You should see the other guy...

Yesterday I got an e-mail from the little league website with tips and drills to do during the off-season. I couldn't find the tip "play catch with your 16-year old brother and catch the ball with your eye" anywhere in that information. So yesterday morning was spent at the doctor's office to make sure the eye underneath didn't take a beating, too.

 Here are the cards from the last post.  I couldn't get the pictures to load!  So, I made two cards, embellished the envelopes, and made an 8-1/2 x 11 inch layout...all from 1 piece of white cardstock, three pieces of patterned paper, some letter stickers and a couple of buttons, and the lace and trim on the layout.  Not bad, if I do say so myself!  I love flowers, and can't keep them off of my pages, which is a problem when three out of four children are of the male persuasion.

Here's another look at the Treasure Map cake.

A cake decorator I am not, but it's always fun to try!  Disclaimer:  do not try to find the treasure by using this map.  It will just confuse you.

Now I'm off to pack umpteen lunches, make breakfast, send the kids off to school, and head to work myself.  And get rid of this cold I've seem to come down with.  Hope you stay healthy and warm!

The sweetest gift...

During Primary on Sunday, the sharing time lesson was about Jesus, and what gifts we could give him.  The kids each wrote down their idea for a gift, which was service that they could do for someone else, and put the paper into a stocking with Jesus' name on it to remind them to perform that service.

One of the teachers helped Monkey with his paper, and I heard him say that he would make his bed every day because that would make his mom happy.  Wasn't that nice to think about me!

Fast forward to this Monday morning.  I took some clean laundry upstairs to put away, and in the midst of the rest of the chaos in the boys' room was a perfectly made bed.  You could practically bounce a quarter off of it.  It was that good.  Well, I couldn't let that bed go to waste, so I did a quick clean-up on the rest of the room so that it lived up to the beautifully made bed.

When I picked the boys up from school I asked Monkey about his bed.  I told him it looked great, and he said, "That's my gift to Jesus, Mom, remember?"  So sweet!  I thought about the video that I posted on Saturday.  If we all just do something, anything, for someone one else, we have also done it for Him.  Mario is working the real meaning of Christmas.

P.S.  I got a picture of the kids.  It's not the greatest, but it will have to do for the card since I've ordered them from Purple Trail and they should be on their way in a few days.  Now to get the addresses done!  Where did I put that darn pen?

Winding up for Christmas...

Well, here we go.  The FIRST day of December!  I know I say this all the time, but I really don't know where November went.  Or January, for that matter.  The year has flown by! And saying "2011" doesn't sound OK.  Not OK at all.

As I'm sitting here in the early-morning quiet, the calm before the storm of everyone waking up, I can't help but think about all that needs to be done and feel a bit anxious about it all.  I guess we'll just take it a day at a time, but still plan ahead.  We like to keep Christmas simple, and that will include visiting the Creche exhibit on Friday and picking out a Christmas tree on Saturday. 

I really pared down the Christmas decorations when we moved, so I'll have to go through them to determine what our tree will need in order to look halfway decent.  We also must put lights on the outside of the house, we have the perfect front porch for it!  So the bulk of our decorating will come from lights, and the kids and I will be making some decorations for the tree to keep the cost at a minimum.

We still haven't taken a picture for the Christmas card, so I'm hoping to get that done in the next few days, get them ordered and print labels to mail them out.  I have been VERY lax about this in the past few years, so I'm hoping to get back in the swing of things and send them out every year again.

I hope you all have a Wonderful December, a Merry Christmas, and a Prosperous New Year!  I'm so appreciative that you take time out of your busy day to visit our little corner of the blogosphere! 

I'll leave you with my new favorite quote from Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
 "God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame."

And to the person who knocked on our door last night and left a huge, gorgeous bag of mandarins, I apologize for being asleep on the couch, cuddled up with my two little boys and a snoring dog, while pretending to be watching a movie.  When I woke up from my little snooze, they informed me that someone had been knocking on the door.  Thanks for the heads up, boys.

Hello, Cupcake!

These cupcake cards are so easy to make. Almost as easy as the real, cake-y confections!

I started with a 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of pink cardstock and some scraps of corrugated yellow paper and some Die Cuts With a View scalloped cardstock. I just free-hand trimmed the scalloped cardstock into a cupcake top, and cut a wedge out of the corrugated paper. Both papers had a white core, so I sanded them a bit to add a little dimension.

Then I used some more scraps and cut them down to size. I folded the cardstock for the "hello, cupcake" card so that the inside showed about an inch or so past the front, so "cupcake" shows when the card is folded closed.

Then, some Thickers letter stickers, a button, and some stitching are the frosting on the {cup}cake!

2 cupcakes, and zero calories.