Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!! We made these cute little Valentines (and cake pops!) for Dawson's music class.

(sorry about the crappy picture, I took it with my phone last night)

I've seen these on quite a few blogs and on twitter this year and the more I seen them the more I wanted to make some! They turned out super cute. Ashlynn's music class is too young for Valentine treats this year so I didn't make any with her. I will next year, though! :)

I hope everyone is having a lovely Valentine's day!! ♥

Snowmen Rice Krispie Treats

Yesterday me and Dawson made a little snowman family out of rice krispie treats. I saw this cute idea over at 1 Mom 3 Boys; Lots Of Love And Laughter and knew it would perfect to do with Dawson because we have been talking about building a snowman since we moved to Utah. We haven't been able to build any real snowmen yet because it hasn't snowed enough. I'm sure it won't be long before we're able to!

These were simple to make and even easier to decorate. I let Dawson (3 years old) do most of the decorating and he did a really good job!

To make them you just have to



3 tbsp butter
10.5 oz bag of miniature marshmallows
6 cups Rice Krispie cereal
1 can of vanilla frosting

Candy to decorate

I used:
sweetened flaked coconut
M&M's
Fruit Roll-Ups
Pretzel Sticks


Prep:
Melt butter in a large saucepan set over low heat. Add marshmallows, cook, stirring until melted and well blended. Add cereal; stir until coated.

Divide mixture and lightly pack into three 1 cup portions, three 1/2 cup portions, and three 1/3 cup portions. (I sprayed my measuring cups with Pam so the rice krispie treats would slide out easily.)

Working quickly, with damp hands, form each portion into a firmly packed round ball with a slightly flattened bottom. I let each ball set on wax paper for about 15 minutes and then I stacked the balls, three high, biggest to smallest to create three figures.

Spread a thin layer of frosting all over each figure. (If the treats are still warm they might start to come apart, if that happens just reshape the ball and let them sit for awhile longer before working with them.) Place the coconut in a shallow dish. Roll each figure in the coconut until well coated.

Use melted chocolate (I just used frosting) and m&m's to create "eyes", "noses" and "buttons" on the figures. Wrap pieces of fruit roll ups around the base of the smallest ball as a "scarf".


Gently push the pretzel sticks into each side of the middle balls for "arms".

Wordless Wednesday - The Disney Movie "UP" House!

Ok so this isn't exactly "wordless" but I'll try to keep it short. :D We moved to Utah from California last month! I grew up in Utah but have been in CA for almost 4 years so a lot has changed since I have been gone. We heard about a house that was built not too far from where we live that looks like the house in the movie Up! We had to go check it out! Here are some pictures that I took while we were there. It was AWESOME!



Here is the house from the movie (they had it playing in the house) in case you don't remember what it looks like.














This bookcase is at the top of the stairs...


And it's also a door to a hidden room!






Me and Dave want to go back soon to walk through it without the kids because Dawson kept trying to touch stuff so we didn't really get to spend as much time as I wanted there. We need to hurry, though, because somebody bought the house and they close on it next month and I don't think they'll let random people walk through it like you can now. :P

Christopher Pop-In-Kins is here!

A few nights ago before bed we read Dawson and Ashlynn the Christopher Pop-In-Kins book. After we were finished reading the story we asked him a few questions about it to make sure he understood what we read. He understood very well that Christopher comes to visit and we can not touch him or else he'll lose his magic. Before he went to sleep he told me he was going to dream about Santa and Christopher Pop-In-Kins. ♥

The next morning he had seemed to have forgotten about the story and Christopher was hiding on a wreath that we having hanging up. Dawson walked past him a few times without seeing him so I decided to remind him about the story that we read. Then I said maybe Christopher came to visit us, we should look for him! It took Dawson a few minutes to spot him but when he did he was SO excited!! That was a few days ago and since then whenever Dawson wakes up he is excited to see where Christopher is hiding or what he is up to. Besides sitting in the wreath he has also been holding on to a balloon and playing with some of Ashlynn's toys. We're having a lot of fun with him already and it warms my heart to see how excited Dawson gets to see him everyday.

I plan on posting a few pictures every couple of days to show what Christopher has been up to. Here he is playing with some of Ashlynn's toys.



To learn more about this cute little elf you can read my Christopher Pop-In-Kins review here.

Do you have a cute little elf visiting your family this year?

Handprint Thanksgiving Turkey Craft

This is one of my favorite crafts that we have done in a long time! I love it because it has Dawson's little handprint (age 3) and Ashlynn's little handprint (10 months old). I made the handprints into cute little turkeys and then I wrote "Happy Thanksgiving" and Dawson traced it! He did such a good job! He's really been getting into tracing things lately. He has me write the entire alphabet a couple times a day so he can trace it. (He does pretty well with writing most of the letters by himself already but he has fun tracing too) He loves to write, draw, and make art projects. He's so creative!

Anyway, I saw this craft on Pinterest and knew it would be perfect to do with Dawson and Ashlynn. Have you done any Thanksgiving crafts this year? If so please leave me the link so I can stop by and see!

Christopher Pop-In-Kins - A New Family Christmas Tradition

I wanted to share a new Christmas tradition with you that we will be starting this year. I know that it's just barely November but I wanted to share with you now in case you have never heard of it before and wanted to start it with your family too! Before last year I had never heard of anything like it. It was too close to Christmas by the time I had heard about it and Dawson had just turned two so we decided to wait until this year start it.

We normally set up our Christmas tree on Thanksgiving after dinner. Or if we're feeling a little bit lazy we'll do it the day after Thanksgiving. This year we are going to be moving from California to Utah right after Thanksgiving so putting up the tree isn't going to happen until the beginning of December. And that's when we'll introduce the kids to Christopher Pop-In-Kins!

Christopher "pops in" every day in a new hiding spot to check on the kids and make sure they're being good. The kids are not allowed to touch him or else he will lose his magic and have to return to the North Pole to have it restored. I know Dawson is going to love trying to find where Christopher is hiding every day and if he starts to be naughty I will remind him that Christopher is watching and will tell Santa what he sees.

The Christopher Pop-In-Kins kit comes with the Christopher Pop-In-Kins doll, a book telling the story about Christopher Pop-In-Kins and why he visits children during the Christmas season, and a case that holds the book and doll. The doll is pose-able so you can move his arms and legs and pose him differently every day. And he is SO cute!!

I love the illustrations in the book, too. It's a cute story and I know Dawson and Ashlynn will love looking at the pictures while me or dada read the story to them.


The book is a hardcover which is great because it will last a long time. The elf is also very sturdy. This is a great buy because it will provide you with years of family fun and memories!

You can buy Christopher Pop-In-Kins from Amazon or head on over to the Christopher Pop-In-Kins site for a list of other places to buy him.

I'm going to have some more posts in December about what Christopher Pop-In-Kins has been up to at our house and how the kids are liking him so stay tuned for those! :) Will you be joining in on the fun this year?

Disclosure: I received the Christopher Pop-In-Kins kit for free in order to try the product and form an opinion for this review. I was not compensated in any other manner. All opinions expressed above are my own. Thank you to ElfFun.com for allowing me (and my kids) to review Christopher Pop-In-Kins. I'm looking forward to starting this new tradition with my family. All opinions in this post are my own.

Shutterfly Photo Card Giveaway Winners!

My Shutterfly giveaway ended last night so it's time to pick the winners! *drum roll*





The winning comments are 12, 8, and 14 which belong to Heather, Christina, and Amy! Congrats! I will be emailing you all shortly. :)

Thank you Shutterfly for allowing me to have this giveaway! For those of you that are still interested in ordering from Shutterfly they are always offering some kind of discount on their site. Shutterfly rocks! :)