Happy Halloween!

Official Halloween Photo 2011 Here they are! My kids ready for the big day! We have a BYU football player, an astronaut and Morticia from the Adams Family.

Slightly recycled. Matthew wore the suit when he was this age. Brittany re-made the jet pack and in a moment of inspiration I decided to spray paint a thrifted motorcycle helmet for the helmet. You can't see them but I spray painted his snow boots too.

All right so this one tested me. My kids think they can dream up anything and I can deliver. I tried and tried to convince Matt that I couldn't make him a football player costume. We tried to find something else but he really wanted this. We borrowed a helmet from a neighbor but it really was too small. There was no way I was spending the big money for the real thing on line either. Then one day, because I must be living right, at the thrift store there it was. A full set of football pads WITH a white practice jersey! They were an adult large but who cares! He was so excited! So then I used freezer paper to stencil BYU, the number and his name on the back. He was pretty excited when he saw them. Next was a helmet. This was actually a motorcycle helmet I thrifted too. Spray painted it white, painted the stripe down the middle and added decals I bought. Next problem; the pants. I had found actual football paints at the thrift store but they were gold. And polyester and no matter what I tried I could not get them to take the blue dye I tried to use. So finally I took the baseball pants and my trusty spray paint again. I sprayed them blue and hoped for the best. And it worked! Yep, this Halloween was brought to you by Kylon spray paint!

Morticia. Boy it was fun to transform Brittany into the Adams Family matriarch. She took the
role very seriously too! Now we are ready to hit the road and hunt for candy! I get the Milky Ways for all my hard work!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

The Pumpkin Patch 2011

I took the boys to the pumpkin patch this weekend. Brittany was already visiting one with a friend. Don't you love the boys faces in this one? "All right Mom, we will smile if you make us?.

We aren't very good at the self portrait but I still like this picture.

Matthew the Pirate!

Me and Josh, cute couple aren't we? It was lots of fun, even if it did take me a couple of days to recover from breathing hay!

Christmas Cards...Check!

It was a gorgeous day yesterday. The leaves on the mountain are perfect. William was out of town so I wasn't going to make dinner and suddenly I decided to take the pictures for this year's Christmas card. I love this one, even if you can see my shadow.

Like this one too, even if you can't see their faces.

This might be the winner though!

Guess What I am Going to Be for Halloween?

Found these and had to have them. They remind me of the boots I had when I went to college and started dating William. Guess I will have to be a cowgirl for Halloween!

Matthew's Remodel

Remember the remodel of Matthew's room? Well he has been doing some remodeling of his own. When I finished my remodel there were the four large pictures of cars hanging on that wall. Matthew has been carefully cutting out pictures cars from his dad's magazines and carefully creating this collage with low-tack tape. He worked so hard, and it does look pretty cool doesn't it?

Halloween Decorations

If it is time for another holiday you know I am going to have to make some new crafts! I seem to be into banners and I didn't have a Halloween one. This is actually the one I made for my sister but mine is like it just shorter.

This was inspired by this on Pinterest. Mine is very different, since mine uses pictures of my family at Halloween's past and doesn't spell Halloween. Love how Pinterest sparks my imagination.

Brittany has been feeling like making some Halloween crafts too. She made these lovely witchies from dollar store barbies. She put tape over their eyes and mouths to preserve the paint then we spray painted them green. We also sprayed their dresses black. Pretty fabulous aren't they?

Under Glass

I haven't posted much lately. I think my screen time has been mostly spent on Pinterest. Is everyone as addicted as I am? I love being able to keep all the great things I see in blogland in one place so that when I want to do something I can actually find them again. This is an idea I saw there. This is the site that had the tutorial. So easy and doesn't everything look cuter under glass. Just in case you don't check out the tutorial I will fill you in, glass votive from the dollar store with two flat glass marbles super glued on top. I had two sizes so I used them.

I can't seem to stop finding things to put under glass!

The New Pumpkin Recipe

Every year I seem to find a new favorite pumpkin recipe. It has been pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies made with a cake mix, the pumpkin cookies with a chocolate cake mix. This year it is pumpkin muffins with a cream cheese filling. I found it on Pinterest, well actually two recipes that I combined. According to one of them. Each muffin is under 150 calories. Only problem is I want to eat about 10 a day! So here is this year's recipe:
Mix together 1 block of the 1/3 lower fat cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar.
Then form it into a log shape on plastic wrap and freeze for two hours
Then combine:
1 small can of pumpkin or 1/2 a large can
1 spice cake mix
1 cup water
Remove frosting log from freezer and cut into 24 pieces
Fill each muffin liner a little less than half full then add a piece of the frosting mixture. Top with more muffin mix. The muffins in the picture were topped with cinnamon sugar. The first time I made them I sprinkled a crumble on top made of 1/2 sugar, 4 T butter 5 T flour and 1 1/2 t cinnamon. They really were ultimately more yummy with the crumble topping but I figured the cinnamon sugar saved a few calories. Plus it was faster. Bake for 20 minutes at 350

This is what it looks like inside. Sooooo good!

Remodeling

There is something about September that makes me want to do stuff to the house. I have been at it again. Before. Nothing really wrong. I was just bored.

The lack of window treatments was bugging me.

New window. Another chair. Recovered the easy chair and new ottoman. Added yellow pillows.

From above

This was a chair I found at the thrift store for $5. It wasn't perfect but for that price I couldn't leave it.

After some new paint and fabric.

I decided it was time for a new table cloth too. I had found the wire basket thing at the thrift store too. Then I decided to extend the yellow and covered some wiffle balls the boys were done with.

This is my favorite splash of yellow. I inherited this chair from my mom when Brittany was born. I think she had gotten it from her grandmother and rocked us in it.She had painted it black when I got it. I painted it white. I almost went back to the black but decided to go with color. Glad I did. I don't know that I can ever part with this rocker. I rocked all my babies in it. So it is good it got a face lift. Now it is time to get ready for the holidays!

My Boy of Fall

Matthew has been begging for a long time to try flag football since his mother is mean and won't let him play tackle. They have been playing for a few weeks now. I have to admit it is pretty fun. Even when we don't win.

I found myself turning into that mom. You know the one screaming her head off in excitement. So embarrassing. But fun.

The little boys are loving it too. This is Josh with his buddy Gage and a random boy they made friends with. They play too only with their own rules.

Brittany even came to the first game. As did Grandpa and his dog Elliott. Hurray for the Boys of Fall!

Forget Not

One of my favorite blogs posted a great reminder of one of my favorite talks from General Conference. Well, the Relief Society broadcast really, but they are connected in my mind. She had just taken some pictures of forget me nots and then turned it into the perfect little reminder. The blog link is here and the written talk is here.

Soccer Boy!

Guess where you can find us Saturday mornings lately? Yep, soccer field. Josh is playing with his friend Gage. Gage is the superstar-we count on Gage for the goals and Josh for the entertainment. I love this picture of my sweaty boy finding a seat watching his friends.

He really is chasing a ball even though it isn't in the picture. Josh seems to be getting the game a little better this year. He will at least chase the ball down instead of just following his buddy Gage around.

Can you tell his moves usually are a little more fluid than most? I have to take some video because the way Josh plays soccer it is a little more like soccer/dancing. Lots more fun for me to watch!

The Birthday that Never Ended

So as part of his Birthday present Matthew requested a room make-over like I did for Brittany. I really didn't intend for it to be too extensive but these thing sort of evolve and it turned into a complete overhaul. I snapped this one right before we started. After I had spent the entire morning hauling out junk. Man, little boys can be hoarders too.

My mom, the super-decorator helped. She thought it would be fun to have a reading corner. Found this chair and ottoman at the thrift store. I covered the lampshade with the fire fabric that is in his room too.

I painted a new headboard, also found at the thrift store, black. Everyone had their college bedding on sale so he did get a new comforter. I made the new quilt on the foot of the bed, also the letter M pillow using freezer paper.

There is also a music corner, I found him a keyboard for his birthday on KSL so now he is ready to start piano lessons. The rug was in the college bedding stuff too.

It seemed to be a big hit!

The Book Page Wreath

I haven't blogged much lately. Or been on the computer at all much really. The kids going back to school and adding all their activities has changed the tempo of life around here. I think we are finding our groove now though. I have taken advantage of some of the kid free time to work on some projects. I have wanted to do this one for months. I used this tutorial for months. It took a pretty good chunk of time to finish but I really love it. It actually has more color in real life.

Family Reunion

We had a little family reunion this weekend. It was a great day full of fun. The kids swam, played badminton, and played a some video games. The men even got a killer game of badminton going.

There was a lot of fun had in the pool.

Tante Maren has all boys so when she gets the nieces at her house she gets busy and paints nails, and does makeovers. This time it turned into a huge session of dress-up. Uncle Glendon had been on a trip to India and brought home a huge collection of fabulous Indian fashions that the girls had a blast. These are some pictures of Brittany and her cousin Brigitte. Aren't they fun? It was a great day, great memories were made!

My Boy is Nine!

I can't believe it, my baby boy is nine! He was my tiniest baby and now he is so big! We have been celebrating all weekend long and we aren't done yet! This was his friend party. We took he and four friends to the Aquatic center. Brilliant, if I do say so myself. They had a blast and I read a book. Again, any birthday party where I am reading a book is a good one! It was a small enough group that they played together the whole time.

Then we had a little family party today. The cake was Lego inspired Pirates of the Caribbean. This has become my go-to cake idea for boys. The cake is easy, turns out very cool and the boys keep the legos. He was pretty happy with the keyboard I found on KSL so he can start piano lessons. He also spent a good chunk of the weekend working on the volcano kit an car model he received. I think he had a good birthday. I sure am glad he is my boy. He is a good, sweet, smart, amazing boy! Happy Birthday Matthew!

For my Friend Sarah

It is that time of year when squash abounds. We were talking at lunch the other day about how you can only eat so much Zucchini bread. So for dinner the other night I tried baked Zucchini with mozzarella cheese. Except I used yellow squash instead of zucchini because that is what I had a lot of from the garden this week. I cut them thin, then dipped them in egg then in a mixture of bread crumbs (mine were gluten-free), Mrs. Dash, grated mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese. I sprayed a cookie sheet with Pam before I put them on it. Then I baked them for about 10 minutes at 350.

First Day

We finally made it to the first day of kindergarten! Here is my big kid, in line to enter the world of learning. He was so excited our biggest problem was making it to 12:40. He wanted lunch at 9 because I told him he could go to school after lunch. It was a great day, for both of us. As I have mentioned,that lovely lady in pink at the head of the line was my Young Women's leader when I was 12 so I had no apprehension turning my baby over to her. Now we are off to the second day.Yeah!

Grandma's Tea Party

One one of the last days of Summer last week my sister brought her girls up to spend the weekend at Grandma's and we were invited for a tea party. My mom is queen of the tea parties. First you had to get dressed up in Grandma's best finery.

That is a giant yellow rose cupcake, or a very small rose cake-depending on how you want to look at it. Lots of tiny treats!

A great time was had by all!