Sweetly Southern

Are We There Yet?

2010-07-20T21:50:00.000-07:00

"Occasional Comments" By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the July issue of Jonesboro Occasions Magazine.

When you become the mom of two boys, you understand pretty quickly that much of your time will revolve around sports. From the time they can grip, they have a ball in their hands and are throwing them across a room as soon as they can sit up.

Since my oldest, Samuel, was 2 years old, we’ve had a basketball goal in the living room and a surplus of Nerf footballs lying around the house. And still, my boys think they need to purchase another ball when we are at the store. I have yet to figure out why.

Last spring, we ventured into organized sports for the first time with T-ball. It was fun for the kids and great entertainment for the parents. One friend described it as “the amoeba of T-ball” and I found that to be an accurate description. While the coaches did their best to help teach the kids about the game, that didn’t stop players from running from home plate to third base or the entire team from running to the first base line to fight over one small T-ball.

This year we moved on to machine pitch. The kids better understood the basic mechanics of the field, but hitting a ball coming at them at 35-miles-an-hour was an entirely new skill. We spent hours in practice learning when and how to swing, where andhow to stand and what to do when you finally make contact with the ball.

After games, other mothers and I would laugh about how excited we would become when our sons hit the ball and I will proudly say that I was one of those moms screaming, “RUN, RUN” every time Samuel hit the ball. As a parent, I found that I am just as excited as he is when he makes a good play or hits the ball. But I also found that I also feel his disappointment. Not dissatisfaction in him, but merely in knowing that he is disappointed with himself.

We were lucky this year to be placed on a team with a great group of parents who were supportive of all the kids. Whether they hit the ball or not or overthrew to the first baseman, the supports in our stands were yelling “good job” to the kids. Friends on other teams were not so lucky with overbearing coaches, angry parents and whiney kids.

But whether the kids can play well or not, they look the part from their bat bags down to their muddy cleats. As a momma, I don’t think there’s anything cuter than a field full of 6-year-old boys in their matching jerseys, baseball pants and monogrammed hats playing on a miniature field of dreams.

4th of July Fireworks

2010-07-13T21:08:00.001-07:00

You know how sometimes you are using a slow shutter speed and/or your camera just functions that way and you come out with really terrible, blurry pictures that make you automatically hit delete....and then there are other times when you come out with really cool stuff like this:

I love 4th of July because I love taking pictures of fireworks. This year I didn't get very many because I have a terrible case of hives and couldn't stay out in the heat very long. But I did get the cool one above and a couple others during the daytime that my kids thought were cool.

For some really cool ones (that I'm very proud of) that I shot last year, click HERE.

See more great Outdoor shots at Outdoor Wednesday!

Chicken Piccata

2010-07-08T21:23:00.000-07:00

This is another great way to prepare those boneless chicken breast you're always looking for a new way to prepare!

Ingredients:
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 egg beaten
1 c. milk
salt and pepper to taste
1 c. Italian bread crumbs
1/2 stick butter

Cut each breast into two slices. Pound each slice on both sides to make tender - I skipped this step here. Sometimes I do it and sometimes I don't. To me the chicken taste great either way. If you do not have something already, this tenderizer from Pampared Chef is a great one. The round disk at the bottom unscrews and flips, allowing you to tenderize on one side and flatten on the other side.

Salt and pepper to taste. Dip in milk, dip in egg, and dip in seasoned bread crumbs.
These dipping trays are also from Papared Chef and I really like them.

Melt butter in hot skillet and place seasoned chicken in butter to brown on both sides until golden brown, but not cooked through. Just 2-4 minutes on each side.

Place in a 9x13 pan or on stoneware (again, I like my Pampared Chef!). Cover with foil and bake at 300 degrees for 45 minutes. Remove foil the last few minutes to allow to crisp a bit.

For more great recipes, visit Foodie Friday and Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays!

New Nightlight

2010-06-27T20:48:00.000-07:00

First of all - anyone who says boys can't have cute things are just wrong! You have to be more creative, but boys can have cute things too! My youngest needed a nightlight and after looking around a bit, I came across this a Hobby Lobby. So I decided to make my own.

I took him to the scrapbook paper and let him pickout a sheet that he liked. He's two, so I actually picked 2 or 3 and then let him select from those. I then picked a solid sheet that coordinated.The pull away sheet on the nightlight shade can be used as a pattern. I traced it onto a sheet of scrapbook paper and cut it out.
The shade is self-adhesive, so I just stuck the paper right to it.

Next a cut out his initial with my Cricut on the matching solid sheet. I decopaged it on and coated the entire sheet of paper in decopage to help bond it further to the shade.

Then I glued on this fabric trim all along the top and bottom...
wrapping it around to the back and securing it with glue to the back of the frame. I then cut away all excess hanging fibers from the trim so that none would be touching the lightbulb.

And this is my finished product - with the lights on.

And with the lights off. He loves his new nightlight and he loves that he picked out the planes, trains and automobile paper too.
Obviously you could also do this with fabric and monogram the fabric, but I don't have a monogram machine - and scrapbooking is more my thing, so I decided to go that route. It was also very quick. From start to finish it took less than an hour and then just time to dry. It was ready to go into his room that night.

Join Between Naps on the Porch for more Metamorphasis Monday!

hey, batter, batter, swing!

2010-06-26T20:59:00.000-07:00

By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the June issue of Jonesboro Occasions Magazine.

When you become the mom of two boys, you understand pretty quickly that much of your time will revolve around sports. From the time they can grip, they have a ball in their hands and are throwing them across a room as soon as they can sit up.

Since my oldest, Samuel, was 2 years old, we’ve had a basketball goal in the living room and a surplus of Nerf footballs lying around the house. And still, my boys think they need to purchase another ball when we are at the store. I have yet to figure out why.

Last spring, we ventured into organized sports for the first time with T-ball. It was fun for the kids and great entertainment for the parents. One friend described it as “the amoeba of T-ball” and I found that to be an accurate description. While the coaches did their best to help teach the kids about the game, that didn’t stop players from running from home plate to third base or the entire team from running to the first base line to fight over one small T-ball.

This year we moved on to machine pitch. The kids better understood the basic mechanics of the field, but hitting a ball coming at them at 35-miles-an-hour was an entirely new skill. We spent hours in practice learning when and how to swing, where andhow to stand and what to do when you finally make contact with the ball.

After games, other mothers and I would laugh about how excited we would become when our sons hit the ball and I will proudly say that I was one of those moms screaming, “RUN, RUN” every time Samuel hit the ball. As a parent, I found that I am just as excited as he is when he makes a good play or hits the ball. But I also found that I also feel his disappointment. Not dissatisfaction in him, but merely in knowing that he is disappointed with himself.

We were lucky this year to be placed on a team with a great group of parents who were supportive of all the kids. Whether they hit the ball or not or overthrew to the first baseman, the supports in our stands were yelling “good job” to the kids. Friends on other teams were not so lucky with overbearing coaches, angry parents and whiney kids.

But whether the kids can play well or not, they look the part from their bat bags down to their muddy cleats. As a momma, I don’t think there’s anything cuter than a field full of 6-year-old boys in their matching jerseys, baseball pants and monogrammed hats playing on a miniature field of dreams.

Outdoor Wednesday - Geese

2010-06-22T13:16:00.000-07:00

I haven't been blogging lately because we've been so busy with things, so these are from this past March. They were taken at my parents but I never got around to posting them. My dad built this nest on his pond about 3 years ago, but geese had never used it until this year. A couple took up residency at my parents this year and the female nested in the half barrel my dad created. You can just see her peaking her head up here...
Her male partner was never far. You can see him near the nest in this picture.

She hatched six geese and five survived being little. I wasn't able to get pictures of them after they hatched. We've only been home once since then and they were only on the pond in the very early morning and I wasn't able to get pictures. In addition to this family, another family shortly after joined them with three babies and another family came about 4 weeks ago. They just left the pond this week and over the past month my parents have had 21 geese in total on the pond. I'm sad that I wasn't able to go home and get pictures.

See more great Outdoor shots at Outdoor Wednesday!

Just Starting Out

2010-05-23T20:27:00.000-07:00

Written by Shaila Creekmore, illustration by Brittney Guest, as printed in the May 2010 edition of Jonesboro Occasions.

Eleven years ago this month, I received my diploma from Arkansas State University along with nearly a thousand other people ready to tackle “the real world.” Many of those walking with me already had jobs lined up to start within days or weeks of graduation. Others, like myself, had decided to wait until the summer to look for employment.

I was more concerned about my June wedding and honeymoon and was certain I could find a job afterwards. My soon-to-be husband had graduated in December and had spent the spring semester substitute teaching.

We were young, jobless and without a care in the world. We didn’t even care that we didn’t have jobs when we returned from our honeymoon. That would all work itself out. We had an apartment, degrees and enough money saved up for about three months of expenses.

Our parents said we were living on love. We laughed and said don’t worry about it. They would often bring groceries on visits or send us home with a bag full of food, extra things they bought and didn’t need. My mom would mail me coupons, just in case there were any I needed. It was their way of helping out without butting in.

For two months, I spent time setting up the apartment and Kevin played lots of golf. In early August, I said, “I guess it’s time I got a job.” I made a phone call, had an informal interview and started working four nights a week as a copy editor at The Jonesboro Sun. Later in the month, Kevin received a phone call that one of the Jonesboro elementary schools needed an additional fourth grade teacher and he started the day after Labor Day. See Mom and Dad, it all worked out – no worries!

But that was a decade ago when jobs were ready to be had and a career was only a phone call away. You could drop off a couple of resumes and wait on a phone call. I knew very few people we graduated with who were worried about finding a job.

Today, students graduating with college degrees are waiting tables and working at Wal-Mart while sending out hundreds of resumes and hoping that someone is hiring. Some are pursuing a master’s degree instead of entering the workforce just so they can remain on their parent’s health insurance.

During college, my husband and I only worked summer jobs to earn extra money for the school year. Now, more college students are working in their degree fields part-time or through internships just to try to get a leg up over the competition while working their way through college.

Looking back now, I can see that the world I entered 11 years ago was in many ways not “the real world” after all, but ideal circumstances that I happened to be lucky enough to encounter without realizing how fortunate we were.

My Town

2010-05-20T20:53:00.000-07:00

I'm linking up to Kelly's Korner for Friday's Show Us Where You Live.

I too live in Arkansas, but on the opposite side of the state in a small city atop Crowley's Ridge.

We are the second largest city in the state in area and the fifth largest in population, but constantly growing. We still have a great deal of agriculture in the area, especially in our surrounding cities with rice and soybeans being the two major crops. (Yes - these really are 2 of our local farmers! This is a photo from the magazine where I work on their farm and our Farmer's Market held in the spring and summer. I work for a local magazine - Jonesboro Occasions - and many of these photos are from our publication or my own.)

We also have strong industrial production with major food companies like Frito Lay and Post and green industries are quickly moving in as construction on a wind turbine producer is currently being finished.

We are home to Arkansas State University - the other big university system in the state (don't worry, we're still big Hog fans too!) My husband and I both graduated from here and is where we met.

We are home to the Red Wolves...

Until 2 years ago, we were the ASU Indians, but the NCAA required us to change our mascot or face not being able to compete in tournaments or bowls. So, the Red Wolves were decided to be the new mascot.

When I first moved to Jonesboro 15 years ago, it had an old, run down mall, very little shopping and only a hand full of restaurants. Wow has that changed! About 3 years ago, a business developer in our town built a brand new mall that has now become a model for many other malls built around the country. It's fabulous and we no longer have to go to Memphis (an hour away) or Little Rock (2.5 hours away).

The kids and I spend way too much time and money here now!

And we now have great restaurants, both local and chains, where we can eat. Especially Downtown...

Like many cities across the country, we too went through a Downtown Revitalization. But ours really worked. Our Downtown is now a destination with little shops, great local restaurants and music...

and Art. We have a great art community including 3 downtown galleries and the community ran Foundation of Arts.

The Foundation has art, music, dance and theatre classes for all ages. It also produces 6 plays/ballets/musicals a year all with community members.

And I have to brag on our Parks & Rec. I say all the time that I think we have one of the best park systems in the country! This is one of our playgrounds at Craighead Forrest located just 5 minutes from my house - and basically in the middle of the city. This playground is handicap accessible and was built by our Rotary Clubs completely on donations.

Just across the lake is our newest playground, The Fort. There are similar playgrounds, splash parks, community centers and tennis courts scattered throughout the city.

Also just about a 7 or 8 minute drive from my house is Crowley's Ridge Nature Center, an educational building/museum, gardens and trails - a great place to spend an afternoon.

I am from Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas, but I've come to really love this town! The people here are very giving, friendly and while most of the country has gone through very difficult financial times, we've survived basically unscathed. I love raising my boys here!

Blogging?

2010-05-13T20:47:00.000-07:00

No, I didn't forget my password or run out of stuff to talk about. Life just got busy and focused in other directions the last couple months.

One of my great desires for the past few months has been to get deeper in the Word of God. I don't mean studies on how to be a better parent or "woman of God" (although I think there can be time and places for those types of studies), but I mean actual scripture study. What does it say? What does it mean? I feel like I have moved beyond the desire for studies that "apply to my life." I want to meet God. I want to see exactly what He had the authors of the Bible write for us. It was so important that God had them write it down - shouldn't we as believers read it, study it, find out what it means? And if appropriate, see what that scripture means for us today and how it can affect our lives today?

To go deeper, my husband and I moved to a new small group at the beginning of the year that has challenged us in completely new ways. We both grew up in Southern Baptist churches - every Sunday morning, every Sunday night and every Wednesday night. We are well churched! But it has been such a reminder that there is so much more to learn and to look at scripture with new eyes - not just accepting it as it has been taught - but looking at it for ourselves. I have also joined a new small group on Sunday night that is also reaching into the word of God. My husband isn't able to do this group with me because he serves in the sound and media booth on Sunday nights, but I have really enjoyed it.

As far as personal Bible Study, I was able to join Bible Study Fellowship in February. I had attended the very first intro class in the fall, but there is such a long waiting list (especially if you are bringing your child(ren) into the program as well) that it took until Feb. for me to get a spot. I was able to do the last several chapters of the Book of John and learned so much about the Resurrection of Christ. It also gave me the great opportunity to discuss it with some incredible women of God.

In March, the publishing company where I worked launched a new publication that I am very excited about and spent a lot of time working on. We had a similar publication before, but suspended it two years ago while our company went through some changes. This spring, we made some changes, revamped it with a slight name change and we are very proud with what we came up with. I wrote 5 of the articles for the publication: the cover story featured two sisters who found through the death of their father a way to reach others with their new company called HopeGlass which makes glass crosses; for our children/youth focus I wrote about two churches who are using Bible Drill to teach their children basic Bible skills; our mission focus was on a local team who went into Haiti just a couple weeks after the first earthquake and have partnered with a ministry to send a team one week a month for the next year; our family focus was on a family who's 4-year-old son was diagnosed with Leukemia in Nov. and how their church family has come alongside them to help through this time; and our Leap of Faith (business) profile featured the couple who owns our local Chick-fil-A franchise who have grown the store into the top 1% of CFA's in the country. We also had a story on local college students who attended Beach Reach written by one of our other writers and we also have 3 columns written by local writers. It takes a lot of my time to prepare and write the stories, but I really enjoy it. I felt as a young teenager that God called me to work in some manner for Christian publications, but never had any idea that he would give me that opportunity through a locally owned publishing company (we live in a small city in Arkansas of 50,000 people).

And of course there's my family! I sometimes can feel very overwhelmed with all we have to do and places we have to be, but I realized that I wasn't really enjoying it. I was just living it hoping to get to tomorrow. I have decided to try to really enjoy it in the moment. If that means dishes sit in the sink while we go to the park, then so be it! I currently have 3 baskets of laundry waiting to be folded and put away, but tonight, there was ball practice. Tomorrow there is Kindermusik with my little one and a game tomorrow night with my oldest. If it gets done, it gets done, if not, do you think they will remember that? No, but they will remember getting on 2nd base and the cute little songs we sing.

So that's where I am. Letting it go, letting God and enjoying it.

Storm Stories

2010-04-23T20:31:00.000-07:00

Written by Shaila Creekmore, illustration by Brittney Guest, as printed in the April 2010 edition of Jonesboro Occasions.

I don’t remember being afraid of storms when I was younger. It was just part of growing up in Arkansas.

The first memory I have of a tornado was when I was three years old. We were visiting my grandparents in rural eastern Arkansas when the storm reports began on television. I remember my grandmother being concerned because my Grandpa Dailey had not returned from town. When he did finally make it back home, we learned of a tornado that had touched down only miles from their home. I can still remember seeing the metal of the twisted main power lines that ran across the farm fields as we made our way home the next day.

Two years later, I sat in my elementary school hallway with my head tucked between my knees as a tornado went directly over the school. It was the last day before Christmas break and the buses were already lined up outside when the tornado sirens began to sound. The teachers lined us up along the inside hallway and covered us with our kindergarten mats. Minutes later, there was destruction on each side of our school, but the school remained untouched. The damage kept the buses from being able to run and parents had to walk to school to pick us up. As my dad carried me back a mile to our car, I remember seeing damaged houses, including a classmate’s house with a roof that had been lifted off the house and propped alongside the front wall in one piece. For many years later, sheet metal and other debris in the trees around the area served as a reminder of that day.

Following that initial tornado, the storms continued to come for several days. We spent a number of nights in our cinder block shop listening to the storm reports on the radio. My nieces and I slept under my dad’s John Deere tractor on a mattress until the warnings were lifted and we could return to the house. On Christmas Eve night as we walked back to the house, my nieces and I asked over and over how Santa Claus would be able to come to our house through the bad clouds but we were assured that Santa’s magic would get him there. Until writing this column, I had never thought about what my parents must have gone through that day the tornado narrowly missed my school. How did they find out? Did they initially think the school might have been hit? Was there a moment of panic? Until thinking back on those memories with the knowledge I now have as a parent, I only saw them from the perspective of a 5-year-old.

Many other storms came and went over my years growing up in southwest Little Rock and we always escaped the damage until my later high school years. Just prior to a Saturday afternoon storm, I remember thinking that the clouds looked like someone was stirring them with a spoon. Minutes later, my mother came running in telling us to get into the hallway. When we came out, 11 of our tallest pine trees laid across the five acres, one missing my bedroom by only a few yards. My dad stood in the shop and watched as a funnel cloud moved overhead, touching down in a neighbors pasture destroying their barn.

With these stories, you would think I would have been afraid of storms, but I never was … until I had children. Before then, my husband and I never went into a safe room. We were usually outside watching the clouds or at least looking out the windows. Now, I prepare our master closet with flashlights, pillows, the radio and any other supplies I think we might need. We head there with the boys with the first sound of a siren. Having two little boys to care for has changed the way I view storms and I now find myself much more nervous about them.

With spring's return, so will the storms. If you need to find me, I’ll be in my closet with Samuel and Tyler pretending it’s a fun new place for story time.

All Things Loved in February

2010-03-04T11:59:00.000-08:00

Here are a few things we loved in February!

Our small group "Souper" Bowl Party! We had fun watching the commercials - oh, I mean the game - and eating some great soups!

Snow! I've posted plenty of it on here, but we had more snow in Jan. & Feb. than I can remember in my lifetime. That's big for the south!

Making Valentiens. I just like making them for the boys friends - and getting to do something just a little more girly for a change!

Samuel's Valentine party was a lot of fun! I took a chocolate fountain and the kids loved dipping their fruit, marshmellows and pretzel sticks!
Charity Ball was fun again this year. It is the major fundraiser for our local Junior Auxiliary and it's fun to get to dress up and see friends.

For the start of the Olympics, we had an Opening Ceremony Party with food from different countries. This is our Canadian friend Meghan sporting her official Olympic gloves and scarf sent by her family from Canada.

And we really enjoyed every minute of the Olympics this year! We watched everything from snowboarding to curling. Samuel was really interested in it all this year too.

Occasional Comments - Kid's Welcome?

2010-03-03T11:51:00.000-08:00

Written by Shaila Creekmore, illustration by Brittney Guest, as printed in the March 2010 edition of Jonesboro Occasions.

We strike fear into the heart of every seating hostess. Waiters and waitresses panic at the mere sight of us. Customers sigh a breath of relief when we are not seated next to their table. We are a group of mothers with small children.It is not our intention to cause such mayhem in our local restaurants; we just want to enjoy a non-chicken nugget meal with friends. But the looks of dread are noticed all the same.

Usually at least once a week, I enjoy lunch with a group of girlfriends and our small brood of children. Over time, the looks of dismay by various restaurant staffs across town have become a little joke among us.

The most notable was on a visit to a family friendly restaurant for brunch one morning. The two hostesses ran around, nearly falling over each other trying to figure out where they were going to put our group of four moms and seven children. The confusion over how many highchairs and how many adult verses children’s menus was nearly too much for the pair. When we reached our table, we quickly realized our experience would not improve when our waitress asked, “Are ALL these children yours?” To top off our trip that morning, the waitress sat a small plate in front of one of the two-year-olds who promptly knocked it off the table, shattering it on the tile floor.
But not all of our trips are that exciting – well except for the day I set off an alarm on a fire door adjacent to our table – most are a time for visiting, laughing and asking for more spoons or straws to replace the ones thrown to the floor.

It is always our intention to be as respectful as possible to those around us and for the restaurant staff. We expect our children to behave, we attempt to make as little mess as possible and try not to bombard the server with requests.

But in return, we expect a few things as well. We expect a clean highchair with properly working safety straps. A working strap in a highchair is a matter of safety and yet getting one with buckles that work is a 50-50 shot. If a restaurant wants to make a momma a happy customer, never bring a highchair to the table with missing straps or broken snaps. I will just send it back for you to find one that does.

We ask that you don’t pass food or drinks over the top of a child’s head. When my oldest, Samuel, was nearly two years old, a waitress dumped a tray of drinks on top of him as she passed our drinks across the table. He was cold, wet and had red marks on top of his little bald head where the ice had hit him. He immediately started screaming and I quickly rushed him to change his clothes and calm him down. Part of my frustration was that we had intentionally seated him near the wall and left an area of the table clear for her to serve, but she still stood over him as she waited on us. As I returned to the table, the manager was there helping to clean the mess up and apologized for the accident. He tried to make light of the situation and remarked, “I guess just be glad it wasn’t coffee.” I quickly turned to him with a look only a momma can give and said, “No, YOU better be glad it wasn’t coffee.” Our meal was free.

So what are a few things that can be done to keep a momma happy? Please give toddlers appetizer plates, salsa or cheese dip bowls or silverware just like everyone else. They like to eat too. Don’t place refilled glasses directly in front of small children. That empty area on the table in front of them is there for a reason. Children can be sneaky, so please only take food and drink orders from the parents. And bring extra napkins – lots of extra napkins!

Outdoor Wednesday - Snow III

2010-02-16T14:38:00.000-08:00

As promised last week, here are more snow shots. These are from the snowfall we received last week. Here in Arkansas, we are lucky to get one good snow - and a good snow for us is a couple inches. The first big snowfall we got 7" and this one we got 6". The kids are loving it, but we've missed 7 days of school so far, not so much fun when June comes and we're still in school!

See more great Outdoor shots at Outdoor Wednesday!

Olympics Dinner Party

2010-02-15T14:45:00.000-08:00

We'll pretty much use any excuse to get together and have a party! Friday night we invited a group of friends to come over for an Olympics Watch Party. One of our friends, Meghan, is from Canada and we wanted to celebrate the Olympics with her. This is her in her official Canada Olympics mittens and scarf you saw them wearing throughout the opening ceremonies and on the sidelines during the competitions.

When I thought about what we should do for food, I kept thinking "What is 'Olympic' food?" Wednesday morning it hit me - Food from around the world. So that's what we did. Each couple/person brought something from a different country.

For an appetizer, we had Mexican chips and salsa and cheese dip. We also had Fried Plantains from Cote d' Ivoire, Africa and a great crab dip made by Meghan (she grew up in Nova Scotia which is on the Canadian East Coast).

Our main dishes were Italian Lasagna (trust me, it tasted better than it looks here, the guys were hungry and wouldn't let me get a good picture! Ha!)...

and Sauce d' Arashide from Cote d' Ivoire, Africa.

Four of our friends (all present that night) recently returned from Cote d' Ivoire and Karen made this dish. I really have no idea what all is in it except that it has chicken and a peanut butter sauce. She served it over couscous.

For our bread, we had what else but French Bread!
For dessert, we had Canadian Crepes. They were sooo good!

It's great to get together with friends and it's also fun when you can try some new foods in the process.

We are loving us some Winter Olympics this year!

Sorry no recipes this post, but it was a great food night at my house!

For more great recipes, visit Foodie Friday and Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays!

Happy Valentines Day!

2010-02-14T20:41:00.000-08:00

Hope you had a lovely Valentine's Day. I thought I would show the Valentines I made for my boy's friends at school.

Tyler goes to a Mother's Day Out Program and only has 6 in his class, so I wanted to make something cute, but easy. I used my Cricut to make these butterflies.
The cut is off the "Simply Sweet" cartridge using the butterfly cut in floral paper and the Shadow option for the background on purple card stock. The card stock was needed to make them sturdy enough to hold the sucker. I ran the butterflies through my Xyron and stuck them on the card stock.

I then made 2 small cuts in the center with a straight blade and stuck a Dum-Dum through them. On the back I just wrote "From: Tyler" Very easy, but I thought they looked cute.

For Samuel's class, I wanted to also make something easy, but still cute. I used the two flower shapes on my George and Basic Shapes Cartridge - both on shadow so the hole would not be cut in the flower. For these Blow Pops, I used a 3" size for the flowers and leaves. (The sample I made was with a Dum-Dum and I made those with 2.5" shapes.) For the top flower, I used printed paper and then folded them up toward the sucker. For the bottom leave, I used matching card stock and left them flat.
For the leaf, I used the acorn cut on the Doodlebug cartridge, but just tossed the remaining pieces. My son wrote "From: Samuel" on the back of the leaf and I wrote his classmates names on the front.
The girls flowers were 1 or 4 printed pink papers with matching pink card stock. The boys were a two-tone green with purple card stock. To push the sucker through the center, I made a small whole with a sharp pointed tool and then pushed the sucker through the hole. I then used a small piece of scrapbook adhesive to adhere the leaf to the bottom petal.

As a special flower for his teacher, I used the left over card stock and one of the printed papers to make a larger flower for her. (We also gave her a small gift, but I thought this was cute.
I then placed tissue paper in the bottom of a small blue (his school color) tote pail and arranged the flowers in the pail.
Although he's a boy and this may seem a little girly, my son was very excited to hand out his flowers. Valentines is the one day a year a mom of two boys can get away with making something a little sweet.

Molten Chocolate Cakes

2010-02-11T14:19:00.000-08:00

I LOVE this dessert. It's easy and I usually have everything on hand to make it up quickly if we're in the mood for something sweet. I thought this would be a good week to post it since Valentines is this weekend. This is a great couples dessert. This recipe makes 4, so you could either half it and just make 2 or go ahead and make all 4 and put the extra 2 in the fridge for later. Just reheat for 20-30 seconds and they are just as good the next day!

Ingredients:
4 squares semisweet baking chocolate
1/2 cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
6 T. flour
Cool Whip, powdered sugar or ice cream to top

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease 4 custard cups. Place on baking sheet. Microwave chocolate and butter in a large bowl for 1-2 minutes until butter melts. Stir with whisk until chocolate melts. Stir in sugar.

Whisk in eggs and yolks. Stir in flour.

Divide batter between cups.

Bake for 13-14 minutes until sides are firm but centers are still soft. Let stand for 1 minute. Run knife along edge to losen.

Invert onto dessert plates or place in bowl. Top with cool whip or ice cream or dust on powdered sugar.

When you break into the cake, the yummy melted center pours out of the cake. Enjoy!

For more great recipes, visit Foodie Friday and Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays!

One Tip Wednesday

2010-02-10T16:43:00.000-08:00

My latest project has been working to backup all of my digital photos. I take lots of photos both professionally and personally, so it's always a challenge for me to keep them all backed up. Part of my problem is that I have 3 computers where I often download photos: my Mac at work, my home desktop and home laptop.

Over the last couple months, I've been working to get them all moved onto my desktop, making sure to not miss any, but also to get rid of any duplicates. Next I began putting them in date order, organizing my files by month. Once that was done, I have started burning them onto DVDs in month order, putting as many months on one disk as possible, but keeping the months in order.

My next task is to buy an external 1 terabyte hard drive and move all of my photo files off of the desktop onto the external drive. I will also from that point on, keep my files on both my internal and external hard drives until I have enough to burn a disk. Once a new disk is burned, I will remove them from my computers internal drive, but leave them on the external, always having two copies.

So why both? The DVDs are a good way to permanently archive the photos, but they are not as accessible as I would like. Having them on an external hard drive will keep them accessible, but not taking up space on my desktop (which I'm quickly running out of). You can buy a 1 terabyte external drive for around $100, so very affordable.

Why don't I just keep my photos on my camera memory cards? With the number of photos I take, I would have to buy cards constantly. That would simply be too expensive.

What about Jump Drives? NO!!! Never use a jump drive/memory stick to archive anything. They fail often and are not meant to be used to archive. They are to only be used as temporary memory, to move files among computers.

Another idea is to also make an additional copy of your DVDs and put them in a bank safety deposit box or at someone else's home like your parents for safe keeping. In the event of a fire or other disaster, you won't lose your pictures.

Outdoor Wednesday - Snow II

2010-02-09T21:27:00.001-08:00

Last week I posted several pictures from out big snow we received here in Arkansas last week. This is a continuation of those photos, with a more nature photography feel. I love to shoot nature, but have the opportunity near as often now that I'm usually focusing on my two boys. But I love it when I get the chance!

As I type this, we have another 6" on the ground outside. I can't remember ever really having a winter where we had two large snowfalls - 7" inches that we had during this snow is a very rare occurrence here in Arkansas - much less to have them less than 2 weeks apart. This has truly been a winter unlike many here have ever seen. And of course I shot some more photos today - I'll be posting those next week!

See more great Outdoor shots at Outdoor Wednesday!

A First Love

2010-02-06T20:38:00.000-08:00

Editorial By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the February Issue of Jonesboro Occasions Magazine.

My first true love was Daniel Green. We were 5 years old, and he was dreamy. We met my first day of school in Ms. West kindergarten class at David O. Dodd Elementary in Little Rock. He was my first boyfriend, but alas, I was not his first girlfriend. He had been the boyfriend of my two best friends before me. By the end of kindergarten, he had been the boyfriend of nearly every girl in our class. But we didn’t care, he was worth sharing.

I was lucky enough to be his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day. He brought all of the kids suckers to the Valentine’s party, but I was home sick and had to miss the party. When I returned the next day, Ms. West told me that my sucker was broken and Daniel Green had insisted he take it back home and get me a new one. He brought back a huge, red heart sucker that I proudly told my mom was from my boyfriend.

Eventually he moved on to another girl, but that was okay, because I was the one who had gotten the big heart sucker for Valentine’s. When we began our first grade school year, Daniel Green, as we forever referred to him, was gone. For six years, he was a legend among the girls. We often wondered what happened to our beloved Daniel Green and would still talk about him at bunking parties.

In second grade, I had two boyfriends at the same time, Josh and Brian, who were best friends. They carried my books and passed me notes in class. For Valentines, they both got me a box of chocolates and Josh had his mom meet me after school with a balloon. In fifth grade, my boyfriend was David. He and I participated in a school orchestra program together, I played viola and he played cello. I broke up with him by slipping a note into his cello bag one afternoon.

When we reached seventh grade, our junior high pulled students from three elementary schools into one school. At a bunking party later that school year, we learned what had happened to Daniel Green. He had moved into one of the other elementary schools for a couple of years and they too had all loved Daniel Green. Each of them had been his girlfriend at one time or another and after a couple years, he had left them just as he had left us.

A couple of times at other bunking parties, we tried to find Daniel Green, once calling nearly every Green in the Little Rock phone book asking if Daniel was home. We’re pretty sure we found him one night, but he denied that he had gone to either of our schools. We were not convinced.

My oldest son is now the age I was when I had my first boyfriend. While he has friends that are girls and turns a little red when you ask him about certain ones, he has not yet had a girlfriend. But one mother recently told me that her daughter said she only liked Samuel and one other boy and all of the other boys are mean. She went on to say, “I think Samuel’s quite the lady’s man.” Is he the Daniel Green of Ms. Sarah’s room? Luckily I think not. When I asked him about the girls in his class, he replied, “YUUUCCKK, girls!” The sly smile he gave me afterwards, however, tells me it won’t be much longer until Samuel finds his first love.

Outdoor Wednesday - SNOW!!

2010-02-02T17:06:00.000-08:00

We have had a great few days of being snowed in! Here in the south, a couple inches of snow can shut down a city for at least a day - 7" of snow can shut it down for...we'll we're not sure yet, school is still out! While we usually get at least one snowfall a year, it sometimes isn't even enough to build a snowman. But exactly a year after a catastrophic ice storm, we finally got our big snow!

It started late Thursday evening as sleet and a little freezing rain which continued through the night until around 9 a.m. Friday when it finally changed over to snow. One unusual thing about this storm is that it snowed throughout the day. Normally here, it snows at night and you just wake up and it's there. Many were disappointed when they woke up that morning to find nothing but sleet and very icy roads. But my husband (a weather man at heart) was quick to tell me that this was exactly what it was suppose to be doing. In the end, we got around 7" as of Tuesday afternoon, we still have a lot of snow on the ground and schools are still closed. From Thursday evening until this morning, I had only been out of the house a total of 1 hour to run to work to shoot photos. A friend called last night and said - enoughs enough, lets get out of the house. And just to show you want we have been driven to - we took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese! You keep a mom locked up long enough and she'll do just about anything for a little adult interaction!

My kitchen window all frozen over from the freezing rain the night before.

My husband took this a couple hours before the snow stopped.
I love how bright it is outside when snow is on the ground!
My footprint in the snow.

Gotta love pics of the kids in the snow!
Check back next week - I've got lots of great outdoor shots that I've not yet had time to edit. Snow and ice are so cool to shoot!

See more great Ourdoor shots at Outdoor Wednesday!

Roasted Chicken and Asparagus

2010-02-01T21:14:00.000-08:00

The key to this chicken is low and slow! We have a great little local store that carries dozens of spices, spice blends and specialty items. One blend that I love is a simple Rotisserie Chicken Rub (I'm sure you can find a similar spice in most stores). I start by tying the legs together with oven bands (available at most cooking stores) or twine and lay on the rack in my roasting pan. Next I drizzle olive oil and rub it all over my whole chicken. I then sprinkle on - and inside the cavity - the rub all over the chicken until it is completely coated.

I cover the roasting pan with heavy duty foil and place in the oven. I bake it for 2.5 to 3 hours at 325 degrees. My mom couldn't believe it. She said that would nearly cook a whole turkey, but that's what I do. I do not uncover the chicken at all for at least 2.5 hours when I then check the internal temperature. The chicken is so tender and juicy that it will completely fall apart when you begin move it off your baking rack.
Another idea is to cook two chickens at the same time. My roasting pan is perfect size for two chickens, so many times I will cook two at the same time. It's a great meal for taking to someone who is sick or has had a baby and it's no more work than just cooking yourself dinner. Or occasionally I'll let the second cool completely, vacuum seal and pop in the freezer for a meal later on.

By the way - whole chicken just doesn't photograph well! I work for a magazine where we've tried many times with our food photographer to make it look good - and it just doesn't! Ha!

Microwaved Asparagus:
I'm the only one in my house who will eat asparagus, so I like to make it quick and easy.

I wash and cut the ends and lay in a 8x8 glass dish. I coat with olive oil and sprinkle on dried Italian seasoning. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the microwave. My microwave has a setting for fresh vegetables that I use to set my time. I check it and microwave a couple minutes more if needed. If you're microwave doesn't have that setting, the important thing is to cook on 50% power. That allows it to cook more evenly without drying out the asparagus. Once it's cooked to your liking, sprinkle on a little Kosher salt to taste. Do not salt it prior to microwaving! You never want to salt anything you are cooking in the microwave because salt is a dehydrator.

For more great recipes, visit Foodie Friday and Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays!

Snow Cream

2010-01-28T20:00:00.000-08:00

We are watching the weather outside, patiently waiting for the sleet falling to turn to snow for a pretty good snow storm headed our way. We may get up to a foot of snow - major for Arkansas. Only a couple times in my life have we had that much snow here. Schools are already closed and I bought a sled yesterday. When it snows here, the one thing we have to have is snow cream. So I thought it would be a great time to post the recipe. (This picture is from a couple years ago). This exact time last year we were experiencing a catastrophic ice storm - and that is no exaggeration. Read my post below about that great experience!

Ingredients:
1 large bowl snow
1 egg (we use pasteurized egg product for safety)
1 cup sugar
dash vanilla

Mix and eat. It's really yummy!

One year ago...

2010-01-28T06:49:00.000-08:00

One year ago, we woke to this...

We experienced a major ice storm unlike I had ever seen before. Living in the south, ice storms are not unusual. In fact, I would say we tend to get ice more than snow. But this storm was nothing but freezing rain. No sleet, no snow, everything you see is frozen rain. It rained HARD for about 35 hours with lightning and thunder with the temps between 30-32, just enough to freeze. Even The Weather Channel was here in our small city.

Our corner of the state experienced a near total blackout. Only little pockets of our city remained with power. Some surrounding cities lost nearly their entire infrastructure. When we woke the next morning and began calling all our friends who we discovered were also in the dark, we found ourselves trying to figure out what to do. It became very clear from the radio that it was going to be days before we got power back. We packed and headed to my in-laws an hour away who had missed the storm. Luckily, the roads remained clear, the problem was literally up in the air. You can read my post from that day HERE.

At our house, we were without power for about 70 hours, just short of 3 days. It was very stressful not knowing what was going to happen. You can read more HERE. Both of our works were closed because they too were without power, so at least we didn't have to worry about going to work. Even the following week, my husbands work ran on generators for days until his city was restored. And it was the middle of Feb. before we were able to distribute magazines (I write/photograph for a local magazine) because the city where our magazine is printed was down for 2 weeks.

This picture was taken a couple weeks later when we finally got a little snow. Piles of debris lined our streets for weeks. As you can see, this pile is nearly as high as the roof lines and this is right in the middle of the city. The further out you went the higher the piles got.

Our city had to hire a company to come in and clean the debris up and it was a major operation. I had to go to the burn site for a story I was working on and shot some pics of the trucks coming in. I couldn't believe the amount of debris the storm created. That post: Ice Storm Cleanup
So, as I write this, we await another winter storm moving in tonight. This one promises snow, not ice in our part of the state, but it's pretty strange to be talking about another winter storm exactly a year after our last. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be posting pics of us playing with our new sled, not loading up the coolers with food from our fridge and taking refuge somewhere else!

Removing Gum

2010-01-27T15:41:00.000-08:00

Today's One Tip Wednesday is totally based on experience - today! My 6 year old got a spot of gum on my couch about the size of a half dollar. Momma was not happy when I found it later because he didn't bother to tell me. I first tried just a wet rag which of course did nothing. So I thought - What removes gum? I've heard ice and I've heard peanut butter. I decided against the peanut butter because that to me just seemed to add to the problem - I mean, what would get the peanut butter out? So I layed a piece of ice on the couch and then scrubbed it with my fingernails. I repeated it over and over and it's gone! And my son is still alive!

The Blogging Waggon

2010-01-21T22:02:00.001-08:00

I feel off the Blogging Waggon this week. My youngest has had croop which required steroids, so I've had a coughing wild animal in my house this week. If you've never seen a 2-year-old boy on steroids, well, it is a sight like no other! The second and third days were the worse. He was literally another child. Today was not as bad and tomorrow is his last day on the meds. His cough is better, although it's still there, so I'm hopeful we do have to do another round. But he no longer sounds like a 50 year smoker.

But I learned something interesting about croop. The doctor pretty much had his diagnosed before he entered the room just by looking at his chart. We were one of his first patients after lunch and he had already seen 10 cases of croop that day - and that doesn't include the other 3 doctors in that clinic. He said when the fog rolls in, so does the croop. We had 10 days solid without going above freezing - I live in Arkansas - that doesn't happen here! Two weeks ago, the kids were out of school because it was too cold to go! No joke - it's Arkansas! Then once it broke, the temps went up and up over the next 3-4 days. By Saturday, it was in the 50s and the humidity was quickly coming back. Sunday he woke up with that barky cough. It was so warm we didn't even wear jackets to church. Monday morning there was a very thick fog in the morning and it was in the mid-60s. He said that when you have cold, dry air that quickly changes to warm, moist air, many kids get croop. I thought that was interesting. Oh, and there is snow in our forcast for next week. In Arkansas we have a saying, if you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes, it will change. It was so warm here today, my friend wore a sleeveless shirt to work. You never know around here!

But the good new is - I did still get a little scrapbooking done! I finally finished my pages for Christmas - 2008...yes 8, not 9! Hey, I'm getting there!

Crispy Herb Baked Chicken

2010-01-14T21:20:00.000-08:00

This recipe is so easy and yummy! It makes me hungry just typing up the recipe. I'm always looking for new recipes to use for chicken breast, and this is one that we really like.

Ingredients:
2/3 cup potato flakes
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tsp parsley flakes
3/4-1 tsp garlic salt
2-4 chicken breast, boneless, skinless
1/3 cup margarine or butter, melted

Grease or line with foil a 13x9 inch baking dish or place on stoneware (I prefer the later).

Combine potato flakes, Parmesan cheese, parsley flakes and garlic salt in shallow dish; stir until well blended. Dip chicken in margarine, roll in potato flake mixture to coat. Place in greased pan or on stoneware. Do NOT cover.

Bake at 375 degrees for 45 to 60 minutes until chicken is fork-tender and juices run clear.

For more great recipes, visit Foodie Friday and Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays!

One Tip Wednesday

2010-01-13T12:21:00.000-08:00

Before I had kids, I was always on top of my scrapbooking. In fact, I would make up things to scrapbook just so I would have something to work on. When I was the mother of one, I always had plenty to scrapbook and would sometimes get a month or two behind. Now as a mother of two, I'm a full year behind doing both of their books. I make a book for each of my boys for each year of their life. I have two pages left to finish Tyler's first book and a page left to finish out Samuel's 4 year book.

To help me get started on their 1st and 5 year books, I spent an afternoon outlining all of the pages I would need to do for their books. I always do their books in date order through their birthday party. I created an Excell spread sheet with a column for Samuel and one for Tyler. I have the date of the pictures in the far left column. Then under each name, I put the name of that spread. Where you see blanks, that means that he doesn't have a spread for that particular set of pictures. As you can see, Samuel has far more in his book than Tyler, but I think that just has to do with their ages. Samuel is involved in more activities, but I'm also going to make more of an effort this year to get some extra pictures of Tyler.

Other than the obvious organziation of having the chart, it should be a big time saver for me. I will be able to work through both of the boys books together. So rather than doing Tyler's Christmas pages and then having to later drag all of the Christmas paper and embellishments back out later, I will do them both at the same time when I have all of those things already out. It will also help me not to miss anything as I finish up their books. As I finish those pages, I will gray out the column so I'll know I've done that page. Now - back to scrapbooking!

Angels & Monkeys

2010-01-12T21:09:00.000-08:00

We had our first (and maybe only) snowfall of the season this past week. We were hoping for 2-4 inches, but only got about an inch. But here in the south, that's good enough for a snow day! Yes my friends to the north, that's enough to close the schools! Actually, the little bit of sleet that fell just before the snow was part of that too. The roads were pretty slick and we get such little winter weather here, most people just aren't experienced snow/ice drivers! Not only that, we were out the next day too because it was too cold to go to school! The temps were in the single digits in the morning with below 0 windchills. Again, I know that's crazy to you in the north, but honestly - it was cold! LOL All kidding aside, our buildings and heating systems here aren't made the same way of those in the north. Our school buses are also not made the same and many of the school districts said they would have had to run the buses 3-4 hours prior to starting routes to make sure they were warm enough for students. But to those laughing at us here in the south, come join me in early August when it's 98 with about 90% humidity and we'll see how long you'll last!

Although we didn't get enough snow to build a snowman, it was still good angel making snow. My 6 year old made this one.
And his friend from school made this one. When he layed down to make it, his momma said, "Make sure it doesn't have horns!" When he stood up, look what also appeared! We were cracking up about it.

And this is my little monkey playing in the snow.

See more great Ourdoor shots at Outdoor Wednesday!

My Double Life

2010-01-12T12:26:00.000-08:00

Editorial by Shaila Creekmore, Illustration by Brittney Guest as printed in the January 2010 issue of Jonesboro Occasions Magazine.

I lead a double life. Maybe I’m not even who you think I am.

To some, I’m the photographer from Occasions. That girl who catches you in the middle of a conversation or with a mouth full of food and asks, “Could I get a picture of you guys?”

To others, I’m Samuel and Tyler’s mom: The mom in car line, helping at the school class party or on a play date at Chick-fil-A.

Occasionally these two lives cross, but only on rare occurrence.

Three days a week, I’m your typical stay at home mom. I drop off and pick-up Samuel from school, clean house and watch Sesame Street with Tyler. I often attend a Bible study with a group of other stay-at-home moms and then go with our brood of children to lunch. Twice a month I attend MOPS, Mothers of Preschoolers, enjoying time of fellowship, learning from each other and sympathizing with the struggles of being a mother. I put on jeans and a T-shirt or my mommy suit (those comfortable two-piece outfits that every stay at home mom has) and run errands, buy groceries or meet friends for a play date.

The other two days, I’m your typical working mom. I rush around the house to get myself and the boys dressed and drop them off at school and make my way to the office. I answer e-mails, return phone calls, mark off items from my to-do list and run to meetings. I often meet friends or business associates for lunch, or use the hour to run quick errands without children in toe. I end the day by picking the boys up from school and quickly getting home to prepare dinner.

On many nights, I quickly eat with the family and then rush to cover one of the countless social or philanthropic events around town. Although I am often invited to eat at events, you’ll rarely see me do so because our family rule is that we eat together as a family every night. Upon return to home, I give baths, brush teeth and tuck boys in bed. I also slip out of my mommy role most weekends for a couple of hours to cover large formal events or benefits for one of the many Jonesboro non-profits.

I love my mommy days at home. It gives me time to watch my boys grow and share in their lives. But at least twice a week, I get to be something other than Samuel and Tyler’s mom. I am able to continue working in my degree field and building my portfolio, work on projects, meet and talk with interesting people and have adult conversations.

I have the rare opportunity to be a mom in both worlds. Those two worlds, however, often hold a lot of animosity for each other. The first time I became aware of these negative feelings was before I became a mother. On an early episode of the Dr. Phil show, a studio full of moms verbally attacked each other. I watched in amazement as these women yelled and screamed at each other from across the studio. The working moms accused the stay-at-home moms of being lazy, having no initiative and being selfish for keeping their children at home instead of giving them the best early education possible. Stay-at-home moms called the working moms self-seeking and questioned why they even had children if they were going to let other people raise them.

While I’ve not been around women in real life as opinionated as these women, there are little snide comments and disapproving looks that you occasionally see in conversations among women. But as a mom who lives in both worlds, I can easily say neither life is easy, both have their negatives and positives and moms on both sides are doing their best to provide the best life for their children in the best way they know how.

Chicken Noodle Soup

2010-01-07T18:07:00.001-08:00

It is COLD here! I mean seriously cold for the south. We got nearly an inch of snow last night - pretty good for Arkansas and schools were out for a snow day. They also cancelled school for tomorrow due to "extreme cold temperatures and below freezing wind chills." Okay - northerners stop laughing! I'm serious - we are not bred in the south for such cold. But you can't stand with us when it's 96 with 90% humidity! LOL

So it seemed like a perfect night for chicken noodle soup! I don't really have exact measurements for this recipe. I just kind of throw everything in, but I'll give as close as I can.
Ingredients:
3-4 cups, cooked chicken cut into bite size pieces
3 cups carrots, diced
4 stalks celery, diced
1/4 cup onion, diced
1 large container chicken broth
basil, dried or use whole dried bay leaves and remove before eating
parsley, dried
salt and pepper
water
extra wide egg noodles

Boil chicken (I used 3 chicken breast this time. It's a great recipe when you have left over chicken too). Remove chicken to cut up and add in carrots, celery and onion. Pour in chicken broth. Add chicken back in. Add about 4 cups water (more or less depending on the size of your pot). Season to taste with basil, parsley, salt and pepper. Bring back to a boil. Add in egg noodles. Add more water if you like and let cook until heated through and noodles and vegetables are tender.

Basically - it's a can't go wrong recipe. You can add more or less of anything and it still taste warm and yummy!

For more great recipes, visit Foodie Friday and Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays!

One Tip Wednesday

2010-01-06T07:54:00.000-08:00

One Tip Wednesday is back! Life has finally slowed down and I will be once again posting some of the ways I organize my life and my home. And I would love to read about how you organize as well!

Last year, I posted about this pile of papers that was disrupting my life. Seriously! I couldn't keep track of anything coming or going out of the house. I missed paying a couple of bills and this stack kept growing and I had to do something! This was about a years worth of filing that had overtaken the mail slots built into my cabinet over my desk. So first I started by getting it all filed away into my filing cabinet or to the shredder.

Then I came up with a system for organzing all of the mail coming in and out of the house. You can read about how that works HERE.

So at the end of the year, I had three very full folders with everything from the year. I kept them in the very front of my filing cabinet so they were easy to access. But the real question is, how would it work for me at the end of the year? It worked great all through the year to help me keep track of things. I would even clip appointment cards for Dr visits and such on the front of that months folder to help me remember. Anything that I needed for that month, I just slid into the folder. But would I have to spend all afternoon filing anyway?

I pulled out the papers for each month and made piles across my table, light bill in one, phone bill, insurance statements, and so on. In my filing cabinet, I file oldest to newest, so I just started in January and started stacking them on top of each month. Anything that I didn't need to save, I put in the shred pile.

In about 30 minutes it was all sorted across my table.

And my folders were empty and ready to use again.

I then filed the papers into my file cabinet. In about an hour, I was finished. So for me, this system is a total success!

For many of you, you likely don't save each of your monthly bills, but my husband likes to keep 3 years of most of our bills. Our entergy bills for lights, water and gas we keep. I like to be able to go back and reference what we paid in the same months in different years and it will be helpful when we prepare to sell our home to be able to give an average of our entergy cost. Any medical or insurance cost, you usually should keep for 7 years if you have used it on your taxes. If you work from home of course, the tax rules are very different. My understanding is that anything you file on your taxes should be kept for 7 years.

If you have an organizational tip, old or new, that you would like to share - add your link below!

All Things Loved in December

2010-01-03T21:55:00.000-08:00

It's December - What's not to love!! Here are a few of our favorites from this past month.

1. Christmas Decorations - It takes forever to get it all done, but it's worth it in the end and the house is so pretty and sparkly all month!

2. Samuel's role as a Wise man in our church's Christmas Program.

3. Christmas Parties! 4. The boys were able to spend 4 1/2 days with my parents at the beginning of their Christmas break. They couldn't wait to go and had a great time. I had to work while they were gone, but it also gave me a chance to finish up shopping and wrapping and to get the house clean while they were gone so that I could focus on them when they got back.

5. More time with my boys - and a week and a half off work!

6. Presents and all the fun on Christmas morning!

7. Santa Came!

8. Samuel's first sleep over. We invited his best friend from school to sleep over during Christmas break. They had so much fun! I am so glad that he found such a good friend!

9. A day at Chuck E. Cheese. No pictures! I decided to focus on playing and not on pictures for this trip! It as a nice way to end the year!

Momma's Soft Sugar Cookies

2009-12-28T17:02:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite sugar cookie recipe for cutting out shapes with cookie cutters. It makes a really nice dough and is fun to do with the kids.

Ingredients:
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, sift before measuring
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, room teperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup sour cream

Directions:
Into a bowl, sift together the sifted flour, baking soda and salt. In a mixing bowl, cream butter, sugar, egg and vanilla with an electric mixer. Beat for 2 minutes. Add sour cream and half of the sifted dry ingredients; beat 1 minute.

Stir in remaining dry ingredietns with a wooden spoon. Divide dough in half and roll each portion out on a lightly flour surface to 1/4" thick. Cut with floured cookie cutter. Place cookies on greased cookie sheet.

Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Do not overbake or they will not be soft, which is the best part. Store soft sugar cookies in an airtight container.

My boys added red and green sprinkles for Christmas! But I use this recipe for all seasons. They are great for Easter or Halloween cookies too.

For more great recipes, visit Foodie Friday and Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

2009-12-27T22:58:00.000-08:00

The week before Christmas, I found a silicone Christmas tree bakeware at Hobby Lobby half off. I thought the boys would enjoy making a Happy Birthday Jesus birthday cake that we could have that night with dinner. I used one box mix to make 2 cakes - but I think I should have made 3 because they split when I took them out to place on the cake server.
But with a little icing - who knew! Not a pretty icing job either, but it worked. And that is green icing, but you can't tell that real well in this picture.They each got to decorate their own cake. Tyler with a little help from Mommy. The decorating didn't last long, but it was fun for them.

They had red glaze icing, green, blue and red sugar sprinkles, chocolate and rainbow sprinkles, and little star sprinkles.

It didn't take Tyler long to realize it was more fun to pick the stars and icing back off to eat.

Tyler's Cake

Samuel's Cake
Maybe not the prettiest, but the boys had fun and they tasted really good!

Christmas night when the family was here, I said "Oh, I forgot, we have Birthday cake." Kevin's sister Stacy quickly replied - "Who's birthday is it?" In a serious voice I replied "JESUS." She dropped her head and said "Oh yea." We all had a good laugh! Love you Stacy!

Christmas Traditions

2009-12-15T15:27:00.000-08:00

Editorial By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the Dec. 09 Jonesboro Occasions.

I grew up with simple Christmases. A few little gifts, lunch with my parents and maybe my oldest brother’s family, and a lazy day of lying around the house watching old Christmas movies or football.

Christmas of 1997 that all changed. The first year my husband and I were dating, I decided to spend Christmas with his family. We spent the entire day of Christmas Eve going from one store to the next and that night wrapping all of our finds. Christmas morning, we ripped through gifts and then sat in mounds of wrapping paper and boxes while his dad made everyone pancakes.
Then, the mad rush began. Six adults in one house began to run around to quickly get dressed and ready for the day’s activities. Lunch at one grandmother’s house with the family and dinner at the other grandmother’s with all seven brothers and their families.

It was overwhelming and exciting all at the same time. Later in the evening when my mom called to wish us a Merry Christmas I remarked, “I didn’t know people had Christmases like this.”

But that was to become my Christmas tradition for the next nine years. The last couple years, I began to prepare the family for the change that was about to come. With the birth of our first son in 2003, I began to long again for the quiet Christmas at home, and it was time to begin our own family traditions.

Even my husband, who had always been home on Christmas morning, wasn’t sure about the change we made three years ago. I assured him that it was time to let our then 3-year-old wake up in his own bed and open gifts under his own tree.

That first Christmas Eve, Samuel and I finished up a little shopping and baking. After a quiet dinner at home, Samuel opened his Christmas Eve gift, a tradition in my family that my husband has learned to appreciate. Later that night, we attended our church’s Christmas Eve service, a program we had never attended before.

Early the next morning, we woke to Samuel joining us in bed where we played and talked before making our way to the tree. As we sat in its soft glow, my husband read the story of Jesus’ birth as recorded in Luke. Then the three of us enjoyed opening gifts from each other and spent the morning playing with all of the new toys. Later in the evening, Kevin’s family joined us for dinner – the first Christmas meal I had ever prepared by myself.

It was a perfect Christmas. Over the last couple of years, we have begun to develop a few other Christmas traditions just within our small family. I hope that some of these traditions our boys will continue in their own families, but I know that some will give way to their wives’ traditions and others that they will develop on their own.

Christmas Decorating - Master Bedroom

2009-12-13T18:46:00.000-08:00

This is the first year I've really done much decorating at all in my bedroom. Some years I have used a ceramic tree, you know the ones with the little colored light, but I decided to do something a little more. Not much, but a little.
I found this quilt on Black Friday for $18 at Wal-Mart. The colors are a good match for the bedding I already use.

Then I found these wreaths at Hobby Lobby. They are actually candle rings, but I thought they would be pretty hanging above our bed. I found some red and gold ribbon to tie in to the bedding. They look tiny in the picture, but they make a bigger impact in person. I'm working on a new painting to go behind my bed, so next year these will find a new home, maybe hanging in the windows on each side of our bed.

Then I decided to do another tabletop tree. I've had this tree for a couple years, but I've never used it because I didn't like the bottom of the tree. But with the quilt, I thought it would be cute to do a tree with all handmade ornaments.

I love these bears! A friend of my mom's made these for me when I was younger.

Another friend of my mom's has made me several ornaments like this and my mom has nearly enough to do an entire tree. They are beautiful!

And it gives me a great place to put the little ornaments that the boys have made.

This one I made years ago when I was in high school.

To keep with the homemade theme, I Mod Podged a star topper and a few other ornaments that you can see below in a post.

That completes my Christmas Tour of my home. If you've missed it, keep scrolling or click on the labels below.

Christmas Decorating - Boys Rooms

2009-12-12T12:43:00.000-08:00

Today's post is pretty short and simple, but I wanted to show my boys trees. They are really nothing fancy, but each have ornaments that they like and they are simple little Christmas touches to their room.

I have just small tabletop trees in their rooms, mostly because they are still at the age where they need as much floor room as possible. This is Tyler's tree (my 2 year old). It is decorated mostly with Sesame Street ornaments, Thomas the Train and some other cute little things. You can also see a wooden camel right on the front. That was a gift from our nursery director at church last year. She had her husband get all of the kids ornaments when he made a trip to Jerusalm with our church.
This is Samuel's tree (my 6 year old). His tree has Hot Wheels cars, Mater and Lightening McQueen and Star Wars. Not sure if you can see the rather large black ornament in the front of the tree, but that's Darth Vader my Mother-in-Law bought for him last year. I joked that nothing says Christmas like Darth Vader! LOL And he will plug into the Christmas lights which light up his light saber and he'll make that creepy breathing noise. That really makes a Christmas tree unique - and he loves it!

I just added a couple things in the bathroom. I couldn't decide where to put these two Santa Claus items because I have such little Santa stuff since most of mine revolves around snowmen. So when I was trying to figure out what to put in there to add a little Christmas cheer, I thought the bathroom would be a good place. I added the little picture of my nieces family and called it good. I thought about doing another tabletop tree here, but decided that my husband might put me away. LOL

Tomorrow, one last room - my bedroom. To see the rest of my house, keep scrolling.

Decopaged Ornaments

2009-12-12T06:00:00.001-08:00

This year I added a new tabletop tree to my bedroom which I'll show you tomorrow. For that tree, I made three star ornaments and a star topper. I started with a these:

And ended up with these:

I simply Mod Podged Christmas scrapbook paper onto the stars in alternating patterns. To cut out the shapes, I layed the paper over the stars and folded it along the shapes. I then cut them out and Mod Podged them on. Very simple, just a little bit of time. This is a craft you could easily do with your children too!

Visit tomorrow and I'll show you the entire tree and the rest of my bedroom.

I'm linking this post up to Blue Eyed Blessings Holly Bloggy Christmas Bash. Lots of Great Ideas!

Christmas Decorations - Kitchen

2009-12-11T14:21:00.000-08:00

My kitchen holds my other large tree. By large, I mean not a tabletop tree. It is a smaller, 6 ft., narrow tree, but it does the job. Our largest collection of items has to be our M&M collection. We have around two dozen large dispensers, dozens of toppers, ornaments and decorations for several other holidays. So to showcase most of our Christmas items, I started putting up a tree a couple of years ago. It is placed in our kitchen and this window is at the front of the house so it can be seen from the street. This tree has all colored lights and all of the decorations are M&M ornaments, toppers, lights, etc.
Under the tree are our M&M village tins. I used to put these along the mantel or on the entertainment center, but I like it so much more having it all together in one location.
We have collected many over the years and have been given a lot by friends and family. And our boys love it.
On the counter next to the tree, I have our M&M advent counter and ceramic M&M house. It is actually a Christmas village piece and lights up.

The train toppers that are not ornaments, I decided to put above one of the cabinets this year. They are out of the way of little hands that have trouble keeping away, but can still be seen.

To see my dinning room and living room, just keep scrolling down. Tomorrow I'll feature my boys trees and bathroom. And don't forget my giveaway!

Christmas Decorations - Dining Room

2009-12-10T19:06:00.000-08:00

Today I'm going to show my dining room Christmas decorations. We don't have a formal dining room, this is the table we use for every day. And we also have a very open floor plan. Our dining room is at the front of the house and is open to both the living room and the kitchen on the right.

So, any table centerpiece I use, I like to to be easily movable. Last year I came up with this idea. Using a table runner I had made by a friend, I place the three different sized glass cylinder vases along the runner. The large center vase has small gold and silver ornaments. The medium vases I have red and green ornaments. The four small vases had silver beads in two and gold beads in two. Above the table, I have gold and silver ornaments hanging from the chandelier.
What I like best about the centerpiece is how easily I can change the look. When we have company over, I can easily stretch it out along the length of the table. But for everyday, I simple push it toward the center of the table so that we can use the table space.

And I can bunch them together even more into a smaller circle. And when we are having dinner, I can just slide the entire thing to one end of the table and afterwards I can simply slide it back into place.

Against the wall, I have my table all in blue and silver. This year I wanted to do something really different. It all started with this silver tray. On a trip wondering through Hobby Lobby (love to do that!), I saw this tray 1/2 off. I had the idea to use it with my Santa's Cookies plate which I also usually pair with this tea pot and mug. After playing with it a while, I came up with this arrangement. Then I pulled together a couple more of my blue, white and silver snowmen items for the other side.

But that left me with a hole in the center. I decided it would be the perfect place for another tabletop tree. I pulled off all of my clear snowflake ornaments off my big tree and added them. I bought the topper and skirt, which I thought was a perfect color match, at Hobby Lobby of course.

I was really happy how it turned out for only having bought a couple little things to pull it all together.

And a couple more little things: A Christmas card holder I made several years ago. You can see my instructions here.

And another of my favorite little snowmen.

And a snowman candle jar holder I made. Details are also here.

Tomorrow I will show my kitchen decorations which is done all in M&Ms.

12/20 - I'm adding this post to Between Naps on the Porch's Metamorphasis Monday. Click on the Christmas Label below to see all of the rooms in my home and our little touches of the holidays.

Christmas Decorations - Living Room

2009-12-09T21:57:00.001-08:00

For some reason this year, I've had a lot harder time getting into the Christmas mood. Not so much Christmas as the decorating. Usually I'm excited to get started, but the fall has been so busy for us, I kind of had to make myself do it. As of tonight, I'm officially finished! Yeah! I started the week before Thanksgiving - well sort of. My husband retrieved the boxes from the attic, but up the tree and that's where it all sat for a week while we were at my parents for Christmas. When we returned home, we started hanging ornaments and putting up the decorations. Over the last couple weeks, I've had sick children, had a booth in a 3 day craft show and we lost my husband's grandmother, so a lot going on in our everyday life. So the decorations went up as I had the time. But it's done! I still have some crafts I want to make, but nothing too pressing.

I'm going to start tonight with my living room, the most decorated room.

THE TREE

I LOVE my tree! It's a 10' tree and is really just the right size for my living room and vaulted ceilings. And best of all, it was free. No kidding. Several years ago, my dad went to a yard sale at a friend's house where she was selling this tree for $50. She had paid a couple hundred, used it once and decided it was too big. My dad bought it hoping it could use it. Now, you don't know my dad, so you can't understand the humor in this, but his ceilings are only 8'. I explained that an 8' tree wouldn't fit and he said "I'll just cut it off at the bottom." I said "Um Dad, it's not a real tree, it doesn't work that way." So after some convincing and my insistence and how good it would look in my house, he gave me the tree. It is not pre-lit, but that's the way I like it. We use 10 strands of 100 white lights, wrapping it inside and outside the branches as we put it together from the bottom up.

I don't do a themed tree, just a collection of family ornaments, some even from mine and my husbands childhoods. Once the lights are on, I wrap the tree in gold ribbon and drape silver beads along the tree. On the top, I add a gold star with gold spiral twigs sticking out around the the top. I've used this for several years and have thought about changing it, but I still really like the way it looks, simple but very pretty.

This ornament is from Jerusalem and was given to me by my Aunt and Uncle when I was a teenager.

You can't be from Arkansas and not have a few Razorback ornaments! I'm thinking of doing a red and white Razorback tree in the next year or two. It will be small and will probably be in our bedroom.

Last year I got smart. I bought our family ornaments and my boys ornaments after Christmas for 1/2 price. They have the same ornaments this year - so it doesn't matter when you buy them, it's just a matter of adding the names and dates. So this year when I pulled them out, I just added or names and dates and hung them. I'll be doing the same probably a day or two after Christmas this year too.

THE FIREPLACE

Inside my fireplace, I lay white lights in and around the ceramic logs. The light I use are the ones where you can choose the setting and I set it to one that is twinkling to mimic a fire. If we want to use the fireplace (which we very rarely do), I can pull the light out in a couple minutes. But it give the living room a nice glow.

I drape the mantel with this quilt runner that my aunt made me a couple years ago. It was a surprise from she and my mom and it's so pretty. All hand pieced, and a perfect fit seeing that my mom secretly took measurements on one of her visits.

This year I added these candle holders and wax trees to each side of my snowman tapestry that I hang each year. I really scaled down my mantel a lot this year and really like the "less is more" look.
On this particular night, our Elf on the Shelf was also found on the mantel, hanging out in a stocking. If you don't know what that is, Google it, it's a fun idea for the kids. The author comes each year and signs books for our local toy store.

OTHER DECORATIONS

I only added a few little things to the top of the entertainment center, a Snowbabies, my nutcracker and a couple snowmen.

My nativity. The last couple years I've placed it on a speaker sort of hid a little behind the tree to keep little fingers from finding it.

My snowman card holder. This is where I usually display my picture cards so they don't get hid among all the normal Christmas cards.

On my small end table, I add a small placemat type piece of material that matches my table runner on my dining table and top with a candle ring and red Aromatiqe candle. And you'll also find a couple more of my snowmen.

So that's the living room. Tomorrow I'll be posting my dining room, so come back! I'm also hosting a giveaway at the end of the week, so come back and check that out!

And check out more great decorating at Southern Hospitality.

Christmas Crafty Decor

2009-12-09T19:22:00.000-08:00

I am finally getting some of my Christmas Crafts posted! These are all things I've done in the past. I have some things I'm working on now that I'll post soon, but I wanted to share some of my past ideas.

Several years ago, I made about a dozen ribbon boxes to go under my Christmas tree. I hate an empty Christmas tree, both before and after Christmas. It's depressing to me. LOL So back when I had lots of extra time (aka before kids), I made several of these that I use each year. Sometimes we do actually put gifts in them, but I also hide things in them like our Santa hats, so I know where they are but they aren't sitting out.
I used different types and shapes of boxes. My favorites are the ones that are already pretty, like this one below that was gold on the bottom. So I used gold ribbon on the top of the box.

I glued the ribbon with a hot glue gun along one short and one long side. I then basically braded the ribbon together, overlaping it as I went along. Then secured it on each side. I topped them off with matching ribbon bows or with tassles.

For small boxes, I used the boxes my checkbooks come in. I use tiny ribbon. It takes a while, but I think they are pretty.

As part of my craft show items this year, I made these hand etched ornaments. I used my Cricut to cut the letters in vinyl and adhired the negative to the ornament. I then used Armor Etching Cream to etch the glass. Add a ribbon and it makes a very simple, but pretty ornament. I've sold several, but plan to also give them as gifts this year to teachers, friends and others.

A few years ago, I made this Christmas card holder. I used foam board and cut out the shape of the tree. I stapled on a couple layers of quilt batting. I then wrapped brown material on the bottom for the trunk and stapled it along the back. For the tree, I first stapled along the bottom on the underneath and then pulled it up and wrapped it around the tree and stapled along the back. To finish it off, I crisscrossed silver ribbon and stapled it across on the back. As the cards come in, I just slide them under the ribbon.

The majority of my Christmas decor is snowmen. After making a similar jar for halloween with a Jack-O-Lantern, I thought I would try a snowman. I used white tissue paper and decoupaged it onto an empty dill pickle jar. I then used different colors to create the design. I use it as a candle holder and it's pretty when the candle glows through it at night.

And last (but not least - ha!) I got this idea out of a magazine a few years ago.

I used a quilting/crouchet hoop as the frame. I painted it white and then stretched white fabric around the hoop. I then trimmed the fabric around the frame. I glued on button, a pipe cleaner twisted into a little carrot nose and a black hat found in the doll section with a little pick spray attached. Here is a shot of the back.

This year I hung it on my door going into the garage.

To see more great Christmas Crafts, check out the Monthly Craft Challange over at Blue Eyed Blessings!

Check back over the next couple days, I'll be posting all of my Christmas decorating throughout my home and I'll be hosting a giveaway at the end of the week.

Outdoor Wednesday - Deer Season

2009-12-08T17:50:00.001-08:00

Here in Arkansas, deer season is in full swing. Like most southern states, hunting is a big part of the culture. While my husband doesn't hunt, my dad and brothers always did when I was growing up. Here in Arkansas, deer season is the biggest on any the different seasons through the year (although duck hunting is really big in the part of the state where I live now).

These pictures were shot back in June while my husband and I were in the Northwest part of the state during our anniversary trip back in June. While walking around the cottages where we were staying, we heard a rustling and stopped to see this:
Then there were more!And More!

I think there were 9 in total that we counted. And they let us get pretty close to them too.Thanks for stopping by! I'm posting my Christmas decor and crafts over the next few days, stop by for a look! And I'll be hosting a giveaway at the end of the week, check back!

See more great Ourdoor shots at Outdoor Wednesday!

Mistletoe Madness

2009-12-08T17:38:00.000-08:00

I completed my second craft show for the fall/holidays this past weekend. I was one of three to share a booth at a local craft show, Mistletoe Madness that benefits two of our local nonprofits.
Unlike the last show where I had 4 tables, I only had one, so I had a lot of things in one small space. But overall it went pretty well.

To see more of the things I have for sale, check out my business blog, Dailey Wear.

More than anything, I was happy to get it done and finish my Christmas decorating. Over the next few days, I'll be showing all of my Christmas decorating and some crafts too - so check back!

All Things Loved in November

2009-12-03T08:11:00.000-08:00

November was a great month! Here are some of our favorite things from November.

1. Samuel turned 6! I can't believe he's already 6 years old. On his actual birthday, we went to the toy store, J. Christopher's, to play on the playground.

2. Samuel's birthday party. For his birthday, we had a kickball party in our church gym. It was a lot of fun and he got some great gifts from his buddies.
3. Beautiful weather! We had unbelievable weather for November. Many days in the upper 60's and lower 70's. It was great to be outside!

4. Samuel's Thanksgiving Program at school was great. The kids did such a good job and were dressed so cute. I'm so thankful for his school and his teacher.

5. Thanksgiving at my parents. Man can my mom cook!

6. Samuel's big catch! Samuel caught this huge crappie (pronounced croppy for those of you not into fishing) in my parents pond. They are normally the size of your hand, but this one was about 14-15" long. He was so proud!

7. The long, wonderful life of this sweet lady. Kevin's grandmother passed away at home on Saturday with her sons around her. This photo is from the 4th of July. She was just a couple weeks shy of 92. She raised 7 sons and lost one (my father-in-laws twin) when he was 2 years old to illness. The 7 sons were the pallbearers and during the funeral they sat all together in birth order with their wives behind them. She will be missed, but we're thankful for all the time we had with her.

Photography - Sun Flare/Wash

2009-11-23T22:15:00.001-08:00

This week I thought I would join in on I Heart Faces weekly photo contest. This week's challenge is sun flare, sun burst, sun wash. I took this photo of my youngest son three weeks ago and love the effect the sun had on it. This is straight out of the camera, no Photoshop work at all.

See more images at:

A Visit to the Pumpkin Patch

2009-11-17T21:21:00.000-08:00

Nothing says fall like Gourds!

For more great views of the outdoors, visit A Southern Daydreamer!

Occasional Comments

2009-11-17T09:15:00.000-08:00

Each month, I write a column for the magazine where I work. It is usually about my boys or stories from my life growing up. This morning, I posted many of them to my blog including the two to follow. To read more, click on the label below or on the girl waving to the right. I would love to hear back on some of your own stories or thoughts.

Occasional Comments

2009-11-17T09:10:00.000-08:00

Editorial by Shaila Creekmore as printed in the May 09 issue of Jonesboro Occasions.

I heard the words coming out of my mouth, but I couldn’t stop them. And even as they passed through my lips, in my mind I was thinking, “I cannot believe I’m saying this.”

“I don’t care what (Timmy’s) momma let him bring to school. I’m not (Timmy’s) momma, I’m your momma and I said no.”

There it was, another one of those things our parents said to us that we swore we would never say to our own kids. Oh the rules we break. Our very own rules. Before we know it, we have become our parents.

My husband and I have now become pros at the worst of these little sayings. “Because I said so,” is now a common phrase at our house. With a five-year-old who constantly asks why he has to do something he’s been told to do or why he must stop doing something, I hear it ringing through our house several times daily.

I used to believe that I would never give my children such a simple answer; that I would always stop and explain every detail as to why they must do or not do something. But a few years ago, I heard a preacher explain that while at times we must explain such things to our kids in order to teach them, at other times the child must just learn that some things ARE just because we said so. As the child, they must learn to do what we ask simply because it was asked of them and that because we are the parent, we make the decisions. This made a lot of sense to me.

But the list of things we would never do includes more than what we say. I will never use the television as a babysitter; I will never feed my child chicken nuggets twice in a day because it’s easy; I will never bribe them with candy in church to keep them quiet; I will never let my child play a video game in the middle of a restaurant; I will never send them to grandma’s for the weekend just to get some quiet … I, in fact, have done all of those things.

I have even broken one of the biggest rules on the list of things I said I would never do, let them sleep with me. As we picked out a crib before my oldest was born, my dad said, “It’s a waste to spend all of that money on a crib, he’ll just sleep with you.” And I in all of my expectant parent wisdom replied, “No, no. He won’t be sleeping with us. He has his own bed and he’ll sleep in it.”

Our first night in the hospital, I wouldn’t even let my husband lay him in the bassinet beside the bed. When he tried to take that sweet, little sleeping baby from me to lay him down, I burst into tears and said, “He can’t sleep in there. He needs me. He’s never been away from me.” Now, looking back, maybe that was the hormones talking, but I slept all night with him asleep on my chest.

When we came home, he slept beside me for weeks on end. Slowly we transitioned him to that beautiful crib we bought, but I had to eat those words I had spoken to my dad just months earlier.

Even now as I have become a constant rule breaker, I hear myself saying “I would never let my child do that.” I guess that means I probably will.

A Case of the Gimmes

2009-11-17T08:37:00.000-08:00

Editorial By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the Nov. 09 Jonesboro Occasions.

As we walked into the toy store I announced, “Remember, we are here to buy a gift. You will not be getting anything today.”

Within five minutes, Samuel had already announced a small list of things he wanted or “needed” and Tyler was walking around carrying a toy as if he already owned it.

Need is my favorite. He really needs - not wants - the 500-piece set of Zoobs at J. Christopher’s or a new Bakugans at Walmart to go with the other dozen he already has at home. But I guess to a kid, new toys really are a need.

We have a saying in our house when these little needs arise: “You have the gimmies.” The term comes from one of the classic Bernstein Bears books, “The Bernstein Bears Get the Gimmies” in which Brother and Sister Bear want everything they see and throw tantrums when they don’t get what they want. But Mama and Papa solve the problem by teaching the cubs about a budget and how to appreciate what they already have.

This time of year is especially difficult for our household on this matter because everyone in our family of four celebrates a fall birthday quickly followed by Christmas. Our weeks are filled with birthday parties, trips to the toy store and gift buying. And as the closet doors and toy boxes burst at the seams, I continue to hear “I want…”, “I need…”, “Can I have…”

Mercifully in the middle of it all, comes Thanksgiving. A holiday with no presents and a time to remember and to be thankful for what we already have.

In America, many children don’t have a true understanding of what it really means to “need” something. Needing a new Hot Wheels car really pales in comparison to children in other countries who need clean drinking water and have never even asked for a new toy because it would never even occur to them to do so.

In the mist of all the gimmies in our house, we work to teach our boys about these true needs that other children have, how lucky we are to have the things we have and how to be giving. One of the ways we do this each year is through Operation Christmas Child, a ministry of Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse.

For the past several years, our church, Highland Drive Baptist, has participated in the program that sends shoeboxes filled with toiletries, toys and candy to children around the world who would never otherwise receive such a gift. In fact, many of these children have never received a Christmas gift at all.

Each November, I have the opportunity to take my children shopping so that they can pick out items to fill our shoeboxes. Samuel also now colors a picture or writes a letter to the little boy who will receive his box. On Shoebox Sunday, Samuel gets to carry our boxes to the front of the church to place on the altar with all of the other boxes donated or packed during our Vacation Bible School week.

My husband and I have also had the joy of going to Atlanta to one of the distribution centers to help prepare boxes for going overseas. The first time I went, I explained to Samuel that I would be helping send the boxes we packed to the little boys for whom he had packed boxes. For months afterwards, he asked me about the little boys and if I thought they liked the toys we picked out.

This year we have another opportunity to teach about giving. Our church has recently partnered with a children’s home in Mexico and we will be packing and sending shoeboxes for specific children in the village around the home. But instead of our boxes going to the children in the home who already receive numerous gifts, the children at the home will take our boxes to the children of the village who would likely not receive anything. A double blessing!

There are many other ways to help teach children about giving to others, such as the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree ministry, making cards for patients in a local nursing home, or taking cookies to elderly shut-ins. The idea is simply teaching your child to be thankful and to think of others.

Pork Stew

2009-11-16T21:13:00.000-08:00

I LOVE this recipe! It's easy and so yummy, especially in the winter. And it's even better the second day. The recipe comes from my Pillsbury Complete Cookbook and unlike most recipes, I made no variations. Ingredients:
1 T. oil
1 1/2 lb. boneless pork loin, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
1 (14 1/2 oz) can ready-to-serve chicken broth
1 C. water
1 med. onion, cut into 8 wedges
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. dried marjoram leaves
1/8 tsp. pepper
10-12 small red pottoes, quartered
1 1/2 C. sliced carrots
1 C. frozen sweet peas
1/2 C. half-and-half
1/4 C. all-purpose flour

Heat oil in 4-quart saucepan or Dutch oven over medium-high heat until hot. Add pork cubes; cook 3 to 5 minutes or unitl browned, stirring occasionally. Add broth, water, onion, salt, marjoram and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer 20 minutes.

Add potatoes, carrots and peas. Return to a boil. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer an additional 15 to 20 minutes or unitl vegetables are tender.

In small bowl, combine half-and-half and flour; blend until smooth. Gradually stir into pork mixture. Cook and stir over medium-high heat until mixture is bubbly and thickened.
-----
This week I am adding this favorite recipe to 4 weekly blog parties - because it's just that good! Check all 4 out for great recipes: Friend Making Monday,Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays, What's for Dinner Thursday, and Foodie Friday !

Out of the Box Stir Fry

2009-11-12T20:30:00.001-08:00

I wish I could make really good, homemade stirfry, but I've kind of come up with my own quick version that I enjoy sometimes for lunch. I like to make this when I have chicken left over from supper the night before.

I start with cooking a box of Rice-A-Roni rice, stirfry flavor. While that cooks, I pull the chicken apart into small pieces. Once the rice is cooked, I throw in the chicken and let it simmer. Then in a small skillet, I heat a little oil and scramble a couple eggs.

Once those are cooked, I add in the rice to the skillet and stir often while it cooks. As it cooks, pour in soy sauce - as much or as little as you like. Cook until the rice begins to crisp just a little. Sometimes I also add in a little broccolli. Fresh or frozen, I cook it in the microwave until tender. Then add into the skillet toward the end of cooking the rice. Not quite like my friend from Japan could make, but easy and tasty all the same.

For more great recipes, visit Foodie Friday and Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays!

Skillet Lasagna

2009-11-06T08:49:00.000-08:00

This has become one of my favorite recipes over the last few months. It is my own variation on a Pampared Chef recipe. The PC recipe is good too, but I just simplified mine a little and it's still just as good. It is as good as lasagna made in the oven (my husband couldn't even tell the difference), but is much easier and faster.

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef or turkey
1 T. Italian seasoning

1 jar spagetti sauce - any flavor you like

1 jar of water (after you pour in the sauce)
8 lasagna noodles

1 (8 oz.) container fresh whole milk ricotta cheese
1/2 T. dried parsley

2 oz. Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 tsp corsley ground black pepper

Place meat in skillet on medium-high. Stir in Italian seasoning. Cook until browned, breaking up pieces as it cooks. Once meat is browned, add in jar of spagetti sauce. Fill jar with water and add to pan. Stir until it is all blended. Break lasagna noodles into 3 peices each and add to pan. Cook on medium-high allowing to come to a slight bowl.

Meanwhile in a small mixing bowl, mix togther the ricotta cheese, dried parsley, Parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese and black pepper. Set aside.

Once noodles begin to get soft and the sauce begins thickening, drop cheese mixture by the spoonfuls all over the top of the pasta. Cook on medium until sauce has thickened and cheese is a little bubbly. You can top with a little more Parmesan and mozzarella cheese if you like.

For more great recipes, visit Foodie Friday and Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays!

Blog Crazy and Halloween Treats!!

2009-11-03T21:34:00.001-08:00

I have been blogging like crazy the last couple days, both here and on my family site. The fall is always busy for us, so I've been trying to get it all blogged at once! If you haven't been here in a couple days - keep reading...it's all new!!

I had to show the Halloween treat buckets I made for Samuel's class.
I found the little buckets in the Target dollar spot, 2 in a package. I cut the spider shapes in black and white vinyl, black pumpkin faces, BOO in white vinyl and then each of their names. I then added tissue paper and inside was tucked candy, plastic bugs and a halloween pencil.

Where the name was placed was based on what design was on each one and how long their name was. Some I was able to put on front and others I put the name on the back.

If you have a Cricut and are wondering about the Pumpkin face, I just cut triangles for the eyes and then a moon or crescent shape for the mouth. I then hand cut little notches for the teeth.

Wacky Sacks

2009-11-03T21:17:00.000-08:00

Using an idea from Somewhat Simple, I made this simple little craft with the boys on Friday night. I had some orange balloons and when I saw her tutorial, I thought the orange balloons would make a quick Halloween craft.
I pulled open the top of the balloon as much as I could while Samuel stuffed the balloon with play dough. I used 1 can of play dough in each balloon.

Then we topped off the balloon with green pipe cleaners and drew on faces with permanent marker. However, we found that the marker easily rubbed off. I didn't really find a solution to this problem but the boys love playing with them.

You may remember doing something similar with corn starch when you were a kid, but the advantage to this is that you don't have a big mess to clean up when the balloon gets a whole. Simply take the play dough out and place in another balloon.

When they kids are done with them, cut them open and the play dough is still fresh and ready to play with.

Who's That Pumpkin in the Window??

2009-11-03T20:39:00.001-08:00

I found this really cute and easy idea in a magazine (Family Fun, I think). When I saw the pictures, I thought...I have the perfect front porch window to do that!

You simply use tissue paper to make the design. Cut the eyes and mouth out of black, tape it to the window and then completly cover the window in orange tissue paper. The secret is simply leaving your lights on.
A view with the flash, so that you can see the size of the window and the front porch. The kids coming to the front door really liked it.

A view from the street. You can see that it was really visable.

I did it the day before Halloween so it could be seen the night before and on Halloween night. I took it down the next day. A short-run decoration, but it only took me about 30 minutes or less to do, so totally worth it.

All Things Loved in October

2009-11-03T20:11:00.001-08:00

These are all the things we loved about October! It is one of our favorite months around here! We love fall, football, birthdays and Halloween. To read more about our October, visit our family blog at http://thecreekmorefour.blogspot.com/.

1. Early in the month, I visited Samuel's class during community week to speak about what I do in my job. I talked to them about the different jobs at the magazine and what I do, including writing and photography. They each got a copy of the magazine to take home and they were really excited to look through them.

2. Tyler turned 2!!!

3. Samuel's school fall festival. It was a lot of fun and made a lot of money for the PTO's projects for the year.
3. Birthday Parties! We had a family birthday party for the boys between their two birthdays.

4. HDBC Picnic. Our church host a family picnic each fall. It's always fun to get together and for all the kids to be able to play together outside of church.

5. Red Ribbon Week and 50th Day of School Sock-Hop.

6. HDBC Harvest Festival. A beautiful, fun day! Our church's annual harvest festival that is free and open to the community. We had around 1,200 people attend (our church has around 300 for services on Sunday morning!)
7. Carving Pumpkins!

8. Trick-Or-Treating...and all that candy!

Buggy Birthday

2009-10-30T07:56:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we had a family birthday party for the boys who's birthday are exactly a month apart. To make it easier on our families to only have to visit once, we had a small party at our house for both of them. We also invited our closest friends.

After much debate (for myself - the boys could have cared less) about themes, I decided on a bug theme. I used my Cricut to make bugs to top the cupcakes.

Lady bugs and a dragon fly,

A beatle

and a Spider.

I cut out each shape with the blackout design. Then for each bug, I cut out the detail for both sides and ran them through my Xyron. Between one of the designs and the blackout design, I placed a toothpick. When I placed them on the cupcakes, I placed the toothpick side on the back, but because the design was on both sides, you couldn't see the toothpick, just the pump it made in the paper.

But I think these were my favorite! A bug jar.
On these, I cut out two jars out of vellum for each of the toppers. Then I cut out only one design. I ran all of the jars through the Xyron. On one each, I placed the little stick and leaves. Then I placed the second jar on top, sandwiching the toothpick between the two jars. These shapes were all on the Doodlebug Cartridge (a really good one to have!).

The night before the party, I made up this banner quickly. I cut the letters mostly out of scrap paper, each letter in a different color/pattern. I used yellow twine to string the letters together. To do that, I used small brads, opening them and placing the twine between the brad, inserted them in the paper and then secured them on the back. Some of the letters had to be strung all the way across, others like the B, D, R, etc I cut the twine and attached on each side.

To finish it off, I made the same bugs that I used on the cupcakes and using my Xyron attached them to the letters. For finishing it at 1 a.m. the night before the party, I was happy with the way it turned out. And because I used the removable Xyron adhesive, I can just remove them and use the banner again with something else. For the left over bugs and cupcake toppers - I saved those to use on their scrapbook pages! Embellishments already made, yea!
I made the boys matching birthday shirts

I'm putting together another post about all of the t-shirts I've been making, so check back!

Profiterole Puffs

2009-10-30T07:34:00.000-07:00

This is a Pampered Chef recipe that looks hard, but is VERY easy! I've made them several times and guest are always shocked that I made them. Often I drizzle them with chocolate, but didn't for this batch.

Here are the ingredients:

Puffs:

3/4 cup water

1/4 cup butter or margarine

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

3 eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat ove to 375 degrees. For puffs, in saucepan, combine water, butter and salt; bring to boil over high heat. Add flour all at once. Using scraper, stir mixture vigorously about 1 minute or until mixture leaves sides of pan and forms into a ball. Remove from heat; place dough into bowl. Add egg and whisk until smooth andvery thick.

Lightly spray mini-muffin pan with oil. using slightly mounded small scoop, scoop batter into cups of muffin pan. Bake 22-25 minutes or until deep golden brown. Remove from oven and make a small cut into side of each puff using small paring knife to release excess steam. Remove puffs from pan to cooling rack, cool completely.

Filling:

1 container frozen whipped topping, thawed

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla (I usually double mine)

For filling, combine whipped topping, powdered sugar and vanilla. Mix gently until well blended using small scraper. Attach a small tip to the end of your decorator; fill with filling and pipe into center of each puff.

For topping, place frosting in small bowl; microwave on high 5-10 seconds or until melted. Drizzle frosting over puffs and sprinkle with chopped nuts. Serve immediately or refrigerate.

For our halloween party tomorrow night, I thought I might use orange food coloring to tent the filling and green icing to drizzle over the puffs - mini pumpkins?

For more great recipes, visit Foodie Friday and Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays!

Cricut Designed Tubs

2009-10-26T14:17:00.000-07:00

During the summer, Walmart had plastic tubs in their summer section. When they went on clearance, I bought a couple. They can be used for ice or to ice down cokes. I keep mine on top of the fridge and have found it to be a good place to keep bags of chips and snacks.

For mine, I just used my Cricut to cut out our name. To me, the white and red reminds me of a Coke.

I also picked up a blue one because my sons school colors are blue and gold/yellow. But as most of you Cricut users know, you can't buy yellow vinyl off the shelf in the store. So I just held on to it for a couple months. Then I ordered a new cartridge (Stand & Salute) just for the torch included on the cartridge. I have found it useful for other things, but I was excited to find the torch as we have at least 16 years of being the Blazers ahead of us.

Here is the cool part of the story. While I was in a print shop ordering a couple mounted posters for our upcoming craft show, I asked the lady if they ever had left over vinyl that they just threw away they might be interested in selling or giving away. She said they always had little pieces left they can't use and walked over and handed me a 24x24 sheet of the perfect shade of yellow. She said "See how this works for you." I said "Oh that will be great." But inside I was jumping up and down because it was exactly what I need to do the blue tub. Also - I know you can order other shades off the Internet, but I just haven't taken the time to do that yet.

So this is what I ended up with. I did the design on both sides exactly the same and sent it to my son's teacher for their snack basket. She orginally just had a small white basket and this gives her a lot more room, plus it was super cute. She said she loved it and all of the kids were excited about their new Blazer Snacks basket.

Now I'm just hoping that Walmart brings back these tubs next year. I have looked and looked on the Internet and can't find anything like them to order. If anyone knows of a place, please let me know. I would love to be able to sell a few and make a couple more for myself for other things.

My Town

2009-10-17T08:05:00.000-07:00

Editorial By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the Oct. 09 issue of Jonesboro Occasions.

After a visit from an Arkansas State University recruiter at my Little Rock high school 15 years ago, I announced to my parents that I would be going to ASU in Jonesboro. I then very quickly found a map to see where Jonesboro was located.

I grew up in what I now call the central Arkansas bubble - where Arkansas generally goes no further north than Searcy and no further south than Hot Springs. And other than the general direction, I had no idea where Jonesboro was or what type of city it was.

At the end of my junior year in high school, my mom and I visited ASU for the first time. I thought it was a beautiful campus and while Jonesboro was small, I was happy to see it had a mall. I figured with a mall and Wal-Mart, I could make it.

In 1995, I moved into Kays Hall and began my life as a college student on campus. At first, I only ventured off campus to eat, go to Wal-Mart and to church. I knew only the main roads and wouldn’t even dare to venture off of those. Over time, I began learning the back roads and feeling more at home in Jonesboro.

After graduating college and getting married in 1999, neither my husband nor I wanted to return to our home cities and with no idea of where we wanted to go, we just stayed here. We began working in our degree fields and eventually bought a house.

Over time, Jonesboro has truly become our home. Our boys were born in Jonesboro hospitals, Samuel at St. Bernards and Tyler at NEA Baptist. We are active in one of Jonesboro’s great churches and work for family-owned companies in the area.

I now feel very proud of the city I call home, and I am amazed at what a smaller city has to offer. Our parks system is one of the best in the state and provides great places for our children to play and sports programs for them to participate in. Our library likewise has a wonderful space for our children and educational programs throughout the year. Our growing schools are dedicated to educating our children and are providing them a fantastic education.

And the giving spirit of Jonesboro is unbelievable. Through my position withOccasions magazine, I have the opportunity to see the work of numerous non-profits and the many people who give their money and time to ensure success.

Since coming to Jonesboro 14 years ago, I have seen incredible growth and no longer really feel like it’s that little place I first came to visit. We rarely travel to Little Rock or Memphis to shop any longer and I spend too much time – according to my husband – in our mall playing, eating and shopping. Jonesboro now offers many of the advantages of a big city, along with the all the advantages of a small town.

When friends and family ask us how we like Jonesboro, we’re quick to respond – it’s home.

Stop, Shop & Stroll

2009-10-16T06:51:00.000-07:00

We had a great weekend at Stop, Shop & Stroll!! It was held at The Mall at Turtle Creek this year and we had around 45 vendors. We had a great turnout as you can imagine in the mall. We are looking at doing a spring show - if I can get over this one. As the organizer, I stayed very busy for 3+ months getting it set, but the weekend went off with no problems at all.

Information on all of the vendors can be viewed here: Stop, Shop & Stroll. More information on my products can be seen here: Dailey Wear.

Here is my booth:

School Spirit Mugs

Monogrammed Christmas Ornaments

Nursing Covers
Paci Clips, Binky Clips and Crinkle Taggies

Handmade necklaces

Monogrammed Tiles Play Capes - Perfect for your princess or super hero.
My booth! You can also see below the adorable clipboards made by my friend Haley. View her stuff at Clipboards by Haley.

Here are a few pics from around the show. The space doesn't look very full, but it was a HUGE space. So it was very spaced out which was good because it gave everyone lots of room to walk and customers plenty of room for all of the strollers.

Simple Reminders

2009-10-07T08:58:00.000-07:00

Editorial By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the Sept. 09 issue of Jonesboro Occasions.

Every day, I wear a ring on my right hand that my dad gave to my mom nearly 54 years ago. A white gold band with a round diamond in a square setting, it’s a beautiful ring that often gets noticed by others. But it’s not the ring itself that means so much to me – it’s the 53 years of marriage that my parents have enjoyed and endured.

I wore the ring on my wedding day 10 years ago and have worn it since. Twice, I have taken the ring off for one of my nieces to wear on their wedding day. Later this month, I will again hand the ring to my niece, Renee, for her something old and something borrowed as she marries her fiancée, Jarrod.

It’s not typical for someone my age, 31, to have nieces who are married, but I don’t come from your typical family. My dad, Alvin Dailey, was 47 years old when I was born and my mom, Marilyn, turned 41 the month I was born. My brothers were 18 and 20 at the time. When I was just 10 months old, I became an aunt to my niece, Andrea. In total, I have six nieces, two great-nephews and five great-nieces. And just for the record, I was never called “Aunt Shaila” until the great-nephews and nieces came along.

As a child, I got used to people referring to my mother as my grandmother and as an adult I’ve become accustomed to the remark, “Well, YOU were a surprise!” or “You were a late in life baby weren’t you.” That one term has defined me for most of my life and is a large part of who I am.

Being a late in life baby has some disadvantages. While we are a close family, I find that I have a closer relationship to my nieces than I do with my brothers simply because of our ages and our places in life. I’m also having to deal with aging parents much sooner than the average person. With parents who are now 79 and 71, I spend a lot of time on the phone asking about doctor visits and test results.

But in many ways, those disadvantages are far outweighed by the advantages. My parents were basically pros at the parenting lifestyle by the time I came along (which was both an advantage and disadvantage). They had not only been through the duties that come with having a preschooler, but had already been through the struggles of raising teenagers and had learned about those do’s and don’ts. Although I had brothers, I grew up basically as an only child since they were both out of the house. But unlike an only child, as an adult I have the help and support of my brothers.

And there is some measure of being spoiled when you’re the baby of not only the immediate family, but the baby of numerous cousins on both sides of the family. My grandfather, who was a small farmer in Lee County, once came home with a squeaky toy lion and gave it to me when I was just a few months old. Growing up, I would often hear about that afternoon and how special it was for my grandfather to give me that little toy because he had never given another grandchild a toy. I still have that faded plastic lion with my little chew marks on the crown sitting atop a bookshelf in my boy’s nursery.

Both the lion and my mother’s ring serve as two constant reminders to me: although I was a surprise to our family, I was always wanted and loved and that sometimes the unpredictable things in life are better than what we’ve imagined for ourselves.

All Things Loved in August & September

2009-10-06T20:47:00.000-07:00

I have been so busy getting ready for this weekends craft show, I never did All Things for August, so I'm doubling up and doing August and September together. Here are a few things we've loved about the last couple months:

August:
Samuel went with Grandma to Dora Live

And they visited Graceland
We had our first day of Kindergarten!!
And first day of Preschool!!

My Co-Workers and I celebrated our companies 6th anniversary with dinner and a little Karaoke.
September:
We are loving our local toy store who has recently relocated to a bigger place complete with space for the kids to play and a playground!

This is the kid's door out - NO ADULTS! Their own little door!

Tailgating

And Football

Time with my dad for the first time since his heart surgery
My nieces wedding and my new nephew Jarrod

And I was able to visit with Samuel's class for the first time which was a lot of fun.

Fall Decor and Monthly Craft Challange

2009-10-06T16:04:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Fall!! I love fall! I used to say spring was my favorite, but now it has to be fall. I love the weather, the decorations and all the fun things we do in the fall.

Heidi is once again doing her Monthly Craft Challange and I thought I would double up and show both some things I've made for my fall decor and show a few other things because I've had very limited blogging time lately.

I made this wreath about 12 years ago for a college class believe it or not. For my feature writing class, I had to write a how to article. So I made the wreath providing step by step instructions and photos on how I made it. I'm pretty sure I got an A. I would post the How To, but that was before very many people had digital cameras and I'm pretty sure the pics are some where in my attic. LOL
I don't know how or why, but I got this idea several years ago to make this Jack-O-Lantern. I used a pickle jar, covered it in tissue paper and used floral wire for the curlies and the handle across the top. I usually burn candles in it and it looks neat when lit. This would make a good kids craft by the way.

A couple years ago I made this wreath with things I had left over mostly from the other wreath and some other projects. I had some grape vine that I wound into a wreath, glued on some flowers, a little pick and the raffia bow. The only thing I bought was the little pumpkin. It's on my door coming in from the garage.

My table centerpiece. I won the three little buckets at Bunko. I filled them with brown shredded paper (like you use for gift bags/boxes). Tossed in a few gords and picks and the scarecrow. I bought some pretty fabric that is sheer with coppor colored leaves and just bunched it up under it all. I've used it now for 3 or 4 years and may change it up next year, but I still like the way it looks.

I did not make these, but had to show them. My friend Sebrena made them for me last year. The boys use them for their treat bags.

And a little bit more of my decor. I made this arrangement a long time ago and bought the Autumn sign last year on clearance at Hobby Lobby. You can see my little M&M peeking out from behind the picture. We have other Halloween M&M decorations, but I haven't had time yet to get them out.

And one of my best friends game me this little pumpkin several years ago. I think it's cute, but more than that, it reminds me of her every year when I pull it out. She moved away around 3 years ago and I miss her like crazy!

I'll have another post about my shirts later, but I wanted to show the shirt I made for my oldest son for Halloween. He loves it. I used my Cricut to cut out the spider.

Be sure to visit Blue Eyed Blessings for some great Fall/Halloween Craft Ideas!

Blog Break

2009-09-09T11:48:00.000-07:00

I am taking a little blog break for a couple weeks while I prepare for an upcoming arts & crafts show that I am planning. I will be posting some of the things I'm working on, but don't really have time for my normal blogging right now. You can check out of craft show on our blog: Stop, Shop & Stroll. We have some great vendors and some of them have websites and/or Etsy pages with their great items. The website is currently being updated, so keep checking back. I'm working to get all of the vendor information up now.

A New Milestone

2009-09-07T09:03:00.000-07:00

Editorial By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the Aug. 09 issue of Jonesboro Occasions.

As parents, we go through many milestones with our children, first steps, a first tooth, learning to ride a bike. This month, I will join my oldest son in another of these milestones as I walk him through the doors of Valley View Elementary for his first day of kindergarten.

Samuel has long awaited this day. I on the other hand have not. While I am excited about all of the new things that school will bring him, this is one more step in his becoming a “big boy.”

In the next week or so, we will head to Wal-Mart to buy all of his school supplies and get him ready for that first big day. He’s excited to pick out his new boxes of crayons and markers and to buy new scissors and glue. And he’ll probably show me all of the things he’ll want to pack in his lunch each day.

The past two years, Samuel has attended pre-k two days a week, leaving us three weekdays to spend together. For nearly six years, he has been my sidekick, going with me to run errands, to the mall, on play dates, to the park, out to lunch with friends, to the library or just spending a lazy day around the house. It will certainly be different not to have him with me on those days.

And the same thing recently occurred to him. He, however, is not as concerned so much with not having the extra time with me as he is that baby brother will be getting all of that alone time with Momma while he’s at school. I just remind him though that he and I had four years with just the two of us before Tyler came, Tyler and I have never had any time for just the two of us. This hasn’t quite persuaded him yet. He recently told me I should just go to work more since he’ll be at school anyway.

And I’m a bit curious of what Tyler will think about big brother being gone all day. Will he be excited to have the extra Mommy time? Will he look around the house for big brother the first few days? Will he even notice?

Samuel isn’t sure he wants to go to school five days a week and sometimes reminds me that he was able to learn all he needed to know going only two days a week. I reassure him that there is much more to learn and that he’ll like being able to see his friends everyday. We talk often about all the things he’ll be able to learn and do at school, but mostly he’s just curious about the important things like how big the playground is and if there’s a slide.

Honest Scrap

2009-08-28T06:48:00.000-07:00

My blogfriend Kelli just tagged me with the Honest Scrap. Being tagged is fun because it gives you something to talk about for the day.

Here's the deal:
In accepting this award, I need to do the following:
1) Say thanks and give a link to the presenter of the award.
2) Share "ten honest things" about myself.
3) Present this award to 7 others whose blogs I find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged me.
4) Tell those 7 people that they've been awarded HONEST SCRAP and inform them of these guidelines in receiving.

So...10 Honest Things About Me

1. I am NOT a morning person. I love to stay up really late and sleep late.

Getting my oldest up and to school every morning for the first time

this week has been a huge challenge.

2. I spend way too much time on Facebook.

I wouldn't join it for a long time because I knew once I did that

I would spend too much time online - and I do!

3. I am allergic to Beef. And yes, I'm still alive.

You really can live without it...and your husband can too!

4. I'm about a year behind on scrapbooking. This just makes me sad!

5. I don't think my husband likes my blogging habit.

Not what I talk about, but how much time I spend doing it.

6. Dips my grilled cheese in ketchup.

My husband thinks this is weired, but both our boys do it now too.

7. I hate ironing. I have a pair of pants I really like, but haven't worn in

nearly 3 months because I don't want to take the time to iron them.

8. I don't drink coffee, but love hot tea.

9. And speaking of tea, I love sweet tea! I crave it and drink it all day long.

10. I love pajamas! If I'm home, I'm in PJs and I don't really get moms

who get dressed on days that don't leave the house.

Now, I tag: Jenna, Heidi, Sarah, Shelley, Shannon, Serena, and Small Fry

One Tip Wednesday

2009-08-26T11:03:00.000-07:00

I'm late posting One Tip Wednesday today because I've been busy organizing and cleaning all day! My oldest has started school and we are adjusting to school life and moving on for summer. A big part of that for me is getting the house clean and back in order after a busy summer.

I generally like to clean the house in sections and room by room. Sometimes I get a little ADD and end up all over the place, but I find that I'm more effecient if I take it one room at a time.

Monday I concentrated on the kitchen.

I cleaned out the pantry, fridge, freezer and lazy susan. I also cleaned out and organized a couple cabinets that had gotten out of control. Lots of organizing and washing things down.

This morning I concentrated on the boys side of the house. Last week I cleaned and organized Samuel's closet, so his room was mostly dusting and some touchups. I dusted the blinds and cleaned the window.

Tyler's room was much the same, dusting, cleaning the blinds and the windows and just a few touchups.

Then on to their bathroom. I cleaned it top to bottom including the tub and a little organizing under their bathroom sink.

Now I'm headed to dust the living room and clean the windows.

Next it's on to my desk area. I have some papers I need to go through and a couple drawers that need organized. I hope to finish this by the end of the day.On Friday I will clean the dinning room (where I also have my craft space) and then spend most of the day working on my bedroom, bathroom and closet.

I will finish on Saturday by cleaning all the floors (if not Friday). I always clean the floors last and do them all at the same time rather than room by room. It seems pointless to me to vacumme one room and not others when you will just continue to track things through the house from one room to another.

What have you been doing to get organized? Call it fall cleaning!

Friend Makin Monday

2009-08-24T11:01:00.000-07:00

Amber is hosting Friend Makin Monday this week!

10 Things I Loved About Summer

1. Time at my Mom's & Dad's house.

2. Vacation Bible School

3. Our 10th Anniversary Trip

4. Trips to the Splash Park

5. A trip to the Children's Museum.

6. T-Ball

7. Fireworks on the 4th

8. Time with Family

9. A visit to the NASA exhibit at the Clinton Library.

10. A trip to the Arkansas Museum of Discovery

One Tip Wednesday

2009-08-19T22:29:00.000-07:00

So what is One Tip Wednesday? It's all about organizing your home and keeping your family moving through the many activities we all have each day. I think so many of us have great organization tips and I enjoy sharing some of mine with you and learning from those of you out in blogland.

So grab the One Tip Wednesday button and post a tip you use in your home. It can be anything from how you sort your laundry to organizing your craft supplies to how you handle the paperwork in your home to your handy dandy shopping list.

My oldest started Kindergarten today and getting up early and leaving the house 5 days a week is something I'm really having to adjust to. I am a night owl and don't do well in the mornings. I mean, I REALLY don't like the mornings. I haven't worked full-time in about 8 years, so getting up 5 days a week is something I'm not accustomed to. The past 2 years, he has gone to Pre-K 2 days a week, but that I could handle. So getting up and out the door and to school by 7:55 is going to take some planning and organization for me.

A big part of that is having things ready so that he can get himself ready as much as possible. I created days of the week tags to hang on his clothes for each day of the week. So now, when I say go get dressed, he can just go get the outfit I have labeled for that day.

Each Sunday, I will select his clothes for the week and place them on the lower bar of his closet. By placing them on the bottom, he can get them and get dressed without me ever having to go into his room for the day.
All of his shoes are also hung on the bottom rack, so he can select his shoes or get the pair I've told him to wear. He is also very good about getting dressed all on his own if I have his clothes ready, so I fully expect him to come out of his room some mornings dressed without even being asked.
I made all of the cards with cardstock, printed paper and letters made on my Cricut. I then laminated them so that they would hold up week after week.

I think this system will simplify my life and make our morning rushing out the door much easier and quicker.

Join me - what do you do to keep your home organized?

Back to School teachers gift

2009-08-19T09:31:00.001-07:00

Today's the 1st Day of School! My oldest started Kindergarten. His teacher is new to the school so I thought she would like to have something with the schools colors. I made this for her and sent it to her in his backpack. I cut out all the letters with my Cricut and used a simple piece of ribbon across the top.

I added 3 bags of TAZO tea...

A little die cut note and a ribbon.

Tales of Elvis

2009-08-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

Debbie at Dining with Debbie is sharing Elvis Memories this weekend and I couldn't help but write a post! I have two stories that I think people don't believe, but I SWEAR are true!!
My parents grew up in Lee County, Arkansas and my mom grew up just down the road from Elvis's kissing cousins, you know the ones he has a song titled after. My mom's youngest brother dated one of them for a while. On one occasions while my mom was in high school, she was dating a guy who was in a band and he pulled up to the house with some of his buddies. Out of the back came a good looking guy who her boyfriend introduced as Elvis Presley. They stood outside and talked a while before they left. Yes, my mom's boyfriend was in Elvis's first band when they were young and at that time Elvis was nothing more than a guy in the backseat. Eventually, my mom broke up with the boyfriend and he one way or another left the band. Then one day my mom hears this guy Elvis on the radio! Who knew!

The other one is my husbands story. He has been in the bathroom where they found Elvis just before he died. My husband grew up in W. Memphis and his dad works for a fire alarm company. When he was around 9, he went to work with his dad one day and they recieved a call that the fire alarm at Graceland was malfuctioning. As they checked the problems, it ended up to be some wiring in the bathroom of Elvis's bedroom. As a young kid, my husband said he just remembers racks and racks of Elvis's clothes all over the upstairs of Graceland.

Just a couple weeks ago, my in-laws took my oldest son for a tour of Graceland, you can see that post HERE.

Fried Squash

2009-08-13T07:57:00.000-07:00

If you're a southern girl, your probably don't need this recipe. But if your North of the Mason-Dixon Line, you may have not had this wonderful summer treat.

Fried squash is one of the best foods of the summer! Get fresh squash if at all possible from a garden or farmers market. If you purchase it at the store, but sure it's firm and not soft.

Wash and cut off the tips on both ends. Slice into medium slices. Don't cut them too then or you'll just end up with burnt crisp of squash.

Toss the squash in a few spoonfulls of corn meal and salt and pepper to taste. It doesn't take much corn meal, just enough to coat each piece.

Fry on medium heat in a shallow pan of oil. Place the squash in one layer and cook until it begins to brown. Flip over and cook the other side. Don't cook too fast or it will just burn.

Remove from the grease and place on a plate covered with a paper towl to collect the extra grease. You can add more squash as you take finished pieces out of the pan, just keep rotating them through until all finished.

Yumm!! I have got to find my way to the farmer's market this week!

For other great recipes, check out:

One Tip Wednesday

2009-08-11T14:27:00.000-07:00

So what is One Tip Wednesday? It's all about organizing your home and keeping your family moving through the many activities we all have each day. I think so many of us have great organization tips and I enjoy sharing some of mine with you and learning from those of you out in blogland.

So grab the One Tip Wednesday button and post a tip you use in your home. It can be anything from how you sort your laundry to organizing your craft supplies to how you handle the paperwork in your home to your handy dandy shopping list.

This may be my favorite One Tip Wednesday ever!! Why? Because it was an idea my 5 1/2 year old thought up all on his own. Last week when we were getting school supplies together, I pulled out his pencil box from last year and told him that I'm was going to take it to my friend Amy for her to monogram. He then said, "Can't she just do a new one and I can keep this one to put my Bakugans in. It would be perfect for my Bakugans and cards."

How could I say no to that! Not only was it a great idea, but it made me happy to see that he was thinking about ways to help organize his room.

And he was right, it is perfect! Bakugan does make storage containers for these and we told him that would be a good birthday or Christmas present, but for now, this box works great!

He can easily take them into different rooms of the house to play or throw them in his backpack to take to Grandma's or Mamaw's house or to a friends house.

Outdoor Wednesday - Cloudy Sunset

2009-08-11T13:42:00.000-07:00

We have had what I would call an unusual summer in Arkansas. June was scortching hot! Many days above 100 and we barely went outside. The July came and temps went well below normal and we had the wettest July on record in most cities in Arkansas. We normally can hardly go outside in the middle of the day here in July, but this year it was great! But we did have a lot of rain, but in July you really can't complain about that around here. So, we had a lot of sunsets that looked like this:

These images are raw, straight out of my camera. No photoshop work at all and look how pretty the colors are!

For more great views of the outdoors, visit A Southern Daydreamer!

I would love to have you join my blog party this week! Check out One Tip Wednesday and join my giveaway this week!

Bless Our Nest

2009-08-09T20:34:00.000-07:00

For several months, I've wanted to put wall words above my pantry door in the kitchen.

A space that juts out into the rest of the room, it seemed like the perfect blank space.

And this is what I came up with. Using black Cricut vinyl, I cut the words with the Jasmine cartridge and the birds with the Storybook cartridge.

I'm happy with how it turned out. But the great thing about Cricut vinyl is that it peels off and I can change it as soon as I want a change!

So why the words I chose? My kitchen is decorated in bird houses and a garden theme. After months of looking online and trying to decide what I wanted, the idea came to me to use the title of one of the blogs that I read from a fellow Arkansas blogger Bless Our Nest. It just seemed to fit. Here are a couple of my bird houses that sit above my kitchen cabinets.

Join Between Naps on the Porch for more Metamorphasis Monday!

My Two Front Teeth

2009-08-07T09:06:00.000-07:00

Editorial By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the July 09 issue of Jonesboro Occasions.

As teenagers, my husband and I both went through the dreaded process of braces. I was a metal mouth for a couple of years, while my husband had to endure nearly four years of braces followed by a retainer.

While our boys will likely follow in their parents’ footsteps, we were overly confident that our frequent trips to the dentist wouldn’t start until at least their preteen years. Samuel and Tyler were both late teethers, 11 ½ months and 10 ½ months respectively before we saw those first bottom teeth break through. Samuel was three-years-old before we even saw a hint of his two-year molars and at 20-months, Tyler still only has four bottom teeth. We have been happy to have late teethers because studies show that the later a child gets their first tooth, the healthier their teeth generally remain.

So needless to say, when Samuel returned from the church playground with a large chip out of his front tooth, I was a little upset to see damage to that beautiful little smile. A quick early morning trip to the pediatric dentist the following day showed the tooth fracture was far below the root area, but he warned us that the tooth could begin dying and not to be surprised to see it turn dark. A couple months later, the tooth remained pretty and white and the chip looked smaller to me each day as I grew accustomed to seeing it. We were out of the woods of further dental work and we were relieved to not be spending a small fortune to repair a baby tooth.

But if you’ve ever been a parent – especially to boys – you know they are only accidents waiting to happen. Samuel is addicted to Star Wars and loves to practice his “Jedi skills” as he calls them. But on one particular night, his “skills’ weren’t quite skillful enough.

As he jumped and turned and twisted, his feet went up and his face came down — straight onto the ceramic tile floor. Never mind this was after being told twice to stop because he might get hurt, now we had tears and blood and four loose front teeth. The small chip was now a larger chip to match a new chip on the tooth to the right and small cracks could be seen on the tooth to the left. Within days, both front teeth began turning dark.

What we once considered to be good luck was now a problem. Because he was a late teether, we are still likely two years from losing the baby teeth for the permanent teeth. Soon we were scheduling a visit for root canals and veneers to be placed on the front two teeth – baby teeth! The veneers looked beautiful and no one would have ever known he had had dental work. Unfortunately, the veneer didn’t work on one of the teeth and within three months we were back at the dentist to have a less attractive, but more permanent crown put on to protect the tooth.

At only five-years-old, Samuel has already had more dental work than I’ve had in my lifetime and cosmetic procedures to boot. But as my mom keeps reminding me, “It’s just part of being a parent, it is only baby teeth and the next accident is just a playground trip away.”

Show Us Your Life - Reception & Honeymoon

2009-08-06T20:50:00.000-07:00

Kelly at Kelly's Korner is hosting Wedding Receptions and Honeymoons during her Show Us Your Life blog party this week.

This is the only photo I have scanned of our wedding reception. This is as we entered our reception. Our reception was very layed back and relaxed and we had a good time. It was nice to have so many of our friends and family all together in one place.

And there were lots of special moments, like when Kevin met one of my aunts, who is very special to me, for the first time and when my mom met his uncle. This is such a good story I can't help but tell it. When we were dating, Kevin was looking at a book laying on the table next to him. It was my moms book from her high school reunion. As he leafed through it, he said "That's my aunt." When my mom looked at it, she said "That was my best friend in high school. The last thing I heared from her when we gratuated was that she was moving to Hughes to marry some boy." Kevin said, "That boy was my uncle." She had passed away 2 years before that with cancer, but my mom was able to meet her husband and daughter at our reception.

We honeymooned in a little town in the northern part of our state, Eureka Springs. It's a beautiful town in the Ozarks and really cateers to honeymooners. In fact, they are called the Honeymoon Capitol of the South. We talked about flying somewhere, but decided that for our honeymoon we really wanted someplace close enough that we could drive that night and somewhere we didn't feel like we had to do a lot of sight seeing.

It ended up to be a great choice because it is somewhere we can easily return whenever we want. In fact, these pictures aren't from our honeymoon, but from out 10 yr anniversary trip we took this past June.

The town has lots of great restaurants. This is one of our favorites, a little Italian place that makes you feel like Grandma is in the back yelling orders in Italian.

We stayed in the exact same cottage for our anniv. trip as we did our honeymoon. It was so neat to return there. Almost as if the past 10 yrs hadn't happened, but with so many memories of the past 10 yrs at the same time.

The Cottage is on Beaver Lake. This was the view from our deck.

Another really neat thing are the guest books they have in each cottage for the guest to sign. Guest leave words of encouragement and advice on marriage and tips on places to eat and things to do. The very first thing I did when we got there for our anniv. trip was to go back and read what we wrote 10 years ago.

Symphony Brownies

2009-08-06T07:12:00.000-07:00

This recipe takes brownies to a whole new level!! With one simple addition of a Hershey's Symphony Bars, people will be begging for the recipe!

Ingredients for a 13x9 pan:
2 Boxes of Family Size Brownie Mix
Remainder of ingredients as called for on box
3 Large Symphony Bars

Directions: Mix together 1 box and pour into greased pan. I use the brownie mix recipe for fudge like brownies.

Layer the 3 Symphony Bars across batter. You want to use the large bars, not the normal bars you find in the candy isle. To make the bars fit in my pan, I trim off the corners of the bars so they will lay flat. You can also use the Toffey Symphony Bars if you like nuts. Occasionally I will use 1 Symphony and 2 regular so that one end has nuts.

Mix the second batter and pour over the top. Bake at 350 for 45-55 minutes. You will want to watch it closely at the end so that the center is set, but the edges aren't burnt. The toothpick method won't work, because the chocolate bar in the middle will remain melted.

Here's the finished result. YUMM!!

If you want to make a smaller amount, use 1 Family Size box of mix and pour half into an 8x8 pan. Layer 2 Symphony Bars on top and then pour on the second half of the batter.

For other great recipes, check out:

Tablescape Thursday - A Presidential Tablescape

2009-08-05T14:39:00.000-07:00

On a recent visit to the Clinton Presidential Library, I immediately thought of Tablescape Thursday when seeing this exhibit in one of the halls. Among all the artifacts, letters, gifts and stories was a table setup as it would have been at one of the many state dinners hosted by the Clinton's. I thought it would be great to share it with all of you.

The ornate plates are what makes this table setting. Other than the gold leafed plates with the White House design, it's a very simple setting. But notice also the gold chairs.

Visit Between Naps on the Porch to see other great Tablescapes!

One Tip Wednesday & A Giveaway!

2009-08-04T21:15:00.000-07:00

Welcome to One Tip Wednesday!! I would love to have some of you join in and make this a weekly event - and help us all learn new ways to organize our homes and our daily life.

So to kick it off, I'm throwing in a giveaway! Come back next Wednesday and leave a link to your One Tip Wednesday post and you'll be entered to win my prize! It's a great, personalized gift - come back next week and I'll reveal the giveaway prize.

Now on to today's tip:

I've mentioned before about my love for plastic storage tubs. I use them for everything, but one of my favorite uses is storing holiday supplies. Except for Christmas, I have one tub for holidays such as Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc. I keep them in the attic, but they are easily grabbed when it's time to decorate. And because I use clear boxes, it's easy to see which one I need. And even easier to send the husband into the attic to retrieve the right one. Also, buy a tub bigger than you need at the time so you will always have room to add other things to your items.

Click HERE to see past One Tip Wednesday post.

Outdoor Wednesday

2009-08-04T19:54:00.000-07:00

Just a few quick snapshots of some delicate blooms.

See other beautiful views of the great outdoors at A Southern Daydreamer!

All Things Loved in July

2009-08-03T15:03:00.000-07:00

July was a busy month! Here are a few things we loved about July!

1. Fireworks of Course!!
2. Time with Family!

3. Daddy and his little boys!

4. A surprise visit to my Mom & Dads house!

5. Taking the boys to places I used to visit as a little girl!

6. A fun visit to the Arkansas Museum of Discovery!

7. A Mommy and Samuel day to see the NASA exhibit at the Clinton Library.

8. Samuel's very unusual art class!

9. My Dad's very successful heart surgery! My dad has an aortic valve replacement and one bypass, very serious surgery. He did great and his home recovering for the next couple months.

Butterflies in my Bathroom

2009-08-02T23:11:00.000-07:00

This has been my bathroom wall for several years. I liked it, but have grown tired of the same old thing and wanted something with a bit more impact.

I decided to use prints of some butterflies I shot last summer. I chose to do 6 frames, 3 on top, 3 on bottom. And I like to do things cheep. I looked around for frames, but decided on $3 frames from Walmart. The only problem is, they were black, and I wanted white. So I'll just spray paint them. HaHaHa...Not so easy! I realized very quickly after a single coat of paint that this quick little project wasn't so quick and easy. I ended up brush painting all the frames with with acrylic as a primer - 3 coats! Then I spray painted them white - 3 coats! to get the gloss I wanted. A couple weeks later - I had this:

But my bigger plan was to use white vinyl and cut butterfly shapes with my Cricut to place on the wall around the frames.

I used the Storybook Cartridge and the variations on 2 cuts to get the different shapes.

And this was the result!

Some of the butterflies come from behind the frames...

And some just float around them.

It was a bit overwhelming at first because it's such a change from before. It takes up most of the wall, but now that it's been up for a week, I'm very happy with how it turned out.

A view looking into the mirror - the way I see it most of the time!

Join Between Naps on the Porch for more Metamorphasis Monday!

Parmesan Chicken & Pasta

2009-07-30T13:36:00.000-07:00

Boil noodles of your choice, we like bow-tie pasta. While that boils, cut your chicken breast into bite sized pieces. Coat each piece in grated pamesan cheese and flour. Cook in a shallow skillet of olive oil until cooked through. When noodles are cooked, poor a jar of your favorite spaggetti sauce over the noodels. Spoon noodles in the boil, top with chicken and sprinkle with paresan cheese. Quick and Easy!

For other great recipes, check out:

Show Us Your Life - Wedding Dresses

2009-07-24T07:09:00.000-07:00

Starting this week, Kelly at Kelly's Korner is hosting Weddings for the next few weeks. This week is all about the dress. Visit Kelly is see more dresses!

This will probably be the only week I participate because these are the only 4 pics I have in digital format. So unless I just get froggy and start scanning pics, this will likely be it.

I really did love my dress. And I tried on many! Being from Little Rock, living in Jonesboro and marrying someone from the Memphis area, I had lots of opportunity to visit many different stores. And like any true Arkansas girl, I did spend a day a Lowe's Bridal in Brinkly. But I ended up getting my dress as a well known bridal store here in Jonesboro. It was two pieces, the dress itself and the embroidered and beaded top. I wish I had a picture of the back, it was really pretty with buttons all the way down the top. At one time I could have told you the designer, but that was 10 years ago and I have let that information go to memorize more important things like Goodnight Moon.

I loved my veil too. I found the veil at a bridal store in Little Rock that was having a clearance sale. It was the exact length I wanted and trimmed in lace, but I did not like the hair comb it was attached to. But for $10 who could pass it up! So I removed the hair comb and made my own head piece. I used embroidered flowers similar to my dress and it turned out great.
My dress is still hanging in my closet at my parents house. The question afterwards is what do you do with it? I recently heard about a wedding that someone went to where they had both of the mother's dresses and one of the grandmother's dresses on mannequins at the wedding reception, what a neat idea!

One Tip Wednesday

2009-07-22T21:09:00.000-07:00

One Tip Wednesday is on break in July while I attend to some family needs. It will return on August 5 with a give away! Come and join in on the first Wednesday in August for a chance to win a personalized prize. More details coming. Until then, click HERE for previous One Tip Wednesday posts!

Outdoor Wednesday - Lilies

2009-07-21T20:34:00.000-07:00

Visit A Southern Daydreamer to see other views of the great outdoors.

I had the opportunity to take a few pictures of some beautiful Lilies in bloom our our recent anniversary trip. I love Lilies and think they make some of the most beautiful pictures. I can never pass them up!

Birthday Parties

2009-07-16T23:01:00.000-07:00

Friday, Kelly at Kelly's Korner is hosting Children's Birthday Parties. Go show off your party or go to find some great ideas.

3rd Birthday was Thomas the Train

2nd Birthday was Winnie the Pooh

1st Birthday was Raggedy Andy. I had really cute decorations, but those pictures were not digital and these are the only ones I could find already scanned.

Tablescape Thursday

2009-07-08T19:42:00.000-07:00

Visit Between Naps on the Porch to see other great Tablescapes!

I love to host baby and wedding showers. I rarely have the opportunity to do the later, but sometimes have the chance to hose a baby shower for a friend from church. Generally at our church, the first baby shower is held at the church by the couple's small group class. But 2nd, 3rd, etc., baby showers are held in a small group member home. Who came up with these rules I have no idea, but it is an unwritten rule that we all seem to follow!

A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to host a shower for my friend Frances who will very soon welcome her second daughter, Tracy. The table was super simple, but the colors and everything pulled together well.

She is doing Tracy's room in light green and lavender. At first I wasn't sure how I was going to decorate, but I found these cute wooden cutouts at Hobby Lobby and the colors fit perfectly. I hung them from my chandler and they looked so pretty on a hot summer day. I decided I would then just use solid color napkins and plates to match the colors.
But then I was so excited to find these plates and napkins at Target.

The colors were perfect and they were such cute little napkins and plates. I also bought square green plates to match for the food and left the smaller plates for cake.

One of the ladies in our small group made the cake to match the colors.

For the food, I used some of my crystal serving pieces. I love crystal because it goes with anything and always looks so pretty.
I made a banner with Tracy's name with my Cricut to carry on the purple and green theme, adding some girly pink and flowers. It hung directly behind the table across the window.
The completed table.