Bead Work

I finished Elle's Christmas gift tonight and love how it turned out....now I want to make one for me!  The possibilities are endless!  Her current favorite color is teal/turquoise so these beads were just right.  This bracelet will wrap around her wrist three times...or if she likes, I think it's the right length to wear as a necklace.

Felt and Needle

I finished two more crafts on my list, today.  First, after stealing every possible free moment this week, I finally finished Levi's gift that I'm giving him for Christmas.  It was easy and difficult all at the same time.  The actual design was fun to make and personalize, but the work was tedious and sometimes a little slow.  But, I am VERY happy with how it turned out.  I based my design off of one I saw on Pinterest and then added my own touches based on what Levi loved.  I can't wait for him to open it.  I especially like the way it folds up to carry...by far the simplest construction possible...no ties, snaps or velcro closures. 

Fill 'er up at the HEB gas station

Home Sweet Home with a garage to park in (you might not be able to tell from the picture)

When Levi open the door to his home, he'll get a surprise!  And he's velcroed on so if something happens to him, I can make another one.

The firehouse

When you open the firehouse door, another surprise.

The carwash

Three pockets on the front to park his cars in

 The only thing I really had to buy for this car mat was a few rectangles of felt (25 cents each) and the Dalmatian ($1.75).  I had everything else on hand!

 

I also spotted this crafty ornament a while back and pinned it to my Pinterest and knew that I had to make it, in honor of my 1st (and possibly only) white Christmas, last year. That has been one of my best memories ever of Christmas day...I only waited 34 1/2 years for that!

On the back....us on Christmas Day 2012, with the snow falling around us!

First Christmas Craft

My craft room has officially turned into more of a total wreck than it usually is...and that can only mean one thing....CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!!!!  I currently have about 7 projects going and I'm slowly getting little bits of each thing accomplished.  Tonight I finished the first official project I needed to do....a homemade peacock ornament for Ava's Christmas tree.  When our elf on the shelf gets here on December 1st, he's bringing an ornament for each child :)   

Twinkies and Ice Cream

Saturday night, Elle had her friend Gwen spend the night.  Gwen brought her dress that matches Elle so Sunday they work their matching dresses.  Could they be much cuter?  I noticed later that they even switched shoes for church. 

 

While I'm on the subject of Elle, she has also been working really hard to re-memorize all of her multiplication facts this year.  She had them memorized by the end of 3rd grade...and then lost all that knowledge over the summer!  So we started a chart and I told her I'd take her for icecream (it seems that all the kids rewards always lead to icecream!) when she completed each set of facts.  She did that last week and so I made a test of 70 facts....pretty much everything from 2x1 through 12x12 and on her first test, she missed five.  We told her she had to miss three or less...and today she took it for the second time and only missed ONE!  We were so proud and she was SO excited to be getting icecream tonight!  She wanted Shakes (which is a frozen custard place) so she got it! 

She ordered a coffee concrete with raspberry topping and loved every single bite!

Another reason to dress up

I'm always looking for any reason to put my kids in costumes and when our MASH group decided to go to the local nursing home to sing some songs and pass out turkey crafts I felt a costume coming on!  I was excited when we were told to dress our kids in either Pilgrim or Indian costumes.  Somehow I REALLY lucked out and happened to find Elle's costume and Levi's top at our local Goodwill type store for a grand total of $3!!!  And Ava's was getting it's 3rd use!  The residents seemed to really like it and it was a good chance for our kids to be about something other than themselves!

 Here's the group!

Singing their hearts out to the residents

My cuties

Maybe I can talk one of the girls into being a pilgrim for Halloween next year???

Just for You

 Do I have your attention?

I care very much that you only eat things that taste good.  Because of that, and that alone, I made Chocolate Chip Lava Cookies the other night...you know....to test the recipe and see if it would be worth the effort for you.  And guess what....

 

In that same vein of caring about you and the taste of your food, I also decided to do something I've wanted to do for a long time....I bought the three major brands of chocolate chips and did a taste test with the family to see once and for all which chips I need to be monogamous with...and guess what?  It was a three way tie!  All three had unique flavors but none of us thought one was better than the other.  So, in the recipe above, I added a third of each of these brands to make a new mix!

 

Enjoy!

My Second Favorite Holiday

Halloween has been stretched into a full one week holiday since we've had kids.  I do love Halloween, but I'm not so sure about celebrating it over and over and over again.  I think by last night my kids were kind of tired of it.  I told Levi that we were going trick or treating after his nap yesterday and his honest reply was "AGAIN?!" in an exasperated tone.  He sure wasn't complaining when he was eating candy though. 

We started with the Boo Bash down on the square.  All the businesses give out candy and it's a nice community thing.  This was the kids first time to put on their costumes and all loved how they looked. 

Elle was excited to be a ninja because she said "No one will expect me to be a girl."  She is so taking after me in the whole "smash the gender rules" category.

Levi could not stop talking about his "muscles" and get really proud acting every time someone mentioned those muscles.  He also shot webs, which I have no idea how he knows about since I'm pretty sure we've never seen a spiderman movie or cartoon. lol

Ava wanted to be Tiger Lily from Peter Pan.  After awhile she decided to just go by Pocahontas because she said everyone kept asking her if that was who she was and she was tired of explaining. ha!  I was super excited because this was Elle's costume last year so SCORE for recycling a costume!!!  All Ava was really concerned about was wearing bright red lipstick.  I tried to explain that Indian women probably wore "natural" colors if any on their lips but Ava wanted flamin' red!

My costume was the easiest it's been in a long time and seemed fitting anyway.

Make me proud kids!

Some of the kids from church that joined us on the square.

 

On Saturday night, we headed to a trunk or treat.  I didn't take my camera since I knew it would be more of the same...and it was....with lots more candy to follow.

 

Then the big night arrived.  One last event and this was one we've done every year since we moved here.  We head down Main Street and fill 'er up with around 1,000 other kids!  It gets crazy as the night goes on so we try going when it's still pretty early. 

 

All of our family, ready to go.  Shawn makes the best nerd ever.

I'm proud to say that all of these people got their costumes from "Emma's Closet."  lol

Most of the kids from church that came

These two...so stinkin cute.

In honor of Allen Lovins, Izzy pulled Shawn this year.

This cat was HUGE!

 

One of the only pics I got of Ava...she was moving fast...as if she had an agenda.

Elle and Gwen...these two look so cute!

 Some of the mommas....man we have a fun and goofy group!

 

Upon coming home, the girls really wanted to take their overflow of candy and hand it out to other kids.  So Shawn sat out on the porch with them handing out candy.  It was a win win situation!  I asked Levi to show me his suckers and this is the picture I got.  I think he might be a little infatuated with them.

This picture makes my OCD self very happy.  I just NEED to separate out the candy and see how much we have of each kind...and what we can go ahead and give away!  I would estimate that we have somewhere around 10 lbs of candy.