Crafting

My Christmas Ornaments
 
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I have 3 sisters. For the past 7 years we have all been exchanging Christmas ornaments every year. It has been a great way to combine traditions, family and the wifely duty of decorating. It has also been a great way for my sisters to help me with my total hatred for Christmas tree decorating.

This entry will not be funny because I am tired and must retire shortly. I just wanted to post up these pictures and show the variety of ornaments that are on my tree. Forget these people that make them all match. That is serisouly not fun. I will add a little info about each ornament later….too tired. For now, just think of this as my way of making my Christmas decorating pain worth the trouble. You now have all kinds of ideas for different kinds of ornaments you can make.

Santa Claus is Coming To Town



YOU
BETTER
WATCH
OUT!





YOU
BETTER
NOT
CRY!








YOU BETTER NOT POUT.
I’M TELLING YOU WHY.

SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN. So, bring on a mother’s work. Here I am trying not to cry yesterday while I was head to toe in elf costume. I really wanted Santa to keep me on his nice list, so I tried really hard to stay happy. I won’t dare pout beyond what I have already done in my last entry. Didn’t my little elf turn out cute?

The list of things I used from around the house to make this costume include but are not limited to: packing tape, electrical tape, thread, needle, ribbon, newspaper, wire, pom poms, leatherman, feathery boa stuff, a Santa belt, a dress from younger sister, handed down boots (passed down just in time from cousin Kearan), and last but certainly not least – an old hat that I made in High School to go with some pj’s from a Christmas pajama party dance.

The inspiration for the costume of the year came from google and the cover of one of our favorite movies, Elf. We watch this movie all year; it is so funny and pretty wholesome. (it is hard to find both innocence and humor in the same world) The only two items I ended up buying for the costume were the elf ears, which are not included in this picture, and the white tights, which Abigail needed for church anyway. Pretty good huh?

Do you think I redeemed myself from last year? Here is Abigail’s sparrow costume from her last year’s performance.


I know, I know, what was I thinking? The poor girl had to sqwack around on stage like this. The best compliment of the night came from one of Abigail’s best friend’s father. Ryan’s dad, Matt, has a pretty good sense of humor. He said, “Abigail you were the best tropical sparrow I have ever seen.” SO FUNNY!

Christmas Ornaments

I just found these darling ornaments by linking this site from Rita’s.

I love these great ornaments. They may really come in handy as replacements for Katie in New York, who put her Christmas tree up 2 weeks ago. And, she has two toddler sons. What was she thinking? I think that all of my girls are finally old enough to respect that Christmas ornaments break. Now, if I could just teach the cat to leave the tree alone, I may be motivated to put my tree up on Thanksgiving weekend like the rest of the country.

Family Room Fairy
 
Thank you to Mrs. Webb again today for a great teaching moment. It is amazing what good teachers can teach parents. On the way home from school today, while we were riding in the car, Abigail handed me a stack of papers. She is notorious for keeping a filthy desk. (In kindergarten and first grade I would sneekily clean out her desk on the days I would volunteer)
As Abigail handed me the large wad of papers, she said, “Mrs. Webb said that the Desk Fairy may be visiting tonight, so I cleaned out my desk.” I replied, “The desk fairy?” Abigail said,”Yeah, if my desk is clean, she will leave me a piece of gum at the very back of my desk.”
I immediately responded with such a wise mom thing to say, “Well, you guys will have to clean your play room today and see if the FamilyRoomFairy comes to visit tonight.” It worked like a charm. Check out my family room! Yeah, Thanks to Lindsey’s Mr Gobbles, LG did just gather up two garbage bags full yesterday and put them out of sight, but, still, the girls were moving a whole lot faster tonight and they had purpose in their cleaning…they want a visit from that fairy!
So, the FamilyRoomFairy is leaving some Holly Hobby Bubble Bath tonight: courtesy of my Birthday Box. Now, if I can just keep the room’s mess to a minimal, maybe they won’t get overwhelmed and will move on it every time I make a mention of the FamilyRoomFairy. And if we keep those two garbage bags full of toys out of the Family Room, it’s gotta only help, right?
I have a feeling though that the family room fairy won’t last for too long. I was just talking with my mom today about how I am so frustrated as to not being able to keep any real working systems at my house…she reassured me that the good parent is the one that realizes that the “system” no longer has the initial fun and motivation and adopts something new. I hope she is right because I can’t even begin to count how many strategies I have used to motivate my kids to clean up this place! Tonight my money is on the FamilyRoomFairy. Let’s put good old Mrs. Webb to the test!
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Cool Room
This is going to be quick….check out this girl’s scrapbook room.
I am so in love with organization that I felt like I went to heaven just checking out her mixture of space and art….and the fact she shops for a lot of her finds at the Goodwill. WOW!
Now, check out the pic of my organization right now….the only thing I have in common with this lady is that we both shop at the goodwill…she must find all the good stuff…
The good news. I still have plenty of room for inspiration!

My Baby Quilts


Here is a picture of a personalized baby quilt I am making. I just checked out my friends’ sites and Cally and Lori showed off all of their craftiness! So, I can’t be shown up. This is the 3rd personalized bay quilt I have made. The first was a cowboy print with a horseshoe and sheriff’s badge with the name Zeke. The second was a red white and blue plaid with a big blue star and some embroidered stars with the name Finn.

Tippery
The Hungry Leprachaun Posted by Hello

Abigail is obsessed with things from Ireland. Her Kindergarten teacher has turned her into a leprachaun lover by telling her story after story about her trip to Ireland. Last year, all that Abigail wanted from Santa was a leprachacun. Poor Santa had to shop on e-bay to find one, only for LG to say that Abigail was going to be disappointed that it wasn’t a real living leprachaun. (Santa isn’t that good) The obsession is so strong that I was teasing Abigail’s teacher today that I would come and hunt her down if Abigail ever decides to convert to Catholicism, just so that she can be more like the Irish.

About a month back, when the kids and I were at the school library on Terrific Thursday, I pulled a book from the shelf that I knew Abigail would love, The Hungry Leprachaun. (It is out of print so there is no need to link to it) Abigail humored her father a few days later by repeating the story word for word.

Well, this week is National Reading Week. On Wednesday the children at Abigail’s school were allowed to wear a costume that depicted their favorite storybook character. I tried to convince Abigail to dress up with something we had in the dress up box. Laura Ingalls, Professor McGonagall, even Pippi Longstocking would not do the trick. She only wanted to be Tippery, the hungry leprachaun.

On Tuesday night, we made a trip to Wal-Mart to buy the leprachaun hat. Abigail thought that Tippery wore green pants and a purple shirt. I figured that we could dig up a purple shirt somewhere.

On the way home, there was some confusion as to what Tippery did wear exactly. I, being the overzealous perfectionist that I am decided to stop in at the school. I ran up the library hoping that Mrs. McGee could help. The library was locked.

I then became desperate and did the unmentionable, I made sure no one was looking and I snuck into Abigail’s classroom to take a look at the book. To my relief, I made it in and back out to the car with no one catching me.

The rest of the evening I was stuck coming up with The Hungry Leprachaun costume. I tell you, mothers do a little of everything. On Tuesday night, you would have thought that I was the seamstress. I found some leftover material and elastic and sewed the elf looking hat. I dug through drawers for the purple pants, purple socks and green shirt and spent the rest of the night nicking and tucking.

As I dropped Abigail off at school the next morning, she looked just like a leprachaun. When the Safety Kid told me that she looked cute, Abigail turned her head back at me with a satisfied look. I can’t quite place what it looked like but it was a mix between her dad’s goofy smirk and a leprachaun’s smile.

Indeed, I am a good mom. Even if she converts to Catholicism I will still love her just the same.