Christmas-izing and house pillows

Phew, it has been crazy around here!  We hosted Thanksgiving and it also happened to be this little man's 4th birthday:)

And this little one's first Thanksgiving...

Getting some loving from Great Grandma:)

It went great and it was awesome to be able to host.  Big thanks to my loving family that traveled several hours to be here and celebrate with us.  You made one little man and his Mama very happy:)

You can bet the next day was mission: Take down fall and Christmas-ize.  Which translates to Christmas/Holiday vignettes on every.single.surface.

 This is by far my favorite vignette this year. Love everything about it (I normally would not even put that nutcracker out but Sul helps me decorate and that is where he put it and threw a fit when I moved it, so that is here is it staying). 

 Kraft paper runners?  Yes please!

 New stockings because now we get to have 4 of them:) Thanks to my MIL for making the cuffs for the stockings.  You may ask why I didn't hang the stockings on our fireplace.  I was freaked out that the kids would pull them down and pull the stocking holders down on their heads.  So this was my solution.  And no, the dog is not dead.

 Above the hutch in the kitchen.

Moving downstairs...

 Those little chalkboard signs are killing me.  Target dollar section for $3 for the pack of 3 of them this year.  Money well spent.  The Ho Ho Ho banner was from the Target dollar section last year.

Also, I could not stop making little Christmas/Winter moments under/in glass objects...

Like on the dining room table....

And downstairs bathroom shelf...

And upstairs bathroom mirror shelf...

Its a sickness.  I have more opportunities to make more of them but Sul won't let me use any more of his cars or houses from his Christmas village.  Sigh.

I know this post is getting ridiculously long but I also wanted to include the homemade gifts I made for the kids so far.  I try to make at least one homemade gift per year for the kids.  Yeah, I guess I am that mom.  This year, pillow houses!!

OMG, they are killing me!  I was not even going to make one for Sul but he saw the one I was making for Syd and he about flipped that he didn't get one.  I made his with a garage door and felt grass.  The fabric of his roof is from one of his dad's old shirts and the windows are from the cuffs of a different shirt.  The fabric on hers is from some of the fabric I used to make her crib skirt.  The upper left window has a lace curtain:)  I still need to stuff them a bit more and sew up the bottoms.  I will probably also add a pocket on the backs, just for fun.

Here are the backs...

I could make these pillows all day.  Too fun!

Craftshop

Hey all!!  I am sure you are all in Christmas mode and are not even thinking about January.  And I am with you on that but January 2015 is kind a big deal for our baby, Craftshop.  Our very first Craftshop will take place on Saturday, January 17th at 1 pm!!

Kaiti and I are pretty exciting.  And taking every opportunity to escape our children for a few hours conduct important business meetings about all things Craftshop to try to make this first session super successful.

We have been gathering materials, perfecting our methods and working out the logistics.

And in just 2 short weeks, we are opening the sign up for our first Craftshop!  So here is how it will work:

Go to our website http://craftshop2.weebly.com.

Go to the contact page and fill out an RSVP form and hit submit.

The first 10 people to sign up will be contacted with further info and an invoice via email.

Sign up will start at 6 am.  

We have some fun stuff planned and can't wait to see who wants to take part in our first Craftshop!!

4

Dear Sullivan,

Hey Bud.  Holy cow, can you believe we made it to 4?  At this very second 4 years ago, I was in the middle of a 27 hour labor.  I could not wait to see you and meet you.



See??  Super excited!!

Little did I know I would still need to wait another 18 hours!  But its ok.  Because look what I was rewarded with....



My little mister.  All mine.

And what a guy you have grown into...

Living life to the fullest.  Every hour of every day!  Questioning everything there is to question and then circling back around to re-question and make sure my answer is still the same.  Exhausting, I tell you!  Reading books and watching movies with you are quite the chore:)

Right now, you are in to helping me in the kitchen by putting together "gredients" for making dinners and baking, watching movies that are "kind of scary and have a hero that saves the day", being an amazing big brother, teasing ("cheesing") your parents by telling them that you want the "vikings or bears" to win, pointing out when it is foggy and that fog is just low clouds, using the word "butt" as often as possible and jumping (like all the time).

You helped me make your school treat last night.  It was so fun:)  I put dabs of frosting on the brownies and you placed the M&Ms on them to make them look like stop lights.

 Your hands are so big!

Super proud:)  And then you informed me that you do not like M&Ms.

Anyway, keep being you.  Keep learning new things that blow your mind.  Keep catching me of guard.  Keep asking questions.  Keep jumping.  Keep growing.

Love you with all my heart.

Mama

Christmas Crafting

Now that we have had snow that stuck around for more than 24 hours, it is taking every ounce of will power not to rip down all fall decor and get my Christmas decorations up.  Why not do it, you ask??  I would but I am hosting Thanksgiving here AND it happens to be my boy's 4th birthday that day so I would like to keep up the fall decor and add a little fun details for what Sully tells me will be his "race car birthday."

So in lieu of Christmasizing the entire house right now, I have settled for a few Christmas crafts to get us ready for my favorite holiday.

And I recruited my eager little guy to join me.  He was all for it:)

I had picked up some holiday paper a few weeks ago and knew I wanted to do something fun with it.

When you don't know what to do, make bunting banners.  I held the paper and while he cut.  Then I strung some yarn and had him lay out his pattern.

Surprisingly, he did not care about my suggestion not to have two of the same colored triangles next to each other.  I have a lot to teach him yet.

After he went to bed, I glued the triangles in place and they dried overnight.  Yes, I left the pattern he designed even though I completely disagreed with his placements.

This morning, we decorated his door.

The sign is from the Target dollar bins.  We taped the banner up with washi tape (also from the dollar bins at Target).

(I am not sure why but he now equates Santa only coming if doors are decorated. I told him that simply was not true.  He is still dubious.)

Next up, converting this standard Christmas tree candy jar into something for my mantle decor.

You have all seen these.  Your grandma probably has like 6 of them in her basement.  I picked this one up at an Agrace Thrift Store in Janesville a few months ago.  I never intended on using it for candy and still don't.  However, I do love the shape and lines.  And I am totally into gold decor right now so it was a no-brainer, it was getting painted gold.

I wanted to keep the glossiness and smoothness of the glass, so I painted the inside.  I just used some gold craft paint I had laying around.

Sully also had to help with this project so he squirted the paint in the tree base and we used a foam brush to swirl it around.  We used a generous amount of paint because I am lazy and only wanted to paint this once, not several thin coats.

I let it dry for about 5 hours and here it is.

Its perfect:)

While this was drying and the baby was still napping, I strung up some twine in the living room and we went to attaching some bobbers to it.  I was way easier for him to attach them upside down so the ones I put on were right side up and his were upside down.  I don't have an action pic of this process but here is our bobber garland, just waiting to be decked.

Its only T minus 10 days, 3 hours, 21 minutes and 6 seconds until it will start looking more like Christmas around here.

New venture....

It all started when one of my best buds, Kaiti, texted me about an idea.  It was juggled in among texts about motherhood, work and the daily grind.  It went something like, "hey we should do this.  We could totally do this."  And ever since, I have been completely obsessed with making this work.

But what the heck is this, you ask?

Oh just a little something we named Craftshop.  Craftshop is craft workshops in which we, Kaiti and myself, lead a group in completing 3 craft projects, two of which will be named and one will be a surprise.

I quickly commissioned my cousin to make us a logo.  Because of course we needed a logo.  It only took a few days and here is what we decided on:

Then, we quickly got to work on the website.  http://craftshop2.weebly.com/

This website will give you all the details you need to know, like when, where, what, how much.

Now I am so excited to finally share it here!

I get lots of comments about my projects.  "How do you know how to do that?"  "Can you come to my house and do this?"  "You should have me over for craft class."  Well, here you go:)

Craftshop was born just for all you want-to-be-crafters-but-just-can't-quite-make-it-happen-on-your-own kind of people.  Or I-love-crafting-and-projects-but-no-one-else-shares-my-interest kind of people.  And even those I-don't-care-what-we-do-just-give-me-an-excuse-to-get-me-out-of-the-house-away-from-my-kids-for-a-few-hours kind of people.

So far, we have two session dates decided upon.  Along with the projects for the first session. 

Hope you can join us for some crafty fun!  Because we are cool, and I know you want to come craft with us. Here we go:)

Our Fall in Photos

Sorry I have not been posting much lately.  I assure you, we have been enjoying this amazing fall.  Living it to the fullest.  Here is what we have been up to, our Fall in Photos:

Playing in the leaves with cousin Jack.

And Papa Don.

I have no idea how many leaves he ate, but I imagine it was an entire meal worth:) 

The next day, we had our family photos taken by a very talented high school friend, Angie LaRue.









Pretty awesome, right?  I knew they would be fantastic.  Angie is really great, but I already knew that;)

And now all of the following pics will look very amateur....

Last weekend, we went to Boo at the Zoo at the Milwaukee County Zoo.

With Spidey and a lion...

And Alice...

And a bag of Eminems...

And the cutest penguin on the planet.

This weekend was our yearly pumpkin patch visit.  Much to my delight, there was significantly less hatred (crying and whining) for the pumpkin patch this year than years past.

Look at these cool dudes...

Picking out pumpkins with cousins.  Be still my heart.

And finally we got our pumpkins carved right before Halloween... 

 Hope your fall has been just as full:)