Christmas ornaments

You know how Halley's Comet comes around about once every 75 years or so? That is about how often I have an original idea, one of my very own that I didn't kipe from someone else. Don't you feel fortunate? You, yes, you get to witness this rare and beautiful event!

Okay, okay...I really believe that I came up with this one on my own...but I am afraid to google it and find out..break it to me gently if it isn't true, better yet, just let me be blissfully ignorant!

These ornaments will adorn my tree this year. And they were so very easy to make!
You need:
Modge Podge
Diamond Glaze
Alphabet blocks
Decorative Paper
Pictures
Scissors
Straight pin
Eyelet hooks
ribbon
Modge podge your paper and picture to the block. Let it dry.
Screw in the eyelet hook. I also attached my ribbon in this step, but save it until they are all done, otherwise you might drip gooey stuff on and have to cut a new piece.


Apply the Diamond Glaze. If there are little bubbles you can work them out with a straight pin, or just pop them with your fingernail. The glaze looks foggy until it dries.

Let it dry.

Admire your handiwork!

**edited to say**
You can find diamond glaze at Joann.com, or several other online craft stores. I was hard pressed to find it in any store in Spokane or Kennewick. Also, there is something called Ailene's paper glaze that you can get at Michael's. It is similar, but I have never used it.

I heart blogging

Michelle at Raising Little Women gave me this award! WOW! Thanks. Someone besides my mom reads my blog!

Part of accepting the award is:
*displaying the award
*linking back to the person who gave it to you
*paying it forward & nominating 7 blogs
*adding links to those seven blogs
*leaving comments on their blog telling them you gave them an award
*enjoying the award

So here are the people I am passing it on to:
Vintage Mommy--love her vintage finds every Thursday
All Together Beautiful--Thrifty mama
Proclamations of a Lady Dunbar--great sense of humor
Cookie Mondays--she liked my blog so much that she bookmarked it!!
Ousley Clan--has a deployed husband, you should go leave her a "chin up" comment and thank her for her and her husband's sacrifice!
Where it all begins...--This guy is awesome
Guatamelanie--This gal is awesome

I understand if you don't post and pass it on, just know that I heart your blog!

And Carrie at Oikology gave me the 7 random things tag, so here are my seven random things:

1. If I am not asleep by 11:30 at night, I get really itchy in bed, so itchy I can hardly stand it!

2. I am not a very good cook, I have to follow recipes exactly or we end up with things like "grey gravy of death." By the way you cannot substitute sour cream for butter or baking soda for cornstarch, and don't try both of those in the same recipe.

3. I am only a year away from getting my secondary education degree, I wanted to be a highschool history teacher. After doing a lot of observations I was really questioning my career choice, then I got pregnant with Mikey and it was a very convenient excuse not to finish school!

4. I quite enjoy my current career choice!

5. My basement is almost completely packed up for the big move. Except my laundry room, which houses my laundry mountain.

6. The laundry mountain is clean, just needs to be folded. Every Thursday night my husband and I sit down and fold laundry while we watch The Office and ER. Then on Friday morning the kids and I put it all away.

7. I just saw Haley dancing with her shadow. It was cute.

I am tagging:
Notes From Ness--she goes to my MOPS group and I have always wanted to get to know her better!
Keeping up with the Jones'--She used to go to my MOPS group and then moved far far away!
Weaver Wonders--She is the co-coordinator of my MOPS group!
What a life!--She is my good friend, check out her post on the 5 worst things to throw up!
It's Mrs. not Miss--She is a cute newlywed, and hasn't posted in long time!
Never in One Place Long--she hasn't had a post in a while!
Cheevers'--and neither has she!

And last, but certainly not least...I got BOO-ed! Thank you to Jenerbug, the Queen of Crafty Ambitions! I don't think I have to pass this one on since Halloween is tomorrow!

I saw this super cute photo on a Better Homes and Gardens e-mail that my mom faithfully sends me (thanks mom!). They have the templates for the mice and the cat. I used some of that stiff felt and cut out some mice. I wanted to do the cat, but you print the template at 50% and I can't figure out how to enlarge it...maybe next year. They also have some bats templates for sconces, but same problem. Maybe someone can help me out?

I pinned the mice to the stiff felt first and then cut them out and let the kids tape them to the wall. I really think it needs the cat. I bought the felt for this about a month ago, and then put it on my craft table and forgot about it! It isn't halloween...yet.

Funny Money

I came across this idea while surfing this weekend, surfing the net that is. It is a great way to display the coins my husband has brought home from his deployments, and when he gets home tonight, he can tell me what they are and I will write it on the back of the magnets. I have lots of ideas swimming around for teaching the kids about pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters this way too. It was VERY fast, VERY easy, just a matter of hot gluing the coins onto some button magnets.

Prayers for my family

I pray that we would always seek God and not sin.

Matthew 6:33
But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Family Friday

We went to Greenbluff again for a MOPS play date. This time it was a farm called Knapp's. It is very preschool friendly, an excellent place to run around and play the morning away! It has a huge straw maze that is only two bales deep, so you can see your kids the whole time they are in the maze, well you can see their little heads poking up anyway.

The pumpkin patch rule is that the kids can have any pumpkin that they can carry by themselves. I do realize with two strappin' boys that we will eventually have to change the rule. or pay big bucks for big pumpkins, but right now it works.

I love Jeremiah's face in this picture, he is just stinkin' cute!

Danielle is my very good friend, and came along to rescue me from having to take all four of the kids to Knapp's by myself. Thank God for good friends.

This pumpkin cannon is HUGE, it is quie a site to see them launch the pumpkins. The gentleman let Mikey and Haley each choose a pumpkin to shoot, Haley's was heavier so he chose hers.

I don't know if you can tell in this picture, but I tried to trim my own bangs. Bad idea. I should've known after all the "bang-up" jobs I have done for Haley not to try it on my own hair. It is just one of those things that seems so easy, and you think "Really, how could I screw it up?" And then you trim a little, but wait, you miss a spot so you trim a little more, and a little more and by the time you are done you have really screwed it up. Hopefully Brach, my lovely hair guy can fix it sometime next week.




I let the kids play with a ball of yarn and this was the end result! Jeremiah couldn't go in any direction without tripping, it was hilarious!

And these are the trees that line the entrance to Fairchild AFB where we live. I love the colors this time of year.

I am looking forward to using my 50% off coupon at Joann this weekend so I can be crafty again. Last time I went, they were out of everything on my list, literally, maybe this time will be more fruitful!

I hope your week was as wonderful as ours!

This is just funny

I don't care who you are voting for in the upcoming election, this is hilarious! You can print them out and make a set for yourself! We made some and sent them to work with Michael...too funny!

According to Random.org...

The winning numbers are 22 and 37.

Comment number 22 came from Joy, from Joys of Home. She has an incredible home dec blog, with some amazing candlesticks on her first page. And here is a fabulous-o furniture rescue project. Go check it out and tell her congratulations! Joy wins Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, it is amazingly life changing!

Comment number 37 came from Livin' Life Patino Style. Talk about style, go check out the things she makes and sells, it is over-the-top cute baby stuff! And I am dying to make one of her glitter cups, just waiting for the right occasion! Go leave her a congrats comment too! You get the apron and the recipe cards, email me ASAP, I need to ask you a few Q's!

WOW!

This is an incredible giveaway, from a very talented woman at Grosgrain. Go check it out, she gives some great details on how SHE MADE this dress. If I won it, it would be a professional picture taking occasion, and a hand-down through the generations kind of dress, isn't it gorgeous?!

Late for Family Friday...again!

This is our niece, who is a big helper where babies are concerned, it was almost like having a babysitter around, but FREE!! And yes, most of the baby food did go into Ella's mouth!

This is Uncle Richard taking a picture of me, taking a picture of him!

These two gals represent first and fourth generations, it is Michael's grandma with Ella.

I have pictures of all the kids each fall in front of this sign, it is in Greenbluff WA, a family favorite around Spokane, and one of my favorite fall traditions,



This is quite possibly my new favorite photo.





We had to leave the pumpkin patch before choosing any pumpkins because of some disobedience and whining issues. I think I was more bummed about it than they were. Lest you think we are cruel and unusual, we are going to the pumpkin patch at least two more times before the season ends!

Don't forget to enter the giveaway, and I hope your week was as wonderful as ours!

Stay tuned for an official announcement

This decision about where to go and what to do has been a prayer-saying, gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, stress-inducing, mental and emotional anguish causing, hard thing to do. And honestly I have avoided posting our decision on here because it is just so surreal, it isn't what I had in mind at the beginning.

We have our perfect little life here in Spokane. We have a great church, tons of friends, the city is (mostly) beautiful with lots of family stuff to do. This is the longest I have ever lived in any one spot (7 years), so Spokane has really become my home. Michael's parents live only 2 hours away along with one of his older sisters and her family, it means a lot to us to be able to visit on weekends and send the kids for a couple of days, spend holidays. I was a new Christian when we moved here and I have really "grown up" in the Lord here with this church family. We were newlyweds, no kids and bought our first house here. We had all four of our kids here. We have been through some growing pains in our marriage here, my MOPS group is here, all our favorite holiday traditions are here. To say that we are moving away is so very sad.

God has a different mind than I do (thank goodness!) and he has a place for us in Houston. He will go before us and prepare that place, giving us incredible things to look forward to, even though we are saying goodbye to some pretty incredible stuff here. Looking back, I didn't really want to come to Spokane either, but God had a place for us here. So, officially, Michael has accepted the job in Houston and we will be moving December 5th.

100th post giveaway

This is my 100th post! As per tradition, I am going to give something away! I narrowed it down to two things, and couldn't choose between "Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey, and one of those bandana aprons, with personalized recipe cards from Design-her gals. So I will give them both away, to two different people.

Leave a comment on this post, make sure you leave your email if you don't have a blog. Next Tuesday, October 21st, I will do the random drawing thing. First random person gets the book, second random person gets the apron and recipe cards.

This post has all kinds of things I love, blogging, recipes, aprons, Dave Ramsey and giveaways! Hopefully they are all things you love too!

Family Friday

Welcome to my home, yes that is Jeremiah, my 2 year old, with a butcher knife. I didn't realize it until I saw the photo on the screen of the digital camera, oops. Mikey and Haley are eating apple peels, from the apple peeler/corer/slicer thingy.







































































Ella likes peek-a-boo, and blue m&m's, so much for not melting in your hands!

I just realized Jeremiah has the knife, and Ella has the m&m aka, choking hazard. Please don't leave me a comment about how I need to pay more attention to my kids. And please don't call CPS, I really do take good care of them!

Presto-chango

I was linked up at "Soft Place to Land" for Kimba's Halloween party. Can I tell you that from 9p at night until 8a the next morning, I got over 300 hits on that post. And since then my little blog counter has gone up by over a thousand! WOW! After cruising around some of the other blogs that are linked up with her, I decided my stuff needed some help because those posts are amazing! What little decorating stuff I have is packed up now, except these candlesticks. It does look better, even with the small change.

Spokane landmark

I got these pictures of Dick's from Wikipedia of all places. When we stopped here for dinner last night, the clientele didn't look nearly so friendly, the kids and I stayed in the car. Michael ordered a bag of cheeseburgers, some fries and onion rings. I wonder if any of you have ever heard of a "gut-bomb?" Really, they weren't that bad, and they have some super good tartar sauce. All in all it was exactly what I expected, except for the staying in the car part. If you are ever in Spokane, you should try it, at least drive by it, or you can revisit this post and live vicariously through me!

Merry Thanksgivoween!

At our local Joann store, the stockings are hung by the jack-o-lanterns with care, in the hopes that turkey day will soon be here. Does this make anyone else sad? On the positive side, it allows us to get a head start on all our Christmas crafting...right?

I am going to stick with my Halloween decor for now. I don't usually do any Halloween decorating, but it was an excuse to craft something.

**Edited to say**
**I changed this up a bit in a future post. Click here to see the new version**

On top of my entertainment center. The little black votives are my version of these:

Go to Family Fun for the instructions.

I can't get a good picture, but there are spiders and spiderwebs woven into the iron thingy. The orange candles just have glitter chipboard stickers on them.

These are for some thank you gifts. It is orange tulle with green pipe cleaners for stems. I used the kids fingerprints and decorated the tags. In the magazine clipping that I have (from several years ago, so I can't tell you what magazine.) they used orange jelly beans instead of candy corn and it was way cuter, but jelly beans are $4/lb and candy corn is not.

Vintage fun

The Crafty Crow has a free download for these adorable lacing cards. Haley and I printed them on cardstock and played with them for a while. I printed them about 5x7, and that was a good size. Heavier cardstock might have been easier for Haley to use, she tore hers a little. I also didn't have a hole punch so I just tried poking the holes with a thumbtack and then threading the laces that way, but one of those mini-hole punchers would have been way easier.

I got mail!

Amy at The Kings Table had a great 100th post giveaway, and I WON IT!! I have this knack for not winning stuff, and unless it is something really cool, I don't usually even try(Maybe that is why I never win?). BUT, I do have some form of luck because whenever I take a friend somewhere (like a crop) my friends always win the drawings! I am the gal to go to places with where there will be prizes that you want to win!
I hung it up in my bathroom, which is still decorated in "early married, whatever people give you style." It makes me want to redo my bathroom in all black and white. Thank you Amy!