Heart Shadowbox

I am in love with this cute little shadowbox. How easy would this be to make??? I think you could easily change things up with stars, butterflies, etc. I'm going to keep the hearts and make my version with my Cricut later this week. Ella's room has been undergoing a bit of a makeover these past few weeks. I'm excited to show everyone the changes (hopefully soon!).

Blood orange magic

Last week blood oranges were on sale so I bought a lot. I don't think either kid has ever seen a blood orange before. I decided to capitalize on the moment and tell the kids that I was going to do a magic trick and change the color of the orange. With great fanfare I cast a pretend spell on the orange, waved my arms around, and ceremoniously peeled the orange. Spencer didn't buy the charade for a moment but when Ella saw the deep purple color she looked at me with a new respect in her eyes. I love this age, when everything is so new to them. I tried to explain to her that it was all pretend but I'm not sure she quite believes me. We just ate the last blood orange a few minutes ago and she was again impressed by my "magic" - even thought I didn't perform any this time. It will be interesting next week when we have regular oranges again to see how she reacts. I just might lose my biggest fan :)

One cool book

I am so in love with this book. If you get a chance check it out. I ordered a copy for my kids immediately after reading it (you can read the book here). The illustrations and inventions remind me so much of Spencer's brain. He is always thinking outside the box. Actually, it reminds me of most boys I know. I'm excited to read it with the kids.

Valentine's Traditions

Yay! Valentine's Day is almost here. One thing we do to celebrate with the kids is we have what we call "The Jar of Loooove!" (Imagine me saying this in a groovy 1970's gameshow announcer voice so as to mortify Spencer and delight Ella). The week before Valentine's Day we place the empty jar in the middle of our table. Whenever somebody does an act of service or something loving for another member of the family, they get to put a marble in. If we get all the marbles in by Valentine's Day then we all go to Coldstone for some ice cream. Yay!! Coldstone is always a huge motivator over here. Some years we start this on Valentine's and do it the week after instead of before - basically whenever I remember to get the marbles down.

I had to take a picture outside today because I was losing light quickly in the house. If you look behind the marbles, you can see Spencer and his friend having a light saber fight in the woods. This is moments before an accidental bloody lip.

The other main tradition we do is a "Curtain of Hearts" for each kid. I hang dozens of hearts in their doorway that they have to walk through the morning of Valentine's Day. This is so easy and they love it so much. I don't have a picture of it completed so I'll try and describe it well. You just cut up a ton of hearts out of construction paper in all different sizes and colors and write love notes on some of them. Then you attach them to long pieces of curling ribbon (see picture below). Each piece of ribbon should be the length of the door. Then, hang about 10 of these strands in the doorway so it is full of hearts. I do this at night when they are asleep so it is something fun to wake up to.

I try to make the messages on the hearts pertain to each child. Ella's will probably have easy words and some pictures so she can read them herself. On Spencer's I usually put some Spanish phrases on for him to try and translate.



On a totally unrelated note, I didn't kill myself working out today - but I did walk 2.2 miles. Something I had to talk my tired, sore self into. Spencer's school is exactly 1.1 miles from our house. I have really been feeling lately that he needs some one on one time so I decided to surprise him and walk him home. I am so sore now but I am hoping it will get better soon!

Dear Friends

I made the mistake this past week of thinking I was a contestant on "The Biggest Loser." I found myself thinking things such as "If they can do xyz, I should be able to do so much more." Forgot completely that I also have a home, spouse, and kids to take care of. I am on the couch now and every muscle in my body is aching. Brilliant. New word for the week is MODERATION.

I'll have our family Valentine traditions up tomorrow :)

Ella in motion

Since going to the Nutcracker at Christmas Ella has been obsessed with ballet. It has been so much fun to watch her in her classes. She is such a determined little girl. They do several exercises across the length of the room to build up muscles -she takes it very seriously and works hard to do each exercise correctly so "she can become a ballerina."

Here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks:







And one from after class:

On my radar - Valentine's Edition

I've seen so many great Valentine ideas lately. Here are some of my favorites:

1. Check out these cute teacher gifts from Chris at Just a Girl. So cheap. So easy. So awesome! I think I'm going to make some for my bathrooms too.



2. I'm in love with the simplicity of this wreath Our Suburban Cottage. She has instructions over on her site.



3. How awesome are these Valentine's by vol25? I love her prints and stalk her Etsy store. I tried to talk Ella into the Valentine's but she had her heart set on cheapo Disney princess valentines. We picked them up the other day and she is so excited to hand them out.

4. I saw the cutest hair idea for Valentine's day on The Story of a Princess and her hair. Can't wait to try it on Ella.

5. Finally, a couple fun things to do with leftover candy canes from Christmas. This syrup looks so yummy! For the recipe head over to Story Book Woods


Candy Cane words - brilliant!



I just finished a marathon of real estate appraisals this week. I don't think I have ever worked so long or hard. I'm excited to have only a couple this coming week. We have some fun Valentine traditions that we do every year that I hope to have posted in the next few days. Can't go wrong with a holiday all about love!

WFMW - Cooking with YouTube

My awesome little brother Matt is visiting us right now and showed me my favorite cooking tip for the week.

This is so simple - it's genius. If you are ever stuck trying to come up with something to make for dinner (me - almost every night), head on over to YouTube. You can do a simple search for whatever main ingredient you have, i.e. beef recipes, chicken recipes, etc. You can take it a step further and add adjectives like "healthy," "easy," "gourmet," or whatever to the mix. YouTube is full of short cooking videos . I'm a visual person when it comes to food so this is better for me than searching through recipe books.

For more great tips and ideas head to Shannon's blog where she hosts Works for me Wednesday every week.

For more great tips and ideas head to Shannon's blog where she hosts Works for me Wednesday every week.

My previous WFMW posts:

Sweet Spinach Bread
Library Bags
Letterboxing
Curling Ribbon
Safe Plastics
5 Ingredients or Less
Laundry Tip
DIY Lip Gloss
Tips for Clothes Shopping with girls
How to teach a child to swallow pills
Removing old stickers, adhesive, etc.
Easy Hair Bow Instructions
Managing school papers
Fall Traditions
Coupon Binder
Toys Worth Buying - Board Games
Extending Battery Life

Fun Valentine Project

I saw this wreath on Little Birdie Secrets and thought it would be a fun one to try with Ella. So we headed to the fabric store and she picked out material that matches her Minnie Mouse costume.


It's super duper easy, all you need is fabric cut into two inch squares, Elmer's glue, styrofoam wreath, and a pencil (the remote is optional). The whole project cost less than $5.00 with coupons at Joann's. You can see step by step directions and pictures here. Basically you just put the tip of the pencil in the middle of each square of fabric, wrap the fabric around the tip, dip it in the glue, and stab it into the heart.

We worked on this here and there for a couple of days. She would put some squares on and then I would fill in around each square for her. We took turns putting the squares on and cutting the fabric.




(Sorry the pics are so dark, I'm too tired right now to go back and fix them in Photoshop)

I think it turned out really cute! We are going to hang it with a satin ribbon on her bedroom door. I think she has really liked watching the progress day to day. It is fun to see how proud she is of her finished wreath.

Need a Liahona?

Apologies in advance to my non-LDS readers, this post really won't make a lot of sense to you. Jump to the bottom of the post for a really brief explanation.

For New Beginnings last week, we needed a lot of Liahona's for our skit. We were trying to figure out how to make some that would look nice and still be cost effective. We thought of spray painting styrofoam balls, using christmas ornaments and attaching dowels, trying gold leaf on a round ball, etc. Nothing seemed just right. Our Young Women's president was in JoAnn's picking up supplies to try and make some when she found these decorative balls for 70% off (originally $6.99). It ended up being cheaper to buy these instead of making something ourselves.

I went to JoAnn's today and picked up one to have at home. For $2.00 it makes a great Liahona to have for lessons, family home evening, etc. If you want to go pick one up, they are in the world market section (I think that's what it is called). The whole section is clearanced.

The picture is not the best. If you can't tell, there are engravings around the top and bottom of it. Spencer points out that it is not technically accurate but I think it is fine for a visual. We were quite pleased with how they looked on stage.

Young Women's is the organization we have in our church for 12-18 year old girls. I am in the Young Women's presidency. We have 30+ girls in our group. Every year in January we have a program for the girls and their parents. The Liahona is an object that is talked about in the Book of Mormon.

WFMW - Extending Battery Life

Here's a quick tip I learned from my cousin when I became a real estate appraiser. The last thing you want to have happen on an appraisal is for your batteries to die. If that happens, you have to schedule another time to come out and take pictures and reinspect. So if your batteries ever die in your camera and you don't have replacements, here's what you do:

1. Take all batteries out.

2. Rub batteries between hands.

3. Put batteries back in camera.

4. Take 2-3 more pictures.

5. Repeat if needed.

This will give you a couple more pictures each time. I have done this four times back to back and was able to get 12 more pictures after my batteries died the first time. I wonder how long it would keep working, maybe I'll have to test that some time.

For more great tips and ideas head to Shannon's blog where she hosts Works for me Wednesday every week.

My previous WFMW posts:

Sweet Spinach Bread
Library Bags
Letterboxing
Curling Ribbon
Safe Plastics
5 Ingredients or Less
Laundry Tip
DIY Lip Gloss
Tips for Clothes Shopping with girls
How to teach a child to swallow pills
Removing old stickers, adhesive, etc.
Easy Hair Bow Instructions
Managing school papers
Fall Traditions
Coupon Binder
Toys Worth Buying - Board Games

DC minus 2.5 million

Here we are waiting for the inauguration to start.



Can you believe the awesome seats we got?

Nothing can beat sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial overlooking the mall.









Notice anything missing? How about 2+ million people? Okay so we weren't actually there today, these pictures are from our last visit to the Lincoln memorial just over a month ago when my sister was visiting.

Living in northern VA means that we often get to visit the monuments whenever we have company. But no matter how many times I've been to the Lincoln memorial, it never fails to inspire me. I don't think it is possible to be there without feeling such a strong sense of reverence and awe for such a remarkable man and an enormous sense of hope and pride for our country.



Spencer read every word of this . . .



and this . . .



. . . much to Ella's chagrin.


I couldn't get over how beautiful the sky was that cold day. It is amazing how many things have happened on those very steps.

We visited other monuments but I'll save those pictures for another time maybe.




One last look at the Washington monument before heading home:

Target - Sale is on!

Quick update - Looks like the sale is on almost everywhere now. Most stores started the 75% off yesterday, including my local Target. I'm so sad I didn't get a chance to go yesterday. We had New Beginning's last night at church and I was doing last minute things all day for that. I'm now going to brave the bitter cold to see what's left. Hope everyone got some great deals!

Target 75% off Toys!

So if I have any readers left after my hiatus from blogging, I have a great tip for you. Sources say that the huge toy clearance is happening either tomorrow (Jan. 14th) or the following Weds. (Jan 21st). Everything I have read points to tomorrow being the day. Target typically does this twice a year and I LOVE this sale. I buy almost all my birthday gifts for the year here. I plan on being there tomorrow at opening. If the sale is tomorrow I will update my blog and let you know. Happy shopping!

ETA: Baby and toddler clothes are 75% off right now!

One Big Helping of Mommy Guilt

Just as I was getting over bronchitis a couple of weeks ago - Ella came down with a cold. Her symptoms seemed different from mine and she was still running around nonstop so I didn't think much of it. One night as I was getting her ready for bed, Ella looked up at me and said "Mama I so sick, why you not take me to my doctor." She looked so pathetically cute. You have to understand that Ella is our resident drama queen. She will sit and search her body for little spots that need immediate band-aid attention. She LOVES to announce what is ailing her. So I told her she just had a cold and would be better in a few days. A couple more days go by and Ella was still running a low fever and had developed a cough so I debated whether or not to take her in. My kids somehow usually make a miraculous recovery on the way to doctors appointments and I'm always told they have a virus and to let it run its course. Ella still seemed fine (she was playing as usual) but something in the back of my mind kept nagging me to make an appointment. So I called and got her an appointment fully expecting to be told the usual "it's a virus, etc."

We got to the office and went back to do her vitals. The crazy thing is her oxygen sats were low. We had to stay their for hours while they did three different breathing treatments. This isn't a new thing for us. Ella has needed breathing treatments/inhalers before (back when she was under 2). But in the past, I would hear the wheezing, labored breathing, or the tightness in her chest. This time - everything sounded completely clear to me. It kind of freaked me out that her sats were low without me noticing a change. I felt so bad that I hadn't taken her in sooner - especially after she kept asking me to call the doctor.

We were sent home with a nebulizer which Ella loved. The doctor told her it was just like breathing clouds. True to her dramatic self, Ella loved recanting the whole story to anyone who would listen. When it was time for her next treatment at home she announced to Lance and Spencer that they must come watch. She then very ceremoniously put the mask on and would dab at her eyes every couple of minutes with a tissue. She is such a ham.

After six days of using the nebulizer and a couple more doctor visits, we were finally able to return it. Hallelujah - no more steroids.

We spent this past week with lots of cuddling on the couch. We are all finally healthy again and BOTH kids will be in school tomorrow. Now I just need to get my house cleaned . . .