Getting permanent marker off of hard surfaces

No matter how hard I try to make sure that markers are out of the reach of my 2 year old son he always seems to find one somewhere! He drew on my nice white night stand with a black permanent marker a few weeks ago and I have been trying to find anything that will get it out. My sister was over when I discovered he drew on the night stand and she said to hurry and spray hairspray on it and scrub at it, which helped a LOT but it didn't get it out. So the next time we went to the store I bought a Magic Eraser to try and get out the rest of it. It got out some of it but not all of it. You could still see a lot of the marker.

Well today my son found a permanent marker AGAIN and drew on my daughter's white bed. He also drew on her bed with a blue Dry Erase Marker. I hurried and grabbed the magic eraser and scrubbed at it. I then noticed that where he drew the dry erase marker on top of the permanent marker came out a lot easier. Then the thought came to me that when someone accidentally writes with a permanent marker on a white board that all you do is color over the permanent marker with a dry erase maker and wipe it off and it comes right off. I thought that maybe that would work in this case. So I took the dry erase marker and colored over the scribbles on my daughter bed and then took the magic eraser and started to scrub where the marker was and it came out really well! 

I decided to try this on my night stand that he colored on a few weeks ago. This is the process of what I did to get the marker out of my night stand:

*Now, it didn't get it completely out but it is SO light that you don't notice it unless you are looking for it.* 

I think that the reason why on my daughters bed it came right out so well and why it didn't come complete out of my night stand is because I did this process minutes after my son had drawn on my daughter's bed. I think it will work better if you do this minutes after the marker is drawn on the surface. I haven't tried it on different surfaces but I would assume it would work just fine. Here is the before and after picture:

Things boys & girls should know before their first date

I saw this online the other day and thought it was good enough to share. I am going to keep it for future reference. 

There are two lists, what boys should know and what girls should know. I found it on Ooph blog.

Here is the Boys list that I got here:

The following are ten things you should tell your son before his first date.

1. Clean your car. Inside and out. No girl wants to go on a date with Slurpee cups and jock straps.

2. Walk to the front door and shake her parents hands. Look them in they eye and thank them for allowing their daughter to go out with you. Both before and after the date.

3. If she isn’t kind to you on the first date, she never will be.

4. No means no. ALWAYS. If she says no, you stop. IMMEDIATELY.

5. A kiss is something you earn. And? Ask first. It’s a nice touch and it’s respectful.

6. Find out what she likes and plan your date around it. A movie, sports, mini golf? What kind of food does she like? Is she an animal lover? Go to the zoo. You get the idea.

7. Hold the door open. All of them. At home. In public. And ESPECIALLY the car door.

8. Have a girl home five minutes before her curfew. It means everything to her parents to know you respect their rules.

9. A date is for the two of you. Not you, her and four of your closest teammates.

10. Take a shower and use deodorant. And by shower I don’t mean dousing yourself in Axe Body Spray.

Now here is the list for the girls I got here:

The following are eleven things you should tell your daughter before her first date.

1. Always have an out plan. Use your parents if you need to. Have a certain thing you text mom or dad and we will call and get you home.

2. You are NEVER helpless. SAY NO and then fight HARD if you have to.

3. Be yourself, not what you think he wants you to be.

4. Have a couple of topics to talk about in case the conversation stalls. First dates can be awkward for both of you. Topics can be something going on at school, something you are interested in or something you know he is. 

5. If there is a little voice inside your head telling you something? LISTEN.

6. Don’t post your date on Facebook before it happens. And? Don’t talk about it on Facebook after. Good or bad. Too much pressure and too personal.

7. If it doesn’t feel right, it isn’t. Go home.

8. Stay in public or around other people.

9. A boy should knock on your front door and introduce himself to your parents. He should walk you to your door at the end of your date and say goodnight to them too.

10. If he isn’t a gentleman on your first date, he never will be.

11. Don’t overdress or wear too much makeup. Just wear what you feel comfortable in. He asked you out because he likes you the way you are.

I thought these lists are really good for young adults to know. You don't see a lot of this going on these days. That is why it is important for us to teach our children this. They will stand out among the crowd. 

Our Thanksgiving Turkey

I had seen on Facebook someone that put bacon on their turkey and it looked really yummy! We had left over bacon from breakfast so we decided to try it. I weaved the bacon strips on top of the turkey like this:

We added Mrs. Dash original seasoning to the top and put it in one of those Reynolds oven bags. 

 After cooking for 3 or 4 hours it was done! I think it turned out really yummy!!

Sometimes the turkey can come out kind of dry. But I think the bacon made it more juicy and tender. You could taste a hint of the bacon. Bacon makes any food taste good when you wrap it around it. Overall we are really happy with how it turned out!

Fire Starter

So I first saw this on Pinterest and thought, "What an excellent idea!! This is stuff I end up throwing away anyway." So I decided to do it. I already had a bunch of toilet paper rolls for a project I wanted to do from Pinterest but just didn't get to. All you do is take toilet paper rolls and the lint I had from our dryer and stuff it into the toilet paper rolls and there you go! You have fire starter for your fireplace, for camping, for your emergency preparedness stuff or whatever else you would use it for.

I have them in a plastic grocery bag for now. I need to go to the store and get gallon size ziplock bags to put them in. I figure the ziplock will keep out water. I want the gallon size so I can keep a few in one bag. This was a super easy project for me to do! Anyone can do this! Yes, even you! ;) 

Ward Fabulous Friday

Our ward had a 'Fabulous Friday' on October 12th 2012. It's like Super Saturday but on Friday night instead. They had all sorts of crafts that you could make. There was a bunch I wanted to make, but my favorite was the one I did. It was $18 and I think the relief society secretary said she bought all of the project I was doing at The Wood Connection. It was really simply to do. I painted the board black. When it dried I took sand paper and sanded down the edges to make it look "rustic" or "old". To put the forever word and temple on we used a really strong adhesive. Not sure what is was called but I am sure you could ask someone at The wood Connection or craft store what to use. I took the ribbon and poked it through the holes and tied it to the metal hang and WHA-LA! I was done!! But before I could hang it on the wall I needed to let the adhesive work it's magic for 12 hours.

I thought it turned out great!

Wicked!

I have found my new favorite place to do crafts. It's call The Wood Connection. They have ALL kinds of projects you can do there. For my first project I chose the word 'Wicked' with a small witch hat to decorate. It was the first of October so I thought it would be appropriated. :) I bought the letters and paper for under $20. The letter are a LOT bigger then you think. I sanded the letters so they would be a little bit more smooth. I laid the letters on the paper I wanted for each letter and traced around them with pencil. I cut out all the traced letters from the paper and set them aside. I then painted the letters all black. Next I  put mod podge on the front of the letters and carefully laid the paper on top. I then smooth out the paper. Make sure there are no bubbles or wrinkles. Wait until it is completely dry. Then you add more mod podge on top of the paper. It kind of seals it. And you are done IF you want to stop there. I blotted a little bit of black paint around the edges. You can add ribbon jewels glitter or what ever you like! Now for the witch hat I just painted it black and added a purple ribbon. Again you can do more with it if that is what you like.

Here is the finished product:

There's a hole through my foot!!

So I know this doesn't have anything to do with crafts but it is still a story of what happened to me that I want people to learn from. DON'T LEAVE KNIVES ON THE GROUND!! This would go under the 'Such' part of this blog. ;)

**WARNING** If you are at all squeamish I would NOT read or look at the pictures in the following post. 

Now that I posted the warning we can move on to the story about how I got a hole through my foot..... 

On Saturday, March 24th we got a trampoline and were setting it up. I got a serrated steak knife so that we could open the boxes. Everything was going really well. We started to put the springs on. We got through the first box of springs and were on to the next. When James was done using the steak knife to cut open the box he handed it to me and I just threw it off to the side. James tells me, "Honey you should probably move that, It's not a good idea to leave it on the ground." I tell him, "I will in second." Then that still small voice inside tells me that I really should move that knife. I'm thinking to myself "OK I will, I will I just want to help James with the springs really fast and then I'll move it". A few minutes later almost all of the springs are on. There were just a few that needed springs so I tell Ana that I will race her around the tramp hanging the springs on the rest of the loops. Well as we are running around the tramp I must have stepped on the end of the handle of the serrated steak knife and made it pop up and then when I brought my other foot forward to run it stabbed in the top of my foot. I didn't even realize it was in my foot until I took a few steps and looked down wondering what was hanging off of my foot. And this is what I see:

This is a drawing that I did to show you how it looked on the top of my foot. It's not exactly accurate, but you get the idea.

At this point I don't know what I am thinking. All I say is, "Honey....." James looks down and says, "Holy $h!t! What did you just do?!?!" I tell him that he needs to get a towel. The girls are freaking out. So while he's in the house getting a towel I pull out the knife (even though I don't remember doing it) and All this blood comes rushing out. So I lift up my foot from my shoe and there is just a pool of blood in my shoe. I remember looking down and saying, "Oh my gosh that is a lot of blood!" as soon as I say that Ana is hysterical!!! She goes running into the house Kimberly not too far behind her. I feel really dizzy and sick to my stomach so I just fall on the ground. I'm sure it's because of how much blood I lost in such a little time. James comes running out with a towel and puts it on my foot and then calls my Mom so that she can come sit with the kids while we figure out what to do. So My Mom and Sister-in-law Kara come over as quickly as they can. Because of how much blood I lost and the look of the cuts James decides to call 911. So we have 4 cop cars, 1 fire truck and 1 ambulance come over. They look at it and take my blood pressure, my temp and ask me questions. I really don't remember a whole lot. They wrap my foot up and tell me that I have a choice to either ride in the ambulance or go on my own to the ER. I didn't think it was necessary to go in the ambulance. Instead of getting wheeled out on a stretcher two paramedics carried me to the car. It was really embarrassing for me because there where a bunch of people outside wondering what was going on. I'm sure I looked beet red even though I was pretty pale after losing a lot of blood.

So we get to a room in the ER and they remove the bandages and this is what it looked like: 

Pretty gross!! It was really starting to hurt at this point. He has me wiggle my toes and I do. He pushes on the top of my big toe and tells me to push his finger up with my toe and I do. He checks to make sure I didn't brake any bones and I didn't. I was pretty lucky! It was a miracle that I didn't hit any tendons or arteries. So the Doctor tells me that he will have to do stitches. But before he does that they have to numb me and then clean my cuts. The numbing part hurt the worst because they have to stick the needle right into the cuts to numb them. To clean my cuts they spray water in one cut and water starts coming out the other cut. So we got it on video:

 

Don't worry I can't feel a thing because I am numb. After playing with the water it was time to get serious :) and have the doctor put stitches in. I ended up getting 6 stitches in the cut on top of my foot and 4 in the cut on the side of my foot. So 10 stitches total. 

What I learned from this whole thing: 

#1- Listen to my Husband

#2- Listen to the still small voice

#3- Keep sharp objects OFF of the ground!!