Sunday, November 27, 2011

Cinderella at the 5th Avenue

 

My little Cinderellee and I getting ready to go see "Cinderella" at the 5th Avenue Theater! We had a fabulous time with Grandma McGowan, Auntie Tina and Marin! A perfect "girls" day!


Marin & Ellee at lunch

All of us girls!

 
Thank You Grandma!
We had a wonderful day and it will always be remembered...especially when we see the cute Cinderella ornament hanging on our Christmas Tree.
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Thursday, November 24, 2011

Cousin Pictures

{tate, marin, jackson, thomas, ellee, kennedy, landon}

Grandma bought all the Grandkids matching jammies in hopes of getting a picture for her Christmas card.
{I think she has plenty :) to choose from}
I think these are really cute little elves!



This is my personal favorite that I really hope Grandma McGowan chooses!
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Thanksgiving 2011

We spent Thanksgiving this year with the McGowan side of the Family at Ryan & Tina's new, beautiful home. The kids had a blast playing with all of their cousins! We truly have so much to be Thankful for! We are extremely blessed and Thankful for our wonderful families!!!


Ellee made this placemat at Preschool.
{Look at her name writing...love it!}

 
Apparently we are all green, sitting in Flying Butterfly's Canoe.
{happy thanksgiving}
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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Sunday, November 20, 2011

FORTS!

Jackson and Ellee {mainly Ellee} build massive forts anytime, anywhere around the house.


Building is the easy part...cleaning, not so much!
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Wednesday, November 09, 2011

{Advent Calendar}

I was inspired by a few things on Pinterest recently and decided to combine two of the things I saw.
1. An Advent Calendar {We didn't have one. Unless you count the paper chains I have my kiddos do}
2. I saw an idea on pinterest to have your Advent days be experiences and not things.
I thought this board would be perfect to clip the experiences to for each day. Doing it this way would make me better organize our calendar and purposely plan some of the things we already do around the Holidays anyways.
Some of my ideas are:
 going to see Christmas Lights {Fantasy Lights} go to a Christmas Program {or 2 or 3} read a Christmas Story, bake cookies, make teacher gifts, etc. etc.   

I started off with a 46 in. pine board, because that's what I had on hand. If a shorter board were used, smaller numbers would need to be used as well.

First, I primed since I was working with a bare pine board.
Next, I painted it a blue color by Glidden. I have a few blue paint testers that I've been testing on a few walls and I really wanted to use what I already had. I also knew I wanted it to be blue and red, so it worked out perfect!
Now onto the really tedious part. I painted 2" cothespins white. ALL 24 OF THEM.
{note: anyone who may want to make this, look for and buy white clothespins, not sure if that's an option though}.
I painted the top and 2 sides of each clothespin. I also painted basically any part that would show once glued to the board.
I glued the side not painted to the board.
 
Since I knew I wanted to make this blue and red, I found some cute red polk a dot paper, measured and cut out 24 of them. Cutting 24 out was actually really easy, since I figured out that only 2 lines of polk a dots would fit onto a clothespin. I modge podged each of the papers to the top of each clothespin.
Next, I layed all 24 clothespins out and tried to figure out how far apart to space them. I measured "about" 2in. apart. Before I glued them down I drew a line using the level to ensure my clothespins stayed straight and level down the entire board.
I used E-6000 to glue the clothespins

Now the fun part, that didn't start off so fun for me. I originally bought red paint thinking I was going to paint all 24 numbers {what was I thinking}. Plan B, I thought I could buy a stencil and trace/paint the numbers{didn't find any stencils that I loved}. Plan C, use number rub-ons {couldn't find any big enough}. Plan D, wander around Ben Franklin aimlessy looking for something, anything really at this point. I asked a woman working if she had red vinyl or rub-on numbers, they didn't....urg! But, she did say you could di-cut your own if you buy a roll of vinyl. The only bummer was that they do sell some vinyl colors by the sheet, but not red. So I decided on this route, not realizing just how cool it was going to be. Di-cutting vinyl just opened up a whole new world for me {decorating and teaching wise...I'm a Kindergarten Teacher}. 

I decided on di-cutting 1 1/2 in. numbers and cut a few extra of each just in case I made a mistake.   





I layed out all the numbers on the board and had to figure out how to get them on straight and have good spacing. I figured my line worked well the first time for the clothespins, so I drew another one for the numbers. Next I peeled the backing off and rubbed them each on...easy peasy!
I love it and can't wait to work with vinyl and the di-cuts again.
I absolutely love the way my advent calendar turned out. Now I need to work on the experiences to clip on to each day. 

 I have a few places in mind of where to hang it for the month of December, but I think I need to pull out my other decorations before this gets hung.
Ellee thinks it's for her to learn her numbers. She has come up to it a few times and started pointing and counting each number. I'm excited for her and Jackson to take the paper off each day, we may have to alternate, so they each get turns....didn't think of that until now...oops:)
 
I think I want a cricuit or silhouette from Santa this year!!!
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Tuesday, November 08, 2011

{Thankful Tree}

We are very blessed and extremely Thankful!
We are starting a new tradition at our house...a Thankful Tree. We have circle notes to write what we are thankful for on and then hang it on the tree sitting on our kitchen table. It is a constant reminder that we see and talk about everyday. It will stay until we decorate for Christmas. Everyday after Ellee says grace for dinner we talk about what we are thankful for.

It's really cute to hear Ellee and Jackson talking and filling out the papers on their own.
Ellee has a few circles on the tree with her scibbles on them. I asked her what one of them said and she told me, "God's Love." Kids have a good way of reminding us what we should really be Thankful for!

Jackson has written his own things that he is Thankful for as well....Mommy and Daddy...melts my heart!

 
I read a sign on a church reader board the other day that really stuck in my head and I thought I would share it.
{Live in your Harvest}
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Monday, November 07, 2011

{All I want for Christmas are my 2 front teeth!}


Jackson's top tooth has been loose for quite awhile. He's not one to wiggle it all day everyday, so progress is slow...really, really slow. Daddy-O and I noticed that his permanent tooth was starting to come in behind the baby tooth, so we knew it HAD to go. Daddy-O gave Jackson 3 days to wiggle it on his own and pull it out. Yikes! Jackson has yet to pull out a tooth on his own. So the night before the 3rd day while Jackson was reading to me, I told him that we should get the tooth out and "surprise" Daddy-O!

Jackson started working on wiggling it like crazy and let me try a few times as well. {I never thought I would ever and I mean EVER pull one of my kid's teeth out. Kinda creeps me out, not sure why.} Well Jackson and I both faced a fear together! He wiggled, twisted, turned and pulled at that tooth like crazy and I asked to have a turn pulling it and made sure I got a really good grip and pulled! Seeing the shocked looked on Jackson's face when he realized I had pulled the tooth out, made me realize I must have had the same look on my face for actually going through with it and yanking it out myself!

Jackson marched downstairs to say goodnight to Daddy-O and gave him a big grin to surprise him!
I love our little toothless guy! So Cute!
Jackson is growing up soooo fast! Too fast, if you ask me!
I can't take a picture of Jackson without Miss Ellee Belly!

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Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Halloween Preschool Work

Bats!
Ellee has been working hard in Preschool!


ohhhh.....a scary spider and his web!
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