Justin Adams

It's been a while! I'll catch ya'll up soon with more goings on in my life after a quick hype-talk about this AMAZING new country singer. His songs just got up on iTunes today! I can't stop listening to it! And I'm just still shocked at how much I love all of these songs, I had to share it with whoever would read/listen to me. 

His voice is amazing. And the songs are great and relatable. It's both up-tempo and some slower ones. I enjoy it. :) GET IT!!!! Promise, if you're a country person, you'll LOVE this!!!!!! 

Fave Toys .... Magformers/Magna Tiles.

Thought I'd share one of our favorite toys at home. It just happens to be one of the favorites at school, too. We have magna tiles in my classroom at school. The kids LOVE them! I didn't realize the single pack didn't include very many, so I did end up ordering the class size for next year!! 

Then, my daughter loved them so much (and has them at her daycare) that we decided to do that for her birthday!! It's something she has played with about every single day- for the past year+. We are investing in another pack of these, too.. come summertime. ALL we can do to occupy ourselves during the summer months, right!??!?!

Here are the links to the Magna Tiles.

and Magformers.

My two little squirts after making the magic ball with their Magformers. :) That's their favorite thing to build. 

Letter Matching

Here is a letter matching activity we did in the classroom last week in my 3 year-old classes. It was great  for letter recognition and matching. :) 

They did wonderful!-- and it was a great way to assess them, too. Another idea I had for my older kids was to match upper and lower case letters. Maybe do numbers to dots, etc. The ways you can tweak this to fit into what you need are almost endless!!! Shapes, colors (use other, non-neon, dots), tallies, sight words...... MEH!! :D use your imagination.

finished. 

P.s. I did raindrops no blue paper to match our "weather" unit. You can really do whatever you want!!! :) I also made umbrellas. :) Switching it up would be a way to bring your theme into your curriculum. 

Puppies!

Aren't puppies just the cutest things in the world???? :D:D:D

Our family dog (My Mom and Dad's) had puppies this weekend. ELEVEN of the little cutie patties! Here is a picture of the pile of them and mom trying to keep them all in order and they're just climbing on each other, etc.

There's a cute little picture of them squirming around in a pile with each other. :) Mama (Lucy) is out having some time outside for a couple of minutes.

Mama resting with her little puppies. :)

I just love them. So do the kids. :) It was ADORABLE!!!! :) She's still a little 'protective' at this point, so it was quick when we got chances to hold them (if, at all). Lucy wasn't all about sharing her babies quite yet. :) But she was very sweet to her visitors, and she's such a good mommy.

The top one is a little fuzzy, but it's hard to get both a puppy and a 7 year-old to stay still for a photo pop!!! :D

LOVELY!!!

Scentsy

I am currently hosting a scentsy "basket" party. I am loving it! I can't wait to finish it up because I just LOOOOVE scentsy.

In fact, I am 98% certain that I am going to become a Scentsy consultant!

I'm pretty excited and I think it'd be good for me.

Get myself out there can doing something new and challenging.

:) 

Wish me luck if I end up going through with this decision!!! :D

Laters, BABy... ;)

Family Dinner Discussions :)

"Family Dinner Questions"

Before I begin, here's where I got this LOVELY idea (free printables)! [[How Does She]]

I came across this super cute idea on pinterest (obviously). I printed off the free printables and got to work. There are so many GREAT questions/interesting facts/conversation starters for you to do at the dinner table with your family. 

Materials:

Mason/canning jar

Mod Podge

Printables from the link above

Scissors

Paper

Ribbon/buttons/scrapbooking paper

(any other decorations you want to make the jar pretty)

Glue

Basically, I printed off the activity from the link.

I cut them all out. *I didn't use all of them, just because my girls are both too young to understand some of them (not many- but some)*

Then, I mod podge'd the label onto the front of the jar. 

Next, I cut out some scrapbooking paper and put that in the top of the jar.

After that, I tied some little ribbon around the neck to add a little "pop" and then glued a couple little crafty buttons onto the front/top.

Put all of my questions into the jar and VOILA!!!

It is sitting in the middle of our table and after just the first night, it's been a hit for SURE!

:) I hope you enjoy this as much as I do. Thanks for the idea!!! :D 

I'll probably be posting some of the answers that the girls give throughout the extent of this.

Also**** I do plan on adding my own as we go.

New Kicks

Got myself some new shoes. :) These things always make me smile.

Took a picture.

Cute with the mint jeans....

Enjoyed this sparkly, springy, glitzy, new outfit. :) I wish I had a pic of me from straight on. MEH it's alright.

Although, from this view, I feel like I need a tattoo on my foot. TIME to get going on that. I'll add it to my summer bucket list.

Speaking of summer bucket lists. The girls and I are going to work on that this week[end]. Pretty excited!!!!!

Printables for my place!

Cute, huh?!?!

I was going to paint the frames, but I think I'll nix that idea right now. I kind of like how they look. We'll see, that could change in the next few hours. But, I got these printables from 

HERE!-  (Spring)

AND 

HERE!! (Sunshine)

They look lovely on top of my black IKEA shelves that I am in love with. (Ever since I got them last summer....)

:)

Pillow Reading Nook.

Love Reading!

Tonight, the girls were having a little rough housing time. Which, sometimes is totally fine!!! But tonight, mama's headache wasn't really enjoying it. SO! I almost set up a library. But I figured we'd done that a bit much in the past year. WHY not try something new?!

So I had them help me collect pillows, blankets, and couch cushions. Together, we all made a wonderful, little, cute, reading nook!

:)Our reading nook.

*The girls curled up reading their books.

*Another precious picture of them curled up in the reading nook enjoying a book.

*they enjoyed these great reads + a few more!! :)

:)

Dance

I just had to share this precious picture of my Little Miss I this past weekend.

It was dance picture weekend and this is what I turned around to while I was trying to get things all together for her before time to go take pictures. 

She was just perched up on a tall stool, looking all cheese-y like into the mirror. I couldn't resist. My heart was melting and I had to snap it. :) Glad I did. It's one of my favorite pictures. And I will always remember the cuteness of this moment. :)

BEAUTIFUL WEATHER

SPRING has arrived!! 

It's coming. Slowly but surely. One day it's in the 70's and the next day we're having hail and then rain and then snow. It's crazy here in the midwest sometimes. :) But the days we live for are those beautiful spring days. (OR, at least I do!)

Here is a picture of the girls outside playing at my parents' place. I keep telling them "go outside and play!!!". And for some reason, they always come back in and tell me they're bored!! I never got it!! 

HOW can they be BORED on an ACREAGE in the middle of nowhere?!?! I had to teach them how to use their imaginations. I told them I was going to make them a ship. So here's our ship. I put a blanket on the top, a blanket on the bottom. They helped me organize a chair and an umbrella. They got "supplies", too. I made them help me find some. Supplies like rocks, a bottle of water, a sweatshirt, a "flag", and other necessary items when you're in the high seas all by yourself in a ship!!!! It was so great to see them playing!! 

  

We also looked for some fun hiding places in the trees and behind and in barns. We talked about how you can be adventurers, be native americans, or even be an animal!! We looked at what trees might grow berries in a few months, and how to "collect food". It was well worth it! They (hopefully) won't have any problem playing outside for hours this spring/summer.

MAGIC MATH!!

A Fun Math WORKSHET??!

..at least that's what Miss S thought! :) I made a little "magic" math worksheet for her! I used crayon to write the math equations (like you see). In the boxes under the math problem, I wrote (IN WHITE CRAYON) the answer. Right under the line, she wrote her answers. To check if her answers were correct, she painted with water over the box to reveal the correct answer!

It took a little bit of time on my part. But it kind of grabbed her attention. She's always looking for new ways to practice her addition and subtraction! 

:) This was a good one!

Love my Lady

:)

My little goofball came to me yesterday with this cut-out piece of paper. I, obviously, filled it out. It was so sweet. She had just been sent to her room for talking to me using bad words, talking-back, whatever you call it. (So she could "think about it" and "understand what she did and think about how to hand it next time".) A few minutes later she came out with this. It read,  

"Mom    I love you so much

Do you love me to ______________________. Give it back when your dune."

I filled it in with "YES! to the moon and back. infinity.  .... love, Mommy x's & o's"

Villisca Ax Murder House

:O  Villisca Ax Murder House AHHH!!!!!!!!!!  O:

Went on a road trip to KC this past month with my oldest lady. On our way home, I HAD to stop by this place. The Villisca Ax Murder House.

Apparently, in 1912, there were murders that happened in this small town in Villisca, Iowa. 

2 adults..... 6 children.... found murdered in their beds. All before mass murders were really heard of. It really shook this small town of Villisca up! The murder [to this day] has remain UNSOLVED!!!!!.....*dun dun dunnnn*

The house was purchased and returned to its original condition.  It now resembles what it was like at the time of those murders which occurred back in 1912. 

To this day, you can spend the night in this home. They have daily tours for majority of the year. Perhaps someday, I can get a tour (at the least). Why does this stuff interest me?!?!!

Selfies- 2013.

I need a new look. Here are selfless from the past ... since January. HELP!!!!! cut,color?!?!

I'm working on Pinterest for some ideas. I'll get this figured out soon. Keep ya'll posted WHOOP.

So dumb. I wish I knew if/how to keep these private. Sorry for the bore.

Room re-VAMP

SO FUN!!!!!!

SO! Sometimes, you're totally inspired to just re-vamp something. your home, your closet, your menu, whatev!!!! I've been in the mood to re-vamp just about EVERYTHING. Although, it's not really new. I'm always striving to do something more and top what I've already done.

The girls and I are working on home decor, making our house (apartment) more "our own". 

A recent trip to visit a wonderful friend (WHOM I haven't seen in ages) inspired me. She's just so wonderful! And she's gifted in crafting and thrifting. It was lovely. During our trip, she used her handy-dandy cricut machine (WHICH I have a deep yearning for) to make some lovely decals with for the home.

One said the girls' names for their room.

The other I put on my door "hello" and "goodbye".....

ALSO: we got some wire and used that to write "dance your heart out". I then took that home and spray painted it pink to put above their closet door. 

We wanted to put their names on the wall, but it [the wall] was bumpy and the letters didn't stick. So, we just went for the closet door, and it worked wonderful. 

*when you enter the apartment!!!!!*

*when you leave the apartment!*

*i just wanted to share this super cute little flower we made during our crafting night. We fixed this one up a bit, perfected the pattern, and made plenty more of these gems for my girlfriend's wedding. LOVELY*