Insta-Friday

Linking up with Jeannett today for Insta-Friday at liferearranged.com.

A fun look at what's up in the life of Holly...

 We spent an evening at the Padres' game for teacher appreciation night.  Big Man's teacher got to throw out the first pitch since he is one of the California teachers of the year.  Yay!  It was May 4th (if you can't tell), and Middle Man's 3rd time on the Jumbotron.  The camera loves this kid!

 We had a few minutes of watching our friends' kids.  The ipad makes a GREAT babysitter.

 Here is a sneak peak into Big Man's new room.  It is still a bit of a work in progress, but he LOVES it!  A 10 year old's gotta have his own space.

The birthday boy.  LOVE!!!

 My husband had to go over to our old house this week and he brought me home some of my sweet peas that I planted years ago.  I miss them!

 Little Man and I went on a park picnic date this week.  He is finally big enough to play on the big kids playground.  Opened up a whole new world for him.

 And then there's these... They may not look yummy, but boy oh boy are they good!  I am still on the clean eating kick and these cookies fit the bill.  They are chocolate chunky monkeys from six sisters' stuff.Only 50 calories a piece!!!  Ate quite a few of them during American Idol. :)

Happy Insta-Friday!  Have a great weekend!

Great deal for your littles...

Hey everyone!

Looking for some great deals on some great clothes for your kiddos?

Some friends of ours have a great childrens clothing line called

sweet funky vintage 

and they are offering some great deals on their girl goodies through zulily right now.

Up to 65% off their girls separates until Thursday morning.  So cute, made me wish I had girls (well, maybe not but that's my own deal).  Wait, I have friends with girls. :)

Check it out here, if you are interested.

Happy Tuesday!

 

Clean Eating

Mollie and I did this detox diet for 2 weeks with our friend Christy over at onefunmom.com. 

And now that it is done, I could easily go back to my eating habits from before.  I must admit that I miss french fries.  I miss their crunch, their salt, all the ketchup I cover them in.  The list could go on and on.  This girl loves her french fries.

But I am trying to turn over a new leaf.  And this is going to be one GIANT leaf.

One of the ladies from our detox support group introduced us to the magazine "Clean Eating", and I have found a lot of great recipes in there that I am going to try.

I think this process will take a lot of figuring things out, and my goal is not to use my family as my guinea pigs.  Why should they have to suffer through momma's cooking experiments?

So, we'll see how this goes (and how long it lasts).  I feel so great from being in detox these past two weeks that I don't want to go back (not to say that I will never have french fries again, just not as often as I did before).

This morning I actually drank a protein shake for breakfast.  WHAT!?  Crazy, I know.

In the magazine they had a recipe for banana oatmeal smoothie, and I decided to give it a try.

 It was quite good, I must say, and super easy to make...

1 banana
1 cup skim milk
1/2 cup cooked oatmeal
1 tbsp. vanilla protein powder
1 tbsp. ground flaxseed

Blend together.

I added ice to make mine more smoothie than shake.  Yum!  Hopefully it will last me until my mid-morning apple and almonds snack.  

I am also looking forward to making a couple treats, like

skinny chunky monkey cookies from six sisters stuff
and
no bake energy bites from smashed peas and carrots

This could be fun.  This could be a lot of work.  Either way, it's going to be an adventure, and I'm up for it!

Happy Tuesday, Everyone!

 

Pleasantly Surprised

I love it when you set out to do one project, and then end up doing something different that's works even better!

 It all started with this frame.  I found it on clearance at Target, and the color was perfect for my Big Man's new room.  (He turns 10 next week and we gave him his own room, all decked out for a tween.  More on that later.)

I really wanted to do a kinda message center thing with 4 frames together, but because they were on clearance I couldn't find that many.  So, I decided to use something else for that idea and decided to frame a special verse in this one.

I had seen on pinterest that you can print on freezer paper and then iron it on to fabric.  But, it didn't work when I tried it (I think I waited too long and the ink was too dry), and when using words, I had to type it all out backwards and I couldn't get it right.

 This is my first attempt with freezer paper, forgot to type it out backwards this time and got a backwards verse on the fabric.  Oops.

Through a little trial and error I thought, "why not try to print directly onto the fabric?"

So that is what I did.  And it worked!  Yay!

I used a piece of white cotton fabric and ironed freezer paper onto the back to make it seem like paper, for my printers sake, and to give it more stability.

I cut it to 8 1/2 by 11 size, loaded it into the printer, and then held my breath.

I was pleasantly surprised that it worked, without getting jammed or any major smudges.  (There was a smudge at the top, but I was able to cut that piece off.)

Then I pulled off that freezer paper, trimmed it up, and put it in the frame.  So easy!

 And now it has a place of honor on Jackson's shelf, and can remind him of an awesome promise from God.  (Sorry for the picture quality, but it was so dark in his room when I took the pic.)

I love it when things turn out easier and better than you had planned.

Has that happened to you?  Yay!

Happy Tuesday everyone!