Halloween 2011

As much as I love Halloween, I really don't like dressing up. My boys are really into Angry Birds right now and my husband thought they would absolutely LOVE for the whole family to dress up as Angry birds, even me. At the time I was far from thrilled to be dressing up as an angry bird, but was happy for the boys. I went along with the family and dressed up.
My good friend Kristal at Kristal Kreations, knew we had dressed up as Angry Birds for Halloween and is on the CT for Adriana's Cafe who just released a kit call Mad Birds. Kristal needed to make a layout using the new kit. She asked if it would be ok to use our Halloween picture for her layout. I said yes, here it is.

Looking back I am glad we all dressed up, even though I wasn't very willing to in the beginning. It will be a picture/memory we can all look back on. Thanks Kristal for scrapbooking this page for us. You did a great job! If you want to see more cute digital scrapbook layouts by Kristal check out her blog at: http://kristalkreations.blogspot.com/

Not So Craft Related

This really isn't craft related...ok not at all, but my good friend Teri from Piccolina Designs and her husband came to visit. It was so good to see them. I took this picture of her with our newest addition and loved it so much I had to share.

She is such an amazing friend and is beautiful inside and out. Thanks for being such a great friend Teri. You and R are at the top of the list on why we miss living in Colorado. :)

Chicken Noodle Soup

My friend Becky makes the BEST chicken noodle soup. We have had it for dinner at her house several times. My husband and I came to a conclusion that the homemade noodles really make a difference.
Today for dinner I thought I would attempt to make her chicken noodle soup recipe from scratch, noodles and all. This was the first time I had ever attempted making noodles on my own. When I first looked at the recipe I thought to myself, "That recipe can't make that many noodles, I better double it." So that is exactly what I did, I doubled the noodle recipe.
I didn't have any noodle drying racks, so I just took two cups and skewers to make my own noodle drying racks. It worked pretty well.

Boy was I wrong on needing to double the noodle recipe. I had plenty of noodles for a gallon of soup and still had tons left over. Here is a dinner plate of the left over noodles that couldn't fit in the soup. lol

The soup was great, even my kids loved it. If you like to make chicken noodle soup I totally recommend making your own noodles, just be sure NOT to double it.

Are You Ready for Some Football?

My friend Bry over at Collard Greens and Homemade Things made this cute onsie for our little guy. He ends up wearing it most Sundays after church. :)

Here is the link to her instructions on how she made the onsie: http://collardgreenshomemadethings.blogspot.com/2011/10/baby-things.html She also made us the other cute things in her baby stuff post. Thanks Bry.
The blanket behind him was made by our good friend Elizabeth. I have such talented friends. :) Thanks girls.

Plant Pals

I saw this idea on pinterest, that link led me to Ucreate kids, which then led me to Family fun for the instructions.

I didn't follow their instructions, just used the idea. We had some neighborhood kids over and we made them. For the eyes and mouths we used scraps of vinyl I had and sharpie permanent markers to decorate the faces on the cups. We then filled the cup with dirt and planted a layer of grass seed. It was a fun project to do because all of the kids older and younger could make one.

Here is my 3 year old's plant pal about 12 days after we planted them.

He had so much fun giving the plant pal a "haircut."

My Husband Can Craft...

My sister in-law would always make crazy cakes. Since moving back to Utah I have totally missed her crazy cakes. For my birthday this year my husband attempted to create a Heather look-alike cake. It wasn't quite the same, but he came close. I loved the candle hanging off the side of the cake. Thanks honey. :)

Halloween Cookies and Ghosts

Today we had 7 of the neighborhood kids over plus my 2 boys to decorate Halloween cookies. I was sad I forgot to get pictures of the finished cookies, it was a little crazy.

We also made lollipop ghosts. I'm sure everyone has made these before. You get a tissue and cover the lollipop, then you tie it or tape it on. After the tissue is on finish it by coloring eyes and a mouth on. It is that easy. Here are my boys saying "boo,"with their finished lollipops.

I love Halloween and can't wait.

A New Boo

Piccolina Designs released a new kit called A New Boo.You can buy the kit here. Here is a page I made using the kit.

There were so many cute papers and elements in this kit. Great job Teri!

An Angry Birds Birthday

My oldest turned 6 and he loves Angry Birds. I saw the cutest idea and HAD to make it for his birthday.The idea/templates were from The Party Animal Blog here: http://www.thepartyanimal-blog.org/angry-birds-balloons-free-templates/ They did a great job creating the angry bird face print outs.

I had my mother-in-law help me cut out of all of the angry bird pieces. We then went and got helium balloons and taped them on. My advice is once you put tape on the balloon, DON'T try and take it off. I tried and I popped the red balloon.

When I told my cute 6 year old that I had popped the red balloon his response was,"It's ok, I have my red angry bird shirt on." He is always so understanding.

The angry bird balloons were a hit, he loved them.
Here are the treat bags I made for him to take to school. They had bubble gum, dum dums and Angry Bird stickers in them.

For the cake I just made a cake, frosted it with green frosting and set up some of the game pieces from the Angry Birds Knock on Wood Game. I used a little bit of frosting to hold the pieces together.

Hospital Staff Thank You Gift

After having each of my boys I have always wanted to something for the great nurses and hospital staff, but usually I can't come up with any ideas. It is hard to take something in because chances of having the same staff that helped us all working at once will never happen and time passes and I don't do anything.

After having baby #3 we were at the hospital getting ready to leave. While we were sitting there my oldest son had fallen asleep when he woke up he wasn't responding, started having a seizure and wasn't breathing for a few minutes. It really was one of the scariest things I have ever been through. We had no idea what was going on. The staff and nurses were right there ready to help. They made sure he was stabilized and took him down to the ER. Since we had no idea what was going on they didn't want our brand new baby around him and were willing to work with us and made it so we could check him into the nursery until we had things figured out and under control. They helped entertain our 3 year old with my mom, gave him toys, snacks, and so much more so I could go and be with my oldest son. I could go on and on about how wonderful they were.

Because of all they did, I knew I HAD to do something. We brainstormed for a long time on what we could do. I didn't want to do candy or stuff that was too sweet. When I used to work at in an office it felt like there was always sweets around. I also wanted to get some individually wrapped stuff so it would last longer and more people that helped us had a chance to get some of the goodies even if they didn't work the day I brought the stuff in.

So I ended up putting a bunch of snacks in a big basket. In the basket I put:

-Trail mix
-Apples
-Granola Bars
-An Assortment of Cookies ( You have to have some sweets :))

I'm sure not everyone that helped us at the hospital got the treats but I felt like this was the best way to thank the most people.

Introducing Baby Boy #3

Our sweet baby boy was born on September 9th at 6:28 pm. He was 10 pounds 6 ounces and was 23 inches long. Thankfully he was 6 days early.
My other boys love having a new brother, we are all in love.
Here are some of the pictures I took him.
I loved the onesie in the first picture, it says, "New in Town." It was from our friend Teri.

He has been such a good baby so far. We are happy to have him in our family.

Laundry Room Shelves/Organization

If you are like me I am always trying to find a way to keep up with laundry. I am OK with washing it and can easily keep up with that, but it is the folding and putting it away that I fall behind on.
I was talking to my mother-in-law about this and she suggested a solution that her sister used. Her sister had a laundry basket for each person in the family. As she took the clothes out of the dryer she would sort the clothes into each person's basket. Then when she had a small window of time she would take 1 person's clothes to their room and would fold the clothes from their basket and put it away. Also if she hadn't gotten to folding the clothes she could go to one specific person's basket and get them a shirt.
I loved the idea that instead of spending hours folding, sorting and putting away all of the clothes away in different rooms, you can be more organized and finish folding and putting away the clothes as you have time.
The only problem with getting a basket for each person in our family is we don't have a huge laundry room and you walk through the laundry room to get to the garage so I can't block the walk way. I looked into organizers, but everything was too big or too small. The more I got to thinking our ceilings are really high. The builders had built one shelf above the washer and dryer, but there was a lot of wasted space above and below.
Before:

So I looked at how they made the shelf and duplicated one below it.
Here are the shelf supports.

I bought some particle board and painted it white to put on the supports.
I just put in temporary cardboard dividers to see if I liked the system before doing permanent dividers.
I built the original shelf about 3 months ago and have liked the system so much I ended up building a second shelf recently with my mom's help. That way I could store more stuff above the laundry sorting shelves. This picture I took at the end of my laundry day so I haven't had a chance to fold any clothes yet, they are there waiting, but organized when I find time. I have really liked the cardboard dividers because I can move the size of the shelf around and make more room if one person has more clothes that week, even thought it doesn't look all that professional.

To save even more space I bought a foldable laundry basket that I could store on the side of the washer. Similar to this.

That way I can transport each person's clothes to their room when I get a chance to fold them. If you are looking for a way to organize your laundry room, I highly suggest this system.

Maternity Pictures

Since I have been a HUGE slacker this pregnancy I attempted to take a few maternity pictures Sunday, I was 38 1/2 weeks. Here are a few of the fun ones I took. Only 3 more days until our baby boy gets here.

Baby's Coming Home Outfit

This is the coming home outfit I put together for our new baby. I'm getting induced September 9th. I can't take much credit for the outfit since the hat is from Old Navy and the outfit is a Carter's outfit. But I loved the embroidered "little brother," onesie. I thought it would be fun to make shirts for my other boys to match.

I found a similar font that wasn't too hard to read and then cut out some iron on vinyl with my vinyl machine. I loved how they turned out. The Biggest Brother shirt is for my 5 year old and the Big Brother shirt is for my 3 year old.

I can't wait to get a picture of the 3 boys in their shirts.

Car Seat Cover

With only 2 1/2 weeks until baby boy #3 is due and probably 10 days until I have him, I figured it is time to get some projects done. I wanted to make a car seat cover. I searched for a tutorial to follow over on pinterest, my new favorite site! I found this one at http://www.vanillajoy.com/diy-car-seat-cover.html It was written well, very easy to follow and fast. Thank you Kelsey. :)

Here is my finished cover.

The inside fabric. I LOVE owl print right now.

I just did a zigzag stitch around the edge.

In the tutorial it said to make fabric straps to attach the cover to the car seat. Where I am having a boy I didn't want it to be to frilly. So instead I got matching ribbon and made loops and attached them with snaps. The hardest part was trying to figure out where to put the loops so it would attach to the handle right. If that tells you anything it would be at how easy this project is! So if you have always wanted to try and sew a car seat cover, don't hesitate, you can do it!

Applesauce

My in-laws came to visit and brought me a box of apples from their apple tree in Idaho. My sister and I made applesauce last year, but I didn't can any. This year I thought I would make more applesauce and then can it. After all of the peeling, coring, cutting, boiling, cooking etc. to make the apple sauce, I was surprised that it only made 7 pints. Oh well, it is a good start.
Everything else went smoothly. The only thing I did wrong was I forgot to add vinegar to the water when I was canning. If you look in the picture below you will see the white residue on the jars. It won't hurt the applesauce, but if you add vinegar to the water it should keep the residue off your jars. I will have to remember earlier next time.

 

Easy Banner made out of brown paper bags

We were threw a baby shower for our neighbor who already has two girls, but is having her first boy. Here is the invite I made.

I was in charge of making some decorations too and unfortunately I procrastinated. I was making decorations late the night before.
I made some baby blocks by cutting 2 x 4's, routed the edges and then I stained the blocks. I then cut out the vinyl lettering on my vinyl machine and tied some ric rac on one of the blocks.

The next thing I wanted to make was a banner. I have seen those fabric banners and think the are so cute, but they look like they could be time consuming. So Instead of fabric I decided to use brown paper bags. I thought it would look good with the stained blocks.
First I took the bag.

Then I cut 2 diagonal cuts, make sure the bottom of the bag is at the top when making the cuts.

I then cut out letters that spell baby on my cricut and taped them on the brown paper bag pennants.

I then traced the letters and the edge of the pennants with a brown marker to give it more depth.

I then added Ric-rack to the bags for decoration.
I then hung the pennants on a piece of string between our neighbors pillars. I wish I would have gotten a better picture of the banner, but this is the best I got. I think next time I would put the letters closer together and added more ribbon or ric-rac, but I guess that is what I get for procrastinating, right? :) For how little time it took, I was happy with the outcome.

Lollipops

My mom used to make lollipops with us when we were little, she had some metal molds that she would use. Years ago when my oldest son was around one, I thought it would be fun to be able to make lollipops with him. We happened to be visiting Utah at the time and my Aunt told me about a store she had bought her metal molds at. We looked up the company and they were still in business. We called (Bakers, Cash and Carry) and they carried the lollipop molds. I was so excited and went and bought some. Since then we have made several batches of lollipops over the years.
Today some of the neighbor kids were over and wanted to do something fun, so we made lollipops. I let them pick out the shapes they wanted.

Then I boiled the ingredients.

They wanted to make root beer lollipops. We added eyes.

Everyone had a great time and were so excited to help make their very own lollipops. Here are my boys with their lollipops. They were making big eyes because they wanted to look like the eyes on the lollipops. Silly boys.

I just googled Bakers, Cash and Carry in Salt Lake and they are still in business after all of these years. I'm not sure if they carry the metal molds anymore, but it might be worth a call if you want to buy your own. :)

Ritz Cracker, Peanut Butter, Marshmallow Treats

The other day I was really craving this old treat that my mom used to make all the time when we were little. They don't really have a name, but are VERY easy to make.
First you get Ritz crackers and spread a layer of peanut butter on the top side. The best part about this treat is you can decide how many or how few you want to make. Place on an oven safe pan. Usually if I make more I will put them on a cookie sheet, but since I was just making 4 I used a bread pan.

Once you have decided how many crackers you want and have the peanut butter spread on each cracker you place 1 marshmallow on top of the side of each of the crackers you spread the peanut butter on.

Next set your oven to broil and put your pan with the treats in the oven. I like to put them on the bottom rack so it heats the marshmallows more evenly. Once you have the treats in the oven leave it open a crack and watch them closely. They will cook in about 2-4 minutes depending on your oven.

Once the marshmallows are golden brown or done to your liking pull them out of the oven. Let cool a few minutes, but eat before they cool all of the way. They are best warm.

Mmmmm, perfect!