Blog Hopping!

Welcome new friends from the blog hop. I am participating in the following blog hops today:

Thursday Cafe Blog Hop

Blog Hop Thursday



It's Almost Friday Blog Hop

If you found me on one of these hops please leave me a comment!

Homemade Valentines Day

This Valentine's Day I decided that I wanted all the gifts that I gave to be homemade. I have honestly never given my children Valentine' Days presents, but this year I decided I was going to make gifts to practice my sewing (this is the second time I am attempting to learn to sew! plus my hubby gave me an awesome sewing machine for valentines day).

This is what I made:

Handmade felt tools for Mr. T:

Baby doll sling for Princess R:

Car rug made of fleece for J:

Don't think my husband was left-out. I made him his favorite chocolate peanut butter cookies.

My First Giveway

I am so excited to offer my first giveaway. This giveaway is for the winners choice of two hair accessories from my etsy store Curly Girly Bow-tique. Curly Girly Bow-tique offers affordable handmade hair bows for babies and girls. Here are a coupple examples of what I offer in my store:

Cupcake Snap Clip set

White and Hot Pink with Dots Double Bow

Tinkerbell Clippie

Buy it!

To buy any of my handmade hair accessories please visit my store here.

Win it!

One winner will recieve their choice of two hair accessories from my store. Giveaway starts Monday, February 14, 2011 and ends Monday, February 28, 2011 at 11:59 pm est. This giveaway is only open to followers in the U.S.

Entries:

Mandatory

Follow my blog on Google Friend Connect (right side of the page) and write a comment that you follow my blog and please leave your email address (one entry)

Additional Entries (mandatory entry must be completed first before additional entries are counted)

Favorite my etsy store and leave a comment (one entry)

Leave a comment on which item in my store is your favorite (one entry)

Leave another comment on another posting on my site and then come back here and leave a comment on this post (one entry)

Good Luck!

Fun Valentines Day Activities

I love to do holiday themed activities with my kids. It always breaks up the monotony and they always seem to enjoy it. Here are some of the Valentines Day activities I have been doing with them.

*Make your own Valentines Day Playdough- this has provided hours of fun. My kids will sit with playdough and play until I make them put it away. We use heart shapped cookie cutters for our Valentine's Day theme and the playdough is light pink and scented with Pink Lemondae Kool-Aid. Here is the recipe I used for our homemade playdough:
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup salt
2 pkg unsweetened Kool-Aid
1 cup boiling water
1 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil

Mix flour, salt and Kool-Aid. Stir in water and oil. Knead with hands about 5 minutes. Store in a Ziploc bag.

*Valentines Day Sensory Box http://tooblessed-tobestressed.blogspot.com/2011/01/february-sensory-box.html

*Conversation Heart Counting Manipulatives- we have been using the valentines conversation hearts to count out the number we roll on the dice and then they count out the number using the heart candies.

*Valentines Day Cards- we of course will be making Valentines Day cards for daddy. I will be letting them use whatever craft supplies they can glue on their cards

Saturday Birthday Party

We hosted our one year olds first birthday party yesterday. All the food was allergy friendly and free of milk, eggs, peanuts, treenuts and soy (with the exception of one cookie, which contained soy). Here is our menu:

Cake (I used Duncan Hines yellow cake mix and used Ener-G egg replacer, the frosting was homemade here is the link to the recipe:http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/White-Cake-Frosting-I/Detail.aspx)
Tortilla chips and salsa from Aldi and Tribe GarlicHummus
Blackberry muffins (Food Allergy Mama's Baking Book)
Cinnamon bread (Food Allergy Mama's Baking Book)
Chocolate Sugar Cookies http://www.foodallergymama.com/2011/02/02/dairy-egg-and-nut-free-chocolate-sugar-cookies-and-a-food-allergy-cooking-show-today/
Gingersnaps http://www.foodallergymama.com/2010/11/29/dairy-egg-and-nut-free-gingersnaps/
Soda, water and lemonade

The party was very inexpensive to host (I think I spent less than $30 for an allergy friendly party, including food, invitations, paper products and favors for the kids)

For favors I wanted to do something consumable and I did not want candy. So I decided to do washcloths and soap. I purchased hanmade soaps from Brown Bag Bath Bars on etsy. She made me robot soaps for the boys and castle soaps for the girls. For the washcloths I purchased princess castle washcloths from KBExquisites on etsy. My mom made robot washcloths for the boys.

Overall the food went over great- especially with the kids who loved the cookies (and J who decided that after the party he would eat the icing off the leftover cake.)

Throwing an Allergy-Friendly Birthday Party

I have been throwing allergy-friendly birthday parties for a few years now, and since I cook allergy-friendly every day planning for me is now not such a big deal, but the first allergy-friendly party I threw really stressed me out and took a lot of planning. Here are some tips to throwing an allergy friendly party without all the stress:

* Plan ahead- allergy-friendly parties are much harder to throw without some planning ahead since you can't just pick-up and serve just anything. Obviously with food allergies most bakeries are a big no-no, but there are plenty of cake mixes out there that you can use that cater to food allergies. Betty Crocker now makes a gluten free cake mix and Duncan Hines make some varieties that are milk/egg/peanut/treenut/soy free. Check your labels you may be very plesantly suprised! I also make my cake a few days ahead (unfrosted) and freeze it. I do this for two reasons, first it is easier to frost when frozen and second is is one less thing for me to do the night before the party.

*Make it easy on yourself- I have done parties with big menus and I just end-up stressing out and having tons of leftovers. Pre-prepared foods are great, Whole Foods has a vegan section of prepared foods. You can also find lots of chips (and sometimes pretzels) that are allergy-friendly. We love to serve tortilla chips with salsa.

*Don't forget about fruits and veggies- you can always serve a fruit and veggie tray, which is very allergy friendly and healthy! If you cannot have the dips that are usually served an alternative for veggie dipping is hummus (unless you are allergic to sesame).

My Mr. T will be turning one on Thursday and we will be throwing him an allergy-friendly party on Saturday. I will be posting about the party menu later on.

February Sensory Box

My kids are so excited about our new valentines themed sensory box. I cannot believe that I will have held them off until February 1st! I wanted to stick with a pink/white/red theme (a couple of purple things managed to sneak their way in). I filled the bottom with flat red and white flat stones that I purchased at Hobby Lobby a couple weeks ago when they were half price. Then I went to the Dollar Store and found artifical red rose petals (this was about half a bag) and heart containers. The little heart presents are from IKEA last year, the key chains are from the Christmas Tree Store and the buttons all came from a random bag of buttons I purchased. I decided to put all the spoons and tweezers back in the box this month since they were such a hit last month. You know my kids will be having a ball with this tomorrow!