Christmas Crafting

When we went to WA for Thanksgiving my parents gave me this sewing center for my Christmas gift. I LOVE IT! I just need to put the doors on the top so I can close it all up. I had so much fun organizing all my craft stuff and fabric. Next to it is my cutting table. I have been using the corner of the dining room to store my craft stuff and the dining room table as my craft/cutting table. Not very convenient.

I definitely caught the crafting bug this holiday season. Here are a few of the fun projects I did.

Here are the gifts I made for my family. This first one is a tin star covered in pictures of our family and cool paper. I decopauged all the pieces to the star. It turned out really cool. The second thing I made them was a sign that says "Families are Forever". I painted a piece of wood and attached three 5x5 frames to it with pictures of our family. Then I cut the words out of vinyl on the Sillhouette machine and stuck them on there...Thanks Polly for letting me use your fun machine.

My favorite decoration is my Merry Christmas blocks. I decopauged scrapbook paper onto blocks, cut out letter on a Sillhouette machine, wet embossed all the letters with clear glitter embossing powder and then decopauged them on to the blocks. This project took me hours because I had to have it perfect but it was worth all the time because I LOVE IT!

A tradition in Andrew's family is that each member of the family gives a stocking stuffer to each other member of the family. This year I made ornaments for everyone. I noticed the kids didn't have ornaments with baby pictures on them so I made them each one. This is Alex's.

I was just released as the 11 year old girls Primary teacher so as a Christmas/Goodbye gift I made each girl one of these mirrors. The mirrors were $2.99 at Ikea. I painted the edges of the mirrors brown and then sanded them to give them that worn look. Then I decopauged scrapbook paper on the front of the mirror and decopauged the words "Daughter of God" on the front. They turned out so cute!
Here is my PEACE sign I started last year and finished this year.

I saw a cute idea on a blog before Christmas and I had to do it. So here it is....I opened pop-top cans with a pampered chef can opener that uncrimps the edges. Then I cleaned them out, refilled them with candy and fudge, decorated the outside with paper, ribbon and stamps, and then I glued the lids back on. So here is one example. Then when the person receives it they open it with the little pop top thing. Cute, huh?!

Almost two months...where to begin?!

I guess I will start with the most recent and go backwards.

We had an amazing Christmas this year. We spent it here in Nevada City with Andrew's family and had a wonderfully relaxing day. Although we missed the other side immensely. We were spoiled this year! I got an amazing desk that I call my "sewing center", a Vita-Mix, and lots of thoughtful gifts from my husband. The best gift was being able to spend time as a family and see my boys open their presents. Austin got excited over all the little things and Summit just wanted to play with the balls. It was great!

The month of December was filled with fun crafting. I made some super cute Christmas decorations for the house and also some fun gifts for friends and family. I need to post pictures later cause I don't have any right now.

We also received our first snow. We got a foot and a half at our house. Summit had fun sledding with Austin. He didn't want to come in but he was so cold we had to force him.

November was a busy month also. I started out the month with Christmas crafting in hopes that I would be able to finish them in time to drive them up to WA instead of send them. Back in October I found out I had skin cancer. My mom flew out here in the middle of November to help me through my surgery and such. She took care of my family and I for a week while I recovered. She even took my stitches out for me while we were in WA...this picture was taken right before she took them out. Then we piled in our van and drove up to WA for Thanksgiving. We were able to spend a week there hanging out with my family. It was fun to be with my family and my boys together. It had been a year since we were all able to get together. We spent a day at the Pacific Science Center.

Andrew and Austin were able to go on a deep sea fishing trip in the beginning of November. They had a blast and came home with a few fish and lots of crab. We feasted for three days after their return.

We also spent some time playing in the fall leaves.

This is quite the quick recap of the last two months but it's about all I can do right now. It's almost midnight and I'm starting to fade. Excuse the grammatical errors...I'm outside of my thinking hours.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Summit. Just thought I'd share it with everyone.

Fort Bragg

We went to Fort Bragg a few weekends ago and I never got around to posting the pictures. We had so much fun. We met a group of people there from our ward.

Austin found this cave in the rocks.

Summit and I made a crocodile in the sand while the rest of the family went out boating.

Here we are exploring in the tide pools.


A little stroll down to the beach.

Summit was so helpful with putting up the tent. He wants to be just like his Dad.

Halloween Fun

Here are the costumes I put millions of hours into. In the middle of the night on Thursday I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep cause I was so excited for Halloween. How ridiculous is that?! I haven't been so excited for Halloween in YEARS! I guess it was all the anticipation from making the costumes. Here are the pictures. I do have to say that these are the best costumes I've ever made (I've only made two other costumes). Austin looked incredible!

I can't believe I didn't get a good picture of just Summit. This picture doesn't do him justice. I'll have to dress him up again and post a good picture of just him.

I know I already did Austin's Birthday post but today is the real day so again here is a tribute to Austin....You are the most amazing big brother and a great son! You make our family complete! We love you so much. You continue to amaze me every day. You are such a great example for good. You are such a strong young man! We are so lucky to have you as one of our sons!!!!!!

Reasons I love Austin

I've been reflecting the last few days on how grateful I am for Austin. He turns 14 on November 1st and it seems like his birthday is always overshadowed by Halloween. So here I am doing a birthday post for him without any Halloween distractions.

Here are a few of the reasons I love Austin.

1. He is the best big brother I've ever seen and a wonderful son.

2. He is funny. We can laugh at each other and ourselves together.

3. He is a hard worker. (When he wants to be) :)

4. He is forgiving.

5. He is such a strong person. He tries to move past the challenges in his life and continue on the right path despite hard times.

6. Our family wouldn't be the same without him. He brings a lot of personality and spunk to our home.

7. He trusts me.

8. He's so cute.

9. He's a great student.

10. He's loyal.

Update on Life

Here's a quick update...Summit and I have been working on Halloween costumes. We've finished Summit's and we are in process for the other three. I'm excited to do a Halloween post but I have to wait. We also made a cute Halloween decoration.

On Monday we had a card making day at our house. That was fun. Now I have a few cards stocked up. Here are the boys playing the drum while we made cards.

I also made these cute beanies for my nieces.

Austin is doing great in 8th grade. We got a call from one of his teachers last week to tell us how awesome he is doing. She went on for 5 minutes about how wonderful he is. That was really neat to hear!

That's about all the excitement we have right now. I know it isn't anything too monumental but that's our life! :)