Water Beads and Recipes

First things first:  HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARK!!!

Okay... What am I into today?

Well... I read somewhere, I have no clue where, that today was Grandparents day.  I SWEAR I read it about a week and a half ago.  Now I can't find it anywhere and when I look for the official day, it's some day in flipping September.  But, I already did a little project with my kids, so I'm going with it.  So there.  We found some inexpensive glass vases at Michael's and these really cool water beads.  I know that's not the real name for them, but I can't find the packaging.  They are these tiny little balls and when you add water you get this:

Then we placed them into the vases.  We had looked at them at the store and they had some that were already expanded with water.  That was $5 for that jar, or it was $2.50 to add the water yourself and you got 4x the amount of beads in the end.  Hmm???  I wonder which was a better choice?  I got the ones you did yourself and I did it with the kids!  It was great to see Austin think about it as they got bigger and bigger.  It takes about 4 hours, so it wasn't an instant thing, but he totally got it.  Plus, we also realized that when you look at the bowl of them, you can't see most of them, but when you put your hand it, you can get a whole bunch that you didn't see.  :)

After that, we put some bulbs in them.  Paperwhites, freesias and gladiolas.  Okay... I didn't know if the bulbs would work.  I don't think they are.  They are not rooting out like I had hoped.  Especially the paperwhites.  So, we are going to take the bulbs out and plant them in our rose bed today.  Then we will replace them with some fresh cut flowers.  I'm wondering if Trader Joe's has the daffodils yet?  Maybe tulips?  That would be neat.  If not, a couple of bouquets cut down will work just beautiful as well.

Here's what they look like with the bulbs in them:

Pretty neat huh?!  :)  We will go deliver them to Grandma Julia and Grandpa Dick, pick up Austin who spent the night there, and then go deliver a block and a half away to Grandma Phyllis and Grandpa Ron.  Austin insisted that Aunt Janice needed one too, so she has a smaller one since she's not technically a grandparent, but she pretty much fills in that role as one too.  :)  The last one is Great Grandma's and she lives with us...  I have to take all of them with me though to fill with the flowers.  I think it's sweet!

What am I into after that?  Oh my!  It's Mark's birthday!  I plan on having our bedroom clean today.  That is a huge task for me considering I have laundry to do and put away, and I need to change the linens on our bed and get the desk cleaned off.  The desk scares me.  It's okay though.  A clean bedroom is probably the best gift I could give Mark for his Birthday today... other than the fire pit we built last weekend.

Somewhere in there I need to make these:  Whole Wheat Hamburger buns  Mark's brother and his wife and their two kids are coming over for dinner tonight.  Mark asked for Sloppy Joe's.  Yes.  For his birthday, he wants sloppy joe's!  I'm all over that!  But since making my pledge to pretty much only buy french bread or sourdough, this means I need to make my buns for them.  I'll be trying out this recipe.  I'll make as many as I can out of this recipe to get an idea of how many I get.  It says 15-16.  I need 10-12.  This will also be my recipe for the hot dog buns for our family get together for Mark's birthday this weekend.  I'll need to do at least a double batch for that.  I hope they come out great!  Hallee's recipe's have never failed me.

Speaking of recipes, have you noticed the "Recipe's" tab at the top of my blog page?  It's where I'm posting some of my recipes as I can.  Right now, there are three recipes there.  I'd like to figure out how to make each one as a separate post, but I don't know how.  If you know how, please let me know!

Lastly, I'd like to try to get some more followers.  I'm thinking a giveaway of some sort would be ideal!  While the prize is not determined yet, when I can get to 25 followers, I will give something away.  Most likely, it will be something handmade.  Probably something to do with my fiber arts.  A batt, a skein of handspun yarn, a scarf?  I'm not sure.  But it will be something beautiful I promise!  :)

Happy Hump Day everyone!