I hate Change!

Dear Yahoo Home Page,

I hate change.  I needed some warning that when I opened my computer and logged on this morning that my home page would look completely different then it did yesterday morning. 

That's all, thank you.

Sincerely,

Nicole 

Disney Favorites

I just enjoyed taking a ride on a blogorail all about Disney.

Apparently there are tons of blogs out there about Disney, I just can't ever seem to find them when I'm craving a Disney fix.  Anyhow I really liked seeing everyone elses Disney favorites. So here are a few of mine.

 

Starting with my kids favorite characters.
Stitch is always such a funny guy when he poses for pictures. 

My absolute favorite characters are Chip and Dale.  Even if my kids don't want to stop and stand in line for pictures with them, I make them lol.  We have so many photos with them and they are all so funny.  I couldn't find the picture of Chip pulling on Sarahs piggy tales the first year we went when she was only 2 1/2 yrs old.  She thought they were pretty silly.

Feb. 2010 My Favorite Characters

  

My favorite ride at Magic Kingdom is Splash Mountain.  I love the characters from Song of the South.  I love Zippedee Do Dah and I love the last big drop.  The only thing I don't love is getting wet.  I try to sit where I think I won't get wet but it seems like I'm always wrong.  

 

March 2011 Magic Kingdom Favorite Ride, Splash Mountain

March 2011 Hollywood Studios Favorite Ride

The whole families favorite ride at Hollywood Studios is Toy Story Mania.  We try to head right back there, get a fast pass and then get in line.  That seems to be the only way to ride it twice.  I really enjoy the queue so I don't mind waiting for a little while.  The first time we road we waited for 2 hours.  Good thing we loved it.  I tend to get a little competitive with whoever I ride with. Probably best for me to ride with Jacob since Sarah seems to get her feelings hurt when I beat her.  

March 2011 Epcot Waiting for Soarin, our Epcot Favorite Ride

My favorite ride at Epcot is Soarin.  I don't have any photos of anything at Soarin, how is that possible?  I have at least a thousand photos of varies trips over the last 6 yrs and none of Soarin. 

I so love this ride.  I can't explain it, it really just makes me happy.  I love the feeling of flying, the smells, the music and the smiles of everyone around you when the ride is over.  I picked the above picture because we had just ate a huge meal at Le'Cellier we were stuffed and we were waiting for our fast pass for Soarin.  I was a little worried that my mom was going to hurl from the flying sensation on the ride but nope we were all just fine.

March 2011, Favorite Meal Ohanas

 

My favorite meal is at Ohanas. 

 I love the breakfast and the dinner.

  I love breakfast for several reasons.

  We love Lilo and Stitch, the kids love the waffles, and I love the juice. 

It's a great very filling meal so its a wonderful way to start your day.

I love dinner simply because I love the food. 

Something about meat on a stick, hahaha!

Seriously the food is delish.  

 

Sept. 2008 Favorite Non-Park Activity Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique

 

There are so many extra "things" to do while you're at Disney.  I think you could vacation there and never go to the parks, although why would you do that?  I love to go to Downtown Disney.  One of these vacations I will get a whole day there all to myself.  It seems as if we're always in a hurry when we're there.  Off to a dinner reservation or like the above picture off to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique.  This was my favorite extra thing we've ever done with Sarah.  It was kind of pricey but totally worth it.  At this age she hated for me to brush her hair but this little princess let the "fairy godmothers" brush her hair for so long and so tightly I couldn't believe it. 

If you have a daughter between the ages of 3-8 I would say definitely do this. 

Totally worth it. 

 

Sept. 2009 Favorite Disney Outfit

Really not related to the parks at all but this was my favorite thing that Sarah wore on our Disney vacation. Nana made her this Minnie dress for Halloween and it fit her perfectly for our trip. 

It was so hot on this day and she never complained once. We got a lot of compliments on it.

How sweet is she!! 

Sept 2009 Favorite Disney Picture

Lastly my favorite picture I've taken of the kids on a Disney vacation.

Nothing at all related to Disney other than I took it at Downtown Disney.

As many Disney outfits as my children wear while we're on vacation this day they happen to be wearing nothing Disney related except for Sarahs bracelet.  

 

So these were some of my Disney favorites.  I hope you enjoy them.  I've already thought of several more for next time.
















Valentine's Day

So it's Valentine's Day today and we've all had a pretty good day.

I bought Jeremy some new shoes for reenacting that he needed.

He bought me a super cute camera bag from etsy.  Neither of us got our presents in the mail yet but I think we're both pretty pleased and don't mind waiting lol.

Jeremy and I also went to lunch at bdubs. He offered dinner or lunch and I thought there would be a lot less crowds for lunch.  It was yummy of course.

He also surprised me with chocolates and a card.

 

 I put together this little gift for him from the kids.  I found the idea on pinterest and changed it up a little bit.  His favorite candies are reeces pieces so it worked out pretty well

 I made it to Sarah's Valentines party.  I wasn't going to go but it is her last party.

Her last party before she goes to middle school.  boooooo

Next year she's all grown up, no more school parties.

I was so sad.  I don't think she cared at all so I didn't make a big deal about it.

 Here she is with some of her buddies.  Max in the front in the orange coat has been one of her best buddies since 1st grade.  I hope they'll continue with the friendship through middle and high school.

So all in all we did have a good day.  I know there are a lot of people out there that hate Valentines Day.  I think its a hyped up Hallmark holiday but it sure is nice to have a special holiday to tell the people that mean the most to you how much they mean. 

Plus it gives the kids at work a really good reason to bring goodies to school and have a party!!

Tie Dye for Dummies

 

So there are several projects I want to make or do before our Disney trip in April.  For some reason I feel like this might be our last big trip to Disney.  The kids are excited but no where near as excited as they have been in the past for these trips. 

I made the headband and the autograph book already. 

What was left was a tie dye Mickey Mouse tshirt. 

There are several pinterest pins showing how to do this and several more blogs if you just google tie dye disney shirt.  I'm going to say that you'll probably get better directions from one of those but I'll try to tell you how we did it.

We, is myself and Kelli.  She is leaving in two days for her family trip so this was our last chance to make them. 

So here we go 10 tie dye tshirts coming up.  I tried to take photos but I skipped several steps. 

First of all prewash your shirts. 

You also need to cut your Mickey head shapes our of dark paper.  We used circle cutters from Creative memories to make our three circles. 

Place the mickey shape in between the front of the shirt and the back and trace the shape with pencil. 

The pictures below aren't very good but if you look close you can see the pencil outline.

 

 

Once your shape is traced you will need to use WAX covered floss to sew around the outline of the Mickey head.  Use a basting stitch, the simple up down up down stitch all the way around. 

This was the most time consuming part.  It took us quite awhile to sew 10 shirts. 

After you have sewn all the way around you need to pull the floss tight.  The below picture is Kelli tighting up one of her Mickey heads.  We were surprised how small that bunched up part was.  

 \

After you have that part bunched rubberband a one or two inch space under the where the floss is.  You'll want a this space so there is a white border around your Mickey head.  

 Once you have the above steps done soak your shirts in soda ash.  Apparently this helps to set your colors. 

Now heres a few things about this.

1.  We tie dye every summer at school and we never use soda ash so I'm pretty sure you could skip this.

2. Of the several blogs I read before we did this some said to soak them overnight some said 24 hours and then one said at least 20 minutes.  We went with 20 minutes.

 Here they are soaking in the soda ash. 

 Soaked t-shirts.

After they soak you have to roll them into a danish looking thing, lol.  I"m sorry no photos of us actually rolling the shirts.  If you look at the shirts below I will tell you that we just spun them in a circle till they were a round and danish looking.  Then we used several rubberbands to hold them in place. 

I bought the dye and the soda ash at Michaels.

Ok well here is where I have no more photos. 

Once our shirts were done soaking in soda ash we started the dye process.

First we turned the shirts with the Mickey head down and squirted the red dye all over that part.  As soon as we had that part saturated with covered it in saran and rubberbanded the saran tight.

We did all the red parts first. 

Next came the blue part.  We had turquise and navy.  We had a whole bucket of navy and just a small bottle of turquise.  We squirted some of the turquise into the tight folds and tried to get a few spots on the shirt with that lighter blue. 

Then we dipped the whole shirt except the red part into the bucket.  This saturated the whole shirt.

That was it.

Thats the dying process.

 Again different blogs tell you different things, some say let them sit overnight some say over several days.  I brought mine home and let them sit for about 6 hours.  I couldn't wait anymore to see if they turned out. 

So I took them to my sink and rinsed them.  I rinsed the red first and once that ran clear I rinsed the blue.  I didn't have any problems with colors running.  I hung them up downstairs and let them air dry.  Once they were dry I washed them in the washing machine and again let them air dry.

 All in all I am very happy how they turned out.  All four of mine turned out and Kelli said all six of hers turned out.  Some people commented on other blogs that the Mickey looked like a heart instead of the ears.  I think they must've had the ears too close together on the original drawing.  Ours were pretty far apart and the dye ran enough that they are still touching. 

The only thing I would change is the brightness.  Maybe those people that let their sit for days instead of hours get darker colors.  I think they would be darker if they could actually sit in the dye for a little bit.  We did not have the time or space to do that.  I also wonder if a different color wouldn't have been brighter.  

Random

I'm struggling with ideas to blog about. 

I struggle with what is appropriate to put out there for all to read.

Since some of those blog ideas are taking up the majority of my thoughts its hard to put those aside to think of appropriate blog ideas.

I also haven't been taking many photos lately so there isn't any fun photos to post. 

So in an effort to post more I'm going to have to get random, lol

 

1.  Went to the dentist today.  Had to have two teeth worked on, one of each side.  He asked if it was ok to work on both today but I would have to be numb on both sides.  I said, sure since I didn't want to have to go back again.  WOW, how weird it feels to have both sides numb. I actually had drool on my chin at one time.  The numbness is now wearing off and I'm sore on both sides yuck!

 2.  Jeremy emailed me today to let me know that they are offering a CCW class at his work.  He asked if I wanted to take it.  I DO!!  I've been wanting to go to the gun range for awhile now.  The classes can be expensive but this one is a really reasonable price.  I think we may both take it.  The only problem with that is once we've had the class we are both going to want a handgun.

$$$$

 3.  I'm addicted to the Bachelor.  Even in all it's ridiculousness I can't stop watching.  I do love how they seem to have caught on that we all love a villan.  Courtney last year, now Tierra.  She is so awful.  Would someone seriously throw themselves down the stairs and fake a frozen spell?   Not saying that she did but she lovessssss attention.  I can't believe that this nice sweet christian family lovin man is even interested in this woman.  Why don't these men learn that when ALL the women in the house hate someone theres something up!  If reality steve is right then I know who he picks, and I like her for him.  They haven't showed them together very much but I assume because its obvious they reeeaaalllyyy like each other.  Their date together was very normal.

 4.  Sarah made me breakfast in bed this morning.  Coffee, peanut butter toast, and 2 daisies.  It was so sweet.  I heard her moving around downstairs so I was going to get up and go get her some breakfast.  She said "nooooo mom don't get up, you have to stay in bed"  She was so very proud when she carried it upstairs. 

As much as she would like for me to tell you this is what it looked like, this is not a picture of my breakfast. 
I'm sure mine tasted better!

5.  On a more serious note, my nephew had a seizure yesterday morning.  So very scary.  My SIL and BIL are now going through the dr visits and questions that you face when you don't know the how or why.  I'm scared and nervous myself but I have faith that they'll find out why and get him all taken care of.  I'm praying for him and the family. But honestly I'm praying for my SIL the most.  I can't imagine the worry and stress and all the thoughts that she must be going through.  Theres nothing like a mothers love.  Our kids can be little shits they can drive us nuts drive us to drink make us crazy.  Make us second guess ourselves.  Would any one of us go back to before we had kids?  Would any of us trade being a mother?  What would we do without them, who would we be without them? 
She sent us an update today and it looks like there are tests and dr vists ahead but today he's doing good.  She also mentioned its hard to not smother and spoil him.  And when I read that, I thought when your child's life flashes in front of you how do you not smother and spoil them, at least for a little while. 

Saturdays

We had a pretty busy Saturday, errands and nasty weather can make for a long day.

First stop, Ann's Pet Parlor for Tuckers grooming appt.  Nothing to report here other than the fact that the groomer wears a ridiculous hair piece and I can't stop staring at her. 

 Sorry no pics, too obvious.

Next stop Springfield Farmer's Market. 

I had heard about a new cupcake shop opening up and wanted to check it out.

Bumbleberries

So glad we stopped .

 Flavors from top to bottom, left to right.

Guiness (yes made with Guiness beer) this was Jeremys pick,

Key Lime, mmmm reminds me of mom,

Maple Bacon, yes bits of bacon on top.  This was picked for Jacob.

Root beer Float, Sarahs pick.

Mocha, oh yes this ones for me.

Apple Strudel, just for fun.

 Jacob thought this was the coolest thing ever.

He said that the actual cupcake tasted like pancakes.

I think his taste buds were tasting the maple and his brain thought of syrup, so then of course he thought of pancakes.
 

 I tasted it, it was good.

 Jacob says he would order it again.

 Sarah picked the root beer float one just like I thought she would.

 This one has not been eaten yet so I can't say what we think.

I love the heart cookie on top.

 Mocha oh how I love you.

This was AHmazing.

There was a delicious chocolate frosting on top of the cupcake and then another big chunk of chocolate frosing topped with a vanilla flavored chunk on the very top.

I ate it with a fork and loved every bite.

 

So after dog grooming, cupcake shopping, grocery shopping, getting gas, returning library books, buying biggby coffee, picking up the last of the lumber for Sarah's loft bed, and shopping at TJMaxx for luggage for our Disney trip we finally made it home.
 

 I decided to make White Chicken Chili.

I've never made it before.

I've had recipes, I've eaten it at others houses, but never myself.

The best I've ever had was from my friend Korey in Florida.

She was such a great cook but her white chicken chili was my favorite.

 I'm so glad I made it. 
The house smelled great and even better it tasted great.

I also made cornbread.
 The above picture is before I added the cheese and sour cream.  The sour cream is what makes the white chicken chili "white" so thats why it's not white YET.
 

I pinned the recipe I used.

Last stop of the day was at TJMaxx
.  I wanted to look at luggage for our Disney trip.  We don't have any big pieces anymore so we have to buy some before we leave in April.
 While I was there I had to check out the pet section.
 They have the cutest stuff.
  I ended up buying Tucker a new bed.
  Its so super soft.
  And as you can see from the picture above he kinda likes it.
 

So it was a busy day.

I sit here blogging, watching dvred shows, and listening to the saw in the garage.
  Jeremy is almost done with Sarah's bed.
  We'll all be happy when its done.

A Post That Makes No Sense

Just go with me on this, it will most likely make no sense.

Being Judgmental

Thats been on my mind a lot lately.

Or I guess I should say trying not to be judgmental has been on my mind a lot lately.

I've been wondering why I feel like I am better than anybody else to pass jugdment on what they do with their lives.

I think that I do it a lot.

So then I start to think I'm not really judging them, I'm more like thinking what my opinion is of what they are doing.  Does that make sense?

Ugh I just deleted most of this post. 

 I was rereading it and I sounded like a judgmental bitch. 

I guess I just don't think that my thoughts are so far fetched, they make sense....I think.

Don't wear pajama bottoms to the store

Don't sleep with another womans husband

Don't brag about getting thousands of dollars back in taxes and all the stupid shit you are going to buy with said money when you are on government assistance and others around you are getting pennies and they work their asses off.

Don't tell me that Nicki Manaj will still be around in 10 years and she'll be a legend.

Don't let your children be disrespectful.

Don't tell me Kenny Chesney is gay.

Don't assume I would love Kenny Chesney any less if he was gay.

Don't tell your children no they can't have a cupcake ten times and then get up and give them one.

 

None of the above really have anything to do with being judgmental, sorry I just went off on a tangent.

What I am trying to say is that I am struggling a lot lately with some decisions I've made in the past.  I am wondering how things would be different if I wouldve made other decisions.  People are real quick to say what they would do if certain things happened to them but the bottom line is that you have no idea how you will react to a situation until its happening to you.  So instead of judging you because of what you do I need to try to put myself in your position and realize I don't know what I would do if it were me.  The only person I need to worry about is myself and the decisions I make. 

That being said I think its still important to be honest with someone you love if they ask for your opinion but respect their final decision. 

This all pertains to everyone except my children lol

They will do as I say and like it and they better always make the right decision.

Which of course is the decision I tell them to make. 

No need for judgment.