Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts

Monday, November 20, 2023

Our First Friendsgiving

If you've been around here for a while you know, we have moved a lot and had to start over a lot.  

We have spent a lot of time making friends and connections in 5 different cities.

We are coming up on our 2 year anniversary in Southern Indiana and you can imagine the excitement I felt when I received an invitation for a neighborhood Friendsgiving this year!!  I may have gotten teary eyed.  This is a totally new circle of friends from all over that enjoy hanging out together in our neighborhood.  We've all got kids, some go to the same church, some go to the same school and they all have interesting jobs and interesting stories.

Friendsgiving 2023: Look at that delicious plate!

I've worked SO HARD for the past couple of years to make friends at school, at church, in our neighborhood and in our community.  I have said YES to a lot of things in the hopes of making new friends and things are finally clicking.  I had to do a lot of inviting and a lot of reaching out to people, but I'm making friends and I'm thrilled about it.

Being new means you are always learning new names and trying to find ways to connect your family to other families.  I've connected with a lot of you over the years about moving often so I hope you feel seen and encouraged today.

If you are like me, and find yourself relocating often with jobs or school, I want to be an encouraging friend to you.  The effort to make friends and connect with people is always worth the effort.  Hang out at the library.  Join a small group or two.  Find a Bible study.  Find a church home.  Be outside and talk to your neighbors and reach out to school friends for your kids.  Be the inviter.  Be the host.  And then one day people will start reciprocating and they will invite you and include you.


My friend set the prettiest tables, made take home pumpkin place cards and included my favorite candy.  The place cards were simple and sweet and have made me smile so much every time I see the pumpkin.  Thankful for you - that's the nicest sentiment this time of year! 


We each picked sides to bring and they did the turkey and drinks.  We chatted about the sides on the Facebook invitation to make sure we had a good variety.  I brought sweet potato casserole and a plate of cookies.  You know me - invite me and I'll bring cookies!  One guy said - I don't know why you'd go back to teaching, when you can bake like this!?  That made me feel good :)  Plus my cookie plate was empty at the end of the night.



The uninterrupted conversation was so fun.

The meal was amazing.

We met a few new friends.

Made new connections.

We all had a great kid free evening and can't wait to do it again soon!


I'm proud of us!!  And super thankful to my parents for hanging out with the kids this night.


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Friday, May 24, 2019

DIY Flower Crowns for Under $1

Have you ever made a flower crown??

I've always admired them, but had never figured out how to make them for a crowd.

Olive requested that her friends get to make flower crowns at her birthday party and I got busy doing some research.  I quickly realize that real flowers were out (too fragile), we needed a version of this craft that would be fairly quick for little ones, I needed them to be really affordable and I probably needed to call in back up to assemble the flower crowns.  Made a quick phone call to my mom and my party helper was booked!

One afternoon Olive and I headed to Dollar Tree to scope out the silk flower options.  There were tons!  No surprise that she gravitated towards her favorite colors - pinks, blues and purples.  We picked out all the flowers that looked like they'd be easy to glue onto a headband and planned for each child to have 4-6 flowers on their crown.


Supplies for each flower crown:
4-6 silk flowers
1 headband
2 pieces of greenery
hot glue and hot glue gun
paper plate

All these supplies add up to less than $1 for each flower crown!!
Budget friendly flower crown success!

We decided on this pretty bouquet of flowers from Dollar Tree!  We grabbed two bunches of every kind of flower which left us with a good assortment.

We also grabbed these 6 packs of headbands.  They worked great!

We pulled all the flowers off the stems.  I originally thought we'd have to cut them, but they pulled right off perfectly.  We sorted them into bowls of pink, blues and greens.

We left the flowers like this so we'd have a little stem to stick down in the hot glue.


We put together a sample to show the girls.  They were all so excited about making them!

They sat in a circle and grabbed the supplies they needed.  Each child got a paper plate with their name on it to build their flower crown.  I told them they needed to build it like a rainbow with greenery on each end.  They lined up the flowers just like they wanted them and that allowed my mom to glue them together at her own pace while we moved on to gardening/building our Gnome Homes.


I let the girls pick out their headband color and then we left them to blue glued.  Each flower and greenery got a generous dot of hot glue.  My mom held them in place for a couple seconds and made sure each flower was facing the right direction.

She let them cool and a few had to be popped off the plates.  I love how different each flower crown looked.  The girls were so proud of them.  Here's a close up of how the flowers were positioned on the headbands.



Such sweet girls!  Some girls wore them up higher like a headband and others tilted them more for a flower crown.  They all looked beautiful and were thrilled with their creations!!



Birthday party success!!


It's time to link up with my favorite blogging buddies for High Five for Friday.  Join us with a few different blog posts and be sure to look around to find some new blog friends

Becky @  By BMG Blog
Della @ Della Devoted
Tif @ Bright on a Budget
Whitney P @ Come Home for Comfort


This link party is powered by Link Party Animal


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Friday, February 1, 2019

8 Ways to Serve with Your Family: Blessing Bags

I'm always on the hunt for ways to serve with my family.

It can be tricky to serve others when you feel like life is super busy with little kids.  We do our best to make it a priority and are always glad we took the time, resources and efforts to fill a need.  It's taken me some time to figure out ways to serve that are doable for my family as not all serving opportunities are conducive for little ones.

 This is our current list of serving opportunities that work for our family:

1. Delivering meals to new moms
2. Delivering cookies, flowers and baked goods to sick/elderly neighbors
3. Donating kid clothes to needy families or foster families in our city
4. Collecting cans of food to fill the shelves of a local food pantry
5. Kids doing extra chores at home for mission trip fundraisers at church
6. Blessing Bags
7. Donating household items to local shelters or needy families
8. Praying for specific needs/people in our community

Several of these opportunities have come through our church.  I've joined care teams and church Facebook groups that are quick to post about needs in our community.  Usually I'll get a text or a message about a need and then anyone that can help take care of that need replies.  It is not something we do every week - just as the need arises.  Recently we got a text about a young mom needing everything to set up a house or a new mom on my side of town that could be blessed by a home cooked meal.  It's been such a fun way for our family to serve.

Blessing Bags Details:
In January, I got together with a group of friends to make Blessing Bags.  We each signed up to bring a couple items and then we assembled the bags all together.  The big kids helped assemble bags while the little kids played.  It went really quick and everyone went home with ten bags to share with our community.

We included all of the following items in a gallon ziploc bag:
socks, deodorant,  hand warmers, beef jerky, granola bar, hand sanitizer wipes, pouch of apple sauce, peanut butter crackers, comb, chapstick, tooth paste, tooth brush and gum.  Some packs included feminine hygiene products, too.

The idea was that we could hand them out if we saw someone in need.  Some gave them out to homeless people around our city, some gave them to people asking for donations on the side of the road and others delivered their bags to shelters in our city.


Donations:
I logged onto Facebook one morning when the temps were in the negatives.  A mom friend was quickly organizing a blanket, coat, warm clothing drive to fill a need at a local shelter.  Several moms took action, got busy collecting and got everything ready for pick up.

My kids noticed I was busy gathering items and asked what I was doing.  I used it as an opportunity to share with them that there were people who were really struggling in the extreme cold and they needed our help.  I showed the kids the items I'd collected.  They understood that we were filling a need with the extra things around our house.

Without even asking the kids to contribute, Olive went off and found this pair of purple mittens.  She said they had gotten to small for her and she was happy to pass them on to another kid.  Then she reminded me that I had a lot of scarves and I could probably donate a few of them (#convicting).  So I found several scarves to part with and we filled our donation bags.  It was such a fun thing to do for others when we stuck at home in the cold.  I'm thankful for friends who come up with these ideas and just happy to be able to participate in a small way.

Do you have any ways that work for your family to serve at this stage of your life?  I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

In case you missed it on Polka-Dotty Place this week:







Monday: Healthy Egg Muffins
Tuesday: Walmart Wardrobe
Wednesday: School Lunch Ideas & Yumbox Love


It's time to link up with my favorite blogging buddies for High Five for Friday.  Join us with up to 3 different blog posts and be sure to look around to find some new blog friends.

Becky @  By BMG Blog
Della @ Della Devoted
Tif @ Bright on a Budget
Whitney P @ Come Home for Comfort


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Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Crowd Pleasing Recipes for a Cookout

We are trying to pack all of the fun things into our last month of summer.  We're inviting friends over for dinner, saying yes to cookout invitations, going to the park, the pool and enjoying the last hurrah of Summer.

I wanted to round up my 5 favorite recipes to bring to a cookout for you today.

These are tried and true, delicious recipes that are always crowd pleasers.

I hope you find at least one new one to try for your family and friends.

STRAWBERRY PIE
My MIL taught Kevin and I how to make Strawberry pie together for one of our date nights in high school.  I remember it like yesterday and loved learning something new together.  Kevin always said his mom made the best pies and I was eager to learn.  She made homemade crusts and I always attribute my crust making skills to her.  This pie is always a hit and it really just seems like the perfect summer pie.

Pie filling:
1 c sugar
1 c water
3 T corn starch
1 small box of strawberry jello
1 large container of strawberries washed and cut

Combine first three ingredients in a pot on the stove.  Stir until well combine and the mixture is THICK.  Stir continuously until the mixture is pretty clear.  Add jello.  Let it cool and then stir in the strawberries until they are all coated.  Pour into a baked pie crust.

9 in crust:
1 1/4 c flour
1/4 c wheat flour
1/2 t salt
1/2 c shortening
3-5 T ice cold water

Combine all the dry ingredients (except the wheat flour) with a pastry cutter.  Add in the water a tablespoon at a time.  Refrigerate until you're ready to roll out the dough or just long enough to chill it.  Roll out with the wheat flour and put into a greased pie pan.  Bake at 450 for 10-12 minutes.  Let it cool and then dump in the strawberry pie filling.

Top with whipped cream!


POTATO SALAD

 I'm not usually a huge potato salad fan, but my husband loves the stuff.  So I spent a couple of years figuring out my own recipe.  It's really good and has been our favorite for years.  People often ask me for the recipe and it goes perfectly with anything on the grill.

6-8 potatoes washed and cut up into bite sized pieces (Russet, Yukon Gold, etc)
6 eggs
salt

Boil the potatoes and eggs together until the potatoes are soft in salted water.

1 sweet pepper finely diced
3 green onions chopped
1/4 c real bacon bits
1 c Mayo
1/4 c Mustard
1 T sugar
1 T Montreal Steak Seasoning

Peel and chop the hard boiled eggs once they've cooled.  Combine the mayo, mustard until you get the color you like.  We prefer a yellow/mustardy potato salad.  Add in the sugar and Montreal Steak Seasoning last.  Pour mixture over the rest of the ingredients and stir until well combined.  Refrigerate.  Serves 8-10 people.

HOMEMADE BURGER PATTIES

My favorite way to make burgers is to make homemade patties.  I season them with the following things:
seasoned salt
Montreal steak seasoning or Freddy's Steakburger Seasoning
Worcestershire sauce

Grill & top with Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese

 FRESH AVOCADO SALSA
This salsa is so easy to whip up and it's so flavorful!  Everyone always enjoys it.  Isn't it a pretty side dish!?!?  You can find the recipe HERE



PIZZA POPPERS
We love to take these to gatherings!  They are bite sized, easy to make and so good.  I've also made these as an appetizer for game days.  You can find the recipe HERE



It's time to link up with my favorite Tuesday Talk ladies!
Join us with a current post and look around for some new friends.



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Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Giving the Gift of Food

It's the perfect time of year to deliver meals to families, share baked goods with your neighbors and friends.  I love baking so that's an easy one for me to do.  I have a friend who recently had a baby and I dropped of a meal to her.  I tried to make things really easy for them and for me.

I fixed a double meal so that we'd have dinner and then I'd have a dinner to give away.  Everything was the same for both meals so the prep was easy.  I gave the meal in disposable containers with labels on them and they were a big hit.  I found my containers are Meijer for under $3 and I loved that they came with lids.

Snicker Doodles with Christmas sprinkles
 Shredded Chicken Tacos with all the toppings
(lettuce, black beans, black olives, green onions, salsa and sour cream)

I included enough for them to have leftovers.
Packaged all the toppings separate so they could personalize them for the adults and for the kids.
Included directions and a note.
It was easy to drop off and they really enjoyed it.


Here are some other recipes that would be great gifts or meals to deliver:

Indoor S'Mores

 Dark Chocolate Bites


Asian Chicken Pasta Salad


Ham & Cheese Pinwheels



What's your go to meal to deliver 
or food to give as gifts?


It's time to link up with my favorite Tuesday Talk Ladies.
Be sure to join us with your favorite post of the week.

Polka-Dotty Place

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Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Sprinkled with Love

It was so fun to celebrate baby Fletcher's upcoming arrival with some of our favorite family and friends.  We had a great turn out and it was so special to celebrate this milestone with people who were at our wedding almost 12 years ago and all of our big milestones since then.  I realize this may not be the most exciting post for anyone outside of my family to read, but I'm thankful for all these sweet ladies and wanted to document the day :)

 Aunts & cousins





Church Friends:

High School Friends:

The Grandmas
Nanny = Kevin's mom and Mimi = My mom

The GREAT Grandmas
Fletcher has 3 great grandmas, but my mom's mom isn't feeling well enough to travel
 SIL's


My side of the family:


 I appreciate all of these ladies coming out to sprinkle us with love.
We sure felt lucky!!
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