April Fool's Day!

April Fool's Day is Wednesday and I've been looking for some cute, harmless ideas for the day. In the past, I've just done little things like switch the cereal bags into different boxes but I know my girls would just love to make a day of it :)

I'm definitely doing this for breakfast-easy and quick for the morning-just what I need!!! It reminds me of the after school St. Patrick's Day pudding snack from JesseKate Designs that my girls loved and still talk about!

These riddles will be cute for the girls' lunches.

This looks cute for an after school snack but this one is also adorable! Served with this drink would be so fun.

Dinner is going to be Colorful Cupcakes with Shamburgers for dessert.

All of this looks pretty easy and not too complicated-always key when you're not sure what's going to happen during the day.

Here are some other ideas for April Fool from Family Fun. I'm liking that messy room sign for my daughter's room :)

Here's our meal plan for the week-I totally missed it last week. I had it in my head but never posted it. Meal time is a bit crazy this time of the year with spring soccer and softball in addition to our other stuff. That's the big plus to meal planning though, I sit down ahead of time, check what we have for the day and plan around it.

Monday Roast chicken, broccoli rice, green beans
Tuesday Spaghetti and Meatballs
Wednesday April Fool's Day Colorful Cupcakes and Shamburgers (see above for links to recipes)
Thursday Chicken Cordon Bleu
Friday Fish, potatoes for younger girls and hubby, my oldest daughter and myself are doing the Relay for Life at our high school (we only go until 10:00 pm with the 4th, 5th, 6th grade).

Check out orgjunkie for more great recipes and ideas.

Have a great day and I'd love to hear if you have any other fun April Fool's Day ideas!

Ultimate Blog Party 2009!

5 Minutes for Mom is having the Ultimate Blog party and we're all invited!!

Welcome to those visiting from the blog party-thanks for stopping by!! My name is Dawn and I'm an elementary school teacher who is now home with my 5 kids-4 girls and one boy. They range in age from 12 to 1 so I've got it all-the tween to the first birthday!! They're getting ready to move on to junior high, take their first steps and everything in between! Life is busy-right now I have 3 playing softball/tball and 2 playing spring soccer-but it's fun!

I haven't been blogging that long but I've found that I enjoy it. It's my little bit of me time each day. I started my blog when I was one of YCMT Thrifty Under Fifty-a wonderful experience for more than one reason. I love reading other blogs-the blog world is a wonderful, caring and sharing community-I've already learned so much and gotten so many great ideas. I hope that with my blog I can one day help someone out with creativity, an idea, recipe or just something that works for me and my family.

There are some great prizes being given away at the party-check them out. If I won, my top picks would be

Kitchen Aid Artisan Stand MixerProvided by: Moms Who Think

Gift certificate to Target Stores Provided by: Shoot-Me-Now , Agoosa , Beginner Baby Blog , Little Miss Hannah and Mummy Deals

$25 gift certificate to Happy Panda Provided by: Happy Panda

$20 gift certificate to Ladybug Limited Provided by: Ladybug Limited

I'd also love 50,79,99,104,118,intl 50,usc 11 and the list could go on and on :)

I've already visited some new blogs and am looking forward to visiting more. Leave me a comment and I'll visit you too!

New Season......New Website!!

"Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush."
~Doug Larson

Happy Spring!!!

The website You Can Make This is launching a new website in April-You Can Quilt This-projects, tutorials and patterns all brought together on one quilting website. I love the YCMT website-the patterns are easy to understand and follow-and you download them right from the site. I've made lots of cute things for my kids and for presents. I also get their sewing and yarn newsletters and there are always lots of great tips, project ideas and free patterns. To celebrate, you could WIN a Marie Osmond Quilter’s Companion sewing machine from Janome! Check it all out here!

Oh Boy, I am not ready......

and I want to go on record as stating I'm not ready and don't think I like it.

We had our first meeting for Junior High tonight. I've known it was coming but hadn't expected it to be so soon. My oldest daughter will be leaving our elementary school and going to a regional junior high in August. Oh dear, it's alot to handle and mom is having a bit of a hard time.

I've heard all good things about the junior high and I'm sure she'll love it. There's also a lot more activities/clubs and she'll love that-she's all into singing, dancing, performing-things a smaller school can't offer. So, I am very excited for her but at the same time......

All this having to decide classes/schedules/levels-I'm used to her whole class always being together-there's only one sixth grade-and they just all take the same stuff. It's a lot to absorb and get used to.

Sniff, sniff, I could have cried at the meeting, I think this is going to be the first of many tears this spring and summer. I'll get used to it all but in the mean time, I'm not ready.............

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!!

The girls all went off to school with their green on today so no pinching here! Excuse the baby's pj's-didn't realize he had no green until this morning so he celebrated pajama day too :)

We had our green pudding for snack after school-yummy and easy! I got the idea at JesseKate Designs. They wanted it again after dinner-should have bought two packs of vanilla pudding. I also got an idea for a great St. Patrick's Day scavenger hunt from her. The girls had fun and the older girls were real good about helping the younger ones. I was very proud of them when they decided to use their treasure to surprise their Nannie with flowers-we're not going to say who they are from. I'm hoping my husband can sneak over and drop them off. I let each of the girls keep a gold coin and the two oldest wanted to put theirs back in for the flowers-sweet.

JesseKate Designs had lots of wonderful ideas for St. Patrick's Day-as she did for Valentine's Day. If you haven't seen them, check them out to file for next year. Wonder what she's planning for Easter-hint, hint ;)

I just knew.....

there was a legitimate reason to keep m&m's in the house....

the peanut kind, that is....

Sometimes a handful of peanut m&m's- eaten in the closet... by myself for a couple of minutes- gets me through the afternoon.

and yes, I hide them from my kids.

This weekend at my son's birthday party, good friends of ours- who I have confessed to about searching in the cabinet, in a panic, for any m&m's on a tough day- gave me a present-a 5 lb bag of my favorite peanut candy-5 lbs-that's alot of happiness and yumminess!

Now, I could have hid those yummies right away but once night came it was time for my 6 year old to take her antibiotics-a horrible, yucky tasting antibiotic. It was her second day and she still hadn't taken a full dose. We had tried juice, doritos, anything I could think of to mask the taste. I looked online for some ideas. One was a reward chart but I didn't think that would help at that moment. Another one was to put chocolate syrup on the spoon and put the medicine on top of it. I would have tried that except I didn't have any chocolate syrup. Then I spied the m&m's. I gave her a handful, promised her a handful each time she took her medicine (oh yes, I'll buy more) and we went to work. We call it "m&m ing" up her mouth and it's been working. Still not easy peasy to get her to take the medicine but at least she's getting it and not totally miserable.

So, there's a reason to keep m&m's in the house-besides just for mom's sanity-and the next time I'm at the store and think "I really don't need those" I'll remember-I do need them-you know, just in case someone doesn't want to take their medicine!!

Have a great day!

Menu Plan Monday-March 9th

Wow-can't believe we're already into the second week of March! I'm dragging today-anyone else? I'm not sure if it's the dreary/snowy/rainy/cold weather, the time change or too many birthday cupcakes yesterday :)

The birthday party was nice. The kids had fun and we got to visit with friends we camp with but don't see that much in the winter. My 3 year old is still in the party mode-she's been using the gift bags and "wrapping" presents for the baby and myself all morning.

Here's our menu plan for this week......
Monday Leftover Ham (we had a spiral ham for the brithday party), potatoes, veggie
Tuesday Spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread
Wednesday Potato Soup-I think I'll put some ham in it if there is any left
Thursday Chicken fajitas, raw veggies
Friday Homemade cheese pizza, salad

Next week I want to get back to trying at least one new recipe a week. Check out other great meal planning ideas at orgjunkie

Have a great day!!

Have a great weekend!!

We're busy getting ready for my son's 1st birthday party. It's beautiful outside so it's great-the kids are out playing and I'm in cleaning-hey, wait a minute......no really, works out well, they're happy and I can get some stuff done.

We had a crazy end of the week-we were at the doctor's office yesterday for an ear infection and an infected toe. I now have 3/5 of my children on antibiotics. We also had our first injury related nose bleed. The baby got in an accident with the Barbie volkswagon-he's fine-just a little stomach drop for me. The 5 year old was cited for speeding.

How to make your mom feel old.....

Us in the Honda on the way to school today.......

Girls: (hearing the advertisement on Radio Disney for the new Witch Mountain movie) Oh we want to see that, can we go see that?, what's it about (imagine the three oldest all talking at the same time)

Me: I'm not sure what's its about but there were two more before this one you might want to see.

Girls: There were two more? What were they called? What were they about? Can we get them?( imagine again-all talking at the same time)

Me: I think Witch Mountain and Return to Witch Mountain (I've since looked that up and I was wrong)

8 yr old: Is it the same people in the movie?

Me: I doubt it-those movies came out when I was little. I'll add them to our Netflix so you can see them.

12 yr old: (with a tiny bit of tween annoyance in her voice) Are they black and white?


This is as bad as when my 8 yr old asked if we had toilets when I was little :)

Have a great day!!!

Cue the Wild Applause......

I'm finished with Step 4 of the YCMT Make It Up As I Go Along Quilt !!!! My blocks are all squared up and ready to be put together pinwheel fashion. I wasn't really looking forward to squaring all these blocks up but I found it relaxing and satisfying. Hey, that's usually why I have ice cream at night-could this be my new fat free enjoyment :) I hope to start sewing them together soon and I'll be showing you my progress. Slowly but surely I move on!!!

I was tagged this week by Courtney over at Sister to Sister . She tagged me with this fun tag "Love Me Love Me Not". Here are the rules: I am suppose to write 5 things I love about myself, and 5 things I don't!

5 Things I Love

1. I'm dependable

2. I get along with everyone.

3. I'm creative.

4. I'm compassionate.

5. I put my kids wants in front of my own.

5 Things I Hate

1. I procrastinate.

2. I'm a perfectionist and often don't do things if I don't think they'll be perfect.

3. I'm not a big risk taker-which could be good like I don't like gambling but bad because of things like I've been in my house almost 12 years and the walls are still white with not much hung up (see number 2 on this also)

4. I'm not always the most patient person.

5. I have a temper.

Wow! This is a good way to take a minute and think about things you'd like to work on in yourself. A little fun eye opener. Thanks Courtney.

Lots and lots of ........

SNOW-waaahooooo!! It's a snow day!! Waaahooooo-no school, play all day, waaahoooo!!!

Oh wait a minute, I'm the mom, no day off for me :) We're going out to shovel and play in a few when the baby goes down for a nap. We've got some games planned and a movie. Good day for everyone to recoup from the weekend and maybe get rid of these colds that are hanging on. We might also make these great paper bag books from YCMT. I downloaded the directions during the summer and we never made them. My oldest daughter can sew them together and the younger ones will love decorating. My older daughter would probably also like to make a number book for her younger sister. Cute and easy and I have all the supplies. Thanks for the reminder Kris!

Here's my menu planning for the week..........nothing too new and creative, it's going to be a busy week with my son's birthday party on Sunday.
Monday Chicken parmigiana, salad
Tuesday Pepper Steak, brown rice, green beans (we didn't have this last week)
Wednesday My daughter's basketball pizza party and since I'm coach-pizza for the family!
Thursday Roast Chicken, rice, veggie
Friday Homemade mozarella sticks, sauce to dunk, salad

Check out more menu planning ideas at orgjunkie.

I finished all the basketball certificates and the cabinet-don't you love when everything is nice and neat and in it's place. I have about 7 more squares to finish up so I hope to show a picture later and move on to sewing-now that's worth a waaahoooo!!