Summer Themed Art

The art teacher at our elementary school is retiring this year and my kids are so glad. For two years now I've been hearing horror stories about art. Apparently she's "really mean." Okay, so her classroom management skills may be lacking, but my kids have come home with some really cute art projects. Here's hoping that next year they will have good art AND a fun teacher. I always think of my friend Brooke, the best art teacher on the planet, and wish she could be the world's teacher, or at least my kids' teacher.

Ellie's Baptism

Ellie was baptized last week. She was very excited. Some of that excitement may have been that she got to share the day with her BFF, Izzy. And thank goodness she did. Izzy's mom just happens to be really talented at putting together cute invites and programs and nice finishing touches that I usually don't even think of. Thank you, Izzy's mom. :)
It was very nice because my parents and Ellie's older sister, Ryan were able to come. We thought the other grandparents were going to make it too, but were surprised with a last minute realization that that wouldn't be the case. But, that is another story. Maddie was also absent as she was in a show that night.

Grandma M did make Ellie a nice little baptism dress though. It turned out very cute. Not only that, she made Lauren and Ellie each a new "Easter" dress. Lauren is wearing hers in the picture above. I made Ellie and Izzy's "baptism" dresses. They went to the fabric store together and picked their patterns and fabric. Their fabric is matching, just different colors. I made the cupcakes. The day turned out well. The important thing is that Ellie is now baptized and thrilled to be so. She's so excited to be working on Faith In God goals and trying hard to always choose the right. I'm so proud of her.

Easter

On a super cold, blustery, wintery April day, our subdivision held its annual Easter Egg Hunt and Activity Day. It's very handy because it's basically held in our back yard. There were pony rides, face painting, jumpy houses, burgers and dogs, and the Easter Egg Hunt. There must have been enough eggs filled for around 60+ kids, but because of the weather only about 8 kids (in my kids' age range) were there and I brought 4 of them (2 friends). They ended up rolling the wagon over to the yard area and using that as the "basket". They filled the wagon with candy filled eggs. Literally hundreds of eggs were in there. Thank goodness they decided to drop most of them off at the neighbor friend's house. We only ended up with about 80 or so.
We tried something different for our eggs this year. I colored small pasta and rice and we decorated blown eggs by gluing the pieces on. As it turns out, this project requires more patience than most of my kids had. The younger two ended up just covering their egg in glue and rolling it around in the pieces. Whatever. It was fun and different from the same ol', same ol'.

Great to Be 8

I was in charge of our Great To Be 8 (or 8 Is Great) meeting this year and found instructions on Sugardoodle.net for these cute cookies on a stick. They were a big hit!

Art

Just a sampling of some of the cute art projects Ellie has done this year.

cookie press

I found a brand new Pampered Chef cookie press at the thrift store the other day and just had to get it. I've been curious about this for many years. It turned out so fun. There are tons of recipes out there for the cookie press. This is just a simple butter spritz that I colored pink for Valentine's Day. Not all of my kids like them (This is meaningless. They don't like anything.), but Richard liked them pretty well. I think they are tasty, but mostly just fun to make.

Merry Christmas from all of us!

Our Christmas season has been filled with holiday crafts and baking, plenty of singing and concerts, just enough snow to say we had some, Nutcracker dancing (kinda), shopping and wrapping, great Christmas stories, eating, eating, eating, parties with friends, vacation planning, finals at school, not enough house cleaning, and a greater appreciation for our Savior. We hope you have a very merry Christmas and a fabulous new year! We love you.

Halloween 2010

Everyone looked adorable for Halloween this year.
Ellie - cowgirl
If I ever find time I will post a picture of me wearing that skirt when I was about that age. I love, love, love that I kept all my dance costumes. My kids have gotten so much use out of them.
Lauren - Wonder Woman (her favorite super hero)
Emma - American Girl Doll, Molly
Maddie - Belle
Maddie "made" her Belle dress for a Personal Progress project. We had to do the bodice twice because the size was weird. We were using a little girl pattern and it fit like a little girl (short and wide). We had to modify it to make it more womanly. We were both pleased with how it turned out. Her friend dressed as Cinderella and they were helpers at the school Safe Halloween, which was soooooo packed with kids. But it was really cute. They acted just like Disneyland princesses and talked and waved to the little kids and when they came upon other "princesses" they acted like they were their best friends and had been looking everywhere for them. I'm sure they got more pictures taken that night than anyone at the school. Kids were lining up to get their pictures taken with them just like at Disneyland.

Cakes

I auctioned off birthday cakes for the YW auction last spring. These are the cakes I made for the winners. I'm still experimenting with frostings and fondant and designs and stuff. But I really like making cakes. I get to be creative and then don't feel like I'm obligated to keep my creation. It soon disappears. And, if it doesn't turn out so great, oh well, it still tastes pretty good.

This little girl wanted a lemon cake. I would normally do a princess cake pink, or purple, or blue even, but didn't think either of those would be too great with a lemon cake. Also, the princesses were a little too big for the cake and had to be held in with wire. They do look like damsels in distress about to fall off the ledge. I would probably put this in the cake wreck category. I will not be happy, though, if I see it on there next week. Don't even think about it. Please. I couldn't handle the shame.

Humanitarian Dolls

The dolls are done.
I'm going to have to start this post with a little story. It's an analogy.
When I was teaching, one of the projects we used to do was a "World's Fair" where every child picked a country to do an in-depth report on. Well, I had one student who just loved the movie and music of Evita and was almost obsessed with Argentina because of it. So naturally she chose Argentina as her project. As the days of research, note-taking, fact finding, etc. progressed she became less and less excited until, in the end, one of the parents who came to the final World's Fair report day asked her, "So, Megan, what did you learn about Argentina?" Her reply was a vehement, "I hate Argentina!"
I have to admit that I have had a few days of "hating" these dolls. And here's why.
6 years ago I found myself in a position of being a brand new stay-at-home mom; something I had never been before. Yes, I had 4 young children and ran a daycare from my home, but I felt like I really had a bit of extra time and was feeling that I wanted to continue to contribute to the world and stay productive. So, I got on the church website and looked through the humanitarian projects available. This little doll pattern just caught my eye. They looked so cute and simple. Surely I could whip out a big bunch of these in no time. The date of the print-out is 12/11/2004. Now, I'm sure I didn't start until a few weeks after that, but it started out great. I got all the pieces cut out and the initial sewing done. That was the ONLY machine sewing to be done on these cuties. Let's just say I really underestimated the length of time all the hand sewing would take. And guess what? I HATE hand sewing. So the project got put away for a few, uhh, years.
With renewed energy and after moving them to our new house, I got them out again and worked on them until I was quite sick of them again. And away they went. And we moved again.
And again I dug them out, determined to finish them up. Made some headway. Moved again.
When we moved into this house and I saw the box that held them (and a few other unfinished projects) I was determined. My New Year's resolution this year was to finish all the projects in that box. I have already put together a quilt top (I'll post it when I quilt it) and can say with a huge smile on my face, that I have finished the dolls. Do not check the website. They are no longer on there as a project. But guess what? I'm sending them anyway. I wrapped each one with a cute little silly band (are you all experiencing this craze? My house is overrun with silly bands) and am shipping them away. I figured that each doll took about 1 1/2-2 hours to complete and there are 54 of them. I did most of the work while watching movies. I haven't watched a movie since the completion yet, but it will feel strange not to be sewing during it.
Humanitarian Dolls----check
It might take me a while, but I'm a finisher. Anyone need a size 2 little girl's dress? That's the next project. Started for Lauren. Shameful, I know.

Fun Stuff

Oh, what do you do in the summertime when you can barely walk?
I sew American Girl clothes and make ice cream. The American Girl dress didn't turn out great even though I followed the pattern perfectly. For the next one I will modify the pattern to cover the width of the body better. But other than that it was a fun way to use some remnant fabric. The price of that dress really beats the $30 they charge at the big store.
Then the ice cream. We made peach and peanut butter chocolate. Yumm! I still have a bunch in my freezer if any locals want any.

Summer Sugar Cookies

This was a fun project that took a good chunk of a summer day. We had friends over to help us decorate. Fun and tasty!

Another Birthday

Emma's birthday party was very teenagey--appropriate because she is now a teen!
It started at the movie theater because it just happened to be our orthodontist's patient appreciation party that day that we were planning to attend. (Who wouldn't want to see Iron Man 2 for free?) So we just incorporated that into the birthday party and invited all her friends to come as guests. It was great. (I ended up watching How To Train Your Dragon with Ellie.)
Then we headed to the mall for a mall scavenger hunt and pizza. We ate our fill and then sat around while the girls left in teams to find all the stuff. They had fun, I had a relaxing time--win, win for all. Then they returned for "cookie" cake. Emma would rather have cookies than cake any day so that was her special request. I made it myself and she is certain that a "real" one from the store would be better, but I thought it was pretty darn good. The winners of the scavenger hunt won a HUGE prize. They got to pick their party favor bag first. The bags were made by me from fabric I had on hand. I found the pattern online and thought it was so cute. This was the most economical and easy party I have ever done. A great time was had by all=SUCCESS!
P.S.-notice that all the girls are wearing blue eye shadow. It was part of the scavenger hunt. I thought they all looked quite cute.
P.P.S.-Dillards will not let you have a shopping bag. Don't even bother asking for one.
P.P.P.S.-Foot Locker has too many blue shoes to count.
P.P.P.P.S.-the people that work at Sbarro are really nice :)
P.P.P.P.P.S.-I have a gorgeous 13 year old.

Medusa

Emma's Greek mythology 3D project turned out pretty cool. At first she was going to do a golden apple. I ask you, what's cool about that? Not much IMO. But a woman with snakes growing out of her head, now that's pretty cool. I already have plans about where to display it in our home. I'm thinking it will be a nice addition to the play room.

Ooey, Gooey Birthday Party

Hooray! Lauren is 9 and her party is over! Lauren has always been unique. . . individual . . . and proud to be so. While I love this about her, it also drives me crazy sometimes. She also LOVES everything messy; the messier the better. Well, it's party year at our house, so Lauren's idea of a perfect party is an "Ooey, Gooey Party". Can you imagine what this is? This is a party where you get together with 7 of your best friends and make things like Ooblek, and Glop, and play with Gak, Noise putty, silly putty, Floam, and a variety of other gooey things. Then, you watch a "scary" Goosebumps movie and sleep over. Then you get up and make name pancakes with everyone. Unfortunately I don't have a single picture. It was a full time, hands on job managing this event. Of course, Richard did his job by getting as far away from this as possible. . . all the way to Pheonix. Then, Maddie ended up being a huge help (NOT) by going to a movie with her friends. Thank heavens for Emma.
The kids all seemed to love it. They all wanted the recipes and declared this party as the BEST birthday they'd ever been to and many decided they wanted an Ooey, Gooey party this year. That made me laugh.
The pictures we do have are of the night before when we went to Red Robin as a family.
Just in case you want an ooey gooey event I'll post the recipes. I really don't suggest this as a sleep over. It's a bit too much.

Glop

4 oz. bottle of white glue
2 liter bowl
1 pt. distilled water (I didn't use distilled and it worked fine)
Borax powder
Food coloring

Pour glue into a bowl. Fill the glue bottles with water, shake and pour into the bowl. Add 1 C. water and food coloring. Stir. Add Borax 1 tsp. at a time and stir until glop starts to form. Take glop out as you see it forming and continue to add Borax to the remaining mixture.

This really is fun to play with.

Ooblek

1 1/2 C. cornstarch
1 C. water
food coloring

mix together and see the magic. Tap it hard and it feels like a solid, set your fingers on it and it feels like a liquid. Add extra water the next day and it's still lots of fun.

Flip Book Kids

My crazy little kids decided to take pictures of themselves in pieces so they could make mixed up body pictures. I put them together intact, but they were playing around with the different parts of each other. I thought it was a pretty ingenious way to play.

Chocolate Preztels

Looking for a fun and simple (and edible) craft? Here's what you do. Run over to Michaels and buy this cool pretzel mold. Melt the chocolate in baggies, cut a hole in the corner and let your kids squeeze it into the molds. They had a lot of fun doing this. They were way more interested in eating the pretzels than the "chocolate" anyway, which was okay with me.