Gracie's Ice Cream Birthday Party!

    The day finally arrived for Gracie's ice cream birthday party.  The weather started out foggy and cold,  but then the sky cleared, the sun came out and it turned out to be a gorgeous day (minus the wind).  Family and friends came from all over California, and it made our family feel very special and loved that everyone came out to share Gracie's special day with us. 

    I LOVE planning my kid's birthday parties, and I think it comes from all the parties that I dreamed of having when I was a child.  What kid or adult doesn't like ice cream?  We had an ice cream bar and my sister made ice cream cupcakes and I created the ice cream cupcake tower. 

The Invitations

The Infamous Ice Cream Cupcake Tower

All the stickers, cupcake toppers, and food labels were designed by madebyjackie.myshopify.com

 The party favors included ice cream bubbles, an  ice cream bowl with a matching spoon,  a punch ball, and a squirt gun

Big brother Elijah

Baby Brother Ezra

I think it's safe to say that she had a good time!

My Baby Girl Turned Two Today

I still can't get over the fact that my one and only baby girl is two years old today.  I never pictured myself with a daughter, for some reason I always wanted three boys.  God knew what he was doing when he gave me my precious little angel, because now I can't even imagine not having a daughter in my life!  I like to make a huge deal out of my kid's birthdays and I have started a tradition where the family sings happy birthday first thing in the morning while they are still in bed.  Then they get to open some of their presents, and I make their favorite breakfast, and the rest of the day is devoted to whatever they want to do.  

 Gracie opening her first present of the day, and her baby brother Ezra is helping her.

Slow Your Roll

This past week I was so sick with whatever my kids and husband had passed on to me.  I was hit with it 10 times harder than the rest of my family, and there were a few days where I could not even get out of bed for more than a few minutes at a time.  I don't know what I would have done without my husband and my parents help.  I think it hit me so much harder because I was so run down. Having so much time to actually lay down and rest, really made me reanalyze how I have been living my life lately.  The main conclusion I came up with is that I need to SLOW down a bit.  I need to be ok with the house not being spotless every minute of the day, and to not freak out because the laundry baskets are almost filled to the top.  Today I did not clean my house from top to bottom like I wanted to, and I still have two loads of laundry to fold, but I did take a long nap, and I snuggled on the couch to watch a movie with my kids.  I have to say it was a good day!

I even took my daughter to school for part of the day with her older brother so I could get a break at least from two kids for a few hours.  She felt like such a big girl, and when we pulled up to the school this morning, she yelled, "yay, my school!"

Couponing Is So Much Fun!

I have only been on the coupon bandwagon going on 8 weeks now, and I cannot even fathom what in the world I was waiting for!  I think I had the usual misconceptions or excuses; "I don't use that stuff, it's all for crap, you're getting stuff you don't need just because it's a good deal, and I don't have all those hours to devote to it."  I have to say I didn't understand how it really worked, and when a few people tried to explain how they did it throughout the years my brain could not absorb anything that they were saying about the topic.  Fast forward to having 3 kids and with the cost of living sky rocketing, and with more money sense, all signs started pointing to trying everything I could to save a dollar.  If that meant that I only had one coupon for $1.50 off diapers, well then that's a $1.50 more in my pocket!  There are coupons for everything you can think of and it is really quite simple....you look at the store ads and see what's on sale and you match those items with coupons.  I used to go to the store and spend over a hundred dollars and when I got home to put it all away, I would feel like I still didn't have alot of food, and now with couponing I can walk out of the store with shopping cart full of groceries for under $70!  This was from my shopping adventure at Ralph's last week.

Ralphs: OOP $65.48 This includes: 6 pack of boneless chicken breasts, 2 packages of ground turkey, 3 Ben & Jerry's Ice Creams, 3 Coffee House Inspiration Creamers, Tully's Coffee, 8 Juicy Juices, 2-24ct Eggo Waffles, 10 Yoplait Yogurts, and everything else!

CVS, is my new favorite place to shop at.  I used to never shop there because of all the high prices, but I had no idea of the deals I was missing out on! Every week they have selected products that if you purchase they will in return give you, Extra Care Bucks (ECB), money that you can use for a future purchase.  It's a crazy, fun game to me.  You can walk in with $12 bucks in your pocket and walk out with tons of products!  Here's what I got last night.

All this was for $11.36, and I still have $10 in Extra Care Bucks to use on my next purchase!  


I had been holding on to my Twizzlers coupons forever waiting for a good deal because I am planning on having a candy buffet for one of the parties that I am planning.  I always check the clearance section of every store I go into because that is where you can find some killer deals.  The Twizzlers were on sale for .69 each and with my coupons it made them .19 each!  The Hershey's Bliss were free because they gave you $5.99 in ECB's just for buying them, the Hawaiian Tropics Lip Balms made me $4, the Colgate's were .04 each.....and now you see how this can be addicting!

Styled Bridal Photo Shoot

 Doing what I love!

One of the greatest things I love about being a freelance artist is the different people I get a chance to meet and work with along the way!  Recently I had a chance to collaborate with some very talented photographers and beautiful models in quaint little Arroyo Grande, California.  It was amazing how everything turned out that day, the location was perfect, the weather was gorgeous, and everyone who was involved had so much fun.  The pictures were featured on The Wedding Chicks Blog too!

The different sets were styled to perfection and the surrounding meadows helped too.

It also doesn't hurt when the models you get to work with are all naturally beautiful.  I loved the fact that each girl had their own unique look, and that was not planned.

I love planning parties!

I get a thrill out of planning parties.  My daughter Grace will be turning two in July and I am already getting excited and have many ideas.  She is the lucky one who has her birthday in the summer while her two brothers have theirs a few days apart in the winter.  Last year for her 1st  birthday we had a cupcake theme.  For the past two years my older son Elijah has wanted a spiderman theme, hopefully next year he will decide on something new! 

Cupcake pops are always a hit!  We made these as party favors for guests to take home.

Cupcakes and more cupcakes!

Spiderman stuff is everywhere these days so it was really easy to find party favors and decorations.  I made spiderman bubbles by using spiderman stickers.