Soft Summer Feet

My feet take a beating during the winter months so when the time comes to bust out my flip flops my feet are in desperate need of a little T.L.C. This is how I get my feet summer ready...

 My feet were gross I'm sorry...don't judge!

 The first thing I do is give my tootsies a little bath.

I mix 1/4 cup Listerine (any flavor), 1/4 cup vinegar and 1/2 cup warm water then let my feet soak for 10 minutes.

Next I scrape away all the dead skin from the bottom of me feet.

I do this by using my awesomely blue pumas stone that I bought from my local grocery store, it makes my feet super smooth.

Now its time to hydrate.

I pour on the lotion I made for my hands during the winter months, you can find that here, and rub it all over my feet...top and bottom.

The last thing I do is put on my cozy socks!

After my feet are all nice and slick I put on my very comfy, very fuzzy socks to keep the lotion on my feet and make them extra smooth. I leave my socks on for at least 2 hours.

And there you have it! Some super soft, sandal ready, summer worthy feet!

(I do the lotion and sock steps at least two times a week to keep my feet smooth and hydrated)

Vanilla Coffee Creamer Recipe

"Would you like some coffee with your cream?" Ive heard this many times! I am one of those people who has to have my coffee almost white in order to drink it, black coffee is just to much for me. I love flavored coffee creamers that you can buy from the grocery store but its pretty much never in my budget, I always have so many other must haves to get. So I decided to make my own fat free vanilla coffee creamer.

What I Used:
One 14 ounce can Fat Free Sweet Condensed Milk

1 cup Fat Free Milk

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

An Empty Container

(this was an old soy sauce container)

I poured all of my ingredients into my empty container then shook it to mix everything together really well...ta da Fat Free Vanilla Coffee Creamer.  

Easy Peasy!

Denver Zoo (C.I.C.)

The Denver Zoo is our home away from home, we like to go at least once a week. It is such a great place to explore, the animals are always interesting and its always entertaining...its just a great place to be outside in the fresh air, plus all the walking you do is a great workout. For this Curious In Colorado I wanted to share my families favorite place to visit here in Colorado. 

http://www.denverzoo.org/

Of course the zoo just wouldn't be the zoo without a ton of animals. We have actually been lucky enough to feed the rhinos which was an amazing life experience! The Denver Zoo is full of some of the loveliest, exotic, beautiful and dangerous animals.  

There are so many awesome animals to see at the zoo and there are constantly new babies which I am a sucker for...they are always so cute. We seriously love all the animals but the hippos are my husband and sons favorite and the otters and elephants are mine.

There is always an animal show going on somewhere in the park and I suggest checking out as many of them as you can. They are fun and very informational.

http://www.denverzoo.org/plan-your-visit/feedings-showtimes

There are a few animal houses around the zoo that are definitely worth checking out.

The Elephant House is the newest addition to the zoo and its a great way to see the elephants and rhinos up close. There are also TVs inside that are constantly playing videos of the animals and giving you information on them.

Tropical Discovery is where you will find the snakes, lizards, fish, crocodiles and lots more creepy crawly critters!

The Pachyderm Habitat is our favorite, its not that big but this is where some of our favorite animals live...hippos and rhinos. This is also where our friend Dave works, he is the one that wrote the amazing children's book Narayani: The Unicorn Of Nepal, so getting to chat with him is an extra high light of our zoo visits.

Bird World is full of the most beautiful birds and one sneaky sloth. My family and I always play "find the sloth" when we go into Bird World because the little guy is always hiding high up in the tree tops of the last bird room. It is just an awesome building to walk through since its like walking through the jungle and the birds just walk all around you.

There is also the Lorikeet Adventure which my son loves because he gets to feed the birds, its a pretty fun experience.

There are also a lot of little activities around the zoo for the kiddos to play with or on...

Drums, a jump mat and a covered wagon with two very old ox to climb on.

My sons favorite is this mommy and baby hippo statue that he climbs up on then slides down the side of.

There are also rides to go on... 

The rides are totally reasonably priced.

The carousel is my sons favorite and it is a lot of fun. Its fun running around trying to get on the animal that you want. We go on this every time we go to the zoo, it never gets old.

There is also a mini train that goes around in a circle. I suggest going on it if you have never been on it before but we hardly ever ride it, its fun but its not that entertaining.

If you get hungry there are PLENTY of places to get food!

There is the Samburu Grille near the zoo entrance which is a cafeteria style dinning place with a pretty large selection of food and indoor seating.

Then there are a few little stands that have drinks, pop corn, ice cream, cotton candy and more.

The Brown Bear has a bit more food selection then the food stands but not as much as the Samburu Grille plus it is all outdoors.

We haven't tried the food truck yet that is next to Bird World, its pretty new, but from what I have heard they have some really tasty food.

We have however eaten at Kamala Cafe and it is good, probably our favorite place to eat at the zoo. It is Asian food and it is really good.

There is another restaurant called Northern Shores Cafe which is very similar to The Brown Bear with pizza, fries, chicken fingers and a bit more.

We will eat at the restaurants every once in awhile but what we really like to do is bring a picnic and sit in the grass area near the hippos to eat. I bought a plastic tablecloth from The Dollar Tree that makes a great picnic blanket since one side is plastic and the other is soft.

And for the adults wanting to make your zoo trip a bit more fun and interesting they now serve beer.

The zoo is constanly putting on special events such as...
Do At The Zoo, Ice Cream Social, Brew At The Zoo, Boo At The Zoo, Zoo Lights, Zoo Year's Eve and a lot lot more. We have been to Boo At The Zoo and Zoo Lights and it is such a great experience.
http://www.denverzoo.org/events

Like I said the Denver Zoo is our favorite place to visit in Colorado so of course I totally recommend it, its a must if you are visiting or living in Colorado....love!

Creative Watering Can

I love having potted flowers all around my house but I am the worst at watering them so they always end up dying which I am not proud of. I don't have a container that holds that much water so I have to make a million trips back and forth from the sink to the plant which gets tedious and I get bored so I give up...I'm so lazy! I have been wanting to get a large watering can but I haven't had the money, then I saw a picture on Pinterest that changed my life...or my plants life!

All I needed was an empty washed out milk jug, a thicker nail and a hammer.

And all I needed to do was hammer the nail into the cap of the milk jug to make a bunch of holes.

And voilà a watering can made by using 3 things I had laying around my garage, my plants thank you Pinterest!

Simple Dried Strawberries

I love eating dried fruits as a healthy morning snack but they can be pretty expensive, so Ive decided to start drying them myself using my oven. There are lots of fruits that I was to try and dry but so far I have only done bananas and strawberries, you can see my dried banana recipe here.

All you need are ripe strawberries and some salt.

Cut off the stems of the strawberries then cut them in half.

Place a cooling rack on a baking sheet them place your halved strawberry pieces on the rack. Sprinkle a bit of salt over the strawberries. Place the pan in a 200 degree oven for 4 hours flipping the strawberries after 2 hours. They will be done when they are crisp and juice free.

And there you have it... simple, sweet, dried strawberries.

Father's Day Dinner & DIY

The saying "a way to a man's heart is through his stomach" rings pretty true for my husband, I am always trying to make his favorite restaurant meals at home which he absolutely loves. So for Father's Day this year (we are celebrating it today since we are busy tomorrow) I made him a copy cat recipe of his favorite meal from our very favorite local Italian restaurant DiCicco's for lunch. DiCicco's was where we had our very first date, he ordered the Rigatoni Scarface and I ordered the Fettuccine Alfredo. We are still pretty frequent visitors but I've changed up my order since then, I am obsessed with their White Pizza, but my husband has stuck with the same thing...the Scarface.

 Italian White Creamy Sauce Ingredients:

1/2 cup Butter
 3 tablespoons Flour

1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
 3 tablespoons Parmesan Cheese

1/4 teaspoon Garlic Powder

Salt

Scarface Ingredients:
Chicken Breast

Mushrooms

Rigatoni Noodles

 First things first I filled a pot with water then put it over high heat to boil.

While waiting for the water to start boiling I chopped up the mushrooms...

...and the chicken.

After my water started boiling I threw in the whole box of Rigatoni and let it cook. This is when it got fun, I had a pot or pan on every burner!

To make the sauce I put the butter in a pot over medium low heat and let it melt. I then added the flour and stirred until the butter and flour were totally mixed together. I then added the rest of the ingredients and mixed it all up until it was nice and creamy then I took it off the burner. 

At the same time I was sauteing the mushrooms...

...and grilling the chicken.

After my noodles were cooked I poured out the water leaving the noodles in the pot. I then added the grilled chicken, sauteed mushrooms and the Italian White Cream Sauce to the pot and mixed everything together really well. I let the pot sit on low heat until I was ready to plate it.

While I set the table I placed my French Bread in the oven to warm up.

Ta Da...our "fancy" lunch DiCicco's style. 

The Rigatoni Scarface was delicious, I was pretty impressed with myself! I wanted my hubby to feel like he was actually at DiCicco's so I used the same color of napkins that they use, the red and yellow.

One of our favorite parts of DiCicco's is the massive screen that they play some of the most amazing opera music videos on, so to make our lunch seem even more authentic I had Andrea Bocelli's Radio playing on Pandora....love him!

Lunch was a big hit with my husband and our son. The smile on my husbands face when he saw the table, heard the music and tasted the food was amazing.

For a Father's Day card my son and I scrolled through Pinterest searching all the cute DIY cards. As soon as my son saw this idea he was stoked cause he knew he was going to be able to paint his foot...such a boy!

Supplies:

Paper

Daddy's Shoe

Kiddos Foot

Paint

Sharpie

The first thing we did was paint the bottom of Daddy's shoe. At first my son picked out blue for his Dad's print but changed his mind at the last second. 

So we ended up painting the bottom of Daddy's shoe green then pressed it onto the paper making a nice big shoe print. 

We let it dry for a bit.

Then we painted the bottom of my sons foot blue, he was so excited about this part.

We carefully placed his foot over Daddy's print making a cute little blue foot print.

After the paint was fully dry I wrote the poem that my son had picked out for his Daddy then wrote a sappy little Father's Day note. 

It was such a cute, easy, fun way to show Daddy how much he is loved and how much he means to the both of us.