The past few days...

have been busy and fun-filled (jam-packed, in fact)! Here's a quick recap...

Last Friday we had our homeschool group co-op...I led the art activity and the kids all made fun glass globe ornaments filled with rolled scrap paper and monogrammed with a rub-on. Great use for my extra scrap goodies! ;)

Saturday, we stayed home and avoided the roads...played in the front yard instead:

 

Must say, the joy on their faces is worth the 30 minutes of trying to get them all bundled up and the additional 30 minutes of stripping them all back down afterwards. Sure, they only ended up lasting about 20 minutes outside...but they were 20 very happy minutes or snowballs and soccer balls and making it "rain" snow. 

Sunday, we went down to the Boulder Gem & Rock Show after church. The boys got to "dig" for rocks in a little sandbox, try their hand at panning for gold, try matching up rocks and their names, see model trains (yes, for some reason it was a train show also), and see lots and lots of rocks. Noah and Asher ended up with a nice little bag of additions for their rock collections and were happy. :)

 

Also on Sunday, my brother arrived. He's going to be staying with us for awhile, having gotten a job transfer out this way. His wife and daughter will join him in the coming months after their house sells. The boys are already having a great time with Uncle Zach's toys...remote control cars, dart guns and walkie talkies. :) (I asked him to keep the video games at his own home.) Micah, adorably as usual, can't quite say "Zach"...it comes out as "Uncle Yuck"! (Can't you just see that simply must be a layout title?!) Course, Zach's not used to all this snow and cold quite yet... :) 

Monday was crazy full. Nathan took the day off, and we started out with a field trip (with our homeschool group)  to a local robotics company. It's right near our home and we're constantly driving by it wondering what they do...so, we decided to find out! The history of the company was actually pretty interesting...they started out making farm machinery and ended up making the machines that make the machinery:

 

In the warehouse, we all had to wear safety glasses and I defy you to find a cuter kid:

 

After our field trip, we grabbed some lunch and then selected our Christmas tree. We've been going to the same place for years now and have always been very happy with our trees. (It's run by a family with some land that they harvest the trees from each year, so they're fresh cut and local.) Got the tree home and played in the front yard for a bit...where Noah got me in the face with a snowball:

 

When we finally got the tree inside, we discovered our lights weren't working, so took the opportunity to head out to get new ones along with doing a bit of Christmas shopping...splitting up so the boys could finish some more of their shopping. We then met back up at home and finished decorating the tree:

 

We put out a few more decorations (still in the minimal decorations stage until Micah is a bit older) and finished off the night with a new Christmas book.  Whew. :)

Today was about getting back in the swing of things (yes, I'm *still* reorganizing my office, but I honestly thing the end is in sight...at least enough of an end to get to work). The boys had music class and I even managed some laundry. ;) Gotta really get to work tonight, though...hoping these sniffles go away.

Busy stuff.  Christmas-wise...I'm mostly done with the shopping part but still have projects to make...trying to get them done sooner rather than later, so I have time to mail things also. But, I have some work stuff to get done during that time also. I'm soooo resolving to get this stuff started and done with sooner next year. Course, I tell myself that every year. ;) So, are you done with your Christmas shopping yet?

Fitted sheets.

Okay, this is totally random. Last night I was making the guest bed in our basement and two things occurred to me:

1. Why can't they *clearly* mark on the tag of the sheets what size the sheets are? Yes, I know I should know, but sometimes a person forgets, ya know? All those sheet sets in the linen closet...no real idea which ones are for the queen bed. Would it be wrong to require companies to include that on the tag...just like they include the size of clothing?

2. I hate folding fitted sheets. After a couple different tries with sheet sets that weren't for the queen size bed, I decided it wasn't worth trying to fold them back up. Seriously, how annoying is folding fitted sheets? Is it just me? While in the process of complaining to Nathan about it and arguing that all companies should make a stuff bag similar to how some sleeping bags come, a light bulb went off! I now store my sheet sets simply stuffed into one of the set's pillow cases. So there.  :)

See? Told ya it was random.  

Check it out...

I totally spaced over last weekend. Meant to say, "Hey, go check out this blog that asked me to do an interview for them!" If you scroll down, notice that they have a challenge going on this month using my sketch...could win some American Crafts Thickers (some of my very favorite scrapping things!). What are you waiting for? :)

Off now to lead a craft project with our homeschool group co-op... 

OUT ON A LIMB, week 4...

Thursday again! Ready for another OUT ON A LIMB challenge? Good. Given the holiday season, this week’s challenge is to think of a gift you’d give your loved one this holiday season if he/she were here to receive it. I’ve got a layout in mind for this one, but haven’t finished it yet (sorry!)…will post here when I do!

Alternately (or additionally), do a layout about a gift this year that you’re excited to GIVE. I’m loving seeing all the layouts about wish lists (especially kids’ wish lists! Totally going to do some of those soon…), but got to thinking that we rarely celebrate the giving. Let’s change that up! Why not do a layout about a gift you’ve got for someone and why you chose it?

That’s it. :) Due to the holidays, I’m guessing many of us are more swamped than usual. Please, though, do let me know if you do the challenge...or even just that it inspires you but you haven't tackled it yet. I love hearing your stories!

Holiday stuff so far...

Okay. I'm back. Four things:

THANKSGIVING. Did I mention that I had a great time over Thanksgiving? I did. :) Lots of fabulous photos…maybe not technically perfect, but awesome in that we captured the groups of people that we wanted to…some in group photo mode and some in candid action. Yay! I’d post my favorites, but certain people might be peeking… ;)

GIVING TREE & JUST PLAIN GIVING. Last Friday, the boys and I went with our homeschool group to select ornaments from a local giving tree. (Yes, I took the camera…is that wrong?) The boys each wanted to pick a boy roughly the same age as themselves and started their shopping right away. It’s wonderful to see them so excited over giving! Incidentally, this is also the first year we’ve had them do their own shopping. We gave them each a set amount and that’s what they’re to use for their two brothers, us parents and the giving tree…though we made a deal with them that they could buy one of the items for the giving tree recipient and we’d spring for the rest. So far, they’re amazingly true to form. Asher gets an idea and immediately acts upon it, without really worrying about cost or budget (just knowing he’s under his average gift cost limit). Doesn’t stop to ponder other possibilities, just enjoys the thrill of the purchase. Noah has been listing off all sorts of ideas and weighing them against each other and doing mental tallies of how much he can spend on one thing if he spends so much on another. (By the way, setting a budget is an awesome math lesson!) He might even be enjoying the shuffling more than the actual decision-making. I'm thinking as they get older I'd like to introduce more ideas like requiring at least part of their gifts be things they make or do themselves rather than buying, but this will work for now.

SANTA. This past Saturday, we saw Santa! We like to try something different each year and this year it was the Hammond Candies Candy Cane Festival in Denver. Despite the, um, freezing temperatures (darn wind chill), the boys proclaim they had a great time. Nathan held our place in the line:

While we huddled near the little outdoor stoves:

 

The Festival had crafts, food vendors, a “train”, live reindeer, face painting, story telling and, of course, candy sales. (And, wow, so many flavors of awesome candy canes!) The boys, though, were pretty much only interested in seeing Santa and doing the free factory tour. Micah was so excited (alongside his brothers) to see Santa, seemed to really be understanding the whole deal more this year and definitely loves all the Christmas decorations and yells “ho, ho!” whenever he sees a Santa. (How cute is that?!) But. When it came time to sit with Santa, all that went out the window in favor of protesting being held by someone new. Oh well. :)

 

Noah made a list to show Santa…broken down by year and with estimated costs (I swear I did not give him these ideas!). Yes, his list (though surprisingly short this year) is categorized by what year he thinks he’ll most enjoy the present…right now it goes out two additional years. For example, he thinks he’ll most enjoy this rocket software he’s used in 2009, thinks he’ll be ready for a remote control car in 2008 and is all about the science kits this year. Weirdo. Asher thought this particular Santa was wonderful…after all, he knew about Optimus Prime. ;) Yup, the boys declared him one of the best Santas yet. Plus, he even had gold sparkles on his face…apparently a desirable thing in a Santa.

COUNTDOWN TRADITIONS. What else? A few days late, but I hauled our advent calendars out of the basement yesterday. We’ve got these two different wooden ones with little doors that open and you take out the miniature ornament and hang it either on the door or on the top portion of the calendar. Noah and Asher each are in charge of one of the calendars (going to need to find another for Micah next year). I know there are all sorts of cool ideas for making my own, but just haven’t gotten around to it yet. :)

We also started year two of what I hope will be a long-standing Christmas tradition last night. (It was a couple days late, but that’s okay…should have started on the first.) We gathered all of our Christmas/winter books (we have more than 25 for sure) and wrapped them up. At bedtime during December, the boys get to pick a book (or two) to unwrap and have as their bedtime story. It’s so much fun…the boys get to unwrap things before Christmas (which helps curb the incessant asking to open a package…hee hee), we don’t have to read “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” 24 times, and it’s just plain fun. I let the boys help wrap the books this year, though I had to give Nathan a crash course in Gift Wrapping 101. (For those who care, I do sneakily have a method to the madness. I use three different colors of wrapping paper so that I know roughly how long the book inside is. Some nights, after all, you just don’t have the energy for “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”.) I throw in some new books during the month as a surprise also. Once we get our tree up, we’ll put them underneath and it’ll look much better than sitting in a pile in that room like they are now. ;)

Okay, that’s the last week or so in a nutshell. Back, now, to reorganizing my office so that I can do some major scrapbooking because I’m going through withdrawals.