Easter Egg Hunt - think outside the wrapper!

Every Easter I undertake the task of hosting an Easter egg hunt for seven youngsters in our yard. Over the years the egg hunt has evolved and it is now in full swing of reaching 300 plastic filled eggs and four dozen confetti filled eggs. After buying two large bags of chocolates I found I still had half of my eggs to fill. I began thinking outside of the wrapper. My eggs this year are filled with several non-edible selections.

I wanted to share these options with you in case you were looking for a candy alternative.

1. Plastic figurines – Army Men, My little pony figures, and farm animals... etc.

2. Erasers – I picked up several varieties of erasers ranging from superheroes to butterflies.

3. Mini bubbles – these bubbles are small enough to fit into an egg and can be purchased in any party supply aisle.

4. Jewelry – I picked up items ranging in spider rings to dress up rhinestones.

5. Stickers – My kids go crazy for stickers and they love to put them on every piece of artwork they do.

6. Tattoos – I cut out individual tattoos from tattoo books and let the kids design their own artwork.

7. Sticky throwers – these are the small sticky figures you would throw onto a window and watch them crawl down the pain of glass. My kids always get a major kick out of these!

8. Mini decks of cards – I pick some of these up at the dollar store

9. Nail polish – My girls go crazy for nail polish and we found Disney polishes at Walmart for $.50!

10. Glow sticks – this year we are going to hold a secondary egg hunt in the evening where we will be locating glowing eggs filled with activated glow sticks. I think this will be a fun a new tradition that we can carry-on for years to come!

I hope you find this list helpful and I hope you and your family enjoy the Easter holiday!

Working From Home with Kids

Working from home and being a mother are two of the hardest things you can multitask! I currently work with four companies all working from home. Additionally, I have one child home two days out of the workweek. That means I juggle toddler activities as well as daily work tasks simultaneously. It's a wonder that things work as smoothly as they around the house.

With that being said, stress is a constant in our household. So I wanted to take this time to remind all the other working moms whether you work in or out of the home: "it's okay to take a break, it's okay to take some me time, and recharging your battery is absolutely necessary!" Traveling, spa breaks, and even TV binge sessions can go a long way! Shed the mommy guilt (easier said than done)!

I wanted to share some of these interesting SAHM (stay at home mom) articles:

Salary.com:

What is a Stay-at-Home Mom Worth?

Huffington Post:
7 Things NEVER To Say To A Stay-At-Home Mom
The Container Store:
Organize your Work Space


My personal computer - My kids & Dog had a great time helping me work :(

Cinnamon Whiskey Icing Tutorial

My Hubby is a Fireball lover...So naturally for his 30th birthday I whipped up some fireball cupcakes. They were so simple to make. Take your favorite butter-cream icing recipe (even canned icing is OK!) place the icing in a mixing bowl and add 1 oz of the whiskey to the icing. Then thicken the icing with powdered sugar (approx. 1/2 cup). Repeat this until you have reached your desired whiskey flavor. I used 3 oz and 1.5 Cup of powdered sugar.

The only difference I noticed with this icing is it spread a bit faster than normal so reaching a taller swirl on the cupcake was not possible. Once I placed the icing in the refrigerator it did firm up and make it easier to work with. I topped the cupcake with a Hot Tamale as I could not find Atomic Fireballs anywhere!

Happy Baking!!

Valentine's ideas!

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day! I have been busy crafting, cooking, and baking all day long, and thought I would take a minute to share a couple Valentine's Day ideas:

Strawberry Heart Kebabs - 

What you need: Bamboo Skewers, strawberries, and grapes

I began by removing the top of the strawberry by cutting a triangular shape to remove the stem. I rounded off the edges and insured there was a point at the bottom of the strawberry. After turning each strawberry into a heart I began placing them on to the skewer. I alternated between strawberries and grapes until I completed the entire length of the kebab.

This was a very simple and fun way to bring hearts into our Valentine's Day lunch.

"I love you" sound wave-

What you need: 4 x 6 picture frame (or size of your choice), printer paper (I decided to use shiny scrapbook paper), your iPhone, computer with windows, and printer.

This is a very cute and simple project that I completed in about 20 minutes. I began by using the voice memo app on my iPhone I recorded a wave of me saying "I love you". I then took a screenshot of the wave and sent it to my computer from there I cleaned up the image removing blurry edges in paint. I then inverted the colors in my image editor. I printed the picture on a pearlized scrap paper and placed it in a 4 x 6 frame. 

This is a way for my husband to publicly display a secret message just between the two of us.

Remember, today is the day all about  so send it out into the world :) Happy Valentine's day!!

Yummy Appetizer! Bacon wrapped Tater Tots!

I recently came across a very yummy appetizer recipe for Super Bowl Sunday. I tested it out I wanted to share with you all. 

The bacon wrapped tater tots were simple and easy to make:

First take 2 cups of frozen tater tots and bring them to room temperature. 

Next take 4 slices of bacon cut into quarters sprinkle cheese on the slices of bacon.

Take the bacon and wrap it around the tater tot. 

Next, sprinkle brown sugar on the wrapped tater tot. 

Lay the tater tot seem side down on a lightly greased pan and cook for 30 minutes at 350°.

Enjoy!

Original reciepe: http://damndelicious.net/2014/07/26/bacon-wrapped-tater-tot-bombs/

Planning...My Favorite Word!

I am a planner by nature but I do sometimes take it to extremes! I happily plan every minute of vacation, I am not certain what I enjoy more; the planning or the actual vacation. I get pleasure out of executing a good plan. The one thing I always need to remember is if the plan breaks don't break with it!

You can only plan so much. I usually make two or three options for each day; complete with maps, directions, pictures and website links. However, sometimes all the planning in the world cannot stop you from getting lost, being late, or just plain being too tired! We recently took a trip to Paris and London. We are from southern California so public transportation is foreign in itself then add french to the mix and we were lucky we were lost only a few times.

I schedule and make reservations for all my activities, which I highly recommend if you want to sight see in Paris, it saved endless time in lines. Getting lost would always threaten these plans, but with all my planning I could recall street names, buildings and landmarks to navigate by but I was always afraid of loosing my reservation. Needless to say, we never missed a reservation but I did have plenty of melt downs racing to make them. Over all, the tantrums of being lost and racing to make up time was well worth saving our appointments. On our next trip I will vow to take a few deep breaths before I fall apart and condemn my planning.

Now for my top FIVE planning recommendations in Paris, France:

Make your Eiffel Tower reservations at least 1 month in advance, in fact if you can you should  to stay up and actually click the exact reservation you want as it becomes live. Note:  If you are as scared of heights as I am but willing to sacrifice for an experience of a lifetime: I recommend closing your eyes going up but definitely look the way down, the elevators are glass and looking through the filigree of the tower is a sight you would regret missing.

Plan to use public transportation, the Metro is amazing, study it and learn what each little circle means. I love their metro site: http://www.ratp.fr/EN/

Book your Versaille ticket online. the lines are insane! Note: We took the train in and arrived about 30 minutes prior to the opening. The wait before probably saved us an hour plus we were able to bypass a few of the video rooms and be the first people in the Hall of Mirrors! Nothing like taking your picture alone in the hall of mirrors.

Visit a flea market, we had an amazing time and found great real french souvenirs. The street food was to die for here: http://jadoremonmarche.fr/marche-de-paris/11-eme/marche-bastille/#_=_

If you can swing it, hire a travel photographer, we went all over the surrounding areas of the Eiffel tower. The pictures are priceless and I get a tons of compliments. I will treasure these pictures for years to come. This is the company we used and we loved them: http://www.bettertravelphotos.com/paris-portrait-sessions


P.S. For those traveling with Kids I highly recommend Trekaroo.com, I always check here before planing a family trip!!

Fun Cookie Tutorial

This week I tried a new cookie technique.
I began with a simple sugar cookie recipe. Then I divided the dough into three colors. I took those three colors and maked small balls. I took one of each color and put them into one ball. Then, I rolled out the ball into a rope. I began twirling the dough into a circle. I added sprinkles to the dough for added flare. Then placed them onto the cookie sheet to bake. This was a fun technique and it went well with our Wizard of Oz theme! 

Please see my Pinterest attachment for pictorial directions. Enjoy!