Laminated Valentines and a Passport to Public Speaking

Sometime last week Mary Engelbreit put a sheet of printable heart art up on her facebook page. I printed two copies thinking I would have the kids color them. Sam didn't want to color them, so Jack and I spent an hour coloring them on Sunday. (They are fairly labor intensive for coloring.)

 I love how thoughtfully he colored his.

 He wanted the boy to have hair the same color as his.

 His bunny is my favorite I think.

When it was time to color the birds he said, "Mom these are flamingos...

not swans!"

And for this one he said, "I am going to color the mushrooms yellow so they are wearing raincoats...

like yours." (Funny I hadn't seen that yellow as a raincoat at all!)

I bought myself this laminator   before Christmas for some crazy price like $19. I LOVE it. I laminated our coloring so the work won't get ruined over the years. Punch a hole in the top, add a ribbon and instant sweet Valentines for the Valentine tree.

My mom keeps giving Jack can tabs for some fundraising thing at school. And he keeps bringing them home. This morning he told me it's because he doesn't know what to do with them. I remembered seeing an idea in the last issue of Family Fun magazine for a public speaking passport to help shy kids get used to speaking to adult strangers. So while I had the laminator out, I whipped one up for him. (I sewed mine together in case you are dying to know if you can sew through paper plus a laminated sheet. You need to use a long stitch length though.)

 The plan is has to earn x number of stamps for things like answering questions out in public (and finding out from the teacher what to do with those can tabs!). Once he has earned all of his stamps he will get a reward of his choosing. Tonight we need to sit down and decide if the stamps are all open ended or if some of them will be goal oriented. (Answer the doctor, speak to someone at church, order your own dinner in a restaurant, etc.)

I used stickers that came free in the mail from those scholastic solicitations. I love those stickers. Why?

Because toddlers love stickers and they keep Sammi entertained while I am laminating!

Joann is worse than Target

WARNING: money sucking enabling ahead.

 This was Sammi's outfit of choice yesterday morning - purple flowers, Thomas print smock, and pink striped Thomas overalls. LOL

 I decorated the mantel for Valentine's Day, and I LOVE IT. All of my candy boxes + the flowery IKEA picture. So sweet.

But onto the point of the post, I swear to you Joann is a bigger money suck than Target right now. I WANT EVERYTHING when I go in there. They are FINALLY on the cute novelty print bandwagon. I have bought Grant's weight in fabric. Me, the vintage fabric hoarder, buying new fabric.

Unheard of.

Never do it.

 I RAN over there to buy these foxes. There was very little left and I wish I had bought it all.  (They are on a gray background.) When I went back today I looked for the rest but they were already gone. I would seriously like to redo the whole house in these foxes.

 Maybe dogs in wellies are more your speed?

 Or a pastel scallop?

 Sammi LOVES these mermaids, I am working on a new quilt with them. (They are disappearing fast too and I am trying to resist buying more of them to hoard.)

 How about gorgeous flowers?

 I die from Easter cuteness?

 Birds in kerchiefs?

 Very Japanese-esque cute bugs?

Sweet aqua tweety birds?

Lord have mercy on my fabric hoarding soul. I already want to go back and buy more and we just got home! LOL

Also, in Sarah is a dolt news, I did not realize I could get Mollie Makes and Gathered and other international craft magazines on my new, bought for myself for Christmas, iPad. D'OH.  I did buy myself some awesome quilt designing apps for it.

Dave and I will be wrestling over that thing now. Bwhahaha!

Happy Friday.

Try not to hoard all the fabric in Joann, okay?

The mitten

Jack came home with this from school today. It says:

Once I went on a hike in winter and poked my eye out and lost my mitten.

 

I laughed out loud because 1) can't believe he remembers that and 2) totally true. We were shed hunting (looking for deer antlers) with my dad and we got lost a little. We were in the woods FOREVER and he poked his eye on a tree branch and lost his cute reindeer mitten. He couldn't have been but 3 years old then.

It snowed yesterday a little.

A pretty, fluffy snow.

It's all melted already,

I suppose this is year two of no sledding for the kids. :-(

Pretty vintage style flowers from old milk bottle caps

Look who has learned how to build with legos already!  :-)

I actually have made something. Flowers from old milk bottle caps. Add vintage trim, vintage playing cards for leaves, some floral wire, old wooden spools and some vintage paper florist ribbon.

I am completely smitten with their country charm.

You can't see the wording on the spools well here, but it's the name and address of a florist in Ladue, MO.

I googled her. Her last remaining brother died in 2004. (I think he was in his 90's then.) I couldn't find anything about her floral shop, but I am guessing that ribbon is from the 40's.

I didn't use spools for this group. (And there is an odd man out - an orange juice cap.)

The milk caps are super cheap on Ebay.

What else can I make with them? :-)

Flea Market Monday

Ahh, a day off from school means a day to sleep in. Jack still never sleeps in, but my two littlest ones will. We are having a stay in our pajamas and watch the inauguration and eat french toast for breakfast kind of day.

 

Blogger still won't upload photos properly, so things are a little out of order. Whatever. :-)

 

Some junked items lately:

 

An old aqua bunny with soft pink satin ears and scary red eyes. Easter is on the horizon.

Worn pink glass garland.

A TINY vintage candy box.

Super cute vintage bingo cover squares.

The boards.

The box.  These really scream to be art in the kids rooms.

And a grandmother's flower garden quilt top.

This is a spectacularly bad photo of it but it's winter and there was so much wind and so many shadows. Ugh.

***If you are in the heart to heart swap you should have received a reminder email this weekend.   It's time to start thinking about getting those valentines in the mail this week!****

Into the flock for Grant

Baptism Day for Grant today!

I bought this vintage outfit for him at the church sale when I was pregnant, I think it was less than a quarter.

God he is a BIG BOY.

I made him booties and a bonnet.

And bought him a little vintage sweater (which was very nearly too small). This is his typical old man face. Everyone asks me constantly why he is so frowny*. How do I know people? He frowns. Period.

We have another new pastor at our church. Our much loved pastor died when I was pregnant with Sammi. It's been REALLY hard to go back to church since then. Pastor Heather gave us some holy water today because that is what Pastor Jim used to do. When she mentioned him both Dave and I nearly cried. He is very missed.

Grant nearly took a swim in the baptismal font. He is so darn heavy (and still a little floppy) and when she was trying to hold him like this he jerked and OOOOPPPS! there was water flying everywhere. (I had warned her in advance he is very, very heavy!)

This picture kills me. It has taken me EIGHT years to get Jack to go up front during children's time. Sammi ran right up there. And then she stayed up there through the whole service. It was like her only personal show and she would not get down. 

That girl of mine? BRAVE AND OUTGOING.

My cousin says she should be a pageant girl and seeing her up there there was no doubt in my mind that girl would ROCK the pageant world.

Look out honey boo boo, here comes Sammi girl. LOL

*With Jackson everyone commented on his red hair when he was a baby. With Sammi it was how she beautiful she was (and is, she gets a lot of attention). With Grant it's either his size or why does he frown?

Sammi Girl

Wow, almost a week huh?

I started feeling kind of cruddy on Sunday and the next thing I know three days have gone by and I have barely moved other than to change diapers and feed kids. I think the damn norovirus got me this time. :-(

Now there is food all over the floors, laundry piling up, nothing to eat in the house and a baby who I think has a not great tummy. (Just in time for his baptism this weekend.)

I took Sammi girl to get her two year portraits this past week. And she wore a dress.

SHUT.THE.FRONT.DOOR.

Such a beauty this one is.

I was just getting her a snack in the pantry so I showed her a package and asked if she wanted those to eat. She pointed to a word on the package and said MORE!

The word she was pointing to?

More.

Hmmmm.

I am not sure lightening like Jack* could strike twice but she sure is starting to do things that make me go hmmmmmm.

I made some booties for Grant and I am working on my Valentines (super duper awesome). Maybe I will actually get a few pics taken soon. Ha.

*I remember being so used to Jack being Jack that it wasn't until other people started to raise eyebrows that I thought *maybe* Jackson was really something special in the brains department. He would be in my shopping cart adding up our bill in his head and the check out lady would ask me what he was doing and how old he was (3 then). Then she would raise her eyebrows and wait for the total (along with me) to see how close he was (always within a dollar).