EEEK!! There's a mouse in my CAR!

I was running errands and needed my backseat so I took the car seat out of my car and left it in my carport overnight. The following day during Ella's nap time I remembered it was left outside so I went to buckle it back in my car. I lifted it up put it in the middle of the seat, like I always do, I stretched the buckle out straight and started to put my hand through the hole of the car seat. Just as I reached the hole, a four legged creature with a tail ran out and hid under the drivers side seat! I jumped back, screamed, did the body shiver, I was completely freaked out!  After I calmed down a minute, I opened all four doors and took a broom and started hitting around trying to scare it out. It was a genius plan, so I thought. I scared it from under the backseat drivers side to the front floor board on the passengers side. I was relieved when it was maybe a foot from the opened door. I took one more hit with the broom and it ran, the wrong way! It ran to the backside of the dashboard! There was no way of knowing if it could get to the outside, or if it was going to chew on the wiring, or hang out in my glove box! That's when I called Levon, who was at work, the most he could do for me was laugh at the situation. Then I called my mom who was also at work, and she was freaked out for me, but again nothing she could do. So I called a family friend (who was on his way to work), he told me to set a few traps in the car. So I looked all through our utility closet and discovered we had zero traps! There was no way I was driving my car with a mouse somewhere in it! Luckily my grandma who lives a half mile down the road had a couple traps I could use.  After the traps were set the traps with peanut butter, all I could do from that point on was wait. Every couple of hours I would go outside and look at the traps but there was always nothing. I was obsessed with finding a faster option on the internet, but there were so many horror stories that it made me even more worried. I was determined not to drive my car, not even for a minute. It took three whole days of being stuck at home that the mouse finally got hungry and wanted some of the 'special' peanut butter in the trap. Levon was so kind and helped me clean out my car then we cleaned out our car port. Finally I am at peace with my car again.

As a side note: There is no doubt the mouse was living in our carport under a big wood pile and a lot of leaves that  were on the side of the drive way. It was not pretty, just a bunch of stuff that needed to be on the side of the road to be picked up. Just after Levon threw the dead mouse away, and we were finishing up the carport project, and found a large black widow spider just hanging out with all that stuff! And of course it was on something we just finished carrying! Luckily we were wearing gloves but that didn't matter to me!  By that point, I was done!

Juice Fast update

So, its been a few weeks since I did my juice fast and I am just now finding the time to give you the update on how it went. I went a full 6 days without eating and only drinking fresh fruit and vegetable juice. Many people asked why I would do this and the only reason I could come up with was it was my friend Jillian's idea who wanted to do it as preparation for her upcoming wedding and I was doing it with her to make it more fun.

It was a whole new experience for me considering I have never been introduced to juicing world before this week. My usual juicing background has been either orange juice, apple juice, or white grape juice at the grocery, and I never liked the taste of V8's. So the fact that I agreed to do a juice fast was kinda crazy.

 It was fun for me to try all the recipes and surprisingly they were all great! The color of most of them were pretty nasty looking, you know that gross yellow/orange and the brown/green. They did not look appetizing at all! It just shows you can't judge a drink by its color because I didn't find a drink I didn't like! It was pretty easy to alter the recipes to fit my taste once I figured out what I like and don't like.

 Here is how my week went:
They night before I was going to start, I went to the grocery store and stocked up all the good stuff! It was hard to judge what and how much I needed, so I just winged it. I spent $75 and decided I would use everything I bought and would not go back to the store if I ran out of anything. I had around 4 meals a day for 6 days that totals each meal to cost around $3.

The first day was pretty hard for me. After a long day at work, I took Ella to a Christmas parade and the weather changed and with the wind, we almost froze! It was sooo hard not to buy the hot chocolate they had for sale. Hot chocolate is definitely one of my weaknesses.  Every day during the week Jillian and I would get together and have a pot luck juice lunch! We would make our lunch and an afternoon snack.

I was never hungry through the whole week, but I wanted to eat so bad! I didn't realize I had so many habits with food. I realized I always finished everything Ella didn't eat for lunch, snack at night while I watch TV, and snack at my moms house every time I go over there. I have strong will  power when it comes to a set meal but it was extremely hard not to snack throughout the day. So by mid week I broke down and ate a banana, just because I had to physically chew on something,  After that I was fine and didn't have much problems the rest of the week. The thing that I hated the most through this whole week was cleaning the juicer! You have to take apart every single piece and wash it by hand. Blah!

By the end of the 6 days, I lost a total of 7 pounds! It was a good experience and I will definitely do it again! As the update goes, I have gained most of the weight back. But only because I did the fast just a couple weeks before Christmas and I didn't have any restraint at all through the holiday season! So in a way I am very glad I did it when I did.

Juice Fast Recipes

I'm attempting to do a juice fast this week! These are the recipes I will be attempting to make. I'll let you know how it went when I'm done. Wish me luck!

Lil' Miss Frosty

Ella and Chloe had a Christmas photo shoot the other day and had a blast! We did it two days and had over 400 pictures! It was so hard to decide what pictures to put here. The first day was outside with perfect weather, near the Old Mill, and next day was cold and rainy so we took our pictures inside the mall with their Christmas decorations. If you would want to know how I made the costumes click on  Tutu Tutorial. 

Happy December!

Christmas Cheer Recipe 

Combine loads of good wishes,

Heart-fulls of love and armfuls of hugs,

Sprinkle with laughter,

Garnish with mistletoe,

Top off with presents.

Serves everyone!

Tutu tutorial

This is a tutorial on making a tutu dress like the one Ella is wearing.

It is very simple, just time consuming. For the sake of pictures I used red tool. If you would rather buy one than make it you can order one from my Etsy shop! 

1. Gather supplies.

When purchasing your tool it is better to buy it by the roll not the yard. I found this out the hard way. If you buy it by the yard, it can be cheaper but it's a lot more work cutting strips. 

You will need a 6inch crotchet head band. Hobby Lobby was out so I bought 3 and sewed them together using embroidery thread. When I finished with the whole dress I realized it was to long so I reduced it to two headbands.

I found the top hat in the doll making isle at Hobby Lobby along with the headband.

Decorating the top is not necessary, but I think its more festive. I made two dresses, one with bows as shown and the other with snowflakes all the way around the bodice. Both are equally cutie!

2. Cut the strips

Determine the length you want. It is simple if you have a piece of cardboard lying around. I didn't so I used my side table which was close enough. I have even used a baking sheet! Wrap around lots of times. Cut on one side, carefully keeping all the strips neat. If you are using card board, you can place a rubber band around the strips to keep them inline. 

3. Place headband around book. 

Make sure to leave the seam facing up and place the band around the shortest side of the book.

4. Fold one piece of tool in half.

5. Place center through hole.  

Starting at the seam, work from one direction.

6. Put fingers through ribbon and grab the two ends.

7. Pull all the way through and tighten knot.

8. Lay tool down and repeat. For extra poof, do two rows.

Top Hat

1. Decorate head band with ribbon of choice.

2. Use fabric glue to attach the hat to headband. 

3. Let dry overnight before wearing.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So we just got home from our Thanksgiving dinner at my moms house with most of my family. We had a great time sitting around the table talking and laughing. We wanted a no fuss Thanksgiving so we each brought a couple side items and had a big buffet. The food was amazing and as usual everyone was so stuffed there wasn't much room for dessert! After dinner, the 49rs game was turned on and I put the Thanksgiving books out for the kids to read that I checked out from the Library. Levon was so excited about his team playing tonight, it was the first time that he could think of that he was able to relax and enjoy football on Thanksgiving! (I personally was glad there was other things to do.) It's not that I don't like football, its just not my favorite pass time activity. Later, I asked the kids if they wanted to make 'Native American' headbands. They were so excited, jumping up and down, saying "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" One of them asked if I had real feathers. My quick response was "Well yeah! Is there any other way?" We spent a good 30 minutes taping feathers to the paper strips and then coloring them. They all wore them for the rest of the night! Even though the 49rs lost, I would say our Thanksgiving was a good one!

This is the meatless turkey I brought for dinner! He's so cutie you could gobble him right up! (Pun intended!)

Here are the kids in their festive headbands! You know the drill, take 50 pictures to get one decent shot!

Here is that lil' guy again! I brought him for our pot luck at work the day before. He is so festive and fun!

Ella was ready for Thanksgiving with her turkey hat and leather moccasin shoes! She walked around all morning saying "gobble gobble". I found her shoes at goodwill the day before! They were so perfect I had to get them even though they were a size to big!

This was Ella last week at the library doing a craft. I absolutely love this picture! Her hair reminds me of an 80s aerobics girl with a sweatband and a fro! Just cracks me up!  

So the holiday season just officially started. It is going to be so much fun now that Ella is old enough to enjoy all the activities of the season!