Just a Day in the Life of a Mom with Twins

I really should have made a video but I didn't have time and I really wanted to get this up before Christmas is too far over.   I'm going to be making four Christmas jars filled with goodies to give out as little gifts with Christmas cards. I'll be making the Grinch, Santa, Rudolph, and Frosty. This is not my original idea, I found this online.   Supplies Needed: Jelly jars (8oz) in the quantity of your desire Something to fill the jar with. I used eatable items for each.  Hot glue gun For Santa: Craft Belt Buckle Black Ribbon Red & White Mints Instructions: Fill jar with the red & white mints. Cut a black ribbon the width of the jar and then thread on a craft belt buckle. I found the belt buckles at Hobby Lobby. Hot glue the ribbons with the buckle around the middle of the jar. For Grinch: Small Red Heart Red Ribbon Green Andy's Mints   Instructions: Fill the jar with the Andy's Mints. I got mine at the Dolla...

Christmas 2016 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I honestly thought we wouldn’t make it this far this year as 2016 was really rough for us. Between replacing the hot water heater, my family getting stuck in Percy, Arkansas, the car dying twice, the basement being torn up because of water damage, and the fun adventures with a new dishwasher I cannot wait to say goodbye to twenty-sixteen. I am reminded though that although we can be in the midst of trials there are always things to be thankful for. This year started out with Eric being let go of his job at Bill Jacobs. A huge blow to us because he was really enjoying his new position. The company though had decided to get rid of the entire department so multiple people were out of work. He finally found a new position at Zimmerman Ford in St. Charles. The pace was a lot slower than his previous job but it was easy work. As time went on old co-workers tried to get Eric to leave his job and come work for them, but he stuck...

Recipe from Taste of Home Christmas Cookbook Makes 2 1/2 Dozen Ingredients: 1/2 cup butter, softened 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided 1 egg 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon Directions: Preheat oven to 375 In a large bowl, cream butter and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda and cream of tartar; gradually add to the creamed mixture and mix well. In a small bowl, combine cinnamon and remaining sugar. Shape dough into 1in balls. Roll in cinnamon-sugar. Place 2in apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes or light browned. Remove to wire racks to cool. 

While I am home sick in bed...I thought I should be productive in some type of way. So here are a number of different household cleaners made with essential oils. I thought this would be fun for my DIYers and fellow essential oil fans. Since everything causes cancer now-a-days I'm trying to get far away from all the chemicals that I can. So... let's get to it! Kitchen Cleaners Lemon Disposal Cleaner :  1/4 cup baking soda 1/4 cup lemon juice (fresh or in a jar) Mix the baking soda and lemon juice together to make a pasty liquid. The liquid will start fizzing - quickly pour down the disposal. Let is sit for at least 5 minutes. Run cold water and turn on the disposal. Run for up to a minute.  Lemon & Clove Nightly Sink Scrub 2 cups baking soda 10 drops lemon essential oil 10 drops clove essential oil dish soap (don't add to jar) container with a shaker top Put the baking soda and essential oils in the jar and mix well with a knife. Sprinkle in a damp sin...

Mr. Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States of America I don't usually talk politics or hot topic issues on social media so I debated for a long while on whether or not I would blog about Mr. Donald Trump becoming the President-elect. I finally decided that this is historic and I should be talking about this. So I sat and thought about this subject pretty much all day long trying to figure out how I wanted to articulate my words.  Are we truly surprised it ended like this? I must say, I'm not. What we saw in the American people this year was a want for change. President Obama started that with his campaign in 2009 and it's very much alive and well today. We no longer wanted "politicians" but the "every day man," enter in Mr. Donald Trump and Mr. Bernie Sanders. The second no surprise to me is that we have a Republican in office once again. This is a typical pattern that we often see, one political party will hold the office fou...

Let's be honest,  we’d love to make our wedding day a spectacularly affair. We dream of breathtaking styling and fabulous details, but that dream can be a little overwhelming if you don’t know what you’re doing.  Here are fifteen tips from a wedding planner to give you a leg up on the whole wedding planning process. 1. Set a budget and stick to it Be realistic when you sit down with your husband or bride-to-be and discuss what you can afford. Sure, everyone would love to have a royal wedding but is that practical? Start your list with your "must haves." Perhaps flowers are an essential to throwing your garden themed wedding or you'd rather spend a little extra on your guests experience so you rent a photo booth. While there is no right or wrong way to throw a wedding, going beyond budget will hurt you in the end and could cost you much more than you expected.  2. Don't be afraid to show some backbone Keep in mind that this is your wedding and what you says...

Can you believe it's the Holiday season already? Someone please tell me where the year goes... I was at the store picking up soup for my husband when I ran into the calendar endcap. I usually pass this section by as the upcoming year is far from my mind. Well not tonight. Tonight I realized it's November and soon we'll be sitting around the dinner table surrounded by friends and family exclaiming what we are thankful for only to realize that Christmas has come and gone, our new years resolutions are once again a thing of the past, and summer is coming to a close. No seriously, where does the year go? I picked up a disney 2017 calendar because yes I'm still a child at heart and love my disney. But more importantly I've been thinking about what 2017 means to me. It means a new hope and adventure. I could sit here and say how 2016 was such a hard year for us (it really was). I could complain about all the stressful endeavors that occurred, the disappointments, the ...

Today's blog entry is going to be how to prepare to meet with your wedding vendors. This could be your Photographer, Videographer, Florist, the Bakery, the Venue, anyone that is going to play a part in your big day.  If you don't prepare yourself for the meeting you're about to go into it could lead to a lot of awkward silent moments, fumblings of words and ideas, you could potentially forget to tell them something really important about your day and you remember hours after the meeting has already occurred. A great vendor is going to be someone who knows how to keep the conversation flowing, they're going to ask a lot of open ended questions (not just yes or no answers) and they're going to want to find out as much as they possibly can about you within the timeframe that is allowed. Not all vendors are like this, I had a Photographer one time who was just really laid back, and waited to be given direction instead of doing his own thing, so as the Wedding Planner ...

Well it's been a hot minute since I've written a post. I want to get back to my Wedding Bliss Blog but I feel like I have to show what we've been up to within the last month.  We had a BBQ at our place for the 4th of July. Fireworks are one of my favorite things, so we cooked out and then caught the shuttle to rib fest to watch their 30 minute firework display.  This is where life got a little crazy. A few days later we ended up with no hot water for a week. Our hot water heater finally kicked the bucket after 12 years. I quickly became friends again with the gym, working out and then taking hot showers there. The day we were supposed to get a new hot water heater the guy came, installed the new one but couldn't get it to stop leaking...So what's he do? Shuts off the water. So now not only do we not have hot water, we have NO water. Made for an interesting night/day. The following day they came back (late mind you) and got everything hooked up the way it sho...