bikes…

Brad came home from work on Monday and asked the little boys if they’d like to go shopping…

for new bikes!

They spent all evening riding around the neighborhood – loving their new bikes!

pumpkin time…

I noticed the local grocery stores are setting up their little “pumpkin patches” outside their front doors – I’m sure it won’t be long until the kids are asking to carve pumpkins. 

Hopefully I can hold them off for a few more weeks …at least.

These pumpkin carving photos are from last year’s ooey gooey fun carving day! 

 

Cosmo Cricket Matilda Mini Deck

Cosmo Cricket Matilda Chipboard

Wackadoo Chipboard Letters (love these whimsical letters!)

Black Cardstock

White Cardstock

.3 Precision Pen

Foam Tabs

Adhesive

fly a kite…

This is the very last layout I created as a member of the American Crafts Design Team…and probably one of my favorites from my years as a team member.  I was able to use the brand new “Dear Lizzy Enchanted” line for my final project.  I love how it mixes soft and feminine with bold and bright – making a very happy combination!

You can click HERE to see (and buy) all of the different pieces in this fun line!

12x12 Cardstock White (it’s on sale HERE right now!)

Wonderful Alice Paper 

Graceful Swan Paper

Noble James Paper 

Charming Collin Paper

Wise Tortoise Paper

Fashionable Peony Paper

Pearl Brads

Plastic Rose Brads

Hyacinth Details

Damsel Accents & Phrases

Ethereal Remarks Stickers

Exquisite Remarks Stickers

Fantastic Wine Thickers

Fantastic Salmon Thickers

Fantastic Limeade Thickers

Black Fine Slickwriter

Strip Glue Runner (my new favorite adhesive!)

my runner…

Meagan ran her very first 5K race last Saturday.  She loved it.  Loved it.  Loved it. 

She is looking forward to running again.  She sure is lucky to have an aunt who loves running too!

She’s spent lots of time out running with Karli and running by herself on the treadmill over the last few months.

I’m proud of her for daring to try something new, setting a goal, working hard, following through, and proud of her for wanting to continue!

fall banner…

Last week we had a couple of cool, rainy, autumn-like days.  I put out all of our fall (not Halloween) decorations – which didn’t amount to much.  A wreath, some flowers, a lone pumpkin…so I decided to create a little banner to hang up in celebration of the season’s change. 

My project is on the Cosmo Cricket blog Here.

   

   

Here are the supplies I used:

Nutmeg Papers (12x12)

Nutmeg Mini Deck

Nutmeg Stickers

Nutmeg Chipboard

Ethan Blackboard Album

Slice

Fonts Essentials Design Card (Slice)

Basics Design Card (Slice)

Foam Adhesive (lots and lots of this)

Now I’m wanting to make even more Autumn projects to decorate our home…

and it won’t be long until we get out the Halloween decorations and projects!  yay! :o)

wild life…

I love the colors in Cosmo Cricket’s “Wanted” line.  They are perfect for our Southern Utah getaway photos…

Cosmo Cricket WANTED mini deck

Cosmo Cricket WANTED 12x12 paper

Cosmo Cricket WANTED chipboard

03 Precision Pen

Foam tabs

Adhesive

i’m in the mood…

…for pumpkin cookies, soft sweaters, warm socks, hot chocolate in the mornings, a fire in the fireplace,

crafting, holiday planning, football games, early bedtimes, driving in the mountains…

must be autumn…

homecoming headbands…

It’s homecoming week here in Wasatch County.  Even though I don’t have any high school aged kids, Meagan and her friends are attending the game.  Earlier this week we were talking about it, and she decided that she wanted to make a headband for herself and for her friends.  I bought some fabric and we spent a couple of hours ripping, twisting, and gluing until we had a fun stack of fabric flowers.

The photos aren’t great…taken inside after dark…but the headbands turned out pretty cute. :)

She said her friends were excited when she gave them their headbands too.

That definitely makes it worth all the hot glue burns on the tips of my fingers!  :o)

paper flowers…

…as soon as I typed that title, I started hearing Marie Osmond singing “Paper Roses”  in my head – weird.  Anyway…I wanted to share a fun project I created using these super cute Paper Flowers by Pebbles Inc. 

 

My project is on the Pebbles Blog today, along with a couple of super cute layouts from two of my fellow design team members.

I bought these little magnetic white boards a few years ago when the school supplies were all discounted – they are meant to hang in a locker.  I used a bunch of them for a Young Women’s activity, and since I had one left over, I decided to make one for myself!

They were kind of boring in the package…but with a little bit of patterned paper and some colorful paper flowers, it’s pretty darn cute!

I think it looks cute on my fridge…don’t you?

 

Meagan did too.  She thought it looked so cute, in fact, that she asked if she could have it for her locker.  What’s a mom to do?  My cute magnet board is now living at the Middle School.  That’s okay – I’m sure it’s happy there. :)

I wrapped paper around the expo marker and attached a magnet to the back.

Now that you’ve seen my project (and the others on the blog today)…how would you like to win your very own Paper Flowers?  Hop on over to the Pebbles Blog and leave a comment on their post to win some paper flowers for yourself! :o)

moon dough...

You know how smart those advertising people are?  And how they advertise things specifically for kids when they know kids will be watching?  And how they know those kids will ask over and over and over and over and over again for something until their parents buy it for them?  (mostly because they want their kids to just STOP asking?)  Do you?  Yeah...me neither. 

BUT...I will say that when we opened our latest package from Team Mom and found MOON DOUGH inside my kids thought they had died and gone to heaven.  They had been asking over and over and over (you get the picture here) for moon dough - every time the commercial came on tv.  Well, I hadn't given in (yet), but this time I didn't have to because Team Mom and Spin Master sent us Moon Dough!

After the kids settled down enough to open the package, here's what we found:

Of course, at this point, I had to put the camera down and open the box and get it all set up for the boys. ;)

The consistency of moon dough is hard to explain. It's kind of like foamy sand.  kind of.  not really.  I don't know how to describe it.  But it feels pretty cool.

There are several ways to make the shapes - there are molds hooked in the barn, and there are these separate molds you just press the dough into and pop it out.

 

 

 

Apparently the dough never dries out...so I'm guessing that also means it doesn't dry up in carpet either, which is a plus!

The kids had fun.  lots of fun.  lots of messy fun.  crumbly fun.

 

And when they were done, I got to have fun.  sweeping it up.  It actually wasn't too bad (cleaning it up) - it swept up quite easily.  I would imagine if you used it on carpet, it would vacuum up easily as well.

And then we just mushed all the colors together and now we have lots of green moon dough! :o)

I'm sure we'll be buying some refill dough soon:

 

 

Thanks, Team Mom and Spin Master - the kids love their Moon Dough!

 

You can buy Moon Dough on Amazon.com - there are several different toys and accessories. 

Here's a link to the Barn:

 

You can also buy Moon Dough Puppies:

Or a Moon Dough Pizza Shop:

Or a Moon Dough Diner!

 

My kids want them all!  I told them they should ask Santa. :o)

all about me...

...kind of.

My very first assignment for my new position as a member of the Pebbles Inc. Design team was to create a layout to "introduce myself."  I wasn't too excited to talk about myself, so I let me four biggest fans (and critics, lol) do the talking for me.

I asked each of them what they would say if someone said, “Tell me a few things about your mom.” Take a peek at some of their answers:

 

I am so glad I asked them to do my journaling for me.  You should try it - you might get a whole new perspective about yourself when you see how others see you.  Consider it a challenge - I'd love to see your layout if you take me up on it! :o)

 

Pebbles Tree House Trunk (751034)
Pebbles Tree House Melody (751030)
Pebbles Tree House Laughter (751025)
Pebbles Tree House Chips (744114)
Pebbles Chirpy Cardstock ABC Stickers (7322009)
White Cardstock (American Crafts)
Letter Stickers (American Crafts)
Foam Adhesive Tabs (American Crafts)
Border Punch (Stampin’ Up!)
SNF Marmalade font (Scrapnfonts.com)
Red Crochet thread
White thread

he had a birthday...

...shout hooray! :o)

Yep - my guy is 11 years old now!  We celebrated his birthday a day early since we were on the road, headed out on a little family getaway, on his actual birthday.  He was excited to open his gifts to find an i-pod touch and accessories.  Really, he was...he's really truly smiling.  He'd been to the dentist right before he opened his gifts and one side of his face was numb - so it's a little crooked, but trust me, the smile is there!  (watching him try to blow out his candles was immensely entertaining.  You should try it next time you're numb from the dentist - it's hilarious!)

We spent the evening celebrating with family at Grandma and Grandpa's house - where he was thrilled to receive even more special attention and gifts - a wii game, his own afghan, an i-tunes gift card, and cashola!  We also celebrated with plenty of sugar -  white cake with chocolate frosting & sprinkles and vanilla bean ice cream (his favorite).

It was lots of fun celebrating his birthday...but doing it early kind of made his actual day a let-down for him.  He's my sensitive kiddo and he was a little emotional as we were headed out on our trip - because he didn't want to spend his birthday driving all day.  I believe he actually might have even muttered something about it being the "worst day ever."  Good thing he had that brand new ipod to play all the way to St. George, huh?

I know every mom says it every time her child celebrates a birthday, but honestly, I feel like it wasn't that long ago when Josh came into this world - over two weeks ahead of schedule!  I still remember eating zuchinni cookies for breakfast (made my my mom and sister the day before)...I know, super healthy, right?  I did have milk too...and zuchinni is healthy!  Anyway, a few short hours later I was at the hospital calling Mom to come get Meagan and calling Brad to hurry up and get to the hospital.  Josh was born during the noon hour while rain poured and poured outside.  Though the weather was dreary, it was truly an amazing day - one of the best days of my life!  Josh was an easy baby - so content and happy all the time.  He was my snuggler.  He's so smart and talented, wants to be everybody's friend, is excited for Scouts, loves roller-coasters, and will always be my little boy, no matter how big he gets!  Happy Birthday Josh! :o)