Play Dough Volcano

Hudson made a play dough volcano with baking soda and vinegar at school last week. He wanted to make another one right when he got home! He is really into science experiments like this, and I've had to restock my baking soda and vinegar supply quite a bit lately!

You will need:

-Vinegar

-Red food coloring

-Baking soda

-Funnel

-Small water bottle

-Play dough, recipe here.

-Baking sheet

-aluminum foil

First line your baking sheet with foil.

Then use a funnel to place 3-4 spoonfuls of baking soda in the water bottle. 

 Next cover your water bottle with play dough. 

Then mix red food coloring into about 1 cup of vinegar to make the "Red Lava" 

 Hudson place some small toys around his volcano.

Then pour the vinegar into the volcano.

 Watch the volcano erupt!

You should be able to pour the vinegar into the volcano a few times to make it erupt.

Then we added more baking soda to ours to do it a few more times. 

Home Remodel: Before and After Exterior Paint

We weren't originally planning to paint the exterior of the house before moving in, so when we made the last minute decision to have it painted we had 1 day to choose the colors! I quickly began searching colors online and asking friends for any input or suggestions that they could offer. I knew that I wanted to paint the exterior grey, but there are about a billion shades! I found a picture on pinterest, here, that I really loved. I have also always loved pictures of colorful front doors, so we decided to go with a bright and cheery yellow front door! You can't really tell in the before picture above, but the roof was green, so we also painted that as a temporary solution until it is replaced in a few years. We also have future plans to one day get rid of all the rock in the front yard and replace it with grass.

Here you can see that the house originally had a beige block with green accents. We also replaced the front light with a vintage barn pendant from restoration hardware. 

 BEFORE PAINT

AFTER PAINT

BEFORE PAINT

 AFTER PAINT

BEFORE PAINT

AFTER PAINT

 We painted the exterior block and walls with Dovetail Gray by Sherwin Williams

We painted the trim White Dove by Benjamin Moore

The front door was painted with the color Daisy by Sherwin Williams,

however he added some white to match the color Lemon Twist (shown above).

Mixing it that way allowed us to get the paint in an exterior quality paint.

The roof was painted black using Behr Masonry and Stucco Paint.

Fireplace Makeover

Here it is...the fireplace before in its awful messy condition and finally looking finished! The before picture is the condition it was in when we bought the home. Just want to make it clear, that is not my mess. :) We debated different options for remodeling the fireplace, like stucco, eliminating the bench, drywall, and others. However, we decided we wanted to keep it inexpensive so we stuck with mostly paint to update it. We (and by "we" I mean my wonderful brother-in-law) drywalled over the brick above mantel. We also drywalled over the brick to the right of the fireplace. The beams were removed from the ceiling in the family room to help the room feel open and the ceiling higher. That left us with holes in the brick above the mantel (shown below). This is what led us to the decision of drywalling over the top portion. We still need to place an outlet cover on and do some final paint touch ups, but for the most part it is done! My friend Alexis, with Design by Lexi,  did a great job staging it for me.

 Here is the fireplace in the in between stages, and my little helper.

We painted the fireplace brick in Benjamin Moore's Anchor Gray.

We painted the mantel and the tile on the bench in Benjamin Moore's White Dove.

Our wall color is Benjamin Moore Gray Owl.

Seven Great Juicing Recipes

These are some of my favorite juicing recipes that I continue to make over and over. I love to drink my juice cold, served over ice. Makes it taste better to me. It seems like once I start juicing my body begins to crave it everyday. It is a great way to get lots of fruits and veggies in at the start of the day. Especially for the kids! My kids love helping me juice and they also love to drink it. So when my boys are being picky eaters, and only eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches... I make them a glass of juice and feel much better about what they're consuming for the day!

Hope you enjoy these recipes as much as we do! Some of them I have created on my own and other recipes I have found online and slightly adjusted. For all of the recipes below you will run the ingredient through a juicer, according to the manufacturer's directions. 

Recipe: Serves 1
1 bundle of kale leaves, stems removed
-2 apples, cored and halved
-1/2 pineapple, cored and sliced
-1" ginger, peeled
-1/2 lemon

Recipe: Serves 1-2
-2 oranges, peeled and halved
-2 apples, cored and halved
-2 celery stalks
-2 carrots
-1/2 lemon

 Recipe: Serves 1-2
-1 large golden beet
-2 oranges, peeled and halved
-2 apples, cored and halved
-2 celery stalks
-2 carrots
-1/2" ginger, peeled

Recipe: Serves 1-2

-1 large beet, quartered

-2 carrots
-1 orange, peeled and halved
-1 apple, cored and halved
-2 celery stalks
-1/2" ginger, peeled

Recipe: Serves 1

-1 grapefruit, peeled and quartered

-3 carrots

-1" ginger, peeled

Recipe: Serves 1-2

-2 apples, cored and halved

-2 carrots

-2 celery stalks

-1/2 lemon

-1" ginger, peeled

-5 oz spinach

(Rise and Shine Juice recipe via Giada De Laurentiis)

Recipe: Serves 1-2

 -1 sweet potato, quartered

-4 stalks of celery

-5 carrots

-1 apple, cored and halved

-1/2 lemon