Homemade Christmas Ornaments

I got this neat book online for free. It is a countdown to Christmas, with an activity to do everyday. It has been so much fun. One of the ideas was to make homemade ornaments.

I made the salt flour dough (super easy) and then we put food coloring into some of the dough. I let Tobyn pick the shapes he wanted to cut out. He really liked the stars and trains, so ended up with a crazy amount of stars.



Zoё wanted to help too. So she sat on the counter, until she got bored. I put her on the floor and when I turned around to see what she was doing, I discovered her helping mommy with the flour. What a sweet girl....

We baked the cookies for about an hour and then let them cool. Then it was time to decorate. We used markers, glitter glue and puffy paint to make our ornaments pretty. Tobyn really like the glitter glue, especially the blue! I think he used the blue glitter on every ornament he made.

I sprayed them with a glossy varnish to seal them and preserve them. I think they turned out so cute. Tobyn decided he wanted to give some of the ornaments as Christmas presents.

Tobyn has already asked to do ornaments again this morning. But I think we will take it easy today. I am still exhausted from all that decorating. Hopefully I can recover before sugar cookie decorating!

TUTUS!!!

I got all my tutus done. I thought people would like to see the finished product. They turned out better than I had even hoped for. The blue one is one of Zoё's Christmas presents and the pink one is for my neice Melody. I am addicted to making tutus now...Brian is annoyed. What do you think???

Black Friday

This year is the first year Brian and I decided to brave the crowds of the Black Friday sales. We stayed in Boise for Thanksgiving, so we had a variety of stores to choose from. We got up at 4 am on Friday to make it Toys'R'Us by 5 am. By the time we arrived at 4:30 am there was a line around the building. Luckily, my cousins were already there saving us a spot in line!

My dear hubby cracked me up. He is so polite and did not want to push or be greedy. He just wanted to meander through the store. I just laughed at him. I told him, "Today is not the day to be a Looky-loo. You need to get what you want and we need to move on to the next store." We ended up getting all the toys on our list and we got them at great deals. The problem arose when we got ready to check out. There were "lines" going everywhere. People that thought they were in line found out they weren't. The store manager ending up stepping in and directing traffic. I hurried to spot in the new line and we were outta there after a 30 minute wait.

The Boise Town Square Mall was our next stop. We hit JCPenney's first and were able to get some adorable outfits for Tobyn and Zoё that ended up being 60% off. We went to a few other stores including the Disney Store, Macy's and Finish Line.

We met up with my parents for breakfast at IHOP. I enjoyed a scrumptious omelet and time with the kiddos and then we were on our way again.

Our last stop was JoAnn's Fabric for some items for homemade Christmas gifts. We ended up saving over $250! All in all, I think we had a successful first Black Friday shopping day and it is definitely something I will repeat.

A Sad Day

So it happened the other day. The day every mom dreads from the moment her baby is born. The thing that proves that their baby is now a toddler.

I asked Zoё to do something...I don't even remember what it was. She looked at me so innocently and said, "No." Since then she has learned to say it more emphatically and also shakes her head.

*Sigh* I guess it was bound to happen eventually. I was just hoping to keep her a baby longer.