Valentine Envelopes

Today for FHE we made valentine envelopes, similar to ones I saw in the Family Fun Magazine.

The girls had fun decorating theirs while Molly was chowing down on chocolate covered strawberries (our treat!).

We tied them to the back of our chairs, and we have to make a valentine for each other and place them in the envelopes by Friday.

Ashlee's:

 Mine:

Chris (gray) and Caitlin's (red):

Molly's:

I got a FHE board at Time Out for Women this fall, and just hung it up after Christmas.
It has made a big difference in our FHEs. Everyone takes their turn giving the lesson, instead of just Chris or I doing it all the time. Everyone knows what their job is and prepares ahead of time. It is working great for us so far.

Painting

Today Chris put together Caitlin's helicopter she got from her field trip to the Home Depot.

So I pulled out the paint for her to paint it and Ashlee to paint a picture.

They LOVE to paint.

Painting is to messy for Molly, so she tried to color but just ended up eating the crayons. So she just played instead.

Cinco De Mayo

For FHE yesterday I made these individual pinatas for each of us since cinco de Mayo was on Sunday. 

I got the idea from Family Fun magazine, but made it my own way and should have made a better plan for the pull string. But it was still fun! The candies inside were our treat.

Even Molly had one filled with cereal that she could eat! She was already in bed Monday night, so she got hers on Tuesday. She was very cute with is and very possessive of it. She held it most of the morning and would cry if the cereal spilled out or if anyone took it away from her.

Fabric Wipes

Yesterday I went through our old Family Fun magazines before throwing them out.  

I ripped out the ideas I wanted to save and tossed the rest.

Today I made one of their ideas that I thought would be fun for Molly.

I cut out pieces of fabric and then folded them together

 and put them all in a wipe box.

 Now she can pull them all out to her hearts content and then we just refold and put them back in.

Super cute, super easy.  We tried it out, but she just wanted to play with the flip up lid part.  It will just take a few times of us helping/showing her I think.

decorated

I didn't take the time getting out the Easter decorations this year, but we had some home made art decorating the house instead.

When Grandma Berta and Grandpa Brucester were here the girls made the biggest pictures in the whole world just like Romona in the Romona and Beezus movie. 

During spring break the girls helped me make this 3-D egg.  Actually they helped for a few minutes and then started being cheerleaders with the little strips of paper.  I asked Caitlin if they were going to help me and she said, "Is it alright if you just do it by yourself Mommy?"  So I did.

 Caitlin had some cute things she brought home from school.

The girls colored and made backpack clips that G and G Will sent them, another thing done during spring break.

 Also during spring break the girls made a little fort to watch a movie and eat lunch.

And lastly, the girls made fingerprint pussy willows.

So our house had a lot of homemade art work hung here and there which was festive enough for us this year.

Baby's room

The baby's room is all ready and waiting for her.  It has been more or less ready for a while now.

About a month or so ago I sanded and re-painted the crib because it needed it after going through Caitlin and Ashlee.  I also made the crib skirt, the quilt in the crib, a cover for the dresser and curtains.  My mom is bringing a shelf to set the cute little owls and a few other things we have on.

Everything is just lined up on the one wall right now because we will have visitors on and off for the next while, so we need to fit the air mattress in the room also.  Later on we will rearrange and spread things out a bit.  The room will also always be the baby's room/sewing room, so my sewing desk is in there also.

I Made a Purse

From this tutorial.  It was super easy.  I started it Friday and should have finished Friday, but didn't finish until today since I lack energy (see previous post).

 I have had the fabric and planned to make this purse for quite sometime but never made the time.  Now I decided I needed to downsize my purse since I will have a diaper bag, so I finally made it.
I figure it is small enough to fit in the diaper bag or small enough to easily transfer a few needed items to it when I am going somewhere and not taking the diaper bag.
Its kind of retro 70's, but I love it.
Here is the lining.  The colors match up perfect, but it is hard to tell in the picture.

I had enough material that I actually made 2 purses, not one.

The other purse will be going to Annie, because when you have a twin sister sometimes you need things that are same-same.

Fall colors

I have been trying to make home life a little more exciting for the girls by letting them do more crafty projects.

Yesterday they made fall trees with sponges and paint.

Chris wanted in on the tree making.



 The finished pictures needed a night to dry, but are now hanging up for us to enjoy.

(I drew Ashlee's tree, Caitlin drew her own- she is getting very good a drawing.  Chris drew his own also.)

So far in October

we have been busy, just not busy blogging.

Chris helped me can peaches, and I was soooo happy to have his help.
And I made green tomato relish from green tomatoes in our garden.

We made salsa from our garden.  We LOVE this salsa, and we have tons in the freezer now.

I made a Halloween craft with friends.

Ashlee and I hang out together alot, and we love every second.  It has been fun having 1 on 1 time with her while Caitlin is at school.

Speaking of Caitlin, she loves everything about kindergarten, especially recess.  I get to go and help in the classroom 1 hour every monday which is a fun little peak into her life everyday. 

Lastly, and with no pictures, we enjoyed our BEAUTIFUL fall weather.  70-80 degrees daily for all of September and the first week of October; and not a single freeze, that has got to be some kind of record.

wand art

I was decorating a conducting wand for church* so the girls wanted to decorate their wands too.

*I am the chorister in primary as of about a month ago.

Valentine's Crafts

Valentine's Day has always been one of my least favorite holidays, so I never really decorate for it.

Well, last year I made our first Valentine's decoration,
so this year I decided we could expand a little more:

I stole this idea from my friend's house (thanks Sarah!)


Then my friend, Jessica, arranged a craft night to make these beauties


And since we were in the Valentine making mood, the girls and I made these to mail to some special people. Caitlin was great at weaving the paper, and Ashlee was great at picking a paper for me to weave next.

Shhhhhhh

For Caitlin's 2nd birthday I made her a quiet book. I literally spent HOURS making all the pages, but I wasn't really sure how I wanted to put it all together. I decided to 3 hole punch the pages and put them in a 3 ring binder. My logic was that I could add pages later, and it would make for easy sharing in future years (as I was very pregnant with Ashlee at the time).
Well, I didn't really like the book that way. It was just to bulky.
So a few weeks ago I started a major overhaul of the quiet book.
I made 3 new pages and then put the pages together in 2 separate books.

Here are a couple of the pages. Now just imagine 7 pages in each book. Tons of hours of work.

I am glad I made the books, and that they are finally done to my liking.
But they were so much work that I will never make another one- ever!

Ornament Painting

A couple nights ago the girls each painted an ornament. They LOVE to paint, so they loved it even though half of the paint was dry. (As can be expected when it comes from a dollar store I guess)

Ashlee was in the middle of singing "Happy Birthday" to her Bamba Bishop.
They combined all the colors, so we got beautiful greenish-golden-brown ornaments. They look great on our tree!

embellishments

We got new easter baskets at the dollar store, but they are the same and not very fancy.

So we made them different and fancy by adding embellishments.

Thanks to the Will Grandparents for some fancy, sparkly stickers that worked great!

Can you guess whose is whose?

Hint: Caitlin can often be heard saying "pink and purple are my favorite colors"

I know you are all wondering how I could possibly be posting in this 3 o'clock hour when church isn't over until 4? Well, Ashlee still has tons of germs that we don't really want to pass around to everyone else in nursery, so she and I stayed home.

church bags

I followed this tutorial and made little church bags for the girls. Caitlin has her little Book of Mormon in hers, and Ashlee's will be filled with little books and toys to keep her occupied.

Caitlin loves to do my hair, but she really just brushes it and nothing else because she can't figure out how the hair things work. Yesterday I showed her how the little barrettes work, and she put every single one of them in my hair. Styling.

Excuse my completely "un-done" self.

A fall craft

made by the whole family.
We made these ripped paper collages the other day.
They were fun to make, especially for a certain 3 year old, what with the drawing, cutting, ripping, painting/gluing.
And they look cool to just look at, but maybe not so nice to look at hung up.
It is just one of those things that doesn't turn out to be a very good decoration. Oh well, the fun in making it is all that really counts.

Something special for Julie

I have started making some cards as a fun little hobby, and I made a bunch for Julie for this. I hope the cards lift her spirits a bit as her family has had some trying times as of late. Can't wait to see you in Laramie this summer, Julie!

Something special for Katie

I made a set of these blocks for myself recently, and thought my sister, Katie, might like a set as well for this. I'm sure her husband can think of a least 20 different ways to use them ;)

flowers

We made flowers for a spring time touch in our home. I should say I made flowers, Caitlin played with the buttons and cut unused paper and Ashlee watched. They were fun and easy though, just out of old magazine pages.

Book Worm

Caitlin absolutely loves books. I would say she has a healthy obsession for books. She has always loved them since she was a little baby. If we read her a book she will sit still and listen, even if we read her 100 books she would sit right there and listen. She also loves to read them to herself. She loves books.

Her favorite place in Rock Springs is the Library. We go once a week to toddler story time and we check out books. However, if on any given day Chris asks her what we did she we undoubtedly say "we went to the library."

One of her favorite books is Brown Bear Brown Bear. She is often heard, while reading a book to herself, saying "Yellow duck, yellow duck what do you hear? I see a brown bear looking at me." Close enough. I decided today that we would make a brown bear book that she could read. And, of course, I was able to find black and white pages of the book on the Internet (what did we ever do without the Internet). I had fun helping her make her book.

Caitlin colored each picture and I helped her apply the fun color texture.