A Lemon Squeezy Home

Changes

2012-01-25T03:57:00.001-07:00

I had the opportunity to meet with some of my favorite bloggers over the past weekend and it was so fun! (I’ll be blogging more about that when I have more pictures ready).

We talked a bit about shops, websites, our families, life, etc, and it was just what I needed to nudge me to finish up some things that were already in the works.

First off, I’m a .com now. It’s lemonsqueezyhome.com, rather than the “a” before lemon because that was taken. I had purchased the domain alemonsqueezyhome.com for a couple years but I decided to not renew when the time came around once, and now it’s taken. Oh well. It’s not hard to find with a search so I’m not worried about that! The change might take a couple more days to be complete.

Second, I’m not going to be selling on Etsy anymore. I had signed up for Big Cartel a couple weeks ago but didn’t finish setting up shop. I have now, thanks to some discussion with the blogging buddies. The good news is that the prices are really great, and I’m trying to figure out how the prints can be emailed to you immediately. So does anyone know how to do that? I’m having a hard time figuring that out!

In other news regarding my shop, do you remember my pendant necklaces? I’m done selling those, so I have a PDF file for sale that allows you to make and sell your own sewing machine pendants, as long as credit is given to me for the sewing machine design.

Third, my tutorials are finally a bit more organized into categories, though still far from perfectly organized. I hope that helps you maneuver a bit easier! I also added a few that were missing.

And lastly, my words for the year are SIMPLIFY and ENJOY. As you know, I’ve stopped taken sponsors (for now at least while I figure things out with balancing everything in life). It’s been so good for me. I've received a couple emails expressing disappointment over my lack of blogging lately, and I appreciate that you enjoy my posts but even more I appreciate the kind responses as I’ve explained my focus on simplifying and enjoying my family more. It’s been great.

‘Love gives us a fairy tale’: Valentine’s Printable

2012-01-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

I know these aren’t traditional colors for Valentine’s Day, but I thought it would be fun to have a bit of a change. I did include two that have pinks and grays, however, for those of you who don’t like to stray from the norm.

Last year I had fun making this print for Valentine’s Day and decided to go in search of a new sappy quote to display this year. This quote is by an unknown author, but I love it!

I thought I was so good at searching out and finding a quote that was less known (at least to me), and then Rebecca from Simple as That posted the same quote this week HERE, the day I sent mine off to Costco. Funny how things work like that in blog-land!

You can download them to print off, from top row left to right, here: one, two, three, four, five, six.

They are made for 8x10 prints. I like to print mine at Costco.

Wherever you have it printed, just make sure you turn off auto-correct when ordering. Now go sappy-ify your house.

P.S. I wish I had walls painted gray, but I don’t. So what you see behind the picture is one of the “backdrops” I created HERE. Click on that link to find out more ideas for DIY backdrops when photographing smaller items.

The “tape” you see on two of the printables can be found on Pugly Pixel.

Hawaii: Day Seven

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

Our last day in Hawaii. Is it pathetic that I almost cry looking at these? It was that wonderful of a trip.

After packing up and leaving the condo, Dillon and I decided we wanted to at least lay on the beach a bit more while we were there, since we didn’t feel like we had enough of that.

These kids on the beach made me miss our kids! That little girl was probably B’s age and I kept thinking how fun it would be to have our kids with us there for a little of the time.

What a handsome man I married.

Dillon took a swim and I did not. The water was too cold ;). So I read.

We drove back towards our condo to hang out with my mom and Karl around the hotel area. It was very pretty!

Next we headed to downtown Kona again for dinner, but also wandered around for any last minute gifts we might need.

We at our last meal at Bubba Gump. It was really yummy and the sunset was beautiful.

I’d say go for the coconut shrimp. I think we all decided that was the yummiest dish there.

After dinner it was back to the airport and onto the plane to fly home all night!

I am pretty sure I would have stayed there forever if these cuties could have been shipped out to us! I was so happy to see them and we hugged and hugged.

Ahhh….what a wonderful trip! I highly recommend it ;). Thanks for letting me share beautiful Hawaii with you all!

Hawaii: Day Six

2012-01-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

We woke up each day and enjoyed guava jam and POG. Yum!

On Sunday we found and LDS chapel and attended church in Kona. The people there were so friendly and had such a spiritual meeting! I loved it.

What’s also neat about the church we went to is that the Kona Temple is right behind it!

Can’t argue with 85 degrees when it was below 30 in Utah! We drove to the Hilo side again after church.

Most of the pictures in this post are taken in auto, with no adjusting on them (I wish I had taken more on manual but we were just going going going and I didn’t want to miss a picture because I’m not fast enough on my settings yet!). I was blown away that the picture below had nothing done to it—it’s just a true representation of the beauty there!

My hair + humidity = not friends.

I think we visited 2 more waterfalls after Akaka Falls.

And then there was that one time when Christie decided to try and be like Tarzan and the vine broke and she fell on her bum.

And now for my favorite equation. Hawaii + humans = Healing. For real.

Only one more day left of our trip to blog about!

Hawaii: Day Five

2012-01-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

I’m back with the rest of our trip to Hawaii this week. Hope you don’t mind! Maybe if you are somewhere cold, it will send warm thoughts your way. Or you can just drink some hot chocolate while you read the post and pretend it’s warming you up just to look at the pictures. ;)

We woke up and decided we wanted to try snorkeling at Captain Cook’s Cove, as we had talked to several people in Hawaii who said it had amazing snorkeling.

We thought these zig zag lines were interesting.

After quite a few wrong turns, we ended up making it to the spot where we discovered you needed to rent a kayak to get to the monument. Unfortunately that meant my mom and Karl were out. So we split up and Dillon and I decided to kayak there. Karl was nice and we traded cameras so my camera wouldn’t risk getting ruined.

While looking into the water, we could see straight down to all that beautiful coral. It was amazing, and we could see quite a few fish just from the boat.

You can’t just dock your boat wherever you want, you have to tie up to a tree or something (just a law there, I suppose). So we tied up to some trees and jumped out with our gear.

It was SO amazing! And the camera Karl and my Mom got me for my birthday worked this time! The video is a little more clear than the pictures, but I took a couple pictures. We thought there were a lot of fish we could see from the boat. As soon as you get under water, BAM! The place exploded with fish. It was so cool.

Here are just two video clips. It’s a bit choppy and might make you sea-sick, but it gives you an idea of how many fish there were, and a cool variety as well. Seriously, snorkeling was one of our favorite parts.

On our way back…it was actually kind of cold to me this day, especially after getting wet! It was overcast the entire day and really not that warm to me (but I’m a person who is normally cold).

We stopped for lunch and then drove downtown Kona again. We just loved the feel of it.

Despite the menacing clouds, we took our chances and finally put the top down on the Jeep.

We had really hoped to see the pod of dolphins while snorkeling. A few people had seen them in that area, but we didn’t get to. The next thing I really wanted to see was some turtles. So I was pretty happy when Dillon and I drove to a pretty secluded beach (pretty much only accessible by Jeep or risk damage to your vehicle) and he spotted a turtle taking a nap. We woke him up and he didn’t seem too impressed.

We saw goats a couple times along the main highway.

Then we met up with Karl and my Mom and had a yummy dinner at Macaroni Grill.

Afterwards, Dillon and I headed back to Kona to see if there were any beaches with people hanging out and playing music. There weren’t so we just stopped and listened to a couple different bands in town.

And we called it a night!

Kids Simple Christmas Thank You Cards: Download

2012-01-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

When it comes to Christmas, our extended families go all out.

I grew up being taught to write thank you notes, and I think writing them is an important reminder for my children to be thankful for those who spent their time, money, and efforts for them.

So they have to write thank you cards as I did. I’ll admit I didn’t always love doing it growing up and it’s even hard now sometimes, but I’m so glad that my mom taught me to do so, because don’t we all appreciate a hand-written note once in a while?

I thought I had this posted here as a download before, because I found one on my computer from Christmas last year, but maybe not because I can’t seem to find it! I changed it to use less ink on the snowflakes this time, however.

They are simple and easy for my kids to fill out. It’s much less daunting of a task when you have ready-made notes like these for them!

Click HERE to download. Happy weekend!

Baptism Day

2012-01-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned yesterday, I made C the scripture case/cover for his baptism into the LDS Church back in October. His baptism day was wonderful, perfect, and lovely. It ranked right up there with those special events such as the birth of my children. Today’s post is a bit more personal as to what I believe in, so I hope that is ok with you and if it’s not, that you won’t be offended.

I was completely nervous when I was asked to speak on baptism for the program. There were three children getting baptized also that day, so there were a TON of people. Anyways, it turned out being the best thing for me to prepare and really feel so excited for the step C was taking that day. Instead of just focusing on everyone coming to our house and cleaning and cooking, I was able to also focus on the special choice Carson was making and I really felt the Spirit strongly the whole week leading up to it.

C doesn’t really get nervous for anything, and this was no exception. He felt completely loved and supported and very very excited!

I asked my Uncle if he could find 3 new looking 2003 (the year the kids were born) pennies since Dillon said that was the only thing he remembered about his baptism. So for part of my talk I mentioned that because they weren’t accountable, they weren’t dirty like the dirty penny I showed them, but today they would be washed clean and that when we sin, we might not be as clean as the new shiny pennies anymore, but through repentance and taking the Sacrament, we can be new like the shiny pennies again. So they each got a shiny penny.

I also gave each of the kids the poem Washed Clean by Elder Packer (BEAUTIFUL poem…I didn’t read all of it but read bits of it and tried to explain it to them). This is what helped me feel the Spirit so strongly during that week! The fact that the wonderful news of the gospel is that we can mess up and we can repent because of our Savior. I really wanted the kids to realize how much the Atonement and the Sacrament mean after we are baptized!

I bought him this baptism book from Seagull and I’m so happy I did. He filled it all out that day. The types of things he kept writing over and over was, “I felt really good inside. I felt really happy!” Another thing I love about this book is that there were places for people to sign, all the details of baptism and promises and that sort of thing, then places for him, us parents, our Bishop, his Primary teacher, and siblings to write their testimony down. He excitedly presented it to all of them. It was great for his brother because he got to feel included as well.

My friend Dezi had blogged about her son’s baptism and something neat they did. So we did the same and had people write down some of their thoughts, advice, testimony, or something to C that he can read. He really felt special reading those messages!

Perfect day! It was great. I’m so proud of C and the choices he’s making. He’s really a great kid.

I can’t believe we’ll be doing it all over again with his younger brother a year from March!

Scripture Cover

2012-01-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

I made this back in September for my oldest son C, who turned eight and was baptized as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I’ll post more about his special day in my next post, but today I just wanted to share his scripture cover.

I know there are a lot of great tutorials out there for scripture cases or covers, but I decided on Delia’s tutorial (Delia Creates) HERE.

Hers is for a quadruple combination, but I was trying to save a bit of money and ended up getting the economy scriptures that don’t come all combined. So I had to try and figure out the middle flap and didn’t do a wonderful job, but C really doesn’t care. The middle flap is a bit thick and I’ll try a couple different things with it next time, and if I do figure it out I will share later…my next son will be 8 in a little over a year from now, so it’s coming right up!

C had fun choosing out the dinosaur fabric and was really excited when he opened it up. He loves bringing them to church and I frequently find him reading them in bed at night.

My sewing machine is getting dusty—I haven’t sewn since a couple weeks before Christmas. And since I can check my emails from my new phone, I’m not very motivated these days! I am still checking emails, reading comments, and looking at blogs, so I’m around…just not posting much!

The Pigeon: Painting and Softie Tutorial (Mo Willems Character)

2012-01-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

Since I’m just getting over the stomach flu (that’s twice in two months—yuck!), and I’m having a hard time being motivated to do anything but get my house back into order and spend time with my kids, I’m reposting this from Katy’s (No Big Dill) Once Upon a Thread Series.

One of our most favorite authors at my house is Mo Willems. His books are a delight to read. We first fell in love with the Pigeon books and now my kids love all of Mo Willems cute little characters. My kids’ favorite book is actually “The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog”, but “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus” was the first we read and what started our adventures with Pigeon.

This funny pigeon is pretty egocentric, and I’d say acts about like a 3 or 4 year old.

Asking nicely at first, telling you all the reasons why he should get something he wants, and very focused on what he wants. Heck, he acts like my 8 year old, even!

The pigeon is also a bit manipulative. And although that might not sound very appealing, he is just cute and funny. You can’t help but love him. And because of that, I can’t imagine Portrait Pigeon and Softie Pigeon liking each other all that much.

First, let’s start with the painting.

The best part about the painting is that it was easy, took me less than an hour from start to finish, and cost me less than $5.00 to make. So let’s get started!

You’ll need:
-sponge brushes, acrylic paint, a black crayon, THIS printout, and clear contact paper. Also a canvas panel—mine is 11” x 14” and isn’t the kind with the side—I used a coupon and got a 3-pack for $6.00, so one canvas board for this project at only $2.00 was great. And save the printout if you are making the softie as well!

The colors of paint I used are canary yellow, wicker white, skintone, light blue, and paradise.

First start by tracing the pigeon and details onto the contact paper. You could use vinyl if you want, but I think whatever you use, clear is best so you can see what you are doing more. You don’t need to trace the legs.

Cut out the pigeon, making sure to keep the outside negative space in good condition as well and keep it.

Push the pigeon down, running your fingernail along the edges to make sure it’s down firmly and paint won’t seep through.

I used skintone for the background color. I kind of wish I had added some white paint and a little brown.

Paint that all on, then peel off the contact paper.

Next place the saved outer negative space around the pigeon once the paint has dried. You can see where I cut through to cut the pigeon out, at the tip of his tail.

Cover that with a little more contact paper so your paint stays where it should.

Cut out the beak, eye, and white neck ring out of the pigeon you cut out and place back over the white space.

For the pigeon’s color, I used a combination of these three. Just play around a bit till you think you have it right. Paint the pigeon, peel off the eye, beak and neck ring. Let the paint dry.

These are the three paint colors I used for the beak. Carefully paint the beak, making sure not to go into the blue part.

Once all your paint it dry, take a black crayon and trace around the outside. Also start drawing in the lines like the picture you printed shows.

Once you trace the outside, peel off the contact paper and go around again, making some lines thicker and darker…

…until you have this:

I hope you’ll give it a try, even though it’s not sewing of any sort. I have never painted on canvas besides taping things off, and since you are basically taping things off with contact paper, it will turn out great! My kids seriously think it’s awesome, and that therefore, I am awesome and super talented because the pigeon looks so alike, ha ha! But it’s only because it’s so easy!

Next up is the Pigeon Softie.

You’ll need:

I used a mixture of felt and fleece because it’s what I had on hand. So grab some light blue felt or fleece, white and black felt, some freezer paper, polyester fiber fill for stuffed animals, and some black leather cord. Use the same printout that was used for the painting.

Using the freezer paper over the printout, trace the body and white neck band 1/4” larger than what you have on the paper. Everything else trace normally, except add a bit on the beak portion that connects to the head so you can stick the beak in and sew it on.

Cut the leather cord the same as the legs, adding at least an inch onto each leg. Use some glue to hold the talons on. Also cut the leather cord for the neck band.

Iron on the freezer paper so your fabric doesn’t move a lot while cutting. Just make sure your iron isn’t too hot!

So you’ll have two bodies, two wings, two eyes, one beak, two white bands, and the leather cords you cut out.

Then just start with one side of the bird and start assembling. Make the eye, sew on the band, eye, and wing. Sew the leather onto either side of the white band. Repeat with other side of bird, but make sure that you are doing it the opposite way.

Baste the legs onto the wrong side of the body.

Trace the bird’s body again onto freezer paper and cut out. Iron it onto the right side of the bird. Place the two bird WRONG sides together.

Now sew with black thread carefully next to the freezer paper, leaving a gap for the beak and a gap near the tail to stuff the bird.
Now trim the excess felt or fleece around the pigeon. When you get to the legs, un-pick the basting stitch and get cut off the excess felt or fleece on either side of the legs.

Stuff the head and stick the beak in. Sew closed. Stuff the rest of the bird and stitch the opening closed.

Stitch the rest of the circle on the head, and if desired, stitch some black onto the wings. You’re done!

goodbye, hello!

2011-12-30T10:23:00.001-07:00

I have a Beatles song stuck in my head at the moment and I’m singing, “I don’t know why you say goodbye I say hello.” I grew up with my Dad listening to the Beatles a lot and I’m happy he did.

I hope you all had a great Christmas! I wasn’t planning on taking this week off but I did and it has been nice.

Here’s a little of what we’ve been up to this Christmas break.

Decorating gingerbread men:

Sleeping by the Christmas Tree watching The Grinch:

Sewing corn (using white hominy) warmers:

And of course enjoying Christmas! I loved going to church on Sunday. I can’t think of a better way to spend Christmas morning!

Our kids’ Santa gifts:

Gifts to each other:

And my little girl finally got a princess dress or two :).

I also wanted to let you know that I won’t have sponsors next year anymore. So take one last look at these fabulous sponsors! I’ve loved working with them, but have decided that if I want to slow down ever, I don’t want to feel unfair to my sponsors and force posting if I’m just not feeling it.

Here’s to 2012! Have a happy and safe New Year!

Fabric Tray + Lego Base = A Christmas Present

2011-12-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

So guess what? My laundry is mostly caught up—just a couple loads from yesterday to do. Yay! My house is clean besides the bathrooms, which are on my list today, and I have about 10 more presents for my extended family to wrap and I then I will be all ready for Christmas!

Today we are making gingerbread men with some friends and my kids and I will have a little movie night tonight and they will be sleeping under the Christmas tree. I love when they don’t have school and how much more laid-back and fun it is around the house without homework and all the busy-ness that comes along with school.

My handmade gift for the boys this Christmas is a fabric tray using Anna of Noodlehead’s tutorial HERE and…

I bought a blue lego base on Amazon to fit inside.

Now my kids can transport their legos around and those ~~pesky~~ tiny pieces are less likely to be lost in the process. I’m especially excited for them to use them in the car because that seems to be the place legos are lost most often!

The trays were extremely quick and easy to make as well. Great beginner project!

I hope your Christmas plans are coming together and you are enjoying these last few days before Christmas!

An Apron for Miss B

2011-12-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

Confession #1: Our Little Miss B sometimes crawls in bed with us and I am too lazy to take her back to bed.

Truth: I never did this with our boys. NEVER! We diligently walked them back to their rooms and made sure they were ok before returning to our room.

Fact: I don’t really care that much that B sleeps in our bed. She doesn’t do it every night and when she does, it’s often past 4:00 am so it’s not a big deal.

Unless: Unless I end up in the middle somehow. It hurts my back and I must sleep with my legs curled up and that doesn’t work if she sneaked her way onto my side and pushed me over while I slept.

Confession #2: I still have laundry to do from Hawaii. We’re talking mounds of it around here. It’s getting ridiculous. I’ve set my alarm twice to get up and fold some before my kids woke up, but both time Little Miss B is in our bed and I don’t want to wake her up.

Story: This week B climbed into bed at who knows what time. I didn’t even realize it until she started to kick my curled up legs at about 6:00 am and say, “Mom! Mom! Move your legs. MOVE!” (This 3 year old has attitude). So I tried to move around and she kept scooting over so I squished more and more to Dillon’s side and was actually doing what she told me because I wasn’t awake all the way! Seriously, as soon as I realized what was happening, I sat up in bed and looked at that impossible little girl and said, “This is MY bed! Not yours! If you aren’t comfortable, go back to your bed!” I know, I’m such a good mom. She refused, and rather than wake up my husband and her at 6 in the morning I just got out of bed and started to address our Christmas cards.

Moral: If you ever decide setting your alarm to fold laundry is a good idea, you are too ambitious. It’s better to be a lazy bum and sleep in as long as your kids will let you. Lesson. learned.

What does this have to do with an apron for my beloved little three year old? Mostly the fact that if I still have laundry from when we went to Hawaii, and my house is a disaster and I’m still getting Christmas gifts ready and wrapped, I was NOT going to be able to find time to enjoy making her two princess dresses like I had planned. I had even bought all the fabric before we left for Hawaii. Bummer. I really wanted to but the thought of it really stressed me out. I was so happy to be at Walmart one day and find princess dresses for $10.00! Hallelujah!

I still love to make at least one special thing from me for my kids, and I’ll show you tomorrow what I made my boys, but this was it for B since she’s getting a play kitchen from Santa this year. So fast and easy, and I finally got to use this cute lemon fabric I’ve had for quite a long time.

The green is from a $2.00 shirt I snagged at Old Navy over a year ago. I traced an existing Dollar Tree child apron for the pattern.

I think the flower took just as long to make as the whole apron!

I can’t wait to see her playing kitchen with this on!

________________________________________________________________

Great Idea for a Neighbor Gift

2011-12-19T10:22:00.001-07:00

You’ve seen the glass etching you can do with etching cream and vinyl. You’ve seen how people label their dishes with it. But what if you don’t have the supplies and it’s really not practical to buy those supplies only to do a couple projects with them? What if you have the supplies and know a lot of people who don’t, but you can’t spend a lot of money on dishes to etch for them?

My brilliant friend Michelle gave us the cutest gift this year! I asked if I could share because I knew you guys would appreciate it. I sure do!

She made glass etching DIY “kits”. See that grid on the right? That’s our last name in vinyl. The glass etching cream is in a little bead jar she found at Joann. Type up the instructions, bag it all up, and ta-da! A great gift for pretty inexpensive. I’m not sure where she got her etching cream, but I bought mine at Michael’s—just be sure to bring a coupon!

Anyway, I just thought it was such a great gift and especially for those people you know who would love to do this, but have no use for a lot of vinyl or etching cream!

P.S. I’ve been so lucky to get to know the women married to the band members of my hubby’s band. They are all great and I’m so happy to know them all! Michelle is the wife of one of the band members and a friend I hope to have forever!

A Great Christmas (y) Video for the Kids

2011-12-18T12:34:00.001-07:00

We’ve watched this a couple time at my house and my kids really like it. It really had them thinking about those in need. After the second time we watched it, with tears in my eyes, I turned to my kids and saw my oldest with tears streaming down his face. This is what Christmas is all about!

Reindeer Food

2011-12-15T10:19:00.001-07:00

(Hawaii posts are on hold while I wait for some pics from my step-dad.)

You’ve probably all seen this around, but I thought I’d share my printable with you today. The first time we were given reindeer food was a couple years ago from Sabra. We’ve received reindeer food a couple times since then and my kids love to sprinkle it in the snow Christmas Eve.

Some people make the recipe as 1/2 c. oatmeal, 1/2 c. sugar, and glitter.

Honestly, I don’t really see the point of using sugar because it’s expensive and we couldn’t even see it in the oatmeal. I even tried coloring the sugar with food coloring and it still didn’t look good. So glitter it was, though some argue the point that it’s not safe for animals to ingest. I think the only thing that might ingest it around here would be mice and well, we don’t mind if they die! Some add red or green sugar crystals which would be great, but more expensive as well.

So our recipe? Oatmeal and fine glitter. (Don’t hate me for using glitter). The boys helped me package them up for their class gifts tomorrow.

HERE is where you can download the tags. The poem says (just found online from a few sources):

Sprinkle on the lawn at night

Rudolph’s nose will make it sparkle bright

As Santa’s reindeer fly and roam

This will guide them to your home.

I should have taken a picture of the back of the bags—the poem folds over the top and you just staple it on.

clipart for reindeer and sleigh found here

We put two spoonful's into a 3 1/8 x 4 1/8 cello bags, found in the jewelry department at Walmart. The bag says fashion accessories on it and they are self-sealing bags. They come in a pack of 80. So that’s what the tags would fit.

And P.S. Have you tried gingerbread marshmallows? Oh so good in hot chocolate!

Hawaii: Day Four

2011-12-14T09:08:00.001-07:00

Day four was spent largely in the car enjoying the beautiful scenery. I loved it. You drive to the Hilo side of the island and feel like you walked into a Jurassic Park movie. Stunning! The only thing that was a little bummer was the fact that it was a bit foggy so the pictures didn’t turn out as well as they could have.

We drove down this beautiful rode and turned the corner. My mom and Karl knew what they were taking us to, but when we turned the corner, I audibly gasped and said, “Stop the car!”

Since it’s foggy, the pictures don’t do it justice but oh my goodness. Standing there for a few minutes alone, I felt such reverence and gratitude to Heavenly Father and Jesus for creating such beautiful places on earth. I literally got tears in my eyes as I stood there and smelled the ocean, felt the breeze on my face, and overlooked one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. I wish you could all be there to see it. It was breathtaking.

A house we passed that I plan on retiring with Dillon to.

This little kitty was following us. I told Dillon I had to take a picture for Little Miss B. While I took it he said, “and it will probably be her favorite picture of our whole trip.” I think he was right. She got quite the huge grin when she saw it.

This cemetery was amazing! Really neat headstones and so beautiful.

They even have a section they can bury me when my retirement is over in that house above ;). Don’t worry, they had all sorts of sections but we didn’t notice them until this sign caught our eye.

Crazy how the lunch menu changes according to where you are…

Then we were off to see the volcanoes!

The craters were HUGE!

Super interesting! Remember, I took a lot of pictures for my kids’ sake, but Pele’s hair really was awesome!

It was raining at this point. We went inside this lava tube.

So bummed this turned out blurry, but my camera was under my poncho and I was trying to keep it dry.

My mom was tired so didn’t get out at this volcano. Dillon gave her a walkie talkie and once we got up there, he got all official sounding and said, “I’m seeing a lot of lava—over.” I married a funny guy. His comment (not question) after I took this, “Did you notice the calf flex in there.”

I think this lava flowed down over the road in 1984. No one was killed thankfully because it was moving so slowly. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be acting how I was in the pictures below because that would just be immature.

We were told Ken’s house of pancakes was yummy. Dillon was the only smart one and got breakfast and his WAS yummy. Mine was still pretty good, but my mom and Karl didn’t enjoy theirs. We should have taken note of the name and got a clue!

But on the outside of it was a banner with my theme song of the entire vacation. I normally have a soundtrack for my life in my head—do you?

Very full day! But oh, so beautiful!

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The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2011-12-13T13:00:00.000-07:00

How are you all holding up this Christmas season? I hope you are able to enjoy bits and pieces of it.

Even with the stress of everything that goes along with it, I have been able to catch those wonderful feelings during small moments this Christmas.

My husband and I were finishing up our Christmas shopping and I was going over all the gifts I have made or thought of for our families and friends, the cards to send out, the teachers to give to, the neighbors to deliver to, the goodies to make…etc. etc. The list went on and on. He listened throughout it all and for a moment we stood in silence in the check-out lane at Target while I thought about how overwhelmed I was. Then he gave me a big hug and said, “Thank you. Thank you so much for doing all of this. It’s so much work and I really appreciate all you do.” It almost made me cry. Because it’s just plain nice to feel appreciated. So for those of you who feel overwhelmed and stressed out, I really hope that you will be able to feel some peace and joy this Christmas season. And remember to think kindly of yourselves for all the efforts you go through this time of year! Sometimes we really are wonder women, right? ;) (not to exclude the men here but I kind of am, ha ha! Unless you do all that stuff above, then you rock, too.)

Here is a little round-up of some of my past Christmas projects or posts.

What Shall I Give Ornaments:

Christmas Story Collection:

I found my 8 year old reading these stories as I walked past him to the laundry room. I mentioned that I was happy he was reading them. He came down a couple minutes later and said, “Mom! Those stories are REALLY good.” I told him yes, they certainly were, and how they all make me cry. He said, “They made ME cry too!” So sweet.

White Stocking Tradition:

Poinsettia Pillow Tutorial:

Baby Jesus and Manger tutorial:

This is a great way to get the kids excited for doing service! My kids have already filled it up this year. They were SO excited!

Here are a couple small gifts for teachers, friends, or stocking stuffers.

Tissue Pouch:

You’ll also find a link to a tissue holder tutorial there without the loop attached.

Hand Sanitizer Holders:

Yarn Christmas Trees (from Pretty Ditty):

Service Advent:

I used a lot of ideas from Cheri’s post.

And of course some posts from this year.

Gift Wrapping

Doily Snowflake Ornament

Manta Ray Night Dive (still day three)

2011-12-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

After talking with a few people before we left for Hawaii, I knew we wanted to do some type of boat extravaganza on my birthday, and we were going to go on a day trip snorkeling thing, but after being advised from two different sources (one from a reader!) how awesome the night manta ray dive was, we decided that’s what we’d do. I was a little bit freaked out by the whole thought of getting into the ocean at night with huge swimming creatures and who knows what else, but I was also excited knowing that people thought it was so cool. Once we were on the boat though, I was excited and not at all afraid.

We got a great online deal with Sunlight on Water and off we went. Our three boat guides were pretty funny, and the lady informing us of the manta rays was a cool German lady. We left about 5:00 and so we got to watch the sunset.

So the thing about manta rays is that they don’t have teeth and they don’t have a stinger, so they are completely safe. This was essential to know before signing up!

Manta rays eat plankton. The Sheraton Hotel you see here has lights that shine on the water, and the boats all have lights, which plankton gather to. So the manta rays know that the lights = plankton and come and eat it. So we waited for it to get dark and waited for all the other boats to get there with their passengers.

We had wet suits so it really wasn’t too cold. Plus once you get out, the “captain” sprays you off with warm water and give you a hot chocolate.

My mom and Karl were sweet and had given me a waterproof camera the day before for my birthday. I had tried to get it to work all day and thought we had it working, but it turned off after only 30 seconds of recording the manta rays, sadly. I was pretty bummed it didn't work that night, and not only that, for some reason the card didn’t work and we didn’t get the 30 second video off of it.

Dillon knew I was bummed and got the DVD for me as my birthday present. And the good news is, we did get the camera working while we snorkeled later that week. But here are some screen captures from the DVD we have.

The ones we saw ranged in size from about 5’ across to 16’ across (Big Bertha—she was there!). They were huge! And so awesome!

The way they ate was just by opening their mouth and doing barrel rolls over and over.

Carson was super excited there was a remora fish on the bottom of one of them. He even told me before I left, “Mom, if you see a fish on the underneath of another fish, it’s called a remora.” This was actually the smallest and first one we saw—she’s just a baby and her name was Jana Ray.

There were 8 manta rays that came to eat that night. So cool.

Unfortunately, I got a bit sea sick while we waited to dive and so I didn’t last the whole time in the water, but I was in there for 15-20 minutes and they were only out for another 10 minutes before the rest of the people came back on the boat. But despite the sea sickness, it was amazing. Such a cool experience! Dillon said after I left one of them got so close it touched him. We had plans to hang out afterwards on the beach or something, but I was pretty sure I was going to puke so we went home and I crashed in bed. Thank goodness I felt much better the next day.

Our guides kindly waited until after we were safely back on the boat to tell us that a 20 foot Tiger Shark lives not too far away from where we were (one of the guides showed us a picture of it), and that previously that day, he had seen a group of about 10 hammerhead sharks about a 1/2 mile away from where we were. Thankfully he waited, because I didn’t even think about sharks once!

The whole experience was really neat. If you ever decide to do it and think there is even a chance you’ll get seasick, take something for it before you go ;).

I think the pictures make it look scary, so here’s a video I found online that shows you how gentle they are. They look like they are flying. (thanks youtube!)

Hawaii: Day Three (my birthday!)

2011-12-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

What a way to spend my birthday!!! I did miss my kiddos more on my birthday, but I got to talk with them on the phone so that made it better. Since Bailey is three, it made it so much easier to leave the kids because I didn’t have a really young one missing me as much. She told me she did cry for me a few times, and my boys said they got a little sad missing me too, so that made me feel good that they still missed me ;).

The view from the condo.

Ok, so these next ones need some explanation. The first day we were there, we went to FIVE stores in search of a swimming noodle for Dillon, as he was afraid he wouldn’t float while we went snorkeling. After spending so much time and being told over and over that they were all sold out and to try such and such a store (which we already had), we gave up trying to find one. The next day we’re driving along the main road heading to Kona, which has zero garbage along it, and Dillon slammed on the brakes and pulled over, yelling, “There was a noodle!” So he hopped out of the jeep and ran to get it. It was pretty funny. My mom was in the back seat and we couldn’t stop laughing.

Lava everywhere! The Kona side is a lot more dry and desert like. But still beautiful and plenty green. Renting our snorkel gear.

On our way back from Kona we found a lava tube that we explored a bit.

People liked to spell out things with coral on the dark lava. Kind of like when you drive to Wendover and see all the dark rocks on the white sand.

We had such pretty views from our condo.

Then we went to the beach near the condo and tried out our snorkeling gear.

You knew it was coming. We had to get at least one shot with the hang loose sign.

Ok, so we were quite comical looking while trying to get to the water. We should not have put our flippers on first. But then walking into the water was the funniest part. We had to finally walk in backwards. I’m sure we were quite entertaining to those laying out on the beach (in fact, I know we were from their smiles and chuckles).

I’m glad we got our snorkel gear to try out first, because I was a bit of a wimp—I so held my breath and shut my eyes each time because I just didn’t believe it would work! And since I wear contacts, it’s been YEARS since I’ve been able to open my eyes under water. But it worked! It was pretty murky here because of the waves—Dillon and my mom saw some fish, but I only saw coral. And then a wave slammed me down into it and I scraped my knees and bled and then I was done.

After snorkeling, Dillon and I headed out on our own to spend the rest of my birthday together. First we went out to eat. We shared some coconut mahi mahi. It looks good but it wasn’t so much.

Our view was pretty though! (switch in cameras since I didn’t want to take our nice camera on the boat we were about to go on).

After our meal, we headed out for my birthday adventure. More on that tomorrow!

Hawaii: Day One and Two

2011-12-11T00:56:00.001-07:00

As I’m posting these on my family blog, I’m realizing that it’s way more than 5 days worth of posts, so I’m going to start posting our Hawaii trip today. If you want only craft related items this week, I’m sorry. Those will resume next week ;). Hope you’ll bear with me while I post about Hawaii.

Leaving Salt Lake. We flew first to Los Angeles for about an hour and a half, then to Kona for another five and a half hours.

Coming into Kona. The Kona airport is awesome because it’s all open.

We really wanted to upgrade to a Jeep, but we only paid for the lowest priced economy car that we could and didn’t want to pay the difference (bidding on priceline saved us loads of money). We told the lady at the car rental place that it was our anniversary and she upgraded us for FREE! Yahoo! Dillon was extremely happy about that. After getting our rentals, we all headed to Costco to stock up on breakfast and lunch foods to save some money, since we were in a condo with a kitchen.

We stayed at a beautiful condo in Waikoloa.

Since we were still used to Utah time, we were out the door at about 6:00 am Hawaii time (9:00 am Utah time), and were able to catch the first sunrise there while we waited for some stores to open for a couple items we forgot to pack. I wish I had taken a picture of the guys hanging out in Walmart. There was one man playing a ukulele, right as we walked in. Very cool.

We were blown away by the size of this cruise ship! We were quite a ways away from it and it still seemed huge compared to the big buildings surrounding it.

Dillon and I drove to downtown Kona and walked around a bit. I loved the outdoor market! Especially all the great produce! I mean seriously, I have quite big hands and that avocado is gigantic!

(my nails actually looked halfway decent for doing them myself!)

It completely threw me off seeing Christmas decorations and hearing the music played everywhere. Which, by the way, is way less annoying Christmas music than what you’ll hear on the radio where I live. And a ton of variety, instead of the same songs, same artists over and over.

Pots and hats made from palm frond leaves. Very cool. I should have taken a picture of the guy making them!

See the blue and yellow fish?

The banyan trees are SO cool!

I loved how colorful everything was, buildings and buses included.

Dillon loves the movie Forest Gump and had to get his picture by the Bubba Gump restaurant. We didn’t know my mom planned on taking us there to eat the last day! Yum.

Karl copied a CD for us with some of Israel Kamakawiwo'ole songs. You’ve probably heard is pretty version of Over the Rainbow. It was fun to see a painting downtown Kona of him. His picture was everywhere!

That afternoon we headed to the beach at about 4:00 to watch our first sunset on the beach.

Thanks Mel, for painting our glitter toes for us!

I’m a nerd in these next pictures, but I felt so peaceful, happy, and worry-free (thanks to the many many people who watched my kids so I knew they were safe!!!). Dillon and I decided that to have the best time, we needed to put life’s trials on hold for the week. It was a good idea. :)

Random cute kid with a surf board.

Paradise!

A Stick Horse Named Dunderhead

2011-12-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

I made this horse for B when she turned 3 in September, but it’s a great present so I thought I’d post it finally. When I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she said a horse. Once upon a time we lucked out and found a stick horse at the Dollar Tree, but they didn’t have them anymore and hers broke.

So the night before her birthday, I found these two stick horse tutorials on Pinterest and combined the two:

Stick Horse Tutorial: Light Blue Grey

and How to Make a Stick Horse: ikatbag

An hour later I had this cutie.

She LOVES it! So much. She’s a cowgirl at heart, this one. Maybe it’s because her grandparents are.

Making the horse give us kisses.

I think I love his big grin the best.

Now, over two months later, she still loves it! And by the way, searching on Pinterest for things like this is so much better than on any other search engine, because it’s pretty much the best of the best. What other people truly liked and something you can SEE! You can follow me HERE if you’d like!

Mali Kalikimaka

2011-12-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I just returned yesterday from our 7 day trip to Hawaii (The Big Island). Heaven!!! We loved every minute of it. After I catch up around home, I’ll be posting all about it next week hopefully!

picture taken while snorkeling

Ten Gift Wrapping Ideas

2011-12-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

In case you missed me over at jame, here are 10 really easy gift wrapping ideas.

Almost all of the items I used are just from the dollar section at Target, and a couple items used are from Walmart and Joann. I’m not going to really do any tutorial-ish type of thing, since I’m pretty sure you are all smart enough to figure out how I did them! Just get out your supplies, some tape, and some glue to hold your finishing touches in place!

This yarn is fabulous, and can be found in the yarn section at Walmart for under $2.00 I believe. I love it because it looks like bakers twine.

Ornaments from Target’s Dollar Section.

Glitter trees from Target’s dollar section.

Yarn from Walmart, beads for a dollar at Joann.

Berries from Target, twine I already had.

The next two would be fun for kids. Stickers all from Target section.

These reindeer stickers are also from Target. It would be cute to draw little speech bubbles that said the TO: and FROM: bit.

Doily’s from the wedding section at Walmart. I used a glue stick to glue them on the paper.

Ric-rac is the cutest, and I have some vintage ric-rac given to me from my mother-in-law. This one was perfect!
Tinsel from Target’s Christmas section. $2.00.

And there you have it! Ten super simple, inexpensive ways to spice up your gift wrapping this Christmas!

one year older and wiser, too.

2011-12-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

I don’t know about wiser, but I’m one year older today.

It’s funny how I’ve heard my whole life how your body changes so much at thirty, and not so much for the better! But it’s all good. My husband told me something funny to live by. He said: If it’s all downhill from here, then every day you should wake up and say, “Today I look the best I will for the rest of my life. I won’t look this good tomorrow so I might as well live it up today!” Smart man, he is.

Life at thirty-one is great. I am happy. I am blessed. And I feel more comfortable in my own skin than I ever have. Despite the things I’d love to change physically (and PS, pictures on blogs can be deceiving because of course I’ll choose the better ones over less-than-flattering ones. There are plenty of those!), I know what I can change and I’m working on those things because those are the things that actually matter.

I hope you all have a wonderful day! Let the Christmas music be played, if you haven’t already been playing it since before Christmas, like me!

Doily Snowflake Ornament: Tutorial

2011-11-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

I posted this on Craft Snob a couple weeks ago and thought I better hurry and post anything Christmas related here while they can be used.

I’m going to show you how extremely quick and easy this doily ornament is. My 6 year old said it looks like a snowflake, so we’ll call it the Doily Snowflake Ornament. I think it’s a great starting point for many beautiful things you can imagine with this ornament.

You’ll need:
-a small doily, roughly 4” diameter
-two 5” x 5” squares felt, any color you like
-polyester filling
-8” piece ribbon, lace, twine, etc. for hanging
-embroidery floss (optional—I ended up liking it better without)

Start by sewing your doily onto one of the pieces of felt, centered. I used white thread so it wouldn’t be seen on the doily. Please note that you can embellish the ornament at this point with whatever you want—beads, embroidery floss, anything. It’s just best to do it at this step so any stiches are hidden inside the ornament.

Find a cup or bowl that is just a little bigger than the doily and trace with chalk. If you don’t have chalk like I didn’t (mine was gone), then use a pen but make sure you sew just inside the drawn circle.

Pin the two layers together and sew, leaving a 2” opening for the stuffing, again making sure to sew just inside the circle so your markings are cut off. I used red thread so the stitching wouldn’t show, although a nice contrasting thread would be pretty. Cut off the excess around the circle.

Stuff the hole with the filling.

Loop your ribbon, lace, or whatever you’re using to hang the ornament with.

Stick it into the hole and sew it closed right to the edge.

If you want, you can use your embroidery floss and stitch around the edge, or you can decide you like it simple like I did and skip this step.

I think this combination of materials would be really pretty. Or you can use greens, turquoise with reds, whatever! I think spraying the doily would also be pretty.

That is it! SO easy and such a quick project!