Favorite little things at Christmas

Just a couple little things I love at Christmas

I love how throwing a red quilt on the end of the bed

makes it feel like Christmas time.

Our Cabin Front Porch at Christmas

 Our Front Porch

One of the best things about living in a Log Cabin

is decorating it at Christmas time.

The cabin gives a nice warm feeling.

Free Photo book offer @ My Publisher

I wanted to share with you a wonderful offer from

"My Publisher"

 for a free book.

I haven't used them yet but I am getting ready to start my free book.

Go to their site and see if you want to sign up for your free book.

The offer expires on December 17th of 2014.

So you better hurry.

https://www.mypublisher.com

CHRISTMAS gift ideas: Penguin Interaction at Sea World

Amazing time at the 

"PENGUIN INTERACTION'"

at SEA WORLD

Another use for BAKING SODA removing grease build up

BAKING SODA

Baking soda can be used for so many things!

But I wanted to show you my recent discovery.

This dish sits by our deep fryer so it gets a lot of grease build up.

I decided I would see what baking soda would do.

To help clean it up.

It took off the grime effortless. 

Well it took a little elbow grease, but it was pretty easy.

In the picture below you can see the top still has the build up. 

the bottom of the dish does not.

I did it by sprinkling the soda on the dish.

Then used a wet dish cloth to remove and scrub.

VEGAN BLACK BEAN BURGERS... that aren't mushy

 Vegan Black Bean Burgers 

I love these burgers.....for a lot of reasons.

But my top 2 reasons are: I can freeze them and they are packed with goodness.

Magic Elf time again... Ready or Not

Those Silly Magic Elves are back

It's gonna be a long month of mischief

So far they have.....

Thrifty Thanksgiving Table: Dollar Store DIY

Thanksgiving 

I love Thanksgiving.  

The smells in the house, the fall colors in the house and

having family around. 

This year I tasked each kiddo with cooking one item.  

I love getting them involved.  I have found they eat better when they help.

DECORATING THE TABLE

Decorating the table is always an attention grabber.

This year all I bought were some fake leaves and votives from the Dollar Tree.

Coconut Oil... A Stain Remover?

Coconut Oil

A Stain Remover? 

Is it true?

I have only tried it on oil and grease stains and it did a pretty good job.

We bought a car that had oil, grease stains on the seats.

I kept trying to figure out what can I use to get the stain up without it spreading.

A friend had told me that Coconut Oil will get anything out. So I decided to try it.

The black grease started coming up on my cloth.

I have to say I was skeptical, but pleasantly surprised.

 I will say it is not perfect but it looks a whole lot better.

Here is the technique I used......

This is the Coconut Oil I keep on hand for everything.

I get it at Costco.  When I priced compared it was a big savings.

Our Fall Porch

Fall....

Don't you just smile when you think of fall?

Sweaters, boots, pumpkin lattes, pumpkins, cool weather and the color of Fall.

Here is a little glimpse of Fall at our house.

Discovery Cove in Florida...A Mom's Review

Discovery Cove in Florida

Vacations can be so confusing;  where should we go, how much will it cost,

will it be worth the money?  

Those are just some of the questions we ask ourselves when we plan our vacation.

Vacations can be so expensive and we want value for our dollar.

We have been to Discovery Cove in Florida 

3 times now.

Every year my kids ask can we go back.  

It never gets old to them.  

My kids are animal and water lovers, so it is a perfect fit.

Quick Easy Pizza Using Garden Herbs

What's for Dinner?

Homemade pizza ready for the oven in 15 minutes.

Really!

a quick simple way to refinish a tray table

 The flea market find, an adorable tray table.

How I transformed a deer skull (head) into something artsy

 Do you have any of these around the house?

Ever wondered how can I decorate with this and make it work with my style

of decorating?  

This was my son's deer.  It was just sitting around.

I didn't want it to break but wanted to figure out how to display it

in a way that would flow with my decor.

I asked him can I decorate it.  He kindly said, "go for it".

vintage shelf for a small bathroom

Perfect piece for my guest bathroom.

re purpose of a rabbit hutch

This weekend my daughter adopted a new bunny. 

I'm know you are completely shocked!  My husband was. :)

Anyway, they gave us the outside hutch and an indoor cage.

We are keeping the bunny indoors so we had no use for the hutch.

Then it hit me.... 

I could use it as a chicken brooder. 

Then I could get the baby chicks and hen, off my back porch.

We have had situations where snakes have gotten our

babies. So we like to move them out of the coop till they are bigger.

We usually use an ugly tote on the porch.

But now we are all fancy.

summer deals on flowers

So excited...

I needed to run to Lowe's to pick up some spray paint and 

couldn't help but check out the clearance plants in the plant dept.

They had carts of $1 plants. YAY!

I snatched me up a cart and loaded it.

So next time you are passing Lowe's try to stop in and check their clearance.

You might just go home with a cart full of flowers for $11.

What an impact you can make at your house for $11.

My top 3 favorite flowers

I love flowers, they just make me feel good. Kinda like a good candle.

I have a hard time trying to find plants that work in our area and that look good. When we go to 

theme parks I make a mental note of the plants that they use and placement of those plants.

I have even taken pictures so I can remember the names of those plants.

Here is a list of my

 top 3 favorite flowers that I am able to grow.

Pentas: they stay full of color for most of the year.

They do great in pots, if planted in ground the get bigger.
They are a sun loving plant. 

One year they came back after the winter. 

They need mostly sun. I do water them every night. 

So they will need some attention.
Biggest perk; they attract Hummingbirds and butterflies.

Easter party ideas

Easter
This Easter was a little hard for me to be motivated to host Easter.
I've been really involved with catching up with homeschooling and taking
care of Espen's recovery from surgery.
So it was Wednesday before Easter and the kids asked one more time,
"What are we gonna do for Easter?"
I picked myself up and said, "We are gonna have a picnic, with games!"
We collected duck eggs because they are bigger than chicken eggs.
Then we blew them out.  Oh boy is that hard and time consuming.
We chose to blow them out for a couple of reasons. So they would last longer and
we wanted to try to modge podge them.
We found tissue paper and some fun string and other things laying around that would
make a fun egg.  We bought some dye so we could dye some eggs.  We wanted
a variety.

Table Runner: DIY using painters drop cloths

I wanted to change things up a little instead of using my place mats I was thinking

a table runner might be nice.

"silkies" the fluffy chicken

I just love the chicken breed known as

Silkies.

Maybe it's because they are small and fluffy.  I don't know but I love them.

If you take the time to hold them they can become like a pet.

We have had some so tame they come when we call their name.

They also make excellent Mothers.  Another reason I love them.

They stay with their babies and it looks like they count them and talk to them.

We have had one mother die trying to save her babies.  One of our mommy's took on 

a red tail hawk and the hawk retreated!  We have new babies on the farm and of

course I had to photograph them.

 If you ever have a chance to have chickens try the silkie.
You might just fall in LOVE.

Chiari has stolen his smile

 A year ago we got some devastating news!

After an MRI, we were told our 13 year old son has a brain malformation called
"CHIARI".

He has always suffered from migraines and was not coordinated.

But he seemed to be getting worse.

How I did my Gallery wall

Gallery Walls

I love gallery walls the question is how do you 

make them look neat, not just thrown up there.

I scoured the web, looked at pinterest for weeks. Then came up with how to fill

my stairwell with a "Gallery Wall"

All natural, easy dog treats

Meet the Sweet Potato

Secret to sparkly dishes..... Vinegar

 

Vinegar. 

Simply the cheapest and multi purpose item out there.

It's AWESOME!!!

I get mine at Costco, I go through it pretty fast.

There are so many ways to use vinegar, but the one I wanted to share with you is for the dishwasher.

We put a old coffee cup in the bottom rack of our dishwasher and fill it

up with vinegar every time we run the dishwasher.

It took about a month and I was starting to question wether is was working or not.

Let's face it that is a lot of vinegar to use if it is not going to work.  But one day,

it was a load of beautiful sparkly dishes like on TV.  I wanted to note, I do use it with the dishwasher tabs.

The other day I didn't have any vinegar.  Can you believe I ran out.

So I did a couple  loads without it.  My daughter was unloading the dishes and asked,

"Mom why do the dishes have this filmy stuff on them?" UGH.

Lesson learned, it works.  We have hard water, the vinegar helps keep the lime down.

This week I started using it in every load of my washing machine. 

We will see how that goes.

Meet the newest family member "Theo"

"Theo"