Summer Break 2016 - Week 2

We are loving our summer! Here are this week's highlights.

Tuesday

We had our first Passport to Boise stop - The Egyptian Theater! We learned all about the history of the theater (it opened its doors in 1927!), got to watch a silent black and white film, and got to tour the theater. Kylee's favorite part was all the gold leafing.

Wednesday

Our second Passport to Boise stop was at the ReUseum. Kylee and I got to make little "bristle bots" out of old cell phone vibrators, toothbrushes, and a little battery :-) SO fun!

We also went to the Library where the kiddos and I made no-sew t-shirt bags out of old t-shirts.

Saturday

We met up with the Hudsons for a family reunion... lunch in the park and roasting smores at Matt's parents house in the evening. It was nice seeing and catching up with grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins, etc.

Baby Clothes Quilts

Aren't these just beautiful!??! I had seen baby clothes quilts on Pinterest and knew I wanted to make some for my boys (unfortunately we don't have any of Kylee's baby clothes). The only problem is, I'm not a quilter. My Aunt Kathy came to my rescue! She drove over from Washington and came over every day to help get these done. All I really did was help cut some of the squares and iron on some of the stabilizing fabric on the backs of the baby clothes squares. Kathy did all the rest, including all the sewing and quilting. I have had these blankets just laying in the middle of my living room for a couple days now because I don't want to put them away. They make me smile every time I see them. I can tell you about pretty much every fabric square on the quilts - sooo many memories! I just love them. Thank you, thank you, Kathy!

Christ is Born Advent

One of my favorite Christmas memories from growing up is the Christmas advent calendar we did every year. It was a big piece of felt with pockets for each day in December. Every pocket held a piece of the nativity (i.e. the stable, the angel, Mary, Joseph, Jesus, animals, etc) that we then put up on the felt to make a complete nativity scene. It was a fun way to count down to Christmas. I have been wanting to make an advent calendar for my home, and after lots of looking, I decided to make one with pictures and scriptures of Christ. I invited Beki to make one with me and we had lots of fun planning and constructing our advent. Our hubbies helped out too! Here's what we did:

• I found a list of scriptures on line that followed the life of Christ.
• I then found pictures on lds.org that went with each scripture (you can download the pictures there for free for personal use!)
• Next, I re-sized each picture to 3x3 to fit on the 3" wood squares I had purchased.
• Beki was then able to add the scripture on to each picture (you can access these pictures/scriptures here if you'd like!)
• Bryce printed the pictures for us, and then we mod podged them onto the wood squares. We mod podged scrapbook paper onto the other side of the pictures. I ended up spraying the squares with an acrylic sealant because the mod podge seemed to dry a little tacky and the squares were sticking together a bit.

• Matt cut down some pine boards for us and then attached each board with small strips of wood on the back. He also sanded the wood for us so we could paint it.
• Beki and I painted the boards, added the vinyl lettering, and added nails for each of the squares to hang on (Matt drilled all the holes in the squares for us!).

Here is our finished product. I love LOVE it! And Kylee has really been enjoying it so far too. Every day she asks to turn the square and we have loved reading the scripture stories as a family. I hope she (and Tyler and Bradley) will look back on this (new) tradition with fondness as I look back on the nativity of my youth!

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Valentines Decor

When I was uploading pictures for Tyler's 15 month blog post, I realized that I got behind again in my blogging! I wanted to quickly share a few of our Valentine decor projects:

Jen and I made these Valentines bubble wreaths and I just love how they turned out. The directions called for red burlap, but I chose to do pink because I have a red door :-)

Kylee helped me with these last couple projects... super quick, super easy, and added a little extra love to our house over the last month!

Gallery Wall

We have officially lived in our home for a year and a half and I am finally getting stuff on the walls! It has taken me a while to decide what I wanted to do, because I decided early on that I wanted my decor to be meaningful. After looking at tons of pictures to get ideas, I decided I wanted to do a gallery wall in my dining room. I identified some key pieces that I wanted to use and drew out layout ideas on graph paper (to scale). Once I had figured out what I wanted for the most part, I traced each object on butcher paper and taped it to the wall so I could see how the finished wall would look before I started hanging everything. After a little tweaking, I decided I was satisfied and went to work! I LOVE the finished product. I couldn't be happier with how it all turned out. Here's a little detail of the objects on my wall (in addition to family pictures!).

1.  Idaho Pallet Map. I love Idaho. It is where I grew up, where Matt and I met, and where we have chosen to raise our family. BJ picked up a free pallet for me, Matt pulled the boards off the pallet, then BJ trimmed them down for me. After a light sanding, I stained the pallets with some stain I had on hand and mod podged on a map of Idaho that Matt's dad printed for me. I am in love with this.

2.  Hudson Street Sign. My friend and former boss Kris sent me this picture. I thought it was a perfect addition :-) 

3. Family Theme. I had read online of people having an annual family theme - something for the family to focus on for the year. I loved the idea, and as decided our theme for the year would be "Let us oft speak kind words to each other." We thought this theme was especially appropriate with Kylee starting school and knowing how kids can say unkind things sometimes. The plan is to incorporate the theme into Family Home Evening each week and work into conversations at other times throughout the week. 

4. The Family: A Proclamation to the World. Because family is so important. 

 5.  Wooden decor from Honduras.  Matt served his mission in Honduras and brought this home.

6.  Artwork Display. I wanted somewhere to display Kylee's artwork/schoolwork. I knew I wanted something that would be easy to swap out the pictures, so I came up with this idea - I bought a cute frame from Hobby Lobby, added some vinyl lettering to the bottom, and hot glued a clip to the top of the frame. Voila!

 7.  Ship Wheel from the Bahamas. A little momento from our honeymoon cruise to the Bahamas.

8. Monogram Picture Collage. I knew I wanted an "H" on the wall for our last name, but wasn't exactly sure how I planned to decorate it. I showed Kylee several ideas from the internet, and this is the one she picked! My mom's friend cut the H out of MDF for me, and then I just printed out pictures on the computer and mod podged them on. Another thing that I am in love with!

9. Landscape Canvas. Matt and his dad go on a backpacking trip every year. They love it, and it is a fun way for them to spend quality time together. Matt snapped this picture on his backpacking trip this summer, and we both loved it. I just mod podged it on to an extra canvas I had sitting around.

Crafty Saturday

I have been so excited for Kylee to start kindergarten. I just know she is going to love school. For a few weeks now I've been planning a "Back to School BBQ" to celebrate the start of the school year (more on that in another post). I wanted her to feel special and excited, so of course I needed to do a little decorating. Unfortunately, I didn't really have any "school" decor. No worries - thanks to Tyler taking two really good naps yesterday, along with some ideas off Pinterest, I had quite the crafty day. Here are some of my projects. I am thrilled with how they all turned out!

1. School Banner - inspired by Knitty Bitties

2. Ruler Wreath - tutorial on Polka Dot Chair

3. Ruler Table Runner - inspired by Confessions of a Plate Addict
4. Party Hats - inspired after reading NieNie Dialogues
5. Rolo Candy Pencils - inspired by Hoosier Homemade

Happy Flag Day!

Matt and I have been putting out our flag almost every day since we bought it. We love it, and we love this beautiful country. We made sure we put the flag out bright and early this morning for Flag Day. Each time I see our flag, I smile.

Speaking of flags and smiling, I also love my new patriotic banner that I made! Beki came over yesterday and we did this little craft project. It was super simple and I love how it turned out. I think I am going to have to make several more for different holidays and occasions :-)

You Rock Mom

I seriously love the extra time I get to spend with Kylee now that I'm only working part time. I try to make the most of our days together. Today we did a fun Mother's Day craft... Kylee made a rock for her mom and her grandmas, and she wanted to make one for me too :-) Each rock comes with a handwritten note by Kylee that says "You Rock" (we found the idea here).

It was pretty sweet - a few hours after we finished the rocks she came up to me, with her hands behind her back. She smiled big as she proudly handed me my rock and told me "you rock". She acted like I hadn't just helped her make it earlier in the day. Kylee helped me figure out a good place to put my rock - in the office next to my computer. I will gladly keep it there to brighten my days!

Garden Rocks

Last year, between the fact that we didn't build our garden beds until May, didn't get dirt until June, and that I wasn't feeling well from my pregnancy, we didn't end up having much of a garden. Needless to say, we are excited for a garden this year! In preparation for planting, Kylee and I had fun doing a little project on Monday making garden rocks as markers for our vegetables. I drew an outline with pencil on the rock and Kylee painted them in. I love how they turned out!

We got our strawberry plants in the ground and will be planting seeds for our carrots, lettuce, and beets next week. We'll purchase plants for the rest of our garden here in a month or so!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I sure love my Valentine. He surprised me this morning with a beautiful perennial rose plant. I am going to do my best to keep it alive for another month or so until it;s warm enough to plant it outside :-)

Speaking of valentines, Kylee and I had fun making valentines for her friends. I downloaded this bag topper - "You're a GEM Valentine!" What kid doesn't like ring pops? :-) Kylee took care of the gluing and writing the names on the valentines.

We've had a couple warmer days, so we went on a family walk to deliver Kylee's valentines. I love how she also drew a picture of our family on our walk!

Preschool, Puppets and Pedicures

I know I've blogged a lot about Tyler lately, but I've also been enjoying my extra time at home with Kylee! She is such a social butterfly, I was worried that she would miss her play time with other kids at my mom's and Matt's mom's house. To help with that, we've added one more day of preschool a week, so she's now going every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and she's loving it! We have her practice her letters or math almost daily at home. She knows all of her letters, can write them all, and knows the sounds they make, so we play little games by asking her to identify words that start with a certain letter (i.e. "tell me a word that starts with D") or we will tell her a word and ask her to tell us the letter that it starts with. She tried to sound out whole words. A couple weeks ago, she excitedly asked me to go into her playroom to see what she had written on her whiteboard.  She had written "PONE" (pony). She was thrilled with herself! Another example - the other day we were driving in the car, and she said, "Look mom, the birds are making a V" (as she pointed to the birds flying in the sky).

But it's not all work and no play at our house! I've set up weekly play dates with her friend Laura from church, and she has other friends over as I can schedule them with their parents. Kylee didn't have any friends over today, but we had a good time making puppets and doing pedicures! I painted Kylee's toenails and she painted mine! I sure love my sweet girl.

Crafting

I really enjoy crafting and was excited to have a dedicated craft room in our new house.  The only problem is that I have hardly spent any time in my craft room since we moved.  I blame that on a couple things.

1)  I have been busy.  Or sick.  Or both.  I got pregnant just shortly after moving in and didn't feel like doing anything (besides laying around) for months.  If I had tried to craft at all, I wouldn't have enjoyed it.  I also studied for (and passed!) my project management certification exam.  That was no small feat.  And finally, since I've been feeling better, I've been focused a little more on this coming baby... like scouring Craigslist for a dresser, painting a small end table white to match the room I pictured in my head, etc.  Oh, and I decided to get my personal training certification.  It's an idea I've been toying with for the last year or so and decided to just do it.  We plan on turning part of the 4th bay of our garage into a home gym and I would love to take on a couple clients after I have this baby and get back in shape.  But that means more reading and more studying and another test.  Speaking of the garage, Matt and I finally started epoxying the floor.  We had hoped to do it before we moved in, but they didn't finish the house in time.  Anyway, we finished two of the four bays this week and it looks great!

2)  My craft room is rather uninspiring right now.  It wasn't top on my list for setting up and decorating since the room isn't one of the main living areas.  The rooms people would see took my attention first.  Which, by the way, I've decided most of my house doesn't feel very homey.  I'm going to work on fixing that.  But back to my craft room - who wants to craft in an uninspiring space??

Needless to say, I've got some work to do.  I do have a bit of a vision in my head of what it can look like, though.  I've looked through plenty of photos on Pinterest, but I also have a great example in my friend Mandy!  I went to her house a couple weeks ago to make cards.  It's always fun to get together with her to craft.  Here are a couple pictures of her craft room (which happens to be a converted garage bay).

Looks like I've got a lot of work to do... maybe I should get off the computer and get going :-)

Being a Mom

I sure love being a mom. I know I have said this many times, but I feel so lucky that Kylee is my daughter. I got to spend some extra time with Kylee these last few days, as I had a four day weekend, and we had Kylee extra for the holiday.  It was such a treat.  I wanted to take advantage of every minute with her.

We got our nails done before Jen's wedding.

 Kylee and Matt got much needed haircuts.  Thanks Grandma!

We went to Build-a-Bear and Kylee got Twilight Sparkle.  She used $20 of her own money that she has been saving up.  Funny story... Before we went to Build-a-Bear, Kylee would get excited telling us she was going to "waste" her money on a Build-a-Bear :-)  She doesn't quite know the difference between "waste" and "spend".  Twilight Sparkle hasn't left Kylee's side since we left the store.

We did a craft project in preparation for Kylee's little brother.  We made some cute closet organizers, inspired by this post.

We also went to lunch with my family for my mom's birthday, went shopping, went on several walks, played at the park, had dinner with Matt's family with Michelle in town, and more.

One of my highlights from the weekend was that Kylee gave a talk in church.  She did such a great job!  Her talk was about how Heavenly Father hears and answers her prayers.  We worked on writing the talk together, and after just a few times of practicing (and some cheesy picture hints) she was able to say the entire thing almost all by herself!  After church, Kylee said that she was a little scared to give her talk, but then she felt Heavenly Father's arms around her and she was okay.  I was definitely a proud mama.

One more sweet moment from church... The music leader asked all the kids to close their eyes and think of a place that feels like heaven.  Then she asked the kids to open their eyes and share what place they thought of.  Kylee's answer was the temple.  We had just been to the temple the day before for Jen's wedding, so I'm sure the temple was on her mind, but hearing this made me so happy that she recognized Heavenly Father's spirit.