my addiction

OK I can admit it. Once I find something I like I get a little obsessed. Booties for instance, baby booties. Call me a freak. They only take about 45 min a pair to make and they are so stinkin' darling I can't help it. Sadly, I'm sick of giving away my new passion. And too attached to sell them.

There was also this little voice inside my head that kept whispering..."William has no shoes...William has no shoes..."but when I tried the above on his little tootsies...well, you can see how that wouldn't work out. Yesterday morning I woke to the voice whispering, "aren't you tired of having the only barefoot baby at church?" So I took the pattern for the above and did a little tweaking of my own yesterday morning to create the below...William looked pretty trendy at church in his new sneakers. I think I may be on to something here!!

HaPpY!

Some things just make me

HaPpY!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Did you know that we are Irish at our house?!!

Well, now you DO!!

Sacramental Bread

Baking Bread

For our Achievement Day activity on Tuesday I taught the girls how to bake bread. The bread they made was not just for any occasion, theirs was the bread to be used as the Sacramental Bread on Sunday. There was the sweetest spirit in my home while these ten girls made this special bread. Of course they were still silly, loud and slightly insane 9 year olds. And yet, there was a special spirit here. I can only call it reverence. They were part of something sacred and important. I am so excited for Sacrament meeting today so they can see their bread blessed and shared throughout the ward as part of a sacred covenant between man and God.

(Because the girl's bread would not be out of the oven in our one hour time period for class I had a loaf prepared for them to taste while theirs was in the oven. I also made each girl an individual loaf they could take home with them. It was the perfect activity!)

girlie time

Each year for my birthday I get some girlies together and we let the kids run wild, eat a fabulous lunch and make a craft. This year it was all about hair clips...and flower bows! Thanks Abby Reidhead, Dawn Judd, Lori Ham, Karen Valle and Brindy Arnett for sharing your fabric, ribbon, bling, buttons, glue sticks and

AweSOmE PerSoNaLiTieS!!

You all rock!

Not too bad for a days work eh?

Abby is a pro at all the different styles and she gave us directions when we felt a little lost. I am overjoyed with the variety of bows that came out of the day today!

Oh yeah...7 dozen

This, my friends, is what 6 dozen SnoWflAke CoOkiES looks like! (For the untrained eye, like mine, I will explain that they are stacked 3 dozen high in each pan.) The other dozen is already in the outdoor fridge awaiting it's Sunday evening consumption.

They are for my calling as an Activity Day Leader of the 9 year old girls at church. We are inviting ALL of the girls (ages 8-11, about 35 total) to bring their parents to the church Sunday evening for a small devotional and explanation of the Faith in God pamphlet that the Activity Day Program is based on. The theme is Divine Nature-esque. We are each unique like a snowflake but we are each here for the same great purpose. (Aside: When looking for snowflake cookie cutters someone actually told me, "By definition I don't believe snowflakes can have cookie cutters." So in deference to my friend I actually did use 4 different cookie cutters to add variety! Oh the sweet spice of life!!)

Italian Tonight!!

I have discovered the American Discount Store. The miraculous place where you can buy a box of 300 individual packages of fishie crackers for $7. The wonders of huge can of marinara sauce and gigantic container of Ricotta cheese comes out to $4.25. A tasty box of 50 Grandma's cookies (also individually packaged) is $8. Jars of baby food can be found 10 for $1. Need I go on? I have been warned that it is hit and miss. The produce, for the most part, is icky and too ripe. But I do believe that the benefits outweigh the negative. I came home to use up that Ricotta cheese and Marinara sauce...2 large pans of manicotti and 2 huge lasagnas later. It is done. My house smells wonderful and my freezer is happy!

Literally!!

When life hands you lemons...

break out the BoSch!!

our tiny little lemon tree really produced this year! (We'd already given away 3 big bags of lemons before I took this photo!) We got about 7 gallons of pure lemon from this venture...fresh lemonade for our house YEAR ROUND!!)

Halloween T's

Not to be out done my my sister I DID end up having friends over to make the incredible Halloween T's. (Thanks Ana Tueller, Jorgianna Langkilde and Ashley Whiting for playing with me!) ...it served me well because I made Monte and I each a shirt and sent two to Utah to my nieces, and I made them for our annual pumpkin carving contest for the over-all winners of the different age divisions (post to come) Now that's a lot of shirts!

Halloween T-shirts

Each time I think that I’m free from blogging for a few weeks something fun comes along and I find myself back on the computer again. This great idea was in this months issue of family fun magazine (the BEST magazine on the market in my opinion.) I read it and thought, "How fun, I should invite some gals over and do this." But not wanting to make my kitchen a mess...

Luckily, my fantasic sister, Shauna Cole, had the same thought, and she isn't as selfish as I, so I got to go to her house and make her kitchen a mess! This is the messy part...Orange Tie Dye...then you pull out the black permanent markers and design your jack-o-lanterns from there. They turned out SO CUTE that I just had to share!!

Shauna's friend, Rachel Beacroft, was also there with 4 of her 5 kids (Stetson, Macy, Halston, and Quincy). We're emailing this picture into the magazine to try and get featured on the inside of the next edition! (also pictured are our Cole cousins Andrew, Walter, Rex, Janet and Julie. Jackson was asleep in the house by the time we finished.)

In the boys pics it's hard to see the design on Monte and Jack-ets. So here are some better shots of those. Aren't they AweSOmE!?

(Seth and Monte Birk)

People have been on me to post some of my "craftiness" so here we go...

This one is an Advent Calendar for Halloween!

Actually this is one that I can't take any credit at all for because a good friend of mine, Ashley Whiting, found one online and thought,"I can make that," and then designed one of her own, made copies, purchased all of the supplies, put it together in packets, invited some girlfriends over, fed us and then helped us put them together. All I had to do was give her a little mullah to pay for it and then show up!

Don't you just LOVE friends like that!

I made these a while ago but I LOVE them so MUCH! they are the GROWTH CHARTS I made for the boys. You can take them with you when you move from house to house.

(I remember when we did this on the door frame at home...) It just seems that no one is that settled any more...so take it with you! You just hang them 16" from the floor in your new abode! I mark them with metallic gold and silver pens and there is a tape measure on the back to show exact height. Cool eh?