Allie's First day of 4K

Hello All,

I realize it has been forever, but it is summer. I am hoping to get back into the blogging mood, and maybe redoing the blog soon, but we will see. I am just really needing to document today because your daughter's first day of school only happens once in a lifetime. She is in 4K which is only a half day. I actually would not have sent her this year if regular Kindergarten was only half day, but since that is a full day now, I want to ease her in. She is definitely ready. I was reading the brochure they sent home that tells us what she will able to do by semester end, and then by year end. She can already do all of those things and then some. I just do not know if I am ready. Anyway, I dropped her off at school, and she doesn't bat an eye. No tears from her. Another kid started crying and well that was pretty much it for me. By the time I was at the car, the tears were falling. I am so excited and love seeing her grow up, but my baby is in school. Another thing really hit me yesterday at orientation, Gavin would be starting Kindergarten. My heart is breaking once again to remember that I will not get to have these adventures with him. I miss him, and seeing the other kids his age is hard. My other two children would be in 4K this year like Allie, and so it does not seem to be as difficult for me to think about them. So for today, and I will try to limit it to today, I think I will be crying a lot. Tears of happiness for my little girl. She is so full of life, and ready to take on life. Tears of sadness for my son. I know he is waiting for me in Heaven, and that that is better then any kindergarten class, but I still wish I could have had Gavin on one hand, and Allie on the other dropping them both off at school today.

Have a nice day,

Shelly

Menu Board for our Kitchen

I put together another item for my orange, blue and gray kitchen. It is funny, I am working on all of the accessories for the kitchen, but I have no motivation to do the hard stuff. I really should be redoing the cabinets. I think it is because I can do these projects in a couple of hours, I know the big stuff will take much longer. Anyway, here is my latest project.

I got the frame at Goodwill. It was super ugly, but I saw the beautiful potential. I painted the detail on the frame in orange, then when it was dry, I dry brushed the light blue over the whole frame. Letting a little of the orange come through. I love it.

The print with the pans, I got as a freebie on another blog. I feel so bad because I do not know where. If someone could tell me where, I will link it back. I just need to purchase some really strong magnets now, so that it will hang on my fridge. Now all I have to do is pre-plan my meals and write them down with a dry-erase marker every week. So excited.

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Thank you looking!
Shelly

New Rugs Again

So a couple of weeks ago, I showed you some new painted rugs that I had made. You can see that post here http://creatingmemorieswithallieroo.blogspot.com/2011/04/utility-garage-tiles-transformed-into.html. They were okay, but they were not my vision. I have redone one of them in this post, and painted another rug. They both are in my kitchen, and will match my new vision for it when it is all done. The other rugs will be redone soon. Here are the end results.

My kitchen is going to be gray, orange and light blue. I love these colors together. I have really decided my whole house is going to be bright, to counter the dreary days we have most of the year. Anyway, I got the stencils off of the Silhouette SD on line library. I love them. I love how they turned out, and I love my Silhouette.

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Have a great day!
Shelly

Old Vintage Hats for the Kiddo

Oh Happy Day! We had quite a weekend here. Sick kid, terrible storms, and a birthday party. Thankfully kid is better, terrible storm damage stopped about a mile away, and the birthday party was so fun. A tornado touched down close to our home. Several trees down, some houses were damaged, and a few injuries. We were not home at the time, and thankfully nothing happened here other then a couple of trees down. Praying for those who were not so blessed.
A year ago we moved into our present home. This is where we plan to be until our dying day. It is out of town, on 40 acres and has a huge barn with it. This barn has been filled with wonderful treasures. We got it pretty much emptied, but every once in awhile we still find some goodies. The other days I found these.

                                 This is Allie's favorite. She likes to wear it backwards.

                       Here is another one. She is a rockin Sleeping Beauty.

Obviously they are not in excellent condition. They were filthy, many had permanent stains, and a few had some serious moth damage. However, they are so cute, and they were made for a little child. They fit my daughter perfectly. If you cannot tell from the pictures above, she loves to play dress up, so this was the perfect find. I love old things, and to think about where they have been and who else wore them. Allie is going to share a few of these with her best friend, Breelia. I hope she likes them too.

Well I hope you all have a nice day. Off to redo a craft project that I was not in love with. Will share soon.

Shelly

Goodwill Owl Collection

Good Morning Sunday, It is a pretty good morning. My poor little Allieroo has been pretty sick since Friday. I took her into the Dr. and they said it was just stomach flu. Her temp. got up to 104 F so it was not fun. She thankfully seems to be a lot better today. She only has a low fever, and her personality is back. I am glad because today is my nieces, Natalie's, second birthday. I can't believe she is two. I was hoping we could all go but we shall have to see with Allie. Anyway, Happy Birthday Natalie, I love you.

 I picked up some goodies the other day at Goodwill. I only have a before picture on one of them though. I have begun a collection, and everytime i go to Goodwill I find another piece to add to my collection. Here is what I found.

             This is it before. Kind of cool this way, but not what I want so I painted it.

                    This is it afterwards. I loved a mirror paint to give it that shine. I love it.

Here is a picture of my growing collection. All of them were very ugly to begin with, but with a little paint, I think they are awesome.

I also made another great find there the other day. I have been teaching my girlfriends how to make hair pretties the other day. One of them is a yo-yo clip. Easy to make, but I found a bag of them already made the other day. This was great for the group of Junior highers I was teaching. They did not seem to have the patience to make them.

Well anywho, I hope you have a great Sunday.

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Shelly

Bird Bath

Happy Thursday! I hope you are all having a good week. Mine has been okay. I have been sick, but I am starting to feel better. I thought I would share a project that my daughter and I did the other day. Allie loves birds. Thankfully since moving to the "farm" we inherited a bunch of bird items. We have a bunch of houses throughout our yard, and a really nice feeder next to our patio. I got my Family Fun Magazine in the mail this last month. It had a really simple and fun idea for a bird bath. Using a old ceramic pot and dish, paint, smooth stones, and grout. Here are the pictures of us making this pretty bird bath.

I really hope the birdies like it as much as we do. Allie really loves the pink. Amazingly the color is growing on me too. I will be showing you pictures of my living room soon that shows this. Anyway, I am so glad it is spring. Enjoy!

Wreaths Aplenty

Happy Monday,

It is a beautiful one too. The sun is shining super bright,and it is going to be in the 60's. Had a great weekend, got tons of rest, and I am ready for my week. I hope you all had a great weekend too.

I had a bunch of wreath bases around the house, and I decided to use them. Two are for our house, and one is for a present. I love how they turned out, and they were super easy.

                 This is a present for my aunt. I love it. Just used yarn, Christmas decoration, and bottle caps.

                   I love the colors in this one.

                       this is my favorite, hanging in my kitchen. I am redoing the kitchen. The colors are going to be orange, gray, and light blue. Love it.

                                This is one of the walls in our living room.

This one is two things of yarn wrapped around the wreath, and then I put it around a silver charger. It is hanging in our living room. I got the ideas for the wreaths here.http://shakentogether.blogspot.com/2011/05/fin-de-friday-upcycling-free-to-fab-4.html

I would never have thought to use my bottle caps for this. I love it.

I am linking this up to the following.







Have a great weekend!
Shelly

Jigsaw Race for Autism-One off of my List

One of my goals for 2011 was to do my first 5K. Well I broke my goal and did a 6K. The race was this last Saturday,and I was so not ready. My goal was to finish it, and to come in around 50 min. Well I finished in 49 min, and I think 10 sec. I actually was able to run a lot more then I thought, but I did walk a lot. My beautiful sister and I did this together. However, we were only by each other for about 30 seconds and then she was ahead of me. She finished the race in 40 minutes. Go Stacey. Here are some pictures from the great day. I am so glad that I am done, but I am hooked. i can't wait to do more.

                              This is right before the race started. It was cold.

                                   Coming into the finish. I was so glad to be done.

                                        Complete, love my sweatiness. This kiddos are my niece and nephew.

I am so glad I did this. Hopefully by my next one, I can run most of it. Practice makes perfect.

Have a great day.
Shelly

Another Baby Girl Present

Happy Wednesday,

My day is going well indeed. Tonight my little girl has her first award ceremony for Cubbies. She finished her book, and she is so excited. I can't wait to see her cross the stage.

Last night I had a baby shower to attend for a new baby girl that should be making her appearance any day. I made her a cute little outfit. It was not a difficult piece to make, but sewing machine decided to make it so. What should have been an hour project ended up taking about four. The machine kept jamming, coming un threaded, and not wanting to draw up the bobbin. I was not happy with it. Oh well, it worked out and the project got done. Here is the final result.

   I made a cute sundress with this beautiful material I picked up at the Cotton Thimble.

 I cut a onesie in half, and made the bottom portion a diaper cover. I just sewed some material with elastic to the top.

                       I made the top part a sweater by cutting the front apart and adding ruffles to each side.

                                    I then added three ruffles to the backside.

I am sorry my pictures are lame. Hopefully someday I will get better at that. Thank you for taking a peek. Hope you have a great day.

Resurrection Cookies

Hello All,

So I wanted to teach my little girl about the real reason of Easter. We get so wrapped up in egg hunts, cute dresses, and getting together with family. That is all great, but it is not the reason we celebrate Easter. We have a few books we read, and she learns about it at church, but it is most important for us as parents to model it for our children. I found this great idea in the March/April 2011 edition of MomSense, so this is not my idea.

It is ideal to do this the night before Easter, we were so busy though this weekend that we did it the day after. Either way, it does teach her the real reason.  This is a long post so beware. I wanted to link to this article in MomSense, but they don't have it there, so I am literally copying it.

You'll Need
1 c Whole pecans or 1 C mini-chocolate chips
1 tsp vinagar
3 egg whites
Pinch of salt
1 c sugar
ziploc bag
wooden spoon
tape
Bible

1. Preheat oven to 300
2. Place pecans or chocolate chips in ziploc bag. Have child beat with wooden spoon. Explain that after Jesus was arrested, the Roman Soldiers beat him (john 19:1-3)
3. Let each child smell the vinegar before putting it into a mixing bowl. Explain that Jesus was thristy on the cross, he was given vinegar to drink ( John 19:28-30)
4. Add egg whites to the vinegar. Eggs represent life. Explain that Jesus gave his life to give us life.(John 10:10-11)
5. Sprinkle a little salt into each child's hand. Let them taste it and brush the rest into the bowl. Explain that this represents the salty tears shed by Jesus' followers and the bitterness of our own sin.(Luke 23:27)
6. Add sugar. Explain that the sweetest part of the story is that Jesus died because he loves us. He wants us to know him and belong to him. (Psalm 34:8 and John 3:16)
7. Beat egg white mixture with a mixer on high speed for 12 to 15 minutes until stiff peaks are formed. Explain that the color white represents the purity of those whose sins have been cleansed by Jesus (Isaiah 1:18 and John 3:1-3)
8. Fold in broken nuts of chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a cookie sheet covered with wax paper. Explain that each mound represents the rocky tomb where Jesus' body was laid (Matthew 27:57-60)
9. Put the cookie sheet in the oven, close the door, and turn off the oven. Give each child a piece of tape and seal the oven door with the tape. Explain that Jesus's tomb was sealed (Matthew 27:65-66)
10. Go to bed. Explain that they may feel sad to leave the cookies in the oven overnight. Jesus' followers felt despair when the tomb was sealed too. ( John 16:20-22)
11. In the morning, open the oven and give everyone a cookie. Notice the cracked surface and take a bite. The cookies are hollow. On the first Easter, Jesus' followers were amazed to find the tomb open and empty. He is risen! He is risen indeed! ( Matthew 28:1-9)

Here are a few pictures from our time. She really enjoyed it, and explained everything she did to her daddy later.

I think this definately made it more real for her, and they tasted pretty good as well. Hope you can do this next year with your little ones.

God Bless,
Shelly