Trunk or Treat

Yesterday was our annual Trunk or Treat at church. We ended up combining with another ward so there were a lot of people giving out candy. The girls costumes were made by their grandma and I was able to obtain a matching skirt. I talked M into dressing up too, so we looked like a 50's family going to the sock hop. The girls had a great time and L did a much better job this year at asking for candy. She ended up getting more than K because she would stand there after getting a piece and bat her eyes at them. She almost always received another piece before moving on.

Aren't they adorable?

50's girls.

Daddy with his girls.

Getting candy from Kristy.

K and her friend Bailey.

Final Game

Today was K's last soccer game of the season. She wasn't as focused during the first part of the game, but she was having fun and really that's all that matters. During part of the game she had possession of the ball and collided with another team mate. She ended up with a pretty good sized goose egg under her eye. After the game we were able to get a picture of the whole team and our three wonderful coaches.
K really enjoyed playing soccer and is excited to play again in the spring. We were happy to hear that she will be on the same team with the same coaches. The kids learned a lot and started working together as a team by the end of this season. Hopefully we can pick up where we left off come May.

K passing the ball.

Kicking down field.

Our team working together to keep the ball.

K's team and her amazing coaches.

The bruise on K's face from the collision.

Happy Birthday, Babe

We celebrated M's birthday yesterday with our close friends, the V's. I completely forgot to take a picture of them, but we did have a nice time. I made homemade Macaroni and Cheese and M made a sauteed squash and zucchini medley. For desert I made these brownies from scratch. We played some Wii sports and visited after eating. It was a very enjoyable evening.

Here is the flower brownie cake that K helped me make.

The girls helping daddy blow out the candles.

M opening his card from his mom.

The family gifts.

Daddy is so good, he lets L open his gift for him.
I don't like to share when they are my gifts.

She got him a mechanical pencil set with extra lead.

K picked out some ammo for daddy's gun.

I got him a hat so he could keep warm on his next
overnight jaunt in the woods.
Plus, I was hoping he wouldn't guess what it was.

Kindergarten Field Trip

I love that I am a stay at home mom. I enjoy spending time with my girls and experiencing new things with them. Now that K is in school, I love it even more. It gives me the opportunity to volunteer helping her teacher in the classroom and to go on field trips throughout the year.
Yesterday was her first field trip in kindergarten. We rode in a school bus to a local family owned farm to pick out pumpkins. While we were there we learned a little bit about apple trees. Did you know it takes 60 leaves to feed one apple? We each picked a golden delicious apple off the trees in the orchard and ate it. They had lots of blemishes due to the bad weather we had here this spring and summer, but they tasted really good. I never realized that a blemished apple wasn't rotten on the inside. These were all crisp and sweet and since it was very cold, it was like eating one from the refrigerator.
After eating apples, we headed to the pumpkin patch where the kids picked out any pumpkin they could carry home. A lot of the pumpkins were rotting since it has been so rainy lately. Most of the kids just picked one out of a huge box near the patch.
We walked from the patch to the fruit stand and had a free sample of apple cider before playing in the hay maze. The kids had a great time chasing each other and pretending to be monsters. After a while we loaded them all back onto the bus and headed to the school. It was a fun day and I enjoyed seeing K interacting with her classmates.

K and Felicia on the bus ride.

Here are the girls I was in charge of during the field trip.
Their pumpkins are in grocery bags so they wouldn't get dirty.

K tasting some apple cider.

Going through the hay maze.

K crawling through a hole.

Here is K's class, minus 2 kids.

Halloween Cookies

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon this website that had some really cute iced cookies. I learned about outlining and flooding here. I was so inspired, I made some cookies to give to my young women a couple of Sunday's ago. This weekend I was craving more cookies so I had K help me make some with me. After they cooled I outlined the cookies and the next day we flooded them together. K did a wonderful job and it was lots of fun.

K flooding the cookies.

We used toothpicks to push the icing up to the edges.

It was lots of fun.

Here are our creations. I took a couple of pictures because
the flash made the cookies look bad.

Game 6

Here is a video from K's game yesterday. She did pretty good but missed the goal.

Twins

The other day I was walking through a store pushing my girls in a car car cart, as my oldest daughter likes to call it, when a woman approached me. She said I had adorable girls and asked me if they were twins. I stifled a laugh and told her no. She wanted to know how far apart they were in age. I told her they were three years apart and she was shocked. I told her they were ages 2 and 5. She gave me a look like she didn't believe me and walked away.
I know my girls are very close in height, K is a little above average for her age measuring at 44 inches tall. L is extremely above average for her age measuring at 41 inches tall. Since February L has grown 5 inches and K has grown 2 inches. I can understand the height thing throwing this lady off, but I really don't think they look anything like twins. What do you think?

Scrapbook Room Make Over Part 1

I know you all have been waiting patiently for me to blog about this. I have been working on it off and on since the end of July and I finally got my room remodeled and mostly organized. We have a large space upstairs that has been divided into a playroom for the girls and a playroom (as my daughter calls it) for me. I will post pictures later of the girls side of the room. I still have some things I want to add to it before I post about it.
I love to scrapbook and most of my room is filled with scrapbooking supplies. I like to make cards and cross stitch although I haven't finished my daughters stocking I started two years ago. I also dabble a little bit in sewing. So I have a ton of stuff and only a small area to put it in and the previous set up was not working for me. I wish I had taken a picture before I started remodeling, but I didn't think about it until I was to the painting stage. I must give my husband props for all his help and ingenuity in this project. He came up with some wonderful space saving yet decorative ideas along the way. Not to mention the fact that he kept me sane when I started feeling like pulling out my hair.

Here I am taping off the room after I finally picked a color
to paint, thanks to help from some friends. Can I just say that
picking a color to paint is one of THE hardest things to do?

Smile for the camera:)

During the painting process, the girls play area got smaller and smaller.
I had to keep my curious 2 year old out of the "construction" area.
Luckily it was summer and they spent all their time outside playing.

Can you say disorganized mess?
Anyone who knows me knows that this chaos was
KILLING ME! But I survived.

Everything tarped off so if paint spilled or dripped,
which it did, it wouldn't ruin the carpet or anything else.

Scrapbook Room Make Over Part 2

It took me about 2 weeks to get the whole room painted. I sectioned off the room so I could do one wall at a time. When I was done with the first wall, I rearranged the bookcases to open up a new wall to paint and still keep the girls out. I did most of my painting when L was napping and K was playing outside. This offered the best lighting and kept the girls out of my hair while I painted.
Once I was done, we only needed to pick up the cabinets from Jerry's. M had found some cabinets that we both liked and he designed the left part of my room from what I told him I needed. After a couple of weeks debating who should go down and pick up the stuff, I took both girls down there and took care of business. By the end of August we were ready to start putting up the cabinets.

I made a hall though all the stuff upstairs for M to
work in. We put together the cabinets downstairs and brought
them up to rest in the "hall". Then M started measuring and hanging.

You never realize how uneven and lopsided your house
is until you start putting in cabinets or shelves.
Not only is our house not perpendicular or level, it
also has bowed walls. It made it sort of difficult for M to
hang the cabinets, but he prevailed and everything looks great.

M came up with the idea of putting my card boxes in the
little space above the cabinets. A space saver and decorative.

Now if I could just figure out what to do with the
other side of my room. Decisions, decisions.

Scrapbook Room Make Over Part 3

So, here is the finished product. Well, almost finished. I still have a pile of stuff that needs to find a home and I plan to add some decorations to the walls like scrapbooked shadow boxes of my family. But this is pretty much it. I have included lots of pictures for those of you who are wanting to improve or completely redo your craft area. Hopefully some of these will give you the inspiration you need to move forward with your project.

Here is the left side of my room.
The counter pulls out and there is enough
room for someone to scrapbook here.

Here is my craft table and right side of the room.
There is an extra table for when my friends want to come play.
That's right, three tables for crafting on!

This side is where most of my scrapbooking and
card making items are. I have my printer here and
a spot in the corner for my tote and slice machine.

The top cabinets contain my craft magazines, printer papers,
kids memory albums, FHE lesson books, and YW stuff.

Here is the peg board M said I had to have.
He was right, it comes in handy. I can display the
stuff I use often but don't really have a place for
and it is easy to find and grab when needed.

M made this metal punch hanger for me at work.
He screwed it into the bottom of the cabinet and all
my punches slide nicely onto it. He even made special
shaped pieces for my corner punches to sit on.

All my unused albums I hope to fill in the coming years.
The plastic containers with handles contain a lot
of my paper grouped by category: beach, christmas, hunting, etc.

The tall bottom drawer contains most of my rubber stamp collection.

The other drawers contain my various tools.

Another great idea my hubby came up with.
He took decorative base board, attached it to a 1x1 inch board
and attached it to the wall for my single stamps to sit in.
Not only is it a great storage solution, it looks pretty too.
You can also see a couple of the lights from the track lighting
he installed. It is true light so it makes scrapbooking at night easier.

This side is my sewing/cross stitch side.

In this cabinet I have all of the girls craft supplies,
school supplies, and flash card stuff.

These cubbies hold ribbon, glue tape,
colored card stock and specialty paper.

This peg board has scissors and sewing stuff on it.
The empty hooks at the top right hold my iron.
I need to get some more holders for various other items.
Attached to the cabinet is a florescent light for extra light at this table.

This shelf is on the far right wall.
It holds my Stampin' Up stamp pads, ribbon,
flowers, and various brads.

This unsightly area contains the rest of my scrapbook
papers and kits, sewing machine, fabrics, and other items.
I know it doesn't look like it, but it IS organized.

What do you think about my craft room? I haven't had a chance to really use it yet, but I plan to start by finishing all my unfinished Super Saturday projects first. Then onto scrapbooking because I have fallen WAY behind in that area since my last girl was born. I haven't even started a scrapbook for her yet. Anyone want to come over and play?