Halloween hand print crafts!

It's Halloween week! And to celebrate in the 'Kirchner House' we did some fun Halloween crafts! I LOVE all things crafty so I have been pppppatiently waiting for Sophia to be the age where we could start doing some fun crafty activities. And I know its just going to get better and MESSIER as she gets older! I headed to my beloved Pinterest for some craft inspiration and came up with these cute hand print canvases. I love how they turned out!! They are not only great Halloween decorations, but a wonderful keepsake of Sophia's teeny tiny hands and feet!

I picked up 2 canvas/easel sets from the dollar store! 

They were only $2 each! SCORE!

I used tempra paint and painted one all black and one all orange!

When they were dry I used a chalkboard marker to draw on the spider web and do the writing.

 If you don't have a chalkboard marker, you could totally use a white sharpie or paint pen! 

Next came the FUN part!! Ha!!

I made sure I had everything all ready and laid out before I got Sophia involved!

**Tip: HAVE LOTS OF BABY WIPES NEAR BY!!**

First we did her white 'ghost' footprint! It was easy peasy and she just starred at me while I put the cold paint on her foot! 

The black 'spider' hand prints were a little more tricky as she wanted to curl her hand up into a ball the entire time! Ha! But we managed to get decent hand prints onto the spider web!

The finished products! I LOVE them!!

Sorry this is sideways...I tried over and over to flip it and it just wouldn't work!! 

And a little 'bonus' picture of my Halloween cutie...

Happy Halloween!!

Now go make some FUN Halloween crafts with your little's!!

A very GOLDEN Birthday!

Birthdays have always been a BIG deal in my family! It's always been a great excuse to get together with family and friends and celebrate the special birthday person. Growing up our birthdays were always celebrated for almost a full week!! We always had a 'family' birthday party, a 'friends' birthday party, and then a special celebration on the actual day of our birthday. It wasn't always  super extravagant, but it was ALWAYS special and something the boys and I looked forward to every year!! 

Then came the concept of 'The Golden Birthday'! Some people are familiar with this and others have no clue what I am talking about when I refer to it! Ha! For those who aren't in the Golden Birthday loop, your Golden Birthday is when you turn the age of the day of your birthday! So my Golden birthday was when I was 12! And I actually remember it!! It wasn't anything over the top, but I do remember my parents telling me it was a my golden birthday! And I remember receiving my very first CD ghetto blaster as my gift. And to make it even more special they wrapped it in paper that had pictures of me growing up all over it! And just in case you didn't think I was crazy enough...you will be glad to know that I still have that wrapping paper!! 17 years later...ha ha...I simply just can't get rid of anything that has 'memories'!! 

Sooooo....you can imagine how excited I was when we figured out that this year we would be celebrating TWO golden birthdays!! Brit was turning 24 on September 24th, and Damian will be turning 29 on November 29th! So naturally I just HAD to start planning Golden Birthdays for both of them!! 

We had Brit's Golden Birthday back in September!

 It was a great night with family and friends! Unfortunately the only person missing was Cody, as he was already back in Florida! I had a great time collecting everything 'golden' for the party!! 

The birthday table! 

My Mom, Dana, BRIT, Shelly (Brit's Mom), Brandi (Brit's Sister)

Dinner time! Looking back at these pictures I'm not sure how the birthday

 girl ended up eating dinner on the floor?! Ha!! Poor Brit!!

Cupcake time!! Brit is NOT a dessert person, so I made a

 simple Oreo cupcake that seemed to work!

Brit and her wonderful family!

Brit and our family! (Cody was there in spirit!!) 

Sophia was eyeing up Brit's cupcake!! 

Present time!!

Posing with our sweet golden hats and signs!!

Party favors for the guests! Carmel corn for the guys!

And gold glitter nail polish for the girls!

It was a wonderful night celebrating a VERY special lady!!

Happy Golden Birthday Brit!!

xoxo

Kels

Apple Zucchini Spice Cake!

When I think of Fall I think of apples! I enjoy cooking with apples year round, but nothing welcomes the cool Fall season like delicious apple treats. Last year I made Apple Spice Cupcakes, and they were a real hit with everyone who tried them! This year I knew I wanted to make them again, but this time I added in some zucchini for some added taste. And they made the cake even more moist!! SO yummy!! 

For my original Apple Spice Cupcakes click HERE

This time I decided to make a cake instead of cupcakes, but the recipe works either way!

Apple Zucchini Spice Cake

What you need:

1 'Spice' boxed cake mix

3 eggs

1 1/3 cups water

1/3 cup oil

2 packages dry vanilla pudding

2 cups chopped apples

1 1/2 cups grated zucchini

Preheat oven to 350'

Prepare cake mix according to the box directions.

Add dry pudding mix.

Chop apples and add into cake mixture.

Grate zucchini and add to cake mixture.

Combine well! 

Pour into greased baking pan and bake for 40 minutes.

Let the cake cool, and then ice if you wish!

ENJOY!

Cinnamon Icing 

Combine 1 tbsp ground cinnamon with one container cream cheese icing.

Mix well! 

Sophia Jo {Five Months}

Another month has come and gone!! It seems like it was just yesterday that we had a brand new tiny baby...and here we are FIVE months later!! With a beautiful, VERY busy, smiley, 'chatty', chunky little girl!! She is the best part of my day and I feel so blessed that she is mine! This month we got to enjoy the last warm Summer days and transitioned into the shorter cooler Fall days. My favourite season!! It's getting harder to get her monthly pictures, as she is a lil monkey and doesn't stay still for more than a second! But these pictures truly capture her amazing little personality that she is developing!
We love you peanut girl!!

Highlights from this month...

*You are BIG!! Last time you were weighed you were almost 17 pounds! You are still in the 90th percentile for weight and 98th percentile for height!!

*You passed your first level of swimming lessons {'Starfish'} and got your very own report card! Woo hoo!

*You decided you hated sleeping through the night this month! Which was quite unfortunate as your Mommy LOVES to sleep!! We are hoping you start sleeping again VERY soon!! Ha! PLEASE?!?!

*You got your ears pierced!! Mommy was a little bit nervous so we took Grandma with us. You were quite the rock star and only cried for a few minutes! And you look dang cute with your lil earrings!!

*You are still figuring out the whole rolling thing! You can roll from back to front and front to back, but you always manage to get 'stuck' and then just scream until someone rescues you! It's pretty funny to watch!

*You ate baby oatmeal for the first time! You didn't love it...but you didn't hate it either! You were mostly just very confused by it!

*You have found your feet/toes and love grabbing for them!

*You put EVERYTHING in your mouth!! Anything you can get your hands on goes straight for the mouth...even strangers hands lol ICK!

*You saw SNOW for the first time! And you appear to hate it as much as your Mama! 

*You were quite the party animal this month, celebrating Mommy's 29th birthday and Aunt Brit's 24th birthday!

*You have started to 'blow bubbles' with your mouth and sound like a motor boat! You do it over and over! We have some great videos to show you when your older!! ha!

*You went to your first basketball game to cheer on your Daddy! You liked watching the game, but didn;t love the loud buzzer so much!

*You love to 'sing' and 'talk' VERY loudly! You definitely have found your voice my dear peanut girl!! 

*You got a Jolly Jumper and have loved trying to figure out how to bounce and swing! 

YUM!?!

Making S'mores with Grandma!

This is Sophia's bib for when she is hanging out with Uncle Kellen!

Holding hands with her BFF Harper!!

Miss independent already!

Now this is a little bit of a problem...

Hanging out at our library class! Grandma joined us one day!

Visiting Grammie (great grandma)

I just got my ears pierced!!

Woo hoo! Look at me!!

All bundled up for a Fall evening walk!

Well that looks comfy...

Cheering Daddy on at Basketball!

She has an obsession with my scarves...

Dancing with Grandma and Grandpa!

Lunch date with Aunty Brit!

My goodness why do you look so old in this picture?! *tear*

Happy 5 months Sophia girl!!