Merry Christmas... and happy birthday to me!!

Oh my this month has just been crashing down around me. I did a wonderful challenge with my friends with some amazing good deeds that were done. Challenging them to make the last 27 days of me being 27 a random acts of kindness over load.. and over loaded with awesomeness it was! We had a steller nutcracker birthday party...


the fallowing day my big brother took his own life :(....
that pretty much put a giant hault in everything else of grandness that I had planned for the month. My head was and still is in a fog.. I keep sitting down then forgetting what I am doing or what I have done. We had a VERY VERY SMALL cookie party because we had already had plans for it and figured the kids needed to be around people who were happy since we have been so so sad.It was a nice gathering of our close friends and it was a happy time
Brooklyn has her first ballet recital. Which was so cute and she was so so excited! after words we went out to dinner .. because we all deserved a treat.

. We threw my side of the family christmas dinner and that was very very somber. Each day we keep getting better but loosing someone like my brother was a very hard and very unexspected blow. I didnt take the time when making christmas gifts to blog about them or make tutorials but I have lots of picture that I will upload soon. For christmas my hunny got me a new super awesome mixer... oh yeah look for baking madness to over take my blog here shortly. And then for my birthday, which was yesterday (the 27th ) I got a serger. Yeah for sergers... but to be honest it scares me so Im just going to look at in sitting in the box imagening all the wonderfullness that Im going to make with it :) Well I better get back to cleaning up from out crazy christmas but I will leave you with a glimps of cuteness
Christmas morning! Look at those cute matching PJ pants and New hoods I made.. oh and those happy kids!

baby dress up so cute!

My best friend making christmas wrapping awesome!

With 4 kids santa had to put the tree in a new spot to get all the gifts around it


My birthday gifts

12 days before christmas countdown days 9-5

We have had a horrible family tragedy this weekend so I'm sorry to not have gotten these out sooner. here are the last few days signs for our countdown
#9 Thursday. We had fun making these today we sent off some candy cane bark. it was so yummy! We used our gift molds and they looked adorable!


#8Friday, we packed up all the weekend stuff to, but for today we Packed up a chocolate box of cake mix and found these cute little cupcake papers with picks and bowed them together with this card

#7 Saturday, We got cute cards and added a few ugly sweater lottry cards... silly story, I had never bought them before and was red faced and felt so guilty buying them. It was like buying beer... i dont do it often but I feel all dangerous when i do, then this guy was trying to flirt with me at the machine so I was all flustered ha ha ha it was so funny ;)


#6 Sunday, we got cute starbucks mugs and filled them with hot chocolate packets



#5 Monday: We made some really super cute starbranch orniments.

Last 27 days of being 27... amazing news!

Today was one of those days where I didnt want to get out of bed because of the dream I had was so good. Taking me back to when things were simple and my plate was almost empty and my friends list was a mile long. I miss those days sometimes.. not that I dont love my life but I miss those days when I didnt have to be anything to anyone and could be anyone to everyone. But I wake up late for school with pack backs and lunches to get ready and grumpy kids to boot. I was having a bad morning, on the verge of tears, just not a good morning. Putting that I need a change song on repeat

One Thing I Know
Randy Rogers Band
Woke up today and things had changed.
The man I’ve become just ain’t the same.
Wanted to run but there was just nowhere to go.
Living in a dream world, praying it don’t show.

Cause who I am, is who you want me to be
But I’m having a hard time, finding me.
Well take my hand darling, won’t you let me go
Gotta do this by myself, that’s one thing I know.

Living my life on low-fuel,
Telling myself that I’m a damn fool.
All of my friends up in Fort Worth tell me how I’m brave,
Little do you know I almost lost it yesterday.

Cause who I am, is who they want me to be
But I’m having a hard time, finding me.
Well take my hand darling, won’t you let me go
Gotta do this by myself, that’s one thing I know.

I’ve got these demons on my trail.
Crazy and messed up, but no one else can tell…
Cause who I am, is who you want me to be
But I’m having a hard time, finding me.
Well take my hand darling, won’t you let me go
Gotta do this by myself, that’s one thing I know.

Gotta do this all alone, that’s one thing I know.

Those bold lines are the ones that echo in my head sometimes. So I preped for Brooklyns party, got list ready for the cookie party, ended up with a friends kid for the afternoon, the got double daycare kids and then no one paid me today... UGHHHHHHHHH ... then I got a facebook message from someone on my list. This woman is truely an awesome person. She always leave me sweet comments and like my crafty habits I share and she has taken my Late 27 days of 27 challenge to heart. She has donated her time and money and brought glove and blankets to the needy. But today she reminded me that even tho my day is sucky and sometimes I look at my life and feel like I am doing crazy inside myself all the time, there is people worse off and I need to count my blessing. There is a man at her work with a sick wife and 2 kids, and this has been really hard on them this year. Because of my challenge she and her husband gave their holiday bonuses to this man. I honestly cried at her generosity. We all have our off days, but from now on I will wake up with my alarm clock and count those 4 little heart beats that keep me going. Im blessed and I pray that Leah and her her husband are blessed for their random act of unbelievable kindness. And that that man has a small weight lifted off his shoulders and is able to see all he does have even when times are tough.

12 days before christmas day 10

Last night we had a major melt down over a pokemon game that got erased. Im not sure if it the aspergers that made it unconsolable but it was a hard night for us. We did manage to get the #10 one done but not with out tears and grumpyness, so this day wont be as rememberable. We found this really cute tutorial and copied their grinch pills. Here is our tag


And here is Brother bear holding them because he didnt want to me take a picture of him...

We used some big green tick tacs because they were the only ones we could find at 3 stores... who doesnt eat the green ones.. and who the heck eat the orange ones?!

Hopefully tonights gift will be better... we are going to make pepermint bark ;) wish us luck...

11th day before Christmas break

Ok so I kept justin up making these because it was guitar night and then day care kid was here way to late (ps keep your eyes out for a im a door mat post that may be coming soon ...) So anyways I got so lost on the time I forgot to take a picture and then we were out the door, so just close your eyes, yup just like that, oh wait then how well you read this? ok take two :) try to Imogen if you will two red felt stockings made by a 7 year old (they were actually cut and glued really well) we used glue and glitter to make the teachers initials and fluff on the top. Then we filled it with 4 red pen, 2 red sharpies, 2 red dry erase and a really cute snowman pen that poped off when you pushed a button! And here was out tag.




He has been so excited to do this and the report back from him after school has been priceless. His favorite teacher it just a ham and fake crys with happiness everytime :)


And if you are keeping up with my last 27 days of being 27 Im up to #14. Reflecting back this last week my favorite random acts have been the post office trip, leaving boxes of nerd candys on my nerdy neighbors porch, handing candy canes out randomly (the best one was to a guy on his bike at a red light. He was waving through the window at Carson so I handed him and candy cane and he handed it to the guy... it was so sweet!! I picked up some umbrellas at the dollar tree because when it rains you always see those people and think man I bet they wish they had an umbrella... but so far its been crazy cold and no rain (not complaining about no rain but I am about to complain about the lack of snow and abundance of 32' weather.)

Pokemon Cube

I saw the cutest thing in the world on Etsy while looking for party stuff for Colton. He is way into super heros, mostly captain America and I thought this was awesome. But then Justin came home from school talking about how good he was at the Rubik's cube at school. So I decided to see if I could recreate The one I saw on Etsy but with pokemon (since that and harry potter are all he talks about any more) And this is what I got!





And here is how I did it:

$1 tree cube
Mod Podge
Index cards
Computer images of pokemon




First peel the stickers off the cube the shiny parts on mine came right off and I didnt worry about the white part underneath, but feel free to pick it off if you so choose but remember you will probably need goo off.
Then I got online and made some 2.5 inch squares and added favorite pokemon to them and printed them out.


Note: I printed them out on index cards because I ran out of card stock but they worked so much better then card stock because they were heavier so it worked out perfect!


Next I sat the block on the pictures and marked all the cuts

Then I cut them out (not after the first two I realized I needed to trim each piece down so it would spin, so make your image about 1/4 and inch smaller on your cube.

Mod Podge on the cube and add pictures.


I Mod Podged the top of it too, (however I think Im going to get the glass kind next because the mat wasnt as pretty but I also think if your making it for older kids you could probably just leave it paper)


Ta-Da


This was so fast and so easy and only $1 that its going to become one of my staple gifts for sure. I have seen them done with pictures... maybe if the real cubes go on sale soon I will give that a try!

Day 5 of 27 and our elf... and a party

So my days have been busy with kids kids and more kids. Im not complaining but this mommy needs a break! We got out pen pal gifts in the mail this weekend (which I cant wait for them to get!) and it leaned itself to a great random acts of kindness.


Im going to keep thinking that's some nice people are now mailing letters to our there loved ones or people they are missing :)
We also paided for the people behind us at Starbucks... turns out the whole rest of the day people paid for the people behind them till they closed and the last guy bought all the left over pasties and was going to give them to the guys pan handling by the free way! Im happy to see my challenge catching on... its really inspiring hearing all my friends call or text of facebook me with all their random acts. I have a 22 more days to bring lots more joy and im looking forward to it!


Next we have our elf Milton. He is a crazy elf who manages to hide every time we leave the house. We have decided he is like the toys on toy story... and have been trying to catch the toys in the "live" act by jumping out of hiding spots (my kids are so geeky)
Here is Milton hiding in the fridge..

and here is where he was when we got home from the post office.. (I forgot he was there cause I dropped him off on the way out the door and he really scared me for a minute)



And here is my daughter having a good time at her friends Spa Birthday Party. (note she is smiling here but she was freaking out to get it off her face ;) )

12 days before christmas break: day 1

Today we are starting a new tradition. When looking for new ideas last year for teacher appreciation week we found a cute post about doing 12 days of Christmas gifts for teacher. I made a mental file that we had to do it. So a few weeks ago I sat down with my oldest and we came up with some great ideas for his teacher (he goes to a charter school and they have no home room teachers) My Little kids also wanted to get in on it so we came up with some fun classroom gifts because each room has 3+ teachers and given the season my husband was not on board with that idea ;) (however since deciding to do it I think we will wait to next year to do it with the little kids because I don't have enough time to sew up there ideas ... which I feel guilty about but I have to be honest about how busy work is and how limited family time has been cut anyways... but Im sure they will end up with a gift basket of some sort)
Although I loved the 12 days of Christmas idea since we wernt at school the 12 days we decided to go with the 12 days before Christmas break, which turns out worked perfectly because it starts today on Monday and ends next Friday! So with out further ado




We took some frapachinno bottles that we use for parties, spray painted the lids black. Justin made all the pieces and cute them out, we glued them to the bottle and tied on the tag. We filled them with a bag of lifesaver mints, because to be honest these teacher have been lifesavers for us! Keep fallowing me for next 11 days before Christmas break to come!




I bragged about myself on these cool blogs:

Friendship Braclet Kit

Remember when we were little and we use to make friendship bracelets while we watched Boy Meets World. A piece of tape holding our sting in place and we braided and dreamed of being Topanga. I have a verp special girly in my life who is about to hit that phase where you look at them and they are no longer little kids.. they are actually kids :( we just went through that with our oldest and its a sad moment for a mama but its been great fun watching this wonderful lady grow up. I found a cute started kit at Joanns the other day and decided it need a little homemade betterness so this is what I did.

Supplies:
Cute paper
Mod Podge
a clip Board
Fleece
hot glue
The whole project take about 15 minutes to make, I had all of this stock on hand (dont ask why but I had 4 clip boards sitting around...)


First take the clip off the board, one side came off with just a little screw drive the other side I had to break into my husbands tool box to use the battery powered screwer thing.
Next trace the board on the paper getting as close in as you can you dont want any over hang.


Next cut it out and trim if you need to.

Then Mod Podge board (note here if you use a thin paper you better have a roller, try to use a thicker piece.)


Screw the clip back on. And admire your work. I added these cute little letters to make it more personal.

Next outline and make a pouch out of fleece. (im sure any fabric would work, denim might be cute, think pocket..but I liked the stretch the fleece had so I could stuff it with thread)


Make sure you make the flap long enough to over hang. I didnt get pictures but I hot glued it on and added some Velcro to keep it closed.


Ta-Da.. a perfect gift for a perfect girl. ... no more tape required

Christmas cookie Party invite!!

This year will be our 3rd annual cookie decorating party! Im so excited because my kids decided what the theme would be, How the Grinch stole Christmas!! Im in such luck because I have stuff left over from Dangers birthday! Of course I flew straight to pinterest to get some ideas.. and to be honest I was kinda surprised there wasn't more, and google wasn't helpful either so I guess Im going to wing it... here are the invitations I came up with!



Its going to be so much fun! We are lucky because our living room/dinning room just happens to be painted red! and almost everything thing else will be red and green. We are in the midst of our December rush so we had to have it early morning because Brooklyn has a ballet recital that afternoon and we have a huge family Christmas party at our house the next day, not to mention the weekend before the party is Brooklyn's birthday and two other birthday parties the day before that... busy busy busy. So having the simple color pallet should make it a lot quicker to come together. Im just going to do some finger food because the kids will be decorating. Speaking of decorating my kids wanted to dress up Who style... so I think decorating ourselves is going to be just as fun... I for see a lot of auqanet in our future. My husband who never ever ever gets Saturdays off just happened to get that Saturday off so it is going to be all hands on deck... I wonder if I can get him to go as the Grinch?

Our Elf on our shelf... and day 1 recap of my last 27 days

Santa sent the kids a great big box filled with a very small elf, who we decided doesn't go on a shelf! (wow I just made our cookie party invites and im all Seuss-ish) Anyways my kids woke up to a package and inside was an elf I had picked up last year on clearance to do elf on the shelf with (we considered buying the book and the elf but at $30 a pop... not a chance and Milton (our elf complete with letter from Santa) is so much cute! And as an added bonus, Milton had a few brothers in the clearance bin with him to I snagged extra encase he wanders off (or becomes a puppy snack) We also started our advent calendar a day late. We have a really nice wooden house that we fill each night because my kids can not refrain from opening the door. Their newest rationalization is it fills each night because Santa is magic (because he went to Hogwarts.... yeah my kids are the biggest nerds I know) So here is Miss Brooklyn with her newest best friends Milton!




On another note day 1 of my last 27 days of being 27 was great! I realized I will be over my 27 planned Random acts of kindness quicker then 1 a day so Im hoping now to get some where around 100 in :) and one of the best parts is that I have lots of facebook friends accepting my challenge and doing awesome stuff too!
#1 I helped an old lady carry out her dog food at the dog food store
#2 I donated all the cash (I only had $3 but its better then a frappachinno) I had to a dog food drive they were having.
(I surprised my cousin and the ladies she works with the Starbucks, but I didnt count that one)
#3 I left change on all the pay phones at the supermarket we shop at because I always see people on them and I was hoping maybe it would inspire someone who really needed to call someone to pick up the phone and call,
And I did it on the way into the store, on the way out of the store this couple stopped me and said they had watched me put the money up there and they said I was really inspiring and it made them feel so good to see someone doing something like that... the promised to keep my 27 days of good deeds going!

last 27 days of being 27

Someone once told me that your golden year is when your birth age and day are the same. My birthday is december 27th and I turned 27. Disappointingly this year has been pretty sucky (mostly October but the whole year didnt really pan out either..) I have actually spent more time in the last few days, more then I should probably blog about, thinking about the golden year concept. First off I would like to point out that im sorry for people born on the 1st! My poor cousin was born on the first, of April to boot, but she wears her birthday with pride (and often a stuffy nose) Second I dont want to look back on my 'Golden year' and all I see is faded bronze, so I have decided to change life's plan and make my own Goldenness appear! While trolling Pinterest (like the addict I am) I came across this blog post. I was very inspired by her compassion and selflessness. So I have decided that for the last 27 days of being 27 I would like to preform 27 random acts of kindness, one a day more if I come across a random opportunity to do one. Here is perhaps the best part of my whole concept, I would like to challenge everyone to do the same. The holiday giving season is already in the air and I would like to have you help me pass it around. There are lots of great ideas on the Internet and tomorrow I will link up to some of my favorites. In the mean time, I challenge you to open your eyes to the world around us and for the next 27 days pass on as many random acts of kindness as you possibly can!



And because I cant help by share our skipping school for the day adventure, we ditched and went and saw old st.nick!!

I-Spy Orniment (PEN PAL SPOILER ALERT)

(NOTE IF OUR KIDS ARE PEN PALS READ NO FURTHER BECAUSE THEY ARE BEING SENT YOUR WAY!)



Last year after we decorated our Christmas tree my kids spent an hour playing I-Spy with the Christmas ornaments. It was so cute that I made them I-Spy bags for gifts and they have been everywhere with us, Doctor appointments, car trips, soccer games, time out stints. Then when I was going though our Christmas stuff for our Halloween party (see Halloween party posts) I came across the ornaments my kids made their Aunt and thought BINGO those are like I-Spy bags! How about I-Spy ornaments! (Note I did see one one pinterest since I posted this) So this is how I made my kids I-Spy Ornaments (or you can buy them on my ETSY ;) )



Supplies:
Clear Plastic Ornament (with removable topper)
Small Ornaments (or finding)
Poly Fill (or do what I did and gut some beany babies)
Ribbon
Glue Gun (Note super glue or E6000 melted my plastic.. weird right?)

Step 1:
Pop top off your ornament, if yours look like mine push out the little scalloped edges so it goes on nice with the glue.



Step 2:
Cut off string off little ornaments. (See how cute these are they are the Nativity!!)



Step 3:
Plop little ornaments into the big ornament.



Spet4:
Fill with poly filler (I saw some fake snow flakes im going to try tomorrow to see if I can make these a little less heavy)



Step 5:
Add glitter... because everything is better with glitter.



Step 6:
Hot glue and seal top on. (Make sure you cant pull or twist it off)



Step 7:
Add a ribbon to hand it and gift it to your favorite little I-Spy-er!!