Mission Impossible: The perfect Christmas picture with Jade

Taking pictures of kids is soooo hard. Taking pictures of three young kids together is darn near impossible if you want them all still, smiling, and looking at the camera. Still, I try. Over the years, I have managed to get some really cute Christmas picture of my kids, if I do say so myself. In 2008, I got this cute shot with my one and three year old. Isn't Preston's suit the cutest thing ever? I've spent the last three years trying to find another one just like it. In 2009, I managed to get this little bit of adorableness, even with a six week old baby: In 2010, it was a nightmare, but ultimately I trapped Jade (my little runner) by setting them up on the server where she couldn't get away, and managed to get a decent picture: This year I was hoping it would be easier. When Preston was Jade's age (in the 2009 picture), not only did he cooperate reasonably well, he also held the new baby up for the picture as well! Surely, if he could do that, Jade could sit and smile for a fraction of a second, right? Wrong. Here are some outtakes: She played with her shoes. She blinked (wait, is she rolling her eyes? Probably). She did this. A lot. Here's one that's kind of cute, at least Skyla and Preston are smiling at the camera while Jade looks tenderly at her brother. Oh, wait, not what was happening. She stuck out her tongue and spit raspberries. She yawned. She looked bored. She ran off (with the stool she was sitting on) leaving her brother and sister still leaning over where she was supposed to be. (They were quite the troopers, I have to give them credit.) She took her headband out. She took her sister's bow out (look at Skyla's face :)). Is it possible I got one? Jade looks a bit goofy and the shadow from the flash is pretty bad, but we might have to call it good enough....except, does it look like she's flipping me off? Yes, yes it does. Suddenly, I realize that the very first picture I took and hated at the time for the terrible photography (and the fact that you can see Preston's white socks), is starting to look like a perfectly good picture...

Note to self:

I was looking ideas to do at class parties. When I thought of one idea I thought, "That's perfect!...I'll remember that idea." Two minutes later I had completely forgotten what that idea was...it came back to me a few days later. SO...this is just a note myself for some ideas for activities with the kids school parties, before I forget. Again. ;)

Christmas:
Craft: Stitch a paper stocking with yarn through punched holes....put candy cane or something fun inside.
Activity: Hide ornaments though out classroom and have the kids hunt them down and decorate a mini-Christmas tree.

Valentines Day:
Craft: Use four hearts to make the petals of a flower (punch holes in the bottom of each flower). Glue green circles to top and bottom of center of flower with holes punched in middle. Line up all holes and feed a sucker through to be the stem.

Projects

Silhouette Fun

Happy Birthday, Joseph!!

We had some cool ideas, but couldn't get any of them to work...we spent half a day trying to find a second "p" block, but no luck. I guess this will have to do! Happy Birthday!

Now go here!

Or start over here.

Super Skyla Display Board

My latest project was to make something so display the abundance of fine art we are creating around here, since the one frame I had been using wasn't cutting it lately. Plus, with both Preston and Skyla starting preschool in the fall, we will have even more.


I happened to have the trim piece cut and painted in my basement left from when I built some shelves in the bathroom down there, so all I had to do was glue on the cute little clothes pins and mount it. I love the title of Skyla's drawing, "Super Skyla." She acutally believes she is a "Super."

*Please excuse the phone cord in the picure...I cannot figure out how to hide it! Thought I might be able to run it over the art display, but it isn't long enough. I'm ready to move the phone to solve the problem!*

It's a Fish tank!

We bought some wooden blocks in these boxes almost two months ago. Somehow, Skyla managed to keep the boxes around using them for toys. Today, she announced that it was a fish tank, which inspired us to craft.

They turned out really cute. You can see I did most of the work on Preston's and Skyla did her own. We used furniture paint for the black, and I won't let her paint it herself, so she passed on the paint (Although, we may end up doing it now that she saw how nice it looks).

This could be done by cutting open any flat-ish box, although the perfectly placed plastic did make for a nice look. We made the rock caves by crumpling up the paper bag that we had used to cover the table while painting the box. It would be fun to do a bit more three-dimensional stuff by having some grass on the front or more fish hanging from the top flap.