Newest, Frillyest member

Wanna meet the newest, frillyest thing to hit my home decor? 

Darling, eh?  Well, I wish I could take credit, but once again, I stole the idea.  You know, those people put those ideas out there for a reason....they want you to steal them!

This beaut is made from coffee filters!  So clever.  And easy too.  I had this lamp just lying around at my dad's house.  I got it for my birthday years ago. I really had planned on it going on my shelf downstairs that has been naked since...............uh............we moved here, but it is too fat to fit on the shelf.  Oh well, I guess it works good here on the computer desk.

Biome

Kaleb had to make a biome for science.  He chose to do the Safari for his.  He decided on some animals which proved to be elusive little buggers!  John and I finally found some at Cal Ranch thanks to a tip from a friend we ran into while shopping in Poky. {thanks Nika!} Those things don't come cheap I tell ya!  Anyway, I forgot to look for some trees so we brainstormed and came up with the idea of making them out of play-doh.  We couldn't find any brown so we added some cocoa powder to the orange and it worked out great!  I made the trunks and Kaleb made the "leaves".  He made the sunset with some chalk.  It turned out so great!  He was so proud.  As were his dad and I.  I hope his teacher is equally as proud.  Like A+ proud!

All Star Basketball

As if 2 seasons of little league basketball wasn't enough for us, Kaleb is also on the All Star 4th grade team.  So far he's only played in the Grace tournament where they took third place.  All this month we will be in various gyms on every weekend. joy. He loves it though.

Spring Fever

We've got Spring Fever B.A.D.! We have been taking Mia out to Kelly Park to run.  She loves the snow, but we are sooooo over it!  I know, there's hardly any to speak of, but that's not the point!  Here's Mia tackling Kali and begging her to play rough.

Loving the sunshine!

Ello, Gov'na!



Dance Recital

Kali had a dance recital in January.  They performed a ballet to Hallelujah.  It was the most beautiful thing ever!  I cried when she performed.  She has come so far in her few years, I am so proud of her abilities!  I am so proud that she carries the desire to make herself better every practice hour, and that she wants to be amazing.

Applying false lashes for the first time can make a girl G.R.U.M.P.Y.!

A quick pic before the show.

Can't see Kali, she's baseing in the lift.

Cute group pic!

So proud of her!

End of the year stuff....

Some of the cheer moms thought it would be fun to decorate the cheerleaders' lockers for the last Pep Rally.  I made these cheerleaders for the 7th grade squad.  I personalized them to look like each girl!  They only took me 6 hours.  Yep, you read that right....SIX hours!  My cricut doesn't have a cheerleader on any cartridges, so I had to make my own.  Her skirt is a hula skirt, and I used a dance leotard for the top, and their poms are lions manes!  Cute, huh!  The girls were only allowed to keep them on their lockers for one week.  Wanna know why?  Cuz feelings were hurt.  Seriously, peeps?!  How long are you going to shield these kids from the REAL world!?  NEWSFLASH: YOU DIDN'T MAKE THE TEAM, THEREFORE YOUR LOCKER WAS NOT DECORATED! This is what I call it:  Sorry you weren't good enough to make the cheer team.  Now suck it up and try harder next year! 

I know, I am nasty, but in all reality when are these kids going to realize that life ain't fair?  If you want something YOU MUST WORK TO GET IT!

NO TEENAGERS ALLOWED!

I am on a strike of sorts. It's called "no teenagers allowed".  You see, our daughter turns 13 in 19 days!  EEEK!  I don't want a teenager!  I want a 4 year old, sweet girl who loves to dress up her little brother, and who loves to make forts and include the dog in everything she does!  Please, make it stop! 

performing at a pep rally Feb. 2012

Next on the TO DO list!

This is absolutely on my "to do" list!  You heard it here first folks....in 8 or so years I will have it completed! Cheers to whomever made this beauty! 

DWWD

Kali had her XC banquet last week.  It's always a lot of fun.  It's a potluck soup and rolls type thing. I got soup this year....last year I got rolls.  I chewed Linda for it. I told her next year I wanted spoons!  :)

I can't for the life of me get a good picture at this event.  I don't know if it's the lighting, or the photographer.  Last year I blamed it on not knowing how to run my new camera....and that may still be the case, but whatever it is, these pictures always turn out blurry.  Bummer.  Anyway, they do this fun slide show and you get to see your runner in all sorts of funny positions and such! Each runner received a packet of stats from each race and some fun quotes from fellow runners that they wrote throughout the season.  They stated goals that they'd like to achieve too.  It is a definite keepsake, the coaches did a lot of work for these kids.  This is the most amazing team to be a part of! Kali talks about cross country almost daily and cannot wait for it to start up again!

{Kali hugging her coaches}

D.W.W.D.: Doin' What We Do



Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  We had a great Christmas....more on that later when I feel like waiting an eternity for the pictures to upload!  Anywhoo....I made a quilt!  Ok, maybe it's a blanket.  I don't know really what qualifies a quilt to be a quilt, but I didn't actually "quilt" anything, just hacked up the kids' receiving blankets, stitched them together and then cut them again.  WHAT? That sounds so ridiculous!  Yes, it's a rag quilt.  My mom and I cut the squares about 7 or 8 years ago. I have been storing them forever and I've been thinking about making it.  I took special care to lay out the squares so that none of them were alike and next to one another.....I guess you noticed that something somewhere went wrong.  Oh well, besides that, it turned out great!  I will tell you though that the next one I make {since I have squares leftover} will only be 2 layers thick....the 3 layers {6 when you stitch them together} was HELL on my hands!  I suffered only one minor skinning of my thumb due to cutting layers and layers and layers and layers, and one bent needle, and my hands hurt like the dickens, but I think it was worth it!  So proud!



Family Visit

We spent the Turkey weekend with John's family.  His sister came from Montana too!  We got to see Sawyer and celebrate his 2nd birthday.  We had lots of fun.  After turkey dinner we went sledding at the Hooper school.

Here is me and Sawyer about to mow Mia right over!  Thank goodness she moved in time!

"P" took this cute photo!  Sawyer calls John "P".  Short for JP!  Hee Hee. {my other pix of this fun event won't load for some reason....I'll keep trying and show them if they post}

A hit!

Ladies Night was a hit for Krista and I this year!  Finally, a good turn out!  I'm pretty sure the girls loved the project.  It's something anyone can do {if they can tie their own shoes that is} and it is cheap {I love frugal crafts!} AND we didn't have to go out of town for any supplies!  I finished my wreath but decided it needed something more.  I just put a few more sparkly Christmas "berries" on it and I love it!

Total cost: $2.50ish.  I used 4 kitchen sized garbage bags, 1 hanger, 9 ornaments and about 2 yards of ribbon!  Woo Hoo!

Ladies Night

Krista and I are hosting ladies night this month.  A few of us get together one night a month and craft and eat or play games.  Really it's just a night to have fun with the girls.  We are doing plastic bag wreaths for our craft. I made a Halloween one.  I plan on doing a white one with candy canes for ladies night.  They are super easy and oh so cute! This one is made out of garbage bags.  Spooky!

Don't you love the little witch boots?  And the girly ghosts?  I thought it turned out dang cute. I'm excited to see everyones' creations.

Remember how I wanted this?

Remember how I wanted that organized closet?  Well, I got my own!  Yay!  I love being organized.  I hope I can stick with it.  It's amazingly easy to find what I'm looking for too!  Thanks to Grandpa Ron for letting me use his scrap pile and for cutting my shelves for me!

Who's the (Wo) MAN?!

I saw the cutest purse on one of my favorite craft blogs.  She was giving some things away, but I didn't enter cuz I never win those blasted things!  Anywho, I went to this girls etsy store to see what kind of price she had on this purse I was just dying to have.  Well, I fell off my chair when I saw $48!  Holy Moly!  Are you kidding?  For a purse?  What, does it come loaded with money or something!?  Well, since I am a copy cat was inspired by her creation, I thought I'd make my own!  Yep, another one of those moments.  Well, I needed some burlap.  Had none.  Went to work the next day and VIOLA, a tater sack just sitting by it's lonely self on a shelf, all forgotten and stuff.  So I snatched it up and got myself some black Rit dye.  Dyed it up and went to town.  It turned out so good!  Now... I cannot remember the last time that I have had a craft turn out THIS GOOD! I am super excited! I will now share my awesome creation with you.  {Sorry for the lack of good photos.}

(ok, so the outside of the back door could use a washin'....whatever, I'm busy crafting!)

Here you can see the cute ruffles.  Don't they just make you feel all girly and stuff!?

The flower and inside lining are paisley!  I LOVE paisley!  I even crafted some pockets inside for my phone and stuff.  Yeah, that is totally above my throw-together method!  So, now I will show you hers:

What do ya think?  Is mine a close second?  I like mine better I think.  Plus, mine was a little cheaper. Like free.  

Halloween

I made the kiddos some fun Halloween jars.  They originally were supposed to have battery operated tea lights in them so that they resembled a real lantern, but since I waited till Monday to make them, all those little tea lights had sold out.  So they got gumballs and candy instead.

Lexi, the candy-corn-witch! :)

Kali and Alexa, the Punk Rock Chicks!

I don't have any pictures of Kaleb because he went trick-or-treating with Ivor in Grace.  I need to get him in his costume so I can have one picture at least.

Pumpkin Carving

We finally got to carving pumpkins at about 8:00 on Friday night.  We have been so busy this week, we just couldn't fit it in.  The kids decided that they wanted to go to the haunted house first, so that's what they did.  They had fun but said that the haunted house was SOOOO SCARY!  Kali cried. You pay your $3 and get 2 trips through the haunted house.  Kaleb still has his ticket for trip #2, he said he just couldn't do it again!  Anyway, pumpkins got carved!

(he got his warts burned off, hence the rubber glove and the bandage mess, there was not a tragedy!)

L to R: Mom, Kali, Kaleb, John

Happy Halloween!

He's 10???

Seriously? Ten? Hmmmph.  I told him NO MORE birthdays! What's up with that?  I am sad that my baby is ten, but I guess it's something that I have no control over.  He had a good birthday.

This is him leading us all in the birthday song. :)

Opening presents at 8 a.m. (ugh)

He got a 20 gauge shotgun.  He can't wait to go bird hunting.

Grandma Pete made him a Boise State suit. It's sorta like a snuggie, but it has a zipper.  He was wearing mine for the longest time so I suggested she make him his own for his birthday!  He loves it.  It has matching mittens.

Shooting some skeet.  This kid is an amazing shot!  It only took him about 15 minutes to blow through an entire box of shells!

Almost too dark to shoot. Bummer.

Love this silhouette shot of my family!  What a gorgeous sunset.  We had a lot of fun!  Happy Birthday Kaleb.