I Heart Faces- No Face

This week on I Heart Faces the theme is any body part but a face.  

This photograph I took of a friends antique bee tattoos on her back, and I love how it turned out.

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One Year

I can officially say that I have been blogging for one year.
I have published 178 posts, this being 179.
In honor of my one year anniversary, 
I thought I would let you all get to know me better.
So here are


"20 Things You Didn't Know About Me"


1.  When I was little I liked to eat all of my food burned.
2.  My favorite flowers are pink peonies.
3.  I was very involved in Young Life for seven years.
4.  I got fired from my job at Ann Taylor Loft for wearing my flip flops before I bought them.
5.  I have donated my hair to Pantene Beautiful lengths campaign.
6.  I have been in three commercials.  
The last one I was in was with Teddy when he was two months old for Southeast Missouri Medical Center.  
He played a baby girl named Carly.
7.   When I was nine years old I was hospitalized for a staph infection, 
and then a month later I was hit by car in front of my house.
8.  I keep my blog simple and full of photos because I don't have a lot of confidence in my writing skills.
9.  My favorite colors are blue and pink.
10.  I have been the primary driver of eight different cars.  
My favorite ones being my silver 1988 Nissan Sentra, silver 1984 Honda Prelude, white 2000 Honda Civic, 
and my current car a navy blue 2003 Acura MDX.
11.  I have had multiple miscarriages.
12.  I used to have a really good memory, but my brain has been slowly disintegrating since having children.
13.  I prefer the ocean over the mountains.  
14.  I became a Christian when I was 15 years old.
15.  I have worked at CJ Muggs, Northwest Coffee, Babysitter, Work Crew and Summer Staff at YL camp, The Gap, Ann Taylor Loft, and Pottery Barn Kids.
16.  My biggest irrational fear is a plane crashing into my house.
17.  My biggest struggles are pride, envy and fear of success.
18.  The first blog I ever read was jodified.
19.  My favorite pizza from Deweys that I made up has olive oil, minced garlic, fontina cheese, mozzarella cheese, pesto, chicken, pine nuts, 
roasted garlic, sun dried tomatoes, and then I add little bit of salt when it comes to the table.
20.  I have 100 subscriptions in my google reader.


Anything else would you like to know?
Go, ahead ask. 


  It has been crazy to look over the past year, and how my family has grown and changed.  
It is so fun to receive emails from, run into people, and get comments from strangers that read my blog and actually enjoy it.
Who knew??
Thank you all for stopping by.

I Heart Faces-Cell Phone Pictures

This week on I Heart Faces the challenge was cell phone pictures.  

I just got my i-phone two weeks ago, so I am still learning the ins and outs of all the photography apps.  

This is picture of my kids in the backyard when we had unseasonably warm day in February.  I love how it captures them in the moment.

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Silhouettes

Growing up my Grandma Rosie had silhouettes of all the grandkids displayed in her home.  I LOVED them.   This may sound morbid, but through out the years my Grandma had us put our names on her possessions that we wanted after she passed away.  Hey, it just how our family rolls.  The one thing my name was on were the silhouettes of my sisters and I, and they became mine in 2008.  

I always knew I wanted to get silhouettes done of my kids by the time they were five.  My sister Cate called and told me the they that the "Silhouette Man" was going to be at Dillards at the Galleria, but I totally forgot to book an appointment.  Randomly, I took Sonya to the Galleria to get a Cardinals shirt for school and we cut through Dillards, something I never do, to get the mall.  As I was ushering Sonya through the maze that is Dillards, there he was the 

"Silhouette Man," 

with nobody at his table.  

I asked how long it would take to cut, and he said, 

"Five minutes."  

Sold.

  Here is a mirror image of my silhouette from 1980, when I was two years old, and Sonya's done two weeks ago at age three and half.

    Missy                                                                               Sonya

I had super curly hair, like when kids when I was little, you can totally see in my picture.  

I love that Sonya and I have the same nose. 

I love the that you can see the wisps in her hair.

I love her chin and forehead.

These images are so precious to me because they remind me of my grandma.  

They are such a sweet moment captured in time.  

I hope Sonya and future generations treasure them the same way I do. 

Sorry to be so cheesy and sentimental, but I just adore these images.

Valentine's Day

Blog world, sorry for the lack of posting.  I think winter has finally gotten the best of me.  The paleness of my skin, my growing winter waistline, snow, ice...the past couple of weeks I have found myself rather glum.  Now finally the sun is out in the Lou, I just signed up for a pilates class, and I got to see two of my besties last night for dinner so there is finally spring back in my step.  

So back to the matter at hand Valentine's Day.  In the midst of the weakest snow storm in history, I got a little crafty with Sonya .  I had read on a blog about making salt dough ornaments at Christmas time, here.  I didn't have time to do them at Christmas, so I kept this little project in my back pocket for Valentine's Day.  I made sure I started this project two weeks before Valentine's Day because I knew it was going to take a couple of days to complete.  

All you need is:

4 Cups Flour

1 Cup Salt

1 & 1/2 Cup Warm Water

Here is what you do:

Whisk dry ingredients together

Then add a dough hook to a standing mixer

Gradually add warm water while the dough mixes together

When the dough has pulled together, take it out of the bowl and roll it out

Quick side note:  Notice my rolling pin in the back of the photo, I have recently switched to a tapered french rolling pin.  
It is amazing, so much easier to manipulate dough than a standard rolling pin.  
I got this from Williams Sonoma for $14.  
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

Back to the salt dough.

I rolled out the dough and decided to just cut out hearts for all of Sonya's classmates.

Then I lined cookie sheets with parchment paper, just in case they stuck.  
Then I took a straw and put holes on through the tops of the hearts so we could tie a string for a necklace.

Now when I baked them at 250 like the other blog said, it took longer than two hours.  So I cranked up the heat to 350 and just kept my eye on them.  When they were all done, I tried to brush off all of the excess flour, but it wasn't working.  I went ahead and washed them off in the sink and threw back in oven, that worked great. 

That was phase one of this project. 

When the temperature finally warmed up, and we were able to leave to house without getting frost bite walking to the car.  The kids and I went Ben Franklin to get some acrylic paint so we could decorate the hearts.  Sonya's favorite color is blue.  Favorite is an understatement, she has an obsession with the color blue.  I knew she would pick out blue as one of her paint colors.  When she went to pick out the two other colors I gently pushed towards pink and white.  I knew when we started painting the colors would get all mixed together, so I wanted something that would make a nice color and not just brown.  She gladly took my direction, HOORAY!!  So that afternoon when TR was down for his nap, Sonya and I painted.  Since we were using acrylic paints I had her wear gloves.  
They were a little big on her.

I helped her paint all of the hearts. 

That was phase two of this project.  

A day or two later I went to one the scariest places on earth for this novice crafter...Hobby Lobby.  I was on a mission to get glitter, some ribbon, and then get the frack out of there.  After my heart palpitations stopped and I wiped the sweat from my brow, I actually enjoyed myself at Hobby Lobby.  I even picked up a few more art/craft supplies that I needed, and look forward to going back.

Phase three of the salt dough necklaces was the toughest.  Sonya decided she wanted to write the names of all 15 of her classmates on the hearts, all by herself.  I asked her she just wanted to write LOVE or FRIENDS, but she insisted on writing their names.  I knew this would take a couple of days because there was no way she would write more than three or four names in one sitting, and I was right.  
Here is how we did it: 

1. I would give her a sharpie
2. She would pick a heart for one of her friends
3. I would spell the name very slowly as she wrote all the letters, 
4. We would sprinkle glitter on the heart,
5. Then I would coat it in Mod Podge.  

This is the first time I have ever used Mod Podge, it has been sitting in my craft box for almost a year, but I have to too scared to use it.  Now, I think I am addicted.  Don't be surprised if a lot of shellacked items start popping up around my home.  

Like I said, this part of the project took a couple of days.  Sonya and I took a little break from the hearts so we could create her Valentine's Day box for her school party.  I was going to go old school, like my friend Cary suggested, cover a shoe box in foil, but it looked awful.  I did pick up a heart shaped box from Hobby Lobby, just in case the shoe box didn't work out, and I am glad I did.  Sonya and I painted the inside and outside of the box a combination of blue, pink, purple, red, and white.  After it was dry, we sprinkled it with glitter and then I, of course, Mod Podged it.  I had picked a bunch of stickers at Hobby Lobby to decorate the box.  My favorite ones were these old vintage looking stickers that I tried to get Sonya to use.

Here is what she chose to use.

If you look close, you can see where she covered up the stickers I chose.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE this box.  I think it turned out so sweet.  This is something I want to keep for Sonya, and give it to her when she is an adult.  

Back to the necklaces.  

After Sonya finished writing all of her friends names, I moved onto phase four.  Tying the ribbon the heart to complete the necklace.  Some of the paint and Mod Podge had seeped into the holes, so I just took a tiny screwdriver back through the hole so I could get the ribbon through.

The finished product.

  I asked Sonya if I could take her picture wearing her necklace.  

She said yes, but only one picture.  

Here is what I got.

Lovely, I know.  At least you can see the look of the necklace.  

All in all a two really great projects.  

The salt dough ornaments are really easy and can be used for all types holiday shapes, or you could cut out letters.  The possibilities are endless.  

Sonya and I had way fun more creating these Valentines, than having her sign her 15 store bought Disney princess cards that we also passed out  

I never thought I would say those words, but just goes to show you never know.

   

I Heart Faces - Hearts

I was trying to take some photos of Sonya for her Valentine's cards to pass out at school.

  She insisted she wanted her eyes closed like a ballerina.

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Monday Manifest on Wednesday

I found this list of 30 Healthiest Foods on this blog here.  She got it from an article in Real Simple Magazine, you can read here.  I have bold faced the foods we eat, or I should say my kids eat on a regular basis.  I do eat some of those foods, but I am a very picky eater.  I have come light years from where I was even five years ago, ask my husband and family.  I am NOT a super healthy person, I am trying and failing miserably.  I ,in reality, need to lose quite a bit of weight, but that is whole separate post.  I do work really hard with my giving my kids good foods, and explain to them (really just Sonya right now) why we eat foods that are good for us.  I am also not saying my kids never eat junk, because that would be a lie!!  Anyway I thought I would share this list because it is good info and great things to add to your diet.   

1. Mushrooms
2. Walnuts
3. Whole-Grain Pasta
4. Peanut and Nut Butters
5. Oatmeal (They only like this sometimes) 
6. Barley
7. Quinoa (I actually really like quinoa, but I am scared to make it.  I made it once and it was a big fail.) 
8. Lentils
9. Bulgur
10. Almonds
11. Eggs
12. Nonfat Greek Yogurt (Sonya like regular yogurt, trying to switch her.  TR cannot have yogurt)
13. Chicken Breasts
14. Wild Salmon
15. Sardines
16. Kale
17. Kiwi
18. Blueberries (I think my kids are blueberry addicts)
19. Brocoli 
20. Avocados
21. Black Beans
22. Sweet Potatoes
23. Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
24. Edamame
25. Chard
26. Kidney Beans
27. Oranges
28. Pumpkin (I have 6 cans of pumpkin in my pantry I keep forgetting to use)
29. Spinach 
30. Skim Milk