First up, I bought some Lego scrapbook paper [it is even bumpy and has the lego logo on each dot] in red, blue, yellow & green. I made banners to go all over the place by cutting the paper into 6×8 dot blocks. Then I cut up Kristopher’s Lego calendar from 2011. Then I just sewed the papers together on my sewing machine. Easy Peasy and so cute! I used a couple of the larger pictures from the calendar on the walls. Balloons hanging from the light over the table are fun. I put Legos in clear glass containers on tables to decorate as well.

In the living room, I set up this little table to greet guests. I wanted to have each boy sign the card, get a name badge and guess the number of Legos in the vase before doing anything else, but as guests were arriving I got sidetracked and they all ended up doing this in a bunch. It’s much easier to do that sort of thing with adults!

On the wall in the kitchen we also had “Bob”, who had lost his arm. He was drawn by Kristopher and playing that game was completely Kristopher’s idea. He did a great job with the drawing, but he didn’t win. Going first was not advantageous…with the arms the boys just felt for the previous arm and then placed theirs. So the farther down the line the better your chance. Try to make your arms flatter if you play this! Ours were curling up on the hand end. :)

I found a “favor pack” of Lego build kits that came with 4 each of 2 different designs. We had a little contest to see who could build their’s the quickest. The winner got a prize. While they were building they were very serious and it was completely quiet around that table. Totally different than the rest of the party! So funny to see the difference between the kids when they had something to work for.

After all the games I let the boys play for awhile, while I cooked some pizza and finished setting out all the food. My goal was to make Lego pizza like this blogger did. Mine was fine, but the pepperoni’s slid around during the cooking and so the pieces didn’t exactly look like they were supposed to. Still we had small rectangular pizza pieces with round circles. Good enough, right?! I also purchased the silicone Lego molds and we had Lego ice and Lego shaped chocolates. Some of the chocolate men went on top of cupcakes. I made a second cake since I didn’t know how many people I would end up feeding. For that one I used this idea and put marshmallows on top to create the Lego look. Not exactly how I pictured it either, but still a hit. To make the cupcake stand I hot glued some candle stick holders to the bottom of one Lego board and then set it on top of a larger one. The Hot glue peels off easily and it made a cute display. That gray board was actually mine when I was little. :)

Kristopher wanted to blow out his candle on a special cupcake, not on the big cake, so I just wrote 10 on one of the cupcakes. We prayed and then sang to him before eating any of the food. I had ice cream, but forgot to get it out…

After gorging on sugar, it was time for a little present opening. Kristopher got a lot of cool gifts. Several Lego items were included (how could they not be?!) and he got the two things he was most hoping for as well. It was fun to watch all the kids gather around him while he opened his gifts. They were practically on top of him. During this time he said some of the funniest things. He said he could barely breathe because everyone was so close. When he was done opening everything, someone asked him what he wanted to play with first and he replied, “before I play with anything, I want to clean up this mess!” My boy is so funny. This mamma is thankful that he wanted to clean it up though, less cleanup for her!

Near the end of party-time this fellow showed up:

He sounded like Kristopher and he had the same outfit as Kristopher, but he looked a bit older than 10… Boys will be boys. ;)

Everyone left with a little goody bag, containing a Birthday Lego man and some Lego soap, bought on etsy.

He had a great birthday party and tomorrow we are looking forward to a quiet day of church and celebrating his and Kody’s birthdays with a nice dinner and, you guessed it, more cake! Back to talk about how I can’t believe 10 years has gone by tomorrow…

Today I worked on planning an activity for some of our homeschool friends. We are going to get together in a few days and I thought it would be fun for the kids to document some of their favorites from last year and make some goals for this year. I also found a cute paper for the mamas to make some goals. I hope that the little party I have planned will be fun, even if it’s a bit late!

Blessings to each of you and prayers for your 2012. Make a great start and keep it up. I am going to make it a happy productive year! See you soon, dear readers!

Our four biggest blessings in their matching Christmas PJs that they opened Christmas Eve:

Yes, this is the best picture. So hard to get them all to cooperate for pictures!

Here are a couple pictures of the dedication, sorry they’re blurry.

Merry Christmas and enjoy this last week of 2011.

Our trees played musical rooms this year. The big tree had to move out to the sunroom since we put in shelves earlier this year and received an extra couch from friends. I get to enjoy it while I am doing all my Christmas crafting! I moved (the children say stole) the smaller tree into the living room because I couldn’t imagine not having one there. I used all my ornaments that coordinated with the room colors and our family’s “first Christmas ornaments” because I really like to see those. The children’s and the rest of our ornaments were put on the other tree and it was mostly decorted by the children. I think they did a great job and I really didn’t have to do much rearranging after they finished. They are getting so much better at not bunching the ornaments up and hanging them from lights and such. :) I changed up the mantel this year too. The nativity is still there to be our big reminder that Chirstmas is about Christ. I always have my lamp on top of some books, but I changed them out for big Christmas colored books. Then on the other side I put my favorite tree that my friend Penny made and my favorite candles. I cut all the triangles for the bunting last year, but then abandoned the project. I decided that I wanted to use them this year, so I sewed them together with some bias tape and added them to the room. I love the way it turned out! My living room colors are robin’s egg blue, red and white with a few other colors thrown in. We also have a tiny tree in the office to look at when we’re doing schoolwork.

In the kitchen I have basically the same decor as last year. I just changed the centerpiece. I had a big white platter, so I put some small pretty things and the things we always use on it. I like this and to his credit, Kody suggested it! Our Christmas cards are getting pinned to the memo boards on the wall. Maybe someday I’ll make a cute thing to hang them on! Hopefully I will get some cookies made in the next few days or we won’t be eating any! I haven’t wanted to make as many as I usually do this time of year. It might me because I am trying to stay healthier this year. But, we have to have some cookies for Christmas, and we will.

We hope all of you have a very merry Christmas! I’ll be back soon with gifties that I’ve made! So excited about all that I’ve gotten done in the past month. I still do have a few left to finish, but I’m having a lot of fun making people things right now.

I wanted to write a little update on the Christmas gift crafting. As you can see from the title I have more than 7 completed gifts. I finished Kyler’s blue hat. In the photos you can see a little sneak peek of some of the other finished things. I can’t tell you all the details now since I’m not sure who actually reads my blog. ;) I will take more pictures and give details closer to or after Christmas. I know I have one other gift done that isn’t pictured and I have a few little things in my box that I keep on hand for little gifts. Not sure if any of those will work for anyone just yet, so that’s the +.

Still to go are quite a few of the larger things. Tomorrow, I think, I will work on some pants for Kyler and possibly try to finish up a few more of the unfinished projects I found when I was cleaning up the sunroom and organizing my sewing stuff today. One of those things is a fun pennant banner out of Christmas fabric that I started last year. All that I have to do is sew it together and I want to be able to decorate with it this year. I’m actually enjoying making all of these gifts (not always the case with my holiday sewing) and I’m not even feeling rushed or stressed out about it yet. I’m thrilled with how things are turning out too, and I hope that each person who gets a handmade gift from me likes what they get!

Or, as the case is here right now, ambition.

I realized, with the arrival of November 1st, that I am running out of Christmas preparation time. I usually have a closet full of things that I have bought throughout the year that I can hop from and I usually have kind of an idea of what few gifts I’ll need to make for people by that time. This year, however, I have very few things in the closet (this situation was made even worse by some mice that ate parts of a pair of socks and fleece sweatshirt for Kyler.) With 4 children and not a big amount of extra budgeted money for Christmas gifts, I was in despair! So, I’m feeling rather ambitious now. I sat down with some of my books and made a rather large list of things to make between now and Christmas. I’ve even gotten started, as is evidenced above. That is Kyler’s soon to be hat, made from Malabrigo. Tonight I’ll be scouring the fabric cabinet to get some of the other things started. When I’m not preparing for the yard sale that we’re having tomorrow, on top of the last soccer games of the season. And I guess I really need to clean off my sewing desk so I have a place to create. Don’t laugh, I’ve totally got this. :-D

Here’s my list:

At least 3 Composition Notebook covers (Sewing Bits & Pieces)
Pirate Quilt – not sure on the size yet
Robot toddler bed quilt
Little Red Rding Hood cape for Taylor (either Small Things from Oliver & S or Growing Up Sew Liberated)
at least 2 flower headbands
Pants for Kyler (Handmade Beginnings)
Knit Hat and Bear hood for Kyler (my head, Small Things – Oliver & S)
Envelope Tee for Kyler (Growing Up Sew Liberated)
Pairie Blouse for Taylor (Seams to Me)
UK quilt/blanket
Flower clips
Ruffled Camera Strap
A couple of zip pouches (Sew Darn Cute)
Possibly an Art Satchel (Growing Up Sew Liberated)

I made a list last year and shared it. I did complete some of it and I think it helped to have it on the WWW to keep me accountable. So, ask me if I’m getting things done every so often and I’m sure I can do it! Once again, don’t laugh!

*sorry the pictures aren’t that great. My good camera quit working back around Easter and I’ve been using our old one. It doesn’t zoom, drains batteries way too fast and is just not good enough for taking quality photos of moving children. I’m hoping to get a new one soon, somehow!

I really only decorate the living room and kitchen for fall and there are only a couple of things in the kitchen, like my big Cracker Barrel platter (you can kind of see it in one of the pictures below.) So, since I haven’t done a finished living room post for my house remodel I’m going to do that now. Then you can see the before and after shots and my pretty decorations. And, you can tell me if I’ve got too much going on on my shelves!

Here are the before pictures:

These were taken the first day we looked at the house. Unfortunately they are taken from the opposite angles as the ones today.

Here are the whole room views:


We were blessed earlier this year by some friends who gave us a second couch. Now we have enough seats for everyone! I’m sure you’re noticing the hideous curtains…I still need to replace those with something pretty. We’re thinking bamboo blinds, but we’ll see. The shelves and cabinets were built by Kody’s dad. Love them! Before there was a big empty wall and I’ve always wanted to have bookshelves to the ceiling. This is a much better view. :)

Here is my fall mantel:


The lamp is a new addition because we decided we needed a little more light on that side of the room. I didn’t like the plain shade, especially since I couldn’t get an exact match to the larger lamp, so I covered it with some polkadot ruffles. I like it when it isn’t on, but it looks kind of funny with the light shining through the ruffles…

Last, some close ups of the shelves. Are they too busy? I’m not sure what to take out. I kind of like it, but occasionally it looks too cluttered when I look over. What do you think?

So, there you go. I’m pretty happy with my living room and it’s definitely cozy and ready for the next couple of months! Are you decorated for fall?

The rest of the above pictures are from her party, which we had last night. I had big plans this year to do a pretty dress up paty with fancy decorations, but Taylor had other plans. She wanted to go to “the bouncy place” also known as Universal Athletics. It is a gymnastics/cheerleading place that has inflatable bouncy things and a party room. So I tried to combine the two parties into one – some bouncing and some fancy. Taylor chose the colors for the party – turquoise/light blue and pink. I made cake pops, which were not fun to make, and the first ones didn’t look good, but at least some of them turned out decent looking. They all tasted good! I also set up a candy “bar” and made some little re-usable snack bags for the kids to take some candy home as favors. For the bags I used Sarah Jane’s pinwheel fabric from her Children at Play collection, with some nylon on the inside. I am loving this fabric! I wanted to make the boys (all the brothers) snack bags out of the rocket fabric, but I ran out of time and velcro. The bags were a hit and, of course, the candy was too! I forgot to take a table cloth, so my table wasn’t as pretty as I would have liked. If we had been at home I would have served the pink lemonade in mason jars and had it in a pretty glass pitcher. I thought I already had enough glass in a place that kids act kind of crazy though. There was lots of bouncing (the great thing about having the party at UA was that I didn’t have to plan games and do much moderating) and some candle blowing out and gift opening. Taylor had a great time and that’s really all that matters!

Kameron celebrated his 3rd birthday on Saturday. We didn’t think he needed a party, since he really doesn’t have many people to invite, so we just had a family day. I did decorate, so that he would feel special, with balloons that he picked out. Yellow, who would’ve thought?! He also picked yellow icing and since I already had the dump truck balloon I tried to draw a dump truck on the cake, but it didn’t turn out well. Should have thought that one out a little better! I also realized the morning of his birthday that none of his gifts were really toys, so I ran out and got a couple of small toys. This birthday thing is hard to keep up with when you have 4!

Anyway, I made Kameron a big birthday dinner and Gram and Grandaddy came over to eat and hang out with us. He had a good day with only one mishap. He was playing on the swingset and got stung on the face by a wasp. Unfortunately his eyes are still swollen two days later, but he was happy again about 45 minutes after being stung.

Since Taylor’s birthday is in two days she is having a party at a place with inflatables. We are kind of telling him that that is for his birthday too (it costs enough!) and one of his friends will be there to bounce with him.

I can’t believe that he is 3 already. I really don’t know where the time with him went. I know I say it quite a bit, but it really does seem like he should still be a baby. He is my big boy now and he is so much fun. The only thing that makes me a little crazy is his lack of “inside voice.” He yells everything! He is still my sweet snuggly boy and always will be. I love to hold him, but those times are few and far between now that he is a little bigger and Kyler is in my arms so much. I kind of wish I could stop time, just for a little while, so I could have more memories of all of them at the ages they are now. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to make as many memories as I would like.

Happy birthday to my sweet boy!