Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Valentine Cookies

We had a Valentine cookie decorating party today with Tanner's cousin, Lena, and some friends from church.





I tried a new sugar cookie recipe. And they were DIVINE!! The icing recipe came from allrecipes.com.



I made the cookies in advance, mainly because I wanted to test the recipe first. But it turned out so much easier to have the cookies done and just have the kids decorate them.

We used little paintbrushes and they iced them and then used LOTS of sprinkles.





Happy Valentines! Enjoy the ones you love this week!!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The dilemma of preschool art

Sometimes I feel like a horrible mom - sneaking a few of what seems like hundreds of crayon scribbled pictures into the trash. I even find myself hiding them under other trash, just in case the little man spots them.

Since I'm not inclined to wallpaper every room in my house with Tanner's pictures, I knew that we needed some kind of art solution.

Behold, the rotating art gallery...



I have quite a stash of old window frames that my husband has been carting around for me for the last five years. I think he is more eager than me to see them go to good use. So one day when we were talking about what we were going to do with the constant stream of artwork, he had this brilliant idea! "Why don't you use one of your old windows?" he said.

Why didn't I think of that???

I found some cute magnet clips at Office Max and glued them to ribbon loops. I then used my handy staple gun to attach them to the window frame. And Voila!



Now it is hanging on the kitchen wall - with room for 8 masterpieces at a time. When Tanner creates a new one, he gets to choose which one comes off so a new one can go up. This just went up 2 days ago, so we haven't actually had to deal with the switch-a-roo yet - I am just hoping it pans out as well in reality as it does in my head!

At least now, I feel like we are giving them proper attention before they get stuffed under a milk carton in the trash.



Of course, there will always be those treasures that need to be saved for the scrapbook. Like this one Tanner gave me as he proudly announced "Mommy, look - I drew you!".

All I can say is that I am looking mighty fine these days!

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Get rewards for searching the internet

There is a new search engine in town...and you can win free rewards!! And if you know me, you know that I love FREE!

I discovered swagbucks a few weeks ago and I love it!!

I simply made it my home page instead of google, and now when I do an internet search I am earning points. I can get a $5 Amazon gift card for every 45 points I earn. Since I buy quite a few gifts from Amazon through the year, any little bit helps! After about 3 weeks, I have 27 points.

This is definitely not going to make me rich but since it is something I do anyway I figured why not earn some rewards at the same time?

And even better, once you sign up you can refer your friends and you earn points when they do. Even better!!

So click on the banner below and check it out for yourself.


Search & Win

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

The Love Month

I.love.Target.

Especially the dollar section...the allure of all those items priced at only $1 pulls at me every time!

Last year, I picked up some of their cute little mailboxes around Valentines. They have been sitting in my craft hutch, just waiting for the perfect project.


The mailboxes are back this year, and I have seen several blogs discussing these mailboxes and ideas for them. So, I decided to pull out my stash and do something with them.

So here is our February family activity...love mailboxes!




Tanner is so excited about the whole thing, and keeps finding things to put in Daddy and Mommy's mailbox so he can put the flag up!

Friday, January 30, 2009

Family game night

Last night was family game night. So we decided to play one of the games Tanner received for Christmas. Good idea, right??

When I bought this game, I looked up the reviews. CHECK
It was based on a movie we really liked. CHECK
It was on sale!! CHECK

And then we played the game:



I obviously missed the part about wearing elephant ears and a long nose with velcro on the end of it!





Oh, the things we do for our kids! But Tanner loved it. In fact he wanted to play it over and over again.

My mom always warned me that kids would humble you - but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Decoupaged Journals

Christmas this year was the year of homemade gifts for me. Partly out of necessity and partly because I just enjoy it that way!

When I was crafting up a storm in December, it was so hard not to post my projects on the blog. But considering most of the recipients were readers of this blog, I had to restrain myself.

Now that Christmas is over, WAY OVER I might add, I figured I would post some of the craft craziness.

Today, I will show you the decoupaged journals. These were so fun to make and one of the few things I actually made for myself too! For some reason, I never seem to find the time to make things for myself - but I have one of these journals and it goes with me everywhere!

I found this idea on one of my favorite crafty blogs here.

I used the larger notebooks, so I had to use two different sheets of paper. It can be a little tricky getting the paper on without bubbles and wrinkles. When that happened, I just reminded myself that homemade also means "not perfect"!!

A before and after shot (I apologize for the blinding light in the shot - photography is something I need to work on this year!):



A few of the journals I made for Christmas gifts:



Close-ups:



Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Well, January is almost over and I never posted the rest of our Christmas pictures. My sister posted some yesterday and gave me the motivation I needed to post some of my own!! So...here are some pics from our Christmas in Kerrville:

Our attempt at a family picture - I think this was shot #318:











The silly boys:



A friendly game of football on Christmas Day:





The kids "patiently" waiting for Christmas Eve to begin:



Enjoying Grandpa and Grandma's "ranch":