Keeping a calendar

We are kicking off the summer by keeping busy, very busy! To keep everything organized, we decided to use our dry erase calendar (also to practice the days of the week.) Lyla knows what day (day,date, month, and year) it is EVERYDAY! It amazes me sometimes. 

We are doing summer school activities to keep her in somewhat of a routine during our busy schedule and to learn new things.  

I bought these at Easter time and they are fantastic! If you don't have them...go buy them...now:) They work great and don't run out like dry erase markers. They also have a great little cloth to wipe away your mistakes or to draw a new picture. Lyla was very adamant about doing all of the numbers by herself. She is doing so great with her fine motor skills.  

We also wrote and drew pictures of all of the fun things we are doing this month like visiting a friend, going to a baseball game, and starting jazz class! This month is going to fly by but we will be making wonderful memories! 

I love this face!!! 

What are you doing to stay on schedule? 

Batgirl freezer stencil

We are getting family pictures tomorrow and I am beyond excited!!!! We haven't had pictures taken since Lyla was 1, she's 4! We are going to do some traditional shots, some fun shots, and some superhero shots! Chris and I have superhero shirts but Lyla needed one, duh!  Well, after much debate we decided on ...dun dun dunnn....BATGIRL! 

  I found a yellow t-shirt and bought metallic black paint. I used a hand drawn freezer paper stencil. If you  you've never used a freezer paper stencil...go here...http://www.rufflesandstuff.com/2012/04/freezer-paper-tutorial-better-late-than.html?m=1

(I'm still working on doing "links" on my 

phone. ) 

Easy peasy lemon squeezy! 

I love using this method! It's easy, cheap, and the possibilities are endless! 

Lyla has quite a few shirts (ballerina, "whycause", and now batgirl) and she can help 

paint them which makes it a great project! 

I also turned my simple black t-shirt into a 

super fab shirt for me! 

Let me know if you have questions. I will be 

Posting our family photos soon! 

Summer goal

Welcome, it's been A LONG TIME since I've posted a blog! 

    Well, I have a few summer goals for this summer.  One is to write my blog at least twice a week. (I have failed miserably at this goal before:) I don't have a lot of followers but its such a great way to journal about our lives and share with my daughter all of the fun we have and show her how much I love her. Second is to let go of stress and have more fun...the dishes can wait, dinner can be late, and we can enjoy outside a little longer. Third is to find more time to craft and sew and work on my ever growing to-do list. I'm excited that I have the next 8 weeks off with my daughter and husband and I know we will have a blast just being together. 

   Lyla (4) decided that she wants to learn how to read, so we are already working on that and we will be having "summer school" and discovering new things. I would love any suggestions anyone has for ideas and lessons!  

Come back and see if I've accomplished my goals! 

Back to blogging

It's been months since I've blogged and thanks to my mommy, I am starting it back!
Lots of things have happened since my last blog. Much more than I can even remember. But life is good even as we are stressed with certain situations. I'm still in love with my job! I love working with kids and families! My hubs has been through a lot and is still healing from knee surgery, but he is doing great! Miss Lyla is a talkin machine. Like she won't stop talking....ever!!!! We have officially entered the 'why' stage. She is one smart cookie though and is learning lots at preschool and by asking all of her 'why' questions!
Crafting had taken a back burner to the day to day grind. I have done a few things and one is ready for tomorrow! Valentines Day! 💙💛💜💚❤ I found this idea on blog lovin and I thought it would be so fun to do. So I got my little one involved, we picked the felt colors, googly eyes, and fabric. Oh and candy!!! What is it you ask??? Valentines snakes! I love them! I can't wait to take them into preschool tomorrow. Lyla helped so much with this project so it was such a great process. Even after doing 25 of these silly snakes, I'm really glad we made them.

I cut the snake body and sewed it into a tube shape...cut the felt hearts and added eyes, then hot glued everything together. The little tongues say "wissssssssshing you a happy valentines day!" 💙 Agter glue is dry... Stuff with candy. We used sixlets, starbursts, and dum dum suckers. (Don't think about it looking like a mouse) hahahahaha)

Let me know what you think or if you have questions.

Catching up

I've been making lots of projects lately, but I keep forgetting to post about them. I also have a ton of half written blogs that I need to finish up. Well, this is a sneak peak at all of the things I have done since this summer.

I'm still working on learning how this blog works via my phone because all of my pics end up at the bottom. Hopefully you can follow along.

There is the painting I did for my parents bathroom. I have one in my home and my dad really liked it so I made one to match their shower curtain. It is oil on canvas with hand made stencils for the lettering. I love the 'live, laugh, love' saying.

The brown and green coasters are ones I made for our home. I just love them! Plus they also dub as a wipe of there are no towels/paper towels/ wipes/ kleenex/ etc... They are machine washable and are fun to use as frisbees:)

The necklace is one that I found on pinterest but the website is no longer working or I would give credit. I used some random beads and brown jewelry twine and tada, a cute necklace.

The colts stuff is a drawstring bag and two sets of coasters. I made these for my dads work picnic as a giveaway. I also gave one of the sets to my big brother. I love football season, mainly because of the food!

My favorite is this green knit shirt that I made. It is a stretchy knit material (that is very hard to sew with). I found a cute ruffle shirt at a consignment store a few weeks ago and it gave me an idea for this shirt. It was time consuming but well worth it. I do get a secret thrill when people ask where I got it and I say "actually, I made this" heeheehee my ego gets a huge boost.

What projects have you been working on? I hope I can get some tutorials going soon. Sorry that they are all jumbled. Feel free to ask questions or leave comments.

Thanks for stopping by. <3 Jenn

Dinner at the Shue's

I love to be creative, especially when it comes to dinner. I like to switch things up, try new recipes, alter others. Well, a few weeks ago I decided to "clean out the fridge" dinner. By that I mean, what do I have that I should probably use before it starts smelling funny. We eat A LOT of chicken in our house so it's nice to shake things up a little and thanks to my awesome parents, I had pork chops in the freezer.
My ADD mind went to work and I came up with the following recipe. Boneless pork chops, mushrooms, blue cheese, everything bread, bacon bits, green onion, and garlic. Everything but the chops are chopped finely and mixed together. Smush it together (that's a culinary word...right?) and put it on top of the pork chops in a baking dish. Bake at 375-400 for 35-40 minutes.(depends on how thick the pork chops are.)

I also had some leftover mushrooms, so I stuffed them full of yumminess too and baked them with the chops. I am trying out baked green tomatoes that have been tossed in egg whites and Panko/shake n bake mixture and baked along side of the pork chops. I will let you know how they turn out.

End result: The stuffed/topped pork chops are delicious!!! The More blue cheese, the better! The mushrooms are amazing, I only wish there were more than a few, and the tomatoes are nice and crispy on the outside and juicy and sweet on the inside. The beer; always tasty! All in all I would say that this dinner is a winner!

**my husband even 'stole' my leftovers to take to work because he leaves uber early before I even get out of bed.

Feel free to email me with any questions or comments.
P.s. I'm still learning this whole blog thing so my pictures are all in crazy orders and only at the bottom:/.

What do you get creative with?

Family, food, and spirits

I love my in-laws! Seriously, I could not have hand picked a better family to marry in to. My husband has family all of the place, Missouri, Kansas, Alaska, and here in Indiana! Well, the Alaskan crew and some MO crew are visiting, which means lots and lots of fabulous...fun...family...time! I love family time!
My father in law just got back from a fishing trip in Alaska and brought back some fresh salmon and fresh tilapia. We had it fried, grilled, and in a dip. Yum..yum..and yum!!! Of course I forgot to take pics of the actual food but there is a glance at the bottom of what it looks like.
This night was perfect, especially after a very long day of training (and dying of boredom). I met my hubs at my in-laws and was greeted by a very red little girl. My husband dressed our daughter like a giant care bear, but She was Super cute(of course I forgot to get a pic before I put her jammies on.)

Anyway, we had a very late night, lots of laughs, and a super great time!!!


What are your favorite family get togethers? :)