Our Christmas Card {2009}

Hoping everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Merry Christmas 2009

A glimpse at the past few weeks around here....

Christmas party at the firehouse where my mom works!

An attempt to get all my girls looking.

FAIL...but still so cute.

I love this one!

My girls are their cousin Meade. Mia was so proud to get to hold him!

Craft time!

Mia showing off her garland.


Mia and Sophie showing Mommy their creations.

Santa arrived on this fire truck!


Here he is walking in......

and Sophie's reaction.

She wouldn't not sit on his lap so Steve and I were forced to join in the picture this year.

I do love how it turned out :)




Mommy and Soph after her fun Happy Birthday Jesus party at preschool.


She had the best time!

Sophie sporting her CUTENESS from Julie!

Have you seen anything more cute?

Gracie in her outfit.

And Mia loving hers.

All three girls together!

LOVE.

Gingerbread house making at Aunt Adie's house!

She kindly helped Gracie girl while I was at home sewing (struggling.)

Sophie showing her house off.

Mia working on hers.

Gracie hanging candy canes like one of the big girls.

I can not believe how fast December flew by.

Many more pics to come....

Hope that your Christmas was Merry and Bright!

DIY Oriental Trading Co. Gift Bags

This is Mia's first year in a REAL school,

ALL day long,

with a bus driver,

art teacher,

PE teacher,

music teacher,

library teacher

and more!

I had no idea what to get all these important people for Christmas.

So, I thought it would be fun to make my own version of the cute

Oriental Trading Company gift bags I saw on their website.

All you will need is:

Sandwich bags.

Cute Christmas paper.

A stapler.

Ribbon.

Hole Puncher

Your choice of treat!

How fun are these?

And so super simple.

Add your treats to the bag.
Fold a piece of fun Christmas paper at the top.
Staple the paper onto the bag.
Add a small piece of paper as the gift tag with ribbon.

Now, write something fun like "Hope your Christmas if filled with JOY!"

(I thought it was cute given my treats were Almond Joy.)
I try.

Mia had so much fun prancing around her school passing out these special little gifts! She was so proud of herself for putting a smile on the faces of the people she looks up to and respects so much!

Fun & Funky Beaded Necklace Tutorial

I made a few of these after seeing a super easy tutorial on another fun blog!

I LOVE how they turned out.

(With me you NEVER know....)

By request of ERIN, I decided to share this cute idea with my friends and family.

This is my crazy version of a "tutorial" on how to whip up a fun and funky beaded necklace.

(Perfect for a Christmas gift!)

Pick your spray paint.

I used Ivy Leaf for my green one and Blue Ocean Breeze for the fun turquoise one I made

Julie, for her birthday!

(It was SO cute on her I might add)

First, buy a Styrofoam rectangle or sphere.

I went with the rectangle so I could line them up and spray across nice and evenly.

Then buy some plain unfinished wood beads.

I bought a jumbo pack of the 20 mm for the majority of the necklace,

then another pack of the 25 mm.

I added only three of the bigger size for extra RANDOMNESS!

Set up toothpicks along the Styrofoam and add some tin foil to the tips as shown in picture.

The holes in the beads are too wide and if you don't add the foil, they will slide all the way down.

Once you have all the toothpicks in place, add all the beads for your entire necklace like shown in the photo above.

Spray evenly and coat the tops and sides.

Wait about 5 minutes.

Flip ALL of the beads.

Spray again, evenly coating all the beads.

Repeat SEVERAL times to get a more solid color look.

(FYI, I used way more coats than I thought I would.)

Very time consuming, but so worth it.

Look at this cuteness!

After the beads were dry, I just strung them, in the order I wanted them, onto some 1/4" black grosgrain. To make this a bit easier, I just taped the ends into a skinny spiral so the beads would slide on.

How fun is this?!

And super easy.

If I can do it, you can too!

And if you want it to be EXTRA special,

feel free to add this cool kids club twitter pin.

(Erin gave us all these in our goody bags last weekend in California! So fun!)

Perfection!



A shot of the necklace in action in California as we worked on Project 320.


Holla!

Happy Birthday to My Mom

Happy Birthday to the best Mom anyone could ever have.

She has taught me the importance of FAMILY

and that it takes precedent over everything else in this world.

Nothing is more meaningful or important.

My Mom and Dad in the 70's.

And here they are last year celebrating my Mom's birthday.



Mimo and Gracie after her baptism.

Mimo and Tyler

(Finally there are a few boys in the mix!)

Last year for my Mom's birthday,

Maggie drove from Michigan and SURPRISED my mom-

MID-POSE, she snuck up from behind her during this picture!

I caught her super SURPRISED look!



A closer look :)

One of our family trips (without kids) to Michigan.

Maggie, Mom & Haley

We were on the way to watch Austin's, Maggie's boyfriend, last home football game.

It was a bit on the cold side so everyone was all bundled up!

Hot Mimo posing with Gracie this past Halloween.

She was Dog the Bounty Hunter's wife.

(Gracie was a bit weary of her balloons)

Maggie and Mimo this past Thanksgiving.

Major Models.

A family shot with just us girls & dad.


Another with the hubbies.


In celebration of our Mom, here is a fun picture of

Haley and Maggie imitating her dancing style!!

Growing up my mom put her four daughters first.

Everything in her life revolved around us.

Because of this, I value what is most important in my life.

My three girls.

I will always put them first just like my Mom did with us!

Girls Club, for Real.

For Life.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Thank you for all you do for us!

We love you!

To California and Back

in under 48 hours.

What a TRIP!

I was so happy to get the chance to meet some of my new favorite girls.

Mel, Heather G, Julie, Heather M, as well as Erin who so kindly hosted us for a full blown SLUMBER PARTY extravaganza filled with eats, drinks, a baby shower, a birthday party and the chance to be a part of something AMAZING.

We were a bit overwhelmed by all the kindness!

Over 300 items when we had hoped for 100.

We put on our holla tees and got to work.
We organized all the gifts into bundles of 20.
Then Mel snapped pictures of everything.

We took a few time outs to celebrate baby Gianna,

who will be arriving in a few months!
(How cute is this diaper cake Erin made! SRSLY?!)

And then they took me to The Coffee Bean for the first time
One word: YUM.

Back at Erin, we posed in our holla tees,

and I may or may not have made Pottery Barn Dip.

Heather made some cupcakes to celebrate Julie's birthday!

And please don't fall off your chair when you take a look at this cuteness she made for Julie!Cutest. Bunting. Ever.

Janey joined Mommy to celebrate her birthday! How cute are they?!

Julie's birthday spread.

Mel and Julie posing by the tree.

One of Julie's gifts from Mel.

The weekend went by so fast.
We accomplished so much and had such a great time together.

But I sure did miss Steve and my girls.
When I got home I was welcomed with this.

Pasta con Broccoli and Brownies....

letters from Mia and Sophie,

and Gracie girl helping me with my luggage.

The girls said, "Mom do you remember our stockings?!"

"What about our Christmas Tree?!"

And then they showed me where their Elf on a Shelf was hanging out all day!

I missed little CLYDE also!

There is definitely no place like home, but I am so glad I decided to go and meet such amazingly talented and inspirational women that, if not for our blogs, I would have never met.


Please hop over to the Project 320 Blog everyday this week and enter to win one of the AMAZING bundles. So many wonderful people donated that we are giving away THREE bundles of 20 items everyday this week!

Every $10 donation will give you one entry.

Just leave one comment(for every $10 you donated) under whichever bundle you would LOVE to win!

Tell everyone you know and help us achieve our goal of raising $5000 to build a well and change lives forever.

Thank you!