Colorful End

Here are some random pictures from our vacation in Brazil:

My son and nephew playing with paper hats I made.

Beautiful flower at my aunt's house.

Folk art at a little downtown shop.

Loving the chicken and chicks also at the local shop.

Grocery store.

My kids "helping" at the grocery store.

Fluorescent green spider we saw on the car door.

Wild flowers we photographed and picked during our walk the other day.

2013 is ending in less than 3 hours for me and it is ending very colorful, since I am surrounded by my husband, my kids and my siblings and dad, too.

I wish you a very blessed 2014, filled with happiness, love and health, because the rest we can work for!

Colorful Vacation

::Warning: Picture Loaded Post::

Oh the bright colors, the warm weather, the hot sun, the soft sand… not your typical Christmas in the US, but that is the kind of Christmas I grew up with in Brazil and this year we were able to visit my family, so here are some pictures for you to see what I saw.

We had a wonderful time at the beach, full of ice cream cones, fresh fruit, scrumptious meals and of course, great company. I hope you had a marvelous Christmas, too. 

Christmas Craft

I saw this in an online magazine called Crafting Connections and knew instantly that we had to give it a try and I was so lucky that the other night I was at a MOPS craft meeting (we made a clothespin wreath to put our Christmas cards) and there was a package of wire that we didn't use and the ladies kindly let me take the package for the wire wrapped ornaments. 

So, here is what you do, you "hide" marbles in a ball of play-doh and then wrap the wire around the play-doh ball, once you are satisfied with the look of your ornament and confident that your marbles are not going to fall from the ornament, you bring it to the sink and spray it with water until all the play-doh melts away!

Once they are done, attach a piece of ribbon {I used a piece of yarn - ha!} to your ornament and hang it in your tree. 

Cheers!

Elf on the shelf

*laundry day*

*story time*

*snow angel*

*astronaut elf*

*elf and friends*

I thought I'd write a quick post to share some of our elf's adventures… ;)

Pine Cone Craft

Yesterday after preschool the little man and I grabbed some pine cones at the parking lot and this morning we got to use them for crafts. The kids made a few different styles of Christmas trees.

They painted one green, the next was made with a string of yarn and beads (I think that was their favorite) and the third one they glued little pom poms to the pine cone. Everything was easy, they had a good time, so that was a success in my opinion. ;)

Ice Wreath

I am so pleased to say we had a good day today, oh I am. I promise I can't tell you the same thing about yesterday because we were all cranky, grump, grouchy… I got up determined to make today a better day, mostly because I don't think I could take another bad mood day without exploding.

Eggs benedict for breakfast, pot roast sandwiches for lunch, then my husband put the little lady down for a nap and the little man and I went to a Christmas fair, full of handmade vendors, crafts for kids, Santa, music, got to meet a few friends, just had a good time. 

After we got home we put up the ice wreath we worked on this morning - you can see the pictures I took. We used a bundt pan, I first sprayed it with cooking oil spray, put some water in the bottom of the pan and put it in the freezer to make the first layer of ice, at the same time I made some colored ice (I used a fish shaped ice tray I had). When both became ice, we added the colored fish to the bundt pan and covered it with cooooooold water and put it back in the freezer. Once it got all frozen, we tied a ribbon and brought our wreath outside. I am curious to see how long it will last. ;)

In the afternoon I watched "Brave" with the kids while my husband and his dad watched the football game, then we all had a nice dinner together. Good day.

Just another week

It was just another busy week, I sometimes close my eyes and I can't even believe how many things we were able to do, but I won't talk about the boring stuff like taking the car to get an oil change, I much rather show you pictures of cute stuff. 

We went to the Victorian Country Christmas, which is a huge Christmas bazaar that we go to every year and get a new ornament for each of our kids and also to get a picture of the kids with Santa and we also went to the zoo at night to see the zoo lights.

We baked (the yummiest brownies), we drank hot cocoas, we painted our little hearts out, too. Oh, I also crocheted my little heart out, I made coffee cup sleeves for the ladies on my table at MOPS and for the ladies that watch the kids while we attend MOPS using a quick pattern from Frayed Knot.

My little man painted Seahawks players, one for his dad and one for his best friend and the little lady painted the most colorful peg doll.

See the peg doll in the red shirt? That is Liz, from Playin' Hooky Designs - didn't she turn out cute??

Well, I better get going, there are some picking up that needs to be done, dinner to be made and crafts in the wish list for today, too.

Have a great weekend!