Summer Goals

To most teachers, the summer is a time for a much needed break and relaxation, but in 10 years of teaching, I have never taken this opportunity.  Instead I spend my summers teaching summer school, and I actually enjoy it!  I do, however, make goals every year of things to accomplish over the summer.  Unfortunately, they rarely get done.  So, I'm hoping that writing them down here will help me to accomplish them - it will at least allow me to organize my list, and form a plan (I think).

So here it is, the big TO DO list:

1.  Organize the photos on my hard drive.  OMG, I have so many!

2.  Make a 2011 photo book.  I have all the pics, just need to organize them & decide which to include.  I'd  like the book to include pics of Luke from every month.

3.  Start a week in review post from my iphone photos.  Eventually I hope to put these into a book as well.

4.  Organize my craft supplies.

5.  Convert the guest room into an office/ craft/ guest room.  I  think I'd do more if everything was set up and organized.

6.  Paint the walls in my house - at least the downstairs kitchen and living room.  We built our house 5 years ago, and the builders paint is just starting to need an update.  The dining room & Luke's room are the only rooms we ever painted because I am so picky about colors & could never decide on a paint color for the other rooms.

7.  Blog more often!

8.  Plan Luke's 2nd birthday party.  I think that we are going to do it at the Children's Museum, but will decide for sure this weekend after a visit.

9.  Help Brad clean & organize the garage - it's not bad, but could stand a little more organization.

10.  Get rid of Luke's clothes that don't fit anymore.  I got rid of a TON of his clothes when he turned one, but need to do it again.

11.  Work more on my photography & editing skills - I so wish I had more time to devote to this because I really love doing it!

11.  Spend as much time as possible with Luke & Brad - this of course is always a priority, and number one priority at that, which is probably why so much of the above is STILL on my to do list.

So far, my summer has been great!  My nephew came & stayed with us for a week, and we've spent a lot of family time at the pool.  Here are some recent pics from the pool (and please note the obvious farmer's tan of both Luke & Brad).

 

Catching Up - Halloween

It's been three months since my last post so I've got some catching up to do!  I'll just start where I left off....

October:  This was Luke's 2nd Halloween.  At 14 months old, he was still a little too young to trick or treat, or even understand what was going on, but still loved answering the door and seeing all of the kids in their costumes.  We walked him around the block to see all of the Halloween activity going on in our neighborhood.  I've gotten the comment several times that Luke looks like Charlie Brown, so we decided that this would be a fun costume for him.  I made the shirt with craft paint and a stencil that I made out of freezer paper - it was so easy!

Luke's school had a Halloween party, and Luke was a cute little skeleton. 

Luke gave all of his teachers a Halloween container full of candy.  These were really fun to make!

We took Luke next door to "trick-or-treat" for the first time.

Looking to see what he put in there!

Next, we walked around our neighborhood.  There were so many kids running around - Luke loved it!

 Here are a few more......Isn't he the cutest little Charlie Brown?  If only he'd smile for the camera!

Photo Challenge

The Paper Mama photo challenge this week is Face.

This is my favorite face shot of Luke - taken last weekend at the Pumpkin Patch.  I love this little face. 

For more pumpkin patch pictures, go HERE.

Pumpkin Patch Fun

This past weekend we took Luke to the Sweet Berry Farms Pumpkin Patch in Marble Falls, TX.  This was his first time at the pumpkin patch, & even though he's still a little too young for most of the activities, I think he enjoyed it!

The farm was awesome - there were hundreds of pumpkins, beautiful flowers, a petting zoo, a barrel train, crafts for the kids, horse rides, and a corn maze.  The weather was nice too, & I was really excited about all the fun spots to take pics!

We liked it so much that we plan on making it a tradition to go every year!

I took a ton of pics (of course), but here are a few of my favorites.

Linking up HERE.

Monogrammed Mixer

* Tutorial post coming soon

I was bored & wanted to play with the cricut, so I decided to see if I could make a traditional three letter monogram using the Sure Cuts a Lot cutting software.  I read somewhere that creating a monogram was difficult, but really it could not have been easier! 

Since I've been wanting to dress up my KitchenAid Mixer for a while,  I decided this was the perfect time.

So, what do you think?

 P.S - Here's what I else I did....See, I was bored!

Step by step tutorial coming soon!  I'll be monogramming my laptop & a candle - & whatever else I can find!

T o see what else I've monogrammed, go HERE.

The Little Details

This photo taken at Luke's first birthday party is full of little details that make it one of my favorites taken that day.

Icing all over, Madi's sweet little face, Luke's bald head, & Jacie sneaking a taste.

These are the little details that make me love this photo the most!

To see more birthday pics, go HERE.

DIY Monogrammed Gift

Recently, my sweet aunt, Auntie Mo, let me borrow her Cricut. Oh my goodness, it is the coolest little cutter ever, & I am so grateful to her that she is letting me play with it - thank you so much Auntie Mo! I love you!

The first project that I made was a housewarming gift for my sweet friend Shelley & her husband, Scott.  They just moved to Austin from Dallas - and I couldn't be more excited about it!

The gift was actually really easy & inexpensive to make, & I think it turned out so cute.

The tin bucket included a pumpkin spice candle, set of 3 kitchen towels, polka dot oven mit, 2 etched wine glasses, & wine bottle stopper (etched with an R but hard to see in the pic).

I first cut 2 Rs using the cricut & adhesive vinyl, & attached it to the tin bucket & candle.  This took several tries (& several more cuts of new Rs) because of the thinness of some parts of the R. 

I used the leftover vinyl backing as a stencil for the wine glasses. I stuck the vinyl stencil to each wine glass, & smoothed out all the bubbles.  Next I applied etching cream to the glasses, straight onto the stencil.  After 10 minutes, I wiped it off, rinsed with soap & water, peeled off the stencil, & washed again. See, super easy, & look how pretty!

Last I printed the card from my computer. And that's all I did!  Put it all together & it was ready to go.  

Total cost was $17!

Here is a breakdown of the costs, and where each item was purchased.

Tin bucket: Target - $2.50
Wine glasses: Dollar Tree - $1.00 X2 = $2.00
Candle: Home Goods - $3.99 (same candle sold at Target for $8.99) I peeled off the label with goo gone.
Kitchen towel set: Target -  $3.99
Oven Mit: Target - $1.32 (on sale from $3.99)
Wine bottle topper: Hobby Lobby - $3.20 (used 40% coupon - orig was $7.99)
Total cost: $17.00

So, what do you  think?

PS:
The etching cream is from Hobby Lobby & the brand is Armour Etch. It was $8.99 for a small bottle, but I used my 40% off coupon. I'm not counting this in the total price for the gift because I only used a tiny amount, & plan to use it for a lot more!

If you use etching cream, whatever you scrape off can go right back into the bottle - so I'll probably not be running out of this stuff for a while! This was a tip I found online.

The adhesive vinyl is from Michael's - I'm not including this in the price since I also plan on using this for several more projects as well. I can't remember the cost, but I couldn't use a coupon since it's a cricut brand product.  I've since learned that you can order vinyl online pretty cheaply.  A great tip I found online is to use contact paper as transfer paper for the vinyl - it's way cheaper & can be found at Target for about $6 for a giant roll.

To see what else I've monogrammed, go HERE.

Linking up HERE.