Dot art!

Growing up I used to play with those bingo dot markers and loved it! Not entirely sure why I didn't just buy some but at some point I got the idea to get some refillable bottles from Oriental Trading. I put in Crayola non toxic paint and watered it down. Wasn't super thrilled with the watered down paint look but it more or less worked. This was a last minute, momma has a headache and desperately needs to occupy a toddler going mad with cabin fever craft :) so I just gave her paper to dot on. One plain and the other I wrote her name (horrible looking) across and showed her to dot along the lines.

If I were to prep this another day I would either find a printable or make one with letters made with lil circles so she can dot in the circles. Anyway it kept her occupied for a bit and she has asked to play with it since then, so I count it as a success!

Baby shower gifts

Z baby's playgroup threw a baby shower for one of our fabulous mommies this week. I wanted to do something fun. So I made a baby sock bouquet and a hospital survival kit. The kit well I somehow forgot to take pics of. I just bought some little travel items. I did toothbrush and tooth paste, lotion, Chapstick, make up remover cloths, hand wipes, Kleenex (am I the only one that cried tons of happy tears and hated hospital tissue?!?) and some candies. I stuck it in a bag with some ribbon and a label I made with my cricut that said Hospital Survival Kit. 

The sock bouquet was fun :) bought a pack of  6 socks and then bought fake flowers, a little vase, vase filler rock things and some ribbon at the dollar store.  Found a youtube video and rolled up the lil sock flowers. Then I had the hubs cut the flowers apart since they were all one connected bunch and I ripped off the flower part. Then I ripped off the little leaf base piece that is on the bottom of the flowers. I used some green tape and wrapped around the stems a bit and then slid the leave base part on that. You need the tape to keep it from moving otherwise the leaf base piece just slides all over. Then I just set the sock flowers on the top. Then you have to be careful as the "flowers" are just resting there and will fall off if moved around much. I'm sure there is some far better method than this to secure them but that's what I did and I thought it looked pretty good. Tie a ribbon on the vase and add a cricut made tag and you are set :D

Muffins!

Zoey found a boxed muffin mix in the pantry this morning. I'm not a huge fan of boxed mixes but it made its way into this house somehow...  I blame pregnancy :) it's easy for me to want to just make them on my own. It's simpler, less mess and quicker. But where's the memories in that? It's the mess and the smiles that make it fun :) I often forget Z baby is getting older and can do more with me. So we made muffins together today. Chocolate chip since she is a chocoholic. Runs in our family! Great-grandpa, grandma, uncle and mommy are all chocoholics right along with her.

She lined the cups

She dumped the mix in. She also dumped in the water and oil.

 I stirred it up and then she scooped it into the cups. She did really well. Although she hates getting her hands dirty so we had to stop and wipe her hands about 10 times.

And well there just wasn't enough chocolate chips so we added some on top :) She wanted to add peanuts too but I drew the line there.

Quality test! She had to first pick out all the chocolate chips she could and then surprisingly ate the rest. Usually she would leave all the bread. Told ya she was a chocoholic!

Snow!

Rare for us here in AZ :) we didn't get as much as others in town but still fun! Glad I started my garden a couple days ago (insert eye roll). I was too busy taking pictures to think about covering my plants. Woops.

Made Z baby go out in it. She thought it was too cold!

Our mutt pushed Z over to get outside and then promptly wanted back inside. He seemed to really like running in the mud but I think he was just cold. Our shih-tzu went out for a few minutes but I don't think she even know it was snowing, she is due for a haircut and is super fluffly! Don't think she ever felt the snow.

Z baby did want to play in the mud in the backyard but got upset and was over it all when she got stuck in the mud. Being the horrible momma I am, I laughed, took a picture and then rescued her :)

Fry bread and beans!

Mmmmm...

Amazing beans on top of some homemade fry bread :) I use THIS recipe for the beans. I do modify it a bit. I add extra jalapeno (typically 2 or 3), half the salt and I usually just sprinkle in some garlic powder instead of minced garlic. What can I say... I'm lazy :) or running late a lot. We LOVE these beans. We make them all the time. I think my crockpot permanently smells like them. This is probably my most asked for recipe.

I use the fry bread recipe from THIS recipe. I get 4 out of the recipe, we had already dug in :) Good eats!

Then just top with whatever you like! We typically do lettuce, cheese, salsa and sour cream. Guacamole is yum too!

Veggie Scramble

One of my fave egg dishes is what I call veggie scramble. Today I had zucchini and yellow squash that I sautéed a bit in EVOO and then tossed in eggs and scrambled it all. So good.

My absolute favorite combo is to use leftovers from when we BBQ. We will grill zucchini, yellow squash, bell peppers and onions in foil packets on the grill and I use the leftovers in my eggs. They give it a slightly different yummy smokey flavor. I also prefer one whole egg and 3 egg whites. All person preference. This also used to work for sneaking in veggies with my toddler. She has caught on by now but sometimes I can still sneak in just the yellow squash for her :)