The Princesses and My Girls

This week is crazy. I don't know what it is about the month of October, but every year it is so overwhelming. But while I finish up all the things that have to get done this week, here are some more photos of our trip to Disneyland. We had lunch with the princess and my girls loved it! Ella loved to see each princess make an entrance and then she would run in front of them for a picture, but she wouldn't look at them. No eye contact at all. She was so excited and awe-struck by each one.

Hannah made each princess a drawing and had to give each one their "note". Hannah is so funny, each morning in the hotel room while we are getting ready to go to the park, she draws a drawing and it is a must that we give each character their individual drawings.

Logos

I realized i haven't updated my logo site with logos since July. That is crazy, since i have had a ton of clients and a tons of logos to showcase. So, here are a few logos i have completed over the past few months.

Activity Days - Binder Redo

This week for Activity Days, we decorated our binders again. I have 4 new girls, so they needed binders and then I thought the older girls could update their binders. This time around I added another tracking sheet and sat down with each girl to determine which FIG project they were going to complete next.

I realized if I didn't sit down with the girls and make a goal together, they weren't going to get projects done. So, I created a sheet for them to track the specific project they are going to work on and then a master sheet for me to write down each project, each girl is working on. Hopefully this collaborated goal setting will help the girls complete more FIG projects, so they can all get their awards.

The Leader Project Tracking Sheet can be downloaded here.

The girls Project Tracking Sheet can be downloaded here.

Disneyland October 2010

Here are a few pictures from our trip to Disneyland. It was great to be back. My husband's sister works at Disneyland, so we met up with her (which was fun to do) and she told us lots of inside stories about working at Disneyland. We didn't see World of Color, but it is on our to-do list next time. But we did watch Fantasmic two times. They had a 11:30 pm show and there was hardly anyone there, so we stopped to watch it up close and personal. It was nice to not be fighting the "fantasmic" crowds. The thing to have this time around was their adorable caramel apples (shaped like Minnie or a pumpkin). I got the last one as the park was closing. I rode Space Mountain for the first time during Halloween (Ghost Galaxy) and man alive, the ghost that chases you around is SUPER scary, like adult-nightmare scary and i let my 6 year old go on it, luckily she didn't get the ghost and didn't really see what he was. Thank heavens. It is always to see Disneyland decked out for the holidays, in this case Halloween holiday!

the picture you have to get while waiting in line for Toy Story Mania.

This is the latest princess Rapunzel from the latest movie Tangled.

Goofy acting goofy in his halloween costume.

This is the giant pumpkin at the front of Main Street at Disneyland...love it.

Ella was being silly, so I took some photos.

9 long Months

No, not those long nine months.... but the nine long months it was been since we last went to Disneyland. Finally this weekend, we are putting the waiting to an end. We are off to Disneyland to experience all its hauntings and treats! I can't wait! I wish we could spend more than one day there, but this was all we could fit in until November, so we took it. One day is better than nothing, right.

I can't wait for Ella to meet the princesses. She is much older now and I know she will just love them. And Jake will go bonkers (in a good way) over Mickey, Goofy and Donald. I can hear him now. Now if only my husband would get home so we can go!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Last Minute Easy Halloween Costumes

I found a link to the Parents Magazine site for 35 No-Sewing (very creative) halloween costumes. So, if you still haven't figured out what to be (or what your kids are going to be) here are some great ideas and fairly simple to put together. I love this one... creative, cute and easy. Love it!

General Conference Kit

The week before General Conference, I dropped off this little Conference Listening Kits to my visiting teachees. They were simple to put together (I basically had most of the items hanging around my house) and how doesn't like a present, however little or simple. I made the tags too. I wanted to share them with you in case you wanted to use them in 6 months!

The tags can be downloaded here.

Holland - Last Photos

Here is the whole family together at the beginning of the trip. We are all saying "to infinity and beyond" if you are wondering.

This is all of us at the end of the trip.

Halloween Wreath

I am in love with all the fun and creative holiday wreaths I have seen in blogland. I couldn't take it anymore, I had to make one for myself. So, I took bits and pieces of wreaths I loved and created my own version of a halloween wreath. It was pretty simple and i was able to finish it in an afternoon.

Here's the how-to:

I got an 18 in. wreath ring at Michaels. I bought 10 years of a thicker orange ribbon and mostly wrapped the wreath with it as my base. Then I took about 5-6 more ribbon spools of various colors, widths and textures and wrapped them around covering up the spots that the orange didn't get. I used little pins to keep everything in place (in the back of the wreath). I then painted some wooden letters and glittered them up using my Martha Stewart glitter and hot glued them in place.

Now here are a few things i learned from the project:

1) I wished I had used more variety of ribbon widths. There were most all the same and I should have found a few more really thin ones and taken away one or two medium width ones.

2) I spray painted the glitter letters with a clear satin spray but then second the spray touched the glitter it took away the sparkle! I was so sad. I read some where that I should have used a clear varnish and then the glitter would have kept its sparkle. So, don't make my mistake

Activity Days - Secret Service

For Activity Days this week, the girls were secret service agents. I gave the girls a Secret Service envelope with their mission. I got this cute idea from here.

I included sunglasses from the Dollar Store, Pop Secret Popcorn, a pen, seven Secret Service badges and the sheets of paper with their mission and service ideas.

I also added some secret service badges that the girls could leave behind each time they did their secret service. You can download these here.

Then we had a service relay race. I split the girls into teams and had them complete the following service tasks.

1) find someone in the building and give them a compliment
2) clean the bathroom mirror with windex
3) fill out a tithing slip
4) leave a love note on someone's car window (I made hearts for them to write the message on)
5) fold clothes
6) set a place setting from items in the church kitchen.

They girls loved the relay race and they got treats since they are all winners :-)

Holland Part 4

The last few days were spent in Amsterdam. Here are the sites and things we did:

We visited the Rijks Museum where they have many works of art from Rembrandt and Vermeer. We also went next door to the Van Gogh museum to see his works of art.

While visiting the museums, we found the I AMsterdam sign, so we had to get some pictures there in front of it.

We walked through the giant Flower market where we picked up our wooden dutch shoes and of course bought tulip bulbs to bring home. Hannah was so excited to buy her tulips!

We visited the Anne Frank house/museum. It was very interesting to see the house she hid in and learn more about her life. Hannah was really fascinated in Anne Frank and said it was one of the things she remembers most. I hope she remembers it when she learns about Anne Frank in school... odds are she won't be you never know.

This is the skinniest house in the "world'. It is the reddish blds (three over from the left).

There were pancakes houses all over the city and after seeing one pancake we knew we had to get one. This is the one Ella ordered. Ice cream, chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Seriously, who wouldn't like a pancake like that? My daughter that's who... she only at the ice cream. But i ate quite a bit and let me tell you, it was GOOD!

This is Ella with her aunt Jamie. It took her awhile to remember Jamie and learn her name, but once she did.... Ella wouldn't stop saying it and loved being with her aunt!

This is us out in the city enjoying the sites. My camera at this point started to give up the ghost. Good thing we were almost done with the trip.

Holland Part 3

The next few days of our trip were mostly traveling on the canals with a few stops here and there.

Here is a great picture of life on the canal and one of our boats. That is my brother you see on the boat :-)


The houses along the canal were some of the most beautiful i have seen. Many of them were so nice and all of them had the most beautiful gardens and yards.


One night we missed a bridge, so we had to pull over on the side of the canal and dock for the night right outside of Utrecht. We went out for a walk and found the most fun playground for the kids. The next day, we got on our way and we rode through Utrecht and the its covered bridges. Here is what Utrecht looks like from the front of our boat.


Obviously, we had to go through these bridges too. It isn't a great pictures, but it shows just how small the bridges were and how we had to maneuver through them. We had moments were we weren't sure we could make it or we had to duck and hit the decks!


This is the infamous bridge of our trip. No one manned the bridge and we couldn't read Dutch so we didn't know how we were going to get through. We spent 1 1/2 hours sitting waiting for this bridge to find out by the locals in this very small town that it opened automatically at 6:00 pm. Needless to say, this is the bridge that we joke about quite a bit and will always remember as it set us back quite a bit on our trip that day.

General Conference Past

This weekend is General Conference for our church. It is a time to learn important principles and hear messages that help us become better people and more committed to our faith. I found this quote that I loved from a past General Conference and wanted to share. I also wanted to share this new site I found them on... Mamas Who Know... check it out.

10 Things about Jake

It is the same story for most moms, your younger children have less pictures, less movies and less journaling about them. I realized yes, this was true for poor Jakey. So, here is a little bit about my little guy, so that i have something written about him and his developments. He is almost 16 months old and here are the funny things he does:

1) He loves to head-butt. I mean loves it. He thinks it is so funny. And he doesn't do it just a little bit, but he does it a lot and hard. If you aren't paying attention, my little guy can really hurt you! Believe me, we have had our collisions!

2) He loves airplanes. On our trip to Holland, we spent the night by the airport and he went bonkers watching the airplanes fly over head every 2 mins. He would point up into the air and say his word for "plane" with the biggest eyes and smile. The other night the girls said they saw a plane and he heard the word and pointed to that sky and said something in his little own language.
He definitely knows the word "airplane".

3) He loves animals. Every time he sees an animal he squeals and won't leave the animal alone. He is just so excited to see the animal. Sometimes the animal doesn't even have to be alive. In Holland, there was this mini cow statue and Jake ran up to it and squealed and wouldn't not leave the cow. I tried to lure him away, but he was not going to have it. He just kept touching it, laughing and looking at me and pointing to the cow.

4) You can tell Jake has eczema on his cheeks. He has had it since we has 6 months old. No matter what cream or antibiotic I give him, it will not go away. Every always comments about how "rosy" his cheeks are...

5) His hair is so blonde! He gets comments all the time about his hair. 6) He loves books and love to pretend to read them just like his sisters. 7) He got a Woody and Buzz Lightyear for his birthday and he took to them automatically. It is amazing how kids instinctually like Toy Story. 8) He has been walking since he was 12 months old but he still walks like he just learned last week. He is always falling over, stumbling and bumping into things. I am not sure why, but he is the funniest walker/stumbler.

9) Every morning when Hannah leaves for school, Jakey runs to the door and stands there waving and yelling "iye, iye" sorta sounds like "bye". He does it until he can't see Hannah anymore. It is so darn cute!

10) I love this guy. He is so much fun and really such a good kid that just loves to be a part of the family and be a part of life.