Coloring Eggs - 2018

With one of my nieces in town this week I knew we had to begin our Easter fun a little early.  Together the three kids and I baked an Easter surprise cake, played with glowy eggs and I supervised while three dozen hard boiled eggs were artfully designed 😍

(You can click here if you want to read about glowy eggs)

  I'll have a new post coming soon featuring our Easter surprise cake, but for now check out these photos from our afternoon coloring eggs:

We used standard egg dying kits to create the base colors before adding additional details with markers and stickers.  Bubby preferred  a simple solid layer of color for his eggs, but the girls created layers of color by dipping the eggs in more than one hue.

The eggs in the photo above were all decorated by my Bubby while

the photos below contain eggs designed by the girls. 

The kids did a great job and had a lot of fun....especially when my two started experimenting with different ways to waste, I mean crack and peel their eggs....It's the memories that count, right? 😊

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I hope you enjoyed this holiday post, thanks for stopping by!
-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2018

Valentine's Day and Actual Birthdays: 2018

The past couple of weeks have been busy with celebrating Valentine's day and the guy's (shared) actual birthday.  Here are some photos from our fun:

The kids enjoyed cutting out and decorating these heart shaped cookies for Valentine's Day.

My Baby Girl also had a good time creating valentine's for her classmates, but I forgot to get a pic😕

The holiday fell on a school/ work day this year, so we waited until afternoon to exchange valentines.  I did manage some time to myself in the morning and had a hot bath, some time to read and my very own heart shaped box of chocolates....until my Bubby caught me.  Then I shared, of course 😁

Bubby's Actual birthday was marked with another cake and a few gifts.

He was very excited to choose the Ninja Turtle wrapping paper himself 😁

He also requested that a dinosaur be on top of his lemon birthday cake and I was happy to oblige  😊

We can't forget that the same day is also Husby's birthday 💕
-he got a German chocolate cake and sugar cookies.


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For brunch Husby wanted crepes and Bubby requested bacon .  They are starting to strategize, asking for all of the unhealthy things at once, but I was accommodating 😁

After brunch it was boys choice, so we went to check Husby's beaver traps as a family.  The traps were empty that day but we did spend quite a bit of time exploring the nearby woods.

Back home for dinner it was steak for Husby and hot dogs for Bubby.  All in all it was a very busy and very fun day!


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 I hope you enjoyed seeing how we've been celebrating, thanks for stopping by!
-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2018

How We Celebrated: Christmas Cookies 2017

Welcome back to our holiday kitchen!

A few days before Christmas the kids and I spent an afternoon in the kitchen baking up our holiday cookies.  Check out these photos from our fun:

Supplies

This baking adventure started out with several cookie mixes (the gingerbread failed 😖),  a cake mix for Mamaw's birthday (dark chocolate & Andes mints 😊), a gigantic pile of sprinkles, M&Ms, icing, color gels and the crock pot. 

I included the crock pot in the photo because after four hours of baking, there was no way that I was cooking dinner.  I can't remember what I had in the crock pot, but I was glad it was there! 😁 

Sprinkles!

I love having a large variety of sprinkles for decorating my baked goods, but they can get expensive really fast. My strategy is to wait until right after a holiday and buy them when they are 75% (or more) off. 

Tip:  Check the 'sell by' dates to be sure, but usually they are good for a year or two after purchase.  Store them in a cool, dry place and you are good to go 😉

Little Hands

My Baby Girl and my Little Man had different 'techniques' when it came to 

rolling out dough, but both had a lot of fun 😀

Sugar Cookies

Tip:  We cut and baked our sugar cookies first so that 

they would have time to cool before decorating.  I highly recommend having a set of cooling racks on hand if you are going to be baking a lot of anything at once.  It doesn't take long to run out of work space and stackable racks are a life saver!

Sprinkle Tray

In the past I've set all of the sprinkles out on the table and let the kids shake them out as they wished.  It worked but a whole lot were wasted on the floor 😏 

This year I decided to take a couple of mini muffin tins and use them to create sprinkle palettes.  Each of the kids got their own tin and spoon and had a much easier time.....Well, my girl did.  The Little Man just sat there eating sprinkles with the spoon, but that's ok 😀

Santa Cookies

Each of the kids made a special cookie to be left out for Santa on Christmas Eve.  The rest they divided between themselves and Daddy 😉

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Here are the rest of the cookies we made that day:

Chocolate chip with red sprinkles

Double chocolate chip with Andes mints and green sprinkles

Chocolate chip with M&Ms

Snicker doodles with red, white and green sprinkles

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Those were our holiday cookies this year.
I hope you enjoyed the baking post, thanks for stopping by!
-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2018

Mother's Day 2017: How We Celebrated

'Jadeite' Glass

Don't you love these jade green cake stands?  They are the 'Timeless Beauty' cake stands available from the Pioneer Woman.  I already owned the tiny cupcake stand in the middle and receiving the remaining two for Mother's day was much appreciated!

So what is Jadeite?  Jadeite (also known as Fire King) refers to the jade colored vintage milk glass that was produced  by Anchor Hocking from 1940 - 1975.  Harder to find than plain white milk glass, Jadeite is also more expensive.

So do these qualify as Jadeite?  I don't think so, I'm pretty sure that Jadeite is a done deal.  But we could probably get away with calling them reproduction Jadeite 😉

Either way, the coloring is gorgeous and I adore them.  I also really like the way each one is just a little bit different in the detailing.

The Best Gifts

And though I like my new glassware, nothing beats the cards and treats from my favorite people.

Husby gifted me with the giant card and chocolates (extra purchased to share 😉), and my Baby Girl created the cards and coupons.  She even turned one of her cards over (bottom pic) so that the Little Man could add his own scribbles 😊

In addition to these lovely gifts Husby fixed everybody breakfast while I slept in.  After that we spent the entire day just relaxing.

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I hope everyone enjoyed the post, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2017

Easter 2017: How We Celebrated

With a couple days off of school we had a really nice and long Easter weekend.
Take a look at how we celebrated:

Colored Eggs

After hard boiling a couple dozen eggs, the kids had a fun time decorating them.  Baby Girl elected to keep hers a soft, plain pastel wile the Little Man went with bold color, markers and stickers.  The kids also painted some permanent foam eggs that we can keep, but I didn't get a photo of those.

You can click here to see some examples of these foam eggs that I have decorated myself.

Glowy Eggs

One of our favorite activities is to have a glow-in-the-dark egg hunt.  Or to be more accurate I should say; a rip-open-the-eggs-as-fast-as-you-can-and-take-out-the-glow-sticks-hunt! 😀

You can click here to read more about this fun tradition.

Egg Hunt

I like to make up the kids eggs ahead of time and assign them each a specific color or theme.  Then I can make sure that they each get the same number of eggs with the same exact fillings.  No squabbles here 😉

Easter morning this year was cold and rainy, so we had their egg hunt in the living room.

Brunch

Left:  Strawberry, orange, banana smoothies decorated with bunny peeps.
Right:  Cinnamon rolls, cheesy egg and hash brown casserole and bacon.

The egg casserole is really simple; just layer hash browns, beaten eggs, green pepper and cheese in a greased baking dish.  Season to taste with garlic, onion powder, salt and pepper and bake at 350.  Your time will vary depending on how large (or deep) your casserole is.  I set my timer for 30 minutes and then go from there, adding time as needed.

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In addition to the 'Eastery' activities listed here, there was also quite a bit of turkey hunting (Husby), neighborhood walks, bubble blowing and playing outside.  It was a great weekend!

I hope you enjoyed reading about how we celebrated, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2017

Winter Wrap-Up: Valentine's Day, Seasonal Art & Spring Cleaning

Welcome to my winter wrap-up!  Today I'm sharing our Valentine's celebration, a beautiful painting by my Baby Girl and a link to my master spring cleaning list.

Valentines

The top photo shows the valentines that Baby Girl made for her classroom.  Each student got a small treat box with a decorated valentine attached.

The photo on the bottom shows some of the valentines that the kids collected.

Valentine Brunch

Since the actual holiday fell on a school day this year, we celebrated with brunch on the Sunday before.  I used pink, hear-shaped plates (that I found last summer treasure hunting) and made pancakes, eggs, strawberry smoothies and of course, bacon roses for Husby 😊

You can click here to read all about how to make bacon roses.

Winter Cardinal

Baby Girl came recently home with this painting that she made in art class!  I love it!  This will absolutely be getting framed and incorporated into part of my winter decor 💗

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Since winter is finally winding down, it's time to think of spring and spring cleaning!  Now I must confess, I already completed my spring cleaning.....in January.....but for all you normal folks out there, here is the link to last year's post:

Spring Cleaning

I hope everyone is having a great weekend, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2017

Birthday Boys 2017

With Husby and the Little Man sharing a birthday, is was time for another double celebration!  Baby Girl wasn't too happy about their birthday falling on a school day, so I made sure that she had fresh cinnamon rolls -with sprinkles- ready for breakfast.  We spent most of the day relaxing and lounging and went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch.  Everybody had been sick with colds so a low key day was nice.

For dinner Husby chose bacon (BLTs) and the Little Man wanted 'Donalds' (McDs).  But not before the Little Man got to open his presents.  Why aren't their any gifts for Husby?  Because he opens them as soon as they arrive, that's why 😁

Treats

The Little Man's actual birthday cake was a yellow mix with red icing and lots of sprinkles.  Baby Girl  had a great time adding the candles and Thomas the Train toys to the top.

Husby's treat of choice was sugar cookies with buttercream icing.  The blue icing was leftover from those shark fin cupcakes we had at the pirate party (post coming soon).

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And that was how we spent their actual birthday this year.  I hope you enjoyed the update, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2017

My Birthday & Thanksgiving 2016 - How We celebrated

A couple of weeks ago I had the fun of celebrating my 36th birthday!
My celebrating started off with lunch and shopping with my Grandma and then a date day with Husby.  After our day together, Husby and I met up with the kids to have pizza dinner at my parent's house and I then finished up my weekend by pulling out my Christmas trees.

This is the first year that I set up the trees before Thanksgiving.  Normally I like to wait until the day after, but this year I knew I would be busy with my sister in town.  If I waited until after all of the feasting and family visiting, then it would be a week in to December before I would find time again.  I'm not sure how I will do it next year.  I loved that the trees were up and ready to decorate (I only had the lights on), but I didn't really like the mix-match of holidays.  Time will tell, but for now read on to see a few photos from all I've been up to:

Birthday Cakes

Both of these cakes were decorated for me by my Baby Girl.  The top one was a Pepperidge Farm ice cream cake and the bottom cake was a chocolate mix.  Baby Girl got to help Mamaw make the chocolate cake while Husby and I had our date day.

Dollar Tree Pumpkins

Remember those new ceramic pumpkins from last week's  post?  I bought them with the intention of spraying a couple of them in gold paint.  I liked the orange, green and reddish brown ones as they were, but the mottled brown and plain white had to be helped.

It was a funny week leading up to Thanksgiving as I was finishing up a few chores from my fall decorating list while at the same time setting up Christmas trees 😆

Made-Over Pumpkins

These are a couple of pics taken after I sprayed the pumpkins.  It's not a huge change, but I like the subtle difference.  It's all in the details you know 😏

Golden Buckeyes

I had a glass pumpkin full of buckeyes on the dining table and since I was spray painting anyway.....well, why not?  A handful of now golden buckeyes helped the glass pumpkin to better complement the rest of the table top.

I think these would look even better with a coating of gold glitter.  Maybe next year 😀

Evergreen Candle

Most of the time, I prefer to use my Scentsy warmers to make the house smell wonderful.  But when the holidays come, I do like to have a candle on the back of the stove (where little people can't blow it out every 30 seconds 😄).  When I was shopping with Grandma, I got a selection of new wax cubes and an evergreen candle.  

And since I was going ahead with setting up my trees, I also made sure that this candle was burning.  If you remember from past posts, I prefer to use artificial trees for many reasons such as their lower overall cost, longevity and ease of decorating.  However, the one drawback is the lack of evergreen smell!  I get around this with pine scented candles and wax cubes.

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While we are on the subject of artificial trees, why don't I provide a few decorating links:

Click here to read about using garland to improve the look of artificial trees.

Click here to read lighting tips.

Click here to read about ornament placement.

Pumpkins & Cupcakes

Remember that birthday date day with the Husby that I mentioned?  Well one of the things we did was stop by a Good Will store (we are both into thrifting now, yay!!!).  I found this little red and brown ceramic cupcake that had a chocolate scented candle inside.  I knew I was going to be getting out the trees in a matter of days, so I went ahead and stuck it on the counter with a couple of pumpkins.

Fun Fact:  I already have ceramic cupcakes that go with this one!

You can see my Christmas ones by clicking here or click here to see my winter cupcake.

Trees & Pumpkins

Like I said, I managed to get my trees up and lit, but didn't want to overshadow Thanksgiving.  Soooooo, I stuck my pumpkins under the tree in the dining room 😂

Tiny Pumpkin Pies

While I didn't host my family's Thanksgiving this year, I did go ahead and make everyone their own individual pumpkin pie.  Do you remember that miniature silicone pie mold that I picked up treasure hunting?  It worked out perfectly!

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So that's how we've been celebrating lately, I hope you enjoyed the post.
Thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2016

Actual Birthday: August 2016

I know it's October, and I've got fall and Halloween decor in full swing, but let's go back and visit Baby Girl's actual Birthday!

(In case you missed anything from August, you can click here to see her Lalaloopsy party)

Birthday Breakfast

Since it was a school day we kept things simple with cinnamon rolls.  A few candy sprinkles and a pink striped candle made things extra special.  The Little Man was happy to have one too ;)

For diner Baby Girl chose to have Chinese (a whole lot of Chinese!)

Strawberry Cake

Even though she had strawberry cake at her party, Baby Girl wanted another one for her actual birthday as well.

(You can click here to read more about the birthday party desserts)

Details

This cake was topped with Lalaloopsy sisters Twisty and Tippy Tumbalina.  It also featured candles shaped as lollipops and a large '7' (both grocery store finds) and a Dollar Tree candle that plays the 'Happy Birthday' song.

The Cake

Once the cake was iced, Baby Girl had fun adding the decorations.
I thought it was very appropriate that Tippy fell over :D

Candle Jar

Here is a shot of Baby Girl's birthday candle jar.  Each of the kids have one and I add the candles from their birthday cakes every year.  I like being able to pull out the jars along with my birthday decor.

(You can click here to see the rest of my birthday decor)

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I hope you enjoyed seeing how we celebrated Baby Girl's 7th birthday, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2016