My confession.

I admit, I'm addicted. I really am officially addicted.

To this. . .

And to making these. . .

Seriously, does anyone else walk around their house scamming every room looking for things to glue with the hot glue gun? No? Just me then?

I LOVE THE GLUE GUN! I actually search for projects that require using a glue gun because I love using it that much! Addicted? Very much so. But in a very healthy, 'I like being crafty' sort of way. If that's possible.

Okay, so how cute did these pink tulle and green and yellow felt rosettes turn out? I made these cuties into clips for Avery's hair, perfect for Spring. I'm currently looking for cute pink and white headbands to shove a few of these babies on for Avery's hair too but I've had no such luck finding any that I've liked yet. The search will continue.

I made these bigger clips to clip on "Thank You" cards I made to give to the old YW presidency. They can use them for their hair, to clip on a handbag, a scarf, a necklace or even a bracelet. There are zillions of things to do with a rosette clip!--And that's why they make me SO happy!

And these smaller ones I made for.... well, I'm not sure, I just couldn't stop making them!! More clips, maybe?

And these? Oh my goodness, my favorite! I made these to go on a frame for my Heritage wall that just keeps looking more and more amazing in my head everyday. Aren't they adorable?
I LOVE THEM!

This isn't the frame I had in mind to stick them on but I could if I wanted because look how dang cute they look? And what if I added some old vintage lace pieces and pearls tucked away in between a few of the rosettes and then switched the picture out for an old sepia print of my grandparents? Can you even imagine? Ooooo, I'm excited!

LOVE IT!

And can I just say how excited I am about how this burlap rosette turned out?--and not just because I like saying 'burlap'. :)
Well I'll tell ya how excited I am. I'm pretty darn excited! I'm going to have to make more of these for sure!

I would have kept digging through my scrap material and made more if my supply of glue sticks hadn't have run out. Darn it.

Until next time glue gun, until next time.

Shopping list for tomorrow:

- more alligator clips
- white and pink headbands
- TONS more glue sticks
- more vintage looking material
- a cupcake {or two} from The Sweet Tooth Fairy :)
- vintage looking buttons
- more hot pink tulle

Where's Bo?

Olp, there he is!

Bo is such a funny dog. When he lays in his bed he nuzzles underneath his blanket until he is almost completely covered. I've never met a dog that likes to be covered with a blanket, especially their face, until Bo-bee. :)


We're dog sitting while Mom and Dad are on their fancy 10-day Panama Canal cruise. The kids love having Bo here and Ruby does too. Except I think Ruby feels like she's been replaced as my #1 lap fan. Every time I sit down Bo comes running over and jumps up on my lap, {which by the way, he is SO heavy, rock solid}, then Ruby comes over, looks up at me, looks at my lap to see if there's any room left for her, then squeezes in where ever she can. haha! So this is usually what I look like if I'm sitting down...
What can I say, they love me! :)


Look at these two cute sun-lovin' pups!

New Beginnings

We had the most amazing New Beginnings program last week. Judy did an awesome job planning it, it was SO FUN! I dare say, the best sporting event I've ever been to! :)

Judy introduced our team {the Young Women} and they tore out onto the playing field through the "Standing For Truth & Righteousness" banner. Wahoo! Go team!

None of my pictures turned out very well, and this is the only one I got of the banner before it was destroyed. *Shrug*

Then our Varsity team {Laurels and Mia Maids}, riled up the crowd with their team cheer. . .

Then it was our Jr. Varsity's {Beehives} turn. . . GO TEAM!

Their cheers turned out so cute, they came up with them all by themselves! :) We also did one all together that I helped with. We wanted it to be about our 13th article of faith theme. This is what we came up with, I was the 'caller':

"Hey Girls?!" "Yeah?!"
"Hey Girls?!" "Yeah?!"
"Introduce yourselves!" "No Way!"
"Introduce yourselves!" "Okay!"
"We are the girls, yeah
and we will stand, yeah
for truth and righteousness, yeah
forever more, forever more!"
FUN FUN FUN!

Before the big game, Kyley gave the team and the crowd an awesome 'pep talk' on the importance of being a good teammate and helping each other make good choices in this game of life. She did a great job!

Next we played "The Game of Life" Jeopardy style. We had two teams,
the young women, aka Red Ninjas,
against their parents, aka The Oldies--they came up with the name, not me. :)

The categories were:

Play Book: questions from the Personal Progress book
Pep Talk: questions about motivational women in the scriptures
Team Colors: colors of the values
Rule Book: questions from the Strength of Youth pamphlet
Team Cheer: questions about the 13th article of faith

Sounds fun doesn't it? Brooke did such a good job, so creative and fun, the crowd LOVED the game!

Here's Trisha, she was taking her job of 'cheating patrol' very serious! ha ha!

And here's Mandi manning the game board.
Wahoo, the RED NINJAS pulled through with the win! Good job girls!

After the big game our coach, aka Brother Thiel, gave us a re-cap and 'post-game highlights' to remember the most important points about 'the game of life'. It was great! Then we gave each of the girls their 'souvenir' to take home. A water bottle and a new label that said,

"Blessed are they which do
hunger and thirst after righteousness:
for they shall be filled." ~Matthew 5:6

In the game of life, quench your thirst with things that matter!

The label also had a picture of open scriptures on it. They turned out so cute, I was quite proud of myself! :)

And last but not least...

"Popcorn! Get your popcorn!!"

"Nachos for sale!"

"Red Vines! Get your Red Vines!"
"We've got ice cold drinks here!"

{We didn't really make anyone pay, the signs just wouldn't of looked la-git if there weren't prices on them.} :)

LOVE these girls and leaders!!

The night couldn't have gone better! It was a very memorable New Beginnings and I am so glad I was a part of it. Everyone had a great time!

Now on to a sad note. . .
The Young Women's presidency was released on Sunday.
*Sigh*
I am the Laurel/Mia Maid advisor so I didn't get released and I can't decide if I should be happy or sad about that. On one hand, it will be hard being in YW's without Brooke, Trisha, Judy and Jana. We all got along SO well and had SO much fun with the young women, it will be sad not being able to serve with them anymore. I admire and look up to each one of them SO SO MUCH!
But on the other hand...
I am so grateful that I still get to serve in YW's and be a leader to the most amazing girls I've ever met, I absolutely LOVE MY CALLING!
It really is a bitter-sweet change for me.
It was so hard for the girls and the leaders on Sunday to say good-bye, we have all grown so close. And yes, I do realize they're not moving to another country! haha! It just won't be the same. :(
It will be good. Different, but still very good.
I am getting excited to serve with the new presidency though. The new president was my very faithful visiting teacher for the first two years we lived in this ward so I know her quite well and I know she is very well qualified for the job! :) I know she will be an amazing YW president and be great with the girls.

Snow Boondoggles

Ruby was sure excited to have her B-friend come over to play the other day. Unfortunately though, Chewy wasn't up for much playing. Can you blame him, check out his boondoggles. He could hardly walk, let alone run!
Ha ha ha! Ho ho ho! Hee hee hee!
I'm sure glad they're made of snow and not. . .well, regular boondoggle contents. Ha ha!
Did you have to have him thaw in the garage before he came inside Trisha?

Oh Chew-ster, we sure love ya!

We got so much snow on Saturday night/Sunday morning. It's the most we've gotten at one time all winter. Poor Justin ended up having to shovel both our driveway and the church sidewalks twice within a matter of about 3 hours. Good thing he's a trooper and doesn't complain about anything...wish I could say the same for myself...anywho, the kids sure thought it was a treat and were thrilled to go out in it.

While Justin was finishing up the driveway on the side of the house...

This is what the front looked like. Completely covered again! Thus the reason for shoveling it twice.

Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman.

Once there was a snowman tall, tall, tall!

Keep piling it on Avery, it will get there! :)

Welcome to the Princess Room

I've had this envisioned in my head for quite sometime now. Instead of doing a head board for Avery's bed, {because I wasn't sure how a white head board would look in front of the white bead board behind her bed}, I wanted to do this.

I finally just bought the tulle {on one of my many trips to JoAnn's last week} and did it. Mostly so I could quit thinking about it. :) I got the fun wall knobs at Tai Pan and Rod Works and just spray painted them white.

I really love how it turned out, it's cute. Looking at these pictures though, I think I might sag the tulle and droop it a bit towards the center to get a more full look. I also want to get some kind of cute wall hanging/picture to hang in the center too.
Note to self: must sew Rag Doll a cute frilly dress ASAP!

My little Princesses room is almost complete. I have a few more things in mind to jazz it up a bit including: cute chandelier, window coverings, desk of some sort {white}, and once I have the desk in place I can hang shelves/pictures on the wall above it to create a cozy little nook for my little princess. I also want to sew a few more coordinating throw pillows for her bed. Nothing says 'princess room' to me more than a jumble load of cute pillows piled on the bed. Exciting!

. . .*THIS JUST IN*. . . Hayzen and Quinn's bedding will be delivered by the UPS man tomorrow. Wahoo! I believe I'll be taking a trip to the paint store real soon. More excitement!!

Note to Justin: You're not hating my spring cleaning/organizing/brightening/sprucing things up/crafting/{border line} obsession lately yet, are you honey? I know how you naturally fret about these kinds of things. {financially anyway} :) Rest assure though, I am using my allowance responsibly. ha ha ha!

Let's have a Read-A-Thon

Justin laughed out loud at me when I told him I wanted to have a read-a-thon on Friday night. "A read-thon?!?!" he asked, laughing hysterically.

Yes, a read-a-thon.

So after dinner we grabbed a few treats at the store, because who wants to have a read-a-thon without treats? When we got home, we put our jammies on and got all set up for our exciting, very exciting, family read-a-thon.

The kids LOVED it. And I mean REALLY loved it. Who wouldn't?

I loved everything about it too, except my double chin in this picture..... bad angle??? Let's hope.

And even though Justin was making fun of my so called 'nerdy plans' the entire evening, don't be fooled. He quite enjoyed himself too.

So when is the next READ-A-THON? Let's get it on the calendar ASAP! :)

I heart crafting of any sort!

This is what I've been doing the last few days and I couldn't be more pleased with the result!
LOVE IT!

These pillows were so fun and easy to make. I used a tutorial for the mustard felt pillow that I found on one of my favorite crafting blogs, The Crafting Chicks. Simply adorable. It was LOVE at first sight for me and I HAD to make it ASAP!

And while I was on one of my "crafting trips" to Hobby Lobby, I found this cute little lamp that was 50% off. SCORE! I'd been looking for a lamp for my living room for quite sometime now but just hadn't found it yet, that is until I saw this little gem. I added some cute little rosettes to it and...perfect! I also found this cute HOME picture frame at Rod Works that I couldn't pass up either. How could I, it coordinates so nicely and, well, it has three picture openings for my three hoodlums, perfect! I guess that means we can't have another child, Justin... :)

Now that I spruced up and added color to the couches, my walls are looking rather drab. I don't have any of my usual decor on my tables either, maybe that's why it looks so plain? I think I'll move the wreath to another room and do something different on that wall. Picture frames maybe? I don't know though, because I've got a slue of pictures hanging on my wall in the family room. {I just have to add a few more touches to it and then I'll post a picture. I can't wait, it's lovely!} We shall see what comes of the big and plain brown wall I guess.

The clock and table on the red wall will definitely be moving because here shortly, it will have my Great Grandma's piano in front of it. Hooray! I can't wait, I am SO excited about that! What a treasure to have in my home. It's the same piano that I grew up with, practicing away for my lessons. :) I have BIG plans for that wall surrounding my piano, it's going to be what I like to call, my ancestor wall. The vision of it in my head is amazing! Can't wait for that either!

Just to add a little more color over in that corner, I would like to find a mustard colored throw to hang over the chair.....Or maybe someone like my Mom could crochet me a mustard afghan?
What do you say Mother? :)

My living room "spruce-up" is all coming together and it's a good feeling!

Lil' Pirates

I was informed by Quinn the other day, that when they wear their hats backwards like this, they're pirates.

Being a pirate means: running around the house fighting dragons.

"Mommy, I'm really sweaty from running around the house fighting dragons." :)

It's a tough job but somebody's got to do it!

L.O.V.E. is in the air!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Yesterday our family had a wonderful day.

There was lots of love being shared everywhere! :)

For a special Valentine's dinner I made Chicken Parmesan with pasta and homemade sauce. We also had rolls and raspberry jello with whipped topping and berries on top. It was delicious!!

{Except, I got a little side tracked at the end so I left the chicken under the broiler just a tad too long. The parmesan cheese on top got a little crisp-ified, if ya know what I mean. Oh well, it was still tasty as ever!}

I gave each of the kids a card and a new book in the Mercy Watson series. We love Mercy Watson! I also gave Avery and Quinn mini gumball machines and Hayzen got some M&M's. Justin got a Bicycling Magazine, a card and some snickers.

Justin was so sweet and got me cute red and white flowers, {the ones on the table in the pic...which I actually had to move before we ate because I couldn't see anyone!}, a card and my favorite Valentine present every year, chocolate covered strawberries. YUM-O!

After dinner we made heart sugar cookies. The kids pushed their chairs over, including little Hayzen :), and we got to work.

All baked and ready to decorate.
After they cool that is...

Okay, now they're cooled.
Slap on the frosting!

Dump on the sprinkles!

And take a ginormous bite!

Look at my cute little
butter cream frosted,
Valentine sprinkled,
heart shaped love cookie!

"Now eat it, so I can watch you enjoy it!" HA HA HA!

I absolutely LOVE all 4 of my special Valentine's!
I'm so lucky to have three sweet kids and one fantastic honey to celebrate Valentine's day with.

Hey Justin! "Let's get fired up about freight!" ha ha ha!
I love you my Honey-Bun! You're the best!