Time to Pick up Poop and Other Stuff......

Yeah, I said it. After an entire winter of letting two dogs go out and tend to their business, it is time to go pick up the many land-mines in my yard so that the family can enjoy the swing set and run around like chickens with their heads cut off.

Gardening is right around the corner and I can't wait to get my hands dirty!! I have to do some reconfiguring around my garden border to keep my new goldendoodle O-U-T! Tulips are about 2" out of the ground and other tiny greens are popping up all over the place. Other than the soft quiet that a fresh blanket of snow brings, the next inspiring time for me is all the signs of life in spring. (By the way, you don't capitalize seasons for those of you that may be saying "she should have capitalized that"- learned that in my business English class (yes, you do capitalize English)). Back on track- okay.

I thought I would show you my fabulous finds from last weekend. It was my aunt's birthday and I was lovingly included in her and my mom's adventures that day. 

(DISCLAIMER: locations of where I found these items are to be remained secret. I'm selfish because I can be. :-)) 

Isn't it wonderful?

I love my new restaurant ware plates. Vintage goodness at its best!

An old camera- dusted with age, that awesome owl trivet (which I'm going to spray paint an amazing color)

Everyone needs an old pulley- isn't it fabulous?! I love the metal adornment that is barely nailed on. Here is a close-up. 

This is an old bottle that had been cut down and filed for a smooth rounded finish so to be used as a drinking tumbler glass. My new favorite thing to drink out of!

See my vintage camera fits perfectly into my cubbie shelf. L-O-V-E

Anyway, it was a fabulous day with two of my favorite ladies. I'm looking forward to a week of no commitments this following week. Spring break will begin after Friday. No classes for me, no homework, just time to do what I want to do- knit, jewelry, digging in the dirt! Hope you have a great weekend, I'll be rooting on my Jayhawks in the Big 12 tourney. Pop open a cold one and eat some junk food with me. ;-) Happy munching!

Cheers~

Amber

Let's Make Whoopie....

Pies, lets make whoopie pies that is. ;-) I came across this fabulous blog that had this recipe on it and I thought to myself, "self, those look like a scrumptious treat, you should make those" and so I did. Hy-Vee had all of their Duncan Hines cake mixes and such for $.86. I ran out and bought 4-5 boxes. I always like to have a cake mix on hand. Anyway, back to the whoopie pies.... I made this recipe better by making my secret frosting I found on another cooking blog- they recommended store bought and I wasn't going to entertain that option AT ALL! I'm going to tease you with photos first and then I'll share how to make them.

Any Day is a Good Day for Whoopie

Whoopie Pie Recipe 

1 box of Duncan Hines Chewy Fudge Brownie 

1/3 C vegetable oil

2 eggs

Half a bag of mini semi sweet chocolate chips

Stir all ingredients together. Now, this is going to take some elbow grease, it may seem like there isn't enough liquid, but with a little umph and determination it will work itself into a nice ball of chocolately heaven batter. I use my mini "ice cream scoop" to roll out the perfect size cookie ball. 

SIDE NOTE: If you do not own one of these mini "ice cream scoopers" I recommend you spend the $5 to go and get one. It will be your very best friend in all cooking baking matters.

I scooped these onto my airbake cookie sheets and baked them at 350 degrees for about 13 minutes. Take care to not overbake. Let cookie-brownie-cake batter pies to cool COMPLETELY before frosting and smooshing together. 

WHAA-LA! I give you Whoopie Pie. 

So, the same day I made whoopie, it just so happened the weather was more than beautiful. I opened up our sliding glass door and let the children run around silly on the deck. I love my new completely closed in deck!!! Caroline thought she was pretty hot stuff being able to play on the deck without the other kids (they were still napping). 

Taking advantage of Isaac's old bike while he's napping

She's trying to blow that leaf :-)

I love my big dog!

I couldn't get a picture of Gus Gus because he wouldn't hold still....

Happy Friday Ya'll!

Cheers~

Amber

Mornings

I'm sure every family has some sort of morning routine to start of their day.... I thought I would share mine with you.

My day normally begins at 6:00 a.m. (soon to be much earlier once daylight savings happens and it isn't so dark out at 5:30 a.m.) and I sneak out to the kitchen and choose one of three Green Mountain's finest individual vacuumed packed coffee cups. Right now I get to choose from German chocolate cake, cinnamon roll, or caramel vanilla cream. YUM! And of course I need to put my Cinnabun Coffee Mate coffee creamer in it- the best by far of ALL coffee creamers and usually only found at Wal-Mart. From the kitchen I mozy towards my couch and plop down. All is usually still quiet, no creatures stirring with the exception of my goldendoodle, Bailey, and I either start knitting an ongoing project or direct myself through the blogosphere to see what my favorite bloggers are up to.

If I'm incredible lucky my "quiet time" can last up to 30-40 minutes, but realistically, probably only about 20 minutes. Are your children demanding the moment their little eyelids shoot open? My sweet Isaac normally comes bobble-heading out of his room and sits on the couch next to me, shortly to follow his older brother Samuel, to which he immediately asks for cereal. Sam doesn't need a moment to himself when he wakes up. It is strictly: eyes open, get out of bed, "will you get me some cereal please", no nonsense, let's get down to business. Even my Caroline requests cereal the moment I walk in her room to greet her for the morning. I walk in her room, announce enthusiastically "gooooooood mooooorrrnning sweet guuurrlll" and I push back her drapes. Caroline looks at me with a grin and says, "Cee please" (cereal to those of you that don't speak Caroline).

So, here we are!

I mean, after all, even the heroic Buzz Lightyear and humble Sheriff Woody needs to start the morning off with a bowl of Captain Crunch Berries.....

Bailey, patiently waiting for someone to drop food

This was my view from my back window this morning, which makes getting up early to have some peace, completely worthwhile. I often feel closest to God at this time of the day. 

Complete Wonder!

Ignore the horribly ugly-back-of-the-other-house view. I hope we can put up a privacy fence sooner than later. 

On a knitting note (this takes me to a quiet state of peace place), now knit hat season is coming to an end, what more intrigued me was these little amigurumi toys. Remember the blue bird platypus a few posts ago? Ya. Well. I've gotten better. I made this reversible  ducky/bunny toy, and it just so happened my neighbor knew of someone that just had a baby and was in need of something homemade and unique. She asked if she could purchase it from me and to have initials embroidered on the front; now, I don't pretend to be a perfect embroiderer, but, because it didn't turn out "perfect" so to speak, I think it came out pretty dang cute. 

Thanks for visiting on this happy hump day!

Cheers~

Amber

Having Fun Accessorizing

On another note I've been making more of these awesome leather beaded bracelets that are so popular. This one was a special treat for my mom, but if you would like to purchase one the cost is $28. 

Summertime

We have been taking advantage of this spring tease weather by tackling some more money sucking home improvement projects, and let's be honest, we have MORE than our fair share. Once we are able to move from our starter home, first thing on the list, is to find a decent home inspector! Gawd!

Oh a happier note, the back deck now feels like a separate living space. I can't wait to buy a cute umbrella for our table, stain the deck/paint the railing, plant flowers, put up my cute bird feeder (with a fresh coat of paint), then sit back and enjoy! That picket door wasn't there before- we added that. I like being able to keep the dogs down and the kids in or vice-versa. I do believe we'll enjoy this outdoor space much more this season. 

Spending Monday with my hubby was SO nice. I hope your Monday was as nice as mine!

One of "Those" Days at 7:00 a.m.

Ugh! *sigh* What is up with Thursday? I woke up this morning a little sleepy, but in a great mood until all my children woke up and disrupted my early morning coffee- that is, my peace in the morning. Apparently my children didn't wake up in as good of a mood as I. Cereal was quick to be requested, so I proceeded to tell everyone to get into their seats. Harder done than said today. Curious George was getting ready to come on PBS and Samuel wanted a seat that has been deemed "Audrey's seat" while at our house. A meltdown of tears followed him right into his bedroom where he was instructed to go back to bed. I then heard another creature stirring in her room. I opened the door and was smacked in the face with a horrible stench. Something must not be "just right" in her little digestive system because her diaper was loaded- and mind you, was NOT AT ALL happy about having fresh diedees put on. Cry... cry.... cry..... cry..... more crying..... AHHHHHHH! There is only so much crying this mama can take at 6:50 in the morning.

I have a feeling there will probably be a lot of this happening today.

I'm going to go try and find my happy spot again by making jewelry or knitting Caroline's elephant. Hope your Thursday started out better than mine- I'm going to go lock myself in my room now.......

The Simple Things

Mom sent this to me the other day and I thought it was worth sharing with everyone! Another reminder to sip my coffee a little slower and enjoy the simpler things in life.

On another note I tried to knit my first Amigurumi animal the other night before the KU basketball game (the key word there is "try"). I find it to be a mixture of a platypus and a bird. *sigh* Practice makes perfect, so, I'll give it another shot. I want to make one for all the kids for a little Valentine's gift. They have so many cute free patters out there. So I give you.........

Blue Bird Platypus

I also couldn't wait to make another beaded leather wrap for my shop, this time it is a single wrap with glass pearls and freshwater seed pearls. The colors are so soft and romantic- a perfect gift for a deserving woman out there! 

What are your kids' favorite breakfast requests? I'm not much of a pancake maker (I'll leave that one to my dad) but I can  make some mean waffles. In fact, if Samuel requests them and I respond with a "not today" he will break down in tears. LOL. Here is a stack of some homemade waffles with a little bit of secret mama ingredients that make them taste SO good!

A sweet lady -by name of Pam- writes on her blog Views From My Kitchen Sink asked her followers to leave her a picture of their view from their kitchen sink for her one year blogging birthday. Don't you just love blogs? I feel like I have many different friends even though I've never met a single one. It allows you to be as personal as you like or as vague as you'd like. You feel like you can really get to know someone by the way they write, the pictures they post, etc. I, for one, am not the worlds greatest writer, but I hope that I do well enough for you all to want to "follow" me. My view from my kitchen sink isn't the prettiest right now. The window needs to be cleaned but I'll share my view anyway. :-)

All the children have been playing and making laps through our house. They feel they are caged in, much as I do. No more puking! I had my dowse of stomach flu this past Friday. One of the worst nights EVER! At one point I just sat there and cried because there was nothing else I could do. I ached from head to toe, shook with chills for hours, and puked and puked and puked and puked.... you get the picture. The only good piece of news was that it lasted 24 hours and then another 24 to feel like a normal person again. Oh! I also lost 5 lbs in two days... not my weight loss plan of choice but it worked. :-) Now I get to play catch-up on homework. The end of this week will bring less stress and hopefully more creativity for my jewelry and more fun knitting projects to try. Have a happy Tuesday and I'll try to post more pictures of my munchkins soon. 

Cheers~

Amber

Wondering what has been going on at the Kellen household lately? 

Here is my new bookshelf that I designed and the hubs built me.

We had a small electrical fire in our house the day after Christmas at the end of our hallway, so once the wall was fixed (still needs paint) I thought this was the perfect opportunity to dress up the end of my hallway going back to our bedroom and laundry/mud room. I have despised this area of my house since the move-in, but now I couldn't be more thrilled! I still need to decorate and arrange the books how I like and I'm just giddy to get busy!! I'll post an after picture once decorated and arranged. 

Warning: THE NEXT PICTURE IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF STOMACHS!

You know what ISN'T fun to do? Cleaning up barf. Gross. Ugh. Blah. Gag! I don't know what's worse, cleaning up poo or cleaning up barf, but I think I'd rather deal with barf. Another bug has gone through all my children and luckily- thus far - has not gotten the best of Joel and I. My laundry machine has been going nonstop since last Friday and because of all the puke I think it's time to turn my machine to its self cleaning option!

So, what's worse than cleaning up barf?...................

Barf with raisins in it!!!!!

I know, I'm gross right? I mean, who on earth would stop to take a picture of their child's barf? LOL. I guess me. Other moms on the blogosphere always like keeping it real, so this is my contribution to keeping it real. Real moms clean up puke, poo, boogers, and any other disgusting thing you can think of- so here is my tribute to that! :-) 

For those of you didn't know, I have a jewelry blog.... well, a stagnant jewelry blog. So I think I'm going to close up shop and mix in some jewelry posts over here. Managing my Etsy shop, a jewelry blog, my family blog, on top of everything else just isn't realistic. So a merge is in need to keep folks' interest. In ode to my merge I've created a piece that has become extremely popular! You can find these bracelets here for $158, or here for $168.... or at my shop (link above) for $60!!!!!

This is a triple wrap beaded bracelet made with leather cording, turquoise, and cherry/rose quartz. The threading used is NOT your normal thread for sewing. This is bracelet is going to last, so you don't have to worry about raveling and breakage that you might otherwise experience if someone used a sewing thread. 

Other than the above, we are just hanging tight until we aren't barricaded in by snow drifts. So, kitchen here I come and knitting needles lets get busy. 

Happy Snowy Wednesday!