Where to Buy!

If you are in Southeastern VA/Hampton Roads, you can find Bay & Bee's in a few local handmade/speciality stores:

Southside:

- Kitsch (Norfolk)

Greater Hampton Roads:

- Artfully Yours (Williamsburg)

Nationwide:
- Therapy: An Auburn Boutique (Auburn, AL)

(Formerly):
- Pop-Shop by Jo Louise (Newport News- seasonal)
- Auntie M's American Cottage (Yorktown)

Online Storefronts:

www.etsy.com/shop/bayandbees

Social Media:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bayandbees

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/bayandbees

Instagram: www.instagram.com/bayandbees

All designs and products including, but not limited to, listing descriptions, photography, design layout, etc is considered intellectual property of Bay & Bee's and may NOT be duplicated in any way. Duplication of intellectual property is illegal and all infringements are subject to fines and penalties.
Copyright 2015.

Blogger Life Photo Challenge: Week 4.5(ish)

Blogger Life Photo Challenge: Week 4

Blogger Life Photo Challenge: Week 3

Yogurt Pie!

I don't know about where you are, but here its HOT. Like BEYOND HOT.

I have a huge sweet tooth, and the girls and I love baking. But not on days like today. That doesn't mean that sweet tooth (& the need for an activity) went away. Then it hit me. I had totally forgotten about one of my favorite desserts from childhood. Partly because 1. my husband isn't the biggest fan 2. until recently, the minis had milk/dairy allergies.

This dessert only has 3 ingredients (so its cheap!). Its FUN for little hands to help make (almost independently!). It requires NO COOKING (AKA: any more heat!). It can be made in a flash.

Without further ado, I give you Yogurt Pie!

Ingredients:
1- graham cracker pie crush
1- container of cool whip
2- containers for yogurt (any flavor you want!)
(optional: fresh fruit to mix in & use to garnish)

Instructions:
- pour cool whip & yogurt into a bowl
- stir until well mixed
- pour into graham cracker pie crust
- put in fridge (or freezer) and allow to set
- ENJOY!

Its a hit in our house (well, at least with the minis & I!)! Hope you enjoy it too!

(Next experiment: same ingredients, minus the pie crust- grab some of those plastic homemade freezer pop form things and put the yogurt/cool whip mixture in those & freeze to make pops. Will post the outcome!)

Blogger Life Photo Challenge: Week 2

8. Drink

9. Flower

10. Close up

11. Bad Habit

12. Whats for Dinner? (or well...what was for dinner!)

Blogger Life Photo Challenge: Week 1

1. A Smile

2. Colors

3. Black & White

4. Celebration

5. Someone you love

6. Outside your window

7. Your Style

Blogger Life Photo Challenge

1 gallon of Strawberries!

We headed out to College Run Farms for our second annual Strawberry Picking Adventure with friends. We ate lunch at their covered picnic area, we went out to the field & came back with a gallon basket that was busting at the seams and then enjoyed some of their fresh made strawberry ice cream together! 

This year was so beautiful- a little cloudy, nice breeze, no humidity, nice temperature. AND the littlest ones in our crew were old enough to participate this year! 

So...1 gallon of strawberries doesn't feel like that much, and at first doesn't look like that much...but after eating strawberries for a few days and barely making a dent.

So my oldest brought some to her teachers at preschool and then we picked recipes out of the little pamphlet that we picked up at College Run Farms to try out. 

celebration "card" book

I don't know about any of you out there, but finding cards is always a chore- they never say quite what I would like them too, and then of course, add in a price tag of $4-7 buck a piece... no thanks.

I can't remember where I first saw the premise for this idea, I think it was a pintrest or some random Facebook post about buying one card to sign every year.

Well, I took it one step further, I used to journal all.the.time. I don't as much anymore, but I thought of combining the idea of a journal with this idea of 1 card that you resign every year and, voila! Mother's Day Card Journal. (and Father's Day, Anniversary, birthdays, other celebrations...sky is really the limit!)

I have had a lot of luck in one of my favorite places...the Target Dollar Section.

We "archived" a couple of years, since I came across this idea after our first parent days & annivesaries. And right now admittedly there isn't much in them...we trace the kids hands, let them scribble a bit, but as they get older the plan is to allow them to write whatever they wish, and then I usually journal a bit of what we did that day and then attach a picture.

I think its a perfect keepsake!

Divine Mercy Sundaes!

Pani de Pasqua

STORY & ACTIVITY TIME: Clara the Cookie Fairy

My daughter got this book as a gift. And both of my girls LOVE it!

Its concept is pretty simple, the main characters are a part of a fairy girl scout type troop who sells cookies to go camping. They make their cookies using magic wands. One girl tosses her wand because she got a new shinier one... well, it breaks and she is so sad she can't find her old one. The fairies end up starting a swap/recycling center and (spoiler alert) she gets her old wand back. Its not very long and its cute and rhymes. I loved the cute and fun way of introducing the importance of recycling!

CRAFT TIME:

The craft was very simple and went directly with the spirit of the book itself. We made wands using only items we could find in our craft boxes. We ended up using some paper straws for the handle, each girl picked out some paper and I cut their favorite shape, we had left over ribbons, stickers, glitter, etc from other projects that we used to decorate.

STORY & ACTIVITY TIME: How Many Stars in the Sky

STORY & ACTIVITY TIME : Chicka Chicka BOOM BOOM

This one was fun to do!

"Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" is a favorite in our house.

Such a simple craft idea too that cost next to nothing!

Supplies:
- alphabet stickers (we got ours from the dollar section at target)
- paper towel roll
- green scrapbook/construction paper
- scotch tape
- markers

(since my minis are still little, I started the craft by cutting palm leaves for the top of the tree, my oldest (3 at the time) helped me place the palm leaves at the top of the tree)

After reading the book we went back through page by page and used our alphabet stickers to stick all over our "palm tree". It was that simple!

Lenten Cross: Candles for Lent

So, by now we know from my post about a kid friendly advent wreath (found here) that I'm pretty much obsessed with salt dough.

I came across Lenten Crosses on an Online Catholic Bookstore and further google-ing led me to more examples from Catholic Icing's pinterest.

Its like an advent wreath...but for lent.

So, we made up some salt dough (recipe found here) and added a red candle this time, and here is our final result:

(order to light the candles here:)

King Cake!

Peppermint Hot Chocolate at Home & on a budget!

I don't know about many of y'all, but being a single income family, on a sole first responder income, we are definitely on a budget.

This was a huge adjustment (first world problems, I know!) going from being able to do much of anything I cared to do to not being able to (& I was never a big spender).

One of my favorite treats in the winter months are hot chocolates from either Panera (because of their chocolate chip marshmallows!) or Starbucks. But, at upwards of $3-4 dollars for a cup, that just wasn't happening anymore!

I've been experimenting with new recipes at home.

 My favorite so far:

- 2 packets of Swiss Miss ($1.04 for a box of 10 packets at Target!)
- 10 kraft jet puffed french vanilla snowman marshmallows
- 3 mini peppermind candycanes
- hot water

(I want to get some hot fudge to mix in with it!)

Salted Caramel Pumpkin Seeds

So, I'm not a fan of much spice but am big on SWEET... and while I love the pumpkin spice smell, I'm not big on how it tastes.

BUT, I wanted to do SOMETHING with the pumpkin seeds from our pumpkins this year. I googled a few different recipes and combined a few for these salted caramel pumpkin seeds!

(cooking times may vary depending on your oven/stove!)

~pre-heat oven to 300 degrees

line baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with a little no stick cooking spray

Then:
~2 cups pumpkin seeds (rinsed & patted dry)
~4 TBSP granulated sugar

Mix the pumpkin seeds and sugar
- Pour spread out on the parchment paper covered baking sheets,

Bake for ~20-30 minutes (I'd start checking on them at 20 minutes, and if they aren't done keep a close eye out every 2 minutes or so!)

STORY & ACTIVITY TIME: In My Heart

This summer one of the shops that carries Bay & Bee's had this awesome story & art time.  The activity was mommy & me based (& I LOVE mommy & me activities!), included a story, a related art activity and a (usually related) snack.  We attended pretty much all summer & had an absolute blast. Our story & art weeks came to an abrupt end when one of my friends needed me to watch her littles during our usual story & art time. So on one of our first days as a new little self made playgroup of 4, I decided to do our own.

We read the book "In My Heart" by Molly Bang (a book my dad had given to us, he had gotten it as a sample in a military child related activity that he runs as a DOD social services contractor). It seemed perfect with our new play buddies being in a new place and with school just around the corner for the big sisters in the group. 

It was a pretty easy concept to come up with for this book as the book is all about helping a child be comfortable with being a way from mom & dad. It talks about how mom/dad carry the child in their hearts all day long and vice versa, so its like you are never apart. SO...what we did (after I totally FB stalked my friend's page for family pictures ;)) was cut out faces of moms, dads & baby sisters, draw hearts on a piece of construction paper & used some cute washi tape to affix the pictures inside the girls "hearts". They were so excited while working on the project and the book really seemed to "speak" to both of them (ages 3.5 & 4.5). There were two very proud faces showing daddies that afternoon!

Supplies:

Book- In My Heart (MSRP:

Construction paper

Marker

Washi Tape/regular tape/glue

Scissors

Pictures

Here is the book & a photograph of the project: