What's New With The Carter Family

Jem used to LOVE to paint when he was younger....and I often wonder if Finley will love it too :)  I haven't been brave enough to try it with her though, seeing as how wild and crazy that girl can get.  All I can picture is a wet paintbrush in her hands as she runs around the house splattering everything LOL.   I do, however, let her get her art on in other ways.  One of her favorite artsy things to do is play with pencils...and eventually draw with them :)  She is the master of crazy side to side drawing -- and on this particular day she was working on another masterpiece for mommy's scrapbook haha!  You can see her in action in the video below...  

I tried my hand at cookie decorating again.  I really enjoy doing it, but sheesh it is a TON of work and takes forever to do!  I keep plodding away though, mostly because I am planning on making Fin's birthday cookies in a month's time and I want them to look somewhat decent.  And it doesn't hurt that they taste absolutely amazing (thank you to my BFF April for the AMAZEBALLS recipe).   So here are my snowflakes.  I love the colors I chose, but once again, I had issues with the outlining.  You can see it in almost every cookie, it does NOT follow the exact shape.  Why?  Because it's so stinkin' hard to get the icing to go where I want it to go LOL.  But I will keep trying.  Practice makes perfect, right?  These cookies are destined for my kiddos at church tomorrow.  I know they'll love them and won't be so worried about all the imperfections :)

I can't believe that ANOTHER school year is over.  This year went by SO fast.  Yes,  yes.... I know I say that every year, but seriously, this year was the fastest EVER.  I mean, didn't he just start 4th Grade?   I guess it's a testament to a great teacher and a great learning year when you wonder where all the time went.  Jem's teacher this  year, Ms Quigley, was AMAZING.    Just the right kind of teacher for Jem, full of love for the children and as Jem says "she loves brain breaks!".   One of the things I love most about Jem is his crafty nature.  This time we copied a craft we saw on Pinterest, but he did all of the cutting, typing, and putting together of this gift :)   Let summer BEGIN!

Seriously..........was he bored, OR WHAT???? My son actually BEGGED ME to let him fingerpaint . That's right, you heard me. My 8 year old suddenly got nostalgic for those fun and carefree preschool days, and decided he wanted to get his w a s h a b l e paints out and do some artwork - with parts of his body . Thank goodness he only wanted to use his fingers.......I would have died if he'd suggested his feet! Imagine the mess THAT would have made LOL. As it was, he got a good 30 minutes of fun out of this impromptu activity...and I, of course, snapped a couple of quick pics :) Hey - if I had to deal with the clean up, the least I could get out of it was a picture or two!

Last Monday (in honor of River's sleepover and a day off of school yee-haw!) I invited Jem's good buddy Carson over to join us for a scrapbooking marathon. Now in child terms, that marathon only lasts one hour *LOL*. But during that hour they were involved, excited, creative and BUSY! Here are some pictures of the kids in action! Notice the intensity of the layout decisions.... heehee.... "I've just finished cutting around my photo. What next?" "Now what will my title be???" "This little brad goes perfectly with my paper!" Here are Carson, Jem and River with their finished masterpieces! Not bad for an hour's scrapfest - kiddie style!

Jem came home on the last day of school with a big bunch of ugly, broken, mismatched crayons! Instead of throwing them away, I decided that we would 'recycle' them - into beautiful round multicolored crayons! I'd seen this done at work and had always wanted to try it myself. So this morning, that's what we did! We took the paper off of the crayons, snapped them into little pieces, arranged them into a muffin tray, baked them for 12 minutes at 250 degrees, cooled them in the freezer for 15 minutes and wa-la! We made 12 crayon rounds in all - and I think they came out pretty nice! Jem had fun doing this with me...I think I'm going to have to make this an end of school year tradition!

How many of you have heard of Stampin' Up!? It's an at home party based rubber stamping company. Whew! That was a mouthful! Stampin' Up! has been around for years, and makes beautiful rubber stamp sets, exclusive colored inks/papers/markers and a ton of accessories! I have been using their products for a few years now, and just recently signed on to become a demonstrator myself! Yes, that's right........I am now open for business *LOL*. I am having my very first party in 2 weeks time, with my friend Katie hostessing a gathering! I will be demonstrating and allowing the guests to make two or three projects (depending on time) and will have the current catalog available for anyone who'd like to order (perhaps there is something they just can't live without -- hee hee, I certainly know that feeling!). Here are two of the projects I am thinking of doing; a heart card using the "Always" stamp set and a gift card holder using the "Baroque Motifs" ...

This Valentine's Day Jem had a playgroup party, where candy was exchanged and crafts were done.....my special memory of the day was when Jem colored a red heart for me and wrote his name (all by himself!) in it and said "this is for you, my mama!". It brought a tear to my eye I tell ya! That is, of course, until we got home..........where he promptly ran to daddy and exclaimed "look what I made you daddy!". So much for my 'special' valentine!