Christmas Table Runner

I really wanted to make a Christmas table runner this year.  I searched some blogs and found one I liked.  Here is the link to make the runner.  I enjoyed making the runner although it was a little time consuming to zig zag around all the circles and holly leaves.

It looks great on my table with my beautiful poinsettia Monte surprised me with.

Snowflake!

My sister Rachel showed me this cute snowflake that she found on pintrest.  I thought it looked easy and cheap enough to make so I gave it a try.  I learned from my last wreath to never go white on a white front door! So I went with a red snowflake for Christmas.  Monte and the kids helped paint and glitter, and Monte helped me glue everything at the right angles.

It was a fun project to do with the family. If you want to make one here's the link Snowflake.  So to make my snowflake red we painted the popsicle sticks red and then sprinkled glitter on them while the paint was still wet.  You could easily put the whole thing together and then spray paint. For me the weather around here is not conducive to spray painting this time of year.  Another little hint is I used red sparkly foam paper for my circles.  It was a lot cheaper to buy one sheet of foam paper than all the wood circles, and I didn't have to paint the foam.  I lucked out having it all match up really well. Overall this was a quick fun kid friendly project!

Fall Pictures

I finally got around to editing my kid's fall pictures. I really don't like school pictures. They have never turned out for us. So every year I take my own pictures of my kids. This year was fun because all the pictures were taken in our side yard.  We didn't get a family picture this year, but the kid's pictures turned out great.


Weston 1st grade.

 Logan 4th grade.

 Abbie 7th grade.

The kids actually didn't complain about pictures this year since it was just right out our front door and super fast. Hopefully we can get some family pictures this spring.

First Snow!

There is something magical about the first snow fall of the season. I love it! It transforms the brown left overs of fall into a magical wonderland.  The earth looks reborn with all the white.  And since we live in the pine trees it is even more magical, something about the snow on the evergreens is an amazing sight.

I wish I would've turned my flash off so the pictures would be better. But it is beautiful outside, picture perfect, if only the camera could capture what the eye could see. I love when the world is perfectly still. It brings a great peace to my heart.

 I stood in the snow soaking in the beauty and then wham a snow ball to my back also brought on the first snow ball fight of the season.  Monte and the kids had a very enthusiastic snow ball fight. It might have ruined my peaceful feeling of being one with the earth, but it filled me with joy. There is no better joy than watching your husband play with the kids, while their laughter fills the air.  I Love The First Snow!!!

Pumpkins

Okay well I don't have any pictures for a tutorial but I can do some explaining. It's super easy.

Step One:  Take a roll of toilet paper.
Step Two:  Wrap a square of fabric around it.
Step Three:  Tuck the loose ends into the toilet paper roll center.
Step Four: Shove a stick down the center of the toilet paper roll
Step Five: Add some leaves, raffia, and whatever else you want to decorate it.

Like I said way easy, but I'll also give you some tips to go along with the basic directions.  First we stuffed a plastic bag or the wrapper the toilet paper came in down the hole along with a few rocks to make it feel solid.  We also glue gunned the fabric to the top of the toilet paper roll.  We did this in sections working our way around the pumpkin. Then we cut off the edges of the fabric so not a lot of fabric was stuffed down in the hole. And we also glue gunned the stick and other embellishments on. We used regular toilet paper for the small ones and a paper towel roll for the larger pumpkin. We also made a medium size by cutting a toilet paper roll in half and gluing it onto a regular sized toilet paper roll. Enjoy making these fun pumpkins. I love them.

Visitors!

We had the best visitors ever this last weekend. Grandma and Grandpa! We had so much fun. I don't think we stopped moving for one minute, even in our sleep. I tried to fit everything I possible could into a weekend. It was an exhausting blast!


We Hiked

We took Grandma and Grandpa on several different hikes around the area. It was great weather for us and amazing scenery.

We Ate

Oh boy did we eat! Weston checked a book of ghoulish recipes out from the library. He wanted to make everything in the book. I limited him to two. We made bones, and spider cupcakes, or in Grandma's case girly cupcakes because she refused to make spiders.

We Trick or Treated

We went trunk or treating Friday night at our ward, and then on Halloween we went to Monte's facility and trick or treated to the residents there. It was a fun experience for everyone.

We Crafted,

Mom brought this amazing pumpkin craft for us to do. I had so much fun making these. I took down my Halloween decorations Halloween night so I could hurry and put these up.


We also enjoyed a fun date night with just the adults. It was a lot of fun to get dressed up and head into town for some browsing at the mall and a nice dinner at PF Changs. I wish I had gotten a picture of us downtown, but I left the camera at home and just enjoyed the evening.
Oh and last but not least we went Shopping! Oh boy did we ever go shopping. It was so much fun and Dad was a good sport to hang in there with me and Mom.  We did let him spend an hour at the Apple store just to ease our guilt a little bit.  Thanks Mom and Dad for an amazing weekend. We love you and miss you already!