Mouse Valentine's

Well hello there!  Long time no see?  I have been super busy with all sorts of busy things called life.  Since my last post I was able to cross a couple things off of my non existent bucket list and it.was.awesome.   But I am not here for that today, I am here to share this years Valentine's that Kiera and I made for her class.  I think these were the easiest valentine's I have made thus far but that is probably due to the fact that Kiera was actually a big help with it this year.  Twas a lovely Saturday night crafting together.  Apparently I really needed to do some crafting and it wasn't until we started that I felt all warm and fuzzy inside. 

 

So after some looking around on Pinterest Kiera decided that she wanted mouse valentine's.  We came across this picture for inspiration and then Kiera and I discussed what she wanted to change about it and what colors she wanted to use. 

 

Creative Me Inspired You

 

 

We already had everything on hand at home but the card stock and felt hearts.  What you will need...

 

Pipe cleaners (cut in half)

Googly eyes

Felt Hearts

12 x 12 Cardstock

Sharpie

Hot glue 

Fruit snacks (or candy if you must)

 

 

First I folded the 12x12 sheets of cardstock in to fourths and then cut them out.

Then I folded each fourth in half and drew a half heart shape with pencil and cut it out.  Make sure you cut out the side that does not have the seam on it.  I used that first half heart shape to trace on all of the rest of the papers so that afterwards I could just go to town cutting out the shapes. 

 

Once you have all of your mouse bodies cut out you can used the edges to make the mouse ears.  Now if you have a circular paper punch thingys that would be awesome and fast to use, however I don't have one so they were all cut by hand.  You will also want to do this with a light pink card stock for the center of the ears. 

 As I was finishing up cutting out the mouse bodies Kiera was drawing noses and whiskers on the mice that I had already cut out and also gluing the ears together.  Man it was awesome having her help. 

 

 As she was finishing up the ears and faces I was gluing the tails, googly eyes and ears on the ones that were ready. 

I glued from the nose half way up the body so I could create a pocket to put the fruit snack in.  I just can't bring myself to send candy for valentine's because there is already so much of it.  I am not anti candy (hello sugar lover) I am just trying to lessen the amount.  

 

Then you glue around the the rest of it, slap on a heart and voila!  We had a few pop back open behind the ears but I just put a dab of glue there and sealed it back up.  We actually still need to glue the little "Hope you have a "MICE" Valentine's Day!" tag behind the heart and then they will be done done.  On the back I wrote "To" and "From" and Kiera filled in "You" and her name. 

 We also have to make a shoe box for her to receive the valentine's from her classmates only I have no idea what she want to make.  It will be interesting for sure. 

And here are the Valentine's I have made in the past...

 

Ninjas

 

Cats

 

Owls

 

4th of July weekend

This year for the 4th of July weekend we (and Jimmy's dad!) headed out to the river to camp.  4 nights and I wasn't ready to come back to town yet.  I don't think I have mentioned this before but we got a new camper  a few weeks ago.  It's absolutely awesome.  Jimmy and I both agree that we could definitely live in it for quite a while, though we wouldn't since that would take the fun out of camping for us.  We are definitely planning on some long RV traveling when we get older.  We have both had our fair share of tent camping and are definitely at the point we prefer some comfort... and air conditioning.  Anyway we got there Wednesday evening and Jimmy's cousin Jackie, her husband Brian and their son arrived at the same time stayed a couple nights in their pop up.

 

 

 

 

You can't by bottle rockets in Oklahoma so Jimmy and I took a quick drive into Arkansas to pick some up.  Kiera spent the night setting those off.  This is one of those things that I know some parents would freak out about.  We are not the type of parent that is going to stick a sparkler in a red solo cup to keep her from getting burned.  How else are do we learn?  By getting hurt and learning things the hard way.  Besides the only person to get injured was me when she wasn't watching were her punk was and burned my leg.    

 

 

 

Jimmy let his inner geek shine and set up an projector and sheet to watch movies on. 

 

My father in laws new puppy is the sweetest little thing.  He is a daschund/terrier mix of some sort.  We are pretty convinced I am his 2nd favorite person.    He did great around the fireworks.  Berkley was another story.  He went off and hid in the woods somewhere for over an hour covered in cockleburs and sand. 

On the 4th we did a 6 mile canoe trip with Jackie and Brian and got to visit with another cousin Destre for a little bit that wasn't able go with us.  At least we all got a picture together!

Who cares that 2 of them aren't looking at the camera?  I don't! 

Of course that evening we blew up a massive amount of fireworks and documented Kiera's yearly picture with them.

 

Girls trying to play football with the boys.  Too stinking cute.

 

Saturday we went on another 6 mile float trip in a raft with some friends that we met up with.  That was a long day on the river but so wonderful.  Jimmy injured his face shallow diving (which he has done 100 times before and never got hurt he will tell you), but I will spare him and not show the picture of his black eye and cut upper lip. 

Ninja valentines

One day I was perusing around Pinterest looking at valentines to make for Kiera's class and asking her which ones she liked best.  She actually settled on these and I decided I would alter them slightly so I could send fruit snacks instead of candy bars. 

 

So first I started out by wrapping a scrap piece of paper around a fruit snack package and trimmed it to a size I liked.  I marked the size of the scrap paper on the 12x12 cardstock at first but then I decide to just measure it with a ruler and then marked my edges on the cardstock from then on out.  Each piece that I cut was 6"x5".

I was able to get 4 squares out of each piece of paper.

I folded each square to where the backs overlapped so I could glue them together.  I cut little rectangles of some flesh colored cardstock and glued the square faces to the inside that you see here.  The only tricky part is not letting the glue seep around the edges of the face to the front. 

 

Then I glued the bottom of the flaps together and then up the seam.  I was on a roll and totally forgot to take pictures of that part.  Gotta work fast with hot glue too. 

 

 

Now I get to the point I ask myself what I was thinking.  I had to individually cut out 34 little hand and arms since I don't have a fancy machine that does it for me.  The arms are easy, and the hands were just annoying.  I didn't measure any of it, just cut everything to a size that I liked.  I glued all of the hands to the arms so attaching them to the bodies would be quick and easy.

I placed one arm where I wanted and folded it around the back side and glued it down in the back and where the hand is.  After I put the first arm on I positioned the other one where I wanted.  I wanted them to look like they were posing with their arms or hands up in a ready or defense position.  I don't know the technical term for it but that is what I am going with!

 

After that I glued little hearts (that I also cut out individually by hand) on the front of each one.  Maybe one day I will get smart and buy heart shaped stickers instead of cutting them out.  I also had Kiera sign her name on the back of each one. 

 

Stuff those ninja's with some fruit snacks and you are done!!

 

I think they turned out super cute.  Kiera picked out blue paper for the boys and "magenta" as she calls it for the girls.  I haven't glued the tops shut and not sure if I will since the fruit snacks aren't moving around at all. 

I only had to make 17 of these and I think it took me a 2-2.5 hours.  I wasn't keeping track.  One of these days I won't get to make little Valentines for her so I am enjoying it, even if I have to cut out  by hand what feels like a bazillion little pieces.

The other valentines I have made are cat bag valentines and paper tube owl valentines.

Santa 2013

I realize most things I post on here are about our precious baby girl but I can't help it.  A lot of the things we do are because of her and who wants to see me go on about what we at for dinner (most likely something frozen) or what we did at work.  Well you can't hear tons about what Jimmy does at work because there is government security going on there and I do all sorts of stuff (think state and company policies, medication reviews, file auditing, training, abuse and neglect investigations, etc., etc., etc.). 

Enough about all that!  We are here to look at some pictures with Santa!  Bass Pro was stupid busy with people waiting to see Santa (didn't help we were there an hour after they opened on Sunday) and we waited like an hour to see him.  They have a new process of handing out cards with times on them and I am not entirely sure that it helped, it might have kept the chaos at bay since everyone was walking around the store and not just hanging out in one spot. But the setup they have is awesome and the pictures are FREE! So in the meantime we joined everyone else and looked around the store.  



 

Kiera asked for an Alien Autopsy again this year since Santa did not bring it last year (she was not upset that she didn't get it) but he will bring it this year!  I just know he will.  Wink wink.

 

December snow 2013

I remember last year the weathermen predicted snow on Christmas day and when it didn't happen we were pretty bummed.  I don't really get mad at the weathermen since they are "predicting" what the weather is going to do and the planet's weather patterns cannot be controlled.  Last Thursday snow began to fall and on Friday my office was closed and K was out of school (she was even out on Monday and Tuesday), though Dada is a tough guy and went to work for a while.  We had a lovely time playing in the snow for about 30 minutes.  It was 20 degrees with a wind chill of like 9 so yeah, it didn't last long.  

I was a total weirdo and played on the side of house where you cant see the yard from the living room.  I wanted to be able to look out my windows as long as I could and see pretty untouched snow in the yard.  

Jimmy noticed I didn't have any makeup on in this picture.  I usually wear makeup when we will be running around town but there are many times that I don't.  Especially during the summer.

The snow was very dry so we weren't able to make a snow man but a snow mound.

 

 

 

I also had the bright idea to take our pictures outside.  Actually looking at all the family pictures on Instagram and other blogs in the snow is what gave me the idea.  I ran around the house grabbing up some things to use as props and used the fence as our backdrop.  I mean the weather changes so drastically every other day here in Oklahoma so I had to jump at the chance to take our pictures in the snow!

 

This is the full size one from above and we absolutely love it!  Of course that night I ordered one 20x24 and three 8x10 prints of it from MPIX.  It was my first time ordering from there and we are very impressed with the quality.  Now I just need to get a matte and slap it in the frame I have! 

 

Halloween 2013

This year as you can see Kiera was a black cat.  Quite the gorgeous black cat if I do say so myself!  I had a lot of fun putting the make up on her and we even put on some little press on nails that had black cats and paw prints on them. 

 

 

 

 We are totally going to be in trouble when she gets older. 

I had the bright idea of dressing like a mouse to go with her being a cat.  I made the ears out of gray foam, pink felt, a headband and hot glue.  The tail was made out of two big sheets of gray felt that I cut into a triangle and sewed it into a tail shape, stuck a hanger in it (so I could bend the tail) and stuffed it with pillow filling.  I also stitched a piece of ribbon on it so I could tie it around my waist.  I just wore Jimmy's gray sweats and rolled the waist since they were too long.  It worked out perfect since it gave me a place to hide the ribbon around my waist.   

 

We only trick or treated for about and hour.  By that time her bag was completely full of candy and she was done carrying it.  Next year she wants to be a vampire.  Maybe I can go as her human victim!