Greek Easter 2013

Christos Anesti!  Christ has risen!

Alithos Anesti!  He has risen indeed!

I started my day off making Spanakotyropita.  I make it every year for Easter.  If you want the recipe go here.

We head over to my cousins house where they roast a lamb on a spit. Tough being a vegetarian in a Greek family at Easter time.  I was harassed a little by my cousin (about being a vegetarian).

cutting up the lamb

I can't believe Alex ate the eye of the lamb.  He said it tasted like a cooked egg.

RT tried the lambs tongue.

I just stood by and watched (and took pictures)

Missing Uncle George this year.  He cooked the lamb every Easter.  This year he was there in spirit.

not sure if this was before or after the eye and tongue tasting

Turned out to be a beautiful day

Happy Easter!

Breaking and Entering

Seems like RT has skills on Breaking and Entering that were unknown to me. 

Until now.

Our neighbor was locked out of her house today.  She couldn't get the garage door open and she has dead bolts on her other doors.  (we live in such an awful neighborhood.) < Seriously, the dead bolts are so her young children don't walk out the front or side door without the parent's knowledge.

RT tried to help get the garage door to work.  The neighbor wanted him to break a window.  (I think they recently had all new windows put in)  RT decided it would be easier to pry open one of the doors and saw through the lock. 

Yea.  That's my husband.  Trying to beef up his resume.

Bottle Cap Necklace

These are pretty simple to make and you are reusing something that you might have on hand. 

Bottle caps! 

They are from that stash of  "it's 5 o'clock somewhere" times.  And, if you don't drink alcohol, they do use bottle caps on root beer, too.  You can even purchase unused bottle caps from Michael's or Hobby Lobby.

If you check out Pinterest and search bottle caps you will come up with lots of things to do with them.

I'm all for re purposing things and thought this might be a fun activity for my side kick Bella.   Oh, and you get to wear it which makes it even more special.

Take a look at the back of your bottle caps. We have some that are blue with palm trees. We decided to paint a few of them and keep some with the palm trees. Before you run off to paint, take a hammer and nail and pound a hole near the edge so you can attach a jump ring once you are done painting (so you can wear it as a necklace).

For our first charm, I saved some dried up play dough. I don't normally save dried up play dough (I'm not THAT crazy).  And for those of you that know me, you just keep quiet...you know who you are.  This play dough had some pretty silver on it. Loved how the colors worked together.

We just took some glue (E6000) and glued the play dough inside the cap. That's it. Bella thought it might need something sparkly, so we brought out the glitter glue and filled in the space around the play dough.  (What is a craft if you don't use glitter?).

I found this cool idea for a bottle cap project here at Ucreate with kids.  We pounded out a bottle cap.  Great way to get out your frustrations, or so I thought.  You have to pound it from the inside to flatten it.  (a little difficult, but doable) We cut a circle from some pretty paper and glued it to the inside of the cap.  Pound a nail into the top of the cap.  Leave the nail in  the cap and put your Modge Podge Dimensional Magic over your picture.  Leave the nail in the cap and let it sit for 24 hours. 

Bella wanted to use this one as a necklace.  In fact, she said she wanted me to have one, too, so we can have matching necklaces so (her words) "every one will know we love each other."  Cute, huh?

I'm lovin' the Modge Podge Dimensional Magic!  It's a cool product.  (no, I'm not getting a kickback from Modge Podge)  I should, though.  I liked how it works and we decided to make another charm.

For this charm we left the bottle cap as is and traced it on some pink zebra stripe paper (can you tell it's going to be Bella's?).  Cut the circle out and glued inside the bottle cap.  Bella put a little jewel on the paper.  I pounded a nail into the  cap (for the jump ring) and we added our Modge Podge Dimensional Magic (MPDM).  We waited the 24 hours and decided we wanted it to be a little thicker so we added another coat of the MPDM. 

it's still in the drying stage

Bella is happy and can't wait to wear it

 

Keep saving those bottle caps! 
I'm eyeing that tray covered with bottle caps.  Maybe next time!

Bus Accident

Not exactly the words you want to receive in an email from your child's school, especially when your child takes the bus. (this was not my child's bus)  Luckily all of the children and bus driver were okay and were safely transported to school. 

Of course, then I searched "bus accident" and realized that there are quite a few accidents that happen.  Everywhere.  Every day.

Remember to keep bus drivers in your prayers and make sure you drive safely.

And give your children a big hug today when they come home from school.

Walking

Had my Ipod with me this morning on my walk and was thinking about how you walk when you listen to different kinds of music.  Some music makes you walk a little faster.  Some music makes you slow down (and maybe think about the lyrics).  Some music makes you want to dance your way down the path.  Some music makes you want to take up boxing (think Theme to "Rocky"). 

For your visual today, I was listening to "Girls on Film" by Duran Duran.

Go ahead.  Laugh.  It's okay.

Teacher Appreciation Gift - M & M Jar

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week for our school.

There are a lot of cute idea's for teacher gifts all over the internet.  I found this idea here for a gift for Bella's teacher.  It's pretty simple and can be used for a coach or a friend (just change the wording on the poem).  I thought this was a cute gift idea and it can also be done for under $5.  Sweet!

Here's what we did:

Clear glass jar (on hand or you can purchase one at the Dollar store or reuse a glass jar on hand)*
Pretty paper or fabric
ribbon or twine
poem
M & M's

*if you are reusing a glass jar that you have on hand, make sure it has been thoroughly cleaned out, and that there are no labels on the jar.  If there are words on the lid you can be creative and decorate the lid with paper or material.

Okay.  Make sure you pay attention.  Lots of steps in making this gift.

Take your glass jar (whew!  I'm sweating already!) and fill with M & M's.  Hey!  No eating the M & M's!

Trace lid onto paper (or material) and cut out.  Glue paper/material onto lid.  Put lid onto jar.

Print out poem.  Cut down to size and glue onto a pretty piece of paper.

Punch a hole in the corner.  Use your ribbon or twine and lace through the paper and wrap around the jar lid.  Pretty bow and you are done.

Wow.  Didn't think I was going to make it through that tutorial.

**Here is the poem that I used (I changed a word or two):

Green is for the inspiration you give me each day.

Blue is for your patience in showing me the way.

Orange is for your warmth and caring style.

Yellow is for the way you always make me smile.

Red is for my life that you have touched this year.

You’re a very special teacher just like this jar, that’s clear.

You place knowledge in our children’s hands

and melt into their hearts and lives forever.

You’re a “Magnificent” & “Marvelous” teacher

Thank you for being my M&M.

I think it turned out pretty good.  What do you think?

I'm off to make some cookies.  I have to keep the kids away from the M & M's.  The only way to keep them away is to distract them with another sweet treat.


***Looking for other ideas for Teacher Appreciation gifts?  Check these out:

 Thank you for making me a Sharpie
Thank you for making me a Big Smartie
Thank you for your Commit "mint"

Shampoo - No Poo, Modified Poo, Home made Poo

Another Poo post.

After my last post on whether to Poo or not to Poo I thought I should get a haircut.  It's been almost 6 months. 

The one thing I worried about was the shampoo part of the haircut.  The salon I go to washes your hair first, then cuts it.  One time using regular shampoo isn't going to kill me, is it?  I hope not! 

My hair was in pretty good shape before I went and I know that it will take about a week to get my hair back to normal (looking good and not super dry or super oily). 

Normally the stylist puts in some oil before she styles it. 

Remove the oil with the shampoo then put oil back in with a different product.  Doesn't make sense to me either.

This time she did not put oil into my hair.  I was a little disappointed that I didn't get the oil treatment. 

 

My hair is a little dry, but, I'm happy with my hair cut.