Mommiedom

We were at the YMCA pool and the kids really wanted a smoothie from the Smoothie place and I couldn't stomach spending the 4 a piece on a small one for them so I promised them when we got home that I would make them one.

I saw this Pin the other day and thought I need to make that for Mr. L. He carries his cars around or hoes in his pockets plus they always seem to be clanking around. I got some fabric off the remnant bin at the fabric store and paid about a buck for it (i have enough to make more and there has been a request by Miss O to make her one).

He loved it from the moment I finished it and stuck all his cars in. He has been wearing it ever since and shoving all of his five million cars into the pockets. My husband thinks it is so funny and cute on him.

Yes I know another chipboard letter. I love them so much and want to switch them up when I can. I did this one which really accents the new paper Stampin Up has in the new catalog. I just took some 12x12 crumb cake,  8x11.5 summer starfruit, and covered my B with the Birds of a Feather DSP. Very simple and I love the clean lines about it.  I added the punched flowers in Pacific Point and Summer Starfruit.

I have to say the Fourth is one of my favorite holidays of the year. Halloween is first and Christmas is second so the Fourth is like third in that list. I love the red, white and blue colors and well I went to town doing up my buffet in my living room. I love to showcase my fun designs and well holidays make it so much easier.

I have been on a quest for the last ten years to replicate my Grandma Pat's meatloaf. I tried everything and asked everyone for suggestions. I got lots of great ideas and tried many of them.

I even created my own version with an an Italian twist which we love but still crumbled when I sliced it. I just wanted a meatloaf that sliced nicely and would be good hot or cold like my Grandma's. Today after some internet searches and using an unconventional method, I found it.

I love to make meatloaf on Sundays but hate having to heat the oven when it is over ninety degrees outside. So I first started looking for something to to use my ground beef in the crockpot. I went through all sorts of ideas but the last one was making a meatloaf in the crockpot. Yeah I know it sounds crazy but I thought why not. If it didn't work out we were having pizza.

So I went to putting it all together which took about five minutes total.

1 pound of ground beef
1 pound of ground pork (or Italian sausage)
2 eggs
2 and half pieces of whole wheat bread
Some milk (like one or two tablespoons).
Italian seasoning
Garlic salt
Small can of tomato sauce

I beat the eggs and than added the bread which I just crumbled up. I put the dash of milk as well as some of the garlic salt and Italian seasoning (about a teaspoon of each). I mixed that all together and than added the Ground beef and pork. I got my hands dirty and mixed it all together and formed it into a log in the crock pot. I topped it with the tomato sauce and set it I low for 6-7 hours. I did drain off some of the fat about half way through but I don't think you would have to do it.

The loaf sliced so nice and well was voted as the best by the family. I made homemade mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts sautéed with bacon ( I browned some bacon and than tossed in some cooked sprouts to brown them up).

I can't wait to try it with the Italian sausage or even a turkey beef mix. I think you could use ketchup as well instead of tomato sauce- I just prefer the sauce.

I think the trick here was that the meatloaf was somewhat steamed by the crock pot. All I know for sure was that it was delish and will so be making it again.

I have been working on these placements "um gulp" for almost a year. I bought the stuff about two days before last year's 4th of July and had most of them down right away but after the holiday came and went, I stuck them away and with the move of the craft area, they sort of got put to the bottom of the pile. I was going through my sewing stuff and make a pile of things I wanted to get done when I stumbled upon them again, so I finished them up (all I needed to do was sew the binding on). I than found some extra blue fabric and made some matching napkins which I didn't sew just heat bonded them on because they are more for decoration than use!


I also picked up some cute patriotic fabric while on our road trip and was thinking what could I do with that. When I got home, I looked through my one quilt magazine and this really cute quick quilt was in there. I decided that was what I wanted to do. I still have a bunch of the fabric left over from the pack so I might make something else with it. Now I just need a place to hang it or set it.

Yes I am at it again with my wreaths. I love creating them for holidays and well just about every day. I have been thinking about what I wanted to do for the 4th of July which is one of my favorite holidays. I love the patriotic blues, reds and whites of the holiday. It is so much fun to walk the store aisles of the 4th decor.

I did some research on Pinterest and gathered some ideas as I walked around the stores and when I found the triangle banner at Wally World, I knew what I was going to do. This wreath has about 5 dollars worth of stuff in it and was super simple to make.

I got a wreath and bow at the dollar store, and than purchased the triangle red, white, and blue banner at Wally World. I used red, white and blue card stock in my stash and punch out the layered flowers. I did play with the bow some and had it first not the bottom but after hanging it up, decided to switch to the top which I like so much better.

After the 4th, my Pinwheel Wreath will go back up but I think I will be doing a back to school one for August which should be fun plus if it works out what a fun teacher gift it could be.

With being out of town, I am behind posting my last two weekly articles.

Here is the one from 6/10/12:http://leaguecity.macaronikid.com/article/304729/mommy-confessions

6/3/12:http://leaguecity.macaronikid.com/article/300813/mommy-confessions

So I know that many people dread getting in the car for days at a time with kids and think we are crazy to take the toddler and six year old on these long trips. My inlaws joked that they didn't think we would ever make it to Arizona because of the car ride but we did and had an incredible time.

One of the mottos we love to live by is "Life is about the Journey and not the Destination", so as we go on these roads trip, we enjoy the journey that we are on. We saw some incredible things and well have decided that this road trip will be another one we will be taking and adding on lots of great pitstops as well.

We started our journey here in Houston and drove west on I-10 towards San Antonio where we made our fist pitstop at Buc-ee's. If you are from Texas or have driven through, you know Buc-ee's and yes it is a gas station but it has to be the biggest and nicest one we have ever seen. The bathrooms are amazing and well the selections of treats and foods are great. This is no ordinary place for gas station food. You know when you see Buc-ee's that you are close to San Antonio. We spent about 45 minutes at Buc-ee's looking around, buying large amounts of beef jerky and candy, and eating a nice dinner.

Soon we were off again towards what was going to be our final destination for the night, Sonora, Texas. We stopped at a nice motel which had a great free homemade breakfast. As we were talking to the waitress in the little restaurant, she told us to make sure we get gas and potty breaks because there is nothing to little as we travel to El Paso. She was right but we did find a bathroom( a very nice and clean one) in the middle of nowhere after we got off to take some pictures.

Well you all know my huge love for Pinterest. It has so many ideas. My friend and I who walk every day talk about how much we love the ideas. I was attempting a project that I saw on there- yoga pants which didn't turn out at all. I know what I did wrong and might attempt them again at some point but I had this left over fabric from that and thought that would be so cute as a fabric flower.

So I went on and did a search for fabric flowers and discovered a great pin and blog as well. I used the great tutorial from BCheniful and did modify it a bit just so it would work for me. I actually made two flowers and layered them up.

Here is how I did it with my modifications and be warned that you will burn your fingers on the glue gun.

Mr. L was digging through my stickers and I realized I had this Decor Element I had purchased quite awhile ago. I love birds like this and thought I need to do something with it so Off to the craft store we went. Mr. L actually behaved and I found this cute apothecary jar to put the decor element on. It was super easy and totally made it unique to me!

I have been working on this mega quilt for nearly two years which added up to countless hours of piecing the blocks together, cutting the sashing and than sewing it. It is far from perfect but it is my real first attempt at something like this.

The actual quilt was suppose to be for a queen bed but we have a king so I added on the extra yellow border to have it fit and my oh my does it ever. I love the soft colors of it and can not wait for it to be quilted. I am sending it off to a woman in Arizona who will quilt it for me and than I can hopefully pick it up when we are there.

I will post pictures of when it is all quilted and on the bed finally.

I saw this on Pinterest and thought that is a REALLY great idea. I have actually been  thinking about how I can pull all of that stuff together of my disorganization and yes I can be- I don't like to but it does happen.

I got a really cute binder from Wally World and a pack of eight pocket dividers (they are the ones that you can write and erase on the tabs).




The seventh tab is for the to do lists (PDF version) . I figure I can use this as needed or each week of the things I need to do. The eight tab is just a general tab for all of that loose stuff that needs to go in there like currently my eye glass script is in there so I hope not to lose it.

I really wanted a central location for lot of this stuff. I hope that weekly, I can go through it to update, and schedule as needed. I love the idea of one stop shopping to make it easier to go through life.

I hope you enjoy working on one as well and please feel free to use the attached PDFs for your binder.

Yes it is another Pinwheel wreath I created but I added a chipboard covered Welcome sign that i covered in the same paper.

This  was so easy. I  got a wreath from the dollar store (the smaller one) and made 3x3 inch pinwheels in two coordinating papers. I than took the chipboard Welcome and covered that with coordinating paper. I sanded and inked the edges to give it that distressed look. This is a present and I am sure the person will love it. It also gave me the idea to do a patriotic wreath like this but you know me I will totally add more to it.