It's a picnic!

The weather's getting warmer, the girls are almost out of school, I finally have all the winter clothes put away (well......almost), we're wearing flip flops and shorts and eating lots of popsicles.....

It's time for summer!!!!

and we're all invited to a summer long picnic at ABC and 123

I've been following this awesome blog since it started and have gotten lots of great ideas! The two Katies have given, shared and compiled lots of great ideas on colors, fractions, reading, letters and lots more for all different ages. It works great for me because I'm a SAHM with 5 kids and not alot of time (or braincells) to think of projects myself. My girls are 12, 8, 5 and 3 so having projects and ideas for all age levels has been a huge help!

ABC and 123 is hosting a whole season of new ideas and awesome goodies and prizes!! We're invited to join in the picnic and bring some goodies of our own if we'd like-any ideas we'd like to share-can't wait to see what everyone's doing! There's going to be sharing each week!

For those of you who have visited 7 alltogether before, thank you for stopping by and thanks for all your comments. For those of you who may be new, nice to meet you, welcome!!

My name is Dawn and I've been married since 1991. I taught second grade until my first daughter was born and then was a substitute teacher until my second daughter was born. I had two more girls and then a boy a year ago February. I'm president of our school PTO and try to volunteer in school whenever I can although it's tough with the baby. My girls and I like to do any kinds of crafts and the girls are always coloring, cutting, gluing, taping-they love it all. I love activities that have different degrees of difficulty so the girls can do them all together.

Our family loves picnics-inside or out. We camp alot in the summer-whenever we can-and that's just a week of picnics. We eat outside sun, rain, cold-the kids love it. We love about any food at our picnics-my 12 year old's favorite is deviled eggs! We just made them this weekend.

Our picnic table often has other jobs besides holding food. Sometimes it's project central-often it ends up being a stage for performances.

Thanks for stopping by and visiting! I'd love to know you were here so leave a comment if you get a chance-I love reading my comments!

Here's to a great summer!!

We're having a party.......

well, we had a party- this past weekend-a birthday party times 3!! It was party central at our house.

My three middle girls all have June birthdays so we had their birthday party this past weekend. I have one turning 9, one turning 6 and one turning 4.

Usually they each pick their own theme and I go with colors that match what they pick. This year I suggested a beach theme and they all loved it so we went with it. Much easier!

I found this flip flop cake at the Betty Crocker site and the girls loved it. It was easy to make and decorate. They loved that it used fruit roll ups. I used Skittles to decorate the sides-

note to self, next time use m and m's-Skittles and cake don't go together -just my opinion!

The only problem we had with the party was one of my girls wanted chocolate cake and the other two wanted white. We solved that problem easily enough with one chocolate flip flop and one white cake flip flop. Oh, I wish I could solve all problems that easily! You only use half of a 9x13 cake for each flip flop so I had half of a chocolate cake and half of a white cake left. I put the two together and made another cake that was a beach scene.

You'll notice that someone got to the cake and scooped up some frosting before I took the picture -right in the front. I'm guessing my 3 year old.

I frosted half the cake with blue frosting and half with white. I then crumbled up graham crackers and sprinkled them on the white frosting for beach sand. My first choice for this was vanilla creme sandwich cookies but Wamart didn't have any-probably a good thing, I would have eaten all that were leftover. I got a couple of small palm trees at iParty and some paper umbrellas. The blankets under the umbrellas are small pieces of fruit roll ups.

The girls loved the cakes and their party. It was a fun day!!

We Heart Art

The ladies at Three Bay B Chicks, Domestically Challenged and Living Proof That God has a Sense of Humor are celebrating art and creativity this week. Check out these three blogs for some wonderful artwork and creativity by kids and adults.

My girls love art-coloring, painting, creating with play doh, glue, you name it-they love it! It's probably their favorite thing to do. This morning and afternoon, my 5 and 3 yr old worked with water colors and had a great time mixing colors and painting whatever they wanted. They ended up working on paper although my 5 yr old started out with paper plates.

My 5 yr old often spends all day coloring, cutting and gluing. She draws people, colors and cuts them out and then plays with them. She makes clothes for them, crowns, furniture (then she pulls out the scotch tape......forgot to mention, my girls also have a deep love for scotch tape). Now that I'm posting these pictures, I wish I'd taken more pictures of her past creations-I need to make sure I do that so we can show her what she created when she was younger. Here's a cat she made and cut out and then played with all day-it was her pet and it could fly :) The pink line towards the top is a leash.

Here's a picture she made for me for Mother's Day-me and her-love it!

My 3 yr old is usually right beside her sister, coloring away, but often finds that she has to create right where she is when the inspiration hits her or when mom is out of the room.
Yes, although that looks like a piece of white paper, it's my kitchen wall-yes, that's an outlet down at the bottom. We have quite a few walls in our house with these beautiful pieces of art work. We call her our free interior decorator.

Ribbon Challenge!

Each month, Heidi at Blue Eyed Blessings has a craft challenge. This month it's ribbon-and I do love me my ribbon-right up there with fabric :) I never leave Michael's without a few spools.

I thought I'd join in this month and share some projects I've finished using ribbon. I wanted to do a new one too but this week has been crazy again-I don't think I'm going to have any extra time until softball and soccer are finished. Softball is putting me over the edge-my 12 yr old has 3 games a week -all on weekdays! But, back to the good stuff.....

One of my favorite things to do with ribbon is decorate tshirts. I made this ribbon shirt last summer for my 8 yr old to wear on the 4th of July-so quick and easy, but unique! I use Wonder Tape when I make mine and it's awesome. I've tried to do it without and it did not work at all!!

My other favorite thing to make with ribbon is hair accessories. Here's a few bows and headbands I've made. The girls love them and they make great gifts. The headbands are great because you can work on them anywhere once you get them started. Now, I should really use some of my ribbon stash to make a bow holder!

I also used ribbon on the jewelry hanger I made for my daughter for Christmas and decorated some frames with some ribbon scraps.

Check out some other great, creative ribbon projects. I've gotten lots of new ideas!!

It's Mod Podge Mania!

It's Mod Podge Mania over at This is the Year! A great chance for everyone to show their Mod Podge ideas.....there are some really creative ones!

I just realized this week when I was putting my daughter's clothes on her bureau, that I never showed the necklace holder I made her for Christmas. I showed it almost finished-without the hooks, but never showed it completely finished. It was the very first time I ever used Mod Podge and I loved it!! Much easier than I thought. I was excited to give it to her and I think she loved it. She wanted to hang it right away and it's a wonderful home for all her necklaces-she's my accessory girl :)
After realizing how easy the Mod Podge was to use, I made some frames for gifts too!

Head on over to This is the Year for some great Mod Podge ideas! I got lots of ideas and I can't wait to try Mod Podge with fabric.