Birthday parties are always fun aren't they??  Even as the planner, they can be a trip back into memory lane! I loved legos growing up and I am thrilled my daughter enjoys them as much as I did.  The one thing I love that she has though is a "girl" version of the legos.  They are so cute!  Even their hair and outfits are adorable!

For her birthday she decided she wanted a lego friends birthday party!  So I did what any simple mom would do...I scanned Pinterest!  And of course found some amazing ideas.  There were a few we did on our own.  But, the pictures speak for all the fun we had!


I found a wonderful lady on etsy to make the invitations and the thank you notes!  Unfortunately, her shop is no longer available, otherwise I would link you there!  But there are plenty of other great ideas there!  They simply customized it for my daughter and I printed them out myself with the download they provided!  So cute and simple!


Besides some delicious food meant for friends!  The girls made hair clips out of four dot lego bricks (we chose white, pink and purple) then I hot glued them on some clips found at Hobby Lobby.  I found little flower pieces, or butterflies, whatever small pieces I could find (mostly leftovers from kits we had bought) and put them in containers, and each girl designed 2 of their own hair clips.  The bows I made by hand with a simple single lego in each of the centers.  At the end of the party each girl got to pick out their own hair bow to put in their lego party bag.

The food was simple too...pink and purple cupcakes, and lego shaped krispy treats using Easter colored M&Ms.

We watched a Lego Friends short video, opened presents and then played Lego Friends Bingo provided by another Etsy friend who custom made this as well!  Click Here is her shop she has more bingo themed ideas!

The girls had a blast!  It was all at home, not too much work, and didn't break the bank!

It doesn't have to be a birthday to enjoy some of these activities! Invite some friends over and just do one of them!

Maybe I should re-title these posts "Summer Bucket List"!  I am having so much fun with my kids and my own summer projects.  Here is a project I have been waiting to do since I was given this chair back in 2008 when my grandfather passed away.  It was my great grandmothers' passed down to my grandmother and then to my own mother.  She used it as a vanity chair.  The yellow and green fabric was the one my mother chose for her room back in the early 70's.  Underneath you will see the original fabric which was a shade of blue, then underneath that I found the original batting.  It was made of pure cotton and very small cedar chips.  After doing some research I found out the chair's real age of over 100 years old!  After a very thorough cleaning, I knew that I wanted to restore it to its original color but change the fabric to a more modern, yet age appropriate fabric.

I did give my facebook fans their chance to vote on the fabric and the winner was the one you will see below.

I had so much fun restoring this beautiful piece to her original state.  It was actually easy, but slightly time consuming.  I am so happy how she turned out and I am now looking forward to how she will look in my new house once its built!

Do you have any items on your summer bucket list?

I thought for this first Friday of my blog I would give a small tutorial on knitting.  I LOVE to knit!  It was something my grandmother taught me, and I picked it up quickly, but also read books on how to get better at it.  In college, I would knit scarves, hats, socks, blankets, I almost joined a knitting club with some ladies in the small town where I went to school so that I could sit at their feet as they knitted far greater projects than I could dream of, but they met on a night I couldn't meet.

Before my grandmother passed away she knitted me several scarves.  I have kept them, and some of them were too small for my taste, so I passed them down to my daughter, who wears them regularly (I wish my grandmother were alive to see how much she loves them).  This week, my son (age 3) requested a scarf, and I could not find a boy colored scarf from my grandmother, so I rummaged through my craft closet and found my knitting needles and some green yarn just dying to be used!  I had not picked up my needles in almost 6 years...but it came back rather quickly and within a few hours, my son had a new scarf.  I hope he treasures it like my daughter and I both treasure the ones made for us by my grandmother.  In fact, I wish I had a picture, because at her funeral all of us grandkids wore the scarves she had made each of us individually.

So in honor of my grandmother who passed away December 17th, 2008 here is a video tutorial I found on You Tube.  My suggestion BTW for yarn is to get baby yarn to start with, it is soft, works great, easy to manage, and stretches.  I use several different size knitting needles but the ones I make scarves out of (which is a great way to start) are size 6 and can be found at Walmart.

Anyone else knit??  I would love to see or hear about your projects or any other tutorials you can share!

Holy Cow, this writing this down stuff can be difficult.  Figured I better bulk this one together just to catch up! 

We have been so big on the celebration of Jesus' birth.

3rd day we learned about the promise of Jesus told in Malachi.  We talked about what a promise was.  For Zach he listened and I showed him the pictures displayed in their kids bibles of the prophet Malachi. 

For their treat we went and saw my Uncle Santa.  Santa in our home is like Mickey Mouse or one of the Princesses.  We go and see him each Christmas if he makes his way up here, and they look with awe as they do Buzz, Woody, Minnie and Belle!  Its super cute and totally not confusing. It was a great treat for the kids as they also got to see their friends, share cookies that they had made with their friends and had a great time!



4th Day of Advent

Todays verses were about the Angel coming to Joseph to tell him about the baby that God was blessing Mary with.  We talked about how the Angel needed to tell Joseph so that he could take good care of Mary while she had baby Jesus in her tummy.  But that God was giving him a gift as well.  Click here and Here to down load our craft for the day.  We colored some presents that had different words that we discussed in our story.  JOY, PEACE, LOVE, KINDNESS, GENTLENESS and PATIENCE

Today we studies shepherds and what they do and learned about the Angel appearing to the Shepherds in the field telling them that baby Jesus had been born and that they were to leave their flock to go see the baby.  We went and hunted good shephard sticks today and tomorrow we are going to decorate them with ribbon and maybe little bells to give them character.

For their treat today they each got a piece of hershey kisses.  I'll update with a post of pics of the finished shepherd sticks!  ;)

Us at Storytime!

Today we are learning about the Wisemen sometimes referred to as the Three Magi or Three Kings, that brought gifts to baby Jesus. 

I thought it would be fun for all of us to make crowns and wear them while we listened and learned about the story!  Just find some construction paper lying around.  Target and other places have the sparkly stickers, cut the paper in the shape of a crown.  With an 8x11 sheet of paper you can cut one part and then cut the other, but you only need one sheet, but will have to attach two parts for it to fit their head.  Tape and then measure head and tape the ends together.  Simple. 

We are having so much fun this Christmas season!  The kids are at amazing ages! 

Day 8 we continue to learn about the life of Jesus!  We learned how the 3 Kings were the ones that told Mary and Joseph that they needed to leave Bethlehem because the "bad king" was mad that Jesus was born.  My favorite questions have been, "Why was Jesus born?", "Why was the King mad at Jesus Mama?" and last but not least, "Mama, I think the Kings that gave Jesus presents are really smart, how did they find Jesus?"

For Advent Day 8 Paige was allowed to invite a friend over.  So she chose one of her sweet girlfriends from school.  They played dress-up, pretended to be Repunzel, and did a craft together.  Here is our craft.  It was super fun and easy and only $5 at Target!


Day 9 - Today is Pajama Day!  Thanks to Paige's school this made for a great Advent event as well!  After school I have planned for us to start making Christmas cards for her friends at school!  Want to make sure tis the season of giving to be completely what this is all about!  Oh...BTW I picked up these cute Christmas card things from Target as well for $3 for a set of 20!  They can be personalized with their friends name on them!

On the 2nd day of advent we learned about being blessed.

Scripture today was:  Luke:  1:42-45

I taught them the song, "Blessed be the Name of the Lord"  We also talked about how we are blessed and what that actually means. 

"Blessed to be a blessing" was something that I taught them. 

Today on the advent Calendar their treat was to make cookies and make a door hanging craft.  I picked up the door hanging craft at the dollar store.  They are so easy and use a glue stick.



Then we made cookies to bless our friends with.  We can't wait to share them at our little Christmas party tomorrow! 



Have fun!  Cheers to Day 3!