Norbert The Elf

I'm sure most of you have heard about The Elf on the Shelf. If not it is an Elf that comes and visits during the Holiday Season. When you first adopt your Elf you must name him right away. After a discussion of what to name our Elf we settled on Norbert. He watches the kids all day and then goes to report to Santa every night and hides in a new place each morning. You just have to be careful not to touch the elf or he will lose his magic.

Here are the fun places Norbert hid this season.

When you adopt an elf, they return back to the North Pole with Santa on Christmas Eve. My boys were so sad to see Norbert leave.

It was so much fun having Norbert here this season and the kids can't wait to see if he comes back next year.

Our Gingerbread House

We have made it a tradition to decorate a gingerbread house every year. This is our 4th year. We always buy the pre-made kits, they are much easier. We usually use the box as a pattern and try and make our house pretty close to the box. In years past they have been pretty far from the box, but this year I would have to say has to be our best.
The top picture is of the house on the box, the bottom picture is our house.

My 6 year old putting some icing on.

My boys with the finished house.

Ho Ho Ho Blocks

My friend Becky wanted to do a craft with her family over Thanksgiving so she came over and we designed these Ho, Ho, Ho blocks with Ruth. I digital scrapbooked each letter using the Digtial Scrapbook Memories, Santa Clause Lane.
They were so cute, I had my friend Kristal over to make a set with me. We had some 2x4s left over from finishing off our upstairs I cut and then routered. I can't tell you how much I love my new miter saw, it is amazing! Sorry the lighting isn't the best.

You can never have too many Christmas decorations...right?!

Elf Donuts

This is the first year we have had an elf visit our house. This morning our elf brought us donuts and had some donuts for himself.

I saw the idea of making elf donuts from the blog Cupcakes for Clara. Click here to see how she made her elf donuts. I made my elf donuts a little different and decided I would have our elf bring the donuts for himself, not for the kids to eat. But I'm sure the kids would love to make and eat elf donuts.
For my elf donuts I used cheerios, melting chocolate (the other website used icing) and sprinkles. I just melted the chocolate in the microwave dipped one side of the cheerio in it and sprinkled, sprinkles on top while the chocolate was still wet. Let them dry and you have your elf donuts.

For the Elf donuts box I used a match box. I emptied out the matches and covered the box with Christmas paper, a sticker and an Elf Donut label. My kids were so excited this morning when they found our elf.

Live in Thanksgiving

Teri from Piccolina Designs has done it again. She has released another adorable kit. I have no idea how she can do as much as she does, she is amazing! This one is called Live in Thanksgiving, you can buy it here. I loved the color pallet on this kit. As you can see I had a really hard time picking my favorite papers and had to use as many as I could on the layout. On the page I wrote about my family and how thankful I am to have messes to clean up. I'm just sad the only family picture we had was taken 2 months after having a baby. Not the most flattering, but worth documenting. :)

I recommend getting this kit!

Refinishing Mirrors

Since both of my mom's parents have passed away, her and her siblings decided it was time to sell my grandparents house. I was lucky enough to get two great mirrors. This first mirror hung by my grandparents' master bedroom closet, ever since my mom was a little girl. I had been wanting to get a big mirror for our living room and my aunt offered this mirror to us. It was perfect except for the fact that our house has all brushed nickle fixtures, stainless steel appliances and most of the furniture in our family room is black. I hung the mirror up anyway, even though it was gold. As I started decorating the house more the mirror just didn't really fit anymore. So I decided I would paint it. I got some Rust-Oleum Spray paint at Home Depot. It was silver/gray with a textured look. I think the name was hammered nails, I threw the paint away before getting the name.
Here is the mirror taped and ready to be painted.

A close up what the mirror looked like before. I love the detailed carved wood frame around the mirror.

After the mirror was painted and dried we hung it back up. The spray paint was neat because when you got close you could see the texture to the paint, but once you stepped away from the mirror it had a roly poly bug, gray color and didn't have much depth to it. We let it sit for a few days and decided that we needed to add more. My mom suggested we sponge some paint on top of the spray paint. I got some gray and white paint and we mixed it only a few times so we would have the textured look we wanted. My mom and I then sponged on the paint on. Right away I could tell that was exactly what was missing.

The finished mirror.

This mirror was at my grandparents house the day before my aunt moved out. There was a plaster type frame around it that was chipping and breaking At tried sanding down the rough spots at first, but that was only making things worse. I decided to go ahead and paint it, cracks and all and see how it turned out.
The before picture, taped and ready to be painted.

It worked well to paint it as it was. Here is the finished picture. Sorry the lighting is bad. It is hard to tell, but I finished it the same way I did the other mirror and hung it in our kitchen.

I am so excited to have these two mirrors. Not only do they look great, but they are from my grandparents and have meaning behind them.

We Did It!

When we bought our house the builder wanted a lot more to finish off our Bonus area upstairs than we could have someone else do it for. Our Bonus area includes a bedroom, a bathroom and a playroom/small family room. My father-in-law was a nuclear engineer and built his own house. Because of his experience he gracious offered to finish the bathroom for us. My husband and I decided we could try and be handy and thought it wouldn't be that hard to drywall. We got up part of one wall and decided it was much harder than it looked. Our wall didn't look horrible, but it looked nowhere near professional. After that we decided to hire someone to hang the drywall, mud, tape and texture. Jose did a great job. If you ever need someone to hang drywall let me know, I have his number. Once the mud and texture dried it was time to paint.
My husband and I rented a paint sprayer from Home Depot. We rented it for 4 hours, but the time went so fast we were rushing the whole time. Plus I underestimated how long it would take us to clean out the paint sprayer. We got it back right in time, but we were going crazy to get everything done and cleaned.
The last thing that needed to be done before we got carpet was the baseboards. I was excited to get to finally use my miter saw I got last year for Christmas. Being pregnant and sick this year I haven't really gotten a chance to use it. We were a little bit nervous about putting in baseboard, but we borrowed our neighbor's nail gun and another neighbor's air compressor to make it easier to put in. It took us a few nights to get it all installed but it looked pretty good. Here is a corner of the family room.

The carpet was installed yesterday and we are so excited to have it done.

A Lazy Sunday Morning

When I was unloading my memory card I found this picture. Gerrit must have taken it.

Gotta love a lazy Sunday morning.

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.