Monster Traps!

So my girl has gotten into a delicate age of having some bad dreams. How do we com our bad dreams ? Together of course. I saw many things for monster spray and decided that I would go a different way. So we each got a box and got started on making our Monster Traps. When they were done we waited until bedtime and then set the traps in her room. When she woke up this morning she checked her boxes and saw they had fallen thru on top! Perfect! Monsters caught!! When you open the box up the insides were a little messy- the lid hole was torn threw the tissue paper and the monster gone. Why? Because once the monster gets trapped it's automatically vanished back to Monsterland. Once that happens the monster is never allowed back because it was caught. Working so far for us- hope it works for your little ones. 

Frozen take over!

I am very happy to report, well actually ecstatic to report that my daughters 4th birthday party is officially done and over with. What have we learned on this journey you ask, we have learned that her 5th Birthday will return to us traveling. For a year I heard my poor daughter reminisce about her very sad 3rd birthday party. Unfortunately, when your born in March it's hit or miss around her birthday as far as weather etc...So age 3 bday we had a Strawberry Shortcake themed party at the house. I even cut out and painted a huge Strawberry shortcake that you could put your face in to take a picture. Well, everyone got sick and backed out, kind of last minute. However to save the day a few close friends made it with their kids and saved it from being a total kidless party!!! Hooray!!!!

So the 4th birthday was going to be above and beyond spectacular!! We had it at a nightclub for kids. Yes that is a thing. My daughter loves singing and dancing so it was perfect. I got on the mama project of 4th bday Frozen dance party planning.

Here are some of the goodies and decorations I made.

Easter bunny redo

So, today's post is something super short and sweet. A friend of mine had given me two pretty large bunny decorations that she did not want anymore. They were styled on the older style of things and had been around for awhile. I liked the size of them but just wasn't my style for the outfits. Know those  standing ones you find in the stores underneath are made with wood and stuffing taped to it, along with the clothing glued on. So as to not tear the fabric from the bunny - I found a great use for some of my daughters old clothes. So it was bunny redo today. Quick- and easy. Love recycling things, especially when having a use for old baby clothes 😍

Always can turn something around and make it useable. Until next time 😉

I did not fall off the face of the earth lol!

Oh my blogging !!! I have missed everything about you and sorry I haven't been around in so long! I basically stopped everything in October. I found a .......lump.... yup. Not even intentionally but I did and that began the spiral. A lump in my breast. So fast forward 6 months and I am free and clear and on the mend from surgery. All is gone and back to normal.

On to the fun stuff! So I have been banging out some amazing dishes - look for me on Instagram -eyezsoulblue. Especially if you love veggies 😁😁

On to the crafting fun. I am in Frozen hell right now. Literally my craft room looks like Elsa and Anna went to war ! Ha ha

My daughter's 4th birthday is right around the corner. We missed the Frozen phase first time around and I thought we were in the clear , but it got us! At this point I am a pretty damn good Elsa vocalist with her for every duet song on the soundtrack. I would also like to point out - it has 32 tracks. Really? Of course like all kids mine only likes the first 12 real songs- the rest are all instrumental.

So I am going WAY over board and I know the hubby wishes I was a bit more "normal" when it came to party planning but I don't know how to do that..... I'm a realist- I accept I don't know how to bring it down a notch! LOL

So a quick one for tonight is this super easy and inexpensive little idea I came up with as part of the favors. I wanted to do a wand of some sort. A snowflake wand or something. Well riddle me this batsman- for 6-10 favors on Etsy or anywhere like that they are charging up to $15 a wand!!!! That's crazy. So I thought - ok off to the craft store I go and I will make them myself. Well after scouting Joanns- Michaels- Hobby Lobby and ACMoore I could not find any snowflakes. Ok- then what??? So as I was wondering around in ACMoore I found these little chalkboard painted craft sticks. BAM -perfect. I tied them in the Frozen colors and on each one I will be writing all of the kiddies names on them. They are perfect - and cost me what buying one craft made one would have cost me. And I made 18 of them! Can't wait until I'm done making all these decorations etc. but it will be fun to post when I'm done :)

A Smaller Version......

Hello All!!!
So it has definitely been to long. Lots of running around and craziness. Isn't it just amazing how sometimes you are so busy, you don't even realize it? Maybe it is just me and my spouts of getting old at 41 😂😂

So, another great thing that I love about being home with my daughter is that I get to discover and find new cool places to go and have fun at with her. Two weeks ago I was looking for something to do with her and I stumbled upon a place online called Historic Cold Springs Village. hcsv.org
It was the first time that I had heard about it. I went to their site and found that they were having a pirate weekend. So a quick decision to take a road trip began. Threw together a packed lunch and snacks for us both and we were ready to roll. ~~SIDE NOTE.- I realized a long time ago that this is a very easy option to do, I always pack a lunch and snacks. I have a great hard case cooler made my igloo. It fits a great amount of things in it too! And guess what? I save a ton of money doing this. Quick healthy lunch ideas we norm do are some granola bars, juicer, waters, almond butter /apple butter sandwiches, carrots, Apple slices, almonds, brown rice cakes .......it truly saves me a ton of money when we are out and also in some cases saves me from spending it on junk food like pizza for lunch.~~

So we hit the road and we're off. We drove a nice Jersey Parkway ride down to exit 0. About a little over an hour in a half ride without stopping. I normally have to make a few stops though lol. Yes, many people think I am crazy because I drive all over doing things with her, but I am being selfish and taking advantage of all of the time I can squeeze out with her now before she gets older and only wants to hang out with her friends lol! 

Once we arrived, parked and paid to get in ( reasonably priced)  I was glad to find out we had only a few minutes to wait and the pirate show was going to begin. Walking the paths to the spot of the performance we came across some "gold" on the ground. She was so excited that she found "gold money!" It was a great part of the experience that they included for the kids. After you collected as much gold as you could, you could trade 3 gold coins for 6 pieces of candy at the "General Store" there. Then the extra coins you could save or scatter on your travels thru the village for other kids to find. Super Cute. We were also lucky enough to score some pirate treasures in the form of rings on our walk thru the village.

So we were in time for the Pirate show and grabbed a seat. The adults and older kids liked the show but was a little hard for young kids to understand the jokes etc. Still super cute and it was so great that the performers stayed in character thru out the day even when they were not doing a show.

The rest of the day we spent walking thru and listening to each building we went to. This place is a smaller version of what I remember Colonial Williamsburg to be from when I was a kid. For 3 yr olds it was a bit over them. She did enjoy seeing the animals (so did I) ......

For kids with the patience to hear what the blacksmith history is and wood maker, etc... then it is great . My girl just liked walking around and from building to building but once the history lesson started she was pretty much ready to move on~ can't blame her. All in all it was an awesome day. I would definitely recommend paying Historic Cold Springs Village a visit. Check online they have different events going on still.

Now for dinner this evening we didn't do anything spectacular as it was a very long and late day. WE had some leftovers which were still yummy.

More to come within the next day or so. Please feel free to follow my blog. Would love to know I am just not writing letters to myself to recap for my own memory at this age hahaha! 

She calls it Mela

One of the things I love most about being blessed to be at home with my daughter is all of the fun things we get to do together. We spend quite a bit of time doing crafts. We both enjoy them and they are always a fun activity. Kids should be able to make messes and get dirty without parents freaking out. Also, if it is a really messy craft we are making we will always throw on her "play" clothes. With her growth sports this is never an issue. If you don't have any clothes that you want your kids to "ruin" or get stained, hit the local Goodwill or thrift store and grab some. My daughter has an array of her own craft supplies I let her use. Everything from glue and scissors to markers, glitter and sand. It is always a great time doing crafts specially when they are teaching her something like words, etc......but I think the best crafts we make our the fun silly for no reason ones. I feel she learns from those crafts too, that I trust her judgment of what she wants to make and I think her ideas are important. I like letting her have a say. And she likes the way she feels when she completes it.

So, at times I do have a mama block where I can't think of some,thug to make or am "bored" with making things along the same line. I know with Pinterest and the Internet there are a million and one ideas at my fingertips , but I'm old school a lot. (And yes I do like 80's music too-HA!)  so what better thing to do than hit the local library. Now, I love to read and am grateful that my daughter loves books. She has quite the collection going. We read  anywhere from 3-4 books a night at bedtime and also sometimes in the day. She loves going to the library where I let her help pick the books, along with playing with their toys. So each week we leave with about 20-25 books just for her. If there is one she truly loves then it goes on my book list of one to buy for her as a gift. Anyway, last time we went I decided to look up if there were any children's craft books and all I can say is WOW! I was so excited to see an entire section! Score!!!

So we got a few fun craft idea books, but nothing that was jumping out at me. But one night in one of our three book selections for bedtime, I read her a story about a little girl and her apple doll. It was a cute story and Whammo! That was what I was looking for! Something new and fun to do together. The next day we gathered all of our supplies and we're ready to rock out making an apple doll of our own.  There are all different directions online on how to make one but if you want to read the story with your little one and then make one, the story is called The Apple Doll, by Elisa Kleven.
It is not a one day project it is more like a 3 day project. But the end results are so worth it.

My daughter named her Mela which happens to be Apple in Italian. 😍
So without further a due .......meet Mela

Until next time folks. Have a wonderful weekend!

Simple play

It's been a few busy days. Hope everyone is well. A recap of the last few days.....
I went to see a very close friend of mines son play a football scrimmage game. Now, I have never been a huge die hard sports fan. My personal opinion is some people when it comes to professional sports are crazy.. I have seen people so much as to get "their" team names tattooed on them.....I can not understand this concept. Unless, I personally owned a very sizable stock or part of the team you would not see me do that. I also think that the amount of money that they are paid is ridiculous, but again just my thoughts.  I do enjoy sports but am just not a die hard of any of them. So, we ventured on our little road trip, me and my daughter to go see my fav boy play. They live about an hour from us, so the night before I let my daughter pack her book bag with some things. Has anyone else ever let their kids pack a bag?
I am completely amazed at how their little brains work sometimes and the things they reason and make sense of. After putting her to bed I checked out her book bag to throw in a box of crayons.....this list is the contents that were packed...

1 Tablet
1 Doc Mcstuffins stuffed doll
1 Lego chair (no Lego people though )
1 Giant size car coloring book (no crayons)
1 rubber Doc Mcstuffins ball
1 strand of "let it snow" Christmas ribbon
Kleenex (boogie conscious)
Sunblock (she is very sun conscious)
1 "Frozen" mini flashlight (it was an early afternoon game)
2 small Highlights baby books and last but not least,
1 magic wand.

In the morning I told her that I put in a small box of crayons and she thanked me. I asked if we really needed all of these things and quite frankly was told "Yes, these are all important!" Ok then, I have learned what battles to pick and this was not one to bother with. Next, she came out of the bathroom with her Paw Patrol loofah and explained how "Marshall" really needed to come. This one was a no go for Mama, and I explained how he is a bath toy- not a lets bring him to a dirty field toy and then bath with him. She wasn't happy, but I think she understood. 
We packed up all of our yummy snacks and were on the way. One last thing grab the camera bag before walking out the door and we are off! The whole ride down she listened to her music and sang, didn't use anything from her bag of goodies and necessities. 
Once we got there we found my girlfriend and headed to the bleachers to watch the game. I was very excited to get to see her son play. I was also happy to get some photos and hopefully with the 200 pics I snapped there would be some really good ones. My daughter did awesome hanging around for 2.5hrs. She ate every single thing we brought as if she had never been fed before, but she still did amazing. She played on her tablet a few minutes and that was it. She didn't even touch any of the other things she brought. She played on the bleachers - with pretend "floors" of a house and was more than content to go up and down the bleachers as the upstairs and downstairs, kitchen etc...

It was a great day. We all had a nice time and it's nice to see with all the gadgets and toys that, kids still use their imaginations and play in the simplest ways, which sometimes is the most fun.

Dinner this night was not as gourmet as most nights because of time etc., but I still managed to whip up a little yummy breakfast for dinner. Mine was the vegetarian option. Hubbys was the ham, and daughter was no potato.

I do try to always use amazing fresh ingredients and healthier options when I cook. So, I only used one potato to divide between me and hubby. I also rarely ever use white potato but it worked well for this. The pics don't do the meal justice. 
I baked the potato in the oven. When it was done, I let it cool for about 10-15 mins and then I scooped out the insides. I put them aside. I chopped up some red onion, and a little bell pepper, and threw it into a pan with a little extra virgin. Some sea salt and pepper and let that fry up nicely, when the veggies got soft I added in the potato and a little more seasoning. Meanwhile, I made the eggs and a little cheese with them. I also chopped up some ham. When the eggs were done I mixed them with my pepper/onion concoction and scooped it all into each potato half. Back in the oven and bing done. Quick , yummy, and satisfying. 

My fav big boy is in the white on the right hand side! 

and of course a few snaps of dinner :) Like I said the pictures don't do justice on this meal.

Thats about it..... I will be posting very soon. Have a beautiful Thursday folks!