We Heart Deviled Eggs

Well, at least Magnus and I do! John loathes it! The smell gets to him and it makes him not kiss me if I eat it. Sad, because he is missing out...on both!!!!

Anyways since school is out and we have more time to do fun stuff, we made this one afternoon while Soph was napping. I love it when she naps! Magnus was a great helper and I love teaching him how to cook. One thing I always ask him is, what's an important part of cooking. He usually says something like clean hands, but since he has been cooking with me more often, he knows what the correct answer to that is now...clean as you go! I hope his future wife will thank me later for this! 

Cooking has been a huge part of my childhood whether I liked it or not! My mom would always make my sister and I help with meals and that was not something that a "cool" teenager like me wanted to do. One memory that I have is whenever my mom needed onions for something, my sister would make me do it. You know how that goes when you are chopping onions! Talk about uncontrollable constant running down the face alligator size tears! I've chopped so many onions that they no longer have that effect on me! A curse that became a blessing.

One day as adults, we were cooking together and my mom needed onions. Since I was busy with something else my sister had to do it. Well, guess who was crying then! In your face Sis-ta! (With love)

I am so thankful that that was a part of my childhood and I hope that it becomes a part of Magnus's and Soph's childhood memories too!   

Bear

Bear has been around since before Magnus was born. Magnus loves Bear. When he was an infant, Bear would go with him everywhere. As parents we knew that one day we would accidentally lose Bear or forget him somewhere. So we came up with this great plan to buy more of him, just in case. One day we hid Bear from Magnus because we wanted him to play with the other ones so they would get the same amount of wear and tear. Didn't work out so well. Even though they looked exactly the same as bear, he didn't buy it. We decided to put all the bears together and see if he could tell which one was the real Bear. He chose Bear each and everytime. I guess it's like when a mother knows her child! Everywhere we went before we'd leave we had to do a checklist to make sure that Bear would be coming home with us. Fast forward to this day and this is what Bear looks like.  

He no longer has a smile, his stuffing is gone, the plushness of his face is no longer there, and he has a hole in his neck. Everytime we wash him, some of the beads inside of his legs comes out. 

I am not a sentimental person, but today I looked at Bear and I couldn't help, but tear up. He has been such a special thing in my son's life and one day we will have to retire him. I don't know how Magnus will handle it. I don't know how I would handle it. It will mark the beginning of a new phase of Magnus' life. I don't know if I am ready for him to grow up yet.   

Make your own-Taco Seasoning

We eat a lot of tacos at this house. A.Lot. So I usually buy McCormick's taco seasoning in the big jug from Costco. Well we were all out of it and it was taco time. So I did a quick online seach for taco seasonings and found this recipe. I'm sorry I don't remember where it came from, either a blog or ehow or something like that.

This is by far better than the "big jug". I think I'll be making this from now on! On the plus side, it has no extra additives or what-nots that the "big jug" has.

Recipe:

1 TBS chili powder

1/4 tsp of garlic powder, onion powder, oregano

1 1/2 tsp cumin

1 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

(I used less pepper because I wasn't sure how spicy it was going to be)

Mix it all up and throw it into your meat, just as if you had purchased a McCormick taco seasoning mix! Yummy! 

My neice's HS graduation!

My niece! Boy has she grown up! Doesn't she look lovely!!! It hasn't always been the case....long ago she had the most nappiest head of hair. It was frustrate me to my wits end to comb out the rat's nest she called hair. I don't know what the problem was, but it was awful. I think it kinda hindered our relationship a little bit. But now look at her! Look at her hair! We have a much better relationship now! Maybe it's because I don't have to comb her hair anymore????? Anyways, I am so proud of her. She has worked hard despite some of the hardships that life handed her and she truly deserves the best that the future has for her.

                       Ugh! I love embraces like that! So sweet!

                           
Have you ever noticed that when there are more than one camera, no one looks at the same camera? How does celebrities do it? We need their tips!

                          
My two beautiful nieces! I don't know how I would be able to raise my two kiddos without the help of these two wonderful young ladies!

                          

I love seeing the joy in their faces!

Blogger is still having issues with comment form, so email me or FB me!

Magnus is done with K!

Magnus' school has a tradition that, at the end of the promotion ceremony, moms are called to the stage and the children exit to bring back flowers to honor their mom's for all the blood, sweat and tears that were poured out during the school year. Since my little lovely has never done this before, he walked down the sanctuary aisle, then made a beeline with the flower back to where he was sitting. All the while I am up on stage with the other moms whose children are graciously adorning them with flowers and I see my little one walking right past me. So this is me, "psst, Magnus, psssssttt, Magnus, ppppssssstttt! Magnus!!!" then he finally looks up to me! 

So cute! I think he did a great job considering that he had no idea that this was going to be done!

                                             Two happy/fun having people!

                       I'm a proud Mama! I can't believe he is going to be in 1st grade next year!

Soph is showing off some shoulders!

By the way, I forgot to mention that Blogger is having some issues with comment form. So if you are trying to leave me a comment, you'd have to email me or do it in facebook. Sorry! Ugh Blogger! 

A new dress for Soph

I have been working on this dress for almost the whole last year to now. It's one of the many half finished projects that I have laying around. I tend to lose steam when I have no inspiration/vision for it. I didn't know how to finish the hem or have any idea of anything else to add to it. It was just a sad.plain.brown.dress. 

Since Soph needed something nice to wear to Magnus' promotion night at his school, I figured I better finish this dress. I used fabric covered buttons-my favorite right now, and I remembered I had some leftover ribbon from Soph's baby shower invitation. I know...it's crazy that I still have something from that long ago. After some hymming and hawing, this is what I came up with. This I think, made for a more polished look and definately added the umph that it was lacking before. 

I am not the best rossette maker, but I think this'll do since it was my first time! Adding the strips of ribbon in there made the look more cohesive. This fabric was from Walmart's crazy $5.00/bolt bin. There's still a lot left too! Yeah for cheap stuff!!!

A refashion for Magnus

At Magnus' school, they have an end of the year grade promotion ceremony that they do. Everyone is suppose to get all dolled up. Since we don't ever have anywhere to go to get all dolled up, we were lacking in the necessities. Plus this boy has been growing an inch a day, so this mama didn't want to shell out $ for something he was only going to wear once and then have it become capris!! So my friend Windy and I walked to the thrift store that is down the street from our house and found a pair of these pants. They were $2.50, which is a great price. BUT they were 1/2 off of that! A great score!!! Now even if I messed up I wouldn't feel too bad.

 I took an existing pair of pants from Magnus, layed it on top and cut around it. I kept the hem to make it easier on myself. Added some elastic to the waist and Ta-da!!! Nice pants for the promo night!

                                   Not too shabby for $1.25