Balloon Wreath:)

I have never done a wreath before...just never really been much of a fan of them....'til now! I plan on making a birthday one soon but kinda swamped right now. Til later!

E's Pinwheels and prairie points and Hair

after taking out the daisy chain braid...

I can't believe that I haven't posted anything in such a long time and then I realized what I have been just trying to stay sane through! So here is a few bits of the productivity I have been able to get off my list!

Flowers in My Garden from the Country Loft:)
I finally got this one done thanks to a trip home to San Diego and some extra hands. It was a good challenge for me and I learned a few new tricks! yes, from my mom;) I needed a spring quilt for my wall to match the tulips and daffodils in my garden and all the other things that grow without even trying in the south!

This is E's pinwheel quilt I envisioned for her. I am counting the days til I get it back from the quilter. It was meant to be because the backing is my FAV plaid flannel EVER and they had the perfect amount! well, save a few inches yet still worked out. And where in the quilt store did I find this said perfect backing? oh yeah, in the sale room! wwhhhaattt!? oh yeah!

I was so excited to do these countdown blocks! My kids get uber excited for ..well everything:)

Fictionist...check them out!

You know that feeling...

When you find a new website/blog that you LOVE!! well, I think I found the cutest one of ALL!! Check it out and don't compare yourself to this amazing blog, she's a graphic designer, just be inspired as I was even at 5 am! Tons of FREE downloads and easy, simple, great ideas!

theprojectgirl

A song I feel like I've always been singing to my children...

Heard this song on Nienie dialog blog and FELL IN LOVE!!!
It feels like I have always been "singing" this song to my children and will be singing it to them every night from now on. Just wanted to share it.

Crafty 2 x 4's

Can't believe these are just made out of 2 x 4's! Modge Podge is my new best friend, in fact I might even name my next girl Modge! Adorable!! So glad that I someone thought of these! So easy and so cute! Love them in my house, they make me happy:)

My christmas projects...

I know! It's been forever. But hey what can I say, we are getting comfortable in our army life which for me is a scary moment, that usually means something is going to throw your world upside down! But I've come to realize to just enjoy the calm before the storm. They are gift for us to rest and enjoy so we can remember what we are sacrificing/fighting for! Our beautiful crazy life.

So here are some things I did get to that I am proud of. This years theme was "Modge Podge, where have you been all my life!"

I try to do something homemade every year for Christmas for the kids and finally got this out of my UFO(Un Finished Objects) box! I let the kids pick out the paper and told them it was for a surprise! They loved it. I just need one more E that my soldier will hopefully cut out for me. I guess I could just hang the letters individually but I am going to staple them to a sturdy ribbon I think. We'll see how that turns out.

My martha stewart project. Christmas card holder. Great gift for a hostess or co-worker. So easy and really cute. Probably could even dress is up more but I liked it with just a red christmas bow. I happen to LOVE getting christmas cards and looking at them so this was a great alternative to taping them up all over something that I would have to pull the tape off of later! I even have another holder next to it full already! And no I don't save the cards every year:)

Return of the Shannon...

Yes, I have been away. But now I am working on returning. Well, maybe not returning because I don't want to go backward but returning in the sense of remembering to post the good of my life so that I can remember it. Pathetic, but I'm sobbing writing this. I've been under water for the past 4 months and most of it is honestly glorious now that I look back on it. It is the life that I had hoped for but had no idea how wonderful it really was, I've never felt so loved!! Just the Lad's giggles and smiles make my day. But I needed to get this moment off my mind and just say that I am ready to stop beating myself up for unrealistic expectations of MYSELF by MYSELF and praising myself for the realistic life that I have...I do have it. I have been fighting a battle in a way inside my mind and sometimes your kids/spouse bare the brunt of your exhaustion, frustration, drama, whatever negative that you don't sometimes deal with so well. But today I was spiritually fed and given a sweet moment with my children, that they love me not just because I'm their mom, but because I love them like a mom should and sacrifice for them to know that I love them. And I'm honored to be able to do it and be their mom, even though I am really tired most of the time. How isn't these days?!

Being optimistic and happy doesn't come naturally to me but today I learned that it is through prayer that I will learn to have a more grateful and hopefully happy heart. Because my Father in Heaven loves me and I have put my trust in him and if he didn't trust me, he wouldn't have sent 3 amazing spirits to me as children and a husband to support and care for. That is all I needed to know, was that I had the talents given to me to be a great mom. Now I need to endure the hard so I can magnify them.

I'm not always going to have time to detail my blessings everyday, I have 3 kids and am a single mom often without notice and for long periods of time. BUT i will be resuming my gratitude list! I challenge everyone that reads this to do the same with a morning and evening prayer and you will see the difference I'm sure! Let me know:) Thanks for waiting for me to come back! And yes, I will find a way to sew and scrapbook again, only when life is simple enough for me to do it and if it doesn't get done then it was because I was doing something else wonderful in itself.

And they don't even know!

I will be the first to tell you that I was too lazy to do this for a long time! So my husband and I just decided to do it since we are all trying to eat more healthy and get in shape and it has been going fabulous! Now it's not that hard anymore and I know what I am doing and how the substitutions and secrets are and find my way around normal recipes. They LOVE it!! The puffed rice treats are a big hit in the house. I even use a little Giant Rice Crispies Cereal with it since it is Multi-grain. The Aloha Chicken Kabobs I have done quite a few times now and I make enough to freeze for another night. We have those almost once a week along with Taco Tuesdays in our house! I loved the Chocolate Chip Cookies and Lemon Blueberry Muffins and so did everyone else. There are just so many easy ways to put veggies and fruits in their meals without them knowing. The best was the box Mac and Cheese I used 1/2 cup pureed cauliflower instead of milk and they didn't even know! They loved it. So much more fiber too has been easy to put in also. Flax seed meal is so good for you and I put it in a lot of our meals. The Chicken Nuggets were also a big success and I can make them ahead! We look up other recipes online as well and the kids have started to eat a lot more different things which they NEVER have done before!

So I just wanted to toot my own horn a bit and hopefully give others the encouragement to start the system of just keeping pureed veggies in the freezer to throw into their recipes. I am so happy that I started it and plan on keeping it up. I have done a lot but can do all my purees in one day(all day of course) but I know it is getting my kids a little more than they would normally eat and makes me feel great to succeed in that!

wow, where did the time go...

can't believe that my last post was in May! Well, I have nothing creative to post about, just a little summary of the last 3 months of my life. They say that the 3 most traumatic things to go through in life are Death, birth of a child, and moving. Well, besides death I will have experienced 2 of those things fairly close together and oh yeah, add on that my husband just returned from Afghanistan! Yep, home at 6 pm and went into labor at 2 am the next morning! What timing my "Little Lad" had. My whole world just flipped over, for the better of course! But I just didn't understand or realize what kind of adjusting that would take! Never in my wildest dreams and there were moments that I was sure I was not going to be able to crawl out of the chaos that was starting to bury me but here I am and I made it. And the fractions of minutes I had to do SMALL things that I liked to do would have to suffice because my mom warned me for years that on the 3rd child, there would be no time for my therapeutic hobbies as I call them. Well, now that the Lad is getting up to par on everything and nearly sleeping for long stretches at night so I don't feel like a psychopath I am starting to see the light at the end of the newborn baby tunnel. But I also realized that I have the ability unfortunately to only dedicate myself to one thing at a time otherwise it just doesn't get done and is messy. Did I finish 2008 before the husband got home? no BUT way ahead of the game! And I have discovered my love for scrapbooking(thank you to my Cricut!) I had a divine experience this last week attending the temple with my soldier for the first time since he has been back and it is an amazing and comforting thing to feel the Lord telling you that all things are possible within reason and that I should find joy in the one thing that I get accomplished as opposed to being disappointed with the 9 others that didn't.

I spent last night feeling so sorry for myself and guilty and overwhelmed. After talking to my dad he told me about his night last night and how he had to tell a family that their 12 year old son was dead and how it broke my dad's heart how destroyed his family was to get the news. I know that I'm human and my small feelings are important but it is the perspective that helps me to be grateful for my green grass growing beneath my own feet and my families feet and that it tastes wonderful!

Have a wonderful Sunday-

Baby quilt from grandma

LOVE IT!!!!!
And boy was I glad because project scrapbook 2008 is going to be a close one to it's due date!
Can't wait to wrap up our new little guy in it:)

Project Bunny Prints..

A girlfriend of mine and I decided in the dead of night before Easter to go "bunny print" some people in our ward as a fun little thing to do and we had SO MUCH fun!! We both felt like we were out toilet papering when we were in high school trying to not get caught:) which the MP's did technically catch us but were so baffled they let us drive away:) It turned out great and left carrots on their door steps with a message from the "Easter Bunny" letting the kids know that the real meaning of Easter is the resurrection of the Savior and to eat some healthy carrots with all that candy. My sis-in-law did this for us a while back and have just been waiting for the opportunity to strike so now, I think it will be a yearly tradition:)

A Presidential Thank You card

We recently got invited to go to the White House Easter Egg Roll and thought to myself, if you were going to possibly bump into the President or his wife, would you bring a gift? card? after some input and thought I went with a hand made thank you card. Sadly with Easter coming I didn't get a chance to do it until the night before we went! I had to get it done in about an hour! I had just gotten my stamp I put on the back and sadly did not practice enough! I saved it just barely though. So not bad for a last minute thing!

Tante Evi's "so worth the" pound cake!

3 sticks of Butter (room temperature)
1-16 oz. cream cheese
6 Eggs(room temperature)
3 C. Sugar
3 C. Flour
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
add Vanilla or almond extract to taste

Beat cream cheese & butter for 7 minutes on medium. Add sugar, beat for 7 minutes. Add eggs one at a time til yolk is gone. Add in combined flour and baking soda slowly and then vanilla or almond extract. Beat together 7 minutes. Pour into greased angel food cake or bunt pan for 1 hour and 15 minutes. No icing is needed.

To die for and keeps well. Thanks for the cute spring pan mom! I knew I would use it one day!

Can't believe it!!

I'm sure that you all are not going to believe that this was the actual reason that my phone is not working but it is!! Thank you Heather P for sharing this Verizon salesman "tip" if you phone was immersed in water or has any water damage and won't even turn on; put it in a bowl of rice over night and the rice will absorb the water and dry it out.

My phone woke up this morning and wondered where it had been!

Things I should be doing...

I got an email from a mil friend that had me laughing, it was my every day story. Clean house, errands to do, lunch, naps, pick ups, drop offs, just things to do!, dinner, baths, story time, and the beloved sound of their snores:)....

Then all the sudden I'm either in bed asleep or on the couch too tired to move! I feel so Peg Bundy like (minus the obvious non Peg attributes!) so I decided to go with it and list all the things that have been on my list to do and yet I have no energy or just not motivated to do it....

#1 Operation scrapbook! What the heck! I was making such progress! Every night I tell myself that I am going to get it going and every night I put off doing the dishes and tidy up and I'm just spent..

#2 Birthday cards to make...no excuse there!

#3 Pictures that I should have had printed 2 months ago for the kids room...again, no excuse.

Things that I am looking forward to on a positive note...

-Bubble dress(oliver + s) for Ellie:) the pattern is on the way!
-Flying geese pattern quilt to do, never done one and am excited

-our baby boy quilt, still looking for a pattern that I am sold on..

-Angel quilt for my little lady out of the cutest moda I have ever seen, her first big girl quilt.

-tying up a swing in the back yard, kids will love it

-chair backers for the holidays; Valentines, Easter, a birthday one, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I just figured that I would do all at the same time, it would go faster and be easier. Fun things for the kids too.

-In desperate need of some hair bows for my big girl!

Wish me luck!

Oh Joann....

Yes, this is their sale week and I took full advantage of their flannels for $1.50/yard!!! Halla! So I will be set for a few years on boys fabrics, too bad my sis is having a girl:) story of my life and couldn't be more happy for her!

So what shall I do with these lovelies? Stack on the left is perspective baby boy blankets and right is my favs I couldn't say no to and got 4 yards of it! Yep, less than $6 a piece! The hawaiian print screamed to be the backing of a new jean quilt and then the snow flakes is for stashing purposes and the yellow is a dress for my little lady and the dots was just too darn cute! I will find it's mate eventually...

Count down chain...

This is just a simple idea adapted to whatever you need it to be for. Mine was to help the kids to see that the end was near and someone special IS in fact coming home. It was a good FHE(family home evening) lesson activity. Secondarily, it is the count down to my sanity! Just thought that I would share. I think that I may try this for my finger sucker to give him some incentive to kicking the habit with 21 rings, they say that is what it takes to break a habit a picture of his reward at the end. I only wish that I had double spaced the dates out but still works out great and is our daily routine to take one off everyday...

Tribute to our military...

Just gets me everytime...

Nursery Apple Tree

I got this idea from SugarDoodle and thanks to my crafty cricut it turned out great I think!

Started out with a basic tree I got from a teacher's supply store and then added in more leaves and used mini clothing line clips to attach the apples of the kids onto the tree. The Apple Pot is a good idea but not flexible enough, we end up just laying them out on the table in front of it for the parents to find when they bring in their kids.



The other idea was the "laundry line" for their colorings and projects so the parent know to pick them up and easy for us to keep them noticeable to give to parents and just decorates a blank wall anyways! These mini clothes line clips were great and CHEAP too! Easy to replace if need be and of course twine, no biggie and just dresses up the room a bit.