Halloween Monsters Craft #airheadscraft

I was challenged to make an Airheads food craft! Smiley360 and Airheads sent me free airhead supplies to craft with.  I decided to make some monster cupcakes since it's almost Halloween. I wanted something that would be easy enough for my 4 and 6 year old to do as well.We had so much fun!

First we made cupcakes and frosted them.  Then we took the airhead bites and put them on lollipop sticks for eyes.  I let my girls use their imaginations, so most of our monsters look pretty crazy! They made mouths, tongues, and hair out of airheads. We had a blast.

Kindergarten Theme Date Night

Tonight for our date night, we kept it simple. We went back to the good old days of elementary school. Our kids seem so happy, and now that we've had a date, I can see why! Being a kid is FUN.

First, we played twister. Seriously, I am NOT limber, but it was so much fun to attempt to play this game. My husband won twister twice, and then I called it good. :)

Second, we played with blocks. We took three blocks as our reserve, and then each built a tower. Then we used our three blocks to throw at the other person's tower to see who could knock the other's over the fastest. My husband won the first time, but the second round we got pretty serious and built much more "complex" towers haha. I then won the next two rounds! It was a miracle. He's the builder, and I really can't throw, so it's a miracle that I won.

Then we colored a picture of each other. Ok, this was the BEST part. My husband and I are both HORRIBLE drawers, so this was hilarious. I have included the pictures we drew below so you can see how bad they are. When I saw my husband's drawing of me, I exclaimed, "YOU MADE ME LOOK FAT!" so he took the care to write on my huge torso, "NOT FAT" it was pretty awesome. I couldn't stop laughing for at least five minutes straight!

Also, for those who don't know us, my husband has huge calves. One time at a party with friends we were playing a "how well do you know your spouse" game, and he mentioned how hot his calves are. So, now it's a huge joke. That's why his legs have those huge tumor-like things.

Anyway, it was definitely fun. Better yet, it was easy, quick, and free! Perfect for a quick weekday night date. Have you had any fun dates lately?

Unwrapping Presents

We all know that most of the fun of Christmas Day is unwrapping the presents, right? But we don't want to just spend a lot of money on presents so that our kids can unwrap a whole lot of stuff. So what's a girl to do? Here are a few ideas I have come up with to help spread out the unwrapping fun:

1. Lost or Broken Toys

This year we packed up all of our toys that were broken (needed new batteries or had ripped pages, etc) and "sent" them to Santa to fix for us. He is going to bring them back on Christmas Eve all fixed up and wrapped. More presents for the girls to open, but no more money spent!  If your kids are older and won't fall for the "fix the toys" things (my nephew who is only a year and a half older than my 3.5 year old, didn't buy it. He asked, "Why don't you just put new batteries in?") So, if your kids are older, you could always "steal" toys and hide them away in November. Then you can wrap them up and put them under the tree and say that santa "found" them. Again, more presents to unwrap and more money in your pocket!

2. Household/Grocery Items

Do your kids have a favorite cereal that you don't get them all that often? Why not buy it and wrap it up? Or if that is too much, get the cereal you would usually buy and wrap it up for your kids! Cookies, treats, razors (for older kids), shampoo, conditioner, soap, etc. are ALL great things you could wrap up and put under the tree. The great thing about Christmas is that you can buy things you would normally need (clothes, toiletries, food) and make them special by wrapping them up!

3. Activity Gifts

As great as things are to kids, they really really love spending time doing fun things with their family (whether they admit it or not!) So why not type or write up a bunch of different activities that you can do throughout the year with your kids and wrap them up? Simple things like "go to the park" "fly a kite" "go on a walk" "play a game together" and so on would be free and be a good excuse to spend time with your kids.  

Of course, it stinks to spend so much money on wrapping all of these items, so feel free to get creative with your wrapping paper options. Use old newspaper to wrap presents. Or use pages that your child has colored on (because if you're like me you have a hundred pages with little scribbles on them that would be put to better use wrapping presents). You can use brown paper bags for smaller items and staple them shut. There are lots of options! And don't forget, you can always buy new wrapping paper after Christmas on clearance to use the next year! :)

12 Dates of Christmas

Do you remember my 12 days of Christmas present I made for my husband this year? Well, Day 12's gift was 12 Months of Dates! I was so excited by this idea (because we all know it's just as much for me as for him!) that I just had to share it. I can't take all the credit, of course. I found this idea on Pinterest (what isn't on Pinterest?) But here is my take on the idea. I had originally planned on doing one or two at-home date ideas, but since my new goal is to do at-home dates every week, I changed those few months to be out of the house ideas. I wasn't super specific on the food, of course, because we often go with what mood strikes us, but I did buy a local coupon book that has a lot of great deals at local restaurants, activity centers, etc. So essentially our dates are centered around what was included in the book (for example, we get two rounds of mini golf free, or b1g1 at certain restaurants).

Here is my year of dates (feel free to steal any of the ideas you want, as I'm sure I stole a few as well):

January: On the first month of Christmas, your sweet wife gave to you, a night out with dinner for two!

February: On the second month of Christmas, we both can learn a lesson, let’s go for ice cream and a temple session!

March: On the third month of Christmas, I’m sure we both will win, when we take some racecars out for a spin.

April: On the fourth month of Christmas, as a couple we will go, to the movies to watch a cool show

May: On the fifth month of Christmas, it will go off with a spark, lets go for a ride and have slushies in the park.

June: On the sixth month of Christmas, we’ll let the ball start rolling, with a game or two of bowling!

July: On the seventh month of Christmas, get ready to brag, “I just beat my wife at laser tag!”

August: On the eighth month of Christmas, we can do some kneeling, let’s eat and do a set of sealings!!

September: On the ninth month of Christmas, we’ll feel like we are flyin, at Angel’s Landing up in Zion

October: On the tenth month of Christmas, I think we both just sighed, “Let’s go on a motorcyle ride”

November: On the eleventh month of Christmas, your wife will show her smarts, beating you at mini golf and go-karts!

December: On the twelfth month of Christmas, you’re in for one last treat, let’s try a new place to go out to and eat!

Dating Your Husband

One of my New Year's Resolutions (that I actually already started last week), is to start dating my husband more. As my nephew asked my brother and his wife, "Why do you need dating? You're already married!" Well, the truth is, we want to STAY married. :)

My husband and I have plenty of time together at nights. I'm one of the lucky ones whose husband has a predictable work schedule. But I found that we just spent most nights lounging on the couch watching tv once the kids were in bed. And though we were watching the same show, one of us would be playing on the computer, or reading a magazine, or doing some project or other. We didn't even sit next to each other! It's hard to feel connected if you keep that up for a while, don't you think?

So, I found this amazing website that has given me so many ideas: http://thedatingdivas.com. It has so many fun ideas for everyone's budgets and interests.

Now, being that we don't have much money to spare, my goal is that every Wednesday night at 8 (our kids go to bed at 7 generally, so 8 gives my husband time to go to the gym first, and my kids a chance to actually fall asleep), we are going to have an at-home date. And since my 12th day of Christmas present was 12 MONTHS of dates, we are going to do one fun out-of-the=house date each month.

Some great ideas for at-home dates are:

• Board game nights      
• Video Game nights
• Movie theme nights (the dating divas have a great list!)
• Food night (mexican, italian, etc along with a theme of music, decorations, whatever!)
• Bake a treat together!

Oh I could go on and on, but instead, I will just try to post every time we actually HAVE a date night and let you know what we do. They won't be fancy, but they will sure help my husband and I have fun and get closer. Hope you are able to try some of the ideas out too :)

12 Days of Christmas

For Christmas this year, we didn't plan on spending a lot on our two girls or on each other. My husband and I both thought at the beginning of the season that we would get a tablet and call that our big present...but when it came down to it, that money is needed in so many other places (one of these days we will be out of the dark ages, I swear). So we vowed to only do stocking stuffers/less than $50 each for the family. Well, I don't know if we stayed completely within that goal, BUT we did do a lot of homemade gifts for the girls (more on that later), and I did a lot for my husband. My biggest surprise was that my husband would not get one day of presents...but 12! I saw the idea online and knew I had to do it.

The idea is so simple. 12 days of presents to show your love for your spouse (or kid, or mom, or whoever you want). They don't have to be expensive, they don't have to be a lot of work, even. There are so many ideas out there, so you can tailor them to your special someone (that phrase always makes me think of Elf!). You also don't have to do this just at Christmas time. You can do it for birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine's Day, whatever!

Here is what I did for my husband's twelve days of presents. It was completely affordable:

1. One Jar of Caramel Sauce (I used This recipe...and it was delicious. My husband loves caramel)
2. Dinner for TWO (it was a Friday and my mom could watch the kids! We had a giftcard so we got to eat out :)
3. Time to watch the Star Wars Trilogy (yeah, my hubby is a Star Wars nerd...I even watched it with him).
4. 4 tiny handprints (traced all of my girls' hands and colored them. Then I wrote "The best things in life aren't things" over it. I also served it with Breakfast in bed)
5. 5 new blades (a 5 bladed razor that, yes, I already had from couponing...so definitely cheap that time)
6.A six pack of soda (I was going to go for Jones Soda, but apparently my walmart didn't have any, so I did Cream Soda, which my husband loves (and we almost never get because I'm not such a fan).
7. Seven rounds of games together (which also happens to be date night. Score on that coincidence!)
8. 8 treats delivered to work (Making microwave caramels)
9. 9(00) laughs (a calvin a hobbes book used from Amazon made this very affordable!)
10. Ten things I love about you (I typed up a list of things I love and put it in a frame we already had).
11. 11 massage coupons
12. 12 months of Dates! (You can read about this Here. I basically planned a date for each month!)


I am loving doing this so much that I am thinking of doing it for my hubby's birthday in March. Hopefully this has given you some fun inexpensive ideas for presents! Remember, it's the thought that counts! :)