life interrupted.

imagine that.

life gets in the way of recording life.

luckily for social media, i have everything i need at my fingertips. now to compile it into a blog post.

right around the labor day weekend, jack started acting funny. he got fussy and was cranky and started waking up every single night for a couple of hours. turns out he had a cold and ear infection, triggered by his canine teeth coming in. (update - a month and a bit later and we're still waiting for the damn teeth to come in).

the same day he was diagnosed with that i started babysitting ryder, a cute 5 year old who is here every week day from 1130-4, and every other friday from 8-4/5. he really is a good kid, super sweet, and he loves jack.. but he's 5. and it's a challenge for me. my imagination has crashed and burned. luckily he loves colouring and playdoh and "helping" me bake.

i also babysit 3 siblings (2, 4, and 6) on wednesdays (i've actually only had them once) from 10-4. between the 4 kids + jack my hands are full full full.

carter started school and he loooooves it. he's still trying to find a balance between being home and getting homework/studying done. but i think he's doing quite well. his favourite class is ethics, but he also loves gym. criminal law is a lot of work, and english has always been a hard subject for him, but he's gotten 80% or higher on every assignment and test he's had!

the best part of the last month and a half (since i blogged) is that we moved! from an itty bitty house with no floor space to a huge house with a loft and open floor plan. and a dishwasher. love love love the dishwasher.

jack's room is weird, since it was formerly a craft room/office and has a countertop all the way around and no closet, but we're making it work. the former formal living room is now a playroom, complete with play kitchen and tool bench. it's awesome to just throw all the toys in there and close the doors, *voila* clean!

carter and i have the master bedroom with ensuite, and a giant closet. there's seriously too much room haha. the one wall looks so blank and empty, i need to print off a huge family picture to hang up on it.

mom and i are going to refinish and old dresser i got from elizabeth.. it's going to be quite the undertaking since neither of us have ever done it before. i plan on doing a whole series of before/during/after photos. watch for that ;)

oh, and i need mom friends. *sad face*

Homemade Christmas Gifts: The Petersons.

I did this one for the Petersons (Shawna, Cameron, Rylee, and Brooklynn). It was a bit of work, but I think it turned out really cute.

I bought the template (blank calendar) from Walmart for $14, and got all the pictures from Facebook and whatever. If I had gone hard it would have taken me three or four hours, but I took my sweet time and it took about 3 weeks.

The front.

January, family picture (-Mason) from our wedding.

February, Rylee's birthday.

March, Shawna's birthday.

April, the boys from the wedding.

May, Brooklynn's birthday.

June, Carter's birthday.

July, Cameron's birthday.

August, Nicole's birthday.

September, Mason and Brooklynn from Carter's graduation.

October, Rylee and Brooklynn dressed up from years ago.

November, Mason's birthday.

December, Cameron and Shawna's anniversary.

some moooooore

more crafty things by yours truly!

this one was so easy it's almost painful. i literally printed out the pictures on white printer paper and put them in the frame. then i hot glued the ribbon to the back of all 3 frames and hung the top one. ta-da! so cute and classy. 

this one was really easy too, but more tedious. i've had this buddah canvas since thanksgiving, and i've been meaning to get around to crafting with it.. but last night i finally did it! the stickers are vinyl - super easy to peel off the painted canvas. i finally chose a quote - yoda! - and then it was a breeze.

here's the final product! i like that you can still see the buddah shadow behind the white paint. i feel like it helps it make sense. go yoda!

#relevant hahaha

Raymond!

we went to raymond this weekend for possibly the shortest visit ever. we left edmonton friday night at 7 and arrived in raymond at 1230. saturday i spent the day with my mom and carter hung out with his dad, sisters, and mom. sunday we went to the temple dedication, ate lunch with my mom, then said bye to everyone. we left raymond at 3 sunday afternoon and got home at 830 sunday night. *le sigh*. we're tired, but we had a good time visiting our families.

and, of course, since i've turned into the craft master.. what would be a weekend without a new craft?

super saturday with lisa! it's so cute. and so fun.

and today i hung out with meghan, blew a breaker in our little living room, and now i'm more than ready for a nap. ughhh.

but no time for that -- the 'what's for dinner' board says it's time for breakfast for dinner! yum!

m's birthday!

**note - i meant to post this like.. last thursday. oops.**

tomorrow (since i'm blogging this at 2:53 wednesday morning) is meghan's birthday! you may remember the name from this or this post. i have been thinking long and hard about what to get her, but what do you get the girl who has everything? i came across the idea of ''string art'' on pinterest (of course, there's a common theme here!), and was DYING to try it. but i wanted to start small. so off to michael's i went to find cork and nails. i ended up using thumbtacks, and i already had the embroidery string. i found the font i liked, and printed out an 'm' (for meghan, obviously). i cut out the 'm', taped it onto the cork board, outlined it with tacks, took off the paper, and began stringing! i didn't want to do it all in one color, so i chose 3 random colors and just sort of went crazy! i wasn't sure if i liked it at first, but i decided that i really really do. i hope she does too!

it honestly probably took me an hour, but that's because i was also eating and watching ellen. now that i've done one successfully, i need to do another one! a bigger one! i am the craft queen!

3 AM Crafting Session.

alright. so i can't sleep. so i'm bored. like really bored. and i had this crafty thought come over me whilst i was tossing and turning next to my log of a husband.

we received this print from a couple in our stake for our wedding. and i love it, i really do. but we received so many prints for our wedding that this was one of the many that was tucked away, hidden.

i don't mean any offense to the couple that gave it to us. don't worry, i kept the print itself, tucked behind my new craft.

i've been dying to make a board like this since like i very first got pinterest. and when is a better time to do it than 3 am!?

basically i just took out the original print and inserted a piece of scrapbook paper that i had written 'i love u because..'. i decided to freehand the saying because a) my cricut is loud, and b) i thought it would be more personal that way? idk. i really like how it turned out, actually.

then i wrote on it with a dry-erase marker (which i happen to have a ton of because of a little whiteboard calendar i have hanging on our fridge) and i hung it up in the kitchen, where i know we'll both see it every day. i also want to put nails or hooks on the bottom for keys. but i can't find our hammer.

now i'm even more bored than i was 2 hours ago because the rest of my crafty ideas have to wait until normal hours when other people are awake. shame.

Sunshine!

My best friend Viktoria left on her mission last week (She reported to the MTC last Wednesday), so I'm sending her a box of sunshine!

Everything is YELLOW! I got her a yellow scarf, yellow flats, yellow deodorant, yellow dry shampoo, yellow nail polish, a yellow luggage tag, a yellow package of floss/picks, a yellow toothbrush, a yellow tube of mascara, yellow sticky notes, yellow package of skittles, yellow package of peanut M&Ms, a yellow Oh Henry, a yellow package of Maynards, a yellow package of Glosette peanuts, and yellow pack of Juicy Fruit gum.. and I think that's it!

Then I put a sticky note on each item telling her why I got it..

..Filled the box up with yellow tissue paper, wrote a quick note (in addition to the ''sunshine'' sign), and taped it all up!

I sure hope she loooooooves it. I think it's so cute. :)