2008~A year in pictures!

I saw this idea for a year in pictures over at Amy's blog and again at Lori's and loved it. So here is my...

2008

January:

Elianna painted herself with her new paint set,

High winds destroyed our trampoline :(

and Elianna got her hair cut into a short bob. It was her first real hair cut.

February:

We went to Go Diego Go Live,Elianna turned 3, we celebrated with a fancy princess tea party.

March:

Bethanie lost her first top tooth

and we celebrated Easter

April:

The weather warmed up and we enjoyed getting outside to play.

May:

We went to a circus,We were overtaken by Cicadas (It only happens every 17 years so i HAD to mention them :) ) Elianna, although she freaks at the sight of bugs of any kind, dearly LOVED these creepy things and was really sad when they went away.

I went with Bethanie's class to the zoo, so many parents from her class went that only 1 parent chaperon had more than just their own child.

June:

Bethanie finished first grade.

July:

We celebrated the 4th of July by dressing patriotic, going to a cook out, and watching fireworks.

We celebrated my birthday with a picnic at the park after stopping at the local thrift store to buy me a dress (because Elianna insisted she get me one for my birthday). While at the thrift store we found hats for all the girls so I could get lots of cute pics.

August:

We had a regular visitor in our back yard

We went to the zoo and got up close with a tiger (there is a very thick piece of glass between Bethanie and the tiger. It was so cool being THAT close, that tiger would walk back and forth along that window, I don't think he could see through it though.)

Bethanie started second grade!

September:

Bethanie turned 8. We celebrated with a cookout and a Hannah Montana cake at the lake.

Elianna went to her first day of school after flat out REFUSING to go on the actual first day of school.

We met the newest baby idol - Hannah Banana Montana (this picture cracks me up every time I see it so I just had to add it in here :) )

Both girls played soccer

October:

Bethanie won 2nd place for her flower in a pot costume.

Elianna dressed up as a pack of smarties but should have been a pack of cry babies (remember those?).

And we carved pumpkins (the girls drew the faces, I cut them out)

November:

We got our tree up the day after Thanksgiving.

December:

We got a snow day with more than normal amount of snow for December.

Santa came to Elianna's class party and she happily sat on his lap :O

We had a great year and have ALOT to be thankful for. As I look forward to this new year that we have started I see many changes that are about to happen, they make me sad that my time as only full time mommy is over, yet excited for what the future holds. I am nervous as I prepare to go back to college after 8 years of no work or school outside my home but I can only lean on the Lord for guidance as this new branch of my life begins. Please keep me and my family in your prayers that we can adjust and do out best at getting through these changes.

HAPPY 2009!!!

May it be a great year for all of us!

Stuff we made this year

We made ALOT of our gifts this year, I would say about 1/2 of all our gifts were handmade, or at least some part of it was. The girls and I made these scarves for all the grandparents on my side of the family (my mom, dad, grandma, and mom's husband who the girls call papaw as well). I got the idea from Sara's Art House, the girls helped cut the fringe and then stitched the words on, I zigzagged them onto the scarves (although I am a little embarrassed to say I did, I took a picture of the worse of the 4). We put hearts on the grandmas, a mitten on one and a football shape on the other of the grandpa's.

We made these pillows for my mom, with a reindeer made of each of the 4 granddaughters foot and hand prints, and for my sister with just her girls. I got this idea from some craft blog but cannot find it now. Their pillows were plain with the reindeer on them, I added the Christmas fabric boarder. The girls stuffed these themselves and had a BLAST doing it who would have thought adding stuffing could be so much fun for an 8, 3, and 2 year old :)A close up of Bethanie's.I made tu-tus for my nieces and my cousin's little girl. Found how to make them from Mom Dot, they are SOOO easy. Here is Alyvia's (2 year old niece), the tiara, boa, and necklace I found in the dollar section at the local grocery store. The tank top was one of Elianna's that she had never worn, I painted Alyvia's name on it with pink glittery fabric paint. I was so happy with how the hole set went together. This is Baby Bailey's, it looks much longer than it actually was. I would say it was no more than 8 inches long. The crown on a head band I also found in the dollar section, it was cheap made but looked SO cute on her.I also made both of the nieces an outfit. I made the skirts like this one (which is where I got the instructions for making them). The shirts I bought then cut one of the princesses from the skirt fabric and attached it to the shirt along with the first letter of their names. For Alyvia I made a little purse to match as well (she LOVES purses more than anything else). They turned out REALLY cute but I didn't get a picture of them.

We painted sweat shirts for my dad and my grandma. Here's my grandma's, feet and hand print angels. I had seen these on a kids site to make these angels with construction paper and tried it on a sweatshirt. I was happy with the turn out even though we got paint in a few places it wasn't suppose to be. I didn't take pictures of my Dad's. We actually made him 2, one with pictures of the 4 girls that said Papaw's girls. Then at the bottom said "Girls just wanna have fun...with their papaw", I was really tired when I painted the words on the shirt and kinda regretted it later. DH thought it sounded kinda bad. The other one we put the girls hand prints on it and wrote "Best Papaw, Hands down".

I also made a very cute apron for SIL that I made from a panel that I got from Walmart. I added a ruffle to the bottom and lined it so it could be reversible. It had snowmen and was really cute but I forgot to take pics of it too.

The girls also made my mom pictures of her and them. They drew the pictures with markers, wrote "Mamaw and Me" and I put them in frames. Mom loved them.

I really enjoyed making gifts for everyone, enjoyed being creative, seeing their faces when they opened their homemade gifts, but it really wore me out. Next year I still want to make alot of gifts but will start MUCH earlier. I was so last minute on some of these gifts that I was up till after 6 am on Christmas day (DH was waking up for the day as I was going to bed for the night, lol). And then had to finish my cousin's little girl's tutu in the van on the way to our Christmas gatherings. And I still have at least 2 more gifts to make -purses for my mom and sister. And was wanting to make my mom and sister a calender with the artwork by the kids.

Other than gifts we made some other things as well. The girls both made one of these in Wednesday night class at church. It's simply a paper with "shadows" of Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus. They colored them blue, then they rubbed baby oil on them to make them transparent. They glued craft sticks for the stable, glued glitter on a star and put on the top. Then put a little lamb with a cotton ball as wool on the front. I sat them in the front windows where we have Christmas lights on the inside. These were such easy ornaments but I just LOVE them. They look SOOOO pretty at night when it's dark outside and the Christmas lights are on. They look like they are all lit up. The picture doesn't really show how truly pretty they look.
Lastly I saw these snowmen doughnuts here. They were so simple but so cute, I just had to make them for the girls. Well when I was at the store getting the white doughnuts I saw the chocolate ones and wanted some of them too. The next morning when I was making them for the girls I had a great idea. I made whole snow men instead of just the heads....

And I also made......

PENGUINS!!!! The girls and DH got a big kick out them.

This is my 3rd post for today so be sure to look below for the other 2. And look for another, a new year/ a year in pictures post coming soon but not now because we are off to go out to eat seeing as how all we have had is a bowl of cereal all day.

Christmas Day

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!!

I stayed up WAY to late trying to finish some last minute gifts, so I was exhausted all day on Christmas therefore didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked to but here are what I did take...

The girls got bunk beds as their big present this year. We gave them the bunk beds on Christmas Eve. The plan was to take the girls to my sister's, she was going to keep them long enough for us to set the beds up, then take them to church. After church we were going to come home to one present under the tree. The girls were going to get to unwrap it right then, inside was going to be a note saying something like "The gift is in your room". Then they would run in there and there would be the bunk beds. i had it all planned out and was so excited BUT that didn't happen, I stayed longer than I should have at my sister's and the bunk bed assembly was MUCH more involved that me had anticipated, so we just stuck bows on the box the beds were in. The beds finally got put together 3 days later when I put them together all by myself (with a little help from the girls).

Since the girls were only getting 3 gifts each (remember, since Jesus only got 3, that was good enough for them as well), Santa mixed their gifts all up in hopes that it would take longer to actually open them, one at a time. Well the girls got up and separated them into piles, before waking me up. Oh well! It was so funny they were SOOOO excited that they got EXTRAS, two small gifts that were for them to share.

My favorite picture of the day :) Bailey, my niece being held by my Mom. Isn't she a cutie!?!?! She is such a happy baby.

The girls got "soft rainbowy PJs" as their gift from the passing party gifts with DH's family. Elianna was SOO excited about getting home and getting them on.

Since I had taken the girls beds down to make room for the bunk beds, that night we layed their mattresses on the floor and they slept on them in their new sleeping bags.

I was a very nice day celebrating the birth of our savior, Jesus, and spending time with family. I was very happy to finally get into bed that night and not have to get up early the next day.

BTW, we didn't end up doing the cake for Jesus, I had forgotten to buy a cake mix or stuff for icing, so we made one big cookie instead using the "break and bake" cookie dough. I tried to make it in the shape of a star but it turned out looking like a smashed turtle instead. We still sang happy birthday to Jesus, wish I had taken pictures anyways but I didn't.

Next year I WILL NOT wait till the last minute to finish making and shopping for gifts and especially won't stay up so late. I was just too tired to enjoy the day to the fullest. It was still a great day though!

Before Christmas

There are so many things I have wanted to post about but just simply had the time (or when i did have time, didn't have the energy) so today I have decided I am going to get everything posted. I am really late getting these things up but here is some stuff from before Christmas.

Ever since before I was even married, I had always planned to make it a tradition to decorate for Christmas on the day after Thanksgiving but it has never happened...until this year that is!! DH had to work so me and the girls made a day of it, listening to Christmas music and decorating away. It was fun and we got it all done by about 4pm so the girls could go spend the night with my mom. The whole day Elianna wore a sparkly purple ty-died leotard, lol.

Bethanie had gotten up early after going to bed late so she looked tired but man she is just growing up way too fast.

So here is the tree... notice the bottom doesn't have a whole lot of ornaments left, I didn't take the picture till a couple weeks after it was set up, my 10 month old niece that I babysit for, loved to pull ornaments off. Thankfully we had put only non-glass, no hook ornaments down there. She was constantly pulling on it which is why I was so shocked when Elianna caused the tree to fall over.Here it is without the flash, my tree topper lights went out right after about a week after just replacing the light strand in it last year.

We had lots of fun stuff to do leading up to Christmas but sadly I either forgot to take my camera or my batteries were dead so I missed alot. We did make cookies and brownies at my Mom's house, all the girls had fun and I found aprons for each of them (although you can't see the babies since the canister is in front of her, she had a little half apron on). They were definitely on sugar overload by the end of the evening though.Here is Elianna and Alyvia (oldest niece) before leaving for Elianna's preschool class party. She just looks too grown up in this picture.

After the party the girls came home and played dress-up. The Christmas Princesses...

Now on to Christmas Day :)