I decided that during this trip, I would take some photos of places and images around Disneyland. They are so many great things to photograph in the park, I wanted to capture some of the fun places we like. Seriously, I could take a trip to Disneyland by myself and photograph the park all day. Maybe someday I will!
I love wreaths and love all the creative ways to create wreaths for any occasion. I saw this idea out there in blog world and thought what a great Christmas gift for preschool and kindergarten teachers. So, this year Ella's teachers will be getting this cute crayon wreaths for Christmas.
They are super easy to make. All you need is embroidery hoops (one size 12 inches and one 8 or 9 inches). Put the smaller one inside the larger hoop and start places crayons around the hoops to form a circle. I used a few more crayons than the 64 count box. Then I hot glue gunned the crayons to the hoops and tied a ribbon on top to hang the wreath.
I love how they turned out. To present them to the teachers, I bought some large Christmas circle platters and will use those as part of the gift and a way to transport the wreaths carefully. 
I am putting my Christmas list on my blog mostly to help out my husband. He knows were to go to find out what I want, so this year I am making it super easy for him. Your welcome honey!
And in case you are looking for more gift ideas, here you go!
1) Bob Stroller Handlebar Console
2) XLarge Scallop Circle Punch
3) Mobile Me
4) Yudu Screen Printing Machine
5) Molcajete We love guacamole in our house, so this is the perfect tool for our kitchen.
6) Fossil Faux Tortoise Watch
7) iTunes card... who can't use one of these!
8) Couch Racer X Camera Strap in vintage blue with white or brown and orange. HINT: I really want this gift!
10) Cashmere Gloves from Eddie Bauer
11) Half Sleeve V-neck T-shirt from DownEast Outfitters. And since they are on sale, you can get a few, any color will do (except fushia).
12) Self-Inking Address Stamp I have been wanting one of these for quite some time.
13) Ugg Classic Argyle Knit boots. 50% off here.
and then anything from Ann Taylor, Eddie Bauer or Banana Republic (honey, look in my carts for some ideas)
That should give him enough ideas, right. Now if only, he would return the favor and give me a list ;-)
We are back from our 10 day trip over Thanksgiving Break and what a trip it was. In a nutshell, we visited Disneyland, SeaWorld, Tucson and Tombstone. With a lot of things in between. The next few days or weeks will be highlights of our trip, so get ready for a lot of photos and journaling.... it was one fun trip!
We went to Disneyland on Friday and was pleased to find the crowds low and manageable. We were able to see a lot of characters and do a lot of rides and visit most of the park. I love Disneyland so much when the crowds are low... it is really so wonderful when you can just enjoy the park and that is what we did. We met up with Nana and Papa later that afternoon and enjoyed much more fun with them.
Highlights:
Hannah went on her favorite ride - Big Thunder Mountain
Jake saw his favorite character - Woody and you could tell was star struck.
Ella loved her time with Mary Poppins and Bert, they were so much fun to chat with and they spent a lot of time with our family.
The girls love the Winnie the Pooh ride and we got to ride it two times in a row without getting off... the girls thought that was so great, especially since there was a line and we told them we would have to get off and stand in line.
Jake didn't love Santa Claus.
We went on the Dumbo ride, which we never go on.
We all wore our red t-shirts I made. Each of us, sporting a disney character of our choosing.
I had to make sure I wrote down some things our family was thankful for this holiday season. Here is what we put on our leaves.
good root beer, parks, holy ghost, scripture scouts, dad's job, friends, Pink flamingos, Heavenly Father, America, Jake's blanket, school, disneyland, Jesus Christ, family, grandma, our brother, Pres. Monson, Shamu, fresh squeezed orange juice, grandpa, education, sunshine, arts and crafts, meat and fruit, baked goods and our house.
For Activity Days tonight, we are making thankful garlands out of leaves. I used my cricut and cut out a lot of leaves in different fall colored cardstock. The girls are going to write what the are thankful for on each leave and we will make a garland for them to take home and put up in their room.
I am going to challenge them to write in their journal every day this month one thing they are thankful for and thank Heavenly Father each night in their prayers and if they do it for the rest of the month, I will sign off an experience in their Faith in God books.
Also, I was approached by another Activity Day leader to have our girls be pen pals with each other. I love the idea. I used to do that when I was a kid. So, tonight we will also be writing leaders to girls in Hawaii to start our pen pal program.
NOTE: I also did this thankful garland activity for Family Home Evening last week and we have the garland proudly displayed in our home. The kids loved it and it reminds Hannah to say thank you for things during her prayers. I love that!
Option B
Option C
Option D
Option E
Option F
I have been wanting to get a Little People's nativity set for our family for a few years now, but never felt like it was worth it for almost $40 (our Target carries it for $35 plus 9% tax). But today, I found on another blog that you can order it for $24 (shipped). SO, I jumped on that.
I thought I better pass the deal on, since i am so happy someone spread the word so I could take advantage of it. Here is the information:
Family Christian Stores is having 33% off one item. Code is 122084203 (enter the code during checkout and hit apply). They are having an extra 25% sale right now, so that is how the price got so low. I am not sure how long the code or sale is going on, so better take advantage of it while you can.
Hope this helps someone, like someone helped me!
I wanted to share a simple thank you gift that you can give any time this fall. My husband needed a quick thank you gift and bought these Martinelli's sparkling apple cider. I decided since it was fall, why not just make some leaves out of cardstock and pretty ribbon and wa-laa.
It was so easy and I think they look so nice. Like I always say... it is in the presentation. If it is presented right, anything looks worth having.
The winner of the Silhouette Products is
TABATHA STIMPSON
She said "fun machine".
Tabatha you have 48 hours to contact me in order to receive your prize. If I don't hear back from Tabatha in 48 hours, I will randomly pick another winner.
thanks all for participating. And I have another giveaway coming up soon! 
There is only 1 1/2 more days left for the Silhouette Product Giveaway. I wanted to show one more project i did with the heat transfer rolls. A few disclaimers... my camera died, so I had to use my point and shoot and it doesn't do these projects justice. The color is off and it is grainy, but hopefully you get the picture.
I had these old 18X24 canvas panels in storage and thought... they are so big, I should be able to use them for something worthwhile and that is when I came up with this. I covered the canvas with fabric and ironed on fabric princess silhouettes and used the heat transfer rolls for the words.
Now you could use the heat transfer rolls for the whole things, but i didn't have enough and I liked the colors i had in fabric, so these worked too. I added some glitter for the headbands to add a little shimmer. And then tied it up with ribbon. I loved how they turned out. I would have done the words a bit different, but overall... it worked.
Seriously, so much that can be done with the silhouette products. Go to my post for the giveaway and leave a comment to enter to win. Click here, you have until Nov 10th at noon.
As soon as I found out I was getting the silhouette products to play with, I knew right away I wanted to make these shirts. And the heat transfer rolls were just what I needed.
I have seen variations of homemade disney characters t-shirts and thought how fun for would it be if each family member got to choose a disney character and then come up with a famous quote for each character. See if you can guess which quote goes with which character before you scroll down. They aren't that hard if you know anything about Disney and who doesn't.
Here is what our little family choose. I love how they turned out. And we are going to wear them to Disneyland this month and get our picture taken with their holiday decorations and hopefully (here's praying) we can get a christmas card photo with our shirts. 
Obviously, you can do anything with the heat transfer rolls. Put your kids name on the back of a sport team t-shirt, make your own fun, custom t-shirt or embellish a simple tote bag or pillow case with some funky, fun designs. All of which would be fun to give as gifts this coming holiday season.
If you haven't entered the Silhouette giveaway on my blog, click here and leave on comment on that post. So far your odds are good!
This week for Activity Days, we had a Plan of Salvation lesson. We talked about the plan of salvation to see what the girls knew and filled in the "bits and pieces" they didn't know. We cut out the "artwork" above and then laminated them. We then put them in their envelope for safe keeping.
The goal was for the girls to use these pieces and teach their families the Plan of Salvation for Family Home Evening. If they did this, I told them I would sign off their Faith in God activity under Learning and Living the Gospel.
I didn't do this, but if you are up for it... it would add to the activity greatly. I should have written out a "test" on the Plan to help them learn the Plan. Questions like "Where did we live before we came to earth?" "What two reasons did we come to earth?" 'Where do we go after we die?" What comes first the resurrection or judgement?" And have blank spaces for them to fill in the questions. That way they could keep this paper in their envelope and use it to help teach their Family Home Evening lesson. Too bad I didn't think of this until I was going to sleep that night.
If you would like to download the labels or Plan of Salvation Artwork, click on the links below:
Labels
Plan of Salvation art
So much has happened during the month of October and I haven't kept up with them on my blog. So this post will be a catch all for the things we did in October.
Ella's preschool class went to the Big Fresno Fair. We got to see the animals, gemstones, agriculture and all the sights and sounds. The best part was Jake just going nuts over all the live animals. He was in seventh heaven being able to see all the sheep, cows, pigs, chickens, rabbits and turkeys. Between the two of them, i know they had a great time.
We also made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. Hannah went with her girl scouts. They all got to search the patch for their own pumpkin and my girls definitely searched for the perfect pumpkin. Hannah is a daisy in girl scouts this year and LOVES going every time.
Ella had her school costume parade. She loved parading around her school and she made quite the scene with her wooden shoes clumping all around school grounds. All the kids were so cute and it is always fun to see what kids are each year and the fun creative costumes.
Lastly, our pumpkin carving night. Hannah is getting so old that she was scrapping and pulling out the pumpkin insides all on her own. She even designed her own pumpkin herself. You will notice several shapes had to make their way onto the pumpkin. I was instructed to cut as she had drawn it and no variation. Ella just enjoyed watching her dad work on her pumpkin.
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