A Day In My Life

After Harvey's nighttime bath, I usually left his toys in the tub to dry off. And that usually meant I forgot about it and left them there all night. Then Justin got up the next morning to get ready for work and he would have to move all of those toys to the bathroom counter or on the floor. I knew we needed a solution to this little problem, but I'm not really a fan of things that suction to the wall (to end up getting all mildewy and nasty...).  After I found this colander that rests evenly on the edge of my sink, (and takes up considerably less room in storage) I had an extra one I was going to donate to good will anyway. But then I thought of a way to use the colander to solve our little problem... Now, Harvey cleans up his toys after bath time by placing them in the colander. After all of the water drains, the toys can drip dry throughout the night, and Justin can just grab one container and set it in the cupboard out of the way in the morning. Best part? We c...

Thank you to the couple of you who e-mailed me and mentioned that you didn't have Photoshop, but still wanted to use the Milestone Templates . You gave me the little kick in the pants to figure out a way for you to be able to use them! Drum-roll please? Kidding. Anyway, there is a program pretty similar to Photoshop available for download - for FREE. It's called GIMP, and you can download it here , or here . After downloading... come back for the tutorial on how to use it with the Milestone Templates . **Attention** Because GIMP is free, they have added opt-in software to the download - make sure you read everything carefully when you are installing to make sure you ONLY download GIMP and not other software you don't want. The first screen of the installer has a link on the left that says "SKIP ALL OFFERS" that you can click - DON'T click "express install". ... Okay, welcome back. Let's get started. (I'm going to write this tut...

This was one of the first recipes I stumbled across when I found out I wouldn't be able to eat dairy due to Avery's allergies. It has so much flavor... I eat it like salsa with tortilla chips. Yum! Ingredients: 2 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed and drained 3 ears fresh cooked corn, kernels cut off the cob (or 2 15-ounce cans) 2 red bell peppers, diced 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper 2 tablespoons sugar 9 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 1 teaspoon lime zest 6 tablespoons fresh lime juice 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro, plus more for garnish 2 Hass avocados, chopped 1. Combine all ingredients except for avocados in a large bowl and mix well. Cover and chill for a few hours or overnight. Right before serving, add avocados and mix gently, being careful not to mash avocados. Garnish with a more chopped cilantro if desired. Serve at room temperature. Serves: 6-8  

Holy Moly. This little girl is already 7 months old. To purchase the templates, head to my store, here! Now, for the Milestone Template how-to: 1. After opening the Milestone Template and (if applicible) a photo you'd like to match, double click on the "Color Overlay" layer effect under the Layer titled "you." 2. The Layer Style window will open. Click on the little colored box, and the Select Overlay Color window will open. You can use the rainbow slider to select pretty much any possible color, or... 3. Just click anywhere on your photo. Photoshop will select that exact color. 4. Verify that it is the color you want in the "new" box on the top, and click OK. (Then click OK again in the Layer Style box) 4a (not numbered). If you'd like to move the "you", just click and drag it anywhere in the template. 5. To change the color of the large number, double click on the "Color Overlay" layer effect under...

My mom loves genealogy. She has several books with pictures and stories of people in our pedigree lines, and she is constantly working on finding more members of our family. All of her information was in books, and although she has a pedigree chart that unfolds out to show 21 (I think) generations, once you get past the first couple generations, it's really hard to tell who is next in line. As soon as I saw this circular chart on Martha Stewart's website, I knew this would be an awesome birthday gift. The template Martha provides is totally not like the awesome one in the picture, so I thought I would have to recreate it with Photoshop... but then I read the comments, and someone had already done that! I just double checked the link and it seems to be having issues, so I'm going to host the same file here: Here is an alternate link to download the file: Genealogy Chart After I got mine printed, I set to work with a fine tipped black marker to fill in al...

 For Easter morning breakfast, we made Resurrection Rolls (I originally found the idea here .) Needed: One can of crescent roll dough 1 large marshmallow for each roll Melted butter Cinnamon sugar Since Harvey has a really short attention span is still pretty young, I decided to read him the story of the crucifixion (chapter 53) out of the children's New Testament Stories instead of the real bible. While we were reading, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees. Then we unrolled the crescent rolls and laid them out on a greased cookie sheet. I explained that they were like the burial cloth that Jesus was wrapped in. I told Harvey that the marshmallows were like Jesus because they were white - clean and pure, because he did not sin. As we dipped and rolled them in butter, I explained that the butter represented the oils that were put on his body before burial. Then we rolled the marshmallow in cinnamon sugar, and I told him that it represented the herbs and spi...

When I saw this idea on Pinterest via Play At Home Mom , I knew I wanted to do it for myself. I went to Michaels and purchased some small LED lights to put inside the eggs, and stuck them inside the eggs right away. Harvey's little friend, Brina, came over and I hid the eggs in his room for them to find. They loved it!! Brina told Harvey the pink and purple eggs were just for her... so Harvey said the orange ones were for him. Seriously.... SO much fun. The kids asked me to hide them again and again, so we had an egg hunt in every room of our home!