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.

Being Crafty, day one

(This week, because I'm feeling crafty, I thought I'd write a couple posts about some of the nerdy craft things I've been working on. Enjoy. Or mock. Whichever you'd like.)

A week or so ago, while trolling Pinterest I came across a picture that I just had to pin. It was a collection of fall wreaths. They were cute and inspiring. I looked at the pin nearly every day for the last week and thought, I can do that. Mine didn't turn out nearly as cute as the one that I pinned, but it still turned out just fine.

Considering that I have no holiday decorations at all because I've spent the last many years being a scrooge, having something cutesy in the house is a nice touch.

I bought a straw wreath, some gray yard and a piece each of black and yellow felt. The entire project cost me $8 and some change.  It took me about two hours to wrap the straw wreath in the yarn (I should have gone smaller in size and styrofoam in material...next time.) and about two minutes to make the bats, the moon, and hot glue them on.

Something cute and festive for the new house.

I guess I'll keep it.

Crossing Zone

My boys are goofballs.  They think its funny when, lets say they are supposed to be eating their lunch and instead they start farting and burping at the table and laughing so hard they fall to the floor.  They think it's funny to use "bathroom" words in their every day conversations.  They think it's funny to play veterinarian to the giant stuffed elephant and not be able to figure out why he's throwing up even though he just has a sinus infection.

My mom took them to the circus yesterday and what did they love?  Everything.  What did they love the most?  The guy who lit himself on fire and the pooping elephants who rolled a giant piece of lumber around with poop on it.

Hi-larious!

They could also be on David Letterman doing stupid human tricks.  They think that if they distract me with these tricks they don't have to eat lunch - like I won't notice a plate of food sitting un-touched.

I notice.

I laugh at the tricks, but their powers of deception are no match for the evil mother lord.

That's me.

Anyway - the trick of the day, the other day was eye crossing.  It was funny.  Elliott is good at it.

Watch this.

And, not to be out done, the little brother is also good at "crossing his eyes"....if you can call it that.

Junior Bird man

 

 So, we have a tradition in our family of doing the "Mr. bird man", or "the owl" (hoot!). Whatever you want to call it, it's a process of flipping our hands upside down, putting them over our eyes and yelling "caw, caw!" after it. My mom taught us chillins' how to do it, I've never seen my dad do it, my husband can do it, his mother cannot. 

 I've been trying for 2.5 years to get my kid to do it. We practice and practice and practice. Really, we do.  It's important. It's one of those right of passage things like curling your tongue and crossing your eyes. Yesterday, we were eating lunch and that boy of mine turned to me, flipped his hands and voila!

HE DID IT! 

 I immediately made him do it again, took his picture, and sent it off to grandma, uncle willie, auntie haley and dad. It was a milestone worth documenting.

Then what did we do? We spent the rest of the day being junior bird men of course. And, trying to get the Chick to do it. 

 That my friends, is going to take another 2 and a half years.

the week in pictures

It's Friday. Friday is good. Ross just called me to tell me that the Internet is out in his office which means, for an international finance guy like him, nothing can be accomplished without the Internet. I asked him if he gets to employ the college rule - you know the one, if the professor doesn't show up in 20 minutes you get to leave. He told me no, but if the IT guy doesn't return his phone call soon, he may bail for the day. I then dared him to come home early, on a Friday (pretty unprecedented in these parts) and defined early as by 3:00 pm. Not sure what our wager is, but we're probably going to Costco tonight and it could be the difference between a real dinner in a real restaurant or a churro from their snack area.

I vote real dinner.

I'm not one to generally say that time moves quickly or slowly, but this week has flown by. Can you believe were already in the middle of September? Holy cow! It's important to note as well that our satellite TV has been on the fritz and the boys and I, minus a movie the other afternoon, have survived without the boob tube all week. Know what that means? A whole helluva lot of craft projects and errand running and neighborhood walks and yard work and trips to the mailbox and soccer ball kicking....you get the idea.  The Chick even decided to not have a nap yesterday (gasp!) and we survived. Barely, but we survived a napless two year old, which by the way, isn't really something I'd wish on anyone.

And another tangent....I've performed some sort of exercise every day this week, including playing volleyball last night. Church volleyball is totally lame because it's just a rally scoring serve fest, but it was fun to play for an hour and block a couple of really bad attempts by the other team to hit the ball over the net. I was only told that I was tall twice, and only told that i was good once. I'm not good, by the way. I am however tall.

When I got home last night from volleyball, the boys were watching a show (one TV does work, just not the one we usually watch) with their dad about caimans - they're like crocodiles. We have the national geographic channel and that four year old of mine had his mind blown. To his dad he said, "you mean to tell me that there is a channel that just has shows about animals? Whole shows about animals?" Yes, that's what he really said. He's a total nerd, just like his parents.

This week I also started officially using Instagram on my phone. I'm doing it for nothing else than the fact that there are cool edits AND it will automatically upload to twitter and flickr - the places I dump pictures most frequently. It's a very symbiotic relationship. I am the rhinoceros and Instagram is my ox pecker (the bird that eats bugs off my neck....or uploads pictures from my phone automatically). Anyway - the whole point of this post was to share some pictures. Here they are.

Enjoy your weekend.

 

Tuesday was my grandma's birthday and the boys and I took her flowers.

 

Watching a movie and just chillin' cause we can.

 

I've eaten corn nearly every day this week, savoring it before it's all gone until the end of next summer. It's been so tasty, too.

 

My nightstand is currently home to 14 books. I've almost read them all, but have run out of bookshelves to house them when I'm finished.

 

One of our many crafty adventures for the week - we made crowns...even one for our dad (his isn't pictured though, but it's cool!)

 

The closest I've ever come to being a vegetarian was last night. Everything I ate for dinner was from the local farm stand. I did eat a little steak, but just a little...the carnivores in my house devoured it first.

In a nutshell....

Since we never go on vacation, we decided to turn this weekend into a cheesy "mini" vacation.  My brother had a football game on the campus of Weber State University at 8:00 pm on Friday night.  That's a late game and the thought of driving two groggy kiddos home at 10:30 pm for a two hour drive where inevitably upon arriving home they would wake up and be mean, we decided to stay the night in Ogden and have some fun.

So, the weekend was set.  We slept in a hotel by the freeway.  We ate breakfast, wandered the Ogden farmers market, got two mint limeades and figured out the recipe to try at home, went to the tree house museum so the kids could play, drove through the canyon, played at a park in Huntsville and ate some good BBQ at Texas Pride.  On the way home, the chillins crashed hard and it was a peaceful drive home.

Unfortunately, we arrived home to FOOTBALL ON TV so for those of you who know my husband, you know how the rest of our night went.


On Thursday, before our "vacation" the boys and I went to the zoo...because that's how we roll.

9.11.11

10 years.

10 years ago I was a high school history teacher.  School started at 7:10 am and I started our class period with a quiz and current events.  As the lesson of the day was just getting started, the principal of my school entered my classroom and said, "Stop teaching.  Turn on your television.  New York City is under attack!"

What?  Huh?

I did as I was told.  Just as I got the television on, my students and I watched the first tower crumble to the ground.  Not too much after that the second tower was down and my students were in a panic.  Most of them didn't even know what the World Trade Center was.

I left my classroom.  The first thing I did was head to the gym.  I was the JV cheer advisor at the time and the cheerleaders were practicing with the head advisor and I knew they didn't have a clue what was going on.  I quickly told the kids what had happened and ushered them all into my classroom.  30 cheerleaders, nearly 40 students and a couple adults were glued to a teeny tiny television in the corner of my classroom.

Next, I ran out to my car.  Haley and I had just been to New York City a few weeks before and for whatever reason, my photo album was in the back seat.  I grabbed it, brought it into the school, and proceeded to show my students the pictures.  Thank heavens I was so knowledgeable back then and that I had so much background in political science.  I was able to talk to my students about New York City; draw maps on the board; answer their questions about terrorism and extremists and osama bin laden - he was a guy who I'd learned about at the "U" and I knew who he was as his name was uttered across the airwaves.

The rest of the school day was a blur.  I think I shined as a teacher and a leader for my students that day.  I know during the week, hundreds of people rifled through my photo album.  I had my students bring flags  of all shapes and sizes to school and we pinned them all to the back wall of my classroom.  There was nothing on the wall to see but red, white and blue.  I watched countless hours of horrific video and tragic stories on TV so that I could be prepared for the next days round of questions by all my students.  It was exhausting.

My parents remember exactly where they were when President Kennedy was assassinated.  I remember exactly where I was the day two airplanes crashed into two tall buildings, and the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.

But we moved on.  I was as far removed from the "terror" that day as I could be.  Across the country, completely safe.  My life wasn't threatened, my family protected.  I'll never be able to imagine what it was like for those people and families directly affected.  I'm sure that the last 10 years have been full of trials and heartache, tears and memories.

For me?  I don't know.  I don't feel any less safe or any more protected.  I don't agree with the way the "war on terror" has been handled, the role our government has played, but I have a deep respect and admiration for the troops who have sacrificed their time, lives, and safety to protect me and the citizens of the world.

My life didn't skip a beat and it still doesn't.  It's hard to relate.  I haven't watched a video, looked at a picture, or read a story.  In fact, I've avoided all remembrance, all memorial.  I've flipped the channel, closed the browser and skipped the tweet.  I'm not sure that it's apathy, or if it's just exhaustion.  The historian in me wants to move forward and forge ahead.  The voyeur in me isn't interested in treading through the tragedy from so long ago.  The citizen in me wants to sing more patriotic songs in church, have people sing the National Anthem correctly at sporting events, and turn the Fourth of July into something more than fireworks and barbeque's.

But, I suppose in the land of freedom and opportunity, I'm allowed to think whatever I want and you're allowed to disagree.  And I guess I'm pretty lucky that the country I live in still thinks that's a right worth protecting.

a typical day

6:25 am - wake up, get dressed, eat granola bar, go for a sweaty walk and watch the sunrise.
6:56 am - return home, get big drink of water, tell husband goodbye, hurry and shower before the boys wake up
7:25 am - get the chick out of bed and start to wake up the older one.  Do much singing and tickling.  Finally realize that fart sounds are the way to go - make a sound get a real one back!  Anything to get that kid awake.
7:45 - head downstairs for breakfast with two hungry boys.  Fix them little pancakes to dip in syrup and a smoothie for breakfast.  They each eat four pancakes and wyatt drinks all my smoothie.
8:15 am - upstairs to get dressed, brush teeth, go to the bathroom and do shoes and socks, find school bag.  Drop giant globs of toothpaste onto the floor, smear with a towel, put new shirts on the Chick because he soaked himself while brushing teeth.
8:30 am - sit on couch - watch dinosaur train for 15 minutes.
8:45 am - open garage, load car, do buckles, check back driver side tire for air (it has a nail), drive to school.
8:55 am - arrive at school, no teacher.  Be the only parent to hang out while all the kids come.  Sit all the kids down to start their seat work....still no teacher.  Secretary at school comes in and says she'll take over, teacher will be late.  duh!
9:05 am - Wyatt and mom head home.
9:15 am - make mint frosting, frost chocolate cake.  Make chocolate ganache, coat chocolate cake with mind frosting.  go to the bathroom, get cleaned up, watch more dinosaur train.
10:00 am - leave with chick.  head to walgreens and singing and dancing class (first time).
10:30 am - arrive at singing and dancing class.  spend 30 minutes not singing and not dancing (for the kid, not for me, I sang and danced!)
11:15 am - pick up big brother from school, little brother cries as usual.  go to McDonald's because mom needs a coke and boys need french fries.
11:40 am - eat lunch.  talk about our morning and our plan for the day.
Noon - watch Phineas and Ferb.  Hold perfectly still for one whole hour...so still that mom doesn't even know that the boys are home.  Mom clean kitchen, work on christmas gift list (yes I'm a total loser), sort old mail, enjoy the silence.
1:00 pm - put chick to sleep.  Elliott quiet time in room while mom prints some pictures on the computer.
1:30 pm - do freezer paper craft stencil project with a too eager four year old helper.
2:30 pm - clean up project
3:15 pm - get the chick - he's awake.  snuggle in the rocking chair.  watch wild kratts
4:00 pm - try to leave the house.  have platypus wars and run around and scream like crazy fools (the boys, not me)
4:30 pm - leave the house, encounter lots of traffic.  Drive past aunt haley's new house and try to break in (no luck)
5:00 pm - grandma judy's house - water flowers, play outside, prepare garlic bread, throw basketballs into the road.
5:40 pm - head to great grandpa's house for dinner.  fix dinner, eat dinner, clean up dinner, hang out, eat dessert, sit on back porch and eat ice cream.  be sad that it's too cold to swim.
8:30 pm - head for home.  boys w/ dad, mom alone.  Stop at aunt Karen's house.
9:30 pm - leave Aunt Karen's house, head for home.
10:00 pm -arrive home, get ready for bed, read book, forget to take diabetes meds and get out of comfy bed.  Try to go to sleep.
11:30 pm - still awake, listening to snoring and crying baby.  Husband gets up, takes care of crying baby.  Go to the bathroom.
Midnight - still awake.  Crying baby again.
1:30 am - still awake, haven't fallen asleep yet.  Husband snoring.  Baby cries again.  check on him, crying in his sleep.  finally go to bed and fall asleep.

Phew!  And that was just a typical wednesday.

We Glory in Tribulations

Preface point 1:  We had a great lesson in Relief Society at church today about how we can find beauty and faith in our trials.  It was an excellent lesson and really clarified several things I'd been thinking in my head the last few weeks.

Preface point 2:  I am by nature a whiner and complainer.  I think that most of us are, to a certain degree.  I whine a lot and I need to stop....or at least back off from the whining a bit and spend some of my time doing other things.

That being said - here is a moderately non-whiny but insightful (maybe?) blog post.

I read a lot of blogs. Some from people I know and some that I find fascinating and just spend my time lurking in the shadows. Lately though it seems that a lot of the things I read fall into one of two categories.

1) Giant balls of whiney whiner heads who complain about how hard or unfair their lives are.
2) Sad and inspirational stories of people who lose the fight of their lives but go down swinging.  People who overcome life's obstacles and tribulations with grace and their heads held high.

It's really opened my eyes these last couple of weeks about how lucky I am and how good my life is and how much I love my family. And it makes me want to write comments on the blogs of the whiney whiner heads to tell them to cut the crap because life is really good for them because they are alive and loved and well taken care of and have people to take care of.

On Thursday night, after the University of Utah football game the young wife of a former student of mine (and member of the Utah football team) was killed in a brutal car accident by a man evading he police in a highspeed chase. This beautiful young woman had just celebrated her first wedding anniversay and had her entire life ahead of her and in an instant, everything was lost.  I cannot even imagine what her family and her husband are going through.  This kind of loss is so gut wrenching that all it does is make me want to hug my kids a little tighter and smoosh them with a few more kisses.  It makes me want to be nicer to my husband and make sure that I do things for him that are nice, that he appreciates, because you never know when something tragic could happen.

A couple weeks ago, a blog I read called Pacing the Panic Room  introduced me to Tim LaFollette and his wife.  Tim had passed away the day I found his story of a nearly two year battle with ALS, Lou Gherrig's disease.  He and his wife, and friends made an award winning internet documentary about his battle with this evil and horrific disease.  Oh, to be so brave in the site of death -  to keep perspective and loved ones near.  To fight the battle of your life knowing that you cannot win.  If you have some time, and even if you don't watch this series.  Look into the amazing work that the Often Awesome Army is trying to do for a disease that is under researched in the United States.




This series brought me to tears many times while watching the videos. I was in awe of Tim and his wife. I know it made me be nicer to my husband in the days I was learning of their story and I hope that the family and friends of Tim know how powerful their voice is.

This week I finished reading a book called, "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand.   This book is about Louis Zamperini who fought during World War II.  Zamperini was an American Olympian before the war and joined the Air Force after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  This book was amazing.  It was gut wrenchingly sad and frustrating and breathtaking at the same time.  Zamperini survived a plane crash into the middle of the ocean, 48 days lost at sea, shark attacks, strafing by Japanese pilots and no food or water except for the occasional rain storm or bird that would land on his shriveled and sun baked body.  Once he was finally "rescued" (see: captured) by the Japanese he survived torture at the hand of a Japanese Prison Camp official for nearly two and a half years.  He came back from the war a wreck, turning to alcohol to drown his nightmares.  (You MUST read this book! I don't want to tell you all the details, but this man, who is still alive at 94, survived more than any human should ever have had to suffer!)

A few years after the war, his wife drug him to a Los Angeles tent revival where a very young Billy Graham was preaching.  During one of Grahams messages Louis Zamperini had a flash back to one of the days he had been lost at sea.  It was a day he said in the book was beautiful - the sea was calm, the sky was clear and while lost in a little plastic raft with no hopes of being found all he could think about was the grace of God....that God created this world full of extreme heartache and intense beauty.  He remembered that on this perfect day, he promised God that if he were saved, he would dedicate his life to serving and helping others.

There are so many things in this world that are hard.  So terribly hard.  But, we can find beauty in tragedy, strength in adversity, and glory in the biggest challenges we face.  Yes, my kids may be crazy sometimes and my husband may work long hours.  Yes, we may not have situations that are ideal and circumstances in our lives we cannot control.  But - we must move on.  We (I) must stop complaining about the small and trivial because I've realized that those small and trivial things really are blessings...we are lucky to have them because we are alive.

Projectile

 

 This little blog isn't complete without a bi-monthly report on a visit to the doctor now is it?

The boys have been coughing for a week.  It's bad in the morning, disappears in the afternoon and returns with a vengeance around 5:00 pm.  As the "duh" parents that we are, we've been waffling on whether or not to take the boys to the pediatrician because we just assumed that it's allergies.  Last night though, Elliott's coughing was pretty bad and we had a super crap morning full of coughs, snot, tears, bloody boogers and a little bit of the throw-up burps so as soon as I got the kid to preschool, some doctor's appointments were made.

Yes, I sent him to school.

It's only allergies!

Um...no it isn't.

We saw our pediatrician, whom I really really like.

She looked in ears and eyes and mouths, listened to breathing and heart beats and declared......

wait for it.....

Both boys have beginning stages of bronchitis and ear infections in their right ears.

What nice boys to get sick at the same time with exactly the same thing.

We left the doc's office with Lighting McQueen stickers and three prescriptions each.

And, a new sickness wouldn't be complete without the chick puking all over someone...this afternoon it was himself and me.

I pinned him down and shot the antibiotic down his throat.  I sat him up and just as the gagging hit it's epic peak, I grabbed a blanket and caught the spew.

It was everywhere.

His shirts, his face, his hair, maybe a little up his nose.  My arms, my shirt, on my leg.  All over the floor.

He is the most sensitive boy in the whole world.  I won't be giving him anymore of the nasty stuff.

I was told today that bronchitis can be transferred and to not let my boys kiss me.  Okay doc, will do.  But what do I do about the fact that they've been coughing and snotting in my face for the entire week?

Ug....parenthood.

35 Years

Today is my parents 35th Wedding Anniversary. 

Happy Anniversary!

While trying to come up with a 35th Anniversary present, I looked up the symbol online.  Traditional: coral; modern: jade.

Yep - struck out there!

My dad got my mom flowers with a nice message that said he loved her and that he hoped they'd have another 35 years together.

My mom read the note and said "NO Way!  I don't want to live another 35 years!"

Silly Mom, you'll be together for the eternities and another 35 years only has you in your 80's...that's not so bad.

I love my parents.  I love that they've been married this long.  I love that they've known each other since high school.  I love that they still like (sort of) to do stuff together and that on Saturday they (along with Willie) are making their almost annual trip to Yellowstone on their anniversary weekend.

I love my parents for the values and hard work, and positive attitude (most the time) and kindness to others, and generosity of mind, spirit, and wallet when necessary that they've taught me.  I am proud that they are my parents and I hope that they are proud to have me as a daughter.

Happy Anniversary!