a picture of Bradley on Instagram and several people commented on the bookshelves in the background, so I decided I’d do a recap of some of the projects for our sunroom. When we first moved into our house the sunroom was our children’s playroom.  Over time that has changed and now we simply have a play area in Mommy’s craft room.  But the color scheme is still the same.  You see having boys and girls I wanted it to be something that was neutral but still fun and playful.

I had seen this table and chairs at Hobby Lobby and it was what inspired the decoration of this room.  Hobby Lobby also has a bookshelf and coat rack to match but they aren’t needed in my area. Later I was looking for something to organize the kids’ toys in and I found this cute set up at Wal-Mart.  I am not as fond of the basket now as I was when I first got them.  They haven’t held up as well as I would like so I am planning to get some different baskets in the future.  Hopefully I can find some plastic ones in the same color scheme that will fit.

I realized when preparing to write this recap that I never did a post on the first project my husband and I did for the sunroom, the picture frames.  I will tell you more about them at the end of this post.

The next project I did for this room was the Artwork display.  It has been a year since I made the artwork display and while I still love it I have learned a few things about it.  1.  My oldest daughter has made lots of stuff to hang on it and I had to reattach her clothes pin.  The hot gun didn’t hold up well over time.  2.  The sun has faded the cardstock from the lettering, but it still looks nice.

The last project I want to feature in this post is the Pallet bookshelves. It has also been a year since I made them and I still love them.  They don’t hold a bunch of books but its prefect for each child to have two books in the sunroom and the rest of their books in their rooms.

As far as the picture frames go, I looked and looked for something that I liked to match the color scheme and I couldn’t find anything. So I decided I wanted to paint some picture frames so that each side was a different color (red, blue, green and yellow). Adam did this for me. He taped off two sides and painted the other two sides, then when they were done he taped off the sides he painted and painted the other two sides. When I bought the paint I wasn’t thinking and I bought flat. So when I made the artwork display and the bookshelves, I put a coat of mod podge on the picture frames to give them more of a finished look. They have gotten messed up some over the years but for the most part they still look good. The pictures of my children that are in the frames were done by Mandi Hutchenson Photography. If you are in the Birmingham area and looking for someone to take pictures of your family make sure to get in contact with Mandi, she does a wonderful job.

Refashioned Shoes

My oldest daughter loves ballet flats.  They are her absolute favorite shoes.  I usually can find them on clearance at Target but now that I don’t work in the office everyday I don’t get to go in Target as often to check out their clearance. The one thing I really hate about them is they mess up so quickly so unless I can find them on clearance I don’t buy them.  Her and I both had a pair of ballet flats that were ready for the trash.  Mine were black and the toe was messed up on one of them.  Hers were pink camo and were so dirty and worn out looking.

I had this other pair of glittered pink ballet flats I had bought for my youngest daughter so with my love to match and coordinate I decided I’d attempt to glitter mine and my oldest daughter’s worn out ballet flat instead of just trashing them.  I have seen so many pins on Pinterest where people have done it so I didn’t see why I couldn’t do it too.

I started out with these awful looking shoes.  I am still working on remembering to take pictures along the way when I do something so please forgive me for the lack in before picture.  I had glittered one of each of our shoes when I realized I didn’t take a before picture so I have two separate pictures of one shoe for a before picture.

First I painted mod podge and glitter all over them.  The glitter on the shoes I bought it a little bigger pieces than the glitter I used when I made these shoes but the color is almost exact.  I prefer the fine glitter so I bought the fine glitter for the shoes that I refashioned.  I used a baby food jar, marked 2/3 of the way up the side and 1/3 of the way up the side then I used 2/3 glitter to 1/3 mod podge.  The first coat about completely covered them but I had to do a little touch up on them.  It pretty much used all of the mixture for the two pairs of shoes.

The insides still look worn and the shape of them didn’t go back to normal but once they are on they look great. My daughter isn’t here to model them this week so this will have to do for pictures.

The shoes I bought for my youngest daughter also have gems on them that are clear, gray and pink.  I didn’t think to take one of the shoes with me when I went to Hobby Lobby to purchase gems.  So I decided a flower would look good on the toe of the shoes I was refashioning.  I bought 25 mm pink gems and 16 mm clear gems.  I used a pink gem for the center and the clear gems for the petals.  First I laid them out on the desk and then I attached them to the shoes with hot glue.  It probably wasn’t my best decision but I didn’t think about buying and E6000 glue before I started this project.  If I have to reattach any gems then I will use some E6000 glue.

The one thing about them is the glitter around the tops is a little rough so they must be worn with socks but other than that I was very pleased with the outcome of the shoes.

Tuesday To Do #4

This week on Tuesday To Do I thought I’d do an update from a previous post, Tuesday To Do #2.

A few weeks ago I talked about summer projects that I wanted to get done and surprisingly I have finished all but one of them. I did not make the kids hoodie monogrammed towels this summer. I ended up deciding we would just use our towels from the previous summers and I would add that the list of things I want to do next year.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am OCD and I love for everything to match. Lucky for me, my kids don’t mind if they all have coordinating stuff. In case you missed any of the post you can go back and see my water bottles, summer totes and beach buckets.

Monday Memories #13

During the summer these post will probably be a little smaller and some weeks I may not even post them. These post are general a recap of my pictures from Instagram for the week. Most of my pictures this summer will be posted over at asantbsummer2013.wordpress.com. So make sure you check it out over there to see what we are up to.  Although right now I am having some technical difficulties.  My computer doesn’t want to acknowledge when I put my memory card in my computer.  Have I ever said I hate my computer??  Ok, I want get off on that rant today.

The three big kids have left for eight days. I use to get really sad when Alyssa and Noah would go to their Dad’s for a week but over the years I have learned that it is a much needed break for me and it gives them a chance to really spend some time with their Dad. This summer I told Adam we needed to let Taylor go somewhere for a week too so I could have a good break after the week we had last week. I wasn’t sure I’d make it through the summer. If you are following my summer blog then you probably saw the issues we had one day that were just too much for one day. But we aren’t going to relive that here.

My little sister is turning 21 this week. Happy Birthday Nevesha, I love you!! So Saturday we had cupcakes for her birthday with the kids. I totally forgot to get any pictures. Then me, her and the babies went swimming. Since I love her so much and she asked me so nicely there aren’t any pictures of that to share. Saturday night we went out to dinner at Sushi Village. The babies did really well and it was so nice to get out and have some adult time even if the babies were with us.  If you like sushi I highly recommend Sushi Village in Gardendale.  It is really good and cheaper than Stix.

When we were getting ready to leave Bradley was getting his diaper changed in the front seat of the car and got to play in the front seat for a few minutes. I got this cute picture of him driving Mommy’s car. He thought he was big stuff.

Hope everyone has a Happy Memorial Day!! Adam and I will be painting.

SYTYC Audition

As you know last week I auditioned for S.Y.T.Y.C., and I made it!!  Yay!!  Thank you to everyone who voted for me.

My project was from baby crib to doll bed.

This was a project I had been planning for months and it came together at the perfect time.  You see my daughters have ALOT of baby dolls and stuffed animals.  So much so that my youngest daughter has fallen out of her bed many times because there are wayyy too many in her bed.  After so many times of her falling out of the bed I decided I had to figure out a way to get some of the baby dolls and stuffed animals off their beds.  I really love to upcycle or repurpose, so I got the idea of getting an old baby crib, taking it apart, cutting it up and putting it back together as two separate beds.

I found this crib on Craig’s List for $10 and even though it was not in the best shape that didn’t matter because I knew I was going to sand it and paint it.  It had bite marks on it so we filled some of them in with wood filler before sanding it.  I wanted them to be able to easily reach over the front of it to get their babies in and out of the crib, so we used some wood we already had to make the front piece.  I also knew I wanted it to match the girls’ furniture so it was going from a dark brown to white.  I applied several coats of kilz before applying several coats of white Valspar.  At first I really wasn’t sure how I wanted to make the bottom part so Adam and I spend some time really thinking about it before we made the bottom piece.  We ended up using the same wood for the bottom that we used on the back of the bookcases.

Friday Food #12

Sorry about last week.  The stomach bug hit our house and lets be honest I was not thinking about food while tending to a sick kid.  But she is better now and we are back.  Next week will be peaceful.  Most of the kids will be gone so food planning is much easier.  I basically picked stuff that I know Adam and I will like.  Also next week Adam is off work on Monday so we have an extra day, yay!!

Saturday – We are going out to eat with my sister, brother in law, niece and cousin for my sister’s 21st birthday.

Sunday & Monday – We are going to smoke and grill some ribs and chicken and grill some veggies.  I figured since it would just be me and Adam and Bradley that we could cook something that we could basically eat for two days.  Since it is Memorial Day and I am trying to get back to shopping based on what is on sale I went with ribs and whole chicken.  Also I selected a bunch of fresh veggies that are on sale including zuchinni, squash, carrots and onions.  We are also having sweet potatoes and rolls.

Tuesday – I have been wanting a good hamburger this week so I thought hamburgers sounds good.  When I worked in the office I use to eat at a little mom and pop store all the time called Our Place and they have the best hamburgers and I have been craving it.  So we are going to have hamburgers and fries.

Wednesday – We are going to have BLT, pasta salad and chips.  Summer always means a good BLT so I am ready for some good tomatoes.  Last time I made the pasta salad I used a box that came with seasoning but instead of the water and oil I used Italian dressing.  This time I am going to add cucumbers and tomatoes.

Thursday – We decided we will eat leftovers.  Since it will just be us we will easily be able to pull together some leftovers and have plenty to eat.

Beach Buckets

On my Tuesday To Do post I previous talked about these buckets I bought from Wal-Mart during Easter.  Well, this past weekend was the weekend of UFO.  I got a lot of them off my list including these buckets.  I am not sure why I put off doing this for so long.  I guess because honestly I am not a fan of vinyl.  I love the way it looks but I do not like working with it.

At first I was going to put their name on the buckets like I did the water bottles, but then I decided I would just put their initial on them like I did the bags.  I thought it helped to tie them all together in coordinating.  Also to help the coordinating I decided I would put a heart on the girls’ and a star on the boys’ like I did the water bottles.

I had previously bought some toys for playing in the sand.  A few weeks ago the kids and I got a pool to get ready for summer and when we bought it we also got each of them some new goggles and some new pool toys.  I had put them up so I filled their buckets up with the sand and pool toys.

Summer 2013

Last summer I started a blog to capture the summer with the kids.  Basically since I rarely have time to scrapbook I decided to make a blog that I can have printed into a book instead of a scrapbook.  Now that summer has rolled around again I have decided to do the same thing again.  Make sure you check it out at asantbsummer2013.wordpress.com.

Summer Totes

One of the things I said I wanted to make for each of the kids for summer was a bag to carry their stuff in.  I found these really cute bags at Dollar Tree and I couldn’t resist them especially for a dollar.

Originally I wanted to monogram the bags the same way I did Alyssa’s shirt, but I had issues hooping the bags.  For some reason I couldn’t get the bag to hoop.

Taylor and I went to Hobby Lobby to find some fabric for their initials for the bags.  I told her I wanted some fabric that would look good on all four bags.  I wanted it to be the same fabric so all four bags would coordinate.  I also told her it couldn’t be too girlie.  At first she told me everything was too girlie then she found this fabric that was the prefect match.  It has all the different colors and its not girlie.

I used heat bond on the back of the fabric then I used my Cricut to cut out each child’s initial.  Using the heat bond I was able to easily iron the initial onto the bags and it looks great.  All the kids love them. Also they match the kids’ water bottles that I made them. I used the same font with my Cricut for these that I used for the water bottles.