Make your own sponge balls!

I've seen a cute idea floating around the blogosphere and thought I would try it out today! I looked and looked, but for the life of me could NOT find the original post I saw these on, so if you know please leave a comment so I can give proper credit :)

Who doesn't love water balloon fights??! I'll tell you who....ME! Because I am the one stuck blowing up a million water balloons, attempting to tie the dumb things, and then in 10 minutes they are all gone and the kids are crying because they want to keep playing!

Introducing.....SPONGE BALLS!! (I'm sure there is a better name for them, but I can't think of one!:)

All you need are a few packs of sponges, scissors and ribbon or floss.

Once you have your sponges take 3 of them and cut them each into 4 pieces like so.

Once you have them all cut, stack them back together with the floss/ribbon underneath. Then you simply tie the ribbon in the tightest knot you can and it creates a pompom effect with the sponges.


This is what your finished product will look like...aren't they cute?!

We are filling up the pool after the kids wake up from naps and I know they are going to have a blast throwing these at each other again and again and again!!

Hope this sparked a fun idea for you and your kids this summer, this is a cheap, easy, fun way to entertain you and your kids for hours on end! Happy Water Fighting!! Thanks so much for stopping by :)

King of the Jungle cupcakes!!

We had a great time yesterday whipping up some cute lion cupcakes! Here is what you need to make your own:

Two VERY enthusiastic stirrers :)

One VERY impatient cupcake watcher :)

Once those two important jobs have been done, you frost your cooled cupcake with white frosting and use frosting to make eyes and a mouth. Skylar had the brilliant idea to use sprinkles to make whiskers....a girl after my own heart!

Once you've made the face you take caramel popcorn and add it all around the cupcake, creating the lions mane. I made these a few years ago and used corn pops for the mane and it worked as well. I just happened to have some yummy caramel popcorn laying around this time :)





And here is what you have once you finish the mane. Isn't he too cute?!

We used these last night for a family home evening about prayer where we talked about Daniel and the Lion's Den, but they would be adorable for any jungle themed party or just because! I loved these also because the kids could really get involved!

I love cooking with the kids, they get so excited about the littlest things. I hope you all have a fantastic day and thanks SO much for stopping by! :)

Shapes Week!

The theme for this week at our house is a pretty simple one :) I wanted to do something basic that could include all of my kids and that would help my daughter that is starting preschool in the fall. Every day we have some time set aside for "school time" and these week we are learning all about shapes!

For just about all the things we are doing I printed off worksheets and bingo games and coloring pages from http://www.dltk-kids.com/ If you go to their Shapes Buddies section they have tons of fun activities and worksheets that will help your kids become more familiar with shapes.

A fun activity I am looking forward to is making muffins with my kids. I have a bunch of silicon molds in all different shapes that would be perfect for muffins: hearts, stars, triangles, circles and squares. Once they are all cooked we will take them out and sort them according to shapes...then we get to eat them! :)

We are also going to play with Play-doh and use our shape cookie cutters to make all different kinds of shapes, and finally using my Sihouette I cut a bunch of shapes in different sizes and colors and the kids are going to use them to create different works of art :)

Our letter of the week is the letter S for Square, and HERE is where I printed off our tracer pages and HERE is where I printed off the S template that we have hanging up to remind us what letter we are focusing on this week.

Have a fantastic week everyone and stay tuned for a fun way to motivate your kids to keep reading, some 4th of July projects and a cool family home evening for next week!D

Best seat in the house!

Are your kids as excited as mine for the new movie Cars 2?! Mine have been talking about it for weeks, and we were lucky enough to be invited to a special screening tomorrow night. They were SO excited I thought it would be fun to make something a little special with them. Disclaimer: I had this idea at 4 this morning while I was feeding Avrie, so I just made do with what I had...if I had more time these would been a lot cuter. However, with that disclaimer aside, my kids really don't care if they are not perfect and as you can see they just love them!

We thought it would be fun to watch the original Cars movie tonight to get the kids excited for tomorrow night. And wouldn't it be even more fun if they each had their own "Car" to sit in while they watched??

I whipped these babies up during naptime today and actually think they turned out pretty cute! I just used boxes we had in our basement, spray paint and white and black construction paper.

I printed out a large 9 and 5 for Mcqueen...plus a lightning bolt of course! :)

Mater was a last minute decision....ok....I ran our of red spray paint and the only other color I had was brown :) He is not my favorite but actually the kids got a huge kick out of him.

And here are my cuties in their sweet new rides!! They were SO excited when they came out from their rooms and saw them. So if you have some spare boxes laying around and some spraypaint make some for yourself!! The kids will love helping you and it will make just one more special memory for you and your kids! Thanks for stopping by!! :)

Father's Day Family Home Evening

This year I thought it would be really great to have a little family home evening all about father's. You could do this on Sunday as a way to celebrate dad, or you could still do it on Monday and keep the celebrations going one day longer....the dad's deserve it, right?!

My desire for this fhe is for the kids to get to know their dad a little bit more. You could definitely throw in a lesson about the priesthood or talk about some father's from the Book of Mormon. We are keeping it very simple this week so here are just a few activities we will be doing.

Before our fhe I found this little questionaire online for the kids to fill out about Dad. I LOVE when my kids have done these for me, it is so funny to hear what they think about me! Have these done beforehand and then Dad can sit back and enjoy hearing what his little ones think about him :)


My daddy is ____ years old.
He weighs _____lbs. and is _____ft. tall.
His hair is _____and his eyes are _________.
My dad loves to relax by __________________ and he likes to wear ____________.
He loves to cook _________________.
His favorite household chore is ________________________.
His favorite TV show is and his favorite song is ______________________.
Daddy always tells me _______________________.
It makes him happy when _________________________.
When my dad shops, he loves to buy __________________________.
If he could go on a trip, he would go to and he would take ______________________.
I really love it when my dad _____________________________.

After we read these to dad, we are going to do a little game for the kids. I cut out a bunch of ties on different pieces of cardstock. Then on the back of each of them I wrote different questions about dad with the answers on a different tie. We are going to play a matching game where the kids will have to find the answers to the question. Some of my questions are:

Where did daddy serve a mission?

What sport did daddy play when he was little?

What's daddy's middle name?

Where was daddy born?

Who is one of daddy's heroes?

What's daddy's favorite story from the Book of Mormon?

Where does daddy work?

What kind of pet did Daddy have when he was little?

You can switch up the questions for your home, depending on the ages of your kids. Finally its not fhe without dessert and for this one, I think its only fitting to make daddy's favorite treat! In our home, that happens to be Honey Bun Cake! We also call it donut cake, because it has a glaze on it. Whatever you call it, its delicious...and here is the recipe! :)

Honey Bun Cake

1 package yellow cake mix

3/4 C vegetable oil

4 eggs

1 (8 oz) container of sour cream

1 C brown sugar

1 Tbsp ground cinnamon

Frosting:

2 C confectioners sugar

4 Tbsp milk

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl combine cake mix, oil, eggs and sour cream. Stir by hand until most large lumps are gone. Pour half of batter into an ungreased 9x13 baking dish. Combine the brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the batter in the cake pan. Spoon the other half of the batter into the cake pan, covering the brown sugar and cinnamon. Twirl the cake with a butter knife until it looks like a honey bun (or whatever design you want.)

Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Frost cake while it is still fairly hot, serve warm.

To make the frosting:

In a small bowl, whisk together the confectioners sugar, milk and vanilla until smooth. Then poor over hot cake to make a beautiful glaze!

I hope you all have a wonderful Father's Day and a great weekend!!

Last minute Father's Day gift idea

If you are STILL trying to find something to make the Father's in your life feel loved this Sunday, here is one more idea :) I quickly threw this printable together this morning...

And thought it would go along super cute with one of my husbands favorite movies of all time!!

The best part about this?? This week at Target the Back to the Future Trilogy is on sale for $16.99!!! Amazing, right?! I wasn't able to find it at my local Target, but I was able to get it on Amazon for the same price. I checked this morning and it has gone up to $24.99, but that is still pretty great for the whole trilogy...and its a Blu-Ray! Here is the direct link if anyone else wants to get it.

I think this would be a fun gift for your husband or your own dad as well! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend celebrating the men in your life that do so much for us, stay tuned for a fun Father's Day themed family home evening that you could do on Sunday night, or keep celebrating til Monday! :)

Super gift for a Super Dad!!

2 posts in one day...can you believe it?? You would believe it if you saw my disaster of a house :)

So if any of you moms are like me, it seems like Father's Day always sneeks up on me! My husbands birthday is always the same week so one usually tends to get the slip...isn't that horrible?! Well this year I found a darling idea on line, and then came up with something a little bit more to personalize it for my "Super" Husband

Oh Happy Day had THE cutest printable labels you get to stick on your dad's favorite food, everything a super hero needs!

Isn't that adorable??

{Photo courtesy of Oh Happy Day}

Once I saw this idea, I thought of a way I could take it just a step further :) My husband loves nothing more than pics of our kids so I thought it would be fun to dress them up, stick the pics in a 4 frame picture holder, and make a note that says "For a REAL Super Hero, We love you Dad!"

Here are the results of our little photo shoot....imagine the possibilities if I had a decent camera and some photography skills! ;) At least I have adorable subjects, right?!

If you haven't thought of anything to do yet for the special men in your life, try this!! And if you need to borrow any super hero costumes...just let me know! :)

Good luck all you crazy runners!!

This weekend there is a big, crazy relay race taking place in the great state of Utah. I know a bunch of gals that are going to be running and wanted to do a little something for them to wish them luck and let them know I was thinking of them. I am super impressed by these women, running is HARD and I admire their dedication and motivation :)

To start off, I hit up my favorite dollar store and picked up a bunch of water bottles.

Next I grabbed a bunch of (relatively) healthy snacks. I have to be honest here, I have no idea what runners eat during a race, but these looked okay to me :) I have an instant breakfast drink, fruit leather, granola bar, and a small CLIF bar. I just placed all these in the water bottle, they fit perfectly!

Finally I cut some vinyl to personalize the water bottles and a little decoration. Do you think there is a Silhoutte obsession here....


And here is the finished product, a little gift to let all the runners in your life know how amazing you think they are!!

Good luck to all you Ragnar runners this weekend...be safe and have a blast!!

I'm "Soda" proud of my guy!

It is my husband's birthday this week, so every day I have been trying to do a little something to make his week special and let him know how much we love him. Today I made him a little something to let him know how proud I am of him for doing something tough...quitting soda completely!! My guy loves his carbonation, but as we are all trying to be healthier he thought this would be a good thing to let go. It's been tough for him but he hasn't cheated ONCE...I am super proud of his dedication and wanted to make sure he knows it!!

I have seen a bunch of different ideas using these big drink holders from fast food places, and here is my take on it! :)

First try and track down one of these drink holders. Hint: they do NOT have them at Del Taco, McDonalds, Burger King, Betos or Arctic Circle. Trust me...I checked! They DO have them at Sonic...I made my hubby go grab one last night on his way home from work. He thought I was crazy, but I told him it was for a craft for the kids ;)

I then just covered the bottom outside sections with scrapbook paper. I have seen them spraypainted too..I just wanted a pattern.

After I added the paper I put in 4 of his favorite drinks that he can still have: a bottled water, Gatorade, Fuze, and Orange Juice. Then I added some cute little decorations cut with my Silhoutte and here is the finished product!


This is a simple, cheap gift that could be done for all sorts of different occasions! I love you Paul and hope you are enjoying your birthday week!!!

I dare you not to smile

Father's Day is a busy time of year for us! We have so many wonderful dads and grandpas in our lives that we love to celebrate and the little gift we are making for my step-dad made me laugh out loud!

If the kids know anything about Grandpa Nasib, its that he has a big mustache, LOVES his morning coffee, and collects mugs.

We thought it would be cute to combine all these things for Grandpa....so what do you get when you put mustaches and mugs together??

Well....a customized photo mug with pictures of the kids and their mustaches, of course!! :)

These are the pictures I put on the mugs....they bring a huge smile to my face, and hopefully they will do the same for Grandpa Nasib!

Summer Bucket List

I don't know about you, but summer just seems to fly by at our house! I always have all these grand ideas about all the things I want to do with my family, and before I know it, it is September and we've hardly done a thing.

This year I thought it would be fun to make our "Summer Bucket List", a list of all the things we wanted to do as a family before the summer is over.

My kids are very visual (just like me :) so I thought it would be fun and a little different to put our Summer Bucket List in a, you guessed it, bucket!! :)

I just got a sand bucket from the dollar store and cut out vinyl using my Silhoutte. Stickers would work perfectly too. Then I tied some matching ribbon around the handle and it was done! I love quick projects like that.

Every week at Family Home Evening we are going to go through our bucket list and pick out and schedule the activities we want to do that week. Some of our activities are:

Go to the Drive-Inn

Take the kids fishing

Go to the Alpine Slide

Go on a Hike

Have a campout in our living room

Go to the Children's Museum

Make smores

Have a lemonade stand

Go to the Water Park

Go boating on Utah Lake

Go bowling (if you live in Utah, kids bowl free at FatCats every weekday in the summer!)

I think its going to be one great summer!!

Linking up with

{So You Think You're Crafty}

{Lolly Jane Boutique}

One Month

One month with our sweet little Avrie, and everyone looks pretty happy about it...don't you think? :)







Now of course, occasionally this is what we are dealing with....

But this is mostly what our newest addition looks like :) Well...except I don't usually keep her on my plate ;)





Photos courtesy of the amazing Cherry Tree Photography

And these photos are courtesy of Marie from Bloom and Grow Photography

She got some fantastic shots of Avrie AND made all those darling accesories herself!!




These were all of Avrie's newborn pics we got taken, but frankly, she is still about the same size :) She is having a tough time gaining weight so I am constantly trying to find ways to keep her awake longer so she will actually finish a bottle. We finally got her up to 2 oz a feeding...now we are shooting for 3.





Avrie is such a joy. Honestly...she makes me feel so content. The girls are absolutely crazy over her, and Britton took a little longer but has definitely warmed up to her. I am lucky that they adjust so well, it has made the transition to 4 children much easier. She is not the best sleeper, but I am sure once she starts eating a little bit more we can get a good schedule going. Frankly, some nights I am glad she wakes up, it is the only time I get to focus all my attention on my little one. Those are precious hours for me. Some times I feed her and she falls right to sleep and I just can't bear to lay her down. I think "I'm going to regret this in the morning..." but I never do :) It goes by too fast, and with each baby I realize that a little bit more, and try to savor these precious moments.