I made swimming suit cover-ups for the girls after I saw some at Costco.  I can’t remember what the price was on them but I thought, really, for a little tiny piece of terry cloth it costs that much?! I had this ugly old beach towel in the linen closet that I didn’t like at all so I cut it up and sewed some velcro on it and there you go, {FREE} swimsuit cover-ups. The girls are little enough I was able to get two out of one towel.  They don’t look too cute, but at the end of the season I’ll buy a new beach towel when they go on sale and make nice ones for next year.  Lucky for me the girls don’t really care what they look like, but I have a feeling that’s going to change pretty quick.

The towels are still a little wet because we just got back from the splash pad, so please excuse the water spots! My older girl is 5 years old and the length that worked good for her is 24 inches long.  The width is just the width of the towel.  The straps are 11 inches long (you could shorten this by and inch or two to bring it up higher) and 1.5 inches wide on both the cover-ups.  My little girl is two years old and hers is 18 inches long and the width was just what was left over after the straps were cut out of the towel.   The raw edges were folded over and zig-zagged, if I had a serger I would have serged them.  Let me know if you have any questions! I’m happy to be back posting again!

Linking to: Craft-O-Maniac

YouTube Finger Weaving Link

{Imagine some really cute pictures of the girls with their awesome finger woven scarves here.  WordPress isn’t letting me upload any of them.  How awesome.}

Activity Days is an LDS activity for eight to eleven year old girls.

To learn more about my religion click here.

Anyhow, I’m determined to figure out this whole f-stop, ISO, aperture business.

Another goal for this year is to find some good tasting healthy recipes.  By the end of the year I want a whole binder full of healthy recipes that I can make without a ton of effort.  I made black beans and rice with chicken and apple salsa last week and ohmygoodgravy is was soo dang good!

And lastly, become a scripture scriptorian.  The excuse about not having enough time to study isn’t valid.  The gospel and my family is where my mental focus should be, so I need to spend a little more time studying the scriptures.  I’ve been doing this in the afternoon when the girls are playing or watching tv and I’ve learned a lot more than when I just try to read a chapter before going to bed.

Anyhow, all those goals leave me with not much time to think about crafting.  That’s all right by me.  I don’t miss it. I haven’t looked at a craft blog in a long time – it’s just not what I’m interested in anymore.  (I still make the occasional hair bow for my girls though.) I think my new goals have replaced making “things” with much more important, more time worthy things.  Only problem is,  what do I post about now?

Happy Elfing!

Linking to: Craft-O-Maniac Elf Party

Do you like her skirt?  Call me a grinch but I wasn’t going to buy one off the website and Macey kept talking about her coming back from the north pole with a cute skirt.  So I made one with what I had on hand.  Seriously, that’s all the red felt I had.  Haha, Snowflake’s a little immodest!

One morning Snowflake was sitting by a bowl of muddy buddy’s (snowballs) with a cute note for the girls.  I wish I would have got a picture of it but it was pretty much gone by lunchtime.

Happy elfin’ to ya!

This one got a big “oh my goodness!!” out of Macey.

The elf turned around my Merry Christmas blocks to spell Miss Macey.  Too bad there’s no d’s in Merry Christmas to spell Maddy.

Snowflake was tired and just needed a soft place to land for the day.

And I didn’t get a picture of the day Snowflake turned the milk green – but I’m sure you can picture that one in your mind.

Happy Elfing!

This morning Snowflake left a note.  Macey was soo excited she had to come wake me up to tell me about it.  Lucky me.  But seriously, this elf on the shelf thing is soo fun.  Justin has fun figuring out where to put it.  Last night I think he spent 20 minutes putting it in different places before settling on top of the cupboards.  Even Maddy thinks it’s fun.  She points and tells me “Up there! Up there!”.  I guess this is a tradition that will continue next year too since the whole fam is enjoying it. I hope I don’t run out of places to put it before Christmas though!

This morning when we went running it was thirty stinkin’ seven degrees outside!  Brrr!  Maddy looks soo cute all bundled up like a eskimo baby. I just started a 30 week training plan for a marathon.  We’ll see how that goes.  It starts off easy with 2-3 mile runs.  No prob.  But the next phase is 12- 18 mile runs.  That makes me nervous.  Maybe I’ll try for a half marathon, I dunno.  Any runners out there?  Any advice?

She was all excited to wear them to school today!

Our Elf on the Shelf was dropped off by Santa last night.  I was going to do it Friday night but decided to wait until Justin was home so he could help me out with the drop-off.  Did anyone see that Elf on the Shelf movie that was on TV Friday night?  It was soo dang cute.  Right after it was over I called Santa Claus and asked if we could have a elf come to our house.  Macey was soo excited she was giggling like crazy.  So last night we got our elf, gave her a name (Snowflake), and read the book.  She spent the night in her box on top of the piano.

But when the girls got up this morning she had magically landed on top of the temple picture.  I know, not really creative, but we decided to start out small and then get to the creative ideas. Happy elfing!

(source)

Tonight we are starting a new tradition of Elf on the Shelf.  I’m excited for it because I know the girls will love it.  I have a whole pinterest board dedicated to Elf on the Shelf ideas.

Last Sunday was my birthday.  Happy 29 to me.  Wow I’m old!  We did a little family dinner party and it was really nice. I don’t want to be braggy or anything but I might have gotten a garmin.  My sister gave me a itunes gift card which I put to good use last night and downloaded a bunch of songs I’ve been wanting for a long time.  I’ve got my playlist all ready to go running with tomorow morning and I’m really excited about it!  I downloaded Firework, Dynamite (an explosive playlist for sure), Party Rock, Good Life, Pumped up kicks (Biggest loser has an awesome remix of this song!!), and Somewhere with You.  I’m contemplating adding some Adele songs but I’m not sure if they’d be good running music or not.  So, what are your favorite songs on your ipod?