Yep, just posting Christmas

So, here are some Christmas morning pictures.  Glad church was still at 1.  9am church is....SO FUN. :)  And probably not awesome on Christmas.  Although I have to say, it was SO NICE to go to church on Christmas.  The whole Christmas season I was trying to pound into (gently of course :) the girls' heads that Christmas was celebrating "Jesus' birthday" and that it was about Jesus really, and that Santa and presents were just an "added bonus" :)  I wish we could go to church every Christmas actually.

Some fun pics:

 The cutest husband in the world.  Filming the event.

 Look at that little cutie!! In princess jammies, of COURSE.

 These are the gifts for us, the kids, and a couple in the back for Jordan's parents.  That's it!  Not too much!

The tree. I added the cool white netting.  These are lame pictures. I didn't do any editing. I'm too busy!

 I think Claire now has more makeup, nail polish, and lip gloss than all 2 year olds around the world COMBINED.  Seriously.  It was bad at Christmas, and then again for her birthday. Sheesh.

 Anya got like 2 things.  It was fun :) Cute jammies too!

So we decided to start doing just one present from Santa and it's always wrapped in red paper.  That'll be the tradition, I guess.

Jordan got "Carmex" for Christmas from Santa.  Yep, that's it.  We figured..."oh yeah, maybe Santa should get something for Mom and Dad too!" Problem is, Claire remembers we bought it for Jordan one day at Target, for Christmas.  Good thing she's still young and "out of it" :)  haha

I also got Jordan a new white shirt and some ties.  Problem is I let Claire help me wrap it.  She promptly told Daddy what it was "It's just a shirt and ties, Dad." He was like "She's worse than YOU honey, and that's hard!"  Sad :)

Anyway, then my parents came out a couple of weeks ago and they gave us the most AWESOME gift!!!  I hope I can do this for my kids one day.  They gave us a book on Temple worship and a check for $100.  This check is to be used to go to dinner, pay for a babysitter, and go to the temple.  They hope we can go to the temple monthly, and use the money when we go.  When it runs out, we can just ask them to send us another $100, and so on until the end of the year.  Sweet, eh???  We wanted to go on Saturday, and I was even thinking "Man, nothing has gotten in the way of the temple!  This is a first!"  Then Claire woke up at 3am Saturday morning and threw up.  Diarrhea the rest of the day.  We cancelled the sitter and have rescheduled...

And here is our door this year.  It as so nice to hear from so many of our friends and family!!

Did some Christmas Crafts this year:

 Jordan was a little upset I hacked a limb off our tree without any "correct pruning" experience lol... but it was for a good cause!

Crappy picture (these are from my phone let's be honest) but did a copycat wreath of one at Target that was so cute, but so pricey.  My awesome friend, Jacqui, got me these pine cones for FREE!!  Spray them silver, add some berries, and they're good to go!

Made new stockings this year.  They turned out SO CUTE!! Just don't look at the mistakes :)

My kitchen ledge :)

I was into a silver and white-only theme this year.  Boring, I know!

OK, well that's it for now!  Onto the next post!

Projects You'll Want To Do TOO :)

#1  Halloween Wreath.

I vowed I would never decorate for any other holiday than Christmas....but it's all gone downhill since doing a little something for Valentine's Day this year...

I think it's pretty much the CUTEST Halloween wreath I've ever seen, if I do say so myself. It turned out even cooler than I expected!  I used some burlap-type material for the cream rosettes, black felt for the black ones, and regular cotton for the purple and orange rosettes.  Then I added some awesome sprays from Hobby Lobby, and ta da!  So fun.

#2 Good-Looking Booster

Then, on PINTEREST (my new favorite place to get awesome craft ideas) I saw a tutorial for this great idea for a cute-looking "booster seat!"  I have to say that some of these "it's so easy" type sewing tutorials lie.  This one doesn't! The hardest part was cutting out the fabric to the correct size.... and it only took me like 25 minutes (most of that cutting the fabric).

Anyway, you use a vinyl tablecloth, make a square cushion out of it, and fill it with polyfill.  The tablecloth was 3.50 at Ross, and the polyfill was 50 cents at a yard sale!  (and I only used half of that, and like 1/4 of the tablecloth).  Anyway, for the tutorial, you'll want to go HERE .  I know what you're thinking:  "Doesn't it slip off?" It doesn't...at least on my chairs it doesn't!  and it's the perfect height for my 2.5 yr. old.  But, seriously ladies, the best part it:  IT'S NOT UGLY LIKE A REAL BOOSTER SEAT!  You can leave it on your chair in the kitchen and it will fit right in with the decor (as long as you get a cute tablecloth :)

And here she is trying it out!

She's cute, but a very wiggly model.  This was the best shot I got haha :)

Anyway, more stuff to come.  I'm soon to be done with my bedroom revamp!

Then, onto Vegas!! And Sydney's Room REVEAL!

I haven't even gotten to the Easter post yet. Yeah, I'm that behind...

Anyway, since we were already most of the way to Vegas, we figured we'd head over there after St. George to visit my sister, Michelle's family.


We just love driving, what can I say??




Especially with these crazies. Let's just say, on the way home, we drove in the middle of the night...

Anyway...

It was the ideal vacation for me, because we totally got our "craft" on! So, a while back (OK, last summer), my Mom and I helped Michelle make this cute queen-sized strip quilt for her daughter, Sydney's room. We had lots of visions of what the room would look like to match the quilt, but hadn't done anything yet...until NOW!

So, we planned on painting the room and then putting some flourishes around Sydney's name in block letters (that was already above her bed on the wall...) So we just had to paint over the pink and brown stripes and go from there! Michelle wanted me to paint the flourishes I painted in Claire's room, so that's where we got the idea. And in keeping it simple, we left the wall behind the bed pink, and did the flourishes in white, modpodged her letters with some turquoise paper, and painted the rest of the room a buttercream color. The end!


Workin'! Michelle looks hot even at work! (which is why there is no picture of me here...)

Gavin, hard at work! (He was actually really happy to be sanding-- but Jordan had him make that face :)

Sydney in her "paint clothes..." an old bathing suit, haha!

Here's the wall once the flourishes were done...just a few touch ups more and need to take some screws out...

And here it is completed!! We couldn't be more proud!

SO ADORABLE, right???

So, we also did a couple of other things:

For example, Claire learned out to make the plastic tiger bite her face..."look, no hands!"

And she also enhanced photos with her signature Chucky!

The kids also got their craft on!!

Um, the birdhouse, not the chair, Monkey.

A little better, but a brush would be nice...

(Ps. So you notice how the birdhouse is this weird blue color? Well, apparently that color is the mixed result of every paint available at the table)

They also got their "cry" on:



But not all at once, fortunately :)

I got my "nose gazing," or should I say, "nose coveting" on...

What a lovely new nose you have, Michellie :)

And then we got out Red Rock on!!

Notice how I wore the most idiotic outfit for hiking? What can I say...I was running out of clothes...






















We will be coming back. I mean, look at these cuties:

Easter Dress

SO, now that I have my new sewing machine, I've been going crazy with sewing projects! I love it!! And I'm getting way better at sewing...to the point that I've finally made some apparel-items I wouldn't mind anyone wearing in public.

Drumroll:

Ta da!!!!!!!!


And there she is showing it off with her signature Chuckie smile!

Now, I have to say that I TOOK these pictures with Jordan's fancy camera. So, basically there were a LOT of out focus pictures. Mainly because I have no idea how to use his camera, and then I had issues taking pictures of a squirmy 2-yr old (go figure, right?)









So I actually made TWO super cute coordinating Easter dresses. But Anya's was off the second church got out, so I only got pictures of Claire. But I'm obsessed with how adorable they turned out, actually. To the point that I even forced...ok...helped...some of my friends make them for their girls for Easter too :) I want to show off and say they were soooo hard, but they're not, let's be honest here :)This is me we're talking about!







Oh, funny about when I was pinning the pattern pieces to the fabric... Claire comes up and says "I do ouchies" and she started jabbing pins into the pattern pieces haha. She was calling the pins "ouchies" because we always say "oh, don't touch those, they're ouchie!" LOL.