'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

when all through the house. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

These ornaments were fun to make!  D. thinks they were made just for him to play with.  :)  And of course they were...right!?  :)

Tasty Deer!

Spotted at the Festival of Trees.  These are my kind of reindeer!

 These are my kind of reindeer!

Just for fun

Just for fun, the hubby and I were at Alberto's over our weekend away to celebrate our 10 year anniversary.  Check out the vegetarian burrito on the menu.  We had a good chuckle! :)

Don't Lose Your Marbles!

The boys have been earning {or losing} marbles, as part of a rewards system we decided to try out.  When the boys hit the first line, and half way mark, they earned an ice cream cone from Macey's.  JC, who's been leading the game, filled his bottle to the top line first.  As a reward, earlier this week JC and his dad went to the movies and saw the Smurfs.

Marble idea came from useyourmarbles.com.  The only thing I really did different is if the boys managed to not lose any of their 3 marbles in a day they earned a large shooter marble instead, or when I ran out of those an extra marble.

School Store

Here is the rundown of our incentive program as promised to a few people.

We started off by having JC create our own class money.

We then made copies of the cash.  A list of ways to earn money was created.  For us this was things like on a quiz $1 for 80%, $2 for 90%, and $4 for 100%.  Actual test have a higher payout.  He earns money for reading books and being able to retell the stories to me, and for doing his daily school job.  He also has bills he is responsible to pay for things like computer use and new pencils, notebooks, etc.

On Fridays once we are done with school stuff, we payout for jobs and he pays his bills, then the the school store opens.  It will only be open during this time until the next week.  My prices were pretty low to start out with, but as I add new items to the store the prices are slowly increasing.

D. is thrilled to earn a hotwheel car he's had his eye on.

And JC was so happy to finally earn connect 4, launchers.  This by the way is an awesome game, much better than the original.

Donut for Dad

First, I am so glad we have Father's Day.  I am lucky enough to have a great dad in my life.  And be married to a man who is a great dad, he too has a great dad.  I am always grateful for the dads in my life, but not always as verbal as I could be.  So just so you guys know I love you, thank you for all you do!

The hubby had been talking last year about the Giant Donut cake pan.  So for Christmas the boys gave him the pan so we could make him one.  Here we are 6 months later and he finally got his Giant Pink Sprinkle Donut.  It had to be pink with sprinkles...If you are thinking of the Homer Simpson similarity, you would be correct.  For as long as I have known Jerret he has loved pink donuts and Homer J. Simpson.  He may be as funny as Homer, but he's  a much better Husband/ Dad!

 Here is it before being frosted.  I was very careful to follow the icing pattern.  But Hubs corrected me, telling me that donuts don't look like that.  And took over smoothing out the sides, lol, I love it.  This donut was serious business!  The boys had fun adding the sprinkles.

 Now this is a donut!

Jake and the Neverland Pirates Party

We had Dallin's birthday party today.  It was the coolest coldest party we've been too.  So we are really grateful to our friends for hanging out in the wind for us.  Just for the record, the average temperature today is in the 70's!

 The invite (mailed out ones didn't say to come as a pirate!)  Dallin wanted a "Jake" party.  From Disney Juniors show Jake and The Neverland Pirates.  The show is so new you can't buy anything from it.  So I am very grateful  Disney put these free printable invitations on their website!

 Thank you gift bags had a ring pop, eye patch, some "gold" candy, Jake bubbles I created, Jake coloring pages from the Disney website, and crayons.

We loved the location of the party.  The park is on the lake...perfect for little pirates!  And this slide looks like water.  They loved racing each other on it!

 It was too windy to lite the candle.

Food was put into sand buckets and other sand toys.

 And every pirate needs a {balloon} sword and eye patch.  I learned how to make the swords on YouTube.  Super easy!

We made this poster print of Dallin so we could play pin the eye patch on Captain Dallin.  But it was super windy, and after wind blew a drink over on it, (thank goodness it had been framed!)we decided to just keep it safe in the car.