Halloween Decorating

So, as I have already said I am kind of a nerd about holiday decorating, I totally love it. 

I found these headless black and white pictures at potterybarn.com last year and I knew they would be perfect on our family picture wall.  I absolutely love the way they look, people don't notice them right away and then they're like, "wait, those people don't have heads"

I did these halloween silhouettes last year, and even though there are some mistakes the kids think they are kind of cool.  So they stay up. I love these halloween decorations because they are simple, easy  and a little unexpected.

Puppet Theater

Before Christmas I was thinking of things to get for the kids and Reid and I talked about making a puppet theater.  We talked about making a bigger wood one, but I wanted something that wouldn't take up space.  So I found this tutorial online for a puppet theater that hangs on a tension rod you can put up in the doorway and decided to give it a try.  As I have mentioned I am not much of a sewer, so luckily I have several friends that kindly helped me with some of the trickier parts (OK most of the sewing) and I was able to finish it up myself.  I think it turned out really cute and the kids just love it.  It is definitely my favorite new toy from Christmas!

Copycat

I saw this post on Make and Takes about making a Halloween magnet board. 

I didn't have the stuff to make a magnet board, plus it seemed like a lot of work, but I did like the idea of having a place to put several Halloween pictures.  So I got a frame I wasn't using,  some scraps of corkboard I had on hand, and a few Halloween stickers and embellishments and I had my very own Halloween pinboard.  I really like it and I love having a place to display old Halloween pictures and see my cute kids costumes over the years.  Do you see that cute little elephant? She is now a kindergartener, crazy! Anyways my point is a lot of times you can take a cool idea you saw on a blog and adjust it a little bit, and do a project with stuff you already have on hand.  Which is so exciting!

Copycat

I love to look at blogs and copy different ideas I see, I love trying new ideas I just can't come up with any cool ideas on my own. So I thought it would be fun to show some of my copycat projects.  This family tree is something I made recently. 

I saw this on 71 toes and thought the family tree would be an easy project and a great birthday gift for my mother in law.  So I went to Hobby Lobby got some scrapbook paper, borrowed a leaf punch from a very nice scrapbooker I know and was ready to get started. 
Except then I remembered that the point of the family tree was having our genealogy written down.  So I had to try and track down all of the family names, our family history had been done it was just getting it all together that took time.  That was definitely the most time consuming part of this project for me. 

I used the picture from 71 toes as a guide and just started cutting the brown paper.  It took me 3 tries but I got the tree looking the way I wanted to.  Then I punched out all the leaves.  I decided to use blue for the female names and green for the male names because I couldn't find two colors of green that contrasted well.  Then I did one main branch at a time, writing the names out , placing them and then gluing them. 

It was a simple project, and I love having it on our wall to remind me of all the people that went before us and are a part of our family.

Cute Boxes

Brooke loves collecting. She has several different collections going, mostly rocks, seashells, jewels and other interesting items. Her collections were driving me a little crazy because they always ended up in ugly diaper and wipe boxes. Being the control freak that I am it was killing me that these boxes were uglifying her cute room. So one day at the store I sat in the cute box isle (you know hat boxes and such)contemplating spending $30 on boxes when I thought I would try to make some boxes for her. So when I got home I got some shoeboxes, scrapbook paper and mod podge and Brooke and I went to town. I love her new boxes, I think they turned out really cute. And she loves having places just for her collections. One thingI would change, Brooke wrote labels on the top of them, you know "Brooke's Fairy Stuff", "Brooke's Collection" and I should have had her do it on the front so you could see her cute handwriting better. But it was a way fun, easy projectthat we are both happy with.

Cool Art Project

I saw this idea for coloring salt on Design Mom and I had to try it. It looked so fun and easy and I would never have thought about trying it. All you need is salt, colored chalk and some jars. Pour a large amount of salt on a piece of paper and then rub it with a piece of chalk until you like the color, then you can pour it into the jars making different layers and patterns. The one thing I would do differently, is finding a way to seal the jar better, maybe pour the salt to the very top of the jar and then glueing the lid on so there isn't room to move or something. Brooke kept picking the jars up to look at them and the layers got all mixed up. Brooke and I had so much fun doing this, it was a great afternoon art project while Owen napped. You should try it!

Obsessed

These are some of our new and long standing obsessions.


We're obsessed with art projects! A friend sent me a link to this website www.notimeforflashcards.com
and I am seriously obsessed. This lady has such great art project ideas. As a mom my idea of art time has been to give Brooke a coloring book and a couple crayons and hope that will entertain her for a few minutes, and it usually doesn't. Anyways this site has a lot of really simple, fun art projects and activities. I was really surprised how much Brooke could actually do on her own and how excited she was to actually do a "real" art project. The other thing that I LOVE about this site is that she always lists childrens books to go along with the art project. I've also been surprised at how quick and simple these art projects are. We've really gotten into art this past week and have had a blast!





We're obsessed with Harry Potter! I've read all the Harry Potter books several times before, but after seeing the first movie I just never really got into the movies. Well my sweet husband FINALLY decided he would read the books and we've been busy reading the books and watching the movies as we go. It really has been funny to watch my husband, who is not exactly an avid reader zoom through these books.

We're obsessed with good deals! How cute are these pants (not to mention the adorable baby wearing them!)? $1.75 at Old Navy on clearance!


We're obsessed with yoga! I mentioned earlier that we got Brooke some yoga videos for her birthday. Well, she had been driving me nuts always wanting to do the one yoga video we had an extremely boring pregnancy yoga video that I thought we would get her some yoga kid videos and see what she thought. She loves them! She does them at least once a day. I think it is a great way for her to use some energy, especially when it is raining outside, and it is also a pretty good workout for me. So I know it is a little weird that our three year old does yoga, but she loves it, what are you going to do!




We're obsessed with summer fun! I'm so glad the weather has been so nice. We've been having a blast exploring the new parks in the area and going swimming with friends!



We're obsessed with rolling over! Owen has really gotten into this whole rolling thing, we can hardly keep track of him anymore. Brooke has been so proud of his new trick and likes to join him to show him how it is done!



We're obsessed (okay just I am) with hair. First of all, can I just say how happy I am that Brooke FINALLY has enough hair for ponytails. I just love it, I think she looks so cute and grown up. Also, Owen's hair is starting to grow back in, of course our son would have plenty of hair! Finally, I mentioned previously that I was concerned all of my hair was going to fall out after I had Owen, and I feel that I am well on my way. I sometimes have to forego the daily ponytail just to make sure that I still have hair it is falling out so rapidly. I keep thinking that I should just cut it short, but as hard as my hair is to grow I know once I cut it I'm not going to grow it out again, and I'm not ready to never have long hair again. So yesterday I broke down and got salon products (60% off) that are supposed to make your hair grown in thicker and stronger. So fingers crossed that I don't lose all my hair, as I really don't think I have the head shape for it! And if anyone has any tips for helping your hair to not all fall out let me know!


Anyways, thanks for bearing with us through this long post and here is to hoping you have fun things you can be obsessed with too!