Merry Christmas 2012

Thanks to the good folks at Tiny Prints, I got some beautiful cards this year! They had so many to choose from, I ended up picking two different cards...only sending one - except for grandparents, and a few family members that never see us. {Sorry about the stars and arrows on the cards- for privacy- I blocked out our names.}

 This one was taken in the summer- and I love it, but the photo below was the most current....so we mostly used the one below.

I hope you have a blessed Christmas holiday! I will share a few Christmas things later this week- or perhaps just one big post... being that blogging was just not happening this month.
Thanks for reading....
Merry Christmas!!

Halloween 2012

Hope you had a great Halloween! This is me with my #4 boy.  Long before blogging, I made the costume he is wearing, from a regular t-shirt, for my first baby boy. Almost all of my four boys have worn this. We had a few astronauts, a pirate, and this little pumpkin! Notice the car in his hand. Like all my boys...he just can't put it down. Loves cars!  Hope you had a great time with your family!

Thanks for reading!

Scrambled Face Puzzles

 This activity was so fun! We did this in preschool for one of our centers. {I found this idea in one of my teaching magazines.}  It would be fun to do with your own kids or family. I think it would make a great family reunion activity.
Here is what we did:

 Put all the photos in one container. Then let the children make silly scrambled faces with them! They will have a blast! I am thinking I'll do this one with my own children!

HAVE FUN!!

Happy LOVE Day!

nothing says love like a sweet baby who smiles and smiles at you no matter what!

Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day!

My {DIY} Car Play Mat + cute car mat links

I think I may have finally convinced my husband that I NEED a Silhouette.   Here is my big fat sewing project for my boys- which might be a more appropriate title for this post.  Drum roll please...

This was seriously a huge undertaking and a labor of love. I had to recruit my husband and my mother-in-law to help me cut out the letters a few days before Christmas. And then I was up until 3:30 A.M. on Christmas Eve working on it. Since I originally started this TWO years ago, I decided it was time to just get it done! I would estimate I spent around 30-40 hours on it, possibly more.
You can see when and where I started on this thing HERE and a shower curtain version I made years ago here.

I orginally intended for this to be much larger, but it ended up being about 60 inches by 50 inches. I made 4 panels, and pieced them together with my road, which is 5 inches wide, finished. I used felt for the panels and flannel for the roads. If I were to do it again, I would use the same fabric for roads and panels but I would probably NOT use felt. Felt is not really washable, so I think I would use a canvas or denim fabric,  something washable. Flannel tends to stretch slightly so that is why I would use the same fabric for both the panels and the flannel. Since I already had a lot of it done on felt and flannel, I decided just to keep it the same. It was a learning experience!

I cut out all of the buildings, mostly designing them myself using basic shapes and also looked at some photos when I wanted something more than just a square or rectangle. (Many thanks to the wonderful people who share their great photos- which gave me lots of inspiration.)  I also used Wonder Under on just about everything to iron it to the main fabrics, and then I stitched around the buildings after that. To cut out the letters, I printed them off from the computer, then traced them onto Freezer Paper, and then ironed that onto the felt. From here, I cut them out, and then cut them out of Wonder Under. Yep, that is how  I do it when I don't own a fancy cutting machine. The freezer paper peels right off the felt when you are done cutting and you don't have any marks on your fabric/felt.

 I backed this with the same car fabric  that I used over the gas station. I also added a piece of white flannel between the mat and the backing, which acts like a thin batting. I stitched in the ditch around all the roads, after safety pinning the thing together, trying to avoid any wrinkles or bumps in the fabric. Next time, I would use spray adhesive, as in the kind for basting quilts...but I was tired so we just pinned it.   I then made some binding and quickly machine stitched it on--so it is far from perfect. When you are up on Christmas Eve sewing in the middle of the night, you just want to finish!

Since my boys spend a large amount of time on the floor pretending with their cars, I knew they would love it. And I think I was right. I love seeing my children so happy about something I created for them. I love seeing them happy, period.

Here are some fun links to some super cute car mats out in blog land. Some of these ladies used glue guns to make theirs. Since I am the queen of glue gun burns, I opted to sew mine. But these are all super cute-so take a peek at some amazing cute car  play mats.

Girl and a Glue Gun
Homemade by Jill
Living the Sweet Life
Just Sew Sassy
Oopsey Daisy

Happy Holidays everyone! I'm spending mine taking car of sick children....but at least they can play with their cars inside while they recover! Thanks for reading.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! Tonight we made our traditional handprint/footprint t-shirts. Here are few of the other crafts that have gone on at our house this month.

I had the preschoolers put on this cute turkey hat, and I sent a copy of the photo to their parents. My child, however, wanted to hold it like he was a "hunter" and be a piligrim guy like he saw in a book. That's my boy!!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! We have so much to be grateful for!!

Happy Halloween!

I am pooped out. I don't know how you all do it. It wears me out just getting these 4 into their costumes.

We have had a busy week full of Halloween activities in preschool, and on the homefront. And Halloween isn't until tomorrow! Hope everyone has a fun and safe time!

I'll be back later this week with 2 give-a-ways to gear us up for Christmas! yay!

Thanks for reading! oxoxo

Today {& what I learn from my kids about being a mom}

Today looked a lot like this:

Sitting in a messy house holding a baby and watching CARS.

Most of my days are like this lately. I have been trying to tell myself, that I can do this even when I really feel like I can't do this anymore and this is really hard...

Then I taught a lesson today in preschool about The Little Engine that Could and we did this:

And I realized (once again) that I can do this. While motherhood may be the hardest thing I have ever done, I can do it .I can enjoy it.

Even though most days I want to do this:

My sweet little baby reminds me, that while somedays, some moments, and some weeks might be really hard right now, It CAN be done! I can do this...and I am reminded to do this:

And once again, my kids teach me, remind me, and inspire me to remember what really matters most. ♥

thanks for reading! oxoxo

Lego Birthday Party Ideas

Hello! I did not mean to take such a long blog break- but a new baby will do that to you. However, he is doing much better- thank you for your sweet comments!

 I have a great Deseret Book CD give-a-way- this week- so make sure to check that out later.

In the meantime, since I threw a little Toy Story B'day Party today, I thought I'd better share the Lego Party from like...2 months ago! Keep in mind that I have seen your amazing parties- with a ton of cute printables, amazing cakes, unbelievable decorations, etc. I just sit back and admire them. I have 4 boys- and when I threw this one- I was 9 months preggers- so my motto is "sweet and simple". You can check out past boy parties we have done here. (You can also look under Creative Play and Preschool Ideas for other party ideas.)  As always- super simple and fun...(these are not magazine cover kid parties people.)

Here are some of the things we did for our Lego Party - credits and links I used to come up with this some of this, will be linked at the bottom of the photo they are found in.

 We found lots of great decorating ideas online. I sewed up some streamers- as seen here, bought a diposable tablecloth at the dollar store, and blew up some matchy balloons. I also cut out construction paper Lego pieces - using the printable found here. Instead of making huge birthday banners, I have decided to make a b'day poster- printing it up at Costco- and making it small enough to fit in a scrapbook album- so we can save them from year to year. I used a cute printable made by Delia Creates-which I also used to make party invites.

 Zakka Life provided this free Lego guy- which we used to let each child design their own Lego guy. This is what I had them do when they arrived. To keep it simple, we just used crayons, and the face was already drawn on the Lego guy cut outs. The kids were so creative with this, and really loved it!

 Here are some of the finished Lego guys. They wrote their name on them, and then as they got prizes, or other things to take home, they placed it on top of their Lego guy.

Guessing or Estimating how many Legos were in the jar was a fun one- but with 6 year olds, you have to give them a range of numbers to choose from. I told them there was more than 50 and less than 150 - to help them with the guessing. There was a small prize for the person who guessed the closest. We used these Legos later for another game.

 This was one of my favorite things to do- build a car- idea found here. To do this, I had to purchase a large quanitity of wheels, etc. and sort them all beforehand. We gave each child the same number of pieces and let them build a car. Next, we raced the cars-using the table as seen below.

It was fun to watch them race their cars- some just fell over because they had so many Legos on them- and some actually went very fast! So this was also  learning activity for all of the kids.

What child doesn't love I SPY games? We hid several Lego guys around the house- in plain sight- and had them look around to find them-"I SPY a LEGO Guy". We play this with every b'day party- whatever the theme is- we will play "I SPY" with it!

This is a game you could play several ways. We used a big flat Lego piece and passed it around the table. I had a brown bag, and the kids drew Legos out of the bag and added it to the Lego sculpture. I told them a number to draw each time. I was going to wrap up all the Legos and have them unwrap them, but I ran out of time for that. You could also use a dice, and have them roll a number and draw that number of Legos to add to the sculpture. We called it "Lego Collaboration". There was no winner- it was just fun to see what they could build with the Legos when working together. If the kids were older, you could have two groups and have them race.

Table: streamers, bubble wrap- I did not paint it- I just put the clear stuff on as a runner, streamers I sewed together, balloons, Lego pieces and Lego guys from construction paper...

The Cake- I am not cake decorator! I found this cake idea from Betty Crocker.- She never lets me down! I love the Betty Crocker website! The cake used marshmellows cut in 1/2 and a sheet cake to make the cake look like Lego pieces. The frosting was just regular frosting-not the prettiest-but- there is no fancy fondant in this house....

I purchased a box of Lego guys, and some Lego candy online. I put them in little baggies with some other little candies. The Lego candy is not that great tasting- but the kids absolutely loved it!  You can build with it too.

Our big present was the Lego Table we made from a Coffee/End Table. The kids that were waiting for their rides, played with this while waiting.

Overall it was a fun successful party. I am sure there will be another Lego party in this house someday....with four boys around~!

Great Lego Party Links:

Delia Creates

Homemaking Fun

And check out Pinterest!

If you still need an invite to Pinterest, send me an email. (see contact tab at top( 

Thanks for reading!

oxoxo

Baby Boy 4 and his darn kidney

(photo credit- my friend Margie)

I have not been meaning to neglect this blog. I have about a dozen things I need to post.
But this baby boy has taken my time and priority, and it looks like he will continue to take more of my time.
We thought we might be getting a "break" this time, but our 4th boy, has some kidney issue. This is the 3rd of our 4 kids, to have something like this. (we have to get one child still checked out...)
It means lots of trips to the specialist- which is 140 miles away; antibiotics, testing, and possibly surgery.
We just finished doing all of that with our 2 year old.
So if you see me on here only sporadically, please know that is why, and I shall return with exciting and fun posts shortly! For now, I am just posting when I feel up to it- however- I do have 2 little give-a-ways that really need to be posted soon!  Thanks for reading and being my blog bff's!! So wish I could meet so many of you in real life-- maybe someday :) I love reading your posts, and connecting with you through pinterest!

My Favorite New Baby Must-Have Items

I just had my fourth boy. One might think, that by 4 kids, all boys, you have things figured out. Well, I'm here to say that having a baby, no matter how many you have had, is hard! It is wonderful but such a challenge! It has been over a week, and I can still hardly walk after my c-section. SO I thought I would share some of the wonderful products that make having a newborn so much easier! These are just a few of my favorites. I am not getting paid in any way to share these products with you. These products are things I have actually purchased, that I love.

The Miracle Blanket

I have tried several swaddling blankets, and this one is by far the best one out there! It really works. Most swaddling blankets, a baby can squirm their way out of, but not this one. When I first discovered this, with my 3rd child, he started sleeping 6 hours at night when I started using it! And I felt like a new mommy! I love this!

Cute Diaper Bags- Before I had kids, I had a ton of purses. O.K. so I still love purses, but I also love diaper bags!  They come at every price range these days- so here are some at the middle, high, and low end-all functional and cute.

 Middle price range: This cute diaper bag is from the Baby Star Collection. It retails at $60 but I got it for around $20-plus $5 shipping, and I don't recall where I found the deal. It is a very nice bag- with pockets on the inside, plus a case for wipes. It is a very nice diaper bag. (I do think it could be a little more functional. I really like when a diaper bag has a pocket on the outside- for a water bottle, a baby bottle, or keys and this one does not have that- but does have inside pockets.)

High price range: I also purchased this one. It is from the Oioi Collection. I got it off of Babysteals,so I did not pay retail for it- don't think I could pay retail for it$160.. However, the one I got from Babysteals, does not have the outer zipper pocket as pictured. It does have inside pockets, a changing pad, a wipes case, and outside pockets too. It has many other features and is very roomy. I love this bag, and can see myself using it long after I no longer need a diaper bag.

Low Price Range: Sam Moon has really cute diaper bags and purses. They also have the best prices. The one above retails at $14.95 It doesn't have many pockets inside, but it has the outside pockets, and back pockets. It also zips under the flap. It includes a changing pad. This is a really good deal for the money. They also have many colors and styles to chose from.

  Of course a good nursing cover is a must have! I can't believe I survived before this invention. There are some other styles out there, but this one was practically free- and I have several from this company-
Udder Covers. I have tried some other ones out there, and they do not hold their shape as well as the ones from Udder Covers.

This is my new favorite Baby Sling/carrier. Once again, I have tried many different styles. I love this one from Seven Slings. It is lightweight, and can be used for a newborn- to a two year old. I love that I can fold it up and put it in my diaper bag, and that it is not a big production to put it on.

I don't know what I would do without a BOPPY.This has proven to be my favorite- I can't even nurse without it. I acutally finally made my own Boppy cover for one of my Boppy pillows. I own two and will probably buy a third one. I love my Boppy!

There are so many other products I love and could not live without when it comes to having a baby. These are just a few of the many that I love.

I would love to hear what baby products you love and  have to have!

Thanks for reading! oxoxo