Friday Faves

Happy Friday friends!

Just a few more hours until we start making those memories. For those of you who don't have weekends off, I feel you! Don't forget to take some time to fill your cup on "your weekend", too. Each Friday after Leighton leaves for school I try to take some time to reflect on my week and think about the things that made me smile. It's easy to think of the day-to-day blah, blah, blah; but doing this helps me to dive into the weekend with the fam with a thankful heart. Here are my Friday faves!

1. New Coffee Bar Set-up 

I have had this vintage milk crate for about a year now. It has gone from, centerpiece, to crayon holder, and now this. I have to say I like this the best so far.

It is currently holding two of my favorite things from Starbucks;
 - One pound of whole bean Guatemala Casi Cielo (Here is a review I enjoyed on the coffee).
 - Two sets of awesome reusable cups. You can find these at your local Starbucks store. They are super affordable(I'm talking like $2-$3 each). During the holidays they sometimes sell them in 6 packs. Each cup has a cute saying on it and they are all different colors.

All the other stuff is just the usual coffee necessities! Different sugars, tea, stir sticks, measuring scoops, filters and some Mio! My kiddos love to put it in their water.

2. Hockey Practice

We love hockey in this house! Winters are seriously jammed packed with it. In our town, we have an outdoor ice rink. That means we can only have our ice during the coldest winter months. Most other surrounding cities have indoor rinks, so this year the association decided to offer some pre season ice time at an out of town rink. Leighton and Kade have been asking about this night for weeks now, so they were so excited when it was finally here! Ty helps coach the kids' hockey team so he took them while I was at work. It made for a fun daddy and me hockey night for them; which makes my heart happy. Anytime Ty goes out of his way to do something fun with the kids that they all can enjoy my heart literally explodes. Go Coyotes!

3. Teal Pumpkin Project Idea

The teal pumpkin project is something we decided to start participating in, last Halloween. In pre-school, Leighton had a friend and classmate with a severe peanut allergy. After hearing the about some of the challenges they had faced regarding halloween and trick or treating, I decided to look into allergy friendly alternatives to candy. While searching Pinterest I came across The Teal Pumpkin Project! It is a super cool program, if you live in a neighborhood with lots of trick-or-treaters I encourage you to check it out.
I finally thought of what we should do this year. Last year we made playdough. This year we will be doing glow in the dark halloween slime! Super easy to make and super cheap, too. Kade and I tried it out this week and it was awesome! He loved it and it kept him entertained FOREVER. I found the recipe here; we used glow in the dark glue and added googly eyes! It would be fun to do halloween themed confetti inside the slime, too!

4. Fall Centerpiece Success 

Not too much to say about this, other than I was excited to be able to transform my centerpiece by simply adding the pumpkins. That is why I love having a super versatile centerpiece. I can easily change throughout the year without having to purchase a plethora of supplies which will in turn need to be stored somewhere the rest of the year. Succulents provide a great backdrop year round!

                                                                                                                   

5. New Children's Book Ideas

This week I had the privilege of learning more about early childhood literacy, through a parent education meeting put on by Big Bend Cooperative Preschool. Our speaker this month was from the community library. She told us about lots of her favorite books and what each helps kids with, excetera. Anytime I have the opportunity to learn something new about helping my kiddos and upping my mom game, I am all over it. I can use all the help I can get! Here is a list of my favorites she mentioned at the meeting! These will most likely be Christmas gifts and/or birthday gifts for my kids. 

-"The Read-Aloud handbook", by Jim Trelease

- "Reading Magic", by Mem Fox

- "The Little Red Cat Who Ran Away and Learned His ABC's the Hard Way", by Patrick McDonnell

- "Who Put the Cookies in the Cookie Jar", by George Shannon

- "The Big Book of Animals", by Scholastic

- " The Pig on the Hill", by John Kelly

6. Leighton Home

 Finally, my last big thing to make me smile this week is having my daughter Leighton home ALL DAY TODAY! She had today off school, and I have been looking forward to it all week just as much as she has. Being able to sleep in and cuddle with her while watching cartoons is one of my favorite things on the planet. Now that Leighton is in school, I really treasure any extra time spent with her. She was able to sleep in and relax this morning which makes for a lot happier kiddo and a lot happier mom!
Hope you all had a fantastic week and cheers to the weekend! Feel free to share what made you smile this week, below.
-Kaci