Teach Me to Walk in the Light Subway Art

Last Sunday as I was listening to an amazing talk on motherhood I was inspired yet again, that my children are and were ALWAYS meant to be MY children. And yet again, I felt overwhelmed at the responsibility that I have to teach my children how to be good and responsible and to know the gospel of Jesus Christ. I started to feel that there was no one less capable than me when I felt I should look in the topical guide of the Hymn book under "mother". There were only a few songs listed, but I turned to page 304 Teach Me to Walk in the Light. It was a song I had learned years ago in primary and as I read through the hymn I realized how simple the truths were that I needed to teach my children. I knew I needed to hang these words up in my home to remind myself often of why these little people were sent to me and what my duty is as their mother. First, I searched the Internet to see if anyone had made a free printable of the hymn that I could use, but I didn't find anything. So here is my secret of the day...I spent about two and a half hours doing this in Publisher. I didn't know what I was doing and I kept being asked to be mommy...you know, apple juice, movies, bananas...nap time. Once I got comfortable with where all the buttons were in publisher (this is only my second project with that program) it went pretty smoothly and what took so long was deciding on colors and fonts. Because I feel like these words are so helpful to all parents and I am inviting you to right click and save as to use in your own home, but please don't sell it.

COLORS

BLUE

BLACK/GREY

PINK

I decided to hang it in Hope's room for now. It may find it's way somewhere else in our home, I'm not sure yet.

Christmas Yummies!

While making my grocery list this morning I decided that the kids and I needed to make some Christmas treats today. So in true "fly by the seat of my pants" style we got a few ingredients from said shopping trip and got a little messy.

First we melted chocolate chips and cooking oil...

 Hope got to stir...

so did Noah.

Then we dipped.

We didn't get as messy as I thought we would, which is just fine by me. Hope has found a new love for chocolate covered pretzels and now I have something to give to neighbors!

I also made these drawing cases last week that I found on Pinterest. I am going to use this as stocking stuffers for Christmas.

Homemade Playdough

When I was in the second or third grade I had a science project due at school. Probably my first one ever and if I remember correctly, I waited until the night before it was due to even start. (It is amazing how parts of your personality like procrastination start at such a young age and stubbornly stick with you until you realize that the only way it will get unstuck is if YOU unstick it.) Anyway, the project was that I had to create one of those little boxes that you look into and the environment was colored all over the sides of the box and the subject was somewhere in there. I spent a few minutes trying to google what this was called, but no luck. It is driving me insane now. I'm sure Ben will know (he knows everything) when he gets home. I kind of got off track there...DINOSAURS. We had to mold our favorite dinosaur out of playdoh or clay and create the environment in which it lived in this little box. Well, because I waited until the last minute I had no clay or playdoh. Mommy dearest saved the day. She said she could make some homemade playdoh and that it would work just fine. I don't remember if I expressed my disappointment or not, but I was thinking, "Homemade playdoh? This is going to suck." She went off into the kitchen and a short while later I had a lump of play dough! I was pleasantly surprised because A) it didn't smell nearly as horrific as store bought playdoh B) it was a shade of blue, which was my favorite color and finally C) it had an awesome sandy texture which I have always loved. Needless to say I finished my project and mom gave me a memory that I have recalled on many many accounts thus far in my life. Every time I have thought about playing playdoh with my kids, or I am squishing that sick smelling stuff through my fingers I think about that night and how mom had made playdoh that was so much better than any store bought stuff.

Today, probably close to 25 years later I decided to give it a try myself. I found a recipe online and to my surprise already had all the ingredients on hand. My mom suggested that I let the kids help make it and I did just that. Well, Hope anyway. Noah is with his dad, and here is what Eden was doing...

...eating a cookie.

Hope was snacking too, on a pringle. In the middle picture you can see her putting salt in the pot with one hand and holding her chip in the other. :) That's my girl. I asked her what color she would like the play dough to be, although I already knew what she would say. Purple! It is her favorite color, and luckily we had some purple food coloring, so purple play dough it would be. I gave them some cookie cutters and Hope was very proud of herself for making the shapes, check out the bottom right picture.

Mom- be sure to click on the collage to make it bigger, Hope is making some pretty priceless expressions you will want a close up of! In the top right picture she was really get into it and stood up on her chair to find the most efficient way to smoosh her playdough.

Eden did as expected. She was excited but didn't know what to do with it. I tried showing her a couple of things and finally she was content with tearing it into pieces and throwing it on the floor after unsuccessfully trying to slather it in her hair.

Eden played about 10 minutes total and Hope about 15. Short-lived, but at least it stores in the fridge for a while. Or so I'm told.

***DIORAMA!!! Ben told me. :)***

An Amateur's Crayon Roll

First item of business is to give credit to the blog that I used to accomplish this project.

Thank you Skip To My Lou! If you want to make a crayon roll I would highly reccommend using that site instead of mine, but just for fun...read on! :)
Secondly, I have to tell you that this is my second crayon roll. I made one a few months ago that is too embarrassing to post a pic of. Straight lines are not easy to sew for EVERYONE okay? I want to make these cute little crayon rolls/colored pencil rolls for stocking stuffers this year, so yesterday I made another for practice. Every time I make one I learn something different to do next time. That is what practice is all about right?

You lucky duck. This time I took pictures of most of my steps so that I could document this sewing project on this here blog. I figure if I am going to learn how to do something why not take family and friends along on the ride so they will have further proof that I am not the perfect person they imagine me to be. *hahaha* In any case it will be fun to see my progress (assuming I make some) with sewing.

Here goes...

Step one: Pick out fabric. Simple enough right? I needed two pieces that were 5 x 16 1/2 inches, and one corresponding pattern/color that was 6 x 16 1/2. The website I used said to use 5 x16 1/2 fusible interfacing, but I didn't have any on hand, so I just used an extra piece of fabric cut to those dimensions. I also needed 30 inches of ribbon and crayons for the finished product.

**A tidbit I learned: Choose a pattern that is better at keeping track of your sewing lines (like stripes) for the 6 x 16 1/2 piece, unless you want to spend a ridiculous amount of time marking lines.***

Here are my three pieces of 5 x 16 1/2.

Step Two: Fold in half and press the 6 x 16 1/2 fabric. This will be the pocket for the crayons. Place it on the right side of the piece of 5 x 16 1/2 fabric that will be the inside of your roll. The edge pockets will be 1 1/4 inches. All other pockets will be one inch. There will be a total of 16 pockets. Adding 1/4 inch sew the first pocket and proceed with the other pockets measuring out an inch for each. Leave an additional1/4 inch for the last pocket.  At this point the bottom of the pocket is still raw.

Step Three: If using fusible interfacing press it to the wrong side of the piece of 5 x 16 1/2 fabric that will be the outside of the roll. If using felt or other material pin it to the wrong side of the fabric.

***A tid-bit I learned: This part is very tedious but if you are an amateur like me you will want to take the time to measure and mark each pocket line, making sure that they are an inch apart (with the exception of the end pockets which will be 1 1/4 inches wide). If available use a water soluble pencil OR mark it on the wrong side of the fabric so that your marks won't show on the final product. Also, back stitch at the beginning and end of each line you sew. That may be obvious to seasoned seamstresses, but this post is titled "amateur" for a reason.***

The outside of the roll is on the left and the inside with the pocket on the right.

Step Four: Fold the ribbon in half and pin the ends to the right side of either piece of fabric. Place the right side of the remaining piece of fabric (the piece with the pocket) on top of the ribbon and the right side of the piece of fabric it is pinned to. Now you will be looking at the wrong side of the fabric. Pin it.

***A tid-bit I learned: Make sure that the majority of the ribbon is hanging out on the inside of the fabric. Not on the outside of the fabric. Duh.***

Step Five: Sew 1/4 inch seam along all the edges, but leave about 3 1/2 inches on one of the ends so that you can turn the roll right side out. Remember to back stitch at the beginning and end of each line. Trim the edges.

***A tid-bit I learned: This is a very important step. You may want to place a reminder pin so you will give yourself enough room for turning. Also, if you think anything less than 3 inches is enough room for turning you would be mistaken....or very talented if you pull it off.***

Sewn and trimmed.

Step Six: Using a chopstick or wooden spoon handle, or anything else that would work, :) Turn the fabric right side out.

Step Seven: The website I used says to blanket stitch the opening that you left for turning. I don't know what this means, so being an amateur, I simply sewed it shut. Why not? If you have cool options on your sewing machine you could do a cool stitch to make it look like part of the design. Trim the edges that you just finished. And press the crayon roll.

 

Step Eight:  Fill with crayons!

 



Then roll and tie the ribbon.

 

 

TA-DA!!!

 

If you were actually able to accomplish anything by using my instructions I must congratulate you because as I reread this post I realized that giving directions IS NOT one of my strong points. And there you have more proof of my imperfection. Sillies.

Last Week of October

I love October. I think it is my favorite month. Fall is definitely my favorite season, unfortunately, the state I live in does not understand it's role in the seasons. In Utah the weather is what I would consider "Fall-Like" for maybe two weeks. Three if we are lucky that year. Anyway, with colder weather comes sickness and we caught it. The girls are recovering from the Croup and spent the last week and a half acting, sounding and looking quite pathetic. It was heart wrenching in this house morning, noon and night...especially night, as Croup worsens at night.  Because her voice was so hoarse, Eden's cry didn't sound real at all and was difficult to hear if I was in another room. So when she was sleeping I was not because I was afraid I wouldn't hear her when she did wake up. Eden would whimper, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" as if there were something I could do for her but I felt so helpless. I just kept reminding myself how comforting my mother's touch was, and still is, to me when I do not feel good and hoped that she would feel some of that same comfort from my holding her. Thank heaven for medicine, because it starting working pretty quickly. Hope actually got sick first, and had a few scary moments, but wasn't quite as pathetic as Eden. I am sure her age is mostly to thank for that.

Here is a look at one of the low points this last week.

Daddy's touch is just as nice as mommy's. One night he even got her to sleep when I could not. My kids are quite lucky to have such a great daddy.

Surprisingly, there were moments that I found to make the trick-or-treat bags that I've been thinking about making the kids. I have to take a moment and do something I never do; brag on myself. I have spent such a long time being intimidated by sewing (damn you 7th grade TLC) that I am just now gathering the courage to give sewing projects a chance. This is my third project and I have to say that I am quite proud of myself for accomplishing this project with a final result that is better than what I was hoping for! I didn't have a pattern to work from, so I took some suggested measurements from people online and went to work. It was a lot of fun and made me feel pretty good about myself. Granted, it is a simple bag, but right now I need all the recognition I can give myself.

Eden's is the bag in the first pic. Being that I went a week and a half before Halloween, the fabric store had little to choose from in the way of Halloween prints. The fabric for her bag was my least favorite while I was in the store, but once I finished them all it is now my favorite. I got glow-in-the-dark fabric paint and embellished the print here and there on each bag and hers was the best fabric to do that.

I knew I wanted the bags to be "lined" too, so it took me a while to figure out how to place everything to sew it correctly, but it was pretty easy once I got it figured out. I used transparent ribbon for the handles, which is my only regret. When I started sewing the handles in, I realized that they probably wouldn't last long and might fray rather quickly. Hopefully by then I will be more skilled with sewing and can fix the bags with a different type of handle. We'll cross that bridge when it breaks. Noah's bag is the spider web pattern. I really liked this fabric and was disappointed with my glow-in-the-dark spiders that I drew, but I felt like it needed a safety mechanism, thus the spiders. Hope's bag is the pumpkins. I embellished the faces of a few pumpkins. The kids really liked their bags and thought it was awesome that they glow-in-the-dark. Eden really didn't give a darn, but hopefully she'll think it is pretty cool next year.

On Saturday we stopped by a local pumpkin patch and the kids picked out pumpkins. Hope just wanted to kick them and toss the little ones around. I don't know where that behavior came from, but luckily she didn't break any of them. At one point I found Eden hugging a green pumpkin but of course missed that moment with the camera. When I asked her to hug it again she hugged Noah instead. I got a picture of that which is cute too. Check out the bottom right picture. Click on the collage to make it bigger...MOM. :)

Noah took a break on a hay bale and Eden must have thought this looked like a good idea. She sat next to him and grinned really big like she was doing something cool. It must have been because Hope soon followed.

We saved carving the pumpkins for Sunday evening. I took no part, except documenting the event. Pumpkin insides are one of the most disgusting things....EVER. But it's one of those things that it is so disturbing that you can't help but keep looking at it. So I took a picture. :) Noah actually carved his own this year. I told him he could use a butter knife and he did surprisingly well considering how dull it was. Next year I will have to get one of those pumpkin carving kits so he can use better tools. Now that I think of it, I think I said the same thing last year. Oh well. One of these years it will happen.

Hope thought the insides of the pumpkins were gross too and would have nothing to do with cleaning them. She enjoyed watching dad and Noah though. She requested one with a silly face and a cute little nose and daddy obliged. 

While the big kids made messes with pumpkins, Eden made a mess with yogurt.

She likes to put it in her hair. At one point she was slathering it on her arms like it was lotion. Silly monkey.
She also found Noah's gameboy entertaining. Although she used it as a telephone instead of a game. Noah thought that was pretty funny.

Here are the finished jack-o-lantern's.

Mickey Mouse even made an appearance.

Noah is spending Halloween with his dad this year but in just a few hours the girls and I will go trick-or-treating at dad's office.
Hope woke up a little earlier than usual this morning. She came into my room with a proud smile on her face hands on her hips and said to me, "It's Halloween! Can we go trick-or-treating now?" She has continued to ask me if it is trick-or-treat time every 20 minutes since we woke up.
Stay tuned for a post about the much anticipated trick-or-treating!!!

Noah's 10th Birthday Party - Zelda

***Let me preface this by saying that I feel a little guilty about posting Noah's birthday (which isn't really until Wednesday) before posting Hope's (which was August 5th). My only excuse is that all her bday pics are on Ben's work laptop and we keep forgetting to transfer them. No need to worry! It is one of hundreds of tasks on my mental "to do list" that is swimming wildly in my head. I'll make the post sooner or later.***

The planning for the party began exactly one week ago. Why? You ask. Simply because I have been so preoccupied that I didn't realize how quickly time was flying and that in order to have a celebration for Noah and his friends it would've had to have been last weekend. First thing I did was get on Facebook and ask for help. "How do I turn Noah's party into a life-size video game?" My ever witty brother soon answered, "Fill his room with bats and have him kill them with a boomerang." Once I finished laughing, I realized that I could do that to some extent; I would just find a pinata. This was the first idea for the party. Other siblings and mommy dearest gave me awesome ideas and called me several times trying to help. I can honestly say that this party would have been a complete disaster or never would have happened if it weren't for my family and Ben. So to them, THANK YOU!

The kids all arrived together, which was both a relief and weird. A relief because they were about ten minutes late and my heart started hurting thinking about the possibility of everyone being a no-show to my child's birthday party. Weird, because....it was just weird that they all showed up at the same time. First, I explained that this was a Zelda themed party and asked if anyone was familiar with the game. More relief...they were all familiar. I handed them each their homemade drawstring bags which contained a compass, a rupee, and an ocarina. Pretty proud of myself for sewing the bags. This was my second sewing project and granted they didn't turn out perfect, they were recognizably a bag. Next the kids told me whether they wanted red or blue potion which was funnelled into an a cool little potion bottle. Brian and Autumn helped with the dispensing of the potion since I was making a huge mess. Thanks guys! They also got a slice of pizza and then they all ate and Noah told them about his many adventures with playing Legend of Zelda.

Once everyone was full the adventure began. I gave them each a Bremen mask which Ben and I made from a mask, a feather boa, spray paint and a sharpie. I think I had to tie just about every one's mask on, as you can see from one of the pics they were having some difficulty doing it themselves.

 The first dungeon was Skulltulah's House. They needed to wear their masks as they ventured through the big spider web so that they could rescue bugs from the web. To open the gate to Skulltulah's house they had to play a song on their ocarina.

Dodongo's Cavern was next. I explained that they would find their power bracelets by killing the bat. Noah went last and after a couple of whacks candy and prizes...and power bracelets went flying!

The power bracelets had to be worn in order to accomplish the next task, which was target practice with bombs at Arbiter's Ground. I filled enough water balloons for each kid to get two bombs and they took turns throwing their bombs at the target (which Ben made to look like the Triforce) until their bombs exploded. One of Hope's bombs was exceptionally strong and survived many many throws at the Triforce. Finally daddy threw it way up in the air and when it fell it exploded and all the kids thought the grass crater that it left was very cool.

I don't know what was so cool about it, or why I felt the need to share the picture of the grass crater, but there you have it.

Caleb also had a resilient bomb. In the bottom right corner you can see Brian showing Caleb how to throw his bomb way up in the air.

The last "dungeon" was City in the Sky. Ben placed boards around the yard and dug a trench in the sandbox. The kids had to collect all the boards and build a bridge across the trench to get to the Triforce (the cake). However, I didn't communicate my intentions well to Ben before he dug the trench and the objective got a little lost. The kids still had fun though and I am just relieved that we were able to pull it off in a week.

Next, we sang Happy Birthday and had birthday cake. I was disappointed with how the cake turned out, but it was a learning experience and when Noah first saw it his face lit up and he said "Awesome!" That made me feel good because I thought it looked like a mess.

Last was presents. He got a race track and a couple of cars for the track, an AirHog rocket, and a Nerf gun with darts. From Uncle Brian's family, Brian's old comic books which Noah thought was amazing and kept making comments about how old they were.

It was a great party and hopefully a very memorable one for Noah. I have decided that these kind of parties will only occur on my children's 5th, 10th, 13th and 16th birthdays. With a big celebration for their baptisms around their 8th....but that doesn't count since it is technically not a bday party. They can have family parties in between and dare I say I am excited for the next "big" bday party. Which will be next August for Hope's 5th birthday! I think I will give myself the entire year to plan and prepare for it instead of just five days. :)

***This picture was after he opened the present from gpa Bosley, a laptop and a wireless mouse from Aunt Cheryl's family and a laptop case from our family.***

Happy Birthday Noah! You are LOVED!!!

May

May was a crazy month. I know that some of you are wondering about my pregnancy blog. I deleted it because I am no longer pregnant. At my first doctor's appointment we found that the baby had stopped growing at 6 weeks and 1 day so I had a D&C the day after the appointment. It was pretty rough for both Ben and I, but we are feeling much better. We feel that that little spirit will join us again when there is a body that is sufficient for her.

On a lighter note, a lot of great things happened too! Here are a few highlights.

Ben has been building a playhouse in the backyard that the kids are very excited about. The pic below was taken at the beginning of May, and Ben has changed the design since. I will post a newer pic soon.

 Noah had an art show at school and graduated from 1st grade!!! Where did my baby go?

 Ben and I celebrated our 3rd Anniversary. Every year we get a cake from Granite Bakery the same place that did our wedding cake. YUMMY!

 Hope had her first sucker. I know that 21 months is a long time to wait for a sucker, but I have a choking phobia, so I don't care.

I refinished some picture frames for Hope's room. I still haven't put them up, but they turned out a lot better than I thought they would.
I was actually trying to get a picture of Elmo, and the kids got in the way. :)

Noah will be spending most of the summer here (YAY!!), so I am sure that I will be posting lots and lots of pictures soon.