The Last Valentine's Day Project

Maybe. We'll see. All right? Yeah, probably not.

All I did was stalk a blog...find this lady...I said, "Hey, that's a great idea!" and then I said the words that my husband has a love/hate relationship with "I can do that!"

Oh boy.

While I was trying to remember if I had ANY frames left in my "stash" in the garage that my husband calls 'junk' in an effort to throw it out and that I call 'craft supplies for future use' (just how far away that future is...who knows?) I remembered that I had bought some 16x20 canvases on sale at Joann's. Score.

Paint, stencil, paint, dry, done. Love.


Well, whether it's my first, which it's not, or my last, which remains to be seen, it did inspire me for the big dining room project I've been putting off.

PROJECT!!!

My husband is over-joyed.

Happy Birthday to ME!!!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! (That is the angels singing, I'm sure. Wait...maybe it's just me singing. Whatever.)

I loooove you, Stand Mixer!
What's that you say? My birthday is still a month away? Ooops! :) It was on sale. A lot. With a rebate.

Ha! My actions are redeemed by my frugality! Right, honey?

*Ahem*

So...I'm makin' bread! My mom and I make bread every year for Christmas, but it's just a plain white bread recipe and I figured it was still close enough to Christmas...kind of. I mean, it's only 11 months away. It said the recipe made one loaf, but if you doubled the recipe, it made three. It lied. It really still makes two...or three short loaves. Which I soon found out.
See this fun meatloaf pan? It has holes in the top so that the greasy gross business falls below the meat! I made meatloaf for dinner with my mixer, too. It's amazing how wonderful making meatloaf is when you DON'T have to use your hands to mix it!
See the holes? Yeah. So, the bottom pan is still good for makin' bread. All my loaf pans were a Christmas present from my mom...Thanks Mom!
Oh, "short" bread brushed with butter and making my house smell very "Susie-Home-Maker"...how I love you...but don't eat you. Hhhhmm....
K...gotta run to read Thomas the Train to my kids!

Valentine's Day Decor

I've never been one to decorate for Valentine's Day...but I'm teachable. Sometimes.

Candy conversation hearts are in a new candy dish that I made from an old taper candle holder and a completely never-gonna-get-any-more-candle-light-out-of-this-candle gone glass candle holder from PartyLite. Stick the old candle in the freezer and then pop it out and reuse the glass it came in. Then hot-glue it to a cute stand! Wa-lah!
I cut out paper hearts and glue dotted them to my cabinets. Fun, cheap, and easy!


I sewed some fabric hearts to hang where my Christmas stars were on my lamps:


And of course...God gave the greatest Valentine EVER!

The frame says:
I've decided this will be a memory verse for our kids this month. I know. My kids are so holy, right? Riiiiiiight......

And lastly. My mantle that used to lookie-like-dis:
Now...it lookie-like-dis:

Hey...when in doubt. Stick a paper heart in it!

See those container thing-y's with the bead picks and jingle bells? They are glass taper candle holders from the dollar tree store that I topped one with a vase from...where? The dollar tree store! Who knew, right??? And the shorter one is topped with another PartyLite glass candle container. Freezer, pop, done. Fur real.

Oh yes! Mercury candlesticks are my friend.

What do you get when you combine a mercury candlestick, a glass pillar hurricane, and hot glue?

This.
LOOOOVE. And I love my fake snow. Hey, Christmas maybe over, but it's still winter, people! Wanna know how I got it? Wanna, wanna???

Oh, alright!

Take a disposable diaper and cut the thin film open on the inside. See that cotton stuff? Pull it out and put it in a bowl, and add water. Knead it...like meatloaf. Add more water until it has a light fluffy consistency. And its safe! (Hello, it touches your baby's bottom, it better be safe!) But, look it up, you'll see.
Purty!

Oh, and here's another purty...in her new "made by Mommy" pillowcase dress, with her name on it. She insisted on the shoes...go figure. (I just noticed Isaac is hilarious in the background!)



Love her!

Bye-bye Christmas

I've still been in Christmas mode.

If you came to my house right now, you'd see our ornament wreath on the screen door still. You'd walk in to see our beautiful-I'll-remove-it-someday-tree. Walk past the stair case and my dining room table still has my silver bead topiary tree, er....thingys. In my kitchen? Still got my two foot Christmas tree on the counter, poinsettias in the jute vase and a snowman head cookie jar on the counter, not to mention read and white snowflake plates. I loooove them.

My mantel is still the same, save for a lovely inclusion of mercury glass candle holders I got on clearance at Target. They bring me pleasure. They bring my mantel some height next to the "Believe in Bethlehem" frame.

I also have three trees next to our couch. Yes, three. Still fully decorated. Upstairs, our bedroom still has the pottery barn inspired addition and our kids' doors are still adorned with garland.

*Sigh*

Until I saw this:

http://www.thenester.com/2010/01/lessons-on-accessories.html

And now...I can't wait to get rid of this stuff and get movin' on decorating my house with silhouettes and Valentine's Day!!!

Where have you been?

Oh my! It's been a long time since I posted! Well, here's a short glimpse into what I've been doing!

First, I went to a wonderful Women's Tea and Silent Auction put on by Brooke and her mom, Grandma Dot, that benefitted World Vision and won these:


I love that I can add a smiley face to this little guy with dry erase pens.
And I also received some red and white snowflaked platters and bowls. Love them!

Then, we did a snowman family night with the other Llanos family. Or did the family night come first and the tea come second? I can't remember. Anywhooooo....

Snowman soup:
My partner for many crimes against myself, my husband, my kids...
Complete with krispy treat snowmen for dessert.
We had breakfast with Santa:

Found out Santa visited our house and left letters for the two older boys:
Celebrated the first-ever birthday of our littlest little (who will soon be just our "little" because he is surpassing his sister in size):


Can you see the snowman cake balls on the right? Wish I had gotten a closer picture? Yeah, me too. :(My beautiful sister, Becky, with the red scarf that I covet like a mad woman! Oh, and she's holdin' my new one year old who has manage to develop a two-year old attitude!
The snowman cake says Happy Birthday Isaac around the back in case you were thinkin' I attempted to make orange ear muffs for him. I did not cause that would have been silly. Ahem.

My wonderful mom and world's best Nana:
The sweetest Grammy and Ya-ya ever:


Every one...and I mean every one played Mary and Joseph with Hannah. She would say, "I Mary. You Jofes." And no, that's not a typo. JO-FES. No joke. And I refuse to correct her. I hope she says that for the rest of her life.

Becky, once again. She looks like Mary, don't you think?"Away in a manger...." with Aunt Vicki.

I painted wooden spools for Becky and Brooke for Christmas. The other side has the city of Jerusalem and says "O Holy Night" but I couldn't get a picture to focus on that side.
Baked waaaaay too many sugar cookies (with the help of my own personal Santa elf, aka, Brooke):


And had the stockings ALL hung by the chimney with care...but when St. Nicholas came...well, he brought too much stuff for them and they ended up on the couch. Eh.

And the best thing of all: We celebrated the birth of when love came down. And there just aren't any pictures that do that justice.

I spent time with my family and left my cyber friends to fend for themselves. And no offense to all of you...but it felt good and right.

And now, let us all kiss 2o09 buh-bye:
And say:

Bring it on 2010!!!

Happy New Year!