Daddy Rocks.

Happy Father's Day to all you daddies, grandpas, uncles, grampies, papas, etc!

As usual, I've been doing some crafts in my "free" time. Though, now Caraline is included in that time! I love it.

This year for Mother's Day we made our gifts. Father's Day it was the same way. I think handmade gifts are more special than most things I could buy in a store.

Now, to warn you, any craft involving a 4 month old and paint can be tricky! (Does that surprise you?)

The handprint project we did for the Mother's Day canvases was challenging. I learned my lesson and made two changes when doing a new craft with paint for Father's Day.

1) I switched to a footprint instead of a handprint (more stable)

2) I put her in her Bumbo seat, so she was stuck!

My adorable slobbering assistant.

If you ask me, it was pretty genius. And it totally worked better.

We started with a few rocks that were about the size of softballs or baseballs. I had four: One for Mike, one for my dad, one for Mike's dad and one for my grandpa.

I painted them all a different solid color and let them dry. I then painted the cute little foot of my daughter and pressed each rock up against her foot. She just sat and gave me funny looks. I'm sure it felt strange to have paint on her little toesies.

The blue rock that was for Mike turned out the best. It was the cleanest print out of all of them.

After all the footprints had dried, I added glitter paint to the white prints and later wrote with puffy paint. And even though the other prints were not perfect, I still love how they turned out. 

My friend Kristi did the same thing for her husband with her daughter Kinley's hand print. She gave me permission to use a photo of how hers turned out. I love the polka dots she made! So cute!

The footprint craft wasn't the only gift I had handmade for Mike this year. I also commissioned my friend D'ann with Creative Metals by D to have a keyring made for him.

I just love it. And it's so special. D'ann is so talented.

Happy Father's Day, my friends!

Fresh Summer Veggie Bake.

WARNING: This recipe was delicious!

Okay, maybe not a warning . . . but an alert so you're prepared for major YUM!

I found this recipe for Fresh Summer Veggie Bake on Can't Stay Out Of The Kitchen. I knew I wanted to make it for our annual family get together for Memorial Day weekend. Like a pinhead (that's an awesome person who pins lots of things, makes said things and then forgets to take pictures of the final product), I forgot to take pictures of the final product. Or really I forgot to take any pictures except ONE, right before I put it in the oven.

Here's how Teresa's turned out (She's the author of Can't Stay Out Of The Kitchen).

IMAGE SOURCE

http://cantstayoutofthekitchen.com/2013/03/09/fresh-summer-veggie-bake/

It has yellow squash zucchini, green zucchini, potatoes (I used red) and tomatoes. You sauté garlic and onions, put those in the bottom of the dish, then slice all the veggies and layer those in. Then you add a couple spices and pop it in the oven. After that, you add some parmesan cheese and put it back in the oven. It's so easy! And it's pretty to look at, too!

I did take a pic of how mine looked right before putting it in the oven. But that's all you get from me. Sorry.

This was pre-cheese which is the best part. I added mozzarella cheese in addition to shredded parmesan cheese. I'll be doing THAT again. I'm such a sucker for mozzarella cheese!

**Another thing to remember when making this, cut your tomatoes thicker than the rest of the veggies. They'll break down in the oven and if they're too thin they'll turn to sauce. You don't want that. . .

Happy Summer Baking!

Four months.

Caraline is four months old.

FOUR MONTHS!

"Time flies" sure is accurate. It seems like just yesterday we brought her home from the hospital.

She's so fun these days. She giggles at surprising things (like her cousin Audra saying "boo" to her) and she gets so excited when she sees daddy and me first thing in the morning and when I pick her up from the sitter after work. Her gummy grin captures me like nothing else. I just love her so much.

Happy four months!

Organizing photos.

We have a stainless steel refrigerator.

We have lots of photos of family and friends.

We don't want to clutter our frig with said photos.

So what's a family to do?

Well . . . while going through old boxes in our garage, I found a cork board I used in college 2,452 years ago. It was boring then. It was boring when I found it.

The choice was to trash it or make it beautiful. 

I chose to make it beautiful. And to utilize it for displaying our bunches of photos in our kitchen.

I used blue painter's tape and black spray paint. That's it! 

(and you'll notice I didn't tape the whole thing because halfway through I realized I'd be covering most or all of the board with photos, so I stopped)

Okay, now go make something new again.

Happy spray painting!