So, I’m having a rough recovery from the birth of our little Sweet Pea, and that is trickling into every aspect of my life, including blogging. I was hoping that y’all would participate in a poll about what topics you are most interested in seeing here. You can vote multiple times if you are interested in multiple topics equally, but I’d seriously appreciate some feedback. My inspiration, energy and mental prowess are all much lower than usual, and I could use some help. Comments welcome, as well as votes! Humongous thanks in advance to anyone who is willing to participate! 🙂
Category Archives: Living Life
Baby, Baby, Baby!!!
Our Little Sweet Pea
Introducing the reason for my silence this past while, our little Sweet Pea, born 7-9-15 at 5:20 pm weighing in at a healthy (and ironic) 7 lbs. 9 ounces!!! 🙂
Excuse my “it’s been a looooooong labor” face.
I was having some issues- along with weeks of prolonged consistent labor without progress- so I underwent an induction just before her due date. 23 hours after they began the induction, I delivered our beautiful baby girl without an epidural. I’ll spare the details, but it was a long and very difficult process. I have zero regrets about my choices, including doing an induction without an epidural, because of the circumstances. I did not want induced, but needed interference, in spite of my ideal scenario. I blacked out about an hour and a half after our daughter was born, due to blood loss and exhaustion. I was already depleted, and my hemoglobins dropped enough that they wanted to do a transfusion, which I refused, so my recovery will be slow. I am just glad things are great with the baby, and I will eventually be okay.
This Is What a Dream Come True Looks Like
Our little girl is sweet, beautiful, and very healthy. Our older children- especially our oldest daughter- are absolutely in love with their new baby sister, as you can see from the photos. For our oldest Princess, having a living baby doll of a baby sister is literally a dream come true! She can’t get enough of snuggling her new sissy. Our boyish Bambam is a bit intimidated by how teensy tiny she is, and already a super overprotective big brother (a position he takes quite seriously and is extremely proud of). He loves giving her extremely gentle kisses on her head. She’s a really calm and good natured little gal thus far.
Big Brother Holding Baby
We are so blessed! I am excited to introduce our precious Sweet Pea to y’all, hope you understand my absence this past bit, and keep following my little corner of the internet! 🙂
Upcycled Trellises for Gardening
- Stroller Trellis
Being a penny pincher who was raised homesteading and upcycling before it was the “in” thing to do, recycling unused items for my garden is like breathing.
*May contain affiliate links, which help my little family without costing yours any extra money. *
Broken Stroller Trellis
When my cucumbers started getting out of control, it never occurred to me to go buy something to use as trellises. My first instinct was to scour our property for things to be used. I have used pieces of leftover fencing, unused animal cages, tree limbs rigged up and many other myriad random objects to trellis or stake plants with. This year my objects were a wee bit on the creative side.
Order non GMO seeds and supplies using the coupon code SAVE10NOW for 10% off at SeedsNow!
Have you ever used a baby stroller as a plant trellis?
It works great! We had this ancient stroller left outside on our property by a former resident and beyond safe use for it’s original purpose. We’d never bothered to haul it off, so I rolled it’s wobbling wheels on over to the end of my garden and started encouraging my cucumbers to climb. The photos illustrate the interesting results. My daughter loves it. She says our cucumbers are babies with their own baby carriage, and is eager to show off her baby cucumbers to anyone who may happen to be around. 🙂
Trellis From Yard Objects
You thought I was finished? I wasn’t done upcycling yet!
I needed more than what the rickety stroller could handle on it’s own, so I went a-searching again. I came up with a couple of leftover pieces of plastic yard edging, barely visible in the picture, and a black metal decorative tower thingamajigger. They both work well for the purpose, as you can see from their barely visible appearance in the featured snapshots.
“Penny Pinching Peach is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com”
What items have you upcycled, recycled or reused to trellis your trailing plants in the garden?
In the spirit of sharing, this Kindle book The Upcycled Garden shares over 50 ways to use “discarded” items in new ways for your garden. Check it out!
For one of my favorite gardening tips, please read about my topsy turvy planters I made with my husband.
Camping With the Cuties
My List of Budget Friend Gifts For Outdoorsmen and Hunters!Camping With Cuties
Want a relatively cheap way to spend a weekend with the family? How about trying camping?
With the weather warming up, this is the perfect time to plan a fishing and camping trip! With a little planning, you can have oodles of fun without breaking the bank!
First, where are you going to sleep? Do you have an RV or tent already?
Okay, then are you going to stay on private land, at a campsite or what? Make sure you have any necessary permission or reservations to avoid a last minute scramble to find somewhere to park your sleeping bags! If you don’t have an RV or tent and don’t plan to acquire one, see if you know anyone who will let you borrow one or if there is an inexpensive campsite with cabins for rent (like a National Forest). Wherever you choose to stay, don’t forget to make sure you have comfortable sleeping gear, like sleeping bags or blow up mattresses.
“Penny Pinching Peach is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com”
Next, what are you going to eat? Think about EVERY meal and snacks!
(If you have small children and don’t pack snacks, I promise that you will regret it.) We often pack hot dogs and marshmallows to roast over the campfire, which covers one meal and a fun dessert of s’mores for an easy prep. Lunch can be something simple like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, premade for zero prep other than taking them out of the cooler to gobble up. Also, make sure you have whatever it takes to prepare the meal when you get there, whether it be a portable grill like this fairly inexpensive one my husband uses constantly, even at home Backyard Grill 278-sq in Portable Charcoal Grill, Black, matches or a butter knife. It’s not going to magically appear in the wilderness! 😉
Don’t forget to grab the gear for whatever activities you have planned
Fishing poles and all the accessories, if that’s your chosen pastime (and could provide a meal, but have a back-up plan in case the fish don’t wanna come to dinner! 😉 ). Comfy shoes and water bottles for hiking. Binoculars & camera for bird watching. Buckets and containers to store berries in for berry picking. Reusable bags if you decide to scavenge for hidden treasures like arrowheads and interesting rocks. There are sooooo many fun things you can do outdoors that cost very little! Whatever you are doing, don’t forget the sunscreen, sunglasses and bug spray! Trust me, I’m talking from my own painful & itchy experiences here, y’all!! 🙂
If you are camping with small children, make sure to bring their “comfort objects”.
Add them into the headcount while packing up to go home, whether it’s the teddy bear who rides with them in their car seat or the rocket ship they must have tucked in next to them to be able to rest at night or any special blankets. I love to bring these cute flashlight pals Flashlight Friends – The Huggable Loveable Child’s Flash Light and/or dream lights Pillow Pets Dream Lites – Pink Butterfly 11″ with us, because it helps make up for the absence of a regular night light with my scared-of-the-dark little ones. Both of my kids have their own, and they love them for home and especially for travel. My son has the blue camo dog in the dream lites and the dinosaur flash light pal, while my daughter has the butterfly dream lite and the unicorn flash light friend. They are AWESOME!!
What is your best tip for camping with kids?
Camping can be fun, just make sure you are well prepared with everything possible that your little ones may need or be accustomed to. It will make a huge difference in the outcome of your trip if you go prepared instead of flying by the seat of your pants. Need tips for traveling with little ones? Head on over to Traveling With Little Riders! Looking for gift ideas for your outdoorsman? You need THIS LIST!!!
For more great summer kids posts, check out:
Traveling with Little Riders
A couple of years ago with one of my little riders.
Planning to travel this summer? Have small children? One of your big concerns is probably how to keep the little rascals entertained and happy on the trip to where you’re headed, right? Here are some of my tried and true tips for ways to keep toddlers and preschoolers happy while traveling!
“Penny Pinching Peach is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com”
Snacks!!! Any parents know to bring something for the kids to munch on, but here are my tips to make this a success. Pack familiar favorites, as well as occasional treats and things they will like, but don’t really get at home. A treat they enjoy plain made in a cool shape can be exciting at this age! Make sure they are safe to consume while strapped in a car seat, and not overly messy. For children who are past the major choking stage, some good options are homemade cookies (like my super yummy healthy cookies or these less healthy easy cake mix cookies), raisins and other dried fruits, real fruit dye free gummies, goldfish crackers, cereals or mixes made with cereals, sandwich crackers, pretzels, grapes, bananas, apple slices, string cheese, etc. Some of these are assuming you are hauling a cooler, but that’s almost a given on a long trip with munchkins, isn’t it? 😉
Coloring books. If your children are a little older, make sure to get them some that also have appealing games in them, like mazes, color-by-number, dot-to-dot and things like that to keep them more mentally stimulated for longer.
Stickers. Encourage them to get creative. You could let them decorate their own activity boxes, notebooks, memory books from the trip or bookmarks & cards for family members using their stickers, like this set of 1,000 animal stickers for cheap or other varieties. You can also give them a little notepad and have them put a sticker in it every time they find a particular object you agree on them finding and counting, whether it be a school bus, fire truck, the same color of car that you are riding in, churches, fields of cows, seagulls….whatever would catch their interest and be something they would find plenty of without it being too terribly easy.
Electronic games. I rarely allow my children to play with their electronic games at home, so when they get them during a waiting time (like a road trip, when I need to make important phone calls quietly at home or while waiting at doctor’s office), it will hold their attention for a very long time.
Love pure quality essential oils, but have a tight budget? Want to be sure they are safe for your children? I love Barefut Essential Oils and the Kid Friendly line! They run some amazing specials on top of the usual super affordable prices! https://barefut.com/product-category/kid-friendly/?afmc=Kg
I Spy. This game can carry on quite awhile, just adjust it to your child’s capabilities. You can use this to hone their skills in different areas. Some examples? I spy something big/little/green/orange/soft/wet/tall/round/square/sharp/etc. It doesn’t just have
to be colors! 🙂
DVD player. In a modern age, I’m sure most parents think to bring a way for their kids to watch movies on trips, but it bears mentioning. This portable DVD player is a #1 best seller!
Children’s Songs. This one could drive a parent absolutely batty, but there are times when listening to 100 children’s songs and pantomiming along is the preferred torture. When your other options are whining, crying or bickering…who can judge you belting out “Twinkle Twinkle” complete with theatric gestures? 😉
Books. This may seem like a no brainer, but it has to be included. What I do to make books even more engaging for them to look through is to give them a “mission” to accomplish. “See if you can find the purple pony hiding in this book!” or for those who can count “Count how many fish are swimming through this book!” or any other searches you can send them through the pages for. This really appeals to my goal oriented munchkins, and can make half a dozen books last as long as 20 books might without the extra missions. This traveling book is chock full of travel activities!
What are some of your favorite tricks for entertaining little ones on the road? Need some money saving tips? Try my Cheap Travel Tips!
Homewreckers
Peanut the Conqueror
My kids give a whole new definition to the term “homewrecker”. There are times when the little varmints seem intent upon destroying our home and everything in it, nailed down or not. Take the first couple of days of last week, for instance. We had just returned from a short vacation, and our kiddos were excited to be home again. Their response to their joy at being back in their home sweet home? My little darlings turned into a two tot demolition derby!
The first full day at home was the beginning of the madness. My sweet little Peanut, who just turned a year old, pulled the leg off of our coffee table and then did his new-walker “monster run” around the living room trying to whack anything that couldn’t skedaddle. Princess Peach strewed every book she could find all over her bedroom floor while I thought she was nicely reading on her bed, and her baby brother thought the books were perfect for one of his favorite games, Shred The Paper. (I should’ve known better than to think the fact she was on her bed quietly looking at a book and baby was on the living room floor with a toy meant it was safe to go to the bathroom alone, for once.) While trying to fix a quick supper, with them right behind me, Peanut dumped out the trash can and was frantically trying to dig through it before I could grab him out of the mess. After supper, I thought I could do dishes with them in the kitchen with me. Nope! Baby Peanut was pulling them out and throwing them as quickly as I could set them in, and my daredevil Princess was stacking empty boxes to try to climb on the counters to get at things she wasn’t supposed to have. AVALANCHE!!! They both fought sleep until the bitter end that night, and since I didn’t even begin to detail everything the little boogers got into that day, it took me about an hour of clean-up once they finally lost their battle with the snooze monster for me to be able to go to bed that night. This is even after making my daughter pick up every single book and all the toys she had scattered hither and thither across our humble abode.
She colored her face with blue crayon
I figured by the second day that the gruesome twosome would’ve settled down a bit. They were pretty good while I took them to church and a fundraiser spaghetti dinner afterwards. Apparently, that was merely to lull their dear ol’ mom into a false sense of security.
The madness began again as soon as they got home. They found an open bag of potato chips, which they both proceeded to try to cram into their jowls as quickly as possible before I could deprive them of their prize. The result? Well, chips & crumbs from head to toe to floor….everywhere! They pulled out just about every toy they owned, and a few I didn’t even know existed anymore. When I attempted another ill-fated attempt at relieving my bladder, this time taking Peanut in there with me while I thought Princess was watching a cartoon, she climbed the counter and got into some chocolate. She had it half eaten and smeared all over by the time I got out. I even heard her opening the wrapper and hollered from the potty. Did that deter my determined diva? Nosirreebob!! It just made her gobble faster. This went on and on all day long, one thing after another.
Cut to the grand finale of that lovely day…
The Princess’ Potty
At one point I thought I could keep an eye on them and check my messages online, since I hadn’t been on a computer for a few days. Princess Peach took off for the potty as I was logging on. I gave her a minute to do her business before I followed. BIG MISTAKE!! By the time I got in there, she had crammed a ton of toilet paper into the toilet and repeatedly tried flushing it. Can we say FLOOD??? Yep, it was an overflowing mess! Did I mention that my husband was on duty at the fire department? But of course he was! 😉 As yours truly was hurriedly turning off the water and ordering the incorrigibly cute culprit to timeout, Peanut was trying to swim in the mess. Once I got the floodwaters to shop rushing, I had to strip him down to a diaper and toss him into the playpen. Picture this: Screaming Peanut, ringing phone, whining Princess and mumbling Mommy rushing back and forth with a bucket tossing water outside, plunging, hauling buckets of water, plunging again, yadayadayada. It took about a dozen cycles of plunging and water hauling to get the toilet fixed up. After that I had to remove everything from the bathroom, clean everything, put back what I could and explain to Princess Peach exactly why Mommy was so far beyond irritated with her at the moment and why she should never do that again. Of course, next it was baths all around and off to beddy bye. Also, of course, they fought sleep yet another night to the bitter, nerve wrecking end!
Now, I don’t think any of these things are all that unusual in a day of life with munchkins. They just went on an absolute homewrecking spree there for a few days! This wasn’t even the end, since the next week included another flooding of the toilet, painting the bathroom with pink toothpaste, many more raids of forbidden snack stashes, destroying of items they shouldn’t touch, etc. My nerves have yet to settle down, since both of my kiddos are in some high maintenance stages right about now. Why am I sharing this? Maybe ’cause I’m a mess of a mom sometimes, and am too tired to care that everyone knows. Maybe to let other mommies who want to go outside and howl at the moon in frustration know that they aren’t alone in loving life with their precious children at the same time as wanting to crawl into a hole and cry. Maybe ’cause life is crazy, but it’s meant to be shared. Maybe so these little lunatics I am raising can look at this later when their own progeny are driving them up the walls and see that it’s just the way things are sometimes.
I’m convinced that God made children adorable and innocent so that at times like this, when they make their parents want to scream, howl and have a toddler sized meltdown from frustration….we look at the source of our frustration and think “You’re lucky you’re so stinkin’ cute, kid!”. LOL
My messmakers
Off to make sure Princess Peach isn’t wrecking havoc in the temporary silence of a napping Peanut. If your kids are at home and quiet….CHECK ON THEM!!!! 😉 I have to add that the little booger was yet again brushing the walls with pink toothpaste, as well as dumping water all over the floor and squirting pink toothpaste into the sink to use for her painting. I shouldn’t have left her alone, because she’s rarely behaving if she’s quiet lately. What’s a mommy to do??? Gotta laugh or cry! *laughing now that I’ve cleaned the bathroom and let her out of timeout* LOL! AHHHHHH!!!!
Anyone else had fun times like this?? Tell me I’m not alone, y’all, pleeeeeeease!!! 🙂
When To Say No, and When To Let It Go
Yes, we went in public like this! LET IT GO!!!!
My five year old is very strong willed and thrives on winning arguments at all costs, while I’m more laidback and cannot stand to fuss with people.
She is a potential future trial lawyer, while I’m more the diplomat type. If you think this causes issues in my ability to parent her without getting stressed out, then you are tee-totally correct!! I hate to be confrontational or aggressive, but there are many times that I must. She loves to win, but she has to lose on a regular basis for the good of all mankind. 🙂 She’s a future leader, but she has to learn to challenge those leadership skills in a healthy manner.
Because of the difference in personalities, I’ve learned that a big key to retaining my sanity is in choosing which battles to start with my strong willed child.
If I start a battle, I have to win it. With a child who likes to win, this means that starting a battle can potentially be a huge commitment of my energy and time. I have to think before I start “Is this a battle worth waging? Does it really matter? Will it make a difference in the kind of adult she will become? Could someone be hurt- either physically or emotionally- if I choose to let it go?”
If my daughter wants to wear a big pink straw hat, black striped shirt, red lady bug wings, purple pants, red lobster beads around her neck, and pink & purple butterfly boots with sparkly sunglasses to the grocery store….why say a word? It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks about her clothing. She is clean, well cared for, ultra confident and happy, and doesn’t care about public opinion any more than her mommy does. If I were embarrassed by it, I still think it’s something better to just let go, but I’m not.
On the other hand, if my little monkey thinks it’s okay to use her bunk bed as a launching pad or monkey bars, we are waging war. She could seriously injure herself, and not following her safety rules is a non-negotiable point. She was informed we could take it away, and have no problem leaving her with just a mattress on the floor to sleep on. Since she loves sleeping in the “princess tower” she has made of her top bunk and knows that I don’t make vain threats, she decided this was not a battle worth trying to “win”. However, if she had tried… the princess would be brought down to earth with just a mattress for awhile.
When my creative soul was determined to “cook” using baby foods my son no longer ate that were still in date and other interesting ingredients and make a big sloppy mess, I let her have at it. She mixed up apple, strawberry banana, peach and pear baby foods with banana chunks, cheerios and saltine crackers, served it up for her brother and herself for an afternoon snack, made a HUGE mess….and they were so pleased with the disgusting slop that they gobbled it up and got it all over themselves, requiring a bath after their childish attempts to clean up the wreck they made and my finishing the process. Did I eat any? Nuh-uh! Was she happy? Yep! This made them so joyful & wasn’t worth fussing over, even though it was annoying to me.
Alternately, when she chose to channel that creativity into using my walls, doors and furniture as the pallette for her artistic
One of MANY unauthorized wall art projects! Saying NO!!!
ventures, she lost the freedom to take her art supplies away from the designated art areas in the house that Mommy can supervise fairly well. I allow her to freely decorate boxes and and different items, as well as draw and color to her heart’s content, but I can’t have a rogue artist redecorating my whole daggum house to the taste of a sneaky stinker of a five year old!
When my daughter created an alter ego for herself named Peppermint Candy who was apparently a caretaker of all flowers and rocks everywhere she went, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. When I thought about it, though, she was just using her imagination and not trying to be defiant or cause trouble. I decided to just play along. She soon got tired of it, although she still creates alter egos occasionally, and it didn’t hurt anyone in the long run.
However, during that same phase she decided her little brother was the arch enemy of aforementioned alter ego, and would scream, yell at him and call him names for coming near or trying to play, I quickly put a stop to it. Her imaginary identity wasn’t going to be allowed to be mean to her real little brother and hurt his real life feelings. She waged war on this one, since she insisted he wasn’t really her brother, but an evil genius inhabiting his body. Mommy won, though. Life is not pleasant when you lose toys and movies every time you are mean to someone you are around 24/7. 😉
I have to make a side note about the importance of never, ever, evvvvverrrrr making threats you don’t intend to follow through with if you were blessed with a strong willed child.
A strong willed, intelligent child is NOT the person to tell you will stuff her in the trunk if she doesn’t stop screaming in the car. She is going to see if you will do it….and you won’t, if you’re like 99.99% of parents who make this kind of threats. It will be filed under “Threats mean nothing” and “If I push hard enough, consequences will go away”, and weaken any authority you may have had to begin with. You are better off to allow the screaming to go unchecked than to make threats you won’t follow through with, although it may not be ideal.
If you have a strong willed child- or any child- whom you find yourself arguing with all too often, maybe you should step back and think about what battles you are choosing and whether they are worth losing peace over.
Sometimes your child really is just being a child and an individual, and not trying to drive you crazy. Other times it’s an issue of respect, safety or long term effects. If you feel like you live in a war zone, try to think about what battles you are starting and which ones you could easily just let go without harm.
If all else fails, when it’s not important, just start singing “Let It Go” to yourself! 😉
What battles do you choose to let go? Struggling? You are not alone!
Whispers From Heaven
Mom, Nana and Me
Have you ever had a time when you were struggling with life and worrying over something, and would just like a hug or some comfort?
This morning I was not feeling well and was just really overwhelmed by everything I needed to do and discouraged with my growing limitations and discomforts of pregnancy. I didn’t even want to get out of bed, so I just grabbed my phone to look at what was new on Facebook for a few minutes. If you’re familiar with the feature they have where they show you memories from that same day in previous years, it’s one of my favorites. I came across this one from 2010, and it touched my heart in a way it needed this morning…
I found a little poem card my mom gave me sometime. It made me cry, but it is exactly what Mom felt about me while she was alive & like a much-needed message from her now. It begins…
” Daughter, today and always, please know that I see you. I see the path that you’ve made that’s all your own. I see the many talents & gifts you have to share…
I see your brilliance, your enthusiasm, and how deeply you care and hurt sometimes. I see your hard earned wisdom, your soft pure innocence, your courage and compassion…
I see what a difference you make in this world, and I hope you know how very much I love you, and how proud I’ll always be to have a daughter as wonderful as you are.”
I am so blessed to have been raised by a mom who genuinely loved me & showed it each & every day of her life.
I have no regrets in my relationship with her. We had our fusses at times & nobody’s perfect, but we communicated our feelings to each other while we still had time. Cherish every moment with your loved ones. Let them know what they mean to you. The impact of your relationships will live long after you are gone.
Read when I share about another way I’ve heard whispers from heaven through butterfly kisses from heaven!
Dear Mom…
Mom in Joyful Times
Dear Mom,
Happy 9th birthday in Heaven!
You should have been 53 today, but you’re forever frozen at 44 in my mind’s eye. I know you’re at peace and free from pain up dancing there in heaven, but I’d rather be able to celebrate the life I feel like you should still be living here on earth.
Just the other day, my oldest daughter- your much longed for granddaughter- came to me sobbing like her little heart was breaking.
Once I calmed her enough to find out what was wrong, my tender hearted, deep thinking child said “Mommy, I’m so sad! My Grandma Dorinda never got to meet me, and now my baby sister will never get to meet our Grandma Dorinda or our Ganna! Both my mommy’s and my daddy’s mommies are in heaven now! It’s not fair! I miss them! They should be here!”. I had no words to comfort my little girl for awhile, because my words were drowned out by the tears I was swallowing for my own grief that came rushing like a flood from the vast void that she reminded me of so powerfully.
Finally, I calmed my own spirit enough to speak, asking God to help me be the
Mom, Nana and Me
kind of wise & loving momma I always felt blessed to have. I told her that her Grandma and Ganna were probably watching together from Heaven, bragging to all the other souls up there about having the most beautiful, amazing grandbabies that ever lived. I told her that they both live on in our hearts, in the love we still have for them, and the stories we can tell about them. I told her that love never dies. It lives forever in the hearts of those we loved, no matter what. I told her how lucky she is to have her two grandpas, step-grandma, two great-grandmas and a great grandpa still on earth to give her hugs and see her and all of the other children in our family. I told her Grandma and Ganna want her happiness more than anything in the world. You know what? She calmed. She believed. She went back to play calmed by the love that is very much alive in our family.
Mom & PawPaw, Together in Heaven Now
The next day, my sweet girl came to me with some news.
She reminded me of her firm belief that you chose her as the perfect grandbaby for you, and the perfect daughter for your little girl. She went on to add that she is had great news. “Mommy, my Grandma Dorinda and my Ganna did a wonderful thing! They went together through all of the babies in Heaven, and chose my baby sister for us! You know why they did that? They heard me telling Jesus that I wanted a baby sister more than anything in the whole wide world, and they wanted to make sure I had the best little sister for me! Wasn’t that sweet of them?? They really do love me lots.”
Mama, you may be gone from us physically and never got to meet any of your precious grandchildren, but the love you so desperately wanted to share with your grandbabies has been shared.
They can feel it, believe it and cherish it. Your body was taken from us far too soon, especially for them, but that love lives . It ripples and whispers through our hearts and lives at just the right moments in just the right way. It will never die. You have proved to me that the love of a mother and a grandmother is stronger than distance, stronger than pain, stronger than cancer, stronger than loss and even stronger than death.
So…..happy birthday in heaven, Mom!
I miss you every day, but especially days like this. I’m thankful to have something so amazing and precious to celebrate today, though. We are celebrating 53 years of your love.
Love Ya Bunches!
Your Daughter
Key Lime Rice Krispie Eggs
This is an oldie, but a goodie! My second child is nearly the same age now as my first was when we did this one, so it will work even for tiny tots. Definitely worth a try, y’all!
With Easter around the corner, and so many creatively cutesy activities floating around the internet, I decided to cook up a couple of simpler goodies with my 3 year old Princess. 🙂
One of the things we chose to do was Easter Egg Rice Cereal Treats, with our own twist. We used key lime flavored marshmallows and added lots of pretty colored sprinkles in with the rice cereal. We didn’t fill them or decorate them extra, since that was just too much to try to get accomplished with my dawdly darling during my little punkin’s nap. We were having oodles of fun doing a basic molded version, plus some that we shaped into eggs by hand, and that’s the main point of doing cooking or crafts with a munchkin. They turned out with the refreshing look and taste of spring, and my daughter is quite pleased with our handiwork.
Want to try your own hand at it? Here’s the recipe:
“Penny Pinching Peach is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com”
They’re more green than this looks
Rice Cereal Easter Eggs
12 Plastic Easter Eggs
3 tablespoons butter
1 package (10 oz.) regular marshmallows
OR
4 cups miniature marshmallows
6 cups rice cereal
Candy sprinkles
Frosting and/or candies, optional
Molding Cereal Eggs
Clean, then coat inside of plastic eggs with cooking spray. Set aside.
In large saucepan melt butter over low heat. Add marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat.
Add rice cereal and candy sprinkles. Stir until well coated.
Using greased hands, firmly press 1/4 cup of the cereal mixture into each Plastic Easter Eggs
OR
Using 1/3-cup measuring cup coated with cooking spray divide warm cereal mixture into portions. Using buttered hands shape each portion into egg shape. Cool.
Decorate with frosting and/or candies, if desired.
MICROWAVE DIRECTIONS:
In microwave-safe bowl heat butter and marshmallows on HIGH for 3 minutes, stirring after 2 minutes. Stir until smooth. Follow steps 2 and 3 above. Microwave cooking times may vary.
For a cute way to store these once they cool, try this cute Easter Egg Shaped Chick Cookie Jar
Princess and I got most of this done before my littlest booger woke up from his nap. Being the food loving fella that he is, he awakened just in time for the most important part of any recipe: taste testing!
This is a perfect recipe to do with a small & enthusiastic cook-in-training! I’ll be doing some rendition of it next year. I’m sure my munchkins would be looking forward to it, if they were old enough to plan a year in advance. 🙂
Penny Pinching Peach 