last minute love notes

Did you spend a ton of time making cute and clever Valentine cards and treats for you kids' classmates and then realize you haven't done anything for your own Valentine? Yup. Thought so.

Todays Mama thought ahead and had me design these little love notes for just that reason. Print 'em out, cut 'em up, and leave 'em around the house for your real sweetheart.

Not that we don't like our kids' classmates, but c'mon! What's this holiday really about? And who's it really for? Probably adults who are actually in love. Not 3rd graders.

And if you need something bigger, here is printable quote from a great Dave Matthews song that celebrates grown-ups in love.

fish bowls treat cards!

I'm so pleased that the little fish bowl valentines have been popular! This year they've been featured on many wonderful sites. . . here are just a few:

ivillage featured me in their favorite kid-made valentines list

Family Fun Magazine did a fun DIY version which turned out really adorable. If you look in the magazine, you'll see they credited me! They were also very professional to work with.

Dishbaby ordered a cute custom saying and blogged about it.

There is still time to order from my shop!

So we used up all our emergency water supply to flush the toilets...

Our pipes were frozen for four days last week. Four days. Four. Long. Days.

We quickly used up our entire emergency water supply after only a day and a half. And here is the sad part. . . We used it all up flushing the toilets. 7 gallons of stored water only flushed 36 hours worth of toilets and that was flushing conservatively (I will spare you the details!)

After that we refilled the milk jugs at Grandma's and at the neighbors.

At one desperate moment when it was too late to make a water run to the neighbors, I even went outside, got some snow and melted it down. You wouldn't believe how much snow you need to get one gallon of water! I reiterate, this was all for toilet flushing!

We had bottled water for drinking and brushing teeth. Hand sanitizer and baby wipes for hands and faces. Hubby and I showered at the gym. The kids bathed at the neighbors and it was a pain!

So after four long days, I am so So SO grateful to have running water again and am re-evaluating our emergency preparedness.

After reading through the LDS church's guidelines on storing drinking water, I think I have more work to do. Soda bottles are better than milk jugs, they'll last longer. Clean with a little bleach first.

Oh, and leave the faucet trickling at night when it gets down below 0° !!!

a million halloween printables

In the last two years I've created about a million Halloween printables. Alright, maybe not a million, but a bunch. Here's the round up, new ones first:

Printable magnet poetry is available for free at TodaysMama.com. Did you know you you can get full magnetic sheets that run right through your printer? You can! At most office supply places. Or just print on cardstock and have fun arranging the words in all sorts of crazy, spooky sentences.

These treat bag printables might be just the thing for a classroom party or Halloween birthday. Available in my shop. {Insert evil laugh}.

Need a little DIY Halloween home decor? Here is a printable template you can use to cut bats out of black paper and hang from just about anywhere.

And how about making some dapper mustaches to stick on those pumpkins till carving time. Free template.

A new take on an old favorite, the Phantom Ghost is a note that gets delivered with treats via doorbell ditching to friends and neighbors who are then asked to pass it along.

And my favorite, some free printable Halloween-themed memory cards for your little ones.

a little photoshop

I've admitted it before. I photoshop. Sometimes a lot. Sometimes a little. Here, is a cute picture of Emmie sporting her new bangs but that fly-away hair was driving me nuts. It had to go. Photoshop CS6 has a content aware fill that got me most of the way there and then a little extra finessing with a clone tool. Also, notice I brightened the colors in the foreground and softened (desaturated) the colors in the chair just so it wouldn't be so loud.

These 3 cuties are my nephews. My sister loved the photo but it didn't seem right to display with the distracting telephone wires in the background. So I took them out. And even though she didn't specifically request it, I also took the gum out of Tanner's mouth. It's like magic.

I also love this one of the whole fam but the port-o-potty and tractor in the background just wouldn't look good enlarged and hanging on the wall of the living room! I made it vanish with the clone stamp tool and then softened the focus on the horizon with some gaussian blur and even a little artistic filtering. . . paint daubs. Just a little.

hey, sports fans!

New printable Basketball Treat Cards. . .

New printable Soccer Treat Cards in the shop. . .

ch-ch-ch-changes

 Big changes around here. Baby is in a big girl bed. . .

 . . . and started preschool. . .

 

and got bangs

and lost the binkie. . .

 and our big girl started Kindergarten!

The assignment above was to draw two birds that are the same size and one bird that is a different size. Could a mother be any prouder?