Life Lately

...according to my phone

New walpaper that I've been wanting forever.



A crafty Daddy.

A family day. Movies and dinner.

 A visit to the new temple construction site. So excited for this temple! It is so close.

 Park days with friends.

Our anni.

 Libby's gingerbread house that she made at school.

 Libby and her best friend, Kayle, going on a choo choo train ride.

 A Christmas package.

 A gingerbread party with my friend Erin and her family.

 Christmas Sunday with my boisterous, but handsome/ beautiful CTR 7 class.

Life has been super hectic lately! This week I had two preschool parties, scouts (i am a wolf den leader), shopping, wrapping, gift giving, parties, package mailing, park play dates, cookie making play dates, temple lights visiting, preparing for my Sunday school class, and making their gifts! I think December needs to be two months long just to comfortably squeeze all the merriment in! I cant believe Christmas Eve is TOMORROW. Oh my! I need to get on wrapping, grocery shopping, cooking and baking. We have Shawn's family spending Christmas day with us. Then my Mom will spend the rest of the week with us until the new year.

 

I am not sure who is more excited for Christmas morning. Shawn keeps asking if we can open presents! Libby talks non stop about Santa, and "when is Lovey visiting?" I always worry about all the presents that I've picked out. Did I buy enough? Did I get the right thing? Will they love it? Will they know how much i want them to have the best Christmas ever? Oh my, it so much pressure to have everything just right. There are breakfast requests, dinner requests. Did I get enough batteries to go with the presents? But somehow everything always works out. And everyone always has a great day. So I am crossing my fingers for another successful year.

 

And I'm looking forward to the day after Christmas when my Christmas woes will be over. And the kids can just happily play with all their loot, and I can just listen to squeals of delight and laughter. (HOPEFULLY!) And my favorite part shopping the day after sales and start planning for....next year.



Another Project Completed

 Ethan has been at scout camp all week! I am so happy he will be back tomorrow. This picture is of him getting ready to leave Monday morning at 4:45. He was so excited. I was so sad! But I didn't cry!

This last weekend Shawn came home from work with the materials to build another built in bookcase, as well as frame out a niche. Our home has tons of these weird little niches. I wasn't really sure what to do with them because they really limit what I can hang on the wall. So I figured we would put some moulding around them to make them more pretty. It is a little more work then slapping up some moulding though. To be honest I wasn't really looking forward to it when Shawn announced his plan for doing it. But how could I discourage him from completing something off the "Honey do list". That would be blasphemy! Our deal is that he installs and I sand and finish. Pretty good deal. I am very happy with the project. It makes the niche look more finished, and I love the white against the dark blue. Three down, only two more to go! You can see the last two to be completed in the bottom picture of Ethan. Although it might be awhile. And I am okay with that! These took me three nap times!

A Crafty Week

We made a trip to the Lego store.

Card games.

Potty Training.

Quilting and a new party.

These are all pictures from instagram. So in love with instagram lately! If you want to follow me on instagram, my name is ashleyelizabethhancock. Do you instagram? 

This week I was feeling a little inspired to craft. I bought coordinating fabric for my office, forever ago, to make a quilt. But that was maybe two years ago, and it has been on my to do list for that long! Yes, I know. I can be the queen of procrastination sometimes! This was the week I was determined to check it off my list. I choose to do a very simple strip quilt, which honestly, can we really even call it quilting? Probably not. But it is done, so who cares! My other craft inspiration is a new party for my shop. I have a few parties I am working on. The first is a butterfly party. Then I am going to get started on a Halloween party, as well as a black cat party. They will all coordinate, which makes it easier/cheaper for me to make. I am excited, I think this butterfly party is going to be really fun. I love the black and white chevron, with the gold and bright colors!! More pictures to come!

We also decided to start potty training. Libby has really sensitive skin and gets really bad diaper rashes, therefore spends a lot of time, when we are home, diaper-less, (Au natural). So we decided to make it official and she has been doing awesome. The easiest of the three. Hayden was really easy too, but Libby is a champ.

This week has been stormy! Gray clouds, windy, rainy. Love it. Ethan has taken advantage of it being slightly cooler (like 97) and went to the skate park with cousin Noah. This stormy weather makes me want to curl up read....but I have kids, that want to be entertained (so inconvenient!) so we've spent a lot of time playing cards. I taught the boys how to play speed, one of my favorite card games. And Ethan taught us how to play crazy eights. Its been so fun. When the kids get bored they start to rough house so I've been trying to come up with new things to do to redirect their competitive and aggressive behaviors. Some days are really long! Not going to lie! But we are having fun together coming up with new things to do.

What are your favorite things to do at home??

A BiRthdaY PReSent

Last year for my Birthday I asked Shawn to build me a built in bookshelf. He is so handy, I just wanted to give him an opportunity to put his great talent to use... Well he didn't like the idea and he bought me something instead. (boo hoo) But with my Birthday coming up next month he knew I'd be making the same request. It is all I want! So I am not sure if he built it to make up for last year, or if it was an early present, but either way I am so in love with it! He and Ethan whipped it up together, and I painted it. I think it turned out great. I am still working on accessorizing it, and I will probably change it several more times until I get it just right.

To go with my bookshelf I had to make a new banner, actually, I made it for my sister Amb, but I had to hang it up to make sure it looked okay before I mailed it off to her, and I almost kept it for myself. I love Valentines Day.

projects

So I may be the slowest painter on the planet. This little painting project took like ummm three months. Why you ask? Because I would only paint after the kids went to bed, and I refused to buy the big 5 gal paint jug, so I had to keep going back for another gal, then another, and another. Ugh, it was kind of stupid. But I am happy with the way it turned out. A fresh coat of paint really does make everything feel fresh, doesn't it? I need to take a better pic of the entry, I did a little thing on the ceiling, stay tuned!