Family News and Photos

Before I get started here, I need to send out a huge THANK YOU to my sweet cousin, Shanna Campbell, for taking our family picture on the spur the moment over Thanksgiving break. We weren't planning it, but I'm very happy with it! It's the first family picture we've had for over a year.

December has been a busy month so far.

Some days have been filled with ordinary busy living and some of our days have included fun crafty things.

Some of it just can't even really be explained.

Like this.

Me thinks she's still trying to get this whole "pirate" thing figured out...arrrrghhh!

I'm a little slow this year to get rid of my summer porch pots.

I'll be the first to admit that they look a little...dead. Normally I would have just hauled the dead stuff out long ago and either left the pots empty or at least taken them off the porch by now. A combination of laziness and a lack of budget creativity doesn't make for much progress.

The ugliness finally got to me, though. While thumbing through a magazine one day a couple weeks ago, I suddenly got an idea for what I could do with them. I needed some sticks and some pine tree trimmings. The wooded area behind the house provided the sticks, and Owen had fun helping me collect them.

The friendly folks at my local Lowe's store provided the tree trimmings...FREE! They trim the bottoms of their live Christmas trees prior to selling them and there was a trash bin full of trimmings. The manager said I could have them, so I loaded up!
Back home, I tore out the dead stuff and then arranged the trimmings around the outer edge of the pots.

I used red spray paint on the sticks.

So, there you have it. My free winter porch pot makeover.

That took care of the outside (after I resurrected my winter door wreath from last year), but the inside still needed some seasonal updating. Pinterest came to the rescue. I found this fun little project that was inexpensive and quick.

Start with floral pins, cupcake liners, and a foam ball.

These photos only show me using the striped cupcake liners, but I also had polka dot ones.

Place two liners wrong sides together.
Poke a floral pin through the center.
Scrunch the liners up toward the top.
Push the pin securely into the foam ball (some people use hot glue here, but I didn't).
Continue until the ball is covered.

Now you have something new to add to your holiday decor!

My pictures are horrible, but another fun and inexpensive project we did last week was with salt dough. I also found this idea on Pinterest. The kids loved this one!

The recipe is easy, and consists of only 3 ingredients that you most likely already have in your kitchen. 1/2 cup of table salt, 1/2 cup of water, and 1 cup of flour. Mix it all together to form a smooth dough (somewhat gritty due to the salt). Form the dough into whatever shapes you like using cookie cutters or whatever works best (keep the dough you're not working with covered with saran wrap so it doesn't dry out). Place the shapes on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or aluminum foil and bake at 200*F for 4-6 hours. Once the shapes are cooled, they can be decorated using everything from markers to glue and glitter.

I must be getting really lazy! My recipe for this post is almost laughable it's so easy (and cheap....I'm also starting to sound really cheap, apparently). What's not to like about that, though!? Especially when it comes to 5pm on Thursday night and you don't know what you're serving for dinner, yet. Well, here ya go. My kids loved it. It wasn't a 5 star dinner, but what kid likes that anyway? And since I'm outnumbered here by kids 2 to 1, I like to find recipes they'll eat without too much whining. Makes for a peaceful meal. That's worth 5 stars in my book!

Start with this 99 cent loaf of bakery bread from your local Kroger (if you don't have access to Kroger, perhaps your grocer carries something similar in their bakery area).

Slice the loaf in half lengthwise to create two large pieces which are about to become French Bread Pizza!

Preheat your oven to 450*F (or 400* whichever suits you). Spread sauce on each piece of bread and then load up your toppings.

(there are 3 pizzas here because I used 1 1/2 loaves)