Beautiful Blogger Award - How Sweet!

I'm so excited....I received the Beautiful Blogger Award from Jo Shabo at Somewhat Organized, Slightly Crafty Tot Teacher and Mommy. If you haven't seen her blog, you should check it out right away! She has awesome ideas and is an all around great blogger. That's why I am so honored that she chose me for this award! Thanks so much Jo Shabo!

So, here are the rules to receive the Beautiful Blogger award:

* Thank & link to the person that gave you the award.
* Pass this award onto 15 bloggers you’ve discovered & think are fantastic.
* Contact said Blogs & let them know they've won
* State 7 things about yourself.

So, here we go...

7 Things about myself:

1.) I have played the flute for 19 years and have my bachelors in music education. I still get to play professionally with local groups and at weddings and funerals. My husband and I also get to play in our church often. (He plays violin.)

2.) My faith is extremely important to me. I am a Christian and have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

3.) I have a butterfly tattoo on my right ankle - my daughter thinks someone drew on mommy!

4.) I have hazel eyes that change color according to my mood (seriously)! When I am happy they are blue and when I am sad or angry they turn green.

5.) I have 3 older sisters. Yup, I'm the baby!

6.) I LOVE to read books....especially fiction. My favorite author is Karen Kingsbury.

7.) I'm addicted to cooking and cookbooks. I rarely make the same recipe (except for staples like meatloaf and spaghetti) and my husband loves being my guinea pig!

So, there you go, 7 things about me!

Here are 15 bloggers that I think deserve this award:

*Almost Unschoolers

*Home Grown Hearts

*Mommy's Kitchen

*A Little Fun with Me and Lu


*Confessions of a Homeschooler

*Cooking During Stolen Moments

*Tried and True Cooking with Heidi

*One Mom, Five Boys

*Mama to 3 Blessings

*Counting Coconuts

*Doing Life Together

*Dresses 'n Messes

*All About the Journey

*Happiness is Homemade

*Homeschool Madness

These are all blogs that I love to visit!

Thanks again so much for the award, Jo Shabo!

Muffin Tin Monday - Hearts and a Craft

This week we're doing H is for hearts, so we did a heart shape muffin tin.

In Bekah's muffin tin, she had:
Grilled Cheese hearts, spinach salad with heart cucumber and homemade poppy seed dressing, heart salami, heart strawberries, and heart doughnut (from Krispy Kreme).

I was surprised that she had two bites of the doughnut and then was done with that. She loved the grilled cheese and the heart shaped strawberries the best!

To go along with our heart muffin tin we made a heart shaped guy. He turned out very cute and was simple to put together.
I drew a heart shape on the inside part of an old cereal box and Bekah went to town painting him red.

She also painted herself red!

Bekah then glued on the eyes and drew a mouth.

Then we used strips of red construction paper folded like an acordian for the arms and legs.

You can see what others are having at Muffin Tin Mom.

A Little Bit of Our Story

My husband and I met in college where we were both Music Education majors. We went on to graduate and ended up working in the same school district, same school building, same music room. My husband taught string orchestra and I taught K-5 general music. It was a wonderful work situation. I got to wake up each morning and go to work with my sweetheart.
When we became pregnant with Bekah, we both decided that I would leave my teaching job and become a stay at home mom. It was the best decision and one I have never regretted.
My husband is still teaching strings at the same school and loves being able to instill a love of music into those elementary kids. He has now started a blog to help students who play an instrument, especially a string instrument. You can visit it by going HERE.

Are You Ready For Some Football?

I saw this adorable football craft at No Time For Flashcards and knew it would be a lot of fun for the Superbowl. While we aren't really football fans (Bekah kept calling this a baseball!), we still like to have some sporty fun!

First, we took a brown paper bag and I drew two football shapes (for the front and back). I also drew the laces on one side). Bekah painted the sides brown and we let it dry.


After it was dried, we cut out the football shapes.


I stapled about half of it together and Bekah crumpled up some newspaper to stuff inside.


Here she is stuffing the newspaper inside the football.


Here's the finished football!


We had so much fun playing with it once it was all done!

Friday Following

I'm always looking for new blogs to read and follow. It's also nice to have new followers of my blog. This is why I'm linking up with Friday Follow. It's a huge blog party where you get to visit lots of other blogs and hopefully follow them. So, come on over and join the party!

stART Project - The Mitten

One of our favorite books recently has been The Mitten by Jan Brett. I found this adorable printable from Jan Brett's website that we had so much fun with.

Bekah colored the animals and I cut them out.

After the animals were colored she wanted to color the mitten.

We used double sided tape to attach the sides and top of the mitten. Then, as I read the story Bekah would put the animals into the mitten.

She had so much fun with this craft!

We also had fun doing this mitten activity that I found at childcareland.com
It follows the Brown Bear, Brown Bear idea. I had Bekah call out what colors would come next and choose that color. For example, "Red Mitten, Red Mitten, what do you see?" "I see a yellow mitten looking at me..." and so on until all the mittens are looking at me.


You can see what others are doing for their stART project at A Mommy's Adventures.

Sweetheart Candy Counting Game

I saw the idea for this sweetheart candy counting game at No Time For Flashcards. I picked our candies up at the dollar store and quickly traced some hearts with numbers 1-12 on a large piece of construction paper. Bekah had to put the correct number of candies on each heart.


Bekah did well with this, but to be honest, became quickly bored. However, we did it right before dinner and she was hungry, so that could be why it didn't last long!

Here's how far she got...pretty good for being hungry!