Happy Valentine's Day!!

 Happy Valentines Day everyone!!

I hope you are having a great day celebrating everyone that you LOVE :)

Here are two of my favorite little love bugs...

Have a fantastic day everyone!! :)

4th of July Flag Pancakes

 Happy, happy 4th of July everyone!!  This is one of my favorite holidays, surrounding ourselves with family, good food and love of our great country.

We kicked off our day with these fun and yummy Flag Pancakes...did you really think I could let a holiday pass without themed pancakes?! :)

Instead of doing regular pancakes like I usually do, I thought banana pancakes with the fruit and whipped cream would be delicious...I was right!! ;)

Here is the recipe I used (originally from allrecipes.com...with some adaptions by me :)

Banana Pancakes

1 C flour

1 T white sugar

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 egg, beaten

1 C milk

2 ripe bananas, mashed

2 T vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla

Mix all together, batter will be slightly lumpy.  Then spray your griddle over medium high heat and cook until golden brown on both sides!

Then I layered the pancakes with strawberries and used the whipped cream to make white stripes.  Finish it off with a few blueberries in the corner and you have your very own Flag Pancakes :)

These were super yummy and easy to kick off our holiday.

I hope wherever you are, you are having a wonderful 4th of July and God Bless America!

Mini 4th of July Ice Cream Sandwiches

 Wow!

We have been having a busy, FUN summer so far!  I haven't been blogging because I have been trying to just soak in all of the fun of swimming, splash parks, reunions, and more :)

However, I seriously realized this weekend...it is the 4th of July tomorrow!!!  I haven't decorated or done too many activities but I cannot let a holiday pass me by without doing SOMETHING  to make it feel a little more special.  This quick, easy snack is not something I came up with, but it is so easy to make and my kids LOVED having it for their after lunch snack!

At our local grocery store they had mini ice cream sandwiches on sale for $2 a package!  I thought that was a great deal for 16 sandwiches...and I LOVE anything mini :)  It's just so darn cute!  Then I dumped out some red, white and blue sprinkles in a bowl and dipped each side of the sandwich in until the whole thing was coated in sprinkles.

My kids loved them, and it was fun to do something a teensy bit festive :)

So if you are like me, and this holiday has completely snuck up on you...don't worry about it!!  There are lots of fun, SIMPLE ways to make holidays special for your kiddos.  The most important thing is spending time together, being with family, and renewing our gratitude for this blessed country we live in!

Shamrock Cinnamon Rolls - Re-visited!

Well I promised you some St. Patrick's day fun...so here you go! :)

I made this fun, SIMPLE breakfast last year and it was a hit. I loved that I could make it in under 15 minutes and my kids totally gobbled them up. I give you...

SHAMROCK CINNAMON ROLLS!! :)

All you need to make some of your own is a can of premade cinnamon rolls (you COULD make your own...but in my life right now that is not really reality ;) and a small heart-shaped cookie cutter.

Then all you do is...

Then you...

Cook for 12 minutes at 400 degrees, cool and frost, and you are ready to eat!

I added ONE drop of green food coloring to the frosting just to be a little bit more festive. I love how these turned out and I cannot wait to have my kids wake up to them on March 17th!

Thanks so much for checking out Blue Skies Ahead today! I am always amazed that people are interested in some of the little things we do in our family, but I love having you and SO appreciate all the sweet comments and emails. Have a wonderful day!!

Seven Alive

Mini-Chalkboard Valentine

Ok, this one was super fun, easy and has a TON of possibilities!

This cute little valentine is a fun way to give a small, inexpensive gift that is NOT candy. Don't get me wrong...I love candy as much as the next person, but sometimes I think its nice to have other options :)

To make our Mini-Chalkboard Valentine I needed the following supplies:

Small Wooden Hearts

Pink Chalkboard Paint

Chalk

All you do is paint the hearts with the chalkboard paint and let it try overnight. Then once it has dried you cover the whole thing in chalk and wipe off with a damp cloth. This helps is set in...or something like that :) Once they were painted I let Skylar write a short message on them and then placed the heart in a cellophane bag with a piece of chalk.

Finally I made up a tag that says "I hope your day is "CHALK" full of love!", tied it up with a ribbon, and DONE! :)

If you didn't feel like painting the hearts with the chalkboard paint, this would be super cute with some sidewalk chalk as well! I'm also thinking there's got to be some sort of cute way to tie this into a teacher gift...I'll get back to you on that one! :)

Have a great day everyone!!

Outer Space Valentines

I warned you I had Valentines on the brain! :)

Skylar and I put these Outer Space Valentines together yesterday and I think they turned out pretty cute. My daughter is at the age where she is VERY silly about boys...so this was a great valentine for her to give to her little boy friends that is not too mushy :)

These valentines are made up of Glowsticks, Pop Rocks and a little Astronaut eraser. I got all of the items at my local dollar store and they call came in packs of 3 or 12...so its not too spendy either!

I made this simple tag on my Sihouette, attached it with some ribbon, and there you have it!

I always have great intentions for doing cute Valentines with my kids, then before I know it its February 13th and I have done nothing! :) Hopefully this year I'll be a little more on top of it! Have a great day everyone!

New Years Eve Balls!

We are getting SO excited for New Years Eve at the Johnson home!! We are doing something very special earlier in the day, but I'll get into that next week :) Later we plan to party hard to ring in the new year...with our little ones of course ;)

My oldest has been talking alot about watching the New Years Eve Ball drop, and since I don't QUITE think she'll make it up that late, I wanted to make some New Year's Eve Balls for us so she could still enjoy the glitter and glam of New Years!

The best part about this project was that I got almost all of the supplies at Walmart in their 75% off Christmas clearance! Gotta love a deal :)

I somehow forgot to include the styrafoam balls in the picture...they are only the most important part ;) But to decorate these cuties I used a garland of silver tinsel, black paint and glitter, and silver mini-bows.

My favorite ball was the glitter ball. I painted it black and while it was still wet dumped WAY too much silver glitter all over it :) Once it was dry I hot glued a white ribbon to the top so we could hang them up until tomorrow.

The tinsel ball was just as easy. I just hot glued it around and around til it had a full look that I liked. Then I trimmed a little bit of the fuller parts to make it more circular.

Finally the mini-bow ball! I just hot glued little bows all around the ball...pretty self-explanatory right?! :)

I absolutely LOVE how they turned out and think I will be making these in all different colors to decorate for Christmas next year! :)

Thanks for coming by today and I hope you and your family have a wonderful, SAFE, New Years!!

Linking up at

Whipperberry

The Grant Life

Bacon Time with the Hungry Hungry Hypo

The Answer is Chocolate

LollyJane Boutique

Indian Corn Fun

Today we had SUCH a fun day doing some activities that all had to do with Indian Corn! Other people must have had the same idea because when I went to the store this morning I nabbed the very last Indian Corn :) I wanted to give my kids a visual of what we were going to be learning about, aren't those colors gorgeous?!

After we talked all about how the Indians taught the Pilgrims all about corn and some of its different uses we decided to make our very own Fingerprint Indian Corns. I printed off the template HERE and then just traced and cut several corns. Then I put a little bit of paint on a plate for each child and let them go to town!

I loved the finished product on these, this one was Skylar's and I thought it turned out SO cute!

The kids always love any kind of fingerpainting or mess-making so this craft was definitely a hit! It was also perfect if you have a range of different ages. My 6 year old did hers almost perfectly while even my 2 year old had a fun time...and just look how precious those little hands are! :)

Once we finished with our craft we made a fun treat that I found years ago on Family Fun. I modified it a little to go with ingredients we had on hand and I think it turned out great!

First up you make the traditional recipe for Rice Krispie treats...only you substitute Corn Pops for Rice Krispies (very tasty!!)

Once you have it all mixed together you add drops of red and purple food coloring throughout. Don't mix it too well...you really want the different colors throughout.

Once its cooled a little you take a popsicle stick and mold the treat around the stick in the shape of a corn cob (or something similar ;)

Finally you take a green fruit roll-up and cut some triangle-sized pieces to make up the corn stalk. Your treats will be very sticky so it will be easy to attach those stalks :)

These were a yummy after-school snack that the kids had fun helping me make. I love how excited they get about learning and that as soon as Daddy comes home they are excited to tell him all about Indians, Pilgrims and Corn :)

I hope you are all having an absolutely wonderful Holiday Season so far. We definitely are, and I am trying to just soak up every single minute with my little family. I have been humbled and overwhelmed with so many feelings of gratitude this month, and a desire to not let one mundane, average moment of my life go by without acknowledging the blessings I have been given :)