Happy Halloween!

I cut out a pumpkin and some kitties to color. Atalia decided that one of the kitties was better off with just three legs.

I am a proud mother.

My kitty turned out looking like a combination of a cow and a kitty.

My sweet baby, watching a show.

More to come!

So, I Failed :(

I consider myself a fairly healthy eater (except on holidays or other special occasions), but I wanted to try to have a whole day of eating REALLY healthy and eating good-sized proportions. I have a folder full of magazine clippings and other things that I've set aside of ideas that I would like to try or do or refer back to one day. I had a magazine clipping that had easy healthy choices of meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I decided that I would pick from that for what I would eat for one day and I wasn't aloud to stray from it. Just for one day, how hard could that be?

I started off my morning with Cheerios, skim milk, and bananas (all measured out too!)

For lunch, I had a turkey, cheese, lettuce, and mustard sandwich (I don't even like mustard!). Plus some sugar snap peas with some low-fat ranch dressing (learned that I don't really like sugar snap peas...they gave me the willies for some reason).

Lately, lunch has kinda become my biggest meal of the day. After I ate this, I still wasn't all the way full, but I thought if I kept busy that it will subside as it sometimes does when I'm busy. It didn't. I ate one of the party-sized Hershey bars that we had for trick-or-treaters. I was mad at myself for straying off the path.

For dinner, I made mushroom pizza's. I used pita's as the crust, a little spaghetti sauce, part-skim mozzarella cheese, and some mushrooms. I also made a garden salad with fat-free dressing. It was all very yummy. I want to remember this pizza idea to use another time. It was super easy and the pita tasted really great, plus it is a lot healthier.

I had a healthy treat planned out for later that night, but started feeling sick, like I was catching the flue, and I just wanted some good old-fashioned chocolate dipped cone from McDonalds. So, that's what I did. After all that, I ruined it! I'm still kinda mad at myself, but I was feeling pretty miserable. So, I failed. Sad :(

My Spur of the Moment Craft Project

Hi.

First, I would just like to say sorry for the gazillion new posts in the last few days. I feel like that could get annoying! I don't know if it's just because I've been without a camera for the last few months and I'm really excited to not have to think of new creative ways to use my Macbook Photo booth program any more or what! Anyway, I'm sure it will die down eventually. Sorry!

Today, I covered a box with paper and Atalia and I went to town coloring all over it and putting stickers on it. It changed things up a bit from just coloring in a coloring book or on blank paper. Atalia LOVED putting stickers on it and was proud of herself when she could finally get the sticky sticker off her finger and on the box. Atalia also LOVED peeling the stickers back off the box as well, taking some of the paper off with it. It wasn't meant to be a big deal or anything, just something we could spend time doing together.

I thought it was really cute how Atalia would stick her tongue out while she was concentrating. (Above)

We use the Twistables Crayons and I love them! It helps to keep the crayons from breaking (even though Atalia still found a way to break a few of them) and you can use the crayon right up by twisting it when the tip gets low. Really a great invention.

While I was watching Tali color the box, I started wondering what I could use the box for. I thought that the box would make a great craft box for Tali (when I think of crafts for Tali, I think of crayons, coloring books, markers, chalk, paper, and stickers).

During her nap time today, I got going on making the box pretty. I wrapped it with tissue paper that was lying around and trimmed it (using a glue-gun) with some fabric that also was just lying around. I found a pretty scrap-booking sticker that wasn't being used and centered it on the front of the box. And there ya go! A cute craft box for Tali.

I decided that the box needed to go up somewhere high, out of the reach of my toddler that would love to spread it's contents around the entire house.

After this spur of the moment craft project, I decided that I'm a little craft projected out (maybe still worn out after making her Halloween costume) ( and I LOVE craft projects!). So, I may be taking a break from them for a little bit.

Atalia's First Time Succeeding in Wearing Mommy's Shoes

She's tried to put my shoes on before, but this is the first time she got them both on and walked around in them.

I missed getting a picture with both shoes on.

She's got Daddy's headphones on, squishing her squishy cheeks.

What's A Disorganized Person To Do?

James bought me this book last Mother's Day. He didn't get it for me because he thinks I need to be more organized, but because I love self-improvement type books that give me ideas of tiny (and sometimes not so tiny) projects to do.

This book is great! Some of my favorite tips from it includes lists of produce letting you know what can be stored at room temperature (and for how long) and what should be refrigerated, one-hour cleaning projects, and lots of information on how to de-clutter your home. I REALLY hate clutter. It can make me feel like I'm going crazy a little bit. I decided a few months ago that once a week I'll find a way to de-clutter an area and organize it in a pretty way and use a tip from my book, What's A Disorganized Person To Do. Little by little, it makes me feel better and better.

My de-clutter project today was to get a cute cork-board to hang those things that you need to keep in sight so you can remember to do them, but not wanting them just lying around everywhere. We went to one of my favorite places, Hobby Lobby and got this cork-board to use. It was 50% off, which was a bonus! James didn't really see the point in buying a cork-board that was framed. He feels like pictures should be framed, not cork-boards. lol I thought that was humorous, hearing a guy's perspective on it. I just want it to look pretty too.

Oh and that is Max and Ruby playing on the screen, my favorite cartoon that Tali watches. James says that I am Ruby in that show (not exactly a compliment, but that's okay) (she can be a bit controlling). I love that show for Tali because it's not obnoxious like a lot of other cartoons these days and Max's older sister, Ruby shows a lot of patience with her younger brother, which is being a good example for little kids. Anyway, that's my little random blurb on that.

Atalia Pic's from Today

Being a kid, getting dirty.

Atalia looking up at an airplane.

My little beauty.

This makes me smile because she always walks around the house like this, a hint of goofiness mixed in with a whole lot of a girly bounce.

This is where I found Atalia today. Before I scolded her I ran to get the camera.

A Few More Pic's of Atalia's Indian Costume

Here are a few more pic's of Tali in her costume.

In this one she is with her uncle Nick after the trunk-or-treat. She is blessed with really good uncles :)

At the trunk-or treat. She had a blast running around.

I'm bummed because this picture didn't look so blurry until it was enlarged.

Atalia in her Indian Costume!

Atalia's hair! (please ignore my tired face) I was nervous about this part of getting her ready. Sometimes she'll make it tough on me to do her hair, but she was really good! I always turn on a show for her to watch while I get her ready for the day, it helps her to be more patient with me while I'm tugging and pulling on her. I used hairspray for the first time on her!

Here is Atalia with her under clothes on and hair in place.

I was also really nervous about her clips that I made. I wasn't sure if they would stay in or look right, or if she would pull them out, but they made it through the whole night!

This was the best picture we got of it all together. (we were having a hard time getting used to our new camera) You can see her bracelet in this picture...and her boots!

Here's another picture of her in her costume before we left.

Atalia and cute Olivia at the trunk-or-treat...messing with some of the games set up :)

This is pretty much it. I wish we had gotten better photos showing her costume all together. I'll be getting myself used to our camera!

Atalia's Indian Costume

This year I wanted Atalia to be an Indian for Halloween and once I get something in my head, it is hard to get it out. I LOVE shopping online and found a cute Indian costume that I fell in love with for Atalia, but I could not find ANYTHING in her size. I started to get a little disheartened and started to entertain the idea of her being a turkey for Halloween, but again, I couldn't find a turkey costume in her size either. So, I thought, either I settle for a pumpkin costume (I did find a really cute one online) or get myself some materials and make her into an Indian! It took a lot and I finally committed to making her a costume.

This is the pattern I picked out to use for her costume.

The costume that I liked online had fringe right where the ruffle is on this pattern, so I thought that I could just turn her ruffle into fringe. Plus, this is a pretty basic pattern...which I needed.

So, here is the final product!

It needed a little more something, so I first hot-glued this

blue ribbon, with the zig-zag design over a dark brown ribbon to make one ribbon (is that confusing?) and then I hot-glued it above the fringe on top and bottom. That part ended up being easier than I expected with my good friend the glue-gun.

Here is a closer look.

Here is the back...not all that great, but I'm happy with it. I've never done a zipper before (which the pattern called for), instead I sewed buttons and elastic loops to keep it closed in the back. She's going to be wearing a brown shirt underneath, so I wasn't too worried about it being perfect.

I also made two clips to go right above her pink tails that she'll have (it is amazing what you can do with a hot-glue gun and some materials). Then I made her three bracelets to wear...we'll see if she keeps those on the whole time.

Well, that's it! I'll post some pic's after tonight to see it on her all together!

Restaurant Hopping

For family night we went restaurant hopping. It's when you have a progressive dinner hopping from one restaurant to another for the next entree. You can start off at one place for a drink, another place for hors d'oeuvres, then another for soup and salad, another a main dish, another for fruit or dessert. We kept it fairly simple because we have our 19 month old with us.

We started at Applebees for appetizers.

We went to McAllister's for our main dish

(we ate outside) (the temperature was amazing today)

We finished it off with chocolate dipped cones from McDonalds. What's great about this is you can modify it for what works for you and your family from keeping it cheap with fast food or going to a lot more places for more entrees. We had a really nice night, sometime when we're able to, I'd like to try to do more entrees :)

This wasn't a Laurissa original idea. I got the idea out of this book, Family Home Evening For Newlyweds (a wedding gift). I have LOVED it! I am almost all the way through it now. I have had to modify a few ideas to fit our family.