Inspiration

Inspiration

Inspiration

Inspiration

Holiday Snapshots

Hello!

We're alive! 

I know it's been a while since I've written a real update. 

With the holidays I decided to take a little break and spend time with the little family. 

I wanted to share some of the fun things we did while I was away. 

So here are a few {lot} pictures from our holidays. :)

We had a really wonderful and simple Christmas with my parents and got to start some of our own Christmas traditions as well. Christmas has become so much more special and exciting with a little kid and seeing all the magic of Christmas through his eyes. Writing a letter to Santa, making cookies, seeing all the Christmas lights... It was like a magical wonderland for a 3-year-old. 

Some of our Christmas highlights: 

- decorating a {broken} gingerbread house 

(that Adam had to rig together to keep the walls from falling. he's a genuis.)

- making sugar cookies and decorating with way too much frosting & sprinkles for Elijah

- having Grandpa Gary and Grandma Laurie here for Christmas! 

it was the first time my parents got to spend Christmas with us and see Elijah open presents. it was a lot of fun and Elijah had an extra Christmas surprise when he woke up and saw Grandma & Grandpa sleeping in the living room :) 

- celebrating my grandparents birthdays and having a little mini reunion. it was also the first time in a loooong time that {most} of all the great-grandkids were together. 

- celebrating my dad's birthday with Elijah's very favorite cake. 

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday season!

Merry Christmas!

From our little family to yours,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Christmas Inspiration

This is one of my favorite videos to watch during the Christmas season. Coupled with this beautiful song by Amy Grant, I feel like it perfectly captures all the emotions, hope, and true meaning of Christmas. 
What Mary went through to bring forth the Lord, the great plan of God to give His only Begotten Son, and the humble circumstances that He was born into are all represented beautifully in this video. I hope you take the time to watch it and remember why and who we celebrate during Christmas. 


MERRY CHRISTMAS!! 

the many faces of Eli on Christmas morning

this year we spent Christmas with Adam's family in California. 

i'm totally behind on all things blogging because we have had such a fun and relaxing time here. 

{i don't want to go back to real life and being by myself all day in our small apartment!!}

so instead of boring you with written details about our Christmas day, i thought it would be fun to do our recap in a little different way:

through the faces {and emotions} of Elijah. 

because these pictures are just too perfect.

"no, no, no! i do it!!"

"i waaaaant more chocolate!!"

"i'm soooo spoiled and cheesy!"

"i love Christmas!!"

"my life is the woooorsttt....!!!"

this all literally happened within 30 minutes of each other.

hope your Christmas mornings were a little bit more relaxed! :)

how did you spend the holidays this year?

Christmas Inspiration

O Come, Emmanuel

i couldn't not share this beautiful video this holiday season.
gorgeous song & gorgeous video!
{i loooooooove the cello!!}

i think this is a beautiful way to remember the true meaning of Christmas

[Dad, i know you will especially love this :)]

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

An Unexpected Gift {Christmas Message}

i have reflected & pondered a lot these last few weeks on the true meaning of Christmas. 

this video beautifully & powerfully shows the reason why we celebrate Christmas and honor our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

i hope as you watch it you can feel of His peace & love as we prepare for Christmas day.

{and make sure you have tissues...}

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!!

Christmas Inspiration

meaningful traditions

[i share this guest post on The Sapphire Bee last month while she was on her awesome cruise. since we are traveling for the holidays i thought i would share it again with all of you too :)]

this time of year i always start thinking about my family's holiday traditions growing up.
or maybe lack thereof...

i mean, we had a few things that we kept pretty true to, but we were rather inconsistent with what we did each year. 

maybe it was because i was so much younger than my older siblings so the simple things of baking cookies and making gingerbread houses didn’t appeal to them anymore and so my parents stopped doing that. 

or maybe it was because my family just got so busy that it got hard to keep up. 

whatever the reason, the traditional things like gingerbread houses and leaving Santa cookies started to fall away as i grew up.

but there were always some things that stayed the same.

Christmas 2010

+ my mom always made her famous rolls and we took them to all of our neighbors. and i mean all of our neighbors! hardly anyone was left out on our Christmas list.

+ we would have a big family party a few nights before Christmas and all the grandchildren would act out the nativity scene and read the story of Christ’s birth from the Bible. {a tradition i greatly miss this year with my grandma's passing...}

+ before we could open any presents, my dad would read out of the Bible and share a special Christmas message.

+ and although we didn’t have a lot of money growing up, my parents taught us the importance of giving rather than receiving at Christmas.

these are all just a few examples of the small and simple traditions we had growing up.
they might not seem like much, but through my parents’ example of showing love to others i learned the true meaning of Christmas.

it is not about what we get at Christmastime or how many sweets we can eat.
what is important is that we are spending time with our loved ones and together remembering the true meaning of Christmas.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth, peace, good will towards men.”

and to quote my favorite Christmas movie, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas!!

boom. DIYed it: picture magnets

WARNING: no grandparents beyond this point!!

even though the title just gave it away... don't read the rest!

--------------------------------------------------------

i'm SO bad at coming up with gifts for mine and Adam's parents. 

i never know what they would like and most things it seems like they already have. 

since having Eli, though, Christmas presents have been a little easier. 

i basically just plaster his face on anything i can think of and call it a good grandparent gift. 

i mean really, what grandparent doesn't want more photos of their sweet babies??? 

{at least it will work until there's a million grandkids then it will just be too many kids to keep track of...} 

so for my latest Elijah-faced gift i decided to make some picture magnets.
i posted it on instagram the other day and got a lot of great feedback and questions on how to make them so i thought i'd do a quick tutorial for you. 

i got the idea from this tutorial but had a few of my own tips & tricks that i wanted to add as well [that i wish i was told ahead of time!].

so here it goes! 

DIY Picture Magnets 

items needed: 

-images to use {i used instagram pictures. and i'll show you how to make them into a collage}

-2x2 plain tiles [found at Home Depot for about $3 for a sheet of 36]

-Mod Podge and brush

-magnets [i got a fairly big pack of them at Wal-Mart for cheap]

-hot glue gun 

-rotary cutter paper cutter [i'll explain later]

steps:

step.one.
you need to print off your images that you are using first. i made an 8x10 collage of pictures using PicMonkey and then got it printed off at Costco (in matte format, not glossy). 

a few tips about making your collage with PicMonkey: 

- i used the 4x4 square collage template and then added an extra image to the rows so it was 4x5. to do this, you just need to hover an image in the white space until a gray box shows up where you want your image to go. 

-i had to resize it a lot to make sure it would fit an 8x10. i finally settled on the dimensions 1657x2000 (you'll have to make sure the dimensions aren't locked) but even then i still had to crop it a tiny bit when i was ordering the 8x10. and i also still had to trim them quite a bit to fit the tiles after they were printed off. but thankfully most of the pictures i chose had space on the edge that i could trim down without affecting the actual focal point of the picture. so just be aware of that when choosing the pictures for your collage. 

hopefully all that made sense.... 

-and one last tip with the collage: i adjusted the white space around each picture to be smaller so i had room to cut around the pictures and could then trim them as i wanted instead of how PicMonkey cropped them. i wanted to be able to show the majority of my image in each square and the larger, default white space didn't allow that as much. 

here is the finished collage result that i sent to be printed:

hopefully all those tips helped... 

moving on. 

step.two.

once the collage is printed off, cut the squares to fit your tiles. 

tip: unless you are awesome and rotary cutting, don't do it! in the original tutorial she had used a rotary cutter and i thought "oh she must be professional and know what she's doing so i'll use that." and i figured it would be more precise with cutting. well.... it could be that i totally suck at rotary cutting but i could not get the lines straight all the time. it took a loooot of time trying be careful about cutting straight mainly because the pictures kept slipping around. i finally got smart and used a paper cutter and it made it 10x easier. so i highly recommend that or even regular scissors. 

i love how in the original tutorial she talked about using these as photobooth pictures too. cute! 

so whichever way you choose, you will have to trim, trim, trim to get the pictures cut to the size of the tiles. 

not even all of the scraps from trimming because i kept cutting crooked...ugh.

however, the rotary cutter was good for cutting through the glue that held the tiles together. so that was a plus!

step.three. 

after you cut pictures to the size you want, it's time to glue them to the tiles. 

first, i added the Mod Podge to the back of the pictures and laid them on top of the tiles. 

once the picture was dried somewhat, i then Mod Podged the top of the picture to the tile to seal it better. make sure you get around the edge where the picture meets the tile. and don't be afraid to use too much because it dries clear. 

tip: i originally tried to cut all the pictures so they fit perfectly on the tile. but then as i was gluing them i found that the ones that had a little white space around the edges stayed on the tile better, were able to be sealed better, and didn't slip around while i was gluing it. i also thought they just looked a lot better to have the small border as well. so if i did it again i would make sure i had that extra space.

not dried Mod Podge. just to show you how much i put on. it dried clear and there wasn't any white streaks.

 step.four.

next, after the glue is mostly dry, it's time to glue on the magnets. 

just use hot clue to adhere the magnets to the back of the tiles. 

tip: try to get the magnets as close to the center as possible! i didn't realize that even if they were just slightly off, the tile would not stay straight on the fridge. they ones that are a little off center end up shifting because the weight is not even (you can tell in the picture at the bottom). it doesn't look that bad and honestly, when you are just throwing stuff up on the fridge the magnets are not always straight. but if it's something that will really bother you make sure you are cautious on where you glue them. 

step.five.

ENJOY!! 

i love having the pictures right where we can see them every day. 

and Elijah loves to look at them and tell stories about them. 

"Baby Za-Za at Halloween."
"Mama and Za-Za." 

"Look, look, look! i on swing!!" 

"Ooooh, Cowboy!"

{that was all supposed to be Elijah talking, p.s.} 

 i think these will  definitely be a hit with the grandmas and grandpas! 

PLUS they were less than $10 to make! 

happiness all around!

please let me know if you have any questions or want anything clarified.

(i'm not so good at these tutorial things so i apologize!) 

and feel free to share your picture magnets as well!
i would love to see if any of you make them and how they turned out :) 

Christmas Inspiration

a few of {my toddler's} favorite things

if you are shopping for a funny, quirky, cute, curious, active toddler, it can be hard to know what to get that will be sure to keep them entertained for longer than 2 minutes. 

so my little Elijah-man and i put together a little favorite things list that is sure to keep them busy having fun during the holiday season. 

a toddler's favorite things list: 

- chicken nuggets, fries, and dip

-pop music videos

- play doh 

-sparkly lights or other light sources (such as flashlights, nightlights, refrigerator lights, the moon, candles, matches....though the last few i don't know if you should actually give to a toddler...) 

- things to jump on & fall off of {on purpose and by accident. which is the same thing} 

- things to bang 

- baskets 

- stickers 

- Mickey Mouse 

- drawing with markers on anything but paper 

- tampons 

- boxes 

- water & bubbles & lots of splashing

- cowboy hats or hats of any kind 

- candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner 

- any kind of ball or ball-shape including Christmas ornaments 

- soft blankets and stuffed animals

- and grandpas 

we hope this helped you with some of your holiday shopping! 

especially since apparently toddlers will be happy even if you just wrap up items around the house...
tampon stocking stuffers anyone??? 

Christmas Inspiration

"she shall bring forth a son"

[painting by Liz Lemon Swindle] 

last weekend we had a ward Christmas party where the primary children and some other ward members acted out the Nativity. 

i have read the story & even acted out the nativity many many times, 

so basically i know how it goes. 

but this time i got really emotional as i came to understand more of the divine calling & role of Mary.

as i watched a very pregnant sister act out the part of Mary and be continually denied by the "innkeepers," i started getting tears in my eyes to realize what Mary had to have gone through.

they had to travel for miles while being SO pregnant. 

she had to be uncomfortable, maybe even starting to have contractions.

she had to give birth in a smelly barn with who knows what kind of assistance was there. 

and to have all the pressure of raising Jesus?

and i'm sure there was more but of course we only have written down the positive things ;)

i mean, i hated being pregnant. 

i know i complained to Adam a lot! 

but at least i had a safe place to give birth, 

and have a comfortable place to stay, 

and had assistance from others including doctors & nurses to be there for me and Elijah.

but this very pregnant, very uncomfortable, very noble woman didn't have any of those things.

and she was carrying the most precious gift of all, the Savior.

can you imagine how devastating Mary must've felt to know that there was no room for her, a woman that probably needed that extra bed the most? 

and all the fear she must've felt for the future, not just childbirth but as Christ grew up to become the Savior of the world? 

i'm sure Mary was a lot more kind, patient, & faithful than i would've been, 

cause just thinking of that situation makes me start getting anxious for her. 

i can't fully imagine what she must've gone through, i'm sure there's a lot more than we will ever know. 

but thinking about it has given me a little more perspective this year as we get ready to exchange gifts 

and helps me remember that i have a lot more to grateful for instead of worrying about what is on my Christmas wish list.
{which can be hard for everyone to focus on what we don't have instead of what we do have}

i am grateful i have a safe, warm, comfortable place to call home.

i am grateful that i have family & friends to spend the holidays with. 

i am grateful for good friends who make me feel loved & included. 

i am grateful for a husband who is faithful & loving and is a good example to Eli and i.

i am so grateful for noble women like Mary who, by their example, have brought me closer to Christ. 

i am grateful for her sacrifices & her faith to bring the Savior into the world to die for our sins. 

i am grateful that God knows us & understands our limits differently, that He knows what i can handle {and that i could definitely NOT handle that!} 

and i am grateful for the knowledge i have that no matter what we are all going through, that we are eternally blessed & loved.
and that everything will be okay, even if it doesn't always feel like it in that moment. 

i hope we can all remember what Christmas is really about.

i also hope we can remember all the wonderful things we DO have & help bless others around us. 

[last year i shared my thoughts on Mary as well as my favorite song. you can check it out here]

Christmas Inspiration

Christmas Eve bowling

 

we went bowling on Christmas Eve with Adam’s brothers + Holli and our niece Camilla.
i’ve always wanted to take Elijah bowling cause i thought he would love all the bowling balls and watching the pins crash down.

yeah…
my hunches may have been wrong.

but
i’m convinced it was only because Elijah was super tired so that’s why he was pretty grumpy the whole time
[as any good mother/blogger, i only took pictures of the good times to fool you :)]

Adam’s dad was a saint and would walk around with him to help keep him distracted so we could enjoy ourselves a bit. and besides Eli being a total party pooper, it was a lot of fun!!

i always love it when we get to go out & spend some time with Adam’s younger brothers and family!
i have always wanted little brothers, so i’m glad Adam let’s me share his
:)

annnnnnd let the record show that it was I who beat everyone in the first game!!
{Travis, you still owe me Flip’s!}
we won’t talk about the second game though…