I'm Still Here...

I'm still here, a little tired, but here. I meant to post last week about my upcoming trip, but in the chaos of trying to get myself and the boys ready, I got sidetracked. I am now back from my girls weekend and just thought I would share a few of the highlights from my trip to KY.

I left on Friday to go stay with one of my besties,a roommate from college that lives outside Lexington KY. She has been telling me for years about a festival called Court Days that her little town hosts, so this year we planned well in advance and my parents agreed to keep my boys so I could go see what all the fuss was about.

I drove to TN on Friday with the boys, and then rode from TN to KY with my girlfriends' Mom, Grandma, and a family friend. Can I just tell you that these women are a hoot!! I don't know when I have laughed so much. We stayed up late, rose early, and shopped 'til we dropped all weekend. I found several goodies, but had to leave part of them in KY because the car was so packed coming home.

Here is Robin digging through a bunch of scarves. We loved this booth. It had real cashmere scarves and a huge variety of Pashminas for $8/each or 3 for $20.Here we are on a hayride. Staci lives pretty close to downtown where the festival took place, so the little man doing the hayride agreed to take us back to Staci's house for $1/person. He got a little lost and we were frozen solid by the time we got there, but it was still worth a buck considering we were completely loaded down with stuff.
Here is a picture of one section of the festival. It does not even begin to do it justice. There.were.people.EVERYWHERE. They had booths selling everything from high dollar antiques to a set of tata's that sang "Titties and Beer" and flashed you.
Here we are in front of one of the booths that had gorgeous silver jewelry. Baby Claire and Carson even came down to the festival Sunday.
I loved this snowman. It was just a piece of bark cut off of a tree and painted, but at about 8 feet tall I think it would be beautiful outdoors at Christmas.

And this is a picture of me learning how to make Peanut Butter Chocolate Bon-Bons.

When I don't have a loss for my Weight Watcher's Weigh in tomorrow I won't be surprised. No one prepared me for the amount of "fair food" we would be exposed to this weekend. Wow. I shared a fried Snickers, fried Twinkie, and even a Fried Oreo. Those things are good enough alone, deep fry them and they are UNBELIEVABLE. I will do a tutorial on these bon bons later this week because the were also incredible.

I missed out on the DIY Tuesday this week, but I have lots of projects going on and will be back with some of them later on in the week. I hope you had a wonderful weekend and I look forward to catching up!

Sandbox Cookies...

So a couple of weeks ago when I posted about Walker's 4th birthday party, I mentioned that he had gotten an adorable gift that I was gonna blog about later. Well it is definitely later, but I have been so crazy busy lately that I have not gotten around to showing you this. Without further adieu, here is one of the cutest gift ideas EVER... SANDBOX COOKIES! If you have a child that likes to cook (Walker LOVES it), then this would be a perfect gift .These were given to Walker, along with a cutie patootie Dinosaur beach towel, by a friend of mine named Amy. Amy is a kindergarden teacher and one very crafty chic. She said she saw these in a boutique in Hilton Head a couple years ago, and decided she could make them for much less. Well you go girl! Here is how she did it...

You just have to get a small beach set. (Walker and Connor have already been using theirs in the pool.)
Type up the instructions and add some cute beach clipart. Tape the instructions on the dry ingredients. Now here's the kicker, you can either mix the dry ingredients yourself and put them in a ziploc bag, or you can buy a bag of sugar cookie mix at the store and just put that in a clear baggie. Honestly, who is gonna know the difference?

Wrap it all in cellophane and tie it with a cute ribbon.

We made ours the other night while it was raining, and they were wonderful. Walker is always glad to be on quality control.
They were gone in a flash!
One other thing that Amy did that I just had to show you, was how she wrapped his beach towel. Cellophane and ribbon again, but she also cut out the picture of Walker from the invitation and hand made his gift tag. So. Stinkin'.Cute. I didn't get a good pic before Walker tore into it, but I think you get the idea here.

We are heading to the river until Saturday evening, and then VBS starts on Sunday, so it looks like it is gonna be another crazy week around here. I'm just thankful we got the boys' first dental appointments and Walker's 4 year old shots out of the way last week. He is only starting pre-school, but it feels like the preparations are already in high gear. I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and let me know if you try the Sandbox Cookies.

Valentines Day Treats...

Happy Valentines Day! I just wanted to do a quick post this morning about the treats the boys are giving our family here in SC. They were extremely budget friendly and sort of a spur of the moment idea, but they turned out pretty cute.

Walker bought sprinkles for cupcakes a month ago. They were at Target and had 5 different bottles with all different red and pink hearts. I promised him he could make the cupcakes, but could not figure out how to easily package 2 per person. Last night when I went to the store I found these little disposable miniature bread tins. The size was perfect, but they were blue so we had to put a little Valentine paper and tie a bow. Easy peasy and cheap to boot! Now that is my kind of gift.

Here are the boys at 7:00 this morning putting the sprinkles on. Walker is using 2 bottles at one time and shaking as hard as he can. Connor on the other hand is enjoying his strawberry toast and pondering why his sprinkles won't come out. It must be the fact that the top of his sprinkle container is caked in frosting because he thinks he has to press the jar into the icing.

Here they are from the back. They are standing in their learning tower. My parents got us this a couple of years ago and it has been worth every cent. It's height is adjustable and it is solid wood. It is so much handier to use when we are cooking or they are helping wash the dishes because it has rails and keeps them much more steady than a stool or chair.


Back to the subject at hand, here is Walkie in his jammies showing off his cupcakes.
And Con-man finishing up his strawberry toast, and pondering whether he wants to dip it in that icing on the cupcake.

Here they are all wrapped and ready to go.

We made Papa a Key Lime pie, because he is more a of pie kind of guy. I did what Screaming Meme suggested and bought the Key Lime Pie cheesecake filling in the cream cheese section that comes in a tub. I put it in a mini graham cracker pie crust and topped with whipping cream. Put a couple limes on for garnish and he will never know it wasn't homemade. Atleast that is the goal.

We are gonna go deliver our cupcakes and have dinner with Nana and Jerry. We hope you have a wonderful Valentines Day!

The Next Hot Chef...

Well it is official, I am raising the next Hot Chef that America is gonna swoon over and love. We got out Walker's Easy Bake Oven (thanks Wewe) today for the first time, and he sported his cool new apron Nonnie got him for Christmas. Let me just say the child was in his element. You should have seen him tasting his batter and whipping up the icing for the cake. I am thinking maybe he will be the next Curtis Stone from Take Home Chef.

Here he is whipping up his recipe, you may have to squint to see it. Those Easy Bake packets are not very generous. Imagine making batter for a single cookie.

He is ready for battle in the kitchen with his spiffy new whisk.
I think it is just about right. Maybe a little more water.
Okay. It's PERFECT! Time to bake for 12 mins.
Let's ice this little beauty. TA DA!

Walker wouldn't eat his own cake. He called Nana and she agreed to come over and try it. Poor Nana. What won't grandparents do for their grandkids?

Weekend Recap...

The weekend was super busy, but a lot of fun. I think the best way to share it with you is by letting the pictures tell the story.

Let's start with the Festival of Lights on Friday night. Absolutely spectacular. I have to say, I have a good camera, but I don't think any camera can do these lights justice.

They have a carousel, which is always a big hit with the boys. Mama was Walker's riding partner. Connor and I with the Dalmation.

For those of you not from here, the bridge in Charleston is famous. It used to be called the Cooper River Bridge, but it is now called the Ravenel Bridge. Anyway, I could not catch it on film, but this light display shows the silhouette of the old bridge turning into the new bridge (which is shown.) The lights are also on the bank of a pond so at night this is spectacular.
This poinsettia thing was huge.

Sand sculpture of Santa's village. This is South Carolina's answer to an ice sculpture!
You can't really tell it, but the trees behind us have colored buttons, and the color of the lights is determined by the color of the button you push. This amazed the boys!
This is Rainbow Row in lights. There were so many more I wish I could share, but like I said before, I did a bad job with the camera so will spare you.

Saturday we had Nana's Christmas party, and we had to make sugar cookies and a couple of dips. We also made those Poppyseed Ham Rolls, and they were delish! The dips went over well, but the ham rolls were the biggest hit. (Click Here for the recipe.)

Here are the sugar cookies Walkie made.
He really got into the sprinkles.

He was so proud and he and his pj's were covered in flour!

Do you recognize Santa? Luckily the boys didn't!

The party was a lot of fun. Sandy's parties always are, but on the way to the car Walker tripped and fell in the driveway. He was barefooted so he skinned his knees, elbows and one toe pretty bad. Walker is a rather dramatic child, so all day Sunday we nursed his injuries. Look and tell me this is not a hoot...
This is Walker's hurt toe wrapped in a bandage, in a wet washcloth, in a sock. Whatever works I guess!

Sunday I crafted all day, in an attempt to finish my Christmas gifts. My wonderful husband watched the boys, and here are a few of the things I made that I can show you. The rest will have to wait until after Christmas since the other gifts are for people that read the blog.

Lon's family got the biggest kick out of the elf yourself video, so I decided to make them some ornaments with the pictures on them. They turned out really cute and were not that hard to make, just a little time consuming.

This is one for Aunt Dora Mae who is actually Lon's great aunt. This amazed her. She had "no idea computers could do such things!"

This is what they looked like on the back.

I made this one for Sandy, and it has all of her family on it. It is actually sewn so she can hang it on a doorknob, or it is small enough to put on the tree if she wanted to.


This one is for Lon's Grandparents. It says "Our Greatest Blessings call us Mama and Papa." She decorates with a lot of blue and khaki, so this should be right up her alley.

I LOVED how this pillow tured out for Lon's Uncle and his girlfriend. They have a beach house and we all love to use it. It has flip flops all over it and it says "You never know how many friends you have until you buy a house at the beach."

As you can see we had a fun and productive weekend. I hope you did too!

Busy, Busy Bees!

As I'm sure it is with most families, we have kicked it into high gear around here. Operation Christmas is in full swing! I have been crafting, shopping, baking and wrapping (as in gifts, not the hip-hop rapping, but that might make the crafting and baking even more entertaining...) for the past couple of days. The problem with this is, that I can't really show you what I've been up to because the people I've been crafting for read this blog. I can show you a sock monkey or two, and promise you that on Dec. 26, there will be a serious post with lots of pictures.
This is Miss Priss, she is going to my Mom. I'm not sure who she is going to, but her tutu doubles as a hairbow, and if you can't tell she is very prissy!

These 2 are brothers. Silly and Willy. I made these for Lon's Grandma to give to 2 of the youngest Great Nephews. I'm not sure who is getting Silly and who is getting Willy, but I am sure they are gonna love 'em!

In the mean time, I will show you what the boys cooked today for lunch. They love to "make recipes" as Walker says. Today they made pizza. It was one of those Chef Boyardee box mixes, but they really thought they were something. Walker making his "just so" ever so gently.

Connor takes a more aggressive "beat it to death" approach. The sauce and cheese part was a little messy, so I couldn't really take pics. Lon ate it for lunch, so it must have been pretty good.

I've turned Walker into quite the little barista (coffee-making expert). He is officially my little helper these days and wants to do EVERYTHING I do, including making coffee. Luckily he listens well, and since we make it on our Keurig, it is not really involving any hot water so the burn factor is zilch. (I felt this needed clarification because a 3 year old really has no business making coffee.)

Tonight we are going to the Festival of Lights on James Island. It is spectacular, and the boys really love it, so that should be a lot of fun.

Tomorrow is Nana's Christmas party, so "Santa" will be making an appearance, and we have lots of goodies to bake. Walker is making and decorating sugar cookies for the first time, so that should be fun. I'm anxious to see if the boys recognize him this year. They haven't so far, but he doesn't talk a whole lot other than the HOHOHO's.

Lon also has a football game this weekend, and we have to finish our shopping, so it should be pretty eventful. I'll get lots of good pics tonight and try to put them up for tomorrow. These lights really do top anything I've ever seen. Hope you have a great weekend!