Annual Trip to Gardner Village

It's Fall in Utah and that means it's Witchy-Poo time at Gardner Village.

We always so enjoy all the fun festivities and

I can't help but take some fun pics of my little Monsters.

Easy Peasy DIY Photo Magnets

I Love the idea of Photo Magnets. Having your favorite pics on the fridge without having them swoop out from behind a magnet. I however do not like the idea of paying $5+ for a 2" x 4" magnet from the photo places. I often get emails for "free" magnets that turn out still being over $4 for shipping and handling... No Way!

I decided to try my hand at creating some and found out that you can EASILY (seriously it IS easy!!!) make these yourself for...(drum roll)...free!

To start off you need to collect any advertising magnets you come across. One place you can easily find a few is attached to your phonebook. When my office got new phonebooks this fall I asked if anyone minded if I filched all the magnets, no one minded, SCORE! 20+ magnets. Now that you are thinking about them you will find that they are all over the place. I have found them at restaurants, the vets office, our cable company office. All over. SO when you happen upon some, grab a few for later use. You can buy sheets of magnet at the craft store but its is really pricey and really with all the freebies out there you don't need to.

Now that you have your magnets all you need is some glossy pictures, adhesive (double sided tape, sticker maker, tape runner etc) and scissors.


First Gather your photos and advertizing magnets

Next cut your magnet and photos to the same size.
 (I like to do different shapes, Here I did 2" round ones with a large punch I have.)

Next apply adhesive to your photos.
(I used the Xyron creat-a-sticker, but you could use double sided tape,
  a tape runner, or even a strong glue stick)

Next Carefully line up your photo to the pre-cut magnet and stick them together

Ta Da! Truely Free Photo Magnets!!

I like to make little bundles for the grandparents for holidays.
Fast easy presents that they love and can actually can use.

 

It's Official... Big A is 5!!!

With the big Disney trip it feels like we have been celebrating the Big A's Birthday for the past month now. However it is now official, He is a 5 year old. He had his 5 year old check-up and is Off-The-Charts tall. I think we might have a future Utah Jazz Player on our hands. He is getting so grown-up looking. We had his 5 year old pictures taken at FotoFly. They did an amazing job...as always!

We celebrated with a little family party. Lots of presents and good food. The theme was "Disney" - Cars and Mickey especially...keeping with the Disneyland theme.

I always hope he has fun and enjoys the things we do for him. Right before he went to bed on his Birthday he said "Mommy, My Birthday was AWESOME!" I think we succeeded this time.



It was a very "Ninja" Birthday!
One of his Favorite Presents!



Spooky Halloween FREE printable!

Where has the summer gone?!?! I was reminding Mom the other day that "Sons of Anarchy" was coming back. SHe said "O really? I didn't think it was coming back until September." Um Mom..... It IS the middle of September!! I know how she feel though, I am not quite in the "Fall" vibe yet.

 

That being said I AM getting all geared up for Halloween. All the stores are getting their decorations in and pinterest is absolutely FLOODED with Halloween pins. It is getting me really excited!

 

While I was looking around Pinterest I saw these AWESOME "You have just been poisoned" etched glasses from etsy...( They are avaliable HERE).

 

 I loved the idea but not the thought of spending that kind of money on a new set of glasses OR trying to find a place to store them after halloween. I came up with a simple and easy way to achieve sort of the same effect (Not nearly as awesome as the etched ones though). I created a template to print off and then I am just going to "glue" them to the bottom of some clear glasses with NON-Permenent tape runner. (You could also use double sided tape!) I created a free printable PDF so you too can "poison" some of your Halloween friends ;)

 

The original...My inspiration!

Here is my printable sheet for you!
http://freepdfhosting.com/bb0cd39a6b.pdf

 

Pumpkin Harvest

This year we had some crazy weather. The summer was Crazy HOT, ABOVE normal temps constantly. Now "Fall" has hit and it's really COLD, BELOW normal temps. Plus to make matters worse we had no transition, one day we were MELTING, the next FREEZING! Crazy!

Anyway because of these extremes home gardens have not flourished like they normally would. We planted three pumpkin plants (one White, one Orange, one Mini) this year. Last year we had one and got 3 HUGE pumpkins off of it. This year we got a small white a medium orange and 5 mini... That's it. To top it all off the vines were dying so we had to have an early harvest. Here's hoping they will last until Halloween!

I think it might ACTUALLY be the happiest place on earth....

Taken at the early morning "power walk" offered by the hotel before the park opened

My AMAZING parents gave Big A the best early 5^th birthday gift ever! They took him (and me and Jeff too!) on a magical, fantastical, completely over-the-top amazing Disneyland Trip!!  We decided to leave little a at home (She stayed with Jeff’s Parents) She is still too little to really do anything and didn’t really “get” what she was missing. That way we could put all our focus on the Birthday Boy and really cater the trip to him. It’s funny, I haven‘t been since I was like 12 and I think I was just as excited as Big A for the trip.

The Trip started out with a bang as a HUGE stretch LIMO arrived at our door to pick us up for the airport. Big A couldn’t believe how big and awesome it was! He actually laid down on the vast seat and said” I think we should live here. We could just sleep here and have it take us anywhere we want to go!”

The next phase, Big A’s first flight! We flew Jetblue. It was a perfect plane ride. Big A was a Great little traveler and enjoyed looking out the window, coloring and playing with the ipad.

We arrived in sunny California and went straight to the happiest place on earth! We stayed at the Grand Californian Hotel. It was so impressive! The lobby was so Beautiful and classic. It was not at all the “cheesy” theme park hotel one might imagine.

We went up to our room to freshen up before we hit the parks and found a magical surprise. Grandma and Grandpa had sprung for the “dream makers” experience and it truly lived up to it’s name.   “Mickey” had visited Big A. He totally decorated the room and left a HUGE present for our special boy! It was soooo cool! Mickey’s footprints led to the package and the Ginormous box was filled with all sorts of Mickey and Disneyland surprises.

We went on to spend three magical, fantastical, enchanted days exploring Disneyland and Disney California. We went on every ride. Big A was brave and AWESOME and went on everything, Matterhorn, Space Mountain (My Fave!), Indiana Jones, even The Tower of Terror. We got his autograph book signed and he liked seeing the characters but that was not his focus.

Radiator Springs was amazing! We even talked Ma and Pa into going with us on the Cars Ride! It was so fun! I think it was Pa’s favorite ride in the park! When we went it wasn’t too busy, between fast passes and the walkee wait app I think we never waited more than 15 minutes for a ride. The only negative was that it was H-O-T! Not just regular California hot, but crazy, sweating your socks off, locals saying how crazy hot is was, hot! Ma and Pa rode "Little Mermaid" like a THOUSAND times to cool off!

One very exciting thing happened, Big  A became a Jedi! We went to see the Jedi Training Academy show and our awesome boy was selected! He got to train with the Jedi and battle Darth Maul! Jeff literally had a tear in his eye watching his boy become a Jedi!

It was truly the most amazing time and I can’t even begin to tell my parents thank you for everything they did. It is memories that will last a lifetime. However it did leave us with one mutual sentiment….

As Big A said on the Limo ride home
“So can we go back to Disneyland tomorrow??”

My sentiments exactly...

After a nice hiatus from work for our awesome Disneyland adventure (I will post all about it as soon as my Disney photo pass CD arrives!) it was time get get ourselves into gear and go to work. This means our whole clan has to get up early. This is what happened after I woke up big a...

Big a: "Sweetie girl time to get up." and kisses her cheeks
Little a: "Hmmmm NO bruder I'm too tired!"
Big a: "but we have to get up and get dressed."
Little a: " No bruder I'm just going back to sleep!" and she turns over and snuggles back in.
Big a: huge smile - "That is a brilliant idea!" and snuggles in around her.

** little a calls big a "Bruder" or brother for those who don't speak toddler.