LDS General Conference Packets

I always get lots of emails requesting Conference Packets every April and Oct. There are so many great ones out there now days. Here is a link to where I usually get mine from. I also get lots of requests for a french toast recipe I mentioned along with Conference, here is a link to that. Since I can't get the bread for it where I live we now make puffed french toast with coconut syrup on Conference morning. The recipe for that is on my recipe blog and you can find that here. It's pretty much the yummiest breakfast ever. :) Have a great Conference weekend!

CALLING ALL MOM'S OF SCHOOL AGE KIDS

Got any great ideas for school lunches for your kids? Mine get sick of the same old pb&j. I'd love to hear what you do including sides, drinks etc.

JOETE'S PLAYGROUND MOTHER'S DAY AUCTION

Joete's Playground is hosting its Mother's Day auction HERE and it begins tomorrow!! Bidding will go until Saturday the 24th!

Joete's was founded a few years ago by my cousin, Lindsay..

You can read all about the non-profit organization on her website (link above).

Fabulous people and companies have donated fantastic things to this auction... so please check it out, let your friends know and bid on something great for the women in your lives!

All proceeds from the auction will go directly to new playgrounds that Joete's has in the works, so be generous! Give the mothers in your life a fantastic gift and help impoverished children at the same time. We'll ship the gifts directly to mom, or wherever you'd like them to go, it's so easy!

And... if you'd be so kind, it would be very much appreciated if you'd repost this on YOUR blog to get the word out.

HALLOWEEN PARTY

My friend Alisha and I can't resist any reason to throw a party. We invited a few of our friends families and had so much fun (despite it having to be rescheduled to Nov 1st because of my sick kiddos). All of the costumes were amazing!

{the costumes}



{the food}

bubbling cauldron cheese dip with bat wing dippers, bones and blood, mummies with mustard dip, apples and toffee dip, veggies and spinach dip, 7 layer spiderweb bean dip and chips, witches brew, dirt n' worms & pumpkin pie tarts

{invitations & party favors}

{the games}

donuts on a string are always a huge hit. even better when they're tanya's homemade donuts

GIRLFRIENDS CHRISTMAS PARTY 2009

One of my favorite holiday traditions is the Christmas Dinner that my friend Alisha and I host for some of our girlfriends. I love planning, preparing for and enjoying it. It's so fun to get together with friends and enjoy each others company along with good food every now and again.

These were the invitations we sent out and the little craft/favor that everyone made and went home with. It's a recipe book with several of our favorite recipes complete with pics from the party over the years. We'll add new recipes to it each year and it will be a great collection of holiday favorites.

Appetizers:

• Frothy Pink Grapefruit Strawberry Drink
• Tomato, Mozzerella & Basil Skewers drizzled with Balsamic Dressing
• Roasted Red Pepper Dip on a Crusty Baguette

Dinner:

• Christmas Salad
• Cajun Candied Salmon
• Lemon Rice
• New Wave Green Beans
• Fruit Salad with Cherries
• Orange Rolls

Dessert:

• Mini Cheesecakes & Brownie Tarts with Carmel Frosting

It was all soooooo goood!

(most of these recipes are on the recipe blog linked on my sidebar and the rest will make their way there eventually)

We had our traditional dessert exchange which is always fun and exciting. Everyone goes home with a fun holiday dessert for their family and a cute new serving tray. This year we had a banana cake with carmel and burnt butter frosting, peppermint bark popcorn, chocolate covered oreos, adoreable pretzel rod snowmen, homemade oreo cookies with peppermint, peanut butter and jelly bars and fudge, red velvet cupcakes, and a chocolate cheesecake cake.

RECIPES

I get lots of emails requesting recipes that I mention on this blog. Instead of having to email them out to several people or retype them on this blog {here} is a link to my recipe blog where I post almost all of my favorite recipes. I'm in the process of transferring all the recipes from my private blog so it will take a few days before they are all up.

There is also a link on the sidebar.

BIG Cupcake Recipe

I've had lots of emails lately about the recipe for the big cupcakes pictured on the header of this blog. There is no fancy recipe, just a fancy pan. It's made by Wilton and I got mine at my local craft store, Micheals along with the cupcake liners. Then you just use a regular cupcake mix (one mix makes six big cupcakes) and decorate however you like. I hope that answers your questions.

P.S. Sorry for the lack of posting, two babies in two years tends to suck your time and energy...in a good way of course!

General Conference Galore

For anything and everything you could possibly want for Conference including activity packets, go here:

http://www.sugardoodle.net/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3101

Cute Aprons Ideas

I'm in search of a cute apron ideas (for moms) for one of the projects at our Super Saturday (church craft day).  I'm looking for something cute, fun, and not too complex as sewers will be of all skill levels and our time is limited.  So if you have any fun ideas, tutorials, patterns please share them with me at delightfuldistraction@gmail.com.

THANKS A BUNCH!

Thanks & Father's Day Ideas

Thanks to all of you who are sharing your great ideas for teacher gifts.  I know I've definitely found some keepers.

Father's Day is quickly approaching so if you have any ideas and pics to share, send them my way!

Teacher Gift - Apple Stationary

I purchased this darling apple stationary set from this Etsy site:http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6388691

I have used it numerous times throughout the school year to send notes to Zach's teacher and thought she might like to have a set of her own to use next year. I just printed a set of the notecards, folded them and wrapped them (along with enough envelopes) with the belly band included in the download! The download also included a template to make your own matching envelopes, gift tags and small gift cards. I love these printable stationary packs because you can reuse them over and over again!

submitted by Shelly Brown (www.shellyabrown.typepad.com)

Teacher Gift - Supply Pail

It was the twins last day of preschool yesterday...so sad:(!! They really love their teacher and looked forward to going to her house every Wednesday. But they will be attending Pre-K this fall, so that will be fun! I really appreciated teacher Shelley, she was so awesome and very sweet. I wanted to show her how much she meant to the kids by giving her a little something from all of us. A few weeks ago Celeste and I found all this fun Crayola stuff in the $1 section at Micheal's. She came up with the clever title and putting it in a paint can. I added some Skittles, scissors, pens, pencils, sharpies, stickers, paper clips (in the Crayola tin), and ribbon to tie it all together. I stuck the lid to the bottom of the can with some removable adhesive. It turned out so cute and she loved it. The title says..."Teacher's fill the world with color...thanks for brightening our year!"

submitted by Shannon & Celeste (www.aplace4mommystoshare.blogspot.com & www.acraftychic.blogspot.com)

More teacher gifts...

Nikki has a bunch of great teacher gifts to share...click here to go to her blog post and check them all out along with info on how to do it yourself!

Teacher Gift - Lemonade & Gift Card

Kristi (murillofam.blogspot.com) got this idea from her friend Becca.

End of the year teacher gift time! Last year I stressed and worried all about end of the year teacher gifts... I over-worried, over-spent... I loved Colin's preschool teachers and wanted them to know it! A little older, a little wiser, and much, much busier this year. I love Ms. Aquino...she, along with all teachers, deserve a BIG thank you for putting up with our little darlings all year. However, I'm no millionaire...as much as I'd love to give her thousands of dollars it's just not fiscally responsible...especially in this economy. A gift card to the bookstore and a few tall glasses of ice-cold, delicious lemonade will have to suffice!

Teacher Gift - Wordle

This year, I made all ten of the kids’ teachers a Word Cloud or a Wordle. Here is an example of the one I made for HHE using all the teachers/administrators names and school words.

I emailed each teacher the following letter:

Hi
I am going to make your year end gift and I need your help to make it better. Please provide me with the following information to make your gift more special. Just skip any areas that don't apply. The more info you provide me the better.
What color tones do you like (Greens, Blues, Maroons, Other):
Names (your name, spouse, children & their spouse, grandchildren):
Nicknames (if any):
Names of your pets (if any):
If you have grandchildren, what do they call you and your husband?
Places or words that have meaning to you (college, favorite team, hobby, pets, nicknames, etc.): The more words the better!

Then you take the list of words and type them up in a word document. I added the following words deleting the ones that did not apply: fortunate happy kin loving parents offspring relatives wonderful hope love blessed faith son daughter sister brother daughter-in-law son-in-law trust wish dream ancestors joy mother father mom dad Hidden~Hollow elementary school educator Family Family Family

The words you want to appear larger you will need to list more times. I did last names and the word Family three times, first names twice and the remainder of the words just once. If you have two words that you want to appear together, you will need to us a ~ in place of the space.

Once you have your list of words, go to http://www.wordle.net/create. Copy and paste your list of words into the “Create” box and press “Go”. The next screen will allow you to pick your colors, fonts and layout. My personal preference is “Heat” for the Color, “Mostly Horizontal” for the Layout and “Loved by the King” for the Font. Once you are happy with your settings you can “Re-layout with current settings” or “Recolor” until you are happy with the finished product. Once I was happy with the look, I printed them on an 8.5 x 11 piece of photo paper and place them in a document frame. Here is an example of how they turned out.


submitted by Tracy Barger (www.bargerfam.blogspot.com)

Not your ordinary lanyard

What teacher wouldn't love a lanyard like this to wear their name/id badge on?  This fun idea comes from Cute2Carry click here for the tutorial.

Personalized Notepads for dads, teachers, etc.

Found this SIMPLE & EASY gift idea on Family Fun.  I thought it would also be fun to do something similar for teachers and let your child draw a pic of their teacher at the top and then write or type under it "from the desk of Mrs. Brown".

DAD'S PADS

Memo pads adorned with your child's original artwork make a noteworthy Father's Day gift. Simply have your kids decorate the top of a piece of paper and take it to a copy shop or printer to be made into notepads. Pads start at 50 cents each, depending on the paper size and your printer.   

Fathers Day Book

I saw this creative gift idea for Father's Day on Stacy Julian's blog and LOVED it! I'm pretty sure this is what I'll be making for the hubs and maybe even a different version for the grandpas this year. Thanks Stacy!

Teacher Stitching

This adoreable idea comes from Anne, her sister-in-law Dianna (who is a teacher and said she would LOVE something like this) submitted it.



She created it using a picture her daughter drew of her teacher and then she stitched it.  Such a fun idea!

Teacher Gift-Framed Crayon Letters

This cute idea and pics come from Hilary Shirley, and she found it via the Tip Junkie.





I bought an 8x 10 shadow box... printed the first letter of the teacher's last name really light in a plain font (I used Century Gothic) and the teacher's name on the side or bottom using a font called Pea Heather's Handwriting. I printed it on cardstock, cut crayons to size with a sharp paring knife and glued on with Elmer's glue. Crayons leave little flakey bits of color, so be careful not to smear your 'masterpiece.' I printed a sample on paper to hold my crayons up to to size them and a cutting board for cutting the crayons on. The cardstock does warp a bit, but it isn't noticeable in the shadow box.