Let's get together!

Back when I first started this blog a zillion (or more like three) years ago, I mentioned how I used to attend a crochet class.  It was long before I joined MOPS and it was when Alyssa was around a year and a half.  I loved going to our meetings every Wednesday afternoon and I went faithfully for almost two years until I had Audrey and couldn't go back anymore.

What I loved most about my time with my crochet friends was the fellow shipping. The talking and sharing of stories while we worked on our own little projects.  What made it most special was that all the ladies in the group were all older and they took me in just like a granddaughter!

When I was pregnant with Audrey, they threw me a sweet "potluck" type shower.  I had the best time and felt so blessed by all the ladies coming together to do something special just for me!  It was at my shower and other fun holiday get togethers we would have that initially got me into the world of pock lucking as adult.  I loved trying all the different dishes friends would bring and loved it even more when they'd share their recipes with me!

Which brings me to what I really wanted to share to today!  Recipes...and get togethers!  It's December 1st and Christmas is just 24 days away! Can you believe it?

I made these fun countdown blocks at a girls craft night this week!  Super fun!

It's that time of year for get togethers and holiday parties and all that good stuff! I was so excited when I got an offer through MyBlogSpark to host a fun Potluck Party courtesy of Pillsbury here in my home!  Our little get together is actually tomorrow already and believe it or not (well if you know me well that it won't be a suprise, really) I still haven't decided what I'll be making for the party!

What will be fun about the party is that each guest will be bringing a dish they made from a recipe they chose to make from the Pillsbury.com website.  We will each sample each others dishes and vote on which we like best!

I'm really looking forward to the hanging out with friends, while at the same time getting to try out and get ideas for some new recipes I can add to my collection!

I'm planning on making two dishes and would love to get some help deciding on what to make.  I'm really loving this one for something sweet...

Caramel Apple-Marshmallow Tarts

but I could still use some help deciding on a savory recipe to try out.  If you'd like to help me...I'd love it if you'd go HERE to Pillsbury's site and suggest a recipe you think would be great for me to make. While you're there, you can also get some great ideas for possible holiday party dishes you can make this Holiday season!

Checking in...plus some fun homemade holiday gift ideas!

Another week has flown by since I last blogged. How does that happen?  I left off sharing how I joined in on the Happy Day project, Day 1 and sadly, that's as far as I got.  :( I wanted to do more, and in fact, I did do Day 2, which was send a card to a friend, but I decided to not just do one but a few. Then I got stuck at the part where I had to put their addresses on them and that required digging for a couple of them SOMEWHERE in all my stuff and well...right now there's a little stack of cards that still need addresses put on them sitting right then on my kitchen counter!  I told myself that I will finish those up and get them mailed out TODAY, so that's my goal and I'm sticking to it! :)

In addition to life being the usual crazy busy, last week my girls were also sick.  And then I started to feel like I was coming down with something too and it was days of loading up on Emergen-C, like I'd shared on here being a help for me to not get sick...and several days later, I am finally starting to feel better!  Thank the Lord! My tummy started feeling weird this morning and on my way back home from dropping off Alyssa at school I was telling the Lord, "please Lord, make my body line up with your Word. I do not have time to not feel good!" I was so thankful that he heard my prayer and answered immediately because this busy Momma has stuff to do and cannot afford to be sick!

Because the girls hadn't been well for a good two weeks, we'd been missing church. I was really bummed about it and was determined the second they got better, we were headed back to church.  And guess what?  We made it back on Sunday! For the past couple of months, we've been going back to the church we attended for years up til around the time we had Alyssa and it feels so good to be back "home."  It's a bit of a drive but we felt it was thing to do after a couple failed attempts at attending church here in our town.  The drive is about 35-40 minutes away and the girls always look forward to getting McDonald's on our way home! We stopped for gas before we grabbed lunch and I thought it would be fun to snap a pic of me and the girls!  My car is tiny but I managed to fit Alyssa and Audrey in the picture!

Well, this week has gotten off to a fast start and I can't believe we're nearly to the middle!  I keep wishing that there was just a little more time in the day to get everything done around here, or even that there was just one more of me around here so I could get it all done!  This week has been full of fun things and we've been on the go a lot! Yesterday was MOPS and we had a fun time making the neatest craft ever.  I thought I'd share it on here just in case you haven't seen it.  It's simple and a fun little idea for home made holiday gift giving.

It's pie in a jar!

All you need to know about making these fun treats can be found HERE on this blog.  These single serve pies is simply made by pressing your pie crust in the jar and then filling it up with the filling of your choice.  You can refrigerate or freeze them and then bake them right up in jar. How awesome is that?

Another great homemade gift idea I decided to try out was cookie mix in a jar.  You all know how much I loved making cupcakes in a jar, so when my friend Kirstin from MOPS suggested us making some cookie mix in a jar as part of a fundraising effort for our friend Wren, I was in!  I searched around Pinterest and the one recipe everyone kept "pinning" was Bakerella's idea for Cowgirl Cookies.  We modified the recipe to be made with Christmas M&M's to make it holiday friendly.  I happened on a site by chance yesterday that made them the Christmas way and even had the labels made up for "Cookies for Santa!" I was so excited to find them so we could use those instead of having to make some new labels from scratch.  I still need to get those printed up and attached, but if you like this idea and want the link to printing the labels, then go HERE! :)

My friend Sonia came over this morning and we worked on assembling the cookie mix.  We had a fun time chatting while our kids played (and mine fight, lol) and we put the jars together. We ran out of chocolate chips and M&M's, so I have to get some more, but we were able to get most of them done!  I found some cute snowman fabric on sale ( I love sales!) at Joann the other day to make them look pretty, and there ya go! Fun and cute!  I'm hoping they'll be a great seller at the Holiday bazaar we'll be selling them at!

Okay...I think that's it for today! I am determined to blog more from now and going forward.  I used to be so good at keeping up with this thing and lately it's become one of those things I just can't fit in.  I keep saying to myself that I want to sit and share that or the other and then time gets away from me!  And speaking of time, Thanksgiving is only a week away.  Can you believe it?!?!

Just blog!

Well, Christmas has come and gone and I'm finally sitting here catching my breath!  December was such a busy month and between my birthday and getting ready for Christmas, I wasn't able to blog like I usually do.  The dust has finally settled though so I'm hoping to get back to my usual self!

Tonight I was sitting here with my Hubby and was telling him how behind I feel with everything and that I just didn't know where to start here on the blog.  He said the simplest thing to me and he was totally right.  He said..."Just blog." I think what I'll do is just play catch up over the next few posts and just share what all's been going on over the last month or so here in our world!

We had a great Christmas and surprisingly enough I hardly took any pictures!  I was too busy going from house to house making the rounds to see all of both sides of our family and I didn't have much time to bust out my camera.  We didn't even get the chance to take even one family photo but oh well.  Some holidays are just like that!

Having three kiddos this Christmas made for a challenging and busy holiday!  I spent all day the day before Christmas Eve baking and when it was all said and done, I didn't feel like I made much of anything. I finally got to realizing that I tend to be overly ambitious and I need to just relax and be okay with whatever doesn't get done.  Why I make things so hard on myself, I do not know!

Here are a few of the pics I took of the Christmas treats I made....

Yummy treats we gave as gifts to the family

Mini pumpkin loaves I made and then wrapped all pretty!

And Christmas cupcakes, of course!

It was definitely a baking sort of holiday. Yum,yum!

Butterball Turkey gift check giveaway...a SUPER FAST ONE!

Note:  This giveaway is now closed!

November has flown by and I can hardly believe that we only have one week to go until Thanksgiving!  Are you ready?  I'm getting really excited about the chance to spend some quality time with family and eating some yummy food too! 

Every year it's pretty much tradition for us to spend Thanksgiving with my side of the family. For the last several years, my mom, my sisters and I have taken turns hosting Thanksgiving dinner at each of our houses.  Last year we had it here at our house and that's the plan again for this year.  Since we're the ones with the most kids, we volunteered to have it here to make things a little easier!  Holidays are always so hectic for us and my Hubby and I decided this year that we're going to make things simple and just enjoy the day without running around making the rounds to everyone else's houses like we usually do. 

The plan for this year, like every year, is to divide up the cooking responsibilities amongst all of us girls.  I usually make the ham and my sisters and I work together to make the other side dishes.  Traditionally my mom is in charge of making the turkey and stuffing, so that's the plan again for this year.  A couple of years back, I made sure to ask my mom to show me how to make a turkey so that I'd know what to do when the time came for her to "pass the torch."  For some reason, I always had this idea in my head that making the turkey was so hard.  As it turns out, it really isn't that difficult.  It is a process when you add in the time spent to make dressing and stuff the turkey, but in the end, the time spent is totally worth it!  This year, I'm really looking forward to eating our Butterball turkey and my grandma's recipe for dressing that has been a family favorite for years!

Today I am SO excited to be able to share in the Thanksgiving excitement with a special giveaway!  Butterball has provided me with TWO gift checks for $15 off a Butterball turkey to give away to TWO readers of my blog just in time for Thanksgiving this year!  I just received them in the mail yesterday, and I was just so excited to be able to do this!  I know this will be a blessing to who ever ends up winning these gift checks!

To enter into this giveaway...

--Leave me a comment here on this post sharing a special Thanksgiving memory or blooper you have!

Here's mine...
Like I was mentioning earlier, in years past, we've all taken turns having Thanksgiving at different houses. One particular year, we were having Thanksgiving at our house and my mom had brought over the turkey that she made at her house.  My Hubby was helping her bring it into the house and he lost his footing in our front entryway and dropped the turkey on the floor!!!  Thankfully, when it landed on the tile, it stayed in the tray, so we were still able to eat it!  To this day, I'm not even sure if anyone else even saw what happened, but I just remember being so mad at my Hubby!  How do you just drop the turkey on the ground, lol!

For additional entries...


*Follow my blog using Google Friend Connect.

*Blog/Facebook/Tweet this giveaway.

For every item you do, be sure to leave a separate comment so that I can use Random.org to select the two winners.

And that's it! I'll be leaving this giveaway open until this Friday, November 19th at 12:00 noon PST and I'll announce the winner by Friday evening.  I'm sorry that I can't leave the giveaway open longer but I want to get the gift checks in the mail ASAP once the winners have been selected since Thankgiving is already next week!

I also wanted to remind everyone who wants to enter that you DO NOT have to have a blog to enter in.  If you've never left a comment here before, it's super easy.  Just click on the words below this post that say "Sweet Comments" and leave your comment.  If you don't have a Google account set up, simply select "Anomymous" for the identity and just be sure to leave your name and email address if I don't already have a way to contact you (be sure to enter it like this if you do...theveronicablog (at) gmail (dot) com...to prevent spam) within the body of the comment so that I can contact you if need be!

Thanks so much and happy entering!  Remember...this is a super fast giveaway so be sure to enter in today!!!

Disclosure: I was given a gift check of my own in exchange for hosting this awesome giveaway. Thanks so much to Butterball for this opportunity!

Fun on the Fourth!

I made it my goal over the weekend to give the computer a break and just enjoy our holiday weekend and that's what I did!

On Friday and Saturday, I spent some time baking some cupcakes and cookies to take with us to the beach on Sunday, where we spent the the entire day with our family for the 4th.  I had fun making the cookies and tried out some new techniques I learned on the cookie blog I mentioned the other day.  I think they turned out pretty cute but they were definitely a ton of work!  It'll be fun to work on more cookies like this again in the future, but I've learned that they are definitely something that would have to be a project for after I put the girls down for the night!

Here's how the cookies turned out...

And the patriotic cupcakes...

I found some cute printables to make these cupcake picks on this blog the other day.  I think they were a neat addition to the cupcakes!

We had a great time at the beach with our family just hanging out and BBQing.  The girls had a lot of fun with their cousins and friends too!  Here's our family pic from this year...

 I love how Audrey was smiling so big here!

And here was my Livvie, taking one of her many naps of the day!  She did so well and was such a good baby!  Can you believe her 3-6 months clothes are already getting a little snug? 

Here was another one of my favorite pictures of the day!  Me and my little mini-me!  Of all five of us in our family, she and I were the only ones who got sunburned.  Go figure!

After spending the whole day at the beach, we made it home, gave the girls their baths and headed off to the parking lot of one of the shopping centers downtown to watch the fireworks from the fairgrounds. 

It was a short show and nothing too exciting and before we knew it, it was almost 10:00 p.m. and it was time to head home and put the girlies down for the night.  All of us had had a long day and it was nice to finally get home and get settled for the night.

All in all, we had a great Fourth!  I let that be my treat day and let me tell you, I really splurged that day!  I probably had one too many of these...

so now it's back to being a good girl this week!

Hope you all had a great weekend too and I'm excited to get caught with everyone else out there! 

P.S. If you haven't heard much from me lately, please don't take it the wrong way.  Life's been crazy busy and I'm trying to do better about not letting the computer take over my life!  I have more fun stuff to share this week and even have a few giveaways coming up just as soon as I can find time to post them!

Getting ready for the 4th!

I'm finally starting to feel better today after almost a week of being knocked down with the flu or whatever this thing is!  I've had so much I want to blog about but my time over the past few days has been spent either trying to get better or cleaning up around here to get caught up from all that hasn't been done since I hadn't been feeling well.

Like I was saying the other day, I am SO excited about the 4th of July! 

I think this is my most favorite holiday ever!  I love getting to spend time with family and going to the beach.  We are so blessed to live so close to the beach and seriously, I don't think I could live anywhere else!

I've been digging through my holiday cabinet in the garage and looking for our patriotic stuff, which I can't wait to use...

I'm also super excited about the new korker for Livvie that Sarah made!  Isn't it so cute?

I know she's going to look so cute in it and I'm so excited that she'll get to be all patriotic just like her sisters were in their bows from last year...

(Doesn't Audrey look so little here?  She's growing so much!)

I've also been getting all excited thinking about what kind of fun treats I can whip up for the 4th and after I last posted about cookies and cupcakes, my friend Sarah sent me the link to this awesome blog called Tidy Mom.  I was checking out her blog today and spent pretty much all of naptime checking out some other neat blogs she links to having to do with cookie making and found one of the neatest blogs ever!  It's called Bake at 350 and I LOVE it!

If any of you are interested in learning more about cookie decorating, this is your blog!  Bridget, the gal who writes this blog also has another blog where she does tutorials on how to frost cookies the professional way, how to make royal icing, etc and it is just one of the coolest blogs ever!

I'm hoping to use what I've learned today to make some fun treats to share with the family.  I'm hoping that this kinda fun stuff will be a fun tradition I can continue doing with our girls as they get older!  And speaking of traditions, I was just wondering...is there anyone who's willing to share what kinds of fun traditions they have with their familes for the 4th of July?  I'd love to hear them.  We didn't have many traditions growing up and I'm hoping to start something new with our girls!

Bittersweet

Anytime things get a little quiet on here, it's safe to say I'm probably working through something that might not be "shareable" on the blog.  I try to focus on the positives but sometimes it's just not possible.  Today is just one of "those" moments.

Yesterday ended up being a little bit bittersweet.  Father's Day just tends to be that way for me.  See, I used to be a bigtime Daddy's girl but a lot of that changed when my parents seperated and subsequently divorced when I was still in high school.  I don't share a lot about the details of that kinda stuff on here because I try to be sensitive to family but what I will say is that over the past year, I've struggled to have a relationship with my dad.  I wish that certain circumstances were different, but they just aren't.  It's crazy how even at 30 years old, certain things can still matter so much to a person.  I want to have a better relationship with my Dad but I'm still working through how to get there. Until then, Father's Day is just one of those days that hurts.

As a result of my issues with Father's Day, yesterday wasn't the best day for my Hubby.  I was very selfish and made my own issues spoil the day and for that I am really sorry.

Fortunately, it wasn't all bad.  I was able to get a sweet picture of Daddy and his girls from the brunch we went to with my Hubby's brother and his family.

{Daddy and his girls}

If I know one thing, I know that a bond between a father and his daughters is a special one.  I know that our girls love their Daddy and he will always have a special place in their hearts even when they're grown and gone.

I'm so thankful for my Hubby for being such a great father to our girls.  We are blessed and so thankful for for all he does to provide for us!  Happy Father's Day to the best daddy ever!

P.S.  Hopefully I won't be so down in the dumps tomorrow and I'll be able to share how Alyssa's birthday turned out from over the weekend.  I'm still trying to recover from that and I'm thinking that I may just have to rethink big parties from now and going foward!  It was fun but just a ton of work!

Mother's Day and more

It's been a busy last few days but I wanted to finally get here on the blog to get caught up!  Here on some highlights from what we've been up to lately...

On Sunday, I celebrated my first Mother's Day as a Mommy of three, thanks to this little girl...

Don't you think she looked adorable here, sporting her new headband sent to us from Veronnica? :)  I think this is my favorite picture of Miss Alivia yet!

We had a great day on Sunday, dividing our time between my Hubby's side of the family and mine.  In the afternoon, we went to the nearby Coastal town of Morro Bay for lunch with my Hubby's mom and his family

and then in the evening, we headed back home for dinner with my Mom at my sister Dolly's house.  My sister Yvonne of couse went all out, like she usually does and made this so, so yummy cake!

The girls and my Hubby were so sweet and spoiled me with cards and an amazing package at a local salon good for a massage, a facial, a wax and a pedicure.  I can't wait until I get to redeem my gift! :)

Towards the end of the day, I realized I'd taken a zillion pictures (thanks to the fact that I finally got modern and recently bought a larger memory card that holds more than 100 pictures at a time, LOL), but I hadn't gotten a single picture of me and all three of my girls.  I had my Hubby try to take a few pictures of us but the combination of him not really knowing how to work my camera and the girls acting like rascals, gave me hardly any good pictures to choose from.  This is one is pretty blurry but the best out of the bunch...

All in all, it was a wonderful Mother's Day and I couldn't have asked for more!

In other news...this week's already off to a busy start.  Today, I got to take Alyssa to her new school for "Kinder Round-Up" where they assessed her for Kinder readiness.  She was so excited (and a little bit nervous) to visit her school for the first time.  I couldn't help but snap a picture of us while we were in the school parking lot!

I'm still in shock that my big girl will be starting Kindergarten in just a few months!

And speaking of time flying, guess who's turning one month old tomorrow, already?

Can you believe it?

Easter Fun, a Winner and a Gala!

UPDATE TO THIS POST:   I totally thought I had posted about my friend Amanda's Giveaway Gala earlier today but I guess I was wrong.  You can scroll down to the bottom of this post for more details!!!
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I am SUPER behind in posting today since I had lots going on this morning, but I'm finally home and wanted to get to posting before this day is over.  Seems like time is flying by so fast lately!  I have lots to talk about  today, so sorry if I skip around a bunch!

This morning I woke up with cramps and contractions and I got to thinking about if today might be "the day."  I got us girls ready and headed out to take the girls to Grandma's so they could hang out with her while I went to my Dr's appointment.  The cramps kept coming until I got to the doctor's office and then stopped!  It was kind of a relief because as much as I'd like to meet my girl right about now, I just kept thinking that it would be nice to have a little more time to get caught up on laundry, make a few meals to freeze and do other things like clear out my camera's memory card! :)

While at my appointment, all went well.  All the treats are finally catching up with me because in just the last week, I gained three pounds!!!  I guess that makes up for the pound and a half I lost the week before!  I also got to see Alivia on ultrasound just for a quick bit so they could make sure the fluid levels looked okay, which they did!

Switching gears a bit...our Easter weekend was pretty low key.  On Saturday, the girls had a fun time coloring eggs with my sister and my niece.

On Saturday night, I got to making these super fun bunny cupcakes.  For some reason it made more sense to me at the time to make cupcakes instead of the bunny cake I originally wanted to make.  They turned out okay, but goodness gracious, they took forever to do.  I even told my Hubby that the next time I talk about wanting to do something this involved, please knock some sense into me!

I also decided to make the Spring Pizza on Sunday afternoon too!  This ended up being super fast and easy and it tasted yummy!

After the girls woke up from nap on Sunday, we went over to our neighbor's house and our kids did an egg hunt together in their back yard.  They had a lot of fun and ended up coming home with a humongous bag of candy!

And...since I promised I'd announce the winner of my giveaway from last week....I'd better get to that too!

Congrats to Steph from The Houston House!

Please email me within the next 24 hours to acknowledge that you've won and I'll get your info forwarded to MyBlogSpark!

And last but not least, I just wanted to mention that my super sweet bloggy friend Amanda is hosting an entire week of giveaways on her blog.  Today's giveaway is a super cute monogrammed beach towel and pair of flip flops!  Be sure to get on over to her blog to say hi and get entered to win!

Just click on the button below to take you to Amanda's blog!

Well, that is finally it for today!  My hubby finally had time to paint the baby's room today and I am SUPER excited to have the room completed!!!

Happy V-Day!!!

HAPPY

VALENTINE'S

DAY

FROM

US

(30 weeks, already!)

TO

YOU!!!