Thanksgiving

Well, my first thanksgiving is over, and it was (for the most part) a success.  If you ask anyone else, they will tell you it was great.  If you ask me, I will tell you that the turkey was dry.  Oh well, try again next year! :-)  More importantly then the food, my table was beautiful, which is what I was the most excited about.

My mom brought over some of her fall table cloths (since I only own one and it's not very festive). 

I took two different vases and filled them with cranberries.

Then I made burlap flowers, I used them as decorations and I turned 7 of them into napkin rings (I got the idea from Jen over at www.tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com check her out for other great decorating ideas).  They came out really cute! I was very excited.  If you like them also, I would be happy to sell you some.  I can make them with any color fabric and any color center, just let me know what you want. $5 for a set of 6.

At the last minute I added some black beads that I had left over.  When they were mixed with the cranberries, they looked like blueberries.  I think it finished off the table very nicely. The foam turkeys are place card holders that Ella and her Nannie (Great Grandma) made when she came to visit.  We tried to put place cards in them, but they wouldn’t stay, so they were just cute turkeys on our table.

Lastly, here are some photos of the girlies (they looked very cute in their tutus).  These were supposed to be for Christmas, but Ella really wanted to wear hers.

:-) HAPPY THANKSGIVING now bring on the Christmas decorations! Well, not yet for me.  I am hosting an engagement party next weekend.  It is going to have a great “candy shop” theme.  Keep an eye out for photos of it in the coming weeks.

Coupon Causes Craziness

Does anyone else find all these coupon blogs overwhelming?
Part of me is jealous of the amazing money these women are saving and wants to get in on the action. The other part of me wants to throw up my hands and say, "forget it" this is too crazy. It just all seems so overwhelming and like I can't find a place to start. Oh well, back to it. I am determined to figure this thing out. I too will be one of those crazy money saving mamas!

Tried to be Mad

Was unsuccessful

When I asked her why she wrote on her face.  “My nose was itchy, and I’m not supposed to put my finger in my nose mommy.”

My First Tutorial (also titled sknath evig)

So, I have been working on this project for a few days and I am very excited to share it all with you.  It’s a burlap thanksgiving banner and this is how I did it:

Here’s what I started with.  Burlap, twine and a cool font from www.1001fonts.com (super awesome, check it out, it has a ton of free fonts).

The first thing I did was decide what I wanted to say and type out the letters.  I added a triangle around each printed letter to make sure my letters would fit the pieces of my banner.  Then I cut out each letter (this is where I spent hours wishing I had one of those crickit machines)

Next I made a triangle pattern on cardstock, traced it onto my burlap and cut them all out.

Now, take the cut out letters, lie them on the burlap and trace around them.  I used brown sharpie so that if it showed a little at the end it wouldn’t be a big deal (it was a little hard to see when I got to the painting though, next time I might just use black).

Next I used black acrylic paint to fill in each letter.  I was really happy with how it came out. 

After the paint dried I flipped each piece over and glued it to my twine

Then I stopped to admire my finished product

And learned a valuable lesson.  I have a new important phrase

Think it through

Before you glue

I thought about not posting this.  I also thought about fixing it first and then posting like nothing happened.  However, I decided to show it for what it is, in all its glory.  I may fix it, I may not, I haven’t decided yet.  It’s a memory :-)         

The Girlies

This is how Wendy woke up from her nap the other day.  I still haven’t figured out how she did it.

Ella went to her first big girl birthday party this week.  We curled her hair for the occasion.  She had a great time and came home with a whopper of a party favor.  We are now the proud owners of Foofoos the Fish.

The other day Ella was looking through her jewelry box and she found a bracelet and necklace that some very good friends gave me when I was probably six years old.  It brought back a lot of memories and made me happy to see her wearing them.

This is how Ella watches Angelina Ballerina…so cute!     

Projects

So today Ella was itching for “something special and different” to do.  We have entered the project phase of life, which is lots of fun.  I am working on some Christmasie project ideas this week and hoping ot have one new project for her each week.  However today, using the limited resources I had at home and my limited knowledge of easy projects we created a paper count down chain to count down the days until Christmas.  And by we, I mean that Ella tried to cut a few pieces and got frustrated and I cut the rest, and then Ella tried to staple, got frustrated and I did the rest.  She did help count them and loop them together though.  I think it came out really cute.  Check it out.    

Some Fun Stuff

Just thought I would post some of the fun things we’ve done this week. Hope you enjoy :-)

Wendy has a cold.  So I did what any good mother would do to make her little girl feel better.  I gave her a COOKIE! She had some fun smashing it around and making a mess for about 20 minutes. (Enough time for me to get dinner ready)

Ella got to take Cubbie Bear home for the week and she has been having a lot of fun with him.  Last night, after Wendy went to bed, Ella decided that Cubbie, herself and I all needed to get beautiful.  She made me beautiful.

When I asked her why she was brushing my hair this way she said, “I cover you up, that’s how you are beautiful.” Haha…I guess that’s what I get for not wearing any makeup.

Then it was my job to make Cubbie Bear pretty.

Then Cubbie was in charge of making Ella pretty.

Then we took some “pretty people” photos. Which was very difficult considering I couldn’t see, but I think they turned out pretty great.

     

The Big Update

Alright, so we are finally mostly unpacked.  I found my card reader and I downloaded new blogging software, so here are the updates. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, this is the longest blog in the history of all blogs and SUPER picture heavy.  Proceed at your own risk

1. We moved! We have our own place on lake Meridian and it is beautiful.

The front of the house.  Isn’t it cute!

The view from our front porch.

A close up of the lake.  You can see more on the other side of this house, but I couldn’t get a good shot because of the sun.

These is coming in the front door.  The upstairs takes you to the living room and the downstairs takes you to the garage and master suite (pics of master will come once I get it completely situated).

Living room from the top of the stairs

Living Room View 2

Living Room View 3

Playroom.  This is supposed be the formal dining room, but we don’t have anything to put there and it works perfectly as a play area.

Kitchen View 1

Kitchen View 2

Breakfast Nook / Sun Room (Off of the kitchen)

These barstools came with the house.  They are a little short, but I think they are really cute.

The Office

I thought the bookshelves came out really cute. (Yes, I am aware that there are no pictures in the frames, its on the list.)

This organizer came from our bedroom closet in the old house.  It is working really well for holding all that odds&ends office stuff.

The office is a work in progress.  I need to get about 5 more of the towers from IKEA to put all of our DVD’s and CD’s in. I don’t like the idea of them all sitting out in the office, but right now, I have to work with what I’ve got.  Any suggestions for an attractive way to store them?

Guest Bathroom

Wendy’s Room View 1

Wendy’s Room View 2

Wendy’s finished bumper pads

and bolster pillow (I designed the and my mom made them).

Ella’s Room View 1

Ella’s Room View 2

Ella’s Room View 3

Ella showing off her room!

Ella’s very own bathroom.  She is very excited.  Technically her room is the master, so she has a 3/4 bath.  Which is never uses, because it does not have a tub, but she still thinks its pretty spectacular. If you come over to our house one of the first things you will hear is, “Come and see my new bathroom!” 

           

Our backyard is huge! We are very excited for the girls to be able to play out there next spring.  And Briana is excited about volleyball.:-)

So, that’s the house for the most part. Hope you enjoyed the in-depth tour.  I don’t blame you if you skipped through it.  Most of that was for my grandma. :-)

                                               

2.  We did Halloween and it was lots of fun!

Our beautiful pumpkins that we got at the Thomason family pumpkin patch…super fun, I will post photos when I get them from my mom’s camera.

Yes, this took FOREVER! But I am really pleased with the way they turned out.  I think it was definitely worth it. It was very easy, just time consuming.

We had an impromptu and informal Halloween party at our house.  Impromptu in that we decided to have it three days earlier and informal in that there was absolutely no plan, no decoration and no food (or at least that was the plan), turns out I’m not good at not having any food…I bought tons of candy, made chicken pockets, an indoor s’more bar, and popcorn balls.  The Jensen’s also brought a ton of food.  All in all I would say it was a huge success.  If you didn’t hear about it I’m sorry, but like I said…super short notice.  I am looking at doing a winter party and if I do, you are all invited :-)

Ella was a ballerina and Wendy was a butterfly.  I put Ella in her tutu, headband, tights and jewelry and told her she looked beautiful to which she replied, “Not yet mom! I need hair clippies.”

Then I asked her if she was beautiful now?, “Not yet.” She said.  Then she went in the office and found this pair of pink nerdy costume glasses i have and put them on.

“Now I’m beautiful!” She said.

She had a great time trick-or-treating.

She wanted to push the button all by herself.  The old man above is our very nice British neighbor.  Him and his wife were very sweet.

We made the long and treacherous walk to Mrs. Emme’s for trick-or-treating. (They live a block away)

Of course we went to Grammie and Papa’s, we did the majority of our trick-or-treating in their neighborhood.

We had a great time on Halloween, hope you had a fun and safe time as well.

3.  We had Wendy’s MRI at children’s hospital and everything went well(ish).

Wendy’s MRI was very successful.  She had no problems with the aenesisa, which was a huge blessing.  They had warned us that it may take up to half an hour for her to wake up, but she was awake before she even made it back to the room.  Our doctor’s and nurses were all great and made us feel really comfortable.  The results of the MRI showed that Wendy does have a small cyst in her cerebellum, but that everything is forming normally around it and it should not cause her any complications in the future.  This caused a huge sigh of relief, because now we no longer have to worry about hydrocyphalus or dandy-walker.  That being said, Wendy is like her mother and can’t just be normal.  A few months ago my mother and I discovered a large bump on Wendy’s head that had not been there before.  She hadn’t fallen or anything, so we were concerned and confused.  We called Children’s Hospital and they told us to take her to the local urgent care, so that’s what we did.  The doctor at urgent care told us that Wendy was fine, she just had an irregularly shaped head.  We thought it seemed weird, but we were fine with it.  However, after the MRI Wendy’s neurosurgeon discovered that the bump in actually a large cyst that is “sitting on” Wendy’s brain. This cyst is not IN her brain, there is  a layer of bone between her brain and the cyst, so there is not a risk of it interfering with her development.  That being said, there are 3 options with a cyst like this. 1- It will stay the same size – in which case her skull will form normally around it and nothing needs to be done.  2- It will shrink and possibly even go away – nothing would need to be done. 3 – It will continue to grow – in which case it will need to be surgically removed.  We are fairly certain that it is growing and will have that confirmed in a few months.   If they do decide to remove it, it will require drilling a hole in her skull in order to remove the cyst ( I know sounds scary right, but they assure me that it is not as scary as it sounds).  They would like to do this before she is a year old, because that leaves a bigger chance that her own skull will grow in over the hole.  If they wait until after she is a year old they will have to graft bone from another place on her skull to cover the hole (this does not sound like an ideal choice to me…I would prefer what cut in my daughters head, not two)

So…that is the long winded news about Wendy and everything else that is going on in her lives.  I have some fun projects that I am hoping to get to soon and as I complete them I will share them with you.  I am sure a lot of other important things happened during my long absence from the blogosphere, so if you think of anything you want to know about or see pics of, just let me know.

Don’t blame me if you are exhausted and overwhelmed with information.  I warned you that it was VERY long!