Crockpot Spiced Apples

Hello and happy Monday!  I hope you had a fantastic weekend!  I got to enjoy a little girl time, and the hubs and I did get to sneak out to a movie.  For all those who have been thinking about seeing Star Trek, DO IT!  It was amazing :)

So today, I've got a little something different for you- a recipe!  Its nothing crazy fancy, just a little toddler snack I make for beansie :)  Actually, who am I kidding, I eat it too.

Here's what you'll need:
A crockpot
Cinnamon
Apples
Water

That's it!

I used a 3lb bag of red delicious apples this time around, but I've used honeycrisp, gala, there all yummy.

Just wash your apples, and chop into bite size pieces.

Place them in the crock pot, and pour about 1/2 cup of water over them.

Then sprinkle a teaspoon of cinnamon over the top.

Set your (old, banged up) crock pot to low, and forget about it for 4 hours :)

And voila!  Simple as that :)

Gage eats these bad boys by the bowlful!  They are a great healthy snack to keep around, and will keep in the fridge for about a week.  They are also delicious heated up over vanilla ice cream. mmmmmmm.

And can I just say, I love my crock pot?  Like, its become an unhealthy obsession at this point lol.  But it makes cooking so.much.easier!!!!  

What kind of crock pot magic have you cooked up lately?  Any great toddler recipes?

High Five for Friday!!

Happy Friday to you!  I hope you are having a beautiful, sunny day just like we are here in Florida :)  Its been a great, relaxed week here in the Werling household.  Next week however, is sure to be a whirlwind!  This time next week we will be in Pittsburgh, PA (hubby's home town)  for his 10 year high school reunion!!  Man does time fly!  It'll also be our first time on an airplane with a toddler, so I'll have plenty to share after that adventure :)

But on to five things that made me happy this week :)

1.  So I've been a little bit more into jewelry recently.  I like that just putting on a little sparkle instantly makes me feel more girly.  But I'm still a cheapo :)  You can only imagine how exited I was when I found these for only $2.68 on clearance at Target!!!  Seriously, go check out their clearance jewelry section right now, full of awesome!

2.  Hubby got me this as part of my Mother's Day gift, and I've been enjoying it all week :)

3.  Twirling in the shade.  They make my heart so happy :)

4.  Picked up this little set for $14.99, so I can give my guys haircuts at home!  First one's went great :)
      Yay for saving $30 a month!

5.  Cherishing little moments, like time spent playing on the floor :)

I hope you had a fantastic week!  Any Memorial Day excitement headed your way next weekend?  Going to see any good movies this weekend?  Hubs and I are hoping to sneak away and see Star Trek :)

p.s.  As always, linking up with Lauren, check it out!

On a Positive Note

Do you ever find yourself going through your day, and nothing seems to be going quite right?  Your toddler is exercising his ability to say 'no' liberally, the house is a mess, your tired and you have to figure out what to make for dinner?  Its so easy to just grumble your way through the day, leaving yourself in a black mood that you share with everyone you encounter.

I don't know about you, but I find that being negative is SO exhausting!  But I also know that, once the cycle starts, it is hard to break yourself out of a lousy mindset and inject some sunshine into your day.

Enter this little jar.  Just a simple idea.  A jar to hold positive thoughts, for when you are having difficulty remembering all the beautiful, happy, smile worthy things in life!

I got this jar at HomeGoods for $4.99.  Woot for a good deal :)  And I picked up a couple little labels at Micheal's for $3.  I decided to call this our Positivity Jar.

I put this first label on, and it looked terrible.  But, staying positive, I pulled it off and tried again :)

Not perfect, but much better!

Then I wrote down a handful of things that make me smile.  Things that my family and I can pull out every once in a while and read through.  And I'm going to take a second to jot down little things that fill my heart with joy whenever they occur to me!

 

This jar of happy is going to live on our kitchen counter :)  I hope that whenever one of us is having a stressful day, just looking at it will remind us of all of the awesome in our lives, and fill our hearts with joy!  Because who wants to go through life focusing on the negative when there is so.much.POSITIVE!  amiright?! 

So what helps you remember to smile?  Maybe a certain song really puts some sunshine in your day?  Or maybe you already have a jar full of inspiration and happy memories?  Have a happy Wednesday!

Gilded garbage

Good morning and happy Monday!  I hope everyone had a lovely Mother's Day :)  My weekend was filled with pools, family, fun and relaxation.  It was everything I hoped it would be!  And this little project I'm sharing with you today came in handy!  But I'm getting ahead of myself ;)

So I was cleaning out my spice cabinet the other day and came across this empty red wine vinegar bottle.  Does anyone else go to throw something away and go 'no, wait, I can make something with that!'?  No? #boarderlinehoarder

Well, I really liked the shape of this bottle, and thought it would make a super cute vase!  So, I soaked off the label, and used a razor blade to get all of the sticky residue off.  Then I gathered my supplies.

A little gold paint to give this little glass bottle a bit of glam :)

Since I didn't want to just paint the entire bottle gold, I sectioned it off with some painters tape.

This gold color is really beautiful!  A light, soft gold, nothing too bright or brassy.

I was instantly in love as I started the first coat!  I actually considered leaving it really sheer like this :)

But I went for two coats, and I really love the result :)  A pretty translucent gold.

Then I brushed two coats on between my pieces of tape.

Make sure to take the tape right off, so your paint doesn't stick to it.  I didn't get a picture of me applying the ribbon, but after this step I decided it needed a little something around the top of the bottle.  I just used some skinny burlap ribbon I had lying around :)

And voila!  Here it is, holding my Mother's Day flowers :)  I was so glad I had this cute little vase to put them on display!

So there's a little trash-to-treasure makeover for ya!  What have you rescued from the garbage recently? See any potential vases in your future?

High Five for Friday

Hiya!  Can you believe its Friday again?  This week has just flown by, and with it there have been so many sweet moments :) 

Can I just tell you how much I am enjoying my little guy right now?!  Every stage has been awesome, and he learns so much so fast!  But these last few weeks he has been SO.MUCH.FUN!


1.  Someone has started helping with chores!  Even better, he says 'shweep shweep' while he does it :)

2.  A long sunny walk by the lake?  Yes please!

3.  What is better than running in the grass in bare feet?  #mycatchewsmyflipflops

4.  Hot air balloons fly over our house :)  I love taking beanie outside and watching him point and say 'bawoon!'.

5.  This is happening right around the corner from my house.  Bring on the pounds lol

 

So it was pretty much an amazing week!  Plenty of fresh air and baby love :)  Hope you had a fantastic week too!  Oh, and to all of the mommas out there, have a wonderful Mother's Day!

P.S.  I linking up with Lauren today!

 

 

Pinterest Challenge Project

Hello and happy Wednesday!  I finished my pinterest inspired project, and am so excited to share it with you! 

I pinned this picture a couple months ago, and wanted to recreate it myself.  What better time to get on that than for this pinterest project?!

(source)

I started out with a blank canvas.  This one's about 18x24, but you could do it on any size you choose!  Oh, and see that cute little hand in the bottom of the shot?  Beanie was able to join in on the fun with this project too!

As for colors, I went with things that I felt would look good in our master bedroom, navy, green, yellow and a bit of gold.

Bean held the big paint brush, dipped it in paint, and then I helped him swipe it up and down in patches on the canvas.

His favorite part was dipping the paint brush in paint.  He kept saying 'dip it? dip it!' it was so cute!!  I just kept it very random, and left a fair bit of white space.  Just kinda do what you like, whatever feels right.  That's the beauty of this project, there is no right or wrong!

Once the paint dried, it was time for the tape!  I'm not sure what the width of this is, I just used whatever I had lying around :)

I am obsessed with chevrons, but I wanted to do a slightly different take.  I chose to break it up a bit.  And I purposely made it a little uneven, I really liked the look of it that way!  Oh, and it would take FOR.EV.ER to measure out each of those pieces of tape! 

Here it is completely covered!  It helps to have a couple of episodes of New Girl to catch up on while doing this ;)

Then it was time for paint!  I chose to cover the exposed areas in black, but you could do white, gray, metallic, whatever you like!

Just slap it on there!  One coat did the job.

Here it is all covered!

Then it was time to peel off all that tape!  I had a little issue with the paint bleeding under the tape, but since I wasn't being too precise about this, it doesn't really bother me :)

Whoop there it is!  I was running out of light, so it isn't actually hung on the wall, but I.LOVE.IT!  The graphic print vibe and colors make me so happy! And to finally have something on this bare wall is pretty exciting too :)

 

So what pins have inspired you recently?  If you partook in the pinterest challenge, I'd love to see what you created!

p.s.  I'm linking up at the fabulous Young House Love and Bower Power blogs today!  Be sure to go check out their awesome projects too!!

Join the Challenge!

Hello and happy Monday!  I hope you had a fantastic weekend!  Ours was full of fun and fresh air.  When you have days in the 70s in Florida, you take full advantage :)  I know all too soon it will be unbearably hot outside, and we'll be begging for cooler weather!

On Saturday morning, we went to a Harvest Festival and farmers market in nearby Winter Garden.  It was row after row of organic produce, farm raised meat, and homemade goodies, and I was giddy over every bit of it!  I could have browsed forever, and spent too much money, but a light drizzle popped up and cut our trip a bit short.

The highlight though had to be this green smoothie!  Chock full of good things like spinach and kale, it was lightly sweet and tasted great!  I'm going to try and recreate something similar and post the recipe here.  Little man drank over half of it, which is awesome!

Sunday morning brought clear skies and temps in the 60s, so we decided to take advantage of the happiest place on earth!  We popped over to Disney's Hollywood Studios, and had a morning of new experiences!  If you take a toddler to Hollywood Studios, I highly recommend the Ariel's Voyage show and the Disney Junior show.  Both are full of bright colors and high energy, and made beanie very happy.  Also, if your kiddo is into characters, be sure to check out the different character meetups!  Gage got to meet his current favorite, Mater, up close and personal :)

But enough about our weekend, on to the week ahead!  Each season, two of my favorite bloggers,  the Petersiks and the Bowers offer up a little something known as the Pinterest Challenge.  Its an opportunity for all of us pinterest addicts to stop pinning, and start doing!  The idea is to take something that you have pinned to pinterest and use it as inspiration to create something yourself.

I'm working on a little something today, that I'll be sharing on Wednesday.  If you have the creative itch, I encourage you to scratch it!  Create something new, or tweak an old favorite, and share your results!  And be sure to check out those awesome bloggers sites on Wednesday, for pinspiration overload :)

High Five for Friday!

Hello hello!  I hope you all have had a lovely week :)  It's been rainy and cool, which has made for a lot of lazy days.  And some time spent jumping in puddles :)

1.  I got a cars blanket for beanie, that Max promptly claimed for himself!  Can't say that I blame him, this thing is huge and sooooo soft :)

2.  I gave my tootsies a little makeover!  Love this color, Turquoise and Cacaos, for anyone who's interested :)

3.  My filtered Camelbak water bottle has been my best friend this week!  Hooray for drinking more water!

4.  Bean climbed up on the couch to cuddle daddy #itsthelittlethings

5.  Hey look I'm on the camera!

 

I hope you had plenty of things happen to make you smile this week!  What are your plans to enjoy the weekend?