happy birthday to my niece and nephews!

Part of our summer vacation took us for to my SIL for her kids birthday! Hard to believe they are already two, hand to believe Carson is already two! She threw a cute little ice cream sundae party with pools for the little kids to splash around in. The weather was amazing! My SIL is planning on home schooling (God grant her the patients and strength for that one!) so I jumped at the chance to make them something educational. For their birthday last year I made them a cloth book about colors and one about shapes. The down fall is there are three of them and sharing at that age.... well you all have kids and you can all relate! I really liked the idea of a busy book, partly because I never finished Coltons and partly because I always have so many ideas running though my brain that its hard to nail down one design for anything. I came up with a basic idea of an ABC book  but I really didn't want to make 3. So I came up with this :

The thought it that they can either read it like a book on mom and dads lap or they can lay it down open on the floor and all 3 of them can play at one time! The pages were a combination of fabric printing and and fun interactive thing. Here are a few of my favorite pages.

The connect the dots is fabulous! It makes a bone for the dog! (I imagen sometimes I will do a whole book like this!)

The rocket slides up and down and Im pretty sure Carson did this page a few dozen times before I wrapped it up.

This one the rain moved up and down like an abacus, but my favorite part is the traffic light because it is a pocket that holds a bunch of felt vehicles that drive around the S page.

Im hoping to make a few and put them on Etsy. We will see I always make things as gift but never seem to find the motivation to put them on Etsy. I think I have a hidden fear of failing. Here are the kids enjoying time with their cousins.

We had a really good time up there. Hope we dont have to wait another year to get the kids together... now how am I going to top this cool book for Christmas :)

Freakin' Friday!

So today I want to show you a few really freakin' awesome things! The first being we are having my sons 8th birthday in May (dont judge me lol) and its going to be Harry Potter so of course my pintrest board is filling up fast but lets be realistic how cool are these? They are going to be delivered to his class with acceptance letter... complete with location of their seats!!

And because I dont want to leave the parents out of the truly awesome party... sublet bits of hilarious will be all around like this

and this which literally made me LOL


So be ready for a little bit of Potter take over in the months to come!

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

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

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!!