#17 - Make Cookie Cutter Ornaments

Finally, I get to cross something else off my 101 in 1001 list!

Yesterday Brianna and I (and kind of Hunter) made cookie cutter ornaments. What an easy craft, and they turned out so cute!

I stopped by a local thrift store this morning and bought some Christmas cookie cutters - a sleigh, an angel, a teddy bear (I guess that's not really Christmas...) and a gingerbread man. They were 25 cents each. I had scrapbooking paper that Leila left here after she designed Brianna's nursery. (Thank you Leila!) And I already had the beads and ribbon I used. CHEAP!

First, you're going to want to trace the ornament onto a piece of patterned paper or you can photocopy pictures onto card stock. I did it on a cutting board because for my first ornament, I cut it out using an X-Acto knife. I highly recommend just using sewing scissors - the knife worked well but I had to go back around and fix the jagged edges.



Trace the ornament onto the paper:


Cut it out:



Dab craft glue (I used tacky glue) along the cookie cutter's edge. Press the paper in place and let dry. Thread a ribbon through a needle; poke between paper and cookie cutter, and wrap ribbon around top of cutter. Slip a bead over ribbon's ends; knot.



As you can see, I tweaked it a little bit. The beads I had wouldn't fit through the ribbon I had (and liked), so instead, I just used two beads and knotted the ribbon at the top.

Voila! Easy Christmas ornaments, and these would make a cute gift too!

Pictures Again

These are all from September. I can't believe I still have pictures from September sitting on my camera, but yes, I see I haven't even blogged about Hunter's birthday parties yet. I'll get there eventually. Definitely by December. Until then...

Brianna is learning to take pictures. She's actually not too bad. Here we are playing with the camera.






Let Brianna show you the steps of changing a diaper. Our cousin Emma actually knit(ted?) this blanket for Bri when she was a baby! Now Bri can use it for her baby dolls!

1. Lay Baby down.

2. Lift Baby's legs.

3. Quickly slide diaper under Baby.

4. And you're on your way to a clean Baby! (She actually does help change Hunter's diapers, don't ask me why she wants to do that.)

This is what exhaustion looks like:

Or perhaps this:

September is also when Bri learned how to draw smiley faces!

On the Move

A couple of weeks ago, Hunter kind of started walking. I never noted it on my blog, but that's okay because I looked back to 2010 and I never noted on here when Brianna started walking either. I know she was around 15 months old but I guess it wasn't that big a deal to make an entire post out of. So, Hunter took a few steps, and he walked back and forth between me and Stephen some, but nothing like walking across the entire room or anything. But one day Brianna noticed me walking with Hunter, holding one of his hands. Behold, a new form of entertainment was born. Now, pretty regularly, she will got to Hunter and say, "Hunter, wanna walk with me?" These pictures and video were taken the first day they did this together. They thought it was hilarious. It kept them occupied for so. long.

From the kitchen...

Into the bedroom...

Out of the bedroom...

Back into the bedroom...

Not sure if you can tell here, but every time he would fall he would reach right back up for her!

Into the closet... (it's puzzle mania in here!)

Oh! Good catch!

A short video of it:

Musical Girl

I've been meaning to write a post about how musical Brianna is. Now, I assume most kids around 2 years old may show an interest in music because I know at even younger than the age of one they are able to clap and show interest in rhythm and sway and things like that. So I'm not saying she's more musical than other kids her age, all I'm saying is that I love how quickly she is able to learn songs because it creates some really fun games for us! (I can distinctly remember my niece Claire singing one of the songs from "Happy Feet" when she was like 16-18 months old or something like that, so it just goes to show that they can learn them very early!)

Part of Brianna's bedtime routine has always been to sing to her. This was created by her and the songs really haven't changed in a year and a half. When she was about 21 months old, we put her in Kindermusik, which is like a Mommy and Me music class. Here at 31 months (whaaaa!?!?) she is still loving it. We did a curriculum last year that featured different songs so she is learning totally new songs this year, which is great considering we have the CDs from last year's classes so we can still hear them anytime we want. So some of her favorite songs are songs the average person probably wouldn't know. But now she has added in some of her favorite songs to her bedtime routine: Amazing Grace, You Are My Sunshine, Twinkle Twinkle, I'm a Little Teapot, I'm in the Lord's Army, Zaccheus, Ring Around the Roses, and usually something from preschool. For some reason she never requests some of her favorites, like Muffin Man, Hokey Pokey or Get On Board. Usually I have to tell her we're going to stop singing because the singing part of the bedtime routine can take 20 minutes, especially if I'm feeling especially kind.

All this to say, she picks up songs really quickly, learning the words and the melody, and I totally love it. She sits with me in choir practice a lot, and although she spends a lot of her time coloring, she does a lot of dancing as well, and also when we finish a song she will say, "Again!?"

She doesn't understand that on Sunday nights at church there is choir practice and on Wednesday nights there isn't. (Obviously I don't expect her to understand this...) So basically every time we walk into church she says, "We're going to choir?" or "I wanna do choir". Last night at church when she walked in saying that, Stephen and I looked at each other and said, "Well, go on up and sing with a microphone!" We always get there early because youth group starts 30 minutes before regular church, so while there were people milling about it wasn't an overwhelming number. She took a microphone up to the front with her but when she realized people where watching her she hid under the pulpit and refused to sing - "Mommy do it!" After just a couple of minutes, though, she realized no one could see her in her hiding spot and she started belting it out. I had to hold the microphone up to her mouth for her rendition of Amazing Grace but by the time she got to You Are My Sunshine she was holding the mic like an expert and really singing out!

Someone asked if she would do it on a Sunday and I said, probably if she could hide under the pulpit again! Haha!

More Pictures

Brianna really wanted to wear one of my shirts the other day, although it was certainly more like a dress on her! Here she is getting her very first My Little Pony, courtesy of Gail!

t's not very often that Bri gets to pick out her own clothes - all the kids clothes are in a downstairs closet even though both their bedrooms are upstairs. Having the clothes in a downstairs closet makes it easier on ME to just throw out some random clothes in the morning. But every so often she does get the opportunity to rummage through the closet. Thus, the sweatshirt/dress/leggings outfit is born:

Believe it or not, he's not asleep. Hunter is such a chill kid - he just lounges on the couch like this!

Jenn and I after the Scarecrow Run (5K) last month! We both placed 2nd in our age groups! My time was 28:46 if I remember the seconds correctly, which knocks off almost two whole minutes from my time in March. Now I only need to knock off six more minutes before I can compete with my other sister Jennifer!

This is what tends to happen when stickers are given out after Kindermusik:

Brianna is obviously my daughter. Here she is enjoying sushi with me while Stephen was deployed. (Hers was just Nori seaweed and rice!)

One day I updated my status on Facebook - at Kindermusik the kids are encouraged to "wash" the walls with dry sponges and sing a song called "Wishy Washy". Imagine my surprise one day when Brianna carried that over to our own house. Although instead of a dry sponge she was using lotion and her hands!

My response: give her Windex and a rag.

Making Cookies

I walked into the bedroom the other day where Brianna was playing. She had gotten cupcake liners from one of the kitchen drawers and hand sanitizer from the diaper bag. She set out all the cupcake liners in a row and was squeezing small amounts of the sanitizer into each liner. When I walked in she proclaimed that she was making cookies and when I began to protest she said fervently, "But they're COOKING!" So, what could I do? I only let her make a dozen.

More Pictures To Explain Life

A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to host a giveaway on my frugal blog for Betty Crocker. I got a new pan and cookie mix to product test, review, and then give away another set! It was not rigged, but my mom actually won the giveaway!

Meanwhile, Brianna and I had a ball making the cookies to product test and review!

The mailing paper was perfect for Brianna to color on!

She loves making cookies! (Loves eating them more!)

Tractor Pull 2011

We spent Saturday at the Tractor Pull in Carthage. I had never been to a tractor pull, nor did I have any clue what it entailed. But Stephen had been a couple of years ago, and we had an "in" because his dad does the landscaping for this event! Even though it was a bit windy we wanted to chance it for the opportunity to have an outing with the kids, not to mention Grandpa Talbert, Lauren, Scott and Kaleb were all there too! We started off our day with some yummy bagged lunches. Hunter chowed down an entire BBQ sandwich! That's my boy!

Plenty of space to run around!

Not sure if you can see, this is a small train that rode all over the huge area out here. We didn't stand in line for it but maybe next year!

Tons of old cars were being displayed!

Including this one! 105 years old - you could ride in it for any amount donated to Multiple Sclerosis research! Let me tell you, this was a very cool car!!

A model railway set up near the tractors - the train actually ran and the model is of our surrounding counties! So cool! They even had the Harnett County Fair set up, ferris wheel and all! They also had a model train set up for sale and had a notice saying they would custom build for you. How cool is that!?

The Confederates took over part of the fields. They even had cornbread and sausage cooked for you to taste! They had a fire burning, tons of historical weaponry and "camping" supplies laid out for you to look at. So interesting! They were so willing to sit around and chat with us!

Biggest wheel ever?

Now allow me to get to the good stuff!! Tractors were lined up all over where the strip was.

Some were very modern and so cool.

Stephen said he heard people say there were tractors there that ranged from $2,000 to $50,000. And the ages of the drivers we saw were anywhere from 18 to in their 70's. And the coolest thing is they weren't even competing for money. They just do it for the love of it - and their trophy!

Mommy's happy little boy! He loved crawling around making new friends! He crawled right up to the man sitting near us and pulled right up on him. Fortunately the man kindly scooped him up in his lap and held him for a couple of tractor pulls! I'm so thankful for strangers who are kind to my attention-starved children!

Uh-oh... Daddy's sleepy little boy! A few hours after we got there Hunter passed out from exhaustion! Probably from all that crawling around!

Just in case you are like me and don't know anything about tractor pulling, these two videos should give you a good idea. They won't rumble your speakers like it did our eardrums but you'll still give you the gist of the event! It reminded me some of monster trucks, which we also love!

The first video (each are not long at all) will show you a larger, bulkier, slower type of tractor. The second video is much faster and you can see how it really tears up the ground - literally! The second kind of tractor is the kind that they told us to make sure to cover our children's ears - it was certainly ear-splitting, and with no barriers between us and the track we were just about 10-15 feet from the actual tractors.