bird seed wreath

over the weekend the girls and i did a simple craft of making a bird seed wreath.  if i were to rate this project on "kid friendliness,"  i'd probably give it a 9.  it would have gotten a 10 if it wasn't sticky, but you need the "sticky" in order for it to work.

so here is what you need:

• 4 cups bird food
• about 3 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1 pkg. unflavored gelatin
• 1/2 cup warm water
• bundt pan
• nonstick spray
• ribbon

using a large bowl, mix the gelatin into the warm water until dissolved.  then whisk in your corn syrup and flour.  a little hint, don't measure your corn syrup, just guesstimate.  your basically trying to make a gooey mixture and the birds won't be critiquing the taste.  

(ignore the dirty faces and wild hair.  we did this project at night right before bath time.)

pour in the 4 cups of bird seed...

...and mix well.

then scoop the mixture into the bundt pan and press down with the back of your spoon.  i let one kid do the scooping and the other kid do the pressing.

it should look like this when you are done.

let it sit overnight.  in the morning, carefully flip the wreath out and let it sit a few more hours to completely dry.  then simply tie a ribbon around it and hang!

happy bird watching!

just a reminder...  if you would like more information on how you can become a stem cell donor please click here.

~becky

valentines

i had really good intentions on doing an elaborate post on valentines, but then life happened and my day didn't go as planned.  i did managed to snap a few pics of the girls as we were literally running out the door, but the pics are so poor i'm not going to embarrass myself by sharing them.

these are the treat bags we shared:

(if your thinking those cookies look crumbled, you would be correct.  this was the lucky treat bag kevyn got to bring back home.)

supplies included:

• cookies purchased in bulk from sam's club
• paper straws from target
• Treat Bags 5x11" 20/Pkg-Clear
• kraft labels

i then created the labels using various fonts and let the girls stuff and seal the bags.  way too easy!  AND...  i've made it even simpler for anyone who wants to copy this by sharing the labels i created.  just click here!

hope everyone had a great valentines!

~becky

asking for prayers (& stem cells!)

if you've been following my blog for a while, you know that my sister has cancer.  she was first diagnosed in august of 2010.  you can read some of my other posts here, and here.  in november she had a stem cell transplant and we all prayed this procedure would eliminate her cancer.  it didn't.  a few weeks ago the doctors revealed their new game plan which entails another stem cell transplant, but this time with a donor's stem cells.  seeing as how we both have the same parents, i would be her best bet for a match so i was tested last week.  we just found out i'm not a match.  bummer.

sooo....  i've had many friends and family members ask how they can be tested.  although they are not testing anyone else specific to my sister's case, you can all join the national registry to help out someone else in need.  simply go to marrow.org, answer a few questions, and they will send you a kit with some mouth swabs in a couple of weeks.  easy peasy.

in the meantime, please pray for my sister.  pray that they are successful in finding a match and pray that this next stem cell transplant cures her cancer.

~ becky

kelby lost a tooth!

kelby is pretty much a groupie.  if her friends are doing it, she want's to do it too.  so when her friends starting losing teeth in pre-k, we started having "loose tooth sightings" all over the place.  mysteriously when i checked the loose tooth, it was no longer loose.  crazy, i know.

when kelby told me a few weeks ago that she had a lose tooth and did the happy dance that i've seen countless times before, naturally i was skeptical.  except this time it was legit.  i told her to keep wiggling it and maybe in a week or so it would come out.  not the case.  it simply quit wiggling.  i started to question myself.  was i also seeing an imaginary loose tooth???

when my mom questioned kelby's loose tooth progress, we both told her it just quit wiggling.  she then asked if i had checked to see if her adult tooth came in behind it.  uh, no...  the adult tooth isn't suppose to come until the baby tooth is out...  right?  wrong.  her adult tooth had popped up behind her baby tooth and was preventing her baby tooth to wiggle itself out.  i called her dentist the next day and made an appointment to have it removed.  apparently i had to have many of my teeth removed by the dentist for the same reason.

kelby's last picture with all her baby teeth:

when i picked her up from school that day, she was super chatty.  for about an hour i got to hear all about her day, who said what, and how hard it was to eat (drama queen).  i think she was on repeat because i heard the same stories over and over and over again.  she was so excited she too was now part of the "missing teeth" gang at school.  

that night we borrowed jeff's tooth fairy pillow from when he was little and placed her tooth in it.  kelby keep insisting we needed to get home from dinner quickly because her friend told her the tooth fairy only comes between 6-8.  seriously???  the tooth fairy was running a little late and didn't make it until 8:30 or so.  kelby was so excited her hands were shaking when she showed me the five gold coins that the tooth fairy had left her.  her pure joy and excitement was a good reminder that even though she is getting older (wasn't she just getting those teeth yesterday???) she is still so young and innocent.  

{sorry for the bad iPhone pics}

~becky