Lemonade Stand

Here's the before and after pictures of our Christmas present for Emery this year. Our friend was throwing this thing away...gosh...it's probably been 6 or 7 months ago (maybe longer!) and Gavin said he wanted it. So it sat in our garage FOREVER. Collecting dust and driving me crazy because I didn't know what to do with it. Finally inspiration struck and we decided to turn it into a lemonade stand for the play room.

Here's the before:

And here's the final product:

Emery loves it. I like the way it turned out and I think it's a fun addition to our playroom. I think a cute little lemonade sign for the stripes would look nice but it's done for now. And I'm soooo glad it's finally out of our garage!

Ranch-aholic

This was Emery at dinner the other day:

Isn't Ranch over-use a big southern thing? I guess she is becoming more of a Texan than I realized. 

In case you are worried about eating food at my house for fear that we let Emery have free reign and now she has gotten saliva over everything, the bottle was basically empty, we were throwing it away. 

Ice Skating

Emery and I just got back from our whirlwind trip to Idaho a few days ago. I say whirlwind because it always seems to go by much too fast. We did get to see a lot of family this time and it was nice to catch up with my cousins. 

My dad took Natalie, Olivia, Emery and I ice skating one day and it was so fun. I wasn't sure how long Emery would enjoy it, but we lasted for a entire hour...which honestly I thought was pretty good for her. When we first got there all she wanted to do was sit on the ice and play in the little snow that accumulates, but I finally convinced her to skate around (which actually means I push her in this uncomfortable hunch that is kind of back-breaking).

See that hunch? It's worth it I suppose because we really did have fun. 

I had to have my dad take a picture of Emery all bundled up. I thought she looked so squishy and cute. But I'm glad we don't have to do that every day, it feels like so much effort to get in snow clothes just to take them off again.

Scripture Advent

I've been ridiculously productive the last few weeks. It's very exciting. There have been painting projects that have been sitting in my garage FOR YEARS that I finally got done (I'll try to post a picture soon) and I've completed some fun Christmas crafts.

One such craft is an advent I found online (here's the link: scripture advent). I liked it because

1. It was FREEEEEE!
2. It is Christ-focused.

I was looking for some kind of scripture advent to help us focus on Jesus in December and this is perfect. Each day has a topic about Christ, a little blurb about the topic, a list of scriptures, and an activity to do. After you complete the card you flip it over and there's a symbol representing that day.

I printed out the cards and then I had some laminating sheets I stuck them in because I really want this to last.

The green holder came from the dollar store and I just "Christmas-a-fied" it a bit. It makes me happy when I see it. 

I was a little bit sad because Emery is basically indifferent to it, but as I lamented to my mom about it she pointed out that it will be even more fun next year because she'll remember it and be more excited. I might get some kind of small candy to go in it too, just because it's fun. 

Snapshot

I love my days, even if they sometimes get crazy, because I have moments like this:

This is how we walked to pick up Bella from school the other day. This girl makes me smile so big it sometimes squeezes tears out of my eyes. :) I love this "little mommy!"

Christmas is Here!

 Christmas is in full swing here at the Giraud house. We went and bought our tree a week or so ago, put on the ornaments while we rocked out to Christmas music, and we put up the train that Emery got last year for Christmas around the tree.

I've been trying for a YEAR to get Emery to like this train with no luck. But now that it's around the tree (and that Emery's a bit older) she LOVES the train. She's played with it for hours. She really likes to take her princesses for rides:

I can't believe I'm actually getting holiday pictures up on my blog BEFORE a holiday is over. Granted these aren't Christmas DAY pictures, but still. Let's all take a moment to be super proud of me since I'm not making you look at Christmas pictures in March. 

Freezer Meals

So I saw this pin on pinterest the other day for 20 crock pot freezer meals from Costco for less than $150 in 2 hours. I always see these types of pins and my reaction is to cringe and think, "where in the world do people muster the motivation to do this stuff?!" But for some reason this link got me all sorts of excited and I knew that this one would be "the one" for me. I think it captured my attention because the blogger had made it so easy. She had a grocery list--all from Costco, cost break-down, amounts, recipes, everything. So I paid the $2.50 she charges to print off the lists and recipes and committed myself to get it done that day.

Before I hit up Costco, Emery and I met up with some friends at the library. I told them what I was doing and my friend expressed interest in doing it too so I roped her into doing it with me. I'm SOOOOO glad I had her along because let me tell you it was AN ORDEAL! That whole statement, "You can totally do it in two hours!" that the blog asserts should read, "You can totally do it in two hours...if you are some sort of super-human and can simultaneously chop potatoes and onions at the same time." So. Much. Chopping.

We didn't get a start on it until 4 pm, after shopping trips and naps and such. We figured it would probably take us longer than 2 hours because it was our first time doing something like this, but we did not imagine that we would still be at it 4 HOURS LATER! Like I said, it was an ordeal.

Here we are, about 3/4 of the way through. Onion shards everywhere, cans spread out as far as the eye can see, and delicious meals in the making.

I had to get a picture of the recycle bin. It was SOOO full of cans! 

20 freezer meals is a lot of food. A LOT! My freezer is on the smallish side compared to some, so it was a trick to get them all shoved in there. Because I couldn't lay them all flat there are many that are now frozen in crazy shapes and stuck to each other. Ooops. 

The thought of having 20 meals just sitting there, waiting to be eaten is probably unfathomable to a lot of people in the world who don't even know where their next meal is coming from. And here I am with 20 meals, at my disposal. I carry around some guilt?sadness? in my heart because of that. Expressing my gratitude and giving back when I have a chance helps that feeling, but it doesn't get rid of it.

Anyway, we tried our first one on Sunday: BBQ chicken and potatoes. It was delicious, so I consider this endeavor a SUCCESS!

Here's the link if you want to try for yourself:

freezer meals

I'd highly recommend a food processor if you have one. Mine stopped working after the first batch and it would have saved us some time if we could have used it.