Teacher Valentine's Gift

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  I hope your day has been filled with lots of love and kisses!

I know this is super late but I wanted to share what I made for teacher's gifts this year.  Maybe someone can save it for next year.  Heck, you could give this teacher's gift anytime really.  My inspiration for this came from A Night Owl.  I did a few things different so I'm sharing how I made these.

Aren't these super cute??  I just loved them plus they're really easy to make and put together if you are a procrastinator like me.

So here's what you will need:

mason jars with lids
graham cracker sticks (or Goldfish Crackers)
chocolate candy (I used m&m's and Hershey's Mini Milk Chocolate bars)
mini marshmallows
scrapbook paper
glue
string
Valentine ornaments (Mine are from Joann Fabric 60% off)

 

Once you have all the supplies you can jump right in and get started. 

Fill your jar with graham cracker sticks, marshmallows, and m&m's.  Gently shake your jar so everything is mixed up or you could do it all in layers.  I liked the mixed up look so that's what I went with.  I picked out the mini milk chocolate bars from the bag and put those on top of everything in the jar.

Trace your jar lid on the back of the scrapbook paper.  Cut out the circle(s) and glue it to the lid.  I filled my jars first then screwed the lids on.  This secured the paper and kept it from moving around.  I left them to dry overnight.

Once the lids were on I cut the string off the ornament and used a longer string to tie the ornament around the jar.

The cute tag you can find over at the blog I mentioned above.  Print that out on cardstock and cut them out.  Punch a hole in the tag and use more string to tie around the jar.

That's it!!  You're done!

I made 5 of these in about an hour.  All of the teachers loved them and thought they were so cute.

Enjoy and have a great weekend!

It's been a while...

Well hello out there friends!  It has been a really long time since I've done an update on our Wyoming life.  I finally have the laptop at home with me and so I figured I would update the world on what's been going on.  So I'll just start from the beginning and fill you in on each one of us and how we're doing.

Matt- Matt finished up his classes for last semester and he did really well.  He was taking Chemistry 2, Medical Terminology, and Stats.  Those classes are pretty tough but Matt managed to handle it all.  Half way through the semester he finally got a job at UPS as a shift supervisor.  This job requires him to get up super early.  Like 4 am early!!  It was an adjustment and still is getting up that early and spending enough time studying without falling asleep.  This semester Matt is taking Organic Chemistry and Microbiology.  The Organic Chemistry is a self-guided class that was specially arranged just for him with the Dean of the school.  It's a long story of how that happened but I will tell you that if we had been told the truth about Organic Chemistry we would not be here in Wyoming right now!  But so far so good with the classes and work and studying.  Matt has submitted his application to 6 Physician Assistant schools across the nation.  We're nervously waiting to hear if he will get invited for interviews and then accepted to any of these schools.  Our schools of choice right now are in Mississippi, California, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and New Hampshire.  I'm really pulling for the first school in Mississippi.  Time will tell where we end up next. 

Melissa- This part is really hard for me to write.  I could sugar coat things and say how wonderful I am and I'm just having the time of my life.  But in reality that is not true.  I'm not having fun and really I'm not happy here.  There are many reasons why and I could spend a long time going over and explaining each individual reason but I don't want to bore you.  I will tell you though that I look forward to having our own space again and having all our stuff out of storage.  I try to stay busy with little projects here and there since I don't have anywhere to actually do big projects like a used too.  Sometimes when I'm up late because I can't sleep I think about my friends at home and how much I miss them.  It seems as if we're just kinda floating around right now since being here in Wyoming is only a temporary thing.  I want a place to feel like home and this just isn't home to me.  But I put on my happy face each day for my husband and children and I push through and take one day at a time.  I will say that one blessing that has come from being here in Wyoming is that I've been able to connect with my cousin.  I didn't know her before I moved here and I'm not even sure she knew I even existed.  But she plays basketball here at the college so we have very much enjoyed going to her games and seeing her play.  We love KC so much and we love having her over every Sunday for dinner.  I try to keep her well fed and give her a home cooked meal.  Let's face it college food sucks after a while!!  Her basketball season is almost over so we'll have to find something else to keep us busy and entertained.

Levi- Oh my precious Levi!  He is doing so well in school.  He loves his teacher so much and looks forward to going to school each day.  His little mind is such a sponge right now and he's just soaking up everything he learns.  Levi loves to read right now and when he gets sent to his room for timeout it's not really a timeout.  I usually find him reading.  I hope he keeps that up.  Last week he brought home his second report card and he did amazing in all areas.  I have parent-teacher conferences coming up in a few weeks so I hope it's only good things.  We didn't sign Levi up for Spring soccer which I haven't told him yet about.  If Matt is accepted to the school in Mississippi there is a huge possibility that I would have to withdraw Levi from school a few weeks early.  The classes in Mississippi start mid-May so we would have to be out of here very quickly after Matt finishes up his semester.  But hopefully wherever we land I can get him signed up for fall soccer and he can pick right up where he left off.

Jax- My hands are full with this kid!!  He is so full of energy and attitude...let me tell ya!!  He goes to Pre K 3 days a week.  He too loves his teachers and his "school friends" as he calls them.  I have started teaching him letters, numbers, and shapes because I don't think it's being taught in his preschool.  Not sure why though.  Jaxon feels so grown up and every day when I pick him up he and Levi tell each other their school day stories.  It is just the cutest thing!  I wanted to sign Jax up for soccer too since he is finally old enough but again we'll just hope for fall soccer.  When Jax isn't in school he's home with me and Colten just creating chaos.  But I wouldn't trade him for the world!

Colten- Colten is just my happy little baby.  He makes us smile and I'm so glad he's ours.  Since being here in Wyoming he's figured out how to climb over the baby gate, open doors, and climb out of his crib.  The baby gate is not even up anymore because it was pointless.  He's figured out how to pop off the door knob covers so they're pretty much pointless too.  Colten is saying many words now and so we're able to better figure out what he wants.  Every day when his brothers get home from school his face just lights up though.  That boy loves his brothers!  I hope it stays that way as he gets older.  I love that I get to have Colten to myself some days.  We play and chase each other and he just makes my heart melt.

I think that's pretty much all the latest with each of us.  Not too exciting but we're here and all alive and that is a good thing.  I miss everyone at home and I do think of you often.  I look forward to being back home this summer and seeing you all again.  Hopefully someday I can pick up my projects again and show them to you here on my blog.  After all, that's why I created this in the first place.

Have a great weekend!

More adventures!

So our adventures here in Wyoming continue.  Over Labor Day weekend we went out to Flaming Gorge.  This place is awesome!  My brother in law has some jet skiis and we went crazy all day long.

The boys had fun just throwing rocks in the water.  Each of them got a turn on the jet ski and they loved it.  Our first toy purchase when Matt is done with PA school will be a set of jet skis.

The views here are amazing.  Flaming Gorge is huge and on this part of the lake there was not very many people.  We pretty much had the place to ourselves.

The next week Levi and Jax started school.  My babies are getting so big!  Here they are on their first day of school.  They were so stinkin' excited.  Levi was up before everyone else and wanted to go to school right away.  Love that kid!

Levi is doing great in school and loves his teacher.  I had my first parent-teacher conference and he is right on track and where he should be.  Awesome!

Jax loves his pre-school friends and teachers.  He loves going and every day he brings me new pictures he has colored.

It is nice to only have my sweet baby Colten at home during the day.  He loves getting all of my attention and I love giving it to him.

More updates to come...

Crabapple Jelly

Have you heard of crabapples?  They're tiny little apples that are in abundance here.  When I saw the crabapple trees here I instantly remembered my childhood.  My grandparents had a crabapple tree in their back yard.  I remember climbing in that tree and playing all over it.  I would pick the apples and make a pretend stew out of them.  My grandmother would use the apples to make jelly.  Then one year my grandparents cut down that tree.  I don't know why but they did.

So I decided to try my hand at making crabapple jelly.  I was super nervous about making this since I've never done it before.  But after making 3 batches of jelly I would say I'm pretty confident now.

Wanna try this?  Here is what you'll need:

Crabapples (I had 6 pounds of apples for my first two batches)
Sugar
Pectin
Cheesecloth or mesh strainer

First, you will need to cut off the stems and blossoms of the crabapples.  Once you have completed that add your crabapples to a pot.  Add in enough water just to cover the apples.  I used a measuring cup and for my first batch I added 8 cups of crabapples.

Bring the apples to a boil.  Turn down the heat, cover, and let the apples boil for 30-40 minutes.  The apples will come apart and change color.  Be sure to stir the apples occasionally.  As you stir you will see the water start to change color.

Put several layers of cheesecloth over a pot.  I used clips to hold the cheesecloth in place.  Pour out the crabapples onto the cheesecloth.  Let all the juice drain through.  This can take a while.  You can let the apples sit over night or 2-4 hours.

Some of the blogs I read said don't squeeze the apples to get more juice out as that can make your jelly cloudy.  After the juice finished draining I wrapped the cheese cloth around the apples and gave them a gentle squeeze.  I made sure not to squeeze too hard so that pulp didn't come through.  I think as long as the pulp doesn't come through you will be fine.

Add the fresh juice to a pot.  My first batch I had 4 cups of juice so I used a measuring cup and poured that in the pot.  Add in your pectin.  I bought the jar of pectin and not a pouch.  If you buy the jar pectin 5 tablespoons equals 1 pouch of pectin.  After adding the pectin bring the juice to a steady boil while stirring constantly.

Turn down the heat and add your 3 cups of sugar.  Bring the juice to a boil again for 1 minute.  Take off the heat and ladle into clean sterile jars.

You can add your jars to a hot water bath but I just turned my jars upside down on a towel.  The heat from the juice will seal your jars.  Leave your jars upside down until they have cooled a bit.  Feel your lid and see if it pops.  When the lid doesn't pop anymore that means it's sealed and you can flip it right side up.

 

 

Isn't that just pretty jelly??  I think so!  I went back and made a second batch with the rest of my apples.  Total with 6 pounds of apples I got 5 1/2 jars of jelly.  The half jar is what we used first!

Eat up!!

***For my 3rd batch of jelly I used a steam juicer.  I got 3 cups of juice from that.  Before I added the pectin to my juice I added 1 cup of water.  That way I had the 4-3 ratio (4 cups juice 3 cups sugar).  I added 5 tablespoons of pectin since that equals 1 pouch of pectin.  The 3rd batch made 3 more jars of jelly so now I have 8 jars of crabapple jelly.  This should last us a while!!

Martin's Cove

We have been busy over the last month or so here in Wyoming.  We've done many things so I'll just jump right in from the beginning.

Before it turned cold we were able to go to Martin's Cove.  This is an amazing place to visit if you're ever in Wyoming.  There is so much church history here.  Martin's Cove has been on my list of places to visit for a very long time and I can finally check it off.  You can go HERE and read more about this historic site.

When you start to walk the path out to the cove there is a plaque with this quote.  You immediately feel the sacred Spirit that is there.

Baptisms are still performed in this river.  Just around that big rock in the background is the actual cove.  We did not walk out that far.  Our children were not cooperating with us.

This is another part of the path out to Martin's Cove.

The kids did love this part of our trip.  The Visitor's Center has handcarts that you can pull and test out your strength.  Let me tell ya...these are not easy.  Handcarts are very heavy to pull.  And that's when they are empty.  Can you imagine pulling these when they're full of food and goods?

See that split in the rocks over my left shoulder?  That is called Devil's Gate.

You can also walk out to Devil's Gate but again the children didn't allow that to happen.  We did stop on our way back home as the sun was setting.  I snapped this pretty shot.

Part of this trip was to go up to Casper, Wyoming and go to Target.  As we were driving through town we spotted some jaywalkers.

I guess this is a pretty common occurrence in Wyoming!

Matt and I would love to go back without the kids and actually walk out to Devil's Gate and Martin's Cove.  I'm not sure if that will happen but I like to think it will.

Words cannot express to you the gratitude I have for the pioneers.  Someday in Heaven I will bow down to those that gave their life on this trek.  So much sacrifice went into their journey so that my family and all those that came after the pioneers can have our wonderful church.

This was a great fun filled weekend for our family.  We have memories to last a lifetime!

Pumpkin Choco-Nut Muffins

Hey ya'll!  We're still surviving in Wyoming.  I thought we were going to get fall weather here but I think Wyoming skipped fall and went straight to winter.  We had about 8 inches of snow on Friday.  I need to do an update post of things we've done over the last month.  That will be coming up soon!

Since it's cold out that means it all things pumpkin!  It's just that time of year.  So first up on my baking list was pumpkin muffins.  I've had this recipe for several years and I have no clue where it came from.  I love it though.  Enjoy!

Printable version

1 2/3 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

1 cup cooked pumpkin

1/2 cup margarine, melted

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line muffin tin with paper muffin cups.  Mix flour, sugar, spices, baking soda, salt, and baking powder in a large bowl;  mix well.  In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine eggs, pumpkin, and melted margarine.  Blend well.  Add chocolate chips and nuts.  Add pumpkin mixture to dry ingredients and stir just until mixed.  Spoon batter into muffin cups.  Bake for 20-25 minutes.

We're in Wyoming!

Well hello there!  We've made it to Wyoming alive and in one piece!  I'm dropping in to give you an update on how things are going for us.

 

We left on a Friday and spread out the drive over 4 days.  We arrived the following Monday and immediately started unpacking all our stuff.  I drove in my car with our boys and Matt drove the Uhaul.  To give me a break from all three kids we would rotate out Levi and Jaxon riding with Matt in the Uhaul.  They loved being with daddy in the "elephant truck" as they called it.  There was an elephant on the Uhaul.

 

Matt starts school tomorrow and he's excited to get started on more classes.  He has class every day so we are going to miss having him around as much.  But we just have to keep our goal in mind and we'll get through it.  Next week is his last week working remotely for his job in Dallas.  We thought he could last through the end of September but with all that Matt has to do to get into PA school it was just too much.  Matt is registered for the GRE and we're praying that he'll do well the first time.  That test isn't cheap!! 

 

I'm not going to lie and say this has been easy for me.  I'm really missing home right now.  I miss my house.  I miss my yard.  I miss my friends.  I miss everything about Texas.  I opened my Instagram account recently and one of the last pictures I took was of the boys playing in the sprinklers.  I just started crying because I miss everything so badly.  I'm trying to keep a positive attitude about our situation and I'm trying to make new friends.

 

That's another thing.  I think I'm a friendly person and I'm not shy by any means.  But making new friends is sometimes hard.  You have to explain your story a million times and it can be difficult to find people that you really jive with.  I want to find people I have stuff in common with and I'm really going to put my best effort forward.  But is it weird that a part of me doesn't want new friends?  Just because I miss my friends at home and they already know me and know my stories and my life and it was just easier.

 

So I'm really trying and we'll see how it goes over the next few months.

 

Levi starts school this next week.  I went to register him and I was told that if it gets below 0 degrees that's when the kids will stay inside.  My jaw hit the floor!  0 degrees people!  Holy freakin' cow!  That is a whole different kind of cold.  I think Levi will be the first one to go back inside and gladly sit at his desk.  We also have him registered for soccer here.  The season doesn't last as long in Texas but Levi is for sure ready to get out there and play again. 

 

Colten hasn't been sleeping well since we got here.  Last week was really hard for all of us in that respect.  At home Colten would sleep perfectly.  He had his own room and loved all the animals on his walls.  We're not sure if he was just scared about being in a new place or if he was teething or what exactly but Colten for sure has had a difficult first week here.  We've let him cry it out the last few nights so hopefully that will make things better for him.  Last night he didn't even cry when he went to sleep.  Maybe we're making progress. 

 

Jaxon is just excited to have his cousins to play with.  The first few days Jax would say he wanted to go back to our "little house" but we just explained that someone else lives there now.  At Matt's school they have a preschool program for super cheap and so I think we're going to get him enrolled in that.  It will be nice for me to only have 1 child at home.  It has been several years since I've only had 1 kiddo around.  Plus, Jax will be excited to go to school like Daddy and Levi do. 

 

I still have a few boxes to unpack and go through.  When I'm all finished and have everything set up perfectly I'll so some pictures of the new digs!  5 of us are in 2 bedrooms and sharing 1 bathroom.  I'm using every square foot and maximizing as much storage as possible. 

 

I miss you all in Texas!  I'll leave you with some pictures I took along the way to Wyoming.

 

Have an awesome week!

 

The end of the world! 

  

 Mountains!

 

Rocky Mountains off in the distance!

 

The sun after the rain.