Christmas Craftiness Revealed…

I thought life would calm down after Christmas but it’s taken this long to get a moment to sit down and blog.  Here are pictures of my Christmas creations.

I made a quiet book for Lizzie’s girls …

I love this fabric I found for the coverMatch the colors into the pocketMatch the Velcro shapesPut the heads on the animalsPut the cupcakes in the numbered pocketSnap on the balloonsUnzip the purse to reveal some blingAn abacus with counting beadsButton the flowers onto the stems

Some baby shoes for Aubrey…


Some slippers for my sister (They looked much cuter on Pinterest)…

And a quilt for my cousin…

This one caused me a lot of stress (and a few tears) but I think it turned out pretty cool.  I almost like the flowers even better from the back.



And here is Joshua sitting on one of his favorite Christmas gifts.  He carried it around the house for days!

We Can Learn a Lot from a Child…

When life gets busy, just slow down and take a rest!

Don’t be afraid to reach out and make new friends

Stay close to those you love

Merry Christmas everyone!  I’ll soon be able to post all of the fun crafts I’ve been making.

Such a Happy Little Helper…

This morning Joshua and I went out to the garage to get in the car, but Joshua ran around to the other side of the van.  He grabbed the snow shovel and headed straight for the driveway to shovel snow. 

He actually made a bit of progress on his own, and then he helped me do some shoveling before he decided it was fun to run up and down the sidewalk leaving footprints behind. I just love my little guy!

There’s a cheesy grin if I ever saw one.

I’ve been Crafting!

Andrew and I are on the ward Christmas party committee and we were put in charge of decorations.  After exploring many options on Pinterest, (I am addicted!) I decided on these string art trees.  I started with yarn, I thought it would hold together better, but I like the look of the string more.  Some of the trees have beads and some of the later trees I just wrapped with wire garland.    I have to remake a few that Joshua decided to help with but I really like how they turned out.

Then I decided to take this same concept to make some snowmen.  I harvested the heads off an old craft project that I did years ago and didn’t like anymore and viola!

The other project I’ve been working on is this Christmas advent calendar.  There is a pocket for each day of December until Christmas.   Instead of treats each pocket contains a card with an activity for us to do as a family. I finished this up just in time (I was still sewing pieces on on Dec. 1st!)

And because I know some of you only come to my blog to see pictures of my handsome boy, here he is!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to share my Thanks with all the people who matter to me. I’m so thankful for this little guy who makes me laugh everyday.  I love watching him learn and explore.

I’m so thankful for my hubby, that we were sealed in the temple and we have eternity together!

I’m thankful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the peace that it brings to my life, especially during the hard times.

I’m Thankful for family!  What would we do without them?

I’m Thankful for all my friends, who are practically family.  Love you guys.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Baby Blue Jeans….

Is it just me or do babies look adorable in blue jeans?  Joshua has grown out of all his jeans and I decided he needed a new pair.  I started with an old pair of jeans that had holes in the bum and cut out some pattern pieces from the bottoms of the legs.  I cut them from the bottom so they already had the bottom hem and side seam done.  Two less things for me to do.

I used part of the inner seam to create the top of the back pockets.  As you can see, the cuff of the right leg is worn a bit, but I still thought it was worth saving the look of the original hem.

I made them extra long so they’d last a little longer, but I made a mistake when I was cutting them out and they turned out a bit skinnier through the bum than I planned. Luckily my boy has a skinny bum and they still fit.

I’m pretty excited about his new pair of jeans!

Magical Playdoh!

I found this recipe for super easy magical playdoh.  The reason it’s magical is because you mix in the Kool-Aid powder with the dry ingredients and so the kids don’t know what color it is until they help you stir in the water.  Here are our bowls ready to add the oil and water to find out what colors they’ll be.

Because it’s made with Kool-Aid, they are also scented.  The blue one smells like lemonade and the red one is strawberry.  The recipe says to use 2 packages of Kool-Aid for each, but I didn’t have that much on hand.  The red turned out plenty dark enough but I added some food coloring to the blue.

It took Joshua a while to even want to touch it, but as soon as I got the cookie cutters out, he had a blast!

And they stayed busy and entertained for nearly an hour!

Snow!!!

We got a few inches of snow last night.  I brought some of it inside in a bowl for Joshua to play with, but he just looked at it but wouldn’t touch it.  Then I made some little snowballs and then he enjoyed crushing them. 

He went outside and helped Daddy shovel the snow…

...and by helped I mean he just stood there because every time he’d try to walk, he’d end up tipping over.  I think he’s trying to decide whether he likes it or not.

We got him a little toddler bed earlier this week.  I think he absolutely loves it.  What do you think?

Joshua has a new word that he loves to say: stuck!

I think he learned this word from his book Ducks in Muck.  He says stuck when he can’t pick something up, when he’s trying to put something on or take something off, when he’s trying to open a lid, when he wants to get out of the highchair, if his legs are twisted up in the blanket, and he says it a LOT when he’s playing with his Legos.  It’s amazing how many times a day you can use the word stuck and have it make sense.

Happy Halloween… (a few days late…)

Here are some pictures of Joshua’s very first Trick-or-Treating.  He even left his costume on the whole time.  I don’t think he quite knew what was going on, but he liked that he kept getting to put stuff in his bucket.  We had been to a few houses before he recognized that it was candy and wanted to eat some.

He is such a clever boy, he got his own bib out for dinner, and look which one he picked!

I made this lady bug costume for my friend’s baby who is only a few days 0ld.  I had my doll model it before I took it over to her.  (It’s fun to make cute frilly girl stuff!)