DIY Christmas Decor

Yes, we have our Christmas decorations up already. Not the tree yet- although that will probably be up before the day is over. This year though we decided to expand our decoration collection by adding some DIY projects.
First up- a little something to spice up the wall behind our Nativity scene. We took a 1'x 8' board, painted it, and then added the words using a little trick I learned on Pinterest. Step 1- Print words you want. Step 2- Place paper on the board. Step 3- Trace the letters with a ballpoint pen. Press kind of hard so you are making an indentation on the board. Step 4- Paint the letters. The indentation outline helps keep the paint in place. Who needs a Cricut?!? Total cost- about $3.

Next- something my sister started doing. Wrap the pictures on your wall to look like presents. Since we had paper from last year, the only cost was the ribbon, so another $3. So festive, right? But wait- there's more.

 I have a plain grape vine wreath that I bought at the store. I change out the flowers to match the season. Here is how it looks for Christmas. Total cost: $3. (I'm not making this up. These things all really are $3.)

And now, the "big ticket" craft, also inspired by Pinterest. It was like $15 for the garland, a couple bucks for the bows, and extra lights we already had. Wrap them around a tomato cage and Ta-Da! Super cute little Christmas trees for the porch for under $20. Total.

Happy Holidays! (Maybe I can use my newfound crafting genius- AKA Pinterest- to make some Thanksgiving decorations. Then I won't have to put up my Christmas decorations so early just to get into the holiday spirit!)

Snow College Homecoming 2011

Snow College Homecoming was late this year- the first Saturday of November. Which meant the parade was pretty cold. But that didn't stop us!

They moved the tailgate party indoors to the student center. The party included one of those big blow-up obstacle course things. Josh did great at climbing the wall, and going down the slide of course.

They had a place to take pictures with Buster and the cheerleaders. Josh would have nothing to do with it, but Abby liked the cheerleader and was willing. She was very curious about Buster the Badger though. He is pretty scary looking.

Ayden, my nephew, came to the parade and festivities as well.

He is a year younger than Josh, and they are great buddies. They have the same obsessions (Toy Story and Cars). So he came to our house to play while Grandma and Grandpa braved the cold to attend the game (which Snow lost- it was a bummer).

Halloween 2011

This year for Halloween, Josh was Peter Pan.

The costume was a hand-me-down from the cousins, and it was a couple sizes too big, but that wouldn't stop him from wearing it. He loved it! I made a mental note to let him watch Peter Pan a lot as we get closer to next Halloween so he will want to be Peter again. That probably won't work out, but I can try, right?
Abby was Tinkerbell, thanks to another hand-me-down from another cousin.

Some of the cousins got together at a Halloween Carnival at the Snow College Richfield campus. I remember Halloween being a lot more fun when I didn't have sugar-high, sleep-deprived 3 and 1 year olds to keep under control. But it was still a memorable experience.

I am still finding scraps of paper from this lovely Dig-through-the-confetti-for-treasures game.

On Halloween Day, Josh informed me that I needed to be "Wendy." Since I have a shortage of old fashioned, full length nightgowns, this posed a problem. And the lovely house dresses available at our local Wal-Mart were not really appealing. Plus, they weren't blue, which was really the only requirement according to Josh. I told him that I didn't have a Wendy dress. He walked me into my closet and pointed out my blue dress shirt and said "Just wear this Wendy shirt Mom!" Then he picked out Abby's blue headband and flower and the result was a perfectly lovely ensemble.

The best part of all was we had very little candy left over after the Trunk or Treat, so we didn't feel overly guilty about the fact that it was all gone within 36 hours.