My lack of a Christmas letter led to this…

So I didn’t get a Christmas letter out, I didn’t even get my Christmas cards/photos out :( I started a few of them, but didn’t have time to finish them. This card was my inspiration, (it’s is taken from the Family Fun website and you can find the directions HERE), but I couldn’t find any candy cane stickers.  One of the joys of living in a small town and having three children so you don’t brave a trip to a larger town to get the stuff that you “need”…  So I improvised…  and came up with this… Imagine it with the same snowman as in the above picture!  The snowman is actually an ornament that you can hang on your tree!!!  How cute are they!?!?!?!?  Since I couldn’t find candy cane stickers, I looked around for anything that I could cut to make it look like candy canes, and found some candy cane wrapping paper.  After about 45 mins and only 10 cut out candy canes I gave up and tried something else.  I had these letter stickers from another project so I put them on this stripped scrapbooking paper and brought it to a copy place in town and had them copy them for me.  Then I made the snowmen, hot glued them on and we were good to go!  (I did make about 15 of them, and hand them out, but if you weren’t around when I had them you missed out!!!) 

This is the picture that I put in the cards, and even if you didn’t get a Christmas card you will be getting the picture (or at least most of you will!!!) Of the pictures that Katie took of the kids I think this is my favorite because NO ONE is looking at the camera!!!  There are other cute ones, but I like this one!  And since everyone has asked where I got the outfits here is the info!  Nevaeh’s orange shirt came from Gymboree, the cream sweater was Target, and her brown pants are a Target pair of flared leggings.  Aubrie’s shirt is actually a 3-6 month dress from Gymboree and she also has on Target flared leggings.  Wyatte’s sweater came from Target and his pants from Penney’s.  And even though not matchy matchy, they are coordinated! 

I have been reading blogs that have the top few things that have happened to them or that they have done in the past year, and while I can come up with a couple my lists aren’t nearly as exciting.  I will work on a post with those and you can look for that later tonight or tomorrow…

Right now I am off to make a treat to bring tonight to the party at the church and then we are off to some fireworks to ring in the New Year!!! 

 

Happy New Year!!!

Wyatte Turns 5

Since Wyatte’s birthday fell on a school day I decided to make cupcakes and send them for snack.  I looked around the internet, but didn’t find anything that I liked.  So I came up with this!  Isn’t he cute!??!?!??!?!  This is what I started with, a circus peanut.  I cut some off the bottom so that one end was up higher than the other. (I enjoyed that part!!!)

Then using these wonderfully expensive cake making tools (yes I am talking about the pop can and fork!!!) I frosted the circus peanut green.  Then I cut a jelly belly jelly bean in thirds, and used the two ends as nostrils.Then I frosted over them.  Using another jelly bean, this time only cut in half, I made eyes.  Using white sprinkles I added teeth and wala!  Cute crocodile cupcakes!!!then I put the whole thing on a blue frosted cupcake, and there it is!  I think they turned out pretty cute.  They did take me a while, so if you are going to try them budget out a little more time than normal!!!

 

Grandma Linda was wonderful enough to bring Wyatte to school and pick him up afterwards, so that I could get stuff done for Wyatte’s family party that was that night.  Grandpa Stan came over for lunch and brought presents for all the kids!  Aubrie and Nevaeh got books.And Wyatte got a camo shirt (that in these pics is the wrapping paper!)Inside was a camo coat, and in the hood, sleeves, and pockets were all kind of treat!  A camo hat, gloves, and TONS OF CANDY!!!

 

 

 

Here is the start of the crocodile cake that I made for him family party, and am going to make again when he has his friend party in January (there is WAY to much going on in December to have a party so we are just doing it one weekend in January!)Here is the cake that I kinda went off of.  Not the same in any aspect, but it gave me a starting point…The feet are cupcakes, with marshmallow claws/toes (I used french vanilla snowman ones, trimmed a little bit because that seemed the easiest) The eyes are strawberry marshmallows, frosted, then another snowman cut a little, with a blue mini m & m’s as the pupil.  The nostrils are parts of french vanilla marshmallows, frosted, with brown mini m & m’s.  The teeth are the marshmallows, cut into slivers…For supper I made a version of Penne Alfredo.  I loosely followed this recipe for Alfredo sauce, cooked penne noodles, used a deli rotisserie chicken and stirred it all together and then baked it for a while.  When I make it again I will double the sauce, it was a little too dry for my taste, but was great!  I did add minced garlic, and onions.

Then it was time for presents.  He got a truck with horse and trailer, a farm lego set, a marshmallow shooter, a monster truck, a book for special school papers and pictures, flashlights, and a digger/truck magnetic puzzle, and a sweatshirt and warmup pants.  I am sure I am missing something, but…

I can’t believe that I have a 5 year old.  Crazy how the time goes by.

Craft Challenge (kinda)

My camera crapped out on me last night, and so instead of having pictures of the things that I made for this month’s craft challenge, you have to look at the pictures that I got the ideas from.

My mother-in-law gets GREAT magazines that I love to browse through.  In the past I have never had the money to actually buy anything from them, but it was fun to dream.  Well now that my hubby is back to work I could order some things from them, but the only things that I really liked I decided that I could make!  So off to Walmart (we don’t have a “craft” store in town, and with three young kids you don’t make any extra trips out of town, unless you have to!  So I made do with what I found!!!

This was the first picture that I fell in love with.

Taken from The Country House catalog.

Or at least the mittens!  For these I got some off white flannel and dyed it burgundy (stained the tub in the process!!!) I made them smaller than they are in the catalog and because of that they were really hard to sew, so I used some super glue for now, and have to figure something else out if they start coming apart!  I got some tiny clothes pins and some twine to hang them on.  Don’t quite know where they are going to end up finally, but they are sure cute!!!

Next I saw this frame, and loved the idea, but not the whole thing…

Taken from The Country House catalog.

I found a wood frame at Walmart, stained it with a light stain, and then started picking out papers.  The first one I did is green and blue, the second one I did is the same color scheme as the one in the picture, and then I have papers cut out to do a black and white one, and a beautiful gray/silver patterned paper.  No words on them, at least for now.  I would like to be able to change the pictures if I want, and not be limited to a certain type…

Last but not least, was this idea.

I couldn’t find tags like this in Walmart, but did find some scrapbooking “scrap” pack that had tan/brown cardstock in it.  So I found a couple of tag patterns in another scrapbooking pack that I got, and traced them and then cut them out.  Darkened the edges (used some stain and some gold/bronze paint), used some of the circles that are used to strengthen whole punched holes (do you know what I am talking about !?!?!?!) and painted them a gold/bronze color and put them at the top.  I painted Merry Christmas on mine, but have plans to make at least another set with a different saying.  I also got some thin crafting wire to string them together.

All in all I was pretty happy with them all.  If I get a new camera, or figure out what is wrong with my old one I will take pics and share them with you all.

Can’t wait to see what everyone else has done!!!!!

 

Merry Christmas!!!

 

**** Whoops!  Forgot to add in the link to Blue Eyed Blessings! So here it is!!!  Go check out some of the other Christmas Crafts that everyone has made!!!!!

Christmas Crafts

So I know I said I was going to do this for the fall craft challenge (and I did something just not until after it ended!!!) Since I have already started working on stuff for Christmas I figured I am safe in doing this!!! So I am doing this challenge

Anyone want to join me? Click the picture and it will take you to another blog with all the details. Come back in a couple of weeks to see what I made, and check out what others have done too. If I get around to it I might post what I made for the fall challenge too!

I also have done a couple of posts with pics of the kids, but for some reason they disappeared… So I have to find my camera and redo the posts. So look for those soon too!!!

A day in the life…

So Friday was Wyatte’s picture day at preschool.  Miss Heather decided to have both her AM and afternoon preschool classes come in the morning so the afternoon class wouldn’t have to come for part of the morning and then back again a couple hours later for school.  This meant she was going to have 12 4/5 year olds for 3 hours!  She asked if I would be willing to come in and be an extra adult in the room!!! 

So I left the girls home with John (who didn’t go to work because of a rain day) and headed to school with Wyatte.  It was actually FUN!  To see them, especially Wyatte, do “school” things.  At home he is pretty hard to get to pay attention, but in school he does better.  Fun to see them turn on the charm for the camera guy! 

I don’t think I was a huge help, but maybe seeing the two of us in there made the other parents feel better!?!?!?  Here are a few pics of stuff.  (Heather if I shouldn’t have these on here let me know and I will take them down…)  I am not going to name names, or even really narrate the pics you can pretty much see what is going on!

Wyatte had show ‘n tell, and since they are on the letter “F” he brought a FISH and a FROG!

 

So just a snippet into my “Day in the life of Heather L”

You want to see my kids!?!?!?!

Ok, so here are a few pictures that I took on the camera that I bought late last night!  I really wanted to have one for the pumpkin patch outing that we went on today, so last night when I was done with the laundry (at 10 PM) I headed to Walmart to get one!!! Aubrie waiting for the kids to come down a “tornado” slide, she loved watching them come out, but wouldn’t go down herself!

Wyatte pulling a friend in the wagon.  Wyatte enjoyed pulling and Sam loved the ride!

Here is Wyatte on the rope swing in the hay barn maze.  My old camera had a setting for action, and I thought I was on it, but looking at the pictures, either I don’t know what I am doing, or the camera doesn’t work like I thought it would!

Here is Nevaeh on the swing too!

 

Aubrie enjoying a seat on some of the hay bales while the kids swung!  Isn’t she adorable!!?!?

Nevaeh was checking out the llama that they had.  In the cages towards the back right of the picture they had bunnies that you could hold too, but we didn’t have time to do that.  The kids were bummed at first but I don’t think they remember at all now!

 

Aubrie didn’t want to get close to the animals!  She did enjoy watching them though…

Wyatte, Rorey (red and black coat), Joseph (tongue out) and Matthew (spiderman hat) all on the hay ride getting ready to go feed the cows!  Oh, Miss Heidi W. is in there too!

 

Just a part of the group that we went with!

Wyatte getting ready to feed the cows. 

 

Nevaeh and Aubrie getting ready to feed the cows!

Tried to get a good pic of the three of us girls, but you can see how that turned out!

 

The cows came right up to the trailer and took the hay right out of your hands, or from underneath you, depending on how fast you were!

Aubrie liked looking at the cows, but not so much when they came for the hay she would throw it at them!

 

I guess she did get fairly close!

Wyatte really enjoyed himself, he wants to have cows at our house, in our barn (when we build it again!) so he felt right at home.

 

 Look of fun?  Or what!?!?!

 

Aubrie really liked the chickens!  I think helped that they were in a cage!  She has always like our chickens to, come to think of it…

Trying to feed the horse!  She wasn’t scared of it at all…

 

And then we tried to get a few pics of the kids, alone and separate…  Aubrie’s is ok, and then it got worse…

First Wyatte started throwing pumpkin’s around, then Nevaeh wanted to sit on them, and Aubrie wanted to get down…  So this is the best one!

 

Nevaeh wouldn’t sit still, and she wouldn’t look at me, and she kept giving me funny faces…

Wyatte wouldn’t smile, he wouldn’t really look at me, and he wanted to get down to get the pumpkins that he threw…

 

I did get them to look at me when they were in here! Well almost!!!

Picking out a pumpkin after we were done.  Not really sure where they are right now, guess I am going to have to find them!

Does she look like the Michelin Man or what??!?!?!?