Holiday Crafting

I love the holidays. (I think I might have mentioned that.) So, I'm so excited to get some holiday crafting done. A project on my list is to get some spice hot pads made (the kind with the cinnamon and cloves). Here's a recipe in case anyone else wants it (or just to remind me where I got it).

Spice Hot Pads

Our new hairstyle (till the hair grows back)

Luckily she only cut the front and she still has long pretty hair in the back. So we will be sporting one of two hairstyles until the hair grows back. This one. Or she can wear it down and I can hide the cut hair with one of the hair bands with a bow (which we will do for pictures coming up in two weeks). I'll post the actually hair cut when I take a picture (I just couldn't stand it long enough to take a picture, I just pulled the cut hair up).

My Beautician

That's right folks. There is a beautician in the family. Anyone want a haircut?




You'd think I'd learn my lesson, right? I found out the hard way a couple months ago that scissors were no longer safe on the counter. There went a couple articles of clothing. You would think that in my sewing box, on the counter would be ok, right? Wrong! There went a few of my nice pictures that I laminated nicely. Then there was the children's scissors hidden on the counter. Nope, there went a few more pieces of paper. So, I learned my lesson and kept my scissors in my bedroom and my girls are not allowed in my bedroom (there are a few exceptions if they are escorted and watched by me). Then yesterday I was doing some bows with a friend and left the scissors on the kitchen table to go get my crying baby out of the crib, talk to my Mom on the phone and swing Meredith outside to get her to stop crying. Ooops. I came back in to start dinner and looked down. It took me a little while to register what it was and then I wasn't very happy. I'm still upset about it especially because after we went to the real beautician it still looks HORRIBLE. But I'm sure that in a year (after the hair is grown back) it will be plenty funny, so I'm blogging it.

Relief Society Meeting

My wonderful husband watched the girls for me while I was able to watch the Relief Society Meeting tonight. It was wonderful. I think that one of the things that struck me was Elder Uchtdorf talking about creating things and how that brings us happiness. Creating things, both in creating our children and creating beautiful things for our home and many other things. I love creating. Teaching my children, crafting, making nice dinners, keeping my home clean so we can enjoy being home, the list is endless. I just can't wait until General Conference. Life is good. There are friends to enjoy and make, children to love and teach and play with and create some wonderful activity to do together. I have a wonderful husband whom I enjoy spending time with and is very (VERY) patient with me. Life is good, isn't it.

Attack of the High Chair

When Nathan comes home he plays with the girls either while I'm making dinner or while I'm doing the dishes (he does help me clean up a little first, like putting food away). I love to hear them squeal and laugh while he's playing with them. This time I had to stop and get the camera though. It was funny.

Cheerio Necklaces

Someone gave me the idea the other day of making the girls cheerio necklaces. I gave them cheerio necklaces while I was teaching piano lessons. It worked for as long as they lasted. They didn't last very long. Sort of disappointing really. But they LOVED them and just cried after they were gone. And there was no mess. They wouldn't even smile for the camera. What am I going to do when they find out there are necklaces out there with CANDY on them? LOL

Fun with Play dough

I finally made the fruity play dough with the girls. It didn't turn out too well because I still had too much water. (Or maybe the tartar cream is too old, I don't know.) But, if you make it, use less water and add until it is just right. It smells great!

Emily, pouring in the kool-aid.

They are so funny. But they love being BIG helpers.

You can tell it didn't turn out right, but she still had fun.

It was MESSY. And then she tried to clean her hands by wiping them off on her pants. I missed it because I was cleaning up the kitchen.

Click here for fruity play dough recipe

Fun Pictures

Nathan took some pictures of the girls a couple Sundays ago while he was watching them after church. I was visiting teaching. Emily is in her pajamas and Meredith is dressed and they are playing in the backyard.

Emily, of course, has to show off her flower. We love flowers at our house, especially in our hair (note flower in hair. Can't be without one of those :)

Halloween Picture

The Halloween picture that I have on my blog right now is from last Halloween. Halloween 07. I'll post it again, because in a few short weeks I'll change it to something else. We did take a family picture, but the girls did NOT want to cooperate, and it doesn't look very good. So, this Halloween we'll have to make sure we get a good family picture.

Birthday Cards and Halloween coloring pages

I found some cute Halloween coloring pages and birthday cards in my email. So, I'm going to post them here to #1 help me remember, and #2 just in case you (whoever spends the time reading this blog) want to use it. We love coloring pages at our house.
Birthday Cards and Halloween Coloring Pages

Fall and the Holidays

I LOVE fall. With that said, I neither like the fall in the desert or hate it because THERE IS NO FALL. But, on the happy side of things I enjoy decorating for fall and the start of decorating for the holidays. I definitely plan on having lots of fall colored decorations in my home since there is an obvious lack outside. I also love the snow (for the first 2 months or so), January I'm ready for spring. So the good news is, January is pretty much spring around here. I'll just have to go visit family where there is snow and when we come back from Christmas break to our home, we'll be ready to plant! Yes, tomatoes are planted in January around here. So while the rest of the people I know are freezing in January, we'll be jacketless (maybe a sweater, but I'm told we won't need one) and enjoying every moment of it. On the flip side (there is always two sides to every coin) it's really hot right now, but (this coin has several sides, lol) I LOVE the mornings. I take the girls on a walk in the mornings and we all love it. I love the crispness of the air in the mornings. The girls love saying hello to everyone and LOVE the dogs that are being walked around our neighborhood. We also enjoyed watching the garbage man this morning. Meredith was a little scared because it was very noisy. We timed it just right so that the garbage man was doing our garbage as I was putting Meredith in her seat (I had to take her right back out so she could cling to me. Which reminds me, I love being Mommy. I love them coming to me for everything. The stuff they are so excited about, the kisses, the loves, the new things they discover, the bumps and bruises. I love being Mommy.) Emily hurt herself last night as she was going to bed. She had come out of her room to go to the bathroom and when she was done she said "Night, night", closed her door and went to her bed. About a minute later she was screaming because she must have fell somehow off the foot of her bed (there's a footboard there on her toddler bed). Nathan was closer so he got there first, but as soon as I got there she wanted Mommy. I enjoyed cuddling my almost 3-year-old (I can't believe it really, that she is getting so big). Of course if there is a flip side to that coin, I don't know, I love it all. Even the messes, even if I do complain, lol. There's something about taking crayon and marker off the walls and "missing" the potty chair that sends Emily to her bedroom every time. Looking back I can laugh, so I love being Mommy.

Food

I was just realizing as I was writing in my journal (the more personal journal stuff) is that my girls really enjoy what I cook for them. There's seldom a time when we have difficulties. It's when we're in a hurry to make dinner or Mom doesn't know what to cook and doesn't really feel like cooking that there is a problem. Those are the days I cook something like hamburger helper. They don't like it and won't have anything to do with it (that's my girls!). The only thing that I can think of that they don't eat really well is tacos. They love the meat and that is all they want to eat, they won't eat everything else with it. My girls do love macaroni and cheese for lunch. That's probably their favorite lunch (especially since the alternative usually is a sandwich, but they like those too). If I don't want to find sandwich torn up all over I have to give them only half of a sandwich at a time and tell them that they can't have any more until they are all done. I was worried last night, as I made spaghetti and meatballs with bread sticks and salad, that the girls wouldn't want to eat spaghetti and they'd just eat the meatballs and bread sticks. But they loved the spaghetti! I just haven't made it in so long because I hate the store bought spaghetti sauce. Can't stand it, unless you use it for something like Parmesan Chicken and put plenty of cheese on top and of course it gets baked. Then, I like it (but homemade would probably be better).

Zoo 2

We went to the zoo again. This time we bought a membership so we'll go quite a bit probably. But the worst part is, I forgot my camera! But the best part, we have a membership so there should be plenty of opportunities to take lots and lots of pictures with the animals.

Potty Training Update

So, I have a fairly potty-trained child. Since posting the last update on the 13th we haven't had a problem. It's been REALLY nice. Who knew it was so easy (who thought I'd say such a thing?) But we waited for quite a while to potty train her until she was "ready". I guess she just needed a push in the right direction. We just need to get the going potty when we are somewhere else down and we've got it. I don't think she will have a problem, we just haven't done it yet. It has been so nice to change Meredith and not worry about changing Emily too. I realized that last night as I was changing Meredith. Now, do you think a 15 month old can be potty trained (lol). Patience is key. We'll wait for later. But it is exciting.

Emily's Dress-ups and Halloween Costume

The girls and I went to the thrift store today. We had some great finds. I found part of the Anne of Green Gables collection. So now I have 3 of the books. And most importantly two Amelia Bedelia books. I have some great childhood memories of reading those books.

Then there is my real prize. Two dress-ups for Emily for $5.99 each. They are regularly $20 bucks at the store. One Snow White and the other Cinderella. I'm so excited. Emily cried about the first dress, I think because it was itchy. So, I put on an undershirt and gave her a sucker to make her stop crying and took a picture. Of course, I wasn't about to take the sucker away, so the pictures are with the sucker.

Crafting Tutorials

Here are the crafting tutorials that you can use to do the projects I have recently completed.

Interchangeable Headband
They use the stretchy lace but I used toddler stockings. Just cut off one of the legs, and slice off the toes part, sew it together. Then look at the tutorial for the rest of the instructions.

Tips for Hair Bows
(including non-slip tips and whether to use single or double prong) Just a couple of notes. I prefer single prong except when doing mini clips, then I use double prong.

Lining a hair clip (after lining the clip, just glue a flower on it for a very easy hair clip)
Lining a hair clip (just realize that I just use a hot glue gun and I don't burn the ends to make sure they are fray checked because the hot glue works well.)

Tutorial for Hooded Towels
(just attach the ribbon to the hood before you sew the hood on) There are other tutorials just google "hooded towel tutorial" and you may find one that is better and easier to understand.

Tutorial for Baby Bracelet

Bracelet sizing

Making a dangle for baby bracelet

The only thing I haven't been able to find is a mini hair clip tutorial. I don't think you need one if you know how to do everything else. Just take a double prong hair clip and cut it in half (or whatever length you want) with wire cutters (I'm not talking about the dinky jewelry wire cutters, I went through my husbands tool box for this one. I basically cut one prong at a time. I cut across both and get a good indention then cut it one at a time on the indention. Granted, his our really dull and it is hard to cut so maybe you can do it just fine with new, sharp ones.

Happy Crafting!

Crafting Presents

So, I had too much fun crafting these for little babies that are either coming or have just come. Hopefully their Mommies' will like them. I had to take pictures and here they are.

Thank you to my teddy bear for posing for this picture of the interchangeable headband complete with daisy clip.

Then there is the set of hooded towels (cuz it's crazy to have just one of anything with a baby around. :) Thank you to a very unwilling Emily for being just willing enough to cooperate for this picture. LOL

One pink flower mini hair clip.

One bracelet.

Two mini clips (One blue and one halloween just in case her baby is born before or on Halloween).

Two mini hair clips (One Thanksgiving and one pink and brown)

The last few pictures, thank you scanner for doing them so wonderfully. (Just in case anyone else wants to know how to take a picture of jewelry without having to have a good camera or set or whatever else.)

All of the stuff I made (minus the hooded towels) was new to me. I just figured out how to do these things. Even taking the pictures was a little new. If you want to know how to make any of this just tell me and I'll show you.

Happy Crafting.

The BIGGEST Scorpion

I just saw the nastiest and biggest scorpion in our garage. I was trying to clean up a little bit in there and there he was, under a piece of paper that I had taken from the car seat I bought Emily a couple months ago. And that was underneath our suitcases (which is why I hadn't picked up that particular piece of trash earlier, I just didn't see it). And then something moved. I thought, "a lizard?", and then I saw the tail. AAAAHHHHHHHHhhhh!!! Yes, I screamed. It was the biggest scorpion I've ever seen in my life. It was as long as my hand (granted I have small hands, but that is still pretty long). I didn't have anything to kill it with so I ran inside. I got up the courage to go kill it (with a shoe is what my Mom told me) and I went to go look and stared it down. I was gazing at it and noticed I couldn't see a head. No head, it's not moving, it must be dead. So, I decided something else killed it. Another scorpion. Worse yet, a female scorpion who is known for killing their mate. Great, I had a mother scorpion who was going to have babies in my garage. Nathan finally came home from basketball (I had already called him to tell him that there was a female scorpion somewhere in our garage.) and he hunted around the garage for the scorpion. I showed him where the dead scorpion was and left (I had to make sure that there were no scorpions around my children. Which is quite a feat when everything that moves is a scorpion because I'm pretty freaked out about it. Well, Nathan comes in and says, "I killed it". "You found it?" I asked. "The dead one wasn't dead," he said. "Oh. Well, that's the best news I've heard all day." (Especially since we decided to cancel our zoo trip for today because it is way too HOT! So we've set next week for the zoo date. Now I can't go in the garage without shoes (and I don't like wearing shoes, especially when it's hot, and I do my laundry in the garage).

24 Hours and Counting

She did it! We are so excited. We've made a new record for potty training. Emily has now gone 24 hours without wetting her pants. Last night Nathan put a diaper on Emily because we didn't want her to wet her pants in the middle of the night. But, this morning I heard her being frustrated and I was afraid she would wake up the baby so I hurried out to see what was wrong. She was trying to pull her pants down and couldn't because of the diaper. So I helped her and she went potty. Her diaper was DRY!!! We're celebrating today.

How it finally came around to be. Well...two cold showers. Someone told Nathan that they gave their kid a cold shower to rinse off in. (In Tucson though, cold water doesn't exist. So it was more of a luke warm water.) She HATED it. I asked her while she was in the shower, would you rather go potty instead? And she said, "potty, potty, potty" OK. So she'd sit on the potty for a while. After two of those, we've had a 24 hour stretch. It's been 24 hours since her last shower. I tried the whole "be nice" thing about accidents. We've sort of been trying off and on, and then recently I've just been going at it (I don't even know how long it's been). I've sort of just let her run diaperless (but with a dress on just in case anyone saw her). I don't know what I'll do with a boy if we ever have one. Obviously not put him in a dress :) We sort of got tired of the whole potty training thing, thus the "cold" shower (which I will repeat was not cold, but it wasn't very warm either). We were going to the zoo today anyway, but I'm going to tell Emily we're going because she's such a big girl going potty. We'll make a big celebration out of it.

25 Days of Christmas

A couple of years ago my mom did a 25 days of Christmas binder that had a cute little story and a coloring page for each day in December before Christmas. Well, I liked the idea, only saw it once (detrimentally seeing that they had already colored half the pictures and NO COPIES!). Now (since I've sort of finished my last project) I'm doing a booklet for the 25 days of Christmas. I've got about 10 days worth of stuff so far. Of course I want to do the normal "church approved" stuff, so if you have any great ideas, send them my way! I have coloring pages (mostly from the friend), reenactment ideas, and pictures to color, cut and laminate. And yes, I start thinking about Christmas early. Which reminds me, if you're reading this and I (or any of my family) have your name (or your family's) for Christmas, What do you want? (Nathan, this includes you :) Anyway, look at my fhe blog to find the 25 days of Christmas that I have done. If you have a fun, fun, fun idea to add, let me know.

http://familyhomeeveningfriends.blogspot.com/

Cans (the favorite toy)

It's amazing that stacking the cans never gets old. The toys get old, but definitely not stacking the cans. Blocks, that was so yesterday. Here is Meredith's new way of stacking the cans.

Handing them to Daddy! "Here you go Daddy." Hmmm, I wonder how many he can hold.

Ok, let's see if he can handle another one.

What will we come up with next?

"Star Fish"

Emily has so many signs that she does. Among her favorite are the aquarium animals, such as shrimp, dolphins, whale, definitely fish (she's been doing that one forever) and starfish. Starfish is probably the one she signs the most because every time she sees a star she signs "star" but says "starfish". We're still working on the fact that it is a two part sign. I think that is probably a little difficult for a 2-year-old. But Meredith has even started to sign it too, and it is sooo adorable. I tried for a few minutes to get it on camera, but didn't quite get the whole sign. I'm just not fast enough. But you can see the very last part of her signing it at the first of this video. I tried to ask her to do it again, but half way through asking her to do it I realized that she would not. So, I just turned off the video. But it is still very cute.

Baking with the Girls

If anyone asks why I don't bake with my girls, this is why. I accidentally turned on the mixer too fast and poof. It was funny at first, until Meredith started to cry because Mommy wouldn't hold her because she was trying to take a picture. (Now that I think about it, that would probably make me mad too.)

After Emily frosted her cookie I made her take a picture before she ate it. That's why she's giving me that LOOK. It's hilarious.

And last but not least, the HAPPY picture. She liked the part where she ate the cookie.

My Towel Craft

I finally finished the project I've had on my list for quite a while now. I finally did some pink and brown towels for my girls. The bathroom I have a lot of brown colors in it, so I decided to have brown towels with pink ribbon. I put the ribbon on the hood and at the edges of the towels. It turned out really well. I made Nathan's sister-in-law a set of brown and pink towels too. For her set and Emily's set I did the pink and brown stripe and Meredith got the pink and white polka dot.

My finished project.

A picture of one of the towels, just because.

My model for the striped towel (Thank you Emily for sort of cooperating).

My model for the polka dot towel (maybe Meredith will cooperate next time).

Memorial Weekend

My mom's camera has all of the pictures I took. Her camera was just so handy. I either left mine in the car or my suitcase. But, I forgot to get the pictures from her and now I have a limited number from our fun weekend.

Me, the official picture taker. (Nathan using our camera to take a picture of me taking a picture. Very funny, Nathan :)

Meredith enjoying her pizza at Bits and making a mess. (Do ya like the bib? Whew, that was some quick thinking.)

Emily enjoying her pizza.

Group picture. (Look at that. Emily is such a great photo taker.)

When I get the other pictures, I'll post them.

I Found It!

Some of my most memorable Christmas ornaments that my mom has are the Christmas spiders. I found the directions for them and the story.

http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/treeornaments/l/blxspidorn.htm

I'm definitely going to have to make some spiders for my Christmas Tree. Anyone want to make them with me? (Or Mom, we can fix yours or replace it if it is missing.)

What do you do all day?

A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard. The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and there was no sign of the dog. Proceeding Into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door.
He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or
that something serious had happened. He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls.
As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked, "What happened here today?" She again smiled and answered, "You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day?" "Yes," was his incredulous reply. She answered, "Well, today I didn't do it."