End of School and Orange Themed Teacher Gift

I can't believe another school year has gone by! 9 months ago Nathan was excitedly getting ready for 1st grade - remember this picture?

And now here he is on his last day....he's grown so much!



His thoughts on his last day of school:

Of course he wouldn't have so many great things to say about first grade if he wouldn't have had a wonderful teacher. And a wonderful teacher deserves a special gift for getting us to this point! Last year I used some subway art to make a teacher appreciation gift for his Kindergarten teacher {you can check that out HERE if you are interested}. I have spent the year pinning all kinds of fun gift ideas for this year's teacher gift and finally settled on one when I saw this adorable Orange You Glad It's Almost Summer Gift Basket from Shaken Together. I just thought it was super cute and loved how bright and cheery it was.  I decided to check out the Dollar Store for my supplies and found plenty of fun orange themed stuff. Altogether, less than $10 spent (including the white tub to which I hot glued some orange ribbon). The tag is part of a free printable pdf, from Shaken Together, where you can also find some more fruit inspired tags for future appreciation gifts. I love how it turned out! What do you think?

kitchen towel, flowers, reese's, orange flavored water, an orange shaped popscicle, fan, tumbler, and citrus juicer

Can't wait to see what Second Grade will bring!

Baby Shower for the Twins

Don't you just LOVE baby showers? I could look at teeny-tiny baby stuff all day long -when you add in a group of friends and double the baby stuff, I am in heaven! This past weekend some of the ladies I work with in ministry came together to celebrate our sweet twins. I wanted to share some of the fun we had with all of you.

First of all, how much do you love these diaper cakes? My sister-in-law made them and I just love that they have the babies first and middle names with meanings as well as scriptures poking out of them. She made these out of size 1 diapers so that we could have them around for awhile to look at. So adorable!

My SIL also made these cute little cupcake toppers - mustaches for the little man and lips for the little lady:



I brought along the onesies with bows and bowties from the gender reveal party and we hung those up with clothespins to make some cute banners:

We played some of the typical shower games but livened things up in the end with this relay race. After putting the ladies in teams of 3, one had to diaper the baby (the old-fashioned way with safety pins and everything) and then swaddle it, the second person had to put a balloon up her shirt and then put the baby in a stroller and race it around the outside of the house. Once inside the third person undid the swaddle and diaper and gave it back to the first person to do all over again. After the second time around, whoever has the baby undressed first wins. Lots of fun!

 What a great time of celebration and fun! It has me that much more excited about meeting Samuel and Amelia in a few short weeks.

Catching up.....it's twins!

I'm back!! It has been months since I last posted and I have been dying to get back to writing so I wanted to start by sharing a big reason for my absence. I am 29 weeks pregnant with boy/girl twins! While I have actually had a relatively uncomplicated pregnancy so far, it has taken a lot out of me and for a long time I wasn't doing anything blog worthy. And though I am now in my third trimester and slowing down more than ever, I wanted to at least make an effort to document part of this pregnancy and hopefully get back to sharing some of the stuff I love. So let's catch up a bit on the last 7 months.

Here's the first ultrasound from the day after Christmas when I found out it was twins. My husband wasn't with me so the sonographer left him a special message on the ultrasound. It was priceless handing this to him and watching his face as it all sunk in:

We had a gender reveal party which was such a fun way to share the news with close friends and family (and we got to trick them a little bit while doing it!):

The invitations

Bow and Bowtie Onesies for the Banner

What will they be???

Want to see the video of the reveal? Click HERE and make sure to watch until the end :)

We also did a fun Mad Gab to reveal the names to everyone. Want to take a guess for yourself? These are their first and middle names, just read the string of words aloud (I'll put the names at the bottom of the post so you can see if you were right):

Baby A: Say I'm Yule Car Ray Egg

Baby B: Aim Eel Haw Joy Sis

Here are the latest ultrasound pictures taken at 27 weeks. They are getting so big!

Amelia with her feet at her head

Samuel looking right at us

And here is what I am looking like at 29 weeks:

Well, that's the last 7 months in a nutshell. We are so excited for these two blessings who will complete our family. Nathan, Jordan, and Isaiah daily talk about and to their new brother and sister and are ecstatic to meet them. As everyone likes to remind me, we are going to have our hands full and while to some that seems like a burden, I am truly grateful and wouldn't have it any other way :)

Answer to the Mad Gabs:
Baby A is named Samuel Craig
Baby B is named Amelia Joyce

Opportunity Drawing - Win Disney Tickets!

Awhile back I introduced you to the Gunderson family who are trying to bring two of their kids home from Ethiopia (you can read about them HERE if you missed it). They are still fiercely working to make that happen and it has been amazing to watch how God has brought together people from all over to step in and be a part of their journey. Through the month of February you have an awesome opportunity to not only help them bring their kids home, but possibly win tickets to Disneyland in the process. I'll let Jessie share all the details with you, just head over to her post Help Orphans and Win Disney Tickets to get more info.

Mini Micro Scooter

How was everyone's Christmas? Yes, that feels like ages ago (and I guess it kind of was!) but I know that we have been busy this month getting back into the swing of things after all of the holiday excitement as I am sure you have as well. 

I wanted to take the time to share with you one of the awesome gifts our sons got this year. It is a Mini Micro Scooter from Kickboard and we are loving it! I say we because I am so impressed with the quality of this scooter and how perfect it is for my smaller guys. Let me share with you some of the features that make it different from other scooters I have seen or purchased before.

The Mini Micro is made for kids 3-5 years of age and I have found that both my 3 year old and 5 year old can ride it comfortably (and safely!). It has 3 wheels and the base is really low to the ground which makes it very stable. They can stand on it with 2 feet and not have it tip over. The stability alone is enough to make me fall in love with this scooter. My 5 year old has tried to ride a different brand scooter and gets terrified when it starts tipping. That doesn't happen with the mini micro. It also has a lean-and-steer handle bar that makes it manageable and a safety brake at the back for easy stopping. And at 3.3 lbs, it is light enough for the little guys to carry on their own. Right out of the box my boys were able to get the hang of it and were riding around like pros in a matter of minutes. We are confined to trying it indoors since the weather is still lousy here, but that didn't stop them from having fun. Here's Jordan all smiles over his new scooter:

Oh, and did you notice the fun red color? Red is Jordan's favorite color which makes the scooter even more awesome in his eyes! They have a whole line of fun bright colors so that you can pick the one that perfectly suits your kids taste. Want to know more? Kickboard's kick scooters come in all sizes and varieties to suit kids from age 1 (you have to see the cute sit and stand scooter!) all the way up to a 2 wheel scooter for teenagers. Click the link above to be directed to their website and browse for yourself.

What great gifts did your kids get this year that both you and they fell in love with? Feel free to share in the comments, it's always nice getting some new ideas that come recommend from parents themselves.

**We were given the mini micro scooter for free in exchange for my opinions on the product. All opinions stated here represent my experience and are mine alone.**

Torani Holiday Cheer

 There are so many things to love about this time of year and one of them is all of the seasonal flavors we get to enjoy! I wanted to share with you two of the Torani Syrups we have been using in our house for the month of December.

 The first Torani syrup that has been making many appearances this month is the Peppermint flavor. It's like a candy cane in a bottle! This is great added to a homemade mocha and my kids have especially enjoyed it poured into their hot chocolate. If you caught my DIY hot chocolate jars post, if you removed the peppermint candies and instead paired a bottle of the Torani Peppermint Syrup with the cocoa jar, it would make for an awesome gift.

My personal favorite lately has been the Salted Caramel syrup. I add it to my french pressed decaf coffee along with almond milk...so good! The kids have also really been liking it in their hot apple cider. For more ideas on how to incorporate Torani's Salted Caramel syrup into your drinks and other treats, check out the recipe idea page HERE.

What flavors are you enjoying this holiday season? As I was browsing the flavor list at www.torani.com I was so surprised to see that their syrups extended beyond the typical sweet flavors I knew existed. Did you know they have flavors like Bacon and Chicken 'N Waffles in their arsenal? I didn't either. If you haven't checked out all that Torani has to offer, I encourage you to do so. Great for this season and beyond.

**This is a sponsored post for SheSpeaks and Torani. In exchange for my opinions, I was given free Torani products to sample. However, all opinions given here are completely my own.

DIY Gifts - Hot Cocoa Jars

I am so excited to be co-hosting a Christmas party this weekend for some awesome women who serve in the same ministry as me. We know these women give a lot so we wanted to make sure they had a great time and felt loved. The games, devotional, food are all going to be great and we just needed something great for them to take away as well. That's when I decided on these super adorable Hot Cocoa Jars. They are so cute and who doesn't love a delicious cup of hot cocoa this time of year? Let me share with you how we created these.

You could certainly use a store bought mix for this project but I wanted to go the extra mile so I started by making a huge batch of homemade hot cocoa mix (I used this recipe from Pennies On a Platter).

Now you need a mason jar...I used 16oz but you could make this work with any size. I added a little less than a cup of cocoa mix to the jar using a canning funnel to keep the powder from going everywhere.

Next come the toppings. You could get all kinds of creative here! We went with a 1/2 cup of mini marshmallows, 1/2 cup of chocolate chips, and 5 or 6 peppermints all layered on top of the hot chocolate. I left the mints in the wrapper so that anyone who didn't like them could just take them out but you could crush them up if you wanted. You could also separate the topping layers with little baggies so it is easy to get out of the jar. I really liked the look of the layers on top of each other so I did it that way.

Finally, time to make it beautiful. I found some fun polka dot cupcake wrappers that I put on top of the lid before I screwed the ring onto the jar. Then I tied on a homemade tag. The silver backing is just a mini foil cupcake wrapper flattened out and cut along the edges. The snowflake tags that are glued in the middle are part of a free printable from Simple As That. On the back I put the directions for making the cocoa. Tied it on with a ribbon and it was finished. I think the ladies will love them! (Only 23 more to make...thankfully it will go fast thanks to help from my co-hosts. Nothing beats an assembly line and girl talk while you are getting work done:)