Father's Day is Coming Soon!

My hubs is like the typical man, I suppose. When it comes to any occasion when he might receive a gift, he likes the usual "manly" things: a new grill, a new fishing rod, tools, that sort of thing. He's also a really great cook, so he often gets cookware and fun kitchen gadgets :)

But homemade gifts are also a hit (especially when the bank account won't quite support that new deluxe grill he keeps fawning over at Sam's Club) ;-)

These are a couple things we've made him in the past:

A collage of the kids fishing with their dad. The kids decorated the mat with special messages and stickers of their daddy's favorite things

I took a photo of our dog that my husband took one afternoon while they were out pheasant hunting. Walmart's photo shop is a fantastic place to play with pictures (they did the collage above as well). I sent it to them, blew it up, had it sent right to the house, and I framed it.

We've also made him video montages, coupon books for hugs and help with chores, and guilt-free time to go sit on a river somewhere :-)

Father's Day gifts don't have to be expensive to be a big hit. They just need to be thoughtful and filled with love :-)

Minecraft Play Set

My son is an absolute Minecraft nut. We have to monitor his time on the computer. In fact, I once told him to get off the laptop he was playing on and when I went back to check on him, he was on the desktop computer watching youtube videos of other people playing Minecraft O_o

We'd also discussed making his new block letters for his name Minecraft themed. Which was harder than I anticipated. So when I came across these at Target the other day, I got a little excited. I figured I could take a few and glue them to his letters and he could play with the rest. Not bad for $10.

Turns out they are probably too big to glue to his letters, but they were actually a lot of fun to put together, and he has been having a blast playing with them :) 

If you have any Minecraft kiddos out there, these are a pretty good buy. They are made from paper, but it's very thick and sturdy, and so far my son has been able to play with them (as roughly as boys tend to do) without destroying anything :)

We Want Watermelon!!!

I love watermelon. LOVE it. Could eat it all day. In fact, when I was pregnant with my first child I went through a watermelon a day. By myself. It was grand :D Yummmmm :D

So I love to find fun things to do with watermelon. I found a watermelon cake on Pinterest once that looked so beautiful I just had to try it.

You cut the rind off until you had a cake-shaped hunk of watermelon, ice it with whipped cream, and decorate the top with kiwi, strawberries, and blueberries. The picture was gorgeous. Mine...not so much lol Could NOT get the whipped cream to stay on the watermelon. At least it tasted incredible. I did not, however, take a picture because...well, it just wasn't as pretty as I'd hoped ;)

Not Quite Nigella seems to have done a great job though - check out her blog for instructions!

I did come across this little beauty on Pinterest - it's gorgeous even without the cream! And it's a great alternative for anyone who can't have regular cake (or would prefer not to).

Found at Pepperscraps.com

Have you done anything fun with watermelon? 

It's a Bundle of Bandits!

I have a new book releasing today! Well, technically it's not "new" and technically it's not just one book. Three of my books have been bundled into one fantastic release.

That's right, it's release day for the bundle of all three Blood Blade Sisters novels!! If you haven't read these yet and you think they look even remotely interesting, now is definitely the time to get them. For a limited time, this entire bundle will be on sale for only 99 cents!! All 3 full-length novels for less than a dollar!!  You seriously can't beat that price :) Don't miss out!! Click here for a sneak peek and links for available retailers.

The Wild West just got a little wilder...

In a time when justice is hard to come by, three unconventional sisters become one notorious bandit - The Blood Blade - robbing from the corrupt lawmen to give back to the innocent.

A Bandit's Stolen Heart Under the persona of the bandit, Blood Blade, Cilla Richardson robs from the corrupt and gives to the poor. But an accidental kidnapping leaves her with a very handsome captive named Leo Forrester... and an idea to save her town.

A Bandit's Broken Heart Determined to make a fresh start with her daughter, widow Brynne Richardson gives up her bandit activities and leaves California for Boston. Working for a handsome doctor fulfills her need to be useful and independent, but he creates another yearning she can't deny. But will he understand when she has to resurrect the Blood Blade?

A Bandit's Betrayed Heart Lucy Richardson's bandit sisters may have taught her to sling a gun and pick a stubborn lock, but nothing prepared her for the agony of her first heartbreak. Her sisters taught her to fight like hell for what she wants... and she wants Finn.

All three books in the Blood Blade Sisters Series on sale for the price of two. Now that's a steal...

Name Letters

When decorating my kids' rooms, one thing I always like to have up on the walls is their name. You can get the block letters fairly cheaply at any craft store, even at Walmart, and decorating is a blast :)

I've seen some pretty elaborate designs and I'd love to try to get a little more fancy, but you can create really cute letters with very little time or money. I just redid my daughter's letters. She did have a princess theme:

These were created very simply by painting the letters in the colors of her choice, and then adding those 3D puffy stickers. A little ribbon stapled to the back and we have a cute set of letters for her wall :)

However, I was recently informed that she is now 8 years old, almost 9, and that means she is a big girl and doesn't want princess stuff anymore :) So, she chose a new color and theme (gymnastics and peace signs, her two favorite things in the world). Again, very simple, just paint and stickers, but they turned out so cute :)

For my stepson's adorable baby, I went a little more elaborate. His nursery is jungle themed, so I printed out a zebra stencil and painted the pattern onto his letters. It's  hard to tell (if I did these again I'd probably alternate designs, making half a giraffe pattern or just polka dots or something) but the A, T, and N are painted brown with white stripes, and the X and O are white with brown stripes. A few jungle stickers and some giraffe print ribbon and Axton's letters were ready to go :)

At the moment, my son has a dinosaur theme. 

He'd like to change his, but he couldn't make up his mind between soccer and The Hunger Games lol So, we are going to combine them (his idea) and make the O's in his name soccer balls and the other letters Hunger Games themed. I'm still working on these, but I'll post them when I'm finished :)

Doing these letters really is a lot of fun, and it's an inexpensive way to jazz up a room. You can get really elaborate with them, either painting more complicated patterns or using wallpaper or contact paper to cover them, add feathers, glitter, jewels, ribbon, or any number of the fun pins/medallions/charms, etc that craft stores carry, to make these really special and one-of-a-kind. Or go simple with a coat of paint and a few stickers and you still end up with something cute to go on the wall.

And what's nice is that these are super easy to redesign when your kiddo decides he or she wants a change. Just peel off the old stickers or materials, repaint, and add new bling. The letters can be up to $8 a piece, depending on the size and style you want. But since you can redesign them over and over, they aren't a bad decorating investment :)

Playing with Pancakes

I've always been a firm believer in having a blast with every holiday or special occasion that comes along :-) A really fun and easy way to make any day special is to make our breakfast pancakes a little extra special :-D

For Easter, we like to make Easter egg pancakes:

These daisy pancakes are fun for the first day of spring. I made these for Mother's Day one year:

(these are really cute with yellow centers but I was out of yellow food coloring so we stuck with white)

For Christmas, we usually do Christmas tree shapes. For Valentine's, pink hearts (of course) :-) I'll sometimes do the kids' initials just for fun. 

For their birthdays, I let them choose what they'd like. One year, my son wanted one that looked like his face LOL 

My daughter chose peace signs and blueberry tie-died pancakes one year:

And butterflies another:

For St. Patrick's Day we usually do gold coin pancakes with green shamrocks. We tried leprechaun hats one year:

But....well, we are sticking with the shamrocks from now on ;-)

And of course, we can't forget May the 4th, that most wonderful of all nerd holidays :D I made these this morning :-D A bit terrifying maybe lol But mostly identifiable and fun nonetheless :D

(Darth Vader and the Death Star)

(the beautiful Princess Leia :-D )

(Another Vader and a slightly better Death Star)

So if you have a fun day you want to make a little extra special, try playing with your pancakes :-) 

Oh, and

A Proud Mama

This past weekend my amazing little daughter competed at her first States competition for gymnastics. She's worked so hard all year to get to this point; hours upon hours of weekly practices and private lessons that she begged for to help her with her problem areas. And she got out on those mats and competed like a champ.

She pulled some wonderful scores...and some not so wonderful ones, despite the routine in question being one of the best she'd ever done. The judges were tough with a capital T, and the gymnasts she was up against were some of the best in the state. Actually THE best in the state, according to the All Around scores. Thanks to the luck of the draw, we ended up in the toughest session of the competition.

Which meant that despite all her effort, hard work, and doing her absolute best once she was there, she didn't win any medals. Because of the way they divide the sessions and age groups, there were many girls who scored lower who walked away with medals. That's tough to swallow. Especially for an 8 year old. She was heartbroken. Crushed. And I was crying right along with her...nothing hurts as much as seeing your child hurt.

But my amazing little girl had her moment of disappointment and then she brushed her tears away, smiled, and said "Now I get to be a Level 4! I can't wait to go to gym next week and learn my new skills!" :-)

I'm so proud of her. I'm proud of her hard work, her dedication, her courage at not only performing routines that would terrify me, but doing them in front of huge audiences of people who want her to fail. Gymnastics is a brutal sport - one, tiny toe out of place can mean the difference between being on that podium or not. A tough judge (or one who is having a bad day or who just doesn't like your gym) can mean the difference between the lowest deduction possible or the highest possible. Sometimes hard work and dedication just aren't enough.

But she loves it more than anything. And she's GOOD at it. And she doesn't let anything, even not winning when her scores say she should have, come between her and her goals.

I learn so much from watching this incredible little girl. She's tough, she's strong, she's determined, and she allows herself to mourn when she's lost and then dusts herself off and gets right back up.

I would have been so proud to cheer for her had she made it to the podium. I was even more proud to watch her walk from that gym with her head held high, a smile on her face, excited for what her future will bring.

Mommy loves you, baby girl. You are my inspiration and the light of my life. I am so proud of you!!