Happy Thanksgiving

"Gratitude is of the very essence of worship. … When you walk with gratitude, you do not walk with arrogance and conceit and egotism, you walk with a spirit of thanksgiving that is becoming to you and will bless your lives”. Sincerely giving thanks not only helps us recognize our blessings, it also unlocks the doors of heaven and helps us feel God’s love”

Gordan B Hinckley

Wait..

Eirik: "Wait mom, I'm going to talk to my brain for a second."

Eirik can write

Eirik asked me how to write "DAD" today. I looked down to see that he had grabbed the D and the A fridge magnets to use as a guide so that he could write a note to Dad.

Back on the "toy" tracks

( I wrote this a few weeks ago, but I'm just posting it now.)

This weekend was tough, and I was up many times last night with crying boys and I had let myself get too busy again, and woke up really grumpy. I knew I couldn't let today go on plummeting, so I worked really hard. I think it's one of my hardest tasks to reverse a bad mood spiral when momentum builds and I just want to roll with it. But I did it. I did the things I knew I needed to do, and it's the end of the day and I'm in a good place now. Experience is a beautiful thing.

Each of us has that right, that possibility, to invent ourselves daily. If a person does not invent herself, she will be invented. So, to be bodacious enough to invent ourselves is wise. -Maya Angelou

When I was much younger I knew a family that had a star chart in their house. I was intrigued and loved the mystery and passion it represented to me. I promised myself that I would be the kind of mom that put up star charts, and wind chimes and globes and posters with every type of whale and science experiments and all sorts of fascinating, mind opening pockets all over our house. I dreamed of trap doors, telescopes rooms full of books, a dining room table scribbled all over with notes and sketches made during vibrant dinnertime discussions. So when I found this shower curtain on Urban outfitters, I had to have it. For some reason it really fit my vision and I want my boys to grow up with this shower curtain. It makes me really happy.
I knew that part of why I was feeling so down this morning was because I had let other things get in the way of the time I should be devoting to my kids. They could tell, and were in turn driving me CrAzy! So the first thing I did this morning was sit down in the toy room with my boys and play cowboys and indians and build train tracks with trolls under the bridges and rescue baby elephants who have fallen off the circus train and we all got dressed up in cowboy gear head to toe. We played for almost 2 hours after which I had to lock them in for 10 minutes while I decompressed because I actually really hate playing pretend and it was all I could do to pretend to love to prentend for 2 hours. But I did it, and my boys loved it. After "pretend time" I did the mom part I love which is teaching. We practiced writing letters on the chalkboard and Eirik drew his first shapes today. He drew an E with lots of lines going to the right and then said, "mom, it's a sideways swingset." I worked with Joren on his ABC's and then we read a book we have read lots of times but I discovered that Joren has it completely memorized. Good for him little smarty. Then I made this cute little lunch because I knew if I did it I would feel better about myself. (Not really because they would love it, but because I needed a way to be creative and here's how it came out.) They, in fact actually ate lunch and Eirik only begged for different food for half of the meal. After lunch we read more books and Eirik practiced reciting his favorite new book which he knows word for word after only reading it 12 times or so. (I certainly don't have it memorized, but he does!) It's called Bedtime at the Swamp. It's adorable with awesome illustrations. If you don't have it, you should buy it. Then they had naps and I got to paint for 2 hours. When Eirik woke up he painted with me meticulously in his coloring books at my feet for 20 minutes. I was so proud of him. He didn't get paint anywhere it shouldn't be and he actually broke out of his shell and used a color other than blue black and green for the first time in his life. Even if it was only white. He was a delightful painting buddy.
When Paul got home we all had a $6 dinner at Wendy's and then went to Chucky Cheese. The boys had a blast and I felt good because I spent the day as I should, loving my boys. Sometimes I just get off track and worry about too many other things.

Halloween 2009

I just "baked" a cake for an hour with the oven off. Am I crazy or did my 3 1/2 year old turn it off for me? I know it was preheated when I put it in. I am really baffled. I just can't see Eirik turning it off. Really!? I turned off the oven when I put the cake in?? I'm so confused.
Maybe it's a Halloween mystery.
Does anyone else feel like this Halloween season has lasted Foreevveer? There are so many fun fall things to do; pumpkin patches, nature walks, pumpkin carving, pumpkin soup, Halloween decorations, Halloween library books, leaf collecting, Halloween candy and Halloween cakes and cookies and pumpkin crunch. I think I start in on Halloween a little too early. I felt this way last year too. I think 3 weeks of Halloween is my max next year. I'm a little relieved that tomorrow before I go to bed I can take down the bats and spider webs.

These are from the our Ward Halloween party. We have an awesome activities committee.
There was a spook alley for the kids and trunk or treating, a chili cook-off with prizes, and my dear, mustached pumpkin got an honorable mention at the pumpkin carving contest.

The cake ended up cooking fine and it turned out like this: A Ghost town.

it was only half gone at the end of the night because I forgot to cut it.
My witches hats however, were more accessible and were gone in moments. The boys got to be Power Rangers this year! (I got their costumes at mom2 mom sales for $2 each!) They were a great team. 2 minutes before we left for the party Eirik decided he had to be Luke Skywalker in black and was trying to shed his power ranger suit at top speed. Luckily talk of Joren being left to fight all the bad guys by himself without his power ranger team helped talk him into keeping his clothes on. He does have black spider man boots, but will he wear them with the power ranger suit? No," cowboy boots are better mom!" At least I can still dress Joren to look cool. I'm enjoying the last few weeks/ months of having Joren match and dress in the clothes I like. Eirik has been wearing the craziest things lately. Today it was Joren's church sweater vest over his inside out and backward dragon fire shirt and Joren's black sweat pants with cowboy boots. It's really hard to go out in public with him sometimes. :)

I love this picture because it has Eirik's two favorite people to play with; Johnathon and Benjamin. AND, they are all actually facing the camera all at once! Wow!

Paul and I decided to dress up as the scariest thing we could think of:

H1N1!!! Ahhh! We thought we were pretty clever.

You have to see these amazing monster hats my new friend Jena made for her kids. Are those AMAZING or what??!!

We had a fun FHE night carving pumpkins. I used to have to twist Paul's arm, but by now, he knows I'll complain enough that he might as well have fun and get carving. Check out the coral reef he made. Seriously, that's great isn't it?? Joren has been saying one phrase over and over and over and over again. It goes: "Guess what Mom? I'm not a big a dinosaur crying. Huh?" We don't really know what it means, but he says it all the time. Also, he usually makes sense but once in a while he will just jabber and jabber and every phrase ends in T-Rex. It cracks us up. He's picked up a Canadian thing too. After each phrase he says, "Huh?" or "Eh"?" He says, "Scary huh?" It's so cute. So, he got a T-rex pumpkin. Eirk gave Paul very detailed instructions about how to carve his vampire. He had to have a forked tongue. "Scary huh?"

And a few more cuties to make you smile.

Eirik picked up the "Guns" somewhere and I love it. You can't teach someone to be such a ham. That's pure talent.

FINN

My friends Tash and Brandon just had a baby and named him Finn. Tash decorated the nursery so cute. She did the crib skirt in burlap and used this rusty colored velvet with avocado colored yarn accents and chocolate brown as the main color. She used some fabric with dark twigs on light background and orange birds as her pattern. It's really woodsy and warm. When I saw the room I HAD to make this Finn sign for them. It was one of those things that was too perfect to not be done. It gave me fun things to collect on our nature walks too. It was so fun to make and I want one for myself next!

Super Saturday

I am the Relief Society Second counselor at church, which means I am in charge of all the mid-week activities that we plan. Which means I get to do another Super Saturday. I have a great committee leader who is teaching all these great crafts about decopage. She is going to show us how to print a photo on fabric and then decopage it to a piece of glass which ends up giving it a super durable finish and it looks like canvas. It's so cool.

I was inspired by Charyce last year to come up with this craft. She painted wooden figures for her family and I fell in love. I thought they would be cool with a stand, and then I thought they might make a cool family home evening chart. If you haven't heard of FHE, it's one night a week reserved for family time, usually Monday. We rotate responsibilities every week. (At least we WILL, I hope, when my kids are older than 3.) Anyway, I had a great time with Kristen painting our families. Hers turned out so cute,

this is her family and the one below is what she made for her family in CA.


and I loved painting Eirik in Luke Skywalker clothes with a light saber and Joren in my favorite little leather jacket. I gave us an extra space for the "spirit child" we hope will join our family someday.


Then I thought, hmm.. this would make a great Super Saturday craft. Then I thought we better have a simpler option for people who don't love to paint tiny things.



Then I thought we better have another option for people who already have an FHE chart or they don't use one. So this second example emerged. I had a lot of fun making these. I'll make you one if you want. Let's see, how about $15 for a simply painted family, or $30 for details. (you'll have to send me a photo of your family and I'll try to match you.)

The second craft that I am teaching is called Salvaged or Recycled books. My sister Katie made up this idea and hers is so cool that she has received lots of recognition for her salvaged book.

These notebooks are made from paper used or printed on one side and clean on the other side. The cover and back are made from cereal boxes. The whole thing is free and they are so cool for to-do lists or quick notes or for kids... or whatever you can think of. I made a really quick tutorial here.

1. Fold all your used paper with the used side in. Hole punched paper works just fine too as long as you don't mind the extra "character" in your book.

2. Cut your cereal box to fit the cover and the back. I put the fold of the cereal box 3/4" in from the edge to make the front cover open easily. (I used a Diet Coke box for this, but I recommend using a cereal box since the circle impressions did show through.)
3. Decorate your cover and back. I used a glue stick or spray adhesive to adhere magazine clippings, scrapbook paper, photos, wrapping paper or coloring book pages. You could also paint the cover or whatever you want.

4. I put a layer of gloss medium over the top to make it stiffer, more glued and glossy.
5. Get two pieces of Masonite or other stiff material to put around the book, clamp it all together with the open ends of your folded paper on the bound edge. When you open your book you should see only the folded end of the paper. All of the used part is hidden. Mark where you want to drill the holes for your binding. I put the holes 1/2" in from the ends and then 1 1/2 " apart for the other holes. You can clamp directly on the book if you don't mind the clamp marks that they make.

6. Drill your holes with a small drill bit. It should make a large enough hole for your needle to fit through.

7. Thread your needle and "sew" through your holes all the way up one side (leave a long end where you started)
and back down the other creating X's. You can repeat this pattern as many times as you think you need depending on the strength of your string. I used embroidery floss and just went up and down once.

8. Make a tight square not and then start using your new book.

Please let me know if you make one!

October Tree Fort Party

A Random Package and a random ramble

I got a delightful package in the mail today. It was ridiculously random and cheered me up entirely. Who else but my dear Kit would send me:

1. felt in great colors
2. (2) comical hand me down t-shirts one "NASA", and one "Silver Dollar City"
3. the boggle game I left at her house
4. paint
5. (2) AMAZING Star Wars shirts for the boys that are going to make her the HERO aunt tomorrow

6. and best of all, these amazing Owl glasses I have coveted for a long time.

The sad part is that this box symbolizes that she is moving far far far away back to Utah, that far far far away place where so many of my loved ones live. . . . . . . . .m i s s y o u a l r e a d y . . . . (*sigh*)

..and..

My dear Emily had a contest way back.. (I have never responded to a blog contest in time yet) and she always inspires me greatly. Reading her blog is like a big refreshing glass of cold water. So, since she is always my inspiration to go a little deeper, share a little more and be a little more real, I have included a few photos I shot of very "real" things in my life this week.

1. Something you need every single day
I think I wash my hands about 200 times a day and each time I do I think how glad i am that I don't have to fetch my own water from the stream or something. If I ever have to really conserve water, I will live a different life. There are so many sticky messes at my house, I don't know how we would survive. One of my great grandpas on my mom's side built an aqueduct that actually has water that runs uphill near Manti Utah. At least that's how the story goes. It's not there anymore. The Indians called him a squirrel because he was so industrious and never gave up. I'm grateful I don't have to build my own aqueduct.

2. Something you once lost, but finally found
this is the coolest shrimp called a pistol Shrimp that makes a loud cracking sound on the glass of the aquarium by squirting water with his claws. We thought he had died, but then we discovered he was still alive to our delight.

2. Something you once lost, but finally found (part 2)
I horded coupons, found candy on sale and then stocked up on Halloween candy, just to have my husband eat it all BEFORE Halloween! When I discovered how much was missing I started hiding the candy. It's been a running joke for a couple of weeks where I get favors in return for pieces of candy. Well, this week I really lost the candy. I hid it somewhere where even I could not remember where it was. When I finally found it, there was rejoicing and much gluttony- (to my dismay)

3. A happy place in your house
Eirik and I read a book from the library about homes mice live in. Since then, Eirik has been collecting leaves, pine cones and shredded paper for his "winter nest." Luckily it is out of site from the front door. (Not that the rest of our mess is!)

4. Something you ate today
how can I have a picture of it if I already ate it?

5. A picture of a picture - huh?

6. A favorite book - I don't read

just kidding, I'll add these later...

7. Something "Fall-y"
This year I printed and cut out a bunch of vintage Halloween postcards that I framed on cardstock. I think vintage Halloween stuff is so cute. There is nothing scary about it. They are sweet and just a bit spooky. They are just my style. I put them all around my house. And we have had lots of candle light dinners this month (at Eirik and Joren's request.)


8. Your favorite color ( yet to come)

9. Something from your childhood
Tattered, torn, no cover and worn. I loved these Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I think they did much to shape who I am.
"If our country can become great in humility, and can work earnestly to solve its own problems at the same time that it carries its share of world responsibilities, it will be through vision of our children, their integrity and idealism, gained in homes like the home in the "Little House" books." -The Horn Book

10. Something from your to-do list
that NEVER gets checked off. Our living space is quite small and my endless projects are quite big. And my kids endless projects are sometimes even bigger. Together we make an endless mess in this small space. Yes, it will probably look like this in some degree if you come visit me. It's only clean after the kids go to bed, but then it's messy again by 8AM.

and here are some categories of my own:

1. something confiscated..
hourly

2. something I made
I have been studying leaves a bit. I labeled the latin name of each leaf shape, border, placement and if it is compound or not. I learned a lot. I would love to take a class on botany and landscape design.

3. Halloween at our house
my "spooky jars (only one is lit) are just mason jars with masking tape wrapped around black construction paper faces. These were fun to make. I'm not sure why, but I saw a vision of the vase with an eyeball and it had to happen.
(coo coo)

4. something surprising
when my outdoor plants were growing out of control earlier this summer I snipped off the tips and threw them in these vases to enjoy for a while. To my surprise the cut ends grew roots and now these vases are full of root balls. It's been months and who knows how long they will grow!


I know this has been a terribly random post. I don't' know why I posted it. I'm trying something new.