Sharing the Good News...

I'm not sure there is anything more exciting than telling someone you love that you are pregnant. I've heard some really creative ways of telling grandparents and other family members the good news. I was lucky that I discovered I was pregnant with my second on Father's Day one year so that made for an even better celebration. I know a lot of people put "Big brother/sister" shirts on their older children to spread the word. I also heard a cute idea once where the soon-to-be mom let out the news during a prayer..."We're thankful we can have a baby..."

How have you told people you love when you are pregnant? What cute ideas have you seen done?

P.S I'm not pregnant.

WINNERS!

Congratulations to our two randomly picked winners- Kimberly and Dev! Email mommydiariesadmin@gmail.com today with your mailing address! We're thankful to all of you for your heartwarming comments about the moms you love.

Kimberly said...
I think the Mother in law situation can be difficult. As hard as that relationship can be to build there is a joy in getting close enough to learn from the person who raised your spouse. I'm grateful for my mother in law. She puts people first every time, a skill I am constantly trying to emulate.I also am a follower with a button.

Dev said...
My mother is very special to me. She has dedicated her life to her children and made numerous sacrifices to make sure we are happy and have everything that we need and want. She is a wonderful grandmother and a fantastic example.

GIVEAWAY: Family Fun Magazine (x 2!)

Dear Mommies,
To celebrate you this Mother's Day we are giving away TWO 1-year subscriptions to our favorite Family Fun magazine! Family Fun is stocked full of great ideas for families. We know you will love it all year long! (If you already have a subscription this one can roll over to start when yours ends.) It's our way of saying "Thanks for being the wonderful moms that you are! And thanks for stopping in to read our Mommy Diaries!"

To enter our giveaway simply leave a comment and

answer the following question:

Who is a special "mom" to you and why?

The giveaway will end at 8am EDT on Wednesday, April 29th and we will announce the winners that morning. If you're a winner you have 24 hours to email mommydiariesadmin@gmail.com with your mailing address. If we don't hear from you we'll pick another winner.

***As always, we'll give you up to three extra entries for being or becoming a follower, posting about the giveaway on your blog, or adding our button to your blog...just make a note of it in your comment.

Cheesy Mummy Dogs

I also think this is a fun and different way to have hot dogs. This is also from kraftfoods.com. You should check out the website, there are some easy and yummy recipes on there!

1 can (8 oz.) refrigerated crescent dinner rolls

4 KRAFT Singles, cut diagonally in half

8 OSCAR MAYER Beef Franks or Wieners

PREHEAT oven to 375°F. Unroll crescent dough; separate into 8 triangles. Top each dough triangle with 1 Singles triangle and 1 frank; roll up.

PLACE, seam sides down, on ungreased baking sheet.

BAKE 12 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with your favorite condiments, if desired.

Easy Homemade Macaroni & Cheese

I have married a big kid. Frequently when we go out to eat, my husband will still order macaroni and cheese. He loves it. He is always asking me to find a good homemade mac and cheese recipe. I've tried several.

I think this one is one of his favorites. And I made this for the missionaries last time we had them over for dinner and they loved it. (I tripled the batch, and it was ALL gone by the time they were done with it.) This recipe is from Kraftfoods.com.

It is easy, and really good, if you like mac and cheese...

1 can (5 oz.) evaporated milk

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 Tbsp. butter or margarine, melted

1/4 to 1/2 tsp. ground red pepper

1/2 lb. (8 oz.) VELVEETA Pasteurized Prepared Cheese Product, cut up

1 cup shredded Cheddar Cheese

2 cups (8 oz.) elbow macaroni, cooked, drained

PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Mix milk and eggs in large bowl. Add butter, red pepper, prepared cheese product and Cheddar cheese. Stir in macaroni; mix lightly.

POUR into 1-1/2-quart casserole.

BAKE 20 minutes or until heated through.

Enjoy!

Terésa signing in!

Hi everyone! I’m Terésa (pronounced Ter-a-sa with a hard ‘a’ sound- to get the accent, you can just copy and paste -- Hey my parents named me. If I had a say it would have been something like Sophia or Josephine- Oops digressing). I’m from Idaho. I haven’t gone private with my blog (yet?) so that’s as specific as I’m willing to get... o.k. Idaho, but not the Boise area :).

I’m married to the love of my life, and we have two beautiful children (I know we are all wondering who has the ugly kido's, but mine, non-the-less are beautiful) a boy 11years old, and a 2 year old PRINCESS in every sense of the word. And we were sealed for time and all eternity last May.

Hmmm... More specifics?? I have blonde hair, I home-school my son, I’m a cosmetologist on the side (mostly do it for fun. How many people can say their job is like playing... oh, and the discount on hair products.) I was raised in the church, my husband is a convert (and he’s from North Las Vegas- the ghetto part. I have to remind him all the time that he is white.) You can read more about us here.

I enjoy crafts... any that I can get my hands on, cooking, and being a mommy! I’m excited to get the chance to show some of my work here, and hopefully it helps some of you... some one... o.k. I’m not making any promises ;). And I’m excited to hear from all of you!

Tricks of the Trade Question

My husband and I have been talking about baby #5 recently, and we keep going back and forth about when's a good time to stop having kids(especially when the 4 we already have are being naughty!). As members of the LDS Church, we know how important families are and we want to have a large family, but when do you get to the point that you know you are done? I'm only 26, and would hate to stop now, only to change my mind later and have a baby in my mid 30's while my other children are so much older. Has anyone out there completed their families? How did you know you were done? How many is a good number? I've heard some people like an odd number. I think 5 is gonna be my limit, but is it just a "wait and see"? What do you think? How many kids is a good number?

Baby Names

We aren't finding out what this baby is, which is fun, but we can't seem to come up with any good boy names. This could be in part because there are roughly 30 grandsons on his side and the names are a bit thin on the ground.

I mean if you really think about it... that's 60 names you can't use. (His brothers get really touchy about it)

So I've been through the books, and gone to the websites and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. Honestly I shouldn't since it's my fourth baby, but there it is.

So what are some of your favorite boy names?

Ham Tortilla Roll Ups

This is a great left over ham recipe. We like to have it with our leftover baked ham, or even deli sliced ham also. It is easy, we usually always have the stuff on hand, and the WHOLE family likes it!

Make a medium white sauce:

2 T. butter

2 T. flour

1/2 t. salt

1 c. milk

-melt butter over medium heat, add flour, salt, and a dash of pepper, mix well. Add milk all at once and stir constantly until the mixture thickens and bubbles. Once it has thickened, add a handful or two of cheese (we like swiss, but I use whatever I have on hand).

For the Filling:

Tortillas

Ham (cubed, shredded, sliced)

fresh diced tomatoes (we have used petite diced canned and it works too)

Cheese

Any other toppings you want, we occasionally add diced green chilis, but other veggies would be good too, maybe some bell peppers or olives?

-lay out tortillas, sprinkle with cheese down the middle, then top with ham and other toppings. Add a little spoonful of sauce, then roll up tightly and place in a 9x9 baking dish. Once the pan is full of tortillas (I think I usually do 6-8) pour the rest of the sauce over top and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. I like to turn the broiler on for the last five minutes, it makes the tortillas a little crispy. Enjoy!

Pin Cushion/ Button Jar

So, a while ago I posted a quick little link to an idea I had seen on another site. Here Well I finally got around to making one of my own. Which looks nowhere as cute as theirs, but took me about an hour. It was so easy and I'm completely excited to have somewhere to stick all my pins and needles (instead of carrying around the box they came in). Take a look. I used an old chicken bouillion jar so it's a bit bigger than a baby jar (hence the larger ribbon) and I'm into using up what I've got floating around, and I also don't have a fabric store in my town *sniffle*.

The picture was taken with my phone, so it's not the best photo in the world either... and if you're wondering, that's pomegranate juice in the background, if anyone wants to hop on over to my place and show me how to make jam out of it I'd be forever grateful.

Ham Fried Rice

We also have a ton of leftover ham, so this week we've already had this delicious and easy recipe for Ham Fried Rice (from the Food Network). It was a really light dinner that went great with a green salad.

Ingredients
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 1/2 to 4 tablespoons corn or peanut oil
3 1/2 cups cold cooked rice
2 to 3 ounces honey or sugar-cured ham (yielding 1/2 cup cubed ham)
1/2 cup fresh or frozen peas or baby lima beans
1 to 1 1/4 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
3 tablespoons green and white scallions
Peanuts

Directions
Heat a wok or a small, heavy skillet over high heat. Add 1 1/2 tablespoons oil, swirl to coat the pan. Add eggs and scramble them. As soon as there is no more freely running egg, turn them out into a bowl and break them into small bits. They should be soft and a bit runny -- not brown.
Heat the wok or a large skillet and add 2 tablespoon oil to coat. Add the rice and toss briskly to coat and separate each grain, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add the ham and peas. Toss to mix in the ingredients and allow the mixture to heat through, about 30 seconds. Return the eggs to the pan and toss to combine. Season with salt, scallions and peanuts, tossing another 5 to 10 seconds to let the eggs get hot.

p.s. We're also using some of our ham for the yummy Princess Pasta that was posted earlier on this blog.

Left Over Ham!?

Not really a ham person myself... but I use it occasionally in some pretty good recipes.

So here's two:

1) Chicken Cordon Bleu
Ham
Swiss Cheese slices
Chicken

Generally you would pound out the chicken and then roll the ham and Swiss into it (using toothpicks to hold it in place), but I find that tedious and I have no toothpicks, so I just cut the chicken lengthwise to thin it out and then stack it. Chicken, ham, Swiss, ham, chicken.

Place in oven safe dish and cook at 350-400 (covered) for about an hour... or until chicken is done all the way through.

(Sorry guys, that's how I do my recipes... I just wing it a lot of times)


2) One of my favorites! Potato Soup

3 medium red potatoes (I use russets a lot)
2 C water
1 small onion
3 TBS butter
3 TBS all purpose flour
Crushed red pepper
Ground black pepper
3 C milk
1/2 tsp sugar
1 C shredded cheddar
1 C cubed ham

Cut potatoes into 1 inch cubes (and ham if you need to). Cook potatoes in the water until tender. Drain, reserving 1 Cup of the potato liquid (water may be added if needed). Set aside both potatoes and liquid.

Melt butter in large saucepan (the one you'll use to make the soup) over medium heat. Add onion, cook, stirring frequently until onion is translucent and tender, but not brown. Add flour to saucepan, season with pepper's. Cook 3-4 minutes. Gradually add potatoes, reserved liquid, milk, and sugar to onions. Stir well.

Add cheese and ham.

Simmer over low heat 30 minutes, stirring frequently. Makes 12 servings.

Tricks and notes:
*I add more cheese and ham and you don't need salt if you've got good ham.
*If you turn the heat up during the simmer part and stir constantly it takes less time, but if you want to do other things go with the lower heat... you don't want to burn your milk.
*Serve with rolls, they are perfect with this.
*Missionaries love this meal.
*A little bit goes a LONG way (it is potatoes) and it still tastes great the next day.

Pictures

This is my first time with the tricks of the trade question and I wasn't sure of what to do but I have been thinking about this a bit lately with Easter and everything. Porter is my first child and he is currently nine months old and like any first time parent I have been obsessed with taking pictures of every little thing he does and dressing him up for every holiday in cute outfits. I know a lot of mom's who take their kids in to get pictures taken at like target or sears every three months, some moms do it every six months, others wait for a holiday such as Easter or Christmas. It's hard to know how often to get their pictures done. So I guess my first question is how often do you get your children pictures taken? The other thing is it gets pricey to get their picture taken all of the time, I know there are constantly coupons but it's still for one pose and if you want more then one thing it adds up fast. I am one of those who takes their own pictures of the baby, which leads me to my next question, if you take pictures of your children do you have any fun ideas for set-up or places to take pictures? and also do you have any tips on how to edit them when you are done? for example on how to make the lighting look good? I have done a few of the black and white with one thing in color and that's fun the first couple of times and then gets old.

So just to recap... How often do you get your children's picture taken? and Do you have any tips or ideas for taking pictures yourself?

THANKS!

Jelly Bean Bracelets

If you're looking for a last minute Easter activity or something to do with all those jelly beans, this was a fun one! My kids and I made these jelly bean bracelets. I actually decided it would have been a better idea for me to do them myself and stick in their Easter baskets because it was kind of hard for the kids to stick the needle through the jelly bean and they ended up just handing me what one they wanted to go on next instead. But they were very happy with the result, and had very sticky arms the rest of the day! :)

I got this idea from here: JELLY BEAN BRACELETS

Happy Easter!!

German Pancakes and yummy Buttermilk Syrup

I found this recipe on allrecipes.com. We tried it out for dinner tonight and we all loved it.

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted

Buttermilk Syrup

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup buttermilk (I didn't have any so used 1 cup milk with 1 Tbsp. of vinegar)
  
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
• 2 tablespoons corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Place the eggs, milk, flour and salt in a blender; cover and process until smooth. Pour the butter into an ungreased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking dish; add the batter. Bake, uncovered, at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, in a saucepan, combine the first five syrup ingredients; bring to a boil. Boil for 7 minutes. Remove from the heat; stir in vanilla. serve immediately with the syrup.

Just lookin' for some experienced mommies' opinions!

Well since my only child is just 4 months old and I wasn't blessed with the natural ability for crafts or cooking, I feel bad I don't have much to contribute to the mommy blog just yet. Which is why I love this blog because it is really helpful for people like me that aren't experts at the mommy thing, I just wish I had something to share. Hopefully I do soon but until then I will probably have a few questions I just need advice on, hope that's ok!

Anyways I'm just curious what everyone's opinions are on how much time to wait between babies!
Obviously everyone has different opinions and has done it differently, but i'm just curious why people wait however long they wait! my husband and I always planned when to have our first but never talked about the rest after that, I kind of always figured to wait 2 years.
Well we have our first and he is such an angel baby, he is SUCH a great baby, we really got so lucky with him. SO on the one hand I'm thinkin WOW this is such a blast he is so easy yada yada I can have another one right away and I wouldn't have a problem with that.. THEN I'm like wait.. he is too good there's NO way we will have 2 like this..our second will be so different and probably harder (especially with one already). So maybe it's still best to wait a couple years!
I have also heard 18 months is a good distance and most people that have them close like that love it! If anyone has any advice on the matter I'd love to hear it:)
Just curious what others have done and whether they would do it that way again or not!

"Food For Tots"

I don't know if I've posted about this cookbook before. I love this book and my aunt is the illustrator of all the cute little pictures inside. Some of my regular favorites include the Mac-n-cheese, Baked Fries, and the Puffy Apple Pancake:

Puffy Apple Pancake (similar to German Pancake)

1/3 cup butter or margarine
2 med. apples
3 Tbl. sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
4 EGGS
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
*powdered sugar (optional)

1. Set oven to 425.
2. Put butter into a 9-10 inch frying pan and place in oven until butter is just melted, not browned.
3. While butter is melting, peel and core apples and cut then into thin slices.
4. Remove pan from oven, add sugar and cinnamon to the melted butter and stir in the sliced apples.
5. Return pan to oven for about 3 min.
6. In a blender, whip eggs and milk at high speed for 1 min. Set blender to low speed and slowly add the flour until well blended.
7. Remove the pan from the oven and pour egg batter over the butter and apples.
8. Bake for 20-25 min. or until the pancake is raised and golden brown.
9. Serve immediately and enjoy! Cut in wedges and dust with powdered sugar. Good with a dollop of applesauce and fresh whipped cream too!

Deviled Eggs

So after all the egg decorating is over what do you do with all those colored eggs?? One of our favorites things to do with them is to make deviled eggs for Easter dinner.
It's pretty simple but here is the recipe we use:

6 hard boiled eggs
3 TBS mayo
1/2 tsp mustard
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper

Peel shells off eggs and cut lengthwise in half. Remove yolk and put into a bowl and mash up with a fork. Add remaining ingredients to yolk and stir together. Spoon mixture into egg whites. And if you want you can sprinkle some paprika on top. Yum! We love these.

And I don't usually care about them looking too fancy but if you do then you can use a piping bag (the bag you use with frosting to decorate a cake) to put the mixture in and squeeze into eggs whites... then it looks a little prettier (like the picture... which is not my picture).

Hard Boiled Eggs

Maybe I'm the only one who has to look in my cook book when I hard boil eggs once, maybe twice a year. So here is what you do

Place eggs in a single layer in a pot. Cover with cold water one inch above eggs. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to just below a simmer, simmer for 15 minutes.

Easter Eggs

One of my favorite activities every Easter is dying eggs. And since having kids I have loved doing it even more! I love how it brings the family together and I love the anticipation of what the final result of your egg will be. Every year we have the tradition that the last egg to be dipped takes a turn in every color...leaving us in the end with one ugly brown egg.

Click on the links below for some fun ideas to do with your children and your eggs...feel free to comment and tell us what you plan on doing!

• Animals from Family Fun: Mouse, Pig, Sheep (I'm pretty sure I've fallen in love with these!)
• Dying Techniques from Amazing Moms: Egg designs
• Or if you are out of Paas packets you can always find a more natural way to dye them here.

Have fun this year dying eggs with the kids!

My randomness about eggs!!!

So... I have been in the Easter mode now for a few days! Good thing cuz it is getting down to the wire! Anyway, I decided last spring that it would be fun to get some chickens!!! I thought a dozen eggs would be good so I got a dozen!!! Two have now passed on leaving us with 10 chickens!!! Well any of you who know anything about chickens know that they lay one egg a day!! So after careful calculation..... that means I am getting 10 eggs a day!!!!! What in the world was I thinking?! Maybe 5 chickens would have been better. So I have turned to everyone I know and started selling my eggs for a dollar a dozen! Fresh and brown! What a deal!!! My chickens are currently living at my moms and so she collects the eggs when I am not around to do it!!! Both our fridges are crazy full of ...... yeppers eggs! both our fridges have about 8 dozen at the present!!!! What in the world are we going to do?! If any of you are close to Idaho Falls or know someone who is, let me know so that we can get these eggs being used and not just wasted! And I am super excited to learn all these recipes so that we can have more creative egg meals!!! Happy Easter!!!!

My Necklace Holder

You're right Cassi! I forgot to post a picture! Well here it is. I love the idea of making the necklace holder bigger. I wish I had one more peg on mine. One of them keeps falling down. I'm going to make a "manly" looking one for my husband's belts. They're always on the floor!

Necklace/Key Holder

Ok, I know more of you made the necklace holders from last month! Chalece... I know you made one! It's always fun to see pictures and everyone's different styles!
So, here are mine. I did one for my keys and one for necklaces. I wanted the necklace one to be a little bigger. And you can't really see it, but there is one of Kara's fabric flowers on the bigger one. So I did both crafts in one! :)
Anyone else?

Play Dough!

Today my daughter and I wanted to try something different. We've been stuck inside for pretty much the last 6 months, and needless to say, we're going crazy! I thought it would be fun to make some play dough. I've never done it before, so I went online to find a good recipe (Brielle still loves to put things in her mouth) that would be safe to eat.

I found this great recipe, and it is supposed to be one that keeps the dough nice and soft.

I made it today and Brielle and I had a blast! She loved to squish the play dough between her fingers and say "Ewww!"

I found the recipe on Lovely Design (she's got some really fun ideas!) and it turned out great! I made the yellow one first, and I think that one turned out the best. My one caution is this: put the flour in a little bit at a time! With the yellow one I did just that because I didn't know how much I needed. But with the red one (the second one I did) I got cocky and thought I knew what I was doing. Well, that one turned out hard and grainy. So my third one, the blue one, I did the flour slowly and it turned out great again! I used a wire wisk at first while putting the flour in so that it didn't stay all clumpy. Then used a spoon when it was too thick.

Here's the recipe (it's also on the link above):

2 c water
1 c salt
food coloring
4 tsp cream of tartar
4 TBSP oil
2 c flour
(I didn't have enough salt to do even one batch, so I quartered the batch and got 3 colors! And it's the perfect amount for Brielle's little hands!)

- Combine water, salt, cream of tartar and food coloring (.5 tsp for pastel color and 1.5 tbsp for vivid color) in a large saucepan.

- Cook on low heat and stir. As the mixture heats up, stir in the oil and then the flour slowly.

- Keep Stirring the mixture until it starts looking dry and pulling away from the pan. Remove from heat and pinch a piece between two fingers. If it is not sticky, it is done. Otherwise, continue stirring over low heat.

- Place the dough on counter and knead until smooth. Children will enjoy kneading the warm dough when it cools enough for them, too!

- When finished playing, store playclay in an airtight container or plastic bag to re-use again and again. Do not refrigerate.

* For children who cannot tolerate gluten or food colouring, you may subsitute rice flour for flour and use natural beet (red), spinach (green) or carrot (orange) juice for colour.

Enjoy!!

Favorite Blogs

Well Bridget must be a mind reader because her post was a perfect lead in to our "about us" question this month!!

We want to know from all of our readers and contributors: what are some of your favorite blogs to read??

(Besides your own personal blog, and this one of course!)

4 Nuts in a Nutshell

One of my friends has recently started a blog because she loves to write and has a great way of finding the humor in life. She loves new readers and is hoping to update it regularly, so I thought that I'd let you check out her funny look at motherhood.

Raspberry Stuffed French Toast

Since this is french toast, I think it counts as my recipe for eggs..... right?  Besides cooking with eggs, we like them scrambled with all the fixins, bacon, cheese, diced tomatoes, and peppers. But, here's a french toast we love, and eat on special days, like Easter Sunday!

4 oz. neufchatel cheese, soften (like cream cheese, less fat)

1/2 c. sugar

2 t. vanilla

1 t. cinnamon

2 eggs, plus 2 egg whites

5 cups fat free milk, divided

1 loaf french baguette, cut into about 18 slices

1 pkg (12 oz.) frozen raspberries, divided

1 pkg. (4 serving size) vanilla pudding/instant pudding pie filling

Beat neufchatel cheese, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon with electric mixer until well blended.  Add eggs and egg whites, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Gradually add 2 cups of the milk, beating until well blended

Arrange 9 of the bread slices in a greased 13 x 9 inch pan. Sprinkle with half the raspberries, top with remaining bread slices.  Pour cheese mixture over bread, let stand 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Bake 40 minutes or until golden brown. Meanwhile, bring remaining 3 cups milk just to boil in saucepan; gradually add dry pudding mix, whisking until well blended.  Remove from heat; let stand 5 minutes.  Microwave remaining raspberries until just warm.  Serve toast topped with custard sauce and raspberries.

If you want you can make ahead of time, cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight.  When ready to serve, bake uncovered at 350 for 40-45 minutes or until golden brown. Prepare sauce while it is baking.

It is delish, and very Spring appropriate!

Quiche

I love a good quiche. Before I moved out of state, I would host a Christmas Cookie Exchange/Brunch and serve this every year. You can make one large quiche in a pie pan, or mini quiches in mini muffin pans. The minis are great for baby/bridal showers.

1 box rolled pie crusts
6 slices bacon(or 1/2 cup ground spicy sausage)
½ cup diced green onion
4 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
½ cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
¼ tsp fresh ground pepper
1 cup shredded Swiss or Cheddar cheese

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Roll out pastry and press into deep dish pie plate.

Cook bacon or sausage till done. Bacon should be crispy. Drain and crumble. Add bacon or sausage to bottom of pie. Add cheese. Add chopped green onion.

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, cream and salt and pepper till very well combined. Pour egg mixture over the toppings until just under the edge of the crust.

Bake in preheated oven for about 45 minutes, or until center is set. Let quiche cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack before serving.

I've found that with the meat and cheese, even men will eat this quiche!
Happy Easter!

One Hour Craft - Fabric Flowers

April craft time.... just in time to make some cute flowers for your little girls, or yourself!! These flowers I just made up myself and are very simple... I'll try to explain the best I can.

First, start with a bunch of circles of fabric. They are all pretty much the same size, and they don't have to be perfect. I like using a couple different fabrics together, like the black polka-dot and then I used some black tulle. Same with the pink.... you'll see later.

Second, take one of the round pieces and bunch it up in your fingers.... like so....
Then take a needle and thread and start sewing together your bunches. It helps to kind of shape and sew as you go, pulling up material in the needle to make it look the way you want. Does that make sense? Probably not.... sorry.
After I had one bunch done, I just slipped another circle onto my needle and thread and did the same thing. So, I had about 3-4 circles sewn together, and then I added the tulle at the bottom. In the next picture, you can see the bottom, I took a much smaller circle, and sewed around the edges to make it look a little more finished (plus it is easier to glue or sew it onto something else).
Here's the pink one all done! Isn't it cute!!
And the black....

These are fun to use on whatever, hair bows, headbands, bags, dresses, belts, whatever suits your fancy!! Have fun, and please share if you make some, so we can see all the great ideas!

And the winners are.......

Ok we have our 2 winners!!!

Here is what random.org had to say:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

33 47

Kiera said...

hm... it was always a big family dinner and an easter Egg hunt, with a basket and a movie on the resurrection, since I got married we added another family dinner, that's basically it, now that we have a baby we will have to think of how we wanna celebrate in the future, this year will probably still be spent with both of our families:),..I posted about the giveaway and have a button:) put me down for more!

and

cbracken said...

So fun - love the find it bags!  I'm now a follower!

Congrats to Kiera and cbracken!! Email MommyDiariesAdmin@gmail.com and let us know which prize you want!! First come, first serve!
Thanks to everyone who entered! We love reading your comments!! We'll have to have the I Spy bags in a future giveaway since they seemed to be commented about a lot.

Happy Easter!!!