You Snooze, You Lose

Happy last day of 2011!

This morning the four of us discussed our new years resolutions.  I love that the monkeys are old enough to make their own and they both thought of really thoughtful and insightful goals for themselves to work on. We each though of a few for ourselves then each chose one resolution for each family member to improve on.  I'm going to type them up and hang them in our main living space to have as a reference.
One member of our family is going to work on not sleeping in which reminded me of this alarm clock:

This alarm shreds your money if you don't get up in time- Yikes!
The monkeys thought it would be funny to have a hammer alarm clock that you leave your IPhone or in their case ITouch under and it would smash it if you didn't shut it off- Double Yikes!!
I'm a morning person but tomorrow we're going to a friends for a morning brunch- might need something like this then!

One of my resolutions it to take more chances this year-
Happy New Year and all the best in 2012

Food Tips

Hull a strawberry using a straw

Rub a walnut over dings and scratches on your wood furniture

Stop cut apples from browning by securing with a rubber band

What are your favorite food tips? 

Green Tips

Tips to make life easier while staying 'green'

Re-use bread tags to identify cords

Re-use a wet wipe container to store plastic bags- 

I'm going to make one of these for my car!

I love this idea and love how it looks- 

Re-use old gutters to make a window box veggie garden.

We recently bought a stove top pop corn maker which we love- 

This idea of using plain paper bags alleviates the plastic lined bags usually used for microwave popcorn.

 What are your favorite 'green' tips to make life easier? 

Dreidel Cake- Hanukkah

We made this dreidel cake over the weekend- 

It is super easy to make and has the added bonus of getting immediate rewards by tasting the cut off parts right away. 

Here is a post about dreidel's

We baked a vanilla cake in a rectangular cake pan 

Cut the top with two large squares on either side

two triangles off the bottom

and there is our dreidel cake

{would love to see your on Instagram- I'm ladyofthearts}

I sprinkled some icing sugar on top and it was company ready!

Only two more nights of Hanukkah- 

How is your holiday season? 

Holiday Tips

My friend S. sent me an email with some great ideas to make life easier-
Here are a few that are sure to make your holiday season a little easier:

Turn your muffin pan upside down, bake cookie-dough over the top and voila, you have cookie bowls for fruit or ice-cream.

Use wire to make a space to store gift wrap rolls against the ceiling, rather than cluttering up the floor.

Use egg cartons to separate and store your Christmas decorations.

Make an instant cupcake carrier by cutting crosses into a box lid.

What are your favorite tips to make the holidays easier? 

(Besides alcohol!)  

these moments

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember- I generally don't veer from the one photo format but this week I decided to share a moment for each of my monkeys- May you have a wonderful and blessed holiday season. 

www.soulemama.com/soulemama