Trendy TreeHouse

Monday, October 25, 2010

♥ Shutter Love Top Ten Photos ♥

Our theme this week was "A Story in Pictures"

Our #1 pick goes to....
{Our Family of Four}
This story was creative, fun and beautifully shown. Thanks for the great entry!

#2 - Mother's Love

#3 - Love & War

#4 - Inspire Me Photography

#5 - Balloon Fiesta

#6 - {My} Perspective

#7 - Schrocksters Live

#8 - Live Every Moment

#9 - Me in the Mix

#10 - Erika B

Viewers Choice this week for the theme "Babies" is....
Laugh Until You Cry

Some of Tara & Jamie's Favorites that didn't make this weeks top 10 are...

Thanks to everyone who entered in our fun "A Story in Pictures" week.
Don't forget to go grab your award buttons if you see your photo above.

WE HAVE NEW BUTTONS ~ GO UPDATE YOURS NOW!

Make sure you get your photos ready for next weeks "Collage" theme.
Remember to share this {Party} with friends so more can join in.
If you are a winner, go pick up your {Prize Button}

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Slow Cooked Pulled Pork

What you will need....

Pork Roasts
Bottle of RED wine
Garlic Salt to taste
Minced Garlic to taste
Slow Cooker

First I started by putting all the pork in the slow cooker and sprinkled Garlic salt on both sides of each roast. Next you want to pour in your bottle of RED wine.

And I {LOVE} garlic so I added in some minced garlic....

Now just step back, set the slow cooker to 250° and cook for 5-7 hours.

Make sure you check it through out the day and baste the pork with the sauce in the cooker.

You can see from the pic below how yummy its beginning to look. ;-)

After your pork is cooked....enlist the kids to help you start pulling the pork. My kids loved it and loved eating it too! It was fun watching them giggle as they thought they were sneaking bites. LOL

To make things easy on pulling, we cut the pork roasts into thin slices then used a fork to pull them apart. It was very easy.

Here is a pic of all the pork in the cooker. We put it back because we wanted to keep it in the marinade and also to keep it warm. Oh and this makes a lot. You can scale it down. We like to make a lot to freeze and use over time.

You can.....

make sandwiches with this pork by adding a little mayo and BBQ sauce. Pickles would be good too.
Add them to your tacos, tamales or enchiladas
Make a stew with your pork
and many many more

What do you suggest for this pulled pork?

Hope you enjoyed our easy recipe for pulled pork!

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Paper plate halloween crafts

Here are two SUPER simple
yet cute and
not TOTALLY cheesy looking
Halloween/Fall crafts that
you can do with your little kids.

Candy Corn Banner
What you need:
paper plate
orange marker
yellow marker
scissors

Grab a paper plate and draw two circles on it
one inside the other.
(I like to use the back of the plate so the candy corn curls back)
Color the outside ring orange and the inside ring yellow.

Let the 2 year old scribble to his hearts content

Here are the colored circles all finished.

Then just cut the plate into 8 "pie" pieces.
I also rounded the corners to make it more "real" looking.
And hang them wherever you'd like!

Jack-O-Lantern
What you need:
paper plate
orange marker
black construction paper
scissors
glue

Color the whole plate orange.

Glue on black pieces of paper that have been cut out
to be the eyes, nose and mouth.
Simple. Fun.

Oh and it doesn't HAVE to be orange!

Happy candy corn making!

Friday, October 22, 2010

Window Paintings - Pumpkins

Well, creative share this week brought some really fun ideas. And the party is growing fast. So excited to see all of you projects. I found one that I just had to do today!

Did you see the beautiful painted pumpkins that Glory's Mischief linked up? Well once I saw it I was curious. I checked it out and LOVED it! I am into painting lately. LOL So I have to give a HAPPY shout out to Glory's Mischief and her Pumpkin Painting Tutorial. Thanks for the fabulous idea.

Here's Glory's Pumpkins

Beautiful eh?

Well I have a back door that has a plain glass window that I knew this project was for. So I had the paint already but no black. What to do. Hmmmm!!! I had some black paint pens. I was hoping they would work. Ummmm NOOO! Great. Now what??? Well I found a Prismacolor Premier black pen. So I tested it out. Yes it comes off the window just fine. SO I CAN USE IT!

But I am not the greatest at freehand. So here is what I did.....

I found a pumpkin online that was perfect. I printed it in 3 different sizes. Oh and I found a cute ghost and lil pumpkin too. I printed them out too. I knew I could do something with them as well.

To get started, I cut out each of the pumpkins and the ghost and taped them together on the door where I wanted them to go. (I taped it on the outside as I was painting from the inside.)

Then I traced from the inside. This was tricky because it's double paned and I have to admit I got a little dizzy. LOL First I traced a quick thin line and when I was done, I went over it again using the thicker end of the pen. My lines are a little silly because of the dizziness. Hee Hee. But this is my first time. I am sure I'll get better. But I am happy. It turned out cute. Oh and I only needed one coat with the pen. With paint you will want to do a few layers and let dry in between.

Since I used the pen, and it dried quickly, I was able to paint the orange right away. So I grabbed a paper plate, squeezed some orange on there and used a round sponge to dap it on. I liked the look of the sponge too. Again only one layer was all it took for this step.

Finally, I added in the white on the ghost and the green stem for the little pumpkin at the bottom. Aside from the squiggly line on the pumpkins, I am pleased with how this turned out. Next time I will use black paint. But for now, I will just say that they are spooky pumpkins because of the ghost and that's why the pumpkins have a wiggle in them. Ha! Ha!

I think using the printed pages helped me with my tracing. Let me know what works for you.

What have you painted on your windows?

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Granola Snack Mix

This is a tasty snack that you can whip of very quickly. Just run to the store and pick up a few ingredients and you're ready. A great treat for snack time, party snack or on the run too!

What you will need....

1 box of Quaker Granola Cereal ( I got the honey nut flavored. It comes with almonds )
2 bags of Yogurt covered raisins
1 cup Sunflower seeds
1 1/2 cups Chocolate Chips
Scooping Bins-in the health food section

1 cup Honey Nut Granola mix
1 cup Pumpkin Seeds
1 1/2 cups Sesame Sticks

Let's get mixing....

Mixing this is so easy. Grab a big bowl and pour the whole box of cereal in. Add in all other ingredients. Mix well. Enjoy!

It's that easy. I made this in a matter of minutes. It would also be an easy mix for the kids to help with.

You can...

Add this mix to your kids lunch. Hopefully they will eat more than just the chocolate chips. LOL
Leave it out at parties
Bag them up to send in for your kids next snack day at school. We bring snack in once a month for our daughters kindergarten class
Leave out the yogurt covered raisins and chocolate chips for a healthier version.

Monday, October 18, 2010

♥ Shutter Love Tuesday ♥

This Weeks theme is "A Story in Pictures"

Please link up your version of a story in pictures.

Be sure to check the link above for up coming themes! And if you would like to suggest a theme, please let us know.

AND don't forget to vote for your favorite photo too! No Anonymous Voting!

Tara & Jamie will be picking the Top Ten as well as sharing some of our FAVORITES too!

Have Fun!

To learn more about this party and our other linky parties, please visit here.

Winners will be announced Saturday 3 pm pacific

And don't forget to grab a Button to place with your entry!

Tara's "A Story in Pictures" Photo

Now I know this isn't the picture you'd think I'd post. LOL At first I thought, I need to make a collage of the fun we had this weekend and post our pumpkin picking story. Bu t then I thought I should share the fun my kids and I have going to the library. Finding stories, craft books , holiday books, drawing book, poems, ect. So this photo is a photo of one of our trips to the library picking up our "STORIES" for the week. LOL I am so fortunate that I have kids that love to read, hear and learn from stories. I could spend hours reading or browsing a library. I look forward to seeing you "Story in Pictures" photos.

Jamie's "A Story in Pictures" Photo

Your Probably aren't surprised to see my story in pictures. Going from a family of four to a family of five is my story...and what an awesome story it is!