THE Cucumber Tomato Sandwich

 My father is an amazing gardener. Seriously the man has more than a green thumb! Growing up one of my favorite things about summer was my Dad's garden. Vegetables and fruits from the garden taste a thousand times better than the store. All summer long for lunch and sometime dinner we would eat one thing, cucumber tomato sandwiches. It is a recipe my father has developed and refined over many years till it has reached ultimate perfection. I have seriously thought of opening up a food stand in the summers to just sell this one sandwich... because nobody would want to eat anything else because it is THAT GOOD.

This summer my awesome Dad came to virginia and helped me start our new garden in our rental house. Sadly, the stupid bugs and fungus ate the cucumbers, but my tomatoes survived! We have been enjoying these awesome sandwiches all summer. I thought I would share this top secret family recipe with you to enjoy! ( It still taste good with store bought ingredients.)

Step 1: Toast yourself some yummy bread and spread some mayonnaise on top (or you can put miracle whip if your weird.) This is an open face sandwich so you will spread it over both slices.

Step 2: Thinly slice cucumbers and tomatoes and put them on the bread.

Step 3: Season with Salt and Italian Dressing. My favorite is the Olive garden dressing.

Eat it all up and enjoy!

Did I just change your life? Your Welcome!

-Bre

Creating Glitter Crowns

Las week my husband was gone every night until 9pm. It was awful. I'm pretty sure I have mentioned  that my daughter doesn't nap so finding entertainment is hard. But usually at 6pm her wonderful father will come home, eat dinner and play with her until she goes to bed. Everyday I am grateful for  husband who loves to play. Well, it was 7:30pm on Thursday night and Tyler still wasn't home so I opened the craft closet and came up with a brilliant plan to make princess crowns. 

 Step 1: Get Glue. Any glue will work... ok I lied glue sticks don't really work. But all others are just fine! Draw the design of your crown with the glue and spread it around.

Step 2: Pour glitter onto the glue. Then carefully pour the glitter back into each bottle to conserve glitter. 

 Step 3: Add as many jewels to the crowns as you desire and viola! I suppose if you had a boy you could do a sword because swords are cool and have jewels.

 This activity lasted for a full hour! We had so much fun naming the different crowns for each princess. In fact, the next day Lyla got up and wanted to make crowns again. Oh the power of glitter and glue... it makes you wonder why you ever buy toys.

 Ok maybe my 2 year old did not make this crown... Yes I had fun doing it too! 

Well it was a fun evening, but hopefully this week will not have so many long nights!

-Bre

Book Review: Princess Furball

I am so excited to share another one of my favorite children's book from when I was a kid! It is called Princess Furball.

Brief Synopsis
Princess Furball lives happily in her castle until her father arranges her marriage to an Ogre in exchange for money. The Princess agrees only if her father can makes her a coat of 1,000 different animal skins, and dresses like the sun, moon, and stars. When the gifts are complete Furball takes them and runs away. She is captured in the woods and forced to work in the kitchen of another castle. Her cleverness and talent allow her to make a new life for herself and marry the man she chooses.

Lessons
Great lessons in independence and courage.

Audience 
This story is very well written and engaging. It is not your typical princess fairytale. I think kids of all ages will love it! My three year old requests it every night. The artwork is pretty unique and the storyline is very clever.

Happy Weekend!

Bre

Spider Tape Webs

Sometimes I look at different children's blog and think wow that activity looks incredible, but really intense. I have a confession to make... I hate cleaning, but I do every day (all day) because the only thing I hate more than cleaning up messes is a messy house. Messy houses are hard to sleep in and breathe in and it invites bugs. Oh I think I could write a whole book about my hatred of bugs. There is no shortage of them in the South or my backyard... but I digress. The point of my babbling is that I LOVE GAMES THAT ARE SIMPLE, FUN, and EASY TO CLEAN UP!

This game is one of my favorites and all it will cost you in a roll of scotch tape. First begin by finding a variety of tall objects different heights and place them in a circle. Then help your child to create their own spider web.

I remember once when I little we made one of these with my mother's benches on the front entryway. It was epic and people really struggled to get to the front door. Oh the memories!

Next take some action figures (or in our case princesses and their pets) and place them in the spider web. It is a fun afternoon activity that can last a while.

Enjoy!

BreAnne

Trip to Disneyland

Get ready for an indulgent post with way too many pictures of  my cute child in Disneyland, taken with a crappy iphone.... just wanted to give full disclosure. In August, Lyla and I were lucky enough to spend a week with my mama and sissy in Newport Beach. It was a really great break that I needed it so bad. Living so far away from family is hard and moving again is even worse.

Newport is one of my favorite places to go. The weather is always wonderful and I also get to see my cool older brother and his gorgeous wife. They are always doing unique things around LA. When we were there they invited us to watch Casablanca in the Hollywood Cemetery and we also saw the Pageant of the Masters. If you have never been you need to go!

After our 8 hour flight to get to California Lyla immediately got off the plan and wanted to go to Disneyland. She reminded me that I told her, " We fly on the plane to see Ya ya and Rae Rae and then we go to Disneyland." Of course I didn't know she was going to take it literally!

Sadly, she had to wait a few days to go, but on the day of Disney she was primed and ready. We dressed her up in her favorite Princess dress and I had the whole day planned.

 

I was actually really glad that I looked through all the character and show times the night before. It made our day run so smoothly. We hardly had to wait in any lines ( mainly because we divided and conquered between my sister, mom, and I)  and even though it was HOT outside it was fun. Watching her greet each Princess was hilarious.  She would be talking in the line about the princess and then once it was her turn she would hide behind me and be shy. But with a little coaxing she sang a song for every princess.

We learned on the first day that Lyla does not like Pirates of the Caribbean. It really freaked her out and she hid her face the whole time. Afterword she said: " Mommy I like Yo Ho, but I HATE PIRATES!" As a result, she was freaked out by every ride. We literally had to force her on to Peter Pan and Winnie The Pooh. I almost took her on Pinocchio but when a worker heard me assuring her that the ride wasn't scary she said to us: "No, actually this ride is really scary she probably will hate it." So we avoided that one! 

Our second day my cute mother bought Lyla a few princess dresses and I became one of those "crazy moms" changes her kids clothes to match the princess picture.... yep.. it was pretty shameful. But Lyla was in Heaven so oh well! The greatest act of love and selflessness of the day was when my Dad waited in a 2 hour line for Lyla to see Elsa and Anna. It made her life.... yep... her life! The day before I refused to wait in the 3 hour line so I took lyla to the front and let her peek in the door to see them. However, when we walked away she look at me horrified and said: " No mom I want to meet Elsa and Anna." She cried and cried it was so sad. So I was very grateful for a sweet Grandpa.

Dreams really do come true.

With a little faith, trust, and pixie dust!

BreAnne Okoren

Fort Games

 

Last Christmas Lyla's Ya Ya (Grandma) gave her this beautiful play tent from The land of Nod. It has become one of her favorite things to play with. In her last room we had it up all the time. She would hide in there a lot from me and she liked her quiet time inside the house. Now our space is smaller so we only bring it out every once in a while. 

 Some may wonder once you set up the tent what do you do inside? Here are a few of our tent games that we play:

• We grab all her princesses and a ton of blankets and put them all to sleep and have a little sleepover party. My daughter doesn't nap anymore so it is "fake nap time".
• When it is dark outside, I will turn off all the lights in the room and put a lamp inside the tent. I have a little big bad wolf puppet. She hides inside the tent while the big bad wolf tries to get inside. 
• We read books in there together.
• We set it up like a little house with chairs and a lamp and play house with the kitchen food.
• The house has this cute mail slot pictured below. We will color, write letters, and then deliver them to the house mail box.

 Here is a look inside the house with the dolls. It surprised me the first time I went in there that I could fit inside the house quite nicely. There is a lot of space.

 Here is a look through the window. I like the design with the curtains because you can pull them up to let more light into the house. The fabric is really heavy and sturdy which is nice.

Of course the favorite game Lyla likes to play with the house is Princesses and tea parties. Today we had Ariel and Anna at the house... I mean castle. The girls filled up on Honest juice, sandwiches and lots of Chips(because you know back in the day that is what they feasted on.) I love watching little girls imaginations. I like to start the game and then stand back and see what they do themselves. They always come up with better stuff than I could think of.

Here are a couple of tutorial for teepees that are good DIYs. With the winter months coming soon and the possibility of more indoor time  it might be good to make one yourself. They are on The DIY Mommy and 333 park

Have a great weekend!

-Bre