Snocone Garland :DIY project:

This morning while watching Kelly and Michael, they had a lady on who was showing a couple different summertime DIY activities. The one and only part that I saw was her making snocone garland! It looked super easy and since Rowen has had and has loved snocones lately, I decided that I would make a snocone garland for his room this afternoon.

 It was so easy and turned out perfect. I decided that I needed to share this fun project!

I started by painting 6 styrofoam balls. 2 of each color. I used one of those sponge tip paintbrushes so instead of painting the balls, I dabbed the paint on which worked much better. After painting each one, I sprinkled the clear glitter over it. This gives the look of "ice". 

I let them dry for a few minutes then took a paper cup and covered the rim with hot glue. I then took a "snoball" and stuck it on the cup. It took no time for the hot glue to dry! I did that 6 times and the snocones were ready to be strung together. 

I took the hot glue gun and put a small line of glue on the back of each ball then placed the cord on the glue. I placed the snocones about 6 inches apart. And voila...snocone garland!

Zoodles!{ a new yummy recipe}

I don't know what made me think to try this but over the weekend I thought "hey, I want to make some zucchini noodles( zoodles ) this week"! I'm sure you've heard of people using spaghetti squash to make "spaghetti". I tried that once and thought it was nasty...nasty! It was definitely overcooked( the "noodles" were mushy ) and the flavor just wasn't there. But I had a burst of confidence in wanting to try this recipe. It was shockingly easy and tasted great. I found the recipe/instructions here.

You can use several different kitchen tools to make your noodles. I just used the side of my grater with the largest holes. I cut the ends off of the zucchini and grated it. It actually came out like thin noodles. I then placed the zucchini in a microwave safe bowl with a lid and microwaved it for 2 minutes. It came out perfect. After taking it out of the microwave, I took some paper towels and pressed quite a bit of water out. You want to do this so your dish won't be watery! 

While I was grating the zucchini, I had homemade meatballs cooking in the oven. When they were almost done, I added the marinara into the pan and popped it back in the oven for 5-8 minutes. 

I pulled the dish together by plating the zoodles and spooning a few meatballs with the marinara over top. And of course, sprinkled some parm on! 

If you have zucchini lying around( or if you just wanna go buy it ), try this dish! 

.::3 quotes/phrases I am currently loving::.

{True} {Makes me smile}

{Amen} {I'm SO blessed}

{Yes please} {Always}

Splash Pad Fun

2 weeks ago Rowen, Isla, and I headed out to Mt Juliet to meet my MIL, SIL, and nephews at a splash pad. These have really come about in the last year or 2( at least around here ). It was so fun. The kiddos loved it of course. This particular splash pad opened last summer and still looks brand new. It was super clean and there were so many different water pieces. It was actually built in honor of a little girl named Ava who lost her sweet little life after a routine surgery. If you want to read her story( you will need a tissue ), GO HERE. So besides being a fun place to splash around, it has quite a story behind it. 

Rowen had a big time! This was his first time at a splash pad. 

My phone died a few minutes after we got there so I didn't get a chance to get pics with the cousins. There are several other splash pads closer to our house that we are wanting to try out before summer is over! It's such a fun little activity for kids! 

Summer stir fry{ non asian }

My husband put this dish together a couple weeks ago and we have had it twice in the past 10 days! It's that good! Since we have been getting CSA boxes every week, our fridge stays stocked with fresh vegetables. We have been trying out new recipes and they haven't disappointed. We had quite a few yellow squash, zucchini, onions, and purple peppers from the past couple boxes so my husband decided to  make a summer stir fry. 

What you'll need:

Veggies! 

{ we used yellow squash, zucchini, peppers, onions, and spinach }

Olive oil

Garlic

2 strips of Bacon

1. Saute the olive oil, garlic, & bacon for a minute or two.

2. Add your veggies

3. Cook till tender/spinach is wilty

Easy Peasy!! 

We had our stir fry over quinoa.

TN aquarium trip!

I have some catching up to do!! I thought I would start with recent events and then back track. This past Friday our family headed to Chattanooga( about 2 and a 1/2 hours from Nashville )to visit the aquarium! We were excited to take Rowen and just knew that would love it. He is an animal lover! It was sprinkling when we got there so it was good that everything was inside. Ok, has anyone been recently?? Brent had to stand in line for about half an hour just to buy our tickets!! I couldn't believe it took that long to buy our tickets. I guess we will buy them ahead of time next time we go! There are 2 separate buildings...one for fresh water/native animals and the other was for salt water critters. My favorite part was the massive tank of ocean creatures...sharks, sea turtles, sting rays...if it lives in the ocean, it was more than likely in that tank! I think Rowen liked the smaller tanks of native fish the best. Those and the butterfly garden. The butterfly garden was really cool. It was a massive room filled with plants and hundreds of butterflies flying around everywhere. They would land on people and kids would just be giggling and smiling. It was fun! 

Getting his picture with the Tawny Owl butterfly. Even though it doesn't look big in the picture, it was the largest butterfly I have ever seen. It's wingspan measures 6  1/2 inches. And its diet, the juice from rotting fruit! Yuck! It was hard to capture other butterflies pictures. 

The aquarium was actually a lot darker than I was expecting. I guess it's so you can see everything in the tanks better. The lighting didn't make for great pictures by any means so sorry for grainy pics!

The first picture: that alligator was just resting on that turtle like it was no big deal! It was really cute.

 Last picture: Rowen loves scuba divers so getting to see this one feeding the fish was pretty exciting for him!

The penguin exhibit was cute! Penguins are funny animals. The bottom right picture was of one of the 4 or 5 sharks in that massive tank I mentioned earlier. One swam right by my face at one point. He definitely looked like he wanted to eat me. I could just see it in his eyes! Sharks are just scary to me. 

I'm so glad we took a little road trip and visited the aquarium! I know it won't be our last time there. And on a side note, this is a small world we live in! I ran into my friend, Leslie (and her little girl) who I went to elementary school through college with! We hadn't seen each other in sometime but it was so good to see you Leslie!! 

**linking up with Meg for Mingle Monday HERE.

2 amigos...

We have been truly blessed with 2 of the sweetest children in the whole world. Rowen is approaching 3( in October )and he is a ball of energy. Full of life. Not a dull moment with that one! Our sweet Isla just recently turned 7 months old and she is just precious. She has brought lots of girly-ness into our lives for sure. From all her heandbands, bows, and baby dolls, down to her high pitched squeal! She's all girl and I love it! They are really starting to become buddies. The more and more Isla becomes more mobile and attentive, the more and more Rowen wants to be right with her playing, reading, and talking to her! I am so excited to watch this sibling thing grow! They already have so much love towards one another. I hope that is always the case. I decided to share some recent pics of the two of them together...

Her best laughs and giggles come from when her brother is around!

Oh these 2! They make my heart want to burst. These 2 sweeties are the most precious brother/sister duo on the block!

Front porch sittin'

A few pics from our recent beach trip. They were precious beach babies!

I absolutely love this picture!! It's from dinner tonight. Rowen wanted to help feed her and he did such a good job!! 

These 2 are best friends already and it's so much fun to watch.

3 ingredient summer salad!

We have a huge mint plant in our herb planter in the back yard and last week I wanted to use it in something. I just thought up this easy peasy recipe and thought I would share!

What you need:

1. half a lime

2. 30-40 strawberries, halved and tossed in a bit of sugar

3. 4-5 mint leaves( the fresher the better ), chopped

Put your sugar coated strawberries in a large bowl. Throw in the chopped mint and squeeze in the juice of half a lime. Toss it all together and refrigerate 30 min-1 hour prior to serving. Enjoy! 

**you can always add more sugar, lime juice, or mint depending on what your tastebuds like**

Our 4th of July {2014}

I absolutely love the 4th of July! It's my second most favorite holiday right behind Christmas. It's definitely a close second.

 The day was beautiful so we decided to head out of the house and do something fun. We were going to take Rowen to a splash pad downtown but it was unfortunately closed b/c of the fireworks show that evening. So I had the idea of taking him to the "dragon park"! I use to play there when I was little and we hadn't taken him there before. I knew he would love it and he sure did! If you live in Nashville, you have to take your kids there. It's a fun park and has a huge dragon made out of thousands of ceramic tiles. 

After the park we headed home for lunch. Rowen got pushed( he hasn't mastered the pedaling yet )around on his trike before he ate...

{I didn't notice this till after the picture but this photo is very patriotic!! I love it!}

We didn't really make plans for the evening. As much fun as downtown is for the fireworks show, it just isn't a great place for a 2 year old and a 7 month old! haha. Maybe next year! I love fireworks so I was kind of bummed about not going but we headed over to my parents house to grill out and shoot off fireworks in their driveway. Side note: did you hear that Nashville had the second largest fireworks show only behind NYC?! Pretty cool! 

It was a nice day. We all had fun!

Recipe: stuffed pattypan squash

We picked up some pattypan squash in our CSA basket on Sunday. It's such a cute vegetable! I love their scalloped edges. Brent knew exactly what he wanted to do with it and fixed them up last night. We had baked pattypan squash stuffed with basil quinoa. It was amazing!!

One of the many things that I love about summertime is the abundance of fresh fruits and veggies. There is nothing tastier that a vegetable straight out of a garden! Who agrees?! Here is the recipe for the stuffed squash.

What you need:

2 pattypan squash

a handful of fresh basil

1 cup of quinoa

2 cloves of garlic(minced)

half of a medium size onion(chopped)

Add one cup of quinoa to 2 cups of boiling water( add a chicken bouillon cube for flavor)and cook till tender...about 15 minutes. 

While your quinoa cooks, saute your onion, garlic, and basil together till the onion is translucent.

In a bowl, mix everything together and add a pinch or so of salt and pepper. Cut a circle out of the top of your squash leaving a good portion of the flesh inside. 

Add the filling to your squash and place in a baking dish. Bake for 30-40 minutes. Add cheese on top the last 5-10 minutes if you want to!

.:Homemade Pizza:.{tomato, basil, & italian sausage}

I made a homemade pizza last night for dinner. It was super easy so I wanted to share! I started by making the dough. It's Ree Drummond's( aka Pioneer Woman )recipe. Her recipes are always pretty simple and I have never failed at one so I gave it a shot. It was super easy to make and was quite tasty. 

Here's how to make the dough:

You'll need-

 1t active dry yeast, 3/4 C warm water, 2 C all purpose flour, 3/4t kosher salt, and 3T olive oil.

You can put whatever you want on your pizza of course! I chose these toppings...

After rolling out the dough on a baking sheet, I added a thin layer of marinara sauce followed by a layer of cheese then the other ingredients and I finished with another layer of cheese. 

Before and After:

It was so yummy and will definitely be made again in the near future!