Salt Flats Graffiti-Tastic Extraordinaire Family Shoot

So I gotsta love me these Hodson girls! How cute is this family? And such troopers in the cold weather. I have to admit, I've never seen a family work the graffiti like they do. Notice the "sissy pants" on the door frame? We couldn't help ourselves... All three cute kiddos.. Someone's got a baptism coming up! We got extra of this cutie for her invites.. Love this one! Somehow graffiti just works better for teenage boys pics. Call me crazy, I know.. I'm sure a field of flowers would be great, too. Thanks for looking!

Utah Festival of Colors

Gem Festival = I'm in trouble

I promised Jess I would be disciplined enough this week to not spend any money. It started when I was talking with my aunt last week about how every time Jesse checks our account, it's always off by hundreds of dollars... When I told my aunt this, she said, "Poor Jesse." I was a little offended. I feel I spend money only on things I need. Maybe. But after I thought a little more about it, I decided I would try a little experiment to see if I could control myself from spending any money during the week. I thought I did well. I thought I deserved a little reward from all my hard work during the week. Plus, I did promise not to spend any money during the week, not the weekend. The gem festival was Friday. Anyway, I was in a little trouble.

(this is my mom's purchases combined with mine..)

But now think of all the cute projects I can work on! And I'll even blog how to on some of them, if I'm not lazy. So fun and springy! I can't wait.



The Gem Festival comes every three months, so if ya wanna go in June, I'll see you there!

Crazy Nail Polish Ya Gotsta Try

So I'm always looking for fun beauty products and this was one worth sharing! I had seen these nail polish strips in a magazine being worn by Katy Perry, but you had to order them online and that, of course, was way too much work for me. So imagine my excitement when I found a Sally Hansen brand at Smith's! In all kinds of fun prints! Kinda made my week. Yup. Week. This is my life, here. Not Katy Perry's.

Anyway.. super easy to put on, and they stayed on great for at least a week. I pulled them off to try new ones. I did have to coat them with clear nail polish every now and then to keep them looking ship-shape. And, on a frugal note, I cut the strips in half so that I could get double use out of the pack. Frugal? Or is that ghetto? It reminds me of the time I was in high school and a particularily rude guy caught me applying the magazine perfume sample onto my wrist. This guy referred to me as ghetto then, and I think cutting them in half may be in the same category. Just sayin'

Sorry about the dorky pics... I was so excited to share I just grabbed the closest camera which happened to be my phone...or is that ghetto?.. I think there's a trend.

If you try them, let me know what you think!

Leprechaun Treasure Hunt

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I love to leave my kids a green goody basket from their personal leprechaun, Leroy.. but you know I'm gonna make them work for it. These are the clues that I wrote, and I thought I would share if anyone wants to start their own St. Patrick's Day tradition.

When I wrote this out, I tried to keep it general enough that anyone should be able to use it. I print my clues on green (white this year, with green ribbon...it was kinda last minute) paper and tape them in their hiding spots. I usually throw tinsel or glitter around where the leprechaun has been.

Your clues will hide like this:

1. leave out in the open

2. under the couch
3. in the fridge
4. dining table
5. bathtub/shower
6. t.v.
7. in their closet-since I have two little ones, I will put

their surprises in their own closet.

Who knows? Maybe Leroy will visit my husband, too. If he's lucky.

I wrote these for younger kids, they shouldn't be too hard for them to figure out...

***

1
To my lil’ lads and lassies I say hello!
I am a wee lil’ leprechaun from the rainbow.
To find your St. Patty’s Day treasure, I have left you some clues.
Look under the couch for something green-me favorite color, it’s true!

2

To find clue number three, you won’t have to look far.
Just think of a place where all your green veggies are.
It’s full of good things to eat, and it’s so very cold.
But it can get stinky inside if things start to mold!

3
You’re on your way to finding your own gold.
Now be good lads and lassies and do as you’re told!
You’ve just taken a trip to the refrigerator.
Now go look around where you’ll eat dinner later.

4
‘Tis a magical four-leaf-clover kind of lucky day!
You’re getting closer to your treasure; alas! halfway!
You’re wee lil’ ones often stinky, or covered in mud.
Look where you go to get clean with bubbly soap suds.

5
Oh holy shamrock! You’re a great treasure hunter!
Hiding clues is lots of work-you’re aware I’m quite miniature.
Look next in a place where you shouldn’t sit and watch all day.
Eat your popcorn in front of it, then go out and play!

6

Your rainbow’s gold is one clue away.
And how I wish a wee bit longer I could stay.
Look where you hang all your clothes and put your shoes.
And you’ll finally find something besides just a clue!

7

Thank you for all the St. Patrick’s Day fun!
But it’s time that this lil’ leprechaun better run.
Back to the rainbow to give me Irish mum a kiss.
And make sure to wear green! You don’t want to get pinched!
Love, Leroy
Your personal leprechaun

***

Hope you enjoy!

For our treasure:
I just tried to find everything green that I could. So I found green blow pops, sprite, green bubbles, junior mints, a sparkly gold bouncy ball (all a $), the green basket is from All A Dollar, too. Bauer also got a green train for his thomas table and a big green ball. Bentley has wanted a Monster High doll for a while, and I thought this may be the opportunity to finally get her one. I felt like that would be a weird addition to an Easter basket. It turned out perfect, because there was one with green skin. I also found her green dippin' dots lip gloss from all a dolla. So there's some pot'o' gold ideas. And kids love just a pot of gold chocolates! I just somehow have suckered myself into a standard these kids are holding me to... or Leroy to.

Here is my first attempt at trying to upload my document. It sort of worked, I lost my cute fonts. If anyone has any advice for having attaching documents in blogger, let me know!

http://docs.google.com/document/d/1yC38KMCeq05YAROsIsr_1xtVPf0FIpO1ygKGBShpySk/edit?hl=es#

If you're not wearing green I hope you get pinched! And I hope it leaves a bruise.

Baptism Preview

Cutest lil' thang ever! She was such a trooper even through cold windy weather. I can't wait to post some more of her and the rest of her cute fam!

damask fakesy wall paper

My craft room/home office has needed some attention for quite some time now. I love that patterned wallpaper is so in, but I didn't want to go to all of the work of wall-papering so I started looking for other options. I found a wall stencil from a company called cutting edge stencils through Etsy, although they have their own site at http://www.cuttingedgestencils.com/. I have since seen that Hobby Lobby has a few patterned fakesy wallpaper stencils of their own (but not AS big as the cutting edge stencils). Originally, I put it off because I thought it would be a lot of work-but it was so easy!

See? That's a 6 year old, yo! Easy.

What you need:

Stencil

Paint (I used leftover Behr Ultra)

Small Roller

Painters Tape

Measuring Tape

Let's not kid ourselves here. I am by no means an expert, and if I can do it so can anyone. I finished my wall in less than an hour. It was as easy as taping the stencil to the wall and rolling the paint over it. I made sure there was never too much paint in the roller so it didn't bleed into the stencil, but found that if I had to push paint out of the roller that would make it bleed also. I found my groove just by trial and error. Even the tries that I felt weren't perfect still look good.

Here is the almost finished project..

I'd love to hear if you've tried stenciling or wall paper. If you have any questions, post me a comment!

more of my favorite baby pics

Usually I only spend an hour on a baby shoot, but I spent 2 hours with this one. She was so sweet and had so much hair! Here are some more of my favorites from the day...