Holidays Archives - Page 13 of 17

Why does my Husband Rock?

February 14, 2012 by Jules 2 Comments

My husband rocks because he...

wears t-shirts and hats.

goes shopping with me and pushes the heavy cart.

takes our girls on dates.

gets up early to have meetings so he can be home for family time.

makes me laugh.

figures out techy stuff for me on my blog by using tutorials.

plays loudly with our children.

thinks I'm cute in a t-shirt and ponytail.

encourages me to have mom's-nights out as well as girl-time with friends.

takes out All the trash.

he learned to french braid hair using YouTube.

sings and plays guitar {and lots of other instruments for that matter}.

drives when we go places together.

takes me on dates.

helps our children memorize scripture.

makes sound effects when telling stories.

cooks dinner when I have "no idea what to make".

helps be paint even when he hates it.

reads the Bible to our children nightly.

eats anything I make.

always orders for me at fast food restaurants {and knows what I eat Everywhere}.

does projects with me on his days off.

does breakfast with our kids so I can shower and get ready.

loves my family.

listens to me.

will put my earrings away for me when I forget to take them out at night.

Always turns out the lights when we go to bed.

plays hide and seek with me in our house {even when there is no warning}.

carries on conversations with me when I talk to him in my sleep.

is leading our family on a FUN adventure as he follows Christ.

{JUST TO NAME A FEW}

I love you Matthew Ray Rothacher!!! xoxo You ROCK!

*in honor of LOVE Day, don't forget to enter for the Poppy Seed Project giveaway! AND head over to Union28 for the Valentine's Day SALE!!!

Filed Under: Being a Help-Meet, Holidays, The ones about the Rothacher Home Tagged With: love, my husband rocks, union 28, valentines day

Kid-friendly Valentine’s!

February 13, 2012 by Jules 3 Comments

Anyone else get their 1st "LIST" this year?

I did. It was back at Christmas time and my 3-year-old came home from Cubbies with a list of classmates on it. I wasn't sure what this mean. I had volunteered to bring cupcakes. Did this list mean I was to put their names on individual cupcakes for them? Nope. Gifts. For Each Child. That's what it meant. It has begun. Gone were the days of nursery kids and workers being pleasantly surprised by my children offering simple gifts to them for the holiday. Now there was a LIST. Crazy! I guess there's no turning back and no more forgetting...

We made simple gifts with printed tags for Christmas and, now anticipating the LIST for the Valentine's Day party, I was Ready! I'd been clicking through Pinterest for ideas. Not wanting to spend too much money on top of the cupcakes for the this party as well, I finally found something we already had enough of at home, created my own tag on Picnik {entire site FREE and Unlimited until April 19, 2012} using combination of things I'd seen before, and spent ~$3.00 more to get this finished product:

Gold fish! The kid-friendly, semi-healthy snack that we had a GIANT SAM's Club size container of already at home. I bought 1 box of Reese's Pieces ($1.00) and the cheapest plastic bags I could find at Wal-Mart (maybe $2.00). I dumped tons of fish into a bowl and gave my girls measuring spoons to scoop them into the bags I'd opened.

{Some where a bit fuller than others so I evened them out later} They of course were allowed to snack on a few while making their friends gifts. I went back later and added the not as healthy chocolate pieces to the bags. You could of course put more than the ~8 pieces than I did but I was trying to keep it healthier and DID NOT add the chocolate Peanut Butter candies to the bags going to the nursery {Doctors do not want babies under 2-years-old to have peanut butter in case of fatal allergic reactions!}. I folded the bags shut, folded the sides in to keep them fresh, and then stapled the tags on top and bottom to each bag. We wrote each child's name in the top corner and "from ___" in the bottom corner. We also have some blank ones for any visitors that may be there that night.

{You could always punch a hole in the tag and tie the bag shut with some ribbon looped through the tag's hole.}

If you're like me and need a quick Valentine for the LIST you were just handed ---> Here is my FREE Valentine's Day Printable Gift Tags just for YOU!

Do you have any simple kid-friendly DIY Valentine's Day ideas to share!?! Please tell us about it in the comments below!

Filed Under: Gifts Ideas, Holidays, The ones about the Rothacher Home, The Ones about things Jules tried off Pinterest Tagged With: FREE printables, how to, kid-friendly gift idea, valentines day

Knight and Shining Armor 1st Birthday Party {FOOD}

February 11, 2012 by Jules Leave a Comment

The Table:

I had a yellow table cloth left from our oldest daughters party and the blue table cloth I though I bought to layer on top ended up being goodie bags so I used this picnic table cloth I also already had. It worked. The flag streamers are made from scrapbook paper, hot glue, and ribbon.

The feast was an attempt at “Mid-evil Carnival food/ Knight-ish food”.

We made {frozen and cooked according to the package} Corn Dogs!
The holder is a round cardboard cake thing that I covered in tin foil and poked holes through with scissors.

Cotton candy on Popsicle sticks {and my hubs thought I’d never find enough uses for that giant box of 1000 sticks…}. I took tubs of $1.00 cotton candy from Wal-Mart and unrolled it. Then I rerolled sections of it back onto sticks. The only way it would have been cooler is if it were blue…but the pink kinda looks like it goes with the red ;o)

We went with a kid-friendly, less waist version of caramel apple!

Cake balls {affectionately named cannonballs} made from the left over parts of the cake that were cut off to make the castle and smash cake!

Pretzel rods dipped in almond bark with added theme colored sprinkles, aka Pretzel Swards!

This bucket is one we had around the house for Benjamin that I’d found for $1.00 at the Goodwill! Chunked out cutlery in it- voila!

Ice cream, pre-scooped into punch cups and placed back into the freezer right before the party to save time and make for easy serving!

This is the wooden highchair we’ve used for all of children. We just took the cushion off so it wouldn’t get stained by the chocolate, left the plastic tray on for protection, and added part of the flag streamer I made.

Yep! I put on an apron and took his diapered-self straight to the kitchen sink for a quick scrub down before getting redressed for the pinata and presents!

Filed Under: Baking and Cooking, Parties, The ones about the Rothacher Home Tagged With: cake balls, corn dog stand, corn dogs, cotton candy, DIY, party food, pretzel rods, swords

Knight in Shining Armor 1st Birthday Party {CAKE}

February 8, 2012 by Jules Leave a Comment

Hosting a Knight in Shining Armor 1^st Birthday Party

My husband and I have decided that we won’t be doing huge parties every year for our children. But we will do bigger parties for milestone birthdays. For our oldest daughter’s 1^st birthday we did a “Princess Party over the 4^th of July holiday so all our parents could be in attendance. For our younger daughter we did a “Snow Princess Party” in the middle of January. Since I’m a bit on the OCD side of things when it comes to things like name, photo sessions within the 1^st year, and birthday party consistency among my children I thought it would be only appropriate to do a “Prince Party” for my son’s 1^st birthday. My hubs wasn’t a huge fan of the sissy options out there. We chatted for a while and landed on a “Knight Party”! Sticks with the royalty theme but a bit more masculine!

I’m going to do a series of post since walking you through all the DYI party details got pretty lengthy. Today I’ll tell you about the

CAKE

I love how this cake turned out! I discovered a new thing called ‘sugar sheets’ at Wal-Mart. Since I haven’t’ perfected my cake decorating skills to this kind of level it was a GREAT option! It was about $3-4 a sheet. It only took one sheet to make this cake. I made a simple box of devil’s food chocolate cake in a 11x14 rectangle pan. I had my husband sketch this castle {found on Google images line drawings} with a black edible marker, then I cut out the castle.

After the cake was baked but before frosting I laid this on top and cut the outer shape of the castle out. I also cut out the door. Then I placed plastic wrap under the edges of the cake as to not get frosting on the cake stand/carrier and frosted the sides and top of the cake with chocolate frosting. I let that try and then added a second coat. I took the backing off the sugar sheet and placed it on top of the moist frosting so it would adhere well. I found the dragon on picnic.com, made it red and printed {this same dragon was used several places throughout the party}. I cut triangles and taped them to tooth picks for the flags.

See how it became glossy and looks more like real frosting after adhering!

SMASH CAKE {My MOM MASTERPIECE}:

Filed Under: Baking and Cooking, Parties, The ones about the Rothacher Home Tagged With: 1st birthday, 1st birthday party, birthday cake, castle cake, DIY, knight in shining armor, themed party

Advent {Day 24}: Hot Cocoa Recipe

December 24, 2011 by Jules 2 Comments

Today I want to focus on mail carriers. They have one of the hardest jobs this holiday season:
Amist the lousy cold weather that produces horrible driving conditions and makes you want to do nothing but snuggle on the couch with a good movie, They make sure we all get our:

Christmas cards to friends and family on time
packages with the must-have Christmas toy to your house before the big day
not to mention all those silly story fliers so we can find the best deals.

Today I'm sharing my last gift idea that fit perfectly into those adorably miniscule formula containers at minimal cost! Something WARM to help those carriers make it through their days a little cozier.

Wanna know How-To Decorating Cans? Click over HERE for step by step instructions.

Filling Cans

Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix:

Make homemade hot cocoa mix
Today I am sharing my mother-in-love's AWESOME homemade Cocoa Recipe over at the
homemaker's challenge dot com! Go grab it!
Add cocoa mix
Use the formula scoop as a cute touch for serving up the dry cocoa mix
Place bow on top of the lid or printable tag (click Cocoa Printables for free printable)

These people who serve us weekly can feel your appreciation through these simple gifts! Wouldn't you? Homemade adds that special touch as well.

I would like to challenge you to think of those who make your life you're thankful for this season and recognize them with a simple gift to warm their spirits!