November Wreath

Making wreaths just might be my favorite craft to do.  They are so satisfying to me.  I've made several wreaths over the last couple of years: the fresh pine wreath, the acorn wreath, the 4th of July yarn wreath, the Halloween burlap wreath and now the November wreath. 

I love that it has elements of fall coloring but also winter colors too like the berries and ribbon.  November is definitely a transitional month from fall to winter here in Indiana.  I searched the web for a good fall wreath and there are a few I fell in love with. I'm thinking I'm going to need a good Fall wreath for September before I put out my Halloween one. 

These were some of my favorites. 

Pine cone wreath
Yellow Flower wreath
Coffee Filter Wreath (in fall mum colors)
Leaf and Flower autumn mantel and wreath
Pumpkin Wreath
Pumpkin Wreath (and porch!  I love it.)

Painted pine cone wreath (the one I chose)

Thankful Tree

I thought up this idea last Thanksgiving and thought this would be unique.  Come this fall I've seen half a dozen similar ideas.  Not that original but a fun way to count down till Thanksgiving. 

Our Thankful Tree Advent

 Err...lets try that again.  Everyday we take a leaf off the tree and say something we are thankful for.  I might eventually add "Thankful tree" to the felt board. 

Playing with Fire!

 Fire and Water

 The fire skirt.

 Fire crown

My son got this awesome firefighter costume for his birthday so we did costumes around his for Halloween.  My husband also had a fire hydrant costume. 

Halloween Rock Art

I saw this done here.  We had fun gathering rocks and painting them.  My son painted his with washable paints and unfortunately a rainstorm washed his Frankenstein and pumpkin right off of the rocks.  The Frankenstein was super cute. 

The end of its season

This spring we planted a garden.  We expanded the space of our garden and planted tomatoes, carrots, green beans, lettuce, basil, strawberries, cilantro and Cosmos. 

Mike built a fence for the garden.  Rabbits like to get into our garden so we put chicken coop around our garden. 

We had a horrible drought this summer. 

We received beautiful, beautiful rain late in the summer into fall.  The cosmos grew and grew. 

Our tomatoes did well.  Our green beans failed.  Our carrots were fun to pick but puny.  We ate some of the lettuce.  Mike liked it but it was a bit biter for my taste.  Whenever I find a strawberry I give it to Matt.  The basil did great and the cilantro was wonderful for early summer.  My favorite though was the cosmos.  They were beautiful. 

Also Mike's little wooden gate is charming.  There is something else he wanted to do to the fence.  Maybe we will do it next spring.  It will add a nice touch but I think it looks great right now. 

Three Year Old Truck Party

This happened this summer for my son's third birthday.  We skipped some of the fancy decorating and spent more time on some activities one involving the consumption of food.  The theme was all types of trucks.  We did the following activities:

Route 66 obstacle course.  We made road signs and put them on the fence to coordinate with the obstacle.  (Tunnel, bump, slippery when wet, etc). 

We had a "Car Wash" with bubble toys and squirt toys.  We were limited with our activities here because of our strict watering restrictions this summer. 

Construction Site.  We put play construction trucks and blocks by the the play set. 

Matt's Diner.  By far my favorite creation.  We turned our screened patio into a dinner.  Complete with menu's and salt and pepper shakers for the kids to shake.  They loved ordering off their menus.  It was a hit. 

Truck Scavenger Hunt. We placed laminated pictures of trucks and cars around the yard.  They collected them and stuck them on a big road we created in the house. 

Ice Cream!  Instead of cupcakes or cake I took the easy route and went for something simple yet fun.  We did ice cream and lots of yummy toppings.  They loved the toppings and so did the adults. 

Goodie Bags.  They decorated their bags at the start of the party with stickers.  I filled the goodie bags with candy, crackers, Teddy Grahams, Chips Ahoy cookies, an eraser truck, a dollar store truck, and a crazy straw. 

My sons favorite part had to be the presents.  Go figure.  :)

Spider Web in a frame

This little frame is sitting on my mantel.  My mantel is pretty empty right now.  I like creating individual things but putting many things together to decorate is challenging for me.  I love looking at how people decorate their homes and I can identify things I like but I'm not really good at recreating it myself.  We'll see what my mantel looks like by Halloween-cohesive theme or hodge podge of things?  I don't know.

Tutorial on one of my favorite blogs Made.  Find it here.  The spider I made out of felt.