Finally! Pretty Forever Stamps!

I like the idea of buying stamps that will work forever, but I confess I can't stand the original "bell" design so when I saw these I was so excited!  They're so pretty! I don't know how long they've been out, but you can get them here. There are a bunch of other fun, new forever designs as well, including these:

Blossoms of Blue

image from Raceytay on etsy

Morning started out well- made it (almost) on time for church, heard some wonderful stories from a couple that just returned home from a mission in Zimbabwe, kids sang mother songs, made me some cute cards, and presented me with flowers, came home, had lunch and even got a little nap.  Woke up from my nap and started going through e-mails, when my hard drive started acting up, restarted my computer and found no files or programs showing up anywhere.  Sick computer.  (I'm on the backup now) Then one by one kids got really whiny, and HOT.  3 sick kids with fevers and various aches- (all in bed now) So no mother's day dinner at my mom's now darn it!  (happy Mother's Day mom!)  Frozen pizza for us.  Any hope of everyone sleeping all night?  Luckily the oldest 2 seem to be fine, so far. Sam's out of town this week and assuming everyone is well I'll be joining him Thursday night for the weekend- yippee!  Sunday is usually TV free at our house, but I always make exceptions when someone is sick- I'm thinking maybe that means I get to watch some shows tonight too? On to season 3 of Veronica Mars :-) 
(PS- what's a good TV series that I can start on Netflix when I'm done with this one??)

Teacher Appreciation Time!

I just wanted to share these little matchbook chocolate holders I did for all the teachers at the kids school.  I used the Ghiradelli Chocolate squares (currently come in bags of 50 at Costco) and they were pretty quick and simple to make. 

 I finally got some good use out of my MS scoring board and it made these go pretty quickly.  I cut a strip of patterned cardstock (American Crafts) 6 1/2" long by 2" wide, and scored it at 3/4", 3 1/2", and 3 7/8", then stuck in the note, folded it up, and stapled in the chocolate.

I also had to share that I won one of the random drawings at Moxie Fab World for a copy of 350 Cards & Gifts!  It arrived today and I am so excited- so many GREAT ideas, I knew I would probably have to go buy it if I didn't win it, but it was pretty exciting to win. :-)  There are also lots of great ideas on the site that can be used for teacher appreciation, Mother's Day and any other occasion you might want to make a little something for!

Tuesday Trigger Challenge- and I'm out!

I saw the Tuesday Trigger challenge over at Moxie Fab World and knew I had to do something with those colors for Charlie's overdue birthday thank you cards! He had a Buzz Lightyear party so the colors were perfect and I had this polka dot paper that worked too!  Click HERE to play along!

Here's the "trigger" picture:

And in other news I'm heading out of town tomorrow for a couple days with a friend (and her mom!) to Utah and I'm excited! I'm also nervous, not so much that things will fall apart here without me, but more that they'll go so smoothly no one will want me back! (though that might not be so bad after all...)

Happy Easter

Hope you all had a good Easter, full of fun and also some peaceful reflection.  We had a fun family party yesterday and got to attend a very different, but wonderful stake conference this weekend. A speaker encouraged us to ask questions in our hearts as we attend our church meetings, and to listen for God's personal answers to us through His spirit. I discovered that even surrounded by 5 wiggly and irreverent children, learning can happen!  How thankful I am today that God keeps His promises, and that Jesus Christ lives!  He truly is the Savior of the world, and He is my Savior, and I know through Him I can change and be a little better every day.

Card set and gift bag challenge

Moxie Fab World has had 6 challenges going on to celebrate the release of Paper Crafts magazines "350 Cards and Gifts" edition and I finally finished a couple things to enter!  I hoped to do a lot more but you know how that goes!  I especially love these because they are picking the winners at random, and that means I actually have some kind of chance :-) 
First I made this fun little card set to give someone for the card set challenge:

And they get bundled up and tied up in this little bag:

And then for the gift wrap challenge I wanted to share this simple baby gift bag:

The onesie is a card just clipped to twine strung across the front of the bag- so simple and if I may say so, so cute too!
You have a few hours left to enter- maybe I can get the kids to bed and do one more?
Check out the Moxie Fab blog for tons of inspiration HERE.

Wedding Card

Finally actually linking up to a couple card challenges today!  I used the CPS sketch this week, and I made it a gift card holder so I'm also linking to the Moxie Fab World gift card holder challenge. 

My brain works so much better on cards than full scrapbook layouts for some reason- this one is really simple and easy with the help of a triangle punch!
Next up, take of "Merry Christmas" from my blog header!  Yikes, I have been away a while haven't I?

In Short- the holidays happened!

And I'm back!  Hopefully much more frequently with fun & interresting things to share!

Mr C got potty trained, Mr H learned to walk, and got an ADORABLE haircut, pictures to come.

Christmas came and everyone was happy!  Even me, after I put a bunch of things on my "to don't" list.  What a relief to let go of so many "fun" things I wanted to cram into our December! (though maybe next year I'll be more organized and we'll do a few)

  I just had to share my little bare chested cherub- he reacted with the appropriate oooo's for each of his presents! We call that face "Cheerio mouth"
And our greatest holiday challenge was created by an elf named Holly- I would like to have a chat with her!  Miss G apparently wrote a letter to Santa and asked for a "wishing star"  What is a wishing star?  Well it's a star that gives you whatever you wish for of course!

She was taking requests from friends and making lists of what she was going to wish for when Santa brought it.  I couldn't say anything that would gently convince her that Santa might not be able to bring a wishing star. (after all, Santa's favorite elf was going to ask him to pick one up for her!)

Luckily Santa is very wise and came up with this sweet letter to give her along with a pretty little star ornament- because I was stumped! 

And Christmas turned out perfect!

New Years Resolution:  Procrastinate less!

I think that would cover a lot of other goals that I could set...

Slow cooker favorite

On busy days, I like to throw something in the crock pot all day. Yum...

Disclaimer:  I do not cook my children, nor would I encourage it.  He likes to climb into small spaces and hang out there- I did not put him there. Yes I did make sure no one plugged it in.

What does it say about me...

Is it bad that I put my Christmas wreath inside my door, instead of facing outside?  I just love my wreath, and my front door is not very attractive with that metal security screen door thing, it just wouldn't look nice out there, and who would see it anyways?  So it's inside this year, and I love it!

But I did start to feel a little sad for my bare unattractive front door so I gathered up some old big outdoor ornaments that I didn't quite know what to do with and hung them under a big bow (I'm not a bow maker)  but I think it turned out alright!  Better than nothing anyways, something festive to greet any visitors, and then they can come in and enjoy my wreath too. 

Today I'm spending a little time crafting!  Hopefully finished products will be worth sharing soon...

Time for Christmas Cards!

I LOVE getting and giving Christmas cards- it's really one of my favorite things about Christmas time.  Getting the mail is even more exciting than normal!  My favorite place for photo cards is Shutterfly.  Their selection gets bigger and better every year and I love the way their stationary cards feel compared to a basic photo.  Here are a few of my favorite designs this year:

I love that you can search for certain colors, or how many pictures you want to use, or by designer.  Plus if you like to do digital scrapbooking or design your own, you can upload and print your own creation on their cards HERE. 
Shutterfly has the best products and there's always sales if you get on their mailing list.  I've gotten cards, calendars, photo books (TONS of them!) mugs and of course prints from them and always been thrilled with them. I always make calendars for my parents Christmas gift with pictures of all of their grandkids and order them from Shutterfly- my mom requests it now.  I think I'm going to make Sam a desk calendar this year. Right now they have a promotion for bloggers to get 50 free cards and you can read about that HERE.  (thanks for letting me do this- I am hopefully getting free cards for it but I honestly LOVE Shutterfly products!) So have you ordered your cards yet??

Celebrations

Is it possible for a 5th child to really believe that they are loved every bit as much as the 1st child, even though their 1st birthday was celebrated with cake 5 minutes before bedtime, as opposed to big, extravagant party that baby #1 had on their 1st birthday? I hope so, because I sure love this little guy!  How is it possible that he is 1?

Miss G celebrated her birthday too- this took all my party planning energy, I really wanted to make up for the lack of celebrating last year when I was in that new baby fog! (see, last year his birthday was all about baby H!)  We did a pirate party complete with a treasure hunt, pin the patch on the pirate, cannon ball blast, (that was popping black balloons to retrieve treasure- thanks Sam for blowing up 50 balloons!) and decorating paper mache treasure chests.  I used some of the free printables from HERE as well as the cute pirate clip art I showed in the last post for decorations and to turn the hot dogs into little pirate ships- that might have been my favorite part! I never take enough pictures!

We have also been potty training, Thanksgiving, losing teeth, and working through mounds and mounds of laundry and dishes as usual!  I miss blogging and reading your blogs though!  Thanks for hanging around, I really appreciate those who take the time to read and comment, you're the best! Miss G left this letter for the tooth fairy and I loved it.

I couldn't bring myself to check the "no" box with that frowny face beside it so I had to leave a note explaining that I didn't have any real pictures of myself- she cut that part off and kept it somewhere safe...

If you want to be cute about it...

The talented ladies from  eighteen25 made this so cute and functional Christmas Notebook that puts mine to shame! 

If you want a fun project and a really cute notebook, check out their instructions and free printables HERE.  I want one!

Found some cute gift tags

You can download and print these adorable little gift tags for free from CocoaMint HERE.  She's got some other cute gift tags on her blog as well and lots of cute things in her etsy store HERE. (Including the adorable pink pirate clip art I am using for Miss G's birthday party this month!)

Start Your Christmas Notebook

I don't even pretend to be organized, but I have found one thing that makes my Christmas shopping so much better- the Christmas notebook. I went to do a "quick" Costco run this morning and was sidetracked by all the great new things they have out for the holidays and ended up getting a couple gifts, so I knew it was time to pull out my notebook. I got it a few years ago from the Michaels $1 bins and pull it out each year when I start shopping.  It's very basic, I make a page for each of the kids, and then list any other people I will be shopping for on another page.  When I buy something for Christmas, I write it down and put a check next to it.  If I hear them mention wanting something, or have a great idea, I will write it down to remind me later when I'm shopping.  It's also great to keep track of what you're spending on everything.  I stash gifts in a big box up in my closet and when I got it down today I discovered 3 puffer jackets I bought on clearance last year, 2 cute sweaters, and a Halloween T I got for Mr. C - whoops.  But I was excited that I'm that much closer to being done shopping for this year!  (and glad I didn't pick up another jacket at Costco)  I have a tendency to buy and forget, and then buy more, and then I don't return things, and it's money wasted.  This notebook has been a lifesaver for me during the holidays, hopefully it can help you too!

Happy Halloween!

Duck Tape Halloween Costume

I'm posting near the Happiest Place on Earth tonight!  We are all totally worn out from 2 days of rides, characters, churros and lots of walking.  Continuing with duck-tape crafting, I made my boys race car driver costumes out of $4 Walmart clothes and blue, silver and white duck tape!  I need some help, if you have a quick second click HERE and rate our entry!  (yes I like contests) It's not solely how they choose the winners but it does help.  While you're there browse the other entries and get some great inspiration for quick, cheap Halloween costumes! Thanks so much!

Halloween Monster Finger Cookies

I wanted to make witch finger cookies, but my sugar cookie dough puffs up too much and they looked more like monster fingers to me after baking!  They were a huge hit though, and very easy! 

Use your favorite sugar cookie recipe and mix in some green food coloring.  Scoop dough and roll into "fingers" and press an almond into the tip before baking.  Gross and yummy :)

Halloween Countdown block calendar

A couple weeks ago I got together with my sister-in-laws and we made these block calendars to countdown to Halloween and mine's finally finished!  You can find the instructions HERE.  My sister-in-law Jackie did hers a little different and I love them too:

I've started one for Christmas, and I can't wait to make a birthday one too!  Though that one might need 3 blocks because kids start counting down to their birthdays months in advance...

Duck Tape Pumpkin Pop Yard Stakes

That title was a mouthful!  I was trying to think of an idea to enter this contest, and I came up with these giant pumpkin pops! They were really easy, and using black and white Duck Tape, it was pretty much instant crafty gratification.  I started by wrapping each of the wooden dowels with white tape.  Then I put a glob of glue onto the end of the stick and poked it into the bottom of a fake pumpkin. (I punched holes in the bottom with scissors.)  Once the glue dried, I used black tape to create the stripes on the pumpkins, and then wrapped the whole top with clear cellophane and tied it with a ribbon- done!  They look almost good enough to eat!