Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Crazy Hair

I Love CRAZY hair day!!

As many of you know I love to do my girls hair.  Well when crazy hair day comes around it brings a smile to my face, hopefully to my girlies too.

My oldest came up with our hairdo this time! What do you think?

Warning: Crazy hair = crazy faces…love it!

 

Daughter #1

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Daughter #2

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With a friend before school, so cute!

It was a little bright outside for our cuties eyes, sorry girls.DSC05895

 

Here are the pictures from the last crazy hair day, which was last fall.  Not quite as crazy, but fun!!

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Ash Rae

Rosette Frame-tutorial

 

I am prone to starting projects, but I never get to the finish line with them, pretty much all of them.  Well this time I was determined to finish.

Lets just say that I have a three month old baby, and no pictures of my beautiful girl anywhere.  Here is what I did to fix that little problem….

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Cute right? It was a little time consuming but worth it to me.  Here is how to make your own.

 

Supplies needed:

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  • Any frame you want to transform (mine is an unfinished one from the craft store)
  • Glue gun
  • Scissors
  • Sheets of felt (I used five on this frame. frame dimensions are about the size of a sheet of paper and the hole for the picture is a 4X6)

The felt is not expensive so make sure you buy enough of the color you need so you don’t have to make a dang fun trip back to the store for one more…..not that I had to do that or anything…lol.

 

Tip:  paint the edges of the frame, or cover them in the same color as the felt…do that also to the front of the frame edges.  you will see that I had to piece mine together.  I was too excited to get the rosettes on that I really didn’t think about the edges.  I learned and will do that first next time.

After prepping your frame cut out the strips for the rosettes

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I folded the piece of felt in half, then half again. (like a Hamburger not a Hot dog.  That is how my elementary teacher would have explained it.)

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Starting at one end start cutting a wavy strip off the end.  One side of the strip will be wavy and the other straight.

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Next cut a straight line, it will then look like the first strip.  continue cutting the strips off the end till you have used up the whole piece of felt.  After you have cut up all the felt we will start making the rosettes.

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Roll up the wavy strips of felt as shown above.  This is the part that seems to take forever.  The great part about using felt is that it sticks to itself and your rosette will stayed rolled up, you can just set it aside or start putting them on your frame. see…..

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The best part is gluing the rosettes on, I love seeing it come together.  And here is the final product.  I embellished it with a scrapbook flower to give it a little color.

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I love the texture the rosettes give to the frame, doesn’t it just look precious for my sweetie?  It is super easy, you should make one for yourself.  If you do I would love to see your take on it.  Have a wonderful day.

Ash Rae

Friday, March 11, 2011

ZarBee’s Cough Syrup Review

Children’s cough syrup

We all want to be able to help our children when they are sick and coughing, but we can’t give them anything for their cough, now that we know that the over the counter cough syrups can harm them….or can we?

I was able to attend a great event last week and learn about a new cough syrup.  We have all heard that we are not supposed to give our kids cough medicine anymore because it is harmful.  I personally said “yeah right” no cough syrup, how would my girls ever relax and get some rest, which I totally believe helps them get well sooner.  Well I believe rest and “green Koolaid” make everything better, But that story is for another day.

Although I was bugged that I couldn’t give my girls cough syrup to help them feel better, I also didn’t want to hurt them either.  Dr. Zak Zarbock a local pediatrician(father of four) and founder of Honey Naturals, the maker of ZarBee’s found a solution to the coughing woes.  ZarBee’s is a natural cough syrup made with a blend of buckwheat and wildflower honeys which have been clinically shown to reduce symptoms associated with colds and flu more effectively than dextromethorphan.  In other words Honey pretty much rocks!  The cough medicine also has vitamin C and zinc in it.
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I actually tasted all three flavors of the cough syrup too, I was a little hesitant, but nicely surprised.  Usually I can’t stand the aftertaste of cough syrups but these didn’t have that yucky aftertaste at all, it faded quickly. 
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You are wondering what flavors they have aren’t you?  It comes in cherry(pretty good), grape(my fave and my recomendation), and lemon(not my fave).  They all tasted like medicine still because, well it is medicine, but they are not bad, not bad at all.  It was totally safe for all of us at the event to taste test since it is natural ingredients.
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I would not hesitate to give it to my kids at all, it is safe and effective.  Luckily with a new baby in the house I have not had any sick kids for a long time(knock on wood for me will ya?) so I have not had the opportunity to use it. Oh darn.

I told my 3 sisters about Zarbee’s because they all have little ones, and most of them have been sick recently too, sad.  Well one of my sisters had already purchased some.  She bought the lemon one and said her kids did not like it, well I didn’t really like lemon either.  on the plus side though she said it worked, but you better believe I am sending some grape to her house for her kiddos to try.  I received samples from the company while there. 

Cool thing….Zarbee’s has to-go packets which can be purchased online.  If I have a sick kid and we are out and about I can reach into my purse rip open the little packet and give it to my sicky.  Awesome, I know!  Zarbee’s also has a nighttime product called Natraflu to help with the cough and to get some sleep.  That is wonderful news for us parents, so we can get some rest too.  In my house a rested mommy is a happy mommy.

  Natraflu is recommended for children 2 years+ that includes us adults too.
  The children’s cough syrup is for children 12 months+.

Dye free and preservative free is a bonus too.  Zarbee’s also has a nurse on hand to answer any of you mommy questions anytime of day at her twitter account @ZarBeesnurse.

You can purchase Zarbee’s online, at Walgreens, Associated Foods Stores, and many other locations.  Click here to see where you can purchase some for your family.

Zarbee's is also doing a free bottle swap giving parents the opportunity to swap their old medication for a free bottle of ZarBee's.  Go to http://www.zarbees.com/ for more details.

Here’s to happy kids and even happier mommy’s!

Ash Rae

Disclosure: I was given samples from this company, but it in no way influenced my opinion of the product.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Garage cubby

I have always wanted some cubbies so my kiddos could have a place to put their snow clothes and boots after they are done playing.  My garage steps usually look like this….only a little more soggy, ugh.
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So, what did I do about it, being 9 months pregnant at the time?  I enlisted the Hubby and my pops to build me some cubbies.  I know that people usually do these in a mud room, but this house has no room for one of those.  After climbing over this soggy mess that I would slightly kick to the side to walk up the stairs (Hey, I’m not picking it up, I can hardly put my socks and shoes on at this point) I talked hubby into building them in the garage.  He agreed and I was so HAPPY!!  After getting everything they needed they got busy, yay!  I don’t have any pics of supplies or construction, but I just had to show these babies off.  They are about ten feet tall, and totally awesome.
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Now fast forward two months to get to painting, it only took me that long to feel like I could do other things than just kids and baby.  Oh wait I had the Hubby paint for me too, thanks babe!
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Next we added some awesome Vinyl letters that I cut with my Silhouette for each of our girls names, all FOUR of our girls. I know I know poor dad, no boys.  He secretly loves it!  (note to self…don’t try to hurry and fill in the screw holes with caulk, use spackle, the paint didn’t turn out very pretty in those spots. Oh well I still LOVE it!) 
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I totally used a level to make sure my letters were straight, that's just me.  They turned out great.  Here is the final product, I was beyond excited to get them to this point.
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Snow clothes, boots, gloves, hats out of the way = big smile on my face, extremely big.  Check it….
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Extra bonus… the coolers and helmets found a great home too.
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These are beauties aren’t they?  So glad I have one section of my household organized, oh happy day!!

Ash