Baby Giraffe rattles

Melanie got me started and now obsessed with Pinterest, thanks a lot MEL!! haha!  I do love it, just spend a bit too much time pinning.  But the other day I saw these darling little giraffe rattles, so I had to make some!  There are many, many women in my ward that are pregnant at this time, so I thought I would whip up some cute baby gifts.

 I think they turned out really cute!  I just put a little rattle in them, so as not to annoy the parents, but still entertain the babe.

Rachel

Christmas Wreaths

This is a wreath idea I got from a girl I work with.  It is made out of a simple wire hanger, about 60 shatterproof ornaments and a big, festive bow.  I made two of them, however, I did not get them made before Christmas was over and I did not get to hang them on either side of my garage!  Next year, it will look amazing!  

Here is a closer view. . . 

1.  To make these fun wreaths, find a nice wire hanger, like the kind you get at the dry cleaners. 

2.  You will untwist the hook part of the hanger with the rest of the hanger and bend and shape until you have a nice circular shape at the bottom.

3.  Go ahead and start putting on the bulbs in any order you'd like, adding from the non-hook end.  Don't worry about arranging them because they will arrange themselves and change whatever you did.  For mine with the two tones, I tried to do about 2 or 3 gold for every 2 blues.  I also used different sizes and I think it turned out really well!  Just a side note, this part can be a little frustrating towards the end because the bulbs will start to pop off of their hooks as you get close to having a full hanger.  Don't give up though, it will look amazing!

4.  Once you are satisfied with the amount of bulbs you put on there, go ahead and re-wind the hanger back together.  You will notice I went on and bent the top hook of the hanger all the way down so it would fit nicely onto either a doorhook or a nail.

5.  If you are good a making bows, make a nice, big bow to cover the hanger at the top.  If you are not as talented in that area, it is ok, there are many beautiful bows at any of the department stores throughout Christmas time for a reasonable price!

6.  Last but not least, show off your unique wreath for all to see!

Filters

So I've been meaning to post this for a while but just keep forgetting. I have found and heard of a couple good filters for your home computers. There is a lot of crap out there on the computer, and I think these are great for protecting your families. This first one, OpenDNS is a filter on your router so it will protect any device that is used on it, (computers or phones or whatev), you can click here for the first one. It's easy to install, just follow the instructions.



The second one is called K9 web protection, and it just goes on the one computer you install it on, and that one you can find here.


On both of these you can create your settings of everything you want blocked. You can also put in certain website you'd like blocked. However you'd like to customize it to your own families needs. And as the women of the house I think it's good for you to be the one to put it on, and to be in charge of the passwords and blocks and everything, just for preventative measures. But that's my own personal opinion. Anyways, take it or leave it, but just thought I'd share.

--Michelle--

Here is one just for the kids!  It is awesome and it is just $4.99 for THE YEAR!  www.kangaplace.com.  Try a free 30 day trial and if you don't love it, no worries, don't pay the $4.99.

Basically, you can either have this set as your home page or just have the icon on your desktop and teach your kids where to go.  You follow the steps and build a "pouch" for each child in your home with their favorite games, ones you already approve of and know are safe, and then when they want to play the computer, they log onto their pouch and can play any of the games in there.  It is brilliant!  If there is a website you know is fine and is not in their preapproved games, they have steps to add that too. 

These are my friends who created this website and I am so proud to recommend it.  It really is fantastic.  My kids LOVE it and so do I.  I feel completely confident they are safe while playing the computer now and they know what they can do.  We have added websites they play at school to so they can do school stuff as well.  I hope you enjoy this too!

--Stacy--

Scripture Reading

So all through seminary and religion classes I would for the most part read the sections (Book of Mormon Part 1 &2 Old Testament, New Testament etc. ) we were studying, so with that being said, sadly & embarrassing to say I've never read the Book of Mormon all the way through until I was 22.  And I really have to make goals to read everyday, because I slack off a lot. So I was on Pinterest at the beginning of the year and found this...

                                             

You can find it here. And I'm so excited! I've been doing awesome! You read about 7 pages a day. And that's the other funny part, is when I would read my scriptures I would usually just read like a chapter or a couple verses, whatever I had time for. And now doing this it's easy ready that much at a time. So that's my resolution this year...to read all of the scriptures! I just printed off the schedule and put it in the front of my scriptures and mark it off everyday. So i'll send out the invite for whoever wants to join me in my endeavor! :)

--Michelle

Christmas Jars

A couple of years ago a neighbor gave us a book called "Christmas Jars" by Jason F. Wright.  I immediately read the book and loved it!  I had Austin read it and he loved it and the idea behind the book.  So we started a Christmas Jar.  At the time we were poor residents hardly spending any money at all, but that first year we were able to give away about $60 in change that we had collected.  And WOW! I cannot tell you how wonderful of a feeling it is to help someone else like that.  Seriously.  It is such a good lesson for a family.  My kids are SO excited every single time they add money to the Christmas Jar.  Every year about a month before Christmas, during Family Home Evening, we challenge the kids to think of someone to give our Jar to, and this year they had a suggestion that night.  It had already been on their mind and they had been thinking of who could use it!  I was so proud of them.  We used their suggestion and they were again SO EXCITED when it came time to deliver the JAR.  What a wonderful lesson for children. 

I HIGHLY recommend this book to every family. 

Neighbor Gifts

This is what we did this year for neighbor gifts.

We gave the root beer to our neighbors that we didn't know very well

And gave the gum to our friends.

--Michelle