Wreck This Journal: Wingardium Leviosa

     Everyone knows I'm a HP (Harry Potter) fan, so makes since to me to Pick Up the Journal Without Using Your Hands by magic!

Wreck This Journal: What's Your Name?

     If you were to browse through a Wreck This Journal, you would think the Name Page would be one of the first to complete.  But, naw, I didn't finish these pages for awhile.  

I followed all the prompts on how to write my name and then 

doodled around the edges and on the left page.

Wreck This Journal: Stickiness

     Draw with Glue?!  What a fun page!  I found some sparkly glitter glue and drew some hearts on the right page, then folded the left side over.  Then peeled if apart to find some pretty mirrored hearts.  Then I just colored the insides with markers.  Simple but fun, I mean, who doesn't like playing with glitter glue?

Queen Victoria Cake

     This month's book for Book Club was Call the Midwife.  Since this book is based in England I thought I would make a yummy Queen Victoria Cake to share.  If you haven't read this book I totally suggest it.  There is even a television series on PBS and Netflix.  I can't wait till season 4 comes out!

Recipe from SAVEUR

Here's what you need:

3/4 lb plus 1 TBsp salted European-style high fat butter (room temperature)

3 cups plus 1 TBSP self rising cake flour

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

4 eggs (room temperature)

1 1/4 cups double Devonshire Cream

3/4 cup high-quality strawberry jam

confectioner's sugar

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 360˚F.

Grease two 2"-deep 8" round cake pans with 1/2 Tbsp butter each.

Dust each with 1/2 Tbsp flour, set aside.

Beat remaining butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer on high speed for 5 minutes.

Add granulated sugar and beat until light fluffy.

Combine eggs and 6 Tbsp water in another bowl.

Add half the egg mixture and half the flour to butter-sugar mixture.

Beat well for 1-2 minutes.

Add remaining egg mixture and flour, beat batter for 5 minutes.

Divide batter between prepared pans.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of the cakes comes out clean, 35-40 minutes.

Invert cakes onto a rack, remove pans, and let cool completely.

Beat cream in a medium bowl until stiff.

Put one cake layer on a cake plate, spread top with half the jam, then cover jam with cream.

Spread top of remaining cake layer with remaining jam and place it, jam side down, on top of the cream.

Dust cake with confectioner's sugar.

Slice then ENJOY!

Wreck This Journal: Stain It

     If you know me, I have A LOT, I mean A LOT of nail polish colors, this is only one of three bags of nail polish I have!  Crazy, right?!  Well, I like to paint my nails fun funky colors.  So when I saw the journal entry for Stain Log, I thought it would be fun to paint some polish in the boxes.  But of course I had to draw more boxes to accommodate all the polish I have.  

I painted the left page with sparkly glittery polish 

and the right side has the shiny and matte polishes. 

Some of the ones on the right even smell.  Have you seen those?  

The scented nail polish by Revlon.  They've made my journal smell so good.

Our Summer Bucket List

     So, it's summer once again, which means time for our Summer Bucket List.  I started posting our pictures doing some of the summer activities on Facebook and have had a lot of questions on how to make one.  So here ya go.....      A few summers ago, I came across this fun idea of a Summer Bucket List from this great blog Little Wonders' Days.  Liam and I had a lot of fun coming up with ideas for our own Summer Bucket List in year's past, so I wanted to do it again this summer.   If you haven't done this before here's how it works.....

** I pretty much got the basic outline from Kelly's blog and adapted the master list to what our family wanted to do for the summer, special events around our area, and fun local places to visit **

• First, make a master list of all the things your family will enjoy doing this summer.
• Then break it down into how much time each activity will take and color code them by that.
• Write each activity on the corresponding colored coded paper.
• Take a simple sand bucket and decorate it with sticker letters, then place the papers inside.
• Each day or evening, depending on your already scheduled activities, someone pulls out one piece of paper. (So, if you have  busy day, then you would pick out a color coded paper for an activity for an hour or less, if you have a full day open, then you would pick out a color coded paper for an all day activity).

I've broke down our activities into 4 time categories with corresponding colors:

• All Day Activities
• Half Day Activities
• 2 Hour Activities
• 1 Hour or Less Activities

Here's what I came up with for our 2014 Summer Bucket List...

All Day Activities:

• El Paso Zoo
• Go on the Wyler Aerial Tramway
• Go to Bob-O's Family Fun Center
• Visit White Sands National Monument
• Go to Carlsbad Caverns
• Visit Jungle Jaks
• Visit the Outlet Shoppes of El Paso
• Go to Wet-N-Wild Waterworld
• Go Discover Dinosaurs
• Go to Western Playland Amusement Park
• War Eagles Air Museum
• Go to El Paso Exploreum
• Go to The Old Apple Barn
• Go to Adventure Zone

Half Day Activities:

• Go to the Farmer's Market
• Visit the Railroad Museum
• Visit the Museum of Art
• Have a play date
• Go to the Aquatic Center
• Visit the Alameda Park Zoo
• Visit the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum
• Go to the New Mexico Museum of Space History
• Go to the Southern New Mexico Wine Festival
• Visit the Sunland Park Racetrack
• Make Pottery
• Go to FunTrackers
• Go to the Desert Hills Pool
• Go to Fantasy Place
• Go to Jump Land

2 Hour Activities:

• Go to Story Time
• Visit a Bookstore
• Go to Chuck E. Cheese
• Visit the Museum of Nature & Science
• Have a picnic 
• Feed the Ducks
• Play at the playground
• Go Bowling
• Make a Volcano
• Go to Gym Magic
• Go to Peter Piper Pizza
• Visit Big Daddy's Flea Market
• Go see the Space Murals Museum
• Go to My Kids' Cafe
• Go to the Park
• Water table fun
• Finger paint
• Go see a movie
• Build something 
• Visit the Gene Roddenberry Planetarium
• Bounce house
• Visit a factory
• Kickball 
• Go to indoor play place
• Go to the Branigan Library
• Paintball art 
• Play in sprinkler

1 Hour or Less Activities:

• Make Gak
• Get a Cupcake
• Water balloons
• Go on a Shape Hunt
• Ride bikes
• Pool party
• Blow bubbles
• Make "Five-Minute Ice Cream"
• Draw with sidewalk chalk
• Make a craft
• Fly kites
• Have a tea party
• Water gun fight
• Make Popsicles
• Go for Donuts
• Go for Ice Cream
• Go on a Hike
• Play board games
• Get some Frozen Yogurt
• Make Sunlight Prints
• Make Balloon Rockets
• Make a fort
• Paint a self portrait 
• Ceramics 
• Soccer
• Bocci Ball
• Silly String

     We have so many fun things planned this summer!!  If you have never done a Summer Bucket List, I suggest you do!  It's a great way to spend some fun family time together over the summer. 

Wreck This Journal: Taped Up

     Aren't those some pretty colors of tape?  I've never seen paper tape, so I added them to my basket while shopping at Target.  I knew they would come in handy for one of these pages.  And it so happened they did with this Cover This Page in Tape journal entry.

I weaved the paper tape into a basket pattern.  

It was really easy to use and reposition-able, unlike real tape.

Good Bye Kindergarten, Hello First Grade!

     It's May, which means school's out for the summer.  Well, not for all students, but definitely for Liam it is!  He recently attended his Last Day of Kindergarten!  I can't believe how fast the school year has pasted.  He's grown so much this past year, from meeting new friends, improving his math, spelling, reading, and writing skills.  He was even awarded the Reading Award from his teacher during his End of School ceremony.  We are all so very proud of him!

Look how much he has grown!

During his ceremony, the kiddos sang songs and even did a dance for the parents.

Kinley like hearing all the music....

but was definitely a wiggle worm when it came to sitting still during the presentations. 

Later that day, we took the kiddos to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate Liam's "graduation" to first grade.

It's become some what of a tradition, we did the same when he graduated Preschool last year.

The had a lot of fun playing the games and enjoyed the pizza too!

 Having fun!

More tokens please...

Kinley didn't like this ride as much because it would jerk and lift up.  Liam liked it though.

She would rather take a ride with Barney.

After fun and games, we sat down for pizza and gave him a card and a little surprise.

A search and find Skylanders book.  He LOVED it!

Way to go Liam!  We are so proud of you! Love you,  Mom, Dad, & Sis

Wreck This Journal: Title Page

     This page didn't really have a prompt I just thought like doodling on the inside cover and the title page.  I was feeling a little down the day I drew this, which helps explains the picture.  After I finished the raincloud and sun I found this amazing quote which helped lift my spirits.

     "In moods of discouragements or despair, never forget that the SUNSHINE will ultimately come back, that it's absence is never permanent.  Hand onto your faith, knowing that soon you will rise into the SUNSHINE again."

End of School Teacher Gift

     I posted last week that Liam finished up school and I made little Summer Gift Bags for all his classmates.  But what about his teacher...well here ya go!  Here's the cute gift I came up for her.  We were very fortunate to find such a great school and an awesome teacher for Liam.  He loves school and is happy to go everyday.

So, I found an orange sand pail then filled it with as many 

Orange flavored or scented, and Orange colored packaging I could find.

Then I made this cute tag, it was so simple!

I just used a grapefruit cut in half and some orange stamping ink.

I printed the "Orange you glad it's almost Summer" from the computer

then stamped the grapefruit on top to make it look like an orange.

I then cut around the printed "orange" and stuck it to some scrapbook paper.

Cut around the edges to make a circle.  

Then Liam signed the bottom and I punched a hole

and tied a ribbon through it to the pail handle.

Here's how it turned out!

Wreck This Journal: Lines

     Today's prompt is to Draw Fat Lines and Thin.  I thought I would get a ruler and just start drawing some lines.  As I was drawing them it started to look like circus tents.  So that's how I colored them, alternating colors.

That's a lot of lines, but pretty colorful ones.

Wreck This Journal: Rainbow Chain

     For this page I was to Make a Paper Chain.  So, I drew some colorful designs on the strips, cut them up, then linked the papers with tape to make a rainbow chain.  This was the first page that I actually cut up and made something out of the page.  It was fun doing something crafty versus just drawing or coloring something.

     I found this really pretty quote that I thought would go perfectly with this page.

MOPs Tea & Testimony

     MOPs (Mothers of Preschoolers) group recently ended for the year, I unfortunately had to miss our last meeting, since I was helping out at Liam's school.  But I did take some pictures of our Tea & Testimony meeting.   Here's me and my little miss.

Here's my hat I made to enter into the Tea Hat contest.

We were suppose to create something that represented

 a Beautiful Mess, our theme for this year.

Here's some of the other ladies making decorating their hats.

Here are some of the yummy tea sandwiches!

I made some Strawberry Cucumber Tea Sandwiches.

I love tea sandwiches, and all of them were sooooo good!

Then on to the desserts...

It was great to see everyone all dressed up and to 

hear the testimonies of some of our fellow members.  

Looking forward to next year!

Feliz Cinco de Mayo

     Man, seems like this is SO late, but oh well. The story of my life right now and blogging.  Seems like I have been doing so many projects I just don't have enough time to get all the pictures edited and blogged.  So yes, everything will most likely be WAY after the event actually happened.  So here is  how we celebrated our Cinco de Mayo!

I made this fun festive Cinco de Mayo lunch for Liam.

When he got home from school, I gave them this book Dragons Love Tacos 

and these Mexican cookies for dessert.

For dinner we enjoyed some Stuffed Bacon wrapped Jalapeños (for the hubby), 

Stuffed Sweet Peppers (for me and kiddos), Chips & Salsa, Tostadas,  

Spanish Rice, and some Blood Orange Margaritas!

Kinley liked dipping her chips into the sour cream.

Liam liked building his tostada and making a smiley face.

Toward the end of dinner the kiddos thought it 

was funny to smash chips on their foreheads.....silly kids!

After dinner I whipped up some homemade Churros.

They turned out delicious!

It was a great night, so much fun, and everything was yummy!