home decor project #1

This is my newest and favorite home decor project right now (we're working on some others, so we'll share when they are finished too). This plate hanger has been hanging empty in the breakfast room for 2 years now. I saw a project similar to this on another blog a while back but couldn't quite figure out exactly how I wanted to use it in our house. As I was tagging photos last week, I realized that there aren't a lot of current photos around for us to enjoy so I decided to use the plate hanger for a seasonal photo display.

It's super easy too. I just took 4 favorite photos from the past few months, cropped to 8x10 size, added some text, printed and put into clip frames I found at Michaels. This is hanging on the wall beside the powder room so all of us get a chance to enjoy it at some point in time :)

been to illinois lately??

Two quotes from Ethan today during our hiking trip:

1. As we drive past a cemetery,

"I wonder who is buried there?"

Hmmmm....probably not the typical 4 year old reaction to passing a cemetery, but Brian and I busted out laughing, knowing it was a sign he had been hanging out with Grandpa.

2. On the hike we get to this crazy looking tree and as the boys start inspecting some hollow spots in the tree, we hear....

"Watch out cause there might be some cats in there!"

Okay, I would've been thinking there might be mice or snakes in there, but this earned another snicker from us, knowing that this was a sign that he had been to Grandma Hosselton's house recently, where this huge oak tree has a hollow area at the bottom where the cats go in and out.

photo scavenger hunt

Today was a cloudy gloomy day screaming out for something to do inside. Now, normally this means a couple of TV shows during the afternoon or a movie, which is fine cause it means I get things done. But I happened to remember an article in a scrapbook magazine about a photo scavenger hunt so I decided to modify a little for the boys and told them we had a special secret project to do after lunch.

They LOVED this! I started off with 5 things and they begged for more so we did 10 the second time (too much for Ethan so maybe 7 the next time). I highly recommend keeping this in your bag of tricks for rainy or cold days spent inside. It's super easy and totally free. They even got prizes such as no evening work (cleaning the table after dinner) and being the exclusive chooser of the books to read tonight.

Here's what we used:

5 index cards per person

digital camera for each person

I just drew a shape, color, or letter (or sometimes animal or other toy that I can't really draw that well) on each card and they had to be the first to come back with each of those things on their camera. It was really interesting to see what each of them found to represent each of the items. Super easy to modify for any age, too!

Have fun!!

six flags with aunt meemer

Thank you, Aunt Meemer!! The boys had such a great time - still talking about it (of course).

impromptu zoo

Had planned to do grocery shopping today, but once we got out and realized how nice the weather still was (and that it probably wouldn't last much longer) we thought we could find a better way to spend our day. So we called some friends and they were game to go to the zoo with us so we headed out and had a super great time this afternoon. I love having such great friends to hang out with, whether it's at the zoo, cooking out, in our cul-de-sac, at the playground, wherever. What a blessing God has given us to have somewhere to go or something to do as well as someone we love to go with us!

organizing

Organizing, for some reason, is a love of mine. I can spend hours organizing things and then never really use them much just cause I enjoy the organizing part - don't know why. But this organization project is one that will be used by everyone at our house. Last night, I labeled all of the scrapbooks with ribbon and circle tags. Before, when we were looking for a certain page (or usually when I was looking for a certain page) I would never be sure which one it was in and would end up pulling 2 or 3 out before I got to the right book. Not anymore....I love labeling! I can hear you laughing!

ouch!

Looks like this was fun......this is also one of the reasons I got on the tube once and never again. Ouch!!