Dr. Seuss' Birthday

I absolutely love Dr. Seuss' Birthday. It is one of my favorite holidays! There are so many fun things to do to celebrate. I usually spend several hours online trying to come up with some great activities but this week has been crazy so I had to think on the spot. I think these ended up being my favorite activities I have done so far.

The morning started out with pancakes shaped like Dr. Seuss' hat. Then I added strips with red food coloring mixed with 2-3 drops of water. The boys had a great time painting the stripes on. I had special visit from my friend Katrina and her girls to join in our fun party. She read the kids Dr. Seuss stories while I finished up making lunch. Doesn't it look yummy! For dessert they got to frost their own cupcake. They were looking forward to this all morning. It is always so much more fun when they get to do it themselves. I made the toppers with my Cricut and SCAL. It was so great to be able to whip them out in less then 10 min when I found out I was having a party. What is a party with out a party hat. (I had these left over from last year) It took some convincing to get Ben to take it off for his nap but when I went in to check on him an hour later I found him like this.
For snack that day I let Ben paint strips again because he had so much fun with it in the morning. I think the banana hats turned out really cute.

Christmas Presents

We (heart) Grandparents

Grandma
Grandpa

I love going the homemade rout for Christmas presents. They always mean so much more! This year I did virtually the same thing for my parents and for my grandparents. The tricky part of this was staying on top of people to get the pictures back to me. But all of my cousins cooperated with only a few phone calls. They really pulled through for me.

So here is what I did: STEP 1 I figured out how many grandchildren and great grandchildren there were. I played around with a few different things to say and ended up finding something that would work with the # I had. STEP 2 I cut out the letters on my Cricut. STEP 3 I mailed the letters to people that didn't live close by. STEP 4 I emailed, called, Facebooked, texted all of my cousins and siblings to let them know the letters were coming and gave them a deadline of when I needed the pictures back. STEP 5 made a few more calls to make sure the pictures were being emailed to me. STEP 6 I put them in Photoshop and turned them into black and white and I cropped all of them. I then made a collage in Photoshop so I could print several on an 8X10 to make sure the pictures were being printed the right size. STEP 7 Printed pictures and cut them out. Step 8 laid them out and measured to know what size board I needed. STEP 9 got my wood and had it cut then I painted it black. STEP 10 I Modge Podged all the pictures down and added the word Great to my grandparents present. Easy peasy I did it ALL in less then two weeks (yes, that counts mailing time too!)

Christmas Countdown

I really wanted to do an activity each day to help us get into the spirit of Christmas a little more this year. So I made up a list of 24 different things to do each day. I was going to sew something for the count down but I found this super cute one at Joannes and couldn't pass up the thought of not having to do all the work myself only to be frustrated with the end result :0) So here is a list of the activities we did, I changed the order when I slipped them in the pockets and some of them I switched as we went if I knew it was going to be a busy day that day. (I can't say we got all of them done, and I didn't pictures of all of them, come on people no one has that much time during the month of December) We did have a lot of fun with it though!

Leave a comment if you want me to email my list to you.This picture is actually from my parents tree. We only have a little one that the kids can decorate and redecorate all month long. (let me tell you a little about this picture, so I read 3 different places on the internet about how to take this picture changing my ISO, and shutter speed, using a tripod, and a whole lot of other stuff that still doesn't make much sense to me. I worked on it for over an hour (obviously not with Ben). I finally gave up and ended up with a super ugly dark picture. I slipped it into Photoshop and adjusted the lighting a tiny bit and 15 seconds later I came up with this amazing picture done on auto mode. I'm not sure I will ever move out of auto mode!!!!!!!!!!!)

Sam hated the bubbles!!!!

Since we don't have snow in Orange County we made our own with old paper. The boys had a blast imagine what it will be like when they actually get to throw real snow :0)I hate gingerbread so we made a chocolate chip cookie man instead. We also made a few out of rice crispy treats too. Yummy!

Miss T

I am so lucky to have moved so close to my childhood friend Tracey. And as you can see I moved here just in time. She was such a good sport about being my first guinea pig. I am now totally addicted to photography!!!!! If you want me me to take pictures for you just let me know! I am in Orange County but frequently go out to Corona. I do it absolutely free. You will get all of the pictures I take along with at least 10 edits.

Baby R

I had the pleasure of photographing this adorable newborn. I made a new hat for the special occasion. This was one of my very first photo-shoots. I am very happy with the results.

I love my Nikon

Have I ever told you I love photography. Probably not because it is a pretty new passion of mine. I guess I have always liked it but I didn't have a camera that helped me out. I just got a Nikon D3100 a few months ago. I have had a blast taking pictures of anything and everything. I take at least 1 picture every day. Usually more like 15-50. I still have a long way to go before I am good or could ever do it professionally. For now it is just a really fun hobby.
Here are a few pics I took of my boys last week. I am planning on taking some maternity shots of my friend here and so I wanted to see where some good spots would be and good lighting.I am sure her pictures will turn out way better than these. It is crazy hard getting your 2 1/2 year old to look at you when there are cool bugs everywhere to examine. I have a whole new respect for child photographers. We had a lot of fun. Someday I will learn how to edit them and they will look even better. But for now this is what you get.

Taco Soup

Taco Soup is super easy to make. I know it may taste a little better in the fall/winter but it is great for big gatherings during the summer too.

Ingredients:
1 lb cooked ground beef (I always buy it at Costco or on sale in bulk then cook it all at once and freeze it in 1 lb sandwich bags)
2 cans kidney beans
1 packet Taco seasoning
2 cans crushed tomatoes
1 16 oz can tomato sauce
1 can diced chilies
2 cups water
1 can corn

Dump it all in a pot and bring it to a boil. You can serve it with cheese, sour cream, and chips if you would like.

Happy cooking.

Don't Touch It's Mine

I did this spread a few months ago but never got around to blogging it. This is the page that gave me the inspiration for the Father's Day page I just did. Instead of embroidering on the embellishments I just embroidered directly on the page. I drew my circles out first, then poked the holes, then stitched. I did most of it while I was watching a movie :0)

FHE-Missions

Objective: I can be a missionary some day too
Opening Song: I hope they call me on a mission
Lesson:

• Show pictures of Mommy, Daddy, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. as missionaries.
• Each time you show a new picture say "..... was a missionary"
• when you are finished going through the pictures say "and someday ..... will be a missionary"
• Dress each child up in missionary clothes complete with tag (if you don't have one make it in Microsoft Word by using a text box that is black).

Closing Song: Called to Serve (try singing it in another language)

Happy Father's Day

Once again here are my scrapbook pages for Father's Day. This year I took the pictures myself instead of taking the boys to a studio like JC Penny.I hand stitched the embellishments before I taped them on the page. It is easiest if you poke the holes with a needle first, then run your thread threw. The blue paper was kind of thick so it got a little bent when I was poking the holes. Let me know if you have a tip to help avoid that. I love that part of the page each year I include a hand-print.

I used some foam adhesive to give the tag a little more dimension.

This year I also included a little painting that Ben did. Next year he will be old enough to write. It will be a lot of fun to read a letter that they write each year. Who knows maybe when the kids are a little older I will let them decorate their own page.