Dirty Shirley

As a child one of my favorite drinks to order when we would go out was a Shirley Temple. Until finding this drink recipe I would have never thought of turning it into a simple adult drink. After trying it once its been one of my favorites.

•  1 shot of Cherry Vodka 
•  7-up or sprite to taste
• Grenadine syrup
• Optional: Cherry onto top

Mix together and enjoy.

Cheese tortellini With Italian Sausage

For this recipe I saw it on Pinterest however, when you clicked on the picture it took you to a non existing page. Don't you just hate when that happens.So I decided I could come up with something like the picture because it looked to good to pass up. The recipe that I came up with was so simple that dinner was ready in a 30 minutes or less. This recipe will be perfect for those crazy nights when you have many places to run to and not enough time to cook.

Ingredients:

• 16 oz of Cheese tortellini (next time I make this I will probably add more because it was only enough for small bowls)
• 1 jar/can of your favorite Spaghetti sauce 
• 3 links of Italian sausage or has much as your family likes.

Directions:

1. Start by slicing your sausage links and place them in a pan to brown. You can add oil for this step however I didn't and it worked perfect.Once you start browning the meat you want to get a pot of water started for the tortellini. To help the tortellini from sticking add a little bit of oil into the water
   
2. Once the sausage is cooked add it to the spaghetti sauce in another pot and place it on low to heat up the sauce. At this stage this is when you want to add your tortellini to the boiling water. I used frozen tortellini and it only took 3 minutes at the most to cook. When you have all your tortellini floating you are ready to drain it.
   
3. After you drain the water you can either add the pasta to the sauce mix or you can leave it separate and add your own sauce. Because in our family we have picky sauce people I left it separate. With doing this I had end of dinner I had enough sauce to add to add to another dinner.
   Hope your family enjoys this as much as ours did!

Window Paint

This activity came from Raining Hot coupons Pinterest page. If you are looking for some great deals or couponing tips check her out. I love everything she post.

This activity is so easy the prep work is done in a minute, there is only two ingredients.  With two kids who can be impatient sometimes this is perfect!

Once it's made it keeps them busy for a while. And I'm not going to lie it's fun for adults too. It's great art time with your kids. With my oldest she thinks it so fun to paint on the windows because before finding this paint was for paper or finger paint in the bathroom. She has told all her friends about painting on the windows.

Ready let's get your family window painting today!

What you will need:

• Dish soap
• Washable Paint
• Paint brushes
• Little plates to hold paint or small bowls

1. Pour the amount of dish soap you want on the plate/bowl. I like to do a little because a small amount goes a long way and I really never have tried to save it. (If you guys try it let me know how it goes!)
2. Next add your paint. The more paint you use the more vibrant it is.
   
3. That's it your ready to paint your windows. Because my kids are still messy I keep this activity outside on the sliding glass door.
   

Clean up: simple Windex takes it right away and your windows get clean. Always a plus for this mommy!

Hope you guys enjoy this as much as we have. And as always we would love to see your art creations on Instagram!

Pancake+muffins=Puffins

"Puffins" seems like its a hot pin right now. I'm seeing it pop up everywhere on my pinterest wall.  I made these with Grandma once before pinterest so I was excited to see it on there.Brought back some good memories. 

This recipe is so easy that it's great for busy mornings or even weekends when you want to make something special, without having to spend a lot time in the kitchen. Right now this is a weekly recipe in the morning for our household. I think it's because of the M&M's for breakfast.

The toppings options that  you can use for these are endless. Some of our family favorites are chocolate chips, M&Ms, cinnamon, cinnamon sugar, sausage and maple syrup.

Ingredients

• Your favorite pancake mix (And whatever the box calls for to mix it)
• Muffin tin
• Your favorite toppings if you want some, they are also yummy plain.
  
  
  
  
  

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350
2. Mix your mix according to the box.
3. Spray your muffin tin. Pour your mix into tin about 3/4 full 
4. Top with your toppings and push them in so they are inside too not just on top.
   
5. Bake for 10 minutes or until golden.
   
6. Let cool and they will come out easy. 

Hope your family enjoys the "puffins". If you try a new topping in yours we would love to hear about it!

Enjoy!

Glow in the Dark Bowling

Summer time is here and I have been in search of outside activities for home and for when we go camping this season. After seeing this on a Pinterest pin and knowing how much my kids love glow sticks this was a perfect family activity one night..

Even though we didn't get to try this outside in the dark yet we played it inside in the dark hallway and my kids had a blast. It was so much fun the bottles have found a new home in our outside toy box and they love playing just bowling with them during the day. 

I bought everything for this activity at the dollar tree

• Water bottles (as many as you like I used 3 which was perfect for my 2)
• Glow sticks (1 for each water bottle)
• A Ball
  

The pin said to just add the stick to the water but I had dump most of the water out because it was to heavy to knock down for my young ones.  If you are doing this activity with older ones you will be OK but with little ones do an inch of water at the bottom of the bottle then add 1 stick to each bottle. Now you are ready for some glow bowling fun.

This was the original amount before dumping most of the water out.

If you are doing this at home and still need to do bath time my kids favorite thing is to take the glow sticks in the bath with them. Might as well get more use out of those sticks. Two fun things in one night your kids will think you are the coolest mom ever (but I'm pretty sure they already think that!)

Hope your family enjoys this awesome activity as much as we did!

DIY Suncatchers

Are you ever looking for a sit down craft to do with older kids? This is a great one, my 5 year old enjoyed it. I'm not sure if it was the Mommy and me time or the craft she enjoyed more. I know for myself it was the one on one time with her. Because with two little ones I definitely don't get this a lot.

When looking on Pinterest you can find many different ideas for these melted bead sun catchers. Some people were using the muffin tins, circle cake pans or even flat cookie sheets. I decided to make it easier and not so frustrating for Ireland we would stick with something small like the muffin pan. However, when looking on Pinterest with so many ideas you find that there are different times and temperatures for the project as well. In this post I will share with you what we did to make this craft work for us.

Now you are probably thinking won't melted beads ruin my pan why would I want to do this. I was thinking the same thing when I was reading the different post but everyone was saying it was simple and no mess. And now I'm going to be another person saying it don't worry you wont be messing up your pan there will be no evidence of melted beads in your pan :)

What you will need:

• Muffin tin pan
• Translucent Pony Beads
• Oven
• Ribbon or string
• Drill
  
  

Steps:

• Arrange the beads however you want. You want to make sure that they are flat so when they're in the oven they melt all the way with no bubbles. This step can take some time it took about 30 minutes for each of us to finish a pan.
  
• When you are ready to melt the beads preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Once preheated melt your beads for 25 minutes. *Warning with this step you might want to make sure that you have windows open because it will fill your house with the smell of melted plastic.

• After they are melted let cool for 10 minutes. As they are cooling you will hear a little cracking sound don't worry they are not breaking they loosening up from the pan to make removal easy.

• Once they are cool turn over and tap and the sun catchers should just pop out with no mess on the pan. 

• Then when ready drill a small hole into the top to place the ribbon or sting into the hole.
  

We hope you guys enjoy this fun craft and don't forget to share your photos on Instagram can't wait to see all the different sun catchers.

For more great ideas to do with the kids check out my pinterest board

Follow Kristina Morud's board Things to do with the Kids on Pinterest.

Foam Dough

I know as a mom to two little ones when I find new recipes or ideas for play dough like stuff, it always seems like a good idea. So when I found foam dough I was thinking to myself oh this could be easy to make and the kids will have a lot of fun playing with this. Oh I got one part right the kids did love it. The easy to make not so much it took two times trying before it finally turned out. If it wasn't for the patiently waiting 2 year old at the table I probably would have said, "you know what never mind" but I couldn't give up or there would have been a major melt down.

Take 1 (My Pinterst fail!)

For the first try I thought it would be easy to mix the ingredients on plate. One simple words sums this up MESSY! And just not sticking together.

Take 2:

This time I went with a bowl that worked great till the end then I ditched and finish mixing with my hands over the sink. Finally the silky soft dough was ready to play with

Now that I have found the perfect way to make this here is what you will need:

1/2 cup Corn Starch

1/2 cup shave cream

Opitional you can add food coloring (I haven't tried it yet so I don't know how well it well it works.)

• Add the corn starch to the bowl then the shave cream.  If you choose to add food color add it now.

• Start by mixing with a spoon then move over to the sink and finish mixing in your hands to form a ball. If you find that dough is to crumby add more shave cream small amounts at a time.
  
• After you have form the perfect mixture it's time to let your kids imagination run wild and free.
  

*If you are making this for more then one kid  you might want to make a ball for each kid. This recipe is the perfect amount for one kid.

* After playing with this I put it in a bag to try to save it however it didn't work for us it just turned into crumbs. For now on we will be throwing ours away when done. If you find something that works to save it I would love to hear what you did!

Hope you and kids enjoy this silky soft dough. We would love to see your guys creation

Baked Bananas

This recipe is the perfect dessert to kill that sweet tooth. It's yummy and healthy so you won't feel bad eating this on a diet.

After clicking on the picture and going to a no where website I was so happy that the directions was in the description box on Pinterest.

This warm dessert reminds me of Grandma's homemade Banana bread without all the calories.

Ingredients:

• Bananas
• Honey
• Ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Slice a banana and place on a piece of foil on a cookie sheet.
   
2. Drizzle honey and sprinkle cinnamon on the bananas.
   
3. Put in oven for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.
   

If you want to add some more sweetness try adding some vanilla ice cream or some yogurt would taste yummy too!
 Enjoy!

For more recipes that are not on the blog follow me on Pinterest

Stay at home Piterest Mommy

Apple Pie cocktail

If your an apple pie lover this cocktail recipe is for you! It's a perfect blend of apple and cinnamon.

Apple Pie on the rocks.

Ingredients:
1 oz Vanilla Vodka
1 oz Fireball Whiskey
4 oz Apple Juice
Brown sugar for the rim
Ice

Directions:
1.  Wet the rim of your rocks glass just a little to get the sugar to stick.
2. In a martini shaker, pour in the vodka, Fireball, apple juice and cinnamon with a handful of ice.
3. Shake about 10 times and pour into your sugar rimmed glass.
4. Serve chilled

Cheers!

Happily Ever After

Do you love buying or even looking at jewelry?  What girl doesn't! During one of my adventures on pinterest I came across this website called KitsyLane. At first I was shocked at the work but mostly the prices for this beautiful work I fell in love.

Through KitsyLane you can open your own boutique and that's exactly what I've done. Everyday new pieces are showing up and my favorite part weekly sales! Who doesn't love sales...I know I love them! The weekly sales start Thursday and end Tuesdays evenings. So if you looking for some new jewelry or just want to browse take a look at Happilyeverafter1.kitsylane.com or to make everything simple I have a page on the top called "Happily Ever After" that you can just click and it will take you straight to the website.

KAYLIN BRACELET
House of KL 
$28 | Flash Sale: $24

MALLORY NECKLACE
House of KL 
$38 | Flash Sale: $32

OK I didn't just write this post to get you guys to check it out but the main reason because this one of the easy ways I earn a little money for my family (granted not a lot but some) I go on when ever pick new pieces to add to the boutique.I also Hand pick 12 pieces that I want to put in the weekly flash sale. I love it and the best part for every time a friend buys something you earn 25% commission which can add up in the end depending on how many people buy from your boutique. 

 Your probably thinking how much does a business like this cost and I have the best answer for you its FREE! No really it really is free. Yes you have the option of spending $100+ to buy a starter kit but there's no hassle you don't need to buy it. In July it will be my 1st anniversary with them and still haven't put a dime into it. Which is the best business for this stay at home mom. 

If you would like to get set up feel free to contact me with the contact me box on the right side of the screen and we can get you started today!