Lil' Miss Crafty

It has been way too long since I have had a creative project going! Every time I walk past the drawer in the kitchen, I hear my glue gun calling to me. So I decided to answer the call.

I have an obsession with ribbon. Every time I go to Michael's, I am sure to come home with at least one spool of ribbon from the dollar bin. Up until now, I haven't done much with it--just stuck them in a box. As I was looking at my over-flowing ribbon box this weekend, a thought came--why not make hair bows for Rylee! And I did. 13 different styles (26 total--in case she wears pigtails we need 2 of each) and it took no time at all! I am totally addicted! Then I hot glued 2 thick pieces of ribbon onto a big letter "R" for Rylee, and clipped the bows onto the ribbons. Now if I can just talk her into wearing them. . .

It's only the 2nd day of Spring Break and the boys are already bored! So off to Michael's we went. I love the little paint and build kits they have for a dollar! Keeps them busy for hours.

I also made this little Easter tree that the kids love.

Lastly, I saw this cute appliqué idea and decided to make Rylee a shirt. I just love the cute bunny shape! Now the boys want one--now I know what I'll use that Dallas Cowboys fabric for, Theresa! It was really fun and easy, so I'm sure there will be more to come!

Happy Easter!

Ok. This was one of the little kits you get at the grocery store with the foil pans, etc. Let's just say that mine looked nothing like the picture. But it tasted good anyway.

Valentine's Day

Andrew, the other ballet teacher at our school, was out of town last week. I was supposed to teach for him--3:45 to 9:00 (ugh!)--on Valentine's Day. However, for once all this crazy snow worked in my favor and the office ended up canceling all classes that day. So I got to spend Valentine's with my4 valentines.

I was not in the mood to cook (shocker), so we had Mac-n-Cheese, what more could you want on Valentine's Day? I did manage to make a cake.

Enrichment

Last Tuesday, we had our Enrichment Night. It was a huge success, despite all my stressing. We titled the evening "The Gift of Our Savior." We started off with a message from our wonderful Enrichment Leader about our Savior, Jesus Christ, and about what a gift his birth and life was for all of us. It was such a sweet message and was exactly what I needed to hear. A reminder to my frazzled nerves about what Christmas is really about. As a gift to each of the sisters, I found these cute little ornaments made of olive wood, all the way from Jerusalem. (Thanks, Mom, for letting me be a copycat!) I attached a ribbon and this quote from Pres. Faust that Kate used in her message:



"I testify that the greatest gift of this or any other Christmas is the Atonement of Jesus as the Redeemer, the Son of God. It is a gift we cannot handle or touch, but we can feel the immeasurable love of the Giver."

For the rest of the evening, we decided to do a service project for a local women's and children's domestic violence and homeless shelter. We had advertised for weeks for sisters to bring all their gently used toys and clothing that they were no longer in need of. The response was incredible! We had such a good turn-out of sisters and even more impressive was the amount of things we collected. Many hands made for light work and we were able to quickly sort and bag all of the items. We also had another table dedicated to putting together hygiene kits. We were able to put 40 together!

The next day, my wonderful husband helped me load everything up and haul it all to the shelter. We filled the back of his truck all the way up to the top of the cab, packed my van tight with only just barely enough room for the kids, and also packed the back of a friend's jeep. I just had to take a picture of all the stuff. It truly was amazing!



The lady at the shelter was in awe. I had told her there were a lot of things, but I don't think she realized just how much. She said over and over, "Thank you so much. This is so overwhelming." At it was. I was so glad we were able to help out. I can't even imagine what some of those women and children living there have gone through. I am so, so blessed.

Halloween

My kids were so excited for Halloween this year and it turned into a full 2 day celebration! On Tuesday, we went to our church "Trunk or Treat" party. So fun! The kids had a blast and got WAY too much candy. The boys were excited that there were 6 or 7 other ninjas there--it must be year of the ninjas.

Then on Wednesday, the boys had a party in their Kindergarten class. Rylee and I went in to help celebrate. Rylee was so grumpy for most of it, but once I was put in charge of "Musical Tombstones" she cheered up and played over and over again with the "big kids".

Halloween night, Grandma and Grandpa came over to help us celebrate. We had a SPOOKY dinner that the boys had fun helping with. We had green slime pizza. . .(Add food coloring to the mozarella)


. . .bread stick fingers, complete with painted nails. . .(almond slivers painted with food coloring)

Notice the heaps of Parmesan cheese in the lower right corner of the cookie sheet? Wes got a little carried away.

. . .and bug juice. . .(frozen raspberry lemonade, gingerale, frozen raspberries and gummy worms)

I also attempted to make fun cupcakes.
First, I tried these spiders that I saw on the Martha Stewart website, but Safeway didn't have black licorice and because I didn't want to run all over town with 3 kids, I settled for red legs. Yep. They would have looked better with black.
Next I attempted to make some cyclops aliens. The combination of too much sugar and too little sleep produced these interesting things--more like one-eyed crabs that Rainbow Bright threw up on.
After that unsuccessful attempt, I stuck to the quick and easy method. Much better.