Cousins and New Year's Eve

We had the blessing of our littlest cousins staying with us for a few days over the holiday break. It was neat, because I finally got to "know" our youngest cousin's personality....and loved it!


This is New Year's Eve. I laid Sebastian down at normal bedtime, but Mattea thought she could stay up and just watch tv. Ahhaa, how'd that work out?

Finally, midnight struck, but it was FREEZING, literally, FREEZING out there. I had air horns and silly string, but noone wanted to go out!  Elias did a bit at the door, but quickly came back in.

So, the next morning we had to use up the silly string and air horns!

Yeah, I think this worked out better :) More fun and better pictures!  Happy New Year!!

Harry Potter Geeks

In case you can't tell from these pics...that is a replica wand from the Harry Potter store at Universal Studios. This is also a cardigan made by the same company that makes the cardigan for the movies. Oh, and it's also an official HP tie from the HP Universal store. Yes, we (he) goes all out!!

Magical Forest

We set up a field trip to Opportunity Village's Magical Forest...it was so nice and so warm, perfect day!


They have this huge Alpine Slide...and Sebastian went right up and loved it!

Then we rode the Merry go Round

Then we each talked to Santa

Photo Ops galore at this place! If I only had cooperating kids!

Then the train ride!

It was a really nice day!  So much better than going at night in the cold and dark! 

Thanksgiving 2010

  Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Very rarely do I decorate for holidays other than Christmas anymore....but for some reason I decided to decorate for Thanksgiving.  Maybe it was the oodles of craft emails that came through, or the fact that we were having Thanksgiving at our house...I don't know. Whatever it was, it worked! We did quite a few craftsy things this week...neighborhood kids and all!


First I decided to make "placemats". I cut paper grocery bags down the sides and used the front as one and the back as another. Then with my wonderful Cricut, I cut big 10 3/4 in pumpkins, complete with stem and little vine. Glued them on and tada, beautiful! Originally I was going to do something with a freezer paper stencil, which I've never yet tried, but gave up on it!

Then I had the kids work on turkey spoons. I don't know what blog I got this from, sorry! Rest assured, I did not "create" this. I set the kids to painting wooden spoons and Popsicle sticks. Then I hot glued on the sticks to the back of the wooden spoon, and glued on eyes. Even Sebastian partook! I stuck them in a vase as a table decoration.

Then I printed out this super cute banner, on yellow cardstock, ran an exacto on the back edges, ran ribbon through it, and stapled it to the wall. Thanks At Second Street!!

Then on to place cards...I copied this idea from Family Fun.  I didn't have the sticky notes the author references, so, back to my Cricut.  I cut out 5 in flowers, cut them in half, cut out 3 in circles, cut them in half, cut out 1 in circles. Also cut out little diamonds, and cut them in half for the beak! Pretty good use of the machine! 

Here's what the table looked like all ready to go! I put 2 6ft tables together, ran a plastic tablecloth over the center, put the placemats as a border, and the turkeys in the center. Kinda festive looking! 

Then, today, last minute, I was inspired to do pomanders.....thanks to Upper West Side Mom for the reminder and for the tip to use a fork!  I did this!  Here's my hint though...don't fork it all the way through. Lightly fork it so the skin breaks. If you fork it too deep, and continue on all the way around, it breaks in half. You can figure out how I now know this.

Oh, and Brian made a homemade apple pie! Yum!

Then we ate, and now I'm uploading! Full day! Ready for bed!

Staheli Farm 2010

So, off we went this morning, to Washington, Utah, at the grand old hour of 7:30 am. You know it's got to be a great field trip if I'm willing to get going that early! We went to Staheli Farm, and had a blast!  We hadn't been in 2 years, but we've been many times in the past.  


Here's Sebastian on the hay ride to go get pumpkins.

As George explained to us, pumpkins come from flowers that get pollinated

The flowers then turn into melons!

They start off green, and as the weather cools, they become orange.

This is called a Cinderella pumpkin....yes, like the coach!  I thought it was particularly beautiful.

Running through the pumpkin patch

Then it was time to visit the animals.  We saw turkeys, and goats, and cows....and Mules.  And George asked the kids, "Who do you know that's famous that rode a mule?"  (Mary, and Jesus).  He asked us to notice the line down the center of the mule's back, and that it makes a cross design.  Very cool!

Look at this re-purposed pony ride, with tire horses!

Sebastian stayed on forever!!!

Some of the moms had fun playing too!

The ever famous Corn Slide....due to the rain the corn was covered  (that works well for us, as my kids always seem to inhale the corn and corn dust and choke!)

Who doesn't want to swing from bale to bale over mattresses?

Raingutter duckie races!

This is a very high stack of hay!

The part we waited for all day....the Cow Train!!

This has to be the coolest toy...it's called a Berg Lody...you literally balance on it, and use it as a front end loader.  The kids couldn't get enough of it!

This place always reminds me how much I miss living where kids can play outside and get dirty and use their imaginations all day.  It is truly fabulous!  Thanks Staheli Farm, we had a blast!!