The Living Christ Challenge

I'm back!  I know it's been a long time but I'm finally getting back into the swing of things.  We were in Maryland for a couple months this summer, and then we moved and my husband started a new job when we got back so things have been a little crazy around here.  But now that we are finally settled and not going anywhere I feel like I can get back to sharing some fun things!

So for this first post back from the long absence, I am actually sharing something that I DID NOT MAKE!  No, all credit for this one goes to my amazingly sweet and thoughtful husband!

I love General Conference, and I really enjoyed the Women's Conference this year.  If you didn't get to watch it, Sister Neill F. Marriott gave a wonderful talk titled Sharing Your Light in which she shared a story about attending a girls camp in Alaska where the Young Women all memorized “The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles.”  She then shared:

“I have now begun to learn the words of “The Living Christ” as these sisters did, and because of their influence I am more fully experiencing the sacramental covenant to always remember the Savior as I repeat over and over the Apostles’ testimony of Christ. The sacrament is taking on a deeper meaning for me.

My hope is to offer the Savior a Christmas gift this year of having “The Living Christ” memorized and securely held in my heart by December 25th. I hope I can be an influence for good—as the sisters of Alaska were for me.”

As she said this, I felt like this would be a wonderful goal to challenge myself to, even though I know that I am getting a lot later start than she probably is.  I shared this desire with Evan, and the next day, he came home with this book.  

HERE is the PDF link

Wanting to help me in any way he could, he had spent lots of hours that day breaking down the document into 13 different sections, so that I could work on one each week and have the entire thing memorized by Christmas.  He also had it laminated and spiral bound!  The first week is already done, but I have just kept thinking that this is such an amazing tool that he made, and it needed to be shared with anyone else who also has felt inspired to memorize “The Living Christ.”

Instructions on how to use the book:

Each page has one portion  of “The Living Christ” on it.  At the top of the page is the whole portion without any words removed.  As you moved down the page, it repeats the same portion three times, taking more words out as you go.  Read through the whole thing several times, and then take the next section down on the page (with some words removed) and work on trying to memorize which words have been taken out.  It will get harder as you work on sections with more and more words removed.  Eventually after you have mastered the last section, it will be all about saying it with no visual clues.

Some sections are longer than others, but some are really short so you can play catch up some weeks if you fall a little behind.  I have already finished the first section, and this book has really helped me a lot.  I hope that if you take this challenge like I did that you enjoy it as much as I do!

Quick and Easy DIY St. Patrick's Day Decor

Hello everyone!  Hope you all are having a good week so far!  I am finally getting around to sharing some St. Patrick's day printables and other decorations that I have made.  They are all super easy most can be done with stuff you may already have left over from other crafts.

LAST MINUTE! Valentines Day Printable

Oh my goodness... I have been so bad at sharing things the past few weeks...  this is how I've been feeling:

Haha not to say that I haven't done anything for valentines day, I just haven't  posted anything.  Ammon is just so much fun, I get distracted by him and his adorableness.  Plus I just haven't been able to think of much that I could share with you that isn't already plastered all over Pinterest.  =)  I'll be better, I promise.  I have been coming up with some good posts, with some yummy recipes so watch out for those.

I love Valentines Day.  I always used to say that it was MY holiday because my maiden name was was Hart. =)  But now I'm married it just great to have an awesome hubby to spend it with.  

For Valentines day, I did make a printable banner... but I was slightly frustrated at it and embarrassed about sharing it because of the fact that it didn't print out as bright as it looked on the computer... a problem I'm still trying to work through.  But here is a picture of it:  

Sorry the pictures aren't very good...  My living room has the WORST lighting.

It's still cute even if it is a little darker than I was expecting.

I know it's a little late in the game, but hey.  If you like this banner and would use it next year, or just want to throw up something for the day,
HERE is the PDF link.
After I cut out these printable triangles, I also cut out 6 more triangles that were just slightly bigger than these so that I could have a border around the edge, and so that they would be a little thicker.  I wanted the edges black, but if you're like me and don't have any black cardstock and don't want to go out and buy some, you can take a sharpie to the edges like I did.  I just colored the edges that would show on the big triangles before I glued the patterned triangles on.

Kitchen Chalkboard Printables - EDITED!

Table Setting Printable has been edited!

So here is my first attempt at making a chalkboard printable!  It was an adventure trying to make it look right... How did I do?  I have an empty frame in my kitchen where I used to have the Elf Four Food Groups Pyramid during Christmas time.  But it has been several weeks since Christmas now, and it has been empty since December 26th, so I decided it was finally time to get something in it.  And of course when I started thinking about it I came up with more than one idea, so I'll just share all of them.

Simple Weight Loss Goal Chart

Happy New Year Everyone! I hope that you all had a great Christmas and a safe New Years Eve.  Ours was pretty quiet.  Ammon got spoiled by his grandmas on Christmas (of course), and we enjoyed just spending time with our families.  Now New Years is also over, and it is 2014!  And with the new year comes resolutions.  Yay!

 

I know like everyone else in the world, I have the resolution to lose weight and be healthier.  I've done really good in the 6 months since I had my baby, and I dont want to quit now where I'm at!  I am a very visual person.  For me, when trying to lose weight or work towards some fitness goal, I have to have a chart that I can look at to see my progress, and see where I am headed.  Usually in the past I have just scribbled on a scrap of paper the goals I have and what date I would like to achieve them by.  But then being the scatter brain that I am, I lose it!

So, this year, I thought I'd make a cute actual chart that I can print up nicely and put somewhere where I won't lose it.  Here's just my simple weight loss chart I thought I'd share with you.   I have three different styles. One more neutral one, the second is the same with just a little bit more girly flare, and the third is just straight up girly.

Reindeer Hunt

When I was little, my dad used to do the cutest things to make Christmas morning more special for us.  We always left out the milk and cookies for Santa, and we always left out some carrots for the reindeer too.  And in the morning, the cookies and carrots weren't JUST gone.  My dad would do things like crumble up some of the cookies and spell out, "THANKS" with the crumbs, or carve a snowman out of the carrots.  One year he even made a video of the carrot being sucked through the blinds.  He always made it so fun.

 

I want to do fun things for my kids to make Christmas morning as fun and magical for them as it was for me and my brothers.  However, Ammon, is only 6 months old, so he doesn't really understand the whole missing cookies thing.  So, this year I decided to do something special for my nephews last night instead.  They are at the perfect age right now for something like this!

 

I made a fluorescent "paint" and a reindeer track stamp out of felt hot glued to the bottom of a super old shoe I was going to throw away, and I put tracks leading them down the sidewalk and around the front of Grandma's house.  It was dark out so I borrowed a blacklight flashlight that Grandpa uses to hunt for scorpions and made a label for it turning it into a "Flying Reindeer Hunting Light".  I got several carrots, and tied them up with a ribbon.  I also wrote a little poem and turned it into a cute printable note and tag.

To download PDF copy of printable, click here

 

Haha... the label was more as a joke.  There are a lot of people in my family that like Duck Dynasty.  So I made it a DEER Dynasty light, and put a Santa face on it.  Only looking at it... I think it's pretty easy to just mistake the Santa face as one of the people on the actual show! '=)

 

So once all that was in place, I sent them on a reindeer hunt!  I told them the North Pole called me that day, and told me that at a certain time, someone would be stopping by, then told them it was time and sent them into the front yard.

 

(I did colorize the footprints when editing these pictures so you could see how I did them)

The boys had a lot of fun following tracks to the surprise from Rudolph at the end with the carrots to leave out.  The was super easy, and fast, and I think that they enjoyed it.  AAANDDD... it was super CHEAP.

    M&M candy canes ($1/each)
+  Carrots (50 cents for 5)
+  Highlighter ($1)

TOTAL COST: $2.50!!!

How to put it together:

Reindeer stamp:
The printable has a template for the reindeer hoof.  I printed this, traced it on to some felt, cut it out, and glued it to the bottom of an old shoe I was going to throw away.  I was originally going to glue it to the bottom of a can, but all the cans I had were really small, and my shoe was the first alternative I thought of.  Haha, I'm sure you can find something better!  But I just dipped the felt in the paint and stamped out the hoof print.  Easy peasy.

Reindeer Footprint Glow Paint

Fluorescent highlighter (yellow or green work best)
1/4 cup water
1 Tbs liquid dish soap
1 Tbs cornstarch

Here is a tutorial how I got the idea for my reindeer footprint paint using a highlighter.  (link shows how they open the end of the highlighter and pull out the inside felt)  It's super easy.  I just let the highlighter felt soak in the water, then added some green liquid dish soap I had on hand (which kinda glowed under the blacklight too), and then the cornstarch. It was still very liquidy, but a little bit goes a long way!  It may not look like much on the sidewalk, but under the blacklight it glows really good! It dries super light colored, and in the dark you can't tell it's there.  And it just washes off after.

Here is a tutorial for just plain ol' washable sidewalk paint if you don't want to cut open a highlighter, or don't have a flashlight blacklight.

I hope you enjoy!

Buddy The Elf! What's Your Favorite Color?!

Elf, is probably one of my favorite Christmas movies.  I will admit that I sometimes watch it once or twice throughout the year, not JUST during December.  I made this printable like a food pyramid, showing what Buddy described as what the elves up at the North Pole consider to be the four basic food groups.  I put mine in my 8x10 picture frame in my kitchen.  Because at this time of the year, it just seems like candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup really do somewhat become the only foods we eat!

Click HERE to download a PDF copy

Here's what it looks like in the frame in my kitchen

Hope you like! =)