Reusing a Cardboard Box

Just this past year my daughter has gotten very involved with playing with her Barbies. She use to just undress them. I don't know what phase that was but no Barbie could have clothes on, in our house. Has any of your toddlers went thru that stage? Please don't tell me my child is the only child that went thru that phase? We finally now like Barbie clothes. She sometimes has a hard time placing the clothes on them and needs help, but that gives Mommy a chance to get to play with the Barbies too. So for Christmas and her Birthday she asked for Barbie clothes. I am shocked at the price of how much one outfit for Barbie or Ken costs. With collecting all of these new clothes, I was finding toy clothes everywhere. I had enough one day and said I am going to put them in a box. Then I had an idea to hide the ugly box.

Items you will need:
Any size box
Yarn
Hot glue gun
Scissors


Here is the items I used. The only things not pictured is the brown, cream and red yarn.

To start out I placed hot glue on the very bottom edge of the box. Then I laid the yard down on it. I did one side at a time, so my glue would not dry on me.


Once you get about two rows of gluing you can just start wrapping the yard around the box . When you come to the end of the color glue that last piece. I would do one solid line of glue. Then start your next color. As you can see I used the pattern blue, cream, brown, cream and blue.
At the end glue the last two rows.
We could just not have a plain colorful box, now could we? So I used some red yarn to added some lettering to it. The letters were so easy. I placed some glue at the top, middle and bottom of the cut pieces of yarn and shaped the letters.

My daughter loves her Barbie clothes box and has asked me to make a bigger box for more clothes and accessories.

I have linked this tho the following blog parties

http://linda-coastalcharm.blogspot.com/2013/04/nifty-thrifty-tuesday-no158.html

Fear Not

Sometimes the road we travel can get very bumpy or it feels like we have been in a valley for a very long time. Our father tells us in Isaiah 41:10 to:

Fear thou not; For I am with thee be not dismayed; for I am they God: I will stregthen thee; yea, I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

I need all the strength that God can give me right now. I also need to learn that I have to give my fears and worries to God. I need to realize that God has everything under control. I might not agree with what God has planned, but I must trust him and obey him.

I hope if you are going thru something that your reach out to the Lord and confined in him. He will never let you down. We serve an Awesome God.

Squeezing every last drop out.

Do you squeeze every last drop out of your lotion bottle or any bottle? Call me cheap, but I try my best to use every drop of lotion that's in the bottle. $12.50 is a lot of money to spend on one bottle of lotion from Bath and Body Works. When the bottle starts getting empty and there is more air than lotion in bottle it is not time to throw it in the trash. There is still a good amount of lotion inside that bottle. Consumer Reports did a special on this and they said that lotion bottles leave about 1/5 of their contents behind in the bottle. 1/5 can last several days. Throwing a bottle away with 1/5 lotion in it, is like throwing money away.
So how do we master the art of achieving that last drop of lotion or any other product we use? Some people set the bottle upside down. Some people try to roll the tube up.The only way that I have found that you can actually use up all that lotion in the bottle is let it stand upside down for a day or two then cutting the bottle in half.
How do you use up all of your lotion? Do you do this with other items?






Shabby Apple

Have you ever heard of the Shabby Apple Store? I just found this store the other day while looking for dresses for Easter online. This store has everything to women's clothes to little girls clothes. There was several bathing suites that I saw that I wanted to buy for this swim season. One thing I like about this website is that it shows you which bathing suit looks better on which figure. You really need to check this site out. Click on the link below.
Dresses from Shabby Apple

Knock off Qdoba Queso

I love eating at Qdoba. Their Queso is the best around. The secret to their queso is the 3 different cheeses that is add. Before you start thinking this is going to be pricy to make, it is not really. I have a small crock pot and it fills it ups to almost the top. I have to say that this might actually taste a slight better than Qdoba...LOL



Ingredients that you will need:
2 roasted Poblano Peppers
1 cup Cheddar Cheese shredded
1 cup of American Cheese ( I use cheese slices)
1 cup of shredded Monterrey jack cheese
8 oz tomatoes diced tomatoes ( Rol- tel can is the best)
1 cup of heavy cream
1 tbsp of garlic powder

optional
1 small red pepper

Place all the cheeses in a small crock pot. Chop up the poblano peppers really good and thin and place in the crock pot.  Drain the tomatoes and place the entire can of tomatoes in the crock pot.  Stir in 1 tbsp of garlic powder in the mix. Pour the1 cup of the heavy cream in the cheese dip and stir around. Don't throw away whats left of the heavy cream, you might need this later to thin the cheese if it is to thick. Let the dip cook on low for about 2 hours. You can stir it and do taste tests through out the 2 hours, it will not effect the cooking of it. When the cheese is almost done, check to see if the mixture is thick. If it is thick just pour some more heavy cream in it.
It is optional to chop up a small red pepper in the dip, to give it more of a spice.

I hope you enjoy this just as much as my family does. Please let me know your thoughts and your suggestions. I love comments and I try to answer back to every single one of them.

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Basketball

Since the fall I have been coaching basketball at the YMCA. This was my first time on the other side of the line. Being a coach is so much different than being a player. I played basketball growing up as a child and all the way thru High School. After I got out of school, I did not pick up a basketball for years, until it came time for my daughter to play. The only way I could get my daughter to play was for me to coach. I wanted to coach her anyways. I wanted to be part of teaching her the correct fundamentals. When I stepped onto the floor for our first practice and held the basketball in my hands, I felt that sensation of I am home. I realized I really missed playing the sport.
Last night was our last game for the winter league. I am amazed at how much my team grew thru this season. I was impressed after every game. It was just not one player who would impress me, it was all of them. At the beginning of the season I had one player who was so tall that needed to start learning the correct form of how to shoot the basketball, then I had little ones who were struggling just to hit the rim shooting the ball. Oh did I mention I coached  coed 4-5 year olds? By the end of the last game. Everyone on my team had hit a basket. The one child I was working with on form actually shot the correct way and hit it. I felt a big achievement watching them play their last game.
Coaching a ball team is so much work. You not only have to prove yourself to your team that you know the game, you have to prove yourself to the parents too. I learned you not going to please every parent. Parents are going to be critical no matter who coach's their child.  I tried my best to be fair to all the players. I will admit I had to be a little bit rougher on my child. Because I did not want someone to say I had favoritism going on. I even went as far as routing my players. If they started the game the next game they would sit out the first quarter.
I hope I was able to instill a few basic fundamentals to all of my players and hope I helped them find love for the sport. On the the last night I had the bakery make something very special for each team member. I wanted to make basketball cake pops, but my cake pop machine was not working correctly, so I paid the bakery prices for sugar cookies. I called and got quotes and I found the cheapest price was at the Kroger Bakery. I was shocked they actually took the order. The price $4.99 for a dozen of basketball shaped sugar cookies.

Don't that cookie look so good to eat? If you ever get the chance to coach a team. I would totally recommend it.

Have you ever coached a team? I would love to hear how your experience went with it.

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