FanFest

This weekend in Seattle is Mariners FanFest. Our family has made FanFest a tradition the last couple of years. Tall Man, the chicks and I will go spend a long weekend with my favorite in-laws and check out FanFest for a day.

If you're not familiar with the Seattle Mariners you may not know what FanFest is, well it's a baseball fan's amusement park! Okay, so there aren't any rides but there are so many fun things to do it's like a bunch of rides except your face isn't green when you're done, it's Mariners blue! For one weekend a year baseball fans have access to the whole park. SafeCo field is opened up for guests to check out the club house, gym, dugouts, pretty much everything. You can hit one out in center field (they set up a tee and you can belt one into the stands!) You can play catch in the outfield, catch pop flies, test your speed in the bullpen, sit in the away dugout and run the bases! Holy buckets! There are interviews going on all over with former players, new players, announcers and more. It truly is Disneyland for the Mariners fan.

This year we're unable to make the trip. We're all very disappointed we can't go visit with family and check out all the fun again. So instead of getting our faces painted, sporting our M's gear and "sliding" into third this weekend I'll be looking back on the fun we had the last couple of years.

Check it out for yourself...

FanFest 2010

My favorite mother-in-law, my chicks and I with our faces freshly painted.

Yes, that says Griffey as in Ken Griffey Jr!!

And yep, that's Jay Buhner.

My middle chick and her Papa.

The late Dave Niehaus.

My Tall Man catching a fly ball!

Earlier when I wrote "sliding" into third, this is what I was referring to. Dork!

FanFest 2009

Papa and his girls.

My two older chicks and I.

Me, because if you intentionally take a bad picture, is the picture really bad?

Tall Man, the girls and I by the first base line.

Wishing we could be there but maybe next year. Only eighteen days until pitchers and catchers report to spring training. If my blog suddenly stinks, you'll know baseball season has officially started.

Blessings.

ACK!!!

Yesterday started like any other Tuesday in our house. Wake up, coffee with the Tall Man, devotional, shower, wake up the little chicks, breakfast, then it was time to actually get ready. I have a Tuesday morning women's Bible study I attend so it wasn't a "put on a hat" day, it was a "do your hair and make up" day. So that's what I was doing. I was twisting my grown out bangs back to pin I noticed something in my hair. What was it you ask? It was this...

At first I thought "Oh my gosh these stinking dogs, their hair is literally EVERYWHERE!" But no, it wasn't a hair from our white and black dog. This hair was actually attached to MY head! So did I embrace this new stage in life and stand proud in the mirror with my sole grey hair? Heck no! I did what any woman would do, I grabbed the tweezers and yanked that sucker out! I carefully examined this hair, placed it against a black shirt so I could see the true color. Let's just say it wasn't blond!

My next move was a text to my Mom. It said, and I quote "HOLY CRAP! I just found my first grey hair!! When did you get your first?" She then writes back she was in her mid thirties, however she has always colored her hair. I on the other hand color my hair every six to nine months. She goes on like any good mother would and tells me I am a beautiful person inside and out, the color of my hair will not define me. So sweet, thank you Mom.

You may be wondering what I did next. Well, I can tell you what I didn't do. I did not cancel the hair appointment I already had scheduled for yesterday afternoon. I went to that appointment and darn it, I had my hair colored! I can honestly say I already had plans to have my bangs trimmed and hair dyed dark again and that's exactly what I did.

I think grey hair can be beautiful. I see some women with their silver hair and hope that one day when I do go grey and Au naturel I will have beautiful silver hair like theirs. But let's be real here, I am 28 years old! I am not ready to be grey. I've always joked that my hair should be turning soon, after all I do have three chicks and a Tall Man with a few surgeries in his past. I guess I didn't really think it would actually happen before the big 3-0. I know this is just the beginning and it will most likely take years before my drivers license lists grey under hair color. And I'm okay with that. I do however think I'll be scheduling my hair appointments a little closer together from now on.

Oh and by the way, my Tall Man, he thinks this is hilarious. He's eight years older than I am and has always been very sure his first grey hair sprouted within weeks of dating me. I used to be his "hot mama" but now he's asked if he can call me his "silver fox!" I don't think so babe!

Blessings.

Like Dandelion Dust

I've shared with you my love for books by Karen Kingsbury. Today I get to tell you one of her books has become a movie and it is for sale on dvd TODAY!!

I haven't seen Like Dandelion Dust yet but I have read the book. Yes, it is an incredible read. My mother-in-law saw the movie when it was part of a film festival in her area, she said it was fantastic. She also got to meet the talented Karen Kingsbury. Pretty cool!

No craftiness involved in today's post. Just wanted to share this with you!

Blessings.

LOVE Blocks

I mentioned before that I have never been big on Valentine's Day but this year I am really making an effort to decorate with love. Awww, doesn't that sound sweet? The fact that I got to use a 2x4, my palm sander and some paint made this Valentine's project a lot of fun for me. 2x4 projects seem to be like hand bags, you must have one for every season. Or holiday.

I'm still a little apprehensive about using our saw without the Tall Man so every once in a while I'll bat my eyelashes and ask him to cut some pieces for me. I'm blessed with an incredible husband so he's always willing to help me craft. I'm not sure if it's because he really wants to help me or maybe it's because if he's cutting something that means it's most likely going to leave his garage.

Anyway, I asked the Tall Man to cut a 2x4 into some random but similar sized pieces and that's exactly what he did. I sanded the edges with my palm sander, thank you favorite father-in-law, then painted them with some white paint.

I let the paint dry over night and finished them up the next morning. I took a few pages from my designated book page craft book and Mod Podge'd them onto my blocks. If you haven't used Mod Podge before, it's very easy. You simply use a foam craft brush to apply a thin coat of Mod Podge to the block, set your paper on the block and smooth the paper out with an old credit card or I use a Pampered Chef pan scraper thing.

I used the Wall Decor and More cartridge for my Cricut for the letters and heart. Have you seen this cartridge? It is quite possibly my favorite. SO many cute possibilities. After my letters were cut I applied them with a little more Mod Podge then used an ink pad to distress the blocks and book pages a little bit. When the ink was dry I put a thin top coat of Polycrylic over the each of the blocks. They look more finished now.

I haven't finished my Valentine's decor so here are a few simple shots of my LOVE blocks and different ways they could be arranged.

Blessings.

Linking to: Blue Cricket Design, CSI

Making Progress

About a bazillion and two blog years ago, I made a couple posts about laundry rooms. There was my inspiration and a little post that was never meant to be, in the process of working on our laundry room the Tall Man tore his meniscus in his left knee which resulted in his third surgery in as many summers.

Over the past few months I've been working here and there on our little laundry room and I thought I'd update you on the progress. So here is a peak at what it looked like before. So white and cluttered and just blah!

And here it is now. Two different shades of green, the same colors you can find in our home office. The infamous window is hung with a red berry wreath and ivory ribbon. My Tall Man helped again by cutting a piece of wood to replace the plastic coated shelf.

The wall opposite the washer and dryer is where our coat hooks are. These are SO convenient!

There is still a lot of work to do. Touch up work for the most part. Here for instance. I measured for where my paint colors would meet and then ended up having to put the shelf a smidge above the paint line. I had planned on putting a white 1x4 all the way around the room where the colors meet. I can still do that, I just need to get more of the darker green paint and bring it up a bit.

Oh, I also need to replace an outlet cover or two and finish painting around the water hook-ups.

Still a work in progress but we're getting somewhere and that's good enough for me for now. I'll probably finish it this spring when it's warm enough outside I can open windows and doors for some ventilation. I hope I've made you all feel better about your half finished projects. =o)

Blessings.

Linking to: Fingerprints on the Fridge

Valentine's Wreath

I've jumped on the band wagon. The coffee filter band wagon that is. I have wanted to make something with coffee filters for a while and decided a Valentine's wreath would be the perfect first project.

Now I've seen these done a few different ways. You can use foam wreaths, straw wreaths wrapped in plastic or a cardboard cut out. I fully intended on using a foam wreath but for some reason or another I could not make it to the craft store to get one and I really didn't want to spend any money.

So I used a box from Costco, you know the ones they put all your "smaller" items in? Is using Costco and smaller in the same sentence kind of like an oxymoron? I used my biggest mixing bowl to trace the outside of the circle and a smaller bowl for the inside. Just a little tid bit: It's important to trace your big circle first, then you can center your smaller circle inside. Sounds like common sense and maybe it is, but I had to trace mine twice. See the off center circle on my cut out? Oops.

Putting this wreath together was super easy, I had my three little chicks help. First we separated about 75 flat bottom coffee filters. Next we used the eraser end of a pencil, placed it in the center of the bottom of the filter and gathered the filter up, kind of like a flower. Does that make sense?

This next part was the fun part for my chicks. Remove the pencil, keeping the filter gathered and use red craft paint to paint the edges of the filters. If there was a little too much paint we dipped the paint into red glitter for a little sparkle. This was so nice because my girls could kind of go crazy, I wasn't concerned about too much paint or staying in the lines. They could paint them the way they wanted.

Once the paint dried I used hot glue to attach the coffee filter to the cardboard circle. It helped to put the eraser end of a pencil back in the center of the painted, glittered filter. Then all I had to do was put a spot of hot glue on the filter and press it onto the circle.

After all the coffee filters were in place I hot glued this little glittery, beaded heart in the center.

Here is the finished product. I like how it's a little inconsistent and the sparkle isn't all over so it's not too blingy. What do you think?Blessings.

Linking to: House of Hepworths, Fingerprints on the Fridge, CSI

Laundry Room Hook-Up

Let me start by saying "That's not what I meant, you dirty bird!" Hee hee!

You may remember in July my Tall Man was helping me with a laundry room project and ended up hurt. Believe it or not he hasn't sworn off these projects! He actually helped me with another one just before Christmas.

He measured our little laundry room and cut a 1x4 to fit along the wall behind the doors that go into our garage and kitchen. Then he hung the 1x4 right where my two greens meet up. I gave it a couple coats of paint, the same color as the trim throughout our house. It's just barely off white. After the paint dried, my Tall Man helped again by not laughing at me when I measured wrong when planning for the hooks. This was a big help, believe me. After I realized I was measuring wrong, we remeasured and made a few pencil marks for five hooks to go. Then we just screwed in a brushed nickel hook from WalMart for each member of our family.

Here it is!

And here it is being used!

I love it! Now when my little chicks come in from the snow they can take off their wet clothes in the laundry room and hang them on a hook. Wet clothes used to sit in a heap on the carpet in our living room. Hanging clothes in the laundry room above the linoleum floor makes SO much more sense. Plus I can go in and pop the clothes in the dryer to dry them thoroughly and warm them up in the morning before school. They love it when I do that.

I'll show you the rest of the progress in our laundry room in a couple days. Promise.

Blessings.

Linking to: Between Naps on the Porch, House of Hepworths

A Good Read: The Hole in Our Gospel

I read this book in the fall with my small group. Actually the majority of our congregation read this book. It's The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision. World Vision is one of the largest nonprofit organizations in the United States.

The book is not just about Stearns and his journey through life, from childhood to college, marriage and becoming the president of World Vision. It's about his struggle hearing God's calling and obeying His call.

The Hole in Our Gospel is a book that is very much like a face to face confrontation with someone who is basically calling you on your "stuff." After reading this book you definitely have a fire for serving God.

While reading this book our family began sponsoring a little girl from Honduras. Her name is Naomi and she has quickly become a real member of our family. Our girls show their friends Naomi's picture on our refrigerator, they get excited about drawing pictures for Naomi and picking out stickers to send her. I am most proud when I hear "Don't waste water, Naomi doesn't even have fresh water" from my girls bathroom when they're brushing their teeth.

We visited the World Vision U.S. headquarters in November. It was truly amazing to take the tour and see what our monthly contribution is doing for Naomi, her family and even her community. Each of our girls walked away with a new understanding of what millions of children their age go through each day and how truly blessed they are. More than that, my older girls have learned different ways they can help the less fortunate.

I encourage you all the read the 2010 Christian Book of the Year, The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns.

Blessings.

Valentine's Crayons

Valentine's Day is over a month away and I'm not a big Valentine's Day fan. I don't have some long, drawn out "got dumped on Valentine's" story. I'm just not crazy about it. In our house it's more like a reminder that pitchers and catchers for the Seattle Mariner's report to spring training. Baseball season baby! Woo hoo!

Anyway, back to Valentine's. I've decided this year I'd like to do things a little different. Less like myself and more like all the lovey dovey's out there. I'm starting by making Valentine's for my little chicks to hand out.

For my preschooler I've decided to make my own version of heart shaped crayons. How Does She? has a great tutorial. Although for these, I don't know that you really need a tutorial, it's all pretty self explanatory. I did enlist some help for this one. These two chicks were great helpers.

All you need are crayons and a mold from the candy aisle at your craft store. I poured our bucket of crayons out on the dining room table and we went to work. Picking every broken crayon out of the bunch and removing the wrapper. Next we separated them by color. I used red, pink, blue, green and purple. Pretty colors that wouldn't melt together to make the color of mud. I picked up a silicon heart mold from Michael's for $6 with a coupon.

Spray the mold with cooking spray and separate your color into the hearts.

Preheat your oven to 250, before you put your mold in the oven place it on a cookie sheet or baking pan. The silicon mold is flexible and you don't want to spill wax all over the inside of your oven. It took about 15 minutes for the crayons to melt in the oven, as soon as they were melted I pulled them out and let the pan cool on a cooling rack for another 15 minutes or so. Once they were hardened they popped right out of the mold. SO cute!

Now all I need to do is come up with a catchy Valentine's phrase and put them all together. I'll show you the finished product when they're... well... finished.

Blessings.

Linking to: Fingerprints on the Fridge, House of Hepworths

Dirty or Clean? That is the Question.

Let me start this post by saying how absolutely wonderful my Tall Man is. He is an incredible help around the house. He helps with cooking, cleaning, laundry, pretty much everything. I couldn't ask for a more amazing man to share my life with.

With that said in the last eight and a half years I have probably heard the question "Are the dishes clean or dirty?" five hundred thousand gazillion times. I can not complain too much because when I hear that question it's because my Tall Man is going to either load or empty the dishwasher. SO sweet!

I never understood why a person couldn't just look in at the dishes and tell if they were clean or dirty. A while back I actually muttered that awful clean or dirty question. Mistake. After asking the question myself I was forced to find a clean/dirty dishwasher magnet. So the search began and this is what I found. A very cute free download over at Carina Gardner Studio.

I downloaded my free copy and printed it out immediately. Then I cut the red sign out and hot glued it to a juice lid. I put a coat of Mod Podge on top to protect it from potential splashes. After that was all dry I hot glued a small button magnet to the back.

And voila!

No more asking if the dishwasher is clean or dirty. That is of course if everyone uses the magnet the way it was intended to be used.

Blessings.

Linking to: Just A Girl, House of Hepworths

Inspiration Binder

I don't know about you but to me getting organized is a wee bit overwhelming. Like you have to be organized to get organized. Do you know what I'm saying? It's that whole "You need to have money to make money" mentality. Lucky for you and me, there are literally hundreds of different organizing blog posts out there. There is hope for us yet!

I have my list of things, places and rooms that need some serious organization but I decided to start with something small. Well, it will be small when I'm done. Every month I receive four magazines. I get them as gifts every year and I love it!! I receive Better Homes & Gardens, Woman's Day, Family Circle and Parents magazines. And don't forget the occasional catalog; Pottery Barn, Ikea, Lowe's Creative Ideas... the list goes on. Each of these magazines and catalogs are great for their own reason but let's be real not everything is great in every one of these magazines and catalogs is great.

When a new magazine or catalog comes in the mail I get so excited. Maybe that's where my little chicks get it from. If you have little ones you know you can't always sit right down and devour each and every page all at one time. I started dog earring my favorite pages as I read. Then once every couple of months I'll go through every bathroom (we're being honest here) and basket to collect the recent issues. I end up with a pile like this on my dining room table.

Next, I flip right to the pages that have been folded down and cut them out. Then I separate the pictures and articles into categories. Bedrooms, Bathroom, kitchen, organization, cleaning outdoor, crafts, holidays, etc.. I have a three ring binder full of page protectors and little sticky note tabs. I haven't purchased the super cute 3M tabs because I have small post it's that work just fine. I just file my inspiration into the appropriate page protectors.

I always save the paint page in Better Homes & Gardens, you know the page.

I also make little notes on the pages. Otherwise I'll forget what the page inspired.

I love it. When there's a change in seasons or a fun holiday approaching I can pull my inspiration binder out and get some great ideas. Now I have this simple, clean binder instead of magazines spread out everywhere collecting dust. It's wonderful!

How do you keep your inspiration organized?

Blessings.

Linking to: House of Hepworths, Just A Girl, House of Grace

Resolutions?

It's officially 2011. A chance for a new beginning, a fresh start, an opportunity to do things differently. I find it so funny that just ten days ago every store had aisle after aisle full of chocolate candies wrapped like this...

And now those festive packages have been replaced with this...

They fatten us up then want us to work it off. And only eleven months later they start fattening us up again. Quite the system.

Resolutions. Did you make any? Have you kept them? I have never made a New Years resolution, so I've never kept them. This year however, I am making one, a very important one. I want to be more intentional about the time I spend in God's word. I want to grow and nurture my relationship with Christ in 2011. I consider this a big resolution for my very first one. So I need to keep myself accountable.

Wish me luck friends. I hope you are staying strong and being successful with your 2011 New Years resolutions.

Blessings.

Happy New Year!

I remember as a child hearing about how time goes so much faster when you're an adult. I'm sure I was complaining about something taking FOR-EV-ER! when I was told that. I wasn't exactly a patient child. Now I realize everyone was right. Time truly does go faster when you're and adult with a family and responsibilities.

I can hardly believe it's already 2011. Since I haven't been blogging for a full year and can't share my top twelve projects I thought I could share my favorite snapshots from 2010 with you. Here we go...

January: Tall Man tried out skeet shooting last winter. These two chicks loved it!

February: My beautiful little niece, LC, was born a few weeks early and

had to be fed from a syringe.

I got to help. Such a proud auntie!

March: Waiting in line for the Rock & Worship Roadshow with some great friends.

April: My beautiful chicks dancing in their Easter dresses.

May: I loved showing my family where I grew up.

June: My precious oldest chick at her ninth birthday party.

July: We had such a busy month, going to the Mariner's game with my Tall Man, brother-in-law and father-in-law was definitely a highlight.

August: My middle chick and her fish.

September: Are you kidding me? This is total kid happiness. An ice cream cone at the county fair.

October: I have to sneak in a picture of me and my Tall Man. I just really like this one.

November: I love the child like excitement in his face as he sleds down the hill.

December: Of course nothing tops having the family together for Christmas.

I hope you all had a happy and healthy 2010. May you have a blessed 2011.

Blessings.