Happenings and Projects

I wanted to apologize for the lack of personal posts lately. (And that I haven't been to visit your blogs the last week or so.) I've been busier than I realized I would be:

*My sister is engaged now...happened last Sunday (November 7th) and she plans to have her wedding up by me. So between her working 60 hours a week and not having time and the fact that I live near everything, I've been trying to help figure out the wedding plans...it's starting to come together now and we can relax a little, but there is still a lot of work to do!

*I'm trying to make sure to do a little bit of preschool with the kids...I mostly read to them more (my goal is 5 hours a week, but even that hasn't been happening) and then we have creative time, music time, game time and learning time (where they work on writing/reading/etc.). We try do each of those "times" once a week. Morgan gets a lot of this in school, but I wanted to expand on her schooling here at home :-)

*I've been signing up for giveaways like crazy!! Because I don't work outside the home, I feel like it's my way of contributing. Winning food, gift cards, clothes and toys/books (for presents) helps out a little....plus it's fun just getting those "You Won!" e-mails! LOL! :-)

*I started doing a craft night with my mom once a week (or 3 times a week like last week) and it really feels good to finish a few projects. These are what I have done so far:

This is my first project. It's a book sling for over/next to Morgan's bed. I happened to have more fabric from when her bedspread was made (it used to be mine when I was in junior high/high school), so all I had to purchase were the dowels and the curtain rod brackets.

I sewed it at my mom's one night and put it up while Morgan was in school the next day. I surprised her with it when she came home from school that day. She still asks if I have a surprise for her when she gets off the bus on occasion-LOL!

I also made some curtains for the kids to go with the valences (there are 2 windows) they had from the nursery set...I know it's baby-ish, but I figured we'd stick with the gender neutral farm animal theme since they still share a room. This is the first that they've had window coverings since getting the new windows this summer!

This last project I actually worked on at home without my mom. I spun up a few small skeins of yarn made from raw (unwashed) alpaca fiber. Rich's Aunt and Uncle have alpacas at their place and had an open house that I spun at for 3 hours this past Saturday. I made these up ahead of time for them to display at the open house. (There is a black one too that I had already sent to them before this picture was taken.)

I have a few Christmas presents under way that I'm making for the kiddos as well. I just hope I can get them done in time because I'm really excited to actually make the kids some gifts this year...my mom used to make things for my sister and I-I'm loving being able to do the same for my kiddos! :-)

So that's what has been happening here! I'm hoping to catch up on here this week and visit everyone...so I should be by soon! :-)

A Gathering Place

I had another Girls' Night Out this past Saturday night and had a wonderful time. It was at my close friend's place that I roomed with all 4 years at college. She and her dad fixed up a run-down foreclosed house and it's beautiful now! My favorite spot is her kitchen...I dream of a kitchen like hers! I just LOVE the island in it with the counter stools along one side for people to sit. Saturday night we had all the food set on the island and for the longest time all eight of us stood/sat around it and just talked and laughed and had the best time. The kitchen was open and inviting and made a wonderful gathering place that I long for in my home...Sunday night I longed for that kitchen even more.... Sunday night Rich had his 6th Annual Opening Day Eve party. (A party before the first day of deer hunting gun season.) It's mostly guys and they hang out in the garage, drink beer and watch the movie "Escanaba in da Moonlight", but some of the women come along too. The girls usually hang out in the house until the guys are ready to go home and then they're the designated drivers ;-) Well, this year I felt like my house was awkward...no good place for a larger group than 3 or 4 to come together and have a nice time...the living area of the house is split up into 3 small rooms and it just doesn't work nicely. Needless to say we all ended up in the garage after about a half hour...partially because that's where all the food was but, as funny as it sounds, I think our garage is more inviting being a large open space to gather.

I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining. I do love our little house and I know we're just starting out so this is how it's going to be for a little while. And I honestly had an amazing time this year for Opening Day Eve and wouldn't have changed a thing! But, in the future, I would love a kitchen with an island like my friend's as a gathering place so we can start having parties inside as well. Plus....having to get both the outside AND the inside ready for people to visit for each gathering is quite exhausting!!! ;-)

*Disclosure: This is a teaser post for an upcoming CSN Store giveaway! CSN Stores offered for me to host a giveaway or do a review in exchange for this post.

CEIVA Giveaway at Our Ordinary Life

I have loved the idea of having a digital picture frame since having kids. I would love a way to display all the thousands of photos that I take and would enjoy seeing each day...not just when I happen to go through my pics on my camera. Right now Kristen, at Our Ordinary Life, is giving away a Ceiva Digital Picture frame to one very lucky winner and I'm trying my best to get as many entries as I can! ;-) I know this is an amazing frame because my parents have one and have really enjoyed it. Plus their costumer support is awesome! They actually call you to make sure your frame is okay if it's been turned off for any length of time!! How neat is that?!

So make sure to stop by Our Ordinary Life to enter this giveaway if you've been loving the idea of a digital picture frame as much I have! :-)

Halloween 2010

We've been busy with all the fun surrounding Halloween this year....as you'll see! :-)

We made this Curled Paper Pumpkin that we saw on the Frugal Family Fun Blog.

We also went to our first Lowe's Build & Grow clinic to make these flapping bats! I was awed at how well Blake did for his age and it was exciting that they got to keep the aprons, got badges (like in girl/boy scouts) to sew on the aprons for finishing, as well as a certificate! How awesome is all that for FREE!?! We came home, took the apart, painted them black and put them back together. The albino bats were neat, but we like them black better :-)

Morgan participated in the newspaper's coloring contest...plus she tried on her Halloween costume....on multiple occasions! :-)

We made these ghost kites that we saw on the Frugal Family Fun Blog.

Morgan's preschool class isn't allowed to celebrate ANY holidays (I doubt Morgan will notice, but I was bummed!), so we made these pumpkin shaped popcorn balls to take in...just because ;-) No harm in pumpkins, right?

This next craft was a simple one that we saw on Trendy Treehouse. It's a Candy Corn Banner made from a paper plate! Super easy!! :-)

Of course, we had to get our REAL pumpkins out of our garden. Here Morgan and Blake were trying to carry the pumpkin together since they're kinda heavy :-)


Leine even got in on the fun!

Posing for a picture with all the pumpkins from the garden.

Once we had the pumpkin, we had to make something yummy with it, so we tried these Pumpkin Swirl Brownies. I also made some Pumpkin Fluff Dip and Ginger Snap Strips to put the dip on-YUM! (It was good on cinnamon graham crackers too!)

The night before Halloween a local church did a trunk-or-treat. The kiddos got all dressed up, Blake as a firefighter and Morgan as Snow White, to go to their first trunk-or treat.

I thought a couple of the trunks were pretty neat! This one made Blake forget all about candy! LOL!

Gotta LOVE the Beverly Hillbillies! Not really a trunk, but it was still really neat!! :-)

On Halloween we finally got around to carving a pumpkin. The kiddos weren't too anxious to touch the insides though...

I did the drawing depending on what the kiddos said they'd like and Rich did the carving while I cleaned some seeds to make some Sugared Pumpkin Seeds that I saw on Gooseberry Patch's facebook page.

In the afternoon we went to the nursing home that Rich's great-grandma is at for the kids to trick-or-treat. She is in her 90's and doing great! :-)

After that we did our regular trick-or-treating and then some! Instead of just going to family this year, we made it to friends of the family too! I think we made it to 10 places all together and were able to visit a little at most of them, which was nice :-)

Today, the kids are going to go through some of their candy and give it to our dentist office. I'll be taking in all the candy we bought for trick-or-treaters too, since we didn't get any again this year living out in the country. The dentist is buying candy off of kids to send to local soldiers! I thought it was really neat and I'm going to see if they'll just keep the money to use for shipping. :-)

The Halo Shirt Review

Did you know that cleft lip and cleft palate are the most common birth defects of the head and face for children worldwide? These children suffer from multitude of health issues like difficulty breathing and hearing loss and not to mention have to endure several surgeries to help fix the defect.

Unfortunately, many parents worldwide cannot afford to have their child's cleft lip/palate treated, which means those children then endure being an outcast in their communities. Although being at outcast is mostly known by children with cleft defects in developing countries, I remember my neighbor, who had a cleft lip (which had been treated) and stuttered, being made fun of on the bus. I don't remember a lot from back then, but that stuck with me because I knew how much that must have hurt him and I wish I had the guts to stick up for him.

Thankfully, we do live here in the U.S. and my neighbor had the opportunity to go to college, get a good job and is doing great now. But knowing not everyone has opportunities my neighbor did, it's nice to know that people like those at Little Lamb Kidz Properties, LLC. are doing what they can to help.

Little Lamb Kidz Properties introduced The Halo tee shirt- "a trend-setting symbol of compassion and support for a widespread pediatric problem." The Halo tee shirt is made of 100% pre-shrunk cotton and has an image of a glowing halo, an encouraging symbol, on the front.

This tee with the halo image will help those with cleft defects because:

"Little Lamb Kidz will donate 10% of all sales of the shirts to Smile Train, an organization which provides free cleft-related surgery for millions of poor children in developing countries. The Halo™ tee shirt makes it possible for people who have a passion for this important cause to not only donate money but also raise awareness for it in their daily life. The Halo™ tee shirt can be purchased at http://thehalo.littlelambkidz.com/. It is available in both adult and children sizes."

I was sent a t-shirt for Blake to wear and he seems to like it. He REALLY likes that it glows in the dark!! It's definitely a nice quality shirt and it seems like it is going to hold up to my rough 'n tough little guy. I'm proud that he is wearing it, so we can help spread the word about the children with cleft defects to whoever inquires about it. Even though I wasn't able to stick up for my neighbor way back when, maybe this will help me do a little something for a child somewhere now. :-)

Buy It!: The Halo tee adult size costs $19.95, while the child size shirts run $14.95. Please click here if you are interested in purchasing The Halo tee.

*All quotes and cleft palate information came from The Halo tee shirt press release.

*Disclosure: I was provided a t-shirt and asked to help spread the word about Little Lamb Kidz efforts with The Halo tee. All opinions about The Halo tee are my own.