Oh So Crafty Are We

I found this idea on either..pinterest, or a crafty blog.. I don't remember.  I get sucked into those black holes all too often and many times emerge not remembering where I've been.  So the original idea isn't mine, but Courtney and I added our own twist. :)

We started out by using one of Jeremy's 24 pack Pepsi boxes.  We grabbed a few sheets of scrap booking paper, some good ole' fashion home made mod-podge (also courtesy of pinterest!), a paint brush, and got started!  First doing a layer of mod-podge on the box, then sticking on the paper, and mod podging over that as well to give it a stiff sturdy feel.

Blow-dry it dry...(oh, and p.s, i had cut a couple holes out of the box before hand)

 (in case anyone wanted to know, this is just half elmers glue and half water, shaken, not stirred!)

 Add a funny face, bling it out with glitter (because i was doing this with a 4 year old, and to her, no craft is complete without glitter!).

Fill with canned goods.....

(Ignore the sauce down her shirt, she had spaghetti for lunch.... also ignore that she's still in pajamas)

 And cute-ify your pantry shelves! (aka maximize storage space)

Since this little gem of ours is housing all the corn, we have appropriately named her "Corny".  Courtney said she looked lonely up there, so as soon as Jeremy finishes up his Mountain Dew, we'll be making her a friend to house the green beans next to her.  Perhaps we'll name him... Beaner.

My Happy Boy

Alex's Baby Blessing

On Alex's blessing day, I got a grand total of not one, but TWO pictures.  For Courtney's blessing, we got plenty of pictures, but this time around, I  only managed 2.  I wish I would've gotten one with his little suit pants, they were so cute!  My mom had given me the blessing outfit that my brothers and nephew were blessed in, but at just 8 weeks old, Alex didn't even remotely fit!  Not even a little bit. Ha!  So this outfit, it was.  He was still pretty darn adorable, though.  Is it just me, or is anyone else reminded of a Chia Pet?

The blessing was beautiful, then I got up there and blubbered nonsense through my testimony, (As usual. I loathe that side of the pulpit.) then we all headed back to our house for a luncheon.  Good food and good company.  Too bad I didn't gets lots of good pictures! Darn it!

So here's my wee babe the day of.  Thanks to all our friends and family who came and supported us!

(Yes, I still haven't figured out the loops and tricks of the new blog format, so my picture is sideways. Just tilt your head!)

Our Thankful Tree

I got this fun idea from one of my very good friends, Andrea, who has done this with her kids in past years.  So on Nov. 1st, I grabbed Courtney and we headed to the dollar store for some poster board and construction paper.  Here's what we came up with!

Our Thankful Tree.  Every day Courtney gets a leaf to draw a picture of something she's thankful for.  There are 24 branches and 24 leaves, one for each day leading up to Thanksgiving.  Super cute, right?!

October Funnies

(Courtney knelt at her bed)

Jeremy- "Courtney, get your jammies on."

-SILENCE-

Jeremy- "Courtney!"

Courtney- "Daddy!  I was prayering!"

Courtney- 'Mommy, you're almost skinny!"

(Me pushing Alex in stroller, Courtney on her bike)

Courtney- "Mom! Slow down, you fast-poke!"

(Alex fussing and making noises)

Courtney- "He said he wants holded, but in Spanish."

(Courtney having a snack while I nurse Alex)

Me- "Can you go put this away?"  (She does.)

Me- "Can you bring me my water bottle?" (She does.)

Me- "Can you get Alex's blanket?" (She does.)

Courtney- "Now can I eat my snack in peace?!"

Courtney's Room

So everyone who knows me knows I LOOOOVE organizing, rearranging rooms, furniture, decorations, etc.  Anything that's not nailed to the floor basically.  So no surprise that I've already re-done Courtney's room.  I'm pretty pleased with this time's efforts.  It really opened up her floor to create lots of open space to play.



Her closet still needs to be finished. Jeremy's going to frame it in, then I'm hanging sheer pink curtains across it that can be pulled back, princess-like. And I finally opened up a spot on her dresser for all her Littlest Pet Shop stuff. (hallelujah for getting them off my kitchen table!)



 Her new princess bedding.  And a shoe shelf to specially show case all her pretty dress up shoes.  (and check it out- we finally have door handles!)

 I organized all her favorite toys into princess boxes. (the boxes her princess pullups came in a couple years ago.  thrifty, i know.)  They are: Big Barbies, Little Barbies, Ponies, and Accessories.  On the shelf below I have organized bins of Play Dishes, Play Food, and Little People.  This way Courtney knows exactly where what she wants is, and where it goes when she's done playing with it.  (On the sneaky side, she can't dump every toy she owns on the floor all at once, she only gets to play with what I get down for her.  This system works wonders especially when there's 4 little girls in there all at once!)


One last thing, a nice little t.v. for her to play her educational VSmile games on to enhance her learning skills.  And you know... to watch cartoons on, too :)

Num Num Num!

Oooh yummy-num-num!  Chance is the funniest little boy ever!  He loves to suck on anything he can get his little hands on.  Literally, anything!  And poor little Alex just happened to be in the line of fire, and unable to do anything about it.  He was probably waiting for Mommy to save him, but I grabbed my camera instead :)  At one point, Chance had Alex's entire foot stuffed in his mouth!

(I wish I had my camera out when he was sucking on Baby Gemma's head!)

This is the VERY FIRST EVER smile captured on camera!  Doesn't he just melt your heart?!

He is SUCH a little mini-Jeremy!

Happy Halloween!

We started our Halloween day out carving some spooooooky pumpkins!

Okay, so my owl isn't especially spooky...a wee bit piddly sad actually, his eyeballs curved in on themselves and he kept trying to fall over.  Thus the paperclip holding him up.  *sigh*  It looked good in the begining though!

Jeremy's turned out awesome, as always.  He did this in like..7 minutes.  Yep, that's Jeremy. 

Courtney has never shown any interest in the inside of the pumpkin.  In fact, she usually screams and refuses to touch it at all.  This year she not only pulled out the ooey guts, but she did it with a smile on her face!  Even though she only did it just for the picture, and then afterwards she had to wash her hands and be done with it.  That's improvement though.

My spooky little witch and unhappy little pumpkin :)

Casting A Spell

Courtney, the Naughty Witch of Millhollow

And Little Mr. Alex, so sweet!


Trick-or-Treating was pretty productive this year.  Sure beat past years when she would knock on the door and then run away crying.  We did the trunk-or-treat at our old Idaho Falls ward (since we hadn't heard of our ward planning anything) on Thursday night, and then she and a bunch of the neighborhood kids trick-or-treated our neighborhood on Halloween night.  She got quite the haul!

We had to leave the group a bit early so we could head back to Idaho Falls to trick-or-treat Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Chad and Brittany's houses.  We had great plans to hit all the houses on Grandma's street, but by the time we got there, all the lights were out.

Ah, well.

All in all, it was a great-freezing-cold-windy-blowy-teeth chattering-bone chilling Idaho Halloween.

Hope you all had a fabulous one as well!