My New Craft

Look what Youtube taught me how to do!!! LOOM KNIT!

I have been eyeing these looms at WalMart every time I go into the craft section (which is often). I finally bought the smallest and cheapest one possible about 2 weeks ago. I wanted to see how I liked it before I spent alot of money on it. Well, my hubby says this is just one more thing added to the list that makes me nerdy, but I LOVE it! And on the plus side, I think that if I do this while watching movies, it will help me to not bit my nails.

These are 2 tube scarves I have made so far. The black and white one was my first and therefore has tons of mistakes!

I can't wait to get some bigger looms so I can make more things!

Christmas Card Holder

I have been wanting a Christmas Card Holder for a LONG time. When I saw this on My Little Gems the other day I just HAD to make it! It was a super simple project and turned out so very very cute!


It is just felt, yarn, paper clips, and hot glue.

Bookmark Stocking Stuffers

I needed stocking stuffers for 26 kids that are in the kiddos classes at school. I didn't want to spend alot of money, so for $5 I bought a foam kit. I got foam letters, foam shapes, and foam sheets that I cut in half and added ribbon to make book marks. They turned out pretty cute and for $5 I have stocking stuffers for 26 kids plus lots of foam left over for the kiddos to craft with. I LOVE cheap, personalized, and homemade gifts!

Go check out more great handmade gifts at ABC and 123!

Christmas Shrits

The other night I got together with some friends to make Christmas shirts for our kiddos. I think they turned out SO CUTE!!

Advent Calendar

Last year when I first started reading blogs I came along a post on the Crafty Crow about advent calendars. After just taking down my first ever Thankful Tree, I just HAD to put something up in it's place and I LOVED the idea of an activity advent calendar.

So... I made this one. I LOVE it. It looks pretty and elegant in my kitchen and it's full of holiday charm.


The BEST part is that my kiddos LOVE it too! The day after Thanksgiving, they were begging to take down the thankful tree in order to put up the advent calendar. I did go ahead and put it up but, too bad for them that they'll have to wait until December 1st to do their first activity.


Our activities include:
~Many local events: Holiday Walkabout, the Parade, Lights of Lakeland, PALS Christmas Dance, Christmas Lane, and Ice Skating.
~Special Gifts: Christmas socks, PJ's, and a new Christmas book.
~Fun times together: having a tea party, making ornaments, watching Christmas movies, making pizza for dinner, game nights, going to the park, going on a nature hike, making Holiday crafts, and making candy and cookies.

Completed Thankful Tree

LOOK how beautiful our Thankful tree turned out!!! Just like last year this tree was such a hit. Every night as we sat down to dinner the kiddos would be jumping to tell us what they were thankful for that day. You could tell that they'd been thinking about it because we never had to wait to hear their response, they were ready right away. I am so thankful to have such grateful children!!

Aidman was thankful for things like "The Whole Wide World" and the "Lovely Fall".
Lyssy was thankful for different family members, classmates, and "Seeds".
Mama was thankful for "hugs and kisses" and "the Thankful Tree".
Daddy was thankful for "The Yankees winning the World Series".


I truly hope to and am determined to keep doing this tradition year after year!

Thankful Tree

Last year I got this bright idea to cover my blank kitchen wall with a tree. The idea was for every member of the family to add a leaf to it everyday. The leaf was to say what we were thankful for that day. Each family member has a color leaf, that way we know who is thankful for what. It was a GIANT success!!! My children really touched my heart in so many ways and really learned about being thankful.

The day after Halloween, Aidman said to me "Mom, Halloween is over. When are we gonna get our Thankful Tree?" Well, how can I deny him??? I was actually already planning on putting it up, I just wasn't fast enough for my 5 year old boy!

So here is 2009's Thankful Tree. It's going to be beautiful by Thanksgiving!!

If you wanna see how it will look at the end of the month you can see a picture of last years tree here.

Cake Decorating

Tonight I went to my friend Tanya's house where she was teaching a Cake Decorating 101 class for us. We all brought our own baked cake and she provided the rest. It was AMAZING!! I had so much fun!

She taught us how to level cakes, do a crumb coating, mix colors, uses different tips, etc. We got to practice with different tips on cupcakes, the clown cake, and the clown hat cake, before making our own cakes.

We are going to use the 2 clown cakes that we practiced on for a birthday celebration at the park for PALS.

Here is MY cake!! I have decorated cakes before, but it's been are REALLY long time, I was very surprised at how easily it came back to me. I loved how the clouds came out. I think Lyssy is going to be so surprised when she wakes up in the morning to find a rainbow cake sitting on the table!

Heather made this cute baseball cake.

Amy did an AWESOME job making this football cake.

Angela's flower cake looks super groovey!

Tammy's Pooh cake is so cute.

Christina's pirate cake is SO STINKIN cute!!

And I love Karen's monster cake!

There were about 5 other cakes that I missed, but they were all super cute too! I loved seeing everyone's creativity in this! I really hope that this inspires me to make my own cake more often! Thank you Tayna for such an awesome night!

Super Mario Cart Party Decor

Today we had Aidman, EE, and EP's GIANT birthday party. I have several friends who all invite the same group of friends (plus family members) to our birthday parties. Instead of having 3 different parties to take up 3 weekends, we decided to combine them and just have one really big blowout! The boys all had their birthdays in the same week (Aidman's is this Tues) and turn 5, 5, and 6. They all like Mario so we decided to have a Mario Cart party.

We made a great obstacle course around the perimeter of the yard. Above is the finish line.

We got palates for the kids to run on. They really liked this.

There were cones to run around.

Pools to wade through or run around.

Pool noodles (held up by chop sticks) with a sprinkler at the end to run through.

Turtle shell (sand box lids) to step over.

A swinging tire swing to run around. The three boxes standing are stations where water squirters and water balloons were set up for nonracers to throw and squirt at the kids.

A mushroom farm to run around. It's a punching bag with a cardboard shaped like a mushroom on top.

Outside of the obstacle course, we also had a big inflatable slide, a trampoline, sand box filled with coins to find, and a swing set to play on. Needless to say, there was TONS for the kids to do!

We decorated the whole yard with flags/pendants and I made some saying Happy Birthday Aidman, EE, and EP.

I made these really CUTE piranha plant center pieces.

We found these great Mario Cart window decals.

Oh and so that they would have carts to race in, we made these GREAT banana box race cars. We even painted them to look like the actual characters cars.


It was a wonderful party!! I'll post pictures of the actual party fun later.