Creative Cookies

We all know its difficult financially to become a stay at home mom. Living on one income is not the easiest thing that we have faced but we have gotten by. One thing that has helped me make a little more income while still being able to stay at home with my boys is to make cookies. At least I get to use that creative edge that I miss from the Edible Art days.

I started by doing cookies for my boys' birthday and for a Union County Mommies event. Now, I have thankfully continued to get orders for them! Take a look at some of the ones that I have done -

Let's Paint Mommy!!!

This is the phrase I have heard A LOT in the last 24 hours! I decided yesterday to do a fun rainy day activity. We didn't have pudding (which was my first thought) but I knew we needed something that the boys could eat if we were going to do any painting around our house. It seems that everything that is put in front of them still goes straight towards the mouth! And also, this helped kill 2 birds with one stone - a fun activity to keep the boys entertained on a rainy day AND snack time!

I took vanilla yogurt that we had in the fridge and put it in small containers. Then I used food coloring to dye the yogurt pink, blue, green, and yellow. I happened to have a couple of paint brushes that I had never used too so we broke those out. And for easy cleanup, I covered a big area on our kitchen island with wax paper that I taped down. I handed the boys the materials and just let them explore. What a hoot! You can tell both of them have a little of their daddy in them because when I stuck their hands in the yogurt, they both freaked out!

Soon, they figured it out and were painting up a storm. Talk about a fun and educational (yes, the teacher in me had to make it educational) activity. They had to ask for the colors - so that right there is practicing colors, we drew shapes and they named them for me, we wrote our names and Whit told me what letters I was writing. We used paint brushes, spatulas, straws, and even basting brushes. It was great!!

Now, about 5 minute into this activity, Parker thought, "humm...I wonder if I can eat this?", and therefore, painting stopped, and snacking began. We started running low on "paint" and I didn't want to waste ALL of our yogurt so I added a little applesauce and let them go to town again. Of course I HAD to take pictures of all of this. By the time we were done, Whit was begging me to take more pictures. He kept saying "Mommy CHEESE!!" What a ham!!

I love letting the boys explore and seeing their reactions to it all. It was a lot of fun and took up a good hour of our morning - a good hour that we didn't have to watch Choo Choos (Thomas the tank)!

Blessings

I feel like lately, we have been incredibly blessed in our home. I have wanted so bad to enroll the kids in some sort of "mommy and me" classes for a while. In our home, the price tag was just a little too high to enroll both boys in a class at the same time, so therefore we had kind of decided that it would be something to save up for.

This spring, we had decided that it was time for us to do something. So we decided on soccer. We figured this would give us a chance to do something on a Saturday to get out of the house and get some energy out. While it is a little pricey, I knew it would be a lot of fun for the boys. Well we sign up for it and then a week later, I find out that thanks to CMOMs and their scholarship program, they have paid the majority of our fees for soccer. Wow. I was so happy to know that we would be able to really afford to do this!

I know what you are thinking.....soccer for 2 year olds??? How does that work??? Well it is more of a parent/child class. And no, we don't play actual soccer games. We play games like red light/green light, we build towers out of cones and then practice kicking them over, they blow bubbles and the kids have to kick or stomp on them, the do obstacle courses, and of course they break out the soccer balls and the kids just score as many goals as they can. By the end of the class, the boys are exhausted and so are mommy and daddy! :) And who can resist all of these little kids in these HUGE soccer jerseys?

You can tell by the last picture just how tired Parker can get! :) And this was only 10am!

And who would have known, soon after we found out that we would get the opportunity to join another Mommy and Me type class!! This time it was Union County Music Together. What an awesome program!!

http://www.ucmusictogether.com/. The first week, the boys didn't really know what was going on. For the most part, they ran around and every once in a while came to sit with me while I sang along. Since that first class, we have really come a long way though. Last week, both boys even came to sit with me and clap along with the songs. Their favorite part is the instruments. It's so much fun seeing the kids trying to figure out what to do with all of them. With the class, you receive a song book and 2 cds to take home. The boys love to listen to the cds while we are playing downstairs and in the car when we are driving all over town. We did have a moment the other day when I knew that Music Together was really starting to make sense to the boys. I went to get Parker up from his nap when he began singing "Hewo everybody...see you....Hewo Mommy....so see you!" (translated as Hello everybody, so glad to see you and Hello to Mommy, so glad to see you too). And its just icing on the cake that a lot of the people that are in our music together class, are all friends from Union County Mommies!

Like I said before, we have had A LOT to be grateful for lately! Without such amazing people in our lives, we wouldn't have been able to give these opportunities for our boys. And now that I have seen just how amazing these things have been for our family, we can now save for the future so that we can do these again!

Whit & Parker turn 2!

Yes, so they actually turned 2 a month ago but I had to take a moment to update everyone on what they have been up to recently and of course some pictures from their party.

If you have been around my kids anytime recently, you know about their obsession with Thomas the Tank. Is it sad that your 2 year olds can name more trains from a picture than you can?

So of course, we had to have a Thomas the Tank birthday party. Decorations, plates, napkins, cake....everything Thomas! We did most of the decorating while the boys napped that day and let me tell you, I have never seen such excited faces when they came down and saw Thomas stuff EVERYWHERE!

We of course had the family but what was fun was that the boys actually got to have some of their friends come over. Most of these friends we have met through Union County Mommies and the boys have had plenty of playdates with these kiddos.

The cutest thing was seeing all of the kids sitting at the table together enjoying their little personal train cakes. We spent lots of time playing outside on the new swingset, which we got for the boys for their birthday present. We also had lots of indoor play time, eating, and present opening. It was a great afternoon! By the time the party was over, Whit was already sitting next to Nana with his Yertle in mouth exhausted!

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY WHIT & PARKER!!