christmas craft night

Last weekend a few mom's from CC came over for a craft night.  We made fabric wrapped wreaths.  (They are super fun and easy to make, here is a great tutorial.)

It was a wonderful evening of fellowship and every one's wreaths turned out so nice!

I'll be doing this again with a larger group from our church this weekend - If you're local and want to come, message me and I will send you the details!

never again

Somehow, my son who HATES to get his hair cut decided he wanted a buzz cut.  I resisted for awhile but tonight I finally caved...

With his hair short like this he looks SO much like his dad as a kid!  I am sure the hubby's family will agree- I think especially in this second photo.

And in case you had forgotten what he looked like before (and why I hate to cut off that gorgeous hair) here is a recent pre-buzz photo.

I've already told him I won't ever buzz it again.  Don't get me wrong, he is as handsome as ever, I just think it is a shame to cut all that awesome red hair off, especially when he wears it so well :)

bummer

I just got back from the fabric store a little bit ago.  I bought something like 26 yards of Christmas fabric for two craft parties I am trowing this month.  We will be making fabric covered wreaths (a quick search on Pinterest will give you all sorts of inspiration for these wreaths).  Next I get to cut all this fabric into 2 inch strips and press them in half :)

So, here is the bummer... over the weekend I made up a sample wreath and was planning to sit down tonight and make some more flowers to put on it, but, long story short, the wreath got dropped one to many times pre-decorating and when is slipped out of my hands this afternoon and hit the wood floors this happened :(

So,  now I've got to get another wreath and start all over.  Well, at least I am getting some good practice at wreath wrapping :)

reformation day

Last night some friends invited us over for a Reformation Day celebration.  Even though we didn't trick or treat, the kids still dressed up (you've already seen Tallulah and the boy's costumes and somehow I didn't get any pictures of Addie in her costume :(  she wore this)...  All except for Emmy, but she did wear Tallulah's Rapunzel wig just long enough for me to snap this picture :)

Between the 3 families represented last night their were 15 kids.  Our host read the kids a story by the fire about Martin Luther...

And we even had games to go along with the story.  Here the kids are crawling up the stairs and finding pieces to the bible verse (Ephesians 2:8) that was the beginning if Luther's understanding of grace.

When they had all the pieces, they put the verse puzzle together. 

Not the exact order, but the idea is the same :)

They pinned the 95 theses to the church doors...

and kidnapped Luther after Pope Leo X declared him an outlaw .

They also looked for Luther's wife in fish barrels (that is how she escaped from the nunnery before she met Luther).

To keep with the reformation theme we even had German food for dinner!  bratwurst, sauerkraut, potatoes and spaetzle.  I tried to get pictures of the (non-German) desserts I made, but it was too dark and they didn't turn out well.  Anyway, I made candy corn jello cups (layered lemon and orange jello with whipped cream on top in small ball jars) and a cookies and cream trifle with purple whipped cream and Halloween Oreos.
This was our first time actually celebrating Reformation Day and we had a blast! Thanks so much to our friends who invited us to join in their celebration!

costume time

So, every year I swear I am NOT going to make Halloween costumes - I mean, we haven't even gone trick or treating for a couple years now - but somehow, the week before Halloween hits and I find myself caving to the pressure and making at least  one or two costumes... This year it was 3. 

Tallulah's costume was almost complete here- we had not glued the flowers to her wig (tutorial found here) yet, and I ended up taking the dress in a bit so it was not so wide in the bodice, but you get the idea.  The dress tutorial is here.  This was a lot of fun to make and a big confidence boost, as it was my first time making my own pattern and it actually turned out pretty cute!

The boys are Merry and Pippin from The Lord of the Rings.  I made their capes and pants, the rest is either thrifted or from the dress up bin.  We will draw some hair on their feet tomorrow night. (Did I mention the fact that we are not trick-or-treating?  We are having dinner at a friends house, but the kids are still going all out with the costumes.)

The other kids are getting their costumes from the dress up bin, but I was really tempted to make this one too :)

a new dress for adelaide

Dianna and I had a sewing night last week and I made this dress for Addie.  Actually, I messed up on the dress, and sewed it together backwards (this is what happens when I try and sew and socialize at the same time).  There are supposed to be two buttons on the yolk front, but instead they are on the back.  Also, the shoulder seams are a bit toward the front instead of on top of the shoulders, but Addie didn't even notice my goof up.  It still turned out pretty cute and was relatively easy (I was able to finish the dress in one evening).  The pattern is McCall's M6388, view D, in case you are interested.

boing, boing, boing

Regan and Tallulah have been saving up for a trampoline for awhile now.  They were about $100 away from having enough for the trampoline they wanted when the BJ's holiday toy catalog came in the mail last Thursday.  I hadn't even seen the catalog when the girls brought it to me saying "Mom, mom, the trampoline we want is on sale!"  So after we added up their trampoline fund $ and I gave them their allowance they were just $21 short.  I knew if we did not jump on the deal right away, we would miss out- so I forked out the extra $ and the next morning we headed to BJ's to buy a trampoline!

I had planned to let the hubby put the trampoline together over the weekend, but since I have no resolve, I ended up putting it together Friday afternoon (with the help of the boys, of course).

and some help from Addie too :)

While we worked, Lulu napped in the box.

We won't talk about all the mishaps that occurred during the assembly process, or the fact that it took us 5 hours to finish.  There has been lots of happy jumping since, and that is what really matters :)