Bathtime for Ellie

In preparation for our annual Ernst family photo shoot today, we gave Ellie a bath yesterday. Usually, Ellie gets her baths in the kitchen sink, but since the girls wanted to help, we thought it will be easier to do it in the bath tub. Ellie was thrilled about that decision. Briana put on her swimsuit and hopped in the tub too.

After we shampoo-ed her, Briana gave her some very interesting hair dos.

And I gave her a big smiley face.

And then I'm not sure what happened to her face.

He he he!

Sun Peekers Tutorial by Sydney

Step 1: get a piece of white paper and a piece colored paper a thumbtack. draw something on your paper first then tape the papers together.

Step 2: move to the carpet.

Step 3: then start pinning.

Step 4: if you want to see it you can hold it be a light.

Step 5: finish pinning it.

Step 6: rip the paper that you drew on.

Step 7: look at the holes and if theier to apart go back and fix it.

Step 8: hang your picture on any window.

done.

Spiders & skulls

Check out these super cute spiders Sydney and I made yesterday! They were very easy, and very fun to make. You can find the tutorial here.

While Sydney was working on her spiders, I made some homemade warm fuzzies. I told the girls all about how we used to get those on our desks at Harvey Oaks Elementary when we had done a good job at something.

Which got me thinking, I could whip up a bunch of warm fuzzies in all kinds of different colors and give them to my girls at home when they do something great!

Yesterday morning, we froze our first batch of skull ice cubes.

I found the ice cube tray at Dollar Tree and we are going to be using skull ice cubes right up till Halloween. The girls love them!

Paper Pencil Holder Tutorial by Briana

Recently, Briana came up with this awesome pencil holder idea. They are very, very cute and look great on anyone's desk.

So, here's the tutorial:

Step 1: Get a peice of paper. She used construction paper, but regular printer paper works good too.

Step 2: Fold up all four corners of your paper.

Step 3: Fold up the two long sides of the paper.

Step 4: Fold the two shorter sides of the paper up

Step 5: Holding two corners in your fingers, bring them together to form a U shape.

Step 6: Bring the two corners together and tape them in place.

Step 7: Repeat on the other end.

That's it! Now you have a fabulous pencil holder!

You can make as few,

or as many as you like!

Halloween windows

Last week I went to Country Sampler to do some fabric shopping for a halloween costume I'm making for Sydney. While I was in there, I found the cutest halloween fabric that I couldn't live without. I got it home and decided to make it into some window treatments for my bathroom and kitchen. I love how they turned out!

Here's the bathroom:

And here's the kitchen:

Birthday Surprises

It's my birthday today! I am officially old! Yay! Mike and the girls went out shopping last night and I wasn't invited to come along. I thought maybe they were getting me a birthday present. When they got home, they barely muttered a "hello" in my direction before grabbing the tape and scissors and locking themselves in the basement. "You better not come down here!" was all that was said to me. After about a half an hour, the girls came up one at a time and dashed into the living room. I had no idea what they were doing, so I came up to investigate. Turns out, they were putting my wrapped presents out to display!! Talk about torture! I had to look at those wrapped presents all night and I couldn't even peek without getting caught. Luckily, I got to rip into those wrapped presents first thing this morning!

Sydney gave me some very soft pajama pants, and Briana gave me a vanilla cupcake scented candle. I loved them! After I opened those, I noticed there was another package on the table. One that wasn't there last night. I was dying to see what it was. Can't you tell?

It was an ipod docking station!! I love it and I've been listening to music all day.

The surprises didn't end there. There was some kind of mystery package in the mailbox today too. It was addressed to me, but it was from Lucienne Diver.

Who is Lucienne Diver? I wondered. I double checked, and it was addressed to me. I ripped into the envelope, and I'll tell you who Lucienne Diver is. She's the author of Revamped! My Free Book Friday book that I won!!! She picked the perfect day to have it arrive!

And, the book is signed! My favorite part!

Mike did offer to bake me a cake this year. I said ok, and he wanted to know what kind of cake I would like. "Bundt." I told him. He didn't think it was very funny. I think he is fabulous at bundt cakes and should make me one every year. I know in the past they've always turned out great! He said he'd take me to Olive Garden for dinner instead and I agreed.

Happy Fall!