my sweet little family

8th tooth lost.....and.....

11:21 PM

no more cranking her expander! :)

we go back in April for a check up, and then the next step is to get her two front teeth together a bit more! :) we shall see what happens when her other ones start coming in! This is definitely an awkward teeth stage for sure!

Happy 35th Anniversary Nana Dianne and Bapa Craig

11:13 PM

we LOVE you!!!

Teacher Valentines

9:04 PM

I've said before that I had a lot of flour that needs to be used up, so I've been searching for ways to use it up!

We chose to bake bread for Avery and Olivia's teachers this year for Valentine's Day!

We chose yummy recipes for pumpkin chocolate chip bread and also banana chocolate chip bread!

Both were tested and loved by us, so we hope that they are loved by their teachers as well! We also threw in some Hershey's White Hot Chocolate packets too...super yummy! :)

and just like that, all of the many Valentine's crafts at our house for this year are done! What fun they were! :)

Olivia's Valentine Love Potion

8:54 PM

Another non-original valentine idea that we found this year from this site that was so creative!!! Olivia thought this was a fun idea, so we went with it! :)

we got our big case of water, ripped off the labels and replaced them with our cute paper!

Next, the assembly line was all set up! The straws were from the dollar store (4 for $1), the Hawaiian Punch singles were $1 for 8 of them, so all in all, not too expensive!

and here is Olivia with her Love Potion, all ready to give to her friends tomorrow at her party! :) A very fun idea, and we hope they love them! :)

Avery's iPod Valentine

10:51 PM

I wish this was an original idea, but I found it during one of my many late night searches for what to do for the girls' Valentine's this year. When I told Avery about it she loved the idea, so we went with it! It's really quite fun....

first, some supplies: (not shown in photo {stickers, clear bags and bag toppers})

We made up Avery's playlist first and then printed them out...don't ya love her choices?

next we cut out the fun papers and taped them around the Chicklets to make the iPods...{i forgot to put the string for the ear-pods on before this step, so I had to take the tape off and do it over again...oops}

next came pasting on the playlist and menu on the iPod...you'll need an extra crafty 8 1/2 year old for this step!

add the ear-pod rolos to the strings with stickers!!!! (our stickers weren't very sticky :()

address your bag toppers...

put the iPods in their baggies and staple them shut!

package them all up and give them to your friends!!!

We're about half way finished with Olivia's! Her party isn't until Tuesday, so that will give me a few more days! Let's just say, hers are "magical"! :)

Olivia Valentine Mailbox

12:32 PM

There's a lot of things I'm not good at....the list is mighty long (cooking, cleaning, remembering groceries, etc) but one of the things that I attempt to be good at is creativity and crafting for my girlies!

And, when Olivia came home from school with a note saying she had to have a box made for her Valentine's, I was ON IT! :)

I did a google search, and we came up with some fun options. I let Liv choose between a mailbox and a birdhouse, and she ended up choosing a mailbox, so yesterday we crafted and made her a mailbox!

First, we had to find the right pieces for it! (we are HUGE fans of the Mt Dew throwback!!!)

and cut them to size... (notice the little flap for her mail chute :))

taping the pieces together to make the mailbox was a bit more tricky, but we got it!

I wrapped the whole thing up in Valentine wrap, which was a bit harder than an average box, but ended up looking okay! Olivia helped decorate with some Olivia the Pig Valentine's that we picked up for $2 at Target...

and, I think her smile says it all!

This is not the end of our Valentine craftiness, at all. I have been working on Valentine's for both of the girls and will be doing posts on both of those as well! :)

no where left to put it!

12:05 AM

we arrived home today to another 10 inches of the white stuff...

our wonderful friends from church so lovingly plowed and shoveled our walkway, driveway, and sidewalk....they are so fabulous...

but seriously....

there is no more room for snow!

trip to Wisconsin

11:57 PM

Avery had an allergy appointment in Wisconsin, so we made the trek to Nana Diane and Bapa Craig's house last Friday for what we thought was going to be a couple day visit!

turns out i didn't take any photos while we were actually at Nana and Bapa's house, but I did when we were almost there....

we love coming around the bluffs and seeing this view every time....it never gets old...

the girls love to see the walls of huge icicles....

and there you have it....all the photos I took on our trip! We ended up staying 2 extra days because of the snowstorm back at our house! We had a lot more time with Nana and Bapa and we didn't mind that one bit at all! Lots of playtime, laughing, painting, eating, shopping, napping, silliness, cuddling, and just plain fun!

...baking bread...

2:30 PM

i have never, in my whole 31.5 years of life, made bread. is that bad?

i have had people make me chocolate chip bread before, and my-oh-my, it is delicious, so I decided to try! with 20 lbs of flour in my house, i better find something to do with it! :)

while grocery shopping, i had a hiccup and had to make an emergency call to a friend to ask about pumpkin puree, but she helped, and we were back on track! ;)

my handy dandy helper was ready to help me today!

she might have been more excited about the chocolate....

we followed the recipe...every.last.word....

and, haven't tasted them yet....

but, here's hoping they taste as good as they smell! yum yum yum!

a girl after my own heart...

8:19 PM

surprisingly, she is just now, in the last 6 months, learning to enjoy and like ice cream. this is only the second kind of ice cream she has eaten... :)

Olivia Funnies

1:19 PM

{some of her funnies from the past month of so....}

"My spork is having a bath in the mac n cheese..."

Liv, while opening her cheese stick, "when i'm opening this, sometimes i feel like a grown up"...with a big smile...

in hearing that Wisconsin is playing football, Liv said "is Bapa playing?" :)

"No, that's not Jesus...that's a gingerbread man", from Daddy to Olivia...

...my lack of blogging...

1:44 PM

our family has been been enjoying the lazy days of nothing-ness and trying our best to do just that, and not feel bad about being in our pj's and being un-productive. it always seems to be so hard to get back into the school routine after being on Christmas break for 2 weeks, and this year has been no different.

since i last blogged, i suppose we've done more of the same....

i've been working my tail off over at the shoppe, and just in the last day added Facebook design to the services offered now...

it's been snowing like mad here, and there's not a lot more room to put it. we're (crossing my fingers) getting a snowthrower/blower this weekend to help with that! :)

i've been enjoying the lovely smells of my scentsy...yum yum yum!

and i took down my Christmas decorations, but haven't been able to put this cute little Christmas tree guy away yet....he'll be so lonely in a box all by his lonesome! :(

we've been working on math with Avery...

and she celebrated her 8 1/2 birthday at school on January 12th! got to go out for a special lunch!

Liv decided to pull off her pinky toenail a couple weeks ago, and then it got infected and it's been a whole lot of fun (and $)to deal with that in the wintertime.