Audrey - 3 years, 6 months

Audrey,

I feel like I just wrote your three year letter and here we are in June! Here's the rundown on what life is like for you my sweet three and a half year old!

You just finished your first year of pre-school. You love school, your teachers and your friends, and you ask me all the time when school will start again.

As you can see, you've grown so much! But your growth is not just physical. You can write your first name all own your own, along with most of your letters.

Your personality is developing more and more, and you are your own unique person. And you have some of the silliest quirks. If you have a jacket or sweatshirt on, it has to be zipped or buttoned all the way to the top. You simply cannot stand to wear it if it is open or only done up halfway. On the opposite side of the spectrum, you seem to like to be shirtless lately. You'll proclaim that you're hot (even if it is freezing) and strip your shirt right off. And those are just a couple examples of your silliness! 

You wake up grumpy almost every day. It doesn't matter what time you wake up or how long you've slept, whether you woke up on your own or I woke you up. I have a feeling this is foreshadowing of your teenage years, and, honestly, I'm not looking forward to it.

You are the perfect combination of girly-girl and tom-boy. You love dresses, having your nails painted, make-up and jewelry. But while wearing that dress, make-up and jewelry, you'll dig in the dirt, drive trucks back and forth through the sand, jump in puddles, and sit and watch ants for hours.

You are very active and love to be outside. You are my tree-hugging, nature-loving girl!

You absolutely LOVE jumping on the trampoline! And you'd stay out there all day if I let you. But you love to run and play ball and do yoga, too.

You also finally learned to ride your bike! The first few attempts involved lots of tears and frustration, but one day the movement just "clicked" for you and you took off pedaling. 

In other firsts, you had your first trip to the dentist and your first haircut! Surprisingly, the visit to the dentist went much smoother than the haircut, which turned out to be more like a trim than a cut!

You're three and a half, but I swear you think you're twenty-three. You love to help do anything adults around you are doing, and you believe you can do anything despite your age and size. Cooking, setting the table and helping with the laundry are some of your favorites.

You are independent, but still love to cuddle. Your are physically strong, but oh so sweet. You have your own (strong!) opinion, but you still love to imitate. You are my little walking contradiction and I love every quirky bit of you!

I love you more than all the stars, sweetheart!

Love always,

Mommy

How I know my kid is really sick:

*Alternate, longer title* How I know my kid, who never naps or falls asleep by herself, is really sick:

Audrey has a fever and a nasty cough, but she seems okay otherwise. I leave her on the couch watching cartoons while I go upstairs to take a quick shower. While I'm in the shower, she comes upstairs and tells me, "The couch isn't comfy enough. I'm going to cuddle in my comfy bed." I quickly finish and go to check on her, maybe 60 seconds later. The door to her room is closed. I open the door and she is fast asleep in her bed at 12:15 in the afternoon. She does not nap anymore. And when she goes to sleep at night, someone has to cuddle with her. Yet here she is asleep, and she put herself down for a nap. This fever is kicking my poor little bear's bum!

Father's Day T-shirts

Father's Day was pretty low key here. But Audrey and I did make these t-shirts for her Daddy and Pa a few days before.

I got the idea for the t-shirts over at Sugar Bee Crafts. She embroidered her shirt, and my basic sewing machine does not do that, so I just used acrylic paint that I already had. I did change the words a little bit.

I didn't take any pictures as we made them, but I used the same process I used to make these personalized dish towels.

You can read more about the process in my other post, but basically: print words on mat side of freezer paper, cut out letters with x-acto knife, iron on freezer paper, dab on acrylic paint, let dry, repeat two more times, heat set with iron and in the dryer. Then her hand prints were in acrylic paint as well, heat set with the iron and dryer after they had dried.

They came out so cute and Daddy and Pa both loved their shirts!

End of the Year Teacher Gifts

When I asked Audrey what she wanted to get her pre-school teachers for an end of the year appreciation gift, she said ice cream. An expected answer from a 3 1/2 year old, but not all that easy to execute without a melting, dripping mess. So I took the idea, did some research and ran with an ice cream theme, without the actual ice cream.

We started by making some homemade hot fudge. We got the recipe over at Averie Cooks and it was super simple and quick!

Then I made these simple mason jar lid labels in Word. I just made a colored circle the size of the lid, added the words, printed on card stock, and cut them out.

We picked up some ice cream sundae cone bowls and small jars of sprinkles, too. I took the cone bowls out of the box and wrapped them in a prettier cellophane bag, and peeled the label off of the sprinkles.

I found these cute ice cream cone gift tags over at Eat Drink Chic. I added "Just add ice cream!" and "Here's the Scoop: I loved having you as my teacher! Have a great summer!" Then I let Audrey sign her name.

Finally, we were looking for a small basket or something to put everything in, when we walked past these large, colorful, plastic margarita glasses. Audrey said, "Look, Mommy! Ice cream bowls!" She insisted she wanted these and I thought it was funny. Her teachers could use them for ice cream or for their intended purpose! I put everything in the glasses, wrapped them in cellophane, tied the tags on with curly ribbon and voila!

Her teachers loved them and Audrey was so proud!

School's out for summer!

Today was Audrey's last day of pre-school for this year. I cried in the car when I left her that first day, but she was never even phased by me leaving her there. She dives into everything head first with no fear! She LOVES school, her teachers, and all her little friends, and it's almost unbelievable how much she learned this year. But what's most shocking to me is how much she has grown in the last 9 months! (Yes, that is the same door!)

So school's out! And we're ready for some summer fun!!

Pinterest Favorite Food Finds - Part 2

I'm going to let you in on a little secret...I love to eat! Okay, that's probably not much of a secret. But I do. And that means I constantly have my eye out for new recipes to try. Last year, I wrote a post about a few of my favorite food finds on Pinterest. I don't make everything I pin, and not everything I try is successful, but I've tried a few things that have made the cut into our regular rotation of things we like, so I thought I'd write a Part 2 to my Pinterest Favorite Food Finds!

First up is breakfast! Or if you're anything like us, dinner as often as once a week sometimes! I used to always make pancakes from a box mix that you just add water to. But I'm trying to reduce chemicals and prepackaged foods from our diet one thing at a time, so I was on the lookout for a pancake recipe. When I found and tried this recipe for Greek Yogurt Pancakes, I never turned back and this is our tried-and-true, go-to pancake recipe now!

Photo from favoritefamilyfoods.wordpress.com

And then there's dinner. Like most households, dinner is often a struggle for us. I ask the infamous, "What do you want for dinner?" and get the ever-dreaded, even more infamous, "I don't care," or "Whatever you want," responses! Ugh! Not to mention trying to cook something that everyone enjoys so I'm not making 3 different things for dinner. So when I try something new that we all love, I'm ecstatic! These Mini Chicken Parmesan Meatloaf Cupcakes were an instant hit! We call them Chicken Parm Meatballs and I serve them with spaghetti for dinner, but they're great reheated in the toaster oven for lunch the next day too! The only change I make is that I use half the panko bread crumbs that it calls for. Half a cup is plenty!

Photo from tablespoon.com

I also love finding recipes that are both healthy and delicious! These next two recipes live up to that! First, One Pan Mexican Quinoa! We just had this for the first time the other night, but it was delicious and most definitely will be a regular! And the little tiny bit that was leftover was even more delicious cold for lunch!

Photo from Damn Delicious

The next recipe even I was skeptical about! I am not a cauliflower fan. But Cauliflower Pizza Crust recipes are floating all over Pinterest, so I decided to give it a shot! And I was more than pleasantly surprised! YUM! I did add about a handful of Parmesan cheese in also, but otherwise kept the recipe the same. Mine TOTALLY stuck to the foil. (Turns out that regular foil is not the same as non-stick foil. Who knew?!) It was more work to peel it off than it was worth, but what I did eat was worth making again. Next time, I may try parchment paper or just spray a cookie sheet.

Photo from One Good Thing By Jillee

And finally, dessert! I first tried this recipe when we had lots of carrots and zucchini from the garden last summer. I made a few modifications, but these Carrot Cake Cookies became an instant hit! I skip the frosting because I don't think they need it, but they'd probably be even better with it! I use 1/2 cup of coconut oil and 1/4 cup of softened butter instead of the shortening. I also do 1 cup of shredded carrots and 1/2 cup of shredded zucchini instead of all carrots. And I have done both raisins and dried cranberries on separate occasions and both are yummy! They're best right out of the oven because they have some crispiness on the edges. But if you are okay with a cake texture instead of a cookie texture, they're good for a couple days (if they last that long!)

This photo is actually mine. :)

That's it for some of my tried-and-true recipes from Pinterest today! If you try any of them, be sure to let me know what you think! And please feel free to share some of your favorite Pinterest recipe finds too!

Earth Day

Audrey and I were in line at the grocery store the other day and there was a little, elderly woman in front of us. She must have swiped her debit card 10 different times and kept entering the wrong pin number. I thought about paying for her groceries myself, but I only had cash on me and not enough for her groceries and mine. Finally, the woman behind me swiped her card and bought the woman's groceries for her. Even though the kindness wasn't directed at me, I knew I wanted to pay it forward somehow. Today, we did just that! In honor of Earth Day and that kind, selfless woman behind us at the store, Audrey and I picked up an entire trash bag full of trash from just a small section of a street in our neighborhood that we walk on all the time.

So now I'm asking you to pay it forward somehow. Take pride in your neighborhood. Happy Earth Day!!