Five on Friday!

Happiest Friday to you all! It’s been a good week but I am so ready for the weekend! Caroline’s Mickey Mouse birthday party is next weekend so you can find me gluing things, running errands and making grocery lists this weekend in between our scheduled events!

– one – SASSY WATER! I was reminded last weekend how much I love Sassy Water! The weeks leading up to my wedding I diligently drank Sassy Water to shed some last minute water weight. I had kind of forgotten about this tasty beverage until my friend May brought out a pitcher for us to drink while we were getting ready and told me she’d been drinking it all week too in preparation for the big day.

Why it works: Cucumber is natural diuretic, contains anti-inflammatory properties and helps the body release stored excess water. Ginger boosts metabolism, helps cleanse out your system and soothes your GI tract. Lemon juice also helps to cleanse and alkalize the body. Mint helps settle your stomach and aids in digestion.

This recipe also happens to be one of my top 5 most popular pins on Pinterest!

Sassy Water Recipe
original Carolina Charm post

Step 1. In a large pitcher combine:
8.5 cups water
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1 medium cucumber, sliced thin
1 large lemon, sliced thin
12 mint leaves

Step 2. Refrigerate overnight.

Step 3. In the morning strain and drink entire pitcher throughout the day.

Step 4: Repeat for 4 days in a row, trying your best to avoid other beverages!

Note: If you want to skip the hassle of straining your ingredients, try using an infusion pitcher instead! Also, I re-use my ingredients twice before I refresh them. 

– two – We celebrated Supper Club at Cristina’s house this month. For dinner she created the most incredible salad bar of all time…

Overachiever!

 

 24 toppings. Unreal. And if that wasn’t impressive enough, Cristina provided cute to-go containers for each girl to take a salad home too!

She knocked dessert out of the park too. A whole buffet dedicated to dessert. I’m so glad I’ve already hosted Supper Club this year so I don’t have to follow hers! You can find her 2015 Supper Club set up (here)!

 – three – Next week is Teacher Appreciation Week and I am ahead of the game for the first time in my life! In fact, I think I’m still feeling guilty from forgetting about Teacher Goody Day a few weeks ago so now I have an insane amount of calendar reminders set to prevent that from happening again.

Each day next week requires some kind of gift – flower day, treat day, card day, etc. and with SEVEN teachers to surprise it can get expensive pretty quick. So I usually resort to thoughtful or clever ideas. This one goes down (in my opinion) as the most clever idea I could find on Pinterest that didn’t cost a fortune. The original idea I stole had a tag that said “I won the LOTTO” but I changed it to “jackpot” since it seemed more appropriate with a scratch off instead of a lotto ticket!

So “treat day” rounded out to about $15 total which is a real win (pun intended) in my book — 7 one dollar scratch offs ($7) + 2 packs of fun size 100 Grand candy bars ($4) + 2 packs of fun size PayDay candy bars ($4). Lucky me (again with the puns!), I already had the bags, twine and made the tags on PicMonkey. Although this gift only cost me a little more than two bucks a pop, ya never know, one lucky teacher could walk away with $7K! Ha!

– four – On Wednesday Thomas and Caroline’s school hosted “Muffins with Mom,” one of my favorite mornings of the year! We started in Caroline’s class, split a muffin, split another muffin, made a huge mess and then visited Thomas’s class for round two.

Thomas actually out ate us both in muffins. He is such a machine these days which is a stark contrast to his picky sister.

We usually drop Caroline off to her class first but on occasion we let her come with us to drop Thomas off first so she can hug her old teachers and visit with the babies. This of course adds at least 20 minutes to drop off. Also, you can’t wear shoes in his class so she always knows to stop and put on her blue shoe covers first. So funny.

– five – For anyone looking to purchase the best gift ever for a two year old girl, look no further! Caroline is absolutely obsessed with her Little Cosmetics Makeup Set that Grandma and Grandpa gave her last weekend for her birthday. The makeup looks so real so she totally loves it. I keep it in my makeup drawer so we can “get ready” together in the mornings.

Thank you mom and dad for saving me from any more cracked bronzers and chewed up lipsticks!