kirstencan

Winners!

Congrats Alicia and kj!  Send me your addresses and I'll get some cards out to you soon!

Things of note from the comments (since I didn't want to make comments on my own giveaway post - heh:

Valerie: I entered you anyway - creativity is not required to enter a giveaway, silly girl!  Plus, I've seen you be creative, so there.

Jen: I do write this blog just for you - don't let anyone tell you differently.

Lori and Kristin: Maybe I'll put some cards in the shop - if I can get my act together this week, we'll see!

Ann:  Your photocopied cards sound like they're right up my alley!

Alisa:  You made how many quarts of pickles?  Seriously?

For those of you who haven't heard of a Gocco machine before - it is a little personal silkscreener - designed mostly for paper.  It is awesome.  However it is being discontinued - which stinks.  I have a little stash of bulbs and screens, etc. so you'll still see some Gocco from me periodically!

I think I link to a cool gocco vid here... if you'd like to see it in action.

Thank you all for commenting!  Because how am I supposed to be friends with you if you don't comment, right?  Right?

::Lately::

It seems like we've been really busy lately.  Extra meetings all around - I haven't even been able to make it to book club (boo!).  Here's some of what we've been up to:

Doing school: 

We are loving this new game that we got for Christmas - and it's an awesome thing to put in the kids' school boxes.

Going to the aquarium:

Field trips are a good thing.  Period.

Puppets:

The kids like to have puppets on both sides of the puppet curtain my sister made them - and tell jokes mostly consisting of 'Did you hear the one about the bear?' (Monkey) and 'Did someone say Dynomite? - Boom!' (Thomas).

Heavily influenced by The Muppet Show.

Checking out the model train show:

This year Thomas was able to focus on one thing at a time instead of constantly being on the move - so glad of that.  The lego train setup was to die for - this is a teeny corner of it.  We made our own 'Toy Train' videos.

Coaching basketball:

My current 'job' at church is coaching the young women's sports.  We had a month off after volleyball and are now into basketball.  I am trying to remember all the drills we did in high school.  Thomas thinks that he's the coach (he has good ideas, I tell you), and the kids have been surprisingly good about hanging out at the gym for practices.

Ballet rehearsals:: Princess has had extra rehearsals for her Coppelia ballet that she's involved in - and I have a few things to work on for the production, too - so that's fun.

Celebrating Aaron's birthday:

By going out for pizza and making yummy vanilla bean ice cream and cookies *drool*.

Looking for a good concert to go to:: me.  It's been almost a year since we saw Andrew Bird.  Is anyone good coming soon?

Watching TV:

Between Christmas and Aaron's birthday we got this many seasons of TV shows.  Kinda ridiculous, yet awesome.  We're in no hurry to get through them all - most are reruns for us anyway.  And Clone Wars is for the kiddos.  Just saying.

Playing in the snow:

with lightsabers.

Also had a speech meeting for Thomas today -  there is always something lately!

But it's all good stuff, really.

I swear I'm going to get some sewing projects done.  Soon!

Giveaway reminder - you can still enter until tomorrow night**CLOSED!**.  I'll be back on Saturday to say who's won.

New Birthday Cards + Giveaway!

I've been wanting to get out my gocco for a while.  I've been wanting to make some new birthday cards for quite a while - my cake cards are just about gone!

Finally, my mom's birthday gave me the deadline I needed to actually make that happen... the night before - because that's how I roll!

I made a 2-screen design - really really simple, but the first time I've done that with the gocco, so that was fun.

The first pass was the multi-colored one.

When they dried I printed black on top.

Finished card:

It's just a doodle I've had in my sketchbook, but I think they turned out cute.

I printed on a variety of cards - thin and thicker, grey, white, cream and pink.  Oh, and speckled.  Always fun to experiment.

The registration was pretty easy - and I made the colored circles slightly different sizes than the balloon outlines on purpose - I like the slightly 'off' look.  I actually like the ones that are more 'off' better than the ones that aligned perfectly.

Would you like some?

I printed plenty - so I have two sets of five cards (and envelopes) to give away!  Because it's been way too long since I've done a giveaway!

Just leave a comment (no seriously, I'd love to know I'm not talking to myself here) - and I'll draw a name ... Friday?  Sure.

**UPDATE - GIVEAWAY CLOSED - WILL DRAW NAMES TOMORROW!**

Brighter still..

New (bright!) cushions for the couch.

Because when I took off our cushion covers to put on the Christmas ones I knew I wouldn't want to put the drab ones back on.

And I didn't.

 

So when I saw these fabrics at IKEA, I knew what I had to do.

(Because...Foxes! Mountain Goats!)

The really cool thing about these prints are that the repeat is HUGE - so you can 'crop' different areas for completely different looks - but the same color scheme.

Of course I forgot that the light blue background wouldn't really go with my turquoise walls, but oh well.

So, much more colorful - at least for now.  I may switch them up in the spring or summer.

Oh, and I was planning on doing two in this red print - but what with the over crowded IKEA and people breathing down my neck while I cut my fabric... I forgot it.  Bummer.  Next time.

(See the red fox?)

Oh, and lest you think my house is all calm and stuff...

It's usually not.

******
In other weekend news, I watched Girls Just Wanna Have Fun on Friday with my daughter - her first viewing!  She is all about '80's stuff (and dancing), so of course she loved it.  Aaron, however, quickly left the room.

Also, I subbed in Primary at church(the children's classes) so I was in the room when the chorister asked the kids what song they could sing about a snowman (hinting for "Once There Was a Snowman" of course) and my four-year-old pipes up (loudly) "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells?"

That's right, kid.  Funny and appropriate.

Brighter

A few lovely things that brightened up my smoggy, cloudy, COLD January day.

Megan made me a hat!

It is gorgeous.

Happy Mail always lifts my spirits - but international mail always calls for an extra smile, somehow!  And I got out the globe to show the kids that my new hat came from a friend all the way in New Zealand!

And I wanted to show her that it did indeed fit my huge noggin'.

I love it - thank you, Megan!

 

My new pink wellies arrived.  They do not match what I have on, or in fact anything that I own... but they were pink and on sale, so I ordered them.

They're happy boots, I think.

The grocery store had most of their bouquets on sale - so why not?

January is hard, right?  I'm ready for March or April now.

What is brightening your January days?

What I want to remember...

Popping in on Aaron's laptop again - which doesn't seem to like me but will do until he rebuilds my computer.

I feel like I'm behind... so I'm going to back up a little and jot down some things I want to remember about our Christmas break.  We had such a wonderful time, and while it's always hard to go back to our routine after the holidays, it was SO much harder this year to go back to doing school, limiting movies and video games, etc.  We just had such a great time and really enjoyed each other's company.  We had Aaron home for two weeks, so sending him off to work again was miserable.  We LOVE when he's home.  Thomas would even thank Heavenly Father that Daddy didn't have to go to work in his prayers.  So sweet.

Anyway, here we go, in no particular order:

We went sledding twice.

We went out to eat a few times - which is a total treat in our family.

We built our gingerbread house.

I loved our tree.

Everyone still believed... or else really wanted to.

We had a nice quiet Christmas eve - a few kiddos were pretty hyper, so we tried to keep it low-key and watched 'The Snowman' for the first time.

Santa popped in for a visit on Christmas eve - just like he always does.

All three kids camped out in Thomas' room for Christmas eve.

Thomas woke up at 5:45am.

I was a little worried that this would be the year that someone wasn't completely thrilled with their Santa gifts, but it was all good.

Legos.  And lots of them.

We bought 5 nerf guns.

And an extra 100 rounds of nerf ammo.

I am constantly finding a nerf 'bullet' where I least expect to - on kitchen counters, in between couch cushions, behind bookcases.

Playmobil ponies.

Watching lots of HULU, Planet Earth, Muppet Show and movies from redbox.

We had a nice Christmas Day dinner at my parents' house.

Snuggling up for naps.

NAPS!

We never got around to making spritz cookies this year - but we did make some Russian tea cakes and sugar cookies.

Swedish advent candles in the front window.

The girl stayed over at my parents' house Christmas night because her aunts and uncles were planning on watching Lord of the Rings.

She has the best Aunts and Uncles.

Singstar.

Staying in pj's all day.

A trip to the Dinosaur museum on New Year's Day.

I cleaned our bedroom (a Christmas miracle!).

Pulling Monkey around our street in the wagon while the kids delivered our neighbor gifts.

Star Wars ships and build-a-bear outfits.

My sister, Kellie with the most thoughtful gifts, most handmade or from her trip to Ecuador.

So many nice gifts from everyone.

Pie.

Lots of video games.  I am currently enjoying Scribblenauts and Bowser in a big way.

Mario Kart.

Little boys leaning on arms when it was our turn to play ds or psp so they could see, too.

Aaron bought me this beautiful necklace (except with my three kids' names on it, obviously) for Christmas - I love it.

This was the year I finally got out the 'nice' (breakable) nativity again.  In reach of the kids and everything.

We put some breakable ornaments on the tree this year, too.

We've reached some kind of turning point.

Cinnamon rolls.

The end.

Urgh.

Just popping in, having stolen my husband's new laptop, to say 'hi' and inform you of my computer's sad demise.

That's right.

Thank goodness we run back-ups.

I really wish we would have run one after Christmas.

Yup, my computer took to it's grave all of my December photos.

December.

I would be crying (much) had I not posted a lot dance and Christmas  photos on our private family blog.  So at least I can snag those back.

Urgh.

That means there were a couple of posts I had in mind that just won't work without the photos. 

Like the one about when Princess wouldn't play with Thomas, so he lined up a ton of playmobil guys (an assortment of pirates, warriors, policeman, and postal workers) all armed with weapons of some sort across her doorway.

The next day he added more - and some pirate ships and vehicles.

It looked pretty awesome, and we found a playmobil cannon in her room.

That's what you get when you won't play with your brother.

.

.

.

See?  Just it just doesn't work without a photo.

Urgh.

What I made in 2009

...some of it anyway.

You can click on the photo for more details.

Here's wishing for a healthy, happy, productive and crafty New Year!