Vintage Buttons Make Me Happy

I collect several things, but none so much as vintage buttons. If I see buttons, I have to have them all. I am someone that sees the buttons on a piece before I see the rest of the garment and have often bought things for the buttons alone and then torn them off, sewn on new ones and donated the unworn piece. Buttons make me happy, be it that they hold someone's history or the colors are so bright, the materials are so different or any other reason, I just enjoy seeing them.

I keep so many in jars that I cannot bear to part with, but I also craft with many of them. Button bracelets are one of my favorite things to make with them along with brooches, rings and of course putting them on clothing!

My children volunteer at our local history museum and this past weekend worked WWI days, where they work as village interpreters of children during that time. Here they are in the 1 room school house. Everything they do MUST be done in that time period, even the lunch and snack they bring. This of course sent mom on a scavenger hunt for the right drinking receptacles and lunch totes. They have been doing this for 2 years now and it has been such a learning experience for not only them but for those of us that go and see them too! Being on the hunt for certain items has led me to many vintage and antique shoppes and that has been so fun for my button addiction!

I was finally able to procure a basket with embroidered napkin for my daughter and a vintage lunch pail with lid for my son. They are using dairy glass jars for drinking and mason jars for their snacks, or they must be wrapped in brown paper.

At this past event, they had several vendors set up and I was able to pick up this super cute bag shown on the bottom left, I knew I loved it straight away but also knew exactly what it needed. I got right to work when I got home and added a line of buttons on the front pocket. Now it is absolutely perfect! This shout-out goes to The Hotsy Totsy Housewife for having such amazing goodies and I cannot wait for WWII days to see what else I will buy from her! The purse & the lunch pail were perfection but I also added on a skirt and wish I had picked up more!

Enjoy every minute my friends!

 

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Tis the Season for Giving!

The end of the week should always be seen with excitement of what is to come, but this week has been full of a lot of testing and boring work and it had started to drag! Instead of hitting the books at home, we packed up and headed to the local Dunkin' Donuts to not only do our work but to spread good cheer! We arrived armed with coupons and cash for each child and after settling into the booth we began our work and say quietly so that we could listen to each person order and as they were just about done 1 child would spring up, grab their cash and head to the register to pay for them! Spreading good cheer was not only fun and teaching the kids that giving feels so much better than getting BUT it kept them silent and focused on their work too! Double Win!

This morning our Elf Pet, hot coffee, was found in the Elf Club House that the kids made. It's still not ready, they were waiting for the glue to dry, but they plan on making it into some kind of scene. I love when kids get crafty!

THERE HE IS!!! It took a bit of searching to find Charlie this morning, but that could be because he was up high in our mistletoe ball! What a silly elf sending out kisses to all!

The Biggest, Best Snowman by Margery Cuvler was our read for this day. I only wish a book this magical could be read on a day when there was real snow outdoors and not a 40* day that has us outside with only light sweaters on!

Look what we found!!! The perfect sled for elves and their friends. This will be gifted to the elf once the children have painted it and made it 'elf ready'. Head over to Joann Fabrics for this awesome craft that will be sure to have your children working together and brainstorming!

Enjoy every minute my friends!!

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Feeling Creative and Cozy

This year for Christmas we are surprising our kids with a Disney Cruise we are taking next year. I have been collecting and ordering things for the surprise as well as things that I like to call Disney Mail that will arrive once a month until 2 months before the trip and then they will begin to arrive once a week. I like to build the anticipation, so that they are not just looking forward to one day, but what may come before that day. I recently found this Free Printable HERE and knew that it would be easy to find a Disney picture frame to do this. Once the frame arrived, I printed out this sheet and it was perfect! I cannot wait to see their expression as the countdown gets smaller and smaller. I know that they will be excited to count down each day on the frame and erase the previous one. Another idea would be to buy a plane and unfinished wood frame and have your kids decorate it themselves and you can change it out for each vacation that you are counting down to.   

We are expecting snow here in the Midwest this weekend and this morning felt extra chilly. It felt like the perfect day to grab breakfast at Dunkin Donuts and have some hot chocolate and then do our school work for the day right there. I love taking these kids out and about and they enjoy it too. I often times realize that they seem to focus more when we are outside of our home classroom.

I like the DD in our neighborhood as it only seems to get crowded inside during the evening hours and the drive thru is crowded the rest of the day, this makes it the perfect place for homeschoolers! We can usually hang out a few hours and get some work done while chatting and snacking and having fun together.

Enjoy every minute my friends!

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Thinking Thoughts on Thursday...

As I sit here surrounded by maps and guidebooks and train schedules along with flight information, I am realizing how quickly time is passing. We are headed to Philadelphia, New Jersey & New York in September and are very excited but also very exhausted with planning. There is so much we want to do, that there is no way we can squeeze it all in to 1 week. So of course my mind begins to wander and I am all over the place, because of this, today's post will be all over the place with a few topics that are here and there.

Don't have the time or funds for a vacation? How about a staycation?! Head to a local hotel or museum in your town/city and in the lobby they tend to have free brochures all about your area. Put together a fun itinerary for the weekend, exploring new places and if you have extra funds or plan ahead, stay in a local hotel with a pool, to add on the fun of it all! Can't do that? Make a day of fun experiences and then head home and have everyone bunk together in one room for the night watching movies and chatting or a living room sleepover with some fun, family activities!

 

Thrifty Thursday craft tip is to make an angel out of an old hardcover book, these are a dime a dozen at bag sales and so easy to do! Once you've folded down a triangle of EACH page, just use a hot glue gun to bunch ribbon and glue to the left and right side where the book covers are exposed, these become the angels wings. Do the same at the bottom, so that it defines her dress. Add a styro-ball head and yarn or something similar for hair. Making a triangle pouch up front is perfect for holding a rosary or gift card.

I have a large notebook that I keep with me when I read, along with post-its and pens and highlighters. I like to jot down notes and or quotes that speak to me as I go along and in the case of books where authors feel the need to toss in 100 different characters, then I need to keep track of them somehow. As I read I use the post-it notes to mark areas of the book that I want to look at again or what I think is a pivotal part of the story. Am I the only nerd that reads like this?

Break free & enjoy every minute my friends!

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Wordless Wednesday...Kind Of!

Welcome to our busiest season! I am trying so hard to keep up, but it seems to always get the best of me! We were out of town and just got back yesterday. If course I paid the house sitters and made plans for them to come back tomorrow! How on earth can we even get laundry done? Maybe we should just buy all new clothes! 

How was your Easter? It was absolutely fantastic for us! We had 4 stops to make but all worked out well and with great efficiency!

Our sunflowers are growing! Now if only it would warm up to allow us a transplant! I cannot wait to see these continue to blossom. The kids enjoy watering their plants every day and measuring their growth.

I love catching my children playing quietly. I always hear that quiet children are up to no good, but so far I have only found friends playing quietly and unwinding from long mornings!

This morning we are listening to Kingdom Keepers book I on CD. This is a great way to get them to settle in for a day of studying! We love our early and quiet mornings where we break a little from the routine!

Enjoy every minute my friends!

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Menu Plan Monday...On Thursday!

Yeah, Yeah,Yeah...I know the day is all wrong, but like I said before, I have to catch up!
Seeing as how the week is pretty much over for us, I'm sharing what we had!
Monday: Fundraiser for 4H, so we had pizza and salad and other fun goodies!
Tuesday: Ham, Green Beans & Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes with Spinach & Baby Greens Salad
Wednesday: Buffalo Chicken Bake over pasta with seasoned potato wedges and served with tomato and cucumber slices.

Thursday: Our Housesitters have arrived and we are headed out for the Holiday weekend! Tonight we wait in line for our favorite author Ridley Pearson. We will be eating with friends after that!

Friday: Good Friday! Out to dinner as we are out of town and same with Saturday!
Sunday: Happy Easter! We are doing brunch with the family and then hanging out at the zoo! Brunch is usually far too filling and we skip dinner with just a late dessert to top off the day!

Buffalo Chicken Recipe:
1. Dice up your chicken breasts into whatever size you want and then put in a glass dish and cover with buffalo sauce to marinate overnight. 

2. When it's time to cook, set oven to 350* and then toss your chicken into a baking dish with sauce and then add more so that all the chicken is covered. Top with shredded cheese (We used colby jack) and pop into the oven for 35-40 minutes.

3. Wash and cut up your potato wedges (8 large potatoes) and melt 1/2 stick of butter with garlic and parsley + any other seasonings you would like. Pour butter mixture over potato wedges and toss. Place in baking dish and also at 350 for 35-40 minutes (Check for crispness)

4. While that is in the oven get your pasta water ready to begin a boil at about 15 minutes to cooking time.

5. Chop scallions to top the wedges and the chicken bake.

6. Make salad of your choice, we ate all the celery and carrot sticks for snack today, so we had to go with tomato and cucumber slices.

7. Your pasta and all the oven goodies should finish at the same time. Turn off the oven and leave your potatoes to crisp up as you finish with the chicken bake.

8. Get a large bowl to serve out of that will also allow you to mix in. Toss in some of the pasta, then some of the chicken, some of the pasta, some of the chicken. Continue to layer but make sure it's only the chicken going in, NOT the sauce.

9. With what is left of the sauce, add in flour a little at a time to make a thicker sauce to pour over the entire bowl that you have layered. Begin to mix it all together and then top with scallions!

10. ENJOY!

Enjoy your weekend my friends!!

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Sunday School Post #9

Okay, it's not quite Sunday, but I have a lot of posts to make up and I don't want to skip them or else it will just keep piling up! The other 8 posts in this series can be found HERE! Is anyone else out there an office supply addict? I can't help it, they suck me in and no matter how many pens and pencils I have, I want more!! Binders are my latest addiction and I love organizing them with tabs and folders and all that good stuff, but what better way to dress one up than with beautiful pictures! Once my kids finish a Seton Homeschool book, we don't throw it away, we recycle!! I cut out the photos and keep them in a file folder for using in binders, laminating and or framing. A great and beautiful way to upcycle! Another thing we collect, are Holy Cards and Prayer cards. Autumn keeps hers in baseball card sheets when they are related to her Little Flowers group, but the others we love to put on book rings to make them portable and easy to keep track of!

This week the Little Flowers studied St. Catherine of Siena and what better way to pay homage to her than to plant sunflowers?! The girls decorated their little 'pots', then we stuck in a biodegradeable planter and put the seeds right in! One week later and LOOK! They are made to be transplanted right into the ground as is, when removed from their 'pot'. 

Our St. Catherine of Siena binder page had a 3D sunflower, quote, picture and Memory Verse #1, I like to keep it simple, so that the girls have a chance to finish it while in the meeting and listening to stories of the Saint we are studying that day.

Autumn completed all 10 tasks and earned her first badge for FAITH! She is so excited and just wants to wear her sash EVERYWHERE! I had her sash embroidered and it looks so cute!

Type of the memory verses, laminate them and place them in a book ring to make it easy for the girls to study on their own and to keep them portable.

A great way for kids to keep track of a saint or subject they are learning about is to have them take notes in their book! Construction paper, index cards and some photos for coloring make it fun to learn!

Books of the Bible bookmarks are a great way to help your kids learn the books and at the same time keep pages marked in their own unique way! I printed them out, they colored them and then I laminated them! Get your own HERE!

It was finally time to upgrade my daughter's Bible! She has had a children's one for so long and has been wanting my wedding day Bible (Shown on the right) but I am not quite ready to pass that on yet...so it was time to look and find! I am so glad I took the time to really make a decision with this, because we fell in LOVE with the same one and we knew that this was it. The Catholic Youth Bible is a GREAT choice for teens, tweens and any kids that have outgrown the children ones. 

We are just about done with the Love Dare, in fact it all ends tomorrow for us and I cannot stress enough how awesome it has been! Have you done it yet?

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Menu Planning...

It's Menu Plan time, I had to push it back a day, due to our celebrations! One thing my kids absolutely adore is fruit, a favorite is our fruit rainbow and I fill the cups with yogurt and they become the white clouds and the kids dip their fruit in the yogurt. 

Google is an AWESOME resource for checking out different menu plan templates that work for your family. Just pop over and do a google image search. This is the one I have been using recently. Now, on with the men!
Monday ~ Out to dinner for birthday!!

Tuesday ~ Crock Pot Pork Chops with green beans and corn, served with sliced cucumbers and tomatoes with salt & lime.

Wednesday ~ Bean & Cheese Gorditas with Mexican Rice served with garden salad and lime wedge dressing.

Thursday ~ Buffalo Chicken bites with carrot and celery slives and served with vegetable soup

Friday ~ Potato, Broccoli & Cheese soup served with homemade bread and baby greens salad.

Saturday ~ Out with my grandfather for his birthday celebration

Sunday ~ Out with friends for our birthdays

OUCH, that's a lot of eating out! I just happen to be friends with people who all have birthday surrounding me and they all want to go out to dinner...so it is only once a year ;)

Enjoy every minute my friends!

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