School Break Anyone??

A few months ago,

you might recall me telling you that 

my boys were BEGGING me to start

their new school year!

They were SO excited about moving 

on to the next grade.

I held them off while I attempted to 

get myself organized.

We started and I had a plan

we have been following it pretty well.

Well we are doing good with

about 5 out of the 8 subjects.

Not a bad start since this is our first

FULL year.

I have been getting antsy about

getting organized so 

we decided to take a week off

so I could concentrate on 

organizing and purging.

Then we took a second week off

for Grammy's visit.

Then we had a down week

and then a week of VBS.

I didn't feel like trying to get back into a groove

for just a week.

So...

our 2 week break

turned into a 4 week break!

Much needed I might add!

I told the kids we would do some crafts,

but I didn't make good on that offer
until week 3 of our break...

And I just kinda let 'em go at it!

They started on Sunday

and they were ready to go through

every.single.craft.in.this.house!

First J insisted on putting together a pirate ship
foam kit we got from Jo-Ann's for $1.
And again we have a new LOVE for
those awesome glue dots.

He put it together all by himself

just looking at the picture.

He is so good with his hands,

he really surprises me.

And those glue dots meant -

no messy glue to worry about!!

LOVE!!

Then they wanted to paint their bird houses.

I think I bought these in NC.

We have had these for a LONG time.

I have just resisted the 

months of begging...

I finally gave in and let them

paint their bird houses.

Then on Tuesday,

after Tae Kwon Do

we hit the library.

They were having a VERY expansive

story time,

complete with LOTS of neat activities!!

Ironically,

the theme was pirates!

They read the book

Pirates Past Noon

- which we missed, but we own

so we will have to read it ourselves.

They made treasure maps: 

Then did soap carvings:
(sort of)

The older boys drew pirate ships.

Then Ms. Priss & J went over

and made pirate hats!

Arrrrr Matey!

R decided to make a

"Wanted" poster

instead of a hat:

(If you find him, call the police right away!)

Hahahah!!

I didn't tell him that the po-po wasn't around 

during pirate times.  ;)

After our week 3: our "down week"

was VBS.

Operation Overboard

(see next post)

So I guess its back to school!

(maybe)

But I will try and figure out a way to 

get the littles to story time once in a while!

Baby Shower Invitations

I have a crafty side,

It doesn't come out often enough.

Mainly due to budgetary issues

and I have to have a purpose.

I am not one to make things just to make them.

I don't buy something just to buy something

and I don't go shopping just to shop.

I actually HATE walking aimlessly around a

store, without a purpose.

(but I digress)

My sweet little sister is having her first baby.

This has been the single hardest part of 

this big move...

I cried off and on the weekend she told us 

she was pregnant.

I was so disappointed that I wasn't going 

to get to share this with her.

She is far enough along that the showers are starting.

Airfare has increased,

so unfortunately,

the 1500 mile journey

for a baby shower

isn't gonna happen.

But, I wanted to be involved somehow!

So when the grandmother's-to-be

(aka, Nana & Glamma)

decided to throw a shower,

I decided to dig into my 

crafty side

and

offered to create the invitations.

It is the one thing I can do 

while being 1500 miles away.

I am so pleased with how they turned out!

I went through a couple of  designs before I settled on this one.

After a couple of different attempts, I settled on this design.

After the design was decided upon, 

I put my paper cutter to use.

I definitely couldn't have managed this project without it.

I also discovered a new crafting tool

"adhesive squares".

I wasn't quite sure how I was going to assemble

these invitations,

we use glue sticks for this type of thing in this house...

but glue sticks don't seem to fit the bill for this project.

After cutting out all of my pieces, 

and tying up the little bows...

I started assembling.

The results!

Bookmark Project

I have been so excited to share this post with you.

I am not much of a Pintrest person,

but somehow I stumbled upon 

the cutest idea  few months ago!

Homemade Bookmarks!



First I took crazy pictures of the kids
acting like they were hanging from a rope.

Not the easiest at this age.  We had to give T
a plastic golf club and have him hold it over
his head!

Then I cropped the pictures a LOT
to get rid of as much of
 the colored space around them
as I easily could.
(no need wasting colored ink, right?)

I fit as many as I could on one sheet.

Then cut them out, the first time.

Then again fit as many as I could on a lamination sheet
and ran them through my laminator.

And started cutting then out a second time.
(ugh!)

I used the process described on the original posting

(here)

to make my handmade tassels.

Then I threaded my tassels through holes

I had punched in their hands so it would

look like they were hanging from a rope.

Then I sent these out to family so that they could have

these smiling faces staring back at them while they 

did their Bible study 

or

studied in Nursing school! 

Most of my family reads books from 

e-readers lately,

so I suggested that they could also be hung from 

thumb tacks on the office wall.

I got this idea from over at Creative Family Moments

 and ran with it!!!

Thanks for posting this CUTE idea!!!

First Weekend of June...A Pictorial Review

We had a pretty wicked fever go through the 

two littles that turns into a cold.

T was feeling particularly crummy, 

so we headed to the doc...

all 5 of us!

How do I keep 4 kids entertained

in a VERY small room

for 45 min while we wait?

A friendly game of 

doctor's office twister!

 Left foot black, right foot green...

Left hand yellow, right hand red 

Right hand, left hand, right foot & left foot...

all on red! 

That didn't last all 45 minutes, but it sure helped!!

The next day T was feeling better, fever was gone,

but he has a nasty nose and cough to replace it.

So we went to our end of year "party" 

for our TORCH Homeschool group.

And got to enjoy some time on the playground.

Captain T taking us somewhere on his ship.

A enjoying the swings. 

My babies...

(aka - the littles)

Then Saturday morning, we didn't have a soccer game

to rush off to, so we decided to hit

the Home Depot for their 

kids woodworking workshop.

I tried to get T to make one, 

but he wasn't having it.

The terrible twos have hit 

this house for the 

LAST TIME!

Whoo hoo!

They made a keepsake box with a divider.

He was saying "cheese" and wanted his

picture taken too...

Then we had planned to go to 

church for a Movie Night with 

our scout pack.

And since we were already going to be there

we decided to hit the Saturday night Mass.

So we went to Mass, then went and grabbed dinner,

then came back to church for the movie.

The older boys enjoyed it,

T, again, wasn't having it...

Not the best pictures, but I had to show you 

guys the neat pavilion that we have at our church

which housed our movie night event.

Sunday morning, first thing...

I got curlers in the girl's hair.

She had pictures for her

"Cheer/HipHop/Tumble" class

that afternoon.

About 6 hours later...

All that hair, turned into this... 

 

(apparently the sun was in her eyes??)

Random picture:

This is what happens when you don't strap a

child in and they try to escape during a trip

to Michael's...

See...told you the terrible twos were back...