Peppermintstick Holiday Frock

You can enter to Win this VERY adorable dress at

http://grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com/2009/11/peppermint-stick-holiday-frock_26.html

It fit's sizes 2-5! I'm sooo in love with this dress!!!

And you can enter to win this super chic purse at
http://grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com/2009/11/charm-design-50-gift-card-guest.html

Trick or Treat

I know I'm really late in posting about Halloween! We moved just a couple days before Halloween so things were kind of crazy! We went to my brother's neighborhood Trunk or Treat. I really love Trunk or Treats! The kids are happy with all the candy and I'm happy with how fast it is!

Christian was Captain Jack Sparrow

Emilee was Sleeping Beauty, Hailee was a Cat, and Aubrie was a Girl Pirate!

After the Trunk or Treat we headed to my Mom's house for some yummy dinner. After which we headed out for some more Trick or Treating. We had a great time and it was a really nice break from the chaos of our house and all the unpacking.

New Moon

My Mom, Tahnie and I went to see New Moon at the Thursday Midnight showing! It was so much better than Twilight. I'm glad they changed directors! The special effects were better; the actors even seemed better. We had a lot of fun getting to the theater an hour and a half early. We thought we'd get great seats coming that early but no we got to sit 3rd row from the front. Which was a lot better than the front row we got to sit in for Twilight.

Before we left we had a little New Moon dinner party.

The Red Izzy drinks had labels that said, "Type A, Type B, Drink Up, I'm Thirsty" . It's hard to see in this picture, but on the right are white cupcakes that looked like they've been flicked with blood. They also have Forks stuck in each one which is holding a quote from the book. We had Italian, of course.

I also had framed quotes from the movie set around! We got home around 3:30AM, but it was all worth it! I can't wait until I see New Moon again!

Aubrie's 6th Birthday Party!

Aubrie turned 6 on Nov. 6th! I can't believe how fast she's growing up! We had a Cinderella party at our house to celebrate on Nov. 7th.

I was crazy to have her party at our house since we had just moved 2 weeks before. Luckily I've done quite a few princess parties so I didn't have to do a whole lot to get this party ready. Besides unpacking hundreds of boxes that is!

It's hard to tell from this picture but there are cutouts of Jaq, Gus, a bird, the Fairy Godmother, and Prince Charming on both sides of the "red carpet". There is even a glass slipper on one of the steps.

Aubrie looked at lots of different cakes on the Internet and decided she wanted this Cinderella cake.

For Party favors I made "glass" slippers (http://www.skiptomylou.org/?s=paper+shoe+tutorial) for the girls and little blue Chinese take out boxes with Jaq on the front for the boy!

Present time!

We had dinner and then we played pin the crown on the princess, find the hidden glass slipper, and had a fishing pond. I know a fishing pond doesn't fit into the whole Cinderella theme but it was Aubrie's request that we have one. So I just printed out Cinderella clip art and added it to the fishing pond! We were also going to make bead bracelets but with 16 kids and 10 adults it was just too crazy!

Moon Family Pictures

My Grandma Moon wanted family pictures with all of her kids, grandkids, and great grandkids. We took them in her front yard in early Oct. Tahnie set it all up with everyone and then she took the pictures! Didn't she do a great job?

Great Grandkids with Grandma Moon

Dad, Grandma Moon, Uncle Kenneth

Grandkids with Grandma Moon

Dad, Jill and Sadie

Jerel, Mike, and Sabrina

My Family

Grandma Moon

Thanks Tahnie they turned out great!

Halloween Treat Bags and Magazine Bows

I have been busy making cute Halloween treat bags for my kids.

Up close ruffle.

It's kind of hard to see in this picture but this bag has a black tulle ruffle running down the center.

This bag has black tulle ruffles all around the black and white ribbon.

Front

Back

Now I have to buy one more black bag to make Christian one.

I made this bow out of a magazine page! I'm going to be making these for Christmas Presents!

Here's the tutorial:

http://howaboutorange.blogspot.com/2009/10/make-gift-bow-from-magazine-page.html

Ruffles and Stuff

Just thought I'd show a couple of projects I've been working on for the last couple of days. I found a blog that I just love called rufflesandstuff.blogspot.com She is an amazing seamstress that I hope to be like someday! I found a cute pillow on her blog that I knew I just had to make. Here's the picture from her blog:

Here's what I came up with:

I had some leftover Raw Silk from when my Mom and I made these dresses for the girls:

Last night I stayed up until 1 AM to upscale an old, yellow, long sleeved, shapeless T-Shirt I had. I love taking something I never wear and breathing new life into it. It's like getting a new shirt for free!

50th Anniversary

This February my in-laws celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary! Since it was easier for everyone we decided to celebrate this summer. It's been 10 years since we've all been together and we had a wonderful time!

I was the decorator for the reception. My budget was only $250. It wasn't easy coming up with decorations for 10 tables, the cake table, the book/photo frame table, and an arch for Mom and Dad Allan to stand under on that budget! I did it though and I was happy with the results. I picked the colors yellow, black, and white. I didn't want everyone to have to go and buy new clothes and I figured everyone would have black and white and I chose yellow because it's close to the 50th anniversary color of Gold and it's fun and summery. I had more than one person tell me they didn't think the color scheme would look very good but changed their minds once they saw it and thought it turned out great!

My awesome sister, Tahnie, came and took all the pictures for free! How awesome is she? Thanks so much Tahnie!!! You're the best!

The photo frame signing table! This sort of freaked a lot of people out. They didn't want to sign a photo mat! We actually had to tell people to sign it. I even had a framed sign that said, "Please sign".

The cake. I was dissapointed how this turned out. The bakery did the damask design with a gel and stencil instead of fondant. Oh and there was a big old smear on the back that they didn't bother to fix. Because of this smear they picked up the fondant 50 on top of the cake and turned it but they didn't bother to smooth out the icing on top. On the fondant 50 they didn't kneed the gold color into the fondant and instead painted it on the 50 while it was on the cake resulting in gold paint on the yellow and streaks of white on the 50. Speaking of the yellow; it wasn't stirred in enough and there were a lot of white streaks. I went and talked to the manager who was going to talk to the decorater and get back with me. That never happened. I've been in a couple more times but never when the manager is there. So if you ever need a cake DON'T get it at Flour Girls Dough Boys in American Fork.

The Table Decorations! I made copies of their wedding picture and framed them. All the siblings got to take one home afterwards! All of the candle holders had fake tea light candles in them. It made a beautiful effect.

It was so much work. Just like doing a wedding reception. It was so worth it though to celebrate two of the neatest, caring, generous people I know!

Congrats Mom and Dad Allan! We love you!

School

My kids are loving going to school. They could hardly wait to wear all of their new clothes and see their friends. I'm lucky that my kids get to ride the bus to school, because only the kids that are in the Life Skills class and their siblings get to in Eagle Mountain. I'm also loving that my kids are on B Track this year. At their school there are two different starting and ending times. A Track starts at 8:15 AM and B track starts at 9:15 AM! We get to wake up a 8 AM which is wonderful for this non morning person mother!

Aubrie was thrilled to start Kindergarten! She was sad that she had to wait a whole week past her siblings to start school though. They test the kindergartner's the first week of school. Which Aubrie wasn't able to go to because she was throwing up the day she was scheduled. Luckily she started feeling better about three days before school started so she didn't miss her first day of school! She's also very happy that her best friend, Gracie, is in her class!

Hailee also started preschool! My baby is growing up! She loves going even though she is the only girl in her class. She goes to a small in home preschool and there are only 5 kids in the class. I love it because it's more one on one time for Hailee. She goes in the morning and Aubrie is in afternoon Kindergarten. So no free time for me yet. That's ok because I now have some one on one time with Hailee and Aubrie.

Sterling was taking first day pictures and somehow didn't get a picture of Christian. It made me so sad! Christian is loving 4th grade and has a wonderful teacher. She's in her 70's and reminds me of Ms. Stacy From Anne of Green Gables!!!

Things I've Made

Over the summer I've made a couple of things that I thought I'd share. First I made a purse! It's reversible and I was so proud of myself that I didn't have to undo any stitches. I did it all right the first time and a reversible bag is pretty tricky.



I also made myself a shirt by upcycling one of Sterling's size Large T-Shirts! It was a fun way to get a "new" shirt for free! I have plans for some of Sterling's other T's!!!

I also made 25 new hairbows for my girls this week!

Pony Express Days

We've had a fun week at Pony Express Days. It started off on Sat. May 30th with a pancake breakfast. The kids really look forward to this and we always have a great time!





Then on Monday we went to Family Fun Night. They had booths with free games, pictures with Minnie and Mickey, and free popcorn and cotton candy! Then we got to enjoy a comedy show by Jason Hewlett. He does celebrity impersonations and he's really good at it! He performs in Las Vegas. We thought we'd get rained on but were lucky and it started raining as we were getting in our van to go home.






On Thursday we got to go to the Carnival. The kids wait all year to go to this and were thrilled to go!













The girls loved going on the boat ride!













Christian and his friend Aiden on the Ferriswheel.














Christian, Aiden, and Emilee on the Swings. Emilee was scared at first but then ended up loving this ride.













The mini Train was a big hit with the girls!














Christian and Aiden getting ready to ride the Gravitron!

On Sat. we went to the Pony Express Days Parade. It started almost an hour late, so it was a little hard to keep the kids happy, but they were so excited once it got started and they got plenty of candy. I even got a T-Shirt! It was a busy and fun week for us!