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That Banana Bar sounds awesome. I will definitely try it. Little One's Christmas was great as well, she definitely was spoiled. By the way, she LOVES her make up from Kiki!
We got back yesterday from being down at Mr.I's parents' house, it was so fun but it is so nice to be home. I have been taking down all my Christmas decorations and Mr.I was a great husband, as always, and hung a ton of things for me. One thing was my craft today! I have not done anything with our boot pictures and have wanted them incorporated somehow into the powder room. Well I decided(with your help) to paint a bunch of frames yellow to put them in! So fun. I also took out the glass, which I really like. I then remembered I had some old black shelves from our apartment and got those out, arranged them on the wall and we are good to go! I love the pop of color that it adds :) Woohoo! Well nothing too exciting going on, sorry no fun stories. Missing you!

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We had an awesome Christmas!  The kids got totally spoiled!  We got home late last night and are still recovering from being "on vacation" for 5 days.  Sorry I am writing you so late.   I am exhausted, the monsters are exhausted and everything is in shambles.

Before I left town Mama T brought a dessert that she passed around at work.  It was AMAZING and she promises me that it is easy peasy.  I haven't made it yet but I tell you what the recipe looks easy.

Mama T's Banana Bars
1/2 C margarine (1stick) soft
1 1/2 C sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp vanilla
2 C flour
1 C sour milk (plain milk & add 1 tbsp white vinegar)
3 mashed ripe bananas

Mix all ingredients and bake in a sheet pan for 20 min at 350 degrees.  Top should be nice and golden brown.  Frost with cream cheese frosting.  Enjoy!

Cream Cheese frosting
1 8 oz cream cheese
1/4 C margarine softened
2-3 tsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
4 C powdered sugar
Beat cream cheese, butter, milk and vanilla until smooth.  Gradually add powdered sugar until perfect consistency (your preference).

I know that Little One will LOVE this.  SO good.  It would be good for bunco nights.  Well I'll get some pictures of the kids and their Christmas haul.  Love you guys.

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I wish I could be there to experience your crazy days first hand. All I have to say is HILARIOUS! This SAHM watched one of Little One's buddies this morning and man did my child not want to share her toys! Needless to say it was a LONG morning. I did make two crafts with the girls, but of course it took no time at all HA! We made your melted snowmen ornaments (okay I made them) and the other one you'll hear about later ;)
Yesterday Little One and I made a craft that we heard about from a friend. She had a blast! I bought a canvas from Micheal's and some of there acrylic paint (.59 cents each). I then used masking tape to make her initials on the canvas. Little One got 3 brushes with different colors and went to work! When it was dry take the paint off and there you go :)

I am making beef stroganoff and ginger snap strips and andes mint brownies for a prelude to Christmas Eve on Friday. I can't wait. It will be like we are with you all! We'll have to skype :) Missing you!

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I am so glad we are back onto speaking terms :).  Ok so get a load of the night I had....
First things first.  Tomorrow is our big company holiday feast extravaganza.  Each person is to bring their favorite treat to pass and we can just snack all day long, AMAZING.  I thought chili dip sounded good.  But well that isn't exactly classified as a holiday treat so I decided our all time easy peasy heath bar cookies would definitely be a crowd pleaser.  And talk about cheap!  Done.  So I told the kids they could help, oh why didn't I just wait until they went to bed.  Instead of making a double batch I thought I'll bring caramel popcorn too.  I put Lou on heath bar duty and Buffalo on caramel corn.  Well don't you know Quinnie just had to help too.  Ugh, big mistake.  As soon as Lou's sauce started boiling Quinnie dumped in corn syrup.  Shoot that was supposed to be in Buffalo's sauce.  Rats.  So one thing led to another everything started boiling, boiling over, burning onto the stove top all while I was trying to pop popcorn, lay out saltine crackers, contain Quinnie from burning her hand on the stove or dumping more of the unwanted ingredients into the sauces.  Well after all this yes I did, I lost it totally lost it.  I quickly told the kids if they got ready for bed all by themselves I would let them fall asleep to a movie (parenting tip 107).   Of course this got them up and moving so that I could try and salvage the night.  THANK YOU ABC FAMILY for playing Christmas movies.  They quickly discovered that the Polar Express was on and got themselves tucked in before I even had a chance to come check on the situation.


 I was trying to be super mom and well as usual I got in way to deep and the world started spinning out of control fast.  I have found that the only good part is that burnt caramel sauce on the cook top smells like burnt marshmallows and who doesn't like the smell of burnt marshmallows.  (okay but after scrubbing for an hour I'm WAY over the smell of toasted marshmallows.)
Well I think I recovered and everything looks like it turned out.  And I even cleaned up the kitchen so you can just barely tell that there was a bomb that went off.  And I didn't mess up my manicure that I just "got done".


The saving grace of the night was when I was looking through the pictures of the day.  Whatever Quinnie does Lou tries to "disrupt".  So tonight it was wearing my shoes while Quinnie was playing dress up.  He looked at me and said "Mom, these shoes you got me are a little big!"  HOW FUNNY!!  He is such a goof.

And so that is how my night went.  Much to say I am sitting with my feet up drinking my favorite drink... waiting for C to come home with sweet potato chips.  I can't wait.  Oh yeah and I may be sitting watching Polar Express.  Oh how I love Christmas.  Between the music and movies life couldn't get much better.  Guess I better get back to wrapping some presents while the monsters sleep.

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You're right I was mad. I kept opening up the page hoping to find something hilarious from you, but alas nothing! Boo to you. Just kidding I love you!
Our weekend was a pretty quiet one. Little One is doing awesome with potty training now. I have even taken her out of the house twice now with undies on! Last night she had an accident on the way home. We were so close! She said mommy potty and I just thought hold on, hold on, but she couldn't. Oh well she is doing great. Okay and I always thought I would so not be that mom to talk about my kid's potty habits, and look at me go. Sad, I will stop now I promise!

Our errands took us to Micheal's last night because my cousin KH told me about a cute craft she made with her kids(for another day) so I wanted to go get supplies. While we were there I spotted the embroidery hoops and realized they were only $1. They were pretty picked over, but  I did come away with 4. When Little One went to bed, I got to work. I have a bunch of leftover fabric from a quilt I made as well as some from the skirt I made Quinnie. I decided why not just put the fabric in the hoops as a wall decor for my guest room?!  Then I remembered a super cute idea from pinterest:diy-spring-button-flowers So I added flowers to the hoop that had solid green fabric. I changed it up a bit from my inspiration because I need to buy some new, fun buttons. However, I have adorable brads that I have never used and just popped those through the fabric as the flower. Then I took my embroidery thread and made stems. Mr.I helped me hang them and DONE! I now have something in my guest room finally! I think I want to get a ton more and make my cluster way bigger. It is just so fun and easy. The whole project cost under $5 because I already had fabric, brads, and thread! I need to start my quilt ASAP for that room so it will go with my new wall decor :) Again, that's for another day.
Are you having a popcorn party? If so wish we were there! LOVE YOU

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I know you're mad at me.  I should explain that after I write about something so funny it is hard to think of how to top that.  Well I guess I just need to come to the realization that I am not always going to be funny, and I'm not always going to have some crazy story to tell but I should just get to it and write you something.

The other day while I was looking at some blogs that I read I came across a recipe that looked delicious.  So I tried it.  And I liked it.  I mean really liked it.  You have to try this.  They are SUPER good.

Source: sixsistersstuff.blogspot.com via Katie on Pinterest

SO GOOD.  Did I say that already.  Oh you gotta try these.

Right before I sat down to do a post I told Little Lou that we could go get a movie for the night and so Quinnie, Lou and I got ready and headed out.  Well Quinnie got her hand slammed in the door.  I FREAKED out.  It creased her hand and instantly turned purple.  Of course C was gone so I had to decide what to do (of course I called Dad to assist in my decision) so I thought milkshake, ice pack, and an hour or so to see how it was and then I would take her in.  Fortunately the milkshake did the trick!  She can wiggle her little fingers which I think is a good sign and seems to be ok.  I guess we'll see tomorrow how she's doing.  In the mean time we are having a pizza, movie, caramel popcorn party.

Hope you are having a good weekend!  Love you.

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Oh man Kiki, you crack me up. Mrs. Marsh and I were reading your post just laughing out loud! I love that you go for it on everything you do, I probably would have given up and just bought cookies at the store ;)
I found out today I passed my BIG teaching test! Halleluiah! Little One and I were on a Chick-fil-a play date and my friend and I screamed out loud as I read the third email that said all three were good to go! (Sorry C if you are reading this, I am not trying to make you jealous of my frequent Chick-fil-a stops.) Little One also took a 4 hour nap today, yes you read that right! We were in San Diego all day yesterday with Mr.I's sister and her kids and Little One did not get a nap. It was a fun time and I actually got my craft today from my niece's kindergarten craft. Yes I stole it from a kindergartener but it was so cute! Okay back to Little One's 4 hour rest. Did I get anything accomplished? Not really. Typical. I did some laundry, talked to someone about renewing my credential and slept an hour of it. My house needs to be dusted, I need to vacuum, I need to go grocery shopping, I need to do a ton of baking for Christmas, but it was sure nice sleeping HA!

Alright, so on to the kindergarten craft: A Christmas tree made out of a pine cone! Way easy and cute! I got a pine cone from outside, the trunk is a cap from a water bottle that I hot glued fabric to, and I hot glued the ribbon and buttons on, cut out a star from yellow paper and glued that on. Done in less that 10 minutes for absolutely FREE! LOVE IT.
Off to finish making some cookies and do a little knitting :) I can't wait to hear some crazy tale from you tomorrow! love you sister.