I want to tell you a secret

 So we've been renovating or kitchen and it has been tough to stay at home with all of the demo and dust and noise and, you know, lack of a sink!  Thank goodness we have our camper less than an hour away.  All of the amenities of home wrapped in a cozy little package.  Needless to say me and the girls have been spending more time there than usual this summer.  Tonight, after a long weekend here just the three of us, as I was putting them to bed, Pumpkin made my day when she whispered to me, "I want to tell you a secret."  I leaned in and she says, "I just love it here at the camper, and I love swimming with you, and dancing on the beach, and doing cartwheels in the sand."  Oh how my heart just melted.

Ok, a Prince Eric Birthday Party....challenge accepted!

So my little baby, my crazy Miss Thang turned three a little bit ago.  We talk alot about birthdays and parties and themes here for some reason, I dont really know how it happens, but we have like the next five years worth of birthdays pretty much planned out!  So ever since Little G's party we have been discussing what Miss Thang should do for her party,too.  Now, Miss Thang is in looooooove with Princ Eric from the little Mermaid movie.  Dressed up as Ariel for Halloween, has every possible figurine associated with the movie, pretends to be Ariel while I am her Prince Eric just about every chance we get.  It was a no-brainer for her....Prince Eric themed party it is!  Hahahaha, yeah, right....easier said than done!  So for all you mom's with love struck toddlers out there, here's some advice: go to Etsy, and get creative!  It was actually alot easier than I had expected.  And it was unique and fun too.

Thank God for Etsy....who knew Prince Eric cupcake toppers even existed!

Leftover cupcake toppers made perfect homemade thank you cards!

Low carb "pasta" with chicken

Ok, ok, I know the title says low carb pasta....but that is a little bit of a stretch :-)

It is actually spaghetti squash, not real pasta that we are talking about here, but for those of "Us" who decided (stupidly?) to start the year off right, it's the closest thing we are going to get to real pasta for a long time!

Looks pretty good, though, huh!  It is my take on a very popular pinterest recipe floating out there from the skinnytaste.com blog....check her stuff out if you havent before, lots of great recipes!
Her recipe called for tomato sauce, and lots of it, which according to my new diet is a no-no...at least in the first few weeks.  So I tweaked it a little to make it more low carb friendly, and it is still delish!  And easy! 

*  First you cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast it at 350 for about an hour.  
* While the squash is roasting cube about 1lb chicken beast and season with salt, pepper, oregano, and a small dash of red pepper flakes.  
* Add 1-2 tbs EVOO and 1 clove diced garlic to a sauté pan and cook over medium heat for about a minute.  Add chicken and sauté until almost cooked through.  Then add 1 can petite diced tomatoes (or about 1 large tomato, diced) and continue cooking until chicken is done.  Set aside.
* When the spaghetti squash is tender and the skin has softened remove it from the oven ad "fluff" the strands with a fork to loosen them up.  Then fill each one with half of the chicken and tomato mixture and top each with 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese.

* Return to oven for about 5 minutes or until the cheese has melted, then chow down!

Note to self:  I really have to start remembering to take a picture on my plate before I start eating, but I seriously couldn't help myself with this one!

Miss independent

Oooohhhh, the give and take, back and forth of my wee little ones growing up!  In so many ways (at 2 and 4) they are truly big girls now!  Little G has been picking out her own clothes and getting dressed on her own for a while now, and my Livy-Lou is now putting her socks and shoes on all by herself!  They are little miss independents for sure.  I, on the other hand, could still be considered a control freak!  :-)  
Trying to find a balance between giving them space to grow and feel like big kids, with keeping them safe and my house clean-ish led me to create the snack bucket.  Every afternoon after rest time the girls can pick put their own snacks, all by their big girl selves!  

The best part is....well there's lots of best parts to this... but I get to pre-select and portion out the snacks, thereby keeping it healthy!  It only takes a few extra minutes after unpacking the grocery bags, and pretty soon I think I will have a helper or two :-)

All you need is a medium sized Tupperware bin (ours has a lid, not that it ever gets put back on!), some yummy snacks, and sme snack sized ziplock baggies.

When you are finished unpacking the groceries just keep that box of crackers or bag of pirates booty that you would have put in the cabinet out on your counter.  Open up several ziplock baggies, and scoop/pour out snack sized portions into each bag.  We have even made custom "trail mix" baggies by mixing up snacks!  Then zip 'em shut and place into the Tupperware container.....voila....that's how easy it is!
Now if only I could come up with a dinner bucket............

Mickey Party #2

Still working out the kinks here!  But to continue on with the food for the Mickey party...

We held her party at lunchtime in the play gym at the local YMCA, so I knew we would go pretty light on food since the kiddos would be super busy having fun!  But I did make a few yummy treats...the most popular of which were the dipped Oreo mickey cookies!  Pretty easy to make once I got the hang of it!
                                .

I used melting chocolate, regular sized Oreos and mini Oreo halves to make these cookies.  The trick was scraping off the inside of the mini Oreos to get a flat disc (using the side of a small bowl really helped).  Also be sure to assemble the cookies on wax paper so they come off easily after they are chilled!  I just used a little melted chocolate to adhere the ears, then covered with the top of the cookie.  I dipped about half of these in a bowl of melted chocolate, and left the other half just cookie.  Once they were chilled in the fridge I packed each one in a plastic Baggie with a decorative twist tie...voila, delicious favors!!

The cupcakes were similar, but I had my VIB (very important baker) to help me out!

Mickey Mouse Party

Ok...so here goes, my first actual post about something I really did!!  
My little G recently celebrated the big #4! After switching themes a few times (passing over a Willy Wonka party to my dismay) she settled on a Mickey Mouse theme.  My personal preference is to not go 100% commercial...so to the web I went to get creative. Some of these are my own ideas, but I can't take all the credit :-)

Invitations were photo cards with circles reminiscent of Mickey ears, super cute, and we addressed them with bingo marker stamps in the corner.

Goodie bags were fun, the girls helped glue the circles on paper bags and we stuffed them with Mickey tins, silly bands, and stickers we found at the dollar store.  Each bag also got a dipped Mickey Oreo cookie (see recipe below).

So...this is us...

So....this is us, 

Just you every day average American family.  Two kids, white picket fence, and food allergies!  I tried to start this blog a few years ago when we found out that both our little girls had allergies...only to then realize that I had two kids under 2 and way too much other stuff to deal with!  Now here I am again, girls napping, looking on pinterest, thinking I should really have a blog of my own!  Hopefully as I get better acquainted with the tech side of things, this blog will start looking a lot better...but until then what you see is what you get :-)