We are ready!

We have wrapped everything in sight, baked everything we could think of and talked to the big man. Let's do this thing!

Merry Christmas!

Just in case you were left off our Christmas card list! Hoping you and yours have a wonderful Holiday!

Temple Square

If you live in the Salt Lake Valley and especially if you are LDS a trip to Temple Square is mandatory every December. Yesterday we made our annual trip. Bad picture, lovely night.

This view just never gets old.

Hope every one's Holiday preparations are going well!

Grandpa's Toys

In an effort to keep my boys busy on Thanksgiving my dad got out some of his toys from when he was a kid. I don't ever remember seeing these before. That is how special they are. Matthew had a great time with the erector set.

Josh loved this awesome truck that resides in its original box.

Thanks Grandpa, for sharing such precious toys and the memories they made.

Some of my Favorite Things

The house is all decked out and ready for Santa's visit, that is one requirement I can say I have met. Thought I would share a couple of my favorite spots. This is my pride and joy this year. William's mom has made us each these gorgeous, cross-stitched stockings and last year she finished Joshua's so now we have a complete set. They make me so happy whenever I look over there during the day.

My big nativity, I have several but this is the "real" one. My parents gave it to us one of the first couple of years we were married. It has traveled with us and survived the kids so far. I love it.

The Christmas tree.

The gingerbread village on the kitchen table.
I always think my house looks its very prettiest at Christmas.

Ginger Snap Village

This weekend it was time to make our traditional Gingerbread Village, or ginger snap village as Josh called it. I guess we never eat gingerbread but we do eat gingersnaps. Here is the gang hard at work. I love the Gingerbread village from Wilson. I bought it at Michaels, it comes with five houses-the perfect number for my family, the frosting and some candy. I swear we get better every year.

The finished products. I put them on my little cake platters, which were fun to decorate them on too, and now they are my centerpiece on the kitchen table.

Making an American Girl's Doll Bed

This was this weekend's big accomplishment. The American Girl Dolls are huge with just about every little girl I know this year. My daughter, nieces, neighbors and friends. One of which would like a bed. No way was I forking out for the AG version and some of the knockoffs just didn't do it for me. So when I saw a wire shelf at the thrift store the wheels started turning and this is where it lead.

This was the shelf.

I cut a cute sheet into strips. I wanted it to go around the shelf two times before it was gathered. I gathered it, and then serged the edge. You could just zig zag the edge. Then I hot glued the whole thing to the shelf.

Then I made a blanket sandwich, just as if I was making a quilt. I used two layers of batting, and two layers of the sheet right sides together cut the same size as the shelf. I sewed around leaving an opening and then turned it. I ended up hot gluing this to the top of the shelf.

I added a pillow and blanket an Ta-dah! I have to say it is the cutest shelf around. This American Girl bed cost me $1.50 because I had just about everything. This is probably more information than most would want but on the off chance that some mom finds herself in the same position I thought I would share.

New in The Shop

Wow! Time is flying this time of year! I have lots of pictures of the reasons I haven't been blogging. But first I managed to get these girls into the shop in the hopes they may find homes. I won't be making any more this season. They are here.

New Experiences

This Fall Brittany made a big change. After years of taking ballet we were at a crossroads. Ballet was going to be three days a week which meant not a lot of time to explore other interests. So we decided to take a break from ballet and try something new. She signed up for a production program called Showstoppers. They teach kids a combination of dancing, singing and acting. They have class once a week and work toward a production at the end. This week has been performance week. She is pretty hard to see but she is a little left of the center.

This was the only number I could get to photograph without using the prohibited flash. It was really a fun night. Brittany has so much enthusiasm and tries so hard to do her very best, which is usually very good.

It was fun to see her develop new talents. We may go back to ballet, we both really love it, but it sure has been fun to try something new!

Thanksgiving Day

Well, it was back to normal around here after a lovely Thanksgiving day weekend. We had such a lovely Thanksgiving Day. My mom's pretty table before all the carnage.

We don't have a kid's table, just an end of the table.

After dinner the kids put on a play they had been working on all week. Can you guess what it was? Here's a hint. He is the white rabbit.

She is the Red Queen.

And this is the Mad Hatter's tea party.

Yep, it was Alice in Wonderland. Here is Alice trying to catch that cute white rabbit.

It was a fabulous production and everyone took well deserved bows when it was over. I think this may replace out usual Fashion shows at Grandma's. Brittany is already busy on the next production!

Three big Thankful fors

I am so thankful for so many things this Thanksgiving Day, but especially for these three funny kids that are mine. Josh, in his sister's boots.

And in his brother's dead basketball. We got this kid just for entertainment.

Brittany, who is always orchestrating something new for her brothers, friends or cousins to do.

Matthew, creator of all things mechanical.

As frustrated and tired as I sometimes may get being the mom, I don't know what I would do without these funny kids!

A couple of new favorites

My sister-in-law Elizabeth gave me this dish scrubbing brush for my birthday last month. Isn't it the cutest? It almost makes doing dishes fun, and that is saying a lot. I hate doing dishes.

This gum! I love it! I kept wishing someone would make chocolate flavored gum and this is the closest thing I can imagine. It is yummy!

What is your favorite thing?

First Snow Day

This is what we woke up to yesterday after our evening of Nutcracker. Talk about getting you in a wintery mood! The boys couldn't wait and had to go right out and start shoveling.

Brittany had to get busy on a snowman.

They named him Henry and he was one of the best they have ever done in my opinion. Better yet, I didn't have to help!

Henry was very talented and displayed his enormous talent for doing the limbo. Right before gravity won and he turfed it into the turf. Farewell Henry, we sure enjoyed you while it lasted!

Note: Right after I wrote this post and scheduled it to post in the morning I heard crying from Josh's room where he was supposed to be sleeping. What were the tears for? He was missing the snowman and was sad he was gone! I had to go get a special little snowman my friend Tiffany painted for me for him to hold as he went to sleep and promise to make one out of pom poms in the morning that won't melt!

Tis the Season!

It is that time of year for us. Nutcracker time. We went last night with some favorite cousins, my sister's girls. I don't know what we will do if they ever don't have this guy for us to take pictures with.

Intermission, I swear Matthew really did want to go. Guess he was getting a little tired though.

Just my kids and Mr. Nutcracker. I have to admit, I had a hard time getting there this year. It was a snowy night, I missed the right turn and got disoriented in the snow and we ended up running through the parking lot to make it before they closed the doors. By the time we collapsed into our seats I thought to myself, " I am not sure we need to do this next year." But then the music started and the familiar backdrop and characters appeared. Before you know it I was transported to the Sugar Plum Fairy's magical kingdom. Some of our favorite kids did a beautiful job along with the gorgeous dancers from Ballet West. So you can count me in for next year and now I am ready for my favorite season to begin!

New Fall Wreath

I didn't have a good fall wreath so I decided to try a variation I have seen around Blogland. This was made from a couple of packages of silk leaves purchased from the dollar store, an old frame, hot glue and a couple of glitter leaves from Wal-mart's Christmas stuff.
Total cost $4

New Baby Quilt

Just finished this one last week for a friend's expected baby. It is backed with the that super soft fleecy stuff. Nice and soft. Now I can hardly wait to get my hands on its recipient!

New Favorite Cookie

I keep forgeting to put this recipe here and then I have to go to my friend
Jennie's blog to find the original. They are made from the basic Pumpkin cookie recipe floating around. I think it is a Weight Watchers recipe and only worth one point per cookie. But my friend Tiffany changed the cake mix to a devil's food cake mix and the result is a yummy, fudgy cookie I don't feel guilty eating or making. In fact my non-veggie eater Brittany loves these so I figure I should keep them around all the time to increase her veggie consumption.

1 cake mix-spice for pumpkin cookies or devil's food for chocolate version

1small can pumpkin

1/2 package of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

I mix the pumpkin and cake mix for a good minute or two, until it is nice and fluffy then add the chips. Bake at 350 for about 13 minutes. I usually like my cookies on the doughy side, these are one exception.

Still Alive

Wow, that was a longer break than I intended. I just haven't felt like blogging. Weird. I have been busy though. I made this pillow for a friend's birthday. I think it is my favorite so far.

One day last week my flower beds were pretty and full of color.

And then they weren't. Nice fresh canvas for next year though.

Oh, and I finally tried making the Sting of the Bee cake I have been wanting to try. It was yummy, and like a heart attack on a platter.

New in the Shop

I just added this to the shop. I am hoping to add more pillows this week.