the crafting bug

I have been in serious project mode lately. Starting with the basement in November, and yep... I still have it. In fact I spent 7.5 hours at a girls crafting night last night. Of course, the crafting was very slow since we cannot stop talking! Anyways, here is a snapshot of some of the things I have been up to lately...

The $3 dollar store serving dish thing...

Conversation blocks that I did at an enrichment as part of my coupon/crafting class.

A glimpse of the finished basement - for those of you who have not seen it yet. We will someday put up the trim... Someday... ;)

The adult half of the basement. I made that $6 shelf! Now I just need a few more frames and pictures to add to it.

The artwork that the girls made for the playroom. My brother said we needed some eclectic art because the open ceiling makes it look eclectic. Isn't child artwork eclectic??

My playroom rules that I made after our family values craft we did at my house for our craft night.

My ribbon wreath. I wanted it to match the girls bedroom. But it doesn't... So it is in the basement hallway.

The Family Values sign from our first craft night! I love it!

And the framed wreath I made for our bedroom to fill up the big blank wall we have. I love this too! Made from a paint dropcloth and a frame from Salvation Army!

And sadly, I have like 30 more projects on my list..... Rick is thrilled! :)

Valentine Fun

For Valentine's day, we had a special night with the girls. Pink dinner, pink cupcakes (just like pinkalicious), decorations, and a special dance just for them! Then we turned out all the lights and had a fun shadow puppet show and played with flashlights. It was a wonderful evening!

The girls dressed themselves and decided ballet slippers would be best for the dance. See their necklaces? Those were a craft we did a couple weeks ago, they love wearing them and telling everyone they made them!

Our pink dinner: pink pancakes, strawberries, pink lemonade, pink cupcakes, and pink heartmallows. Everything the girls wanted!

Me and my little beauties on our special valentine's day!

My wonderful hubby with his girlies. He surprised us by coming home early with spinach artichoke dip from Stillwater (my ABSOLUTE favorite!) Then once the girls went to bed Rick ordered takeout from Applebee's, since that was where we went on our first date on valentine's day 8 years ago!

Reagan showing off one of her valentine's for her playgroup valentine party.

One of Kennedy's valentines. (I signed her name).

Another one of Reagan's masterpieces. She was so creative. On one envelope she wrote Brady, then added a sticker that said "cutie" and wrote "'s a" in the middle to make it say Brady's a cutie.

Kennedy wrote Tripp all by herself! She is getting so good at writing and drawing!

Our playgroup! Aren't they the cutest?!!

It was such a fun party! Seriously, our playgroup is the best!! :)

back to school and yay a new cousin!

We have started school again, in our new school room! Yay! It is so nice to have a room that is all for school, without distracting toys and stuff. The girls have been doing great, and love putting stickers on their chart each day as we finish our various subjects.

This is Kennedy showing off her shapes masterpiece. She is so very smart with visual things. She can do brand-new puzzles all by herself! She loves the challenge, and patiently tries over and over until she gets things right. She also knows all of her capital letters and basically all of her lower case letters. PLUS she now knows what sound almost all of the letters say! Hooray! I love this little fireball and her spunky little 'tude!


This is Reagan working on a teddy bear graph during math time. She is such a good learner. I am always amazed at just how much information she retains. When daddy comes home and asks what she learned in various subjects, she easily recites almost everything I taught her. From what the heart and lungs do, to how Joseph's brothers threw him in a pit and sold him as a slave, to what a noun is! Plus she always, always wants to be reading. She loves the Magic tree house books lately. Oh, and she brings imaginary friends from her books with her everywhere we go. Her imagination is always entertaining and her love of learning makes me so proud!


One of our new subjects is writing. We do spelling and grammar, but I decided to include writing now. Here is her first letter to her Aunt and Uncle in Virginia. We plan on writing to various family members that live out of state, so feel free to write back! :)


Still loving playgroup, this week we went sledding. Isn't this the coolest sled?

And finally, we got to meet our newest niece! After a 22 hour labor, Becky and Brock welcomed Savannah into the world! We were sooooooo excited to meet her! And I didn't want to stop holding her! :)

Just an hour old or so!

This is how Rick and Dennis passed some of the time in the waiting room. Playing catch with a leather glove... Hilarious!

strangely interesting

My brother sent me a link to this article online, http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/01/15/feminist_obsessed_with_mormon_blogs .

I found it very interesting. Maybe because when I have spare time I LOVE to look at DIY blogs and most of them happen to be Mormon. I can't help it, I love to do crafty things when time permits. It is fun, I feel productive, and it is normally much cheaper than shopping and purchasing a new one of whatever it is... Yep, I'm a DIY junky. That's why I liked this article.

christmas festivities

We fit a lot of holiday fun in after we finished the basement. The girls were such good sports with us working in the basement so much. So we kicked off the fun with my Parents' church Christmas party. The girls were so excited to see Santa.


She's next in line, can you tell??

Kennedy wanted to join Reagan on Santa's lap. Reagan rattled off a list of toys she wanted. Kennedy simply said a pillow pet.

Our playgroup had a Christmas party that was tons of fun again. We made ornaments, dipped pretzels, and had a dollar store gift exchange. The kids were so much fun!

We held our first ever tacky sweater party. (There's a shot of the basement for ya...) This is a pic of the men during the 'Christmas Sausage' game. Don't ask...

The girls modeling their own tacky sweaters and the reindeer antlers from one of our games.

Aren't those the best looking couples you've ever seen??! :)

We spent two different nights decorating a gingerbread house and a train. The kids ate the candies off the train 2 minutes after this picture...

Our church Christmas party. The kiddos went up and sang with the primary kids.

They got to visit Santa again to try to convince him off their niceness.

He even brought one of his elves along this time!

Well that leads us up to the week of Christmas - pictures to come!

the basement

So Rick and I made the wonderful decision to finish our basement in November. It was a loooong process, but we worked our butts off and 'finished' it the second week of December. We still have to hang the door and put in the floorboards, but we are in no rush now that it is completely usable. Here are a few pictures of the process...

The first wall that I finished framing just before Thanksgiving.


All framed, time to paint the ceiling....

We painted the ceiling black. Kind of eclectic, much cheaper, and no loss of headroom.

We finished hanging the drywall the day before the carpet was installed. I haven't taken a finished picture yet... But picture this with painted walls and carpeting! :)

I love our basement now, and so do the kids!

halloween

We picked some pumpkins at the cider mill and decided to paint them this year instead of carving them.

We have such an awesome playgroup, and we had a Halloween party together. The kids were all so adorable in their costumes.

The kids tried to eat their doughnuts on a string. Kennedy ended up cheating and pulled her doughnut off the string so she could eat it easier.

Reagan and one of her favorite friends, Duncan, showing off their crafts.

Oreo spiders for dessert.

And pizza mummies...

Kennedy in her beautiful cinderella gown.

Trunk or treating with Sunshine and Grandpa at their church building.

This was their favorite door to visit because the little hedgehog dropped the candy into their buckets.

John Smith and Pocahontas with Cinderella and Belle.

Trunk or treating at our church, so we had lots of candy!