February Cometh

February is a busy, busy month around here.  Jason, Shanny, and Brennan all have birthdays, and there's Valentine's Day, which besides decorating the house isn't too big a deal.  Jason and I usually just exchange cards, and sometimes we go out to eat on a day around Valentine's Day to avoid all the craziness on the day. 

To add more to the list, today at school I got bombarded by paperwork; calendars and lists...

...and so it begins.

 As it turns out, the preschool kids do exchange valentines.  Uh oh, I don't know why I didn't think about that before.  I guess because they sent out a letter about not exchanging Christmas gifts.  Now I have to come up with an idea for Brennan's valentine cards, pronto.  Also, the list.  It was a list of things to do to celebrate Brennan's birthday at school.  Looks like mommy has some homework to do.  One of the things on the list is making a poster board of pictures showing important people in Brennan's life, baby pictures, etc.  One of the things is to bring a non-food treat for everyone.  Thankfully, I had already anticipated that one, so I have an idea.  I'll keep you posted on that. 

The list did make me think about how different kids birthdays are celebrated now from when I was a kid.  Back then, mom would make some brownies or if we were really lucky she would get some of the big sugar cookies from the bakery and she would send them to school, and it was all good.  The majority of your birthday was celebrated at home.  Now there's treat bags and power point presentations. haha.  There were several other suggestions on the list, but I'm not going to drive myself crazy.

So I'm off to start looking for some ideas. 

I promise, tomorrow I will post some pictures.  I know some of you are having Brennan withdrawals, and we can't be having that. : )

Blog Beautification and Some Randomness

I know I usually don't post anything on Saturday, but since I missed yesterday I didn't want you to think I was slacking. : )

Actually, I was working on the blog in all my spare time yesterday. I think I have everything up and running now.  Whoo Hoo!  If you are one of the email crew, come and check it out.  The banner is new, there are new link buttons, I added a new section for the books I am reading...and the colors; if not for anything else, you have to come by and check out all the new colors!  I decided to bust the January dreariness and put the whole rainbow on the blog. 

If you do stop by, please let me know if you find anything that's not working right.  I think I got everything, but just in case.  And feel free to leave a comment or two, I wouldn't mind that at all. : )

So for the rest of the weekend, I'll just leave you with these bits of what I've been wondering about this week.
~~~~~~~

The Gym.When I was at the gym the other morning, there was a guy blocking the whole aisle waiting for a parking spot close to the door.  The person getting into the parked car was of course taking their sweet ole' time.  I was aggravated.  And how crazy is that anyway?  You're at the gym...why do you need to park close to the building?  You're going to be exercising and sweating anyway, why not get part of it done in the parking lot?

~~~~~~~

G.I. Joe and the Train of Thought Thereafter.
Brennan asked to watch G.I. Joe the other day.  Actually, he asks every day since Jason first let him watch it, but I usually say no.  I know, big meanie.  Well, we watched it, and I guess I actually paid attention to it for the first time ever.  The first thing I noticed was Destro using the word "popinjay."  I thought I learned that word from Bill O' Reilly.  Turns out if I would have been paying attention to G.I. Joe back in the day, I would be a total genius by now.

Second thing I noticed was a lady wearing fishnet stockings in a scene of Cobra making the Eiffel Tower disappear.  My first thought was why was it necessary for the lady to be wearing fishnets in a kids cartoon, and second, it occurred to me that I have a pair of fishnets in my drawer upstairs, and I was completely blank as to why I own them.  Maybe they were for a Halloween way-back-when, when I could dress up as something other than a Mom with a Halloween shirt on?

Or maybe they were from when I was trying to put a costume together for the "Wing Swing," the big party after we took Swing dance lessons?  Yes, we took swing dance lessons.  And no, we probably couldn't still do it today.

Happy Weekend!

Not Much To Say Today

But I thought I would give it a try anyway.  It might be short, since I woke up with a pounding headache. Technically, I guess it's just a continuation of the headache I had yesterday.  Hopefully, we get a a storm soon to blow away the inversion.

Didn't know you were going to get a dose of science while you were here today, did you? : )

In other news, I think the only reason I have a bread box is to hold all the bread butts.  They must multiply in there.  I bought a new loaf of bread yesterday, went to put it in the box, and this is what I found.


While I was at the store buying bread, I also bought Brennan some new markers.  He has been in coloring heaven.  I love that something as little as a box of markers can make him so happy.


Today, we don't have to go anywhere (yay!) so we have some oatmeal cookie baking on the agenda.  I also need to work on our taxes and do lots of laundry (not yay).

But first I need a latte and some advil.

...and maybe a little art therapy with the new markers.  Hey, it works for Brennan. : )

Valentine's Decorations Are Up!

And we really needed some cheery decorations around here!  It's been dark and dreary and I was feelin' the January blues.  Blah!!! 

I used a couple of things we already had, but most of it I put together with stuff I found at the Dollar Tree the other day when I got the mirrors for my Super-Duper Awesome Mirror.

First is the mantle.  I found the LOVE word at the Target Dollar Spot a couple years ago.  The hurricanes I made last fall, (I'm sure you've noticed them before :o) ) and I just filled them with red and white rose petals.


The frames are from the Dollar Tree or Target again, and I just cut out some felt hearts and glued them on scrapbook paper.


The love inspired books I already had, as well as the silver candlesticks.  The balls are just some styrofoams balls I already had with some rose petals hot glued on.


I got this glittery heart at Michael's last year, and it found a home on my iron fence piece.


Some paper hearts on our entertainment center.


The X and O frames I made last year.  A couple of the marbles fell off, and I haven't glued them back on. Shhh!


Brennan's contributions. : )  Heart clings on the front door.


And on the back door, along with the sunny hearts we made the other day.  Nope, there is no sun right now, and yes, it is snowing.


I think this is my favorite.  More felt and paper art in the tray on our kitchen island.


Some love and hugs on the hutch.  Both of them are from Target; the blocks from this year, and the love banner is from a few years ago.


Plus, of course, my little Brennan love, in his dinosaur jammies.  He really enjoys decorating with me.  I'll take it while I can get it!  We have a couple more heart projects to work on, mostly just some paper and yarn banners, but for the most part we're done. 

I think it's enough to help me make it through January.  Whew!

Linked Up Here:

A Little Short

Have you ever read the articles about all the companies that are changing their packaging so we are getting less product, but paying the same price (or sometimes more!)?

Some time ago this "shrinkage" happened with our favorite frozen pizza.  We always got the same brand of pizza, and I always baked them on the same pizza stone.  Since after awhile a pizza stone darkens up around the edge of whatever you cook (and since this was the only thing we ever used the stone for) we could definitely see the re-sized pizzas were almost two inches narrower than they used to be.  We don't buy that pizza anymore (unless I have a really good coupon!) : )

This weekend we found another instance of things getting a little smaller.



That's extremely small, even for Brennan's little heiney!

Really, this was at the bottom of our industrial sized package of toilet paper.  All the other rolls were accounted for, and seemed to be normal size.  So in this case, this was a little bonus.  ha ha.  I just had to share our find.  That really did happen with the pizza though.  Now we either buy deli pizza, or just make our own.

I hope everyone has a great week. 
 

My Super-Duper Awesome Mirror

I've been wanting to replace the mirror in our dining room for awhile.  It's been awhile because I wanted something really striking, but I didn't want to pay a striking amount of money for it.  Since I haven't been able to find anything I really liked locally, I hit the internet to find some inspiration.

The Sundance Catalog calls this mirror, The Factory Mirror.  This is the medium size for about $300.

{Image from Sundance}

Pottery Barn has one, too.  They call this one the Eagan Mirror, and it's about $700.

{Image from Pottery Barn}

This is what I came up with.  I call it the Super-Duper Awesome Mirror, and it only cost me $12!

I found these mirrors at the Dollar Tree (of course), and I just hung them butted up to each other.  It gives the illusion of one big mirror.  I actually bought four additional mirrors in case we hang it someplace else and want it bigger, but in the meantime, it's perfect. Or at least perfect enough. : )

Ideally, I would want to actually mount all the mirrors together on a big sheet, and then put a wider frame around them, but this works out the best for our current situation.  With Jason in the military, we move fairly often, and with each move we end up with more broken stuff, and more wear-and-tear on our good stuff.  So this way, if one mirror gets broken or lost, it's really no big deal.

Super-Duper Awesome, don't you agree? :)  Now go "build" one!  

"New" Old Toys

Monday, the weather was decent, Jason was off work, and Brennan was off school, so we spent most of the day cleaning the garage.  While we were cleaning, we came across a bag of Brennan's stuffed animals.  He has a ton of plush wildlife critters in his room already, so I bagged some of them up to get them out of the way.  They've probably been out there for almost a year, and Brennan hasn't missed them at all.

Well, since now he knew they were out there, of course he just had to have them.  So I brought them in and put them in a clothes basket.  You would think it was Christmas around here again. : )

His favorite turned out to be his Glo Worm.

He loves that little worm!

He has been carrying it around everywhere. 

It has to go "nigh-night" with him.

He throws a fit if the dog so much as looks at it.

He calls it his baby, much to Jason's chagrin, ha ha!

He sings "Twinkle Twinkle" when the Glo Worm plays that song. (Though Brennan says the Glo Worm is singing too. : ))

And best of all, when the Glo Worm plays "Hush Little Baby,"  Brennan says that it's playing "Chicken-Fried," you know, by the Zac Brown Band?  Ha ha!  That's Jason and Brennan's favorite song to dance and sing together, so I guess Brennan is determined that his worm sings it, too.

It's just too darn cute.

Worky Work Busy Bee...

Name that commercial...

It has been a busy day around here, hence the late post today.  After we ate breakfast this morning, Brennan and I got to work organizing the hutch in the kitchen.  Since Brennan now has more art supplies and more art projects, I needed to clean out the drawers so we had room for everything.  It's amazing how much stuff was crammed in there, and how old some of it was!  I have a half a bag of stuff to take to Savers, and a half a bag for the garbage.  Brennan now has a whole cabinet (that currently has an empty shelf, yay!) and a whole drawer for his arty stuff and coloring books.  I should have taken a picture after we were done, but I didn't, so just imagine clean and organized goodness.

After that we had to take a break and make some sticker art.

Ahh, pretty.  Yep, sticker art basically consists of taking all the stickers that were just found during the hutch clean out, and sticking them on a piece of construction paper.  This is one of Brennan's favorite things to do. : )

After that I got to work putting together an Eggplant Parmesan for supper tonight.  We like Eggplant Parmesan, but it's so time consuming to make, I don't cook it very often.  Like this, I get the messy part out of the way in the morning, so it doesn't seem like such a hassle.

These are freshly salted slices.  Looking at the picture, I just realized that eggplant doesn't look very appetizing, and that my slices are way crooked.  Just ignore that.  I also found out today after the slices came out of the oven, that Brennan loves eggplant!  He just helped himself to a slice and was walking around eating it like a cookie.  I think he snuck in a couple more after that, and I ate one or two as well, so our Parmesan looks a little scrawny in the pan.  I'll just have to make some extra angel hair. : )

As far as the rest of the afternoon goes, Brennan is taking a nap now, and I have some blog stuff to do.  I am in the process of changing the blog up a little bit, so I have been making new buttons (to be unveiled soon!), and I have decided to redo the tags on all my posts (not looking forward to that).  I'm hoping that it makes it easier to find stuff, like recipes that just get buried right now, and of course, it will be prettier. : )

So with that being said, I better run.  The time I have to do nap time projects is pretty limited right now.  Oh yeah, but before I go, I just have to show you this.


I'm adding a new category to the blog called "Little Bits O' Happy" (or something like that) and this is the first entry.  Just in case you missed it, it says YOU SAVED $76.04. 

Can't get much happier than that!!

Sunny Hearts

Brennan and I were long overdue on doing some crafty stuff together.  Since he started school and does arts and crafts three times a week, we don't get to do quite so many at home.  But Jason helped some friends move on Saturday, so I thought that would be the perfect time to get crafty.

I have been wanting to get some Valentine decorations up, and I really prefer the homemade kind, so the other day I found this idea at No Time For Flashcards. 

I just improvised and used stuff we had on hand, and I think they turned out pretty cute.

For our sun catchers we used:
Construction Paper
Plastic Wrap
Confetti
Glitter
Glue Sticks
Thread (to hang them up)

First I cut some hearts out of construction paper.  You need two hearts with the middle cut out for each piece.

Don't be like me.  Avoid the meltdown or two from the child who just wants to get started already, and can't wait for mommy to cut the hearts out, and do this the night before or at nap time.


Put one heart down and slather on the glue stick. Put a piece of plastic wrap over the top. Or if you're Brennan, you "MOOOSH" it on. (Mooosh is his new favorite word.)
I did find that it's better to just leave the plastic wrap in a big rectangle and just trim it up later.


Here's the confetti we used. I just dumped it on a plate so it would be easy for Brennan to pick up. Ideally, we would have used heart confetti, but Brennan found it sometime over the summer, and then there was heart confetti explosion in the hallway upstairs. It was very festive.


Next, sprinkle the confetti in the heart.  (Realize your idea of sprinkle is different than your child's, and sneak some out when he's not looking.)


Add some glitter, because everything is better with glitter.


Then MOOOSH another piece of plastic wrap on top.


I apparently didn't take pictures of the next step, but you put glue on the other paper heart and glue it on top.  Just make a sandwich: paper heart, glue, plastic wrap, confetti and glitter, plastic wrap, glue, paper heart.  Then just trim the excess plastic wrap and hang them up.  To hang ours, I punched a hole in the top of the heart and then made a big loop with a piece of thread.  Taping them up would be fine, too.

Put them in your window or door and enjoy the love.


 

Big Mama Book Club

I recently started reading a really great blog called big mama.  And then this week, big mama, (whose name is actually Melanie,) announced that she was going to start an online book club.

AWESOME!

I was so excited.  You all know, that since we moved to Utah, I don't get out much.  (Oh, how I miss lunches with the girls, Bunco nights, drinks at Ms. Newby's, couple's game nights...I could go on and on, sigh.) 

But back to the book club. 

I thought this online book club idea was perfect.  I have been looking for a new book to read, and doesn't it make it even better to read a new book and then be able to chat about it afterwards? (And no it doesn't bother me at all that I don't know these people.  It's kind of like when I took college correspondence courses when we lived in North Carolina.  Aside from going on campus to register, I never once actually spoke to or saw anyone.) And if the book club thing doesn't work out, well, like I said, I was already looking for a new book to read anyway.

Sounds like fun, right?  Want to join me?

Here's the book that was selected:  Half Broke Horses: A True Life Novel by Jeannette Walls



It looks like it got pretty good reviews on Amazon.  I'm going to go look for it this weekend at Target.  And really, if you want to read it too, let me know!

Have a great weekend.



Emergency Big Boy Cake

Yesterday afternoon when I put Brennan down for a nap we had a little discussion.  I told him that it will be his birthday soon and he will be 3.  He was all excited about that.  He kept saying "happy appy Bwemmen," (Happy Birthday Brennan) and "bu-woah a cam-balls," (blow out candles).  I told him that, yes, all of that would happen, but when he turns 3, he has to be a big boy and throw away his paci.  His response was "paci all gone."  I said, "yes, when your birthday comes we'll throw it away."

I put him in bed and went downstairs.  I was feeling pretty good, thinking that was a good start to getting him prepared to give up his paci by his birthday next month.

Well, a couple hours later I hear him upstairs.  Usually he opens his door and comes to the gate and yells for me or Jason to come and get him.  This time I hear running and then nothing.  I went upstairs to investigate.  When I got to the top of the stairs he was coming out of the bathroom and he tells me this...
"Paci all gone!!! 
thow away, yah!!! 
happy appy Bwemmen,
cam-balls,
big boy,
go downstairs now!!!"

Uh oh.

I wasn't expecting my plan  to work so fast.
He pulled me into the bathroom to show me the trash can. 
He really did throw away his paci.

So...
we went downstairs, all the while Brennan going on about his happy appy.  Thankfully, Jason had come home while we were upstairs.  I told him all about what had transpired through the afternoon...and that I didn't know what to do.  Obviously, it's wasn't his birthday, but he was ready to be a big boy and throw out the paci...and he was expecting to blow out candles. 

We decided to go with it, and after a scramble to find a recipe for a cake that included ingredients I had on hand (ummm, yeah, not a recipe I'll be sharing any time soon), and a little bit of persuasion to convince Brennan that it wasn't his birthday, but we could have a big boy cake instead, we were all good.

(I have learned from this experience that from now on I will always have a cake mix and icing on hand.  And plenty of cup cake liners.  That should be in a good mommy handbook somewhere.  Sheesh.)

So after supper, we gave the big boy his cake.


And then he blew out his candle.

We actually did that twice.  He wanted to do it again, so Jason re-lit it for him. : )

Mmmm, yummy.


I think he liked it.  The Cool Whip icing, anyway.  He kept telling me, "No more paci. big boy." the whole time he was eating his cupcake.



I had to show this one.  Brennan can't stand a mess, or to be sticky, and he was cleaning as he went.  You gotta love a kid like that! : )


As it turned out, I could have just filled up a cup with Cool Whip, stuck a candle in it, and called it a cake.  This is all he ate.


So there we go with another milestone.  We'll see how it goes.  He went to bed last night with no problem, and we didn't hear a peep out of him all night.  This morning when he got up the first thing he said was, "no more paci!"

If i knew it was going to be this easy, I would have done this months ago! 

It's amazing what a little cake will do. :)

I Deleted the Other Blog...

My photography blog.  I deleted it the other day.  I've been debating about doing it for awhile, so I went ahead and pushed the button.  Don't worry, I saved all those post, and they will be published in the archives over here.

It's kind of funny how things progress.  When I first started blogging, it was with the photo blog.  I needed a place to share my photography and my 365 project.  Then when we found out we were moving across the country from most of our family, The Bal Family blog was born to be able to keep in touch with everyone. 

Both of them have been greatly neglected at times since they were created, but I always come back.  There's something about blogging...I just need to do it.  I love going back to look at old posts and see how much Brennan has grown, or how much my hair has changed, or to read some little detail about a day that I would have otherwise forgotten.  One day I can take the whole blog and turn it into a book.  So really I am journaling our life and creating a scrapbook at the same time.  Isn't it awesome that someone created that option?

So back to deleting the photography blog.  I haven't really taken any pictures, besides snapshots of us, for awhile.  What used to be my hobby and passion, just kind of fell off the grid.  So the photography blog suffered.  I know part of it was when my Nikon broke (no, we never got it fixed.)  After that, I did buy a Canon point and shoot that was supposed to take pictures that rival a SLR (it doesn't,) so over time it became a source of aggravation instead of fun.  I do have a wish list of photography equipment I really want, but until the funds are available to make that happen, I just have to make do with what I have.  I will share whatever the outcome is with you. 

As for this blog, from now on, everything will be combined here.  In addition to the regular old fun (or not so fun) :) stuff we do, I will make it a point to share my sewing projects, decorating projects,  more recipes, and photography.  I know I have blogged about some of this stuff in the past, but I haven't really put everything on here.  I always felt reluctant to share because it was supposed to be a family blog.  But then I decided all that stuff is what makes up this family, so it belongs here too.  It might get a little random.  (Can it get any more random that it was before? Ha ha ha.) I hope you all stick around.  I also plan on working on the blog layout a little bit, to get things organized.  If you stop by, and things look kinda wonky, that's why.

Alrightly then.

So, to wrap this up, I better include a picture. (I get emails if my blog posts don't include any pictures, and my old blog header probably doesn't count.)  The emailers know who they are.  Love you guys! : )

So here ya go............



Ha ha ha...just kidding.  Though, I do like that picture for some reason.  It's probably the ball jar, I just love them; especially the blue ones.

How about this one...



Funny.  We were trying to take a picture of ourselves yesterday.  A few things got chopped.

Alright, here he is.



Bein' goofy.  Helping me make enchiladas the other night.
Love.