Waiting for Santa

The kids love to do this every year. They put on their pajamas that they got for Christmas, we light a fire, and they look at it. Sounds strange, but it is neat to see how they grow each year. They always lay in age order. They are getting so big!

Braces off!

Here is my beautiful baby girl (10 years old, but still my baby!) with her braces off! What a beautiful simile. Below is a before picture that was taken the day she got her braces on, one year ago to the month!

Talent show-Alyssa singing Happy Working Song from Enchanted

Here is my darling 10 year old daughter singing Happy Working Song from the movie Enchanted. This is for her school talent show. She loves preforming and had a great time doing this!

Another talented bunch!

This is Nathan, 8 years old, and Savannah, 7 years old, singing When Christmas Comes to town from the movie The Polar Express. This is for their school talent show. Their performance was a little eventful. The first time they sang the music cut out in the middle of sweet Savannah's little dance. They were quiet surprised. Fortunately I brought a back up CD that my amazing husband burned for me before he went out of town. After the intermission they were able to give an encore presentation and sing again. They were much happier after completing their song!! This is the full version shown here.

Meet the singers

Here is a photo of my little performers after the performance. They were so cute and so brave to get up in front of a huge audience and sign. They worked really hard practicing and they had such a great time. I love that we get to go to a school that allows the children to display their talents!

I won a book!

I am so excited!! I never win anything!! I follow a few crafting blogs (links are to the right on my blog). I love the many tutorials and inspirational ideas I see. Well, at SEW CHRISTINE, she had a giveaway for a very cute book of purse and craft ideas. I uploaded some of my recent projects and she choose a person at random and it was me! I am so excited and can't wait for my new book. I should enter giveaways more often! Here is the winning project of mine:

Happy Halloween!

This is what has kept me busy in my free time for the past few weeks. HALLOWEEN!!! My mother started the tradition of having a theme and making all of our costumes when I was young. I pretty much keep up the tradition. This year we did the Alice in Wonderland theme. Alyssa was Alice, Savannah was the Queen of Hearts (naturally), Nathan was a card that was painting the rose (Alanna) red, and Arya was the adorable Cheshire Cat. (Her costume was kind of tricky because I couldn't find striped fabric, so I had to cut strips and serge them together, and THEN cut out the costume. Fun.)

We had an AMAZING week of Halloween parties and fun! Alyssa went to a party last Friday with her friends and stayed out until 10pm! It was almost like she was a teenager (she thought!) Then on Thursday Nathan and Savannah went to a party where they bobbed for apples, dipped them in caramel, and had a ton of fun.

Friday was the most rock'n time. Our friends just bought an amazing house out in Fallbrook. It is on a huge piece of land and the house is huge! They went all out with decorations, games, food, and fun. The kids ran, seriously, ran nonstop. Jared and I even dressed up. He was Porthos from the Three Musketeers and I was his 'beautiful woman.' We didn't get photos together, unfortunately.

Saturday was our annual church party. There was yummy food, tons of fun carnival type games, contests, prizes, music, and of course, the famous Trunk or Treat. Arya was a little apprehensive at first, but after one trip around to each 'trunk,' she was on her own! She loved it.


Then we came home, trick or treated the neighborhood while dinner was cooking, then went to to visit our piano teacher. She promised the children a big candy bar! So we took her some scarecrow cookies and trick or treated her street. So much candy, so much fun! Arya kept saying, "More house? Yes?"

Field Trip

We took a field trip to The Brass Ring this week. It was a very cool lesson on matter. Thank you to Bruce for taking us on a tour of his shop!!

Projects for this week

Here is what I have been working on this week.

Savannah is posing with her new Fancy Nancy Robe...

Her new Fancy Nancy wallet...

and her new Fancy Nancy tote.

She wanted to decorate brownies and take them to school.

Tonight was also the belt ceremony for taekwondo where my little martial artists all earned their purple belts. We brought decorated brownies for this too.

Savannah turns 7!!

October 1 was my Spicy Savannah's birthday. She is my head-strong child that is always doing things her own way, even from the day of her birth! I wanted her to be born in September because I REALLY like the birthstone. I did everything I could to make her come early, but she decided to be born on Oct. 1. She was my easiest labor, delivery, and recovery. I remember the first months with her of being pure bliss even though I had three kids with the oldest being three years old. She brings such excitement to our lives. We experience the whole pendulum of emotion with this little firecracker.

Here are some of my favorite photos of her through the years.

Seven years old:

Six years old:

Five years old:

Four years old:

Three years old:

Two year old tantrum and her favorite stuffed toys:

One year old:

Newborn:

Cute Wallet

This week Alyssa was invited to a birthday party for a friend. Babies are sooooo easy to give gifts for, especially handmade gifts, but 10 year old girls are much harder to sew for! Anyway, this sweet friend of Alyssa's already has an adorable tote or two, so I didn't want to make her one of those. Alyssa suggested a wallet. It just so happens that I love looking at this website: Sew Christine, and there is a very cute wallet tutorial. So, I made this wallet in about two hours and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I got confused and improvised on the credit card slots on the wallet, but the rest was tres facile!! (very easy) And the adorable, matching zipper pull was made by Alyssa. CUTE!

It looks WEIRD!

 

This is Savannah's math for today. II looked it over and just started laughing and laughing. It is sooooo Savannah. Look at #4. Read what she wrote. By the way, she writes in 'best guess spelling,' so some of it is spelled wrong. It says, " It's not correct because look 23, 33, 43, 53, 62. Doesn't it look weird?" I love the way she said, "Look" like she is talking to someone. I can just hear her voice saying this and it cracked me up. I love the way kids explain math! Doesn't it look weird???

Disneyland-My only project this week

Our season passes to Disneyland expire this week. We have had season passes three times and have loved it. We have had so many memories; Jedi Training, Alyssa and Nathan pulling the sword out of the stone, Snow White and Prince Charming riding the carousal with us and helping Savannah down from the horse, Nathan saying he wanted to marry ALL of the Disney princesses, Nathan kissing Ariel, Musical chairs with Alice and the Mad Hatter, dancing with Mary Poppins, cotton candy, churros, and the list goes on and on.

The kids are always asking to dress up and I never let them, until yesterday. They all dressed up, they all were so good, and we had our last trip to Disneyland one of the most memorable trips ever. I was so happy that Alyssa, my big 10 year old, wanted to dress up too!! She LOVES Alice from Alice in Wonderland. She has an Alice backpack, and when she said she would dress up as Alice and even be Alice for Halloween, I got sewing! So, here is my project for the week. Alyssa's Alice Costume. It only came in a size 8 and Alyssa is a size 10, so I had to do some refiguring. I am not good at refiguring; I sew best with patterns. The apron turned out a tiny bit big, but overall the costume was great!

Arya loved seeing all of the characters. I love the way she is holding Minnie's hand in the photo. She didn't want to leave Minnie and I had to pull her away as she was hugging Minnie because she wouldn't let go. Alice played musical chairs holding Arya's hand and helping her up and down from the chairs. It was so precious and that is why I LOVE Disneyland. Many magical memories for years to come!!

Our Mexico Trip

The photos speak for themselves; awesome trip!

My Bear Scout!-Project #4

BEFORE and AFTER:

Nathan has been in Cub Scouts since February. In March he earned his Bobcat. In April he earned his Wolf. After that he got really motivated and started doing scouting things all of the time. Unfortunatly, due to some leadership changes, the group didn't have a pack meeting. Pack meetings is where they get all of their awards.

September 2 was the most recent pack meeting and Nathan was counting down the hours! He was so excited to get all of the badges, pins, beltloops, and arrow points that he had been working on since May. He ended up getting his Bear badge, 1 gold and 7 silver arrow points for Wolf, one gold and three arrow points for Bear, his Leave No Trace award, his Outdoor Activity Badge, 20 belt loops, 10 pins, and his favorite, his religious square knot. That one was really important to him.

I am so proud of all of the work he has done (and all of the work he gave me to sew these things on!!). Scouting is great!

MY Boy Scout Tote-Project #3

This was my FAVORITE project I completed this week. My son started scouting in February. He is so excited by it all. He completed his Tiger, Wolf, and Bear Badges all in 7 months! He also earned three other major patches(Outdoor Activity, Leave No Trace, and Conservation award), his religious square knot, 2 gold and 10 silver arrow points, 18 belt loops, and 13 pins. I knew I would need a place to put his 'stuff,' so I whipped this baby up in about three hours. The fabric is Robert Kaufman and I LOVE it! It is so soft and perfect.

Here is the flap without the belt loop glued on and after the belt loop is glued on. I took one of my husbands' old belt loops. I also want to make one in the light tan for a dear friend who has 6 BOYS!!! She is a super mom and deserves a scout tote. If you want to buy one of these amazing totes, just visit my website, A Mi Amor, with the link in the upper right corner of the blog.