papered barn stars & mommy’s little helper

In an effort to bring more color into my living room, my handy friend Mod Podge and I made these!

I have been trying to figure out what to put in this space I have between my pellet stove and my mantel for a while, and inspiriation struck and viola!  I couldn’t be happier with them.

Fantastic!

I have a never ending list of crafts to do, and it seems like everytime I tool around on the internet I find a whole bunch more, I should just stay away from all the fantastic blogs out there, but I just can’t!  Next on my list of home decor to-do is a family rules canvas like the one here.  But today I am sewing “little red hens” – I will post them later!

I need to get off the computer anyway, cause I think someone wants some attention:

(this is her “Kiss” face)

a year of dates

Our anniversary in on January 1st.  I usually try to do something a little creative for Scott.  Last year I gave him 7 presents representing our 7 years together, which included a photo album to fill with new memories, a couple of goldfish, and a bunch of other things that I can’t seem to recall at this moment, Scott do you remember?  Anyway, this year I made him some embroidered pillowcases (here is one, the other is in the laundry..)

and I also gave him an envelope containing a “year of dates”.   One date per month all planned out.  At the beginning of each month he gets to open a new envelope and see what we are going to do that month.

Last month we went to the California Museam specifically to see an exibit “Out of this World” – costumes from science fiction/superhero type of movies.

There was lots of fun stuff to see, and after we stuffed our faces at la bou

I got the idea from My Mix of Six – great blog.  I ran my envelopes through the printer for each month, and used a different font on each because I am a font junkie.

I am planning on taking pictures at each date and compiling either a photo album or photo book at the end of the year.  I am guilty of having hundreds of pictures of the kids and very few of Scott and especially me, so hopefully this will help.

This month we are going out to dinner at a local restaurant that we have never tried before, should be fun!

sunday walk

We took a family walk up along the bike trail that runs by our home.  It was a nice cool afternoon, and we were taking advantage of the rain free weather.

Chloe was full of energy… at first:

notice the nice summer dress she is wearing – against advice mind you…  she was fine for a while until the sun started going down and she started growing cold and tired, so super-daddy to the rescue!

did you think to pray?

In our constant efforts to improve our family and personal spirituality we have put a stronger emphasis on our prayer habits

I made this plaque as a reminder before we leave the house, it hangs on our front door where we hopefully will see it and be reminded to pray before we start leaving for the day…

Chloe has been our sterling example when it comes to diligence in prayer.  She is dedicated to saying her prayers nightly before bed, part of a recent one went like this:  “…and please bless me that I will have good dreams, and please bless me that I will have good dreams, I said it twice because I am serious….”

little people

I had so much fun making these!  I found the idea on Nannygoat and fell in love with them.  I think they turned out so great.

I made 12 of them

I may have to make more though, my family is requesting small versions of themselves!

They are so reminiscent of the “little people” of my childhood- remember these?

ahhh the nostalgia!! – many many childhood hours playing with these…

We had a cool A frame house;

the airport;

the castle;

We had LOTS, and we played with them all the time, and the memory is such a good one.  Sighhhhh

I guess I am hoping that my little ones will have these new little people firmly planted in their childhood memories as well

scrounging for candy canes…

Crazy I know, now that the Christmas Season is over I am looking for candy canes in hidden places here in my home…  here is why:

White Chocolate Candy Cane Popcorn – let me tell you it is GOOD!!  Good enough that I made it a couple of weeks ago and can NOT wait until next Christmas season to eat it again.  And of course I didn’t come across the idea until January, after I had tossed most of my uneaten candy canes! ACK!  But today I have a hankering for some more, and as luck would have it I found ONE candy cane!  I suppose I could go to the store and actually buy peppermints, but it is rainy/snowy and cold – so not gonna happen!

I got the idea from Skip to My Lou.  Basically you pop 1/2 cup of popcorn, sprinkle on a little salt, melt about 1 lb white chocolate (I use vanilla melting wafers – the good kind – not wilton junk, you can use almond bark or chips too), crush up the candy canes real well (you really should have a 3 or 4 at least, but I figured one would be ok for a half batch tonight!), pour the chocolate onto the popcorn and sprinkle on the peppermints and mix well.  Spread it out on a lined cookie sheet and let it set up and EAT EAT EAT!!

Good thing I have started running….

C5K

Scott and I started a running program this week, that’s right running, me, the queen of hating to run.  We started the C5K program, or Couch to 5K.  It is designed to take the non-runner, aka couch potato, and get them running 5K or about 3 miles in 9 weeks.  I actually am very excited about the prospect.  Having been battling anemia most of my life, running was always torture.  Now my anemia is under control, and I am giving it a try.  Scott is to blame, or – er – uh, Thank.  He was thinking about starting a running program and I hopped on board.  We downloaded the C5K apps onto our iphones and were off!  Since we live right next to a nice bike trail it works out great.  The program itself is great because it eases you into running without killing yourself the first day and swearing never to endure such torture again, as I have done in the past.  The first week you walk to warm up, run for 60 seconds then walk for 90, alternating for 20 minutes, then walk to cool down.  You go out 3 times a week, and each week the amount you run increases until week 9 you are running the whole time for about 3 miles.  I am really excited about the prospect of being a “runner”.  I have been saying for ever that I need to start exercising, and now I finally am, and it feels great!  Scott and I are even looking around the area for some running events that maybe we will enter…

FYI here is a good website that outlines the program if you are interested: Cool Running

what to do, what to do…

I am having a blog identity crisis.  What do I want my blog to be?  What do I want to put in my blog?  My primary reason for blogging is to journal my life, so what do I want to include? – what would I like to look back on and read about?  hmmmm …   I have plenty of ideas of things to blog about, but also finding the time to do so is quite a challenge, or am I overthinking it?  Maybe I just need to blog more often, with posts that maybe aren’t so time consuming?

At any rate, have patience while I figure it out, because those few of you that read this are most likely my family and therefore must love me for me anyway, and you are required to have patience with me!!

For fun here is something that every mother loves, the stage when your child is learning to spell and write.  Chloe’s journals that she brings home from school are priceless treasures to me, hopefully you will get a kick out of it too, I know Papa and DD will!!

ack I love it!

Note: we do not call the grandparents “Gramo and Grampo”…

ho ho ho, we got a lot of snow

hee hee.  couldn’t resist the corny rhyme.

In what seemed like no time we went from this:

to this:

We usually don’t get 13 inches of snow here, so it was a treat!  The schools were closed for three days, and we were some of the lucky few to actually have power most of the time, so we were able to stay warm at home and enjoy it!  The only bad part was when we lost one of many branches, and it fell on our car taking out the phone lines.  I didn’t miss the actual phone, cause anyone who really needed to talk to me could call my cell, but I did miss the internet, but when I went and unburied the car to drive Chloe to school I discovered that the branch had shattered our windshield!  Ug- what a bummer.

Other fun news: Chloe lost her other front tooth finally:

So stinking cute!

We put up the tree:

and apparantly the ornaments pass the taste test

hee hee

I am about 90% ready for Christmas, so for the next two weeks I will be wrapping, baking and crafting, singing and generally making merry.  I am excited and looking forward to it all!  I hope you are enjoying the season as well – Merry Christmas!

busy bees

The past weeks have flown by.  Here is some of what we were up to:

A week in Oregon, staying in my sister and brother in law’s ocean front home – fantastic!!

Back just in time for Halloween:

Dill was a mad scientist, Chloe a ghost

Daddy’s little kitty

Spooooooky!

And a big event- Molly turned ONE!! (sad day for mom, my baby is growing too fast)

this is her awesome “cheeser” face, I love it

Her cake was banana with awesome cream cheese frosting,  decorated with chocolate butterflies.  It was really good

She sat in her high chair with a big slice in front of her, and I was waiting for the grand mess to ensue, but she only took a few pieces and made no mess!!  Unfortunately she wasn’t feeling quite normal, the next day she came down with croup!  That whole night she was REAL low-key, but at least she wasn’t miserable on her birthday, only for the next 7 days!…

halloween-nini

aack, we have bats under our house! hee hee

don’t these look good?  I taught the young women how to make gourmet caramel apples last week, so easy and delicious!!!

the bathroom is finished!

before: (note- these are not the best “before pictures, but you get the idea – at this point we had already taken down the mirror/cabinet, it was old and looked it.  Also notice the crazy pink/orange shower curtain, I had pink and orange rugs to match… what was I thinking?)

after:

Yay, I love it.  I got the fabric for the shower curtain at Ikea – after two trips, for some unknown reason I didn’t buy enough the first time…

It is such a great feeling to finish a task!

Now all I need is a new toilet.  I had a dream the other night that I went into the bathroom and the toilet was all taken apart and I was scrambling to try to put it back together and wondering if I could just go get a new one, and if I could install it by myself…