I'm not sure how it happened, but 2011 is half way over. For now, I'll focus on June's accomplishments.
- .6 pounds lost. So much for the stomach flu weight loss program.
- 1 Toy Store themed baby shower.
- 2 Wood Badge beads received. It feels so good to have my ticket goals done and the beads around my hot little neck.
- 3 books read - Pushcart War, Sarah's Quilt, and Star Garden.
- 4 Scrapbook layouts completed.
- 7 articles written for the Homemaking Cottage and Arizona Mama.
- 26 Challenge projects completed. I guess I know why June felt so busy!
- 27 Blog posts.
- 43 Comments! Thanks for the input.
- 1161 page views.
What amazing things did you accomplish in June?
Happy Friday! This week has been busy and most of my project deadlines end over the weekend. I'm looking forward to slowing down a bit next week. We'll see if that happens. Through the craziness, I have several favorites.
- Grass / Trampoline - The grass is finally in enough to open access to the trampoline which entertained kiddos for long stretches yesterday. Trampolines + sprinklers = super happy kiddos!
- Silhouette - My super cool toy totally intimidates me. I'm so excited I used it successfully for a couple of Girls Camp projects. I'll have to show you next week.
- Plans that come together and people who help make that happen - My kiddos have been so helpful this week, often without even being asked!
- Family Photo Challenge - Don't forget to vote for your favorite picture in our first challenge.
There's some cool stuff going on beyond my little house.
- It's Free Font Friday again at Creating Keepsakes, and they have a digital sticker download you can use on Photoshop. The Photoshop thing would be cooler if I understood how to make it work.
- Nellie Design has cute printable tickets for Father's Day. This might work well with our gift for Dad.
- I'm not a fan of creamsicle Popsicle, but I'd try Your Homebased Mom's Orange Creamsicle Cupcakes.
- I heart Faces shares a tutorial on photo editing for those pictures that are too dark. The even have a linky tool if you want to try your hand at the process.
So what does your weekend hold? Big Father's Day plans?
In February, I found a great 28 Day Challenge. The idea was to complete a project a day. I couldn't keep up, so I modified it. I have a monthly project list. There are two columns; one for short projects that take less than an hour, and one for longer projects - some that will take months. There are a few recurring projects that vary on when they need to be done. Maybe those are my cheats, because they are going to get done regardless. Nonetheless my project list helps me manage my projects that I'm currently working on, and not forget about those I'd like to work on. Today, I thought I'd share my progress Ten on Tuesday style.
- Blog Schedule - this starts as an outline that I fill in with more specific ideas throughout the month. I'd like to have a post or two done a head of time, but that's only happened a few times.
- Craft supply order - it takes an hour just to look at the cool clearance stuff!
- Cub Scout advancement report
- Cub Scout newsletter
- CPR Class for one of my kiddos - I delegated this one to my hubby
- Cub Scout Committee meeting - I'm starting to notice a trend here
- Trip to the Scout Shop - I delegated that one to my hubby too. Those still count right?
- Read MEE Speaks
- Teddy Bear Sweet Shop party
- Nerf Top Shot party
I'll have more about the parties soon. What projects have you finished this month?
Recently a friend said "May is as busy as December with all the end of the school year activities." Combining the May craziness with It's a Crafty Life's Ten on Tuesday, here's my list of what exactly makes this May so crazy.
- Mother's Day
- Eight family birthdays
- Science fair projects
- Choir concert
- Rube Goldberg project
- Planning Girls Camp
- Vacation planning
- Baby Shower planning
- Way too much planning
- Reading Celebrations
How's your May going? What's making it crazy for you?
Things are ramped up around here preparing for the end of the school year. We have concerts, projects and parties in addition for all the planning for our summer activities. In amongst all the activity, I have a few favorites to bring me a little peace.
- Sarah's Quilt - I just started this book a few days ago, and I'm enjoying it as much as the first book in the series.
- Spending time with my kiddos.
- I loved Your Homebased Mom's post about her impending empty nest.
- Finishing up these last two birthday invitations. I posted them yesterday, but blogger ate that post. Hopefully it comes back!
- Teenage Tangled Birthday Party is posted over at Arizona Mama. It's the party that goes with this invitation.
Share your Friday Favorite!
I thought I was keeping a good pace with life and then the last couple of days slammed me with deadlines and busyness - you would have thought I'd have seen them coming. So today's Simple Pleasure is crossing things off the to do list.
I'm nearing the end of our birthday season and finished the last two invitations. Now that my kiddos are older, they like to help make their invitations. It's so much more fun that way, and they enjoy them more because they helped design and create them. First up is the Teddy Bear Sweet Shop.
Next is our Nerf Top Shot Invitation. Nerf guns make having our own Top Shot competition much more manageable.
Speaking of parties, I posted our Teenage Tangled Birthday Party on Arizona Mama that went with the invitations I showed you a few weeks ago.
One of my simple pleasures is celebrating with my kiddos. Whether it's like today, or even celebrating 30 minutes to play Just Dance 2.
We kicked off our Cinco de Mayo celebration a couple of days early by making these cool tissue paper flowers. They were a little more challenging than the directions made it look, mostly separating the layers without ripping the paper. I wish I would have seen this tutorial first. Our second attempt was a little easier, but we still had to be gentle fluffing them.
While you are in the Cinco de Mayo mood, check out my post on the subject on Arizona Mama.
Our lesson was a review of our Love One Another chart from Easter Week. I love to see all the acts of service that happen in our house!
For our activity, we made Mother's Day cards and gifts.
The treat was homemade ice cream. It was a simple recipe from a friend that turned out so good! Thanks Jill!
Family Home Evening on Easter Sunday is a little less structured; OK a lot less structured. We have dinner with extended family and enjoy the blessings of being together.
We did start off the day with something spiritual over our traditional Easter Breakfast. We read John 20 and discussed what Christ might say to us if he visited us. As with Thomas, I guess he would be gentle and reproving. I know I have many shortcomings; hence the pursuit in excellence. My motivation to keep trying is the Lord's gentleness and unwavering love.
I pray that you will have an Easter filled with love and gentleness.
"I wish to bear my own testimony in the strongest and most direct manner possible. I know that God lives. I bear witness to the reality and divinity of His Son Jesus Christ, who leads this Church, and who reveals the word of eternal nature of assurance the Father to our generation. I bear my testimony to the gift and power of the Holy Ghost, thethe priesthood, the calling of the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and thethat God has again spoken through a living prophet." ~ Robert D. Hales
There's some terrific "T" bloggers taking time for the A to Z Challenge.
Today's lesson will be about Palm Sunday. I can't believe this is our third year of centering our Easter celebrations on the Savior's life, especially his last week on the earth. When my sister-in-law gave us the "25 Days of Christmas" book, it was so easy making that part of our Christmas celebration. While I've found a book and a few article about doing the same for our Easter celebration, none of them has been the perfect fit. So I'm still tinkering and improving our celebration.
Like last year, we will read Luke 19:29-44. We will review "Palms for the Lord" and the symbolism of palm branches. And we will start our annual "Love One Another" poster. Not surprisingly, "Love One Another" will be one of our songs too.
New for this year is our story. We will read "The Ultimate Outcast" from Max Lucado's book Just Like Jesus.
Our activity was paper folding caterpillars.
I am in the middle of my birthday season; four parties in seven weeks, plus Easter and Mother's Day! Last week I made invitations for one of my teenage movie parties. I also started playing with my Silhouette in the process to cut out these super cute projectors. The movie title I printed on the computer, cut out, rounded the corners and backed on black card-stock. I added the yellow dots by hand and used scraps to make the projector light.
Sweet and simple!
Here's some "I" A to Z bloggers to check out.
A couple of years ago, I started thinking about how short changed Easter is compared to Christmas. At Christmas we celebrate for a whole month. Before this realization, we celebrated the Easter Bunny on Saturday and focused on the spiritual on Sunday. Even then, Sunday was mostly a family dinner with a little discussion about our Savior and an Easter lesson for Family Home Evening.
We're still building our Easter week tradition - it's actually eight days, from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. We use the book A Christ Centered Easter for some of our stories, scripture references and activities. I continue to collect stories and we experiment with activities that bring the spirit and focus our hearts on Christ.
Today, I will pull out the Easter decorations. The children and I will decorate with bunnies and eggs, and our hearts will remember the most beautiful of the gifts of spring.
No fooling, here's what's tickling my fancy this first day of April.
What are you loving this April Fools day?
General Conference is this weekend! I love General Conference and I love that my children love General Conference. We make it a special weekend of traditions and food. OK, most of our traditions center around food. Since they are traditions, we will be writing in our journals and playing Conference Bingo. I even found some new bingo sheets!
The only questions I really have is our breakfast menu. I'm seriously thinking these Chocolate Muffins from Your Cup of Cake will be in the line up! I will probably also make biscuits and chocolate gravy.
My last minute St. Patrick's Day activities were a success! I spent about an hour playing with my kids and it made the whole day feel festive. I even found some Hershey's Kisses in green wrappers and golden Twix bars tucked away in the freezer from Christmas to add to their snacks.
I've simplified "Favorite Feed Friday's" to "Friday Favorites"; easier to say and lets me include more of my faves!
- For example, I am loving These Is My Words! I checked it out from the library - and renewed it, but I didn't start reading it because I was finishing Eragon. A friend told me how much she liked it so I rechecked it out and started it a couple of days ago. I'm having a hard time putting it down. There's a part of me that would rather be reading that than hang out on the computer! Shocking, I know.
- Traveling Oma confesses a less than stellar moment from 7th grade. My dad gave me a watch one summer; I was probable 10 or 11. Since I only saw my dad in the summers and we picked it out together, it was very special with its digital fanciness. It even had a light! One day I was bored and curious, truly a bad combination. I took apart my watch to see how it worked. After through research, I wasn't any closer to understanding how it worked. I put the cover over the battery, and to my dismay there was no time and no cool light. I was so ashamed I hid in a drawer for a couple of years until I finally threw it away. Every time I talked to my dad, I was worried he would ask me about our special watch.
- Chocolate on my Cranium shares an interesting lesson in multiple intelligences and a link to find out yours or your kiddos.
- Pumpkin Patterns shares a how to for a sweet pouch. We've been thinking of doing something like this with M&M bags; this will help our idea work better.
- I love the wreath idea from Family Chic. I think it would be perfect for more than just Easter.
- I don't have babies or crochet, but these hats from Little Birdie Secrets make me wish I did! She even shares the patterns.
I've been thinking about St. Patrick's day for a couple of weeks, trying to think of a way to make it fun for the kiddos. None of the crafts have really grabbed me and I'm still wore out from all the cooking I did on Pi day. So how does a wore out mom, who can't get into the spirit of the Irish, celebrate?
I am wearing my green duct tape bracelet. Every year I'm surprised by how little green I have in my wardrobe!
DLTK shares a little about the holiday and a story about St. Patrick and the snakes. I also found a word search, my kiddos usually like those. Enchanted Learning has a fun challenge; find a green thing that starts with each letter of the alphabet. They even have a sample answer sheet. Family Fun has a physical challenge of letting go of the gold and a couple of fun Gaelic Games.
If I could have made my brain work sooner, we could have learned about Ireland or read more Artemis Fowl. I think I'll issue a journal challenge - what would you do if you found a pot of gold?
Today is Pi Day, 3.14 (March 14). Not to be confused with Pie Day, the day before Thanksgiving that we make pies for the feast. We are slightly nerdy at our house, but I don't like math enough to do equations as a celebration. But if we're talking food, count me in!
- We started our Pi day celebration with Quiche for breakfast - it's baked in a pie shell so it totally counts.
- For lunch some of us had a pot pie, nothing fancy just a little frozen one.
- Dinner we'll have a pizza pie. OK, it's just a normal round pizza but it works.
- Finally, we will finish off our day of food with a Frozen Lemon Pie, that I am now on my way to put in the freezer.
Happy March! That means Spring's here, right? We are definitely enjoying our few days of 80 degree weather. I guess that means I should take down the Valentines decorations and move on to St. Patrick's Day. Or I could spend my time surfing the web and share my finds with you!
- Today is National Grammar Day! Who knew? Grammar Girl has several ways to celebrate.
- Booking Mama interviews Pamela Schoenewaldt author of When We Were Strangers. I love the insight on her research and dedication.
- I enjoyed Amelia Maness-Gilliland's article on Arizona Mama on experiential learning, the process of evaluating lessons learned from small events in our lives and using that knowledge to make better choices next time.
- Little Birdie Secrets is hosting a giveaway for some super cute buttons.
- Poca Cosa shares a free St. Paddy's Day printable.
- If you are looking for some scrapbook inspiration, be sure to check out Pebbles, Inc.
What caught your attention today on the World Wide Web?
My Cubmaster and I wanted a few specific things to happen at our Pack's Blue and Gold Banquet. We wanted it to be a little fancy; 8 - 11 year old boys can't handle too fancy, but fancier than your average pizza party. We also wanted it simple and only slightly longer than a regular pack meeting. And we wanted to celebrate the boys accomplishments and show our appreciation for our den leaders.
I was happy with the results. The decorations were simple, white table cloths with smaller blue and yellow toppers. We had three cut out paper Cub Scouts on each table. We incorporated this month's theme "resourcefulness" into our decorations by using what we had on hand and discussed ways the boys could be resourceful in our opening and in the Cubmaster's minute.
After our opening, we served a spaghetti dinner. I was worried about cooking the noodles ahead of time and having them stay warm. We tossed the pasta with olive oil and kept them in the pan with the lid on and they weren't too bad. The sauce stayed hot in crock pots and that helped warm up the noodles. Families helped by bringing garlic bread, salads and desserts. We even did pretty good on guessing how much food to buy. The only thing we ran out of was forks! During dinner, we had a slide show running of pictures from our Pack's previous Den and Pack meetings.
As people finished eating, we had our Wolves and Bears each do a skit. We had a great night for awards; four boys earned their Bobcat, one earned his Wolf, and two earned their Bear. We also had a few other awards. Our Primary Presidency awarded all the leaders candy kabobs to thank them for "sticking to it".
We finished off the night by bringing out the desserts and letting the families have a few minutes to social before we started cleaning up. From start to the end of clean up was about two hours.
