Excitement!

3.5 mo.

Homemade Christmas

We always try and do lots of crafts, make presents and decor for Christmas. Here are a few of the things we made this year.

This year the kids and I spent a lot of time making anthropologie snow globes.  I bought all of the stuff last year so it was nice to pull it all out and create these together. 

 Lots of yard sale finds-vintage ornaments, etc.  I found the deer at Hobby Lobby last year in the miniatures section.

I really love how they turned out. My husband said they are his favorite christmas decoration because they remind him of little christmas train villages. And he knows how fun it was for the kids and I to put these together.

 

We also made snowmen handprint ornaments. These are my very favorite homemade ornaments! The kids each sat on my lap one by one. They decided the kind of clothing, hats, etc. for their snowmen and together we painted them on. 

 

 Each is a reflection of their personalities!

 I made these anthropologie trees out of an old vintage book. I just cut diff. sizes of squares with my pinking shears. They actually did take a while to make but it was fun!

 Homemade Stockings. I was so proud of myself for these. It took all of my brain power to do these correctly (line them, make sure they all pointed the same direction, etc.). I couldn't find a tutorial, so I just winged it. I'm happy we finally have stockings now.  The girl ones arent complete. I need to make some fabric flowers for them and they will all have stenciled name tags that fall from them, but they were done enough for Santa to place some little gifts inside them.

And my amazing husband designed and created this lego table for the kids. We were up until 2am Christmas eve finishing everything up.  It has 2 removable panels. One side is for legos, the other side is a race track (we still need to paint it). The table has a lip on it so that legos don't fall off and once done, they can pick up the panels and dump the legs in the bins (not shown) below.  Pretty sweet!

Tent Building-The Way We Spent New Years

Today was a beautiful New Year day. 

We made a pretty sweet tent in the front room today.  We all had a blast together. We read lots and lots of books, rested, rocked out together, and there was lots of pretend play going on. 

It's special moments at home that make my life so sweet. And I know my husband and each of the kids would agree. There is beauty in the mundane moments of simple home-life. We love home.

Gingerbread Village

I always feel like my mind is at war with itself...keep garbage or throw it away? That's the big question! haha.  But really, before I throw something away I am always thinking of a 2nd use for it. I'm so Ukrainian that way. I have such a desire to create new things with it with my kids. But alas, I also hate clutter with a passion so most things get tossed. 

But these boxes. These I had a plan for.  I knew I wanted to make a gingerbread village with the kids. 

We painted them all brown (like gingerbread), but in hindsight I wished we painted them several different colors. Oh well. Next year.  

The kids worked hard on painting. I spent the evening, after they were in bed, decorating them with some of the random art supplies M(5) and I rounded up earlier that day. 

I left some houses for my 2 oldest to decorate the next morning.  They loved it!

One house featured a pinecone tree, white bean roof, window (from lasagna box), bell door knob and toilet paper roll chimney. Another featured a snowman made of cotton balls with a fruit loop hat, lentil eyes, wild rice nose, and ribbon scarf.  It also had a bell to ring.  Another was surrounded by snow and a picket fence. My daughter added stars, mini-pinecone trim, and tongue depressor window sills.

Their little people had quite a nice time playing in their new homes

Creations at Home

Just a few of the girls' creations from this past month, made at home

A Mask

My youngest learned how to sew

My oldest has already learned how to sew a little bit so she of course had to step it up...she drew and cut out an M and then sewed the "M" onto her hoop. Creative little girl thought the idea up on her own.

 The kids are obsessed with brave knights, kings, queens, etc. The kids really wanted to make crowns so I taught them how. M then made several for everyone!

 M is a little entrepreneur. She's always wanting to go sell things to the neighbors (sage from our garden, bike wash, etc. etc.) She really wanted to go sell these tickets she made. I told her she could not go sell them and so being the MAJOR negotiator that she is, asked if she could pretend to be walking down the street and stop by our house to sell tickets. I said sure. So she went outside, down the street to walk to our house to pretend she was a salesman. She happily sold me her tickets. 

 I have made the girls dozens of these sewn-bound books. I just fold white paper and put a sheet of construction paper as the cover. Open it up, sew, and voila, little books. They use them for their art work a lot and create stories too. This day in particular C was watercolor painting. This picture doesn't do her artwork justice. The colors were vibrant and beautiful. 

JOSH & MONIQUE | NORTHERN UTAH FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHER

The Perfect Day

There are a few days with my family that stand out above the rest. I'm adding this day to that list. I was beaming the whole day. For me it was the perfect Saturday at home with my family.