I love where I live

Anyone who knows me well knows that I'm a homebody.  I love to travel and experience new aspects of life but these days, I prefer those travels to be closer to home, and done via road trip instead of in a plane across the ocean.  I'm sure there will be a day, particularly when the boys are older, that the four of us will hop on a plane and go on some grand adventures.  But for now, I'm content to drive through the canyons quite literally in my backyard, and soak in the beauty that is fall in Utah.

On Sunday we headed out for a quick drive.  As soon as the Chick fell asleep we turned around and headed back because a long nap in the car doesn't really count as a nap in his book.  Even still, the colors and the beauty of the mountains overwhelmed me, as it does every year.  Is there really anything more splendid than a mountain on fire with the colors of fall?

I think not.

Because I'm lazy, the only camera with me was on my phone, but I still managed to capture a few shots of the gorgeous mountainside.

V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!!!!!

 

 Phew!


They did it!


The Wolverines won a game.

IT was a nail biter but such an important victory.  If there was one team to beat, it was the team we defeated last night. The boys played great.  The team was healthy.  Everyone was back in their original positions. The stands were full to the brim with cheering fans and I haven't yelled and screamed at a football game so much for quite a long time.

The end, as with all the games we watch, was so stressful that I just couldn't watch.  I held the chick tight in my lap and buried my head in his hair because I just couldn't watch them lose again.  I just kept repeating into my boys head, "We have to win.  These boys have to win.  They deserve to win.  These are good boys.  We have to win...." As the opposing quarterback threw what we were all sure was to be a catch and run into the end zone for a touchdown and another loss, one of our teams defensive linemen caught the ball and ran it back for a touchdown.

We all jumped and screamed and carried on like fools.

I was so nervous and then so excited that thought I might throw up.  I didn't have to worry about that though, because my little Chickadee puked for me.  All over the two of us.

Good thing the game was over....we had to leave!

My mom texted me that the end of game celebration was grand and the boys were so excited they were just beside themselves.  And in true, excited boy fashion, the sang on the bus the whole way home.

Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye!

Being Crafty, day four

My boys love crafts.  I love crafts.  Together, we are crafty machines.  Most of the time, doing crafts with my kids really stresses me out because it's messy and once they are "done" things get a little out of control.  That being said however, they are both turning a corner and really starting to concentrate and do a better job with their projects.

Case in point - after putting it off more than a week, yesterday we painted ceramic pumpkins to decorate the house.  They turned out great and the boys did a fantastic job.

I got the pumpkins from Orientation Trading (Oh, how I love this website) and we had a great time painting the afternoon away.

Being Crafty, day three

There are a lot of blank walls in my new house. They are begging for decoration. They are also begging for a new wall color because the brown just grosses me out, but that's another blog post.

Anyway, there is a lot of blank space. I have a basement full of frames and artwork that just doesn't work in the new house - wrong sizes, wrong colors, etc. so I've taken it upon myself to try and liven things up a bit, decorating wise, and tackle a few different projects on my own.

I spied via pinterest weeks ago a beautiful painting that can be purchased from an etsy shop.  ( On etsy, I saw this.)  I loved the colors and the simplicity of the artwork and thought that it would be great to have something like this in my home....but, it would need to be on a grander scale because I have so much blank wall space.

One day last week when the boys were coloring I decided to color too.   With the painting as my inspiration, I thought, "gosh, wouldn't it be fun to have something similar to that painting but done like the seasons?"  "Why yes, yes it would I answered myself" and came up with this idea.

So, with a map in hand and some colors thought out the boys and I headed to the hobby lobby for some blank canvas' and paints.  We ended up buying 6 paint colors and 4 canvas, the total cost coming to about $30.  Not bad considering the painting that was my inspiration was $60 and I was planning on doing four paintings.

On Saturday, while my three boys were playing trains and watching football I set to work on my art at the kitchen table.  I'd spray painted each canvas white before I got started and sketched a few swirly circles to get me started.  If I do say so myself, I thought that the end result turned out pretty cool.  A very simple and inexpensive series of art to cover some of my naked walls.

Now, I just need to figure out where to hang them...which wall is begging to be covered.

Being Crafty, day two

There are a lot of blogs out there with fabulous and inexpensive craft projects.  It seems that every week I find something that I really like and am willing to try.  The last few years I've made the boys t-shirts to cheer on their Uncle Willie in his various sporting adventures.  Last year we added Miss Molly as a recipient of my goofy projects so now I get to make three shirts instead of just two.

I've seen a lot of these crafty blogs use freezer paper to make stencils for t-shirts, canvas bags, hats, scarves, you get the idea.  It's been a bit intimidating to me because the tutorials are always more complicated than my brain can handle.  I found one a little while ago that made perfect sense so off the boys and I were to the grocery store for freezer paper and the craft store for paint.  The project I had in mind was to make the three kiddos shirts to wear to our weekly Friday night football game.

Here is how it went down.

First, I needed a design.  I just found some free clip art footballs and jumped into photoshop to map something out that was very easy and very basic when it came to positive and negative space.  For my first try I needed to go as simple as possible.

   

 The next step was to trace my stencil image onto the freezer paper, shiny side down. After that, very carefully I had to cut the stencil out. It's a bit of a pain because each stencil cannot be reused so I had to make three, one for each shirt.

   

 Now, you want to know what's cool about this process? The freezer paper is sticky. Once the stencil is cut out, you can iron it (shiny side down) onto the shirt your going to add the image to. Awesome. So, I cut out three stencils and ironed them on to three different little shirts. Then, with a decent paint brush (just one of my kids watercolor brushes...we have a lot to choose from) I started painting doing my best to stay in the lines and not apply the paint to quickly or to thick. I should have been patient and let each layer drive before applying the next but patience isn't one of my virtues and the final product shows that I was in a bit of a hurry.

   

 To speed up the drying process, I got out my blow dryer to help the paint along. Once it was dry enough, the fun part was peeling off the freezer paper to see how the whole thing turned out. Because I was dealing with some pretty fine line details on some of the lettering and the football, things bled a bit. I'll be more patient in the future, but the little shirts really did turn out pretty cute.

   

 I was a good mom and let Elliott do his own and, well, it looks like I let him do his own, but he was very proud to wear it to last Friday's game and tell everyone that he made his Hunter shirt all by

 himself.

   

 The kiddos sure looked cute though, all decked out, ready for the game and cheering on their favorite uncle.

 

The project was pretty inexpensive, too.  All the t-shirts were the $5 special at target, the freezer paper cost $5 and the two gray paints I bought were $2 each.  So, we ended up with some cute, custom t-shirts for less than $25 dollars.  I've got a few more ideas for this project in the future.  After all, I have a whole roll of freezer paper in my pantry.