Christmas Is Coming....

....and I'm getting ready!!! I spent a few hours making Christmas tags the other night. I thought they turned out pretty cute (well, most of them).

My favorites are these white sparkly ones. These pictures don't do any of them justice because they are from my cell phone.

Cricut Cartridges used: Plantin School Book, Christmas Cheer, Stretch Your Imagination

Halloween Birthday Card

Made with paper from the DCWV Amber Autum Fall Stack Collection and the Mini Monsters Cricut Cartridge

My mom said it looks like a pineapple :(
I thought it was cute. My husband's birthday is on Halloween, so this is for him. I'll be helping my daughter make him one within the next couple of days, so be watching for another Halloween Birthday card.

A Christmas Gift

I'm sad that I can't get this to upload straight, but oh well. I'm currently staying in Utah with my parents, so I don't have any of my scrapbooking supplies. But my MIL let me borrow her Cricut and some paper along with embellishments. I pulled some of my pictures out of storage and got to work. Anyway, this is what I cam up with. These are pictures of my now-almost-3-year-old. She was born 16 days before Christmas.

TV-Free Toddler Time

*This is a post I started in Korea, but never finished*

I found a great new blog called "365 Days of TV-Free Toddler Time". Click here to see it. She has some really great ideas on how to keep your toddler entertained without putting them in front of the TV all the time. However, most of her ideas just don't work for us in our current living situation, so I've been trying REALLY hard to think of ideas that WILL work. My 2-year-old asks for TV about ever 10 minutes. Sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night and asks for a "show". Its a little rediculous. I read somewhere once that an average toddler watches 3-5 hours of tv every day! Crazy! So here is a list of things I've come up with recently.

Make Jell-O Jigglers
Finger painting
Bubbles
Puzzles
Bake muffins, or cookies, or just about anything. Kids LOVE to help in the kitchen! And they love to decorate food too!
Get a kitty :)
Visit a friend who has a kitty
Take a walk around the block (your toddler may be able to ride a tricycle next to you as you walk)
Put away toys that your toddler doesn't generally play with. In a few months take them out again and it'll be like the toys are brand new to the child.
Glue raw macaroni noodles to paper. Paint them first if you want.
Go swimming
Play in the dirt. It ALWAYS washes off
Find a rock outside, bring it inside, wash it and paint it
If you have a little girl, play with makeup or finger nail polish
Take silly pictures with a digital camera and let your toddler see them on the computer
If you have a piano, sit down with your toddler at the piano and let them play it softly. This has been a great way for me to teach my daughter to respect such an instrument.
Play-doh
Dress up
Kick a ball (we do this indoors because we don't have a yard, just put away fragile stuff)
Play with the webcam, even better, call a friend or relative on the webcam.
Go to the park
Riding a Tricycle (we also do this indoors if the weather is yucky)
Color in a coloring book
Build a tower with blocks and knock it down. A toddler can do this over and over and giggle every time.
If you have tile walls in your shower or bathroom, let your kids color on them with washable marker or fingerpaints. It is easy to wash and they get a HUGE kick out of it!!

With the winter months coming we're going to have to find a lot of indoor stuff to do.


What kind of stuff do you do with your kids when you can't get outside?