{i am a ninja}

 Make star cookies, not star wars!



Pictures of divers. :D

If you follow me on Pinterest, you've seen these already. Worth repeating. :)

{gingerbread man game}

Want a simple Christmas game for little ones?

Print out as many of these gingerbread men as there are players.

Use M&M's as game pieces.

Everyone takes turns rolling a dice. Person covers the number they get with a M&M. The winner is the person who covers all their numbers first.

Everyone gets to eat their M&M's. :)

{november flowers}

Check out this cute lunch i made for Sienna today. Do you think i earned any great mom points? :)

{more FREE Christmas printables}

FREE printables.

Not for sale. Personal use only.

The only thing I ask is that if you end up using these and show them on your blog, please include a link to this posting.

Thanks! :)



{advent calendar, snowmen, an elephant, the best muffins ever...}

Finished making our advent calendar. I'm so done with the traditional red/green Christmas colors.



We made some t-paper roll snowmen.



Such a simple thing - a snowman made out of cardboard - yet I love it so much.



T-paper roll elephant.



Love, love, love this crayon/glitter watercolor/acrylic paint fingerprints snowman.



Saw this online and I had to make one to see if I could do it.



Delicious Muffins

2 cups (5dl) all-purpose flour

1 cup (2,5dl) sugar

2 tsp (10ml) baking soda

2 tsp (10ml) cinnamon

1/4 tsp (1-2ml) salt

2 cups (5dl) carrots, shredded

(I buy mine already shredded to save my fingers)

1/2 cup (125ml) raisins

2 apples, shredded or finely chopped

3 eggs

2 bananas, mashed

2 tsp (10ml) vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F (175C). Grease or line 20 muffin cups with paper liners.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the carrots, raisins and apples.

In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, mashed bananas and vanilla. Stir the egg mixture into the carrot/flour mixture, mixing just until moistened.

Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups. Bake for 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

Try not to eat too many. :)

{what would you buy if you had $100 to spend?}

Yey, I got to keep my own white elephant gift last night.

10 glitter snowflake ornaments from Crate & Barrell.



Gerald Lund's The Undaunted book. Love his books!

2012 wall calendar of beautiful photos of LDS temples.

Gift card to a bookstore.

Special effects photo filter.

Jackie Evancho's Dream With Me cd.

Want your home to feel like a piece of Heaven? Jackie sings like an angel dropped on earth on a mission to lift our spirits.

{breaking dawn}

l-o-v-e-d it!

movies are never as good as books (they can't squeeze it all into a movie) but still so deliciously twilight. :)

they sure know how to torture you though - i have to wait another year for part II.

sigh. gotta love twilight.

these songs sounded awesome at the theatre:

{i'm expecting!!}

I'M EXPECTING!!!

I know, I know, it is crazy isn't it?

I can't believe it myself!!!

I was not going to put it on here but I'm so excited that I just had to.

We are expecting Christmas in just over six weeks!!!

Sorry. I couldn't resist. :)

Just my friends having babies and me getting to buy baby stuff for them. Fun!

I know it's not a traditional baby card but I couldn't resist doing this after I got the idea. :)

Tomorrow will be our first Christmas party. Jay's "boss" gave everyone who's coming to the party $100 and we had to buy a white elephant gift with it. That's $300 worth of gifts for our family! 

In case someone doesn't know what the white elephant gift is, I'll explain. Everyone takes turns opening a gift. We usually throw dice and when you get a certain number, you get to open a gift. Then you do few more rounds and people choose either to keep the gift they got or exchange it with someone else's gift. This way hopefully everyone gets what they want.

I actually had a hard time coming up with gifts that interest me. I don't need any more clutter in our house so I've become quite picky about what I buy.

Today is our first nastier than nasty winter weather day. Wind + snow = flurries. I'm so ready for spring already. Sigh. 

{sample tags}

i just thought i'd show you what the tags look like when printed on natural color scrapbook paper. i made a microsoft word document with two columns. each column was 3.2" wide. six tags fit on a page. i used a 3" circle punch.

{free Christmas tag printables}

Don't know why, but I was in the mood to make Christmas tags and of course I have to share them with you all.

I made them so that they'd be easy to punch out with a 2" or 3" circle punch. Make sure you print them on cardstock.

Hope you like them.

♥: s  a  n  s  k  u  J

{tästä se alkaa... se talvi}

We woke up to snow this morning. Not enough to build a snowman but no worries - you can always draw one.



I'm in love with these owls made by kids in Sienna's school. They used a pastel resist technique.





{Lest we forget.}

Today is Remembrance Day here in Canada. A solemn day to ponder the effects of war on our world. I'm thinking of all the millions of people affected by war. The soldiers, the innocent civilians, the families of soldiers and those innocent victims of war... So much suffering!

My grandma's handsome brother died in a war. So young.

I'm so grateful for our freedom today. I hope that it will continue and that more nations will be able to be free and have peace. ♥

"I deeply appreciate those who have sacrificed their lives for the cause of human liberty. I hate war, with all its mocking panoply. It is a grim and living testimony that Satan, the father of lies, the enemy of God, lives. War is earth’s greatest cause of human misery. It is the destroyer of life, the promoter of hate, the waster of treasure. It is man’s costliest folly, his most tragic misadventure.

American statesman Charles Sumner, commenting on the cost of war, once said: “Give me the money that has been spent on war, and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens would be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship, consecrated to the gospel of peace.”

Gordon B. Hinckley, March 1971

The full talk can be read here. 

{hmm, what was i doing when i was their age...}

Ronan Parke

{jingle quack, jingle quack, jingle quack quack quack...}

Certain someone in our house has way too many toys. I'm thinking she won't be getting hardly any toys this Christmas. Books are always welcome gifts though. You can never have too many books.

I want to be done with Christmas shopping by start of December. Then I can just enjoy Christmas. I'm thinking of shopping online too. No running around from store to store this year. Do you guys have any favorite shopping sites? Any great ideas for toyless Christmas?