Some Gratuitous Baby Photos and Giveaway Winners!

 {Oliver saying 'hi'}

Thought I would share a few pictures of life around here lately.  Mr. Oliver is doing awesome and letting his mommy and daddy get some really good sleep at night, ahthankyouverymuch little guy!  :-)   He is very well-loved, especially by his big siblings, who ask on a daily basis (and with every diaper change) to hold him and then have their pictures taken doing so.

My momma is in town for 2 weeks and she has been the hugest blessing to us.  She has been so helpful and will entertain the older 3 while I nurse little man.  She plays Crazy Eight's with them, finger paints, has loads of crafty activities in her back pocket to keep them busy, takes them on long walks around the block so they don't get cabin fever, bakes them cookies, and spoils them with ice cream from the ice cream man.  In a nutshell, Grandma Joyce rocks and we wish she could stay forever.

I love this picture :-)  

Oliver is really yawning but it looks like he is screaming in pain from getting a kiss from his daddy.  That won't happen until at least high school, right?

::  ::  ::

Okay, here are the winners of a few of the recent giveaways on my blog that happened right around the time little Oliver was born.  So sorry about the delay in posting the winners, he just loves to be snuggled and I truly love snuggling him!

If your name is listed below, please email me at SmashedPeasandCarrots@gmail.com with your name and mailing address unless otherwise noted!  Thank you and congrats to you!!!

The winner of the Mod Podge Rocks! book is...

The winner of the Miss Pretty Pretty eBook for the Deluxe Playhouse Pattern is...

**Robin, please let me know what email address you would like your eBook pattern sent too, thank you!

The winner of the Plum Organics Giveaway is...

XOXO, 

It's My Birthday and a Mod Podge Rocks! Book Giveaway!

So, today is my birthday, holla!!!!  Yup, I'm a whole year older and hopefully wiser!  ;-)

To celebrate me getting older, how about a giveaway?  

You in?

Okay, cool...so let me tell you a bit about the book I'll be giving away to ONE lucky duck!

I'm sure you've all heard of Amy Anderson and her amazing blog, Mod Podge Rocks!  (If not you will want to head on over and check it out immediately!)  Well, Amy has written a book all about, you guessed it, Mod Podge, and I was lucky enough to get to review her book and all it's Mod Podgey goodness :-)

Mod Podge Rocks is seriously loaded with mod podge projects galore, over 40 to be exact!  A few of my absolute favorites are...

This Jewel Tone Wrapping-Paper Stool...how cute is that!

And this sweet "Be a Deer Suitcase"...how cool is it that it was made-over with Mod Podge!

This has seriously got to be the most perfect book to get your creative juices flowing using Mod Podge.   There are so many great projects using various forms of Mod Podge, you are going to love flipping through it and seeing them all.   Amy did a stellar job with it and there is no doubt in my mind that she is the Queen of all things Mod Podge.

To enter to win your very own copy of this great book:
(you can do so up to 3 times, one comment per entry please!)

1.  Be/Become a Follower of Smashed Peas and Carrots
2.  "Like" Smashed Peas and Carrots on Facebook, here.
3.  Follow Smashed Peas and Carrots on Pinterest, here.

Giveaway ends Friday, June 29th at midnight!

Good Luck!

XOXO,

Little Dude: One Week

 It's hard to believe that Oliver went from this little guy a week ago...

To this little guy today.

A week old already?  Say it ain't so.

For the most part, his day-to-day is pretty much the same...eat, sleep, poo...eat, sleep, poo...

Ahh, the life of a newborn!

He has been the most perfect addition to our family.  

We feel so blessed that every day we get to hold him and snuggle all his sweet baby goodness.  

(Did I seriously push that head out of me?)  

Being #4 in the line up, life doesn't stop when you're born.  

Sorry little dude.

In just a week's time little man has already been to soccer practice.  

Every. Day. This. Week.  

And it's been in the 90's aaaaalll week long. 

Good stuff.

He's also already had his first trip to the zoo.  

He's a mover and a shaker.

And the sweetest little one-week old sleeper around :-)

Oh, I'm in love, so in love.

Big Time.

XOXO,

Personalized Jewelry Pendants-TUTORIAL

~~Enjoy this fun tutorial while I spend some time on maternity leave loving on our new little man!~~

Not too long ago I was the fortunate benefactor of a whole box full of Mod Podge supplies.  It was unreal, really, all the goodies they sent out for me to try from Plaid.  Take a peek and see for yourself...

There were so many fun new products in the box but a few piqued my interest right away!  One of the new products they sent me was Mod Podge: Wash Out for Kids.  What the whaaat!?! Yep, it's true. A mod podge formula that kids can use and if they so happen to get it all over their clothes (now who's children would ever do such a thing?) the mod podge just washes right out.  Hallelujah!  I say.  Now this is the stuff dreams are made of, well, a crafty momma's dreams anyways :-)

I grabbed that Mod Podge: Wash Out for Kids and a few other fun new supplies that Mod Podge and Plaid have out now and little Miss Penelope and I got to crafting one afternoon while little sister napped and big brother played outside.  She is just like her momma and loves a good crafty project!  

We decided it would be oh so fun to make necklace and keychain pendants since Penelope is waaay into wearing necklaces and jewelry these days....and fingernail polish, and dress up clothes, and, well, you get the picture.  She is almost 4 and it seems that age for girls just pushes them over the edge in the accessories department!  Want to craft some with us?  Okay then, let's do this thang!

Personalized Jewelry Pendants

Mod Podge: Wash Out for Kids

Mod Podge Podgeable Shapes

Mod Podge Tracing Templates

Podgeable Papers or Scrapbook Paper

Foam brush

X-acto Knife

To make a personalized jewelry pendant (for a necklace, keychain, earrings, zipper pull, etc) you will need some new products from Plaid.  First you will need their new Podgeable shapes, these are so neat.  They come in the perfect size for making jewelry pendants and some of them in each pack also come with an eyelet to place a necklace chain or jump ring through.  Second, you will need the Mod Podge Tracing Templates.  These work perfectly in conjunction with the Podgeable Shapes.  Each template is sized so that you will be able to trace the same size in the Podgeable Shapes....cool!  No guess work needed!

Here is a closer look at the new formula Mod Podge: Wash Out for Kids...coolest product ever!  Especially if you have little ones who love to craft!

You'll also need scrapbook paper or the new Podgeable Papers from Mod Podge.  These papers are also pretty darn cool since many of the prints are sized perfectly for the Podgeable shapes and Tracing Templates...everything works together so nicely, ahhhh, I love when that happens!  You'll want a foam brush to apply the mod podge as well as an x-acto knife to help cut out the paper templates you trace.

Real quick, here is a look at what one of the Podgeable Papers looks like.  This paper is from the Nature series. There are a few different series available and each one is loaded with 4 pages of 6 different sheets so there is plenty to use and choose from.

Okay, so what you need to do is grab your templates and punch out the middle of the ones you are going to use.  Then just place the template on top of your paper and trace the shape.  Then cut it out with your x-acto knife...easy peasy!  Now, I did the x-acto knife portion of this project with Penelope as she is only 3 1/2, so not exactly an x-acto knife friendly age yet!

Then, you can let your kid(s) paint the Mod Podge onto one side of the Podgeable shape and apply the piece of paper they chose to have cut out on top of it so that the right side of the paper is facing the mod podge.  We let ours dry for 15-20 minutes and then I let Penelope apply a second coat of Mod Podge to the backside of the paper.  Then we let it dry for a few hours or until the Mod Podge wasn't tacky anymore.  This last part will depend upon how thick you applied that last coat of Mod Podge!!

Once the Mod Podge is dry, you can add a your necklace chain or a jump ring to the eyelet and then your choice of jewelry.  Penelope chose to use elastic cording for her necklace and then she also made a necklace using a thicker white necklace material for her baby sister (what a sweet kid!)  She even made one pendant to be used as zipper pull.  You can also attach a keychain to the jump ring for us grown ups!

The finished product!  She was, and still is, so happy!!  Hooray, she made her very own necklace!

You can find more inspiration and projects here: 

Plaid Crafts on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/plaidcrafts

Plaid on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/InspiredByPlaid

Plaid on Twitter: http://twitter.com/plaidcrafts/

Mod Podge Rocks the blog 

**I wrote this post as part of a paid campaign with Plaid Crafts and Blueprint Social. The opinions in this post are 100% my own.

 XOXO,

Sherwin Williams Perfect Palette Room ReDo and Giveaway

With the arrival of our fourth child just recently, our house seems to constantly be in full-time organizational and rearranging mode these days.  Or maybe that is just me?  My poor husband, what a good sport he is about all of my nesting.  We need to change up the kids' bedrooms as our house will be maxed out with the addition of Oliver.  So far we have both decided that the room shift will occur like so: 

1. Baby to go into nursery. Since baby is a boy, we'll need to paint and redecorate once baby is moved into this room (which is currently in a very girlie state of being) which for us is usually around 6 months or so, since our babies camp out with us until then.

2. Eloise will move out of the nursery and into "Noah's room," which is currently shared by Noah and Penelope but still decorated as a boy's room in shades of green.  Eloise and Penelope will share this room and it will need to be redecorated to fit the girls' personalities.  Yay!  I am getting so sick of the green color we picked out when we moved in to our house 5 years ago.

3. Noah will move into our guest bedroom/office/catchall room, which means no more guest bedroom. Yikes! We will be at maximum capacity in our house!  This room is a major disaster.  Floral wallpaper everywhere!!!!!  Anyone want to come over and strip it for me?

Right now my focus has been redecorating Noah's new bedroom first.  It seems the easiest one to tackle right now, since once the wallpaper is gone it will be more or less an empty slate (once we get all the odds and ends out), and we can move furniture around and into it as we see fit.  Plus, since he won't really move into it until the baby is around 6 months old, it will be nice to have a newly decorated guest room for my family to stay in while they visit and not the hodgepodge of a guest room it is currently.

{Before Picture: Disaster of a Guest Bedroom. No laughing, please!}

I am slightly embarrassed to show you this picture, but it is what it is.  It's a guest bedroom only due to the fact that it has a bed in it!  We have used it as a guest bedroom/office in the past, but within the last month or so we moved the office to another area of the house so it's easier for my husband to do notes at night in preparation for baby, although there is still a printer and desk chair floating around in there.  I also use this room to store some of my partyware (left-hand corner), since I hate going down to our basement to get anything. 

Do you see that wallpaper?  It's so awful. I hate it, but since we've already taken down wallpaper in our family room, powder room, and one other bedroom, I have just been too sick of wallpaper to tackle this room too!  We did take the trim down around the window just to prep for the process, but that's about all we could handle. LOL!  

Need a close-up of that wallpaper mayhem?

I have been scrounging the internet and Pinterest late at night to look for various color schemes.  Oh, the choices there are for boys!  I knew right off the bat that I didn't want the typical dark blue/tan that many boy rooms are decorated in. Instead I wanted something more neutral, so if I ever have to redo this room in the future it will just be (hopefully) a matter of changing out decor.  I really want this room to grow with Noah and to be easy to add or take away decor as his tastes change.

I love light blues and light greys, as I think they are really calming colors, which will be nice for Noah as he will be starting kindergarten in the fall, and I think having cool, calming colors will be nice for focusing on reading, writing, and other homework fun. Noah loves orange and green, so my thoughts were along the lines of a light blue or grey wall color with pops of orange, green and blue in accent decor and bedding. Here are a couple of inspiration pictures that have caught my eye so far:

{image via}

I just love the color combos in this picture. It's right up my alley!  With this picture I used Sherwin-Williams's new Chip It! button, which lets you use any picture you find online and turns it into a perfect palette for inspiration.  It is seriously so cool. 

You can get the Chip It! button just like the Pin It button for Pinterest.  First you drag the Chip It! button below to your toolbar:

Whenever you spot a photo you like online, just click the Chip It! button and then click the photo itself.   And voila--you get the picture's paint colors.  So easy!  It's awesome.

I have been using the Chip It! button on every single inspiration picture I have found so far, and they are all easily saved into the program as a ChipBook called "Noah's Room."  That way all the color options are right there where I can easily access them and compare colors too.  Love it! 

{image via}

I love the wall color here (it is a bit darker than I usually go for, though...) and the splash of aqua blue and orange.  I showed this to Noah and he really liked it too. †He is a definite sucker for anything orange. :-)  

You've got to check out the Chip It! video and add the Chip It! button to your bookmarks bar now.  You will fall completely in love with what this new program does for your decorating mojo. 

Okay, so ya ready for the giveaway?

Chip the last image in this post and then guess which photo I'm going to use in my room makeover and you'll be entered for a chance to win a $1000 Visa gift card and a $200 Sherwin-Williams gift card!

Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post

b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post

c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post

d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

Entries from all participating blogs will be pooled for winner selection; only two entries per household.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 6/18/2012 to 7/6/2012.

Be sure to visit the Sherwin-Williams brand page on†BlogHer.com, where you can read other bloggers reviews and find more chances to win!

XOXO,

Oh Baby! Oh Boy!

So, as some of you may have heard over on Facebook (thanks to Mr. Smashed Peas!), we had ourselves a little baby on Friday :-)

I still can't believe it.

He is here, yup, HE!  

It's a BOY!

Oliver Nicolas

6 lbs 10 oz

19 inches long

{Oliver Nicolas just 5 minutes old!}

He is absolutely perfect.  We are all in LOVE!  :-)

He didn't come as fast as his sister Eloise, she was a record breaking birth story for sure (see here), but he came nice a quickly and I didn't really have many painful contractions until the last 30 minutes, thank you God!  We arrived at the hospital around 9 am and he was born less than 4 hours later.  Not bad little man, not bad!  

Mr. Smashed Peas is ecstatic to have another little dude in the house.  As is Noah, he may have been most thrilled of all to find out the baby was a boy.  He finally has a BROTHER, hooray!



I am trying my hardest to soak up all of Oliver's baby squeals and coos since he is probably going to be our last little babe.   Kissing on his sweet little feet every chance I get, man I love those little toes.

So posting may be a little light around here for the next few weeks...who am I kidding, maybe even the whole summer.  You understand.  I've got to snuggle this kid every chance I get.  I do have some fun guest posts coming up as well as some super fun giveaways and reviews for y'all though, I'll share my first one this week even :-)

Thank you so much for all the prayers and well wishes during this pregnancy, we truly appreciate them and love having all of you in our lives to share this special time with.  Now back to my new babe, little man needs to eat and bulk up those chicken legs :-)

XOXO,

Jo-Ann 'Simply For Baby' Pinterest Video Contest

Hey all!  Real quick I just wanted to mention a super cool contest that Jo-Ann is hosting until the end of June.  It's their first-ever Pinterest sharing contest!  Have you joined in all the crazy fun over there yet?  If you want to follow me and my boards click here!

This contest is a video contest, so it's super easy to enter.  All you do is videotape a quick tour of your nursery, showcasing any handmade items, and then just upload that video to YouTube (making sure it's public for viewing) and then paste that URL to the electronic entry from on the Jo-Ann blog here.  After their team reviews the videos, to make sure they are eligible, they will post them on Joann's Simply for Baby Nursery Board on Pinterest.  Super easy, right?  If only we knew if this little peanut was a boy or a girl I would have a nursery done and entered, aack!

If you want, you can click here to see some of the entries they have so far!

The contest runs for the length of June and at the end of the month, Jo-Ann's will vote on a winner and award that person a whopping $500 Jo-Ann gift card and basket of baby-themed products that they sell in their stores nationwide, how freakin' awesome is that prize!!!

Okay, so you seriously need to go and enter now.  What an awesome prize pack and the best part is you are just videotaping a room (your baby's nursery) that you already have done, so there is hardly any work you need to do to enter!

If you do enter, let me know in the comments!  I would love to check out your nursery.  Hopefully we will get to change ours up a bit for this new babe in the next coming weeks!

XOXO,

Oatmeal Creme Pies {Gluten and Dairy Free}-RECIPE

I love me a sandwich cookie.  How about you?  There is just something so fun about eating not one cookie but two and then on top of that getting to enjoy a creamy-filling between them.  

Plus, aren't sandwich cookies the best kinda cookies to stack?

These gluten-free and dairy-free Oatmeal Creme Pie cookies are reminiscent of those good 'ol Little Debbies but with more of a crispy cookie although still nice and sweet.  And the creme is not too sweet but just the right addition of sugary goodness.  I made the creme out of coconut oil instead of the usual crisco-type product and man, was that a good change!  My husband loved these and couldn't get enough.  Which is saying a lot as he grew up being quite the Little Debbie connoisseur :-)  

Oatmeal Creme Pies {Gluten and Dairy Free} (makes about 3 dozen)

For Cookie:

1/2 cup non-dairy butter substitute

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

2 cups gluten-free all purpose baking flour

1 tsp xanthum gum

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3 cups gluten-free oatmeal

1 tsp vanilla

In the bowl of an electric mixer, mix together non-dairy butter substitute, oil, brown sugar, and white sugar until mixture is creamy. Beat in eggs, one at a time.  Then slowly add in flour, xanthum gum, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix in oatmeal and vanilla until well combined. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until just golden brown.  Let cool on cookie sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a cookie rack to cool.  

For Filling:

1 7 oz jar marshmallow cream

1/2 cup coconut oil (in a soft not liquid state)

1/3-1 cup powdered sugar (or more to make a creamy filling consistency!)

1/4 tsp salt

Mix the marshmallow cream, salt,  and 1/3 cup of powdered sugar together with an electric mixer, slowly add more powdered sugar until the filling is creamy.  Spread between two oatmeal cookies.  Enjoy!

Just a little peek at the Gluten-free all purpose baking flour and xanthum gum I use in my kitchen. 

Here are the gluten-free oats I use too.

For this recipe, you will also need vegetable oil, brown sugar, white sugar, 2 eggs, vanilla and a non-dairy butter substitute (we really like the Earth Balance brand!)

You will also use baking soda, baking powder, and some salt.  

Mix all the ingredients together in the bowl of an electric mixer and drop by the teaspoonfuls onto  greased cookie sheet.  These cookies spread and get thin so don't try to make them too big!

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes...see how thin and crispy they get!?

To make the creme for the Oatmeal Creme Pies you will need...

Coconut oil, marshmallow fluff and salt.

Plus some powdered sugar.

Just a side note on mixing the ingredients!  You want you coconut oil to be soft NOT liquid!  If your kitchen is warm and you find your coconut oil has turned to a liquid just be sure to add less of it or add more powdered sugar so that you get a nice creamy filling.  You may need to play with these ingredients a bit as the coconut oil can be tricky depending on what state it is in!

Once you get the filling to your desired consistency, spread between to oatmeal cookies and enjoy those delicious oatmeal creme pies you just made!

XOXO,