Making my Home a Haven Challenge #5

This is the final week to the challenge of Making my home a haven. This challenge has been very beneficial, each week it's caused me to examine, try new things and enjoy my home. The final challenge is to focus on the kitchen, the heart of the home. This week I'm going to attempt to make sugar-free fondue with the kids and have a fruit platter for us to dip and enjoy!

Baking and having sweet smells coming from the kitchen helps create such a soothing and welcoming home. This past week I made a healthy banana bread (recipe to come soon) and the house smelled magical!

To check out the final challenge check out Courtney's blog.

photo via

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Menu Plan Monday

Wow... It's already November! I'm going to incorporate more soups this upcoming month as the cool air settles in Kentucky.

Monday- Chili and cornbread

Tuesday- Chicken Pitas with chips and dip

Wednesday- Pot Luck at Church (bringing sugar-free cupcakes and ?)

Thursday- Bean Soup with corn muffins

Friday-Sunday Fall Retreat

Desserts- Sugar-free fondant with fruit (apples, strawberries)

Tuesday night company: Veggies and Dip

Wednesday afternoon: coffee and banana bread

Are you ladies making any soups this week? If you need some ideas for dinner this week check out orgjunkie.

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Organizing Kid's Clothes

Looking for a way to help teach your kids how to put up their laundry? Here's a quick tip that has help me a tons with this very thing! Simply take pictures of what’s in your child's drawer, place the printer in a protective covering and tape it in front of the drawer. That's all there is to it... and now you are teaching your kids responsibility and your getting needed laundry help.

Do you ladies have any tips to help teaching your kids where to put their clothes?

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Quick Gift

This is a simple and quick way to make a special treat for someone. This would be great for a classroom party, gifts for teachers, neighbors or nursing home residents. I actually whipped these up in 30 mins, filled them with sugar free candy, and the kids passed these out at the nursing home tonight. It was so easy to make and the elderly people were so thankful.

1. Begin with a simple brown bag and cut it down to half of the normal size.

2. Cut scrapbook paper to fit the bag. Be creative, you can add one or stack different scrap paper on each other. Also, add chipboard or stickers with pop-up dots.

3. Fill it up with candy or prizes for kids.

4. Hole punch the top of the bag and add a ribbon or brown rope.

That's it... told you it was quick and easy ;)





I'm linking this to:
Saturday Nite Special, It's a hodgepodge life, kojodesigns, Finding Fabulous, DIY Showoff,

Silly Little Sparrow, Sugar Bee, Today's Creative Blog, Blue Cricket Design

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Blog Guidebook

I recently came across this amazing website that is designed to help bloggers and those who read blogs. It's awesome news for me because it gives tips about blogging and its sweet for you because you can go there, select a category, and find tons of blogs you might want to add to your reading list.

On your lunch break or in between your kid’s nap check them out. Simply click on the picture at the top and for future references I will be placing their button on the side of this site.
Some of the categories (they have tons) are:
Crafting, Domestic goodness, health and beauty, family and parenting, Food Cooking Baking, Home Organization and Tea and Tea Parties... now to figure which label I should put myself under! Pin It Now!

Mission Blessings

Know of someone going on a mission trip? Here's a quick and easy idea on how to bless someone who is going on a mission trip. Just a few weeks ago a team from my church went to Canada; two members of the team were youth boys. So, knowing the long trip (two days of driving) I thought I would bless them with some snacks. I purchased a gift bag and put lots of goodies inside, here are some ideas...

Individual bags of chips
Gum
Beef jerky
Suckers
Small sized candy bars
Small journal and pen
Travel size bible
Note saying what things you will be praying for while their gone
Phone calling card (read fine print and make sure it's international compatible)
New CD
Book

You can also decorate the gift bag.... glue a map onto it for decoration or cut out a picture of a globe or the country/state where they will be.

Have you ladies ever given something like this to someone going on a mission trip? What things did you or would you include? Pin It Now!

Menu Plan Monday

Here’s the ‘plan A’ for what the Fowler household will be eating this week… I find that my plan usually changes!

Monday- Spaghetti Pie with green salad and bread sticks
Tuesday- Chili with cornbread
Wednesday- Church
Thursday- Tacos with brown rice
Friday- Homemade Pizza {ham and pineapple, sausage and cheese}
Saturday- Leftover Chili with cornbread
Sunday- Bean Soup

Breakfasts will include: Cereal with fruit and muffins
Lunches will include: Chicken pitas, PB&J’s, leftovers
Snacks: Veggies {carrots, cucumbers, celery} with Ranch, and Fruit {apples, bananas, oranges}

What are you cooking up this week? Things you normally do {which is safe because you know you and your family will like it} or trying some new recipes? I’m going with the usual for this week with a possibility of a new bread recipe.

I’m linking this to orgjunkie… you can visit the site to find hundreds of menu plans if your wanting some new ideas in the kitchen.

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Making my Home a Haven Wk 4

Week four of 'Making your home a haven' is something I really want to work on. The challenge is to incorporate tender moments in your daily routine with your children and husband. I fear that I fail often time in just letting my hair down and enjoying laughter and fun times with the kids, especially on a daily basis. My husband is much better at this than I am... he is constantly playing and causing the little guys to giggle.

One challenge I’m going to take up is a huge pillow fight. {As suggested} I will bring all the pillows in the house into the living room and call the family in for a huge pillow fight! I want to try and have more fun with my kids. It seems I can have fun at scheduled events with the kids because I've planned for that moment but, on a daily routine when I've got other things planned, it's difficult to let some of those things go and enjoy the kids.

Do you mommies struggle with this as well? How do you find the balance?

Head over to Courtney’s blog to see other women who are taking up this challenge! Pin It Now!

Spa Party

Menu Plan (before Spa begins)
Sausage Cheese Balls
Little Smokies
Sparkling Punch
Hot tea
Pretty Cookies


Menu Plan (during Spa)
Brownies
Chocolate Dipped Strawberries
Lots of chocolate candy
Sparkling Grape juice (Red & White are my favs)

Stations:
Each girl had a partner that they traveled to the stations with.
1.Face- putting face masks on each other
2. Feet- Scrubbing feet, buffering (warm buckets of water, towels etc)
3. Feet- massaging with feet cream
4. Wax- hand wax
5. Nails- paint each others nails

Atmosphere:
Setting the atmosphere is of number 1 importance for a Spa Party! When it was time for the party I had the girls go in the other room and I turned off the lights and displayed tons of flickering candles. I have a square coffee table so I placed a white sheet on top and put all the stations around the table. During the party the girls munched on the chocolates and sparkling grape juice. To add a special addition to the grape juice I purchased a flower ice-tray at Hobby Lobby. For some more uniqueness I decided to color the ice blue before freezing it. I placed all the ice cubes in a goblet for the girls to get for their juice.

Have you ladies been to a Spa party? Do you have anymore additions because I hope to do this again soon?

I'm Linking this to:

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Butterfly Pizza

I made this 'Butterfly Pizza’ for little girl one day. It was a personal size for her but, you could create a larger pizza as well. It was easy to make due to my cricut cake, however, if you don't have a cricut cake then you could still make something similar if you have a design and a sharp knife! Just pick out your design (shapes or big shadowed objects without details are the best) and cut it out.

The key to this cute pizza is making your pizza dough super super thin. It's easy to cut this way and it's the only way it will work with the cricut cake.


For Cricut Tips:

1. Make you dough super thin (as mentioned above)

2. Grease your mat (I always use a food pastry brush)

3. Pick out your design (butterfly design is from Storybook page 49 Shadow)

4. Place dough onto mat and with the rolling pin go over the dough to make it stick.

5. Set your machine:
Pressure: medium
Speed: medium

Size: 5'

6. Cut and unload.

7. After the dough is cut into your beautiful design then carefully place it onto your pizza pan. When you bake your dough don't bake it as long as you normally would because it will get crisp quickly :)

Enjoy!

I'm linking this:
Craft-O-Maniac
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Batman Birthday Party pt 3

Here are a few more pictures of Batman Birthday Party. The birthday banner has the batman symbol behind the letterings. I cut vinyl bats out of my cricut machine and put them just about everywhere lol. Balloons and candles are great ways to accessorize a party!

Cricut users: I used Batman: Brave and the Bold cartridge!

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Like DWYH on facebook

Hello lovely ladies... I added a 'facebook like widget' on the side bar! If you like this site and you have facebook then share some love and 'like' my page! Thanks!

{I will be putting the 'facebook like widget' lower on the page after a few days :)} Pin It Now!

Organizing Toys

One major thing that I often overlook in my home is the 'little' *wink* clutter spots throughout my house. I like to think their not there until I need to find something in the morning before school or when I'm trying to make it to church on time. During those frustrating moments I tell myself that I will get to that clutter spot soon. However, I usually don’t do anything about it (please tell me I’m not the only one).

Week 3 of ‘Making our homes a Haven’ has busted me out about clutter and I finally did something about one needed area.


One clutter issue is in little boy’s room. He has toys that are suppose to be in certain totes and bins but, after playing he forgets which toys go where and the toys end up just being put everywhere. I think I've found a solution that will help him keep everything organized.

I took pictures of little boy with the toys and pictures of the toys in the correct bins and placed them on the bins.

Examples:
Little guy has lots of dress up clothes (batman costume, fireman etc) so I had him put on some of these clothes and took a picture of him. I put this picture on one side of the bin and on the other side of the bin I put a picture of the top of the bin which showed the dress up clothes.

I took a picture of little guy playing with his instruments and placed it on one side of the bins and placed a picture of the musical instruments in the bin on the other side.

I did this also for his little cars, his stuffed animals and his footballs/bouncy balls.

Something I did to ensure the safety of the pictures was to put them in protective covering. I only had sheet long coverings so I just cut them size.

Hope this helps with the clutter issues in his room… now to conquer the rest!

What do you ladies do to help with the clutter of toys and keeping them organized?


Sorry about the images... I have to cover little guys face right now due to legal issues :/ I wish you could see this little cutie

I'm linking this here:

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