Kitchen Renovation Part I

Today was finally the day we've been waiting for for a LONG time!  Our new kitchen was installed!  I call this part I because we will not have counter tops or flooring for about a month because it takes granite a month after installation to come in.  We are also getting new appliances.  BUT, look at this:

BEFORE

Back splash gone with gigantic holes in the sheet rock. 

Cabinets gone!

WHAALAAAAA!!!

Aren't they beautiful??  We couldn't be happier!  I can't wait until the granite & new appliances come in.  I'll keep you updated!

Valentine Cookies

Our little Valentine's Day activity with Spencer was icing cookies and letting him "decorate" them.  He LOVES icing and will not eat the cookie portion of any cookie if there's icing on it.  He'll lick he icing off and then want another one.  Ha!  He had a great time and don't these cookies look so yummy???  Hehehe!

I love how serious he is taking this...

Yes, that's a knife in his mouth...we were careful, though! ;)

He had eaten so many sprinkles that it turned his face pink and red!

Grammy's...Swindell style

We have a budding muscian on our hands.  We had to force him to take a bath and put down the microphone and guitar.  He seemed to like to use the handle to his hammer and his baseball bat as musical instruments (even though he has a microphone & guitar).  Love this little guy!!

I love how he's strumming his guitar...

Valentine's Party

Spencer had his Valentine's party yesterday.  It was a little bitter sweet for me because I know there are no more school parties for awhile.  :(  Spencer gave out the heart crayons for his Valentine's and I made red velvet cake balls from Bakerella and marshmallow pops.  They turned out waaaaay better than the picture shows.  They are super easy to make and look so cute!

Rick went to Spencer's party and of course there were TONS of goodies there!!

Cupcakes...his favorite!

Marshmallow Pops!

Red Velvet Cake Balls...yummy!!!

Swindell Valentines

I can't tell you how many times Rick and I have asked each other what we wanted to do for Valentine's Day in the past week.  We really have no desire to do something to celebrate one day out of the year.  We never do much on Valentine's Day because it's just not that important to us because we literally celebrate Valentine's Day every single day of our lives.  I can't tell you how grateful I am to be able to say that and MEAN it. 

However, I do want to do something fun for Spencer.  I thought about baking sugar cookies and letting him ice them which he would LOVE!  We might run into one snag though...our kitchen is being DEMOLISHED this weekend and we will have no cabinets until ours come in which are scheduled to make their entrance into Lubbock ON the 14th.  We'll see though...

Do any of you have any good ideas for a 2 1/2 year old to do on Valentine's Day that would require much of a kitchen?  Ha!

Crayon Valentines

I have been dying to try this for a long time and Valentine's Day was the perfect time!

What you need:

-crayons with paper taken off
-silicone baking mat/tin
-oven

It doesn't get any easier than that!  I got my silicone baking mat/tin at Hobby Lobby (40% off) so that was a great find.  They also have a lot of other shapes on their baking aisle. 

Snap your crayons in fourths.  And having a cute little helper to do this doesn't hurt either.  ;)  Don't know if it was a good thing teaching a 2 1/2 year old to break crayons!  Oh well, he was a big help!

For the thickness that I wanted, I used 5 crayons for one heart.  I played around using two and three different colors and I liked them both.  I will say that the dark colors are more dense, so I would definitely add more light crayons vs. dark crayons to each heart.  For example, use one dark blue crayon and 4 yellow crayons. 

Put them on a baking sheet (just in case something spills) and put them in the oven at 300 degrees for 15 minutes.

There will be air bubbles when you first take them out, but they eventually pop.  The first set that I did, I took a toothpick and tried popping all of them.  I got tired of that and come to find out, they pop on their own.  Also, these would be considered the "bottom" of the crayons.  When you pop them out, the tops are so pretty!

After about 3-5 minutes, put them in the freezer to set up.  Only leave them in there for about 7 minutes.  Set a timer because if you forget about them and leave them in a long time, they will develop a white film on the top of them and you have to start the process all over again.

Pop them out of the mold and WHALAAAA!!!

I'm giving 2 "crayons" to each of Spencer's classmates as their Valentine from him.  I used cellophane bags that I got at Wal Mart.  The ones I got were too big, so I had to cut the tops off of them before adding the topper.

I made the toppers using Photo Shop and printed them on card stock.  With just two staples, you've completed your sweet little Valentines!  I will be more than happy to send you the jpg file of the toppers if you become a follower of my blog and comment and tell me who you are going to make these for!  Be sure and leave your email address!

Sorry about the glare on the cellophane...