They Say It's Your Birthday

Maci had a Birthday! on Feb. 12th, she turned 7 years old. How I got old enough to have a 7 year old. . . . uggg. But she is 7 nonetheless. We started the day off with pancakes, her request. She didn't have school that day, but we couldn't do her bigger friend party that day, so we let her choose whatever she wanted to do that day just her, me and Gav. She chose to go swimming at the indoor pool here. We did end up taking a few friends with us too. It was a fun change of pace. That night we had chicken noodle soup, her favorite! with biscuits, and ice cream for dessert. We ate by candlelight and had fancy glasses with Sprite and marashino?? cherries, a Grandma Sharon tradition. It was a great night and we had a lot of fun. She opened her presents and was happy with all her goodies.

DS game and Candy Jewelry making thing a ma bob

ZuZu pets balls and tunnel thingies.



Littlest Pet Shop from Gav.New Spring Dress

Saturday was party day. Maci has become quite a good little roller skater! so she wanted to take a few friends roller skating. We met there in the afternoon. The other girls did their best, one of them it was her first time ever on skates! We shuffled around the rink a bunch, while Maci cruised by all of us ;-D But I think all the girls had a good time. The rink was so crowded with other birthday parties, Roller Skating is definitely cool again! We stayed about an hour, then went and got the Roller Skate Cake from home and went to Braum's for cake and ice cream. Maci helped me decorate the cupcake cake, it turned out cute! All the girls had a great time and I think Maci had a fabulous birthday.

Emily E., Lily P, Maci and Sydney J.

Maci has a very tender heart. She takes things very seriously, and knows how to show compassion and kindness to others. She loves school, is reading like crazy, and loves art. She loves her brother, even though they sometimes fight, but most often she's helping him with something, playing "puppies" with him, or using the couch as a jungle gym with him, much to Daddy's dismay! Recently they've been into building obstacle courses, and love to challenge themselves with weird jumps and tricks. Maci loves doing her hair and always has a flower or bow in her hair. She's getting too grown up! She loves going to church and I'm always amazed at what she can remember about stories when we talk about them at FHE. She's reading through the Book of Mormon Reader with us and can read most of the words. She has such a sweet spirit and we love having her in our home! We Love You Maci!

Craft Blogs a GaGa

So I've come across a few craft blogs of late, and I think I'm officially addicted. Although reading these blogs may induce a feeling of inadeqaucy when in comes to how crafty you are and all the great ideas you thought you had, they still give you a ton of fun new things to try out and make your home look cute, so you take the good with the bad I guess! My favorite one for learning how to refinish furniture, which I'm dying to try, is www.allthingsthrifty.com I really love the way they use glaze and make the pieces look old and antiqued. I think I'll tackle our beat up coffee table, whenever I find a spare weekend, which could easily be never, so we'll see. But I've tried their techniques on some candlesticks I got at Goodwill, and they turned out really cool, so I'm excited to try a bigger piece.

I also found this great tutorial, although I think the one I looked at originally was not this site, this is the same idea and she gives a good tutorial, so check it out! Tutorial HERE.
I did mine turqoise, a color I'm thinking of adding to our living room decor due to influence from the All Things Thrifty girls, she has orange and turquoise together, so it must be ok, right? I'm still undecided on it, but it really does lighten up the space. This is actually hanging in my hall, so it's kind of removed from the orange room, but I need to tie it in somewhere or it just looks like a turquoise frame that is totally out of place. Anyway, it was really easy to make and took me maybe an hour total? with drying times in between, etc. So if you have an old frame lying around, try this one out! I got all my little frames at the 1$ store, clips at Walmart.

I also tried out this adorable Heart Burlap wreath, because I had leftover burlap from the frame and I wanted a cute wreath for Valentines Day. I found this PERFECT tutorial over at Diary of a Craftaholic. Click HERE for the tutorial. This was a really fun and easy project, Maci helped me out with it during the Super Bowl and it was done in 20 min. or so. I wish I'd used heavier wire, so if you can use the big fat wire from Home Depot or something like that, I would definitely do that, it would help your heart shape to be more defined.

Hope you get lost in the world of craft and DIY blogs, there's so much great info out there and fun projects to do. Enjoy!!

Snow Day

Seems as though I'm about 2 weeks behind on all my posts! Oh well, such is life. We got a dump of snow about a week ago, way more than we saw last year during the entire winter. Maci got out of school one day, so we took advantage of the rare build up of snow and went sledding! We actually left all our sleds in Utah, one less thing to pack at the time, so we had to scrounge around the city and find some. Walmart was out, but Ace saved the day :-D We had a really great time, day one was pretty cold, it was still snowing and very windy. But we woke up the next morning, Saturday, and it had snowed another 3-4 inches and was a beautiful sunny day! so we headed for round 2. It was really fun, the kids had a blast, and I got a great workout climbing up and down the hill. It's not Utah snow, but we took what we could get!!

Day 1, snowy and COLD!!



Day 2, much warmer!! we'd all shed our coats by the end.

Gavy likes the on the knees and backwards approach.

We built a killer "jump", until Chris tried it and totally obliterated it :-D

Chris started seeing clients at the clinic, which he's very excited about. He came home his first day of seeing someone and just had a fire in him! he was so pumped about it. So PHEW that he likes it!! and will be great at it as well. Maci's been reading up a storm and doing great in school. She's in a book club her teacher started where they read things and then make collages, watercolors, and other art things to go with the stories for comprehension, which I think is fabulous!! she's really enjoying that. We can't believe our little girl is turning 7 this week!! We have a slew of plans for the weekend, they actually don't have school on Friday because of a Parent Teacher Conf. make up day, so we'll get to party all day!! and Sat. too probably. We'll post pictures. Gavin is all boy still, loves to play the wii, and we've been trying to squeeze in a little learning every day with letter flashcards and coloring, etc. We may opt for a "real" preschool next year, he's very NOT ready for kindergarten, but I'm sure he'll be ready by the time it comes.

I've been busy busy with wood stuff, I've tried to cut back and have done better, but I think I still need to cut back more!! So we're working on that. I am officially off the board of the PTA though, so that's a step in the right direction, right? I still had one toe in all these months, but officially resigned last week, Phew :-D I still plan on volunteering for the parties, etc, just not in charge of them, which is great. I really commend people who can do PTA 100%, but I am not one of those people right now, maybe when my kids get older.

No bun in the oven yet. . . that's all I'll say about that :-D

And that's our last month in review!