the little gard family: Favorite things tag

I got this from my friend Emily and I thought it was a great idea.

"We all have things that work so well for us and might even work for other people - if only they knew! So here's a new "tag" - your 5 best tricks or current favorites. ANYTHING: recipes, finding deals on clothes or groceries, favorite websites, projects that turned out great, how to get your kids to do jobs, practice the piano, whatever...if you love something, share it! Right?!"

I think this is so fun, mainly because I'm interested to see what you guys have to share, not because I feel like I have much of anything worth sharing. Here are what I thought of today. It was very difficult to come up with 5. Probably tomorrow I'll think of something better

1. Temple Jar- instead of's..
Traveling to the temple is very difficult for us since its so far away and it gets expensive. To save for it I've started a temple jar- the kids have a jar to earn money for a swing set. We really aren't doing anything to raise money for either we are just doing what I call instead ofs. For example... we could be deciding to go to McDonald's one day or instead we could stay home and put the money we saved by doing that in the jar. We do this at the grocery store with different things. We could buy these chips or instead of doing that we can put the money for the chips in our jar. It has to be a true instead of not just making up any reason to put money in the jar. It has to be instead of something we were going to spend our money on. A lot of the time I will get back from the store and then decide I don't need something and even if its only a dollar I'll take it back and put the money in the jar. Its addicting and adds up fast! I look at the money I spend totally different now.

#2 Toy Drawer
I know not everyone has the same luxery of ample drawer space in their kitchen, but I love this. I have a whole drawer in my kitchen dedicated to toys. Its great for when kids are little. They can just sit at your feet and play in the drawer while you work in the kitchen, its a great place to store small toys or McDonalds toys that never have a place, makes for a quick clean up when you need all the toys cleaned up now- just throw them in the drawer. I also have a drawer just for the kids school work that I don't want to save forever but also don't want to immediatly throw away. We put it in the drawer and when the kids want to color- which for Eve is always- they just take one of their old assignments out and color on the back- saves me paper!

#3 The body sculpting bible for women.
No, I am not the picture of physical fitness at the moment two months post baby still not looking good over here! Anyway- some of my gym friends have been using this book for a workout and loving it so I gave it a try and I love it too! In very good detail it sets up a 14 week work out for you that you can do at home or at they gym and it gives you a great variety and makes the most of your time- important to me. It makes sure you muscles don't get bored and changes the workouts so you do so you are always focusing on different muscles and its not a body building routine- we don't really want that. I'm loving it, staying motivated and feeling good! I love having someone who's researched a lot tell me what to do instead of me just making things up as I go along. Its like having a personal trainer. Also- I know the cover is a little weird. As Lance said " I'm disappointed there aren't any pictures inside it like on the cover." I got in on amazon.com for #4.95

#4 Recipe book
Like my friend Emily I keep all my recipes in a three ring binder in plastic sheets. I get most my recipes online anyway so I just print them out and they stay protected from my messy cooking and organized nicely.

#5 Bow making
I love making Eve and Elaina bows. So cute and way cheaper then buying them. Several of my friends have asked me how I do it. I always say "oh you should come over and I'll show you" but then we never do it. So I'm releasing the secret- I learned how to do this from my sis-in-law so I really can't take credit for it. Those of you who are on my pay it forward- I hope you don't mind but this is what I was going to make you.

Step #1- pick some cute ribbon. Today Orange was our color. Cut 3 or 4 pieces, depending on what you want your bow to look like- we cut 4, the same length. We did 6 inches here.

Step #2-Lay cut pieces on top of each other and fold in half. Poke pin in the crease. See picture. Don't you love my beautiful hand model Eve? Fan out the Ribbon.

Step #3 With the ribbon fanned out around pin, fold each side up and poke pin through the end. Once all the ends are folded up sew them together. I usually just use invisible thread. I sew it through twice and then take out the first pin I used to hold it all together.

Step #4 Make another bow the same way only cut the pieces about 1/2 inch shorter. We used white this time for our second bow