Mother's Day Personalized Tea Bags

We had a great weekend away. We went to some Texas Country concerts in Stephenville, Texas. The concert series starts on a Tuesday and lasts through Sunday. Six days of amazing artists. My husband and I only went for three days, but it was a perfect mini vacation. It is at a camping location called Melody Mountain Ranch. There are millions of people, campers, food vendors, and a stage of great artists. Definitely our cup of tea!

 

Now that I am back home, it is really sinking in that Mother's Day is just two weeks away. Unbelievable! I have yet to come up with any unique ideas for my own mom. However, I made this personalized tea bag set for a dear friend of mine. I think it would make a perfect Mother's Day gift. It is also a very easy project for little ones to help with. Did I mention it only costs as much as a box of tea??!?

 

I bought this cute ceramic dish at Say Your Piece.

 

Supplies:

 

Tea Bags

Computer/Printer

Scissors

Glue

 

Directions:

 

1. Print small photos to affix to the tea bags.

 

2. Carefully cut open the individual tea packets.

 

3. Cut out your photos and glue them to the small tag at the top of tea bag string.

 

4. Tape the tea package with one piece of tape in the bag to somewhat seal it back together. 

 

 

5. Wrap them up and give them to your MOM!

 

DIY Secret Agent Spy Kit Game

Oh did I have fun making this present! We had a birthday party for my son's cousins, and I couldn't seem to find a present I thought he would really enjoy. I searched the internet for a DIY spy kit to no success. I really wanted to make a spy kit that functioned more like a mystery game or a solve the crime kit. Of course, I came up with the idea a day before the party, so I really had to get to work fast on this birthday present!

 

I took a box and modge podged some spy symbols such as fingerprints, a spy, and some words like Top Secret.

 

I picked up some essential items for my spy kit at the store: spy disguise, handcuffs, gun, agent badge, and some rope.

 

Here is the full spy kit list.

CSI Field Kit

1.      Spy notebook for recording clues

2.      Ink pad for taking fingerprints for evidence

3.      Fingerprint file cards for keeping track of suspects

4.      Spy disguise

5.      Secret message maker wheel

6.      Fingerprint lifting tape (scotch tape)

7.      Fingerprint dusting powder

8.      Flashlight

9.      Specimen swabs (Q tips)

10.  Evidence bags (ziploc bags)

11.  Evidence: Plastic gun, knife, money

12.  Suspect cards

13.  Magnifying Glass

14.  Specimen Containers (old spice containers)

15.  Disappearing Ink

16.  Fingerprint glass (picture frame or glass) and brush

 

Several of my spy kit items were on sale at Michael's craft store. I completely lucked out.

 

 

I made some Solve the Case cards and had them laminated. The object of the game is to determine the criminal, weapon, location, and crime.

 

By laminating the cards, the players can use a dry erase marker to write on them. The cards can be easily erased with a cloth or paper towel.

 

I wanted this spy kit to be personalized for the birthday boy, so I made the suspects family members and good friends.

 

Thank goodness for facebook so I could capture images of all the suspects I needed. I googled some funny names such as Robin Banks (bank robber), Sam Dayoulpay, Sue Case, Nadia Seymour, and more.

 

I wrote funny things about each family member because I hoped the birthday boy would get a kick out of reading each suspect's profile.

 

 

Secret Spy Guidelines

1. All spy gadgets need to be in working order.
2. A good spy always keeps his or her wits about them.
3. A good spy has only one fear and that is other spies.
4. Keep your face neutral, you do not want to express your emotion.
5. Make sure you don't get yourself into any trouble!
6. Don't spy on people you don't know. Stay safe!

7. Be careful! Always keep your name a secret. Don't trust suspicious members of your team, for they could be double agents.
8. Never wander away from your team and don't trust strangers.
9. Find a secret meeting place.
10. Don't make too much noise! You don't want to get caught.
11. Bring a spy bag with you, to keep all your gadgets in. Maybe even some snacks in case you get hungry.

 

How to Play Secret Agent

 

Setup: Fingerprint each player on the Fingerprint File Cards.

 

1.      Select one or two detectives for each game. The detectives should leave the room.

The rest of the players will be in charge of creating the crime scene.

2.      Crime scene team should decide which suspect is the actual criminal. If present, they can place the criminal’s fingerprints on the fingerprint glass.

3.      Select crime scene location and label it with caution tape or clues.

4.      Select a weapon of choice between the rope, plastic gun, plastic knife, and fake money and leave it at the crime scene.

5.      Leave some evidence for the evidence bags and specimen containers. Example, if the criminal loves ketchup leave some out at the crime scene to be swabbed.

 

 

6. Choose 3-4 suspect cards to leave out for the detectives to help narrow down their search.

7. Once your crime scene is set up, allow the detectives to enter the room and investigate the clues with their secret agent supplies. They may even decide to question any witnesses and record their findings in their spy notebook.

8. The detectives may dust for fingerprints, collect specimens, collect items in the evidence bags and possibly wear their disguises while on the case.

9. Once the detectives have assessed the evidence, they will complete a Solve the Case card with a dry erase marker to see if they are correct.

10. Good luck Secret Agent!!

Now my oldest son is insisting he needs his own spy kit too!

 

 

 

 

 

We sold our house! Time to build a new one!

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Moen, Incorporated for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Well, we put our house on the market last month and we have already received a contract on our home! We live out in the middle of the country in Texas, and feel very blessed to have sold our house this quickly. However, our plan is to move about 30 minutes away, and build a new home. This should be very interesting!! Did I mention we were going to live in an RV on the land we purchased with our 3 and 5 year old boys while this transpires. Oh...and we have one more on the way. You can say it...we are not too smart. Ha! This year will definitely not be boring.

 

 

We have been working on plans for the new home already in hopes for a quicker transition. I was excited to be offered this post about the Boardwalk Spot Resist bath faucet. I had never heard of it before, and even better, it can be purchased at Lowes.

 

 

I wish I already had the Boardwalk Spot Resist bath faucet in my home while we had our house on the market for a month. Keeping a 3 bedrooom, 2 living, 2 bathroom house clean with little ones for the last month has been a bit of a nightmare. I would have loved to not have to wipe the bathroom faucet down every morning from little tiny fingerprints and water spots. The Boardwalk Spot Resist bath faucet is spot resistant and fingerprint resistant. Awesome!! Count me in for my new home.

 

Look how beautiful it is too. What will they come up with next? Oh and I forgot to mention it is WaterSense Compliant. It uses less water without sacrificing performance.I guess I am off to talk to my builder about incorporating this amazing faucet in my plans.

Don't forget to join me and become a fan of Moen on Facebook and Twitter @Moen!

 

Here is a tour of the rest of my house. It was very challenging keeping it clean through this process. I wish Moen made spotless solutions for my whole home!

 

 

Our second living area.

 

Our kitchen...a complete remodel in this 100 year old farmhouse.

 

Family room

 

One of the boy's bedrooms

 

Guest bathroom with the custom vanity my husband built. (Instructions available on another post)

 

Our bedroom

 

Chicken coop...I love them!

 

Our old barn...the old kind you can drive through the middle like the Dukes of Hazard

 

Bye Bye house. We will miss you if everything goes well. We are set to close at the end of April. Wish us luck!

 

Puzzle Easter Egg Hunt

Our house is buzzing with the excitement of Easter. We have been hiding eggs around the house, outside, and anywhere we can just for the joy of the hunt. My boys will be seasoned veterans by the time Easter arrives. Those plastic eggs are worth every penny. In an effort to change things up, I filled eggs with the pieces to one of our puzzles while my boys were napping.

 

 

I left the empty puzzle box in the Easter basket. When they woke up, they immediately began scouring the house for plastic Easter eggs. They were just excited the eggs were actually filled this time. We knew immediately when we were missing an egg, because we didn't have all 24 puzzle pieces.

 

This would also be fun on Easter Day. Candy is great, but sometimes a little variety is nice too. Do you have any fun egg hunting traditions at your home we can borrow??

Laundry Bites!

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Biz Stain Fighter for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Do you like laundry? I know...stupid question. But if you answered yes, please feel free to come by my house once a week and tackle mine. We average about 12 large loads a week. My mom thought I was crazy when I told her we had that many loads. I think she forgot what it was like when she had two little ones. Can you imagine those women with multiples? Triplets? Quadruplets? Oh my, I might just lose it if I had to do that much laundry.

My least favorite part is stain fighting. It always amazes me when my children head off to school clean and come home covered in who knows what. The mystery stains don't even match the items in the lunch I packed. I try to take off their clothes right then and pre-treat them with a stain fighter. However, when my husband gets a hold of them, their little outfit just gets turned inside out and the mystery stain escapes my knowledge and scrutiny like a secret agent in hiding.

My solution...Biz Stain fighter. It is a detergent booster, that when added to your normal detergent, provides additional stain fighting. It especially helps for all those secret agent stains that skip by me.

What is your least favorite part about doing laundry? The amount? The time involved?

Join me and like Biz on Facebook and/or  @BizStainFighter on Twitter. Also grab up the $1 Biz coupon. You can at least make laundry life a little easier with the power of Biz Stain fighter!

Army Camoflauge Birthday Party

I don't know but I've been told...my oldest just turned five years old. My youngest is turning 3, so we celebrated with an Army themed Camo Birthday Party for the two of them. The troops all came in camo and we played army games, served army treats, and passed out army party favors as well. I worked hard to come up with some unique army themed games in addition to the some of the traditional must haves.

 

We put signs throughout the yard leading the troops in the right direction to the enlistment office, mess hall, military barracks, and target practice.

 

 

Near the enlistment office was the classic army poster.

 

 

 

At the Enlistment Office the recruits were given dog tags which I used a metal engraver to put their names on. (You can buy one for $10)

 

 

I found these awesome tags at a garage sale. They were from a liquor advertisement. Lol. I just covered up the advertisement with some camo duck tape. It left the perfect metal surface to engrave each child's name on.

 

 

We also took their recruitment photos in front of the flag. I used the pictures on our thank you cards.

 

 

 

These were some of our party favors. They said Mission Complete. Thanks for Dropping By!

 

Each favor contained a water grenade splasher and some plastic army men.

 

 

After several years of birthday parties, I quickly realized no one shows up on time. I had a craft arranged for the little ones that showed up on time. We built little army tanks out of 2x4's and let them paint their own tanks with sponges.

 

 

You can see the original post here with the instructions.

 

 

One of our first group activities was the grenade hunt. We told the kids there were grenades in the field, and they needed to find and disarm them as soon as possible. (Nothing like a good old fashioned Easter egg hunt) They held candy inside of course.

 

 

I love the chaos. The camo eggs were actually quite challenging to find at times.

 

 

We moved on to the Search and Rescue. I buried 8 plastic army men in tubs of sand. On your mark, get set...go. The kids had to search and rescue their men as quickly as possible. Who knew they would love digging in the sand so much!

 

 

For target practice I had this cool toy that shot out green balls when you jumped on it. A definite crowd pleaser.

 

 

Off to the obstacle course, where the kids slid down the pole...

 

 

Jumped across the trampoline...

 

 

Crawled under the camo tarp...

 

 

And then grabbed the sandbag and pulled it to the finish line.

 

Each child was given a gold medal for their hard work!

 

 

The last game was tug of war. After the kids played against each other, my husband played against all of them.

 

 

Crash!?! Ha ha!

 

 

Now off to the Mess Hall to recharge and refuel.

 

 

I was lucky enough to find these camo buckets at the dollar store in the Easter section. For $1 each they were perfect for having lunch made up in advance.

 

 

 

I wrapped some water bottles in camo duck tape to match the theme.

 

 

I also bought a cute candy mold on ebay and made some chocolate army tanks. I think the adults loved them even more then the kids.

 

I decided for the easy cake option and made cupcakes instead. A few green sprinkles and an army men topped them off. Yes...a few people tried to eat the army men thinking they were chocolate too. Ha! Ha!

 

 

Our last minute addition was this army pinata I made out of a brown paper sack. It worked even better then I expected. I will share this tutorial another day.

 

 

The pinata held up through two rounds of the kids before it finally broke!

 

Remember, my pirate ship from last year...

I just painted over it with camo and turned it into an army boat. (Well worth storing it in the storage building for a year!)

 

Watch out for the elite force pictured above. That is us! My boys had another great birthday party! Thanks for stopping by.