Nerd Nails?

Rylee said, "Mom, what do you want for Mother's Day?"

Not wanting her to feel like she needed to spend money and seeing how cute her toenails looked, I told her I would love it if she painted my toenails.

She gave me an array of options.

I chose, then she started to paint.

Finished product... hot pink background with multi-colored dots.

We decided that they looked a little like the candy, Nerds.

Rylee discovered that LESS is MORE..maybe less dots next time.

Here are Rylee's toes.... my inspiration.

Thanks for the cute toenails Rylee!

Race for the Cure

This year, I joined a team of friends and did the "Race for the Cure" 5K, for the second time.

Team name:

"Save the Peaches!"

Five of us ran and 3 of us walked.

I was a runner... or should I say jogger. I was disappointed that I didn't run the whole thing, but the combination of the humid heat and not running regularly for several weeks, caught up to me. Oh well... next time. :)

Good job girls!

Teacher Appreciation

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week at our schools. Here are some of the

Thank You's we gave to our teachers.

Chocolate inside! :)

These green mesh bags may seem like a weird gift, but they are actually very useful. I have several sets. I've used them a lot when traveling. I put my toiletries, hairdryer, flat iron, medications in one, so they stay all together in my suitcase. I've used them to pack our travel snacks in...easy to see, but contained. I've also used them to put the kids clothes in, so they stayed sorted and together in their suitcase. Some other uses... wet swimming gear, beach toys, camping mess kit storage, paper dining picnic supplies and more.

What would you use them for? :)

Congratulations Rylee!

As I write, Rylee is traveling home from California. She has been with the Cantus Youth Choirs, in Anaheim, for the Heritage Music Festival (& playing in Disneyland!!!). When she called home she said, "No offense, but we kinda don't want to come home. It's warm here and we're sorta having the time of our lives!" Like it or not, she'll have to come home and face reality soon enough.

I wanted to congratulate her on a job well done and make her a little surprise for when she got home. When I saw these lollipops, they just said Disneyland to me. I decided to make her a lollipop bouquet.

I got the bucket from the Dollar Spot at Target (Easter 50% off), found some floral foam in my craft stash, printed some Disney images from the internet and made up some congratulatory words in Print Shop.

When I put it all together, this is what I got.
Hopefully this treat will make coming back to the reality of life, a little SWEETER. :)

Update:

The Cantus Youth Choirs did AWESOME!

The Virtuoso choir (the older, more skilled choir)came in second place (by only 1 point!) for the WHOLE competition.

All 3 choirs received SUPERIOR and GOLD ratings.

They also received 2 special judges awards.

And out of the 5 top choirs, that were invited to New York's Carnegy Hall.... Cantus was 3 of them!!!

Not bad for a first year, eh?

Harry Potter's Book of Spells

As you may know, kids in school equals lots of friend birthday party invites. I have a philosophy of not spending a lot of money on friend gifts... especially if I don't know the friend well. Because of this, I have GIFT BINS. I find things on clearance or super inexpensive and then put them away in a Rubbermaid tote, until a party pops up.

Just recently, my GIFT BINS have been getting low and my gift funds, even lower. So when Treyson was invited to a birthday party a few weeks ago, we made the gift. We put together a MAGIC TRICK set. I got on the internet and looked up simple magic tricks, then printed them onto cardstock, cut them up and bound them with a metal binder ring. Next, we gathered all the supplies needed for each magic trick and put them into a little plastic carrying tote. To top the kit off, we made a magic wand. I painted a wooden dowel black and then added glitter to one end for that magic sparkle. His friend's mom loved it...hope the friend did too. :)

Treyson was again invited to a friend's birthday party this week. Funds still being low, we decided to make another gift. The theme of the party was Harry Potter.

I went onto the internet and looked up "homemade Harry Potter gifts". I found a site that showed how they made a Harry Potter wand with a wooden dowel and hot glue. First gift idea, CHECK!

Next, I found a site that had all the Harry Potter Spells listed. This was a detailed list. It had the pronunciations, descriptions, where the spell was used in the movie or book and some even had the Latin roots to the spell's name. Second gift idea, CHECK!

I took the wooden dowel and sanded down one end to make it tapered. Next I hot glued around the dowel to give it some texture and make it look wand-like.
Then I spray painted it brown and called it done.

For the cover of the Book of Spells, I used an empty cereal box and paper grocery bag. I sprayed adhesive to the box and bag and then trimmed the bag around the cardboard. Next, I used brown ink to "age" the cover. I also burnt the edges with matches in some places to give a worn look. Finally, I took a cool metal button and some red ribbon and made a closure for the book.

For the inside, I copy and pasted the spells from the internet sight, printed them off in brown ink, then "aged" the pages with more brown ink.

I thought about many ways to bind it, but decided I would try and machine sew the 24 pages together.... and it worked! Then I hot glued the group of pages to the cover.

It wasn't exactly what I had envisioned initially. It was more of a Spell binder/folder, than a book, but I think it turned out fine.

The mom of this birthday boy loved the gift and emailed to tell me. Hope the birthday boy loved it as well. If not, at least I'm scoring points with the moms. :)

Happy 12th Birthday Taylee!

With all the partying last week, Taylee's actual birthday was pretty mellow.

We ate Taylee's birthday dinner request (BBQ chicken shepherd's pie casserole), then she opened her presents. She received lots of artsy type gifts (surprise, surprise), a make-up bag, mascara, swim goggles and some food items.

Treyson's gift to her was bubble gum that dyed your mouth.
I asked Taylee if she wanted something other than cake, since we had cake at the party. She was indecisive and indifferent, but finally said, "Surprise me."
So we had BIRTHDAY CAKE SURPRISE.
Instead of running to the store again, I used what we had on hand. We topped our "fun fetti" cake with cherry pie filling and whip topping. It actually tasted pretty good.


The kids decided to try out the gum Treyson gave Taylee.
Treyson's tongue turned Bronco Blue.

I think the red dye has gone straight to Abree's brain.

Ewww, Taylee has a BLACK tongue!

Next, we went to the YMCA for a free family day. Taylee was looking forward to rock climbing. When we got there, the rock climbing wall was closed and the swimming pool was PACKED. They gave us a family day pass to come back another day to try rock climbing. On to Plan B... Merrill Park.

We chose Merrill Park because it has a rock climbing wall.

Taylee was surprised at the size of the hand/foot holdings... small.

Don't know where Abree learned it, but she likes to give me peace signs now.

We didn't stay long, because it was so windy and COLD. We decided to head back home, get our jammies on, snuggle up and watch a movie together. It was a nice evening.

Taylee is SO EXCITED to be 12. She's had her primary and bishop interviews and will be going to Young Women's for the first time, on Sunday.

She can't wait to go on Trek, this summer, but is worried that they've already done all of the FUN activities before she came in. She's just sure of it.. ask her. :)

PS- Rylee left for Anaheim, California, Thursday evening, with her Cantus Choir group. She'll be competing in the Heritage Festival and then playing in Disneyland all day on Monday, then coming back on Tuesday. Lucky.