Magnetic Message Center

I haven't completed very many craft projects lately because we're finishing our basement and all my craft supplies are in storage.  Once the basement is done though I'll have my very own craft room to spread out in.  I'm so excited to be able to complete all the projects floating around in my head.  That being said, this is a project that required very few supplies and was so simple to complete, yet will make my life so much easier.

This is a magnetic board that was simply glued to the inside of my kitchen cabinets.

I did 2 magnet boards, one on the inside of each door.  I simply took a sheet of metal and cut it down to size with a pair of tin snips (thanks to my neighbor who owns every tool imaginable) and then glued it to the inside of the door with some liquid nails.  I took the doors off and put some heavy books on top of them for 24 hours to let the glue dry, then hung the doors back up.  Now I have a place to hang phone lists and notes without having to tape them up everywhere.

Family Updates

Life has kept us busy.  We're finishing our basement so things are a bit chaotic around here, but it will sure be nice to have the extra space once it's done.  The kids love to be involved, which keeps us busy, so here's a look at what we've been up to:

Cody and Whitney both got leading rolls in their school play this year.  Cody played the part of the Baker in The Gingerbread Girl and Whitney played Sleeping Beauty in a play titled Once Upon A Hundred Years Nap.

Cody has also been playing basketball and just finished a great season.

We also celebrated Hailee's birthday.

Kids grow up so fast.  I love being able to share their lives with them.  I love to see them excited about things.  I may be a bit bias, but I've got the best kids in the world.

Playdough

It's snowing outside, so today we're making our own playdough.

Here's the recipe we like because it makes such fun, bright colors:

Jello Playdough:

In a medium size sauce pan mix together the following ingredients:
1 cup white flour
2 Tbs. salt
2 Tbs. cream of tartar
2 Tbs. cooking oil
1 cup warm water
1 3oz pkg. jello

Stir until mixture is smooth.  Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until mixture thickens into a big ball.   Place on a piece of wax paper to cool.  Once cooled, kneed for a few minutes with some flour.  Start playing :)

Christmas

I always love the excitement of Christmas, especially through the eyes of my children.  This year (as always) it was the "best Christmas ever" as they would say.  I guess Santa delivered.  On Christmas Eve we re-enacted the Nativity story, then the kids all got new pajamas from Grandma and Grandpa.  Christmas Day was spent visiting Grandparents and exchanging presents with cousins.  I love that the holidays allow us to come together as families.  Grandma's house truely is a place where cousins become friends.

Christmas Came Early

Today my kids were surprised with an early Christmas present:

His name is Roofy and so far he's been the center of attention. The kids were so excited to finally get a dog.  They absolutely love him.  He's so cuddly, and loves to play and give kisses.  What's not to love :)  Merry Christmas early!

Christmas Countdown

I'm so excited about this project.  Every December my family likes to pick a different Christmas story to read each night.  I wanted to incorporate this tradition into a Christmas countdown.  Here's what we came up with:

We collected 24 different Chrismas stories and found an ornament to go along with each story.  Each night in December we'll read a Christmas story and put the ornament up on the tree, counting down to Christmas.

I didn't take pictures along the way, but the tree was cut out of a piece of 3/4 inch MDF.  It's 6 feet tall and I was able to fit 2 trees on one MDF board by flipping one upside down.  I was super proud of myself because it's the first time I ever used a jigsaw.  After sanding the trees I primed them and spray painted them in an Italian Olive color by Krylon.  I added hooks that just screwed into the trees to hang the ornaments on.  Finally I added a vinyl number under each hook to countdown to days until Christmas.  We'll start by adding the ornaments to the bottom and working our way up.  Once the tree is full of ornaments Chrismas will be here.

Picture Projects

I love pictures! I love seeing the faces of my family around my home, but just putting a picture in a frame and hanging it on the wall can get a little old, so I've been trying out some new ways to display our pictures.

This first one is a black and white photo mod podged onto a wooden board that was painted black and distressed.  I love it displayed on a stand.

I also did up an antiqued picture of the temple my parents were married in with their wedding date the same way.  I originally saw this idea at http://www.lilluna.com/.  She's got lots of temple pictures already distressed and free for your own personal use.  You can also add whatever saying or words you want to them. Go check it out.

Next, I used some of my left over wood blocks and created some photo blocks with pictures of the kids on them.

And the last project was a set of coasters.  I mod podged the pictures to the tiles, then added a piece of felt to the back.  I put a few layers of mod podge over the top of the pictures to protect them since they would be holding drinks.  These are my kids favorites.  They've already tried them out.

Halloween

Halloween is always a fun holiday.  Our celebrations started out on Saturday by carving a few pumpkins.

SnowWhite

Spider

Clown

Monster

Tinkerbell

We also painted a few:

On Sunday we went to my Mom and Dad's for a costume party and dinner.  The kids loved seeing all their cousins dressed up:

Monday Cody and Whitney dressed up for school, but their school does things a little differently.  They have a Classical Characters Assembly and anyone that wants to dress up has to dress up as a historical figure or a character from a classical book.  Cody went as a Hobo and Whitney was Pippy Longstocking.

We finally wrapped up the day with a little trick-or-treating.  The weather was great which made it so much fun!

Cody remained a Hobo, Whitney transformed into Smurfette, Hailee was a cheerleader and Jaxon was the star of the football team!  Happy Halloween!

Our Disneyland Trip

A few weeks ago we took our two oldest children to Disneyland and had a blast.  My 7 year old rode a number of rides for the first time including the Tower of Terror, Splash Mountain and Space Mountain.  My 10 year old also experienced a few rides for the first time.  It was his first time riding Indiana Jones and Screamin' in California Adventure.  We spotted a few characters along the way and let my daughter wait in line to see the princesses.  Here are a few pictures from the happiest place on earth.

We had so much fun and can hardly wait until our two youngest are old enough to take along.  I love seeing how excited the kids get, especially when they are experiencing everything for the very first time :)