Another brag post

I was told by two different people that I should post about something else I've made recently. So if I seem too braggy, just yell at my mom and my sister-in-law Shaina! They talked me into this post.

I made this wall-hanging/bit of art/whatever you want to call it. It was really fun! I got the inspiration from two different blogs: this one and this one. Here are the steps:

1. Go to Mike's house and use wood he's got laying around and cut it up in strips.

2. Glue the wood together using wood glue and strips in the back to hold the pieces together.

3. Stain wood.

4. Take a BIG piece of paper and draw branch with leaves on it. I used a piece of paper that was about 2'x3' because that's how big the wood thing is.

5. Cover paper with clear contact paper and cut out picture with exacto knife, making a stencil.

6. Spray stencil adhesive to one side of stencil, place on wood and stencil with lightest color.

7. Move stencil and paint with next color.

8. See #7

9. Hang on wall with nails, step back, and admire.

I used metallic paint from a craft store. It's cool because it looks a bit different depending on the angle you look at it. You'll have to come check it out. It looks much better in person!

Craft Time

My super cool Aunt Janet sent us some crafty things to have fun with this past weekend. I thought I would post photos of the creative process as well as the end products.

The Process:

The Product:

Creators of these pieces listed from left to right:

Elijah Bell, Becca Bell, Shaina Burgoyne, Michael Burgoyne, Leah Bell (tall piece in the back)

The pieces created by Leah, Becca, and Shaina are part of a collection entitled True Love. The blue creature is the prince and the white one is the princess. They are to be married and the tall tower is where they will live happily ever after.

So tired from walking she walked in her sleep

Leah did the funniest thing last night. It was so funny that Mike and I both belly-laughed for a good, solid minute.

It was 9:30 and we heard Leah open her bedroom door. I got up off the couch to see what she was doing. As I got to the door, she came out, walked past me, walked over to the printer, took out some paper, handed me some as she past by me again, went in her room, put the paper on her table and sat down as if she was going to color. I probably should have let her color. It would have been interesting to see what she created. She didn't say a word the entire time. Of course she wouldn't; she was asleep.

I told her to go back to bed and she obediently climbed back under the covers. She's such a good listener when she's not awake. Now if I could just get her to sleep-walk during Saturday morning chores......

Pics of the Faves

Easter Fun

On Easter Morning, the kids woke up and found this:

So then they did this:

The puzzle said, "Your baskets are in the bathtub!" They didn't quite get what they were supposed to do at first. I had to basically tell them. Once they got it, they did this:

But the baskets weren't in that bathtub. Fortunately, Leah said, "Let's go check the other bathtub." To that, Eli responded, "What other bathtub?" Since the kids never bathe in our shower, Eli didn't think there was another bathtub. I knew this would trick them and make it harder to find their Easter baskets. Is that mean? Fortunately, they went to the correct bathtub and found this:

After finding their baskets, the kids removed them from the bathtub and did this:

Not pictured: Noah eating all his jellybeans without us knowing.

I hope your Easter was just as fun and a lot less confusing!

Preschool Fun

Recently, we had a preschool field trip to our local fire department. Fortunately, it was during Spring Break, so Eli got to tag along. It was lots of fun!! We got to take a tour of the Fire Station, meet some real fire fighters, and even watch one of them slide down the pole! The most valuable part of the experience was when one fire fighter put on his full suit including oxygen mask. It was good for the kids to see what he looked and sounded like. My kids all thought he breathed like Darth Vader. The fire fighters said kids are often afraid of them when they are in their full suits and will hide from them during a fire. Hopefully seeing him all dressed up will help the kids not be so scared.

I highly recommend scheduling a tour and bringing some friends along. The following Monday for Family Home Evening, we had a lesson on fire and earthquake safety. We taught the kids what to do and even practiced. We even set off the smoke detectors (so loud!!) and had the kids practice opening their windows so they can crawl out. Don't worry, we live on the bottom floor. They would actually have to climb up to get to ground level. Now I hope we never have to use this valuable information!!

A bit of a brag post

But since I'm not the only one responsible for the creation in this post, I guess I'm not being too braggy, right?

A few years ago, we bought a new table and chairs from Ikea. That's certainly something I'll never do again. There's a reason why it was so inexpensive. That reason is, you'll have to replace the chairs not too long after buying them because they won't stay together, not even after re-gluing them several times.

We thought about buying new chairs, but I didn't want to pay all the money to do it. So, I came up with a better, cheaper solution.

Thanks to the help of my brother, Mike, his tools and garage, and about $12 worth of wood, we now have this bench:

We did keep the chairs that were still in one piece, but I don't expect them to last much longer. After all the crappy Ikea chairs have been thrown away, we will still have a very solid bench that fits lots of cute, little bums.

Apparently Noah can read

Yesterday when we are at the grocery store, Noah picked up a bottle of chocolate syrup and said, "I can read this."

"Oh yeah?" I responded. "What does it say?"

"Says, 'Chocolate milk in mine sippy cup!' " he read.

It's a good thing Hershey's chocolate is better than it's grammar.