Park days have arrived!

School is out and it's time to do fun things with the little guy!  Spencer LOVES the park, but with the horrendous temperatures here lately, we had to hit it early.  Spencer can spot this park a mile away and loves going there.  I just sat there today thinking back to last year at this time and what he was like at the park and I will say, things are a bit different...in a good way of course!  This child has no fear and will jump off of ANYTHING!  I had to tell him no a couple of times when he tried climbing over the edge of something that an adult couldn't even jump off of.  None the less, a wonderful time!

Ready to go!

Worn out!

Memorial Day

First, I have to start off by saying THANK YOU to all of our service men and women who are serving and who have served our country.  Freedom wouldn't be existent without you.  My great grandfather served in WWII at Iwo Jima (actually saw the raising of the flag there) and, to my favorite service man...my husband...

...THANK YOU!!!!  How wonderful to have such an inspiration for Spencer!  I love you so much!!!

LOW KEY are the words of the day for us.  I seriously doubt I'll leave the house today.  We're cooking out steaks tonight and drinking some good beer and that's about it.  Spencer and I made red, white & blue cupcakes this morning.  I've always seen the multi colored cupcakes and figured you could do the same thing with red, white and blue...and I was right!  They turned out pretty darn good!

My little helper...he LOVES to use the mixer!

The cupcakes are easy peezy...just use a WHITE cake mix, divide the batter evenly in 3 bowls and add food coloring.  You have to add a TON of food coloring...probably more red than you do blue.  Then, layer them in the muffin tins.  I did blue on the bottom, white and then red. 

Hope you and your family have a blessed Memorial Day!

Cake Balls

I've made these twice in the past week and a half and have had TONS of request for the recipe.  You will not believe how easy these are to make and how much people like them.  I actually made them for Spencer's Valentine's Day party and they loved them!  I didn't take a lot of pictures while making them last night because your hands are super messy the entire process.  But man oh man, they are DELICIOUS! 

Ingredients
*1 boxed cake mix (any flavor you want...I've made strawberry, chocolate & red velvet)
*1 can/tub of cream cheese icing
*chocolate to cover them (you need the type that hardens quick...can be found at Wal Mart in many different colors) 

I like these because they only require a microwave, a spoon and a bowl!

*sprinkles of your choice (of course optional, but I don't make them without them)  :)


Directions
Bake the cake mix according to the directions on the box.  The cake MUST be completely cool before moving on.  I always make the cake the day/night before.

Once the cake is cool, crumble up the cake in a large mixing bowl.  Add the entire tub of frosting and mix THOROUGHLY with your hands.  Welcome to the messy part!

Once mixed, roll the cake/frosting mixture into balls on a wax covered cookie sheet.  The size of balls doesn't matter, just whatever you want.  But the cookie sheet into the freezer for 2-3 hours.  The cake balls will not freeze completely, but they need to be firm before they are coated in chocolate.

To coat with chocolate, take a large spoon and dollop chocolate on top to try to get all the sides and top completely covered.  You will not get everything completely covered (as you can see from my picture) and that's OK.  If you're adding sprinkles, add them immediately after you've covered with chocolate because the chocolate starts to harden fast.  You'll have to add sprinkles one cake ball at a time.  Keep them in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve them.  Enjoy!

These are strawberry cake balls that I made last night.

First Step

Well, we've taken the first step to switching Spencer to a full bed.  And that step is that his bedding is ordered.  This is what we went with from Pottery Barn Teen (minus the peace sign sheets). 

We wanted nothing with a theme and something that he could use for awhile.  I love the orange accents around the edge.  I hope to find orange jersey sheets to match.  Rick is on the lookout for good pillow top mattresses and when he finds that, we've got everything.  Spencer's crib in a 3 in 1 so we already have the headboard and footboard. 

It's hard for me to imagine this sweet, little 29 pound boy in a full bed...

...but he is SUCH a restless sleeper and moves around like crazy.  He just needs more room.  We hope he loves it!  Stay tuned for when it all starts coming together!

Pleated Poppy Love

I've blogged about The Pleated Poppy before and my collection keeps getting bigger and bigger because her stuff is just so darn cute and functional.  I did a purse dump as Lindsey calls it and most people are probably shocked that all of this fits into my purse, but it does!  I have a gigantic purse!  I got my new iPad cover in today and it fits nicely in my purse with all my other Pleated Poppy greatness!  Please, please, please check out her shop...you won't be sad you did.  Every person that I have told about her shop and have ordered from there are HOOKED!

THINGS FROM THE PLEATED POPPY:

*Car zipper pouch for all of Spencer's snacks, toys, etc.

*Green polka dot iPad cover

*Black and white damask gift card/credit card holder

*Sunglasses case

*Blue and pink polka dot check book cover

NOT PICTURED: my AWESOME notebook cover!!!

Spencer-isms

I always tell myself to start blogging about things that Spencer is doing that I won't want to forget and I have NOT done a good job with that.  Today seems like a great time to start this for two reasons...#1 Blogger has been having issues the past 3 days so I haven't blogged about anything and #2 I don't have any recent pictures of our goings-on.

We are proud to say that Spencer is fully potty trained!  He really did it himself and flew with it!  It also helps that we have GREAT support from his school.  Well, he gets really excited when he gets to go poop and the other night he pooped in the potty and turned around to look at it and said, "Look, a snake!"  Oh that little guy!!

He has become very affectionate with his stuffed Curious George monkey.  He has had him for forever, but all of sudden he's taken a liking to him.  He will take Curious George to go potty and then we'll hear him flush the toilet (really hoping he didn't flush George down the toilet) & say, "I'm so proud of you!"  He says that because that's what we tell him when he potties.  So cute!

His imagination is through the roof and we couldn't be more thankful!  He makes us coffee, cupcakes, salads and chicken in his sand box and delivers each and every one of them to us and tells us how hot they are and not to drink or eat it.  He blows on it for us and then we are allowed to eat it.

The minute we get home, the clothes come off.  He's never been like this before and to be honest, it was quite the opposite before he was potty trained.  He always wanted his clothes on and his shoes.  Well, not any more.  It doesn't bother Rick and I one bit except for the time he started shedding his clothes in the front yard when our sprinklers came on!

Out of the blue the other day, we heard Spencer saying, "Uno, dos, quartro, cinco."  (Yes, no tres, but none the less...wow!)  I knew they taught them Spanish at school, but I didn't know this early.  So cute!  And, another out of the blue moment while he was playing, we heard him say, "Forever and ever and ever and ever and ever, Amen."  Sweet, sweet!!!

That's it for now and i leave you with his Spring school picture.  I used the scanner at school and it's not as good as the one at home, but you can still see how STINKIN' ADORABLE he is!  Man, the love we have for him is unbelievable!

Friday Favorites

I thought I would share some of my favorite products that I use.  Mainly because I love looking at the things other people use.

Paul Mitchell Mousse...with my crazy, curly hair, this stuff works wonders.  It doesn't leave it hard and it still has some bounce to it.

Again, back to my curly hair...Garnier Fructis Spritz is great because it holds so well (I have super thick hair and aerosol hairspray doesn't hold).  It also doesn't get hard.

I have been using St. Ives Apricot Scrub for some time now.  I just love how my skin feels and I rarely have breakouts.  I'm beginning to learn if a product wins the Best of at Allure, it's good!

To say I love Mary Kay's Cream to Powder foundation is an understatement.  My skin is really oily and I HATE wearing a ton of foundation and this stuff does the trick.  It's like foundation and powder in one.  A MUST have!  I wear beige 3.0

I'm adding this one in for Spencer...Aveeno Baby is THE BEST!  It moisturizes like no other.  Spencer has a tendency to have dry skin and he doesn't at all once we started using this (when he was about 6 months old!).

And I saved the best for last....I.AM.ADDICTED......Sally Hensen Nail Strips. These things are the best!  I love painted nails and in all colors!  Nail polish won't stay on my fingernails for anything, so I had given up hope until these!  My favorite colors are the hot pink, blue, yellow and the glitter ones!  I haven't been daring enough to try the patterned ones.  LOVE THEM!

Teacher Appreciation

Teacher appreciation week comes when us teachers need it the most...the first of May!  I'm the NJHS sponsor at my school and we've got things to give to the teachers every day of the week.  I found almost all of them on other blogs, but there's a couple I came up with that I'm posting here. 

Thanks for holding everything together!

binder clips attached to the tag with curly ribbon

Helping Hand

clear glove filled with different colored, shredded paper with goldfish tied to the back

*I have to say I had completely different plans for this.  I wanted to fill the glove with goldfish but didn't for two reasons...#1 Who wants to eat goldfish that taste like plastic gloves?  #2 It didn't look good at all.

Where I had the most fun was finding something to make Spencer's teachers at school.  I did a little search in blog land and came across this at Skip to my Lou.  I loved that she made the flower picks to where you could insert any name.  I just purchased Gerber daisies at Wal Mart.  I did add a few things different.  I used colored butcher paper to wrap the bottom.  I also printed his teacher's names on card stock to help personalize it a little more.  I used popsicle sticks as the picks.  I really love how they turned out.

What are YOU doing for teacher appreciation this week??

Morning of Superheros

Spencer and I walked at the March of Dimes march for babies Saturday morning and had a wonderful time.  This year it was so much better and at least 10 times as many people there than last year.  (Last year, the weather wasn't so great and it had to be re-scheduled.)  We got there and quickly found my girls from school and guess who popped up from around the stroller??  Spiderman!  Spencer was beside himself!  That boy loves him some Spiderman!  We took tons of pictures with him and the other superheros and Covenant was sponsoring the pictures and you could go to a table after the walk and pick yours up. 

{INSERT THE PICTURE WE PICKED UP HERE}

Our scanner is having serious issues right now.  Maybe I can post it later.  :(

I love how much Spencer loves superheros and I was so glad he got to see all of them, but the more I started thinking about it, the walk that morning was ALL about superheros...Spiderman, Wonder Woman and MOST importantly, all of us walking for such a great cause.  We are all the superheros for these sweet babies.  We're so fortunate to not have had to use this wonderful organization, but we have friends that did and thank goodness for March of Dimes or sweet Pate might not have been here.  Anyway, it was a wonderful 3 mile walk and we had such a great time!

Spencer spotted the firetruck from clear across the park.  He LOVES firetrucks and the fireman let him get inside!  He was on CLOUD NINE!!!

More superheros!!

And these giant horses were right by where we parked and Spencer kept saying, "Take a picture of me!  Take a picture of me!"  Well, he got his wish.