Haunted Houses

This is our new favorite project. We made these haunted houses from CapriSun and Ritz Cracker boxes. Notice the little mailboxes Carly added in front of each house!

The pumpkins and ghosts are made from salt dough. The tree is just some branches in a candle holder topped with moss and bats. The letter and sillhouettes are from http://www.designfreebies.blogspot.com/. We had a lot of fun with this one! (And best of all...it was free, made from what we had!)

My kids were on Fall break this week, so we celebrated with a few days at Grandma and Grandpa's house with some of the cousins. We had a little fall celebration and made some haunted houses and jumped on the trampoline, played in the rocks and played soccer. We had a blast. Here are the kids with their own creations!

Elves in October...

Ty had some PJ's that were ripped at the knee so I cut them off. I was going to throw the scraps in the garbage when Ty got this great idea..."Let's wear them as hats! We can be elves!" So he and Ridge wore them all morning and Ty wore his throughout the week. He thought it was really cool.

This last picture is funny. I was done taking their picture and they posed like this and asked me to take one more. For some reason, Ridge is talking on the phone (a clothes tag) and Ty is concentrating really hard on something else. Hmmm... ;)

Scratched DVD Cure.

Hey,
I found a great tip today to save scratched DVD's. Use children's Crest toothpaste. Check out this tutorial here:
http://thehandmadedress.blogspot.com/2008/09/do-you-suffer-from-scrached-dvds_27.html

It's worth a try. I'll let you know if it works for me!
Have a great day.
Lisa

I'd love to be in his head...

Last night I was making Sean's lunch and Ty was helping me.

This was our conversation:

Ty: Mom, is this turkey (made of) chicken or ham?

Me: It's just turkey.

Ty: Did dad shoot this turkey and take the turkey out if it?

(I've had the first part of this conversation with Carly and Ridge before, the second part took me a little by surprise and I couldn't help giggle.)

We got dizzy and laughed...

Do you remember being little?

If you were lucky enough to have a childhood like mine, it was awesome.

I got to be a kid.

I have great parents who were involved in my life and made it wonderful.

I have the best brothers and sisters and we actually love each other.

We weren't/aren't perfect...But we love each other.

I think my childhood was so wonderful because I felt loved.

It's easy to get lost when you're one of seven kids.
But I wasn't lost.
My dad came home tired from work and played basketball in the driveway with me.
I got to go to work with him.
We would sing songs in the truck and stop and get a soda and I got to help him on the job.
I know I wasn't that much help.
My mom taught me to sew scrunchees and let me play volleyball in our entryway! (Yep, inside the house! I set that ball off the walls so much I don't know how they didn't fall down.)

My dad could do flips on the trampoline.
My mom wet her pants while jumping (Sorry mom!)

But she jumped! She jumps with my kids now...once in a while!
Today I went out and jumped with my kids. Twice.
It was fun.
I flipped.I flipped them.
They thought it was cool!

Ty said he loves me.
He always tells me he loves me...but jumping with him sure did help!
He couldn't keep it in.
I did ten cartwheels in a row at Ridge's request.
He did five.

We got dizzy and laughed.

I taught the boys some tricks on the trampoline.

They couldn't get enough.

We had so much fun.

What a great day!

Curtain call...for Keri

I needed curtains for my playroom and decided that I wanted to make some that were loose and fun. Wasn't real sure what I was doing, but I experimeted and this is what I came up with. They're linen, which I love, and they don't actually close but I like them!

Some fun little critters!

So, have you caught the bug to start some fall projects yet? Here's a fun one that turns out so cute! I made them from the salt dough recipe I used for the Easter project earlier this year. Add a little paint, trim and ribbons and you've got some cute vintage inspired pumpkins! Can't you imagine a fun Halloween party with these used as the table markers. Just write each guest's name on the little flag and send it home with them when the party's over! Or keep them for yourself, they're cute lined up on a shelf or in a wreath!

Creativity

I've had a chance to expand my talents lately and it was fun. Our primary children had an end of summer water party, and I was one of the ones in charge of putting it together. We thought of having a photo station where the kids could dress up as little surfers and I happily volunteered my talented mom to paint a backdrop for it! Well, she helped me pick out the fabric, but there was no time to have her paint it....It was all up to me. Yikes!

Well, I jumped in and did it, and I think it turned out ok. Best of all, the kids pictures turned out cute. (Thanks Cindy for taking the photo's at the activity!)

This next project was a birthday present for Sean's Grandma in California. It's a plate rack, or magazine rack, or plate/cookbook rack...you decide!

First Day of School

Ridge and Carly did an awesome job on their first day of school. I was expecting tears from at least one of them (from past experience) but got none! It was refreshing!

They kind of had a madhouse for the first day. Before they go to class, the kids meet outside in lines with their class to say the pledge, etc. They were all squished, but did well considering. I was really nervous for Ridge, but he loves learning. I asked him what he did and he says he learned all day! Good! Oh, and for the record, he made a friend and it's a girl. She sits by him, but he can't remember her name, just that she has blonde hair. No boys to mention yet.

Carly has three kids from church in her class. She loves her teacher and her class already got a "caught-cha award" for being good citizens. Her spelling words start this week. Lotsa work ahead! Ty misses his big brother and sister but he should start preschool next week.

Surprise!

We went on a quick trip to California before school started last week. We were going to surprise Sean's Grandma Shirley, aka "Muma", for her 80th Birthday, but we snuck in a day to Yosemite. Sean's dad lives just outside the park, so we can't go visit him without a trip to see Heavenly Father's handy work! It is amazing! We highly recomend the visit to anyone, but especially during the spring when the snow melt off makes the waters fierce and the waterfalls are falling at full force. It's both humbling and uplifting to know the same Creator made both the beautiful earth all around us and each one of us tiny little special people. What's even more amazing to me, and I love to ponder the very thought whenever I am out in nature, is that Heavenly Father has created such things that my mind cannot even imagine, yet He knows me individually (and you too)! He cares about us. Even as He cares about all of His creations. Doesn't it just make you want to pray and thank Him! (and cry just a little, because we're just little peon's in the eternal scheme of things...but we still count!)

OK, on with the pictures:

Just to put this into perspective, Sean is 6'5'' and I am 5'9''. The picture of us in front of the roots of the fallen tree is the same tree in the picture with Carly standing on my shoulders. Standing two tall, we still don't quite make the diameter of the tree. I know! Crazy huh! You have to go see for yourself. AMAZING!