Muffin Tin Monday - Circus

Yay! It's Monday! I know, most people don't really look forward to Mondays, but Muffin Tin Mondays sure help! This week's theme is the circus. I've never been to the circus, but it still sounded like fun. Even while we were feeding Baby Girl her muffin meal last week, hubby and I were thinking of what we could do for this week's theme. I guess we were a little excited to be starting with MTM. :) Anyway, this is what we came up with with her limited diet.

She had a three-ring circus of bananas for the monkeys, mini teddy graham "circus bears," and an animal cracker (an elephant, to be exact). She loves bananas and really enjoyed the extra little treats. She ate really well this morning. I think it is because her fourth tooth has finally popped through the gums so it doesn't hurt her to eat as much now. I'm SO happy about that! She ate almost all of her formula and bananas. She also ate all her teddy grahams and a piece or two of the animal cracker. Once the formula and bananas were gone, it was really cute to see her look back and forth between the two treats and decide which one she wanted. :)

Check out what others created for this theme over at Her Cup Overfloweth.

Stress-Free Christmas - Week One

It's week 1 towards having an organized, stress-free Christmas! Yay! I am excited to post my progression in hopes that it will keep me on track. I am going to include a MckLinky as well (starting next week when this first week of organization is over) in case you would like to join me on this journey! We can inspire each other and have fun while counting down the days until Christmas!

This week is all about planning and paperwork. Here is the link for the checklists and papers to print out. Next Sunday, when I post what the next goals are, I will post what I did the past week as well as the MckLinky for you to post what you've done! For this week, I am extra excited about printing out pages for the Christmas notebook. A long while ago I started a whole household guide with recipes, decorating ideas, and cleaning tips. I have a few pages in the Christmas section and this will help expand that. I hope you decide to join in!

Saturday Picture Surprise

Is it Saturday again already? This week went by super fast. This week's random picture is from July 2008, picture #116. Well, since I didn't have that many pictures that month, this is the last one in my file:


I was 28 weeks pregnant. I LOVED being pregnant. Everything went so smoothly and I had morning sickness for only a week in my first or maybe early second trimester. I was very lucky. The birth went perfectly, too. I was, and am, extremely blessed.

Go check out From Pigpen To Paradise to see what others were taking pictures of in July 2008!

Book Fan Friday

Today there was a scheduled power outage for our neck of the base, so we went to the library to hang out in the air conditioning. The power came back on not too long ago so now is the first chance I got to post! We got No Hugs Till Saturday by Julie Downing.


It's an adorable story about Felix, a dragon, who gets upset with his mama and says he is not going to give her any hugs for a whole week! That doesn't last too long! The story is cute, but my favorite part is all the details put into the illustrations. For example, in one scene the mother is vacuuming with an anteater and the last picture is Felix putting a "No Hugs" sign on the baby's crib. Those are just a couple of the little details that make it special.

Halloween Is On Its Way!

Hubby and I decided on what costume to get Baby Girl for Halloween...


... she'll be our little Tulip Fairy! I can't wait to see her in it. She'll be way too cute! We ordered it from Halloween Express and let me tell you, they are awesome! They have super cute costumes for all ages, plus cool decorations, and the prices seem pretty decent! The above costume (everything included) was $24.99. I was definitely going to order from them since, well, they actually ship to military addresses! Then at checkout it said that shipping is free to APO/FPO addresses! That is unheard of! Usually we have to pay an arm and a leg in shipping because we live overseas. So this was definitely a breath of fresh air and very much appreciated. So if you live at an APO/FPO address, totally look into it! Even if you don't, I don't think their regular shipping is expensive at all, so check them out. I just wanted to share my find!

Wordless Wednesday

Best of friends.


For more Wordless Wednesday, please visit 5 Minutes For Mom.

Muffin Tin Monday - People and Faces

I am SO excited to finally jump in and get involved with Muffin Tin Monday! Michelle over at Her Cup Overfloweth hosts this blog carnival and I, for awhile now, have looked forward to every Monday to check out everyone's creations.

Baby Girl is 11 months old (as of this coming Wednesday) so I am starting out a little slow since she is just being introduced to table foods. This week's theme is "People and Faces." So for our very first MTM (yay!) this is what I came up with:

goldfish crackers, Gerber puffs in a smiley face, oatmeal and raisin stick person

She had a sippy cup of formula, too, but nothing related to the theme. :) After I fed her the oatmeal, I gave her the tin with the crackers and puffs. Baby Girl seemed really excited about it and kept looking into the tin and smiling.


I was afraid that she would just try to throw the tin off her highchair, but right away she was picking up the treats and gobbling them up!


We had so much fun and I'm looking forward to doing this week after week! Even though I would be okay if Baby Girl takes her time growing up, it will be cool to see her really get into it and to start incorporating some cool crafts with the theme, too.

Check out what other people created for Muffin Tin Monday over at Her Cup Overfloweth.

Stress-Free Christmas!

I love going all out for holidays and especially LOVE Christmas! I have recently come across Organized Christmas, a website whose mission is "to help you simplify your holidays and get ready for Christmas." It has a lot of great organization ideas as well as craft and gift ideas among other things. I've decided to follow the Houseworks Holiday Plan and get ready a little each week so I don't forget anything or feel rushed and stressed closer to Christmas.

I was going to post my progress each week and would love if you would join me! I will have a MckLinky up each week so we can get ideas and motivation from each other. It starts next Sunday, August 30th, so come join in on the fun!

Saturday Picture Surprise

Happy Saturday, everyone! I'm loving these Saturday Picture Surprises. It's so much fun to look back and enjoy a random memory. Today's random picture is from March 2008, picture # 56. Well, I didn't have even close to 56 pictures from that month but here was the last one in my file:


This is a close-up of the first ultrasound I had with Baby Girl. I was 9 weeks and 2 days along. Isn't she just so cute? Doesn't it make you want another one? Or is it just me? Anyway, head on over to From Pigpen To Paradise to check out what others were taking pictures of in March 2008!

Book Fan Friday

This week Baby Girl and I picked up If You Give A Pig A Party by Laura Numeroff.


I probably would have picked it anyway, but Baby Girl didn't really give me a choice. I had looked at a few different books while Baby Girl was on my hip, looking at the animal puppets that are in the kid section of our library. As soon as I picked up this book, she grabbed it and wouldn't let go. Who could say no to that? I love how she is excited about books, even at 11 months old. Right now she mainly likes flipping the pages and closing the book, but that's a start, right?

Anyway, the illustrations are precious. As soon as I opened the book and started reading, Baby Girl pointed to all the different animals and laughed. Too cute. *Note to self: hunt down all the books in this series!* I'm a sucker for my little girl's smile and laugh. If we're looking at the toy section of the NEX (Navy Exchange) and she happens to smile at one, in the cart it goes. My husband is exactly the same way, too, so we rarely leave without a new toy. Maybe it's good we're on an isolated island where the NEX is the only store and they don't have a wide selection otherwise we'd be broke and our house would be spilling over with toys! This is why we have quite a bit saved up for our trip to the states in October. Lots of shopping and we're going to DisneyWorld. Being a complete Disney freak, you know I won't be able to resist getting Baby Girl a bunch of Disney things! But that is a completely different post...

Muffin Tin Monday Swap!

I had a great opportunity to join in the Muffin Tin Monday Swap that Michelle over at Her Cup Overfloweth hosted. For awhile now I have looked forward to heading over to her blog every Monday to check out what everyone did for Muffin Tin Monday. I never joined in because, well, Baby Girl wasn't eating a lot of table food. She has started to try a lot of new table foods now, though, so I thought I might as well jump right on in!

A bunch of us signed up and we were given partners to send an MTM package to. I had wonderful luck and got Amanda from Funny Days with Mommy and Maddie as my partner. I have followed her blog for awhile now and always enjoy it! Anyway, she sent me a wonderful starter kit:

Silicone muffin tin, silicone heart-shaped and circle muffin cups, sprinkles, and super cute food picks!

Here is a close-up of the food picks. The pinwheels are just extra cute!

I may have to do "modified" MTM's for awhile, since Baby Girl doesn't exactly have a huge variety in her diet yet (being 11 months old), but I'm really looking forward to starting this tradition with her. I've said that I'm going to start the Monday after she turns 1, but we'll see if I can wait that long!! :) Thank you so much for the package, Amanda!! And thank you, Michelle, for hosting the swap!

Saturday Picture Surprise

It's Saturday again! It's been a crazy busy weekend for us so far, but lots of fun. My husband is off this weekend so we've been running errands and just having fun as a family. :) This week's random picture is from November 2006, picture #59. This is when I married the love of my life and picture #59 happened to be of our wedding cake. We had a small, intimate wedding so we didn't need a huge cake or anything. It was very pretty and very tasty.



See what others were taking pictures of in November 2006 over at From Pigpen To Paradise!

Book Fan Friday

It was a quick trip to the library today. I decided to grab another classic I've always heard about and found Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman.


Baby Girl seemed to like it and, for some reason, especially liked the cow. I think one reason I gravitated towards this book is because Baby Girl can say dada, cat, and up among many other sounds but still has only said mama one time. I thought maybe it might help for her to hear it repeated over and over in the book. Everytime it says "mother," I just changed it to "mama." I'm not really expecting that to work or anything, but it couldn't hurt, right? :) It is a pretty adorable little book.

Wordless Wednesday

It's hard to take pictures of your baby sitting still once they learn to crawl!

For more Wordless Wednesday, please visit 5 Minutes for Mom.

Saturday Picture Surprise

This morning, Angie over at From Pigpen to Paradise started Saturday Picture Surprise and I thought it is such a fun idea! Each week she will pick a random picture for you to find in your picture files and you post it on your blog. Here is her explanation of what Saturday Picture Surprise is.

For the first week, the random picture is from May 2009, picture #7.


My beautiful Baby Girl and me. Not the best picture of me, but that's okay. :) This is one of the first pictures my husband took with our brand-new digital camera that we bought just minutes before. It was on Mother's Day. Go over to From Pigpen To Paradise to see what others were taking pictures of in May 2009!

Book Fan Friday

Good afternoon everyone! Baby Girl decided to take a late nap (well, later than usual) this morning so we didn't go to storytime, but that's okay because I took a nap along with her and have felt FABULOUS today. I haven't been getting enough sleep lately so it was wonderful. Anyway, we went a little later and I knew exactly what book I wanted to get to read to her. While looking for other books I have always seen the book Bad Kitty by Nick Bruel.


You see that cat on the cover? Well, turn that blue spot on her chest to white and you have our kitty, Ali. Plus, just with the title, it was a perfect pick. On any given day in our household, you may hear the following conversation:

Me: Honey, is there any reason the salsa (mustard, spices, whatever) is still out?
Darling Husband: Oh, that silly baby must have left it out.
Me: The baby is upstairs sleeping.
DH: Um.... bad kitty?

He always makes me laugh. That's one reason I adore him. So this book is way too cute. It is about a kitty who doesn't get her food on time and decides to be a bad kitty. It goes through the alphabet four times in the book and has great illustrations. Baby Girl loved pointing at the pictures and telling her own little story (which, at 10 months, is "baba dada ba pa da da" but is the best story I have ever heard :) ) and I found it really funny. I really do recommend this book.

I also won my first giveaway the other day! How exciting! Thanks to From Pigpen to Paradise and PurpleTrail, I won a year-long basic subscription to PurpleTrail! PurpleTrail is a site that helps you organize your parties, has invitations, printable party games, and more. I can't wait to check it out further!

Pie Pop Experiment

So have I mentioned how much I love Bakerella's blog? So many cute, yummy-looking things that I want to try! Well, this weekend my wonderful husband and I made two chicken pot pies. One for a family who just had a beautiful baby boy and one for us since we were having a friend over. The pot pie recipe we have is AWESOME. I can't even remember now where we got it, but it turns out perfectly every time.

Anyway, there was a little bit of dough left over from the crusts and I really didn't want to just throw it away. I knew there just had to be something I could make with it. Then I checked Bakerella this morning to see if anything new was up and what do I see but... pie pops! I still have lots of lollipop sticks left since I just made cake pops and have extra to make kitty cake pops for Baby Girl's party, so this seemed absolutely perfect.

I only had a little dough and didn't want to buy a whole jar of pie filling or make a full recipe, so I just whipped up a small batch of apple pie filling.


They were too cute and hubby even said that he would love to have them again next time we have leftover dough lying around. :) Looks like we have a go-to dessert for chicken pot pie nights!