Overabundance

 There are plenty of weird things that this pandemic has brought into our lives. 

Homemade masks, anyone?

One of them is the free lunches that we pick up several times a week from the middle school. These are for all the kids in the house, even those that don't attend school. AND! They include breakfast. So that's 3 drinks, a "breakfast pastry", bag of veggies, fruit, applesauce cup and main dish...times by 5. 

Multiple times a week. 

We make the baggies of lettuce into one big salad, use the veggies in our cooking, the muffins milk are a good backyard snack. But that's about as far as we go...I don't know about you, but we just don't eat that much applesauce. 

So we are learning new skills. 

Ever had bananas dipped in lemon juice and dehydrated?  I'm telling you...you are missing out. 

All those fruit cups can be blended together and we make mystery fruit leather!

DIY Frozen Castle

Everly wants a frozen castle for Christmas.

Have you seen the choices out there? The are either huge and meant for Barbies, expensive and cheapie looking, or crazy expensive and just out of our budget.

So I saw a pinterest post that sparked my creative juices. Somebody else had taken a large barbie house and redecorated it to look more modern.

I can do that for Everly's little Frozen characters!

So I popped over to Maj R Thrift and found this beauty for 1.50:

It's just right. It's missing a top piece, but I figured I could work around that.

I gave it a wipe down and used my countertop scraper to remove all the stickers.

I found a good "frozen" blue spray paint at Hobby Lobby (40% off coupon!). Just make sure it works on plastic. I sprayed it down outside, but carefully brought it in to dry because it is so cold outside. Soon it was ready to decorate! I love doing this stuff...

Luckily, Everly konked out on the kitchen and gave a about an hour to work on it.

I used this "Bling on a roll" I got a Walmart for tons of stuff! I just cut the rows apart and used them to outline and make everything sparkly!

Hot glue gun is the way to go.

A little silver paint and glitter paint to paint and accent. 

My favorite part was making new banners out of sparky silver ribbon. 

I just went to town! Made is as cute and fun as I could...I think she's going to love it.

I decided to go dig out a few pieces of our miniature doll furniture and remake them in the same style. Most of these are from a Rapunzel tower or thrift store finds.

All done!

I can't wait to give it to her!

Advent kickoff. Mine duckies are in row!

It's December 1st and it's time to start the advent calendar! Yesterday I had "finish the advent calendar" at the top of my to-do list. 

Aaaand.....it didn't get checked off. 

"Luckily", I usually need to get up with the boys to get them off to early morning seminary and so I had a couple early morning hours to kill.

Advent Calendar: 

Next....the Elf on the (are we seriously doing this?) Shelf

Unfortunately, the girls had been playing with her since the moment she came out of the box. Directly defying the Elf on the Shelf  "hands off" mandate. 

Megan was awake by then and helped me come up with a suitable solution for the day:

And I got the advent calendar planned, written and restored to the wall before any of the littles descended. It's Laney's year to pick out first (and last)!

She also got to open her special gift! (Mathew was shocked with how early in the month this was taking place. What can I say? Gotta keep them guessing!"

We also got to hand out the chocolate advent calendars! This year Aldi didn't sell them so we got a tip they were available at Trader Joes. It's fun to have different styles. Meg was especially exited to have one that gives her service ideas for each day.

The kids went off to school and Everly and I went to Maj-R Thrift and scored this big old Christmas flower arrangement for 5.99!

We pulled it apart, cut out some cardboard circles and glued them into our old flower pots. We started poking holes and glue in sprigs of this and that....

And soon we had two cute baskets to replace our dead mums on the porch! We also made use of a few of the pinecones the kids have collected in my old garden cart in the back yard.

Mark took the boys camping with the Scouts and I took the girls to the Melodia Bell Choir concert. It was lovely! And the perfect beginning to the Christmas Season.

It was all started by this awesome lady.....Diana Player has got to be the most tenacious person I know. She has kept this bell choir going through thick and thin. When one person has to drop out, she asks around until she finds a replacement. Just about everyone I know has played in that group at one time or another, including me! And Ethan!

Now to get on with preparations for Anna's Cocoa Party tomorrow morning. All I got to do is make 2 batches of sugar cookies, clean the basement and the main floor, make several colors of frosting and see if I can find that silly elf.

Nothing a little Youtube can't fix

I mastered the boy cut long ago. Of course, that's making the assumption that the boys will ever only want their hair to be cut in the ONE WAY that I know. 

So far, so good. 

But girl's hair is a little more complicated. Layers are a thing. 

So I looked up a YouTube video on how to give and a-line cut with some stacked layers in the back and we went to it. Is there anything I won't do to save 14.99?

Maybe not!

Basement projects

First I assembled my work crew. They dressed for the occasion...it's pretty standard to go barefoot in construction zones, right? 

We are going to sand these two "nightstands" down, paint them off-white and then make them into a window seat. I have the whole thing in my head, and absolutely no experience. Should go perfectly!

The swinging door to the playhouse is up and we're painting it blue!

This beauty is going to be my new sewing table.

Viola!

Things are shaping up!