baby steps

Greg and I sat down with Hannah last night and tried to get her to walk a little more and be brave. We got her taking a few more steps...then I grabbed the camera and was able to catch this little video of her walking to get something! So cute! So, I guess she'll do some more practicing and then she'll be on her own! Maybe even before Christmas!!!

Butt scootin boogie

I was talking to a friend at church on Wednesday night while Hannah scooted around in the background. She then asked me if I had any video of Hannah scooting around because when I'm 100 I'm going to want to remember that little scoot. I told her that I think I took video of the little scoot the other day but hadn't uploaded it to my computer yet. Well, I finally did upload the video to my computer and tried to get the video to load to facebook...but it wouldn't and that's okay. I think I'd rather have it here on my blog anyway. So, here's a little video of one of Hannah's favorite ways of getting around.

She's starting to get more brave and stands up in the middle of the room randomly now...but still no real walking. She's taking her sweet time...and I'm okay with that!!!

away in a manger

We have the coolest kids. Greg and I say that on a regular basis. But seriously they are pretty awesome. They're hilarious, caring, thoughtful, loud, mischevious, entertaining and just down right sweet. The other day Naomi and Micah were singing Away in a Manger and the first time Micah sang it like this "Olivia no crib for a bed. The stars in the sky. The little Lord Jesus shut the door." Crazy kid. Then I asked him to sing it again and he sang the first verse perfectly. I asked him if he knew any of the other verses and he just said, "nope, I only know one" He does know parts of the other verses but he just needs someone to sing with him. I cannot wait for the Christmas program on Sunday, should be good.

Here's Micah singing Away in a Manger!!

Naomi wanted in on the video action too so here she is singing Away in a Manger. I asked her what other songs she has to sing for the Christmas program and she told me "Silent Night" and "Joy to the World" I asked her if she wanted to practice with me and she said "No mom, that's why we have practice on Saturday"....so I guess I'll leave it to the professionals (aka, the sunday school teachers).

Gifts for yourself

Today is the last day of the 12 crafts for Christmas hosted by The Trendy Treehouse! Here's my last post!

We all know that Christmas is a time of giving. A time when we remember the greatest gift ever given, the gift of Jesus in flesh. The gift of salvation brought to life. We give gifts because we've already received the greatest gift ever to be given. We give gifts to everyone in our lives, kids, parents, teachers, postal workers, but is it wrong to give a gift to yourself? I don't think so. So often we as mothers give give and give some more that sometimes it's nice and actually IMPORTANT to give a little to ourselves.

Maybe your gift to yourself this year will be laying off the mommy guilt. Maybe you'll give yourself permission to fail, to not be the "perfect" wife, mom, etc because we all know that person doesn't exist. Maybe you'll give yourself 10 extra minutes of peace and quiet by setting the alarm. Maybe you're going to give yourself energy by exercising a little more regularly. Maybe you're going to give yourself time by setting a timer for "extra" things like tv shows or computer time so you don't get sucked ALL the way in, but then you'll have the time to do the things you want and need to do.  Maybe you'll give yourself time to craft things for YOU! I plan on doing ALL of these things.

Maybe your gift to yourself will be more a material object. Those are nice too. My husband and I do the St. Nicholas thing with our kids (but not Santa) since he was a real man who gave to the poor and needy. But who fills my stocking...me! So, this  year I didn't give myself anything. But that's becuse I didn't have any small gift that I really wanted...and I am still working on gifts for others so I haven't gotten around to my own crafting yet...but I will. I will make myself some pajama pants and I will make myself a clothespin people wall hanging.


What are you going to give to yourself?

If you're still looking for the perfect gift some someone on your list come on over to my etsy store and see what I've got that might help you check off another name!

Hannah's room featured!

Hannah's room is featured over at Baby Lifestyles! I was so excited when they contacted me about featuring her room. This room is a labor of love, making everything myself (or as much as possible) and keeping the budget at a minimum, and totally worth it!

Christmas Crafting with the kids

We got our first snow here in West Tennessee early this week. My kids were so excited. This is really the first time that they've experienced a real snow fall. When we lived in Texas it snowed about 1/4 of an inch in February of this year and it only stuck to the driveway (so that's where they made their snow angels). So, they were super excited. They played outside in the snow...got cold...came in and had hot chocolate. We've also been doing some more crafting and Christmas crafting in particular. My kids love to do "projects", and ask to do them all the time. I figured it was time I start actually doing some of the things that I pin on my pinterest board...so we got out the construction paper and got to work!

The first thing we made was a Christmas Tree ring Advent calendar from Make and Takes. Naomi was able to do this pretty well on her own, I just had to tell her where to put the next ring, however I had to help Micah with it quite a bit.

 Then I decided to cut out their handprints and make a wreath. My mom used to make a big Christmas tree with her second grade classes handprints. I'm sure this wreath has been done before and is nothing new but it was fun to make and it'll be fun to see how their handprints grow over the years. So, I just traced their hands on one piece of paper and then cut six out at a time. Then you just curl the fingers in a bit and then I glued them to a cardboard cereal box circle.

Glue them around the circle and keep layering them until the wreath looks full. Then I just glued some red circles around and covered the middle with a big red circle and as you can see wrote "merry christmas" on the circle to cover up the ends of the hands. I think I used about 24 handprints (half from a 5 year old and half from a 3 year old).

I tried to trace Hannah's hand so that I could make a small Christmas tree but she threw a fit. I'll try again some other time. But, you can use the handprints to create a Christmas tree as well. Just start the hands with the curled fingers pointing down but the hands curling upwards and layer the handprints in the shape of a tree. I'll try and get a photo of one soon!

Happy Christmas crafting!

Gifts for grandmas and husbands

Hey there everyone, sorry for being absent on the blog the last few weeks, I've been enjoying time with my family and didn't feel like spending any of that time on the computer...

This post is part of the 12 crafts of Christmas going on over at The Trendy Treehouse!
So I owe you two weeks worth of gifts. Gifts for grandma and gifts for husbands.

There were a few things that my mom mentioned when I asked her about what the kids could make
for her that she would like to receive. She said she loves any handmade gift from the kids and
especially anything made with handprints. So, we did the handprint calendar for grandpa but obviously
grandma gets to enjoy that as well. She mentioned things like placemats, mousepads, an apron with
handprints on it...and while I think these are all great ideas and hopefully we'll still be able to make some
of these things before Christmas, we made something different. My parents are missionaries right now
over seas and they don't have a lot of the "comforts of home" with them over there. So, I decided to have my kids paint them a picture. I just gave the kids a square canvas board and let them use their own creativity to paint them a picture. Canvas boards can be found at JoAnn's, Hobby Lobby and Michael's. I bought mine at Hobby Lobby and it was a package of 6 boards for $7.99 and I had a 40% off coupon so each board only cost me about 80cents, and I already had the paints on hand so this is a VERY inexpensive gift idea.

These paintings usually happen in "sessions", they paint for a bit then stop and add more too it at another time. They LOVE to paint and ask almost everyday if they can paint. I like to keep those square canvas boards on hand for times like these. They make great personal gifts. I didn't take a photo of the finished project because I don't want to spoil the surprise for my mom!

I don't have any photos of what I am getting/making for Greg...but I can tell you about it quick. I ordered a personalized travel mug with some photos that my aunt took for us on Thanksgiving. And the thing I am making for him is pajama pants. He told me that he was a little sad last Christmas when the kids got new jammies but he didn't. SO, I  went to goodwill and had Micah pick out a top sheet that he liked (he picked solid navy blue) and I bought that and one flannel sheet for the girls and I plan to sew pj pants for the whole family out of those sheets. Sheets are so much cheaper (especially from goodwill) than buying that much yardage of fabric at the fabric store. Plus, isn't it nice to crawl into your sheets wearing sheets?! Ha, we'll see. I have a pair for myself that I cut out of some old vintage orange and yellow flower sheets about two years ago...maybe I'll actually sew them for my Christmas present this year!

Hope I've given you some ideas. I need something else for my hubby though, so if you have any good hubby gift ideas I'd love to hear them!! Have a great week!