Getting Ready for the New Year

I'm not really much for resolutions. I'm too much of a realist and know that I won't keep up with it. But every few months, I get an urge to get back on top of things, and January is one of those months. I get so busy and behind in November and December with all the holidays. So here again, are the things I'm going to try to get back on top of . . . .

Working Out - about 3 months ago, I started paying a full membership fee to the Health Club because my two-fit (pregnancy) program ran out. That was the same day I stopped going. I've gone, but only a handfull of times. I have a hard time working it into our day between baby naps, eating, cooking, school, piano, - the list goes on, but I REALLY got to make it a priority.

Early to Bed, Early to Rise - I hate this one. I've been staying up late, being super productive - ALL BY MYSELF. But then the next morning, I don't want to get up and I get my day started late. No more midnight bedtimes!

Ben's Preschool - At the beginning on the school year, I planned on doing a little school with Ben everyday. I started with the letter A. I'm on F. That's pitiful. I've now decided to do this "Letter of the Week" curriculum. It's tons of free printables. Each week, there's a letter theme, but it includes counting, colors, puzzles, etc, too. Mom got me a laminator for my birthday, so I'm laminating most of what I print so I can just save it for Jack, too. I'm putting each letter of the week in a folder so that each week, I'll have it all ready to flip through and find an activity. (I'm sure we'll take more than a week to do each letter.)  I've also re-recruited Mom to start Granny school again - that way he can get some one-on-one attention once a week or so. I'm really excited about this curriculum. I've already got 2 folders ready. Probably mainly because laminating is SO FUN!!!

Cleaning/Decluttering/Organizing - I used to be so much better at this. It's different when you're organizing for others and they aren't keeping up with your system. I've really gotten slack on just keeping the house clean. I think part of me gave up. I planned on going back to fly lady, but Mom sent me a year long organizing calendar. I'm excited about starting it.

I've been staying on top of the big boys school and I'm doing good with Community Bible Study (though I do most my homework the couple days before class). There are other things that I want to work on. Like it'd be so fun to start a monthly Ladies Craft Night, painting, gardening, the list goes on. But for now, these are first in line. They don't sound like much, but when you're working with a full load as is, it's going to be a stretch.  I'm sure Spring Break, I'll get another regrouping urge.

Recycled Sweater

I still have sweaters and shirts in my closet that are too short in the waist. Yes, I know those have long time been out of style, but to my defense, I was wearing maternity clothes last winter. I don't have an excuse for the winter before that. Here's one of them.

 I love the colors and I just wasn't quite ready to throw it out. So I did a search on "pinterest" and here's what I found. Here's what I made.

 I just cut it off right below the arms, hemmed in the sides a little by the new waist, and added an elastic band. It's a little short, but with leggings and a long shirt it works. 

I decided to make leg warmers out to the arms.

There might be a rule about wearing a trend when you were around to wear the same trend a few decades ago. But then again, there's a lady at CBS that's no younger than 70 that wore GOLD leggings with cream leg warmers and GOLD heels. She's way more trendy than me. Shyanne, you know who I'm talking about, right? Maybe I'll just wear them as boot socks.

I'm not to old for that.

PS For those who have not discovered pinterest, just stay away. The major site is a time sucker while simultaneously adding more things to your "to do" list.

PSS Thank God for new Christmas toys for kids. They are so occupied by them today, it's almost like I've had the day off.

PSSS I spoke too soon. Just heard fighting.

Santa Baby

My last Santa baby. Oh, that makes me sad.

With all my boys, I've done baby's first Christmas pictures. Jack is 1 1/2 mths younger than Ben and Ca were at this same time of year, but SO much bigger. The white onesie I put on Ben and Ca is WAY to small for Jack. So Jack got his picture taken in a diaper. He's also too big for the bouncy chair, but not quite sitting on his own. That threw me for a loop. Then I got the box idea. Worked great!! Chris was right there ready to catch him if he did fall over (especially since I had him on a table), but the box really helped support him. So here they are . .. .

  Here are the Santas of Christmas' past. See how much bigger Jack is? Ca looks so breakable!

A Tutorial - Part Two

Last Sunday morning, after taking a shower to get ready for church, I realized that my hairdryer was broken. We had to leave in less than 30 minutes. My hair is too short to put in a ponytail, too long NOT to fix it with a blowdryer. My new headband saved the day. Popped it in, and it looked like I did it on purpose. Today, I had to take a shower, well, because I hadn't the day before, and I was getting ready to go to the store; the only place I was going to go. Seemed silly to blowdry my hair just for HEB. So, you guessed it. My headband. I think it's becoming a necessary accessory.

The Headband

Found tutorial for the headband here, but I changed it up a little. I wanted frayed edges.

I used her template.

I cut it from 2 different fabrics so it can be reversible. I freehand cut the leaves and pinned them on off-centered. (we don't want a flower on the top of our heads).

Sewed on top the leaves, just leaving a little fraying edge to them. I used white thread on all mine, mainly because I didn't want to change it out everytime.

I like the way the white thread looks on the navy fabric. Makes it look like denim. 

 I put my two headband pieces WRONG sides together and sewed on top 5/8 inch only along the long sides.  Leave the short ends open. Her instructions say to fold/iron in the edges so that they are finished, but I wanted my frayed. I cut off some of the extra fabric so the that it's not SO wide and SO frayed. It'd been smarter to cut down my pattern to begin with and just make the seam smaller, but I tend to do things backwards.

You connect the two short ends of the headband with a piece of elasic. This was tricky to figure out how short to cut the elastic. I had to try mine on a few times to figure out how long it should be. 

Not quite done with the flower . . . .

I hot glued bobby pins (ones I got FREE at Walgreens last week - had to include some short of couponing, right?) to the back of the flower. This makes them so you can slip the on & off the headband. This way, you can wear the headband on either side. You can also pin the flower directly into your hair!

Aren't they cute???

A Tutorial - Part One

A girl from our MOPS group makes these super cute flower headbands. I don't wear headbands, but I had to have one.  I found out online how to make one, and it's a bit different than how she makes them, but I did it. I loved it so much, I decided to make them for Christmas presents. So far, I've made more than 20. They are all the rage with my MOPS friends. We've even had 2 girls-night-outs just so we could make them. You can find tutorials online, but I decided to make my own, so I could look back at this and laugh at myself.

The Flower

You make a slight cut in  fabric about 1 - 1 1/2 inches wide, the you RIP it the rest of the way down. This make a cool ravel, plus it's lots of fun (just ask Ca). I used 1/2 yd of fabric for the strips, but I used 1 1/2 - 2 strips of fabric per flower. You could use less yards and just use more strips.

Fold over the corner of the fabric at a 45 degree angle and hot glue down.

Keep rolling the fabric at an angle, gluing every couple rolls.

You'll end up with a long strip rolled fabric.

At one end, fold the fabric into a Z.

Then, roll the fabric around the Z a couple times. Start hot gluing the roll down.

Then you twist the fabric so the bottom becomes the top. In the picture, I twisted out.

 More hot glue.

Twist again, but the other way, in. Hot glue.

Keep twisting, gluing, and rolling the fabric. Make sure the top of your flower stays the top.  I alternate the way I twist the fabric, but sometimes I lose track and it doesn't matter too much.

Starting to get a bud.  

After I finished one strip, I added a second. I just started where I left off. Apparently, the bigger the flower, the more your mother loves you.

We Finished!!

I finally got these ornaments done. I mean, "we". I tried working with the boys separately during quiet time, but they whined about doing it - wasn't as fun doing it with just mom apparently. We did the last few together - Z & I were quillers, Ca popped them in the balls, B ran around with his firetruck. That worked well. We got them finished. I pulled out my old scrapbooking stamps and had the kids decorate white lunch bags to put the ornaments in. I even pulled out my embossing tools and let them make glittery stamps on the bags with them. They loved that. I was wiser and made them take turns making bags so that I could help each one (if you've ever done glittery embossing, you know why - MESSY!), but we still were all at the table, so it wasn't mom making you do something. The teachers all loved them. Here's all we made (minus 1 I gave to Granny).

Note to self: wrapping up paper isn't that easy for a 4 year old (Z did ok with it) and it takes a LOT of them to fill up a ball. AND you are one person and there are 4 of them. Do the math, lady! Maybe next time, we'll crimp the paper.

Birthday Party

Next Wednesday, Decemeber 21, at 2pm, I'm throwing a Happy Birthday, Jesus Party. There's a girl that's new in town, and I offered to host if she planned it. We just wanted the kids to remember the true meaning of Christmas. If you want to attend, please RSVP so we can have enough crafts for all the kids. Just call, text, or leave a comment!

Christmas Craft

On top of all my current responsibilities, I've also taken upon myself to make crafts. I wanted the boys to give their CBS teachers a Christmas gift and of course, homemade cookies came to mind. I know there's a lack of them around this time of year. haha. I this saw this idea for Christmas ornaments, so I decided that we should try them instead.

I cut up lots of strips of paper. Couldn't let the kids do this. Not because of the danger of them cutting themselves, because it'd be SO cricked had they done it.

Then, the boys rolled them up with my quilling pin. You thread the paper into this little slit and roll it around. I had it from my scrapbooking days. This was something the boys got the hang of.

Pop them into a clear ornament. Ben was even able to do that. 

We added some stickers and ribbon and ta da. They turned out pretty cute. It was harder than I imagined but just because there are 4 of them and only 1 of me and only 1 quilling pin. The boys took turns quilling, but that left for lots of time in between to cause trouble. They each need to make one more for their other teacher. I think I'll let them work on it separate days during quiet time. 

I'm Still Here

Life has been super crazy busy since August. I didn't expect life to change so much with 4 kids, but it has. I don't think it's adding baby #4 so much as it's just being involved with everything. I'm feeling more pressure from myself to homeschool more consistantly since Z is now kindergarten.  I can't justify it that's it's "just preschool" anymore. Plus I've gotten more involved in MOPS, taken on more piano students, and don't forget added another member of our family to care for. I do like being busy, so I won't complain.

I've had a few people ask me to do their pictures this year and it's really fun. I'm not starting a business or anything - I feel like I'm a pretty good amataur, a not-so-good professional. So I'll just stay on the amataur level (feel free to laugh at me here).  So here are some of my favorites.

After this shoot, the guy was asking me questions about my camera and stuff. I found out later that he's studied photography a bit. He was super nice and was shopping for a camera himself. I sure hope that the girl had told him that I wasn't a professional. It was my first time to do engagement pictures. They had lots of props which I LOVE. They brought along "mom", friend, and friend's boy. We took the church van. lol. They were so cute!

These boys are the same ages of 2 of mine. They cooperated so well and this baby's eyes are so gorgeous!!

The mom of these 3 girls wanted pictures for her husband. She brought his grandmother along to get in a few of the pictures. Grandmother told me she did not like herself in pictures and was not going to look at the camera. I thought she was kidding. She was not. She even tried to hide her arms under the girls ponchos - I drew the line on that one. Cracked me up.

Sisters. They were so sweet to each other and loved getting their pictures taken.  The older one is only 14! I know I did not look that put together at 14!

Family pictures. I actually did this family last year, too. A repeat!! They must have been happy since they asked me to do it again.

My sister's family!! Her kids were about as excited to do pictures as a cat is to go swimming.

Can you tell?

Notice anything wrong with this picture?

Ahhhh! My sister redeems the whole family.

Mom & Dad did our pictures and I did some of the boys, too. I'll post them after I make our Christmas card. IT"S ONLY 25 DAY AWAY!! GET OFF THE COMPUTER!!