$100 Richer

I won a $100 from one of the local radio stations. I entered the contest online and was supposed to listen at the top of every hour for my name for like 6 different hours a day until the contest ended. If my name was called, I had 5 minutes to call them back to win the moola. I am not 100% for sure but I think the contest went on for like a month. After the first week or so, I stopped listening. Every so often, if I was in the car, I would tune to that radio station around the top of the hour "just to see" if I would actually be called. One particular morning, Raya and I were on our way to the high school track to do some running. I just pulled out of my driveway and happened to have the radio on when my name was called. I looked at Raya and was like "Ummm, did you just hear that? They did call my name right?" and she was like "yep", and I was like "seriously...they said Rachael Durling, right?"...So, I called them right back and I won $100. I was told I had to go down to the station to fill out some paper work. I brought all my kids, but Raya was probably the most excited to see an actual radio station. Her and Malia were sure that someone famous would just happen to be there. No one famous walked by, BUT there were several guitars hanging on the wall in the entrance. One particular one was signed by none other than JUSTIN BEIBER. Now, I am not a fan of the kid, but Raya sure is and so, we snapped a picture of her standing under the guitar. "Mom, that is his REAL autograph...not a copy...whoa..." I guess she will take what she can get!

It's Derby Time!

Ethan joined Cub Scouts a few months ago and we were welcomed into the pack with a block of wood and a deadline one month away to turn that block of wood into a racing machine for the annual Pinewood Derby! It ended up being a joint effort on not only Patrick, Ethan, and I but our neighbor Steve too. Ethan drew his car, Steve cut it out, Ethan sanded and sanded and sanded that sucker and then painted it, Patrick and Ethan worked on smoothing out the axles and wheels, Patrick attached the wheels, I fixed a broken wheel, and lifted the kitchen table up on one side to use it as a track and Ethan and I rolled the car down probably 100 times, adjusting the wheels so it ran straight. All that work paid off because Ethan's car got 3rd in his pack and 4th place overall (26 cars total)...not too shabby for his first derby! Here is Ethan's derby experience in all of its glory!

Blah

I sit here on my computer, checking my email over and over and over again. I then go and check Facebook to see if anyone else has posted something interesting in the last 2 minutes. If that doesn't pan out, I head over to Pinterest and pin cool things that I will forget about in an hour. While doing all these things, I keep telling myself that I need to blog about a bunch of different things, yet, I just.do.no.want.to *sigh*

Valentine Love

Unlike last year, this year's V-Day was low key. Patrick had to work in the evening so we ventured out to The Village Bistro for lunch together. They served Jambalaya so Patrick was thrilled. I had the Club sandwich and it was good. We got home and there was a package on our door. It was chocolate covered strawberries all the way from NYC! That was my gift from Patrick which I will take over flowers any day. They were super yummy! I shared one with Patrick. Later that day, I noticed that there was a card on the front of the delivery box so I decided to open it. Check it out:



I texted Patrick a picture of it and we both had a good laugh about it. Turns out, he didn't write anything in the "note" part when he ordered it. Apparently the strawberry company thought that it shouldn't have been left blank!

Raya got a special Valentine from her boyfriend, Blake. She texted me a picture that said "Feeling the Valentine's Love" How cute is this?



Apparently Blake had been sick for a few days and wasn't going to be at school on Valentine's Day so he dropped it off the night before. He seems to be a pretty cool kid. They have been "going out" on and off for about a year now. I'm not 100% for sure on the length of boyfriend time I had when I was her age, but it certainly wasn't a year...in fact, it was more like 2 weeks! HA!

Not to be outdone, Raya made this Valentine for Blake:



Her and three of her friends delivered it to him at his house on their way to the Valentine's dance at their school. It was a good thing her friends were there, otherwise, I think she would have just dropped it off on the porch and ran...

If you ask the kids what the best part of Valentine's Day was this year, I'd bet they would say Chocolates for Breakfast. I'm such an awesome parent! HA!

Birthday Tea Party

Carly had a tea party birthday party a few days after her birthday. A friend of mine who has a really cool blog (You can view it here) asked me to do a guest post on her blog about the party. I even did my first tutorial....that was fun :) I'm just going to copy and paste that post here. Happy Birthday Carly Fox!


I am so excited to do this guest post today. I love this blog, so to be featured on it, is amazing!

It wasn’t long ago that I was speaking with a crafty friend of mine and I had told her that one day I wanted to throw some sort of party and only use items from the dollar store. I envisioned a thrifty décor with guests wearing wife beaters, cut off jeans, and drinking soda straight from the can. What I didn’t realize at the time was that one can actually use many items from the dollar store to throw an awesome party for little money!

Apparently, my husband and I weren’t thinking when we planned for our last two children. One was born 6 days before Christmas and the other was 8 days after Christmas. You can only imagine the energy I have this time of year to throw Pinterest worthy parties. Let’s face it, if I can get presents wrapped and under the tree before Christmas Day, it’s a good year! So, with the help of too many diet Pepsi’s and maybe even one or two Rockstars, a Tea Party theme was chosen and Carly’s 5th birthday party was in the works.

The invitations set the tone for an elegant party. I used paper, fonts, and swirly graphics from Lettering Delights. I love how they turned out:



I am a big believer that less really is more. The dining room table was the main focus of the party and I was able to dress it up tea party style for just over $65! Here’s how:





~Pink tablecloth from Hobby Lobby, $3
~Pink and Lavender flowers in a vase for the centerpiece and pink and white decorative food plates from Walmart, $13 (vase was mine)
~Tissue paper pom poms hung from the ceiling made by my oldest daughter, $3
~Gloves, necklaces, bracelets, and boa’s for 8 girls from the dollar tree and 99cent store, $24
~Tea cups, saucers, and tea pot from Eco-Thrift, $11
~Tea Hats for 8, $11.44 (Video tutorial below)
~Pink and White Organza chair bows, Free (borrowed from a friend)
~White Food platters and towers, Free (borrowed from a friend)

The food was in true tea party fashion. We had:

~Apple juice for tea
~Triangle sandwhiches, Pb&J’s as well as ham and cheese.
~Jelly filled scones
~Fruit:



~Vegies and dip:



I didn’t go overboard on the food. We are talking 5 year old little girls. They hardly eat anything anyway.

I usually do cupcakes for dessert because it’s cheaper. You don’t have to have forks and plates and I just like the way I can use the cupcakes as part of the décor. I hired our old babysitter to make the cupcakes. She charged me for the supplies which was only $10. I gave her $20. Those cupcakes were the best cupcakes I have ever eaten. Homemade frosting that just melted in my mouth. They were seriously gourmet quality. I would have had to pay an arm and a leg and perhaps my first born child for cupcakes as good as those and they came from a teenage girl!



I made these cute little strawberry ice cream hearts:



Here’s the how to:

~One tub/box of Strawberry Ice Cream (ice cream that comes in a box is much easier to use for this project)

~One tin foil brownie/lemon bar disposable baking dish (the really shallow kind)

After letting the ice cream thaw on counter for about 30 minutes, cut the box off of the icecream and while using a spoon or your waxed paper covered hand, smoosh and reform the icecream into the tin foil pan. Make sure the ice cream is evenly spaced and tightly packed. Place wax paper over the top and refreeze overnight. The next morning, use a knife and score along the edges of a pan. Carefully remove the ice cream from the pan onto more wax paper. Use any shape cookie cutter like you would for sugar cookies and Voila! Cute shaped ice cream treats! Please note that depending on how many people you are expecting to serve, you may need to adjust the quantity of ice cream boxes and foil pans.

The party was scheduled for an hour and a half. The girls made beaded necklaces, then we did our tea party. After that, we opened presents and had cupcakes and ice cream and then it was time to go. I had also planned a cookie decorating activity, but we never got to it and both Carly and I were ok with not doing it. I loved how short and simple this party was. I didn’t stress over it and it was seriously Pinterest AND Chocolates for Breakfast worthy! The girls got to take home their jewelry, gloves and boas as well as their tea cup and saucer. I also threw in a pair of princess socks I got for $1 at Michaels. I enlisted the help of my 13 year old daughter to clean the cups and put the bags together using the name cards I used on the table while presents were being opened. The best part about planning this party was that I was able to pull it off for just over $100! Not too shabby for entertaining 8 little girls and a few adults at a tea party fit for a 5 year old!

I loved making these hats!







Below is a video tutorial I did for the Tea Party hats. I looked everywhere for hats to use for this party, but no one sells them this time of year and if they did, I’m sure they would have been more money than I wanted to spend, so I made my own, and after a few different models were made, I created such an awesome hat, that I just had to do a video tutorial for it!

Enjoy!

You can view the video on Youtube HERE

War

Patrick: "It's time for dinner."
Ethan: "So no weapons on the table?"

Ethan then proceeded to share that after dinner, him and Malia were going to go to war. Nice!

Somebody's 5 Years Old!

5 years ago, this little samurai baby was born:



Today, she's 5 years old and such a blessing in our lives! Happy Birthday Carly Fox!