Days of December 4

Weekends in December are CRAZY but fun too. So I am off to bed in a minute but wanted to keep up with my December scrapbook posts. So yesterday we made new ornaments. These were super easy but turned out real cute. We just carefully took the tops off some clear glass ball ornaments and then put about 15 inches of each of three coordinating ribbons and then wrote our name on a tag and the year. We tied a bow at the top & attached the tag.

Days of December 3

So how is December going for you? Mine is already going by way to fast. Maybe I am just trying to do too many things but I feel like I need a little more time in my day. For example... I didn't get our family Christmas newsletter written yet - which I was supposed to do yesterday. I do keep our letter very short and simple though so I plan to take 10 minutes and get it done today. I had hoped to send the Christmas cards out today but I think if I just get a good start on getting my newsletter printed and stuff them into the envelopes along with the photo that is already printed and ready to go (YIPEE) I may just take my time getting the addresses on them gradually over the weekend and drop them in the mail Monday. That would still be much earlier than I do most years.

Last night Savannah & Carson helped me get the neighbor gifts ready - we will deliver them sometime this next week. If you are a neighbor reading my blog, sorry for the sneak peak. It is simple... a sheet of window clings with a tag that says "we hope you CLING to your family & traditions this holiday season." I purposely made lots of them so we'd have plenty to take to family parties and other events too. I'd post a picture of the tag but I made that on the desktop downstairs when my laptop was being crazy yesterday and so I don't have access to it from the laptop now. Fortunately the laptop seems to be working fine today. Whew!

Well the kids are home today because of Parent Teacher conferences and so I should go and do our Dec. 4 activity with them and I do need to go to the grocery store sometime too and get the ingredients I need for a breakfast casserole to take to the ward Christmas breakfast that will be tomorrow morning. As for PT Conferences that I went to this morning.... um... I'm just gonna say that the boys are going to have to step up and do better or they will be loosing some privileges. I knew something was up when day after day they had no homework.

Days of December 2

I was thinking I might not get this post made today. My laptop was not behaving. I had to shut it down improperly three times and was very scared that it was going to die. I ran a full system scan and didn't find anything there to worry about and so then just to be safe I spent the afternoon backing up everything and anything just to be safe. I am hopeful that my laptop was just being weird and that it will continue to work - cuz I love it SO!

Anyway.... here is what we were up to in our Christmas celebrations on the 2nd. We made some hot chocolate jars and of course we made some for ourselves too. The girls put on Santa hats and delivered a few jars. Not everyone will be getting these goodies. You'll have to check back to see what the neighborhood gifts will be.

If you are interested in making some homemade cocoa you can find the directions HERE. If you want to make other gifts in a jar you can look at the Organized Christmas site. In years past I have done dry soup mix in a jar as well as some cookie jars too. They are lots of fun and I think they make such pretty gifts.

Days of December 1

As promised... I am back to tell you all about what we did for the first day of December. I showed you my advent calendar yesterday and that is when I showed my kids too.... well that night anyway. They loved it! We also hung our older advent calendar which is a felt tree with a different felt ornament to put up on it each day. We all enjoyed making some cute button snowmen tags too. Just so you can see them better I included a larger photo at the bottom of my post. I am loving the cute little videos that have been uploaded to youtube by KWernerDesign. She has a cute card for every day of December & this is just one of them. I hope to find time to make more of her designs. Click here to go to the video. Oh and yes... I know, I know... I am supposed to list credits for my layouts below and I will... later. The kids are going to be home and we will need to be doing December 2 activities!

Advent Calendars

I just can't believe that it is already December 1st. I know that December always goes by so quickly and so I am trying to hit the ground running so that I can keep up with all the festivities. I am still plugging along with my Holidays in Hand album and will be sharing my pages a day late each day for the month. Why? Well because I will be adding the photos as I go along so that the entire album will be finished by the end of the month. I won't be able to take my photos for December 1 until later when our family does the activity for the day and then I can add the photos to my page and share them tomorrow - so if you want to see what we are doing to celebrate the holiday season over the month be sure to stop in often. You can always use more ideas of family fun for the month of December... right?

One thing I can share with you right now is my new Advent Calendar that I made last week. I am so excited to share this with my kids later today. In each box of the calendar will be a paper with a scripture reference. Each scripture is one that will help us focus more on Christ. I want my children to have constant reminders of why we celebrate Christmas and to try to keep our focus on Christ this Christmas. So for this month we will deviate a little from our normal daily family scripture reading of the Book of Mormon - instead - each night we will gather and read the Christ scripture from the advent calendar and also read a holiday Christmas story. Clayne and I used to read a short Christmas story each night of December before we had children & I loved the holiday feelings I had from reading them together. When we had kids somehow that tradition slipped. I want to try it this year and see if we can get that tradition going again.

So anyway.... here is my calendar I made. I had seen another similar type on the internet this year and loved the idea but couldn't find that calendar kit around here. At Michaels Crafts I did find this one and I just took the train off the top painted the edges red and then used scraps of scrapbook paper and modge podge to add different papers to each door. At Michaels I also found the cute little figures that I glued to each door. One more thing that I found at Michaels was this little Christmas tree and a set of Nativity miniature ornaments. So in each door of the advent there will also be a little ornament that they can place on the little tree. When I was little I adored anything miniature and so I hope my kids will be just as intrigued with it as I would have been as a child.
We have a few other advent calendar type things that we traditionally do and I need to go and pull them out from the holiday decorations under the stairs so I'll be back to share those - probably tomorrow. Anyway... I did want to show a few of the fun advent calendars that I found on the internet (click the images to read more about the design of them & the artist who created them) and I encourage you to create some type of count down for your family too - we have always had so much fun with it. First... here is the advent calendar that got me wanting to make the one I did.
For more great advent calendar ideas just google and find one that works for you!

Finally... I did want to share with you another "advent" of sorts. At the Scrap Orchard there will be a fun count down with wonderful sales each day AND there will also be a different 4x6 brag book page each day that you cana get for free. I created one of the pages that they will be giving away... not sure what day they will be giving my page away but I am excited to collect all the pages and have a fun little book to showcase some of our holiday memories. Click the image below to go to the Scrap Orchard Blog and pick up the brag book page as well as read about the great sale.

Just a quick post

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. Ours was nice. So... yah... I did go out and hit a few of the Black Friday sales today even though I hadn't planned to. I have a nice jump start on my holiday shopping. I won't be doing a whole lot of shopping this year anyway. We are simplifying - much to Cheyenne's dismay. Not sure you can read the journaling on my layout here
"MErry Christmas starts with ME seems to be the way Cheyenne views this important holiday. True some of this has to do with being 14. Still we want to try and help her see Christmas is much more than about the gifts, so this year we are simplifying."

We have decided to give the kids each 3 gifts this year. They will still get their stockings filled and a gift from Santa but from Clayne and I they will each get 3 gifts:
Something you need
Something you want
Something to read
To create this page I used one of Chrissy's newest templates that is available in her fabulous grab bag for just $3 until Dec. 6. Go check it out by clicking the image below. I also used the kit Fra-Gee-Lay available at Scrap Orchard. While you are at the Scrap Orchard you will not want to miss the Farmer's Market - oodles of wonderful scrapbook products for just $1 each. Ok.... I must get busy and do some crafty projects now.

What is up?

So... what am I up to these days.... I'd like to know too LOL. I did sign up for Jessica Sprague's Holidays in Hand class and LOVE it. I hope to spend some quality time getting my ideas together from what I am learning so far. Basically the class is geared at helping you determine what is important to you & your family in relation to the Holidays (Christmas to be exact) and then getting your ideas together of what you want to do to celebrate so you can really make it happen and then of course to journal and scrapbook the things you do over the month of December.

Specifically... what have I been doing today? Well one thing I did was download some new albums from Amazon where they have several for $5. Quite a deal! I bought 5 new albums - my ears are so happy LOL.

And now for something a bit random.... a few sites that I enjoy checking often for Scrapbooking inspiration - these two are fun because they have something new almost every day.
The Simple Scrapper
The Daily Digi

Fun & Free Font Sites

This post is as much for me as for anyone else LOL. Sometimes I see a new site that I just really want to remember so I can go back and visit it when I have more time. I love handwritten fonts to use in my scrapbooking and I love it even more when I find a great site with free fonts. I have already been in the habit of visiting Kevin & Amanda's site and I have many many fonts from their site. Today I found another site called Sugar Frog Fonts and look forward to browsing it soon.

Happy Digital Scrapbook Day!

Did you know it was Digital Scrapbook Day? Well.... there is a lot going on out there on the net for everyone who enjoys the hobby of digi scrapping. I am having such a hard time narrowing down what I want to buy. There are some fantastic sales going on. Be sure to check out all the sales and activities going on at the Scrap Orchard, in Chrissy's Store at Elemental Scraps (spend $5 - save 30%, spend $10 - save 40%, spend $15 - save 50%!), & in Carina's Store at Two Peas. Hmmm I just took a looksie and as far as I can tell Carina doesn't have a sale for the DSD event. Still, as a memeber of her creative team I want to remind you to have a look at her store. I'll try to come back to update this post with some of the things that I just HAVE to buy this weekend - for now... I must browse some more sales. Hope you have a great day!

Stuff I Bought

These Drop Shadow Actions by Bec

I caved in and bought this darling alpha - Free Spirit.
I also picked up these paper borders. I already own her paper curls and tears and I love them!

A Layout to Share

Hope you all had a nice Halloween. I am now repenting for eating too much candy... but that is normal. We all had a good time and the dinner was a huge hit. I haven't had time to download my photos off my camera yet but hopefully will be back to blog them soon. Just wanted to share a cute page of my darling daughters that I scrapped this weekend. We took a bunch of fun fall photos just a few weeks ago. If you like the template I used you can pick it up for free in Chrissy's shop & be sure to check out the other products I used on my layout - many of them are on sale in her store today. You can click on my layout to go to get a full list of credits and you can click on the template image to go to Chrissy's shop. Oh and I just have to show off my desktop that uses the same photo plus others from that day. I just love it. You can pick up the desktop at Shabby Princess Blog for free and add your own pics and enjoy instant happiness too! Have a great Monday!

Another Blog Train

Just a quick post to let you know about a fun blog train that you may want to hop on! Click the image to go to the Orchard Blog where it all starts tonight at midnight.

Halloween Dinner Menu

Ok I have it narrowed down. The kids will get a menu with only the creative names listed in hopes that when they order it will be all out of order. They may get dessert first, they may get no utensils to eat with when they need them, etc. It just adds to the fun. All of the food items are showcased in my previous post unless otherwise noted. I have the items divided up in this post just so you get an idea of what is main course, appetizer, dessert, and so on. On the menu they will be all mixed up to throw the kids off in making their selections. I'm guessing we will be having our dinner at 4:30ish on Saturday but I need to be sure that it works for all my kids so that they can all enjoy the fun. I plan to take lots of pictures and hope to be able to show you how it all turned out. If you decide to host a dinner like this I'd love to hear your ideas too.

knife - spooky slasher
spoon - grave digger
fork - devil's staff
napkin - corpse bride's veil

mummy dogs - curse of the mummy
pizza mummies - entombed skull
chicken wings - bat wings (probably from the deli or in the freezer section)
ketchup - vampire kiss
drink - cauldron chiller (some kind of beverage - whatever I grab in the soda isle)

bread sticks & marinara sauce - blood & bones (see this item at Our Best Bites)
mini dill pickles - frankies fingers (frankenstein)
cheesy fingers - lost digits
apple slices - monster jaws
ghost crackers - haunted boo
carrot/olive appetizer - edible eyeballs
pretzel sticks - boogers on a stick (find this item at Halloween Is Here)

candy corn pudding - corny treat
spider cookies - spider's web

Halloween FUN!

I hardly know where to start with this Halloween themed post. Every year I like to have a special Halloween dinner for my kids. They always look forward to it & we have lots of fun with it. We serve 18 items in 3 courses and the kids write their 6 selections down for each course not having any idea what it is that they are ordering. Since we have now been doing it for several years, they have started to figure out what all the items are on the secret menu. So this year I went on a search on the internet for some new ideas & I must say I was not disappointed. I found more ideas than I will ever be able to use but I will share the ideas I am going to use and then some of the ideas that I found that were just too fun to not share. For starters, I needed some new theme music for our Halloween dinner and I was able to find a great free download of 31 tracks of creepy music at this site, Oddio Overplay.

I'm still narrowing down my 18 items for my Halloween Dinner Menu but will be back with another post when I have my decision made.


Candy Corn Pudding from Paper Jewels
Butterscotch on the bottom, vanilla (dyed with yellow food coloring) in the middle, whipped topping on top. (Make this kid friendly by using clear plastic tumblers.)
Scroll down on her blog to see the darling Ghost Grub she shared. CUTE!
Do you want more candy corn themed ideas? Skip To My Lou had some fun ones & if you are a scrapper/paper crafter - you are especially going to enjoy her ideas. I'm thinking it might be fun to dress up the beverages at our meal like this.

I only wish that there were a better balance of food ideas out there - there are way too many cute dessert ideas out there for me to reasonably serve. The kids will be getting plenty of sugar with their trick-or-treating so I can't give in to my temptation to serve too many of these cute goodies. These and other fun spider ideas can be found at Bakerella.


Although this is not something they would be eating... I do think my kids would get a huge kick out of these and I hope to find some time to make some this week with them and then we can use them as a centerpiece for our dinner. This idea can be found at Our Best Bites - I LOVE this site! Aren't these shrunken heads made from apples fun!

Here are some food ideas that I will be using on the menu from Our Best Bites. There are lots more fabulous ideas over there so be sure to check it out for yourself.

Mummy Dogs:

Monster Jaws:Cheesy Fingers:

Kraft Foods - I am going to use the ghost crackers
Family Fun had this cute idea of Mummy Pizzas as well as these edible eyes made of carrots & olives. They had lots more for you to look at too.
I thought these eyeball tacos on the Food Channel were just too fun and we may have to do them another year since I am going to go with the pizzas and hotdogs this year.

Are you in the mood for spaghetti? Here is a spooky one where the meatballs are made to look like eyeballs and a cute one.
From About.com
From Hostess with the Mostess In addition to this spaghetti be sure to visit this site for some more fantastic photos of ideas. I love the ribs, burgers, coffins... heck it was all very cute!

Some other sites that I found some fun ideas on were:
Epicurious - a cute mummy meatloaf
She Knows Parties - what an extensive list she has compiled for over 50 ideas for Halloween parties

It's a BLOG TRAIN!

Hi there and welcome to my stop on Scrap Orchard's Blog Train. To make my Brag Book Freebie I used the Mega kit Spooktacular, so if you like what you see, head over to the Scrap Orchard to buy it.
Be sure to scroll through this entire post because I have an additional freebie for you to pick up today. I have been doing the Project 365 this year and for my most recent two weeks of layouts I created a template to share. The kit I used with my template is the fabulous October Mega, Harvest Spice available at the Scrap Orchard.


And here are my two Project 365 layouts.

Now for what you came for - Click on the preview to download my brag book page.

The Orchard Girls will be having a blog train next weekend with free'bees' so be sure to watch for information this next week about that - it is sure to be a Halloween Treat!

And now you’re off to Erin’s blog! Have fun!

And here is the template I created to share for Project 365. Of course you could use it for any other themed page in your scrapbooking too. Click on the Preview below to download the template. Enjoy!

Clayne and I are on vacation

Clayne and I are spending a week here celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary. It has been fun so far. My sister Chelsea is staying with the kids while we are here. She is awesome! We have checked in daily and things seem to be going ok at home other than Carson running a fever and missing a little school. The school had a little trouble tracking down who could come get him and care for him and I am thankful for good neighbors who helped out since Chelsea was at work and we were hundreds of miles away. Well.... I am going to head out to this "big" town and have a walk-about. The heart of this town is about 4x6 blocks so it doesn't take long lol. We have already walked it several times - but it is fun anyway. I think we'll pick up a few souvineers for the kids today.

Getting into the swing of things

Now that school's been in session for a bit over a week, I am slowly feeling a little more on top of things and catching up on some of that stuff that I had been putting off until school started. This post is not going to contain even a fraction of all the stuff I would like it to - I am going to be a realist here lol. I did want to share the photo I took of the kids on their first day back to school. It is incredible to me when I compare it with the photo I took just last year... almost 365 days ago. What I especially want to know is how Cheyenne could turn from girl to young woman in just one year! Now if the maturity would just come as quickly lol. She has been told that she can get her drivers license just as soon as she demonstrates maturity - that should be pretty safe for putting it off for a while lol.

The back to school schedule is well underway with lots of stuff to keep us all busy. I am now the Wolf Den Mother in cub scouts and held my first den meeting yesterday. Of course my two boys have scout meetings to throw into the weekly schedule too. Cheyenne continues to take piano and this year we signed up Carson and Savannah as well. Cheyenne is also going to be taking a dance class. Savannah was disappointed that her TaVaci teacher wasn't holding classes this year but she is excited about learning piano. Carson still enjoys soccer and the practices and games keep the schedule full along with Morgan's football practices/games schedule. From the time they get out of school each day until we tuck them in bed we keep very busy! I have pictures to scrap for all of these busy events... and hope I just can get un-busy enough to do so.

Yesterday Clayne and I "celebrated" our 20th wedding anniversary. I say "celebrated" that way because of course we were too busy to even do anything for it lol. Clayne brought me home some beautiful roses and when we have time I have told him that we have a date to go pick out a new wedding band for him. His is more hexagon than round and not very comfortable. We bought what we could afford when we were starting out and as I recall it was about $30 lol. Now that we have made it 20 years, I guess it is pretty safe to invest in a new band. We will also be going on a week long vacation later this month to California - just the two of us. My sister Chelsea will be coming to stay with the kids for the week. See I had my motive for babysitting my niece Megan once a week this past year lol.

Well.... I think that is a pretty quick catch up post for now. I still want to share about our last vacation we took before school started but that will have to be another day. It is almost 3:00 and so I will be playing taxi soon. Hope all is well with everyone!

Credits: Scrap Orchard September Mega: Rule The School, Template Challenge FREEBIE #29
font- Adler

Credits: September Grab Bag by Jennifer Fox, You've Been Framed by Tracie Stroud, Doodled Paper Alpha by Tracie Stroud
Yes... the same kids just a year ago lol!

Back to School and Busy Bee

So school started today for my kids and soon they will be coming home and I can't believe how fast the day has gone! I wanted to do a cute post with their back to school pictures I snapped this morning but I haven't even found the time to do that yet. I have lots of plans for how I will be spending my days when they are at school and I just hope that even half of it can really happen lol. Poor Savannah had a fever of 103.3 yesterday and was even still warm this morning but insisted on spending her first day at school and not at home sick - so I gave her a dose of Tylenol and sent her on her way. All day I have waited for the school to call me and tell me to come get her. I just hope she had a good day despite not feeling 100%. I plan on making her take a little nap when she gets off the bus. Anyway.... just another quick post and a little announcement for anyone who is looking to join a forum for digital scrapbooking. Scrap Orchard is a wonderful place to hang out and they are going to have a fun contest starting tomorrow. Click the image to go to the forums.

A Few Great Scrapbook Sales

Ohhhh how I miss keeping up on my blog. I "think" I'll do much better with blogging when school starts up again. I find myself becoming giddy with the thought of school starting Monday and having some daily quiet time again. So... hopefully those who used to visit my blog will come back when I start posting more regularly. For now I wanted to inform you of a couple of great scrapbooking sales that will be going on at the Scrap Orchard. Click on either image to go to the Market and see all the beautiful products.