Project #2.....almost check

Remember my card making idea?   Been working on this one all weekend.  What was supposed to be a simple homemade card turned into a much more involved process.  Once my mind got to working....the ideas just kept flowing and before I knew it I had gotten myself involved in a very time staking process.  The cards are made out of card stock we had around the house, old gift bags cut up, and then some ribbon, buttons, beads, and stickers that I bought.  I made them the same size as a standard envelope (except the anniversary cards).  There are 27 in all.  Mother's Day, Father's Day, birthdays, and anniversaries are all covered now for the next year from today. 

I really enjoyed doing this.  It felt good to be creative again and made me feel as though perhaps I haven't lost that touch.  I still have to wrap them in tissue paper (Jeff says the buttons and such won't go through the post office machines well so I'm going to try to pad them a bit), stuff them in envelopes, address the envelopes (hopefully no one moves this next year), and put postage one.  Then I need to get all the mailing dates on the envelopes and reminders in my email calendar.  I sure hope they arrive to everyone in one piece.  I'm hoping everyone will find them extra special since they are handmade with love.

Here are some pics of the whole bunch and then I singled out my favorites for you to look at more closely.  I wish the lighting was better.  The flash was too bright, and the natural light wasn't bright enough.  I think they look much better in person as you can really see all the sparkly stuff which makes them seem so much prettier.

Next up is the lunch bags.  I've already got the pieces cut and decorations for the bags picked out.  This week I will work on assembling them. 

Project #1.....check

THE PRESENT IDEA HOLDER

Finished this little baby shortly after my last post. I was just so excited to do it that I hopped to it.  I abandoned the idea of making it out of fabric.  Basically I cut the front off of a cereal box, wrapped with with real wrapping paper, cut little pockets out of the other side of the box, wrapped them, and hot glued them on.  Next I hot glued a little ribbon on, wrote everybody's names on the pockets, made a little holder for the paper out of the same materials, and put some magnets on the back.  Wala!  It was finished in no time and is hanging on our fridge as we speak.  I already have gift ideas in people's pockets.  This Christmas is going to be the easiest Christmas ever to shop for.

New ideas

I've always thought as an adult I am not nearly as creative as I used to be as a child.  Then sometimes the creativity just flows.  This past week has been one of those times.  Here's a couple ideas I have come up to be crafty and have fun.

Idea #1:  I get the biggest satisfaction out of packing sack lunches for the family when we're on the go.  It's fun trying to figure out ways to fit all four food groups into a sack lunch and then pack them and put everyone's names on the bag.  Of course not everyone likes the same things, so each bag is different.  I feel like June Cleaver when I do things like this.  One day it dawned on me that we should have our own personalized, reusable lunch sacks just to save on waste and make things a little more fun.  Thus, a new sewing project has begun.  I also want to make reusable sandwhich wraps and snack bags to stuff them with.  I love doing anything that is considered going green and cuts down on waste.  I am using these two tutorials: 

http://sewing.about.com/od/freeprojects/ss/lunchsack.htm
http://www.greenphonebooth.com/2009/12/how-to-make-reusable-sandwich-wrapsnack.html

Idea #2  Do you ever think of things that you'd like, and then when someone asks you what you want for your birthday or Christmas, you can't remember what it is?  Or....someone tells you something they'd like to have some day, and then you can't remember what it is when their birthday or Christmas rolls around?  Or.....you think of a good gift idea for someone, and then when their birthday....you get my drift.  I want to make big present that I can hang on a closet door, maybe made of fabric.  It will have pockets for each family member attached to it.  When someone thinks of something or hears an idea, they write it down and put it in the pocket for the appropriate family member.  Come birthdays or Christmas time, you take out the ideas and go shopping.  Of course, there is a certain trust factor involved here.  You can't ever take ideas out of your own pocket, or you might know what someone else has been thinking of getting you. You can, however, add ideas to your own pocket.

Idea #3 I am AWFUL at remembering birthdays or getting cards out on time.  Jeff has requested I get better at this. I wish I was better at this; it bothers me that I'm not.  Since this is so difficult for me, I decided maybe Kadyn and I should sit down one day and make a cards for everyone's birthdays all in the same day.  Then mark the date on the outside of the envelope as to when it should be sent and put postage on it.  Store them in a container organized by month, set a reminder for each birthday in my email account, and then the only thing I have to do for the entire year is walk it to the mail box on the appropriate date.

Idea #4  This one really isn't my idea, but something I want to do.  I have seen those easy to make tutorials for crayon pouches and never seen a need for one until recently.  Those tiny cardboard boxes that the crayons come in start looking pretty beat up after being carried around in the diaper bag for awhile.  Therefore, I may be making one of those in my near future. 

Anyhow, my plate is beginning to fill up with crafty ideas for the summer.  I'm so excited to be getting back into the swing of things in this department.  It has been awhile since I have been able to devote much time to it.  Brennan has been very demanding with all the sickness, teething issues, and ear infections (which she has again we just found out, grrrr).  However, she is either getting better at dealing with the pain, or just all around not noticing it much because she seems better at entertaining herself and less clingy.  Therefore, this Mama can feed her own soul for a little while.  I'm looking forward to it!

Family trip June 2010

For the record, part of our trip was visiting the wonderful Madgwick family.  I totally forgot to snap pics of our visit with them which I could just kick myself for, so that isn't part of this slide presentation but know that we had a GREAT time during that visit.

Also, this is my first attempt at making a movie on Picasa.  There were some things I couldn't figure out how to do. I really wanted the music to be much softer during the two videos but couldn't figure out that one.  I would have like to have made some slides show longer than others too.  Not sure that's even possible.  Also, not sure why it is sooo pix-elated.   Anyhoo...it was fun to make none the less. Either click the small black picture or the link.  Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/0nqV_rG1MD-CHB8b42ZmIWg3kzanLpLbq_nO3QjFUoQ?feat=directlink

From Movies

Bon Voyage

 We are leaving tomorrow after daycare on a mini vacation.  It's not the really fun kind where you get to do things you've never done before as a family, but it's away from home which makes it worthy of a "vacation" title to us.  The Bilberrys don't get to travel often, so we are really looking forward to catching up with old friends and family and just getting the heck out of Dodge, if you know what I mean.  Traveling long distances just sounds so much easier if the girls are asleep, so that is part of the reason why we will be leaving around supper time on Friday.  It also helps our pocketbooks to get a full days work in.

Our first stop is Manahattan, KS.  Ahhh good ol' alma mater.  Actually, the real reason we are visiting Manhattan has nothing to do with college.  The radio station that Jeff worked at in college, 101.5 KRock is having a reunion.  He will be starting his day Saturday at a golf tournament while I get to visit a great childhood friend and her family.  Then later that afternoon the reunion festivities will resume at local park which includes a BBQ dinner, inflatables for the kids, and water fun too.  After all that fun, we are back in the van (hopefully with two sleepy girls) to travel another overnighter to Garden City.

Sunday morning we get to have breakfast with the Bilberry side of the family and then will meet up in the afternoon with my side of the family, the Koehns, at the zoo.  We are all excited to meet the newest member of the family, baby Derek.  I think supper at our favorite GC restaurant, El Zarape, will be a must Sunday night, and then Jeff will take the girls back to the Bilberrys to go to bed while I get a girls night out with my mother and sister to watch Sex and the City 2.  I am so stoked!

Monday morning we spend a little more time with the Bilberrys and then it's time to head on back to good ol' Branson, MO.  This will be a daytime travel, so hopefully the girls will be so exhausted from all activities that they will nap through much of it.  I can hope anyways.  If not, I will have the DVD player ready to go, a bag of toys, and a ton of snacks ready. 

It is going to be a whirlwind of a trip.  I wish it could be longer, but I'm thankful that we can at least get out of town, even if it's only for 3 days.  Pics to come!  Have a good weekend everyone!

 Bon Voyage!

Memorial Day weekend 2010

What an awesome weekend!  We kicked off our long weekend with a trip to the movie theater to watch Shrek 4 with the girls.  It was great!  Kadyn loved it and Brennan made it through the entire movie.  She did get a little restless 1/2 way through so I took care of that problem with a small bag of wheat thins. Saturday night Jeff tried to set up our BIG outdoor tent in the basement, but it proved impossible to do since we couldn't nail any stakes into our floor.  Kadyn had to settle for sleeping in her little play tent and Dada slept on the futon by her tent that evening.  I don't think she really cared that much. She was just excited to be spending the night with her Dada.

Sunday we skipped church (Gasp!  I know, but we were on staycation so it didn't seem like a vacation if we did our normal stuff) and headed to the lake to play at moonshine beach.  We made the wimpiest sand castle ever, collected sea shells, and swam.  Kadyn even made a sand angel.  We opted to go the cheap route this year and get Kadyn floaties instead of a swim trainer vest.  She wasn't scared of the water, but she was certainly scared to try to swim without someone hanging onto her.  Last summer I had her swimming in her vest without me and jumping into the pool without help too.  We had a lot of ground to make up. 

First I took her to the deep area to practice.  She just couldn't trust that those floaties were going to keep her afloat.  So then I got the brilliant idea to take her to a more shallow area where she could barely touch in case she got scared. This allowed her to really practice swimming without help but touch the bottom if she freaked out.  It worked like magic.  Within 5 minutes she was wanting to swim out to deeper parts of the lake and see if she could get the fish to nibble on her feet as they were nibbling on mine quite a bit.  It tickled and was a fun experience.

Brennan was nervous in the water and kept saying my name over and over and over and over.  After some time I finally got her comfortable and even got a few smiles out of her.  Overall, she just stood and observed everything.  It was a lot for her to take in.  My goal this summer is to just get the girls really comfortable in the water and enjoying it.  I want Kadyn to be comfortable to enough to swim everywhere without my assistance.  Hopefully by the end of the summer she will even be willing to practice a little without her floaties.

The beach was really nice.  According to the locals it has recently been redone.  It is 4$ per car to enter but you can get a season pass for 30$.  The sand is perfect sand castle sand and there were even people burying themselves in it.  They had a playground, picnic areas with BBQ grills, and there were bathrooms and outdoor showers.  It was roped off so boats couldn't enter.  It really was perfect.  It was almost like being at a real beach by the ocean (only without the oil spills:).

Sunday we spent catching up.  I touched up the walls with paint where the kids had dinged them up with toys.  I cleaned the bathrooms and cleaned and organized the garage too while the girls played in the baby pool and had a water gun fight with Dada. What a great times!  Staycations in our neck of the woods ain't bad at all!

Hope you all had a good holiday too.

Last weekend

Summer like temps, finally!  We decided a hot weekend like last weekend would not go by without being taken advantage of.  Day one, we get out our baby pool.  Brennan was tolerant, but not too please with water squirting up on her.  She pretty much stayed a statue in one spot most of the time, afraid to move. Although, she did move enough to get her bikini top off; she didn't like that the straps kept falling off.  Kadyn LOVED it.  The water slide was a big hit with Kadyn, although she didn't figure it out entirely.  She'd run up to it and then stop and lay down.  It was amusing, but didn't give her the thrill I was hoping for.  I did get her to slide on her knees at least half way a couple times.  What she needs is a big kid to show her how it's done.  It has a weight limit, so Jeff and I can't really show her.  Plus, I'm not sure my lady parts would take a liking to being pounced on in a flying dive, if you know what I mean.  I was tempted though, I must say.  I have very fond memories playing on a banana slide my friend Sarah used to own when we were kids.

I still have plans to buy some water guns and a fun sprinkler to make our summer yard fun complete.  I'd love to find one of those clowns with the hats that shoot off.  Not sure where to look for those.  Yet another thing my friend Sarah had when I was a kid.  I guess her house was the place to be in the summer if you wanted some cool water toys. 

Anyhoo, it was so nice to get outside and pretend it was summer.  I count my blessings that we can actually get outside again.  It was such a long winter.