Happy New Year to You

We hope you all had a fun New Years Eve..maybe you just spent it watching a movie and enjoying a nice glass of wine like we did...nothing too fancy.  How crazy is it that it's already 2012!  It's a new year filled with new possibilities, new goals to achieve, and watching your children grow up in front of your eyes.  I'm sure this year will go just as fast if not faster than this one has. 

The past few days have been filled with so many fun things.  As mentioned before Ava and Isaiah "jump" when they hear, "Do you want to do a craft?"  They love hands-on activities and I love seeing how each one brings out their creative side.  We did this craft last year in January and I think that it was one of my first few posts to the blog.  So if your curious to see how these two little cookies have changed in a year...you can go back to January of 2011 and see almost the same pictures. 

We made a cute snowman...with edible things.  We never eat the snowman since we use glue...but there is fair amount of munching done throughout this little project.  To make this we used mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, orange jelly beans, M&M's, stick pretzels, and pull and peel licorice.  I helped to make the circles with squirt glue but the kids pretty much did the rest.

Isaiah adding his arms and chocolate chip eyes...this guy was popping marshmallows in his mouth left and right.

Isaiah's final project...I've never used pull and peel licorice for a scarf...but I kind of like it!  A pull and peel fruit roll-up would be cute too!

Ava working on her snowman...

...gluing on the M&M buttons...

...and ta-da Ava's little Frosty.

The next few pictures are just some random ones I took the past few days...Isaiah was zooming his Captain America figurine and motorcycle around the floor.  His sound effects were funny to listen to!

If you pay close attention to all the pictures in this post the kids are in different pajamas constantly.  They seriously went through 3 or 4 pairs a day.  They just "felt like changing" ALOT! 

Aaaaargh Maties!

Two pirates enjoying a friendly sword fight

Ok...so I can't and I mean can't take down all of our trees.  All "Christmas" decorations are down but I have left out all my "winter" decor along with a few trees because I love the white lights.  I can pretend it's snow, right?  Well the tree I have pictured above was my "gingerbread/candy" tree.  After gathering up all the snowman ornaments I had around the house I discovered that I have about 40...so why not make a snowman tree to keep up for the month of January. 

I left my snowflake dishes in our hutch along with come crystals and pearl garland. 

One of my favorites...I love this little guy...I think I picked him up at the Ankeny craft show a few years ago.

Another Ankeny craft show purchase years ago.  This snowman was painted onto an old screen window.  I have this on the ledge as you go down to the basement.

These kids have been obsessed with puzzles lately.  Isaiah wanted to work on Ava's 100 piece Hello Kitty puzzle.  We finished it together...but he did lots of it on his own. 

Ava working on her Fancy Nancy puzzle...again.  She loves it!  She completed it, showed us, and then tore it apart to do again.

Ava and Isaiah working on an alphabet train puzzle.  Ava and Isaiah were singing the alphabet and would then stop when they came to the next letter.  When I walked by Ava was saying, "Now Isaiah, I'm going to show you some letters and I'd like you to find the letter L."  She's such a little teacher! 

Nope...not Disney posters...Disney puzzles.  Andy and I bought this big box of Disney puzzles last summer.  There were from 100-500 pieces per puzzle.  Andy's Grandma worked on some of these puzzles for us and we did some as well.  Hobby Lobby sells puzzle glue that you apply and it holds all the pieces in place.  We put these seven puzzles on one of the walls of the toy room.  They look really neat and will remind us of Disney each time we walk into that room.  (There were two more...but the kids wanted them on the walls in their room.)

Mickey playing baseball

Toy Story

Pinocchio

The Lion King...if you look really close you can see Mufasa's face in the clouds. (Mufasa is Simba's Dad)

This puzzle looked impossible...thank goodness Andy's Grandma is good at puzzles.  This one is Snow White kissing Dopey and the Dwarfs...it's hard to see but really pretty.

Ariel

Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Belle

We wish you the best this year! 

My Three Happy's:

1) My New Year's Resolution:  My house needs to be cleaned out...organized!  The last time I've really gone through things was before Ava was born.  So...my resolution...I will be organizing one area of the house each week.  It could be one drawer, one cupboard, one shelf...little by little I will eliminate the chaotic clutter we have hiding behind all the closed doors.

2) Isaiah melted my heart tonight.  After his bath I was helping him put on his pajamas and out of the blue he said, "Mommy, I love you, and Ava, and Daddy, and Jackson, and Jesus."

3) Our weekly TV shows have started again...time for Mike and Molly!  Love that show!