Art Caddy

I was getting tired of pens, pencils, markers, etc... being left all over the kids desk so I decided to make a craft caddy for my kids.

I started with a cardboard holder for Cream Soda or Root Beer bottles.

From 2011 Jan caddy craft

I then put duct tape on the bottom to cover all of the holes and to reinforce it a little.

From 2011 Jan caddy craft

In this step I measured all of the sides of the container and cut them out of printed paper. I just used some scrapbooking paper that I had on hand.

From 2011 Jan caddy craft

Here I measured the top part of the container and folded it to fit over the top.

From 2011 Jan caddy craft

In this step I glued all of the sides on to the container.

From 2011 Jan caddy craft

From 2011 Jan caddy craft

Lastly, I put some embellishments on and added my kids names.

From 2011 Jan caddy craft

Here is the final product of both caddies that I made.

From 2011 Jan caddy craft

I am really proud of myself because it seems that I don't take the time to make crafts anymore. A lot of that is because I just don't want to deal with the mess. I think these turned out very cute and my kids love them and actually put things back into them when they are done. That makes me more happy than you could ever believe.

Wild, Wild West Date

I wanted a fun and creative date for our date night this month and so I browsed the net and found an idea on http://loveactually-blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/wild-west-night.html and found an idea for a Wild West Night. I made us a dinner of hamburgers and onion rings. I even got the IBC Rootbeer and put it in a tin with ice on the table. I made a sign saying Wild West Saloon. I even made a shooting range out of water bottles and bought us ammo for the kids Nerf shotguns.

We put the kids in their room with a movie, dinner, and treats and had a great quiet meal and then took turns shooting down our targets. It was a fun low key night and we both had a great time.

January

January is such an interesting month in the desert. It started with being blaketed with the white flakes of snow to having incredibly great spring like weather. Pretty crazy, eh!

January also brings the birthdays of my younger sis (Cor) and my wonderful mom (MOM). I love my family, but am really sad when I can't be around for celebrations like these. The thing is my mom always cooks the favorite meal of whoever is having a birthday. Lucky them, right!

This year January brought us the excruciating task of writing Mackay's 4th grade report on a California Mission. Now this was excruciating because my son does not like to write, so to write 9+ paragraphs on the Santa Barbara Mission was not something that sounded fun to him or me. With much patience, and a lot of time (meaning hours - not one or two but more like 10+ hours) we were able to finish the said report and build the model that he needed to build. Needless to say the hours paid off and all turned out pretty good.

We also decided to plant our garden. Tyler was very excited about this and a great help in getting the planting done. We had a great time. Now lets pray that the seeds actually grow.

January also brought me the opportunity to support two of my friends through their ordeal with breast cancer. My heart, prayers, and love go out with them as the battle this challenge in their life.

I also had the opportunity to go on an adventure with a friend of mine to St. George to visit with a fabulous group of ladies that do writing blogs. It was a lot of fun and I am amazed at the great talent that people have in being able to write great pieces that make you laugh and also cry. It was very entertaining. Needless to say we were also able to do some good shopping and eat at Cafe Rio, I love their pork salad - YUM!

Snow Day and more...

SNOW DAY!
Our lovely snowfriend

Look how pretty that tree looks. It is actually weird seeing our home covered in snow.

We started our week with yes, a snow day. The kids were suppose to go back to school on Monday after a 2 week break for Christmas, but no we got to extend for one more day due to snow. It was great! The snow started falling on Sunday afternoon and apparently snowed all evening4. It was fantastic. For us Ridgecrestites it is rare so we enjoyed it for the day by building a snowman and playing in it for a short time. Then we snuggled and read and also watched a show while folding our laundry.

The rest of the week was back to the real world. I got our Christmas stuff put away and made meals for friends, worked on the kids school yearbook, exercised (trying to get back into running and trying out a little Zumba), read a book, and did the normal run around that moms do.

We decided to purchase a Smart phone as our current cell phone was dying, but didn't want to make a commitment to the $15 extra dollars a month for the service to took it back and got a regular cell phone. Darn it all, I thought it would be fun to be Smart for awhile but at last it is not to be.

Christmas

Christmas morning came early to us. Our kids thought that 4:30 am would be a good time to wake up but we told them to go back to bed until at least 6 am. So they did. I don't think they slept though but at least they stayed in their room after I had already caught Mackay up with the Christmas stuff.

At 6 am the kids came to our room and we talked about why we really celebrate Christmas. We all put our Christmas present to Jesus in a white stocking and then opened one gift in our room. Inside was 2 of our baby Jesus' that we had the kids each place in the manger.

The kids then saw what Santa had brought them and were excited to get Nerf guns and Bakugon Dragons. They also emptied their stalkings that were fun of treats, essential stuff like deodorant and toothbrushes, and an orange.

We then passed out gifts and went from youngest to oldest opening 1 gift at a time until all was open. We thank family for the gifts also. We had a great Christmas and we all fill spoiled with what we have received.

The rest of the day we stayed in our PJ's and played games, played with toys, listened to Christmas Music and just enjoyed a day of relaxation

We can't forget our traditional breakfast of waffles with ice cream (thanks to the Carrick's). It was so good. One of my kids favorite, but we only have it once a year.

We hope all had a Merry Christmas like we did!

Christmas PJ's

Tradition in our family is the opening of one gift which consists of Pajamas bought and given as a gift from Grandma Hill. My mom did the same for us growing up but often made our PJ's then. The kids loved their dinosaur (Tyler) and Scooby Doo (Mackay) PJ's. If we would have been in Utah we would have gone to the Hill Family Christmas Party with a pinata and the kids would have opened their pajamas with all the cousins and we would take a group picture with them. I miss that party.

Before opening our gifts we did go and look at Christmas lights (our annual Christmas Eve tradition) and we read the Luke 1-2 and the chapter in Matthew about the Wise Men. We also talked of Christmas' past.

Before that we made our traditional egg rolls for Christmas Eve dinner.

It was a busy day, but we had so much fun spending time together as a family.

Oh I think we even snuck in a game of Phase 10, or maybe that we the night before?

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we started our day with a brunch and some friends house. It was fun to socialize with all who were there. After we headed for the hill's (gift to Justin) to go for a short hike and play in the snow. We hiked part way up Owen's to some Petroglyphs. They were really neat to see. We took our sled with us so we did a little sledding, but our kids our pretty wimpy when it comes to cold so they didn't want to do that for very long. All in all it was an enjoyable time.