What the Heck?

I heard this on the news this morning, and I'm not sure what to think. Disney bought out Marvel Comics. All their characters. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I'm curious to see what Mandee's hubby thinks. He's a Marvel Comic nut!!

Just a weird combination. It's like Mandee said, though, atleast we may see the characters at Disneyland. Oh, that would make my Spiderman obsessed Tyson the happiest boy ever!! What do you think?

Baby Shower Freebies

Mandee and I are in the midst of planning a baby shower for my sister-in-law. We have scoured the Internet looking for ideas and have found a lot of really great stuff. We've also found a lot of great FREE stuff! Doesn't get much better than that. I had saved a bunch of stuff in my favorites and before I erase it all, I want to share it with you.

Plan Your Baby Shower ~ They have darling invitations. You download them and customize them to your event. 5 cute girl ones, 4 cute boy ones, and 2 cute neutral cards! They also have some fun games that you can download.

HP Creative Studio ~ This place if full of cute invitations, but not many for baby showers. They do have a couple cute ones. This is a great sight to check out to the full extent.

Plan the Perfect Baby Shower ~ They have some cute ones you can print off and and fill in. They also have some cute frames that you can use. Download as a picture and insert into your publishing program and insert a text box and type up your invite.

Parents has a great Sugar and Spice baby shower theme, that you could do with printable invitations. They also have a huge list of themed showers, that you could check out.

This post on Tip Junkie has lots of ideas.

Isn't the Internet great? And isn't it great that people are willing to share? Our little shower is Saturday. Because we don't want any peeking, we will post pictures and give you all the lovely details next week! Have a FaBuLoUs weekend!

How to Disable Right Clicks on your Blog

Ever wondered how to disable people stealing your pictures and your written words?? Not that our words are really worth all that much in the big scope of things. Neither Mandee nor I claim to be authors of the written word.

But I don't want people to steal my kids pictures off my family blog. You hear stories about it all the time. That is one of those things that I have wondered how to stop, without making my blog private. Well, guess what? There is a code to diable that function. I found it via, Dear Cjane and you can see it by going here.

Beef Noodle Casserole

My family isn't one for casseroles typically, but they sure loved this one! Next time I may double it.

1 C noodles uncooked

1 lb. ground beef

1/4 c onion, chopped

1/2 c cheese, shredded

1 16 oz can corn ( I used left over corn on the cob)

2 t chili powder

1 t salt

1/8 t pepper

1 8 oz can tomato sauce ( I used tomato soup)

1/4 c. water

Boil noodles for 10 minutes or until soft;drain well. Brown ground beef with onion. Add all remaining ingredients, including noodles, and place in a 2-quart casserole dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Shorts: Movie Review

This was a pretty cute movie. My boys, ages 7 & 4 loved it! It has a great moral to the story, be careful what you wish for. It has William Macey in it, who I love and also Leslie Mann who is another favorite of mine.

The story is about a magical, rainbow stone that grants wishes. The main character of the story is Toe Thompson, who wishes for some friends. He is the narrator of the story and it kind of jumps around to different kids in the neighborhood and what happens when the stone comes into their possession. Everything is going okay until the adults get a hold of the stone and then the trouble really begins!!

There is a little girl in the story named Helvetica Black, and she cracked me up. She is 2-year-old daughter in 10 years. She's the leader of the bullies and gets her older brother, Cole to do all the dirty work. She had me in stitches.

This movie did not get any great reviews. I looked at some fan reviews and a lot of people did not like it. We did like it. It is a little diffrent. The story is told completely out of order and in sets of short stories. It was kind of fun. It's a kids movie, what can you expect? It's better than some and defiently not as great as others. If you have any doubts, wait until it comes out on dvd!

Yummy Pineapple Bars

This is a slice of heaven!

1 C packed brown sugar
1 C flour
1/2 c butter
1 1/2 c coconut
3/4 c sugar
1 T lemon juice
1 C pineapple
1 T butter
3 T cornstarch

Combine brown sugar, flour, butter, coconut, and sugar until crumbly. Spread about tow-thirds of the mixture in a 9-inch square pan. Set aside. In a saucepan, combine lemon juice, pineapple, butter, and cornstarch. Bring to a boil while stirring over medium heat. Cool slightly. Spread over bottom layer. Cover with remaining crumbs, pressing down with your hand. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cut while warm.

HCG week 2

Thursday: I am officially on HCG Hiatus. I still have a few day's worth left, but for my sanity I am going off. I ate eggs this morning and they were so good! I am not losing the way I wanted to. My husband has a theory. I have been doing Zumba every morning now for atleast 2 weeks and have been doing it 3 times a week for a few months. He thinks I'm building muscle and that is why I don't see the numbers on the scale that I want to. Doesn't make me feel any better. I'm going a little crazy. I weigh myself morning, noon & night. What good does that do me? It only feeds my craziness. I think I need to regain my sanity and take a break. Keep eating healthy and watching what I eat and exercising. I need to relax and accept myself for who I am, right at this moment. I have lost 50 lbs since April. That is amazing!! I need to enjoy that for a moment. I still think HCG is great! I probably will do it agian, but after the first of the year. To any who may want to start this journey, good luck!!! It's an amazing ride!

Wensday: Weighed in at 193.


Tuesday: Weighed in at 193.8. FRUSTRATED! I am just not losing the way I should be. I wonder if I am growing immune to the HCG??? I know that I had a about a week where I didn't lose weight the first time I was on it, but I lost a lot of inches. Maybe that is what is happening here. Keeping our fingers crossed.



Monday: Weighed in at 194 even, not much.

Sunday: weighed in at 194.4. That's good. A little at a time! Still having a really hard time. I think it's because I am losing weight, even though I am doing little cheats. Got to stop it. I am going on HCG hiatus when this is done. I have been on the program since April and I think I need a little break.

Saturday: Forgot to weigh in.

Green Jello With Carrots

If your serving in any capacity in the LDS Church, then you'll want to check out this sight. I stumbled across is last week while I was preparing my lesson for YW & my husbands lesson for primary. Double Duty!!! I had gone to all the usual websites, (sugardoodle, idea door, mormon share) and had yet to find exactly what I was looking for. I stumbled across Green Jello with Carrots and I went through their whole website! I ended up downloading a coloring sheet, YW bookmarks, and some other YW clipart.

Darling Young Women handouts. I am currently the 1st conselour in yw, and so I loved these. There are so many great ideas out there, and there are weeks when I just don't have the time to go and hunt for handouts and ideas.

Primary talks! I would so buy these. I hate coming up with talks and finding pictures for talks. This would be so worth my money.

They have some great things! It is not a completely free sight, but it's affordable. I paid .89 cents for the coloring sheet that I can save to my computer and reproduce. I'm using it for my hubby's lesson and I am also going to use if for Family Home Evening.

They also have a great little program called Freebie Fridays, where they offer one of their awesome products for free. So cool! You have to hurry though, because once Friday's done, the freebie is gone. I dowloaded their freebie last week and I'm on way to download todays! Head over and get yourself a little freebie!!!

Beef Tips and Gravy

Super easy and way yummy!!

3 lbs. stew beef, cubed
15 oz can tomato sauce
2 c. water
1.35 pkg. onion soup mix
1.3 C. instant tapioca, uncooked
1 to 2 t. beef boullion granuales
cooked egg noodles

Place beef in a slow cooker. Combine remaining ingredients except noodles;poor over beef. Cover and cook on low setting for 8 to 10 hours, or on high setting for 5 to 6 hours. Serve over cooked noodles.

Homemade Rootbeer

Rootbeer

1 ½ gallons of cold water
5 cups of sugar
1 ½ oz of root beer concentrate
3 lbs of dry ice (broken into small pieces)

Stir all of the ingredients but the dry ice together in a large container until sugar has dissolved. Slowly add pieces of dry ice, Stir while it bubbles, have fun, drink it up and enjoy!

Recipe courtesy of Fox 13 News

Free Downloadable Kids Music

I stumbled across this wonderful site this morning! My son got an ipod nano for his birthday so we have been downloading music from itunes and I wanted to find some great kids music for him. This is a great site to go check out http://www.freekidsmusic.com/ if you need some good music. These are just artists that are trying to get their names and music out. It is totally legit and there are some really fun songs. They have a wide variety of music from Nursery songs to children worship songs. We spent a long time listening to the various songs and dancing in the living room.
I was even thinking that it would be a great idea to download a whole CD and give it away as a Christmas gift.

HCG: Week 1

Friday: weighed in at 195.8. Not much, but I have a confession to make. I cheated yesterday. I'm not as strict this time around as I should be. So my bad. I'm back on track.

Thursday: weighed in at 196.4. YES!! This is the kind of loss I want! It probably had something to do with going to Zumba this morning. I didn't weigh in until after I got home. So we'll see how tomorrow plays out. Zumba is probably why my Monday was quite a bit lower too.


Wensday: weighed in at 198.4. Slow and steady.


Tuesday: Weighed in at 199. That is progress. Although, I was hoping for a bigger number. It's usually pretty high the first few days. Well, a pounds a pound. And if you count from my first wiegh in, it is 2 lbs. Not bad.

Monday: Weighed in at 200.2. Weird. I didn't do a very heavy load day on Sunday, though. What an awful day with my kids. I One of the things that I do know about myself is that I am an emotional eater. It was so hard to no go in the kitchen and eat. Hope today is better tomorrow.

Sunday: Weighed in at 202.4. I did another load day this day.

Saturday: Weighed in at 201. Started the HCG drops for my first load day.

Back to School Bus Craft

We made these for BayLees teacher for the first day of school. She insisted on making one for her first grade teacher also. She just painted an egg carton yellow and used a sharpee for the writing. She wanted to cut pictures out of a magazine for the kids faces instead of drawing them on the popsicle stick. Both ways work fine. We finished it off by adding wheels. The teachers loved them and she thought it was a cool craft too!

Perfect for back to school.

Chalk Paint

This was a great activity. I saw this a few weeks ago on Skip To My Lou and wanted to try it. The best part was that I had all the needed materials at home. All you need is cornstarch, food coloring and something to paint with.

Mix 2 Tbsp. cornstarch with 2 Tbsp. of water and add food coloring. Stir well and paint to your hearts content. The only downside of this project was that it is sooooo HOT where I live and it dried as soon as it touched to sidewalk. The kids loved it and J.D. said he wants to do it when it is not 110 degrees outside. We only did it for a few minutes, it just got to hot.

Easy and Fun!! Try it out!

Fabric Covered Magnet Board Tutorial

This is a super simple craft. I'm sure you've seen it around. I tried to see how others had done this by googling it, but couldn't find any tutorials. In theory it's really simple, but I thought I would post it here just in case someone goes looking for it.

I started out with a plain wooden frame that came with a piece of sheet metal inside of it. I got it at Roberts. I painted it a soft black color to start.

Then I dry brushed two coats of pink over the top. I added iridescent glitter to the paint on the second coat.

While your frame dries, lay out your material and your sheet metal. You will want to give yourself about 1-inch of material overlapping the metal.

Iron your material to get out any wrinkles!

Lay out your material again and get ready to hot glue!

You want to pull the material as tight as you can around the magnet board and hot glue it all the way around. You will probably burn your fingers at least a dozen times!!! Pull it as tight as you can so that you don't have any bubbles on the board.

Place your fabric covered metal into the frame and close the backing.Add any embellishments you want to the frame. I used some vinyl to put my nieces name. My sweet sister-in-law has a cricuit, that I covet and she was so nice as to cut this out for me! Once you've done that you have a darling magnet board! I made this for my cute niece who just turned twelve. I hope she likes it. It was so easy to make and turned out pretty cute. The picture doesn't do it justice. I had to turn the flash off so I didn't catch a glare, but it's very pink and very bright.

You could attach ribbon to the back of the board and use that to hang the board with. This particular frame is super heavy, so I decided against the ribbon because I don't think it could really hold it up.

And remember the magnets from Monday's post? Those go with this fun little craft! Cute present for a teenager!!!

The Proposal

This was a FUNNY movie! Mandee and I went and saw it this weekend. It was my first time and her second time. She thought it was even better the second time around. It's a laugh out loud, pee your pants kind of funny!!

I love Sandra Bullock and she did an amazing job. I loved Ryan Reynolds, whom I had never seen play a leading part. He's pretty cute, too, I must add.

The movie is about an unlikely love. Facing deportation back to Canada, Margaret (bullock), blackmails her assistant into marrying her. The spend a weekend in Sitka, Alaska, with his family and things go far from planned.

So funny! It's one I am going to have to buy. It has some old faces that you rarely see anymore. It has the amazing Betty White, who did a fabulous job!!! You also see Craig T. Nelson!! I haven't seen him in years!

Mandee and I give this an A+ rating. It's defiently worth seeing if you want a good laugh!!

Trendy Magnets / AKA: Locker Bling

Easiest craft ever!

Go down to your local craft store and take a look in the scrapbook section for these cute little buttons that look like flair. That's why I liked them. Who doesn't love face book?

Or find yourself some darling, vintage, bottle caps.

Also located in the scrap book section.

Buy some 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch round magnets depending on the size of your buttons. Go home and hot glue a magnet onto the back of your cute button!

Easy, huh? What are you waiting for?

The craft store is calling....

This project cost about $3.50 a set. Makes a darling birthday present for the teenager in your life.

HCG: Here we go agian

The picture in black & white is from about a week ago and the picture in color was taken 1 week before I started the HCG. Big diffrence, huh? It's embarrassing to show the difference, but I think it helps people to see the diffrence 40 pounds makes. I had my little boy take some pictures of me today and I will try to post those in the next few days to show you the diffrence from beginning to end of a cyle of HCG.

That's right I am beginning another round of HCG. I will try to do random updates on the blog to let you know how it is going. I started this morning with my load up days! I ate a coconut cupcake for breakfast! It was heavenly, but I feel pretty yucky right now. I always do on the days you load up. My body just isn't used to that much sugar and fat.

This is my third round of HCG. I am hoping to lose atleast another 15 lbs. Here is my stats in all their awful yuckiness.

I started out at 238 lbs. The heaviest I have EVER been. Three kids later, it was bound to have left a mark on my poor body. I just never lost anything after my third child, two years ago. After two rounds of HCG, I was at 198 lbs. Today I weighed in at 201. They say to stay within 2 lbs. of your last HCG dose day, so I was up 1 lb. this morning. It was the coconut cupcake I had last night and the panini, I am sure, that put me over.

If you want to follow me in my journey, I will post an update every Saturday.

Shaving Cream Painting

This is Messy, with a capital M!! The kids love it.
Spray a little bit of shaving cream on the table, you can add some washable paint to it if you want to give diffrent colors. You can use food coloring, but it stains the little hands and sometimes your table.

Then let them draw to their hearts content. You can let them write in it, play in it. drive cars through it or just spread it all over the table. It's a fun way to do spelling practice or math problems.

Messy, messy, messy!!

Diet Coke + Mento's + FUN

I had never seen this done! Apparently, it's been around for a long time, but if your like me and have never seen it, it's pretty cool!

Open up a bottle of diet coke, and quickly add 1 pkg. of Mento's candy's and you get...........

A Diet Coke volcano!

Pretty awesome, huh?

Keep Out of Reach....PERIOD

WARNING!!!! This stuff is seriously harmful and I speak from personal experience. While we were in Island Park, Idaho for a family reunion we were warned about a bear that had been seen and heard around the area. To be safe my uncle had bought this spray to send with the adults as we went on various walks around the beautiful area. Well, my mom and dad, my 18month daughter, and I went on a walk the first night there. My aunt and uncle handed my dad this spray and off we went, a little nervous about meeting a bear face on.

Well, we wanted to be sure that we knew how it worked so my dad gave it a spray and we were glad that we weren't bears and we wouldn't have to breath the stuff. It shot out a big green cloud. So we continued on our walk switching my daughter between all of us. We returned to the lodge and my uncle was out on the patio so my dad said "Hey Rick!!! Watch this!" then he gave it a spray. He sprayed it away from us and so we walked wide behind him so we wouldn't get in the cloud. Almost instantly I could smell the green cloud and knew we were in trouble. Mia, my daughter, instantly rubbed her eyes and started screaming so I buried her face in my clothes as I ran through the cloud. Thank heavens we were able to get poison control on the phone and they told me that her and I needed to flush our eyes for 20-30 minutes. We had to strip our clothes and wash them immediatley. I have never been so scared. My poor dad felt awful and Mia thank heavens didn't breathe it in, it just got in her eyes. We are all ok and at the end of the reunion I was offered the can of bear spray and graciously denied it.

I am sure that this stuff works and I know what it will do to a bear but my advice to you is don't spray it unless you need it and make sure you are up wind from the bear.

The Tale of Despereaux

I know this movie has been out for quite some time. My children had watched it at our house, whose ages are 7, 4, & 2. It has a G rating and We went to the Piute County Fair this past weekend and watched it as an after dark movie, in the park. So for those of you who haven't yet seen it, here is my thoughts.....


It's about a rat, a mouse, and a servant girl who become 3 unlikely heros. The village in which they live suffers a series of events when the King sends out a decree agianst nature. It teaches of goodness, bravery, loyalty, and courage.

I thought it was a beautifully done movie. They have a narrator who tells the story in fairytale fashion. It might be a little dark for younger kids. My sister thought it was really dark. I didn't think it was until I sat back and thought about it. There were a few scenes that were a little scary, but not unlike any other movies that you see today, G rated or not. It's not a movie that makes you laugh, but it is action packed and the morale of the story is wonderful. My little boys loved it. I defiently recommend it.

Bajo Tacos to Die For

Once again another recipe I tried from Haylees Food (located on our sidebar). I am telling ya, she is a genius.

1 lb chicken
1 pkg taco seasoning
3 onions
1 t olive oil
1T brown sugar
Corn Tortillas
Cilantro
Cheese

Cook and shred the chicken. Add taco seasonings. Cut onions into thin slices (rings) and caramelize over medium heat with the olive oil and brown sugar. Layer tacos on warm tortillas with chicken, onions, cheese, and cilantro.

My family loved this. The only thing I will do differently next time is garnish it with some homemade guacamole, sourcream, and salsa.