Happy New Year's Eve!!

EVERYBODY DANCE!!

By the way, I hope all of you got your pork and sauerkraut for tomorrow's dinner. Pigs don't walk backward you know. :~)

Christmas Craftiness Project #4

Leah's Princess Crown: CHECK

I/my mom/Mike made this Christmas Eve. It's actually one of the last projects I did, but since it came out so cute, I had to share it. Here it is. It's just two pieces of felt put together with stitch witchery. There's fancy gold ribbon sewn around the edges and Velcro sewn on the back to adjust the size as needed. The best part is all the rhinestones glued on. It took a lot of thought and planning to get just the right configuration. I think it was well worth all the time and effort. Fortunately, it didn't take too much time!

By the way, did you notice that Leah's wearing the tutu? Crazy/miraculous/wonderful, I know. She wore it most of Christmas morning. She hasn't put it back on since, but I don't care! YIPPEE!!!

HAHAHA, very funny Santa

For Christmas this year, Eli asked Santa for a beautiful singing voice. He got what he asked for...sort of. Eli has since learned that next time he asks Santa for anything, he needs to be more specific. Take a listen and you'll see what I mean.

In the background, you can hear Noah groaning in disappointment and disgust.

Christmas Craftiness Project #3

Eli's apron: CHECK

I actually finished this on Saturday, but haven't had a chance to show it off until now. Grammy came to town last night, so I've been busy getting every thing ready. Don't worry, Leah hasn't shot her with lightning yet.

It might seem a bit girly to give a boy an apron, but Eli is my big helper when it comes to cooking. I like having him help and I think an apron will make it more exciting to help. Besides that, he needs something to wipe his hands off on other than his pants.

You won't like her when she's angry.

Leah got mad at me and decided to show her true colors.


There, she feels better now, but she's still green. You gotta love heavily dyed holiday cupcakes!

Watch out Grammy!!

My Mom is coming to visit. She's known by my kids as Grammy. Last time she came to visit, Leah didn't like her very much. Leah only did stuff with Grammy when she had something Leah wanted. Hopefully, this visit will go better. I fear for Grammy because Leah recently learned how to shoot lightening from her hand. She does this often and without warning. Here's a picture that I managed to get. Fortunately for me, this was just a warning. I barely managed to survive the encounter. I live to blog another day, but will Grammy? That remains to be seen. So, to Grammy, I say, "Watch out! And make sure you pack clothes made of rubber. I hear those sorts of things do well in a lightening storm."

Christmas Craftiness Project #2

Crayon Cookies: CHECK

Here's a cool stocking stuffer!! Just take the broke crayon pieces that I know all of you have, melt them down, and WHAM, you've got new, fun color-mixy crayons. You're kids will love them. I hope mine do. I was slightly stressed doing this. I thought that I would ruin my cupcake pan. It's the only one I've got. But I didn't!!

Here are the steps:

1. Peel paper off crayons

2. Spray each cupcake spot with cooking spray

3. Arrange crayons however you want, filling up the spots about half way.

4. Put in the oven at about 225 degrees for about 10 min. It really depends on the oven and crayon brand. It took me longer. I think Crayola crayons melted slower than the cheap dollar store kind, but I prefer Crayola. Next time, I'll try to only have that kind. Yeah, that's right. I'm a crayon brand snob!

5. Take it out of the oven and let it cool

6. Pop them out and enjoy. I had to coax mine a bit with a knife, but it wasn't a big deal.

Tips:

~If you can help it, use all the same brand of crayon. Different brands seem to melt at different times. I mixed my brands together and it didn't come out as cool as I wanted, but I tend to be a perfectionist, so honestly, what did I expect? And it still worked!

~Brake the crayons up into smaller pieces that way when you color with them, you can get more colors on the paper at once.

Here's a cool website that has more ideas for what to do with all those broken crayon pieces: http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf666289.tip.ht