Getting ready for "Geneful" Conference

Nothing like posting twice in a year! But my family has been having some fun and success with our family home evenings lately and I wanted to share. My husband and I attended BYU's Education Week in August, and one of the many, many things that struck me during the week was a thought about modern prophets and apostles. Their words are scripture to us, and we need to learn and know the messages they give us at general conference and other times. But how can we believe their words if we don't know them? We need to know these great men. So our family is getting to know them every week until conference in October. Or as my boys call it: "Geneful Conference." (They also say Geneful Grevious from Star Wars.)

The internet is a wealth of information, and we used several ideas we found there. I made a poster like the one on the blog, We Talk of Christ.  I used the photos of the apostles from lds.org and printed them at a print shop so they would look nice, then laminated them myself and attached them with Velcro to the poster. I did the same with their names. The boys have been practicing and after conference next month we will replace the names or photos with a few words or pictures that represent the talk they gave at conference. I certainly like having this up in our foyer where we see it every day.

Another fun idea we used was a song to learn the names of the apostles. I know there are several songs out there, but we used the one on this YouTube video. I love it and get a kick out the boys singing it. Plus it keeps getting stuck in my head, in a good way, and keeps me thinking about the Lord's apostles more than I normally would.






And here's the video of my boys singing it.

 

The lesson part of our family home evenings this month is devoted to learning about these men of God. Each week we are learning about the history and background of 3 of the apostles. And my oldest, Alden, (he just turned 9!) has been taking on one every week, with my husband and I each taking another.

Last week we had my son research President Packer, while I took Elder Nelson. What Alden found out was that he and President Packer shared the same birthday, which was the next day. He was so excited to find this connection. And when I was studying the life of Elder Nelson later that day, I found that it was his birthday that very day! And these two friends and elders were born the same year - both Pres. Packer and Elder Nelson turned 89 last week. We got a kick out of all of it.

All my family is enjoying this course of study and we are looking forward to learning about the rest, and especially to hearing their words at general conference on October 5th and 6th. You can watch it all here.

Very Valentine

I am getting the flu and have 15 minutes to kill before my preschooler's bus gets here and then I can climb into my bed for a couple hours while my boys watch Netflix. Happy Valentine's Day! My husband is amazing and deserves so much more than a sick wife who has been too busy to do much for him. I did buy him a gift. It is shoe laces. Long story but I know he loves them! We are going out to celebrate for reals next week.

I love doing elaborate Valentines with the kids because it's like justified crafting for me. I found a couple of cute airplane valentines online this year. Both were cute and required much folding. Incidentally, I'm all caught up on my Hulu shows.

But Alden looked through my Valentines Pinterest board and wanted something like this:

We decided to glue mechanical pencils to the backs of the arrows and stick them into pink erasers. But did you know those erasers are like 50 cents each? And mechanical pencils aren't cheap either. So I opened up Illustrator and designed my own Valentines. And ended up with these. Hot glue holds the pencils on and suprisingly holds the arrows straight up too.

Roland was willing to practice his writing and addressed and wrote individual notes on 18 Valentines for preschool. He would tell me what he wanted to say, I'd write it on scratch paper and he would copy it onto the Valentine. That kid is going to write for Hallmark someday. Some of my favorites were:

You are kind of tough.
Sometimes I like your shirt.
You can do an awesome flip.
I like your voice.
I like that we are both 5.
Sometimes you say oopsy daisy and I like that word.

Man, I love that kid.

Funnest Back to School Party Ever!

We were thrilled to receive some more fun party materials from Mom Select - this time from Gutzy Gear! I was a little worried that the kids wouldn't be thrilled with the product - they are velcro patches that attach to your gear, particularly with covers that go around your kid's backpack straps. No sewing required! Why can't scout uniforms be so easy? But I don't know why I was worried - they were a huge hit! They all tore into the packages of the straps and were thrilled to get them on their own backpacks. I helped my 4 year old a bit, but otherwise all my 1st and 3rd grade guests had no problems with them. And there was such a great assortment of patches that we didn't even have fighting over them. That's always a plus at a party.

We played a couple games that were including in our packet  - bingo, and a super fun scavenger hunt game. I taped up pictures of the Gutzy patches all over the house and the kids had to race to find them, in a specific order. There were two sets, one for each team. They really loved it and ran around crazy for about ten minutes. We will have to play that game again sometime. Here are my two teams:

Here's a video with a little taste of the scavenger hunt and some up close footage of the kids' choices.

 

What else can you ask of a party? Yummy snacks, fun games, good company, and awesome Gutzy Gear products made for our funnest back to school party ever! We will be keeping our eyes open for these patches in stores. Our set incuded basic patches, but they have super hero ones that my boys will love (in their stockings at Christmas). The patches retail for $6 for a two-pack and are available online or at Kmart, Walmart, or Toys R Us.

A New Project

I love our "formal" living room. I never thought we needed or wanted one, but now that we have one we use it so much. I think much of our successful use of the room stems from it's location and our floorplan. We have a continuous loop from foyer to family room to eat-in-kitchen to dining room to living room. And the boys run that loop often. We use it for reading, playing games, spreading out large sets of toys that need floor space, entertaining, and just relaxing. We have a couch and a loveseat and that works perfectly for our family but anytime someone else is over I always wish we had more seating. The dining room is part of the same room, so we have all those chairs, and we use the piano bench when we have to but I have been keeping my eye out for a couple of matching chairs to add to the mix. And recently at Saver's I found them.

Perfect wingback lines, classic legs, and comfy cushions - still in good shape despite the dirty exterior. Truth be told: I love the flame stitch pattern! And I don't completely hate the color. It matches our rug perfectly, which is unfortunate since I'm not fond of the rug & would like to get rid of it. But it also matches the pink in our artwork, which matches the green in the couches. But eventually I'd like to replace those couches too so we have a lot of scheming to do.

I have convinced myself that I can recover these chairs at home, after reading a bunch of posts like this, this, and this. I certainly can't afford to have them professionally done, so we'll be on the hunt for fabric soon. When my Mom asked what my husband wanted for his last birthday, I convinced him that his fondest wish was for new chair fabric. And the next month I asked my Mom for the same thing for my birthday so between her contributions and a little scrimping of our own we will start shopping soon. And I told Aaron that what I wanted for my birthday is for him to go fabric shopping with me. (I'm sure that gift will be coming along soon - 5 months later!) I have no idea what we're looking for... but I know I want a pattern, and probably a bolder color choice. Now if we can only figure out what that color might be.

We need to come up with some overall design decisions for our living room; things like color and style. I started Pinterest boards for ideas for the chairs and the entire room. Any suggestions?

Shiny & New

In going with a metallic "color" scheme for my grandmother's birthday party I was using these images for inspiration. I found them on Pinterest.

After many hours spent crouching in my garage spray painting, and folding & taping till my fingers hurt, here are my versions of the shiny tin can flower vases and the paper rosette photo backdrops.

My sister borrowed some silk flowers and put together the arrangements (with help from her 9yo). I like the look of fresh flowers in the inspiration image, but this was SO much easier on the day of the party.

You can see that I needed about 50% more rosettes, but I love the coverings for the centers. I bought packs of paper doilies at Walmart (30 for 97 cents) and spray painted them in my metallic colors. The rosettes will look fab on my dining room walls for Thanksgiving, and maybe even permanently. That last shot is my family (sans the 7yo boy) with my sweet grandmother.

Holiday Dreams

I love the entire holiday season. Our house is looking Halloween-y now and I'm planning to recycle all the decorations from my grandma's party for the Thanksgiving dinner I am hosting. The kids are busily deciding on costumes and last night I started my yearly spreadsheet to track our Christmas budget and gifts. I haven't bought a single present yet, which is unusual for me, but probably good because the longer I have to shop the more I want to buy. I also started thinking about our Christmas cards. We usually send fancy ones in the mail every other year and stick with something simple on the off year. My husband wants to do e-mail cards this year and I am voting for a postcard.

But if you are also starting to think of holiday cards, and maybe taking beautiful family photos to send to all your nearest and dearest, you should check out these cards by Alma Loveland. I love her designs and have taken several of her Adobe Illustrator classes. (I'd love to take the 102 class online next.) And now she is offering a choice of 22 different card designs for a super low price of $15. And the best bargain of all is that you are just buying the template! You will do further Photoshop work yourself, adding your own pictures and changing fonts and color schemes as you wish. Alma even has great tutorials to help you to customize your cards. That's what I call a smoking deal!

 

Putting my party hat on...

Apparently after 21 days of daily blogging I needed a break. For a month. But I am still trying to put together decent outfits (most of the time) and I am thinking a lot about a 30 for 30 Remix. I want to do one but I want to take pictures of my pieces first & somehow that just hasn't happened. Maybe after I get though this next weekend. Last week my dear grandmother turned 90 years old! And my parents, aunt, sister, and I are throwing a big birthday bash for her this Saturday.

My Mom takes care of the food, my Dad did invitations and all the coordinating, my aunt is making a video and will be the resident photographer, which leaves my sister and I to do the decorating. Naturally I turned to Pinterest (my boards are here) for a wealth of inspiration. After a little searching we decided on a metallic color palette - mixing gold, silver, copper, bronze, and whatever else we might find. Here's my to-do list:

1. create a crossword about Gram
2. centerpieces
3. balloons
4. food table decorations
5. make a photo backdrop to document the guests
6. party favors
7. decorate a comfy chair for Gram to sit in during the party
8. make a pretty crown for the birthday girl

I'm trying not to add anythingelse to the list, as that's a lot of work for my sister and I already. I loved the recent post on Living in the Family Room about the birthday party Darcy Miller threw for Martha Stewart. It was such a fab party and I wanted to copy every detail but limited myself to the monogrammed balloons and the crossword puzzle, which I finished last weekend. It will be a fun, personal detail that my grandmother and all her guests will enjoy.

All day yesterday I made paper rosettes to put together into a photo backdrop to help Gram remember the people that came to her party. I am using the ideas from here and here. I have learned a few things about making these pinwheel rosettes. Last weekend I bought a bunch of metallic papers, alarming my husband by how much I was spending ($11 whole dollars!). But once I started folding and looked up some directions I realized that I needed three to five sheets of each paper to make a pinwheel. Which takes my costs up quite a bit. I chose a few of my favorites and will take the rest back. And then I found a cheaper source - spray painted paper! I grabbed my silver, gold, and copper spray paints and my big roll of kraft paper and was able to make some very large, shiny rosettes. The kraft paper was brown, so the metallic effect over the top is a little subtler than I wanted so I turned to plain, white printer paper next. The metallic paint shows up much better over the white.
Tomorrow I'm working on centerpieces - stay tuned for more inspiration pics and a few of my own too.

Rollin' Into summer

There's only a few weeks of school left, and like any mother, I'm wondering what I'm going to do with my boys all summer. I need to try to keep them off the Wii and off the couch as much as possible, without driving myself insane. And since it's too hot here in Arizona for them to play outside, I'm compiling a list of inside activities. Toys are good. Toys are my friend. And we just found a new one. One that doesn't require batteries, doesn't make too much noise, and keeps my boys busy for an hour or two at a time.

The good folks at Mom Select sent us a pack of the brand new toy from Cepia, the makers of our furry little friends, the Zhu Zhu Pets. The new hot summer activity is DaGeDar. An entire world of small balls filled with ball bearings, each with their own persona, that compete in racing around tracks and other games. The line includes 240 DaGeDar balls, 3 track sets, and a few other accessories.

We had a party with a few friends, and all the boys enjoyed the toys. DaGeDar is marketed to age 4 and up, but my 3 year old loves to throw the balls around the track too. But I noticed the older kids, 6 and up, had much more patience and played longer with our set. Since we only have one track, it requires a little patience to wait your turn to race. The game also requires a little skill - you have to put a little force behind the ball or it won't make it through the loop the loop, but if you throw too hard your DaGeDar ball will jump the track.

DaGeDar supports creative play, encouraging "house rules." My boys made up a few games of their own, and we held a few competitions at our party and gave prizes to the winners. We had a contest for spinning the balls like a top, keeping them on the table. I am hoping to buy some of the DaGeDar spinners as soon as I can find them in stores. They should make our spinning game a little different, and keep it all on the table. Although I loved to see the kids' techniques for spinning.

Our track came in about about a dozen pieces, but snapped together easily, and the boys figured out how to do it themselves pretty quickly. I like that they are soft enough plastic that they don't break when the boys step on them or play rough, but sometimes they don't stay together as well as I would like. The carrying cases are a genius design, holding 3 DaGeDar balls securely, but ours are not holding up well. The loop that you can use to hook the carrier onto things has broken off from all of our cases. The printed on design is cool, but the logo sticker was wearing off in the first week. My kids still took them to school every chance they could the last couple weeks.

Cepia has also put together a cool website, with some great flash animation, where the kids can learn all about their DaGeDar balls. You enter the code on your ball & learn all about the character - it's history in the realm of 33 (the magic number), it's strengths, and it's tagline. The boys got a kick out of learning about each of their dudes. And the taglines were funny.

Here's some video we shot of our party. We didn't get all the good games, but you can see the DaGeDar in action. Then there is the new DaGeDar commercial. These toys are available at Toys 'R'Us in the Phoenix area now, and will be sold nationwide later this summer.

Why Do I Love Him?

There's a link I've been saving on my computer for about a year. Swiss Miss blogged about a poster that says, "i love you because" and then leaves a blank for you to fill you your reasons. You frame it and then use dry erase markers to change your reasons whenever you feel the urge. I've been wanting to flat-out copy this idea and gift it to my husband because I'm not always great at telling him how wonderful I think he is.

I finally put this together in Illustrator (though the simple design could have been completed in any word processing program) and had it printed at Kinko's. I took my own paper - textured, watercolor paper that prints beautifully on my home printer. But it looked awful on their fancy printers & I had them print it again on plain, white card stock. And it looks so nice! I put it in a simple frame and hung it up to surprise my husband for Valentine's day. And of course, part of the gift is that he gets to hear different reasons I love him every day. Which he seems to like.

Naturally, as soon as I finished my husband's gift for Valentine's Day, I've been seeing homemade versions of these all over blogland. But I'm pretty sure my sweet hubby appreciates his own anyway.

Bug Infestation!

When is having bugs a good thing? When they are the mechanical variety, come in colorful colors, and keep your kids entertained for hours! A big thanks for Mom Select for sending us a party kit for the new Hexbug Nanos, which arrived just in time to use for my oldest son's birthday party.

In our party kit were enough bugs to keep ten kids busy, along with plenty of tracks and hex-cells to build to their hearts content. And my favorite part: ideas for party games, refreshments, and activities. We started with decorating some paper bags for the party guests to keep their loot in - I set out markers, stickers, and a bunch of Hexug Nano images in various sizes and colors. The stickers came in handy for the boys to mark their Hexbugs during the party, to avoid accidentally (or on purpose) making off with their friends bugs.

Then it was on to party games, where the boys pitted their Hexbug Nanos against each other in tests of speed, strength, and intelligence.

After the organized games we brought out all the habitat pieces and let our little bug owners build and re-build to their hearts' content.

We finished with a bug-decorated cake and sent all our little guests home happy.

We love these little bugs and every child who has come to play since the party has enjoyed them too. Even the little babies love the vibrations. These battery-operated Hexbug Nanos are much faster than I anticipated and we lost a few under appliances that were a pain to recover. The habitat pieces are easy to connect and seem pretty sturdy - we haven't broken anything yet. The Battle Bridge is fun - my boys love the multi-level aspect and pit their bugs against each other all afternoon. I worry about the battery life though, because they get continuous play for hours, and you need new batteries after few sessions like that. But if you're looking for a gift for a child 1-10, you can't get more versatile than a Hexbug Nano and a habitat set. They even come in pink!

     

The "During" Shots

Moving is hard work. Like, totally hard. I had forgotten all the craziness, despite our cross-country move only three and a half years ago. And we all know those people who move in, and within days their house looks like they've been there for years. All pictures hung, all knick knacks out, all boxes gone. I am not one of those people. I like to unpack one box. Then... take a nap. Then try another box, then maybe catch up on my blog reading for a couple hours. Another box, then read a book or two. Mix that with normal child rearing and occasional laundry, dishes, and cleaning and we're not exactly clipping along at a speedy rate here.


Here are the "during" shots, which certainly don't represent half way between before and after. More like worse than "before." But I took these early last week, so I swear things look better now. A bit. But at least I'll be giving a current excuse for my lack of... personal hygiene posting entertaining visitors.

By the way, we love the house. The neighborhood and ward seem great. I'm reserving judgement on the school, but my son seems happy.

Blank Slate

One of the best things about moving into a new house is the opportunity to start fresh with your decorating scheme. You can try a new color, furniture piece, or a completely different design aesthetic. Naturally budget is the big limiter here, along with agreement between spouses. We're putting most of our cash into buying the house, leaving just a teeny bit for changes to the interior. I'm finding that I think about it all the time, devouring books, blogs & magazines for ideas and when Aaron comes home from work, I innundate him with non-stop talking about what I want to do to each of the rooms in our new house. I'm pretty sure he's sick of it all. But not enough to give in to all my choices. I'll keep working on it.

Here are the before pictures of our new home:

The front entry (the open front door is on the right in this picture) and the "formal" living and dining room, which are to your left as you walk in

The kitchen & family room, which are really one big room and are all painted the same green color right now. The kitchen picture is a much better representation of color.

My middle son's room, which will be the only one getting a new paint job before we move in. 'Cause at our house "Boys Rule!" not girls.

We'll save pictures of the other rooms for later.

Moving update: we are still waiting on various paperwork today and I really hope we can have keys by Friday so we can quickly get carpet installed and move in on Saturday. But there's a chance that might not happen. Please keep your fingers crossed for us! And if you're local, let me know if you (or your husband) are available to help us move during the week. Because we might

be left with no other option.

The Getaway

My husband is the greatest. For Christmas, he surprised me with a plane ticket to visit my friend, Jane, in Utah - FOR SIX DAYS! I know, he's awesome. Not only did he buy the ticket, he cleared the dates with Jane, took some time off work for himself, and arranged a day of babysitting with both my mother and mother-in-law. Yes, he's incredible.

And what did I do during this fabulous six days? I read three books. I watched hours and hours of tv. I took naps. I ate delcious, decadent food. I shopped. I lunched with some cool people at a cool place. And spent lots of down time with a pregnancy-induced sickie. It was the greatest getaway ever!

I was around kids, but they weren't my own and I didn't have to bug them to do stuff, discipline them, or worry about their bedtime. I helped make meals, but I wasn't responsible for planning menus or feeding an entire family. I made Jane oatmeal cookies when she felt like some, but didn't have to rebuff her tireless nagging to drive to the store late Sunday night to get milk to go with them.

In the end, my husband and I both agreed that six days was too long. But five days seems just about right and he admitted how hard it was to be with the kids every day. He said he loves and appreciates me for staying home with them and trying my best to make our house a home. (And this is coming from someone who was already arguably one of the most hands-on & helpful Dads I've ever seen.) My sweet hubby said he wants me to send him on a trip like that every year. And since it's a little easier to get away, now that our boys are a bit bigger, I think I'll take him up on it.

And the best part? He didn't even give me grief about all the things I bought! Probably because I am the greatest bargain shopper ever and two thirds of the things I bought were under $4. Somehow this was the only picture I took of my trip.

Thanks to all the people who helped babysit: our mothers and our sisters, and several friends of mine. I owe you guys!

Beautifully Organized

The start of school in the fall (or 100+ degree late summer) is always a good time for new resolutions, routines, schedules and projects. If you don't use an electronic calendar, try these beauties from Cameron at Cottage Industrialist. Get the downloads for all 12 months at this post.

School Shopping

I've had many of my friends talk about taking their kids school shopping recently. And I'm finally in on it a bit. My almost-kindergartner received a letter stating that all he will need of his own is a backpack... but, if we would like to donate things for the classroom they can use crayons, markers, glue sticks, etc. And we happily purchased those things for our school shopping, while I tried to reinforce the idea of sharing and that these things would not be for his personal use only.

But when people talk about school shopping, they usually mean new clothes for their kids, most of whom are growing quickly. But even when done growing, new clothes for a new school year seems to be the thing to do. I remember getting a few new outfits through junior high and high school, and even during college I made sure I had some new things every year.


But now, as it turns out, I have a totally different shopping style. I had a very interesting shopping experience last week, for which I am working on a post. Check back - you'll love it. Let's just say that my shopping style is called: iwantneedtoshopasoftenaspossible-itis. It's a gift and a disease. Thankfully I'm all about the bargains, or my husband would have left me and the inevitable credit card statements years ago. I try to keep things under control. So shopping for my brand-new gradeschooler should be nirvana for me. But I've already been living off that high for the last several years, which is when I started buying him clothes in size 5. And now he has a more than adequate wardrobe for kindergarten, all carefully logged into a huge spreadsheet that lists every stitch of kids clothing we own from size 2T to 8. My oldest is 4. And his mom is a freak.


The awesome camo backpack with orange trim that I bought for $6 at Gap Kids held up extremely well through a year of preschool and will be debuting at the local elementary school too. That left the ubiquitous lunchbox as our sole personal school purchase this year. And there was no question about what my son would pick. Transformers, all the way.

If it was up to me (and money was no object), my firstborn would head off to school with this adorable set, indicative of the monkey he is.

And if I had a girl, which I never will, this cute bunny set would do.

Right now I'm just thankful he's happy with the $7 lunchbox and a not-new backpack. It's going to be a great year. Good luck to all the new students out there! And to the moms who do their school shopping.