Day 33: Birthday Party Invites

Day 33 of 365: Birthday Party Invites

This year has really flown by! My baby G is going to be one in just over a week! I can't believe it, I have a one year old... He is growing up so fast. He's almost walking, saying a lot more (dada, sit, ma, na, and dada, dada, dada!!), standing and climbing, eating big boy foods and really developing a fun personality.

I have a monster birthday party planned for him and I needed to send out invites. I have a private board on Pinterest with my ideas and I have a ton of invites pinned. They all led to ETSY- love that site. However, I did not want to spend $15 on just a PDF or JPEG of an invite and still spend money on printing and envelopes. I am all about supporting ETSY businesses but I feel like I'm creative and could figure it out (it was my backup plan though!). I found a website called: www.picmonkey.com and it is a editing/design website that offers a lot of free resources. The one thing I NEEDED on the invite was a banner and of course you had to upgrade to the royale package to get that feature. It was only $4.99 for a month subscription and I had just collected some Ibotta money in my PayPal account so it was basically free!

 

To create this invite, I went to the design tab and chose the 5 x 7 size.
1. Banner and Balloons: Go to themes (the button on the left that looks like an apple) and a choose celebrate. Go under party bunting and the banner is there. You can choose your own colors for the flags. I also found the balloons in that section. There are a few different ones and again you can choose your own colors.

**To keep the colors consistent there is a number/letter sequence assigned to each color. I wrote down the combo for each color I used to make things easier for me.**

2. Then I added text for the title. There are tons of font choices and color choices.

3. Most of the rest are "overlays" that I added. To add the picture go to overlay (button on the left that looks like a butterfly) choose your own at the top and you can get a picture that is saved to your computer. The monsters were under the critters section. There were a lot to choose from. You can choose the colors for those too.

4. The actual info for the party had a few different components. First was a rectangle overlay, then font and the boarder was created using the flourish tab under the overlays. Those are only available if you upgrade to Royale.

5. The chevron at the bottom was just a picture I found that I saved to my computer and attached to the invite.

Hope this little tutorial helps! Talk to you soon!

Day 32: Avocado, Tomato, Mozzarella Salad

Day 32 of 365: Avocado, Tomato, Mozzarella Salad

Well, we are back from our "freecation" and we had a blast. It wasn't actually free because we HAD to stop at the outlet mall. We found an outfit for baby G's first birthday and the cutest little Nike shoes. We didn't make it to the zoo either because the weather was soooo bad :( but we did get to go swimming. I think we had a great time on our first "freecation!"

Whenever there is a great sale of avocados I make this salad. The best part is the mustard vinaigrette dressing! I found this recipe in a cookbook a while back and we added olives because the hubby and I love them. It is a great side salad for most meals.

Here's what you need:
- 1 to 2 avocados (depending on how much you like avocados)
- 1 to 2 tomatoes
- 1 pkg of fresh mozzarella
- 1 can of black olives
Dressing:
- 1/4 C of extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon coarse ground mustard (or any grainy mustard)
- 1 tablespoon sugar (I don't add this and it tastes great)

1. Cut up the avocado, tomato and cheese and put in a medium sized bowl. Add desired amount of olives.

                                                 

2. Mix together the dressing ingredients and pour over the salad. Cover and chill in refrigerator for an hour or more. (I have made the salad without time to chill and the salad was still great.)

 

I hope you like this salad as much as we do. Talk to you later!

Day 31: Baby Oil Shave Gel

Day 31 of 365: Baby Oil Shave Gel

Winter is over! Not if you look at the thermometer but according to the calendar and I'm on SPRING BREAK!! So it has come to my attention that having a baby is EXPENSIVE! For the last few years the hubby and I have gone on spring break vacations. This year it is not in the budget :( We attempted to plan a "freecation" to get away for a day or two. The hubby discovered some Hyatt points from our honeymoon 5 years ago (equals free night stay!) and found a hotel with a pool for baby G. He LOVES the water. We recently went to a pool party and he was sooooo happy in the water! We also have some gift cards saved up from Christmas for a few restaurants, so dinner's free. And we bought a zoo pass so we will take a trip to the zoo and check out the dolphins and the family zoo. I can't wait!!
I will have to get in the pool (eek!) and saw this pin for smooth legs and no stubble for days if you use baby oil as shave gel . Perfect time to try it out!

Here's what you need:
- baby oil or baby oil gel
- razor
- hairy legs :)

1. After getting my legs wet, I applied a small amount of baby oil gel to each leg.
2. Shave as usual.
You will have to rinse your razor often because the oil clogs it up. I also had to wipe the razor every once in a while with a wash cloth.

Pros:                                                                                  Cons:

1. My legs are very smooth                                                  1. Oil clogs razor
2. No stubble                                                                      2. Took twice as long to shave
**Update- 2 days later and they are still smooth

While looking at the website from the pin I saw that those were the same complaints on the comments. I saw that some people use conditioner instead. I will try that next time.

Talk to you soon, after my freecation!!

Day 30 Cheesy Honey Mustard Chicken

Day 30 of 365: Cheesy Honey Mustard Chicken

For Lent this year the hubby and I gave up fast food. After coming home late from work and just being exhausted because baby G likes to wake up 2 (or 3 or 4...) times in the middle of the night, we have been turning to fast food for dinner. So I checked Pinterest for some easy, delicious recipes. Chicken is not my favorite meat, especially after being pregnant (I couldn't even look at chicken without getting sick) but the hubby likes it. I was looking through my recipe board and saw that I had Cheesy Honey Mustard Chicken pinned and had most of the ingredients, oh, and it included bacon!! Bacon makes everything better! This recipe comes from plainchicken.com
 
Here's what you need:
4 boneless chicken breast
3/4 cup honey
1/2 cup Dijon mustard
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp paprika
lemon pepper to taste
4 Tbsp bacon, cooked and chopped (I used Oscar Meyer bacon bits in the yellow bag)
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

 
Follow these easy steps:

1. Preheat oven to 375.

 

 2. Season chicken breasts with lemon pepper.  Place in 9x13 baking dish.

 

3. Combine honey, mustard, lemon juice and paprika.

 

4. Pour over chicken.  Bake for 20-25 minutes.

 



 

5. Top each chicken breast with 1 Tablespoon of bacon and 1/4 cup mozzarella cheese.  Continue to bake until cheese is starting to brown (about 10 minutes).

This was super easy for a work night and it was delicious!

Rating out of 5 (5 being the best):

Difficulty: 4 (because of the measuring and taking the chicken out, putting on the topping and the additional cooking)

Taste: 4 (I would add less honey next time)

Cost: 4 (the chicken and bacon bits made this a little costly, but I had everything else)

Well let me know what you think of this recipe! I served this with the hubby's favorite Pinterest salad. Recipe coming soon!!

Day 29 BFF Mugs

Day 29 of 365: BFF Mugs

I have a long distance BFF relationship. She is always there for me but I do miss her a ton. Especially because our families are growing and we do miss out of the day to day stuff. I saw these BFF mugs a while ago and decided to try them out. My plan was to make them, send them and surprise her, but I'm terrible with secrets. I made them and immediately sent her a pic (and made her cry - pregnancy hormones will do that). I was super excited about this project because it gave me a reason to use my Cricut Machine and my 50 States cartridge. I am sure you could make this easily with a print out of the state but since I had the resource I wanted to use it.

I cut out an Illinois and New York with the Cricut machine. Then I taped the die cut to the mug and traced with a black sharpie. I read that if you mess up, a damp cloth will remove sharpie. Then I put red hearts where we both live and then made a dashed path between our homes. The website that the original pin is from had one state per mug, but I thought it would be nice to have both states on both mugs. In the inside I wrote "MISS YOU!" The last step is to bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. This helps to seal in the marker. Supposedly you can wash the mugs without messing up the marker. I haven't tried yet, they are super hot sitting on my oven right now. I will update later. **I washed the mugs and it didn't wash off the writing! ** 

 

               

 
Now you just need to find a long distance friend! Or this could work for a long distance family member...

Talk to you later!

Day 28 Peach Moons

Day 28 of 365: Peach Moons

When I was pregnant with Baby G I craved Blue Moon. Of course I found a bunch of recipes for drinks because I couldn't have them. One recipe was for Peach Moons, a combination of Blue Moon, peach schnapps and orange juice. After one crazy day a work, the hubby made these for me. They pack a little punch so it definitely helped with my crazy day. These will be on my summer drink list for sure!

Here's what you need: (the website listed the ingredients not the amounts, here's what I used)
- One Blue Moon
- 1 oz shot of Peach Schnapps
- Splash of orange juice

Pour ingredients together in a Pilsner glass and give a quick swirl to mix. Enjoy!

If you notice, Baby G was sound asleep in the monitor ;)

Day 27 Smashed Potatoes

Day 27 of 365: Smashed Potatoes

So this is my first day of Spring Break and I have decided that I will try my best to "catch up" to my pin a day quota. I have tried a lot of pins over the last month (or two) so here goes my attempt. (By the way, Baby G does not make this an easy task...as he is trying to pull down all the books from my shelf...)

These smashed potatoes are my new favorite side dish! They do require a few steps but I have been able to make these on a work night. The first time I made them we ate them with chili, almost like a loaded baked potato. The second, third, forth....time we just ate them as a side. Either way, they are delicious. This recipe is from the Pioneer Woman.

What you need:

- 12 New Potatoes (or other small, round potato)
- 3 table spoons of Olive Oil (I probably used more)
- Sea Salt
- Black Pepper,
- whatever herb you like (she used rosemary, I don't like herbs so I used garlic)

 
Steps:
1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add in as many potatoes as you wish to make and cook them until they are fork-tender.

2. On a sheet pan, generously drizzle olive oil. Place tender potatoes on the cookie sheet leaving plenty of room between each potato.

3. With a potato masher, gently press down each potato until it slightly mashes, rotate the potato masher 90 degrees and mash again.

4. Brush the tops of each crushed potato generously with more olive oil.

5. Sprinkle potatoes with kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper and herbs (rosemary, chives, thyme or whatever herb you have available).

6. Bake in a 450 degree oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.
7. ENJOY!

Here is our "loaded" baked potatoes. 

Well hopefully talk to you later today!

Day 26 Monster Valentines

Day 26 of 365: Monster Valentines

This is an old pin creation but I thought it would be fun to mention. I was looking through Instagram and saw some valentines my friend made for her daughter's classmates. I was inspired. They were adorable and looked like something I could pull off, especially because Baby G only has 3 kids at his (at the time) babysitter. I wanted to make monster valentines and found some on Pinterest (of course). I thought about making this February 13th because I am last minute with EVERYTHING! Luckily I have a ridiculous amount of scrapbook supplies so I had everything we needed except googly eyes. I sent the hubby on a wild goose chase but he couldn't find them. I randomly found some in my craft box that I tore apart. BTW-did you know that looking for Dove chocolate hearts the day before Valentine's Day is a waste of time? Every store I sent the hubby too was completely sold out. Baby G's valentines got Nerd Ropes instead.

You need:
~Cardstock in your favorite colors (Baby G wanted green and orange)
~glue dots (or any double sided adhesive)
~googly eyes

First I cut an 8 1/2" by 11" paper into four for the background of the valentines. Then I drew monster shapes on the other paper. I actually found a monster template on Google images and traced it on my paper. To be honest, we just got Windows 8 and I cant figure out how to print.

Then I glued the monsters on the orange paper and glued on an eye. We did one per valentine and wrote "Valentine... I've got my eye on you!" but I also saw, "Valentine...I've got my eyes on you!" and the monsters had many eyes. I also drew a mouth and teeth or a tongue. I was going to attach a chocolate heart to their bellies but we couldn't find those, so the kids got Nerd Ropes.

 

 

Here's the final products. I think they turned out cute! I know Colette's son enjoyed it!! :)

Well that's all for today. Talk to you soon!

Day 25 Refrigerator Raspberry Oatmeal

Day 25 of 365: Refrigerator Raspberry Oatmeal


My lunch time at work has recently freed up and I decided to take on lunch duty a few times a week at my school. It's not a bad gig and you get paid to eat your lunch and supervise students. Anyway, I was browsing my boards for some lunch ideas that don't require a microwave. I am really getting sick of sandwiches and yogurt. I saw Raspberry Vanilla Refrigerator Oatmeal and had to try it. I had most of the ingredients, even the seedless jam from a Christmas cookie recipe.

You will need:

1/4 cup uncooked old fashioned rolled oats

1/3 cup skim milk

1/4 cup low-fat Greek yogurt

1-1/2 teaspoons dried chia seeds (I didn't use these because I couldn't find them)

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon raspberry jam, preserves, or spread

1/4 to 1/3 cup raspberries (cut each berry in half), or enough to fill jar

 

In a half pint (1 cup) jar, add oats, milk, yogurt, chia seeds, vanilla, and raspberry jam. Put lid on jar and shake until well combined.

 

Remove lid, add raspberries and stir until mixed throughout. Return lid to jar and refrigerate overnight or as long as 2-3 days. Eat chilled.

 

I made these in a pint jar and then put them in 4 oz jars that I had already for baby G's homemade food. They were perfect size to take to lunch or bring as a quick breakfast.

These were super yummy! The hubby said he liked the texture but couldn't taste them because he had a bad cold. I will be making these again but I will be trying it will blackberries, blueberries and maybe strawberry-banana.

I won't say talk to you tomorrow because it has really been hard for me to post lately but I will say talk to you soon!