Victoria's Baptism

Our beautiful baby girl was baptized today! To celebrate the occasion I made her a cake. Luckily I got a picture of it before little fingers - I'm not sure who's - swiped some of the stained glass!

It's A Baby Shower!

Lately I've been liking the idea of gift baskets. They are fun to put together, and when you are shopping for a baby there is no end to what you could put in it! Instead of using the typical basket, however, I bought this little box...

and painted it like so...

because what baby doesn't need a place to keep his or her's (in this case - his!) first toys? I then sewed up a double sided receiving blanket, and an extra one for a girl while I had the serger out. I've since come across a better way to make double sided receiving blankets, so I'll be making some more!

Did some shopping for a baby boy, that hasn't arrived yet - but will soon! And finished off my baby boy gift basket. It contains - a toy box, a receiving blanket, tiny rubber boots, a sleeper, 2 outfits, a rubber duck, teething rings, baby spoons, snack containers, linking rings for attaching toys to strollers etc, Q-Tips, and a bib.

I also helped my sister make a baby blanket. Normally I hand quilt these, but since I was also expecting my own baby and didn't think I'd have time to get it done, I tied it. It turned out just as cute! Who doesn't love Tigger?!

Pink and Sparkles

Last spring there was a benefit auction for my husband's little cousin and I decided to donate a gift certificate for a cake. It was bought by the mom of a girl in my son's daycare class to use for her third birthday.

Carly came up to me at day care one day and told me she wanted her cake to have pink icing, sparkles and Belle and Aurora. Being the mother of 2 boys, (and happy to announce, now a baby girl!) I had to ask who Aurora was. Turns out she is Sleeping Beauty. I didn't realize Sleeping Beauty had a name - I'll have to watch that movie again!

I started making the princess a few weeks ago, and I made 2 of each just in case I broke one. Color flow is so thin - it doesn't take much for it to crack. Turns out it was a good thing I had made extra because I did break them. I was really quite worried about the surviving princesses breaking as well, so I said a few prayers and fortunately there were no more accidents!

Her birthday party was held at the pool, so with the help of my sisters we loaded up the cake and safely delivered it. I must say it was a huge relief to see it set up!

Carly was very happy with it! And she made me the sweetest thank you card -

The Fish Room

My husband has what we call a "Fish Room". At one time there were 6 or 7 fish tanks set up, now there are only 3. That makes it sounds like he scaled back, and in a way he did, but now we have a 90, a 50 and a 30 gallon tank with one little corner left for my crafting stuff! Last spring he decided he needed a big arm chair for his fish room so he could sit, relax and watch the fish. This was acquired one weekend while the boys and I were visiting my parents! So now there was just one thing missing - an end table for beside his chair. I got the idea of building one for him out of the scrapes in garage for Father's Day. It never got done until just before Christmas when one for my brothers came for a weekend. I have amazing brothers. They are always willing help!

We quarantined off the laundry room, since the garage was too cold, told my husband we were fixing the deep freeze, and got to work. I don't think he fell for the fixing the deep freeze line but we had to tell him something! :)

For using scraps left over from the ship it turned out really well. I'm glad Miles helped me. I probably wouldn't have got it to stay together by myself! I created a collage of our family fishing pictures and got a piece of glass cut for the top.

Measuring up!

Last fall, after I realized I had way too many projects on my list, I recruited one of my brothers to help me make a measuring stick for my boys. Actually he did pretty much all of it, I only bought the board and varnished it! We got it hung up before Christmas, and it looks amazing! Bas did a fantastic job. Once I get some fine tipped permanent makers I'll be able to mark heights.

Mystery Supper

We hosted the 3rd Annual Mystery Supper a couple nights ago. It was once again a success! For those of you who don't know what a mystery supper is - it is a supper where we create a menu with code names, including the utensils. Our guests then get to decide the order of their meal, hopefully matching up the utensils with the food that requires them! It's lots of fun! This year for appetizers we had egg rolls, fruit salad and butternut squash soup. For the entree - sweet and sour chicken drumsticks, potato wedges and broccoli and for dessert we made ice cream sandwiches.
Here is the menu, can you decode it? :)

As requested, here is the menu in the proper order, with the proper names!


Appetizer # 1

- Southwestern Egg Rolls - Mexican Poncho

Appetizer # 2

- Fruit Salad on a skewer, served with dip - Pogo Stick

Appetizer # 3

- Butternut Squash Soup - piscine d'orange
- Soup spoon - Canoe Companions


Entree

- Sweet and Sour Chicken Drumsticks - Keeping the Beat
- Sweet Potato Wedges - Crescent Moons (we should have called these Full Moons, since we changed the recipe but the menus were already printed!)
- Broccoli - Deciduous Wonder
- Fork - Twisted Sister
- Knife - Smoke Stacks

Dessert

- Ice Cream Sandwich made with Double Chocolate Chip Cookies - Hockey Puck


It is really not hard to do, just come up with menu that possible to eat without utensils and give everything a crazy name! The more creative the better!

Advent Calendar

Last November I came across this Advent Calendar on Pinterest.

I decided then I was going to make it for my kids for next Christmas. The thing I really liked about it was that the nativity characters were made with Shrinky Dinks. I had some Disney Shrinky Dinks when I was a kid. I thought they were the neatest thing ever. I had completely forgot about them and certainly never thought they would still be making them. Of course, I found the plastic at Michaels. You can find everything there!

Making this Advent Calendar completely slipped my mind until a month ago but I really wanted to get it done before December 1, so I got to work on it.

Since the above link isn't a complete nativity scene I used the characters from this site.

I made mine a little smaller and put it on the fridge with magnets instead on of a canvas. For the first 11 days I put in little ornaments to hang on the Christmas tree.

Here are my awesome Shrinky Dink people ...

The finished product, and a close up of what it will look like on Christmas morning!

And it hanging on the fridge!