My Little Firefighter is 3!!

He loves Fire trucks, so we had a firefighter birthday. I got the idea for his cake from http://www.howdini.com/howdini-video-10462237.html

All his brothers were excited for his birthday. I love it when they are nice to each other. Andrew and Matthew stayed up late and missed their reading time (which they LOVE) so they could help make his cake.  Matthew said, “I love Steven more than my books. I feel good making his cake for him.” Steven said he wanted a face on his Fire truck cake, so Andrew put one on for him.

David woke up early so he could make Steven Danish Pancakes (crepes) for breakfast.

Matthew made him a paper dog hat.

Andrew played Pop Up Pirate with him before and after school.

Austin helped him put together his new fire truck puzzle.

Steven loved his new trucks so much that he couldn’t stop playing to eat his favorite dinner (Easy Pasta Bake). He had a happy day.

I took his Birthday portraits today at the fire station.

I can’t believe he’s already 3!!

Blog Hop Freebies!

It’s the Jessica Sprague Certified Digital Designer Blog Hop Day!

Here are the previews that include just SOME of the papers and elements you can collect if you go to all the blog sites.

Here are my freebies:

3 Distressed patterned papers, 4 tags, 2 swirls, photo corners, and 3 border strips.

2 Brag book pages made by my friend Beth for me, using my blog hop freebie.    Click on the 2 Previews to download.**New Download Links** Enjoy!

Check out my designs you can buy. They are only available for               1 week! More info in my previous post. ***They are no longer available on my blog. Thank You***

Musical Melodies kit $2  

You Are A Star Photoshop template $1

Thanks for stopping by. I am the 29th blog stop out of 47!! If you missed some- start at Lisa’s blog: http://www.sweetsunshinephotography.blogspot.com/

Your next stop is Erica. She has an awesome blog with Homeschooling and Preschool ideas as well as her awesome designs:  http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/

Have a Merry Christmas!

***The Blog Hop is over- Thanks for participating!***

My Digital Scrapbooking Supplies For Sale!!!

Tomorrow is the Big Jessica Sprague Certified Digital Designers Blog Hop! There are almost 50 blogs on the Hop- so make sure to come back tomorrow!

Today I wanted to tell you about my supplies for sale!! You can buy them from the links on the right of my blog- it will take you directly to Paypal. ***They are no longer available on my blog. Thank You***

Musical Melodies $2.00

This kit includes 17 highly distressed 12X12 papers and 13 elements including tags, photo corners, a border, and journal spots all in a classic brown and cream color scheme.

My awesome Digi Scrapbooking friend, Beth made a page using my kit. I am always impressed with her style and the cool digital effects she can do! Her daughter is so talented and every year they have recorded her playing her favorite piano songs- what a fabulous idea!

All the supplies used to make this page came from My Musical Melodies kit (except for the string and staples which Beth made.)

You’re A  Star Photoshop Template $1.00

This template is a two-page 12X12 fully-layered .psd file. It is ready for you to clip up to 28 photos in!!

This template was perfect for me to use to create a page of my extended family’s talent show. I think it would also be great for a sports page or highlighting the many different interests of your child.

(Papers and swirl elements made by Beth)

I am only selling these supplies for 1WEEK- so if you want them, don’t wait!

See you tomorrow for the Blog Hop!

Jessica Sprague Certified Digital Designers Blog Hop!!

I was intrigued about Digital Scrapbooking because of my friend Beth. She was a digital designer and creates amazing things. I have loved paper scrapbooking for over 15 years, so I thought I would never love sitting at the computer to scrapbook, but never say never! I took a digital scrapbook class at Jessica Sprague and was hooked! I have taken just about every Jessica Sprague class since. Recently I took her class that taught how to Design your own supplies. Now I am a Jessica Sprague Certified Digital Designer!

Some of us from class are participating in a blog hop. Yea! Freebies!

It begins on a week from Thursday!!

BTW- Jessica Sprague has a free class on her home page so you can see how to start digi scrapbooking. She also has a mini class every Friday for only $1.00 that includes everything you need (template, papers,  supplies and a video to see how to do it) for one page. These are her Photoshop Friday classes. Here’s my page from Photoshop Friday #1

Happy scrapbooking!

Swim Lessons

Andrew, Matthew, and David loved swim lessons this summer. I was worried that swimming everyday (rather than 2 times a week in the winter)  would be too much, but they loved it.

Andrew now knows all the stokes and swims laps.

Matthew can too, but he prefers cannon balls…

Everyone loves the last day when they get to dive off the diving boards and go down the water slides.

Austin begged me to take lessons and he looked forward to them everyday. He loved when he was allowed to splash his teacher and dump water on his head, but he refused to put his head in the water.

Kool Aid, anyone?

David always begs to do a Kool-Aid stand. I tell him to wait for a hot day (he asks even in the winter when its raining). So, he watched for a hot day on the Wii weather channel.

His brother was his first customer, but he did sell 7 other glasses.

The not so quiet, Quiet Time

Everyday we have a 1 hour quiet time after lunch. Everyone goes to their room and reads (supposedly) while my youngest sleeps and I have some alone time too. This time I heard loud sounds coming from Austin’s room. I had to go join the fun (and tell him to be a little quieter since Steven sleeps in the room next to him).

He had all his knights lined up on his window sill. He made a different voice for each one of them as they battled.  I love watching this little boy play!

Marshmallow Shooting

I cut a PVC pipe for each of them (and a friend) and  Andrew designed targets in Photoshop.  They put mini marshmallows in the PVC pipe and blew them at the targets. They kept track of their bullseyes by putting the marshmallow on the fence.  Steven decided to just eat his marshmallows. Then they found a new target…Those hit my forehead. That one hit and stuck to my camera lens.

Amazing!

Andrew, Matthew and I went to the Portland Mormon Choir and Orchestra concert last night- it was A-maz-ing!

Rob formed and directed the choir 5 1/2 years ago and now he is the board chairman and singing in the choir. I’m glad Andrew and Matthew enjoy going so I have someone to sit with :)

This was my favorite concert yet! Jenny Oaks Baker came and she was stunning and played flawlessly. The concert was captivating.

The concert included some theme songs from movies. Andrew and Matthew were especially excited to attend this concert because they actually sang 2 songs from Star Wars- I didn’t even realize Star Wars had any songs with singing! I barely grabbed this picture- it was so unexpected and funny! A Jedi came out and handed the orchestra director a baton- but it was a light saber- LOL! They actually turned the lights down and had sound effects like a light saber for a minute before they started the song.

 

The choir got silly and sang a medley from the movie Enchanted. They pulled it off and it was funny.

 

I’m looking forward to their Christmas concert- that’s always been my favorite (until now!)

David’s Harry Potter Birthday

We had David’s Birthday party last week. He has been reading the Harry Potter series with Rob for the last several months and he spends a lot of time listening and re-listening to Book 1 audio CD’s, so he requested a Harry Potter party. (Please forgive any of my HP spelling mistakes, etc as I am not a HP fan)

I got most of the ideas from online.

Our invitation:

You’re invited to a Magical day!

We are pleased to inform you that you have been invited to Hogwart's School for special mid-term classes in honor of
David’s 7th birthday. Your class will run from 3:30 until 5:00pm on Friday, Feb 5th. Please take the Hogwarts Express train to (Our address).
Respond ASAP by OWL to (my email)or Muggle telephone system (my phone number) with a yes or no response. We look forward to your arrival at Hogwarts.

We played “Harry, Harry. Voldemort” (Duck, Duck, Goose) and “Harry and the Snitch” (You sit in a circle, and pass 2 balloons around. First pass the snitch balloon, then the Harry balloon. You try to pass the Harry balloon fast enough to catch the snitch.)

Then everyone went to the Wand shop to get their wand. Rob had them swish and flick different wands until they found the “right” one. We used our wands at the table for Potions class. I mixed 6 different kinds of Kool-Aid and labeled them with different potions. The kids could mix them how ever they wanted. Plastic Goblets from Party City would’ve made it even cooler. The magic was when they cast a spell and put a spoonful of Pop Rocks candy in. The drink sizzled and popped.

Then we dipped gummy frogs in melted chocolate and tasted Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans (they were actually just different flavored Jelly Bellies- nothing gross, but we still got some good reactions as they tried to guess the flavor!)

Then we played part of Quiddich in the garage. We hung up hula hoops and Rob tried to guard them as the kids threw the quaffle in.

We had a treasure hunt to find the Sorcerer's Stone- the birthday cupcakes that had red Ring Pops in the center.

Then David opened his presents- he always is so expressive!

Just before going home, the kids used a spell “Wingarium Leviosa” to make their party bag levitate. (Matthew stood upstairs with a broom stick. We tied clear fishing line and a clip to it. Matthew pulled the bags up whenever the child said the spell).

Happy Birthday David!!