Project board

For the first weekend in a long time we didn’t have any place to be.  Finally the house got a damn good cleaning.  Then there is the 8 loads of laundry!  But the best part of the weekend was some projects we completed.  I have wanted to make the kids Project boards that they could could all there artwork and projects on.  Today we did it!
Tyler painted his camo colors and pappy helped him add a buck to it!

Emma’s is pink and brown like her room with some flowers and butterflies.  It was not easy to get a photo where you could see the board and a good photo of emma:

Saturday night the kids played dress up:


Friday was a hectic day for us.  Wyatt had to have surgery to remove the fatty tumor from his back. they discovered more then that.  He had a baseball size tumor in with his boy parts that they removed.  So now the poor thing has a ton of stiches and is missing a lot of fur!

Also on Friday, Tyler and David built a wood duck box.  They are going to send the below photo into a magazine contest about wood ducks.  If you ask tyler he will tell you all about how he made it.  He will then tell you that they are going to put it by the lake (AKA Swamp) and watch the wood duck family move in.  The side slides open so he can look inside and see the nest.
He will finish the story telling you how in the fall, he and his dad are going to go out to the lake and shoot them because its duck season.  My husband is raising a redneck…
Next weekend we are hoping to take the kids to maple weekend at VVS but also to start our planting! more to come I am sure!
Have a great week!

Late Ladybug Party

I am only a few weeks late but i can finally recap my 4 years in the making Ladybug party! Most people think i wanted to have a ladybug party because of tori spellings party for her daughter (seriously google Tori Spelling ladybug party) but really i have to give credit to elizabeth hasselbeck (the View) she had a party for her oldest daughter and for some reason i saw the photos from that before i was even pregnant with Tyler. I have been waiting for this day since then!



For the most part it was as planned. I wanted to do a few other things and the wind was not making it easy on the decorations. But i think those in attendance had a great time! Sadly when i tried to upload the photos to Blogger they are not in order and i am not use to my laptop yet to switch them around so just bear with me!



Emma had so much fun she was a big mess with her cake but she really loved the ice cream.

My little ladybug! I ordered these cute little antenna for emma and the little kids (but i stole one!) for the bigger kids i ordered fun ones in other colors but i didnt get any photos :(



So i completely decorated in pink and green with a little bit of Red. I used alot of the So Sweet ladybug items from Birthday Express and alot of items from Oriental express.

i used these pails from target for a $1 to tie the balloons too. I filled them with tissue paper i had planned to put snacks in them with pin wheels but it was so windy we were afraid of the mess. Each table also had a ladybug pop toy and ladybug bubbles. A sea of pink and green perfect for our ladybug queen!

Turning 1 is so sweet! We had a whole sweet table of pink red and green candy!

A close up of the cupcakes for the guests!

It was a great day! The kids got to play one the playground have a water gun fight and sneak up on the adults with silly string! Miss Emma was asleep before we left park! Less than 360 days till her next birthday......Strawberry shortcake?? hmm maybe!!!

Homemade Christmas

Well now that Christmas is over we have the mess and photos to reflect on! Each year i try to make a few special gifts!

These are the calendars that I make for a few people! They are great as desk calendars, they slide right into the flip standing photo albums! I try to use photos from that month. It was a little harder this year with two kids!!

These were a gift to me from my grandmother. She lives 1/2 the year in Florida and 1/2 the year in NY. these flowers and ornaments are completely made with seashells. I love them! i would love more of the angles for Christmas next year!

This was a great kids project! I purchased one of those foam kits from Michaels that makes several ornaments. I let Tyler put them together (well he did about 1/2 of them) Then I added the kids photos and dropped them in treat bags. They were great gifts from Emma and Tyler! Mom, if you are reading this i know i forgot to give you yours they are sitting on my tree!!

This is my new favorite way to give giftcards!! its a simple box i made using my scrapbooking supplies! but when you open it, you realize its a scrapbook!
It has 3 flaps on each side! I used coordinating papers and embellishments to make it really nice. Once they use the gift card it, they still have a keepsake box.
Now the food. oh the food of the holidays, i know i packed on the pounds. Let me just give you some idea of what we ate:
Christmas eve: Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, trays of cookies...
Christmas day: eggs, bacon, homefries, prime rib, shrimp, potatoes, kielbasa, rum cake, ice cream, then Cheesecake, apple pie and triple chocolate pie And that is not all of it. i am still full!

So in my family (on my dad's side) on Christmas eve they have great food, shrimp, venison, fruit, dips..It kind of reminds me of the New England tradition of Seafood and steak! David and i usually dont go because we are at my moms side. So early in the week i made a specail dish to kind of help. Lobster Mac N Cheese. It was so freaking easy! I just made my normal Mac N Cheese (homemade not kraft!) and added in lobster. So it was the fake lobster but still was yummy!

You have to try it! its a great way to kick up a middle of the week dish but only one extra step! Dont worry mom, when i made you MacNCheese on Saturday i didnt put any fish into it, honest.

So lets talk about dessert!! yummy. I made 3 desserts for Xmas night, Apple pie, triple choc cream pie and cheesecake! Everyone had to try at least 2 different desserts!

The cheesecake was amazing i was so excited!! i made a raspberry rum sauce to go over the top of it! oh it was to die for~ I didnt follow a receipt i just went with instinct and everyone loved it. My house smelled so yummy when it was cooking! i think i just gained more weight thinking about it! Sorry the photo below is blurry!
This photo just makes me happy! They were roses i got for Emmas baptism. This month was difficult with alot of people passing away and in the middle we celebrated Emma being born, it was odd but comforting. I dont know how to explain it. but these roses lasted forever, they were so pretty!

Photos from Aunt Lauries Party

on the 15th we had our cookie exchange and xmas party at aunt lauries! here are just some of the photos!
Ty and logan with the same gift!


Emma with her new outfit!
The kids opening their ginger breadhouses

Tyler was all about eating it, not building it!! lol!
Remember i am an accountant, engineering is not thing! my house fell several times, but i did make the ride home and is still standing. Its like the Charlie brown of gingerbread houses! All the candy is off it and its just sitting here!

Elves in Verona!

Another fun night with the elves!! Here is what i posted about this night last year (Click Here!)
Well once again all the elves were running, although it seemed less hectic this year!. We had our craft table, our wrapping table and our baking table! We worked from about 6pm to 12am!





I wish every night was girls night! I think next week we should go out to a bar/dinner and celebrate the holidays being over lol! Come January we can get back to the task at hand...scrapping our crap!

Grinch Poop

Every now and then you have that one person who needs something extra for the holiday. Give them Grinch Poop!

All you need is:
Color Mist
Marshmallows
Brown Sprinkles
A plastic bag
and tag

I simply sprayed the marshmallows iwth the Green spray. After they dried i put them in a bag with brown sprinkles and added a tag. There are lot of fun poems for this, just have fun with it!c


The Grinch has been here and he left just one clue...
This little green pile of Grinchy "Poo".
But why did he do it? Did he want to get caught?
As the Grinch would say, "I most certainly did not!".
But Santa and the reindeer with nose set on dim,
Landed on the roof and scared IT out of him.
He left in a hurry-homeward bound,
Leaving little green piles all over the ground.

HO-HO-HO! Christmas is near,
So here is a bit of Christmas cheer!
I heard from a little birdie who sits on a stoop,
You've been mean and naughty,
So here is your Grinch Poop!

Finished tree with handmade elements!

This is a photo of our finished tree! All 9feet of it!! And yes i am a tree killer, we cut one every year. The Szareks not being "Green" you say? please we are very green, we gave the tree farmer some Green!! We may not be saving the environment but we are saving the economy one tree at a time! lol


If this photo doesnt say it all!
tyler put the angel on top this year! It took several attempts
We had a little issue with out xmas ornaments this year. We opened the box and they were all destroyed. all the paint was off them and they had black spots all over. so i ran to the store while david put some lights on the tree. Her is david hooking up all the new ornaments.


Here are some of the homemade ones!
The red star was like $1 at Micheals, i just added glitter! you can see the cereal ornament that tyler made at school and the wish list i made!

I got this idea from Familyfun.com you take a wooden spool and wrap paper around it. Then you add the childs wish list! its so cute.

For emma we put: her 2 front teeth, Pink Clothes and a cookie jar!
For tyler we listed the items he sent to santa: Marshmallow bow, duck game, toy truck with a boat! My grandmother made the shell ornament for us last year.We are getting some feathery visitors to our bird feed, we wanted to make a tree for them!

I took so old store bought pie crust that i was going to throw out, a cut out heart shapes with a hole for the string. I spread left over shortening on the hearts after baking them at 450. Tyler sprinkled bird seed on them.When we were done they were hung up in the tree for the birds to have a merry christmas.
This was my favorite project so far! I wanted to have photos on my tree of all our loved ones. So ordered photos of everyone, some i even printed off the computer myself.
I found some round disks at micheals, i cut my photo to be slightly smaller than the disks. I used my scrapbooking supplies, but you could trace a can of soup!


Then i placed decoupage on the disks stuck the photos to them and put decoupage over the top of the photos
After it dried i glued ribbon to the back
I would also write the name of the person and date/year of the photo to help us remember down the road.
When i was done i had these great photo ornamets that captured some great events of the year.For the record the actual photo were easier to do and i think turned out better. the ones i printed on regular paper got wavy when i used the decoupage on them.