My Favorite Quotes about Moms

I love mom quotes. Here is my collection of some of my favorite ones:

A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take." ~ Cardinal Mermillod

All mothers are working mothers. ~Author Unknown

Mothers hold their children's hands for a short while, but their hearts forever. ~Author Unknown

 A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. ~Tenneva Jordan

Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs... since the payment is pure love. ~Mildred B. Vermont

 When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child. ~Sophia Loren, Women and Beauty

 God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers. ~Jewish Proverb

If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden. ~Attributed to Claudia Ghandi

 A man's work is from sun to sun, but a mother's work is never done. ~Author Unknown

 The phrase "working mother" is redundant. ~Jane Sellman

 She never quite leaves her children at home, even when she doesn't take them along. ~Margaret Culkin Banning

 There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mothers are all slightly insane. ~J.D. Salinger

Cute Photo Idea for Valetine's Day

    I love taking cute pictures of my kids. Today I had the idea to turn a cardboard box (we previously turned into a Tardis) into a little stand that I was going to put something like 5 Cent Kisses on it, but my five year old said he wanted to sell frogs. Since we had a crap load over from his Valentines, I agreed and came up with the idea to make the booth a Frog Prince sales booth, with the promise of the frog turning into a prince when you kiss it! (*With the results not typical warning, of course! lol). I think it made a really cute prop. My kids are wearing some cute iron on bows and suspenders I got off etsy too. =)

Make your own sight words memory card game!

My 5 year old son loves to play games - either it be video games, computer games, or board/card games. When his teacher sent home a list of sight words he needed to learn, I noticed simply going through the flash cards wasn't helping. I grabbed some thick card-stock I had and make a quick hand written memory game with the 10 words. (20 cards - 2 cards of each word). He liked this a lot! We played every day after homework or before bed and he was always eager to win and play. The more we played, the more he remembered the words - to the point now he knows all of them easily and by heart.

I love to design and print things and often I will use a website called artscow, based in China. Since they are a company in China, they offer printing services at prices that cannot be beat here in the US. I've ordered blankets, change purses, books, pillow cases, canvas, cards, prints - etc. Every single thing has been of exceptional quality (NOT something you always see with a company based in China that sells at low price).

They have a product called multipurpose cards, and you can decide what to print on the front and on the back of each card. Each set comes with 54 cards (so you can make two ten word games, and leave the last ones blank if you want. With my first order I did this, and left the last 14 blank. When my two year old was bored of the word one that was too advanced for him, I make him a shape memory game which he really likes too.

I found that the printed ones work really well for my 5 year old, because the words are written in a font his teacher uses and teaches him with. Some people do not realize writing a small "A" differently typed can really confuse a child.

So I designed images in PAINTNET (free program I love) with the sight words on them in a font that matched the flash cards his teacher sent home, then on the back of each card I used a brightly colored digital scrap book image. I stayed away from images, like cute cartoons or things like that. Right now my son associates an Apple with the letter A, so I think putting any kind of image on the backside could cause confusion or distraction.

It's very easy to create the cards at Artcow. You click create, then upload your images and basically drag and drop them onto each card. Cards can come in shapes of rectangles, circles or hearts. I used circles because there are no corners to get bent, and so far they have worked well for us. They are perfectly sized as well for small hands (but bug hands too).

This is the preview the website gave me (of one card):

Cards are usually $10.99 plus shipping - but they ALWAYS have coupons going on. A quick check on retailmenot.com will almost always get you some kind of cheaper priced coupon. They offer free shipping with most deals too. Sign up for their newsletter to get the really great deals.

Currently right now the great deal is $8.99 with free shipping:

Coupon Code:	PLAYCARDJAN
Expiry Date:	2 / 19 / 2013

Multipurpose cards can be found here: http://www.artscow.com/photo-gifts/playing-cards

You can see my design of the sample shown above here (and even order it if you want): 

http://www.artscow.com/gallery/playing-cards/sight-words-ndp3cbkri0oy

Boy Valentine's Day Cards

My son is in Kindergarten and I was excited to make something unique for him to give out on Valentine's day this year. I decided to go with a frog/toad theme. I designed the paper cover (I used a free program called PAINTNET), and had it printed at www.artscow.com, on their multipurpose two sided card product (I love artscow and highly recommend them, visit retailmenot.com for best deals and sign up for their newsletter for best deals too!). They are in China, so plan ahead if you get anything from them because it does take a few weeks to get your stuff. I bought the little plastic bags, frogs and stickers all on Amazon.com (I use the heck out of my Prime membership, it's worth it!). I left the backside without names so he can fill them in himself and practice writing. 

*I noticed my misspelling of 'Toad'lly' after I had them printed, so oh well.

Since the product included two-sided printing, I added some fun frog and toad jokes on the inside.

-Used The Amazing Patterned Frogs Digital Scrapbooking Kit Freebie found here for graphics on card. 

Dr. Who Dalek Cupcakes

So I decided to google Dr. Who birthday cakes to get some ideas for my husband's birthday this year. I didn't see anything that looked easy or cheap, lol - but then I stumbled on super cute Dalek cupcakes on flickr with a link to the free pattern! I downloaded the pdf and sent it in to be printed at staples.com, for 6 pages to be printed it was only about $6 and I could pick it up the next day at the store nearby. I was lazy and made store bought cake mix and frosting - but I think they are cute! =)

Our Elf On The Shelf

Some of the things we have done this year with our Elf. I need some better ideas though!

He made snow flakes.


paper hat and boat??

He drew faces on our oranges.

Hanging out with Woody and Jessie.

Oh the adventures he's had? Hanging out with the Doctor..

The Pumpkin Painting Continues...

So my Angry Bird Pumpkins actually got taken on Halloween night. We had a lot of high school trick-or-treators this year that complimented them. Maybe one of them decided to take them off my hands... who knows. They took the Angry birds only and left a carved pumpkin and a plain uncarved pumpkin. The carved one rotted quickly and we threw it away. The uncarved one still looks perfectly fine from the outside so I decided to put it to use for December. I figure I'll stretch that $5 I paid for it? Ha!