Pin-testing

I've seen a lot of people trying our their pins (which is good because I see WAY too many people that pin but then never act). I decided I better get in on the action. I've tried a few recipes and decided this weekend was my weekend for trying new things. I settled on Toddler Muffins and homemade Egg McMuffins. Both are so far a big success!
Toddler Muffins, originally created by Lori and posted on AllRecipes.com

A loved these and has deemed them "delicious!". J is weird about her bread items and has never liked any kind of muffins so I'm not surprised that she didn't take a liking to them.


Homemade Egg McMuffins, originally created by Nick from Macheesmo

I followed the directions posted and made some minor modifications to the recipe to suit the tastes of my DH and me. The major changes from Nick's recipe was the addition of meat (deli turkey and ham) and using sliced cheese instead of shredded (it just seemed less messy that way). I frozen a batch pre-made, as directed, but after reading some of the comments on the blog it seemed like many people were having trouble re-heating the muffins.

I decided to take the other 6 eggs and freeze them without pre-assembling them so that you can heat the egg separately from the rest of the sandwich and avoid a hard muffin and burning hot inside. I'll update after I eat one each way and decide which worked better. I did leave one assembled sandwich out and let DH try it, he said it was good so at least I know we started out with a good recipe!


Update: I let one thaw out in the fridge overnight and then heated it up in the microwave for about 40 seconds. Tasted pretty good. 
Additional Update: I don't recommend reheating the way the original blog suggests, it took forever and I just don't have that kind of time in the morning.


Linking up to Thirty Handmade Days

How does your garden grow?

I'm getting anxious to plan my garden. I'm sure in 2 weeks it will snow and everything would be ruined if I started planting now, but dang it I'm excited! I've been busy pinning my garden ideas. Last weekend I got all the old leaves and winter debris cleared out and decided that I'll need to add some new dirt this year. Indiana soil clay is not ideal for planting gardens. It's a big pain, so I have to buy bags of dirt to put on top so that the roots of my plants actually have a chance of growing. I grow a mostly organic garden. Organic soil and no pesticides. I usually buy starter plants which I can't guarantee are organic so that's why it's a most organic garden.

Find it here

From Martha Stewart

10 tips for growing tomatoes

Is it summertime?

This is the question I keep getting from A. She wants to know if it is summertime because that means it will be her birthday and that we can go camping. It's not easy explaining the weird heat wave we've been having in MARCH to a 4 year old. I believe we are on day 8 of record breaking temperatures, it's in the mid 80s today. Did I mention it's MARCH and it is usually snowing or at least still winter coat weather outside?! I could get use to this though. Here's how we spent our weekend ... all outside of course.

Riding bikes with cousins

Playing on the swing set

Do you...

... take pictures of yourself? Or have someone else take them for you? I'm almost always behind the camera so my kids will probably think they grew up with no Mom because there are about zero pictures of us together. My DH is an even worse photographer than I am so it's pretty much out of the question to ask him to take my picture with the girls. I feel awkward ... is my hair a mess? is my smile weird? do I look completely crazy? do I even have matching clothes on? Most of the other blogs I read are filled with wonderful shots of the blogger, even if the photos are super glamorous.
I decided while we were visiting the Children's Museum last weekend to try and include my self in the photos. Well it didn't work very well since I'm the one taking the pictures ... I can't believe I'm even going to post these.

One foot

Two feet

Well at least it's easy to take a picture of my feet! 

Self portrait

Just pretend the split in the mirror doesn't go through my body!


Luckily my DH's aunt is very handy with the camera and she captured a couple good pictures of me and my girls over the weekend.

Mommy & J  under the number arch

Mommy & A crafting together

Rainbow Colored Birthday Bash!

J's 2nd rainbow colored party was a success. We only had a few family members there, nothing too over the top. We had rainbow colored cake pops and a fruit tray. I love my cake pop maker that I got for Christmas, but decorating 4 dozen little cake balls is time consuming! Between interruptions with the kids and trying to serve lunch it took me about 1 1/2 hours to decorate them all. I think it was worth it. Everyone enjoyed them (even the great grandmas who had never heard of cake pops) and thought they were fun. My co-workers even benefited from the leftovers later in the week :)

Colored cake balls ready for decorating

Sprinkles!

Enjoying her birthday treat

Blue cake pop

Purple cake pop

Rainbow cake pops!

Rainbow fruit tray

A pop of color ... Etsy style

Vintage Chiffon Dress via LoLoandRubys

Mid Century Mixing Bowls via LilytheDogVintage

Notebook via juliakostreva

Chevron Pillow Covers via GaranceCouture

Handbag via Hashibags

Spring Goals

You would almost never know we had a winter with the warm weather we've had lately. Last week we hit 66* one day and yesterday and today have been exceptionally warm as well. It's got me thinking of spring and everything I want to do. So here's my list ...

• Get a new air conditioner for our house DONE!
• Look into our options for putting up a fence (we desperately need one!)
• Prepare for our first camping trip 
• Get A enrolled in kindergarten DONE! :)
• Commit to redecorate or redo one room before the end of summer
• Get the garden ready

[source]

"I two!"

"I two!"
"I two!"
That's pretty much all I heard this morning while getting the kids ready. Today is J's 2nd birthday! I can't hardly believe it. It's crazy that she went from this ...

6 months old

To this crazy little girl!

We will celebrate her birthday on Saturday with a rainbow colored party. I've been pinning ideas for months so this should be good!


(I swear it is a coincidence that I'm posting this at the exact minute I gave birth, too much info? sorry!)