Holy Lack of Internets Batman!

Hey everyone! First all, Merry Christmas! Secondly, I'm sorry I've not been posting this month! My internet has been down with various issuses and I havent had access to the net or anything else. I'm only on now because I'm at my parents house for Christmas. I'll be back as soon as I can be! If there are any questions, comments, etc. I'll try to be back as soon as I can be! Take care everyone!

25 Days of Christmas

Since I'm really feeling the holiday spirit this year I want to really get my girls into it also. Along with our yummy advent I really want to teach them about the traditions and all the great lessons of the season. I've come up with a list of things I'd love to do each day. Three of our days are birthdays so they were easy enough! These probably wont be in order since some of these will have to be done when they can be.

1. Decorate the Christmas Tree
2. Put up lights outside
3. Listen to Christmas Music
4. Watch a Christmas Story
   
5. Make Christmas Cards
6. Take Christmas Pictures
7. Attend Neveah's party
8. Read The Night Before Christmas
9. Make homemade playdoh snowmen
10. Make Gingerbread houses
11. Watch a Christmas Carol
    
12. Go look at Christmas Lights
13. Attend Meghan's party
14. Write Santa letters
15. Go visit Santa @ the Mall
16. Watch Polar Express
    
17. Play Christmas Bingo
18. Go to Grandmas for Christmas Jammies
19. Christmas with Papaw's side of the family
20. Daddy's Birthday
    
21. Watch Prancer
22. Read Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer
23. Color Christmas Pages
24. Attend Kaleigh's party
25. Its Christmas!!!!
    

I can't wait to do these things and maybe more! Can you believe we have 3 birthday's in the family in December, plus Lily's little friends birthday?! Busy Busy Busy! January has almost as many birthdays but not quite!

Santa's Reindeer Games Freebie

Download Santa's Reindeer Games Here

Here it is! My first Christmas kit for this year. Inspired by T'was the Night Before Christmas and all the reindeer's names. Kit is 300dpi. There are 9 papers and 33 Elements. There will be a coordinating kit released in the upcoming days. Its like going from the North Pole to Home! If you download please leave a comment, or better yet a layout using my kit! That's all I ask :)

Advent Calendars

Last year, My mom, my sister, and I recreated our own advent calendars for our kids to mimic a design my mom made for us to use as an advent calender for literally as long as I can remember. Our old ones were a snowman, a Santa, and a Christmas tree. Each year my brother, sister and I fought over which ones we got to use.

To prevent this, when we made them last year we decided on ginger-breads that were pretty much identical. These are super easy to make. I made them and I can't sew to save my life!
These work best with candy canes or candy that you can tie a bow around the wrapper. My mom says we used to make it especially hard for her since none of us really liked candy canes or peppermints. Luckily for me, my kids love them! hehe They also make tons of flavored candy canes that they didn't use to.

I'm sure you could find small toys to do it with if you didn't want to use candy. But that will be more expensive.

Here is how we made ours!

Materials:

• Long piece of felt in any color you choose. Ours is 30" long and 3.5" wide
• 25 12" pieces of a thin yarn. It needs to be long so you can tie on the candy and still tie a bow!
  
• Light Brown felt
  
• White thread
• a needle
• Pipe cleaners
• large jingle bell
• Hot Glue
  

We started with our ginger-breads. We cut out the shape of our gingerbread from light brown felt. Each gingerbread you make will need two per advent. We put them together and started doing a blanket stitch around the edge. You could easily do a basic stitch for this, we just thought the blanket stitch looked really nice! When we had him sewn half way we inserted a pipe cleaner stick man into our gingerbread. This made it so our gingerbread can move his arms legs and even bow his head if the kids so choose! Our ginger-breads hold red and white pipe cleaner candy canes. Then we finished sewing up the gingerbread. Adding small knots for the eyes and button (you could add real buttons that would be cute!!) and a small mouth. Since my sister and I have girls we also added bows to the ginger-breads heads with red string to match our felt.

Next we cut a 30" long 3.5" wide piece of red felt. Any color you want would work though! It looks best if the felt is the same width as your gingerbread mans waist, so keep that in mind! Next we hot glued our gingerbread girls to the top of red felt, positioning it just above its armpits, down to its waist so the legs still move freely of the felt. Our felt is tapered at the end. We like how it left the nice point to hang the bell from.

Nearly done! this next part took a while. Not too bad but a tad repeatative for someone who lacks patience like me hehe. Spacing them about 1" apart sew the yarn pieces on one at a time. Tie a knot before the bow so they wont come off when they kids are removing candy (boy I hope that made sense!)

When you have 24 tie on the jingle bell with the remaining piece of yarn.

To hang them we made rings out of pipe cleaners and sewed them on the back of the ginger-bread person. Make sure this is re-enforced well cause they get HEAVY once candy is on them.

Tie on the candy and hang and hang on December 1st and enjoy this yummy way to count down to Christmas!

Final Tip: Help small kids untie the bows if you use wrapped candy. Getting the knot tied around a small piece of plastic is sometimes tedious work!

If you have any questions, feel free to email me or comment and I'll do my very best to answer them!

Busy and Sickly Week!

I have been sick for the past week or two. Its driving me up the wall. It just wont go away! I cant shake it off! Any enviroment change sets off the coughing. Which makes Thanksgiving with 14 different smokers in the house a coughtastic event! It was really fun and yummy though. As long as my babies (yes this includes the husband! ;) ) don't get sick, then I'll put up with being sick myself!

While everyone is out shopping today I'm sitting here at home with my kiddos planning the fun for the next couple weeks! 25 days of Christmas and stuff to do on those 25 days! Can you believe 3 of those things will be going to peoples birthday parties! In the week before Christmas our family (and extended family) has not 1, not 2, but 3 birthdays? Leads to quite a hectic time. Especially for my sister who has two children birthdays and Christmas in December to stress about! I'd be a basket case!

Lily got invited to her first birthday party recently. Its in December too. She cant wait! In the next day or two I thought I would let Lily help me make matching friendship bracelets with my beads on hand (I've got tons). What little girl doesn't love jewelry?

Off to finish making the advent list!

OH! How do you like the new Christmas layout? Some pieces are from my upcoming coordinating scrapbook kits! Eight Tiny Reindeer & Night Before Christmas :)

Love Bird Bedroom Inspirations

I have to decorate my bedroom. Its never ever been officially done. I've finally figured out what I want to do with it! (About time!) I want it pretty relaxing. We spend a majority of the time in here since both our computers are in here too. I wanted it kinda cutesy... My hubby may pretend to care... but I could paint the room bright pink and he wouldn't care. I was tempted to do chocolate and pink just cause I could. But I think my new plan is much better.

As of right now these are the colors (which may vary according to monitor and color settings)


The lovely yellow "Bumblebee" will be on the ceiling. This should help lighten the room from the darker colors.

The lighter "Blue Paradise" will be on the walls that have the windows and the door. The yummy "Mesquite Tan" is the trim (and tree!) color. I love the color of chocolate and blues (and pinks and mint for that matter!)

"Blue Coast" will be on the wall opposite the double windows. I think this will make all the colors pop and I hope they will work well together in the space.

If I add hearts to my lil bird accents I plan to do I'll probably do them in white.

Here is an inspiration board of other bird decor I'd like to imitate myself
.

The bed is kinda a "in my wildest dreams" thing! hehe I cant wait to do it all, but it will have to wait til after Christmas I'm sure!

The Host is becoming a Movie!

I'm pretty sure I've never mentioned on here how much I love Twilight Saga. After I finished it I thought my husband was gonna kill me cause I couldnt stop talking about it and surfing the interwebs, blogs, and forums for more Twihards ;)

A couple weeks after my husband started his new job and was working 18 hours a day setting up the store he bought me The Host to read since I love Stephenie Meyer. He also wrote a lil love note inside <3

The book is about Wanderer (aka Wanda) who is an invader of earth. Her kind take over peoples bodies. The body Wanda is given is the body of Melanie. Most of Wandas kind never have resistance from their hosts, but Melanie will not give up willingly. Wanda and Melanie have to learn to get along as two minds in one body. As Melanie shows Wanda thoughts of her beloved Jared, rather then let Wanda know any of the information she seeks, Wanda too begins to have strong feelings for Jared.

I didnt really see how they could make a movie since alot of talk goes on in Wanda's errrrr Melanies... head. But I'm glad to see its going to be done! It should be really interesting!

Stephenie Meyer talked about it more on her official site.

Oh, and New Moon comes out in 4 days 22 hours!!! Squeeeeeee!

Where the Wild Things Are

Last night I let the girls stay up late past their bedtime. All for a good cause! Well free movie tickets and a chance to do something they rarely (read: virtually never) get to do. Go to the movies! My sweet sister stood out in the glod and wind to aquire these free tickets. So together with our Mom, my sister, my 11 (almost 12!) year old niece, and my two girls, I went to see "Where the Wild Things Are". I didnt go there with high expectations of the movie. I cant recall what the book says. But I knew my kids would get into it. Lily especially likes weird movies.

At 2, Lily saw the hubby watching Alien Vs Predator. She watched it and felt bad when the "Monster" (Predator) got hurt. She declared "Oh no! Poor Monster!" and for weeks thats what she begged to watch. Mandy probably wouldnt give that movie a second glance.

When we got into the theater I was glad to see 3 people total there. Lily will sit for a long time and just watch a movie. Mandy will sit and watch about half a movie b4 she feels the need to go play. She hasnt been to the movie since she was 6 months old and we saw Narnia at the local $1 theater. I packed snacks and Yoo-hoo's (chocolate milk like drink). We also got popcorn at the theater.

I must say. Mandy did REALLY EXTREMELY well for a 3 year old up past her bedtime, sitting still (which is very very hard for this mover and shaker!) She sat for a majority of the time, only getting up for better popcorn access. She hardly talked at all (another shocker for this jabber jaws!) Lily talked quite a bit but did good also.

The movie for them was good. They like it. I had a really hard time getting into it. I didnt like the bad tempered main characters. So when you are supposed to sympathize with them, I really didnt care WHAT happened to them. Not the worst movie I've seen (Funny Games wins that award), but I dont care if I never see it again. As long as my girls had fun though, thats all I care about. That and time with my mom, sister, niece and daughters as just us girls was good in and of itself :)

Turkey Cheeseball

I love cheeseballs! They are so yummy and can be quite cute! I've now found a snowman and a turkey! I'm gonna try to make themed cheeseballs for every holiday! lol Here is the adorable Turkey Cheeseball! It comes from Allinoneautomotive.com and was also featured on Tipjunkie.

Ingredients:

• 2 packages (8 ounces each) reduced-fat cream cheese
• 6 ounces deli smoked turkey, finely chopped
• 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped onion
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 
  
• DECORATIONS:
• 
  
• 3 packages (3 ounces each) cream cheese, softened
• 2 tablespoons milk
• Brown, orange and yellow paste food coloring
• 6 large oval crackers
• 1 large sweet red pepper
• 1 small yellow summer squash
• 1 cup pecan halves
• Assorted crackers

Directions:

In a small mixing bowl, beat the first six ingredients until combined. Shape into a ball; wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm.
In a small mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and milk until smooth. Divide among four small bowls. With food coloring, tint one bowl brown, one dark orange and one light orange (using yellow and orange); leave one bowl plain. Transfer each mixture to a heavy-duty resealable plastic bag; cut a small hole in a corner of each bag.
For turkey tail feathers, decorate the top halves of large oval crackers with tinted cream cheese.
Using the red pepper, form the turkey head, neck and snood. For beak, cut a small triangle from summer squash; attach with cream cheese. Add eyes, using brown and plain cream cheese. Insert pecan halves and decorated crackers into cheese ball. Serve with assorted crackers. Yield: 1 cheese ball (3 cups).

Autumn Digiscrap Freebie

Well here it is! I hope you like it! I've spent the past several days trying to make unique (and cute!) elements for a simple fall mini kit! I've really had fun making it, and I hope you enjoy it! There are 4 papers, 4 raffia wraps, 4 straight ribbons, 4 leaves,a scarecrow, a turkey, and an acorn.

Its personal use only. Please dont give out the link, if you want to share it please refer them to here so that they may enjoy Autumn Splendor too! If you use it to make a blog header or background please send me a link so I can see it in action!! Also if you use any elements please please please send me a layout so I can post it here. If I get a few layouts I'll probably make Kit addons or freebies exclusively for people who send me their layouts.

Anyway onto the kit! May I present: Autumn Splendor by Night Owl Notions!

Download Autumn Splendor Here!

Upcoming Freebie!

If you have been wondering what I'm up to, and if you like digital scrapbooking, I think you are really going to like what I have coming up! I'm been fiddling with making my own scrapbook kits for about a year now. And I'm digging up some old favorites, redoing others, and making new things in a freebie kit coming up soon! Think Fall :D

I'm also working on a christmas one too! Almost done with the Fall kit now, I'll post a sneak preview soon! Be on the lookout! Also if you can think of anything perticular you would like to see in my fall kit let me know in the next day or so and I'll try my hand at making it! Same goes for the Christmas Kit :)

Squeeee! I won!!!

WHOO HOOOOOO! I won! I won! I won! I won! I've been so jealous of my friends and my mom winning all these blog giveaways. Well, I won!!! Yipee! I won the My little pony dvd giveaway from Free Sample Freak I feel like I won the lottery :P
One Christmas gift down, lots to go! My girls will love it! What a great day!

Our Halloween Pics!

It rained all night pretty much so we didnt get any pics of trick or treating. My Husband, my sister, and I couldnt remember a time it rained on Halloween EVER. First for everything I guess! Here are the pics taken on Halloween of my lil Bats!



Lily-Bat


Mandy-Bat


Here is how I did their hair for their costumes. Because of the rainy-ness I wanted a style that would keep it in place and not look messy by the end of all our adventures. This is also my favorite style for Mandy because of her short hair.

Note to Self: Halloween Ideas for Next Year

This post is all about ideas for next Halloween. Stuff I didnt get to do this year. Its pretty much just gonna be a list of stuff with small details.

Food Ideas

• Mummy Bagels
• Mummy Dogs
• Pumpkin Bread Bowls
• Graveyard Dirt Cake
• Gourmet Pumpkin Seeds
• Veggie Skeleton and Dip
• Itty Bitty Caramel (Candy) Apples
• Mummy Suckers
• Spider Web Pizzas
• Candy Corn Cupcakes
  

Decor & Party Ideas

• Crepe paper and bat cut outs over windows
• Potion and Poison Bottles
• Wax Fall Leaves Decor (LOVE this one!)
• Halloween Ornaments
  
• Apple Votives
• Pumpkin Drink Cooler
• Signs "Come in and Sit for a Spell" Kitchen Sign with "spooky" foods
• Hang Spider rings from Fishing line
  
• Pumpkin Treat Bags
• Punched Can Lanterns
  

Let the Festivites Begin!

Last night was a blast! The girls loved making their own Mummy Dogs and scooping out the guts of their pumpkins. We helped them carve. Lily chose a cat, Mandy chose a bat, I went with a silly jack o latern face that was simple but cute cause my hand was hurting by the time it came to my pumpkin. Shane picked a headless horseman. They all turned out great! And Shane's choice picked out our movie for the night too. We ended up watching Legend of Sleepy Hallow (kids version) I may have gotten to comfy and I may have dozed a little during it. Then it was bed time for the kiddos and Shane and I watched Sleepy Hallow (the Johnny Depp one). I may have fallen asleep 15 minutes in. I must of been tired from all the fun!

Tonight we had a pretty big night. Lily had a fall festival at her school. We did everything, the duck pond, the giant inflatable slide, the jump house, face painting, fake tattoos, bowling, ring toss, cake walk,visited the book fair, met "Sparky" the firefighter dog, and sand art!

The face painters were kinda lame. Lily wanted bats. Lady couldnt do bats (come on! not that hard! get it some what like a bat and she will be happy!) She tried to talk Lily into a dog. Lily didnt want a dog. She suggested a butterfly (yep she can do butterflies not bats...) Lily didnt want that either. But Mandy did. Lady did HALF a buttefly put a couple swirls on the otherside of her face and called it done. I was annoyed it was half a butterfly.... but I didnt say anything to Mandy cause she was happy, so I was happy. Lily then decided she wanted to be a cat. Hers was complete and cute and Lily was happy. Later they got fake tattoos of a butterfly and a cat to match their facepaint.

We did the cake walk and the girls competed with 5 other contestants. Mandy won the first one. She was sooooo proud. She picked out a carrot cake. (and it smelled soooooo good) Then Lily started doing it again and we didnt have the heart to stop her, so we gave more tickets to let her play another round. She won! She picked out a cookie cake. Shane thought we should of taken them to get lottery tickets since they were both so lucky! hehe

Between the sugar cookies we have been making, the two cakes won at the cake walk, the two pies Shane walked in with yesterday, the cotton candy, the caramel apples and all the candy we are gonna get tomorrow trick or treating we are gonna be on sugar highs til new years just from this week! I may have to send some of it off to other peoples houses and make them deal with it! muahahahahaha!

By the time we got to the book fair the girls were exhausted. Mandy laid down in the floor. When Shane took a couple steps Mandy would get up and move with him then lay down next to him. Lily wanted all the non book stuff there or books that she had no hope of reading for a couple more years. I asked her to start off by picking a book she could read. She started to whine and cry saying she could read any of it. Even putting on a show about how she couldnt read a book I handed her that I know she can read. *Sigh* ahhh 6 year olds.

We came home and watched Hocus Pocus and the girls headed off to bed. I hope they sleep good cause tomorrow is gonna be another long fun filled day!

Halloween Family Night

Busy weekend coming up! Since we aren't going to be home tomorrow and Saturday, I thought tonight we could have a family night tonight instead. We will be making our mummy dogs, baking ghost cookies, and then carving pumpkins. After that we are gonna bake the seeds. YUM!

Then settle down and watch a movie or two. I'm still trying to decide what movies to watch. I'll probably take a vote : P Here's some of my options:

1) The Adventures of Ichabod Crane (The Legend of Sleepy Hallow)
2) Ernest Scared Stupid
3) HalloweenTown
4) Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie
5) Haunted Mansion
6) Corpse Bride
7) Hocus Pocus (My favorite!!!)
8) Its the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown
9) Nightmare before Christmas
10) Addams Family

Ack! Decisions, Decisions! What is your favorite Halloween movie?

Softlips Giveaway

Brandie over at Free Sample Freak is having this great giveaway!

Softlips chapstick is without a doubt my absolute favorite chapstick. It goes on smooth and light. It feels great and doesn't get sticky like some other chapsticks can.

Softlips Limited Edition Winter flavors with SPF 20 come in 4 flavors I cant wait to try:
Winter Mint, Sugar Cookie, Sugar & Spice, and Sugar Plum Berry

Read more: http://freesamplefreak.com/#ixzz0VEqjRCKp

Halloween Flashbacks!

Around here we love Halloween! Both (yep both) my parents were born on Halloween and when we lived in Arizona my dad would dress up in this black robe put on a skeleton mask and have a sword in his gloved hands. He would sit so very still and after the kids got their candy he would start following them down our long darkish pathway to the driveway. I could almost trick or treat in my own driveway since kids seemed to drop stuff as they ran away sometimes. It was wonderful!

Our town was small but Trick or Treating was amazing. We knew all the short cuts and could get from neighborhood to neighborhood easily (though those short cuts were kinda scary late at night!)

Now living in the bible belt, Halloween is pretty weak (and very disappointing to a person who loves Halloween like me!) We usually hit the mall to see all the costumes then hit one suburb til the girls dont want anymore candy (or we run out of houses whichever comes first) My family and My sisters family always end up at my parents house to celebrate. One year Shane was talking and holding the gorgeous fall cake I picked out for their birthday and let it slip and it hit their wall, staining it red and orange. We still tease him about it.

Anyway, you know I love costumes and I wanted to share the costumes my girls have worn in the past years! And since this is my blog I'm going to!

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

I can't wait to be able to add this years!

Halloween Dinner- Mummy Dogs

I'll be the first to admit that I cant cook. If it requires more then 5 steps to make I cant do it... it will end up ugly, inedible, or charcoal. Thank you inventor of the microwave! You are my hero! My kids and I would have starved to death by now without our trusty microwave!

Thankfully though, I'm one smart cookie and I married a man that can cook and cook well. I'm telling ya, I caught a good one and he's never getting away! lol

However "Mummy Dogs" are something even I can make! Ever heard of "Pigs in a blanket"? My mom used to make them a lot when I was growing up and my girls love them too. So when I saw this idea several times this year I knew I had to make them myself!

Its easy peasy! Here is what you need:
1 tube of crescent rolls will make about 10 hot dog mummies.

Hot dogs
Crescent Rolls
Ketchup or Mustard (Mandy prefers Ketchup, Lily prefers the Mustard)
Cheese (optional)

If you are going to add cheese you can start off by slicing the hot dog. DO NOT CUT IN HALF! just a small slice down the middle will do. Stuff it with cheese. It doesn't have to be pretty, you wont see this when we get done!

Unroll your crescent rolls and separate at the separate at perforations, creating 4 rectangles. Press remaining perforations to seal them so they don't separate into triangles instead of rectangles. Cut 10 strips from the dough. Wrap 4 pieces of dough around each hot dog to look like "bandages," stretching dough slightly to get more coverage from the dough. At one end of the hot dog leave a small spot uncovered for the face.

Bake 13 to 16 minutes at 375°F. When they are done use the ketchup or mustard to do two dots for eyes in the space you left uncovered. You can do a mouth too if you wish!

Then Eat and enjoy! I'm going to be making these before we head out for our Trick or Treating so I can get the girls to eat while thoughts of costumes and trick or treating fill their heads with excitement!

Go here for a free printable coupon for $1.00 off Pillsbury Crescent dough, along with a picture of the some mummy dogs and other yummy things made with Crescent rolls.

Blogger went down

Blogger went down early this morning when I was working on changing my layout. Talk about frustrating! Right in the middle of testing some coding and *BOOM* error! Finally I was able to finish my coding for this morning (gonna try more later tonight) after an hour and a half.

I know the new layout isnt very "fall like" but I just couldnt resist as I played around with the colors from my digital scrapbooking kit I made for Easter 2008. I love the colors together. I may make a fall version too... maybe ;) Until then I hope you like the new(est) layout and that it isnt too bright/wild/fugly for you!

Halloween Costumes

The other day we went costume shopping for Halloween. Before we left Lily said she wanted to be a snake. Mandy wanted to be a crocodile. Way to make it easy on your parents, girls!! Shane found the cute bat costume. Mandy loves it! Wings and new black boots?! She's in heaven! Lily was revolted. At first. She had decided she wanted to be a zombie while we were gone.

I asked her, "Lily, do you even know what a zombie is?!" She told me "They have green skin, black hair and walks like this." *Does the zombie/frankenstein walk* "See Mom! I know what a Zombie is!" We decided that if she was still insistant on hating the bat we would take it back in the morning. While putting her on the bus the next morning she told me she was happy with being a bat. Success!!

Im hoping to make the girls matching bat necklaces in the next day or two for them to wear with their costumes. Hopefully I can borrow a camera once they are made and post pics of them here.

My Little Pony: Twinkle Wish Adventure Giveaway

Free Sample Freak has a great giveaway for a My Little Pony: Twinkle Wish Adventure DvD! MLP is a classic toy and have been a favorite toy and movies as far back as I can remember. Head on over to Free Sample Freak and join in the giveaway for your chance to win!

7 years!

Yesterday, my husband and I celebrated 7 happy years of marriage! It's hard to believe its been this long already, and I can't wait to spend more years with him <3.Sweetest Day. Some people believe that it was a holiday made by the candy companies to make money.I dont care if it is, its the thought behind it that counts, hehe. Once known as a day to spread love and cheer to the unfortunate, this popular holiday in the northern U.S. is now known as a day to show affection to the loved ones in your life. We thought this would be the perfect day to get married. It fell on October 19th that year.

Our wedding was simple but beautiful. Our colors were burgundy and hunter green. We were both 18. Most people think young marriages don't work. I think so far we are debunking that misconception pretty thoroughly. So heres to the first day of our 7 years of marriage. I'm lucky to be his wife!





*Apparently I don't have many of our wedding pics on my computer right now and a scanner that refuses to work with Vista keeps me from posting more right now :(

Bucket List

In 2007, the movie "The Bucket List" came out. It stars Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. The movie is about Corporate billionaire Edward Cole and working class mechanic Carter Chambers have nothing in common except for their terminal illnesses. While sharing a hospital room together, they decide to leave it and do all the things they have ever wanted to do before they die according to their bucket list. In the process, both of them heal each other, become unlikely friends, and ultimately find the joy in life.

Being someone who likes to make lists I could not resist making my own "Bucket List". I find all of them intriguing. To me it allows a glimpse into the people who write them, and in my opinion everyone should have a bucket list! Course you want to actually DO stuff on your bucket list too! My own personal bucket list has things that range from easy and cheap, such as #40. Make Candy Apples to ones that are gonna be quite expensive and may take many many years before I get the chance to cross it off my list such as #5. Take a long road trip. They are listed as I thought of them. Not in order of importance. When I think of something its added to the list.

Some more things on my list are:

2. Have a weekend ROMANTIC getaway
6. Have my picture taken with all 50 "welcome to" state signs
13.Write a book
25. Go whale watching
41. Name a Star
48. Read all 100 books on my reading list
52. Take another road trip with my dad

I've already knocked one off my list:
38. Walk through a real castle.



In 2000 I was lucky enough to travel to Germany for a student exchange. During that 6 weeks, my class went to many different historic places, including Heidelberg Castle.

Do you have a bucket list?

My first blog award!!

I was given my first blog award! It made my day! It was given to me by my friend, Justine, from Silent Storm. Her blog is great, you should really check it out! Thanks Justine!



The Best Blog Award rules are:

To accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who gave it to you and his/her link. Pass it on to 15 other blogs you have recently discovered and think are great! Remember to contact the blogs you choose!

1. Coming Clean: Confessions of an Imperfect Parent
2. Blue Cricket Design
3. Controlling My Chaos
4. Homemade by Jill
5. Homemaking Fun
6. Life as we know it
7. Mommy Blessings
8. Not so idle hands
9. One Day When I Have Time
10. Reinvented
11. Stitchin' Time
12. The Idea Room
13. The Queen of my House
14. Thrifty Decor Chick
15. The Magic Onion

All of these are really great blogs from funny and creative women! Please stop by and check them all out!

Wordless Wednesday

Birthday Flashback & Rainbow Cake

I'm still sick over here, but starting to feel some better (thankfully!). Since I still don't feel 100% I'm still working on stuff on the blog, and thought I would share a couple pictures and ideas from Lily's 6th birthday party last month.

She wanted a "Wizard of Oz" theme this year. Both my girls love watching "Wizard of Oz" with their grandma,(whose blog is Stitchin' Time). My Mom already had a gorgeous mural she painted of the wizard of oz scene and a tree she made to look like the apple trees for a party at work. We used those as decorations (unfortunately my camera is out of commission so no pictures of those unless I can get her to take some for me!).

While looking for inspiration on cakes I came across the wonderful blog The Idea Room and her wonderful rainbow cake. Since I cant bake (it doesn't end well) I left the cake up to my husband to make the night before the party. I guess telling him "Rainbow" wasn't enough to indicate that it should be assembled in "rainbow" order. I'm not sure if its the food coloring he used or what happened but all the layers with blue dye in them were crumbly, but he did his best and I think it turned out cute for our first try. Lily's first words when she saw it were "Oh Daddy! It's GORGEOUS!". My mom was kind enough to email me the couple pictures from her camera.

The cake












The Birthday Girl!



The reason Lily has a medal around her neck is because for favors, we gave out medals of courage (for the Lion) Little notebooks with hearts on the cover (for the Tin Man) Smarties candies (for the Scarecrow). I didnt get to go all out for Lily's parties like I usually do because of so many things going on but we all had fun and she had a great birthday!

Case of the Yuckies & A funny video

Had to get the girls up this morning at 5 am so we could take Molly (our lab/mix/mutt) to get fixed. After spending two days barely able to function due to the flu, I'm starting to feel some better today. But Mandy and I are still taking it easy today.

Today we stumbled on this ecard at JibJab! My girls love em and since we all loooove Halloween around here, how could I resist! Now in this video are 5 creatures. Since our family only has four human creatures I had to use one of JibJab's "ready made heads". I couldn't resist making Robert Pattinson (Who plays Edward Cullen in Twilight) the vampire.

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

New Look!

Added a new look to the plain boring blog that was here a couple days ago! Not quite done yet, but a major improvement so far! Plans to start digital scrapbooking freebies, and hopefully my first fellow blogger feature sometime this week!!

Whats in a Name?

Everyone knows that famous line from Romeo & Juliet.

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;"

Well I have spent a week trying to come up with a name that would serve the dream blog in my head justice. One that could be fun and themed (I work well with themes!) and have meaning. Night Owl Notions came to me last night. Ohhhhhh around 2:30 this morning it hit me with the thought "I need to go to bed and stop being a night owl!"

"Ooooo," I thought to myself, "I like that!" I started to roll ideas around in my head. Eventually the word Notions popped into my head. I liked it but wasn't 100% sold on it. So I took a trip to dictionary.com to see what it had to say about my potential word. It fit exactly what I wanted. Here is the definition:
no·tion

(nō'shən) n. A belief or opinion. A mental image or representation; an idea or conception. A fanciful impulse; a whim. See Synonyms at idea. notions Small lightweight items for household use, such as needles, buttons, and thread. [Middle English nocioun, concept, from Latin nōtiō, nōtiōn-, from nōtus, known, past participle of nōscere, to get to know; see gnō- in Indo-European roots.]

Considering this blog will be full of my opinions (everyone's got one!) the first definition was dead on. The second is of course all the ideas that rule my head, be they mine or someone elses! The third, who knows what may pop up based on a whim?! and the fourth, I plan to do many crafts with all the little assortments of notions!

So thats how "Night Owl Notions" was born!

Rebuilding the Nest

The title of this post reflects many things to me. I'm trying to form new habits around the house to keep organized and tidy. I'm starting a new blog since my old one is old and neglected and was made for me to use when I was creating things more frequently.

From time to time I plan to post some of my creations, have giveaways and freebies, but I also want to use this blog as a resource. There are hundreds of wonderful ideas I'd love to try but I can never remember what blog or website I saw them on. So I'd love to feature them here so I, and others, can find them easily.

I have a bunch of great ideas for this place so hang around. Ya never know what you might see here!