Kids Crafts

Today on Kelly's Korner she is doing a feature on Kids Crafts. 

As you know, we do a lot of crafting around here! 

Many days Mckenna is asking for crafts by 7am... fun!

I find a lot of (most of) our crafts on Pinterest. 

I have several different Pin Boards devoted to various kids crafts. 

Because my little crafting queen likes crafts so much, I usually try to have 3-4 different types of crafts or crafty activities planned for during the week. This usually just involves me flipping through my Pinterest boards on Sunday night thinking of what we could make and what supplies we have. 

Here are a few that we have made recently:

            

I recently added a link to my header that features a link to my "For the Kids" activities. Find it HERE

I also wrote a while back about how we organize our art supplies. You can find that post: HERE

Now don't get me wrong, we do the simple things like color, playdoh and paint, as well... but Mckenna would seriously sit and color or do playdoh ALL DAY! 

Sometimes we all need a little change! 

Have a great day!

Our Favorite Kids Books

This week on Kelly's Korner she is featuring posts about kids books.

At our house we LOVE books! We have baskets and baskets of books. A lot of these are from my baby shower when I was pregnant with Mckenna. The great hostesses had each guest bring a book instead of a card. I know this is a growing trend... And I just love it! What a perfect way to start a book library!

Now that Mckenna has gotten older, our book choices have slowly grown and changed. Although she loves some of our classics (Brown Bear and Snuggle Puppy) because she can "read" them, our nightly reads currently involve princesses, Pinkaliciois, and any other Disney character!

A BIG favorite at our house are these sets of Disney "Me-Readers". Have you seen them before?? They are perfect for little ones! Mckenna got her first set around 2 1/2... And we have collected all three sets they make! I highly recommend them!

They are a set of 8 books with a "remote", as Mckenna calls it. The remote is a little electronic device that reads the books to the kids. The device has a shape that coordinates with a shape on the page in the book, so the kids know which page they are on and can follow along. Mckenna will sit and "read" book after book! A great way to get kids excited to read and build confidence doing it independently! As they get older the device could get put away and the books read aloud!

They make a princess set, a Disney Pixar set and a Disney Classics set. We love them all!
We've gotten them from Amazon and at Kohl's!

Happy reading!!


Linking Up:
No Time for Flash Cards

Soup in ON!

SOUP!!! 

Soup is one of my favorite things to eat! 

I love making different soups and I especially love crockpot soup recipes!

Today at Kelly's Korner she is featuring a Soup Recipe Exchange!! Can't wait to find some new recipes. Click HERE to find some new ones for yourself!!

Here is a yummy Cheesy Baked Potato Soup that I made awhile back! 

Enjoy!!

Slow Cooker Cheesy Potato Soup Recipe

Fancy picture stolen from recipe source... see below! Mine didn't look that pretty!

INGREDIENTS:

1 bag (32 oz) frozen southern-style diced hash brown potatoes, thawed
1/2 cup frozen chopped onion (from 12-oz bag), thawed
1 medium stalk celery, diced (1/2 cup)
1 carton (32-oz) Progresso® chicken broth
1 cup water
3 tablespoons Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1 bag (8 oz) shredded American-Cheddar cheese blend (2 cups)
1/4 cup real bacon pieces (from 2.8-oz package)
4 medium green onions, sliced (1/4 cup) 

DIRECTIONS:
1. In 3- to 4-quart slow cooker, mix potatoes, onion, celery, broth and water.

2. Cover; cook on Low heat setting 6 to 8 hours.

3. In small bowl, mix flour into milk; stir into potato mixture. Increase heat setting to High. Cover; cook 20 to 30 minutes or until mixture thickens. Stir in cheese until melted. Garnish individual servings with bacon and green onions. Sprinkle with pepper if desired.

Source: From Pinterest
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bettycrockerrecipes/5297607456/

Christmas Decorations 2012

Kelly is hosting a holiday home tour of decorations!
Check it out HERE!


Our house is decorated and ready to go for the holiday season!

Here is the view walking in the front door! 

I just love all of the lights around our banisters!

 Our house glows when you walk in!



This is the tree in our front room window.
It is the view from the back of the entryway looking back towards the front of the house.

Another view... 

You can see Mckenna's craft table and art supplies there on the right.

View of our entryway table and our stockings. 

We don't have a fireplace, so they hang along the stairs.

Cute little reindeer that is off to the right when you walk in the door. 

The ledge above collects a lot of decorations. 

I don't have a lot of shelves in the house, so is a spot that kind of collects decor!

View of the entryway and front room from in the breakfast/dining area.

4 stockings this year!!

This shelf is on a wall between the back hallway and kitchen. 

I rotate the decor with the holidays.

Our family room tree! 

Love this tree! 

I talk about our holiday ornaments in the THIS post here

Front room tree in the evening! Love the glow!

Entryway in the evening... that's a peak up at our playroom loft.

My cutie pie little elves!! 

Have to include them!!

Thanks for visiting our holiday decor!!

Holiday Traditions

Today at Kelly's Korner she is featuring a post on Holiday Traditions.

I thought I would link up! 

We are still in the midst of creating a lot of little holiday traditions with our family. Being this is the first Christmas that Mckenna actually "gets it" we have begun to add things on. 

This year we started The Elf on the Shelf... 

 Here is our sweet elf, Roxie!

Mckenna sort of gets the elf thing this year. I am sure it will be even more fun next year!

One of the biggest holiday traditions for me is holiday ornaments. 

We have two trees in our house and the "main tree" is in our family room!
It is a collection of ornaments that date back to Jim and I dating. 

When Mckenna was a baby I started buying a photo frame for her, along with an "interest" or milestone ornament and then a family photo ornament! 

It was so fun this year to see Mckenna looking at all the different picture ornaments!

Our tree tells a fun story of our family... vacations, outings, pictures and different milestones!

I love it!

Here are a few that we have...

Our Picture Displays

Welcome!

If you know me in "real-life" you know I have a slight addiction to pictures and taking pictures...

I also LOVE displaying pictures in my home. I love that we have tons of wall space for doing this, too!

Today I am linking up with Kelly's Korner for her Show Us Your Life Picture Displays! 

 Right up my alley!!

I have many different picture displays in our house, so I will show them off as best as I can. 

Taking pictures of pictures is sometimes tricky!

This is one of my newest picture displays. It is a the landing of our staircase. 

This picture is taken from the middle of our entryway. Our front hall closet door is there on the left. Our front door is next to it.

If you are looking close, yes these are mostly of Mckenna... I just got some new ones of Norah printed, so they will be added this weekend!

At the top of our stairs we have a loft and pretty open area. This is our playroom area 

(see pictures HERE)

We also have this little nook area between the girls bedrooms. 

For awhile I had no idea what to put here... alas, a gallery wall was created!

View from the first floor in our entryway

In the spring of 2011, I finally completed a large gallery wall down our downstairs hallway. I LOVE how it turned out! The hallway is long and kind of dark, so the pictures aren't great... I posted about this awhile back. You can read about it HERE

View from by our kitchen table

 

View down the hallway.

I have recently added some different small frame displays around the house, too. 

The white door is our pantry.

 

 

Kids are display too!

Our front entryway table

Thank you for visiting! Come on back again!!

Kids Rooms

This week on Kelly's Korner she is featuring kids rooms. 

I am excited to share the different rooms I have done for Mckenna and Norah!

When I was pregnant with Mckenna we did not know her gender, so we put together a gender neutral nursery for the baby. 

When Mckenna arrived we added some "girlie" touches to the room to make it special for her!

Here is a link to more pictures of her room as a neutral room, as well as when we added girlie touches!

When we moved into our current home in August of 2010, Mckenna was just about a year old, so we were in between a nursery and starting to think about a big girl room for her. We painted the walls the same yellow from her nursery at the old house and then added hot pink accents to the room. 

Here is her room for the first year or so that we lived in our house. 

Once we moved her into her big girl bed when she turned 2 we started turning the room more into a big girl room. 

Here is the link to the first post I did on her room.

Here is the link to the second post I did on her room.

When we found out we were having another girl I was so excited to do another girl room! Since Mckenna's room was so bold and bright, I wanted to go soft and relaxing!

Here is the link to the first post I did on Norah's room

Here is the link to the second post I did on Norah's room

Thanks for stopping by to view our rooms! Hope you enjoyed seeing them!

Our Kitchen

Welcome!

This week I am again linking up to Kelly's Korner for her tour of homes! 

Last week we toured living rooms... click HERE to see ours!

This week is kitchens!!

Our kitchen is part of our large great room/open floor plan at the back of the house. 

Although I am happy with how our kitchen has evolved since living in our house for nearly 2 years, it didn't always look so pretty! 

The first time I saw the house it didn't even have cabinets!  

Here's a little look back at the early stages of our house/kitchen!

Anyways....

This view is as you enter off of the front entryway. 

The family room is to the right...

While the kitchen and breakfast nook are to the left.

We have TONS of cabinet space, which I love... however they are quickly filling up!

We had to purchase all new appliances for the kitchen when we moved in (there) were no appliances... I've been very happy with what we chose!

I use this little nook to the right of the fridge as a little "command center"... it isn't visible upon first glance in the kitchen (see above picture), so the mail can accumulate a bit without looking too cluttered! Also, the right side of our fridge is the only magnetic part we have access too, so it is perfect for housing a couple of pictures, as well as invitations to parties, reminders, etc.

You can see that the dishwasher has become "fun zone" since its the only large surface that is magnetic... it houses our little farm and magnetic letters!

View from right behind sectional

We just turned our table to face this direction... still deciding if I like it better this way, or not

View from standing near TV

There is a hallway which runs "behind" our kitchen. This hallway has the powder room, a door to the garage, as well as leads to our den/workout room.

View out from in the kitchen. The white door (covered in craft projects) is our pantry. It is a pretty big walk in pantry... LOVE!!

View out from standing by kitchen sink

Thank you for touring our kitchen!!!