Halloween!

It was rainy and chilly here last night but we ventured out with the kids for some trick or treating.

Silly faces from the crew!

We started off early, heading to our little downtown to walk around the shops.  It was raining fairly steadily at that point so Steve, mom, and I each took a kid under a golf umbrella. 

Kitty cat... very excited to be wearing makeup. 

 Not all the shops were participating so we made the rounds pretty fast.  We decided to take a break and see if the rain would let up so we headed back to the house for a quick pizza dinner.

Captain America!

It was still pretty drizzly when we finished eating so we decided to try our local mall.  As we should have predicted, the entire city seemed to have the same idea and the experience was less than enjoyable. The kids were all troopers though, and took it in stride.  A lollipop seemed to eradicate any dissapointment.

Dora! She actually kept the wig on for most of the night!

Fortunately, at this point, the rain had stopped so we made our way to a larger section of our neighborhood.  We made good use of our car and drove until we found several houses near each other that were handing out candy.  Then we'd all jump down, make the rounds, and pile back into the car.  I can see why people do this every year, regardless of the weather.  Everyone's moods really starting picking up and we all had a great time.  The decorations and lights thrilled the kids and the houses participating were all terrifically nice... and gave out huge handfuls of candy.  The haul the kids got is insane. 

We ended up back at our house around 8:15 and everyone was pooped. One little girl had an especially long and hysterical, though not unexpected, tantrum. Everyone was glad to get cleaned up and into bed for the night.  

Addie's on the left, Gabe's on the right.

We had left our pumpkins and ghost lanterns lit along with a bowl of candy on the front porch while we were gone, but it seemed like it hadn't been touched.

Milk jug lanterns decorated with a sharpie marker, filled with sand, and lit by an electric tea light candle.

We had a total count of one trick-or-treater after we returned home so our candy stash grew even bigger. We're going to have to set some serious limits.

All said and done, we had a great Halloween.  The kids are already talking about what they want to be next year....

Costume Prep

Growing up we frequently made our own costumes using our clothes, our parents clothes, or things from the dress up bin.  I remember going as a 3 legged person one year.  I stuffed one leg of a pair of jeans and pinned on a sock and shoe, then clipped it to my waist with a belt.  To finish off the look I threw on a trench coat and one of my dad's hats.  Imagination can take you places when it comes to Halloween. :)  I'm making the girls costumes this year.  Addie is going as a black cat and Ana is going as Dora the Explorer, no surprise there.  Gabe is going as Captain America, using a costume he received for his birthday with the addition of a small shield.  

For Addie's costume I rounded up a black turtleneck, black velvet skirt, black leggings and shoes.  Pretty standard pieces that she can continue to wear through the fall and winter seasons.  I picked up some chenille boas at AC Moore to make wrist cuffs and a tail that I"ll be finishing up this weekend.  I also grabbed some black and pink felt and sewed a set of cat ears to a black headband following this tutorial.  To finish off the look I'll be painting a cute little nose and whiskers on her face.  

Ana's costume was even easier, being simply a pink shirt, orange shorts, and yellow socks.  I wasn't able to find her a purple backpack, but I don't think she minds.  I made her a little bracelet out of yellow pony beads and hot glued on a little green flower from a hair elastic.  I also made her a wig using this tutorial.  I used black card stock, staples, black felt, and hot glue.  It came together very quickly and looks really cute, if I do say so myself.  It has the added benefit of keeping her head warm if the night turns out to be a little chilly.  

I was able to put both of these costumes together for around $7 total.  (Not including the clothes I purchased at consignment, because those can be worn as regular clothing!)  I think they're super cute and have so much more appeal than store bought costumes. I'm not opposed to them, they can be very cute and we used them the past 2 years.  But their use is very limited and they're expensive (between $15 and $25 each.)  

Now I need to put my own costume together. I'm borrowing an idea from my mom (and some clothing items) that I think will be really cute. No spoilers here, I think this one will speak better with pictures. :)

St. Patrick Prep

We've been getting ready to celebrate St. Patrick's Day tomorrow! We have shamrocks up all over the downstairs and a nice banner for our wall.  On the biggest shamrock we added cut-outs to symbolize the Holy Trinity.

I also made a paper bag puppet of St. Patrick using the tutorial over at Catholic Icing.  Addie will put her puppet together tomorrow.  She thinks he's so cute. 

We've been singing this super cute song all day, the kids love it! 

They will also help make some special green pudding (vanilla with food coloring... not a fan of pistachio), and we'll chow down on shamrock pretzels 

while watching this short Veggie Tales video.

St. Patrick's Prayer

May the Strength of God pilot us.
May the Power of God preserve us.

May the Wisdom of God instruct us.

May the Hand of God protect us.

May the Way of God direct us.

May the Shield of God defend us.

May the Host of God guard us.

Against the snares of the evil ones.

Against temptations of the world 

May Christ be with us!
May Christ be before us!

May Christ be in us,

Christ be over all!

May Thy Salvation, Lord,

Always be ours,

This day, O Lord, and evermore. Amen.

Happy St. Valentine's Day!

You can find information about St Valentine here. 

The kids came downstairs this morning to find some special decorations.

The garland was made using an idea from Family Fun magazine.  Toilet paper tubes were painted (inside and out) with red paint and allowed to dry.  I then flattened the tubes to form creases and cut each tube in 4 pieces, making 1 inch circles.  If you push the top crease on the circles down it forms a heart! I then strung them with beads to form the simple garland. 

 Each of our downstairs windows has one of these heart snowflakes.  The snowflakes were cut from coffee filters and then glued onto tissue paper. On a window it has a nice stained glass effect.

For breakfast we feasted on special pancakes and strawberry milk while watching the Veggie Tales
 Silly Little Thing Called Love.

We will be delivering some Valentines today as well.  Addie had a great time coloring the hearts and using glitter glue, tracing her hand for the I Love You sign, putting on stickers, and dropping candies in between the layers.

We also made some special bouquets for their grandmothers!  This process was a little more involved and I'm hoping to get up a post about how to make them soon. The girls had a fantastic time with this, too.

The story of Saint Valentine is a legend, it is true.

But legends are delightful and very lovely, too.

The legend says Saint Valentine, imprisoned in a cell,

was thinking of his little flock he had always loved so well.

He wanted to assure them of his friendship and his love,

so he picked a bunch of violets and sent them by a dove.

And on the violet's velvet leaves he pierced these lines divine...

they simply said "I Love You and I'm your Valentine."

So through the years that followed, from that day unto this,

folks still send messages of love and seal them with a kiss.

Because a Saint in prison reached outside his bars one day

and picked a bunch of violets and sent them out to say

that Faith and Love can triumph no matter where you are,

for Faith and Love are greater than the strongest prison bar.

~ Helen Steiner Rice

We Believe

In One God!  This was our craft for the number 1.

The kids loved having their hands traced (though we ended up using larger ones of my hand), gluing the nails on and the fingers down, and picking their shape and colors.

Silk Dyed Eggs

I am so glad I decided to give these a try this year. The process was so simple and they turned out beautifully. While it is quite a mish-mash of patterns, each egg on it's own is stunning and they all taught me a bit for next year.

My favorite is the black and white marbled one.

Silk Tie Easter Eggs

I've already been to GoodWill to pick out my 100% silk ties for dyeing eggs this year.  The instructions show it's super simple, I can't wait to give it a try!

Beginning New Traditions

It's been a busy week. I have been working on finishing up several projects and haven't had much extra time left at the end of the day, but it's been worth it. Some of these I completed just in time for Advent. I know I had said that I wasn't going to add much to our Advent and Christmas traditions this year, but I changed my mind. If I waited until I was able to do everything just the way I want it then it would be years before my ideas came to life.
I was fortunate to happen upon a site that has printable Jesse Tree ornaments with corresponding reflections and bible passages to read each night. I printed all 28 ornaments and had my mom laminate them for me. I punched a hole in the top of each ornament, threaded some thin purple ribbon through and secured with hot glue. Done! Now all I needed was a special way to keep these items together.
As I was browsing the shelves at Michaels I saw some small wooden, hinged boxes for $3. I picked one out along with two shades of purple acrylic paint, some foam paint brushes and a spray-on sealer. I took the hinges and closures off, applied two coats of paint in each color, allowed them to dry, then used the sealer. The whole process only took one evening.

Now I have a beautiful box which holds the ornament and reading for the day along with two Hershey Kisses for the kids to enjoy. It's worked out quite well.

I don't have the extra room for a separate tree so we put up our beautiful 7.5 foot pre-lit tree and strung it with purple lights. (We'll keep the white lights off until Christmas day and put up our family ornaments on Christmas Eve.)

Each night we all come and sit by the tree with the box and our Bible. One of the kids "hangs" the ornament and then Steve reads the reflection while I help the kids with their chocolate. Then we open the Bible and read the passages while the kids wander the room. (I'm not going to push them to sit still, as long as they're quiet and in the room, I'm happy.)

I keep the box and the Bible on our mantle as the centerpiece of the decoration. I reused my glass vases from fall by surrounding glittery, snow-covered twigs with small purple and silver ball ornaments then wrapping a wide purple ribbon around the top.

Between these vases and the box stand two 8x10 frames with an image of St. Nicholas and a beautiful representation of the Jesse Tree.

My sister referred me to a wonderful blog where I saw this great idea for O Antiphon ornaments. There are several ways to incorporate the O Antiphons into your family traditions with ornaments, houses or wreaths. Perhaps if I find some more time I may try my hand at putting something together. If not, there's always next year. I am pleased with what we have put together for this year though, and am excited to be celebrating this season with my family.

Fall Decorating

Michael's was having a sale on fall items and I went a little crazy. I have never decorated my home for fall and decided to make some simple pieces. The first things I did were to put moss and assorted gourds and squash into glass vases and tie the tops with raffia ribbon. I followed that up by cutting the tops off of 2 small decorators pumpkins, putting in dry florists foam and making arrangements with more moss, leaves, flowers and berries.
Next came a glass basket filled with mini scented pinecones

Followed by the large pumpkin arrangement.

Then Mom showed up last night with this gorgeous birthday gift she quilted for us to hang in our kitchen

Last night I finished this wreath of leaves, mums and berries. This is the first time I've ever put one together and I am quite pleased with the results. The base wreath is grapevine and I wove the stems through and secured them with hot glue.

The last craft I put together was the "Welcome" garland. I had said I was going to string it from the wreath but I think it would make it too busy, plus the letters are rather large and would end up crowded. I settled on hanging it from the mantle to balance out the vases and pumpkins.

In the coming week we will head out to pick our real pumpkins that will stagger down our porch steps, maybe with some potted mums. I may paint them somehow, I've come across some really cute ideas, we'll have to see. But that will complete our decorating for the season. I really enjoyed putting them all together instead of picking up pre-made items from a store (not to mention I saved a pretty penny.) I'm so glad I finally have these made, and best of all I can keep them for the coming years.

Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments

My house has smelled wonderfully fall-like for the last two days. I've finally made cinnamon ornaments, something I've been wanting to do for years but just never got around to. They're terrifically easy, and don't make as much of a mess as I had expected. Here's my recipe:

1 1/8 cup cinnamon
1 Tbsp ground cloves
2 tsp allspice
3/4 cup applesauce
2 Tbsp tacky glue

Mix all ingredients until well combined, the mixture should stay together but not be sticky. Work the dough in your hands for a few minutes. (It will turn your hands brown, but it washes off simply with soap and water... and maybe a little scratching.) Roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thickness and use your cookie cutters (I got 13 large.) Use a straw to poke holes for ribbons (be sure to poke two per ornament if you want it to face you when hanging.) Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake at 200 degrees for 2.5 hours, flipping twice to prevent the edges from curling. Use white fabric paint to decorate (it looks like icing.) Voila! Simple, easy, ornaments that will smell good for years.

I've been throwing around the idea of making a gingerbread house from the dough so that I'll always have one to put out, even if I can't get around to making the edible ones. This time though, I used letter cookie cutters to stamp out "Welcome" and I plan to string it from the wreath I'm making for the front door. I also cut out the letters for the first names of everyone in our family to decorate and hang on our tree this Christmas.

Adventures in soap making

My sister, Jen, and I have recently been discussing ways to simplify, scale back, and budget more wisely. She mentioned an interest in making her own soap as a way to save money but also to have fun being creative. Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the everyday and feel overwhelmed by deadlines, never-ending chores, and the monatany that can come with throwing yourself into your work, whatever that may be. Having some kind of creative outlet is a wonderful way to stay balanced and refocus. I frequently find that after spending some time in my garden, or completing a fun project I'm more motivated to tackle the less glamorous tasks around my house.

So we gathered our ingredients and set about this process as detailed over at Rhonda Jean's blog.
We chose to use Olive, Grapeseed, and Coconut oils and were rewarded greatly when the smells started permeating the kitchen. We cooked the oils together on the stove, just to melt the coconut oil (it was in solid form) and bring all the mixed oils to 140 degrees. We also mixed our water and lye outside and left it to cool to the same temperature; when they're both at 140 degrees, you combine them and start mixing.
We had a little bit of difficulty timing this though and had to use ice packs to cool the oils because the lye mixture had been hovering at 140 for a while. heh.



Fortunately we had an immersion blender so mixing only took about 5 minutes or so. We poured the mixture into our molds (8x8 tupperware containers greased with cooking spray) and left them to dry till the next morning. I had some difficulty removing the soap from the tupperware. I really think silicone is the way to go next time, there's much less chance of damaging it. The soap was firm but still slightly maleable so I cut the blocks into bars and tried out some stamps.








I was able to exert more focused pressure on and get a clearer impression with the smaller stamps, the large ones were faint and generally unimpressive. But the bars look lovely and have a subtle clean scent to them. Jen and I each got 11 bars of soap that we'll be able to use once it's cured, about 6 weeks.