your local pal

Just to set the record straight, I have never poked fun at the PTA President, nor anyone wearing a turtleneck, or any pizza guy. In fact, Clayton delivered pizzas in the early days of our marriage, so I hold pizza guys in the highest respect.

:)

Hannah has quite the sense of humor...she left these drawings on mine and Clayton's pillows. We've had some good laughs with these! My brother Trevor busted up when he saw them on our fridge, "He has a good life AND he works at Little Caesar's!!?"

Resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

P.S. The news reporter never was finished, but I thought he was hilarious like that. Like a fish from Spongebob.

meet the felt family

"Hey Ma, we better get inside! Them raindrops is bigger than my head!"

"Storm's a-brewin'! Everyone get to shelter!"

"It's almost Easter! When are you going to take down these dang Christmas lights?"

"Stop staring at me."

{Hehe...we ran out of the small googley eyes when we got to this one, poor kid. He's a little self-conscious.}

"Yay for sunshine! Let's run through the hills!"

Isn't it funny, the things kids like to play with? I made this crazy little play set with Ben when he was about 3, back when we could fit all of our toys into one small tidy container, and we were dirt poor. I've come close to throwing it out a few times, but the kids always stop me, "No! Please! I love playing with that!" So we've kept it all these years. Nina has been playing with it lately, setting up different landscapes and weather for this wonky clothespin family.

When Nina piled the whole family onto the house with the bald kid laying down I asked, "Why are they all standing on him?" She said, "They aren't standing on him mom. That's our family, and that's baby Will laying on the floor."

Who knew that something that cost about $3 TOTAL would be such a hit? It makes me want to make some more...although maybe not so weird looking this time!

playdough

In an effort to turn off the noise of the TV, I made a big batch of playdough. At first, Olivia wouldn't touch it with her hands, only with rolling pins, toothpicks, and plastic knives. But then she really got into it and loved it {especially when we made the elephants}. Then the kids came home from school, and they spent 3 hours playing with it at the kitchen table, I was so surprised!

Homemade Playdough

2 cups flour

2 cups water

1/2 cup salt

3 Tablespoons oil

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

food coloring of your choice

Mix all ingredients in a medium saucepan. Stir and cook over medium heat until mixture pulls away from sides of pan and becomes doughy in consistency. Knead until cool.

Keeps 3 months unrefrigerated, and longer if it's refrigerated.

st. patty's artwork

Nina wants you to know this is a girl leprechaun.

And Hannah wants you to know that these leprechauns are getting their groove on!

wee leprechauns

Look what I pulled out of the spring decorations box, haha! Ben and Hannah made these a few years back, when Nina was just a baby. I need to go buy some more green craft foam so Nina and Olivia can make some too.

Here's the project in case you are feeling both Irish and crafty this week.

P.S. This old Irish potato dish is what we have for dinner on St. Patrick's Day every year, along with a rainbow fruit salad {because everyone knows there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow}. Just a big platter of strawberries, oranges or mangoes, bananas, kiwi, blueberries and purple grapes, piled into a rainbow shape. Sometimes we do green veggies and dip too.

We are hoping the leprechauns will bring us gold chocolate coins and Lucky Charms and green milk for breakfast again!

:)

Tonight Nina said that if she found a pot of gold, she would use it to buy gold chocolate coins.

nina's hand art

This crafty little book was spotted at JoAnn just before Nina's birthday. She has had so much fun with it! Each page shows a different way of tracing your hand in order to create an animal drawing. For example, you put two fingers up and trace your hand to make a bunny, etc. It comes complete with googly eyes, pom-poms, crayons and glue...everything a 6-year-old needs for a crafternoon! Nina was so nice to tape the elephant one onto Olivia's bedroom door for her.

Grab your JoAnn coupons and pick up some of these books, they make great gifts for birthday parties!

counting down...

I love this colorful chain, made exclusively by two of our in-house artists, Hannah and Nina.

nina's santa

This is my favorite picture of Santa ever. The skinny hat. The 5 o'clock shadow. I love it. My sister Hailey and I had a good laugh over this one, and she took a picture of it with her phone because she loved it too.

stamp art

Years ago, when I was expecting Ben, I worked at the University of Utah. Mail came in from all over the world with the coolest stamps. One of the professors, Yukio, the nicest little old man from Japan, would always leave little bundles of these stamps on my desk after he'd gone through his mail. I guess he noticed me always looking at them when I was sorting the mail.

Even after I left, Yukio would mail me envelopes stuffed with foreign stamps and a little note to say hello. It's been a few years since I've heard from him, but I still have all the stamps.

I've been wanting to use them for something creative for a long time, and finally Ben helped me make this stamp collage to hang up in his bedroom. We got the idea here, if you want to check it out. And you don't have to be a stamp collector to do this, I've found lots on ebay for practically nothing.

chrumpits and other fine works of art

"I hav thes litl sisr hr name is Nina she mac's me lafe she is 1 yestrday she got into the pot's and pans hse mad same suop."

-Ben, 1st grade

"I shuvled the drivwa." -Ben, 1st grade

"I got a pocitnife for Christmas." -Ben, 1st grade

"Yestrday I want to the cabin. I was helping bild the pipes and (it) was raning. And I did some of the alekchrek (electrical work)." -Ben, 1st grade

"I think I'm a good bildr." -Ben, 1st grade

Ben's 2007-08 Reflections Contest Winner! "I Can Make a Difference By Planting Seeds."

2nd grade

A little Norwegian paper doll Ben made for his Norway report, 2nd grade.

Hannah's drawing of musical instruments, age 6. "Chrumpit, Xilafon, Dram and Peano."

A self portrait on the potty, by Hannah, age 5. She is saying, "Wipe me mom." Nice.

A menu by Hannah, age 6. "Rabeyoley (ravioli). Pasta. Coorn chawder. Pancacks. Eggs. Sallid. Froot. Hot Dogs. Toast. Barbecoo. Pizza. Vegeys. Sasejes. Metbolls. Hambergess. Timato."

What the heck? Some love and a hot dog, by Hannah, age 5.

"do NOT come in I am doing somthing and you are not alowd to come in and that means you Ben! But you can come in Mom!" -Hannah, age 6

"Pig With a Moustache" -Nina, age 3

"Our Family on the Couch" -Nina, age 3

"Eeyore" puppet (from Winnie-the-Pooh), by Nina, age 3

Last week I decided to finally tackle the eyesore in the corner of my bedroom...the overflowing box of kids' artwork collected over the last few years. I reeeally let it build up this time! I managed to get it all organized over a couple of days, keeping just the favorites. But still I kept a lot. This stuff is just to funny to part with. At some point, I'd really like to use this great idea with their art.

The kids came in and looked through it with me, and we were all practically peeing our pants from laughing at their old drawings. When I read "chrumpit" I had tears streaming down, it just was so hilarious to me.

Here are a few samples for you, enjoy!

P.S. Clayton's mom recently gave us a fat binder of his elementary school work, and it was filled with good stuff too. My favorite was an "About Me" sheet where he filled in the blanks:

"When it is time for Parent Teacher Conference, I.....want to die." Haha!

chalk art festival {part two}

Last Saturday Clayton cleaned out the garage, and lo and behold, he unearthed a box of art supplies from my college days. Oooh, so exciting! There was a nice box of pastels in there, so I let the kids have at it. They were obviously full of inspiration from the festival the night before, and the chalk art mania rubbed off on about 20 neighbor kids too. They even drew a giant bridge in the street that you have to walk on if you want to get across to the other side. What a fun day...and what a ring around the bathtub that night!