Are you ready for this crafti-ness????

OK...my new favorite project- perfect for all you stay at home mom types looking for fun, cool, and cheap projects...or perfect for the high school teacher during exam review week :-)

1) Gather materials- you need stapler, tape, scissors, and white paper- I used shiny typing paper, but anything will be fine

2) Fold a triangle into the paper like this....

3)Cut off the edge so you have a folded square piece of paper

4) From the folded side cut three sections on both the right and left (from the folded side to the triangle point) Don't let the cut lines touch!..look carefully!

5) Open the paper

6) Grab the smallest interior diamond and fold the edges together like a cannoli- tape them

7) Flip the paper and grab the second smallest pieces and fold them in the opposite direction. Tape

8) Flip again, fold the third section tape.

9) Flip again, fold the last section, tape.

10) Looks cool right???? Make six of these...

11) Take two of the sheets of folded and taped paper and attach at the bottom with a staple and the sides...like this.....

12) Do this three times

13) Attach 2 of the double sets of paper.... at the bottom (which will be the center of the snowflake and the sides.

14) Attach the last set of papers to the center and the side- Viola! 3D snowflakes. Seriously, it takes 15 min for the first one and then you can whip out 4 or 5 in a class period...I mean in 45 minutes :-) I love exam periods...so much crafting time for teachers!!!!!

Let me know if you make any! You can find better directions here....Tomorrow- pictures from Chuck E Cheese, our decorations at home...even though there are very few because WDP likes exploring/ throwing them...and pictures of the festive-ness that is my school classroom- it's awesome!!!!

We went to Chuck E Cheese for a birthday party on Saturday and WDP could not have had more fun. He was on the carousel until we ran out of tokens. He wanted to chase Chuck E. Cheese and hug him some more. he danced with the big kids and ate a whole piece of pizza. (To be such a big kid he eats very limited foods...a whole piece of pizza in public is a big deal for us :-) ) Of course I wanted to get our picture "drawn"...it's only one token and is so cute....right? William even wanted to play with the scary mechanical Chuck E Cheese on the stage. The curtain closed when the show was over and he was still on the stage- and not scared a bit.... what a fun party!!!! Of course we missed our nap and he was a fussy pants all afternoon, but let's leave this post on he had fun at the party :-) More pics as soon as I can load them on the computer :-)

Busy, busy

I've been busy, busy....

Making stockings...from old red velvet curtains and leftover minky fleece from WDP's crib bumper. I think they turned out quite nicely...

The other stockings look a little better- I didn't press and turn the seams in very well, but you get the idea :-)

Making Christmas tees.....

And making an outfit for a friend to give away....Q's are the world's hardest letters to monogram. I had to redo this one 4 times...ugh..... then again it was probably user error and I was just doing something wrong....either way I hate to say goodbye to fabric I love and I have LOVED this fabric. I just like to look at how pretty some fabrics are and keep them folded neatly in my sewing closet. But this was the end of this fabric...byebye, I hope baby Quin loves you!

We "decorated" our tree. Well we put lights all over it and bought the "shatterproof" ornanments at Wal-Mart which are indeed shatterproof, but WDP pulls them off anyway. I'm glad he is throwing cheapie WalMart ornaments and not my 1982 Snoopy ones.... Maybe next year we can really decorate the tree. I tried to put this garland on it that I made a few years back- it's just a bunch of pompoms on quilting thread. I love it, WDP obviously did not feel the same.... (look closely he's hidden the ornaments in the tree only to pull them out ans toss them across the den)
He also likes to climb behind the tree...oh well :-)
Here he is running in the yard at 5:00 looking at the lights. he keeps saying "hot hot"...they're not, but he likes to say that...

Lastly, he has become a signing fool. He signs and signs... Here is a quick video. He's made some signs up like cold. It's first. he scrunches his shoulders and pulls his arms in and tries to say "Brrrr" you'll see the video goes into crazy baby mode opening the oven in a minute. Yes, he's also learned how to remove the childproof locks......

Our little drummer boy....

By the way we went to the Doctor Wed...maybe I thought he had an earache....nope, just a snotty cold, but we did get to weigh in on the big boy scale- no more baby scales for us. He was a whopping 28lbs!!!!

Feeding the "baby"

William is so resistive to drinking milk from a sippie, with a straw, anything...except a bottle. He does great with water and juice from the sippie, but the milk is a hard habit to break. We've opted out of the morning bottle and if he doesn't drink, he just doesn't drink....one of the pluses of having a gi-normous baby, if they don't eat, they'll still be fine! Anyway he is also 100% obsessed with Elmo- he even wants to kiss Elmo on his diapers before we put them on, so when I saw an Elmo sippie at Target on Friday you can bet I added it to the buggy. It worked...kind of. He drank a good bit of milk today, but most of all he wanted to share and feed his babies...a mouse/ bunny type animal and a Tigger doll. Sooooo sweet! He even made little drinking noises when he was feeding them :-)

On another note- I learned how to do a reverse applique this weekend- also known as the world's fastest way to dress up a plain $3 tee shirt- check them out....

I kind of like the way the tee curls a little where you cut the edges...sort of gives the tee a vintage feel :-) The turkey is WDP's hand print :-) I've got big plans to do a lot of his tees he's about to outgrow like this and then just get more in January when he would've been about t outgrow them anyway. Yeah for new, easy sewing ideas. Thanks Mel Mel!

"Rock Climbing"

We are having such an unusual spell of amazing weather. William and I are trying to get out to the park that's across from our neighborhood everyday- I know the rainy, cold days are fast approaching! While he is still enthralled with slides and climbing up...

and going down....

His new activity is "rock climbing." I may just have a Conrad Anker on my hands....

So Chad and I have always called this part of the park "Pride Rock" from The Lion King...

and now William loves it too- running between the rocks, "climbing" the rocks, watching the big kids play on them, etc. He loves it. I never knew having a boy and being a "boy mom" would be so fun :-)

Sliding all by himself

We are having the BEST weather here....It's not really November weather- mid 70s, but I love it. I could take these temps year round. We're trying to make the most of the good weather and took a jog to the park yesterday. William has been refusing to get into the baby jogger- He used to love it, I think he feels confined and he would rather run than ride. I wish we could trade. Oh well. I bribed him with "let's go for a ride and we'll stop and play" So we did, even though it was getting dark. He even climbed up and did the slide all by himself. Yeah!!!! Check him out. I wish I wsn't so loud in the video- he's saying "weeee" as he goes down :-)

Do you have a Maclaren stroller? There's a recall on ALL styles....Click here to order the part to fix your stroller!!!!

My first house

OK, I did it. I stood in line at Toys R Us on Friday for a "doorbuster"...did I not just blog about how I despise plastic stuff.... but look at this face.

I mean, he squealed when he saw it. We played in it all weekend. He loves it, so therefore I do not despise the plastic stuff...as much...anymore. It's the Step 2 "Neat and Tidy Cottage"- It really was a steal. And my plan is to sell it on Craigslist next spring when it's old hat and he doesn't squeal every time he sees it. William loves opening things- cabinets, the fridge, doors, etc, so this is perfect.

The shutters may be his favorite part. We played peek-a-boo a lot! It never got old.

Check him out- a doorbell (that's not too loud), a little table, sink, 2 chairs, a working door- everything a 15 mo old could want.

We even put out Christmas lights on the porch so he can play at "night"...with the time change Nashville gets dark around 5- it'll be dark by 4:45 in a few weeks- yuck! It's on the porch right outside the kitchen window so we can be inside and he can be "outside" (on the locked, screened porch) and he thinks he's so big....just look at him :-) Be prepared for many more posts on the house- it's our new hangout.....