Merry Christmas!

Fair warning this post my be overloaded with pictures of cute little boys excited that it was Christmas Eve and Santa was coming to visit them. We had a good time taking pictures and the boys also had an excellent time being silly and running around shocking each other. I guess it is time to find that humidifier that we had stashed away for 3 years will in CA. I hope all our family and friends out there had a wonderful Christmas!

Displaying Christmas Cards

Once again I find myself in a new house for the holiday season. Last year we displayed our friends and family's letters and cards to us on a bulletin board that was in our dining room, which with an open floor plan was easily seen also from the living room and kitchen. Our current house is a little more divided and I am using that bulletin board in the laundry room...it is pretty bare, but I wanted to display the cards and not hide them away.

So after going to Pinterest for some inspiration, I then double checked my craft supplies and was lucky to find I had everything for the display. I started off with making a burlap wreath. I then hung it, arranged the pictures, and then started hanging the rest of the cards off the garland already in the handrail.

I think it turned out great (although my pictures of it is pretty crap-tastic), and I'm enjoying getting see all the love that has been sent to us this holiday season.

MN Thanksgiving Part 2

 While back in MN we had the opportunity to not only celebrate Thanksgiving, but also J and N's Birthdays. We celebrated first with my side of the family with cupcakes, pies, ice cream and finishing up with presents.

Christmas Card Finally Ordered!

Snowy Window Christmas Card

Custom Christmas cards are always available at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

Thanksgiving Party With Family Part 1

Now that we live closer to home we are actually able to spend an occasional holiday back with our family in Minnesota. We started out after school and work, spent a night in a hotel halfway, met my parents in Owatonna and left Diesel with them and then headed up to Grey Eagle. 

The boys were excited to spend some time with the "ponies" and even got to help train a brand new 2 year old that was  getting her first "lesson".

J helping Grandpa

Beginning to Look Like Christmas

More on what I'm doing for holiday decorations later, but here is a sneak peak if what I put together with things I mostly had. The only thing new are the birch branches that I brought back from visiting family in WI back in October.

Being Eight is Great!

We have enjoyed watching you grow up these past eight years. Growing up isn't always easy, and you have had your share of bumps, bruises and broken bones. But you always know how to put a smile on our faces and how to give the best hugs when needed. You are the best cuddle-bug and I will never turn down your request to tuck you in at night...and when you get older I might have to request to tuck you in and sneak a hug or two. I hope you continue to enjoy the crazy adventures we have, I know I enjoy watching you experience new things. Happy Birthday buddy!

Happy Birthday Lil' Man!

Crazy how this guy...

is growing up to be this guy.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Review

So I don't know about you, but I just don't have the time to do some of those little things for myself as I use to. Having three little boys I don't have the time to paint my nails, and when I have in the past the it just didn't last long enough to make it worth it. I had seen the Sally Hansen Salon Effects "sticker polish" before, but looked at the price wrote it off as something that probably would be a waste of time and money. Boy was I wrong! 

I was at Kmart (scooping out all the clearance items since our store is closing) looking for some inexpensive Christmas and Birthday gifts for family and friends. I had picked up a cute 31 purse on a virtual garage sale for our base and wanted to put some goodies in it for my oldest niece. What tween wouldn't love some fingernail bling, so I picked out some polish for her and happened across a good selection of the Salon Effects by Sally Hansen...for 30% off of $4.99 (which is already a good price for the little box). A couple of days later I decided to try it out.

It was super easy to apply and I actually used only one set out of the box so I got two uses out of one box. I applied one rounded end and carefully filed the end off and turned it around and applied it to the other hands matching nail. I did have one tear, but there were extra "scraps" that were still stick that I pieced it together to cover the full nail. Once all nails had the "sticker" applied I took it one step further and used a clear top coat to my nails. The box said it would last a week, but I wasn't going to chance it, I am really hard on my nails and didn't want to go through all that work (30 minutes the first time) and have them scuff off when I loaded the dishwasher after supper. 

Day 1 after application

That Ugly Monster Named Anxiety

Anxiety, we all have some form of it...some little thing that we aren't confident about and worry about. Some **raising hand** may have anxiety about things in more then one area...Doctors, Dentists, driving on unfamiliar roads at night, driving with less then a quarter tank of gas, moving, meeting new people, writing on the blog that I have been contributing to for five years (ya, this one. Do you know how many posts I have saved and never posted, or posts that I end up deleting because I don't think they are worthy of being read by others? I may be a little crazy.)...do I need to go on ;) 

Project: Creating a Tween Boys Room

So M is nine and a half, going on thirty it seems. He is far to old to have a little boy room, but still wants his room to have a theme of some sort. He picked out his paint color and has had a lot of input on what decor is going up on the walls and on the bookcase shelves. In his past rooms we have gone with airplanes, so we are reusing a lot of that collection over again, but giving it a more sophisticated look. Well after looking at his room I felt like his room was a little to blah and not enough fun. I saw that Hobby Lobby had some the mini metal airplanes in stock and picked a bunch up when they were 40% off thinking I could use them as shelf filler...then I saw that there were rings on them for hanging, so I got some supplies and went to work.

I used some fishing line and tied on end to the airplane.

DIY Bowl Hanger

So I found these super cute lattice bowls on clearance at Target a couple of weeks back. For a couple bucks I thought they would be perfect for making some sort of art on the walls. I had a couple of plate hanging kits at home and thought I was good to go...but found out otherwise. The kits I had don't work with concave bottomed bowls and so I had to think of something else...and was getting impatient about getting them up on the wall.

Tricks and Treats 2012

We had a fun night on Halloween, the whole day was fun and filled with activities, but the moment the costumes and face paint was put on the fun was elevated ten fold.

Spaghetti Dinner Made Better

So I am no expert in the kitchen, never will claim to be, in fact I love quick and easy! When time gets away from me and might be in a pinch to get supper on the table quickly my go to meal seems to be spaghetti. I grab my jar of Ragu, noodles, and a pound of ground meat and get to work. Instead of ground beef I have started using the spiced pork sausage...slightly more fatty, but fat is tasty in moderation ;) 

Oktoberfest

The last weekend in September just so happened to be the weekend that the local town decided to throw their Oktoberfest....yes in September...but who are we to judge ;) We enjoy small town festivities so we thought we would hit it up after J had a soccer game and see what they had to offer. After filling our bellies with several food vendors tasty morsels we headed off to explore what else they had to do. We found at the end of the main street they were having a Car Show, and the boys were lucky enough to sit in a couple.

M and N thought the rusty rat rod was kind of fun.

I think loving cars may be in their DNA.

Crafty Thursday

I have been loving the all the different personalized pumpkins I have been seeing on pinterest and in the craft stores lately and decided to try my hand at it as well last week. I was able to get the vinyl letters from Hobby Lobby for 40% off and the white pumpkins were 50% off and then I had a 20% off my entire purchase, making it a super cheap project. Not only was it cheap, but it was super easy as well.

All you need to get started is you vinyl letter/image, your object that the vinyl is going on and a scissors.

A Weekend With Cousins

So now that we live so much closer to our family, I took advantage of it and drove to WI to visit my brother and his family over a long weekend the boys had. It just so happened to be my nephews Birthday weekend as well, the only that could have been better is if J didn't have to stay behind to work. I think I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Pumpkin Carving 2012

It's that time of year again when we break out the power tools and become artists. What, not everyone uses power tools to perform this simple task? If you really want to save yourself some time get a bucket of some sort, a drill, a saw (we used a jig saw), and your pumpkin. we like to cut out the bottoms of our pumpkins so that you have a nice flat bottom for your pumpkin to sit on and can place your candle also on a flat surface. It also eliminates the sinking and sagging that pumpkins sometimes get with their tops cut through.

J first drew a reference circle on the bottoms of the pumpkins, then used the drill to start a pilot hole for the saw to go through. He then followed his circle and then punched out the bottom.

Rehabbing and Recycling Fall Decor

So I don't know about you, but I love fall! Over the ten years that J and I have been married I have accumulated a nice collection of fall decor. With all the moving we do it may drive him a little batty at how many totes this collection fits into, but I really don't want it any other way. The boys love it as well, and I think its important for them to really fall in love with the idea of celebrating the seasons along with holidays. 

I love the warm and toasty feeling it gives the house and I really don't have the budget to buy new every year to achieve this look and I really get sad when something doesn't work or gets destroyed. This year one of my lighted grapevine pumpkins decided it was done. I cut out the old lights and thought that I would just leave it as is....but it just wasn't the same. While visiting some family (blogging about it soon) I managed to pick up some brown string lights at a primitive store, with the intention of wiring some grapevine stars I had.  I kicked myself for not thinking of my pumpkin when I got home. I first tested them on the pumpkin, but there just weren't enough lights on them. This past week Michael's was running a 20% your entire purchase and I had a 40% off coupon that they some graciously used on the same transaction...so I snagged a longer set of lights to rehab my pumpkin.

So after cutting out the old strand I gathered my supplies. The lights, a scissors, and small black/brown zip ties.