Crafting Christmas

I'm not sure if it's because it's been so cold, or if just in my blood but we have been doing non stop craft & cooking projects at our house.

Here are a few that were big hits with the kids. I can't post about some because they are presents. 

The girls made marble painted glass balls. I bought 2 packs of 5 at Joann's 50% off so I paid $1.50 per pack.  The girls just squirted different colors of paint and mixed it around inside the ornament. Then we poured out the excess paint and waited for them to dry.  This may one of my kids all time favorite projects- they seriously loved making them and continually comment on how beautiful they look on the tree.

Lucy hung her 3 ornaments close together so they would not be sad.

We also tied fleece blankets.  Fleece is pretty expensive but there is a little hole in the wall in Fontana that sells tons of fleece for $3 a yard. The girls each picked a yard and a half of two different fabrics for their own blanket.  I cut all the tabs (2-3 in apart) and cut little holes inside the tabs, the the girls pulled all the tabs through.  Ruby especially LOVED making these and they are now their favorite blankets.  We actually made these a 2nd time with some friends that spent the night. I got fleece for them and my girls helped their friends make their own blankets. Again, huge hit and for $7 a blanket what a steal.  Joanns has had a lot of sales on fleece so if you watch or buy it from the clearance area you can get it a lot cheeper. 

Of course we made our Gingerwood houses.  Eric made small ones for each girl 2 years ago and I was going to decorate the big one that lights up... but guess what, we sold ALL of them.  I can't believe we didn't keep one for ourselves!!!  I'm sure someone wanted one and Eric said I can make another one for us, so I sold it.  Hopefully next year Eric will have the time to make a few more houses.

Couple of suggestions.  My girls got a ton of Halloween candy, so 2 days after they had eaten themselves sick... all the candy disappeared.  While they were at school I pulled it out and opened all the packages, put the candy in bowls added some store bought candy and they had no idea they were recycling their Halloween candy!

One other thing.  This year we decorated half the house one night and then the other half the next night.  This was much better because they took their time and did not get frustrated or bored.

We also made a gazillion gingerbread men and women for a party tonight.  The kids are going to decorate them with puff paint for a little activity at the party. These are the ornament cookies that you can't eat, but they smell really good on the tree. The recipe is below if anyone wants to make them.

Ornament cookies

1 c shortening

1 c brown sugar, packed

2 c molasses

1 c white glue

1 T baking soda

1T ground ginger

6 to 8 c all purpose flour

1 3/4 c water

Cream shortening with brown sugar, add molasses and glue, set aside.  Combine baking soda, ginger and 6 cups flour.  Ad flour mixture and water alternately to creamed mixture. Add enough remaining flour to make a stiff dough, knead well. roll to 1/4 in thing and cut with cookie cutter. Place in ungreased baking sheet. poke a hole on the top with a straw or chopstick. Bake 300 degrees for one hour then to thoroughly dry, place on oven racks and bake at 100 for an additional 3 hours. Makes aprox one gazillion cookies (seriously I made 4 doz and did not even use all the dough).

Good luck!

You know it's cold when...

... the palm trees start smoking!

I'm such a slacker

I love Christmas cards

I love getting them 

I love sending them

For some reason this year I completely forgot about Christmas cards for us. last Sunday it hit me and I realized If I didn't order something ASAP I was going to be in trouble.  I knew a family portrait was out of the question with Eric's schedule right now, so I quickly grabbed the girls (interrupting icarly) and begged them to let me take a few photos.  There was no changing outfits or brushing hair.  I only took about 8 photos and most of them they are goofing off (like the one below).    That same night I ordered 100 "free" postcards from Vista print, but paid $15.00 for shipping and $3.74 for the envelopes and whala I was done... kinda... I still need to receive them, address them and get them in the mail, hopefully before Christmas.

Converting to Christmas

1st we had a tornado of Christmas decorations that consumed our house.

Some helpers got distracted and stopped helping.

Two of our helpers complicated the process a little.

The girls decorated the tree with the majority of the decorations placed a the perfect 3ft location.

Of course there was total harmony in the home during the entire process...

(I said "smile and act like you love each other"- it worked)

This year was Lucy's turn to put the star on the tree

She did a great job!
Christmas has finally arrived.

Quilting class

Today was the last day of the quilting class I have been teaching at Haley's school. 

The kids all worked really hard, unpicked a lot but after 6 weeks everyone completed their quilts. Although it was a lot of work, teaching this class was really fun for me. Every time the kids would see me outside of class they would say things like "I can't wait until Tuesday". 

Overall they all enjoyed learning how to make a quilt and they were VERY proud of what they had made and couldn't wait to show their families.

Happy birthday!

My older Sister Tiffany... is a little older today

Happy 40th birthday Tiffany!

Surprise... Tiffany's 40!

Exactly a week after I left my Sister Tiffany's house, I flew back for a quick 14 hour visit to go to her surprise 40th birthday party. My Mom also flew back into town from Salt Lake City and some of my Sister's friends from college flew in for the party too.

It was SOOO hard to keep it a surprise. I talk to her everyday and had to stop myself from saying things like "See you tomorrow". Everyone had a hard time keeping her from finding out about it, but somehow we all pulled it off and she was completely surprised!

Her friends that put together the party did an absolutely amazing job. They had huge photos of her around the room from all different ages of her life.

Every table had little Tiffany boxes with beautiful truffles from here. There were also large and small diamonds scattered all over the table keeping with the "Tiffany theme".

Tiffs friend Rachel put together a large scrapbook full of tons of photos growing up and all the guests signed the pages. Such great ideas!

The cake was a huge Tiffany present. My kids favorite TV show is Ace of cakes, so I couldn't wait to show them the photo.

Tiffany with her 3 friends that put on the party (along with David not pictured). Left to right Rachel, Tiffany, Kathy and Kathy. Rachel grew up with us in Studio City so Tiff and Rachel have been friends since they were about 6 years old.

They really put a lot of thought into the details and it showed. It was a beautiful party and I know that Tiff had a great time and really enjoyed it. I'm just glad we can all stop lying about everything to her.

BIG news!!!!!

We FINALLY know where we are Moving.  

We need to bust out our tie dye because we are becoming Oregonians!!! Eric has signed on with a group in Southern Oregon and we will be moving in July. 

We absolutely love the area and are so excited to move there!  

Thanksgiving break

We drove up to Northern California to spend Thanksgiving with my Sister's family and my Mom. Luckily she has a pretty big house because we had 7 kids and 5 adults under one roof. It was a little crazy, but really fun. The day we left my girls were asking when we could go back.  

Normally when we go up to my Sisters house we spend most of the time out where she lives and head into the city one day. This time we went into the city almost every other day.

The 1st day we drove into the city to go to the California Acadamy of Sciences museum. The entire Golden gate park was completely packed and the museum parking was closed. So we went to Boudin's on the wharf for lunch and watched the sea lions on the docks.

Back at the house my Mom made turkey cupcakes with all the kids.

My girls had asked to go to Alcatraz several months ago and I promised that we would on our next trip to San Francisco. I had pre-purchased the tickets on line,  so even though it was raining and really cold, we made another trip into the city and went to prison.

The kids all listened to the tape tour and were totally into it. 

When we got in the car all the kids were raving about how cool Alcatraz was. Haley said "Even though its a yucky day and we were learning about history- that was really fun!"

After we left Alcatraz we ran by China town (our kids favorite destination) to let them each buy some inexpensive piece of junk... I mean chinese treasure and make their day.  We completely did not think about the traffic getting out of the city. It was a nightmare. It took my Sister 2 hours to move 3 blocks. We took a different route and it was a little faster but no less painful.  The people and cars everywhere and tall buildings so you can't see out made me feel like I couldn't breath. It solidified that I do not care for big cities. 

Another day we headed back into the city for a  second attempt to go to the California Academy of Sciences. We got there 1st thing in the morning and waited the HUGE line to get in. We got in, but again there were so many people in that building it was really uncomfortable.

Lucy used my scarf to make a sling for the monkey she got.

We also drove up to Petaluma to the Mrs. Grossmans sticker factory. This is the 2nd time we have gone here and we LOVE it.  We scored a tone of super cheep stickers!

One thing I have to mention about this trip. When you go into the city from my Sister's neighborhood you go through a really long tunnel.  Eric and the girls have a tradition that whenever we go through a tunnel he rolls down all the windows and they all yell the entire length of the tunnel.  I choose to take photos instead of scream. 

My Mom really did not appreciate that Eric did this when she was in the car. She was bugged that the wind was messing up her hair and the yelling was giving her a head ache.... then Eric started dancing with the kids to We are family (their favorite song/ Sister Sledge) with his hands in the air, I thought my Mom was going die.

On Thanksgiving day while we were watching the national dog show (Ok, I was really the only one watching) Tiff's dog Emma would bark and try to get to the dogs on the screen. It was totally cracking us all up.

There was lots of stress in the kitchen. My Mom does not do well cooking in a kitchen with 7 children and 1 dog constantly running through.

This was the turkey team. I'm not sure exactly what was going on, but my Mom kept calling them to rotate, move, advise on the condition of the turkey.

All 12 of us fit at my Sister's dining room table. The table was beautiful and the meal was delicious.

***Again excuse the horrible blurry photos taken by my dropped camera.***

Of course, Thanksgiving would not be right without dead rats in butter. Yes, dead rats in butter. The kids kept asking "Grandma, you are making dead rats... right?".

This is our family tradition you can read about here.

Over all we had a great, cousins everywhere, lots of noise, lots of fun Thanksgiving.