How To Beat The Heat Indoors

It's Georgia in July and this heat is killin me y'all.

I hope you all laughed at that, I never EVER say y'all. It feels funny coming out of my mouth but I had to give it a try, ha! 

On to business. Today I had all 3 littles home since MD's daddy has been bringing her little brother to preschool early in the mornings and he was up late last night. He was just too wore out this morning and his meltdowns were just far too strong to get him out the door. 

In order to keep the peace when we're all home we have to stay busy! So that is just what we did; we finished up our breakfast, brushed our teeth and got dressed then headed to our kitchen table/art studio to paint a few masterpieces. 

I love to keep kid craft supplies in our home as it's something nearly every child loves and the cutting, folding, glueing and more are all great tools to focus on MD's little brother sensory issues and to improve his fine motor skills. 

Simple painting, painting with shaving cream, painting inside gallon sized ziplock baggies(NO MESS!) there are so many ways to entertain the kids when we are stuck indoors. Sometimes we forget to keep it simple and let them enjoy the little things like painting their palms and turning handprints into jellyfish or butterflies! What crafts do your littles enjoy most? 

I hope you all are enjoying the last stretch of summer. Our house only has 2 weeks until back to school!! 

Much Love

XOXO

Race Day Deals

Are you big into races? Are you looking for something fun to do with the whole family? DO YOU LIKE DEALS?  Then Keep Reading!!!!

I'm so excited to have a new coupon code to share for The Color Run race that is coming to Augusta, GA on Oct. 3!

The Color Run is a great Race to do competitively, for fun with the whole family or a great girls day! MD loves doing 5k's and especially loves The Color Run! I can't wait to take pictures at this years race! We hope to see you there!!!

Not in the Augusta area? Don't worry you can still use the link below! Just find your city and sign up! Hurry before prices rise again!

Baby Diva Birthday

I cannot believe in just one months time my Baby Diva will be 1! How does this happen? Sneaking up on me so quickly, it hurts! I think so much so because she is my last baby...

Now, I am no photographer but I did have to take a photography class for my graphics major. It was fun and now I take my own photos of the littles to save on extra expenses.

While at target I found this cute burlap banner for $3 in the Bins when you walk in. I applied her name with white stickers I found in the school supply section. The background, a $3 tube of wrapping paper.

Of course the images are at home images and not prize worthy but they are adorable and will be perfect for her 1st birthday announcement/invites! :)

A great resource I've found to be an amazing benefit for editing is TheCoffeShopBlog.com

Here is one of my images of BD using SoftVelvetMatte

This one I used Baby Powder Room

And Lastly, This one I applied Perfect Portrait 3 Express 

Divalicious: Fruit Pizza

Hey Sweets! Guess What, I'm going to share a little secret with you all...

 MD is my little Mini Chef. She LOVES to help out in the kitchen any chance she gets and one of our favorite things to make together(and eat together, ha) is our fruit pizza! We love the the way it looks almost as much as we love the way it tastes!

We mix it up a bit depending on what we're making them for and how much time we have. These mini fruit pizzas took a little more time than our "original" recipe.

First we used pillsbury's sugar cookie dough and lined the inside of muffin tins. Remember when doing this that a little goes a LONG way!

While those were baking we warmed a pack of cream cheese in the microwave for about 65 seconds just to soften. We then mix a splash of vanilla extract and 1/4 cup sugar. You can play with this to your liking and fair warning I never truly measuring when baking or cooking, ha!

About the time you finish mixing the cookie crust, in this case cups, should be ready to pull out of the oven. While those are cooling cut up your fruits! For our Red, White, and Blue we just use blueberries and strawberries but we typically also use banana and kiwi, too. You DO NOT want to make too far in advance as the banana bits will brown and just look nasty. Cover and refrigerate until you are ready to serve :)

Unfortunately, this tasty treat doesn't hold well so you will have to make sure it's eaten within the day. Oh darn, right!

FRIENDLY REMINDER!!!  Don't forget to sign up for The Color Run! The $5 discount ENDS JULY 16!!!!




Much Love,
Heather

You'll never regret trying

I love to keep MD and her siblings active in many different ways. Today, MD was able to participate in our local NFL Punt, Pass, Kick  event. It was a fun event for her and her dad to bond over and something new for her to try! 

She was very nervous about it. She is very athletic and naturally just kind of good at everything. This is not the case with football, ha. Which is totally ok with us...it just wasn't for her. She was getting way too self conscious! 

She was also the first participant of the event and the only girl in her age bracket. She had fun after she shook her nerves a bit and the men volunteering did a great job of encouraging her. She was thrilled to receive her 1st place ribbon after her age group finished. We don't feel the need to tell her she won by default, ha! Just that she did great and it was a fun day for the whole fam! If you get the opportunity I definitely encourage you to have your child participate in the NFLPPK! 

Racing with a Diva

Our family was lucky enough to travel with my husband for his AIT in Pensacola, Florida. We were going to be moving from Minnesota to Florida, THE BEACH BABY! This was our first move with the Army. Our first experience with the Army. Our first look into what our life with the Army might be like. I had it all planned out. I was ready and very excited….

But it was our first Army experience. Nothing went according to plan. Everything that could go ‘wrong’ did. Many unexpected twists and turns were thrown at us. We were selling our home and planning ahead we had gotten a POA and the bank was not a fan of said POA, when hubby mailed a new POA the bank didn’t like the notaries stamp(I mean seriously), I wasn’t able to take the job my boss had worked very hard at helping me land, My husbands truck blew up and we had to leave it in MN to be repaired, we couldn’t get a house on the base my husband had training on and a lot of other trivial stuff that made my life hurt. 

But we made it there with the help of our friends loading us up and my mom driving across the country with us! It took us 3 whole days but we did it! As soon as my mom left I felt so alone. 

Then I did what any normal person would do. I tried making all sorts of local friends on Facebook, ha! They had ALL the answers! THEN I made VERY smart decision to participate in the color run with one of these said Facebook friends/complete strangers and drive over an hour with her to the run. 

It was an absolute blast and I love Ashley and her little peanut! The color run was an amazing experience that I will forever cherish. It brought back my high spirits and encouraged me to get out there and try new things more often. My MD was only 4 at the time and rocked it out during the race! She was so excited every time we’d get color thrown at us! All the volunteers were great and would be extremely gentle when throwing the color bags on the little ones and MD would scream MORE at them, ha! Then the after race dance party….That was the highlight for her! 

We were unable to do the color run last year since I had just had baby diva via csection but oh my gosh am I pumped for this years race! I plan on taking a million and one photos and dragging all my friends with! Who would have thought running was fun ;)

I highly encourage you to try and sign up for a local race!  Use our link for The Color Run and get $5 off registration!!! Good Luck Everyone! Share your color run photos and stories with us! 

4th Wind Down

What a crazy busy weekend the 4th had in store for us!


I am so glad we went to the Celebration on post with our friends. I really considered staying home since MD's little brother's anxiety can get the best of him at events like this. We went, They whined throughout the Soldier Show, MD fell asleep for the fireworks and I still had a blast. MD slept in the stroller and I wore Baby Diva in our Tula.

If you have an infant and you don't have a Tula you need one, ha! I have never baby wore before we had baby diva and I'm certainly not one that is all "OH THE CONNECTION YOU WILL HAVE" I simply do it because it makes my life 125% easier! I can hold my baby with no hands! GENIUS. Plus, she really does love it. If she's crabby and fighting sleep I have a solution! On rare occasion we've even used it with MD's 3 year old brother. Like after the fireworks. It was WAY past bedtime, there were hundreds of people and he was not in the best of moods. His daddy wore him on his back and we were able to walk much faster back to the car :)


Look at all these Tula's!


We went to the local communities celebration on the actual 4th after a BBQ with some of my
husbands coworkers. I'm always apprehensive of get togethers with his coworkers. There are all types out there ya know, ha! But we had a good time and it was nice to meet some of the people we hear about. The firework show in the community was actually not as great as the one on post but it was another fun outing with friends that we enjoyed.

My friends sweet baby in a StarStruck Tula

Happy 4th, Divas!

Our family is looking forward to a great rest of the week! We've got the post Independence Day celebration on the 2nd as well as my husband and I's Anniversary, of course the 4th and then we have our friends we made while my husband was in training visiting the 5th!

The girls and I had a free afternoon and decided to do a few quick photos for their dad! I can't wait to get MD's little brother home to try and get a matching one of him, too!

 

Diva Delivery-Again

Hey All,

So our package from SammyDress came last week and we were missing our adorable headband. I didn't even have the chance to call before it arrived just a couple days later.

This cute little crown headband could definitely be worn dressed up or with a casual outfit. We paired it with our SammyDress top to get the full effect of our purchase and I love how they look together.

I'm definitely a big fan of the items we were able to get from SammyDress and will be purchasing more in the future!

Don't forget to use code RAMD at check out to receive 10% off your SammyDress Purchase!