Year Of America: Less than a month!

We are less than a month away from our Year of America departure date, and plans are in full swing!

While I haven't been talking about it much lately, this trip takes up most of my daily thought. It is a slow going large project, which has its own designated folder on my computer desktop of ideas, camping hacks, packing lists, menus, itineraries for each state, and maps. I also have a Pinterest board of cool things to see and car trip ideas for kids. Slowly I have been sifting through these articles and picture posts to find exactly what will work best for our little family. :)

I now have road trip specific calendars hanging on our pantry door in the kitchen so that our whole family knows when we are leaving, and where we will be on each day. Together we made a paper chain link countdown so that we know visually how many days are left until the big road trip :D

cute, and mildly terrifying...

This week we also started a list of all the crafts and projects we want to make for our car ride to be more enjoyable. Starting any of these before now just seemed silly because a) I would need to store them somewhere, and b) I didn't want the kids to get REALLY excited 3 months ago and then lose interest by the time the road trip actually got here. So we spent most of the last few months making lists and gathering ideas, and now we are finally going out to purchase things and make stuff.

The whole point of making the Year of America our family theme for 2016 was so that we could spend time bonding together in a unique way, while seeing many parts of the country that we have never been to. The last thing I want is for this 3 week car experience to feel like torture, or have us rolling our eyes and wishing that we had thought of "this" or "that" because we are miserable and want to go home early. My ideal would be that we have a simple and stress-free vacation where everyone is comfortable, warm enough, cool enough, full of yummy food, hydrated, happy and entertained, loving each other, and that all of our supplies are easily accessible and nothing gets lost. :D Ahhh, that's the dream!

While Pinterest is full of LOTS of ideas, I wanted to be realistic about how much time and money I was spending to create hours of toddler-car-ride-entertainment, and I also wanted to create things that would entertain them repeatedly for long periods of time, not just a "once and now this bores me" type of situation. I also didn't want anything sticky or potentially melty, and the activities had to be age appropriate because my kids can't spell or read yet, and their imagination is great only within reason. (I didn't want Kate to get frustrated with having to stay in the lines, or reading coloring prompts when she basically just draws jellyfishes and scribbles on everything.) She also can't do bingo or alphabet challenges on her own, so hands-on, tactile, and snack oriented games definitely sounded more appealing.

Here is what we have planned so far to make our road trip enjoyable for everyone:

A prize box. Ahead of time I will be wrapping small prizes that we can open as we go. Some will be individual things (like play-doh or sidewalk chalk), and others will be family goodies (like giant bubble wands or U.S. Flash Cards). I found this great idea for DIY scratch off cards for the trip, so each day they will scratch off a picture of where we are going to go and when we get there and the kids "FIND" the landmark, we will open a prize!

I also found this Car Scavenger Hunt which is something we can do all together as a family, and whoever points out each item will get a snack. :D Once the whole sheet is full we will unlock a prize to open for the trip. (I am laminating all this stuff because I especially like activities that are reusable!)

Calming Bottles. I found lots of recipes for these online. They are bottles full of goo that you shake and then watch as they "calm down". We are planning to do a couple with glitter and one with alphabet beads or little toys to play "I Spy".

Personalized Plastic Tubs. This one is REALLY important to me. Each kid will have their own plastic tub with a lid on it to keep their own toys, snacks, stickers, and activities in. This way there is no fighting over what belongs to whom, the car stays less cluttered, and Kate and Wynn are responsible for their own clean up each day.

Snack Necklaces. The day before we go, the kids will get to make necklaces with pretzels and cheerios to eat and wear in the car :D I'm hoping this will help them be less messy without loose snacks everywhere ;) I can dream.

Binoculars. This week we will be making binoculars out of toilet paper rolls. The kids can look for things extra well with their own personalized spy goggles! Paint and stickers, here we come.

What types of activities and games do you play with your family on long car trips?

Thankfully we will only be on the road 3-4 hours each day, so nothing incredibly long at one time, but still. Being in the car and away from home every day is going to be a challenge. Tell me your ideas! :D

Fancy Finger Painting

Kate is an art junkie.

If there is anything vibrant, liquidy, of gooey texture, or particularly messy, she seeks after these things.

As such we like to give her lots of opportunities to express her creative side. Even if it ends up looking like a puddly swamp mess.

 

 I wish I had her inhibition and could enjoy being this sticky and colorful!

 

 As Jackson Pollock once said: "Painting is self discovery. Every good artist paints what he is."

Kate is colorful, bright, bold, spontaneous, fearless, fun-loving, and not afraid of what others think of her. She loves to feel and explore the world. She knows it's ok to make messes, because we can always sing the clean-up song later.

I think her life motto is: "It's always a good time for finger paints." I could really learn a lot from her :)

Instaframe

So a few months ago I framed my Instagrams:

I absolutely LOVE how it turned out! This was a project inspired by my friend, Jess. She did this with her pictures and I loved it so much I begged her to teach me how!

When I brought it home, Kate was just elated looking at all of the pictures and pointing out people she recognized:

Daddy! Baby Emen! Gate! (Kate) Mommy! Margo! Gam (Gram)! Papa! Water!

This project was so easy and super fun. Most of my Instagrams aren't shared on the blog or FB, and I'm all about saving pictures, so I liked how this gave them a place to be displayed.

How many people Instagram now as a way of journaling, or in place of blogging? Yeah, me too. I blog (sure) but Instagram is quick, easy, and let's be honest, I take most pictures these days with my cell phone.

I even ended up making one of these Instaframes for Beverly's in Rocklin complete with a tear-off sheet of instructions. If you're in CA you should definitely stop by the store and check it out! Here are the quick, easy instructions for making your own Instagram collage frame:

MATERIALS NEEDED
16x20 frame of your choice
white foam core board
Instagrams printed (instructions below)
ultra thin glue dots (or double sided photo squares)
Xacto knife
scissors

 Go through your Instagrams and choose which ones you want to use. My phone is a droid and automatically saves my Instas in a folder in my pic gallery. For iPhone users you may need to screen shot and crop down to save each Insta you want to use.

The 16x20 frame ends up holding 48 Instas (6 across and 8 down). When printed, each Insta is about 2"x2" square.

Using the PicFrame app, change the ratio in the upper right hand corner from the standard "1:1" to a "2:3". Choose the 6 block frame and drop in your favorite Instas accordingly. My droid version of PicFrame only allowed me to do a 5 frame, so I dropped in 4 at a time. Either way will work! It should look something like this:



Save all these on max res.

Once you have your photos chosen, upload to the photo printer of your choice (Target, Walmart, Costco) and you can pick up in store. It's only about .13/print so you're essentially getting six 2"x2" pics for each 4x6 print! Mine only ended up being about $1 total.

From there, cut out your squares so that you have 48 individual pictures.

I cut down my foam core board with an exacto knife to fit inside my picture frame using the paper insert that it comes with. (You know, the piece that's like a placeholder for your future picture and tells you the dimensions of the frame.)

Lay out your Instas in any order you like. I did mine in no particular order. Just whichever way looked good to me! Put an ultra thin glue dot on the back of each picture one at a time to secure them down.

You can measure out the spacing if you want. I just eyeballed it.

We now have this hanging up in the hallway by the kid's room door. I absolutely love looking at it everyday! It's full of all our favorite people and memories. The flowers that Jon got for me the day I told him I was pregnant with Edwin, the sunrise on Kate's first birthday, the time we went to Portland for our wedding anniversary, Jon's 10 year high school reunion, my best friend holding Edwin at her baby shower for my new godson! It definitely brings a piece of California here to our new home.

Happy Crafting!

Advent Calendar Crafting

Recently we had a Super Saturday craft event at church for the Relief Society in which many holiday craft projects were offered, from Halloween through Christmas. The project I picked was this AMAZING Christ centered advent calendar, which I am super thrilled about. After I made the advent calendar, some friends asked me about it on FB. I had all the ladies sign up if they were interested, and my friend Jen offered to host if we had enough girls that wanted to make one. Thus, advent calendar craft night was born!

On November 1st we all got together. Baby Kate had helped me do some prep work beforehand:

We laid out all of the scrapbook papers and put together everyone's project kits.

Actually, I have to give 99% credit for this whole thing to Jon. He cut ALL the wood pieces out for me and helped finish off the kits for all the ladies while I was at work. This whole craft night would not have happened without him! I am so thankful for a husband who supports my crazy ideas and helps me make things happen. He makes me look good!

I am also incredibly thankful to Tracy Baker and all her original work on coming up with this project and giving us all detailed instructions which I made copies of for everyone.

Jodi from Lucy Lews on ETSY who I ordered the vinyl through was also amazing. She helped me get everything cut and shipped at the last minute when my original gal fell through. I was so happy with the size and the fonts! I would recommend her store to anyone looking for affordable custom vinyl.

After all of the wood pieces were painted (we used colors Barn Red and Burnt Umber in the Ceramcoat acrylics) the ladies glued down their paper squares:

Vinyl words and numbers were applied for the days 1-25:

Adorable baby break! Breanna, Leila and Lindsey :)

Finishing nails held "The Savior" plaque in place and were hammered into the top of each scrapbook square making hooks for the tiles to hang on.

Gluing the pictures of Christ to the wood tiles was the final step. I loved how everyone had different Christ picture packs, so the calendars were all colorful and unique!

Here are the lovely ladies with their projects! (in various stages of completion)

Unfortunately Tiani, Lindsey and Jess were all not present for the picture. AND my phone distorted the picture when I sent it to my email and I just now realized, after having deleted all of the originals from my phone. So I'm sorry about Jen and Jody's heads being cut off :(

I'm so glad that we were able to do this craft night together and that even thought it was a pain in the butt getting all the materials together, I still enjoyed working on a Christ centered activity with friends and helping pass along the crafting spirit. Making something homemade for the home is what I love best! I can't wait to see everyone use these for Christmas this year :)

Projects & Updates

 In the last few weeks, we've been making a lot of things.

 My friend Breanna was a great co-coach when we had baby Kate. When it came time to tell her I was pregnant again, I wanted to find a cute way to ask her to be our support team coach with Baby Alston The Second. Think of something along the lines of "will you be my bridesmaid?" and "coach/team awesomeness".

I came up with this!

It started off with a rhyming poem I made up:

And then each thing in the basket had a little tag on it:

The bucket was lime green and lined with a fat quarter that I found at Beverly's which said "it's a boy! it's a girl! it's twins!" That way it covers all our bases since we're not finding out what we're having :)

 

I also made TEAM buttons for Breanna, her husband Ben (aka The Don) and our little family. Mine says "Mommy of 2", Kate's says "The Chubs aka Big Sister!" and Jon's says "Big Daddy".

Mid-September, our 3 wards in Loomis put together a Super Saturday of holiday crafting! I signed up to make this awesome advent calendar. I have been looking for years to find ideas for a Christ centered advent calendar. I like candy and Santa as much as the next person, but Jon and I both agreed that we want our traditions to be centered around the true meaning of the season first and foremost.

First, we painted everything. The calendar is built on an 18x24" piece of wood, which I painted a deep barn red. The little 3x3" wood squares were painted chocolate brown, as well as the long rectangular piece that would eventually go on the top:

3x3" scrapbooking paper squares were Mod Podged down in a 5x5 grid. The top portion as well as each paper square then had a vinyl applique rubbed on. My awesome friend Michelle O'Keefe came and helped me applied the vinyl since she finished all her craft projects super quick :)

We used little gold finishing nails to attach "The Savior" sign and put a little nail in each grid square so that our wood tiles could hang from them:

The 3x3 brown wood tiles that I painted at the beginning each got a unique picture of Christ Mod Podged to it:

 

Deseret Book sells these 3x4" card packs in their teaching helps section of the bookstore. I cut them down to fit the 3x3 tile size,

and then used Jon's japanese screw punch (which he uses for bookmaking) to punch out the perfect hole in the top to hang the tiles on the nails: 

 
Once all the Savior pictures were Mod Podged, I wrote a scripture and activity on the back of each tile. I got these awesome gold shadow gel pens from Beverly's for my birthday, so they worked out perfect on the dark chocolate color of the tiles!

I wanted the calendar to be interchangeable from year to year so that the kids can pick their favorite pictures to hang up and we don't have to do the activities in the same order every time:

 And here it is, all finished and ready for December!!

This month has also brought a lot of fun crafting for friends. This week I finished a stacked charm necklace for my awesome friend Lindsey. She had baby Leila in June and we took her newborn pictures. Here is the actual center charm picture so that you can see it close up:

Here is how the necklace looks all put together. It's hard to see the detail, but we printed the picture above in a really small version. The charm center measures 1/4" across. Epiphany Crafts sells a tool that punches perfect circles to fit in their pendants. You can make them out of pictures, scrapbook paper, or whatever you want! Then a clear epoxy dot sealer adheres on top and I used E6000 to put the picture inside the silver pendant blank. The charms on each side are Leila's first initial and her birthstone (a pearl).

I am so happy with how it turned out and I think Lindsey loved it! I used Leila as a trial run so that we can start selling these in our ETSY store :)

 There are many other projects that Jon and I have been working on, between The Year of Exploration, Halloween, Christmas and baby showers coming up - like my first ever project with minkie which turned out amazing and I'm super excited about!

but I'll have to show you all of those later.

***

In family updates:

Baby Alston The Second is 14 weeks along!

 I've been feeling great, starting to be less tired and less *bleh* as we head into the second trimester. We always called Kate "Sven" before she was born since we didn't know if she was a boy or a girl. This second baby has been nicknamed "Olivander." So far everything is good!

Kate has 10 teeth, with two new ones that cut through Saturday! She now has 4 teeth on the top front, one top right molar, one bottom right molar and 4 bottom front teeth.
I tried to get a good picture of her smile, but she is so wiggly!

 
 Kate has also started sitting in her own mini chair in primary sometimes. We are really excited for her to start nursery in 4 months!

Eating a wheat thin and glaring at me while I try to get a picture of her cuteness :)

Our primary class also loves Kate and will help her walk to sharing time after class:

 At home, Kate loves to stand at the edge of the tub while we fill it with water for her bath times and she tries her hardest to lift her leg up and climb in! She also tries to stand up in the bathtub holding onto the soap dish while we wash her. She is a silly and adventurous explorer.

Kate has also discovered that if she dances in her high chair during meal times, she can hear the food sloshing around in her tummy. She starts giggling and it makes me laugh so hard every time!

Kate loves turning light switches on and off, and has recently discovered this switch nice and low:

which is for the garbage disposal...

I put some tape over it and I'm hoping that helps curb her curiosity. Needless to say, we are also working on listening to the word "no" :)

 Next stop: OCTOBER!