A Little Christmas Crafting {Snow Globes}

 We've begun our Christmas crafting.  I've picked out three crafts and three new Christmas cookies to try out this holiday season.  Our holiday has been interrupted with lots of flu, so I've yet to accomplish any master Christmas plan.  We're living day by day.  I'm hoping we're over the worst.  I'm glad I went shopping for my crafty things before the rush of the season.  So yesterday we pulled out our supplies and whipped this one out.  

The supplies are easy... ball jars (or really any kind of old jar), miniature trees (bought from the dollhouse section at Hobby Lobby), snow flakes, and a glue gun.

You glue the lid together, and then glue the tree to the bottom of the lid.

Even little hands can do this.

He still likes his perch :)

So proud of his creation.

It's so pretty anywhere you set in your home.  And I think it would make a great gift too :)

Idea from here.

2012 Instagram Book

Ok, so I'm kind of bragging a little bit!  I got something done!  I'm sharing these small victories with you because there are innumerable things in my life that are unfinished.  I would list them for you but then my own indecision and inability to finish tasks would start to bother me, and I don't want to get myself in a bad mood.  So let's just concentrate on this instagram book, shall we?

This cover was not my first draft.  I actually had something better and had my whole book saved online.  It's the only time shutterfly has done me wrong.  I had the inside of the book done and then spend an hour one afternoon formatting the cover pages.  When I came back to it a couple of weeks later to order it, it said there was an error and my cover page was gone.  Ugh.  I hate stuff like that, but it's the only time it's ever happened so I can't complain too much.  As a result, I just did something really quick and easy.  I couldn't even remember what I had done before.  The important thing now is that it's done, right?

Any who... it's all good, because the important stuff is in the middle.  

These snapshots of our every day moments.  This particular page on the left highlights when Nathan was accidentally hit in the head with a metal bat while Samuel was playing in a game.  I was supposed to be watching him... it was a bad motherhood moment.  A case of being in the wrong place at the right time.  Some kids were just messing around in another field and the next thing I know, Nathan was running toward me looking like a crime scene.  I was so grateful it wasn't worse.  And that God protected his little brain.  And then, life went on, and there was Rebecca and Justin's wedding and baseball trophies and paint colors and wood floors and zoo trips and carpet going in.  I might have forgotten some of these things, but I love looking at these tiny square pictures and remembering the every day moments.

The kids love it too.

I find them looking at it all the time.

And this is the back page.  Here's to hoping I get around to doing a 2013 book... 

You can follow me on instagram at packofwolfes.  

I posted about my other instagram book here.

One more thing:

Something that shutterfly added that was soooo convenient is they have a way to upload pictures directly from your instagram account.  So I didn't even have to plug in my phone and figure out how to separate my regular pics from my instagram pics.  It made it so much faster!  Walgreens does the same thing if you want to print out an instagram.  I've done it when I'm running around town, and I order a pic and it's done in 10 minutes.  I can throw a cute pic in a card for a friend and be done with it so fast.  Love that!

While the Kids are Away...

Papa and Tandy gave us the most wonderful gift.  They took our boys to Lubbock for a WHOLE WEEK and left us...

All by ourselves....

In our house...

A few of the boys were a little sad when they left.  Jopie was so sad when it was time to get in the van, it nearly made my Mommy heart break.  Nathan was supposed to stay with me... because, of course, I thought he would be a heap of tears without me, but he came to me, sobbing, as the boys were loading in the van, and asked me, "Who will play with me?"  And when I responded, "I will,"  he said, "Then I won't have any BOYS to play with."  So I promptly threw his stuff in a backpack and away they all went.  It was a good choice.  He would NOT have had much fun with me.

So they left and I went and sat on my bed and listened to the quiet.  I was a bit sad and sentimental as I picked up all the mess they left behind.  I thought about the days that they would leave for college.

But I was totally over it by the next morning when I woke up in my own house, with nothing to do but whatever I wanted.  It was the strangest and most amazing feeling.

And now for a photographic journey of what I did all week...

We hung these curtains a year ago, and I've been meaning to hem them ever since.

They went from being this long.

To being a bit more manageable.  If you come over, don't look too close because I'm so not a perfectionist.

I picked up some fun fabrics to make the curtain in my laundry room.  I feel like the laundry room is MY room and I can make it as girly as I want it to be :)  The strawberry fabric I picked up at Craft Weekend last year and it felt good to finally use it for something.

I also made a headband with it.  Sorry about the close-up of my face.

And I made a little curtain for our closet window.  It was a tablecloth so I only had to hem the top and the sides, so it was super simple.

I made mini bunting for a sweet girl named Violet who just arrived home from Ethiopia.  I got to meet her and I cried because her family is beautiful, and she is beautiful.  It's just all beautiful.

We got bookshelves in our playroom.  We still need to paint them, but I had to start some organizing.

Having the space to "rainbowitize" childrens' books made me absolutely giddy.

And a place for photo albums.  I'm still so excited about these shelves a week later.  I get much more excited about organization than design.  I think that's why we have about two things hanging on our walls :)

We looked at a really big van.  Am I crazy?  My three boys in the back row of our minivan drive me bonkers on a longer trip.  This van has a 4th row.  What do you think?  Should we take the plunge to the larger van or just stick to the mini?

I hit the antique mall and found some treasures.

I loved this one but it was too pricey.

I got this one.  It's large and it was $12.  Should I paint the frame?

I love this one but too much $$.

I wanted to find some use for this but couldn't think of one.  

I almost bought this one because it reminded me so much of Nathan.  But I resisted because I have a print from my grandmother's house that is similar.  

I also came away with some vintage tablecloths.  Aren't they lovely?

I exercised every day and took some pics of my running trails.

I also did some home school planning.   I spent time in the Word each day.  We went on dates by ourselves and with friends.  We got rid of some stuff in the garage.  So many things you can get done without distraction.  It was wonderful.

I loved getting photo updates from Papa and Tandy.  These sweet faces having a blast without us.

One spoiled boy :)  Shrimp cocktail is his favorite.

At Daddy's favorite Lubbock restaurant.  Where homemade buttermilk dressing comes in a plastic bottle on the table just like ketchup and mustard, and you dip all your food in it.  Chris said the same people worked there 25 years ago.  Same cook.  Some of the same servers.

This is Chris's childhood house.  They planted this tree when Chris was in grade school and now look how it's grown.

The Westerners have missed Chris, I'm sure.

Golf camp cuties.

Golf cart cutie

Even the drive to go and get the boys was relaxing and wonderful.  We planned some vacations for this next year and talked about ways we wanted to be more intentional as a family this fall.

On the way home, we were back to our crazy life.

Thankful for the noise in this season of my life.  At some point, I may be ready for the quiet, but not yet.  But having a week of it here and there is fine with me :)

Thanks Papa and Tandy for our wonderful {quiet} week!

Making an Instagram Book

I'm just a little bit in love with Instagram.  I love the way it makes my phone pictures look.  And I love the every day moments I capture with my phone.  Of course, I prefer the quality of pictures I get with my real camera, but I don't always have my real camera with me when I'm at places like Target.

And then I might forget how we looked as we made our way through the store.

Or this sunny day sitting outside with my littlest eating PB crackers.

Or how quickly his moods change.

Or how silly his outfit choices look sometimes.

Or playing rock paper scissors during school.

Or getting a breathing treatment :(

Or hanging out in a tunnel at the park.

Or at the Ranger game with this cute guy.

I want to remember these every day moments and Instagram is helping me do that.  Shutterfly sent me a coupon for a free 8x8 photo book.  So I made this little book all in one night (the night before the coupon expired).  I didn't put a whole lot of time into it.  I don't seem to have lots of time for projects these days.  It took a couple hours after I got all my pics loaded onto their website.  You can do this on the Shutterfly app to save a step... I found this out later.

Here are some pics of the finished product.

The only thing I wasn't happy with is that the borders that I had put around my Instagrams didn't always fit perfectly into the pages that Shutterfly offered.  So as you can see, that makes the pages look not quite perfect.  I chose not to let that bother me (because it really does bother me).  This 2011 book was more of an experiment.  I'll do my 2012 book next, and by the end of 2013, I should have a good system down.  I decided to not use the borders from now on.  I like the borders they offer, but I'd rather have the photos look uniform in a book.

What are some things that you do with your Instagrams?  I'd love to know :)

By the way, if you want to follow me on Instagram, I'm packofwolfes.