Holiday do-it-yourself

While Trav's parents were in town last weekend we decided to put up our holiday decor a few weeks early. It'll be out for essentially the same amount of time this year as any other, seeing that we'll be headed to the Midwest for the week of Christmas, so we figured...why not?

I've been wanting a holiday card holder for years! You know the really cute one you see at Pottery Barn. Well this year with coupon in hand I was determined that it would be the only holiday decor purchase I'd make.

After checking and double checking for it online (because I guess the stores don't carry the holiday card holder...randomly) I realized my coupon didn't work online...Dang!!!

So I decided to sleep on the idea of the purchase for a few days.

While I was flipping through my Taste of Home's 2009 Holiday Cookbook last night and randomly thinking about my holiday decor, thanks to to the tips the book offers, my eye drifted to the empty space on the wall that was calling to be filled with the elusive card holder.
And I had a thought..."Could I make my own?"...

After doing a little re-searching online to get a visual I decided to try and make my own.
This morning I headed outside and this is what I came up with.

About three, three foot long, Aspen branches. Each very young in tree maturity with short but yet twiggy sub-branches. The twiggier the better I didn't want the branches to have a uniformed look. I just wanted them to be full but not too unmanageable.


After cleaning the branches up a bit by removing any dead leaves or bugs I grabbed some green floral wire and some red ribbon. I bunched the branches together like a bouquet and secured them with the wire which was then covered by a very simple square knot made from the red ribbon. You can see the camouflaged wire in the pic below.



I mounted the branch bouquet on the wall with two small black hooks, which I had on hand in our random hodgepodge of hardware in the basement, that simply screw into the sheet rock. You could use anything really to adhere the piece to the wall...just use your imagination.



Voila!!! I have a Holiday Card holder and it cost me NOTHING and took about 8 minutes to make! Plus this one is a little better suited for my pinecone/birchwood holiday decor theme anyway! As you can see I can do one of the two things (or both);
I can nestle my cards and photos that I receive amongst the branches or I can hole-punch the cards and add a little ribbon to make each card into an ornament looking piece. Over the course of the next few weeks I may trim up the branches a bit if they become to overwhelming and I also may spruce up the ribbon. But for now I'm very pleased with result and can't wait for the Christmas cards to start arriving (no pressure :) )!

Vinegar Window Washing Solution

I need to make this a quick post.

I've FINALLY reached the bottom of my Windex bottle and I hit the internet hard looking for the vinegar window cleaning solution recipe. Here's the one I found that I'm going to try:

2c water
1/4c white distilled vinegar
1/2t liquid soap (to get rid of the waxy film left by the commercial brand I was using)

Anyway it got me thinking that I'd really like to start following a 'green' living blog. So do any of you have any recommendations? I'm looking for a blog that will offer suggestions and tips on how to live a greener life with simple, easy suggestions that can be done and applied to our everyday life...not one that will make me feel bad for doing this or doing that. Also something faith/Christian based is always nice too. Ideally it'd be a green living family blog...but that may be too specific...hey its the internet right so its gotta be out there :)

So you internet blog savvy mom's got any suggestions?

Oh Kirby how I love thee!

Let me count the ways:
(Kirby is my vacuum...it was a handed down gift from Trav's parents when we moved here).
1-100,000-You are self-propelled and are easy to maneuver.

2-100,000-You have carpet height adjustments.

3-100,000-You were owned by my in-laws long before I was in the picture, you're ageless, Travis can't remember how old your are (probably between 15-17years), yet you still purr like a kitten.

3-100,000-The carpets are miraculously clean when I've finished using you.

4-100,000-You are relatively inexpensive to repair and tune up (less than $75 for a new fan and tune up this week! on a Kirby no less).

5-100,000-The track marks you leave are barely noticable. And what I do see gives me cleanliness goosebumps all over!

6-100,000- My off-white townhome carpet that was only a year old, when we moved in, has managed to stay in pretty clean shape thanks to you and your welcoming "Please use me 2 or 3 times a week," loud but not too loud sound.

7-100,000- I can adjust you to use on the stairs if I want.

8-100,000-No in-carpet suck-upable mess is to large for you to defeat.

Nothing makes you appreciate a quality in home appliance than the thought, and research to go along with it, of perhaps having to replace it. But thanks to a great vacuum repair superwoman, and no thanks to the penny that broke a fan blade, I have my Kirby back, all cleaned and in purrfect working order.
Ahh...it feels nice doesn't it?

Will, Mindy and Anneliese :)

Mindy and I go WAY back... I won't even tell you how far. But we are pretty much family so last year when she asked me to take some family pictures I was pretty excited. Well things got busy for both of us and we decided not to rush them. This past Friday evening Mindy called and asked if I was free THE NEXT DAY. I said, "Of course!" and sunset pictures at Ute Valley Park in Colorado Springs on Saturday were planned.

I love that I've been so blessed to learn about photography from Meg as her assistant, and I love that photography has become such a fun creative outlet for me. It's such a joy and honor to take pictures of close friends.
As always...and with permission from the family :) here are my favorites:


Beautiful Anneliese






Will and Mindy :)


You can tell I'm a Kansas girl at heart. Give me a field at sunset and that's pretty close to heaven on earth for me.

My two favorites of the day!

Okay, the sun setting behind the mountains is pretty awesome too :).

Snow day productivity!

Welp I'm home today for the 2nd snow day in a row for me this week (M and W) and have had a super unbelievably productive morning.

I've cleaned out three closets, the cedar chest; which holds all of Trav and my's off season clothes, and I'm really hoping to don wool socks later and get the basement in ship shape and ready for the holiday unload of all our decor and stuff. It really is amazing the stuff we accumulate and how it just pile's up down there and we've only lived here 18 months!

I called a local consignment store to see how they do business and I'm excited to hopefully sell my kids ourgrown clothes to them. I typically have a box for each kid and as they grow out of clothes I just fill their individual boxes so when it comes time to sell or give them away the process of gathering them all up is very simple.
All this and its just barely 1pm... I guess that's what happens when you wake to a 5am alarm and find out 2 hours later that you don't have to work. It's amazing how I'm putting all this free time to use now that I don't have it as often, since I'm working 30 hours a week. I'd love a snow day like this once a month!

Yesterday, I took the vacuum to have some repairs done and was very pleased to get a phone call from the shop today reporting minimal damage and a small repair bill. Whew! I'm really hoping to get it back by Friday and to have clean floors once again. I never realized how many times a week I vacuumed until I didn't have one any more.

I also recently (last weekend when Trav was home to distract the kids) flip flopped a couple of my kitchen cabinets. Now that we've lived here for over a year I'm figuring out what works and what doesn't as far as the way I function in my kitchen. I don't know about anyone else with kids but I feel like we are busting at the seams with cups for them. They are literally everywhere and now require more than one shelf to store.

Well the snow has been falling solidly now for over 4 hours and is supposed to continue all night. Maybe I'll be home all day tomorrow too and will get to clean under the kitchen sink :).

Pumpkin Carving

Yes,yes, I know two posts in one day throws everyone off. But I am home today, thank you snow and ice, with a mountain of laundry, a to-do list as long as my arm, a teacher req. exam to study for and blogs to catch up on so here I sit.


We are not really into the whole concept of Halloween in our house. But being that our kids will be going to public school and we shop at Target they will be virtually inundated with the secular holiday between the marketing for it and the general excitement of dressing up in a silly costume and the free candy. So we've decided until the children are old enough to understand the true meaning behind the day and we can have a rational dicussion about why not to take part in it, we'll celebrate it in a fun, safe way that promotes fellowship with friends and enjoying the season of fall. Our church has decided to cut back on a few of their events this year and one of them is their Haloween alternative festival. So we plan on enjoying Saturday evening at a friends house and Riley will be a knight/the 'Armor of God' (thanks Nana!!!) and will go to a selected 5-10 safe and family friendly houses that aren't scary.

Yesterday was our big pumpkin carving day.
As we were about to head out the door for church we brought in our pumpkins from the front step so they could warm up a bit before we took the knife to the them later after lunch. Welp, they were both mushy and we decided it'd be worth the few dollars to go to the grocery store and buy a carving-ready pumpkin.
Fast forward to three hours later, after church and a run to the store and we have begun the carving extravaganza!

The kids were elbow deep in the pumpkin before we knew it and were having a hard time containing their excitement. Well Riley and daddy did most of the pumpkin gutting while Haley helped me pick out the seeds to roast.





Once the pumpkin was thoroughly cleaned out the boys proceeded to draw the silly face and Haley and I got to roasting our pumpkin seeds and making our pumpkin carving treat for the day (a no bake reeses peanut butter bar...so so yummy!)

Here is the recipe I used for the pumpkin seeds.

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds
Print Options
Print (no photos)
Print (with photos)
Ingredients
One medium sized pumpkin
Salt
Olive oil
Method
1 Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut open the pumpkin and use a strong metal spoon to scoop out the insides. Separate the seeds from the stringy core. Rinse the seeds.

2 In a small saucepan, add the seeds to water, about 2 cups of water to every half cup of seeds. Add a half tablespoon of salt for every cup of water (more if you like your seeds saltier). Bring to a boil. Let simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and drain.

3 Spread about a tablespoon of olive oil over the bottom of a roasting pan. Spread the seeds out over the roasting pan, all in one layer. Bake on the top rack until the seeds begin to brown, 10-20 minutes. When browned to your satisfaction, remove from the oven and let the pan cool on a rack. Let the seeds cool all the way down before eating. Either crack to remove the inner seed (a lot of work and in my opinion, unnecessary) or eat whole.

It turned out delicious and I'm still enjoying them today!

We got the pumpkin carved without any problem and then Trav made a comment about it not being very technical. So he turned the pumpkin around and wrote 'Happy Halloween' on the back side and we carved out the words without going all the way through the pumpkin wall. It turned into an all day task and was much more difficult than he had originally thought. After recuriting me to take a few shifts on the letters between pumpkin cookie batches it was done!

Side One




Side Two



We'll probably keep the pumpkin inside until this weekend when we are at a friends house for dinner enjoying a safe, warm, fun Halloween!

Spring Canyon October 2009

Our weekend away was really fun. We had a blast and could've stayed a couple more days. The weather was gorgeous and it was just the perfect temperature for playing outside pretty much the whole time while still giving us chilly nights which were perfect for cabin fires.

The kids wanted to play on the improved playground pretty much the whole time and it almost got annoying but then we remembered that this vacation away was for them too and we just let them play away. I guess swings swing better at Spring Canyon.
We spent some time up at Cottonwood lake and we took in the views of the Continental Divide as well. We spent some time in Buena Vista and enjoyed several warm beverages from the local coffee shop and even drove through the new Kayak park that the town is adding as one of its attractions, to include a brewery...you know we'll be going there when all the construction is done!

We missed the fall peak colors at camp by about 2 weeks but BV's trees were breathtaking at the city park. And we did find pockets of color up at Spring Canyon.

The kids are now old enough, 5 and 2, for us to really enjoy the time away. I didn't feel like I was constantly looking over my should to make sure one of them wasn't falling off the side of a ledge or into the pond...Although the Kelty backpack helped a bit with that. But truely for the first time we were able to have a relaxing couple nights away as a family. It was a small sort of victory for us as we begin the young child phase and are exciting babydom probably for good.

I'm going to try something a bit different.
If you missed the album on facebook or are interested in taking a peak go here: