Movie Night - Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

I posted our newest movie night, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, over on my Disney blog, Disney in Our Blood. One of my favorite parts of the movie night was a very last minute idea.


I had bought Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash (some of the best stuff ever!) because I wanted a yummy red drink for the night. I had an idea to make it more festive right before my daughter woke up (I like to have everything ready during her nap/quiet time). So I found a picture of Rudolph through Google and made a quick label. It says "Rudolph Fizzies... To keep your nose looking its reddest."

Christmas Decorations

I found some very cute Rudolph wrapping paper at the Dollar Store a week before Thanksgiving and couldn't pass it up. I knew it was early, but I didn't want to risk it selling out and them not getting more. I'm a little obsessed with Rudolph. :) Anyway, I got the idea to use it as the mat for a printable I found online.


I just took out the mat from my frame that I use for all my printables for each season/holiday/mood, traced it on some of the wrapping paper, cut it out, and taped it on. I love it! I'm still working on decorating my house, so I'll share more soon. What are your favorite decorations so far this Christmas?

Photo Friday

My Memories is letting me tell you about some wonderful freebies they have! They change up their freebies every couple of weeks, and there are a couple to choose from, so I'll be able to bring you free layouts for digital scrapbooking every Friday!

Here are 2 Quick Pages that come with the papers and elements used to make them! Click here to download!


These layouts are not only good for My Memories Suite, but for any digital scrapbooking program! If you are looking for a great digital scrapbooking program, though, I really do love My Memories Suite. You can buy it here and use the promo code: STMMMS78470 to get $10 and a $10 coupon for the My Memories store!

More Thanksgiving Decorations

I found a great printable for Thanksgiving over at Today's Fabulous Find! I printed it out right away and put it in the frame I always use for cute printables. :)


I got the craft kit for the tree and scarecrow at Target's Dollar Spot. We made it in October, but when paired with the little scarecrow it was perfect for after Halloween, too.

My Memories Suite Winner!

The winner of the My Memories Suite digital scrapbooking software giveaway, according to random.org, is {drumroll please}...


Comment 11, Jillian! Congratulations! I will be contacting you soon with your code for the software. :)

And even if you didn't win, remember you can still purchase My Memories Suite v2 software with the promo code STMMMS78470 to get $10 off and a $10 coupon to their online store! Thank you to everyone who entered.

Photo Friday

My Memories is letting me tell you about some wonderful freebies they have! They change up their freebies every couple of weeks, and there are a couple to choose from, so I'll be able to bring you free layouts for digital scrapbooking every Friday!

Here are 2 Quick Pages that come with the papers and elements used to make them! Click here to download!


I took one of the background pages and a couple of embellishments to make this.


These layouts are not only good for My Memories Suite, but for any digital scrapbooking program! If you are looking for a great digital scrapbooking program, though, you can enter my My Memories Suite giveaway! It ends tonight at 11:59 PM, so hurry!

You can also buy it here and use the promo code: STMMMS78470 to get $10 and a $10 coupon for the My Memories store!

My Memories Suite Review and Giveaway!

I recently had the chance to review My Memories, a digital scrapbooking program. I love scrapbooking but haven't found the time to do it for quite awhile now. I have wanted to try out digital scrapbooking for awhile, but honestly thought I wouldn't like it nearly as much as good ol' scrapbooking. So I knew this would be a perfect opportunity to try it out.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised when I downloaded My Memories Suite. It is very user-friendly and a lot of fun. At first I was just messing around, checking out all the options, and I created this page.


I picked the layout, background page, and some embellishments. I loved how cute I could make it with pictures straight from my computer in just a few minutes! There is a nice selection of layouts, backgrounds, and embellishments to choose from with some free things you can download from the My Memories website. There is also a ton of stuff you can buy to create the perfect scrapbook page!

Here is one of the ready made templates available that I thought would be great for a page about my little ballerina.


Not only can you make simple scrapbook pages like the ones above, but you can make an interactive scrapbook with audio, video, and web links! You can have them put on a CD or DVD and your family can experience your memories. How cool is that? There is so much to explore with this software and I'm just beginning to scratch the surface myself. I must say, I'm loving this digital scrapbooking thing and am really looking forward to using it to catch up on everything I've been wanting to scrapbook!

You know the best part? My Memories is letting me host a giveaway for their digital scrapbooking software ($39.97 value)! Here's what you have to do:

Mandatory entry:
1. Go to My Memories and check out their digital paper packs. Come back and leave a comment saying which one is your favorite.

Optional entries (leave a separate comment for each extra entry letting me know you did them):
2. Follow My Memories on Twitter.
3. Follow Three A's and a C on Twitter.
4. Like My Memories on Facebook.
5. Follow Three A's and a C through GFC (on the sidebar).
6. Tweet about this giveaway.


THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED IN A SEPARATE POST. THANK YOU TO ALL WHO ENTERED!

This giveaway will end at 11:59pm EST on November 11, 2011. Good luck! And even if you don't win, My Memories is offering a great promotion for Three A's and a C readers! Order the My Memories Suite Digital Scrapbooking Software (available in both digital download or CD version) and enter the promo code STMMMS78470 to receive $10 off the software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store! That's an awesome deal.

My Memories provided me with a complimentary copy of their software for review. All opinions are honest and my own.

Happy November!

Halloween and Thanksgiving merged in our house today. I was gathering all the Halloween decorations from around the house to put away, but I also couldn't wait to put up some Fall/Thanksgiving decorations. I was inspired by some stuff I saw on Pinterest and came up with this.


I got the leaf and pumpkin doilies from the dollar store as well as the tall glass vase. I got the pinecones from around our neighborhood and the chipmunks are salt and pepper shakers that were my mom's. I put the doilies together with some double-sided tape I had just so they wouldn't have to be adjusted 1,246,973 times a day. That would totally get annoying.


It is simple, but I think I'm loving it. And for a grand total of $3 and just minutes to put together, it works for us! I would love to see pictures of your fall decorations. If you have a link to them, please leave it in the comments!

Movie Night - Nightmare Before Christmas

I just put up everything about our Nightmare Before Christmas movie night over at my Disney blog! I would love for you to go check it out! Here's one tip I love that I used during our movie night.


It's getting cooler here in Florida and I know it is downright COLD some places. I love hot chocolate when it's cold outside but I always have to wait forever to drink it so it cools down a little and I don't burn my mouth. We have some whipped cream in the freezer and if you put a spoonful or two straight from the freezer into your hot chocolate right after you make it, it makes it extra delicious and cools it down just enough to drink right away! We're also loving the addition of a special Peep during Halloween season. :)

*tap tap tap* Is This Thing On?

Well, hi there! Remember me? I'm the girl who completely abandoned this blog for, oh I don't know, 4 months? I'm sorry. I just felt very uninspired and frankly didn't feel like any crafty type stuff I did was good enough. I always go back and forth between feeling that way and then realizing that maybe, even if my crafts aren't perfect, maybe they'll inspire something great from someone else! You never know. :) I think the holidays are partly to blame thank for this. There are so many crafts and fun muffin tin meal themes and whatnot that it's hard not to want to share something I find or make. Oh, and I think being obsessed with Pinterest helps with that, too. ;) Anyway, I have some fun muffin tin meals planned, holiday crafts, a giveaway coming up, and more so I really hope you'll jump back on the Three A's and a C train with me. :)

*added* Oh, and if you want to see some of the movie nights we've been doing, I've been posting them over on my Disney blog, Disney in Our Blood!

A Quick Tip

Maybe everyone does this and I'm just late to the party, but I thought I'd share something that I do when baking. When whipping up a cake (I almost always use a cake mix but I'm crazy like that lol), of course I use the same measuring cup for the water and oil.

image from Amazon

But I also use it for one more thing. Instead of breaking out a separate bowl for cracking the eggs in (you know, to check them for impurities before dumping them into the batter) I just crack them into the measuring cup (after I do the water and oil) and dump them in from there. I'm all for using even one less dish! What simple but useful kitchen tip(s) do you have?

Muffin Tin Monday

I threw together a simple lunch for Ashlyn yesterday. She loves getting her meal in a muffin tin. :)


I made her a Mickey Mouse peanut butter and jelly sandwich, provolone cheese, and veggie chips. She ate almost all of it except the cheese. I think I never did muffin tin meals very consistently because I wanted to do these elaborate themes for Ashlyn but whenever I didn't have time to come up with one I just wouldn't do it. But I've realized recently (I made her a quick MTM last week but forgot to post it) that she gets excited just over a simple one like this! I still have fun making elaborate ones for her every now and then but I've gotten okay with the fact that I just can't do that all the time. I may not always post the simple ones on here (though I will sometimes) but I'm excited by the "new" idea that she'll have fun with even the simple tins. :)

To see what others did this week, head on over to Muffin Tin Mom!

An Update and Father's Day Decorations

Hi everyone! Things have been, and are going to continue to be, CRAZY busy around here. Last week we were in Florida house hunting. We found a place that is great for us and hope to close in about a month. Please keep us in your prayers that it all works out with all the last little details! On top of trying to buy a house while living in a different country (sometimes it makes things a little extra difficult but everyone has been so willing to work with us!), we will have our stuff packed up and shipped in 2 weeks and then 2 weeks after that we will be moving! It's going to go buy so fast! I am really wanting to get at least one movie night in before all our stuff is packed as well as a couple of crafts. So keep a look out for those!

Today I finally put up a couple of Father's Day decorations. I can't believe that's already this coming Sunday!! I don't exactly have any Father's Day decor, but remember those cheap frames I have that I switch the picture or printable out for each holiday? Well, you know I couldn't not find something super cute for Father's Day!


I found the printable from Holiday Snob. In the smaller frame I put a super cute picture of Aaron and Ashlyn that we took while in Florida last week. I had seen other sites where people put some tools next to their printables as decoration and while Aaron is my handyman and likes to work on stuff when it breaks, I wouldn't say it's his #1 passion. He loves computers and Warhammer/WarMachine/Hordes. So I stole borrowed some of his guys from one of those games (I've tried more than once to learn to play both those games but it's just not my thing I guess) to guard the frames.


He hasn't seen it yet so I hope he likes it! He'll of course get to choose the meals on Sunday (not that he doesn't have a say the rest of the week, but you know what I mean). I feel bad but he probably won't get a special dessert. I have two cake/cake pop orders for this weekend so we will probably eat what extra ones I make. He's never complained before, though. :) Ashlyn is also making him a present, but I'll share that later considering Aaron reads this blog sometimes. He knows he got a computer game he's been wanting, but I have to keep something a secret! ;)

Pinkalicious Book Night

You know how we usually do movie nights? Well, I had been seeing a lot of birthday parties based on the book Pinkalicious and decided to pick up the book at the library this past week. It is a very cute story and Ashlyn loved it! So I thought it would be fun to do a book night instead of a movie night. It was a lot of fun so we're going to be trying to do at least one book night and one movie night a month.

Anyway, in Pinkalicious a little girl eats too many pink cupcakes and turns pink herself! The doctor says the only cure is to eat green food. So for dinner we had pink and green foods.


We had our favorite sandwiches... pesto (green) mayo, provolone, and tomatoes on sourdough bread. We also had grapes, celery with peanut butter, strawberries (half of them dipped in pink chocolate), and of course pink cupcakes!

As you can see in the picture, two of Ashlyn's stuffed animals joined us. It looks like her pig and puppy ate one too many pink cupcakes! ;) (That pink puppy was the best purchase we could have made while waiting in the Jacksonville Airport a couple of months ago... she LOVES him!! And she immediately named him... wait for it... Pink Puppy. :D )

We read the book before and after dinner. Ashlyn even read it to us once or twice. She has just started to really like "reading" to us. She memorizes things really quickly and actually gets really close to saying the whole story on a lot of her favorite books!

And if you decide to do a book night with Pinkalicious, just make sure you don't let your little one into the kitchen with unguarded pink cupcakes. Because you might just see your little one walk into the living room, licking frosting off her fingers. Then you might, let's just say, walk into your kitchen to find this.

Wordless Wednesday - Thinking Disney Thoughts

I've been in a very Disney mood lately, so here's a sweet picture from January. Ashlyn was star struck when she met Aurora, her favorite princess!

Muffin Tin Monday - Springy!

Yay for Muffin Tin Meals! They're definitely fun. I haven't been very good at doing them every week, but I did manage to throw together a simple one today for Ashlyn's lunch. I guess it ended up being a kind of spring theme.


She had a butterfly-shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwich, watermelon, key lime pie yogurt with butterfly sprinkles, and blueberries. Sounded yummy to me, but Ashlyn's not big on blueberries or watermelon. Weird kid. ;) I think she'd love watermelon if she gave it a chance. She took one bite the day we bought it and she hasn't tried it again. Oh well, I'll keep offering it! I've made watermelon popsicles before and she absolutely loved them so maybe I'll just have to do that again. They were definitely super yummy!

To see what others made for MTM this week, head on over to Muffin Tin Mom!

Time4Learning

Recently Rockabye Butterfly, one of my favorite sites to go for inspiration on homeschool-type activities for Ashlyn, held a giveaway for a 30-day trial to Time4Learning. And guess what... I won!


So I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. Time4Learning can be used for homeschool, afterschool and summer skill sharpening. Be sure to come back and read about my experience!

Decorating with Frames and Free Printables

I believe it was last Thanksgiving that I fell in love with all the free printables that are available online, especially around holidays. I went to the store and bought a cheap frame (it is an 8 x 10 frame with the mat but the picture area is 5 x 7) with a particular Thanksgiving printable in mind. The frame was about $5 but I know you could find one cheaper at a thrift store or dollar store or something (we just don't exactly have an abundance of those here... or any). I put the printable in the frame and decorated around it (I can't remember who I got this exact one from, but I found similar ones here).


And after Ashlyn made a super cute craft, I put that there, too.


Anyway, I loved it so much that I wanted a printable for every holiday! I don't have pictures of any of them between Thanksgiving and now because, well, I didn't think I would blog about it! But it really has been a great addition to my decorating. For example, even though I don't have any other decorations (yet) for St. Patrick's Day, I printed up 2 printables I found (and I promise now that I want to share the different things I put up, I will remember who I get these printables from so I can give credit and you can find them, too), bought a smaller frame, and put them up on our moveable island and completed it with a piece of greenery. Sometimes in the smaller frame I put a picture instead of a printable, like on Mother's Day I had a picture of my mom and me with a beautiful quote in the bigger frame.

I started to miss having something there in between holidays so I found another printable with "Keep Calm and Bake On" to put in the larger frame, put a picture of Ashlyn and me baking together in the smaller one, and put my stress cupcake with it! I bought the stress cupcake at Bake It Pretty, one of my favorite baking supply shops, but as of today I couldn't find it on their site. They have a ton of other great things, though!


I love it. :) It is cheap to do and easy to change for different holidays or moods (and our camera battery charger is nicely hidden behind the big frame ;) )! I am also very much looking forward to having access to thrift stores, dollar stores, craft stores, etc. to decorate this space (and all other spaces) better. Yay!

Movie Night - Sleeping Beauty

image from Amazon

We had our latest movie night on Wednesday. We've been busy and distracted lately with our move coming up (I will update on that when we get some definite information) so I ended up not planning a whole lot and before I knew it, our movie night was here! We watched Sleeping Beauty.


There's our beautiful little princess. :) She loves playing dress up so she was excited to put on her Aurora dress and tiara. We had banana and chocolate chip pancakes and sausage for dinner (sleeping - breakfast - it worked for us!).

Aurora is one of Ashlyn's favorite princesses (Rapunzel and Aurora go back and forth with her for the #1 spot) so we had plenty of toys to decorate with.


There was more I could have used, but this was perfect for our laid back movie night. :)

I wanted to have a craft of some sort, at least a coloring page, but it just didn't happen. Like I said, I just didn't sit down and plan for this one like I like to do. Oh well, we still had fun! What movie do you think we should do next?

Muffin Tin Meal - Mmmmmm

Well, I was slacking and didn't make Ashlyn a muffin tin meal this past Sunday, but I made her one on Wednesday. Each week I teach Ashlyn a new letter (she recognizes all the letters but I'm also teaching her the sounds they make as well as numbers, shapes, etc. She LOVES school!) and this week is the letter M. So I decided to make her a letter M muffin tin meal!


She had Macaroni and cheese, corn dog Muffin (recipe from Once A Month Mom - I add corn to our corn muffins), and M&M's all in Muffin liners on a Minnie Mouse plate. The M&M's were from a color sorting/counting activity I did with Ashlyn and I told her that she could have some of them for a snack so it inspired me to do this. The rest of the meal just happened to be leftovers from the night before so it was really easy and she loved it!

For more muffin tin meals, check out Muffin Tin Mom!

(Not-So) Wordless Wednesday

I'm going to sign Ashlyn up for the next session of dance classes today, so here' s a picture from her last recital. All the girls love the "Tigger Jumps" they do to "The Most Wonderful Thing About Tiggers." In the end of the song, Tigger growls so the girls all growl, too. :) That's what she's doing in this pic. ♥

Head on over to The Adventures of Goober Grape and Monkey Man for more Wordless Wednesday!

A New Look

Notice anything different? No, not that. Yes, my blog has a new look! My good friend over at Momma's Playground designed it and put it together for me. I absolutely LOVE it! It really is perfect for me and I couldn't be happier with it. I think it will help motivate me to post more, too, knowing I have a cute blog to look at when I do! :) Thank you SO MUCH, Jamie! ♥

Oh, and she also made me a new, super cute button (that you can find in the sidebar). If you already have my button, it should have changed already so you don't need to redo it. But if you don't have one yet, feel free to grab it!

Muffin Tin Monday - Hippity, Hoppity, Easter's On Its Way! (Or, Was Yesterday... Either Way)

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a fabulous Easter weekend. We sure did! I was also able to make Ashlyn a muffin tin meal! Technically, it was just our Easter dinner in a spring-like muffin tin, but I knew Ashlyn would love it. And I totally wanted to get back into the MTM swing of things so I thought it would be a good start. :)


Ashlyn had a Hawaiian roll, homemade garlic mashed potatoes (since the first time I've made mashed potatoes from scratch, I just can't go back to the boxed stuff), ham, and corn (her favorite vegetable). Saturday we had made Rice Krispie treats and cut them into spring/Easter shapes. We left one for the Easter Bunny (along with a carrot) and she got one in her tin, too! Her little cereal bunny also has a cute little mini marshmallow tail. :) She also got the ears to her chocolate bunny. We found a really cool bunny (Snapsy by Hershey)


that breaks apart really easily and is small, so it was a nice addition to Ashlyn's Easter basket and she totally gobbled up those ears!

To see the cool tins others have made, head on over to Muffin Tin Mom!

Happy Easter!

HAPPY EASTER!

Changes on the Horizon and A New Obsession

I am in LOVE with Pinterest! I have wanted to make an inspiration board for a long time but just never got around to it. Now I can make them online and add to it while I find things that inspire me while I find them! I also really enjoy seeing what others have "pinned" and get inspiration from them, too.

We are in the market to buy our first home here in a few months (I'll take you along for our journey) and I am planning on (trying) to make it a wonderful, beautiful place for not a lot of money. Lots of DIY, sales, etc. I would love to share what I come up with with all of you, too! It's a scary change coming up in our lives right now (I'm sure I will share more later), but it is also very exciting. We are looking into getting a 3 bedroom house and that 3rd bedroom will be Ashlyn's playroom until she grows out of having one (then I'm not exactly sure what it will turn into at that point, but I'm not in a hurry for her to grow up so I'm not worried about it!). I am most excited about decorating this room! I have so many ideas and am looking forward to picking a house and really starting to plan everything out.

Anyway, I do love that Pinterest helps me organize some of these ideas all in one place and is easily rearranged, added to, whatever. I always thought when I did get around to doing an inspiration board (or two or five) that it would mostly be crafts and baking. But with us getting so close to buying a house, it is mostly house decorating ideas. lol Who knew? So much fun but VERY addicting!

(Mostly) Wordless Wednesday

She went to the Minnie's Masquerade Party at the Disney Store right before this so that's why she's in her Rapunzel dress and a crown. :D

(Mostly) Wordless Wednesday

Hibiscus tree in our backyard.

We'll be spending some time with my Daddy these next couple of weeks so I'm not sure I'll be posting. I'm going to try and at least post some pictures while Ashlyn naps, though. I'm looking forward to really getting back into MTM and doing movie nights more regularly when we get back, as well as some other stuff. I'm not even quite sure myself what that "other stuff" will be... I'll be brainstorming while I'm gone. Maybe getting off the island for awhile will help me see things from a different perspective. :)

Tangled Movie Night

**I've been trying to get this post up since Wednesday morning! Sorry for the delay, but for some reason it just would not let me upload pictures!**

So I'm guessing many of you know that Disney's Tangled was released yesterday! *happy Snoopy dance* I was so excited because I absolutely love this movie I knew Ashlyn would adore it. We saw it when it first came to the island, but we have an outdoor movie theater which means movies only at night. So Ashlyn fell asleep part way through. But anyway, we decided to have a movie night to celebrate the release!

For dinner we had angel hair pasta with Maximus's meatballs, braided breadsticks, and Rapunzel lettuce salad (a nod to the original fairytale).


We also had, though I didn't take a picture of, Pascal's key lime pie (hubby really wanted some key lime pie so it became Pascal's) and hubby and I had The Snuggly Duckling's ale (blackberry merlot - The Snuggly Duckling is the tavern they go to).

I put Ashlyn's hair up in a braid with flowers like when Rapunzel and Eugene (Flynn) went to the kingdom.


I really liked how our decorations came out. Simple, but cute.


On the bottom I had two paper lanterns (with battery-operated tea lights in them), Rapunzel, and Pascal.


On the top I put up a banner I put together (idea and template from Supermom Moments - her Tangled party was awesome!) and since Rapunzel loved to paint on the walls of her tower, I put up some of Ashlyn's artwork.


And of course no movie night would be complete without my friend Jamie's movie tickets! Always an awesome addition!

As for activities, we ran out of time and didn't get to do nearly all I wanted to. We did the coloring pages (Ashlyn kinda helped color Pascal, but was much more interested in coloring Rapunzel) and really that's about it. I wanted to let Ashlyn decorate the lanterns with stickers and stuff as well as go outside and play with sidewalk chalk, but it just didn't happen. I also really want to make this Rapunzel tower, but I just didn't have the supplies and the NEX doesn't carry them. So down the line when we do Tangled movie night again, that's high on the list of activities. :) There are also a lot of cool Tangled activities we may do to mix it up a bit on the Disney site (whether for a movie night or just for fun).

All in all this was a great movie night that we all enjoyed. Ashlyn just LOVES the movie (the Mickey and Minnie version of Rapunzel in her Disney storybook is her favorite) and I'm sure I'll we'll be watching it many, many more times! (I kid, though I am in love with this movie, so is Ashlyn! She wanted to watch it again immediately after it ended {and the day after, and the day after that...}. Aaron really enjoys it, too.)

Wordless Wednesday - Baking with Ashlyn!

Ashlyn LOVES baking. :)

Muffin Tin Monday - Big and Little, Short and Tall

Whoa... it's been awhile since I've done anything with this blog! I logged on to post and I still had my Christmas layout up! So for now it's just going to be a generic layout until I have time to do something more me. Sorry about all that! We went on vacation for about 2 weeks and I got sick the last day and just felt horrible for awhile. I got better a week or so ago, but just still had absolutely no energy and just began to really feel like myself again a couple of days ago. So, I'm back and starting back up with Muffin Tin Monday! This week's theme is Big and Little, Short and Tall.


Ashlyn had a big heart and little heart peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, big flower and little flower apple slices, and a big marshmallow and mini marshmallows for dessert. I also used a combination of small and large muffin liners. She ate everything except maybe two small bites of sandwich. :)

To see what everyone else is doing this week, check out Muffin Tin Mom!

Oh, and remember that today is Peanut Butter Day! We're trying to celebrate more little random "holidays" like that, and I thought it would be fun to do this one. I'm going to be making peanut butter cookies with Ashlyn this afternoon. We're making Peanut Blossoms (I think that's a fairly common name for them...), where you make the peanut butter cookies and push in Hershey's Kisses when they first come out of the oven. My mom knew them as Brown Eyed Susans but every now and then she would call them Brown Eyed Christinas for me (since I have brown eyes). Ashlyn has gorgeous brown eyes, so I think of these cookies now as Brown Eyed Ashlyns. ♥