happy turkey day

I shared this a few years back but I thought it funny enough to share again :)

Happy turkey day!!

the 4th {in pics}

humoring mama with a few 'posed' pics

playing in the sprinklers

bbqing on the new grill

4th of July inspired treats 

a relaxed day at home with the fam :)

Easter Sunday

Since we're living among boxes this Easter was a bit different for us. And since we don't have any family here we had to go out to dinner rather than having a family dinner at home.

I have never eaten out on a holiday. It was kinda weird. The kids' Easter baskets were already packed so I had to use an alternative. Of course, they didn't care!

 

Olivia's dress was a bit wrinkled because the iron was already packed. And Ben had to wear tennis shoes because, you guessed it, his good shoes were packed! No egg dying this weekend - no pots to cook eggs in. And no Easter egg hunt. The kids actually asked if we could have one once we move to WA so who knows, we may be having an egg hunt in May!

It almost didn't feel like a holiday. Thankfully going to church always solidifies a special day for us. The real reason for Easter. 

I hope you all had a blessed day!

Valentine Wreath

I have a thread over at the Noel Mignon Valentine's Crop with a new project using the fabulous Truly Scrumptious kit. 

I wanted to make a new wreath to hang in my house. I made a Valentine burlap wreath last year but I wanted to change things up a little.

I started with a Styrofoam wreath that I had & wrapped some red yard all the way around. I will tell you...it's a bit of a pain but worth it when you're done! I found that it's easiest to work in sections rather than trying to wrap the whole thing at once. I used a hot glue gun to hold the yarn in place.

Then I made some accordion flowers like the ones Britt & Virginia have done blog posts on.

Again, I used some hot glue to hold those in place on my wreath & added a few white Martha Stewart doily tags for a little accent. Instead of putting the flowers right on top of each other I thought it'd be fun to have them a little staggered. I also added that pretty rose button in the center (sorry can't remember what that is technically called!)

Then I strung some yarn on the back of the wreath so I could hang some cute little hearts that I punched out of the patterned papers.

I added some ribbon and that's it! Super simple, super easy! I have a few more projects I'm working on for teacher gifts that I'm hoping to share tomorrow :)

 

celebrating the 4th

Ours was spent at a friend's house doing a lot of this...

We discovered that our kids really love pool volleyball, especially my daughter! We really need to get one for our pool.

Such a great way to spend our country's birthday, hanging out with friends, swimming, bbqing and enjoying some fireworks...til more than one landed on the neighbor's roof & they decided to call it quits... Good times :)

Oh, and we've had a little 4 legged visitor the last few days. My younger dog has enjoyed having a playmate ;)

They look ferocious, don't they?? hehe It's funny to watch how much more gentle Jesse has been with the little one that she used to be with our other dog...who's much more her size! They've had so much fun :)

And tonight we let off a few fireworks of our own...

meet my new dog

And he doesn't bark incessantly at the wind, jump up on my furniture or counter surf in the kitchen like another 4 legged animal in this house {ahemcoughJESSEahemcough}. hehe My husband got that for me. Isn't he cute?!


(Funny thing is, though, when I drove up my driveway today...for a split second or 2...I thought there was a dog on my porch! hehe)


I had a wonderful Mother's Day filled with heartfelt gifts from my kiddos and a great lunch where we got to eat while watching some horses out in the fields.

Olivia & I chowed down on some yummy shrimp. Mmmm....

And Ben just chowed down. He made this for me in Sunday School:

(btw, he picked the green pot because that's my favorite color. Sweet huh?!)

And Olivia made me a bunch of coupons for things like spa day, toenail polishing, hugs & kisses, etc. Yep, I've already redeemed those hugs & kisses coupons ;)

I hope all of you moms out there had a wonderful Mother's Day whether it was spending time with your kids, your mom, or grandmothers. And for anyone out there who has a hard time with this holiday whether it be from infertility or loss, I hope this day finds you filled with wonderful memories.

As for us, we're still trying to figure out what's best for our family when it comes to the subject of baby #3. I've been asking God to give me a sign but I'm not always too bright with subtlety so I may be looking at His answer straight in the face and not seeing it! We shall see...

Easter photo shoot

I hope all of you had a wonderfully blessed Easter weekend! I managed to get some good shots of the kids outside church today.

And there was a new visitor to church who was greeting people as they walked up...

Such a sweet boy. He just showed up today. I don't know who he belongs to but I reserve the right to take him home if he's there again next week....honey, did you hear that?? I mean, come on, look at that face!!

for my peeps

Stopping in real quick to share some cute treat bags I made for my daughter's class. I don't know about any of you, but Easter sure snuck up on me this year. Normally that only happens to me if it's in March. So I have no excuse this year. Maybe it's cause I seem to keep adding project after project to my plate when my plate is already full!! hehe Oh well, such is life, right?!


Anyway, I had planned on hand making these treat bags; i.e. stamping a cute bag topper. Well, that didn't happen so I reverted to using this idea. I even ended up using her cute download. 

I used some yellow cardstock for the topper since I was using yellow peeps. I had considered using different colored peeps but then I envisioned some kids getting upset because they didn't get their color of choice and opted for all yellow...didn't even want to go there!

Anyway, I also added some green Easter grass for the peeps to sit in. I printed out the bag topper on plain white computer paper. Yes, white cardstock would've looked "nicer" but we're talking about 8 year olds and all they really care about is the treat, right?!

So there you have it. If you're like me and you need a last minute treat idea head over to eighteen25's blog!


Now, I did not make treat bags for my son's class because they're doing an Easter egg hunt and will come home with treats from that. So I didn't think they needed more. I don't even want to tell you how much candy we threw away at Halloween & Valentine's Day...


On an unrelated subject, I'm so excited with a few projects I've been working on including some handmade hair bows & fabric keychain wristlets. I'm sensing a giveaway soon... :)