Getting back underway!

I think things are starting to calm down around here. Here is what we have been up to:

• School is well underway for both boys! Its weird for me to say that! Baker goes to preschool two days a week while I work, and Avery is in full day kindergarten. They both have great teachers! (who knew how much paper two kids could bring home the first week of school!)
• Baker is pretty much potty trained!
• I am back from a 10 day work trip to DC. It was great to be back there! More on my trip later
• Ive got so many projects on the brain! Is it too early to decorate for Halloween?

That brings me to my latest plan. Raise your hand if you LOVE pinterest!?! I no longer mind the super long Costco line. Waiting for my ground turkey to brown is no problem. I just browse and pin and repin! Like most of you I am collecting a long list of fun potential projects.

So Im going to start a weekly Pinterest Project! On Mondays I will browse my projects pin board and announce my pick of the week, and by Friday I will blog about how it went and maybe some tutorials or status updates along the way.

I would love for you to join in the fun and do some projects with me! Or if you have a fun project pinned send me an email with the link, Ill pin it and maybe Ill make it! Just send your project to artsyaut@gmail.com :)

Click the link on the side of my blog to follow me on Pinterest.

Ill post my first pinterest project later on today! I have to do a little work around the house first. Dang priorities!!

Kindergarten Boy!!

My little boy is a kindergarten boy!

He did great. He likes his teacher a lot.

After we got home he was explaining to me all the fun stuff he did. There was some talk of dancing, eating graham crackers, and something about the girls rode horses with wings (he was impressed that I knew they were call Pegasus) and the boys rode warrior horses. Not sure how that all went down in room 4, but sounds like a good time.

I did good too!

I got a little teary when he did the pledge of allegiance (it just made him look so big!!)

It was a good day!

Way to go Avery!!

The next test of my courage is tommorrow. Baker goes to preschool...

Wish us both luck!!!

Guilty!

Im such a dork! Lets just get that out of the way.

This morning my mom sent me this picture:

Its totally MY handwriting! That is how I used to write/doodle my name in college. My mom works at the university I went to. She has a few little study cubes in her office that used to be in the library and she got my ole favorite!! I must have written this in '02 or '03. I have no recollection of this. Funny!

Hope I dont get fined!!

Picky Picky Bran Muffins

My little one does not eat very much. Actually, Im not sure how he has so much energy all the time. I mean how much nutrition can one tater tot provide?

So Im always trying to think of things besides chicken nuggets and marshmallows to feed him.

This morning I whipped up a batch of these babies. And they were a hit! (and healthy to boot!)

All-Bran Muffins

(makes 12)

1 1/4 C flour

1/2 or 1/3 sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 C All-Bran cereal

1 1/4 C milk (I use skim)

1 egg

1/4 C oil (I use veggie)

1 tablespoon honey (I usually just eyeball it)

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon ( we are cinnamon freaks so I add almost a tablespoon)

Stir together cereal and milk in a medium size bowl. Let sit till the cereal is nice and soggy.

Add in the egg, oil, and honey. Stir it up.

Add all the dry ingredients and stir to combine.

Line muffin tin with cupcake papers if you dont like washing muffin tins, or if you dont care just spray Pam in muffin tin. Fill the papers most of the way up, making 12 muffins.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 min.

Easy!

Make some for a picky eater.

Baker Turns Two!

Time flies when you're having fun. That has never been more true than the last two years!

Can it really be two years ago that this little guy and I were watching fireworks from the hospital window when he was just 1 day old?

How did he go from this:

To this:

We love you Baker!

You brighten our lives with your fun, sweet personality every day! Cant wait to see what the next year holds for you!!

(Birthday cake was this lemonade cake. It was goooooooood!)

Preparation Procrastinator

Oh my gosh, there are so many awesome crafts and decorations for the 4th of July. All you have to do is look at Pinterest and the creative juices will be flowing!!

See what I mean here

I really really wanted to do something cute and creative for this holiday. I had my sights set on these things:

From my favorite party planner

From someone I blogstalk

from here

from here

and from here

BUT, I didnt. I didnt even do one thing! Not even decorate a sugar cookie! I raided Home Depot paint chip samples a few weeks ago with the intention of making red white and blue pendants. Didnt happen.

But I did go to my favorite sandwich shop and get this:

And I got my haircut kind of like this (not me below, I wish! ha!):

And I went to here TWICE today! You read that right, twice! Not once, twice! Wonderful day!!!

I guess its not too late. I could still sew the pendants. I might give myself a patriotic pedicure. And I do actually have an extremely awesome 4th of July T-shirt designed by my extremely awesome brother (who WON the Whiskey Row boot race!!! He's got the fastest boots in the West). So I guess Im not doing too bad.

Artsy at Sweetest Petunia!

Jacky from The Sweetest Petunia is featuring my designs on her blog today and hosting a giveaway!

Go here to check it out

I love her blog, its the latest addition to my RSS feed!

A Baby "Shower"

My new friend Kaleesha is having a baby boy any day now. A few of my other friends and I threw her a little baby shower. Get it? Shower? As in rain?

I love this idea, but I cant take any credit for the creativity here. I got my inspiration (and basically copied everything) from here.

The cupcakes were my favorite thing. I took about a million pictures of them.

(maybe I will show my DIY/temporary tiered cake stand some day soon)

I finally had a reason to get my hands on some adorable straws!

The final spread. Tons of good food! Im just going to come right out and admit I have a serious weakness for trifle. I saved a bowl of it after the party, you know to share with Brad, but ended up eating the whole bowl myself during nap time the next day. Have I no shame?!? Guess not.

Kaleesha, good luck birthing your little man into the world! Cant wait to see him!!

Special thanks to my dear friend (and look-alike) Lindi at Love the Day for the awesome party designs! And Daisy, you are mad with the scissors girl! And Tara, Kelsey, and Breanne my co-conspiritors, love you guys!

Im Featured, Plus a Giveaway!

Hey Friends!

Have you been over to The Nurse Mommy yet?

Its a cute blog that specializes in product reviews and lots of giveaways, cant go wrong there right?

Well guess who is being featured today??? Yep, me! Im so excited!!

Head over there and enter to win a lil sumpin' sumpin' special from my shop.

(Even if you blog stalk me and never leave comments :) )

Another fun blogger will be featuring me and hosting a giveaway soon! Im so excited. Make sure to like me on FB for reminders!

In completely unrelated news:

My cousin Daisy is visiting for the summer. She deserves her own post!

Im going night swimming in the ocean tonight!

I just watched Tanlged for the first time this morning (loved it, duh!)

Ive typed this whole post while sword fighting on the side. Im a multi tasker.

Have a great weekend!

Bathing Beauties

We like schedules (pronounced "shed-yule" if you please) around here. We try to do things pretty much the same everyday for our bedtime routine.

Its the usual business:

dinner

bath (although those two can flip flop)

brush teeth

vitamins and water

read

song

prayer

music on the iPod while they drift off to dream land.

Avery is even more ruled by the routine than I am. But sometimes, we live a little crazy and skip a bath (like if they were swimming in the pool in the yard all afternoon. You might think its gross, but I count it!)

We skipped the bath on Saturday night and had it on Sunday morning before church instead. Im so glad we did!!

I love a good baby bath picture. Usually they turn out all yellow and dark for me. But since we were bathing in the morning, the lighting was awesome!

And the only mustache that EVER looks good, is a bubble one!

Im a firm believer that everyone looks better when wet, kids are no exception! These two were squeaky clean!

Moral of the story: I should loosen up a bit on my shed-yule. The pictures might be great! And my boys hair will smell more like the mango smoothie shampoo during church. Bonus!!