Summer's coming!

Oh, can't wait until summer is here. Really, can't wait for summer break which is in less than a week! Whoop, whoop! I've been working on a list of fun activities/crafts that I want to do with the kids. Been busy pinning.
Kind of sad to be counting down the last days of Olivia's third grade. She had a wonderful year with an awesome teacher. However, her teacher has been on maternity leave since March and it's been hard on Olivia. She bonded so well with her teacher and although the sub is nice she is very different. Good learning experience though!
We are so proud of all three kids. They have learned so much and had so many successes this year it would be too long a post to re-cap so I'll just post some pictures instead.

Really glad she can still wear Matilda Jane and look so cute!

Back in March. Her art piece was chosen by her art teacher to be displayed in an Art Gallery in town.

Reading a book to my class. She was Principal for the Day-a.r. points

We went up to the mountains for a picnic and spring clothes shopping over spring break.

Nathan graduated from Pre-K. We all dressed up for the event.

Tap costume

Modern costume

Olivia danced in Junior Company II this year.

Ballet costume

She is a granola girl! We went camping with the Girl Scouts in April.

Best friends. They love playing and being silly together.

Ready for kindergarten after a year of pre-k.

Luke makes us laugh several times a day.

Nathan turned 5 in April!

Olivia is 9, oh my! She's looking like a pre-teen.

Birthday!!

Well, Olivia turned 8 this past Wednesday and Nathan turns 4 on Tuesday. Had to believe they are another year old. This afternoon we celebrated both with a Cosmic Bowling party. The kids had a blast although at first all Nathan wanted to do was open his presents!  Here are some pictures from their party. It's time for bed so they're unedited.

   

Paper Dolls!

O.K. so I LOVE paper dolls. Always have. Something about them makes me happy. Gets me uber excited. Don't know why. So I sure am glad that I have a six year old daughter who shares the love! Veronica (Thank you!) send me some fabulous links in which I found the Betsy McCall Paper Dolls that I had come across and then lost sometime last year. Whoo-hoo! Christmas all over again. So I am printing them out on cardstock for Livi. She's going to be SO psyched when she sees them. I'll have to wait until after school to surprise her with this goodie. Otherwise she'll be distracted all day. Hmmm...hope I can keep on task tomorrow!

5 minute fun

It's hard to do chores with the boys. Now that Luke is crawling he gets into everything, but the toys I set in front of him. So, I get time to sit and play with them. Sometimes, I sneak over to my little table and work on five minute projects. I have made hair bows, cute flower hairband for O, labels for my canisters and winter clothes, organized my scrapbooking stuff, and condensed O's pre-school work from a binder to a folder. I would post pictures, but our camera is broken. We have to get an sd reader so I can post the pictures I took before it went swimming. ;) Oh. yeah. I started another challenge. Those I have to do at night after everyone is in bed because Nathan tries to help. Enough for now. Nathan wants to go draw faces.

Let's Scrap

O.K. so I took a challenge and scraplifted for a new fave "Let's Scrap". I am pretty excited about how well the layout turned out so I had to post. I can't wait to try another one. Happy Mother's Day if you're visiting today!

The Big Picture

O.k. well, I have so much to show you V! I have been signing up for every crop that I can at our fav place. I have scrapbooked so much. My scrapbooking technique has evolved as well as what I am scrapbooking. I LOVE printing out the different sizes ahead of time. I also am not going to print out every picture I take. I get "The Big Picture". Oh, also Greg found me some index card metal file cabinets so now I have a huge project. I think I'll wait until after Easter to get started on it. O.K. gotta go. Luke is getting into the laundry basket I JUST folded! Oh, the joys of BOYS! :)

Gotta Go!

O.K. it never seems to fail that whenever there is a slight change in the weather (season) I get New York Fever. I'm content living here where there is just enough of each season to keep me happy. No extremes. However, give me a spring-like day after 20 degree weather and I'm itching to go to Central park, the museum, the village, and so on. Days like today I want to pack up (we'd actually have to get rid of a lot to fit in an apartment.

Me Time

The only way I get any scrapbooking done these days is at S.I.T.C. These are a few projects I've worked on there. I LOVE it. I go, I create, I'm done!

Ongoing class on using your "stash". Needs ribbon.
Intended to be a recipe book. I made mine for pictures from the Bryan Reunion last summer.






I absolutely love this chipboard house album. SO cute! My fav are the stickers I chose to go inside. All meaningful to me this year. I'm going to print out some sepia pictures for this album as soon as our PhotoShop is fixed. Also, need to add ribbon. I'm ribbon and edge distressing crazy lately.

My lovely M.I.L gave me a clipboard kit for Christmas. The picture I used is by far my favorite of all 3 honeys together!

Sew Mama Sew gets me thinking

• What do you usually sew? I started sewing when I was pregnant with Olivia. I wanted to make quilts. Lately, I have been into sewing clothing for her.
  
• When you shop for fabric, what size cuts do you usually buy? I must confess that I LOVE fat quarters. So if I see a charm pack in beautiful colors I buy. I also buy fabric in 1 yard cuts.
  
• Do you buy on impulse or do you go out looking for something you need? I have mostly bought because the fabric was too pretty to leave behind. :)
  
• Are you a pre-washer? If you are, do you wash your fabric before you need it, or only when you’re ready to use it? I am a new convert to pre-washing.
  
• Do you iron it? never!
  
• How do you sort it? (color, print size, collection, etc.) I don't have much so I just stack it.
  
• Do you have any special folding techniques? nope!
  
• How do you store your fabric? I currently have my fabric in baskets.
  
• What tips do you have for building up a well-rounded stash? A little bit from all the top designers.
  
• When do you say enough is enough? I say when you have enough to fill 3 baskets...that's enough... so get sewing!
  
• What are some of your favorite stash-busting projects?
  
• Do you have a current favorite print in your stash?
  
• What’s your definition of the perfect stash? All the colors of the rainbow and in between!
  

Homemade Fun

Olivia had off from school today because of possible inclement weather. We made a no cook play-DOUGH today. I've made the recipe you "cook" many times with my classes, but was out of cream of tartar.

So we made actual dough minus the yeast. It was a pretty good recipe, but I like the original recipe better. I knew Olivia would enjoy it, but was surprised by how much Nathan enjoyed it. He did try to sneak a little in his mouth, but quickly found out it wasn't any good.




They played with the play-dough for over an hour! Luke played, nursed, and tried to take a nap. Some little people were giggling too loud in the kitchen. :)




Try making some play-dough today!
3 cups flour
1/3 cup salt
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 1/3 cup water
food coloring.

Mix first four ingredients. Knead the dough with your hands. Add food coloring.

Bows. bows, bows

A few years ago I got tired of paying so much for Olivia's bows. If she lost one you bet I was searching for it! So when one of the bows I had bought came apart, I looked at how it was put together and bought the supplies to make her bows myself. I haven't needed to buy bows since then unless it was a Chez Ami bow which are more intricate and match her outfit exactly. I was cleaning out my crafts and found my supplies today. I set out to make a few bows for Olivia and ended up making 15! I made little ones for a friend's granddaughter. Olivia was so excited about her Pooh Bear bow. It makes me happy to know I can do little things like that to make her happy.

Always busy.

O.K. V! I made another reversible cape. This time I made sure to take pictures before giving it away. I had to make a new pattern since Ethan is taller than the first 2 patterns I made. I also took pictures of my planner. I like the size, but I need to add a little bling to it though.