'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

when all through the house. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

These ornaments were fun to make!  D. thinks they were made just for him to play with.  :)  And of course they were...right!?  :)

Tasty Deer!

Spotted at the Festival of Trees.  These are my kind of reindeer!

 These are my kind of reindeer!

Just for fun

Just for fun, the hubby and I were at Alberto's over our weekend away to celebrate our 10 year anniversary.  Check out the vegetarian burrito on the menu.  We had a good chuckle! :)

Don't Lose Your Marbles!

The boys have been earning {or losing} marbles, as part of a rewards system we decided to try out.  When the boys hit the first line, and half way mark, they earned an ice cream cone from Macey's.  JC, who's been leading the game, filled his bottle to the top line first.  As a reward, earlier this week JC and his dad went to the movies and saw the Smurfs.

Marble idea came from useyourmarbles.com.  The only thing I really did different is if the boys managed to not lose any of their 3 marbles in a day they earned a large shooter marble instead, or when I ran out of those an extra marble.

School Store

Here is the rundown of our incentive program as promised to a few people.

We started off by having JC create our own class money.

We then made copies of the cash.  A list of ways to earn money was created.  For us this was things like on a quiz $1 for 80%, $2 for 90%, and $4 for 100%.  Actual test have a higher payout.  He earns money for reading books and being able to retell the stories to me, and for doing his daily school job.  He also has bills he is responsible to pay for things like computer use and new pencils, notebooks, etc.

On Fridays once we are done with school stuff, we payout for jobs and he pays his bills, then the the school store opens.  It will only be open during this time until the next week.  My prices were pretty low to start out with, but as I add new items to the store the prices are slowly increasing.

D. is thrilled to earn a hotwheel car he's had his eye on.

And JC was so happy to finally earn connect 4, launchers.  This by the way is an awesome game, much better than the original.

Donut for Dad

First, I am so glad we have Father's Day.  I am lucky enough to have a great dad in my life.  And be married to a man who is a great dad, he too has a great dad.  I am always grateful for the dads in my life, but not always as verbal as I could be.  So just so you guys know I love you, thank you for all you do!

The hubby had been talking last year about the Giant Donut cake pan.  So for Christmas the boys gave him the pan so we could make him one.  Here we are 6 months later and he finally got his Giant Pink Sprinkle Donut.  It had to be pink with sprinkles...If you are thinking of the Homer Simpson similarity, you would be correct.  For as long as I have known Jerret he has loved pink donuts and Homer J. Simpson.  He may be as funny as Homer, but he's  a much better Husband/ Dad!

 Here is it before being frosted.  I was very careful to follow the icing pattern.  But Hubs corrected me, telling me that donuts don't look like that.  And took over smoothing out the sides, lol, I love it.  This donut was serious business!  The boys had fun adding the sprinkles.

 Now this is a donut!

Jake and the Neverland Pirates Party

We had Dallin's birthday party today.  It was the coolest coldest party we've been too.  So we are really grateful to our friends for hanging out in the wind for us.  Just for the record, the average temperature today is in the 70's!

 The invite (mailed out ones didn't say to come as a pirate!)  Dallin wanted a "Jake" party.  From Disney Juniors show Jake and The Neverland Pirates.  The show is so new you can't buy anything from it.  So I am very grateful  Disney put these free printable invitations on their website!

 Thank you gift bags had a ring pop, eye patch, some "gold" candy, Jake bubbles I created, Jake coloring pages from the Disney website, and crayons.

We loved the location of the party.  The park is on the lake...perfect for little pirates!  And this slide looks like water.  They loved racing each other on it!

 It was too windy to lite the candle.

Food was put into sand buckets and other sand toys.

 And every pirate needs a {balloon} sword and eye patch.  I learned how to make the swords on YouTube.  Super easy!

We made this poster print of Dallin so we could play pin the eye patch on Captain Dallin.  But it was super windy, and after wind blew a drink over on it, (thank goodness it had been framed!)we decided to just keep it safe in the car.

My New Hobby

And we can blame Grandma P.!  For Dallin's last birthday he received a kit to make balloon animals.  We just opened it two days ago,{and yes I know his next birthday is in 10 days.}

So finally instead of hiding it, like I've done for the past year every time it managed to be re-found, I looked up how to make balloon swords.



After about 6 swords, the boys convinced me today that they needed parrots.  So, I googled that (what on Earth did mom's do before google??!!)   And what do you know...now I can do parrots too! {click HERE for video}  And I am thinking this is pretty fun.  And I like making balloon animals!  In fact I plan on making swords for Dallin's pirate party next month...and I am looking forward to it!

I even got Jerret in on the excitement, and he took over on the first try of the parrot, basically after the first two steps.  But I got to make the second {purple}one!

Teacher Appreciation Week

Yesterday was a special lunch for teachers because JC's school is celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week.

I had the opportunity again this year to spend lunch with JC and his class while his teachers had an extra 30 minute lunch.  This year I did a full door decoration.  I was really happy with last years, but I think I liked this one even better.

In gold on the large bumble bee it read, "Mrs. Remkus and Ms. Rowe Are the Bees Knees."

Then in the colorful letters is says, "Thank You for helping us bloom!"  Each flower has a picture of one of the students, they wrote their names and decorated them to make them a little more personal.  It was a lot of fun!

Peeps Cake

My mom needed to decorate a cake for her Relief Society Meeting. She and I were bouncing ideas off each other and I mentioned peeps would be really cute. She totally took they idea and ran with it. I LOVE what she came up with, a peep flower cake! It may still be snowing in McCall, ID but she brought a little much needed Spring to the sisters of her ward!

Mad Scientist

Today we had a party to celebrate JC's birthday.  He invited his two closest friends.  We had a blast doing science experiments and playing science themed games.  

The kids safety goggles I ordered still haven't made it since weather has caused package mayhem, but the kids didn't care.  JC plans to still hand deliver them to his friends once they've arrived.

 The little scientist.

Lab coats were just mens plain white t-shirts cut down the front. 

I gave each child  a name tag with Dr. their name.

We made their hair crazy with gel and mousse.

Creating their own shade of frosting and decorating mini bunt cakes.
How awesome are the sprinkles in vials?   I found those at Targets after Halloween clearance last year.  Worked out perfectly!

 Everyone needed a candle to blow out for good luck!

Atoms and Molecules ice cream!

The funky glasses were won in a game of Operation.  Each time they successfully removed an item they got to pick a gift, trade theirs, or keep what they had.  Amazingly in the end everyone got what they wanted most!

Blowing out the candles!

Here is a link to the flask cake, I kind of tried out my own thing with my mini bunts, it wasn't awesome.