Halloween 2014

We had a fabulous Halloween this year. For dinner I made dinner in a pumpkin, sort of following this recipe. I set the table with my felt spider web table runner & long taper candles. I had to hang a sheet on the dining room window to make it a little more spooky, but my kids thought it was fabulous, probably because we never use candles. Once the girls finally finished eating, after various reminders that they wouldn't get any candy if they didn't finish their dinner & one spilled cup of milk, we were ready for trick or treating. I snapped some pictures of them out in the front yard & was blessed with perfect lighting & a beautiful yellow-leafed tree in the neighbor's yard. Then we were off to the races. They did a great job knocking on doors & ringing doorbells when they weren't distracted by crazy decorations. They also stopped to pet every cat that we saw, which turned out to be quite a few. We came home with a modest amount of candy, which has since been strewn all over my living room floor. I'm planning on vacuuming up the nerds & skittles once the dust settles. I hope you had a fabulous Halloween! Now, enjoy some cuteness overload, brought to you by Anna & Aurora.

A little snow & other stuff

 The girls played in the snow for about five minutes before they started bawling because it was too cold.

I love him! This was in Oregon for Thanksgiving. We went on a walk together in the fog & took some pictures. 

The girls were excited about the Christmas pajama pants that I made for them.

Halloween 2013

What's been going on?

We've been a little busy with unpacking, but I have still been taking pictures of what's been going on. We've really been enjoying Boise for the last 2 months! Has it really been 2 months since we moved!? Crazy! Without further ado, here are some pictures to show we really are alive.

 I took the girls to the zoo on a beautiful day. We practiced walking like penguins. Sharon was really good at, while Savannah tended to just take tiny steps. Baby steps, right?

At the beginning of October, we bought a pumpkin & had dinner in a pumpkin. The girls liked squishing the seeds in their hands. Who doesn't love that! 

 I finished making Sharon's Halloween costume. She's going to be Cinderella. Savannah is going to be a cat. Should we call her "Lucifer?"

Sharon participated in her first Primary program at church this last Sunday. She did great! She even recited her part from memory, "I am a Child of God. He gave me a family that loves me very much." We sure do! This girl is so fun! She loves playing outside in the dirt, wearing princess dresses, washing dishes, helping me cook, & is such a good big sister. We sure love her! 

 Savannah was way more interested in her sandwich.

We carved pumpkins for Halloween. In this picture, the girls were helping scoop the seeds out of my pumpkin. Sharon picked a knobbly pumpkin that proved rather difficult to carve, so we had to enlist Daddy's help.

Well, that's all I had on my camera. I'll have to check our other cameras to see if anything else has happened. I'll try to post some pictures of our new house soon. We're getting settled & there are just a few more boxes to unpack. Happy Halloween!

Yup, they're adorable.

A "super" day

Scrapbook kit found {here}

Spring Dance Recital

I'm a Cowgirl

Bean Bag

I created the font that I used to write the Beanbag title on the scrapbook page. You can download it for free {here}.

Sharon's Dance Recital

Just working on some scrapbooking catch-up pages.

A Family Walk (& pictures of the girls)

Yesterday was the first warm not completely freezing day we've had in about a week. So, when Sharon asked to go on "a little walk" yesterday evening, we said ok. We put Savannah in the stroller & walked down to the end of our road, where there is a large vacant lot & some mountains small hills that are fun to climb. With the sun shining, it was just warm enough to be out with just a warm coat.

Me, Sharon & Savannah

 Sharon is our little adventurer, and loved running up the little bike jumps that kids have created out of the dirt. When she got the top of each one she would jump up as high as she could. She also ran every which way, going as fast as her feet could carry her. When we got to a little saddle in the hills, she immediately set off on her own up the large hill. She fell a few times, but was perfectly fine. We brought our cameras along & were able to capture a couple of good pictures of the girls in the fabulous lighting!

Sharon

 Savannah rode in the stroller up the hill & then I let her get out and walk around. While she is pretty much fearless at home, she was a little less certain on the rocky ground, and kept stumbling. She was a bit grouchy after falling down a few times, and was only too happy to get back in the stroller. She sure is growing quickly! She has 4 teeth, loves to try to jump, climbs on everything at home, loves to dance & sing & direct music by waving her arms. She is starting to throw food on the floor, mostly because she likes to watch Jack eat it, rather than because she doesn't like it.

Savannah

It sure was nice to get outside & spend some good family time. We're definitely going to be going on more walks in the near future!

My little artist

Sharon's 1st Dance Class

What we've been up to lately

It's been awhile since I just did a normal blog post. I haven't really had much time or space to do any crafting lately. My craft room is a disaster as it has kind of become a general dumping ground for things that don't have a designated spot. I'm working on cleaning it off so that I can get back to my creative ways. We do stay busy around here, though, so I thought I would share some pictures of what we've been up to lately. Savannah has started standing up all on her own. The bottom left picture shows her first attempt outside. She thankfully didn't stand up, because I'm sure she would have fallen right onto her face.

We spent a week in Phoenix with my family last week, and while we were there I got my hair cut (it's finally the cut that I've been dreaming of, since the last guy kind of did a hack job on the stacking in the back), I went wedding dress shopping with my sister for her upcoming wedding (she was able to get the perfect dress for an amazing price! Score!), I took the girls to the Children's Museum of Phoenix with my Mom & sister, Janelle. Sharon had such a great time at the museum! I would definitely recommend it to those of you with smaller children. There were things to explore everywhere! She loved the 3 and under area, where they have a little house, with a little kitchen & a monster mom! Savannah enjoyed all the baby areas, and I loved how she looked holding on to the little ballet bar. My favorite thing at the museum was the interactive cactus next to the noodle forest. The cactus has a crank on one side, a belt that goes vertically up the trunk and has little squares of velcro attached to it, little critters that also have velcro that you stick to the belt, and a fan at the top that whacks the little critters all the way across the room when you wind the crank & move the belt. So fun!
While there we went swimming a few times, I found some great clearance clothes, including my favorite shirt from Target for only $3 (I bought one in every color), went out to eat with my sister and her fiance, and just hung out with the family.
I also entered a few things into the Mohave County fair. I won a first place ribbon for this picture of Sharon with the fish she sort of helped catch.

And got a second place ribbon for this photo of Savannah.

I also won a first place ribbon for my prickly pear jelly, second place for grape jelly & an honorable mention for my bottled chicken.
Sharon loved seeing all the animals at the fair, and even Savannah got pretty excited to see some of the little critters! She would start kicking her legs and waving her arms and making all sorts of squealing noises. They liked seeing all the lights once it got dark, but definitely didn't like all the noise from the rides and the people.
One of the most hilarious things I've seen was the chicken wearing the sweater! It was on display with all the other animals at the fair! On the tag it said, "Chicken sweaters for sale (xxx)xxx-xxxx." So hilarious! I'm glad Ammon thought to take a picture of it!
I've been making lots of yogurt, trying to catch up on laundry, chasing two munchkins around, enjoying our homegrown veggies, playing out on the back lawn in the evenings, getting rid of clutter around the house, and just enjoying life.

The Party Details

 I made a pinata for the party this year. I was inspired by the pinata on this page. I decided to make the pinata base, as well, rather than buy one. I just did a basic paper mache on a large party balloon. If you've never done paper mache, you must have skipped grade school, all you do is mix flour & water until it's thin enough to dip strips of newspaper into (or, in my case, since we don't get the newspaper, I used the Republican voting information booklet, just the section that was in Spanish). Then, dip one inch by 4 inch strips of newspaper into the flour soup, use your fingers to scrape off most of it, and apply to your balloon. Cover the whole balloon with one layer, let dry, apply another layer, let dry...repeat until you think it's thick enough. The pinata was sturdier than I thought it would be. I only did 3 layers of paper mache, and instead of breaking when it was hit, it just got dented. Eventually it fell off of the wire hanger that I installed, so I just ripped it open for the kids. They didn't mind.

 I made tissue paper pom-poms in each color of the rainbow, just using the basic tutorial from Martha Stewart. I hung them up over our dining table light using push pins and fishing line.

 For the cake, I just used two basic Devil's Food Cake boxed cake mixes & 1 1/2 tubs of store-bought cream cheese frosting. I used 3 layers of cake & just used the cream cheese frosting between the layers. I used an offset spatula to get the outside nice and smooth (it could have been smoother, but she's 3 years old and doesn't really care). I used this recipe to make the marshmallow fondant. I did have a problem with the fondant being too dry & crumbly, and it didn't mix together well, so I squished as much of it together as I could & threw it in the microwave for about 15 seconds & it mixed perfectly after that. I divided it into 7 sections & added this food coloring to make the 7 colors. After icing the cake, I rolled out the fondant & cut out a bunch of circles & two stripes in each color. The circles went around the side & the stripes went on top in rainbow order. I made the pom pom bunting with two skewers, white yarn & leftover tissue paper circles from the pinata just stapled onto the yarn. (By the way, I made that cake stand using a dollar store plate & a thrift store goblet)

As you can see, Sharon was pretty excited about it. All in all, none of these things were really difficult, just time consuming. I love doing it, especially when I can see how happy it makes Sharon!

Sharon's 3rd Birthday page

Sharon was so excited about her birthday this year! She loved her birthday cake (though she mostly just ate the ice cream and the fondant) & kept dragging her little step stool into the kitchen so she could stare at it. She couldn't stop talking about her friends coming over for her birthday party & we had a great time celebrating her birthday this year! I can't believe how much she's grown. She sure is our little lady & is a major chatterbox! Happy birthday Sharon!

The White Dress

A few catch-up scrapbook pages

Aviator hat & goggles

I was going through my blog reader yesterday and came across a pattern for an aviator hat and goggles. I thought it was so cute & decided to make some for Sharon, since she so loves the movie Up right now. I mean, who doesn't love the movie Up. I might just have to make myself a set so I can pretend to be Ellie, too! So here is the link to the pattern. She has some pictures of the finished product & a printable pattern, but doesn't really include much in the way of instructions. She has 4 printable pages of the pattern, & I just copied them into Word & made them the same size as a sheet of paper, so that they would print full size.

Then you cut them out & tape together the top pieces & the bottom pieces, matching up the writing on each piece. Cut out two of the hat shaped piece & just one of the rectangle. If you want a lining, cut out the same amount from the lining fabric. For my outer fabric, I used some corduroy pants that I've had lying around in my fabric stash. I used a fat quarter for the inner fabric. The way you sew it together is by sewing the rectangle along crown of one of the hat pieces. Then, sew the other long side of the rectangle to the other hat piece. Make sure you don't just sew the hat shaped pieces to each other, otherwise it definitely won't fit any head. Then sew the lining fabric the same way. Turn the outer hat inside out, then insert the lining hat into it so that right sides are facing. Sew all around the edge, leaving a space for turning. Trim the corners on the straps & then turn everying right side out. Top stitch around the edge, making sure to enclose the space you left for turning.
I made the goggles in the same way she made hers, basically just made a paper pattern that looked good and then placed it on top of a double layer of felt and sewed around the edge. They were super simple to make. Sharon thought they were so fun! Hopefully this isn't the only time she wears them!

Sisters

The other day, as Sharon and I were walking back from checking the mail at the mail box, she told me, "Sanannah's my friend." What a heart-melting moment. This picture definitely doesn't show how much they like each other because they were both so done taking pictures. Sharon usually comes in my room first thing in the morning and likes to climb up and play in my bed. As soon as she hears her sister making any sort of noise over the baby monitor, she slides off the bed, and runs into her room yelling, "Sanannah! Sanannah's happy!  Good morning Sanannah!" I was actually trying to take Savannah's picture, but Sharon kept trying to insert herself into the shot. I finally let her sit with Savannah, and this was the only picture I got.
I sure am happy that they like each other at this point. I only hope it continues as they get older!