2019 Christmas Ornaments

As in past years, I made Christmas ornaments for close family members. I used the Glowforge again, but instead of putting the kids' pictures on the ornaments, I put their handwriting on them.

Now, those aren't our names, but it is the kids' handwriting- I just told them to write those names for illustrative purposes so I could list these ornaments in my Etsy shop without advertising their names to the world (we're using pseudonyms until they're old enough to responsibly decide to have an internet presence). Grandparents and great aunts received ornaments with our real names :)

Sunday Funny

Notice that there's no ornaments on the tree?

There were ornaments, but Ocean kept pulling them off and moving them around. That would have been ok, but he started breaking them as well. So a day and a half after they went on the tree, Sunshine got frustrated and pulled them all off.

She left the lights and garlands on the tree, but those didn't stay put either. By Christmas eve, the lights and garland on the bottom half of the tree had migrated to the bottom quarter of the tree. After the boys went to bed that night, Sunshine took it upon herself to rearrange the lights and garland back to their original spots.

I actually thought the tree looked fine without the ornaments- simple is good :)

2018 Christmas Ornaments

This has been the year of the GlowForge, so of course I used the GlowForge to make this year's ornaments.

After editing one of the group pictures to remove the background, I etched the image onto one side of the ornaments.

Simple text and snowflakes on the reverse side with our names and the year.

Colorful ribbons to hang the ornaments on the tree.

2017 Christmas Ornaments

Last Christmas I made these ornaments for us and the assorted grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-aunts, but I forgot to take pictures before I packed the ornaments away. So, better late than never, here's our 2017 ornaments.

I cut white cardstock with my Silhouette, then cut red glitter cardstock panels with the Silhouette. I glued the glitter cardstock to the white cardstock, positioning the kiddos' photos in the openings. Then I folded everything and attached the tabs with double-sided tape. Some baker's twine makes a colorful hanger.

Weekly Mileage #89 and the Sleep Study

The culvert that stopped us when we had the jogger.

Monday I went on two hikes. The first was a repeat of the hike we attempted last Monday, but since it was just me, I was able to cross the culvert without any problems.

The trail ran fairly close to the river, but it meandered further away at times. It was an interesting juxtaposition of houses and businesses in the background as I hiked through wooded areas. I continued to follow the trail until I came to a river crossing. I was running short of time, so I turned around and headed back.

rock path through shallow water

the actual river crossing, with a rope to help steady yourself (if it's on your side 😉)

After preschool, River and I went to the park and I let him pick which trails we hiked. We also went down to the stream to check out the water. Ocean was home sick with Sunshine (her co-op ended last week), so they weren't along on this little adventure.

Monday night was my sleep study. I went to a hotel next to the hospital, where they have a sleep lab set up. They attached all sorts of wires and electrodes, and then I had to try to go to sleep. It wasn't the most comfortable sleep, but it wasn't the worst, either. The stuff in my nose was to monitor my breathing and how deep I was or wasn't breathing.

this doesn't show all the wires, but it does show a good portion of them. such an attractive look.

I don't have sleep apnea (yay!) so I had to stay for the daytime sleep study. They woke me up at 6 am and I had to stay awake for an hour and a half, then try to take a nap for half an hour. This was repeated throughout the day for a total of four naps. Thankfully they had all the data they needed after four naps and I didn't have to stay for a fifth nap. The whole process was exhausting. I was already tired from a poor night's sleep and I've trained myself not to take naps because if I do, I can't sleep at night. So I had to lay there and try to calm my brain so I could sleep. I didn't sleep the first time, I dozed off right at the end of the second one, and fell asleep during the third and fourth ones. Getting woken up was the worst- I was so tired and groggy each time.

I'd hoped to get some work done in between naps, but that didn't happen. I was too tired and fuzzy. I just couldn't focus. I channel surfed a bit, but I realized that there's still nothing on during the day, even if you have cable, and I'm glad we cut the cord years ago.

got rid of some wires, but had a few more added

After showering all the goop they used to attach the wires out of my hair and off my face (so gross, and my face has broken out worse than it has in years because of that stuff), I was free to go. I took advantage of finishing a bit earlier than planned to take a hike along the river nearby before I headed home. These urban hikes have been interesting- traffic and houses and businesses on one hand, the river and woods and trail on the other.

Wednesday I went for a hike in the snow after dropping Sunshine off at her last nature class of the semester. Mr M was home for the day, using up some PTO, so I left the boys with him and hiked by myself. It was a smidge too warm, so the wet snow didn't stick around, but it was fun to hike as the snow was falling. I love the quiet that accompanies snowfall.

Friday we finally got our Christmas tree. I feel so behind this year.

little tree huggers

Saturday I hiked the yard in an effort to get another hike logged. We have about 1.75 acres and it's about  .3 miles around the perimeter, which means it takes multiple laps just to hike a mile. Not the most exciting hike ever, but I do have a better feel for our property. And it reinforced the idea that we need a much bigger property next time, so I can get some decent hiking in on our own property.

Since we finally had our tree, I decided I should really put up the Christmas lights, as well. And then I
used the mower to mulch and blow the leaves off the lawn one last time. As I put the mower away, I thought to myself that it was about time to get the mower deck off and the plow on.

Speaking of snow, Sunday it snowed all day. In fact, Stake Conference was canceled because they didn't want people driving in hazardous conditions.

Sunday evening, Christmas lights in the snow

Weekly Mileage
Monday- 2.72 mile solo urban hike
                1.55 miles hiked with River
Tuesday- 2.59 miles hiked along the river in town
Wednesday- 2.05 miles hiked in the snow
Saturday- 1.46 miles hiked around the yard
total- 12.4 miles

39 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
2.14 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

359.83 foot miles towards #365milechallenge
335.00 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
696.97 miles total

Sunday Funny

We were at the mall and saw this fancy house and tree in the middle of the walkway.

I'm pretty sure River now thinks that Santa (or some old guy with a white beard) lives in a fancy house at the mall.

Christmas Ornaments

Every year the kids and I make ornaments to give to grandparents and great grandparents.

This year I decided to do a variation of the snowman ornament I found here.

Ocean's snowmen

After spray painting the blocks white, I lined them up in groups of three. 

I had River draw a snowman on one side. I let him do his thing, but had my hand near his to make sure he didn't scribble too much. Then I rotated the blocks and Ocean jabbed the markers on the blocks. I switched out the colors and tried to keep the proper colors in the proper spots. I was somewhat successful :)

River's snowmen

One more rotation, and Sunshine drew her snowmen. She wanted to add a lot of details (see the upper right snowman), but it didn't look like a snowman at that point, so she simplified the rest of them.  

Sunshine's snowmen

Since there’s four sides, I drew a snowman on the fourth side, with the date at the bottom. I wrote the kids' names and ages at the bottom of their side. Sunshine had fun twisting the blocks around and mixing up the snowmen. This project would work better if the boys were a little older, but I think they still turned out cute.

And here's this year's Christmas card. Aren't they cuties?

Quick and Easy Wreath Update

the updated wreath

I bought this rosette wreath from Target 5 years ago, but it was showing its age: the rosettes looked dingy and the leaves had faded from green to tan. It was in good condition, it just looked blah.

this is what it looked like originally

I forgot to take a picture before painting, but those leaves weren't green anymore

I’ve seen white sparkly rosette wreaths at Target around the holidays, but why buy a new one, when I can update the one I have?

I sprayed several light coats of white paint all over the wreath, then topped that with a coat of glitter spray paint. When I purchased the glitter spray paint, I envisioned dimensional pieces of glitter, but that’s not how it is. It’s more a metallic sparkly effect with without the bulk of large pieces of glitter. I may spray one more coat of paint and sprinkle coarse glitter on the wet paint, but I actually like the way it turned out, so I may leave it as is.

It looks a lot brighter and fresher; ready for several more years of use. And it only took a few minutes, which is all I have these days.

I like decorating for Christmas with stars, so I wedged the sparkly star back in the center of the wreath. More sparkle is a good thing :)

Did you know you can print envelopes with your Silhouette?

I found a post here that described how to do it and I realized I could use the tutorial to spiff up our Christmas card envelopes. I wouldn't say it's quicker than handwriting all the addresses, but it does look nicer :)

I used my sketch pens- silver sparkly for the snowflakes, black sparkly for the names and addresses. Then those ran out and I used blue for the snowflakes and black for the writing. I think I went through 4 or 5 pens all together, so not super-cheap in that respect. I had a package of sketch pens that I received for Christmas last year, so I had fun playing around with them.

The only problem I had was remembering to switch the pens in between the letters and the snowflakes. A couple people may be getting an all-silver printed envelope...

I really like how they turned out- especially the snowflakes on the envelopes. If I do this again next year, I'll leave more time for this project. It took longer than I had planned and I ended up rushing to make it to the post office before it closed today. Oops. They should still arrive before Christmas, though, so it's a win in my book :)

Christmas Dollhouse

Last year I built a play kitchen for LMS for Christmas. This year I built her a dollhouse.

I didn't have time to finish it before Christmas, but I decided that wasn't all bad. LMS could help me decorate the walls of each room if I didn't do it all first.

LMS was very excited and even insisted on playing with it in the car on the way home from my sister's. It ended up next to her in the space between her bench and the front seats, and even though it wasn't really that practical or easy, she managed to play with it and had a great time.

I finally got it caulked and painted a month or so ago, and then we went to Michaels and picked out scrapbook paper to use as wallpaper.

This week I finally glued the paper on the back walls. I had planned on using spray glue and every time I had a little free time to do so, it was raining. I finally had free time that coincided with nice weather and got it done. Unfortunately, the spray glue ended up not working- for some reason the paper wouldn't stick to the painted wood. I tried a glue stick, and that worked pretty well.

We used pieces of patterned and textured paper for "rugs". They can be moved from room to room, depending on where the Little Miss wants them.

Then I let my OCD run wild :) I cut both curved ends off of 4 packages of tongue depressors (about 300 all together) and went to town with the wood glue. I used my Cutco kitchen scissors to trim the edge pieces to fit and used painter's tape to keep everything in place while the glue dried.

 This step was completely unnecessary, but I love how it looks! The whole thing looks just a bit more "finished" than it would with a plain white roof. The Little Miss thinks it looks good too :)

Now she can move in her doll furniture and dolls.

I'm glad it turned out as well as it did, and glad I'm finally finished with it. 

Four months after Christmas :)