I LOVE Pumpkin!

Today Halloween Prep is in FULL SWING!

We've had our decorations up for a few weeks now but today is the day I cook a pumpkin which means we will have pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin cake, pumpkin seeds (I sound like Bubba Gump talking about shrimp)

anyways I love PUMPKIN!

We're also making sugar cookies and doing some Halloween crafts today.

I did not want to waste the pumpkin stem so we made it into a pumpkin shaped stamp.

 This was a really fun (if you don't mind glitter) and easy craft. We used Elmer's Glue to make shape of a spider web on Parchment Paper & cover it in glitter, let it dry and  CAREFULLY peel it off.

Thank you pinterest for another great idea!

 Kai LOVES skulls because they remind him of pirates so we have quite a few in our decor.

Music to my ears

Today was parent/teacher conference at Kali's school.
-she is good at math
-she is improving her reading
-she is really good at Art (her art will even be featured at the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show this month) PE & Music.
-she is nice to others
-she is a good listener
In a nutshell: Kali is a perfect angel :)
Hearing that is like music to my ears.

On the topic of music...Kai's new favorite song to sing it "I'm sexy and I know it". Oh my sweet little Kai, what ever are we going to do with you. I took him to run errands today and he was dressed as Obi Wan Kenobe and carrying a light saber. Kai always keeps us laughing.

Oh and these pictures have nothing to do with this post but we made these glowing jars from broken glow sticks (from the dollar bin at Target) and glitter dumped into a mason jar and shaken up. It was a fun idea from Pinterest :)

No new updates on our bedroom....Fran had to work today.

Getting our craft on

We LOVE making crafts around here. To start off December the kids made life size snowmen. Kai's was (of course) a pirate.



and Kali's was a fancy snowlady :)

We also found some pine cones in Yaya's yard to decorate with glitter & fuzz balls.

Today we're going to pick up our tree from Costco & Mr. Becker got us some firewood. Tonight will be all about hot chocolate & decorating the tree by the fire. I LOVE December!!

What the kids have been up to

Kali started "big girl" dance this month. She is in the 6-8 yr old Jazz & 6-8 year old tap & ballet class. Her 2nd cousin Tatum is in Jazz with her and she was so excited to meet her! Kali LOVES dance. Luckily she has her classes on the same day so I stay for the 2 hours and chit chat with the other moms & my cousin.


Kali also LOVES her new school. I am SO glad that I changed schools for her because the school is very safe, tons of parents are involved and her teacher is great. We went to the meet the teacher night this week and she said Kali is a good example to the other kids and she's doing really well with the school work. We even got to see her work on the "Good Work" board. Way to go Kali!!

The kids have been playing together a lot after Kali gets home from school. He really misses her during the day and always asks when she is coming home. We got a book about a little cloud at the library and made clouds out of shaving cream and Elmer's glue.

Since Francis and I have been working on the house we have to keep them busy or else they want to "help".....yeah right!

When Kali is at school Kai like to watch "Jake and the Neverland Pirates"--his FAVORITE show. Dressing up like a pirate or a knight or Spiderman is also a daily occurrence.

We work on writing his name and learning the alphabet, shapes, colors and numbers. He is going to start a preschool class at the community center in 2 weeks.

Oh and he is still in soccer but mainly spends the hour doing this. (this is Francis bribing him with a trip to Target--ha!)

and very, very little of this.







But he looks soooo darn cute in his little uniform :) Oh well...at least he gave it a try.

While we are painting.....

While Mr. Becker and I have been finishing up the hallway and turning Kai's room into a pirate room......

the kids have been keeping busy with crafts. We colored these dry pasta noodles with food coloring and two squirts of hand sanitizer (with alcohol) in a zip lock bag. Let them dry in the sun and time to make noodle jewelry.

We also used old tissue paper from birthday gifts to work on letters and make mosaic pictures. (I saw this idea on pinterest)

Pretty soon we'll be finished with the hall & Kai's room and I will share pictures.

Tid bits

After we painted yesterday Mr. Becker came home from the gym and we went to the mall for lunch and the Museum of Natural History in Mesa (aka the dinosaur museum).

Kali LOVES learning about rocks and already has a huge collection she inherited from myself & Uncle Cody.

Kai decided his legs didn't work and insisted on being carried the entire two hours. Francis was only allowed to put him down if we were stopping to look at something. Oh that kid!

The kids built this dinosaur out of all these fun velcro pillows they had and this dino had Kali for lunch. We had a nice time....well beside Kai being a bit of a whiner ;)
My cousin, Eryn did soccer pics for Kali's team last week.
Look at my little cutie pie!
Oh this is her first and LAST season....she is scared of kicking the ball sooooo yeah last season.

I found this picture on Design Mom today....holy cow I love these pillows....gotta get out the sewing machine!

and if I can just get my mom to help with half of them ;)

Big News!!!

Guess what???

No, we're not having another baby (though my daughter's kindergarten teacher said we should)

I opened an etsy shop today for all the cute hair clips I make.

Little Dear 4 U

if you're in the market for some cute hair clips or headbands check it out!

Valentine's for boys

Let's face it,

boys don't care about Valentine's Day.

Heck men don't either.

We got the girls in Kali's class cute heart bracelets and for the boys I printed up these paper airplane templates

made a little note from Kali

and tied them together with string

super easy, inexpensive and fun for the boys!

p.s. Kali did not want them to say Love, Kali so we went with From, Kali....keeping it professional :)

And, for Mr. Becker I found these coupons here and printed them up

I made the blank ones back rub coupons and left out the slow dance & play cards by candle light because we're just not that romantic :)

Kai

Kai usually looks like this....
a blur
He likes to eat a lot
he loves to brush his teeth
play with his swords
play on his pirate ship my dad built him
ride his bike
run around
play with Noodle, our dog
wrestle with Daddy
read books
play with Kali
walk over to Yaya's
be outside
jump on the trampoline
play swords fighting on Wii

but yesterday he had an art project:

(and this boy loves to paint)

to paint his steering wheel for his pirate ship.

He was so quiet and concentrating so hard.

He may be wild at times

But he is also the sweetest boy.

I love the look on his face.

***Your wish is my command cousin Krista :)

Here is the link with a tutorial on how to make the CUTE headbands I made for Kali's soccer team. It is from a blog called My Blonde Ambitions & she has SO many good ideas on there!

Gettin' crafty with it, na-na-na-na-na-na-na

I am making handmade gifts this year and here is an easy and fun gift to make for teachers/mommy friends/Grandma's

They are holly pins. I got the idea from Martha Stewart, here are the instructions

and I just used felt, small ornaments & little bits of glitter leafs I had on the tree to embellish them. The cards are made from House of 3 printables you can buy online.

They were really fun to make too (except for the hot glue gun burn)
Now on to my sewing machine.
Can I just say that Baby Lock is the best!
I am making a quilt with all the fabric I have been saving for something special.
Now I just need to find the perfect backing.

Sewing

I've been turning this mess

into these and making

them into garland for my Christmas tree!
I got the idea from Anna Maria Horner's blog.

Making stuff

Remember how I said I was going to make Clam Chowder yesterday?

It was so yummy!

Go to my Yummie Tummies cooking blog for the recipe.

With the leftover potatoes I cut them into stamps with the letters in the kid's names

they had fun using the potato stamps & painting while the soup was cooking
I also made these Halloween silhouettes
my Mom gave me these frames so I just went to Marthastewart.com and found these silhouettes, printed them and cut them out, glued them to white paper and
Ta -da!

I am SO excited that Oct is almost here!