Conference Weekend

I absolutely love watching general conference! For those of you who don't know what that is here is a link for you. Essentially it is a two day event the first weekend in April and October where church leaders from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints speak. There are 5 sessions and each last two hours. Some people may think I'm crazy for loving this but I can't help it, I LOVE IT! I feel so uplifted and better about myself and who I am after listening to these talks. Its also an entire weekend that we as a family are home together, spending time together, and growing closer to our Savior Jesus Christ.
This year I wanted to have something special for the girls so that they could listen with us but still be entertained. Pinterest gave me the answer as usual, I found this idea and knew I had to do it. I didn't go out and buy a holder like she did, maybe for October I will. All I did was move our kitchen table into our living room (its not that big) and I laid out all the girls activities I had put together. Each activity or snack either had a picture of someone from the First Presidency, an Apostle, or a blank paper for one of the other speakers. Some of the activities I did I got from the links on that sight like the coloring pages and the apostle magnet pages. I also did brown bags for puppets, string and beads to make necklaces, and books. This idea was golden! It worked so well that we will be doing this every time we watch conference. The girls listened and made some comments about different talks and were for the most part quiet and happily did their activities or ate their snack. I was thrilled with how it turned out, also it wasn't very time consuming to put together. Printing stuff off took the longest and it wasn't like it was a hard thing to do. All together I think it took me an hour and a half/two hours to put everything together for two days and it was worth every minute.

 I also implemented "fun lunch" as my girls call it, I got the idea from this amazing gals blog. She is totally right, its such a simple thing to do that really doesn't take any extra time. Every time I use the toothpicks Savannah tells me how its such a great idea and whatever I've used the toothpicks with is usually the first things my girls eat.

 In between sessions Olivia and I made zucchini bread, she loved being my helper and getting to pour everything in since Savannah was playing some games on the computer. As a side note, don't you love Olivia's hair?! She refused to let me fix it this morning and said that a headband made it all better. She sure is the total opposite of her big sister and she sure does crack me up.

 

Overall it was a GREAT weekend! I'm sad its over actually and I'm already looking forward to October so we can do it all over again.

Call Us the Busybodies

Oh my good gracious it feel like forever since I've written on our blog and we've been so busy I'm going to have to write a couple of posts because I have way too many pictures to post. Life has been good and we have been busy to say the least. I really do love it, it makes the time go faster and I'm happy with what we've been occupying out time with. To get back into blogging I'll start where we left off, the girls and I went to Maryland for 2 weeks the end of April thru the beginning of May. It was glorious and wonderful just like it always is.The girls were just as excited as they always get when they hear we're getting ready to go on an airplane and Olivia had quite the fun time trying to help me pack.

 I was pretty proud of myself for packing so lite for this trip because I am known to over pack.

 We had some beautiful days and some not so nice weather days so when it was nice outside we took full advantage of it. The girls love playing outside in my parents yard, Savannah and Olivia loved picking all the dandelions for my dad.

 Sidewalk chalk was another must do activity and the girls loved drawing pictures for my dad and brothers to see when they would come home.

 Also what trip would be complete if we didn't go to the park, we go to the same one every visit since its right down the street from my parents house. The girls always have so much fun, on this particular visit Olivia pretty much wanted to stay in the swings the entire time we were there, silly kid.

 One of Savannah's favorite things to do when we go to the park is walking along the wall surrounding the playground, she pretends she's on the balance beam.

 Something new we tried this trip was paining pottery with the girls. They loved it! Its just one of those local places where you can pick out the piece of pottery you'd like to paint and the colors you want to use and then you get to work. I helped Savannah while my mom helped Olivia, my mom had to use much more patience then I did. Savannah did so good at not mixing colors and making a design while Olivia was very abstract with her paining.

One the not so nice weather days we had fun hanging out at the house watching shows and playing with toys. The girls had fun playing with my brothers and dad when they were home and would always get so excited to see them after they'd been gone.

 

Having fun lying on Mark.

Having a yummy lunch after so much fun playing.

Something I always miss is seeing all the green, while we were there everything started blooming and it just got greener every day we were there.

While we were visiting I hit the 25 week mark, its crazy to see how fast time is flying by.

The morning we left my mom had minor knee surgery so while she and my dad were gone we made her a get well soon sign and the girls made her some pictures. They were able to make it back before we had to leave for the airport so we could say goodbye one last time.

We always have such a great time when we visit my family and I love that the girls are able to make so many fun memories each time we go back. Its always bitter-sweet going home for a visit because I love my time there but I'm always ready to come back to my own home. Maryland will always hold a special place in my heart and I hope it always will for my little family too.

Advent Calender

Christmas is in full swing here in our household and we're all loving it. I wanted to share another fun thing we're doing starting December 1st. I remember when I was little I'd always get an advent calender, you know the ones with a piece of chocolate in it. I loved getting this each year, I would just get more and more excited as the days went by and Christmas grew closer. Like I've mentioned before I want the girls to understand why we really celebrate Christmas so when I saw THIS idea for a scripture advent calender I knew I had to do it (when you click on the link you need to scroll down a little ways to get the full list). Originally I was just going to put in random scriptures about the Savior but this blog has the story of Christs birth from all different books from the Bible and Book of Mormon. It took me just one evening while watching How I Meet Your Mother on Netflix to put it all together. All I did was hang ribbon from our laundry room doors and clip the numbered envelopes to it. I hand wrote all the scripture verses but I'm sure you could just print out the list on this gals blog. With the addition of this to our service countdown to Christmas chain I'd say we're well on our way to better understanding the true meaning of Christmas this year.

Countdown

So poor Savannah is having a hard time grasping when Christmas actually is, I mean she's only 4 so its to be expected. In an attempt to help her out a bit and to throw in something I wanted to do this holiday season anyway we made a paper chain. Now our paper chain isn't your usual run of the mill paper chain, it has service ideas on it. Now not every link has an act of service to do but we have about 16 total to do before Christmas. Savannah is already so excited and as soon as she woke up this morning she asked if she could take a link off the chain and asked what nice thing we were doing today. I got my ideas for service from this BLOG. I'm sure you can think of your own but I liked this list because it had some ideas I'd never thought of or considered before. I obviously didn't use all of her ideas because she has 50 to choose from but I picked ones that would be easy and fun for a 2 and 4 year old and that I knew we could fit into our day. I was really excited for this because I want the girls to learn how fun it is to do things for other people and realize the joys of giving not only receiving. I know that some of my happiest memories are those when I've been serving others and not thinking of my own needs/wants.

UPDATE: So yesterday was a huge success doing our first act of service. We took candy canes to random employees at the mall and Costco. A lot of people thought Savannah was just showing them a candy cane she had gotten but once they realized that she was giving it to them they got an instant smile and happily accepted their treat. One lady was so thankful she gave each of the girls a free stuffed animal from her store. It brought tears to my eyes when she gave them a present back and the girls couldn't have been happier. Savannah loved giving out the candy canes and saying happy holiday's, when we were all done she asked if we could go get more to hand out to people. I'm thinking this really was a great idea and I can't wait to keep doing it threw Christmas and for future years as well.

Bookcase

This is my most favorite project I've ever completed I think. Once again I have now before pictures to offer because I'm horrible at remembering to do that but just think of a light wood colored cheap laminate bookcase. That's what this used to look like and now it looks FABULOUS! I once again started by priming the entire bookcase. I took off the back first because I knew I was going to add fabric to it because I was way to lazy to paint a chevron print on the back. Once the bookcase was primed I decided to spray paint the bookcase white. I was sick of painting with a brush so spray paint was a good choice for me. When I went to attach the fabric to the back of the bookcase I used spray adhesive. It worked really well and is still holding strong 2 weeks later. Then I just reassembled it and put it in its place in the kitchen and started filling up the shelves. Our kitchen isn't huge so this is a nice place to put things that we have that I think are too pretty to put in a cupboard minus the blender of course. Although its kind of cute in its own way. Also this project was pretty inexpensive, I used 2 yards of fabric which I got on sale from Hobby Lobby so I think it totaled around $9.00 give or take a little. I still had primer left over from previous projects and I always have spray paint on hand, you never know when you'll get the whim to change something up. We already had most of the things I put on the bookcase, the cake stand is new and was also purchased on sale which makes it even more perfect.

Computer Desk

So you know those boring generic laminate desks you can get at Shopko or Walmart? Well that's what this desk used to look like. It was an imitation dark brown wood armoire that looked fine but honestly I'd been toying with the idea of painting it for quite some time. We just happened to have some yellow paint from when we had painted our kitchen years ago and I knew it would be the perfect color for this project. My first step was to take off all the hardware on the desk and set it aside so I didn't lose any pieces I mean it would pretty much suck if I couldn't put the thing back together after working so hard on it. My next step was to prime the entire thing inside and out. Now I'll be honest, when I first started this project I only did the outside but after I had that all done I realized how much I wished I had taken the extra time to paint the inside as well so I went ahead and did it. If I were smarter I would have done it all at once. After my primer was all dry ( I only waited 1 day but I should have waited 2 just to be on the safe side.) I started applying my color. This part was so satisfying, I loved the results and I was so excited. I once again only waited a day to let it dry and I should have waited longer but I have no self control and couldn't wait to use it and get it back together. On the inside I stuck with white just because it feels really clean to me and also because I didn't have enough yellow to even consider using it. For another fun touch I cut down some cork boards I already had and hot glued them to the inside of one of our doors. This way we can hang up things that usually ended up cluttering our work space which isn't that big to begin with. I also added the small baskets on the top shelf to hid extra cords we have which I also already had around the house. In total I think this project took 3 days and cost me $0.00 because I already had primer, paint, cork boards, and baskets. Oh and you get a small glimpse of some of my Halloween/Thanksgiving decorations that I put up, lucky you.

From Savannah

I meant to post this awhile ago but better late then never right? So I decided I wanted the girls to give Jacob hand-made Christmas presents this year. This way it would really be something from them not just something I bought them and put their names on. I saw this idea and knew Savannah had to make it for Jacob. I asked her random questions about Jacob and then wrote in her answers. He really did love it and we all got quite the laugh when we read it on Christmas morning. I think I might need to make this a tradition to see how her answers change over the years. Here is what I asked and she answered:

My daddy's name is Jacob, he is 9 feet and 7 inches tall, his hair color is brown, he has pink eyes, he is 4 years old, his favorite food is peanut butter, daddy's favorite drink is pink milk, for his job daddy makes pizza, daddy likes to go to the pawn shop to get popcorn, he like to play baby dolls with me, I love it when daddy plays football, what I love most about my daddy is he's funny, I love my daddy.

Some of her answers we actually correct buy many were either her favorites or totally random like what Jacob does for a living, I don't know where she got that from.

Easy Peasy

I found an easy project to work on and I was so excited to finally have time to do it. All I needed was some bottles ( I just happened to have some Pepsi glass bottles that Jacob was so kind to let me use), puffy paint or you could use a hot glue gun, and spray paint.

I made designs on the bottles using the puffy paint and let it dry overnight just to be sure. Then I spray painted them white and voila! Now I have four cute bottles that I can leave alone like this or put something in. I also found a wood box that one of Olivia's toys had come in so I whipped out another can of spray paint and turned it green and then wrapped a piece of ribbon around it. I love how it turned out and even Jacob complimented me on my project. I think the whole project cost me $3 since I already had the ribbon, bottles, box, and my sister in law let me use her white spray paint, you really can't beat that.

Happy Birthday Savannah!

So this post has tons of pictures because we just had Savannah's 3rd Birthday Party! That's right my baby is 3, the time has gone by way too fast, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I have a 3 year old. Savannah is your typical girly girl so we of course had a Pinkalicious Birthday party. Have you heard of the book? Its one of Savannah's favorites next to Fancy Nancy.I made all the decorations cause that's just something I actually enjoy doing. I probably set up for her party for at least 4 days, once I'd get something finished then I'd hang it up. Every morning when Savannah woke up she'd run into the living room and kitchen to see what new things there were to see. Then she'd climb in bed with me and say, "Thank you for my birfday, its so beautiful!" We had over all of Jacob's family and some of Savannah's little friends, this year Savannah even got a bounce house for her party. It was a hit.

We still had the pom poms hanging from Olivia's birthday so we left those up and added a pink garland which is just  yarn and I mad a fabric banner.

I attached flowers where each flag met and had pink ribbon along the top and used the same yarn on the light to hang with the banner.

This was my splurge item, I found these cute lanterns at the party supply store by our house, my favorite part about them is you can use a battery to turn them on instead of using an outlet so you can use them anywhere.

 

In addition to the fabric banners I also made ones with scrapbook paper and cut it into circles and strung it with more pink yarn.

 
In addition to the yarn hanging from the light in the kitchen I also hung some from the light in our living room.

I copied the idea I had for Olivia's birthday and hung ribbons from the window in the kitchen.

I found this cute sheer ribbon with flowers in it and used that to pull the curtains with and I used it around some of the glass containers on the food table.

For me no party is really complete till you add flowers, I love flowers. I saw these cute things in our pantry and Jacob got quite a kick out of it when he asked me why I had used cheese graters as flower holders and I told him I didn't know they were cheese graters when I decided to use them. I think they're perfect.

Here is our yummy food table, we had pink and green food to go along with the book. Our pink food was our junk food, we had pink whoppers, pink marshmallows, and oreo's with pink filling. Our green food was more healthy, grapes, cucumbers, and broccoli. I also made this yummy strawberry mint punch.
 
 We also had yummy pink cupcakes because that's what starts all the mess in Pinkalicious anyway.

All the kids loved the bounce house and even Olivia got a turn inside.

Savannah was so excited when we were all singing to her, she even sung along and blew her candle out and everything.

My cousin's wife Cheryl even got Savannah a Pinkalicious doll, Savannah held her while we read stories and she slept with her as well.

This is a dress-up dress she got from my mom, Savannah put it on as soon as she could and she's been wearing it all day today as well.

Savannah is such a joy, she can make me want to rip my hair out but she's still a joy none the less. I have loved being her mother and feel so blessed to know her. I love her curious nature, she is determined, inventive, smart, so silly, very tender hearted, imaginative, fearless, and just plain old fantastic. I cherish each moment I have with her and look forward to seeing her grow up as well. I can't imagine our lives without her.

Olivia Turns One!

Its amazing to me that Olivia is 1. Where did the last year go? I truly have no idea. Its been a fantastic week with Grandma McCombs coming to visit and of course a birthday party. Some quick stats on Miss Olivia, she now weighs in at 18lbs 10 oz and has moved up from the 6th percentile to the 12th. She is also 29 inches and that puts her in the 62nd percentile for her height. She should be starting physical therapy here in the next few weeks and we are super excited about that. Olivia is also getting yet another tooth so she's now up to 5 with 3 on top and 2 on bottom. She's very vocal when we are out and about but is pretty calm while at home. She loves talking to other babies too. She loves playing with baby dolls and she loves to try and feed you, she's just so tender and sweet and just plain old fantastic.

I had lots of fun getting ready for her birthday and of course had very high aspirations for all the things I wanted to do as usual. I had a bee theme but you really couldn't tell by my decorations at all.

I had pom-poms over the kitchen table and this cute bee garland hanging from the light fixture.

Fun ribbons hanging in front of the window.

Then in the living room I had a banner with Olivia's name and then pictures hanging up. The pictures were from her birth till now and they were hung up with clothes pins on cute ribbon.

We had a pinata for all the kids and lots of yummy snacks. Olivia got tons of cute clothes and fun toys. She loved her cake and even tried to blow out her candle. The cutest is when we were singing to her, she looked like she was conducting the music. Overall it was just a great day and lots of fun. We can't believe our baby is already 1 and it scares me to think how fast she's growing up.