HUGE giveaway!!

There is the giveaway to end all giveaways going on right now (but it ends tonight, so HURRY and enter!) at Laura Winslow Photography.  Check out the details HERE.

Good luck!

Pinterest Craft

I love, love, LOVE pinterest.  It's a great way to keep track of the hundreds of great

ideas I see online, and a better way to find more ideas.

I found myself with a problem, however....I would pin and pin and pin and then - 

nothing.

All these great ideas, and I wasn't doing anything with them except organizing them

onto my (fabulously named) boards.

And then one day I was shopping and decided to buy the supplies for a cute

Halloween craft.

Here's my version:

Styrofoam 'trees': $3

Yarn: $4 (with leftovers)

And it's super cute!  Here's the link for the inspiration.

And once I finally find the other camera, I will post the other pinterest project I completed recently.

But a warning if you're not already on pinterest, it's addicting!

Tread carefully.

But it's FUN!!

Birthday Gift

We are celebrating a family birthday this weekend, so I thought

that a fun thing for a toddler is THIS great fishing set.

I made it a little more girly, though.

I am also in the middle of a project that Grandma is helping out with -

FHE flannel board stories from the Book of Mormon.

You can download them HERE,

and I am using the technique described HERE to put them on felt.

Spring 2x4 Projects

My mom, sister, and I decided to try out some 2x4 crafts.

I found the ideas HERE and HERE (scroll down past the words to see hers).

I still want to add a ribbon to my chocolate bunnies (I made 2),

and to one of the chicks, but I thought I

should post these before Easter is here.

St Patty's Rainbow

I wanted to make some sort of RAINBOW craft, and I figured since I have a ton of felt

that I am using for another project (which will take some time before being posted),

I would use felt.

And then I proceeded to make something that was in my mind very cute.

But I didn't really think it through, and stopped at this point:

And then my daughter stood it up, and I realized that it was great the way it was. 

Hope you had a great day wearing green!

Book Review - Tarzan of the Apes

I finished reading the 1st Tarzan book last week.  I had no idea that there was more than 2 when I picked it up from the library.  And I only knew there were two because there was another one on the shelf.

It was pretty good.  I can understand why it was so popular, and why he ended up writing more than one.  Do you know how many Tarzan books there are?  Well, if my memory serves me right, there were 22 written!  Twenty-two!!  Needless to say, I will not be reading them all.

Don't get me wrong - I liked the book, and am happy to say that I've read it.  But it just wasn't superb enough to make me want to read more.  Although it does kind of leave you hanging at the end, because he has come to America to get together with Jane, but she agrees to marry someone else (and the guy's even a relative of Tarzan's!). 

I thought it was great.  It explained things in an interesting way, as well as a believable way - so that it didn't seem to be too far of a stretch that a man raised by apes could teach himself to read, and be the perfect specimen of physical perfection. 

I would recommend this book to any reader - there's a little bit of violence (he grew up in the jungle!), but it's not graphic. 

Book Review - Unbroken

This month I finished reading Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand.  It is about Olympic medalist Louis Zamperini's experience during World War II, when his airplane was shot down and he ended up in a Japanses POW camp.

It is so good!!  It is very detailed about the Japanese side of the war.  I have read many books about World War II, but most of them talk about the circumstances in Germany; I can only remember one that talked about life in a Japanese POW camp.  I found it really interesting in this book that it focused on the Japanese belief's of their superiority over the rest of the world, and how much they despised those who ended up being captured (it was their belief that anyone who surrendered or was captured were the worst of the worst - they would rather kill themselves than be taken captive).  So they felt they could do anything to those they captured.

Louis was not put on the Red Cross registry, so no one knew that he survived.  And he ended up being the most hated prisoner by one of the camp leaders, known as 'The Bird.'  After reading the unthinkable things that they all endured, and many were able to survive, it's amazing to read about the way many of the former POWs were able to work through their trials and later forgive those who held them captive.

This book is incredible.  And Laura Hillenbrand does a wonderful job of bringing the story to you.  Read it.  You'll love it.

President's Day

I've decided to try and do a sort of

Mommy School with my daughters (ages 3 and 0).

Obviously, the younger will not

be doing much in the beginning.

Although she is really good at being cute and talkative,

and screamy!

I tried to do this last fall, but we only did a couple of things before we decided to

move across the country (again).

So I started today.  We talked briefly about president's, 

mainly George Washington & Abraham Lincoln.

We made a few crafts (shown below), and tried to clean money.

Tried being the key word.

Picture 1, the money before the cleaning.

Picture 2, after.  The pennies are a little more shiny, but the nickels and quarter didn't change much.

We soaked the pennies in a small amount of lime juice with a couple drops of water, then rinsed.  The silver ones were cleaned with a cotton ball and baking soda/water paste.  The paste didn't work too well, BUT the cotton balls did get a little dirty.

Here's pictures of our crafts:

Lincoln's log cabins (we didn't have brown construction paper, so we used black)

Washington's cherry tree (drew a pic of a tree & dropped hole-punch cherries on glue)

And the other small one are coin rubbings.  We taped some coins

on the table and rubbed over with crayons.

And we also did silhouettes - but I think it makes our baby look like she's

a 2-year-old boy.  

Daddy & I also did those, but they are on the back.  And not as cute as the kids!

Scripture Power

I made a bag for Tooty's scriptures a couple weeks ago.

We picked up a Book of Mormon for her from the building library

(they had a big pile on a table that said 'free to good home').

It's just the right size for small hands and one book.

It wasn't until then that we realized why they were getting rid of them - 

the first page in her book is 1 Nephi 8.

So it's missing about 15 pages.

But since she can't read yet, it's okay.

They are available under her chair in primary when we sing her favorite song,

Scripture Power.

When I was done and gave it to her, she was so excited.

"Thanks, Mom!!  Thanks to make my scripture power, Mommy!"

She thanked me and thanked me, about 20 times

through dinner and bedtime.

Skiing Cake

Happy birthday, Grandpa!  

Since he loves to ski, I thought that a huge ski hill would be the order of the day.

 

I'm not so good at figuring out how to format these photos once I've got them in place...too impatient with it, I guess.  So here we go, from the bottom layer to the top.

An audience at the bottom, one backwards snowplow, a horrible crash, and a safe arrival.

This boarder is ready for some ramp action.

Heading off the jump.

The bottom layer is rainbow cake.  I took a white cake mix, divided it up into as many bowls as the different colors I put in (in this case, 5).  Then my daughter told me where to put each color and in what order.  It's delicious!