Green with Envy

You know you're jealous of the award Anna got for reading a bunch of the books in the Battle of the Books :) She was so happy to get her own 2L of Sprite!

And you are equally jealous of the awesome cookies I decorated for a St. Patrick's Day treat :)

I think they turned pretty good...some of the shamrocks even look like shamrocks, ha ha!

School Valentines 2015

 Our cute, fun and easy valentines for this year. 

Thank you Pinterest for helping me again :)

Isaac and Anna (and Grace) enjoyed filling the partially stapled hearts with Skittles and m&ms.

Then I stapled them closed so their friends and teachers would have to tear them open.

Oh I had them write, from Isaac and from Anna on the back of each heart.

 Their Valentine boxes this year.

Anna wanted a piano one

and Isaac just wanted a picture of Infinity Blade on his...pretty easy!

I also helped with the Valentine party in 6th grade.

The kids all seemed to have a good time :)

Kind of strange to think that next year I'll only have one kid in elementary school,
one kid who will need valentines and a box...
yep, kind of strange, but also kind of nice too :)

Isaac's Solar System

Sometimes I hate school projects.

Ok, I'll admit that I almost always hate school projects.

They usually cause stress at my house...and unfortunately, I seem to have passed my unfavorable character trait of procrastination to my children.

That being said, I also like school projects. 

They get my kids creating and working and often I get to work with them and help them.

Isaac and I had a lot of fun working on his solar system project. 

The only guidelines they had were, it had to be in color, be labeled and have dimension...not just be a drawing on a paper or poster board.

We wanted to do something different...staying clear from the styrofoam balls, not that there is anything wrong with styrofoam balls :)

Anyway, after brainstorming and trying a couple of ideas, this is the final product.

We took a piece of wood and then used hot glue to create dimension. Then Isaac painted the planets (I helped a little too) He wanted to paint them as close to realistic as possible.

I zoomed in on his Earth because I thought it was so cute!

He was very proud of it and his teacher loved it!

Gingerbread House Contest

I think I've mentioned that I'm one of the Activity Day leaders in our ward

We decided for December to just have one combined activity.

The girls did a cookie exchange and a gingerbread house contest.

They had a lot of fun!

Here are the 3 finished houses and cute girls who made them :)

The Cutest Little Snowman Ever!

We had a little snow yesterday and Grace made this cute little snowman

on the top of one of the little bistro tables :)

Carving Pumpkins

We got together with my family and did some pumpkin carving.

My brother Greg is a legend in our family for his awesome carvings.

Here are some of his famous pumpkins :)

Bane, Snape, Joker, Wolverine and this year he did Gollum.

Greg was nice enough to help Isaac with his pumpkin this year
He might have helped others a little too, but I'm not sure...
his skills and know-how were in high demand!

Our pumpkins this year
Anna did Elsa
Isaac did the Avengers logo
Grace did a tiger
Dallin did two from anime shows that he likes
Noah did the Batman logo

All lit up on the porch

Oh and here's the one I did :)

I Have a Serger!

I'm so excited!

My sister Marcy and both have the same sergers now and we attended a class to learn the basics and some fun stuff that we can do with them.

My first time using it, I was in love.

Here is my first practice piece....try to contain your excitement...seriously, it is pretty exciting to me, ha ha!

I know that come Halloween time this year,  it's going to make my life SO much easier, I can't wait!

Carving Pumpkins

This is not something I have been very good at doing with my kids. We have done it a few times, but it in no way has been a tradition, which is sad because the kids really enjoy it. I guess I'll try to do better in the future. I think it might help living near my family since they do seem to all do it :)

Dallin did a tri-force, Grace did the logo for a book she is writing called Survivors. Isaac worked hard on his own to make a nice jack-o-lantern. Anna made a face and on the back she did a lightning bolt. By the end of the night she carved more in the sides and painted the whole thing. Wish I would have taken a picture of them all when we put them on our front steps....Maybe next time!

Henry was so proud of his that he did with no help. Noah took quite a while trying to figure out what to do, so he didn't quite finish. He was working on a Captain America shield. I tried to do a spiderweb and spider and painted it with some glow in the dark paint...which didn't really work too well.

My brother Greg always does something amazing. This year he did Wolverine. So cool! Everyone had some nice carvings I wish I would've taken pictures of Blythe's minion, Holden's minion, Maren's minon, my mom's shark, Marcy's Jack Skelington, Julianne's Minnie Mouse, Shannon's Mexican death mask, Kenzie's Spongebob (at least I think that's what she did).
This was on October 25th

Snow much fun!

The kids were thrilled (truth is, so was I) to have a snow day last Wednesday.

Dallin is not a fan of the cold (truth is, neither am I) so he didn't venture out.

Noah was sick in bed all day, poor guy. Stinks to be sick on a snow day :(

Grace, Isaac and Anna spent a little time in the cold and very wet snow.

Grace made a cute little snowgirl. 

 I think Sasha liked it the most.

She didn't want to come back inside.

I was calling her and she just stood there looking at me.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, she is a husky after all :)

Pinewood Derby 2013

Isaac's car design this year was a lightning bolt.

He wanted it to be green and purple.

Mike did a great job cutting it and Isaac and had fun painting it.

I helped a little with the painting, but he did most of it.

Isaac won a couple of races and had a pretty good time.

Next year will be his last one

(not that I'm counting down or anything ha ha!)

All that glitters...

...is on the inside!

Yay, less mess :)

I was looking at some of my friends' boards on Pinterest and I saw
some ornaments that I thought would be fun to make.
(I of course re-pinned it to my Christmas wall)
...if you don't have Pinterest but want to see the original
tutorial that I used you can click here.

Anyway, the girls and I set out to make them and had a good time...
and success too!

Here's what you need
Pledge floor cleaner with future shine
(I found it at Wal-Mart)
Glass ornaments
(got mine 50% off at Michaels!)
glitter of your choice
(purple is always a good choice)
a funnel
(or two)
helping hands :)
(kids can do this, it's super easy!)

start off by taking the tops of the ornaments

then pour some of the pledge in and swirl it around...gently,

you don't want bubbles

then drain out the excess liquid

(if you get some bubbles just get them with a q-tip)

use a funnel and put some glitter in the ornament

swirl the glitter around

 you can even put your thumb on top and shake it at the end
to make sure that glitter gets into the neck of the ornament
(and on your thumb)

gently dump out the excess glitter

 replace the top of the ornament and voila! 
now you have fantastic sparkly glittery ornaments
and the glitter won't come off on you or your floor :)
...you still have to clean up from the project,
but since you used a drop cloth
that is oh so easy!
(and now some of your grass in your back yard sparkles!)

finished product

pretty!

Anna Can!

Anna was Star Author in her 2nd grade class.

She had to make a book and present it to her class.

All my kids have done this and it's actually a project that I like!

We talked about some ideas and she picked the one she liked the best,

then she quickly got to work writing it.

I loved what she came up with.

After she had decided on the idea and written out each page,

she decided that she wanted to make her book a lift the flap book.

She also decided that she wanted to use real pictures instead of drawing them.

Here's the poster she had to make about herself.

Here she is with her wonderful teacher Mrs. McGuire. 

She had to leave the book in the class library, but I'll post each page. I'm sure you understand how the lift the flap part worked :)

We had a good time making the book and she loved sharing it with anyone who would listen :)

*after we had taken all the pictures for the book and looked at them, I asked her if they were ok or if she wanted to retake any of them. She told me that she would be happy to retake the cookie eating picture...smart girl!