Author: Tessa Smith

My Home GardenWhen I went out to water our garden this morning I could not believe my eyes! Our veggies are growing so well! They look amazing and I cannot wait to eat them all up! We have had lettuce (green leaf & romaine) from our garden already this year but it looks like the rest is coming along great!I cannot wait for these to grow grow grow so I can harvest and start canning! I plan to make my own sweet relish from the cucumbers, pepper jelly from the bell peppers, and of course sauces from the tomatoes! Check…

This super easy DIY flower necklace will provide hours of summer fun for your kids! A great way to celebrate nature and the outdoors.

Happy 4th of July everyone! This holiday I will be spending time with family at a backyard BBQ & campout! This will span the whole long weekend! I am so excited! For dinners we all bring a dish to pass. My husband I could not decide what to bring – all the common things were taken (pasta salad, tossed salad, fruit salad). As you probably know, we raise chickens and thought – hmmm why not deviled eggs! I then remembered that my cousin made pastel colored deviled eggs for Easter and thought I could do that with Red & Blue dye for festive Independence Day eggs!

I am lucky enough that ThinkFun chose me to receive this game for free in order to review it! I was so excited when I found out because my 3 year old is really in to board games now. She would rather sit at the table and play games all day than spend time outside, or even watch TV! I am not exaggerating when I say we play board games for at least 3 solid hours every day in our house. We only own three games that are age appropriate for her so it has been the same thing over…and over…and over….this mama was very excited to be getting a new game to switch things up! And Robot Turtles did not disappoint!

Green Tea Powder by Kiss Me Organics ReviewFirst let me state that I was over the moon when I was chosen to do this review! I have heard such amazing things about green tea powder – natural energy boost and what it can do for your health. I feel that I drink too much coffee so I have really wanted to see if this will give me that energy that I need to get through a day home with two crazy little girls – and it did! For one week, after my morning workout, I added about a teaspoon of this…

My oldest daughter just turned 3 – THREE!! (Where does the time go?!?) Her favorite things right now are Tangled and Frozen. She watches them over and over. She even pointed out Rapunzel in Frozen at Elsa’s Coronation before I noticed her. To say she is obsessed is an understatement. So when I asked her what theme she wanted for her birthday party I was not one bit surprised when she told me Tangled. Below are some fun party ideas if you want to do a Tangled theme. We had a blast!

Membership Appreciation Night at the ZooRosamond Gifford Zoo is our local zoo in Syracuse, New York. We planned to become members but recently they launched an amazing military program. Veterans, of which my husband is one, and their families can get in FREE when they visit the zoo. Since this means we would not need to be members, we decided to use the money to “adopt an animal.” This means you get your name on the wall, a fact sheet, and a stuffed animal of your adopted animal. My daughters chose the Red Panda. Because we adopted an animal, we…

First let me start with the obvious here – why I chose to home water birth. I hospital birthed my first child and it was not a “bad” experience. It was, however, not totally what I wanted.

LeapPad Ultra ReviewI was lucky enough to win a LeapPad Ultra through another blog last September. We held on to it and gave it to our (then) 2.5 year old for Christmas. This is such a great product. There are lots of games available that star her favorite characters. The free game that came with it, Scaredy Cat, is one of my daughter’s favorite apps! She also loves to take photos of all of us and blend them together. She even made one where her sister’s face was on her puppy, Violet’s, head! I know a lot of people seem…

We used Amy Elizabeth Studios for our first born’s 1 month photo shoot. Everything about the experience was amazing. She was very professional and creative. She kept coming up with ideas that topped her previous idea and so we ended up with some really awesome shots! She had the photos edited and back to us within just a few days! Every photo was perfect which made it really hard to choose which ones to print. She came in to our home and photographed us in our environment. Our daughter took to her right away and slept through most of the photo shoot. Below are just a few.