Homemade Love!

 One really nice thing about watching your pennies is that it forces you to be creative! We weren't able to get gifts for our nieces and nephews this year, which makes me really sad (although, yes, I know that's not what Christmas is about! I still love to give them a gift!) Even though my sisters assured me that their children would be fine with nothing, I had to send a little something. So I made ornaments! I'm so happy with how they turned out.

These are glass ornaments for my nephews. They love sports so I did sports balls. A basket ball, baseball and bowling ball. I am pretty sure none of them bowl but it was the only other round ball I could think of!

These are the backs. My mom had the glass ornaments and I had all the paints and supplies so it didn't cost me anything but labor and love:) I realized I had to spray the paint with something to protect it from chipping and learned that you can substitute hairspray in a pinch! Luckily, I had some around. Worked great!

I hand painted angel ornaments for my nieces. I found the ornaments at Joann's.

I like how they turned out! Sweet. I made some ornaments for my family, too. I'll have to take pictures!

I also finished the kids' pajama pants finally! We decided a couple years ago to make Christmas simple and for our kids we do a pair of homemade pajama pants, a book and a toy. The boys actually really needed pajama pants so I was able to get a deal on fabric and made them two! Samuel's are the red and camouflage, Z's are the monsters and planets and E, of course, gets the pink penguins! Something fun to open on Christmas Eve;)

Eliana dressed herself like a peppermint the other day. I kept calling her my little candy cane! This was taken while we were waiting for the bus. When the bus came, only Zakkai got off and he burst into tears and said, "Samuel missed the bus!" I called the school and they said he was sitting right there in the office and they had another bus come back to pick him up and bring him home. He was a little sad and it took them awhile to shake it off. I told them each that if your brother isn't on the bus, be sure to go tell the bus driver so she can wait! Thankfully, the school was so nice about getting him home.

Today my mom and niece came over and we made Christmas cookies! We both had some dough already made for the kids to cut out with cookie cutters.

They had lots of fun adding sprinkles (lots of sprinkles!) to the colored icing:)

This little munchkin decorated two cookies....and ate two cookies!

Last night I went to my friend's birthday get together. She invited her 4 closest friends to have dinner and come to a painting party at her house. It was really fun and this is my painting!! I absolutely love it:) 4 of us did the reindeer painting and the other did a Christmas tree painting. We just looked at a picture and painted on the layers and added our own little touches. I would love to do this again!

My kiddos adored the painting upon first sight this morning and they all want to do one, too:) Maybe a fun activity for Christmas break! We are also doing a Christmas puzzle, drinking hot spiced cider and wrapping up our Jesse tree for Advent.

Only 3 more days!

A Date!!

 I have a GREAT reason for not blogging last night! Ready? We......went on a date! woohoo! One of the perks of living close to family. That and having help when your car keeps breaking down:)

I dropped the kiddos off at my mom's house where they feasted on pizza and watched a movie. They even got to spend the night, which was such a big treat for them! They have never gotten to do this kind of thing. Eliana was excited but a little nervous. She had to call me around 9:30 last night to say goodnight because she was feeling a little sad:( I guess she went right to sleep after she was assured of our love for her:)

We got to eat dinner and do a little Christmas shopping for our babies, thanks to a gift given to us! We have been so blessed! We went from not being able to get our kids anything to being able to get them each a gift, some stocking stuffers and one big gift for them to share. God has really provided for us and we are so thankful.

It was so fun wandering around Target aimlessly without having to reprimand children to stop touching everything they see or wandering off or whatever. We wandered! Who gets to do that?? We got home after 9:30pm and watched a Redbox movie. It was such a great evening!

AND we got to sleep in til 8am this morning! I woke up expecting to hear Eliana calling for me that she had to go to the bathroom but there was only silence. Weird. Last night I missed them so much. Funny, isn't it? They were gone only just over 16 hours and it felt like days! They gave us big hugs this morning and told us all about their fun. They are super tired today so I am hoping for some good quiet time this afternoon!

Yesterday I got Eliana to take a little nap (3 naps this week, can you believe it?!) but she woke up SO grouchy. After trying to rock with her for a bit and get her to wake up slowly, I finally put her back in her bed and told her she needed some more time to wake up and I would wait in my room and when she was ready, she could come get me. She cried for about 5 minutes and then I heard her door shut. I waited a couple minutes and went to investigate and I found her glasses set neatly outside her door:) haha. It made me laugh! Sometimes she just needs some time to wake up slowly. She was back to her happy self about 10 minutes later.

I decided last-minute to do a little ornament craft with the kids this morning. I don't do crafts with them much anymore, like I used to when the boys were little. We did a little salt-dough handprint ornament. The boys put in the ingredients and Samuel kneaded the dough. (He was munching on an apple in the picture.)

We put the handprints on a tray to bake and I let them play with the scraps. Z decided to make a little Olaf:)

Such a tired girl!! I will post pictures after the ornaments dry and we paint them! They got so much pleasure out of decorating our tree this year and seeing all their ornaments they've made at school that I knew another handmade ornament would be a hit!

Plus I will enjoy wiping away a stray tear years from now as I look at their handprints and reminisce about how little they were:)

Have a great Saturday!

Snow Fun and Glitter!

 I used to be a fun mom way back in the day. When the boys were little, being so close in age, I was constantly searching for and thinking up really fun activities. I get a pang of nostalgia when I think about those days, with my two little buddies going everywhere I went! And now they are so....so big!
Sniff.

I realized this year that I really dropped the ball where poor Eliana is concerned. She gets spoiled yes, but I don't often do activities with her. She's just my little companion. This winter I have been trying to do a few more crafty fun things with her because she really enjoys them! And before I blink three times, she'll be in preschool. Double sniff!

 

On Tuesday afternoon, while the boys were wrestling in the living room, I grabbed some snow (of which we have plenty!) from outside and put in in a big container, handed Eliana her mittens and a few measuring cups and containers and just let her play! After a little bit, I added a few drops of blue food coloring and later some red (which made for a very strange gray-ish purple color!). She mixed and scooped and made some snow cookies!

 

We had actually just finished making real cookies together, hence the apron:) She was my faithful little chef helper and we whipped up a batch of snickerdoodles. Yum!

There is another craft I have had my eye on for a few weeks. It's called many things: a Time-Out Bottle, Mind Bottle, Calming Bottle, etc. I finally got the remaining ingredients today and we tried it out! Apparently this was all the rage a couple years ago on Pinterest. I am obviously behind the times:)

I got the tall bottles (with the orange drink) from the dollar store. The label was so easy to rip off but it left one long strip of stickiness on both. I tried lemons, vinegar and scrubbing and they only seemed to get stickier. I don't make a habit of having Goo Gone or whatever it is lying around so I did a little research and then I found Homemade Goo Remover. Seriously, try this stuff!! I whipped up a quick batch and in 4 minutes, the stickiness was completely gone! Wow.

So after I solved our sticky dilemma, Eliana and I made our first Calming Bottle with her color choice of purple:) Here it is settled at the bottom.

We added purple, pink and silver glitter!

Curious little face in the backround:)

And here it is shaken up! The point of the bottles is to shake them up and hand them to your child (or a stressed adult:) and they watch the glitter fall as they calm down. You can use them in time-out or just at a time where you need them to calm down and refocus.

She loves the colors!

Unfortunately, the purple on was too thick (I added too much glue) and it was taking to long to settle so she lost interest. I made another batch in a jar and it was much better!

This afternoon, Eliana and Baby Anna went to a "baseball game." I thought they were going to watch but apparently Baby Anna was going to play! She is a very talented baby.

Aw, look, a little Cubs fan. That should make a Grandma-Great happy!

"NO MORE PICTURES!" she was growling at me! But who can resist a messy-haired, purple glasses wearing, adorable three year old?

Here are the two final products of today's experiment! Notice the blue bottle is shorter and leans to the right? Ah yes, that would be where I made a very silly, thoughtless mistake and poured WAY too hot of water into the bottle and shrunk it. Hmm.

And all shaken! They may not be as perfect as all the Pinterest-y perfect people but they are still pretty!

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Maybe some of this new-found resolve to do crafts with Eliana or quilt again or busy myself is just distraction. Okay, let's be honest, it is. It is helping me to stay busy and keep my mind off of things. It's my down-time moments that are the hardest for me. The quiet moments without little interrupting voices. The idle times when my brain has time to think. While washing dishes or taking a shower or driving somewhere.

They really aren't my favorite moments right now because although I spend much of them praying, I also spend most of them with a heavy sadness that I can't shake. I am really battling my loss of hope right now. I heard a song on the radio today by a peppy Christian artist and she was jamming away about how God was like lotion on her face (or something weird like that) and that she would be totally fine no matter what came her way, etc.

And here I am in a place, that I am ashamed and heartbroken to admit, where I thought she must not have experienced heartbreak herself. Because I don't feel okay right now. I don't feel filled up, even though I am crying out to be filled right now. I feel a little empty and it's very hard to think of hoping again. I'm in one of those places where you wonder, even while you're trying not to wonder, why things seem to work out so easily for some people? And why it's so hard for other people to catch a break sometimes. And you start to wonder if God will ever bless you or fulfill the desires of your heart.

Or even more, were we crazy to have come and done all of this and can God really ever use it? Or does He want to?

My Grandma, in all of her love and wisdom, always reminds me never to envy other people who seem to have a picture perfect life. Because you never know what's really going on behind closed doors or what they may have to face in the future.

It's true and honestly 99% of the time I don't envy anyone else and truly feel very very happy for all of our friends and family who seem to be having prayers answered left and right and are in a good place right now. It's that crappy 1% of the time where I feel hurt and disappointed and I wonder if maybe God forgot about us or maybe we didn't do something right.

Yes, I know my theology is crap in all of this. Theology doesn't really play a huge part when your emotions are taking over. And my emotions are kind of a roller coaster at the moment!

The good thing is, this disappointment, coupled with some days off of school, have pushed me to just enjoy time with my kids and stay busy and focused on them. I have had some really good times with them in the past week. Playing Legos (and cleaning them up!), making cookies, watching movies, talking and just being together. I'm often too harried and tired and dreading the bewitching dinner hour to really focus on the boys and enjoy them. Or too busy fitting in all my errands on Tuesdays with Eliana; my one day with just her and a car.

It has felt really good to listen to their stories, hang around them and be lazy and busy all together and to pour myself into them right now. I am so incredibly thankful for my sweet-hearted Samuel, who tells me in great detail about every book he reads (he is really into Hardy Boys right now!) and who loves to joke with us and do his magic tricks on us.

And for my fuzzy-haired Zakkai with his "owl-brow" as we call it; for his love in figuring out how things work and his earnest little face when he wants to tell us all about his new discoveries and for his newfound love for reading "Magic Tree House" books and how proud he is!

And for Eliana, with her happy, dimpled smile that shows us how very securely loved she is. For her little mommy-ness that cares so gently (with a few exceptions!) for her babies, esp Baby Anna, and her love of all things pink and purple; her need to be hugged and held, and how she loves to be a helper.

And for my Ben; who I now know I can face anything in life with. We've had some really, really dark days together these past 8 years and some truly amazing moments and he is, without a doubt, my best friend in the whole world.

I think of these things and I can see God in them, even when I am not sure what He's doing with the rest of our life. It's all about perspective.

Back to School Party!

 I promised my boys and end of the year slumber party which quickly turned into a back to school slumber party instead! Last night was the big night since it was the last Friday before school starts. Wow!

We started out the evening by letting the kiddos make their own pizzas!

So proud of his mad dough spreading skills!

Eliana spent most of her time pilfering pizza toppings:)

Finally her dough was spread and she got to decorate to her heart's content!

We picked up a Wii game at the Redbox for them to play while they ate their own pizza creations. We were hoping for the Angry Birds game but they didn't have it for some reason so we ended up with Madagascar 3 Wii.

 
Eliana kept saying, "It's our own pizzas! Where's your own pizza, Zakkai?"

Then I got out t-shirts for them to decorate with fabric paint! Boy, were they excited!! Eliana had to go to bed (no all-nighters for her!) so she got to do hers this morning. The boys just loved this!

Here is Zakkai's creation! His is a car with all the details, driving on a road. He only had to be told 6, 5,789 times not to squeeze the paints so hard;) Samuel decided to finish his creation this morning.

We finished up the night with homemade peach ice cream!

Homemade peach ice cream and Farkle, a really fun dice game!

After breakfast, Samuel and Eliana got right to work decorating! Samuel said he was thinking Eliana could paint a nice barn scene with some animals but I said that she probably isn't quite ready for that level of art yet!

Samuel working hard and enjoying every minute of it!

No barn scenes! Only paint polka dots for Missy Girl:)

Here is Samuel's finished homemade Angry Bird's shirt! He did a good job!

 

They are already asking when they can do it again:)

My Little Model.

 Well, the snow finally stopped sometime late into the night. To the boys' disappointment, there was school today:) Apparently, we got the most snow of all the western suburbs ~ 11inches! Too bad it's going to melt soon with the rising temperatures. It sure was lovely to watch as it fell!

I made Eliana a new dress out of Ben's old dress shirt! He had several dress shirts that got retired recently because of stains and whatnot. I saved a few of them, thinking that I could salvage some material from them and I came across a cute tutorial for a shirt dress!

She's wearing jammies underneath so the white shirt isn't part of it. I made the first one with an extra stained shirt and the pattern wasn't quite right so I adjusted it and made it with this blue one. Cute, lightweight and best of all...free!

The model is pretty stinkin' cute too, if I don't say so myself:)

Let It Snow!

 We're finally getting our winter at the end of February! This morning I was out and about getting pelted in the face with sleet while taking Z to his 6 year check-up. (He's nice and healthy! Tall and a healthy weight!). By the time we left the drs office at lunchtime, the icy sleet had turned to snow.

And it hasn't stopped snowing yet!!

And lucky for the boys, it's perfect snowman building snow! They finished their homework in a jiffy and raced out to play and build a snowman so that we could see it from the window. Here is Miss E watching the action:)

I peeked out and was amazed at the size of their first snowball!!

Here's the boys rolling up the strangely shaped head:)

Missy wasn't feeling too well today, as she's coming down with (another) cold. Blast these winter germs! She and I just watched and took pictures from the comfort of our warm (ish) home.

They got stuck when trying to lift their humongous snowman parts on top of each other so they enlisted the help of Daddy.

Quick as a flash, their 6 foot plus snowman was put together and ready for some decorating!

They had so much fun that I was almost tempted to join them. Almost:)

They found a scrawny carrot for a nose, some charcoal for the eyes, cheerios for the mouth, a scarf and someone even gave them a pipe for his mouth!! I'll have to take a good picture from outside tomorrow so you can see. All the neighbors walking by seemed to enjoy watching the boys!

Anyone else think the snowman has a little resemblance to E.T.??

I just have to share my latest project with you!! I am so excited about this one! And disclaimer, in no way am I intending to brag or act like I'm some put together bloggy, blog mom (gag); I just really love to do stuff like this and enjoy sharing!

I almost never sew anything for myself but I spotted this bag pattern and knew I had to make one for myself! I should admit here and now that I do have a bag fetish. Just so you know.

I learned some really cool new things while making this! I put in my very first zipper, as you can see in the front zippered pocket. Not nearly as scary as I thought:)

I learned how to put in eyelets to make the purse sturdy for the drawstrings. (the bows).

I did magnetic snaps for the bag and for this cute inside pocket!

Oh, I'm just crazy about this bag! I still entertain the idea of making and designing bags to sell someday. To share the love with people who also love bags like me:)

And something that is fun about this bag is you untie the bows and pull it out to make a huge bag to fill with whatever you want! A fun travel or beach bag maybe?

Lots of room inside!! It took me over a week to make it because there were a ton of steps involved and I needed some special tools to pound the eyelets in place and got stalled after I ordered a tool that didn't work and had to send it back and wait for the new one.

I think I just might take this fun bag on our vacation to Florida next month! That's right, our family is making the long sojourn down to Florida in a few weeks to visit my grandparents. What's even more fun is that we'll be meeting my mom, step dad and my sister and her little fam down in Georgia and we'll travel the rest of the way together!

Woohoo!

And I leave you with another (terrible) shot of our new guardian. He sort of looks like a dog snowman in this picture.....but don't tell the boys I said that!

Ciao!