A better healthier me

I decided last week that I was going to give up drinking pop........more importantly my Mt. Dew. I love that can of energy but I really hate how much crap I am putting into my body. I am an oxymoron for sure. I live a pretty green lifestyle. I try to eat grass fed beef, free range chicken, I cloth diaper, I don't use chemicals for cleaning, and I try to eat organic fruits and veggies.

 That being said what sense did it make to eat all that good food if all I'm going to do is shove a bunch of high fructose corn syrup ,which I HATE I don't buy other foods with it so why pop? Didn't make much sense to me so I have slowly been cutting back.  I normally drink 6+ cans of soda a day and the last few days have gotten to the point I can't finish 1 can.

So today is my first day I will not be giving in to the temptations of my yummy energy in a can but instead to a nice glass of water or maybe some kool-aid if I feel I need that sugar rush.

Is today the start of a new healthier you? If so share what your doing different today!

homemade butter

I decided to give homemade butter a whirl because it sounded easy and really yummy!!

All that you need to make this is
Heavy whipping cream
Salt (optional if you want salty butter)
A jar (baby food jars are the perfect size if the littles are helping you out)
And about 10-20 minutes!

Fill your jar with however much whipping cream you want, I used about 6 oz, put the lid on and SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE!!! Once those fat starts sticking it will start to make the butter part and the liquid in there is buttermilk, great for using in your baked goods recipes so don't throw it out save it!!

Once it's done I drained the liquid to save until later and put the butter in a empty yogurt container!

I tried some straight away on my Udi's gluten free white sandhich bread toasted...YUMMMMMM!! I am a major butter lover and this was good!

One year ago my life shattered.........

We are about to be upon my daughter 1 year anniversary of being diagnosed with Retinoblastoma (cancer of the retina). We had noticed she had a "lazy" eye so we took her to the Dr. We were lucky enough that our NP found something in her eye otherwise we never would have known. We should have taken her to the eye Dr. instead. She was just a little shy of turning 5 months old when we got the news that a tumor had wrapped itself around her optic nerve. To be told that your tiny baby had this tumor in it's eye is the most heartbreaking thing to hear. Our options where systemic chemo, intra-arterial chemo, or enucleation. The tumor had ruined most of her sight and we couldn't put this tiny baby through chemo to save an eye that would never work so we chose to have it taken out. The next week was the hardest week knowing your baby had this cancer in its eye and that she would also be losing an eye!

I would never wish cancer upon anybody. The only good thing about retinoblastoma is that of all the cancer the cure rate if caught early is in the high 90%. That being said one thing I want people to know is that it's never OK for a kid to have WHITE eyes in pictures. You want to have that red eye look, the light bounces off the retina that's why it's red, if it's white you need to get your child into an EYE dr. right away.....not a pediatrician but an eye doctor. They will do an dilated eye exam and make sure things are ok. Also if you see your kids eye being "lazy" bring it up to an eye dr also. Attached is a picture of what the eye looks like. Please turn the red eye reducer off your camera and take a picture in a dark room of your baby.

process my emotions

As a mother of 2 kids going through cancer treatment I need a way to process my emotions and the first thing that came to mind was scrap it. So this is the start of my journey. Not really going in any order just doing what feels right. I thought I would share our story in case anybody else is going through the same thing.

New Ways

I am a scrooge. I hate the holidays. Always have and always will............so I thought. This year my kids are almost 5, 3 and 10 months. After a really hard year health wise with 2 of my kids I have opened my eyes to how important it is to make my kids childhood a much better and more fun life then what I remember mine to be. I got my scroogenest (so just made that word up) from my parents. They didn't really like holidays and never made it fun. So I am trying whole heartedly this year to make a bigger deal out birthdays and other holidays.

I have many ideas in mind and even thought this blog was started for my bows I have decided it will also have a little bit more of my transformation this next year!

~Sara

Now on Etsy!

Now you can find all of our awesomeness over at Etsy! Our shop name is a tad to long to fit within their character restrictions so we are cupcakesandskullsbow! http://www.etsy.com/shop/cupcakesandskullsbow I will be listing things over the next few days and will be running some specials!

the winner is!!

JENNI!!!!!!!!!!!


According to random.org you are the winner of the black moon stitch bow!! Thanks for entering!