Our Family Summer Fun List 2011 & Shaved Ice

So My mom has been doing this really fun

Summer fun list idea for a few years now and thought

now that we had our little Maddux 

it would be fun to do our own

So I made an Ulrich Family Summer Fun list for 2011

I didn't start it until last week

I know I know summer started a month ago

but for our family summer didn't start until last week

because that is when Ty took his final

finishing his summer class

So now we get to play
and start summer

yay!

I came across a really fun list idea on this blog 

and pinned it here to remember
(If you don't know what pinterest is read about it here)

They put their list on a chalkboard

and I thought hello that is so cute and fun

and I could totally do that

So I did

I was going to get chalkboard paint and create my own from a frame

but I found this already made one at hobby lobby for $7

for the same price as the paint and

this way I had a lot less work to do

So of course I chose that option

But of course I had to paint it 

It has got to be cute right :)

I painted it red because I am puting it near our

red and black kitchen

and then when our summer fun list is complete 

I am going to put it in Maddux's room

for him to color on

Cute huh?!

And here it is complete 

painted, pretty, with the whole list and all

I put the boxes next to each activity and when

they are completed I color them in

oh and I got the colored chalk for like 88 cents at hobby lobby too

I am going to take pictures of all of our activities

and document about some them

Since this is like a journal for our family

It will be so fun to look back and read all about what we did this summer

So on Thursday July, 14th

(Ty's last day of school) 

to celebrate him being done with his final

we started it off with the first thing on our list

"Family Walk to Italian Ice Shack"

There is a Dans Grocery store just right outside of our neighborhood

And it has a shaved ice shack in the parking lot

so that evening after dinner 

we got Maddux in his stroller and started our walk

got these yummies

and sat on the lawn enjoying every second

of the amazing weather and each other

I got the cheesecake flavor with cream on top

this one does the cream for free

and let me tell you it is AMAZING

you will never want one plain again after you try it I promise 

Ty got the Black Raspberry flavor with Cream on top
This one was super yummy
I tried some too

And we both shared with little Dux :)

Aren't you just loving those lips?!

haha where did he come from?

He cracks me up!

He is totally eye balling my shaved ice

I can see it in his eyes :)

Maddux LOVES to point 

and he loves balls and says ball all the time

What a boy!

In this picture he saw a balloon that was hooked to

the shaved ice shack and he was going crazy he wanted it so bad

I seriously have the cutest baby in the whole world

I mean look at him!

Please mom please can I have the ball

(This is totally what he was thinking I mean look at that face haha)

Sorry baby I cant reach it 

But you can have more treat

Speaking of saying please

Maddux knows the sign language for please and it is adorable

when we say "Maddux say please" he does it

He is so smart

And sometimes if he sees us with something he wants

he will just do the sign on his own

I LOVE watching him learn

Ok I'll take some of that

and i'll have some more and more and more

He loves these

He had so much sugar that night

But he still slept great

I have the best little sleeper 

Man I'm spoiled

and I swear sugar doesn't even affect him

He's got a sweet tooth like him momma

Me and Ty

We have so much fun together

especially on simple evenings

going on walks, sitting on the lawn, chatting and snackin on some icy goodness

Now that is summer right there

Then when we were done hangin out for a while

We walked back home

PERFECT!

Thanks honey for the fun night

Elmo Cake Tutorial

I am not a Cake decorator by any means 

but I did think it would be fun to decorate a cake for Little M's first Birthday

I am lucky enough to have a Mother in Law and a Sister in Law that

both decorate beautiful cakes so I did get a few pointers

and borrowed some icing bags and tips from my MIL

Well the little one has been OBSESSED with Elmo lately

so I got onto KSL classified and low and behold there

was the exact cake pan I wanted for only $5

I had my hubby so snatch it up for me 

and it still looked brand new

This is my crazy kitchen as I was rushing to make the cake for his party 

Running late like always

Can you say STRESSED?!

First I had to get the Funfetti cake it is the most fun and 

it is for a fun little one year old

Plus it has pudding mix in it so it was really moist

Make the cake just like it says on the box 

To prepare your pan you spread shortening all over it and flour it so the cake will slide right out when you want it to

 Pour the cake mix into the pan and bake it as instructed on the box

While it was baking it was time to get all the frosting colored and ready

I got Strawberry frosting because then I wouldn't have to use as much 

red food coloring to turn it Elmo red

Plus it is yummy :)

I used the vanilla frosting for the white parts of the eyes and also colored it orange for the nose

I used a tube of precolored black frosting because it is so hard to get it the dark black with food coloring

I got the tube at Michaels

These are the food coloring I used for the frosting

I feel like this kind made especially for cake decorating are

better because they don't leave the gross after taste that the regular food coloring does if you use too much

I already had the red one from when I made Ty a U of U law school cake a while back

and I borrowed the orange from my Mother in law

Here is elmo when he is cooked and not yet decorated

See he just slides right out if you use shortening and flour to prepare your pan

Then the decorating began

First I did the mouth I just put a tip right on the end of the tube of frosting and piped it right in then I smoothed out the mouth with a little spatula 

Next, I did the main red of the face first I just put it all on there covering all of the main face of elmo
using the frosting spatula

Then I took the spatula and lifted the frosting to make him look hairy

Next I put the orange on the nose smoothing it carefully so the orange didn't get any where else on the face

Next it was time for the eyes I just used the plane white frosting and smoothed it around the eyes

Lastly I used the black frosting tube with the tip and make the eyeballs. 

And there he is complete

Isn't he cute

It was pretty easy and so much fun to do for my little man

and his Elmo themed Birthday party

And it was delicious

Just ask him?

Oh how I LOVE this boy!

Check out my Where I link tab and here to see what parties this Do it yourself Cake is linked to

Stay tuned for some fun party decoration tutorials coming up soon

Little M's Tree & Tutorial

I have been working on my little guys room and it has been a slow process but it is comin along and I am determined to get it done before his first birthday (April 28th). I have had so much fun getting his room together. His cute ABC wall I did a few months back can be found here.

This is one of my very favorite projects that I have ever done. It was so easy and turned out super cute. I really wanted something big on this blank wall and my mom (from Organize and Decorate Everything) had the amazing idea to put a big tree there. I thought that this would be so perfect for a little guys room. Well, I knew that I couldn't paint it on the wall because we are living in Ty's grandmas basement so I couldn't do something that permanent. So then I looked into the vinyl trees, but they were way too much for my cheapness, but then I had heard about using liquid starch to apply fabric to your wall and so I did some research and found out how to do it. SOOO easy seriously. And it isn't permanent which is perfect if you are renting or just like to change your room often.

What you will Need:

-Your Image- I found a tree that I wanted on the image Google search and printed it out on a transparency just on my home printer.
-Transparency sheet
-A projector. Since I am not very fancy shmancy I don't have one of those cool now a days projectors so I looked on KLS Classified (it is a local ebay type site for Utah and Idaho) for an old school projector and found one for $15! What a steal I was so excited. I couldn't sleep the night before I was supposed to go and pick it up. I know I am a bit nerdish. Don't you remember your teacher's using these in elementary, Jr. High and high school? By the time I got to college they had the fancy ones. (I want to play school with Maddux:)

-Liquid starch (I had a hard time finding some. But ya'll might have better luck than me. The 2 Walmarts by my house didn't have it but the one in Syracuse by my parents did. Wahoo. I got it for like $2.50 or something cheap like that)
- Fabric- I used dark brown for the trunk and branches, a cute patterned green with circles all over it for the leaves, and some red, white and yellow for the owl. 
-A Marker or fabric pen
-Scissors
-Paint roller
-container to put the liquid starch in
-Paper
-Towel- To put under your work area so there isnt any liquid starch drippage on your carpet. Gotta protect yo!
-Rag- To wipe up the drips off the wall as you go
-Liquid Stitch 
-And a Blank wall to put it :)

 What I did:

**First I bought myself an awesome old school projector from the KSL classifies. (I love this thing it is my favorite purchase.) Oh and P.S. If any of my buds out there need to borrow this for your own projects let me know!
**Then, I found my image on google image search, printed it out on a transparency sheet from my home printer and projected that bad boy up on a blank wall. I played with the position and focus knob on the projector until I had it the size I wanted and had it as clear as I could get it.

**I pinned my fabric onto the wall using thumb tacks and got a tracin'

**Once the whole trunk and all the branches were on my brown fabric I took it down and cut it out placing it together together as I went to see what it would look like .

**After I was done with all the brown fabric it was time for the leaves. Since I didn't want to sit there and trace every leaf up on the wall. I found there were only two sizes and I counted how many of each size.
**Then I traced each size onto a piece of white paper, cut the pattern out, traced them onto the fabric and cut them all out sitting down comfortably while I watched love potion #9 (This is a total 80s movie that I had never seen before so I checked it out from the library. I loved it! It is such a fun cheese movie just like they all were then)

**Once everything was cut out I placed it all together to make sure I liked what I saw before I stuck it up on the wall. And lets just say I was in Love and couldn't wait to have it all up.

No craft is complete until little Maddux puts his little hands on everything I am working on.
Literally ;)

Don't you just love those puggy little hands projected up on the wall?

I was in heaven...it was so dang cute

He was pretty pleased too. :)

Seriously this boy is such a busy body and LOVES to help and see what mommy is up too

We are so going to be playing school with this projector when Dux gets a bit older. 

Doesn't that sound like a blast?

This boy will learn all his letter and numbers on this thing

I am a nerd

Have I ever Told you how much I love being a stay at home mom?

Welp that was a nice break now lets get back to the second half of the project

**I projected it up again but this time it was on the space that the tree would be going up (Maddux's big blank wall in his room) and it was to the size and position of right where I wanted it. This made it easy to put my fabric right were it was supposed to go using the projected image as a guide. Very helpful and saves lots of time...I promise

**Now to the fun part.
1. Dip your fabric piece in your liquid starch
2. Squeeze the excess liquid from the fabric so it isn't dripping. Put your fabric piece up on the wall smoothing it into place with your fingers (it will stick to the wall...if your fabric is heavier or is a really big piece you may need to tack it into place with thumb tacks until it dries but I did the whole big trunk without having to tack it at all, it stuck really well.
3. Get your sponge paint roller and dip it in the starch
4. Roll the painted roller on your fabric on the wall to make sure it is all smooth and there are no bubbles. Make sure to roll over the edges to make sure it is all sticking to the wall.

**After I got all the brown fabric up I took my sponge roller and rolled over the whole thing once more just to make sure it was smooth and on there really good. I didn't want this thing goin' anywhere until I said so.

**I did the same steps as above with each of the leaves. These went really fast because they were so small.
**Again I took the sponge roller and went over the top of the whole thing with the liquid starch just for a nice last coat to polish it up and make sure it was all stuck on there with no bubbles.

Isn't it looking so good. 

I loved it

But it needed a little somethin' somethin' more to it

so I added this little cutie below

don't ya just love him?

** I found this precious owl in the silhouette store and cut it with my machine onto card stock for a pattern

** I traced it all onto the fabric, cut out all the pieces and glued them to the main body with liquid stitch

**Lastly I dipped him in the liquid starch, placed him on the wall and rolled over him with the sponge roller.
**When your decal dries it goes back to the original fabric color and is stiff and stuck to the wall until you decide it is time to peel it off. (I love how un-permanent it is for renters like muwah)

 And Voila! the fabric tree is complete! 

What do you think?

I will be putting a saying above it with white vinyl so stay tuned for his completed room post coming very soon.

I am so in love.
M likes it to he is always touching it and smiling whenever he looks at it

It will be sad to take it down when we have to move one day. (luckily that is not for a while)

But the cool thing is that you can take it down without any damage to your paint or wall and it is so easy to do it again. 

I think Maddux is really going to love it when he gets older.

If you have any more questions you can email me or leave a comment!

This fabulous tree is linked to these fun linky parties:

Blue Cricket Design