A little summer inspiration

My daughter is at the hormonal, argue about everything, she is always right stage. Sadly, this means she gets grounded more often than she should. So I had to come up with some way to keep her busy while at home and entertaining herself instead of harassing me and telling me she is the dreaded summer word, BORED!.

I have tried to add a link so you can download it but it wont transfer all the fonts. Bummer. 

If you want to create your own I did it with a word document and using the text box function added all the activities with their own unique fonts, sizes, and colors and placed them on the page where I thought they looked good. Took me about a half an hour.

I found all the fun fonts on Pinterest which were free to download. Just search fonts and you will get a gazillion (I think that is a real word) different ones.

Happy Summer!

My attempt at being a Fun Mom

I really want to be that Mom who is at a good balance with her kids. Disciplinarian yet someone they can have fun with. I hate it when at the end of the week I feel like all I did was get on my daughters case about doing her chores or homework or making sure she is using correct manners and treating others respectfully. I don't want to be a constant nag. I want to be that Mom who makes their kids feel special by doing something out of the ordinary and something that they can say "Hey, my Mom was pretty cool today." 

So my attempt was to surprise Abby when she came home from her last day of school with a note on the door preparing her for an impromptu water balloon fight. 

This is what she found on the front door when she came home along with clothes to change into. (Silly girl wore long sleeves and long pants to school when it was 85 degrees out.)

Out back I had filled about 150+ water balloons and separated them into two containers.

This container I hid so that when the other one emptied I would have a secret stash.

I also filled this tub with water and water guns/balls to add to the fun and avoid turning on the hose.

I think she had a great time. She is pretty soaked. Maybe that means that I had a great time.

I know she had a great time trying to get Mom wet.

 

And she was pretty successful. Both of us were soaked. 

I love this kid!

Here's to Summer starting off FUN!

End of "Turd" grade

It's the end of the school year and there is more things going on then I can keep track of. Homework to catch up on (which I think is a joke the last week of school, it wont get done), totes to clean, teacher gifts to buy, activities galore, and a myriad of other things happening all at once.

FIELD TRIPS

I was in charge of these 5 crazy kids. Beth, Abby, Mia,  Elijah,  and ?

Mom and Abby having lunch

Oh, how fun would it be to be a kid again?

PROGRAMS

Singing in elementary school is the only time I remember being excited to have my parents come see me and being so proud of my performance. I cry every time I go see my baby.

Abby's art project. (above her head)

EGG DROP

We built this contraption to protect an egg when dropped off the roof of the school.

There is an egg in a carton inside of a box inside of a box in side of a box  all padded with newspaper. It worked when tested by throwing out or second story window.

Sadly, it didn't work at school. Maybe we damaged the egg the day before by all our testing?

FIELD DAY

Tug of war. Girls RULE!

And yet getting wet is still necessary.

Balancing an egg on your head. OH the fun that was had.

Do you remember the parachute from elementary? I do. And yes, it is still the bees knees.

Abby's classmates.

Abby's REAL classmates

And to top it all off my baby will be ending her reign as the "Turd" grader. Gabe began calling her a turd grader at the beginning of the year. She laughed then asked "Mom, what's a turd?" I told her it was a little piece of poop. She looked at her father and said "You just called me a little piece of poo grader?" We laughed so hard.

Well now she will start her new rein as a Jedi in the "Force" grade. Hope this doesn't mean she will be playing the "wave your hand" over the homework trick.  

Can we say YUM!?

Sunday I just felt the urge to cook. Not an all day thing but a quick whip up of something yummy. Muffins seemed like a good option. So headed to Pinterest to try out something new. I came across these little beauties.

http://www.yourhomebasedmom.com/almond-poppy-seed-muffinsmuffin-mondays/

I didn't have an orange so I used a lemon in its place. It made a batch of 18 muffins

Can we just say that these are so addictive and Yummy!

They were devoured between the three of us within minutes...all 18.

Abby's Sanctuary

I did it! I finally sucked it up, ran to the craft store, and decorated Abby's room.  Honestly, it took me all of an hour to do it. Aside from cleaning the room so I could get in there first. Gabe and I also took down her bunk beds (I know she is an only child but hey, they are fun right?) and put in her nice clean white bed. AHH!

 These diamonds above her bed are inspired by all those framed pieces of fabric I see on Pinterest. That was my intention. But when I saw the price of frames I thought I would just do it myself. Luckily on my way out of the store I happened upon the baking isle and found these awesome 12X12 cake cardboard plates. Abby and I just hot glued the fabric on there and voila! they are done. I hung them by hot gluing a paperclip to the back and them pressing them to the wall with a thumb tack woven through the paperclip. Ingenious, I know.

 My Dad gave me these fun shape curtain things. So I hung them on the wall and then used the colors to coordinate the fabric I purchased.

 This vanity was my great grandmas. Now it is my baby girls. How fun is that?

 This I made with a framed poster that Abby had that I HATED! I got fabric, batting, ribbon and brads and put this baby together. Now she has a fun memo board to put all her papers and pictures on. Hopefully, they will end up here and not on the floor. Fingers crossed.

THE CLOSET! This was pretty easy actually. Just put the dresser in the closet added a cheap shelf some plastic shoe boxes and a shoe organizer. Nice thing is she can now see everything.
I also created day tags that she hangs her clothes in at the beginning of the week once the laundry is done. That way when she wakes up she goes right to the day grabs her clothes and NO ARGUING! I love it.



I think I turned out pretty decent and I didn't lift a paint brush. Maybe another day, but for now we are all satisfied and happy with the results.

Zucchini Chips

This zucchini is about 4 1/2 in around and was16 inches long.

So I left for a couple of days and forgot about my garden. You know what that means, HUMONGOUS zucchini. What do you do with humongous zucchini? Well, as far as I know you make zucchini bread, or zucchini muffins. But when you have a humongous zucchini it only takes 1/3 of it to do a bread recipe. Yup I still have lots 'o zucchini. Oh Pinterest!!!

Yes I turn to my faithful Pinterest to find a recipe that will satisfy my zucchini needs. Don't you? Well first Abby and I sat down and found this recipe. But, I didn't have the ingredients besides the zucchini.  But Abby kept saying "so? Lets see what we have." (I love my kid) So to the fridge we went. We found shredded Parmesan cheese and tomatoes from our garden.
MMMM!

So I sliced up the zucchini and the tomatoes sprinkled them with season salt and Parmesan cheese and stuck it in my oven (which is still on from the zucchini bread) 350* for 15-20 min. This is what we got.----> Can we say YUM!? The tomatoes made it, I think, but Abby says straight zucchini all the way.
You would think that after that yummy snack we would be done but OH NO not in the Johnson household. We go big or go home. Well... we are home but, you get the gist. LOL
So back to Pinterest we went. We were getting pretty good at this zucchini slicing thing so we decided to see if we could make chips. Of coarse you can! and oh man did we make some chips. Pinterest had a gorgeous picture but the link didn't work so I thought "what the heck" we will just fly by the seat of our pants and create another fabulous recipe.

Zucchini Chips
1/3-1/2 of  a Humongous Zucchini
1/3 c bread crumbs
1/3 c Parmesan cheese
1/2 t Italian seasonings
1/2 t parsley
pepper
sea salt

Combine bread crumbs, cheese, seasonings, parsley, pepper, salt in food processor. I used our NINJA, because its cool. And blend until it's crumbly.

 I used a mandolin with a wavy blade to cut my zucchini but I am pretty sure it would be fine if you just sliced them straight. 

I sprayed a cookie sheet with cooking spray. 

Then because I am lazy and didn't want to dirty another bowl I just took out the blade on my awesome NINJA and dipped the zucchini slices in till both sides were coated.

I put them on the sheet single layer. 

Then because my oven was still on 350*. I stuck them in. I checked them at 10 min but they still looked raw. At 20 min they looked FABULOUS!

I took them out and set them single layer on a paper towel in case of extra moisture.

They lasted about 2 minutes before Abby and I dug in. Super yummy. The ones that browned were more crispy and very yummy. But all were super yummy and the perfect snack.

*note when adding salt that the Parmesan cheese is already salty so go sparingly. Enjoy your ZUCCHINI! I know I am.

I Thought I'd lost It

This past week I did something I never thought I would do. I knew my summer was dragging and my motivation for cleaning the house had severely dwindled. I was drowning in To-Do lists which grew larger every day. The arguing between my family members was at an all-time high and I was looking for a way out. So I did what any one would do…I went to BYU!

I saw the announcement in the Sunday sacrament program asking for volunteers and thought “what the heck, I’ll give it a try.” I signed up to host for 4 hours a day for 4 days at BYU education week. In exchange, I could go to any of the other classes for free. I had no idea what I was in for but hey, it was my ticket out. I thought for sure I would be sick to my stomach the whole time I was romping around the enemy’s territory and for the first little while I was nervous. But after the first two hours I was amazed at the spirit and the kindness of the others I served with. The first day was a little strange since the first class I hosted was about addiction and when the instructor asked how many people were recovering and so many hands went up I understood the reasons they weren’t so nice at the door. But when I got switched to another class the following day I realized the Lord had another plan for me.

While hosting the last three days I gained greater insight and understanding for others. The people entering into my classroom were from all over the U.S. and all had different agendas. Some were very kind and some were rushed. Others just wanted to rush by, some sneak by, and then there were those that were there every day diligently seeking knowledge and were so happy and gracious I wanted to almost cry when they gave me a hug or smiled and said thank you for helping them. I think that is when I turned a page.

This journey I was on was not only about me and gaining a greater knowledge of the gospel but about me sharing what light I had with others and them sharing theirs with me. I met some amazing people and went to some amazing lectures. I was able to tailor my gospel learning to what I needed most and after doing so I have grown more in the last week than I have in the last five years.

I have truly felt that I had lost my way; that I would never feel that strong overwhelming spirit guide me and teach me through gospel learning. The last five years my ward, stake, and buildings have been in constant change. We are now on our 7^th ward and going on 2^nd stake. We have changed ward buildings 4 times and I am still in the same house.  Add all that in and my inability to make any lasting friendships and you have one lost soul. I felt as though I was drifting away from where the spirit could reach me. I just kept the saying in my head “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."- Maya Angelou

I am still in the same house but I feel as though I have moved a million miles forward. I got a push from the Lord to do better and be better. I’m not saying I came away from there converted to BYU. In fact, on the last day, last class, the instructor was saying why he loved BYU and showed a picture of a BYU football player and I had to choke down my vomit. I know where my sports loyalties lie, GO Utes! But, the spiritual growth and learning and experiences that I gained were so overwhelming that I cannot deny that being on campus and going to those classes were where I needed to be at that time.

I thought I’d lost it but the Holy Ghost is still here guiding me and the Lord still loves me and has a plan and a place for me. My future is still not mapped out. My to-do list is still here, but my resolve and my heart is full enough to get me through what I can do today.