Since finishing up with my last class, the Crafty Lil Devil is back in full swing. I've finished so many craft projects in the past week! Two paintings, party favors for E's big 3rd birthday party, two Halloween costumes (a ghost for Easton and a bat for Audrey) and a Halloween wreath. It's been really fun finally getting to do something I want to do for a change! These pics are from my phone. My camera has eally and truly bit the dust. Now my camera phone takes pretty good pictures for a camera phone but it can't really do justice to my two little sweeties or capture the colors in a painting, etc. But they'll have to do until we get a new camera. Maybe at Christmas. I don't even know what kind of camera to buy if we do get a new one. I'd like a big, fancy schmancy DSLR but that is REALLY not in our budget...even at Christmas time! Jason says his Canon at work is really good so we might look at those. There are so many choices! All I know is my little Kodak is history. I used it a lot and loved it (Thanks mom!) but now it's all beat up and the lens is stuck all wonky and can't be fixed.

wonky old camera

Here are some pictures I took with my Blackberry. It is SUCH a pain to get pictures from my phone to my computer and then to Blogger!

If you're on Facebook you have probably seen these already:

Oh happy day!

Painting for my mom (sorry to ruin the surprise Mom! I'm no good at secrets!)

Audrey's bat girl costume

Spooky, spidery Halloween wreath

My precious little ghost boy.

Easton and Audrey like to go around the house saying "GHOST!" in their creepiest voice. It cracks them up and they laugh so hard they almost choke. Too funny!

That's what I've been up to. Craft projects and dishes and laundry and all that good fun stuff. So happy to have more time for me now that I'm finished with school!

P.S. Guess who got an A on that last final paper? Me! And that means I got an A for my overall grade in the class. And that means I have truly and properly earned the words "graduates with distinction". Oh yeah! SO glad to be done with homework for good! Or until I am crazy enough to go back to school to get my Master's degree when the kids are old enough to go to school. But until then, Crafty Lil Devil is back at it again!

Easter 2010

Coloring eggs at Chic-fil-a. We don't have to make a mess at our house! And it's FREE!
Very carefully lining up his stickers just so...future engineer maybe?
Audrey just wants to eat the eggs.
Best part of E's day...hugging the "Chicken-a" cow.
Inwood Easter Egg Hunt 2010. Over 30,000 eggs there for the kids. Wowee!

Waiting patiently for the hunt to start.

E shares his eggs with sis.
Dressed up on Easter Sunday
Say "cheesy"!



She did NOT like the feel of the grass on her bare legs!
But she thought these eggs tasted pretty yummy.

Most recent family picture. Somebody get us some sunglasses!

One more quick post. It seems I either have no time to post and a lot to talk about or a lot of time (though not lately!) and nothing to talk about. Sorry for the erratic nature of these last few weeks. Sometimes that's just the way it goes with me, I guess.

I love being able to give gifts to my friends and family. It really makes me so happy to give someone something I've worked hard to make.

Here's the cute craft project/recipe I found at How Does She? Oreo Cookie Sucker

Then of course I had to make something to hold those cute little suckers so I adapted this to make a cute gift for my friend for Easter. Sucker Holder It's basically a 2x4 that has been cut, painted, decoupaged and then had a coat of clear sealer added. SUPER EASY! Add some holes to the top for suckers and you're done. I had all of this stuff on hand and Jason cut the board for me from some scraps in our garage. Nice!


Oops! Forgot to take a picture of all of the steps. Melt "candy wafers" (or white dipping chocolate) in a large bowl. Take the tops off of the Oreos. Place a small bit of chocolate (or in this case white chocolate) inside the Oreo. Add a sucker stick. Place top back on cookie and allow to set. Cover cookie with chocolate, decorate and allow to harden and dry on waxed paper.


Wrap in lollipop bags and tie with ribbon or use twist tie to close. Then of course you need something cute to put them in!


These are some hastily taken, very off centered and not doctored in any way photos. Sorry! That's the kind of gal I am lately. This is the front of the sucker holder.


Back of sucker holder


Now put in your cute little Oreo suckers and enjoy! Good thing I made one for myself too! :)

Linking this to Just for the Joy


and Show Off Your Stuff





P.S. Nana, Easter pics and pictures of Audrey's first tooth coming. Sometime. I promise! Maybe even before next Easter!

Well our first date night since September was cancelled due to snow. I was so incredibly disappointed but not terribly surprised. It stinks because we rarely get a night out without the kids but I kind of knew we'd be staying at home once I saw the weather report. Man, I sure wish we still lived in Oklahoma! I know a bunch of people there! I know a bunch of people here too but not ones I'd leave my kids with. (ha! Just seeing how many locals read this. I'm guessing not many.) I do know two or three people who would watch them but most of the people I know are either too busy or too far away from my house. And like one of my friends said, "How do you find reliable, trustworthy people to watch your kids? It's not like you can just open the phone book and find someone." Hmmm....brings to mind that "BABYSETTER" sign I saw a while back. Maybe I'll give them a call. Um, no!

We might have a sitter for Valentine's Day though. My sweet friend who was going to watch the kids for us last night said her hubby has to work that day so she can watch our kids while we go out. But J and I have always avoided going out specifically on Valentine's Day because everywhere is always so crowded. Plus, I usually just cook whatever special thing we decide to eat and it's always way cheaper. But now that we have a sitter we'll be going out. I have no idea where we'll go or what we'll do but I'm sure we'll find something. Any suggestions?

Whew! I am worn out! Oh and by the way...Merry Christmas! It's been a busy 2 weeks since my last post. Audrey is sleeping better now, thank goodness! Easton is doing ok too. The past couple of weeks have been filled with writing several short papers and one 15 pager, finishing up a class (Child Development - I got an A!), shopping for Christmas, working on some craft projects, cleaning and getting ready for our Christmas company.

I wasn't sure if they'd be able to come or not due to the snow we had (TWO FEET!!!) but Jason's sister, Leslie, her husband Terry, their three kids and Jason's cousin came to visit on Monday. We had a really fun time. It was good to see the kids playing together and good visiting with everyone. We did some shopping to help Santa out with a few Christmas presents, went to D.C. to see the sights, played, cleaned, cooked, ate, played, cooked, cleaned some more. I decided that although I LOVE having people come visit us, our house is WAAYY too small for ten people! That and my kids have entirely too many toys. I think in the next month or so we'll be going through all of the toys and getting rid of some of the ones that don't get played with so much. We just simply do not have room for all of this stuff!

Christmas today was really fun. The kids woke up early and we opened presents and had our Christmas breakfast casserole. Then we cleaned up the kitchen just so we could start cooking Christmas dinner. We had apple butter ham, stuffing, green bean casserole, rolls and pumpkin pie. Whew! I'm so tired! Glad that Miss Audrey will be sleeping back in her own bed tonight and not in our room so I can finally get some sleep.

Some pictures of the big snow we got here last weekend:

Easton and Yellow Bear in the snow

Audrey all smiles and bundled up in her warm snow suit.

My hard working hubby taking a break from shoveling snow



I think we used to have a car under there

Is it a table or is it a big snow cone?

Here are a few pictures of our Christmas Eve trip to D.C.:

Riding the Metro

We're seasoned Metro riders by now. Well, OK. Not really. But we should be.

One of the dinosaurs at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History

The Washington Monument

The White House

I can't take credit for this one. J's sweet cousin McKayla took this one. Great job!

Christmas pictures:

This is a lap full of cute right here. Easton and Alexa waiting for Santa.

Easton reads his new Thomas the Train ABC book.

Audrey loves her doll

Alexa, Mason, Addy, Audrey and Easton.

Audrey and Easton Christmas 2009

Halloween fun

Easton was a fireman this year and Audrey was a Tootsie Roll. (Thanks to Aunt Leslie for sending us the outfit!!) It was cool and sprinkling rain on Halloween night. It's a good thing Easton's "costume" was a rain jacket that looks like a fireman's uniform! All I had to add was a $4 fireman hat from Walmart and he was set. And Audrey borrowed cousin Addy's outfit from last year's Halloween and we were all set. We didn't have spooky Halloween food this time. Well, we had spaghetti and meatballs and I'm sure I could have said it was something gross like monster guts but I don't think Easton would have eat it if I did that. So we ate dinner, got the kids ready and sat around and waited. I guess everyone in our neighborhood decided to wait til dark but I was hoping they would start early so the kids wouldn't be out so late. We finally saw the first trick-or-treaters and headed out. Easton did not want to ride in the stroller or be carried at all so he walked quite a bit for a little guy. He had fun and we had fun watching him. He (of course) wanted to eat every piece of candy he got that night. He kept saying "More can-ee, more can-ee!" Thankfully he walked so much that he burnt off all that sugar in no time and went to bed as soon as we got home with no complaints. Audrey snoozed for a while until it started sprinkling and woke her up. Then she didn't want to sleep when we got home so we were up for quite a while. Little stinker!
Hope ya'll had a Happy Halloween! I know we sure did!

Oops! Caught him w/his eyes closed! But I still love this picture.

Easton loved his hat!

I think he said Trick or Treat pretty much at all of the houses at first. And Thank You too! Then he got tired and just held out his bucket waiting for candy.

Augie-pie in her Tootsie Roll costume. Good thing it was warm!

Looks to me like Audrey is looking to her brother to figure out just what the heck is going on here. Why are we all dressed up in these outfits and out WAAY past our bedtime?!