Angry Birds

The family has become obsessed with Angry Birds. I downloaded the free app without realizing what I was doing. I thought this would be something for the girls to occupy themselves with when we are somewhere and they are ready to lose it. But little did I know the obsession that would also involve my husband. We actually have bought the apps, which we never pay for apps. So that in itself is pretty amazing. The girls and Thomas are constantly asking to use my Ipod Touch in order to play the game. They are in competition with each other to get better scores. The three of them have no idea what is going on around them when they are playing Angry Birds.

Bells went off in my head when I found a tutorial for making your very own Angry Birds. I knew this was the perfect gifts to put in their stockings.

If I had more time I would have made a variety of the birds and pigs. But if you are interested there are tutorials for each of the birds and pigs.

You can find the pig and blue bird here. 

The yellow bird can be found here.

The patterns were easy to follow and I am using my junior high sewing skills. (Shout out to Mrs. Whiting for providing those skills.) I did get a free motion foot for my sewing machine and that was a whole experience learning to use it.

Now the area I had difficulty with was closing up the seam and sewing on the beak. My hand sewing skills are non-existent. I made something up and it looks okay. Of course I found a tutorial after I finished all three. So I linked up the tutorial hoping others will not have the frustration that I did.

Reindeer Cake Pops

Two years ago, I discovered Bakerella's site for cake pops. I fell in love. I wanted to make every variety. Then I discovered she had a book. I ran out to get it the week it came out. My first cake pops were the Hello Kitty version. Last night I decided to make the reindeer version for the teachers at work.

 I had fun making them. It was just time consuming making over 70 cake pops, but not hard.

 Rudolph and regular reindeer were made.

 My dad made a board to hold the cake pops which was a real help. The board says "White Sox" for my husband. My husband actually makes cake pops every week for his student, but doesn't decorate them.

We had a snow delay today, which never happens for my district. The girls didn't have school due to the snow. So they came to school with me. Cake pops were eaten at lunch, but there were quite a bit of leftovers due to people not being there because of the weather. I believe I am going to use the leftovers as presents for the neighbors.

Visit With Santa

Wednesday we took the girls to see Santa at Bass Pro Shop. This was well worth the time. We had never been before, but had received recommendations many times before. This was the best set-up I have seen. When you arrive, an employee gives you a card with your time and tells you to come back 10 minutes before your time and to stand in either the left or right line. While you wait for your time, there are crafts, games, and activities for the kids to do for free. The girls loved shooting the guns, racing cars, and writing letters to Santa. They didn't do the craft, a snowman mask, during the wait.

 While waiting in line I took pictures of the girls and they were willing which is amazing anymore. While taking these pictures, I realized that Melodye's glasses are quite crooked. Guess we need to take them in to be fixed. Luckily we bough two pairs this time.

So I took individual pictures of the girls, but Mel's didn't come out due to the crooked glasses. I asked the girls if they wanted to wear something else to see Santa. but they told me no and just wore their clothes from school.

 Melodye has loved nutcrackers since she was really young and Barbie and the Nutcracker movie came out. She has been collecting certain ones ever since. (We make her be picky so we aren't overrun with nutcrackers.) So of  course the girls had to take a picture with the nutcracker. After the crafts were cleaned up, Brooke decided she wanted to do one....sorry charlie I asked you earlier.

I love this photo of Brooke and Santa chatting. Melodye asked me not to take a picture of her and Santa. I respected her wishes even though I didn't want to really. The family took a picture with Santa, but I will not be posting it here. Santa had a reindeer next to him and this stuffed reindeer looks like he is "goosing" me in the photo. Needless to say, that is not a good photo.

Christmas Card 2010

Dotty And Nice Christmas Card

Shop Shutterfly for unique, personalized Christmas photo cards.

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This is what we ended up making as our Christmas Card.

Christmas Cards

Working on my master's program this year has left me with not enough time to do the things I would like. Isn't that always the story. But I feel I need to start anew and focus more on the things I enjoy. Things like taking pictures, learning to actually use my camera, scrapbooking, crafting, knitting, new things in my classroom, and the basic thing is that I just need and want to create. I have made sure that I have spent time with my family even if that means I have spent the time after bed doing homework and operating the next day on 3 to 4 hours of sleep.

Where this is going....normally I try to make my Christmas cards. I don't think that will be happening at all. I resigned myself to doing photo cards. Of course I still need to take pictures to use. I have looked at some, but have not been totally thrilled with them....until today. (Such drama there.) But seriously I found out about a deal that Shutterfly is currently having for bloggers. If you blog and post about Shutterfly and their cards, they will be giving out 50 (yes you read that number correct, 50) 5X7 photo cards to the blogger. The cards are amazing. And just the style I have been wanting to create. You don't believe me or think it is too good to be true. Well here is the link. Now to see some beautiful eye candy.

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 I love the colors and the Happy Everything...covers everyone no matter their beliefs.

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 I love the colors, the polka dots, and the asterisk above the Happy Holidays. 

In fact I bought some address labels that are similar. Hmmm that may be why I like this one.

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I like the idea of a whole photo card depending on the photo. 

I like Christmas being in different colors and another asterisk as the bottom.

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I like the list on the side. 

A nice way of adding journalling to make this sort of a scrapbook page.

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Of course I love this because of the colors, asterisk, and polka dots.

I am sensing a recurring theme with the cards I have picked.

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 I like the colors, patterns, asterisk, and the black background. 

Simple yet busy at the same time.

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I like this one for the three picture slots. 

The brown background is nice along with the little Christmas tree.

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 I like the whole photo look with the tag and ribbon look. 

Just finding the perfect picture that will fit around the tag is the problem.

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I like the polka dots, black background, and colors.

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I didn't realize until I was typing this, but I really am leaning towards the same colors, polka dots, possible black or white background, and the asterisk. Now I just need to take the pictures and maybe that will help me decide.

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At the same time I am also considering getting cards for New Years. Every year we have family over for New Years. I also try to do cute cards, but I think these are just adorable. Take a look.

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I like the blue and the square shape of this card.

 

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I love the black background and the countdown numbers.

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Of course if you are interested in cards that will benefit others, Shutterfly has those also. The cards can be purchased that will benefit Livestrong, American Lung Association, and Heifer. The cards can be found here.

Happy Holidays and enjoy looking at all the possibilities at Shutterfly.

January 2010 Monthly Goals

 
The New Year has officially started. 2010 ... amazing ... and going to be difficult to remember to write. I have thought long and hard about New Years Resolutions. Deciding how I would like to do them and keep them with keeping them being the ultimate goal. Well I read something earlier today and sadly I don't remember where, although it might have been a Facebook post or not. Basically it said why set New Years Resolutions only once a year, every day is a new day with all these possibilities. I really like that thought, but setting resolutions each day will get old really quick. So I have decided to set goals/resolutions a month at a time. I figure in that amount of time (28 to 31 days depending on the month) I will have time to achieve my goals and if I don't achieve them completely I am able to adjust them for the next month.

So here are my goals for the month of January 2010:

1. Actually complete Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred. I have completed Day 1 and that is a real start.

2. Do not eat out for the whole month. Now this is a whole family resolution. Tommy has said that he is on board. Now I just have to get the girls on board. I figure this will be beneficial in eating healthier, spending less, and planning our time better.

3. Get our savings account built back up to a comfortable amount. Now this means watching our spending, continuing using coupons in the combination with sales, but mostly being mindful of how we are spending our money.

4. Keep up with the house cleaning and organization. Now don't get me wrong ... the house never gets that bad, but enough to annoy us. We spent our Christmas Break cleaning, organizing, and purging. I would like for us to keep up with this and in the process all of us will be in better moods. (The only room that didn't get done was the scrapbook room so I am going to make that a priority. Who am I kidding? It is always last on the cleaning priority list, but I am going to try to get it cleaned and organized by the end of the month.)

5. Work on the February Lady Sweater. Now I would love to say finish it, but I do not know if that is realistic. I started it in the spring and it has now been sitting for months and months. So I am not even sure where I am on it right now. Good news though, I did finish my Alice scarf which had no reason to take so long other than laziness.

Good Girls and Boy

We must have been good in this household. Santa treated all of us well. The girls were cuter than ever with their hair all curly.

Christmas Eve was a busy night. We had fun at Aunt Pat and Uncle Dave's house. Although, we did have to leave after a rousing game of Farkle. then we went to Aunt Pynki and Mike's house. We arrived after a lot of people had already left for the night. But we did get a family photo together.

Then we came home and went to sleep. During that time Santa was busy leaving us all of those presents.

And of course you cannot go wrong with SpongeBob Legos in this household.

This my new favorite commercial for this Holiday season.



And on of my new favorite shows and music.

Christmas Lights in MC

We took the girls to a local park to see the lights that were set up. The girls were pretty amazed by the lights. I don't know why we haven't taken them in the past. The pictures are not the best, but not bad for a little pocket camera.

Myself I preferred the lighthouse and the grist mill. Melodye liked the grist mill. Brooke was happy with anything that had to do with Santa of was moving.

Labor Day Pipe Dreams

I don't know about other teachers. But for me, Labor Day is viewed as a chance to get things done at home and for my classroom that I do not normally have time for. Oh picnics are nice and wonderful, but I dream of whole days getting things done because everyone else has plans and then use Monday as a day to do stuff at home that I enjoy. Now this pipe dream never comes completely into fruition. But I can always hope and dream because that always makes my day better if I keep hope alive.

Here are some example of things I would like to accomplish:

• I would like to go through Brooke's closet and dresser to pull out all of the clothes that she has completely outgrown which is most of them. She has outgrown clothes that were bought at the beginning of summer. GRRRRR stop growing so fast!!!!! (You are supposed to be my baby not my amazon girl.)
• Clean Brooke's room so that she has no excuse as to why she can't keep it clean.
• Go through Melodye's closet and dresser. Give Brooke any clothes that will fit her that Melodye still hasn't worn and has tags on it. Get any skorts that are too short for her out of her room. She thinks if there is still room in the waist they fit. But she is so skinny they never fit in the waist, her butt hangs out instead and no just because there are shorts under there does not make it okay.
• Organize Mel's room so that there is no reason why she can't keep it clean.
• Go through my clothes.
• Transfer all pictures off the cameras (I have to find the little one first). Label and order all of these pictures. Back up the pictures.
• Cut and file coupons. (I am so behind it is not funny.)
• Go through organize and label boxes for school. I had help packing last year and all of the boxes didn't get labeled.

Now that was just home stuff. For school, I would like to:

• Get Tommy to make dividers for my big book rack. The ones I have will not hold up the books.
• The boxes for school also need to be listed here.
• Make homework packets.
• Redo my lesson plan form.
• Set up my grade book.
  
• Update my grade book.
• Get some decorative things for classroom done.
• Make some center for next week. (I need to start looking further ahead to see what I need.)
• Some other stuff in my bag that I can't remember off the top of my head.

Once I get necessary stuff done. I would like to:

• Scrapbook
• Read
• Sew
• Just enjoy myself
• Go to Lopez family picnic on Sunday.
• Watch the first disc of Veronica Mars Season 1.

Of course, I won't get all of this done, but I do like to have those pipe dreams and hope that I can become a super hero and finish all of this. I also would like to start blogging again. I am missing it.

Mother's Day 2009

I hope everyone's Mother's Day was wonderful and restful. Someday I will have a restful one. Today we went to mmy parent's house for bagels and danishes. Then we went to Melodye's soccer game and got rained on even while the sun was shining. The last thing we did was run to three grocery stores because their instore coupons expired today.

In the morning I tried to take pictures with the girls. I will let the pictures speak for themselves and what stage Brooke is in with the whole picture taking thing.