Cool easy crafts

My little brain is about to pop! I have stumbled across such NEAT ideas for making toys etc. for children that I want to do it ALL!!! But, realistically, I can't spend the next two weeks at the sewing machine or in a constant state of creating something. There are chores to do you know... they have been rather neglected lately however.

I just made a CUTE tutu. Yeah, no sewing involved. It took me less than 45 minutes too.

I got my directions at www.makeitandloveit.com This lady has some awesome ideas, many of which I plan to try later.

I'm also in the process of making 5 crayon rolls. What's a crayon roll? Here's a picture from the blog, www.skiptomylou.org


EASY hair barrettes! Here

Baby shoe pattern...




Homemade baby toys


And more to come !

Snapshots of the Wild Weekend

Still working on the house pics/video...but here are some from the weekend.


The hayride to get the tree.



Trying the get the perfect picture in front of the perfect tree. Sarah isn't wanting to cooperate.



She just needed a good tickling.



Better..



Still better...



Great! oh, we're missing some kids...Alexa took this picture! (she's almost 6- wow)


The most popular guest at the Christmas party.



Dessert! That's their friend Shelbi.


Samantha loving Granna's glittery snowman.



Twirling Sunday morning in their fancy dresses.

Christmas plans

Thanks so much for the nice comments about my weight. Most of the time I'm ok, but occasionally I get really down about it because it seems SO many things are against me. I have thought the same thing about the people on the TV show The Biggest Loser- some of them are so pretty/nice looking even though they're heavy. For me, I want to be able to buy normal clothes and not have to go to the 'woman's department'. Or even just find something second hand that will fit.

I had an outrageously busy weekend, and have been snapping pictures of my home and such, but, I'm not done and I have my niece today AND I'm doing birthday stuff for my best friend. SO, it will be later rather than sooner. I made all the stockings and they turned out very cute. I still have some decorating to do, then I MIGHT, might, MIGHT do a video :) Don't hold yer breath though.

Saturday morning was the coldest morning of the year so far. We got everyone bundled up and headed to the town Christmas parade. It was ok, nothing wonderful. The kids got some candy and saw Santa. Then we drove to the Christmas tree farm and picked out the perfect, expensive tree :) They are all approximately $40, so we went ahead and got a big one :) We drank hot chocolate while they got the tree ready, then stopped at a store to get gift bags for the Christmas party and some extension cords, came home, made lunch, got the girls down for naps, got the tree up and partially decorated (this is MY tree, they have one with all of their things on it, therefore I did most of the decorating with this tree because I wanted it to look a certain way)the tree, then got everyone GUSSIED UP for the church Christmas party, drove to our old town to a restaurant, got there late, had dinner and a fun gift game, went to walmart to get some necessities, came home, got everyone un-decked out and in bed by 9:30, Samantha was wired up, so I laid on the bed and played with her while dh picked out some Christmas music and played it on the guitar. She finally went out!

Sunday, we got everyone dressed up in their new Christmas outfits, including myself, got to church, took pictures at my mom's house, ate lunch there and visited, came home and cleaned up the house, Matt made dinner, we ate and got the girls bathed and in jammies, made homemade popcorn and hot chocolate and watched The Polar Express! After that, and after the girls went to bed, we stayed up and looked at Christmas present ideas on the computer.

WOW- that was the long version, hope it didn't tire you out.

This month is filling up FAST with lots of stuff to do. It was frustrating me at first, but then, I have 4 children and family and friends who love to get together- Christmas is bound to be busy. I'm going to do my best and not stress about perfection and just go with the flow.

This weekend is a birthday party and we still have outdoor lights to put up, next week is a special week dedicated just to my second daughter, called Marvelous Me, in which I have to make a poster of pictures of her, provide snacks, and provide cupcakes for the class for her birthday which will be over the break. They both have Christmas parties with gift exchanges next week, and I'm supposed to make a gift for the teachers :) Then, there is family gathering a few hours away, plus the Christmas shopping and gift wrapping and card making and mailing and going to the mall to see Santa Clause, and making the Swedish smorgasbord...after Christmas, my two oldest daughters have birthdays!

It's the most wonderful rushed time of year huh?

Well, I'll be around.

Thanks

Aww, thanks for the sweet comment from everyone.

I admit, I did hit a low last night. It's difficult because I've wanted to get back to what I was for about 8 years now, and it just seems so far beyond my reach! I do realize that 1) I just had a baby, 2) it's holiday time, 3) life is much busier because we have 4 children and all the stuff that goes with family.

I'm just SO ready to get there! Slow and steady isn't what I want, instantaneous is what I want :) Don't we all?

Well, I am taking pictures of my revamped Christmas decor. Yes I already had it up during Thanksgiving because we were doing Christmas presents with the grandparents because they live so far away and won't be here. I knew we would be getting it all out in a week anyways, so we just went ahead :)

The month of December is filling up FAST!!! There aren't a lot of free weekends...this one is full of going to the tree farm, putting up house lights and then the first Christmas party of the year :) Now that I have school children, there's all kinds of projects, activities and parties coming. I've tried to simplify it as best I can, but the best thing is just to accept that this time of year is busy and go with it.

Gotta go- bed time for girls.

Pictures

Thanksgiving Day at our house with my family and Matt's parents. See the fatness??

Me working with baby- my sister and brother-in-law were visiting. Major fat pic!

Ouch! Wake up call now...

New baby Samantha pictures...she is about 4 months old now, trying to sit by herself, prefers to stand but also loves her playpen, is eating much better from the bottle and is loving food from the spoon as well. She really resembles my husband in these pictures, but then she looks different too. Hard to tell who she looks like the most.

It's working

Yesterday went very well too. I drank some herbal tea with coconut oil in it (weird, but tastes fine) and it seemed to keep my energy and mood even. For dinner I ate about 1/2 cup soaked cooked brown rice with stir fried veggies and natural soy sauce. Wow it tasted good! I ate a large salad and then ate some more veggies.

Oh, I stole a bite of pumpkin pie, just to see if it was still good. It was, so I fed the rest of it to my daughters for a bedtime snack and threw the rest out :)

Today I ate fruit this morning, and since I was out shopping and it's freezing, I drove through McDonald's and got two grilled chicken wraps. My plan now is to make wise choices (grilled vs. fried), portion control, and confuse my metabolism. See, I ate a very low amount of calories for 2.5 days, so it's like what the hey? This evening I'll eat some chicken and potatoes and salad, and really confuse it! Tomorrow I plan to fast till dinner, which will make it confused again. It doesn't have time to get used to a certain amount of calories so it'll end up burning more.

Long term plan? 6 small meals a day of well combined protein, carb and fat, focusing the carbs on vegetables and fruits and one big ole cheat day.

I believe in good fats and animal foods, but for someone like me, I need to moderate it until I lose enough. I'll post some recent pictures soon.

The good news is I lost between 3-5lbs (scale isn't too good) and my shirt is looser.

Crazy to do during the holidays but this is the exact time period I did it before, a whole 8 years ago!!!! I made it then and lost around 35lbs, so I'm sure I can do it again.

How it went

Yesterday went really, really well.

I really didn't feel hungry in the morning, but I ate an apple and some grapes, lots of water and pure cranberry juice.

At lunch I had a salad with homemade dressing (oil and vinegar) and a banana later in the afternoon.

Supper was a salad with a homemade ranch type dressing and straight vegetable soup.

I did cave a little at night and ate the inside of a tart apple pie and some tea, but I really just wanted the apples! Oh well...

The verdict: this was easy. I had no cravings at all, not even for coffee! This morning the UTI was in full force! But I CANNOT take antibiotics- no way.

The only bad thing that happened was last evening around 6pm, it had been awhile since I ate anything, and I was in a mental FOG trying to make dinner. It was like my body was in slow motion and couldn't concentrate. I also had a sudden feeling of fear- fear that I had done so well, but what if I couldn't keep it up? What if I just stayed fat forever? Silly, but it passed after about 15 minutes. I actually preferred the taste of my salad than the cooked soup. The soup was tasty, but the salad tasted better.

Today I didn't crave anything at all. I didn't even get hungry feeling till 11 am. First thing I was drinking loads of water and cranberry juice because of the pain of the UTI. Later I ate half a grapefruit, a few grapes, and later an apple.

Lunch was a large salad with avocado, tomatoes, green onions, carrots and 1 boiled egg and homemade dressing. The egg didn't taste as good as I thought it would. Bummer.

I will probably have some fruit this afternoon, and supper will be stir fried veggies (carrots, bell peppers, onion, broccoli and Bragg's Liquid aminos instead of soy sauce) brown rice and a salad. I may slice up some leftover steak and add it to the stir fry so it isn't wasted.

I'm not sure how I will proceed. I'm just kind of going with how I feel. The hard part is that it's cold today and I am cold and want something hot. I may heat up some leftover soup later.
My husband is doing this with me and the kids are doing fine too. They didn't seem to mind just eating simple vegetable soup and salad and some crackers. We'll see how they do with tonight's supper. I am considering starting my weightloss blog again with pictures (yikes!).

I am getting lots of inspiration from youtube- there are many people that post their weightloss journeys on there with pictures. Also I watch the Biggest Loser program. I could be on there- that's how bad it has gotten. I would be on the small side, but still.

On to Christmas stuff- I am planning to try making some pomanders and the ornaments you make with applesauce and cinnamon and bake. Hopefully I can sew some stockings too- time we all had one that looked similar instead of random mis matched ones, especially since our family is 'done' :)