Egg Hunt and Home Depot

 Before leaving on our trip to Goblin Valley, the boys had the opportunity to go to the Millcreek Park for an Egg Hunt over Easter Weekend.  In the first and second pictures, you can see Brigs (white & blue T-shirt) and Nathan (red sweatshirt) ducking under the barrier and going after the eggs.

 And here is Preston in the white T-shirt and his hat.

 They got quite the hall of eggs, and Preston even got a larger egg that allowed him to win an Easter-themed music box.

From there, we headed to Home Depot where the older boys paired up with a younger boy to work on the Kid's Craft. It was a planter box craft. Will helped Brig's, Tyler helped Preston, Jackson helped Nathan and Gavin worked on his project all by himself. They all turned out cute. The rest of the day was spent cleaning the house, packing and then playing with neighbor friends. 

Map of Where We've Been

I've been wanting to make a cool map poster with all the places we've been on vacations and the places that we have visited before. I purchased a thin board and glued a foam cork board to it. I bought a high quality map and attached it to the cork board. I also purchased, cut and stained frame wooded pieces and attached those to the board.

I purchased a huge bag of beads with 10 different colors, which was perfect for my family of 10! Everyone chose their own color:
          Scott (dark green)
          Me (yellow)
          Will (white)
          Jackson (light blue)
          Tyler (red)
          Gavin (dark blue)
          Brigham (light green)
          Nathan (orange)
          Preston (brown)
          New baby (will be black)

Scott and I also searched for different traveling quotes, and we came up with this one;

"We haven't been everywhere, but it's on our list..."

We enjoy traveling with the family and visiting new sites around America. It's fun to see where we've been and where we still need to go!

This craft was super easy to make and under $25.00 to put together. 

Mother's Day {a little late}

 Happy Mother's Day to me!!! The boys, with a lot of help from Scott, put this flower bouquet together for me. The white flowers are the boys hands with the fingers curled back. It's a huge, beautiful flower arrangement, that I still have on my table. It's so unique. I love it.  I also received a few other fun gardening gifts from the boys.

Scott had to work all day, which was a total bummer, but I headed to my cousins house for dinner. Just me and Preston. The boys fended for themselves at home while I ate a delicious pan-seared with butter steak, twice baked potatoes...YUM. After, we played games, laughed and talked. It was wonderful. When I arrived back home, the house was clean, the little boys were in bed and the older boys were playing their instruments or reading. Nice!

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day, like me!

I am so lucky to have this "job" of being their mom. Of course it's tricky, frustrating, messy and loud at times. But, it's totally worth it! I am super lucky to have them all to raise as my own.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!

Halloween Crafts!!

 I try to make one or two new crafts for each holiday. These past couple weeks I have been able to make a couple cute, easy ones. I made this cute Happy Halloween sign for my porch. I pained it, sanded it and then stained it to give is an old vintage look.

I sewed this cute little mummy costume onto one of Little P's onesies. Seriously took no more than 10 minutes to make.

 

 

While in Santa Barbara we headed to an awesome pumpkin patch where Preston wore this onesie. So cute!!

 

 

This cute skeleton has been super fun on the refrigerator. Several times a day the boys will rearrange the arms and legs and it's been fun to have. I should of laminated him though! Here is the template for him.

 

I also found some cute Halloween printable here. I printed them out and the boys have loved coloring them all week long. FUN!!

 

Here is my next project...A Halloween table runner. I have the fabric and ribbon but haven't sewn it yet. Here is the tutorial for it. I'll post pictures of mine, after it's completed. Hopefully by Halloween!!

 

Blessing Announcement

This past weekend was Little P's special day, he was blessed in our church. I made this cute birth subway art and displayed it with one of his 2 month photos. It was super easy to make in photo shop elements and everyone complimented us on how cute it turned out. I couldn't agree more!

Hoot, Hoot!

 Here are my adorable 7 owls I made from scrap fabric for the fall time. I plan on making two more larger ones, to complete the family.

 Nathan helped choose which fabric to use. I drew an owl and a piece of paper, pinned it to both fabrics and cut. Sewed around most of it, turned it inside out, ironed it, stuffed it, finished sewing it and added some eyes and a beak. Done!

Here is the back of the owls. Another cute, easy project that anyone could do. WHen Scott came home from camp he asked me why I needed to make owls. I don't know. They're cute, so I did!

Places we've lived...

 Another cute craft, places we've lived. I picked up some maps from AAA a few weeks ago. They're free is your a member! Nice! I traced the three different states onto paper and then placed the state on the map where we've lived before. I then cut the shape out of the map, added a small red heart and wallah, done!

It looks perfect on my bookshelf! Thank goodness we've only lived in three different states, California, Arizona and Utah!

Olympic Primary Singing Time

Tell the primary children that you are having your own Primary Singing time Olympics!!!

I found this GREAT idea from i heart primary music!!

Write the events on different pieces of paper and have them randomly draw one out to choose the event! Here are the events for our review:

High Jump, Shot Put, Volleyball, Javelin, Archery, Discus, High Dive, Pass the Torch and Olympic Ring Toss.

High Jump -

Put song titles on small squares of paper and stack them high on the wall. Have a child jump as high as they can and grab the song!!!

Shot Put -

Put numbers representing songs (or song titles) in the bottom of a muffin tin. Let a child stand from a line and see if they can toss a cotton ball (ahem... I mean, shot put) into one!!!

Volley Ball -

Choose a song that needs reviewing and while you sing, see if your children can keep the balloon in the air. Let them toss it around to each other (they MUST stay in their seat!).

Javelin -

Straw = javelin :)

Put down some tape lines on the floor and write different ways to sing on them. (Humming, staccato, high squeaky, just boys, just girls...) Let the child who chose "Javelin" throw the straw (javelin). Which ever line is below the straw, is the way to sing. Choose a song that needs reviewing or a fun song!

Discus -

This is the same thing as the javelin but with a paper plate "discus"!!! Have fun!

Archery -

For this event you will need paper plates, string to hang them, tape, and rubber bands.
The child will get 3 chances to shoot a rubber band and hit a paper plate target. On each target is an action to do while you sing.
Here are some examples:
Swimming - move arms like swimming forward
Running - Run in place
Rowing - row like your in a kayak
Jumping - jump up and down
Kicking - kick your foot like you are kicking a soccer ball

 High Diving -

Let a child stand from a chair and try to drop a clothes pin into a bottle. Number each clothes pin and the one that goes in the bottle is the song to sing!

Pass the Torch -

Choose a song that needs reviewing and let the children pass the Olympic Torch around as you sing. Make sure every child gets a chance to touch it! You could have the pianist stop at random and the child holding the torch must say the next phrase to the song...then, continue on.
This torch was made from a paper towel tube and tissue paper.
***(The Olympic Flame is lighted by the Olympic torch during the opening ceremonies. The flame is a symbol of peace. Thousands of relay runners from many countries carry it to the stadium of the city hosting the games. The flame is passed by hand from one runner to the next.)

Olympic Ring Toss -

 Here is a picture of a simple ring toss to make. It's made from paper plates and paper towel tubes. For the rings, cut out the inside of the paper plate and color them with markers. And for the other part, cut a small hole in a paper plate and stick the paper towel tube in it. Secure with tape.

After, I made these for each of the kids! FUN!

Again, THANK YOU i heart primary music for this great idea!!

Teething Toy

 Remember when I said I had a list of crafts I wanted to make? Well, with all the boys (and Scott) gone this past week I was able to get my craft on! :) I saw this cute idea where? Pinterest , of course! I thought, I can make that, so I did! I always have ribbon galore and tons of fabric.

 I pinned the ribbon on the "P", added some cushion and bells to the middle. FUN! It was super easy to make. Now, he needs to get a little older so he can use it! I made this for Nathan when he was a baby and he loved it!

 Speaking of the baby, HAPPY 3 week BIRTHDAY my sweet sleepy boy!!

Rosette Bracelet

 I made this cute Rosette Bracelet this morning. Total it took maybe 15-20 minutes to make and 2 burn marks from my dumb glue gun. I love a love/hate relationship with that thing! You can find the tutorial here. I have a ton of fabric and lots and lots of scraps to use. This was an easy project, and it turned out so cute!