Absolutely Brilliant Household Tip

Another forwarded email, it was just too good not to share. I think I might just try it :)
  

Always keep several get well cards on the mantle so if unexpected guests arrive, they will think you've been sick and unable to clean.

Project 19 of 52 13th Birthday Cookies

I made these sugar and chocolate chip cookies for a special person who was turning 13. I have not had the pleasure of meeting this person but I knew that her favorite color was lime green and she was turning 13. Since lime green is such a neat color, I decided to pair it with bright pink and orange. I wish the orange had been a little brighter, oh well. They are made mostly with royal icing, some of them have fondant and I also used my colored sugars on some.

Please excuse the quality of the pictures, they were taken at night, I didn't have time to take pictures in the daylight before I had to package them up.

I hooked up to the following linky parties:

        

Marriage Joke

I have jokes emailed to me by ajokeaday.com and some of them are actually pretty funny so I just wanted to share one I received a while back.

Marriage Jokes :: #355 By Walter Smith from Unknown A guy is reading his paper when his wife walks up behind him and smacks him on the back of the head with a frying pan. He asks, "What was that for?" She says, "I found a piece of paper in your pocket with 'Betty Sue' written on it." He says, "Jeez, honey, remember last week when I went to the track? 'Betty Sue' was the name of the horse I went there to bet on." She shrugs and walks away. Three days later he's reading his paper when she walks up behind him and smacks him on the back of the head again with the frying pan. He asks, "What was that for?" She answers, "Your horse called."

Project 18 of 52: Mothers Day Cookies

I am totally aware that this post is waaaay late. I really do have a reason though.

I didn't get to spend Mother's Day with my Mom until this last weekend, a week late. Soooo, I obviously couldn't share her cookies until I gave them to her. Kinda ruins the surprise. Since she now has her cookies, I can show you all my Mother's Day cookies.

Since we live next door to my Mother and Sister in Law, I got to give them their cookies on Mother's Day. And of course theirs have to be gluten free.

Nephew came up and spent some time with me that Friday before Mother's Day, we decided to make cookies for Grammy and Mom. Since I also made cookies for my Mom, we made Gluten Free Sugar Cookies, Regular Sugar Cookies and Cut Out Chocolate Chip Cookies.

When Nephew was leaving, I offered Hubby a Chocolate Chip Cookie.

Nephew has recently discovered 'brown' aka chocolate.

When he heard me offer Hubby a Chocolate Chip Cookie, he wanted one too. I thought he was gonna cry when I told him he couldn't have a Chocolate Chip Cookie since they were Uncle cookies. But I promised to make him his own Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies the next day.

They were well received.

Sorry about the lack of pictures here. I waited until I had enough sunlight to take better pictures but by then I had 2 hungry guys waiting for breakfast eyeballin' my cookies and a couple more on the way so I figured I'd better get some pictures and get 'em put away quick and then I forgot to take more when I had them ready to go and the guys were gone.

I made my Mom her cookies and then packaged them up in plastic wrappers and put them in a cupcake box to transport them to Texas.

I apologize for the quality of these pictures. I took them late the night I finished the cookies because I had to work the next day and pack for our trip the next evening so I took pictures when I had time, at night, in the dark, hence the shadows. The light is directly above the island these are sitting on. Not a prime photo shoot.

Sanding sugar is my new best friend. I have sanding sugar, sparkling sugar and glitter crystals and I LOVE the sanding sugar.

Project 17 of 52 Cookies and Bread

The other weekend I baked and cooked and cleaned all weekend, so much so that I plum forgot to take pictures of all the stuff I did. I did get a few pictures though so I'll share what I got and the rest, let's just remember.

Cinnamon Rolls... *Remembering*

French Bread... WooHoo, remembered to get a picture

Ham, mashed potatoes, salad...  *Remembering*

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies... WooHoo, remebered to get a picture (not a good one though, sorry)

Breakfast burritos for about twice the amount of people we actually had there...  *Remembering*

Well it was actually a pretty productive weekend, just not for anything to do with Creating Sweet Smiles since I was really bad at documenting everything with pics and this last weekend was almost as bad. But I got a few more pics so stay tuned.

Project 16 of 52 Transplanting Houseplants

I have recently become the plant lady. Not really sure how that happened, I never even took horticulture in high school or anything. I just started rescuing stray plants and have realized that I seem to have a (maybe, kinda) green thumb. So since we had some really nice weather a couple weekends ago, I decided to play with some plants.

First, get all your plants and supplies ready.

Since these two had large homes in the bottom, I put some rocks to allow excess water to drain but help keep the soil where its supposed to be. I just go find little rocks around the house that are slightly larger than the hole in the bottom of the pot.

 Then put a little dirt in the bottom and make a well in the center for the plant to go in

Gently loosen the plant from the current pot, if it's really root bound, try to very gently loosen the roots up a little bit

Then place it in the soil and fill around it with soil until the pot is full. Don't pack the soil in too tightly though.

Then sit back and admire your new plants 

I have a few more to do though

I got this super cute tin at Hobby Lobby. I thought it was too cute to pass up

Since it's so deep I decided to do a spider plant and a pothos clipping so the roots can just go straight down.

It makes a very cute presentation. It'll be even better when the plants start growing.

I also had to transplant this guy. His pot was getting a little small. This plant is a Dieffenbachia, it should have leaves. My Mother in law has had it, it came to my house not long ago to (hopefully *fingers crossed*) be saved.

Then I had these guys that when I transplanted them into this pot (for what reason I do not know) I didn't put enough soil and they are waaaaay below the edge of the pot. Therefore, they are not getting enough sunlight. 

(Please don't judge my pot, it's just really, really dirty, this was my Grandma's pot that my Mom passed down to me, who knows how long it has been in use. To the best of my knowledge, it has always had a plant in it.)

So I decided to fix that since I was already playing in dirt

Much better.

And all my newly planted/transplanted guys together...